Self-determination

Former PM Paul Keating's foray back into Aboriginal politics where he talks up the need for a Treaty with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders and describes it as the 'unfinished business of the nation' is pleasing to the ears of some of us older fighters who sees the Recognition campaign as trap. It is interesting that Prof Patrick Dodson clearly has lost his way in the political melee and finds himself in a quagmire of confusion and frustrations, when he 'argued that constitutional recognition should come first' (before a Treaty). [node:read-more:link]

'Telling his own people to move on from the traumas of the past, makes it very obvious why he is not accepted in many Aboriginal communities.' Ghillar Michael Anderson says, and 'It is untrue that all of the European holocaust victims have moved on and forgotten the past. Throughout Germany and other places there are memorials for those who suffered and died at the hands of tyrannical leaders and murderers, but there is only one monument to the Aboriginal dead, who were killed en masse through white farmer vigilantes and government approved killings'. [node:read-more:link]

Graham Merritt

Aboriginal Sovereign Union diplomat Graham Merritt, speaking today from Parliament House Canberra said:

"Today is an historic moment, when on behalf of the Sovereign Union I am serving the Crown via the Governor General Quentin Bryce and the Commonwealth Government of Australia with our formal objection to the Act of Recognition.

"This Act of Recognition is a sleight of hand, as the Crown and Government continue to bypass proper recognition of our continuing Sovereignty. The Commonwealth Government is using the reform process to attempt to bring Sovereign Aboriginal Nations and Peoples into the Constitution of a foreign illegal occupying force."

With a new and exciting future ahead, Michael Anderson reminds us of where we have been in the past 40 years in respect of our struggle for land rights, sovereignty, restitution and compensation, and what has been said and acted upon by the governments.

He presents an overview of our struggle for sovereignty and outlines the importance of standing our ground. This article includes examples of the concerns the state and territories have in respect of our potential claims that will come their way.