The West Papua National Committee (KNPB) has declared that it rejects the violent approach which Indonesia continues to push in the land of Papua.

“We have been consistent in the demand to resolve the political conflict in Papua peacefully. We reject a violent approach which has already claimed many victims since [Papua] was annexed [by Indonesia] in 1962,” said KNPB spokesperson Ones Suhuniap in a media release this week.

“We are aware that weapons will not resolve the Papua problem.”

• READ MORE: Other West Papua reports

The KNPB is asking the Free Papua Movement-West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNPB OPM) and the Indonesian government to halt the armed conflict.

“Immediately open up peaceful democratic space for dialogue and to find a find a peaceful solution,” the group said.

According to Suhuniap, the KNPB is asking Indonesia to stop sending troops to the land of Papua.

“We are asking Jakarta to withdraw the troops which have been dropped [in Papua] in huge numbers because this has impacted on humanitarian crimes since 1962.

‘Don’t sacrifice people’
“Immediately pursue a political solution. Don’t sacrifice people for the sake of the economic and political interests of the oligarchy in Jakarta.

“Members of the TNI [Indonesian military] and Polri [Indonesian police] are also human beings. Likewise, the TPNPB are also human beings,” the group said.

As an organisation, the KNPB rejects the use of arms as a solution.

“All KNPB members adhere to the KNPB’s principles of struggling peacefully without violence. We need to remind all rogue individuals (oknum) and other parties to stop treating the KNPB as criminals.

“If there are such rogue individuals they must be held accountable for their actions. We will not tolerate it anymore,” said Suhuniap.

Suhuniap believes that the bloody conflict which is continuing in the land of Papua is a consequence of Jakarta’s reluctance to resolve the conflict peacefully.

“All the Papuan people want is their political right to be respected as a nation. So, right from the start the KNPB has demanded a referendum as a peaceful solution for the Papuan people.

intentionally cultivated crimes
“So far this has not happened, because Jakarta has intentionally cultivated and maintained crimes against humanity in the land of Papua,” he explained.

Suhuniap continued: “Papua’s problems are very clear. Indonesia and the world also understands this.

“Our political history and the current reality proves that the Papuan people have, are and will continue to be the victims. All of the scientific research proves this. So as human beings we need a peaceful solution.”

In heading towards the peaceful solution that is yearned for, said Suhuniap, both parties needed to speak at an respectable location.

“And speak honestly and openly, then agree on a solution for the Papuan people.”

Because of this, the KNPB as a media for the Papuan people was continuing to urge Jakarta and all other parties to pursue a peaceful solution.

Papuan lives without hope
Meanwhile, KNPB diplomatic secretary Omikson Balingga said that the lives of the Papuan people in Indonesia had been without hope because of the unfolding threat of violence over the past 60 years.

“The Papuan nation does not have any hope living with a colonial country. Aside from its people, the natural resources of the land of Papua also continue to be exhausted by Indonesia. The only solution is independence as a sovereign country”, he said.

Earlier, KNPB General Chairperson Warpo Sampari Wetipo declared that the KNPB as a media of the West Papuan people has been consistent in its civilian mission in the cities.

“The KNPB will never retreat a single step. The KNPB has been constant in the agenda of self-determination which along with the Papuan people it has continued to struggle for”, said Wetipo.

As long as the Papuan people are still not given the democratic space to determine their own future (self determination), he asserted that the KNPB will continue to exist throughout the land of Papua.

“To this day the struggle of the Papuan nation has been to demand political independence. This is no longer a secret. All of the Papuan people already know and understand our political history and what is best for the future”.

Wetipo stated that Indonesia must understand that it has to stop using colonialist policies and actions against the Papuan people.

“The best solution is to immediately give the democratic right to the Papuan nation to determine their own future”, he asserted.

Translated by James Balowski for IndoLeft News. The original title of the article was “Hentikan Konflik Bersenjata di Tanah Papua, KNPB: Tempuhlah Jalan Damai“.

Asia Pacific Report newsdesk

West Papua National Liberation Army-Free Papua Organisation (TPNPB-OPM) spokesperson Sebby Sambom says the armed resistance force is not prepared to hold a dialogue with or pursue diplomacy with the Indonesian government unless it is mediated by the United Nations.

Intan Jaya district in Papua, especially Sugapa district and Hitadipa district, is not the TPNPB (West Papua National Liberation Army) operational area. Intan Jaya regency is a new autonomous region (DOB) resulting from the division of Paniai regency.[1]

Intan Jaya regency was formed with the promulgation of the Law of the Republic of Indonesia Number 54 of 2008 on November 26, 2008. Intan Jaya consists of six districts that were previously part of Paniai regency – Agisiga, Biandoga, Hitadipa, Homeyo, Sugapa, Wandai.[2]

In 2013, there were two additional districts in Intan Jaya, Ugimba (the result of the division of Sugapa district) and Tomosiga district (the result of the division of Agisiga district. The addition of these districts was accompanied by an increase in the number of villages to 97 villages.

• READ MORE: Part 1: The Intan Jaya conflict: A risk of more widespread violence in future
• Part 2: The Intan Jaya conflict 2: Violence at the cost of many civilian lives
• Part 3: The Intan Jaya conflict 3: New autonomous region, new conflict

Until the early part of the division, generally the social problems in Intan Jaya were in the form of fights between residents, barriers and addiction to alcohol. However, there was no armed conflict involving security actors such as the TNI (Indonesia National Army), Polri (Indonesia National Police), and the TPNPB armed group.

After 11 years of formation, Intan Jaya district has not been effective in improving education services for its 49,293 inhabitants. The local government of Intan Jaya regency has failed to address the problems of low-quality of human resources, poverty, unequal economic growth, underdevelopment, and isolation.

This has an impact on the low competitiveness of Intan Jaya regency.[3]

Intan Jaya district’s HDI (Human Development Index) achievement is still lower than that of Papua province. In 2015, the IPM (Human Development Index) of Intan Jaya regency was still at 44, 35, while Papua province had reached 57, 25.

Lack of educational facilities
The lack of educational facilities, as well as a limited teaching staff, affects the teaching and learning process and the literacy rate there. In 2019, according to the Intan Jaya Education and Teaching Office, there were only 47 schools, consisting of 3 TK (kindergarten) units, 36 SD (elementary school) units, 7 SMP (junior high school) units, and 1 SMA (senior high school) unit.

Intan Jaya has 222 teachers consisting of 6 kindergarten teachers, 138 elementary school teachers, 67 junior high school teachers, and 11 high school teachers.[4]

Health facilities in Intan Jaya also remain minimal. The Intan Jaya Health Office noted that there are 24 health facilities, which rely on eight Community Health Centres (puskesmas) that are spread evenly in eight Intan Jaya districts.

