Journalist, author and media academic David Robie has launched an independent news and current affairs website to complement his long-established Asia Pacific Report.

While Asia Pacific Report will continue to cover regional affairs, the new website — dubbed Café Pacific, the same name as his blog which is being absorbed into the new venture — will focus on more in-depth reports and make available on open access a range of books and articles previously hidden behind paywalls.

Café Pacific will be operated on a Creative Commons licence basis as is APR.

• READ MORE: The new Café Pacific website
• Other reports from the author/publisher

Dr Robie, formerly founding director of AUT’s Pacific Media Centre and a professor of Pacific journalism, described the website project as “innovative”.

The about page says: “Café Pacific : Media freedom and transparency is the Asia-Pacific news articles archive and website of journalist and author David Robie, published with the support of Multimedia Investments Ltd in collaboration with Asia Pacific Report, EveningReport.nz and the Asia Pacific Media Network, and contributing colleagues, academics and freelancers.”

“There is a real need for an outlet such as this — specialist Asia-Pacific websites are rare,” says Dr Robie.

“It will be a rather eclectic website, but will focus on many of the critical issues that are either ignored in mainstream media or underplayed — such as climate justice, decolonisation in ‘French’ Polynesia and Kanaky New Caledonia, digital divide, education equity, environmental integrity, human rights, media freedom, podcasts, sustainable development and the crisis in West Papua.”

Recent scoops
Among recent scoops on the website were publication of the detailed “what we told the French Prime Minister” document of the Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS) and several exclusive West Papua reports.

The website will also be a repository for Dr Robie’s past journalism, books and academic research, making publications more publicly accessible.

Dr Robie praised EveningReport.nz and Multimedia Investments managing director Selwyn Manning for his “perceptive” role in designing and developing the website.

“Selwyn has a long track record of supporting student and alternative journalism as witnessed with first Pacific Scoop and then Asia Pacific Report. And now we see it again with Café Pacific.”

Selwyn Manning and security analyst Dr Paul Buchanan will resume their popular weekly podcasts, “A View From Afar”, about current issues on EveningReport.nz and social media outlets tomorrow at noon.

• The promo for Thursday’s programme
• Listen to the podcasts
• Watch the podcasts
• Midday Thursdays (NZT)
• 8pm Wednesdays (EDT)
• Past episodes

An author and human rights advocate for West Papuan self-determination today sent an open letter to Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and the federal parliament calling for act of “decency” to correct years of alleged failure in foreign policy.

Jim Aubrey, author of the 1998 book Free East Timor and editor of a pro-independence for West Papua website, claimed in his statement that Australia had supported “impunity for Indonesia’s litany of every universally known classification for crimes against humanity”.

Aubrey called on Canberra to press the United Nations to “rectify breaches” over West Papuan decolonisation.

• READ MORE: Other West Papua reports

He also called for a Royal Commission to “investigate the roles of consecutive Australian governments as accessories to Indonesia’s unlawful military occupation and annexation of West Papua” and Indonesia’s “six decades of crimes against humanity”.

Aubrey claimed there were deliberate acts of geopolitical convenience and economic exploitation “while a slaughterhouse of decades of crimes against humanity in both West Papua and East Timor were international public knowledge”.

Unlike Timor-Leste, which gained its full independence in 2002 after 24 years of brutal Indonesian occupation, the Melanesian region of West Papua was annexed by Jakarta after a paratrooper invasion and then a contested “Act of Free Choice” plebiscite in 1969.

The consensus vote for Indonesian rule by 1250 handpicked Papuan elders purportedly under UN supervision has been challenged ever since by both peaceful Papuan activists and a war of liberation fought by the West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNPB-OPM) as not a genuine expression of self-determination by the Indigenous Papuans.

Aubrey’s open letter to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and the federal parliamentarians was attached to an image of two child victims of an atrocity in West Papua.

‘Callous betrayal’ of West Papuans

Later today, the TPNPB-OPM issued a statement supporting author Jim Aubrey’s call for a Royal Commission into Australian policy over West Papua and the consecutive Australian government’s alleged roles in Indonesia’s illegal military occupation and annexation of the region.

OPM leader Jeffrey Bomanak said the West Papuan people had suffered “callous betrayal and abandonment” by the Australian government and he also criticised New Zealand.

“If somebody had told me our Second World War allies, Australia and New Zealand, would treat us as collateral damage to Canberra and Wellington’s criminal defence and trade collaboration with Indonesia to steal and plunder my country, and to avert their gaze to the rivers of our blood and guts, I would have found this impossible to believe.

“Unfortunately, the Australian and New Zealand governments are well versed in their own appalling history of crimes against indigenous First Nations people.”

• Read the full open letter at Café Pacific

#Openletter to PM Albanese: #Canberra must call on #UN to ‘rectify breaches’ over West Papuan #CaféPacific #JimAubrey #decolonisation #westpapua #Independence #humanrights #australia #nzpol https://t.co/SjHDIQ1ENx

— David Robie (@DavidRobie) May 1, 2023