He has worked as an academic in five different countries and now Dr Steven Ratuva has been made a distinguished professor – the first Pacific person to ever hold this highest professorial title.
The Fiji-born University of Canterbury political sociologist and director of the Macmillan Brown Centre for Pacific Studies has been recognised for his pioneering research in a range of fields, including ethnicity, security and politics.
Dr Ratuva has been promoted to the highest role in academia and wants to inspire other Pacific students and scholars to break down the “political and cultural” hurdles that often stand in their way.
“I want to show them that nothing is impossible, you can reach the top,” he said.
“There is always the perception that Pacific people are not as smart, just good in rugby and not so much academia.
“It’s a myth that we need to break through.”
Dr Ratuva said he was honoured to receive the appointment.
First time for a Pacific scholar
“It’s the first time a Pacific scholar has received the title, anywhere in the world,” he said.
“There’s a lot of research around the world about how minorities internalise the perception about them. It’s about breaking through those psychological and cultural perceptions.”
Dr Ratuva joined the University of Canterbury in 2015 but has also worked at universities in Fiji, the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia.
“I grew up in an environment where education was very much encouraged and promoted. In my family alone, there are about 15 degrees altogether.”
Dr Ratuva worked for the Suva-based University of the South Pacific (USP) before joining highly respected think tank the Institute of Development Studies, based at the University of Sussex, in southern England.
“It’s the leading development institute in the world. It’s ranked above Oxford and Harvard, they compete for second position,” he said.
The father of two is a prolific author and in the last two years alone he has written and edited five books, including a three-volume global project on ethnicity, the largest and most comprehensive on the subject.
Connecting the boxes
“A lot of those issues are interconnected; politics, economics, culture,” he said.
“Often in academia we break them up into little boxes. In my work, I try to connect those boxes.”
Last year, Dr Ratuva was elected as a fellow of the Royal Society Te Apārangi and has won the society’s Mertge Medal for New Zealand social science research excellence.
He is currently co-leading a University of Canterbury and USP joint project on climate crisis, covering 16 Pacific countries.
Dr Ratuva is one of four Canterbury academics recently awarded the role of distinguished professors. The others are Maggie Lee Huckabee, Charles Semple and Michael Hall.
This article was first published by Stuff and is republished with permission.
He has worked as an academic in five different countries and now Dr Steven Ratuva has been made a distinguished professor – the first Pacific person to ever hold this highest professorial title.
The Fiji-born University of Canterbury political sociologist and director of the Macmillan Brown Centre for Pacific Studies has been recognised for his pioneering research in a range of fields, including ethnicity, security and politics.
Dr Ratuva has been promoted to the highest role in academia and wants to inspire other Pacific students and scholars to break down the “political and cultural” hurdles that often stand in their way.
“I want to show them that nothing is impossible, you can reach the top,” he said.
“There is always the perception that Pacific people are not as smart, just good in rugby and not so much academia.
“It’s a myth that we need to break through.”
Dr Ratuva said he was honoured to receive the appointment.
First time for a Pacific scholar
“It’s the first time a Pacific scholar has received the title, anywhere in the world,” he said.
“There’s a lot of research around the world about how minorities internalise the perception about them. It’s about breaking through those psychological and cultural perceptions.”
Dr Ratuva joined the University of Canterbury in 2015 but has also worked at universities in Fiji, the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia.
“I grew up in an environment where education was very much encouraged and promoted. In my family alone, there are about 15 degrees altogether.”
Dr Ratuva worked for the Suva-based University of the South Pacific (USP) before joining highly respected think tank the Institute of Development Studies, based at the University of Sussex, in southern England.
“It’s the leading development institute in the world. It’s ranked above Oxford and Harvard, they compete for second position,” he said.
The father of two is a prolific author and in the last two years alone he has written and edited five books, including a three-volume global project on ethnicity, the largest and most comprehensive on the subject.
Connecting the boxes
“A lot of those issues are interconnected; politics, economics, culture,” he said.
“Often in academia we break them up into little boxes. In my work, I try to connect those boxes.”
Last year, Dr Ratuva was elected as a fellow of the Royal Society Te Apārangi and has won the society’s Mertge Medal for New Zealand social science research excellence.
He is currently co-leading a University of Canterbury and USP joint project on climate crisis, covering 16 Pacific countries.
Dr Ratuva is one of four Canterbury academics recently awarded the role of distinguished professors. The others are Maggie Lee Huckabee, Charles Semple and Michael Hall.
This article was first published by Stuff and is republished with permission.
Aile Tikoure, an activist from the pro-independence Palika Party, says many Kanaks boycotted the referendum because France refused to postpone it until next year, despite the covid pandemic.
“No, no I haven’t voted. Instructions were clear from the party, I didn’t vote,” he says.
“I don’t consider this as an act of war. The government didn’t speak to the Kanaks — that is no respect for our fight.
“They still haven’t understood us after 30 years of dialogue that this country would be nothing without us. They want to do this without us. It’s an insult. We feel left out from any political discussion.”
Boycott was ‘a victory’
Another pro-independence activist, Florenda Nirikani, says the boycott was a victory.
“I would say it’s a victory from the performance of our Kanak community and a good performance — the word has been followed at 56 percent,” she says.
“Now that victory is over we are at a stage where people are asking what do we do now?
“We are at a stage of questioning. Two days after the referendum there a lot of people that ask me well what do we do now. We were prepared for the 97 percent that said no.
“We are here to say we Kanaks are proud that the level of absence in the referendum was a good victory.”
Florenda Nirikani does not expect to see violence as a result of the referendum result.
However, pro-independence activists have made it clear that there will be no negotiating with the current Macron government. The French presidential elections are due in April.
Pro-independence activist Florenda Nirikani … “No, things have stayed calm and I don’t think we will see violence.” Image: RNZ
No talking to French officials
“No, things have stayed calm and I don’t think we will see violence. However, in the days or the weeks to come there will be some questioning from the activists.
“There has been a word out not to talk to a single French government official so negotiations will not happen between Kanaks and the current French government.
“[French Overseas Minister Sebastien] Lecornu [has been] here in New Caledonia last week. The customary Senate has refused to meet with him and some customary officials have boycotted meetings.
“The position expressed is that no Kanak represententatives will meet with the current government,” Nirikani says.
Negotiations between the Kanaks and French state are not expected to resume before next year’s French presidential election.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Distinguished Professor Steven Ratuva is the first Pacific person ever to be promoted to the highest professorial status of distinguished professor.
The award-winning Fiji-born University of Canterbury political sociologist was recognised for his global leadership and pioneering interdisciplinary research in a range of fields including ethnicity, security, politics, affirmative action, development, and social protection.
Director of UC’s Macmillan Brown Centre for Pacific Studies, he is a prolific author. In the last two years alone he has authored and edited five books, including a three-volume global project on ethnicity — the largest and most comprehensive on the subject.
Professor Steven Ratuva … speaking at a Pacific Media Centre seminar. Image: Del Abcede/APR
Among his academic leadership roles, he has led pioneering projects on global security in collaboration with international agencies such as the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) as chair of the International Political Science Association research committee on security, conflict and democratisation.
Dr Ratuva currently leads projects worth several million dollars and is co-leading a UC and University of the South Pacific joint project on climate crisis and resilience, covering 16 Pacific countries. The climate project is funded by the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
He is also leading a New Zealand Health Research Council-funded health and social protection project.
Last year, distinguished professor Ratuva was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society Te Apārangi and won the society’s Mertge Medal for New Zealand social science research excellence.
In 2019, he won the University of Canterbury Research Medal and received a Senior Fulbright Fellowship in 2018 to conduct research on ethnicity and affirmative action with leading experts in the field at University of California, Duke University and Georgetown University.
Following the publication of the book Toxic some 9 months ago and President Emmanuel Macron’s visit to French Polynesia last July, the response from the French administration has been to send French nuclear experts to Tahiti.
Their mission was to give clear and transparent answers about the state of former nuclear test sites among other topics. It was a way to counter the book’s anti-official version of the CEA’s (Centre d’Experimentation Atomique) claim of “clean and non-contaminating radioactivity” on both atolls.
The Commission of information created for those former sites of nuclear tests of the Pacific, was made up of 3 French civil servants involved in the controversial Paris roundtable — also called Reko Tika — organised by President Macron last July.
French nuclear experts … “proving” their case of an independent and transparent study. Image: Tahiti Infos
In a media conference, they talked about radiological and geo-mechanical surveillance of the Moruroa and Fangataufa atolls. They came with more scientific expertise and data that seemed to dispel the original idea of “clear and transparent answers”.
As far as the environment was concerned around those former nuclear sites, the conclusion was that the sites were much safer now after the presence of caesium-137 (a radioactive isotope of caesium formed as one of the more common products of nuclear fission) was noticed to be less year by year in all parts of the environment.
To “prove” their case of an independent and transparent study, they took samples of beef meat, whole milk or coconut juice from both atolls and are readily available to the population and analysed those samples.
Their results showed that the levels of radioactive concentration were far less than the “maximum levels admissible” — or whatever that means for the Ma’ohi who are not versed in the scientific jargon.
Artificial radioactive fallout level ‘low’
As for the health of the population, they reassured the people from the atolls that the level of toxicity of artificial radioactive fallout measured from 2019 to 2020 was extremely low, according to the data collected by the Institute of Radioprotection and Nuclear Safety (IRNS).
They established that the overall efficient dose (external exposition, internal exposition by ingestion and inhalation) of radioactivity was evaluated at 1,4 mSv (the measure of radiation exposure) in Mā’ohi Nui — which is two times lower than in France.
An even stronger reassurance was offered to the media when the question of a possible collapse of the northern part of the atoll of Moruroa was mentioned. The French experts replied that such a disastrous scenario was extremely unlikely, because the geo-mechanical system Telsite 2 put in place in 2000, would detect signs of unusual activities weeks beforehand.
Notwithstanding their initial answer, they added that even in the worst-case scenario, preventative measures would be taken to evacuate the population of Moruroa, and Tureia would not be hit by this improbable landslide.
A reassurance that clearly leaves doubt on whether Moruroa is at all safe.
When asked by one of the local journalists, Vaite Pambrun, why the atolls were not “retroceded” (ceded back) to their people now that it is “safe”, the delegate to Nuclear Safety M. Bugault was at pains to explain that it was not possible because plutonium was not buried deep enough under the coral layer, and for safety reasons the French state still needed to monitor the atolls.
A somehow contradictory response that does not surprise the people who are used to the rhetoric used by the French state for the last 50 years.
France seems to offer very reassuring measures and answers, but the populations have learnt in the past that the word of the French state must be taken with a lot of mistrust and scepticism especially when it comes to nuclear matters.
France trying to wipe out nuclear traces from Polynesian memory
Mayor of Fa’aa Oscar Temaru … criticised the conclusions reached by the French nuclear experts. Image: Tahiti Infos
Independence leader Oscar Temaru, and former president of Tahiti, was quick to organise a press conference where he criticised the conclusions reached by the nuclear experts who seemed to contradict their findings about the safety of the atolls that still needed more monitoring, hence the refusal to retrocede.
After the last Paris roundtable, Temaru accused the French state and the local government — which he calls the local “collabos” (alluding to the French who collaborated with the Germans during the Second World War) to try “to wipe out the last evidence and vestiges that constitute the history of nuclear colonisation by the army and the money”.
According to Temaru, there is a trust crisis against the local government of territorial President Eduard Fritch and the French state that is going to last for a long time.
Those strong words also came after the decision was taken to completely destroy the last nuclear concrete shelter on the atoll of Tureia, wiping out for ever any traces of nuclear presence.
This decision is reminiscent of the one taken by the same French state to raze to the ground the two nuclear shelters used by the army on Mangareva.
By the same occasion, the hangar with the flimsy protection of corrugated iron used for the local population during the nuclear tests was also demolished. All those structures were pulled down in the early 2000s.
Father Auguste Ube Carlson, president of the anti-nuclear lobby Association 193, has also denounced the rhetoric used by the French state which “pretends’ to bring some new answers that have a “sound of deja-vu and that do not fool any of the populations who have suffered through the nuclear era”.
