Australian Aborigines threatened yesterday to close one of the country's top tourist destinations, Uluru, in protest at what they described as "racist" government policies in remote communities.
The threat to close Uluru, a giant rock in Australia’s red center, came as authorities marked one year since police backed by troops were sent into Aboriginal settlements to try to improve chronic child sexual abuse.
The so-called “intervention” in the Northern Territory camps was initiated by former prime minister John Howard’s government and continued by his center-left successor Kevin Rudd when he won power last November.
It was prompted by a report detailing rampant alcohol-fueled abuse against women and children in the poverty-stricken Outback communities.
But many Aborigines say they are being unfairly targeted by measures introduced as part of the intervention, which include bans on alcohol and pornography, as well as restrictions on welfare payments.
Vince Forrester, an elder from the Mutitjulu people who are Uluru’s traditional owners, said closing the attraction would help highlight problems caused by the intervention.
“We’ve got to take some affirmative action to stop this racist piece of legislation,” he told a rally of about 300 protesters in Sydney.
“We’re going to throw a big rock on top of the tourist industry ... we will close the climb and no one will climb Uluru ever again, no one,” he said.
Aborigines already have asked tourists not to climb Uluru — formerly known as Ayers Rock — because it is a sacred site in indigenous culture but reluctantly allow them to make their way to the top if they want.
As officially recognized native custodians of Uluru and its surrounding lands, Aborigines have the power to ban the climb.
Forrester said the intervention had resulted in more funds being spent on bureaucrats, than on the ground in indigenous communities, and it had unfairly slurred all Aboriginal males.
“Every Aboriginal man is now tainted with a brush, they have emasculated us, they have said we are all woman bashers, we are all alcoholics, we are all child abusers,” he said.
Australia’s 470,000 Aborigines comprise just more than 2 percent of the country’s 21 million population.
They are Australia’s most impoverished minority, with higher rates of illness and imprisonment than the general population, as well as a life expectancy 17 years below the Australian average.
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