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Burleigh Heads Tensions Boil in War for Waves

Surfersvillage Global Surf News, 10 January, 2006 : - - The war for waves between Brazilian and Australian surfers at Burleigh Heads could cost the Coast thousands of tourist dollars as news about tension at the popular break spreads worldwide.

Many Australia-based international language schools have received emails from students who claim they are too scared to visit the Gold Coast after hearing about the conflict. Brazilian media have painted the Coast as a racist and unsafe place and, following the reports, many students studying here have received calls from the other side of the world from worried parents.

The tension reached its peak following the brutal bashing on New Year's Day of a Brazilian student living at Palm Beach. At the weekend, the park footpath bore chalk-painted signs saying 'Go Home Brazilians' and 'This is Burleigh not Brazil'. Gold Coast Tourism boss Pavan Bhatia called for an end to the unease which is believed to have been sparked by surf rage.

Burleigh Heads locals say the Brazilians 'don't know there is a pecking order in the ocean'. The international surfers say they feel 'edgy' when they are surfing at the point.  Rodrigo Antenor Nunes de Souza, 26, from Santa Catarina, lost several teeth and needed his jaw wired after it was fractured in two places when a gang of about six youths attacked him early on January 1.

Wild press reports including a front-page story in O Globo, a leading Brazilian national newspaper, claimed Mr de Souza had been 'racially taunted, bitten, abducted and left at a dump'.  Burleigh Heads student Gustavo Pinto, 29, from Rio de Janerio, said his parents had called him from South America after reading in the media that the Coast was not safe for Brazilians.

The avid surfer said he felt tension from the Australian surfers when he was at the headland. "They look at you and you can tell they don't want you to be there," he said.  According to one English language teacher, there are more than 1000 Brazilian students studying here.

Sydney's Australian College of English marketing manager, Fernanda Frisch, also a Brazilian, yesterday said she had been inundated with emails from travel agents and students, threatening to cancel trips to Australia.  "We've had so many emails from all over the world from people wanting to know whether Australia was a safe place to visit. They don't want to come here any more," she said.

"I want to show to them that it has been blown out of proportion. "Yes, there may be some tension but itis not enough to say that the Gold Coast and Australia are not safe."  Burleigh Heads Language Centre managing director Patsy Mclachlan said she also had received emails from Brazil and New Zealand, concerned about safety on the Gold Coast.

"It is out of hand. I had one email from a prospective student who said he was thinking about changing his mind and going elsewhere to study English," she said. "This could be bad for the Gold Coast."

Mr Bhatia said that international students brought in thousands of dollars to the region and was a market that should not be jeopardised. "The Gold Coast has the highest number of international students in Australia. It is a safe place and we need to get that message out there."  One local surfer, who did not wish to be named, said the number of Brazilians surfing at the break was growing.

"They come out to-gether like animals and they don't know that at Burleigh there is a pecking order," he said.  "You need to earn respect on the waves here and know that you can't just drop in other people's waves."  However, another foreign surfer (not Brazilian) said he was nearly king-hit last week over a half-metre wave.

"The local surfers are very protective of their break and they go off at anyone who uses the points and gets the good waves," he said. "Someone nearly hit me over the smallest wave last week."

A Burleigh Board Riders Club spokesman yesterday denied wave rage between the two surfing cultures and said he knew nothing about the graffiti in the park.  

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