The seventh narco sub in Pacific waters was discovered last week as the wave of methamphetamine becomes the latest crisis challenging the region.

1News Pacific correspondent Barbara Dreaver has spent decades reporting on the region from this country, including the drug battle and subsequent HIV epidemic in some countries.

Dreaver has released her memoir — Be Brave: The Life of a Pacific Correspondent — on covering the Pacific through natural disasters, military coups and criminal activity.

• READ MORE: Barbara Dreaver: I’ve never defended who I am, why should I?
• Other Barbara Dreaver reports

She was detained and deported from Fiji before being blacklisted and not allowed to return for many years during former Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama’s reign.

Bainimarama was recently charged with inciting mutiny over allegations they encouraged senior Fiji Military Forces officers to act against the military commander in 2023.

She is a well known face within in Aotearoa, and in much of the Pacific where 1News is screened.

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

• Listen to her interview with RNZ Nine to Noon

BEARING WITNESS: By Cole Martin

As a Kiwi journalist living in the occupied West Bank, I can list endless reasons why there is no peace in the “Holy Land”.

I live in a refugee camp, alongside families who were expelled from their homes by Israel’s violent establishment in 1948 — never allowed to return and repeatedly targeted by Israeli military incursions.

Daily I witness suffocating checkpoints, settler attacks against rural towns, arbitrary imprisonment with no charge or trial, a crippled economy, expansion of illegal settlements, demolition of entire communities, genocidal rhetoric, and continued expulsion.

• READ MORE:  Israel bombs Gaza, Syria as alarm grows over rise in starving children
• Other West Bank reports

No form of peace can exist within an active system of domination. To talk about peace without liberation and dignity is to suggest submission to a system of displacement, imprisonment, violence and erasure.

I often find myself alongside a variety of peacemakers, putting themselves on the line to end these horrific systems — let me outline the key groups:

Palestinian civil society and individuals have spent decades committed to creative non-violence in the face of these atrocities — from court battles to academia, education, art, co-ordinating demonstrations, general strikes, hīkoi (marches), sit-ins, civil disobedience. Google “Iqrit village”, “The Great March of Return”, “Tent of Nations farm”. These are the overlooked stories that don’t make catchy headlines.

Protective Presence activists are a mix of about 150 Israeli and international civilians who volunteer their days and nights physically accompanying Palestinian communities. They aim to prevent Israeli settler violence, state-sanctioned home demolitions, and military/police incursions. They document the injustice and often face violence and arrest themselves. Foreigners face deportation and blacklisting — as a journalist I was arrested and barred from the West Bank short-term and my passport was withheld for more than a month.

Reconciliation organisations have been working for decades to bridge the disconnect between political narratives and human realities. The effective groups don’t seek “co-existence” but “co-resistance” because they recognise there can be no peace within an active system of apartheid. They reiterate that dialogue alone achieves nothing while the Israeli regime continues to murder, displace and steal. Yes there are “opposing narratives”, but they do not have equal legitimacy when tested against the reality on the ground.

Journalists continue to document and report key developments, chilling statistics and the human cost. They ensure people are seen. Over 200 journalists have been killed in Gaza. High-profile Palestinian Christian journalist Shireen Abu-Akleh was killed by Israeli forces in 2022. They continue reporting despite the risk, and without their courage world leaders wouldn’t know which undeniable facts to brazenly ignore.

Humanitarians serve and protect the most vulnerable, treating and rescuing people selflessly. More than 400 aid workers and 1000 healthcare workers have been killed in Gaza. All 38 hospitals have been destroyed or damaged, with just a small number left partially functioning. NGOs have been crippled by USAID cuts and targeted Israeli policies, marked by a mass exodus of expats who have spent years committed to this region — severing a critical lifeline for Palestinian communities.

All these groups emphasise change will not come from within. Protective Presence barely stems the flow.

Reconciliation means nothing while the system continues to displace, imprison and slaughter Palestinians en masse. Journalism, non-violence and humanitarian efforts are only as effective as the willingness of states to uphold international law.

Those on the frontlines of peacebuilding express the urgent need for global accountability across all sectors; economic, cultural and political sanctions. Systems of apartheid do not stem from corrupt leadership or several extremists, but from widespread attitudes of supremacy and nationalism across civil society.

Boycotts increase the economic cost of maintaining such systems. Divestment sends a strong financial message that business as usual is unacceptable.

Many other groups across the world are picketing weapons manufacturers, writing to elected leaders, educating friends and family, challenging harmful narratives, fundraising aid to keep people alive.

Where are the peacemakers? They’re out on the streets. They’re people just like you and me.

Cole Martin is an independent New Zealand photojournalist based in the occupied West Bank and a contributor to Asia Pacific Report. This article was first published by the Otago Daily Times and is republished with permission.

Grace Road group Fiji president Daniel Kim is currently in Fiji immigration custody as he has been declared a prohibited immigrant, according to Immigration Minister Pio Tikoduadua.

Speaking to Fijivillage News this afternoon, Tikoduadua confirmed that Kim had been located and that he was a prohibited immigrant.

He said there was a court order that stopped Kim from being removed from Fiji now but the government was appealing against the court decision.

• READ MORE: Interpol ‘red notices’ against 7 Grace Road cult figures, but court orders stay
• ‘If I did wrong, arrest me’: doomsday sect leader challenges Fiji cabinet minister
• Other Grace Road reports

Tikoduadua confirmed yesterday that Daniel Kim was on the run after his passport was nullified by the South Korean government, and the Fiji government stated that it was unable to locate him.

Tikoduadua said seven other people from Grace Road in Fiji were wanted by the Korean government and this included acting Grace Road president Sung Jin Lee, Nam Suk Choi, Byeong Joon Lee, Jin Sook Yoon, Beomseop Shin and Chul Na.

Also on the run is Jin Sook Yoon.

Tikoduadua confirmed that the government of South Korea communicated through diplomatic channels on 21 September 2018 that they had nullified the passports of the seven individuals connected with the Grace Road cult.

Passports nullified
He said these individuals’ passports were nullified by the Korean government in relation to charges laid and a warrant issued for their arrest.

The Fiji Immigration Minister said that in July 2018, “red notices’ were published by Interpol referring to these individuals as “fugitives wanted for prosecution”.

He said all of these notices were ignored by the former government.

Tikoduadua said that using his discretion as Minister under Section 13(2)(g) of the Immigration Act, these individuals were declared Prohibited Immigrants making their presence in Fiji unlawful.

He said yesterday that a task force, consisting of police and immigration officers, began the removal of these individuals.

Kim had called a press conference at Grace Road Navua yesterday afternoon challenging claims by Tikoduadua that he was on the run and he had demanded an apology from the minister.

Kim also confirmed that two Grace Road members, namely Byeong Joon Lee and Boemseop Shin, had been removed from the country without the group’s knowledge or information about the removal process.

Republished from Fijivillage News with permission.

The High Court in Lautoka yesterday issued orders to the Fiji police and the Immigration Department not to remove four members of the controversial South Korean religious cult Grace Road from Fiji.

They are Beomseop Shin, Byeongjoon Lee, Jung “Daniel” Yong Kim and Jinsook Yoon.

The interim injunction was issued restraining the Director of Immigration, Commissioner of Police, Airports Fiji Ltd, Civil Aviation Authority of Fiji, Fiji Airways and Air Terminal Services from removing these individuals from Fiji.

• READ MORE: ‘If I did wrong, arrest me’: doomsday sect leader challenges Fiji cabinet minister
• Other Grace Road reports

The High Court has adjourned the case to September 18 at 9am for hearing.

The restraining order was obtained by Gordon and Company of Lautoka.

Earlier, Home Affairs Minister Pio Tikoduadua had called on members of the public to reach out to the authorities if they had information on the whereabouts of Grace Road president “Daniel” Jung Yong Kim and Jin Sook Yoon, reports The Fiji Times’ Meri Radinibaravi.

An International Criminal Police Organisation (Interpol) red notice was issued for Kim, Yoon and five other South Korean individuals in July 2018, which Tikoduadua said had been “ignored by the former government”.

Red notices
The seven individuals are Kim, Yoon, acting Grace Road president Sung Jin Lee, Nam Suk Choi, Byeong Joon Lee, Beomseop Shin and Chul Na.

“In July 2018, red notices were published by Interpol referring to these individuals as ‘fugitives wanted for prosecution’. All of these were ignored by the former government,” Tikoduadua told the media yesterday.

“Using my discretion as minister, under Section 13(2)(g) of the Immigration Act, these individuals were declared prohibited immigrants — making their presence in Fiji unlawful.

“In that regard, may I just use this opportunity to reach out to these other two who, in my view perhaps, are trying not to be seen or noticed by anybody.

“We’re unable to reach them, the police obviously, and the relevant authorities are looking for them. Let me remind the general public that it is an offence to actually harbour people who are wanted, it’s against the law to do that.

“So, please, we welcome information with regard to their location as they are prohibited immigrants in Fiji.”

Tikoduadua said that while Kim and Yoon were still at large, Joon Lee and Shin had been successfully transported back to Korea, accompanied by a South Korean Embassy interpreter and four Fiji police personnel who “will return to Fiji after a brief stay in South Korea”.

Passports nullified
“These individuals’ passports were nullified by the Korean government in relation to charges laid by the South Korean government which had issued a warrant for their arrest.

“During the removal process, Fiji Airways declined to transport Sung Jin Lee and Nam Suk Choi due to a High Court order. The Solicitor-General (Ropate Green) has received this court order for review.

“Ms Lee and Ms Choi have been released and are currently at the Grace Road farm in Navua.

“Additionally, the Ministry of Home Affairs and Immigration is exploring legal options under the Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters Act 1997 and the Extradition Act 2003, given that these individuals are subject to an Interpol red notice.”

Tikoduadua said that yesterday, Green had indicated plans to appeal the court order.

Anish Chand is a Fiji Times reporter. Republished with permission.

A former president of Kiribati warns the crisis involving the island nation’s government and the courts has left the country with a “dysfunctional judiciary” and put a question mark over its democratic system.

The Kiribati government suspended its chief justice in July and last Thursday immigration and police detained and attempted to deport High Court Judge David Lambourne.

They were unsuccessful after the country’s highest court ordered the Australian-born judge to be released.

• READ MORE: Australian-born judge released from immigration detention in Kiribati, after being held overnight
• Other reports on Kiribati politics

The Court of Appeal stopped the government from deporting Lambourne pending a further hearing expected to be held this week, escalating further acrimony between the executive and judicial arms of the state.

Anote Tong, who was president of Kiribati from 2003 to 2016, says the issue of Judge Lambourne has clear “political connotations” because he is married to the leader of the opposition.

But, he said, the actions of President Taneti Maamau’s government bordered on contempt of court.

“The deportation order by the president [Maamau] is really in direct contravention to the decision by the court. So, whether the government is now in contempt of court is the question that really needs to be addressed,” Tong told RNZ Pacific.

“To be in direct conflict with the decision of the court here, I think we know what that means.”

‘Abiding by the laws of Kiribati’
In a statement, the government maintained that Judge Lambourne had breached his visa conditions and national laws and raised concern “by the overreach of the Court of Appeal” to issue an injunction to prevent his deportation.

The government said it “abides by the laws and the Constitution of Kiribati … to protect the interest of the people of Kiribati”.

It blamed “neocolonial forces” for “weaponising the laws enacted to protect” the i-Kiribati people “to pursue their own interest and suppress the will of the people”.

But Tong said the separation of powers is a fundamental principle of a democratic society.

“We have a constitution. We have the laws in place, and we have a court. The question is: are we adhering to these legal provisions?,” he asked.

“It looks like the government is crossing that boundary and delving into the purview of the judiciary.”

Tong said the problem between the government and Judge Lambourne began after the 2020 elections when his wife, Tessie Lambourne, was elected as leader of the opposition.

“There is no question about it,” he said, adding it did not “give an excuse for the government to ignore a court decision”.

He said until Kiribati amended its laws and constitution “to recognise that the separation of powers is fundamental to its democratic system of government, everything else that has been done will become illegal”.

International condemnation
The Commonwealth Magistrates’ and Judges’ Association (CMJA), the Commonwealth Legal Education Association (CLEA), and the Commonwealth Lawyers Association (CLA) have all raised concerns and said they were “alarmed” at the situation.

The associations have urged the Kiribati authorities to respect the rule of law and comply with orders of the courts.

“The associations are alarmed that the tribunals set up to investigate alleged misbehaviour by Judge David Lambourne and the Chief Justice William Hastings have yet to report on any findings,” they said via a joint statement.

“The associations are further alarmed that there has been an attempt to deport Judge Lambourne without due process being followed and he has subsequently now been arbitrarily detained by the authorities in Kiribati.”

CMJA, CLEA and CLA are urging the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group (CMAG) to consider the actions of the Kiribati government as a matter of urgency.

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

In this week’s security podcast, Dr Paul G. Buchanan and host Selwyn Manning discuss:

• three areas that have been relied on to protect New Zealanders from terror-style attacks;
• legal measures designed to protect communities from danger and even protect individuals from themselves;
• and why they failed.

The background to this episode is the tragic, terrifying, attack that were committed against unarmed innocent people at West Auckland’s LynnMall Countdown supermarket, by Ahamed Aathill Mohamed Samsudeen.

• READ MORE: Other reports about NZ’s LynnMall attack

The attack occurred last Friday, 3 September 2021. It ended with the hospitalisation of seven people, and, the death of Samsudeen, who was fatally shot by special tactics police officers during his attempt to kill and injure as many people as he could.

Immediately after, the Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern told the nation that the dead man was a terrorist and that she herself, the police, and the courts were all aware of how dangerous he was and had been seeking to protect New Zealand from this man.

Within days of the attacks, we learned, that Samsudeen was a troubled man with psychologists describing him as angry, capable of carrying out his threats, and displaying varying degrees of mental illness and disorder.

Refugee who sought asylum
Samsudeen was a refugee who sought asylum in New Zealand after experiencing, through his formative years civil war and ethnic cleansing in Sri Lanka, who, at around 20 years of age, arrived in New Zealand on a student visa and then sought political asylum.

He was eventually granted refugee status, and since then spent years in prison on various charges and convictions – largely involving the possession of terrorist propaganda seeded on the internet by Islamic State (ISIS), and, threats showing intent to commit terrorist acts against New Zealanders.

In this week’s episode, Dr Buchanan and Manning examine questions about whether this tragedy could have been prevented and considered New Zealand’s:

• Security and terror laws
• Deportation laws involving those with refugee status
• The Mental Health Act and whether this was available to the authorities.