A total of eight puskesmas are assisted by 13 units of Auxiliary Puskesmas (pustu) which are only in Homeyo District and Wandai District and two units of medical centres. Intan Jaya only has one Regional General Hospital unit which occupies the Sugapa Puskesmas building. There are also no maternity homes and pharmacies in Intan Jaya.

The lack of health facilities in Intan Jaya has made it difficult for people to reach good health services. To get better health services, people have to make long trips to Nabire or Timika.[5]

The establishment of Intan Jaya Regency failed to improve the quality of public services for its citizens. On the other hand, Intan Jaya has actually experienced a number of impacts from the expansion, including new conflicts rooted in local political issues, or violence perpetrated by security forces such as the police or the army.

In the 2014 General Election, there was a dispute regarding the results of the election for Intan Jaya Regional Legislative Council (DPRD) Candidates and accusations of vote mark-up.[6]

Security forces cause friction
Apart from the dispute over the Legislative Election of the Intan Jaya DPRD (Intan Jaya People Representative Council), the presence of security forces in Sugapa, the capital of Intan Jaya regency, has also created new friction.

On 29 September 2014, a resident who was previously involved in a fight with two Brimob members was shot.[7] Seprianus Japugau (22) received a gunshot wound to the stomach, while Benyamin Agimbau (30) was seriously injured because he was hit by a gun butt.[8]

After that, there were at least seven cases of intimidation or physical clashes between Brimob and civilians. A number of these cases included the shooting by the Brimob unit of Malon Sondegau in Sugapa on 25 August 2016 (wounded and still alive).

Another case was the shooting of the Mobile Brigade against Otinus Sondegau (killed) in Sugapa on 27 August 2016, which caused a mass rage and the burning of the Sugapa Sector police headquarters.[9] There is one other case of violence that also involved security forces, the stabbing that killed the head of the Kemandoga tribe Ijihogama Selegani in Homeyo in December 2015.[10]

A bigger conflict occurred when the regional head election (Pilkada) was held to elect the Regent and Deputy Regent of Intan Jaya for the 2017-2022 period. The Pilkada led to disputes and clashes between sympathizers of the regent candidate pair Yulius Yapugau-Yunus Kalabetme and incumbent Natalis Tabuni-Robert Kobogoyauw.

The Pilkada case began with a clash between sympathizers of the candidates that took place at the Intan Jaya General Election Commission (KPU) office on 23 February 2017. At that time, the supporters of Yulius Yapugau-Yunus Kalabetme asked the KPU to speed up the process of counting the votes for the Intan Jaya Pilkada. The request was rejected, because the KPU Intan Jaya had not received the recapitulation of votes from Wandai district and Agisiga district.[11]

As a result, there were clashes between supporters which killed three people. A number of 101 other residents were injured.[12].

400 police dispatched
The Papua Police immediately dispatched 400 police officers to Intan Jaya. A total of 30 Brimob from Bali who were previously in Dogiyai district were also transferred to Intan Jaya.[13] The recapitulation of the vote acquisition was finally completed by KPU Intan Jaya on 24 February 2017.

However, on 15 May 2017, the Papua General Election Supervisory Agency (Bawaslu) rejected the results of the Intan Jaya Pilkada recapitulation. Bawaslu assessed that many administrative requirements were not fulfilled by the Intan Jaya KPU. The problem then became a dispute by the Constitutional Court (MK).

The Constitutional Court ordered the Re-Voting (PSU) at 7 different polling stations.[14] On August 29, 2017, Chief Justice of the Constitutional Court, Arief Hidayat, read out the verdict, declaring Natalis Tabuni and Robert Kobogoyauw to win the 2017 Intan Jaya Pilkada with 36,883 votes.

This ruling also cancelled the decision of the KPU Intan Jaya which won Yulius Yapugau and Yunus Kalabetme.[15]

The Constitutional Court’s decision sparked protests and the dismissal of Sugapa airport. A number of Intan Jaya regency government offices in Sugapa were burned by the masses. The rampage of the masses paralysed economic activity in Sugapa, because most of the stalls and markets chose to close.

The indigenous people chose to stay indoors, while some migrants chose to flee to the police and military headquarters.[16]

After the mass rampage in Sugapa, 100 Brimob Detachment A Polda (regional police) of South Sulawesi were sent to Intan Jaya to guard vital objects, such as airports and government offices.[17]

After being inaugurated as Regent of Intan Jaya on December 12, 2017, Natalis Tabuni stated that he would reconcile all political opponents. However, these efforts were not fully implemented.

The 2017 Pilkada conflict made it difficult for the Intan Jaya regency government to mediate the various new conflicts that occurred there.

Translated from the original Tabloid Jubi article by a special Pacific Media Watch correspondent. Jubi articles are republished by Asia Pacific Report with permission.

Notes:
[1] Undang-Undang Republik Indonesia Nomor: 54 Tahun 2008, tentang pembentukan Kabupaten Intan Jaya (Acts of the Republic of Indonesia Number: 54 of 2008, concerning the establishment of the Intan Jaya Regency).

[2] https://penghubung.papua.go.id/5-wilayah-adat/mee-pago/kabupaten-intan-jaya/

[3] https://www.bappedaintanjaya.id/dokument/RPJMD%20Intan%20Jaya%20-%20Permendagri%2086.pdf

[4] https://intanjayakab.bps.go.id/publication/download.html?nrbvfeve=ZGZiNDI2Yzc2NjFmNWE4ZjQ5NGRlMmM3&xzmn=aHR0cHM6Ly9pbnRhbmpheWFrYWIuYnBzLmdvLmlkL3B1YmxpY2F0aW9uLzIwMjAvMDUvMjAvZGZiNDI2Yzc2NjFmNWE4ZjQ5NGRlMmM3L2thYnVwYXRlbi1pbnRhbi1qYXlhLWRhbGFtLWFuZ2thLTIwMjAuaHRtbA%3D%3D&twoadfnoarfeauf=MjAyMC0xMC0yNiAxNjoyMDozNg%3D%3D

[5] https://suarapapua.com/2020/03/12/dprd-keluhkan-pelayanan-kesehatan-di-intan-jaya/

[6] http://radiosuaradogiyaifm.blogspot.com/2014/05/ketua-dpr-dan-ketua-panwas-intan-jaya.html

[7] https://www.merdeka.com/peristiwa/hidupkan-jaringan-telkomsel-yang-diputus-beno-dipanah-warga.html

[8] https://suarapapua.com/2016/08/29/catatan-ulah-brimob-polda-papua-sugapa/

[9] https://suarapapua.com/2016/08/29/catatan-ulah-brimob-polda-papua-sugapa/

[10] https://suarapapua.com/2018/09/27/ini-penjelasan-bupati-soal-rencana-pembentukan-polres-intan-jaya/

