A young Samoan climate activist says the UN’s new guidance on children’s rights to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment is “the first step to global change”.
The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child have affirmed for the first time that climate change is affecting children’s rights to life, survival and development.
“General Comment No. 26” specifies that countries are responsible not only for protecting children’s rights from immediate harm, but also for foreseeable violations of their rights in the future.
It found the climate emergency, collapse of biodiversity and pervasive pollution “is an urgent and systemic threat to children’s rights globally”.
Children have been at the forefront of the fight against climate change, urging governments and corporations to take action to safeguard their lives and the future, said committee member Philip Jaffé.
Samoan-born Aniva Clarke, 17, is an environmental activist based in New Zealand. She has been a climate advocate since 10 years old.
Amplifying Pacific youth voices
Growing up in Samoa, she helped to amplify Pacific youth voices about climate change.
“Children and young people have been calling on action for so long and I think this is one of the many things and sort of products of that action working.”
Clarke was one of 12 global youth advisors on the inaugural Children’s Advisory Team, established to facilitate youth consultations on children’s rights, the environment and climate change.
She said the comments “create a framework” that hold 196 UN countries to account.
“They have recognised that there is a call and need for action,” she said.
Countries that have ratified the UN Child Rights Convention are urged to take immediate action including towards phasing out fossil fuels and shifting to renewable energy sources, improving air quality, ensuring access to clean water, and protecting biodiversity.
A lot to lose for Pacific nations Clarke said Pacific Island nations had a lot to lose and larger nations responsible for emitting the most carbon emissions must take a stand to preserve the environment for future generations.
“The climate crisis is a child rights crisis,” said Paloma Escudero, UNICEF Special Adviser on Advocacy for Child Rights and Climate Action.
Clarke is worried that future generations are at risk of not only losing their land but their “culture”.
“We lose our ancient traditions … we live off the land but we live for the land,” she said.
For island groups like Tokelau and Tuvalu, which are low lying atolls, if climate change continues, then “those communities risk losing their islands completely”.
The committee received more than 16,000 contributions from children in 121 nations, who shared the effects of environmental degradation and climate change on their lives and communities.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has had a devastating impact on the environment and global food market, particularly in Third World nations (also referred to as the Global South). Several instances of explosions in nuclear facilities, oil refineries and distribution pipelines have greatly contributed to the indiscriminate destruction of crops, agricultural land, and vital infrastructure in the region. Inevitably, such destruction has had an immediate impact on the people’s access to food supply in the North African and Middle Eastern countries that are dependent on the region for the same, leading to an impending food security crisis.
The implications of such destruction is noteworthy due to the information presented by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (‘FAO’), which indicates that 26 countries rely on wheat imports from Russia and Ukraine to fulfil 50% of their wheat requirements. According to data published by the United Nations World Food Programme (‘WFP’), an estimated 6 million children in the Sahel region of Africa remain malnourished, while 16 million individuals residing in urban areas are on the verge of experiencing food insecurity. Moreover, the aforementioned development has elevated the probability of food insecurity within the borders of Russia, and has the potential to trigger a global surge in malnourishment and famine, thereby intensifying concerns for developing nations. Furthermore, it is noteworthy that African nations exhibit a significant dependence on Russia and Ukraine for the procurement of essential agricultural commodities, including wheat, maize, and sunflower seed oil. It is worth mentioning that the Middle East and North African regions alone account for 80% of the wheat export from these countries. India’s annual demand for crude sunflower oil is largely met by Ukraine and Russia, accounting for up to 90% of the supply. The adverse effects of war and drought in certain regions have led to a heightened dependence on imports, exacerbating the potential consequences. Furthermore, the pre-existing risk of food insecurity in these areas compounds the issue. It has caused the agricultural commodity markets to remain highly elevated, even after retreating from their record high in 2022.
In this piece, we discuss that there is a need to establish a legal framework to account for Russia’s extraterritorial responsibility towards the Third World, to assess its violation of its obligation to protect the environment and its violation of the right to food. This framework must be compatible with a Third World Approach to International Law (‘TWAIL’)-centric analysis, as any such analysis would remain incomplete by simply focussing on the rights-rhetoric developed by the First World.
Establishing Russia’s Extraterritorial Responsibility towards the Third World
Russia has an Extraterritorial Obligation towards the Third World, which extends to countries that are not directly involved in the conflict. According to Article(s) 1 and 11 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (‘ICESCR’), the Right to Food has a transnational impact due to the Covenant’s emphasis on transnational cooperation, with no specific provisions on extraterritorial implementation. Further, Principles II-IV of the Maastricht Principles on Extraterritorial Duties of States in the Field of Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (‘ETO Principles’) emphasizes the territory is extended to places outside the State’s own territory if the ICESCR-rights can be influenced outside the state’s borders. According to the UN Committee on World Food Security’s Framework for Action for Food Security and Nutrition in Protracted Crises (‘FFA’), protracted crises may have international, regional, and trans-boundary aspects and impacts, including the presence of refugees. The UN General Assembly Resolution on the Right to Food emphasizes the extraterritorial commitment to respect and protect and urges States to ensure their political and economic actions do not impede the enjoyment of ICESCR rights in other States. The UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food and the UN Committee on World Food Security have been actively publishing reports on the plight of Third World countries due to the lack of food supplies and resources.
Russia has not fulfilled its extraterritorial commitment to provide help to foreign citizens, but indirect assistance is still needed. This has arisen due to its violation of its obligation to respect the right to food. In order to maintain its obligation to respect the right to food, Russia should have considered the effects of its actions on the global population (particularly in the Third World). This evaluation should have concluded that their actions would have calamitous consequences for global food security. Yet, the assaults were carried out, in violation of the universal extraterritorial obligation to respect (particularly in the Third World).
Identifying a TWAIL-centric legal framework to analyse Russia’s Extraterritorial Responsibility towards the Third World
Arguments for extraterritorial responsibility can be placed on Russia, but there is a less likelihood that Russia can be held accountable for its actions. To assess the damage to environment and food security caused by the conflict, it is necessary to identify a relevant standard to assess the damage. The Additional Protocol I (‘AP I’) to the Geneva Convention of 1977 mandates three conditions that must be satisfied during an armed conflict to trigger protection from environmental damage. This includes long-term, severe, and widespread damage to the natural environment by the chosen means of warfare. However, these conditions impose a very high threshold to establish environmental damage, as it only envisages damage towards a population for ten (10) years. In light of this, the Draft Principles on the Protection in Armed Conflict (‘DPPAC’) adopted by the International Law Commission is a more suitable framework to trigger environmental protection under the TWAIL analytical framework. It extends the obligation to protect the environment to all three stages of the armed conflict – before, during, and after. This brings the environmental law standard a step closer to the Third World, as the brunt of the impact, in this case, was borne by them.
The UN Special Rapporteur Report on ‘Conflict and the Right to Food’ highlights the effects of armed conflict on discrimination, inequality, bodily harm, ecological violence, and erasure. This could lead to the gradual ‘invisibilisation’ of such people through a violation of their food sovereignty, leading to their gradual ‘erasure’. The Russian invasion has caused environmental damage that directly impacts the food chain of the Third World and its population. In furtherance to this, access to food would become exclusive to First World citizens in the Third World, creating two classes of people based on their ability to meet basic needs. A legal analysis using a TWAIL analytical framework is necessary to bring international law closer to the ‘people’. Narratives by the global media, actions by States, and enforcement of statutes and obligations by States and International Organizations need to be developed further to provide for an equal space to TWAIL and its related approaches.
The leaders of five Melanesian nations have agreed to write to French President Emmanuel Macron “expressing their strong opposition” to the results of the third New Caledonia referendum.
In December 2021, more than 96 percent of people voted against full sovereignty, but the pro-independence movement FLNKS (Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front) has refused to recognise the result because of a boycott by the Kanak population over the impact of the covid pandemic on the referendum campaign.
Since then, the FLNKS has been seeking international support for its view that the referendum result was not a legitimate outcome.
The Melanesian Spearhead Group leaders — Fiji, Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu and the FLNKS — met in Port Vila last week for the 22nd edition of the Leader’s Summit, where they said “the MSG does not recognise the results of the third referendum on the basis of the PIF’s Observer Report”.
FLNKS spokesperson Victor Tutugoro told RNZ Pacific the pro-independence group had continued to protest against the outcome of the December 2021 referendum.
“We contest the referendum because it was held during the circumstances that was not healthy for us. For example, we went through covid, we lost many members of our families [because of the pandemic],” Tutugoro said.
“We will continue to protest at the ICJ (International Court of Justice) level and at the national level. We expect the MSG to help us fight to get the United Nations to debate the cause of the Kanaks.”
The leaders have agreed that “New Caledonia’s inclusion on the UN List of decolonisation territories is protected and maintained”.
The MSG leaders have also directed the UN permanent representative to “examine and provide advice” so they can seek an opinion from the ICJ “on the results of the third referendum conducted in December 2021”.
FLNKS spokesperson Victor Tutugoro at the 22nd Melanesian Spearhead Group Leaders’ Summit in Port Vila. . . . “We contest the referendum because it was held during the circumstances that was not healthy for us.” Image: RNZ Pacific/Kelvin Anthony
They have also requested that the UN provide a report on the “credibility of the election process, and mandated the MSG UN permanent representatives, working with the MSG Secretariat and the FLNKS, “to pursue options on the legality of the 3rd referendum”.
Support for West Papua New Caledonia’s pro-independence FLNKS movement also said it would continue to back the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP) to become a full member of the Melanesian Spearhead Group.
Tutugoro told the 22nd MSG Leader’s Summit in Port Vila that FLNKS had always supported West Papua’s move to join the MSG family.
He said by becoming a full member of the sub-regional group, FLNKS was able to benefit from international support to counterbalance the weight of France in its struggle for self-determination.
He said the FLNKS hoped the ULMWP would have the same opportunity and in time it could be included on the UN’s list of non-self-governing territories.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
United Liberation Movement for West Papua delegates at last week’s 22nd Melanesian Spearhead Group Leaders’ Summit in Port Vila, Vanuatu. Image: RNZ Pacific/Kelvin Anthony
Elements of Settler Colonialism appear in the Middle East crisis and these elements have been fitted together to obtain the accepted definition. The term is ominous; previous Settler Colonialism operations ended by either indigenous people regaining lands and dignity, as in the African nations, or evolving into the destruction of native people, as occurred in the Americas. Under Settler Colonialism, the fate of the Palestinian people leans heavily in the direction of destruction. No change in the 75-year-old monotonic trajectory of Settler Colonialism is apparent; economic, legal, and physical avenues of contention to the oppression have been explored and none has been successful.
Analyzing the Middle East crisis through the lens of Settler Colonialism reveals the end game of Zionism and how it affected the Palestinian people. It does not tell us how it affected and, still affects, the Jewish people and the entire world. Settler Colonialism is an apt but incomplete term; another layer of narrative exists to complement the established explanation and offers a more accurate description of events.
Portrayed as a vanguard of Jewish thought and aspiration, leading the masses of Jewish people to freedom and fulfilling the promises denied to them by an adversarial world, Zionism is contradicted by history, especially as a mass movement by the Jewish people. A brief and more descriptive narrative of Zionism as an irredentist movement provides an improved analysis of the historical development of the oppression committed upon the Palestinian people and its international effects.
Irredentism
At the Zionist 1897 conference, Theodore Herzl insisted “in the futility of Jewish assimilation and efforts to combat anti-Semitism, promoting instead the idea that Jews should remove themselves from Europe and establish their own independent polity so as to secure their national rights. He proposed an independent state as the solution to the so-called ‘Jewish question’ and laid out a detailed plan for its establishment.”
