A new look Regional Fisheries Ministers (RFMM) group met for the first time virtually last week to discuss the state of the Pacific Ocean and voiced their concerns over the state of coastal fisheries, climate change and marine pollution.

Their decisions reflected regional priorities for the fisheries and marine sector.

The ministers and senior officials were led by Cooks Islands Prime Minister Henry Puna and ministers representing Australia, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Niue, Samoa and the Solomon Islands.

READ MORE: Forum Fisheries updates

Senior officials from French Polynesia, Kiribati, Republic of the Marshall Islands, Nauru, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Tonga, Tokelau, Tuvalu and Vanuatu were also in attendance at the Noumea-hosted web forum.

Their talks reflected with concern on the results that have signalled a decline in the status of key indicator invertebrate and finfish species, and reef and ecosystem health, which have direct impacts on livelihoods and food security.

They called for the strengthening of coastal fisheries management.

Puna addressed the meeting, saying: “One undeniable and tangible resource, asset, and lifeline that we all possess is our shared fisheries resources”.

He called for initiatives to diversify the use of fisheries and marine resources, using innovative and collaborative approaches.

Statement of outcomes
While highlighting the Pacific’s strong response to the national and regional security threats the covid-19 pandemic has posed, he stressed the importance of enhancing fisheries management, maintaining food and economic security.

“Our collective response must always reflect how much we value our people, and the mana, resilience and Pacific community spirit that underpins the very fibre of our nations,” he said.

The meeting, chaired by the FSM’s Secretary for the Department of Resource and Development, Marion Henry, was hosted online, gathering Fisheries Ministers and officials from the Pacific Island Forum countries and territories as well as regional organisations

The talks covered regional coastal fisheries and aquaculture priorities and the impact of covid-19 on these fisheries, the 2020 Coastal Fisheries Report Card, and options for enhancing discussions on community-based management of coastal fisheries.

Ministers also endorsed the Regional Framework on Aquatic Biosecurity.

A man from humble beginnings has shown his character, as a man substance with a great love for academia and his students.

In a wide-ranging interview with Breakfast at Fiji One late last week, he has revealed himself to be a distinguished scholar with a love for USP and it students.

“I love Fiji, and I think it’s one of the best places in the world, and I’ve lived in a lot of places in the world so you know I think it’s absolutely fantastic,” he said at the start of the interview.

READ MORE: University governance, academic freedom and institutional autonomy in the Pacific

“The people here are just amazing…. And I also think if you just think about how we’ve managed the covid-19 crisis. This is just an incredible place to live,” he said.

The Kenyan-born academic studied for his bachelor’s and Master of Arts from the University of Saskatchewan, Canada, and later gained his PhD from Flinders University in South Australia.

He has a wide academic and administrative experience as he has previously served as the professor of the politics at Adelaide University; visiting professor at the University of California, Berkeley; professor with the Goldsmiths College at the University of London, where he also served as the director of the Centre for Postcolonial Studies and professor at University of California San Diego.

Prior his appointment as the vice-chancellor and president of USP, he served as the pro vice-chancellor for research and innovation at the University of Portsmouth.

Prolific author
Professor Ahluwalia is a prolific author, both in terms of volume and prestige. He is the sole author of four books, Politics and Post-colonial Theory: African Inflections, Post-colonialism and the Politics of Kenya, Plantations and the Politics of Sugar in Uganda, and Post-structuralism’s Colonial Roots.

He is also an editor or co-editor of several journals, including three Routledge journals, Social Identities, African Identities and Sikh Formations. However, in Fiji, he is a university administrator vice chancellor and president responsible for more than 18,000 students and approximately 1000 staff. But how did he get to Fiji?

What is his story? Revealed is Professor Paul Ahluwalia an academic, a husband, a father to a hip-hop rapper and lawyer, and a proud grandfather.

“I think if I strive for something. It is for being open for being transparent and for being African. There’s music in my family’s history and so you know it just happens that he’s [his son] has chosen this particular medium.

“And so, I’m very proud of him. He’s a very good musician. And he’s always trying to do something innovative.

“The thing about my granddaughter is that I’m absolutely excited that I haven’t had an opportunity to see her. Physically, simply because of the travel restrictions, but once I’m able to travel to Australia again you know I just very looking forward to.

“She’s gorgeous… But then everybody says that about their grandchild,” he says with the pride of grandfather.

Favourite colour blue
Yes, his favourite colour is blue, and he played a bit of sport in his younger years.

“I watch a lot of sport. When I was younger, I played a lot of field hockey. But, but now I really love cricket.

“And I guess since I’ve been in Fiji have become an absolute fan of rugby sevens”.

Not for him is the Kenyan rugby team No.1. He backs the last Olympic champions – Fiji.

“I absolutely support Fiji. No, no question about it.”

And, again coming from an Indian family, he was either expected to go into medicine or law but found his career in becoming an academic and administrator.

“I had no idea that I was going to become an academic. Again I come from a traditional Indian family, so they wanted me to be either a doctor or a lawyer.

Only career path
“This is a problem with Indians they always think that that’s the only, only career path. And that’s not meant in any derogatory way, but that I think that’s what my parents wanted and, of course when I went to university.

“I had a mentor, a professor who basically said, there are other things you can achieve in an email to me. So that’s how I became an academic, I never thought I’d become a vice-chancellor,” he said.

Administration was by pure accident, he said, because his initial ambition was to be a very good academic.

“I was able to accomplish a lot in my academic career. And I sort of fell into administration, almost by accident.

“Once I became an administrator, became a pro vice-chancellor then I thought, Okay, well you know, I always believe that you can strive for anything and so that’s when I decided that I must become a vice-chancellor.”

However, he misses the interaction with students that an academic got from entering a lecture theatre or tutorial.

“I genuinely love students and students are my passion. I’m here for them. And if every opportunity I get I’ll speak to a student,” he said in the interview.

More time with students
“They’re the reason why the university exists. So, I have absolutely no problem. I actually wish I had more time to spend more time with students,” he said.

“At heart I’m an academic, I really miss that interaction with students. I miss being able to walk into a classroom and having a tutorial or giving a lecture,” he said passionately.

He has a vision for the 12-nation USP.

“We’re already a very good institution, we have now 52 years of history. But my vision is that we want to become one of the great universities of the world.

“We’re going to be part of global rankings, where our staff have done the hard yards. They are really good researchers here. I think once we can enter those global rankings, we deserve the recognition.

“Pockets of our university already have that. Our MBA is globally recognised for what it is. And I think there’s so many other parts of the university, where we have excellence.

“We want to celebrate and show the world what a great regional university can accomplish

Praise for USP staff
He could not overlook praising his staff for their hard work and commitment.

“The trick is that you have to have a really good team working with you and I’m very lucky that my immediate staff in the office here is fantastic.

“They just are amazing people who have that experience and they’ve kept me honest; they make sure that you know that.”

He was getting a bit philosophical and wistful for USP’s students of the day.

“The young people today are so lucky. They can have exposure to so many things. And the communications revolution makes it easy for them to communicate to reach out to people across the world.

“I think it’s just such an exciting time to be young. And I think that the world is really their oyster, they can do whatever they want.

“Even with covid-19 presenting some difficulties, I think the resilience that I see in the Pacific is something that amazes me.

“And I think our young people can do anything. And they must believe in themselves. There will always be things which don’t fall into the place where you want it to, but it’s persistence and resilience that just gets you there.”

Whether those are qualities which carries the day for him, he will find out on Friday when USP Council meets to decide his fate.

After three days of protests by hundreds of students and staff at the regional University of the South Pacific over the treatment of their popular reforming vice-chancellor, an independent New Zealand journalist has now revealed damning details of previously secret governance reports.

Journalist and author Michael Field has revealed that some academics and staff at USP’s main Laucala campus in Suva “have been paying themselves millions of dollars in salaries and allowances they may not have been entitled to”.

An initial report on documents that have been leaked to him were reported on his social media account today, but further revelations are expected soon in the regional news magazine Islands Business.

READ MORE: Anger over suspension of Pacific university’s vice-chancellor

His revelations came after an executive committee of the USP University Council, the governance body that oversees the 12-nation university, has allegedly violated its own standing rules and suspended Professor Pal Ahluwalia as vice-chancellor and president pending an inquiry into allegations against him.

However, hundreds of academics and students have rallied to Professor Ahluwalia’s support. They see him as a reforming influence trying to establish better governance protocols at the institution, the premier university in the South Pacific region.

Another “pro Pal” protest by USP staff was blocked by police yesterday who said they had not applied for a permit.

Field reports that several Pacific member nations of the USP – including Nauru, New Zealand, Samoa and Tonga – have “expressed anger at the way USP staff appear to be helping themselves to aid money intended to educate the people of the Pacific”.

‘Payments run to millions of dollars’
“The payments which run into the millions of dollars, were paid during the reign of Fiji vice-chancellor Rajesh Chandra who also benefited from various curious allowances,” writes Field.

“They were discovered by his replacement Pal Ahluwalia who took over USP on November 1, 2018.”

A senior USP academic told Pacific Media Watch: “What has happened at USP in the past two days was a [pro-chancellor Winston] Thompson-orchestrated coup against VC Ahluwalia, the USP Council and against Pacific regionalism.

“I wonder who else is lurking in Thompson’s shadows.”

Michael Field said that for his first report today: “I have gone with a lighter version. I will harden up tomorrow. I have, in time honoured fashion received a big pile of key USP documents.”

Some of his revelations are expected to be from the independent Auckland consultants BDO report submitted to the USP Council last August but previously kept secret.

President Lionel Aingimea of Nauru, the incoming chancellor of the university and a law graduate from USP, yesterday accused a small Fiji group, including pro-chancellor Thompson, a retired former Fiji diplomat, of “hijacking” the university and waging a vendetta against Professor Ahluwalia.

Suspended on pay
Islands Business reported that a media statement authorised by Aloma Johansson, deputy pro-chancellor of the USP Council, said that the executive committee had suspended Professor Ahluwalia from duty on pay, and without withdrawal of privileges.

This suspension arose from a report compiled by the chair of the risk and audit committee Mahmood Khan listing numerous incidents of alleged breaches by the vice-chancellor.

Speaking to FBC News today for the first time since his suspension, Professor Ahluwalia said that if “something concrete” comes up from the investigations, it would be a matter for the council to decide.

Professor Derrick Armstrong has been appointed acting vice-chancellor and president to manage university affairs.

However, the USP Students Association (USPSA) has refused to recognise him or to meet with him and pro-chancellor Thompson to discuss the crisis.

Regional opposition has grown louder with Nauru’s President Aingimea calling for an urgent meeting of the full USP Council.

Samoa’s Minister for Education Loau Kaneti Sio has taken it a step further by calling on   Thompson to step down.

Investigation commissioned
Minister Sio said President Aingimea should succeed Thompson, who has been at loggerheads with Professor Ahluwalia since the vice-chancellor took office and first raised concerns about governance at the university.

This led to the commissioning of an investigation and a 114-page highly critical report by BDO Auckland.

“It is clear that the relationship between the pro-chancellor and the vice-chancellor has broken down irretrievably, and that the pro-chancellor has not abided by his agreement with council, nor with the sub-committee appointed to oversee the commission, to work with the vice-chancellor for the benefit of the USP,” wrote Minister Sio in a strongly-worded letter.

Emeritus Professor Pat Walsh, who is New Zealand’s representative on the council, also wrote a letter of concern.

As the second-largest funder of USP, after Australia, the New Zealand government has one seat on the USP Council.

Under USP’s own protocols, the executive committee of the council does not investigate the vice-chancellor, so any “meeting which purported to dismiss, suspend or otherwise discipline the VC would have no standing,” warned Walsh.

Australia contributed US$13 million to the USP in 2017, the European Union $1.5 million, Japan $2.3 million and other partners $2 million, according to the USP’s accounts for that year.

NZ seeks ‘explanations’ over USP mismanagement allegations

Papua New Guinea’s former Prime Minister Peter O’Neill has denied a claim that he has fled the country to avoid being arrested.

This is despite police last week withdrawing an arrest warrant for O’Neill, after his lawyers had launched a legal challenge to its validity.

The warrant was issued for the Ialibu-Pangia MP at the Waigani District Court on October 11.

READ MORE: Bryan Kramer: O’Neill flees country as national court dismisses case preventing his arrest

PNG’s Acting Police Commissioner David Manning said investigators sought the warrant in relation to a corruption case.

The national court issued a stay on the arrest while O’Neill’s legal team sought leave for a judicial review of the warrant.

But the Police Minister Bryan Kramer posted on Facebook that O’Neill fled to Australia on Friday shortly before the National Court ruling on his judicial review proceedings.

However O’Neill has rubbished this claim, saying he had flown to Sydney to be with his children.

“I have every right to travel and attend to my children’s needs,” O’Neill told RNZ Pacific.

The MP has also denied Kramer’s claim that O’Neill and his lawyers earlier fabricated a defective arrest warrant document to put before the court.

Last Thursday after police withdrew the warrant, O’Neill’s lawyers argued against the move, saying police would just seek a fresh warrant to avoid the review.

The State Solicitor, however, argued that O’Neill’s lawyers were trying to delay the matter by keeping it in court.

The case was adjourned.

• This article is published under the Pacific Media Centre’s content partnership with Radio New Zealand

An Indonesian lawyer being pursued by the state has won a human rights award for shining “a light on violations of the rights” of West Papuans.

A Solomon Islands province has agreed to lease a large island to a Chinese developer to develop into a special economic zone, weeks after the country opened diplomatic ties with China.

But already cracks abound; there has been no official announcement and the provincial premier says the deal is on ice.

Experts say the arrangement in Central Province would give the developer and other Chinese firms a strategic inlet into Solomon Islands, which until last month was one of Taiwan’s dwindling allies in the Pacific.

READ MORE: PNG and Solomons governments call for changes to forestry

The government traded Taiwan for China in a move that it said would promise more development for the nation.

The Central Province agreement, signed 22 September, would give Beijing-based Sam Group an exclusive five-year development lease for Tulagi island and its surrounding islands, according to a copy which was shared on Facebook on Friday by a Solomon Islands youth group which is pro-Taiwan.

RNZ Pacific has verified the leaked copy’s authenticity with two sources who are familiar with the agreement’s contents.

Central Province premier, Stanley Manetiva, confirmed he had signed the “strategic cooperation agreement” in Honiara with representatives of Sam Group, but said it was not legally binding and the company would have to comply with local laws and respect landowner rights on Tulagi.

“To be honest here, leasing Tulagi will not be possible,” he said in an interview. “Nothing will eventuate on the agreement.”

A phone number for Sam Group’s office in Beijing listed on its website was disconnected on Friday. Another company listed as a party to the lease agreement, Xiamen International Trade Group, could not be reached for comment.

According to a statement posted to Sam Group’s website, a Solomon Islands delegation visited its headquarters in August.

The two parties “hoped to carry out comprehensive cooperation in energy, chemical industry, investment, trade and other fields in addition to existing cooperation,” the statement said. It was unclear whether the visiting delegation was from Central Province.

“We want the investors to come to our province,” said Manetiva, adding the diplomatic switch had opened investment opportunities for Solomon Islands. “But we must be mindful, mindful in a sense that we must see that the people are our priority.”

Not everyone’s convinced the deal with Sam Group is as non-binding as Manetiva claims.

Solomon Islands’ deputy opposition leader, Peter Kenilorea Junior, was worried the lease would still go ahead.

“It raises a lot of concern for me, I didn’t see any protection, or at least any obligation in the agreement that I saw that also safeguards the interests of Central islands province peoples and the resources.”

