Boycott 2000 Campaign

BOYCOTT RACIST AUSTRALIA!

THE BOYCOTT 2000 CAMPAIGN

* Australia's criminal record * What is Boycott 2000? * Boycott 2000 campaign updates * How you can help * Links


AUSTRALIA'S CRIMINAL RECORD

In 1993, after fierce bidding, the year 2000 Olympic Games were awarded to AUSTRALIA over China by the International Olympic Committee, allegedly because of a better human rights record. But is this so? You be the judge. Here is a list of crimes by the white racist regime:
* Mass murder (genocide) of 500,000 Aboriginal (black) people and the continued theft of their lands. These murders continue with deaths in H.M.S prison service and police custody to the present day. AUSTRALIA is based on the rape and theft of the lands of Aboriginal peoples. Even the courts of the country are recognizing this, but the government is openly defying the court system, as well as international law and public opinion by refusing to abide by the Mabo, Wik, and other rulings granting native land title.

* The rise of Pauline Hanson, the openly white racist politician, who is against Asian immigration and the human rights of Aborigines, and who is for a "white AUSTRALIA" restricted immigration policy, which discriminates against non-whites. She calls the Aborigines "savages" and "cannibals" who should be eliminated from "civilized society." The rise of her One Nation Party, a fascist, white supremacist electoral movement, is a serious development which will continue to impact on Australia's position in the world making it a pariah nation, based on her present influence on the government, and likelihood of being elected Prime Minister.

* Government stealing of 100,000 Aboriginal (black) children and giving them to white families, in some cases sending them out of the country. This was done by police agents (who literally came and dragged them out of the arms of crying parents), theft of newborns from hospitals, and forcing the parents to give their babies to white authorities or be imprisoned. Light-skinned Aborigines were given to white families to raise, while dark-skinned youth were thrown into foster homes and juvenile prisons. This was clearly a policy of racial genocide. The federal government refuses to punish those responsible for this criminal policy, return the persons to their rightful families, or make any sort of restitution. It has taken an unrepentant white racist posture, denying at all they were responsible, or that anyone should be concerned 30 years after the crimes were committed. The government refuses to recognize that yesterday's children must live with the result of these harmful policies.

* The deaths of numerous Aboriginal persons in police custody. Yet no criminal prosecution or impartial inquest, which would establish their deaths as homicide, instead of rubber-stamping their deaths as "suicide", has ever taken place. Over 350 black persons have been killed like this, according to the Royal Commission on Deaths in Custody, although others in the Indigenous rights movement have said as many as 1,000 may have died in as little as the last two decades.

* One of the highest levels of police shootings of civilians in the world, and a reputation for police brutality, especially against the poor and racial minorities. Literally hundreds have been killed in the last decade alone by the racist and repressive police forces of AUSTRALIA.

* Sydney, the site of the Olympic Games, has one of the world's worst ghettos, Redfern, which is a historically black community. The residents are subjected to daily police brutality, random racist violence, poverty and degradation. The AUSTRALIA government should be held accountable for these squalid conditions, and made to build decent housing for the black community of Redfern!

* The Australian government is holding Dennis Walker, an Aboriginal leader, in prison as a political prisoner. Mr. Walker is a co-founder of the Australian Black Panther Party in the 1970's, co-founder of the Aboriginal Tent Embassy in Canberra (site of Parliament), and has engaged in numerous struggles on behalf of the indigenous people of the country over the last 20 years. As a result he was framed on criminal charges in 1993 of assaulting an officer and resisting arrest, when he tried to stop racist cops from despoiling Aboriginal lands and artifacts. He disarmed one cop, but did not otherwise harm him, during a government harassing raid. That is why he is being held in prison as a "dangerous criminal". Mr. Walker has been called the "Nelson Mandela of AUSTRALIA", and his confinement is clearly politically motivated. We call upon the Austrailian government to release Dennis Walker and to stop persecuting him because of his race and political outlook. He is a political prisoner, held unlawfully by the Australian regime, in violation of international law and human rights standards.

