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Category: Self Determination

  • It will take more than an Oscar to stop Israel’s West Bank plans

    By Leilani Farha of The New Arab

    “I started filming when we started to end.” With these haunting words, Basel Adra begins No Other Land, the Oscar-winning documentary that depicts life in Masafer Yatta, a collection of Palestinian villages in the southern West Bank that are under complete occupation – military and civil – by Israel.

    For Basel and his community, this land isn’t merely territory — it’s identity, livelihood, their past and future.

    No Other Land vividly captures the intensity of life in rural Palestinian villages and the everyday destruction perpetrated by both Israeli authorities and the nearby settler population: the repeated demolition of Palestinian homes and schools; destruction of water sources such as wells; uprooting of olive trees; and the constant threat of extreme violence.

    While this 95-minute slice of Palestinian life opened the world’s eyes, most are unaware that No Other Land takes place in an area of the West Bank that is ground zero for any viable future Palestinian state.

    Designated as “Area C” under the Oslo Peace Accords, it constitutes 60% of the occupied West Bank and is where the bulk of Israeli settlements and outposts are located. It is a beautiful and resource-rich area upon which a Palestinian state would need to rely for self-sufficiency.

    For decades now, Israel has been using military rule as well as its planning regime to take over huge swathes of Area C, land that is Palestinian — lived and worked on for generations.

    This has been achieved through Israel’s High Planning Council, an institution constituted solely of Israelis who oversee the use of the land through permits — a system that invariably benefits Israelis and subjugates Palestinians, so much so that Israel denies access to Palestinians of 99 percent of the land in Area C including their own agricultural lands and private property.

    ‘This is apartheid’
    Michael Lynk, when he was serving as UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, referred to Israel’s planning system as “de-development” and stated explicitly: “This is apartheid”.

    The International Court of Justice recently affirmed what Palestinians have long known: Israel’s planning policies in the West Bank are not only discriminatory but form part of a broader annexation agenda — a violation of international humanitarian law.

    To these ends, Israel deploys a variety of strategies: Israeli officials will deem certain areas as “state lands”, necessary for military use, or designate them as archaeologically significant, or will grant permission for the expansion of an existing settlement or the establishment of a new one.

    Meanwhile, less than 1 percent of Palestinian permit applications were granted at the best of times, a percentage which has dropped to zero since October 2023.

    As part of the annexation strategy, one of Israel’s goals with respect to Area C is demographic: to move Israelis in and drive Palestinians out — all in violation of international law which prohibits the forced relocation of occupied peoples and the transfer of the occupant’s population to occupied land.

    Regardless, Israel is achieving its goal with impunity: between 2023 and 2025 more than 7,000 Palestinians have been forcibly displaced from their homes in Area C due to Israeli settler violence and access restrictions.

    At least 16 Palestinian communities have been completely emptied, their residents scattered, and their ties to ancestral lands severed.

    Israel’s settler colonialism on steroids
    Under the cover of the international community’s focus on Gaza since October 2023, Israel has accelerated its land grab at an unprecedented pace.

    The government has increased funding for settlements by nearly 150 percent; more than 25,000 new Israeli housing units in settlements have been advanced or approved; and Israel has been carving out new roads through Palestinian lands in the West Bank, severing Palestinians from each other, their lands and other vital resources.

    Israeli authorities have also encouraged the establishment of new Israeli outposts in Area C, housing some of the most radical settlers who have been intensifying serious violence against Palestinians in the area, often with the support of Israeli soldiers.

    None of this is accidental. In December 2022, Israel appointed Bezalel Smotrich, founder of a settler organisation and a settler himself, to oversee civilian affairs in the West Bank.

    Since then, administrative changes have accelerated settlement expansion while tightening restrictions on Palestinians. New checkpoints and barriers throughout Area C have further isolated Palestinian communities, making daily life increasingly impossible.

    Humanitarian organisations and the international community provide much-needed emergency assistance to help Palestinians maintain a foothold, but Palestinians are quickly losing ground.

    As No Other Land hit screens in movie houses across the world, settlers were storming homes in Area C and since the Oscar win there has been a notable uptick in violence. Just this week reports emerged that co-director Hamdan Ballal was himself badly beaten by Israeli settlers and incarcerated overnight by the Israeli army.

    Israel’s annexation of Area C is imminent. To retain it as Palestinian will require both the Palestinian Authority and the international community to shift the paradigm, assert that Area C is Palestinian and take more robust actions to breathe life into this legal fact.

    The road map for doing so was laid by the International Court of Justice who found unequivocally that Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza is unlawful and must come to an end.

    They specified that the international community has obligations in this regard: they must not directly or indirectly aid Israel in maintaining the occupation and they must cooperate to end it.

    With respect to Area C, this includes tackling Israel’s settlement policy to cease, prevent and reverse settlement construction and expansion; preventing any further settler violence; and ending any engagement with Israel’s discriminatory High Planning Council, which must be dismantled.

    With no time to waste, and despite all the other urgencies in Gaza and the West Bank, if there is to be a Palestinian state, Palestinians in Area C must be provided with full support – political, financial, and legal — by local authorities and the international community, to rebuild their lives and livelihoods.

    After all, Area C is Palestine.

    Leilani Farha is a former UN Special Rapporteur on the right to adequate housing and author of the report Area C is Everything. Republished under Creative Commons.

     

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • From Rongelap to Mejatto – how Rainbow Warrior helped move nuclear refugees

    The second of a two-part series on the historic Rongelap evacuation of 300 Marshall islanders from their irradiated atoll with the help of the Greenpeace flagship Rainbow Warrior crew and the return of Rainbow Warrior III 40 years later on a nuclear justice research mission. Journalist and author David Robie, who was on board, recalls the 1985 voyage.

    SPECIAL REPORT: By David Robie

    Mejatto, previously uninhabited and handed over to the people of Rongelap by their close relatives on nearby Ebadon Island, was a lot different to their own island. It was beautiful, but it was only three kilometres long and a kilometre wide, with a dry side and a dense tropical side.

    A sandspit joined it to another small, uninhabited island. Although lush, Mejatto was uncultivated and already it was apparent there could be a food problem.Out on the shallow reef, fish were plentiful.

    Shortly after the Rainbow Warrior arrived on 21 May 1985, several of the men were out wading knee-deep on the coral spearing fish for lunch.

    Rongelap Islanders crowded into a small boat approach the Rainbow Warrior.
    Islanders with their belongings on a bum bum approach the Rainbow Warrior. © David Robie/Eyes of Fire

    But even the shallowness of the reef caused a problem. It made it dangerous to bring the Warrior any closer than about three kilometres offshore — as two shipwrecks on the reef reminded us.

    The cargo of building materials and belongings had to be laboriously unloaded onto a bum bum (small boat), which had also travelled overnight with no navigational aids apart from a Marshallese “wave map’, and the Zodiacs. It took two days to unload the ship with a swell making things difficult at times.

    An 18-year-old islander fell into the sea between the bum bum and the Warrior, almost being crushed but escaping with a jammed foot.

    Fishing success on the reef
    The delayed return to Rongelap for the next load didn’t trouble Davey Edward. In fact, he was celebrating his first fishing success on the reef after almost three months of catching nothing. He finally landed not only a red snapper, but a dozen fish, including a half-metre shark!

    Edward was also a good cook and he rustled up dinner — shark montfort, snapper fillets, tuna steaks and salmon pie (made from cans of dumped American aid food salmon the islanders didn’t want).

    Returning to Rongelap, the Rainbow Warrior was confronted with a load which seemed double that taken on the first trip. Altogether, about 100 tonnes of building materials and other supplies were shipped to Mejatto. The crew packed as much as they could on deck and left for Mejatto, this time with 114 people on board. It was a rough voyage with almost everybody being seasick.

    The journalists were roped in to clean up the ship before returning to Rongelap on the third journey.

    ‘Our people see no light, only darkness’
    Researcher Dr Glenn Alcalay (now an adjunct professor of anthropology at William Paterson University), who spoke Marshallese, was a great help to me interviewing some of the islanders.

    “It’s a hard time for us now because we don’t have a lot of food here on Mejatto — like breadfruit, taro and pandanus,” said Rose Keju, who wasn’t actually at Rongelap during the fallout.

    “Our people feel extremely depressed. They see no light, only darkness. They’ve been crying a lot.

    “We’ve moved because of the poison and the health problems we face. If we have honest scientists to check Rongelap we’ll know whether we can ever return, or we’ll have to stay on Mejatto.”

    Kiosang Kios, 46, was 15 years old at the time of Castle Bravo when she was evacuated to “Kwaj”.

    “My hair fell out — about half the people’s hair fell out,” she said. “My feet ached and burned. I lost my appetite, had diarrhoea and vomited.”

    In 1957, she had her first baby and it was born without bones – “Like this paper, it was flimsy.” A so-called ‘jellyfish baby’, it lived half a day. After that, Kios had several more miscarriages and stillbirths. In 1959, she had a daughter who had problems with her legs and feet and thyroid trouble.

    Out on the reef with the bum bums, the islanders had a welcome addition — an unusual hardwood dugout canoe being used for fishing and transport. It travelled 13,000 kilometres on board the Rainbow Warrior and bore the Sandinista legend FSLN on its black-and-red hull. A gift from Bunny McDiarmid and Henk Haazen, it had been bought for $30 from a Nicaraguan fisherman while they were crewing on the Fri. (Bunny and Henk are on board Rainbow Warrior III for the research mission).

    “It has come from a small people struggling for their sovereignty against the United States and it has gone to another small people doing the same,” said Haazen.

    Animals left behind
    Before the 10-day evacuation ended, Haazen was given an outrigger canoe by the islanders. Winched on to the deck of the Warrior, it didn’t quite make a sail-in protest at Moruroa, as Haazen planned, but it has since become a familiar sight on Auckland Harbour.

    With the third load of 87 people shipped to Mejatto and one more to go, another problem emerged. What should be done about the scores of pigs and chickens on Rongelap? Pens could be built on the main deck to transport them to Mejatto but was there any fodder left for them?

    The islanders decided they weren’t going to run a risk, no matter how slight, of having contaminated animals with them. They were abandoned on Rongelap — along with three of the five outriggers.

    Building materials from Rongelap Island dumped on the beach at Mejatto Island.
    Building materials from the demolished homes on Rongelap dumped on the beach at arrival on Mejatto. Image: © David Robie/Eyes of Fire

    “When you get to New Zealand you’ll be asked have you been on a farm,” warned French journalist Phillipe Chatenay, who had gone there a few weeks before to prepare a Le Point article about the “Land of the Long White Cloud and Nuclear-Free Nuts”.

    “Yes, and you’ll be asked to remove your shoes. And if you don’t have shoes, you’ll be asked to remove your feet,” added first mate Martini Gotjé, who was usually barefooted.

    The last voyage on May 28 was the most fun. A smaller group of about 40 islanders was transported and there was plenty of time to get to know each other.

    Four young men questioned cook Nathalie Mestre: where did she live? Where was Switzerland? Out came an atlas. Then Mestre produced a scrapbook of Fernando Pereira’s photographs of the voyage. The questions were endless.

    They asked for a scrap of paper and a pen and wrote in English:

    “We, the people of Rongelap, love our homeland. But how can our people live in a place which is dangerous and poisonous. I mean, why didn’t those American people test Bravo in a state capital? Why? Rainbow Warrior, thank you for being so nice to us. Keep up your good work.”

    Each one wrote down their name: Balleain Anjain, Ralet Anitak, Kiash Tima and Issac Edmond. They handed the paper to Mestre and she added her name. Anitak grabbed it and wrote as well: “Nathalie Anitak”. They laughed.

    Greenpeace photographer Fernando Pereira and Rongelap islander Bonemej Namwe on board a bum bum boat in May 1985
    Greenpeace photographer Fernando Pereira and Rongelap islander Bonemej Namwe on board a bum bum boat in May 1985. Fernando was killed by French secret agents in the Rainbow Warrior bombing on 10 July 1985. Image: © David Robie/Eyes of Fire

    Fernando Pereira’s birthday
    Thursday, May 30, was Fernando Pereira’s 35th birthday. The evacuation was over and a one-day holiday was declared as we lay anchored off Mejato.

    Pereira was on the Pacific voyage almost by chance. Project coordinator Steve Sawyer had been seeking a wire machine for transmitting pictures of the campaign. He phoned Fiona Davies, then heading the Greenpeace photo office in Paris. But he wanted a machine and photographer separately.

    “No, no … I’ll get you a wire machine,” replied Davies. ‘But you’ll have to take my photographer with it.” Agreed. The deal would make a saving for the campaign budget.

    Sawyer wondered who this guy was, although Gotjé and some of the others knew him. Pereira had fled Portugal about 15 years before while he was serving as a pilot in the armed forces at a time when the country was fighting to retain colonies in Angola and Mozambique. He settled in The Netherlands, the only country which would grant him citizenship.

    After first working as a photographer for Anefo press agency, he became concerned with environmental and social issues. Eventually he joined the Amsterdam communist daily De Waarheid and was assigned to cover the activities of Greenpeace. Later he joined Greenpeace.

    Although he adopted Dutch ways, his charming Latin temperament and looks betrayed his Portuguese origins. He liked tight Italian-style clothes and fast sports cars. Pereira was always wide-eyed, happy and smiling.

    In Hawai`i, he and Sawyer hiked up to the crater at the top of Diamond Head one day. Sawyer took a snapshot of Pereira laughing — a photo later used on the front page of the New Zealand Times after his death with the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior by French secret agents.

    While most of the crew were taking things quietly and the “press gang” caught up on stories, Sawyer led a mini-expedition in a Zodiac to one of the shipwrecks, the Palauan Trader. With him were Davey Edward, Henk Haazen, Paul Brown and Bunny McDiarmid.

    Clambering on board the hulk, Sawyer grabbed hold of a rust-caked railing which collapsed. He plunged 10 metres into a hold. While he lay in pain with a dislocated shoulder and severely lacerated abdomen, his crewmates smashed a hole through the side of the ship. They dragged him through pounding surf into the Zodiac and headed back to the Warrior, three kilometres away.

    “Doc” Andy Biedermann, assisted by “nurse” Chatenay, who had received basic medical training during national service in France, treated Sawyer. He took almost two weeks to recover.

    But the accident failed to completely dampen celebrations for Pereira, who was presented with a hand-painted t-shirt labelled “Rainbow Warrior Removals Inc”.

    Pereira’s birthday was the first of three which strangely coincided with events casting a tragic shadow over the Rainbow Warrior’s last voyage.

    Dr David Robie is an environmental and political journalist and author, and editor of Asia Pacific Report. He travelled on board the Rainbow Warrior for almost 11 weeks. This article is adapted from his 1986 book, Eyes of Fire: The Last Voyage of the Rainbow Warrior. A new edition is being published in July to mark the 40th anniversary of the bombing. 

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • ‘We’re not just welcoming you as allies, but as family’ – Rainbow Warrior in Marshall Islands 40 years on

    The first of a two-part series on the historic Rongelap evacuation of 300 Marshall islanders from their irradiated atoll with the help of the Greenpeace flagship Rainbow Warrior crew and the return of Rainbow Warrior III 40 years later on a nuclear justice research mission.

    SPECIAL REPORT: By Shiva Gounden in Majuro

    Family isn’t just about blood—it’s about standing together through the toughest of times.

    This is the relationship between Greenpeace and the Marshall Islands — a vast ocean nation, stretching across nearly two million square kilometers of the Pacific. Beneath the waves, coral reefs are bustling with life, while coconut trees stand tall.

    For centuries, the Marshallese people have thrived here, mastering the waves, reading the winds, and navigating the open sea with their canoe-building knowledge passed down through generations. Life here is shaped by the rhythm of the tides, the taste of fresh coconut and roasted breadfruit, and an unbreakable bond between people and the sea.

    From the bustling heart of its capital, Majuro to the quiet, far-reaching atolls, their islands are not just land; they are home, history, and identity.

    Still, Marshallese communities were forced into one of the most devastating chapters of modern history — turned into a nuclear testing ground by the United States without consent, and their lives and lands poisoned by radiation.

    Operation Exodus: A legacy of solidarity
    Between 1946 and 1958, the US conducted 67 nuclear tests in the Marshall Islands — its total yield roughly equal to one Hiroshima-sized bomb every day for 12 years.

    During this Cold War period, the US government planned to conduct its largest nuclear test ever. On the island of Bikini, United States Commodore Ben H. Wyatt manipulated the 167 Marshallese people who called Bikini home asking them to leave so that the US could carry out atomic bomb testing, stating that it was for “the good of mankind and to end all world wars”.

    Exploiting their deep faith, he misled Bikinians into believing they were acting in God’s will, and trusting this, they agreed to move—never knowing the true cost of their decision

    Bikini Islanders board a landing craft vehicle personnel (LCVP) as they depart from Bikini Atoll in March 1946.
    Bikini Islanders board a landing craft vehicle personnel (LCVP) as they depart from Bikini Atoll in March 1946. Image: © United States Navy

    On March 1, 1954, the Castle Bravo test was launched — its yield 1000 times stronger than Hiroshima. Radioactive fallout spread across Rongelap Island about 150 kilometers away, due to what the US government claimed was a “shift in wind direction”.

