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Category: Self Determination

  • 1000 protest in Auckland over Israel’s war on Gaza, honour Nakba victims

    Asia Pacific Report

    About 1000 people in Aotearoa New Zealand gathered for a two-hour rally in central Auckland today and marched down Queen Street and returned to Aotea Square to mark the Nakba three days early — and protest over Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.

    They called for an immediate ceasefire in the war as the death toll passed more than 35,000 people killed — mostly women and children – and chanted “hands off Rafah” as the Israeli military intensified their attack on the southern part of the besieged enclave.

    Israel’s Defence Force (IDF) also deployed tanks in northern Gaza months after claiming that they had “dismantled” the resistance force Hamas in the area.

    For the past seven months, protesters have staged rallies across New Zealand every week at more than 25 different towns and locations and they have rarely been reported by the country’s news media.

    Ironically, today was also marked as Mother’s Day and many protesters carried placards and banners mourning the mothers and children killed in the seven-month war, such as “Every 15 min a Palestinian child dies”, “Israel/USA, how many kids did you kill today”, “Decolonise your mind — stand with Palestine”, and “Stop the genocide”.

    Some protesters carried photographs of named children killed in the war, honouring their short and tragic lives, such as 13-year-old Hala Abu Sada, who “had a passion for the arts – she made educational and entertaining videos for deaf children”.

    “Hala dreamed of becoming a singer.”

    The Nakba – ‘ethnic cleansing’
    Every year on May 15, Palestinians around the world, numbering about 12.4 million, mark the Nakba, or “catastrophe”, referring to the ethnic cleansing of Palestine and the near-total destruction of Palestinian society in 1948, reports Al Jazeera.

    The Palestinian experience of dispossession and loss of a homeland is 76 years old this year.

    Happy Mothers' Day in New Zealand on Nakba Day
    “Happy Mothers’ Day” in New Zealand . . . but protesters mourn the loss of mothers and children as the death toll in Israel’s War on Gaza topped 35,000 on Nakba Day. Image: David Robie/Asia Pacific Report

    On that day, the State of Israel came into being. The creation of Israel was a violent process that entailed the forced expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their homeland to establish a Jewish-majority state — the wishes of the Zionist movement.

    The 1948 Nakba
    The 1948 Nakba . . . more than 750,000 Palestinians were forced to leave their homeland and become exiles in neighbouring states. Many dream of their UN-recognised right to return. Image: Wikipedia

    Between 1947 and 1949, at least 750,000 Palestinians from a 1.9 million population were forced out of their homeland and made refugees beyond the borders of the state.

    Zionist forces seized more than 78 percent of historic Palestine, ethnically cleansed and destroyed about 530 villages and cities, and killed about 15,000 Palestinians in a series of mass atrocities, including more than 70 massacres.

    The current resolution does not give Palestinians full membership, but recognises them as qualified to join, and it gives Palestine more participation and some rights within the UNGA.

    Overwhelming UN vote backs Palestine
    The UN General Assembly (UNGA) has overwhelmingly voted to support a Palestinian bid to become a full UN member by recognising it as qualified to join and recommending the UN Security Council “reconsider the matter favourably”.

    Memberships can only be decided by the UN Security Council, and last month, the US vetoed a bid for full membership.

    The current resolution does not give Palestinians full membership, but recognises them as qualified to join, and it gives Palestine more participation and some rights within the UNGA.

    Voting yes for the resolution were 143 countries, including three UN Security Council permanent members, China, France and Russia and also Australia, New Zealand and Timor-Leste.

    Nine countries voted against, with four Pacific nations, Federated States of Micronesia, Nauru, Palau and Papua New Guinea among those joining Israel and the US.

    Twenty five countries abstained, including UNSC permanent member United Kingdom and three Pacific countries, Fiji, Marshall Islands and Vanuatu.

    "Look up Nakba" . . . and The Key to returning home
    “Look up Nakba” . . . and The Key to returning home to historical Palestine. Image: David Robie/Asia Pacific Report
    Palestinian children singing at Aotea Square today
    Palestinian children singing at Aotea Square today . . . a speaker said their future was in “good hands with our young people”. Image: David Robie/Asia Pacific Report
    Some of the pro-Palestinian protesters at Auckland's Aotea Square today
    Some of the pro-Palestinian protesters at Auckland’s Aotea Square today . . . the background banner says “IDF = Murder Machine”. Image: David Robie/Asia Pacific Report

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • ‘Repair colonial violence’ and support Gaza ceasefire, say Otago academics

    Asia Pacific Report

    Following an open letter by Auckland University academics speaking out in support of their students’ right to protest against the genocidal Israeli war on Gaza, a group of academics at Otago University have today also called on New Zealand academic institutions to “repair colonial violence” and end divestment from any economic ties with Israel.

    “In order to honour commitments to decolonisation and human rights, universities must act now,” says the open letter signed by more than 165 academics.

    “As a te Tiriti-led university in Aotearoa New Zealand”, the academic staff said they were calling for the University of Otago to immediately:

    1. Endorse the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement and disclose and divest from any economic ties to the apartheid state of Israel,
    2. Condemn those universities [that] have called on police to violently remove protesters from their campuses, and
    3. Call for the protection of students’ rights to protest and assemble and endorse the aims of those protests — the immediate demand of ceasefire and longer term demands to end the apartheid, violence, and illegal occupations under which Palestinians continue to suffer.

    The full letter states:

    “Kia ora koutou,

    “As we write this letter, universities across the United States have become battlegrounds. University administrators are sanctioning and encouraging violence against students and faculty members as they protest the genocidal violence in Gaza.

    “Over 35,000 Palestinians have been killed—of those deaths, it is estimated that more than 13,000 of them have been children. Israel has destroyed all 12 universities in Gaza and targeted staff and students at those universities.

    “The recent discovery of mass graves in Gaza, the hands and feet of many victims bound, has shocked the conscience of the world.

    “In keeping with a long tradition of campus protest, students and staff are demanding their universities stop contributing to genocidal violence.

    Student bodies brutalised
    “In return, their bodies have been brutalised, their own universities endorsing their arrests. Universities should, at the very least, offer crucial spaces for protest, debate, and working through collective responses to urgent social issues. Instead, administrators have called in militarised police forces, fully decked out in anti-riot regalia to repress student protests.

    “The results have been predictable: Professors and students have been arrested en masse and physically assaulted (beaten, pepper-sprayed, shot with rubber bullets, knocked unconscious, choked, and dragged limp across university lawns, their hands cuffed behind them).

    “We at the University of Otago, an institution committed to acknowledging, confronting, and seeking to repair colonial violence, are part of a society that extends far beyond the borders of Aotearoa New Zealand.

    “Acknowledging our history, including that history within its students’ experiences and working practices, compels us as a collective to call out and condemn colonial violence as and when we see it. It is not at all surprising that many of the protests in Aotearoa New Zealand calling for a ceasefire in Gaza have been organised and led by Māori alongside Palestinian activists.

    “Most recently, the Ngāti Kahungunu iwi have come out against the genocide, with one of the rally organisers, Te Ōtane Huata, stating “Tino rangatiratanga to me isn’t only self-determination of our people, it is also collective liberation.”

    “If it is to mean anything to be a te Tiriti-led university here in Aotearoa New Zealand, we must include acknowledgment that the history of Aotearoa New Zealand has been marked by consistent and egregious violations of that very treaty, and that such violations are indelibly part of settler colonialism.

    “Violent expropriation, cultural annihilation, and suppression of resistance have been the hallmarks of this project.

    Decolonisation and human rights
    “In order to honour commitments to decolonisation and human rights, universities must act now. We thus call for the University of Otago to immediately:

    “1. Endorse the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement and disclose and divest from any economic ties to the apartheid state of Israel,
    “2. Condemn those universities who have called on police to violently remove protesters from their campuses,
    “3. Call for the protection of students’ rights to protest and assemble and endorse the aims of those protests – the immediate demand of ceasefire and longer term demands to end the apartheid, violence, and illegal occupations under which Palestinians continue to suffer.

    “In other words, the University must call for a liberated Palestinian state if it is to conceptualise itself as a university that seeks to confront its own settler-colonial foundations.

    “The above position aligns with the named values of our universities here in Aotearoa New Zealand. It is our duty that we make these demands, particularly as Palestinians have seen the systematic destruction of their universities and educational infrastructure while Palestinian students of our universities have witnessed their families and friends targeted by the Israeli government.

    “If the University of Otago wants to authentically position itself as an institution that takes seriously its role as a critic and conscience of society and acknowledges the importance of coming to grips with ongoing settler-colonial violence, it should take these demands seriously.

    “We further support the Open Letter to Vice-Chancellor Dawn Freshwater from Auckland University Staff in Solidarity with Students Protesting for Palestine.”

    In solidarity,
    Dr Peyton Bond (Teaching Fellow, Sociology, Gender Studies and Criminology)
    Dr Simon Barber (Lecturer in Sociology)
    Rachel Anna Billington (PhD candidate, Politics)
    Dr Neil Vallelly (Lecturer in Sociology)
    Erin Silver (PhD candidate, Sociology)
    Professor Richard Jackson (Leading Thinker Chair in Peace and Conflict Studies)
    Dr Lynley Edmeades (Lecturer in English)
    Dr Olivier Jutel (Lecturer in Media, Film and Communication)
    Lydia Le Gros (PhD candidate & Assistant Research Fellow, Public Health)
    Dr Abbi Virens (Postdoctoral Fellow, Centre for Sustainability)
    Sonja Bohn (PhD candidate, Sociology)
    Joshua James (PhD Candidate, Gender Studies)
    Sophie van der Linden (Postgrad Student, Bioethics)
    Dr Fairleigh Evelyn Gilmour (Lecturer in Gender Studies, Criminology)
    Brandon Johnstone (Administrator, TEU Otago Branch Committee Member)
    Dr David Jenkins (Lecturer in Politics)
    Jordan Dougherty (Masters student, Sociology)
    Rosemary Overell (Senior Lecturer in Media, Film and Communication)
    Dr Sebastiaan Bierema – (Research Fellow, Public Health)
    Dr Sabrina Moro (Lecturer in Media, Film and Communication studies)
    Rauhina Scott-Fyfe (Māori Archivist, Hocken Collections)
    Dr Lena Tan (Senior Lecturer, International Relations & Politics)
    Cassie Withey-Rila (Assistant Research Fellow, Otago Medical School)
    Duncan Newman (Postgrad student, Management)

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Bougainville ‘other avenues’ report ‘sensationalised’, claims Makiba

    PNG Post-Courier

    Bougainville Affairs Minister Manasseh Makiba has described the Post-Courier’s front page story yesterday regarding a meeting between Bougainville and national government leaders as “sensationalised” and without substance.

    The Autonomous Bougainville Government (AGB) had warned it might use “other avenues to gain its independence” should the PNG government “continue to be mischievous” in dealing with the Bougainville independence agenda.

    Makiba said the report was the work of individuals with vested interests and was designed to derail the progress made so far over the Bougainville Peace Agreement (BPA).

    PNG's Bougainville Affairs Minister Manasseh Makiba
    PNG’s Bougainville Affairs Minister Manasseh Makiba . . . says report is the work of individuals with vested interests trying to derail progress. Image: Post-Courier

    He also announced that the Joint Supervisory Body (JSB) meeting scheduled for yesterday had been postponed until tomorrow because agendas had not been supplied on time by the joint technical team (JTT) headed by the Chief Secretary and his Bougainvillean counterpart Kearneth Nanei.

    “The restoration development grants, Bougainville Copper Ltd shares, and fisheries revenue sharing agreement were matters being dealt with by the joint technical team due to the technical and legal nature of the process,” Makiba said.

    “The joint technical team comprises departmental heads and technical professionals from both the national government and the Autonomous Bougainville Government [which] will conduct consultations before jointly drawing up agendas for the JSB to deliberate.”

    Makiba said the system currently in place through the joint technical team was very transparent and allowed for constructive discussions from both sides before it got to the political level.

    ‘Sticky subjects’ resolved
    “Any disagreement or issues relating to any sticky subjects are resolved at that committee level,” Makiba said.

    “To suggest or imply that the government is bulldozing matters or turning a deaf ear to any issue is an understatement,” Makiba said.

    He urged both parties to respect the peace agreement.

    The Bougainville warning was sounded by ABG Attorney-General and Independence Implementation Minister Ezekiel Massat just as the ABG delegation headed to Port Moresby for the JSB meeting with the national government.

    The Bougainville delegation, led by President Ishmael Toroama, is due to meet with the national government to discuss the ratification process outlined in the Bougainville Peace Agreement and the constitution.

    Massat said that there had been events that had happened which Bougainville had not been consulted on by the national government, consequently defeating the purpose of the peace agreement.

    He cited the appointment of Police Assistant Commissioner Anthony Wagambie Jr and the current JSB meeting which had been called and changed by the national government without consulting ABG.

    Resolution from last JSB
    “While the ABG will be participating, it wants to see the two parties set into motion the resolution from the last JSB, for the parties to agree to call in a moderator to try to resolve the impasse over how results from the 2019 Referendum will be tabled and ratified by the National Parliament,” Massat said.

    The ABG also demands that a bipartisan committee be established comprising national and Bougainville members to urgently communicate awareness about the Bougainville issue and independence agenda to all members of Parliament before the ratification vote.

    Massat said the lack of consultation of the national government might create “suspicion and mistrust” and Bougainville might be forced to pursue other legal means to achieve the “Bougainville people’s dreams of independence” as shown in the overwhelming majority vote in the 2019 referendum.

    Republished with permission.