[11] https://jateng.tribunnews.com/2017/02/25/sengketa-pilkada-di-papua-berakhir-bentrok-dan-kantor-kpud-dibakar-satu-dikabarkan-tewas

[12] https://nasional.kompas.com/read/2017/03/19/14055531/kapolres.paniai.bantah.tidak.netral.dalam.pilkada.intan.jaya

[13] https://news.detik.com/berita/d-3431565/satu-warga-tewas-pleno-penghitungan-suara-di-intan-jaya-ditunda

[14] https://republika.co.id/berita/nasional/pilkada/17/08/29/ovfbwe384-mk-sidangkan-putusan-sengketa-pilkada-intan-jaya-papua

[15] https://www.cnnindonesia.com/nasional/20170831170505-12-238724/warga-intan-jaya-papua-protes-putusan-mk-penerbangan-lumpuh

[16] https://news.detik.com/berita/d-3623582/protes-putusan-mk-soal-pilkada-massa-bakar-kantor-pemkab-intan-jaya

[17] https://regional.kompas.com/read/2017/08/31/12223321/redam-konflik-di-intan-jaya-100-personel-brimob-diterbangkan-ke-papua

The Free Papua Organisation (OPM) has offered a ceasefire in the independence struggle against Indonesian rule in the Melanesian region in an effort to contain the global Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic.

The option of a ceasefire, however, must also be agreed to by the Indonesian government by withdrawing troops from Papua.

West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNPB) and OPM spokesperson Sebby Sembom has confirmed reports of the offer.

READ MORE: Background to the West Papuan conflict

He also emphasised that the option of a ceasefire must be agreed to by the government by ending military operations in Papua and withdrawing all “non-organic” troops.

“Yes, it’s true and if Indonesia withdraws all non-organic military from Papua. Because the fact is that the TNI-Polri [Indonesian military-Indonesian police] are currently mobilising troops in large numbers and conducting military operations in Ndugama, Lani Jaya, Timika, Tembagapura and Oksibil in the star mountains (Pegunungan Bintang) regency”, said Sembom when contacted by journalists this week.

As a broad outline, the option of a ceasefire offered by the OPM must also be accepted by the government with an agreement not to conduct military operations on the island of the Cenderawasih as Papua is known.

Sembom has also issued a written release by OPM-TPNPB chairperson Jeffrey Bomanak which was written from the OPM-TPNPB Victoria headquarters on Wednesday.

Support health fight
In the release, Bomanak said that the OPM-TPNPB will also support the fight against the Covid-19 epidemic which they see as threatening human life.

Bomanak explained that the war between the OPM and the Indonesian military is still continuing, particularly at several vital points such as the Freeport mining area in Tembagapura, Timika.

Armed contacts are also still taking place in Intan Jaya, in the Ndugama III Defense Command Area (Kodap) in the Star Mountains as well as the OPM-TPNPB Victoria headquarters.

The government is said to still be increasing troop numbers.

“And the OPM-TPNPB respects the energy of countries which have a commitment to fight the Covid-19 global epidemic such as Papua New Guinea, Australia and East Timor so the OPM-TPNPB has had to issue this statement and commitment so that Indonesia does not act carelessly in military operations which will spread the corona virus in other countries”, wrote Bomanak.

Bomanak also wrote that the OPM-TPNPB is making this offer and commitment openly to President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo as a way of realising the international guidelines issued by the United Nations to fight the Covid-19 pandemic.

“So the OPM-TPNPB is asking Indonesia to respect the good intentions of the UN and the OPM-TPNPB for the sake of humanity and global justice,” said Bomanak.

Translated by James Balowski for Indoleft News. The original title of the article in Suara Papua was “Syarat Tarik Militer di Papua, OPM Tawarkan RI Gencatan Senjata saat Corona”.

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.

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.

FILM REVIEW: By David Robie

While a gripping film about the apocalyptic Bougainville war, or more accurately the peace that ended the decade-long conflict, opened in cinemas across New Zealand last week, an island roadshow has been taking place back in the Pacific.

Initiated by the United Nations, the roadshow – featuring Bougainville President Father John Momis, many of his cabinet members and UN Resident Coordinator Gianluca Rampolla – is designed to help prepare the Bougainvillean voters to decide on their future.

This future is due to be put to the test in a referendum on October 17 in the crucial political outcome of an extraordinary peace process that began in chilly mid-winter talks at Burnham Military Camp near Christchurch in July 1997.

The vote is already four months delayed, partly due to spoiling tactics of Peter O’Neill’s Papua New Guinean government which would avoid the vote if it could.

In any case, the vote is not binding and the O’Neill government may not even honour it, even if there is an overwhelming vote for independence in the island with a population of 250,000.

The choice is simple: Voters will be asked to choose between greater autonomy and full independence. The vote is expected to favour independence.

Also at stake is the future of the Panguna – once the mainstay of Papua New Guinea’s economy and now abandoned because of the environmental devastation caused by the huge Australian-owned copper mine – and the right of a people to choose their own destiny free from rapacious foreign extraction industries.

After almost 10 years of civil war when an estimated 10,000 to 20,000 people lost their lives through the actual fighting between the Bougainville Revolutionary Army (BRA) and other armed groups and the Papua New Guinean military, and through deaths from lack of medical treatment and starvation as a result of a military blockade around the island state, a breakthrough was achieved in New Zealand.

Exhausted by the deadlock, the deprivations of the war and 14 failed attempts at negotiating a peace, talks in the bitter cold at Burnham sparked off the long journey for a lasting peace. As former North Solomons provincial government official and a peace process officer Robert Tapi recalls:

The silent majority of Bougainvilleans were tired of war and longed to return to normal village life. Women’s groups, church groups and chiefs increased the pressure on both the BRA and the PNG-backed Bougainville Transitional Government to negotiate for peace.

On all sides, the likely cost of victory was proving too high. The moderate revolutionary leaders realised that even if they did “win”, they “would inherit a hopelessly divided society”.

The first meeting resulted in the Burnham Declaration of July 18, 1997, which urged the leaders to call a ceasefire and for the establishment of an international peacekeeping force with the withdrawal of the PNG Defence Force.

Following the Burnham Truce and the endorsement of a Truce Monitoring Group (TMG) in Cairns in November 1997, a further Burnham meeting in January 1998 produced the Lincoln Agreement and paved the way for the Ceasefire Agreement in Arawa on April 30, 1998.

The success of the breakthrough in Burnham and the following meetings was thanks to the inclusion of women’s groups, churches and local chiefs as well as the political opponents, meeting on neutral territory and with New Zealand not intervening in the talks. Also helpful was then Foreign Minister Don McKinnon’s friendly and chatty style with the delegates, which boosted Bougainvillean morale.

Filmmaker Will Watson stepped up to tell the extraordinary New Zealand peacekeeping story initially through an award-winning 2018 documentary for Māori Television, Hakas And Guitars, following up with this year’s feature film Soldiers Without Guns.

