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The Australian Government has long aligned itself with those nations and organizations exhibiting a strong bias against those cultures whose traditions and identities are tied to whales and whaling. Apparently that government's prejudice against minority cultures extends far beyond the issue of whaling. According to a report dated 30 August 2000 from Agence France Presse (AFP), the United Nations Commission on Human Rights is sending an investigative team to Australia to look into human rights violations of that nation's Aborigine culture. The AFP account describes Australian Prime Minister John Howard as upset that United Nations investigators are looking closely at his government's position on the human rights of that nation's indigenous people. Prime Minister Howard is reportedly so angered at the idea that such bias may well be publicly documented by an international probe that he is considering blocking the UN investigators trip to Australia. Elizabeth Evatt, an Australian Judge and Vice Chairperson for the United Nations Commission on Human Rights strongly condemns the attitude of Prime Minister Howard. Her comments were echoed by Mary Robinson, the Head of the United Nations Commission for Human Rights, describing Howard's decision, if implemented, as "tragic". The U.N. Commission had, in the past, strongly criticized the Australian Government's refusal to apologize to its Aborigines, for what is known in Australia as "The Stolen Generation". The reference is to Australia's policy of assimilation that forcibly integrated aboriginal children into white families in an effort to eradicate their ties to their people's ancient traditions. Such intolerance of cultural differences may explain Australia's resistance to pleas by Arctic, Island, and coastal peoples and nations to be allowed to resume their ages old cultural heritage of satisfying their people's nutritional and spiritual needs through consumption of food from marine mammals including whales. However, it does not diminish the irony or hypocrisy of a government that professes deep compassion for marine creatures numbering in the millions and that harbors no sympathy whatsoever for human cultures teetering on the brink of cultural extinction. |
