WHEN Mervyn Day and the people of the Tjarutja Aboriginal community were forced from their land in a remote desert area of South Australia to make way for British atomic tests, their ties with their traditional land were damaged forever.
Forty years on, after steadfastly refusing to pay to clean up the contaminated Maralinga test site that is the traditional home of Mr Day and his people, the British Government has agreed to pay GBP20 million (about HK$230 million) as part of a six-year,A$101 million (HK$525 million) clean-up.
The British offer, which has been accepted by the Australian Cabinet, falls well short of the A$150 million sought by the Aboriginal people and the two deputations they sent to London to fight for a clean-up and compensation.
It includes no compensation. And it falls even further short of the A$500 million clean-up a 1984 Australian Government Royal Commission into Maralinga ruled Britain should pay for.
''It will allow us to put behind us one of the most shameful episodes in Australian history that goes to the very heart of two key aspects of our national identity. That is, our past subservience to the UK and our treatment of Aboriginal people,'' Aboriginal Affairs Minister Robert Tickner says.
For the Tjarutja people the grudging British agreement is ''a bit of a win'' and opens the way for negotiations with the Australian Government on their A$45 million compensation claim.