    In reality, the US ignored weather reports that indicated the wind would carry the fallout eastward towards Rongelap and Utirik Atolls, exposing the islands to radioactive contamination. Children played in what they thought was snow, and almost immediately the impacts of radiation began — skin burning, hair fallout, vomiting.

    The Rongelap people were immediately relocated, and just three years later were told by the US government their island was deemed safe and asked to return.

    For the next 28 years, the Rongelap people lived through a period of intense “gaslighting” by the US government. *

    Image of the nuclear weapon test, Castle Bravo (yield 15 Mt) on Bikini Atoll, Marshall Islands, 1 March 1954.
    Nuclear weapon test Castle Bravo (yield 15 Mt) on Bikini Atoll, 1 March 1954. © United States Department of Energy

    Forced to live on contaminated land, with women enduring miscarriages and cancer rates increasing, in 1985, the people of Rongelap made the difficult decision to leave their homeland. Despite repeated requests to the US government to help evacuate, an SOS was sent, and Greenpeace responded: the Rainbow Warrior arrived in Rongelap, helping to move communities to Mejatto Island.

    This was the last journey of the first Rainbow Warrior. The powerful images of their evacuation were captured by photographer Fernando Pereira, who, just months later, was killed in the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior as it sailed to protest nuclear testing in the Pacific.

    Evacuation of Rongelap Islanders to Mejato
    Evacuation of Rongelap Islanders to Mejatto by the Rainbow Warrior crew in the Pacific 1985. Rongelap suffered nuclear fallout from US nuclear tests done from 1946-1958, making it a hazardous place to live. Image: © Greenpeace/Fernando Pereira

    From nuclear to climate: The injustice repeats
    The fight for justice did not end with the nuclear tests—the same forces that perpetuated nuclear colonialism continue to endanger the Marshall Islands today with new threats: climate change and deep-sea mining.

    The Marshall Islands, a nation of over 1,000 islands, is particularly vulnerable to climate impacts. Entire communities could disappear within a generation due to rising sea levels. Additionally, greedy international corporations are pushing to mine the deep sea of the Pacific Ocean for profit. Deep sea mining threatens fragile marine ecosystems and could destroy Pacific ways of life, livelihoods and fish populations. The ocean connects us all, and a threat anywhere in the Pacific is a threat to the world.

    Action ahead of the Climate Vulnerable Forum in the Marshall Islands.
    Marshallese activists with traditional outriggers on the coast of the nation’s capital Majuro to demand that leaders of developed nations dramatically upscale their plans to limit global warming during the online meeting of the Climate Vulnerable Forum in 2018. Image: © Martin Romain/Greenpeace

    But if there could be one symbol to encapsulate past nuclear injustices and current climate harms it would be the Runit Dome. This concrete structure was built by the US to contain radioactive waste from years of nuclear tests, but climate change now poses a direct threat.

    Rising sea levels and increasing storm surges are eroding the dome’s integrity, raising fears of radioactive material leaking into the ocean, potentially causing a nuclear disaster.

    Aerial view of Runit Dome, Runit Island, Enewetak Atoll, Marshall Islands
    Aerial view of Runit Dome, Runit Island, Enewetak Atoll, Marshall Islands . . . symbolic of past nuclear injustices and current climate harms in the Pacific. Image: © US Defense Special Weapons Agency

    Science, storytelling, and resistance: The Rainbow Warrior’s epic mission and 40 year celebration

    At the invitation of the Marshallese community and government, the Rainbow Warrior is in the Pacific nation to celebrate 40 years since 1985’s Operation Exodus, and stand in support of their ongoing fight for nuclear justice, climate action, and self-determination.

    This journey brings together science, storytelling, and activism to support the Marshallese movement for justice and recognition. Independent radiation experts and Greenpeace scientists will conduct crucial research across the atolls, providing much-needed data on remaining nuclear contamination.

    For decades, research on radiation levels has been controlled by the same government that conducted the nuclear tests, leaving many unanswered questions. This independent study will help support the Marshallese people in their ongoing legal battles for recognition, reparations, and justice.

    Ariana Tibon Kilma from the National Nuclear Commission, greets the Rainbow Warrior into the Marshall Islands. © Bianca Vitale / Greenpeace
    Marshallese women greet the Rainbow Warrior as it arrives in the capital Majuro earlier this month. Image: © Bianca Vitale/Greenpeace

    The path of the ship tour: A journey led by the Marshallese
    From March to April, the Rainbow Warrior is sailing across the Marshall Islands, stopping in Majuro, Mejatto, Enewetak, Bikini, Rongelap, and Wotje. Like visiting old family, each of these locations carries a story — of nuclear fallout, forced displacement, resistance, and hope for a just future.

    But just like old family, there’s something new to learn. At every stop, local leaders, activists, and a younger generation are shaping the narrative.

    Their testimonies are the foundation of this journey, ensuring the world cannot turn away. Their stories of displacement, resilience, and hope will be shared far beyond the Pacific, calling for justice on a global scale.

    Bunny McDiarmid and Henk Haazen reunited with the local Marshallese community at Majuro Welcome Ceremony. © Bianca Vitale / Greenpeace
    Bunny McDiarmid and Henk Haazen greet locals at the welcoming ceremony in Majuro, Marshall Islands, earlier this month. Bunny and Henk were part of the Greenpeace crew in 1985 to help evacuate the people of Rongelap. Image: © Bianca Vitale/Greenpeace

    A defining moment for climate justice
    The Marshallese are not just survivors of past injustices; they are champions of a just future. Their leadership reminds us that those most affected by climate change are not only calling for action — they are showing the way forward. They are leaders of finding solutions to avert these crises.

    Local Marshallese Women's group dance and perform cultural songs at the Rainbow Warrior welcome ceremony in Majuro. © Bianca Vitale / Greenpeace
    Local Marshallese women’s group dance and perform cultural songs at the Rainbow Warrior welcome ceremony in Majuro, Marshall islands, earlier this month. Image: © Bianca Vitale/Greenpeace

    Since they have joined the global fight for climate justice, their leadership in the climate battle has been evident.

    In 2011, they established a shark sanctuary to protect vital marine life.

    In 2024, they created their first ocean sanctuary, expanding efforts to conserve critical ecosystems. The Marshall Islands is also on the verge of signing the High Seas Treaty, showing their commitment to global marine conservation, and has taken a firm stance against deep-sea mining.

    They are not only protecting their lands but are also at the forefront of the global fight for climate justice, pushing for reparations, recognition, and climate action.

    This voyage is a message: the world must listen, and it must act. The Marshallese people are standing their ground, and we stand in solidarity with them — just like family.

    Learn their story. Support their call for justice. Amplify their voices. Because when those on the frontlines lead, justice is within reach.

    Shiva Gounden is the head of Pacific at Greenpeace Australia Pacific. This article series is republished with the permission of Greenpeace.

    * This refers to the period from 1957 — when the US Atomic Energy Commission declared Rongelap Atoll safe for habitation despite known contamination — to 1985, when Greenpeace assisted the Rongelap community in relocating due to ongoing radiation concerns. The Compact of Free Association, signed in 1986, finally started acknowledging damages caused by nuclear testing to the populations of Rongelap.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • The Woman Who Defied an Empire

    To this day, she’s remembered as one of the first anti-colonial revolutionaries in Africa. After you’ve read this story of Kimpa Vita, you’ll never forget her name, her commitment to her people, and her uncompromising valor.

    Kimpa Vita was just a teenager when she began to challenge the powers that ruled her world.

    Born in 1684 in the Kingdom of Kongo, Kimpa Vita grew up in the growing shadow of colonial devastation. Once a mighty African kingdom, the Kongo her people once knew had been torn apart by European encroachment and the transatlantic slave trade. Portuguese invaders had fueled civil wars, pitted leaders against their own people, and turned the kingdom into a battleground.

    But Kimpa Vita saw a different future.

    Trained in Kongo’s traditional spiritual practices as a healer and a medium, Kimpa Vita once fell gravely ill; and as she laid on her would-be death bed, she experienced a profound vision: a unified Kongo, free from war and foreign control.

    When she recovered from her illness, she declared herself a prophet and founded the Antonian Movement—a powerful religious and political uprising. Kimpa Vita preached that Kongo’s people were divinely chosen, that Christ was not a European figure but an African one, and that the kingdom must cast off European rule and reclaim its sovereignty to preserve its future and the security of its people.

    Through her teachings, Kimpa Vita reinterpreted Christianity from an African perspective, rejecting the European missionaries’ version of the faith that justified slavery and European domination.

    Her message spread like wildfire. Within a few short years, thousands followed her call, including soldiers and exiled leaders. She led her followers back to their abandoned capital, São Salvador, and began rebuilding what the Portuguese had destroyed. But her defiance came at a cost. Branded a heretic and a rebel by European Catholic authorities, she was captured by Kongo’s ruling elite—who were aligned with the Portuguese—and burned at the stake in 1706.

    She was just 22 years old.

    Her execution was meant to extinguish her movement, but her legacy endured. Over three centuries later, the struggle she embodied continues. Today, Congolese women lead movements for justice, self-determination, and liberation from the modern forces of imperialism—corporations, foreign powers and local elites that still exploit Congo’s seemingly inexhaustible wealth.

    The post The Woman Who Defied an Empire first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • ‘Tell the world the truth,’ father tells dead son as Israel kills two journalists

    Pacific Media Watch

    Global media freedom groups have condemned the Israeli occupation forces for assassinating two more Palestinian journalists covering the Gaza genocide, taking the media death toll in the besieged enclave to at least 208 since the war started.

    Journalist and contributor to the Qatari-based Al Jazeera Mubasher, Hossam Shabat, is the latest to have been killed.

    Witnesses said Hossam’s vehicle was hit in the eastern part of Beit Lahiya. Several pedestrians were also wounded, reports Al Jazeera.

    in a statement, Al Jazeera condemned the killings, saying Hossam had joined the network’s journalists and correspondents killed during the ongoing war on Gaza, including Samer Abudaqa, Hamza Al-Dahdouh, Ismail Al-Ghoul, and Ahmed Al-Louh.

    Al Jazeera affirmed its commitment to pursue all legal measures to “prosecute the perpetrators of these crimes against journalists”.

    The network also said it stood in “unwavering solidarity with all journalists in Gaza and reaffirms its commitment to achieving justice” by prosecuting the killers of more than 200 journalists in Gaza since October 2023.

    The network extended its condolences to Hossam’s family, and called on all human rights and media organisations to condemn the Israeli occupation’s systematic killing of journalists.

    Hossam was the second journalist killed in Gaza yesterday.

    House targeted
    Earlier, the Israeli military killed Mohammad Mansour, a correspondent for the Beirut-based Palestine Today television, in an attack targeting a house in Khan Younis, southern Gaza.

    A fellow journalist circulated a video clip of Mansour’s father bidding farewell to his son with heartbreaking words, putting a microphone in his son’s hand and urging the voice that once conveyed the truth to a deaf world.

    “Stand up and speak, tell the world, you are the one who tells the truth, for the image alone is not enough,” the father said through tears.

    Jodie Ginsberg, the chief executive of the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), condemned the killings, describing them as war crimes.

    The CPJ called for an independent international investigation into whether they were deliberately targeted.

    “CPJ is appalled that we are once again seeing Palestinians weeping over the bodies of dead journalists in Gaza,” said CPJ’s programme director Carlos Martinez de la Serna in New York.

    The two latest journalists killed by Israeli occupation forces in Gaza . . . Al Jazeera’s Hossam Shabat (left) and Mohammad Mansour
    The two latest journalists killed by Israeli occupation forces in Gaza . . . Al Jazeera’s Hossam Shabat (left) and Mohammad Mansour of Palestine Today. Image: AJ screenshot APR

    ‘Nightmare has to end’
    “This nightmare in Gaza has to end. The international community must act fast to ensure that journalists are kept safe and hold Israel to account for the deaths of Hossam Shabat and Mohammed Mansour, whose killings may have been targeted.”

    Israel resumed airstrikes on Gaza on March 18, ending a ceasefire that began on January 19.

    The occupation forces continued bombarding Gaza for an eighth consecutive day, killing at least 23 people in predawn attacks including seven children.

    Al Jazeera reports that the world ignores calls "to stop this madness"
    Al Jazeera reports that the world ignores calls “to stop this madness” as Israel kills dozens in Gaza. Image: AJ screenshot APR

    A UN official, Olga Cherevko, said Israel’s unhindered attacks on Gaza were a “bloody stain on our collective consciousness”, noting “our calls for this madness to stop have gone unheeded” by the world.

    Gaza’s Health Ministry said 792 people had been killed and 1663 injured in the week since Israel resumed its war on the Strip.

    The total death toll since the war started on October 7, 2023, has risen to 50,144, while 113,704 people have been injured, it said.

    West Bank ‘news desert’
    Meanwhile, the Paris-based media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said the repression of reporters in the West Bank and East Jerusalem had intensified in recent months despite the recent ceasefire in Gaza before it collapsed.

    In the eastern Palestinian territories, Israeli armed forces have shot at journalists, arrested them and restricted their movement.

    The Palestinian Authority (PA), which governs the West Bank and East Jerusalem, has detained Al Jazeera journalists.

    RSF warned of a growing crackdown, which was transforming the region into a “news desert”.

    One of the co-directors of the Palestinian Oscar-winning film No Other Land, Hamdan Ballal, has been detained by Israeli forces. It happened after he was attacked by a mob of Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank.

    He was in an ambulance receiving treatment when the doors were opened and he was abducted by the Israeli military. Colleagues say he has “disappeared”.

    A number of American activists were also attacked, and video on social media showed them fleeing the settler violence.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Fiji solidarity group condemns Rabuka plans for Israeli embassy in Jerusalem

    Asia Pacific Report

    A Fiji-based Pacific solidarity group supporting the indigenous Palestine struggle for survival against the Israeli settler colonial state has today issued a statement condemning Fiji backing for Israel.

    In an open letter to the “people of Fiji”, the Fijians for Palestine Solidarity Network (F4P) has warned “your government openly supports Israel despite its genocidal campaign against Palestinians”.

    “It is directly complicit in Israel’s genocide against Palestinians and history will not forgive their inaction.”

    The group said the struggle resonated with all who believed in justice, equality, and the fundamental rights of every human being.

    Fijians for Palestine has condemned Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka’s coalition government plans to open a Fijian embassy in Jerusalem with Israeli backing and has launched a “No embassy on occupied land” campaign.

    The group likened the Palestine liberation struggle to Pacific self-determination campaigns in Bougainville, “French” Polynesia, Kanaky and West Papua.

    Global voices for end to violence
    The open letter on social media said:

    “Our solidarity with the Palestinian people is a testament to our shared humanity. We believe in a world where diversity, is treated with dignity and respect.

    “We dream of a future where children in Gaza can play without fear, where families can live without the shadow of war, and where the Palestinian people can finally enjoy the peace and freedom they so rightly deserve.

    “We join the global voices demanding a permanent ceasefire and an end to the violence. We express our unwavering solidarity with the Palestinian people.

    “The Palestinian struggle is not just a regional issue; it is a testament to the resilience of a people who, despite facing impossible odds, continue to fight for their right to exist, freedom, and dignity. Their struggle resonates with all who believe in justice, equality, and the fundamental rights of every human being.

    “The images of destruction, the stories of families torn apart, and the cries of children caught in the crossfire are heart-wrenching. These are not mere statistics or distant news stories; these are real people with hopes, dreams, and aspirations, much like us.

    “As Fijians, we have always prided ourselves on our commitment to peace, unity, and humanity. Our rich cultural heritage and shared values teach us the importance of standing up for what is right, even when it is not popular or convenient.

    “We call on you to stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people this Thursday with us, not out of political allegiance but out of a shared belief in humanity, justice, and the inalienable human rights of every individual.

    “There can be no peace without justice, and we stand in unity with all people and territories struggling for self-determination and freedom from occupation. The Pacific cannot be an Ocean of Peace without freedom and self determination in Palestine, West Papua, Kanaky and all oppressed territories.

    “To the Fijian people, please know that your government openly supports Israel despite its genocidal campaign against Palestinians. It is directly complicit in Israel’s genocide against Palestinians and history will not forgive their inaction.”

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Activist group praises Pacific support for West Papua but slams NZ

    By Christine Rovoi of PMN News

    A human rights group in Aotearoa New Zealand has welcomed support from several Pacific island nations for West Papua, which has been under Indonesian military occupation since the 1960s.

    West Papua is a region (with five provinces) in the far east of Indonesia, centred on the island of New Guinea. Half of the eastern side of New Guinea is Papua New Guinea.

    West Papua Action Aotearoa claims the Indonesian occupation of West Papua has resulted in serious human rights violations, including a lack of press freedom.

    Catherine Delahunty, the group’s spokesperson, says many West Papuans have been displaced as a result of Indonesia’s military activity.

    In an interview with William Terite on PMN’s Pacific Mornings, the environmentalist and former Green Party MP said most people did not know much about West Papua “because there’s virtually a media blackout around this country”.

