Tensions rise between black and white Australians

SYDNEY - With relations between black and white Australia edging towards a flash point, Australian police charged two men on Thursday over reports that an aboriginal boy was dragged along the ground with a noose around his neck.

The incident during a farm break-in in tropical Queensland state followed a riot six days ago on a remote Queensland island sparked by the death of an aboriginal man in a police cell.

Two men and two boys are suspected of breaking into a farmhouse near Goondiwindi, 280 km west of the state capital Brisbane, on Tuesday. Police said the four were confronted by farm workers.

Aboriginal leaders said a 16-year-old boy was caught as he tried to escape across a river. His captors tied his hands, put a rope around his neck and dragged him up and down a river bank before he was beaten and threatened with a shotgun.

Media said the Aborigine boy was in hospital with head and chest injuries and possible rope burns on his neck. The other boy escaped after a scuffle and raised the alarm at the nearby Toomelah aboriginal community.

Late on Thursday, police charged a 44-year-old man and a 23-year-old man with assault and ordered them to appear in court on January 18. Charges of breaking and entering and theft were also laid against a 19-year-old from Toomelah.

Similar charges are being investigated against two boys aged under 17 from Toomelah, police said in a statement.

GROWING TENSIONS

The incident angered aboriginal leaders.

"We're reminding the community in general and also the police ... it is not free season on blackfellas," Aborigine Burt Button told ABC radio.

Before the charges were laid, Queensland Premier Peter Beattie said the matter would be investigated impartially.

"Anyone who looks at this objectively would see that as being the law being enforced equally with both black and white," he told reporters.

Goondiwindi Mayor Tom Sullivan joined Beattie in appealing for calm as tensions grew between indigenous Aborigines, Australia's most disadvantaged group, and white Australians.

Aboriginal leaders have called for a national day of action for December 11 after 36-year-old Aborigine Cameron Doomadgee died in a police cell on Palm Island off the Queensland coast last month.

The release of an autopsy report, which showed Doomadgee died from a ruptured liver and that he also had four broken ribs, sparked a riot on the island last Friday during which the local police station and courthouse were burnt down.

Aborigines in Sydney's Redfern ghetto rioted in February after the death of an aboriginal boy. They mistakenly believed the boy was being chased by police when he fell from his bicycle and was impaled on a fence.

Australia's 450,000 Aborigines have a life expectancy 20 years less than white Australians. They make up 20 per cent of the jail population despite being only 2 per cent of the population.

Figures released on Wednesday showed indigenous Australians are murdered at a rate 11 times higher than the rest of the population. They also suffer disproportionately high rates of infant mortality and drug and alcohol abuse.

Australian Prime Minister John Howard, who has been criticised for his steadfast refusal to issue a formal apology to Aborigines for past injustices, will meet Aborigine and retired Australian football star Michael Long on Friday.

Long set out last week on a spontaneous 700 km (440 miles) protest walk from the southern city of Melbourne to the capital Canberra after attending a funeral for another young Aborigine.

- REUTERS