May / June 2001
A Treaty Between Our Nations?
Excerpts from Professor Marcia Langton's inaugural lecture.
At the end of the Twentieth Century, the public culture of Australia remains,
as it has for the previous two centuries, riven by disputes as to the status of
indigenous people in Australian civil society. I argue here that it remains the
case that the Australia polity is devoid of a clear and just status for
indigenous people within its ambit. Further, this continuing dispute is a loose
hanging thread in the web of our civil society.
The modern nation constituted at Federation in 1901 excluded indigenous
people from the State, and such exclusion continued until the 1960s. In the
twentieth century the problem became more acute: Aborigines having been
dispossessed, the new state then excluded them from the status of citizen, and
Aborigines inhabited a political no-man's land for nearly seventy years, from
1901 to 1967. The public debates about the place of Aboriginal people in the
nation have focussed on the problem of how to incorporate Aboriginal people into
the ambit of the nation state by various means: assimilation, integration,
self-management, self-determination, reconciliation, and throughout years, the
call for a treaty could also be heard.
The High Court decision in the Wik case found that native title and pastoral
leases could co-exist, with some qualification, and this finding was the grounds
for amendments to the Native Title Act. In breach of international law on acts
of racism these amendments substantially stripped Aboriginal people of their
customary property rights. It is this sequence of events in the deterioration of
Aboriginal rights that has caused Aboriginal people to consider the legacy of
the frontier in Australia as a continuing and profoundly racist exclusion of
Aboriginal people from the Australian Polity.
In Australia, there has been an almost comprehensive rejection of the idea
that Aboriginal peoples might be self-governing within the limits of Australian
law. The exceptions are minor such as the right to practise narrowly interpreted
"traditions and customs" on Aboriginal land in some demarcated areas,
some limited rights under local governance statutes, and the narrow recognition
of native title under "traditional laws and customs" as pertaining
only to the internal incidents of native title in the Native Title Act of 1994.
The Australian Law Reform Commission recommended a limited means of recognition
by amending some statutes, but the recommendations have largely been ignored. In
a limited way, the judiciary has adopted its advice on the relevance of
customary law in evidence and sentencing.
So, how can it be explained that native title to land that pre-existed
sovereignty and survived it, as the High Court of Australia has explained, has
been recognised, and yet the full body of ancestral indigenous Australian laws
and jurisdiction are deemed by a narrow, historically distorted notion of
sovereignty to be incapable of recognition.
Let me explain what I see as the relevance of treaties to this continuing
dispute in Australian society about indigenous people.
According to the records, the British have used treaties for the settlement
of disputes since the thirteenth century. Elsewhere as well, they have been
common practice between nations and states, either in the form we now know them
at international law or in different forms which stem from past customary law
practices.
There is an abundance of treaties and treaty documents in the records of the
Public Records Office in London covering a period of several centuries. They can
be divided into two distinct types: formal documents (protocols and
ratifications), and administrative papers. Treaties in the Public Record Office
concern matters as diverse as defence, border disputes, trade, marriage,
environmental issues, etc.
Clearly the word "treaty" is a catch-all term for a variety of
types of documents that are agreed between parties for a wide range of purposes.
When the British and other European Imperial powers entered the New World,
treaties and agreements with indigenous peoples ensued.
Following the War of Independence in the United States of America, Chief
Justice Marshall of the US Supreme Court explored the dilemma of the conflicting
rights of settlers and indigenous people and adopted the compromise known as
native title at common law. The Chief Justice reviewed the practice of Europe
which developed after the 1537 Papal Bull, and declared that the "…
rights of the original inhabitants were, in no instance entirely disregarded …
They were admitted to be the rightful occupants of the soil, with legal as well
as just claims to retain possession of it."
We need to understand the extent to which there exists in all parts of the
world now, an awareness that one of the great current problems of world order,
is the plight of what I could call entrapped nations, nations that are entrapped
within the structure and framework of the sovereign state. An enormous juristic
fraud has been perpetrated on modern political consciousness by confusing
national identity with the power political reality of state sovereignty.
Despite the findings at law as to indigenous nations being the "rightful
occupants of the soil", the doctrine of discovery was interpreted as an
exercise of dominion that impaired the status of these indigenous nations.
Nevertheless, such domestic dependent nations continue to exist in North America
within the dominion of the United States of America.
