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  • John Minto: From Raglan to Palestine – let our voice be heard out loud

    COMMENTARY: By John Minto

    During World War I, the New Zealand government took a big area of land at Raglan from the local Tainui Awhiro people to build an airfield and bunker as part of local war preparations.

    The airfield was never built and, instead of returning the land to the people, the government used the Public Works Act in 1928 to give legal justification for the Crown keeping the land.

    In 1967, local iwi were evicted from the land and forced to rebuild nearby with the government then selling the land for the Raglan Golf Course.

    In the early 1970s, Tainui Awhiro, led by Māori activist Eva Rickard, began the fight to have the land returned and after much protest, marches, petitions, lobbying, occupations and arrests on the golf links themselves they were finally successful in 1983.

    The land was handed back — but not until they had fought off a government “offer” requiring them to buy their land back from the Crown.

    It was my first experience of being part, in a very small way, of a Māori land protest.
    One of the important things I remember from Raglan, Bastion Pt and those early land protests were the messages of support and solidarity which came in from around the country and all over the world.

    Typically, these would be read out at the start of a protest hui and local iwi and supporters took great heart from them. They lifted spirits and warmed hearts when things sometimes seemed bleak.

    Long way to decolonisation
    We have a long way to go in decolonisation in Aotearoa New Zealand but we have come a significant way from the crude government behaviour at Raglan.

    On the other side of the world, colonisation in Palestine is continuing apace since the mass expulsions of Palestinians from their land in 1948 (more than700,000 people evicted from their homes and land by Israeli militias from more than 500 villages with dozens of civilian massacres along the way).

    Every day for the past 74 years, more Palestinians have been evicted from their land using all manner of spurious, creative justifications, backed by a court system run by the Israeli colonisers.

    In the spotlight today are 12 Palestinian villages with more than 1000 people who face eviction from their land in an area of the South Hebron Hills called Masafer Yatta.

    An Israeli court has given the Israeli army the go-ahead to evict the people and take over their land for a “live firing range”. The range isn’t needed. The Israeli army already has close to 18 per cent of the occupied West Bank set aside for firing zones — it’s just a commonly used pretext for land theft.

    If the Israeli army is able to evict these people, it will be the largest eviction of Palestinians in more than 50 years.

    Like the early colonists in New Zealand, Israel wants the land without the people.

    Palestine’s Raglan struggle
    Masafer Yatta is Palestine’s Raglan Golf Course, albeit on a larger scale and as part of the longest-running military occupation in modern times.

    The people of Masafer Yatta are fighting back with protests and vowing not to move despite five weeks of thuggish bullying by Israeli military with vehicles racing around the land in a massive show of force to intimidate and cower the people. Live bullets ripped through roofs of houses in the Khallat Al Dabea village during this “military training”.

    The local Palestinian people are organising to defend their land and homes against Israel’s aggressive colonisation.

    Young people are on the frontline. Co-founder of non-violent resistance group Youth of Samud (Sumud means “steadfastness”) Sami Hurraini was detained by the Israeli army in the hot sun for eight hours without food or water last week but is undaunted.

    Despite receiving a demolition order for their centre in Masafer Yatta, Hurraini says, “Of course Israel won’t stop us! We will rebuild the centre every time they demolish it.”

    The least we can do is add our voices of international support and solidarity to the people of Masafer Yatta. We need to let them know they are not alone — just as similar messages gave heart to Māori fighting land theft here.

    And we have to let Israel know there are accountabilities for ethnic cleansing and the war crimes associated with colonisation of Palestinian land.

    Palestinians are not looking for our sympathy — they are looking for practical solidarity. If enough voices are raised around the world Israel will be forced to back down.

    The strongest voice we have is the government’s. We need to insist our government uses it on behalf of all of us.

    John Minto is a political activist and commentator, and spokesperson for Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa. This article was first published by The New Zealand Herald and is republished with the author’s permission.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • “The Drone Problem”: How the U.S. Has Struggled to Curb Turkey, a Key Exporter of Armed Drones

    by Umar Farooq

    ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published.

    Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed was in a tough spot last August when he paid a visit to Turkey. For nearly a year, his government had been at war with rebels from the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, which was now pushing south from its stronghold near the Eritrean border and threatening to move on the country’s capital of Addis Ababa. Thousands had already been killed, and the United States and the United Nations had accused all the warring parties of blockading aid, committing sexual assault and deliberately targeting civilians.

    With only a small, aging fleet of Soviet-era military jets, Abiy needed a way to quickly — and cheaply — expand his air campaign against the rebels. Turkey had just the solution: a military drone known as the TB2 that could be piloted from nearly 200 miles away. China and Iran also supplied drones, but the TB2, outfitted with cutting-edge technology, had fast become the new favorite of the world’s embattled nations, helping to win wars even when it was pitted against major powers.

    On Aug. 18, Abiy met Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to sign a military pact. It’s unclear whether drones were part of the agreement. But two days after the signing, publicly available flight records showed that an Ethiopian Airlines charter flight took off from Tekirdağ, an hour’s drive west of Istanbul, at an airstrip known for testing and exporting the Turkish drones. It was the first of at least three such runs over roughly a month, the records show. Neither the Turkish nor the Ethiopian governments responded to questions about the flights, but officials in Turkey have previously acknowledged drone sales to Ethiopia.

    Within months, Turkish-made drones, as well as ones made by China and Iran, hovered over crowded town centers across rebel-held Ethiopia, watching those below before launching missiles at them. News seeped out of towns like Alamata and Mlazat that the drones’ missiles were killing not just suspected rebels but dozens of people, many of them civilians, as they rode buses or shopped in markets. Human rights groups took note of armed drones in the skies and examined images of missile fragments from airstrikes to try to identify exactly what aircraft were involved, hoping that publicly naming their origin would prompt the sellers to reconsider their actions.

    As the death toll mounted, the Biden administration, which had authorized sanctions against any party involved in the fighting, said it had “profound humanitarian concerns” over Turkey’s drone sales to Ethiopia. And U.S. officials meeting with their Turkish counterparts raised reports of drone use in the conflict. But there the warnings stopped. Unlike its decisive actions targeting drone programs in China and Iran, Washington took no further action against the program in Turkey, a NATO ally.

    So the Ethiopian air campaign continued, including a strike by a Turkish-made drone on a camp for displaced civilians in Dedebit that killed 59 people and attracted widespread condemnation. The bloodshed again drew a rebuke from the U.S., this time directed at Ethiopia. President Joe Biden called Abiy and “expressed concern that the ongoing hostilities, including recent air strikes, continue to cause civilian casualties and suffering,” according to a White House summary of the conversation. Little changed, and by late February, about six months after Abiy’s visit to Turkey, at least 304 civilians were dead from airstrikes, according to the U.N.

    The Ethiopian government did not respond to requests for comment, but authorities have previously denied targeting civilians in the war.

    A drone expert with the anti-weapons-proliferation group Pax flagged an aircraft that he identified as a TB2 drone in satellite imagery of Ethiopia’s Bahir Dar air force base from December 2021. (Screenshot from Twitter)

    Today, much of the discussion around the TB2 drone centers on Ukraine, where it is playing a pivotal role in the war against Russia. Ukraine has put out a steady stream of propaganda videos that show TB2s taking out equipment like surface-to-air missiles and helping other aircraft and artillery target Moscow’s forces. Some lawmakers in Congress have even cast the drone as a crucial weapon and are pushing for the U.S. to help Ukraine buy more. In Lithuania, a recent crowdfunding campaign raised $5.4 million in three and a half days to help Ukraine purchase another TB2.

    But the public relations blitz obscures growing concerns around the world about Turkey and the proliferation of a weapon that is changing the nature of modern warfare. At least 14 countries now own TB2s, and another 16 are seeking to purchase them. The technology offers even the smallest militaries the capacity to inflict the kind of damage that was once the exclusive province of wealthy, Western nations, and Turkey seems eager to expand global sales of the weapon.

    “They are a game changer,” said Richard Speier, a former Defense Department official who drafted and negotiated a key international agreement that now governs the sale of armed drones. “It’s going to be necessary to take account of them and put a lot of effort in dealing with the drone problem … [because] you can do things on a small budget that you couldn’t do before.”

    Amid the criticism, Turkish officials, along with the drone maker itself, Baykar Technology, have defended the TB2 as a critical tool for developing nations and embattled democracies like Ukraine. The drone “is doing what it was supposed to do — taking out some of the most advanced anti-aircraft systems and advanced artillery systems and armored vehicles,” Selçuk Bayraktar, the firm’s chief technology officer, told Reuters in May. “The whole world is a customer.”

    Officials tout the drone as the product of Turkish industry, with nearly all of its components coming from within Turkey. But time and again, wreckage from downed drones in multiple conflicts have shown otherwise. In fact, a whole range of components — from antennas to fuel pumps to missile batteries — were made by manufacturers in the U.S., Canada and Europe, according to images of wreckage examined by ProPublica and statements by companies, some of whom have acknowledged sales to Turkey.

    Some lawmakers have called on the Biden administration to pressure Turkey to restrict sales of the drone by suspending exports of U.S. technology that could be used in the uncrewed aircraft. They argue that the drones and their missiles are sparking more instability around the world, and, in some cases, violating American and international arms embargoes meant to contain wars like the conflict in Ethiopia.

    “Turkey’s drone sales are dangerous, destabilizing and a threat to peace and human rights,” said Sen. Robert Menendez last year, as he pushed for an investigation into whether U.S. exports are being used in the Turkish drones. “The U.S. should have no part of it.” Menendez’s office did not respond to a request for comment for this story.

    It’s unclear, though, whether the Biden administration will take any further action. A spokesperson for the State Department declined to answer questions for this story, providing only a general statement about arms sales. “We encourage all countries to abide by U.N. arms embargoes, avoid arms transfers to persons who are sanctioned by the United States or the United Nations, and avoid destabilizing arms transfers,” it read.

    To better understand how Western technology has made its way into Turkey’s armed drones, ProPublica reviewed videos and photos of TB2s released by media outlets and government agencies, as well as reports by the United Nations and anti-arms-proliferation advocates. The news organization then compiled a list of key parts and consulted with U.S. arms experts to check whether their sale violated export regulations. They did not. Many of the components in the TB2s were commercial-grade parts found in a variety of consumer products, such as HD video cameras or self-driving cars, so they evaded the strict regulatory scrutiny applied to military parts in the U.S.

    Still, other countries, including Canada, have instituted export bans that have kept some key commercial parts from flowing to Turkey. And experts say the U.S., if it chose to, could take similar measures at home and step up enforcement abroad.

    Cameron Hudson, former Director for African Affairs on the National Security Council, compared the impact of drones like TB2s to the Stinger missile, the shoulder-fired weapons the U.S. distributed to mujahedeen fighters in Afghanistan in the 1980s to repel Soviet forces, then spent decades trying to recover.

    “As the technology continues to improve, as they become cheaper, as they become more mobile and portable, as you need less infrastructure to operate them, they modernize conflict around the world,” he said.

    The U.S. demonstrated the lethal power of armed drones in the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations, when officials used them for targeted killings in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. Since then, international regulators have largely focused on policing sales of larger models, like the Predator and Reaper drones used by the American military. Their primary enforcement tool: the Missile Technology Control Regime, an agreement developed toward the end of the Cold War that today has 35 signatories, including the U.S., Russia and Turkey. The pact calls on members not to sell so-called Category 1 systems, technology designed to carry missiles long distances and deliver nuclear, chemical or biological payloads.

    Thus far, proliferation experts say the agreement has succeeded in stemming the flow of those kinds of weapons. But, they added, it has failed to capture the rising development of smaller drones, like the TB2.

    In the last decade, China has developed its own drones and marketed them to developing countries, while Iran has expanded its drone program to help fight its proxy wars in Syria and Yemen. Israel also runs a major export operation — including surveillance and so-called kamikaze drones — though experts say the country officially restricts the sale of drones capable of firing missiles.

    Turkey supercharged its own efforts after the U.S. declined to sell the country armed drones. U.S. officials were concerned about potential human rights violations, as Turkish officials planned to use the weapons in conflicts with Kurdish insurgents, said Vann Van Diepen, who helped oversee nonproliferation programs at the State Department until 2016.

    The turning point came in 2015 when Bayraktar, an MIT-educated engineer who ran an armed drone program out of his father’s defense manufacturing firm in Istanbul, debuted the TB2. Using a Turkish-made missile, he held a demonstration to show that the drone could hit a target from miles away. Bayraktar, who would later marry Erdoğan’s daughter, touted the TB2s as a way for Turkey to become a global superpower without relying on U.S. drones.

    For Baykar and its customers, the design had a key feature: The 40-foot-wide, 20-foot-long drone can be controlled from ground stations up to 185 miles away, just below the range that’s subject to Category 1 missile technology restrictions. The drone also has plenty of high-tech firepower. From an altitude of 18,000 feet, where it can hover for more than 24 hours, the TB2 can find and track targets, then hit them with laser-guided weapons, usually a lightweight missile called an MAM-L, made by the Turkish manufacturer Roketsan.

    Bayraktar portrayed the drones as a Turkish success story, designed, manufactured and armed by Turkish companies. But it wasn’t long before people searching through the wreckage of downed drones discovered that the TB2s relied on imported parts.

    In 2020, for example, amid a conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia, images published by local media outlets and the Armenian Ministry of Defense showed parts with identifying information that matched those sold by manufacturers in other countries, including the U.S. Hardware that allowed the drones to receive GPS signals from satellites was made by Trimble, headquartered in Sunnyvale, California. The drone’s engine was made in Austria by Bombardier Recreational Products, based out of Quebec, Canada. A sophisticated, programmable microchip was made by San Jose, California-based Xilinx. The drone’s camera, perhaps the most important TB2 component, was made by Wescam, a Canadian subsidiary of L3Harris, based in Melbourne, Florida.

    In the wake of the revelations, several companies, including Trimble, Bombardier and Xilinx, issued statements saying they were surprised to learn their products were being used in the conflict and had taken steps to ensure their parts no longer ended up in Baykar’s drones.

