Australia has announced more than A$68 million over the next five years to strengthen and expand Australian broadcasting and media sector engagement across the Indo-Pacific.
As part of the Indo-Pacific broadcasting strategy, the ABC will receive just over $40m to increase its content for and about the Pacific, expand Radio Australia’s FM transmission footprint across the region and enhance its media and training activities.
And the PacificAus TV programme will receive over $28 million to provide commercial Australian content free of charge to broadcasters in the Pacific.
The strategy provides a framework to help foster a vibrant and independent media sector, counter misinformation, present modern multicultural Australia, and support deeper people-to-people engagement.
It focuses on three key areas, including:
supporting the creation and distribution of compelling Australian content that engages audiences and demonstrates Australia’s commitment to the region;
enhancing access in the region to trusted sources of media, including news and current affairs, strengthening regional media capacity and capability; and
boosting connections between Australian-based and Indo-Pacific media and content creators.
Crucial role
Foreign Minister Penny Wong said media plays a crucial role in elevating the voices and perspectives of the region and strengthening democracy.
Wong said the Australia government was committed to supporting viable, resilient and independent media in the region.
Minister for International Development and the Pacific Pat Conroy said Australia and the Pacific shared close cultural and people-to-people links, and an enduring love of sport.
“These connections will be further enriched by the boost in Australian content, allowing us to watch, read, and listen to shared stories across the region — from rugby to news and music.
Conroy said Australia would continue and expand support for media development, including through the new phase of the Pacific Media Assistance Scheme (PACMAS) and future opportunities through the Australia-Pacific Media and Broadcasting Partnership.
Communications Minister Michelle Rowland said a healthy Fourth Estate was imperative in the era of digital transformation and misinformation.
“This strategy continues Australia’s longstanding commitment to supporting a robust media sector in our region,” she said.
“By leveraging Australia’s strengths, we can partner with the region to boost media connections, and foster a diverse and sustainable media landscape.”
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Of the 42 respondents in the survey, the youngest was 22, and the oldest was 51, with an average age of 33.2 years. The average amount of work experience was 8.3 years.
Most respondents (80.5 percent) worked in print, with the others choosing online and/or broadcasting. Most respondents answered that they were aware of sexual harassment occurring.
Researchers Laisa Bulatale (left) and Nalini Singh of the Fiji Women’s Rights Movement (FWRM). . . most respondents answered that they were aware of sexual harassment occurring. Image: RNZ Pacific
The ABC’s Fiji reporter, Lice Monovo is an experienced journalist who has worked for RNZ Pacific and The Guardian.
She said she was not surprised by the findings and such incidents were familiar to her.
“There were things I had encountered, and some close friends had, and they were things I had seen but what I did also feel was shock that it was still happening and shock that it was more widespread.”
After reading the preliminary results of the report, she realised that although women did take steps, including reporting harassment and approaching their employers or asking for help, still not enough was being done to protect female journalists.
Panel discussion on “Prevalence and Impact of Sexual Harassment on Female Journalists”. Panelists were Laisa Bulatale, Georgina Kekea, Jacqui Berrell, Lice Movono, Dr Shailendra Bahadur Singh. The moderator was Nalini Singh. Image: Stefan Armbruster/RNZ Pacific
“Their concerns and worries, and the things they went through were invalidated, they were told to ‘suck it up’, they were told to put it behind them.”
Movono added that often the burden and responsibility for the harassment were shifted to them, the victims.
“So no, I don’t think enough was done,” she said.
Fiji Women’s Rights Movement’s Laisa Bulatale said many of the women in the research experienced verbal, physical, gestural, and online harassment at work. She said it was not only confined to the workplace.
“A lot of the harassment was also experienced when they went and did assignments or when they had to do interviews with high-ranking officials in government, MPs, even rugby personalities or people in the sports industry,” she said.
She said they were justifiably hesitant to report these problems.
“They [female reporters] feared victim blaming and a lot of shame so a lot of the female journalists that we spoke to in the survey said they carried that with them, and they didn’t feel they knew enough to be able to report the incident.
“And if they did, they were not confident enough that the complaint processes or the referral pathways for them within the organisations they were working in would hear the case or address it.”
Georgina Kekea is an experienced Solomon Islands journalist and editor of Tavali News. She completed a survey of female reporters in the Solomon Islands’ newsroom.
“When I got the responses back, I guess for someone working in the industry, it just validated also what you have been through in your career. What all of us are going through as female journalists,”
Kekea said that there was not much support coming from the superiors in the newsroom.
“Mostly because I think we have males who are leading the team, not understanding issues which women face, and of course, being a Melanesian society, the culture plays a big part, and also obstacles men face when it comes to addressing women’s issues,” Kekea said.
Alex Rheeney is former editor of both PNG’s Post-Courier and the Samoa Observer.
He said he was not surprised by the panel’s discussion.
“Our female colleagues, female reporters, female broadcasters, they go through some very, very huge challenges that those of us who were working in the newsroom as a reporter before didn’t go through simply because of the fact we were male, and it’s unacceptable.”
“Why do we have to have those challenges today?”
He said that newsrooms should develop policies to look after the welfare and safety of female reporters.
“We just have to look at the findings from the survey that was done in Fiji.”
He was positive that the Fijian survey had been done but queried what the follow-up steps should be in terms of putting in place mechanisms to protect female reporters.
“I can only think back to the time when I was the editor of the Post-Courier, I had to drive one of my female reporters to the Boroka police station to get a restraining order against her husband.
“I got personally involved because I knew that it was already affecting her, her children and her family.”
Rheeney said that the media industry needed to do more.
The personal intervention he had undertaken, was a response to an individual problem. However, the industry needed to be able to do more, as harassment and violence against female journalists were in a state of crisis.
“We can’t afford to sit back and just wait for it to happen; we need to be proactive.”
Rheeney believed that the media industry across the Pacific needed to put more measures in place to protect female journalists and staff both in the newsroom and when out on assignment.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Many platitudes about media freedom and democracy laced last week’s Pacific International Media Conference in the Fijian capital of Suva. There was a mood of euphoria at the impressive event, especially from politicians who talked about journalism being the “oxygen of democracy”.
The dumping of the draconian and widely hated Fiji Media Industry Development Act that had started life as a military decree in 2010, four years after former military commander Voreqe Bainimarama seized power, and was then enacted in the first post-coup elections in 2014, was seen as having restored media freedom for the first time in almost two decades.
As a result, Fiji had bounced back 45 places to 44th on this year’s Reporters Without Borders World Press Freedom Index – by far the biggest climb of any nation in Oceania, where most countries, including Australia and New Zealand, have been sliding downhill.
One of Fiji’s three deputy Prime Ministers, Professor Biman Prasad, a former University of the South Pacific economist and long a champion of academic and media freedom, told the conference the new Coalition government headed by the original 1987 coup leader Sitiveni Rabuka had reintroduced media self-regulation and “we can actually feel the freedom everywhere, including in Parliament”.
The same theme had been offered at the conference opening ceremony by another deputy PM, Manoa Kamikamica, who declared:
“We pride ourselves on a government that tries to listen, and hopefully we can try and chart a way forward in terms of media freedom and journalism in the Pacific, and most importantly, Fiji.
“They say that journalism is the oxygen of democracy, and that could be no truer than in the case of Fiji.”
Happy over media law repeal
Papua New Guinea’s Minister for Information and Communication Technology Timothy Masiu echoed the theme. Speaking at the conference launch of a new book, Waves of Change: Media, Peace, and Development in the Pacific (co-edited by Professor Prasad, conference chair Associate Professor Shailendra Singh and Dr Amit Sarwal), he said: “We support and are happy with this government of Fiji for repealing the media laws that went against media freedom in Fiji in the recent past.”
Fiji Deputy Prime Minister Manoa Kamikamica . . . speaking about the “oxygen of democracy” at the opening of the Pacific International Media Conference in Suva on 4 July 2024. Image: Asia Pacific Media Network
But therein lies an irony. While Masiu supports the repeal of a dictatorial media law in Fiji, he is a at the centre of controversy back home over a draft media law (now in its fifth version) that he is spearheading that many believe will severely curtail the traditional PNG media freedom guaranteed under the constitution.
He defends his policies, saying that in PNG, “given our very diverse society with over 1000 tribes and over 800 languages and huge geography, correct and factful information is also very, very critical.”
Masiu says that what drives him is a “pertinent question”:
“How is the media being developed and used as a tool to protect and preserve our Pacific identity?”
PNG Minister for Information and Communications Technology Timothy Masiu (third from right) at the conference pre-dinner book launchings at Holiday Inn, Suva, on July 4. The celebrants are holding the 30th anniversary edition of Pacific Journalism Review. Image: Wansolwara
Another issue over the conference was the hypocrisy over debating media freedom in downtown Suva while a few streets away Fijian freedom of speech advocates and political activists were being gagged about speaking out on critical decolonisation and human rights issues such as Kanaky, Palestine and West Papua freedom.
In the front garden of the Gordon Street compound of the Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre (FWCC), the independence flags of Kanaky, Palestine and West Papua flutter in the breeze. Placards and signs daub the walls of the centre declaring messages such as “Stop the genocide”, “Resistance is justified! When people are occupied!”, “Free Kanaky – Justice for Kanaky”, “Ceasefire, stop genocide”, “Palestine is a moral litmus test for the world” and “We need rainbows not Rambos”.
The West Papuan Morning Star and Palestinian flags for decolonisation fluttering high in downtown Suva. Image: APMN
‘Thursdays in Black’
While most of the 100 conference participants from 11 countries were gathered at the venue to launch the peace journalism book Waves of Change and the 30th anniversary edition of Pacific Journalism Review, about 30 activists were gathered at the same time on July 4 in the centre’s carpark for their weekly “Thursdays in Black” protest.
But they were barred from stepping onto the footpath in public or risk arrest. Freedom of speech and freedom of assembly Fiji-style.
Protesters at the Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre compound in downtown Suva in the weekly “Thursdays in Black” solidarity rally with Kanaky, Palestine and West Papua on July 4. Image: APMN
Surprisingly, the protest organisers were informed on the same day that they could stage a “pre-Bastllle Day” protest about Kanaky and West Papua on July 12, but were banned from raising Israeli’s genocidal war on Palestine.
The protest march was staged on Friday but in spite of the Palestine ban some placards surfaced and also Palestinian symbols such as keffiyehs and watermelons.
The “pre-Bastille Day” march in Suva in solidarity for decolonisation. Image: FWCC
The Fiji NGO Coalition on Human Rights in Fiji and their allies have been hosting vigils at FWCC compound for Palestine, West Papua and Kanaky every Thursday over the last eight months, calling on the Fiji government and Pacific leaders to support the ceasefire in Gaza, and protect the rights of Palestinians, West Papuans and Kanaks.
“The struggles of Palestinians are no different to West Papua, Kanaky New Caledonia — these are struggles of self-determination, and their human rights must be upheld,” said FWCC coordinator and the NGO coalition chair Shamima Ali.
Solidarity for Kanaky in the “pre-Bastille Day” march in Suva on Friday. Image: FWCC
Media silence noticed
Outside the conference, Pacific commentators also noticed the media hypocrisy and the extraordinary silence.
Canberra-based West Papuan diplomacy-trained activist and musician Ronny Kareni complained in a post on X, formerly Twitter: “While media personnel, journos and academia in journalism gathered [in Suva] to talk about media freedom, media network and media as the oxygen of democracy etc., why Papuan journos can’t attend, yet Indon[esian] ambassador to Fiji @SimamoraDupito can??? Just curious.”
Ronny Kareni’s X post about the Indonesian Ambassador to Fiji Dupito D. Simamora. Image: @ronnykareni X screenshot APR
At the conference itself, some speakers did raise the Palestine and decolonisation issue.
Speaker Khairiah A Rahman (from left) of the Asia Pacific Media Network and colleagues Pacific Journalism Review designer Del Abcede, PJR editor Dr Philip Cass, Dr Adam Brown, PJR founder Dr David Robie, and Rach Mario (Whānau Community Hub). Image: APMN
Khairiah A. Rahman, of the Asia Pacific Media Network, one of the partner organisers along with the host University of the South Pacific and Pacific Islands News Association, spoke on the “Media, Community, Social Cohesion and Conflict Prevention” panel following Hong Kong Professor Cherian George’s compelling keynote address about “Cracks in the Mirror: When Media Representations Sharpen Social Divisions”.
She raised the Palestine crisis as a critical global issue and also a media challenge.
“Palestine is a moral litmus test for the world” poster at the Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre compound. Image: APMN
In his keynote address, “Frontline Media Faultlines: How Critical Journalism Can Survive Against the Odds”, Professor David Robie, also of APMN, spoke of the common decolonisation threads between Kanaky, Palestine and West Papua.
He also critiquing declining trust in mainstream media – that left some “feeling anxious and powerless” — and how they were being fragmented by independent start-ups that were perceived by many people as addressing universal truths such as the genocide in Palestine.
“Gaza has become not just a metaphor for a terrible state of dystopia in parts of the world, it has also become an existential test for journalists – do we stand up for peace and justice and the right of people to survive under the threat of ethnic cleansing and against genocide, or do we do nothing and remain silent in the face of genocide being carried out with impunity in front of our very eyes?
“The answer is simple surely . . .
“And it is about saving journalism, our credibility, and our humanity as journalists.”
Professor David Robie’s keynote speech at Pacific Media 2023. Video: The Australia Today
At the end of his address, Dr Robie called for a minute’s silence in a tribute to the 158 Palestinian journalists who had been killed so far in the ninth-month war on Gaza. The Gazan journalists were awarded this year’s UNESCO Guillermo Cano Media Freedom Prize for their “courage and commitment to freedom of expression”.
Undoubtedly the two most popular panels in the conference were the “Pacific Editors’ Forum” when eight editors from around the region “spoke their minds”, and a panel on sexual harassment on the media workplace and on the job.
Little or no action
According to speakers in “Gender and Media in the Pacific: Examining violence that women Face” panel introduced and moderated by Fiji Women’s Rights Movement (FWRM) executive director Nalini Singh, female journalists continue to experience inequalities and harassment in their workplaces and on assignment — with little or no action taken against their perpetrators.