Contrary to most colonial adventures, the Zionist leader did not proceed with financial assistance from speculative investors interested in exploiting an area for monetary gains, such as The East India Company, which was founded in 1600 and not dissolved until 1874, controlled large parts of the Indian subcontinent and colonized parts of Southeast Asia and Hong Kong. No assistance came from European crowns that managed to gain complete control of other established colonies and sent settlers to populate the lands. These settlers, unlike Israel’s settlers in the West Bank, did not come specifically to dislodge the indigenous people and force them into subsistence; they came at difficult times and from impoverished surroundings as farmers seeking improved lives and interested in owning and working their own land.
Herzl proceeded from another avenue for advancing his Zionist agenda ─ Irredentism, a form of ultra-nationalism. Irredentism is
…the theory and sometimes practice of restoring territories that are claimed to have once belonged to a (usually ethnic or ethnoreligious) nation.
…the belief that part of the nation finds itself outside the state borders and needs to be not only “freed,” but “redeemed” from foreign influence. As such, irredentism relies on myths of the nation’s geographical, linguistic, and historical unity.
Included in irredentism is the forceful replacement of indigenous people who are not part of the irredentist polity. Zionism may have developed tracings of Settler Colonialism but it was always and still remains irredentist, with a pernicious dictate to extend borders and gather flock. How pernicious is Irredentism? Nazi Germany’s irredentist policies towards Czechoslovakia and Poland precipitated World War II. Russian President Putin has irredentism in his plans.
Sidetracked from history is that a preponderance of Jews never gave much attention to the original Zionist proposal. Zionists were a small group of disaffected Jews.
Reform Judaism in a series of proclamations, which culminated in the 1885 Pittsburgh Conference, rejected the Zionist program (Note: Overturned in 1999 by contemporary Reform Judaism):
We consider ourselves no longer a nation, but a religious community; and we therefore expect neither a return to Palestine, nor a sacrificial worship under the sons of Aaron, nor the restoration of any of the laws concerning a Jewish state.
Unwaveringly secularist in its beliefs, the Russian Bund discarded the idea of a Holy Land and a sacred tongue. Its language was Yiddish, spoken by millions of Jews throughout the Pale. This was also the source of the organization’s four principles: socialism, secularism, Yiddish, and doyikayt or localness. The latter concept was encapsulated in the Bund slogan: “There, where we live, that is our country.” The Bund disapproved greatly of Zionism and considered the idea of emigrating to Palestine to be political escapism.
The 19th-century emancipation movements liberated West and Middle European Jews and permitted them to integrate into European society. Jews participated in political, social, financial, educational, and creative life. With Jews becoming well represented in educational institutions and government positions, becoming well known in all cultural representations — music, art, theatre, and writing — and managing to become successful wage earners in many avenues of employment, the Zionist case that “Jews could never satisfactorily integrate into western nations” became more dubious with each passing day.
A perception that Jewish emancipation meant a loss of Jewish identity and a slow decrease in followers of Judaism motivated the Zionists to “remove themselves from Europe.“ Jews rejected an agenda that prompted nations to question their loyalty, impeded their advances, and reinforced a race-baiting theory that Jews engaged in international conspiracies. Anti-Zionist Rabbis insisted: “Zion exists everywhere but in Zion.”
Examine the Russian Jews. They had significantly more problems than other European Jews and did not consider Zionism as a relief for their difficulties. Between 1881 and 1914, 2.5 million Jews migrated from Russia — 1.7 million to America, 500,000 to Western Europe, and almost 300,000 to other nations. Until 1914, only a mere 30,000 – 50,000 Russian Jews followed the Zionist call to Palestine and 15,000 of them eventually returned to Russia.
The Zionists had no reasonable narrative to pursue their objective; just unproven and fantastic propositions that scattered Jewish communities throughout the world, who spoke different languages, had different histories, exhibited different cultures, had different mores, ate different foods, and practiced different customs, constituted a nation and sought an ingathering. Highlighting the Zionist spurious irredentism tells the contemporary world, Jewish and non-Jewish, that Zionism is a retrograde philosophy, based on racism and falsehoods, was forcibly rejected by a resolute and clear-minded Jewish community, managed to subvert much of contemporary Judaism, and made the Jewish people a party to the destruction of the Palestinian people. At the beginning of World War I, Zionism was a moribund enterprise; at the end of World War I, it came alive again.
Revival
Western affinity to Settler Colonialism propelled organizations to revive irredentist Zionism and further its acceptance on the international stage. The “who asked for it” 1917 Balfour Declaration informed the world that “His Majesty’s Government views with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.”
At the 1919 Paris Peace Conference, arranged to finalize peace terms and end World War I, the “who asked for them” World Zionist Organization was invited (or did they invite themselves) and presented their concept, complete with map, for a Jewish homeland in Palestine.
The European Zionists claimed all the aquifers, territory from the Sinai to the Litani River in Lebanon, and the land from the Mediterranean Sea to almost Amman, Jordan. Based on what?
Zionist intrusion into post-World War I affairs occurred again at the April 19-26, 1920 San Remo Conference, where the victors met and determined the precise boundaries for territories captured by the Allies. Injected into the conference declaration was that, “The Mandatory will be responsible for putting into effect the declaration originally made on November 8, 1917, by the British Government, and adopted by the other Allied Powers, in favour of the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.”
All this occurred, despite the recommendation of President Wilson’s King-Crane commission, “that the Zionists looked forward to a practically complete dispossession of the present non-Jewish inhabitants of Palestine, by various forms of purchase. In view of all these considerations, and with a deep sense of sympathy for the Jewish cause, the Commissioners feel bound to recommend that only a greatly reduced Zionist program be attempted by the Peace Conference, and even that, only very gradually initiated.” Why were President Wilson’s King-Crane Commission’s recommendations overlooked? For an inexplicable reason, its 1919 report was not released until 1922.
Regardless of its more welcoming presence on the international stage, Zionism still did not gather abundant adherents. Its initial appearance of Jewish settlers establishing colonies and working the soil was fading. In 1920, after the Zionist population had grown to 60,000 in a Palestine composed of 585,000 Arabs, a reporter noted that earlier settlers felt uncomfortable with the later immigrants. They were less willing to work in agriculture and had no ability to live off the available land. From Zionist Aspirations in Palestine, Anstruther Mackay, originally published in The Atlantic Monthly, July 1920.
It may not be generally known, but a goodly number of the Jewish dwellers in the land are not anxious to see a large immigration into the country. This is partly due to the fear that the result of such immigration would be an overcrowding of the industrial and agricultural market; but a number of the more respectable older settlers have been disgusted by the recent arrivals in Palestine of their coreligionists, unhappy individuals from Russia and Romania brought in under the auspices of the Zionist Commission from the cities of Southeastern Europe, and neither able nor willing to work at agriculture or fruit-farming.
Without going into deep detail, it remains unproven that the mass of worldwide Jewry supported Zionism and that those who arrived in the “promised land” did it as Zionists doing Aliyah (immigration of Jews from the diaspora to the land of Israel). Jews came to the Mandate as employees of the British administration, temporary refugees (Nazi Germany), displaced persons looking for any home (post WWII), exiles from Arab nations due to Zionist actions (Mizrahi), and people seeking an improved economic situation from their depressed surroundings (Soviet refugees, many of whom are dubious Jews). Way back in 2007, The Economist (Jan.11, 2007) reported that only 17% of American Jews regard themselves as pro-Zionist and only 57% say that “caring about Israel is a very important part of being Jewish.”
Ultra-orthodox Jews, who came for messianic reasons and not to join their secular compatriots in common pursuits, are the fastest-growing segment of the Israeli Jewish population. More aligned with Rabbis preaching mystical nineteenth-century philosophies, these Jews isolate themselves from their fellow Israelis and worldwide Jewry.
By partitioning Palestine into a Palestinian state and a Jewish state, the meaningless and misunderstood United Nations (UN) Proclamation 181 completed the Western version of Settler Colonialism. UN Proclamation 181 is meaningless because, if the international community wanted a legitimate vote on how to resolve the Palestine issue, it would have polled the people living in the area and are affected by the proclamation and not gather votes from those who had no interest in the situation and found the best way to decide their votes was by “open palms.”
Misunderstanding UN Proclamation 181 comes from the belief that it created two states. Because neither state had official names at that time, the designations of Arab and Jewish states were used to map out the contours of the land where the major portions of the ethnicities lived. The UN did not create two states; it divided one Palestinian state into two Palestinian states ─ a Palestinian state composed of almost 100 percent Palestinians and another Palestinian state composed of about 70 percent Palestinians who were native to the area for generations (400,000 ) and a smaller contingent of foreign Jews and children (100,000-200,000) that had come as Zionists to live permanently in Palestine. Another larger contingent of foreign Jews, about 300,000 to 400,000, had arrived only one to two decades before the UN Proclamation, had little investment in the surroundings, and did not have clear intentions of remaining. By including immigrants who had no “skin in the game” and were hoping to be able to leave, the UN inflated the population statistics in favor of the Zionists.
The UN inquiry committee, which proposed the two separate states, displayed a lack of knowledge of what constituted a nation-state. After the decline of imperial rule, nation-states rose from strong leaders binding peoples of similar linguistic, cultural, social, and historical backgrounds into a national entity. All of the peoples had lived in a contiguous area for generations, Palestinians had the credentials to become a nation-state; the Jews, who spoke different languages, had differing social and historical backgrounds, came from different areas, and had been in the region for a short time, did not have the attachments to form a nation-state.
Without giving attention to the 400,000 Palestinians in a bi-national state, David Ben-Gurion and a small clique of opportunists took advantage of an ill-advised UN, an ill-led, and ill-equipped Palestinian community, and a confused world to declare unilaterally their own state. Seasoned militia forces — Haganah, Irgun, Lehi, and Palmach — cleansed the area of Palestinians and established a state composed almost entirely of imported Jewish people. At this historical moment, the Zionists pondered, “Why are we here?”
The irredentism had not “restored territories that are reclaimed for a Jewish nation.” It collected cultural, political, revisionist, labor, reform, revolutionary, and religious Zionists, who fought a conflict among themselves, and disparate groups of people, especially after the influx of the Mizrahi from Arab nations, who did not comprehend one another and, in some quarters treated each other with disgust. The lack of consensus enabled a combination of revisionist, revolutionary, and religious Zionists to take control. Knowing that Israel could not survive with a diverse Jewish population, the self-imposed leaders sought an integral and unified people. To obtain that objective, Israel created the new Jew, the Israel Jew. In Israel, the contemporary and multi-faceted Jews disappeared from history.
A new people
The Middle East and North African Jews who came to Israel were Arabs; the Ashkenazi were European; the Falasha were Ethiopians; and the Yemenites were from the Arabian Peninsula. Israel replaced the different languages, dialects, music, cultures, and heritage of these ethnicities with unique and uniform characteristics, and created a new people, the Israeli Jews who spoke a new language, modern Hebrew. Destruction of centuries-old Jewish history and life in Tunisia, Iraq, Libya, and Egypt accompanied the creation of the new people. The Zionists, who complained about the persecution of Jews, wiped out Jewish history, determined who was Jewish, and required all Jews to shed much of their ancestral characteristics before they could integrate into the Israel community.
Reworking the concept of who is a Jew resolved Israel’s integration problem. Irredentism had been mostly satisfied. Bringing remaining worldwide Jewry under a national umbrella required no thought; just extend irredentism across the oceans.
A new land
Ancient Israel was home to ancient Jews. The area that is now Israel was not the ancient home of modern Jews. When ethnicities speak of an ancient home, they speak, such as from the voices of Native Americans, of caring for the land and hunting grounds, for attachment to a soil that nourished them, and with intimate knowledge of ancestors. They may look back at a recognized civilization that gave the world new advances in technology, culture, warfare, administration, or other disciplines and left identifiable physical traces that excite mankind. Modern Jews have no attachment to a soil, no memories of an advanced civilization, no honest attraction to an ancient land, and do not have intimate knowledge of ancestors. The Zionists had no original investment in the area, no physical attachment to the area, and no care for its surroundings. The Palestinians had 100 percent “skin in the game;” they cherished every olive tree their ancestors planted centuries ago, every orange tree that gave aroma to their surroundings, and all the ground eggplant for the baba ganoush they ate.
