NT workshop to inform Indigenous communities about human rights

Help Indigenous people across the Pacific, more like soften them up likely, people and mobs all round the pacific having been talking to "government officials" for years and years, as if they have been listening. If the UN was sincere about Indigenous Rights in the pacific Region then DRIP (Declaration Rights Indigenous Peoples) would have been passed by its member states 21 years ago. Still no end to Australian Apartheid, Aboriginal Genocide here, no Treaty here, so where does this human rights discussion start?

I'd be preferring to be doing workshops with the Palm Island mob, and learning real lessons about Indigenous strength, direct action and fighting oppression. Thats the best way to arm Indigenous People to fight the onslaught of globalisation and transnational corporations...grassroots educating and organizing standing up and fighting back.

the workshops aim to help Indigenous people across the Asia-Pacific region deal with globalisation.

"[The aim is to] teach people what the content of international human rights standards are and how the international system works, how the UN works," he said.

"Then to develop their skills to be able to engage in those processes, to be able to talk to government officials - to negotiate effectively."

Human rights advocates from Asia and Australia are in the Northern Territory today to discuss how to improve Indigenous people's understanding of their basic rights.

The workshops have been organised as part of the Diplomacy Training Program and will be held in Batchelor, south of Darwin.

The program was set-up by East Timor's Prime Minister Jose Ramos Horta and is affiliated with the University of New South Wales.

Executive director of the program Patrick Earle says the workshops aim to help Indigenous people across the Asia-Pacific region deal with globalisation.

"[The aim is to] teach people what the content of international human rights standards are and how the international system works, how the UN works," he said.

"Then to develop their skills to be able to engage in those processes, to be able to talk to government officials - to negotiate effectively."

Mr Earle says representatives from Indigenous communities in Burma, Indonesia, Australia and other Asia-Pacific countries will be attending the week-long workshop.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200704/s1897173.htm