He had been monitoring the war and aftermath while a journalism student and began to put together a project team in 2005. Ironically, due to funding and other obstacles, it took him 13 years to complete the feature film – longer than the actual war.

A couple of years later, in 2007, he had a film crew on the ground in Bougainville to carry out interviews and gain invaluable footage. His documentary is an inspiring and fitting tribute to the innovative “guitars, waiata and wahine” approach of the NZ-led peacekeeping force.

By concentrating on a strategy of winning the hearts and minds through hundreds of kilometres of foot slogging treks to villages and communicating directly and honestly with ordinary people, the soldiers gained the trust of Bougainvilleans from all sides.

It was a courageous and insightful decision by the first mission commander, Brigadier Roger Mortlock, now retired, to go to Bougainville without weapons and guarantee the peace. He had experienced a UN peacekeeping failure in Angola and was determined this mission would succeed.

Another key factor in the success was Major Fiona Cassidy, an Army public relations manager at the time, and her ability to communicate in a meaningful way with the Bougainvillean women in what is a matriarchal society.

In a recent RNZ Pacific interview, she admitted finding the challenge a bit “scary”:

“When you looked at the country brief, you knew that you were not going into a benign environment. It actually was hostile. So it was a little bit scary thinking, ‘Okay, we’re going to a country which has been at war for so long, it still isn’t stable, and we’re going in unarmed.'”

During the start of the Bougainville war, I was head of the journalism programme at the University of Papua New Guinea and reported the first year of the conflict in a cover story for Pacific Islands Monthly. As part of this, I revealed how a New Zealand environmental consultancy unwittingly became a catalyst for fuelling the conflict.

I wrote in my 2014 book Don’t Spoil My Beautiful Face: Media, Mayhem and Human Rights in the Pacific:

Apart from convoys with soldiers riding shotgun and yellow ochre Bougainville Copper Limited trucks packed with security forces sporting M16s, you would hardly guess that a guerrilla war was in progress near the Bougainville provincial capital of Arawa. But once you reached the sandbagged machinegun nest in Birempa village at the foot of the rugged mountain jungles of the Crown Prince Range, the tension started to rise.

Scanning the dense vegetation for a sign of the militants of the Bougainville Republican Army (BRA)—known as Rambos in the first year of the decade-long civil war – the Papua New Guinea Defence Force soldier manning the machinegun didn’t notice the irony of the T-shirt he was wearing.

Scrawled across his chest were the words MINE OF TEARS, a word play on the title of Richard West’s 1972 book River of Tears: The rise of Rio Tinto-Zinc Mining Corporation. The book was an expose of the mining operations by BCL’s parent company CRA Limited of Australia—a subsidiary of Britain’s Conzinc-Riotinto—and it had already become the “Bible” of the many of the militants.

At the time I was reporting on the fledgling war for a cover story featured by Pacific Islands Monthly in its November 1989 edition entitled MINE OF TEARS: BOUGAINVILLE ONE YEAR LATER. No other journalists were on the ground at the time, and the only other people staying at the small hotel in the port town of Kieta were soldiers, some cradling guns on their knees when having dinner. The atmosphere was surreal and ghostly in those early days.

The problems of Bougainville cannot be divorced from the rest of the country, or even from the rest of the Pacific. At stake are the crucial issues of a conflict between Western concepts of land ownership and indigenous land values, the equity between the national government, provincial administration and the traditional landowners, and a choice between genuine sovereignty over resource development projects or dependence on foreign control.

For those of us who have had some involvement in the Bougainville war bearing witness, Will Watson and his crew deserve huge praise for bringing this story to the big screen, and honouring New Zealand’s contribution to peace – Australia couldn’t have done it – and providing hope for Bougainville’s future.

With luck, the island will become independent and bring some meaning to all that terrible loss of life and deprivation.

• Soldiers Without Guns, documentary, 92min. Director Will Watson. Narrated by Lucy Lawless.

Professor David Robie is director of the Pacific Media Centre. This review is republished from Pacific Journalism Review with permission.

It is also said Papuan people seemed to be “systemically marginalised” and urged more dialogue without conditions.

The ecumenical delegation coordinated by the WCC visited Indonesia on February 15-22, including the provinces of Papua and Papua Barat (West Papua) – where increasing violence and discrimination against indigenous Papuan people was recently highlighted in a joint statement by five UN human rights mandate-holders.

READ MORE: UN experts condemn human rights violations in West Papua

The purpose of the delegation’s visit was to express solidarity and encourage member churches and related organisations in their efforts for justice and peace in Indonesia.

While in Papua and Papua Barat, the delegation members met local church leaders, victims of human rights violations and conflict, traditional leaders, the governors of both provinces and other local government representatives, and Indonesian military and police officials in Jayapura, Manokwari, Merauke and Wamena.

“Access to the Papua region has been severely restricted in the past,” said WCC director for international affairs Peter Prove.

“We greatly appreciate the fact that Indonesian authorities enabled our delegation’s visit to take place, and we hope that this will be the beginning of more openness and increased access for others to the territory and its people.”

Severe problems
However, members of the delegation were alarmed to hear from almost all the Papuans they met of the severity of the problems they continue to face.

Dr Jochen Motte, deputy general secretary of United Evangelical Mission, said: “As somebody who had the opportunity to be part of the WCC team visit in 1999, it was sad to realise that the issues mentioned in the report at that time today are almost the same and that the Special Autonomy Status … could not meet the expectations of the Papuan people and bring an end to discrimination and human rights violations.”

The Special Autonomy Law was enacted in 2001 as a basis for Papuans to play a role in determining their own political, social, cultural and economic development within the Republic of Indonesia.

But almost all Papuans the delegation members encountered – including local government officials – considered Special Autonomy a failure, and that its most important elements had not been implemented.

The delegation was concerned to learn that due to migration and demographic shifts, indigenous Papuans now form a minority in their own land.

Landgrabbing, environmental degradation and accelerating destruction of the forest and river resources upon which Papuans’ livelihoods traditionally depended were frequent complaints heard by the delegation.

According to Papuan counterparts the prevailing development model in the territory “is for others, not for us”.

‘Systemically marginalised’
Dr Emily Welty, vice-moderator of the WCC Commission of the Churches on International Affairs, said: “Papuan people seem to be systemically marginalised and excluded in all areas of life.”

In Wamena and Jayapura, delegation members met internally-displaced people who had fled from conflict and Indonesian military and police operations in the Nduga region following an incident on 2 December 2018 in which 21 road construction workers were reported killed by an armed group.

The total number of IDPs is unknown, but many are thought to be still taking refuge in the forest without support.

Bishop Abednego Keshomshahara of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania said: “It was painful to see so many child victims of this violence who fear to return home because of the presence of military and police who should be the ones protecting them in their villages and schools.”