Globally, indigenous peoples have brought to international attention the
monstrous injustice of these self-justifying claims to dominion and developed
various models for the negotiated settlement of rights in their ancestral
property and jurisdiction. Legal scholars have supported their rejection of the
fantastic nature of settler states; claims to legitimacy and the alternative
arrangements developed. In some parts of the world, such arrangements have
removed the cloud on the encapsulating settler states and the titles issued by
their governments.
USA
In North America from the time of first settlement, in the years 1533 to
1789, that is, prior to Independence and the Marshall cases, the administrators
of British colonies treated with Indian nations as equal sovereigns. They were
relationships "between sovereign nations" that "accorded tribes
an equivalent status to that of the colonial governments".
In many cases the British Imperial Government instructed colonial
administrators that land could only be acquired by purchase from the Indians.
This policy was formalised, and applied uniformly to all the North American
colonies in the Royal Proclamation of 1763. The Royal Proclamation prohibited
all private purchases of lands covered by the Proclamation. This gave the Crown
the sole right to purchase Indian lands.
After Independence, from 1789 to 1871, the United States government assumed
the role of the British and Spanish governments and continued the earlier
British policy of treating with the Indians as members of sovereign nations.
In 1871 treaty making with the Indian tribes was discontinued as it was seen
as an impediment to the assimilation of Indians into white society. In that
year, in a rider to the Appropriations Act, congress declared that no more
treaties could be made with the Indian nations. Thereafter,
"agreements" rather than "treaties" were made with Indian
peoples. Between 1911 and the 1970s, Congressional practice was to obtain some
kind of consent from the Indians for any action it was considering which might
affect them. Current practice is to use negotiated settlements as a means of
dealing with complex issues.
Canada
Treaties in Canada proceeded from a different basis from this in the United
States of America. Prior to confederation, almost 40 treaties, the majority
being peace treaties, were negotiated between First Nations and the British
Crown during the period 1693 to 1862. In Canada, however, Indian peoples were
not considered sovereign powers as determined by R v. Bob and White (1954) 50
D.L.R. (2d) 613. "Later treaties tended to follow a pattern of surrender of
lands in return for particular rights, for example continued hunting and fishing
rights, supplies of monetary payments."
Section 35 was inserted into the Constitution Act in 1982 at the time of the
patriation of the Constitution. It stands outside the Canadian Charter of Rights
and Freedoms, and provides that "The existing aboriginal and treaty rights
of the aboriginal peoples of Canada are hereby recognised and affirmed."
Further, at subsection 3, it includes land agreements as "treaty
rights" in order to achieve "greater certainty". In addition,
Section 25 provides that:
"The guarantee in this Charter of certain rights and freedoms shall not
be construed so as to abrogate or derogate from any aboriginal treaty or other
rights or freedoms that pertain to the aboriginal peoples of Canada including:
… any rights or freedoms that have been recognised by the Royal Proclamation
of October 7, 1763; and … any rights or freedoms that now exist by way of
lands claims agreements or may be so acquired."
Section 35 is designed to protect aboriginal rights and treaty rights that
had not been extinguished in 1982 at the time of the insertion of this section
into the Constitution. (p24) Under Sparrow it was held that Section 35 provides
constitutional protection to those aboriginal rights which were extinguished
prior to the coming into force of the Constitution Act, 1982.
New Zealand
The Treaty of Waitangi, signed in 1840, between the Maori and the British
colonial government, is recognised as the founding document of New Zealand and
"resides in the constitutional field" of its system of government. The
treaty is in two versions, English and Maori. Because they vary in meaning quite
substantially, there were problems of interpretation such that the English
version had been privileged over the Maori. Only recently, legislation has been
enacted providing that the Maori version is to be used when dealing with
interpretation. The authors explain that, "… according to the English
text version, sovereignty passed to the British Crown and then subsequently to
the New Zealand government. However the Maori text speaks of granting a right of
governance rather than sovereignty. Under the principles of international law
operative at the time, the British Crown acquired sovereignty over New Zealand
by way of cession."
Australia
Throughout Australian history, entrepreneurial, evangelical, and other
humanitarian figures in our history have attempted by various means, including
attempts at treaties, to resolve the hostile relationship between the indigenous
and settler Australians. No treaty documents or treaty proposals were officially
recognised and judicial decisions declare Australia uninhabited wasteland.