According to one of the Association 193 spokespeople, France is telling local populations that all is well in the best of worlds and there is nothing to worry about.
A more mitigated reaction
Local historian Jean-Marc Regnault … dedicated to writing the history of the nuclear era. Image: Tahiti Infos
Local historian Jean-Marc Regnault conceded that it has been a struggle to get the French state to give access to files that at one point were declassified and then re-classified to now be reopened to the public which he considers a victory.
He does not share the same stance taken by Oscar Temaru regarding the wiping out of the last atomic shelter in Tureia. According to the historian, the shelter is a hazard to the population of Tureia as it contains asbestos and therefore needs to be destroyed.
Regnault positions himself as a researcher who, like any other member of the public, will be able to write the history of the nuclear era thanks to all those thousands of documents now available to be consulted, unless classified as state secrets.
He sees the history of a nation not in terms of buildings but in terms of what can be written and taught to the younger generations. The destruction of the building does not equal the wiping-out of a nation’s memory.
He finds it remarkable that teachers will have the material to teach the history of the atomic tests in Mā’ohi Nui, which was one the tenants of the Tavini party when they were at the helm of the country in 2004.
It is up to the women and men of Ma’ohi Nui to realise their dreams of writing the history of their islands by consulting those archives, especially the military ones and not be forced to only hear one narrative, that of the French state.
There is a movement toward more transparency, according to Regnault.
What about the conclusions drawn by the book Toxic?
The Delegate to Nuclear Safety M. Bugault, has been particularly dismissive of the book Toxic. He says that it is clear that the calculations based on the simulations are wrong and he rejected the deductions made by the book that the French state have played down the impacts of nuclear tests fallout on the Polynesians.
However, he admitted that 6 nuclear tests did not have favourable weather forecasts and generated radioactive fallout that led to doses “below the limit accepted by those working on the nuclear sites” but “higher than the doses accepted by the public”.
This is the reason why it is absolutely legitimate for people who have been contaminated to seek compensation.
He tells the press that the calculations and the investigation by Disclose wrongly contradict those made by the CEA in 2006 where the data and the mode of calculations were extremely technical and scientific and 450 pages long.
He suggested that those who were involved in the research and the publishing of Toxic were not versed enough in the technical jargon of the final document released by the CEA.
It is not enough to tell the truth but it must be accessible to the public, according to Bugault.
The book Toxic fails to explain in a clear and simple way how its calculations were carried out and achieved. He promised that in April 2022 the anti-Toxic book will be published by the CEA on Tahiti.
Ena Manuireva, born in Mangareva (Gambier islands) in Ma’ohi Nui (French Polynesia), is a language revitalisation researcher at Auckland University of Technology and is currently completing his doctorate on the Mangarevan language. He is also a campaigner for nuclear reparations justice from France over the 193 tests staged in Polynesia over three decades and a contributor to Asia Pacific Report.
Made up of present and retired police officers, former school teachers, village headmen, community leaders and representatives from the District Council of Social Services (DCOSS), 25 male advocates in Fiji have made a commitment to change themselves and their perception of women and honour their roles in society.
This was the outcome of a one-day Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre (FWCC) dialogue with male advocates from the Western Division in Lautoka on Monday.
The advocates who were part of a dialogue on engaging men to end violence against women and girls have committed themselves to be agents of change in their communities.
At the conclusion of the dialogue, the advocates made commitments to be agents of change and work towards ending violence against women and girls in their respective communities.
“When we leave this room and return to our communities, we will ensure that we get our house in order first before calling for change in the communities,” the male advocates declared.
“In our own homes, we need to bring up our boys in a manner that they learn to respect their own sisters, mothers, and other women in the community.
“We should teach our sons to respect women and girls and live with high moral standards.”
Rohit Deois a Fiji Times reporter. Republished with permission.
After a day of political showdown that at times involved shouting battles and personal clashes, the much anticipated motion of no confidence against Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare was defeated by 32 votes to 15 with two abstentions.
With the capital city Honiara virtually closed for business yesterday, attention turned to Vavaya Ridge where Parliament was debating the motion.
The motion came on the back of social unrest that saw the looting and burning of some 56 buildings across the city and the re-engagement of foreign forces in Honiara to arrest the situation two weeks ago and restore law and order.
In moving the motion, opposition leader Matthew Wale admitted that he had been conflicted by the need for this motion at this hour in “our history”.
“On the one hand we are dealing with it today because there is need for a political solution to the causes of the tragic events of two weeks ago,” he said.
“On the other, I am conscious that what we say in ventilating this motion may further add to what are already high levels of anger in certain quarters of our society.”
Wale said that as a result of the tragic events that caused so much loss and destruction and even cost lives he had called on the Prime Minister to resign.
‘Eruption of anger’
“I did not make that call out of malice toward him personally. I made that call in recognition of the fact that the tragic events were not isolated events, nor were they purely criminal, but were the eruption of anger based on political issues and decisions for which the PM must bear the primary responsibility,” he said.
“It is democratic for a Prime Minister to be called upon to resign, there is nothing undemocratic about the call. And if he chose to resign that too would be democratic.
Opposition leader Matthew Wale speaking to the no-confidence motion … “The tragic events were not isolated events, nor were they purely criminal, but were the eruption of anger based on political issues and decisions for which the PM must bear the primary responsibility.” Image: APR screenshot
“As is the case, the Prime Minister refused to resign, and therefore has necessitated this motion,” he said while moving the motion.
“Although [the people] are resource rich, yet they are cash poor. They have hopes that their children will have access to better opportunities than they did.”
— Opposition leader Matthew Wale
In arguing his case, Wale stated several issues.
On the economy, the MP for Aoke/Langalana said the vast majority of “our people live on the margins of our economy”.
“Although they are resource rich, yet they are cash poor. They have hopes that their children will have access to better opportunities than they did.
“They work hard to afford the high cost of education, though many children leave school because of lack of school fees. Our people are angry that education is so expensive, and that only those that can afford it are able to educate all their kids to a high level of education,” Wale said.
Access to healthcare challenging
“On health, Wale said the vast majority of our people lived where access to healthcare was challenging at best.
He said basic medicines and supplies are often not adequate to meet their health care needs adding that the state of the hospitals are perpetually in crisis management.
The opposition leader pointed out that at the National Referral Hospital Emergency Department patients were sleeping on the floor.
“Why is this the case? Who is responsible? Our people are angry about this,” he asked in Parliament.
Wale also highlighted logging companies disregard of tribal and community concerns, that drive conflict and disputes within tribes and communities. He said the government stood with the logging companies.
He also accused Sogavare of the use of the People’s Republic of China’s National Development Fund (NDF) money to prop up the Prime Minister as another of those issues that was undermining and compromising the sovereignty of the country.
He said the PM was dependent on that money to maintain his political strength.
Chinese funding influence
“How is he then supposed to make decisions that are wholly only in the interests of Solomon Islands untainted or undiluted by considerations for the PRC funds,” he asked.
“You see public anger has been built up over many years by all this bad governance. No serious efforts have been taken to address these serious issues. Provincial governments have increasingly over the past several years repeated their desire that they be given the constitutional mandate to manage their own affairs. Honiara has been consuming almost all the wealth that has been generated from resources exploited from the provinces,” Wale said.
He stated that the provinces had lost trust in Honiara.
“Erratic, poor, mercenary, and politically expedient decision making makes what is already a bad situation worse.
Wale said this was the situation specifically with Malaita.
“Malaita has stood on principle that a PM that lies to the country and Parliament does not have moral authority and legitimacy. Malaita would not accept it.
“Because of that principled position, this PM has not ceased to scheme and plot the consistent and persistent persecution of Malaita.
Malaita sought peaceful protest
“Malaitans have sought to petition the PM, twice, but were ignored and brushed aside in a rather juvenile manner. Malaita asked to stage peaceful protests, but these were denied.
“Malaitans sought an audience with the PM, but they were summarily dismissed. So what are they then supposed to do to get the PM’s attention? The PM consistently refused to visit Auki,” Wale said.
Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare speaking in Parliament yesterday … “We never received any formal log of issues from [Malaita].” Image: APR screenshotIn his response, Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare strongly rejected the claims stating that he had never received any issues of concerns from Malaita province.
“We never received any formal log of issues from them so that the government sits with them and dialogue over it,” he said.
He stressed that the government runs on rules and protocols on how they deal with each other.
Regarding the motion, Sogavare said it should never be brought to the floor of Parliament.
He accused Wale and his cohorts for driving the interests of a few people.
Willing to face justice
Sogavare said the majority of peace loving Malaitans condemned with utter disgust what had happened.
On corruption allegations, that the foreign forces were helping to protect his government, Sogavare said he was willing to face justice.
“I am very willing and if the leader of opposition can prove the allegations he has against me. This is the easiest way to remove the Prime Minister—that is to send him to jail,” he said.
On the lack of government support in terms of development on Malaita, Sogavare argued that despite the current economic environment his government had performed very well.
In that regard, he said the government did not fail the people of the country, including Malaita province, in the implementation of the twin objective of his government’s policy re-direction.
He said that the government had done so much for Malaita — as a matter of fact more than what some provinces that contributed so much to the country’s economy were getting.
Eight MPs including the PM spoke on the motion.
Robert Iroga is editor of SBM Online. Republished with permission.
Did you notice anything different about the news coverage of the recent unrest in Honiara?
Those fast-breaking stories on Australia’s television, radio and online networks were not presented by Australian journalists but by Solomon Islanders professionally reporting from the frontlines of the riots.
There wasn’t a journalist on the ground from Australia, New Zealand or anywhere else except the Solomon Islands.
International journalists, known in the industry as “parachuting” journalists, are the ones who normally drop in for a few days at the height of a breaking disaster or catastrophe.
Often with little knowledge or background of the story. (Foreign correspondents are different — they’re experts in their field).
Parachute journalists arrive off the streets of the nearest major city in a developed country and hire a local journalist as a fixer. The parachute journalist uses all the local’s expertise and knowledge to file reports, getting the credit while the local fixer receives none.
The fixer probably doesn’t get paid much either.
Covid-19 border restrictions
What happened in Honiara was different because covid-19 border restrictions meant foreign journalists couldn’t get into the Solomon Islands.
The local media stepped forward and did a brilliant job. They were fast and highly skilled.
The situation on social media was a master class in how to cover a major international breaking story.
As the looters rampaged through Honiara over three days, the local media team worked together pooling resources, videos, and facts, often running from danger as they were stoned and chased from the front line by angry looters.
The ABC’s locally engaged journalist Evan Wasuka’s television story for ABC News, complete with stand-up in the streets of ravaged Honiara, led the 7pm bulletin across Australia. His live crosses kept ABC audience informed over several days.
Veteran freelance journalist Gina Kekea filed for outlets all over the world, including Al Jazeera and the BBC. She was quoted by major news outlets, including CNN, The New York Times, and The Washington Post.
Sports journalist Elizabeth Osifelo pitched in as a breaking news reporter to cover the fastmoving destruction. You might have heard her excellent discussion with Geraldine Doogue on ABC Saturday Extra.
Media pack freelancers
Many of the media pack were freelancers who worked together to cover the story, some had covered previous unrest.
But for young journalists like Job Rongo’au filling for Z FM Radio station, it was their first experience in covering a riot and a scary one.
Rongo’au said the protesters tried to grab his mobile phone, but he managed to run away to safety to file his extraordinary photos and videos that were shared on Facebook by thousands.
He said his work went viral on social media and was used by Al Jazeera, Reuters, ABC, and many others — and on ZFM Facebook
The ABC’s former Pacific correspondent, veteran Sean Dorney told me he thought Evan Wasuka’s 7pm television story was “terrific”.
Dorney said he was impressed by the stories from the Solomon Islands media. He said he thought that all the Australian news media could learn a lesson from this about the talent that exists in the Pacific media.
In the developing world, the trend of local staff stepping forward is known as “localisation”.
Local staff step forward
It’s an unexpected result of the closure of international borders because of covid-19. For the past 18 months Australian advisers and consultant have been unable to travel to the Pacific to work on humanitarian projects.
Local staff have successfully stepped forward to manage projects in their place. There are many who hope this will continue after international borders reopen.
