Bulahdelah Aboriginal Tent Embassy, Bulahdelah, NSW

Albeit misleadingly titled (there has never been a 'fight' over the route chosen by the government for the fraudulently named Bulahdelah Bypass), the 23rd May, 2009, Racism and violence emerge in fight over bypass article by Damien Murphy provides some insight into the Bulahdelah Aboriginal Tent Embassy situation: http://www.smh.com.au/national/racism-and-violence-emerge-in-fight-over-bypass-20090522-biaa.html 

Before reading the article please note the following facts:-

1. The tent embassy was, at that time, located in the Main Picnic Grounds of Bulahdelah Mountain Park registered Public Reserve.  Locally known as the Alum Mountain Park, this area is on the mid-slopes, not the 'lower slopes' of the mountain.
2. The mountain, originally named Boolah Dillah (the Great Rock) by the Worimi, is registered as Bulahdelah Mountain.  Its over a century old nickname is the Alum Mountain.  It is not, and has never been, 'Mount Alum'.
3. The students from Sydney University had arrived some ten minutes prior to the attack.  Prior to that, there were only two people camping in the park.
4. These particular assaults (there have been others) of people at the Bulahdelah Aboriginal Tent Embassy took place in the early morning hours of Saturday, 28th March, 2009, not, as the May, 2009, article wrongly states 'On March 28 last year'.
5. Worimi was physically assaulted by two assailants, one of whom stabbed him in the top of the head (allegedly with a screwdriver) and the other of whom punched him to the ground.
6. One of the 'Two local police [who tardily] arrived [after phone calls had been made to 000 and to the police] and eventually sent the attackers away [instead of arresting them]' is a cousin of two of the gang of accomplices.

Excerpt from "Artist and healer helped reinvigorate Yolngu culture", in The Australian 25.5.12: WHEN the bulldozers came to knock down a sacred knowledge tree in Ski Beach, Arnhem Land, Munggurrawuy Yunupingu faced them with an axe. The young woman at his side, acting as his translator, was his daughter Gulumbu Yunupingu. Construction on the Nabalco bauxite mine he had fought to stop desecrated large areas of rainforest on Munggurrawuy's Gumatj land but the tree was saved and is still standing. Worimi was equally prepared to die in defence of his people's most sacred tree, the Guardian-Healing Tree, but if he'd done what Munggurrawuy did decades ago, he would have been tasered, or brought down by a bullet - instead he was forced to leave his most beloved tree and watch it chopped into pieces - UNIMAGINABLE - his grief has been profound, as all the Worimi and other groups, and all of we non-Indigenous who loved the tree (and not forgetting another twenty ancient trees were brought down in this ‘sacred grove’, many were hundreds of years old, many were scarred – all chipped.) That was just the beginning of Option E, the worst environmental/cultural heritage destruction in Australia’s history. This is what I posted not long after: Letter of Editor re: ‘Coconut’ slur Calling an Aboriginal elder a ‘coconut’ isn’t abuse - this is abuse: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lPSdi3Fh-8&feature=related Maureen Brannan, Murgon [905 Wilsons Road CLOYNA Q 4605 ph: 04 277 10523] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [3 minutes in]: “What you’re seeing here is a funeral service – I’m actually watching the destruction of an Ancestor that has been dug up, dug out of his final resting place. I should have been allowed to go and show my respects. They’ve cut his head off, they’ve cut his body in half, and now they’re cutting his legs off. These policemen have no right to say ‘It's only a tree’ ... that tree in our culture is equal to a whiteman’s church. I’ve got no place now I can ever take my grandkids. That’s what’s so special about it – thousands and thousands of years of history where a blackfella comes and put his hands on it, make himself known and present the babies. I’ve got nowhere now, for generations ... its all gone. ” Worimi Dates witnessing the felling of the Healing-Guardian Tree.” ... and that was just the beginning of what has turned out to be the worst mass destruction of priceless environmental and Aboriginal cultural heritage in Australia’s history, in numerous acts of extreme vandalism that are headed for the International courts – all completely unnecessary and still avoidable but inexplicably not a soul in government will stand up for the Worimi culture custodians and no mainstream media will even report on it - they’re all afraid of the RTA. I will be amazed if The Australian, [who published possibly the most shameful report on the Bulahdelah Bypass, NOT MENTIONING ONCE either the mountain or the 11 year battle to save it] publish the above letter to editor.