As part of the Tulagi lease, Sam Group would be able to survey the island for oil and gas developments, despite what Kenilorea Junior described as a sizeable anti-mining movement on the island.

Central province, which hosted the former capital under British-ruled Solomon Islands, has a relatively small population of around 26,000 people, but covers a vast area of more than 600km2 of mostly-ocean. The province is also located close to the Guadalcanal, where the current capital Honiara is.

Kenilorea Junior said the province’s strategically central location might have made it a target for a Chinese developer like Sam Group.

“This may be a means to sort of piggybacking other companies into the Solomons,” said Anna Powles, a senior lecturer in security studies at Massey University in New Zealand.

She questioned whether one of Sam Group’s subsidiaries, China Jing An, was privately-owned because it was previously part of China’s Public Security Ministry.

“My sense from other research and other companies similarly, is that there are still very strong ties there.”

Still, local businesses on Tulagi have welcomed what they say is sorely-needed development on the island.

“We don’t have any banks and services here is quite low, and having investors to come and improve the place would be really great,” said Teika Dennis, the owner of the Vanita Motel and Restaurant.

• This article is published under the Pacific Media Centre’s content partnership with Radio New Zealand

Young Pasifika performers and artists came together last week for Moana Loloto, a night of indigenous storytelling to explore four pressing issues the Pacific and its people are facing.

Held at the Mangere Arts Centre in South Auckland, young people of Te Moana-nui-ā-Kiwa used dance, art and stories to discuss West Papua, the land occupations at Ihumātao and Mauna Kea and climate change, with a specific focus on Kiribati.

Tagata Pasifika spoke to some of the young “Pacific influencers” who were helping to bring these issues into the spotlight.

READ MORE: UN Security-General tells youth be ‘noisy as possible’ on climate change

Mission 2 Zero’s Emily Muli said Moana Loloto was a space to nurture stories and tell them the Pacific way.

“We just wanted to give space to people to talk about that in our ways so that’s through talanoa and creative arts.”

She said there has been a lot more engagement with issues like climate change over the past two years and this could be seen in the number of events that are being held.

Also speaking was Pelenise Alofa of the Kiribati Climate Action Network who told Tagata Pasifika that her work to help build resilience on Kiribati was made harder by a lack of political will in developed countries.

“My government and my people are trying their best, we try to adapt but we need more support from the developed countries to help us.”

• This video was republished through Pacific Media Centre’s partnership with Tagata Pasifika

A Filipino human rights lawyer has come away uninjured after unidentified motorcyclists fired gunshots into her car on the central Philippines island of Panay, reports The Sun Star.

According to the report, Criselda Heredia was with her daughter and a client when the attack happened last month.

“I was just ambushed. Two bullet holes… There are nine bullets recovered by the police. The police however suspect that there are more,” she said in a Facebook post.

READ MORE: Duterte accused of ‘creating conditions’ leading to martial law declaration

A member of the National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers (NUPL) Heredia is an anti-mining campaigner on the island and handles pro bono cases for farmers, human rights defenders and political prisoners.

In an official statement, the International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines condemned the “outright attack against Filipino human rights lawyers,” saying that it was part of an ongoing pattern of attacks.

“There is a clear pattern of vilification and harassments which then lead to political killings,” said Peter Murphy, chair of ICHRP’s Global Council.

“This only shows the continuing climate of impunity and the worsening human rights situation in the Philippines under President Duterte.”

According to NUPL, before the shooting Heredia had been receiving death threats from unidentified men visiting her office and was red-tagged in posters in a similar fashion to human rights lawyer Benjamin Ramos, who was murdered on the nearby island of Negros last year.

The statement said that this attack on Heredia brings the total number of attacks on lawyers under the Duterte administration to 61, with 49 killed and 12 survivors.

It went on to emphasise the danger that Filipinos are facing on a regular basis.

“ICHRP reiterates its commitment to redouble our campaigns to alert the international community of the massive repression of the basic rights of the Filipino people that are continually taking place,” said Murphy.

“We are also calling on all human rights defenders and advocates to denounce the looming fascism of President Rodrigo Duterte’s government and to support the Filipino people’s struggle for justice.”

For 74-year-old Teaga Esekia, a chief from the Tuvalu island of Vaitupu, the ocean is a lifeblood.

“Tuvaluans, they have different types of months, not like January to December,” said the elderly but agile man, who still climbs coconut trees every day.

“They have their seasons according to fish and planting. We tell the time by fish.”

READ MORE: Thousands – young and old – demand government action on climate change

Esekia was sitting at the edge of the lagoon on Tuvalu’s main island, Funafuti, where he had travelled for a medical appointment. As he sat beneath a tree, sheltering in the breeze from the harsh afternoon sun, he told of how that ocean has changed.

“Some of the common fish, they’re very hard to find now in Tuvalu. That’s a problem we’re facing nowadays.”

His people on Vaitupu also sustained themselves by planting pulaka, a type of swamp taro, which are grown in pits.

“I can see most of the pits are now not growing because if you taste the water there, it’s salt. When we were young, these pits were growing very well. Nowadays it’s very hard,” he said.

IPCC Report
The changes seen by Esekia were starkly highlighted last week in the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

The report, which was written by more than 100 scientists and experts – including several from New Zealand, Australia and the Pacific – is based on more than 7000 scientific studies, providing one of the most comprehensive insights into the state of the oceans today.

It concluded that the oceans are heating at such a rate that their chemistry is being altered which, in turn, is threatening seafood supplies, fuelling more extreme cyclones and floods, and posing a profound threat to millions of people who live in low-lying areas.

For the Pacific Islands, it painted a grim picture.

“We already see in the Pacific these impacts,” said Helene Jacot des Combes, a scientist at the University of the South Pacific and adaptation advisor to the Marshall Islands government, who was one of the report’s contributing authors.

“It is true that all the changes in the ocean in terms of temperature, in terms of ocean acidification, will have a very important impact on the marine ecosystems and on the distribution of fish and other marine life,” she said. “We can already see some variation.”

‘Grim picture’
Jens Krüger, the manager for oceans affairs at the Secretariat of the Pacific Community, who was not involved with the IPCC report but is on the executive planning group for the UN Decade of Ocean Science, said the conclusions painted a grim picture: the effects would be most keenly felt in the Pacific.

“It really confirms that our ocean is at a breaking point. It’s getting hotter, sea levels are rising, the ocean is becoming more acidic, and of course all of this is happening as our planet heats up,” said Dr Krüger.

“For us in the Pacific, the report also highlights that all these changes, and the rate and the magnitude of the changes which are already being observed, are highest in our region.”

The oceans act as a crucial buffer against global warming, absorbing about a quarter of the carbon dioxide that’s emitted, as well as taking much of the excess heat that’s trapped in the Earth’s atmosphere. But the report says there’s so much that the oceans are becoming hotter and more acidic.

“These positive aspects of the ocean in the climate change is having a side effect in the ocean with the change in the chemistry, and that will have a lot of impact,” said Dr Jacot des Combes.

“For the Pacific, where people depend so much on the ocean, it’s very problematic.”

Ecosystems in disarray
These warming waters are throwing marine ecosystems into disarray, the IPCC said, as habitats wither. The frequency of marine heat waves – which kill fish, sea birds and coral reefs – has doubled since the 1980s, it said, while many fish populations are migrating far from their usual locations – like Vaitupu, in Tuvalu, where Esekia has noticed a decline – as they try to find cooler waters.

Already, Dr Krüger said, this was being keenly felt in the Pacific. This year alone, severe coral bleaching events have whitened reefs in French Polynesia and Guam, and fears have grown about whether they’ll recover as bleaching events become more common.

Heatwaves in the ocean are expected to become 20 to 50 times more frequent this century, depending on how much emissions increase, the report said, with vibrant underwater ecosystems like coral reefs and kelp forest all expected to suffer serious damage.

“Warm water coral reefs, for us in the Pacific, that’s our major ecosystem,” said Dr Krüger. “The report confirms that we are actually creating a world that is incompatible with our way of life.”

In the Pacific, reefs are some of the main sources of food, income and defence. Their fish and plants provide sustenance for locals, and income from fish exports and tourism. They also act as a barrier, dissipating the force of waves as they charge towards vulnerable islands and atolls, especially as sea’s rise, which is another of the report’s conclusions.

Rising seas
As ice sheets and glaciers melt, it said, ocean levels are being pushed up, making extreme flooding that was once rare become annual events.

That is already being seen in places like Kiribati and Marshall Islands, Dr Jacot des Combes said, where inundations were happening with increasing regularity.

Hotter ocean temperatures and rising sea levels also provide fuel for more destructive cyclones, which further imperil the coastal regions and low-lying states of the Pacific.

“We have seen that the number of category four and category five cyclones are increasing in the total number of annual cyclones,” said Dr Jacot des Combes.

While the report said the severity of the threats it outlined could be reduced if nations sharply cut their greenhouse gas emissions, it also pointed out that many countries would need to adapt to many changes that have now become unavoidable.

Dr Krüger said this included most Pacific countries, especially in the northwest Pacific, where sea level rise was already three to four times the global average.

Urgent priority
“We’re definitely not moving fast enough,” said Dr Krüger. “Really, the report concludes by highlighting, you know, that we have this urgency, we have to prioritise, we need to do it now.”

Esekia was sitting at the edge of Funafuti lagoon on the day of the leaders’ retreat of the Pacific Islands Forum in August, where the region’s leaders were meeting to try and thrash out a declaration on climate change.

That agreement was taken to the United Nations in New York last week, where world leaders again met to discuss climate change as a mass of youth-led climate strikes were held around the world, coinciding with the IPCC report’s release.

Most industrialised countries aren’t on track to meet their Paris Agreement targets, let alone the drastic changes called for in last week’s report.

Marshall Islands President Hilda Heine is calling for greater action.

“There is no excuse for large, wealthy and polluting nations not to act,” said Heine at a news conference.

“We are most heavily threatened and impacted and we are least equipped to tackle what are overwhelming challenges as we seek to cope or to respond.”

• This article is published under the Pacific Media Centre’s content partnership with Radio New Zealand

Vanuatu and Solomon Islands have raised the issue of human rights abuses against West Papuans at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.

The two governments made a statement which also noted that Indonesia had not yet given access to Papua for the UN Human Rights Commissioner.

The statement was delivered at the council’s latest session by Sumbue Antas from Vanuatu’s Permanent Mission to the UN.

READ MORE: FLNKS calls for West Papua self-determination, condemns violence

It followed weeks of protests and related unrest in Papua which left at least ten people dead and dozens of Papuans arrested.

The Melanesian countries told the council of their deep concern about ongoing rights violations against the freedoms of expression and assembly, as well as racial discrimination towards Papuans in the Indonesian-administered provinces of Papua and West Papua.

They echoed last week’s call from the UN human rights chief, Michelle Bachelet, for Indonesia to protect the fundamental human rights of Papuans.

“Related to this agenda item, we are concerned about the Indonesian Government’s delay in confirming a time and date for the Human Rights Commissioner to conduct its visit to West Papua,” Antas said.

For years, the UN Human Rights Commissioner’s office has been trying to secure permission from Jakarta to visit Papua region.

Indonesia’s government has indicated that, for the time being, access to Papua would remain restricted because of the security situation created by the recent unrest, which was triggered by racist harassment of Papuan students in Java last month.

Six thousand extra Indonesian military and police personnel were deployed to Papua to respond to the widespread protests. The government also implemented restrictions on internet coverage in Papua, although this was gradually being eased as of last week.

However, even before the current surge in unrest, Pacific Islands countries voiced frustration that Jakarta had not responded sufficiently to repeated requests by the UN Commissioner for access to Papua.

At the recent 2019 Pacific Islands Forum Leaders Summit in Tuvalu, regional countries called on both Indonesia and the UN Commissioner to finalise the timing of a visit to West Papua, and to submit an evidence-based report on the situation before the next summit in 2020.

“We call on the High Commissioner and the Government of Indonesia to expedite this arrangement so an assessment on the current situation is made, and a report can be submitted to the Human Rights Council for its consideration,” Antas said.

• This article is published under the Pacific Media Centre’s content partnership with Radio New Zealand. 

Thousands of forest fires have been burning across Indonesian Borneo and Sumatra, disrupting air travel, closing schools and sickening thousands of people, reports the New York Times.

Officials have said that about 80 per cent of the fires were intentionally set to make room for lucrative cash crops like oil palm.

Spokesman for Indonesia’s disaster management agency Agus Wibowo said that these “slash and burn tactics” were the quickest and cheapest method for farmers to clear the land of its carbon rich rainforests.

READ MORE: Precarious politics pose threats to world’s three biggest rainforests

WATCH: PMC Director David Robie discusses forest fires on TRT World Now

Aerial photographs have showed huge clouds of white smoke across vast areas of Kalimantan, the Indonesian part of Borneo, which is home to the endangered Orangutan.

The toxic haze from the fires has also been affecting neighbouring countries, with hundreds of schools in Malaysia forced to close, reports The Guardian.

Indonesian officials have reportedly attempted to deflect some of the blame for the smoke to fires in Malaysia.

“The Indonesian government has been systematically trying to resolve this to the best of its ability. Not all smog is from Indonesia,” said Indonesia’s Environment Minister, Siti Nurbaya Bakar.

However, her Malaysian counterpart Yeo Bee Yin has since released data from the ASEAN Specialised Meteorological Centre (ASMC), which showed the total number of hotspots in Kalimantan was 474 and 387 in Sumatra. By comparison, only seven were recorded in Malaysia.

According to CNA News, Indonesian president Joko Widodo has said he has “made every effort” to extinguish the fires by deploying aircraft and 6000 troops to the hot spots and holding a “salat istisqa”- a prayer to Allah for rain in times of drought.

If nothing comes of the prayer, Coordinating Minister for Politics, Security and Legal Affairs Wiranto has said that the government will seed the clouds with chemicals to prompt “artificial rainfall”, reports Detik News.

While 200 people have been arrested in relation to the fires, officials have said that air quality had been recorded as “unhealthy” or “very unhealthy” in Malaysia, Sarawak and Singapore.

Indonesian forest fires have been a major environmental and health issue in recent decades as dryer conditions and the growing global demand for palm oil exacerbate their spread.

The 2015 forest fires resulted in huge plumes of smoke reaching as far away as Cambodia. Research has estimated at least 23 million were affected and over 100,000 thousand were killed from respiratory related illnesses in Indonesia alone.

The cost to mitigate the 2015 haze was reported to be US$40 billion.

The fires in Indonesia have added to global alarm about the dire situation in Brazil, where blazes have consumed over 2 million acres of rainforest in the Amazon basin, known as the “lungs of the earth”.

Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen has said she “regrets and strongly condemns” the Solomon Islands’ decision to establish diplomatic relations with China.

The Solomons cabinet made the decision yesterday after which Taiwan terminated its 36-year relationship with the Pacific country.

Tsai said China’s promises of financial assistance often come up “empty” and that “Taiwan’s contributions to Solomon Islands, particularly in medicine, agriculture, education, and culture, could not be measured in dollars.”

READ MORE: Solomons academic calls for caution over Taiwan/China decision

“Taiwan’s attitude towards its diplomatic allies has been one of sincere friendship. We spare no effort and treat our allies with sincerity. However, in the face of China’s interference and suppression, we will not stand to be threatened, nor will we be subjected to ceaseless demands,” Tsai said.

Taiwan will close its embassy in Solomon Islands today and recall all technical and medical personnel stationed there, she said.

