Australia’s seizure of Aboriginal land for uranium mining
……..mining has a lot to do with the Northern Territory Intervention. Australia has 23% of the world’s known uranium deposits……Since the Intervention, the Territory’s government has allocated AU$14.4 million to expanding its mining industry....
…communities have been offered homes in exchange for 40 year leases. Thus, the Intervention, has wrested indigenous land from its owners by force and bribed indigenous communities to barter their rights for basic amenities…
the seizures of their land, the bribes to get them to hand over control of more land, and the attempts to shift them from outstations are not about protecting children or building new homes. They are about getting access to mineral wealth and sweeping indigenous people out of the way in order to do so..
Aboriginal Peoples Lose Rights and Mineral Rich Land in Northern Territory Intervention. The Women’s International Perspective , Sarah Irving, 1 April 11, “……..indigenous voices heard in Our Generation, an important new film documenting the impact of the ‘Northern Territory Emergency Response.’
……….Our Generation shows how the gains of the Aboriginal civil rights movement of the 1970s were brutally overturned by the Northern Territory Emergency Response, often known as the “Northern Territory Intervention.”
……..mining has a lot to do with the Northern Territory Intervention. Australia has 23% of the world’s known uranium deposits……Since the Intervention, the Territory’s government has allocated AU$14.4 million to expanding its mining industry…….
As Our Generation points out, the Intervention was brought into effect as a hurried measure six months after indigenous peoples, include the Yolngu, rejected Liberal offers to build houses in return for 99 year leases on tribal lands. Under Labor schemes, communities have been offered homes in exchange for 40 year leases. Thus, the Intervention, has wrested indigenous land from its owners by force and bribed indigenous communities to barter their rights for basic amenities.
Our Generation shows shocking footage of vast opencast mines gouging out the Northern Territory landscape. As environmentalists Dave Sweeney and Mark Wakeham write of one uranium mine in the Kakadu area of the Northern Territory, “Since the discovery of uranium in 1971, the word Jabiluka has meant conflict over resources.” In May 2010, Ranger – a uranium mine in the Kakadu which local indigenous people resisted since the 1970s – released large quantities of radioactive water into ecologically sensitive wetlands……
to the Yolngu, the seizures of their land, the bribes to get them to hand over control of more land, and the attempts to shift them from outstations are not about protecting children or building new homes. They are about getting access to mineral wealth and sweeping indigenous people out of the way in order to do so..
2 Comments »
Leave a comment
1 This month
of the week – Disrupting War & Militarism in Oceania. Active solidarity. Radical practice.
Antinuclear 
No one else has the ability to stop mining companies from taking land. Why would aboriginals keep land anyone else would lose.
LikeLike
Actually others do have the ability to stop mining companies from taking land.
The Australian government has had to bring in special legislation, the Intervention, and the National Radioactive Waste Management Bill, making it easy to take Aboriginal land.
Up until now, it’s been too difficult to forcibly take non Aboriginal land. But the new legislation could change that.
Aboriginals first, everyone else later, perhaps.
LikeLike