The logbook of presidential flights in Indonesia reveals an unusual pattern — from the Merdeka Palace to the Land of the Bird of Paradise.

By 2023, then President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo had set foot in Papua at least 17 times — a record in the republic’s history, surpassing the total visits of all previous presidents combined.

Each touchdown of the presidential plane on the land of Papua or at the new airports he inaugurated was more than just a working visit. It was a statement of presence as a political message: Papua is no longer marginalised; it exists on Indonesia’s main political map.

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Yet, behind the roar of the presidential plane and the welcoming traditional dances, lies a critical question: Has the physical presence of a national leader, accompanied by the rumble of massive infrastructure projects, touched the core issues of Papua?

Or has it merely become a grand symbol of integration, while social fractures, injustice, and sorrow continue to flow?

This analysis evaluates the multifaceted impact of President Jokowi’s dozen plus visits and draw crucial lessons for the new administration of President Prabowo Subianto and Vice-President Gibran Rakabuming Raka (Jokowi’s Son) in weaving a more just and sustainable Papuan policy.

The multidimensional impact of Jokowi’s visits
From a national political perspective, the frequency of President Jokowi’s visits to Papua, was a smart and unprecedented political communication strategy. Each landing in the Melanesian land has not merely been a routine agenda but a powerful symbolic political performance.

Handshakes with tribal chiefs, meetings with traditional leaders in public arenas, and speeches amid crowds function as direct counter-narratives to long-standing issues of marginalisation and separatism.

This physical presidential presence is an undeniable visual declaration: Papua is an inseparable part of Indonesia, and the nation’s highest leader is consistently present there.

This presence serves as a potent tool of state legitimacy, shortening the psychological distance between the centre of power in Jakarta and the easternmost Melanesian region, while demonstrating the intended political commitment. However, beneath this symbolism, the legitimacy built through physical presence is temporary if not supported by real structural change.

The critical question often raised by the community, especially Indigenous Papuans (OAP), is simple yet fundamental: “After the president’s planes and helicopters leave and the protocol frenzy subsides, what has truly changed for our lives?”

The narrative of integration through presence and physical development often clashes with demands for self-determination and historical grievances still alive among indigenous Papuans, as reflected in the ongoing armed conflict in the Central Highlands, indicating that this approach has not fully addressed the deep-seated roots of dissatisfaction.

The most visible legacy of the Jokowi era in Papua is none other than the infrastructure revolution — thousands of kilometres of the Trans-Papua Road cutting through wilderness and remote mountains, the magnificent Youtefa Bridge in Jayapura, and airport modernisations like Ewer Airport in Asmat, Wamena Airport, and the construction of the trans-Wamena-Jayapura road, Wamena-Nduga road, and other physical developments.

The government’s logic is that connectivity is an absolute prerequisite for growth. With good roads, the price of necessities in the interior is expected to drop, tourism can develop, and public services like health and education can become faster and more equitable.

Data from the Ministry of Public Works and Housing indeed records significant accessibility improvements. However, behind this physical progress, reports from organisations like the Pusaka Foundation and Greenpeace Indonesia warn of massive and often overlooked ecological impacts.

The opening of certain segments of the Trans-Papua Road is judged to accelerate deforestation, threaten Papua’s unique biodiversity, and disrupt watershed areas.

More profoundly, the issue of community involvement and consent in land acquisition processes often becomes a source of new conflict, sparking tension. As Indonesian human rights activist Usman Hamid has stated, infrastructure development is like a double-edged sword: on one side, it opens isolation and shortens distances, but on the other, it paradoxically erodes customary land rights, damages the environment that is the source of their cultural life and subsistence, and ironically, is enjoyed more by new settlers with greater capital and networks.

On the socio-economic level, the government vigorously distributed various social assistance programmes such as the Indonesia Health Card (KIS), Indonesia Smart Card (KIP), and various forms of Direct Cash Assistance (BLT).

These affirmative policies aim directly at catching up on welfare gaps and, statistically, have succeeded in reducing poverty rates in cities like Jayapura, although they remain the highest nationally. Sectors like Youtefa Bay tourism also show rapid growth. However, the economic growth created is often enclave-like and not inclusive.

Maria, a small business owner in Jayapura, illustrates this reality — large infrastructure projects are handled by contractors from outside Papua, hotels and medium-scale businesses are often owned by non-Papuan investors, while local SMEs struggle to compete due to limited access to capital, training, and marketing networks.

The structural gap between OAP and non-Papuans in ownership of means of production and access to quality job opportunities remains wide. Consequently, many Papuan sons and daughters only become manual labourers or contract workers on the grand projects building their ancestral land, an irony that deepens the sense of injustice.

In the socio-cultural realm, President Jokowi’s presence, often adorned with Papuan cultural ornaments and humbly participating in traditional dances, was a powerful form of symbolic recognition. This gesture sent a national message that Papuan culture is respected and valued at the highest state level.

However, this symbolic recognition on the political stage often does not align with the daily reality in Papua. The late Papuan peace figure, Father Neles Tebay, once described that in Papuan cities, “two worlds” often coexist but do not integrate: the modern world of migrants dominating the formal sector and modern economy, and the world of indigenous communities, often marginalised in culturally insensitive development processes.

Ethnic-tinged horizontal conflicts that have occurred, such as in Jayapura and Mimika, are clear indicators of how fragile social harmony is and how deep the unresolved socio-cultural gap remains.

The darkest and most challenging point of this entire development narrative lies in human rights issues and the unending armed conflict. Although presidential visits often include a conflict resolution agenda, incidents of human rights violations and armed clashes between security forces and the TPNPB (West Papua National Liberation Army) continue to recur, with unarmed civilians often becoming trapped victims, as in the tragedies in Nduga and Intan Jaya highlighted by Komnas HAM and LBH Jakarta.

An approach relying almost solely on physical development, unaccompanied by sincere efforts towards historical reconciliation and fair, transparent law enforcement for past human rights violations, is considered by many in Papua as merely “covering a festering internal wound with a bandage”.

This unresolved historical pain and injustice continues to be the main fuel for resistance and demands for independence, proving that concrete and asphalt roads alone are not enough to build lasting peace and justice felt by all the nation’s children.

Valuable lessons for the Prabowo-Gibran era
The current administration under President Prabowo Subianto and Vice-President Gibran Rakabuming Raka must not continue the Papuan policy with business as usual. The previous administration’s legacy offers a clear roadmap, as well as warnings about dead ends that must be avoided.

Four critical lessons should form the basis for transitioning from symbolic development to substantive, just transformation.

First, policy focus must undergo a paradigm shift from mere physical development towards the holistic empowerment of Papuan people. This means massive investment in quality education with curricula relevant to social contexts and local potential, as well as vocational training that equips Indigenous Papuans with skills to manage the economy on their own land.

Firm and measurable affirmative schemes must be designed to ensure Indigenous Papuans are not merely spectators, but the primary owners and managers of strategic economic sectors, from culture-based tourism and organic agriculture to creative industries.

Without this step, magnificent infrastructure will only become a channel for an extractive economy controlled by outsiders, perpetuating dependency and disparity.

Second, the government must enforce the principle of absolute harmony between development, cultural preservation, and environmental protection. Every major project, especially those touching customary lands and indigenous forest areas, must undergo credible, participatory, and legally binding Environmental and Social-Cultural Impact Assessments (AMDAL & ANDAL).

Development must no longer sacrifice local wisdom and ecosystems that are the soul and identity of Papuan society. Development models imported from Java or Sumatra must be reviewed and replaced with approaches born from dialogue with local ecology and culture, so that progress is not synonymous with environmental destruction and cultural marginalisation.

Third, this new era must open space for conflict resolution through a courageous approach of dialogue and reconciliation. The government needs to initiate inclusive dialogue involving all elements of Papuan society, including pro-independence groups willing to discuss peacefully, to address the roots of historical and structural dissatisfaction.

This complex issue has been comprehensively formulated by the Papua Peace Network. The establishment of an independent and trusted Papua Truth and Reconciliation Commission could be a monumental step to heal past wounds and build a foundation for sustainable peace, recognising that true security is born from justice.

Fourth, Special Autonomy must be revived in its meaning and spirit. A comprehensive evaluation of the implementation of the Special Autonomy Law, along with its trillions of rupiah in fund flows, is a necessity.

These funds must be shifted from physical projects that are often off-target to investments in enhancing the capacity, health, and economy of indigenous Papuans. More importantly, Special Autonomy must be interpreted as a political recognition of the special rights of Indigenous Papuans.

This means strengthening traditional institutions and providing real and decisive participatory space in every strategic decision-making at the provincial and district levels, so that policies are no longer felt as something imposed from Jakarta.

Ultimately, the main challenge for the Prabowo-Gibran administration is to demonstrate that commitment to Papua goes beyond rhetoric and showcase projects. Success will be measured not by the length of roads built, but by the fading of tension, the reduction of disparities, and the rise of self-confidence and economic independence among Indigenous Papuans.

Only by making these four pillars — human empowerment, harmony, dialogue, and living autonomy — the foundation of policy can Papua be truly integrated into the Republic of Indonesia in a dignified and sustainable manner.

A revolutionary approach model
To translate the lessons from the previous era, the current administration requires a radical change in its approach model, moving from a centralised development paradigm towards participatory governance based on Papuan native institutions.

The most revolutionary option is to form a special ministry focused on empowering Indigenous Papuans, inspired by the Ministry of Māori Development in New Zealand.

This ministry is not intended to manage regional administration, but specifically to guarantee the fulfilment of indigenous Papuans’ rights, as mandated in the Special Autonomy Law.

By placing the Governing Body for the Acceleration of Special Autonomy Development in Papua (BP3OKP) and the Papua Special Autonomy Acceleration Executive Committee under it, the government can create centralised, strong, and accountable coordination, thereby avoiding programme overlap and leakage of Special Autonomy funds.

This institutional revolution must be supported by data-based governance and authentic participation. Every policy and fund allocation, especially the massive Special Autonomy funds, must arise from rigorous data studies and in-depth dialogue with the community, rather than just technocratic planning in Jakarta.

Transparency and accountability in fund use must be guaranteed through independent oversight mechanisms that actively involve representatives of traditional councils or institutions, religious institutions, and local NGOs as watchdogs. Only then can the allocated funds truly become an instrument of change, not merely an instrument of expenditure.

Another key pillar is building equal and formal partnerships with Papuan traditional institutions, such as the Papuan Customary Council (DAP) and various stakeholders. These institutions are not merely ceremonial objects but must be recognised as strategic government partners in every stage of development, from planning and implementation to evaluation.

As socio-cultural anchors, understanding the pulse and real needs of the community, their involvement can prevent social conflict and ensure development programmes align with local wisdom and customary rights.

Furthermore, meaningful decentralisation becomes a prerequisite for success. Local governments in Papua must be given substantive authority and massive capacity building to independently manage natural resources and public services.

Moreover, the development approach must start from the grassroots, making participatory development at the village level the standard method. This method ensures that community aspirations are heard directly and the projects implemented truly address their priority needs, not merely pursuing physical targets.

Ultimately, this approach aims to reverse the traditional relationship between the central government and local governments in Papua. From a relationship that has so far seemed patron-client, to a partnership based on the sovereignty of indigenous communities and substantive justice.

Thus, development is no longer felt as something given from above, but something built together from below, creating a sense of ownership and sustainability that will become the foundation for long-term peace and prosperity in Papua.

Indonesianising in the Papuan Way
Reinterpreting the term “Indonesianising” Papua is a main task for the current administration. This concept must no longer be interpreted as an assimilation process erasing distinctive identity, but must transform into an integration that respects uniqueness.

True integration is not homogenisation, but an effort to embrace diversity as a strength. In this context, Indonesia is not a single mould, but a mosaic that gains its beauty precisely from the differences of each piece. For this, a multidimensional approach grounded in four main pillars is required.

First, in the field of education, the national curriculum must become more flexible and inclusive. Enrichment with local content — such as the history and wisdom of Papuan tribes, local languages, and inherited ecological wisdom — should not be merely supplementary, but the core of the learning process.

Schools must become places where Papuan children are proud of their identity while mastering global competencies. Second, in the field of the economy, self-reliance must be built on local strengths.

Easily accessible micro-financing systems, entrepreneurship training, and strong marketing support for flagship products like Wamena arabica coffee, sago, matoa, or high-value marine products will create a sovereign economy that empowers, rather than displaces, the indigenous people.

Third, recognition at the legal level is the foundation of justice. Recognition of the customary land rights of indigenous communities in land and natural resource governance must be guaranteed and integrated into national regulations. This is a concrete step to prevent agrarian conflict and ensure development benefits return to the rightful land owners.

Fourth, building intensive cultural dialogue through student, artist, and youth exchange programs between Papua and other regions, or other countries. This direct interaction will break the chain of prejudice, build empathy, and strengthen a true sense of brotherhood as one nation.

Towards a ‘Just Papua’
The legacy from the previous period is ambivalent. On one hand, there is magnificent infrastructure and symbolic integration strengthened through physical presence; on the other, deep disappointment remains due to unbridged gaps and a persistently pulsating conflict.

The Prabowo-Gibran administration now stands at a historical crossroads. The choice is between continuing the visually spectacular yet often elitist “concrete development” model or taking a more winding yet dignified path: namely, the Papuan human empowerment model, which places indigenous Papuans as the primary subject and heir to the future of their own land.

This strategic choice will be fate-determining. It will measure, later at the end of their term, whether presidential and vice-presidential visits to Papua are still met with cold protocol performances, or with new hope and genuine smiles from a people who feel recognised, valued, and empowered.