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

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • OPM’s Bomanak accuses UN of failing to uphold decolonisation role over West Papua

    Asia Pacific Report

    A West Papuan resistance leader has condemned the United Nations role in allowing Indonesia to “integrate” the Melanesian Pacific region in what is claimed to be an “egregious act of inhumanity” on 1 May 1963.

    In an open letter to UN Secretary-General António Guterres, Organisasi Papua Merdeka-OPM (Free Papua Organisation) leader Jeffrey P Bomanak has also claimed that this was the “beginning of genocide” that could only have happened through the failure of the global body to “legally uphold its decolonisation responsibilities in accordance with the UN Charter”.

    Bomanak says in the letter dated yesterday that the UN failed to confront the “relentless barbarity of the Indonesian invasion force and expose the lie of the fraudulent 1969 gun-barrel ‘Act of No Choice’”.

    The open letter follows one released on the eve of Anzac Day last month which strongly criticised the role of Australia and the United States, accusing both countries of “betrayal” in Papuan aspirations for independence.

    According to RNZ News today, an Australian statement in response to the earlier OPM letter said the federal government “unreservedly recognises Indonesia’s territorial integrity and sovereignty over the Papua provinces”.

    The White House has not responded.

    The OPM says it has compiled a “prima facie pictorial ‘integration’ history” of Indonesia’s actions in integrating the Pacific region into an Asian nation. It plans to present this evidence of “six decades of crimes against humanity” to Secretary-General Guterres and new Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto.

    The open letter states:

    May 1, 2024

    Dear Secretary-General Guterres,

    I am addressing you in an open letter which I will be releasing to media and governments because I have previously brought to your attention the history of the illegal annexation of West Papua on May 1st, 1963, and the role of your office in the fraudulent UN referendum in 1969, called an Act of Free Choice and I have never received a reply.

    Part of the opening page of the five-page OPM open letter to the United Nations
    Part of the opening page of the five-page OPM open letter to the United Nations. Image” Screenshot APR

    After six decades of OPM letters and Papuan appeals to the UN Secretariat, I am providing the transparency and accountability of an “open letter”, so that historians of the future can
    investigate the moral and ethical credibility of the UN Secretariat.

    May 1st is a day of mourning for Papuans. A day of grief over the illegal annexation of our ancestral Melanesian homeland by a violent occupation force from Southeast Asia.

    Indonesia’s annexation of Western New Guinea (Irian Jaya/West Papua) on May 1, 1963, is
    commemorated in Indonesia’s Parliament as a day of integration. The photos on these pages on these pages show a different story. The reality these photos portray is, in fact, one of the longest ongoing acts of genocide since the end of the Second World War.

    An invasion and an illegal annexation not unlike Nazi Germany’s annexation in 1938 of
    its neighbouring country, Austria. The difference for Papuans is that the UN and the USA were co-conspirators in preventing our right to determine a future that was our right to have under the UN decolonisation process: independence and nation-state sovereignty.

    A very chilling contradiction — the Allies we fought alongside, nursed back to life, and died with during WWII had joined forces with a mass-murderer not unlike Hitler — the Indonesian president Suharto (see Photo collage #2: Axis of Evil).

    Some scholars have called the May 1, 1963 annexation “Indonesia’s Anschluss”. Suharto and the conspirators goal of colonial invasion and conquest had been achieved through
    the illegal annexation of my people’s ancestral homeland, my homeland.

    General and president-in-waiting Suharto signed a contract in 1967 with American mining giant Freeport, another company associated with David Rockefeller, two years before we were to determine our future through the aforementioned gun-barrel UN referendum project-managed by a brutal occupation force. Our future had already been determined by Suharto, David Rockefeller, Henry Kissinger, and Suharto’s friend, UN secretary-General U Thant. U Thant had succeeded Dag Hammarskjöld who had been assassinated for his controversial view that human rights and freedom were absolutely universal and should not be subjected to the criminal whims of either tyrants like Suharto or a resource industry with views on human rights and freedom that resembled Suharto’s.

    I do not need to give you a blow-by-blow history for your edification — you already know the entire history and the victim tally — 350,000 adults and 150,000 children and babies. And rising. You are, after all, a man of some principle — Portugal’s former prime minister of Portugal from 1995 to 2002, as well as a member of the Portuguese Socialist Party. And presiding as Portuguese prime minster during the final years of Fretilin’s war of liberation in East Timor, a former Portuguese colony invaded by Indonesia in 1975 with anywhere up to 250,000 victims of genocide. Please explain to me the difference between the Indonesia’s
    invasion and “integration” of East Timor and Indonesia’s invasion and “integration” of my homeland, Western New Guinea (West Papua).

    Apart from the oil in the Timor Gap and the gold and copper all over my homeland — the wealth of someone else’s resources promoting the “integration” policies pictured over these pages.

    As a member of a socialist party, you might be attending May Day ceremonies today. I will be counselling victims and the families of loved ones who have been “integrated” today. Yes, the freedom-loving Papuans are holding rallies to protest the annexation of our homeland . . .  to protest the failure — your failure — to apply justice and to end this nightmare.

    The cost of the UN-approved annexation to Papuans in pain and suffering: massacres, torture, systemic rape by TNI and Polri, mutilation and dismemberment as a signature of your barbarity. Relentless barbarity causing six decades of physical and cultural genocide, ethnocide, infanticide, and wave after wave of ethnic cleansing.

    The cost to Papuans in the theft and plunder of our natural resources: genocide by starvation and famine.

    The cost to Papuans from the foreign resource industry plundering our natural resources: the devastation of pristine environments, whole ecosystems poisoned by the resource industry’s chemical toxicity, called tailings, released into rivers thereby destroying whole riverine catchments along with food sources from fishing and farming — catchment rivers and nearby farming lands contaminated by Freeport, and other’s. A failure to apply any international standards for risk management to prevent the associated birth defects
    in villages now living in contaminated catchments.

    That we would choose to become part of any nation so brutal defies credibility. That the UN approved integration should have been impossible based on the evidence of the ever-increasing numbers of defence and security forces landing in West Papua and undertaking military campaigns that include ever-increasing victims and internally displaced Papuans, the bombing of central highland villages a current example? Such courage! Why are foreign
    media not allowed into my people’s homeland?

    Secretary-General Guterres, future historians will judge the efficacy of the United Nations. The integrity. West Papua will feature as a part the UN Secretariat’s legacy. To this endeavour, as the leader of Organisasi Papua Merdeka, I ask, and demand that you comply with your obligations under article 85 part 2 and sundry articles of your Charter of United Nations which requires that you inform the Trusteeship Council about your General Assembly resolution 1752, with which you are subjugating our people and homelands of West New Guinea which we call West Papua.

    The agreement which your resolution 1752 is authorising, begins with the words “The Republic of Indonesia and the Kingdom of the Netherlands, having in mind the interests and welfare of the people of the territory of West New Guinea (West Irian)”

    Your agreement is clearly a trusteeship agreement written according to your rules of Chapter XII of your Charter of the United Nations.

    The West Papuan people have always opposed your use of United Nations military to make our people’s human rights subject to the whim of your two administrators, UNTEA and from 1st May 1963 the Republic of Indonesia that is your current administrator.

    We refer to your organisation’s last official record about West Papua which still suffers your ongoing unjust administration managed by UNTEA and Indonesia:

    Because you also used article 81 and Chapter XII of your Charter to seize control of our homelands when you created your General Assembly resolution 1752, the Netherlands was excused by article 73(e), “to transmit regularly to the Secretary-General for information purposes, subject to such limitation as security and constitutional considerations may require, statistical and other information of a technical nature relating to economic, social, and educational conditions in the territories for which they are respectively responsible other than those territories to which Chapters XII and XIII apply”, from transmitting further reports about our people and the extrajudicial killings that your new administrators began using to silence our demands for our liberty and independence.

    We therefore demand your Trusteeship Council begin its unfinished duty of preparing your United Nations reports as articles 85 part 2, 87 and 88 of your Charter requires.

    West Papua is entitled to independence, and article 76 requires you assist. It is illegal for Indonesia to invade us and to impede our independence, and to subsequently subject us to six decades of every classification for crimes against humanity listed by the International Criminal Court.

    We know this trusteeship agreement was first proposed by the American lawyer John Henderson in 1959, and was discussed with Indonesian officials in 1961 six months before the death of your Dag Hammarskjöld. We think it is shameful that you then elected Indonesia’s friend U Thant as Secretary-General, and we demand that you permit the Secretariat to perform its proper duty of revealing your current annexation of West Papua (Resolution 1752) to your Trusteeship Council.

    I look forward to your reply.

    Yours sincerely,

    Jeffrey P Bomanak
    Chairman-Commander OPM
    Markas Victoria, May 1, 2024

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Ngāti Kahungunu becomes NZ’s first iwi to call for a Gaza ceasefire

    Asia Pacific Report

    Ngāti Kahungunu in Aotearoa New Zealand’s Hawkes Bay region has become the first indigenous Māori iwi (tribe) to sign a resolution calling for a “ceasefire in Palestine”, reports Te Ao Māori News.

    Reporter Te Aniwaniwa Paterson talked to Te Otāne Huata, who has been organising peace rallies each Sunday at the Hastings Clock Tower.

    “I have taken every opportunity at the iwi level to present the case that we should be standing in solidarity with the Palestinians,” Huata (Ngāti Kahungunu, Ngāti Porou, Te Arawa) said.

    “This means we don’t support the ongoing bombing and slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza and also the brutal apartheid and occupation that’s happening in the occupied West Bank.”

    This initiative started among Huata’s whānau who presented the case to their hapū Ngāti Rāhunga-i-te-Rangi, wider marae and eventually the iwi of Ngāti Kahungunu.

    Huata has brought Palestinians into the conversation at iwi events, at hui-ā-motu with Te Kiingitanga and Rātana Pā, and subsequently on the Treaty Grounds.

    “Then came to the hui-ā-iwi, last Friday, really with the intention of asking ‘what does kotahitanga look like?’ And what what can we present to the hui-ā-motu because Kahungunu will be hosting Hui Taumata on May 31 at Omahu marae.”

    Māori iwi leadership in solidarity
    Huata believes Māori cultural and iwi leadership can be used in solidarity with other minority groups and said it was important because all injustices were interconnected.

    As part of the kaupapa, Huata choreographed a haka, written by his cousin Māhinarangi Huata-Harawira, “with the intention to not be flashy, or that you had to be the best performer”.

    Gaza rallies organiser Te Ōtane Huata
    Gaza rallies organiser Te Ōtane Huata . . . “Tino rangatiratanga to me isn’t only self determination of our people, it is also collective liberation.” Image: Te Ao Māori News screenshot APR/Māori Television

    “Really the haka was about how we can all throughout the world stand in solidarity through this vessel of haka.”

    Haka mō Paratinia is used at rallies and protests around Aotearoa.

    The kaupapa was also brought to the stage this year in kapa haka regionals where Ngāti Kahungunu ki Heretaunga Pakeke carried Palestinian flags and messages of in support of a ceasefire.

    “Tino rangatiratanga to me is not only self determination of our people, it is also collective liberation, so the oppressions of other marginalised Indigenous groups, are an oppression on everyone else,“ Huata said.

    Republished from Te Ao Māori News/Māori Television.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Pacific alliance condemns France over bid to ‘derail’ Kanaky decolonisation

    Asia Pacific Report

    A Pacific civil society alliance has condemned French neocolonial policies in Kanaky New Caledonia, saying Paris is set on “maintaining the status quo” and denying the indigenous Kanak people their inalienable right to self-determination.

    The Pacific Regional Non-Governmental Organisations (PRNGOs) Alliance, representing some 15 groups, said in a statement that it reaffirmed its solidarity with the Kanaks in a bid to to expose ongoing efforts by the French government to “derail a decolonisation process painstakingly pursued in this Pacific Island territory for the last 30 years”.

    It said that France — especially under the Macron government — as the colonial power administering this UN-sanctioned process of decolonisation had repeatedly shown that it
    could not remain a “neutral party” to the Noumea Accords.

    The 1998 pact was designed specifically to hand sovereignty back to the people of Kanaky New Caledonia and end French colonial rule, said PRNGOs.

    “In recent months, the Macron government [has] forced through proposed constitutional
    amendments aimed at changing voting eligibility rules for local elections in the French
    territory,” said the statement.

    “These eligibility provisions have been preserved and protected under the [Noumea] Accords as a safeguard for indigenous peoples against demographic changes that could make them a minority in their own land and block the path to freedom.”

    The electoral amendments were passed by the French Senate in early April and
    will be voted on in Parliament this month.

    Elections deferred
    “The Macron government has, in a parallel move, also managed to defer local elections,
    initially scheduled for mid-May, to mid-December at the latest, to allow voting under new
    provisions that would favour pro-French parties,” the statement said.

    In 2021, President Macron unilaterally called for the third independence referendum to be
    held in December that year amid the covid-19 pandemic that “heavily affected the
    ability of indigenous communities to organise and participate”.

    Although it was a “no” vote, only 43.87 percent of the 184,364 registered voters exercised their right to vote.

    “Express reservations and requests by Kanak leaders and representatives for a later date were ignored, casting serious doubt on genuine representation and participation,” said PRNGOs.

    A Pacific Islands Forum Mission sent to observe proceedings concluded in its report that “the self-determination referendum that took place 12 December 2021 did so with the non-participation of the overwhelming majority of the indigenous people of New Caledonia.

    “The result of the referendum is an inaccurate representation of the will of registered voters . . . ”

    The alliance said that in all of these actions, the French government had shown no interest at all in respecting the Noumea Accords or in granting the Kanak people their most fundamental rights — “particularly the right to be free”.