Dr Buchanan and Manning also analyse whether it is necessary for the New Zealand government to move to tighten New Zealand’s terrorism security laws. And, if it does, how the intended new laws compare to other Five Eyes member countries.

• More information about the A View From Afar weekly podcasts on EveningReport.nz

Republished in partnership with EveningReport.nz

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern today delivered the government’s apology for the Dawn Raids against Pasifika overstayers.

She apologised for the raids in the 1970s which happened under both Labour and National governments.

“The government expresses its sorrow, remorse and regret that the Dawn Raids and random police checks occurred and that these actions were ever considered appropriate,” she said in the cultural ceremony at the Auckland Town Hall.

• READ MORE: ‘Scarred for life’ – ‘Aupito living through Dawn Raids
• Mainstream media must do better after Dawn Raids apology
• Photo essay: Dawn Raids apology at Auckland Town Hall
• More Dawn Raids articles
• More on the Polynesian Panthers

“Our government conveys to the future generations of Aotearoa that the past actions of the Crown were wrong, and that the treatment of your ancestors was wrong. We convey to you our deepest and sincerest apology.”

The Dawn Raids resulted in the deportation and prosecution of many Pacific Islanders, even those who remotely looked Pasifika, despite many overstayers at the time being British or American.

Both major political parties have accepted that the raids were racist.

RNZ Pacific sat down with the Minister for Pacific Peoples ‘Aupito William Sio earlier today, in his only radio interview before standing alongside Ardern, as she said sorry for the racist immigration policy that tore Pasifika families apart.

Understandably with the long work programme this apology has required of him (there has only ever been two formal government apologies meeting human injustice criteria), a number of portfolios and a pandemic continuing to ravage the Pacific, ‘Aupito said he was nervous for today’s proceedings.

“I feel the weight of responsibility from the government but also the weight of responsibility from our communities,” he said. “So, all of that, I feel.”

A formal request for an apology had been made to the prime minister’s office from the Polynesian Panthers early last year, Aupito said.

Watch the RNZ live coverage of the ceremony:

Today was a poignant moment in our Pacific and New Zealand history. The breaking of a new dawn. I have hope that today’s apology will play an important part in the healing process for our people, our aiga and fanau. @nzlabour pic.twitter.com/HKqSP6LpCl

— Carmel Sepuloni (@CarmelSepuloni) August 1, 2021

“…The first step on the long pathway to healing, must include an apology for the racist and unjust treatment of Pacific people in the Dawn Raid era and since.

So this is a very special moment for the Polynesian Panther party, as well as our communities.” – Rev Alec Toleafoa. pic.twitter.com/SZsU4LAHoI

— RNZ Pacific (@RNZPacific) August 1, 2021

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

Today marks 50 years to the day that six Pacific Islanders grouped together in central Auckland to form the Polynesian Panther Party.

The party was founded on 16 June 1971 by members Will ‘Ilolahia, Fred Schmidt, Nooroa Teavae, Paul Dapp, Eddie Williams and Vaughan Sanft. They were later joined by Tigilau Ness, Lupematasila Misatauveve Melani Anae and Alec Toleafoa.

They took inspiration from the United States civil rights movement Black Panthers during a period of police brutality against the African American population.

• LISTEN TO RNZ: Untold Pacific History: Waking Up to the Dawn Raids here, on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts and iHeart Radio
• Other Dawn Raids and Polynesian Panther articles

Similar scenes of racial unrest occurred in Aotearoa, and long before the infamous Dawn Raids too. In the early 1870s, an Evening Post article said: “Bad as the Chinese are, the South Sea savages are worse, and any extensive importation of them would have a most pernicious effect.”

New Zealand faced major economic troubles almost a century on from that report, and Pasifika immigrants brought under the allure of jobs in industrial labour were resorted to as the scapegoat.

“It was a time of revolution,” Associate Professor Lupematasila Misatauveve Dr Melani Anae told RNZ’s Untold Pacific History.

“To heck with authority, to heck with conservatism, to heck with the Vietnam War, that was the kind of climate we were growing up in,” she said.

“We delivered the West End newspaper around Ponsonby and Herne Bay to get money to pay for the office. The work we did as the Polynesian Panthers was conscientising, it was making people aware of who we were.”

Musician Tigilau Ness recalls that they were criticised for “hating white people”.

“We had to put up with that kind of stigma as well, not only from the Europeans, the white people, but from our own people. ‘Why you do this to the Palagi? Why you go fight the police?’,” he said.

The Panthers insisted on peaceful strike and protest action, as opposed to their US counterparts.

They drove in supporters’ vehicles and “dawn raided” the homes of politicians by shining torches and yelling through loudspeakers, to prove why their work was necessary.

Legal rights pamphlets were distributed, homework centres were held in church halls and food co-ops were run. They also provided free transportation for the families of prison inmates who wanted to visit them, and on release free accommodation would be offered.

Fifty years on, the Panthers have concluded a tour of schools and Pasifika communities in Wellington, intending to share the story of the ‘Claw’ to the next generation.

 

The Polynesian Panther Party will hold a three-day fonotaga commemoration event this weekend at the University of Auckland’s Fale Pasifika.

Dawn Raid apology
The Panthers’ golden jubilee couldn’t be more forthcoming, given an announcement made this week of a formal government apology for the 1970s Dawn Raids.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said the time had come for an apology for a Labour Party immigration policy that targeted Pasifika people who had overstayed their visas by mere fact of their ethnicity.

“To this day Pacific communities face prejudices and stereotypes… an apology can never reduce what happened, or undo the decades of disadvantage experienced as a result, but it can contribute to healing for Pacific peoples,” she said.

Ardern was joined at the theatrette lecturn by Pacific Peoples Minister ‘Aupito Toeolesulusulu Tofae Su’a William Sio, who wiped away tears while sharing his own personal story of being raided as a teenager.

“I’m quite emotional… I’m trying to control my emotions today,” he said.

His parents had only just bought a home, taken as an achievement for the family, when a year or two later they’d been woken up to a police officer flashing a torch in their eyes.

“To have somebody knocking at the door in the early hours of the morning with a flashlight in your face, disrespecting the owner of the home, with an Alsatian dog frothing at the mouth,” ‘Aupito recounted.

“The memories are etched in my memory of my father being helpless.

“I don’t think there is any Pacific family who was not impacted on by the events of the Dawn Raids, and there is a strong moral imperative to acknowledge those past actions were wrong. Through an apology, they recognise those actions were unacceptable under the universal declaration of human rights, and are absolutely intolerable within today’s human rights protections.

“Come for the ceremony,” ‘Aupito said, welcoming the Panthers to the government apology.

Ardern added “[the Panthers] will probably remind us to ‘educate to liberate’.”

The Prime Minister will make her formal government apology for the Dawn Raids on June 26 at the Auckland Town Hall, 50 years on from the start of the revolution against racial injustices against Pasifika in Aotearoa.

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

As the New Zealand government confirmed it would apologise for the 1970s Dawn Raids against Pacific Islanders, memories have surfaced for those traumatised by them, including one elderly man.

The politically-driven crackdown on overstayers from the Pacific Islands involved special police squads raiding homes and workplaces, often in the early morning.

Savelio Ikani Pailate, 93, remembered being chased by dogs in the middle of the night.

• READ MORE: NZ government to formally apologise for the Dawn Raids
• More Dawn Raids crackdown on overstayer articles

He said they had to run to away to Manurewa, to places “where there were no houses”, with some being injured because they fled in bare feet.

Pailate’s case was before the court at the end he was allowed to work, but the police ignored it and deported him anyway.

He dreamt of buying his family a home and getting his children educated

He achieved that after returning to New Zealand and working until age 82, refusing to listen to the many voices against him.

The crackdown on Pacific overstayers. Video: TVNZ News

Racially profiled
Racially profiled and picked up randomly by police, workplaces were raided and homes stormed.

“They’d call it the Dawn Raids but they actually raided just after midnight cause our families would be up and gone before dawn because that’s what they did, they worked at the crack of dawn,” Pakilau Manase Lua of the Pacific Leadership Forum said.

Pacific People’s Minister ‘Aupito William Sio wiped away tears as Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern confirmed she would apologise for the Dawn Raids next week.

‘Aupito described what the apology would mean, and the significance of restoring mana for the victims of the raids.

The Pacific People’s Minister, whose family moved to New Zealand in 1969 from Samoa, spoke of being raided, having “memories about my father being helpless”.

“We bought the home about two years prior. To have someone knocking at the door at the early hours with a flashlight in your face, disrespecting the owner of the home, with an Alsatian dog frothing at the mouth wanting to come in without any respect for the people living there.”

‘Aupito described it as “quite traumatising”.

“The apology is about helping people heal. People who have been traumatised.”

Ardern and the government will formally apologise for the 1970s Dawn Raids that targeted the Pacific community on June 26 in the Auckland Town Hall.

This article is republished with permission.

The Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI) is calling in a pledge made by President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo in 2015 over press freedom in Papua that has never been fulfilled over the past five years.

AJI trade union advocacy division head Erick Tanjung said that at the beginning of Widodo’s first term in office he pledged to allow foreign and domestic journalists to freely report in Papua.

“But the fact is that to this day this promise has never been fulfilled by President Jokowi,” he said during an event on World Press Freedom Day launching an AJI report titled The Press Freedom Situation in Indonesia in 2021.

• READ MORE: Other media freedom in Papua reports

“So we have consistently called on the president to open access to foreign journalists to report in Papua, including domestic journalists and journalists from Papua.”

Based on AJI’s records, between 2012 and 2015 there were at least 77 cases where journalists were prevented from carrying out their work in the Land of the Bird of Paradise, as Papua is known.

In addition to this, AJI also recorded 74 cases of journalists having to obtain prior permission to report in Papua and 56 cases of permits being refused.

Meanwhile, out of the scores of applications for permits to report in Papua, only 18 permits were issued.

Six deportation cases
“There were six cases of deportations,” said Tanjung.

In addition to the issue of access, freedom of information in Papua also faces obstacles due to the high level of violence against journalists in Papua.

Tanjung said that there were at least 114 cases of violence against journalists in Papua over the last 20 years or between 2000 and 2021.

“Based on data we gathered through the AJI Papua subdivision, the number of cases of violence against journalists and the media in Papua over the last 20 years or between 2000 and 2021 was 141 cases of violence,” said Tanjung.

Thirty-six out of these 114 cases were against journalists from Papua while 40 were against non-Papuan journalists.

Finally, there were 38 cases of intimidation against media companies and the media in general.

When he visited Wapeko Village in the Kurik subdistrict of Merauke regency, Papua, on Sunday, 10 May 2015, President Widodo said that foreign journalists from any country were allowed to arrive and report in all parts of Indonesia, including Papua and West Papua provinces.

Two provinces closed
Up until then, the two provinces were closed to foreign journalist on the grounds that conflicts and violence in Indonesia’s two eastern-most provinces was still frequent, such as actions by armed groups wanting to separate from the Unitary State of the Republic of Indonesia (NKRI).

“Starting today, foreign journalists are allowed to and are free to come to Papua, just the same (as they can come and report) in other parts of the country,” said Widodo.

According to Widodo at the time, the situation in Papua and West Papua provinces was different than in the past.

“We have to think positive and trust each other on all issues”, said the President when asked what would happen if foreign journalists began reporting more on armed groups in the highlands.

Widodo asserted that the decision must be implemented.

“This decision must be implemented. Enough, don’t ask negative questions about this issue any more,” said Widodo.

Translated by James Balowski for IndoLeft News. The original title of the article was “AJI Tagih Janji Jokowi soal Akses bagi Jurnalis Asing ke Papua”.

The deported vice-chancellor of the University of the South Pacific has told the Samoa Observer that his future remains in limbo after he was expelled from Fiji, the 12-nation regional university’s headquarters.

Speaking to the Observer from Nauru, Professor Pal Ahluwalia said the decision about where to serve out his tenure remains out of his hands.

The remarks come the day after Samoa formally extended Professor Ahluwalia the offer of a safe haven.

• READ MORE: Other reports on the USP saga

The professor says he had received offers from both Samoa and Vanuatu to offer him a safe haven, but that the decision about where he ends up will be up to the university.

Professor Ahluwalia has been in Nauru for two months now at the invitation of President of Lionel Aingimea to observe first-hand the challenges that face countries in Micronesia and the South Pacific and see what can be done to improve them.

“I’m waiting for the University Council to decide about where I go next and I know your prime minister and the prime minister of Vanuatu have both said that they would like me to operate from either of those two countries,” said Professor Ahluwalia.

“My view is [I will go] to wherever the council wants me to go.”

Confident over Samoa
The caretaker Prime Minister, Tuilaepa Dr Sa’ilele Malielegaoi, is confident the vice-chancellor will choose to pick Samoa

Speaking for the first time following the election during his Taimi ma le Palemia programme last Monday, Tuilaepa confirmed Samoa is one of only two countries that have extended an invitation to host Professor Ahluwalia.

“Our branch of the regional university was more focused on agricultural courses, but with the recent change, it is now a general campus,” he said.

“This means any course can be taught there and that’s why we offered to host the vice-chancellor; similar to when he lived in Fiji while also directing the university here and in Vanuatu.

“This is why he can also live here during his tenure while he oversees the campuses in Fiji and Vanuatu. Only two nations offered – Vanuatu and Samoa.

“And we do feel that the [vice-chancellor] would prefer to be in Samoa; so we are awaiting a decision as there is also Australia and New Zealand involved. But whatever it may be, I really believe that he will come here.”

Professor Ahluwalia drew the ire of university and national authorities for whistleblowing a raft of misspending and irregular bonuses among the university leadership.

Leaked audit report
Copies of his audit report, and a follow-up report that backed up his findings by forensic accountants BDO Auckland were widely leaked and exposed widespread corruption in the school.

But when he began investigating the situation, he never imagined it would lead to his overnight expulsion, he said.

“Obviously, I did an audit when I first got to the USP in 2019 and that audit revealed irregularities and financial mismanagement and human resource breaches of policy,” he said.

“I thought the only logical thing for me to do was report it to my council, which I did and of course some members of my management who were incriminated in it don’t share my values or my passion for higher education in the Pacific.

“It’s a clash of values and integrity and ethics. I can only speak about myself, others have to really answer those questions for themselves.”

Professor Ahluwalia was deported from Fiji, the site of the university’s main campus, without warning in February following a late night raid and he was deportated to Australia the following day.

In the meantime, Dr Giulio Masasso Tu’ikolongahau Paunga, is acting vice-chancellor and president.

