AUSTRALIA:A group of 16 Aborigines were last night considering suing an Australian backpacker hostel they say threw them out for being black.
The Aborigines, most of them women and children, including a three-month-old baby, had travelled 300km (186 miles) from the remote Northern Territory town of Yuendumu to Alice Springs to train as swimming lifeguards. They had already checked into the Haven hostel and been given their room keys when they were told to leave because they were Aboriginal.
"The manager came out and told me that we weren't suitable to stay there," Bethany Langdon of the Yuendumu Young Leaders programme told ABC television.
"They said, because you're Aboriginal, other tourists were making complaints that they were scared of us. I felt like I wanted to cry, because it made me feel like I wasn't an Australian," Ms Langdon said.
The Haven resort issued a statement saying the group was asked to leave because "Haven Hostel is a backpacker hostel catering for international backpacking tourists, which this group was not".
However, nowhere on the website of Haven's owner, Adventure Tours Australia, does it say Australians cannot stay there. It does, however, say its tours emphasise "the unique scenery, wildlife and Aboriginal culture of each area".
Rob Bradley, chief executive of Australia's Royal Lifesaving Society, which booked the group's accommodation and provided their training, said the incident was "pure racism".
"It was a very feeble excuse about a complaint having been made but . . . there was no complaint, there was no reason, it was just pure racism," he said.
Ms Langdon says this was her first experience of overt racism.
"It's a disgrace . . . especially when Aboriginal women come into town trying to be a role model to their community and get looked up to by elder people and younger people from their community and other communities," she said.
Both the federal and Northern Territory governments are encouraging the group to take their case to the Anti-Discrimination Commission. "It is just abominable in Australia today to imagine that this sort of racism is taking place," said federal indigenous affairs minister Jenny Macklin.
Mr Bradley is worried that the incident will put other indigenous Australians off getting lifeguard training. "For that group to be prepared to get organised, go to Alice Springs, which is about 300 kilometres away, for that weekend was a big thing. We're really hoping this doesn't set back the programme completely, but it was just an absolute shocker," he said.