Consequently, the large body of law centred upon these treaties and their
interpretation, which has developed in the USA and Canada, has not developed in
Australia.
Henry Reynolds examines the evidence of treaty-making in Tasmania in his
boom, Fate of a Free People: in the early years of the first colonial settlement
in Tasmania a Treaty with the "Chiefs" of the Aboriginal
"tribes" had often been discussed and considered. It was suggested
that a treaty should have been entered into in order to restrain and prevent the
extermination of the Aborigines by settlers. In Governor Arthur's
correspondence, Reynolds finds explicit discussion of the need for treaties:
while reflecting on what had gone wrong in Tasmania, Arthur urged the Colonial
Office's officials to negotiate treaties and arrange for the purchase of
indigenous lands in all future colonizing ventures. He pushed this policy in
letters written in 1832, 1835 and 1837. "On first occupation of
Tasmania", he observed in 1835, it was "a great oversight that a
treaty was not, at the time, made with the natives and such compensation given
the chiefs as they would have deemed a fair equivalent for what they
surrendered." Arthur believed they would have been satisfied with "a
mere trifle". But even a trifle would have amounted to a clear
acknowledgement of prior ownership.
From an international perspective, Arthur's interest in treaties was not
surprising, particularly as he had spent eight years in the Americas. Treaties
had been negotiated with American Indigenous since the seventeenth century and
continued to be the normal way of arranging the relations between settlers and
indigenous people until the 1870s.
Arthur, as Reynolds argues, was concerned enough to communicate his desire
that the Colonial office deal with negotiating a treaty of some kind with the
Aborigines. The proposal to allow Aborigines to remain on their land was
prompted by Chief Justice John Pedder in the Executive Council meeting of
February 1831. He wondered whether some treaty could not be made with these
people, by which their chiefs should engage for the tribes not to pass certain
lines of demarcation which might be agreed upon, and that it should be proposed
to them to allow an European agent to reside with or accompany each tribe.
Governor Arthur concluded from his Tasmanian experience that there was a need
for treaties when dealing with indigenous peoples. When writing to the Colonial
Office 1837, he explained that the idea had been much on his mind while he was
still on the island and that he discussed the idea "at great length with Mr
Robinson". Both Arthur and Pedder formally raised the question of treaty at
meetings of the Executive Council. Arthur's problem was not whether a treaty was
appropriate, but whether either side would conform to it. The respectable
settlers might be depended on, but not the riff-raff. The chiefs might be
negotiated with, but they lacked influence and little dependence could be placed
on "the observance of any treaty" by the Aboriginal population as a
whole.
Proposal
A proposal for a treaty was raised by the late Kevin Gilbert in
correspondence with Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser in 1979, at which time Gilbert
had established a second Aboriginal Tent Embassy in an encampment at the site of
present Parliament House. Gilbert's impassioned arguments, published in several
editions from 1987, set out his ideas on an Aboriginal Sovereign Position and
were accompanied y a various versions of a Draft Treaty. His approach had little
effect on the formulations of the problem as it was perceived by the Aboriginal
Treaty Committee and The Makarrata proposal by the National Aboriginal
Conference.
In April 1979, the Aboriginal Treaty Committee held its first meeting. Its
inaugural members were Dr Coombs, the first chairman, Dr Judith Wright-McKinney,
Stewart Harris, Professor Charles Rowley and Professor W E H Stanner. There was
agreement to the content of the Committee's first document sent out in November
1978, which canvassed issues such as a treaty as providing a kind of
constitutional basis for the relationship of Aboriginal Australians to the
Commonwealth and Australian society generally. Wright's account noted that the
difficulty for the Committee lay, not in convincing Aborigines of the worth of
these proposals -- Aborigines had been demanding the same for some forty years
at that stage -- but, in Wright's own words, "with the attitudes and
prejudices -- and apathy -- of the dominant Australian community."
For five years this Committee tried to educate and persuade non-Aboriginal
Australians to the idea of a national treaty to be negotiated between Aborigines
and governments with the objective of settling wide-ranging historical,
political, economic, social and "land-rights" grievances, while
charting a new course for the future. Judith Wright sets out her belief in a
treaty between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians in the introduction to
We Call for A Treaty, the publication that formed a report to the public on the
work of the Committee: "Ultimately, therefore, there must be some
instrument such as a treaty which will confirm for all time equal and just
treatment for Aboriginal Australians wherever they live, putting their land and
their rights beyond the reach of sovereign parliaments. There is no security for
Aboriginal people in Acts of parliament, which can be repealed or amended."