    “It’s an hour away from Darwin [Australia], and yet, most people don’t know what has been going on there since the 1960s. It’s a very serious and tragic situation, which is the responsibility of all of us as neighbours,” she said.

    “They [West Papuans] regard themselves fully as members of the Pacific community but are treated by Indonesia as an extension of their empire because they have all these natural resources, which Indonesia is rapidly extracting, using violence to maintain the state.”

    Delahunty said the situation was “very disturbing”, adding there was a “need for support and change alongside the West Papuan people”.

    UN support
    In a recent joint statement to the United Nations Human Rights Council, the leaders of Federated States of Micronesia, Nauru, Marshall Islands, Sāmoa and Vanuatu called on the global community to support the displaced people of West Papua.

    A Free West Papua rally.
    A Free West Papua rally. Image: Nichollas Harrison/PMN News

    Delahunty said the Pacific island nations urged the UN Council to advocate for human rights in West Papua.

    She also said West Papua Action Aotearoa wanted Indonesia to allow a visit from a UN human rights commissioner, a request that Indonesia has consistently denied.

    She said Sāmoa was the latest country to support West Papua, contrasting this with the “lack of action from larger neighbours like New Zealand and Australia”.

    Delahunty said that while smaller island nations and some African groups supported West Papua, more powerful states provide little assistance.

    “It’s great that these island nations are keeping the issue alive at the United Nations, but we particularly want to shout out to Sāmoa because it’s a new thing,” she told Terite.

    “They’ve never, as a government, made public statements. There are many Sāmoan people who support West Papua, and I work with them. But it’s great to see their government step up and make the statement.”

    Benny Wenda, right, a West Papuan independence leader, with Eni Faleomavaega, the late American Sāmoan congressman,
    Benny Wenda (right), a West Papuan independence leader, with Eni Faleomavaega, the late American Sāmoan congressman, a supporter of the Free West Papua campaign. Image: Office of Benny Wenda/PMN News

    Historically, the only public statements supporting West Papua have come from American Sāmoan congressman Eni Faleomavaega, who strongly advocated for it until he died in 2017.

    Praise for Sāmoa
    Delahunty praised Sāmoa’s support for the joint statement but voiced her disappointment at New Zealand and Australia.

    “What’s not encouraging is the failure of Australia and New Zealand to actually support this kind of joint statement and to vigorously stand up for West Papua because they have a lot of power in the region,” she said.

    “They’re the big states, and yet it’s the leadership of the smaller nations that we see today.”

    In September 2024, Phillip Mehrtens, a pilot from New Zealand, was released by West Papua rebels after being held captive for 19 months.

    Mehrtens, 39, was kidnapped by West Papua National Liberation Army fighters in February 2023 and was released after lengthy negotiations and “critical’ diplomatic efforts by authorities in Wellington and Jakarta.

    New Zealand’s Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Foreign Affairs Minister Vaovasamanaia Winston Peters welcomed his release.

    NZ pilot Philip Mehrtens with West Papua Liberation Army
    New Zealand pilot Phillip Mehrtens was kidnapped by militants in West Papua on 7 March 2023. He was released 19 months later. Image: TPNPB/PMN News

    Why is there conflict in West Papua?
    Once a Dutch colony, the region is divided into five provinces, the two largest being Papua and West Papua. It is separate from PNG, which gained independence from Australia in 1975.

    Papuan rebels seeking independence from Indonesia have issued threats and attacked aircraft they believe are carrying personnel and delivering supplies for Jakarta.

    The resource-rich region has sought independence since 1969, when it came under Indonesia’s control following a disputed UN-supervised vote.

    Conflicts between indigenous Papuans and Indonesian authorities have been common with pro-independence fighters increasing their attacks since 2018.

    The Free Papua Movement has conducted a low-intensity guerrilla war against Indonesia, targeting military and police personnel, along with ordinary Indonesian civilians.

    Human rights groups estimate that Indonesian security forces have killed more than 300,000 West Papuans since the conflict started.

    But the Indonesian government denies any wrongdoing, claiming that West Papua is part of Indonesia and was integrated after the controversial “Act of Free Choice” in 1969.

    Manipulated process
    The Act of Free Choice has been widely criticised as a manipulated process, with international observers and journalists raising concerns about the fairness and legitimacy of the plebiscite.

    Despite the criticism, the United States and its allies in the region, New Zealand and Australia, have supported Indonesia’s efforts to gain acceptance in the UN for the pro-integration vote.

    Human rights groups, such as Delahunty’s West Papua Action Aotearoa, have raised “serious concerns” about the deteriorating human rights situation in Papua and West Papua.

    They cite alarming abuses against indigenous Papuans, including child killings, disappearances, torture, and mass displacement.

    Delahunty believes the hope for change lies with the nations of Te Moana Nui a Kiwa. She said it also came from the younger people in Indonesia today.

    “This is a colonisation issue, and it’s a bit like Aotearoa, in the sense that when the people who have been part of the colonising start addressing the issue, you get change. But it’s far too slow. So we are so disappointed.”

    Republished with permission from PMN News.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Pro-Palestinian protesters challenge Peters at state of the nation speech

    SPECIAL REPORT: By Saige England in Christchurch

    Like a relentless ocean, wave after wave of pro-Palestinian pro-human rights protesters disrupted New Zealand deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters’ state of the nation speech at the Christchurch Town Hall yesterday.

    A clarion call to Trumpism and Australia’s One Nation Party, the speech was accompanied by the background music of about 250 protesters outside the Town Hall, chanting: “Complicity in genocide is a crime.”

    Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) co-chair John Minto described Peters’ attitude to Palestinians as “sickening”.

    Inside the James Hay Theatre, protester after protester stood and spoke loudly and clearly against the deputy Prime Minister’s failure to support those still dying in Gaza, and his failure to denounce the ongoing genocide.

    Ben Vorderegger was the first of nine protesters who appealed on behalf of people who have lost their voices in the dust of blood and bones, bombs and sniper guns.

    Before he and others were hauled out, they spoke for the tens of thousands of Palestinians who have been killed by Israeli forces in Gaza — women, men, doctors, aid workers, journalists, and children.

    Gazan health authorities have reported that the official death toll is now more than 50,000 — but that is the confirmed deaths with thousands more buried under the rubble.

    Real death toll
    The real death toll from the genocide in Gaza has been estimated by a reputed medical journal, The Lancet, at more than 63,000. A third of those are children. Each day more children are killed.

    One by one the protesters who challenged Peters were manhandled by security guards to a frenzied crowd screaming “out, out”.

    The deputy Prime Minister’s response was to deride and mock the conscientious objectors. He did not stop there. He lambasted the media.

    At this point, several members of his audience turned on me as a journalist and demanded my removal.

    Pro=Palestine protesters at the Christchurch Town Hall
    Pro=Palestine protesters at the Christchurch Town Hall yesterday to picket Foreign Minister Winston Peters at his state of the nation speech.Image: Saige England/APR

    This means that not only is the right to free speech at stake, the right or freedom to report is also being eroded. (I was later trespassed by security guards and police from the Town Hall although no reason was supplied for the ban).

    Inside the Christchurch Town Hall the call by Peters, who is also Foreign Minister, to “Make New Zealand Great Again” continued in the vein of a speech written by a MAGA leader.

    He whitewashed human rights, failed to address climate change, and demonstrated loathing for a media that has rarely challenged him.

    Ben Vorderegger was the first of nine protesters who appealed on behalf of Palestinans before being thrown out
    Ben Vorderegger in keffiyeh was the first of nine protesters who appealed on behalf of Palestinans before
    being thrown out of the Christchurch Town Hall meeting. Image: Saige England/APR

    Condemned movement
    Slamming the PSNA as “Marxist fascists” for calling out genocide, he condemned the movement for failing to talk with those who have a record of kowtowing to violent colonisation.

    This tactic is Colonial Invasion 101. It sees the invader rewarding and only dealing with those who sell out. This strategy demands that the colonised people should bow to the oppressor — an oppressor who threatens them with losing everything if they do not accept the scraps.

    Peters showed no support for the Treaty of Waitangi but rather, endorsed the government’s challenge to the founding document of the nation – Te Tiriti o Waitangi. In his dismissal of the founding and legally binding partnership, he repeated the “One Nation” catch-cry. Ad nauseum.

    Besides slamming Palestinians, the Scots (he managed to squeeze in a racist joke against Scottish people), and the woke, Peters’ speech promoted continued mining, showing some amnesia over the Pike River disaster. He did not reference the environment or climate change.

    After the speech, outside the Town Hall police donned black gloves — a sign they were prepared to use pepper-spray.

    PSNA co-chair John Minto described Peters’ failure to stand against the ongoing genocide of Palestinians as “bloody disgraceful”.

    The police arrested one protester, claiming he put his hand on a car transporting NZ First officials. A witness said this was not the case.

    PSNA co-chair John Minto (in hat behind fellow protester)
    PSNA co-chair John Minto (in hat behind fellow protester) . . . the failure of Foreign Minister Winston Peters to stand against the ongoing genocide of Palestinians is “bloody disgraceful”. Image; Saige England/APR

    Protester released
    The protester was later released without any charges being laid.

    A defiant New Zealand First MP Shane Jones marched out of the Town Hall after the event. He raised his arms defensively at protesters crying, “what if it was your grandchildren being slaughtered?”

    I was trespassed from the Christchurch Town Hall for re-entering the Town Hall for Winston Peters’ media conference. No reason was supplied by police or the Town Hall security personnel for that trespass order..

    "The words Winston is terrified to say . . . " poster
    “The words Winston is terrified to say . . . ” poster at the Christchurch pro-Palestinian protest. Image: Saige England/APR

    It is well known that Peters loathes the media — he said so enough times during his state of the nation speech.

    He referenced former US President Bill Clinton during his speech, an interesting reference given that Clinton did not receive the protection from the media that Peters has received.

    From the over zealous security personnel who manhandled and dragged out hecklers, to the banning of a journalist, to the arrest of someone for “touching a car” when witnesses report otherwise, the state of the nation speech held some uncomfortable echoes — the actions of a fascist dictatorship.

    Populist threats
    The atmosphere was reminiscent of a Jorg Haider press conference I attended many years ago in Vienna. That “rechtspopulist” Austrian politician had threatened journalists with defamation suits if they called him out on his support for Nazis.

    Yet he was on record for doing so.

    I was reminded of this yesterday when the audience called ‘out out’ at hecklers, and demanded the removal of this journalist. These New Zealand First supporters demand adoration for their leader or a media black-out.

    Perhaps they cannot be blamed given that the state of the nation speech could well have been written by US President Donald Trump or one of his minions.

    The protesters were courageous and conscientious in contrast to Peters, said PSNA’s John Minto.

    He likened Peters to Neville Chamberlain — Britain’s Prime Minister from 1937 to 1940. His name is synonymous with the policy of “appeasement” because he conceded territorial concessions to Nazi Germany in the late 1930s, fruitlessly hoping to avoid war.

    “He has refused to condemn any of Israel’s war crimes against Palestinians, including the total humanitarian aid blockade of Gaza.”

    Refusal ‘unprecedented’
    “It’s unprecedented in New Zealand history that a government would refuse to condemn Israel breaking its ceasefire agreement and resuming industrial-scale slaughter of civilians,” Minto said.

    “That is what Israel is doing today in Gaza, with full backing from the White House.

    “Chamberlain went to meet Hitler in Munich in 1938 to whitewash Nazi Germany’s takeovers of its neighbours’ lands.

    “Peters has been in Washington to agree to US approval of the occupation of southern Syria, more attacks on Lebanon, resumption of the land grab genocide in Gaza and get a heads-up on US plans to ‘give’ the Occupied West Bank to Israel later this year.

    “If Peters disagrees with any of this, he’s had plenty of chances to say so.

    “New Zealanders are calling for sanctions on Israel but Mr Peters and the National-led government are looking the other way.”

    New Zealand First MP Shane Jones marched out of the Town Hall
    New Zealand First MP Shane Jones marched out of the Town Hall after the event, dismissing protesters crying, “what if it was your grandchildren being slaughtered?” Image: Saige England/APR

    Only staged questions
    The conscientious objectors who rise against the oppression of human rights are people Winston Peters regards as his enemies. He will only answer questions in a press conference staged for him.

    He warms to journalists who warm to him.

    The state of the nation speech in the Town Hall was familiar.

    Seeking to erase conscientiousness will not make New Zealand great, it will render this country very small, almost miniscule, like the people who are being destroyed for daring to demand their right to their own land.

    Saige England is a journalist and author, and a member of the Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA).

    Part of the crowd at the state of the nation speech by Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters at the Christchurch Town Hall
    Part of the crowd at the state of the nation speech by Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters at the Christchurch Town Hall yesterday. Image: Saige England/APR

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Green Party’s Swarbrick calls for urgent NZ action over Israel’s ‘crazy’ Gaza slaughter

    Asia Pacific Report

    Green Party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick called on New Zealand government MPs today to support her Member’s Bill to sanction Israel over its “crazy slaughter” of Palestinians in Gaza.

    Speaking at a large pro-Palestinian solidarity rally in the heart of New Zealand’s largest city Auckland, she said Aotearoa New Zealand could no longer “remain a bystander to the slaughter of innocent people in Gaza”.

    In the fifth day since Israel broke the two-month-old ceasefire and refused to begin negotiations on phase two of the truce — which was supposed to lead to a complete withdrawal of Israeli troops from the besieged enclave and an exchange of hostages — health officials reported that the death toll had risen above 630, mostly children and women.

    Five children were killed in a major overnight air attack on Gaza City and at least eight members of the family remained trapped under the rubble as Israeli attacks continued in the holy fasting month of Ramadan.

    Confirmed casualty figures in Gaza since October 7, 2023, now stand at 49,747 with 113,213 wounded, the Gaza Health Ministry said.

    For more than two weeks, Israel has sealed off border crossings and barred food, water and electricity and today it blew up the Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital, the only medical institution in Gaza able to provide cancer treatment.

    “The research has said it from libraries, libraries and libraries. And what is it doing in Gaza?” said Swarbrick.

    ‘Ethnic cleansing . . . on livestream’
    “It is ethnic cleansing. It is apartheid. It is genocide. And we have that delivered to us by  livestream to each one of us every single day on our cellphones,” she said.

    “That is crazy. It is crazy to wake up every single day to that.”

    Swarbrick said Aotearoa New Zealand must act now to sanction Israel for its crimes — “just like we did with Russia for its illegal action in Ukraine.”

    She said that with the Green Party, Te Pāti Māori and Labour’s committed support, they now needed just six of the 68 government MPs to “pass my Unlawful Occupation of Palestine Sanctions Bill into law”.

    “There’s no more time for talk. If we stand for human rights and peace and justice, our Parliament must act,” she said.

    "Action for Gaza Now" banner heads a march protesting against Israel's resumed attacks
    “Action for Gaza Now” banner heads a march protesting against Israel’s resumed attacks on the besieged Strip in Auckland today. Image: APR

    In September, Aotearoa had joined 123 UN member states to support a resolution calling for sanctions against those responsible for Israel’s “unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including in relation to settler violence”.

    “Our government has since done nothing to fulfil that commitment. Our Unlawful Occupation of Palestine Sanctions Bill starts that very basic process.

    “No party leader or whip can stop a Member of Parliament exercising their democratic right to vote how they know they need to on this Bill,” she said to resounding cheers.

    ‘No hiding behind party lines’
    “There is no more hiding behind party lines. All 123 Members of Parliament are each individually, personally responsible.”

    Several Palestinian women spoke of the terror with the new wave of Israeli bombings and of their families’ personal connections with the suffering in Gaza, saying it was vitally important to “hear our stories”. Some spoke of the New Zealand government’s “cowardice” for not speaking out in opposition like many other countries.

    About 1000 people took part in the protest in a part of Britomart’s Te Komititanga Square in a section now popularly known as “Palestine Corner”.

    Amid a sea of banners and Palestinian flags there were placards declaring “Stop the genocide”, “Jews for tangata whenua from Aotearoa to Palestine”, “Hands off West Bank End the occupation” , “The people united will never be defeated”, “Decolonise your mind, stand with Palestine,” “Genocide — made in USA”, and “Toitū Te Tiriti Free Palestine”.

    "Genocide - Made in USA" poster at today's Palestinian solidarity rally
    “Genocide – Made in USA” poster at today’s Palestinian solidarity rally. Image: APR

    The ceasefire-breaking Israeli attacks on Gaza have shocked the world and led to three UN General Assembly debates this week on the Middle East.

    France, Germany and Britain are among the latest countries to condemn Israel for breaching the ceasefire — describing it as a “dramatic step backwards”, and France has told the UN that it is opposed to any form of annexation by Israel of any Palestinian territory.

    Meanwhile, Sultan Barakat, a professor at Hamad Bin Khalifa University in Qatar, told Al Jazeera in an interview that the more atrocities Israel committed in Gaza, the more young Palestinian men and women would join Hamas.

    “So it’s not going to disappear any time soon,” he said.