    But today, key parts continue to be sourced from manufacturers based in Western countries. The German company Hensoldt, for example, told ProPublica it supplies one version of the drone’s camera. And video of TB2 strikes in Ukraine, along with Canadian export records, show the drones there still use the camera made by Wescam, according to researchers at Project Ploughshares, a Canadian anti-arms-trade nonprofit that tracks the proliferation of military technology. L3Harris, Wescam’s parent company, did not answer questions for this story, but said it “fully supports and adheres to all government export regulations applicable to our products and services used by the U.S., its allies and partners.”

    Baykar declined to respond to questions about the source of key components in its drones or how it had obtained them. The company would only say that ProPublica’s questions were based on unspecified “false accusations.” In March, Bayraktar, the company’s CTO, said on social media that “93%” of the components in the TB2s are locally made.

    Baykar is not unique in its use of commercial parts for its drones; many of Iran’s and China’s globally marketed drones also use parts that are not necessarily intended for military purposes. But those countries must find ways around a web of U.S. sanctions and export restrictions, so they cannot simply buy parts directly from U.S. companies. Importers in Turkey, on the other hand, are not subject to such restrictions. The country is a NATO ally and a party not only to the missile technology agreement, but also to the Wassenaar Arrangement, a broader set of voluntary guidelines set by 42 participating states seeking to control the spread of dual-use technologies that could be used for weapons that destabilize the world. Those qualifications put Turkey on a government list of countries preapproved to import many of the commercial parts found in the TB2s.

    Under U.S. rules, those components “would not be controlled,” said Kevin Wolf, who helped oversee the export of dual-use technologies in the Commerce Department until 2017. “You have to rely upon the Turkish government for regulating its export to embargoed or other countries of concern.”

    Turkey began using, and perfecting, the TB2s in its own war on Kurdish insurgents — the same conflict for which the U.S. had refused to provide armed drones. From 2016 to 2019, authorities trumpeted their success in press releases about strikes that “rendered ineffective” more than 400 people in the Kurdish-majority southeast of the country, where the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, was most active. In strikes both inside Turkey and across the border in northern Syria and Iraq, the TB2s delivered massive losses to the PKK, effectively putting an end to its ability to launch attacks.

    But by 2018, this posed problems for U.S. forces, which were relying on the same PKK-linked fighters in the battle against the Islamic State group in the region.

    Although Turkey’s actions, including its drone strikes, did not ultimately keep the U.S. and the Kurds from defeating the group, they made the war, and its aftermath, far more complicated, said Gen. Michael Nagata, who headed U.S. Special Operations Command until 2015, then served as director of strategy for the National Counterterrorism Center until 2019.

    With the proven success of its new tool, it soon became clear Turkey did not intend to keep the TB2s all to itself.

    “The Whole World Is a Customer”

    Countries around the globe are adding TB2s to their arsenals. At least 14 countries now own the drones, and another 16 are seeking to purchase them.

    Source: News reports and statements from government officials and the drone-maker Baykar Technology

    In 2019, Turkey sent TB2 drones, along with pilots to operate them, to Libya to help the Tripoli-based Government of National Accord in a complicated civil war it was fighting against Khalifa Haftar, a warlord backed by Russia, Jordan and Turkey’s regional enemies, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates. Haftar’s forces — which were themselves equipped with Chinese Wing Loong drones provided by the UAE — had mounted a major assault that threatened Tripoli, but the TB2s helped push them back.

    But by supplying drones and other weapons, Turkey, as well as Jordan and the UAE, broke a U.N. arms embargo that was meant to keep the Libyan civil war from escalating, the U.N. would later say in a scathing 548-page report. The U.N. singled out the Chinese and Turkish drones — which carried out more than 1,000 strikes in the battle over Tripoli — saying they transformed the situation from “a low-intensity, low-technology conflict” into a bloody war that, by the World Health Organization’s count, killed more than a thousand people, including about 100 civilians.

    The Turkish Foreign Ministry did not respond to a request for comment for this story, including on the U.N.’s finding that Turkey broke the arms embargo on Libya. Jordan and the UAE have said they are committed to complying with the U.N. arms embargo.

    A cargo manifest and airway bill from a U.N. report show that drones were transferred from Turkey to Libya in May 2019. (Source: United Nations Security Council)

    Alarmed by the U.N.’s findings, Congress called for the White House to put forth a comprehensive strategy for countering the destabilizing influence of foreign powers in 2020. Senators at the time even wrote to the State Department asking it to “press the UAE, Russia, Turkey, and Jordan to halt all transfers of military equipment and personnel to Libya.”

    But the White House did not take action against Turkey, or any of the other countries, over Libya. And when Azerbaijan looked to retake the long-disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh from its neighbor Armenia in 2020, Turkey sold its allies, the Azeris, TB2 drones. The TB2s allowed Azerbaijan to quickly control the skies and decisively win the war in just six weeks. Videos of the TB2 drone strikes became ubiquitous propaganda, put out daily by the Azerbaijan defense ministry. Some clips played on giant screens set up in public squares in the capital, Baku.

    Nagata, the former special forces commander, said Libya and Nagorno-Karabakh should have been a wake-up call for the U.S. military, which was surprised when the TB2s “literally turned the tide of war there.” Beyond the strategic implications though, it should have also worried U.S. policymakers because it showed how quickly the drones were proliferating, Nagata said. “It is a harbinger of things to come, that this is going to expand beyond Turkey,” he said. “If Turkey can do this, any country with some sort of industrial manufacturing base can do this.”

    Indeed, while the U.S. has focused on keeping its most advanced systems under control, Turkey, China and Israel have made hefty profits selling their own drones, which are less-sophisticated but often effective, said Max Hoffman, a former adviser to the U.N. and the House Armed Services Committee.

    “The Israelis and the Chinese, and now the Turks, have really not caught up fully [to the U.S.], but exploited that middle and down market that the U.S. had let go,” Hoffman said. “And obviously Turkey has not had many scruples in who they sell the drones to.”

    A military truck in Baku, Azerbaijan, carries a TB2 drone at a parade celebrating the Azerbaijani army’s victory in Nagorno-Karabakh. (Photo by Mustafa Kamaci/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

    Some of Turkey’s other NATO allies, including Canada, did take action, curtailing defense exports in 2019 after a Turkish incursion into northern Syria threatened to disrupt the fight against the Islamic State group.

    Publicly, Turkish officials shrugged off the trade restrictions, saying the country had enough of an industrial base that it could produce what it needed on its own. But in private, Turkish officials, as well as the drone maker Baykar, pushed Canada to allow the sale of a key part: the MX-15 imaging and targeting system, which was made by Wescam. The company had received public funding from Canada, including a $75 million grant in 2015, to develop such a system. Upgraded versions of the MX-15 have been used over the years by the Predator and Reaper, and by a number of other systems by NATO partners.

    The Turkish Foreign Minister told his Canadian counterpart the MX-15 would only be used on drones intended for protecting civilians in Syria against Russian attacks, and the Turkish defense ministry told Canada it would not export the cameras to any third party.

    But six months later, the TB2s showed up in Azerbaijan, with Baku’s propaganda drone strike videos clearly indicating the MX-15s were being used there. Photos of crashed drones, taken by Armenian forces and posted on social media, showed that the cameras had been made in Canada as late as June 2020. This time the Trudeau government undertook a larger review, and in October 2020 it suspended all existing export permits that had allowed Wescam to ship the cameras to Turkey. Canadian officials said Turkey appeared to have broken the U.N. arms embargo on Libya and illegally exported the TB2s with the Canadian MX-15 camera system to Azerbaijan, in violation of its pledges. (L3Harris, Wescam’s parent company, did not respond to questions about the Canadian actions. At the time, Wescam declined to comment on the Armenian photographs, but it confirmed for Canadian officials that it had sold MX-15s to Turkey under a preexisting permit.)

    Baykar Technology, maker of the TB2 drone, posted photos of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visiting its production facility. (Screenshot from Twitter)

    Less than two weeks later, though, in an apparent bid to keep the parts flowing, Erdoğan called Trudeau and surprised him by putting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on the phone. Canadian documents, released as part of an inquiry by lawmakers, show the call’s agenda included the export permits. At the time, Ukraine was seeking to add more TB2 drones to its military arsenal.

    In 2020, lawmakers in Germany were also pressing to limit the Turkish drone program, said Andrej Hunko, a member of the Bundestag from the Left Party.

    Hunko, who had been outspoken over the years about the U.S. drone program, joined lawmakers from the Green Party in asking the government to explain weapons sales to Turkey that they believed were connected to the TB2 drones. The government confirmed that German defense manufacturer TDW had exported missiles and parts to Turkey while another German firm, Numerics, had sold software. Hunko said he and his colleagues concluded that those sales had helped influence the design of the Turkish MAM-L missiles used by the TB2s. TDW did not answer questions for this story, but referred to a statement it made in 2020, which said it had not sold parts to Turkey since 2019. The statement also said TDW has never had “a relationship for a delivery or supply for the Bayraktar TB2 drone or its armament.” Numerics did not respond to a request for comment.

    But Hunko soon found a more direct link after Baykar posted photos of its drone from a military parade in Turkmenistan. The images appeared to show ARGOS II cameras from German manufacturer Hensoldt, which later confirmed it had sold the equipment to Turkey for drones, undercutting Baykar’s claims that it used only local parts. Hensoldt told ProPublica it continues to supply the ARGOS II for Baykar’s TB2 drones. The camera, it said, “is developed by Hensoldt’s South African subsidiary and contains no parts that would fall under German export control law.”

    Anti-arms activists in the United Kingdom had previously made a similar discovery when they analyzed wreckage of downed drones in 2020. The TB2s had used a missile rack that came from U.K. firm EDO MBM Technology, another subsidiary of Florida-based L3Harris, despite Baykar’s claims of local sourcing.

    Hunko and other opposition lawmakers in Germany ultimately called for halting exports of key drone parts, but the government did not take any such action. Hunko said his concerns continue, prompted not only by Turkey’s own use of drones in the region, but also by what they mean for warfare in general. “It’s not like if you send [manned] military planes,” he said. “It’s lowering the threshold for entering into a war.”

    The issue hit Washington’s political radar in November 2020, after a report from the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA), a pro-Armenia lobbying group that has pushed for tougher action against Turkey. The report contained evidence that TB2 parts, found in wreckage of drones shot down by Armenian forces in the Nagorno-Karabakh war, had come from U.S.-based firms.

    ANCA and other groups critical of Turkey mobilized supporters to write to parts manufacturers, winning pledges from many that they would stop selling to Baykar Technology. Six U.S.-based manufacturers whose parts showed up in the TB2 drones responded to ProPublica, confirming that they had taken steps to stop direct sales to Turkey of parts that could be used by Baykar for the drones. But experts said it was probably difficult to stop Turkey from acquiring the parts through distributors and resellers on the open market.

    That dynamic exposes how U.S. laws, which were crafted decades ago to police parts that had an obvious military purpose, fall short in the modern era. For instance, the U.S. Munitions List — which designates certain materials as defense-related, meaning they require licenses from the State Department detailing their buyers and end uses — contains things like flamethrowers and the chemicals needed to make C4 explosives. But other technologies, including those used on the TB2 drones, appear instead on another list, known as the Commerce Control List. Overseen by the Commerce Department, these parts do not usually require prior authorization for sales.

    In August 2021, a bipartisan group of 27 members of Congress pressed the Biden administration to take action, saying Turkey was using U.S. technology to fuel drone proliferation around the globe. “Turkish actions have continued to run contrary to its responsibilities as a NATO member state,” the lawmakers wrote in a letter. “​​The potential for these drones to further destabilize flashpoints in the Caucuses, South Asia, the Eastern Mediterranean, the Middle East, and North Africa is too great to ignore.”

    The group asked the State Department to assess whether Turkey was violating existing sanctions or NATO rules. They also pressed for a suspension of exports of U.S. technology that could be used in the TB2s, a step the administration hasn’t taken.

    In November 2021, Menendez, the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, followed up by proposing an amendment to the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act. The measure mandated that the Biden administration investigate whether any U.S. exports since 2018 had been used in the Turkish drones and whether that use, and their reexport to other countries, violated U.S. law.

    “This amendment is a recognition that we must prevent U.S. parts from being included in these Turkish weapons,” he said in a statement at the time. Menendez’s office did not respond to a request for comment for this story.

    Turkey pushed back. At the same time that lawmakers were calling on the Biden administration to crack down, the Turkish Embassy in Washington hired LB International Solutions on a ​​$544,998 contract to lobby on its behalf with Congress, according to Foreign Agents Registration Act filings. The firm in turn paid D.C. lobbyist Mark W. Murray $35,000 for setting up more than a dozen meetings with members of Congress, including those on the Senate and House Foreign Affairs Committees. Among the items on the agenda: drone sales to Ukraine. Murray declined to answer questions for this story, saying, “I no longer work for LB International on Turkey.” He referred ProPublica to the lobbying firm, which did not respond to a request for comment.

    In the end, the final defense bill, passed in December 2021, did not reference Turkish drones specifically, but still required the Biden administration to report to Congress within 180 days on whether U.S. “weapon systems or controlled technology” were used in the Nagorno-Karabakh war. A spokesperson for the Defense Department, which is tasked with leading that review, said that the department was working on finalizing the report and had not yet delivered it to Congress.

    The war in Ukraine, however, has since softened some of the criticism. Much like Azerbaijan did in 2020, Ukraine has produced propaganda videos of TB2 strikes on Russian forces, including a catchy song extolling the drones’ prowess on the battlefield. The drones, in turn, drew praise from some in Congress.

    “We must find ways to quickly provide Ukraine with more armed drones, such as the Turkish TB-2, which has been very effective apparently,” said Republican Sen. Rob Portman, speaking on the Senate floor in March. Sen. Marco Rubio, a Republican who in 2019 criticized then-President Donald Trump for allowing Turkey to fight Kurdish groups in Syria, wrote on Twitter that Ukraine was “inflicting substantial damage on Russia’s supply lines with Bayraktar TB2 Turkish made unmanned combat aerial vehicles.” Rubio, who sits on the Foreign Relations Committee, declined to comment for this story. Portman’s staff did not respond to a request for comment.

    “Everybody in NATO is now looking for ways to deter Putin and up the cost of further Russian military action in Ukraine, and the [Turkish] drones, as proven on the battlefield, are one of the best ways to do that,” said Matthew Bryza, former U.S. ambassador to Azerbaijan.

