Chad: A Year On, Victims Await Justice, Says HRW

 October 22, 2023 

By Eurasia Review

Chadian authorities have failed to carry out prompt, effective, and independent criminal investigations into serious human rights violations linked to massive protests across the country on October 20, 2022, and to hold those found responsible to account, Human Rights Watch said.

Security forces fired live ammunition at protesters, killed and injured scores, and beat and chased people into their homes. Hundreds of men and boys were arrested, and many were taken to Koro Toro, a high security prison 600 kilometers away from N’Djamena, the country’s capital. Several detainees died en route, some due to lack of water. At Koro Toro, protesters suffered further abuse, including torture and ill-treatment by other detainees. The detainees were held for months and eventually released or pardoned.

“The violence against protesters a year ago was disproportionate and unjustified, leaving scores dead and wounded, and hundreds detained in inhuman conditions at Koro Toro prison without access to lawyers or family,” said Carine Kaneza Nantulya, deputy Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “The failure of the authorities to carry out independent investigations leaves many to question whether anyone will ever be held accountable for the lives lost and the abuse and harm the protesters suffered.”

After the death of President Idriss Déby Itno on April 20, 2021, a transitional military council (Conseil militaire de transition, CMT) headed by his son, Mahamat Idriss Déby, took power in Chad and, after months of protests, promised to restore civilian rule by October 20, 2022.

In a report released in February 2023, the National Human Rights Commission (Commission nationale des droits de l’homme, CNDH) said that 128 people were killed and 518 injured on October 20, 2022, a date many people call “black Thursday” or “jeudi noir” in French. The commission found that security forces “systematically violated several fundamental human rights … [using] disproportionated means” to quell the protests. The commission asked several questions to the government, including why no judicial investigations had been opened into human rights violations and made recommendations to the transitional military authorities, including prosecuting those responsible for serious abuse.

In the days following the violence, the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS), one of eight African Union regional economic communities, announced an investigation. Members of the investigation commission have interviewed some family members of victims and some detainees from Koro Toro. However, the commission has not reported its findings, and it is unclear whether its report will highlight the disproportionate use of force, the need for an investigation, and the government’s obligation to ensure accountability.

Before the 2022 mass mobilization, the transitional government had, on several occasions, violently suppressed protests demanding civilian democratic rule. The security forces used disproportionate force against opponents, killing some protesters, wounding dozens, and arresting more than 700 people, most of whom were eventually released.

In late 2022, the transitional government announced a proposed new constitution. After a June 2023 vote, a constitution project was adopted by 96 percent of the members of the National Transitional Council, which replaced the National Assembly when it was dissolved after Idriss Déby Itno’s death. A referendum on the constitution is scheduled for December of this year, and presidential elections for 2024.

Meanwhile, the military authorities continue to close political space. At least 72 members and supporters of Chad’s main opposition party, Les Transformateurs (the Transformers), have been detained since October 8, 2023. These arrests seem to be an attempt to limit political dissent ahead of the December constitutional referendum, Human Rights Watch said.

After the October 2022 protests, Chadian military authorities suspended Les Transformateurs, other political parties, and civil society organizations united under a coalition known as Wakit Tama (“the time has come”, in Chadian Arabic). These suspensions were lifted after three months.

Succès Masra, the president of Les Transformateurs, left the country after the protests and planned to return on October 18, 2023. He delayed his arrival after an arrest warrant charging him with a variety of crimes, including “attempted attack on constitutional order, incitement to hatred and an insurrectional uprising,” was made public.

“As the referendum approaches, Chad should choose the path of respect for fundamental rights, ensure that opposition party members and protesters can speak out, and that Chadians are able and allowed to hear them,” Kaneza Nantulya said. “The Chadian authorities should also ensure that those found most responsible for disproportionate use of force, as well as for other serious abuses committed on ‘jeudi noir’ are held to account in fair and effective trials.”

 

Why Indonesia can’t stop crocodile attacks

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IMAGE SOURCE,BBC / ANINDITA PRADANA

Image caption,

There were about 1,000 crocodile attacks in Indonesia for the past decade

By Raja Lumbanrau and Astudestra Ajengrastri

BBC World Service

When Sariah went to fetch water in a pit near her home in Bangka Island, Indonesia, last September, she was unaware that a 3m-long saltwater crocodile had been resting in the crater, watching as she filled one of her buckets.

