reprinted with permission from [Gracelyn Smallwood]
Poison Fire, Sacred Earth,
TESTIMONIES, LECTURES, CONCLUSIONS,
THE WORLD URANIUM HEARING, SALZBURG 1992
pages 170-172
"Aboriginal Australians have lived in Australia over 40,000
years. It has been a long argued view of European anthropologists
and prehistorians that modern humanity migrated South to
Australia. This fails to explain, however, why older forms of
modern human beings have not been found outside the continent. The
legends and religious beliefs of modern Aboriginal Australia have
no stories of migration. There is no evidence of migration
memories anywhere in our country. This is a religious position
taken by Aboriginal Australians, and science has failed to refute
it." . . .
. . . In the 1950's and 60's, the British government tested
nuclear bombs at Maralinga, Monte Bello Island and Emu Field. The
fallout extended over a wide area including Queensland. At that
time my father was working on the railroad in central Queensland,
where there is now a high rate of leukemia in children.
. . . Most Aboriginal people still have not had success in land
claims. Multinational mining companies are stifling many claims.
Uranium and other minerals were found where Aboriginal communities
were mostly located.
In the late 1960's, I learned about the dangers of uranium
mining in Mary Kathleen, a desert town in Queensland, from my
father. He was the only source of information my family had. We
had no access to newspapers, radio or television. He was very
involved with the trades and labor movement while working with the
railways. There was much opposition by railway unions against the
transport and export of Mary Kathleen uranium, and in 1977, the
Australian Council of Trade Unions called for a ban on the export
of uranium. And like 1976, my father became aware of the secret
rail shipment of uranium from Mary Kathleen on the Mount Isa
railroad. Uranium demonstrators delayed the shipment for some time
and publicity resulted on the dangers of uranium mining. In 1980,
there was a theft of two tons of yellow cake from Mary Kathleen.
It was transported out of the mine in six drums and later found in
Sydney almost 5,000 kilometers away.
In the mid-1980's, my father died of stomach cancer, although
he lived a very healthy lifestyle. As a midwife for the past 20
years, working in the area of public health nationally and
internationally, I have witnessed an increase in sterility,
cancers, miscarriages, deformities and other problems. It appears
to be a general problem globally. The present situation of
Aboriginal Australia is alarming. Many remote communities lack
clean running water, adequate housing and proper sanitation. We
represent one percent of the national population but we count for
up to 70 percent of prison inmates. Infant mortality is three
times higher than in the general population, and the life
expectancy is 20 to 25 years less.
The unemployment rate is three to five times greater than the
general population. We still have diseases like leprosy and
tracoma that some Third World countries have eradicated.
Alcoholism is on epidemic levels which causes family breakdowns
and the loss of their cultural identity. . . .
. . . And in closing, not is all doom and gloom. I encourage my
indigenous sisters and brothers globally to continue our struggle.
We have survived and we will survive, as we were all B.C. --
before Cook, Columbus and Christ.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Gracelyn Smallwood
Gracelyn Smallwood, Australia. Master of Science (in Health),
registered nurse, midwife, member of the Aboriginal Islander
Tripartite Forum, co-founder of the Indi-Genous Forum.
Thank you, Brothers and Sisters. I'd like to thank The World
Uranium Hearing for giving me the privilege of being able to
present today. I have ten minutes to give you 200 years of
colonization of Indigenous Australia. So, I commence by giving a
quote from an Aboriginal woman in my country, Jackie Huggins:
"Aboriginal Australians have lived in Australia over 40,000
years. It has been a long argued view of European anthropologists
and prehistorians that modern humanity migrated South to
Australia. This fails to explain, however, why older forms of
modern human beings have not been found outside the continent. The
legends and religious beliefs of modern Aboriginal Australia have
no stories of migration. There is no evidence of migration
memories anywhere in our country. This is a religious position
taken by Aboriginal Australians, and science has failed to refute
it."