The Committee used many advocacy tactics: advertisements, the publication of
a book "It's Coming Yet" by Stewart Harris, radio speeches, the
formation of local Aboriginal Treaty Committees and seminars and the treaty
proposal won support from many Australians, including people regarded as
"prominent".
Patrick Dodson introduced the idea of a "framework agreement" in
his Vincent Lingiari Memorial Lecture at the Northern Territory University in
1999, some months after the passage through the federal Parliament of the Native
Title Amendment Bill. The frustration and anger of many Aboriginal people at the
relentless efforts of governments to dispossess Aboriginal people were heard
clearly in Dodson's summary of the outcome of the recognition of common law
native title. Native title is fragile and largely theoretical because of its
vulnerability to statutory extinguishment as was so comprehensively achieved in
Howard's 10 Point Plan expressed in hundreds of pages in these amendments to the
Native Title Act.
In his lecture, Patrick Dodson set out the idea of a Framework Agreement as a
process for the settlement of the outstanding inequalities in the relationship
between the first peoples and the settler state. This proposal was communicated
by a delegation of Aboriginal leaders, including Dodson, to Prime Minister John
Howard following his rejection of the Draft Document of Reconciliation at
Corroboree 2000. The Prime Minister likewise rejected the idea of the Framework
Agreement.
His rejection of yet another offer from Aboriginal people for resolution of
our outstanding grievances is only of minor historical importance, however.
History will record and future generations will know that Aboriginal people have
continued to assert the right to negotiate just terms and conditions of the
seizure of their territories and resources and the proscription of customary
laws, governance and ancestral jurisdiction.
Agreement-making and the potential for the settlement of disputes between
indigenous and other Australians
Despite the formal rejection of a document of reconciliation by the Prime
Minister, the outcome of the reconciliation process pursued in the last ten
years necessitates an audit of agreement making with Aboriginal people in recent
times. Since the first agreements signed under the provisions of the Aboriginal
Land Rights Act in the Northern Territory more than twenty years ago, there has
been an astonishing proliferation of agreements between Australian indigenous
people and resource extraction companies, railway, pipeline and other major
infrastructure project proponents, local governments, state governments, farming
and grazing representative bodies, universities, and many other institutions and
agencies. Some are registered under the terms of the Native Title Act. Others
are simple contractual agreements that set out the framework for future
developments, such as the Cape York Heads of Agreement between the Cape York
Land Council, the Australian Conservation Foundation and the Cape York Graziers'
Association.
Historically, settler Australians have grappled with the problem of what to
do about the Aborigines. There is a persistent unwillingness to acknowledge
that, in Australia, the rights of indigenous people are inferior to those in the
United States, Canada and New Zealand.
In particular, the impression one gains from reading some of the
contributions to 1988 Institute of Public Affairs publication on the Aboriginal
Treaty is that Australian dealings with Aboriginal people should be quarantined
from world history. It is as if none of the treaty making and similar
arrangements in the comparable settler states occurred, and if it did, no
relevance could be drawn for Australian circumstances. John Howard wrote in that
collection, "I regard a treaty as a recipe for separatism". He
announced his suspicion that the treaty demands of Aborigines were nothing more
than disguised attempts to obtain "massive compensation". Such widely
held views, especially among committed monarchists, also fail the test of
historical accuracy in ignoring the 1769 Instructions of King George III to
Captain Cook and others under his command to: "… with the consent of the
Natives to take possession, in the name of the King of Great Britain, of
convenient situation in such countries as you may discover, that have not
already been discovered or visited by any other European Power …. But if you
find the countries so discovered are uninhabited you are to take possession of
them for His Majesty." This failure to obtain consent in a range of matters
throughout Australian history is referred to by Aboriginal leaders as the
"unfinished business" in their relations with the state.
With Consent
Historian Henry Reynolds has brought a clarity of understanding to the issue
of sovereignty in Australia. He observes: "What has been conspicuously
lacking in the assessment of Aboriginal history is an appreciation that the
Aboriginal tribes were, in effect, small nations which had long traditions of
complex "international" relations. They made war and peace, negotiated
treaties, settled conflicts, arranged marriages and organized access to
resources and right of way across territories."
