John van Weenen

Land Grab Of Epic Proportions John van Weenen

Australia's Shame

In 1788, Britain claimed Australia for the crown under the fiction of 'Terra Nullius'. Land deemed to be unoccupied or uninhabited - nobody's land. An estimated 750,000 Aboriginal People lived there, and had done so for 65,000 years. It was a 'Land Grab' of monumental proportions. Following the British Invasion, the Indigenous population was reduced by 90% through the spread of European diseases and constant attacks by colonists, ending in violent massacres.

Britain's Shame

2,000 British Citizens in the 1960s were forcibly deported from their homes on Diego. Garcia, in the Indian Ocean, where there families had loved since the 18th Century. For 55 years now, their considerable efforts to be allowed to 'go home' have been thwarted by successive British and American Governments. The older generation just want to die, where they were born, and be buried next to their parents and grandparents. They just want a 'right to return' - nothing more.

America's Shame

Dr Maria Yellow Horse Braveheart is a Professor at the University of New Mexico. She recently wrote a paper which summed up the situation: "The indigenous people of this continent have faced 500 years of genocide, dislocation, and variations of physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual violence. From biological warfare through the introduction of Western diseases, to the dislocation and violence of European expansion across their continent. The cruel effect on Native life in forcibly removing children from their tribal homes, and sending them away to faraway boarding schools was unforgivable. Sadly, discrimination and ignorance persists to this day."