In his address to Papua New Guinea, the Sovereign Head of the Vatican and the Head of the Catholic Church, Pope Francis, called for an end to ethnic violence in Papua New Guinea.
Pope Francis arrived in Papua New Guinea a month after the brutal killings in East Sepik Province where men, women and children were mercilessly killed.
This happened at the backdrop of continued tribal conflicts in parts of the Highlands Region where in February an ambush resulted in mass killings in Enga Province. Isolated incidents of ethnic clashes have happened in cities and towns.
Highlighting these issues that continues to plague rural Papua New Guinea, Pope Francis called for individuals and groups to take responsibility in stopping the spread of violence.
“It is my hope that tribal violence will come to an end, for it causes many victims, prevents people from living in peace and hinders development,” Pope Francis said.
“I appeal, therefore, to everyone’s sense of responsibility to stop the spiral of violence and instead resolutely embark on the path that leads to fruitful cooperation for the benefit of all the people of the country.”
The Pope went on to challenge the Catholic faithful to follow the Gospel of Jesus, and preach the good news of peace hope and love.
Faith can be ‘lived culture’
“For all those who profess to be Christians — the vast majority of your people — I fervently hope that faith will never be reduced just to the observance of rituals and precepts.
“May it be marked instead by love of Jesus Christ and following him as a disciple.
“In this way, faith can become a lived culture, inspiring minds and actions and becoming a beacon of light that illuminates the path forward.
“At the same time, faith can also help society to grow and find good and effective solutions to its greatest challenges,” Pope Francis said.
Inside PNG reports that Papua New Guinea is blessed with an abundance of natural resources, a proclamation even Pope Francis acknowledges.
But Papua New Guinea is also challenged with socio-economic developments that do not reach the rural majority despite the presence of numerous extractive industries.
The Pontiff in his remarks at the APEC Haus said Papua New Guinea besides consisting of islands and languages, was also rich in natural resources.
“These goods are destined by God for the entire community.
Needs of local people a priority
“Even if outside experts and large international companies must be involved in the harnessing of these resources, it is only right that the needs of local people are given due consideration when distributing the proceeds and employing workers, to improve their living conditions.
“These environmental and cultural treasures represent at the same time a great responsibility, because they require everyone, civil authorities and all citizens, to promote initiatives that develop natural and human resources in a sustainable and equitable manner,” said Pope Francis.
Governor-General Sir Bob Dadae, in acknowledging the work of the Catholic Church in the country, also requested the Pope in his capacity as a world leader to help advocate on climate change and its impacts that was being felt by island nations like PNG.
“Climate change is real and is affecting the lives of our people in the remote islands of Papua New Guinea.
“Across the Pacific, islands are sinking and are affected and displaced.
“We seek your prayers and support for global action and advocacy on climate change, we need to let the world know that there is no more time.
“What the world needs is commitment for action,” Sir Bob said.
Australia and Indonesia have struck a new security pact that will lead to more joint military exercises and visits, prompting human rights advocates to call for safeguards.
The Australian prime minister, Anthony Albanese, told the Indonesian defence minister and president-elect, Prabowo Subianto, in Canberra on Tuesday that there was “no more important relationship than the one between our two great nations”.
Australia and Indonesia have struck a new security pact that will lead to more joint military exercises and visits, prompting human rights advocates to call for safeguards.
The Australian prime minister, Anthony Albanese, told the Indonesian defence minister and president-elect, Prabowo Subianto, in Canberra on Tuesday that there was “no more important relationship than the one between our two great nations”.
Fiji’s Prime Minister, Sitiveni Rabuka, says he will “apologise” to fellow Melanesian leaders later this month after failing to secure agreement from Indonesia to visit its restive West Papua province.
At last year’s Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) leaders meeting in Cook Islands, the Melanesian Spearhead Group appointed Rabuka and PNG Prime Minister James Marape as the region’s “special envoys” on West Papua.
Several Pacific officials and advocacy groups have expressed anguish over alleged human rights abuses committed by Indonesian forces in West Papua, where an indigenous pro-independence struggle has simmered for decades.
Rabuka and Marape have been trying to organise a visit to West Papua for more than nine months now.
But in an exclusive interview with the ABC’s Pacific Beat, Rabuka said conversations on the trip were still “ongoing” and blamed Indonesia’s presidential elections in February for the delay.
“Unfortunately, we couldn’t go . . . Indonesia was going through elections. In two months’ time, they will have a new substantive president in place in the palace. Hopefully we can still move forward with that,” he said.
“But in the meantime, James Marape and I will have to apologise to our Melanesian counterparts on the side of the Forum Island leaders meeting in Tonga, and say we have not been able to go on that mission.”
Pacific pressing for independent visit
Pacific nations have been pressing Indonesia to allow representatives from the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to conduct an independent visit to Papua.
A UN Human Rights committee report released in May found there were “systematic reports” of both torture and extrajudicial killings of indigenous Papuans in the province.
But Indonesia usually rejects any criticism of its human rights record in West Papua, saying events in the province are a purely internal affair.
West Papua Resistance Leader, Victor Weimo: I must thank the colonialists for continuously teaching us to aspire to true humanity by means of rebellion. pic.twitter.com/h9n4rN9yyN
Rabuka said he was “still committed” to the visit and would like to make the trip after incoming Indonesian president Prabowo Subianto takes power in October.
The Fiji prime minister made the comments ahead of a 10-day trip to China, with Rabuka saying he would travel to a number of Chinese provinces to see how the emerging great power had pulled millions of people out of poverty.
He praised Beijing’s development record, but also indicated Fiji would not turn to China for loans or budget support.
“As we take our governments and peoples forward, the people themselves must understand that we cannot borrow to become embroiled in debt servicing later on,” he said.
“People must understand that we can only live within our means, and our means are determined by our own productivity, our own GDP.”
Rabuka is expected to meet Chinese president Xi Jinping in Beijing towards the end of his trip, at the beginning of next week.
Delegation to visit New Caledonia After his trip to China, the prime minister will take part in a high level Pacific delegation to Kanaky New Caledonia, which was rocked by widespread rioting and violence earlier this year.
While several Pacific nations have been pressing France to make fresh commitments towards decolonisation in the wake of a contentious final vote on independence back in 2021, Rabuka said the Pacific wanted to help different political groups within the territory to find common ground.
“We will just have to convince the leaders, the local group leaders that rebuilding is very difficult after a spate of violent activities and events,” he said.
Rabuka gave strong backing to a plan to overhaul Pacific policing which Australia has been pushing hard ahead of the PIF leaders meeting in Tonga at the end of this month.
Senior Solomon Islands official Collin Beck took to social media last week to publicly criticise the initiative, suggesting that its backers were trying to “steamroll” any opposition at Pacific regional meetings.
Rabuka said the social media post was “unfortunate” and suggested that Solomon Islands or other Pacific nations could simply opt out of the initiative if they didn’t approve of it.
“When it comes to sovereignty, it is a sovereign state that makes the decision,” he said.
Republished with permission from ABC Pacific Beat.
This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.
People accused under Papua New Guinea’s Cybercrime Code Act may not always find free speech protection offered by the Constitution.
In a landmark decision, the Supreme Court has ruled that this law does not contravene the provisions of Section 46 which provides for freedom of expression.
The decision is a serious warning to offending users of social media and the internet that they might find themselves with fines of up to K1 million (NZ$430,000), or jail terms of between 15 and 25 years.
A Supreme Court panel comprising Chief Justice Sir Gibbs Salika and Justices Les Gavara-Nanu, David Cannings, Kingsley Allen David and Derek Hartshorn made this determination in Waigani on Friday.
The constitutional reference was made by National Court judge Teresa Berrigan during the trial of Kila Aoneka Wari, who was charged with criminal defamation under section 21 (2) of the Cybercrime Code Act 2016.
Judge Berrigan then referred for Supreme Court interpretation on whether Section 21 contravened the Freedom of Expression provision of the National Constitution.
Reading the judgment on behalf of his fellow judges, Sir Gibbs said: “We (Supreme Court) consider there is a clear and present danger to public safety, public order and public welfare if publication of defamatory material by use of electronic systems or devices were allowed to be made without restriction, including by criminal sanction.”
Sir Gibbs said the court had determined that the regulation and restriction of the exercises of the right to freedom of expression imposed by section 21 (2) of the Cybercrime Code is “reasonably justifiable in a democratic society having a proper respect for the rights and dignity of mankind.”
‘Necessary’ for public safety
Sir Gibbs said the court was satisfied that the first, second and third interveners had discharged the burden in showing that section 21 (2) of the Cybercrime Code complied with the three requirements of section 38 (1) of the Constitution in that:
FIRST, it has been made and certified in accordance with section 38 (2) of the Constitution.
SECONDLY, it restricts the exercise of the right to freedom and expression and publication that is “necessary” for the purpose of giving effect to the public interest in public safety, public order and public welfare; and
THIRDLY, it is a law that is reasonably justifiable in a democratic society having a proper respect to the rights and dignity of mankind.
“We conclude that no, section 21 (2) of the Cybercrime Code Act is not invalid. Although it (Cybercrime Code Act) restricts the exercise of the right to freedom of expression and publication in section 46 of the Constitution it is a law that complies with Section 38 of the Constitution and the restriction it imposes is permissible under section 46 (1) (C) of the Constitution.
The questions that Justice Berrigan referred to the Supreme Court were:
DOES section 21(2) of the cybercrime Code Act regulate or restrict the right of freedom of expression and publication under section 46 of the Constitution?
IF yes to question 1, does section 21 (2) of the Cybercrime Code Act comply with section 38 of the Constitution?
IS section 21(20 of the Cybercrime Code Act) invalid for being inconsistent with section 46 of the Constitution?
The court answered yes to questions and one and two and answered no to question three.
The court also ordered that each intervener will bear their own costs.
Wari is the fourth intervener in the proceedings.
Others are Attorney-General Pila Niningi (first intervener), acting public prosecutor Raphael Luman (second intervener), Public Solicitor Leslie Mamu (third intervener).
Section 21(2) of the Cybercrime Code Act is the law on defamatory publication.
It makes any defamatory publication using any electronic device as an offence with a penalty of K25,000 to K1 million fine, or imprisonment not exceeding 15 to 25 years.
Boura Goru Kila is a reporter for PNG’s The National. Republished with permission.
Pacific Journalism Review (PJR) began life three decades ago in Papua New Guinea and recently celebrated a remarkable milestone in Fiji with its 30th anniversary edition and its 47th issue.
Remarkable because it is the longest surviving Antipodean media, journalism and development journal published in the Global South. It is also remarkable because at its birthday event held in early July at the Pacific International Media Conference, no fewer than two cabinet ministers were present — from Fiji and Papua New Guinea — in spite of the journal’s long track record of truth-to-power criticism.
Fiji’s Deputy Prime Minister Biman Prasad, a former economics professor at The University of the South Pacific (USP) and a champion of free media, singled out the journal for praise at the event, which was also the occasion of the launch of a landmark new book. As co-editor of Waves of Change: Media, Peace, and Development in the Pacific with Shailendra Singh and Amit Sarwal, Prasad says the book aimed to analyse recent developments in the Pacific because if sustainable peace and stability remain elusive in the region then long-term development is impeded.
Papua New Guinea’s Information and Communication Technologies Minister Timothy Masiu, who has faced criticism over a controversial draft media policy (now in its fifth version), joined the discussion, expressing concerns about geopolitical agendas impacting on the media and arguing in favour of “a way forward for a truly independent and authentic Pacific media”.
Since its establishment in 1994, the PJR has been far more than a research journal. As an independent publication, it has given strong support to Asia-Pacific investigative journalism, socio-political journalism, political-economy perspectives on the media, photojournalism and political cartooning in its three decades of publication. Its ethos declared:
While one objective of Pacific Journalism Review is research into Pacific journalism theory and practice, the journal has also expanding its interest into new areas of research and inquiry that reflect the broader impact of contemporary media practice and education.
A particular focus is on the cultural politics of the media, including the following issues: new media and social movements, indigenous cultures in the age of globalisation, the politics of tourism and development, the role of the media and the formation of national identity and the cultural influence of Aotearoa New Zealand as a branch of the global economy within the Pacific region.
It also has a special interest in climate change, environmental and development studies in the media and communication and vernacular media in the region.
PJR has also been an advocate of journalism practice-as-research methodologies and strategies, as demonstrated especially in its Frontline section, initiated by one of the mentoring co-editors, former University of Technology Sydney professor and investigative journalist Wendy Bacon, and also developed by retired Monash University Professor Chris Nash. Five of the current editorial board members were at the 30th birthday event: Griffith University’s Professor Mark Pearson; USP’s Associate Professor Shailendra Singh, the conference convenor; Auckland University of Technology’s Khairiah Abdul Rahman; designer Del Abcede; and current editor Dr Philip Cass.
The cover of the 30th anniversary edition of Pacific Journalism Review. Image: PJR
As the founding editor of PJR, I must acknowledge the Australian Journalism Review which is almost double the age of PJR, because this is where I first got the inspiration for establishing the journal. While I was head of journalism at the University of Papua New Guinea in 1993, I was really frustrated at the lack of quality Pacific-specific media and journalism literature and research to draw on as resources for both critical studies and practice-led education.
So I looked longingly at AJR, and also contributed to it. I turned to the London-based Index on Censorship as another publication to emulate. And I thought, why not? We can do that in the Pacific and so I persuaded the University of Papua New Guinea Press to come on board and published the first edition at the derelict campus printer in Waigani in 1994.
We published there until 1998 when PJR moved to USP for five years. Then it was published for 18 years at Auckland University of Technology (AUT), mostly through the Pacific Media Centre, which closed in 2020. Since then it has been published by the nonprofit NGO Asia Pacific Media Network.
When celebrating the 20th anniversary of the journal at AUT in 2014, then AJR editor professor Ian Richards noted the journal’s “dogged perseverance” and contribution to Oceania research declaring:
Today, PJR plays a vital role publishing research from and about this part of the world. This is important for a number of reasons, not least because most academics ground their work in situations with which they are most familiar, and this frequently produces articles which are extremely local. If “local” means London or Paris or New York, then it’s much easier to present your work as “international” than if you live in Port Vila of Pago Pago, Auckland or Adelaide.
