5-01-08, 9:33 am

Original source: The Guardian (Australia)

Aboriginal concerns about the Northern Territory Intervention are about to be voiced on the world stage.

A delegation of more than 40 Indigenous Australians left for New York to attend the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.

This meeting of the Permanent Forum will be focused on the situation facing Indigenous people in the Pacific.

Delegation leader Les Malezer said he and other delegates would explainthe impact of the current intervention on Aboriginal people. 'We have a situation in Australia where the Race Discrimination Act has been suspended so Aboriginal people in Australia can be discriminated against just as much as we were 50 years ago,' he said.

As well as requiring the repeal of parts of the Act, Mr Malezer said the Intervention also breached a number of United Nations charters.

It breached the UN Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Charter, the International Convention onthe Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, he said.

Barbara Shaw, a prominent spokeswoman against the NT Intervention and a resident of Mt Nancy Town Camp, at Alice Springs, said she would use the trip to strengthen support for the campaign demanding the repeal of all NT Intervention legislation.

Resolution

She wanted to build support for the following resolution: 'The UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues recognises that the Australian Northern Territory National Emergency Response Intervention legislation contravenes a number of articles of the Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

'The United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues therefore:

1. Demands the Australian Government signs and ratifies the Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples;

2. Demands that the Australian Government immediately reinstate the Racial Discrimination Act 1975;

3. Demands that the Australian Government repeal all Northern Territory Emergency Response Legislation (2007);

4. Demands that the Australian Government implement the 97 recommendations of the Ampe Akelyernemane Meke Mekarle Little Children are Sacred report (Anderson and Wild, 2007).'

Meanwhile, National Aboriginal Alliance Chairman Sol Bellear said the Intervention legislation was having 'a huge unforeseen impact on Aboriginal peoples lives'.

'There has been a 30 per cent increase in the Aboriginal population of Darwin, for example, as well as an increase in fringe dwellers in town camps as many people cannot afford to return home after being forced to use certain supermarket chains in the larger towns and cities,' Mr Bellear said in a statement.

'Aboriginal people shouldbe entitled to basic access to health care without the punitive measures of the intervention.'

From The Guardian (Australia)