“I want to thank them for fighting bravely to the last for our diplomatic relationship. It is indeed regrettable that their unfinished cooperative projects must come to an end, and it is a loss for Solomon Islands people,” Tsai said.

“However, this is the choice that Solomon Islands’ government has made, leaving us with no other option but to respond in this way.

“Although we have terminated diplomatic ties, I want to extend my gratitude to the people of Solomon Islands for their support for Taiwan, and to our allies in the international community who sought to help mediate this issue.

“Changes in the diplomatic arena are indeed challenging, but Taiwan still has many friends around the world willing to stand with us, and we are not alone.”

• This article is published under the Pacific Media Centre’s content partnership with Radio New Zealand. 

Earlier this week staff and students of the University of the South Pacific received a summary of an independent investigation report written by BDO Auckland. The audit was commissioned in response to damning allegations raised by the Vice Chancellor Pal Ahluwalia, who joined the University in late 2018.

The report was shared with the Vanuatu Daily Post by concerned stakeholders.

Ahluwalia’s allegations became public after they were leaked to Islands Business magazine. This led to a rancorous tit for tat in the media between the Vice Chancellor and Council chair Winston Thompson. The magazine recently reported that Thompson had tried to have the new Vice Chancellor sacked.

READ MORE: USP to enforce report on mismanagement and abuse of office

The BDO report appears to validate many of the allegations raised. But it adds a caution: The company attempted to trace all 26 allegations using university records, but “due to the level and/or quality of documentation retained by the USP, this wasn’t always possible. As a result, BDO was not able to substantiate a number of the allegations.”

Nonetheless, the report summary cites “serious concerns that require attention and action.”

It mentions inducements offered during contract renewal negotiations in breach of policy. It disclosed that many inducements were offered as a percentage of overall salary, rather than the traditional modest one-off sign-on bonus amounts.

Acting allowances also appeared to have been used without proper control or consideration. “BDO found that these allowances have been paid to some staff extensively, with very little policy guidance,” the summary read.

The summary report suggests that USP’s behaviour was not consistent with other universities.

The same appears to have happened with bonuses. “BDO found that bonuses and, in some cases, multiple bonuses have been paid extensively to staff which is in breach of the USP policies.”

The summary continued, “It appears that a culture of entitlement to bonuses has developed rather than being a mechanism to reward exceptional effort and performance.”

The summary suggested that consulting contracts may also have been abused. “The policy intends to ensure that the USP recovers all costs associated with delivery of the services, however, this was not observed across the agreements that BDO reviewed.”

In short, they could not prove that people had actually done the work they were paid to do.

A large part of the report outlined the gulf of leadership in human resources, stating: “USP’s HR function has been without consistent leadership for many years.”

The summary dodged the most difficult questions. Rather than outright state that Thompson acted outside his authority, as alleged in the Ahluwalia report, the report resorted to stating the negative. “BDO’s view is that a majority of the decisions investigated were made within the boundaries of the VCP’s Ordinance.”

This implies that some of the decisions did fall outside the boundaries.

Even then, BDO Auckland added that even though many of Thompson’s actions weren’t outright breaches, “when critically analysed, the rationale for many of the decisions taken is unclear.”

Most troubling, the summary reminded the University that many of the problems highlighted in the report were known to USP.

“These HR and payroll concerns were reported in accordance with USP’s standard internal audit reporting process across three reports. The conclusions within these reports point clearly to a need for greater oversight, control and management of the HR and payroll functions at the USP. The outcomes of the BDO investigation suggest that the recommendations raised have only been partially implemented, or in some cases, not at all.”

The summary concluded: “While the allegations highlighted in the paper have arisen in an unfortunate manner, they have raised serious concerns that require attention and action.”

• Dan McGarry is the media director of the Vanuatu Daily Post group.
• This article was originally published in the Vanuatu Daily Post. The Pacific Media Centre republishes VDP articles with permission

A Fiji opposition MP has been suspended from parliament for six months for refusing to apologise to the Prime Minister.

Pio Tikoduadua and several other opposition MPs walked out of parliament on Friday night, after hours of debating a report into breaches of privilege by himself and Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama.

A report delivered to parliament on Friday by the Privileges Committee recommended parliament ask Tikoduadua to apologise to Bainimarama for making a personal attack on him in the House.

READ MORE: Video showing Fiji PM seizing opposition MP goes viral

The report also cleared Bainimarama of forcefully touching the opposition MP – despite video footage showing the Prime Minister grabbing and shoving him outside parliament on 9 August – but recommended he apologise to Tikoduadua after admitting to verbally abusing him.

“I offer my unreserved apologies to him, to my colleagues, to the parliament and to you Mr Speaker Sir for my actions,” Bainimarama later told parliament.

But after a motion to amend the Privilege Committee’s recommendations and instead outright suspend the Prime Minister for two years was narrowly defeated, opposition MPs staged a walkout with Tikoduadua, who refused to apologise.

“If I am to choose between my seat and my dignity, I’d rather lose my seat,” he wrote on his Facebook page.

In line with the Privilege Committee’s recommendations, Tikoduadua was suspended without salary for six months on Friday.

Following the Prime Minister’s apology the speaker adjourned parliament until Tuesday 12 November.

• This article is published under the Pacific Media Centre’s content partnership with Radio New Zealand

The New Caledonian-based Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front or FLNKS has condemned the ongoing human rights violations in West Papua and has called for the Papuan right to self-determination to be recognised.

In a press release the pro-independence group consisting of mostly indigenous Kanaks said that the recent attacks on protestors and the mass mobilisation of Indonesian troops in Papua had prompted it to “call on all parties to work for lasting solution”.

“The FLNKS recalls and supports the constructive dialogue effort with Indonesia initiated by the Pacific Islands Forum – of which New Caledonia is a full member – and calls on the Indonesian Government to work closely with the UN Human Rights Commission to finalise the Commission’s visit to West Papua,” the press release said.

READ MORE: Papuan students under siege seek self-determination

“Furthermore, the FLNKS renews its unwavering support for our brothers in West Papua and calls on its militants and supporters to remain vigilant in the face of any move to discredit the West Papua liberation movement.”

It called on supporters to denounce any efforts to intimidate solidarity movements for West Papua.

Part of the Melanesian Spearhead Group, FLNKS is familiar with the independence struggle, having fought a long, and at times violent campaign for Kanak self-determination from France.

The group was formed from a congress of various political parties and unions in 1984, the same year as the Hienghène massacre where 10 unarmed Kanaks were killed by a group of white and mixed-race settlers, or Caldoches.

A few years later, 19 Kanaks were slaughtered on Ouvéa Island after an offensive by the French military to free captured gendarme hostages.

Then in 1989, the then leader of FLNKS Jean-Marie Tjibaou, and his deputy Yeiwene Yeiwene were assassinated not long after negotiating the Matignon Accord.

The right to Kanak self-determination has been acknowledged by the French government and was entertained through an independence referendum last year, which resulted in an anti-independence vote.

Two more independence referendums will be held in the next three years in accordance with the Noumea Accord.

The University of the South Pacific has said it will implement the recommendations of the independent investigator looking into allegations of mismanagement and abuse of office at the regional institution.

BDO Auckland was engaged to investigate alleged corruption at the university.

According to the Islands Business, the USP Council said in a statement the BDO report had resulted in a “range of findings and recommendations that will need to be addressed to ensure the sound operation of the university”.

READ MORE: USP Council to investigate claims of abuse of office amid staff unrest

On November 23 this year, Bougainvilleans will vote in a referendum to decide whether they wish to stay part of Papua New Guinea or become an independent nation.

It is perhaps the high point of a 20-year peace process that followed a gruelling, 10-year battle for independence waged between the Bougainville Revolutionary Army and PNG Defence Force.

The referendum is not the final step ­– the vote must be ratified by the PNG Parliament and is subject to a final agreement between PNG and the Autonomous Government of Bougainville, set up under the peace process.

However, Bougainvilleans have long held a sense of separate identity from the rest of PNG, and it appears this island group of 300,000 people is heading for nationhood, with a clear majority expected to vote in favour of independence.

READ MORE: Ben Bohane wins $10,000 Bougainville mission grant for Pacific journalism

This puts Australia in a tricky position, given its close relationship with PNG. With rising geopolitical tensions in the region as China asserts its interests and courts Pacific territories, including Bougainville, Australia has less room to manoeuvre than it once did.

Australia has a vested interest in seeing this long-running issue resolved peacefully.

Bougainville was part of Australian-administered PNG from 1915 until PNG’s independence in 1975. Australia’s relations with the territory have a long and complicated history ranging across the colonial era, two world wars, the 1988–98 Bougainville conflict, and subsequent peacekeeping missions.

Since the Bougainville war, Canberra invested heavily in various peacekeeping operations, at considerable cost to the Australian taxpayer. The Bougainville peace process has been rightly lauded as a successful model, and Australia can be proud of its record, whatever the criticisms of its role in the war.

The November referendum is in keeping with a process laid out in the Bougainville Peace Agreement, signed by virtually all parties in 2001, as a roadmap for Bougainville’s future status.

Canberra has since signalled that it will be guided by the terms of the peace agreement and any “negotiated outcome” under that arrangement. For Canberra, the status quo – that Bougainville remain part of PNG – is likely the preferred outcome, avoiding another small, aid-dependent nation emerging in the region.

If, however, the result is overwhelmingly in favour of independence, and if the negotiated outcome with the PNG government supports that result, then Australia has little choice but to accept it. Once the result is known, Australia may be better to anticipate it, meet the challenge head-on, and work with regional players to ensure as peaceful and successful a transition as possible.

Bougainville has significant natural resources. It has copper, gold, and silver reserves valued at more than $58 billion, rich fishing grounds, and a history of agricultural production, including large cocoa plantations. These resources – and good management of them – will be crucial if Bougainville is to become a viable independent nation. Its challenge now is to educate and mobilise a “lost generation” of younger people disenfranchised by the war, while forging a unified people and bringing integrity to its political system. It faces many challenges ahead, not least of which is finding consensus on mining issues.

However, the autonomous government is largely ready for the referendum, while the new government in PNG has suggested that it is more committed to the process than the previous government under Peter O’Neill.

Strong sentiments for independence on the ground, combined with the new geopolitics of the region, suggest there is little Bougainville’s neighbours, including Australia, can do to slow the momentum towards independence.

Australia’s challenge is to allow the peace process to unfold, signal its neutrality, and engage more with all parties to the process.

While Australia may have legitimate concerns about Bougainville’s prospects as a new nation in the region, these need to be balanced against the possibility of a crisis unfolding if a clear majority of Bougainvilleans vote yes, as expected, and their wishes are then stymied by events.

• This article is republished from the Lowy Institute’s The Interpreter with Ben Bohane’s permission.

Wording has played a crucial role in a reportedly “fierce” Pacific Islands Forum in Tuvalu with Australia allegedly managing to alter documental terms to downplay its commitment to climate change mitigation.

According to RNZ Pacific, a communiqué and separate statement on climate change was released after a 12-hour meeting between the leaders yesterday.

The document, released after midnight, included what’s titled the ‘Funafuti Declaration for Urgent Climate Change Action Now”.

READ MORE: Tongan PM blasts Pacific regionalism ‘myth’ and silence over West Papua

The main communiqué endorsed a declaration from the small island states calling for a commitment to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees celsius, an immediate phase out of coal, and contributions to the UN Green Climate Fund.

While Australia was a qualification and did not endorse the main communiqué it did endorse the separate statement which committed countries to work in solidarity to combat climate change, reports RNZ.

However, Australia which is the largest coal exporter in the world managed to have all references to coal removed from the documentation.

While the Guardian had reported that Scott Morrison’s government was pushing for the words climate change “crisis” to be changed to “reality” in the draft communiqué, it remained in the final document.

Nevertheless, Australia’s Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs, Penny Wong, said Scott Morrison was undermining vital relationships in the Pacific.

“The reality is that Pacific Island nations, Pacific leaders have made it clear they don’t trust the Morrison government when it comes to climate change. They don’t trust them because the Morrison government has failed to act on climate change.”

Fiji’s Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama was not happy with the result of the forum, saying the leaders had settled for the status quo.

“Watered-down climate language has real consequences — like water-logged homes, schools, communities, and ancestral burial grounds,” he said.

Opposition leader of the Solomon Islands, Matthew Wale, said the forum was a missed opportunity to really “step up”.

“‘Family’, has been exploited for domestic Australian politics,” he said, referencing the term Scott Morrison had used in his speech at the forum.

Tuvalu Prime Minister Enele Sopoaga was more diplomatic, saying: “I think the outcome is a very good outcome, it’s probably the best outcome given the context and circumstances.”

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has been praised for her commitment to climate change at the forum.

This week she announced $150 million Pacific climate funding and reiterating New Zealand’s commitment to reducing emissions, citing the goal of reaching net zero carbon emissions by 2035.

While she has said Scott Morrison’s government “has to answer on the Pacific”, she stopped short of calling for Australia to transition out of coal, reports The Guardian.

“Issues around Australia’s domestic policy are issues for Australia,” she said, when asked about Australia’s coal use.

There was a frenetic energy outside the Sir Tomasi Puapua Convention Centre on Sunday, where the finishing touches were being hurriedly put to the newly-built centre on reclaimed land here on Tuvalu’s main atoll, Funafuti.

People were sweeping the freshly-laid pavement, laying out the desks inside, finishing off the wiring. Only on Thursday was a crane out front, hoisting the flagpoles into place.

Over the weekend, dozens of people painted walls, fences and even the roads, which had newly-planted shrubs along their length. Kids were enlisted in the island-wide spruce up, too, shooing dogs off the airport runway and rehearsing their welcoming songs.

READ MORE: West Papua, climate to top agenda at Pacific Islands Forum

They’re not quite finished, but they will be by the time Tuesday comes, said Enele Sopoaga, Prime Minister of Tuvalu, as he inspected progress on Saturday.

On Tuesday, Funafuti, a slither of an atoll just south of the equator, will see its population increase by about 10 percent as delegates pour in for the Pacific Islands Forum summit, an annual meeting that brings together the leaders from every country in the Pacific, and Australia and New Zealand.

For Tuvalu, it’s a daunting task. Nine atolls with a population of 11,000, it’s one of the world’s smallest countries. Accommodation is tight, and extra flights have been put on, (there’s normally only three a week), to get everybody here. They’ve built new accommodation and a convention centre.

The Secretary-General of the PIF, Dame Meg Taylor, was confident: “As the priest at mass this morning said, ‘a courageous effort to host this meeting,’ and he was right.”

That’s because it’s also one of Tuvalu’s greatest opportunities. Hosting the Forum gives it an opportunity to bask in the spotlight, to highlight the issues pertinent to it. Being on the front line of climate change, Sopoaga is hoping to hammer home his country’s push for greater commitments – particularly from the region’s largest economies, Australia and New Zealand.

But this year’s forum also comes at a time when the world’s attention is drawing in, with great powers competing for a slice of the pie. There are so-called pivots, resets, uplifts and step-ups, and they’re all likely to come with open arms and wallets.

But with that comes competing interests. The United States’ interest is in large part because of its contest with the rise of China. Australia and New Zealand’s are in part because of that too, while also making up for years of neglect.

China’s coming in part to win influence and allies, but also to finally end Taiwan’s support, while Taiwan’s here to maintain that support, as most of its dwindling international allies are here in the Pacific, Tuvalu among them. The UK’s here, looking for friends in a post-Brexit world, and others are coming too.

It could also be a recipe for a testy forum, especially when the leaders meet for the day-long retreat on Thursday, highlighting a growing chasm between the island states and the western ones, (Australia, in particular), on several matters.