    Indeed, the war has prompted a major effort to arm Ukraine, even in countries that had previously sought to stop or slow drone proliferation.

    Canada, for instance, announced in March that it was sending $50 million in lethal and nonlethal aid to Ukraine, including “Canadian-made cameras used in military drones and other specialized equipment” — the same MX-15 optical systems that it had banned from being exported to Turkey last year over human rights concerns. Even before the announcement, Project Ploughshares, the Canadian anti-arms-trade group, had concluded that Ukraine’s TB2s were using the cameras. The analysis was based in part on Canadian export records and Ukrainian video of drone strikes that show the MX-15’s distinctive overlay. Kelsey Gallagher, a researcher with the group, said the equipment had likely been exported to Ukraine instead of Turkey. Before the Russian invasion, Ukrainian officials had announced plans to set up a joint production facility with Baykar in the country.

    Canada’s Global Affairs department forwarded questions for this story to the Department of National Defence, which did not respond.

    The U.S. now faces a slippery diplomatic quandary: On one hand, the TB2s are aiding allies like Ukraine, which has used them to turn the tide against Russian forces. On the other hand, they are rapidly changing modern warfare, giving warring factions a way to kill quickly, cheaply and remotely.

    Pakistan’s military, which the U.S. has long refused to sell drones to over concerns about the country’s nuclear weapons program, is now advertising the TB2s as a part of its arsenal.

    And in Morocco, the Polisario Front, an opposition group in the disputed Western Sahara region, accused the Moroccan air force of deploying drones after a decades-old ceasefire broke down. The Moroccan government has not acknowledged possession of the Turkish drones, but in October 2021 Reuters reported that Turkey was negotiating a sales deal for TB2s with the country. By December, video taken by activists captured the drones in the skies, and local news reports showed fragments of Turkish MAM-L missiles that had reportedly been used in strikes. Neighboring Algeria denounced what it called “targeted killings committed with sophisticated weapons of war … against innocent civilians.” The Moroccan Foreign Ministry did not respond to a request for comment. Officials have previously denied targeting civilians.

    Critics say the U.S. should find ways to slow the spread of Turkish drones.

    “The proliferation of this kind of weaponized technology is unstoppable, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to at least create friction against it. And that’s a policy choice,” said Nagata, the former head of special operations.

    Van Diepen, the former State official who helped oversee nonproliferation programs, said that if the Biden administration chose to take action, it could start by activating so-called end-use checks on key drone parts.

    The State Department, for example, has staff in diplomatic missions abroad, including in Istanbul, tasked with carrying out on-site inspections of companies importing goods from the U.S. and ensuring that the products are not being diverted for other uses. The program, called Blue Lantern, focuses mostly on major sanctioned parties, groups like Islamic State, or entities linked to states like Iran. While the TB2 components from the U.S. are not directly controlled as military parts, the fact they were known to be used to build a military weapons system should have raised flags within the Defense, State and Commerce departments, former U.S. officials said.

    Experts said the U.S. could also use other tools to slow the flow of parts to the drones. Last September, for example, the White House said it had the authority to penalize any party involved in the Ethiopia conflict. Van Diepen said the Biden administration could use that power to place Baykar Technology on a targeted sanctions list, making it illegal for U.S. companies to do business with the firm altogether.

    The U.S. has taken similar measures against China and Iran, sanctioning Iranian companies and individuals for their involvement in Tehran’s armed drone program, and sanctioning Chinese-drone maker DJI for its role in surveillance of ethnic Uyhgurs in Xinjiang.

    To some of the strongest critics of Turkey’s armed drones though, it appears there is little will in Washington to do more.

    “Canada, they did the due diligence and took actions that haven’t happened here,” said Aram Hamparian, executive director of ANCA.

    In the U.S., “it’s just business as usual. So then why even bother having these laws? And the answer to my question is: So we can use them conveniently when it advances some policy aim.”

    Do You Have a Tip for ProPublica? Help Us Do Journalism.

    This post was originally published on Articles and Investigations – ProPublica.

  • Climate crisis top Pacific agenda item and it’s a security issue, says Ardern

    RNZ News

    Addressing media on developments at the Pacific Islands Forum in Suva, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says making sure the region is investing now in initiatives that improve climate resilience is incredibly important.

    Ardern is attending the forum alongside Minister of Foreign Affairs Nanaia Mahuta.

    The funding announced for Pacific crop seeds this afternoon allowed the preservation of the region’s biodiversity, “which is incredibly important to all of us”, Ardern said.

    She said it was important for the region to move away as much as possible from the reliance on fossil fuels.

    “The price impacts that has, they’re increasingly becoming unaffordable, but also the fact that offers an opportunity for climate mitigation as well. I expect that will be one of many things that comes through the Pacific Islands Forum.”

    Climate change had been top of the agenda at every forum she had been to, Ardern said, and represented a huge security issue in itself.

    “All of these things come back to essentially the resilience of our region and our general security as a region as well.”

    If others like Australia chose to follow New Zealand on increasing climate change-related spending, that could only be a good thing for all, she said.

    “In some cases quite a bit of background work needs to be done on funding some of the initatives … one of the things that has been a barrier has been the inability to progress projects on the ground because of covid.

    The media conference.                               Video: RNZ News

    “I expect us to be trying to make up for a bit of lost time there, and that goes for aid and development funding across the region.”

    There was, for the most part, an absence of legal mechanisms to protect the environment, and New Zealand was keen to play a role in ensuring that was in place, Ardern said.

    Uncertainty after leaders withdraw
    Uncertainty has been swirling around the forum since Sunday when it was revealed that Kiribati president Taneti Maamau would not attend the gathering and his nation had formally withdrawn from the forum.

    China denied claims it was behind Kiribati’s withdrawal.

    Asked at a media briefing, the spokesperson for China’s Foreign Ministry, Wang Wenbin, said the claims were groundless.

    Wang said China did not interfere in the internal affairs of Pacific Islands countries and hoped to see greater solidarity and closer cooperation among the nations for common development.

    Since then there have been fresh defections — Nauru’s President Lionel Aingimea, Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown and Marshall Islands President David Kabua.

    Ardern said she first discussed the concerns from Micronesian countries about them potentially withdrawing from the forum when they first arose.

    “And sought to speak to a number of members from Micronesia to better understand those issues and how we could support resolution and today it was actually a follow-up conversation,” Ardern said.

    Potential to move forward
    She said the fact the Suva agreement had come forth from a number of members from Micronesia, there was the potential to move forward.

    “We have now the potential to agree and to move on collectively, with those new arrangements in place.”

    On Kiribati, which revoked its PIF membership, Ardern said she would point to their own sentiments.

    “If they were highlighting any vulnerability for them it would be climate-related. You know, they’re suffering significant drought at present and have said that they wish to continue to work with the forum because these issues are so pressing and real and present for them now.

    “Do we hope that they’ll come back into the forum formally? Absolutely — and that’s my hope, I think it’s everyone’s hope — but I think we have an agreement now that Micronesian members have broadly indicated their support for. They were at the table in developing it and our hope is over time Kiribati will choose to return…

    “I think I imagine all forum members will likely keep up their engagement with Kiribati, and their support for Kiribati. It is an incredibly tough time.”

    She said it was disappointing Kiritbati was not there when the 2050 climate strategy is set to be endorsed, “but at the same time they themselves have identified that climate change is an area where they wish to continue to work with the forum”.

    ‘Unity incredibly important’
    “Yes, unity is incredibly important to us and I think we all still aspire to that, but we cannot at the same time halt the progress that needs to be made on working collectively on climate issues.”

    Ardern said she met this morning with the president of Palau.

    In coming days she expects to meet with Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare, and with Fiji Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama.

    “Obviously we’ve had issues within Micronesia for some time, the Suva agreement on the table, a chance to check in on members from within the region and their satisfaction with the agreement that has been reached.”

    Pacific Islands Forum members have also heard from the likes of the World Bank, the Asia Developoment Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

    “Very similar themes, reflecting on the war in Ukraine exacerbating energy prices, the impact of inflation, supply chain constraints and of course Covid lockdowns in China and the impact that will have on the region,” Ardern said.

    China and the Pacific
    Ardern said China was an example of a development partner that had been around the Pacific for decades but had increased its activity and changed the way in which it engaged.

    “We’ve, from New Zealand’s perspective, said that there are elements of that — particularly when it comes to the security arrangements of the region — that concern us.

    “On the other hand you’ve had the United States who equally have been present and engaged in the region perhaps over the past few years waning in their engagement, and at the behest of many in the region, are now seeking to re-engage again.

    “You can see that all of this activity occurring at the same time does mean we have a more contested environment. We’ve got to come back to the principles.”

    She said those principles were to prioritise the Pacific, to make sure there was no coercion in play, and avoiding militarisation of the region.

    New Zealand had been one of the top contributors to the region for a long, long time but “it’s more than just whether or not you’re a donor in the region”, Ardern said.

    “This is our home this is the place we live and it’s who we are, and I’d like to think that the way we do things — the relationship that we build — also sets us apart from other nations”.

    New Zealand’s position on the Solomon Islands’ agreement with China was that nations had their own sovereignty to determine their own relationships, she said.

    “But security arrangements have wider impacts and that is really what we’re drawing to the attention of the Solomons and equally we have been present there to help support the security needs of the region — and if there have been deficiencies in that I’d like to hear what they were.”

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

  • Congress Members Propose Slashing Military Budget by $100 Billion

    Reps. Barbara Lee and Mark Pocan led a group of House Democrats this week in filing amendments that would slash current U.S. military spending by $100 billion and reverse recent efforts to add more money to President Joe Biden’s historically high Pentagon budget request for the coming fiscal year.

    The proposed amendments to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2023 were introduced days after lawmakers on the House and Senate Armed Services Committees — both controlled by Democrats — voted to pile $37 billion and $45 billion, respectively, onto Biden’s March request for $813 billion in military spending.

    One of more than 1,000 amendments filed for the House version of the NDAA, the Lee-Pocan proposal to cut $100 billion from the current U.S. military spending topline of $782 billion points to a recent Congressional Budget Office study outlining several ways in which Congress could reasonably slice $1 trillion — or 14% — from the Pentagon budget over the next decade.

    Lee and Pocan, the co-chairs of the Defense Spending Reduction Caucus, have repeatedly attempted to rein in U.S. military spending in recent years, but their efforts have been blocked by Republicans and members of their own party — some of whom are financed by weapons makers.

    Last month, the pair introduced legislation that would take $100 billion from the U.S. military budget and redirect the funds to pressing domestic needs such as housing and healthcare.

    “For far too long, this country has put profits ahead of its people,” Lee said. “Nowhere is that more apparent than in our Pentagon topline budget. Just last year, key priorities like Build Back Better were left on the negotiating table, while Congress approved a $782 billion defense budget — higher than the military even requested.”

    “It is time that we realign our priorities to reflect the urgent needs of communities across this country that are healing from a pandemic, ongoing economic insecurity, and an international energy crisis — none of which will be resolved through greater military spending,” Lee added. “Taking this step to downsize our military budget by $100 billion will ensure that our national security truly centers on the American people, not weapons industry profits.”

    Reps. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.), Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-N.J.), Jared Huffman (D-Calif.), and Adriano Espaillat (D-N.Y.) are backing the Lee-Pocan NDAA amendment to reduce the current military spending topline by $100 billion.

    Lee also introduced an amendment that would repeal the 2002 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) Against Iraq, which — following its original passage ahead of the catastrophic Iraq invasion — was used as legal cover by the Obama and Trump administrations to take deadly action overseas.

    In 2020, for instance, the Trump administration invoked the 2002 AUMF to claim it was authorized to assassinate Iranian Gen. Qasem Soleimani, a decision that nearly sparked a full-blown war between the U.S. and Iran.

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Indonesian official admits new Papua provinces are to ‘counter OPM, exploit natural resources’

    Asia Pacific Report newsdesk

    The Papua People’s Council (MRP) says that a Coordinating Ministry for Security, Politics and Legal Affairs (Kemenko Polhukam) deputy has told them that the creation of new autonomous regions (DOB) in Papua is to narrow the space for the West Papua National Liberation Army-Free Papua Movement (TNPB-OPM) to move.

    MRP Chair Timotius Murib said that the Coordinating Minister for Security, Politics and Legal Affairs Mahfud MD also made the statement during a meeting between the Kemenko Polhukam and the MRP.

    Murib said that during the meeting, the MPR had received a great deal of input from the Kemenko Polhukam.

    “One of the deputies told the MRP that the MPR should know that the DOB is an activity by the state to narrow the space for the TNPB-OPM or KKBs [armed criminal groups] to move,” said Murib during a virtual press conference on June 30.

    Murib said the deputy also said that the government would build large numbers of regional police (Polda) headquarters and regional military commands (Kodam),

    Because of this, the MRP believed that the creation of new autonomous regions in Papua was aimed at bringing more military into Papua and encircling the TPNPB.

    According to Murib, the government was not prioritising the interests of ordinary people but rather the desire to exploit natural resources in Papua.

    “And they want to build [more] Polda, Kodam, in the near future,” said Murib.

    Murib revealed that there were many people who had heard the statement by the deputy.

    The MRP believes that it is no longer a secret that the government is pursuing natural resources in Papua and ignoring the interests of local people.

    According to Murib, the government also wants to exploit natural resources without being disturbed by other parties by bringing in large numbers of military personnel.

    “But brought in so that when natural resources [are managed] in Papua no one disrupts this. Because the country’s debt is indeed very big at the moment,” the deputies said.

    Earlier on June 30, the House of Representatives (DPR) enacted three laws on the establishment of new provinces in Papua — Central Papua, the Papua Highlands and South Papua.

    Note
    The original text of the second paragraph in which Murib said that Minister Mahfud MD made the statement, rather than the unnamed deputy, read: “Ketua Majelis Rakyat Papua (MRP), Timotius Murib mengatakan, bawahan Menko Polhukam, Mahfud MD menyampaikan pernyataan itu dalam salah satu pertemuan Kemenko Polhukam dengan MRP”.

    Translated by James Balowski for IndoLeft News. The original title of the article was Majelis Rakyat Papua: Bawahan Mahfud Sebut DOB Papua Tuk Persempit OPM.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Vanuatu offers warm welcome to Papuan independence campaigner

    RNZ Pacific

    The president of the United Liberation Movement of West Papua, Benny Wenda, has arrived to a warm welcome in Port Vila from London where he is based.