University clarification
Last week, USP’s chancellor, President Aingimea, clarified that Professor Ahluwalia was still the head of the university despite his abrupt removal from the main campus.

Speaking to The Fiji Times, the regional university chancellor said there was no question that Professor Ahluwalia was still the vice-chancellor.

“That was a question that was put to a subcommittee, the subcommittee has put it back to the council with some recommendations – as far as I am personally concerned, he is still the VC of the USP,” he said.

“As far as I am concerned there are other campuses around the region, USP is a regional institution and, therefore, the VC can, as far as I am concerned, operate out of Samoa, Vanuatu or Nauru or any other country for that matter.”

The Samoan government has been clear on its intentions to have Professor Ahluwalia work from Samoa from the start and speaking to the Samoa Observer soon after his deportation in February, the vice-chancellor said he would be delighted to do so.

The caretaker Prime Minister said such scandals were crucial in shaping the future of the university as well as a lesson for the next host country for the university head.

This article was first published in the Samoa Observer.

Deported Canadian academic Professor Pal Ahluwalia is still vice-chancellor and president of the University of the South Pacific, says chancellor Lionel Aingimea.

Professor Ahluwalia and his wife, nursing lecturer Sandra Price, were forced to leave Fiji in early February after the Fiji government claimed the couple had breached provisions in their work permits.

Aingimea, who is also Nauru’s President, said once issues relating to the academic’s departure were cleared at the council level, Professor Ahluwalia would be allowed to operate out of any USP member country, except Fiji.

• READ MORE: More reports on the USP saga

Aingimea’s comments comes amid a council meeting this week to discuss a report which had highlighted governance issues at the regional institution.

The report was compiled in 2019 by forensic accountant BDO Auckland following allegations by Professor Ahluwalia of “serious mismanagement and abuse of office” at the USP.

The fallout between the university’s governing body, the USP Council, and the head office host nation, Fiji, came to the fore following the deportation of Ahluwalia.

Aingimea had condemned the deportation.

USP not informed
He said the USP Council, Professor Ahluwalia’s employer, was not informed of his deportation by the Fijian authorities.

The council had not revoked Professor Ahluwalia’s contract, Aingimea said.

He told the Fiji Times newspaper last week that he had received a lot of letters from USP students and staff expressing their disappointment that issues remained unresolved.

The question of Professor Ahluwalia’s role was put to a subcommittee, Aingimea said, and the subcommittee had returned it to the council meeting this week with some recommendations.

“As far as I am personally concerned, he [Ahluwalia] is still the VC of the USP,” he said.

On Ahluwalia not being able to return to Fiji, Aingimea said he could operate from any member country.

“As far as I am concerned there are other campuses around the region, USP is a regional institution and, therefore, the VC can, as far as I am concerned, operate out of Samoa, Vanuatu or Nauru or any other country for that matter.”

Ahluwalia and his wife were taken from their Suva home late at night on February 3 and driven to Nadi International Airport to be put on a flight to Australia.

According to the Fiji government, Alhuwalia and Sandra Price had continuously breached Section 13 of the Immigration Act which led to their deportation.

The couple have denied the claims.

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

The New Zealand Children’s Commissioner is even more concerned about the deportation of a 15-year-old from Australia, now that he has had a briefing.

Judge Andrew Becroft sought information about the case after the deportation of the minor was made public earlier this week.

Foreign Affairs Minister Nanaia Mahuta was notified last week of the boy’s imminent deportation.

• READ MORE: Australia’s deportation of 15-year-old boy ‘heartbreaking’, says Green MP

The boy has family in New Zealand, but little information has been made public about the teen to protect his privacy.

The minister said the circumstances of the case were very complex, but signalled he was not a 501 deportee.

When asked yesterday, Mahuta said New Zealand had had no advice suggesting Australia had breached any international law.

However, Children’s Commissioner Andrew Becroft did not believe Australia had stuck to its international obligations under the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

‘We can’t play fast and loose’
“It is the most signed convention in history, we can’t play fast and loose with it.

“I think there is every reason to conclude, on what I know at the moment, that while two countries have signed that convention only one is really applying it and abiding by it,” he said.

Judge Becroft said the briefing he had received had left him even more concerned than he already was.

“Why put him on a plane by himself, without support to a country that I understand, we need to check this out, he has never been to before,” he said.

“By any analysis it seems to me to be outrageous on what we know so far and it needs to be taken up by the highest authorities and I understand it is being.”

Those concerns were echoed by Australian Lawyers Alliance’s Greg Barns.

Australian authorities have indicated that the minor may have voluntarily been deported from Australian shores.

But Barns has vetoed that as a possibility.

‘Inequality of power here’
“To deport a child of 15 years of age is always involuntary, whatever the child may say.

“There is a total inequality of power here, you’ve got the frightening force of the Australian border force and a young child and to say the child has consented to the action I find just extraordinary,” he said.

He said the convention clearly indicated the best interest of the child needed to be put first.

The convention also stated no child should be subjected to cruelty.

Barns said he could not see how Australia was acting in the child’s best interests.

“Children are put in immigration detention and whilst they might be separated from adults they’re in a facility that is completely inappropriate for children. It has none of the rehabilitative mechanisms or the care that is required,” he said.

“To then be shunted on a plane with border force security would be a frightening experience for the child.”

NZ needs to take a stand
He said New Zealand needed to take a stand.

“It is getting to the point where the contempt with which Australia treats New Zealand in relation to this issue both with adults and now with of course children are at such a level that New Zealand needs to be taking strong action against Australia, including making complaints on the global stage,” he said.

A spokesperson at the Minister for Children Kelvin Davis’ office said any questions about Australia’s decisions were a matter for the Australian government.

In the meantime, they said Oranga Tamariki had been working extensively with authorities both in Australia and New Zealand to “support this young person’s arrival”.

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

Australia is facing condemnation from National and Green Party MPs over the deportation of a 15-year-old boy to New Zealand.

Little detail has been made public about the teen other than that he is being held in a quarantine facility and is receiving support from Oranga Tamariki.

The Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has asked for more details.

• LISTEN TO RNZ MORNING REPORT: ‘Australia has been an outlier with what it calls its hardline immigration policies for a long time now’ – Green Party Foreign Affairs spokesperson Golriz Ghahraman (duration 7′:23″)

“I do want to go back and look at the circumstances under which this deportation happened, because we do want to make sure particularly when we are looking at young people that is being dealt with appropriately, regardless of the circumstances of their deportation,” she said.

National’s foreign affairs spokesperson Gerry Brownlee wanted to know more details of the case but said on the face of it the deportation sounded “pretty appalling”.

“If the young child has family support here that is stronger than in Australia that might be understandable, but if it is just a case of ‘here is an offender, we want him out’ and so he is off on the next plane to New Zealand, that is a different matter,” he said.

Actions ‘put alliance in jeopardy’
Green Party foreign affairs spokesperson Golriz Ghahraman said the deportation was both outrageous and heartbreaking.

Ghahraman said Australia’s actions had put the trans-Tasman alliance in jeopardy.

“They need to know they are now damaging their relationship with us, that being a traditional ally and trading partner doesn’t mean that we will continue to be an ally and partner to them as they treat us with absolute disdain in this way.”

Ghahraman told RNZ Morning Report Australia was “absolutely an outlier” in deporting the teenager.

“It’s not something that nations who do have a rule of law and a commitment to human rights are doing.

“It is time for all what we call like-minded nations to recognise that Australia is actually behaving like a rogue nation, as we call countries who very consistently flout human rights laws, and raise this in our international forums, have our allies join together with us to condemn this and put pressure on Australia to start behaving like a good global citizen.”

Australia’s Department of Home Affairs said it could not comment on individual cases but in a statement it said its government takes it responsibility to protect the community seriously.

Visa cancellation conditions
“A non-citizen’s visa must be cancelled if they are serving a full-time term of imprisonment for an offence committed in Australia and they have, at any time, been sentenced to a period of 12 months or more imprisonment, regardless of their age or nationality.”

It said the department approached visa cancellation of minors with a high degree of caution and consultation.

“The Department complies with its legal obligations in circumstances where the removal of a minor is considered, including those under the Convention on the Rights of the Child,” it said.

Co-ordinator of the Iwi n Aus advocacy group Filipa Payne said this was the youngest deportation case she had heard of, but was not the first time Australia has detained a teenager for deportation.

“I do know of people who have been in detention centre in Australia since they were 17.

“Currently there is a boy there that is 20 years old and he has been in detention for two-and-a-half years,” she said.

Payne said deportees experienced trauma and abuse while awaiting deportation, without any human rights.

She said she was very concerned about the teenager’s mental wellbeing, given that this was an overwhelming situation for a young person.

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

The arrest, detention, and deportation of University of the South Pacific vice-chancellor Pal Ahluwalia and his wife are significant issues for Fiji and the “Sea of Islands”.

As a son of the Pacific committed to Oceania, I am dismayed by recent events at USP. I write in support of all the peoples of Fiji. Moreover, I uphold the mana of the many artistic and intellectual ancestors USP has provided for the education of younger generations of Pacific people across Oceania.

I acknowledge USP’s educational leadership for all peoples in Oceania with humility and respect. I extend solidarity to all USP staff and students from Fiji and around the Moana.

• READ MORE: USP open letter: How Fiji infiltrated a campus and kidnapped a vice-chancellor in ‘Gestapo-style coup’
• Secret report reveals widespread salary and allowance rorts at USP
• USP’s academic leader deported for getting close to Fiji’s dark secret
• Fiji work permits comes with conditions, says Bainimarama
• Other reports on the USP saga

I do not have the right to tell USP staff or students how they might resolve their issues. We Pasifika in Aotearoa are not qualified to lecture our brothers and sisters at USP about conflict resolution. USP has the collective culture, history, people, and protocols to resolve some of the issues about the expulsion of their vice-chancellor, Professor Pal Ahluwalia.

But I wish to provide some humble suggestions to empower those seeking to resolve the issues that USP in Fiji confronts today.

Speaking as a Pasifika activist, I acknowledge that the only resolutions will be holistic ones involving all parties. But I think the Fiji government can perform an important role in resolving all issues. In broader terms, I feel the Fiji government could perform an important leadership role in allowing USP to heal and move forward in a spirit of Moana unity.

Ramifications for Fiji, region
The Fiji government’s expulsion of Professor Pal Ahluwalia and his wife from Fiji has had tremendous ramifications for Fiji and the region.

Academic organisations, activists, legal organisations, NGOs, journalists, Fiji members of Parliament, regional politicians, and USP alumni, staff, and students have all clarified relevant issues about the Fiji government’s unilateral decision to expel Ahluwalia and his wife.

In summary, some of these issues are:

1. The rule of law and the right of due process;
2. Protection of human rights;
3. The protection of the right to dissent;
4. Academic freedom;
5. Unilateral government intervention into the affairs of USP;
6. Protection of USP staff from unfair dismissal,
7. Safety and the wellbeing of USP staff, students at USP in Fiji, including safe from arrest or detention;
8. Claims of corruption at USP;
9. Allegations against Pal Ahluwalia;
10. Claims of punitive action against Ahluwalia by the Fiji government and Fiji members of the USP Council;
11. Issues of staff remuneration;
12. The health of relationships between Fiji and other member states who co-own USP;
13. Distinctions between state and civil society, i.e. the distinctions between the Fiji government and the regional university campus in Fiji; and
14. Calls for a relocation of the office of USP’s vice-chancellor from Fiji to other member nations, such as Samoa or Vanuatu.

Helpful resolutions
The Fiji government could help resolve these matters by engaging in a number of actions, discussions and processes. It could:

• Invite Professor Pal Ahluwalia and his wife back into the country so the issues could be resolved in Fiji.
• Clarify precisely what part of the law Ahluwalia his wife are alleged to have breached.
• Recommit to protecting the human rights of all in Fiji. More specifically, the government could ensure that all USP employees’ human rights are guaranteed so academic freedom can be exercised responsibly.
• Acknowledge that Pal Ahluwalia and his wife’s human rights have been breached. Moreover, the government could act to ensure this does not happen again to any other USP employee.
• Take precautions not to directly intervene in the affairs of USP again by expelling employees of the university. Moreover, Fiji government representatives on the USP Council could work to ensure this is never carried out again at the university.
• Release the funding the Fiji government owes USP without strings attached.
• Work closely with USP’s member nations to work out collective resolutions to enhancing the regional nature and character of the institution. This could be achieved through the creation of innovative policies that ease current immigration restrictions on the recruitment and retention of staff particularly from the region, and, further, by helping to facilitate an easing of inter-country movement of USP staff and students among member countries.
• Uphold the sanctity of USP as a learning space and strongly discourage police and military units from entering any USP grounds in Fiji and elsewhere.
• Respect the autonomy of USP’s staff and student organisations.
• Ensure the University Council-commissioned 2019 BDO Report, which independently investigated all allegations of corruption, is officially released to all stakeholders including staff and students. The only way to investigate criticisms of Ahluwalia is for independent people to assess the truth of these allegations. Similarly, only independent voices can consider the truth of claims made on Ahluwalia’s behalf. The government agrees to accept the outcomes of such investigations. The search for truth and fact are being politicised because of the Fiji government’s interference in university matters. Truth can only prevail if it is not weaponised for political purposes.
• Ensure all concerns regarding staff remuneration are scrutinised fully and fairly by investigators acting independently of both the Fiji government and USP. The government could respect the independence of investigator’s findings. Moreover, the issue of remuneration for those staff who have served the region selflessly over long years could be examined with sensitivity and respect by investigators.
• Allow USP staff and students privacy to work through issues raised by Professor Ahluwalia’s deportation. The government could step back and encourage USP’s people on all sides of this issue to engage in toktok or talanoa in order to heal and move forward in unity. This might encourage people not to settle scores with one another via government and/or university politics.
• Articulate and clarify the lines of autonomy existing between the spheres of the Fijian state – and USP as part of Moana civil society. Then healthy lines of intersection between state and civil society might be established. If such lines are not clearly established, the Fiji government could be accused of trying to absorb USP in Fiji into an apparatus of the state.
• Seek assistance from Pacific neighbours to help sort out issues. Pacific unity is perhaps best demonstrated when we support one another. Working with Pacific Island friends ensures USP’s vision of re-shaping the future in Oceania continues. Moreover, working in partnership with other Pacific Island peoples ensures USP’s mission of empowering Moana peoples in the region continues for the foreseeable future.