Ultimately, genuine national integration can only be realised when Indigenous Papuans can stand tall with all their identity and dignity, not as a party being “Indonesianised,” but as fully-fledged Indonesians who also shape the face of the nation.

The future of Papua is not about becoming like others, but about being itself in the embrace of the Bird of Garuda.

Laurens Ikinia is a Papuan lecturer and researcher at the Institute of Pacific Studies, Indonesian Christian University, Jakarta. He is also an honorary member of the Asia Pacific Media Network (APMN) in Aotearoa New Zealand, and an occasional contributor to Asia Pacific Report.

There is an important story to be told behind the story Aotearoa New Zealand’s mainstream media has been reporting on in Kanaky New Caledonia. Beyond the efforts to evacuate New Zealanders lies a struggle for indigenous sovereignty and self-determination we here in Aotearoa can relate to.

Aotearoa is part of a whānau of Pacific nations, interconnected by Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa. The history of Aotearoa is intricately woven into the broader history of the Pacific, where cultural interactions have shaped a rich tapestry over centuries.

The whakapapa connections between tangata whenua and tagata moana inform my political stance and commitment to indigenous rights throughout the Pacific. What happens in one part of the South Pacific ripples across to all of us that call the Pacific Ocean home.

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Since the late 1980s the Kanak independence movement showed itself to be consistently engaging with the Accords with Paris process in their struggle for self-determination.

The Nouméa Accord set out a framework for transferring power to the people of New Caledonia, through a series of referenda. It was only after France moved to unilaterally break with the accords and declare independence off the table that the country returned to a state of unrest.

Civil unrest in and around the capital Nouméa which has continued for two weeks, was prompted by Kanak anger over Paris changing the constitution to open up electoral rolls in its “overseas territory” in a way that effectively dilutes the voting power of the indigenous people.

Coming after the confused end of the Nouméa Accord in 2021, which left New Caledonia’s self-determination path clouded with uncertainty, it was inevitable that there would be trouble.

Flew halfway across world
That France’s President Emmanuel Macron flew across the world to Noumea last week for one day of talks in a bid to end the civil unrest underlines the seriousness of the crisis.

But while the deployment of more French security forces to the territory may have succeeded in quelling the worst of the unrest for now, Macron’s visit was unsuccessful because he failed to commit to pulling back on the electoral changes or to signal a meaningful way forward on independence for New Caledonia.

Paris’ tone-deafness to the Kanaks’ concerns was evident in its refusal to postpone the last of the three referendums under the Nouméa Accord during the pandemic, when the indigenous Melanesians boycotted the poll because it was a time of mourning in their communities. Kanaks consider that last referendum to have no legitimacy.

But Macron’s government has simply cast aside the accord process to move ahead unilaterally with a new statute for New Caledonia.

As the Kanaky Aotearoa Solidarity group said in a letter to the French Ambassador in Wellington this week, “it is regrettable that France’s decision to obstruct the legitimate aspirations of the Kanak people to their right to self-determination has led to such destruction and loss of life”.

Why should New Zealand care about the crisis? New Caledonia is practically Aotearoa’s next door neighbour — a three-hour flight from Auckland. Natural disasters in the Pacific such as cyclones remind us fairly regularly how our country has a leading role to play in the region.

But we can’t take this role for granted, nor choose to look the other way because our “ally“ France has it under control. And we certainly shouldn’t ignore the roots of a crisis in a neighbouring territory where frustrations have boiled over in a pattern that’s not unusual in the Pacific Islands region, and especially Melanesia.

There is an urgent need for regional assistance to drive reconciliation. The Pacific Islands Forum, as the premier regional organisation, must move beyond words and take concrete actions to support the Kanak people.

Biketawa Declaration provides a mechanism
The forum’s Biketawa Declaration provides a mechanism for regional responses to crisis management and conflict resolution. The New Caledonian crisis surely qualifies, although France would be uncomfortable with any forum intervention.

But acting in good faith as a member of the regional family is what Paris signed up to when its territories in the Pacific were granted full forum membership.

Why is a European nation like France still holding on to its colonial possessions in the Pacific? Kanaky New Caledonia, Maohi Nui French Polynesia, and Wallis & Futuna are on the UN list of non-self-governing territories for whom decolonisation is incomplete.

However, in the case of Kanaky, Paris’ determination to hold on is partly due to a desire for global influence and is also, in no small way, linked to the fact that the territory has over 20 percent of the world’s known nickel reserves.

Failing to address the remnants of colonialism will continue to devastate lives and livelihoods across Oceania, as evidenced by the struggles in Bougainville, Māo’hi Nui, West Papua, and Guåhan.

New Zealand should be supportive of an efficient and orderly decolonisation process. We can’t rely on France alone to achieve this, especially as the unrest in New Caledonia is the inevitable result of years of political and social marginalisation of Kanak people.

The struggle of indigenous Kanaks in New Caledonia is part of a broader movement for self-determination and anti-colonialism across the Pacific. By supporting the Kanak people’s self-determination, we honour our shared history and whakapapa connections, advocating for a future where indigenous rights and aspirations are respected and upheld.

Kanaky Au Pouvoir.

Teanau Tuiono is a Green Party MP in Aotearoa New Zealand and its spokesperson for Pasifika peoples. This article was first published by The Press and is republished by Asia Pacific Report with the author’s permission.

The Pacific state of Hawai’i’s House of Representatives has joined the state’s Senate in calling for a ceasefire in Israel’s war on Gaza, becoming the first state to pass such a resolution, reports Hawaii News Now.

In March, the Senate passed a ceasefire resolution with a 24–1 vote, and now the House has passed it on a 48–3 vote last Friday.

However, although the lawmakers are the first to pass a ceasefire resolution, reports have quoted the state legislature’s Public Access Room as saying it “does not have the force and effect of law”.

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Nor does it need a signature from the governor.

According to the resolution, the lawmakers are pushing for President Joe Biden’s administration to call for an immediate and permanent ceasefire.

The Hawai’i lawmakers are also demanding that the administration “facilitate the de-escalation of hostilities to end the current violence, promptly send and facilitate the entry of humanitarian assistance into Gaza, including fuel, food, water, and medical supplies, and begin negotiations for lasting peace.”

President Biden has previously called for a ceasefire in Gaza, but there did not appear to be a contingency plan should negotiations seeking a ceasefire fail, according to The Washington Post.

Since Israel’s war on Gaza began on October 7, more than 34,000 people have been killed in the Gaza Strip by strikes from Israel, and 77,143 have been wounded.

US overthrew Hawai’ian kingdom
Tensions in the region go to at least the Nakba in 1948 when an estimated 750,000 Palestinians were expelled from their land and illegal Israeli settlements began.

Given Hawai’i’s history of American businessmen overthrowing the indigenous Hawai’ian kingdom with the support of US military forces in 1893, pro-Palestinian advocates have pointed out that Hawai’i has a key connection to the conflict in Gaza.

Fatima Abed, founder of Rise for Palestine, is both Palestinian and Puerto Rican, and has a family member who is based in Gaza.

She told The Huffington Post: “People in Hawai’i, especially Native Hawai’ians, are determined on this issue because it’s very jarring to know that our tax dollars are going to fund the genocide of another colonised people while, here at home, our government budgets aren’t covering the basic needs of the people.”

Abed said that the island of Lahaina and its people had not been sufficiently cared for after the wildfires last August.

“Native Hawai’ians across the state have been underserved for decades. The people of Hawai’i see that money being sent overseas to hurt people instead of helping here, and it makes no sense.

“From the river to the sea, all of our people will be free.”

A man on Saipan has burned the official CNMI flag in protest, saying that it does not truly represent Indigenous people of the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas (CNMI).

A public video of the flag-burning was posted by Raymond Quitugua that has stirred various negative reactions within the CNMI community.

Under the CNMI’s constitution, flag-burning is prohibited and those found to have breached the law can face up to one year in jail or fined up to US$500 (NZ$835).

• READ MORE: The CNMI flag burning, ‘We want peace’

Quitugua said the true CNMI flag was the initial design presented back in the 1970s that featured a latte stone with a star in the front of it on a field of blue.

The current official flag of the US territory consists of a rectangular field of blue, a white star in the center, superimposed on a gray latte stone, surrounded by the traditional Carolinian mwáár.

But Quitugua claims the official flag does not accurately represent the Indigenous people of the CNMI, which he believes is the Chamorro community (not including the Carolinian community).

He added that he burned the flag as a form of protest and he intended to take the issue to court.

Disappointed, insulted
Renowned elder in the CNMI community, Lino Olopai, as well as one of the many champions of the CNMI’s flag, expressed disappointment and insulted by Quitugua’s actions and said that warranted jail time.

Olopai said the basis of the current CNMI flag was indeed the Chamorro flag, but a group of Carolinians that included himself fought to have a mwáár on the flag as a representation of the Carolinian community as they believed they, too, were indigenous people of the CNMI.

He added that Quitugua’s flag-burning is a form of discrimination against the Carolinian community, which like the Chamorros, are the two recognised Indigenous people of the CNMI.

“Stop the racism. We are all part of the Pacific islands,” Olopai said.

“We should maintain peaceful attitude and spirit with one another. Not just between the Chamorro and Carolinian communities, but with other communities across the Pacific,” he said.

In a letter to the editor of the Saipan Tribune, former lawmaker Luis John Castro also criticised Quitugua’s flag-burning, saying there were other more constructive forms of protest.

“If something such as the flag does not jive with your beliefs, OK you don’t have to agree,” he said, adding “but there are many ways to resolve differences other than desecrating a cultural symbol”.

“Conduct an online poll, call into [a radio station] and make it a topic of discussion. Hold a town hall meeting with other concerned citizens, ask a legislator to draft bills or initiative to address its look, or file a certified question with the courts to get an answer to your concerns.

“Why do something like burn the flag? To seek attention? To get likes and shares on Facebook? To incite civil unrest?” he wrote.

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

The United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP) is like a big house or boat, says Reverend Dr Ambirek G. Socratez Yoman, owned by the people and the nation of West Papua.

Upon this big boat rests prayers, hopes, longings, struggles, dreams, and ideals with a profound sense of justice, peace, and dignity.

According to Reverend Dr Yoman, the ULMWP is a symbol of unity among the Papuan people. It is a representation of their collective desires and relentless pursuit of justice.

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Therefore, West Papuans living in the Land of West Papua, including those living abroad, all pray, hope, and support ULMWP. It is the responsibility of the nation of West Papua and its people to safeguard, maintain, care for, and protect ULMWP as their common home.

Because ULMWP provides a collective shelter for many tears, blood droplets, bones, and the suffering of West Papua.

Reverend Dr Yoman says in his message to me that I have translated that the ULMWP carries the spirits of our ancestors, fallen heroes, and comrades. The ULMWP is the home of their spirits, and he wrote some of their names as follows:

1. Johan Ariks
2. Lodewijk Mandacan
3. Barens Mandacan
4. Ferry Awom
5. Permenas Awom
6. Aser Demotekay
7. Bernandus Tanggahma
8. Seth Jafet Rumkorem
9. Jacob Prai
10. Herman Womsiwor
11. Markus Kaisiepo
12. Eliezer Bonay
13. Nicolaas Jouwe
14. F. Torrey,
15. Nicolass Tanggahma
16. Dick Kereway
17. Melky Solossa
18. Samuel Asmuruf
19. Mapia Mote
20. James Nyaro
21. Lambert Wakur
22. S.B. Hindom,
23. Louis Wajoi
24. Tadius Yogi
25. Martin Tabu
26. Arnold Clemens Ap
27. Eduard Mofu
28. Willem Onde
29. Moses Weror
30. Clemens Runaweri
31. Andy Ayamiseba
32. John Octo Ondowame
33. Thomas Wapay Wanggai
34. Wim Zonggonauw
35. Yawan Wayeni
36. Kelly Kwalik
37. Justin Morip
38. Beatrix Watofa
39. Agus Alue Alua
40. Frans Wospakrik
41. Theodorus Hiyo Eluay
42. Aristotle Masoka
43. Tom Beanal
44. Neles Tebay
45. Mako Tabuni
46. Leoni Tanggahma
47. Samuel Filep Karma
48. Prisila Jakadewa
49. Babarina Ikari
50. Vonny Jakadewa
51. Mery Yarona and Reny Jakadewa (the courageous female spirits who raised the Morning Star flag at the Governor’s Office on August 4, 1980).
52. Also, the spirit of Josephin Gewab/Rumawak, the tailor who created the Morning Star flag.

In honour of these fallen Papuan heroes and leaders, Reverend Yoman says:

“It is you, the young generation, who carry forward the baton left by the names and spirits of these fighters, as well as the hundreds and thousands of others who have not been named.

“If there is someone who fights and opposes the political platform of the ULMWP, that individual is questionable and is damaging the big house and the big boat, which contains the tears, blood, bones, and suffering of the People and Nation of Papua as well as the spirits of our ancestors and leaders.

“The eyes and faces of the LORD, the spirits of our ancestors, and the spirits of our leaders who have passed on always guard, protect, and nurture the honest, humble, and respectful members of the ULMWP.”

By this message, he urges the ULMWP to never forget these names and stand bravely with courage on their shoulders.

Indonesian delegation walks out of MSG leaders summit before West Papuan leader Benny Wenda’s speech. pic.twitter.com/qW0YMxnrVk

— Ben Bohane (@ben_bohane) August 23, 2023

Reverend Yoman’s letter: a brief comment
Indigenous people view life as a system of interconnected relationships between beings, spirits, deities, humans, animals, plants, and the celestial heavens.