Climate Change

On Saturday, Sopoaga stood out the back of the convention centre and gestured towards the lagoon. “This is our biggest threat,” he said. Then, the sea was a placid blue, but the threat it poses to Tuvalu is great.

Tuvalu is one of the most vulnerable countries in the world. Its highest point is little more than four metres, its widest point about the same — a causeway at the northern end of the main island of Funafuti, scarred by sand and debris washed across every time there’s a storm or king tide.

Hire a scooter or hitch a ride to travel the length of Funafuti, (it only takes about 20 minutes), and the signs of its vulnerability are everywhere. Wilted crops, palm trees leaning, their roots exposed, the ground hollowed out by a sea nibbling at their base.

When Cyclone Pam hit Vanuatu in 2015, Tuvalu suffered gravely. The ferocious seas whipped up by the category five storm inundated about 40 percent of the country, the government estimated. As sea levels rise, and the effects of climate change bed in, such events could become all the more frequent.

‘Save Tuvalu, save the world’

Sopoaga has made a name for himself bringing Tuvalu’s plight to the world, he’s been one of the key figures at climate talks, urging countries to commit to reducing carbon emissions, to increase their climate financing, and, in some cases, to even acknowledge the threat it poses. “Save Tuvalu, save the world,” has been his slogan.

Now, the leaders of the Pacific are coming to Tuvalu. The hall where the Presidents and Prime Ministers of the 18 countries will retreat to sits near that washed over causeway, in sight of the island’s narrowest point. There’s a reason for that.

“We have a big job to do this week. The job is to review where we are? Where do we want to go to, and how are we going to get there?” he said.

This year is the 50th Pacific Islands Forum, and Sopoaga – who is about to take over as chair, (for now, Tuvalu has elections on 9 September) – is looking to make climate change the key focus. He wants strong commitments in this year’s communiqué, to follow on from last year’s summit in which the Boe Declaration declared climate change the region’s single greatest security threat, and for a united statement to take to a major UN climate summit next month.

And that could bring some heat on the region’s two largest economies: New Zealand and Australia, both in the midst of trying to reinvent their relationships with their respective Pacific resets and Pacific step-ups.

NZ and Australia
New Zealand’s Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, will arrive on Wednesday, ready to tout her coalition government’s policy to cut carbon emissions, and its increased aid and support for climate diplomacy. The Pacific, however, is also aware that New Zealand’s emissions continue to rise, and will be asking whether what’s been announced is enough.

But she’ll get off lightly compared to Australia’s Scott Morrison, the recently re-elected conservative Prime Minister, who once famously raised a lump of coal in parliament, to the ire of Pacific leaders including Sopoaga.

Australia has come under fire from several Pacific countries for its climate stance in the lead-up to the forum, both in veiled criticism and explicit statements. Just in the past month, some Pacific leaders have issued a communiqué calling for it to end its support for coal and to avoid trying to water down climate commitments, as happened at last year’s summit in Nauru. Separately, Palau’s president Tommy Remengesau made a plea for further climate action.

Morrison, for his part, is fond of talking of the family relationship between the countries. He’s already visited the region three times since becoming Prime Minister, and will be keen to stress whatever ties he can, dodging the climate issue.

But that’s unlikely to placate countries who are demanding the region’s biggest player do more.

New friends and old foes
This year’s forum also comes at a time of simmering geopolitical tensions between powers on the ocean’s edges: mainly, the United States and China, which are both sending sizeable delegations to Funafuti. The US is understood to be sending an entire plane-load of officials.

Geopolitical plays have always been a part of the forum, but with the rise of China, things have taken on a new dynamic as some of the older powers – Australia, New Zealand and the United States – start to get jittery.

And that will be the key issue Morrison is likely to bring to the forum: security. Already, there has been a swathe of announcements. A Pacific security college, a range of new patrol boats for Pacific countries, joint military training, an Australian Pacific Force, and a naval presence – with the US – on Manus Island.

There is validity to that, as in the drug problems that are emerging in Pacific countries as a result of increased drug trafficking across the ocean, protecting vulnerable fisheries with few resources and vast oceans, and, to an extent, the threat of unrest.

But Canberra is a signatory to the Boe Declaration. That means it too must have acknowledged that climate change is the greatest security threat, and attention is likely to be drawn to that.

On different pages

This forum could show how much Australia, New Zealand and the regional states are reading from completely different pages.

Beyond that, the Taiwan issue could prove to be a thorn again. The island – which is regarded as a renegade state by China – is recognised by Tuvalu, as was the case for last year’s host, Nauru. There, there was a commotion when the Chinese delegation demanded speaking rights and stormed out after a confrontation with President Baron Waqa. It’s understood work’s been done to ensure such a scene is avoided this year.

But none of those things are what Sopoaga wants the focus to be on.

Children’s greeting

As leaders and delegates arrive at the airport, they walk off the plane to be greeted by a display. Children sit in a swimming pool, smiling and waving flags, behind them is a pile of sand, with wilted palm trees and a leaning fale.

The leaders are asked to pause and read a sign:

“Before us we see the devastating effects of climate change on our children; Sea level rising, land erosion, cyclone damage.

In your meetings this week remember: We must act before it is too late. We must save Tuvalu to save the world.”

Sopoaga said on Saturday: “We don’t care about that C [China], we’re only interested in doing something about that sea,” gesturing to the ocean.

Bainimarama returns

Voreqe Bainimarama strutted off the plane with a wide grin to arrive at his first forum in 12 years. Fiji was suspended in 2009 after his then-military government abrogated the constitution, three years after he took power in a military coup.

And, if statements in recent weeks are anything to go by, he’s looking to make his return count.

The Pacific Islands Development Forum, which Bainimarama established after Fiji’s suspension, met last month, where the strongly-worded Nadi Declaration was released. It declared a climate crisis, demanded an end to the use of coal, called on high-emitting countries to stop hindering climate change efforts, and demanded PIF members stop subsidising fossil fuels.

There, Bainimarama said this week’s forum should expect nothing less than concrete commitments to cut emissions.

“We cannot allow climate commitments to be watered down at a meeting hosted in a nation whose very existence is threatened by the rising waters lapping at its shores,” he said.

Bainimarama has in the past said he wouldn’t return to a forum meeting until Australia and New Zealand were no longer full members, criticising what he called an outsize influence. He’s back anyway, but that doesn’t mean he’ll make it easy for them.

But what does that mean for the hordes of Tuvaluans who raced to the runway to welcome the plane loads of dignitaries buzzing in? Lazing in a hammock beneath a tree on Sunday afternoon, watching the planes come in and out while escaping the searing midday sun, lay 14-year-old Saugali Koveu.

She’d been gripped by the spectacle; it had rarely been this busy before, she said.

“I hope they will take them back home, remembering the forum,” she said shyly. “Especially for the children’s future.”

• This article is published under the Pacific Media Centre’s content partnership with Radio New Zealand

Indigenous Pacific knowledge should inform the science to save the world’s oceans.

That was the consensus among Pacific ocean scientists and other regional stakeholders who gathered in New Caledonia recently for the first global workshop aimed at arresting the decline of the world’s oceans.

RNZ’s Dominic Godfrey reports:

LISTEN: Indigenous Pacific knowledge to help save the ocean

AUDIO TRANSCRIPT

The United Nations’ World Ocean Assessment Report recently confirmed the seas are in a bad state, with increased temperatures and acidity negatively impacting fish stocks and biodiversity.

The Pacific Community’s ocean affairs manager Jens Kruger says the UN has called for a concerted effort over the coming decade to reverse the decline.

“And we are kicking off a series of regional consultations. And we in the Pacific, we are the very first of eight or ten regional consultations that are going to happen.”

The Noumea gathering launched the development phase of the Pacific’s science action plan to feed into a global summit in March.

A broad swathe of Pacific academia, indigenous and traditional knowledge holders, youth, government and NGOs were there.

But there were concerns the Pacific’s voice would be lost or diluted.

The University of the South Pacific’s director at the Oceania Centre, Frances Koya-Vaka’uta, says Pacific people need to see themselves reflected in official language for it to resonate properly and this includes plans for the coming “Decade of the Ocean“.

“Because it’s so critical to our very survival and livelihoods, it has to be in a language our people can connect with. That doesn’t necessarily mean having to include Pacific words or language but seeing that you are represented and that your voices are reflected in the generic language and representation.”

Others spoke of the need for scientific solutions to be complemented by traditional indigenous knowledge which has a foundation in millennia of practical science.

The oceans officer from Samoa’s Foreign Office, Matilda Bartley, says she wanted to see improved reporting on UN Sustainable Development Goal 14 on ocean conservation.

“And also how ocean science was able to incorporate the humanities in the cross-cutting issues that have been raised.”

Various themes were established to link working groups, looking at the ocean as clean, healthy and resilient, predictable, safe, sustainable and productive, and transparent and accessible.

But it was indigenous knowledge which most strongly tied the science across the groups.

A member of the UN’s executive planning group for the “Decade of the Ocean”, the Australian scientific research body’s CSIRO Karen Evans says it’s important to bring coherence of message across these groups.

“The Pacific and Pacific Community can bring something quite unique that no other region can bring to the decade; that culture is inherently important and should be a consistent thread through everything that is done through the decade, particularly for the Pacific region.”

Dr Evans says there is a real energy and commitment from the Pacific to be involved in setting the Ocean Decade’s agenda.

It has endorsement at the highest level.

The head of the UN’s Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission, Vladimir Ryabinin, says it’s important the Pacific’s indigenous knowledge helps establish conservation science.

“Traditional knowledge for us would be the way to gauge the usefulness of scientific solutions and then also transform the solutions into something that is useful, really useful.”

Dr Kruger from the Pacific Community says the Noumea workshop was a great start in establishing the priorities for the coming decade but it’s important to get more people engaged.

“We’ve got a lot of sectors that have a great interest in the decade so when we go down to the national level we might broaden the discussions there, for example, I think we’ve had a lot of voices here from fisheries. The ocean provides a lot of resources besides fish so those are also something that we need to look at at the national level.”

Jens Kruger says it’s important that Pacific island countries, with their special links to the ocean, help create the science we need for the oceans we want.

• This article is published under the Pacific Media Centre’s content partnership with Radio New Zealand

Papua New Guinea’s Prime Minister has asked China to enter into a free trade agreement with his country, and for in help restructuring his government’s debt.

PNG’s requests came as James Marape met with China’s Ambassador, Xue Bing, in Port Moresby. While the debt re-financing would first require consultations and collateral negotiations, PNG is pushing hard for a free trade agreement in the hope it could be signed on an upcoming visit to Beijing by Marape.

The Prime Minister suggested that if China opens up free trade with Pacific Island countries like his, it will help build thriving economic corridors in the region.

READ MORE: Chinese influence in the Pacific prompts high-level meetings

The new PNG leader is seeking to elevate the two countries’ development cooperation, and boost Chinese investment in his country.

Marape also requested China’s assistance in re-financing PNG’s US$7.7-billion debt.

Both the Bank of PNG and China’s People’s Bank are expected to consult with Papua New Guinea’s Department of Treasury over the re-financing.

Marape’s discussions with China’s ambassador also focussed on the upcoming 3rd China-Pacific Islands countries Economic Cooperation Forum to be held in Samoa in October, and the forthcoming Pacific Islands Forum meeting in Tuvalu, this month.

“I also suggested for Chinese investment in the agriculture and fisheries sector, and in particularly establishing down-streaming processing plants for products in forestry, fisheries, mining and petroleum, and general food production and supply in PNG,” Marape said.

Ambassador Bing briefed Marape on China’s investments in PNG, the main two being the Ramu Nickel Project and the Porgera Gold Mine Project which Chinese companies are involved in.

In the case of the Ramu mine, the project is in the process of being extended.

Marape and Ambassador Bing also exchanged views on global food security and discussed views on entering into an agricultural cooperation arrangement which would supply the Chinese market with PNG organic food and vegetables, as well as a fisheries agreement for Chinese investors to build fisheries processing plants in PNG.

Ambassador Bing extended an invitation for Marape to visit China, with a proposed official trip expected to feature signing of Memorandums of Understanding and other technical agreements.

“These will include developments in the field of air services, tourism, mining and petroleum, electricity, construction of roads, ports, airstrips, technical and vocational education schools, and the Chinese language curriculum to be introduced in schools, and more importantly encouraging business investments from China,” Marape said.

• This article is published under the Pacific Media Centre’s content partnership with Radio New Zealand

Human rights violations in West Papua are to be given priority at the Pacific Islands Forum Leaders Meeting in Tuvalu next week.

According to RNZ Pacific, the forum’s Foreign Ministers have pushed for the alleged human rights abuses in West Papua to be included on the forum agenda, citing the reported escalation of violence in recent months.

The decision came through a heated debate at a senior officials meeting in Suva last week, where Vanuatu, a key regional supporter of West Papua pushed for the issue to be included in the forum.

LISTEN: Pacific Forum eyes deadline on West Papua matter – Dateline Pacific

No Pacific Island country opposed the inclusion other than Australia, a strong Indonesian ally.

RNZ Pacific’s Johnny Blades said the shift in regional dynamics could be due to new Foreign Ministers in both Papua New Guinea and Fiji but also as a result of third party testimony to the worsening situation in West Papua from the likes of the UN Humans Rights Commission and the World Council of Churches.

“The Pacific governments see that the human rights situation in Papua is actually getting worse,” he said.

“In recent times it’s been backed by statements from third party representation.”

Ongoing conflict
The ongoing conflict between Indonesian military and pro-independence forces in parts of the region has resulted in hundreds of casualties and the displacement of several thousand civilians.

Due to restrictions on foreign aid, there have been reports of significant shortages in food and healthcare resulting in death from famine and disease.

The PIF agenda will also push for the Indonesian government to make good on its invitation to the UN Human Rights Commissioner to visit West Papua, with a deadline for a report set before the next PIF Leaders Meeting in 2020.

Pacific Island leaders are also keen to focus heavily on climate change rather than China when they meet next week, reports AFP.

Despite China’s growing influence in the region which has seen strong political response from both Australia and the US, Pacific Island leaders have insisted that such geopolitical concerns should not eclipse the more pressing issue of climate change.

PIF secretary-general Dame Meg Taylor said the forum, which is referred to as the Blue Pacific collective, was at a pivotal moment in its history.

“While we are the subject of the geopolitical manoeuvring and strategies of others, the Blue Pacific collective remains focused on charting our own destiny,” she said.

Meaningful action
In a message to Australia’s government, Tuvalu Prime Minister Enele Sopoaga has warned Canberra’s step-up strategy will fail unless it finally takes meaningful action to address the issue.

“They know very well that we will not be happy as a partner, to move forward, unless they are serious,” he said.

This follows the Pacific leaders declaration of a climate crisis last week with Fiji’s Prime Minster Voreqe Bainimarama saying that the region needed greater commitments from its bigger neighbours, hinting at Australia and New Zealand.

At last year’s forum, Australia was exposed as having attempted to water-down a resolution that declared climate change the region’s greatest security threat.

“We shouldn’t accept anything less than concrete commitments to curb greenhouse gas emissions in line with the most ambitious aspirations of the Paris Agreement,” Bainimarama said.

“We cannot allow climate commitments to be watered down at a meeting hosted in a nation whose very existence is threatened by the rising waters lapping at its shores.”

The PIF will will be held on August 13-16.

An aid group in West Papua has reported 182 civilians have died fleeing violence in the Highlands.

But the Indonesian military remains sceptical of the figures, which come as a war between pro-independence fighters and the state shows little sign of ending.