* For several years the Australian government has been engaged in military and political intervention in Papua-New Guinea, which has cost the lives of over 10,000 (predominantly indigenous/Black) persons in Bougainville territory, which seceeded from the white settler regime for its own independent nation, and to stop mining corporations from exploiting and destroying their lands with strip-mining. AUSTRALIA, working with the mining companies and the puppet PNG government, provoked a civil war, and is arming the colonial regime.

* The July 1997 false imprisonment, beating, and deportation of visiting USA black activist, Lorenzo Komboa Ervin, when he was attempting to speak to the Aboriginal population and general public of AUSTRALIA during a book speaking tour. The government deportation charges came at the behest of racist politician Pauline Hanson and her One Nation Party, who were opposed to his talking to Aborigines, accusing him of "spreading terrorism". This tour was cut short because of biased immigration policies which allow the political banning of speakers out of favor with the government, in clear violation of international law. In addition, AUSTRALIA has no policies of civil rights for the black population, nor any civil liberties for its citizens including freedom of speech for controversial/unpopular persons. The national government routinely spies on and represses activists, domestic and international visitors. [For more details on Kom'Boa's visit to Australia and subsequent imprisonment, see http://kafka.uvic.ca/~vipirg/SISIS/emerg/jul13kom.html]

* Political banning and denial of travel visas to activists, political figures and others that the conservative government is opposed to. This includes Lorenzo Komboa Ervin, and Irish Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams, and also thousands of other Left-wing political or social figures. The government has admitted having a list of at least 100,000 persons for its immigration exclusion list, which includes many persons strictly on the basis of their political beliefs or affiliations.

* For over 100 years, the Australian government had a White Australian immigration policy, which effectively kept non-white persons from visiting and/or receiving citizenship, until the late 1960's. The government is still enforcing parts of the 1958 Immigration Act laws which still are discriminatory. Black people coming to Australian for any purpose are especially harnessed, searched, accused of "dealing drugs", summarily deported and jailed. The Olympics will only increase the number of such cases.

* Giving a safe haven to WWII Nazis and other fascists. AUSTRALIA is one of the main destinations for fugitive war criminals because it gives them political asylum. It has had a long-standing fascist movement of its own, and many government officials in the current government are sympathetic to right-wing ideology and organizing. For instance, the Ku Klux Klan has been given a free hand to organize in Queensland state especially, and the National Action movement, Pauline Hanson's "One Nation" Party and other fascists are all flourishing, due to government and corporate support or acquiescence, even when they engage in or incite acts of violence.

If the truth be told, Australia is an outlaw nation whose racial policies are little different from apartheid South Africa, and we want to build an international movement against its trade and tourism similar to the anti-apartheid sanctions campaign. We call on all persons who believe in human rights and oppose racism to join us in this protest campaign. We must expose the racist Australian police state to the world and tarnish their false image of democracy and tolerance.


WHAT IS BOYCOTT 2000?

Because of actions by the Australian government listed above and other similar racist actions, we call for the creation of a Boycott 2000 Coalition to create a worldwide protest against the Sydney Olympic Games and especially an economic boycott in support of the Aboriginal inhabitants of the country. Because of a history of similar racist repression in South Africa, the United States, and Europe where white governments have engaged in racist and repressive actions against non-white population groups, we especially call upon Black communities all over the world to help us wage this fight, but we want all anti-racist and human rights organizations to join us in an international campaign against AUSTRALIA and especially an economic boycott in support of the Aboriginal inhabitants of the country.


BOYCOTT 2000 CAMPAIGN UPDATES

Updates will be indexed here as the
campaign gains momentum. Stay tuned...

General updates

Statements by Nyungah Circle of Elders


WHAT CAN YOU DO?

1. Do not attend the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, AUSTRALIA, and tell everyone you know not to attend. Call on them to begin a tourist and trade boycott of AUSTRALIA before and after the Olympics. In fact, advise your church, club, union, college and other community institution about the racist mistreatment of AUSTRALIAN Aborigines and get them to join the economic boycott campaign.