    Representatives of the Vanuatu West Papua Independence Committee, who are organising his trip, made sure the media was present only during a welcome ceremony at the Shefa provincial government headquarters.

    Shefa province has adopted the people of the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP) as “brothers and sisters of Vanuatu”.

    The movement’s Morning Star flag is flown alongside the Shefa provincial flag at its Headquarters in Port Vila.

    It is not clear if Wenda will meet government leaders.

    He will be in Port Vila for two weeks.

    Vanuatu has donated a plot of land along with office facilities for use by ULMWP as its international office in Port Vila.

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • PNG’s capital residents shocked with second deferral of polling day

    PNG Post-Courier

    Chaos. That is the one word for Papua New Guinea’s 2022 national general election.

    Unfortunately, the election has descended to that level, and polling is slowly slipping out of the set timetables as chaotic scenes nationwide, manpower problems, logistics issues and unexpected postponements hit the schedule.

    In the capital Port Moresby, voters were further shocked to learn that yesterday’s polling was suddenly pulled from under their feet at the 11th hour.

    The big surprise shocked voters and businesses alike as the postponing of polling to Friday — is the second postponement to hit the nation’s capital.

    Thousands of voters and candidates in Port Moresby returned home from polling stations around the city, angry, disappointed and even confused that they could not cast their votes while business are counting their losses.

    The Post-Courier was told businesses were losing up to K1 million (NZ$455,000) for the one day stoppage and they will lose more on Friday when they close again to allow their employees to go to the polls.

    “What’s happening? Money was allocated for this exercise. It looks like we have very incompetent people in leadership roles in the Electoral Commission.

    ‘Not doing their jobs’
    “They aren’t doing their jobs,” said Wilma Kesi, a frustrated mother summing up the feeling among voters.

    Polling in NCD (National Capital District) was initially planned to be held on Monday, July 4, together with the rest of the country except for the Highlands provinces but it was postponed to Wednesday, due to “logistic” problems.

    Voters, among them hundreds of workers who took the day off from work to vote, woke up as early as 5am and went to the polling sites in anticipation for voting, only to be informed of the postponement after a long wait.

    “This is not good. I left work just to come and vote and when they keep deferring, it’s not right because we can’t take too many days off work. My employer may not give me another day off to vote,” Collin Bill said.

    The employers Bill is referring to include business houses in Port Moresby who shut down operations throughout the city to allow the workers time off to vote and they stand to lose millions of kina just to close operations for one day.

    Major companies we spoke to agreed they stand to lose millions if kina for a day and this will rise when they close up again on Friday.

    “We cannot deny our workers their right to vote. We have no choice but to close down operations again if the PNG Electoral Commission wants to conduct polling on Friday,” a senior manager of a leading retail company said.

    Disruptive, costly
    PNG Chamber of Commerce and Industry president Ian Tarutia said the deferral of polling was disruptive, costly and an inconvenience for workers, employers, business houses and candidates as well.

    “This is inexcusable and unacceptable. Voters, candidates cannot be inconvenienced because of the incompetency of the electoral administrative process.

    “It is already bad enough as it is that half our voting population will miss out because names are missing from the common roll. If the new date for voting in NCD is Friday, stick with Friday.

    “No more changes,” Tarutia said.

    Speaking on behalf of the candidates, NCD regional candidate Paun Nonggorr blasted the PNGEC for the continuous deferral of polling, adding that all candidates and the voters must not accept this “amateurish display by the constitutional office holder”.

    “I am confused as to what is going on and why this is also casually happening. Can you enlighten me on the reasons why this is happening,” Nonggorr asked in a message to Electoral Commissioner Simon Sinai.

    Not tolerated
    He said the people should not tolerate this and he, as a candidate certainly could not tolerate this.

    NCD Election Manager Kila Ralai explained at a press conference later in the day that interference from candidates and incomplete preparation by his office prompted the deferral of polling.

    “We are not disorganised; we are trying our best to deliver elections for NCD. In the previous elections, they were chaotic, I just want to manage this election thoroughly, make sure we manage it properly.

    “We just need to fix up our processes in order to deliver the elections,” Ralai said.

    PNG Post-Courier reporters. Republished with permission.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Disgruntled PNG voters destroy ballot boxes, set fire to voting papers

    PNG Post-Courier

    Angry voters in East Sepik and Hela have destroyed ballot boxes and set fire to ballot papers after finding that their names were not on the common roll in Papua New Guinea’s general election.

    No reports were received of people or election officials being hurt in the violence.

    Polling started on Monday and will run through to Friday in all 22 provinces.

    Despite an assurance by the Electoral Commissioner Simon Sinai that more than five million eligible voters would cast the ballots, many voters have been turned away because their names are not on the common roll, while in other locations there are not enough ballot papers for the number of eligible voters.

    In Hela, nine ballot boxes were destroyed in various polling stations by angry voters while in Morobe, 300 ballot papers went up in flames by disappointed eligible voters who could not cast their votes because they were not registered on the common roll.

    When responding to rumours of hijacking of ballot boxes, Hela provincial police commander Senior Inspector Robin Bore confirmed that ballot boxes were burnt and destroyed by voters on Monday morning.

    He said the boxes destroyed were in Komo (4), North Koroba (2), South Koroba (1), Hulia (1) and Tari Pori local level government (1) while polling continued in the other parts of the province.

    Polling boycotted
    In Morobe, frustrated voters from Wampar urban local level government in Huon Gulf district boycotted polling on Monday and ordered the burning of about 300 ballot papers in the presence of police and Electoral Commission officials.

    Huon Gulf returning officer Daniel Wasinak said eligible voters were frustrated that they were not registered on the common roll and they could not cast their votes.

    He said about 700 ballot papers were designated for the ward, with two polling places identified.

    First polling place is the Igam market just outside the PNG Defence Force Igam Barracks gate while another polling place was inside the army barracks for soldiers and their families.

    In Wewak, East Sepik, polling at ward 12 Wewak Urban was suspended, again when names of eligible voters. This time PNG Defence Force soldiers from Moem Barracks could not find their names on the electoral roll.

    Polling in Moem Barracks started at 11am with officers opening up the boxes but polling was halted for over two hours and cancelled at 2pm when soldiers argued that if their names were not on the roll, no one would vote, including their wives and children who were registered on the roll.

    Polling was suspended indefinitely.

    Voters devastated
    At another polling station, also in Wewak, hundreds of voters who turned up at the polling booths yesterday were left devastated that they could not vote because they were not registered on the electoral roll.

    Many of these voters were not first-time voters as they had voted in previous elections.

    Long time families and residents of Makun and Malasi, including the Sauns, Koskys, Bangus and Silings are among those who have not found their names on the electoral roll.

    In Aitape-Lumi, West Sepik Province, polling will commence when fuel and candidate lists are made available to the election officials on the ground.

    Aitape-Lumi returning officer John Awas said polling has been deferred to whenever polling materials and fuel were made available.

    He further confirmed that polling teams were yet to be deployed to their respective polling areas in the district.

    Polling deferred
    “Aitape-Lumi has deferred polling because payment for fuel to the local suppliers were not received and the suppliers would not give us fuel on credit either to enable us to move around and insert polling teams to their assigned location,” Awas said.

    Meanwhile, candidates for several seats in Hela have warned that counting would not be allowed until they sorted out the disputed ballot boxes on record.

    Candidate Francis Potape said there were two deaths from fighting at polling stations and six ballot boxes were allegedly hijacked at Takali.

    He said yesterday that helicopters were still picking up people who were still polling in places only accessible by air.

    Republished with permission.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • PNG Defence Force arrive in New Ireland for election duties

    Inside PNG News

    Forty-Two Papua New Guinea Defence Force staff have arrived in Kavieng for the national general election operations.

    New Ireland Provincial Police Commander Chief Inspector Felix Nebanat said this brought the total number of joint security forces up to 400 in the province.

    Papua New Guinea’s general election began yesterday.

    ” I am grateful to see the troops in the province. This will surely support and ensure the election is free safe and fair” said Chief Inspector Nebanat.

    Chief Inspector Nebanat assured New Irelanders that the joint forces would be out in numbers to carry out their constitutional duty to serve during this time.

    “I assure that people will be able to exercise their democratic right to participate by turning up at polling areas and elect their leader, ” Nebanat said.

    The New Ireland police chief also said that briefing for security forces had been done with teams ready for despatching to Namatanai and Kavieng as polling neared.

    Chief Inspector Nebanat said the sister forces would work together to ensure the national election in New Ireland was successfully completed and delivered.

    “I commend the men and women of the joint forces who are on duty to serve.
    Despite delays in logistics beyond our control, the local police are spearheading the operation with continues communication,” said Chief Inspector Nebanat.

    Republished with permission.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • OPM day – celebrating the 1971 Papuan ‘independence proklamasi’

    COMMENTARY: By Benny Wenda

    Today we celebrate the 51st anniversary of the independence declaration of the Free Papua Movement (OPM) at Markas Victoria on July 1, 1971.

    The declaration, signed by Seth Rumkoren and Jacob Prai — who sadly passed away last month — was a direct rejection of Indonesian colonialism.

    It sent a powerful message to Jakarta: “We, the people of West Papua, are sovereign in our own land, and we do not recognise your illegal occupation or the 1969 ‘Act of No Choice’.”

    West Papua's Benny Wenda
    West Papua’s Benny Wenda (left) with PNG journalist Henry Yamo at the Pacific Media Centre on his visit to New Zealand in 2013. Image: Del Abcede/APR

    From that moment on, we have been struggling for the independence of West Papua. Through guerilla warfare, the OPM has helped keep the flame of liberation alive. They are our home guard, defending our land and fighting for the sovereignty that was stolen from us by Jakarta.

    This day is an opportunity for all West Papuans to reflect on our struggle and unite with determination to complete our mission. Whether you are exiled abroad, in a refugee camp, a member of the West Papua Army, or internally displaced by colonial forces, we are all united in one spirit and determined to liberate West Papua from Indonesian oppression.

    The OPM laid the foundations for the political struggle [that] the Provisional Government is now fighting. As expressed in our constitution, the provisional government recognises all declarations as vital and historic moments in our struggle.

    Having declared our provisional government, our cabinet, our military wing, and our seven regional executives, we are ready to take charge of our own affairs.

    Two new announcements
    I also want to use this moment to make two new announcements about our provisional government.

    First, I am announcing the formation of a new government department, the Department of Intelligence Services. As with our existing departments, it will operate on the ground in occupied West Papua, and reinforce our challenge to Indonesian colonialism.

    In addition, I am announcing that we have appointed an executive member for each of the seven regional bodies we established in December 2021. With every step forward, we are building our capacity and infrastructure as a provisonal government.

    Over 50 years on from the 1971 proklamasi, our people’s mission is the same.

    We refuse Indonesian presence in WP, which is illegal under international law. We do not recognise “Special Autonomy”, five new provinces, or any other colonial law; we have our own constitution.

    I again reiterate my call for President Joko Widodo to sit down with me and discuss an independence referendum. This remains the only pathway to a peaceful solution.

    Benny Wenda, Interim President, United liberation Movement of West Papua (ULMWP) Provisional Government.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Camp Lejeune Labeled The Worst Chemical Contamination In US History

    Thousands of people may have been poisoned over the span of several decades from contaminated water at a military base. Mike Papantonio is joined by attorney Sara Papantonio to explain what happened. Click here to find out more about Camp Lejeune lawsuits. Transcript: *This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse […]

    The post Camp Lejeune Labeled The Worst Chemical Contamination In US History appeared first on The Ring of Fire Network.

    This post was originally published on The Ring of Fire.

  • Troop cuts and spending hikes: a big week for the war pigs

    Troop cuts, defence budget hikes, billions in military aid and the spectre of war with China. It’s been a busy week for warmongers and war profiteers. British foreign secretary Liz Truss addressed the NATO summit in Madrid to lay out the Tory’s foreign policy vision.

    High on the agenda was threatening China. In an interview with Times Radio she said the “free world” had to ensure Taiwan could defend itself:

    This is a thing that we’re discussing with our allies.

    Lessons of Ukraine

    In a keynote speech during the conference, she warned that a miscalculation from China could lead to disaster:

    I do think that with China extending its influence through economic coercion and building a capable military, there is a real risk that they draw the wrong idea that results in a catastrophic miscalculation such as invading Taiwan.

    Truss drew on the example of Ukraine to highlight why she wanted to increase support for Taiwan. China considers Taiwan, a US ally, part of its territory:

    We should have done things earlier. We should have been supplying the defensive weapons into Ukraine earlier.

    She added

    We need to learn that lesson for Taiwan. Every piece of equipment we have sent takes months of training, so the sooner we do it, the better.

    Troop cuts

    Contradictory though it may seem, troops cuts are being talked up alongside a defence budget increase.

    As Liz Truss has it:

    We all need to recognise that warfare now is different to warfare as it was 100 years ago, or 200 years ago.

    The thinking seems to be that a move away from conventional military deployments and towards new technological solutions is what is required:

    We need to make sure that the defence capability we have is fit for purpose for the modern world – and we face all kinds of new threats, whether it’s cyber threats, threats in space, new technology, new weaponry, and what’s important is the overall shape of those forces.

    Unhappy general

    The 10,000 cut to troop numbers was not well-received by the head of the army, general Patrick Sanders. In a recent speech he had hyped the threat of Russia, comparing the current political moment to 1937 and the rise of Hitler.

    Yesterday, The Times reported that Sanders had been disciplined by Boris Johnson for suggesting the cuts were “perverse”.

    The troop cuts row has also come at a time when the UK government has pledged an additional £1bn in military aid to Ukraine. Which, among other things, should be seen as a windfall for arms firms as The Canary has argued previously.

    Speaking at the NATO conference, Johnson said:

    UK weapons, equipment and training are transforming Ukraine’s defences against this onslaught.

    New trends in war

    There is more than an atom of truth in the notion that war has changed forms. Big military deployments are off the menu post-Afghanistan. But it is true of both modes of warfare that there are massive profits to be made.

