Aboriginal remains to return to Australia

May 12, 2007, 6:47 GMT

Sydney - A 20-year campaign to repatriate the remains of Aborigines in European museums has resulted in London's Natural History Museum agreeing to return bones it has held for more than 100 years, officials in Canberra said Saturday.

'Aboriginal remains will be repatriated to Tasmania within days following successful mediation,' Attorney General Philip Ruddock said.

The remains of 17 individuals will be turned over to Aboriginal representatives for burial in the island state of Tasmania.

It is estimated that the remains of 2,500 Aborigines are current being held in foreign institutions. Around 200 have been repatriated in the past decade.

The Aboriginal remains were collected mostly in the 1880s when scientists were trying to prove that Australia's indigenous people represented the evolutionary link between modern man and ancient man.

The campaign for the repatriation of remains has been controversial among some of the 460,000 people who claim Aboriginal ancestry in Australia.

Community leader Warren Mundine said the legal battle to free remains from the Natural History Museum had cost over 1 million Australian dollars (820,000 US dollars) and that this money would have been better spent on improving the lot of living Aborigines.

Others have complained that the repatriation programme provides expenses-paid European holidays for those who have managed to persuade the government in Canberra that they are Aboriginal leaders.

Aborigines make up around 2.3 per cent of Australia's 20 million population.