Fiji journalist Lice Movono speaking on a panel discussion about “Prevalence and Impact of sexual harassment on female journalists” at the Pacific International Media Conference in Fiji. Image: Stefan Armbruster/Benar News
The speakers included FWRM programme director Laisa Bulatale, experienced Pacific journalists Lice Movono and Georgina Kekea, strategic communications specialist Jacqui Berell and USP’s Dr Shailendra Singh, associate professor and the conference chair.
“As 18 and 19 year old (journalists), what we experienced 25 years ago in the industry is still the same situation — and maybe even worse now for young female journalists,” Movono said.
She shared “unfortunate and horrifying” accounts of experiences of sexual harassment by local journalists and the lack of space to discuss these issues.
These accounts included online bullying coupled with threats against journalists and their loved ones and families. stalking of female journalists, always being told to “suck it up” by bosses and other colleagues, the fear and stigma of reporting sexual harassment experiences, feeling as if no one would listen or care, the lack of capacity/urgency to provide psychological social support and many more examples.
“They do the work and they go home, but they take home with them, trauma,” Movono said.
And Kekea added: “Women journalists hardly engage in spaces to have their issues heard, they are often always called upon to take pictures and ‘cover’.”
Technology harassment
Berell talked about Technology Facilitated Gender Based Violence (TFGBV) — a grab bag term to cover the many forms of harassment of women through online violence and bullying.
The FWRM also shared statistics on the combined research with USP’s School of Journalism on the “Prevalence and Impact of Sexual Harassment on Female Journalists” and data on sexual harassment in the workplace undertaken by the team.
Speaking from the floor, New Zealand Pacific investigative television journalist Indira Stewart also rounded off the panel with some shocking examples from Aotearoa New Zealand.
In spite of the criticisms over hypocrisy and silence over global media freedom and decolonisation challenges, participants generally concluded this was the best Pacific media conference in many years.
Asia Pacific Media Network’s Nik Naidu (right) with Maggie Boyle and Professor Emily Drew. Image: Del Abcede/APMN
Indonesia’s commitment to the Pacific continues to be strengthened. One of the strategies is through a commitment to resolving human rights cases in Papua, reports a Kompas correspondent who attended the Pacific International Media Conference in Suva earlier this month.
By Laraswati Ariadne Anwar in Suva
The Pacific Island countries are Indonesia’s neighbours. However, so far they are not very familiar to the ears of the Indonesian people.
One example is Fiji, the largest country in the Pacific Islands. This country, which consists of 330 islands and a population of 924,000 people, has actually had relations with Indonesia for 50 years.
In the context of regional geopolitics, Fiji is the anchor of Indonesian diplomacy in the Pacific.
Fiji is known as a gateway to the Pacific. This status has been held for centuries because, as the largest country and with the largest port, practically all commodities entering the Pacific Islands must go through Fiji.
Along with Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, and the Front de Libération Nationale Kanak et Socialiste (FLNKS) of New Caledonia, Fiji forms the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG).
Indonesia now has the status of a associate member of the MSG, or one level higher than an observer.
For Indonesia, this closeness to the MSG is important because it is related to affirming Indonesia’s sovereignty.
Human rights violations
The MSG is very critical in monitoring the handling of human rights violations that occur in Papua. In terms of sovereignty, the MSG acknowledges Indonesia’s sovereignty as recorded in the Charter of the United Nations.
The academic community in Fiji is also highlighting human rights violations in Papua. As a Melanesian nation, the Fijian people sympathise with the Papuan community.
In Fiji, some individuals hold anti-Indonesian sentiment and support pro-independence movements in Papua. In several civil society organisations in Suva, the capital of Fiji, the Morning Star flag of West Papuan independence is also raised in solidarity.
Talanoa or a focused discussion between a media delegation from Indonesia and representatives of Fiji academics and journalists in Suva on July 3 – the eve of the three-day Pacific Media Conference. Image: Laraswati Ariadne Anwar/Kompas
Even so, Fijian academics realise that they lack context in examining Indonesian problems. This emerged in a talanoa or focused discussion with representatives of universities and Fiji’s mainstream media with a media delegation from Indonesia. The event was organised by the Indonesian Embassy in Suva.
Academics say that reading sources about Indonesia generally come from 50 years ago, causing them to have a limited understanding of developments in Indonesia. When examined, Indonesian journalists also found that they themselves lacked material about the Pacific Islands.
Both the Fiji and Indonesian groups realise that the information they receive about each other mainly comes from Western media. In practice, there is scepticism about coverage crafted according to a Western perspective.
“There must be open and meaningful dialogue between the people of Fiji and Indonesia in order to break down prejudices and provide space for contextual critical review into diplomatic relations between the two countries,” said Associate Professor Shailendra Singh, a former journalist who is now head of the journalism programme at the University of the South Pacific (USP). He was also chair of the 2024 Pacific International Media Conference Committee which was attended by the Indonesian delegation.
‘Prejudice’ towards Indonesia
According to experts in Fiji, the prejudice of the people in that country towards Indonesia is viewed as both a challenge and an opportunity to develop a more quality and substantive relationship.
The chief editors of media outlets in the Pacific Islands presented the practice of press freedom at the Pacific Media International Conference 2024 in Suva, Fiji on July 5. Image: Image: Laraswati Ariadne Anwar/Kompas
In that international conference, representatives of mainstream media in the Pacific Islands criticised and expressed their dissatisfaction with donors.
The Pacific Islands are one of the most foreign aid-receiving regions in the world. Fiji is among the top five Pacific countries supported by donors.
Based on the Lowy Institute’s records from Australia as of October 31, 2023, there are 82 donor countries in the Pacific with a total contribution value of US$44 billion. Australia is the number one donor, followed by China.
The United States and New Zealand are also major donors. This situation has an impact on geopolitical competition issues in the region.
Indonesia is on the list of 82 countries, although in terms of the amount of funding contributed, it lags behind countries with advanced economies. Indonesia itself does not take the position to compete in terms of the amount of funds disbursed.
Thus, the Indonesian Ambassador to Fiji, Nauru, Kiribati, and Tuvalu, Dupito Simamora, said that Indonesia was present to bring a new colour.
“We are present to focus on community empowerment and exchange of experiences,” he said.
An example is the empowerment of maritime, capture fisheries, coffee farming, and training for immigration officers. This is more sustainable compared to the continuous provision of funds.
Maintaining ‘consistency’ Along with that, efforts to introduce Indonesia continue to be made, including through arts and culture scholarships, Dharmasiswa (a one-year non-degree scholarship programme offered to foreigners), and visits by journalists to Indonesia. This is done so that the participating Fiji community can experience for themselves the value of Bhinneka Tunggal Ika — the official motto of Indonesia, “Unity in diversity”.
The book launching and Pacific Journalism Review celebration event on Pacific media was attended by Fiji’s Deputy Prime Minister Biman Prasad (second from left) and Papua New Guinea’s Minister of Information and Communication Technology Timothy Masiu (third from left) during the Pacific International Media Conference 2024 in Suva, Fiji, on July 4. Image: USP
Indonesia has also offered itself to Fiji and the Pacific Islands as a “gateway” to Southeast Asia. Fiji has the world’s best-selling mineral water product, Fiji Water. They are indeed targeting expanding their market to Southeast Asia, which has a population of 500 million people.
The Indonesian Embassy in Suva analysed the working pattern of the BIMP-EAGA, or the East ASEAN economic cooperation involving Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei Darussalam and the Philippines. From there, a model that can be adopted which will be communicated to the MSG and developed according to the needs of the Pacific region.
In the ASEAN High-Level Conference of 2023, Indonesia initiated a development and empowerment cooperation with the South Pacific that was laid out in a memorandum of understanding between ASEAN and the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF).
At the World Water Forum (WWF) 2024 and the Island States Forum (AIS), the South Pacific region is one of the areas highlighted for cooperation. Climate crisis mitigation is a sector that is being developed, one of which is the cultivation of mangrove plants to prevent coastal erosion.
For Indonesia, cooperation with the Pacific is not just diplomacy. Through ASEAN, Indonesia is pushing for the ASEAN Outlook on the Indo-Pacific (AOIP). Essentially, the Indo-Pacific region is not an extension of any superpower.
All geopolitical and geo-economic competition in this region must be managed well in order to avoid conflict.
Indigenous perspectives
In the Indo-Pacific region, PIF and the Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA) are important partners for ASEAN. Both are original intergovernmental organisations in the Indo-Pacific, making them vital in promoting a perception of the Indo-Pacific that aligns with the framework and perspective of indigenous populations.
On the other hand, Indonesia’s commitment to the principle of non-alignment was tested. Indonesia, which has a free-active foreign policy policy, emphasises that it is not looking for enemies.
However, can Indonesia guarantee the Pacific Islands that the friendship offered is sincere and will not force them to form camps?
At the same time, the Pacific community is also observing Indonesia’s sincerity in resolving various cases of human rights violations, especially in Papua. An open dialogue on this issue could be evidence of Indonesia’s democratic maturity.
Republished from Kompas in partnership with The University of the South Pacific.
Two widows and their children were among other Papua New Guinean squatters who had to dismantle their homes as the eviction exercise started at portion 2157 at Nine-Mile’s Bush Wara this week.
Agnes Kamak, 52, from Jiwaka’s South Waghi, and Jen Emeke, from Enga’s Wapenamanda, said they had lived and raised their children in the area for the past 10 years since the death of their husbands.
Kamak, who was employed as a cleaner with the Health Department, said she did not know where her family would go to seek refuge and rebuild their lives after they were evicted on Thursday.
“My two sons, daughter and I slept in the open last night [Wednesday] after we dismantled our home because we did not want the earthmoving machines to destroy our housing materials today [Thursday],” she said.
Kamak said she saved the money while working as a cleaner in various companies and bought a piece of land for K10,000 (NZ$4200) in 2013 from a man claiming to be from Koiari and a customary landowner.
“My late husband and I bought this piece of land with the little savings I earned as a cleaner,” she said.
“My second son is currently doing Grade 12 at Gerehu Secondary School and I do not want this situation to disrupt his studies.”
12 years in Bush Wara
She said she could not bring her family back home to Jiwaka as she had lived and built her life in Bush Wara for almost 12 years.
Emeke, who also worked as a cleaner, said she bought the piece of land for K10,000 and has lived with her two children in the area since 2016.
“After my husband passed away, my two children and I moved here and build our home,” Emeke said.
On March 12, the National Court granted leave to Nambawan Super Limited (NSL) to issue writs of possession to all illegal settlers residing within portions 2156, 2157 and 2159 at 9-Mile’s Bush Wara.
At the same time, it granted a 120-day grace period for the settlers to voluntarily vacate the land portions.
Most squatters had moved out during the 120-day grace period granted by the National Court for the settlers to voluntarily vacate the land.
The National witnessed the remaining squatters voluntarily pulling down the remaining structures of their homes and properties as earthmoving machines started clearing the area yesterday.
5400 squatters
It is understood that a survey conducted two years ago revealed that the total population squatting on the NSL land was about 5400 with 900 houses.
Acting commander of NCD and Central Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Peter Guinness said he was pleased with both the police and squatters who worked together to see that the first day of eviction went smoothly.
He said there was no confrontation and the first day of eviction was carried out peacefully.
Assistant Commissioner Guinness said settlers who were still removing their properties were given time to do so while the machines moved to other locations.
“I want to thank my police officers and also the sheriff officers for a well-coordinated awareness programme that led to a peaceful first day of eviction.
“The public must understand that police presence on-site during the awareness and actual eviction was to execute the court order now in place.
“We have families there, too, but we have no choice but to execute our mandated duties.
“The 120-day grace period was enough time for everyone to move out as per the court order,” Guinness said.
Awareness for the eviction exercise started three years ago.
Kelvin Joe and Gynnie Keroare reporters for PNG’s The National. Republished with permission.
The fire-fighting trucks will be delivered to the local Civil Security department.
“This is to pursue efforts to secure [New Caledonia] . . . It will be used to renew or replace equipment that has been damaged, including trucks and armoured vehicles,” French High Commissioner in New Caledonia Louis Le Franc said during a media briefing.
The 10 new armoured vehicles, known as Centaur, will be added to six others that were already deployed in New Caledonia since last month.
On board the same vessel, another batch of light armoured vehicles, dedicated to “exploration”, are described as bearing “reinforced windows” to protect passengers against bullets.
While efforts are ongoing to remove the numerous roadblocks in Nouméa and its suburbs, in the Northern Province, three French gendarmes have been injured and sustained bone fractures after their car was targeted and hit by a vehicle used by rioters, the French High Commission said.
New vehicles for New Caledonia firefighters. Image: French High Commission
One of the gendarmes has since been medically evacuated.
The incident took place in Houaïlou, in the north of the main island of Grande Terre.
Earlier incidents, especially in urban areas, involved home-made Viet Minh-like traps such as manhole covers being removed and dissimulated under branches, while sharp iron rods had been sealed inside the hole.
Several gendarmes who were tricked and fell into the hidden hole suffered serious injuries to the legs.
In other instances, especially on the roadblocks where French security forces are still trying to clear traffic access, gas bottles have been converted into explosive devices after being fitted with homemade remote-controlled detonators.
Saint Louis church presbytery destroyed by fire Over the past few days, another hot point has been the village of Saint Louis, in the township of Mont-Dore (near Nouméa), where one rioter was killed earlier this week after firing gunshots to the gendarmes, who later retorted.
The death toll from the unrest is now 10.
On Thursday night, Saint Louis’s Catholic Mission, which had been set up in 1860 by the Marists, was set on fire and the presbytery (which had been occupied by rioters for the past few days) has been completely destroyed.
The Marist Brothers and Sisters had earlier been evacuated by French security forces.
Violent unrest has been ongoing in New Caledonia since mid-May, when riots, looting, arson, broke out.
This was initially in protest against a French government project to amend the Constitution and modify the rules of eligibility for local elections, a change perceived by the pro-independence movement as a bid to dilute the political strength of indigenous Kanak voters.
The riots, the worst since a quasi civil war erupted during the second half of the 1980s, have since caused the deaths of eight civilians and two French gendarmes.
Several hundred businesses and private residences were also set on fire and destroyed, for a total cost of some 2.2 billion euros (NZ$3.9 billion), according to the latest estimates.