Since December, reports from the West Papua Liberation Army and aid groups have indicated that thousands have fled the conflict centred around Nduga regency.

READ MORE: West Papua, climate to top agenda at Pacific Islands Forum

Last week, the aid group Solidarity Team for Nduga said at least 182 people from the regency had died of famine and disease in displacement camps.

This is up from a July estimate of 139 deaths, and the group now estimates there are tens of thousands displaced.

Among the dead were 92 children, it said. It claimed there were more than 3,400 school children among the displaced who had been unable to resume studies.

Citing data from a church, a volunteer NGO team and testimony from displaced peoples, it estimated more than 34,000 people had fled Nduga.

Since military and police operations began in Nduga following a violent pro-independence attack, the aid group said “there have been a number of public facilities such as schools, houses of worship and auxiliary health centres, which have been damaged or burned, including homes of residents”.

But an Indonesian military spokesperson, Eko Daryanto, told the Jakarta Post the data might have been mis-interpreted.

Government figures have reportedly shown that 53 people have died in the displacement camps.

Solidarity Team for Nduga has called for the immediate withdrawal of police and military in Nduga and for the government to open access to journalists, rights groups and humanitarian workers.

• This article is published under the Pacific Media Centre’s content partnership with Radio New Zealand.

A report has detailed shocking levels of physical violence and neglect towards millions of Pacific Islands children, sparking calls for better-targeted aid programmes from countries like New Zealand and Australia

The report team, from combined aid agencies, investigated child-rearing practices in seven Pacific countries, as well as Timor-Leste.

The report found as many as four million children experience violence at home across the Pacific – a staggering 2.8 million in Papua New Guinea alone.

READ MORE: Phil Fitzpatrick: PNG’s Kramer ‘crucial’ law and order change maker

More than half of all sexual violence referred to medical clinics involves children in PNG, where almost one in three parents report beating children “as hard as they can”.

The research also outlines a range of factors that contribute to the abuse, including Pacific societies with high levels of gender inequality; social acceptance of physical punishment of children, weak governance, and growing poverty and inequality.

The report’s authors said the research shows the critical lack of overseas aid invested in programmes aimed at ending violence against children, and programmes by countries like New Zealand and Australia need to be more targeted.

Carsten Bockemuehl, World Vision’s advocacy campaigns lead for the Pacific, said the study painted a “pretty bleak picture” of regional and donor governments that had failed to prioritise children’s rights.

“It’s a massive development issue that is really negatively impacting on children and societies as a whole,” he said.

Around 0.1 percent of all Australian foreign aid to the Pacific and Timor-Leste in 2017 was directed to programmes specifically addressing violence against children, according to aid group Save The Children, which claimed just $US2.3 million was spent in total by all foreign donors “on this critical issue”.

Bockemuehl said violence against children will make societies less prosperous and will exacerbate risks to health and criminal justice systems and that there needed to be a “rebalancing” of aid priorities in the Pacific.

“It’s actually an economic issue, it makes countries poorer, so that’s why, out of the many competing priorities in developing countries, we just advocate for violence to be recognised as a critical development issue.”

• This article is published under the Pacific Media Centre’s content partnership with Radio New Zealand.

Pacific leaders have declared a climate crisis in the region and are demanding an end to coal mining.

The declaration was signed by several regional leaders at the Pacific Islands Development Forum in Fiji on Tuesday.

The declaration expressed grave concerns about the impacts the climate crisis will have on the Pacific.

READ MORE: Australia has a ‘moral responsibility’ to planet, says Marape

In it, the Pacific Islands Development Forum called on governments of countries with high carbon emissions to stop hindering climate change efforts.

It also demanded all coal producers immediately stop any new coal mining and phase out all existing production over the next 10 years.

The declaration asked the development forum’s 14-member states to immediately end subsidies on fossil fuel production.

Echoing 2018’s Boe Declaration from the Pacific Islands Forum, Tuesday’s declaration affirmed “that climate change poses the single greatest threat to the human rights and security of present and future generations of Pacific Island peoples”.

The move was welcomed by environmental non-profit 350.org, with founder Bill McKibben calling it a “very powerful manifesto”.

“The election, in the Pacific, of the government of Australia that continues to want to expand coal mines is a slap in the face to everyone else in that region and in the world,” he said in a videoed statement.

Meanwhile, Fiji’s Prime Minister said Pacific leaders should accept nothing less than concrete commitments to cut emissions at next month’s Pacific Islands Forum Summit.

Frank Bainimarama will be attending his first summit since 2008.

Fiji was suspended in 2009 and Bainimarama said he would stay away until New Zealand and Australia were no longer full Forum members.

In a speech at the Pacific Islands Development Forum – which was set up by Fiji after its suspension – Bainimarama said the region cannot accept any watered-down commitments.

At last year’s forum, Australia was exposed as having attempted to water-down a resolution that declared climate change the region’s greatest security threat.

Bainimarama said the region needs greater commitments from the region’s bigger neighbours, hinting at Australia and New Zealand.

“Fiji and the Marshall Islands have already announced our intention to revise our own nationally determined contributions, and I urge this … membership to do the same and demand the same from the more developed economies, including and especially our large neighbours in the Pacific.

“We should accept anything less than concrete commitments to curb greenhouse gas emissions in line with the most ambitious aspirations of the Paris Agreement. We cannot allow climate commitments to be watered down at a meeting hosted in a nation whose very existence is threatened by the rising waters lapping at its shores.”

• This article is published under the Pacific Media Centre’s content partnership with Radio New Zealand.

Auckland University of Technology has denied bowing to Chinese government pressure to stop one of its rooms being used for an event marking last month’s 30th anniversary of the bloody crackdown on protests in Tiananmen Square in Beijing.

The New Zealand university has confirmed it canned a reservation for the event on Monday, June 3 – a public holiday, after a meeting with China’s Vice-Consul General Xiao Yewen on the preceding Friday.

Vice-Chancellor Derek McCormack said AUT did not know the event was about the Tiananmen Square protests and it cancelled the booking only because the staff member who made it had not followed the right process, and the building would be closed for the holiday.

READ MORE: Fault lines of fact 25 years after the events in Tiananmen Square

“If it had been an AUT event or if it had been booked through the proper channels through our hospitality services group, it would have gone ahead as the film In the Name of Confucius went ahead a little earlier, which was also something that the Chinese consulate drew to our attention and asked us to cancel which we did not,” he said.

“It needs to be done in the proper manner for all sorts of reasons, including health and safety. There are also charges that are made for rooms because of cleaning and set-up and utilities.

“These things were bypassed by the person who made the booking. In fact they did not even make the booking in their own name so it was something that was completely out of order.”

Concerns coincided
Messages obtained by Newsroom under the Official Information Act showed McCormack later wrote to the Vice-Consul General to say AUT defended its academic freedom, but in this instance their concerns and AUT’s concerns had coincided.

McCormack told RNZ News that Xiao had not threatened repercussions if AUT failed to cancel the booking.

“The Vice-Consul General pointed out that we had a good relationship with China, that we had lots of Chinese students and because of that good relationship could we help them out and cancel something they objected to.”

McCormack said the university did not know at the time what the event was about. It had been booked as a student seminar and advertised in Chinese media, not in English.

Emails show Xiao described AUT’s decision as “right and wise” and would “definitely help promote further growth of exchanges and cooperation between AUT and the General Consulate and China in general”.

‘Dubious explanation’
Tertiary Education Union national secretary Sharn Riggs said universities sometimes ran into problems with room bookings, but she was dubious about AUT’s explanation.

“Hardly seems credible, does it? That is the public position that the university is putting out, but I guess from our point of view that seems like a fairly lame reason to have cancelled the event,” she said.

Riggs said the incident highlighted universities’ reliance on tuition fees from Chinese students.

“When so many of our universities now are reliant on the fees that international students pay, and in AUT’s case it’s quite a significant chunk of their annual income, it’s inevitable that foreign governments are going to have the ability to put pressure on institutions should they want to and I think in this case that’s exactly what the Chinese government has done.”

Defending freedom of expression
Education Minister Chris Hipkins would not comment on AUT’s decision, but defended freedom of expression at universities.

He said the relationship with China was important to the government and to many tertiary institutions, but it had to be based on mutual respect.

“In New Zealand, free speech, the right to democratic process, those are very important things to New Zealanders and we have always been very clear with the Chinese government that those are things that we will always defend here in New Zealand,” Hipkins said.

The Chinese consulate in Auckland did not respond to a request for comment.

• This article is published under the Pacific Media Centre’s content partnership with Radio New Zealand.

Australia has a responsibility to protect the Pacific region from the impacts of climate change, PNG’s newly appointed Prime Minister has said.

James Marape told The Guardian’s Helen Davidson that Australia had “a moral responsibility … to the upkeep of the planet”, particularly given the extreme effect it was having on smaller Pacific nations wrote.

France’s outgoing High Commissioner to New Caledonia has said should preparations be needed for a third referendum on independence from France, there would have to be consideration of what happens thereafter.

Thierry Lataste, who will end his tenure at the weekend, told Les Nouvelles Caledoniennes that efforts are now being made to hold a second referendum, which has been called for by both pro- and anti-independence politicians under the terms of the Noumea Accord.

A first referendum last November saw a majority of 56 percent opt for the status quo, with expectations that the next vote will yield a similar result.

READ MORE: NZ mosque massacre, New Caledonia referendum and Fiji elections top PJR

Lataste said after a third referendum the provisions of the Noumea Accord would expire which would pose fresh challenges, including the make-up of the rolls.

There have also been claims that thousands of Kanak voters failed to get onto the restricted roll used for the referendum, but Lataste says every effort had been made to track down voters on the general roll.

He said that on the referendum day there were no people saying they had not managed to enrol.

• This article is published under the Pacific Media Centre’s content partnership with Radio New Zealand.

New Zealand police have pepper-sprayed two dogs and arrested three more people at the site of a controversial land dispute in South Auckland, reports RNZ.

The site at Ihumātao near Auckland Airport is zoned for housing development but has been the subject of a bitter dispute between local iwi and private construction company Fletcher Building.

Yesterday three people were arrested after police and kaumatua (elders) arrived on site to deliver eviction notices to the demonstrators, some of whom had been occupying the land for months.

READ MORE: Why Ihumātao is being occupied by ‘protectors’

While protesters remained overnight, peacefully singing waiata and sitting around a campfire, tensions again erupted when Fletcher trucks began entering the site at 8am this morning.

A spokesperson for the protesters group SOUL, Pania Newton, said that was despite an agreement with police that no more vehicles would go through.

Police ‘breach trust’
“The police have breached our trust. We no longer have any confidence in the New Zealand police,” she said.

According to RNZ, police said protesters attempted to obstruct a truck from gaining access through the cordon and two were arrested.

One woman will face charges of obstruction and being unlawfully on a vehicle, police said. A second person will be given a pre-charge warning for obstruction before being released.

Police said the dogs were pepper-sprayed because they were “uncontrolled and aggressive.”

Sacred land
Ihumātao is part of land considered wāhi tapu (sacred) by local hapū and iwi as it sits next to Ōtuataua Stonefields Historic Reserve, home to New Zealand’s earliest market gardens and a 600-year-old archaeological and burial site.

While 32 hectares of the land is owned by Fletchers Building, protesters have been occupying the site in a gesture of resistance against the planned housing development.

During yesterday’s confrontation, Spinoff reported one protester criticising police for their participation in evicting kaitiaki [guardians] on behalf of the foreign-owned Fletchers.

“Complicit in colonisation”
“You’re complicit in colonisation. The armed constabulary at Parihaka were just doing their job. Apartheid police in South Africa were just doing their job,” she said.

Videos on the SOUL Facebook page shows more demonstrators arriving at the site, singing songs and performing haka before a growing police presence.

Meanwhile, 300 protesters descended on Parliament in Wellington today in a show of solidarity with the people of Ihumātao, reported RNZ.

Protest organiser Tamatha Paul was urging the police force to stand down and all parties to get together to resolve the issue according to tikanga Māori.

Yesterday, Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson spoke in support of the occupants saying they were on the right side of history and her heart went out to them.

“Unjust land confiscation”
“I wanted the government to come to a better solution and negotiate directly with mana whenua, so I’m really sad that it has come to this, which is a continuation of unjust land confiscation,” she said.

Stuff.co.nz has been criticised on social media for referring to the demonstrations as an “illegal occupation” despite the fact that the Crown confiscated the whenua (land) from Māori during the invasion of the Waikato in 1863.

The recent horrific events in Hela Province have brought the role of the police force in Papua New Guinea into sharp focus.

Prime Minister James Marape is currently in Australia and has apparently discussed the issue with Prime Minister Scott Morrison.

We can only hope that Morrison, if he responds positively, will take considered advice on the matter and not charge off on some ill-advised scheme involving direct Australian intervention.

READ MORE: PNG ‘merciless’ payback killings have changed everything, says Bryan Kramer

Probably the worst thing that Morrison can do is dither and fund some sort of too hard basket investigative consultancy, although I understand this has already been canvassed.

The situation in Hela and the way the police respond is essentially up to the Papua New Guinean government. What it needs from Australia right now is solid practical support in terms of funding and resources.

Police in “sorry state”
Papua New Guinea is well-aware that its police force is in a very sorry state and needs to be both considerably expanded and resourced.

James Marape may have various plans to change Papua New Guinea for the better but the most crucial change maker in his government is Police Minister Bryan Kramer.

As the minister responsible for law and order, he sits at the pivot point of any meaningful change process. If he performs well, and is supported by the Prime Minister, Papua New Guinea has a bright future.

Having a law abiding citizenry is an essential precursor for so many aspects of life in any nation.

Lawless society
Conversely, having a lawless society destroys national life and the opportunities available to it.

If Papua New Guinea was a law abiding nation it would have a vibrant and profitable tourism industry employing thousands of people.

If Papua New Guinea was a law abiding nation, violence against women and children would be considerably reduced.

At the moment most women and children have no recourse to justice if they are beaten and assaulted simply because the police resources are not there to deal with it.

Without fear of being brought to account Papua New Guinean men are free to exercise their most vile impulses.

If Papua New Guinea was a law abiding nation corruption could be brought down to manageable levels.

No fear of punishment
At the moment politicians, public servants and others engage in corrupt activities because they have no fear of being caught.

Citizens of a law abiding nation are much more inclined to report corrupt behaviour when they see it because they are much less likely to be the victims of reprisals.

If Papua New Guinea was a law abiding nation people would feel much safer in their day to day activities. They would be free to safely travel on the roads and venture out at night. Without the prospect of being robbed they would engage with each other freely in commerce.

If Papua New Guinea was a law abiding nation economic activity would flourish. More people would have jobs, especially those youths who are responsible for most of the petty crime. Drug and alcohol consumption would decline if people were gainfully employed.

How do we know all of these things?

Law abiding history
Because Papua New Guinea was once a law abiding nation.

If you don’t believe this, find an old grey lapun and ask them. They will tell you what it was like to leave their house unlocked, walk safely to the trade store, buy their goods and walk home without looking over their shoulder for potential thieves or assailants.

Bryan Kramer’s task is enormous. He will need more than the remainder of the government’s term in office to make sustainable inroads.

Not only has he got to rescue and rehabilitate a demoralised police force but he has to bring about cultural change.

He has to change the dog-eat-dog attitudes that currently exist and replace them with ones that respect not only the laws of the land but citizens respect for each other.

He can’t do it by himself and will need a lot of help. But he will be the pivot where change occurs.

I can’t think of anyone better to be that pivot.