Also in 2014, analyst Dr Lee Duffield highlighted the critical role of PJR during the years of military rule and “blatant military censorship” in Fiji, which has eased since the repeal of its draconian Media Industry Development Act in 2023. He remarked:
The same is true of PJR’s agenda-setting in regard to crises elsewhere: jailing of journalists in Tonga, threatened or actual media controls in Tahiti or PNG, bashing of an editor in Vanuatu by a senior government politician, threats also against the media in Solomon Islands, and reporting restrictions in Samoa.
Fiji’s Deputy PM Professor Biman Prasad (sixth from left) and PNG’s Communications Minister Timothy Masiu (third from right) at the launch of the 30th anniversary edition of PJR in Suva, Fiji. Image: Khairiah Rahman/APMN
At the 30th anniversary launch, USP’s Adjunct Professor in development studies and governance Dr Vijay Naidu complimented the journal on the wide range of topics covered by its more than 1,100 research articles. He said the journal had established itself as a critical conscience with respect to Asia-Pacific socio-political and development dilemmas, and looked forward to the journal meeting future challenges.
I outlined many of those future challenges in a recent interview with Global Voices correspondent Mong Palatino. Issues that have become more pressing for the journal include responding to the changing geopolitical realities in the Pacific and collaborating even more creatively and closely on development, the climate crisis, and unresolved decolonisation issues with the region’s journalists, educators and advocates. To address these challenges, the PJR team have been working on an innovative new publishing strategy over the past few months.
View the latest Pacific Journalism Review: Gaza, genocide and media – PJR 30 years on, special double edition. The journal is indexed by global research databases such as Informit and Ebsco, but it is also available via open access for a Pacific audience here.
This article is republished from ANU’s Devpolicy Blog. Dr David Robie is founding editor of Pacific Journalism Review, former director of the Pacific Media Centre, and previously a head of journalism at both the University of Papua New Guinea and the University of the South Pacific.
INVESTIGATIVE REPORT:By Aubrey Belford of the OCCRP
High in the forested mountains of Papua New Guinea’s Bougainville Island lies an abandoned, kilometer-wide crater cut deep into the earth.
Formerly one of the world’s largest gold and copper mines, the open pit now serves as an unsightly monument to the environmental and social chaos that underground riches can create.
Run for years by a subsidiary of Anglo-Australian giant Rio Tinto, the Panguna mine earned millions for Papua New Guinea (PNG) and helped bankroll its newfound independence. But it also poured waste into local waterways and fuelled anger among locals who felt robbed of the profits.
When an armed uprising ultimately shuttered the mine in 1989, the impoverished island was left reeling.
Nearly three decades later, in late 2022, human rights activists, the local government, and the mine’s former operators joined forces to produce a definitive assessment of the mine’s toxic legacy.
Their report, due to be released later this month, will become the basis for negotiations aimed at getting the mining companies to finally clean up the mess and compensate affected communities.
But its supporters now worry their efforts will be undermined by a class-action lawsuit launched in May against the mine’s erstwhile operators. The legal effort is being championed by former rebel leaders — and backed by anonymous offshore investors who stand to make hundreds of millions of dollars if it succeeds.
Worldwide litigation boom
The lawsuit is part of a worldwide boom in litigation financing that seeks to take multinational companies to task for ecological or social damage while potentially reaping a fortune for lawyers and funders.
Critics in Bougainville worry the lawsuit will reopen old wounds at a time when the island is making a push to break free of Papua New Guinea and become the world’s newest sovereign nation. Many Bougainvilleans are hoping to reopen the mine, using its wealth to fund their own independence this time around.
The region’s government and many local leaders believe the class action could put the mine’s revival at risk. There are also concerns the lawsuit would leave many Bougainvilleans empty handed, while the anonymous foreign investors would walk away with a significant share of the payout.
Unlike the official assessment, which seeks to identify everyone who needs to be compensated, the class action will only share its winnings — which could potentially be in the billions of dollars — with the locals who have signed on. Others will get nothing.
“There’s already fragmentation in the community and families are already divided,” said Theonila Roka Matbob, who represents the area around Panguna in the local Parliament and has helped lead the government-backed assessment process as a minister in the Autonomous Bougainville government.
She speaks from personal experience. The chief litigant in the class-action lawsuit, Martin Miriori, is her uncle. The two are no longer on speaking terms.
A losing deal Gouged from Bougainville’s lush volcanic heart, the Panguna mine in its heyday supplied as much as 45 percent of PNG’s export revenue, providing it with the financial means to achieve independence from Australia in 1975.
The windfall, however, did not extend to Bougainvilleans themselves. Ethnically and culturally distinct from the rest of PNG’s population, they saw Panguna as a symbol of external domination.
The mine delivered only a miserly 2-percent share of its profits to their island — along with years of environmental havoc.
Locals walk by buildings left abandoned by a subsidiary of Rio Tinto at the Panguna mine site. Image: OCCRP/Aubrey Belford
During the 17 years of Panguna’s operation — from 1972 to 1989 — over a billion metric tons of toxic mine waste and electric blue copper runoff flooded rivers that flowed downstream towards communities of subsistence farmers. The result was poisoned drinking water, infertile land, and children who were drowned or injured trying to cross engorged waterways.
In 1989, enraged Bougainville locals launched an armed rebellion against the PNG government. The mine was shut down, closing off a vital source of revenue for the national government in Port Moresby.
A brutal civil war raged on for nearly a decade, leaving more than 15,000 people dead, while a naval blockade by PNG’s military obliterated the island’s economy.
A peace deal in 2000 granted Bougainville substantial autonomy. But nearly a quarter-century later, the legacy of Panguna and the war it provoked is still deeply felt.
Few paved roads, bridges
There are few paved roads and bridges in the island’s interior. Residents earn a modest living through cocoa and coconut farming, or by unregulated artisanal mining in and around the abandoned Panguna crater.
Rivers polluted by years of runoff are still an otherworldly shade of milky blue.
At least 300,000 people are estimated to live on Bougainville, including as many as 15,000 who live downstream of the mine. Of those, some 4500 have joined Miriori — Roka’s estranged uncle and a tribal leader whose brother, Joseph Kabui, served as the first president of autonomous Bougainville — in seeking restitution through the class-action suit.
“We’ve got to make people happy,” Miriori said. “They’ve lost their land forever, environment forever. Their hunting grounds. Their spiritual, sacred grounds.”
Martin Miriori, the primary litigant in the class action lawsuit. Image: OCCRP/Aubrey Belford
‘Alert to opportunities’ Miriori took many by surprise when he became the public face of the suit filed in PNG’s National Court in May against Rio Tinto and its former local subsidiary, Bougainville Copper Limited.
While the tribal leader and former rebel is a well-known figure in Bougainville, the funders of the lawsuit are not. They have managed to keep their identities secret in part because the company behind the suit, Panguna Mine Action LLC, is registered on Nevis, a small Caribbean island that does not require companies to publicly disclose their shareholders and directors.
Miriori declined to comment on who was behind the company, saying, “I will not tell you where the funding is based … you can source that from our people down there [in Australia].”
James Sing, an Australian based in New York, is Panguna Mine Action’s chief public representative. He initially agreed to an interview, but later referred reporters back to a London-based public relations agency, Sans Frontières Associates.
The agency declined to reveal Panguna Mine Action’s investors.
Litigation funding documents obtained by OCCRP, however, shed some light on the history of the case. The documents show that Panguna Mine Action began to investigate the possibility of a class-action suit as early as July 2021.
The Bougainvillean claimants, led by Miriori, were formally brought into an agreement with the company and its Australian and PNG lawyers in November 2022. The suit was publicly announced this May.
Handsome profit
The lawsuit’s investors stand to profit handsomely from any eventual settlement: Panguna Mine Action is poised to receive a cut of 20 to 40 percent of any payout resulting from the suit, with the percentage increasing the longer the process takes, the funding documents show.
In interviews and statements, both Miriori and Panguna Mine Action have put the potential value of any award in the billions of dollars.
The lawsuit’s financiers defend their substantial share of the potential benefits as standard practice.
“The costs of launching and running the class action against a global miner are significant, and almost certainly could not be met from within Bougainville without funding from an external party,” the company said in its statement.
Panguna Mine Action added it would bear sole responsibility for costs if the lawsuit is unsuccessful.
According to Michael Russell, a Sydney-based class action defence lawyer, such funding arrangements are typical in the burgeoning world of litigation finance, where investors seek out cases that promote virtuous social causes while offering huge potential payoffs.
A similar case is unfolding in Latin America, where more than 720,000 Brazilians are seeking $46.5 billion as part of a gargantuan class action against mining giant BHP and its local subsidiary for their role in a 2015 dam collapse.
In such cases, funders can justify walking away with significant cuts of any winnings because of the substantial risk they face of losing their investment if a case fails, Russell said.
Such cases were rarely initiated at the grassroots level by the victims themselves, he added.
“Most of the time, either the plaintiff firms or the funders will be the catalyst for a claim,” he said. “They are very alert to opportunities.”
Rival restitution plans
Government officials including Miriori’s niece, Roka, say the class-action case, which is due to hold opening arguments in October, threatens to derail the ongoing impact assessment aimed at calculating the full cost of the mine’s environmental impact and developing recommendations for addressing the damage.
The assessment, which counts community members among its stakeholders and bills itself as an independent review, is supported by Australia’s Human Rights Law Centre, which has hailed the project as “an important step” towards rectifying the mine’s devastating impact on thousands of Bougainvilleans.
However, while Rio Tinto and Bougainville Copper are both funding the project, they have not yet committed to paying for any compensation or cleanup. Roka said she was concerned the lawsuit could reduce the company’s willingness to engage with the process, since it could view the assessment as a tool that could be used against them in the courtroom.
Bougainville President Ishmael Toroama backs the impact assessment and has lambasted the class action suit as the work of “faceless investors . . . taking advantage of vulnerable groups.” (His office did not respond to an interview request.)
He also expressed concern that the court proceedings threaten to “disrupt” his government’s efforts to reopen the mine, which still holds an estimated $60 billion in untapped deposits.
Bougainville’s leaders see the mine as key to securing the island’s economic future as it sets out to form an independent state — a dream that drew overwhelming public support in a 2019 referendum.
Exploration licence
Earlier this year Toroama’s government granted Bougainville Copper a five-year exploration licence for the Panguna site.
The lack of media and polling in Bougainville make it hard to measure public opinion on plans to reactivate the mine, but many locals appear to support reopening it under local control as an essential tool for achieving independence.
Bougainville Copper’s brand is still toxically associated with Rio Tinto and its past abuses, despite the fact that the international mining giant gave away its majority stake for no money in 2016.
The publicly traded company is now majority co-owned by the governments of PNG and Bougainville, and Port Moresby has pledged to hand over all its shares to the autonomous region in the near future.
Panguna Mine Action acknowledges that its effort could stand in the way of the mine’s reopening — but the company says that is a good thing.
“It is our understanding that the people of Bougainville do not wish mining to be recommenced under any circumstances or, alternatively, unless Rio Tinto and Bougainville Copper acknowledge the past, pay compensation and remediate the rivers and surrounding valley,” the company said in a statement.
Rio Tinto declined to comment. Mel Togolo, the chairman of Bougainville Copper, told OCCRP that the lawsuit was the work of “a foreign funder who no doubt is seeking a return on an investment.”
View of the tailings located downstream of the Panguna mine. Image: OCCRP/Aubrey Belford
View of the tailings located downstream of the Panguna mine. Photo: OCCRP / Aubrey Belford
‘Only those who have signed will benefit’ The fight over Panguna adds even more uncertainty to long-running anxiety over Bougainville’s future.
With global copper prices soaring on high demand for renewable energy and electric vehicles, the Panguna mine would be an attractive prize for both Western mining companies and firms from China, which is dramatically expanding its influence in the South Pacific.
Since a future Bougainvillean state would be economically dependent on the mine’s revenue, some have raised concerns that control of the mine could become a proxy battle for geopolitical influence in the broader region.
For his part, Miriori expressed little concern that a multibillion-dollar payout might stir resentment by reaching only a fraction of the people affected by the mine’s environmental destruction.
“Only those who signed will benefit,” he said, adding that the opportunity was made “very clear to people” through awareness campaigns.
“Those who have not signed, it’s their freedom of choice.”
An aerial view of the abandoned Panguna mine pit. Image: OCCRP/Aubrey Belford
Among those who did not sign is Wendy Bowara, 48, who lives in Dapera, a bleak settlement built on a hill of mine waste. Bowara said she is looking to the government-backed assessment, not the lawsuit, to deliver compensation and clean up Panguna’s toxic legacy.
“We are living on top of chemicals,” she said. “Copper concentration is high. I don’t know if the food is good to eat or if it’s healthy to drink the water.”
But while it may seem odd given her grim surroundings, Borawa says she strongly supports reopening the mine.
“It funded the independence of Papua New Guinea,” Bowara said. “Why can’t we use it to fund our own independence?”
Allan Gioni contributed reporting.
Aubrey Belford is the Pacific editor for the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting project (OCCRP). Republished with permission.
The nauseating stench of dried blood hung in the air as we arrived in Karida village, a few kilometers outside of Tari in Papua New Guinea’s Hela province.
Through the landcruiser window, I could see two men carrying a corpse wrapped in blue cloth and a tarpaulin. They were walking towards the hastily dug graveyard.
A longstanding tribal fight by various factions in the Tagali area of the Hela province had triggered this attack. Several armed men came at dawn. The residents, mostly women and children, bore the brunt of the brutality.
The then Provincial Administrator, William Bando, advised us against travelling alone when we arrived in Tari. He requested a section of the PNG Defence Force to take us to Karida where the killings had happened less than 24 hours before.
Two men carrying the corpse, hesitated as we arrived with the soldiers. One of the soldiers ordered the men to disarm. The others who carried weapons fled into the nearby bush.
On the side of the road, the bodies of 15 women and one man lay tightly wrapped in cloth. The older men and women came out to meet the soldiers.
The village chief, Hokoko Minape, distraught by the unimaginable loss, wept beside the vehicle as he tried to explain what had happened.
“This, I have never seen in my life. This is new,” he said in Tok Pisin.
Complexity of tribal conflicts and media attention For an outsider, the roots of tribal conflicts in Papua New Guinea are difficult to understand. There are myriad factors at play, including the province, district, tribe, clan and customs.
But what’s visible is the violence.
The conflicts are usually reported on when large numbers of people are killed. The intense media focus lasts for days . . . maybe a month . . . and then, news priorities shift in the daily grind of local and international coverage.