As a result, several thousand employees have lost their jobs.
Two indicted women released – in home detention
Indicted Frédérique Muliava walked out of jail last Wednesday in Riom, France. Image: NC la 1ère/Quentin Menu
Last month, a group of pro-independence activists was indicted and flown to metropolitan France, where they are now serving pre-trial detention in several jails.
They are facing a range of charges, revolving around allegations of “organised crime”.
The arrests prompted a fresh upsurge in violence.
Last Wednesday, the only two women in the group, Frédérique Muliava (chief-of-staff of pro-independence figure and New Caledonia Congress President Roch Wamytan) and Brenda Wanabo (described as communications officer of the controversial pro-independence “CCAT” – field actions coordination cell) have been allowed to leave their jail, located respectively in Riom (near Clermont-Ferrand) and Dijon (eastern France).
Pending their trial before a French court, the two will however remain under home detention in the same cities and wearing electronic monitoring bracelets.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
This conference, the first of its kind in 20 years, served as a crucial platform to address the pressing challenges and core issues faced by Pacific media.
Associate Professor Shailendra Singh, the convenor of the conference and co-editor of the new book, emphasised the conference’s primary goals — to stimulate research, discussion, and debate on Pacific media, and to foster a deeper understanding of its challenges.
“Our region hasn’t escaped the calamitous impacts of the two biggest events that have shaken the media sector — digital disruption and the covid-19 pandemic,” he said.
“Both events have posed significant challenges for news media organisations and journalists, to the point of being an existential threat to the industry as we know it. This isn’t very well known or understood outside the news media industry.”
Waves of Change: Media, Peace, and Development in the Pacific, authored by Dr Singh, Fiji Deputy Prime Minister Professor Biman Prasad, and Dr Amit Sarwal, offers a comprehensive collection of interdisciplinary research, insights, and analyses at the intersection of media, conflict, peacebuilding, and development in the Pacific – a region experiencing rapid and profound change.
Dr Singh noted that media issues had grown increasingly complex due to heightened poverty, underdevelopment, corruption, and political instability.
“Media and communication play vital roles in the framing of conflict, security, and development in public and political discourses, ultimately influencing progression or regression in peace and stability. This is particularly true in the era of digital media,” Dr Singh said.
Launching the Waves of Change book . . . contributor Dr David Robie (from left), co-editor Fiji Deputy Prime Minister Professor Biman Prasad, PNG Minister of Information and Communication Technology Timothy Masiu, co-editor Associate Professor Shailendra Singh, and co-editor Dr Amit Sarwal. Image: The Australia Today
Dr Amit Sarwal said that the primary aim of the new book was to address and revisit critical questions linking media, peacebuilding, and development in the Pacific. He expressed a desire to bridge gaps in training, publishing, and enhance practical applications in these vital areas particularly amongst young journalists in the Pacific.
Winds of Change . . . shedding light on the intricate relationship between media, peace, and development in the Pacific. Image: APMN
Professor Biman Prasad is hopeful that this collection will shed light on the intricate relationship between media, peace, and development in the Pacific. He stressed the importance of prioritising planning, strategising, and funding in this sector.
“By harnessing the potential of media for peacebuilding, stakeholders in the Pacific can work towards a more peaceful and prosperous future for all,” Professor Prasad added.
Waves of Change: Media, Peace, and Development in the Pacific has been published under a joint collaboration of Australia’s Kula Press and India’s Shhalaj Publishing House.
The book features nine chapters authored by passionate researchers and academics, including David Robie, John Rabuogi Ahere, Sanjay Ramesh, Kalinga Seneviratne, Kylie Navuku, Narayan Gopalkrishnan, Hurriyet Babacan, Usha Sundar Harris, and Asha Chand.
Dr Robie is founding editor of Pacific Journalism Review, which also celebrated 30 years of publishing at the book launch.
The 2024 Pacific International Media Conference was organised in partnership with the Pacific Islands News Association (PINA) and the Asia Pacific Media Network (APMN).
The voters in the second round of France’s national elections last weekend staved off an expected shift to the far-right. But the result in the Pacific territory Kanaky New Caledonia was also in many ways historic.
Of the two assembly representatives decided, a position fell on either side of the deep polarisation evident in the territory — one for loyalists, one for supporters of independence. But it is the independence side that will take the most from the result.
Turnout in the vote was remarkable, not only because of the violence in New Caledonia over recent months, which has curbed movement and public transport across the territory, but also because national elections have been seen particularly by independence parties as less relevant locally.
Voting was generally peaceful, although a blockade prevented voting in one Kanak commune during the first round.
After winning the first round, a hardline loyalist and independence candidate faced off in each constituency. The second round therefore presented a binary choice, effectively becoming a barometer of views around independence.
Sobering results for loyalists
While clearly not a referendum, it was the first chance to measure sentiment in this manner since the boycotted referendum in 2021, which had followed two independence votes narrowly favouring staying with France.
The resulting impasse about the future of the territory had erupted into violent protests in May this year, when President Emmanuel Macron sought unilaterally to broaden voter eligibility to the detriment of indigenous representation. Only Macron then called snap national elections.
These are sobering results for loyalists.
So the contest, as it unfolded in New Caledonia, represented high stakes for both sides.
In the event, loyalist Nicolas Metzdorf won 52.4 percent in the first constituency (Noumea and islands) over the independence candidate’s 47.6 percent. Independence candidate Emmanuel Tjibaou won 57.4 percent to the loyalist’s 42.6 percent in the second (Northern Province and outer suburbs of Noumea).
The results, a surprise even to independence leaders, were significant.
It is notable that in these national elections, all citizens are eligible to vote. Only local assembly elections apply the controversial voter eligibility provisions which provoked the current violence, provisions that advantage longstanding residents and thus indigenous independence supporters.
Even in the constituency won by the loyalist, the independence candidate, daughter-in-law of early independence fighter Nidoïsh Naisseline, won 47 percent of the vote.
These are sobering results for loyalists.
Jean-Marie Tjibaou, founding father of the independence movement in Kanaky New Caledonia, 1985. Image: David Robie/Café Pacific
Independence party candidate Emmanuel Tjibaou, 48, carried particular symbolism. The son of the assassinated founding father of the independence movement Jean-Marie Tjibaou, Emmanuel had eschewed politics to this point, instead taking on cultural roles including as head of the Kanak cultural development agency.
He is a galvanising figure for independence supporters.
Emmanuel Tjibaou is now the first independence assembly representative in 38 years. He won notwithstanding France redesigning the two constituencies in 1988 specifically to prevent an independence representative win by including part of mainly loyalist Noumea in each.
A loyalist stronghold has been broken.
Further strain on both sides While both a loyalist and independence parliamentarian will now sit in Paris and represent their different perspectives, the result will further strain the two sides.
Pro-independence supporters will be energised by the strong performance and this will increase expectations, especially among the young. The responsibility on elders is heavy. Tjibaou described the vote as “a call for help, a cry of hope”. He has urged a return to the path of dialogue.
At the same time, loyalists will be concerned by independence party success. Insecurity and fear, already sharpened by recent violence, may intensify. While he referred to the need for dialogue, Nicolas Metzdorf is known for his tough uncompromising line.
Paradoxically the ongoing violence means an increased reliance on France for the reconstruction that will be a vital underpinning for talks. Estimates for rebuilding have exceeded 2 billion euros (NZ$3.6 billion), with more than 800 businesses, countless schools and houses attacked, many destroyed.
Yet France itself is reeling after the snap elections returned no clear winner. Three blocs are vying for power, and are divided within their own ranks over how government should be formed. While French presidents have had to “cohabit” with an assembly majority of the opposite persuasion three times before, never has a president faced no clear majority.
It will take time, perhaps months, for a workable solution to emerge, during which New Caledonia is hardly likely to take precedence.
As New Caledonia’s neighbours prepare to meet for the annual Pacific Islands Forum summit next month, all will be hoping that the main parties can soon overcome their deep differences and find a peaceful local way forward.
Denise Fisher is a visiting fellow at ANU’s Centre for European Studies. She was an Australian diplomat for 30 years, serving in Australian diplomatic missions as a political and economic policy analyst in many capitals. The Australian Consul-General in Noumea, New Caledonia (2001-2004), she is the author of France in the South Pacific: Power and Politics (2013).
The Fiji NGO Coalition on Human Rights and other protesters took to the streets of Fiji’s capital Suva yesterday in a rare demonstration demanding freedom, decolonisation and human rights in Kanaky New Caledonia and West Papua.
The peaceful “pre-Bastille Day” protest came after recent events in Kanaky New Caledonia led to 10 deaths and a heavy build-up of French police and paramilitary forces.
It also followed ongoing human rights abuses and violations by Indonesia in West Papua.
“As France commemorates Bastille Day on July 14 and celebrates their own principles of ‘liberty, equality, and fraternity’, its own action in the Pacific contradicts the national day,” said West Papuan activist Rosa Moiwend of the Pacific Network on Globalisation.
PANG’s Rosa Moiwend of West Papua and Asia Pacific Media Network’s Del Abcede of New Zealand in Suva . . . French actions in Pacific “contradict Bastille Day” principles of liberty. Image: APMN
“French colonisation of Pacific territories and its continued acts of suppression in Māohi Niu and Kanaky New Caledonia are quite the opposite of what the French revolution achieved.
“Today, they are symbolic of the Bastille and the monarchy oppressing and abusing the people and denying their right to self-determination in their own lands,” she said.
The May riots and unrest in Kanaky New Caledonia has led to 3500 security personnel being deployed from France.
“At best, this is based on the severely misguided notion that the challenges of the decolonisation process can be resolved by force,” Moiwend said.
France’s true objectives ‘disguised’
“However, it is becoming clearer that the restoration of order and peace is just a disguise for France’s true objectives — a deliberate retrenchment and extension of colonial control.”
Liberation for Kanaky, Palestine and West Papua. Image: FWCC
Almost two months after the outbreak of violence, tensions remain high and there is serious concern about the continuing restrictions on Kanaks.
Widespread reports of atrocities and police brutality against Kanaky youth have angered protest groups across the Pacific.
French authorities have extradited seven indigenous Kanak activists to prisons in France while awaiting trial on “conspiracy” charges over the rioting.
“French President Emmanuel Macron must be responsible for the current state of Kanaky New Caledonia,” said PANG in a statement.
“Blaming Kanak leaders and having them arrested and detained in France is a coverup and tactic to assert power. We call on President Macron to release the Kanak leaders and allow them legal representation.”
Olivia Baro from the Pacific Conference of Churches added that the issue of West Papua and the ongoing human rights abuse must not be forgotten, and Indonesia must be held responsible.
West Papuan voices ‘silenced’
Indonesia’s ongoing influence on the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG) and the Pacific Islands Leaders Forum has continued to silence the voices of West Papuans.
As Pacific peoples, we will continue to stand in solidarity with West Papua and their right to self-determination.
“As we commemorate the Biak massacre this month and remember the many lives lost in West Papua, the continuous suppression of West Papua by Indonesia is a similar struggle to Kanaky New Caledonia, Palestine and many human rights struggles globally,” said Baro.
Despite restrictions set by authorities to prevent Palestine flags and banners at the march, the coalition stands in solidarity with our brothers, sisters and families in Palestine.
The Fiji NGO Coalition on Human Rights in Fiji and their allies have been hosting vigils at the Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre compound for Palestine, West Papua and Kanaky every Thursday over the last eight months.
The call on the Fiji government and Pacific leaders to support the ceasefire in Gaza, and protect the rights of Palestinians, West Papuans and Kanaks.
“The struggles of Palestinians are no different to West Papua, Kanaky New Caledonia,” FWCC Coordinator and NGOCHR Chair Shamima Ali.
“These are struggles of self-determination, and their human rights must be upheld.”
Fiji police at Parliament yesterday on watch for the Pacific human rights protest. Image: Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre
As an economy, Fiji has paid a “very high price for being unable to protect freedom” but people can speak and criticise the government freely now, says Deputy Prime Minister Professor Biman Prasad.
Prasad, a former University of the South Pacific (USP) economics professor, said that he, in a deeply personal way, knew how the economy had been affected when he saw the debt numbers and what the government had inherited.
Professor Prasad says the government had reintroduced media self-regulation and “we can actually feel the freedom everywhere, including in Parliament”.
USP head of journalism associate professor Shailendra Singh and former USP lecturer and co-founder of The Australia Today Dr Amrit Sarwal also co-edited the book with Professor Prasad.
While also speaking during the launch, PNG Minister for Information and Communications Technology Timothy Masiu expressed support for the Fiji government repealing the media laws that curbed freedom in Fiji in the recent past.
He said his Department of ICT had set up a social media management desk to monitor the ever-increasing threats on Facebook, TikTok, Instagram and other online platforms.
Fiji Deputy Prime Minister Professor Biman Prasad speaking at the book launch. Video: Fijivillage News
The new book, Waves of Change: Media, Peace, and Development in the Pacific. Image: Kula Press
promote media self-regulation;
improve government media capacity;
roll out media infrastructure for all; and
diversify content and quota usage for national interest.
He said that to elevate media professionalism in PNG, the policy called for developing media self-regulation in the country without direct government intervention.
Strike a balance
Masiu said the draft policy also intended to strike a balance between the media’s ongoing role in transparency and accountability on the one hand, and the dissemination of developmental information, on the other hand.
He said it was not an attempt by the government to restrict the media in PNG and the media in PNG enjoyed “unprecedented freedom” and an ability to report as they deemed appropriate.
The PNG Minister said their leaders were constantly being put in the spotlight.
While they did not necessarily agree with many of the daily news media reports, the governmenr would not “suddenly move to restrict the media” in PNG in any form.
The 30th anniversary edition of the research journal Pacific Journalism Review, founded by former USP Journalism Programme head Professor David Robie at the University of Papua New Guinea, was also launched at the event.
The PJR has published more than 1100 research articles over the past 30 years and is the largest media research archive in the region.
Republished from Fijivillage News with permission.
A group of regional and international media representatives met at a forum in Fiji last week to discuss some of the challenges and opportunities facing journalists in the Pacific.
The three-day conference brought together people from the media industry, academics, civil society, and other interested parties.