    ‘Democracy’ link claimed
    Macron’s allies and pro-French advocates have claimed that these initiatives by the
    French government are more consistent with democratic principles and the rule of law.

    The aspirations of the Kanak people for self-determination had been
    “mischaracterised as being ethno-nationalistic, akin to the ‘far-right’, and racist,” PRNGOs said.

    The alliance said that if the vote on May 13 succeeded in removing the electoral roll restrictions succeed, it would be seen as a direct attack on the principle of the right to self-determination enshrined in the UN Charter and its Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People.

    “That the evil of colonialism can continue unchecked in this manner, and in this 21st century, is not only an insult to the Pacific region but to the international system,” the statement said.

    “The Pacific is not distracted by French false narratives. The Kanak, as people, are the rightful inhabitants of what is present day New Caledonia still under enduring French colonial rule.”

    The alliance called on President Macron to withdraw the constitutional changes on electoral roll provisions protecting the rights of the indigenous people of Kanaky, and it appealed to France to send a neutral high-level mission to resume dialogue between pro-independence parties and local anti-independence groups over a new political agreement.

    It also called for another independence referendum that “genuinely reflects their will”.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Pacific state of Hawai’i first in US to pass dual Gaza ceasefire resolutions

    Asia Pacific Report

    The Pacific state of Hawai’i’s House of Representatives has joined the state’s Senate in calling for a ceasefire in Israel’s war on Gaza, becoming the first state to pass such a resolution, reports Hawaii News Now.

    In March, the Senate passed a ceasefire resolution with a 24–1 vote, and now the House has passed it on a 48–3 vote last Friday.

    However, although the lawmakers are the first to pass a ceasefire resolution, reports have quoted the state legislature’s Public Access Room as saying it “does not have the force and effect of law”.

    Nor does it need a signature from the governor.

    According to the resolution, the lawmakers are pushing for President Joe Biden’s administration to call for an immediate and permanent ceasefire.

    The Hawai’i lawmakers are also demanding that the administration “facilitate the de-escalation of hostilities to end the current violence, promptly send and facilitate the entry of humanitarian assistance into Gaza, including fuel, food, water, and medical supplies, and begin negotiations for lasting peace.”

    President Biden has previously called for a ceasefire in Gaza, but there did not appear to be a contingency plan should negotiations seeking a ceasefire fail, according to The Washington Post.

    Since Israel’s war on Gaza began on October 7, more than 34,000 people have been killed in the Gaza Strip by strikes from Israel, and 77,143 have been wounded.

    The Hawai'i vote for Gaza round two
    The Hawai’i vote for Gaza round two . . . the House of Representatives voted for a ceasefire 48-3 last Friday. Hawaii News Now screenshot APR

    US overthrew Hawai’ian kingdom
    Tensions in the region go to at least the Nakba in 1948 when an estimated 750,000 Palestinians were expelled from their land and illegal Israeli settlements began.

    Given Hawai’i’s history of American businessmen overthrowing the indigenous Hawai’ian kingdom with the support of US military forces in 1893, pro-Palestinian advocates have pointed out that Hawai’i has a key connection to the conflict in Gaza.

    Fatima Abed, founder of Rise for Palestine, is both Palestinian and Puerto Rican, and has a family member who is based in Gaza.

    She told The Huffington Post: “People in Hawai’i, especially Native Hawai’ians, are determined on this issue because it’s very jarring to know that our tax dollars are going to fund the genocide of another colonised people while, here at home, our government budgets aren’t covering the basic needs of the people.”

    Abed said that the island of Lahaina and its people had not been sufficiently cared for after the wildfires last August.

    “Native Hawai’ians across the state have been underserved for decades. The people of Hawai’i see that money being sent overseas to hurt people instead of helping here, and it makes no sense.

    “From the river to the sea, all of our people will be free.”

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • ‘A stain on our country’: Criticism of ‘racist’ Supreme Court rulings

    By Mark Rabago, RNZ Pacific Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas correspondent

    The US Department of Justice is being urged to condemn and cease its reliance on the “Insular Cases” — a series of US Supreme Court opinions on US territories, which have been labelled racist.

    Senate Judiciary Committee chair Dick Durbin called them “a stain on the history of our country and its highest court”.

    The territories include the Northern Marianas, Guam, Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands, and American Samoa.

    A letter signed by 43 members of Congress was sent to the Department of Justice this month.

    The letter follows a filing by the Justice Department last month, in which it stated that “aspects of the Insular Cases’ reasoning and rhetoric, which invoke racist stereotypes, are indefensible and repugnant”.

    But the court has yet to reject the doctrine wholly and expressly.

    US House of Representatives’ Natural Resources Committee ranking member Raúl M. Grijalva said the Justice Department had made strides in the right direction by criticising “aspects” of the Insular Cases.

    ‘Reject these racist decisions’
    “But it is time for DOJ to go further and unequivocally reject these racist decisions; much as it has for other Supreme Court opinions that relied on racist stereotypes that do not abide by the Constitution’s command of equality and respect for rule of law,” he said.

    Congresswoman Stacey E. Plaskett said the Justice Department had a crucial opportunity to take the lead in rejecting the Insular Cases.

    “For far too long these decisions have justified a racist and colonial legal framework that has structurally disenfranchised the 3.6 million residents of US territories and denied them equal constitutional rights.”

    Senate Judiciary Committee chair Durbin said the decisions still impact on those who live in US territories to this day.

    “We need to acknowledge that these explicitly racist decisions were wrongly decided, and I encourage the Department of Justice to say so.”

    In recent weeks, Virgin Islands Governor Albert Bryan, Jr and Manuel Quilichini, president of the Colegio de Abogados y Abogadas de Puerto Rico (Puerto Rico Bar Association), have also sent letters to DOJ urging the Department to condemn the Insular Cases.

    Quilichini wrote to DOJ earlier this month, and this followed a 2022 resolution by the American Bar Association and similar letters from the Virgin Islands Bar Association and New York State Bar Association to the Justice Department.

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


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

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Palestine protesters stage Gaza ‘die-in’ as leaders call for step up in boycotts

    Asia Pacific Report

    A score of Palestine solidarity protesters draped themselves in white shrouds with mock blood in a sombre “die-in” demonstration at Te Komitanga Square — the heart of Auckland, New Zealand’s largest city — today as speakers urged people to take a stronger boycott against Israeli products.

    The rally by hundreds of protesters marked Israel’s killing of more than 34,000 Palestinians — mostly women and children — and wounding more than 77,000 in its genocidal war on Gaza.

    The war has lasted 205 days so far with no let-up in the deadly assault on the besieged enclave and protesters staged 35 events around New Zealand this week as global demonstrations continue to grow.

    Opposition MPs took part in the rally, including Labour’s Shanan Halbert and Green Party’s Steve Abel and Ricardo Menéndez March.

    Activist and educator Maryam Perreira called on Palestine supporters to step up their boycott and divestments pressure — “it’s working, sanctions brought down apartheid South Africa and this will bring down the Israeli genocidal regime”.


    “Food not bombs for Gaza”.    Video: Café Pacific

    She said the courage and commitment of the Palestinian resistance had become an inspiration to the world.

    Send Israeli ambassador home
    Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) secretary Neil Scott called for sanctions action by the New Zealand government.

    He urged Palestine supporters to call on the government to:

    • Send the Israeli ambassador home, and
    • End the working holiday visa for 200 Israelis who come to New Zealand to rest and relax “after committing genocide in Gaza”.

    Scott called on New Zealanders to email Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters and Immigration Minister Erica Stanford to take action.

    “Try just one email and see how it goes. Then another on another topic. Then another. That’s how I started a while ago,” Scott said.

    “We need a tide of emails to get them to understand that Kiwis don’t want the Israeli ambassador here.

    “Neither do we want the young Israelis committing genocide today and to walk among us tomorrow.”

    More than 13,000 people have signed a petition calling for the closure of the Israeli embassy in Welington.


    “They can’t demonise an entire nation.”  Video: Café Pacific

    Superfund divestment
    Scott said divestment pressure also worked – it is one of the driving forces for student protests at some 70 universities across the US over the past week with police arresting hundreds.

    He spoke about the NZ government’s Superfund which has investments all over the world.

    “A few years ago, they invested in Israeli banks which were investing in the building of illegal settlements in the Occupied Palestine Territories. They were involved in investing and enabling crimes against humanity,” Scott said.

    “Our efforts got the NZ Superfund to divest from those banks in 2021.”


    “BDS – more action call.”    Video: Café Pacific

    He called on people with KiwiSaver fund accounts to check them out for investments in “Israeli companies who are in any way involved in the occupation”.

    “We’re now calling for everyone to boycott Israeli products — or those companies which are complicit in Israeli crimes against humanity or the illegal occupation, land theft, ethnic cleansing, apartheid and now genocide.”

    Scott cited the boycott target list of the global BDS movement — Ahava (“Dead Sea mineral skin care products”), BP and Caltex, Hewlett-Packard, McDonalds, Obela Hummus and SodaStream.

    “The key is for all of us to take action today. Remember — boycott, divest, sanction.”

    Palestinian flags in Auckland's Te Komititanga Square
    Palestinian flags in Auckland’s Te Komititanga Square today. Image: APR

    Meanwhile, 1News reports that three New Zealand doctors planning to sail with an independent flotilla carrying aid to Gaza have had their mission “scuppered at the last minute”. They blame Israel for the delay.

    The doctors — Dr Ali Al-Kenani, Dr Wasfi Shahin and Dr Faiez Idais — left for Istanbul 10 days ago where they joined other international volunteers in the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, said 1News.

    Organisers of the humanitarian aid mission said the boats were set to sail under the flag of the West African nation of Guineau Bisseau but said the country had withdrawn permission to use its flag under pressure from Israel.

    A Gaza "die-in body" in Te Komititanga Square
    A Gaza “die-in body” in Te Komititanga Square today. Image: APR

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Israel delays Gaza Freedom Flotilla departure with bureaucratic ‘block’

    Asia Pacific Report

    The Freedom Flotilla is ready to sail to Gaza, reports Kia Ora Gaza.

    All the required paperwork has been submitted to the port authority, and the cargo has been loaded and prepared for the humanitarian trip to the besieged enclave.

    However, organisers received word of an “administrative roadblock” initiated by Israel in an attempt to prevent the departure.

    Israel is reportedly pressuring the Republic of Guinea Bissau to withdraw its flag from the flotilla’s lead ship — Akdeniz (“Mediterranean”).

    This triggered a request for an additional inspection, this one by the flag state, that delayed yesterday’s planned departure.

    “This is another example of Israel obstructing the delivery of life-saving aid to the people in Gaza who face a deliberately created famine,” said a Freedom Flotilla statement.

    “How many more children will die of malnutrition and dehydration because of this delay and an ongoing siege which must be broken?”

    Israeli tactics
    This is not the first time that Israel has used such tactics to stop Freedom Flotilla ships from sailing.

    “We have overcome them before and are diligently working to overcome this latest attempt,” said the flotilla statement.

    “Our vessels have already passed all required inspections and we are confident that the Akdeniz will pass this inspection provided there is no political interference.

    “We expect this to be no more than a few days delay. Israel will not break our resolve to reach the people of Gaza.”


    ‘Freedom flotilla’ defying Israel’s Gaza blockade.       Video: Al Jazeera

    Al Jazeera reports that lawyers, aid workers and activists are on board the ship in preparation for efforts by the flotilla to break the Israeli air, land and sea blockade of Gaza.

    About 100 media people are on board as well, hoping to provide a more global eye on what is happening in Gaza.

    Chief Mandla Mandela, the grandson of former South African President Nelson Mandela, is part of the flotilla that plans to soon set off for Gaza.

    “For us South Africans, the Palestinian issue has always been close and dear to our hearts,” Mandela said, noting that this grandfather had also said, “Our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinian people.”

    Published in collaboration with Kia Ora Gaza.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Nelson Mandela’s grandson joins Gaza flotilla, slams ‘genocide complicit’ leaders

    Asia Pacific Report

    Chief Mandla Mandela, a member of the National Assembly of South Africa and Nelson Mandela’s grandson, has joined the Freedom Flotilla in istanbul as the ships prepare to sail for Gaza, reports Kia Ora Gaza.

    Mandela is also the ambassador for the Global Campaign to Return to Palestine.

    When he met with flotilla participants yesterday, including the Kia Ora Gaza team from Aotearoa New Zealand, he said: “It was not only our efforts in South Africa that defeated the apartheid regime, but it was also efforts in every corner of the world through international solidarity of the anti-apartheid campaign.”


    Chief Mandla Mandela talks to the Freedom Flotilla.   Video: Freedom Flotilla/Palestine Human Rights

    Mandela said that while his grandfather was incarcerated for life imprisonment on Robben Island, he drew “immense inspiration” from the Palestinian struggle.

    He added that Palestine “was the greatest moral issue of our time, yet many governments choose to remain silent and look away”.

    “Many have been complicit in the genocide, the ethnic cleansing, the war crimes, and crimes against humanity that have been meted out on a daily basis against our Palestinian brothers and sisters — not just the 7th of October, but for the past 76 years.”

    — Chief Mandla Mandela

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Sydney University students set up Gaza solidarity camp as war marks 200 days

    Asia Pacific Report

    Students and activist staff at Australia’s University of Sydney (USyd) have set up a Gaza solidarity encampment in support of Palestinians and similar student-led protests in the United States.