Zionist irredentism was concerned with the folk; it did not express concern for the land. Keeping biblical names as a subterfuge, Israel turned the land under the biblical names into an extension of northern Europe. In “beloved” Judah, and Samaria, imported pine trees dotted the landscape, hundreds of year-old olive groves were torched, dormitory towns replaced the green hilltops, and super highways paved over the quaint roads. In Israel, forests hid dynamited picturesque villages. Jerusalem, with its train, mall, contrived City of David, proposed cable car, and falsified tourist attractions became a theme park.
A non-state irredentism
Bring Israel’s characteristics together — no fully defined borders, no constitution, nationality dependent on ethnicity, sketchy laws, an unrecognized capital city, failure to respect UN resolutions, severe human rights violations, chaotic political system, biased immigration policy, committing a great number of extra-judicial killings that violate the sovereignty of other nations, and a large number of citizens living outside the country — and the conclusion is that Israel has trappings of a nation but has not evolved from its Zionist ideology to a developed nation-state. Even if it incorporates all of the West Bank and the Golan into a desired perimeter and self-defines its borders, the international community might not recognize Israel’s self-declared borders. Without recognized borders, where is sovereignty asserted? Without respect for international law, how can international legitimacy be claimed? Does Israel want to be a defined nation-state?
By lacking the institutions that define a legally constituted nation-state, Israel remains unidentified, leaving its classification as a combination of a military state, tribal state, theocracy, supercharged council, and a highly refined association of collective minds, all of which are consistent with a lack of constitutional rule.
Israel never established an Israeli nationality and gave its citizens unique nationalities, one of which is a Jewish nationality. The Nation State Law allows all Jews in the world to be part of a Jewish nation without having Israeli citizenship. This Law established a privileged Jewish community, governed by communal administration, with an extension to Jews in other nations, who can align themselves with Israeli society. Israel has become an atavistic revival to a tribal form of governance, where borders and boundaries are not fixed. Zionist irredentism has been extended across oceans and to nations throughout the world.
Conclusion
Defining Zionism as an Irredentist movement and subjugation of the Palestinians as a result of irredentism is not mere polemics; it is the most essential feature in understanding the past, present, and future of the crises that Zionism has caused. Woven into this history is the exposure of what faces those who seek peace and justice — corrupt leaders who have no care in attending to the obvious violence that irredentism brings, weak institutions that act as tools for the manipulators of society, and passive populations that are easily deceived.
From its inception, as an irredentist philosophy in the minds of Theodor Herzl and his followers, Zionism should have defeated itself. Visions of a solidified Jewish people, subjected, as Herzl imagined from the Dreyfuss case, to constant oppressive forces and prepared to return to their previous land were contradicted by a disparate worldwide Jewry who knew little of one another, 300 Jewish officers in the French army and no harmful attacks on French Jews from the day that Napoleon gained power, Jews knowing of the Hebrews only from the Old Testament and myths and not from historical documents, and the mass of Jews showing no interest and even knowledge of Zionism. After 2.5 million Jews replied to the Zionist ingathering by migrating from Russia to Western Europe and the United States, irredentist Zionism became a spectacle directed by a select few, in search of actors and an audience. A defeated Zionism found a sponsor in those who observed a way to use Zionism to exploit others.
World War One’s ferocity and killing rate shocked the world, but Western nations, especially Great Britain, gave little attention to the dangers of violence that succeeds irredentism and continued the route that leads to eventual conflict. Governments surmised that a continued Western presence in Palestine may have future economic and political benefits and that Western civilization would advance the backward peoples of the Middle East. Zionism was unleashed on the people in the Levant.
The United Nations had an opportunity to halt the irredentism that was flowing from west to east and, instead, demonstrated that the world’s peoples have little hope in achieving peace and justice. The international body, organized to maintain peace and stability in the world, voted to proceed with irredentism and the violence it brings to others. Within one year of UN Resolution 181, the Zionists decimated the Palestinian community, and the UN, which shared responsibility for the massacres, showed no capability of rectifying the mistake. Three years after the establishment of the United Nations, the UN set the stage for its future endeavors — assist the Western powers in maintaining hegemony in the world, regardless of the havoc it causes and the damage it inflicts on innocent peoples.
Unlike previous irredentist movements, Zionist irredentism extends beyond borders and is a never-ending process. Tel Aviv is everywhere and everywhere is Tel Aviv. Western nations and their peoples pay for Israel’s military needs, associates abroad advertise and schedule tourism for Israel, and Western Jews gain dual citizenship, which enables them to move back and forth between their birth country and their adopted country, bringing vital information and funds to Israel while influencing voting patterns and manipulating media information in their birth countries.
Israel’s tribal and non-state appearance portends dangerous consequences. What has happened to the “Westphalian system?” Can Pakistan erase its border with Kashmir and hint that Kashmir is part of Pakistan? Will President Putin point to Zionist irredentism and Israel’s tribal appearance as an accepted example of why Russia considers all Russians in the Baltics and Central Asian countries an integral part of the Russian nation? Imagine other minorities in the United States — Mexican, Cuban, Chinese, and Russian — gaining dual citizenship and using their birth nation to promote their adopted nations. Are we going back to tribal rule?
One hundred and thirty years after its inception, irredentist Zionism has a commanding presence in the world, and Western populations permit Israel to incorporate them in the oppression of the Palestinian people and to skew their societies. Valiant efforts to change the situation have failed and the question remains, “What can be done to halt and reverse the Zionist irredentism?” This gigantic subject will be discussed in a near future article. Hopefully, a direction will unfold to bring about the defeat of Zionism.
The leader of the Free Papua Movement (OPM) has called for the establishment of a “United Indigenous Nations” for global justice and an end to Indonesia’s ‘malignant’ colonisation of West Papua.
OPM chairman and commander Jeffrey Bomanak said such a new global indigenous body would “not repeat the failure of the United Nations in denying any people their freedom”.
OPM leader Jeffrey Bomanak . . . “The integrity of indigenous peoples is not for sale”. Image: OPM
“The integrity of indigenous peoples is not for sale,” he said in a stinging statement to mark the international day.
He offered an “independent” West Papua as host for the proposed United Indigenous Nations to lead international governance with an international forum representing — for the first time — the principled values and ideals of indigenous and First Nations peoples who were the “true guardians of our ancestral motherlands”.
He criticised the UN’s lack of action over decolonisation for indigenous peoples, blaming the body for allowing the “predatory destruction of the world caused by the economic multinational imperialists and their unsustainable greed”.
“Centuries-old marginalisation and other varying vulnerabilities are some of the reasons why indigenous peoples do not have the same possibilities of access to education, health system, or digital communications.”
And also:
“Violations of the rights of the world’s indigenous peoples have become a persistent problem, sometimes because of a historical burden from their colonisation backgrounds and others because of the contrast with a constantly changing society.”
Bomanak said that while these two quotes read well, they were “misrepresentative of the truth that has been West Papua’s tragic experience with the United Nations”.
‘Disingenuous manipulation’
“The facts are that the UN has prevented West Papua’s right to decolonisation through a disingenuous manipulation of the Cold War events of the 1960s,” he said.
“Indonesia’s invasion and illegal annexation of West Papua remains a malignancy in principle and diplomacy only matched by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But with different diplomatic outcomes applied by the UN Secretariat.
“The UN Secretariat acts with incredulous diplomatic effrontery to allegations of collusion and complicity with a host of other predatory nations, all eager to plunder West Papua’s natural resources — the world’s greatest El Dorado.”
He singled out Australia, China, France, Germany, Russia, United Kingdom and the United States for criticism.
Indigenous people knew the story of West Papua from their own experience with the same predatory nations and the “same prejudicial and corrupt geopolitics” that characterised the UN, Bomanak said.
“G20 conquerors and colonisers have never put down their swords and guns. They have never stopped conquering and colonising, either by military invasion or economic imperialism.
“They will never understand the indigenous perception of ancestral custodianship of our lands.
“The defence forces and militia groups of G20 nations still murder us in our beds and our beds are burning.”
Conflict of interest
The UN could not stop “global melting” because it was a conflict of interest with the “G20
business-as-usual paradigm of economic exploitation” fueling expansion economies.
“They will not stop until all our ancestral lands are one infertile wasteland. The UN is unable to resolve this self-defeating dynamic,” Bomanak said.
“The UN should be a democratic, progressive and 100 percent accountable institution. This is not West Papua’s experience.
“Six decades ago, the UN should have fulfilled the decolonisation of West Papua for the commencement of our nation-state sovereignty. Instead, we were sold to the highest bidders — Indonesia and the American mining company Freeport McMoRan.”
The problem with international diplomacy was that the UN was “beholden to the G20’s vested interests” and its formal meeting place in New York, Bomanak claimed.
“Why remain inside the belly of the beast?” he asked other indigenous peoples.
“Upon liberation of our ancestral motherland, and upon the agreement of the new government of West Papua, I would like to offer all colonised tribes and nations of the conquering empires — all indigenous peoples — the opportunity to manage our international affairs with absolute justice and accountability.
“International relations with indigenous governance for indigenous people. We will build the United Indigenous Nations in West Papua.”
International art project will visit Manchester, where 30 people will be tattooed with one letter of 1948 UN document
Thirty people in Manchester will have one letter of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights tattooed on them as part of an international art project arriving in the UK for the first time.
The project intends to tattoo the 1948 document on to the skins of 6,773 people, one letter at a time. The tattoos are 1cm squared, and people aged between 18 and 30 in the UK have been invited to submit applications to participate.
Bassim Al Shaker (Iraq), Symphony of Death 1, 2019
The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) held its annual summit on 11–12 July in Vilnius, Lithuania. The communiqué released after the first day’s proceedings claimed that ‘NATO is a defensive alliance’, a statement that encapsulates why many struggle to grasp its true essence. A look at the latest military spending figures shows, to the contrary, that NATO countries, and countries closely allied to NATO, account for nearly three-quarters of the total annual global expenditure on weapons. Many of these countries possess state-of-the-art weapons systems, which are qualitatively more destructive than those held by the militaries of most non-NATO countries. Over the past quarter century, NATO has used its military might to destroy several states, such as Afghanistan (2001) and Libya (2011), shattering societies with the raw muscle of its aggressive alliance, and end the status of Yugoslavia (1999) as a unified state. It is difficult, given this record, to sustain the view that NATO is a ‘defensive alliance’.
Currently, NATO has thirty-one member states, the most recent addition being Finland, which joined in April 2023. Its membership has more than doubled since its twelve founding members, all countries in Europe and North America that had been part of the war against the Axis powers, signed its founding treaty (the Washington Treaty or the North Atlantic Treaty) on 4 April 1949. It is telling that one of these original members – Portugal – remained under a fascist dictatorship at the time, known as Estado Novo (in place from 1933 until 1974).
Article 10 of this treaty declares that NATO members – ‘by unanimous agreement’ – can ‘invite any other European state’ to join the military alliance. Based on that principle, NATO welcomed Greece and Turkey (1952), West Germany (1955), and Spain (1982), expanding its membership at the time to include sixteen countries. The disintegration of the USSR and communist states in Eastern Europe – the purported threat that compelled the need for NATO to begin with – did not put an end to the need for the alliance. Instead, NATO’s increasing membership has doubled down on its ambition to use its military power, through Article 5, to subdue anyone who challenges the ‘Atlantic Alliance’.
Nino Morbedadze (Georgia), Strolling Couple, 2017.
The ‘Atlantic Alliance’, a phrase that is part of NATO’s name, was part of a wider network of military treaties secured by the US against the USSR and, after October 1949, against the People’s Republic of China. This network included the Manila Pact of September 1954, which created the Southeast Asian Treaty Organisation (SEATO), and the Baghdad Pact of February 1955, which created the Central Treaty Organisation (CENTO). Turkey and Pakistan signed a military agreement in April 1954 which brought them together in an alliance against the USSR and anchored this network through NATO’s southernmost member (Turkey) and SEATO’s westernmost member (Pakistan). The US signed a military deal with each of the members of CENTO and SEATO and ensured that it had a seat at the table in these structures.