Dorney said he is sure Australian training and support delivered to Pacific journalists over the past 20 years by journalists including himself, Jemima Garrett, and me contributed to the high-level skills displayed in Honiara.
Sue Ahearn is a journalist and media consultant specialising in the Pacific and Asia. She is the creator of The Pacific Newsroom, and co-convenor of the industry group Australia Asia Pacific Media Initiative. She worked for the ABC’s international service for 20 years and is currently studying Pacific development at the Australian National University (ANU). Republished with permission.
Facing angry rioters threatening them with physical attacks, Solomon Islands mainstream and freelance journalists and photographers were confronted with an unsettling reality during last week’s three days of rioting in Honiara.
Local journalists in the country equipped with their cameras and limited protection were working solo on assignments for their newsrooms when the riots happened.
A freelance and multimedia woman journalist, Georgina Kekea tells of the threats to attack her and her news crew by the crowd as they marched down to Vavaya Ridge road, next to City Motel in Central Honiara.
“They threatened to shoot us with stones and swore obscenities at us. They shouted, ‘Go away with your cameras!’
“Those that knew me personally didn’t say anything. Those that did, I assume they knew of me but do not know me personally; some might not know me at all,” says Kekea, who is president of the Media Association of Solomon Islands (MASI).
“I don’t think any call for respect for journalists at this point would make a difference,” she told Sunday Isles.
“Except that I am surprised that people who spoke highly of culture do not have any respect at all for culture.
‘Women doing our job’
“We are women doing our job just like any other, and if that’s the way Solomon Islands men treat women in general, I am sorry for our country.
“We are lost. Nothing will and can change unless we the people change ourselves. We will not make a difference.”
Kekea pleads for people to simply allow the media to do their job.
Freelance journalist Gina Kekea doing a “piece to camera” during the aftermath of the riots in Chinatown. Image: Lisa Osifelo/Freelance/SundayIsles
“MASI condemned the recent riots that happened and called on the authorities too to respect the work of the media,” she said.
In a media statement from the Pacific Freedom Forum (PFF), chair Bernadette Carreon also urged the authorities to protect local journalists who are delivering crucial news to the public about the protests:
“The media should be allowed to do their job unharmed.
“PFF is urging authorities and protesters to respect the media who are working to inform the public about the unfortunate events taking place in the city.
“Journalists on location were attacked with tear gas, rubber bullets, and stones while protestors advanced towards the Solomon Islands Parliament house.
“While we understand this was done to disperse protesters, said journalists were merely in the line of fire due to the nature of their job as frontliners.
“The assault on members of the media is an assault on democracy.”
Freelance journalist Georgina Kekea and her freelance news crew cameraman … threatened by rioters while covering the mayhem in Honiara. Image: Lisa Osifelo/Freelance/Sunday Isles
Rioters smashed reporter’s phone
Sunday Isles online newspaper multimedia journalist Alex Dadamu also faced harassment and his phone was smashed by rioters while covering the insurrection in and around the Mokolo Building near the Mataniko Bridge, Chinatown.
“I would say they used many hurtful abusive words towards me in the Malaita language and were too aggressive,” he says.
“I was standing in front of Mokolo Building near the Mataniko Bridge taking pictures secretly because the crowd does not want anyone to take pictures and videos. They announced it in the first place before and during the march down to Chinatown.
“At one point, I took a picture and then put my phone back in my pocket. Unfortunately, a member of the crowd saw me take the picture.
“He approached me aggressively, threatening to hit me. By that time, more members of the crowd were starting to join that guy to threaten me for taking the pictures.
“They demanded that I hand over the phone to them. I humbly said, ‘sorry,’ and handed over the phone because already my life was in danger of them beating me up.
“I feared for my safety and I humbly handed over the phone from my pocket and they smashed in on the tarseal road.
“There goes my phone,” says Dadamu.
He says he and a colleague journalist from Sunday Isles (environment reporter John Houanihau) who were covering the unrest on November 24 were also affected by the tear gas targeted at the rioters.
Many lessons learned
When asked if he was wearing press credentials (identification card) issued by Sunday Isles, he says: “I showed them my Sunday Isles media ID card which identified me as a politics and development reporter.”
Dadamu says he learned many lessons from the incident and hopes this will make a difference in the future.
“Lesson learned and I don’t blame them. It is our job as reporters to assess the situation and take note of the dangers which might happen,” he says.
“Additionally, more awareness needs to be than so that people may know and understand more about the role of media in a situation such as these.”
In another related incident, a woman journalist from Island Sun newspaper, Mavis Nishimura Podokolo, says that when covering the scene at the Town Ground area, west of Honiara, demonstrators verbally harassed and chased her, forcing her to get out of the area.
Mavis appealed to the public to respect the work of local media practitioners and journalists in the country — especially in times of crisis.
“The role of journalists is to inform the public and during the ongoing crisis or riot it is pivotal,” she says.
“The work of the journalist is very important in a democracy.”
Mike Tua is a journalist at Sunday Isles. Republished with permission.
SIBC radio and television journalist Simon Tavake patrolling the streets in the aftermath of the rioting in the Honiara’s Chinatown. Image: Simon Tavake/SIBC/SundayIsles
Incoming new vice-chancellor for Te Wānanga Aronui o Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland University of Technology (AUT) Toelesulusulu Dr Damon Ieremia Salesa is keenly aware that he has broken through another glass ceiling.
The son of a factory worker made New Zealand history last week, as the first Pacific person to be appointed to the eminent leadership position in academia at a New Zealand university.
“I’m really excited to be the AUT vice-chancellor and with that excitement comes a sense of its significance with the sector which I work in and have given much of my life to, actually looking like the people it serves. So I’m really excited to be part of that story,” Toelesulusulu told Asia-Pacific Report.
“AUT is a place where talent can find opportunity and I would hope that lots of other people would want to express that excitement by wanting to come to AUT,” he says.
“What matters more is the work of the whole institution, that the university itself embraces its many different communities, its Māori students, its Pacific students and already AUT is a little bit known for that and what we can do is to build even more deeply on that.”
Professor Steven Ratuva, director of the Macmillan Brown Centre for Pacific Studies at the University of Canterbury, says Dr Salesa’s appointment is a significant milestone for the Pacific.
“It is something he richly deserves, and he has been working hard for and it is a good career choice, it is good for the Pacific academic community, and I congratulate him for his contribution to Pacific education.”
South Auckland priority
Currently pro-vice-chancellor Pacific at the University of Auckland (UOA), Dr Salesa takes up his new role as vice-chancellor at AUT in March.
From just up the hill at UOA, he has observed AUT, and likes what he saw.
“I’ve really admired the way AUT prioritised and served its students, particularly the students of South Auckland and mature students, and that is one of reasons I was really interested in the job,” he says.
“Just because those communities of learners for whom education really matters, AUT has really embraced them and that is part of what is exciting about AUT — that is why I wanted to come across and join AUT.
“There is no question that the campus down south and campus on the shore bring universities into the communities that they serve and as well as being global institutions they are local institutions.
“If you have heart to service and you keep the students at the very centre of the decisions you make, you get great results like you see AUT deliver in South Auckland and the North Shore,” he says.
Strengthening Māori and Pacific research
Pacific and Māori research is one area he wants to strengthen as well as build relationships with other institutions in the Pacific.
“Certainly, one of the things I have as a priority is to make sure that AUT is in all of the partnerships that it needs to be in, that we are serving our communities and our partners as well in a reciprocal relationship from which everyone grows.
“That will mean we have to be a little bit selective, but it will also mean that Pacific partnerships and other partnerships are critical to the very centre of the university, and they are not seen as being marginal because we’re a university in the middle of the South Pacific.
“We need to honour that and be connected to our whanau around the Pacific.
Toeolesulusulu Dr Damon Salesa … ““We need to honour … and be connected to our whanau around the Pacific.” Image: RNZ
“It is absolutely important that we are having those conversations, we need to understand how we can support the University of the South Pacific (USP) and their work, how we can find benefit and value for New Zealand and AUT students and staff from those relationships, so certainly we will be taking that seriously.
“But certainly, USP is a special institution in our region, so we need to be strategic in how we support and partner with them.”
Associate Professor Shailendra Singh, head of journalism at USP, says “as many have pointed out, the appointment is well deserved. He was not given any preference as a Pacific Islander. He was picked on merit.
A Pacific ‘trailblazer’
“As a trailblazer, he will inspire many Pacific Islanders and Pacific people beyond New Zealand as the vice-chancellor of one of the finest universities in our region.
“Through my association with the Pacific Media Centre (PMC), I have participated in AUT journalism-related workshops, seminars, and conferences.
“I have a high regard for the AUT and the PMC, long a flagship of the university for its cutting-edge research and publications in Pacific journalism.
“I hope the PMC is revived as journalism in the region has been struggling due to economic and political factors. Pacific journalism needs support and leadership and AUT can become the beacon it was,” Associate Professor Singh says.
Dr Salesa was in the dark about the PMC which has now been in hiatus for almost a year for unknown reasons.
“I’d have to learn more about that, I don’t know the ins and outs of that situation, but these are things that have to be collaborative, they have to be built with the kind of collective will and expertise of the university especially.
“There is no question that AUT will be prioritising Māori research and Pacific research among its other amazing specialisations,” Dr Salesa says.
AUT ‘anchored in Pacific’
“AUT will always be anchored in the Pacific region and obviously has a long history of educating people from the Pacific region and we hope to continue and deepen that.
“Those partnerships will speak directly to AUT’s future, and this is a period in time where everyone is just hoping for the best possible outcome for USP, and we will be looking to support in ways that make sense for them and AUT.”
Dr Salesa is testament to the fact that people of a Pacific background or ethnicity can succeed and excel — not just in sport, but in every facet of society.
“I think we’ve always known, as the saying goes, talent is everywhere, but opportunity isn’t — and what AUT is the story of, is making opportunity available to diverse groups of talented people.
“We know if you make opportunities available to those who have been denied them, they will flourish if they are supported in the right way.
“I have no doubt what people will see in my own story is that the kinds of diverse talent we have in New Zealand that too often we haven’t made the most of, can come to AUT and thrive.
“I hope that people see in that all kinds of stories because I am also the son of a factory worker, and I am also a first-generation university attendee people can understand that when talent gets opportunity and support it drives them and that’s what I am hoping you’ll see and that is what success at AUT is all about and its story,” the Auckland suburb of Glen Innes-raised Dr Salesa says.
Education pathway
A strong advocate for education, he wanted young Māori and Pasifika people to pursue that pathway rather than young school leavers joining the workforce.
“We know that education is one of the proven pathways to wellbeing and prosperity for families, and that at the same time we know that many families need their young people to go out and work.
“So, it is absolutely critical that we find ways to get talented young Pacific, Māori and other students into high value employment and education is one of the ways of doing that.
“What we need is for them to be ambitious, to have high expectations of themselves and their families and it is for AUT and other universities to deliver that transformational learning which is the secret to those strong and prosperous futures,” Dr Salesa says.
Transformative learning allowed people to change and have more than one career.
“We know all of us are living in the most uncertain and highly changeable times. In the old days everyone imagined they would have just one career and many people now are realising they might not only change jobs but change careers and they have also come to realise that in many, many of our jobs technology sits at the centre of opportunity and the ability to be effective.
“AUT is the kind of institution that is built for these times, it offers all sorts of flexible learning offerings and a truly diverse student body and it is New Zealand’s tech university.
Transformative learning
“So transformative learning is the kind of learning that actually transforms individual students lives where you can see outcomes writ large and that’s what I’m hoping to support further development at AUT so that people understand AUT is a great place to go, to study and get a great job but also prepare themselves for a great future,” Dr Salesa says.
Then there was the inevitable vexed question, whether it was time for another university, namely AUT, to start a new medical school? To which he played with a straight bat.
“At the moment AUT is one of the great providers of the health workforce in New Zealand and certainly for the short term we will be focusing on doing an even better job of doing that.
“Delivering a health workforce and the health researchers that New Zealand needs. That is obviously a critical contribution in the age of the pandemic, but again that will be built collaboratively with my colleagues at AUT.
