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Brisbane, Australia - A major victory has been won by the Indigenous movement in Australia. The Queensland Attorney General’s Department has decided that Senior Sergeant Chris Hurley will be charged with manslaughter over the death of Mulrunji Doomadgee. Mulrunji, an aboriginal man, died in police custody on Palm Island, an aboriginal community, in 2004.

The announcement was greeted with a massive outbreak of cheers, applause and the cry of “justice!” when it was made by Andrew Boe, the legal advisor to the Palm Island council to the seven hundred gathered at the annual Invasion Day rally here.

“I think it is important …

Here are two separate stories, which I received at the same time, in my email. Both of these, I feel, exemplify how small and petty various governments and so-called authorities with special-interests are — that they would arrest and seek to punish Grandmothers - Grandmothers! who did nothing but work for their People, and to protect the land. How big and strong this must make them feel.

From Rita, friends of grassy narrows mailing list

Please support the immediate release of this elder/grandmother activist and clan mother of the Squamish Nation.

Support the immediate release of Harriet Nahanee.

This is truly disgusting and …

An interview with Antonio Caba, a Maya activist working to hold ex-dictators accountable for one of the western hemisphere’s most violent civil conflicts in the modern era.

Written by Elias Lawless, upsidedownworld.org

WireTap Editor’s Note: Over the following months, WireTap magazine will publish interviews with Guatemalan Maya activists from the Association for Justice and Reconciliation looking to hold ex-dictators and military heads responsible for one of the hemisphere’s bloodiest civil conflicts in the modern era.

Last month marked the ten-year anniversary of the signing of the Peace Accords in Guatemala — an agreement that ended …

FIFTEEN years after the royal commission, the appalling handling of the death in custody of Mulrunji Doomadgee has reignited controversy over policing in indigenous communities. The Palm Island police station was destroyed in the riots following his death in 2004.
In the past week there has been rioting against police in two other remote indigenous communities. In Aurukun on Queensland’s Cape York, up to 300 people are reported to have attacked the police station and patrol cars after an Aboriginal man claimed he was assaulted in police custody.

In Maningrida in Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory, more than 100 people reportedly …

By Saswat Pattanayak
Radical Notes

One year ago, on January 2, 2006, I was in Orissa covering the most barbaric and shameful epoch in the aftermath of Kalinga Nagar incidents. 12 tribals were murdered by the Orissa state police, because they were protesting against the illegal, and inhuman encroachment of their sweet little homes by a profit-mongering private industry giant. As many as 13 industrial plants had been declared to be set up in Kalinga Nagar itself, resulting in evacuation of thousands of indigenous people from their own lands, sans adequate compensations, relocation benefits, education or healthcare assurances, let alone …

WASHINGTON - Plaintiffs in the long-running lawsuit over the Individual Indian Money trust have rejected proposals from the presidential administration to consolidate the fractionated IIM lands, turn management functions and land title over to individuals and tribes while curtailing federal liabilities, and settle outstanding claims in return for monetary payments.

”We are back at square one,” contends Elouise Cobell, of the case that bears her name, adding that the administration’s proposals, coming late in the legislative session, have made a hash of settlement efforts by the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs. ”We have said from the beginning that we want …

Opposition to a controversial Bush administration proposal that would dramatically alter the federal trust relationship is mounting.

The Senate Indian Affairs Committee has been holding meetings across the country to solicit input on a bill that would settle the Cobell trust fund lawsuit. Most tribes support that goal but they are criticizing a sweeping set of changes, unveiled just last week, that would go much further.

With time running out to pass the bill, tribal leaders said they were broadsided by the proposal. “Where is the dialogue? Where is the respect to Indian Country?” asked Ernie Stensgar, the president of …