At the Asian-African Conference held in Bandung, Indonesia in April 1955, India’s Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru reacted strongly to the creation of these military alliances, which exported tensions between the US and the USSR across Asia. The concept of NATO, he said, ‘has extended itself in two ways’: first, NATO ‘has gone far away from the Atlantic and has reached other oceans and seas’ and second, ‘NATO today is one of the most powerful protectors of colonialism’. As an example, Nehru pointed to Goa, which was still held by fascist Portugal and whose grip had been validated by NATO members – an act, Nehru said, of ‘gross impertinence’. This characterisation of NATO as a global belligerent and defender of colonialism remains intact, with some modifications.
Slobodan Trajković (Yugoslavia), The Flag, 1983.
SEATO was disbanded in 1977, partly due to the defeat of the US in Vietnam, and CENTO was shuttered in 1979, precisely due to the Iranian Revolution that year. US military strategy shifted its focus from wielding these kinds of pacts to establishing a direct military presence with the founding of US Central Command in 1983 and the revitalisation of the US Pacific Command that same year. The US expanded the power of its own global military footprint, including its ability to strike anywhere on the planet due to its structure of military bases and armed flotillas (which were no longer restricted once the 1930 Second London Naval Treaty expired in 1939). Although NATO has always had global ambitions, the alliance was given material reality through the US military’s force projection and its creation of new structures that further tied allied states into its orbit (with programmes such as ‘Partnership for Peace’, set up in 1994, and concepts such as ‘global NATO partner’ and ‘non-NATO ally’, as exemplified by Japan and South Korea). In its 1991 Strategic Concept, NATO wrote that it would ‘contribute to global stability and peace by providing forces for United Nations missions’, which was realised with deadly force in Yugoslavia (1999), Afghanistan (2003), and Libya (2011).
By the Riga Summit (2006), NATO was confident that it operated ‘from Afghanistan to the Balkans and from the Mediterranean Sea to Darfur’. Nehru’s focus on colonialism might seem anachronistic now, but, in fact, NATO has become an instrument to blunt the global majority’s desire for sovereignty and dignity, two key anti-colonial concepts. Any popular project that exerts these two concepts finds itself at the end of a NATO weapons system.
Shefa Salem al-Baraesi (Libya), Kaska, Dance of War, 2020.
The collapse of the USSR and the Eastern European communist state system transformed Europe’s reality. NATO quickly ignored the ‘ironclad guarantees’ offered by US Secretary of State James Baker to Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze in Moscow on 9 February 1990 that NATO’s ‘forces would not move eastward’ of the German border. Several states that bordered the NATO zone suffered greatly in the immediate period after the fall of the Berlin Wall, with economies in the doldrums as privatisation eclipsed the possibility for their populations to live with dignity. Many states in Eastern Europe, desperate to enter the European Union (EU), which at least promised access to the common market, understood that entry into NATO was the price of admission. In 1999, Czechia, Hungary, and Poland joined NATO, followed in 2004 by the Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania), Bulgaria, Romania, Slovenia, and Slovakia. Eager for investments and markets, by 2004 many of these countries waltzed into the Atlantic Alliance of NATO and the EU.
NATO continued to expand, absorbing Albania and Croatia in 2009, Montenegro in 2017, and North Macedonia in 2020. However, the breakdown of some US banks, the waning attraction of the US as the market of last resort, and the entry of the Atlantic world into a relentless economic depression after 2007 changed the context. No longer were Atlantic states reliable as investors or as markets. After 2008, infrastructure investment in the EU declined by 75% due to reduced public spending, and the European Investment Bank warned that government investment would hit a twenty-five-year low.
ArtLords (including Kabir Mokamel, Abdul Hakim Maqsodi, Meher Agha Sultani, Omaid Sharifi, Yama Farhard, Negina Azimi, Enayat Hikmat, Zahid Amini, Ali Hashimi, Mohammad Razeq Meherpour, Abdul Razaq Hashemi, and Nadima Rustam), The Unseen Afghanistan, 2021.
The arrival of Chinese investment and the possibility of integration with the Chinese economy began to reorient many economies, particularly in Central and Eastern Europe, away from the Atlantic. In 2012, the first summit between China and central and eastern European countries (China–CEEC summit) was held in Warsaw (Poland), with sixteen countries in the region participating. The process eventually drew in fifteen NATO members, including Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czechia, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia (in 2021 and 2022, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania withdrew from the initiative). In March 2015, six then-EU member states – France, Germany, Italy, Luxemburg, Sweden, and the UK – joined the Beijing-based Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. Four years later, Italy became the first G7 country to join the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Two-thirds of EU member states are now part of the BRI, and the EU concluded the Comprehensive Agreement on Investment in 2020.
These manoeuvres towards China threatened to weaken the Atlantic Alliance, with the US describing the country as a ‘strategic competitor’ in its 2018 National Defense Strategy – a phrase indicative of its shifting focus on the so-called threat of China. Nonetheless, as recently as November 2019, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said that ‘there [are] no plans, no proposal, no intention to move NATO into, for instance, the South China Sea’. However, by 2020, the mood had changed: a mere seven months later, Stoltenberg said, ‘NATO does not see China as the new enemy or an adversary. But what we see is that the rise of China is fundamentally changing the global balance of power’. NATO’s response has been to work with its partners – including Australia, Japan, New Zealand, and South Korea – ‘to address… the security consequences of the rise of China’, Stoltenberg continued. The talk of a global NATO and an Asian NATO is front and centre in these deliberations, with Stoltenberg stating in Vilnius that the idea of a liaison office in Japan is ‘on the table’.
The war in Ukraine provided new life to the Atlantic Alliance, driving several hesitant European countries – such as Sweden – into its ranks. Yet, even amongst people living within NATO countries there are groups who are sceptical of the alliance’s aims, with the Vilnius summit marked by anti-NATO protests. The Vilnius Summit Communiqué underlined Ukraine’s path into NATO and sharpened NATO’s self-defined universalism. The communiqué declares, for instance, that China challenges ‘our interests, security, and values’, with the word ‘our’ claiming to represent not only NATO countries but the entire international order. Slowly, NATO is positioning itself as a substitute for the UN, suggesting that it – and not the actual international community – is the arbiter and guardian of the world’s ‘interests, security, and values’. This view is contested by the vast majority of the world’s peoples, seven billion of whom do not even reside in NATO’s member countries (whose total population is less than one billion). Those billions wonder why it is that NATO wants to supplant the United Nations.
Rishi Sunak’s legislation faces criticism as barge that will house asylum seekers arrives in Portland
Rishi Sunak’s migration bill “will have profound consequences for people in need of international protection”, a UN body has warned, as protesters greeted the arrival of the first barge that will house asylum seekers under government plans.
The criticism followed Monday night’s crushing of the final resistance in the House of Lords to the plans, as the Conservative frontbench saw off five further changes to the bill including modern slavery protections and child detention limits.
A joint submission by the American Bar Association Center for Human Rights, the Committee to Protect Journalists, and Freedom House for the 44th Session of the Universal Periodic Review Working Group, November 2023.
The Akosombo Dam in the Volta River, inaugurated in 1965 during Kwame Nkrumah’s presidency.
In June, the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Solutions Network published its Sustainable Development Report 2023, which tracks the progress of the 193 member states towards attaining the seventeen Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). ‘From 2015 to 2019’, the network wrote, ‘the world made some progress on the SDGs, although this was already vastly insufficient to achieve the goals. Since the outbreak of the pandemic in 2020 and other simultaneous crises, SDG progress has stalled globally’. This development agenda was adopted in 2015, with targets intended to be met by 2030. However, halfway to this deadline, the report noted that ‘all of the SDGs are seriously off track’. Why are the UN member states unable to meet their SDG commitments? ‘At their core’, the network said, ‘the SDGs are an investment agenda: it is critical that UN member states adopt and implement the SDG stimulus and support a comprehensive reform of the global financial architecture’. However, few states have met their financial obligations. Indeed, to realise the SDG agenda, the poorer nations would require at least an additional $4 trillion in investment per year.
No development is possible these days, as most of the poorer nations are in the grip of a permanent debt crisis. That is why the Sustainable Development Report 2023 calls for a revision of the credit rating system, which paralyses the ability of countries to borrow money (and when they are able to borrow, it is at rates significantly higher than those given to richer countries). Furthermore, the report calls on the banking system to revise liquidity structures for poorer countries, ‘especially regarding sovereign debt, to forestall self-fulfilling banking and balance-of-payments crises’.
It is essential to place the sovereign debt crisis at the top of discussions on development. The UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) estimates that ‘the public debt of developing countries, excluding China, reached $11.5 trillion in 2021’. That same year, developing countries paid $400 billion to service their debt – more than twice the amount of official development aid they received. Most countries are not borrowing money to invest in their populations, but to pay off the bondholders, which is why we consider this not financing for development but financing for debt-servicing.
The TAZARA Railway (or Uhuru Railway), connecting the East African countries of Tanzania and Zambia, was funded by China, constructed by Chinese and African workers, and completed in 1975.
Reading the UN and academic literature on development is depressing. The conversation is trapped by the strictures of the intractable and permanent debt crisis. Whether the issue of debt is highlighted or ignored, its existence forecloses the possibility of any genuine advance for the world’s peoples. Conclusions of reports often end with a moral call – this is what should happen – rather than an assessment of the situation based on the facts of the neocolonial structure of the world economy: developing countries, with rich holdings of resources, are unable to earn just prices for their exports, which means that they do not accumulate sufficient wealth to industrialise with their own population’s well-being in mind, nor can they finance the social goods required for their population. Due to this suffocation from debt, and due to the impoverishment of academic development theory, no effective general theoretical orientation has been provided to guide realistic and holistic development agendas, and no outlines seem readily available for an exit from the permanent debt-austerity cycle.
Collage of the Aswan High Dam (Egypt), Bhilai Steel Plant (India), and the Eisenhüttenstadt high-rise housing project (German Democratic Republic).
At Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, we are eager to open a discussion about the need for a new socialist development theory – one that is built from the projects being pursued by peoples’ movements and progressive governments. As part of that discussion, we offer our latest dossier, The World Needs a New Socialist Development Theory, which surveys the terrain of development theory from 1945 to the present and offers a few gestures towards a new paradigm. As we note in the dossier:
Starting with the facts would require an acknowledgement of the problems of debt and deindustrialisation, the reliance upon primary product exports, the reality of transfer pricing and other instruments employed by multinational corporations to squeeze the royalties from the exporting states, the difficulties of implementing new and comprehensive industrial strategies, and the need to build the technological, scientific, and bureaucratic capacities of populations in most of the world. These facts have been hard to overcome by governments in the Global South, although now – with the emergence of the new South-South institutions and China’s global initiatives – these governments have more choices than in decades past and are no longer as dependent on the Western-controlled financial and trade institutions. These new realities demand the formulation of new development theories, new assessments of the possibilities of and pathways to transcending the obstinate facts of social despair. In other words, what has been put back on the table is the necessity for national planning and regional cooperation as well as the fight to produce a better external environment for finance and trade.
Anshan Iron and Steel Company was renovated and expanded as one of the 156 construction projects in China that was supported by the Soviet Union in the 1950s.
A recent conversation in Berlin with our partners at International Research Centre DDR (IF DDR) led to the realisation that this dossier failed to engage with the debates and discussions around the development that took place in the Soviet Union, the German Democratic Republic (DDR), Yugoslavia, and the broader international communist movement. As early as the Second Congress of the Communist International, held in Moscow in 1920, communists began to formulate a theory of ‘non-capitalist development’ (NCD) for societies that had been colonised and integrated into the capitalist world economy while still retaining pre-capitalist forms of production and social hierarchy. The general understanding of NCD was that post-colonial societies could circumvent capitalism and advance through a national-democratic process to socialism. NCD theory, which was developed at international conferences of communist and workers’ parties and elaborated upon by Soviet scholars such as Rostislav A. Ulyanovsky and Sergei Tiulpanov in journals like the World Marxist Review, was centred on three transformations:
Agrarian reform, to lift the peasantry out of its condition of destitution and to break the power of landlords.