"The water was calm and there was no sign of a crocodile, so I decided to take a bath. Suddenly, it appeared out of nowhere and bit me, dragging me by my left arm into the water," the 54-year-old says.

Indonesia sees the most saltwater crocodile attacks in the world. In the past decade, there have been about 1,000 attacks, killing more than 450 people. Nearly 90 of these attacks took place in Bangka and its neighbouring Belitung island, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

Bangka island is one of the richest tin-mining regions in the world.

The island - almost the size of Hawaii - has a population of one million, and about 80% of them are miners. More than 60% of the island's land has already been converted into tin mines, says wildlife conservation group Walhi. Many of these mines are illegal.

Decades of tin exploitation have stripped the island of its forest, leaving behind thousands of vast craters and pits that resemble a lunar landscape. And as land deposits diminish, miners are turning to the sea.

That means saltwater crocodiles, which can also live in freshwater, are squeezed out of their natural habitats. Now they are living in abandoned and active mining pits close to people's homes, contributing to the rise in attacks.

IMAGE SOURCE,BBC / ANINDITA PRADANA

Image caption,

Abandoned mining pits are an important water source for residents of Bangka Island

Last year's prolonged dry season, driven by climate change, dried up the well in front of Sariah's house. Her water supply was cut after she fell behind on payments for three months. So, the abandoned pits were the only source of water for her family and many others.

Five days after the attack on Sariah, a miner in the island was almost killed by a crocodile when he was washing tin ore in another pit. He suffered injuries in his head, shoulder and an arm.

Ritual killings

The saltwater crocodile is the largest living reptile, and adult males can reach lengths of more than 7m (23ft). There are about 20,000 to 30,000 saltwater crocodiles worldwide, with Indonesia being one of the most important habitats. However, there are no official estimates of the number in Indonesia.

Crocodiles are a protected species in Indonesia, but in Bangka Island, they are usually killed after an attack - rather than being handed over to a local conservation agency.

Many locals believe that allowing the rescue of a crocodile to another location is a bad omen for the village, choosing instead to kill the animals and bury them in a ritual.

Endi Riadi, who runs Alobi, the only wildlife rescue and conservation centre in the island, says his team often argues with locals to try to save the crocodiles.

Founded in 2014, Alobi houses a variety of wildlife, including pangolins and crocodiles. These animals were either confiscated by officials in smuggling cases or captured after conflicts with humans.

There are 34 rescued crocodiles in Alobi, crammed in a pond half the size of a tennis court. An iron fence has been built to prevent them from wandering and attacking other animals.

Throughout most of the day, the water appears calm with several of the crocodiles seen floating like giant rocks. But during feeding time, they would race toward the edge, fighting for the chunks of beef thrown by the staff.

It is costly to keep all the crocodiles in the rescue centre, Mr Riadi says. Alobi doesn't receive direct government funding, and relies on donations. The sanctuary works together with cattle farmers in the area for more cost-effective meals to feed the toothy animals.

"Once a month we can get one whole cow to feed them. If the farmers have dead cattle, we feed it to them too," Mr Riadi says.

But he says it may not be possible for them to keep taking crocodiles back to the centre, which is already overcrowded. Letting them back out into the wild is also not an option.

IMAGE SOURCE,BBC / ANINDITA PRADANA

Image caption,

Alobi is running out of space to keep the rescued crocodiles

But the attacks on humans will not stop unless the crocodiles' habitats are protected, and experts say illegal mining is the root of the problem. As people begin moving further out to sea in search of tin, more and more crocodiles will be forced out of their natural habitats.

The Indonesian government has taken an unusual approach to tackling illegal mining - by legalising it. The government allows miners to obtain a license to work in these illegal mines, but in exchange, they have to be responsible for habitat restoration, says Amir Syahbana, a local official overseeing energy and mineral resources.

This ranges from planting a tree to carrying out waste management. But many are sceptical about the strategy - questioning if miners will actually make any effort to restore the environment. Weak law enforcement on the island means they are likely to get away with it either way.