Their holistic cosmology is held together by this interconnectedness — a sacred passageway to multidimensional realities. Although Indigenous cosmologies differ, most, if not all, subscribe to the tenet of interconnectedness.

Having a strong connection to one’s ancestors’ roots is an integral part of being Indigenous.

During times of need, rituals, and grief, ancestral and fallen heroes are mentioned and invoked. A specific ancestor’s name may be mentioned in response to a specific situation, such as grief, conflict, sacred ceremonies, or rituals.

This helps to connect modern generations to the ancestral spirits, providing a source of strength and guidance while honouring the legacy of those who have gone before.

Those who adhere to original cultural values understand why Reverend Dr Yoman mentioned some of these Papuans.

In the chronicle of Papuans’ liberation story, these names are mentioned.

There were some who suffered martyrdom, some who became traitors, who died of old age, and others who died from disease. However, they all have stories connected to West Papua’s Liberation.

Mentioning these names is intended to invoke a specific energy within the consciousness of West Papua’s independence leaders. Inviting the new generation of fighters to take up the cause of their fallen comrades.

It is important to encourage Papuans to see the greater picture of a nation’s liberation struggle — which spans generations. Calling on them to revive their minds, spirits, and bodies through the spirit of fallen Papuans and the spirit of Divine during times of turmoil.

Who is Rev Dr Yoman and why did he mention these names?
Most people are familiar with Reverend Dr Yoman. He is everywhere — on television, on the news, known in churches, involved in human rights activism, mentioned in public speeches, appears in seminars, and lectures and so on.

He is well known, or at least heard of, by the Papuan and Indonesian communities, as well as the broader community.

Reverend Dr Socratez Sofyan Yoman is a public figure, leader, academic, church leader, prolific writer, and media commentator. He is a descendant of the Lani people of Papua.

He is one of the seeds of the civilisation project launched by Christian missionaries in the Highlands between the 1930s and 1960s. His life has been shaped by four significant events in his homeland — the teachings of his elders, the arrival of Christianity, Indonesian invasions, and the resistance of the Papuans.

He rose to become an exceptionally accomplished thinker, speaker, writer, and critic of injustice, oppression, and upholds humanity’s values as taught by the Judeo-Christian worldview within these collusions of worlds.

Growing up among Lani village elders taught him many sacred teachings of the original ways — centred around Wone’s teachings. This is one of the most important aspects of his story.

Wone is the cornerstone of life for the Lani people. Wone is the principle of life and the foundation for analysing, interpreting, evaluating, debating, understanding, and exchanging life.

As with many other Lani, Papuan, Melanesian, and Indigenous leaders, Wone is the reason for his birth, survival, and leadership. He has thus a deep sense of duty and responsibility to serve and fight for his people, as well as other marginalised and oppressed members of society.

Reverend Dr Yoman stands firmly in his beliefs in the face of grief, tragedies, and death in his ancestral homeland. His commitment is unwavering, as he continually strives to stand up for and protect the rights of those who are most vulnerable and in need of a voice.

Wone has inspired him to lead a life of purpose and integrity, making him a pillar of strength and an example to others. In a dying forest, he becomes the voice of the falling leaves.

Among his greatest contributions to West Papua, Indonesia, and the world, will be his writings. Generations to come will remember his research and writings regarding history and the fate of his people.

West Papua will be high on the agenda at the Melanesian Spearhead Group Leaders’ Summit in Vanuatu this week.

West Papua’s United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP) is also present in Vanuatu. Other factions have arrived and are on their way to witness MSG’s decision on West Papua’s fate as well as their own leaders’ summit.

A feeling of anxiety pervades Reverend Dr Yoman as he prays — prompting him to write this letter as he recognises the many challenges ULMWP faces and warns them that they cannot afford even the slightest misstep.

This is the time inspiring Papuans and the ULWMP leadership must remember their fallen comrades, heroes and ancestors.

Yamin Kogoya is a West Papuan academic who has a Master of Applied Anthropology and Participatory Development from the Australian National University and who contributes to Asia Pacific Report. From the Lani tribe in the Papuan Highlands, he is currently living in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.

• Other Yamin Kogoya articles

“Rebuilding our Melanesia for our future” is the theme chosen by the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG) for their 7th Melanesian Arts and Cultural Festival (MACFEST) this year.

Vanuatu hosted the event in Port Vila, which opened last Wednesday and ends next Monday.

The event was hosted by the MSG, which includes Fiji, New Caledonia’s Front de Libération Nationale Kanak et Socialiste (FLNKS), Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu.

• READ MORE: Other MACFEST and Melanesian culture reports

Aside from the MSG’s official members, West Papua, Maluku and Torres Straits have also been welcomed with their own flags and cultural symbols.

Although Indonesia is an associate member of the MSG, there were no Indonesian flags or cultural symbols to be seen at the festival.

A beautiful array of colours was displayed today in at the official opening of the 7th Melanesian Arts & Culture Festival (MACFEST). #MSG #StorianBloYumi#wanpipolwanrijan #unityindiversity pic.twitter.com/vow2i2M85L

— MSG Secretariat (@MsgSecretariat) July 19, 2023

This action — Indonesian exclusion — alone spoke volumes of the essence and characteristics of what constitutes Melanesian cultures and values.

This event is a significant occasion that occurs every four years among the Melanesian member countries.

The MSG’s website under the Arts and Culture section says:

The Arts and Culture programme is an important pillar in the establishment of the MSG. Under the agreed principles of cooperation among independent states in Melanesia, it was signed in Port Vila on March 14, 1988, and among other things, the MSG commits to the principles of, and holds respect for and promotion of Melanesian cultures, traditions, and values as well as those of other indigenous communities.

MACFESTs

• 1998: The first MACFEST was held in the Solomon Islands with the theme, “One people, many cultures”.
• 2002: Vanuatu hosted the second MACFEST event under the theme, “Preserving peace through sharing of cultural exchange”.
• 2006: “Living cultures, living traditions” was the theme of the third MACFEST event held in Fiji.
• 2010: The fourth MACFEST event was held in New Caledonia with the theme “Our identity lies ahead of us”.
• 2014: Papua New Guinea hosted the fifth MACFEST, with the theme “Celebrating cultural diversity”.
• 2018: The Solomon Islands hosted the sixth edition of MACFEST with the theme “Past recollections, future connections”.
• 2023: Vanuatu is the featured nation in the seventh edition, with the slogan “Rebuilding our Melanesia for our future”.

Imagery, rhetorics, colours and rhythms exhibited in Port Vila is a collective manifestation of the words written on MSG’s website.

There have been welcoming ceremonies united under an atmosphere of warmth, brotherhood, and sisterhood with lots of colourful Melanesian cultural traditions on display.

Images and videos shared on social media, including many official social media accounts, portrayed a spirit of unity, respect, understanding and harmony.

West Papuan flags have also been welcomed and filled the whole event. The Morning Star has shone bright at this event.

The following are some of the images, colours and rhetoric displayed during the opening festive event, as well as the West Papua plight to be accepted into what Papuans themselves echo as the “Melanesian family”.

Wilayah Lapago,14 Juli 2023
“West Papua For Full Membership MSG 2023. pic.twitter.com/ys88iksqa5

— Mully Numa (@mully_numa) July 17, 2023

When stars aligned,
It’s time.
Melanesia has to make a stand to safe West Papua and the entire region. Bring West Papua back to the Melanesian family. pic.twitter.com/ilTZDNlW8Z

— Oridek Ap (@Oridek) July 19, 2023

Wamena – West Papua on 19 July 2023
For West Papuans, July 2023 marks a time when the stars seem to be aligned in one place — Vanuatu. July this year, Vanuatu is to chair the MSG leaders’ summit, hosting the seventh MACFEST, and celebrating its 43rd year of independence. Vanuatu has been a homebase (outside of West Papua) supporting West Papua’s liberation struggle since 1970s.

Throughout West Papua, you will witness spectacular displays of Melanesian colours, flags, and imagery in response to the unfolding events in the MSG and Vanuatu.

Melanesian brethren also displayed incredible support for West Papua’s plight at the MACFEST in Port Vila — a little hope that keeps Papuan spirits high in a world where freedom has been shut for 60 years.

This support fosters a sense of solidarity and offers a glimmer of optimism that one day West Papua will reclaim its sovereignty — the only way to safeguard Melanesian cultures, languages and tradition in West Papua.

Although geographically separated, Vanuatu, West Papua and the rest of Melanesian, are deeply connected emotionally and culturally through the display of symbols, flags, colours, and rhetoric.

Emancipation, expectation, hope, and prayer are high for the MSG’s decision making — decisions that are often marked by “uncertainty”.

A contested and changing Melanesia
The Director-General of MSG, Leonard Louma, said during the opening:

The need to dispel the notion that Melanesian communities only live in Fiji, New Caledonia, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu and acknowledge and include Melanesians that live elsewhere.

I am reminded that there are pockets of descendants of Melanesians in the Micronesian group and the Polynesian group. We should include them, like the black Samoans of Samoa — often referred to as Tama Uli — in future MACFESTs.

In the past, Timor-Leste, Indonesia, Australia, and Taiwan were invited to attend. Let us continue to build on these blocks to make this flagship cultural event of ours even bigger and better in the years to come.

MSG leaders may perceive their involvement in defining and redefining the concept of Melanesia, as well as addressing date postponements and criteria-related matters, as relatively insignificant.

Similarly, for MSG members, their participation in the Melanesian cultural festival could be considered as just one of four events that rotate between them.

For West Papuans, this is an existential issue — between life or death as they face a bleak future under Indonesian colonial settler occupation — in which they are constantly reminded that their ancestral land will soon be seized and occupied by Indonesians if their sovereignty issues do not soon resolve.

The now postponed MSG’s leaders’ summit will soon consider an application proposing that West Papua be included within the group.

Regardless of whether this proposal is accepted by the existing member countries of the MSG, the obvious international pressures that impel this debate, must also prompt us to ask ourselves what it means to be Melanesian.

Decisions around unity?
Does the primacy of maintaining good relations with a powerful country like Indonesia, the West and China supersede Melanesian solidarity, or are we able to transcend these pressures to redefine and “rebuild our common Melanesia for our future”?

The Melanesian people must decide whether we are sufficiently united to support our brothers and sisters in West Papua, or whether our respective cultures are too diverse to be able to resist the charms offered by outsiders to look the other way.

The imminent decision to be made by the MSG leaders in Port Vila will be a crucial one — one that will affect the Melanesian people for generations to come. Does the MSG stand for promoting Melanesian interests, or has it become tempted by the short term promises of the West, China and their Indonesian minions?

What has become of the Melanesian Way — the notion of the holistic and cosmic worldview advocated by Papua New Guinea’s Bernard Narakobi?

The decision to be made in Port Vila will shine a light on the MSG’s own integrity. Does this group exist to help the Melanesian people, or is their real purpose only to help others to subjugate the Melanesian people, cultures and resources?

The task of “Rebuilding our Melanesia for our future” cannot be achieved without directly confronting the predicament faced by West Papua. This issue goes beyond cultural concerns; it is primarily about addressing sovereignty matters.

Only through the restoration of West Papua’s political sovereignty can the survival of the Melanesian people in that region and the preservation of their culture be ensured.

Should the MSG and its member countries continue to ignore this critical issue, “Papuan sovereignty”, one day there will be no true Melanin — the true ontological definition and geographical categorisation of what Melanesia is, (Melanesian) “Black people” represented in any future MACFEST event. It will be Asian-Indonesian.

Either MSG can rebuild Melanesia through re-Melanesianisation or destroy Melanesia through de-Melanesianisation. Melanesian leaders must seriously contemplate this existential question, not confining it solely to the four-year slogan of festival activities.

The decisive political and legal vision of MSG is essential for ensuring that these ancient, timeless, and incredibly diverse traditions and cultures continue to flourish and thrive into the future.

One can hope that, in the future, MSG will have the opportunity to extend invitations to world leaders who advocate peace instead of war, inviting them to Melanesia to learn the art of dance, song, and the enjoyment of our relaxing kava, while embracing and appreciating our rich diversity.

This would be a positive shift from the current situation where MSG leaders may feel obliged to respond to the demands of those who wield power through money and weapons, posing threats to global harmony.

Can the MSG be the answer to the future crisis humanity faces? Or will it serve as a steppingstone for the world’s criminals, thieves, and murders to desecrate our Melanesia?

Yamin Kogoya is a West Papuan academic who has a Master of Applied Anthropology and Participatory Development from the Australian National University and who contributes to Asia Pacific Report. From the Lani tribe in the Papuan Highlands, he is currently living in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.

• Other Yamin Kogoya articles

New Caledonia’s pro-independence FLNKS (Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front)  says the advice of the International Court of Justice is being sought over the contested 2021 referendum on independence from France.

The movement — represented by Roch Wamytan, who is President of New Caledonia’s Congress — told a UN Decolonisation Committee meeting in Bali, Indonesia, that it considered holding the vote violated the Kanaks’ right in their quest for self-determination.

New Caledonia has been on the UN decolonisation list since 1986, and under the terms of the Noumea Accord three referendums on restoring New Caledonia’s full sovereignty were held between 2018 and 2021.

• READ MORE: Other New Caledonia decolonisation reports

The date for the last one was set by Paris but because of the impact of the covid-19 pandemic on the Kanak population, the pro-independence parties asked for the vote to be postponed.

