- AAP- The new Aboriginal administrators of the South Australian land
on which the mystery Marree Man is etched have branded the carving a "bloody
insult" and vowed to let it fade away.
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- The South Australian government yesterday
placed the Finniss Springs land, south of Lake Eyre, under the management
of the Aboriginal Lands Trust pending parliamentary approval to transfer
the land on a freehold basis.
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- It also unveiled the plaque buried near
the Marree Man - a four-kilometre drawing of a naked Aboriginal hunter
- which was dug up on Tuesday by government representatives following directions
in an anonymous letter to the media, apparently from the creators.
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- The plaque fuels speculation of an American
connection, with a United States flag in the bottom right corner and the
remnants of an Olympic rings sticker which appears to have been peeled
off.
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- In their letter, the creators said the
plaque was to have been unearthed by US media figures in the Sydney Olympics
lead-up following an international chain of clues to unravel the mystery.
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- But they said they would observe the
exclusion zone put in place when the Marree Man was discovered last July,
and would begin their trail of clues this Sunday with an answer buried
at the Cerne Giant in England.
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- Aboriginal Lands Trust chairman Garnet
Wilson said the Marree Man was an insult to local Aborigines and he would
like to "throw it (the plaque) in the deepest ocean I could find,
it's just trash".
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- "I think it's a bloody insult to
Aboriginal people," he said.
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- "I will let the elements take place
and it will disappear off the face of the earth.
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- "There will be no digging it deeper
down to the clay. That's not a threat, it's a promise."
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- Aboriginal Affairs Minister Dorothy Kotz
warned that the perpetrators could be prosecuted because they had damaged
native vegetation.
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- But on the issue of the US link, Mrs
Kotz ruled out an approach to the US defence facilities at Nurrungar and
Woomera, in SA's north, saying there was no evidence to justify pointing
the finger at US servicemen.
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- "To be quite truthful I'm not really
that interested," she said.
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- "People who do these type of things
in deceitful, secretive means may believe in one circumstance they are
doing the world a favour. I don't happen to share that particular view."
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