Tony Fala is an activist, volunteer community worker and researcher living in Auckland, Aotearoa. He has Tokelau ancestry. According to genealogies held by family elders, Fala also has ancestors from Aotearoa, Samoa, Tonga, and other island groups in Oceania. He works as a volunteer for the Community Services Connect Trust rescuing food and distributing this to families in need. Fala is currently producing a small Pan-Pacific research project, and is also helping organise an Auckland anti-racist conference.

Last month, I wrote on Facebook that the resumption of my blog Grubsheet for 2021 was being postponed out of consideration for the national effort to assist the victims of tropical cyclones Yasa and Ana.

I made the observation that it was not the time for politics but for supporting the authorities to get help to those who needed it most. The inspiring sight of the estimable Inia Seruiratu leading the cyclone relief effort in the north with the help of the equally inspiring Australian servicemen and women from HMAS Adelaide was regrettably short lived.

Because it didn’t take long in the public consciousness for politics as usual to rear its ugly head. So much so that I no longer feel bound by my earlier decision.

• READ MORE: The Graham Davis blog Grubsheet is here
• AG ‘clears the air’ on Singapore medical trip – The Fiji Times

I apologise that this article is so political and – at more than 6000 words – is so long, indeed the longest I have ever written in these columns. But it is my last one for some time and I have a lot to say. I also apologise that it is so personal, some might say self-indulgently so. But I have a lot to get off my chest.

We have just had a parliamentary session dominated by almost everything other than the needs of cyclone victims or the hundreds of thousands of people suffering because of the covid-induced economic crisis. It was a spectacle that has triggered widespread community dismay and resentment at the apparent lack of empathy of fat-cat MPs and especially those on the FijiFirst government benches.

Much of the nation that isn’t on the public teat is in deep distress. Yet as they struggle to find shelter, put food on the table, worry about disease outbreaks, cope with chronic interruptions to their power and water and make their way through Mumbai-style traffic jams over canyon-sized potholes, they find the public discourse dominated not by their concerns and challenges but the same old political valavala (fighting) and point scoring.

Despite the unprecedented national crisis, it was business as usual in the Parliament, led by the ever-preening Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum. Fresh from his “Gestapo-like” deportation of the USP vice-chancellor Professor Pal Ahluwalia, the AG was more than usually testy and belligerent.

Economic crash
Perhaps he has given up even trying to manage the economic crash that has engulfed the nation. He is routinely seen signing fresh documents committing Fiji to further borrowing and portraying them as “strategic partnerships” rather than the loans and indebtedness that they are.

One might reasonably have imagined the AG to be focussed exclusively on managing the economic firestorm and the challenges raging on every front. Yet there he was at a USP Council meeting helping his “Uncle Mahmood” resolve a crisis that he alone created and has done unprecedented damage to Fiji’s relations with the region.

How does it all “put food on the table?”, as the Prime Minister used to ask about every diversion before he too lost the plot. It doesn’t. But for the AG, winning at all costs is what matters.

The articulate guy in the turban demanding accountability at USP got in his way and had to go, whatever the political fallout.

As I’ve noted before, crash through or crash is the customary approach. Except that it’s much more likely to be crash on Wonder Boy’s horizon when the voting public finally get their say.

What did a weary nation make of the sight of impeccably-dressed MPs trading barbs and insults, the Speaker boasting about his unique ability to do his job and their elected representatives leaving the chamber laughing and joking with each other in the face of their collective suffering?

No-one ever asks them, of course. Yet one thing is certain. A reckoning looms at the ballot box come election time. There’s an ever-yawning gulf between the haves and have-nots in Fiji – those living on government borrowings and those with no means of support.

‘Assisting’ Fijians
The government policy of “assisting” Fijians by allowing them to draw on their retirement savings – one of the most cynical exercises in spin I have ever witnessed – means that some 60,000 Fijians and counting now have zero balances in their Fiji National Provident Fund (FNPF) accounts. Another crisis is already in the making – vast numbers of retirees with no means of support.

Yet there’s something just as disheartening that poses an equally serious threat to social cohesion and national unity. In my many years observing Fijian politics, I have never witnessed such a disconnect between the political elite and their struggling constituents.

There has been no concession at all to appearances, let alone the substance of relative privilege. The political elite continue to speed around in their blacked-out Prados, trailed by their attendants and security guards, attending all manner of functions at which the food and drink is plentiful and fawning is invariably the currency of maintaining favour and influence.

While outside on the streets, the burgeoning ranks of prostitutes and beggars – including children pleading for food – bears testament to the other face of Fiji. Unadulterated, pitiful despair. Away from the capital, increasing destitution, hunger and homelessness reflect a society that no longer seems to care or certainly doesn’t care enough.

The only genuine Bula Bubble in Fiji is the one inhabited by the political and social elite. For much of the rest of the population, the bubble burst a long time ago.

It could and should have been a time when the government forged a national programme of collective resilience – a back-to-basics grassroots movement led by the state in which shelter, food production and public health became the sole priorities. Instead, the government can’t even keep the power and water on, is consumed by hubris, obsesses about the unimportant and those charged with enforcing the law engage in all manner of criminal activity.

The list of police offences detailed recently – everything from theft and assault to perverting the course of justice – is a sure sign of a nation in big trouble. The AG admitted as the cyclone crisis unfolded that he had only $3.5 million dollars on hand for the relief effort until the foreign cavalry arrived.

Astonishingly, while $38 million a month is being allocated for aircraft leases and loans, there’s barely enough in the government’s contingent emergency funds to buy a couple of prestige houses in Suva.

FijiFirst lost the plot
With its obsession with seemingly everything but the immediate needs of ordinary Fijians, the FijiFirst government appears to have almost totally lost the plot. It isn’t just the chronic spin, media manipulation and continual protestations of “no crisis! Nothing to see here!” We now see normally straight-shooting ministers like Jone Usamate obliged to give misleading answers in the Parliament.

Usamate said Fiji had withdrawn Ratu Inoke Kubuabola as its candidate to lead the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) out of deference to its Pacific neighbours when the truth is that it was to save the Prime Minister’s face when his handpicked candidate got little or no support.

Once again last week, Voreqe Bainimarama read out a speech written for him by Qorvis and the AG praising the AG and expressing his full support for him. Yes, Prime Minister, we know. You will both go down together, maybe not at the same election but sometime. And it has already happened in the estimation of those who once had high expectations of you but whose confidence you have since lost.

For its part, a cowering media – aside, of course, from the oleaginous flatterers at the CJ Patel Fiji Sun and the AG’s brother’s FBC – is starting to get creative. Creatively subversive.

Did you notice that almost every photograph of the Prime Minister in The Fiji Times during the parliamentary sitting had him laughing uproariously with ministers like Faiyaz Koya and others around him?

Yes, it’s the image of the local Nero fiddling while Rome burns. Laughing in the face of a nation’s suffering. A big joke.

All up, I can’t recall a more depressing parliamentary week. And if it is to be business as usual in the bear pit of Fijian politics, I certainly no longer feel constrained by sensitivity to resume some serious mauling of my own. So here goes.

Read the full Graham Davis article on his blog Grubsheet under the title “Kangaroo court and off I hop”. This shortened commentary is republished with permission. Fiji-born Davis is an award-winning journalist turned communications consultant. He was the Fiji government’s principal communications advisor for six years from 2012 to 2018 and continued to work on Fiji’s global climate and oceans campaign up until the end of the decade.

The whistleblowing vice-chancellor at the University of the South Pacific (USP), Professor Pal Ahluwalia, has described the illegal deportation of he and his wife, Sandra Price, last week as a “surreal” experience.

Many would agree that the inhumane, immoral and illegal deportation has plunged the tertiary institution into the biggest crisis of its 50-plus-year history.

The ensuing standoff between USP host country Fiji and the university governing body, the USP Council, has put the institution’s funding at risk, and its future in jeopardy.

• READ MORE: Other articles about the USP saga

In another surreal episode, Fiji’s Prime Minister and Immigration Minister, Voreqe Bainimarama, chose to airily downplay the situation, apparently hoping that the controversy would blow away.

After initially going to ground in the face of the international and national uproar created by the expulsion, Bainimarama responded with a tweet – concentrating on things that matter – insinuating that the crisis engulfing the region’s once premier tertiary institute was of little, if any, consequence.

Bainimarama’s right-hand man, Attorney-General Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum, followed suit by telling The Fiji Times that there is “no saga” and “no crisis” at USP. Since last year Khaiyum, as the economy minister, withheld Fiji’s $27 million allocation to USP over alleged unresolved governance issues.

It came after a failed attempt by the Fiji government’s USP representative to suspend Professor Ahluwalia.

Total disregard for the consequences
The statements by these two men, who virtually run the country, reflect a total disregard for the consequences of their actions. Besides the international furore, they seem unconcerned about the political fallout domestically, despite winning the 2018 election by the thinnest of margins with another election just around the corner in 2022.

Their growing arrogance is clearly a consequence of military support and the censorship of the media, which means the government maintains a firm grip on the country. Hiding behind the facade of a democracy is very much a military government.

This is reflected in the despotic actions of both the Prime Minister and his Attorney-General, who clearly feel that they can act with impunity, without suffering any consequences.

Then more surreality: when the USP issue was raised in Fiji’s parliament this week, it was ruled out by the Speaker on the grounds that it was not a matter of national importance. Even though Fiji has the most students at USP, and never fails to point out that it contributes more funds to the institution than any other government.

This week the education minister claimed that Fiji does not interfere in the decisions of the USP Council, even though it just did: by withdrawing the VC’s work visa the government voided his contract.

Various independent commentators have pointed out that the scale of the damage to USP is enormous and unprecedented, and raises serious questions about the broader, longer-term impacts on regional unity, academic freedom, respect for human rights and the rule of law.

The deportation has also seen the resurfacing of questions about Fiji’s suitability as the host nation for USP due to political instability and the lack of civil rights. Samoa has already put itself forward as an alternative host for the university.

Legally questionable, but morally wrong
The manner in which the Ahluwalias were deported has been well-covered by the media. It was not only legally questionable, but morally wrong. Up to 15 police and immigration officers descended on the couple’s accommodation in the dead of the night, demanding to be let in on the threat of breaking the door down.

The VC and his wife were then whisked away to the Nadi International Airport at high speed, without so much of a toilet break, let alone due process.

Few believe the official reason offered for the deportation — that Professor Ahluwalia’s conduct was “prejudicial to peace, defence, public safety, public order, public morality, public health, security, or good government of the Fiji islands”. Many feel that Ahluwalia has had a target on his back since his exposure of financial mismanagement under the previous vice-chancellor, Professor Rajesh Chandra, who was seen to be close to the government.

The losses ran into the millions of dollars, as articulated in the BDO special audit report, which was leaked to the media, much to the embarrassment and the consternation of the government, the chairman of the USP Council and those implicated in the scandal.

The situation is replete with ironies. Bainimarama used the mantra of a “clean up” against corruption to justify his 2006 coup but is now increasingly linked to this cover up at USP. Considering the importance of higher education in the region, and the cost to its own domestic and international reputation, the lengths to which the Fiji government has gone to get rid of Ahluwalia reveal a government that has completely lost the plot.

Unions, civil society organisations and opposition parties have roundly condemned the expulsion, but there is an uncanny silence from the office of the Fiji Human Rights Commissioner, Ashwin Raj, an appointee of the Attorney-General.

Deafening silence from donors
Also deafening is the silence from the USP’s major donors, Australia and New Zealand, the paragons of human rights and democracy in the region. Their statements have merely expressed concern about USP, while failing to condemn the treatment of the VC.

As recently as June 2020, on this very blog, I wrote about regional institutions with governance problems, including specifically USP, and the silence of international aid donors and partner countries.

I attributed these countries’ silence to political expediency and geopolitical priorities, warning that unless we demand high standards, and adopt zero tolerance for graft and abuse, we only embolden the perpetrators.

I called for a change of attitude, but to no avail, as this latest USP scandal indicates. Do Australia and New Zealand still stand for the rule of the law and human rights, or have they surrendered these values for the sake of political expediency?

The only fair outcome in this case, and the only one that would protect the viability of USP, would be the reinstatement of Professor Ahluwalia. This will only happen if the USP Council stands its ground, and if Australia and New Zealand, as USP’s largest donors, put the university first.

This should not be too much to ask, or to hope.

Dr Biman Prasad is a former professor of economics and dean of the Faculty of Business and Economics at the University of the South Pacific. He is an adjunct professor at the James Cook University and Punjabi University, and is currently Member of Parliament and Leader of the National Federation Party in Fiji. This article was originally published on DevPolicyBlog and is republished with Dr Prasad’s permission.

The pictures of Professor Pal Ahluwalia, the vice-chancellor of the University of the South Pacific (USP), and his wife Sandra Price on the morning of Thursday, February 4, during their long and unexpected plane journey back to Brisbane after their shock expulsion from Fiji brought back memories for us.

Former Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka, still very much a politician and leadership contender for elections in 2022, argued that the FijiFirst government’s behaviour in deporting Professor Ahluwalia and his wife was nothing short of childish.

He should know. He began Fiji’s coup culture with two coups in 1987, unleashing a wave of violence upon Fiji’s people: assaults, burglaries, arson, and imprisonment.

• READ MORE: Other USP saga articles

One group of demonstrators was gassed. Dr Anirudh Singh, a university scientist who criticised Rabuka’s biography, was hijacked by a military unit and severely tortured, his hands broken. In effect, anyone who by their actions signalled dissatisfaction became fair game.

In January 1988, we found out too that we had become fair game. After the first coup in May 1987, we had been warned by economist Wadan Narsey (another victim, later forced out of USP by government pressure and, in his case, the Bainimarama government) that our close friendship with William Sutherland, the deposed Prime Minister’s permanent secretary, might create problems for us. (William escaped Rabuka’s military, who came for him immediately after the first coup, and managed to leave the country. But at Nadi, troops dragged him off the plane. Only the pilot’s brave refusal to take off without all his passengers enabled him to leave.)

In reality, anything could cause problems. USP where one of us (Robbie) worked as a senior lecturer had long been subject to cliques at loggerheads with each other.

A simple call to the military could create a lifetime of pain for helpless individuals. Then VC, Geoffrey Caston, soon discovered this when hash harriers (social runners) left their cars outside his home and he was charged with holding unauthorised meetings.

Shadowy Taukeist activists
We had a member of Rabuka’s shadowy Taukeist activists living next door to us in Raiwaqa who didn’t look kindly on us, particularly around the time of the second coup in September 1987 when he held operational meetings in his home.

We also brought attention upon ourselves because we decided to write on the coups in our evenings. All news was censored, so to find out what was happening we would frequent certain bars where public servants and officers often hung out.

