The raid against the people of Redfern highlighted cop violence against the Black people in this area. On February 8, at 4 am over 100 cops raided fourteen homes and terrorised the occupants. Since then there have been brutal attacks on a smaller scale. This raid is just not a single isolated incident - it is part of a wholesale campaign of racialist violence by the state. Inspector Peat has gone on record as saying that raids like the last could happen again.
What do we do about it? Unless police raids are stopped, blacks will have no real community. All residents, black and white, deeply shocked by its brutality, held meetings to discuss it. From these meetings an open committee has been formed, temporarily calling itself Friends of Redfern. Recently they drew up a draft of their aims and demands (like speed humps to slow the cop vans down!). What they omitted was any mention of the physical, legal and political defence of the black community, despite its inclusion at the meeting designed to draw up aims and objectives. An ALP colleague of the typist claims this was an "accidental" omission but any organisation that took defence of the Black community seriously would not, even by accident, omit such an essential objective.
The ALP members of this open committee have shown a consistent lack of commitment in other ways: to alert residents for the next raid a telephone tree has been prepared. It has about ten names -what effort that has been made to recruit more people or organisations to realistically frustrate any police action has been frustrated by leading ALP member Trevor Davies. If a raid were to occur tomorrow, in the absence of a ground plan for action, we would be as ill-organised as the civil authorities are when gas tanks explode in the next suburb.
At the community meeting in February, a Building Workers' Industrial Union organiser, John Carruthers, pledged his union's support to the black community. No serious attempt has been made to follow up this offer. Davies has promised every Monday since to bring his contact, a BWIU representative to the committee meeting to discuss joint action - this delegate has yet to arrive! The ALP members pay lip service to physical working class defence against the cops but it's so low on their list of priorities that it will never happen.
What they really believe is that deep down, cops and blacks can Work together! We've all been there and done that! They think we should try again! Will Trev replace the doors smashed in the next raid? The cops' propaganda machine, via the Sydney Morning Herald, has painted a picture of two black Redferns. The "crims" and the "decent" blacks. Decent blacks are terrorised by the crim blacks. Decent blacks trust the Aboriginal Liason Officers. Decent blacks want the crims out of their suburb. These lies are a deliberate attempt to disguise the racialist character of the raid. The cops won't change their "operating preocedures". Get them out of our suburb now!
Friends of Redfern comes out strongly in support of speed humps, zebra crossings and community amenities. They refuse to make demands that will defend the community under at
tack. They won't commit themselves to demand better housing or to stop evictions. They won't commit themselves to fight for the unemployed being forced off the dole, or dole inspectors harassing single parents. These attacks are part and parcel of the offensive against low income earners, unemployed and black people -the people who have traditionally lived here. Vague statements like "defend the integrity of the community" and "develop community spirit" are so much hot air if we don't actively fight the press and the cops and the landlords and the public servants who serve the system in its attacks on us.
Two months down the track under ALP leadership and the committee has organised two BBQs, a meeting with Supercop Alf Peat and about ten people who are prepared to answer the telephone early in the morning. Politely lobbying the cops and the government is a useless strategy. We must organise for the next raid now by lobbying union officials and rank and file workers to defend the streets of Redfern against police raids. We must extend the telephone tree so hundreds will out in force. We need to organise against the offensive of property interests to drive low income earners and the black community out of Redfern.
Communist Tendency, P.O.
Box 119, Erskineville.
6 April 1990