In his study of Aboriginal Sovereignty, he clarifies the confusion in the
conflation of two separate notions; nation and state. He both distinguishes
between them and examines the evidence for a conceptualisation of aboriginal
sovereignty. His conclusion is that sovereignty in Australia can be understood
as residing within the distinct indigenous and settler nations, and as such
compatible within the framework of the sovereign state. Such an arrangement need
not be regarded as threatening the dismemberment of the existing state, or as
separatism. As arrangements elsewhere in the world demonstrate, there is
compatibility between a nation's sovereignty and a state's sovereignty.
Therefore, when we examine the objections to the idea of a treaty with
Aboriginal people, none of the grounds for refusal remain persuasive.
The current treaty processes in Canada and the Canadian constitutional
entrenchment of treaties and agreements provide a model favoured by many
Aboriginal people in these circumstances. There is no evidence that there has
been any detriment caused either to Canadian sovereignty nor to the polity by
these arrangements.
Adopting such as process would open up the possibility for alternative
arrangements in a post frontier Australia that would accord a status of full
equality to the traditional laws of indigenous peoples by mutual agreement. Such
a polity would thereby include indigenous people within the civitas on a
voluntary basis, rather than by coercion as a result of historical events. In
any case, it is clear that the anomaly of Aboriginal status remains one that
confounds agreement making, and contributes to the insecurity felt among parties
to such as agreements while governments refuse to acknowledge or affirm many of
the agreements that have been negotiated in the last two decades.
Future governments may consider the possibilities for legislation supported
by Constitutional entrenchment to overcome the monstrous injustice involved in
the seizure and dominion of Aboriginal territory. The lack of consent and
absence of agreements or treaties, remains a stain on Australian history and the
chief obstacle to constructing an honourable pace for indigenous Australians in
the modern state.
(Professor Marcia Langton is the Inaugural Chair of Australian Indigenous
Studies, University of Melbourne.)
Author and activist Sam Day, the coordinator of the US Campaign to Free
Mordechai Vanunu died on 26th January 2001 after suffering a massive stroke at
his Madison home. His sudden death came while he was hard at work, advocating
for nuclear disarmament and freedom for the imprisoned Israeli nuclear
whistle-blower Mordechai Vanunu.
Vanunu was the Israeli technician who told the world about Israel's nuclear
weapons program. He also revealed that the shoe factory at Dimona in Israel was
in fact, Israel's nuclear weapons plant.
Sam's long involvement in his causes for peace and justice, as well as his
great optimism, and public speaking skills had a profound impact on people
around the world.
It was on a peace walk through Israel and the occupied West Bank in 1992 that
Sam met members of the Israeli Committee for Mordechai Vanunu. The next day, Sam
was out with the others in front of Ashkelon Prison taking part in a vigil for
the freedom of the man he saw as a kindred opponent of nuclear secrecy. Since
that time, Sam, who had himself been imprisoned for many anti-nuclear protests,
has worked tirelessly on Vanunu's behalf. As coordinator of the US campaign to
Free Mordechai Vanunu, he recognised the importance of including freedom for
Vanunu the individual in the grander global discussions of human rights, peace
and nuclear disarmament. Sam took care of the day-to-day campaign work. He was
also responsible for organising many efforts to pursue the campaign's goals of
freedom for Vanunu and the abolition of nuclear weapons.
He spear-headed lobbying efforts in Washington, DC, sometimes spending months
at a time in the nation's capital and taking part in a series of civil
disobedience actions held over the years at the Israeli Embassy. His last civil
disobedience action was at the Israeli Embassy in Washington on September 28,
2000 marking the 14th anniversary of Vanunu's kidnapping and imprisonment.
He often travelled throughout the US to speak publicly about Vanunu. He also
travelled to Great Britain, Canada, Sydney, Australia, and New Zealand (in
1997), while also encouraging allied campaigners in Europe, Asia and Africa.
Working with international campaigns to free Vanunu, Sam helped to organise
the Democracy, Human Rights and Mordechai Vanunu conference, held in Tel Aviv on
October 1996. The ground-breaking conference, chaired by the then Nobel Peace
Prize recipient Joseph Rotblat and featuring an impressive international list of
whistleblowers and nuclear experts, was to wedge open a wider and more
sympathetic discussion of Vanunu's act that continues to this day in Israel.