    The camp was pitched as mass graves, crippled hospitals, thousands of civilian deaths and the near-total destruction of infrastructure haunted Gaza with Israel’s war on the besieged Palestinian coastal enclave passing the 200 days milestone.

    Nearly 85 percent of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been displaced and more than 14,500 children killed in the attack, which critics have dubbed a war of vengeance.

    In Sydney, according to the university’s student newspaper, Honi Soit, the camp was established on the campus when tents were pitched “emblazoned with graffiti reading ‘Free Palestine’ and ‘from the river to the sea’”.

    Students form several Australian universities were in attendance for the launch of the encampment, which was inaugurated with a student activist “speak out” on the subject of the war on Gaza and the demand for USyd management to drop any ties to the state of Israel.

    According to the student newspaper: “Many chants that were used on US campuses in the past week were repeated at the encampment tonight like “disclose, divest, we will not stop, we will not rest” followed by “Albanese/Sydney Uni you will see, Palestine will be free”.

    Pro-Palestinian protests are gaining momentum at colleges and universities across the United States with street protests outside campuses as police have cracked down on the demonstrators.

    Students at New York University, Columbia, Harvard and Yale are among those standing in solidarity with Palestinians and demanding an end to the war on Gaza.

    Al Jazeera’s Kristen Saloomey, reporting from New York, said student demonstrators from New York University (NYU) gathered for hours in a park just off the campus to protest against the genocide.

    The protest moved to the park following the mass arrest of 133 students and academic staff who had participated in a protest on the NYU campus the night before.

    “As news spread of their arrests, so have demonstrations around the country — at other colleges and universities,” Saloomey said.

    Columbia announced that it was introducing online classes for the the rest of the year to cope with the protests.

    Watch Saloomey’s AJ report:


    Columbia protests: Chants of ‘Azaadi’.               Video: Al Jazeera

    The Al Jazeera Explainers team have put together a comprehensive report detailing the numbers that highlight the unprecedented level of violence unleashed by Israel on Gaza in the 200 days of war.

    The massive infrastructure damage caused by the Israeli war on Gaza
    The massive infrastructure damage caused by the Israeli war on Gaza . . . . making the strip “unlivable”.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • OPM leader’s open letter condemns Australia’s ‘treachery’ over Papua

    Asia Pacific Report

    The West Papuan resistance OPM leader has condemned Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and US President Joe Biden, accusing their countries of “six decades of treachery” over Papuan independence.

    The open letter was released today by OPM chairman Jeffrey P Bomanak on the eve of ANZAC Day 2024.

    Praising the courage and determination of Papuans against the Japanese Imperial Forces in World War Two, Bomanak said: “There were no colonial borders in this war — we served Allied Pacific Theatre campaigns across the entire island of New Guinea.

    “Our island! From Sorong to Samurai!”

    Bomanak’s open letter, addressed to Prime Minister Albanese and President Biden, declared:

    “If you cannot stand by those who stood by you, then your idea of ‘loyalty’ and ‘remembrance’ being something special is a myth, a fairy tale.

    “There is nothing special in treachery. Six decades of treachery following the Republic of Indonesia’s invasion and fraudulent annexation, always knowing that we were being massacred, tortured, and raped. Our resources, your intention all along.

    “When the Japanese Imperial Forces came to our island, you chose our homes to be your defensive line. We fed and nursed you. We formed the Papuan Infantry Brigade. We became your Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels.

    “We even fought alongside you and shared the pain and suffering of hardship and loss.

    “There were no colonial borders in this war — we served Allied Pacific Theatre campaigns across the entire island of New Guinea. Our island! From Sorong to Samurai!

    OPM leader Jeffrey Bomanak
    OPM leader Jeffrey Bomanak . . . his open letter condemns Australia and the US leadership for preventing decolonisation of West Papua. Image: OPM

    “Your war became our war. Your graves, our graves. The photos [in the open letter] are from the Australian War Memorial. The part of the legend always ringing true — my people — Papuans! – with your WWII defence forces.

    “My message is to you, not ANZAC veterans. We salute the ANZACs. Your unprincipled greed divided our island. Exploitation, no matter what the cost.

    “West Papua is filled with Indonesia’s barbarity and the blood and guts of 500,000 Papuans — men, women, and children. Torture, slaughter, and rape of my people in our ancestral homes led by your betrayal.

    “In 1969, to help prevent our decolonisation, you placed two of our leaders on Manus Island instead of allowing them to reach the United Nations in New York — an act of shameless appeasement as a criminal accomplice to a mass-murderer (Suharto) that would have made Hideki Tojo proud.

    “RAAF Hercules transported 600 TNI [Indonesian military] to slaughter us on Biak Island in 1998. Australian and US subsidies, weapons and munitions to RI, provide logistics for slaughter and bombing of our highland villages. Still happening!

    “You were silent about the 1998 roll of film depicting victims of the Biak Island massacre, and you destroyed this roll of film in March 2014 after the revelations from the Biak Massacre Citizens Tribunal were aired on the ABC’s 7:30 Report. (Grateful for the integrity of Edmund McWilliams, Political Counselor at the US Embassy in Jakarta, for his testimony.)

    “Every single act and action of your betrayal contravenes Commonwealth and US Criminal Codes and violates the UN Charter, the Genocide Act, and the Torture Convention. The price of this cowardly servitude to assassins, rapists, torturers, and war criminals — from war criminal Suharto to war criminal Prabowo [current President of Indonesia] — complicity and collusion in genocide, ethnocide, infanticide, and wave after wave of ethnic cleansing.

    “Friends, we will not forget you? You threw us into the gutter! As Australian and American leaders, your remembrance day is a commemoration of a tradition of loyalty and sacrifice that you have failed to honour.”

    The OPM chairman and commander Bomanak concluded his open letter with the independence slogan “Papua Merdeka!” — Papua freedom.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Murray Horton: Get tough on Israel – we’ve done it before over spies

    COMMENTARY: By Murray Horton

    New Zealand needs to get tough with Israel. It’s not as if we haven’t done so before.

    When NZ authorities busted a Mossad operation in Auckland 20 years ago, the government didn’t say: “Oh well, Israel has the right to defend itself.”

    No, it arrested, prosecuted, convicted, imprisoned and deported the Israeli agents, plus made them pay a big sum of damages. And it refused to restore normal diplomatic relations with Israel until Israel apologised to NZ. Which Israel did.

    Today’s government needs to treat Israel the same way it treats other aggressors, like Russia, with the likes of sanctions.

    And the government needs to designate Zionism as an inherently racist, terrorist ideology.

    Everyone knows that the Gaza War would stop in five minutes if the US stopped arming Israel to the teeth and allowing it to commit genocide with impunity.

    Israel is the mass murderer; the US is the enabler of mass murder.

    New Zealand is part of the US Empire. The most useful thing we could do is to sever our ties to that empire, something we bravely started in the 1980s with the nuclear-free policy. Also, do these things:

    • Develop a genuinely independent foreign policy;
    • Get out of US wars, like the one in the Red Sea and Yemen;
    • Get out of the Five Eyes spy alliance;
    • Close the Waihopai spy base and the GCSB, the NZ agency which runs it;
    • Kick out Rocket Lab, NZ’s newest American military base;
    • Stop the process of getting entangled with NATO; and
    • Stay out of AUKUS, which is simply building an alliance to fight a war with China.

    I never thought I’d find myself on the same side of an issue as Don Brash and Richard Prebble but even they have strongly opposed AUKUS.

    Zionism is the enemy of the Palestinian people.

    US imperialism is the enemy of the Palestinian people and the New Zealand people.

    Murray Horton is secretary/organiser of the Anti-Bases Campaign (ABC) and gave this speech last Saturday to a Palestinian solidarity rally at the Bridge of Remembrance, Christchurch.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • NZ’s Foreign Minister Winston Peters ‘defers’ recognition of Palestine

    By Russell Palmer, RNZ News digital political journalist

    New Zealand’s Foreign Minister Winston Peters is putting off recognition of Palestine as a state, despite opposition Labour’s formal request that he make the move.

    Peters said diplomatic recognition of Palestine was a matter of “when not if”, but doing so now could impede progress towards a two-state solution — and the focus should be on aid for civilians.

    Labour’s foreign affairs spokesperson David Parker had written to Peters, calling for New Zealand to take “meaningful action” by recognising Palestine as a state.

    He noted this did not mean a recognition of Hamas, “which is one political party in the Palestinian territories”.

    “There can be no lasting peace without Palestinian statehood,” Parker wrote, pointing to 139 of the 193 member states of the United Nations having already recognised it.

    “Recognition signals this. It doesn’t matter that the state is yet to be fully established, with agreed borders. Many states and much of the Western world recognised Israel well before it was established as a state. Similarly with Kosovo.”

    Labour Party MP David Parker
    Labour’s foreign affairs spokesperson David Parker . . . Image: RNZ/Angus Dreaver

    Parker said New Zealand should do this by inviting the Palestinian Authority to send an ambassador to present their credentials to New Zealand, a role which could be performed by the Head of the General Delegation of Palestine based in Canberra Izzat Abdulhadi.

    ‘Immediate ceasefire’ needed
    Peters, however, said the “immediate and urgent need is for an immediate ceasefire and the provision of aid to help alleviate the desperate plight of an innocent civilian population”.

    “The government supports the establishment of a Palestinian state and has done so for decades. We must see momentum towards this goal and it’s a matter of ‘when not if’ we see Palestinian statehood,” he wrote.

    However, he said they could not afford to take focus away from the current crisis.

    “Bluntly asserting statehood unilaterally at this point, however well intentioned, would do nothing to alleviate the current plight of the Palestinian people. Indeed, it might impede progress.

    “We would need to be sure that any change in our current settings would contribute credibly to a serious diplomatic push to achieve a two-state solution. We do not believe we are currently at that point.

    “We are realistic that achieving this will require serious negotiations, including over the territory and political authority of a future Palestinian state. Statehood is neither a prerequisite for renewed negotiations, nor is it a guarantee they will progress faster.

    “It is important for any Palestinian state that it does not contain elements that threaten Israel’s security, and that the Palestinian Authority can govern effectively. That is why we have said an organisation like Hamas — which commits terrorism — cannot be part of future governance in Palestine.”

    Case for recognition
    Parker had laid out his case for recognition, saying Israel had ignored two resolutions of the UN General Assembly backed by an overwhelming majority of the world’s nations, including “its closest ally, the United States, which has repeatedly said the loss of civilian life in Gaza is an unacceptable price to pay for Israel’s pursuit of Hamas”.

    “The international community, including New Zealand, should not stand by and watch Israel breach international law and ignore entreaties without taking meaningful action,” he wrote.

    “The absence of progress for many years, and the current war, make the status quo ever more untenable.

    “The occupying Israeli government forces cannot legitimately continue to deprive Palestinians of basic rights to govern themselves.

    “We believe it is time now for New Zealand to reinforce our opposition to the war and our support for a lasting peace including Palestinian independence.”

    Parker said Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong’s recent statements also contemplating recognition was coincidental, and Labour had already decided to make the proposal to Peters.

    He accepted it was unlikely Peters would be able to give an immediate response, other than to say no.

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

    • Asia Pacific Report says that in the UN Security Council vote last week, only the US voted against Palestine becoming a full member of the United Nations by using its veto. But an overwhelming majority of 12 nations out of the 15 voted in favour of admission, including three of the permanent members (China, France and Russia). Only the fifth permanent member, UK, and Switzerland abstained.
    • Palestine currently has had permanent observer status since 2012.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Activists defy Israel with Gaza-bound ‘freedom’ flotilla and humanitarian aid

    By Salwa Amor in Istanbul

    Palestine solidarity activists are preparing a flotilla to deliver urgently needed humanitarian aid to Gaza, vowing to break Israel’s blockade of the Palestinian territory on board the Akdeniz, a seven-deck passenger ship.

    Currently docked in Istanbul, the ship will carry 800 people from more than 30 nations, from Indonesia to the US state of Hawai’i, and is expected to transport 5500 tonnes of aid to Gaza once it sets sail from Turkey in the coming days.

    On Friday, reports in Israel media suggested the Israeli authorities are preparing to intercept it. The activists joining the Akdeniz will be mindful of a previous fatal attempt by a vessel of comparable size to set sail from Turkey to Gaza.

    The Mavi Marmara was a Turkish aid ship, part of a flotilla attempting to break the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip in May 2010. Israeli commandos intercepted the flotilla in international waters, boarded the Mavi Marmara and killed nine Turkish activists, injuring several others.

    The incident sparked international condemnation and strained relations between Turkey and Israel.

    The acquisition of the Akdeniz was made possible through the support of four million donors worldwide.

    Organised by the Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC), a coalition of 12 countries including Turkey — and New Zealand through Kia Ora Gaza — in partnership with İnsani Yardım Vakfı (IHH), the mission aims to break the deadly siege that has severely impacted the lives of the people of Gaza for years amid Israel’s genocidal war that has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians since October 7.

    Pro-Palestinian activist and human rights lawyer Huwaida Arraf, who was on the Mavi Marmara in 2010, announced she would also join the flotilla.

    “While we recognise Israel’s potential for intercepting the mission, we hope for a peaceful outcome. If they choose to attack, those on board are prepared to engage in nonviolent resistance,” she told reporters.

    Redemption and hope
    Former US diplomat and retired US Army Colonel Ann Wright is one of the primary organisers of the FFC. In 2003, she resigned from the US government in protest against the Iraq War.

    Speaking to The New Arab, Wright said the mission of the flotilla was to bring humanitarian aid to Gaza’s starved population.

    “When you witness genocide, you can’t stand back. I’m 77, but even if I were 100, I’d still be on this ship,” said Wright.