Asking the odd question, but mostly listening to conversations, could provide some framework for understanding what was happening.

The other author of this article (Akosita) was a journalist with the then Fiji Sun, but also did stories for London’s Gemini news service. She had been asked to send a story on the current political scene, but the only way to get it out was via Fintel, the government’s centralised telecommunications system.

She discovered on handing over the article to be faxed that Fintel had been militarised. An officer read her piece, said the fax was down and asked her to come back in the late afternoon.

We did, but before we could enter an employee exited and whispered that a whole group of soldiers was waiting for her. We decided to leave but were followed by a military vehicle for some time. Eventually we headed up to the Sun editor’s home and got approval to fax from the newspaper’s offices.

That still had to go through Fintel and was refused. In the end we used an old telex. But no sooner had the article been sent, power to the suburb was cut.

Things heated up
From that moment on, things seemed to heat up. Our house was raided by military intelligence. The family we allowed to live in the empty quarters under the house was turned against us and became the military’s spies. And our phone was tapped. After the first raid we took to taking everything to work that we had been writing in the evening.

Then everything went quiet. Classes finished at USP and we travelled to Vanuatu where Robbie taught for three weeks. Then we took a three-week holiday in Australia, in part to relieve the tension that went with two military coups, roadblocks, curfews, arrests, and beatings of friends.

When we returned in January, we went to Akosita’s parents to inform them that we intended to marry. On arriving back in Suva, Robbie received an urgent message to go to the university. There he was told that the government had decided not to renew his work visa and asked that he leave the next day.

The university suggested we go into hiding while they tried to sort it out. The sociologist Vijay Naidu (later thrown by the military into Fiji’s old death row cells) kindly took us up to the New Zealand High Commissioner’s residence, but his wife informed us that her husband was in the bath preparing to go out.

“We couldn’t help Richard Naidu (another expelled local who had been assaulted by Taukeists),” she argued. What makes you think you are different?

The next day was busy. Packers in to remove nine years of living. Then a quick trip down to the Registry Office. Then off to historian Jacqui Leckie’s house ostensibly to hide. Nothing worked. Everyone knew where we were and Rabuka refused to budge.

How did it come to this?
He told a New Zealand newspaper that Robbie was a security risk and had to go. So he eventually did, flying first to Auckland to stay with journalist David Robie, feeling we suspect much like Ahluwalia and possibly thinking: how did it come to this. And what is next?

As it turned out USP was good to Robbie. They kept him employed and planned to install him in Vanuatu. He would fly into Suva two or three times a semester to teach. But once the Fijian government heard of these plans, they declared him a prohibited immigrant and encouraged Vanuatu to ban him also. He eventually found work in Australia and the university paid for our effects to come over.

All’s well that ends well, and he did go back to teach again in Fiji as a professor of development studies in 2004, smartly leaving ahead of the well-advertised 2006 coup.

That coup was led by the current Prime Minister and bore all the clandestine and nasty tactics that Rabuka and others had employed since 1987 in the name of sovereignty. This is a country that now chairs the UN Human Rights Committee yet has managed to impose a draconian curfew ever since covid-19 became a potential threat.

Standing up to political pressure is not something that comes naturally to the politically appointed USP Council. Let’s hope it does for Pal’s sake and for the health of the Pacific’s regional university.

Let’s hope also for the notion of academic freedom, unfortunately often more honoured in the breach in the Pacific. In the early 1980s Mara’s pre-coup government pressured Ziam Baksh – a young Indo-Fijian academic – who called for a common term to refer to all Fijian citizens.

Much later, USP bowed to criticism and forced Professor Narsey to resign. Governments like to be in control, and Fiji is no different from many others in this regard, preferring instead a culture of silence.

But its assault on good governance under the pretence of sovereign rights, its attempt to pre-emptively sack a vice-chancellor, now threatens to unwind the Pacific’s great experiment in regional education and end the diversity of views and pathways so valuable for any democracy that wishes to garner the best for its peoples. All will lose if they succeed.

Dr Robbie Robertson is adjunct professor at Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne where he was formerly Dean of Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities. Akosita Tamanisau works as an assessor in the Victorian homelessness sector. They are co-authors of Fiji: Shattered Coups. This article first appeared on DevPolicyBlog and is republished here with the authors’ permission.

Samoa’s prime minister has gone public with his desire to “rehouse” the University of the South Pacific (USP) in his country.

It Is a long-term vision, according to Prime Minister Tuila’epa Sa’ilele Malielegaoi, one that has been resurrected by the ongoing saga surrounding the tenure of USP vice-chancellor and president (VCP) Professor Pal Ahluwalia.

In the latest chapter of his fraught presidency at the region’s premier university at the Laucala campus, Professor Ahluwalia and his wife were arrested and deported by Fiji authorities without consulting other regional partner governments.

• READ MORE: Deportation a ‘distraction’ from USP’s boom progress
• Other USP saga reports

Tuila’epa said Samoa was “100 percent willing” to make the move from Fiji happen.

“Samoa is revered in the region as a leading player when it comes to national issues benefiting not just our country but the Pacific Forum family as a whole,” he said in a statement.

Samoa did offer political and economic stability when compared with its neighbour to the west.

‘Samoa must take the lead’
The VCP’s forced eviction is the latest in a series of internal issues at the USP which came as no surprise, said Tuila’epa.

“Many big organisations have actually left Fiji in a similar fashion,” he said.

“I think Samoa must take the lead when regional issues surface that will compromise the mutual benefits and interests for all Forum countries and their respective residents,” Tuila’epa added.

He cited Samoa’s track record in providing a safe environment for regional organisations and international partners, including the WHO and the Pacific environmental agency SPREP, adding that the USP was no different.

Fiji’s unstable political history and perceived military strongman culture is well documented, Tuila’epa continued.

“Evidenced by multiple military coups over the years which has undermined democracy in that country,” he said.

The historical actions are comparable to those committed against Professor Pal Ahluwalia, according to the New Zealand-based Fiji academic Steven Ratuva.

‘Military regime mentality’
“They still have a military regime kind of mentality,” Dr Ratuva said.

“When they run out of options they just go for what they know, which is use force or some semblance of force.”

The actions have drawn widespread criticism from Fijian bodies including the Human Rights Coalition, Law Society and USP staff at the Laucala Campus who have expressed “grave concern and disgust” at the unsolicited presence of police.

With another university semester about to start, they have demanded police cease any further harassment and intimidation, saying the action against Professor Ahluwalia and his wife was “an attack on the right of staff to operate freely, with dignity and safety at the work place”.

The university’s governing body, the USP Council, is investigating the actions against Professor Ahluwalia. The council states that it has not dismissed him and expressed disappointment that it was not advised, as his employer, of the decision by Fiji’s government to deport him.

The council has excluded Fiji government representatives from the subcommittee investigating Professor Ahluwalia’s deportation.

Offered job back
Meanwhile, a council representative from Samoa, Education Minister Loau Keneti Sio, has come out in support of Professor Ahluwalia and offered him his job back if the USP relocates its administrative office there.

Australian citizens Ahluwalia and Price are in quarantine in Brisbane having been declined onward passage to Nauru, at the invitation of its president, by immigration officials.

Professor Ahluwalia told RNZ Pacific he had not been in touch with the subcommittee investigating his deportation but is looking forward to having the situation resolved.

“I’m confident that if and when I’m allowed to return to my position, wherever it is, that we [the USP] will just become stronger and stronger,” Professor Ahluwalia said.

But he said the ongoing saga was a distraction from the continued success of the USP.

Samoa is home to the USP Campus at Alafua, formerly the USP School of Agriculture and Food Technology. It was recently rebranded the USP Samoa Campus. The Samoa government states its long term vision for the Samoa campus is to broaden its academic curriculum beyond the agricultural sector.

‘Sad day for Fiji’
Meanwhile, the head of Fiji’s opposition National Federation Party has called for the USP to remain at its Fiji home.

Professor Biman Prasad said it would be a sad day for the region and Fiji if the USP headquarters were to move to another regional country because of the actions of the government.

“This university has a history which everyone in the region can be proud of,” Dr Prasad said.

“Hopefully the Fiji government representatives and Fiji government itself comes to its senses and respects the governance structure of the university, which is the council, and the charter.”

He has called on the government to acknowledge its mistake in acting against Professor Ahluwalia, and to correct it.

It still has time to make amends for its actions, Dr Prasad said.

“It is in the interests of Fiji as well as for the whole region for the Fiji government to realise that the deportation of the vice-chancellor was a mistake, it should have never happened and they still have an opportunity to correct that.”

Dr Prasad has also called out the complicity of USP Council members in the deportation of Professor Ahluwalia, saying the actions of Fiji representatives on council were wrong and against the interests of the USP.

He said the arrest and deportation of Professor Ahluwalia was the latest in a series of nefarious actions engineered against him.

Dr Biman Prasad hopes the USP subcommittee investigating his deportation will once again promptly clear the vice-chancellor and send a strong message.

“I hope that the Fiji government reps on the council now understand that what they’ve been doing is wrong, you know, it’s bringing about disunity within the regional organisation among the member countries.”

The Fiji government’s USP Council representative and education minister, Rosy Akbar, has not responded to RNZ Pacific requests for comment.

Further, the USP Council has declined to comment on what it says is a developing issue.

RNZ Pacific has asked the USP chancellor, Nauru president Lionel Aingimea who is chairing the subcommittee, about the scope, time frame and process of the investigation. The status of Professor Ahluwalia and Price’s employment at the USP has also been requested.

The USP is owned by 12 Pacific governments, including the Cook Islands, Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Niue, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tokelau, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu. It is funded largely through regional partnerships with the Australian and New Zealand governments.

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

There are signs Fiji’s deportation of the University of the South Pacific (USP) vice-chancellor was engineered to avoid his contract being given better security.

Professor Pal Ahluwalia told RNZ Dateline Pacific that on Wednesday last week the USP chancellor, Nauru President Lionel Aingimea, had alerted the university’s governing body, the USP Council, to veiled threats in Fiji news media.

Professor Ahluwalia said this resulted in Aingimea advising council members, including Fijian representatives, that in their next meeting they would amend the vice-chancellor’s contract to afford better security.

However, the vice-chancellor said his work permit was rescinded on the same day (Wednesday) and he was deported on Thursday before the council could meet on Friday, following the notice in the media.

“What had appeared in the Fiji Sun in the Whispers column to say that ‘Watch this space: A school where big students study, its leader will be removed from the country.’ So he took the step to say to council we need to amend the vice-chancellor’s contract.”

An ‘illegal act’ by Fiji
Professor Ahluwalia said the way in which his contract was frustrated was an illegal act.

The USP is a regional institution, said Professor Ahluwalia, owned by 12 Pacific countries and “the decisions of the University Council, which has representatives from all the countries, needs to be respected” which is inconsistent with the way Fiji acted in his arrest and deportation, he added.

The council said in a statement that it was not consulted.

Professor Ahluwalia said he had received a lot of support from the entire region and that he would welcome any action from the USP Council that would allow the university to move forward, including a rumoured move of headquarters to another country.

“I believe I was selected to do the job and it’s obvious that the community – staff and students – strongly endorse what I am doing. So it’s my belief that if I need to move to Samoa to run this university, we’ll make it work,” he said.

“I will abide by whatever decision the University Council makes.”

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

The Speaker of Fiji’s Parliament has rejected calls from the opposition to debate the controversial deportation of the University of the South Pacific’s vice-chancellor, Professor Pal Ahluwalia.

Ratu Epeli Nailatikau ruled that an oral question from National Federation Party (NFP) leader Professor Biman Prasad, a former USP economics academic, and an adjournment motion from Sodelpa leader Ratu Naiqama Lalabalavu were not urgent.

The deportation of the regional 12-nation body’s vice-chancellor has led to widespread regional criticism of Fiji’s government and urgent calls for action.

• READ MORE: Other updates on the USP saga

However, Speaker Ratu Epeli said Dr Prasad’s question did not relate to a matter of public importance and did not qualify as urgent.

Further, the adjournment motion was disallowed under standing orders.

“I have considered the nature of the adjournment motion and ruled that the matters raised in the adjournment motion are not something that requires the immediate attention of Parliament or the government,” Ratu Epeli said.

The council stated that it had not dismissed Professor Ahluwalia and expressed disappointment that it was not advised, as his employer, of the decision by Fiji’s government to deport him.

The council has established a subcommittee, chaired by the President of Nauru, Lionel Angimea, including the council representatives of Australia, Tonga, Niue, Solomon Islands, Samoa and two Senate representatives to look into matters surrounding the deportation.

The meeting on Friday also discussed the possibility of a vice-chancellor being based in and operating out of another country apart from Fiji.

Dr Giulio Masasso Tu’ikolongahau Paunga has been appointed acting vice-chancellor of USP in the meantime.

The sub-committee has been tasked to bring recommendations to the council as soon as possible. The next meeting is on February 16.

Dame Meg ‘disheartened’
The incoming Secretary-General of the Pacific Islands Forum, Henry Puna, of the Cook Islands, said he would not be speaking about the removal of the vice-chancellor until after a communique from the regional grouping was released.

However, the outgoing Secretary-General, Dame Meg-Taylor, of Papua New Guinea, issued a statement.

“As the permanent chair of the Council of Regional Organisations in the Pacific and a member of the USP Council, I am disheartened by the ongoing and recent events at the university culminating in the deportation [last week] of vice-chancellor and president, Professor Pal Ahluwalia.

“I am confident that fellow council members will continue to uphold good governance and follow due process to ensure the immediate restoration of strong leadership of the university,” Dame Meg said.

Meanwhile, the chairman of the Forum, Tuvalu Prime Minister Kausea Natano urged the university council to find a resolution to the situation.

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

Documents tabled at last week’s special council meeting of the University of the South Pacific suggest that plans to amend the contract of the university’s vice-chancellor and president, Professor Pal Ahluwalia, prompted his forced deportation and that of his wife by Fiji government authorities on Thursday.

Nauru President Lionel Aingimea, who is the council’s interim chair, had authored the proposed amendment to Professor Ahluwalia’s contract.

But Fiji got wind of the proposed amendment when it featured on the agenda of the council’s virtual meeting on Friday, January 29.

• READ MORE: Open letter by US staff, alumni and students
• Other USP saga reports

The council could not deliberate on the amendment at that meeting, however, as the head of Fiji’s delegation, Attorney-General Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum called for a one-week postponement.

