Day 2 - The Lizards Revenge: Police were harassing protesters yesterday and depriving the group of their civil liberties by demanding identification and controlling access to and from their campsite.

However, protest numbers are swelling and there is now estimated to be at least 450, and yesterdays march was loud and colourful - but protesters couldn't proceed far outside their 'compound' because of the increased police presence.

Elder Kevin Buzzacott, who had previously tried to stall the mine expansion through a legal challenge, declared his peoples sovereignty again and said the uranium industry was "deadly". "The sooner it stops the better. If people really knew what they were destroying they wouldn't touch it."

Expand/Caption
Uncle Kevin Buzzacott inset

Day 1. There are 450 police officers in the Outback town including Special Tasks and Rescue (STAR) officers, police on horseback, dirt bike patrols, sniffer dogs and a police helicopter. Mr Buzzacott yesterday spoke out against the heavy police presence that also included a 25m surveillance tower, with two security cameras erected just inside the Olympic Dam mine gates.

Protesters from every state are present, as well as some from overseas. Anti-Olympic Dam protester Uncle Kevin Buzzacott said "We want to get the right message out there, there is a lot of destruction being done to sacred places."

Sleeping underneath the ground in Arabunna country, there is an old lizard known as Kalta the sleepy lizard. The lizard isn't so sleepy anymore, as BHP Billiton is mining right into that Kalto's body.

The Federal Government approved the expansion of the Olympic Dam uranium mine in Roxby Downs in October 2011, to make it the biggest uranium mine in the world.

Kalta is angry and wants revenge. Arabunna elder Kevin Buzzacott has called the people of the world to help the lizard shut down the mine. His call is for people to come and heal the land in the name of peace and justice for the next 10,000 generations to come.

The land is being irreversibly poisoned in and around Roxby Downs. The tailings dam is causing dust and ground water contamination and contamination of its own workers.

Website History of destroying country     Facebook - The Lizards Revenge

Following the campaign against slavery in the early nineteenth century, and especially after the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833, the Church of England social reformers turned their attention to Aboriginal peoples of South Africa, the Caribbean, Australia and New Zealand.

On land acquisition in colonial expansions, these theorists of modern international law had distinguished between "waste" lands on the one hand, and "inhabited" lands on the other, providing a significantly different approach to each category of land. - Mark Brett wites

In this NAIDOC Week it appears that we have reached a three way cross road in Aboriginal politics. Aboriginal people, it seems, are being asked to choose between different pathways forward.

Michael Anderson, says Aboriginal sovereignty movement is being undermined by a number of people who seem to be attempting to derail the process and the movement for personal gain and to protect the interests of the British Crown.

To permit ourselves to be divided is to lose. To be put into a position where we have to make choices in respect to ways forward for our people is a definite danger sign. To fail to unite will be a disaster for future generations and the invader state will be the only winners.

Federal Aboriginal Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin has been booed at an official function in Hobart because of her support for the racist Northern Territory intervention.

The Chairman of the Aboriginal Land Council of Tasmania Clyde Mansell said he was not surprised the Tasmanian Aboriginal community had reacted angrily to Ms Macklin.

Nala Mansell-McKenna, who gave the 'Welcome to Country' speech said she is not referring to Minister Macklin and she is not welcome while she continues to support racist policies such as the NT intervention.

'While the television footage was distressing, it was uplifting to see the dignified responses of Aboriginal people and their supporters when 200 police, armed with guns and tasers, removed members of the Brisbane Aboriginal Sovereign Embassy.' wrote Murri lawyer and researcher, Nicole Watson.

... 'It made me wonder, why have we invested so much in legal processes to achieve our aims? ... I strongly believe that true power is not to be found in courts and judgments, but in the hearts of our warrior men and women.'

Michael Anderson said today: "Last year we started Lest We Forget the Frontier Wars by joining on behind the Anzac Day march in Canberra and we received enormous support from the public at this time. Now we need to keep it going.

We have commenced a process to highlight the wars fought on Australian soil since 1788, when our country was taken by superior force, at gunpoint, and those who stood in the way were shot.

What we need to do now is to keep identifying that there has been warfare; that blood has been spilt on the wattle; and there is an ongoing war of attrition against Aboriginal Peoples to this day.