Before 1788, Aboriginal Australians enjoyed a nomadic lifestyle
where men, women and children lived in harmony with each other and
the environment. Mother Earth was regarded as sacred which
everyone respected and did not exploit. The healthy lifestyle
changed dramatically when the invaders arrived from England headed
by Captain Cook. The land was claimed by them through a law that
still exists today called "terra nullius", meaning "no man's
land". The British government wanted to establish the penal colony
because of the overcrowding in their own country. It was estimated
that about one million Australian Aborigines inhabited the country
with 500 different tribes in 1788. Today, in 1992, 200 years
later, there are 300,000 left. Many were killed with guns,
poisoned water holes and food, and many died from diseases
introduced by the invaders. A document from the late 1700's
states: "Some convicts were allowed to have the weekends free from
the confines of their masters' properties on the condition that
they brought back with them aboriginal scalps. These scalps were,
in fact, pairs of ears."
The remainder of the Aborigines were placed on reserves and
missions where white management had total control over their
Aboriginal lifestyle. The hunted and gathered foods were replaced
with high carbohydrate rations. Language and ceremonies were
forbidden, as it was seen as paganistic to the invaders' superior,
Christian values. The colonists brought with them their social
order and notion of property, their birth rights and Christianity.
With their invisible luggage they brought their racial prejudice.
Aboriginal men were drastically losing their role in society by
being used to slave labour. The women were used as domestics and
sexual partners for the white invaders. Raping and killings
continued as a sport. And I quote: "One gorges at the Sunday
afternoon manhunts of sexual mutilation, of burying live
Aboriginal babies up to their necks in sand and kicking their
heads off after tying with a rape the severed neck of the husband
around the raped spouse."
Half cast children were being born and many were sent away to
welfare homes or to other reserves far away and many did not
return home. The most systemic destruction occurred in 1909 when
about 5,300 Aboriginal children were sent to Cootamundra Girls
Training School and Kinchelle Boys Home in Kempsey, New South
Wales, where they were given training as domestics and farm hands.
There was an estimation that one in every six Aboriginal children
were taken away from their families in that century, compared to
the figure of one white out of 300 to the white community.
In the 1800's, scientists around the world -- in particular
Britain and Germany -- encouraged the killing of Aboriginals for
scientific research. Money was actually paid for skeletons.
Thousands of graves were robbed, the British and Australian
scientists ran one of the biggest graverobbing networks. Studies
by an academic researcher in Oxford indicated that the graves of
between 5,000 and 10,000 Aboriginals were desecrated, their bodies
dismembered to support science. Recently discovered documents in
Brisbane confirm that Aboriginals were killed for displays in
museums. Presently, Dr. Robin Cox, head of the archeological
branch of the Natural History Museum in London, has requested on
television that more Aboriginal bodies be sent to his museum.
Aboriginal Australians have called for his dismissal.
Legislation came in three stages for Aboriginals who were
regarded not even as human beings. First, there was a series of
official inquiries from 1845 to 1861 to investigate conflicts
between settlers and Aboriginals. Out of this came the conclusion
that it was best for both black and white, that Aboriginal people
be separated from Europeans and live on small reserves, where it
was assumed that they would eventually die out. The second stage
was a protection act that all Aboriginal people would be under the
control of the government rather than the settlers. Often, in
isolated areas the person in charge was usually the local
policeman. The third stage was in the late 19th century, an
enactment of specific discriminative legislation. Between 1901 and
1911 all the states, including the Northern Territory with the
exception of Tasmania, passed acts providing for Aboriginal
welfare. This legislation was summed up by a researcher as "a
system that confines the native within a legal system that has
more in common with the born idiot than any other class of British
subjects".
Queensland, where I was born, has many Aboriginal reserves. One
which is called Palm Island is notoriously known for brutal
treatment of Aboriginal people. Punishment for minor offences was
shaving childrens' heads bald and making them parade in front of
the community. And then the children were locked up in
dormitories. The childrens' hair was their pride.
My father, a member of the Birrigubba tribe, was taken away as
a child and raised on Palm Island. My grandfather was one of six
brave men from Palm Island who went on a hunger-strike in 1957 for
better conditions for Aboriginal people. All six men were taken in
chains, with their families separated from each other and
relocated to other reserves. In the 1950's and 60's, the British
government tested nuclear bombs at Maralinga, Monte Bello Island
and Emu Field. The fallout extended over a wide area including
Queensland. At that time my father was working on the railroad in
central Queensland, where there is now a high rate of leukemia in
children.