“I think it is a very challenging time for universities across the board and particularly where next year is going to be where students have had two years of lockdown learning in Auckland so we have to make sure that the university can support them in their ambitions to be successful at AUT.
“That is going to be one of the great challenges, not just facing AUT, but all the tertiary providers that have suffered lockdowns in Auckland.”
This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by Sri Krishnamurthi.
The riots in Honiara yesterday, disturbing the city’s normally quiet atmosphere, were unexpected but not surprising.
Someone made reference to a possible protest that would coincide with the convening of Parliament, but details were sketchy and social media was tightlipped about a protest for a change.
Arguably, the riots are a culmination of a number of flashpoints that have been ignored these past few months.
At a “Tok Stori” Conference jointly held by the Solomon Islands National University and University of Melbourne on Wednesday, 17 November 2021, on the environment, conflict and peace, I spoke about unmasking the faces of those who control the Solomon Islands economy.
I argued that even though 80 percent of land in Solomon Islands is owned by Solomon Islanders, they are largely bystanders, while outsiders, mainly Malaysian, Filipino, and Chinese loggers and mining companies control the resources and the political processes involving our politicians.
People might elect our members of Parliament, but it is the logging companies, mining companies and other largely Asian-owned companies that underwrite the formation of government, influence the election of the Prime Minister, and keep ministers and government supporters under control after the elections.
In return, if they want anything, or need special favours, they go directly to ministers and even the Prime Minister.
Indigenous owners shut out
Indigenous Solomon Island business owners do not have the same access to our leaders. The political governance arrangements in Solomon Islands are shaped by the cozy co-existence between foreign loggers, miners and businesses.
The influence of non-state actors in shaping political undercurrents in Solomon Islands cannot be ignored.
Yesterday’s protest is said to have been instigated by supporters from Malaita, but the frustration with the national government, the attitude of the Prime Minister and ministers to provincial governments and provincial politicians, and the sense of alienation and disenfranchisement, is arguably shared across a wide spectrum of the country.
People feel resentful when they see the national government giving a Malaysian company preferential tax status by virtue of an Act of Parliament, or $13 million as a deposit towards the construction of what are purportedly poor-quality prefabricated houses, while Solomon Islanders have to sleep on the floor in the emergency department of their hospital.
Such things are inevitably bound to fuel resentment. When people see the government bypass local, indigenous contractors for the Pacific Games, it makes them antagonistic, and feel neglected.
This sense of alienation, disempowerment and neglect has been building for some time.
Yesterday’s protest is intertwined with the complexity of the China-Taiwan, and national-provincial government political dynamics that have been well publicised.
Shoddy treatment of Premier
Malaitans in Malaita generally have been sympathetic to their Premier. The shoddy way the national government has been treating their highly respected Premier Daniel Suidani, starting with arrangements for his overseas travel, and then blocking every single attempt he made at appointing ministers while he was away, has not been lost on Malaitans.
The unprecedented welcome he received at Auki when he returned from medical leave was testament to the high regard in which he is held.
Not even the Prime Minister would have come anywhere near size of the crowd that welcomed him that day. Notably absent were the Malaitan members of the national Parliament.
The thousands of supporters who showed up in truckloads from all wards in Malaita to stop the vote of no-confidence against Daniel Suidani should have sent a signal to national parliamentarians and the Prime Minister that it was time to set aside their differences.
Perhaps they underestimated the people’s resolve, thinking that the bribes that were allegedly paid to the Malaita provincial members would have been sufficient to topple Daniel Suidani.
Where the money originated from remains a mystery. However, Daniel Suidani’s vocal opposition to the switch to China, and his courting of Taiwan, might give a clue.
Throughout the past months, there has been little dialogue between the national government and the Malaita provincial government. A great opportunity to avoid today’s protests would have been for government ministers from Malaita to attend a reconciliation ceremony that was held in Aimela, a village outside Auki, last week.
They were not seen. Diplomacy and dialogue are not confined to international relations. They are very important attributes for politicians to have when they deal with each other.
Drifting to self-destruction
Solomon Islands has been drifting to self-destruction. It is one of the most aid dependent countries in the world.
Significant donor support is given to its health and education sector. Yet, its ministers and senior government officials treat its people poorly, and allow them to be exploited by loggers and miners.
Yesterday’s protest and riots are evidence of serious underlying currents that have been neglected. There has to be reform to the political system, including making the government more inclusive.
Those that rioted today probably don’t get anything from government. This has to change, otherwise Solomon Islands could be on the pathway to implosion.
Dr Transform Aqorau is CEO, iTuna Intel and founding director, Pacific Catalyst and a legal adviser to Marshall Islands. He is the former CEO of the Parties to the Nauru Agreement Office. This article was first published on DevPolicy blog at the Australian National University and is republished here under a Creatiuve Commons licence.
A sad day indeed when a school building was also torched and burnt down. My former school, Honiara Senior High School now being burnt down this evening. The science lab is now gone and the fire moving towards the assembly hall. A sad time for the students & teachers not mine pic.twitter.com/MhIa1m8xzU
Toeolesulusulu said the past two years of the covid-19 pandemic have been the most difficult for education in a long time.
He said part of the reason he chose to take up the new role was that AUT provides a pathway to education for people of all ages, backgrounds and races, regardless of the life stage or academic credentials.
“The pressures of the pandemic have forced many young people to have to choose between furthering their education or providing for their families, and institutions like AUT can help.
“Now is a great time to just leave school and get a job,” Toeolesulusulu said.
“But in terms of the future that students’ families need, that our city and our communities need, education still remains the single most powerful way to transform the lives of you and your family and through them our communities.”
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Pacific civil society organisations say COP26 was the most exclusionary and inequitable of the annual United Nations climate negotiations so far and the results are equally disappointing.
The global climate negotiations concluded over the weekend in Glasgow with a new global deal on climate.
But reaching an agreement is looking like one of the only good things to come out of the negotiations from the Pacific Islands’ perspective.
Lavetanalagi Seru of the Pacific Islands Climate Action Network was in Glasgow and said that after all of the struggle getting there it was disappointing to find civil society excluded from many of the meeting rooms.
“So it doesn’t deliver on being an inclusive COP, neither does it deliver on equity and ensuring that the voices of frontline communities who are most impacted by the climate crisis are being heard,” he said.
“And that would mean the rapid phase out of fossil fuels, increased climate finance commitments.
“The second [disappointment] was on how they watered down the language on fossil fuel phase out to now its phase down.”
Lavetanalagi Seru said another big letdown for the Pacific was there was no concrete action on setting up a mechanism for loss and damage finance, which is reparation for the longterm and permanent damage already being caused by climate change.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
The climate emergency is the result of an ethical, moral and spiritual crisis, manifested in a fixation on profit.
The extractive and, ultimately, unsustainable systems of production and consumption, by those complicit in this crisis, continue to ignore increasing scientific, and moral warnings.
Those who have contributed to this crisis the least, suffer the most, physically, existentially, and ecologically.
We affirm the Faith and Science Joint Appeal, calling us to respond, with the knowledge of science, and the wisdom of spirituality: to know more and to care more.
Our interconnectedness to this common home forces us to a radical solidarity, across gender and generation, for climate justice for all.
In this spirit, wealthier countries must lead in reducing their own emissions, and in financing emission reductions of poorer nations.
Industrialised countries must support the vulnerable
Industrialised countries must support the vulnerable countries, and finance adaptation.
They must put into action a mechanism for loss and damage, with additional funds.
Love calls us to seek climate justice and restoration. It calls us to respect the rights of Indigenous Peoples, to protect them, and their ancestral domains, from predatory economic interests, and to learn from their ancient wisdom.
Indigenous spirituality could restore our understanding of interdependence between land, ocean, and life, between generations before us,and the ones to come.
Love calls us to transformation of systems and lifestyles. This transition away from fossil fuel-based economies must be just, securing livelihoods and wellbeing for all and not just some.
Keep Paris Agreement promise alive
We ask our leaders to not only keep the promise of the Paris Agreement alive, but also to keep alive the hope of a flourishing future for humanity.
We have heard many commitments in this place.
Words have power, but only when they are manifested into action.
The fate of the planet depends on it.
The World Council of Churches (WCC) presented a longer statement to the COP26 Climate Summit. This was the text of Pacific Conference of Churches (PCC) secretary-general Reverend James Bhagwan’s intervention to the High Level Plenary yesterday.
COMMENTARY:By the Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown
After years of empty promises by major emitters, it’s time to deliver on climate financing.
The world is warming. The science is clear. Most large, developed countries need to take ambitious action to reduce their emissions in order not to impact us further.
If they don’t, there is dire consequence, and in turn a significant rise in adaptation cost to us, those that did not cause this problem.
Some people call it paradise, but for me and thousands of Pacific people, the beautiful pristine Pacific Island region is simply home. It is our inheritance, a blessing from our forebears and ancestors.
As custodians of these islands, we have a moral duty to protect it – for today and the unborn generations of our Pacific anau.
Sadly, we are unable to do that because of things beyond our control. The grim reality of climate change, especially for many Small Island Developing States like my beloved Cook Islands, is evidently clear.
Sea level rise is alarming. Our food security is at risk, and our way of life that we have known for generations is slowly disappearing. What were “once in a lifetime” extreme events like category 5 cyclones, marine heatwaves and the like are becoming more severe.
No longer theory
These developments are no longer theory. Despite our negligible contribution to global emissions, this is the price we pay.
We are talking about homes, lands and precious lives; many are being displaced as we speak. I am reminded about my Pacific brothers and sisters living on remote atolls including some of those in our 15 islands that make up the Cook Islands — as well as our Pacific neighbours such as Kiribati, Tuvalu, Tokelau and many others, not just in the Pacific Ocean.
This family of small islands states is spread beyond our Pacific to across the globe.
Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown … “the devastating impact of climate change has evolved from a mere threat to a crisis of epic proportion.” Image: Nate McKinnon/RNZ
Here in the Cook Islands, we are raising riverbanks to protect homes that for the first time in history are being reached by floodwater. We are building water storage on islands that have never before experienced levels of drought that we see now.
Over the years, the devastating impact of climate change has evolved from a mere threat to a crisis of epic proportion, now posing as the most pressing security issue to livelihoods on our island shores.
We live with undeniable evidence to back up the science. Most of you who follow the climate change discourse know our story. We have been saying this for as far as back as I can remember.
For more than 10 years of my political career, our message to the world about climate change has been loud and clear. Climate change is a matter of life and death. We need help. Urgently.
Given only empty promises
Today, I am sad to say that after all the years of highlighting this bitter truth, the discourse hasn’t progressed us far enough. All we have been given are promises and more empty promises from the world’s biggest emitters while our islands and people are heading towards a climate catastrophe where our very existence and future is at stake.
But we will not stop trying. As long as we have the strength and the opportunity to speak our truth to power, we will continue to call for urgent action. In the words of our young Pacific climate activists, “We are not drowning, we are fighting.”
Koro Island, Fiji, after Tropical Cyclone Winston in 2016. “It is critical that COP26 begins discussions for a new quantifiable goal on climate finance.” Image: UNOCHA
As the political champion of Climate Finance for the Pacific Islands, I believe it is imperative that world leaders fast track large-scale climate finance that are easy to access for bold long-term and permanent adaptation solutions.
It is critical that COP26 begins discussions for a new quantifiable goal on climate finance. We need to do this now. Not tomorrow, next year or the next COP.
Last week when I addressed world leaders attending COP26, I urged them to consider a new global financial instrument that recognises climate-related debt, separately from national debt. We need to provide for innovative financing modalities that do not increase our debt.
We need to take climate adaptation debt off national balance sheets, especially since many Pacific countries are already heavily in debt. Why? Pacific countries contribute the least to global emissions and they should not have to pay a debt on top the consequences they are already struggling with.
Amortising adaptation debt
We need to consider amortising adaptation debt over a 100-year timeframe.
We must seek a new commitment that dedicates financing towards Loss and Damage that would assist our vulnerable communities manage the transfer of risks experienced by the irreversible impacts of climate change. We must also ensure that adaptation receives an equitable amount of financing as for mitigation.
