Yindjibarndi Donation Appeal
Posted in: FMG, Press releases, Yindjibarndi News | Comments (2)
Dear Friends, Wanthiwa – hello.
Please take time to read our Yindjibarndi Donation Appeal.
On behalf of the Yindjibarndi People and most senior Elder and leader, Mr Ned Cheedy, we ask for your help.
Some of you have already donated to our Yindjibarndi Fighting Fund. Your donations are very important votes of conscience that have made us stronger and lifted our spirits to challenge the tyranny of FMG.
WE ARE NOW LAUNCHING INTO A MORE PROACTIVE AND CHALLENGING PHASE OF OUR CAMPAIGN, FOR WHICH WE NEED YOUR HELP EVEN MORE URGENTLY.
Our most vital task in the months ahead is to travel to the country FMG has not yet destroyed, to record all the knowledge of Yindjibarndi ceremony and tradition, the sacred and archaeological sites, Law and language that make up our heritage and inheritance. These journeys of ceremony and cultural recording will be the last opportunity for Yindjibarndi elders to make a full record which, after FMG’s right to mine ends and they have moved on, can be used by future generations of Yindjibarndi to restore and revive connections with their homelands. Our use of digital video to capture the landscapes, and the songs, stories, ceremonies and the testimonies of the Elders will be at the heart of this work.
Please travel beside us defending and fortifying Yindjibarndi culture for our kids and the world. Please help by donating to our Fighting Fund, which will be used to provision cultural recording field trips of Yindjibarndi people and professional heritage volunteers from around Australia (vehicles, equipment, flights, food), and to maintain communications and defend hostile legal attacks.
admin @ December 11, 2011
Penillion of the Iron Ore Eaters
Posted in: Jawi Jalurra – Songs Dances | Comments (1)
For the Yindjibarndi People and all other peoples who are or have been or will be driven from their land by the rapacious miners of the Pilbara.
It’s an eating
And a shitting
Analogy?
A synergy
Of compulsion
And revulsion?
Feeding nation/
nation feeding.
Those billionaires
Work the figures:
Divide, conquer/
Coffins, coffers.
Red ore engorged,
Flowers blooded,
Wild contusion
Styled transfusion;
The vast ‘donor’
Left hollow or
Gasping for breath:
Smelters are stealth
Out where the sky
Is primary.
The bands, the seams,
Layers of dreams:
Laws of plosion
Exploration,
Peg-claim: purvey
voyeurs’ surveys
A deletion,
Or extinction
A tenement
As testament?
Miners’ terror:
Stygofauna.
But not the ‘law’
They can pay for.
They eat bodies.
They shit corpses.
Acacias.
Budgerigars.
by John Kinsella
First published in The Sydney Morning Herald on February 18, 2012
admin @ February 18, 2012
On Radio
Posted in: Outside media | Comments (0)
Interviewed by Michelle Lovegrove for SBS radio.
Interview with Stanley Warrie SBS Radio Living Black 21-12-11
Interview with Thomas Jacob SBS Radio Living Black 21-12-11
Interview with Phil Davies SBS Radio Living Black 21-12-11
Stanley Warrie, Thomas Jacob and Phil Davies
admin @ December 21, 2011
PRIMARY DOCUMENTS MINISTER COLLIER’S BACK FLIP
Posted in: FMG, Press releases, Yindjibarndi News | Comments (0)
SUMMARY:
Minister for Looking after his Mates
LINK Original conditions
For as long as these conditions remained FMG could not commence mining activity on the land without first carrying out such cultural heritage surveys.
FMG did not want to comply with these conditions and so applied to the State Administrative Tribunal (SAT) seeking an order to have some conditions amended and others deleted.
LINK FMG Application for Amendment of s18 Conditions
On 13 December 2011, Minister Collier complied with FMG’s request to delete three crucial conditions that obliged FMG to:
• “Avoid all sites that contain Aboriginal human remains”,
• “clarify the status of heritage places on the Land and identify all heritage values associated with places on the Land”, and
• “provide the Registrar with information on the location and archaeological and ethnographic assessments of all rockshelters and caves located on the Land.”