    It can be safely assumed that a large part of the new £1bn package of military aid will go to defence firms. And the general shift away from boots on ground towards new military technology will also fill the coffers of military corporations.

    What’s missing, as ever, is any discussion of socially and economically just global security models.

    Featured image via Wikimedia Commons/Petty Officer Photographer Jay Allen, cropped to 770 x 403, licenced under Open Government Licence.

    By Joe Glenton

    This post was originally published on The Canary.

  • NZ designates American Proud Boys and The Base terrorist groups

    RNZ News

    New Zealand has designated US groups the Proud Boys and The Base as terrorist entities.

    Set down in the government’s official journal of record — the Gazette — last Monday, 20 June, it was published publicly a week later but with no wider dissemination.

    The move — authorised by Police Commissioner Andrew Coster and signed off by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern — makes anyone with property or financial dealings related to The Base and the Proud Boys liable for prosecution and up to seven years imprisonment under the Terrorism Suppression Act.

    The American Proud Boys is a US neo-fascist group with members and leadership who have been federally indicted over the 6 January 2021 riots at the US Capitol.

    The Base is a paramilitary white nationalist hate group active in the US and Canada, with reports of training cells in Europe, South Africa and Australia.

    Commissioner Coster said in practice the designation would mean funding, supporting, or organising with those groups in New Zealand became a criminal offence.

    “Those groups are respectively neo-Nazi, neo-fascist, white supremacist groups who have been responsible for some key unlawful events overseas, and so police supported the designation,” he said.

    Met terrorist definition
    They met the definition of terrorist groups, he said, and the designation had gone through a rigorous analytical process with input from several agencies, which generally took several weeks.

    “It’s ultimately a matter for each jurisdiction to decide, but I would note that these groups have been designated in Australia and obviously they’re one of our closest partners in assessing the terrorism threat.”

    He said such designations were not done lightly, but he was not aware of any suggestion it was a current problem domestically.

    “It’s a preventative, deterrent mechanism for those groups not to operate here.”

    Researcher into the far-right Byron Clark said most other groups on the list were Islamic terrorist groups, and the designation showed New Zealand was taking far-right terrorism seriously.

    “It’s aligned I guess with what intelligence agencies are saying, that this is the biggest risk now is far-right terrorism — it’s a higher likelihood of a far-right terrorist attack than an Islamic terrorist attack in the current climate.”

    It would likely mean those linked to the groups would be under more scrutiny from law enforcement and journalists, he said. With the Christchurch mosque attacker having come from Australia, there was still some complacency over the far-right in New Zealand.

    ‘Shared the ideology’
    “There are some small groups here who share a lot of the ideology of the Christchurch shooter and I think perhaps we’re still not paying enough attention to those.”

    Te Pūnaha Matatini’s The Disinformation Project researcher Dr Sanjana Hattotuwa said anti-vaccination proponents were deeply sceptical of government, had moved on to other causes, and were more often coming in contact with far-right ideologies.

    “So within that constellation that is informed by mis- and disinformation predominantly, what we find are belief systems, structures, attitudes and perceptions linked to white supremacist discourse and ideologies coming in and taking root here,” he said.

    “It’s no longer something you can say are imported harms because there are people within the country who are producing and mirroring that kind of discourse as well.”

    He said the Disinformation Project had seen an increase in transnational funding for ideological groups in Aotearoa, which the designation could capture.

    “One would hope … that the designation timing creates friction around the growth of these entities,” he said.

    Fight Against Conspiracy Theories (FACT) Aotearoa spokesperson Stephen Judd said it would also send a message to people considering setting up local branches or equivalents of those groups.

    ‘Legitimate concerns’
    “There are legitimate concerns about groups along the lines of the Proud Boys or The Base forming and operating here … you can see the same ideologies and some of the same conspiracy theories circulating online and in real life between people here.”

    He said the ease of online communication meant such groups could form, organise and recruit much more easily than ever before, and develop their ideas and messages more easily.

    Massey University Centre for Defence and Security Studies director Dr William Hoverd said New Zealand was following its partners: Both Australia and Canada had banned the two groups, and the US was starting to focus more on right-wing extremism.

    “They are decentralised right-wing extremist groups with internet platforms who are seeking to influence others, and whilst there’s absolutely no evidence that I have seen of them operating here, that’s not to say that the right wing isn’t operating here in New Zealand.”

    The designation automatically expires on 20 June 2025, unless extended or revoked.

    Justification for the move
    Dr Hoverd said the fact the groups were advocating armed violence, and had the capability to do it, was where the state became particularly interested in such groups.

    “We’ve got groups in New Zealand and individuals in New Zealand who do have these types of profiles, but they aren’t violent – so how do we prevent that type of violence happening here.

    “The big threat .. in terms of terrorism is lone actors, and decentralised groups like The Base, through the internet, could potentially radicalise someone here.”

    Documents setting out the evidence and reasoning behind the designation — called a Statement of Case — had not been publicly available until after media reporting of the move.

    Using referenced sources, they said the Proud Boys used a tactic called crypto-fascism — disguising their extremism to appeal to mainstream people and avoid attention from authorities — and constructed the idea of an antifa (anti-fascist) organisation as a strawman to rally self-described patriots.

    Since its beginnings in 2016, the group had deliberately used violence — though to date, not typically deadly — against ideological opponents, and celebrated members who succeeded in doing so, the documents said.

    “The APB have an established history of using street rallies and social media to both intimidate perceived opponents and recruit young men via the demonstration of violence.”

    Detailed account
    They also gave a detailed account of the Proud Boys’ involvement in the Capitol riots.

    The Base was identified as a survivalist paramilitary group planning for and intending to bring about the collapse of the US government and a “race war” in the country, leading to a day of the mass execution of people of colour and political opponents.

    It had achieved limited success in expanding to other countries including Australia, by targeting impressionable teenagers and socially isolated individuals lacking a sense of community, uniting a disparate body of largely online activists into a network of like-minded individuals.

    “A key goal of TB is to train a cadre of extremists capable of accelerationist violence,” the documents said.

    The group’s St Petersburg-based leader Rinaldo Nazzaro guided cells of three or four individuals to regularly meet and train, including at so-called “hate camps” — with at least some members having military training or skill in small arms, they said.

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Civil group appeals to Jokowi to cancel Papuan expansion plan to ‘halt conflict’

    Tabloid Jubi

    The Civil Organisations Solidarity for Papua Land has condemned Indonesia’s Papua expansion plan of forming three new provinces risks causing new social conflicts.

    And the group has urged President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo to cancel the plan, according to a statement reports Jubi.

    The group — comprising the Papua Legal Aid Institute (LBH Papua), JERAT Papua, KPKC GKI in Papua Land, YALI Papua, PAHAM Papua, Cenderawasih University’s Human Rights and Environment Democracy Student Unit, and AMAN Sorong — said the steps taken by the House of Representatives of making three draft bills to establish three New Autonomous Regions (DOB) in Papua had created division between the Papuan people.

    As well as the existing two provinces (DOB), Papua and West Papua, the region would be carved up to create the three additional provinces of Central Papua, South Papua, and Central Highlands Papua.

    The solidarity group noted that various movements with different opinions have expressed their respective aspirations through demonstrations, political lobbying, and even submitting a request for a review of Law No. 2/2021 on the Second Amendment to Law No. 21/2001 on Papua Special Autonomy (Otsus).

    These seven civil organisations also noted that the controversy over Papua expansion had led to a number of human rights violations, including the breaking up of protests, as well as police brutality against protesters.

    However, the central government continued to push for the Papua expansion, and the House had proposed three bills for the expansion.

    Wave of demonstrations
    The Civil Organisations Solidarity for Papua Land said it was worried the expansion plan would raise social conflicts between parties with different opinions.

    They said such potential for social conflict had been seen through a wave of demonstrations that continue to be carried out by the Papuan people — both those who rejected and supported new autonomous regions.

    The potential for conflict could also be seen from the polemic on which area would be the new capital province.

    In addition, rumours about the potential for clashes between groups had also been widely circulated on various messaging services and social media.

    “All the facts present have only shown that the establishment of new provinces in Papua has triggered the potential for social conflicts,” the solidarity group said.

    “This seems to have been noticed by the Papua police as well, as they have urged their personnel to increase vigilance ahead of the House’s plenary session to issue the new Papua provinces laws,” said the group.

    The group reminded the government that the New Papua Special Autonomy Law, which is used as the legal basis for the House to propose three Papua expansion bills, was still being reviewed in the Constitutional Court.

    Public opinion ignored
    Furthermore, the House’s proposal of the bills did not take into account public opinion as mandated by Government Regulation No. 78/2007 on Procedures for the Establishment, Abolition, and Merger of Regions.

    “It is the most reasonable path if the Central Government [would] stop the deliberation of the Papua Expansion plan, which has become the source of disagreement among Papuan people.

    “We urged the Indonesian President to immediately cancel the controversial plan to avoid escalation of social conflict,” said the Civil Organisations Solidarity for Papua Land.

    The solidarity group urged the House’s Speaker to nullify the Special Committee for Formulation of Papua New Autonomous Region Policy, as well as the National Police Chief and the Papuan Governor to immediately take the necessary steps to prevent social conflict in Papua, by implementing Law No. 7/2012 on Handling Social Conflicts.

    The seven civil organisations also urged all Papuan leaders not to engage in activities that could trigger conflict between opposing groups over the Papua expansion.

    “Papuan community leaders are prohibited from being actively involved in fuelling the polarisation of this issue,” the group said.

    Republished with permission.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Steven Ratuva: Pacific agency: A devalued political capital?

    ANALYSIS: By Professor Steven Ratuva

    The West and China continue to exert influence over the Pacific region. But discussions of Pacific Island Countries (PICs) are increasingly patronising, framing them as vulnerable, and omitting their agency.

    In the battle for geopolitical influence and supremacy in the Pacific, the two most visible antagonists, the Anglo-West and China, are often the only two sides which matter to the mainstream media and political discourse.

    The third side, the Pacific Big Ocean States (BOSs), are often forgotten, or relegated to the margin. In a subconscious way, this hierarchy of significance has roots in the colonial discourse which continued to undermine Pacific agency in various ways to this day.

    As an example, the recent whirlwind visit to the region by China’s Foreign Minister, Wang Yi, caused media outcry and desperate diplomatic visitations — the political ripples spread far and wide provoking narratives of indignation, anxiety, and outright anger among the Anglo-Western states.

    China responded by using tactical diplomatic language to tone down and conceal its own global expansionist agenda under the Belt and Road initiative. Both sides tried their best to project their humane and empathetic imagery towards the Pacific people while concealing their respective geopolitical, ideological, and strategic interests.

    This is exactly what diplomacy is all about: putting on different masks when the circumstances require.

    As it turned out, the BOSs “won” the diplomatic battle. They rejected China’s hegemonic and all-consuming plan to form a multilateral regional bloc in the form of the “China-Pacific Countries Common Development Vision,” as well as pushed back on the Anglo-Western insistence on keeping away from Chinese offerings.

    Bilateral agreements
    In the end, Pacific leaders signed bilateral agreements with China, based on specific developmental, economic, and wellbeing needs of individual states.

    Bilateral agreements are common in international relations. The United States, Australia, and Aotearoa New Zealand all have bilateral economic agreements with China as part of their economic lifeline as modern states. Likewise, BOSs are also seeking economic agreements for their survival and why should they be discouraged from engaging with China or any other country in this regard?

    There is a subtle ring of patronisation and paternalism here. The Anglo-Western states see the Pacific as their “natural” habitat which should not be shared with anyone else because that’s where they sent explorers, missionaries, and settlers, had colonies, fought against the Japanese invaders,  tested their nuclear bombs, built military bases, and exerted significant cultural influence.

    During the Cold War, the Pacific was often described as the “American Lake” because it was literally littered with US military and naval bases.

    Despite decolonisation in the region, this feeling of false imperial grandeur still persists in various subconscious forms. For instance, being lectured on the evils of China by the Anglo-West is almost like saying that the BOSs are not smart, strong, and sophisticated enough to stand up to China’s manipulative intents.

    Aid, which is used to counter Chinese influence, often ends up benefiting the donor countries such as Australia and New Zealand because the contractors are largely from those countries.

    On the other hand, China’s low quality infrastructure and debt-creating loans seem to suggest the rather patronising “beggars cannot be choosers” attitude. Chinese influence is far more cunningly subtle through its “soft power” long term approach compared to the rather abrupt short term approach of the Anglo-Saxon powers.

    Common colonial experiences
    China has strategically invoked the South-South discourse to engage with BOSs hoping that they will see each other as “developing” countries who share common colonial experiences of Western colonialism.

    Whether the BOSs buy this ideological bait is another question. By and large, BOSs still see China as a highly industrialised state with lots of goodies to dangle and benefit from, and not so much as a fellow “poor” Global South brethren.

    One of the ironies of history is that colonialism, apart from creating a culture of subservience, has also deeply embedded a strong pro-Anglo-Western cultural orientation amongst the BOSs, despite moments of political and ideological resistance. Most Pacific people speak English, go through Anglo-Western education, are readily exposed to Anglo-Western cultural influences such as music, Hollywood movies, and other forms of ideological hegemony, and have close connections with their neighbours such as Australia, New Zealand, and the USA, where they migrate for various reasons.

    These factors have created a deep sense of connection with the Anglo-Western world, a reality which China will never be able to replicate, or even challenge, in the next 20 years, despite its extensive “soft power” machinations.

    The BOSs’ engagement with China is more economic and diplomatic and less cultural, although this has been on the increase through scholarship offerings and the establishment of Confucius institutions, among other strategies. BOSs frame their engagement with China on the basis of need rather than ideological alignment as is often assumed and misrepresented by their Anglo-Western neighbours. They are able to play the diplomatic and geopolitical game in subtle and smart ways that keep the big powers guessing and sometimes worried.

    The reality is that while individual BOSs may sign bilateral agreements with China, none of them will allow itself to become China’s patron state, the same way that the US has been creating buffer and client states around the world. This is because, as they probably know, the cost of assimilation into China’s sphere of influence will be massive and they have a lot to lose.

    Some BOSs have adopted a “Look North Policy” and in recent years Pacific students have travelled  to China for studies, Pacific businesses have sold their products to the Chinese market, and states have engaged in bilateral or multilateral deals with the Asian power. This should be seen as part of the diplomatic diversification process rather than a colonising project.