"Everyone here is a tin miner. They don't care about the environment," says Sariah, who has not returned to the pits ever since the attack. If her family runs out of water, other members volunteer to go.

She says she is lucky to be alive, but it still hurts when she moves her left hand or fingers.

"Sometimes when I sleep, the attack comes back to me in my dreams," she says.

A Prominent Museum Obtained Items From Massacre Of Native Americans In 1895: The Survivors’ Descendants Want Them Back

Wounded Knee, Pine Ridge Reservation, South Dakota, USA. Entrance gate to cemetery. Photo Credit: Napa, Wikipedia Commons

October 22, 2023 
By ProPublica
By Nicole Santa Cruz

(ProPublica) — One afternoon earlier this year, Wendell Yellow Bull received a call from a longtime friend with word of a troubling discovery.

Objects from one of the most notorious massacres of Native Americans in U.S. history were in the collections of the American Museum of Natural History, his friend said. Some of them appeared to be children’s toys, including a saddle and a doll shirt.

Memories of what Yellow Bull had been told about the incident throughout his life came rushing back.

Yellow Bull is a descendant of Joseph Horn Cloud, who survived the 1890 massacre at Wounded Knee. He recalled being told that members of the U.S. Army’s 7th Cavalry Regiment surrounded and killed more than 250 Lakota people, including five of his relatives. And in the days that followed the incident on the Pine Ridge reservation in southwestern South Dakota, people had taken clothing, arrows, moccasins and other objects as trophies.

Word that a New York museum held children’s toys from that day was a tangible reminder of the indiscriminate killing.

“That wasn’t even war, it was just brutal killing,” Yellow Bull, who is a member of the Oglala band of the Lakota and lives on the Pine Ridge reservation, told ProPublica.

On the phone that day, his friend asked if he wanted to try to bring the objects home.

He immediately said yes. Lakota descendants believe mourning over the massacre cannot end until the belongings of those who were killed are returned and spiritual ceremonies are conducted.

“If they are from the killing field, they need to come back,” he recalled telling her.

The objects’ long separation from the tribes whose members were at Wounded Knee underscores a key way in which the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act has failed to bring about the expeditious return of cultural artifacts to Indigenous communities.

While the 1990 law requires federally funded institutions to notify descendant tribes in detail about Native American human remains they hold, its rules and procedures for cultural objects are so lax that tribes often are unaware of what was taken and where it’s held. Museums have taken decades to return human remains, delaying efforts to return cultural items. In addition, the law didn’t provide adequate funding for Indigenous communities to pursue repatriations. These factors have led to decadeslong delays for many tribes to reclaim objects that are rightfully theirs.

NAGPRA “wasn’t crafted to be kind or help us along in our grieving process,” said Alex White Plume, who led the Oglala Lakota tribe’s repatriation efforts in the early 1990s and also has relatives who were killed in the massacre. “It was another attempt to keep us from getting our artifacts that were taken off dead bodies, and not only just at Wounded Knee, but it happened all across the Plains.”

Since NAGPRA’s passage, the AMNH has communicated sporadically with the Oglala Lakota, including sending a notification in November 1993 regarding hundreds of objects in its collections that might be affiliated with the tribe. The vague descriptions of the artifacts made no mention of Wounded Knee.

The museum said in a statement that it provided more detailed information about the Wounded Knee objects in 1997, when a group of Oglala Lakota, who also go by the name Oglala Sioux, met with museum officials and reviewed collections selected by tribal representatives. Other tribes with ties to Wounded Knee, such as the Cheyenne River Sioux, have also met with the museum.

“Periodic consultations with the Oglala Sioux on collections that are of interest to the Tribe have continued since then over various channels,” the statement said. The museum did not provide additional detail about its talks with the Oglala Lakota but said the tribe had not made a request for repatriation, which it described as “multi-year engagements in which museums are guided by the requests and priorities of the relevant tribe.”

Despite the communication between the tribe and the AMNH, the museum has yet to repatriate anything to the Oglala Lakota.