The French government refused to agree to the plea and as a consequence, the pro-independence parties boycotted the poll in protest.

The FLNKS told the Bali meeting that the final referendum went ahead “under pressure from the French state with more than 2000 soldiers deployed and under a hateful and degrading campaign against the Kanaks”.

A total of 57 percent of registered voters stayed away, almost halving the turnout over the preceding referendum in 2020.

Among those who voted, more than 96 percent rejected independence, up from 56 percent the year before.

In view of the low turnout, the FLNKS stated “it is inconceivable that one can consider that a minority determines the future of New Caledonia”.

‘Legal and binding’, says France
However, the French government insists that the vote was legal and binding, being backed by a French court decision which last year threw out a complaint by the customary Kanak Senate, calling for the result to be annulled.

The court found that neither constitutional provisions nor the organic law made the validity of the vote conditional on a minimum turnout.

It added that the year-long mourning declared by the Kanak customary Senate in September 2021 was not such as to affect the sincerity of the vote.

The court also noted that by the time of the referendum on December 12, more than 77 percent of the population was vaccinated.

The anti-independence parties in New Caledonia also consider the referendum outcome as the legitimate outcome despite only a tiny minority of the indigenous Kanak population having voted.

The FLNKS has been pleading for international support to uphold the rights of the indigenous people and in its campaign to have the last referendum annulled.

The Melanesian Spearhead Group said in 2021 that the referendum should not be recognised but the chair of the Pacific Islands Forum Mark Brown, of Cook Islands, did not back the move when asked about it this month, saying the Forum would not “intrude into the domestic matters of countries”.

‘French law has failed the Kanaks’
The statement by the FLNKS to the Bali meeting said that “international bodies are our last resort to safeguard our rights as a colonised people”, adding that French domestic law has failed to give the Kanaks such protection.

It pleaded for the UN Decolonisation Committee to support the FLNKS in its case at the International Court of Justice.

The FLNKS said the ICJ was established with one of the principal purposes of the United Nations, which is to maintain, by peaceful means and in accordance with international law, peace and security.

It also said he would like to get support for an official request so that the FLNKS can get observer status at the United Nations.

A Kanak leader, Julien Boanemoi, told the gathering the decolonisation process in New Caledonia was at risk of “backtracking”, alleging that France was engaged in a modern version of colonisation.

He said with the French proclamation of the “Indo-Pacific axis”, the Kanak people felt a repeat of the French behaviour of 1946 and 1963 when Paris withdrew the territory from the decolonisation list and stifled the pro-independence Caledonian Union.

Boanemoi said with the lack of neutrality of the administering power France, he wanted to warn the Decolonisation Committee of “the risks of jeopardising stability and peace in New Caledonia”.

Darmanin back in Noumea
On Wednesday, French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin is due in New Caledonia for talks on a new statute for the territory.

Central to his talks with the FLNKS on Friday will be discussions about the roll used for provincial elections.

Darmanin signalled in March that the restricted roll would be opened to more voters, which the FLNKS regards as unacceptable.

Last month, the president of the Caledonian Union, which is the main party within the FLNKS, said there was a risk of there being no more provincial elections if the rolls changed.

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

The New Zealand government has committed $15 million to support Solomon Islands provincial administrations to strengthen climate resilience at the grassroots level.

Deputy Prime Minister Carmel Sepuloni, who is on a three-country Pacific tour, made the announcement in Honiara today, with the funding coming out of the $1.3 billion climate finance commitment for 2022-2025.

The money — guided by the Tuia te Waka a Kiwa, New Zealand’s international climate finance strategy — will go directly into the existing Solomon Islands Provincial Capacity Development Fund that assists with developing climate adaptation plans and managing climate adaptation projects at a local level.

The funding has been made available though the Local Climate Adaptive Living (LoCAL) Facility designed by the United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF).

LoCAL builds on the existing Solomon Islands Provincial Capacity Development Fund by providing performance-based climate resilience grants to cover costs of adapting to climate change — particularly small projects at a local level that reach the people who need help the most, such as women and youth.

NZ’s Deputy Prime Minister Hon @CarmelSepuloni is leading the first mission to the Pacific since 2019, landing in Solomon Islands on Sunday evening.

The delegation is welcomed by Solomon Island’s Foreign Minister Manele and traditional performances. @RNZPacific pic.twitter.com/iozhdGfjSa

— Susana Suisuiki (@SanaSuisuikiRNZ) April 16, 2023

Sepuloni said effective climate actions requires partnerships.

“Climate change is a global challenge that requires global and collective action,” Sepuloni said.

“That’s why we’re stepping up to provide climate finance to support provincial governments to build climate resilience at the grassroots.

“At the heart of this mission and our shared focus as a Pacific region, is the importance of supporting local and indigenous-led solutions to support effective climate action.”

She said the support delivered on that and doubled down on Aotearoa’s focus to tackle the threat of climate change in the Pacific.

Empowering provincial governments to integrate climate change resilience and adaptation into their planning, as well as accessing additional sources of climate finance to respond and adapt to climate change at the community-level is a priority of the Solomon Islands government, Sepuloni said.

She said the support was also an immensely practical investment in building climate resilience in the region.

Climate Change Minister James Shaw said most Solomon Islanders lived in rural, low-lying coastal areas of the country, where provincial governments, churches and other community groups deliver essential services.

“These communities are among those on the frontline of the climate crisis – but are those who have contributed the least to climate change,” Shaw said.

He said the support package was aimed at reaffirming New Zealand’s efforts to ensuring the response to the climate crisis is inclusive and supportive of local leadership and support communities’ right across Solomon Islands.

“We also welcome the opportunity this creates for others to invest in Solomon Islands provincial government programmes to respond to climate change,” he added.

Meeting with PM Sogavare
Sepuloni’s first stop on the Pacific tour marks the return of the government’s regional visits which, prior to the pandemic, had been undertaken annually.

She was scheduled to meet with Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare and Foreign Minister Jeremiah Manele later today.

Her delegation of New Zealand MPs, government officials, community leaders and journalists will also attend various presentations and events led by the local community with a focus on early childhood education, climate change, youth development and labour mobility.

Over the course of the week, Sepuloni will also be visiting Fiji and Tonga.

These annual Pacific missions are described as an integral part of the New Zealand government’s commitment to maintaining its relationship with Pacific Island countries through consultation and helping them respond to ongoing challenges.

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

The aims of Peace Action: Struggles for a Decolonised and Demilitarised Oceania and East Asia as stated by the editor, Valerie Morse, are “to make visible interconnections between social struggles separated by the vast expanse of Te Moana Nui-A-Kiwi [the Pacific Ocean] … to inspire, to enrage and to educate, but most of all, to motivate people to action” (p. 11).

It is an opportunity to learn from the activists involved in these struggles. Published by the Left of the Equator Press, there are plenty of clues to the radical ideas presented. The frontispiece points out that the publisher is anti-copyright, and the book is “not able to be reproduced for the purpose of profit”, is printed on 100 percent “post consumer recycled paper”, and “bound with a hatred for the State and Capital infused in every page”.

By their nature, activists take action and do things rather than just speak or write about things, as is the academic tradition, so this is an important, unique, and rare opportunity to learn from their insights, knowledge, and experience.

• READ MORE: Other Asia Pacific Report reviews

Twenty-three contributors representing some of the diverse Peoples of Aotearoa, Australia, China, Hawaii, Japan, New Caledonia, Samoa, Tahiti, Tokelau, Tonga, and West Papua offer 13 written chapters, plus poetry, artworks, and a photo essay. The range of topics is extensive too, including the history of the Crusades and the doctrine of discovery, anti-militarist and anti-imperialist movements, land reclamation movements, nuclear resistance and anti-racist movements, solidarity and allyship.

Both passion and ethics are evident in the stories about involvement in decolonised movements that are “situated in their relevant Indigenous practice” and anti-militarist movements that “actively practice peace making” (p. 11).

While their activism is unquestioned, the contributors come with other impressive credentials. Not only do they actively put into practice their strong values, but many are also researchers and scholars. Dr Pounamu Jade Aikman (Ngāti Maniapoto, Ngāti Apakura, Ngāti Wairere, Tainui, Ngāti Awa, Ngāi Te Rangi, Te Arawa and Ngāti Tarāwhai) holds a Fulbright Scholarship from Harvard University. Mengzhu Fu (a 1.5 generation Tauiwi Chinese member of Asians Supporting Tino Rangatiratanga) is doing their PhD research on Indigenous struggles in Aotearoa and Canada-occupied Turtle Islands. Kyle Kajihiro lectures at the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa and is a board member of Hawai’i Peace and Justice. Yamin Kogoya is a West Papuan academic from the Yikwa-Kogoya clan of the Lani tribe in the Papuan Highlands. Ena Manuireva is an academic and writer who represents the Mā’ohi Nui people of Tahiti. Dr Jae-Eun Noh and Dr Joon-Shik Shin are Korean researchers in Australian universities. Dr Rebekah Jaung, a health researcher, is involved in Korean New Zealanders for a Better Future.

Several of the authors are working as investigators on the prestigious Marsden project entitled “Matiki Mai Te Hiaroa: #ProtectIhumātao”, a recent successful campaign to reclaim Māori land. These include Professor Jenny Bol Jun Lee-Morgan (Waikato, Ngāti Mahuta and Te Ahiwaru), Frances Hancock (Irish Pākehā), Carwyn Jones (Ngāti Kahungunu), Qiane Matata-Sipu (Te Waiohua ki te Ahiwaru me te Ākitai, Waikato Ngāpuhi and Ngāti Pikiao), and Pania Newton (Ngāpuhi, Waikato, Ngāti Mahuta and Ngāti Maniapoto) who is co-founder and spokesperson for the SOUL/#ProtectIhumātao campaign.

Others work for climate justice, peace, Indigenous, social justice organisations, and community groups. Jungmin Choi coordinates nonviolence training at World Without War, a South Korean antimilitarist organisation based in Seoul. Mizuki Nakamura, a member of One Love Takae coordinates alternative peace tours in Japan. Tuhi-Ao Bailey (Ngāti Mutunga, Te Ātiawa and Taranaki) is chair of the Parihaka Papakāinga Trust and co-founder of Climate Justice Taranaki.

Zelda Grimshaw, an artist and activist, helped coordinate the Disrupt Land Forces campaign at a major arts fair in Brisbane. Arama Rata (Ngāruhine, Taranaki and Ngāti Maniapoto) is a researcher for WERO (Working to End Racial Oppression) and Te Kaunoti Hikahika.

Some are independent writers and artists. Emalani Case is a writer, teacher and aloha ‘āina from Waimea Hawai’i. Tony Fala (who has Tokelauan, Palagi, Samoan, and Tongan ancestry) engages with urban Pacific communities in Tāmaki Makaurau. Marylou Mahe is a decolonial feminist artist from Haouaïlou in the Kanak country of Ajë-Arhö. Tina Ngata (Ngäti Porou) is a researcher, author and an advocate for environmental Indigenous and human rights.

Jos Wheeler is a director of photography for film and television in Aotearoa.

Background analysis for this focus on Te Moana Nui A Kiwi, provides information about the concepts of imperial masculinity, infection, ideas from European maritime law Mare Liberum, that saw the sea as belonging to everyone. These ideas steered colonisation and placed shackles, both figuratively and physically, on Indigenous Peoples around the world.

In the 17th century, Japan occupied the country of Okinawa, now also used as a training base by the US military. European “explorers” had been given “missions” in the 18th century that included converting the people to Christianity and locating useful and profitable resources in far-flung countries such as Aotearoa, Australia, New Caledonia and Tahiti.

In the 19th century, Hawai’i was subject to US imperialism and militarisation.

In the 20th century, Western countries were “liberating other nations” and dividing them up between them, such as the US “liberation” of South Korea from Japanese colonial rule. The Dutch prepared West Papua for independence 1960s after colonisation, but a subsequent Indonesian military invasion left the country in a worse predicament.

However, the resistance from the Indigenous Peoples has been evident from the beginnings of imperialist invasions and militarisation of the Pacific, despite the arbitrary violence that accompanied these. Resistance continues, as the contributors to Peace Action demonstrate, and the contributions reveal the very many faces and facets of non-violent resistance that works towards an eventual peace with justice.

Resistance has included education, support to help self-sufficiency, medical and legal support, conscientious objection, human rights advocacy, occupation of land, coordinating media coverage, visiting sites of significance, being the voice of the movement, petitions, research, writing, organising and joining peaceful marches, coordinating solidarity groups, making submissions, producing newsletter and community newspapers, relating stories, art exhibitions and installations, visiting churches, schools, universities, conferences, engaging with politicians, exploiting and creating digital platforms, fundraising, putting out calls for donations and hospitality, selling T-shirts and tote bags, awareness-raising events, hosting visitors, making and serving food, bearing witness, musical performances, photographic exhibitions, film screenings, songs on CDs.

In order to mobilise people, activists have been involved in political engagement, public education, multimedia engagement, legal action, protests, rallies, marches, land and military site occupations, disruption of events, producing food from the land, negotiating treaties and settlements, cultural revitalisation, community networking and voluntary work, local and international solidarity, talanoa, open discussions, radical history teaching, printmaking workshops, vigils, dance parties, mobile kitchens, parades, first aid, building governance capacity, sharing histories, increasing medical knowledge.