I want to reiterate that adaptation measures by their very nature are long-term investments against climate impacts, thus we need to be talking about adaptation project lifecycles of 20 years, 50 years and 100 years, and more.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres visited Tuvalu in 2019 and described the nation as “the extreme front-line of the global climate emergency”. Image: UN in the Pacific
We are at a critical juncture of our journey where the fate of our beautiful, pristine homes is a stake. I call on all major emitters to take stronger climate action, especially to deliver on their funding promises.
Stop making excuses; climate change existed way before covid-19 when the promises of billions of dollars in climate financing were made.
It is time to deliver.
Mark Brown, Prime Minister of the Cook Islands, is also the Pacific Political Champion for Climate Finance at COP26. While not attending the COP this year due to covid-19 travel restrictions, Prime Minister Brown is providing support and undertaking this role remotely. This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Advocacy groups in Indonesia have condemned an attack on the parents of human rights lawyer Veronica Yoman, who speaks out for West Papuan justice issues.
A number of packages were delivered to the couple’s house in Jakarta on Sunday morning.
According to Amnesty International Indonesia, two of the packages exploded, scattering bits of paper and red paint in the garage.
Another package contained a message threatening to attack Koman and her supporters.
Amnesty International Indonesia’s executive director Usman Hamid described it as “an unconscionable attack that has frightened and traumatised two older people”.
“The authorities must immediately carry out a thorough, transparent, impartial and independent investigation of the incident and ensure the safety of Veronica Koman’s parents,” he said.
Koman, who has became a prominent voice in advocating for Papuan human rights since 2015, has been based in Australia since 2019.
UN plea for protection
That year, UN human rights experts issued a statement calling on the Indonesian government to protect the rights of Koman and other activists after she was subjected to online harassment, threats and abuse following her reporting on alleged human rights violations in Papua province.
The latest incident comes only weeks after two unidentified men on a motorcycle left an explosive package on the fence of Koman’s parents’ house.
Andreas Harsono of Human Rights Watch said the incident marked “a serious escalation in the threats and intimidation that Koman and her family have faced for years due to her peaceful activism on Papua”.
“Indonesian human rights defenders should be able to express themselves even on sensitive subjects without having a target painted on their backs.”
As well as a police investigation, Harsono said Indonesia’s Witness and Victim Protection Agency should also assist Koman’s parents with protection and psychosocial support.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Prime Minister James Marape told the media yesterday that the gains from the country’s attendance at the current COP26 Climate Summit in Glasgow, Scotland, will far outweigh the cost of attending.
But if we are being true to the essence of COP, are we really there to find solutions to climate change?
Marape said “the benefits from COP26 will outweigh the cost” in direct response to this newspaper questioning the decision to send a 62-member delegation to the current 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference — that is the long version of COP26 for those who have been wondering.
The Post-Courier, through sources it considers reliable, found that the trip while regionally and globally important, involved sending one of the largest delegations ever assembled by this or any other country to a global climate meet.
Also disconcerting was the fact that this would no doubt have to have cost a fortune – this is after taking into account the usual accommodation, logistics, travelling allowances and all the other bells and whistles that go with such grand displays of Papua New Guinean interest.
Now, Marape has come back with a rather lengthy statement informing the media and thus our consumers of the reasons why the large delegation to Scotland was warranted.
His firm assurance to us is basically that PNG will reap the harvest from this COP26 meet and that naysayers and soothsayers alike should not worry about the costs involved in the country’s participation at the climate event.
PM’s stand on COP26 meeting
That is our Prime Minister’s stand on the matter and for all intents and purposes we are bound to accept it for what it is and give him and our government the benefit of the doubt.
Marape has told us that a COP26 outcomes report and correlating implementation matrix shall be made known to the public in the near future and we shall hold him to his word.
But what concerns us as a newspaper for the people, is the fact that the international community is abuzz with disdain towards the current and on-going COP26 climate meet that PNG seems so interested in.
It would seem while we as a country are in Glasgow for the good of the nation, we are missing the very essence of what the climate meeting is all about.
All major news agencies around the world have reported that COP26 cannot in good conscience hold any real representative climate change talks because most countries that are most affected by climate change remain absent this year.
A third of Pacific islands have announced they are unable to send senior delegations for the first time in COP history.
Small nations least responsible
These nations, Small Island Developing States (SIDS), are the least responsible for climate change — but are some of the most impacted on.
And their voices are missing in Glasgow.
Only four Pacific island nations are sending their leaders, Fiji, Tuvalu, Palau and good old PNG.
The rest either have limited or no representation, largely due to COVID-19 restrictions in the region.
It is important that as one of only four Pacific island nations at COP26, we speak for the good of all our neighbours who we are sure would have liked to be at COP26 but could not make it.
As our delegation concludes its climate talks and pushes for innovative ways to help combat the adverse effects of climate change, let us hope our good PM, the government and our delegation remain true to what COP26 is all about.
And that they actually push for ways to mitigate our drowning islands and ever increasing loss of animal habitats.
We say this because at the moment it seems like PNG has again sent another rather large sales and marketing team abroad to garner interest in our country in the hopes of improving our financial and economic situation rather than actually finding climate change solutions.
Post-Courier editorial published on 8 November 2021 with permission.
Church minister Suiva’aia Te’o says proactive communication, compassion and clear information have led to a fully vaccinated congregation.
Like most churches operating under level three and four rules, the Sāmoan Methodist Māngere Central church livestreams services on Facebook and holds Bible studies and prayer meetings over Zoom.
To keep the young people engaged they run Kahoot! quizzes and online talent shows.
But when lockdown rules lift, the congregation will be able to confidently worship in person — because all 120 of them are already double-vaccinated.
The church’s Reverend Suiva’aia Te’o says no edict or mandate was imposed by her or anyone else. Rather, she made sure everyone was given clear and relevant information, and then members of the congregation got the vaccinations of their own volition.
“One Sunday I gave a brief talk about why they should take it. My thinking was if everybody understands why, then they can make a decision for themselves,” she says.
Te’o was motivated to promote the vaccine after attending a talk organised by Pacific health provider South Seas for church ministers in South Auckland. She says the crux of her message to the congregation was to do it for the “love of family”.
‘We breathe the same air’
“We all live in the same world and we breathe the same air,” she says. “The delta variant can spread so easily, and so I reminded them it was about the safety of their families, the safety of the community and the safety of the church.”
She also recruited the support of her church’s youth group leaders, including Māngere College student Gardinea Lemoa.
“We have youth meetings every Friday and so I’ve just been encouraging them to get vaccinated and to get their friends and family vaccinated as well,” says Lemoa.
“We’ve also been making up memes so they could post things on their social media accounts.”
Te’o is well aware that some Christian leaders are calling the covid-19 vaccine the “mark of the beast” and a sign of the end times, but she’s got no time for such attempts to stoke fear.
“I know they say that’s what they believe, but I don’t agree. I think it’s just an excuse and they need to get vaccinated.
“We have got this remedy, and I’m convinced it has been developed with God-given wisdom and knowledge by professionals so we can be safe.”
86% of eligible Pacific population
Before this weekend 86 percent of the eligible Pacific population have had their first dose, compared to 89 percent of Europeans and close to 100 percent of the Asian population.
Around 50,000 Counties Manukau District Health Board residents still need to get their second dose in order to reach the 90 percent double-vaccinated threshold. It’s a marker the Auckland and Waitematā DHB populations need about 15,000 and 40,000 doses respectively to reach.
“It is encouraging to see so many community-led initiatives happening now. But these should have been resourced from the beginning,” he says.
“Instead, the first big mass vaccination event was held at [higher learning institution] Manukau Institute of Technology (MIT). It was great that they got 16,000 people vaccinated then, but it actually made things worse in some ways, because they barely vaccinated any Māori or Pacific people.”
He says when local organisations like churches are empowered to take the lead, mistrust and misinformation become less of a hurdle to overcome.
“Now we have Pacific providers taking ownership we are finally seeing a lot more acceptance and uptake of the vaccine.”
Quickly got on board
Te’o says though her congregation quickly got on board with the vaccination rollout, many have still found lockdown challenging.
“I thought with this lockdown it would be quiet for us, but it’s not – there’s more and more Zoom meetings and more work. It’s been a hard time, the world is changing a lot for so many of us and there’s a lot of uncertainty.
“We’ve been providing food parcels for some families and some have needed small monetary grants to help with paying the power or other bills.”
But one thing she is confident about, given all her congregation is vaccinated, is that when they do get back to in-person services they’ll all have that extra layer of protection.
Local Democracy Reporting is a public interest news service supported by RNZ, the News Publishers’ Association and NZ On Air. Asia Pacific Report is a partner.
West Papua indigenous independence leaders today launched “Green State Vision” at the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, pledging to take decisive action to address the climate emergency and the impact of natural resource extraction in an independent West Papua.
Restoring guardianship of natural resources to indigenous authorities, combining Western democratic norms with local Papuan systems; and
‘Serving notice’ on all extraction companies, including oil, gas, mining, logging and palm oil, requiring them to adhere to international environmental standards or cease operations.
In June 2021, a panel of international legal experts, co-chaired by Professor Philippe Sands QC, drafted a definition of ecocide intended for adoption by the International Criminal Court (ICC).
West Papua is half of the island of New Guinea, home to the world’s third largest rainforest after the Amazon and the Congo. West Papua is rich in natural resources, including one of the world’s largest gold and copper mines — the Freeport Indonesia mine at Grasberg — and extensive sources of natural gas, minerals, timber and palm oil.
West Papua was a Dutch colony until 1961. The Indonesian military seized control in 1963.
The people indigenous to the provinces are Melanesian, ethnically distinct from the people of Indonesia. West Papua continues to be unlawfully occupied by Indonesia. Indonesia is currently the world’s largest exporter of palm oil.
West Papuans have contested Indonesia’s occupation for more than half a century, with Indonesian forces repeatedly accused of human rights violations and violent suppression of the independence movement.
In 2020, the ULMWP announced the formation of its Temporary Constitution and Provisional Government, with exiled leader Benny Wenda as interim president.
He will be a keynote speaker at the COP26 Coalition’s Global Day for Climate Justice rally tomorrow.
A “March Against Climate Colonialism” will be held on Sunday, November 7, starting at 1:30pm at 83 Argyle Street, Glasgow.
Benny Wenda, interim president of the ULMWP and provisional government, said: ‘We are fighting for stewardship of one of the planet’s largest rainforests, a lung of the world.
“The international climate movement and all governments serious about stopping climate change must help end Indonesia’s genocide of the first defenders in West Papua. If you want to save the world, you must save West Papua.”
Joe Corré, founder of Agent Provocateur, said: “This is a critical step towards protecting one of the world’s largest rainforests from catastrophic destruction caused by the illegal Indonesian occupation.
“The Indonesian government and military, supported by BP, are using violence, intimidation and murder to silence the indigenous inhabitants.”
Jennifer Robinson of Doughty Street Chambers said: “The unlawful occupation of West Papua by Indonesia is facilitating the destruction of one of the world’s most important rainforests.
“Ensuring West Papua’s right to self-determination will also ensure the protection of the environment and the climate by allowing the Indigenous custodians of the land to take back control, protection and management of their resources.’
A Papuan Green State Vision rally. Image: ULMWP
This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.
What are the views of Pacific journalists on professional ethical issues and what pressures affect their work? What is the age, experience, qualifications and gender breakdown of the Pacific journalist corps?
These crucial questions are addressed in a recently published research carried out by the University of the South Pacific (USP).
Published in the latest Pacific Journalism Review, the research investigates the journalism culture in the Pacific Islands, with the findings offering insights into possible remedial methods and future directions.
“Watchdogs under Pressure: Pacific Islands Journalists’ Demographic Profiles and Professional Views” is based on a comprehensive survey providing an update on the demographic profiles, professional views, role conceptions, and perceived influence of more than 200 Pacific Islands journalists in nine USP member countries — Cook Islands, Fiji, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu.
Associate Professor in Pacific Journalism Shailendra Singh at the School of Pacific Arts, Communication, and Education (SPACE) co-authored the paper with Professor Folker Hanusch from the University of Vienna, who is also an international expert on world journalism cultures.
