Issue 695

The struggle for justice for Palm Island man Mulrunji — who died on November 19, 2004, in a police watch-house from horrific injuries within one hour of being arrested — is growing.

The Tasmanian government’s Stolen Generations of Aboriginal Children Bill 2006, which set up a $5 million compensation fund, was passed by the upper house of the state parliament on November 28, having been unanimously approved in the lower house seven days earlier.

Last May 1, more than 1 million people joined the May Day celebrations in Caracas, Venezuela. Since then, Venezuela’s impoverished population, led by socialist President Hugo Chavez, has taken over more workplaces, set up more cooperatives, established hundreds of free public education and health programs, organised their neighbourhoods and taken big steps towards exercising “popular power” in their country.

On February 19, campaigners for the repatriation to Australia of David Hicks again demanded that the Australian parliament seeks his immediate release from the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay.

A youth march will be held in Launceston on January 26, Invasion Day. The march organiser, Nala Mansell, told Green Left Weekly that Aboriginal young people from all over Tasmania will be coming together to say that they won’t be part of the “Australia Day” celebrations.

One year ago 43 West Papuan asylum seekers arrived in North Queensland fleeing Indonesian government oppression. Today in West Papua, the oppression continues, the Australia West Papua Association (AWPA) said in a January 18 media release.

Tamworth, 595 kilometres north of Sydney, each year welcomes more than 50,000 people to its music festival. The town boasts it is the Australian equivalent of “Nashville”, albeit on a small scale.

The Australian writer Donald Horne meant the title of his celebrated book, The Lucky Country, as irony. “Australia is a lucky country run by second-rate people who share its luck”, he lamented in 1964, describing much of the Australian elite as unfailingly unoriginal, race-obsessed and in thrall to imperial power and its wars.

On January 18, the Australian ran a story on a leaked report commissioned by the Peter Beattie Labor state government on the shocking living conditions for Aborigines in Queensland (see accompanying article). Green Left Weekly asked Sam Watson, Murri leader and member of the Socialist Alliance, about this and the ongoing struggle for justice for Indigenous people in Australia.

A chain of events triggered by the passage of a new agrarian reform law, part of the “agrarian revolution” of indigenous President Evo Morales, has brought into sharp relief the drive by the right-wing opposition to overthrow Morales’s government, even if it means pushing Bolivia towards a civil war.

Cochabamba is a city with a history of struggle. In April 2000 the people stood up against the privatisation of their water supply, threw out the multinational Bechtel and retook control of the local water company. In October 2003 they joined the thousands of people on the street in El Alto, La Paz and other cities to defend the right of the people to nationalise the country’s gas reserves, effectively forcing, then president and champion of the neoliberal economic model Gonzales Sanchez de Lozada to flee the country.

When supporters of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez rallied in the Teresa Carrena theatre in Caracas on December 15 to celebrate their presidential election victory, “there were cheers in the back half of the theatre”, wrote Caracas-based Marxist writer Michael Lebowitz in Venezuelanalysis.com, “but few in the high-priced seats”.

“Venezuela’s Leap Backwards” was the headline verdict of the January 10 Washington Post editorial, which attempted to throw doubt on the legitimacy of the December 3 presidential election in Venezuela that returned socialist President Hugo Chavez to office with a record 7.3 million votes (63% of the total vote cast)."Venezuela's Leap Backwards" was the headline verdict of the January 10 Washington Post editorial, which attempted to throw doubt on the legitimacy of the December 3 presidential election in Venezuela that returned socialist President Hugo Chavez to

After months of pressure following the debacle of the July-August war in Lebanon, Israeli defence chief Lieutenant General Dan Halutz announced his resignation on January 16, prompting thousands of Lebanese to take to Beirut’s streets in celebration.

One-time Hunter & Collector, and now solo performer, MARK SEYMOUR has often taken part in political rallies, as well as performed on the stages of Australia’s premier rock venues. At times his music and ideological stance have seemed as one. Recently he spoke to Green Left Weekly’s MIRIAM GRAVINO.