The nationalisation of key economic sectors, such as industry and trade, to restrict the power of foreign monopolies.
The democratisation of political structures, education, and healthcare to lay the socio-political foundations for socialism.
Unlike the import-substitution industrialisation policy advanced by institutions such as the UN Economic Commission for Latin America, NCD theory had a much firmer understanding of the need to democratise society rather than to merely turn around the terms of trade. IF DDR’s ‘Friendship’ series features a powerful recounting of the practical application of NCD theory in Mali during the 1960s in an article written by Matthew Read. IF DDR and Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research will be working on a comprehensive study of NCD theory.
Page from Usul al-‘Adl li-Wullat al-Umur wa-Ahl al-Fadl wa-al-Salatin (‘The Administration of Justice for Governors, Princes, and the Meritorious Rulers’), c. late 1700s.
Prior to colonialism, African and Arab scholars in West Africa had already begun to work out the elements of a development theory. For example, ʿUthman ibn Muhammad ibn ʿUthman ibn Fodyo (1754–1817), the Fulani sheikh who founded the Sokoto Caliphate (1804–1903), wrote Usul al-‘Adl li-Wullat al-Umur wa-Ahl al-Fadl wa-al-Salatin (‘The Administration of Justice for Governors, Princes, and the Meritorious Rulers’) to guide himself and his followers on a path to lift up his people. The text is interesting for the principles it outlines, but – given the level of social production at the time – the caliphate relied on a system of low technical productivity and enslaved labour. Before the people of West Africa could wrest power from the caliphate and drive their own society forward, the last caliph was killed by the British, who – along with the Germans and French – seized the land and subordinated its history to that of Europe. Five decades later, Modibo Keïta, a communist militant, led Mali’s independence movement, seeking to reverse the subordination of African lands through the NCD project. Keïta did not explicitly draw a direct line back to ibn Fodyo – whose influence could be seen across West Africa – but we might imagine the hidden itineraries, the remarkable continuities between those old ideas (despite their saturation in the wretched social hierarchies of their time) and the new ideas that were put forward by Third World intellectuals.
World Wars I and II were contests between empires, and so America’s President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) was determined that after WW II, all empires would be outlawed and all international relations (between nations) would be controlled only by a global all-inclusive federation of nations, which in 1941 he referred to would be called “the United Nations” and which would exclusively possess the Executive, Legislative, and Juridical, powers and authorities — to make and enforce the international laws that would be created by that international Legislature of all nations, subject to that Supreme Court which would interpret that Legislature’s constitution or “Charter” for this global government between nations, and which would be enforced by that international Executive. All strategic weaponry would be owned and under the control of that Executive and none other. This was FDR’s plan to replace empires and world wars, by creating the world’s first democratic federation of all nations, which would supersede and replace any and all empires.
On 25 July 1945, FDR’s immediate successor Harry Truman, became convinced by two imperialists whom he deeply respected, Winston Churchill and Dwight Eisenhower, to reject that plan by FDR, which plan Truman didn’t even know about but only inferred might have existed and been FDR’s plan. In any case, Truman secretly despised FDR, and replaced his entire Cabinet within two years, so that he (instead of FDR) would shape the post-WW-II world.
The first-ever military alliance was created by Truman (under the guidance of Eisenhower, Churchill, James Byrnes and others) in order to carry out his plan for ultimate global conquest. A “military alliance” is a military contract between nations that is legally binding between them by a provision in it that says an invasion against any one of them will be an invasion against all of them and will automatically place each one of them into a state of war against that invader. It is unlike all prior empires because it is by contract instead of by exigency. Unlike in World Wars One and Two, in neither of which, the empires or coalition of empires that were waging war against each other were subject to any overriding pre-signed contract amongst them, the U.S. Government in 1949 created the world’s very first military alliance by contract, NATO, and many of the signatories to or members of that contract didn’t know when they signed it that they were thereby committing their nation to relying upon the U.S. Government to determine their foreign policies, which would be enforced by the U.S. military — they didn’t know that they were thereby becoming vassal-nations or colonies of an entirely new TYPE of empire: a military alliance by contract, instead of merely by exigency (such as had been the case in WW I & WW II).
This was an entirely new phenomenon in world affairs, and it is increasingly forcing the world’s nations to either comply with whatever the demands by the U.S. Government are, or else to potentially become victimized by the U.S. and its ‘allies’, such as Germany did when the U.S. Government arranged for the Russo-German-owned Nord Stream fuel pipelines from Russia to Germany and the rest of the EU, to become blown-up and destroyed (which was an act of war by the U.S. Government against both Russia and Germany, Germany being itself a member-nation in NATO and therefore having no recourse against it).
When the Nord Stream pipelines were blown-up, Germany could not rely upon the NATO Treaty to protect itself against that invader because the invader in that instance was the U.S. Government, the virtual owner of NATO; and, furthermore, the U.S. Government has 231 military bases in Germany; so, Germany’s Government was powerless to resist in any way — verbally or otherwise.
The world’s third military alliance is the AUKUS Treaty, this being a secret treaty (thus even worse than the NATO Treaty, which was not a secret agreement) by which the U.S. and its UK partner created a new military alliance, between Australia, UK, and U.S., but this time against China, instead of against Russia. There have been efforts by the U.S. Government to get its NATO military alliance to include the leading nations in the areas of the Pacific and Indian Oceans to join NATO, but NATO’s France has thus-far blocked that. Apparently, if the U.S. Government is determined to force WW III to start in Asia-Pacific, then the military alliance will have to be based on the secret AUKUS agreement, not on the public NATO agreement.
In order for AUKUS to avoid being criticized on account of the non-publication of the treaty, a Web-search for such phrases as “AUKUS text” produces subsidiary documents such as this, instead of the actual document, and this is done in order to deceive researchers to think that it’s not even a military alliance at all (and in that linked-to example, it’s only an agreement about technological cooperation, which doesn’t even mention “China” nor have any mutual-‘defense’ clause in it). They’re treating researchers as fools.
Consequently, there now are two military alliances, NATO against Russia, and AUKUS against China, and both of them are intended ultimately to conquer the entire world with the participation of America’s ‘allies’ or colonies.
To the extent that either of these military alliances succeeds, there will be a Third World War; and, so, now, all nations of the world are implicitly being challenged, either to join the U.S. to conquer Russia and China; or, else, to say no to the U.S. Government, and to demand that it reverse what it did and for it to participate with other nations to institute the changes that must be made to the U.N.’s Charter in order to transform that into what FDR had been intending; or, else, for all decent nations to create together a replacement of Truman’s U.N., so that the U.S. Government will become isolated in its aim to win a WW III, and there will instead become the type of world that FDR had been hoping would follow after WW II — a world that would NOT produce another World War..
Conceptually, the issue here is between the Truman-installed win-lose plan for the future (which is no basic change from the past), versus a win-win plan for the future, which is what FDR and the Governments in both Russia and China have been advocating for but no one is doing anything to help actually bring about. Ironically, the Truman plan would actually be lose-lose, because any WW III would destroy this entire planet. But it’s the direction we are heading toward.
Also ironically, the Truman pathway we are on, toward that result, is the opposite of “democracy” though is claimed to epitomize democracy. For example: just consider the ridiculousness of the AUKUS contract being a SECRET treaty among self-proclaimed ‘democracies’. Then add to this the fact that the secret treaty is a preparation for a WW III that would start in Asia against China instead of in Europe (which had been the main battleground in both of the first two World Wars) and against Russia. So: its presumption is that the world’s publics will quietly be shepherded into WW II on the basis of — among other lies — a secret treaty, the one that created the world’s second military alliance and that isn’t even criticized for its being a secret (and extremely dangerous) treaty among ‘democracies’. Lies can kill the world.
These are the reasons why both NATO and AUKUS must be disbanded, just like the Warsaw Pact was. Either that, or else we’ll have WW III.
The following calls for inputs have been issued by UN Human Rights Mechanisms with deadlines in July – September 2023 and law professors whose practice, research, and/or scholarship touches on these topics may be interested in submission: Committee on Enforced…
Nahel M., a 17-year-old poor French citizen of Algerian and Moroccan origin, died of a single bullet fired by a French police officer at almost point-blank range on June 27. When I heard the news about the murder of young Nahel in the ghetto-ized suburb of Nanterre, shot at close range because he initially refused to stop his vehicle, my mind went back to the mainly Algerian-populated and…
Western countries had strongly opposed resolution, arguing it conflicted with laws on free speech
A deeply divided UN human rights council has approved a controversial resolution that urges countries to “address, prevent and prosecute acts and advocacy of religious hatred”, after incidents of Qur’an-burning in Sweden.
The resolution was strongly opposed by the US, EU and other western countries, which argued that it conflicted with laws on free speech. On Wednesday, the resolution was passed, with 28 countries voting in favour, 12 voting against and seven abstaining.
An Australian advocacy group for West Papua self-determination has condemned yesterday’s arrest by Indonesian security forces of 10 West Papua National Committee (KNPB) members.
The activists were arrested “simply because they were handing out leaflets informing people of a rally to be held today” to show support for West Papua becoming a full member of the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG), said the Australia West Papua Association (AWPA) in a statement.
The security forces detained the activists and took them to the Jayapura Resort Police station in Sentani for questioning.
They were eventually released after being detained for eight hours.
It was reported that the police were threatening the KNPB activists and asking therm to make a statement not to carry out West Papuan independence struggle activities.
“Yet again we have peaceful activists arrested for simply handing out leaflets about an upcoming rally, which is their right to do under the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” said Joe Collins of AWPA:
Article 19 Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
Article 20 1. Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association.
“Hopefully any rallies that take place today will be allowed to go ahead peacefully and there will not be a repeat of the brutal crackdowns that occurred at other peaceful rallies in the past.”
The Melanesian Spearhead Group is due to meet in Port Vila, Vanuatu, this month, although the dates have not yet been announced.
The MSG consists of Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and the Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS) of Kanaky (New Caledonia).
West Papua has observer status while Indonesia has associate membership and Jakarta has been conducting an intense diplomatic lobbying with MSG members over recent months.
The United Liberation Movement of West Papua (ULMWP) has applied for full membership.
This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.
The United Nations General Assembly has approved a resolution to establish an independent body to investigate what happened to more than 130,000 people who went missing during the conflict in Syria over the last 12 years. The Syrian government opposed the resolution, along with Russia, China, Belarus, North Korea, Cuba and Iran. “This is one of the most painful chapters in the Syrian crisis…
Last week, Fionnuala Ní Aoláin, the United Nations special rapporteur on counterterrorism and human rights, released a scathing report on her visit to the Guantánamo Bay detention camp. The report, the first of its kind, once again brought the world’s attention to the profound, far-reaching impact that the use of torture and arbitrary detention by the United States has had not just on the minds…
Each time it happens, the world insists: ‘never again’. But the political and moral blindspots that allow these atrocities will persist until the lessons of history are learned
It’s happening again. In Darfur, scene of a genocide that killed 300,000 people and displaced millions 20 years ago, armed militias are on the rampage once more. Now, as then, they are targeting ethnic African tribes, murdering, raping and stealing with impunity. “They” are nomadic, ethnic Arab raiders, the much-feared “devils on horseback” – except now they ride in trucks. They’re called the Janjaweed. And they’re back.
How is it possible such horrors can be repeated? The world condemned the 2003 slaughter. The UN and the International Criminal Court (ICC) investigated. Sudan’s former president, Omar al-Bashir, was charged with genocide and crimes against humanity along with his principal allies. The trial of one suspect, known as Ali Kushayb, opened last year. Yet Bashir and the guilty men have evaded justice so far.
Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME) welcomes the renewal of Canada’s funding to Palestinian refugees for the next four years, but is disappointed that the latest pledge represents a cut of $5 million annually. CJPME urges Canada to increase its funding to meet the needs of the current humanitarian and human rights crisis, and to complement its financial support with political support for UNRWA and Palestinian refugees on the international stage.
“75 years after the Nakba and the creation of the world’s longest-running refugee crisis, it is time for Canada to finally commit to supporting Palestinian refugees,” said Michael Bueckert, Vice President of CJPME. The Palestine refugee crisis began in 1948, when more than 750,000 Palestinians were forcibly expelled during the creation of Israel. “Canada must bolster its funding to meet the needs of the current moment, and put its political support behind the rights of Palestinian refugees – including their fundamental right to return to their homes,” added Bueckert.
The Canadian government announced on Monday that it was pledging up to $100 million over the next four years to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), the UN agency that provides services to 5.9 million Palestine refugees. Compared to its $90 million funding commitment over the previous three-year period, this amounts to a cut of $5 million per year, or $20 million in total. Meanwhile, UNRWA faces a chronic crisis of underfunding which poses an imminent threat to its ability to provide services.
CJPME remains concerned that despite its financial support to UNRWA, Canada has failed to provide political support for the agency or the rights of Palestinian refugees. Earlier this year, Canada boycotted the first-ever UN event commemorating the Palestinian Nakba and the creation of the refugee problem. Starting in 2011 under Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Canada has abstained every year on a resolution to renew UNRWA’s mandate at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), and has voted “No” on another motion supporting the activities of UNRWA. According to internal documents obtained by CJPME, Global Affairs Canada has long determined such resolutions to be consistent with Canada’s foreign policy and thus deemed worthy of support.
CJPME also notes that Canada’s pledge of $25 million per year is similar to the value of weapons that Canada has exported to Israel over the past three years, which has ranged from $20 million to $27 million. CJPME has long warned about the possible human rights risk that these weapons will be used against Palestinians under occupation, including refugees. Last week, two Palestinian children who were students in UNRWA schools were killed by Israeli forces in the Jenin refugee camp. Last month, many Palestinian refugees were killed during Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, including several students in UNRWA schools.
General Seth Rumkorem and Jacob Prai declared it, defended it, and received official recognition. Dakar, Senegal, was among them, the first international diplomatic office opened by OPM shortly after the declaration.
As Papuans resisted the invasion, they sought refuge in the Netherlands, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, Sweden, Australia, and Greece. All joined, at least in spirit, under the name OPM.
Its spirit of revolution that bonded West Papua and Vanuatu with those across Europe, Oceania, and Africa. This was a time of decolonisation, revolution, and a Cold War.
The decolonisation movement back then was more conscious in heart and mind of humanity than now.
Rex Rumakiek’s ‘sacred connection’
Rex Rumakiek (now aged 78), a long time OPM fighter alongside others, established this sacred connection in 1978.
In Papua New Guinea, Rumakiek met with students from Vanuatu studying at the University of Papua New Guinea and shared the OPM’s revolutionary victory, tragedy, and solution.
These students later took prominent roles in the formation of the independent state of Vanuatu — became part of the solution — laid a foundation of hope.
A common spirit emerged between the OPM’s resistance to Indonesian colonisation and Vanuatu’s struggle for freedom from long-term European (French and English) confederation rule.
A brutal system of dual rule known as Condominium — critics called it “Pandemonium” (chaos and disorder).
West Papua, a land known as “little heaven” is indeed like a Garden of Eden in Milton’s epic Paradise Lost poem.
To restore freedom and justice to that betrayed, lost paradise was the foundation of Vanuatu and West Papua’s relationship. For more than 40 years Vanuatu has been a beacon of hope.
Deep connections
Both shared deep religious metaphysical, cultural, and political connections.
On a metaphysical level, Vanuatu became a place of hope and redemption. Apart from supporting the West Papua freedom fighters, Vanuatu played a critical role in the reconciliation of Papuans who split off in various directions due to internal conflicts over numerous issues, including ideologies and strategies.
A tragedy of internal disputes and conflicts that placed a long-lasting strain on their collective war against Indonesian occupation.
This can be seen from Vanuatu’s decades-long effort to invite two key leaders of the West Papuan Provisional Parliament — General Seth Rumkorem and Jacob Prai.
In 1985, Vanuatu brought the two conflicting leaders of OPM, Mr. Jacob Prai and Gen. Seth Rumkorem, to Vanuatu and ended their differences so that they could work together (p. 217).
In 2000, Vanuatu invited the OPM leaders and Papua’s Presidium Council (PDP) to sign a memorandum of understanding. The year 2008 was also a year of reconciliation, which led to the formation of the West Papua Nation Coalition of Liberation (WPNCL).
In 2014, there was another big reconciliation summit in Port Vila, which led to the formation of the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP).
Melanesian identity
Culturally, Vanuatu and West Papua share a deep sense of Melanesian identity — a common bond from shared experiences of colonisation, racism, mistreatment, dehumanisation, and slavery.
This bond, however, is strengthened far beyond these European and Indonesian atrocities as Barak Sope, one of Melanesia’s key thinkers and prominent supporters of West Papua put it in 2017, Papuans and Vanuatu and all Melanesians in Oceania have deep ancient roots. There are deep Melanesian links that connect our ancestors. Europeans came and destroyed that connection by rewriting our history because they had the power of written language, and we did not.
Our connections were recorded in myths, legends, songs, dances, and culture. It is our duty now to revive that ancient link (Conversation with Yamin Kogoya in Port Vila, December 2017).
Politically, Vanuatu and West Papua also share a common sense of resistance to both European and Indonesian colonisations.
Father Walter Lini, founder of Vanuatu and MSG, later became Prime Minister. Following its renaming as the Vanua’aku Pati in 1974, Lini’s party pushed hard for independence — the Republic of Vanuatu was formally established in 1980.
The OPM and Black Brothers helped shape this new nation and were part of a force that created a pan-Melanesian identity through music.
“Vanuatu will not be completely free until all Melanesia is free from colonialism” is Walter Lini’s famous saying, which has been used by West Papua and New Caledonian Kanaks in their struggle for liberation against Indonesian and French colonisation.
A just world
During this long journey, a profound bond and sense of connection and a shared cause, and destiny for a just world was born between Vanuatu and West Papua and the greater Oceania. A kind of Messianic hope developed with name Vanuatu that Papuans a hope that deliverance would come from Vanuatu.
Papuans can only express their gratitude in social media through their artistic works and heartfelt thanksgiving messages.
Ahead of the upcoming MSG summit, the Free West Papua Campaign Facebook page has posted the following image showing a Papuan with Morning Star clothing crossing a cliff on the back of a larger and taller figure representing Vanuatu.
In politics, it is all about diplomacy, networks, and cooperation, as the famous PNG politicians’ mantra in their foreign policy, “Friend to all and enemy to none.” This is such an ironic and tragic position to be in when half of PNG’s country men are “going extinct”, and they know how and why?
Sometimes it is necessary to confront such an evil head on when/if innocent lives are at risk. The notion of being friends with everyone and enemies with nobody has no virtue, value, substance, or essence.
In the real-world, humans have friends and enemies. The only question is, we must not only choose between friends and foes but also understand the difference between them.
No human, whether realist, idealist, traditionalist, or transcendentalist, who sincerely believes, can make a neutral virtue less stand — where right and wrong are neither right nor wrong at the same time. Human agents must make choices. Being able to choose and know the difference and reasons why, is what makes us human — this is where value is contested, for and against.
Stand up for something
In the current world climate, someone must stand up for something — for the oppressed, for the marginalised, the abused, the persecuted, the land, for the planet and for humanity.
This tiny island country, Vanuatu has exhibited that warrior spirit for many years. In March, Vanuatu spearheaded a UN resolution on climate change. Nina Lakhani in The Guardian wrote:
“The UN general assembly adopted by consensus the resolution spearheaded by Vanuatu, a tiny Pacific island nation vulnerable to extreme climate effects, and youth activists to secure a legal opinion from the international court of justice (ICJ) to clarify states’ obligations to tackle the climate crisis — and specify any consequences countries should face for inaction.”
More than 60 years ago, when West Papua was kicked around like a football by the imperial West and East, Indonesia, the Netherlands, the United Nations and the illegal UN-sponsored sham referendum of 1969, no one on this planet dared to stand up for West Papua.
West Papua was abandoned by the world.
The Dutch attempted to safeguard that “sacred trust” by enlisting West Papua into the UN Decolonisation list under article 73 of the UN charter. The Dutch did the right thing.
The sacred trust, however, was betrayed when West Papua was transferred to the United Temporary Executive (UNTEA) following the infamous New York Agreement on 15 August 1962.
This sacred trust was to be protected by the UNTEA but it was betrayed when it was handed over to Indonesia in May 1963, resulting in Indonesia’s invasion of West Papua.
This invasion instilled fear throughout West Papua, paving the way for the 1969 referendum to be held under incredible fear and gunpoint of the already intimidated 1025 Papuan elders.
In 1969, instead of protecting the trust, the UN betrayed it by being complicit in the whole tragic events unfolding.
OPM’s answer to the illegal referendum — The Act of Free Choice
OPM’s proclamation on 1 July 1971 was the answer to the (rejection of that illegal and fraudulent) referendum, known as the Penentuan Pendapat Rakyat-Pepera in 1969.
In protest, out of fear, and in resistance to one of the most tragic betrayals and tragedies in human history, an overwhelming number of Papuans left West Papua during this period. Several countries opened their arms to West Papua, including Vanuatu.
A major split occurred in OPM camps due to internal conflict and disagreement between the two key founding members. The legacy of this tragedy has been disastrous for future Papuan resistance fighters.
Papuans are partly responsible for betraying that sacred trust as well. This realisation is critical for Papuan-self redemption. That is the secret, redemption, and genuine reconciliation.
Every time a high-profile figure from Vanuatu or any Melanesian country engages internationally, Papuans feel extremely anxious. Amid the historical betrayals, Papuans wonder, “Will they betray us or rescue us?”
This tiny doubt eats at the soul of humankind. It is always toxic, a seed that contaminates and derails human trust.
In such difficult times, it is crucial for Papuans to reflect sincerely and ask, “where are we?” Are we doing, okay? What’s going on? Are we making the right decisions, are our collective defence systems secure?
Vanuatu historic visit to Jakarta
Jotham Napat, the Foreign Minister of Vanuatu, visited Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi on 16 June 2023. The main topic of discussion was bilateral relations between the two countries.
It is the first visit by a Vanuatu foreign minister to Indonesia in more than a decade. This marks an important milestone.
According to Retno, “I am delighted to hear about Vanuatu’s plan to open an embassy in Indonesia, and I welcome the idea of holding annual consultations between the two countries,” in her statement.
At Monday’s meeting, Napat expressed urgency to build a sound partnership between Vanuatu and Indonesia and expressed his eagerness to recover trust. The minister also expressed his country’s eagerness to create a technical cooperation agreement between the two countries and to establish sister city and sister province partnerships, which he said could begin with Papua.
Welcoming DPM/FM Jotham Napat of Vanuatu on his 1st official visit to Indonesia – the 1st visit of FM in more than a decade
An important milestone in our bilateral relations, based on respect to sovereignty, territorial integrity & principles of mutual interests & benefits pic.twitter.com/Y8GkpwxvQC
— Menteri Luar Negeri Republik Indonesia (@Menlu_RI) June 16, 2023
During a joint press conference with Indonesian Vice-President Ma’ruf Amin, Napat expressed his commitment to the “Melanesian way”.
Vanuatu’s Napat meets Indonesian Vice-President
In response to Minister Napat’s visit to West Papua, Benny Wenda of the United Liberation Movement of West Papua (ULMWP) said he welcomed the minister’s remarks on the “Melanesian Way”. Though it isn’t really clear what the Melanesian way is all about?