A budding Fiji journalist Shivaali Shrutika said that newsrooms needed to evolve with the times.
“Transformation is important, wherever you are, and this is my observation,” she said.
“But in any space we work, particularly in mainstream media, we are reaching out to the communities that we want to become the voice for, but first we need to work on ourselves to be better people to understand them and then portray their minds and their thoughts to our audiences.”
She said every journalist and person involved in the newsroom should have a positive environment to work in.
“Because in journalism there is pressure, and there are deadlines in that space, it is important to have positive energy and a flexible environment to work in where everyone’s work is appreciated, especially for those trying as it is important to help boost people’s confidence and create those spaces.”
The next generation of Pacific journalists at the media conference in Fiji with an organiser, Monika Singh (third from right). Image: Moera Tuilaepa-Taylor/RNZ
Lack of support
She said some young journalists left the profession due to a lack of support from more experienced reporters.
“Young journalists need this as they are new to the industry and unsure of their job, and when they are ignored, it can lower their confidence.”
Kaneta Namimatau is a final-year journalism student at the University of the South Pacific’s journalism programme.
“This is the biggest media conference I have been to and the first one in Fiji in 20 years,” he said.
He said the stories of intimidation and harassment that journalists in Fiji had faced, under the Media Industry Development Act, were very challenging to hear.
For him, the most powerful discussion at the conference was a panel on the “prevalence and impact of sexual harassment on female journalists”.
‘Disheartening’ experience
“I found that disheartening to hear as it is something that I would hate for my sisters to have to experience in the workplace.”
Namimatau said the conference reinforced his decision to become a journalist and work in the Fiji news arena.
“I think I can contribute more to Fiji and tell the stories of the Banaba people, my people. I also want to represent my people from Rabi.”
Dr Singh said it was a critical time for journalists in the region.
“Mainly, for two reasons, the digital disruption that we know has siphoned off huge amounts of advertising revenue from the media industry and mainstream media, as well as covid-19 which worsened the situation.
“I think most media organisations are struggling to survive.”
This was a panel on Pacific Media, Geopolitics and Regional Reporting. Speakers were (from left) Nic Maclellan, Marsali Mackinnon, Kalafi Moala (standing), Lice Movono, with Dr Shailendra Singh moderating. Image: RNZ Pacific
Dr Singh is coordinator of the journalism course at the University of the South Pacific.
He said the papers tabled and some of the discussions that took place would be published in Pacific Journalism Review.
The 2023 lifting of the FijiFirst government’s 2010 draconian media act, which involved constant censorship, has created a new environment in which Fiji journalists no longer operate in fear.
No ‘shying away’
Asia Pacific Report publisher and editor Dr David Robie said this was the sort of conference that Fiji needed right now” — a forum that did not “shy away” from the challenges facing reporters in the region.
Dr Robie described the panels, in particular the discussion around sexual harassment in Pacific journalism, as the best he had ever attended.
Other panels dealt with similarly difficult topics such as climate change, and stress/burn-out within the industry.
This is the first conference of its kind in Fiji in 20 years, and Dr Singh hopes that the delegates can take back what they have learned, to their newsrooms.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Professor Vijay Naidu’s speech celebrating the launch of the 30th anniversary edition of Pacific Journalism Review at the Pacific International Media Conference in Suva, Fiji, on 4 July 2024. Dr Naidu is adjunct professor in the disciplines of development studies and governance in the School of Law and Social Sciences at the University of the South Pacific.
I join our chief quests and others to commend and congratulate Dr Shailendra Singh, the head of USP Journalism, and his team for the organisation of the 2024 Pacific International Media Conference.
This evening, we are also gathered to celebrate the 30th birthday of Pacific Journalism Review/Te Koakoa.
PACIFIC MEDIA CONFERENCE 4-6 JULY 2024
At the outset, I would like to warmly congratulate and thank PJR designer Del Abcede for the cover design of 30th anniversary issue as well as the striking photoessay she has done with David Robie.
Hearty congratulations too to founding editor Dr David Robie and current editor Dr Philip Cass for compiling the edition.
The publicity blurb about the launch states:
“USP Journalism is proud to celebrate this milestone with a journal that has been a beacon of media excellence and a crucial partner in fostering journalistic integrity in the Pacific.”
This is a most apt description of the journal, and what it has fostered over three decades.
Dr Lee Duffield and others have written comprehensively on the editorials and articles covered by the Pacific Journalism Review.
The 30th anniversary of Pacific Journalism Review edition. Image: PJR
The editorial in the 30th anniversary double edition manifests this focus — “Will journalism survive?”, by David Robie
The launch of the 30th anniversary edition of Pacific Journalist Review. . . . Professor Vijay Naidu (from left), Fiji’s Deputy Prime Minister Dr Biman Prasad, founding PJR editor Dr David Robie, Papua New Guinea Minister for Communications and Information Technology Timothy Masiu, Associate Professor Shailendra Bahadur Singh and current PJR editor Dr Philip Cass. Image: PMN News/Justin Latif
Unfolding genocide
Mainstream media, except for Al Jazeera, have collectively failed to provide honest accounts of the unfolding genocide in Gaza, as well as settler violence, and killings in the West Bank. International media stand condemned for its complicity in the gross human rights violations in Palestine.
The media have been caught out by the scores of reports directly sent from Gaza of the bombings, maiming and murder of mainly women, children and babies, and the turning into rubble of the world’s largest open-air prison.
Pacific Journalism Review designer Del Abcede . . praised over her design work. Image: Khairiah A. Rahman/APMN
The widespread protests the world over by ordinary citizens and university students clearly show that the media is not trusted.
Can the media survive? Indeed!
These are not the best of times for the media.
“At the time when we celebrated the second decade of the journal’s critical inquiry at Auckland University of Technology with a conference in 2014, our theme was ‘Political journalism in the Asia Pacific’, and our mood about the mediascape in the region was far more positive than it is today,” writes David.
“Three years later, we marked the 10th anniversary of the Pacific Media Centre, with a conference and a rather gloomier ‘Journalism under duress’ slogan.”
The editorial continues:
“Gaza has become not just a metaphor for a terrible state of dystopia in parts of in the world, it has also become an existential test for journalists — do we stand up for peace and justice and the right of a people to survive under the threat of ethnic cleansing and against genocide, or do we do nothing and remain silent in the face of genocide being carried out with impunity in front of our very eyes? The answer is simple surely.
“And it is about saving journalism, our credibility and our humanity as journalists.” (emphasis added).
USP’s Professor Vijay Naidu and Dr Claire Slatter, chair of DAWN . . . launching the 30th edition of PJR. Image: Del Abcede/APMN
Contemporary issues
Besides the editorial, the 30th anniversary edition continues the PJR tradition of addressing contemporary issues head on with 11 research articles, 2 commentaries, 7 book reviews, a photo-essay, 2 obituaries of Australia’s John Pilger and West Papua’s Arnold Ap, and 4 frontline pieces. A truly substantial double issue of the journal.
The USP notice on this 30th anniversary launch says “30 years and going strong”. Sounds like the Johnny Walker whisky advertisement, “still going strong”. This is an admirable achievement as well as in PJR’s future.
It is in contrast to the NZ Journalism Review (University of Canterbury), for example, which survived only for nine years.
Founded at the University of Papua New Guinea in 1994 by David Robie, PJR was published there for four years and at the University of the South Pacific for a further four years, then at Auckland University of Technology for 18 years before finally being hosted since 2021 at its present home, Asia Pacific Media Network.
According to Dr Robie, Pacific Journalism Review has received many good wishes for its birthday. Some of these are published in this journal. For a final message in the editorial, he recalled AUT’s senior journalism lecturer Greg Treadwell who wrote in 2020:
“‘Many Aotearoa New Zealand researchers found their publishing feet because PJR was dedicated to the region and interested in their work. PJR is central to journalism studies, and so to journalism and journalism education, in this country and further abroad. Long may that continue’.
“In answer to our editorial title: Yes, journalism will survive, and it will thrive through new and innovative niche forms, if democracy is to survive.
“Ra whānau Pacific Journalism Review!
“Pacific Journalism Review . . . 30 years going strong” – the birthday cake at Pacfic Media 2024. Image: Del Abcede/APMN
Steadfast commitment
I have two quick remaining things to do: Professor Wadan Narsey’s congratulatory message, and a book presentation.
Professor Narsey pays tribute to David Robie for his steadfast commitment to Pacific journalism and congratulates him for the New Zealand honour bestowed on him in the King’s Birthday honours. He is very thankful that David published 37 of his articles on a range of issues during the dark days of censorship in Fiji under the Bainimarama and Sayeed-Khaiyum dictatorship.
I wish to present a copy of the recently published Epeli Hau’ofa: His Life and Legacy to Professor David Robie and Del Abcede to express Claire Slatter and my profound appreciation of the massive amount of work they have done to keep PJR alive and well.
It is my pleasure to launch the 30th anniversary edition of PJR.
‘Far more than a research journal’
In response, Dr Robie noted that PJR had published more than 1100 research articles over its three decades and it was the largest single Pacific media research repository but it had always been “far more than a research journal”.
“As an independent publication, it has given strong support to investigative journalism, sociopolitical journalism, political economy of the media, photojournalism and political cartooning — they have all been strongly reflected in the character of the journal,” he said.
“It has also been a champion of journalism practice-as-research methodologies and strategies, as reflected especially in its Frontline section, pioneered by retired Australian professor and investigative journalist Wendy Bacon.
“Keeping to our tradition of cutting edge and contemporary content, this anniversary edition raises several challenging issues such as Julian Assange and Gaza.”
He thanked current editor Philip Cass for his efforts — “he was among the earliest contributors when we began in Papua New Guinea” — and the current team, assistant editor Khairiah A. Rahman, Nicole Gooch, extraordinary mentors Wendy Bacon and Chris Nash, APMN chair Heather Devere, Adam Brown, Nik Naidu and Gavin Ellis.
Griffith University’s Professor Mark Pearson, a former editor of Australian Journalism Review and long a PJR board member . . . presented on media law at the conference. Image: Screenshot Del Abcede/APMN
He also paid tribute to many who have contributed to the journal through peer reviewing and the editorial board over many years — such as Dr Lee Duffield and professor Mark Pearson of Griffith University, who was also editor of Australian Journalism Review for many years and was an inspiration to PJR — “and he is right here with us at the conference.”
Among others have been the Fiji conference convenor, USP’s associate professor Shailendra Singh, and professor Trevor Cullen of Edith Cowan University, who is chair of next year’s World Journalism Education Association conference in Perth.
Dr Robie also singled out designer Del Abcede for special tribute for her hard work carrying the load of producing the journal for many years “and keeping me sane — the question is am I keeping her sane? Anyway, neither I nor Philip would be standing here without her input.”
The Asia Pacific Media Network (APMN) team at Pacific Media 2024 . . . PJR assistant editor Khairiah A. Rahman, PJR designer Del Abcede, PJR editor Dr Philip Cass, Dr Adam Brown, PJR founding editor Dr David Robie, and Whanau Community Hub co-coordinator Rach Mario. Whānau Hub’s Nik Naidu was also at the conference but is not in the photo. Image: Khairiah A. Rahman/APMN
Riots in Kanaky New Caledonia claimed their 10th victim yesterday.
The death took place as a result of an exchange of fire between a group of rioters in the village of Saint Louis (near the capital Nouméa) and French gendarmes, local news media reported.
Nouméa Public Prosecutor Yves Dupas yesterday confirmed the incident and the fatality, saying the victim had opened fire on the French gendarmes, who then returned fire.
Gunfire exchanges had also been reported on the previous day, since French security forces had arrived on site.
A group of armed snipers were reported to have entered the Church of Saint Louis, including the victim who was reported to have opened fire, aiming at the gendarmes from that location.
The victim is described as the nephew of prominent pro-independence politician and local territorial Congress president Roch Wamytan.
Wamytan is also the Great Chief of Saint Louis and a prominent figure of the hard-line pro-independence party Union Calédonienne (UC).
On Sunday, during an election night live broadcast, he told public television NC la 1ère that “as the High Chief of Saint Louis and as President of the Congress, I find what is going on in Saint Louis really regrettable”.
“We will try to address the situation in the coming days,” he said.
On Sunday night, French gendarmes had to evacuate two resident religious sisters from the Saint Louis Marist Mission after armed rioters threatened them at gunpoint and ordered them to leave.
French security forces had launched an operation in Saint Louis on Tuesday in a bid to restore law and order and dismantle several roadblocks and barricades erected by rioters in this area, known to be a pro-independence stronghold.
Car jacking Several other incidents of car jacking had also been reported near the Saint Louis mission over the past few days on this portion of the strategic road leading to the capital Nouméa.
The incidents have been described by victims as the stealing of vehicles, threats at gunpoint, humiliation of drivers and passengers, and — in some cases — burning the vehicles.
Some of the victims later declared they had been ordered to take off their clothes.
A maritime ferry was set ablaze in Nouméa’s Port Moselle on Tuesday. Image: FB/RNZ
Nearby Mont-Dore Mayor Eddie Lecourieux strongly condemned the actions as “unspeakable” and “unjustifiable”.
On Tuesday evening, another incident involved the burning of one of the maritime ferries – used by many as an alternate means to reach Nouméa.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.
Here is the speech by Papua New Guinea’s Minister for Communication and Information Technology, Timothy Masiu, at the 2024 Pacific International Media Conference dinner at the Holiday Inn, Suva, on July 4:
I thank the School of Journalism of the University of the South Pacific (USP) for the invitation to address this august gathering.
Commendations also to the Pacific Islands News Association (PINA) and the Asia Pacific Media Network (APMN) for jointly hosting this conference – the first of its kind in our region in two decades!
It is also worth noting that this conference has attracted an Emmy Award-winning television news producer from the United States, an award-winning journalism academic and author based in Hong Kong, a member of the New Zealand Order of Merit, a finalist in the 2017 Pulitzer Prize, and a renowned investigative journalist from New Zealand.
Mix this with our own blend of regional journalists, scholars and like-minded professionals, this is truly an international event.
Commendation to our local organisers and the regional and international stakeholders for putting together what promises to be three days of robust and exciting interactions and discussions on the status of media in our region.