Activist have been prompted to act because of anger, disgust, and fear. The oppressors are likened to big waves, to large octopuses (interestingly also used in racist cartoons to depict Chinese immigrants to Aotearoa), to giants, to a virus, slavers, polluters, destroyers, exploiters, thieves, rapists, mass murderers, war criminals, war profiteers, white supremacists, racists, brutal genocide, ruthless killers, subjugators, fearmongers, demonisers, narcissistic sociopaths, and torturers.

The resisters often try to “find beauty in the struggle” (Case, p. 70), using imagery of flowers and trees, love, dancing, song, braiding fibers or leis, dolphins, shark deities, flourishing food baskets, fertile gardens, pristine forests, sacred valleys, mother earth, seashells, candlelight, rainbows, rays of the rising sun, friendship, alliance, partners, majestic lowland forests, ploughs, watering seeds, and harvesting crops.

Collaboration in resistance requires dignity, respect, integrity, providing safe spaces, honesty, openness, hard work without complaint, learning, cultural and spiritual awareness. The importance of coordination, cooperation and commitment are emphasised.

And readers are made aware of the sustained energy that is needed to follow through on actions.

The aim of Peace Action is to inspire, enrage, educate and motivate. These chapters will appeal mostly to those already convinced, and this is deliberately so.

In these narratives, images we have guidance as to what is needed to be an activist. We admire the courage and bravery, we are educated into the multitude of activities that can be undertaken, and the immense amount of work in planning and sustaining action.

This can serve as a handbook, providing plans of action to follow. Richness and creativity are provided in the fascinating and informative narratives, storytelling, and illustrations.

I find it difficult to criticise because its goal is clear, there is no pretence that it is something else, and it achieves what it sets out to do. It remains to be seen whether peace action will follow. But that will be up to the readers.

• Peace Action: Struggles for a Decolonised and Demilitarised Oceania and East Asia, edited by Valerie Morse. Te Whanganui-A-Tara (Wellington): Left of the Equator Press, 2022, 178 pages. NZ$25.99. ISBN 9780473634452.

Dr Heather Devere is former director of practice, National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Otago, and chair of the Asia Pacific Media Network (APMN). This review is published in collaboration with Pacific Journalism Review.

RNZ Pacific

The headquarters of the Malvatumauri of National Council of Chiefs of Vanuatu has burned down.

The fire broke out about 1am Monday local time.

Police are investigating the cause of the fire in Port Vila.

The Malvatumauri nakamal is a custom parliament for all Vanuatu’s chiefs.

“This nakamal was the identity of the people of Vanuatu. It symbolised the unity of the custom of the Vanuatu and the law, peace and order of communities in Vanuatu,” said Chief Willie Plasua.

He told all chiefs around the country that while it was a major loss, it was only temporary.

“Custom, culture and tradition will never die and we will rebuild our headquarters,” Plasua said.

RNZ Pacific correspondent Hilaire Bule said the cost of the nakamal was more than 100 million vatu (US$850,000) and was co-financed by the Vanuatu and Australian governments.

The house was built with local materials to house the members of Malvatumauri during their annual general meeting.

An eyewitness, Sylverio Molkis, said on seeing the fire he made several phone calls to the fire brigade but could not get through.

“I also called the police but there was no answer and I had to go myself to the fire station to tell them about the blaze,” he said.

Only two buildings housing the administration offices of the Malvatumauri have survived.

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

Papua New Guinea Defence Force commander Major-General Mark Goina has issued a warning to all serving members of the PNGDF to “shape up or ship out”.

In light of the up coming Christmas and New Year operations, the commander has said that all soldiers — regardless of where they are serving — must conduct themselves in a disciplined manner.

In an interview with the Post-Courier, Major-General Goina said: “We issued certain instructions for behaviour.

• READ MORE: Other PNG reports

“My advice to the servicemen and women, if you are drinking [and] under the influence of liquor, ensure you go back home and rest, don’t try to go out and do something you will regret, get yourself into trouble or it will be life threatening to you.

“My message is very clear: ‘if you drink go back home and rest, if you drink, don’t drive.’

“I do not want to see any PNGDF [servicemen] drunk and driving, and due to your recklessness cause the life of other persons.

Such behaviour ‘not tolerated’
I want to make this clear if you get into a fight [and] you injure a civilian or damage public property.

“I will not tolerate that kind of behaviour, and causing injuries to civilians.”

The message by the PNGDF commander is not new and has been repeated by every commander that has come and gone. However, it has fallen on deaf ears.

The Post-Courier understands that the issue of such directives is always been part of the working life of any soldier.

‘This end of year Post-Courier hopes such issues will not pop up again and we will be watching.”

Republished with permission.

In Fiji’s politically charged context, national elections are historically a risky period. Since the 2022 campaign period was declared open on April 26, the intensity has been increasing.

Moreover, with three governments toppled by coups after the 1987, 1999 and 2006 elections, concerns about a smooth transfer of power are part of the national conversation.

The frontrunners in the election, which must be held by January 2023 but is likely to be held later this year, are two former military strongmen — Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama and former Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka.

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Both men have been involved in Fijian coups in the past.  Rabuka took power through the 1987 coups in the name of Indigenous self-determination. He became the elected prime minister in 1992 but lost power in 1999 after forming a coalition with a largely Indo–Fijian party.

Bainimarama staged his 2006 coup in the name of good governance, multiracialism and eradicating corruption, before restoring electoral democracy and winning elections under the FijiFirst (FF) party banner in 2014 and 2018.

FijiFirst was formed by the leaders and supporters of the 2006 coup during the transition back to democratic government via the 2014 election. Many of the FF leaders were part of the post-coup interim government that created the 2013 constitution, which delivered substantial changes to Fiji’s electoral system.

These changes included the elimination of seats reserved for specific ethnicities, replaced by a single multi-member constituency covering the whole country, and the creation of a single national electoral roll. Seat distribution is proportional, meaning each of the eight competing parties will need to get five percent of the vote to win one of the 55 seats up for grabs this year.

Popularity a key factor
As votes for a particular candidate are distributed to those lower down their parties’ ticket once they cross the five percent threshold, the popularity of single candidates can make or break a party’s electoral hopes.

For example, Bainimarama individually garnered 69 percent of FF’s total votes in 2014 and 73.81 percent in 2018, demonstrating the extent to which his party’s fortunes rest on his personal brand.

This will be crucial as FF’s majority rests on a razor thin margin, having won in 2018 with only 50.02 percent of the vote, compared to its 59.14 percent in 2014.

As for his major rival Rabuka, following his split with the major Indigenous Fijian party, Social Democratic Liberal Party (SODELPA), he formed and now heads the People’s Alliance Party (PAP).

The split came after Rabuka lost a leadership tussle with SODELPA stalwart Viliame Gavoka. Rabuka’s departure is seen as a setback for SODELPA, given that he attracted 77,040, or 42.55 percent, of the total SODELPA votes in 2018.

When it comes to issues, the state of the economy, including cost of living and national debt, are expected to be at the top of most voters’ minds. Covid-19 brought a sudden halt to tourism — which before the pandemic made up 39 percent of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) — putting 115,000 people out of work.

As a result, the government borrowed heavily during this period, which according to the Ministry of Economy saw the “debt-to-GDP ratio increase to over 80 percent at the end of March 2022 compared to around 48 per cent pre-pandemic”.

Poverty ‘undercounted’
The government stated that it borrowed to prevent economic collapse, while the opposition accused it of reckless spending. The World Bank put the poverty level at 24.1 percent in April 2022, but opposition politicians have claimed this is an undercount.

For example, the leader of the National Federation Party (NFP) Professor Biman Prasad has claimed the real level of unemployment is more than 50 percent.

Adding to this pressure is inflation, which reached 4.7 percent in April — up from 1.9 percent in February — and while the government blames price increases in wheat, fuel, and other staples on the war in Ukraine, the opposition attributes it to poor economic fundamentals.

Another factor which could define the election outcome was the pre-election announcement of a coalition between the PAP and NFP. By combining the two largest opposition parties, there is clearly a hope to form a viable multiethnic alternative to FF.

This strategy, however, is not without risks in the country’s complex political milieu. In the 1999 election, the coalition between Rabuka’s ruling Soqosoqo ni Vakavulewa ni Taukei Party and NFP failed when Rabuka’s 1987 coup history was highlighted during campaigning.

This saw NFP’s Fijian supporters of Indian descent desert the party.

Whether history will repeat itself is one of the intriguing questions in this election. According to some estimates, FF received 71 percent of Indo-Fijian votes in 2014, and capturing this support base is crucial for the opposition’s chances.

Transfer of power concerns
Against the background of pressing economic and social issues loom concerns about a smooth transfer of power. Besides Fiji’s coup culture, such anxieties are fuelled by a constitutional provision seen to give the military carte blanche to intervene in national politics.

Section 131(2) of the 2013 Fijian constitution states: ‘It shall be the overall responsibility of the Republic of Fiji Military Forces to ensure at all times the security, defence and well-being of Fiji and all Fijians’.

This has concerned many opposition leaders, such as NFP president Pio Tikoduadua, who has called for the country to rethink how this aspect of the constitution should be understood.

These concerns are likely to increase by the prospect of a close or hung election. As demonstrated after last year’s Samoan general election, the risk of a protracted dispute over the results could have adverse implications for a stable outcome.

As such, it is essential that all candidates immediately commit to respect the final result of the election whatever it may be and lay the foundations for a peaceful transition of power. In the longer-term interest, however, it will be necessary for Fiji to clarify the potential domestic power of the military implied by the constitution to put all undue speculation to rest. 

Dr Shailendra Singh is coordinator of the University of the South Pacific journalism programme. This article is based on a paper published by ANU Department of Pacific Affairs (DPA) as part of its “In brief” series. The original paper can be found here. It was first published at Policy Forum, Asia and the Pacific’s platform for public policy analysis and opinion. Republished with the permission of the author.

“I have never had that fear before that I might get physically hurt,” says Patrice Allen, a Ngati Kahungunu and Newshub camera operator based in Wellington.

“You’re going down there, you don’t know what it’s going to be like. A person from Wellington Live got beaten up.”

Māori Television’s press gallery videographer David Graham (Taranaki Whānui and Waikato) started working as a news cameraman in Wellington in 1989. He was there for the seabed and foreshore protests, and “in the 1990s it was Moutua and Pakitore,” he recollects. “But this is the most volatile one I have seen.

“Back then we [the media] were part of the show. They wanted us to be there. Now we are a part of the ‘axis of evil’, along with the police and government.”

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Up against your own
“Now there are Pākehā calling you kūpapa [Māori warriors who fought on the British colonial troops side during the New Zealand Wars in the 19th century],” he says. He has just returned from filming with his phone in the crowd, and has heard protesters say things. Nasty things.

“Stuff like ‘you should be ashamed of yourself. You should be ashamed of your whakapapa!’”

“I just don’t engage,” says Graham. “And I am not a random man with a camera here. I actually have whakapapa back to this marae on my father’s side,” he says, referring to Pipitea Marae where Taranaki Whānui laid down Te Kahu o Raukura as a cultural protection over the surrounding land that includes the Parliament grounds.

The protesters had lots of livestreams and many of them kept filming media camera-ops who were filming them. (Below: David Graham finds himself in one of the live feeds while a protester in the crowd heckles him.)

Allen feels the mamae is stronger when it comes from your own people.

“This happened on the day of the last protests,” she says, referring to the protests in November where the crowd threw tennis balls and water bottles at the media. She was filming a timelapse of the crowd leaving when a mother-son duo walked up to her.

“He was a big dude and he was really getting in my face. I was not feeling very safe. And I thought, ‘how can I diffuse this?’” So she asked them where they were from.

“And they were like where are you from? What are you?”

“Oh, Ngati Kahungunu, just over the hill in Wairarapa,” she replied. The man said something targeting not just her but also her iwi. “And that just broke my spirit,” says Allen.

“It was one of the days I went home and cried.”

‘We’re the enemy now’
“We are the enemy now,” says Allen. “And there is nothing you can do or say that will change their minds.”

Her teammate Emma Tiller thinks the camera can be a beacon in the crowd. “As soon as you put it up, everyone knows who you are. And they hate you.”

And even though security cover has become standard practice for all news camera-ops filming in the crowd, there are times she feels vulnerable. “It’s hard to think back to protests when we were out there. We didn’t have security with us. It didn’t even cross our minds.

“But now who wants to risk the violence?” she says.

“They have thrown things at the police. If they can do that to them, what can they do to us?”

“The last time I had security was when I was filming in East Timor,” says Allen. It was a long time ago, she adds, and at a time and place when there were terrorists around.

“It’s really bad because it’s made it ‘us and them’, media against protesters, and it’s not supposed to be like that.”

‘Difficult to turn off’
Sam Anderson, 22, is TVNZ’s camera operator at the press gallery. “It has been difficult to turn off,” he says “ I have been there [on the Speaker’s balcony] from 9am to 6pm just streaming the whole day.

“It’s all you are doing – copping the abuse, being yelled at, having your morality questioned.

“I sometimes hide behind the pillars from the frontliners who can yell all day.

“And throw that in with reading all the signs around you,” says Tiller.

“And they yell at you. And you go home and you can’t switch it off.”

Anderson’s teammate, Sam von Keisenberg, was on that balcony on February 11 when police made many arrests. Shortly after they arrested someone at the forecourt and the crowd was yelling at the police, a lady pointed a finger at him and said “You! You are a paedophile protector!”

“At first I was like, ‘that’s new’. But then she said it 50 times, as loud as she could, just at me.”

He pulled his camera off the tripod. “It was getting to me”, he says. “I have children. I would never protect a paedophile.”