    With Israel killing more than 630 people in five days and cutting off all aid to the Strip for weeks, there was no trust on the part of Hamas to restart the ceasefire, Professor Barakat said.

    "Jews for tangata whenua from Aotearoa to Palestine" . . . a decolonisation placard at a Palestine solidarity rally in Auckland
    “Jews for tangata whenua from Aotearoa to Palestine” . . . a decolonisation placard at today’s Palestine solidarity rally in Auckland. Image: APR


    This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Top Pacific diplomats ready for direct talks on Bougainville independence

    By Leah Lowonbu, Stefan Armbruster and Harlyne Joku of BenarNews

    The Pacific’s peak diplomatic bodies have signalled they are ready to engage with Papua New Guinea’s Autonomous Government of Bougainville as mediation begins on the delayed ratification of its successful 2019 independence referendum.

    PNG and Bougainville’s leaders met in the capital Port Moresby this week with a moderator to start negotiations on the implementation of the UN-supervised Bougainville Peace Agreement and referendum.

    Ahead of the talks, ABG’s President Ishmael Toroama moved to sideline a key sticking point over PNG parliamentary ratification of the vote, with the announcement last week that Bougainville would unilaterally declare independence on September 1, 2027.

    The region’s two leading intergovernmental organisations — Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) and Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG) — have traditionally deferred to member state PNG on discussion of Bougainville independence as an internal matter.

    But as a declaration of nationhood becomes increasingly likely and near, there has been a subtle shift.

    “It’s their [PNG’s] prerogative but if this matter were raised formally, even by Bougainville themselves, we can start discussion on that,” PIF Secretary-General Baron Waqa told a press briefing at its headquarters in Fiji on Monday.

    “Whatever happens, I think the issue would have to be decided by our leaders later this year,” he said of the annual PIF meeting to be held in Solomon Islands in September.

    Marked peace deal
    The last time the Pacific’s leaders included discussion of Bougainville in their official communique was in 2004 to mark the disarmament of the island under the peace deal.

    Waqa said Bougainville had made no formal approach to PIF — a grouping of 18 Pacific states and territories — but it was closely monitoring developments on what could eventually lead to the creation of a new member state.

    20250316 Marape Toroama ABG .jpg
    PNG Prime Minister James Marape (second from left) and Bougainville President Ishmael Toroama (right) during mediation in the capital Port Moresby this week. Image: Autonomous Government of Bougainville/BenarNews

    In 2024, Toroama told BenarNews he would be seeking observer status at the subregional MSG — grouping PNG, Fiji, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and New Caledonia’s FLNKS — as Bougainville’s first diplomatic foray.

    No application has been made yet but MSG acting Director-General Ilan Kiloe told BenarNews they were also keeping a close watch.

    “Our rules and regulations require that we engage through PNG and we will take our cue from them,” Kiloe said, adding while the MSG respects the sovereignty of its members, “if requested, we will provide assistance” to Bougainville.

    “The purpose and reason the MSG was established initially was to advance the collective interests of the Melanesian countries, in particular, to assist those yet to attain independence,” he said. “And to provide support towards their aim of becoming independent countries.”

    20250320 Bougainville map.jpg
    Map showing Papua New Guinea, its neighboring countries and the Autonomous Region of Bougainville. Map: BenarNews

    The 2001 peace agreement ended more than a decade of bloody conflict  known as the Bougainville crisis, that resulted in the deaths of up to 15,000 people, and laid out a roadmap for disarmament and the referendum in 2019.

    ‘We need support’
    Under the agreement, PNG retains responsibility for foreign affairs but allows for the ABG to engage externally for trade and with “regional organisations.”

    “We need countries to support us, we need to talk to those countries [ahead of independence],” Toroama told BenarNews last September.

    The referendum on independence was supported by 97.7 percent of Bougainvillians and the outcome was due to be ratified by PNG’s Parliament in 2020, but was deferred because of the covid-19 pandemic.

    Discussions by the two parties since on whether a simple or two-thirds majority vote by parliamentarians was required has further delayed the process.

    Toroama stood firm on the issue of ratification on the first day of discussions moderated by New Zealand’s Sir Jerry Mataparae, saying his people voted for independence and the talks were to define the “new relationship” between two independent states.

    Last week, the 15 members of the Bougainville Leaders Independence Consultation Forum issued a statement declaring PNG had no authority to veto the referendum result and recommended September 1, 2027 as the declaration date.

    20250311 BOUG_FORUM_STATEMENT_jpg.jpg
    Bougainville Leaders Consultation Forum declaration setting September 1, 2027, as the date for their independence declaration. Image: AGB/BenarNews

    “As far as I am concerned, the process of negotiating independence was concluded with the referendum,” Toroama said.

    Implementation moderation
    “My understanding is that this moderation is about reaching agreement on implementing the referendum result of independence.”

    He told Marape “to take ownership and endorse independence in this 11th Parliament.”

    PNG’s prime minister responded by praising the 25 years of peace “without a single bullet fired” but warned Bougainville was not ready for independence.

    “Economic independence must precede political independence,” Marape said. “The long-term sustainability of Bougainville must be factored into these discussions.”

    “About 95 percent of Bougainville’s budget is currently reliant on external support, including funding from the PNG government and international donors.”

    Proposals to reopen Rio Tinto’s former Panguna gold and copper mine in Bougainville, that sparked its civil conflict, is a regular feature of debate about its economic future.

    20250315 Post Courier front page bougainville EDIT.jpg
    Front page of the Post-Courier newspaper after the first day of mediation on Bougainville’s independence this week. Image: Post-Courier/BenarNews

    Marape also suggested people may be secretly harbouring weapons in breach of the peace agreement and called on the UN to clarify the outcome of the disarmament process it supervised.

    “Headlines have come out that guns remain in Bougainville. United Nations, how come guns remain in Bougainville?” Marape asked on Monday.

    “You need to tell me. This is something you know. I thought all guns were removed from Bougainville.”

    PNG relies on aid
    By comparison, PNG has heavily relied on foreign financial assistance since independence, currently receiving at about US$320 million (1.3 billion kina) a year in budgetary support from Australia, and suffers regular tribal violence and massacres involving firearms including assault rifles.

    Bougainville Vice-President Patrick Nisira rejected Marape’s concerns about weapons, the Post-Courier newspaper reported.

    “The usage of those guns, there is no evidence of that and if you look at the data on Bougainville where [there are] incidents of guns, it is actually very low,” he said.

    Further talks are planned and are due to produce a report for the national Parliament by mid-2025, ahead of elections in Bougainville and PNG’s 50th anniversary celebrations in September.

    Republished from BenarNews with permission.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • PNG and Bougainville to hold more talks on independence issue

    By Don Wiseman, RNZ Pacific senior journalist

    The parties involved in talks aimed at resolving an impasse over Bougainville’s push for independence are planning to meet several more times before a deadline in June.

    The leaders of Papua New Guinea and Bougainville have been meeting all week in Port Moresby, with former New Zealand Governor-General Sir Jerry Mateparae serving as moderator.

    The question before them hinges on the conditions for tabling the results of the 2019 Bougainville referendum in the PNG Parliament, in which there was overwhelming support for independence.

    PNG wants an absolute majority of MPs to agree to the tabling, while Bougainville says it should be a simple majority.

    Bougainville says changes to the PNG Constitution would come later, and that is when an absolute majority is appropriate.

    Bougainville’s President Ishmael Toroama has suggested a solution could be reached outside of Parliament, but PNG Prime Minister James Marape has questioned the readiness of Bougainville to run itself, given there are still guns in the community and the local economy is miniscule.

    Sources at the talks say that, with the parties having now stated their positions, several more meetings are planned where decisions will be reached on the way forward.

    Burnham key to civil war end
    One of those meetings is expected to take place at Burnham, New Zealand.

    It was preliminary talks at Burnham in 1997 that led to the end of the bloody 10-year-long civil war in Bougainville.

    Sir Jerry Mataparae. 17 March 2025
    Sir Jerry Mataparae . . . serving as moderator in the Bougainville future talks. Image: RNZ Pacific

    Bougainville is holding elections in September, and the writs are being issued in June, hence the desire that the process to determine its political future is in place by then.

    Last week, Bougainville leaders declared they wanted independence in place by 1 September 2027.

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

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Nuclear free Pacific – back to the future, Earthwise talks to David Robie

    Pacific Media Watch

    Earthwise presenters Lois and Martin Griffiths of Plains FM96.9 radio talk to Dr David Robie, editor of Asia Pacific Report, about heightened global fears of nuclear war as tensions have mounted since US President Donald Trump has returned to power.

    Dr Robie reminds us that New Zealanders once actively opposed nuclear testing in the Pacific.

    That spirit, that active opposition to nuclear testing, and to nuclear war must be revived.

    This is very timely as the Rainbow Warrior 3 is currently visiting the Marshall Islands this month to mark 40 years since the original RW took part in the relocation of Rongelap Islanders who suffered from US nuclear tests in the 1950s.

    After that humanitarian mission, the Rainbow Warrior was subsequently bombed by French secret agents in Auckland Harbour on 10 July 1985 shortly before it was due to sail to Moruroa Atoll to protest against nuclear testing.

    A new edition of Dr Robie’s book Eyes of Fire The Last Voyage of the Rainbow Warrior will be released this July. The Eyes of Fire microsite is here.

    Lois opens up by saying: “I fear that we live in disturbing times. I fear the possibility of nuclear war, I always have.

    “I remember the Cuban missiles crisis, a scary time. I remember campaigns for nuclear disarmament. Hopes that the United Nations could lead to a world of peace and justice.

    “Yet today one hears from our media, for world leaders . . . ‘No, no no. There will always be tyrants who want to destroy us and our democratic allies . . . more and bigger, deadlier weapons are needed to protect us . . .”

    Listen to the programme . . .


    Nuclear free Pacific . . . back to the future.    Video/audio: Plains FM96.9

    Broadcast: Plains Radio FM96.9

    Interviewee: Dr David Robie, deputy chair of the Asia Pacific Media Network (APMN) and a semiretired professor of Pacific journalism. He founded the Pacific Media Centre.
    Interviewers: Lois and Martin Griffiths, Earthwise programme

    Date: 14 March 2025 (27min), broadcast March 17.

    Youtube: Café Pacific: https://www.youtube.com/@cafepacific2023

    https://plainsfm.org.nz/

    Café Pacific: https://davidrobie.nz/

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • ‘Declare your city genocide free’ – lessons from NZ’s nuclear-free movement

    COMMENTARY: By Eugene Doyle

    Today I attended a demonstration outside both Aotearoa New Zealand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Israeli Embassy in Wellington.

    The day before, the Israelis had blown apart 174 children in Gaza in a surprise attack that announced the next phase of the genocide.

    About 174 Wellingtonians turned up to a quickly-called protest: they are the best of us — the best of Wellington.

    In 2023, the City made me an Absolutely Positively Wellingtonian for service across a number of fronts (water infrastructure, conservation, coastal resilience, community organising) but nothing I have done compares with the importance of standing up for the victims of US-Israeli violence.

    What more can we do?  And then it crossed my mind: “Declare Wellington Genocide Free”.  And if Wellington could, why not other cities?

    Wellington started nuclear-free drive
    The nuclear-free campaign, led by Wellington back in the 1980s, is a template worth reviving.

    Wellington became the first city in New Zealand — and the first capital in the world — to declare itself nuclear free in 1982.  It followed the excellent example of Missoula, Montana, USA, the first city in the world to do so, in 1978.

    These were tumultuous times. I vividly remember heading into Wellington harbour on a small yacht, part of a peace flotilla made up of kayakers, yachties and wind surfers that tried to stop the USS Texas from berthing. It won that battle that day but we won the war.

    This was the decade which saw the French government’s terrorist bomb attack on a Greenpeace ship in Auckland harbour to intimidate the anti-nuclear movement.

    Also, 2025 is the 40th anniversary of the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior and the death of Fernando Pereira. Little Island Press will be reissuing a new edition of my friend David Robie’s book Eyes of Fire later this year. It tells the incredible story of the final voyage of the Rainbow Warrior.

    "Eyes of Fire: the Last Voyage of the Rainbow Warrior"
    “Eyes of Fire: the Last Voyage of the Rainbow Warrior” . . . a new book on nuclear-free activism on its way. Image: Little Island Press

    Standing up to bullies
    Labour under David Lange successfully campaigned and won the 1984 elections on a nuclear-free platform which promised to ban nuclear ships from our waters.

    This was a time when we had a government that had the backbone to act independently of the US. Yes, we had a grumpy relationship with the Yanks for a while and we were booted out of ANZUS — surely a cause for celebration in contrast to today when our government is little more than a finger puppet for Team Genocide.

    In response to bullying from Australia and the US, David Lange said at the time:  “It is the price we are prepared to pay.”

    With Wellington in the lead, nuclear-free had moved over the course of a decade from a fringe peace movement to the mainstream and eventually to become government policy.

    The New Zealand Nuclear Free Zone, Disarmament, and Arms Control Act 1987 was passed and remains a cornerstone of our foreign policy.

    New Zealand took a stand that showed strong opposition to out-of-control militarism, the risks of nuclear war, and strong support for the international movement to step back from nuclear weapons.

    It was a powerful statement of our independence as a nation and a rejection of foreign dominance. It also reduced the risk of contamination in case of a nuclear accident aboard a vessel (remember this was the same decade as the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in Ukraine).

    The nuclear-free campaign and Palestine
    Each of those points have similarities with the Palestinian cause today and should act as inspiration for cities to mobilise and build national solidarity with the Palestinians.

    To my knowledge, no city has ever successfully expelled an Israeli Embassy but Wellington could take a powerful first step by doing this, and declare the capital genocide-free.  We need to wake our country — and the Western world — out of the moral torpor it finds itself in; yawning its way through the monstrous crimes being perpetrated by our “friends and allies”.

    Shun Israel until it stops genocide
    No city should suffer the moral stain of hosting an embassy representing the racist, genocidal state of Israel.

    Wellington should lead the country to support South Africa’s case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), end all trade with Israel, and end all intelligence and military cooperation with Israel for the duration of its genocidal onslaught.  Other cities should follow suit.

    Declare your city Nuclear and Genocide Free.

    Eugene Doyle is a writer based in Wellington. He has written extensively on the Middle East, as well as peace and security issues in the Asia Pacific region. He hosts the public policy platform solidarity.co.nz and is a frequent contributor to Asia Pacific Report.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Massacre at 2 am – Israel resumes indiscriminate attacks against Gaza, killing 400+ people

    Israel says President Donald Trump green lit a scorched-earth bombing of Gaza that wiped out entire families and killed dozens of infants and other children.

    By Abubaker Abed in Deil Al-Balah, Gaza, and Jeremy Scahill

    The US-backed Israeli government resumed its intense genocidal attacks on Gaza early yesterday morning, unleashing a massive wave of indiscriminate military strikes across the Strip and killing more than 410 people, including scores of children and women, according to local health officials.

    The massacre resulted in one of the largest single-day death tolls of the past 17 months, and also killed several members of Gaza’s government and a member of Hamas’s political bureau.

    The Trump administration said it was briefed ahead of the strikes, which began at approximately 2 am local time, and that the US fully supported Israel’s attacks.

    “The sky was filled with drones, quadcopters, helicopters, F-16 and F-35 warplanes. The firing from the tanks and vehicles didn’t stop,” said Abubaker Abed, a contributing journalist for Drop Site News who reports from Deir al-Balah, Gaza.

    “I didn’t sleep last night. I had a pang in my heart that something awful would happen. At 2 am, I tried to close my eyes. Once it happened, four explosions shook my home. The sky turned red and became heavily shrouded with plumes of smoke.”

    Abubaker said Israel’s attacks began with four strikes in Deir al-Balah.

    “Mothers’ wails and children’s screams echoed painfully in my ears. They struck a house near us. I didn’t know who to call. I couldn’t feel my knees. I was shivering with fear, and my family were harshly awakened,” he said.

    ‘My mother couldn’t breathe’
    “My mother couldn’t take a breath. My father searched around for me. We gathered in the middle of our home, knowing our end may be near. That’s the same feeling we have had for the 16 months of intense bombings and attacks.

    “The nightmare has chased us again.”

    The Israeli attacks pummeled cities across Gaza — from Rafah and Khan Younis in the south to Deir al-Balah in the center, and Gaza City in the north, where Israel carried out some of the heaviest bombing in areas already reduced to an apocalyptic landscape.

    Since the “ceasefire” took effect in January, more than half a million Palestinians returned to the north and many of them have been living in makeshift shelters or on the rubble of their former homes.

    Hospitals that already suffer from catastrophic damage from 16 months of relentless Israeli attacks and a dire lack of medical supplies struggled to handle the influx of wounded people, and local authorities issued an emergency call for blood donations.

    Late Tuesday morning, Dr Abdul-Qader Weshah, a senior emergency doctor at Al-Awda Hospital in Al-Nuseirat camp in central Gaza, described the situation.

    “We’ve just received another influx of injuries following a nearby strike. We’ve dealt with them. We are just preparing ourselves for more casualties as more bombings are expected to happen,” he told Drop Site News.