“We Basically Didn’t Know What We Had”

With the passage of NAGPRA, federally funded institutions faced a daunting mandate to document their collections. Some had never conducted a full inventory. And the nation’s oldest museums had, during the 19th and early 20th centuries, built massive encyclopedic collections by funding excavations and expeditions and encouraging soldiers and others to take Native American objects from battlefields.

At the time of NAGPRA’s passage, the AMNH, one of the country’s oldest and largest museums, had approximately 250,000 objects in its North American archaeological collection. It formed an Office of Cultural Resources with a registrar and two additional staff members to do the work. Other staff members also pitched in, according to the museum’s 1992 annual report.

James W. Bradley, a former director of the Andover, Massachusetts, museum now known as the Robert S. Peabody Institute of Archaeology, said in a NAGPRA training video: “We basically didn’t know what we had, and we had pretty good catalog control. But intellectual control — knowing what it was, making it available — we really didn’t know.” The law forced the museum “to do what we just had never gotten around to doing, which is to clean up our mess, find out what we had collected, what we had excavated,” he said.

For human remains, the law mandated a detailed accounting, including where they had been excavated and which present-day Indigenous communities might rightfully claim them. Lawmakers had initially wanted a similar item-by-item inventory of cultural items and sacred objects — which could include items like those taken from Wounded Knee, according to Congressional testimony. But such a requirement was seen as too onerous and expensive, so museums’ initial notices about objects sometimes mentioned only who had donated the item. Many would require additional research to decipher.

“When these summaries reached tribal nations, there was not enough information about the origins of the objects, or the way in which the objects were cataloged, or even what the objects specifically were to enable people in those nations to know how to start reclaiming it,” said Margaret Bruchac, a University of Pennsylvania anthropology professor emerita who has worked as a repatriation consultant to museums and tribes.

Bruchac said “tribal nations did not have inside knowledge of museum cataloging systems, and museums did not have sufficient cultural knowledge about tribal materials. So it’s as though they were speaking entirely separate languages.”

The burden of researching the origin of the objects, some of them hundreds of years old, fell to tribal communities, White Plume said. If there’s a record that an object was from the Oglala Lakota, it should be given back without hesitation, he said, “yet they’re sitting there waiting for us to describe in detail the item that we want back.”

Among the notifications the AMNH sent to the Oglala Lakota was one, dated Nov. 16, 1993, listing hundreds of objects in such broad categories as “dress and adornment,” “ritual and recreation” and “unspecified/unknown.” Among them were the four relics from Wounded Knee.

Despite guidance from the National Park Service, which oversees the NAGPRA program, that museums reveal how they acquired the objects, the AMNH offered only two clues about their origin. In an entry classified as “dress and adornment,” it mentioned “Sioux: Bigfoot’s band” and the donor’s name, Edgar Mearns.

“A Responsibility to Fulfill”

As the United States confined tribal nations to reservations, a movement began among Native Americans in 1889 called the Ghost Dance religion. Through dances and ceremonies, some lasting days, they called on their ancestors to help restore their way of life. When it reached the Great Plains — where the government had seized more than 9 million acres of Lakota land — the nonviolent Ghost Dance had the “surrounding country in a state of terror,” according to an 1890 newspaper account.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs considered the Ghost Dance a threat and dispatched the military to enforce a ban on the practice. On Dec. 15, 1890, Indian Police were searching for Sitting Bull, a Hunkpapa Lakota chief, to question him about his involvement in the Ghost Dance. After encountering him at his home on the Standing Rock Reservation, the officers killed the chief, escalating tensions.

About two weeks later, Mnicoujou Lakota Chief Spotted Elk, who was also known as Big Foot, surrendered with his band to members of the 7th Cavalry. On Dec. 29, soldiers ordered the band of people, who had settled near Wounded Knee Creek, to turn over their weapons. A Lakota man’s weapon discharged, setting off a flurry of gunfire as adults and children ran for cover.

Horn Cloud, Yellow Bull’s great-grandfather, was 16 years old at the time of the massacre and later described what he witnessed to a researcher and writer named Eli Seavey Ricker. Soldiers had surrounded the Lakota when the gunfire erupted. “The shooting was in every direction. Soldiers shot into one another,” Horn Cloud told Ricker. As the Lakota fled, some defending themselves by grabbing weapons they had surrendered. Many sought refuge in a nearby ravine and “some ran up the ravine and to favorable positions for defense,” he told the researcher. When the shooting stopped, Horn Cloud had lost his parents, two brothers and a niece.