He said Fiji was in a state of emergency due to the then-approaching Tropical Cyclone Ana, and the meeting should be adjourned for a week. In the period between meetings, the government deported Professor Ahluwalia and his wife, Sandra Price.

In so doing, Fiji triggered what President Aingimea had wanted to avoid: the cancellation of the vice-chancellor’s contract the moment the Fijian government revoked his work permit.

In his paper to the USP Council, the Nauru President drew its attention to the urgent need to amend the work contract of the VCP, de-linking the work contract to that of his work permit.

Spooked by a news article
He was spooked – it now appears –by a brief article in the Fiji Sun newspaper, which is strongly supportive of the Fiji government, published on January 24 which had speculated about the expiry of the work permit of a “foreign head of a big school” in Fiji, adding that his “days may be numbered”.

“It is not reasonable that a decision by [USP] Council on the employment of the VCP should be able to be overturned at the behest of a single member country,” wrote President Aingimea in a paper to the council.

As chair of the subcommittee formed by the USP Council on Friday to look into the changes to the VCP’s contract, it seems likely that President Aingimea’s paper will inform their work.

The Nauruan leader’s paper recommended the removal of specific mention of Fiji in two clauses of the VCP’s work contract, replacing it with “at least one of the member countries of the university.”.

One clause concerns obtaining a work permit as well as residency, while the other amendment centres around police clearance.

“There are two issues that would cause the VCP’s contract to fail as currently drafted,” wrote President Aingimea.

“The first is cancellation/non renewal of his residency and work rights in Fiji, and the second is failing to get a police clearance for whatever reason.”

Proposed amendments
“To change these, the proposed amendment was that the VCP must “obtain a work permit and the university is obligated to obtain (and maintain) a permit to employ him”.

He added that it would be a failure of the university’s duty to the VCP if the maintenance of his work permit were not supported.

Friday’s USP Council meeting ran out of time and was unable to decide on the amendments to VCP Ahluwalia’s contract.

His work contract remains void, and while he and Sandra Price undergo the compulsory 14-day quarantine requirements in a hotel in Brisbane, Australia, USP’s deputy vice chancellor, Dr Giulio Masasso Tu’ikolongahau Paunga will act as VCP.

Professor Ahluwalia and Price were deported after the Fiji government claimed they had both breached the Immigration Act, although no specific details of what those alleged breaches are, have been revealed.

The council will next meet on February 16.

Samisoni Pareti is a media consultant and managing director of Islands Business. This article is republished from Islands Business with permission.

Vice-chancellor Professor Pal Ahluwalia has only been at the University of the South Pacific (USP) for three years – and each year, Fiji has attempted to “coup” him. The first was in August 2019, second in June 2020 and now February 2021.

First, through a 16-page paper at the USP Council in Nadi in 2019, Fiji moved to sack him.

Second in 2020, using its numbers in a special executive council, Fiji suspended him and installed Professor Derek Armstrong, a failed candidate for USP VCP as acting VCP. After Council reinstated VCP Pal, and cleared him of all allegations, Fiji then told the Fijian public that the council made a wrong decision.

• READ MORE: USP’s academic leader deported for getting close to Fiji’s dark secret
• ‘Most surreal experience of our lives’: Leading professor describes being deported from Fiji
• A bruising 24 hours in the Pacific – three key questions about regionalism
• Forum calls for ‘due process’ over USP, inquiry into Ahluwalia deportation
• Case of ‘beating up the whistleblower,’ says deported USP chief
• USP staff, students condemn Fiji ‘Gestapo’ tactics, demand Ahluwalia’s return – Wansolwara
• Politicians, educators, advocates blast Fiji’s ‘barbaric’ expulsion of USP head
• Deported Pacific university VC claims no wrongdoing
• More USP saga reports

The third attempt was a plain old Gestapo-style coup.

Under cover of darkness and during curfew hours, like the parable thief, 15 Fijian officials infiltrated the region’s sacred space in Laucala, kidnapped its CEO and his wife and whisked them off to Australia. The operation was over within 10 hours from the 12am Laucala campus kidnap to catch the 10am Nadi flight.

And just next door at Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat, in the early hours of the same Thursday, February 4, morning, the leaders were groaning over Dame Meg Taylor’s successor [as secretary-general].

This Fiji operation was a staged and successful coup on the supreme governing body of USP while its leaders were preoccupied and too tired to take any action.

Unable to stamp its dominance over the USP Council, the ruling FijiFirst government struck and for the third time, using its own laws, got rid of a thorn in its side and is ready for another showdown with the region.

Dr Morgan Tuimaleali’ifano
For the Good Governance Team at USP

After a divisive marathon meeting into the early hours of Thursday, Pacific leaders have emerged with a new Secretary-General of the Pacific Islands Forum. Cook Islands’ former Prime Minister Henry Puna was elected 9–8, with one abstention.

A break from the consensus tradition of the Forum, the appointment leaves the region bitterly divided.

To make matters worse, the Fiji government appears to have used the distraction of the meeting to swoop in and deport University of South Pacific vice-chancellor Professor Pal Ahluwalia.

• READ MORE: Forum calls for ‘due process’ over USP, inquiry into Ahluwalia deportation
• Case of ‘beating up the whistleblower,’ says deported USP chief
• USP staff, students condemn Fiji ‘Gestapo’ tactics, demand Ahluwalia’s return – Wansolwara
• Politicians, educators, advocates blast Fiji’s ‘barbaric’ expulsion of USP head
• Deported Pacific university VC claims no wrongdoing
• More USP saga reports

The university, seen by many as a beacon of Pacific regionalism, had been embroiled in a long and very public dispute between the new VC and the old guard backed by the Fiji government.

The move to deport the VC sends this dispute nuclear, with many of the same red-eyed leaders who just wrangled over the new secretary-general also members of the university’s governing council, and now facing the potential of an emergency special meeting to discuss this latest move.

The past 24 hours have been incredibly damaging for Pacific regionalism and unity, the repercussions of which will be felt for years to come.

The very fabric of Pacific regionalism looks to be tested unlike any time in recent history.

Where does this leave North Pacific?
Some immediate questions are clear.

1. Where does this leave the North Pacific? Adamant that it was a Micronesian’s turn to run the Forum, five members had coalesced around former minister and current US ambassador Gerald Zackios of the Marshall Islands as their candidate. Some Micronesian leaders had threatened to leave the Forum if Zackios were not chosen, and from reports of their moods since the vote, they may look to follow through. Even if they don’t take that step, don’t expect them to be too involved in the Forum in the near future.
2. What happens next for the leadership struggle at the University of the South Pacific? Even if the governing council can convince the Fiji government to overturn the deportation of the VC, the damage has been done. It is highly unlikely he would return, or that any high-calibre international candidate would be interested in taking his place while the serious allegations of financial mismanagement at the university remain unresolved. The donors and Pacific nations which contribute towards financing the university may look to place the USP in some form of administration to sort it all out – likely in the face of protests from Fiji.
3. Where does this leave Fiji? Its government had already ruffled feathers by nominating a candidate for the secretary-general position (who did not make it to the final round of voting) so soon after fully re-engaging with the Forum. Now, by moving against USP’s vice-chancellor at the same time as Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama was sitting in a Leaders Meeting, aggravated bilateral tensions will linger in every corner of the Pacific.

With the covid-19 crisis and border closures forcing countries to look inwards more than ever, regionalism was already struggling, and the Forum was facing a slow-burning relevance crisis.

Fiji needs charm campaign
Fiji is looking to host the 2021 Forum Leaders Meeting in August, with Bainimarama going so far as to extend an invitation to US President Joe Biden.

Fiji will have to roll out the charm campaign across the region in the next few months if they expect Pacific leaders to push for the meeting to go ahead at all.

Finally, where does this leave Pacific regionalism? Outsiders can be forgiven for thinking the Pacific is a unified bloc, thanks to their prominent advocacy on climate change.

The past 24 hours, however, reveal just how divided the Pacific can be. While we don’t yet know which candidates each country voted for, there is a clear rift right down the middle of the Pacific.

With the covid-19 crisis and border closures forcing countries to look inwards more than ever, regionalism was already struggling, and the Forum was facing a slow-burning relevance crisis.

How regionalism can be revitalised in an era of deep division and no physical interactions is an incredible challenge.

Freshly elected Secretary-General Puna has a massive job on his hands dealing with the fallout, to say nothing of the larger challenges the Forum was already facing.

Jonathan Pryke is director of the Lowy Institute’s Pacific Islands Programme. His research is interested in all aspects of the Pacific Islands, including economic development in the Pacific Islands region, Australia’s relationship with the Pacific, the role of aid and the private sector in Pacific Islands development and Pacific labour mobility. This article was republished from The Interpreter with permission.

Pacific Islands Forum chair Kausea Natano has described the University of the South Pacific as a “shining example of regionalism” and called for due process in the wake of the shock deportation of the 12-nation institution’s vice-chancellor this week.

“The university is a shining example of regionalism and an institution that we cherish for over 50 years because it nurtures our greatest treasure, our youth and future leaders,” said Natano, who is also Prime Minister of Tuvalu, in a statement.

In other developments yesterday amid shock around the region, the USP Council appointed Dr Giulio Masasso Tu’ikolongahau Paunga as acting vice-chancellor and established a sub-committee to investigate the sudden deportation which was ordered by the Fiji government without consultation with the university.

• READ MORE: Case of ‘beating up the whistleblower,’ says deported USP chief
• USP staff, students condemn Fiji ‘Gestapo’ tactics, demand Ahluwalia’s return – Wansolwara
• Politicians, educators, advocates blast Fiji’s ‘barbaric’ expulsion of USP head
• Deported Pacific university VC claims no wrongdoing
• More USP saga reports

“The removal of the vice-chancellor [Professor Pal Ahluwalia] from Fiji has caused consternation among students, staff and forum members,” Natano said.

“As is the Forum, USP is governed by its Royal Charter, convention, statutes and ordinances and the USP Council must ensure that due process is followed.

“With this in mind, I encourage the USP Council to negotiate a way forward through this and other challenges to come.

“I ask that we all remain mindful of the welfare of our USP students and staff, and do our utmost to uphold the integrity of our regional institution”

RNZ News reports that Dr Giulio Masasso Tu’ikolongahau Paunga was appointed acting vice-chancellor following a full day USP Council meeting yesterday.

Dr Paunga, who currently holds the position of deputy VC regional campuses, estates and infrastructure, was appointed following the deportation of Professor Ahluwalia to Brisbane, Australia.

Professor Aluwhalia and his wife were arrested at their Suva home on Wednesday night, told they were deemed a threat to the Fiji public, and swiftly deported to Australia.

The USP Council released a statement saying it was not consulted over Professor Pal Ahluwalia’s deportation.

The council stated that it has not dismissed Professor Ahluwalia and expressed disappointment that it was not advised, as his employer, of the decision by Fiji’s government to deport him.

The council has established a sub-committee, chaired by Nauru President Lionel Aingimea, including the council representatives of Australia, Tonga, Niue, Solomon Islands, Samoa and two USP senate representatives to look into matters surrounding the controversial deportation.

The meeting also discussed the possibility of a vice-chancellor being based in and operating out of another country apart from Fiji.

The sub-committee is due to bring recommendations on these matters to the council as soon as possible.

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

The deported head of the University of the South Pacific, Professor Pal Ahluwalia, says his expulsion from Fiji is “a classic case of beating the whistleblower up,” and he has vowed to continue in the role from Nauru.

In an interview with ABC Pacific Beat from Australia, Professor Pal Ahluwalia has detailed his sudden arrest and deportation, reports Pacnews.

He and his partner, Sandra Price, both Australian citizens, were detained in their home in the Fiji capital Suva by police and immigration officials around 11pm Wednesday night, and put on a plane bound for Brisbane yesterday morning.

• READ MORE: USP staff, students condemn Fiji ‘Gestapo’ tactics, demand Ahluwalia’s return – Wansolwara
• Politicians, educators, advocates blast Fiji’s ‘barbaric’ expulsion of USP head
• Deported Pacific university VC claims no wrongdoing
• More USP saga reports

“I said I need to know who you are before I open the door, and [the officer at the door] said, ‘if you don’t open this door within three seconds, and we’ll break the door down’.

“So we let him in,” he told Pacific Beat.

“I was trying to speak with the Australian High Commissioner and about four people manhandled me and grabbed my phone off me, and really sort of roughed me up.”

He said the officers later apologised.

In other developments today:

• Fiji reportedly blocked the vice-chancellor from logging in to the virtual University Council meeting.
• Samoa offered the deported vice-chancellor a home
• Professor Ahluwalia insisted from Brisbane that he was still the vice-chancellor
• The University Council virtual meeting was reportedly adjourned

Still vice-chancellor
Professor Ahluwalia said he remained the vice-chancellor of USP, and has told the ABC he plans to fly to Nauru and will continue his administration of the regional body from there.

In a statement, the Fiji government claimed Professor Ahluwalia and Price were ordered to leave Fiji after continuous breaches of the Immigration Act.

“No foreigner is permitted to conduct themselves in a manner prejudicial to the peace, defence, public safety, public order, public morality, public health, security or good government of Fiji,” the statement said.

No specific details of the alleged breached were provided.

Professor Ahluwalia believes he was deported because he raised concerns about widespread mismanagement at the university under his predecessor.

“I don’t believe either Sandy or I have done anything wrong”.

“This is a classic case of beating the whistleblower up,” he said.

Victim of a witchhunt
Professor Ahluwalia has previously claimed he was the victim of a witchhunt, after raising concerns about governance issues and financial mismanagement at the university under the previous vice-chancellor.

In a confidential report that was later leaked to the media, he alleged widespread financial irregularities under his predecessor Professor Rajesh Chandra and the current pro-chancellor Winston Thompson, including massive salary increases, misappropriation of allowances and unearned promotions.

The report prompted an investigation by USP which substantiated some of his findings and called for stronger oversight by the University Council.

Despite that USP’s executive committee suspended him last year, a move which prompted protests from students and staff, and was later overturned by the council.

As the Council meeting has begun I am not allowed to join. Please keep praying. pic.twitter.com/azJw1AAAdt

— Professor Pal Ahluwalia, USP VC (@pal_vcp) February 4, 2021

On his Twitter feed today, Professor Ahluwalia said he and his wife Sandy were “overwhelmed by the support we have received from staff, students and globally”.

“We are humbled and inspired by your prayers,” he added.

Staff, students and alumni of the University of the South Pacific have called on the Fiji government to immediately reinstate the work permit for vice-chancellor and president Professor Pal Ahluwalia, who was deported today along with his wife, Sandra Price.

