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Eye Witness Account of the Funeral day of Robert Charles Bropho. RIP.
Robert Charles Bropho may be the only man in Australian history to have been be "pulled over" by police whilst travelling to his own Funeral Service.
Blackfellas in Australia get used to routinely being pulled off the road by police but this would have to be a first…..
On Friday 11.11.2011 the Funeral procession of Robert Charles Bropho was pulled over and detained at Kiara Police Station, while hundreds of mourners were left standing on a busy roadside in the hot sun, surrounded by Police and television cameras.
They say the truth often comes out at a funeral, and the funeral of Robert Charles Bropho, Aboriginal Leader of the Swan Valley Nyungah Community, Elder, Educator and Activist, will be remembered for the ugly truth it exposed about how the West Australian Premier deals with Aboriginal people and Native Title holders.
My name is Lynda Nutter and I live at 6 Mary Crescent Eden Hill, near a bend in the Swan River in Western Australia.
I live a couple of hundred yards from the Swan Valley Nyungah Community Land in Lockridge and I got to know the people there around 1998 when the Government proposed to build a prison on the "Pyrton land" next door to Swan Valley "Lockridge Land".
Throughout the 4 year campaign against the prison I spent a lot of time at the community office and became friends with Robert Bropho, Bella, and Margret the secretary and the families that lived at the Swan Valley Community on the Lockridge Land.
Although the wider community succeeded in their protests against the prison it was a bittersweet victory. A complex chain of political manoeuvring and manipulation at the highest levels led to the eviction of all the Aboriginal residents of the Swan Valley Camp, after Robert Bropho was accused and ultimately convicted and jailed for sex crimes that were said to have happened some twenty years earlier. The complaint was brought by a desperate woman in Bandyup jail with a long history drug abuse and criminal offences and further charges pending (Examinataion of the files will show the community "got wind" of the plotting long before it hit the news but there was little they could do in the face of such a consolidated assault.)
The Government, at that time under Geoff Gallop,( who not long after this had a nervous breakdown) determined that the Aboriginal Women, Children and Families at the Swan Valley Community should be Evicted from their homes and Land for various reasons, but the ones that have appeared most in the press over the years are that their leader was a sexual predator, and a young woman, (who did not live there) had hanged herself in the ablution block (after a witness had observed her on the adjacent Pyrton land sniffing solvents for most of the day.)
Gallop was persuaded. The camp was a place of infamy and should be closed.
Now I Never could understand the logic of punishing the families of the criminal. Does it seem right to you? Wouldn't you think they might have offered some extra social services to deal with some of the problems?
Instead the whole Swan Valley Community were evicted from their homes with little warning and with no immediate provision for accommodation. They lived in Caravans at Cullacabardee Aboriginal Reserve and "dossed" at friends places or lived on the street.
I say " lived" reservedly because two deaths in the Bropho family may be attributable to the eviction and consequent homelessness.
Subordinates were scrambled and accommodation was eventually offered some weeks later in far flung suburbs where the families couldn't readily come together.
Despite, deaths, dispersion, and degraded living conditions since being evicted from their homes on the Lockridge Land, the community members still stand strong together and maintain their identity as the High Court determined; as Native Tile Holders to the land in the Swan Valley.
Bella Bropho has taken up the speakers role and she now rents a homeswest unit a few hundred meters from her vandalised home at the Lockridge land.
At the Swan Valley Community there is a dome shaped building.
Well it's not technically On the Lockridge Land, it lies on the adjacent "Pyrton"Land" (where the Prison was proposed) but it has always held spiritual significance to the people and the thumb-print of Premier Richard Court,who originally granted the land, is on the dome. The Dome is where the community, led by Bella, were planning to hold a Funeral Service for the late Mr Bropho.
Bella applied to the Planning Commision, in whom the land is vested, for permission to hold the funeral service and permission was given in writing.
The Department were very co-operative and respectful, the lawns were mowed and as a sign of good will they even arranged for the removal of graffiti from all of the buildings (but one, on which there was a previously painted artwork that the community hoped to restore) so that the place would look good on the day of the Funeral.
A key to the front gate of the Lockridge Land was delivered to the Swan Valley Community Office by the authorities and I attended a large gathering on Sunday 6th November to clear the paths and trim bushes around the Dome and the area was swept and prepared ready for the Service on Friday 11th.