    Just another partner
    The reality is that China will always become just another partner and not the alternative to the Anglo-Western connection. Most Pacific people will opt to migrate to New Zealand, US, or Australia, rather than China.

    This is where the anxiety and fear of the Anglo-Western countries about a Chinese “takeover” is not just misplaced, but utterly irrational. It does not consider the agency of the BOSs to wisely, strategically, and imaginatively navigate their way through the treacherous geopolitical waters. The overreaction by the Anglo-Western bloc about potential Chinese influence sends out a rather unsavoury message about “bullying” and “colonial attitude.”

    This is reinforced by insults such as that by former Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison that the Pacific is Australia’s “backyard” or the racist insinuation by Heather du Plessis-Allan (a right-wing New Zealand journalist) that Pacific people are “leeches,” or the unkind and patronising labelling by some Australian academics and policy thinkers of the Pacific as an “Arc of Instability.”

    Residues of neo-colonial perception are consciously and subconsciously entrenched in the Anglo-Western perception of the BOSs. This has a long history. The Pacific Island Labourers Act 1901, an offshoot of the White Australian policy, was designed to remove Pacific people from Australia.

    In New Zealand, the Dawn Raid era of the mid-1970s and early 1980s saw the arrest, harassment, and removal of Pacific peoples who were unwanted in New Zealand. The then  Australian Immigration Minister Jim Forbes said in May 1971 that “Pacific Islanders are unsophisticated and unsuited to settlement in Australia.”

    Pacific people have always been treated as dispensable entities who need to be kept out, only invited in to support their economy as cheap dispensable labour. This philosophy and practice, which started during the Australian labour trade in the 1800s and in New Zealand in the 1950s and 60s, continues today in both countries under the seasonal labour scheme.

    Times have changed and it’s important for our bigger members of the Vuvale (family)  to engage with their Pacific neighbours as equal partners, not subordinate and unsophisticated backyard children. The BOS’s agency needs full recognition as capable of making their own mind and plotting their trajectory towards the future they desire.

    The old order where colonial paternalism, imperial patronage, racialised narratives, and belittling perceptions shaped relationships no longer have any place. The Anglo-Western countries in the region are good at ticking the UN Sustainable Development boxes such as equity, diversity, and inclusion (SDG10), but they hardly  practice these in meaningful ways.

    No matter how well these subtle manoeuvres are diplomatically concealed, these still cannot escape the gaze of Pacific BOSs because they live with it all the time.  Time for a dramatic attitudinal transformation.

    Steven Ratuva is a professor and interdisciplinary scholar and director of the Macmillan Brown Centre for Pacific Studies at the University of Canterbury, Aotearoa New Zealand. This article was first published by the Australian Institute of International Affairs under a Creative Commons Licence and is republished with the author’s permission.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • The Wide Role Brazil’s Military Has Played In Amazon’s Destruction

    In the Brazilian Amazon, as deforestation reaches record levels and rivers are increasingly polluted, the illegal gold mining contributing to these problems continues largely unabated. The response of the government has been to increase military action to curb environmental crimes in Brazil. Far from achieving this purpose, however, the military intervention has only led to tragedies in the region, directly or indirectly.

    A source from the Brazilian Amazon wrote to us at Revista Opera two years ago to warn us about something strange that was going on there: illegally mined gold was being sold at the same price as legally mined gold. “If the nugget is a big one,” said the source, “they give the miner extra [money].”

    The post The Wide Role Brazil’s Military Has Played In Amazon’s Destruction appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Sitiveni Rabuka takes Fiji campaign trail to Aotearoa New Zealand

    RNZ Pacific

    Sitiveni Rabuka is infamous for making Fiji a republic after carrying out a military coup 35 years ago by overthrowing an Indo-Fijian dominated government to help maintain indigenous supremacy.

    Rabuka has been a central figure in Fijian politics since 1987 — as the nation’s first coup maker, a former prime minister, most recently the leader of opposition, and now a reformed Christian and politician, and the leader of the People’s Alliance Party.

    The former military strongman has positioned himself as the chief rival of the country’s incumbent Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama — a former military commander and coup leader himself — as Fijians prepare to head to the polls at some stage later this year.

    Lieutenant-Colonel Sitiveni Rabuka
    Lieutenant-Colonel Sitiveni Rabuka … as he was at the time of the two 1987 Fiji military coups that he led. Image: Matthew McKee/Pacific Journalism Review

    Rabuka, now 73, is on a campaign trail in Aotearoa New Zealand on a mission — to share with the Fijian diaspora how “politics will affect their relatives” back at home and raise funds for his campaign to topple Bainimarama’s FijiFirst government.

    In an exclusive interview with RNZ Pacific’s senior journalist Koroi Hawkins, he spoke about his vision for a better Fiji, raising the living standards of the Fijian people, and why he is the man to return the country back to “the way the world should be.”

    “I’m here to talk to the supporters who are here,” Rabuka said.

    “We do not have a branch in New Zealand so most of our supporters here have not formed themselves into a branch or into a chapter and I’m just out here to talk to them. They’ve been very supportive on this journey and that’s why I’m here.”

    Koroi Hawkins: Why is it important to be talking to people outside of Fiji for the elections?

    Rabuka: It is very important to speak to the diaspora. Some of them are now [New Zealand] citizens and may not vote. But they have relatives in Fiji and politics will affect their relatives. It is good for them to know how things are, and how things could turn out if we do not have the change that we advocate.

    KH: Is there a fundraising aspect to this overseas election campaigning as well?

    Rabuka: That is also the case. Fiji is feeling the impacts of covid-19 and also the rising food prices and the reduction of employment opportunities, hours at work and things like that, has reduced our income earning capacities and so many of us have been relying on government handouts, which is not healthy for a nation. We would like to encourage people to find out their own alternative methods of coping with the crisis that we are now facing, health and economic, and also to communicate those back to those at home.

    We are also here to thank the people for the remittances of $1.5 billion [that] came into Fiji over the last two years, and a lot of that came from New Zealand, Australia and America. We were grateful to the three governments of the United States of Australia and New Zealand for hosting the diaspora.

    KH: One of your strongest campaign messages has been about poverty with estimates around almost 50 percent of Fijians are now living in hardship. How do you propose to deliver on this promise?

    Rabuka: Those are universal metres that I applied and for Fiji it can be effectively much lower if we were to revert to our own traditional and customary ways of living. Unfortunately, many of the formerly rural dwellers have moved to the urban centres where you must be earning to be able to maintain a respectable and acceptable way of life and living standards and so on.

    Those surveys and the questions were put out to mostly those in the informal settlement areas where the figures are very high. It is true that according to universal metres and measures, yes, we are going through very difficult times. And the only way to do that is to give them opportunities to earn more. Those that are living in the villages now can earn a lot more. Somebody sent out a message this morning, calculating the income per tonne of cassava and dalo; it is way more than what we get from sugar in the international market.

    KH: This pandemic, it’s really exposed how dependent Fiji is on tourism. This really hit Fiji hard. What is your economic vision for Fiji?

    Rabuka: We just don’t want to be relying totally on one cow providing the milk. We will need to be looking at other areas. We have to diversify our economy to be able to weather these economic storms when they come because we cannot foresee them. But what we can do is have something that can weather whatever happens. Whether it is straightforward health or effects of wars and crises in other parts of the world. Agriculture and fisheries and forestry, when you talk about these things it also reminds us of our responsibilities towards climate change. We have to have sustainable policies to make sure these areas we want to diversify into do not unfairly hurt the areas that we are trying to save and sustainably used when we consider climate change.

    KH: Talking about agriculture, the goal seems to be always import substitution and attempts to do that so far have been mild. Even downstream processing also seems problematic. Are there any specific ways you see food for agriculture other than the things that have been tried not just in Fiji, but around the region that are not really taking a hold in a lot of Pacific countries?

    Rabuka: I think it is the choices we have made. There is a big opportunity for us to go into downstream processing of our agricultural produce and use those to substitute for the imports we get. If you look at the impact on the grain market in the world as a result of the Ukrainian war. What else can we have in Fiji now or in other countries that can substitute the grain input into the diet. So those are the things that we need really need to be doing now.

    There has been a lot of research done at the Koronivia Research Station and they are laying there in files stored away in the libraries and the archives. We need to go back to those and see what has been done. Very interesting story about the former the late president Ratu Sir Penaia Ganilau when he went to Indonesia and he found a very big coconut. He wanted to bring that back to go and plant in Fiji and the people were so embarrassed to tell him that this thing was a result of research carried out in Fiji.

    KH: Another big issue is education. We have heard a lot about student loans. You have talked about converting student loans to scholarships and forgiving student debt. Can you maybe speak a little bit more about that that promise? What exactly is that?

    Rabuka: We would like to go back to the scholarships concept, enhance the education opportunities for those that are that are capable of furthering the education and also branching out or branching back into what has been dormant for some time now that TVET, technical and vocational education and training. Those are the things that we really need to be doing. Lately, there have been labour movement from Fiji to Australia, New Zealand, for basic agricultural processes of just picking up nuts and fruit and routes.

    Those people who are coming out are capable of moving on in education to being engineers and carpenters and block layers and if they had the opportunity to further to go along those streams in in the education system. There is no need for them to be paying. The government really should be taking over those things that we did in the past. We cannot all be lawyers and accountants and auditors and doctors and pilots and so on. But there is so many, the bigger portion of the workforce goes into the practical work that is done daily.

    KH: Just going back to the current student debt that is there. Would your policy be to forgive that debt? Or would you still be working out a way to recover it?

    Rabuka: That would be part of our manifesto and we are not allowed to announce those areas of our manifesto without giving the financial and budgetary impacts of those.

    KH: If you did become prime minister, you would be inheriting a country with the highest debt to GDP ratio that Fiji has ever seen is what the experts are saying. What would be your thoughts coming into that kind of a problematic situation?

    Rabuka: We would have to find out how much is owed at the moment and if we were to forgive that, what does forgiving that mean? It means you forego your revenue that you are going to get from these students who are already qualified to do work and for them it means getting reduced salaries when they start working so that they can pay off loans. We have to look at all the combinations and find out which is the most, or the least painful way, of doing it.

    It is not their fault. It is what the new government will inherit from the predecessors. Everybody will have to be called upon to tighten their belt, understand the situation, everybody getting a very high per capita burden of the national debt and tell them just how it is. [This is] where we are, this is how we have to get out of it and everybody needs to work together. That is why we need a very popular government. And that is why all the political parties are working very hard to get that support from the people.

    KH: Turning to the politics. In 2018, you came within a millimetre of that finish line. Since then, a lot has changed. You ran with the Social Democratic Liberal Party (Sodelpa) at the time. You have now formed your own party, the People’s Alliance. How confident are you about this election race given all those changes?

    Rabuka: I think I am confident because there is a universal cry in Fiji for change. The people are looking for their best options on who is to bring the change, what sort of combinations, who are the people behind the brand, people with records in the private sector, also in politics and in the public sector, people who are who are determined to stay on Fiji and do what needs to be done.

    There are so many overseas now who love Fiji so much. So many other people who could have been there in Fiji with us running the campaign in order to create a better Fiji, who are overseas. They have not been able to come freely back and with those in mind, we are determined to be the change and bring the change.

    KH: One of the things you have talked about is reforming the Fiji Police Force. There has been documented history of problems within the police force. How would you plan to achieve that?

    Rabuka: Just bring back the police in Fiji to be the professional body of law enforcement agencies that they had been in the past. We have the capacity, we have the people, we have the natural attributes to be good policemen and women. Get them back to that and avoid the influence of policing in non-democratic societies or the baton charge in every situation, putting it in an extreme term. But that is the sort of thing that we are beginning to see.

    We have to reconsider where we send our police officers for training. They must be trained in regimes, in cities, and in countries and governments where we share the same values about law and order, about respecting the rights of citizens, having freedoms. Nobody is punished until they have been through the whole judicial system. You cannot punish somebody when you are arresting them.

    KH: There has been a lot of work to try and improve things in policing in the Pacific. But there is a culture that persists, that this history of sort of brutality and “us and them” kind of mentality. How would we get past that in our policing?

    Rabuka: We are still coming out of that culture. That was our native culture. We still have to get away from it into modern policing. You look at the way the tribal rules were carried out from that. Somebody’s offended the tribal laws, tribal chiefs, one solution: club them. We have to get away from that. And when we don’t concentrate on moving forward, we very easily fall back.

    KH: What [would] a coalition with the National Federation Party look like?

    Rabuka: We are going to form a coalition. It will be a two-party government. The Prime Minister is free to pick his ministers from both parties and the best qualified will be picked.

    KH: Looking at your own political journey. It started very strongly pro-indigenous Fijian focus. Even with your evolution to your current standing, there are some non-indigenous Fijian voters who are unsure what the future would look like with you as prime minister. What is your message to these people about what Fiji will be like for them and under your prime ministership?

    Rabuka: Well, it is like you see the cover of the book and now you are reading the book. I have a dream of what the Pope [John Paul II] saw when he came to Fiji; the way the world should be, a multiracial, vibrant society, where everybody is welcome, where everybody is contributing, everybody is going by their own thing and even unknowingly contributing to a very vibrant economy that will grow and grow and grow so that we are equal partners in the region with Australia, New Zealand, and a very significant part of the global economy.

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • PNG security forces on alert in Hela over ‘illegal army’ tip-off

    PNG Post-Courier

    An illegal army in full military gear and arms is being raised in Hela — one of Papua New Guinea’s most troublesome provinces as the country faces a general election next month.

    Reports from Hela indicate the illegal force will allegedly take charge of polling which is expected to start on July 4.

    PNG security forces in Hela — made up of army, police and correctional services — are on high alert after uncovering military fatigues brought in on a chartered plane, and are monitoring the situation.

    The PNG Defence Force issue uniforms were airlifted on a chartered flight to Hela from Port Moresby.

    The uniforms, packed in boxes, were impounded by soldiers on election duty in Hela.

    “I am calling on the police, the leaders and the PNGDF hierarchy to come out and tell us why these people who are close to the leaders of the day are in army uniforms, all of them,” said Hela regional candidate Francis Potape, referring to a picture of several men in army fatigues.