    Wright and her fellow activists are also determined to shine a spotlight on the dire humanitarian crisis unfolding in Gaza, bringing international human rights observers to the territory to witness the unfolding genocide.

    “Our message to the people of Gaza is that we love you and are trying desperately to stop this genocide . . . To the Israeli people, I say you have a responsibility to stop your government’s genocide of Palestinians,” she said.

    “I know the propaganda that comes from governments at war, having been a former US diplomat. But what’s happening in Gaza is genocide, and when you see what your government has done, you’ll be horrified.

    “But now, I am older, and as I watch what is happening to the people of Gaza, I am appalled. It is not only the children, although that is what hits me the most.

    ‘Object to the US’
    “But now, it is the time to object to what my country, the US is doing. This is what conscientious objection is about. I am putting my body, my money, my time, my everything on the line to say, ‘I object to what my country is doing, we should not be doing this’.

    An activist called Michael said: “I want to stand up for those people in the US who agree with what I am doing and represent my country on this journey.”

    Michael said he drew courage from the people of Gaza.

    “The people of Palestine have lived under occupation for so long that it impresses me how a people like that can still have that courage and continue to stand for what they believe is right. I am guided by the bravery and courage of the people of Gaza in particular but all of Palestinians.”

    On board the Akdenix
    On board the Akdenix . . . preparing for the humanitarian aid voyage to Gaza. Image: Salwa Amor/The New Arab

    Solidarity without borders
    Argentinian surgeon Dr Carlos Tortta, a member of Doctors Without Borders, will also be on the ship.

    “In all those places I saw a lot of pain but in no place I found such an amount of people killed and wounded and suffering like in Gaza when I worked in Al Shifa hospital in 2009,” he told The New Arab.

    “When people ask me why I am going, the answer is why not? We are health workers, so it is natural to want to be with those injured,” he added.

    Lee Patten, a 63-year-old former merchant navy officer from Liverpool, told The New Arab he felt compelled to join the voyage.

    “When I see those poor children, I cannot simply turn away and leave them with no one to care for them,” he said.

    The harrowing images emanating from Gaza have left an indelible mark on Lee.

    “The sight of defenceless, innocent children is deeply distressing. It’s unfathomable to comprehend that such suffering is deliberate,” Lee explained.

    Gaza ‘a stark warning’
    “There seems to be a prevailing notion that what is happening in Gaza is confined to Palestinians and could never happen to Europeans. It’s astounding. Gaza serves as a stark warning to us all.”

    As the onslaught continues with Israeli strikes devastating Gaza’s infrastructure, some participants on the boat say they are not going solely to help people but are determined to initiate the rebuilding process after the war.

    Among them are several architects who have joined the mission to help in rebuilding Gaza.

    Dilara Karasakiz, a 28-year-old Turkish architect among the almost 300 Turkish citizens participating, said she was taking this perilous journey for this very reason.

    “I am going on this journey to help rebuild Gaza. We will rebuild everything Israel has destroyed.

    “Gazans deserve a good standard of life, and we’re asking for their suffering to end and for them to be free. I’m not afraid because this ship is just a symbol of humanity.

    “Why would I be afraid? I hope we’ll arrive in Gaza and bring some hope.”

    Salwa Amor is an independent documentary maker. Most recently she was one of the producers of the award-winning BBC Panorama Children of Syria two-part series. This article was first published by The New Arab.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Rousing farewell for Kiwi doctors flying out to Gaza aid flotilla

    Kia Ora Gaza

    A passionate haka reverberated through Auckland International Airport as a medical team of three New Zealand doctors received an emotional farewell from a big crowd of supporters before flying to Turkey to join the international Freedom Flotilla to Gaza.

    The doctors, who left Auckland yesterday, hope to be able to reach Gaza and join with other flotilla medics to deliver much-needed humanitarian aid and treat wounded patients in the war-ravaged enclave.

    Their participation is facilitated by Kia Ora Gaza.

    Kiwi medics, Dr Shahin, Dr Idais and Dr Ali salute
    Kiwi medics, Dr Shahin, Dr Idais and Dr Ali salute the airport gathering. Image: Achmat Eesau/Kia Ora Gaza
    Part of the crowd farewelling the New Zealand doctors
    Part of the crowd farewelling the New Zealand doctors at Auckland International Airport yesterday. Image: Jo Currie/Kia Ora Gaza
    Kia Ora Gaza organiser Roger Fowler
    Kia Ora Gaza organiser Roger Fowler with the three Gaza-bound New Zealand doctors. Image: Tayyaba Khan/Kia Ora Gaza

    The doctors being farewelled were Dr Wasfy Shahin and Dr Faiez Idais led by Dr Adnan Ali.

    Kia Ora Gaza organiser Roger Fowler anticipated this current flotilla was “shaping up to be an historic event”.

    After ignoring six months of horrific genocide in Gaza, he said, the New Zealand government had failed to take a stand.

    “They haven’t even lifted a finger,” he said.

    The Freedom Flotilla’s solidarity mission “is an international civil society attempt to break through Israel’s illegal siege and end the occupation and slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza”.

    And it was also planned to deliver more than 5500 tonnes of urgently needed humanitarian aid.

    Other speakers included Green Party co-leader, Marama Davidson, who sailed on the 2016 Women’s Boat to Gaza, PSNA secretary Neil Scott and local Palestinian community leader Maher Nazzel.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Eugene Doyle: Helen Clark on why AUKUS isn’t in New Zealand’s national interest

    COMMENTARY: By Eugene Doyle

    Helen Clark, how I miss you.  The former New Zealand Prime Minister — the safest pair of hands this country has had in living memory — gave a masterclass on the importance of maintaining an independent foreign policy when she spoke at an AUKUS symposium held in Parliament’s old Legislative Chambers yesterday.

    AUKUS (Australia, UK, US) is first and foremost a military alliance aimed at our major trading partner China. It is designed to maintain US primacy in the “Indo-Pacific” region and opponents are sceptical of claims that China represents a threat to New Zealand or Australian security.

    The recent proposal to bring New Zealand into the alliance under “Pillar II”  would represent a shift in our security and alliance settings that could dismantle our country’s independent foreign policy and potentially undo our nuclear free policy.

    Clark’s assessment is that the way the government has approached the proposed alliance lacks transparency.  National made no signal of its intentions during the election campaign and yet the move towards AUKUS seems well planned and choreographed.

    Voters in the last election “were not sensitised to any changes in the policy settings,” Clark says, “and this raises huge issues of transparency.”

    Such a significant shift should first secure a mandate from the electorate.

    A key question the speakers addressed at the symposium was: is AUKUS in the best interest of this country and our region?

    Highly questionable
    “All of these statements made about AUKUS being good for us are highly questionable,” Clark says.  “What is good about joining a ratcheting up of tensions in a region?  Where is the military threat to New Zealand?”

    Clark, PM from 1999-2008, has noticed a serious slippage in our independent position.  She contrasted current policy on the Middle East with the decision, under her leadership, of not joining the US invasion of Iraq in 2003.

    Sceptical of US claims about weapons of mass destruction, New Zealand made clear it wanted no part of it — a stance that has proven correct. Our powerful allies the US, UK and Australia were wrong both on intelligence and the consequences of military action.

    In contrast, New Zealand participating in the current bombardment of Yemen because of the Houthis disruption of Red Sea traffic in response to the Israeli war on Gaza is, says Clark, an indication of this change in fundamental policy stance:

    “New Zealand should have demanded the root causes for the shipping route disruptions be addressed rather than enthusiastically joining the bombing.”

    “There’s no doubt in my mind that if the drift we see in position continues, we will be positioned in a way we haven’t seen for decades –  as a fully-signed-up partner to US strategies in the region.

    “And from that, will flow expectations about what is the appropriate level of defence expenditure for New Zealand and expectations of New Zealand contributing to more and more military activities.”

    Economic security
    Clark addressed another element which should add caution to New Zealand joining an American crusade against China: economic security.

    China now takes 26 percent of our exports — twice what we send to Australia and 2.5 times what we send to the US.  She questioned the wisdom of taking a hostile stance against our biggest trading partner who continues to pose no security threat to this country.

    So what is the alternative to New Zealand siding with the US in its push to contain China and help the US maintain its hegemon status?

    “The alternative path is that New Zealand keeps its head while all around are losing theirs — and that we combine with our South Pacific neighbours to advocate for a region which is at peace,” Clark says, echoing sentiments that go right back to the dawn of New Zealand’s nuclear free Pacific, “so that we always pursue dialogue and engagement over confrontation.”

    Eugene Doyle is a community organiser and activist in Wellington, New Zealand. He received an Absolutely Positively Wellingtonian award in 2023 for community service. His first demonstration was at the age of 12 against the Vietnam War. This article was first published at his public policy website Solidarity and is republished here with permission.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • A montage of West Papuan everyday life from hip-hop to protest songs

    REVIEW: By ‘Alopi Latukefu

    I came to this evening of short films not sure what to expect.

    I have a history with West Papua (here referring to the Indonesian part of the island of New Guinea, which comprises five provinces, one named “West Papua”) from my days fronting the legendary West Papuan band Black Brothers in the early 1990s.

    During that time, I was exposed to stories of struggle and pride in the identity of the people of West Papua. From their declaration of self-determination and self-government and the raising of the Morning Star flag on 1 December 1961, to the so-called “Act of Free Choice” referendum in 1969 which saw the fledgling Melanesian state become part of the larger Indonesian state, to the next 40 years of struggle.

    However, apart from the occasional ABC or SBS news story and the 1963 ethnographic film Dead Birds, I hadn’t seen much footage on West Papua until now.

    The West Papua Mini Film Festival is a touring festival of short films organised by the West Papuan community and their allies and supporters in Australia to raise awareness of the situation in West Papua.

    The four films I saw, at the first screening in Sydney, were:

    My Name is Pengungsi (Refugee)
    Pepera 1969, A Democratic Integration?
    Papuan Hip-Hop: When the Microphone Talks
    Black Pearl and General of the Field

    The first two films were quite harrowing portrayals of internal displacement and coercion in West Papua. My Name is Pengungsi (Refugee) follows the lives and families of two children, both named “refugee”, born and currently being raised in parts of West Papua distant from their families’ places of origin.

    Their displacement is clearly correlated with the increased presence of extractive corporate interests backed in and supported by a military presence.

    In both children’s cases this has been enabled by the gradual breaking up of the region of West Papua into first two, and now five, separate provinces.

    A scene from My Name is Pengungsi (Refugee)


    My Name is Pengungsi (Refugee).   Video trailer: Jubi TV

    The second film, Pepera 1969, A Democratic Integration, deals with the history of oppression and coercion under Indonesian rule and the absurdity of the rubber-stamping process undertaken by Indonesia (the Act of Free Choice, the Indonesian acronym for which is Pepera) which enabled it to annex West Papua under the impotent gaze of the United Nations and the complicit support of countries including the US and Australia.

    The film documents the process leading into decolonisation and West Papua’s short-lived period of self-rule.

    The second two films were insightful celebrations of Papuan identity in the arts, through hip-hop artists like Ukam Maran and the earlier musical group Mambesak, and in sport, with the incredible story of the Persipura football club of Jayapura.

    The latter’s achievements as a football team and subsequent discrimination and suppression in the racially charged Indonesian football league provide an allegory of West Papuan identity.

    In both cases, the strength and resilience of West Papuan identity, and West Papuans’ pride in their ancient ties to land and culture, are palpable.

    A scene from Papua Hip-Hop: When the microphone talks.

    What I liked about the four films was that they presented a montage of West Papua from rural to urban, from the everyday life of internally displaced people to the exciting work of hip-hop artists with their songs of protest; from the big picture and history of West Papua to the smaller microcosm of the Persipura football team and supporters.

    All in all, I was surprised how much I came out of the festival better informed about a place, its history and current developments. And this despite having the privilege of knowing more about West Papua than many Australians.

    For those who don’t know much about West Papua and would like to know more, attending the West Papua Mini Film Festival is a must. It is on at various locations around Australia until 21 April 2024, with details here.

    And to end on a happy note, my evening of film appreciation included meeting one of the festival’s organisers, Victor Mambor. Victor is the nephew of the late Steve Mambor, drummer for the Black Brothers!

    ‘Alopi Latukefu is the director of the Edmund Rice Centre. He previously worked for the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. This review was first published on ANU Development Policy Centre’s DevPolicyBlog and is republished here under Creative Commons.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Let the games begin – coalition negotiations underway in Honiara

    By Koroi Hawkins, RNZ Pacific editor in Honiara

    Polls have opened today in Solomon Islands.

    “Today is polling day. Polling Station opens at 7 am and closes at 4 pm. Be at the correct polling station and be in the voting line before 4 pm,” a text message from the Solomon Islands Electoral Commission alerting voters said this morning.

    But even before the first ballot was cast a political party president and election candidate told RNZ Pacific on the eve of the election that coalition negotiations were already taking place and the first political lobbying camp is being set up at the Honiara Hotel.

    The polls which opened at 7am will close at 4pm and more than 400,000 Solomon Islanders are expected to exercise their democratic right and vote to elect their national and provincial representatives.

    According to the Electoral Commission, there are 334 election candidates in the running for the 50 available seats in the national election and only 20 of them are women.

    There are 219 candidates contesting under parties and 115 as independents.

    In the provincial assembly elections, there are 816 candidates contesting – 781 are men and 35 are women.

    Out of this lot, 724 are contesting as independents and 92 under political party banners.

    Independents outnumber party lists
    In both the national and provincial elections — which are being conducted simultaneously for the first time this year — independent candidates far outnumber the candidates fielded by any single political party.