COMPARATIVE TABLE
A comparative Table that clearly shows the ‘before’ and ‘after’ consequences of Minister Collier’s decision is available here:
LINK To Table comparing Original and Amended Conditions
admin @ December 21, 2011
Clan fury as MP clears hurdle for friend Andrew Forrest
Posted in: FMG, Outside media, Yindjibarndi News | Comments (0)
West Australian Indigenous Affairs Minister Peter Collier has substantially freed the company chaired by his friend Andrew Forrest from having to comply with the state’s heritage law for its expanded mining operations in the Pilbara, says an Aboriginal group.
The Yindjibarndi Aboriginal Corporation, which represents indigenous people affected by Fortescue Metal Group’s mining, says the decision clears the way for “wholesale destruction of rare and ancient Yindjibarndi heritage”.
FMG has won the removal of three key conditions that dealt with protection of indigenous heritage while other conditions were amended.
Earlier this year, Mr Collier said in a radio interview he regarded Mr Forrest as a personal friend and took “guidance and great advice from his wisdom”.
…
Read more of this article by Paul Cleary in “The Australian”
admin @ December 20, 2011
STATE BACK FLIPS ON FMG CONDITIONS
Posted in: FMG, Press releases, Yindjibarndi News | Comments (2)
WAY NOW CLEAR FOR FINAL OBLITERATION OF YINDJIBARNDI HERITAGE
Peter Collier, Minister for looking after mates.
SUMMARY:
Last Tuesday, the Minister for Indigenous Affairs, Peter Collier, reneged on an earlier commitment to hold Fortescue Metals Group (FMG) accountable for identification and protection of Yindjibarndi heritage in the path of its Solomon Project mine. After FMG demanded that critical conditions of his consent be deleted, Minister Collier complied, clearing the way for wholesale destruction of rare and ancient Yindjibarndi heritage.
Yindjibarndi CEO, Michael Woodley, said “This is a Christmas from hell for us. It is a weak and morally wrong decision from Mr Collier. The Minister had a choice – to ensure Yindjibarndi people could properly record their sites before FMG wipes them off the face of the earth, and use this knowledge to make safe and fair decisions; or kick us in the guts and cheer on FMG’s destruction of our culture places before anyone has the chance to understand, care or know they ever existed. Mr Collier took the second option. So while FMG mining grinds on round the clock over Christmas, there will be no peace for Yindjibarndi.”
[…]
In the last two months FMG has repeatedly obstructed Yindjibarndi people from going onto their country to record their heritage and perform ceremonies. This is in breach of a condition of their mining lease that states access to and use of the land by Yindjibarndi people “is not to be restricted” by FMG, except in relation to any parts that are being used for mining operations, or for safety or security reasons relating to those operations.
FMG has fraudulently cited this “safety and security” stipulation by declaring areas YAC needs access to as ‘controlled areas’. FMG’s invocation of “safety and security” is false because no mining operations were being conducted on the land where the YAC sought to undertake surveys at the time of YAC’s visit, nor could there be for as long as the Minister’s section 18 conditions for comprehensive surveys remained unfulfilled.
[…]
The grave consequence of this obstruction for Yindjibarndi, and the advantage sought by FMG, is that after FMG mining operations have razed the country and destroyed physical evidence of Yindjibarndi heritage, there will be no certified and authentic documentary record upon which the prosecution of FMG can be based.
[…]
Mr Woodley said, “We are deeply angered that fundamental human rights standards spelled out in United Nations covenants are being blatantly violated in this state. The Minister’s decision steals from our people what is at the centre of our world, the cultural heritage that lies at the heart of our identity, our confidence, our right to exist as Yindjibarndi.”
Link to high resolution photographs (large 19m zip)
admin @ December 19, 2011
Thanks to our supporters
Posted in: Yindjibarndi News | Comments (0)
We would like to thank you for donating to the Yindjibarndi Fighting Fund with a promise.