His colleague asked him where he was going. “Just to punch some lady in the face,” he said under his breath. “And I walked out and just went to the bathroom.”

Sweeping generalisations
“Sometimes you have to take a step back,” von Keisenberg says.

“I had never experienced hate [directed] at me before,” RNZ video journalist Angus Dreaver says. Especially this type, he says, where they think media are traitors, and they want them to know.

“Four months ago, I was doing kids’ TV.”

Dreaver thinks the generalisation works both ways. While the protesters see the mainstream media as a monolith and sweep them with one giant brush, “it’s important for us, conversely, not to see them that way.”

Von Keisenberg believes there were more moderates in the crowd than extremists. “I always felt there were enough people around me,” he says. And that made him feel safe in the first week when he was filming undercover, knowing that “if things did get violent, there would be some moderate ones who would stop them”.

He saw that in action, too. In his forays of the first week, when he joined the crowd unmasked to avoid attention. He saw a man there in his 70s wearing a mask.

“The first thing he said to me was that he was immunocompromised, which is why he was wearing the mask.”

“It’s fine, mate. It’s a freedom rally, do what you want,” von Keisenberg said. But another protester came up and “tried to pull his mask off and started berating him, saying he had no identity. The mob mentality started and people around the gate joined in and started giving him grief.”

Von Keisenberg intervened. “Oi! chill out man. It’s a freedom rally, he’s free to wear a mask!”

“A woman close by turned around and said, ‘Yeah, come on guys! leave him alone.’ And they did.”

Mainstream media
When people tell von Keisenberg that they don’t watch mainstream media, his follow-up is, “Well then, how do you know we are ‘lying’?”

“They say, ‘we get our news from Facebook, which is different’. Yeah, different, because there aren’t many rules around it,” von Keisenberg says.

“Mainstream media is held more to account than social media,” Allen says. “But they think the opposite.”

Some of Dreaver’s acquaintances have shared his photos on Instagram, in posts that read “Mainstream media are liars”. “Bro, that’s me!”, he says.

Trying to remain objective in the face of constant harassment is a real challenge.

“I am almost hyper-aware of that, where I am trying to capture the mundane and relax as much as the heightened states,” he adds. “And I am trying to not let my anger affect the pictures I take or how I cover it.”

But for camera operators, the task ends once they take the picture. “We only aim for clear sound and sharp, steady pictures,” Graham says. “The rest of the stuff is for other people to decide what to do with.”

Anderson thinks there are differences in perspectives within newsrooms. People who have watched the protests from a distance or from their desks often take a kinder view of the protesters, he says.

“But me and the other camera ops, we copped a lot of abuse over three weeks. We just have a more bitter taste in our mouths for this crowd.”

The PM in ‘disguise’
There have been the fun moments, though, Anderson admits. There have been “raves” with young people dancing on the frontlines and he found himself almost filming to the beat. And there was a protester who thought he was the prime minister in disguise.

“Now that is one theory I know is not true,” says his teammate von Keisenberg. But how does he know for sure?

“Because I have seen both of them in the same room at the same time.”

And von Keisenberg has had his fun moments in the crowd, too. In one instance when he was filming undercover, a woman went on the stage and started talking into the mic about electric and magnetic fields (radiation) and how crystals could block them.

“Bullshit!” von Keisenberg turned around and shouted.

“We are here for the mandates,” he added, not snapping out of character, and for the benefit of those around him who were listening to the woman speak.

A potential for volence
“The vibe changed every few days, and that was because people kept coming and going,” von Keisenberg says. “But there were always the elements who were there for whatever happened on day 23.”

One camera op I spoke to said there had been a “potential for violence” right throughout. And when someone like Winston Peters visits the crowd and says “the mainstream media have been gaslighting you for a long time,” it gives them validation, and lends credibility to their theories.

But for those on the ground gathering news amid a hostile crowd, it exacerbates the possibility for harm.

Added to this potential of violence is the constant anticipation of things to come. “You have to be always prepared for when something will happen,” as Tiller puts it. “And that is exhausting.”

Emma Tiller describes her experience of the Speaker’s balcony as, “You feel like you have to be prepared for if something is going to happen, and that is exhausting.”

“The day things turn to custard, you want to be there on the ground,” Graham said to me a few days before the police operation. “You don’t want to be at home watching it on TV.”

And turn to custard it did; the threat of violence became reality on day 23. While the “battle” raged between the police and the protesters, the media people found themselves being targeted.

Dreaver was in the crowd by the tent where a fire had started. “A Mainstream! We have got a Mainstream here,” a woman who spotted him started shouting.

Brandishing a camping chair, she told him to, “get out of here! Out! Out!” The riot police were advancing behind him and he stood his ground.

“She started hitting me on the back with it,” he said. “She didn’t have a lot of speed but it was still a metal chair.”

“It hurt a bit,” he reckons.

‘Not everyone’
“There were some protesters who were trying to stop the violence. Even right at the end,” says Dreaver, recollecting how when some people were breaking up bits from the concrete slabs to get smaller throw-able chunks, another person tried to physically get in the way and stop them.

“But the other guys had a metal tent pole and whacked him over the head with it.”

Throughout the three weeks of protests, there had been repeated calls from the protesters asking the media to talk to them. On the morning of day 23 when I was filming from the Speaker’s balcony, a TV reporter had just finished a live cross into the news bulletin.

A man’s voice rang out from among the crowd, on the PA, inviting the media on the balcony to “come down and talk to real people and report the truth.” The same voice went on to berate us for wearing masks, behind which we were allegedly smiling smugly.

Less than a minute after the initial invitation, he followed up with another call to step down so he could put a fist through the mask.

“Why don’t you come down to talk to us? Because getting bashed with a chair was always inevitable,” says Dreaver. “It’s crazy it took so long.”

Protesters whacked another protester with a tent pole as he tried to stop the violence. “It didn’t look as though it injured him, because the tent poles are quite light, but it looked quite gnarly,” Dreaver says.

The aftermath
Parliament’s grounds have been reclaimed. All but one street around the buildings is now open to the public. On Sunday, Te Āti Awa held a karakia to reinstall the mauri of the land. There is currently a rāhui over the Parliament grounds.

It is time for healing. And moving on.

“I was feeling sad last week. And then I look at Ukraine and realise there are bombs going off next to all these journalists and camera operators,” Dreaver says. “I got hit with a camping chair and I am going to sit around and complain about it?”

The effect of these protests linger though. Graham spent last Friday a week ago filming the hau kainga at Wainuiomata on high alert, and trying to keep the protesters from entering and setting up camp on their marae, as have other hapū around the capital.

The crowd has dispersed but not vanished, and neither has their kaupapa.

“I have seen some of their kōrero online,” Graham says. The mandates might be gone soon, but “there will be other stuff,” he reckons.

“It’s definitely not over.”

Rituraj Sapkota is Māori Television’s videographer in Parliament’s press gallery. Republished with permission from Te Ao Māori News.

Deputy chair Debora Mote of the Papuan People’s Assembly (MRP) says the Indonesian state’s security forces should be protecting indigenous Papuan women and children, not killed them.

Mote told a joint conference of the National Commission for Women and the MRP that members of the Indonesian military (TNI) and police’s task was to protect the people, including indigenous Papuan women and children in and outside conflict areas.

The TNI and police must respect the guarantees for the protection of Papuan women and children as stipulated in Special Regional Regulation No. 1/2011 on the Restoration of the Rights of Papuan Women Victims of Violence and Human Rights Violations, she said.

• READ MORE: Other West Papua reports

“There is the Special Regional Regulation No. 1/2011 on the Restoration of the Rights of Papuan Women Victims of Violence and Human Rights Violations,” said Mote.

“We hope that TNI and police are not allergic [to such a regulation]. The regulation gives a warning that instruments of the state are used to protect the people, not the other way around.”

Mote said that cases of violence inflicted by the security forces against Papuan women and children should push the MRP and the Papuan Legislative Council to further encourage the implementation of the special regional regulation.

Such an effort was important to ensure that violence against civilians in Papua did not recur, she said.

Protection key to future generations
She added that the protection of indigenous Papuan women and children would determine future generations.

“It is women, not men, who bear and give birth to the next generation. If there are children, then the children will carry on the ancestry, and inherit them,” said Mote.

A youth representative of the Evangelical Church in Indonesia (GIDI), Eneko Pahabol, regretted the conflicts and violence that continued to occur in Papua and to take a toll on indigenous Papuan women and children.

Pahabol asked why the conflict was allowed to happen.

“It’s as if one takes advantage of the armed conflict. I, as the next generation, who inherited the suffering of my parents, ask [the warring parties] to end the violent conflict completely and peacefully,” said Pahabol.

Republished with permission.

A pro-independence activist in Indonesia’s Papua province will stand trial next week on charges of treason, says his lawyer.

A day earlier, one protester suffered gunshot wounds when police opened fire to disperse a rally demanding the activist Victor Yeimo’s release, activists and a church group said.

Yeimo’s attorney, Gustav Kawer, said his client’s arraignment was scheduled for Tuesday, August 24, and expressed concern about his deteriorating health.

• READ MORE: Open letter from Papua: Indonesian state creates stalemate of injustice
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“Despite his health condition, he is still forced to go on trial. This is an attempt to pursue a timetable regardless of the quality of the trial,” Kawer told BenarNews.

Yeimo, the international spokesman for the West Papua National Committee (KNPB), a group seeking a referendum on independence for the region, was arrested in May for allegedly leading anti-Jakarta demonstrations that turned into deadly riots there in 2019.

Yeimo is facing charges of treason, desecration of state symbols, and weapons smuggling, police said. He could face two years to a maximum of life in prison, if found guilty.

In 2019, more than 40 people were killed in Papua during demonstrations and riots sparked by the harsh and racist treatment of Papuan students by government security personnel in Java that August.

The incident cast another spotlight on longtime allegations of Indonesian government forces engaging in racist actions against indigenous people in mainly Melanesian Papua, where violence linked to a pro-independence insurgency has simmered for decades, and grown in recent months.

Last year, at least 13 Papuan activists and students were convicted for raising Morning Star flags — the symbol of the Papuan independence movement — during pro-referendum rallies in 2019 as part of nationwide protests against racism towards Papuans.

They were sentenced to between nine and 11 months in prison on treason charges.

Team of doctors ‘not independent’
Yeimo’s lawyer, Kawer, said that repeated requests from the legal team for his client to undergo a comprehensive health check-up were denied, although he had complained of chest pain and coughed up blood.

Yeimo is being detained at a facility run by the Mobile Brigade police unit, Kawer said. The activist is lodged in a cell with minimal lighting, poor air circulation, and located next to a septic tank, he added.

Kawer said he had sent a letter to the prosecutor’s office requesting that Yeimo be transferred to the main Abepura prison in Jayapura but there had been no response.

Kawer acknowledged that his client had previously undergone two health examinations since his detention — the last one on June 17 — but they had not been thorough.

“We suspect that the team of doctors is not independent. We are very worried that the results will be brought to court, but they are not in accordance with Yeimo’s actual condition,” Kawer said.

Police spokesman Ahmad Musthofa Kamal denied that Yeimo was ailing.

“He is fine. He has been examined by hospital doctors, not from the police, and is accompanied by a lawyer,” Kamal said.

Bail to be requested
The head of the Papuan branch of the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM), Frits Ramandey, said he would request bail for Yeimo.

Yeimo’s arrest was not his first brush with the law.

In 2009, he was arrested and sentenced to a year in prison for leading a rally demanding a referendum on self-determination for Papua.

In 1963, Indonesian forces invaded Papua and annexed the region, which makes up the western half of New Guinea Island. Papua was formally incorporated into Indonesia after a disputed UN-sponsored ballot called the “Act of Free Choice” in 1969.

Locals and activists said the vote was a sham because only about 1000 people took part. However, the United Nations accepted the result, which essentially endorsed Jakarta’s rule.

The region is rich in natural resources but remains among Indonesia’s poorest and underdeveloped ones.

‘They beat us with rifle butts’
On Monday, a 29-year-old protester, Ferianus Asso, suffered a gunshot wound to his stomach after police opened fire to disperse the crowd during a rally demanding Yeimo’s release in Yahukimo regency on Monday.

“Ferianus is still undergoing treatment at a hospital in Yahukimo,” said Jefry Wenda, spokesman for the Papuan People’s Petition.

Wenda said police detained at least 48 protesters in Yahukimo but all but four had been released.

Papuan police spokesman Kamal said all detainees had been released.

“We are not detaining any protester at the moment,” Kamal said.

In the provincial capital Jayapura, KNPB chairman and former political prisoner Agus Kossay suffered a head injury after he was hit by a police gunstock — a support to which the barrel of a gun is attached.

“They sprayed us with water and beat us with rifle butts until we bled, but even if they beat and kill us, we will still fight racism, colonialism and capitalism,” Kossay said in a video clip sent to BenarNews.

‘Violating’ covid-19 rules
Jayapura police chief Gustav R. Urbinas said the mass dispersal was carried out because the demonstration did not have an official permit and violated covid-19 social distancing rules.

Urbinas said that the crowd attacked the police who tried to disband the protest.

“Our personnel had to take firm action to prevent them from causing public disturbances,” he said in a statement.

Kossay, however, said the organisers had notified the police about the protest three days earlier.

Reverend Socratez S. Yoman, president of the Fellowship of Baptist Churches of West Papua, condemned the use of violence by police against the protesters.

“This kind of cruelty and violence by the security forces has led to an increase in the Papuan people’s distrust of Indonesia,” he said in an open letter.