An Army captain, whose account was recorded in a Jan. 3, 1891 letter to an Army assistant adjutant general, said he arrived to find fresh wagon tracks and evidence that “a great number of bodies” had been removed from the site. The 8th Infantry buried 146 people in a mass grave, including 82 men and 64 women and children. “The camp and bodies of Indians had been more or less plundered,” the captain wrote.

A soldier named Frank X. Holzner was among those who gathered objects from the killing field, including a toy saddle, a doll shirt, beaver bones, an adornment piece and a bear claw, according to the museum’s handwritten accessions register. The AMNH’s 1895 annual report shows Mearns donated these objects to the museum that year. The museum record doesn’t mention how Mearns had obtained them.

The Army’s initial reports of Wounded Knee described it as a battle. But as more details emerged, including accounts of the killing of women and children as they ran away, the soldiers’ actions were criticized and the commander was investigated. (There have been periodic calls to rescind Medals of Honor awarded to 7th Cavalry troops. And in 1990, Congress apologized for the massacre.)

In the years that followed, Horn Cloud would camp at the site, sleeping on the graves of his lost family members to connect with them, a relative told the National Park Service in a 1990 interview. Horn Cloud and his brother, Dewey Beard, sought compensation from the government for the survivors of Wounded Knee. And Horn Cloud led the effort to erect a stone monument on the site in 1903. The marker lists some of the victims with an inscription, written by Horn Cloud, that says in part: “Many innocent women and children who knew no wrong died here.”

Today, Wounded Knee is marked by a large red sign describing the incident and a small cemetery that was built over the mass grave. The cemetery is surrounded by a chain-link fence that is dotted with prayer offerings — tobacco wrapped in cloth. Last year, the Cheyenne River Sioux and Oglala Lakota tribes purchased 40 acres surrounding Wounded Knee to preserve as a sacred site. A bill before Congress would place the land into a trust status that would prohibit its sale without congressional and tribal approval.

On a recent afternoon, Yellow Bull, wearing a T-shirt reading “Wild Oglalas,” stood near the mass grave and talked about how generations of his family have honored the ancestors who lost their lives there.

Yellow Bull, a Marine veteran, father of six and local county commissioner, is determined to continue preserving the memory of Wounded Knee, he said, including improving the site, protecting it from development and reclaiming the objects that were taken from those who were killed.

“I still have a responsibility to fulfill,” he said.

“A Lot of Hurdles”

Cassie Dowdle, a NAGPRA manager for the 900-person Wilton Rancheria tribe, based south of Sacramento, said she has seen inequities in the resources tribes have for pursuing repatriations.

It’s Dowdle’s sole job to contact institutions across the country and use a database to track progress toward repatriation. When she met with representatives at California State University, Sacramento not long ago, she and museum staff sifted through more than 80 bankers boxes to inventory each object. During similar museum visits Dowdle has discovered collections that were never reported to the tribe and pieced together collections that had been separated and housed at various museums.

Wilton Rancheria recently added a staff member to help Dowdle and plans to soon add another. But not all Indigenous communities have such resources. Dowdle, a descendant of the Tule River Yokuts, calls it “unfair.”

“There’s a lot of hurdles, and I’ve seen a lot of tribes, where they ran out of resources,” she said. “They either felt defeated or didn’t have the bandwidth for it.”

The park service provides some grants to fund consultation and repatriation work to improve communication between the institutions and Indigenous communities, including researching museums’ collections. But some tribes don’t have the resources to navigate the grant writing process.

This year, the NPS awarded $3.4 million in grants to museums and tribes, the most since 1994. Even so, grants won’t cover the entire cost of a repatriation, said Rosita Worl, president of Sealaska Heritage Institute and a Tlingit citizen.