    Historically, independent candidates have always played a big part in the formation of coalition governments in Solomon Islands as king makers.

    In fact, at the last election in 2019, the caretaker prime minister Manasseh Sogavare actually contested the election as an independent candidate, who formally registered his Our Party after the polls, and then proceeded to sign up most of the independent MPs to create what was the largest party in the last house.

    The party president who told RNZ Pacific that coalition negotiations were already well underway said that the same strategy, or a variation of it, may again be employed in this election.

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

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Pro-independence activist issues dire warning to France over Kanaky New Caledonia

    By Lydia Lewis, RNZ Pacific journalist

    A pro-independence activist in New Caledonia is warning France to immediately halt its planned constitution amendments or face “war”.

    The call for a u-turn follows proposed constitutional changes to voting rights which could push the number of eligible anti-independence voters up.

    Pacific Independence Movement (le Mouvement des Océaniens indépendantistes) spokesperson Arnaud Chollet-Léakava was one of the thousands who took to the streets in Nouméa in protest last Saturday.

    He told RNZ Pacific that tensions were high.

    “We are here to tell them we must not make this mistake,” Chollet-Léakava said.

    “Step by step, I think there will be war.”

    A nearby counter-protest in Nouméa also had a large turnout.

    People there wore the French flag, a contrast to the sea of blue, red, green and yellow representing the Kanak flag at the pro-independence rally.

    Solange Ponija was one of thousands at the pro-independence rally in Nouméa.

    She said the constitutional change — if pushed through — would tip the balance of voting power onto the French side, she said.

    An estimated 20,000 wave of anti-independence supporters with French flags gathered on Nouméa's Baie de la Moselle on Saturday 13 April 2024.
    Anti-independence supporters with French flags gathered on Nouméa’s Baie de la Moselle last Saturday. Image: RRB/RNZ

    Dog wears Kanak flag at pro-independence rally April 2024.
    A dog wearing a Kanak flag at the pro-independence rally last Saturday. Image: RNZ Pacific/Lydia Lewis

    She feared the indigenous people of New Caledonia — the Kanak people — would lose in their fight for independence:

    “They want to make us a minority . . .  it will make us a minority!

    “The law will make the Kanaky people a minority because it will open the electoral body to other people who are not Kanaky and who will give their opinion on the accession of Caledonia to full sovereignty,” Ponija said.

    Security was high, with more than 100 additional security forces sent from France for the April protest and counter-protest.
    Security was high last weekened with more than 100 additional security forces sent from France for the protest and counter-protest. Image: RNZ Pacific/Lydia Lewis

    ‘Heading towards a civil war’
    A French man who has lived in New Caledonia for two decades said independence or not, he just wanted peace.

    The man — who wanted to remain anonymous out of fear of retribution — said he moved to New Caledonia knowing he would be living on colonised land.

    Having experienced violence in 2019, the man begged both sides to be amicable.

    “[It’s] very complicated and very serious because if the law is not withdrawn and passed. We are clearly heading towards a civil war,” he said.

    “We hope for peace and we hope that we find a common agreement for both parties.

    “People want peace and we don’t want to move towards war.”

    The constitutional bill was endorsed by the French Senate on April 2.

    The next stage is for the bill to be debated, which has been set down for May 13.

    Then both the Senate and the National Assembly will gather in June to give the final stamp of approval.

    This would allow any citizen who has lived in New Caledonia for at least 10 years to cast their vote at local elections.

    New Caledonia pro-independence rally in April 2024.
    The Kanaky New Caledonia pro-independence rally last Saturday. Image: RNZ Pacific/Lydia Lewis

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


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

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Ships in the night – final day of election campaigning in Solomon Islands

    By Koroi Hawkins, RNZ Pacific editor

    It is the final day of election campaigning in Solomon Islands and there is a palpable sense of anticipation in the country, which is holding national and provincial elections simultaneously for the first time this year.

    There is also significant international interest this year in the outcome of the National Election, as it is the first to be held since 2019 when Taiwan cut its decades-long diplomatic ties with the country — leaving Honiara in the lurch as it moved to formally establish diplomatic relations with Beijing.

    The elections this week were officially scheduled to take place last year but were postponed, somewhat controversially, so that the country could host the Pacific Games.

    Most of the voters RNZ Pacific has spoken to in Honiara so far seem both excited and determined to exercise their democratic right.

    In and around the capital, stages are being erected for final campaign rallies and all manner of vehicles are being decked out for colourful and noisy float parades.

    Overnight, down at the main Point Cruz wharf, hundreds of voters were still boarding ferries paid for by election candidates trying to shore up their numbers.

    Many of the ships are not actually designed for passengers — they are converted fishing or cargo vessels purchased through Special Shipping Grants given to MPs to help meet transportation needs for their constituents.

    Voter ferries
    One such vessel is the MV Avaikimaine run by Renbel Shipping for the Rennell and Bellona constituency.

    Standing room only - Voters aboard the MV Avaikimaine in Honiara before departing for Rennell and Bellona Province. 14 April 2024
    Standing room only . . . voters aboard the MV Avaikimaine in Honiara before departing for Rennell and Bellona Province yesterday. Image: RNZ Pacific/Koroi Hawkins

    The man in charge of boarding last night, Derek Pongi, said voters for all election candidates were allowed to travel on the vessel.

    Pongi said some people had their fares paid for by the candidates they support, while others meet their own travel costs.

    He said the vessel had completed four trips carrying 400 or more passengers each time.

    “It’s important because people from Rennell and Bellona can go back and participate in these elections and exercise their right to vote for their member of Parliament and the members of the Provincial Assembly,” Pongi said.

    But not all vessels have such an open policy — some of the wealthier candidates in larger constituencies either charter or call in favours to get potential voters to the polls.

    A couple of jetties over from the Avaikimaine was the bright neon green-coloured Uta Princess II.

    Her logistics officer, Tony Laugwaro, explained the vessel was heading to the Baegu Asifola constituency and that most of the people on board were supporters of the incumbent MP John Maneniaru.

    Three trips
    He said they had made three trips already, but had to be wary of remaining within the campaign expenses’ maximum expenditure limit.

    “It’s only around SBD$500,000 (US$58,999) for each candidate to do logistics, so we have to work within that amount for transporting and accommodating voters,” Tony Laugwaro said.

    According to Solomon Islands electoral laws, candidates are also only allowed to accept donations of up to SBD$50,000 (US$5900) for campaigning.

    As each ship pulls away from the jetty and disappears into the night, another appears like a white ghost out of the darkness and begins the process of loading more passengers.

    The official campaign period ends at midnight today, followed immediately by a 24-hour campaign blackout.

    Polls open on Wednesday at 7am and close at 4pm. Counting is expected to continue through until the weekend.

    Depending on the official results, which will be announced by the Governor-General, lobbying to form the national and provincial governments could last anywhere from a few days to several weeks.

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

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • New Caledonia: Flags and emotions flying high over proposed changes

    By Patrick Decloitre, RNZ Pacific correspondent French Pacific desk

    New Caledonia’s capital was on Saturday flooded by two simultaneous waves of French and Kanaky flags with two rival demonstrations in downtown Nouméa, only two streets away from each other and under heavy security surveillance.

    The French High Commission in Nouméa provided an official count of the magnitude of the demonstrations.

    It said the number of participants to the two marches was about 40,000 — 15 percent of New Caledonia’s population of 270,000.

    The total was about equally divided between pro-France and pro-independence marchers.

    This was described as the largest crowd since the quasi-civil war that erupted in New Caledonia in the 1980s.

    Organisers of the marches claim as many as 58,000 (pro-independence) and 35,000 (pro-France).

    One of the marches was organised by a pro-independence field action coordination committee (CCAT) close to Union Calédonienne (UC), one of the components of the pro-independence FLNKS umbrella.

    The other was called by two pro-France parties, the Rassemblement and Les Loyalistes, who urged their supporters to make their voices heard.

    Controversial constitutional amendment
    Both marches were over a French proposed constitutional amendment which aims at changing the rules of voters eligibility for New Caledonia and to allow citizens who have been residing the for at least 10 uninterrupted years to cast their votes at local elections — for the three provincial assemblies and for the local Congress.

    An estimated 20,000 wave of anti-independence supporters with French flags gathered on Nouméa's Baie de la Moselle on Saturday 13 April 2024.
    An estimated 20,000 wave of anti-independence supporters with French flags gathered on Nouméa’s Baie de la Moselle on Saturday. Image: RRB

    It is estimated the new system would open the door to about 25,000 more voters.

    Until now, and since 1998 as prescribed by the 1998 Nouméa Accord, New Caledonia’s electoral roll for local elections was more restricted, as it only allowed citizens born or who had resided there before 1998 to vote in local elections.

    The controversial text was endorsed, with amendments, by the French Senate (Upper House) on April 2.

    As part of its legislative process, it is scheduled to be debated in the Lower House (National Assembly) on May 13 and then should again be put to the vote at the French Congress (a special gathering of both Upper and Lower Houses) sometime in June, with a required majority of three fifths.

    The constitutional amendment, however, is designed to be interrupted if, at any time, New Caledonia’s leaders can produce an agreement on the French entity’s political future resulting from inclusive bipartisan talks.

    But over the past months, those talks have stalled, even though French Home Affairs and Overseas Minister Gérald Darmanin — who initiated the Constitutional process — travelled to New Caledonia half a dozen times over the past 12 months.

    The current legislative process also caused the postponement of New Caledonia’s provincial elections from May to mid-December “at the latest”.

    ‘Paris, hear our voice!’
    In a tit-for-tat communications war, organisers on both sides also intended to send a strong message to sway Paris MPs from all sides of the political spectrum ahead of their debates.

    New Caledonia’s pro-France parties were marching on Saturday in support of the constitutional amendment project, brandishing French tricolour flags, singing the French national anthem “La Marseillaise” and claiming “one man, one vote” on their banners.

    Other banners read “This is our home!”, “No freedom without democracy!”, “Unfreeze is democracy” or “proud to be Caledonians, proud to be French”.

    Les Loyalistes pro-France party leader Sonia Backès, in a brief speech, declared :”Paris, hear our voice”.

    Nicolas Metzdorf, New Caledonia’s representative MP at the National Assembly, told local media: “It’s probably the largest demonstration that ever took place in New Caledonia . . . this gives us strength to pursue in our efforts to implement this electoral roll unfreezing. And the message I want to send to FLNKS is, ‘Don’t be afraid of us. We want to work with you, we want to build with you, but please stop the threats and the insults, it doesn’t help.”

    ‘Peace is at threat’ – Wamytan
    The pro-independence march waved Kanaky flags in opposition to the constitutional amendment, saying this could make indigenous Kanaks a minority on their own land.

    They are denouncing the whole process as being “forced” upon them by France and are asking for the constitutional amendment to be scrapped altogether.

    Instead, they want a French high-level “dialogue mission” be sent to New Caledonia. It is suggested that speakers of both the National Assembly and the Senate should lead the mission.

    “Peace is at threat because the (French) state is no longer impartial. It has touched a taboo and we must resist,” charismatic pro-independence eader and local Congress chair Roch Wamytan told the crowd, referring to the future of the indigenous Kanak people.

    “Unfreezing this electoral roll is leading us to death.”

    Wamytan is a prominent member of Union Calédonienne, which is one of the components of the multiparty pro-independence umbrella FLNKS.

    Other members of the FLNKS group, PALIKA (Kanak Liberation Party) and UPM (Melanesian Progressive Union) parties have often expressed reservations about the UC-led confrontational approach and have consistently taken part in talks with Darmanin and other local parties.

    Similarly, on the pro-French side (which did not associate itself with Saturday’s march), leader Philippe Gomès said they were concerned with the current confrontational and escalating atmosphere.

    “Where is this going to lead us? Nowhere”, he told a press conference on Friday.

    Gomès said the marches were a de facto admission that talks have failed.

    He also called on Paris to send a dialogue mission to mediate between New Caledonia’s parties.

    Security reinforcements had been sent from Paris to ensure that the two crowds did not come into contact at any stage.

    No incident was reported and the two marches took place peacefully.

    Darmanin at UN Decolonisation Committee
    Meanwhile, on Friday, French minister Darmanin was to appear before the United Nations’ Special Decolonisation Committee as part of the regular monitoring of New Caledonia’s situation.

    Before heading to New York UN headquarters, his entourage indicated that he wanted to underline France’s commitment for “respect of international law in New Caledonia” where a “legislative and constitutional process is currently underway to organise local elections under a new system”.

    Darmanin maintains that New Caledonia’s electoral roll present restrictions, which were temporarily put in place as part of implementation of the 1998 Nouméa Accord, were no longer tenable under France’s democracy.

    The proposed changes, still restrictive, are an attempt to restore “a minimum of democracy” in New Caledonia, he says.

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

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • French security forces in Nouméa ahead of two opposing marches today

    By Patrick Decloitre, RNZ Pacific correspondent French Pacific desk

    Security forces reinforcements were sent from France ahead of two rival marches in the capital Nouméa today, at the same time and only two streets away one from the other.

    One march, called by Union Calédonienne party (a component of the pro-independence FLNKS umbrella) and its CCAT (field action group), was protesting against planned changes to the French Constitution to “unfreeze” New Caledonia’s electoral roll by allowing any citizen who has resided in New Caledonia for at least 10 years to cast their vote at local elections — for the three Provincial assemblies and the Congress.

    The other march was called by pro-France parties Rassemblement and Les Loyalistes who support the change and intend to make their voices heard by French MPs.

