Australian Prime Minister John Howard denied on Monday that government warnings of home-grown Islamic militants had fuelled weekend race riots targeting Middle Easterners.
More than 30 people were injured and 16 were arrested in the some of the worst racial violence in Australian history as riots spread from a Sydney beach on Sunday afternoon to several suburbs overnight, police said.
”Attacking people on the basis of their race, their appearance, their ethnicity, is totally unacceptable and should be repudiated by all Australians irrespective of their own background and their politics,” Howard told a news conference.
He dismissed any suggestion his government’s recent warnings about the possibility of attacks by home-grown Islamic terrorists had fuelled the rampage.
”It is impossible to know how individuals react, but everything this government’s said about home-grown terrorism has been totally justified,” Howard said, an apparent reference to the arrests last month of 18 Muslim men on terrorist charges.
The violence was launched by mobs of youths who attacked people of Middle Eastern appearance on Cronulla beach in south Sydney.
More than 5 000 people gathered at the beach after e-mail and cellphone messages called on local residents to beat-up ”Lebs and wogs” — racial slurs for people of Lebanese and Middle Eastern origin.
The move followed assaults a week ago on two volunteer lifeguards at the beach, which is a popular gathering place for Muslims from inner-city suburbs, and allegations that local women were being harassed.
Chanting ”No more Lebs” and ”Aussie, Aussie, Aussie … Oi, oi, oi”, mobs of drunken young men waving Australian flags attacked anyone suspected of having a Middle Eastern background.
One Muslim woman had her headscarf ripped off and was chased into a beach kiosk, local media reported.
Six police officers were injured as they tried to quell the violence, and two ambulance officers were also hurt.
Later, a gang of about 60 men reportedly of Middle Eastern appearance launched a series of apparent revenge attacks in nearby suburbs, smashing more than 40 cars with baseball bats and stabbing two youths.
A local MP for Howard’s Liberal Party, Bruce Baird, said he believes the beach rioting was revenge for the Bali bombings in which scores of Australians were killed.
Many local residents of the primarily Caucasian area were angry, particularly after six women from the neighbourhood were killed in the 2002 Bali nightclub bombings, he said.
”Where this riot took place is actually the site of where we’ve got the Bali memorial for these women,” Baird said.
The president of the Islamic Friendship Association of Australia, Keysar Trad, said he disagrees with Baird’s view that terrorism was the issue.
”This was just an ugly racist genie that was let out of the bottle and we have to put it back in the bottle,” he said.
New South Wales state police Deputy Commissioner Andrew Scipione, meanwhile, said neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups are believed to have been among the crowd at Cronulla beach.
”That in fact is something that we’re following up,” he told Nine Network television.
State Premier Morris Iemma described the violence as ”stomach-turning”, and announced the formation of a police strike force to track down and arrest the instigators.
”I saw yesterday people trying to hide behind the Australian flag; well, they are cowards whose behaviour will not be tolerated,” Iemma said.
Community leaders will be brought together for discussions about how to prevent further violence, after reports that a second mass gathering is being planned for next Sunday, he said. — Sapa-AFP