The Australian government's latest response to appalling conditions in rural indigenous communities? Cut off their power and water, drive them off their land, and herd them into urban ghettos:
Up to 200 indigenous communities in Australia could lose access to power and water because the government says it can no longer afford to deliver the basic services.
The remote communities are mainly located across the northern tip of Australia and the Kimberley in the country's northwest. The federal government announced late last year that it would stop paying for the utilities, making states responsible for the communities. The Western Australia (WA) state government says it can't afford to cover the costs.
I guess they decided that those mining royalties should go to white people in Perth rather than those who originally owned the land and resources...
As for what happens when they close a community, its appalling:
Lauren Pike, a spokeswoman for the Kimberley Land Council, described what happened in 2011 when the government shuttered an indigenous community in Oombulgurri, a community in the eastern Kimberley, and relocated the residents to Wyndham, about 45 kilometers away.
"The result was just devastating," Pike said. "They literally told these people to get out of their homes and that they couldn't stay or come back, and then dumped them in the mangroves around the town.
"Houses weren't provided — nothing was provided," she continued. "People in the town literally had to hand out borrowed sleeping bags and blankets for these people coming in so they could have something to sleep on outside. It caused so much trouble in the community, and it only got worse from there. Suddenly people had access to alcohol, to illicit substances. It was just an absolute state of poverty."
And this is what they plan to do across Western Australia. Its ethnic cleansing. There's really no other way to describe it. Sadly, its perfectly in keeping with the genocidal history of Australia's treatment of its indigenous peoples.
