CANBERRA (Reuters) - Aboriginal elders planted 211 spear-like sticks into the front lawns of Australia`s Parliament House on Wednesday to mark their suffering since European occupation of Australia began 211 years ago. The four elders also called on Prime Minister John Howard to meet them around a "healing fire" that has burned on the lawn since parliament began its 1999 session on Monday. "That`s why this is all here, to heal and cleanse," Arabunna elder Kevin Buzzacott said of the group`s action, dubbed "211 sticks for 211 years of genocide". "These 211 sticks symbolise all that...and the suffering we will still have tomorrow if we don`t clear the deck and make peace," said Buzzacott. The elders said Howard was disrespectful for not approaching them during their

three days of protest. Australia was declared a British colony on January 26, 1788, when 1,030 settlers landed in what is now New South Wales. In his victory speech after October`s national election, Howard earmarked his government`s second term for a more focused effort at reconciliation between black and white Australia. Reconciliation suffered during his first term, largely for his refusal to offer a national apology to Aborigines for the past policy of forcibly removing children from their families to be brought up in white households or institutions. The elders dismissed Howard`s remarks that he wanted to explore changing the preamble of the constitution to recognise Aboriginal habitation before white settlement. The elders, who were visiting Canberra from as far away as Cape York in far north, were representing the Aboriginal Tent Embassy, a protest site which has stood on the forecourt of the nearby old Parliament House for 27 years. The government recently enacted legislation which could allow it to close the site and will consider the option of a monument to replace the makeshift buildings, which have been heritage-listed.