This will also go a long way in proposing practical and tangible improvements for the industry.
My good friend and the Deputy Prime Minister of Fiji, the Honourable Manoa Kamikamica, has already set the tone for our conference with his powerful speech at this morning’s opening ceremony. (In fact, we can claim the DPM to also be Papua New Guinean as he spent time there before entering politics!).
We support and are happy with this government of Fiji for repealing the media laws that went against media freedom in Fiji in the recent past.
In PNG, given our very diverse society with over 1000 tribes and over 800 languages and huge geography, correct and factful information is also very, very critical.
Fiji’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance Professor Biman Prasad and Timothy Masiu, PNG’s Minister for Information and Communications Technology, at the conference dinner. Image: Wansolwara
Our theme “Navigating Challenges and Shaping Futures in Pacific Media Research and Practice” couldn’t be more appropriate at this time.
If anything, it reminds us all of the critical role that the media continues to play in shaping public discourse and catalysing action on issues affecting our Pacific.
We are also reminded of the power of the media to inform, educate, and mobilize community participation in our development agenda.
IT is in the context that I pause to ask this pertinent question: How is the media being developed and used as a tool to protect and preserve our Pacific Identity?
I ask this question because of outside influences on our media in the region.
I should know, as I have somewhat traversed this journey already – from being a broadcaster and journalist myself – to being a member of the board of the largest public broadcaster in the region (National Broadcasting Corporation) – to being the Minister for ICT for PNG.
From where I sit right now, I am observing our Pacific region increasingly being used as the backyard for geopolitical reasons.
It is quite disturbing for me to see our regional media being targeted by the more developed nations as a tool to drive their geopolitical agenda.
As a result, I see a steady influence on our culture, our way of life, and ultimately the gradual erosion of our Pacific values and systems.
In the media industry, some of these geopolitical influences are being redesigned and re-cultured through elaborate and attractive funding themes like improving “transparency” and “accountability”.
This is not the way forward for a truly independent and authentic Pacific media.
The way we as a Pacific develop our media industry must reflect our original and authentic value systems.
Just like our forefathers navigated the unchartered seas – relying mostly on hard-gained knowledge and skills – we too must chart our own course in our media development.
Our media objectives and practices should reflect all levels of our unique Pacific Way of life, focusing on issues like climate change, environmental preservation, the protection and preservation of our fast-fading languages and traditions, and our political landscape.
We must not let our authentic ways be lost or overshadowed by outside influences or agendas. We must control WHAT we write, HOW we write it, and WHY we write.
Don’t get me wrong – we welcome and appreciate the support of our development partners – but we must be free to navigate our own destiny.
If anything, I compel you to give your media funding to build our regional capabilities and capacities to address climate change issues, early warning systems, and support us to fight misinformation, disinformation, and fake news on social media.
I don’t know how the other Pacific Island countries are faring but my Department of ICT has built a social media management desk to monitor these ever-increasing menaces on Facebook, Tik Tok, Instagram and other online platforms.
This is another area of concern for me, especially for my future generations.
Draft National Media Development Policy of PNG Please allow me to make a few remarks on the Draft National Media Development Policy of PNG that my ministry has initiated.
As its name entails, it is a homegrown policy that aims to properly address many glaring media issues in our country.
In its current fifth draft version, the draft policy aims to promote media self-regulation; improve government media capacity; roll-out media infrastructure for all; and diversify content and quota usage for national interest.
These policy objectives were derived from an extensive nationwide consultation process of online surveys, workshops and one-on-one interviews with government agencies and media industry stakeholders and the public.
To elevate media professionalism in PNG, the policy calls for the development of media self-regulation in the country without direct government intervention.
The draft policy also intend to strike a balance between the media’s ongoing role on transparency and accountability on the one hand, and the dissemination of developmental information, on the other hand.
It is not in any way an attempt by the Marape/Rosso government to restrict the media in PNG. Nothing can be further from the truth.
In fact, the media in PNG presently enjoys unprecedented freedom and ability to report as they deem appropriate.
Our leaders are constantly being put on the spotlight, and while we don’t necessarily agree with many of their daily reports, we will not suddenly move to restrict the media in PNG in any form.
Rather, we are more interested in having information on health, education, agriculture, law and order, and other societal and economic information, reaching more of our local and remote communities across the country.
It is in this context that specific provision within the draft policy calls for the mobilisation – particularly the government media – to disseminate more developmental information that is targeted towards our population at the rural and district levels.
I have brought a bigger team to Suva to also listen and gauge the views of our Pacific colleagues on this draft policy.
The fifth version is publicly available on our Department of ICT website and we will certainly welcome any critique or feedback from you all.
Before I conclude, let me also briefly highlight another intervention I made late last year as part of my Ministry’s overall “Smart Pacific; One Voice” initiative.
After an absence for several years, I invited our Pacific ICT Ministers to a meeting in Port Moresby in late 2023.
At the end of this defining summit, we signed the Pacific ICT Ministers’ Lagatoi Declaration.
For a first-time regional ICT Ministers’ meeting, it was well-attended. Deputy Prime Minister Manoa also graced us with his presence with other Pacific Ministers, including Australia and New Zealand.
This declaration is a call-to-arms for our regional ministers to meet regularly to discuss the challenges and opportunities posed by the all-important ICT sector.
Our next meeting is in New Caledonia in 2025.
In much the same vein, I was appointed the special envoy to the Pacific by the Asia-Pacific Institute for Broadcasting Development (AIBD) in Mauritius in 2023.
Since then, I have continuously advocated for the Pacific to be more coordinated and unified, so we can be better heard.
I have been quite bemused by the fact that the Pacific does not have its own regional offices for such well-meaning agencies like AIBD to promote our own unique media issues.
More often than not, we are either thrown into the “Asia-Pacific’ or “Oceania” groupings and as result, our media and wider ICT interests and aspirations get drowned by our more influential friends and donors.
We must dictate what our broadcasting (and wider media) development agenda should be. We live in our Region and better understand the “Our Pacific Way” of doing things.
Let me conclude by reiterating my firm belief that the Pacific needs a hard reset of our media strategies.
This means re-discovering our original values to guide our methods and practices within the media industry.
We must be unified in our efforts navigate the challenges ahead, and to reshape the future of media in the Pacific.
We must ensure it reflects our authentic ways and serves the needs of our Pacific people.
If the pen is mightier than the sword, then an army of journalists has assembled in Fiji’s capital to discuss the state and future of the industry in the region.
The three-day Pacific Media Conference 2024 on July 4-6 is organised and hosted by the University of the South Pacific, in collaboration with the Pacific Islands News Association (PINA) and Asia Pacific Media Network (APMN), with more than 50 speakers from 11 countries.
A keynote speaker and veteran journalist Dr David Robie, editor of Asia Pacific Report, says the conference is crucial.
“It’s quite a trailblazer in many respects, because this is probably the first conference of its kind where it’s blended industry journalists all around the region, plus media academics that have been analysing and critiquing the media and so on.
“So to have this joining forces like this . . . it’s really quite a momentous conference.”
Dr Robie is a distinguished author, journalist and media educator and was recognised last month as a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit (MNZM) for his contribution to journalism and education in New Zealand and the Asia-Pacific region for more than 50 years.
Speaking to William Terite on Radio 531pi’s Pacific Mornings, Dr Robie said the conference was a way to bolster solidarity to others in the industry and address common challenges.
“In many Pacific countries a lot of their fledgling institutions, and essentially, politicians, have no understanding of media generally, and have a tendency to crack down on media when they have half a chance.
“So it’s partly to get a much better image of journalism and how important journalism is in democracy and development in many countries in the Pacific.”
Journalists at the Pacific Media Conference 2024 in Suva. Image: PMN News/Justin Latif
Turning the page for media The conference theme is “Navigating challenges and shaping futures in Pacific media research and practice”.
In April last year, Fiji revoked media laws that restricted media content. PMN chief-of-news Justin Latif is attending the conference, and said Fijian media were in celebration-mode, saying “democracy has returned to Fiji”.
“They talked about how such a conference had happened under previous regimes, basically the police and army would have had a presence there and would have been just noting names and checking up that nothing was said that was anti-government.”
Latif said regional journalists showed a deep sense of purpose and drive.
“People do see their roles as a calling, and so often are willing to take less pay and harder conditions,” he said.
“They see their job as building their nation and being part of helping strengthen the country, and so it’s probably quite different if you were to get a group of journalists together in New Zealand, they probably wouldn’t have quite the same sense of that kind of fervour for the role in terms of what it can mean for the country.”
The Pacific Journalism Review, a journal examining media issues and communication in the region, celebrated its 30-year anniversary. It has published hundreds of peer-reviewed articles and is regularly cited by scholars.
Asia Pacific Report editor Dr David Robie (left) with Fiji Deputy Prime Minister Professor Biman Prasad at the launch of the 30th anniversary edition of Pacific Journalism Review at the 2024 Pacific Media Conference in Fiji. Image: Del Abcede/APMN
Global tussle for Pacific attention The United States is one of the main funders of the conference, and there are representatives from some Asia-Pacific countries such as Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia and Taiwan.
Latif said China’s involvement in Pacific media was openly questioned by the US deputy chief of mission, John Gregory.
“He gave a very detailed breakdown of all the ways that China are influencing elections: using Facebook to spread misinformation to try and basically encourage the three Pacific nations who still support or maintain diplomatic ties with Taiwan, how they’re trying to influence those nations to have a regime change, and it was quite shocking information about the lengths that China is going to, or that the State Department believed China is going to.”
The United States in putting investment into journalism in the Pacific, said Latif, sending 13 journalists from Fiji to the US for exchanges.
“There is a clear US agenda here about wanting the media to be strengthened and to be supported so that they can have a strong foothold in the Pacific, because the influence of China is definitely being felt.”
A bold, future vision for Pacific media Dr Robie has described the current state of news media in the Pacific as “precarious”, and warned some nations can be susceptible to “geopolitics and the influences of other countries”.
“We’ve got China trying to encourage media organisations to be very much under an authoritarian wing, taking journalists across to China . . . but now we’re getting a lot more competition from Australia and the US and so on, upping the game, putting more money into training, influencing, whereas for many years they didn’t care too much about the media in the region.
“Journalists very often feel like they’re the meat in the sandwich in the competition between many countries, and it’s not good for the region generally.”
Dr Robie has worked across the Pacific, including five years as head of journalism at the University of Papua New Guinea, and then as the coordinator of the journalism programme at USP.
He encouraged Pacific media to continue upholding democratic values while holding leaders to account.
“Most media organisations in the Pacific are quite small and vulnerable in the sense that they’ve got small teams, limited resources, and it’s always a struggle, to be honest, and things are probably the toughest they’ve been for a while.
“Pacific countries and media need to stand up tall and strong themselves, be very clear about what they want and to stand up for it, and not be overshadowed by the influence of major countries.”
A major conference on the state and future of Pacific media is taking place this week in Fiji.
Dr David Robie, editor of Asia Pacific Report and deputy chair of Asia Pacific Media Network, joins #PacificMornings to discuss the event and reflect on his work covering Asia-Pacific current affairs and research for more than four decades.
Pacific Journalism Review, which Dr Robie founded at the University of Papua New Guinea in 1994, celebrated 30 years of publishing at the conference tonight.
Other Pacific Mornings items on 4 July 2024: The health sector is reporting frustration at unchanging mortality rates for babies and mothers in New Zealand. PMMRC chairperson John Tait joined #PacificMornings to discuss further.
Labour Deputy Leader Carmel Sepuloni joined #PacificMornings to discuss the political news of the week.
We are one week into a month of military training exercises held in Hawai’i, known as RIMPAC.
Twenty-nine countries and 25,000 personnel are taking part, including New Zealand. Hawai’ian academic and Pacific studies lecturer Emalani Case joined #PacificMornings to discuss further.
Republished with from Pacific Media Network’s Radio 531pi.
French Pacific results for the first round of French national snap elections yesterday showed a firm radicalisation, especially in the case of New Caledonia.
In both of New Caledonia’s constituencies, the second round will look like a showdown between pro-independence and pro-France contestants.
The French Pacific entity has been gripped by ongoing riots, arson and destruction since mid-May 2024.
Local outcomes of the national polls have confirmed a block-to-block, confrontational logic, between the most radical components of the opposing camps, the pro-independence and the pro-France (loyalists).
Pro-France leader Nicolas Metzdorf, who is a staunch advocate of the still-unimplemented controversial constitutional reform that is perceived to marginalise indigenous Kanaks’ vote and therefore sparked the current unrest in the French Pacific territory, obtained 39.81 percent of the votes in New Caledonia’s 1st constituency.
In the capital Nouméa, which has been suffering massive damage from the riots, he even received the support of 53.64 percent of the voters.
Also vying for the seat in the French National Assembly, the other candidate qualifying for the second round of vote (on Sunday 7 July) is pro-independence Omayra Naisseline, who belongs to Union Calédonienne, perceived as a hard-line component of the pro-independence platform FLNKS.
She obtained 36.34 percent of the votes.
Outgoing MP Philippe Dunoyer, a moderate pro-France politician, is now out of the race after collecting only 10.33 percent of the votes.
For New Caledonia’s second constituency, pro-independence Emmanuel Tjibaou topped the poll with an impressive 44.06 percent of the votes.
Île-des-Pins voting on pollng day yesterday in the first round of the French snap elections. Image: NC la 1ère TV screenshot/RNZ
Tjibaou is the son of emblematic Kanak pro-independence leader Jean-Marie Tjibaou, a dominant figure who signed the Matignon-Oudinot Accord in 1988 with pro-France leader Jacques Lafleur, ending half a decade of civil war over the Kanak pro-independence cause.
In 1989, Tjibaou was assassinated by a hard-line member of his own movement.
Second to Tjibaou is Alcide Ponga, also an indigenous Kanak who was recently elected president of the pro-France Rassemblement-Les républicains party (36.18 percent).
Another candidate from the Eveil Océanien (mostly supported by the Wallisian community in New Caledonia), Milakulo Tukumuli, came third with 11.92 percent but does not qualify to contest in the second round.
In New Caledonia, polling on Sunday took place under heavy security and at least one incident was reported in Houaïlou, where car wrecks were placed in front of the polling stations, barring access to voters.
