NSW:Former GG and Aboriginal activist give blast on rights

AAP General News (Australia)
12-08-1998
NSW:Former GG and Aboriginal activist give blast on rights

By Scott McFarlane

SYDNEY, Dec 8 AAP - Australians knew more about the Jewish holocaust than the slaughter of
Aboriginal people in their own country, a major human rights conference in Sydney was told
tonight.

Reconciliation could not occur until non-indigenous Australians were told the truth of the
nations history, Aboriginal activist Professor Gracelyn Smallwood told the opening of the
conference to mark the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

"Most Australians know more about the Jewish holocaust, but I hear very few of them talking
about the slaughters of Aboriginals in this country for the past 210 years," Professor
Smallwood told 200 delegates.

"Even though it might not be happening openly, genocide was committed on my people from 26
January, 1788.

"Institutionalised racism is still occurring."

Former Governor General Sir Zelman Cowen also spoke at the conference tonight, telling
delegates the 21st Century would be ushered in by hunger, poverty, intolerance and violence
and international laws were inadequate to guarantee human rights.

Professor Smallwood, the first indigenous person in Australia to graduate with a masters of
science in public health, said Aboriginal birth mortality and life expectancy rates were
atrocious.

"Let me tell you the world is now focused on this country," she said.

"Yes, its been 50 years and Im very pleased to see you working on a journey, but you have
a hell of a long way to go."

Professor Smallwood told the story of her late father, arrested and bashed by police as a
five-year-old before being sent to the notorious Palm Island off the Queensland coast for 12
years.

She had only heard him speak his Aboriginal language for the first time just before he died
10 years ago.

"I asked him why he didnt teach us the language and he said we had too many psychological
wounds of the beatings we received when we spoke our language and of the rape and violation of
our mental, physical, spiritual, cultural and religious values.

"Every time I wanted to talk to you about speaking the language, I used to dry retch."

Professor Smallwood said she had visited the South African Truth and Reconciliation
Commission where reconciliation was occuring with the benefit of the truth.

"We cant start our healing journey until you all know the truth."

Sir Zelman told the conference there would be no human rights golden age as we entered the
next century.

"After fifty years of human rights achievement we are faced with the greatest challenges
yet to come," he said.

Sir Zelman said he was 30 when the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was announced half
a century ago.

"We still have some way to go in terms of our record of domestic implementation.

"The mechanisms which are available to us serve as a limited deterrent to murderous regimes
such as those of Idi Amin and Pol Pot."

Sir Zelman said old evils could flare up, despite international laws.

"The reality is that, as things stand, national laws and international instruments serve as
inadequate safeguards to ensure the protection and promotion of human rights."

Foreign Minister Alexander Downer and actor Bryan Brown will speak at the conference
tomorrow.

AAP shm/kr

KEYWORD: RIGHTS LEAD

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