Some conflicts rage for years and sporadic payback killings continue. It is subtle as it doesn’t attract national attention. It is insidious and cancerous — slowly destroying families and communities. In many instances, police record the one off murders as the result of alcohol related brawls or some other cause.
The tensions simmer just below boiling point. But it affects the education of children and dictates where people congregate and who they associate with.
Although, the villagers at Karida were not directly involved in the fighting, they were accused of providing refuge to people who fled from neighboring villagers. The attackers came looking for the refugees and found women and children instead.
According to a source, military guns are a fairly recent addition to tribal fighting in Papua New Guinea. Image: RNZ
The ‘hire man’ and small arms Over the next few weeks, local community leaders drew attention to the use of “hire men” in the conflicts. They are mercenaries who are paid by warring tribes to fight on their behalf. Their most valued possessions are either assault rifles or shotguns paid for by political and non-political sponsors.
The Deputy Commissioner for Police responsible for specialist operations, Donald Yamasombi, who has personally investigated instances of arms smuggling, said the traditional trade of drugs for guns along the eastern and southern borders of Papua New Guinea is largely a thing of the past.
“People are paying cash for guns. They are bringing in the weapons and then legitimising them through licensing,” Yamasombi said. “The businessmen who fund them actually run legitimate businesses.”
The involvement of political players is a subject many will state only behind closed doors.
In the highlands, the hire men are a recent addition to the complex socio-political ecosystem of tribal and national politics. Political power and money have come to determine how hire men are used during elections. They are tools of intimidation and coercion. The occupation is a lucrative means of money making during what is supposed to be a “free and fair” electoral process.
“Money drives people to fight,” Yamasombi said. “Without the source of money, there would be no incentive. There is incentive to fight.”
Rules of war At the end of elections, the hire men usually end up back in the communities and continue the cycle of violence.
In February, Papua New Guineans on social media watched in horror as the death toll from a tribal clash in Enga province rose from a few dozen to 70 in a space of a few hours as police retrieved bodies from nearby bushes.
The majority of the men killed were members of a tribe who had been ambushed as they staged an attack.
Traditional Engan society is highly structured. The Enga cultural center in the center of Wabag town, the Take Anda, documents the rules of war that dictated the conduct of warriors.
Traditionally, mass killings or killings in general were avoided. The economic cost of reparations were too high, the ongoing conflicts were always hard to manage and were, obviously, detrimental to both parties in the long run.
Engans, who I spoke to on the condition of anonymity, said high powered guns had changed the traditional dynamics.
Chiefs and elders who once commanded power and status were now replaced by younger men with money and the means to buy and own weapons. This has had a direct influence on provincial and national politics as well as traditional governance structures.
A roadblock is set-up in Wabag, the provincial capital of Enga. Image: Paul Kanda/FB/RNZ
Tribal conflicts, not restricted to the Highlands In 2022, a land dispute between two clans on Kiriwina Island, Milne Bay province, escalated into a full on battle in which 30 people were killed.
The unusual level of violence and the use of guns left many Papua New Guineans confused. Milne Bay province, widely known as a peaceful tourism hub, suffered a massive PR hit with embassies issuing travel warnings to their citizens.
In Pindiu, Morobe province, the widespread use of homemade weapons resulted in the deaths of a local peace officer and women and children in a long running conflict in 2015.
The Morobe Provincial Government sent mediators to Pindiu to facilitate peace negotiations. Provincial and national government are usually hesitant to intervene directly in tribal conflicts by arresting the perpetrators of violence.
This is largely due to the government’s inability to maintain security presence in tribal fighting areas for long periods.
Angoram killings Two weeks ago, 26 women and children were killed in yet another attack in Angoram, East Sepik.
Five people have been arrested over the killings. But locals who did not wish to be named said the ring leaders of the gang of 30 are still at large.
Angoram is a classic example of a district that is difficult to police.
The villages are spread out over the vast wetlands of the Sepik River. While additional police from Wewak have been deployed, there is no real guarantee that the men and women who witnessed the violence will be protected if they choose to testify in court.
Will new legislations and policy help? The Enga massacre dominated the February sitting of Parliament. Recent changes were made to gun laws and stricter penalties prescribed. But while legislators have responded, enforcement remains weak.
The killers of the 16 people at Karida remain at large. Many of those responsible for the massacre in Enga have not been arrested even with widely circulated video footage available on social media.
In April, the EU, UN and the PNG government hosted a seminar aimed at formulating a national gun control policy.
The seminar revisited recommendations made by former PNG Defence Force Commander, retired Major-General Jerry Singirok.
One of the recommendations was for the licensing powers of the Police Commissioner as Registrar of Firearms to be taken away and for a mechanism to buy back firearms in the community.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
On a hastily-erected wall in the Marshall Islands International Conference Centre hang the names of dead women, victims of gender-based violence (GBV).
At least 300 Pacific women were killed in 2021, many at the hands of intimate partners or male relatives, yet there are but 14 names on the board after four days of a Triennial Conference.
Have these women died in obscurity, their deaths confined to the dust heap somewhere in the region’s collective memory?
Does the memory of their deaths invoke such pain or, perhaps, guilt, that it is impossible for delegates to pick up a pen and put names to paper?
Have these women become mere statistics, their names forgotten as civil society spreadsheets and crime reports log the death of yet another woman.
Or have the deaths of women due to gender-based violence become so common that in the minds of delegates it is normal for a woman to die at the hands of a husband, boyfriend, father or brother?
Falling victim to violence
It has been a conference attended largely by women — ministers, administrators, civil society representatives and local grassroots representatives. Each day there have been more than 200 women at the event.
The 15th Triennial Conference of Pacific Women addressed at its core the need to improve the health of women and children. That includes the need for better access to services and treatment of women who fall victim to violence.
JENELYN KENNEDY (Papua New Guinea) . . . a 19-year-old mother murdered in Port Moresby in 2020. Image: Netani Rika
Gender-based violence is also a key focus of the talks. It is that violence — past, present and future – which results in death.
Yet three times a day for three days, on their way to grab a quick coffee or indulge in lunch, friendly conversations or bilateral dialogue, delegates have walked past the wall paying scant attention to the names of their dead Pacific sisters.
No names have been added to the wall since the initial appeal on Day One for attendees to remember the dead, to memorialise women whose lives were cut short in actions which were largely avoidable.
In Fiji, 60 percent of women and girls endure violence in their lifetime. Two of every three experience physical or sexual abuse from intimate partners and one in five have been sexually harassed in the workplace.
The trend is common throughout the region with Kiribati, Papua New Guinea, Fiji and the Solomon Islands recording the highest incidence of crimes against women.
LOSANA McGOWAN (Fiji) . . . a journalist who was murdered aged 32 during a domestic argument in 2015. Image: Netani Rika
Not one asked for silence
Delegates know these figures. The statistics are, sadly, nothing new.
On the third day, delegates quibbled over the nuances of language and the appropriate terms with which to populate a report on their deliberations. Yet not one asked for a moment of silence to remember the people whose names hung accusingly on a wall outside the meeting chamber.
When delegates left the convention centre on Friday afternoon, it is unlikely they would have remembered even one of the names on the wall.
Those names and the memories of all the women who have suffered violent deaths will await a team of cleaners, strangers, who will bury the Pacific’s collective shame in the sand of Majuro Atoll.
Netani Rikais an award-winning Fiji journalist with 30 years of experience in Pacific regional writing. The joint owner of Islands Business magazine he is communications manager of the Pacific Conference of Churches and is in Majuro, Marshall Islands, covering the 15th Triennial Conference of Pacific Women.
On a hastily-erected wall in the Marshall Islands International Conference Centre hang the names of dead women, victims of gender-based violence (GBV).
At least 300 Pacific women were killed in 2021, many at the hands of intimate partners or male relatives, yet there are but 14 names on the board after four days of a Triennial Conference.
Have these women died in obscurity, their deaths confined to the dust heap somewhere in the region’s collective memory?
Does the memory of their deaths invoke such pain or, perhaps, guilt, that it is impossible for delegates to pick up a pen and put names to paper?
Have these women become mere statistics, their names forgotten as civil society spreadsheets and crime reports log the death of yet another woman.
Or have the deaths of women due to gender-based violence become so common that in the minds of delegates it is normal for a woman to die at the hands of a husband, boyfriend, father or brother?
Falling victim to violence
It has been a conference attended largely by women — ministers, administrators, civil society representatives and local grassroots representatives. Each day there have been more than 200 women at the event.
The 15th Triennial Conference of Pacific Women addressed at its core the need to improve the health of women and children. That includes the need for better access to services and treatment of women who fall victim to violence.
JENELYN KENNEDY (Papua New Guinea) . . . a 19-year-old mother murdered in Port Moresby in 2020. Image: Netani Rika
Gender-based violence is also a key focus of the talks. It is that violence — past, present and future – which results in death.
Yet three times a day for three days, on their way to grab a quick coffee or indulge in lunch, friendly conversations or bilateral dialogue, delegates have walked past the wall paying scant attention to the names of their dead Pacific sisters.
No names have been added to the wall since the initial appeal on Day One for attendees to remember the dead, to memorialise women whose lives were cut short in actions which were largely avoidable.
In Fiji, 60 percent of women and girls endure violence in their lifetime. Two of every three experience physical or sexual abuse from intimate partners and one in five have been sexually harassed in the workplace.
The trend is common throughout the region with Kiribati, Papua New Guinea, Fiji and the Solomon Islands recording the highest incidence of crimes against women.
LOSANA McGOWAN (Fiji) . . . a journalist who was murdered aged 32 during a domestic argument in 2015. Image: Netani Rika
Not one asked for silence
Delegates know these figures. The statistics are, sadly, nothing new.
On the third day, delegates quibbled over the nuances of language and the appropriate terms with which to populate a report on their deliberations. Yet not one asked for a moment of silence to remember the people whose names hung accusingly on a wall outside the meeting chamber.
When delegates left the convention centre on Friday afternoon, it is unlikely they would have remembered even one of the names on the wall.
Those names and the memories of all the women who have suffered violent deaths will await a team of cleaners, strangers, who will bury the Pacific’s collective shame in the sand of Majuro Atoll.
Netani Rikais an award-winning Fiji journalist with 30 years of experience in Pacific regional writing. The joint owner of Islands Business magazine he is communications manager of the Pacific Conference of Churches and is in Majuro, Marshall Islands, covering the 15th Triennial Conference of Pacific Women.
Pacific leaders have been called on to innovative and be bold to create gender equality and respond to gaps which exist in their efforts to bridge differences.
Marshall Islands President Dr Hilda Heine said gender could not be addressed in isolation.
“We must think also of how it intersects with our other challenges and opportunities and develop our policies and approaches with gender equality in mind,” Heine said at the 15th Triennial Conference of Pacific Women in Majuro this week.
“Our gender equality journey calls on Pacific leadership to be intentional, innovative and bold in our responses to the gaps that we see in our efforts.
“We must take risks, create new partnerships, and be unwavering in our commitment to bring about substantive gender equality for the region.”
The triennial is the latest in a series which was first proposed in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, in 1974. Representatives from governments throughout the region are represented at the event which is followed by a meeting of Pacific ministers for women.
“We have come a long way in terms of advancing gender equality and the empowerment of women in the Pacific,” Heine said.
Forces that shape women
“Almost 50 years ago in 1975, 80 women from across the Pacific convened in Suva to talk about forces that shape women in society. ”
The initial meeting of 80 women identified family, culture and traditions, religion, education, media, law and politics as thematic areas which deserved attention and discussion.
Heine challenged Pacific women to extend their role as mothers who nurture and weave society towards nation building.
“A mother helps to nurture and weaves the society, therefore building a nation. That is our role. That is what we do. It is in our DNA,” Heine said.
“Current women leaders stand on the shoulders of those women who came before us, many had no clue about the PPA or what feminism is all about; yet their roles called for them to be involved and to push the boundaries; similarly, it is the responsibility of current women leaders to nurture and to mentor the next generation of women leaders, the leaders of tomorrow.”
Engage men and boys A study across 31 countries has found that 60 percent of males aged 16-24 years believe that women’s equality discriminates against men.
“This finding is troubling and while the study did not include countries in the Pacific, it is important we take note of it and continue to look at ways to better engage men and boys in gender equality efforts in our part of the world,” Pacific Community’s Miles Young said.
Young said men and boys must be involved on a journey of understanding that gender equality benefited everyone.
“Noting the continuing relatively low representation of women across our national parliaments and at the highest levels of decision-making in the private sector, there may be an opportunity this week to discuss revitalising the conversation around affirmative action — or what some term temporary special measures,” he said.
He noted the presence of Tuvalu Prime Minister, Feleti Teo, Marshallese Women’s Minister, Jess Gasper, and United Nations Women Senior Adviser, Asger Rhyl, and “the many other men who are committed to gender equality”.
“There may be an opportunity for discussions around how to more effectively engage men and boys in progressing gender equality,” Young said.
Women make up 8.8 percent of parliamentarians (54 MPs) in the Pacific, up from 4.7 per cent (26 MPs) in 2013.
Young said the Pacific Community stood ready to collaborate with women representatives and development partners to support decisions and the outcomes of the meeting.
“This commitment reflects the highest priority which SPC attaches to supporting gender equality in the region.”
Netani Rikais an award-winning Fiji journalist with 30 years of experience in Pacific regional writing. The joint owner of Islands Business magazine he is communications manager of the Pacific Conference of Churches and is in Majuro, Marshall Islands, covering the 15th Triennial Conference of Pacific Women.
Violent attacks on three remote villages in Papua New Guinea’s north have reportedly killed 26 people, including 16 children, while several people were forced to flee after attackers set fire to their homes, the United Nations said.
“I am horrified by the shocking eruption of deadly violence in Papua New Guinea, seemingly as the result of a dispute over land and lake ownership and user rights,” UN Human Rights chief Volker Turk said in a statement.
The death toll could rise to more than 50 as PNG authorities search for missing people, Turk said.
Provincial Police Commander in East Sepik James Baugen said: “It was a very terrible thing, when I approached the area, I saw that there were children, men, women. They were killed by a group of 30 men.”
He told the ABC that all the houses in the village were burned, and the remaining villagers were sheltering at a police station, too scared to name the perpetrators.
“Some of the bodies left in the night were taken by crocodiles into the swamp. We only saw the place where they were killed, there were heads chopped off,” he said.