During the visit to Papua the delegation received a joint appeal from the leaders of four churches in Papua – the GKI-TP, the KINGMI Church in Tanah Papua, the Evangelical Church in Tanah Papua (GIDI), and the Fellowship of Baptist Churches of Papua – calling for international ecumenical support for a comprehensive political dialogue for the resolution of the situation in Papua.

Rev. James Bhagwan, general secretary of the Pacific Conference of Churches, said: “It is clear that dialogue without preconditions is the only path forward in such a situation as we encountered in Papua.”

Organised as part of the WCC’s “Pilgrimage of Justice and Peace”, the visit focused on issues concerning religious freedom and inter-religious harmony in Indonesia, and the human rights situation in Papua.

Bomb attacks
The delegation was hosted by the Communion of Churches in Indonesia (PGI) and the Evangelical Christian Church in Tanah Papua (GKI-TP).

Delegation members also visited churches and their Muslim community partners in Surabaya, where suicide bomb attacks took place in May 2018, and welcomed the “extraordinary inter-communal and inter-religious solidarity” they observed.

However, in a meeting with Minister for Religious Affairs Lukman Hakim Saifuddin, delegation members also expressed concern over still high numbers of prosecutions under Indonesia’s blasphemy law, and the ways in which the 2006 Religious Harmony Law is used to marginalise religious minorities

• More West Papua stories

One of the ironies of the legacy of eight years of Barack Obama’s presidency is that under the leadership of the man who was elected to bring a more peaceful world into play following George W. Bush’s warmongering, the “global war on terror” (GWOT) has grown enormously.

Remote control warfare by drones with virtually no transparency is deeply disturbing. After years of demands for statistics about the drone killing programme, Obama was finally forced to admit in April 2013 that an American, Dr Warren Weistein, and an Italian, Giovanni Lo Porto, had been “tragically killed” in a counter-terrorism operation by drone strike three months earlier in Pakistan (Ackerman, 2016).

This rare admission of guilt over the drone programme confirmed suspicions about a climbing death toll among civilians.

While the US target is claimed to be al-Qaeda and Daesh (the self-styled Islamic State, ISIS or ISIL) suspects, research by the London-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism has demonstrated that during Obama’s tenure more than 7000 people have been killed with impunity by drone controllers far from any battlefield.

About a seventh of these deaths are estimated to be civilians, including up to 110 children.

This death toll contrasts greatly with a mere 54 drone strikes authorised by President Bush in his entire term of office.
And undoubtedly the billionaire businessman and reality television tycoon President, Donald Trump, will entrench the use of drones even further.

This timely book, provocatively entitled We Kill Because We Can (adapted from a quote by a drone operative), has exposed the ethical and moral bankruptcy and shortsighted objectives of the Predator drone programme. Author Laurie Calhoun, a philosopher and cultural critic, has penned a robustly argued and disturbing work that presents an analogy between the US government’s ‘targeted killings’ and the mafia’s hitmen murders, lumping the Bush and Obama drone killings together as ‘simply assassinations’.

Calhoun likens suspects chosen for the growing weekly ‘killing lists’ to a stay on death row, with no provision for an appeal or re-examination of the evidence that led to the ‘conviction’.

Yet it is well known that suspects charged with capital crimes within civil society are often acquitted, as the evidence proves unconvincing to a jury of their peers. Jurors in US criminal trials are sternly instructed by the court that a verdict of guilty must be established beyond a reasonable doubt. (p. 120)

Calhoun argues that the ‘slick technological apparatus’ enabling drone strikes serves as a red herring that diverts attention from the crucial question – is it actually true that people about to die by remote control via a Hellfire missile are guilty of some capital crime and ‘deserve to die’? As the author stresses, drone strikes are irrevocable. Yet even in countries where the US is not officially at war and there are no ground troops ‘to protect’, the state emphasis is on killing the target.

The killings are treated as ‘acts of war’, but they are ‘indistinguishable from unlawful assassination’, says Calhoun, and they overlap with warfare actions only in the ‘effective impunity of the killers’ (p. 120).

Calhoun also offers a scathing critique of the military-industrial complex and its phenomenal growth since former US Vice-President Dick Cheney began privatising and outsourcing to contractors during the occupation of Iraq.

The military machine virtually guarantees the continued use of drones and the self-justifying killings as part of a burgeoning “terror factory” (p. 245). The number of new Predator operators trained in the US quadrupled between 2008 and 2013 and this figure eclipses the number of conventional pilots being trained.

The hardware alone of the drone programme is a huge contract generator. As of 2013, the drone contracts for major weapons manufacturers were at these figures: Boeing $1.8 billion; Northrop Grumman $10.9 billion; General Atomics $6.6 billion; and Raytheon $648 million (p. 243).

Calhoun is highly critical of the role of news media in failing to expose the Orwellian mythology and ‘just war’ terminology shrouding GWOT, and of also failing to provide greater transparency about the drone industry; the inherent conflicts of interest; the dangers of exporting the killing technology to other countries (at least 19 so far) and the role played by targeted killing in unleashing revenge acts by jihadists.
She ultimately argues that the indifference demonstrated by the US towards the ‘thousands of nameless victims, [or] the corruption caused directly by war’ risks inviting another terrorist atrocity equally as audacious as 9/11 (p. 334).

We Kill Because We Can: From Soldiering to Assassination in the Drone Age, by Laurie Calhoun. London: Zed Books. 2016. 400pp. ISBN 978-1-78360-547-7 pbk. This review is republished from Pacific Journalism Review 22(2).

Reference
Ackerman, S. (2016, July 1). Obama claims US drones strikes have killed up to 116 civilians. The Guardian.

By Elena Cavalione of Euronews

In a world torn apart by conflicts old and new, the issue of the media’s role seems to have growing importance.

Media coverage of atrocities committed during wars is opening up debate on the power images have to influence public opinion and political decisions.

INFOCORE is an international research study funded by the 7th European Framework Programme of the European Commission. It brings together experts from the Social Sciences to investigate the media’s role in violent conflicts in three regions: the Middle East, the Balkans and Central Africa.

Romy Frohlich from Ludwig Maaximilians University in Munich explains that journalism is under a state of tremendous transformation as a result of the ever-changing, global media landscape.

“What we see so far”, she says, “is that this change in journalism does affect or had an effect on the power balance within the shaping of public discourse, for example the relation between journalism and political actors or journalism and propaganda and public relations.”

Reporting in the Middle East
In Israel, the press enjoy very good standards of freedom, which is unique in the Middle East.

However, Palestinian and foreign journalists face military censorship and frequent abuses by both the Israeli army and Hamas in Gaza.

Since 2015, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has had a grip over the communications portfolio. This gives him control over the entire media sector. He blocked a bill aimed at reforming a new broadcasting authority, fearing the new body would be critical of the government.