    “This picture was taken on the morning of June 18 and in the afternoon the chartered flight was confiscated with army uniforms among others.”

    PNGDF-issued uniforms
    Potape said the uniforms confiscated were not Lot 60 bought uniforms, but were PNGDF-issued uniforms.

    “We know the PNGDF soldiers at Angore intercepted the charter and confiscated the uniforms, we also know the officer in charge in Para was interviewed and could not tell the truth.

    “PNGDF, how can we allow police or PNGDF-issued uniforms to be in the hands of criminals?

    “These uniforms are clothes worn by those who sign and swore an oath to protect every citizen of this country, of the nation and our leaders. Ordinary citizens cannot wear those uniforms.

    “What is happening?” Potape asked.

    The Peoples United Assembly (PUA) — a group formed by the late Anderson Agiru, called on police to carry out a thorough investigation into several charters paid in cash, one of which was caught with the army uniforms on June 18.

    “Paul Mulapigo put out a statement saying he chartered that plane, Paul Mulapigo did not charter the flight– that is not what we know. Police and the leaders of Hela must come out and tell the truth as we know three charters for security gear, election run and kits were in Hela,” PUA president Raymond Kuai said.

    “If the PNG Electoral Commission doesn’t know about this, who does?”

    Flight charter, but ‘no uniforms’
    The Post-Courier reported on June 20 that a Paul Malapi confirmed chartering the flight but he had never moved any police or army uniforms.

    “I am a supporter of Pangu Pati and I never moved any police uniforms of PNGDF uniforms into Komo on any flights I have chartered,” Malapi said.

    Assistant Police Commissioner Samson Kua said at the time that police had confiscated one blue field uniform, three police number one long pants with boots as well as one set of PNGDF camouflage uniform, one shirt and one pair of shorts.

    Police and PNGDF sources in Hela confirmed the incident and that investigations were continuing.

    Potape, who is contesting under the People’s National Congress party ticket, claimed that fake ballot boxes and papers had been also smuggled into the province and all the candidates were looking out for this.

    “I heard someone had already brought in extra ballot boxes and papers to the province,” he said.

    “As I speak the papers and boxes are already in Hela — such practice was done in the 2017 elections.”

    Ready for lawful election
    Raymond Kuai, a lawyer, said: “That picture was taken Saturday morning and in the afternoon the chartered plane cargo was impounded.

    “Hela is ready to go to the polls to elect their leaders in a lawful manner, why are we engaged in such activities? That is why I am calling for police to step in and investigate or we will have a failed or no election in Hela.”

    The development in Hela comes as the PNGEC released dates for polling which commence on July 4, with Hela joining Mamose, Islands and Southern regions’ followed by the other Highlands provinces a few days later.

    This scenario is likely to add to destabilising the already fragile region.

    Hela has been a trouble spot with a proliferation of high-powered firearms in the past two decades, which have been used in tribal fights and in confrontations with security forces.

    Republished with permission by the PNG Post-Courier.

  • Geoffrey Miller: Tale of two summits – why Jacinda Ardern said no to the Commonwealth, but yes to NATO

    ANALYSIS: By Geoffrey Miller of The Democracy Project

    Jacinda Ardern’s decision to attend the upcoming North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) summit in Spain — but to skip the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Rwanda — symbolises the changes she is making to New Zealand foreign policy.

    The Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) starts today in Kigali, while the NATO summit will be held in Madrid next week.

    However, Jacinda Ardern is only attending the NATO summit. She is sending her Foreign Minister, Nanaia Mahuta, to attend the Commonwealth meeting in her place.

    Ardern is hardly alone with her decision to stay away from CHOGM — so far, only 35 of 54 Commonwealth leaders have sent an RSVP. New Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will be among the absentees — deputy Prime Minister (and defence minister) Richard Marles will go instead.

    This is despite the fact that this year’s CHOGM is being held during the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee year and just over a month before the Commonwealth Games — the grouping’s sporting flagship.

    The summit will also be the first CHOGM since 2018, the first CHOGM in Africa since 2007 and the first to be hosted by a “new” Commonwealth member — Rwanda was never a British colony, but voluntarily joined the Commonwealth in 2009.

    Indeed, Rwanda’s hosting of the summit this year is not without controversy. Freedom House, a US-based think tank, calls the country ‘not free’, with a ranking of just 22 points out of 100 — placing it firmly in the bottom third of its global rankings, two places ahead of Russia.

    ‘Pervasive intimidation, torture’
    Freedom House says the Rwandan regime — led by authoritarian President Paul Kagame — undertakes ‘pervasive surveillance, intimidation, torture, and renditions or suspected assassinations of exiled dissidents.’

    This year’s CHOGM also threatens to be overshadowed by a UK plan to deport asylum-seekers to Rwanda. Prince Charles, who reportedly called the deal ‘appalling’, will be representing the Queen at the summit in Kigali.

    Despite these two red flags, prominent human rights organisations are not calling for a boycott of the event. Rather, they want Commonwealth leaders to draw attention to the problems. Human Rights Watch, for instance, has asked leaders to voice their “grave concern to the [Rwandan] government on its human rights record”.

    And, in reference to the UK-Rwanda asylum-seeker deal, Amnesty International wants Commonwealth members to ‘seize the opportunity in Kigali to denounce this inhumane arrangement’.

    Jacinda Ardern’s no-show at CHOGM is probably driven partly by domestic political considerations and timing. This Friday’s inaugural “Matariki” public holiday, which marks the Māori New Year, was a key election campaign pledge by Ardern’s Labour Party in 2020 — and the Prime Minister is scheduled to attend a pre-dawn ceremony on the day.

    Outside of the Commonwealth Games, the Commonwealth has a low profile — but it has a lot going for it. Few intergovernmental organisations can rival it for size — with the Commonwealth’s collective population reaching 2.6 billion, only the likes of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum and the United Nations (UN) represent more people.

    Strength in representing small states
    Moreover, the Commonwealth has a particular strength in representing small states, especially island ones — 25 of the 54 members are classified as Small Island Developing States. This means the Commonwealth can be a particularly useful forum for discussing climate change and environmental issues.

    The results have included initiatives such as the Commonwealth Litter Programme, which has made real differences to countries such as Vanuatu in fighting plastic pollution.

    The Commonwealth is more than just a talking shop, but the disparate nature of its membership is a major challenge. The Commonwealth includes wealthy, democratic countries such as New Zealand, Australia, Canada and the UK — but also poor, authoritarian ones such as Cameroon, Rwanda and Uganda.

    In between, there are also some rich authoritarian members (such as Brunei) and less well-off democracies (such as India)

    Of course, there is still great value in an organisation that brings opposing sides together for a robust exchange of views — the new geopolitical faultline between the Global South and North over Ukraine is a case in point. While Western countries — including New Zealand — have provided strong support to Ukraine, most non-Western countries have not followed suit.

    It would do Jacinda Ardern good to listen to the rationale that countries such as South Africa and Mozambique might have for not falling in line with the Western position. Countries perhaps learn best when they are not just surrounded by their like-minded friends.

    However, in the new Cold War, ideology is back with a vengeance — and many countries are drifting away from pragmatic, inclusive groupings towards more ideologically-driven ones.

    Countering Chinese influence
    For Australia, this means countering Chinese influence with the reinvigorated “Quad” arrangement (with India, Japan and the US) and AUKUS (with the United Kingdom and the United States); for New Zealand, the Pacific Islands Forum and bilateral meetings with Australia and the United States have taken on greater significance.

    All of this explains why Jacinda Ardern has accepted an invitation to attend NATO’s Madrid Summit next week. Jens Stoltenberg, the alliance’s Secretary General, has recently been at pains to highlight the invitation to the bloc’s “Asia-Pacific partners” – Australia, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea.

    The reason is obvious – on Thursday, Stoltenberg specifically mentioned China as one of the priorities for the meeting, which will set out a new “Strategic Concept” — effectively a blueprint for the future of NATO.

    And while NATO’s main focus will remain on security in Europe, last year’s summit in Brussels — held well before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — was noteworthy for making China its main priority.

    The summit’s communique made NATO’s position crystal-clear: “China’s stated ambitions and assertive behaviour present systemic challenges to the rules-based international order and to areas relevant to Alliance security”.

    Jacinda Ardern’s invitation to attend the NATO’s 2022 Madrid Summit will also be something of a reward for aligning New Zealand’s foreign policy more closely with NATO — and the West generally — over the past few months.

    After all, Ardern has overhauled New Zealand’s foreign policy by introducing sanctions against Russia and sending military equipment and weapons to Ukraine — and by making a symbolic contribution of New Zealand troops to Europe to assist with the war effort.

    Security ‘not for free’
    But as Stoltenberg likes to say, security “does not come for free” — and the meeting will undoubtedly also serve as an opportunity to put pressure on New Zealand to provide even more assistance. The NATO Secretary-General recently pointed out that there have been “seven consecutive years of rising defence investment across Europe and Canada”.

    New Zealand’s military spending shows a remarkably similar trajectory, with spending now at the 1.5% of GDP level– up from 1.1% in 2015, although still well below NATO’s target of 2%.

    Like Jacinda Ardern, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will also be a guest of honour at the NATO summit. Anthony Albanese is also travelling to Madrid — and Zelensky has already invited the Australian PM to visit Kyiv.

    If he accepts, Albanese would be following in the footsteps of many other NATO country leaders who have travelled to Ukraine in recent weeks, including the UK’s Boris Johnson, France’s Emmanuel Macron and Germany’s Olaf Scholz.

    And given the focus on Western unity and solidarity in recent months, there is every chance Jacinda Ardern would travel together with Anthony Albanese on any European side-trip to Ukraine — on a joint ANZAC solidarity mission.

    Ardern is backing NATO over CHOGM.

    She might be choosing Kyiv over Kigali.

    Geoffrey Miller is an international analyst and writes on current New Zealand foreign policy and related geopolitical issues for Victoria University of Wellington’s Democracy Project. He has lived in Germany and the Middle East and is a learner of Arabic and Russian. This article is republished under a Creative Commons licence.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • In the Solomon Islands, Wong takes first tentative steps in repairing a strained relationship

    ANALYSIS: By Patricia A. O’Brien, Georgetown University

    Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong was no doubt expecting a cooler reception than her three previous visits to the Pacific when she touched down in Honiara last Friday.

    The Solomon Islands government website had not even listed the Australian minister’s visit — but it did note the first visit of a Saudi Arabian tourism minister, happening the same day.

    With this visit, Wong walked a diplomatic tightrope that no senior minister in the previous government appeared willing to.

    Solomon Islands leaders have had a very crowded schedule of late, as highlighted by the Solomon Star newspaper. It said Wong was the latest foreign figure to arrive on Solomon Island shores after a number of “high-level visits from USA, Japan and China recently, before and after the signing of the security pact”.


    ABC News on Wong’s visit to Solomon Islands. Video: ABC

    The security pact in question is the one signed on April 20 between China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, and Solomon Islands’ foreign minister, Jeremiah Manele.

    Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare explained the riots of November 2021 left his government with “no option” but to enter into such a security agreement to “plug the gaps that exist in our security agreement with Australia”. What these “gaps” are, he did not say.

    Since that signing, the entire Pacific has shifted in myriad ways. Wong has been very busy in her first month in office trying to reduce its impact.

    She has had some wins with Fiji, Samoa and Tonga. Also, Australia assisted with the rapprochement at the Pacific Islands Forum, which has emerged reinvigorated after the stress test of the past year, when one-third of the members threatened to leave.

    This was averted with a special meeting in Suva on June 7, with Micronesian leaders transported to it on Australian aircraft.

    The biggest win so far, for which Wong can take some credit, was for her work in advance of the Pacific Islands Forum meeting on May 30. Here, the ten nations that recognise China did not collectively sign on to become “China-Pacific Island countries”. (Federated States of Micronesia President David Panuleo rallied the region with a stirring letter that instantly became a classic text.)

    A whirlwind multi-nation visit by Wang before and after the May 30 meeting added inducements for working more closely with China through numerous bilateral agreements.

    Wang spent the most time on his trip in the Solomon Islands. The effect of his effusive welcome by Sogavare, encapsulated in the photograph of the pair linking arms, denoted the “iron-clad” ties the two leaders were cementing between their nations.

    Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare
    Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare link arms in Honiara after making their security pact. Image: Xinhua/AP/AAP

    In addition to the game-changing Framework Security Agreement, the Solomon Islands and China “achieved eight-point consensus” during Wang’s visit.

    This is a template agreement Wang has already shopped around Asia in 2021, tweaked for national specificities and concerns. In the case of the Solomon Islands, it mentions working together on “climate change” and “marine protection”.

    Given all that China has offered Sogavare and his political allies — to the great detriment of the nation according to Opposition Leader Matthew Wale, who has charged the security deal is “a personal deal to protect the prime minister” — what could Penny Wong offer?

    On her visits to Fiji, Samoa and Tonga, not being a member of the Morrison government that clung to its coal power and climate policies gave Wong a lot of mileage. This is the most important issue facing the region, recently reiterated in an impassioned speech at the Shangri-La Dialogue by Fiji’s minister for defence and policing, Inia Bakikoto Seruiratu.

    The Solomon Islands is no exception.

    That said, not being a Morrison government minister did not get Wong very far in Honiara. As she had signalled she would, Wong announced more vaccines donations and an expansion of the very popular (and desperately needed) labour scheme, the topic on which she got the most questions at her press conference.

    She also visited a school and lunched with women leaders, who would have raised the dire need for improved medical facilities. Notably, it seems Wong did not meet Wale and other Sogavare opponents.

    Very subtly, Wong presented an alternative to the China path. Unlike Wang’s visit, which greatly restricted press coverage, Wong encouraged it, no doubt hoping word would spread as it reportedly had in other parts of the Pacific.

    But what about “our shared security interests”, as Wong termed it? This got little traction in Honiara as Sogavare will not walk back from the China-Solomon Islands agreement.

    On the election campaign trail, Wong described the pact as “the worst foreign policy blunder since World War Two”.

    Many anticipate China will build a naval base, as appears to be happening in Cambodia. However, Sogavare has assured Wong, and others, this will not occur.

    What may happen is that maritime militias appearing as fishing vessels, which China has used to great effect in the South China Sea, will slowly build a China military presence if there is not a change of leadership and direction in the Solomon Islands.