Sam's education and experience as a journalist, combined with his passion for
free speech, made him a formidable foe of nuclear secrecy long before Vanunu's
imprisonment became a major focus of his activism. His 1991 autobiography,
"Crossing the line: from editor to activist to inmate - a writer's
journey", tells the story of becoming a prisoner for peace.
Sam worked as editor of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists in the
mid-1970s, and later fought the US government over censorship of the H-bomb
story as managing editor of the Progressive. As founder and director of
Nukewatch, in the 1980s, he worked to make US nuclear weapons more visible by
initiating campaigns tracking H-bomb truck shipments across the country, and
publishing maps of all the 1,000 land based nuclear missile silos in the
Midwest.
His passing is a tremendous loss for the world-wide efforts to free Vanunu
and rid the world of nuclear weapons. He will be greatly missed.
Update on the proposed reactor at Lucas Heights
(back to top)
The Civil Aviation Safety Agency, CASA, has been in the news lately finally
baring its teeth, for whatever reason and showing that it is a tough regulator.
Ansett has had to spring to attention and do as it is told so as to maintain the
Australian airways as the safest in the world. So how is our fledgling nuclear
regulator performing?
Set up in February 1999 as the Australia Radiation Protection and Nuclear
Safety Agency, ARPANSA, it was expected first to set out its regulations, then
receive licence applications from all those nuclear facilities around Australia
that had operated without proper regulation and finally deal with the matter of
the proposed new reactor. Not so! In mid 1999 it first received and subsequently
approved the Lucas Heights site as being suitable for a new reactor.
A year later it accepted license applications from ANSTO for all the nuclear
plant at Lucas Heights that had operated for up to 42 years under
self-regulation, including the HIFAR reactor. Following community complaints as
to the excessive complexity of the process, ARPANSA asked ANSTO to split up the
applications into several parts. Public submissions were called for and nothing
more has been hear on the matter.
In January 2001 ARPANSA circulated its Draft Assessment Principles for public
comment. The first and most obvious comment was that the first step of any
regulator is to get its principles in place and then start licensing. It is
unlikely that any notice will be taken of the public comments and genuine
suggestions of improvement but we await the outcome with great interest.
Whilst these important matters are bubbling away behind closed doors, the
first sighting of the specification of the Argentinean reactor is expected to
arrive this month. ARPANSA estimates that it will take nine months to examine it
in detail and then allow ANSTO to apply for a construction licence. ARPANSA has
already said that it is short of the experienced staff to carry out its onerous
task and that it may have to take on extra contractors.
When the specification arrives one must wonder whether the licensing
applications for the existing ANSTO plant will be put aside for yet another
period of time. After all what difference will another year or so of self
regulation of obsolete nuclear plant make?
Reply on CTBT on behalf of Minister for Foreign Affairs
(back to top)
Thank you for your letter dated 28 February 2001 concerning missile defence.
I have been asked to reply on behalf of the Minister for Foreign Affairs, the
Hon Alexander Downer MP.
During the United Nations General Assembly last year, the Government was
pleased to be able to support a number of key nuclear disarmament resolutions.
We were also pleased with the overwhelming support received by the Australia-led
resolution in support of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). The
Government consistently has supported practical and realistic steps that can
lead to nuclear disarmament, including at the United Nations. As in the past, we
will continue to be very active in encouraging key countries in particular to
narrow their differences and to reach the understandings and accommodations
necessary to keep the process moving.
As you note, the Bush Administration in the United States supports the
development of a missile defence (MD) system. However, the specific policies of
the Bush Administration on MD are not expected to be clear for some time. Any
decision on the development and deployment of MD will be influenced by
political, budgetary and technological factors, as well as the outcome of a
strategic policy review. Subject to the outcome of this review, the Bush
Administration has foreshadowed significant unilateral cuts in its nuclear
arsenal. The Administration has undertaken to consult extensively with allies
and other key countries including China and Russia on its plans as they unfold.
In fact in February 2001, the United States and Russia agreed to regular
expert-level dialogue on strategic issues, including missile defence. Russia has
itself proposed a missile defence system for Europe.
Like the United States and most of the international community, the
Government is concerned about the potentially destabilising effects of
proliferation of ballistic weapons capable of delivering weapons of mass
destruction over long distances. Therefore the Government understands United
States interest in developing MD to defend against potential missile threats.