“The men are in hiding, police have been deployed but there have been no arrests yet.”
Turk called on PNG authorities “to conduct prompt, impartial and transparent investigations and to ensure those responsible are held to account”.
Impunity for criminals Governor Allan Bird of East Sepik, where the murders occurred, said the violence in the country had been getting worse during the past 10 years.
“The lack of justice in PNG is a problem, and it is getting worse,” he told the ABC.
A front page report in PNG’s The National . . . the picture shows the devastation left from an attack at Angoram’s Tambari village, East Sepik. Image: The National
“Over the last 10 years or so, if a crime is committed, investigations hardly result in arrest. Even if they are arrested, it’s difficult to go to court and go to jail. That is giving law-breakers more courage to do the wrong thing,” he said.
Advocating for stronger police enforcement and stronger prosecution mechanisms, he said there would be a reduction in crime when people started going to jail.
He told the ABC that the police force had had a long-standing problem with command and control.
“The head of police here, for some reason, is constantly changing. It’s a three-year contract, but they keep changing every six months, 12 months,” he said.
“They removed our provincial police commander in January and there’s no replacement even today.”
Tribal warfare exacerbated Home to hundreds of tribes and languages, Papua New Guinea has a long history of tribal warfare.
But an influx of mercenaries and automatic weapons has inflamed the cycle of violence.
During the past decade, villagers swapped bows and arrows for military rifles and elections have deepened existing tribal divides.
At the same time, the country’s population has more than doubled since 1980, placing increasing strain on land and resources, and stoking deepening tribal rivalries.
Eight people were killed and 30 homes torched in fighting in the Enga province in May, while at least 26 men were killed in an ambush in the same region in February.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ and permission from ABC.
A former Papua New Guinea army leader, Major-General Jerry Singirok, is furious after being arrested and charged under the Capital Markets Act.
He was a trustee of Melanesian Trustee Services Ltd, part of a superannuation agency with 20,000 unit holders, but its trustee licence was revoked last year.
General Singirok said the agency was already embroiled in legal action over that revocation and he said his arrest on Wednesday was aimed at undermining that action.
He said Task Force Shield, which he said had been set up by Trades Minister Richard Maru, had made a series of allegations about the degree of oversight at Melanesian Trustee Services Ltd.
“They said that we did not audit, [but] we got audited, annual audits for the past 10 years,” he said.
“They said we didn’t do that. [They claimed] we continued to function without consulting our unit holders, which is wrong.
“There is a list of complaints, and as I said, it is now going to be subjected to a court. What’s important is that they are using the Capital Markets Act to charge us.”
General Singirok said in a Facebook post that he had spent his entire life fighting for the rights of the ordinary people and he would clear his name after what he is calling a “witchhunt”.
He said he had been a member of the superannuation operator since 1989.
The government was not backing it in any way, shape or form, he said.
The claimants are seeking billions of dollars in compensation from Rio Tinto which operated the Panguna copper and gold mine in the 1970s and 1980s before it was forced to shut by civil war.
The mine was at the heart of that war which brought death and devastation to Bougainville over a 10-year period until 1997.
They say Rio Tinto, which was the majority shareholder in Bougainville Copper Ltd (BCL) at the time, is responsible for the large scale environmental and social harm that resulted from what was one of the biggest mines in the world.
A former senior Bougainville political leader, Martin Miriori, who is the lead claimant of the class action, said the “large increase in claimants demonstrates the strength of feeling among local people that Rio Tinto and BCL must make amends for decades of environmental devastation”.
He said “this issue will not go away, as the legal action has attracted strong support, and reminded the world of the destruction caused by the mine operator’s reckless actions.”
A first court hearing is set for Port Moresby on 10 October 2024.
Panguna open pit copper mine in Bougainville. Image: 123rf/RNZ
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.
By Stefan Armbruster, Harlyne Joku and Tria Dianti
No progress has been made in sending a UN human rights mission to Indonesia’s Papuan provinces despite the appointment of Fiji and Papua New Guinea’s prime ministers to negotiate the visit.
Pacific Island leaders have for more than a decade requested the UN’s involvement over reported abuses as the Indonesian military battles with the West Papua independence movement.
Fiji’s Sitiveni Rabuka and Papua New Guinea’s James Marape were appointed by the Melanesian Spearhead Group last year as special envoys to push for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights’ visit directly with Indonesia’s president but so far to no avail.
Indonesian president-elect Prabowo Subianto (left) and Papua New Guinea’s Prime Minister James Marape chat during their meeting in Bogor, West Java, earlier this month. Image: Muchlis Jr/Biro Pers Sekertariat Presiden/BenarNews
“We have not been able to negotiate terms for an OHCHR visit to Papua,” Commissioner Volker Türk’s office in Geneva said in a statement to BenarNews.
“We remain very concerned about the situation in the region, with some reports indicating a significant increase in violent incidents and civilian casualties in 2023.
“We stress the importance of accountability for security forces and armed groups operating in Papua and the importance of addressing the underlying grievances and root causes of these conflicts.”
Formal invitation
Indonesia issued a formal invitation to the OHCHR in 2018 after Pacific leaders from Vanuatu, Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Tonga and Marshall Islands for years repeatedly called out the human rights abuses at the UN General Assembly and other international fora.
The Pacific Islands Forum — the regional intergovernmental organisation of 18 nations — has called on Indonesia since 2019 to allow the mission to go ahead.
West Papuan leader Benny Wenda (left) and Fiji Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka in Suva in February 2023 . . . “We will support them [ULMWP] because they are Melanesians,” Rabuka said at the time. Image: Fiji govt/RNZ Pacific“We continue establishing a constructive engagement with the UN on the progress of human rights improvement in Indonesia,” Siti Ruhaini, senior advisor to the Indonesian Office of the President told BenarNews, including in “cases of the gross violation of human rights in the past that earned the appreciation from UN Human Rights Council”.
Indonesia’s military offered a rare apology in March after video emerged of soldiers repeatedly slashing a Papuan man with a bayonet while he was forced to stand in a water-filled drum.
The latest UN report highlights “systematic reports about the use of torture and other forms of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or ill-treatment in places of detention, in particular on Indigenous Papuans” and limited access to information about investigations conducted, individuals prosecuted and sentences.
In recent months there have been several deadly clashes in the region with many thousands reportedly left displaced after fleeing the fighting.
In June Indonesia was accused of exploiting a visit to Papua by the MSG director general to portray the region as “stable and conducive”, undermining efforts to secure Türk’s visit.
Invitation ‘still standing’
Siti told BenarNews the invitation to the UN “is still standing” while attempts are made to find the “best time (to) suit both sides.”
After years of delays the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG) — whose members are Fiji, Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and New Caledonia’s Kanak independence movement — appointed the two prime ministers last November to negotiate directly.
A state visit by Marape to Indonesia last week left confusion over what discussions there were over human rights in the Papuan provinces or if the UN visit was raised.
PNG’s prime minister said last Friday that, on behalf of the MSG and his Fijian counterpart, he spoke with incumbent Indonesian President Joko Widodo and president-elect Parbowo Subianto and they were “very much sensitive to the issues of West Papua”.
“Basically we told him we’re concerned on human rights issues and (to) respect their culture, respect the people, respect their land rights,” Marape told a press conference on his return to Port Moresby in response to questions from BenarNews.
He said Prabowo indicated he would continue Jokowi’s policies towards the Papuan provinces and had hinted at “a moratorium or there will be an amnesty call out to those who still carry guns in West Papua”.
During Marape’s Indonesian visit, the neighbours acknowledged their respective sovereignty, celebrated the signing of several cross-border agreements and that the “relationship is standing in the right space”.
Human rights ‘not on agenda’
Siti from the Office of the President afterwards told BenarNews there were no discussions regarding the UN visit during the meeting between Marape and Jokowi and “human rights issues in Papua were not on the agenda.”
Further BenarNews enquiries with the President’s office about the conflicting accounts went unanswered.
Indonesia is an associate member of the MSG and the ULMWP has observer status. Neither have voting rights.
“That is part of the mandate from the leaders, that is the moral obligation to raise whether it is publicly or face-to-face because there are Papuans dying under the eyes of the Pacific leaders over the past 60 years,” president of the pro-independence United Liberation Movement of West Papua (ULMWP), Benny Wenda, told BenarNews.
“We are demanding full membership of the MSG so we can engage with Indonesia as equals and find solutions for peace.”
Decolonisation in the Pacific has been placed very firmly back on the international agenda after protests in the French territory of Kanaky New Caledonia in May turned violent leaving 10 people dead.
Kanaky New Caledonia riots
Riots erupted after indigenous Kanaks accused France of trying to dilute their voting bloc in New Caledonia after a disputed independence referendum process ended in 2021 leaving them in French hands.
Meeting in Japan late last week, MSG leaders called for a new referendum and the PIF secured agreement from France for a fact-finding mission to New Caledonia.
While in Tokyo for the meeting, Rabuka was reported by Islands Business as saying he would also visit Indonesia’s president with Marape “to discuss further actions regarding the people of West Papua”.
An independence struggle has simmered in Papua since the early 1960s when Indonesian forces invaded the region, which had remained under separate Dutch administration after Indonesia’s 1945 declaration of independence.
Indonesia argues it incorporated the comparatively sparsely populated and mineral rich territory under international law, as it was part of the Dutch East Indies empire that forms the basis for its modern borders.
Indonesian control was formalised in 1969 with a UN-supervised referendum in which little more than 1,000 Papuans were allowed to vote. Papuans say they were denied the right to decide their own future and are now marginalised in their own land.
Indonesia steps up ‘neutralising’ efforts
Indonesia in recent years has stepped up its efforts to neutralise Pacific support for the West Papuan independence movement, particularly among Melanesian nations that have ethnic and cultural links.
“Indonesia is increasingly engaging with the Pacific neighboring countries in a constructive way while respecting the sovereignty of each member,” Theofransus Litaay, senior advisor of the Executive Office of the President told BenarNews.
“Papua is always the priority and programme for Indonesia in the attempt to strengthen its position as the Pacific ‘veranda’ of Indonesia.”
The Fiji and PNG leaders previously met Jokowi, whose second five-year term finishes in October, on the sidelines of a global summit in San Francisco in November.
President Jokoki Widodo (center) in a trilateral meeting with Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea James Marape (left) and Prime Minister of Fiji Sitiveni Rabuka in San Francisco in November 2023. Image: Biro Pers Sekertariat Presiden/BenarNews
The two are due to report back on their progress at the annual MSG meeting scheduled for next month.
“If time permits, where we both can go back and see him on these issues, then we will go but I have many issues to attend to here,” Marape said in Port Moresby on Friday.
By Stefan Armbruster, Harlyne Joku and Tria Dianti
No progress has been made in sending a UN human rights mission to Indonesia’s Papuan provinces despite the appointment of Fiji and Papua New Guinea’s prime ministers to negotiate the visit.
Pacific Island leaders have for more than a decade requested the UN’s involvement over reported abuses as the Indonesian military battles with the West Papua independence movement.
Fiji’s Sitiveni Rabuka and Papua New Guinea’s James Marape were appointed by the Melanesian Spearhead Group last year as special envoys to push for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights’ visit directly with Indonesia’s president but so far to no avail.
Indonesian president-elect Prabowo Subianto (left) and Papua New Guinea’s Prime Minister James Marape chat during their meeting in Bogor, West Java, earlier this month. Image: Muchlis Jr/Biro Pers Sekertariat Presiden/BenarNews
“We have not been able to negotiate terms for an OHCHR visit to Papua,” Commissioner Volker Türk’s office in Geneva said in a statement to BenarNews.
“We remain very concerned about the situation in the region, with some reports indicating a significant increase in violent incidents and civilian casualties in 2023.
“We stress the importance of accountability for security forces and armed groups operating in Papua and the importance of addressing the underlying grievances and root causes of these conflicts.”
Formal invitation
Indonesia issued a formal invitation to the OHCHR in 2018 after Pacific leaders from Vanuatu, Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Tonga and Marshall Islands for years repeatedly called out the human rights abuses at the UN General Assembly and other international fora.
The Pacific Islands Forum — the regional intergovernmental organisation of 18 nations — has called on Indonesia since 2019 to allow the mission to go ahead.
West Papuan leader Benny Wenda (left) and Fiji Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka in Suva in February 2023 . . . “We will support them [ULMWP] because they are Melanesians,” Rabuka said at the time. Image: Fiji govt/RNZ Pacific“We continue establishing a constructive engagement with the UN on the progress of human rights improvement in Indonesia,” Siti Ruhaini, senior advisor to the Indonesian Office of the President told BenarNews, including in “cases of the gross violation of human rights in the past that earned the appreciation from UN Human Rights Council”.
Indonesia’s military offered a rare apology in March after video emerged of soldiers repeatedly slashing a Papuan man with a bayonet while he was forced to stand in a water-filled drum.
The latest UN report highlights “systematic reports about the use of torture and other forms of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or ill-treatment in places of detention, in particular on Indigenous Papuans” and limited access to information about investigations conducted, individuals prosecuted and sentences.
In recent months there have been several deadly clashes in the region with many thousands reportedly left displaced after fleeing the fighting.
In June Indonesia was accused of exploiting a visit to Papua by the MSG director general to portray the region as “stable and conducive”, undermining efforts to secure Türk’s visit.
Invitation ‘still standing’
Siti told BenarNews the invitation to the UN “is still standing” while attempts are made to find the “best time (to) suit both sides.”
After years of delays the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG) — whose members are Fiji, Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and New Caledonia’s Kanak independence movement — appointed the two prime ministers last November to negotiate directly.
A state visit by Marape to Indonesia last week left confusion over what discussions there were over human rights in the Papuan provinces or if the UN visit was raised.
PNG’s prime minister said last Friday that, on behalf of the MSG and his Fijian counterpart, he spoke with incumbent Indonesian President Joko Widodo and president-elect Parbowo Subianto and they were “very much sensitive to the issues of West Papua”.
“Basically we told him we’re concerned on human rights issues and (to) respect their culture, respect the people, respect their land rights,” Marape told a press conference on his return to Port Moresby in response to questions from BenarNews.
He said Prabowo indicated he would continue Jokowi’s policies towards the Papuan provinces and had hinted at “a moratorium or there will be an amnesty call out to those who still carry guns in West Papua”.
During Marape’s Indonesian visit, the neighbours acknowledged their respective sovereignty, celebrated the signing of several cross-border agreements and that the “relationship is standing in the right space”.
