Black death in custody sparks outrage PDF Print E-mail
Sunday, 19 July 2009 05:06

"The most racist state in the most racist country in the world."

No-one in the 1000-plus crowd in Forrest Place, Perth on June 20 was inclined to disagree with this description of Western Australia, where the death in custody of Aboriginal elder Mr Ward has provoked widespread outrage. The protest rally, in pouring rain, was many times larger than most demonstrations in Perth.
Mr Ward had been arrested for drink-driving, and was transported 400km from Laverton to Kalgoorlie in a van operated by private security firm GSL. The temperature outside was 42 degrees, and the metal surfaces inside the van reached 56 degrees. The air-conditioning wasn't working. There were no rest stops and the guards never checked on Mr Ward. He was literally cooked to death and died on Invasion Day 2008, in Kalgoorlie Hospital. Far from the land rights they deserve, the only "rights" they have are to be locked up
What compounded the tragedy was its predicability. As far back as 2001 the Prison Administrator had reported to the then State Labor government that "the vehicles are not fit for humans to be transported in. We are just waiting for a death to happen." In October 2006, fourteen Aboriginal prisoners were locked up in a similar van for eight hours in over 40-degree heat after the air-conditioning and the motor both broke down. But to the prison guards, the company, and the Labor government that presided over this sorry incident, Mr Ward was just another black. It is inconceivable that a white person would be treated as he was.
It's sickening that GSL can actually make a profit out of a death in custody, but every detail of the case is utterly enraging. For instance, Graham Powell, one of the guards, had six months earlier been suspended for allowing and participating in racial slurs against prisoners.
The institutional racism responsible for Aboriginal deaths in custody is an integral part of a rotten, divisive system that puts the needs of mining companies and big business above justice and equality for Indigenous people. As a colonial settler state founded on the dispossession and genocide of Indigenous people, the Australian state is racist to the core. For Aboriginal people, this means that far from the land rights they deserve, the only "rights" they have are to be locked up and killed in custody for trivial offences, to have a uranium mine on their land, to die 20 years earlier than other Australians, and to suffer from Third World diseases - all the while being blamed by government and media for their plight.
This occurs under both Labor and Liberal governments. WA's Labor in opposition has now opportunistically called for compensation for Mr Ward's family, something that even the Liberal law-and-order fanatic Attorney-General can contemplate. But shamefully, not one Labor MP attended the demonstration.
Dennis Eggington of the Aboriginal Legal Service says, "We don't treat animals like that. People get put in jail for treating another creature the same as Mr Ward was treated." Welcome to 21st century Australia, where Aboriginal deaths in custody continue at a disgraceful rate.

Alexis V