    ‘Horrified . . . awoke to screams’
    “Since the morning, we were horrified and awoke to the screams and pain of people. We’ve been treating many people, children and women in particular.”

    Weshah said they have had to transfer some of the wounded to other hospitals because of a lack of medical supplies.

    “We don’t have the means. Gaza’s hospitals are devoid of everything. Here at the hospital, we lack everything, including basic necessities like disinfectants and gauze. We don’t have enough beds for the casualties.

    We don’t have the capacity to treat the wounded. X-ray devices, magnetic resonance imaging, and simple things like stitches are not available. The hospital is in an unprecedented state of chaos.

    “The number of medical crews is not enough. Overwhelmed with injuries, we’re horrified and we don’t know why we are speaking to the world.

    “We’re working with less than the bare minimum in our hands. We need doctors, devices and supplies, and circumstances to do our job.”

    Al-Shifa hospital director Muhammad Abu Salmiya told Al Jazeera Arabic: “Every minute, a wounded person dies due to a lack of resources.”

    The Indonesia Hospital morgue
    The Indonesia Hospital morgue in Beit Lahia, Gaza on March 18, 2025. Image: Abdalhkem Abu Riash/Anadolu

    Rising death toll
    Dr Zaher Al-Wahidi, the Director of the Information Unit at the Ministry of Health in Gaza, told Drop Site Tuesday afternoon that 174 children and 89 women were killed in the Israeli attacks. [Editors: Latest figures are 404 killed, including many children, and the toll is expected to rise as many are still buried beneath rubble.]

    Local health officials and witnesses said that the death toll was expected to rise dramatically because dozens of people are believed to be buried under the rubble of the structures where they were sleeping when the bombing began.

    “We can hear the voices of the victims under the rubble, but we can’t save them,” said a medical official at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City.

    Video posted on social media by Palestinians inside Gaza portrayed unspeakable scenes of the lifeless bodies of infants and small children killed in the bombings.

    Zinh Dahdooh, a dental student from Gaza City, posted an audio recording she said was of her neighbours screaming as their shelter was bombed, trapping them in the destruction.

    “Tonight, they bombed our neighbors,” she wrote on the social media site X. “They kept screaming until they died, and no ambulance came for them. How long are we supposed to live in this fear? How long!”

    According to local health officials, many strikes hit buildings or homes housing multiple generations of families.

    ‘Wiped out six families’
    “Israel in its strikes has wiped out at least six families. One in my hometown. The others are from Khan Younis, Rafah, and Gaza City. Some families have lost five or 10 members. Others have lost around 20,” Abubaker reported.

    “We talk about families killed from the children to the old. The Gharghoon family was bombed today in Rafah. The strikes have killed the father and his two daughters. Their mom and grandparents along with their uncles and aunts were also murdered, erasing the entire family from the civil registry.

    “We are talking about the erasure of entire families. Among Israel’s attacks in Deir al-Balah, Israel bombed the homes of the Mesmeh, Daher, and Sloot families.

    “More than 10 people, including seven women, from the Sloot family were killed, wiping them out entirely. The same has happened to the Abu-Teer, Barhoom, and other families.

    “This is extermination by design. This is genocide.”

    On Tuesday, Palestinian Islamic Jihad confirmed that “Abu Hamza,” the spokesman of its military wing, Al Quds Brigades, had been killed along with his wife and other family members.

    A hellish scene
    Israeli officials said they had been given a “green light” by President Donald Trump to resume heavy bombing of Gaza because of Hamas’s refusal to obey Trump’s directive to release all Israeli captives immediately.

    “All those who seek to terrorise not just Israel but also the United States of America, will see a price to pay,” White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said on Fox News.

    “All hell will break loose.”

    Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu released a statement asserting that “Israel will, from now on, act against Hamas with increasing military strength”.

    Israeli media reported that the decision to resume heavy strikes against Gaza was made a week ago and was not in response to any imminent threat posed by Hamas.

    Israel, which has repeatedly violated the ceasefire that went into effect January 19, has sought to create new terms in a transparent effort to justify blowing up the deal entirely.

    “This is unconscionable,” said Muhannad Hadi, the UN Humanitarian Coordinator for the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

    “A cease-fire must be reinstated immediately. People in Gaza have endured unimaginable suffering.”

    Compounding the crisis in Gaza’s hospitals, Israel recently began blocking the entry of international medical workers to the Strip at unprecedented rates as part of a sweeping new policy that severely limits the number of aid organisations Israel will permit to operate in Gaza.

    Plumes of smoke from central Gaza just as Israel began its heavy bombing
    Plumes of smoke from central Gaza just as Israel began its heavy bombing on Monday night. Image: Abubaker Abed/Drop Site News

    Editor’s note: Due to the ongoing Israeli attacks, Abubaker Abed relayed his reporting and eyewitness account to Jeremy Scahill by phone and text messages. This article is republished from Drop Site News under Creative Commons.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • West Papua liberation group demands Indonesia releases 12 arrested activists

    Asia Pacific Report

    A West Papuan liberation advocacy group has condemned the arrest of 12 activists by Indonesian police and demanded their immediate release.

    The West Papuan activists from the West Papua People’s Liberation Movement (GR-PWP) were arrested for handing out pamphlets supporting the new “Boycott Indonesia” campaign.

    The GR-PWP activists were arrested in Sentani and taken to Jayapura police station yesterday.

    In a statement by the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP), interim president Benny Wenda, said the activists were still “in the custody of the brutal Indonesian police”.

    The arrested activists were named as:

    Ones M. Kobak, GR-PWP leader, Sentani District
    Elinatan Basini, deputy secretary, GR-PWP Central
    Dasalves Suhun, GR-PWP member
    Matikel Mirin, GR-PWP member
    Apikus Lepitalen, GR-PWP member
    Mane Kogoya, GR-PWP member
    Obet Dogopia, GR-PWP member
    Eloy Weya, GR-PWP member
    Herry Mimin, GR-PWP member
    Sem. R Kulka, GR-PWP member
    Maikel Tabo, GR-PWP member
    Koti Moses Uropmabin, GR-PWP member

    “I demand that the Head of Police release the Sentani 12 from custody immediately,” Wenda said.

    “This was an entirely peaceful action mobilising support for a peaceful campaign.

    “The boycott campaign has won support from more than 90 tribes, political organisations, religious and customary groups — people from every part of West Papua are demanding a boycott of products complicit in the genocidal Indonesian occupation.”

    Wenda said the arrest demonstrated the importance of the Boycott for West Papua campaign.

    “By refusing to buy these blood-stained products, ordinary people across the world can take a stand against this kind of repression,” he said.

    “I invite everyone to hear the West Papuan cry and join our boycott campaign. No profit from stolen land.”

    Source: ULMWP

    The arrested Sentani 12 activists holding leaflets for the Boycott for West Papua campaign
    The arrested Sentani 12 activists holding leaflets for the Boycott for West Papua campaign. Image: ULMWP

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Catholic priest calls PNG’s Christian state declaration ‘cosmetic’ change

    By Caleb Fotheringham, RNZ Pacific journalist

    Papua New Guinea being declared a Christian nation may offer the impression that the country will improve, but it is only “an illusion”, according to a Catholic priest in the country.

    Last week, the PNG Parliament amended the nation’s constitution, introducing a declaration in its preamble: “(We) acknowledge and declare God, the Father; Jesus Christ, the Son; and Holy Spirit, as our Creator and Sustainer of the entire universe and the source of our powers and authorities, delegated to the people and all persons within the geographical jurisdiction of Papua New Guinea.”

    In addition, Christianity will now be reflected in the Fifth Goal of the Constitution, and the Bible will be recognised as a national symbol.

    Father Giorgio Licini of Caritas PNG said that the Catholic Church would have preferred no constitutional change.

    “To create, nowadays, in the 21st century a Christian confessional state seems a little bit anachronistic,” Father Licini said.

    He believes it is a “cosmetic” change that “will not have a real impact” on the lives of the people.

    “PNG society will remain basically what it is,” he said.

    An ‘illusion that things will improve’
    “This manoeuvre may offer the impression or the illusion that things will improve for the country, that the way of behaving, the economic situation, the culture may become more solid. But that is an illusion.”

    He said the preamble of the 1975 Constitution already acknowledged the Christian heritage.

    Father Licini said secular cultures and values were scaring many in PNG, including the recognition and increasing acceptance of the rainbow community.

    “They see themselves as next to Indonesia, which is Muslim, they see themselves next to Australia and New Zealand, which are increasingly secular countries, the Pacific heritage is fading, so the question is, who are we?” he said.

    “It looks like a Christian heritage and tradition and values and the churches, they offer an opportunity to ground on them a cultural identity.”

    Village market near christian church building, Papua New Guinea
    Village market near a Christian church building in Papua New Guinea . . . secular cultures and values scaring many in PNG. Image: 123rf

    Prime Minister James Marape, a vocal advocate for the amendment, is happy about the outcome.

    He said it “reflects, in the highest form” the role Christian churches had played in the development of the country.

    Not an operational law
    RNZ Pacific’s PNG correspondent Scott Waide said that Marape had maintained it was not an operational law.

    “It is something that is rather symbolic and something that will hopefully unite Papua New Guinea under a common goal of sorts. That’s been the narrative that’s come out from the Prime Minister’s Office,” Waide said.

    He said the vast majority of people in the country had identified as Christian, but it was not written into the constitution.

    Waide said the founding fathers were aware of the negative implications of declaring the nation a Christian state during the decolonisation period.

    “I think in their wisdom they chose to very carefully state that Papua New Guineans are spiritual people but stopped short of actually declaring Papua New Guinea a Christian country.”

    He said that, unlike Fiji, which has had a 200-year experience with different religions, the first mosque in PNG opened in the 1980s.

    “It is not as diverse as you would see in other countries. Personally, I have seen instances of religious violence largely based on ignorance.

    “Not because they are politically driven, but because people are not educated enough to understand the differences in religions and the need to coexist.”

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

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • PSNA calls on NZ govt to condemn renewed Israel air strikes on Gaza – 350 killed

    Asia Pacific Report

    A national Palestinian advocacy group has called on the Aotearoa New Zealand government to immediately condemn Israel for its resumption today of “genocidal attacks” on the almost 2 million Palestinians trapped in the besieged Gaza enclave.

    Media reports said that more than 350 people had been killed — many of them children — in a wave of predawn attacks by Israel to break the fragile ceasefire that had been holding since mid-January.

    The renewed war on Gaza comes amid a worsening humanitarian crisis that has persisted for 16 days since March 1.

    This followed Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s decision to block the entry of all aid and goods, cut water and electricity, and shut down the Strip’s border crossings at the end of the first phase of the ceasefire agreement.

    “Immediate condemnation of Israel’s resumption of attacks on Gaza must come from the New Zealand government”, said co-national chair John Minto of the Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) in a statement.

    “Israel has breached the January ceasefire agreement multiple times and is today relaunching its genocidal attacks against the Palestinian people of Gaza.”

    Israeli violations
    He said that in the last few weeks Israel had:

    • refused to negotiate the second stage of the ceasefire agreement with Hamas which would see a permanent ceasefire and complete withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza;
    • Issued a complete ban on food, water, fuel and medical supplies entering Gaza — “a war crime of epic proportions”; and
    • Cut off the electricity supply desperately needed to, for example, operate desalination plants for water supplies.

    ‘Cowardly silence’
    “The New Zealand government response has been a cowardly silence when the people of New Zealand have been calling for sanctions against Israel for its genocide,” Minto said.

    “The government is out of touch with New Zealanders but in touch with US/Israel.

    “Foreign Minister Winston Peters seems to be explaining his silence as ‘keeping his nerve’.

    Minto said that for the past 17 months, minister Peters had condemned every act of Palestinian resistance against 77 years of brutal colonisation and apartheid policies.

    “But he has refused to condemn any of the countless war crimes committed by Israel during this time — including the deliberate use of starvation as a weapon of war.

    “Speaking out to condemn Israel now is our opportunity to force it to reconsider and begin negotiations on stage two of the ceasefire agreement Israel is trying to walk away from.

    “Palestinians and New Zealanders deserve no less.”

    A Netanyahu "Wanted" sign at last Saturday'pro-Palestinian rally in "Palestinian Corner", Auckland
    A Netanyahu “Wanted” sign at last Saturday’s pro-Palestinian rally in “Palestinian Corner”, Auckland . . . in reference to the International Criminal Court arrest warrants issued last November against the Israeli Prime Minister and former defence minister Yoav Gallant. Image: APR

    ‘Devastating sounds’
    Al Jazeera reporter Maram Humaid said from Gaza: “We woke up to the devastating sounds of multiple explosions as a series of air attacks targeted various areas across the Gaza Strip, from north to south, including Jabalia, Gaza City, Nuseirat, Deir el-Balah and Khan Younis.”

    “The strikes hit homes, residential buildings, schools sheltering displaced people and tents, resulting in a significant number of casualties, including women and children, especially since the attacks occurred during sleeping hours.

    The Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza said at least 232 people had been killed in today’s Israeli raids.

    The Palestinian resistance group Hamas called on people of Arab and Islamic nations — and the “free people of the world” — to take to the streets in protest over the devastating attack.

    Hamas urged people across the world to “raise their voice in rejection of the resumption of the Zionist war of extermination against our people in the Gaza Strip”.

  • New Zealand and Gaza: Confronting and not confronting the unspeakable

    ANALYSIS: By Robert Patman

    New Zealand’s National-led coalition government’s policy on Gaza seems caught between a desire for a two-state diplomatic solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and closer alignment with the US, which supports a Netanyahu government strongly opposed to a Palestinian state

    In the last 17 months, Gaza has been the scene of what Thomas Merton once called the unspeakable — human wrongdoing on a scale and a depth that seems to go beyond the capacity of words to adequately describe.

    The latest Gaza conflict began with a horrific Hamas terrorist attack on Israel on 7 October 2023 that prompted a relentless Israel ground and air offensive in Gaza with full financial, logistical and diplomatic backing from the Biden administration.

    During this period, around 50,000 people – 48,903 Palestinians and 1706 Israelis – have been reported killed in the Gaza conflict, according to the official figures of the Gaza Health Ministry, as well as 166 journalists and media workers, 120 academics,and more than 224 humanitarian aid workers.

    Moreover, a fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, signed in mid-January, seems to be hanging by a thread.

    Israel has resumed its blockade of humanitarian aid to Gaza and cut off electricity after Hamas rejected an Israeli proposal to extend phase 1 of the ceasefire deal (to release more Israeli hostages) without any commitment to implement phase 2 (that envisaged ending the conflict in Gaza and Israel withdrawing its troops from the territory).

    Hamas insists on negotiating phase 2 as signed by both parties in the January ceasefire agreement

    Over the weekend, Israel reportedly launched air-strikes in Gaza and the Trump administration unleashed a wave of attacks on Houthi rebel positions in Yemen after the Houthis warned Israel not to restart the war in Gaza.

    New Zealand and the Gaza conflict
    Although distant in geographic terms, the Gaza crisis represents a major moral and legal challenge to New Zealand’s self-image and its worldview based on the strengthening of an international rules-based order.

    New Zealand’s founding document, the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi, emphasised partnership and cooperation between indigenous Māori and European settlers in nation-building.

    While the aspirations of the Treaty have yet to be fully realised, the credibility of its vision of reconciliation at home depends on New Zealand’s willingness to uphold respect for human rights and the rule of law in the international arena, particularly in states like Israel where tensions persist between the settler population and Palestinians in occupied territories like the West Bank.

    New Zealand’s declaratory stance towards Gaza
    In 2023 and 2024, New Zealand consistently backed calls in the UN General Assembly for humanitarian truces or ceasefires in Gaza. It also joined Australia and Canada in February and July last year to demand an end to hostilities.

    The New Zealand Foreign Minister, Winston Peters, told the General Assembly in April 2024 that the Security Council had failed in its responsibility “to maintain international peace and security”.

    He was right. The Biden administration used its UN Security Council veto four times to perpetuate this brutal onslaught in Gaza for nearly 15 months.

    In addition, Peters has repeatedly said there can be no military resolution of a political problem in Gaza that can only be resolved through affirming the Palestinian right to self-determination within the framework of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian dispute.

    The limitations of New Zealand’s Gaza approach
    Despite considerable disagreement with Netanyahu’s policy of “mighty vengeance” in Gaza, the National-led coalition government had few qualms about sending a small Defence Force deployment to the Red Sea in January 2024 as part of a US-led coalition effort to counter Houthi rebel attacks on commercial shipping there.

    While such attacks are clearly illegal, they are basically part of the fallout from a prolonged international failure to stop the US-enabled carnage in Gaza.

    In particular, the NZDF’s Red Sea deployment did not sit comfortably with New Zealand’s acceptance in September 2024 of the ICJ’s ruling that Israel’s continued presence in the occupied Palestinian territory (East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza) was “unlawful”.

    At the same time, the National-led coalition government’s silence on US President Donald Trump’s controversial proposal to “own” Gaza, displace two million Palestinian residents and make the territory the “Riviera” of the Middle East was deafening.