Dr Singh said that while global scholarship on journalists’ professional views had expanded tremendously in recent decades, the Pacific remained a blind spot. For example, the Pacific was not featured in the Worlds of Journalism Study on 76 countries, perhaps the most ambitious undertaking in the field.
He said that USP had financed this critical research in its member countries as journalists provide a valuable public service in the region.
Impact of journalists’ health
“Journalists’ health has an impact on the health of journalism, and journalism’s health has an impact on the health of the countries in the region. As a result, it is incumbent upon us to conduct due diligence on our journalists, on whom we rely for information in making vital judgments,” Dr Singh added.
Professor Folker Hanusch … an authority on world journalism cultures. Image: USP/PINA
“Through such research, we find out many things including the challenges they face.”
He discussed how the data could be used to support media organisations and national governments make better policy decisions.
“Our survey found an improvement in education and experience levels in the current cohort of journalists, compared to 30 years ago, but we are still lagging at the international level. This data may persuade governments, universities, and international donors to provide more fellowships and scholarships to build on the improvements of the last 30 years,” Dr Singh said.
The study also found a parity in female and male journalists overall. However, male journalists tended to hold senior editorial positions, implying that most females required help in obtaining more senior positions in media organisations.
He emphasised the report provided an enhanced understanding of the journalism culture in the Pacific Islands to media organisations, governments, civil society organisations, and aid donors.
“In the face of imminent concerns like climate change, this work can be used to identify future paths and remedial measures,” Dr Singh said.
Fieldwork team
“He acknowledged USP’s journalism teaching assistants Geraldine Panapasa and Eliki Drugunalevu for helping out in the fieldwork, as well as the USP Research Office, for sponsoring the study, along with USP as a whole for supporting the journalism programme. He also praised Professor Pal Ahluwalia, USP vice-chancellor and president (VCP), for his vision, which placed a high value on journalism.
“As well as our co-funders, the US Embassy in Fiji and the Pacific Media Centre in Auckland, New Zealand. Special thanks to Professor David Robie, the former USP journalism coordinator and founding editor of Pacific Journalism Review for publishing our work,” Dr Singh added.
Professor Ahluwalia praised the team’s joint work in publishing this study and commended them on the study’s “astounding” findings.
He stressed that journalists played a significant role in the Pacific and that the concerns identified in the report must be addressed.
“We are required to look after their well-being and look into the issues they are encountering,” the VCP added.
Acting deputy vice-chancellor education Professor Jito Vanualailai congratulated Dr Singh and the team for the excellent paper.
He expressed his desire to see more comprehensive studies in the future, which he believed would help the Pacific region.
Māori climate activist India Logan-Riley speaking on the indigenous challenge to the “colonial project” at the COP26 opening … “In the US and Canada alone, indigenous resistance has stopped or delayed greenhouse gas pollution equivalent to at least one quarter of annual emissions. What we do works.” Image: COP26 screenshot APR (at 1:00.26)
A young Māori activist has told delegates at a massive UN summit in Scotland the world’s climate crisis has its roots in colonialism and that the solution lies in abandoning modern-day forms of it.
India Logan-Riley was asked at the last minute to speak at today’s opening session of the COP26 summit in Glasgow.
They said indigenous resistance to resource exploitation, corporate greed and the promotion of justice had led the way in offering real solutions to climate chaos.
Addressing delegates today, the young activist fearlessly linked imperialism’s lust for resources and its destruction of indigenous cultures centuries ago, to modern-day enablement by governments of corporate giants seeking profit from fossil fuels at any cost.
Logan-Riley said the roots of the climate crisis began with imperialist expansion by Western nations and reminded Britain’s leader Boris Johnson of the colonial crimes committed against subject peoples, including those in Aotearoa.
Māori and other indigenous people had been forced off the land so resources could be extracted, Logan-Riley said.
“Two-hundred-fifty-two years ago invading forces sent by the ancestors of this presidency arrived at my ancestors’ territories, heralding an age of violence, murder and destruction enabled by documents, like the Document of Discovery, formulated in Europe.
Land ‘stolen by British Crown’
“Land in my region was stolen by the British Crown in order to extract oil and suck the land of all its nutrients while seeking to displace people.”
Logan-Riley said the same historic forces continued to be at play in Aotearoa, citing the example of the government’s “theft of the foreshore and seabed” and subsequent corporate drive to extract fossil fuels.
They expressed frustration that after being lauded at the Paris talks five years ago for relaying climate warnings of wildfires, biodiversity loss and sea-level rises, nothing since had changed.
“The global north colonial governments and corporations fudge with the future,” they added.
India Logan-Riley … world leaders need to listen to indigenous people. Image: COP26 screenshot APR
Logan-Riley said world leaders needed to listen to indigenous people as they had many of the answers to the climate crisis. Their acts of resistance had already played a part in keeping emissions down, they added.
“We’re keeping fossil fuels in the ground and stopping fossil fuel expansion. We’re halting infrastructure that would increase emissions and saying no to false solutions,” they said.
“In the US and Canada alone indigenous resistance has stopped or delayed greenhouse gas pollution equivalent to at least one quarter of annual emissions. What we do works.”
‘Complicit’ in death and destruction
Failure to support such indigenous challenges to the “colonial project” and acceptance instead of mediocre leaders means you too are complicit in death and destruction across the globe, Logan-Riley warned.
The comments come as other climate activists have criticised the G20 summit on climate action ahead of the COP26 meeting.
Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi, who chaired the G20 gathering in Rome, today hailed the final accord, saying that for the first time all G20 states had agreed on the importance of capping global warming at the 1.5C level that scientists say is vital to avoid disaster.
As it stands, the world is heading towards 2.7C.
G20 pledged to stop financing coal power overseas, they set no timetable for phasing it out at home, and watered down the wording on a promise to reduce emissions of methane — another potent greenhouse gas.
The final G20 statement includes a pledge to halt financing of overseas coal-fired power generation by the end of this year, but set no date for phasing out coal power, promising only to do so “as soon as possible”.
This replaced a goal set in a previous draft of the final statement to achieve this by the end of the 2030s, showing the strong resistance from some coal-dependent countries.
G20 set no ‘phasing out’ date
The G20 also set no date for phasing out fossil fuel subsidies, saying they will aim to do so “over the medium term”.
On methane, which has a more potent but less lasting impact than carbon dioxide on global warming, leaders diluted their wording from a previous draft that pledged to “strive to reduce our collective methane emissions significantly”.
The final statement just recognises that reducing methane emissions is “one of the quickest, most feasible and most cost-effective ways to limit climate change”.
“I just wanted to really convey that the negotiations are the same age as me and admissions are still going up and that needs to stop right now,” they said.
Logan-Riley had opened their address in te reo Māori before telling delegates they resided on Aotearoa’s east coast, where the sun had turned red in February last year because of smoke from wildfires in eastern Australia.
The activist relayed a story about supporting their brother in hospital being told by the doctor there staff were seeing higher numbers of people presenting with breathing problems because of the smoke.
“In that moment our health was bound to the struggle of the land and people in another country. In the effects of climate change are fates intertwined, as our the historic forces that have brought us here today,” they said.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
The Pacific Islands are at the frontline of climate change. But as rising seas threaten their very existence, these tiny nation states will not be submerged without a fight.
For decades this group has been the world’s moral conscience on climate change. Pacific leaders are not afraid to call out the climate policy failures of far bigger nations, including regional neighbour Australia.
And they have a strong history of punching above their weight at United Nations climate talks — including at Paris, where they were credited with helping secure the first truly global climate agreement.
The momentum is with Pacific island countries at next month’s summit in Glasgow, and they have powerful friends. The United Kingdom, European Union and United States all want to see warming limited to 1.5℃.
This powerful alliance will turn the screws on countries dragging down the global effort to avert catastrophic climate change. And if history is a guide, the Pacific won’t let the actions of laggard nations go unnoticed.
A long fight for survival Pacific leaders’ agitation for climate action dates back to the late 1980s, when scientific consensus on the problem emerged. The leaders quickly realised the serious implications global warming and sea-level rise posed for island countries.
Some Pacific nations — such as Kiribati, Marshall Islands and Tuvalu — are predominantly low-lying atolls, rising just metres above the waves. In 1991, Pacific leaders declared “the cultural, economic and physical survival of Pacific nations is at great risk”.
Successive scientific assessments clarified the devastating threat climate change posed for Pacific nations: more intense cyclones, changing rainfall patterns, coral bleaching, ocean acidification, coastal inundation and sea-level rise.
Pacific states developed collective strategies to press the international community to take action. At past UN climate talks, they formed a diplomatic alliance with island nations in the Caribbean and the Indian Ocean, which swelled to more than 40 countries.
Climate change is a threat to the survival of Pacific Islanders. Image: Mick Tsikas/AAP/The Conversation
The first draft of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol – which required wealthy nations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions – was put forward by Nauru on behalf of this Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS).
Securing a global agreement in Paris Pacific states were also crucial in negotiating a successor to the Kyoto Protocol in Paris in 2015.
By this time, UN climate talks were stalled by arguments between wealthy nations and developing countries about who was responsible for addressing climate change, and how much support should be provided to help poorer nations to deal with its impacts.
In the months before the Paris climate summit, then Marshall Islands Foreign Minister, the late Tony De Brum, quietly coordinated a coalition of countries from across traditional negotiating divides at the UN.
This was genius strategy. During talks in Paris, membership of this “High Ambition Coalition” swelled to more than 100 countries, including the European Union and the United States, which proved vital for securing the first truly global climate agreement.
When then US President Barack Obama met with island leaders in 2016, he noted “we could not have gotten a Paris Agreement without the incredible efforts and hard work of island nations”.
The High Ambition Coalition secured a shared temperature goal in the Paris Agreement, for countries to limit global warming to 1.5℃ above the long-term average. This was no arbitrary figure.
Scientific assessments have clarified 1.5℃ warming is a key threshold for the survival of vulnerable Pacific Island states and the ecosystems they depend on, such as coral reefs.
Warming above 1.5℃ threatens Pacific Island states and their coral reefs. Image: Shutterstock/The Conversation
De Brum took a powerful slogan to Paris: “1.5 to stay alive”.
The Glasgow summit is the last chance to keep 1.5℃ of warming within reach. But Australia – almost alone among advanced economies – is taking to Glasgow the same 2030 target it took to Paris six years ago.
This is despite the Paris Agreement requirement that nations ratchet up their emissions-reduction ambition every five years.
Australia is the largest member of the Pacific Islands Forum (an intergovernmental group that aims to promote the interests of countries and territories in the Pacific). But it is also a major fossil fuel producer, putting it at odds with other Pacific countries on climate.
When Australia announced its 2030 target, De Brum said if the rest of the world followed suit:
the Great Barrier Reef would disappear […] so would the Marshall Islands and other vulnerable nations.
Influence at Glasgow
So what can we expect from Pacific leaders at the Glasgow summit? The signs so far suggest they will demand COP26 deliver an outcome to once and for all limit global warming to 1.5℃.
At pre-COP discussions in Milan earlier this month, vulnerable nations proposed countries be required to set new 2030 targets each year until 2025 — a move intended to bring global ambition into alignment with a 1.5℃ pathway.
COP26 president Alok Sharma says he wants the decision text from the summit to include a new agreement to keep 1.5℃ within reach.
This sets the stage for a showdown. Major powers like the US and the EU are set to work with large negotiating blocs, like the High Ambition Coalition, to heap pressure on major emitters that have yet to commit to serious 2030 ambition – including China, India, Saudi Arabia, Mexico and Australia.
The chair of the Pacific Islands Forum, Fiji’s Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama, has warned Pacific island countries “refuse to be the canary in the world’s coal mine”.
by the time leaders come to Glasgow, it has to be with immediate and transformative action […] come with commitments for serious cuts in emissions by 2030 – 50 percent or more. Come with commitments to become net-zero before 2050. Do not come with excuses. That time is past.
Nine of today’s new cases are in Waikato, with the rest in Auckland.
Auckland remains at step 1 of alert level 3, and this will be reviewed on November 1, while parts of Waikato are also at alert level 3, to be reviewed on October 27.