• This article is republished by Asia Pacific Report with permission from Keith Jackson’s blog PNG Attitude. 

West Papuan fighters have killed an Indonesian soldier in a renewed threat to Jakarta’s road project there.

State news agency Antara reported the hit-and-run attack on Saturday took place in Nduga regency, where pro-independence forces are waging war on the Indonesia’s military.

An Indonesian researcher, Hipo Wangge, said it was the ninth killing of a security officer by the West Papua Liberation Army, an armed group linked to the Free Papua Movement (Organisasi Papua Merdeka – OPM), since April.

READ MORE: West Papuan suffering will go on if NZ doesn’t take stand, says Rosa Moiwend

The soldier was reportedly securing the Trans-Papua road project, a major effort by the Indonesian government to develop remote areas of Papua.

In December, part of the project near Nduga was put on hold when Liberation Army fighters were accused of killing 16 construction workers that the movement claimed to be Indonesian soldiers.

The attack – the bloodiest in years to take place in Papua – prompted a massive deployment of Indonesian military and police to Nduga in a hunt for the fighters, sparking sporadic gunfights which have taken dozens of lives in the months since.

Rights groups have said that thousands of people have been displaced from Nduga. According to one group, at least 139 displaced people have died of malnutrition and disease in a temporary camp in nearby Wamena city.

Indonesian military spokesperson Muhammad Aidi told Antara that in Saturday’s attack the soldier suffered a gunshot wound to his waist and later died, with a helicopter rescue effort hampered by bad weather.

• This article is published under the Pacific Media Centre’s content partnership with Radio New Zealand.

Papua New Guinea Prime Minister James Marape wants Australia to close the detention centre it has been running on PNG’s Manus island for six years.

According to Australian media, Marape has asked Canberra to give him a timeline for closing the facilities where Australia has been holding refugees and asylum seekers who are not allowed to enter Australia.

Marape met the Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton and told the ABC that he would like the offshore processing to end as soon as possible.

READ MORE: Manus Island police chief calls for state action over suicidal refugees

Australia has a deal with the United States to shift a total of 1250 refugees but hundreds still remain on Manus.

Consecutive New Zealand governments have offered to take 150 a year but neither Australia nor PNG has acted on it.

New Zealand also offered assistance to PNG to run services on Manus two years ago, which Dutton described as a waste of money.

• This article is published under the Pacific Media Centre’s content partnership with Radio New Zealand.

The Indonesian government is furious over the Oxford City Council’s decision to award West Papuan activist Benny Wenda the Honorary Freedom of the City accolade, reports Kumparan.

“Indonesia strongly condemns the award by the Oxford City Council for this person,” said the Indonesian Foreign Affairs Ministry in a written statement.

The ministry said that giving the award to Wenda showed that the Oxford Council did not “fully understand the real situation” in Papua and West Papua provinces. It also said that the council did not understand Wenda’s behaviour.

READ MORE: West Papua’s Benny Wenda to be awarded Oxford’s highest honour

“Giving an award to this person shows the Oxford City Council’s lack of understanding about the behaviour of this person and the real situation in the provinces of Papua and West Papua, including the development and advances there,” the ministry said.

“Indonesia’s position on the “separatist” movement remained firm. We will not retreat one centimetre in upholding the [sovereignty of the] RI [Republic of Indonesia],” it said.

In relation to the award, the British government said that it did not mean that the government supported Papuan independence.

“We support Indonesia’s territorial integrity and Papua as part of Indonesia,” said the British Foreign Affairs Department as quoted by BBC News.

“Politically, the position of local councils are independent of the central government, so this represents the authority of the Oxford City Council,” the department said.

The City Council awarded Oxford-based Wenda its highest honour in recognition of his tireless fight for West Papuan self-determination.

In a press release it said that “Oxford residents and the City Council have taken up the cause for their own.”

Wenda meanwhile said that he appreciated being given the award saying that it showed that Oxford City was concerned about justice and human rights for the Papuan people.

“This award shows that the people of Oxford have listened and responded,” he said.

• Translated by James Balowski of the Indoleft News service. The original title of the article was “Indonesia Kecam Kota Oxford Berikan Penghargaan kepada Benny Wenda”.
• Editors note: Pacific Media Watch reports that while the term “separatist” is widely used by Indonesian authorities and some international news agencies, this is generally rejected in self-determination circles as a misrepresentation of indigenous struggles against colonialism.

The United Nations in Papua New Guinea is boosting its presence in the Highlands as it works with the government to improve access to justice for tribal communities.

The acting resident coordinator said the massacre of 24 women and children near Tari last week had focussed the need for more conflict resolution.

David McLoughlin, who is also the head of Unicef, said since last year’s earthquake and resurgence of polio in the country, the UN had increased its work and presence there.

READ MORE: Women who died in PNG’s Karida massacre were community ‘anchors’

He said it will establish a base in Mendi under the International Organisation for Migration.

“It’s going to be basing on a strong peace building, conflict resolution, enhancing the community’s access to justice. And strengthening the informal and formal justice institutions.

“And working with the community leaderships around conflict management skills and conflict mediation, for the longer term. But in the meantime the government needs to take a very strong hand but a very respectful  with regards to human rights hand, in dealing with this matter.”

McLoughlin was pinning a lot of hope on the country’s new leadership to appoint more judges and police to ensure justice and human rights for PNG’s people.

He said the UN will be bringing in a lot of capacity development around mediation.

McLoughlin said the agency had missions in the Highlands where it was able to help two warring tribes negotiate a successful conflict resolution agreement, so he was hopeful of progress.

He said humanitarian agencies, the government, the extractive industries and churches all had a responsible role to play in Papua New Guinea’s development.

• This article is published under the Pacific Media Centre’s content partnership with Radio New Zealand.

Yesterday, I returned from Tari Electorate in Hela Province following a one day trip to assess the situation following the horrific killing of 23 women (two of whom were pregnant) and nine children in the worst payback killing in our country’s history.

In my capacity as Minister for Police, I represented the James Marape-led government to be on the ground to pay respects to those killed and prepare and provide a brief to the Prime Minister on the circumstances behind the incident – what, who, when, how and why.

Tribal fights are not new in PNG and in recent years they have become more prevalent in the highlands region; one may argue they have been going on since the beginning of time.

READ MORE: Women who died in PNG’s Karida massacre were community ‘anchors’

However since that time the rules of engagement have always been that the elderly, women and children have been off limits.

So killing of innocent women and children in tribal conflicts until recently was unheard of. Last week’s merciless killings have changed everything. The immediate concern is that it will become the new trend.

I guess the questions people are asking are why did it happen, will it happen again and more importantly what is being done to prevent it from ever happening again?

Why it happened
On the first issue, why it happened:

What people would not be aware of was that last week there were three separate killings in Tagali local level government relating to a tribal conflict that has been going on for almost two decades.

The conflict has been between two tribes, one headed by a man called Oi Kiru, who comes from Pajaka 2 village, and the opposing tribe, led by Libe Koi and his second in charge Ha’gu’ai, who come from Yaganda village.

In June 2019, a key tribesman of Libe was killed. His name was Eganada and he lived in Munima village. Usually, when tribes go to war they solicit the support of surrounding villages they are married into or provide protection to.

In this case, a key ally to Libe was Eaganda, who in June was killed by his own cousin A’gun’ai (a known drug body) over an ongoing dispute between them. It is alleged A’gun’ai killed Eganada and in fear of his life fled to Oi Kiru’s village. As the saying goes, the enemy of your enemy is your friend.

However, while in the protection of Oi’ Kiru’s tribesman, we were told A’gun’ai, with a number of his own tribesman, killed six of Oi Kiru’s clansmen including his mother.

They returned to their village and threatened a nearby village called Karita, which A’gun’ai is married into, insisting that Karita village pay them protection money or face a similar attack.

Peace ceremony
On Sunday, July 7, Munima and Karita village got together to stage a peace ceremony, Karita offering 10 pigs and 4,000 kina to A’gun’ai and his clansmen.

Unbeknownst to them, Oi Kiru, learning of his mother’s death, raided a village near Munima called Peta, killing three women and three children – they were all shot to death using high powered rifles.

Following the killing at Peta village, on Monday morning around 6am young tribesman attacked Karita Village killing nine women and seven children. Two of the women were pregnant. They were killed after being attacked by the young men with machetes.

Why were women and children attacked at Karita village?

It appears the killing of women and children stemmed from the killing of Oi Kiru’s mother by men under the influence of marijuana. What followed was the payback killing of three women and three children at Peta village that triggered the further payback killing of nine women and seven children at Karita village.

On Tuesday, members of Police Mobile Squad and the Defence Force were deployed to the area. Following the recent visits by the governor of Hela Philip Undialu and me, the killings have stopped for now. Reports indicate those involved have fled the province.

The Governor and I visited both Munima and Karita villages to get a first-hand account of what happened and provide an assurance that the Marape-Steven government will bring those responsible to account.

I had intended to stay overnight at Karita village, since that was the last village to have suffered a major loss, however I was advised against it as Munima village would expect the same treatment.

Community leaders
Despite my disappointment in not spending enough time in the villages, the fact that the governor and I were on the ground prompted the community leaders from Munima and Karita not to continue to retaliate.

So what happens now.

Following consultation with Provincial Governor, Provincial Administrator and the Provincial Police Commander, including Acting Deputy Commissioner of Police David Manning, a platoon from the Defence Force and Police Mobile Squad is being stationed at Munima Primary School to provide round-the-clock security, to prevent any further escalation of violence.

High level discussions on a strategic deployment action plan, using drone technology and satellite surveillance, will be used to track and apprehend those on the run. An intelligence unit will also be established to gather information from community.

While a number of plans are being put into action to ensure peace prevails, to prevent such devastating acts of violence in our communities it is important that for the long term that we find a different way of resolving conflict that rejects revenge but encourages resolution through dialogue.

I intend to return to the province in a week’s time to get an update.

• This article is republished by Asia Pacific Report with permission from Keith Jackson’s blog PNG Attitude. It was originally published on Bryan Kramer’s Facebook page Kramer Report.

The Oxford City Council is to award West Papuan activist Benny Wenda the Honorary Freedom of the City accolade for his tireless fight for West Papuan self-determination.

Wenda, whom the United Kingdom granted political asylum in 2002, lives in Oxford with his family and it serves as the headquarters of his campaign to liberate the people of West Papua.

According to the Oxford City Council, the Freedom Award is the highest honour the City of Oxford can bestow and is one of the oldest surviving traditional ceremonies still in existence.

READ MORE: Benny Wenda: Please hear my Papuan people’s cry for freedom

It is an honorary status only, with no other rights than to attend formal council meetings, such as Annual Council, and ceremonial occasions such as civic church services.

In a press release, Leader of Oxford City Council, Councillor Susan Brown said “ever since Benny Wenda made Oxford his home and base for campaigning for the people of West Papua, Oxford residents and the City Council have taken his cause for their own.”

“We are delighted to give this honour to an Oxford resident who has campaigned so tirelessly on behalf of his people.”

Wenda thanked the Oxford City Council and people of Oxford for their generosity and support in conveying the award.

“When I escaped from an Indonesian prison in West Papua in 2002, Oxford was one of the first places in the world that welcomed me and my family,” he said.

“I was given asylum in the UK and have made Oxford my home. Oxford was one of the first to hear the cry of the West Papuan people for justice, human rights and self-determination and this award shows that the people of Oxford are listening and responding.

“The West Papuan people know that our struggle is not just an issue for West Papuans now, but has become an issue that has touched the hearts of thousands around the world. My journey has taken me here from the jungles of West Papua and the inside of an Indonesian prison cell.

“But until we are able to return to an independent West Papua, my family and I are not truly free. I thank the people of Oxford for all their assistance as we work to finish our long journey home.”

According to the press release, Wenda settled in the city after reading Oxford-resident George Monbiot’s book ‘Poisoned Arrows’, which first brought to light the story of the tribal people of western New Guinea and described the Indonesian government’s transmigration campaign to drive them off ancestral lands into poverty and starvation.

He has acted as special representative of the Papuan people in the UK Parliament, United Nations and European Parliament. In 2017 he was appointed Chairman for the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP), a new organisation uniting the three main political organisations struggling for the independence of West Papua.

The Freedom will be awarded at a special meeting of the Full Council to be held in Oxford Town Hall, at 5pm on July 17.

• Bendy Wenda visited the Pacific Media Centre at AUT University in 2013 and 2016.

New Caledonia has a healthy lead on the Pacific Games medals table after the first week of the competition.

The French Territory has won 42 gold medals after the first six days of competition and more than 50 silver and bronze, with host nation Samoa the nearest challenger with 26 gold medals while Tahiti have 21.

Another six first place finishes on the final night of swimming action brought New Caledonia’s total haul in the pool to 25 gold, 11 silver and 13 bronze medals.

READ MORE: Athletics headline Week 2 at the Pacific Games

Swimming Team Manager Cyril Huet said it’s an even bigger haul than they managed in Port Moresby four years ago.

“We are very happy and the team is very unique,” he said. “We win the games because it’s an objective we want to win the games, but behind you you have the team of Fiji it’s a very good team too and finished No.2 (in swimming) and is very good. To have competition with Fiji, Samoa, Tahiti, Cooks, it’s very good competition.”

“All the team is high level. The girls win 12 gold medals, the boys win 11 gold medals. It’s a group, it’s a unique group. Not one swimmer is better – it’s all the group, I think. We want all the time to work all together,” he said.

Elsewhere in Apia, Dgeniva Matauli won the women’s singles title in badminton and teamed up with Johanna Kou to take the doubles crown, while the French Territory proved unbeatable on the golf course, winning the men’s and women’s team events, with Dylan Benoit and Emilie Ricaud winning individual gold.

Meanwhile sailor Juliette Bone won gold in the women’s laser radial – Samoa won the team event – and Avelino Monteiro won gold in the men’s para table tennis.

Samoan weightlifters wow home crowd
Sanele Mao set five Oceania and Commonwealth records in front of a raucous home crowd as Samoa’s weightlifters finished with an impressive haul of 16 Pacific Games gold medals.

Competing in the men’s 109kg division, the 32 year-old Mao snatched 160kg before clean and jerking 206kg to finish with a monster total of 366kg. That was enough to win three Pacific Games gold medals, while he broke the Oceania senior record in all three disciplines and set a new Commonwealth best in the clean and jerk and total.

Petunu Opeloge won gold in the men’s 102kg snatch, Iuniarra Sipaia won gold in the women’s +89kg clean and jerk, while Lauititi Lui rounded off Samoa’s golden haul with victory in the men’s +109kg snatch.

Papua New Guinea’s Steven Kari won two gold medals in the men’s 96kg division, with Israel Kaikilekofe from Wallis and Futuna taking out the snatch title.

Meanwhile there was also success for New Zealand and Tongan lifters on Saturday afternoon, as Laurel Hubbard upstaged Samoan flag-bearer Feagaiga Stowers to win gold in the women’s +87kg snatch and total and silver in the clean and jerk.

It was the 41 year-old’s first major medals since the 2017 World Championships and comes 15 months after she injured herself competing at the Commonwealth Games.

Hubbard was unavailable for comment but the high performance director for Olympic Weightlifting New Zealand, Simon Kent, was delighted with her performance in Apia.

“She performed particularly well today. A full house, full home crowd cheering on all their lifters but she really put in a performance she can be proud of,” he said. “It’s good healthy competition and I think it was Laurel’s third snatch there on 125kg that just about set up that victory today.”