Digital media can guarantee more government transparency and even help change the military’s attitude towards journalists. But Professor Gadi Wolfsfed of theInterdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, says it can also undermine certain sensitive types of negotiations like peace deals.

“The positive of the fact that every citizen’s walking around with a camera”, he explains, “means that, for example, if police or soldiers are beating someone or killing them it could very well be caught on tape and uploaded onto YouTube.

“This changes the whole dynamic of the ability of the authorities to abuse people on the other side.

“However, we must be aware that there are some secrets that governments need to keep. And of course the negotiations in Oslo, that’s why it is called the Oslo peace process, were kept secret. Today it is not sure that it would be possible.

“In other words there wouldn’t have been secret negotiations because eventually something would have leaked out.”

According to the INFOCORE study, as one would expect, the Israeli and Palestinian press are extremely polarised. Hebrew language media tell their audiences one version of the facts, while the Arab media support the opposite narrative.

Meanwhile, the situation in Syria is more complex. Each side in the multifaceted civil war has set up their own media outlet.

It is almost impossible for Syrian citizens to access reliable, independent information and journalists can barely get into the country let alone report effectively on the conflict.

In this context social media have become essential for monitoring what is happening on the ground and sharing information, as Annabelle Van Den Berghe outlined: “The first sign of something going on is often on social media, is often on twitter, is often on Facebook, and it is also often on WhatsApp – she points out – I am on WhatsApp with several people inside Syria: reporters but also just civilians who are living there and updating me on the situation.

“Because WhatsApp is a bit safer than Facebook to communicate they often use that to let me know what’s happening, what is going on”.

Journalism in the Balkans
In the Balkans, foreign media played a key role in supporting the NATO interventions in Kosovo in 1999 and in Macedonia (FYROM) in 2001.

Their role was a controversial one. As with the case of the 11-week-campaign of NATO airstrikes in Kosovo in 1999, which claimed to stop the ethnic cleansing of the Albanian population from the Serbian government, and the intervention in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) in 2001, when Alliance troops entered the country with a mandate to disarm the Albanian rebels.

Today, the press in Kosovo face considerable financial challenges and structural problems. According to the INFOCORE study, one of the consequences of this is that journalists are not receiving appropriate training.

Abit Hoxcha, researcher at Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich told Euronews: “Journalists don’t really have proper training to report and sensitive reporting.

“Also we are dealing with a generation that has experienced war, so there is a lot of baggage attached to reporting and one of the problems we see on a daily basis in our research is that journalists carry a dose of patriotism and identity and a sense of belonging into their daily reporting.”

Kosovo is a potential candidate for EU membership. However, the European Commission report in 2016 expressed worries about the increase in attacks on journalists and the lack of transparency regarding media ownership.

In Macedonia (FYROM) press freedom is severely threatened. The INFOCORE study found that politically-controlled media are fomenting tensions between Macedonians and the Albanian minority.

Dr Snezana Trpevska, from the Institute of Communication Studies in Skopje illustrated the results of the study:

“The inter-ethnic tension in the country does not emerge only as a result of the friction between the communities themselves but also they are created from the politically manipulated media,” she says.

“So they are created from above. The discourses of conflict, of violence, of hate speech are coming from the politicians themselves who control and misuse the media to provoke tensions in order to divert the public attention from the other controversial and important issues in the society.”

People then stop relying on traditional media and go in search of alternative sources of information.

Freedom of the press in the African Great Lakes region
Ethnic conflicts, political instability and starvation typify the realities of the Great Lakes region in Africa.

In Burundi a crisis erupted in May 2015 when President Pierre Nkurunziza decided to run for a third term. More than 400 protesters were killed and 6 independent media outlets were shut down.

Currently about 80 journalists are in exile, mostly in Rwanda, and local press is controlled by the government.

Marie Soleil Frere, vice-rector at Université Libre de Bruxelles, says the situation used to be very different.

“The situation in Burundi used to be different because most of these independent registrations that were closed in May 2015 were radios that were established with the support of the international community and they were established with the aim of contributing to peace building, reconciliation, so there was a real pluralism inside of those media they would employ Hutu and Tutsi journalists and they would devote a lot of broadcasting time to programs about peace building and reconciliation.”

In the Democratic Republic of Congo independent media struggle with journalists often being threatened, attacked or arrested.

Recently, international media have also been targeted. In November 2016 Radio France International’s frequencies were suspended.

A new law making foreign media enter into partnerships with local firms was enforced.

Ernest Sagaga, from the International Federation of Journalists, believes the law aims to bring money and false credibility to the government: “They are now targeting international media broadcasters because of course they come with great credibility,” Sagaga said.

“These countries whatever they do – both Burundi and DRC- they need money to run the economies and they want to come back to their funders including the EU for the kind of assistance they get. So, there is a dichotomy if you like: on one hand they don’t want people to know what is going on in the country and on the other hand they want help or support allegedly for running the affairs of their countries.”

Neutrality, trustworthiness and independence are cornerstones to delivering reliable news reports. But according to INFOCORE’s findings, journalism could go beyond the simple reporting of facts in conflict zones.

“We can find three main kinds of journalist”, says Rosa Berganza from University Rey Juan Carlos in Madrid. “The responsible one who promotes peace and who is looking for solutions, the peacemaker journalist who specifically proposes solutions, and the watchdog role that is played by several journalists in order to account for all the violations of human rights that can be committed in different countries.”

The Pacific Media Centre is part of the 28-member INFOCORE Stakeholders Network.

INFOCORE media and conflict project

News media’s role in conflict – The Huffington Post

Above all, David Robie’s Don’t Spoil My Beautiful Face: Media, Mayhem  and Human Rights in the Pacific is a damning indictment of the parlous state of affairs in parts of this region.

The book is also a telling account of the continuous failure of leadership on a fairly grand scale, with ordinary people bearing the brunt of it.

Dr Robie, professor of journalism at the Auckland University of Technology and director of the Pacific Media Centre, deals with the vital issues of environmental degradation, media censorship, social chaos and human suffering (largely caused by bad governance), various types of violent and nonviolent conflicts, and colonialism and neocolonialism.

Allegedly apathetic international and local media also attract some flak. Robie, who has a long record of service in the Pacific Islands, laments that a region with so much promise due to its relative tranquility, natural beauty, and richness of culture has been in such a prolonged state of decline, despite the postindependence optimisms.

That tranquility has been shattered by coups, civil uprisings, and corruption; the region’s pristine environments damaged by nuclear testing, wanton resource exploitation, and the spectre of climate change; and indigenous cultures threatened by the twin forces of neocolonialism and neoliberal economics.

These adversities are superimposed on growing incidences of human rights abuses and draconian  media legislation in some countries.

The looming threats of global warming and sea-level rise only complicate matters.

