The European settlers committed a genocide against the Australian aborigines, according to the conclusions of an investigation carried out by a commission in the state of Victoria (southeast), which asks the Government to take repair measures.
In its final report, this commission, which began its work four years ago, emphasizes that aboriginal peoples were victims of massacres, that children were torn from their families and that their culture was fought for assimilation.
According to their conclusions, presented on Tuesday before the Australian Parliament, mass murders, diseases, sexual violence, kidnapping of children and assimilation policies have led to “almost complete destruction” of aborigines in the state of Victoria.
“This is a genocide,” the report concludes.
The government will examine it “carefully”
Among its recommendations, the Commission recommends financial compensation for aborigines due to the damage suffered, as well as the restitution of ancestral lands.
Victoria’s Prime Minister Jacinta Allan thanked the commission, ensuring that his government “would carefully examine” his recommendations.
These conclusions “highlight hard truths and establish the bases for a better future for all the inhabitants of the state of Victoria,” he said in a press release.
“Direct inheritances of colonial practices”
When European settlers arrived in Australia in 1788, the aborigines were around one million. Today they only represent 3.8% of the 26 million Australians.
Australia has been fighting for a long time to fill the void between indigenous peoples and the rest of the population in terms of health and well -being.
These minorities have a life expectancy of approximately eight years in the national average, and their imprisonment rate continues to increase.
“The current economic disparities and the obstacles to the prosperity of the first nations are direct legacies of colonial practices and the excluded exclusion of the State,” the commission said in its report.
Source: BFM TV