The USP community also called on the government to issue a formal apology to Professor Ahluwalia, an Australian, for the violation of human rights.

They expressed grave concern over the actions of police and immigration officials who removed the couple from the vice-chancellor’s residence on Laucala campus late last night.

• READ MORE: Politicians, educators, advocates blast Fiji’s ‘barbaric’ expulsion of USP head
• Deported Pacific university VC claims no wrongdoing
• More USP saga reports

In a petition issued this afternoon, the group said they were deeply concerned at the disrepute brought to the 12-nation regional university by the actions of the Fiji government in this morning’s deportation.

USP staff associations also condemned the manner in which the couple were removed from their residence and swiftly transported to Nadi International Airport for the 10.30am flight to Brisbane, Australia.

“The manner in which the VCP and his wife were removed is a violation of human rights and due process,” read a joint statement by the USP Staff Union (USPSU) and the Association of USP Staff (AUSPS).

“Given the seriousness of the decision, we demand the Fiji government to provide the justification for this Gestapo tactic.”

Vice-chancellor deemed ‘public risk’
“According to media reports, the VCP was deemed a ‘public risk’ and we as taxpayers, voters and owners of the university demand an explanation on how Professor Pal is a ‘public risk’.

“Given the impact on the university’s reputation and staff morale, we reiterate our support for the USP Council to proceed with its scheduled meeting to fully discuss this matter and already agreed to agenda items, to arrive at regionally acceptable solutions.”

It is understood police and immigration officers were acting on directives outlined in a letter, allegedly signed by Acting Director for Immigration Amelia Komaisavai.

The document with the Fijian Immigration Department letterhead dated 3 February 2021 with attention to Professor Ahluwalia, noted that the Minister for Immigration had declared the couple prohibited immigrants under the Immigration Act 2003, Section 13 (2) (g) and ordered that they leave Fiji with immediate effect.

USP management are also calling on staff and students to remain calm throughout the situation for the safety and wellbeing of the university community.

“Until the [USP] Council at a council meeting directs otherwise, the senior management team will take on the role jointly of undertaking the vice-chancellor’s duties,” a statement from management read.

“The senior management team has notified the council leadership and are waiting for direction. The safety and wellbeing of our staff and students and the continuation of university operations remain our priority.”

Several community leaders and politicians have come out strong against the surprising tactic.

The USP Council, the university’s highest decision-making body, is expected to meet tomorrow.

Asia Pacific Report collaborates with Wansolwara, the USP journalism newspaper and website.

Politicians, educators and civil society advocates around the region today condemned the “barbaric” and “shameful” detention and deportation of the regional University of the South Pacific’s vice-chancellor Professor Pal Ahluwalia and his wife.

Reformist Professor Ahluwalia, an Australian citizen, and his wife, Sandra, were detained by Fiji authorities at their Suva home late last night and deported on a flight to Brisbane this morning.

The USP Council is due to meet in Suva tomorrow and the chancellor, Nauru Lionel Aingimea said today a statement would be made later.

• READ MORE: Fiji immigration officials, police deport USP chief Ahluwalia in swoop
• More articles on the USP saga

In Rarotonga, the director of USP’s Cook Islands campus, Dr Debbie Futter-Puati, said the university’s independence was under threat in Fiji.

Responding to questions from The Fiji Times, she questioned how the university’s vice chancellor’s deportation would advantage the Fijian government.

“The University is a private, independent educational facility owned by 12 member countries who must surely take exception to this action,” she said.

“I sincerely hope member countries make a strong and united stance back to Fiji government on this aggressive and inappropriate action.”

‘Outrageous’ act
Human rights activist and former human rights commissioner Shamima Ali described the forceful removal and deportation as “shameful, outrageous and not the Pacific way”.

National Federation Party leader Professor Biman Prasad said at a time when Fiji should be supporting victims of cyclones Yasa and Ana, government was “instead focused [on] its own petty jealousies”.

#Fiji immigration officials, police deport #USP‘s reformist vice-chancellor Professor Pal Ahluwalia and wife in swoop @pal_vcp @USPEmaluscampus @wansolwara @USPWansolwara @ShailendraBSing #HumanRights #education #AsiaPacificReport #PacificMediaWatchhttps://t.co/vJQGMWeXqK pic.twitter.com/8Gb2R7lHO8

— David Robie (@DavidRobie) February 4, 2021

Social Democratic Liberal Party leader Viliame Gavoka condemned the arrest and deportation of Professor Ahluwalia and his wife as “barbaric treatment”.

There is no death penalty in New Zealand, unlike the United States. But Christchurch terrorist Brenton Tarrant, due for sentencing this week, will be going to jail for a very long time.

A minimum of 17 years is required for a murder committed as part of a terrorist act, and Tarrant has admitted to 51 such murders (among other crimes).

Also unlike the US, New Zealand does not allow cumulative sentences on indeterminate sentences (such as life imprisonment). But it does allow for the imposition of what could become an indeterminate sentence with no minimum parole period.

READ MORE: Will life mean life when the Christchurch mosque killer is sentenced?

To lock Tarrant up in perpetuity will be very expensive. He is currently costing just over NZ$4,930 a day due to the extra levels of security, considerably more than the average of about $338 for a standard prisoner.

The next two years alone will cost New Zealand taxpayers about $3.6 million. The final sum for the 28-year-old terrorist will depend on how long he lives and the ongoing level of security he requires. If he has a normal life span the cost may be in the tens of millions per decade.

Should he stay or go?
In the minds of many, the costs and hassle of incarcerating Tarrant will be an acceptable price to pay. Foreign citizen or not, there is a symbolic and ethical responsibility for us to keep the rat we caught.

New Zealanders old enough to remember are still jaundiced from the last time we caught terrorists, the French secret agents Dominque Prieur and Alain Mafart who were directly linked to the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior in 1985.

The two were handed back to France as part of a reconciliation deal. But the French government quickly broke the terms of agreement, repatriating the prisoners from their detention on the South Pacific atoll of Hao to a normal life in France.

Another such act of bad faith is unlikely, as Tarrant has no government in his corner arguing for his repatriation. He does, however, have a government behind him that has implemented specific legislation to obtain the transfer of its own citizens when incarcerated in foreign countries, to serve their sentences on home soil.

This is not unusual legislation. Although there is no overarching international law, regional and bilateral initiatives are common. Australia’s International Transfer of Prisoners Act, for example, aims to facilitate the transfer of prisoners between Australia and countries with which it has agreements.

Prisoners can serve their prison sentences in their country of nationality or in countries with which they have community ties. There are strong economic, social and humanitarian reasons for this approach.

The deportation of ex-prisoners will increase
Here is the catch. New Zealand has no such relationship with Australia. Unlike most comparable countries, we have little interest in the international transfer of prisoners, preferring to take a hard line when it comes to Kiwis in foreign jails.

Partly because of this, since 2014 Australia has allowed non-citizens to have their visas cancelled on character grounds, including having been sentenced to prison for more than 12 months.

So, although New Zealand prisoners in Australian jails may not be transferred to serve their sentences at home, they will be deported at the end of their sentences.

From early 2015 to mid-2018, about 1,300 New Zealander ex-prisoners had been deported from Australia. After a brief interlude due to covid-19, the deportations resumed.

It is no exaggeration to say this policy (and the cruel standards by which it is applied) are a significant irritant between the two countries.

If it doesn’t change it’s likely to get worse, too. As of mid-2019, New Zealand prisoners made up 3 percent of the total Australian prisoner population (43,028) – about 1,100 people.

Conversely, there were only about 35 Australians in our jails, out of about 320 foreigners in New Zealand’s much smaller prison population (9,324 as of March, 2019).

Time for new deal on expat prisoners
Somewhere in the middle of this darkness there is a glimmer of hope – the chance of a deal and a better relationship between the two countries.

Sign a prisoner transfer agreement. Exchange Tarrant and make him serve out his sentence in Australia, as ruled by the New Zealand judicial system.

Revise the rules for the deportation of New Zealanders who have committed crimes in Australia but been resident for a long time. Move the threshold for deportation from one to three years in prison and make it reciprocal.

Thereafter, recent arrivals in either country who commit serious crimes (such as Brenton Tarrant) are transferred home to serve their time in accordance with their sentences.

Do this and we might start to move forward.

Dr Alexander Gillespie is professor of law, at the University of Waikato. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

An award-winning journalist whose reporting on a murder and corruption investigation got her deported from Malaysia has been prevented from boarding a flight to New Zealand, even though she has been back to Malaysia since, reports Newsroom.

Immigration authorities barred Australian journalist Mary Ann Jolley working for Al Jazeera from entering New Zealand because of her work uncovering a corruption scandal in Malaysia.

Jolley was deported from Malaysia in 2015 after she investigated a corruption scandal and murder linked to former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, according to Newsroom political reporter Dileepa Fonseka.

READ MORE: Altantuya’s Murder resurfaces–East Asia journalist, Mary Ann Jolley deported

Jolley’s deportation notice did not prevent her from visiting the United Kingdom, the United States or Malaysia itself, but it was a no-go for New Zealand Immigration who barred her from boarding a Qantas flight in Sydney last week, Newsroom reported.

Jolley had planned to attend a friend’s birthday party in Auckland.

“I was not allowed to board a flight to New Zealand and I tried every which way with the New Zealand Immigration to say, ‘what’s this about? Last time you let me in the country I showed you the documentation. Why am I being barred?” Jolley said, according to Newsroom.

The journalist’s 2015 deportation by the Malaysian government was televised in an Al Jazeera 101 East documentary on the murder of Altantuya Shaariibuu.

‘On a “bad list”‘
“I’ve just been told I’m on a ‘bad list’,” Jolley said to-camera during the documentary. She reported that Malaysian authorities had told her she had not committed any crime, but would be deported.

“I’m basically regarded in New Zealand as a criminal,”  she told Newsroom.

Jolley followed up her case for entry into New Zealand with a frantic series of emails and phone calls to immigration and consular officials at Sydney airport as her plane readied for departure last week.

The final word came from the office of Associate Minister of Immigration Poto Williams who redirected Jolley’s query to INZ, reported Newsroom.

“I am advised that, in order to resolve your situation you would have to apply to Immigration New Zealand for a special direction for future travel to New Zealand, and attach all relevant documents for assessment by Immigration Officials,” a staffer for Williams wrote in an email to Jolley.

‘Special direction’
Nicola Hogg, general manager border and visa operations for INZ, said Jolley was granted a “special direction” at the border last year, but was told then that she would need to obtain one before she entered New Zealand next time.

Jolley had no memory of any such warning from INZ, Newsroom reported.

Under New Zealand law, the Malaysian government’s deportation of Jolley will have long-term consequences for how she enters the country.

Section 15 of the Immigration Act does not allow the entry of a person “who has, at any time, been removed, excluded, or deported from another country”.

• Mary Ann Jolley’s report for Al Jazeera
• Other Mary Ann Jolley reports

Mary Ann Jolley’s Malaysian report on 101 East on 10 September 2015. Video: Al Jazeera

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

Vanuatu’s Supreme Court has asked the police and immigration to release Fijian citizen Mohammed Rizwan and to substantiate the claim that he is a wanted man in Fiji.

Rizwan’s lawyer, Frederick Loughman, confirmed that yesterday’s conference in chambers saw the court directing for the relevant documentation from Fiji to be made available by June 12.

After the documents are submitted to the court as ordered by the court on Wednesday, then the matter would be listed for trial.

READ MORE: Contempt application filed in Vanuatu over attempt to deport Fijian

An application for contempt would be heard after this matter is heard.

One of the grounds for the application for contempt was that the agents of the government did not provide any formal legal instrument from the government of Fiji to substantiate their new grounds for deportation or the claim that Rizwan is a wanted man in Fiji.

Minister of Internal Affairs Andrew Napuat said the Immigration Act section 53 said the minister could carry out the removal of non-citizen without notice if the person was a wanted person in another country.

“That’s basically what we’re following,” Napuat said.

“We’re following what the law says.”

Discharged from hospital
The minister said Rizwan was discharged from hospital on Wednesday evening but there was another application to the Magistrate Court by the Acting Director of Immigration for Rizwan to be detained because he was allegedly a wanted person in Fiji.

The minister confirmed that Rizwan has a valid residence visa.

“He’s entitled to live in Vila but we don’t have a copy of his police clearance ever since he arrived.

“That’s something that we’re still investigating.

“We need that to come and other supporting documents from Fiji about his cases and that the Fijian authorities want him in Fiji so they can settle outstanding matters they have against him,” the minister alleged.

The minister said Rizwan’s detention and supervision after being discharged from the hospital was done by immigration officers.

“We don’t have any personal issues with the foreigners we’re dealing with.

‘Implementing the law’
“We’re just basically implementing the law, which has not been implemented in the past or may have been relaxed in the past.

“The funny thing though is when we are trying to implement the law and safeguard the interest, the sovereignty of Vanuatu and their nation there are some people that don’t see the logic behind the work the government is doing.

“Even if they are lawyers or politicians, they need to ask themselves, what do they want for this country?

“That’s the most important thing.

“Do they want this country to be a home for criminals, illegal immigrants, overstayers, those that do not have the appropriate papers to come into the country and work here?

“I believe that money should not be the factor that will drive the citizens of the country to do what they want to do.

“They need to look higher into seeing their country, their future, the future of the people, their children.

“It’s sad to see that when the government is trying to do things according to law and trying to protect the sovereignty and interest of the people, some people don’t see that as important,” the Internal Affairs Minister said.

The lawyer representing Rizwan had said his interest was to see that the law was adhered to at all times, even if it was a deportation carried out by the government, it must be done within the confines of Vanuatu laws.

The Pacific Media Centre has a content sharing arrangement with the Vanuatu Daily Post.

The 77 Chinese citizens deported from Fiji by uniformed Chinese police in August were sex workers, according to an investigative report by the Australia Broadcasting Corporation.

The ABC’s Background Briefing investigation by Hagar Cohen has reported an unnamed source challenging official claims that the deported individuals were involved in an online gambling fraud ring, reports Fiji Newswire.

According to the ABC investigative report, Police Commissioner Sitiveni Qiliho declined to comment on the allegations.

The Office of the Prime Minister and the Chinese Embassy in Suva did not reply to the ABC’s requests.

The ABC reported that the deportees were “mainly young women brought to Fiji to service the Chinese diaspora,” and those locals close to their Nadi house said the inhabitants were primarily young women aged between 15 and 19.

One of those deportees was a young mother with a baby.

