A NEW movement organised by Indigenous activists and their supporters has sprung up to fight the Howard government's takeover of Northern Territory communities, despite media claims of Indigenous leaders welcoming Howard's proposal to hold a referendum on a "new statement of reconciliation".

The National Indigenous Times reports that the preamble is non-binding, has no impact on the constitution itself and is not a new idea-a similar referendum being tacked on to the Republic referendum in 1999.

At that time, Howard fought to replace "acknowledgement of the original occupancy and custodianship of Australia by Aboriginal peoples and Torres Strait Islanders" with "since time immemorial our land has been inhabited by Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders".

He has again presented this watered down version as his 'new' preamble, continuing to refuse to acknowledge Aboriginal people as custodians of this land.

It should be no surprise that Aboriginal people aren't celebrating Howard's "change of attitude". On September 13, Australia was one of just four countries to vote against the UN Declaration of Human Rights for Indigenous Peoples (144 countries voted in favour).

The next day around 40 people attended a picket outside Howard's office called by the Sydney Aboriginal Tent Embassy to demand the government reverse its decision.

As explained by Les Malezer, a Gabi Gabi man and chairperson of the Global Indigenous Caucus to the UN, "the UN has progressed [in the area of Indigenous rights] over the last 25 years and Australia has wound back".

He explained to a packed meeting at the Redfern Community centre on October 22 that the declaration is already impacting legal decisions involving Indigenous peoples around the world and that it could have implications for Aboriginal people in Australia.

He encouraged Aboriginal activists at the meeting, saying he'd "spent a good part of the last six or seven years in the UN playing with pen, playing with words and arguing with governments about what should or shouldn't be in the text. I'd rather come here now and put my feet on the street, put my feet on the land�

"I'd rather stand in front of a policeman, stand in front of a vehicle, stand in front of a bureaucrat, than be sitting down drafting law."

New national organisation

The same meeting endorsed a new independent national body, the National Aboriginal Alliance. The NAA is bringing activists together to fight the federal government's emergency intervention.

The NAA has been formed to fill the void of national Aboriginal representation. It has also been endorsed by a meeting of over 100 Aboriginal women from the "targeted areas" in the NT.

Local Aboriginal resistance has also taken the form of an Aboriginal Tent Embassy in Victoria Park, inner Sydney, despite attacks from the Sydney City Council.

By Rachel Blakey

National Weekend of Action Against the Intervention, November 17-18-See Page 10 for details in your area.

• nationalaboriginalalliance.org
• www.womenforwik.org