Ku Klux Klan turns on Aboriginals

Press, 17 January 1979, Page 9

Ku Klux Klan turns on Aboriginals

By

GRAHAM LEES

Sydney An Australian branch of the Ku Klux Klan has been formed in Darwin after muscle-flexing by black groups over uranium mining in Aboriginal tribal land. The Klan’s self-ap-pointed Australian leader is David Jennings, a former Darwin policeman. Mr Jennings, aged 28, was recently pressured into resigning from the police for bringing the force into disrepute because of his publicised links with the Klan. He admits that so far he has only a small membership, possibly no more than a few hundred scattered across Australia. But he claims to speak for many people who think that successive Federal governments have gone ‘“soft” on the Aboriginals. Australia has an estimated 140.000 Aboriginals — many are still partly nomadic — out of a total population of 14.2 million. The Aboriginals form more than 25 per cent of the population of the Northern Territory, the “frontier” country, rich in uranium. Northern Territory Aboriginals, led by an articulate handful, are the most vociferous and so far the most successful. After the signing of deals with several mining companies, the Northern Land Council. representing tribal groups in the territory, ' ill be paid SUSIOM a year in royalties. The council engaged the services of an American g lawyer. Mr Stephen Zorn, who is well versed in e

fighting similar battles for the American Indians. Naturally, groups of Aboriginals elsewhere in the country want to talk similar business. Mr Jennings, a quietly spoken family man, says his Klan branch has been approved by the organisation’s Grand Wizard in the United States. He denies he is receiving money from the Americans, but confirmed that a deputation of Klan chiefs will soon visit Australia. More than many other whites, Mt Jennings lived close to Aboriginals for several years during his career as police constable in the remote outback country. He credits one black with saving his life by running 40 kilometres for help after he had an accident. But before he resigned Mr Jennings was transferred to Darwin after an incident in which he meted out his own justice to a group of young blacks allegedly guilty off vandalism; he set them to work in leg chains. Mr Jennings says the primary aim of his Klan branch' is to safeguard white rights, which he believes are being eroded by Government concessions to the Aboriginals. He and his followers says they do not condone the violence which has been associated with the Klan in America. Of land rights, he says: “Two laws are being applied; one for the whites and the other for blacks.” Whites, particularly in the Northern Territory, resent restrictions such as the need for oermits to enter tribal lands. A lot of Aboriginals, [lucked from their tribal

roots and reared on outback missionary zeal, have failed to cope with white' society and resort to alcohol and Government welfare. They drift into towns, become semi-derel-icts, and congregate round hotels The problem has been created by the clash of two cultures, but it generates hostility rather than sympathy among many whites. Smiley Burnett, a bar owner in the Daly Waters township, sums up some of the anger: “I cannot refuse the serve Aboriginals on my property, yet I cannot go to see a mate of mine in a black reserve unless I go to the Govern'•ient for a permit. “They are trying to give this country back to the blacks.” The concessions made to Aboriginals by recent Federal and some State governments is a belated bid to try to repair the deprivation they have suffered in he cause of white settlement and development over the last 200 years. But the state governments of Queensland and Western Australia, where many of the country’s Aboriginal tribes live, are frequently accused by church and welfare bodies of impeding black rights. Conflict seems certain because deposits of bauxite and other minerals have been discovered under sacred sites fundamental to traditional Aboriginal cuture. Mr Jennings’ Ku Klux Klan might riot become a popular crusade, but its aims reflect what a lot of white people privately think — O.F.N.S. Copyright,