Human rights ‘not on agenda’
Siti from the Office of the President afterwards told BenarNews there were no discussions regarding the UN visit during the meeting between Marape and Jokowi and “human rights issues in Papua were not on the agenda.”
Further BenarNews enquiries with the President’s office about the conflicting accounts went unanswered.
Indonesia is an associate member of the MSG and the ULMWP has observer status. Neither have voting rights.
“That is part of the mandate from the leaders, that is the moral obligation to raise whether it is publicly or face-to-face because there are Papuans dying under the eyes of the Pacific leaders over the past 60 years,” president of the pro-independence United Liberation Movement of West Papua (ULMWP), Benny Wenda, told BenarNews.
“We are demanding full membership of the MSG so we can engage with Indonesia as equals and find solutions for peace.”
Decolonisation in the Pacific has been placed very firmly back on the international agenda after protests in the French territory of Kanaky New Caledonia in May turned violent leaving 10 people dead.
Kanaky New Caledonia riots
Riots erupted after indigenous Kanaks accused France of trying to dilute their voting bloc in New Caledonia after a disputed independence referendum process ended in 2021 leaving them in French hands.
Meeting in Japan late last week, MSG leaders called for a new referendum and the PIF secured agreement from France for a fact-finding mission to New Caledonia.
While in Tokyo for the meeting, Rabuka was reported by Islands Business as saying he would also visit Indonesia’s president with Marape “to discuss further actions regarding the people of West Papua”.
An independence struggle has simmered in Papua since the early 1960s when Indonesian forces invaded the region, which had remained under separate Dutch administration after Indonesia’s 1945 declaration of independence.
Indonesia argues it incorporated the comparatively sparsely populated and mineral rich territory under international law, as it was part of the Dutch East Indies empire that forms the basis for its modern borders.
Indonesian control was formalised in 1969 with a UN-supervised referendum in which little more than 1,000 Papuans were allowed to vote. Papuans say they were denied the right to decide their own future and are now marginalised in their own land.
Indonesia steps up ‘neutralising’ efforts
Indonesia in recent years has stepped up its efforts to neutralise Pacific support for the West Papuan independence movement, particularly among Melanesian nations that have ethnic and cultural links.
“Indonesia is increasingly engaging with the Pacific neighboring countries in a constructive way while respecting the sovereignty of each member,” Theofransus Litaay, senior advisor of the Executive Office of the President told BenarNews.
“Papua is always the priority and programme for Indonesia in the attempt to strengthen its position as the Pacific ‘veranda’ of Indonesia.”
The Fiji and PNG leaders previously met Jokowi, whose second five-year term finishes in October, on the sidelines of a global summit in San Francisco in November.
President Jokoki Widodo (center) in a trilateral meeting with Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea James Marape (left) and Prime Minister of Fiji Sitiveni Rabuka in San Francisco in November 2023. Image: Biro Pers Sekertariat Presiden/BenarNews
The two are due to report back on their progress at the annual MSG meeting scheduled for next month.
“If time permits, where we both can go back and see him on these issues, then we will go but I have many issues to attend to here,” Marape said in Port Moresby on Friday.
Port Moresby residents who have missed out on the Papua New Guinea’s national census counting have been urged to call the census call center on 1801676 to have themselves counted as part of the 2024 census “mop-up” exercise in NCD.
While the counting of the residents in the National Capital District (NCD) is almost complete, there have been complaints from most individuals that they have not yet been visited by enumerators.
With the census mop-up exercise to be concluded this week, the census team told Post-Courier Online that they had not been “getting a good response from the public”.
The National Statistical Office, which responded to the progress of the mop-up phase of the count in NCD, said that many residents had phoned in to the census call center for counting.
“We are receiving some calls from good citizens from our call center,” a spokesperson said.
“NCD rushed the enumeration. Therefore, a few houses were missed.”
Census Call Center Agents are required to collect the following information as part of the mop-up exercise in NCD:
Name of Household head,
Caller’s address,
Contact number, and
Whether or not visited by the census enumerators.
This information will be compiled and passed to the Regional Census Coordinator for the mop-up exercise.
Bramo Tingkeois a PNG Post-Courier reporter. Republished with permission.
Papua New Guinea’s Chuave District Development Authority is condemning an attack on a priest and his team in Chimbu province.
Father Ryszard Wajda (SVD), three nurses, two doctors from Mingende hospital, and two Catholic education officers returned on a four-day foot patrol to Kiari in Nomane sub-district when they were attacked at Dulai village by villagers from Nomane.
The few villagers who fixed a damaged section of the Nomane feeder road demanded K1000 (NZ$425) from Father Wajda and his team and attacked them after alleging that they had missed out on disaster money given by Prime Minister James Marape to the province.
Father Wajda, who is the parish priest of Wangoi in Chuave district, said that his team gave K200 (NZ$85) but the Dulai villagers refused this.
“The villagers directed violent abusive language to me and more to my team members,” he said.
He said that one of the education officers was punched several times, and others were violently pulled out of my parish vehicle.
“I stayed in the car, and nobody touched me physically,” he said.
Teacher intervened
Father Wajda said that they were allowed to travel after a teacher from the area intervened and assured the villagers that he would pay K1000 when he received his fortnightly pay.
He said that he had helped the local teacher last Friday to pay K1000 demanded by the villagers.
“It took us one day to walk and cross Waghi to visit my new Catholic community in remote Kiari at their request and spend four days with them addressing different issues,” he said.
Father Wajda said the nurses and doctors treated 200 patients during the three days working from 8am-11am every morning. He said the two education officers inspected the education institution.
“It took us 12 hours to walk back to Dulai and another village a few kilometres further up when my parish vehicle waited and picked us up,” he said.
He said that that the attack was unfortunate and local community leaders were negotiated fr a peace reconciliation.
Chief executive officer Francis Aiwa of Chuave District Development Authority (CDDA) said the attack on Father Wajda’s group was “uncalled for”.
He said that the perpetrators must be arrested and put behind bars.
The Catholic Church played an important role in the lives of everyone and such attack and killing of a priest are uncalled for and must not be repeated, Aiwa said.
Republished from the Post-Courier with permission.
The Pacific Islands Forum hopes to send a high-level delegation to Kanaky New Caledonia to investigate the current political crisis in the French territory before the Pacific Islands Forum Leaders meeting in Tonga in August.
According to Pacnews, Forum Chair and Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown confirmed this during an interview with journalists in Tokyo after the conclusion of the PALM10 meeting.
He said while it was a work in progress, there had been a request from the territorial government of New Caledonia for a high-level Pacific delegation.
Brown said the next step was to write a letter which would then need support from France.
“We will now go through the process of how we will put this into practice. Of course, it will require the support of the Government of France for the mission to proceed,” Brown said.
“We do have similar concerns. The third referendum was boycotted by the Kanak population because of the impacts of covid-19 and the respect for the mourning period. Therefore, the outcome of that referendum is not valuable,” he said.
The adviser to New Caledonia’s President Charles Wea, who is in Japan for talks on the sidelines of the PALM10 meeting, told RNZ Pacific the high level group would be made up of the leaders of Fiji, Cook Islands, Tonga and Solomon Islands.
New Caledonia government adviser Charles Wea . . . mission to New Caledonia would be made up of the leaders of Fiji, Cook Islands, Tonga and Solomon Islands. Image: RNZ Pacific/Kelvin Anthony
Fiji’s Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sitiveni Rabuka announced he would lead the Forum’s fact-finding mission in New Caledonia.
“I have also been asked by many Pacific leaders to lead a group to conduct a fact-finding mission in Nouméa to understand the problems they are facing,” he said during a talanoa session with the Fijian diaspora in Tokyo.
Fiji Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sitiveni Rabuka . . . leading a “fact-finding mission in Nouméa to understand the problems they are facing”. Image: RNZ/Giles Dexter
“Additionally, I will accompany Prime Minister James Marape to visit the President of Indonesia to discuss further actions regarding the people of West Papua.”
By Shailendra Bahadur Singh and Amit Sarwal in Suva
Given the intensifying situation, journalists, academics and experts joined to state the need for the Pacific, including its media, to re-assert itself and chart its own path, rooted in its unique cultural, economic and environmental context.
The tone for the discussions was set by Papua New Guinea’s Minister for Information and Communications Technology Timothy Masiu, chief guest at the official dinner of the Suva conference.
The conference heard that the Pacific media sector is small and under-resourced, so its abilities to carry out its public interest role is limited, even in a free media environment.
Masiu asked how Pacific media was being developed and used as a tool to protect and preserve Pacific identities in the light of “outside influences on our media in the region”. He said the Pacific was “increasingly being used as the backyard” for geopolitics, with regional media “targeted by the more developed nations as a tool to drive their geopolitical agenda”.
Masiu is the latest to draw attention to the widespread impacts of the global contest on the Pacific, with his focus on the media sector, and potential implications for editorial independence.
In some ways, Pacific media have benefitted from the geopolitical contest with the increased injection of foreign funds into the sector, prompting some at the Suva conference to ponder whether “too much of a good thing could turn out to be bad”.
Experts echoed Masiu’s concerns about island nations’ increased wariness of being mere pawns in a larger game.
Fiji a compelling example
Fiji offers a compelling example of a nation navigating this complex landscape with a balanced approach. Fiji has sought to diversify its diplomatic relations, strengthening ties with China and India, without a wholesale pivot away from traditional partners Australia and New Zealand.
Some Pacific Island leaders espouse the “friends to all, enemies to none” doctrine in the face of concerns about getting caught in the crossfire of any military conflict.
A media crush at the recent Pacific International Media Conference in Fiji. Image: Asia Pacific Media Network
This is manifest in Fiji Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka’s incessant calls for a “zone of peace” during both the Melanesian Spearhead Group Leaders’ meeting in Port Vila in August, and the United Nations General Assembly debate in New York in September.
Rabuka expressed fears about growing geopolitical rivalry contributing to escalating tensions, stating that “we must consider the Pacific a zone of peace”.
Papua New Guinea, rich in natural resources, has similarly navigated its relationships with major powers. While Chinese investments in infrastructure and mining have surged, PNG has also actively engaged with Australia, its closest neighbour and long-time partner.
“Don’t get me wrong – we welcome and appreciate the support of our development partners – but we must be free to navigate our own destiny,” Masiu told the Suva conference.
Masiu’s proposed media policy for PNG was also discussed at the Suva conference, with former PNG newspaper editor Alex Rheeney stating that the media fraternity saw it as a threat, although the minister spoke positively about it in his address.
Criticism and praise
In 2019, Solomon Islands shifted diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to China, a move that was met with both criticism and praise. While this opened the door to increased Chinese investment in infrastructure, it also highlighted an effort to balance existing ties to Australia and other Western partners.
Samoa and Tonga too have taken significant strides in using environmental diplomacy as a cornerstone of their international engagement.
One of the outcomes of the debates at the Suva conference was that media freedom in the Pacific is a critical factor in shaping an independent and pragmatic global outlook.
Fiji has seen fluctuations in media freedom following political upheavals, with periods of restrictive press laws. However, with the repeal of the draconian media act last year, there is a growing recognition that a free and vibrant media landscape is essential for transparent governance and informed decision-making.
But the conference also heard that the Pacific media sector is small and under-resourced, so its ability to carry out its public interest role is limited, even in a free media environment.
Waves of Change: Media, Peace, and Development in the Pacific. Image: Kula Press
Vulnerability worsened
The Pacific media sector’s vulnerability had worsened due to the financial damage from the digital disruption and the covid-19 pandemic. It underscored the need to address the financial side of the equation if media organisations are to remain viable.
For the Pacific, the path forward lies in pragmatism and self-reliance, as argued in the book of collected essays Waves of Change: Media, Peace, and Development in the Pacific, edited by Shailendra Bahadur Singh, Fiji Deputy Prime Minister Professor Biman Prasad and Amit Sarwal, launched at the Suva conference by Masiu.
No doubt, as was commonly expressed at the Suva media conference, the world is watching as the Pacific charts its own course.
As the renowned Pacific writer Epeli Hau’ofa once envisioned, the Pacific Islands are not small and isolated, but a “sea of islands” with deep connections and vast potential to contribute in the global order.
As they continue to engage with the world, the Pacific nations will need to carve out a path that reflects their unique traditional wisdom, values and aspirations.
Dr Shailendra Bahadur Singh is head of journalism at The University of the South Pacific (USP) in Suva, Fiji, and chair of the recent Pacific International Media Conference. Dr Amit Sarwal is an Indian-origin academic, translator, and journalist based in Melbourne, Australia. He is formerly a senior lecturer and deputy head of school (research) at the USP. This article was first published by The Interpreter and is republished with permission.
Papua New Guinea will face a grim reality of a ban on its shipping of oil and hydrocarbons in international waters if it continues to ignore the implementation of a domestic waste oil policy that is 28 years overdue.
The Conservation and Environment Protection Authority’s Director for Renewable Brendan Trawen made this stark revelation in response to queries posed by Post-Courier Online.
In the backdrop of investment projects proposed in the resource space, the issue of waste oil and its disposal has incurred hefty fines and reputational damage to the nation, and could seriously impact the shipments of one of the country’s lucrative exports in oil and LNG.
“International partners are most protective of their waterways. Therefore, PNG has already been issued with a warning on implementation of a ban of oil and hydrocarbon shipments, including LNG from PNG through Indonesian water,” he said.
In addition, the issuing of a complete ban on all hydrocarbon exports from Singapore through Indonesian waters to PNG.
“In light of growing international concern about the need for stringent control of transboundary movement of hazardous waste oil, and of the need as far as possible to reduce such movement to a minimum, and the concern about the problem of illegal transboundary traffic in hazardous wastes oil, CEPA is compelled to take immediate steps in accordance with Article 10 of the Basel Convention Framework,” Trawen said.
He indicated CEPA had limited capabilities of PNG State through to manage hazardous wastes and other wastes.
Safeguarding PNG’s international standing
The government of PNG had been “rightfully seeking cooperation with Singaporean authorities since 2020” to safeguard PNG’s international standing with the aim to improve and achieve environmentally sound management of hazardous waste oil.
“Through the NEC Decision No. 12/2021, respective authorities from PNG and Singapore deliberated and facilitated the alternative arrangement to reach an agreement with Hachiko Efficiency Services (HES) towards the establishment of a transit and treatment centre in PNG.