    Furthermore, while Wellington announced travel bans on violent Israeli settlers in the West Bank in February 2024, it has had little to say publicly about the Netanyahu government’s plans to annex the West Bank in 2025. Such a development would gravely undermine the two-state solution, violate international law, and further fuel regional tensions.

    New Zealand’s low-key policy
    On balance, the National-led coalition government’s policy towards Gaza appears to be ambivalent and lacking moral and legal clarity in a context in which war crimes have been regularly committed since October 7.

    Peters was absolutely correct to condemn the UNSC for failing to deliver the ceasefire that New Zealand and the overwhelming majority of states in the UN General Assembly had wanted from the first month of this crisis.

    But the New Zealand government has had no words of criticism for the US, which used its power of veto in the UNSC for more than a year to thwart the prospect of a ceasefire and provided blanket support for an Israeli military campaign that killed huge numbers of Palestinian civilians in Gaza.

    By cooperating with the Biden administration against Houthi rebels and adopting a quietly-quietly approach to Trump’s provocative comments on Gaza and his apparent willingness to do whatever it takes to help Israel “to get the job done’, New Zealand has revealed a selective approach to upholding international law and human rights in the desperate conditions facing Gaza

    Professor Robert G. Patman is an Inaugural Sesquicentennial Distinguished Chair and his research interests concern international relations, global security, US foreign policy, great powers, and the Horn of Africa. This article was first published by The Spinoff and is republished here with the author’s permission.


    This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Free press under threat in US – Columbia J-School speaks out

    Columbia Journalism School

    Freedom of the press — a bedrock principle of American democracy — is under threat in the United States.

    Here at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism we are witnessing and experiencing an alarming chill. We write to affirm our commitment to supporting and exercising First Amendment rights for students, faculty, and staff on our campus — and, indeed, for all.

    After Homeland Security seized and detained Mahmoud Khalil, a recent graduate of Columbia’s School of Public and International Affairs, without charging him with any crime, many of our international students have felt afraid to come to classes and to events on campus.

    They are right to be worried. Some of our faculty members and students who have covered the protests over the Gaza war have been the object of smear campaigns and targeted on the same sites that were used to bring Khalil to the attention of Homeland Security.

    President Trump has warned that the effort to deport Khalil is just the first of many.

    These actions represent threats against political speech and the ability of the American press to do its essential job and are part of a larger design to silence voices that are out of favour with the current administration.

    We have also seen reports that Immigration and Customs Enforcement is trying to deport the Palestinian poet and journalist Mosab Abu Toha, who has written extensively in the New Yorker about the condition of the residents of Gaza and warned of the mortal danger to Palestinian journalists.

    There are 13 million legal foreign residents (green card holders) in the United States. If the administration can deport Khalil, it means those 13 million people must live in fear if they dare speak up or publish something that runs afoul of government views.

    There are more than one million international students in the United States. They, too, may worry that they are no longer free to speak their mind. Punishing even one person for their speech is meant to intimidate others into self-censorship.

    One does not have to agree with the political opinions of any particular individual to understand that these threats cut to the core of what it means to live in a pluralistic democracy. The use of deportation to suppress foreign critics runs parallel to an aggressive campaign to use libel laws in novel — even outlandish ways — to silence or intimidate the independent press.

    The President has sued CBS for an interview with Kamala Harris which Trump found too favourable. He has sued the Pulitzer Prize committee for awarding prizes to stories critical of him.

    He has even sued the Des Moines Register for publishing the results of a pre-election poll that showed Kamala Harris ahead at that point in the state.

    Large corporations like Disney and Meta settled lawsuits most lawyers thought they could win because they did not want to risk the wrath of the Trump administration and jeopardize business they have with the federal government.

    Amazon and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos decided that the paper’s editorial pages would limit themselves to pieces celebrating “free markets and individual liberties.”

    Meanwhile, the Trump administration insists on hand-picking the journalists who will be permitted to cover the White House and Pentagon, and it has banned the Associated Press from press briefings because the AP is following its own style book and refusing to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America.

    The Columbia Journalism School stands in defence of First Amendment principles of free speech and free press across the political spectrum. The actions we’ve outlined above jeopardise these principles and therefore the viability of our democracy. All who believe in these freedoms should steadfastly oppose the intimidation, harassment, and detention of individuals on the basis of their speech or their journalism.

    The Faculty of Columbia Journalism School
    New York

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Fijian academic says PM’s plans to change constitution ‘might take a while’

    By Koroi Hawkins, RNZ Pacific editor

    A Fijian academic believes Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka’s failed attempt to garner enough parliamentary support to change the country’s 2013 Constitution “is only the beginning”.

    Last week, Rabuka fell short in his efforts to secure the support of three-quarters of the members of Parliament to amend sections 159 and 160 of the constitution.

    The prime minister’s proposed amendments also sought to remove the need for a national referendum altogether. While the bill passed its first reading with support from several opposition MPs, it failed narrowly at the second reading.


    Video: RNZ Pacific

    While the bill passed its first reading with support from several opposition MPs, it failed narrowly at the second reading.

    Jope Tarai, an indigenous Fijian PhD scholar and researcher at the Australian National University, told RNZ Pacific Waves that “it is quite obvious that it is not going to be the end” of Rabuka’s plans to amend the constitution.

    However, he said that it was “something that might take a while” with less than a year before the 2026 elections.

    “So, the repositioning towards the people’s priorities will be more important than constitutional review,” he said.

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

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Former US envoy slams air attacks on Houthis – NZ protesters recite poetry

    Asia Pacific Report

    A former US diplomat, Nabeel Khoury, says President Donald Trump’s decision to launch attacks against the Houthis is misguided, and this will not subdue them.

    “For our president who came in wanting to avoid war and wanting to be a man of peace, he’s going about it the wrong way,” he said.

    “There are many paths that can be used before you resort to war.” Khoury told Al Jazeera.

    The danger to shipping in the Red Sea was “a justifiable reason for concern”, Khoury told Al Jazeera in an interview, but added that it was a problem that could be resolved through diplomacy.

    Ansar Allah (Houthi) media sources said that at least four areas had been razed by the US warplanes that targeted, in particular, a residential area north of the capital, Sanaa, killing 31 people.

    The Houthis, who had been “bombed severely all over their territory” in the past, were not likely to be subdued through “a few weeks of bombing”, Khoury said.

    “If you think that Hamas, living and fighting on a very small piece of land, totally surrounded by land, air and sea, and yet, 17 months of bombardment by the Israelis did not get rid of them.

    ‘More rugged space’
    “The Houthis live in a much more rugged space, mountainous regions — it would be virtually impossible to eradicate them,” Khoury said.

    “So there is no military logic to what’s happening, and there is no political logic either.”

    Providing background, Patty Culhane reported from Washington that there were several factual errors in the justification President Trump had given for his order.

    “It’s important to point out that the Houthi attacks have stopped since the ceasefire in Gaza [on January 19], although the Houthis were threatening to strike again,” she said.

    “His other justification is saying that no US-flagged vessel has transited the Suez Canal, the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden safely in more than a year.

    “And then he says another reason is because Houthis attacked a US military warship.

    “That happened when Trump was not president.”

    Down to 10,000 ships
    She said the White House was now putting out more of a communique, “saying that before the attacks, there were 25,000 ships that transited the Red Sea annually. Now it’s down to 10,000 so, obviously, sort of shooting down the president’s concept that nobody is actually transiting the region.

    “And it did list the number of attacks. The US commercial ships have been attacked 145 times since 2023 in their list.”

    Meanwhile, at least nine people, including three journalists, have been killed and several others wounded in an Israeli drone attack on relief aid workers at Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza, according to Palestinian media.

    The attack reportedly targeted a relief team that was accompanied by journalists and photographers. At least three local journalists were among the dead.

    The Palestinian Journalists’ Protection Centre said in a statement that Israel had killed “three journalists in an airstrike on a media team documenting relief efforts in northern Gaza”, reports

    “The journalists were documenting humanitarian relief efforts for those affected by Israel’s genocidal war,” the statement added, according to Anadolu.

    In a statement, the Israeli military claimed it struck “two terrorists . . .  operating a drone that posed a threat” to Israeli soldiers in the area of Beit Lahiya.

    “Later, a number of additional terrorists collected the drone operating equipment and entered a vehicle. The [Israeli military] struck the terrorists,” it added, without providing any evidence about its claims.

    ‘Liberation’ poetry
    In Auckland on Saturday, protesters at the Aotearoa New Zealand’s weekly “free Palestine” rallies gave a tribute to poet Mahmoud Darwish — the “liberation voice of Palestine” — by reciting peace and justice poetry and marked the sixth anniversary of the Christchurch mosque massacre when a lone white terrorist gunned down 51 people at Friday prayers.

    This was one of more than 20 Palestinian solidarity events happening across the motu this weekend.

    Two of the pro-Palestine protesters hold West Papuan and Palestinian flags
    Two of the pro-Palestine protesters hold West Papuan and Palestinian flags – symbolising indigenous liberation – at Saturday’s rally in Auckland. Image: APR


    This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Guam at decolonisation ‘crossroads’ with resolution on US statehood

    By Mar-Vic Cagurangan in Hagatna, Guam

    Debate on Guam’s future as a US territory has intensified with its legislature due to vote on a non-binding resolution to become a US state amid mounting Pacific geostrategic tensions and expansionist declarations by the Trump administration.

    Located closer to Beijing than Hawai’i, Guam serves as a key US strategic asset, known as the “tip of the spear,” with 10,000 military personnel, an air base for F-35 fighters and B-2 bombers and home port for Virginia-class nuclear submarines.

    The small US territory of 166,000 people is also listed by the UN for decolonisation and last year became an associate member at the Pacific Islands Forum.

    Local Senator William A. Parkinson introduced the resolution to the legislature last Wednesday and called for Guam to be fully integrated into the American union, possibly as the 51st state.

    “We are standing in a moment of history where two great empires are standing face-to-face with each other, about to go to war,” Parkinson said at a press conference on Thursday.

    “We have to be real about what’s going on in this part of the world. We are a tiny island but we are too strategically important to be left alone. Stay with America or do we let ourselves be absorbed by China?”

    His resolution states the decision “must be built upon the informed consent of the people of Guam through a referendum”.

    Trump’s expansionist policies
    Parkinson’s resolution comes as US President Donald Trump advocates territorially expansionist policies, particularly towards the strategically located Danish-ruled autonomous territory of Greenland and America’s northern neighbour, Canada.

    “This one moment in time, this one moment in history, the stars are aligning so that the geopolitics of the United States favour statehood for Guam,” Parkinson said. “This is an opportunity we cannot pass up.”

    Screenshot 2025-03-14 at 1.57.40 AM.png
    Guam Legislature Senator William A. Parkinson holds a press conference after introducing his resolution. BenarNews screenshot APR

    As a territory, Guam residents are American citizens but they cannot vote for the US president and their lone delegate to the Congress has no voting power on the floor.

    The US acquired Guam, along with Puerto Rico, in 1898 after winning the Spanish-American War, and both remain unincorporated territories to this day.

    Independence advocates and representatives from the Guam Commission on Decolonisation regularly testify at the UN’s Decolonisation Committee, where the island has been listed as a Non-Self-Governing Territory since 1946.

    Commission on Decolonisation executive director Melvin Won Pat-Borja said he was not opposed to statehood but is concerned if any decision on Guam’s status was left to the US.

    “Decolonisation is the right of the colonised,” he said while attending Parkinson’s press conference, the Pacific Daily News reported.

    ‘Hands of our coloniser’
    “It’s counterintuitive to say that, ‘we’re seeking a path forward, a path out of this inequity,’ and then turn around and put it right back in the hands of our coloniser.

    “No matter what status any of us prefer, ultimately that is not for any one of us to decide, but it is up to a collective decision that we have to come to, and the only way to do it is via referendum,” he said, reports Kuam News.

    With the geostrategic competition between the US and China in the Pacific, Guam has become increasingly significant in supporting American naval and air operations, especially in the event of a conflict over Taiwan or in the South China Sea.

    The two US bases have seen Guam’s economy become heavily reliant on military investments and tourism.

    The Defence Department holds about 25 percent of Guam’s land and is preparing to spend billions to upgrade the island’s military infrastructure as another 5000 American marines relocate there from Japan’s Okinawa islands.

    Guam is also within range of Chinese and North Korean ballistic missiles and the US has trialed a defence system, with the first tests held in December.

    Governor Lou Leon Guerrero
    Governor Lou Leon Guerrero delivers her “State of the Island” address in Guam on Tuesday . . . “Guam cannot be the linchpin of American security in the Asian-Pacific if nearly 14,000 of our residents are without shelter . . .” Image: Office of the Governor of Guam/Benar News

    The “moment in history” for statehood may also be defined by the Trump administration spending cuts, Guam Governor Lou Leon Guerrero warned in her “state of the island” address on Wednesday.

    Military presence leveraged
    The island has in recent years leveraged the increased military presence to demand federal assistance and the territory’s treasury relies on at least US$0.5 billion in annual funding.

    “Let us be clear about this: Guam cannot be the linchpin of American security in the Asian-Pacific if nearly 14,000 of our residents are without shelter, because housing aid to Guam is cut, or if 36,000 of our people lose access to Medicaid and Medicare coverage keeping them healthy, alive and out of poverty,” Guerrero said.

    Parkinson’s proposed legislative resolution calls for an end to 125-plus years of US colonial uncertainty.

    “The people of Guam, as the rightful stewards of their homeland, must assert their inalienable right to self-determination,” states the resolution, including that there be a “full examination of statehood or enhanced autonomous status for Guam.”

    “Granting Guam equal political status would signal unequivocally that Guam is an integral part of the United States, deterring adversaries who might otherwise perceive Guam as a mere expendable outpost.”

    If adopted by the Guam legislature, the non-binding resolution would be transmitted to the White House.

    A local statute enacted in 2000 for a political status plebiscite on statehood, independence or free association has become bogged down in US courts.

    ‘Reject colonial status quo’
    Neil Weare, a former Guam resident and co-director of Right to Democracy, said the self-determination process must be centred on what the people of Guam want, “not just what’s best for US national security”.

    “Right to Democracy does not take a position on political status, other than to reject the undemocratic and colonial status quo,” Weare said on behalf of the nonprofit organisation that advocates for rights and self-determination in US territories.

    “People can have different views on what is the best solution to this problem, but we should all be in agreement that the continued undemocratic rule of millions of people in US territories is wrong and needs to end.”

    He said the 250th anniversary of the US Declaration of Independence next year can open a new venue for a conversation about key concepts — such as the “consent of the governed” — involving Guam and other US territories.

    Republished from BenarNews with permission.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • NZ rally honours ‘voice of Palestine’ poet and marks Christchurch massacre

    Asia Pacific Report

    Protesters at the Aotearoa New Zealand’s weekly “free Palestine” rallies today gave a tribute to poet Mahmoud Darwish — the “liberation voice of Palestine” — and marked the sixth anniversary of the Christchurch mosque massacre when a lone terrorist gunned down 51 people at Friday prayers.

    Organisers thanked the crowd for attending the rally in what has become known as “Palestine Corner” in the downtown Komititanga Square in the heart of Auckland Tāmaki Makaurau in the 75th week of protests.

    This was one of more than 20 Palestinian solidarity events happening across the motu this weekend.

    Palestinian poet, writer and activist Mahmoud Darwish
    Palestinian poet, writer and activist Mahmoud Darwish . . . forged a Palestinian consciousness. Image: The Palestine Project

    The organisers, of the Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA), said the rallies would continue until there was a “permanent ceasefire through Palestine” — Gaza, East Jerusalem and occupied West Bank and for a just political outcome for a sovereign Palestinian state.

    The poet, writer and activist Mahmoud Darwish (1941-2008) was born on 15 March 1941 in the small Palestinian Arab and Christian village of al-Birwa, east of Acre, in what is now western Galilee in the state of Israel after the attacks by Israeli militia during the Nakba.

    He published his first book of poetry, Asafir Bila Ajniha (“Birds Without Wings”), at the age of 19. Over his writing career, he published more than 30 volumes of poetry and eight books of prose.

    By 1981, at the age of 40, he was editor of Al-Jadid, Al Fajir, Shu’un Filisiniyya and Al-Karmel.

    He won many awards and his work about the “loss of Palestine” has been translated and published in 20 languages.

    Darwish is credited with helping forge a “Palestinian consciousness” and resistance to Israeli military rule after the 1967 Six-Day War.

    Several speakers read poetry by Darwish or their own poems dedicated to Palestine, including Kaaka Tarau (“Identity Card”), Chris Sullivan (“To My Mother”), Jax Taylor (own poem), Besma (own poem), Audrey (“I am There”), Achmat Esau (“I Love You More”), and Veih Taylor (“Rita and the Rifle”).

    MC Kerry Sorenson-Tyrer
    MC Kerry Sorenson-Tyrer . . . thanked rally supporters for their mahi for a Free Palestine movement.

    Journalist David Robie provided a short introduction to Darwish’s life and works, and he also spoke about the arrest of former Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte this week who is now in a cell in The Hague awaiting trial on International Criminal Court (ICC) charges of crimes against humanity over the extrajudicial killings of Filipinos during the so-called “war against drugs”.

