27 February 2012

Your Excellency,

I am corresponding with you on behalf of the National Unity Government, known as the Sovereign Union of the Aboriginal Nations and Peoples in Australia (SUANPA).

For two hundred and twenty five years our country has been occupied by the British and ruled by all their successors in title.

From the original instructions to the invading Captain Arthur Phillip, the British advised in 1788 that upon their landing an invasion of the land mass, then referred to as New Holland and Terra Australis he was to apply the 'rules and disciplines of war' from the outset. The historical records clearly show that former Dutch and British explorers were well aware that this new-found land was indeed peopled.

Australian historical records and despatches from various governors to the British Admiralty, during the early years of occupation, tell of constant undeclared warfare. Clearly the 19th century documents and those of well into the 20th century, show that the various Australian colonies ignored the British Admiralty's instructions for Aboriginal Peoples' rights to occupy, possess and use their lands and resources as their customary usages had done so previously. Instead, the colonies developed policies and strategies to exterminate our race. If you require evidence of these facts we can produce them at your request.

It is said in law, that in order to prove genocide, it is obligatory for those making the allegations to prove that the State had planned or condoned any practices that lead to the genocide of a particular race or ethnic group in whole or in part, or by condoning private armies or vigilante groups. Should your office require this information, it can also be produced.

Within the last twelve months I have come upon legislation from the British parliament dated 1875 called the Pacific Islanders Protection Act 1875. This UK Parliamentary Act was an amendment to the 1872 Pacific Islanders Protection Act that was popularly referred to as the anti-blackbirding Act, or words to that effect.

The 1875 amendment refers to the 1872 Act as being the principle Act, and in the principle Act the terms and definitions described unambiguously and unequivocally the specific locations and landmasses that these Acts related to. Under the terms and definitions of the principle 1872 Act it included and applied to the colonial states at the time of Queensland, New Zealand, New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia and Western Australia. It must be noted that the current Northern Territory was part of the South Australian colony at this time.

In December 2011, I had the occasion to travel to London to look at the Votes and Proceedings and Bills in respect of the 1875 Pacific Islanders Protection Act in the Office of Parliamentary Counsel in Whitehall. I must admit that I was surprised that the rights of Aboriginal Peoples in Australia were not part of those debates. However, in August 1875 when the Pacific Islanders Protection Amendment Act 1875 was concluded in the Parliament, the Act included Sections 7 and 10, which read:

Having located these sections, I then had discussions with a Member of the House of Commons, Mr Jeremy Corbyn, MP at his Parliamentary office. I asked Mr. Corbyn, how was it that these two sections had been included. He responded to wit: Her Majesty Queen Victoria, through the exercise of her prerogative rights made two Orders in Council: the first being section 7 and the second being section 10. Mr Corbyn then added that, when such an Order in Council is given by the English Monarch, it becomes absolute law within the British legal jurisdiction, which included all the colonies of England at the time and thereafter.

It is important now to refer you to a court case dated 1842 before the full bench of the Supreme Court in New South Wales, R v Murrell and Bummaree (1836) 1 Legge 72; [1836] NSW Sup C 35.

Briefly, an Aboriginal man was brought before the court for killing another member f his own tribe under his Law. He challenged the jurisdiction and said he was not a subject of the British king and therefore not subject to the jurisdiction of the court. The court concluded that given that the British instructions were to offer protection of British law to Aboriginal people, then he must be subject to British law. The defence counsel then put it to the court on Jack Congo Murrell's behalf that if he was indeed a British subject then the colonial state had a legal obligation to compensate him financially for the land they had confiscated from him as a result of the invasion. Interestingly the court held that;

In respect to the High Court Mabo (No.2) case, it should be noted that the High Court perused the Pacific Islanders Protection Acts and concluded that, on the question of the continuing sovereignty of Aboriginal people it was not within the High Court's jurisdiction to form any view and make conclusions. As Aboriginal Peoples we do understand this reasoning because the High Court is established by the settler state to deal with their laws governing their people. The conundrum that we now find ourselves in is the fact that the British from 1875 onwards did not claim sovereignty or dominion over the peoples, our place the rulers and chiefs. This was then and continues now to remain the British law in respect to Aboriginal people.

From the 26 January 2012 it has now been re-asserted that Aboriginal people are sovereign and independent people of this country and we are now finalising the development of a National Unity Government to exercise our sovereign and independent rights as Nations and Peoples.

During this development phase we do understand and acknowledge that it will be viewed and taken as a serious affront to the existing invader nation state of Australia, in respect to territorial integrity. Having said this however, the Australian state has been deceitful and dishonest in its treatment of our Peoples and as a consequence of our Old Peoples' lack of understanding of the English language and their methods of government, we have been denied all those rights which we have always held and that had been confirmed since 1875. No doubt the Australian state will now use, by sheer weight of numbers and superior force, through their local police organisations and military, to suppress any Aboriginal efforts to gain our legal rights. In respect to this we will be travelling to England in the coming months to hold talks with the English government in an effort to have them honour their own law pre and post Federation of the Australian state.

We are appealing to the United Nations, through you as the Secretary-General to provide us with protection and support to establish our National Unity Government (SUANPA) and to achieve its desired goals. We are freely exercise our right to organise ourselves so that we can reach a point that will enable us to govern ourselves in our own right, once again.

We also understand the need to have urgent meetings with the Australian state as they occupy the same landmass and rely on the same natural resources for their own economic stability, but we cannot hold these meetings until we first organise at a national level. We do know that each of the Australian states at present are rejecting our efforts by banning our gatherings in and on public places, and referring these gatherings as protests, thereby causing civil unrest. But it is our submission that it is they, with the dominant and governing numbers, who are exercising superior force to prevent us from holding gatherings and using their police to break up our groups and move us on.

We would like to draw your attention to the fact that we gather on public lands and similar locations in an effort to avoid conflict, but it is the nation state, which is taking offense. It comes as an absolute surprise for us that the Australian states, both Federal State and Territory, are unable to understand and accept that it is from their own political and legal genesis that is, the British and their parliaments and the laws which underpin their society, that gives us our legal right. I reiterate, the source of our authority to assert our sovereign rights and dominion over our lands and natural resources as free and independent Peoples is recognised by the same source of power.

I now wish to reiterate my call that the United Nations, under international law, must invoke upon the Australian state their obligations to refrain from the use of force and to engage fully with us as the National Unity Government to have fully realised those guarantees that are entrenched with the attached UN General Assembly resolutions.

Should the United Nations find this too difficult and confronting, then we ask that the United Nations refer this matter to the international Court of Justice for their Advisory Opinion.

In the document we attach we outline the basis of our sovereignty movement and the UN's international moral and legal obligations to ensure a peaceful transition.

Sincerely,

Michael Anderson
Interim Chair
National Unity Government
Sovereign Union of Aboriginal Nations and Peoples in Australia
PO Box 55
GOODOOGA
NSW 2838