“Melanesian Way” is a complicated term. Although intuitively, everyone in the Melanesian context assumes to know it. Bernard Narakobi, the person who coined the term refused to define it. It has been described by Narakobi as being comparable to Moses asking God to explain who God was to him.
“God did not reveal himself by a definition, but by a statement that I am who I am,” wrote Narakobi.
Because God is the archetypical ultimate, infallible, eternal, omnipresent, alpha and omega. Narakobi’s statement about the God and Moses analogy is true that God cannot be defined by any point of reference; God is the point of reference.
For Melanesians, however, we are not God. We are mortal, unpredictable, flawed, with aspects of both malevolence and goodness. Therefore, to state that “we are who we are” could mean anything.
Continuing his search for a path for Melanesia, Narakobi wrote:
“Melanesian voice is meant to be a force for truth. It is meant to give witness to the truth. Whereas the final or the ultimate truth is the divine source, the syllogistically or the logical truth is dependent on the basic premises one adopts. The Melanesian voice is meant to be a forum of Melanesian wisdom and values, based on Melanesian experience.”
It seems that these truths and virtues as outlined by this great Melanesian philosopher do not have a common shared value system that binds the states of the MSG together.
‘Bought for 30 pieces of silver’
Following the rejection of ULMWP’s membership bid in Honiara in 2016, Vanuatu’s then Deputy Prime Minister, Joe Natuman, stated,
“Our Prime Minister was the only one talking in support of full membership for West Papua in the MSG, the Solomon Islands Prime Minister couldn’t say very much because he is the chairman.
“Prime Minister Charlot Salwai was the only one defending Melanesians and the history of Melanesian people in the recent MSG meeting in Honiara.
“The MSG, I must repeat, the MSG, which I was a pioneer in setting up, was established for the protection of the identity of the Melanesian people, the promotion of their culture and defending their rights. Right to self-determination, right to land and right to their resources.
“Now it appears other people are trying to use the MSG to drive their own agendas and I am sorry, but I will insist that MSG is being bought by others.
“It is just like Jesus Christ who was bought for 30 pieces of silver. This is what is happening in the MSG. I am very upset about this, and we need to correct this issue.
“Because if our friends in Fiji and Papua New Guinea have a different agenda, we need to sit down and talk very seriously about what is happening within the organisation.”
Principles or a facade?
Whatever agenda Minister Napat had in mind when he travelled to Jakarta on June 16 — in a capital of rulers whose policies have resulted in fatalistic and genocidal outcomes for West Papuans for 60 years — these wisdoms from Melanesian elders will either be his guiding principle, or he will use the term “Melanesian Way” as a facade to conceal different intents not in agreement with these Melanesian values.
These are the types of questions that are at stake for West Papua, Vanuatu, and Melanesians, particularly in a world which is rapidly changing, including ourselves and our values.
In an interview with Island Business published on 3 February 2023, Minister Napat stated his priority for the 100-day work plan.
“Vanuatu has, like other Pacific countries, too often in the past been seen in the international limelight as a subservient associate to others’ interests and agendas, this must change if Vanuatu is to take its rightful place as an equal partner in the international arena.
“The creation and implementation of a new National Foreign Policy must take into account current global geopolitical trends”.
Minister Napat continued:
“The global geopolitical environment has and will continue to change. Our government must implement foreign policy directions which will have as its first priority, the best interests of the nation and people of Vanuatu.
“Since the original foreign policy directions after independence, Vanuatu’s foreign policy approaches in the last 30 years have been at times unclear, ad hoc, and reactive to circumstances and influences. It is time we set our own course and become proactive at all times”.
Vanuatu only support
The minister did not rule out West Papua as one of the countries that influences Vanuatu’s engagement with the world. As anyone familiar with West Papua’s plight knows, Vanuatu is the only sovereign UN member country that has publicly supported West Papua.
There is no indication as to whether those “other interests” and “agendas” pertain to West Papua, Indonesia, MSG, the USA, China, or Australia.
If the minister’s trip to Jakarta was demonstrative of his pragmatic words and West Papua is one of the external interferences the Minister has implied, then Papuans can only hope for the best, that new developing relationships between Jakarta and Port Vila will not be another major betrayal for Papuans.
Minister Napa’s pragmatic approach to adapting to an unpredictable changing world is crucial for the country. Especially since Oceania is becoming increasingly similar to the New Middle East as China and the United States continue to compete, contest, revive or renew their engagement with island nations.
There is also another major player in the region, Indonesia, which has its own interests.
The government and the people of Vanuatu have a duty and responsibility to ensure they must be ready to face these vulgar threats, they pose as stated by the Minister. For persecuted Papuans, their only wish is: Please don’t betray us — the Sacred Trust.
West Papua will always remain a lingering issue — a unresolved murder mystery that has been swept under the rug. For a long time, the Vanuatu government and its people have decided to resolve this issue.
Vanuatu’s Wantok Blong Yumi Bill – Sacred Trust
On 19 June 2010, this sacred trust was protected when the notion regarding West Papua was passed by Vanuatu’s Parliament. The purpose of the “Wantok blong yumi” Bill was to allow the government of Vanuatu to develop specific policies regarding the support of West Papua’s independence struggle.
Then, both the government under the late Prime Minister Edward Natape and his opposition leader, Maxime Carlot Korman, united and sponsored the motion to be drafted by one of the young proponents of West Papua’s cause, Ralph Regevanu, on behalf of the people of Vanuatu and West Papua.
In fact, this was a historic and extraordinary event. It was called a “Parliament extraordinary session” — a sacred session. This Act is an analogy to the declaration of war by tiny young ancient Jews against the giant Goliath and his fearsome army. With a slingshot, David defeated Goliath, not with a giant weapon, bomb, or money, but with courage, bravery and faith.
The Wantok Bill was Vanuatu’s slingshot to fight against and defeat the might of pandemonium warlords and Goliath armies that tortured Papuans everyday while scavenging the richness of this paradise land that has been continuously betrayed.
After the success of the motion, the prime minister promised to sponsor the issue of West Papua at the MSG and PIF meetings.
This promise was partially fulfilled when West Papua was granted observer status in the MSG in 2015. Tragically, this courageous figure passed away on 28 July 2015 (aged 61) just a few days after West Papua was granted observer status by the MSG on June 26.
Furthermore, West Papua has seen some positive developments at an international level. In September 2016, seven Pacific Island countries raised the plight and struggle of the West Papuan people at the UN General Assembly.
A resolution was passed by the PIF in 2019 regarding West Papua.
During the ninth ACP summit of heads of state and government, Ralph Regevanu and Benny Wenda succeeded in convincing the group to pass a resolution calling for urgent attention to be paid to the rights situation in Indonesia-ruled Papua.
Vanuatu also made it possible for Pacific leaders to request that the UN Human Rights Commissioner visit West Papua in 2019. Ralph Regevanu, then Vanuatu’s Foreign Minister, drafted the wording of the PIF’s Communique.
Edward Natape also said his government would apply to the UN Decolonisation Committee for West Papua to be relisted so the territory could undergo the due process of decolonisation.
West Papuans still wait for the UN’s promised decolonisation A long time OPM representative from West Papua, Dr John Otto Ondawame, and Andy Ayamiseba, were among those who witnessed and assisted in this victory. Sadly, both of them have since died.
Dr Ondawame died in 2014 and Andy Ayamiseba in 2020.
Both of these figures, as well as others, were long-time residents of Vanuatu since the 1980s. With their Vanuatu, Melanesia, and Oceania Wantoks, they had tirelessly fought for the rights of West Papua.
The people of West Papua continue to look towards Vanuatu and Melanesia and pray, just as the exiled diaspora of persecuted Jews looked towards Jerusalem and prayed. Vanuatu remains a beacon of hope for West Papua
Papuans’ greatest task, challenge and responsibility is to determine where to go from here.
This spirit of revolution was ignited by the OPM elders, and many brave young men, women, and elderly are fighting for it in West Papua today.
On 30 June 2023, the MSG Foreign Ministers Meeting (FMM) concluded successfully with members approving the outcomes of the MSG senior officials meeting (SOM) at the MSG secretariat in Port Vila, Vanuatu. A traditional welcome ceremony was conducted for the delegates.
A progress report by the MSG Director-General was presented to the SOM, along with the secretariat’s annual reports for 2020 and 2021, a calendar of events for 2023, a proposal to establish MSG supporting offices in member countries and a draft of the MSG secretariat’s work programme and budget for 2023.
The same people who were seen in Jakarta dancing, singing and propagated imageries of gestures, symbols, images, and rhetoric are the ones driving this MSG meeting. Indonesia’s delegation with the red and white flag is also seen sitting inside the MSG’s headquarters — the sacred place, sacred building, of the Melanesian people.
The test for Vanuatu is so high at the moment — reaching a climactic decision for West Papua. Hundreds of Free West Papua social media campaigns groups are inundated with so much optimistic images, symbols, cartoon drawing, words, prayers.
Giving this connection and high emancipation with the upcoming MSG summit, Minister Jotham Napat’s visit to Jakarta was indeed a huge shock for Papuans.
For Papuans, this is a stressful time for such a visit. Pressures, anticipation, prayers, and anxiety for MSG is too high.
Adding to this, this year the Chairmanship and Leaders’ Summit of the MSG are being entrusted to Vanuatu and Vanuatu is also the home base of MSG.
One of the moments West Papua have been waiting for
In the upcoming MSG games, Vanuatu had all the best cards at her disposal to achieve something big for Papuans. Vanuatu was one of key founding fathers of MSG, the MSG embeds Vanuatu’s spirit and values.
It would be “THE” long-awaited moment for Papuans to enter into MSG as Papuans have been insisting that their Melanesian family has been left out for decades.
Social media images and small videos of Vanuatu’s delegation, MSG’s leader and Papuans who support the Indonesian occupation of West Papua dancing and singing during the visit was indeed disheartening for Papuans.
The imagery and propaganda of the visit spread through the media. They intended to dim Vanuatu’s dawn Morning Star. A sacred beacon of light where tortured West Papuans look to, every morning, and pray for deliverance.
Vanuatu’s “Messianic hope” for West Papua in a world where almost no nations, empires, kingdoms, and institutions such as the UN offer refuge, to listen to and seeing such propaganda imageries spread through social media is dispiriting.
Whatever the reason for this visit might be, Papuans who simply just want their freedom from Indonesia, seeing such a visit and display of their trusted friend at the headquarters of their tormentors prompts immediate questions: What happened and why?
“Bring West Papua back to the Melanesian family”. Image: West Papua-Melanesia Facebook
‘Liklil Hope Tasol’ (Little Hope At All)
Dan McGarry, former media director of the Vanuatu Daily Post, writes:
“One of the more popular songs Ayamiseba wrote for the Black Brothers is ‘Liklik Hope Tasol’, a ballad written in Tok Pisin whose title translates as ‘Little Hope At All’. Its narrator lies awake in the early morning hours, the victim of despair.
The vision of the Morning Star and a songbird breaking the pre-dawn hush provide the impetus to survive another day. The song, with its clear political imagery and simplistic evocation of strength in adversity, is clearly autobiographical. It is, arguably, the anthem which animated Ayamiseba’s lifelong pursuit of freedom.”
Such an extravagant display of rhetoric and imagery in the capital of the Pandemonium army that has mercilessly been hunting down “Papuans” on “their ancient timeless land”, New Guinea, as PNG philosopher Narakobi described it, or “little heaven” as Papuans referred to it, can only mean two things: either destroy that “little hope” or “rescue it”.
Only God knows the answer to this question as well of the real intent of the visit and what outcome will emerge from it — will it bring disappearance or hope for Papuans.
The late Pastor Allen Nafuki, a key figure in Vanuatu responsible for bringing warring factions of Papuan resistance groups together in Port Vila in 2014, which helped precipitate much of the ULMWP’s international success, left his last message on West Papua before he died: “God will never sleep for West Papua.”
