The protest coincided with the funeral of Cameron Doomadgee, who was killed November 19 while in police custody on Palm Island off the far north Queensland coast. Angry island residents burned down police buildings November 26 in outrage over a government report clearing the cops of responsibility in his death. (See also article in December 21 Militant.)

The Queensland state government, run by the Labor Party, declared an “emergency situation.” In a show of force, up to 200 riot cops were flown onto the island from nearby Townsville, then from Cairns, and as far away as Brisbane, 700 miles to the south, according to media reports. Heavily armed cops swept the island and arrested 19 Aborigines. Lex Wotton, 37, who police allege was “the ring leader of the riot,” was charged with assault and arson. Wotton was a close friend of Doomadgee. He was also charged with destroying a building during a riot, which carries up to a life sentence.

To cheers of supporters packing the Townsville District Court December 6, and against police opposition, all those arrested were released on bail. Onerous conditions were imposed on them, however, banning their return to Palm Island or attendance at Doomadgee’s funeral.

Three days after their release, about 2,000 people marched through the streets of Townsville to protest Doomadgee’s death in custody. They marched on the police station, where Lex Wotton was waiting on the sidewalk. Bail conditions prevented him from participating in the march. Murrandoo Yanner, a cousin of Cameron Doomadgee and an activist for Black rights, spoke at the Townsville rally after the march. He said the actions of Wotton and others on Palm Island were a heroic act of resistance to “state-sponsored murder,” according to the Australian.

Similar sentiments were voiced at the Brisbane rally. Bertie Button, Goolburri Regional council chairman, said that the Palm Island protesters were “not rioters. They are heroes. They are saying, ‘Don’t let us down: speak out. Remind the government that one death in custody is one too many.’”

The Brisbane demonstration drew Aborigines from different communities around the state. Speakers commented that this was the first time in many years the community had come together in such a show of unity.

Peter Savage, an elder from Rockhampton in North Queensland, said, “We want justice and truth. We will get action by getting out and telling people about what happened, how every time a Black man goes to jail we are fearful of what will happen.”

Ray Jackson brought solidarity greetings from the Aboriginal community in Redfern, Sydney, to the people of Palm Island. Jackson has been leading the campaign for justice for TJ Hickey, an Aboriginal youth whose death at the hands of police in Redfern last February sparked a street battle with the cops.

Jackson pointed out that media reports about Palm Island had all been sympathetic to the police, not the murdered Aboriginal man. He said Doomadgee’s injuries could only have been brought about by massive force and there were witnesses to his bashing. “The more the police in this country are allowed to get away with killing our people the more they’re going to do it,” he said.

Following the Brisbane rally, the crowd marched through city streets. Initially they remained silent in a show of respect for the Doomadgee family, but then chants rang out for “Justice!” and “Stop Black deaths in custody!”

Militant reporters met Murris (the local term for indigenous people) from across the state on the march. One of the first to arrive at the rally was 50-year-old Brian Brown, of the Mullingally people, who works in a Brisbane meatworks. “They tried to breed us out, they tried to shoot us, they tried to poison us, and we’re still here,” he told the Militant.

“No matter how you look at it, we still haven’t got justice,” his cousin, Gresham Brown added. “We’ll be fighting till the day we die.”

Another demonstrator, Margaret Friday, lived on Palm Island for 15 years and raised her children there. She had just taken part in the Townsville rally. She said that the enquiries into Black deaths in custody never get anywhere because “they just get police to investigate police.”

Militant correspondents also spoke to Madeline McGrady from Toomelah, on the New South Wales-Queensland state border. She was campaigning to get out the truth about a November 17 racist attack on youths from the Toomelah Aboriginal mission. Alan Boland, 16, was dragged with a noose tied around his neck up a riverbank and then beaten, she said. He and other Aboriginal youths had been charged with stealing a motorbike. A protest is being organized outside their court hearing January 16 in Goondiwindi.

Ray Jackson spoke at a public forum in Sydney, December 12. He explained how the exoneration of the police in the Hickey inquiry meant that “what happened on Palm Island was no great surprise.” It also encouraged other racist attacks like the one in Goondiwindi and another in Toowoomba December 3, where racist “skinheads” invaded a home and attacked Aboriginal youths with fence palings.

Many of the protesters in Brisbane were also angry at a highly publicized move by the newly elected government of Prime Minister John Howard, forcing a remote Aboriginal community to agree to paternalistic hygiene standards to regain their much-needed petrol supply.

Described by the government as a “shared responsibility agreement,” the Aboriginal community in Mulan, in the northern Kimberley region of Western Australia, has agreed to a government deal that ties the supply of new petrol bowsers (pumps) to a demand that Aboriginal parents ensure that children shower daily and wash their faces twice a day.

For the past 17 months, since their original bowser corroded away, people in Mulan have had to drive 30 miles for fuel. The need for fuel has nothing to do with hygiene. Like many Aboriginal communities in the outback, health conditions are way below those in the rest of Australia. Trachoma, a preventable eye disease, is widespread. This reflects the lack of health-care services as well as severely depressed social conditions in such communities.

Aboriginal lawyer Michael Mansell told the Sydney Morning Herald that imposing funding conditions on Black communities was unlawful and discriminatory.

“The health department in West Australia should be going out and educating about hygiene,” Friday said at the Brisbane march. “Instead they are cutting services to Aboriginal people.”

Ron Poulsen contributed to this article.  
 
 
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