Strategic circumstances have changed significantly since the end of the Cold
War. The Government does not believe that the establishment of an MD system
would undermine global strategic security. The threat to security arises
principally from the transfer of missile and associated technology, not from
those who would seek to defend themselves against the potential consequences of
such activity. MD is a defensive system and holds the prospect of enhancing
deterrence, not eroding it.
Australia's long-standing alliance with the United States is crucial to
maintaining Australia's security and also contributes to regional and global
stability. Our ballistic early warning partnership, supported by successive
Australia Governments for over 30 years, is an important feature of the
alliance. The Relay Ground Station (RGS) at Pine Gap relays data from early
warning satellites to the United States for processing and dissemination. The
Government intends this early warning partnership to continue whether or not the
United States deploys a missile defence system. Certainly the Government cannot
conceive of a situation where Australia would not agree to the joint facilities
being used to warn the United States of a missile attack against it.
by Tun Than
Myanmar, formerly Burma, has a population of 45 million people. Officially it
consists of 135 indigenous races. After three Anglo-Burmese wars, Burma lost its
King and its sovereignty on 1-1-1886. First Burma sought help from Japan to
repel the British, then again joined hands with the British to ward off the
Japanese. This was the Burmese way. It regained independence in 1946. The
country was the pearl of Asia. it was the biggest exporter of rice in Asia.
Students from abroad came to attend the University in Burma. The airport was
known to be the best in Southeast Asia at that time. Those were the good old
days that will never return. The country was abounding with consumer goods. The
Burmese currency Kyat was welcome everywhere. The citizens could travel freely
abroad, paying homage to the emerald Buddha in Siam (Thailand), or the holy
sites in Nepal, India or Ceylon (Sri Lanka). The democratically elected
Governments ruled the country for just over a decade only, when a military coup
in 1962 changed everything.
With the "Burmese way to Socialism" as its ideology, the
"Socialist Republic of the Union of Burma" started its own isolation.
The traditionally rich people became poor in just a few days because of
"nationalization" of the economy. The poor became penniless. But as
usual the black market thrived. Burma is a unique country, where the government
devalued its currency twice. No one believed the Government anymore. Hard hit
were the countrymen. All the rank and file from the Ministers to the clerks
cheated by inflating the Gross National Production just to save their skin.
Mismanagement was everywhere. Commodity prices sky-rocketed. Rice, the staple
food, was scarce. There was a general dissatisfaction amongst the people. The
Military Intelligence did its best to suppress and persecute but the craving for
Democracy was so intense that nothing seemed to be able to stop it. Then on
8-8-1988, the so-called "four eights", an uprising toppled the ruling
military junta which had clung on to power for 26 years. The whole country was
united but surprisingly enough most of the military was loyal to the socialist
government.
The military suppressed the demonstrations. There were shootings everywhere.
Thousands were shot or just disappeared. There were eyewitnesses all over the
country but no one dared to say openly for fear of the ubiquitous intelligence
service. Most of those people who either gave orders or who carried out such
orders are the ruling class now. After so much bloodshed there seemed to be
anarchy. Some people were beheaded after being branded as spies for the
government. There were lootings. Groups of people roamed the streets with knives
and sticks. Taking this chance the military took over the power again for the
sake of "law and order restoration" with the name of SLORC, the State
Law and Order Restoration Council. The SLORC was tough. It ruled with martial
law. But unrest in the people remained. Aung San Suu Kyi emerged as the leader
for democracy. The SLORC had to promise to hold fair elections and that the army
would go back to the barracks after the elections. In 1990 the generals
absolutely believed that the government backed National Unity Party would win.
To their surprise the National League for Democracy, led by Aung San Suu Kyi won
by a landslide. The international community hailed the elections as fair and
congratulated the elected leaders.
There was a twist in military politics. Senior General Saw Maung, who
promised to return to the barracks, was ousted on health reasons and his deputy
took over, denying anything about the promise. The new SLORC said that it would
hand over the power only after a new constitution has been written. A decade is
over now, but the constitution is far from complete. No other country in the
world has ever done this. Even when it is complete, they will delay the handing
over of power in one way or the other. The leaders of NLD are under house
arrest. Some of the elected MPs have already passed away. Most withdrew from the
Party and MPs "voluntarily" did so (the government declared). The
remaining MPs were often invited (detained) as guests in military guesthouses
whenever there was going to be a party meeting. UK Foreign Secretary Robin Cook
said the Burmese treatment of Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize winner was a scandal.
