Norman Brewer, Sydney
Aboriginal activists from the Redfern Block have called on "Aboriginal communities and their supporters to unite and support the demand for a national royal commission to examine police mistreatment of Aboriginal youth" by joining a protest march to Parliament House in Sydney on March 24.
The march is timed for exactly one month after the memorial march for Thomas "TJ" Hickey, who died after witnesses saw him being chased by police. A march on federal parliament is planned for May 24.
The evening following Hickey's February 15 death, young black Redfern residents fought police for hours, in an action the corporate media have branded a "riot".
In a March 9 press release, Redfern community leader Lyall Munro appealed to Aboriginal people across Australia to march on their local parliament to support the royal commission demand.
The Sydney protest will present NSW Premier Bob Carr with 38 demands — 17 concerned with proper, public investigation into Hickey's death and 17 taking up national issues.
Marcia Ella-Duncan, the new Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commissioner for the Sydney region, has indicated her support for the first 17 demands. She said that the community has the right to "participate in [the investigation of circumstances that lead to TJ's death], so we can judge for ourselves".
Three inquiries have started into Hickey's death, carried out by the police, the coroner, and the Ombudsman. The NSW government has also announced a parliamentary inquiry into community issues, services, housing and social strategies in Redfern, conducted by the legislative council's social issues committee. This is probably a result of community pressure.
However, the situation in Redfern remains tense in the lead-up to the March 27 NSW local council election. In an example of corporate media bias, the Sydney Morning Herald ran an AAP report, changing the headline from "Drug raids before riot" to "Drug raids led up to Redfern riot, says Carr".
The Daily Telegraph has also been pushing the drug-dealers-caused-Redfern-riot line. According to the March 10 Australian, however, Redfern Block resident Shane Phillips, a member of the Tribal Warrior Association, said that drug dealers had no influence over the community. He said: "It's bullshit. No-one listens to them. It's an insult to our intelligence .. The riot was a build-up of frustration and anger over the way police harass the kids in this area, and because people blamed police for TJ['s death]."
The Socialist Alliance's candidate for Sydney City mayor, Susan Price, told Â鶹´«Ã½ Weekly at the official opening of the Redfern Community Centre on March 13, that community and union solidarity is needed to combat the continuing violations of the human rights of Aboriginal people. "Just as black bans were used in the 1970s to establish the Redfern Block as Aboriginal-controlled housing, today community groups and trade unionists need to lend their support to the struggle by block residents against this latest racist violence."
Indigenous Social Justice Association spokesperson and Socialist Alliance member Ray Jackson is confident that "we can solve all the social problems of the block and our presence will still be there in Redfern at the end of it. The other solution, which we won't accept, is that the blacks get out."
In an interview with Sydney University student newspaper Honi Soit Jackson concludes that "who wins basically depends on people like you ... the wider society. We don't have the numbers. We need your support."
More than 40 socialist parties from around the world have sent soldarity messages to the Redfern residents.
[For details about March 24, check the . Updates will be put on . Petitions and further information are on the Redfern Block website .]
From Â鶹´«Ã½ Weekly, March 17, 2004.
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