    The recent “dangerous” confrontation between a Chinese fighter jet and an Australian airforce plane in the South China Sea on May 26, the day Wong began her visit to Fiji, is another sobering instance of tactics that might move south.

    While Wong’s visit did not deliver big wins, it did not make things worse.

    She got reassurances, but given what Sogavare has signed onto with China of late, there is a clear lack of connection between words and deeds. What Wong did do is signal another way forward for Sogavare’s considerable opposition.

    In the coming week, a multilateral Pacific Islands effort will be announced in Washington DC that involves the US, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and France.

    Given this, it is almost certain that the tempo of visits to the Solomon Islands and other Pacific nations is going to rise.The Conversation

    Dr Patricia A. O’Brien is a faculty member, Asian Studies Program, Georgetown University; visiting fellow, Department of Pacific Affairs, Australian National University; adjunct fellow, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington DC., Georgetown University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Defense Contractors Raking In Tax Dollars As US Economy Suffers

    Your tax dollars are being used to prop up defense contractors, and the Ukraine conflict is giving them everything they’ve ever wanted. Mike Papantonio & Farron Cousins discuss more. Transcript: *This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos. Mike Papantonio:             Your tax dollars are being used to prop up defense contractors and […]

    The post Defense Contractors Raking In Tax Dollars As US Economy Suffers appeared first on The Ring of Fire Network.

    This post was originally published on The Ring of Fire.

  • Advocacy group calls on NZ to ‘end silence’ over Assange extradition

    Pacific Media Watch newsdesk

    A media freedom advocacy group has called on New Zealand to end its silence over the Julian Assange case in what it called a “dark day for global press freedom”.

    The UK Home secretary Priti Patel yesterday signed the extradition to send Australian journalist Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks, to the US, which has charged him for publishing leaked evidence of their war crimes.

    The Guardian’s editorial said the decision “ought to worry anyone who cares about journalism and democracy”.

    Assange, 50, has been charged under the US Espionage Act, including publishing classified material. He faces up to 175 years in jail if found guilty by a US court. This action potentially opens the door for journalists anywhere in the world to be extradited to the US for exposing information deemed classified by Washington.

    Human rights groups have called for Assange’s release.

    The International Federation of Journalists, representing more than 600,000 journalists tweeted: “The UK decision to allow the extradition of Assange is vindictive and a real blow to media freedom.

    “He has simply exposed issues that were in the public interest and Patel’s failure to acknowledge this is shameful and sets a terrible precedent.”

    Lack of accountability
    Aotearoa 4 Assange (A4A) said in a statement that the New Zealand government could no longer remain silent on this case.

    A4A’s Matt Ó Branáin asked: “What will our government’s position be when it’s a New Zealand investigative journalist being imprisoned or extradited?

    “What will this total lack of accountability mean the next time the US asks us to send our troops to die in another war?.”

    The Guardian warned this “potentially opens the door for journalists anywhere in the world to be extradited to the US for exposing information deemed classified by Washington”.

    The editorial said: “The charges against him should never have been brought. As Mr Assange published classified documents and he did not leak them, Barack Obama’s administration was reluctant to bring charges.

    “His legal officers correctly understood that this would threaten public interest journalism. It was Donald Trump’s team, which considered the press an ‘enemy of the people’, that took the step.”

    Ó Branáin said: “We reiterate our call for Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern to stand with Australian Prime Minister Albanese’s calls for our allies the UK and US to bring an end to this, and bring Assange home.”

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Assange extradition order a ‘dangerous assault on international journalism’, says MEAA

    Pacific Media Watch newsdesk

    The UK government’s decision to uphold the application by the US Department of Justice to extradite Australian publisher Julian Assange imperils journalists everywhere, says the union for Australia’s journalists.

    The Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance calls on the Australian government to take urgent steps to lobby the US and UK governments to drop all charges against Assange and to allow him to be with his wife and children.

    Assange, a MEAA member since 2007, may only have a slim chance of challenging extradition to face espionage charges for releasing US government records that revealed the US military committed war crimes against civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq, including the killing of two Reuters journalists.

    If found guilty, Assange faces a jail term of up to 175 years.

    MEAA media section federal president Karen Percy said it was a dangerous assault on international journalism.

    “We urge the new Australian government to act on Julian Assange’s behalf and lobby for his release,” she said.

    “The actions of the US are a warning sign to journalists and whistleblowers everywhere and undermine the importance of uncovering wrongdoing.

    “Our thoughts are with Julian and his family at this difficult time.”

    In 2011, WikiLeaks was awarded the Walkley Award for Most Outstanding Contribution to Journalism in recognition of the impact WikiLeaks’ actions had on public interest journalism by assisting whistleblowers to tell their stories.

    At the time the Walkley judges said WikiLeaks applied new technology to “penetrate the inner workings of government to reveal an avalanche of inconvenient truths in a global publishing coup”.

    This type of publishing partnership has been repeated by other media outlets since, using whistleblowers’ leaks to expose global tax avoidance schemes, among other stories.

    In the WikiLeaks example, only Assange has been charged.

    None of WikiLeaks media partners have been cited in any US government legal actions because of their collaboration with Assange.

    #FreeJulianAssange


    Background on the Julian Assange case. Video: Al Jazeera

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Australia gifts PNG with vests and helmets ahead of elections

    By Gorethy Kenneth in Port Moresby

    Australia has gifted Papua New Guinea with 3000 ballistic vests and 3000 helmets which arrived at Jackson’s International Airport in Port Moresby today.

    They were flown in on a Royal Australian Airforce C17 Globemaster inbound from the United States.

    The ballistic vests and helmets are a gift from Australia to the Royal Papua New Guinea Constabulary (RPNGC) in response to Papua New Guinea’s request for additional protective equipment for the police force.

    At a ceremony yesterday, Australian High Commissioner Jon Philp and Australian Federal Police Commander Jamie Strauss formally signed over the equipment to Police Commissioner David Manning.

    “Australia is pleased to deliver these ballistic vests and helmets ahead of the 2022 National Elections. PNG and Australia share a tradition of representative democracy reflecting our broader shared values and Australia is proud to be able to support PNG through this gift and through our broader Supporting Elections Programme,” said High Commissioner Philp.

    The protective equipment that Australia delivered today will allow the RPNGC to safely carry out their duties — not only during the national election, but in the critical operations the RPNGC undertake every day.

    AFP Commander Jamie Strauss highlighted that “the provision of this equipment is a demonstration of the maturing cooperation between the RPNGC and the AFP under the PNG-Australia Policing Partnership”.

    The partnership between Australia and PNG was strengthened by our close cooperation during the covid-19 response and Australia looks forward to further deepening the cooperation.

    Papua New Guinea goes to the polls on July 2-22.

    Gorethy Kenneth is a PNG Post-Courier reporter. Republished with permission.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • America’s Lawyer: Biden Turns To Saudi Arabia As Gas Prices Skyrocket

    America’s Lawyer E09: The whispers from Democrats about replacing Biden in 2024 are growing louder, as more and more Party members start to realize he doesn’t have it in him. We’ll explain what’s happening. Starbucks has declared war on unions within their company, but workers are refusing to back down. We’ll bring you the details. And […]

    The post America’s Lawyer: Biden Turns To Saudi Arabia As Gas Prices Skyrocket appeared first on The Ring of Fire Network.

    This post was originally published on The Ring of Fire.

  • Military Contractors Ecstatic To Arm Ukraine With Drones

    Ukraine is asking for highly sophisticated “Hunter – Killer Drones,” and the defense industry is begging the government to make this happen. Mike Papantonio & Farron Cousins discuss more. Transcript: *This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos. Mike Papantonio:             Ukraine is asking for highly sophisticated hunter killer drones and the defense […]

    The post Military Contractors Ecstatic To Arm Ukraine With Drones appeared first on The Ring of Fire Network.

    This post was originally published on The Ring of Fire.

  • Council of Europe rebukes UK over Troubles immunity plan

    Body criticises plan to grant conditional immunity to people accused of murder in Northern Ireland conflict

    The Council of Europe has rebuked the UK over a plan to grant conditional immunity to people accused of murder and other offences during the Northern Ireland Troubles.

    The body, which oversees the European court of human rights (ECHR), on Friday accused the government of not consulting stakeholders and expressed concern over the stated intention to pull the plug on inquests.

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • PNG troops still await deployment orders for election security

    By Miriam Zarriga in Mt Hagen, Papua New Guinea

    The full strength of the Papua New Guinea security forces has yet to be deployed into the Highlands “hotspot areas” in time for the general election next month.

    The commanding officers of the Royal PNG Constabulary, PNG Defence Force and PNG Correctional Services confirmed this yesterday.

    The officers have not been deployed around the country with the three disciplinary forces waiting on the call from Police Commissioner David Manning.

    So far there has been:

    • an election-related death reported in Ialibu-Pangia;
    • Returning officer of Kompiam-Ambum shot and injured;
    • two candidates shot at by opposing candidate supporters;
    • oil spilled onto the tarmac at Kagamuga Airport; a minister chased by angry public in his district; and
    • the burning of party merchandise by opposing supporters.

    In a statement, the PNGDF noted: “The launching of the PNGDF NATEL 22 security operations will be next week, once it is done, then we will be in a position to advise. As it is, troops are still in their units.”

    The Correctional Services issued a statement noting that for their 500 men and women to be deployed for election operations, are still waiting on the call by Police.

    Police Commissioner David Manning arrived in Mt Hagen, Western Highlands, and met with Assistant Commissioner of Police-Eastern End Rigga Neggi and WHP police commander Chief Superintendent Joe Puri.

    ‘The call out will be done’
    “The call out, especially any operational order, will be done once it has been established where the men and women are needed,” he said.

    “We have identified where the men and women need to be and that is where they will be sent.

    “Many of the police units who were sent to the different provinces prior to the election have returned for a break before they are redeployed.

    “Others will now be sent out to the other provinces.”

    It is expected that over three days from June 15-17, the three armoured vehicles will travel into the Highlands region via Lae, Morobe Province.

    The vehicles will arrive in Mt Hagen where the countrywide launch of the security operations will be held that will see more than 5000 security personnel deployed into 22 provinces.

    Police Minister William Onglo said: “Election is known to be violent at times and we will ensure all security personnel from the three disciplinary forces are mobilised and sent out.”

    ‘Disastrous security planning’
    Former police commissioner Gari Baki warned: “Deployment not done earlier is the start to a disastrous security planning for the election.

    “Any deployment of security personnel should have been done two months before the issue of writ and the security assessment by the National Intelligence Organisation (NIO) should have been done six months ago.”

    Several provincial police commanders (PPC) have expressed concern citing that the mobile squads normally deploy two months prior to issue of writs as Phase 1 of the whole Natel Operations to conduct awareness/road shows, assist local police attend to outstanding conflicts.

    “However, this has not been done this election, mainly due to lack of funds from the national government. Hopefully, they might be inserted a few weeks before polling.”

    In a media conference, ACP Neggi said: “We are progressing well with our operations at the Eastern command and we are expecting extra reinforcement to land this week onwards.

    “So we should have a lot of security personnel on the ground and we are having a parade for the highlands operations next week. Before that, we will have a commanders’ conference here.

    ‘Bit of a hiccup’
    “In terms of the security operations preparations we are progressing well.

    “There are little bit of hiccup along the way but as time goes on… both Highlands commands will be operating from Mt Hagen for administrative support. But the operations will be rolled out in the provinces from Hela coming down toward Simbu.”

    ACP–Western End John Kale said that in the provinces of Enga, Southern Highlands and Enga, the police work was continuing.

    “We continue our awareness and we are talking to the people on elections, however this is a region that any little thing can start something big, we continue to monitor.”

    Miriam Zarriga is a PNG Post-Courier reporter. Republished with permission.

  • Russian oligarch’s super yacht leaves Fiji for US following court ruling

    RNZ Pacific

    A Russian-owned superyacht docked in Fiji has left for the United States after a Fiji court ordered its removal, saying it was a waste of money to maintain amid legal wrangling over its seizure.

    Fiji’s Supreme Court lifted a stay order which had prevented the US from seizing the superyacht Amadea.

    A US Justice Department’s Taskforce has focused on seizing yachts and other luxury assets of Russian oligarchs in a bid to pressure Russian President Vladimir Putin over the war in Ukraine.

    The 106m Amadea arrived in Fiji on April 13 after an 18-day voyage from Mexico.

    It was seized by Fiji authorities after the country’s High Court granted a US warrant last month that linked the yacht to sanctioned Russian oligarch Suleiman Kerimov.

    The FBI has said the US$300 million luxury vessel had running costs of $25 million to $30 million per year, and the United States would pay to maintain the vessel after it was seized.

    However, Fiji’s government has been footing the bill while an appeal by the vessel’s registered owner, Millemarin Investments, worked its way through the country’s courts.

    Ordered to ‘sail out of Fiji’
    The Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday that public interest demanded the yacht “sail out of Fiji waters”, because having it berthed in Fiji was “costing the Fijian government dearly,” according to the judgment.

    The vessel “sailed into Fiji waters without any permit and most probably to evade prosecution by the United States,” it added.

    Anthony Coley, a spokesperson for the US Justice Department, posted on Twitter that the Amadea set sail for the United States on Tuesday “after having been seized as the proceeds of criminal evasion of US sanctions against Russian oligarch Suleyman Kerimov.”

    The United States alleged Kerimov beneficially owned the Amadea, although lawyers for the vessel had denied this and told the court it was owned by another Russian oligarch, Eduard Khudainatov, the former chief of Russian energy giant Rosneft, who had not been sanctioned.

    Last month, another luxury yacht reportedly owned by Khudainatov worth some $700 million was impounded by police in Italy.

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • America’s Lawyer: AOC Torches Republicans And Democrats

    America’s Lawyer E08: Dozens of members of Congress have been caught violating the Stock Act in the past year, but so far nothing has been done to stop this massive problem, and we’ll tell you the very obvious reasons why. Johnson & Johnson is re-writing the rules in order to avoid paying tens of thousands […]

    The post America’s Lawyer: AOC Torches Republicans And Democrats appeared first on The Ring of Fire Network.

    This post was originally published on The Ring of Fire.