Robie has been reporting these trends in the Asia-Pacific region since the 1980s, both as a journalist and as a media educator, covering self-determination for indigenous minorities in New Caledonia, the struggles in Timor-Leste and West Papua, the Bougainville rebellion, nuclear testing in French Polynesia and the Marshall  Islands, and the ethnically motivated coups in Fiji.

Documented conflicts
Some of these conflicts are documented in his earlier books: Blood on the Banner (1980) highlighted indigenous Pacific Islanders’ struggle against the remnants of colonialism, while Tu Galala: Social Change in the Pacific (1992) depicted a continuing battle against environmental catastrophe, communal unrest, growing militarisation,  ongoing  poverty, colonialism, and neocolonialism.

In Don’t Spoil My Beautiful Face, Robie reproduces some of his previous writings as a yardstick and a backdrop for deeper insights into the Pacific’s seemingly intractable problems. Reflecting on his two-and-a-half decades of Asia-Pacific coverage, Robie intones, “Sadly, not a lot has changed” (page 6).

He adds, “Political independence has not necessarily rid the Pacific of the problems that it faces, and in many cases, Pacific political leaders are themselves part of the problem” (27). One of the more startling statistics, at least for the uninitiated, is the deaths of an estimated 120,000 Pacific Islanders in various disputes over the past quarter-century, plus another 200,000 when Timor-Leste is included (311).

If the narrative sounds depressing, it is regrettably all  too predictable: long-term ethnic and political tensions coupled with low growth rates and underdevelopment are usually fodder for violent conflict in fragile states (see Securing a Peaceful Pacific, by John Henderson and Greg Watson  [2005]).

Robie is forthright in putting the blame for these serious issues squarely on various corrupt Pacific Island leaders, whom he views as having been part of the problem for far too long. But it is not only rogue Pacific Island leaders who are causing problems.

Robie also faults leaders from developed countries for their inaction in the face of what he describes as a litany of tortures, murders, exploitation, rapes, military raids, and arbitrary arrests. Most affected is West Papua, where the brutal repression of the native Melanesians by the Indonesian security services is well documented.

The book reminds us why the Pacific is still struggling despite copious amounts of bilateral aid over the decades. It is in the interest of nuclear powers France and the United States to keep their territories in a dependent state in order to further their own military, economic, and geopolitical ambitions.

Exploitation ‘normalised’?
The question is whether the exploitation of Island countries by economically and militarily powerful nations has become normalised. Recently, Australia and New Zealand remained unmoved in the face of Pacific Islander anger over the two countries’ apparent intransigence regarding a joint proposal by Pacific Island nations for a tougher global target on greenhouse gas emissions. Is the world resigned to the bullying and maltreatment of Pacific Island nations by the bigger powers?

Robie does not hide his disappointment with what he sees as the media’s failure to tackle these crucial issues.

He feels that the international media ignore or underreport major issues, such as Indonesian repression of West Papua and the assassination of journalists in the Philippines. In his eyes, Australian media failed to sufficiently probe their country’s 2006 security treaty with Indonesia. Robie insists that the treaty led to Australia’s overt repression of pro-independence Papuan activists.

To be fair to the media, the Indonesian government has banned foreign journalists from West Papua for years. However, Robie argues that the problem goes deeper. He links it to the media’s commercially driven priorities, which he feels supersede social, humanitarian, and public-interest obligations.

Under this journalistic framework, West Papua would be deemed too costly an assignment for sustained coverage, financially and politically.

Don’t Spoil My Beautiful Face tries to prod the media’s conscience by highlighting the suffering in the region. Robie advocates a new, more thorough, considered, and inclusive reporting approach, which he describes as “critical development journalism.”

This proposed framework sources grassroots rather than just elite views, emphasises conflict resolution,  promotes  human rights, and supports development (325–330).

Empowered media
Robie’s views are consistent with a growing recognition among some policy makers that an empowered media could play an important role in regional development, especially in politically fragile Island societies. However, new ideas often face resistance.

As a result of challenging the orthodoxy, Robie has attracted criticism from some traditionalists, who believe that concepts such as “peace journalism” contravene media objectivity, what with Bainimarama’s military-backed government in Fiji touting its version of “journalism of hope,” fueling suspicions about government control of the media under the guises of stability and development.

Robie is adamant that critical development journalism is not soft journalism, and neither would it pander to political slogans such as “cultural sensitivity,” which he sees as  a cover-up for abuse of power.

To the contrary, Robie envisions an approach based on a greater level of intensive journalism focused on exposing the truth, reporting on alternatives, and offering solutions. Robie’s central thesis is that the Pacific is caught in a vicious cycle of conflicts and underdevelopment.

Traditional subsistence lifestyles have been under sustained pressure from globalisation and other forces. The media are duty-bound to keep track of these trends and draw attention to them, but their response has largely been inadequate.

Robie is calling for a new media strategy, based on greater journalistic effort, commitment, and foresight. Some may question whether such a new direction is even possible, given media’s entrenched, deadline-driven, profit-focused economic model.

These ideological arguments aside, the post–Cold War trend  of mayhem in the Pacific demands investigation into the media-politics-conflict nexus in the Pacific context. Don’t Spoil My Beautiful Face seeks to fill this gap.

Dr Shailendra Singh is a senior lecturer and coordinator of journalism at the University of the South Pacific. This review was commissioned by The Contemporary Pacific journal and has been republished with permission.

• Don’t Spoil My Beautiful Face: Media, Mayhem and Human Rights in the Pacific, by David Robie. Auckland: Little Island Press. [Second edition.] ISBN 978-1-8774- 8425-4; 363 pages, maps, notes, bibliography, index. Paper, NZ$40.00.

By Bea Cupin in Manila

A ceasefire between Philippines government forces and communist rebels could be in place by the end of the month, if the Duterte administration responds favourably to a new statement from the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP).

“To further support peace negotiations, the CPP is willing to issue a unilateral ceasefire declaration separately but simultaneously with the Duterte government on August 20. The time-frame can be determined through negotiations,” the CPP’s Central Committee said in a statement yesterday.

The statement comes a day after Duterte took back a “unilateral ceasefire” against communist rebels barely a week after it was announced during his first State of the Nation Address.

“As earlier planned, the negotiating panels of the NDFP [National Democratic Front of the Philippines] and GRP [Government of the Republic of the Philippines] can thereafter exchange these declarations in order to discuss points for cooperation and coordination and determine ways of preventing armed skirmishes, misunderstandings, and miscommunications during the course of the peace talks,” added the CPP, referring to the planned talks between the two sides beginning August 20 in Oslo, Norway.

On July 25, while addressing Congress in his first State of the Nation Address, Duterte announced the ceasefire “to immediately stop violence on the ground, restore peace in the communities, and provide enabling environment conducive to the resumption of the peace talks.”