“She’s been training hard, she’s been based in Noumea for the last couple of weeks training with the (Oceania Weightlifting) Institute lifters. She certainly came here with a lot of confidence. She’s been very much part of our team and I think she will be delighted with her performance today.”

New Zealand’s Commonwealth Games champion David Liti could only manage a silver medal in the men’s +109kg snatch and failed to complete a lift in the clean and jerk, with Tonga’s Aisake Tuitupou winning the Kingdom’s first two gold medals of these Pacific Games in the clean and jerk and total.

Around the grounds
Tahiti won the final two V6 marathon races at Mulifanua to finish with 10 gold medals from 12 events in Va’a.

Swimmer Rahiti De Vos won gold in the men’s 400m, Heiava Lamaud prevailed in the women’s para table tennis, while Remi Rossi was involved in three badminton gold medals, winning the men’s singles before teaming up to also claim victory in the men’s and mixed doubles events.

Vanuatu reigned supreme in table tennis, winning the men’s and women’s titles in singles and doubles, to triple their overall gold medal haul to six.

History repeated as the Samoa women’s cricket team defeated Papua New Guinea by four wickets to win the gold medal, with the winning runs struck just moments before rain began to bucket down at the faleata cricket field.

The host restricted PNG to 72 for 7 from their 20 overs and finally reached their target with nine balls remaining.

Captain Regina Lili’i said it was even more special to win in front of a home crowd.

“It puts all the hard work that we have done as a group, as a collective leading up to this tournament,” she said. “All that hard work is worthwhile when you come out with this result, with a gold medal,” she said.

“To have the support of our home crowd here – noisy all throughout the match – I don’t really have any words for it but as you could see with our girls they were all crying at the end and it just meant so much for us in front of our family and friends here.”

Defeat avenged
It wasn’t all bad for Papua New Guinea as the Barramundis defeated defending champions Vanuatu by 32 runs in the men’s final to avenge their defeat in Port Moresby four years ago.

Meanwhile Fiji defended both rugby sevens titles, with the Fijiana women beating Australia 14-7 and the men holding off hosts Samoa 7-5, despite conceding two yellow cards.

Men’s coach Gareth Baber said they didn’t have a lot of ball but the players worked hard and defended well, even when they had less players than the opposition.

“Two sin bins but I think Samoa could have got two sin bins as well, I think it was that type of game,” he said.

“We know when we play against Samoa there’s going to be that and it’s going to get to that level but it’s who can control that at the end of it and I thought that when we went down to the sin bins we worked extremely hard to make sure that the six did the job for the seven.”

The Pacific Games resumed on Monday for the second week with the start of athletics at Apia Park among the highlights.

This article is published under the Pacific Media Centre’s content partnership with Radio New Zealand.

After nearly two weeks of silence, Vanuatu’s Minister of Internal Affairs Andrew Napuat has answered some—but not all—of the important questions arising from his decision to deport six Chinese, four of whom were Vanuatu citizens.

To his credit, Napuat fronted up to New Zealand and Australian media as well as to our own journalists. It can’t have been an easy day for him.

His responses raise serious concerns.

READ MORE: Secrecy veil over deportation of six Chinese nationals raises key questions

He admitted that Vanuatu does not know what crimes the six people he deported were accused of. He admitted he didn’t know what agency the 11 Chinese law enforcement officials were from.

He said he didn’t want them to wear uniforms. He admitted he didn’t consider that at least some of the deportees were Vanuatu citizens.

He appears to have issued orders without fully considering his responsibility to follow the law himself. He appears to have instructed police to act as they did.

Every one of those statements is cause for deep concern. Because whatever the minister may think, we are not subject to Chinese law. And we don’t do things the Chinese way.

Right to know
Everyone has a right to know why they’re being arrested.

Police are required to identify themselves, and to say why they are arresting you.

People may not be detained without charge, except under strictly limited circumstances.

Everyone has a right to legal counsel.

A citizen may not be deported. They may be extradited if they broke the law elsewhere, but that’s not what happened here.

Anyone having their citizenship stripped from them has the right to appeal that decision.

These are not finicky details. They are fundamental to justice. They may not be ignored.

Important precedent
Joe Natuman set an important precedent when he accepted that he had done wrong by issuing unlawful orders to police. It cost him his political career, but he did the right thing.

Napuat should submit himself to the same scrutiny.

If he has done nothing wrong, then his actions will be vindicated, and people in Vanuatu will know where they stand. If he has done wrong, then he needs to take responsibility for his actions. They’re that serious.

If we had a functioning Ombudsman’s office, we could settle the matter there. But our politicians have made it clear they don’t want a watchdog.

The Prime Minister must tell the public whether he supports his minister or not. If he does not support him, then he should consider establishing a commission of inquiry to investigate whether the minister acted lawfully.

Parliament should state clearly whether they support the government’s actions, or not.

Party Leader Ralph Regenvanu should stop hiding and tell the public whether this is what GJP stands for, or not. As Foreign Minister, it’s astonishing that he’s had so little to say so far.

Public Prosecutor should investigate
The Public Prosecutor should investigate whether these actions represent a perversion of the course of justice, by using police powers in an arbitrary and unlawful way.

Our development partners—who claim to stand for an international rules based order—should remind Vanuatu what those rules are. They claim to care about these things. They should act like they do.

Most importantly, the public should make its feelings known. If they support these actions, so be it. Then we are more like China than many would like to admit.

But if, like the millions of Hong Kong residents who have relentlessly demonstrated against arbitrary extradition, we stand for rule of law and human rights, we should defend them.

Maybe these six people did wrong. If they did, they should stand trial. But looking at what’s happened, how do we know?

How do we know the next one bundled onto the plane won’t be an activist fleeing the security state? How do we know it won’t be a Christian fleeing religious persecution? Or just an average person, wrongly accused?

Vanuatu is not China. But today, it’s looking more like it than ever before.

• This was today’s Vanuatu Daily Post editorial. The Pacific Media Centre’s Asia Pacific Report has a content sharing arrangement with the Daily Post.
• More Vanuatu stories

A major Indonesian trade show has kicked off in New Zealand, as part of efforts by Jakarta to win over Pacific allies.

Dozens of government and private sector representatives from the Pacific are in Auckland for the Pacific Exposition this week.

On Friday, the foreign ministers of Indonesia, New Zealand and Australia will hold talks, where human rights issues in West Papua are expected to be raised.

READ MORE: Indonesia to make major Pacific pitch at NZ expo amid human rights scrutiny

Indonesia’s ambassador to New Zealand, Samoa and Tonga, Tantowi Yahya, said he hoped to bring economic benefit to the Pacific through trade and tourism.

“Linkages are made between all the countries in the Pacific and Indonesia in it. Because Indonesia came to this event more as a member of the countries in the Pacific and we are trying to build linkages among the people here in the Pacific.”

Tantowi Yahya said Indonesia was working with Australia and New Zealand on their stepped up engagement in the Pacific.

• This article is published under the Pacific Media Centre’s content partnership with Radio New Zealand.

A report on the alleged mismanagement and abuse charges at the University of the South Pacific is due by August 16, reports Islands Business.

New Zealand accounting firm BDO Auckland has been selected to conduct the special investigation in response to allegations of speedy appointments and contract renewals as well as issues with staff salary under the former vice-chancellor.

The investigation was called for by the University Council, staff and the New Zealand government.

READ MORE: USP rocked by appointments, contract ‘abuse’ allegations

Islands Business reports that USP’s audit and risk committee (ARC) met last week on Tuesday to evaluate bids to conduct the special investigation from three Auckland firms.

A fourth firm was invited to tender, but did not do so.

“The three bids were put through a rigorous evaluation by the members of the ARC using the structured evaluation template that was included in the bid document and [the] ARC selected BDO Auckland as the successful bidder,” a USP statement said.

The USP ARC also confirmed that its chairman, Mahmood Khan, declared a conflict of interest at the start of the bidding process and excused himself from the meeting room. Khan retired as a partner/director of BDO Northland (NZ) on 31 December 2016.

Staff of USP at the university’s main campus in Suva have called for USP Pro Chancellor Winston Thompson to step aside to allow for the investigation to proceed independently.

Indonesia will use a landmark business and trade exposition next week in New Zealand to launch a fresh diplomatic push in the Pacific, as the Southeast Asian nation continues to face regional scrutiny over alleged human rights abuses in West Papua.

The Pacific Exposition, which will take place in Auckland on July 11-14, is expected to bring together the foreign ministers of Indonesia, New Zealand and Australia, as well as senior government officials from across Polynesia and Melanesia. A bilateral agreement is to be signed with the Cook Islands at the same time.

The event is the latest foray in a determined diplomatic outreach in the Pacific region that Indonesia’s government of Joko Widodo has overseen in the past few years.

READ MORE: Indonesia’s political system has ‘failed’ its minorities – like West Papuans

Jakarta has made no bones about its aim of greater connectivity with a region that has been critical of Indonesian administration of restive Papua. The Auckland expo is the strongest sign yet of Indonesia’s intent.

Pitched as a trade, investment and tourism forum, it will involve dozens of government and private sector representatives from several Pacific Island countries, with most of their expenses paid for by the Indonesian government.

“The exposition is also the first step towards connecting goods and people of the Pacific and Southeast Asia,” reads a flier for the event.

Vanuatu refuses invite
Indonesian embassy officials — who in April quietly toured several Pacific nations to drum up support for the forum — said it has been well-received across the region. Still, according to one person who has advised embassy officials, Vanuatu’s government has refused to attend, the only Pacific nation approached to do so.

The person, who requested anonymity because they were not authorised to discuss the matter, said Indonesia also hoped to establish a trade “hub” in one Pacific Island country which it could use to facilitate the flow of goods throughout the region.

Although Indonesian embassy officials stressed that the event was apolitical and trade-focused, they said they were worried it would be protested by activists and advocates critical of Indonesia’s handling of human rights in Papua. Local government officials from Papua and West Papua will be in attendance and stalls promoting investment in the two provinces will be set up as part of the trade show.

It comes as Papua has reentered the spotlight, after an escalating war between the West Papua Liberation Army and Indonesia’s military forces since December sent the Central Highlands region into chaos.

Rights groups estimate tens of thousands have been displaced by the violence — which was sparked in part by the massacre of at least 16 Indonesian construction workers by the Liberation Army in Nduga regency. Disputed accounts from military forces and rebel fighters indicate dozens on both sides have been killed in ongoing skirmishes.

High level attendance
New Zealand’s Foreign Minister Winston Peters, who is expected to attend the expo alongside his Australian counterpart Marise Payne, last month said he would raise concerns over human rights abuses in West Papua with Indonesia’s Foreign Minister, Retno Marsudi.

It is unclear whether talks would take place during the exposition, and the offices of Peters and Payne did not respond to emailed questions.

Senior Indonesian cabinet members have in recent months openly talked about influencing the Pacific Islands into supporting its claims over Papua.

In September, local media reported Indonesia’s top security minister, Wiranto, as proposing $US4 million in funding toward convincing South Pacific nations that Jakarta was promoting development in Papua. He also invited the leaders of Vanuatu and Nauru to see the positive work in Papua for themselves. Neither took up his offer.

Marsudi, the Foreign Minister, recently said her country considers the Pacific Islands as “family”, noting that technical cooperation and capacity building with regional countries will grow significantly in the coming years.

Indonesia’s pitch
Despite their strong ties with New Zealand, Niue and the Cook Islands have been in Indonesia’s sights and bilateral relations are expected to open for the first time in the coming weeks. In March, while pitching the opening of ties to Indonesia’s House of Representatives, Marsudi said the two countries did not support “separatism” in Papua.

Cook Islands Prime Minister Henry Puna will be attending the exposition next week — the only head of state to do so — and an official with his office said a cooperation agreement would be signed on July 12 in Rarotonga. Niue Premier Sir Toke Talagi was also slated to attend the event and sign a similar agreement but illness has reportedly expected to prevent him from attending.

Among those attending will be New Zealand Tourism Minister Kelvin Davis and Maori Development Minister, Nanaia Mahuta. According to a draft agenda of the event, Tonga’s Deputy Prime Minister, Semisi Lafu Kioa Sika is also expected to attend. Tonga’s Prime Minister Akilisi Pohiva is a vocal supporter of West Papuan self-determination aims. His government advocates for the re-listing of West Papua on the agenda of the UN Decolonisation Committee so that there is UN oversight over the human rights of West Papuans.

Vanuatu is preparing a UN resolution along these lines, but will be hard pushed to gain majority support in the General Assembly, given Indonesia’s growing influence.

The appearance of high level officials will be a boon for Indonesia’s investment pitch to the Pacific, a region where strategic competition between western powers and China has overshadowed Indonesia’s growing economy and regional leadership ambitions.

A Western diplomatic source who spoke on condition of anonymity said Indonesia had “relentlessly pursued” Pacific Island nations into attending the event, adding that its no-expenses-spared policy of providing travel and accommodation costs to delegates had likely encouraged many to attend.

• This article is published under the Pacific Media Centre’s content partnership with Radio New Zealand.

About 250 West Papuans have been served notices of eviction to leave their settlement in Port Moresby, reports The National.

National Capital District Commission officials, escorted by police officers, handed the settlers demolition orders last Thursday and told them to leave their home in the suburb of Rainbow where they had lived for 11 years.

Communal leader Elly Wangai said that some of them were now PNG citizens after former Prime Minister Peter O’Neill allowed them to gain citizenship without paying the K10,000 application fee.

READ MORE: West Papuan refugees ordered to demolish houses – Pacific Beat

“But unlike other PNG citizens, we don’t have any land to go to. When we were given citizenship, the government did not give us land to settle. And this is the fifth time we have been evicted since 2007.

“We were first evicted from 8-Mile settlement and we settled outside the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) Office at Ela Beach.

“Then we moved to the Boroko Police station. Then to Apex Park at Boroko and now to here.”

Wangai said they were willing to move from the settlement.

‘Drainage area’
“This is a drainage area and we know that and we will move. But we want NCDC to provide land for us.

“If NCDC can evict other PNG settlements from 2-Mile and resettle them at 6-Mile, they should do the same for us.”

Wangai said they had once been given land at Red Hills in the suburb of Gerehu.

“But when we went there, developments were already taking place.

“So we had to return here. Since we were given eviction notices, our children were traumatised and did not attend school.

“Our mothers who are involved in small economical activities like selling doughnuts and ice blocks have stopped.

“They are finding it hard to earn money to look after their family. If we are given land to move, we will be confident to live our daily lives.”

According to ABC, Port Moresby Governor Powes Parkop was unaware of the move to serve the demolition orders or what had prompted it.

A vocal supporter of the West Papua cause, Parkop said he would work to stop – or at least stall – the process to carry out the demolition orders, and fulfill his promise to find the settlers a permanent home.

“I hope I can sort it out soon and get proper allocation of the land so they’ve got security and can build a future.”

Doused in black warpaint, draped in ammunition and clutching guns almost as big as some of them, the boys stare with hardened gazes into the camera.

The photo, taken somewhere in Papua’s remote hills, is like countless others released by the West Papua Liberation Army, a rebel group waging war on the Indonesian military and proclaiming independence from the state.

But unlike the stream of propaganda showing what the group says is its burgeoning guerrilla force, the ceremoniously staged scene in May appears to show children fighting within the Liberation Army’s ranks.

READ MORE: West Papuan Liberation Movement applies for full MSG membership

“These children automatically become fighters and opponents of the colonial military of Indonesia,” said Sebby Sambom, a spokesperson for the Liberation Army.

He said about a dozen soldiers between the ages of 15 and 18 were currently fighting for the rebel group in different parts of Papua.