LISTEN: Fiji Silenced – China’s secret mission exposed on Sunday Extra: Background Briefing (Part 1)

In the two weeks before their removal, witnesses reported seeing Fijian police officers moving in and out of the compound — including movements that resembled a changing of the guard, and overnight shifts.

According to one local, who asked not to be identified, several of the women had attempted to escape but were chased and caught by local police.

• Chinese police grab 77 suspected fraudsters from Fiji
• Fiji police finally admit deportation, reveal little else

Deported New Zealand missionary Douglas Tennent will hopefully be returning to Papua New Guinea in the next week.

This comes after the court ordered immigration services to issue Tennent a new visa last month which will see him return by or before August 8.

Tennent is scheduled to fly out on Friday, but is not confident his visa will come together in time.

“It doesn’t look like that’s happening,” he said.

Tennent was deported on June 12, 2017, over an alleged breach of visa conditions.

Authorities claim Tennent was deported due to “blatant abuse” of his special exemption/religious worker visa after engaging in “sensitive landowner issues in East New Britain Province”.

Tennent was deported after some landowners lodged a complaint regarding his involvement in such “sensitive landowner issues”.

‘Just doing his job’
It is believed the complaint comes due to Tennent’s involvement in remedying a special agricultural business lease regarding Malaysian multinational Rimbunan Hijau’s Sigite Mukus oil palm project in West Pomio.

Both Tennent and Archbishop Francesco Panfilo hold firm to the belief Tennent is “just doing his job”, however.

Returning to Papua New Guinea in the coming week will mark a seven week absence from his duties as the administrator for the Archdiocese of Rabaul.

Tennent told Asia Pacific Report the actions of immigration and the acting chief migration officer therefore have put not only himself, but Archbishop Francesco Panfilo under undue stress as the Archdiocese continues to settle disputes.

“The Archbishop is getting very stressed out. He’s had to put off a very much-needed holiday at 75 until I get back.”

“It’s just a matter of picking up the pieces,” Tennent said of negotiations with Rimbunan Hijau.

Tennent’s deportation has also “knocked off track” the giving back of 160 hectares of land to four local communities which was purchased illegally.

‘It needs to be sorted out’
The case was due to be heard in court on July 11, but that never happened due to Tennent’s absence.

“It needs to be sorted out in court and this has had adverse effects on the Kokopo community,” he said.

Despite criticisms he should be suing immigration for damages, Tennent is just looking forward to returning to work.

“The Archbishop and I have decided we’re not in to that. We just want to get back, carry on with the job.”

But Tennent will be making submissions to the Ombudsman, Constitutional Law Reform Commission and immigration calling for a change in the deportation process.

“I don’t want this sort of thing to happen again. If you’ve got a concern about somebody, you go to them firstly and you let them respond. That was not done at all.

“I think we’ve got a moral obligation to try and address that.”

Tennent said he would like to see potential deportees given fair notice around the reason for their deportation and ensure associated evidence is provided to them so they are allowed to respond to the allegations.

He would also like to see careful and thorough investigation carried out by immigration before people are deported and says reasonable time needs to be given for them to sort out their affairs.

“The number of deportations are not large in PNG, so there’s no excuse for not getting them right.”

• Missionary Doug Tennent’s PNG deportation – ‘a reality check’
• Deportation of NZ missionary ‘will not be taken lightly’, says archbishop
• Juffa blasts PNG for ‘hypocrisy’ over deportation of NZ missionary

By Kendall Hutt in Auckland

The deportation of a New Zealand missionary from Papua New Guinea last month has prompted calls for a new government.

With elections firmly underway in Papua New Guinea, Rabaul Archbishop Francesco Panfilo says the deportation of New Zealand missionary Douglas Tennent remains an issue, whatever government is in power.

“I want to inform all [sitting] candidates and aspiring candidates for national elections that neither the Archdiocese of Rabaul nor the Catholic Bishops’ Conference will take this matter lightly as it seems to imply that to work for justice is outside of a ‘religious worker’ status.”

His call comes after Tennent, who has been working as an administrator for the Archdiocese of Rabaul since June 2014, was deported on June 12, 2017, over an alleged breach of visa conditions.

Authorities claim Tennent was deported due to “blatant abuse” of his special exemption/religious worker visa after engaging in “sensitive landowner issues in East New Britain Province”.

However, both Tennent and Archbishop Francesco Panfilo hold firm to the belief Tennent is “just doing his job”.

Tennent was deported after some landowners lodged a complaint regarding his involvement in “sensitive landowner issues”.

Palm oil involvement
It is believed the complaint comes due to Tennent’s involvement in remedying a special agricultural business lease regarding Malaysian multinational Rimbunan Hijau’s Sigite Mukus oil palm project in West Pomio.

Archbishop Panfilo states Tennent is only involved in settling these disputes on his behalf.

“Mr Tennent was providing legal advice to the archbishop, who was asked by the people of West Pomio to speak up for them.”

The actions of immigration authorities – Foreign Affairs Minister Rimbink Pato and acting Chief Migration Officer Solomon Kantha – have also raised questions about the innocence of Prime Minister Peter O’Neill’s government in the matter.

“Any ordinary person knows that orders of this kind cannot be given unless there are powerful and wealthy institutions and personalities behind.

“For the sake of the ordinary and innocent people of Papua New Guinea, we ask the Government to come clear once and for all,” says Archbishop Panfilo.

“Let us pray that the upcoming National Elections may give us leaders who are committed to the achievement of a just and peaceful society,” he says.

Religious workers role
Tennent told NZ Catholic in their latest edition last Sunday his deportation had pitted Papua New Guinea’s government against the Catholic Church.

“I think they didn’t realise when they did the deportation that it wasn’t about me. It was about the whole role of religious workers,” he said.

This is echoed by Archbishop Panfilo:

“To advocate for the vulnerable and powerless, which is the situation of the people of West Pomio, is a gospel mandate, just as it is to educate and care for sick people.

“It is the duty of any religious worker and of any Christian for that matter, to give effect to the teachings of Christ in word and action. One wonders why those who expose these evil practices should be deported and not the ones who commit them”, Archbishop Panfilo said.

Tennent remains in New Zealand, anxiously awaiting news from authorities in Papua New Guinea about whether he can return.

He is currently in the process of re-applying for a new visa and is planning court action against the government.

• Juffa blasts PNG for ‘hypocrisy’ over deportation of NZ missionary

Pacific Media Watch News Desk

Oro Governor Gary Juffa has condemned the Papua New Guinea government for “hypocrisy” and “double standards” over the controversial deportation of New Zealand Catholic missionary Douglas Tennent.

Acting Chief Immigration Officer Solomon Kantha told EMTV News that Tennent’s deportation last week related to “visa conditions”.

However, Juffa, who has been vocal about foreign investors in the country during the election campaign, said the move by the Immigration Office to deport Tennent was illegal and not in the best interests of Papua New Guineans who were being marginalised on their own land by big foreign companies.

If the current PNG government was interested in the people it would support Tennent and say, “let us fight this corruption and deal with this on behalf of the landowners,” Juffa said.

The PNG Immigration Department is reviewing its decision to deport Tennent, reports Cathnews.

Kantha said Tennent’s visa had been cancelled by Immigration and Foreign Affairs Minister Rimbink Pato because of his alleged involvement in landowner issues, the NZ Catholic news service reported.

The acting immigration head said the decision was based on a “complaint” from landowners in East New Britain.

The Sikite Mukus palm oil project has been a “hive of landowner dispute” between those who want the project and those who do not want the project, EMTV News said.

Archbishop refuses
The Post-Courier reported that Kantha had told the archbishop of Rabaul, Francesco Panfilo, that Tennent could reapply for a new visa and work permit.

However, the archbishop has refused to do so unless he receives reassurance from PNG’s Foreign Affairs Department that Tennent could return.

He is also demanding to know who lodged the complaint letter.

The managing director of the landowners’ umbrella company, Memalo Holdings Ltd, has denied being responsible.

Wesley Pagott said although the members of Sigite Mukus Integrated Rural Development Project (SMIRDP) disagreed with with what Tennent had been doing, they were surprised to hear that he was deported.

Memalo Holdings was originally incorporated listing six separate landowner companies as shareholders.

They were all incorporated on the same day. Two have since been delisted.

Memalo controls the land on which the SMIRDP is being developed by the Malaysian logging company Rimbunan Hijau Group (PNG).

The group has a diverse set of interests that encompass forestry, timber processing, palm oil, transport, media, retail and property development.

It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Rimbunan Hijau, a company based in Sarawak, Malaysia.

Governor pledges support
The Acting Governor of East New Britain, Cosmas Bauk, has pledged his support for Tennent, Cathnews reported.

He said he would do everything in his power to make sure that Tennent could return to continue on with his work.

Bauk said he was disappointment at the manner in which the current government had been doing its business without regards to the people’s fight for justice and what they rightfully claimed as theirs.

He commended the church for their efforts in assisting the people in Pomio and East New Britain and would stand with the church in this fight.

The Papua New Guinea 2017 general election is June 24 until July 8.

• Deported NZ missionary wants clarity

Tensions have mounted in both Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island and Nauru as the controversial Australian offshore processing detention centres have once again come under fire.

In Nauru, allegations have surfaced from a group of detainees that they were assaulted by guards following a protest.

The Department of Immigration confirmed that a “disturbance” had occurred at the site, with chairs, tables, and other objects being thrown at service provider staff.

But detainees are accusing the guards of violent behaviour, claiming that they had punched children and thrown rocks and chairs. Two detainees are currently receiving medical treatment.

Addressing these claims, the department denies that any children or women were assaulted during the incident, stating that the event had quickly “de-escalated”.

As tensions in Nauru simmer, asylum seekers in Australia’s other immigration centre on Manus Island were told they would either be resettled or deported.

After more than three years since the camp was re-opened, Papua New Guinea officials announced that 400 out of the 850 men on the island had been found to be legitimate refugees.

60 men refused claims
At least 60 men were reported to have refused to submit their claims, instead asking PNG authorities to transfer them to the United Nations.

Those who failed to file their claims or received “negative” assessments will face deportation.

Those with “positive” assessments will be resettled in Papa New Guinea as part of Australia’s Regional Resettlement Arrangement, otherwise known as the “PNG solution”.

Shrouded with reports of rape and abuse, conditions on both Nauru and Manus Island have long been heavily criticised.

Columnist and founder of refugee awareness initiative Wage Peace NZ Tracey Barnett insists that Australia is failing its human rights obligations.

“I would argue these centres are illegal and I would also argue they are terribly inhumane. Unfortuantely, Australia has seen fit to essentially sell their human rights obligations to poorer countries who need the cash.”

“I would argue that they are in essence trading human lives in the people trading business themselves. Although Australia has tried to stop the boats in Operation Sovereign Borders, the irony is that they’ve become people traffickers themselves.”

‘Justifiable’ Australian view
But University of Auckland’s foreign policy analyst Professor Steven Hoadley says that from Australia’s point-of-view, it’s off-shore detention centres are justifiable.

“The Australian government doesn’t think they’re doing anything wrong. They assert that the asylum seekers are being treated in a humane fashion and they can go back to where they came from at any time.

“The Australian government will actually pay their airfare and put $5000 in their pocket and send them off with a friendly smile. So they’re not actually incarcerated.”

Late last year, the government of Nauru banned all media from reporting from the island state, prompting plenty of concern from rights groups.

Barnett called the ban “a terrible shame” while also criticising Australia’s Border Force Act which severely restricts the freedom of those working in detention centres.

Passed by the Australian Federal Parliament in 2015 with bipartisan support, the Act means that government-contracted staff can face up to two years in prison for speaking to media about conditions in facilities.

In February, the Australian High Court upheld the country’s right to detain asylum seekers off-shore. But for Refugee Action Coalition (RAC) spokesperson Ian Rintoul, detention centres in Nauru and Manus Island breach international law.

“According to Australian law, the off-shore processing arrangements are legal. But it’s very clear that it violates both the spirit and the letter of the refugee convention.”

“We think the situation should go back prior to 1992 when mandatory detention was introduced. We want to see an end to off-shore processing regimes.”

Cambodian programme ‘failure’
Controversy has also surrounded Australia’s resettlement policies for legitimate refugees.

In 2013, then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd announced that no asylum seekers arriving by boat would be resettled as refugees within Australia. Instead, they would be resettled in Cambodia or PNG.

However, it was recently revealed that of the five refugees that had been voluntarily resettled in Cambodia in 2015, only two now remained in the country with the Cambodian government deeming the programme “a failure”.

With millions of dollars spent on the programme, Barnett is among the many critics of the so-called “Cambodia solution”.

“They offered I believe $55 million to resettle any of the refugees whose cases had been decided in Nauru, and what Cambodia did was it put one proviso on that deal, and the proviso was that the refugee had to want to come to Cambodia.”

“So far, only four or five have taken up that offer. So if you divide that by $55 million, that’s a very expensive price tag indeed for what is essentially a failed policy.”

However, a spokesperson for the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), Joe Lowry, whose organisation has been involved in the resettlement programme, says that regardless of the number of those who resettle, some costs are fixed while others are not.

“There are certain costs that have to be paid out whether or not one person comes from Nauru or a thousand come. Things like accommodation, language lessons, teachers, and utilities.”

Vulnerable migrants
He says that despite criticism, the IOM’s decision to involve themselves in the programme was not taken lightly.

“We took the decision that it was best for vulnerable migrants to get off Nauru if they wanted to leave and be in Cambodia. It took us as an organisation about six months to come to that decision. It wasn’t something we did lightly. “

With the general election likely to be held in Australia by mid-year, focus has shifted to the two major political parties.

Professor Hoadley believes little will change following the upcoming election, and says there is broad agreement among politicians about the country’s approach to dealing with asylum seekers.

“There’s definitely a consensus in Canberra among the political elite. When Labour was in office, they reinstituted the Pacific solution, while the current Coalition government is perhaps slightly more robust.

“They created a special Navy task force with a general in charge of it, which is a little bit higher profile, but it’s something that the Navy had been doing for over a decade under both political parties as they alternated in power.”

Rintoul takes a different view, and says that visible differences have started to emerge.

“I think there’s growing disquiet between the Labour party and the Coalition. Labour has been willing to make more critical comments about the slowness of processing.

“Those kinds of issues have similarly become issues inside the Coalition which is an increasing indication that there are serious differences of opinion inside the Coalition as to what policies can be implemented.”

Jihee Junn is a postgraduate journalism student at Auckland University of Technology and is on the Pacific Media Centre’s 2016 Asia-Pacific Journalism Studies course.

• Human rights and media forum in Fiji