“The delta variant has made it very hard for New Zealand to maintain its elimination strategy — and now we need people to be vaccinated to save lives,” reports the Ministry of Pacific Peoples.
“If you’re still weighing up whether to get vaccinated, check out our Let’s Talanoa video series.”
Open conversations
Aimed at Pacific people under 30, this video series promotes having open conversations about the covid-19 vaccine and why it is safe and important to get vaccinated.
The series is hosted by Dr Lesina Nakhid-Schuster and Rocky Lavea.
This week’s episode is “Know your Vax”, which you can view on our digital channels Facebook, Instagram and YouTube.
Visit here for a list of walk-in and drive-through vaccination locations.
Based on the advice of Professor David Skegg and the Public Health Advisory group, New Zealand’s goal is to minimise and protect.
Like the current alert level system, there will be three settings — green, orange and red — and it is designed to manage outbreaks and cases.
Senior EMTV journalist and bureau chief Scott Waide in Papua New Guinea’s second city Lae this week called time on his inspirational 25-year relationship with the television channel. He is taking on other challenges, like Lekmak, and this was his social media message of thanks to supporters.
I didn’t quite realise how many people I touched positively through this work. It has been an emotional week talking to and encouraging, especially younger staff in Lae, Port Moresby, and the outer bureaus.
This transition has been harder on them. Personal messages have been overwhelming. They’ve come both from people I know and total strangers.
It has been a 25-year association with EMTV. Even with short absences, the relationship has always been there.
However, after two and a half decades and a third stint lasting almost 10 years, my contract has ended and I have decided to move on.
There have been a lot of questions and suggestions that I will or should contest in 2022.
The answer is NO. I have no interest in politics.
One of my primary goals was to give young people the opportunity to excel and to guide them as much as possible so that a new generation of journalists take on the challenges.
Creating opportunities
I spent a lot of time between Unitech and Divine Word University (DWU) talking to as many students as possible and creating opportunities – opportunities many of us didn’t have back then.
We live in two worlds – one, urban and convenient and the other rural and difficult where men women and children die every day.
There’s still a lot of work to be done. My hope is to see younger people go out to rural PNG and tell our people’s stories. Because if we don’t, they will only see government presence during election time and continue to suffer.
We must celebrate the good in our country. We must celebrate our people, culture and our way of life. We must appreciate our knowledge keepers, our elders and our children.
Papua New Guinea is a great country with huge opportunities.
For EMTV, it is a Papua New Guinean institution. It is a custodian of nearly 40 years of history. It is not just a cash cow for shareholders.
My appeal to the government is to care for this institution by choosing good people for the board and good organisational heads that understand this country and care about it.
Good leadership vital
Without good leadership, staff will suffer, good people will leave and the institution will be destroyed.
I want to thank my wife — Annette — and my children. They sacrificed and suffered a lot because I was absent when I was needed most.
While the job, from the outside, looked glamorous. It wasn’t. It takes an incredibly strong woman to live through the challenges.
I owe an enormous amount of gratitude to my brothers and sisters and my parents for their understanding.
Thank you to John Eggins, Sincha Dimara, Titi Gabi, Father Zdzislaw Mlak, Father Jan Czuba, Tukaha Mua and Bhanu Sud who gave me the opportunities. If it weren’t for these seven people, a lot of us would not have come this far.
Phyonna Silikara Gangloff is a champion Papua New Guinean squash player.
Fit and healthy, the 37-year-old mother of two lived a normal life until 14 days ago.
She was one of those who was vocal against the covid-19 vaccine and admits that she successfully convinced a lot of people in the second-largest city of Lae and family around PNG not to get vaccinated.
In 14 days she has gone from a strong anti-vaccine campaigner to a vaccine advocate.
The National Control Centre was made aware of her ordeal and her campaign for PNG people to get vaccinated this week.
It was reported that she felt unwell and went for a medical check that turned her life upside down upon discovering that she was covid-19 positive.
Fighting for her life
Now fighting for her life, she released a video of her struggle.
“It’s day 14, I am still here.
“The hardest thing is I am struggling to breathe.
“Before it gets you, go get vaccinated,” the strong advocate against covid-19 said after contracting the virus.
Her appeals come as authorities step up the call for Papua New Guineans to get vaccinated against covid-19 before the disease collapses the entire health system, killing more people.
Medical doctors yesterday urged people to ignore the myths and lies surrounding the vaccines and get the shots, to not only protect their lives but also to arrest the escalating situation that is placing a huge stress on the country’s health system.
“We now have a surge in the covid-19 Delta variant in our community,” said Dr Arnold Waine, who runs his own private practice.
Hospital admissions 75pc positive
“Daily admissions to Port Moresby General Hospital average 75 percent new admissions with positive covid-19.
“Most of the admissions are those who have not got their vaccines,” he said.
Dr Waine joined other medical experts to say there was no treatment for covid-19 right now, despite few scientific advances, leaving Port Moresby General Hospital and the rest in the country with no standard treatment protocol.
They said what was being done at present throughout the country was “still in experimental stages” and individual choices of treatment and regimes were anecdotal and could not be prescribed for every patient.
“Vaccine helps stop severity and chances of admission into hospital,” Dr Waine said.
“We encourage people to get vaccinated so our hospitals are not exhausted and transmission is lower in our community.”
For a country with more than eight million people, only 61,221 people have been fully vaccinated.
These include 4085 health workers, 21,157 people above 45 years and 814 with morbidity.
These are out of the 133,741 people who have gone in for their first dose.
Three covid vaccines allowed
There were three covid-19 vaccines that were allowed by government to be used in the country –– AstraZeneca, Pfizer and Sinopharm.
Currently, PNG is using Sinopharm and AstraZeneca. Both are provided free of charge at the hospital entrance and the public and staff are expected to access these and get vaccinated.
A third vaccine, Johnson & Johnson, setup is coming soon.
“So we will have three sites for free vaccinations,” a medical doctor at Port Moresby General Hospital pointed out.
Most vaccines commonly used around the world exceeded expectations, with efficacy rates as high as 95 per cent, according to studies on the effectiveness of the vaccines.
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation last month quoted a paper published by the US national health agency which looked at how much protection against hospital admissions the vaccines provided.
It found that 14 days after a second doze of AstraZeneca, the vaccine was on average 67 percent effective against hospital admission and death.
WHO efficacy studies
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), studies on the efficacy rate of Sinopharm after the second doses show hospitalisation was 79 percent.
WHO reported that for AstraZeneca vaccine, the efficacy rate was 63.09 per cent against symptomatic covid-19 infection and longer doses interval within 12 weeks range achieve greater efficacy.
The studies also show that covid-19 vaccines did not cause anyone to be magnetic, nor covid-19 vaccine change or interact with a person’s DNA.
“We have the vaccines but are not protecting anybody because we are not vaccinating our people.
“We have to do that to protect our people and also restore some of the freedoms that are being taken away as a result of the restrictions,” the source at Port Moresby General Hospital summed up nicely.
The interim president of the United Liberation Movement of West Papua (ULMWP) has accused Indonesia of holding its 20th National Games “on the bones of my people”.
“While we mourn for three years of Indonesian military operations, these games are a dance on top of our graves, on top of our suffering, on top of our cries,” Benny Wenda said today in a statement.
“I call on my people to ignore these games and focus on liberating us from this tyranny.”
The two-week Papuan Games (PON XX), centred mainly on the new Lukas Enembe Stadium complex in Jayapura, were opened on Saturday by President Joko Widodo.
Wenda said that the ULMWP had gathered new information that in the past three years at least 26 local West Papuan political figures and 20 intellectual and religious leaders had died in suspicious circumstances after speaking out about human rights and injustice.
“Some of them were official heads of their local districts, others were prominent church people,” said Wenda in the statement.
“Many turned up dead in hotel rooms after unexplained heart attacks, usually with no forensic evidence available.
‘Systematic killing’
“This is systematic killing, part of Jakarta’s plan to wipe out all resistance to its rule in West Papua.
“These deaths have occurred at the same time that Indonesia has sent more than 20,000 new troops into West Papua. They are killing us because we are different, because we are Black.”
Wenda said that while President Widodo visited “my land like a tourist”, more than 50,000 people had been internally displaced by Indonesian military operations in Nduga, Intan Jaya, Puncak and Sorong since December 2018.
The Lukas Enembe Stadium and the Papuan National Games complex. Image: Tribun News
“High school children and elders were recently arrested and blindfolded like animals in Maybrat. The PON XX is a PR exercise by the Indonesian government to cover up the evidence of mass killings,” Wenda said.
“Any use of the Morning Star flag, or even its colours, has been totally banned during the games. One Papuan Catholic preacher was arrested for wearing a Morning Star [independence] flag t-shirt during a football match.
“Our Papuan rowing team was banned from the games for wearing red, white and blue, the colours of our flag.
Papuan Games a ‘PR stunt’
“Indonesia continues to hold this PR stunt even while Vanuatu and PNG call for a UN visit to West Papua in line with the call of the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) and the Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States.”
Indonesian President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, who officially inaugurated the National Games last Saturday, buys nokens – traditional Papuan woven bags – from a craftswoman in Jayapura. Image: President Widodo’s FB page
Wenda said there was no reason Indonesia could not allow the visit of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to take place.
He asked that if Indonesia wanted to use the covid-19 crisis as an excuse to stop the visit, why was the Jakarta government sending tens of thousands of troops into West Papua.
“Why are they holding the National Games in the middle of military operations and a pandemic?” Wenda asked.
“President Widodo, do not ignore my call to find the peaceful solution that is good for your people and my people.”
The ULMWP repeated its call to “sit down to arrange a peaceful referendum, to uphold the principle of self-determination enshrined by the international community”, Wenda said.
“You cannot pretend that nothing is happening in West Papua. The world is beginning to watch.”
A Frontline investigative journalism article on the politics behind the decade-long Bougainville war leading up to the overwhelming vote for independence is among articles in the latest Pacific Journalism Review.
The report, by investigative journalist and former academic Professor Wendy Bacon and Nicole Gooch, poses questions about the “silence” in Australia over the controversial Bougainville documentary Ophir that has won several international film awards in other countries.
Published this week, the journal also features a ground-breaking research special report by academics Shailendra Singh and Folker Hanusch on the current state of journalism across the Pacific – the first such region-wide study in almost three decades.
The cover of the latest Pacific Journalism Review. Image: PJR
Griffith University’s journalism coordinator Kasun Ubayasiri has produced a stunning photo essay, “Manus to Meanjin”, critiquing Australian “imperialist” policies and the plight of refugees in the Pacific.
The main theme of the double edition focuses on a series of articles and commentaries about the major “Pacific crises” — covid-19, climate emergency (including New Zealand aid) and West Papua.
Unthemed topics include journalism and democracy, the journalists’ global digital toolbox, cellphones and Pacific communication, a PNG local community mediascape, and hate speech in Indonesia.
This is the first edition of PJR published since it became independent of AUT University last year after previously being published at the University of Papua New Guinea – where it was launched in 1994 – and the University of the South Pacific.
Lockdowns challenge
“Publishing our current double edition in the face of continued covid-driven lockdowns and restrictions around the world has not been easy, but we made it,” says editor Dr Philip Cass.
“From films to photoessays, from digital democracy to dingoes and disease, the multi-disciplinary, multi-national diversity of our coverage remains a strength in an age when too many journals look the same and have the same type of content.”
“We promise this journal will have a strong focus on Asian media, communication and journalism, as well as our normal focus on the Pacific.”
Founding editor Dr David Robie is quoted in the editorial as saying the journal is at a “critical crossroads for the future” and he contrasts PJR with the “oppressively bland” nature of many journalism publications.
“I believe we have a distinctively different sort of journalism and communication research journal – eclectic and refreshing,” he said.
In imperial and colonial contexts, dominant groups express their power in three ways: colonisation of the bodies of the minority groups (slavery and labour exploitation); colonisation of territories and natural resources; and colonisation of the mind (colonised peoples internalising the values of the dominant power).(1)
All three ways of exerting power were forced upon the population of Mā’ohi Nui from the beginning.