She estimates that successful repatriations can run to $100,000 or more. When the tribes represented by Sealaska Heritage have made a claim on an object, they’ve hired a researcher and sometimes sent a group to view it. If there’s a dispute with the institution, the tribe must hire a lawyer, and the costs can quickly increase. Worl said a disagreement over the proposed repatriation of a Teeyhíttaan Clan hatcost her organization $200,000. Ultimately, a full repatriation didn’t occur, and the Alaska State Museum retains partial ownership of the hat. The museum confirmed that a partial repatriation occurred.

“It’s outrageous that the tribes still have to go up against all of this,” she said.

For tribes that can’t afford a dedicated repatriation specialist like Dowdle, it usually falls to a historic preservation officer to navigate the process. Preservation officers are required by federal statute to manage historic properties and preserve cultural traditions. Those responsibilities often keep them “in triage mode,” making it difficult to also take on repatriation work, said Valerie Grussing, executive director of the National Association of Tribal Historic Preservation Officers.

“There’s an official list of duties as mandated by the National Historic Preservation Act, and repatriation is not one of them,” she said. “They already are having to pick and choose what’s a priority for their community.”

Chip Colwell, a former senior curator for the Denver Museum of Nature & Science who oversaw repatriations, said the funding and power imbalance between museums and tribes was evident in his work. Colwell said his museum’s staff tried to compensate for these inequalities by reaching out to tribes and offering resources and guidance, even when a tribe hadn’t contacted them. The museum’s administration also recognized that the notices they had sent to tribes soon after the passage of NAGPRA were inadequate, and used grant funding to collaborate with tribes on reissuing more detailed summaries of some of those objects. This led to the discovery of things they’d missed.

When the repatriation process fails, it’s frequently because museums are not “taking enough responsibility — moral responsibility — for finding ways forward with tribes,” Colwell said. “And then tribes often just don’t have the resources.”

In the case of objects from a massacre, Colwell wondered why a law is needed for a museum to return them. “I would hope that the American museum, in this case, is just trying to do the right thing,” he said, “and not pretending to be handcuffed by the law.”

There are signs that the AMNH is shifting its mindset. Last week, the museum announced steps toward a “new ethical framework” for its human remains collection, which includes individuals from Native communities. The museum will remove exhibits that include human remains and will devote more resources to reviewing its human remains collection, which includes increasing its “engagements with descendant communities.”

“It Doesn’t Belong to the Museum”

The Oglala Lakota don’t have a full-time repatriation specialist or permanent historic preservation officer. The work is instead a team effort by tribal officials and groups of Wounded Knee descendants.

“We don’t have the resources to go out and look for these items, we just hope that somebody tells us about them so we can go do it,” said Justin Pourier, who is coordinating the group’s efforts. Pourier, whose regular job is serving as a liaison between the tribal council and executive committee, is also filling in as historic preservation officer for the Pine Ridge reservation, which is roughly the size of Connecticut.

Pourier said he learned that objects from Wounded Knee were at the AMNH after Erin Thompson, an art crime professor, identified them while researching the museum’s annual reports. She contacted Yellow Bull’s friend, Mia Feroleto, an activist and magazine publisher who recently helped with the repatriation of more than 150 Lakota objectsfrom the Founders Museum in Barre, Massachusetts. It was Feroleto who called Yellow Bull to tell him about the objects.

Yellow Bull, along with a tribal delegation and Feroleto, plans to meet with the museum’s officials to see anything that might be of interest to the Oglala Lakota.

It’s unclear what the tribe would do with the objects if they are returned. Yellow Bull said that decision will be made with other Wounded Knee descendants. But he is certain that the objects at the AMNH belong to and continue to represent the people who were killed, and should be returned so they can be properly mourned.

“It doesn’t belong to you or I, it doesn’t belong to the museum,” he said.

About the author: Nicole Santa Cruz is a reporter covering issues of inequality in the Southwest.

Source: This article was published by ProPublica

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ProPublica is an independent, nonprofit newsroom that produces investigative journalism with moral force. We dig deep into important issues, shining a light on abuses of power and betrayals of public trust — and we stick with those issues as long as it takes to hold power to account.

WHITE SETTLER RIGHTS VS.
Indigenous Yes campaigners divided on Voice response, draft reveals

Lisa Visentin, 

Oct 22 202

ASANKA RATNAYAKE/GETTY IMAGES
Indigenous leaders are divided over the wording of a joint statement following the Voice referendum defeat, with several objecting to the tone of a draft open letter, which lays blame for the loss on the Coalition and is critical of No voters.