“In due process, HES have the required permits to allow transit of the waste oils in Singapore, Malaysia and South Korea for recycling.”
Minister of Environment, Conservation and Climate Change Simon Kilepa acknowledged that major repercussions were expected to take effect with the potential implementation ban of all hydrocarbons and oil shipments through Indonesian waters.
Political, economic and security risks emerged without doubt owing to GoPNG through CEPA’s negligence in the past resolving Basel Convention’s outstanding matters.
“It is in fact that the framework and policy for the Waste Oil Project exists under the International Basel Convention inclusive of the approved methods of handling and shipping waste oils. What PNG has been lacking is the regulation and this program provides that through,” he said.
“CEPA will progress its waste oil programme by engaging Hachiko Efficiency Services to develop and manage the domestic transit facility.
“This will include the export of waste oil operating under the Basel and Waigani agreements dependent upon the final destination.”
CEPA will proceed with the Hazardous Waste Oil Management Programme immediately to comply with the long outstanding implementation of the Basel Convention requirements on the management of Hazardous waste oil.
A media announcement and publicity would be made with issuance of Express of Interest (EOI) to shippers and local waste companies
A presentation would be made to NEC Cabinet and a NEC decision before the sitting of Parliament.
Matthew Variis a senior journalist and former editor of the PNG Post-Courier. Republished with permission.
Australia has announced more than A$68 million over the next five years to strengthen and expand Australian broadcasting and media sector engagement across the Indo-Pacific.
As part of the Indo-Pacific broadcasting strategy, the ABC will receive just over $40m to increase its content for and about the Pacific, expand Radio Australia’s FM transmission footprint across the region and enhance its media and training activities.
And the PacificAus TV programme will receive over $28 million to provide commercial Australian content free of charge to broadcasters in the Pacific.
The strategy provides a framework to help foster a vibrant and independent media sector, counter misinformation, present modern multicultural Australia, and support deeper people-to-people engagement.
It focuses on three key areas, including:
supporting the creation and distribution of compelling Australian content that engages audiences and demonstrates Australia’s commitment to the region;
enhancing access in the region to trusted sources of media, including news and current affairs, strengthening regional media capacity and capability; and
boosting connections between Australian-based and Indo-Pacific media and content creators.
Crucial role
Foreign Minister Penny Wong said media plays a crucial role in elevating the voices and perspectives of the region and strengthening democracy.
Wong said the Australia government was committed to supporting viable, resilient and independent media in the region.
Minister for International Development and the Pacific Pat Conroy said Australia and the Pacific shared close cultural and people-to-people links, and an enduring love of sport.
“These connections will be further enriched by the boost in Australian content, allowing us to watch, read, and listen to shared stories across the region — from rugby to news and music.
Conroy said Australia would continue and expand support for media development, including through the new phase of the Pacific Media Assistance Scheme (PACMAS) and future opportunities through the Australia-Pacific Media and Broadcasting Partnership.
Communications Minister Michelle Rowland said a healthy Fourth Estate was imperative in the era of digital transformation and misinformation.
“This strategy continues Australia’s longstanding commitment to supporting a robust media sector in our region,” she said.
“By leveraging Australia’s strengths, we can partner with the region to boost media connections, and foster a diverse and sustainable media landscape.”
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Of the 42 respondents in the survey, the youngest was 22, and the oldest was 51, with an average age of 33.2 years. The average amount of work experience was 8.3 years.
Most respondents (80.5 percent) worked in print, with the others choosing online and/or broadcasting. Most respondents answered that they were aware of sexual harassment occurring.
Researchers Laisa Bulatale (left) and Nalini Singh of the Fiji Women’s Rights Movement (FWRM). . . most respondents answered that they were aware of sexual harassment occurring. Image: RNZ Pacific
The ABC’s Fiji reporter, Lice Monovo is an experienced journalist who has worked for RNZ Pacific and The Guardian.
She said she was not surprised by the findings and such incidents were familiar to her.
“There were things I had encountered, and some close friends had, and they were things I had seen but what I did also feel was shock that it was still happening and shock that it was more widespread.”
After reading the preliminary results of the report, she realised that although women did take steps, including reporting harassment and approaching their employers or asking for help, still not enough was being done to protect female journalists.
Panel discussion on “Prevalence and Impact of Sexual Harassment on Female Journalists”. Panelists were Laisa Bulatale, Georgina Kekea, Jacqui Berrell, Lice Movono, Dr Shailendra Bahadur Singh. The moderator was Nalini Singh. Image: Stefan Armbruster/RNZ Pacific
“Their concerns and worries, and the things they went through were invalidated, they were told to ‘suck it up’, they were told to put it behind them.”
Movono added that often the burden and responsibility for the harassment were shifted to them, the victims.
“So no, I don’t think enough was done,” she said.
Fiji Women’s Rights Movement’s Laisa Bulatale said many of the women in the research experienced verbal, physical, gestural, and online harassment at work. She said it was not only confined to the workplace.
“A lot of the harassment was also experienced when they went and did assignments or when they had to do interviews with high-ranking officials in government, MPs, even rugby personalities or people in the sports industry,” she said.
She said they were justifiably hesitant to report these problems.
“They [female reporters] feared victim blaming and a lot of shame so a lot of the female journalists that we spoke to in the survey said they carried that with them, and they didn’t feel they knew enough to be able to report the incident.
“And if they did, they were not confident enough that the complaint processes or the referral pathways for them within the organisations they were working in would hear the case or address it.”
Georgina Kekea is an experienced Solomon Islands journalist and editor of Tavali News. She completed a survey of female reporters in the Solomon Islands’ newsroom.
“When I got the responses back, I guess for someone working in the industry, it just validated also what you have been through in your career. What all of us are going through as female journalists,”
Kekea said that there was not much support coming from the superiors in the newsroom.
“Mostly because I think we have males who are leading the team, not understanding issues which women face, and of course, being a Melanesian society, the culture plays a big part, and also obstacles men face when it comes to addressing women’s issues,” Kekea said.
Alex Rheeney is former editor of both PNG’s Post-Courier and the Samoa Observer.
He said he was not surprised by the panel’s discussion.
“Our female colleagues, female reporters, female broadcasters, they go through some very, very huge challenges that those of us who were working in the newsroom as a reporter before didn’t go through simply because of the fact we were male, and it’s unacceptable.”
“Why do we have to have those challenges today?”
He said that newsrooms should develop policies to look after the welfare and safety of female reporters.
“We just have to look at the findings from the survey that was done in Fiji.”
He was positive that the Fijian survey had been done but queried what the follow-up steps should be in terms of putting in place mechanisms to protect female reporters.
“I can only think back to the time when I was the editor of the Post-Courier, I had to drive one of my female reporters to the Boroka police station to get a restraining order against her husband.
“I got personally involved because I knew that it was already affecting her, her children and her family.”
Rheeney said that the media industry needed to do more.
The personal intervention he had undertaken, was a response to an individual problem. However, the industry needed to be able to do more, as harassment and violence against female journalists were in a state of crisis.
“We can’t afford to sit back and just wait for it to happen; we need to be proactive.”
Rheeney believed that the media industry across the Pacific needed to put more measures in place to protect female journalists and staff both in the newsroom and when out on assignment.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Many platitudes about media freedom and democracy laced last week’s Pacific International Media Conference in the Fijian capital of Suva. There was a mood of euphoria at the impressive event, especially from politicians who talked about journalism being the “oxygen of democracy”.
The dumping of the draconian and widely hated Fiji Media Industry Development Act that had started life as a military decree in 2010, four years after former military commander Voreqe Bainimarama seized power, and was then enacted in the first post-coup elections in 2014, was seen as having restored media freedom for the first time in almost two decades.
As a result, Fiji had bounced back 45 places to 44th on this year’s Reporters Without Borders World Press Freedom Index – by far the biggest climb of any nation in Oceania, where most countries, including Australia and New Zealand, have been sliding downhill.
One of Fiji’s three deputy Prime Ministers, Professor Biman Prasad, a former University of the South Pacific economist and long a champion of academic and media freedom, told the conference the new Coalition government headed by the original 1987 coup leader Sitiveni Rabuka had reintroduced media self-regulation and “we can actually feel the freedom everywhere, including in Parliament”.
The same theme had been offered at the conference opening ceremony by another deputy PM, Manoa Kamikamica, who declared:
“We pride ourselves on a government that tries to listen, and hopefully we can try and chart a way forward in terms of media freedom and journalism in the Pacific, and most importantly, Fiji.
“They say that journalism is the oxygen of democracy, and that could be no truer than in the case of Fiji.”
Happy over media law repeal
Papua New Guinea’s Minister for Information and Communication Technology Timothy Masiu echoed the theme. Speaking at the conference launch of a new book, Waves of Change: Media, Peace, and Development in the Pacific (co-edited by Professor Prasad, conference chair Associate Professor Shailendra Singh and Dr Amit Sarwal), he said: “We support and are happy with this government of Fiji for repealing the media laws that went against media freedom in Fiji in the recent past.”
Fiji Deputy Prime Minister Manoa Kamikamica . . . speaking about the “oxygen of democracy” at the opening of the Pacific International Media Conference in Suva on 4 July 2024. Image: Asia Pacific Media Network
But therein lies an irony. While Masiu supports the repeal of a dictatorial media law in Fiji, he is a at the centre of controversy back home over a draft media law (now in its fifth version) that he is spearheading that many believe will severely curtail the traditional PNG media freedom guaranteed under the constitution.
He defends his policies, saying that in PNG, “given our very diverse society with over 1000 tribes and over 800 languages and huge geography, correct and factful information is also very, very critical.”
Masiu says that what drives him is a “pertinent question”:
“How is the media being developed and used as a tool to protect and preserve our Pacific identity?”
PNG Minister for Information and Communications Technology Timothy Masiu (third from right) at the conference pre-dinner book launchings at Holiday Inn, Suva, on July 4. The celebrants are holding the 30th anniversary edition of Pacific Journalism Review. Image: Wansolwara
Another issue over the conference was the hypocrisy over debating media freedom in downtown Suva while a few streets away Fijian freedom of speech advocates and political activists were being gagged about speaking out on critical decolonisation and human rights issues such as Kanaky, Palestine and West Papua freedom.
In the front garden of the Gordon Street compound of the Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre (FWCC), the independence flags of Kanaky, Palestine and West Papua flutter in the breeze. Placards and signs daub the walls of the centre declaring messages such as “Stop the genocide”, “Resistance is justified! When people are occupied!”, “Free Kanaky – Justice for Kanaky”, “Ceasefire, stop genocide”, “Palestine is a moral litmus test for the world” and “We need rainbows not Rambos”.
The West Papuan Morning Star and Palestinian flags for decolonisation fluttering high in downtown Suva. Image: APMN
‘Thursdays in Black’
While most of the 100 conference participants from 11 countries were gathered at the venue to launch the peace journalism book Waves of Change and the 30th anniversary edition of Pacific Journalism Review, about 30 activists were gathered at the same time on July 4 in the centre’s carpark for their weekly “Thursdays in Black” protest.
But they were barred from stepping onto the footpath in public or risk arrest. Freedom of speech and freedom of assembly Fiji-style.
Protesters at the Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre compound in downtown Suva in the weekly “Thursdays in Black” solidarity rally with Kanaky, Palestine and West Papua on July 4. Image: APMN
Surprisingly, the protest organisers were informed on the same day that they could stage a “pre-Bastllle Day” protest about Kanaky and West Papua on July 12, but were banned from raising Israeli’s genocidal war on Palestine.
The protest march was staged on Friday but in spite of the Palestine ban some placards surfaced and also Palestinian symbols such as keffiyehs and watermelons.
The “pre-Bastille Day” march in Suva in solidarity for decolonisation. Image: FWCC
The Fiji NGO Coalition on Human Rights in Fiji and their allies have been hosting vigils at FWCC compound for Palestine, West Papua and Kanaky every Thursday over the last eight months, calling on the Fiji government and Pacific leaders to support the ceasefire in Gaza, and protect the rights of Palestinians, West Papuans and Kanaks.
“The struggles of Palestinians are no different to West Papua, Kanaky New Caledonia — these are struggles of self-determination, and their human rights must be upheld,” said FWCC coordinator and the NGO coalition chair Shamima Ali.
Solidarity for Kanaky in the “pre-Bastille Day” march in Suva on Friday. Image: FWCC
Media silence noticed
Outside the conference, Pacific commentators also noticed the media hypocrisy and the extraordinary silence.
Canberra-based West Papuan diplomacy-trained activist and musician Ronny Kareni complained in a post on X, formerly Twitter: “While media personnel, journos and academia in journalism gathered [in Suva] to talk about media freedom, media network and media as the oxygen of democracy etc., why Papuan journos can’t attend, yet Indon[esian] ambassador to Fiji @SimamoraDupito can??? Just curious.”
Ronny Kareni’s X post about the Indonesian Ambassador to Fiji Dupito D. Simamora. Image: @ronnykareni X screenshot APR
At the conference itself, some speakers did raise the Palestine and decolonisation issue.
Speaker Khairiah A Rahman (from left) of the Asia Pacific Media Network and colleagues Pacific Journalism Review designer Del Abcede, PJR editor Dr Philip Cass, Dr Adam Brown, PJR founder Dr David Robie, and Rach Mario (Whānau Community Hub). Image: APMN
Khairiah A. Rahman, of the Asia Pacific Media Network, one of the partner organisers along with the host University of the South Pacific and Pacific Islands News Association, spoke on the “Media, Community, Social Cohesion and Conflict Prevention” panel following Hong Kong Professor Cherian George’s compelling keynote address about “Cracks in the Mirror: When Media Representations Sharpen Social Divisions”.
She raised the Palestine crisis as a critical global issue and also a media challenge.
“Palestine is a moral litmus test for the world” poster at the Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre compound. Image: APMN
In his keynote address, “Frontline Media Faultlines: How Critical Journalism Can Survive Against the Odds”, Professor David Robie, also of APMN, spoke of the common decolonisation threads between Kanaky, Palestine and West Papua.
He also critiquing declining trust in mainstream media – that left some “feeling anxious and powerless” — and how they were being fragmented by independent start-ups that were perceived by many people as addressing universal truths such as the genocide in Palestine.
“Gaza has become not just a metaphor for a terrible state of dystopia in parts of the world, it has also become an existential test for journalists – do we stand up for peace and justice and the right of people to survive under the threat of ethnic cleansing and against genocide, or do we do nothing and remain silent in the face of genocide being carried out with impunity in front of our very eyes?