    A poster at the rally . . . a “wanted” sign for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant in reference to the ICC warrants for their arrest. Image: Asia Pacific Report

    “This arrest is really significant as it gives us hope,” he said.

    “Although the wheels of justice might seem to move slowly, the arrest of Duterte gives us hope that one day the ICC arrest warrants issued last November for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant will eventually be served, and they will be detained and face trials in The Hague.”

    South African-born teacher and activist Achmat Esau reminded the crowd of the significance of the date — March 15, the sixth anniversary of the Christchurch massacre when a lone Australian terrorist shocked the nation by killing 51 people at Friday prayers in two mosques with scores injured, or wounded by gunfire.

    Leann Wahanui-Peters and Achmat Esau
    Leann Wahanui-Peters and Achmat Esau . . . a poem dedicated to the memory of the 2019 Christchurch martyrs. Image: Asia Pacific Report

    The gunman pleaded guilty at his trial and is serving a life sentence without parole — the first such sentence imposed in New Zealand.

    Esau shared a poem that he had written to honour those killed and wounded:

    Memory, by Achmat Esau
    51 …
    the victims
    49 …
    the injured
    15 …
    the day
    1 …
    the terror
    2 …
    the masjids
    5 million …
    the impact
    Hate …
    the reason
    Murder …
    the aim
    Love …
    the response
    Hope …
    the result
    Justice …
    the call
    51 …
    the Martyrs!

    The MC, Kerry Sorensen-Tyrer, praised the “creative people” and called on them to “keep creating and processing their feelings into something beautiful and external to honour the people of Palestine”.

    Organisers were Kathy Ross and Del Abcede.


    This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Marshall Islands: How the Rongelap evacuation changed the course of history

    SPECIAL REPORT: By Giff Johnson, editor of the Marshall Islands Journal and RNZ Pacific correspondent in Majuro

    The late Member of Parliament Jeton Anjain and the people of the nuclear test-affected Rongelap Atoll changed the course of the history of the Marshall Islands by using Greenpeace’s Rainbow Warrior ship to evacuate their radioactive home islands 40 years ago.

    They did this by taking control of their own destiny after decades of being at the mercy of the United States nuclear testing programme and its aftermath.

    In 1954, the US tested the Bravo hydrogen bomb test at Bikini Atoll, spewing high-level radioactive fallout on unsuspecting Rongelap Islanders nearby.

    For years after the Bravo test, decisions by US government doctors and scientists caused Rongelap Islanders to be continuously exposed to additional radiation.

    Marshall Islands traditional and government leaders joined Greenpeace representatives in Majuro
    Marshall Islands traditional and government leaders joined Greenpeace representatives in showing off tapa banners with the words “Justice for Marshall Islands” during the dockside welcome ceremony earlier this week in Majuro. Image: Giff Johnson/RNZ Pacific

    The 40th anniversary of the dramatic evacuation of Rongelap Atoll in 1985 by the Greenpeace vessel Rainbow Warrior — a few weeks before French secret agents bombed the ship in Auckland harbour — was spotlighted this week in Majuro with the arrival of Greenpeace’s flagship Rainbow Warrior III to a warm welcome combining top national government leaders, the Rongelap Atoll Local Government and the Rongelap community.

    “We were displaced, our lives were disrupted, and our voices ignored,” said MP Hilton Kendall, who represents Rongelap in the Marshall Islands Parliament, at the welcome ceremony in Majuro earlier in the week.

    “In our darkest time, Greenpeace stood with us.”

    ‘Evacuated people to safety’
    He said the Rainbow Warrior “evacuated the people to safety” in 1985.

    Greenpeace would “forever be remembered by the people of Rongelap,” he added.

    In 1984, Jeton Anjain — like most Rongelap people who were living on the nuclear test-affected atoll — knew that Rongelap was unsafe for continued habitation.

    The Able U.S. nuclear test at Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands, pictured July 1, 1946. [U.S. National Archives]
    The Able US nuclear test at Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands on 1 July 1946. Image: US National Archives

    There was not a single scientist or medical doctor among their community although Jeton was a trained dentist, and they mainly depended on US Department of Energy-provided doctors and scientists for health care and environmental advice.

    They were always told not to worry and that everything was fine.

    But it wasn’t, as the countless thyroid tumors, cancers, miscarriages and surgeries confirmed.

    Crew of the Rainbow Warrior and other Greenpeace officials were welcomed to the Marshall Islands during a dockside ceremony in Majuro to mark the 40th anniversary of the evacuation of Rongelap Atoll. Photo: Giff Johnson.
    Crew of the Rainbow Warrior and other Greenpeace officials — including two crew members from the original Rainbow Warrior, Bunny McDiarmid and Henk Hazen, from Aotearoa New Zealand – were welcomed to the Marshall Islands during a dockside ceremony in Majuro to mark the 40th anniversary of the evacuation of Rongelap Atoll. Image: Giff Johnson/RNZ Pacific

    As the desire of Rongelap people to evacuate their homeland intensified in 1984, unbeknown to them Greenpeace was hatching a plan to dispatch the Rainbow Warrior on a Pacific voyage the following year to turn a spotlight on the nuclear test legacy in the Marshall Islands and the ongoing French nuclear testing at Moruroa in French Polynesia.

    A Rainbow Warrior question
    As I had friends in the Greenpeace organisation, I was contacted early on in its planning process with the question: How could a visit by the Rainbow Warrior be of use to the Marshall Islands?

    Jeton and I were good friends by 1984, and had worked together on advocacy for Rongelap since the late 1970s. I informed him that Greenpeace was planning a visit and without hesitation he asked me if the ship could facilitate the evacuation of Rongelap.

    At this time, Jeton had already initiated discussions with Kwajalein traditional leaders to locate an island that they could settle in that atoll.

    I conveyed Jeton’s interest in the visit to Greenpeace, and a Greenpeace International board member, the late Steve Sawyer, who coordinated the Pacific voyage of the Rainbow Warrior, arranged a meeting for the three of us in Seattle to discuss ideas.

    Jeton and I flew to Seattle and met Steve. After the usual preliminaries, Jeton asked Steve if the Rainbow Warrior could assist Rongelap to evacuate their community to Mejatto Island in Kwajalein Atoll, a distance of about 250 km.

    Steve responded in classic Greenpeace campaign thinking, which is what Greenpeace has proved effective in doing over many decades. He said words to the effect that the Rainbow Warrior could aid a “symbolic evacuation” by taking a small group of islanders from Rongelap to Majuro or Ebeye and holding a media conference publicising their plight with ongoing radiation exposure.

    “No,” said Jeton firmly. He wasn’t talking about a “symbolic” evacuation. He told Steve: “We want to evacuate Rongelap, the entire community and the housing, too.”

    Steve Sawyer taken aback
    Steve was taken aback by what Jeton wanted. Steve simply hadn’t considered the idea of evacuating the entire community.

    But we could see him mulling over this new idea and within minutes, as his mind clicked through the significant logistics hurdles for evacuation of the community — including that it would take three-to-four trips by the Rainbow Warrior between Rongelap and Mejatto to accomplish it — Steve said it was possible.

    And from that meeting, planning for the 1985 Marshall Islands visit began in earnest.

    I offer this background because when the evacuation began in early May 1985, various officials from the United States government sharply criticised Rongelap people for evacuating their atoll, saying there was no radiological hazard to justify the move and that they were being manipulated by Greenpeace for its own anti-nuclear agenda.

    Women from the nuclear test-affected Rongelap Atoll greeted the Rainbow Warrior
    Women from the nuclear test-affected Rongelap Atoll greeted the Rainbow Warrior and its crew with songs and dances this week as part of celebrating the 40th anniversary of the evacuation of Rongelap Atoll in 1985 by the Rainbow Warrior. Image: Giff Johnson/RNZ Pacific

    This condescending American government response suggested Rongelap people did not have the brain power to make important decisions for themselves.

    But it also showed the US government’s lack of understanding of the gravity of the situation in which Rongelap Islanders lived day in and day out in a highly radioactive environment.

    The Bravo hydrogen bomb test blasted Rongelap and nearby islands with snow-like radioactive fallout on 1 March 1954. The 82 Rongelap people were first evacuated to the US Navy base at Kwajalein for emergency medical treatment and the start of long-term studies by US government doctors.

    No radiological cleanup
    A few months later, they were resettled on Ejit Island in Majuro, the capital atoll, until 1957 when, with no radiological cleanup conducted, the US government said it was safe to return to Rongelap and moved the people back.

    “Even though the radioactive contamination of Rongelap Island is considered perfectly safe for human habitation, the levels of activity are higher than those found in other inhabited locations in the world,” said a Brookhaven National Laboratory report commenting on the return of Rongelap Islanders to their contaminated islands in 1957.

    It then stated plainly why the people were moved back: “The habitation of these people on the island will afford most valuable ecological radiation data on human beings.”

    And for 28 years, Rongelap people lived in one of the world’s most radioactive environments, consuming radioactivity through the food chain and by living an island life.

    Proving the US narrative of safety to be false, the 1985 evacuation forced the US Congress to respond by funding new radiological studies of Rongelap.

    Thanks to the determination of the soft-spoken but persistent leadership of Jeton, he ensured that a scientist chosen by Rongelap would be included in the study. And the new study did indeed identify health hazards, particularly for children, of living on Rongelap.

    The US Congress responded by appropriating US$45 million to a Rongelap Resettlement Trust Fund.

    Subsistence atoll life
    All of this was important — it both showed that islanders with a PhD in subsistence atoll life understood more about their situation than the US government’s university educated PhDs and medical doctors who showed up from time-to-time to study them, provide medical treatment, and tell them everything was fine on their atoll, and it produced a $45 million fund from the US government.

    However, this is only a fraction of the story about why the Rongelap evacuation in 1985 forever changed the US narrative and control of its nuclear test legacy in this country.

    On arrival in Majuro March 11, the crew of Greenpeace's Rainbow Warrior III vessel were serenaded by the Rongelap community to mark the 40th anniversary of the evacuation of Rongelap Islanders from their nuclear test-affected islands. Photo: Giff Johnson.
    The crew of Greenpeace’s Rainbow Warrior III vessel were serenaded by the Rongelap community to mark the 40th anniversary of the evacuation of Rongelap Islanders from their nuclear test-affected islands this week in Majuro. Image: Giff Johnson/RNZ Pacific

    Rongelap is the most affected population from the US hydrogen bomb testing programme in the 1950s.

    By living on Rongelap, the community confirmed the US government’s narrative that all was good and the nuclear test legacy was largely a relic of the past.

    The 1985 evacuation was a demonstration of the Rongelap community exerting control over their life after 31 years of dictates by US government doctors, scientists and officials.

    It was difficult building a new community on Mejatto Island, which was uninhabited and barren in 1985. Make no mistake, Rongelap people living on Mejatto suffered hardship and privation, especially in the first years after the 1985 resettlement.

    Nuclear legacy history
    Their perseverance, however, defined the larger ramification of the move to Mejatto: It changed the course of nuclear legacy history by people taking control of their future that forced a response from the US government to the benefit of the Rongelap community.

    Forty years later, the displacement of Rongelap Islanders on Mejatto and in other locations, unable to return to nuclear test contaminated Rongelap Atoll demonstrates clearly that the US nuclear testing legacy remains unresolved — unfinished business that is in need of a long-term, fair and just response from the US government.

    The Rainbow Warrior will be in Majuro until next week when it will depart for Mejatto Island to mark the 40th anniversary of the resettlement, and then voyage to other nuclear test-affected atolls around the Marshall Islands.

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

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Dramatic growth of NZ’s Māori economy highlights new report

    By Emma Andrews, RNZ Henare te Ua Māori journalism intern

    Māori contributions to the Aotearoa New Zealand economy have far surpassed the projected goal of “$100 billion by 2030”, a new report has revealed.

    The report conducted by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment’s (MBIE) and Te Puni Kōkiri, Te Ōhanga Māori 2023, shows Māori entities have grown from contributing $17 billion to New Zealand’s GDP in 2018 to $32 billion in 2023, turning a 6.5 percent contribution to GDP into 8.9 percent.

    The Māori asset base has grown from $69 billion in 2018 to $126 billion in 2023 — an increase of 83 percent.

    Of that sum, there is $66 billion in assets for Māori businesses and employers, $19 billion in assets for self-employed Māori and $41 billion in assets for Māori trusts, incorporations, and other Māori collectives including post settlement entities.

    In 2018, $4.2 billion of New Zealand’s economy came from agriculture, forestry, and fishing which made it the main contributor.

    Now, administrative, support, and professional services have taken the lead contributing $5.1 billion in 2023.

    However, Māori collectives own around half of all of New Zealand’s agriculture, forestry, and fishing assets and remain the highest asset-rich sector.

    Focused on need
    Te Rūnanga o Toa Rangatira manages political and public interests on behalf of Ngāti Toa, including political interests, treaty claims, fisheries, health and social services, and environmental kaitiakitanga.

    Tumu Whakarae chief executive Helmut Modlik said they were not focused on making money, but on “those who need it most”.

    Te Rūnanga o Toa Rangatira tumu whakarae (CEO) Helmut Karewa Modlik.
    Te Rūnanga o Toa Rangatira tumu whakarae chief executive Helmut Karewa Modlik . . . “We focus on long-term benefits rather than short-term gains.” Image: Alicia Scott/RNZ

    Ngāti Toa invested in water infrastructure and environmental projects, with a drive to replenish the whenua and improve community health. Like many iwi, they also invest in enterprises that deliver essential services such as health, housing and education.

    “We focus on long-term benefits rather than short-term gains, ensuring that our investments contribute to the sustainable development of our community,” Modlik said.

    Between the covid-19 lockdown and 2023, the iwi grew their assets from $220 million to $850 million and increased their staff from 120 to over 600.

    Pou Ōhanga (chief economic development and investment officer) Boyd Scirkovich said they took a “people first” approach to decision making.

    “We focused on building local capacity and ensuring that our people had the resources and support they needed to navigate the challenges of the pandemic.”

    The kinds of jobs Māori are working are also changing.

    Māori workers now hold more high-skilled jobs than low-skilled jobs with 46 percent in high-skilled jobs, 14 percent in skilled jobs, and 40 percent in low-skilled jobs.

    That is compared to 2018 when 37 percent of Māori were in high-skilled jobs and 51 percent in low-skilled jobs.

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

  • Call for fresh Blue Pacific rules-based order: ‘Our home, our rules’

    COMMENTARY: By Sione Tekiteki and Joel Nilon

    Ongoing wars and conflict around the world expose how international law and norms can be co-opted. With the US pulling out again from the Paris Climate Agreement, and other international commitments, this volatility is magnified.

    And with the intensifying US-China rivalry in the Pacific posing the real risk of a new “arms race”, the picture becomes unmistakable: the international global order is rapidly shifting and eroding, and the stability of the multilateral system is increasingly at risk.

    In this turbulent landscape, the Pacific must move beyond mere narratives such as the “Blue Pacific” and take bold steps toward establishing a set of rules that govern and protect the Blue Pacific Continent against outside forces.

    If not, the region risks being submerged by rising geopolitical tides, the existential threat of climate change and external power projections.

    For years, the US and its allies have framed the Pacific within the “Indo-Pacific” strategic construct — primarily aimed at maintaining US primacy and containing a rising and more ambitious China. This frame shapes how nations in alignment with the US have chosen to interpret and apply the rules-based order.

    On the other side, while China has touted its support for a “rules-based international order”, it has sought to reshape that system to reflect its own interests and its aspirations for a multipolar world, as seen in recent years through international organisations and institutions.

    In addition, the Taiwan issue has framed how China sets its rules of engagement with Pacific nations — a diplomatic redline that has created tension among Pacific nations, contradicting their long-held “friends to all, enemies to none” foreign policy preference, as evidenced by recent diplomatic controversies at regional meetings.

    Confusing and divisive
    For Pacific nations these framings are confusing and divisive — they all sound the same but underneath the surface are contradictory values and foreign policy positions.

    For centuries, external powers have framed the Pacific in ways that advance their strategic interests. Today, the Pacific faces similar challenges, as superpowers compete for influence — securitising and militarising the region according to their ambitions through a host of bilateral agreements. This frame does not always prioritise Pacific concerns.

    Rather it portrays the Pacific as a theatre for the “great game” — a theatre which subsequently determines how the Pacific is ordered, through particular value-sets, processes, institutions and agreements that are put in place by the key actors in this so-called game.

    But the Pacific has its own story to tell, rooted in its “lived realities” and its historical, cultural and oceanic identity. This is reflected in the Blue Pacific narrative — a vision that unites Pacific nations through shared values and long-term goals, encapsulated in the 2050 Strategy for the Blue Pacific Continent.

