7.a.m. (Guardian) The Road to Yoorook is the first of a two-part series that was released at the same time as the Yoorook final report was handed to the Victorian government. The Yoorook truth-telling commission is the first one held in Australia. Although the indigenous population in Victoria is not large now compared with other states, prior to colonization Victoria was one of the most heavily populated areas of Australia , largely because of climate, geography and the abundance of food. It was also the home of many of the Aboriginal organizations of the 1970s, including the Aboriginal Legal Service, the Aboriginal Health Service. The First Peoples Assembly called for a truth-telling commission that had all the power of a royal commission, but at first – pathetically- they had trouble finding premises in which to hold the commission, and it took a directions hearing to get government compliance in making a building available. Part 2: The Truth Has Been Told has the stories of First Nations elders whose loved ones were stolen, and the changing policy settings that had such effects on their lives. It goes through the commission process, with the Premier and the Police Commissioner being called before it. Given the political climate of the present day, it is unlikely that we will see anything like it again.
In The Shadows of Utopia Season 2 Episode 10 The Cambodian Civil War Begins Part 1 deals with 1967. The foreword to the episode starts with the man we now know as Duch, who was at the time was a quietly-spoken communist teacher- we will meet him later, I’m sure. By this time, there was a contradiction between Sihanouk’s external and internal politics. Internally, he was veering between the left and right. At the end of 1966 he went to Paris for ‘health reasons’, leaving his Prime Minister Lon Nol in charge. In January and February 1967 riots broke out in Battambang, where the government cracked down on the black market sale of rice to Vietnam. Battambang had been the site of anti-French protest in the past, and it was close to the Thai border. Two-thirds of the rice harvest was being passed to the black market, and Lon Nol forced the sale of the rice to the government, at a low price. By April 2 1967 the resulting Samlaut uprising had morphed into a peasant revolt, which was quickly and violently suppressed. There were only a few hundred fighters, and they had some village support but they faced the superior technology of the army and betrayal by village vigilantes. This was the start of a new era of violence in an independent Cambodia. Historians are divided over the actual influence of the Communist Party of Kampuchea on the Samlaut uprising, but certainly the CPK decided on a nation-wide uprising at the start of 1968, against the disapproval of the Vietnamese communist party.
But Sihanouk couldn’t pretend now that unrest was all external. Sihanouk had dealt with the North Vietnamese, with the support of Russia and China. Internally, he wanted to eradicate the CPK, but he went for the wrong Marxists, and ended up pursuing all of the old Paris-based leadership. This led to false rumours that three of these leaders -Khieu Samphan, Hou Yuon and Hu Nim – had been murdered, and when the three re-appeared later, they were called the Three Ghosts.
The Rest is History Episode 556: 1066 The Battle of Hastings One of the first books that my parents bought for me specifically, on request, was the poetry book 1066 and all that. I was in grade 5 in primary school, but thinking back, it seems odd that we would have learned about the Battle of Hastings. Who knows. The Battle of Hastings took place on 14th October 1066, just three weeks after Harold Godwinson had seen off Harald Hadrada. William of Normanby had horses, where the English had shields, although given that it was an all-day battle, probably the horses weren’t that important anyway. Many of the myths about the Battle of Hastings are questionable. Was Harold really shot through the eye? The Bayeux Tapestry shows two figures identified as Harold, and it was reworked in the 19th century anyway? There’s an alternative scenario, identified in the account written closest to events, that says that he was butchered by four men including William the Conquerer.
The Resident Judge of Port Phillip 