Susan Charles Rankin

Susan Charles Rankin (born 1957), also known as Aunty Sue Rankin, is an Australian indigenous rights and human rights activist and elder of the Dja Dja Wurrung people of the Kulin nation from Central Victoria, Australia. She was one of five signatories by Australian aboriginal elders who lodged a writ in the High Court of Australia in April 2005 calling for the Australian Federal Government to be investigated for crimes of genocide.[1]

Aunty Sue Rankin at Human Rights Day gathering in Melbourne, 2005

On 26 May 2004, National Sorry Day, Susan Rankin, peacefully re-occupied crown land at Franklinford in central Victoria, calling her campsite the Going Home Camp as it is a site of significance to the Dja Dja Wurrung. Rankin asked the Victorian Department of Sustainability and Environment to produce documents proving that the Crown has the right to occupy these lands. According to the 2 June 2004 Daylesford Advocate, local DSE officers admitted they "cannot produce these documents and doubt that such documents exist". Police later arrested her and took her to Ballarat, but no charges were pressed.[2][3]

In 2007 Susan Rankin embarked upon a 1,500 kilometre Sacred Life Walk from Adelaide to Uluru in a bid to "bring world-wide focus on Mother Earth’s changes and the continued deplorable treatment and living conditions of Aboriginal Peoples in the homelands of her Ancestors."[4][5]

References
  1. Aboriginal elders demand genocide action, The Age, 13 April 2005. Accessed 25 December 2008
  2. Margaret Murphy, `Sovereignty, not sorry' Archived 27 September 2008 at the Wayback Machine, Green Left Weekly, 7 July 2004. Accessed 25 December 2008
  3. Jaara re-occupation and camp Archived 6 October 2008 at the Wayback Machine, Melbourne Indymedia, 4 June 2004. Accessed 25 December 2008
  4. Sacred Life Walk 2007 Website. Accessed 25 December 2008
  5. Allan X, Interview with Aunty Sue Rankin, Perth Indymedia radio on RTRFM 92.1 (Perth), 31 May 2006. Accessed 25 December 2008


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