The 23nd International Congress of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, 23 – 29 July, 1986 in Zeist, the Netherlands:

(from Resolution on The Right of All Indigenous Peoples to Own and Control Both their Land(s) and their Lives)

The Twenty-Third International Congress of WILPF, meeting at Zeist, the Netherlands 23-29 July 1986,

Recognizing the Australian Aborigines as the original inhabitants of Australia,

Believing with them that adequate national land rights legislation is a precondition for urgently needed improvements to health, housing education and employment,

Deploring the Australian Government’s recently announced abandonment of its 1983 commitment to National Land Rights legislation (reaffirmed in August 1984 before the United Nations Commission on Human Rights), and its stated intention to amend the present legislation to effectively remove Aboriginal control of their land and land use, particularly in relation to mining, including the mining of uranium.

Hoping with the Aborigines that international pressure may help to persuade the Australian Government to take up its reiterated commitment to National Land Right legislation,

Requests WILPF International Executive Committee and WILPF sections to express their concern to the Australian Government, either directly to Canberra (Parliament House) or to its overseas embassies, that Aboriginal National Land Rights legislation be enacted, both to honour their repeated commitments to this policy and as a matter of simple justice to a dispossessed minority.