However, participation was very high on Sunday: 60.02 percent of the registered voters turned out, which is almost twice as much as the recorded rate at the previous general elections in 2022 (32.51 percent).
New Caledonia’s four remaining contestants for the run-off round of French snap elections next Sunday, July 7 are Nicolas Metzdorf (clockwise from top left), Emmanuel Tjibaou, Omayra Naisseline and Alcide Ponga. Image: NC la 1ère TV
New Caledonia’s four remaining contestants for the run-off round of French snap elections next Sunday, July 7 are Nicolas Metzdorf (clockwise from top left), Emmanuel Tjibaou, Omayra Naisseline and Alcide Ponga. Image: NC la 1ère TV
French Polynesia In French Polynesia (three constituencies), the stakes were quite different — all three sitting MPs were pro-independence after the previous French general elections in 2022.
Candidates for the ruling Tavini Huiraatira, for this first round of polls, managed to make it to the second round, like Steve Chailloux (second constituency, 41.61 percent) or Mereana Reid-Arbelot (third constituency, 42.71 percent) who will still have to fight in the second round to retain her seat in the French National Assembly against pro-autonomy Pascale Haiti (41.08 percent), who is the wife of long-time pro-France former president Gaston Flosse).
Chailloux, however, did not fare so well as his direct opponent, pro-autonomy platform and A Here ia Porinetia leader Nicole Sanquer, who collected 49.62 percent of the votes.
But those parties opposing independence, locally known as the “pro-autonomy”, had fielded their candidates under a common platform.
This is the case for Moerani Frébault, from the Marquesas Islands, who managed to secure 53.90 percent of the votes and is therefore declared winner without having to contest the second round.
His victory ejected the pro-independence outgoing MP Tematai Le Gayic (Tavini party, 1st constituency), even though he had collected 36.3 percent of the votes.
Wallis and Futuna Incumbent MP Mikaele Seo (Renaissance, French President Macron’s party) breezes through against the other three contestants and obtained 61 percent of the votes and therefore is directly elected as a result of the first round for the seat at the Paris National Assembly.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
French Pacific results for the first round of French national snap elections yesterday showed a firm radicalisation, especially in the case of New Caledonia.
In both of New Caledonia’s constituencies, the second round will look like a showdown between pro-independence and pro-France contestants.
The French Pacific entity has been gripped by ongoing riots, arson and destruction since mid-May 2024.
Local outcomes of the national polls have confirmed a block-to-block, confrontational logic, between the most radical components of the opposing camps, the pro-independence and the pro-France (loyalists).
Pro-France leader Nicolas Metzdorf, who is a staunch advocate of the still-unimplemented controversial constitutional reform that is perceived to marginalise indigenous Kanaks’ vote and therefore sparked the current unrest in the French Pacific territory, obtained 39.81 percent of the votes in New Caledonia’s 1st constituency.
In the capital Nouméa, which has been suffering massive damage from the riots, he even received the support of 53.64 percent of the voters.
Also vying for the seat in the French National Assembly, the other candidate qualifying for the second round of vote (on Sunday 7 July) is pro-independence Omayra Naisseline, who belongs to Union Calédonienne, perceived as a hard-line component of the pro-independence platform FLNKS.
She obtained 36.34 percent of the votes.
Outgoing MP Philippe Dunoyer, a moderate pro-France politician, is now out of the race after collecting only 10.33 percent of the votes.
For New Caledonia’s second constituency, pro-independence Emmanuel Tjibaou topped the poll with an impressive 44.06 percent of the votes.
Île-des-Pins voting on pollng day yesterday in the first round of the French snap elections. Image: NC la 1ère TV screenshot/RNZ
Tjibaou is the son of emblematic Kanak pro-independence leader Jean-Marie Tjibaou, a dominant figure who signed the Matignon-Oudinot Accord in 1988 with pro-France leader Jacques Lafleur, ending half a decade of civil war over the Kanak pro-independence cause.
In 1989, Tjibaou was assassinated by a hard-line member of his own movement.
Second to Tjibaou is Alcide Ponga, also an indigenous Kanak who was recently elected president of the pro-France Rassemblement-Les républicains party (36.18 percent).
Another candidate from the Eveil Océanien (mostly supported by the Wallisian community in New Caledonia), Milakulo Tukumuli, came third with 11.92 percent but does not qualify to contest in the second round.
In New Caledonia, polling on Sunday took place under heavy security and at least one incident was reported in Houaïlou, where car wrecks were placed in front of the polling stations, barring access to voters.
However, participation was very high on Sunday: 60.02 percent of the registered voters turned out, which is almost twice as much as the recorded rate at the previous general elections in 2022 (32.51 percent).
New Caledonia’s four remaining contestants for the run-off round of French snap elections next Sunday, July 7 are Nicolas Metzdorf (clockwise from top left), Emmanuel Tjibaou, Omayra Naisseline and Alcide Ponga. Image: NC la 1ère TV
New Caledonia’s four remaining contestants for the run-off round of French snap elections next Sunday, July 7 are Nicolas Metzdorf (clockwise from top left), Emmanuel Tjibaou, Omayra Naisseline and Alcide Ponga. Image: NC la 1ère TV
French Polynesia In French Polynesia (three constituencies), the stakes were quite different — all three sitting MPs were pro-independence after the previous French general elections in 2022.
Candidates for the ruling Tavini Huiraatira, for this first round of polls, managed to make it to the second round, like Steve Chailloux (second constituency, 41.61 percent) or Mereana Reid-Arbelot (third constituency, 42.71 percent) who will still have to fight in the second round to retain her seat in the French National Assembly against pro-autonomy Pascale Haiti (41.08 percent), who is the wife of long-time pro-France former president Gaston Flosse).
Chailloux, however, did not fare so well as his direct opponent, pro-autonomy platform and A Here ia Porinetia leader Nicole Sanquer, who collected 49.62 percent of the votes.
But those parties opposing independence, locally known as the “pro-autonomy”, had fielded their candidates under a common platform.
This is the case for Moerani Frébault, from the Marquesas Islands, who managed to secure 53.90 percent of the votes and is therefore declared winner without having to contest the second round.
His victory ejected the pro-independence outgoing MP Tematai Le Gayic (Tavini party, 1st constituency), even though he had collected 36.3 percent of the votes.
Wallis and Futuna Incumbent MP Mikaele Seo (Renaissance, French President Macron’s party) breezes through against the other three contestants and obtained 61 percent of the votes and therefore is directly elected as a result of the first round for the seat at the Paris National Assembly.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Voters in New Caledonia will go to the polls this weekend under tight security, almost eight weeks after destructive and violent unrest broke out in the French Pacific archipelago.
The first round of voting takes place tomorrow and the second one next Sunday, July 7.
Since early May, the unrest has caused nine direct fatalities and the closure, looting and vandalism of several hundred companies and homes. More than 3500 security forces have been dispatched, with the damage now estimated at 1.5 billion euros (NZ$2.64 billion).
Earlier this month, 86.5 percent of New Caledonian voters abstained during the European Parliament elections.
It is anticipated that for these elections, the participation rate could be high.
Both incumbents are on the pro-France (loyalist) side.
On the pro-independence side, internal divisions have resulted in only the hard-line party (part of the FLNKS umbrella, which also includes other moderate parties) managing to field their candidates.
French High Commissioner Louis Le Franc . . . not taking chances. Image: FB screenshot/RNZ
Public meetings and gatherings banned French High Commissioner Louis Le Franc told media he did not want to take chances, even though no party or municipality had openly called for a boycott or any action hostile to the vote.
He said all public meetings would be banned, on top of a dusk-to-dawn curfew and a ban on the sale and transport of firearms, ammunition and alcohol.
“There are 222,900 registered voters for the legislative elections; the voting habits in New Caledonia are that it happens mostly in the morning. So, the peak hours are between 9 am and noon,” Le Franc said.
He said during those peak hours, queues could be expected outside the polling stations, especially in the Greater Nouméa area (including the neighbouring towns of Païta, Dumbéa and Mont-Dore).
“Provision has been made to ensure that voters who go there are not bothered by collective or individual elements who would like to disrupt the exercise of this democratic right.”
Lennon’s ‘Give Peace a Chance’ in class This week, more public buildings, including schools and fire stations, have been burnt to the ground, and several schools have closed in the wake of the violence.
However, in Dumbéa, Apogoti High School and 13 other schools partly reopened on Friday, with teachers focusing on workshops.
“We met with all the teachers and we decided to mix several subjects,” music teacher Nicolas Le Yannou told public broadcaster NC la 1ère TV.
“We chose a song from John Lennon (‘Give Peace a Chance’) which calls for peace and then we translated the lyrics into Spanish, French and the local Drehu language.
“That allowed everyone to express themselves without having to brood over the difficult situation we have gone through. For us, music was our way to escape,” Le Yannou said.
Psychological assistance and counselling were also provided to students and teachers when required.
Païta emergency intervention centre was burnt down before its official opening. Image: Union des Pompiers de Calédonie/RNZ
On Thursday, a new fire station under construction near Nouméa-La Tontouta Airport, which was scheduled to be opened later this year, was burnt down.
Pro-independence leader’s house destroyed The home of one moderate pro-independence leader, Victor Tutugoro (president of the Union Progressiste en Mélanésie, PALIKA), was burnt down by rioters on Wednesday morning.
This prompted condemnation from Le France and New Caledonia’s local government, as well as from the president of New Caledonia’s Northern Province, Paul Néaoutyine.
Néaoutyine, who belongs to the Kanak Liberation Party, said several other politicians from the moderate fringe of FLNKS had also been targeted and threatened over the past few weeks.
Moderate pro-independence leader Victor Tutugoro . . . . house burnt down, other moderate leaders threatened. Image: RNZ Pacific/Kelvin Anthony
PALIKA’s political bureau also condemned the attacks and destruction of Tutugoro’s residence.
PALIKA spokesman Charles Washetine called for calm and for all remaining roadblocks to be lifted.
“The right to vote is the fruit of a painful common history which commands us to fight for independence through the ballots and through the belief in intelligence which we have all inherited,” the party said.
The elections coincide with the 36th anniversary of the signing of the Matignon-Oudinot Accord between Jean-Marie Tjibaou and Jacques Lafleur, who were the leaders, respectively, of the pro-independence FLNKS and pro-France RPCR parties.
This year, there was no official commemoration ceremony.
After intense talks with then French Socialist Prime Minister Michel Rocard, they both shook hands on 26 June 1988 to mark the end of half a decade of quasi-civil war in New Caledonia.
One year later, Tjibaou and his deputy, Yéwéné Yéwéné, were gunned down by a member of the radical fringe of the pro-independence movement.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
An international relations lecturer says New Zealand’s framing of China in the perceived Pacific geopolitical struggle is “disingenuous”.
Victoria University of Wellington’s Nanai Anae Dr Iati Iati said one example was the lack of substance behind the notion that China was militarising the Pacific region.
“There are no angels in geopolitical competition,” he said.
“But to frame one country in particular as the devil, that’s disingenuous, especially because the Pacific island countries know that is not the case,” Dr Iati said.
“So unfortunately, New Zealand is caught within this tension between China on one side, and let’s say the Anglo-American Alliance on the other side.”
Massey University associate professor Dr Anna Powles said Pacific leaders had been calling for cooperation in the region which did not undermine Pacific priorities.
However, she said there were clear examples where China had been a “disruptive actor” in the Pacific security sector, particularly in Solomon Islands.
“At the heart of what the Pacific Islands Forum and Pacific countries and scholars are saying is that geopolitics in general is disruptive.
“Therefore, the solutions need to be Pacific led,” Dr Powles added.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
An international relations lecturer says New Zealand’s framing of China in the perceived Pacific geopolitical struggle is “disingenuous”.
Victoria University of Wellington’s Nanai Anae Dr Iati Iati said one example was the lack of substance behind the notion that China was militarising the Pacific region.
“There are no angels in geopolitical competition,” he said.
“But to frame one country in particular as the devil, that’s disingenuous, especially because the Pacific island countries know that is not the case,” Dr Iati said.
“So unfortunately, New Zealand is caught within this tension between China on one side, and let’s say the Anglo-American Alliance on the other side.”
Massey University associate professor Dr Anna Powles said Pacific leaders had been calling for cooperation in the region which did not undermine Pacific priorities.
However, she said there were clear examples where China had been a “disruptive actor” in the Pacific security sector, particularly in Solomon Islands.
“At the heart of what the Pacific Islands Forum and Pacific countries and scholars are saying is that geopolitics in general is disruptive.
“Therefore, the solutions need to be Pacific led,” Dr Powles added.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
An international relations lecturer says New Zealand’s framing of China in the perceived Pacific geopolitical struggle is “disingenuous”.
Victoria University of Wellington’s Nanai Anae Dr Iati Iati said one example was the lack of substance behind the notion that China was militarising the Pacific region.
“There are no angels in geopolitical competition,” he said.
“But to frame one country in particular as the devil, that’s disingenuous, especially because the Pacific island countries know that is not the case,” Dr Iati said.
“So unfortunately, New Zealand is caught within this tension between China on one side, and let’s say the Anglo-American Alliance on the other side.”
Massey University associate professor Dr Anna Powles said Pacific leaders had been calling for cooperation in the region which did not undermine Pacific priorities.
However, she said there were clear examples where China had been a “disruptive actor” in the Pacific security sector, particularly in Solomon Islands.
“At the heart of what the Pacific Islands Forum and Pacific countries and scholars are saying is that geopolitics in general is disruptive.
“Therefore, the solutions need to be Pacific led,” Dr Powles added.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Global Voices interviews veteran author, journalist and educator David Robie who discussed the state of Pacific media, journalism education, and the role of the press in addressing decolonisation and the climate crisis.
INTERVIEW:By Mong Palatino in Manila
Professor David Robie is among this year’s New Zealand Order of Merit awardees and was on the King’s Birthday Honours list earlier this month for his “services to journalism and Asia-Pacific media education.”
His career in journalism has spanned five decades. He was the founding editor of the Pacific Journalism Review journal in 1994 and in 1996 he established the Pacific Media Watch, a media rights watchdog group.