    The constitutional bill was endorsed by the French Senate on April 2.

    However, as part of the required process before it is fully endorsed, the constitutional bill must follow the same process before France’s lower House, the National Assembly.

    Debates are scheduled on May 13.

    Then both the Senate and the National Assembly will be gathered sometime in June to give the final approval.

    Making voices heard
    Today, both marches also want to make their voices heard in an attempt to impress MPs before the Constitutional Bill goes further.

    The pro-France march is scheduled to end at Rue de la Moselle in downtown Nouméa, two streets away from the other pro-independence march, which is planned to stop on the Place des Cocotiers (“Coconut square”).

    The pro-independence rally in the heart of Nouméa
    The pro-independence rally in the heart of Nouméa today. Image: @knky987

    At least 20,000 participants were estimated to take part.

    Security forces reinforcements have been sent from France, with two additional squads (140) of gendarmes, French High Commissioner Louis Le Franc said yesterday.

    While acknowledging the “right to demonstrate as a fundamental right”, Le Franc said it a statement it could only be exercised with “respect for public order and freedom of movement”.

    “No outbreak will be tolerated” and if this was not to be the case, then “the reaction will be steadfast and those responsible will be arrested,” he warned.

    Le Franc also strongly condemned recent “blockades and violence” and called for everyone’s “calm and responsibility” for a “Pacific dialogue in New Caledonia”.

    CCAT spokesman Christian Téin (centre) during a press conference on Thursday 4 April at Union Calédonienne headquarters.
    CCAT spokesman Christian Téin, Arnaud Chollet-Leakava (MOI), Dominique Fochi (UC) and Sylvain Boiguivie (Dus) during a press conference on Thursday at the Union Calédonienne headquarters. Image: LNC

    Tight security to avoid a clash
    New Caledonia’s Southern Province vice-president and member of the pro-France party Les Loyalistes, Philippe Blaise, told Radio Rythme Bleu he had been working with security forces to ensure the two opposing marches would not come close at any stage.

    “It will not be a long march, because we are aware that there will be families and old people,” he said.

    “But we are not disclosing the itinerary because we don’t want to give bad ideas to people  who would like to come close to our march with banners and whatnot.

    “There won’t be any speech either. But there will be an important security setup,” he reassured.

    Earlier this week, security forces intervened to lift roadblocks set up by pro-independence militants near Nouméa, in the village of Saint-Louis, a historical pro-independence stronghold.

    The clash involved about 50 security forces against militants.

    Tear gas, and stones
    Teargas and stones were exchanged and firearm shots were also heard.

    On March 28, the two opposing sides also held two marches in downtown Nouméa, with tens of thousands of participants.

    No incident was reported.

    The UC-revived CCAT (Field Actions Coordination Cell, cellule de coordination des actions de terrain), which is again organising today’s pro-independence march to oppose the French Constitutional change, earlier this month threatened to boycott this year’s planned provincial elections.

    CCAT head Christian Tein said they were demanding that the French Constitutional amendment be withdrawn altogether, and that a “dialogue mission” be sent from Paris.

    “We want to remind (France) we will be there, we’ll bother them until the end, peacefully”, he said.

    “Those MPs have decided to kill the Kanak (Indigenous) people . . . this is a programmed extermination so that Kanaks become like (Australia’s) Aborigines,” he told local media.

    “Anyone can cause unrest, but to stop it is another story . . . now we are on a slippery slope,” he added.

    War of words, images over MPs
    Pro-France leader Sonia Backès, during a the March 28 demonstration, had also alluded to “causing unrest” from their side and its ability to “make noise” to ensure their voices are heard back in the French Parliament.

    “The unrest, it will come from us if someone tries to step on us,” she lashed out at that rally.

    “We have to make noise, because unfortunately, the key is the image,” she said.

    “But this little message with the ballot box and Eloi Machoro’s picture, this is provocation.

    “I am receiving death threats every day; my children too,” she told Radio Rythme Bleu.

    CCAT movement is placing a hatchet on ballot box.
    The CCAT movement is placing a hatchet on a ballot box, recalling the Eloi Machoro protest. Image: 1ère TV screenshot APR

    Hatchet and ballot box – the ghosts of 1984
    During the CCAT’s press conference earlier this month, a ballot box with a hatchet embedded was on show, recalling the famous protest by pro-independence leader Eloi Machoro, who smashed a ballot box with a hatchet to signify the Kanak boycott of the elections on 18 November 1984.

    The iconic act was one of the sparks that later plunged New Caledonia in a quasi civil war until the Matignon Accords in 1988. Both pro-France leader Jacques Lafleur and Lanak leader Jean-Marie Tjibaou shook hands to put an end to a stormy period since described as “the events”.

    On 12 January 1985, Machoro was shot by French special forces.

    On 18 November 1984, territorial elections day in New Caledonia, Eloi Machoro smashed a ballot box in the small town of Canala
    The territorial elections day in New Caledonia on 18 November 1984 when Eloi Machoro smashed a ballot box in the small township of Canala. Image: RNZ/File

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

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • More videos of Kiwi hostage in Papua – warning over Indonesian air strikes

    RNZ Pacific

    More videos appear to have been released by the West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNPB) showing New Zealand hostage Phillip Mehrtens.

    The New Zealander was taken hostage more than a year ago on February 7 in Paro in the highlands of the Indonesian-ruled region of West Papua while providing vital air links and supplies to remote communities.

    In the recent videos he is seen surrounded by armed men and delivers a statement, saying his “life is at risk” because of air strikes conducted by the Indonesian military.

    New Zealand pilot Phillip Mehrtens - plea for his release
    An appeal in February by Foreign Minister Winston Peters for the release of the New Zealand hostage pilot Phillip Mehrtens by his West Papuan rebel captors. Image: NZ govt

    He asks Indonesia to cease airstrikes and for foreign governments to pressure Indonesia to not conduct any aerial bombardments.

    RNZ has sought comment from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

    Earlier this year Foreign Minister Winston Peters strongly urged those holding Mehrtens to release him immediately without harm.

    Peters said his continued detention served no-one’s interests.

    In the last year, a wide range of New Zealand government agencies has been working extensively with Indonesian authorities and others towards securing Mehrtens release.

    The response, led by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, has also been supporting his family.

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


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

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Indonesian military’s crimes in West Papua and the democratic solution

    By Sharon Muller of Arah Juang

    On Friday, March 22, a video circulated of TNI (Indonesian military) soldiers torturing a civilian in Papua. In the video, the victim is submerged in a drum filled with water with his hands tied behind his back.

    The victim was alternately beaten and kicked by the TNI members. The victim’s back was also slashed with a knife.

    The video circulated globally quickly and was widely criticised.

    Gustav Kawer from the Papua Association of Human Rights Advocates (PAHAM) condemned the incident and called for the perpetrators to be brought to justice.

    This was then followed by National Human Rights Commission (Komnas HAM), Indonesian Human Rights Watch (Imparsial), the Diocese, the church and students.

    Meanwhile, Cenderawasih/XVII regional military commander (Pangdam) Major-General Izak Pangemanan tried to cover up the crime by saying it was a hoax and the video was a result of “editing”.

    This argument was later refuted by the TNI itself and it was proven that TNI soldiers were the ones who had committed the crime. Thirteen soldiers were arrested and accused over the torture.

    The torture occurred on 3 February 2024 in Puncak Regency, Papua.

    Accused of being ‘spies’
    The victim who was seen in the video was Defianus Kogoya, who had been arrested along with Warinus Murib and Alianus Murib. They were arrested and accused of being “spies” for the West Papua National Liberation Army-Free Papua Organisation (TPNPB-OPM), a cheap accusation which the TNI and police were subsequently unable to prove.


    Indonesia human rights: 13 soldiers arrested after torture video. Video: Al Jazeera

    The three were arrested when the TNI was conducting a search in Amukia and Gome district. When Warinus was arrested, his legs were tied to a car and he was dragged for one kilometre, before finally being tortured.

    Alianus, meanwhile ,was also taken to a TNI post and tortured. After several hours, they were finally handed over to a police post because there was not enough evidence to prove the TNI’s accusations.

    Defianus finally fainted, while Warinus died of his injuries. Warinus’ body was cremated by the family the next day on February 4.

    Defianus is still suffering and remains seriously ill. This is a TNI crime in Papua.

    But that is not all. On 22 February 2022, the TNI also tortured seven children in Sinak district, Puncak. The seven children were Deson Murib, Makilon Tabuni, Pingki Wanimbo, Waiten Murib, Aton Murib, Elison Murib and Murtal Kurua.

    Makilon Tabuni died as a result.

    Civilians murdered, mutilated
    On August 22, the TNI murdered and mutilated four civilians in Timika. They were Arnold Lokbere, Irian Nirigi, Lemaniel Nirigi and Atis Tini.

    The bodies of the four were dismembered: the head, body and legs were separated into several parts, put in sacks then thrown into a river.

    Six days later, soldiers from the Infantry Raider Battalion 600/Modang tortured four civilians in Mappi regency, Papua. The four were Amsal P Yimsimem, Korbinus Yamin, Lodefius Tikamtahae and Saferius Yame.

    They were tortured for three hours and suffered injuries all over their bodies.

    Three days later, on August 30, the TNI again tortured two civilians named Bruno Amenim Kimko and Yohanis Kanggun in Edera district, Mappi regency. Bruno Amenim died while Yohanis Kanggun suffered serious injuries.

    On October 27, three children under the age of 16 were tortured by the TNI in Keerom regency. They were Rahmat Paisel, Bastian Bate and Laurents Kaung. They were tortured using chains, coils of wire and water hoses.

    The atrocity occurred in the Yamanai Village, Arso II, Arso district.

    On 22 February 2023, TNI personnel from the Navy post in Lantamal X1 Ilwayap tortured two civilians named Albertus Kaize and Daniel Kaize. Albertus Kaize died of his injuries. This crime occurred in Merauke regency, Papua.

    95 civilians tortured
    Between 2018 and 2021, Amnesty International recorded that more than 95 civilians had been tortured and killed by the TNI and the police. These crimes target indigenous Papuans, and the curve continues to rise year by year, ever since Indonesia occupied Papua in 1961.

    These crimes were committed one after another without a break, and followed the same pattern. So it can be concluded that these were not the acts of rogue individuals or one or two people as the TNI argues to reduce their crimes to individual acts.

    Rather, they are structural (systematic) crimes designed to subdue the Papuan nation, to stop all forms of Papuan resistance for the sake of the exploitation and theft of Papua’s natural resources.

    The problems in Papua cannot be solved by increasing the number of police or soldiers. The problems in Papua must be resolved democratically.

    This democratic solution must include establishing a human rights court for all perpetrators of crimes in Papua since the 1960s, and not just the perpetrators in the field, but also those responsible in the chain of command.

    Only this will break the pattern of crimes that are occurring and provide justice for the Papuan people. A human rights court will also mean weakening the anti-democratic forces that exist in Indonesia and Papua — namely military(ism).

    Garbage of history
    A prerequisite for achieving democratisation is to eliminate the old forces, the garbage of history.

    The cleaner the process is carried out, the broader and deeper the democracy that can be achieved. This also includes the demands of the Papuan people to be given the right to determine their own destiny.

    This is not a task for some later day, but is the task of the Papuan people today. Nor is the task of the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP) political elite or political activists alone, but it is the task of all Papuan people if they want to extract themselves from the crimes of the TNI and police or Indonesian colonialism.

    Independence can only be gained by the struggle of the ordinary people themselves. The people must fight, the people must take to the streets, the people must build their own ranks, their own alternative political tool, and fight in an organised and guided manner.

    Sharon Muller is a leading member of the Socialist Union (Perserikatan Sosialis, PS) and a member of the Socialist Study Circle (Lingkar Studi Sosialis, LSS). Arah Juang is the newspaper of the Socialist Union.

    Translated by James Balowski for Indoleft News. The original title of the article was “Kejahatan TNI di Papua dan Solusi Demokratis Untuk Rakyat Papua dan Indonesia”.

    References
    Gemima Harvey’s report The Human Tragedy of West Papua, 15 January 2014. This reports states that more than 500,000 West Papua people have been slaughtered by Indonesia and its actors, the TNI and police since 1961.

    Veronica Koman’s chronology of torture of civilians in Papua. Posted on the Veronica Koman Facebook wall, 24 March 2024.

    Jubi, Alleged torture of citizens by the TNI adds to the long list of violence in the land of Papua. 23 March 2024.

    VOA Indonesia, Amnesty International: 95 civilians in Papua have been victims of extrajudicial killings.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Indigenous rights flag-burning protest rocks CNMI community

    By Mark Rabago, RNZ Pacific Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas correspondent

    A man on Saipan has burned the official CNMI flag in protest, saying that it does not truly represent Indigenous people of the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas (CNMI).

    A public video of the flag-burning was posted by Raymond Quitugua that has stirred various negative reactions within the CNMI community.

    Under the CNMI’s constitution, flag-burning is prohibited and those found to have breached the law can face up to one year in jail or fined up to US$500 (NZ$835).

    The official CNMI flag
    The official CNMI flag . . . disputed by some Chamorro critics. Image: 123rf/RNZ

    Quitugua said the true CNMI flag was the initial design presented back in the 1970s that featured a latte stone with a star in the front of it on a field of blue.

    The current official flag of the US territory consists of a rectangular field of blue, a white star in the center, superimposed on a gray latte stone, surrounded by the traditional Carolinian mwáár.

    But Quitugua claims the official flag does not accurately represent the Indigenous people of the CNMI, which he believes is the Chamorro community (not including the Carolinian community).