    The Pacific has a proud history of crafting rules to protect its interests — whether through the Rarotonga Treaty for a nuclear-free zone, leading the charge for the Paris Climate Agreement or advocating for SDG 14 on oceans. Today, the Pacific continues to pursue “rules-based” climate initiatives (such as the Pacific Resilience Facility), maritime boundaries delimitation, support for the 2021 and 2023 Forum Leaders’ Declarations on the Permanency of Maritime Boundaries and the Continuation of Statehood in the face of sea level rise, climate litigation through the International Court of Justice and the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, and a host of other rules-based regional environmental, economic and social initiatives.

    However, these efforts often exist in isolation, lacking a cohesive framework to bring them all together, and to maximise their strategic impact and leverage. Now must be the time to build on these successes and create an integrated, long-term, visionary, Pacific-centric “rules-based order”.

    This could start by looking to consolidate existing Pacific rules: exploring opportunities to take forward the rules through concepts like the Ocean of Peace currently being developed by the Pacific Islands Forum, and expanding subsequently to include something like a “code of conduct” for how Pacific nations should interact with one another and with outside powers.

    Responding as united bloc
    This would enable them to respond more effectively and operate as a united bloc, in contrast to the bilateral approach preferred by many partners.

    Over time this rules-based approach could be expanded to include other areas — such as the ongoing protection and preservation of the ocean, inclusive of deep-sea mining; the maintenance of regional peace and security, including in relation to the peaceful resolution of conflict and demilitarisation; and movement towards greater economic, labour and trade integration.

    Such an order would not only provide stability within the Pacific but also contribute to shaping global norms. It would serve as a counterbalance to external strategic frames that look to define the rules that ought to be applied in the Pacific, while asserting the position of the Pacific nations in global conversations.

    This is not about diminishing Pacific sovereignty but about enhancing it — ensuring that the region’s interests are safeguarded amid the geopolitical manoeuvring of external powers, and the growing wariness in and of US foreign policy.

    The Pacific’s geopolitical challenges are mounting, driven by climate change, shifting global power dynamics and rising tensions between superpowers. But a collective, rules-based approach offers a pathway forward.

    Cohesive set of standards
    By building on existing frameworks and creating a cohesive set of standards, the Pacific can assert its autonomy, protect its environment and ensure a stable future in an increasingly uncertain world.

    The time to act is now, as Pacific nations are increasingly being courted, and before it is too late. This implies though that Pacific nations have honest discussions with each other, and with Australia and New Zealand, about their differences and about the existing challenges to Pacific regionalism and how it can be strengthened.

    By integrating regional arrangements and agreements into a more comprehensive framework, Pacific nations can strengthen their collective bargaining power on the global stage — while in the long-term putting in place rules that would over time become a critical part of customary international law.

    Importantly, this rules-based approach must be guided by Pacific values, ensuring that the region’s unique cultural, environmental and strategic interests are preserved for future generations.

    Sione Tekiteki is a senior lecturer at the Auckland University of Technology. He previously served at the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat in three positions over nine years, most recently as director, governance and engagement. Joel Nilon is currently senior Pacific fellow at the Pacific Security College at the Australian National University. He previously served at the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat for nine years as policy adviser.  The article was written in close consultation with Professor Transform Aqorau, vice-chancellor of Solomon Islands National University. Republished from DevBlog with permission.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Pacific ‘shock’ as diluted UN women’s declaration ditches reproductive rights

    By Sera Sefeti and Stefan Armbruster of BenarNews

    Pacific delegates have been left “shocked” by the omission of sexual and reproductive health rights from the key declaration of the 69th UN Commission on the Status of Women meeting in New York.

    This year CSW69 will review and assess the implementation of the 1995 Beijing Declaration, the UN’s blueprint for gender equality and rights for women and girls.

    The meeting’s political declaration adopted on Tuesday reaffirmed the UN member states’ commitment to the rights, equality and empowerment of all women and girls.

    It was the product of a month of closed-door negotiations during which a small number of countries, reportedly including the U.S. and Russia, were accused of diluting the declaration’s final text.

    The Beijing Declaration three decades ago mentioned reproductive rights 50 times, unlike this year’s eight-page political declaration.

    “It is shocking. Thirty years after Beijing, not one mention of sexual and reproductive health and rights,” Pacific delegate and women’s advocate Noelene Nabulivou from Fiji told BenarNews.

    “The core of gender justice and human rights lies in the ability to make substantive decisions over one’s body, health and sexual decision making.

    “We knew that in 1995, we know it now, we will not let anyone take SRHR away, we are not going back.”

    Common sentiment
    It is a common sentiment among the about 100 Pacific participants at the largest annual gathering on women’s rights that attracts thousands of delegates from around the world.

    “This is a major omission, especially given the current conditions in several (Pacific) states and the wider pushback and regression on women’s human rights,” Fiji-based DIVA for Equality representative Viva Tatawaqa told BenarNews from New YorK.

    Tatawaqa said that SRHR was included in the second version of the political declaration but was later removed due to “lack of consensus” and “trade-offs in language.”

    “We will not let everyone ignore this omission, whatever reason was given for the trade-off,” she said.

    20250311 UN CSW Guterres EDIT.jpg
    UN Secretary-General António Guterres at the CSW69 town hall meeting with civil society on Tuesday. Image: Evan Schneider/UN Photo/BenarNews

    The Pacific Community’s latest survey of SRHR in the region reported progress had been made but significant challenges remain.

    It highlighted an urgent need to address extreme rates of gender-based violence, low contraceptive use (below 50% in the region), lack of confidentiality in health services and hyperendemic levels of sexually transmitted infections (STIs), which all fall under the SRHR banner.

    Ten Pacific Island countries submitted detailed Beijing+30 National Reports to CSW69.

    Anti-abortion alliance
    Opposition to SRHR has come from 39 countries through their membership of the anti-abortion Geneva Consensus Declaration, an alliance founded in 2020. Their ranks include this year’s CSW69 chair Saudi Arabia, Russia, Hungary, Egypt, Kenya, Indonesia and the U.S. under both Trump administrations, along with predominantly African and Middle East countries.

    “During negotiations, certain states including the USA and Argentina, attempted to challenge even the most basic and accepted terms around gender and gender equality,” Amnesty said in a statement after the declaration.

    “The text comes amid mounting threats to sexual and reproductive rights, including increased efforts, led by conservative groups, to roll back on access to contraception, abortion, comprehensive sexuality education, and gender-affirming care across the world,” adding the termination of USAID had compounded the situation.

    The UN Population Fund (UNFPA) confirmed in February that the US, the UN’s biggest donor, had cut US$377 million in funding for reproductive and sexual health programmes and warned of “devastating impacts.”

    Since coming to office, President Donald Trump has also reinstated the Global Gag Rule, prohibiting foreign recipients of U.S. aid from providing or discussing abortions.

    20250311 UN CSW town hall guterres.jpg
    Meeting between civil society groups and the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres in the general assembly hall at the 69th session of the Commission on the Status of Women in New York on Tuesday. Image: Evan Schneider/UN Photo/BenarNews

    In his opening address to the CSW69, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres issued a dire warning on progress on gender equality across the world.

    ‘Poison of patriachy’
    “The poison of patriarchy is back, and it is back with a vengeance, slamming the brakes on action, tearing up progress, and mutating into new and dangerous forms,” he said, without singling out any countries or individuals.

    “The masters of misogyny are gaining strength,” Guterres said, denouncing the “bile” women faced online.

    He warned at the current rate it would take 137 years to lift all women out of poverty, calling on all nations to commit to the “promise of Beijing”.

    The CSW was established days after the inaugural UN meetings in 1946, with a focus on prioritising women’s political, economic and social rights.

    CSW was instrumental in drafting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women and the Beijing Declaration.

    One of the declaration’s stated goals is to “enhance women’s sexual and reproductive health and education”, the absence of which would have “a profound impact on women and men.”

    The 1995 Beijing Platform for Action identified 12 key areas needing urgent attention — including poverty, education, health, violence — and laid out pathways to achieve change, while noting it would take substantial resources and financing.

    This year’s political declaration came just days after International Women’s Day, when UN Pacific released a joint statement singled out rises in adolescent birth rates and child marriage, exacerbating challenges related to health, education, and long-term well-being of women in the region.

    Gender-based violence
    It also identified the region has among the highest levels of gender-based violence and lowest rates of women’s political representation in the world.

    A comparison of CSW59 in 2015 and the CSW69 political declaration reveal that many of the same challenges, language, and concerns persist.

    Guterres in his address offered “antidote is action” to address the immense gaps.

    Pacific Women Mediators Network coordinator Sharon Bhagwan-Rolls told BenarNews much of that action in the Pacific had been led by women.

    “The inclusion of climate justice and the women, peace, and security agenda in the Beijing+30 Action Plan is a reminder of the intersectional and intergenerational work that has continued,” she said.

    “This work has been forged through women-led networks and coalitions like the Pacific Women Mediators Network and the Pacific Island Feminist Alliance for Climate Justice, which align with the Blue Pacific Strategy and the Revitalised Pacific Leaders Gender Equality Declaration.”

    Republished from BenarNews with permission.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Future of Māori radio needs more investment – both for online and traditional airwaves

    By Atereano Mateariki of Waatea News

    The future of Māori radio in Aotearoa New Zealand requires increased investment in both online platforms and traditional airwaves, says a senior manager.

    Matthew Tukaki, station manager at Waatea Digital, spoke with Te Ao Māori News about the future of Māori radio.

    He said there was an urgent need for changes to ensure a sustainable presence on both AM/FM airwaves and digital platforms.

    “One of the big challenges will always be funding. Many of our iwi stations operate with very limited resources, as their focus is more on manaakitanga (hospitality) and aroha (compassion),” Tukaki said.

    He said that Waatea Digital had been exploring various new digital strategies to enhance viewership and engagement across the media landscape.

    “We need assistance and support to transition to these new platforms,” Tukaki said.

    He also highlighted the continued importance of traditional AM frequencies, particularly during emergencies like Cyclone Gabrielle, where these stations served as vital emergency broadcasters.

    Report originally by Te Ao Māori.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Rodrigo Duterte, how the powerful turned powerless – by a target

    While Rodrigo Duterte may still command support from his core base in the Philippines, something has clearly shifted. Yet the power he did wield haunts the nation as it awaits his trial at the International Criminal Court and it renews speculation about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who also has an ICC arrest warrant out for him.

    COMMENTARY: By Pia Ranada of Rappler

    I witnessed former President Rodrigo Duterte when he was at the height of power. I witnessed how he would walk into an event five hours late and still be applauded.

    I saw him talk about murder in front of young Boy and Girl Scouts, and get a round of laughter from everyone.

    I remember how he was allowed to say he was protecting the rights of children, in the same breath as giving his blessing for a drug raid that killed children.

    Award-winning Rappler journalist Pia Ranada
    Award-winning Rappler journalist Ranada . . . “His allies turned a blind eye or made excuses whenever Duterte chipped at the integrity of our democratic institutions.” Image: Rappler

    I remember how he was able to address the United Nations General Assembly after years of threatening to slap and kill its rapporteurs.

    I remember his spokesperson excusing his rape threats and rape jokes as “heightened bravado.” And if Duterte behaved sexist and objectifying of women, his female appointees asked other women to “have a forgiving heart.” 

    I remember the misogynistic congressional hearings then-senator Leila de Lima had to endure at the hands of Duterte’s House allies, before she was detained for seven years.

    His allies turned a blind eye or made excuses whenever Duterte chipped at the integrity of our democratic institutions — his threats and curses against the Commission on Audit and Commission on Human Rights, the Vice President, the Supreme Court, the media.

    The brute force of his power
    On a personal level, I experienced being at the end of the brute force of his power.

    Rendered voiceless in a press conference where he ranted about a Rappler story on a military project (he silenced the microphone so my responses would not be heard). Told several times I was “not a Filipino” for being so critical in my reporting about his administration.

    Many Filipinos took his words as gospel truth and, no matter what I did, could not convince them otherwise.

    What made it terrifying was not the violent language he used but the knowledge that he had the entire power of the state to back him up. That power was given to him by Filipinos who voted him into the presidency.

    Like many targets, including former Vice-President Leni Robredo, Rappler CEO Maria Ressa, and former senator Leila de Lima, I found myself the target of a formidable troll army that operated 24/7 from different parts of the world.

    He wielded a terrible power. Opposition was a shout in the dark. Most people could only watch in horror as Duterte did the unthinkable every day and was applauded for it. The excuse of his allies was his popularity, his approval ratings.

    For others, the reason was fear.

    Duterte playing the ‘victim’
    Today, Duterte finds himself playing a role he never expected to play: a victim.

    A president so secretive of his health and hospital visits now puts his personal physician front and center and allows himself to appear weak and ailing. Government doctors declared him healthy during a check-up right after he landed from Hong Kong.

    Beside him, in the room where he waited, is lawyer Salvador Medialdea, arguing and appealing to the prosecutor general. Only years ago, Medialdea was executive secretary, his words and signature able to mobilise entire government bodies to do Duterte’s bidding.

    The man on Duterte’s left is identified by today’s news articles as his lawyer. But not long ago, Martin Delgra was the powerful chief of the Land Transportation Office.

    These two men bewailed the various deprivations Duterte has supposedly had to suffer. But when they held power, they did not lift a finger against the blatant violations of rule of law perpetrated against teenage boys, fathers, mothers, daughters, tricycle drivers, vendors, opposition leaders, journalists, and more.

    The reversal of fate is the most stunning aspect of this arrest.

    The choices a nation makes

    I, too, was in Hong Kong at the same time as Duterte, though I did not know it at the time. I was there for a layover of my flight from a work trip.

    I took a Cathay Pacific flight back to Manila, eager to return to my family, knowing there was a lot of work at the newsroom waiting for me.

    Duterte, too, would take a Cathay Pacific flight to the same airport terminal I landed in. But he would be returning as the subject of an ICC arrest warrant, the first former Asian head of state to be summoned to answer for crimes against humanity.

    But the true horror of Duterte’s violations is not that he committed them but that most Filipinos allowed them to happen. Even now, Duterte is rallying his support base around the idea that he waged his drug war for the preservation of the country.

    It took a process in an international court to arrest Duterte. Investigations in the House and Senate came late in the day and only after the crumbling of a political alliance that for quite some time protected Duterte.

    As we await Duterte’s ICC trial, Filipinos have to come to terms with the Duterte presidency enabled by our choices and what choices have to be made to ensure those offences never happen again.

    A leader, no matter how charismatic, must never be allowed to exploit our differences, tap into our fears and insecurities as a nation, benefit from forgiving natures in order to dismantle our democratic processes, and commit the mass murder of our citizens.

    It’s a trial of our consciences that must also begin now.

    Pia Ranada is Rappler’s community lead, in charge of linking the news website’s journalism with communities for impact. Previously, she was an investigative and senior reporter for Rappler. She is best known for her coverage of the Rodrigo Duterte administration when she was Rappler’s Malacañang reporter.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • 100 Christian leaders’ open letter calls for NZ humanitarian visas for trapped Gaza families

    Asia Pacific Report

    An open letter signed by 100 Christian leaders, calling for the granting of humanitarian visas to Aotearoa New Zealand for families of Palestinians trapped in Gaza has been handed over on the steps of Parliament.

    The letter was presented yesterday on Ash Wednesday to opposition Labour Party MP Phil Twyford, who was joined by six other members of Parliament.

    Minister for Immigration Erica Stanford and Associate Minister for Immigration Chris Penk were invited to receive the letter, but both declined the invitation.

    The open letter was signed by leaders from Anglican, Baptist, Presbyterian, Catholic, Quaker, non-denominational and Methodist movements, and leaders from organisations and groups such as Caritas, Student Christian Movements and Te Mīhana Māori.

    The open letter is part of the Christians United for Refuge Aotearoa Campaign, and calls on the New Zealand government to help reunite families and bring them to safety by:

    • Granting immediate emergency humanitarian visas to Palestinians in Gaza who have family in New Zealand;
    • Providing sustained diplomatic pressure on the Israeli government to allow visa-holders to safely evacuate from Gaza and humanitarian aid to freely enter; and
    • Providing robust resettlement assistance once these families arrive in New Zealand.

    Hoped for troops withdrawal
    The letter comes after the end of the first phase of the Gaza Ceasefire agreement — which was due to see Israel withdraw its military forces from the border between Gaza and Egypt.

    Christians United for Refuge spokesperson Esmé Hulbert-Putt said: “When we first prepared this letter, we hoped and prayed that we would see the withdrawal of military forces from the border.”

    She added that this opening, alongside strong diplomacy and visa pathways, would allow for the family reunification that Palestinians in Aotearoa had been asking for for more than a year.

    Following this handover, a separate group, organised by Aotearoa Christians for Peace in Palestine completed a 10km pilgrimage in Auckland, Christchurch and Wellington, symbolising the distance between Bethlehem and Jerusalem and the many military checkpoints along the way.

    These pilgrimages each involved praying at the arrivals terminals of the respective international airports — in prayerful hope that one day these doors would open to families of Palestinians in Gaza.

    Christian pilgrims have staged airport protests around New Zealand calling for humanitarian visas
    Christian pilgrims have staged airport protests around New Zealand calling for humanitarian visas for Palestinians from Gaza. Image: Christians United for Refuge Aotearoa Campaign


    This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.