Indigenous leaders are divided over the wording of a joint statement following the Voice referendum defeat, with several objecting to the tone of a draft open letter, which lays blame for the loss on the Coalition and is critical of No voters.

The draft document, intended as the first collective response of Indigenous leaders supporting the Yes campaign after declaring a week of silence following the referendum defeat last Saturday, lays bare the grief and pain among the Yes campaign group and the broader Indigenous community.

It says Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people were “hurting and bewildered by what they feel is the viciousness of the repudiation of our peoples and rejection of our efforts to pursue reconciliation in good faith”.

“The truth is that the majority of Australians have committed a shameful act whether knowingly or not, and there is nothing positive to be interpreted from it. Only the shameless could say there is no shame in this outcome,” the statement says.

The document, dated October 20, a leaked copy of which has been obtained by this masthead, is the latest in a series of draft versions circulated among about 50 Indigenous people and organisations, including those associated with the Yes 23 and Uluru Dialogue campaigns.

The document says it is “the collective insights and views of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leaders, community members and organisations who supported the Yes Campaign”.

The draft statement signalled a pathway forward, saying Indigenous leaders would seek to amend the Uluru Statement from the Heart “to remove the aim of enshrining a First Nations Voice in the Constitution”.

But it says they remained committed to its principles of Voice, Treaty, Truth, and would pursue other options for establishing a representative body for Indigenous Australians.


“We want to talk with our people and our supporters about establishing – independent of the Constitution or legislation – an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice to take up the cause of justice for our people,” the draft statement says.

The statement says the referendum was “doomed from the time the National Party and then the Liberal Party said they would oppose it and bipartisanship was lost”.

JENNY EVANS/GETTY IMAGES
The document says it is “the collective insights and views of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leaders, community members and organisations who supported the Yes Campaign”.

“Mr [David] Littleproud, Mr [Peter] Dutton and the political parties they lead are responsible for this result.”

It is unclear who has written the statement or who would endorse it, but multiple sources confirmed to this masthead that, after the draft was circulated on an email chain on Friday, several Indigenous leaders declined to be part of it, saying they disagreed with the tone and some of the points made.

Those who objected included Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner June Oscar, co-chairman of Queensland’s Interim Truth and Treaty Body Mick Gooda, and Coalition of the Peaks lead convener Pat Turner. They were contacted for comment.

JENNY EVANS/GETTY IMAGES

The draft document also expressed gratitude for the millions of Australians who voted Yes.

The draft document also expressed gratitude for the millions of Australians who voted Yes.

“We have faith that the upswelling of support through this referendum has ignited a fire for many to walk with us on our journey towards healing and justice. Our truths have been silenced for too long,” it said.

But it said rejection by non-Indigenous Australians “who came to our country in only the last 235 years” was “so appalling and mean-spirited as to be utterly unbelievable a week later”.

It praises Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s “gallantry in the campaign” but is critical of his “attempted exculpation of those who voted No”, and takes aim at Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk “and other such cynics who lifted not one finger to support the campaign”.

The document is addressed to the prime minister and “every Member of the House of Representatives and the Senate of the Commonwealth Parliament” and states that it will be circulated to the Australian public and media. Sources close to the Yes campaign were briefing media during the week that the statement was expected to be circulated this weekend, but its status was unclear on Saturday evening.

It said rejection by non-Indigenous Australians “who came to our country in only the last 235 years” was “so appalling and mean-spirited as to be utterly unbelievable a week later”.

It accuses leading Indigenous No campaigners Jacinta Nampijinpa Price and Warren Nyunggai Mundine, and Liberal senator Kerrynne Liddle of being “front people” for the organisations who led the No Campaign’s success.

It further states that Price’s entry to parliament as senator “was decisive to the abandonment of bipartisanship”.

The language is similar to that used by Cape York leader Noel Pearson when last year he accused Price of being trapped in a “redneck celebrity vortex” and being used by right-wing think tanks to “punch down on other black fellas”. Price rejected the claims at the time as “belittling” and “bullying”. Pearson was contacted for comment.