The Planning Commission had agreed to allow the opening of the Gates to the Lockridge Community Land so that the large number of vehicles could safely park and people could move safely to and from the Service. They also allowed for the people returning to the Dome for tea and sandwiches after the service. The Bropho Family at this stage were pleasantly surprised and grateful at the respect and consideration being shown by the Government departments.
Sadly things changed.
Mick Gooda , a so called human rights representative, and chief government mouthpiece and puppet was quoted on radio as saying the choice of location was inappropriate even though no complaint had been lodged by anyone.
Next, PremierBarnett overode the planning Commission's permission to open the gates for parking and safety and forced mourners and Police to assemble on the busy Lord Street and Morley Drive intersection on the day of the funeral, and both entrances were secured by police.
The family at this stage were disappointed that the deal had been broken but were prepared to walk down the side track on the adjacent Pyrton Land -crown land, to the Dome.
The Nyungahs at this stage still had confidence that all would go well.
But things went quickly deteriorated and the policeman in charge was given the onerous task of explaining to mourners that the hearse would not be released until the party moved somewhere else, anywhere else but the Lockridge and now the Pyrton Land.
Enraged, confused but with dignity the party moved to Gilly Park; the site of the original tent embassy before the Lockridge Land was granted and Bobby got one last tour of the suburbs while the mourners reassembled.
I didn't make it to the Graveside. I was overwhelmed with the intensity of the day and what had unfolded so I went home to rest as they laid him to rest.
I down-loaded my photos and headed down to down to Gilly Park for the Wake. The poem tells the rest.
"Owed" to Bobby Bropho RIP
Lynda Nutter 12th November 2011
His friends called him Bobby
To his family he was Pop
And on the way to Lockridge
In the hearse they made him stop
Pulled him over at Kiara
In his fancy funeral Car
There's a lot more to this story than the one you've heard so far.
There's another story
Than the one told in the news
I'ts all about a land grab
And people being used
And abused by the government
Cause there's quite a lot at stake
And when they get the land
Ooooh the money they will make.
Now Bobby was a Leader
But the leader fell from grace
So they vilified his family
And rubbed it in their face
At every opportunity they talked the "Demon" down
Good times all forgotten by his so called friends in town
To shut the gate for good
And get the Brophos off the land
Was the Government agenda
So the people made a stand
But they locked away old Bobby
Until his dying day
Then they hijacked his Funeral
To make the funeral move away.
They moved on down to Gilly Park
Back where the tents had been
They buried him on Guilford ground
Then Gilly park for tea
But the troupers and the cameras
And the media came too
They paraded the perimeter
And filmed our every move
Till the patience of the people
Was really at its end
So Herbet on his crutches
Took off to make a stand
The teenagers and young ones
All followed on behind
As he hobbled to the troupers
And dared to speak his mind
Then sirens soon were blaring
And the TRG pulled in
They sent the dirt a flying and said
"Get back where you've been."
They hounded and harassed the Bropho family
Until dark
Grieving families left to ponder
What had happened in the park?
And at Kiara
Where the funeral car was held up by police?
And at the front gate of the Nyungah camp
The home of the deceased?
The message can't be clearer.
Well make you live in fear
We'll take away your land
And stop you coming here
The sins of the fathers
Will be thrust upon the sons
And the daughters and the children
Of the Man now in the ground
But I was proud to know old Bobby
I counted him a friend
And I'm proud to know his family
They stuck by him till the end
I knew him as a Leader
Unafraid to speak his mind
Just like Herbet and the kids
All facing troupers in a line
Bobby's Funeral
Will ever be remembered in this state
First man to be detained by cops
En route to Heaven's Gate
His friends called him Bobby
To his family he was Pop
And on the way to Lockridge
In the hearse they made him stop
Pulled him over at Kiara
In his fancy funeral Car
There's a lot more to this story
Than the one you've heard so far.
Mourners gather around Robert Bropho's casket to pay their last respects. The public park in Guildford was a lovely setting, although the preferred site for the eulogies was the sacred homeland at the camp in Lockridge. Dozens of police attended all aspects of the funeral, clearly wishing to pay their respects as well, but inhibited by the shame of their actions as required by the racist Barnett government of Western Australia. November the 11th is remembrance day for signing of the armistice in 1918. Now also we remember Robert on this day, just as we remember the disastrous Australia day invasion of 1788 and the wholesale slaughter of the first Australians. We will remember 11/11/11.
Caption and photos by Stuart Sherlock
More photos here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/desire_mallet/sets/72157628452733057/
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