Under international human rights laws, 18 is the minimum legal age for the recruitment and use of children in hostilities, according to the UN Working Group on Children and Armed Conflict.

Using children under the age of 15 as soldiers is defined as a war crime by the International Criminal Court.

Necessary combatants
Sambom, who is based in Papua New Guinea, accepted the Liberation Army was in violation of international conventions but said the enlistment of children as combatants was necessary because of what he described as oppression by the Indonesian military in Papua.

He said children had been fighting for various rebel groups in Papua for decades.

The Liberation Army has been under the spotlight since a renewed campaign in the Central Highlands regency of Nduga since late last year.

In December, its fighters massacred at least 16 Indonesian construction workers in Nduga who were working on a state roading project, the Trans-Papua Highway.

The attack, which also killed an Indonesian soldier, was the bloodiest in years and sparked a huge military-led hunt for the rebel fighters which has seen dozens killed on both sides in the past six months.

Scorched earth
The Liberation Army has accused Indonesia of a scorched earth campaign, which the military has denied.

Rights groups have documented a widespread displacement of civilians from Nduga as the Liberation Army and Indonesian military and police engage in frequent gunfights.

In April, the Irish human rights group Front Line Defenders said more than 32,000 people had been displaced from the regency since December.

Children have also been caught up.

The Humanity Volunteer Team of Nduga said in April there were more than 700 students at an emergency school for displaced people from Nduga that was set up in nearby Wamena.

Cycle of violence
Experts say the use of child soldiers in Papua is part of a cycle of violence, with many joining the fight after their parents die in battles with Indonesia’s military.

“Some of them feel angry. If there is no trauma healing process for these kids, it is a matter of time in coming years, in coming months, they will join their fellow friends in the jungle,” said Hipolitus Wangge, an Indonesian researcher who interviewed people displaced from Nduga this month.

He said one boy he interviewed in a Wamena displacement camp – who he estimated was aged between 10 and 11 – expressed a desire to join the Liberation Army, which is led in Nduga by Ekianus Kogoya, an ambitious commander who’s about 20 years old.

“To some refugees, they still see Eki as the commander, as one of the strongmen in the Highlands at the moment. Because he can fight, he can kill, and to some he can be a symbol of Papuan resistance,” said  Wangge.

Chris Wilson, a senior lecturer at Auckland University who specialises in terrorism and conflict in Indonesia, said the use of child soldiers would prolong the violence in Papua by enlisting young people in the conflict before they are fully developed.

“It’s going to be very difficult for them to be reintegrated into society once they’re involved in the actual violence from that type of age.”

“Overwhelming force”
Wilson said their presence would also complicate any clashes for Indonesia’s military, which would be likely prevented from using “overwhelming force” if it was aware of children within the rebels’ ranks.

A spokesperson for Indonesia’s military, Mohammed Aidi, said he did not know of the use of child soldiers by the Liberation Army.

This article is published under the Pacific Media Centre’s content partnership with Radio New Zealand.

We all want change and we want that change to happen quickly.

Many of us feel deprived of certain opportunities and privileges and therefore miss or forget that we are rich already.

As a country we didn’t have to struggle to become an independent democratic nation.

READ MORE: Scott Waide’s message to PNG’s Prime Minister James Marape

Beyond that we are rich with our good Papua New Guinean ways, our cultures and traditions. Our people have in them various skills and talents that are often given freely.

Our land holds rich minerals and natural resources that today in some parts of the country have become the cause of our various divisions and tensions.

What we need is to appreciate this richness. Our constitution speaks of oneness, and respect for each other where we share equally the fruits of our land and people. Yes we need to engage in the global spheres but our people are central to everything we want to do.

Wealth distribution
Papua New Guinea needs to distribute its wealth equally so that our children can have free, quality education that is relevant for our sustenance and growth and that our sick can access good quality health care at no cost.

We are rich when our women are appreciated as equals and are free from violence and our youth are an integral part of our decision making. We have to stop blaming the youth for our law and order situations and start taking responsibility to guide them.

As a nation going forward when we see and hear more deep thinking young Papua New Guineans coming out of our universities and embracing our values we know we are in charge of our destiny.

We cannot continue to rely on foreign consultants to tell us how to run our country. Our ways are unique, diverse and deep and only we understand why we do things as Papua New Guineans. We must stop relying on borrowed concepts and ideas.

Free from foreign ideas
We want to be free from depending on development aid and foreign ideas that drive our development. It does not make sense when a mineral rich and natural resource rich nation depends heavily on aid. Take a look around, how many development projects are funded by foreign governments?

Annually we import K3-4 billion in food alone according to former National Planning Minister, Richard Maru.  Our dependence on grains has superseded our own food products. We want to stop depending on huge food imports to sustain us. We are rich with land and the right climatic conditions to produce our own food all year round. Rather than taking land from the people we want to help them use their land to produce food.

Lifestyle diseases among young people in Papua New Guinea are rising. Our nutrition status is not getting any better. We need to stop feeding our children unhealthy fast foods and encourage local organic food.

Our own people are paying huge taxes and we let companies get away without paying theirs. When our people start earning comfortable wages and salaries then we will know we are doing well as a country.

Many of our people who give service to this country do not live in decent homes serviced with proper water and sanitation systems and electricity.

Service for the people
We are rich when our banks and other service providers start doing service for our people instead of building empires based on profits.

Papua New Guinea, our land, is richly blessed. We have adopted a belief system that commands us to look after our God’s creation. And so when our forests, rivers, sea and land can be free from abuse and exploitation then we know we will be rich forever.

We are rich already. We just need to care more and look at our distribution mechanisms and make decisions responsibly.

Republished with permission from Scott Waide’s blog: My Land my Country

A minister of a Pacific church in Auckland has spoken out against rugby star Israel Folau’s homophobic attack.

Samoan Minister Apelu Tielu from the Pacific Island Presbyterian Church has criticised Folau’s misuse of the Bible, saying Folau has used the Bible “as an excuse”.

Folau has defended his homophobic stance despite being fired by Rugby Australia after an independent panel found his social media posts were a “high level breach” of professional player conduct.

READ MORE: Israel Folau launches fresh attack on gay and transgender people

Folau posted a “warning” to his 313,000 Instagram followers which said “homosexuals” should repent or “hell awaits you,” and quoted Bible verses.

Reverend Apelu Tielu disagreed that Folau was merely stating his religious beliefs, saying that the Bible has historically been misused to justify acts of hate, including apartheid and slavery.

Instead, Rev Tielu says that people need to understand the context that the Bible was written in, and that it is better to treat it as metaphoric rather than literal.

Rev Tielu posted on facebook about Folau and has written an E-tangata article saying that Christianity is about “love, not judgment”.

Rev Tielu’s faith has grown through the coming out of his pansexual daughter Amy, who he has described previously as “a blessing”.

Amy Tielu, 33, a Filipino-Samoan business analyst in Canberra, told her parents about her attraction to both men and women when she was 16, and is outspoken about being a queer Christian.

“It’s not “God loves you in spite of this” it’s “God loves you including this part.””

While Folau has been fired by Rugby Australia, Amy Tielu would like to see reparations to the LGBTQI community for the harm done.

“I would like the $4 million from his contract invested into scholarships or something for LGBT rugby players.”

Amy Tielu hopes that Folau would reflect on his homophobic actions and “open his heart and mind to consider maybe God is trying to communicate something to him through these people he might have assumed are his enemies”.

While the Tielu family is Samoan, and Folau is Tongan, other Pacific people are also distancing themselves from Folau’s extreme views.

Leilani Tamu, a New Zealand-based Pacific social commentator of Tongan, Samoan and German descent, says her reaction to Folau’s social media post was “distress and upset for all the people I know his comments would have hurt directly.”

While Christian faith is central to Tamu’s identity, as it is for Folau, she says that there is a spectrum of views within Pacific communities.

Tamu believes Folau is misguided, saying, “Jesus never turned anyone away”.

• Tulia Thompson is of Fijian, Tongan and Pakeha descent and is based in Aotearoa New Zealand. She has a PhD in sociology and is currently completing a Postgraduate Diploma in Journalism at AUT.

The Australian government has conceded it won’t meet its target of resettling 1250 refugees held on Nauru and Manus Island.

Home affairs minister Peter Dutton said on Sunday the US had hampered its deal with Australia by rejecting more than 300 refugees.

He told the ABC they were rejected for various reasons and he didn’t think the target of the 2016 deal would be met.

READ MORE: Manus Island refugee granted Swiss asylum to fight on

Refugee advocate Ian Rintoul said that leaves several hundred people without any clear resettlement plan.

“It’s interesting that the Australian government has now admitted that, it’s something that it had denied or tried to avoid even from the very beginning of the deal, but now that it’s a very public admission that the US deal is seriously flawed, the pressure is on the Australian government to provide resettlement options.”

Ian Rintoul said Australia should also take up New Zealand’s offer to take 150 of the refugees.

• This article is published under the Pacific Media Centre’s content partnership with Radio New Zealand.
• More refugee stories

Both the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea governments have signalled changes to make their forestry industries more sustainable.

According to Loop PNG, the Papua New Guinea government will be putting a stop to the issuance of all new logging licences to foreign companies.

Forestry Minister Solan Mirisim who resigned as Defence Minister under the O’Neill led government, said licenses will only be issued to landowning companies.

READ MORE: Tarcisius Kabutaulaka: Logging bonanza hasn’t helped Solomon Islands landowners

“The minister is charged in ensuring that no more new licence is given to foreign companies, all existing players in the country go down to downstream processing by 2020,” he said.

He said that more needs to be done to ensure the forestry industry is sustainable.

“But what we can absolutely do about logging is this: We can replace the tree that we cut. But we are not doing that. You go anywhere in the logging area in PNG, are they doing reforestation? No. But the authority that’s supposed to do this is slack.”

Illegal deforestation
Deforestation is rife in Papua New Guinea, with 640,000 hectares of forest felled in the last three years. Much of the logging is illegal, prompting conflict between offending companies and indigenous landowners.

According to The Guardian, millions of tonnes of illegally felled logs are sent to China and PNG is China’s single largest supplier of tropical logs.

Illegal logging activity is often enabled through corruption typical of the previous government under Peter O’Neill.

Prime Minister James Marape has since pledged to stamp out such corruption and work more in the interests of indigenous landowners.

The Solomon Islands government has also discussed changes to the logging industry, with Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare looking to halt all round log exports by 2023, reports SIBC news.

Sogavare will encourage a shift from round log exporting to downstream processing with more factories set up to process the timber onshore.

Twenty times the sustainable rate
According to environmental news website Mongabay, logging companies are clearing Solomon Islands forests at nearly 20 times the sustainable rate.

While Sogavare’s announcement appears to be a step in the right direction, there are concerns that any changes will be hindered by a majority of pro-logging MPs, many of whom are being paid by foreign logging companies.

The Solomon Islands government should exercise caution as it considers whether to maintain diplomatic ties with Taiwan or switch to China, an academic says.

Amid diplomatic visits from both Australia and New Zealand, the Solomon Islands Foreign Minister Jeremiah Manele said last week the government would take its time to make an informed decision.

The director of the Centre for Pacific Studies at the University of Hawaii, Dr Tarcisius Kabutaulaka, said China’s aid focus on large infrastructure projects was appealing to some Solomon Islands MPs.

READ MORE: Chinese influence in the Pacific prompts high-level meetings

But leaders need to consider whether the country can manage not only the potential debt that could be incurred but also the intensity of a relationship with China, he said.

“Think about whether or not we are prepared for a relationship that is going to come with intensity both in terms of diplomacy as well as in terms of investment and how we can best benefit from it,” Dr Kabutaulaka said.

“So at the end of the day it is the interest of the Solomon Islands people that is the most important thing.”

Dr Kabutaulaka also said Australia and New Zealand’s actions in the Pacific speak louder than their attempts to play down concerns over the Solomon Islands considering cutting diplomatic ties with Taiwan in favour of China.

In their official statements during last week’s visits to Solomon Islands, both Australia and New Zealand said they were not putting any pressure on the country either way.

But Dr Kabutaulaka said Australia’s Step Up and New Zealand’s Pacific Reset policies told a different story.

“We cannot get away from the fact that Australia and New Zealand have … have done in recent years attempted to strengthen their influence in the Pacific Islands region vis-a-vis the rising presence or assertive presence of the People’s Republic of China,” Dr Kabutaulaka said.

This article is published under the Pacific Media Centre’s content partnership with Radio New Zealand.

Auckland Council has declared a climate emergency after an Environment Committee meeting today.

The council’s motion was passed unanimously and was met with applause from activists in the packed public gallery.

Activists had told committee members many of them would be voting this election and their votes depended on what councillors would decide.

READ MORE: UN Security-General tells youth be ‘noisy as possible’ on climate change

Waiata Rameka-Tupe from the group Climate Conscious Mana Rangatahi brought a stuffed New Zealand sea turtle to the table with her, saying it had died because its stomach was filled with plastic.

Rameka-Tupe said her group was excited the council had made the declaration but warned it would be watching carefully to see if they followed up with action.

Representing the school climate strikers, Generation Zero’s Sidd Mehita put the council on notice if they wanted their votes.

“We need to see you have skin in the game,” he said.

It was not just young people speaking today, with activist Rosie Gee telling the council it was time to stop using soft words like “encourage” when it comes to making change.

Policy change was the best way to limit climate change and it was needed now, she said.

The Environment Committee includes every member of the council, so its decisions are binding immediately without having to go through further council processes.

In a press release, the council said the declaration meant it was committing to:

• Robustly and visibly incorporate climate change considerations into work programmes and decisions.
• Provide strong local government leadership in the face of climate change, including working with local and central government partners to ensure a collaborative response.
• Advocate strongly for greater central government leadership and action on climate change.
• Increase the visibility of our climate change work.
• Lead by example in monitoring and reducing the council’s greenhouse gas emissions.
• Include climate change impact statements on all council committee reports.

Councillors also voted that all reports presented by staff to decision making committees should include a climate impact statement.

All supported the declaration, but several said the council did not have a handle on the problem and would need to make major, concrete changes if the declaration was to be meaningful.

This article is published under the Pacific Media Centre’s content partnership with Radio New Zealand.

A Manus Island refugee granted asylum in Switzerland will continue to fight for the freedom of refugees Australia detains in Papua New Guinea and Nauru.

Abdul Aziz Muhamat, 25, fled Sudan in 2013 but was detained for travelling by boat to Australia to seek asylum.

During almost six years in detention on the PNG island, Muhamat was an outspoken critic of the regime that imprisoned him and thousands of other refugees indefinitely without trial.

READ MORE: Manus Island police chief calls for state action over suicidal refugees

He regularly provided comment and interviews to journalists from around the world and was the subject of The Messenger podcast.

In February, Muhamat was given a special visa to travel to Switzerland to receive an international award for human rights defenders.

From Geneva on Saturday, he posted a video on social media to announce his claim for asylum had been accepted.

WATCH VIDEO: Abdul Aziz Muhamat announces his claim for asylum has been accepted

“Thanks for the Swiss for granting my asylum today. They gave me lots of energy and that energy will make me concentrate on what is happening on Manus Island, and also will make me fight harder than the way that I used to fight before.

“Now I have the tools and I have everything it takes for me to fight for the freedom of each and everyone.

“And the fight has just started. I have no idea how long this fight will take but I can assure you this fight will never be completed until the last person will leave the island of Manus or Nauru.”

About a thousand refugees are still unable to leave the two Pacific countries.

• This article is published under the Pacific Media Centre’s content partnership with Radio New Zealand.
• More refugee stories