Ronna Nirmala is a journalist with Benar News.

West Papuans have joined the people of Vanuatu in mourning the loss of independence and human rights campaigner Pastor Allen Nafuki who died at the weekend aged 72.

As well as campaigning for Vanuatu’s independence from Britain and France in the 1970s, Pastor Nafuki also embraced the West Papuan struggle for freedom from Indonesia.

Born in 1950 on the remote island of Erromango, when Vanuatu was still New Hebrides, Pastor Nafuki also served as a politician and was chairman of the Vanuatu Christian Council.

• READ MORE: Tributes flow for late Vanuatu Pastor and independence advocate Allen Nafuki

He and dedicated to the Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific (NFIP) movement.

“Reverend Nafuki is a father, shepherd and figure of truth for both Vanuatu and West Papua,” said executive director Markus Haluk of the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP).

Pastor Nafuki received his theological education in Madang, Papua New Guinea, in the years of struggle before PNG gained independence from Australia in 1975.

While studying in Madang, Pastor Nafuki learned a lot about the “suffering and struggles of his brothers and sisters in West Papua”, Haluk said in a statement today.

Advocacy for West Papuans
Since then the pastor had been called to fight for the struggle of his brothers in the western part of the island of New Guinea.

“Since his seminary study in the early 1970s, in Madang, he fell in love with the people and the struggle for the independence of West Papua. That’s why for more than 40 years he has fought and spoken for Papuan independence in Vanuatu,” he said.

“Reverend Allan is one of the pillars of a Free Papua in Vanuatu. As chairman of the Free West Papua Unity Committee, he always led actions and lobbying for a Free West Papua in various forums in Vanuatu, Melanesia and the Pacific,” said Haluk.

He said the death was a great loss for the two nations – and for Melanesia and the Pacific.

However, he believes that in future “young Nafukis” will appear in in the region who will boldly and consistently speak about the suffering and struggles of their brothers and sisters in West Papua.

Haluk said he hoped the West Papuan prayers would be answered by the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG) leaders “opening up their hearts” to accept ULMWP as a full member at its conference on June 15-17.

Celebrating Nafuki’s legacy
In another statement, the ULMWP’s interim president Benny Wenda said: “This is a great loss – but we also celebrate his legacy. He helped combine the destiny of the people of West Papua with the Republic of Vanuatu.”

Wenda said Pastor Nafuki had helped bring about Papuan unity in 2014.

“Never in the history of our struggle have we achieved this unity before. With his courage and dedication, we managed to unite and have brought West Papua closer than ever to the Melanesian family.”

ULMWP representatives will attend the funeral in Vanuatu.

Reported by a correspondent of Asia Pacific Report.

New Zealand’s parliamentary Speaker has offered an olive branch to Māori Party co-leader Rawiri Waititi over his refusal to wear a tie in the debating chamber yesterday.

Speaker Trevor Mallard’s office has confirmed he has encouraged the party to submit to the Standing Orders Committee asking that hei-tiki be allowed instead of a tie.

Waititi speaks to RNZ Morning Report‘s Corin Dann:

• LISTEN TO RNZ MORNING REPORT: Rawiri Waititi speaks out on parliamentary attire and Māori culture
• Speaker rules tie requirement to be dropped from Parliament

Waititi was booted out of Parliament’s debating chamber after refusing to wear a tie, in contravention of the rules.

Speaker Trevor Mallard last year announced he would reconsider the requirement, saying he himself believed the tie rule to be outdated.

He ultimately ruled however that the dress standard would remain as that was the will of the majority of MPs.

On the first sitting day of 2021 today, Waititi arrived without a tie. He argued that he was wearing Māori business attire with a taonga around his neck, but Mallard said he was not convinced by that argument.

Mallard notes no party response
“I am therefore going to indicate to the leader of Te Pati Māori that I will not be calling him while he is not wearing a tie and he is not to enter the house again not wearing a tie,” Mallard said.

Mallard noted the Māori Party did not respond to the review of the dress code.

Waititi made several attempts to speak in the debating chamber, despite Mallard’s order, and was ejected from the house.

‘My taonga is my tie,’ says Waititi. Video: RNZ

After being removed from the debating chamber, Waititi said not being able to wear a taonga around his neck instead of a tie was a breach of the rights of indigenous people.

“That is not part of my culture, ties, and it’s forcing the indigenous peoples into wearing what I describe as a colonial noose,” Waititi said.

When asked if he would wear a tie at Parliament tomorrow [Wednesday], Waititi said “you’ll have to wait until tomorrow”.

“Our people have worn these types of ties for generations, thousands of years. And it’s time that Parliament, which was consented by my ancestors through Te Tiriti o Waitangi, recognised our right and freedom to express our own cultural identity, in a place that’s supposed to be a place for democracy,” Waititi told Checkpoint.

‘I dressed … quite smart’
“If you see the way I was dressed it wasn’t disrespectful, it was actually I think quite smart. I own to two consultancy businesses, and also our farming business on our family farm. And I never wear a tie,” he said.

“I will wear a tie when I want to wear a tie. But I will not be forced to wear it.

“I will not be forced to be wearing anything that I shouldn’t be wearing… Why are Pākehā making Māori dress like they want us to dress?”

The enforced dress code is hypocritical and an example colonial ways that suppress tangata whenua, he said.

“Parliament should be a place where we could freely practice our democracy and represent the people that voted us in.

“The majority of the people that voted me in are not business attire people… Let’s cut the myth that everybody must wear ties. I’ve been overseas and met with corporate people all over the world. None of them wear ties, they’re open-collared suit-wearing people, because ties are now outdated.”

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

The National iwi chairs forum has put forward six recommendations to the New Zealand government which they say are a priority for mitigating the risk of covid-19 for Māori and general public.

It comes after a more infectious variant of covid-19 was found in managed isolation, signalling a potentially heightened risk of the virus entering the community.

The vaccination strategy did not include kaumātua and Māori as an at-risk group, but the government should be doing more to discuss vaccination strategies with Māori, the National Iwi Chairs forum said.

• READ MORE: NZ government accused of being ‘too relaxed’ over new covid strains

The forum’s Pandemic Response Group co-chair, Mike Smith, said it would be a tragedy if there was a failure after all the effort the country has put in.

“We think that these are the right responses at the right time in order to provide a greater level of safeguard for our communities,” he said.

“Kaumātua, kōroua, kuia and other Māori aged over 50 are potentially at risk of covid-19 and have not been identified as one of the high risk groups and we haven’t seen any evidence in the vaccination strategy that they’re included as an at risk group… the government should be entering discussions with Māori to bring the vaccination strategy into line with their obligations to safe guard us.”

Indigenous people are more vulnerable when it comes to contracting the virus and it spreading within the community, the forum said.

Strategy ‘falls short’
Smith said the government’s vaccination strategy fell short of its obligations to Te Tīriti o Waitangi as it did not demonstrate protection, partnership and equality.

The six recommendations included the government applying the pre-departure negative test requirement to all travellers intending to enter New Zealand as soon as possible.

It also recommended capping arrivals at 300 per day or 2100 per week, and, when the number of active cases in MIQ reached 20 to 30 cases, capping the number of entries to a lower level.

“The number of active cases in MIQ are no longer sustainable with world cases trending past 800,000 per day and no sign of slowing down, and the threat from new strains; at current levels, the number of arrivals into New Zealand are over five times higher than those for Queensland which has a similar population,” Smith said.

The forum wants the government to explore the efficacy of testing travellers to New Zealand immediately upon arrival in airports as they disembark; it also wants the vaccine roll-out to be brought forward for implementation as soon as possible and for the government to enter into discussions with Māori to bring the Vaccination Strategy in line with Te Tīriti o Waitangi.

The Pandemic Response Groups say the current vaccination strategy falls short of Ngā Tikanga o te Tīriti o Waitangi on protection, partnership, and equality, which is contradictory to the epidemic-pandemic history of Aotearoa New Zealand which shows that Māori as indigenous peoples are the most vulnerable people in the country.

Its final recommendation is calling for a halt on all plans to establish new international quarantine-free bubbles and immediately review and risk-assess existing and planned group entry arrangements.

Hipkins welcomes iwi advice
In a statement provided to RNZ, Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said the Ministry welcomes the advice and feedback of the Iwi Pandemic Response group.

“There are a number of recommendations we have either addressed or are planning to address. In other areas, the government is still undertaking active consideration and the advice of the Iwi Pandemic Response Group will be taken into account,” he said.

“In relation to halting travel bubbles and the arrival of groups (such as RSE workers or sports teams), the Ministry of Health is confident its current stringent border processes including border testing, managed isolation and quarantine, infection prevention measures are sufficient to continue to protecting New Zealanders from the new Covid-19 variants.

“However, we are not complacent about this. We continue to review the international evidence and make adjustments as necessary. You will have seen that we recently introduced compulsory pre-departure testing and day 0/1 testing in managed isolation (in addition to the existing testing). These progressively take effect from 15th January.”

“As things currently stand, we expect to start vaccinating those most at risk from the second quarter of 2021, aiming for April.

“Regarding our national Covid-19 vaccination strategy, the strategy has a strong Treaty-based approach which prioritises engagement and health outcomes for Māori.

“This approach also acknowledges the key risks this virus represents to different segments of the population, including the need to address equity concerns in health outcomes for Māori and Pacific communities.

Independent, practical advice
“The Ministry also continues to work closely with the Immunisation Implementation Advisory Group, which has strong Māori representation and provides independent, practical advice and direction to the Ministry of Health on the planning and implementation of the Covid-19 immunisation campaign.

“As we get increasingly closer to a potential roll-out we are looking to increase engagement activities with key partners and stakeholders, and welcome further dialogue with the Iwi Pandemic Response group.

“Iwi and Māori engagement will be critical to the continued successful implementation of the Government’s Covid-19 elimination strategy, including the national vaccination programme currently being planned.”

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

Indigenous people fought alongside youth movements in the creation of an Indonesian nation. But, in the historical writing of Indonesia’s struggle for independence from colonial powers, stories of Indigenous people’s role are nearly non-existent compared to that of the elite educated youth leaders.

This lack of representation reflects the marginalisation of Indigenous peoples, which continued throughout Indonesia’s 75 years of independence.

Indigenous people, whose traditional knowledge and way of life proved to be a force to be reckoned with during the current covid-19 pandemic and who for generations serve as guardians of forests and natural environments, continue to be stigmatised and experience oppression in their own country.

• READ MORE: West Papua, oil palm expansion undermines the relations of indigenous Marind people to forest plants and animals
  

Nearly 20 million, out of a total of 268 million Indonesians, Indigenous peoples are often being associated with “dirty, primitive, underdeveloped, alien, to forest encroacher.”

The stigma resulted in them being underrepresented, either economically, socially, politically, and culturally.

In addition, these communities suffered oppression from the government’s economic driven investment, evicting them from their customary lands to make way for large scale forestry, mining, and plantations.

Freedom fighters
History books barely mention how Indigenous peoples took arms with the Youth movement during the struggle for independence and helped to finally established the Republic of Indonesia.

Rukka Sombolinggi, who comes from the Toraja tribe in South Sulawesi, recalled the experience of her own family. She said that her great grandfather and grandfather were freedom fighters who fought along with students.

Rukka is the secretary-general of the Alliance of Indigenous Peoples of the Archipelago (AMAN). The alliance currently represents 2366 indigenous communities throughout Indonesia or more than 18 million individual members.

“My grandfather died as a veteran. The history might not have recorded Indigenous Peoples’ roles for fighting the colonialism, but there were hundreds of thousands of them who died in the wars. Unfortunately, history recorded only the youths movements,” said Sombolinggi.

Sandra Moniaga, a Commissioner for Assessment and Research at the National Commission of Human Rights (Komnas HAM), said the majority of Indigenous Peoples, such as Sedulur Sikep in Java, were among the groups who rejected to collaborate with the Dutch colonialists.

Moniaga added that Indigenous peoples have a unique contribution to Indonesia’s struggle for independence. “They preserve Indonesia’s local cultures, protecting our identity as a nation known with hundreds of tribes and cultures,” she said.

Forest guardians
Most of Indigenous peoples’ customary lands are within and near the country’s forests. They play a huge role in protecting the country’s forest and natural environment.

In her recent study about the Marind-Anim Indigenous Peoples in Merauke Regency, Papua Province, anthropologist Sophie Chao who has been living among them for more than a decade, mentioned how the tribe is “caring for the forest, respectable to plants and animals, and nourishing relationships with the natural world”.

Under the administration of Indonesia’s first president Sukarno, Indigenous peoples got their recognition through the State’ agrarian law in 1960.

The law was the first to mention Indigenous peoples. But it stipulates that customary law applies as long as it aligns with national and State interests.

After Soeharto took power in 1966, there was systematic destruction on customary rights during the New Order, according to Sandra.

She said that the government carried out land-grabbing by issuing forest permits on customary lands for forestry, mining and large scale plantations.

“Most of these customary lands were also claimed by the government to be handed over to migrants and TNI (the army) or the police,” she added.

Towards recognition of Indigenous rights
Things started to change for Indigenous peoples in following the end of Soeharto’s rule in 1998.

The 4th Amendment of the 1945 Constitution enacted in 2000 acknowledged their “traditional existence” and “traditional way of life”.

This became the legal basis for the Constitutional Court to rule out customary lands (Hutan Adat) as State’s forests in 2012, or locally known as MK35.

Another progress, President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo had revived the Indigenous Peoples Bill, which will strengthen Indigenous peoples’ existence in the Republic and to resolve ongoing conflicts related to customary lands.