He was head of the journalism department at the University of Papua New Guinea from 1993–1997 and at the University of the South Pacific from 1998–2002. While teaching at Auckland University of Technology, he founded the Pacific Media Centre in 2007.
In 2015, he was given the Asian Media Information and Communication Centre (AMIC) Asian Communication Award in Dubai. Global Voices interviewed him about the challenges faced by journalists in the Pacific and his career. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
MONG PALATINO (MP): What are the main challenges faced by the media in the region?
DAVID ROBIE (DR): Corruption, viability, and credibility — the corruption among politicians and influence on journalists, the viability of weak business models and small media enterprises, and weakening credibility. After many years of developing a reasonably independent Pacific media in many countries in the region with courageous and independent journalists in leadership roles, many media groups are becoming susceptible to growing geopolitical rivalry between powerful players in the region, particularly China, which is steadily increasing its influence on the region’s media — especially in Solomon Islands — not just in development aid.
However, the United States, Australia and France are also stepping up their Pacific media and journalism training influences in the region as part of “Indo-Pacific” strategies that are really all about countering Chinese influence.
Indonesia is also becoming an influence in the media in the region, for other reasons. Jakarta is in the middle of a massive “hearts and minds” strategy in the Pacific, mainly through the media and diplomacy, in an attempt to blunt the widespread “people’s” sentiment in support of West Papuan aspirations for self-determination and eventual independence.
MP: What should be prioritised in improving journalism education in the region?
DR: The university-based journalism schools, such as at the University of the South Pacific in Fiji, are best placed to improve foundation journalism skills and education, and also to encourage life-long learning for journalists. More funding would be more beneficial channelled through the universities for more advanced courses, and not just through short-course industry training. I can say that because I have been through the mill both ways — 50 years as a journalist starting off in the “school of hard knocks” in many countries, including almost 30 years running journalism courses and pioneering several award-winning student journalist publications. However, it is important to retain media independence and not allow funding NGOs to dictate policies.
MP: How can Pacific journalists best fulfill their role in highlighting Pacific stories, especially the impact of the climate crisis?
DR: The best strategy is collaboration with international partners that have resources and expertise in climate crisis, such as the Earth Journalism Network to give a global stage for their issues and concerns. When I was still running the Pacific Media Centre, we had a high profile Pacific climate journalism Bearing Witness project where students made many successful multimedia reports and award-winning commentaries. An example is this one on YouTube: Banabans of Rabi: A Story of Survival
MP: What should the international community focus on when reporting about the Pacific?
DR: It is important for media to monitor the Indo-Pacific rivalries, but to also keep them in perspective — so-called ”security” is nowhere as important to Pacific countries as it is to its Western neighbours and China. It is important for the international community to keep an eye on the ball about what is important to the Pacific, which is ‘development’ and ‘climate crisis’ and why China has an edge in some countries at the moment.
Australia and, to a lesser extent, New Zealand have dropped the ball in recent years, and are tying to regain lost ground, but concentrating too much on “security”. Listen to the Pacific voices.
There should be more international reporting about the “hidden stories” of the Pacific such as the unresolved decolonisation issues — Kanaky New Caledonia, “French” Polynesia (Mā’ohi Nui), both from France; and West Papua from Indonesia. West Papua, in particular, is virtually ignored by Western media in spite of the ongoing serious human rights violations. This is unconscionable.
Mong Palatino is regional editor of Global Voices for Southeast Asia. An activist and former two-term member of the Philippine House of Representatives, he has been blogging since 2004 at mongster’s nest. @mongsterRepublished with permission.
This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by Pacific Media Watch.
Last night’s Matariki drone show was an emotional experience for some of the thousands who huddled under the glow at the edge of Lake Rotorua on the eve of Aotearoa’s national indigenous holiday today.
The Aronui Indigenous Arts Festival is hosting the first ever matauranga Māori story told with 160 drones over the Rotorua Lake last night and tonight.
The show is created by Te Arawa artists Cian Elyse White and Mataia Keepa, who were helped to tell the story by Rangitiaria Tibble and James Webster.
In both te reo Māori and English, the show tells the stories of environmental markers connected to the star cluster.
Lynmore Primary School deputy principal Lisa Groot went with a group of tamariki from the school.
The teachers had spent time together remembering those who had died in the past year, and so the display hit deep.
“The waka picks the stars up on the way, seeing it in the drone show made us quite emotional.
‘So simple to understand’
“It was so simple for everyone to understand.”
She said the group had wanted to join up for the event.
“We wanted to finish our night together, it was a beautiful way to do it.”
Young and old enjoyed the Aronui Indigenous Arts Festival light show last night. Image: LDR/Laura Smith
Frances Wharerahi said to be part of the Matariki festivities gave the children te ao Māori experiences alongside whānau.
The show was appreciated by a wide audience, and Wharerahi said as she looked around at who was watching and there were old and young standing with “people from all parts of the world”.
A statement from the charitable trust said it believed that while the drone show was a risk for a reasonably new trust, it had paid off.
A Matariki drone. Image: LDR/Laura Smith
“Arts is an essential service. Arts deserves investment.
‘Tough time for people’
“It’s a tough time for people at the moment with the current state of inflation and the economic climate, however, events that deliver on social impact and the uplift of communities that can be brought together under a positive premise are important to our livelihood.
“These events sustain us and give our future generations something to aspire towards.”
The display was planned for last night and tonight. Image: LDR/Laura Smith
Rotorua Trust is among the major funders of at least at $10,000, and in-kind partners helping to promote, volunteer or support include Bay Trust, Te Kuirau Marae, Bay of Plenty Regional Council and Rotorua Lakes Council.
Aronui Indigenous Arts Festival was founded in 2019 and aimed to create a platform for Rotorua arts talent.
The charitable trust is made up of local community arts and business leaders.
Local Democracy Reporting is Public Interest Journalism funded through NZ On Air. Published as a collaboration.
Hawai’ian academic Dr Emalani Case has condemned the 2024 Rimpac military exercise that began off the coast of Hawai’i today, saying the military personnel from 29 countries taking part are “practising to invade”.
“They call it practising defence but they’re really learning how to defend an empire while putting indigenous people at risk,” she said.
Hawai’i has been heavily impacted on by militarisation.
Dr Case, a senior lecturer at Auckland University, said her people had had to deal with military harm and damage to their people and environment for more than 100 years.
The kingdom of Hawai’i was invaded by the US in 1893. The monarchy was overthrown, and the islands have stayed under US control since, with several large military bases.
Dr Case said the military made it a hard place to live when the land and people were routinely dismissed and disregarded.
The US Navy had publicly said it was committed to the environment and reducing harm.
Nonetheless, it had had a highly destructive track record when it came to pollution and environmental harm, she said.
For example, SINKEX was an activity during Rimpac where various navies shoot ammunition at decommissioned ships off the coast of Kauai island.
Dr Case told Te Ao Māori News, “The ships just sink and they leave them there. So there are toxins leaking out into our ocean.”
Anti-war groups demand end to war games as Rimpac begins. Video: Hawai’i News Now
Tourism paradise? Te Ao Maōri News asked Dr Case why Hawai’i was known as a “paradise” tourist destination but many people did not know about the violent history.
Dr Case referenced the works of the late Dr Teresia Teaiwa, an I-Kiribati and African-American scholar, who had said tourism and military worked together to dispossess and displace Hawai’ians.
“‘Militourism’ is a phenomenon by which a military or paramilitary force ensures the smooth running of a tourist industry, and that same tourist industry masks the military force behind it.”
— Teresia Teaiwa
Tourism masked the military violence by placing a flower over it, or a swinging hula girl, Dr Case said.
“[Hawai’i] is beautiful but the US military is one of the biggest abusers of that beauty.”
The people of Hawai’i were often left behind and focus placed on tourists, yet residents were without enough water or resources to house and care for the people. Dr Case said this explained the “enormous diaspora of Kānaka Maoli” living outside Hawai’i.
“We cannot be thinking about relying on the 25,000 personnel who are going to be coming, bringing their dollars, but also bringing their violence, bringing the increase in sex trafficking, bringing in an increase in violence against women.”
The only year there was not an increase in sex trafficking and violence during Rimpac was in 2020 because of the covid-19 pandemic, which downscaled Rimpac and meant military personnel were not able to go ashore, she said.
“That’s what they’re bringing to our islands.”
Violent attack on akua Kānaka Maoli say they have a spiritual and genealogical connection to the oceans and lands. This includes Kanaloa and Papahānaumoku, the gods of ocean and earth, which is similar to Tangaroa and Papatūānuku in Aotearoa.
Papahānaumoku is the akua in Hawai’i that births their moku, islands.
“Any assaults against our akua, our gods, is an assault against us, it’s an assault against our whakapapa, it’s an assault against everything that we stand for,” Dr Case said.
Dr Case grew up and her whānau still live in Waimea, 45 minutes from Pōhakuloa, one of the largest military training facilities. She grew up feeling and hearing bombs all the time.
“I grew up hearing and feeling bombs all the time and it’s a kind of pain you don’t ever want to experience because you know what’s happening to Papa, what’s happening to your family. We view land, mountains, rivers, ocean as family.”
— Emalani Case
Rimpac and Palestine, West Papua and Kanaky Rimpac was an international issue, Dr Case said, and a gateway event.
“We’ve got to think about these colonial nations coming together to train and provide so-called security and safety to the world while really putting all of us at risk, who have never been deemed human enough to be worthy of that same safety and security,” she said.
The nations participating in Rimpac include Israel and Indonesia.
Dr Case said her homeland was being turned into a training ground for “imperial genocidal regimes” which learned, practised and honed their skills to then commit genocide in Palestine and West Papua.
She also cited the participation of France, which had no proximity to the Pacific but had “oppressed Pacific brothers and sisters in the French-occupied Kanaky”.
“Militarism is upheld by and supports settler colonialism. It supports white supremacy.”
Dr Case said calling for an end to Rimpac and demanding that New Zealand withdraw was not just about saving Hawai’i.
She said boycotting Rimpac was about peace, demilitarisation, decolonisation and climate justice.
“The US military is one of the largest contributors of pollutants into the environment.”
Rimpac and FestPAC Dr Case was in Hawai’i for Protecting Oceania, part of FestPAC — the festival of Pacific arts and culture hosted by Hawai’i this year.
She said there was a lot of discussion about Rimpac during Protecting Oceania.
“Rimpac and FestPAC didn’t happen at the exact same time but it’s interesting to think about the convergence of these cultural celebrations and violent military detonations around the same time, in the same waters, and on the same land.”
She was pleased to see people holding banners saying “STOP RIMPAC” in the closing ceremony at FestPAC. She said culture and politics went hand in hand.
Te Aniwaniwa Paterson is a digital producer for Te Ao Māori News. This article is republished with permission.
By Stefan Armbruster, Victor Mambor and BenarNews staff
An unheralded visit to Indonesia’s Papuan provinces by a leading Pacific diplomat has drawn criticism for undermining a push for a United Nations human rights mission to the region where pro-independence fighters have fought Indonesian rule for decades.
The Melanesian Spearhead Group’s Director-General, Leonard Louma, has not responded to BenarNews’ questions about the brief visit. It occurred just days after the most recent clash between Indonesian forces and the Papuan resistance, which resulted in four deaths and hundreds of civilians fleeing their homes in Paniai regency in Central Papua province.
Indonesia has capitalised on the visit earlier this month to portray its governance of the contested Melanesian territory, generally referred to as West Papua in the Pacific, in a positive light.
State news agency Antara said Louma had declared Papua to be in a “stable and conducive” condition.
A highly critical UN Human Right Committee report on Indonesia released in May highlighted “systematic reports about the use of torture” and “extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances of Indigenous Papuan people.”
The Indonesian government’s sponsorship of the visit is “another attempt to downplay a global call, including from the MSG, to allow the UN Human Rights Commission to visit and assess human rights conditions in Papua,” said Hipo Wangge, an Indonesian foreign policy researcher at Australian National University.
“It’s also another attempt to neutralise regional concern over deep-seated discrimination against Papuans,” he told BenarNews.
UN human rights rebuff
For several years, Indonesia has rebuffed a request from the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to carry out an independent fact-finding mission in Papua.
The Pacific Islands Forum, a regional organisation of 18 nations, has called on Indonesia since 2019 to allow the mission to go ahead.
MSG Director-General Leonard Louma at the opening of the 22nd MSG Leaders’ Summit foreign ministers’ meeting in Port Vila on 21 August 2023. Image: Kelvin Anthony/RNZ Pacific
The Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG) — whose members are Fiji, Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and New Caledonia’s Kanak independence movement FLNKS — has made similar appeals.
It is unclear whether the comments attributed to Louma by Antara and an Indonesian government statement are his own words. The Antara article, published last week on June 19, in English and Indonesian, is more or less identical to a statement released by Indonesia’s Ministry of Information and Communications.
An insurgency has simmered in Papua since the early 1960s when Indonesian forces invaded the region, which had remained under a separate Dutch administration following Indonesia’s 1945 declaration of independence from the Netherlands.
Indonesia argues its incorporation of the mineral rich territory was rightful under international law because it was part of the Dutch East Indies empire that is the basis for Indonesia’s modern borders.
Papuans, culturally and ethnically distinct from the rest of Indonesia, say they were denied the right to decide their own future and are now marginalised in their own land. Indonesian control was formalised in 1969 with a UN-supervised referendum restricted to little more than 1000 Papuan voters.
Arrived from PNG
The Indonesian statement said Louma, his executive adviser Christopher Nisbert and members of their entourage arrived on June 17 at the Skouw-Wutung border crossing after traveling overland from Port Moresby in Papua New Guinea.
They were met by an Indonesian diplomat and then traveled to Jayapura accompanied by Indonesian officials.
On June 19 they took part in a conference organised by Indonesia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs that was purportedly to address security concerns in Melanesia.
Yones Douw, a Papuan human rights activist based in Paniai, said a properly conducted visit by the Melanesian Spearhead Group should have had wide public notice and involved meetings with churches, customary leaders, journalists and civil society organisations, including the independence movement.
“This visit is just like a thief — in secret. I suspect that the comments submitted to the mass media were the language of the Indonesian government, not on behalf of the MSG,” he told BenarNews.