“The answer is simple surely . . .
“And it is about saving journalism, our credibility, and our humanity as journalists.”
Professor David Robie’s keynote speech at Pacific Media 2023. Video: The Australia Today
At the end of his address, Dr Robie called for a minute’s silence in a tribute to the 158 Palestinian journalists who had been killed so far in the ninth-month war on Gaza. The Gazan journalists were awarded this year’s UNESCO Guillermo Cano Media Freedom Prize for their “courage and commitment to freedom of expression”.
Undoubtedly the two most popular panels in the conference were the “Pacific Editors’ Forum” when eight editors from around the region “spoke their minds”, and a panel on sexual harassment on the media workplace and on the job.
Little or no action
According to speakers in “Gender and Media in the Pacific: Examining violence that women Face” panel introduced and moderated by Fiji Women’s Rights Movement (FWRM) executive director Nalini Singh, female journalists continue to experience inequalities and harassment in their workplaces and on assignment — with little or no action taken against their perpetrators.
Fiji journalist Lice Movono speaking on a panel discussion about “Prevalence and Impact of sexual harassment on female journalists” at the Pacific International Media Conference in Fiji. Image: Stefan Armbruster/Benar News
The speakers included FWRM programme director Laisa Bulatale, experienced Pacific journalists Lice Movono and Georgina Kekea, strategic communications specialist Jacqui Berell and USP’s Dr Shailendra Singh, associate professor and the conference chair.
“As 18 and 19 year old (journalists), what we experienced 25 years ago in the industry is still the same situation — and maybe even worse now for young female journalists,” Movono said.
She shared “unfortunate and horrifying” accounts of experiences of sexual harassment by local journalists and the lack of space to discuss these issues.
These accounts included online bullying coupled with threats against journalists and their loved ones and families. stalking of female journalists, always being told to “suck it up” by bosses and other colleagues, the fear and stigma of reporting sexual harassment experiences, feeling as if no one would listen or care, the lack of capacity/urgency to provide psychological social support and many more examples.
“They do the work and they go home, but they take home with them, trauma,” Movono said.
And Kekea added: “Women journalists hardly engage in spaces to have their issues heard, they are often always called upon to take pictures and ‘cover’.”
Technology harassment
Berell talked about Technology Facilitated Gender Based Violence (TFGBV) — a grab bag term to cover the many forms of harassment of women through online violence and bullying.
The FWRM also shared statistics on the combined research with USP’s School of Journalism on the “Prevalence and Impact of Sexual Harassment on Female Journalists” and data on sexual harassment in the workplace undertaken by the team.
Speaking from the floor, New Zealand Pacific investigative television journalist Indira Stewart also rounded off the panel with some shocking examples from Aotearoa New Zealand.
In spite of the criticisms over hypocrisy and silence over global media freedom and decolonisation challenges, participants generally concluded this was the best Pacific media conference in many years.
Asia Pacific Media Network’s Nik Naidu (right) with Maggie Boyle and Professor Emily Drew. Image: Del Abcede/APMN
Two widows and their children were among other Papua New Guinean squatters who had to dismantle their homes as the eviction exercise started at portion 2157 at Nine-Mile’s Bush Wara this week.
Agnes Kamak, 52, from Jiwaka’s South Waghi, and Jen Emeke, from Enga’s Wapenamanda, said they had lived and raised their children in the area for the past 10 years since the death of their husbands.
Kamak, who was employed as a cleaner with the Health Department, said she did not know where her family would go to seek refuge and rebuild their lives after they were evicted on Thursday.
“My two sons, daughter and I slept in the open last night [Wednesday] after we dismantled our home because we did not want the earthmoving machines to destroy our housing materials today [Thursday],” she said.
Kamak said she saved the money while working as a cleaner in various companies and bought a piece of land for K10,000 (NZ$4200) in 2013 from a man claiming to be from Koiari and a customary landowner.
“My late husband and I bought this piece of land with the little savings I earned as a cleaner,” she said.
“My second son is currently doing Grade 12 at Gerehu Secondary School and I do not want this situation to disrupt his studies.”
12 years in Bush Wara
She said she could not bring her family back home to Jiwaka as she had lived and built her life in Bush Wara for almost 12 years.
Emeke, who also worked as a cleaner, said she bought the piece of land for K10,000 and has lived with her two children in the area since 2016.
“After my husband passed away, my two children and I moved here and build our home,” Emeke said.
On March 12, the National Court granted leave to Nambawan Super Limited (NSL) to issue writs of possession to all illegal settlers residing within portions 2156, 2157 and 2159 at 9-Mile’s Bush Wara.
At the same time, it granted a 120-day grace period for the settlers to voluntarily vacate the land portions.
Most squatters had moved out during the 120-day grace period granted by the National Court for the settlers to voluntarily vacate the land.
The National witnessed the remaining squatters voluntarily pulling down the remaining structures of their homes and properties as earthmoving machines started clearing the area yesterday.
5400 squatters
It is understood that a survey conducted two years ago revealed that the total population squatting on the NSL land was about 5400 with 900 houses.
Acting commander of NCD and Central Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Peter Guinness said he was pleased with both the police and squatters who worked together to see that the first day of eviction went smoothly.
He said there was no confrontation and the first day of eviction was carried out peacefully.
Assistant Commissioner Guinness said settlers who were still removing their properties were given time to do so while the machines moved to other locations.
“I want to thank my police officers and also the sheriff officers for a well-coordinated awareness programme that led to a peaceful first day of eviction.
“The public must understand that police presence on-site during the awareness and actual eviction was to execute the court order now in place.
“We have families there, too, but we have no choice but to execute our mandated duties.
“The 120-day grace period was enough time for everyone to move out as per the court order,” Guinness said.
Awareness for the eviction exercise started three years ago.
Kelvin Joe and Gynnie Keroare reporters for PNG’s The National. Republished with permission.
A former newspaper editor believes the journalism profession in Papua New Guinea and other Pacific Island countries is in crisis.
Team leader of the Pacific Media Assistance Scheme (PACMAS)/ABC International Development (ABCID) Alexander Rheeney spoke of this issue at the 2024 Pacific International Media Conference in Fiji last week.
Reflecting on his role as a former editor of both the PNG Post-Courier newspaper in Papua New Guinea and the Samoa Observer, Rheeney said a lot of challenges were facing journalists in PNG, especially over the quality of reporting and gender-based violence
Pacific Journalism Review founding editor Dr David Robie speaking at the launch of the 30th anniversary edition of the journal at the 2024 Pacific International Media Conference in Suva, Fiji, last week. View NBC video clip. Image: NBC News screenshot/APR
He said the harassment mainly affected female journalists in newsrooms around the Pacific and Papua New Guinea was no exception.
Rheeney’s concern now is to find solutions to these challenges.
Rheeney told the NBC that every newsroom had its own challenges, and the 2024 Pacific International Media Conference was a great forum that brought journalists past, and present, including media academics and experts together to share and find answers to these problems.
He said the proposed PNG media policy was seen as a threat and challenge for some.
Many journalists and media houses were questioning what this policy might do to affect their way of reporting.
Papua New Guinea’s Information Communication and Technology Minister Timothy Masiu, whose ministry was spearheading this media policy, was also part of the conference and he spoke positively about the policy.
Minister Masiu said that the draft policy was to elevate the media profession in PNG and called for the development of media self-regulation in the country without government’s direct intervention.
The draft policy also was intended to strike a balance between the media’s ongoing role on transparency and accountability on the one hand, and the dissemination of development information on the other hand.
Getting the shot . . . journalists taking photographs at last week’s 2024 Pacific International Media Conference in Suva, Fiji. Image: David Robie/APR
A former newspaper editor believes the journalism profession in Papua New Guinea and other Pacific Island countries is in crisis.
Team leader of the Pacific Media Assistance Scheme (PACMAS)/ABC International Development (ABCID) Alexander Rheeney spoke of this issue at the 2024 Pacific International Media Conference in Fiji last week.
Reflecting on his role as a former editor of both the PNG Post-Courier newspaper in Papua New Guinea and the Samoa Observer, Rheeney said a lot of challenges were facing journalists in PNG, especially over the quality of reporting and gender-based violence
Pacific Journalism Review founding editor Dr David Robie speaking at the launch of the 30th anniversary edition of the journal at the 2024 Pacific International Media Conference in Suva, Fiji, last week. View NBC video clip. Image: NBC News screenshot/APR
He said the harassment mainly affected female journalists in newsrooms around the Pacific and Papua New Guinea was no exception.
Rheeney’s concern now is to find solutions to these challenges.
Rheeney told the NBC that every newsroom had its own challenges, and the 2024 Pacific International Media Conference was a great forum that brought journalists past, and present, including media academics and experts together to share and find answers to these problems.
He said the proposed PNG media policy was seen as a threat and challenge for some.
Many journalists and media houses were questioning what this policy might do to affect their way of reporting.
Papua New Guinea’s Information Communication and Technology Minister Timothy Masiu, whose ministry was spearheading this media policy, was also part of the conference and he spoke positively about the policy.
Minister Masiu said that the draft policy was to elevate the media profession in PNG and called for the development of media self-regulation in the country without government’s direct intervention.
The draft policy also was intended to strike a balance between the media’s ongoing role on transparency and accountability on the one hand, and the dissemination of development information on the other hand.
Getting the shot . . . journalists taking photographs at last week’s 2024 Pacific International Media Conference in Suva, Fiji. Image: David Robie/APR
Here is the speech by Papua New Guinea’s Minister for Communication and Information Technology, Timothy Masiu, at the 2024 Pacific International Media Conference dinner at the Holiday Inn, Suva, on July 4:
I thank the School of Journalism of the University of the South Pacific (USP) for the invitation to address this august gathering.
Commendations also to the Pacific Islands News Association (PINA) and the Asia Pacific Media Network (APMN) for jointly hosting this conference – the first of its kind in our region in two decades!
It is also worth noting that this conference has attracted an Emmy Award-winning television news producer from the United States, an award-winning journalism academic and author based in Hong Kong, a member of the New Zealand Order of Merit, a finalist in the 2017 Pulitzer Prize, and a renowned investigative journalist from New Zealand.
Mix this with our own blend of regional journalists, scholars and like-minded professionals, this is truly an international event.
Commendation to our local organisers and the regional and international stakeholders for putting together what promises to be three days of robust and exciting interactions and discussions on the status of media in our region.
This will also go a long way in proposing practical and tangible improvements for the industry.
My good friend and the Deputy Prime Minister of Fiji, the Honourable Manoa Kamikamica, has already set the tone for our conference with his powerful speech at this morning’s opening ceremony. (In fact, we can claim the DPM to also be Papua New Guinean as he spent time there before entering politics!).
We support and are happy with this government of Fiji for repealing the media laws that went against media freedom in Fiji in the recent past.
In PNG, given our very diverse society with over 1000 tribes and over 800 languages and huge geography, correct and factful information is also very, very critical.
Fiji’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance Professor Biman Prasad and Timothy Masiu, PNG’s Minister for Information and Communications Technology, at the conference dinner. Image: Wansolwara
Our theme “Navigating Challenges and Shaping Futures in Pacific Media Research and Practice” couldn’t be more appropriate at this time.
If anything, it reminds us all of the critical role that the media continues to play in shaping public discourse and catalysing action on issues affecting our Pacific.
We are also reminded of the power of the media to inform, educate, and mobilize community participation in our development agenda.
IT is in the context that I pause to ask this pertinent question: How is the media being developed and used as a tool to protect and preserve our Pacific Identity?
I ask this question because of outside influences on our media in the region.
I should know, as I have somewhat traversed this journey already – from being a broadcaster and journalist myself – to being a member of the board of the largest public broadcaster in the region (National Broadcasting Corporation) – to being the Minister for ICT for PNG.
From where I sit right now, I am observing our Pacific region increasingly being used as the backyard for geopolitical reasons.
It is quite disturbing for me to see our regional media being targeted by the more developed nations as a tool to drive their geopolitical agenda.
As a result, I see a steady influence on our culture, our way of life, and ultimately the gradual erosion of our Pacific values and systems.
In the media industry, some of these geopolitical influences are being redesigned and re-cultured through elaborate and attractive funding themes like improving “transparency” and “accountability”.
This is not the way forward for a truly independent and authentic Pacific media.
The way we as a Pacific develop our media industry must reflect our original and authentic value systems.
Just like our forefathers navigated the unchartered seas – relying mostly on hard-gained knowledge and skills – we too must chart our own course in our media development.
Our media objectives and practices should reflect all levels of our unique Pacific Way of life, focusing on issues like climate change, environmental preservation, the protection and preservation of our fast-fading languages and traditions, and our political landscape.
We must not let our authentic ways be lost or overshadowed by outside influences or agendas. We must control WHAT we write, HOW we write it, and WHY we write.
Don’t get me wrong – we welcome and appreciate the support of our development partners – but we must be free to navigate our own destiny.
If anything, I compel you to give your media funding to build our regional capabilities and capacities to address climate change issues, early warning systems, and support us to fight misinformation, disinformation, and fake news on social media.
I don’t know how the other Pacific Island countries are faring but my Department of ICT has built a social media management desk to monitor these ever-increasing menaces on Facebook, Tik Tok, Instagram and other online platforms.
This is another area of concern for me, especially for my future generations.
Draft National Media Development Policy of PNG Please allow me to make a few remarks on the Draft National Media Development Policy of PNG that my ministry has initiated.
As its name entails, it is a homegrown policy that aims to properly address many glaring media issues in our country.
In its current fifth draft version, the draft policy aims to promote media self-regulation; improve government media capacity; roll-out media infrastructure for all; and diversify content and quota usage for national interest.
These policy objectives were derived from an extensive nationwide consultation process of online surveys, workshops and one-on-one interviews with government agencies and media industry stakeholders and the public.
To elevate media professionalism in PNG, the policy calls for the development of media self-regulation in the country without direct government intervention.
The draft policy also intend to strike a balance between the media’s ongoing role on transparency and accountability on the one hand, and the dissemination of developmental information, on the other hand.
It is not in any way an attempt by the Marape/Rosso government to restrict the media in PNG. Nothing can be further from the truth.
In fact, the media in PNG presently enjoys unprecedented freedom and ability to report as they deem appropriate.
