Military in Aboriginal Communities
Army Sent to Mutijulu for Child Abuse Intervention
In Australia, the military has been deployed in an Indigenous community in response to allegations of paedophilia.
The Howard government, with an election looming, has made Aboriginal child abuse one of its high profile issues. One of its first bold moves has been to deploy military force in the remote community of Mutijulu. This follows a year of anti-Aboriginal propaganda following the leaked Child Rape Dossier, condemning Indigenous communities and whipping up a storm of public outrage, accompanied by calls for an end to any move towards Aboriginal autonomy or sovereignty.
Using the grim spectre of paedophilia, the government has managed to vilify Aboriginal men across the nation, basically giving the public an ideological ultimatum - you are either against Aboriginal rights or for paedophilia. Naturally, public opinion has swayed towards the former, and now the government is able to further erode Aboriginal rights beneath the guise of "protecting" Indigenous children.
Military intervention is justifed to a public that has been bombarded with propaganda calling for "harsh measures" and "tough decisions", and has therefore met with very little criticism or resistance from the public. And despite government assurances that military intervention will be minimal and benign, many people in the community have fled. The government has promised on the one hand that no children will be removed from families, but has also announced that all children under 16 years of age will be subjected to compulsory medical examinations to identify signs of child abuse. Of course, if any children are found to be abused (which they no doubt will, as every community in the world has its share of child abuse victims) they will certainly be removed from their families, as this is standard procedure in child protection. So the obviously false promise that no children will be removed does not encourage confidence in the government's assurances that the military presence is non-aggressive.
It can be argued that this intervention is justified and reasonable. But as with all colonial attacks on Indigenous populations, such intervention generally comes from many different angles, each of which can be defended as reasonable and minimal. This first incursion (and there will be more) is really just a small part of a larger campaign against Aboriginal rights, each component of which is examined in isolation and defended outside of the context of the wider agenda that is emerging.
So let's examine a few of the other minor adjustments that are occurring at this time, which altogether add up to a full-scale assault on the Indigenous community. In the midst of a plethora of right-wing backlash literature condemning the Aboriginal community and denying Australia's history of Indigenous genocide, ethnocide, assimilation and the stolen generation, dozens of programs, policies and initiatives have been implemented to support an ongoing agenda of assimilation and disempowerment.
For example, currently there is a move to abolish the local councils of these remote communities, and amalgamate them all into one centralised body, stripping Indigenous communities of power and increasing government control over our lives. Of course, this and other similar projects take a backseat in the media, which is obsessed with reports of child abuse and the subsequent military intervention.
The "Bound for Success" program ("bound" suggesting bondage to some, a journey to others) is well underway, with its focus on rescuing children from communities and sending them to boarding schools throughout Australia. This calls to mind the residential schooling atrocities perpetrated against Native Americans, although of course it is presented in terms of making communities stronger and so forth.
Native title is increasingly being tied to mining agreements - Aboriginal communities are often only granted native title now under the condition that mining leases are agreed upon. For example, the famous Wik decision was only recently handed down as a determination (2004 - ten years after the court case was won) when the Penchiney mining lease came up for grabs and the Chinese company Chalco wanted to buy it. So the traditional owners were required to vote in agreement to mining exploration as a condition of native title.
The work of Noel Pearson on Cape York calling for an end to passive welfare for his people has been embraced by the right, with isolated elements of his arguments appropriated to justify further erosion of Indigenous rights. Welfare reform is now being implemented. This means that families that fail to meet certain living standards in Aboriginal communities will now have their welfare payments taken away. It is difficult to imagine the impact this will have in communities where people earn less than half the national average income but pay up to three times more for food and clothing. Whatever the result, it can hardly be expected that this will improve the lives of Indigenous children, the plight of whom has been used to justify the initiative. Non-Indigenous welfare recipients who abuse or neglect their children are not targeted by this reform.
This follows the formation of an Indigenous governing body that lacks even the power to talk to the media, and exists only in an advisory capacity. This body replaces the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander commission, which was abolished by the Howard government. At the same time, the government has continued to reject the UN's draft declaration on the rights of Indigenous peoples, and continued to modify and water down native title legislation.
These are just a few examples of the government attack on Aboriginal rights that is occuring on so many fronts simultaneously that it is impossible to defend against. In this context, the agenda behind the military intervention in Mutijulu becomes much clearer. But really, the symbolic meaning of military presence should stand alone - another step in the ongoing invasion, in the undeclared war against Aboriginal people.