Police and military units on the ground were ordered to stop all offensive operations against the communist rebels.

But things went awry when NPA fighters supposedly attacked government militia in Davao del Norte.

Duterte gave the communist groups until July 28 to explain the clash. The next day, he called on the NDF to issue is own unilateral ceasefire and gave a deadline: July 30, 5 pm. By July 30 in the evening, Duterte revoked the truce, and military and police units returned to status quo.

Government attack?
The CPP, however, contested the government’s narration of events.

“In its report, the NPA unit pointed to how they were provoked to carry out the ambush as part of its active defence in the face of an imminent armed encounter with the operating armed troops and auxilliary forces of the 72nd IB of the AFP,” it said.

The NPA unit merely “carried out counter-maneouvers” in response to movements by the AFP and government militia.

“NPA Red fighters immediately disengaged after disabling the enemy unit from carrying out further offensive action,” the CPP said of the operation, which claimed the life of at least one government militiaman.

The CPP also noted that a truce with the government was “non-existent” because a “mutually signed ceasefire agreement” had yet to be inked.

Still, the CPP said it “has long expressed willingness to engage in a ceasefire for as long as there are peace negotiations.” It noted that since June, it has been preparing a “draft for a unilateral ceasefire” ahead of peace talks with the Duterte administration.

“It was a different situation, however, when GRP President Duterte unilaterally declared a ceasefire even before it could fulfill its promises to release NDFP consultants and political prisoners,” said the CPP, referring to one of the key points it wants to discuss during negotiations.

The CPP also insisted that despite pronouncements from the President, the military showed no signs of “letting up in their search-and-destroy operations and frenzied offensives that terrorise civilian communities.”

Bea Cupin is a journalist with Rappler Philippines.

Duterte captured the support of the Filipino electorate clamouring for change – a clear repudiation of the Aquino government’s failure to bring about real development for the impoverished people.

“We have seen this overwhelming support take shape in the lively campaigns organised by different migrant groups in our respective countries, in spite of the criticisms against him for his alleged responsibility for the Davao ‘death squads’ and summary executions of alleged criminals,” said Reverend Canon Barry Naylor, chairperson of the global council of the coalition ICHRP.

With this, the ICHRP hopes Rodrigo Duterte will prove himself worthy of the votes he has garnered, as it joins the Filipino people in immediately calling to:

1. Stop all extrajudicial killings (EJKs), including the killing of Lumad people [in Duterte’s home island of Mindanao], attacks on communities and indigenous schools, among other human rights violations;
2. Stop vilification and harassment of human rights defenders;
3. Release all political prisoners; and
4. Resume formal peace negotiations with the National Democratic Front of the Philippines

“The first 100 days of the incoming president is enough time to give him fair warning on rights violations and for him to ensure justice to those victims of violations committed by the outgoing Aquino administration (as well as previous administrations),” Naylor said.

“He should sincerely address the roots of the armed conflict and disallow another National Internal Security Plan, such as the failed Oplan Bayanihan, in bringing about genuine change in the land,” Canon Naylor said in response to Duterte’s call for national reconciliation and healing.

“Without justice there can be no peace.”

The ICHRP will be co-convening an international human rights conference on July 23-24 in Davao City, Duterte’s political stronghold.

The conference will commemorate 40 years of the Algiers Declaration of 1976, the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Peoples.

International solidarity missions will visit several areas in the Philippines from July 16 to 20 before the conference, and follow up on the findings of the 2015 International People’s Tribunal held in Washington, DC.

• Military kill Lumas, including 6-year-old boy
• Duterte pulls of huge win in Philippines, Marcos trailing for VP
• The many surprises of the 2016 Philippine elections
• Controversial Duterte clinches win

By Adam Elliott

Journalist Veronica Hatutasi has recently launched her new book on the Bougainville crisis, Behind the Blockade, in Papua New Guinea.

Based in Port Moresby, she has worked for a long time as senior a reporter for Word Publishing’s Wantok newspaper and is now chief reporter.

The book starts in Toniva, just south of Kieta, as the conflict builds and follows Hatutasi’s story from there back to Monoitu in the Siwai District of south Bougainville.

Here Veronica stayed with her family until late 1992 when, in August of that year, she was able to get herself and her family to Port Moresby.

The book focuses on her personal experiences in the village as the crisis played out and then, from 1993, on her role as a journalist covering the Bougainville story from Port Moresby.

Hatutasi gained many insights into the conflict and how it affected the Bougainville people from repeated trips back to the island over the years and her book covers the restoration, reconstruction, reconciliation and peace processes.

Behind the Blockade is entirely Hatutasi’s initiative.

I worked with her through the late 1990s when I was based at Aitape after the tsunami, then for a few more years when based in Madang.

The book is 233 pages long and published by Word Publishing (ISBN 978 9980 89 024 5). It is available from Veronica Hatutasi and you can email her for further information.

Reporters Without Borders has unveiled its new video campaign, War Reporters. Its release coincides with the publication of RSF’s 50th book in the “100 photos for press freedom” series – this one dedicated to the work of Robert Capa.

Created by the advertising agency BETC (Production Stink and director Owen Trevor), this video highlights the urgency of supporting photoreporters, without whom we would never know the realities of war.

Let’s support those who risk their lives every day to keep us informed and provide us with independent images that are very different from the official ones served up by governments.

As the photoreporter James Nachtwey said: “I have been a witness, and these pictures are my testimony. The events I have recorded should not be forgotten and must not be repeated.”

There are the official images. And there is the reality. Photoreporters are heroes. They are men and women who put their life on the line every day.

The craft has lost 40 percent of its personnel in the past 15 years. Supporting them is really urgent.

Thanks to them, newspapers manage to publish reportage photos of great quality. New festivals enable photoreporters to continue working independently and to experience the public’s interest, which proves that the demand is there.

Let’s support photoreporters, so that they are able to work in way that provides a vision of the world that is nuanced, human and complex, one that makes a debate possible.

Let’s support those who show us what the official images don’t show.

Without independent reporters, war would be a pretty show….

A 2015 YouTube viewer’s comment: “Interesting that John spoke highly of New Zealand removing nuclear weapons from its country! But New Zealand, like Australia, has been fighting “other people’s wars” throughout history as well in WWI,WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Gulf War, Afghanistan, and even deployed troops in Iraq and is sending troops now to Iraq to fight covertly.

“Some justice has been given to the Maori but many are still impoverished, represent the prison population, and NZ has a private prison industrial complex, a war on drugs, and also a broken political system like the UK, US,Australia and Canada filled with New Labor and other right-wing parties.

“Snowden’s documents show NZ is heavily involved in an Orwellian spy campaign on us all. NZ is part of the 5 eyes alliance.”

John Pilger’s Australia Day 2015 speech at Green Left

John Pilger: Australia’s day of secrets