Our leaders are constantly being put on the spotlight, and while we don’t necessarily agree with many of their daily reports, we will not suddenly move to restrict the media in PNG in any form.
Rather, we are more interested in having information on health, education, agriculture, law and order, and other societal and economic information, reaching more of our local and remote communities across the country.
It is in this context that specific provision within the draft policy calls for the mobilisation – particularly the government media – to disseminate more developmental information that is targeted towards our population at the rural and district levels.
I have brought a bigger team to Suva to also listen and gauge the views of our Pacific colleagues on this draft policy.
The fifth version is publicly available on our Department of ICT website and we will certainly welcome any critique or feedback from you all.
Before I conclude, let me also briefly highlight another intervention I made late last year as part of my Ministry’s overall “Smart Pacific; One Voice” initiative.
After an absence for several years, I invited our Pacific ICT Ministers to a meeting in Port Moresby in late 2023.
At the end of this defining summit, we signed the Pacific ICT Ministers’ Lagatoi Declaration.
For a first-time regional ICT Ministers’ meeting, it was well-attended. Deputy Prime Minister Manoa also graced us with his presence with other Pacific Ministers, including Australia and New Zealand.
This declaration is a call-to-arms for our regional ministers to meet regularly to discuss the challenges and opportunities posed by the all-important ICT sector.
Our next meeting is in New Caledonia in 2025.
In much the same vein, I was appointed the special envoy to the Pacific by the Asia-Pacific Institute for Broadcasting Development (AIBD) in Mauritius in 2023.
Since then, I have continuously advocated for the Pacific to be more coordinated and unified, so we can be better heard.
I have been quite bemused by the fact that the Pacific does not have its own regional offices for such well-meaning agencies like AIBD to promote our own unique media issues.
More often than not, we are either thrown into the “Asia-Pacific’ or “Oceania” groupings and as result, our media and wider ICT interests and aspirations get drowned by our more influential friends and donors.
We must dictate what our broadcasting (and wider media) development agenda should be. We live in our Region and better understand the “Our Pacific Way” of doing things.
Let me conclude by reiterating my firm belief that the Pacific needs a hard reset of our media strategies.
This means re-discovering our original values to guide our methods and practices within the media industry.
We must be unified in our efforts navigate the challenges ahead, and to reshape the future of media in the Pacific.
We must ensure it reflects our authentic ways and serves the needs of our Pacific people.
Today, the United States is leading the world’s largest multinational maritime war exercise from occupied Honolulu, Hawai’i. 25,000 personnel from 29 nations, including NATO allies and other strategic partners, are participating in the Rim of the Pacific, or RIMPAC, under the command of the US Pacific Fleet, a major component of the US Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM).
With RIMPAC now underway, the lands and waters surrounding the Hawaiian Islands are being intensively bombed and shelled as participating forces practice amphibious landings and urban combat training, and the Kānaka Maoli (Native Hawaiians) find their sovereignty once again violated after more than 130 years of colonization by the US.
RIMPAC aims to fortify the colonization and militarization of the Pacific, ensuring the security of the West’s imperialist agenda against the rise of China and other threats to the US-led capitalist system.
In the interest of advancing a political education around the history and purpose of INDOPACOM as part of U.S. militarism, the Solidarity Network for the Black Alliance for Peace has published this comprehensive Fact Sheet on INDOPACOM.
WHAT IS INDOPACOM?
U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, or INDOPACOM, is one of the U.S. Department of Defense’s eleven unified combatant commands that together span the globe. INDOPACOM’s area of responsibility (AOR) covers half of the earth’s surface, stretching from California to India’s western border, and from Antarctica to the North Pole. INDOPACOM claims 38 nations within its AOR, which together comprise over half of the world’s population. Its AOR includes the two most populous countries in the world, China and India, while also encompassing small island nations, such as Diego Garcia, Guam, Palau, and Samoa, all of which are under some form of U.S. colonial occupation. INDOPACOM comprises multiple components and sub-unified commands. They include U.S. Forces Korea, U.S. Forces Japan, U.S. Special Operations Command Pacific, U.S. Pacific Fleet, U.S. Marine Forces Pacific, U.S. Pacific Air Forces, and U.S. Army Pacific.
According to INDOPACOM, this large and diverse area is optimal terrain to implement its “combat credible deterrence strategy.” This includes an estimated 366 bases and installations across 16 nations–more than any other command structure due to large concentrations in Guam, Hawai’i, Japan, Korea, and Okinawa. Many of the military installations strategically surround China and major trade routes.
Headquartered at Camp H.M. Smith of occupied Honolulu, Hawai’i, INDOPACOM claims to enhance stability and ensure “a free and open Indo-Pacific” through military and economic partnerships with countries in the region. Nonetheless, it also claims to advance “U.S. national security objectives while protecting national interests.” INDOPACOM states its mission is to build a combat-ready force “capable of denying its adversaries sustained air and sea dominance.”
THE HISTORY OF INDOPACOM
INDOPACOM is the U.S. military’s oldest and largest combatant command. It is the result of a merger between three commands–Far East Command, Pacific Command and Alaskan Command–which were established after World War II in 1947. The first commander of the Far East Command, General Douglas MacArthur, was tasked with “carrying out occupation duties of Korea, Japan, the Ryukyu Islands, the Bonin Islands, the Philippines and the Mariana Islands.” From the end of WWII to 1958, the U.S. military conducted 67 nuclear tests throughout the Marshall Islands under “Operation Crossroads.” It conducted another 36 nuclear detonations at Christmas Island and Johnston Atoll in 1962 under “Operation Dominic,” which permanently destroyed the natural biomes.
Against the backdrop of the Korean War, the key predecessor to INDOPACOM, Pacific Command, was primarily oriented toward combat operations in Korea and later, the Philippines. The ongoing Korean War has resulted in millions of casualties as well as the demarcation of North and South Korea since 1953. By 1957, Pacific Command saw a major expansion and strategic reorientation of its AOR, absorbing the Far East Command and most of the Alaskan Command. Camp H.M. Smith of occupied Honolulu, Hawai’i was selected as the new headquarters because the U.S. Fleet Marine Force, Pacific, the largest maritime invasion force in the world, was already located there.
Throughout the U.S. war on Vietnam, Pacific Command controlled all U.S. military forces, including South Vietnamese assets, and operations within the country. Leading both the U.S. Pacific Air Forces and Pacific Fleet, Pacific Command’s brutal campaigns resulted in some of the most egregious atrocities, such as the My Lai massacre in 1968. Pacific Command’s operations also included some of the heaviest aerial bombardments, like “Operation Rolling Thunder.” In its numerous campaigns, which also included “Operation Bolo,” “Linebacker I and II”, “Ranch Hand,” and “Arc Lightdropping,” Pacific Command dropped over 5 million tons of bombs and at least 11 million gallons of the highly corrosive herbicide known as “Agent Orange” on Southeast Asia. Pacific Command was also responsible for covert bombing operations targeting Cambodia and Laos during the war, dropping over 2.5 million tons of bombs through “Operation Menu.”
Pacific Command saw subsequent alterations to its AOR after U.S. forces fled Vietnam in 1973. Responsibility for Afghanistan and Pakistan was delegated to US Central Command after its inauguration in 1983, while Pacific Command assumed new responsibility for China and North Korea that same year. U.S. Secretaries of Defense Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfield respectively oversaw territorial expansions to Pacific Command’s AOR in 1989 and 2002, into INDOPACOM’s current formation.
INDOPACOM NOW
The United States continues to view the Asia-Pacific region as pivotal to the pursuit of its material interests, emphasizing that the region is home to some of the largest and fastest-growing economies and militaries. The Obama administration’s 2011 “Pivot to Asia” marked a stronger push by Pacific Command for confrontation not only with China but any nation or movement that poses a threat to U.S. hegemony in the region.
In 2018, Pacific Command was rebranded to Indo-Pacific Command, or INDOPACOM, as it is known today. This move was meant to recognize the strategic importance of India, following heightened aggression toward China during the Obama and Trump presidencies. INDOPACOM regularly conducts joint naval training exercises in the South China Sea with countries like Japan and Australia in clear violation of international law and even secretly stationed U.S. special-operations and support forces in Taiwan since 2021.
Massive military exercises like the largest international maritime warfare training, the “Rim of the Pacific Exercise (RIMPAC),” and others like “Cape North” and Joint Pacific Multinational Readiness Center trainings occur frequently in occupied Hawai’i and Guam, without the consent of the Indigenous populations. In 2023, INDOPACOM carried out new iterations of its“Talisman Sabre” exercise in Australia and its “Super Garuda Shield” exercise in Indonesia. These exercises involved tens of thousands of military personnel from 13 and 19 nations, respectively, including the Pacific island nations of Papua New Guinea, Fiji, and Tonga for the first time.
INDOPACOM’s major military partners in the Asia-Pacific region include Japan and South Korea. The U.S. military holds significant leverage over each nation’s armed forces via agreements undergirding the U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) and U.S. Forces Japan (USFJ), essentially commanding additional joint military structures with their own distinct mission, vision, and objectives in support of INDOPACOM. USFK continues to prevent reunification in Korea as part of its mission to “defend the Republic of Korea,” while USFJ remains committed to the colonial occupation of Okinawa as part of its mission of “provid[ing] a ready and lethal capability…in support of the U.S.-Japan Alliance.”
BAP AGAINST INDOPACOM
INDOPACOM works to extend U.S. military influence throughout the Asia-Pacific region and to promote the militarism and violence required to fulfill the material interests of the U.S. ruling class. By portraying China as a global bogeyman, INDOPACOM serves to obfuscate the indigeneity and legitimacy of liberation movements like those occurring on the occupied islands of Guam, Hawai’i, Okinawa, and Samoa, as well as nearly every other nation across the region from Indonesia and Malaysia to the Philippines. INDOPACOM’s aggressive role in the region serves to create the very instability it uses to justify its own existence and mask the responsibility of U.S. officials provoking new wars.
The Black Alliance for Peace stands against the influence and power of INDOPACOM, and the ever-increasing militarization of the region. Informed by the Black Radical Peace Tradition, we understand that peace is not the absence of conflict, but the achievement, by popular struggle and self-defense, of a world liberated from nuclear armament and proliferation, unjust war, and global white supremacy. As referenced in our Principles of Unity, BAP takes a resolute anti-colonial, anti-imperialist position that links the international role of the U.S. empire–one based on war, aggression and exploitation–to the domestic war against poor and working-class African/Black people in the United States.
Global Voices interviews veteran author, journalist and educator David Robie who discussed the state of Pacific media, journalism education, and the role of the press in addressing decolonisation and the climate crisis.
INTERVIEW:By Mong Palatino in Manila
Professor David Robie is among this year’s New Zealand Order of Merit awardees and was on the King’s Birthday Honours list earlier this month for his “services to journalism and Asia-Pacific media education.”
His career in journalism has spanned five decades. He was the founding editor of the Pacific Journalism Review journal in 1994 and in 1996 he established the Pacific Media Watch, a media rights watchdog group.
He was head of the journalism department at the University of Papua New Guinea from 1993–1997 and at the University of the South Pacific from 1998–2002. While teaching at Auckland University of Technology, he founded the Pacific Media Centre in 2007.
In 2015, he was given the Asian Media Information and Communication Centre (AMIC) Asian Communication Award in Dubai. Global Voices interviewed him about the challenges faced by journalists in the Pacific and his career. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
MONG PALATINO (MP): What are the main challenges faced by the media in the region?
DAVID ROBIE (DR): Corruption, viability, and credibility — the corruption among politicians and influence on journalists, the viability of weak business models and small media enterprises, and weakening credibility. After many years of developing a reasonably independent Pacific media in many countries in the region with courageous and independent journalists in leadership roles, many media groups are becoming susceptible to growing geopolitical rivalry between powerful players in the region, particularly China, which is steadily increasing its influence on the region’s media — especially in Solomon Islands — not just in development aid.
However, the United States, Australia and France are also stepping up their Pacific media and journalism training influences in the region as part of “Indo-Pacific” strategies that are really all about countering Chinese influence.
Indonesia is also becoming an influence in the media in the region, for other reasons. Jakarta is in the middle of a massive “hearts and minds” strategy in the Pacific, mainly through the media and diplomacy, in an attempt to blunt the widespread “people’s” sentiment in support of West Papuan aspirations for self-determination and eventual independence.
MP: What should be prioritised in improving journalism education in the region?
DR: The university-based journalism schools, such as at the University of the South Pacific in Fiji, are best placed to improve foundation journalism skills and education, and also to encourage life-long learning for journalists. More funding would be more beneficial channelled through the universities for more advanced courses, and not just through short-course industry training. I can say that because I have been through the mill both ways — 50 years as a journalist starting off in the “school of hard knocks” in many countries, including almost 30 years running journalism courses and pioneering several award-winning student journalist publications. However, it is important to retain media independence and not allow funding NGOs to dictate policies.
MP: How can Pacific journalists best fulfill their role in highlighting Pacific stories, especially the impact of the climate crisis?
DR: The best strategy is collaboration with international partners that have resources and expertise in climate crisis, such as the Earth Journalism Network to give a global stage for their issues and concerns. When I was still running the Pacific Media Centre, we had a high profile Pacific climate journalism Bearing Witness project where students made many successful multimedia reports and award-winning commentaries. An example is this one on YouTube: Banabans of Rabi: A Story of Survival
MP: What should the international community focus on when reporting about the Pacific?
DR: It is important for media to monitor the Indo-Pacific rivalries, but to also keep them in perspective — so-called ”security” is nowhere as important to Pacific countries as it is to its Western neighbours and China. It is important for the international community to keep an eye on the ball about what is important to the Pacific, which is ‘development’ and ‘climate crisis’ and why China has an edge in some countries at the moment.
Australia and, to a lesser extent, New Zealand have dropped the ball in recent years, and are tying to regain lost ground, but concentrating too much on “security”. Listen to the Pacific voices.
There should be more international reporting about the “hidden stories” of the Pacific such as the unresolved decolonisation issues — Kanaky New Caledonia, “French” Polynesia (Mā’ohi Nui), both from France; and West Papua from Indonesia. West Papua, in particular, is virtually ignored by Western media in spite of the ongoing serious human rights violations. This is unconscionable.
Mong Palatino is regional editor of Global Voices for Southeast Asia. An activist and former two-term member of the Philippine House of Representatives, he has been blogging since 2004 at mongster’s nest. @mongsterRepublished with permission.
This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by Pacific Media Watch.
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