Soldiers from the Indonesian Army’s 112th Raider Infantry Battalion sing during a ceremony at a military base in Japakeh, Aceh province, on 25 June 2024 before their deployment to Papua province. Image: BenarNews/Chaideer Mahyuddin/AFP
“This way can damage the togetherness or unity of the Melanesian people,” he said.
The United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP), an independence movement umbrella organisation, said it should have been notified of the visit because it has observer status at the MSG. Indonesia is an associate member.
‘A surreptitious visit’
“We were not notified by the MSG Secretariat. This is a surreptitious visit initiated by the Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs,” said Markus Haluk, the ULMWP’s executive secretary.
“We will file a protest,” he told the MSG’s chair, Vanuatu Prime Minister Charlot Salwai.
Indonesia, over several years, has stepped up its efforts to neutralise Pacific support for the West Papuan independence movement, particularly among Melanesian nations that have ethnic and cultural links to Papuans living under Indonesian rule.
It has had success in ending direct criticism from Pacific island governments — many of which had used the UN General Assembly as a forum to air their concerns about human rights abuses — but grassroots support for Papuan self-determination remains strong.
Wangge, the ANU researcher, said the Indonesian government had been particularly active with Melanesian nations since Louma became director-general of the MSG’s secretariat in 2022.
At the same time it had avoided addressing ongoing reports of abuses in the Papuan provinces, he said, and militarisation of the region.
Indonesia’s military offered a rare apology to Papuans in March after video emerged of soldiers repeatedly slashing an indigenous man with a bayonet while he was forced to stand in a water-filled drum.
Regional security meetings
Among the initiatives, Indonesian police have facilitated regional security meetings, the Indonesian foreign ministry established an Indonesia-Pacific Development Forum, fisheries training has been provided, and the foreign ministry is providing diplomacy training for young diplomats from Melanesian countries and the MSG’s secretariat.
There was nothing to show, Wangge said, from the MSG’s appointment last year of Fiji Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka and Papua New Guinea Prime Minister James Marape as special envoys to Indonesia on West Papua.
The two leaders met Indonesian President Joko Widodo, whose second five-year term finishes in October, at a global summit in San Francisco in November.
Following the meeting, there was no agenda to facilitate a dialogue over West Papua, he said.
Marape is due in Indonesia mid-July for an official state visit.
“One thing is clear: the Indonesian government will buy more time by initiating more made-up efforts to cover pressing problems in West Papua,” Wangge said.
A New Zealand politician and human rights activist with a strong connection to Tonga’s Democracy movement and other Pacific activism has been farewelled after dying last week aged 80.
Keith Locke served as a former Green MP from 1999 to 2011.
While in Parliament, he was a notable critic of New Zealand’s involvement in the war in Afghanistan and the Terrorism Suppression Act 2002, and advocated for refugee rights.
He was appointed a Member of the NZ Order of Merit for services to human rights advocacy in 2021, received NZ Amnesty International’s Human Rights Defender award in 2012, and the Federation of Islamic Associations of New Zealand’s Harmony Award in 2013.
Locke was often a voice for the Pacific in the New Zealand Parliament.
In 2000, he spoke out on the plight of overstayers who were facing deportation under the National Party government.
As the Green Party’s then immigration spokesperson, he supported calls for a review of the overstayer legislation.
Links to Pohiva
“We are a Polynesian nation, and we increasingly celebrate the Samoan and Tongan part of our national identity,” Locke said at the time.
“How can we claim as our own the Jonah Lomus and Beatrice Faumuinas while we are prepared to toss their relations out of the country at a moment’s notice?”
Locke had links to Tonga through his relationship with Democracy campaigner and later Prime Minister ‘Akilisi Pohiva, who died in 2019.
The late Tongan Prime Minister ‘Akilisi Pōhiva … defended by Keith Locke in 1996 when Pohiva and two colleagues had been jailed for comments in their pro-democracy newspaper Kele’a. Image: Kalino Lātū/Kaniva News
He criticised the New Zealand government for keeping silent about what he described as a “gross abuse of human rights.”
In 2004, Locke called on the New Zealand government to speak out about what he called the suppression of the press in Tonga.
Locke, who was then the Greens foreign affairs spokesman, said several publications had been denied licences, including an offshoot of the New Zealand-produced Taimi ‘o Tonga newspaper.
Vale #KeithLocke, tireless and fearless campaigner for peace, justice and a sustainable future for a green planet … I’ll also remember him for friendship and commitment to independent truth publishing and OneWorld progressive bookshop. – @DavidRobie, editor, #AsiaPacificReportpic.twitter.com/SC0obJzfOA
Tribute by Asia Pacific Report editor David Robie.
‘Speak out as Pacific neighbour’
“We owe it to the Tongan people to support them in their hour of need. We should speak out as a Pacific neighbour,” he said.
In 2007, ‘Akilisi was again charged with sedition, along with four other pro-democracy MPs, for allegedly being responsible for the rioting that took place following a mass pro-democracy march in Nuku’alofa.
Flags of the countries of some of the many causes Keith Locke supported at the memorial service in Mount Eden this week. Image: David Robie/APR
“As the Greens’ foreign affairs spokesperson I went up to Tonga to support ‘Akilisi and his colleagues fight these trumped-up charges. I was shocked to find that the New Zealand government was going along with these sedition charges against five sitting MPs,” Locke said in an interview.
“I was in Tonga not long before the 2010 elections with a cross-party group of New Zealand MPs. We were helping Tongan candidates understand the intricacies of a parliamentary system.
“At the time I remember ‘Akilisi being worried that the block of nine ‘noble’ MPs could frustrate the desires of what were to be 17 directly-elected MPs. And so it turned out.
“Despite winning 12 of the popularly-elected 17 seats in 2010, the pro-democracy MPs were outvoted 14 to 12 when the votes of the nine nobles MPs were put into the equation.
“However, in the two subsequent elections (2014 and 2017) the Democrats predominated and ‘Akilisi took over as Prime Minister. I am not qualified to judge his record on domestic issues, except to say it couldn’t have been an easy job because of the fractious nature of Tongan politics.
“And ‘Akilisi has been in poor health.
Political tee-shirts and mementoes from Keith Locke’s campaign issues at the memorial service in Mount Eden this week. Image: Del Abcede/APR
‘Admirable stand’
“As Prime Minister he took an admirable stand on some important international issues, such as climate change. At the Pacific Island Forum he criticised those countries which stayed silent on the plight of the West Papuans.”
Locke said that Tonga may not yet be fully democratic, but that great progress had been made under Pohiva’s “humble and self-sacrificing leadership.”
Keith Locke was also an outspoken advocate for democracy and independence causes in Fiji, Kanaky New Caledonia, Palestine, Philippines, Tahiti, Tibet, Timor-Leste and West Papua and in many other countries.
His remembrance service was held with whānau and supporters at a packed Mount Eden War memorial Hall on Tuesday.
Philip Cass is an editorial adviser for Kaniva Tonga. Republished as a collaboration between KT and Asia Pacific Report.
French Ambassador Jean-Baptiste Jeangène Vilmer to Vanuatu has hit back at criticism about French policy over Kanaky New Caledonia with an op-ed article published in the Vanuatu Daily Post.
His article addresses key concerns regarding New Caledonia’s indigenous recognition, the decolonisation process, discrimination, military operations, and calls for independence in response to a protest petition delivered by the president of the Malvatumauri Council of Chiefs (MCC), Chief Paul Robert Ravun, earlier this month.
At least nine people, including two gendarmes, have died in the unrest and rioting that followed protests against French constitutional changes starting on May 13 that critics say will further marginalise the indigenous people of the territory.
Damage from the rioting and arson is estimated to be 1 billion euros (about NZ$1.8 billion).
Eight arrested pro-independence leaders and charged over the riots were transferred to prisons in mainland France last weekend to await trial in a move heavily criticised across the Pacific.
Key points made by Ambassador Vilmer in his article in the Vanuatu Daily Post today were:
Recognition of indigenous people Ambassador Vilmer reaffirmed France’s commitment to recognising the Kanak people as indigenous, emphasising their unique identity and cultural heritage, “the French government formally acknowledges the Kanaky people as indigenous, recognising their unique identity and cultural heritage”.
Highlighting the 1998 Nouméa Accord, Vilmer noted its acknowledgment of the dual legitimacy of both the Kanak people and other communities that have contributed to New Caledonia’s development, initiatives such as the inclusion of Kanak languages in the education system and the establishment of the Tjibaou Cultural Centre that underscores French support for promoting and defending Kanak culture.
Denouncing discrimination Vilmer stressed France’s rejection of discrimination, saying “the French government denounces all forms of discrimination and is committed to promoting peace, justice, democracy, and respect for human rights”.
Measures aimed at improving access to employment, education, and public services for the Kanak population had been implemented, although Vilmer acknowledged that challenges remained and more work was needed to reduce inequalities and foster harmonious relations among all communities in New Caledonia.
Decolonisation of Kanaky Regarding the decolonisation process, Vilmer highlighted France’s support for New Caledonia’s path towards self-determination, which began in 1988, “the process of decolonisation in New Caledonia has been ongoing since 1988, with the French government supporting a path towards self-determination”.
The Nouméa Accord of 1998, providing for substantial autonomy and the gradual transfer of powers to local authorities, had been praised by the United Nations Decolonisation Committee, despite three referendums in which a majority chose to remain part of France.
Vilmer underscored France’s commitment to ongoing dialogue and cooperation with regional partners to build a shared future.
Immediate cessation of military operations Vilmer addressed concerns about military operations, clarifying that none were currently underway in New Caledonia, “there are no military operations currently taking place in New Caledonia”.
Law enforcement activities were being conducted by police and the gendarmerie to maintain public order and protect residents and infrastructure, adhering to the principle of proportionate use of force. The French government remained committed to ensuring safety and security while addressing unrest through dialogue and peaceful means.
Independent international investigations On the issue of independent international investigations, Vilmer said there was “no necessity” for such measures as law enforcement actions were being supervised by independent courts following due legal process, “there is no need for independent international investigations”.
Reinforcements deployed by the French state were deemed necessary to prevent further violence and socioeconomic damage. Vilmer emphasised the government’s “transparency and openness” to dialogue concerning law enforcement operations.
Support for Kanaky independence In response to calls for Kanak independence, Vilmer highlighted France’s engagement with regional partners and the structured process of self-determination provided by the Nouméa Accord, “the French government continues to engage with regional partners to support dialogue and cooperation”.
The Accord had facilitated multiple opportunities for the Kanak people and all New Caledonians to express their will.
Ambassador Vilmer reiterated France’s dedication to advancing an “inclusive and peaceful future” for New Caledonia through continued dialogue and partnership with regional partners.
Nicholas Mwaiis a Vanuatu Daily Post reporter. This article is republished with permission.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s court hearing in Saipan is set to make “this dot in the middle of the Pacific” the centre of the world for one day, says a CNMI journalist.
The Northern Marianas — a group of islands in the Micronesian portion of the Pacific with a population of about 50,000 — is gearing up for a landmark legal case.
In 2010, WikiLeaks released hundreds of thousands of classified US military documents on Washington’s wars in Afghanistan and Iraq — the largest security breaches of their kind in US military history.
Assange is expected to plead guilty to a US espionage charge in the US District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands today at 9am local time.
Saipantribune.com journalist and RNZ Pacific’s Saipan correspondent Mark Rabago will be in court, and said it was a significant moment for Saipan.
“Not everybody knows Saipan, much less can spell it right. So it’s one of the few times in a decade that CNMI or Saipan is put in the map,” he said.
He said there was heavy interest from the world’s media and journalists from Japan were expected to fly in overnight.
‘Little dot in the middle’
“It’s significant that our little island, this dot in the middle of the Pacific, is the centre of the world,” Rabago said.
Assange was flying in from the United Kingdom via Thailand on a private jet, Rabago said.
He said it was not known exactly why the case was being heard in Saipan, but there was some speculation.
“He doesn’t want to step foot in the continental US and also Saipan, Northern Mariana Islands, is the closest to Australia, aside from Guam,” Rabago said.
The president of the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP) has welcomed the launch of a new political front, urging support for this new initiative on the “roadmap to liberation”.
Benny Wenda said the launch of the West Papua People’s Liberation Front (GR-PWP) was a new popular movement formed to execute the national agenda of the ULMWP.
A visit to West Papua by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights;
ULMWP Full membership for ULMWP of the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG); and
An internationally-supervised self-determination referendum.
“Our roadmap is clear — we will not stray in this or that direction, but remain totally focused on our end goal of independence,” Wenda said in a statement.
“By pursuing this threefold agenda, we are rebuilding the sovereignty that was stolen from us in 1962. The ULMWP roadmap is West Papua’s path to liberation.”
Wenda said that all West Papuan organisations or affiliated groups were welcome to participate in the GR-PWP, including political activists, student groups, religious organisations, Indonesian solidarity groups, the Alliance of Papuan Students, and KNPB.
‘National agenda for self-determination’
“The Liberation Front is not factional but will carry out the national agenda for self-determination. It will deepen the ULMWP’s presence on the ground, supporting the cabinet, constitution, governing structure and Green State Vision we have already put in place,” Wenda said.
“The GR-PWP has been endorsed by the Congress, the highest body of the ULMWP according to our constitution.”
Wenda said GR-PWP would have a decentralised structure, being spread across all seven customary regions of West Papua.
The capital of Jayapura would not dictate decisions to the coasts or islands — all regions would have an equal voice in the movement.
“Unity is essential to our success. Our liberation movement will only succeed when West Papuans from all regions, from all tribal groups and political factions,” Wenda said.
“The agenda belongs to all West Papuans.”
A massive crowd at the launch of the new West Papuan “liberation front”. Image: ULMWP
/https%3A%2F%2Fasset.kgnewsroom.com%2Fphoto%2Fpre%2F2024%2F07%2F03%2F657788a7-cadf-42ac-82a2-49411a67dda5_jpg.jpg){kind=logo}
/https%3A%2F%2Fasset.kgnewsroom.com%2Fphoto%2Fpre%2F2024%2F07%2F14%2Fd960bec3-b0be-4507-9fee-19ebcc62e090_jpg.jpg){kind=logo}