Read
admin @ December 16, 2011
FMG accused of ‘Apartheid-Style’ Tatics
Posted in: FMG, Outside media, Yindjibarndi News | Comments (0)
The ongoing dispute between Fortescue Mining Group and the Yindjibarndi Aboriginal Corporation continues…
The YAC says FMG is now demanding that Yindjibarndi people stay out of their traditional country and apply to FMG ‘managers’ for permission in writing to enter.
This comes after the mining giant acquired a limited right to mine in Yindjibarndi country.
It’s a throwback to another troubled era, CEO of the Yindjibarndi Aboriginal Corporation Michael Woodley joined Joe Cassidy on Morning Magazine.
Listen to this interview
admin @ December 15, 2011
FMG imposes “apartheid-like” rules on Yindjibarndi visits to country
Posted in: FMG, Press releases, Yindjibarndi News | Comments (0)
Having acquired a limited right to mine in Yindjibarndi country, FMG is now demanding that Yindjibarndi people stay out of their traditional country and apply to FMG ‘managers’ for permission in writing to enter.
The Yindjibarndi Aboriginal Corporation (YAC) has rejected FMG’s conditions.
YAC has made it clear to FMG that the purpose of their current visit to Ganyjingarringunha (Solomon Hub) is not to prevent FMG from exercising any of its mining rights, but to peacefully go about their cultural business.
This journey of ceremony and cultural recording may be the last opportunity Yindjibarndi elders have to make a full record, which can be used by future generations of Yindjibarndi to restore and revive traditional connections – once FMG’s 40 year right to mine ceases, and the enormous task of rehabilitation begins.
FMG’s controls would effectively prevent Yindjibarndi traditional owners from recording heritage that is most critically endangered by the expansion of FMG’s Solomon mining project; and simultaneously prevent independent archaeologists and anthropologists, who have volunteered their professional assistance, from getting a close-up view of, and recording with digital media, the songs and ceremonies for that country, and the country itself, before it is destroyed by FMG.
“This FMG notice is a throw-back to the pre-1967 laws that controlled when and where our people could go, made us beg for travel permits, and kept us under constant surveillance and the fear of punishment,” said YAC CEO, Michael Woodley. “Such laws were abolished half a century ago because they were destructive and unjust, and because the Australian people recognised that they rubbished our Human Rights as the first Australians. Now, in country they wish to mine, FMG want to bring back these dark ages… We are very disappointed by FMG’s attempt to impose these ‘apartheid-like’ conditions.”
admin @ December 8, 2011
YOU CANNOT DIVIDE US
Posted in: Jawi Jalurra – Songs Dances | Comments (0)
By Kirsten Tona 2011
You cannot divide us by race
We multiply.
Our Group grows like a burning fuse, lit by our anger
at the desecration of Country
at the disrespect of Culture.
And although anger can turn to hate, which only burns out the hater,
the wise ones amongst us remind us
to keep our anger righteous,
to use it in the service of justice,
to bend it to the will of love.
Love:
For the Country that bore us
For the Earth that nurtures us
For the water, the air and the sky
For all other creatures that began with the first spark of Life.
For the grace of trees
For the music of rivers
For the sun-washed colours of the Great Rock: heart of this island continent.
How is this heartbeat not felt by all?
When raucous birds, drunk on fruit, shit on the land from a great distance (the sky),
their shit fertilises the soil and carries the seeds of new life,
balanced in the rhythm of nature’s great cycles.
When mind-sick men, drunk on power, shit on the land from a great distance (the City)
their shit slashes great wounds in the ground, poisons the waterways,
cheats the People and steals from the future.
How can they not understand this?
In their insane greed, they thrust toxins deep into the earth,
and the very ground beneath our feet becomes unstable.
Water catches fire, living beings sicken, winged creatures fall from foul yellow skies.
But when sense and beauty pass from one mind to another
Hope and truth flare, dispelling despair, fear, panic and lies.
Across the country, around the world, minds and hearts are meeting, connecting,
like points of light spelling out words of reason, greeting and respect.
There is only one race: the Human Race.
All difference is Culture.
Respect Culture. Respect Country.
Respect self and respect other,
for the “Other” is always just — You
admin @ December 1, 2011
