Radio Africa - The Sovereignty Movement - Interview with Michael Anderson and Fred Hooper

"We, as First Nations Peoples, have the international right as independent Nations Peoples to assert our right of self-determination under international law. We cannot achieve this if we are to sit on our backsides in Australia and appealing to our oppressor for justice, because their agenda is not in our best interest"

- Nyoongar Ghurradjong Murri Ghillar, Aboriginal Sovereignty Leader

Voice of Africa Radio (VOAR) 94 FM
27 November 2013

Afrika Speaks with Sister Ekua of PARCOE
(aka Esther Stanford-Xosei)

Making Pan-Afrika a Reality:
What lessons can be learnt from the Aboriginal Sovereignty Movement?

"Whilst the iNAPP is in full support of efforts to secure legal and political redress for the crimes of African enslavement, we take the view that this must be done within the context of Pan-Afrikan nation-building. Afrikans have a key role to play in repairing the harms of enslavement which do not depend on the will of governments, corporations and social elites. Our focus therefore is to effect reparations as a key pillar of our nation-building endeavours since regardless of what others owe us, our responsibility to engage in acts of self-repair, renewal and restoration remains."
iNAPP Draft Manifesto Position on Reparations

The need for an independent and self determined PANAFRIKA to emerge is an urgent task of our times and as Frantz Fanon forewarned us some time ago — 'Each generation must, out of relative obscurity, discover its mission, fulfil it, or betray it.' As one of the key objectives of its campaign of Pan-Afrikan Reparations for Global Justice, the PARCOE is advocating the building of PANAFRIKA (also known as MAATUBUNTUMAN) as a sovereign multiethnic supernation-state of true participatory democracy of Afrikan people by Afrikan people and for Afrikan people first and foremost throughout the World. PANAFRIKA is meant for Afrikan people all over the World who, since the 1884 Scramble for Africa Berlin Conference, have been feeling betrayed, alienated from and unrepresented by the artificial puppet-states of European imperialist balkanisation which have been continuing the perpetration of the Maangamizi (the Afrikan Holocaust of chattel, colonial and neo-colonial forms of enslavement) and its abominable Crimes against Humanity.

As nations around the globe seek to restore their sovereignty which never ceded with colonialism, this week’s show will focus on nation-building, micro nations and what can be learnt from the Aboriginal sovereignty movement The Aboriginal-Sovereignty Movement can be traced back to 1972. That year, on Jan. 26 — celebrated in Australia as ‘Australia Day’ — a group of Aboriginal Black power activists planted a tent on the lawns of the Old Parliament House in Canberra. The Aboriginal Tent Embassy galvanised support for indigenous land rights and thrust its ambassador Ghillar aka ‘Michael Anderson’ into the international spotlight Today he is convener of the First Nations Interim National Unity Government — an umbrella group representing the sovereign aspirations of members of Australia’s 300-odd Aboriginal nations who as Aboriginal nations are reasserting their pre-colonial nationhood. Some such nations having declared their independence from the Commonwealth country of Australia, for example The Euahlayi Nation (pronounced you-al-ee-eye) and the Murrawarri Nation (pronounced More-roo-worry).

On the 30th March this year the peoples of the Murrawari Nation declared continued independent statehood by virtue of their natural ancestral and inherent right and on the strength and resolution of their people declared the Murrawarri state hereinafter to be known as the Murrawarri Republic. Similarly on 3 August 2013 in Dirranbandi, Queensland, a meeting of key Euahlayi family members and Elders concluded that a letter be forwarded to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, informing her that the People of the Euahlayi have asserted their pre-existing and continuing Statehood. The Euahlayi Declaration of Statehood and the formation of the Euahlayi Provisional Executive Council of Parliament follows on from previous correspondence with Buckingham Palace. On 24 July 2010 Ghillar wrote to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II asking the following questions: Can you provide us with the documents, where war was declared against the Peoples of the Euahlayi Nation or where the Peoples of the Euahlayi voluntarily ceded their sovereignty to Great Britain?

Since no conclusive response was provided, the Euahlayi Nation concluded that the Heads of Government within Australia are unable to produce any legitimate documents, which provide a legal right for their continuing governance over our lands and waters within our borders and so have continued to work with other Aboriginal Nations within the Sovereign Union to declare independence and build states from the bottom up.

The above examples provide inspiration to Afrikan reparations activists such as those in PARCOE and the emerging National Afrikan Peoples Parliament who see the ultimate form of reparations being Pan-Afrikan nation-building.

1. Joining us to talk about the current day situation of the Aboriginal First nations of Australia is none other than Nyoongar Ghurradjong Murri Ghillar (Michael Anderson) who is an Aboriginal rights activist, clan leader of the 3,000 Euahlayi peoples of North-Western New South Wales and Native Title claimant to their traditional lands on their behalf and is now Convenor of the Provisional Euahlayi Peoples Executive Council. From 1969 he has been one of the leaders and last survivor in the Australian Black Power Movement and was appointed by his peers as the First Aboriginal Ambassador to White Australia after he and several comrades established the Aboriginal Tent Embassy on the front lawns of Australia's Parliament House in 1972.

2. Fred Hooper, a leader of the Murrawarri Republic, a micro nation which recently declared independence from Australia.

Since this is a dialogue in the Global Village programme, we are keen to hear your views on any of the following:

1. What is a nation?
2. What is nation-building
3. What is a country and how do you start one?
4. What are the similarities between the Aboriginal & the Pan-Afrikan experience of settler colonialism, genocide, apartheid and racism?
5. What is Aboriginal sovereignty?
6. What is Afrikan sovereignty?
7. What are the similarities and differences between the Global Afrikan Reparations Movement and the Aboriginal Sovereignty Movement?
8. Should Afrikan and indigenous peoples in the Diaspora we be claiming minority rights or rights to self-determination?
9. Are Afrikan nations scared of effecting true freedom?
10. How does the Aboriginal Sovereignty Movement relate to the struggles of Afrikans to secure reparations?
11. Can true reparations for Afrikans and people of Afrikan descent take place outside of Pan-Afrikan nation building?
12. What difference will Pan Afrika make to addressing the everyday concerns of people of Afrikan origin?
13. What is the role of the interim NAPP (National Afrikan Peoples Parliament) in advocating for and asserting Afrikan Sovereignty?

"Whilst the iNAPP is in full support of efforts to secure legal and political redress for the crimes of African enslavement, we take the view that this must be done within the context of Pan-Afrikan nation-building. Afrikans have a key role to play in repairing the harms of enslavement which do not depend on the will of governments, corporations and social elites. Our focus therefore is to effect reparations as a key pillar of our nation-building endeavours since regardless of what others owe us, our responsibility to engage in acts of self-repair, renewal and restoration remains."

- iNAPP Draft Manifesto Position on Reparations