In 1967, a referendum was held where 90 percent of white
Australians voted that Aborigines become citizens in their own
land. However, Queensland was the only state not to abolish all
laws discriminating against Aboriginals. Many of the South African
apartheid laws were actually modelled on the Queensland Aborigines
Act.
In 1971, an Aborigine artist, Harold Thomas, designed the
Aboriginal flag in the colours red, black and yellow. Black for
the people, the red for the earth and the yellow for the sun, the
giver of life. In the early 1970's, the Aboriginal bureaucracy was
structured under the federal Labor government. Money was allocated
for housing, health, schooling and various projects. This was a
form of compensation to try to overcome the poverty among
Aborigines. Most of the funding went to white public servants in
the administration, and little reached the grassroot-levels. Many
of the white public servants became experts in being Aboriginal.
At this time the Girynga people of the Northern Territory were
given some landrights. Since then there has been much legislation
and government inquiries into landrights and heritage acts. Most
Aboriginal people still have not had success in land claims.
Multinational mining companies are stifling many claims. Uranium
and other minerals were found where Aboriginal communities were
mostly located.
In the late 1960's, I learned about the dangers of uranium
mining in Mary Kathleen, a desert town in Queensland, from my
father. He was the only source of information my family had. We
had no access to newspapers, radio or television. He was very
involved with the trades and labor movement while working with the
railways. There was much opposition by railway unions against the
transport and export of Mary Kathleen uranium, and in 1977, the
Australian Council of Trade Unions called for a ban on the export
of uranium. And like 1976, my father became aware of the secret
rail shipment of uranium from Mary Kathleen on the Mount Isa
railroad. Uranium demonstrators delayed the shipment for some time
and publicity resulted on the dangers of uranium mining. In 1980,
there was a theft of two tons of yellow cake from Mary Kathleen.
It was transported out of the mine in six drums and later found in
Sydney almost 5,000 kilometers away.
In the mid-1980's, my father died of stomach cancer, although
he lived a very healthy lifestyle. As a midwife for the past 20
years, working in the area of public health nationally and
internationally, I have witnessed an increase in sterility,
cancers, miscarriages, deformities and other problems. It appears
to be a general problem globally. The present situation of
Aboriginal Australia is alarming. Many remote communities lack
clean running water, adequate housing and proper sanitation. We
represent one percent of the national population but we count for
up to 70 percent of prison inmates. Infant mortality is three
times higher than in the general population, and the life
expectancy is 20 to 25 years less.
The unemployment rate is three to five times greater than the
general population. We still have diseases like leprosy and
tracoma that some Third World countries have eradicated.
Alcoholism is on epidemic levels which causes family breakdowns
and the loss of their cultural identity. To further this insulting
situation towards Aboriginal society, we now have a black and a
white bureaucracy.
The federal government gave the power to Aboriginal people to
elect representatives, to advise the government on Aboriginal
affairs. This advisory body called ATSIC, the Aboriginal and
Torres Straight Islanders Commission, is continuing to disempower
Aboriginal people as far too much money is spent in the
administrative arm and very little reaches the grassroots-level.
An Indian Elder said in Canada three weeks ago, and I quote:
"We must educate the indigenous people as well as the white people
about the dangers of the ugly nuclear industry. Some are beginning
to give the O.K. to mine on Aboriginal land in order to deal with
the poverty. They must be told to leave uranium in the ground."
End of quote. Michael Mansell, an Australian Aboriginal activist,
summed up the prospects of Aboriginal people in my country when he
stated: "The most crucial prerequisite to empowering Aboriginal
people is their desire and capacity to put an end to their
disadvantaged situation and take control of their own lives. There
is no other way." The World Uranium Hearing will hopefully unite
us all to achieve this and to take back our messages to our
leaders and our people to leave uranium in the ground. And in
closing, not is all doom and gloom. I encourage my indigenous
sisters and brothers globally to continue our struggle. We have
survived and we will survive, as we were all B.C. -- before Cook,
Columbus and Christ.
Thank you.
Father John (Moderator)
Thank you, Gracelyn. She is telling us that the struggle still
continues.
Could I get people from Maralinga please on the stage? John, could
you continue, please?