2. Write letters of protest to the Australian government about its racist and politically biased immigration policies, including the permanent banning order against Lorenzo Komboa Ervin filed by Philip Ruddock, Minister of Immigration:

John Howard, MP
Prime Minister
Parliament House
Canberra ACT 2600
WWW comments: http://www.pm.gov.au/comments.htm
3. Don't use products made in AUSTRALIA, such as Foster's beer, Quantas airlines, etc. A full list of products and services will be posted later.

4. Write letters to the Australian government about its racist treatment of the Aborigines and Torres Island Straits people living in the country to:

John Howard, MP
Prime Minister
Parliament House
Canberra ACT 2600
WWW comments: http://www.pm.gov.au/comments.htm

Click HERE for addresses of other Australian politicians

5. Begin a campaign in your county to convince Olympics team officials and the government of your country not to send athletes or to participate in the Australian Olympics in the year 2000.

6. Begin a sanctions campaign in your country to convince the government authorities and business associations in your country to cut off all military aid, trade and economic support, and other foreign aid to AUSTRALIA until it recognizes the human rights of the Aboriginal people, gives them reparations for centuries of abuse, and recognizes their title to the land.

7. MAKE A DONATION to the Boycott 2000 Coalition. We will need money to fight, for printing, copying, mailing, phone calling and a host of other things. Your financial contribution is important:

BOYCOTT 2000 CAMPAIGN
Account # 202-39-84
First Tennessee Bank
701 Market Street
Chattanooga, TN, 37402 (USA)
8. Reprint this article in your newsletter, newspaper, or internet newsgroup to get the word out on the boycott. Write newspapers, call radio talk shows, and television news departments as well.

9. If you would like a speaker to visit your college, community or your country to talk about the boycott and international human rights, please write to:

Lorenzo Komboa Ervin
Black Autonomy International
2014 Citico Avenue
Chattanooga, TN, 37404 USA
E-mail: Lervin@mindspring.com OR Komboa@hotmail.com

COLONIALISM IS NOT A GAME!
BOYCOTT RACIST AUSTRALIA!


LINKS TO OTHER SITES AND RELATED ARTICLES

Groups involved in the Boycott 2000 Campaign

Angry People
http://black.cat.org.au/anarki/angry/

Black Autonomy International
2014 Citico Avenue, Chattanooga, TN, 37404 USA
Email: Komboa@hotmail.com
WWW: http://www.webcom.com/nattyreb/black.autonomy

Settlers In Support of Indigenous Sovereignty (S.I.S.I.S.)
PO Box 8673, Victoria, BC, Canada V8X 3S2
Email: SISIS@envirolink.org
WWW: http://kafka.uvic.ca/~vipirg/SISIS/SISmain.html


More information about Australia's past and ongoing genocide of aboriginal peoples

Many thanks to Shayne O'Neill for his contributions and feedback.

WWW Virtual Library: amazing archives with links on just about everything, including legal documents
http://www.ciolek.com/WWWVL-Aboriginal.html

Two settler anti-colonialism activists' perspectives
http://kafka.uvic.ca/~vipirg/SISIS/2000/jimbruce.html

6th HREOC Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Report
http://www.hreoc.gov.au/social_justice/social_justice/index.html

Aboriginal Deaths in Custody
http://www.omen.net.au/~dicwc

Mirrar peoples' struggle to protect their traditional lands against the building of a uranium mine at Jabiluka:
http://www.jabiluka.net/
http://www.green.net.au/gundjehmi/

Other proposed mining developments, many of which are on land under the care of traditionalist Aboriginal custodians:
http://aucwa.iinet.net.au/


Australia's Far Right

The Far Right in the Coalition
Pages on Pauline Hanson and the One Nation Party:
http://www.theage.com.au/special/hanson/ http://www.zip.com.au/~rocket/hanson.htm http://kafka.uvic.ca/~vipirg/SISIS/links/anti.html#hanson

Related Links

Sep 13/97: Samis resist Sweden's bid for 2004 Olympics
Oct 27/97: Australian Olympic site contaminated with dioxins

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