CLEAN-UP DENIED AS DRUG POLICE TURN TO REDFERN

It was the third drug raid of its kind in Sydney in nine days:another
well-publicised operation that yesterday saw huge numbers of police
swoop on Redfern's Aboriginal community, The Block.

Yet however well-intentioned the operation might have been, it has
only added to the suspicion that it is part of the pre-Olympic clean-up.

Police and the Premier, Mr Carr, insisted yesterday that such
suggestions were ridiculous.

But Aboriginal leaders, civil libertarians and the Cabramatta Chamber
of Commerce said they were not convinced.

"This is an attempt to remove an eyesore from the world,"an Aboriginal
activist, Mr Lyall Munro, screamed at police. "Why don't you go and
raid North Sydney or the North Shore?"

The president of the NSW Council of Civil Liberties, Mr Kevin
O'Rourke, said: "There is no doubt a picture emerging that the
Government wants to beautify the streets of Sydney in every respect,
whether it's by increasing the powers of police, councils or whoever."

And from the president of the Cabramatta Chamber of Commerce, Mr Ross
Treyvaud: "Is Cabramatta next? Or are the police confining the clean-up to
the city suburbs?"

In the past week-and-a-half large amounts of police resources have
been poured into the three dawn raids.

The first, on August 2, saw more than 100 police raid homes across
Sydney's south-west and charge 21 people with a total of 78 offences.

The next day, homes in Kings Cross were targeted and seven people
charged. Redfern came next.

Police said yesterday that Sydney's reputation was "always predominant
when running these types of operations" but denied they were cleaning
up the suburb for international visitors.

Commander Dick Adams of the City East region rejected the claim the
three raids were orchestrated and that police were operating under
political pressure.

Asked if it was just a pre-Olympics clean-up, as cynics say,
Superintendent Peter Parsons, who directed yesterday's raid, said:
"The cynics would, but I can tell you that my focus and my police's
focus is on drug-related crime in this area."

Mr Carr reiterated that the raid had nothing to do with an Olympic
clean-up. In applauding the raid, the Premier said it was "part of the
program of hitting and hitting hard drug dealers".

Mr Carr said he expected similar operations to continue after the
Olympics.

He denied there was any racial motivation to the raid, which took
place in an area containing one of NSW's highest urban Aboriginal
populations.

"I say to Aboriginal activists that this is designed to protect young
Aborigines from the scourge of heroin dependency."

Mr Carr said it was time to get rid of the notion that everything was
somehow linked to the Olympic timetable.

"The battle against drug dealers goes on regardless of the Olympics,"
he said.

Asked whether any more raids were planned, Commander Adams said:
"You'll just have to wait and see."

Eight of the 16 people arrested yesterday were charged under new law
that allow police to charge people with supplying heroin if they sell
the drug three times within 30 days.

The charges carry a maximum of 20 years' imprisonment.

The laws, which were introduced last year by the then
attorney-general, Mr Jeff Shaw, allow people who deal in small amounts
of heroin to be charged as suppliers.

The laws have been used in four operations mounted by police over the
past 10 days to target what police have termed drug-dealing
operations.