500 years committee launched
By Martin Mulligan
MELBOURNE — Exactly 499 years after Christopher Columbus first set foot in the Americas, a Melbourne Working Committee on 500 Years of Indigenous and Popular Resistance held a public launch to outline plans for a year of activities leading up to the "celebration" of the quincentennial in October 1992.
A press conference featured the Reverend Dr Athol Gill, professor of New Testament Studies at the Baptist Theological College, University of Melbourne; Cam Walker from Friends of the Earth; Transito Qunitanilla representing the support group for the Salvadoran organisation COMADRES (mothers of the disappeared); and Pilar Aguilera speaking on behalf of the Working Committee.
The committee has already attracted the participation of people in 11 different Melbourne-based organisations and is planning a week of activities from October 12 to 19, 1992.
The address for the Melbourne Working Committee is PO Box 7, Brunswick West 3055.