The brutal imposition of martial law and the use of armed Tactical Response Group officers against the Aboriginal community on Palm Island has shocked many Australians. Yet another Indigenous person has died in police custody. Yet another community must mourn the loss of one of its sons.
Instead of treating this horrific death with sympathy or consideration, the Premier and the Queensland police have completely bypassed the local Indigenous authorities on the island's council and have chosen instead to invade the island, treating it as a legitimate target for state terror. Children, pregnant women and the elderly have been forced to bury their faces in the dirt by police officers toting laser-guided machine guns.
The island has been isolated, its services cut off, its residents stranded and the desire of the community to mourn its loss has been thwarted by the determination of the state to vigorously impose the rule of law on a people who have been so poorly served by it. Palm Island is a creature engineered by the chronic racism of successive state governments. This is an undeniable historical fact. The guilty aren't those young men incarcerated in Townsville jail and the victims are not the Queensland police.
Any comment contrary to that expressed by the Queensland Police Union or Police Commissioner Bob Atkinson is denigrated out of hand. Is Queensland now run by its police force? As Murri Indigenous leader and Socialist Alliance activist Sam Watson says, the Queensland Crime Misconduct Commission "is just a rubber stamp for a vicious corps of armed, violent and racist thugs who act with impunity to terrorise our communities. Neither the CMC nor its predecessor [the Criminal Justice Commission] have ever recommended a single criminal charge against any police officer for alleged violence against an Aboriginal person."
This state's Indigenous community has suffered much at the hands of those who would displace them. With the brutal events of the past week, the Indigenous community must feel that they are under siege and that their struggle for justice has reached a low ebb.
The Socialist Alliance extends its love, sympathy and solidarity to the Palm Island Aboriginal community and commits itself to supporting all endeavours by the residents of Palm Island, its council and the wider Aboriginal community to restore services on the island and to seek justice for those now being held in custody.
On December 1 the Murri Indigenous community held a mass meeting in Brisbane to address the Palm Island tragedy. The meeting decided on the following demands:
* That the Queensland police leave Palm Island immediately;
* That all those charged over the alleged public disorder on Palm Island be released immediately without charge;
* That the Queensland government pay all expenses and transport costs for the funeral service expected to be held on the island on December 10;
* That Queensland Premier Peter Beattie and other politicians refrain from further comment on the tragedy. The Aboriginal community strongly believes that this is a criminal matter, not a political football. A murder has been committed and the police officers responsible for this murder must be arrested and charged;
* That all documents relating to Aboriginal deaths in custody in Queensland be placed in the hands of the United Nations and that the UN be asked to send in an investigative team to examine the evidence.
The Socialist Alliance supports these demands and urges all progressive organisations and individuals to mobilise in support of the Aboriginal community and to express our outrage at the police brutality directed against them.
[This statement was issued by the Queensland convenors of the Socialist Alliance.]
From Â鶹´«Ã½ Weekly, December 8, 2004.
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