A French protectorate was enforced over the Mā’ohi Nui people by military occupation, imposed over the Mā’ohi Nui territories via a 30-year French nuclear testing programme, and imposed on the minds of local indigenous people through a political system called Autonomie Interne (Internal Autonomy) — a system that has shown its limitations and now seems to be on a ventilator.
The covid-19 pandemic that hit the world nearly 2 years ago has become a Trojan horse for the French state to physically colonise and occupy Mā’ohi Nui further.
The arrival of the pandemic in Mā’ohi Nui was attributed to a Tahitian lawmaker coming back from Paris in March 2020, and our first deceased were an elderly Tahitian couple in September 2020.
Borders were not completely closed. Exchanges of people, goods, and services continued between Mā’ohi Nui islands and between the island groups and people travelling from international destinations.
Travel continued even if it was somewhat reduced in a piecemeal programme led by local Mā’ohi Nui government authorities that included partial confinement.
Pape’ete marketplace
The decision to keep the popular marketplace in Pape’ete open during week days but closed on Sunday is one example of the local government’s mismanagement of the crisis — the virus does not take time off.
Allowing people to attend religious services is to think, naively, that worshippers will religiously follow the distancing instructions.
Going back to my last article for Asia Pacific Report about the impact of covid 19 on the Mā’ohi Nui population, on 13 August 2021, the number of death and patients in ICU (Intensive Care unit) were respectively 176 and 26.
The month of August was the deadliest for the populations of Mā’ohi Nui with 513 deaths and 59 patients in ICU with the hospital struggling to cope with the sheer volume of patients.
This tells us that 337 Mā’ohi people died in a single month.
Those figures are unacceptable for a population that is geographically isolated and should have been better protected and impervious to any types of pandemic. Sadly, the bar of 600 deaths was passed recently.
Ma’ohi Nui covid summary as at 28 September 2021. Graphic: The Pacific Newsroom from official Tahitian statistics
PPE provision
What did the French state and the local government do to halt the surge of the pandemic?
Vaccinations and Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) were provided to the population, but heavy equipment such as ventilators were sadly lacking at the main hospital.
However, in the middle of the pandemic in July, President Emmanuel Macron came for a presidential visit to Mā’ohi Nui with about 250 of his own staff.
Macron wanted to show support for the appalling local health situation, but it is hard not to believe that the looming presidential election in 2022 did not influence his visit.
While demonstrations and gatherings were prohibited as part of the means to both curb the virus spread and silence the gathering of Mā’ohi Nui independence demonstrators, the Tahiti-Fa’aa airport tarmac was busy welcoming Macron — with the local President Édouard Fritch leading the welcoming committee.
Covid-19 social distancing protocols were ignored during Macron’s 5-day visit in Tahiti and on the other islands where he mingled with the crowd.
Before the arrival of President Macron, the pro-French local government found enough time to call a parliamentary session to push through the change of the local name of the main hospital Ta’aone to that of former French president Jacques Chirac.
Self-congratulatory speech Although the privilege to change names of buildings is one held by the local government, it begs the question whether this decision to rename the building was done for political expedience to please Macron who visited the hospital.
He gave a self-congratulatory speech about France coming to the rescue of Mā’ohi Nui while encouraging the populations to get vaccinated.
The work of the local Mā’ohi Nui government and Macron illustrate how an implicit colonisation process works, and is a remarkable illustration of a history of subjection of the Mā’ohi Nui people to external forces.
Similarly, the behaviour of both the local Mā’ohi Nui government and Macron here cast illumination upon the dispossession of Mā’ohi Nui people’s cultural agency and authority.
In many instances, the indigenous names are disregarded and replaced by the names of colonisers with the support of the local government.
The complacency and complicity of members of the local government with the French state regarding covid-19 restrictions has resulted in a kind of 2-tier justice system where those close to the colonial power seemed to enjoy prolonged freedom from judiciary prosecutions — or hope to be exempt from them.
By contrast, the rest of the Mā’ohi population are fined on the spot for not adhering to legal directives.
Stark disparity
An invasion under the guise of humanitarian assistance for the Mā’ohi Nui population.
There was a stark disparity that was noticed by the media and the population in Tahiti between the way emergency measures were applied in Mā’ohi Nui and Aotearoa.
The New Caledonian government has been very decisive in handling the delta variant that has already killed 33 people.
Could it be that those drastic and stricter decisions imposed by the French High Commissioner (in charge of security) were to protect the 24 percent of the New Caledonian population who are French?
The hecatomb
New Caledonia has seen the Polynesian scenario in Ma’ohi Nui and they call it a hecatomb — a public sacrifice.
It was only when the number of deaths reached around 500 that a state of emergency was declared in Mā’ohi Nui — with a catastrophic death rate averaging 11 deaths a day especially during the month of August.
Only on the promise made by the French Minister of Foreign Affairs did we start seeing the arrival of a contingent of French health experts (nurses, doctors and firemen) numbering nearly 300 two weeks ago.
Did we need to get to that degree of desperation before we activated the emergency measures with that many French nationals arriving in Mā’ohi Nui? It might be good to remind ourselves that only 8 percent of the population are French and over 85 percent of the dead are unvaccinated Mā’ohi people.
It is easy to see how the handling of the security and health of the Mā’ohi nation was unjust and scandalous from the very start while New Caledonia pulled out all the stops to cater for the safety of its population — two very different justice systems.
Another important consequence of the hospitals being overwhelmed by the number of cases and deaths was the ban by the health authorities preventing families from holding a vigil besides their own dead.
This ban pressured families into not declaring that they might have other family members contaminated with covid-19 to hospital authorities.
Being able to say their last goodbyes was more important for the bereaved families.
While the official figures of those who died at hospital are recorded, the number of those who died at home remains unknown.
It is a sad state of affairs to witness such a disparity in the treatment of the indigenous peoples by the colonial authorities which call for justice and can only fuel support for independence among the Mā’ohi Nui people.
Ena Manuireva, born in Mangareva (Gambier islands) in Mā’ohi Nui (French Polynesia), is a language revitalisation researcher at Auckland University of Technology and is currently completing his doctorate on the Mangarevan language. He is also a campaigner for nuclear reparations justice from France over the 193 tests staged in Polynesia over three decades.
Note:
1. Philipson, Robert (2012). From British empire to corporate empire. Sociolinguistic Studies 5(3). Retrieved from DOI: 10.1558/sols.v5i3.441
What remains interesting in this case is an open finding in a coronial inquest several years ago, which did not rule out an act of piracy in its conclusion.
Last Friday, hundreds of angry protesters marched in the town of Buka, raising their voices against piracy and venting their anger against the new Autonomous Region of Bougainville for failing to take action against sea pirates.
They, just like every other Papua New Guinean, have every right to know how their loved ones have vanished without a trace while travelling along the shores or out in the open oceans.
In recent years in East New Britain, sea pirates caught by police were prosecuted and sentenced to death.
In the Gulf of Papua, travellers from Gulf and Western fall victim to sea and river pirates.
Along the Northern Province waters and Milne Bay waters, sea piracy is becoming a common law and order issue. In the last two years, wanted criminal Tommy Baker led a string of piracy attacks.
He is still on the run.
Papua New Guinea has a vast coastline and many islands.
In fact, our coastline is said to be 5,152 km (3,201 miles) long. And out in the open seas, there are many big islands and even more smaller islands, many uninhabited.
Policing the vast coastline and the islands is nonexistent.
Once in a while, we hear of piracy, boats shot up, people robbed, women kidnapped and sexually abused, children subjected to trauma.
Some victims are never to be heard of or seen again.
In the absence of anything resembling a coast guard, the government needs to have a policy on this that works for public confidence, public protection and interest.
The NMSA needs to seriously consider this as a national threat to the safety of our travelling public who use small craft and smalls ships for movement of passengers and cargo.
Police boats given to maritime provinces are virtually useless given that they are hardly used on anti-piracy patrols due to lack of funding.
Boat travellers and seagoing ships are tired of this. Incidences of piracy are now being reported on our country’s big rivers and waterways. This is adding to the fear our people face.
Some years ago, the NMSA made it compulsory for small boats to be registered, and owners to provide emergency equipment on their craft.
This law is not effective, just as taxi meters for taxi operators is non operable on land.
In this age of rocket science, internet and robots, and drones, finding missing boats or hijacked craft using GPS, should be made mandatory and the costs passed onto dinghy manufacturers to include Emergency Position Indicator Radio Beacon on their products.
Frankly, we have had enough of piracy on the high seas and on our rivers.
This editorial was published by the PNG Post-Courier today, 29 September 2021.
The uncertainty is troubling. If elimination fails or is abandoned, it would suggest we have not learnt the lessons of history, particularly when it comes to our more vulnerable populations.
In 1918, the mortality rate among Māori from the influenza pandemic was eight times that of Europeans. The avoidable introduction of influenza to Samoa from Aotearoa resulted in the deaths of about 22 percent of the population.
Similar observations were seen in subsequent influenza outbreaks in Aotearoa in 1957 and 2009 for both Māori and Pasifika people. These trends are well known and documented.
And yet, despite concerns we could see the same thing happen again, there have been repeated claims that an elimination strategy cannot succeed. Some business owners, politicians and media commentators have called for a change in approach that would see Aotearoa “learn to live with the virus”.
This is premature and likely to expose vulnerable members of our communities to the disease. Abandoning the elimination strategy while vaccine coverage rates remain low among the most vulnerable people would be reckless and irresponsible.
In short, more Māori and Pasifika people would die.
Far better will be to stick to the original plan that has served the country well, lift vaccination coverage rates with more urgency, and revise the strategy when vaccination rates among Māori and Pasifika people are as high as possible — no less than 90 percent.
Least worst options After 18 months of dealing with the pandemic, it’s important to remember that Aotearoa’s response has been based on sound science and strong political leadership. The elimination strategy has proved effective at home and been admired internationally.
Of course, it has come with a price. In particular, the restrictions have had a major impact on small businesses and personal incomes, student life and learning, and well-being in general.
Many families have needed additional food parcels and social support, and there are reports of an increasing incidence of family harm.
The latest delta outbreak has also seen the longest level 4 lockdown in Auckland, with at least two further weeks at level 3, and there is no doubt many people are struggling to cope with the restrictions. The “long tail” of infections will test everyone further.
There is no easy way to protect the most vulnerable people from the life-threatening risk of covid-19, and the likely impact on the public health system if it were to get out of control. The alternative, however, is worse.
We know Māori and Pasifika people are most at risk of infection from covid-19, of being hospitalised and of dying from the disease.
Various studies have confirmed this, but we also must acknowledge why — entrenched socioeconomic disadvantage, overcrowded housing and higher prevalence of underlying health conditions.
More than 50 percent of all new cases in the current outbreak are among Pasifika people and the number of new cases among Māori is increasing. If and when the pandemic is over, the implications of these socioeconomic factors must be part of any review of the pandemic strategy.
Lowest vaccination rates, highest risk Furthermore, the national vaccination rollout has again shown up the chronic entrenched inequities in the health system. While the rollout is finally gaining momentum, with more and better options offered by and for Māori and Pasifika people, their comparative vaccination rates have lagged significantly.
Community leaders and health professionals have long called for Māori and Pasifika vaccination to be prioritised. But the official rhetoric has not been matched by the reality, as evidenced by our most at-risk communities still having the lowest vaccination coverage rates in the country.
Te Rōpū Whakakaupapa Urutā (the National Māori Pandemic Group) and the Pasifika Medical Association have repeatedly called for their communities to be empowered and resourced to own, lead and deliver vaccination rollouts in ways that work for their communities. Te Rōpū Whakakaupapa Urutā have also said Auckland should have remained at level 4, with the border extended to include the areas of concern in the Waikato.
As has been pointed out by those closest to those communities, however, their advice has consistently not been heeded. The resulting delays only risk increasing the need for the kinds of lockdowns and restrictions everyone must endure until vaccination rates are higher.
There is a reason we do not hear many voices in Māori and Pasifika communities asking for an end to elimination. Left unchecked, covid-19 disproportionately affects minority communities and the most vulnerable.
“Living with the virus” effectively means some people dying with it. We know who many of them would be.
not mine 