    He added that he burned the flag as a form of protest and he intended to take the issue to court.

    Disappointed, insulted
    Renowned elder in the CNMI community, Lino Olopai, as well as one of the many champions of the CNMI’s flag, expressed disappointment and insulted by Quitugua’s actions and said that warranted jail time.

    Olopai said the basis of the current CNMI flag was indeed the Chamorro flag, but a group of Carolinians that included himself fought to have a mwáár on the flag as a representation of the Carolinian community as they believed they, too, were indigenous people of the CNMI.

    He added that Quitugua’s flag-burning is a form of discrimination against the Carolinian community, which like the Chamorros, are the two recognised Indigenous people of the CNMI.

    “Stop the racism. We are all part of the Pacific islands,” Olopai said.

    “We should maintain peaceful attitude and spirit with one another. Not just between the Chamorro and Carolinian communities, but with other communities across the Pacific,” he said.

    In a letter to the editor of the Saipan Tribune, former lawmaker Luis John Castro also criticised Quitugua’s flag-burning, saying there were other more constructive forms of protest.

    “If something such as the flag does not jive with your beliefs, OK you don’t have to agree,” he said, adding “but there are many ways to resolve differences other than desecrating a cultural symbol”.

    “Conduct an online poll, call into [a radio station] and make it a topic of discussion. Hold a town hall meeting with other concerned citizens, ask a legislator to draft bills or initiative to address its look, or file a certified question with the courts to get an answer to your concerns.

    “Why do something like burn the flag? To seek attention? To get likes and shares on Facebook? To incite civil unrest?” he wrote.

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

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Violent clashes in New Caledonia as tensions rise over nickel pact

    By Patrick Decloitre, RNZ Pacific correspondent French Pacific desk

    Fresh clashes in New Caledonia have erupted in the suburbs of Nouméa between security forces and pro-independence protesters who oppose a nickel pact offering French assistance to salvage the industry.

    The clashes, involving firearms, teargas and stone-throwing, went on for most of yesterday, blocking access roads to the capital Nouméa, as well as the nearby townships of Saint-Louis and Mont-Dore.

    Traffic on the Route Provinciale 1 (RP1) was opened and closed several times, including when a squadron of French gendarmes intervened to secure the area by firing long-range teargas.

    The day began with tyres being burnt on the road and then degenerated into violence from some balaclava-clad members of the protest group, who started throwing stones and sometimes using firearms and Molotov cocktails, authorities alleged.

    Security forces said one of their motorbike officers, a woman, was assaulted and her vehicle was stolen.

    Two of the protesters were reported to have been arrested for throwing stones.

    Banners were deployed, some reading “Kanaky not for sale”, others demanding that New Caledonia’s President Louis Mapou (pro-independence) resign.

    Northern mining sites also targeted
    Other incidents took place in the northern town of La Foa, in the small mining village of Fonwhary, near a nickel extraction site, where Société Le Nickel trucks were not allowed to use the road.

    Pro-independence protesters banners demanding President Louis Mapou’s resignation – Photo NC la 1ère
    Pro-independence protesters banners demand territorial President Louis Mapou resign. Image: 1ère TV

    Mont-Dore Mayor Eddy Lecourieux told local Radio Rythme Bleu they had the right to demonstrate, “but they could have done that peacefully”.

    “Instead, there’s always someone who starts throwing stones.”

    At dusk, the Saint-Louis and Mont-Dore areas were described as under control, but security forces, including armoured vehicles, were kept in place.

    “On top of that, there are more marches scheduled for this weekend,” Lecourieux said.

    Pro-independence protesters oppose current plans to have a French Constitutional amendment endorsed by France’s two houses of Parliament.

    As a first step of this Parliamentary process, last week, the Senate endorsed the text, but with some amendments.

    Opposing marches
    Pro-France movements also want to march on the same day in support of the amendment.

    If endorsed, it would allow French citizens to vote at New Caledonia’s local elections, provided they have been residing there for an uninterrupted 10 years.

    Pro-independent parties, however, strongly oppose the project, saying this would be tantamount to making indigenous Kanaks a minority at local polls, and would open the door to a “recolonisation” of New Caledonia through demographics.

    A similar high-risk configuration of two marches took place on March 28 in downtown Nouméa, with more than 500 French security forces deployed to keep both groups away from each other.

    French authorities are understood to be holding meeting after meeting to fine-tune the security setup ahead of the weekend.

    Florent Perrin, the president of Mont-Dore’s “Citizens’ Association”, told media local residents were being “taken hostage” and the unrest “must cease”.

    He urged political authorities to “make decisions on all political and economic issues” New Caledonia currently faces.

    Perrin called on the local population to remain calm, but invited them to “individually lodge complaints” based on “breach of freedom of circulation”.

    “On our side too, tensions are beginning to run high, so we have to remain calm and not respond to those acts of provocation,” he said.

    Pro-independence protesters blockade the village of La Foa on 9 April 2024 - Photo NC la 1ère
    Pro-independence indigenous Kanak protesters in New Caledonia blockade the village of La Foa yesterday. Image: 1ère TV

    The ‘nickel pact’ issue
    The clashes and blockades took place on the same day the local Congress was discussing whether it should give the green light to New Caledonia’s President Louis Mapou to sign the “nickel pact”, worth around 200 million euros (NZ$358 million) in French emergency aid.

    In return, France is asking that New Caledonia’s whole nickel industry should undergo a far-reaching slate of reforms in order to make nickel less expensive and therefore more attractive on the world market.

    The pact aims to salvage New Caledonia’s embattled nickel industry and its three factories — one in the north of the main island, Koniambo (KNS), and two in the south, Société le Nickel (SLN), a subsidiary of French giant Eramet, and Prony Resources.

    KNS’ nickel-processing operations were put in “sleep”, non-productive mode in February after its major financier, Anglo-Swiss Glencore, said it could no longer sustain losses totalling 14 billion euros (NZ$25 billion) over the past 10 years, and that it was now seeking an entity to buy its 49 percent shares.

    The other two companies, SLN and Prony, are also facing huge debts and a severe risk of bankruptcy due to the new nickel conditions on the world market, now dominated by new players such as Indonesia, which produces a much cheaper and abundant metal.

    New ultimatum from Northern Province
    On Tuesday, Northern province President Paul Néaoutyine added further pressure by threatening to suspend all permits for mining activities in his province’s nine sites, where southern nickel companies are also extracting.

    In a release, Néaoutyine made references to payment guarantees deadlines on April 10 that had not been honoured by SLN.

    It is understood SLN’s owner, Eramet, was scheduled to meet in a general meeting in Paris later on Tuesday.

    The French pact — France is also a stakeholder in Eramet — would also help SLN provide longer-term guarantees.

    Southern province President and Les Loyalists (pro-France) party leader Sonia Backès alleged on Tuesday that Néaoutyine wants to do everything he can to shut down SLN and block the nickel pact

    “Now things are very clear — before it was all undercover; now it’s out in the open,” she said.

    “Now we will do everything to maintain SLN, because this means 3000 jobs at stake.”

    Congress dragging its feet
    Yesterday, New Caledonia’s Congress was holding a meeting behind closed doors to again discuss the French pact.

    The Congress decided to postpone its decision and, instead, suggested setting up a “special committee” to further examine the pact and the condition it is tied to, and more generally, “the nickel industry’s current challenges”.

    Opponents to the agreement mainly argue that it would pose a risk of “loss of sovereignty” for New Caledonia on its precious metal resource.

    They also consider the nickel industry stake-holding companies are not committing enough and that, instead, New Caledonia’s government is asked to raise up to US$80 million (NZ$132 million), mainly by way of new taxes imposed on taxpayers.

    Last week, a group of Congressmen, mostly from pro-independence Union Calédonienne, one of the four components of the pro-independence FLNKS, with the backing of one pro-France party, Avenir Ensemble, had a motion adopted to postpone one more time the signing of the pact.

    President Mapou defies pro-independence MPs
    President Louis Mapou, himself from the pro-independence side, urged the supporters of the motion to “let [him] sign” last week during a Congress public sitting.

    “Let’s do it . . .  Authorise us to go at it . . .  What are you afraid of?” he said.

    “Are we afraid of our militants?”

    Mapou said if there was no swift Congress response and support to sign the pact, for which he himself had asked the Congress for endorsement, he would “take [his] responsibility” and go ahead anyway.

    “I will honour the commitment I made to the French State.”

    He said if they wanted to to sanction him with a motion of no confidence to go ahead. He was not afraid of this.

    Mapou also told the pro-independence side in Congress that he believed they khad ept postponing any Congress decision “because you want to engage in negotiations as part of [New Caledonia’s] political agreements”.

    Last week, Backès, who expressed open support for Mapou’s “courage”, told Radio Rythme Bleu she and Mapou had both received death threats.

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

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • PSNA’s Minto slams Peters over ‘bluster’ speech on Gaza at UN

    Asia Pacific Report

    The leader of a New Zealand solidarity group of Palestinian self-determination supporters has accused the country’s Foreign Minister Winston Peters of making a “bluff and bluster” speech at the United Nations that was misleading about inaction at home.

    National chair John Minto of the Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) said in a statement today the Peters speech at the UN General Assembly yesterday was “bluff and bluster . . . [and] a classic case of doing one thing at home and saying another for overseas audiences”.

    He said the speech “fooled nobody” in New Zealand.

    In his UNGA speech, Peters described Israel’s war on Gaza as an “utter catastrophe” and labelled the besieged enclave a “wasteland”.

    He went on to say Israel could “not be under any misconceptions as to its legal obligations”.

    Peters also condemned the use of the veto in the UN Security Council five times to block ceasefire resolutions, and Israel’s continued building of illegal settlements on Palestinian land, saying the “misguided notion” and forced displacement of Palestinians “imperil the two-state solution”.

    Minto admitted that “these were strong words” but he added that they were “meaningless in the context of what the government has failed to do at home”.

    The PSNA chair said Peters had not told his international audience that the New Zealand government had:

    • Refused to stop New Zealand military exports which support Israel’s war on Gaza;
    • Refused (and still refuses) to condemn Israel for any of its war crimes such as collective punishment, the mass slaughter of over 33,000 Palestinians — mostly women and children — the targeting of aid workers and deliberate starvation of Gaza’s Palestinian population;
    • Refused (and still refuses) to call for an immediate permanent ceasefire in Gaza;
    • Refused (and still refuses) to reinstate funding for UNRWA (let alone doubling its funding and bringing forward payments which the government has been urged to do);
    • Refused (and still refuses) to withdraw from the US war to target Yemen which is acting to oppose Israel’s genocide of Palestinians;
    • Refused (and still refuses) to support or join South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice;
    • Refused (and still refuses) to shut down the Israeli Embassy; and
    • Refused (and still refuses) to grant humanitarian visas for Palestinians with family in New Zealand

    “Winston Peters stands with the US/Israel on Gaza in every important respect but has tried to give a different impression to the United Nations,” Minto said.

    “There was nothing in his speech which holds Israel to account for its war crimes — not even a single punctuation mark.

    “It was a Janus-faced performance at the United Nations.”

    UN considers Palestine membership bid
    Meanwhile, Palestine’s ambassador at the United Nations, speaking earlier than Peters, was optimistic about the occupied territory’s bid for full membership at the UN. The bid has been referred to a Security Council committee.

    “This is a historic moment again,” said Ambassador Riyad Mansour.

    The committee is expected to make a decision about Palestine’s status later this month, said Vanessa Frazier, Malta’s UN ambassador.

    Al Jazeera’s Gabriel Elizondo is monitoring the latest developments at UN headquarters.

    He said the last time Palestine’s bid for full UN membership got this far in 2011, it failed primarily because the US threatened to veto it.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • NZ’s Peters criticises Security Council at UN, says Gaza ‘a wasteland’

    RNZ News

    New Zealand Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters has told the United Nations the situation in Gaza is an “utter catastrophe” and criticised the Security Council for failing to act decisively.

    In a speech to the UN General Assembly in New York, Peters said Gaza was a “wasteland” and that New Zealand was “gravely concerned” that Israel may soon launch a military offensive into Rafah.

    Peters condemned Hamas for its terrorist attacks on October 7 and since.

    “All of us here must demand that Hamas release all remaining hostages immediately,” he said.

    But he said the facts on the ground in Gaza were absolutely clear with more than 33,000 people killed, millions displaced and warnings that famine was imminent.

    “Gaza, which was already facing huge challenges before this conflict, is now a wasteland. Worse still, another generation of young Palestinians — already scarred by violence — is being further traumatised.”

    Peters said New Zealand was a longstanding opponent of the use of the veto at the UN.

    Security Council ‘failed by veto’
    “Since the start of the current crisis in Gaza, the veto has been used five times to prevent the Security Council from acting decisively. This has seen the Council fail in its responsibility to maintain international peace and security,” he said.

    Peters acknowledged Israel’s “belated announcements” that it would allow more humanitarian aid into Gaza.

    “Israel must do everything in its power to enable safe, rapid and unimpeded humanitarian access,” he said.

    He called on all parties to comply with Resolution 2728 which demanded an immediate ceasefire for the month of Ramadan, leading to a lasting sustainable ceasefire.

    “Palestinian civilians must not be made to pay the price of defeating Hamas,” he said.

    The risks of the wider region being further drawn into this conflict also remained alarmingly high.

    “We strongly urge regional actors, including Iran, to exercise maximum restraint.

    “Israelis and Palestinians deserve to live in peace and security. There is overwhelming support in the international community — including from New Zealand — for a two-state solution.

    “Achieving this will require serious negotiations by the parties and must involve a Palestinian state.”

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

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.