Former US Secretary of State Madeline Albright expressed outrage. "I am
appalled at the action of the Burmese regime in denying Aung San Suu Kyi the
freedom to travel within her own country. Her works give voice to the
long-suffering people of Burma whose hopes for a democratic society have been
crushed by an oppressive regime. Her voice will not be silenced." SLORC has
now been changed to SPDC, the State and Peace and Development Council.
There is no country in the world where Universities and Institutions of
Higher Education are closed indefinitely for fear of students uprising against
the government. There are now many generations of young people who have been
denied their rightful inheritance to an education and a career. Even more
shameless were the generals. It is a centuries-old tradition in Burma that one
always ask for the permission from the original donors, or if they had passed
away, from the remaining relatives to renovate the pagodas or temples. Then the
name of the first donor is put in front to honour him or her. Only then the last
person put his or her name. Now, you can go to the Shwedagon Pagoda and you will
see the original names scratched out and only the names of the generals and
their cronies, who are now the new class of filthy rich contractors boldly
displayed. But the names of the original builders and donors were sadly no more
to be seen. It deeply hurt their relatives and descendants.
One general turned out to be brave enough to speak the truth, though
cautiously. Brig. Gen. Zaw Tun, deputy Minister for National Planning, pointed
out that the way Myanmar is calculating the GDP growth rate is wrong. He said
that the investment policy is not investor friendly, and there are still many
red tapes in the Free Market Economy. He said that there are three kinds of
currency exchange rate, and the most important point is that the country has no
back up gold or other reserve, but just printing its own currency as much as it
needs, which causes very high inflation. He frankly said that the Military
Division Commanders, whose positions are higher than the ministers hierarchy,
were given the task of collecting DP data from their respective command areas.
Without having any knowledge of economics, they submitted a detailed list of
even the small shop taxes. They thought that they would get promotion. The
Commander who had submitted the least amount of GDP rang him the day after the
discussion that the GDP has astonishingly increased five-fold during the last
few days. This general was dismissed and put under house arrest ever since.
Everyone respected him for his sincerity.
The urge for a change is growing even stronger. The whispering campaign is
there. The situation is like a keg of gunpowder, ready to be ignited, and
everyone knows that if it happens this time it will be worse than in 1988,
predicted by both sides. As one expert in ASEAN puts it, "nothing less than
a revolution can change the situation".
As a condition to be a member of ASEAN, the SLORC promised the return of the
power as soon as possible. But the love for power is more than the power of love
for the country. Universities are closed indefinitely, only opening for a month
and then closed again, and this goes on. Contracts are made with foreign
investors, but almost every new minister never honours the contracts made by his
predecessor. Foreign Minister U Ohn Gyaw was sacked just like Gen Saw Maung. Now
the leaders of ASEAN are demanding for the promised change.
But take a look at the past. In 1967 when there was a shortage of rice and
the unrest of the people grew, the anti-Chinese riots were not just an accident.
In 1970s when there was a dissent for the then military government, the riots,
which started because of the difficulty to buy football tickets, were also not a
coincidence. There are many tricks and tactics already planned by the military.
Knowing the military government and its plots, one can expect something to
happen countrywide just to distract the public's attention away from the
Democracy movement. But how, and when and where?
Eurofighter cost likely to spiral
(back to top)
By Macer Hall
Britain's contribution to Eurofighter, the controversial attack aircraft
being built for the RAF, could rise substantially above the planned 15.9 billion
following a new plan to turn it into a "Eurobomber".
A report is being prepared for the four nations -- Britain, Germany, Italy
and Spain, -- backing the US$ 32 billions project that will propose switching
the aircraft from an air-to-air combat role to attacking ground targets. It
follows criticism of the air campaign against Yugoslavia last year. The report
has been prepared by Eurofighter's development team, which says that the
multi-role aircraft can be cheaply and easily transformed.
Critics, however, claim the move will add to the spiralling costs of a
project dogged by problems for 20 years. The aircraft is not due to be fully
operational with the RAF until 2005. Among the proposals is fitting laser
designators for precision bombing on to underwing pods.
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