Vanuatu is a sovereign independent country and as a sovereign nation, Vanuatu has every right to choose to whom she wants to be friends with, visit and sign any treaties and agreements with.
However, when the sacred trust of hope for the betrayed, rejected, persecuted nation like West Papuans is entrusted to them either by choice, force, or compassion, then the choice is clear: You either betray that trust, compromise it, or protect it.
The seed of the sacred bond planted by legendary OPM freedom fighters when the nation of Vanuatu was founded, before MSG was founded, will be either dimmed, betrayed, or resurrected.
The 2010 “Wantok Blong Yumi” Bill should be resurrected and protection given for the “Sacred Trust” (The Sovereignty of West Papua) that has been betrayed for more than 60 years.
The United Nations was the place that the Sacred Trust was betrayed and Vanuatu as a new Guardian of this Trust should restore that trust in the same institution. The statement by the former UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki Moon, during the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) Summit in Auckland stated: “West Papua is an issue; the right place for it to be discussed, is the Decolonisation Committee of UNGA”.
Yamin Kogoya is a West Papuan academic who has a Master of Applied Anthropology and Participatory Development from the Australian National University and who contributes to Asia Pacific Report. From the Lani tribe in the Papuan Highlands, he is currently living in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.
Vanuatu Deputy Prime Minister Jotham Napat and the MSG Director-General while visiting the Gelora Bung Karno Stadium and meeting with representatives of the Indonesian soccer team companied by the Indonesian foreign affairs minister. Image: Jubi/Twitter.
Global climate institutions have embraced the primacy of capital, private firms, and markets—and in so doing have fatally undermined their own efficacy.
Russian forces have carried out widespread and systematic torture of civilians detained in connection with their attack on Ukraine, summarily executing more than 70 of them, the UN human rights office said on Tuesday.
It interviewed hundreds of victims and witnesses for a report detailing more than 900 cases of civilians, including children and elderly people, being arbitrarily detained in the conflict, most of them by Russia. The vast majority of those interviewed said they were tortured and in some cases subjected to sexual violence during detention by Russian forces, the head of the UN human rights office in Ukraine said.
The United Nations on Sunday accused the Russian government of denying aid workers access to Moscow-controlled areas of southern Ukraine that were impacted by the devastating collapse of the Kakhovka dam earlier this month. Denise Brown, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator for Ukraine, said in a statement that Russia has “so far declined our request to access the areas under its temporary military…
Belarus says Russia has begun transferring tactical nuclear weapons to the former Soviet state, which shares a nearly 700-mile border with Ukraine, escalating the risk of a nuclear confrontation in Europe. Meanwhile, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has urged allies to “dig deep” to provide more arms and ammunition to help Ukraine as it launches its counteroffensive against Russia.
Palestinians in Gaza already grappling with an ongoing, 16-year-old land, sea and air blockade imposed by the apartheid state of Israel are now being served another harsh and devastating blow. In May, the United Nations World Food Program announced that due to a “severe” shortage of funds, it is being forced to discontinue assistance to more than 200,000 Palestinians, the majority of whom reside…
New Caledonia’s Kanak national liberation movement has told the UN Decolonisation Committee that France has “robbed” the indigenous people of their independence and has appealed for help.
Magalie Tingal-Lémé, the permanent representative of the Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS) at the UN, told a session of the Committee of 24 (C24) — as the special decolonisation body is known — that the French authorities had failed to honour the 1998 Noumea Accord self-determination aspirations, especially by pressing ahead with the third independence referendum in December 2021 in defiance of Kanak opposition.
More than half the eligible voting population boycotted the third ballot after the previous two referendums in 2018 and 2020 recorded narrowing defeats for independence.
The pro-independence Kanak groups wanted the referendum delayed due to the devastating impact that the covid-19 pandemic had had on the indigenous population.
Tingal-Lémé told the UN session that speaking as an indigenous Kanak woman, she represented the FLNKS and “every time we speak before your institution, we carry the voice of the colonised people”.
“When we speak of colonisation, we are necessarily speaking of the people who have suffered the damage, the stigma and the consequences,” she said in her passionate speech.
“On September 24, my country will have been under colonial rule for 170 years.”
Accords brought peace
Tingal-Lémé said two political accords with France had brought peace to New Caledonia after the turbulent 1980s, “the second of which — the Nouméa Accord — [was taking] the country on the way for full emancipation”.
“And it is in a spirit of dialogue and consensus that the indépendentistes have kept their word, despite, and in the name, of spilled blood.”
In 2018, the first of three scheduled votes on sovereignty, 56.4 percent rejected independence with an 81 percent turnout of the 174,995 voters eligible to vote.
Two years later, independence was again rejected, but this time with an increased support to almost 47 percent. Turnout also slightly grew to 85.69 percent.
However, in December 2021 the turnout dropped by about half with most Kanaks boycotting the referendum due to the pandemic. Unsurprisingly, this time the “yes” vote dropped to a mere 3.5 percent.
“Since December 12, 2021, when France maintained the third and final referendum — even though we had requested its postponement due to the human trauma of covid-19 — we have never ceased to contest its holding and its results,” Tingal-Lémé said.
Nearly 57 percent of voters had not turned out on the day due to the covid boycott.
‘We’ll never accept this outcome’
“We believe that through this illegitimate referendum, the French state has robbed us of our independence. We will never accept this outcome!
“And so, unable to contest the results under French internal law, we are turning to the international community for an impartial institution to indicate how to resume a process that complies with international rules on decolonisation.
“Through the Nouméa Accord, France has committed itself and the populations concerned to an original decolonisation process, which should lead to the full emancipation of Kanaky.
“Today, the FLNKS believes that the administering power has not fulfilled its obligations.”
Tingal-Lémé said the “latest evidence” of this failure was a New Caledonian decolonisation audit, whose report had just been made public.
She said this audit report had been requested by the FLNKS for the past five years so that it would be available — along with the assessment of the Nouméa Accord — before the three referendums to “enlighten voters”.
“The pro-independence movement found itself alone in raising public awareness of the positive stakes of self-determination, and had to campaign against a state that sided with the anti-independence groups.”
Magalie Tingal-Lémé’s speech to the UN Decolonisation Committee. Video: MTL
Entrusted to a ‘market’ firm
Also, the French government had “entrusted” this work to a firm specialising in market analysis strategies, she said.
“This shows how much consideration the administering power has given to this exercise and to its international obligations regarding the decolonisation.
“Frankly, who can believe in the objectivity of an audit commissioned by a government to which the leader of New Caledonia’s non-independence movement belongs?” Tingal-Lémé asked.
“It is already clear that, once again, France does not wish to achieve a decolonisation in the Pacific.
“The objectives of this initiative is to request the ICJ to rule on our [indigenous] rights, those of the colonised people of New Caledonia, which we believe were violated on December 12, 2021.”
Advisory opinion
The FLNKS wanted the ICJ to make an advisory opinion on the way France “has conducted the decolonisation process, in particular by holding a referendum without the participation of the Kanak people.”
Tingal-Lémé pleaded: “We sincerely hope that you will heed our call.”
According to New Caledonia’s 2019 census, the indigenous Kanaks comprise a 41 percent share of the 271,000 multiethnic population. Europeans make up 24 percent, Wallisians and Futunans 8 percent, and a mix of Indonesians, ni-Vanuatu, Tahitians and Vietnamese are among the rest.
Earlier today, RNZ Pacific reported that a New Caledonian politician had claimed at the UN that the territory was “no longer a colony” and should be withdrawn from the UN decolonisation list.
The anti-independence member of the Territorial Congress and Vice-President of the Southern Province, Gil Brial, said he was a descendant of French people deported to New Caledonia 160 years ago, who had been “blended with others, including the indigenous Kanaks”.
He said the only colonisation left today was the “colonisation of the minds of young people by a few separatist leaders who mixed racism, hatred and threats”, reports RNZ Pacific.
The United States government is spearheading an effort to reinvade and reoccupy Haiti. On May 4, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, led the latest diplomatic anti-Haitian assault traveling to Brasilia to try to convince the government of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva to again lead the “multilateral effort.” Bogged down in a proxy war in Ukraine to the tune of $113…
New Caledonia’s pro-independence parties are prepared to negotiate changes to the provincial electoral rolls, according to French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin.
On his second visit to Noumea in less than four months, the minister announced the apparent change in the stance of the pro-independence FLNKS movement, which until now has ruled out any willingness to open the roll.
As yet, there has been no official statement from the FLNKS (Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front), which is still demanding comprehensive discussions with Paris on a timetable to restore the sovereignty lost in 1853.
It insists on a dialogue between the “coloniser and the colonised”.
The restricted roll is a key feature of the 1998 Noumea Accord, which was devised as the roadmap to the territory’s decolonisation after New Caledonia was reinscribed on the United Nations’ list of non-self-governing territories in 1986.
Under the terms of the accord, voters in the provincial elections must have been enrolled by 1998.
In 2007, the French constitution was changed accordingly, accommodating a push by the Kanaks to ensure the indigenous population was not at risk of being further marginalised by waves of migrants.
‘Enormous progress’
However, anti-independence parties have in recent years campaigned for an opening of the roll to the more than 40,000 people who have settled since 1998.
Darmanin hailed the FLNKS’ willingness to negotiate on the issue as “enormous progress”, saying the issue surrounding the rolls had been blocked for a long time.
He said after his meetings with local leaders the FLNKS considered 10 years’ residence as sufficient to get enrolled.
The minister said he had proposed seven years, while anti-independence politicians talked about three to five years.
In March, Darmanin said the next elections, which are due in 2024, would not go ahead with the old rolls.
However, a senior member of the pro-independence Caledonian Union, Roch Wamytan, who is President of the Territorial Assembly, said “they had started discussions but that they had not given a definite approval”.
For Wamytan, an agreement on the rolls was still far off.
Impact of the Noumea Accord Darmanin tabled a report on the outcomes achieved by the Noumea Accord, whose objectives included forming a community with a common destiny following the unrest of the 1980s.
It found that “the objective of political rebalancing, through the accession of Kanaks to responsibilities, can be considered as achieved”.
However, the report concluded that the accord “paradoxically contributed to maintain the political divide that the common destiny was supposed to transcend”.
It noted that the three referendums on independence from France between 2018 and 2021 “confirmed the antagonisms and revealed the difficulty of bringing together a majority of qualified voters” around a common cause.
Darmanin also presented a report about the decolonisation process under the auspices of the United Nations.
It noted that “with the adoption of the first plan of actions aimed at the elimination of colonialism in 1991, the [French] state endeavoured to collaborate closely with the UN and the C24 in order to accompany in the greatest transparency the process of decolonisation of New Caledonia”.
It said that France hosted and accompanied two UN visits to New Caledonia before the referendums, facilitated the visit of UN electoral experts when electoral lists were prepared as well as at each of the three referendums between 2018 and 2021.
Kanaks reject legitimacy
From a technical point of view, the three votes provided under the Noumea Accord were valid.
However, the FLNKS refuses to recognise the result of the third referendum as the legitimate outcome of the decolonisation process after the indigenous Kanaks boycotted the vote and only a small fraction cast their ballots.
As French courts recognise the vote as constitutional despite the low turnout, the FLNKS has sought input from the International Court of Justice in a bid to have the outcome annulled.
The FLNKS still insists on having more bilateral talks with the French government on a timetable to restore the territory’s sovereignty.
Since the controversial 2021 referendum, the FLNKS has refused to engage in tripartite talks on a future statute, and Darmanin has again failed to get an assurance from the FLNKS that it would join anti-independence politicians for such talks.
Last month, Darmanin evoked at the UN the possibility of self-determination for New Caledonia being attained in about 50 years — a proposition being scoffed at by the pro-independence camp.
In Noumea, he said he was against a further vote with the option of “yes” or “no”, and rather wanted to work towards a vote on a new status.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
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