Indigenous leaders slam vandals who cut down Captain Cook statue: ‘Disgraceful and heinous’
An Indigenous elder has branded the destruction of a historic statue of Captain Cook on Australia Day evening as a “shameful and heinous” act carried out by “cretins”.
Boonwurrung elder Jason Briggs made the comments about the sawn-off statue, which is located in the same Melbourne suburb, during a funeral ceremony in St Kilda on Friday.
It comes as new images emerge of the vandals who brazenly sawed off the legs of the 110-year-old bronze statue in Catani Gardens and used red spray paint to decorate the statue’s base with the words ‘The colony must fall’.
The same words were spray-painted and splashed with red paint on a 117-year-old monument to Queen Victoria located in Melbourne’s central Queen Victoria Gardens about 3.30am on Thursday.
Boon Wurrung elder Jason Briggs (pictured) has condemned the toppling of a statue of Captain Cook in Melbourne as a ‘violent crime’ that was the work of ‘cretins’
Mr Briggs, chairman of the Boonwurrung Land and Sea Council, told a gathering of hundreds of people in St Kilda that the felling of the Cook statue and associated graffiti was a ‘violent crime’.
“We will not engage in anything illegal, unlawful or as disgraceful as such a heinous act,” he said.
He called the vandals ‘cretins’ who were engaged in a ‘divisive act’.
“So let’s not let them win and tear us apart… (we) say this: You don’t speak for us. We do not in any way support or tolerate what you have done,” he said.
Mr. Briggs told it later The Age newspaper that respect for cultural icons ‘was a two-way street’.
The video of the statue’s teardown shows vandals wearing balaclavas sawing off the statue at the ankles.
They then use a rope around the figure’s neck to pull the main body of the statue down from the stage.
Graffiti artists are also shown painting the slogan on the base of the Captain Cook statue and throwing red paint over the Queen Victoria monument.
Workers discovered the body of the statue of Captain Cook the next day, lying face down, with the noose-like rope around his neck.
Vandals filmed themselves sawing off the Captain Cook statue at the ankles (photo)
The video of the vandals was provided to an Instagram channel disruptwars, along with the following anonymous statement.
“This morning in Naarm the statue of Captain Cook was toppled and the statue of Queen Victoria was covered in blood,” the statement said.
‘Captain Cook was a murderer of British imperialism, Queen Victoria an orchestrator and overseer of genocide.
“The community of Naarm rejects monuments that glorify murder, occupation and the ongoing genocide of First Nations people.
‘Colonialism is imperialism is capitalism is theft is expropriation is genocide: destroy this in every form. Colonialism will never be celebrated, only overthrown. Empires will fall and justice will prevail.
‘Be part of a future that emerges from the truth of our past. What could be possible?
‘This took place one day before Invasion Day, January 26th. Listen, take action, disrupt.”
Workers discovered the felled statue of Captain Cook (photo) the next morning.
On Thursday evening, two self-styled ‘Australian nationalists’ who were ‘guarding’ Captain James Cook in Sydney against vandals were taken away by police.
Gabriel Mare claims he and an associate were stopped by NSW Police in Hyde Park on Thursday evening while trying to guard the statue on the eve of Australia Day.
He said police intervened after just seven minutes and asked them to leave.
NSW Police said they interviewed three men in the park about 10.30pm on Thursday evening.
“Officers spoke to three men who were near the Captain Cook statue,” a police spokesperson told Daily Mail Australia.
“The men were searched and nothing untoward was found.”