“Still, it is difficult to realise these regulations. Instead of RUU MHA (Indigenous Peoples Bill), the government and lawmakers are more eager to pass the Omnibus Law on Job Creation,” slammed Rukka Sombolinggi.

She said currently, Indigenous peoples are facing another form of “colonialism”. Since decentralisation in 2001, the regents and governors were the ones issuing permits over Customary Forest without their consent.

“We are no longer fighting foreign companies, but locals, like the bupati (head of regent), the governor. Their own people,” she said citing Sukarno’s famous speech: “My struggle was easier because it was to expel the colonialists, but yours will be more difficult because it is against your own people.”

Moving forward
During the pandemic, Indigenous peoples that are still practising their traditional knowledge are considered to be the most resilient groups because of their closeness to nature.

“Indigenous peoples who are guarding their areas and not massively exploited their resources and have the spirit of sharing, they have strong resilience against this pandemic. They can even provide their own food,” said Rukka Sombolinggi.

Meanwhile, those who are exposed to modernisation or in conflict with the industries suffer from unemployment, food security, and lacking in health, clean water and sanitation access.

“The claim and promises from big corporations to provide food, open access to education, or employment, they are now becoming helpless due to the characteristic of the virus,” Sombolinggi added.

Sophie Chao admired the courage, resilience, endurance, and creativity of Indigenous Peoples, in general, in the face of ongoing threats to their lands and ways of life.

“For me, my hope is that the cultures and values of Indigenous Peoples will be fully recognised, protected, and promoted by the Indonesian state and by the international community,” said Chao.

“This means making sure that their rights to land are guaranteed, that their full consent is sought where development projects are being planned, and their development takes place in a bottom-up way, based on Masyarakat Adat‘s own aspirations, dreams, and hopes.”

Rukka Sombolinggi, secretary-general of the Alliance of Indigenous Peoples of the Archipelago (AMAN), and Sandra Moniaga, a Commissioner for Assesment and Research at the National Commission of Human Rights (Komnas HAM) were interviewed for this article, part of a series to commemorate Indonesian Independence Day on August 17. Fidelis Eka Satriastanti is editor of Lingkungan Hidup, The Conversation. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

The occupation at Ihumātao is a spectacle of flags.

In every direction they flutter. Alongside tino rangatiratanga – the Māori flag of independence, Samoan colours fly. Next to the United Tribes of New Zealand banner a Tongan flag quivers. A Niuean flag stands tall on Te Puketaapapatanga ā Hape – the sacred Maunga. A Hawai’ian flag is draped from the shoulders of a man like a cape. And on a teenager’s black t-shirt the Morning Star, the true flag of the people of West Papua is displayed with proud impunity.

It’s the Pacific, come ashore at Ihumātao, standing alongside tangata whenua with whom past, present and future are bound through ancestral bloodlines and an ocean of perspective.

GALLERY: Guardianship photo shoot with the Ihumātao ‘protectors’ – Del Abcede

WATCH Pacific people rally behind Ihumātao occupation – Tagata Pasifika

Yet here at Ihumātao, the site of a peaceful occupation to protect sacred Māori land from development, the flags are more than symbols of national identity. Here they are united symbols of indigenous.

As one supporter was reported declaring: “This is an indigenous problem!”

Although this occupation, against a backdrop of colonial injustice, means so much for Māori in Aotearoa and indigenous across the Pacific who are facing similar battles to protect their land, it has also mustered the support of other cultural groups whose members have formed their own deep and unique connections with Māori people and culture.

Asian presence at Ihumātao
If presence – both at the occupation site and on social media – is anything to go by, one of the most ardent non-Māori supporters of the occupation is Asians Supporting Tino Rangatiratanga.

Formed in 2016 from a group of six Asian-New Zealanders, ASTR now has a chapter in both Auckland and Wellington and thousands of supporters from across the country.

The members are passionate in their support of the Mana Whenua at Ihumātao, and were part of the Asian delegation at the occupation.

Outside of protests, they organise Te Tiriti o Waitangi (The Treaty of Waitangi) workshops where other Asian migrants can learn about the Treaty and Aotearoa’s colonial history.

“We’re trying to demystify [the history] and build bridges,” says youth worker and ASTR member Mengzhu Fu.

“Pākehā try and mediate the relationship between Asians migrants and Māori,” she says.

The colonial status quo
“When they have control of those relationships they often pit migrants against Māori and that division often works in their favour to maintain the colonial status quo.

“The relationship often has to be through them but we want to bypass them and directly build those relationships.”

She also says because of language issues Asian migrants are often susceptible to the misrepresentation precipitated through the New Zealand media.

“There’s is a lot of misinformation that is translated from Pākehā media.

“A lot of our communities that are not as fluent in English will receive that media and make a perception of Māori based on Pākehā translations.”

While she was certainly exposed to those negative perceptions when she first arrived here as a child, she has since discovered that the reality is far different.

Journey of discovery
Her journey however has been her own, and like many New Zealanders, her high school years did little to expose her to much of this country’s history.

“I went to quite a prestigious public school and I only remember learning about the Treaty in fourth form and it was quite brushed over.

“We did re-enactments of the Treaty but we never learned what happened after it was signed.”

Another member of ASTR, Qian-ye Lin, agrees: “I think I only learned about the Treaty or specificity of New Zealand colonial history through my friends, like by falling into friend groups that are political and who are willing to teach me.”

Also a migrant from China, Lin says that Asian migrants are desperate to integrate into Pākehā society which means that the Māori world often falls into the shadows.

“There is this massive need to assimilate whether it is for survival or otherwise.

“That was my journey of assimilating into the Pākehā world and then realising that by doing that I’m also complicit in colonisation.”

Cultural reflections
A student at the University of Auckland, Lin says that one of the most valuable aspects of learning about New Zealand’s colonial injustices is the insights it provides her into her own culture.

“I feel that being Han Chinese and of the more privileged class I’ve definitely been quite blind to colonisation or the perspective of indigenous people because I do occupy the space of being the dominant majority in China.”

She says that ASTR’s work helps educate Asian migrants and enables them to engage meaningfully with the colonial aspects of their own ancestry.

However, both her and Fu hope the work will also permeate more into Pākehā society.

“Sometimes it’s as simple as listening. Listening to people who have been disempowered,” Fu says.

Lin agrees: “I feel like the first step is to get over your fragility, and being brave enough to admit that maybe you do occupy a dominant position.”

“It’s about taking accountability and realising that Pākehā have been privileged because of that history and there are ways that they can dismantle that as well.”

Muslim delegation
On a weekend in late July, a Muslim delegation was welcomed with a pōwhiri onto the whenua at Ihumātao.

They sat with the kaumatua (elders), listened to karakia (prayer) and waiata (songs) and were shown hospitality in accordance with the revered Māori customs of manaakitanga.

Among the delegation – which included several Islamic leaders and scholars, was Shaymaa Arif who has found that the principals of manaakitanga have an uncanny similarity to Islamic customs.

It’s the respect and inclusivity of manaakitanga, she says that is bringing Māori and New Zealand Muslims closer together.

“An understanding has really developed,” she says.

“The communities are becoming closer to each other, the gap is becoming smaller.”

A former human rights lawyer based in Kirikiriroa (Hamilton), Arif says the contact between Muslims and Māori has historically been stifled by fear based on media-driven stereotypes and intergenerational ignorance.

A bond is forming
However, in recent years the walls have started to come down and a true bond is forming, the kind that can only form between people who have shed similar tears and felt similar pain.

“There is a long trail of tears in this beautiful country which we as people from minority groups have also experienced on a different level so we understand the struggle.”

After the Christchurch mosque attacks on March 15, that understanding was galvanised into something even stronger.

“The Māori community stood with us so much. They came out and gave us that space to lean on them.”

“They literally were like ‘we understand the struggle. We’ve been through this for so many years.’”

For Arif, who has ventured up from Hamilton three times to join the occupation, the kindness and support shown to her by Māori deeply affected her youth. In her teen years she was included in kapa haka groups without question. In her university years Māori mentors coached her even through she’s not Māori. It was manaakitanga she says, that made her feel connected and welcome.

And yet now, four months after the mosque attacks, questions are being asked if that sense of public connection and unity that was touted on a national level in the aftermath of March 15 has been maintained. Has the bulk of New Zealand society moved on, and once again forgotten about its Muslim community?

Possibly, but certainly not by everyone. Arif says that every Friday evening, four months on from the attack, a group of local Māori pitch a gazebo on the park across the road from the Hamilton mosque and stand guard, while inside the worshippers pray in peace.

That, she says, is why she stands with the mana whenua at Ihumātao.

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

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

RNZ’s Dominic Godfrey reports:

LISTEN: Indigenous Pacific knowledge to help save the ocean

AUDIO TRANSCRIPT

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It has endorsement at the highest level.

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Koori Mail, after awaiting permission from the Kapeen family, has announced with great sadness the sudden passing of Koori Mail chairperson and Bundjalung elder, Russell Kapeen.

“Uncle Russell” passed away on Saturday, May 4, in his home at Coraki, NSW, the Koori Mail statement said. He was 72.

The Koori Mail is proudly owned by five Aboriginal organisations within the Bundjalung region, one of which, the Coraki based Kurrachee Aboriginal Co-operative, Uncle Russell helped establish and lead.

READ MORE: Press Council welcomes first Indigenous member – Koori Mail

He proudly served on the Koori Mail Board since 1993, and was the chairperson since 1995, dedicating a total of 26 years to the voice of Indigenous Australia.

Uncle Russell was a fierce advocate for the well-being of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and communities throughout NSW and beyond, and was an extremely dedicated and loving family man and community member.

From the Koori Mail Board, staff and our team of writers and correspondents around the nation, we send our deepest condolences and thoughts to the Kapeen family and extended families, and to the communities of the Bundjalung nation during this time.

The Koori Mail will close our office for the day when arrangements for Uncle Russell’s farewell have been confirmed. We ask that our supporters, readers, advertisers and colleagues acknowledge that this is our responsibility to cultural protocol and will advise of office closure day and times accordingly.

The Koori Mail asked, and received permission from the Kapeen family to use this photograph. It also acknowledged and provided a warning that this image may cause some distress to Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander persons.

Pacific Media Watch Newsdesk

Alistar Kata is uniquely placed to talk about diversity in New Zealand media newsrooms.

Not because she was recipient of double awards at the Auckland University of Technology (AUT) School of Communication Studies annual awards ceremony in 2015 – the Spasifik Magazine Prize and Storyboard Award for Diversity Reporting, as well as the Radio New Zealand International Award for Asia-Pacific Journalism.

But because this Māori (Ngapuhi)-Cook Islander has been up close and personal with the subject.

“The Pacific is a huge part of who we are. We need to keep that alive,” she said when completing her Bachelor of Communication Studies (Honours) at AUT in 2015.

Last month the Tagata Pasifika journalist was back at AUT as master of ceremonies at the communication studies awards where – in the wake of the Christchurch mosque massacre on 15 March 2019 she was asked about diversity in New Zealand’s newsrooms.

“People are waking up to the idea that New Zealand is not black-and-white anymore, New Zealand is now a spectrum of colours – different points of view, different skin colours, different ethnicities and our audience is starting to wake up to that,” she said.

“To accept that brown face on TV, to accept that maybe the chief editor of The New Zealand Herald will be Pacific Island or Indian soon, to accept that their different voices in our community.”

The genesis for this interview was Michael Andrew’s story on the Pacific Media Watch website How journalists can improve diversity in the media.

That article was written just two weeks after the tragic event unfolded in Christchurch.

Sri Krishnamurthi is an experienced journalist and a current Postgraduate Diploma of Communication Studies student in digital media and contributor to Pacific Media Watch.

• Other Pacific Media Watch stories

I visited the city of Christchurch on May 23, 2018, as part of a larger speaking tour in New Zealand that also took me to Auckland, Wellington, Hamilton and Dunedin.

New Zealand is an exceptional country, different from other countries that are often lumped under the generalised designation of the “Western world”. Almost immediately after my arrival in Auckland, New Zealand’s largest and most populous city, I was struck by the overt friendliness, hospitality and diversity.

This is not to downgrade the ongoing struggles in the country, lead among them being the campaign for land rights as championed by the Māori people, the original inhabitants of New Zealand; but, indeed, there was something refreshingly different about New Zealanders.

READ MORE: Ramzy Baroud’s articles at Counterpunch

Just the fact that the Māori language, “Te Reo”, is one of the three official languages in the country, the others being English and Sign Language, immediately sets New Zealand apart from other colonised spaces, where indigenous peoples, cultures, languages and rights are, to various extents, inconsequential.

It is due to the empowered position of the indigenous Māori culture, that New Zealand is, compared to other countries, more inclusive and more accepting of refugees and immigrants. And that is likely why New Zealand – and Christchurch, in particular – was chosen as a target for the terrorist attacks carried out by an Australian national on March 15.

The Australian terrorist – whose name will not be mentioned here in honour of a call made by New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, as not to celebrate the infamy of the senseless murderer – wanted to send a message that immigrants, particularly Muslims, are not safe, not even in New Zealand.

But his attempt backfired. Not only will he live “the rest of his life in isolation in prison”, as promised by New Zealand’s Foreign Minister, Winston Peters, who was speaking at the Organisation for Islamic Cooperation (OIC) emergency conference in Turkey on March 22, but the horrific crime has brought New Zealanders even closer together.

Sorrowful, yet beautiful
There is something sorrowful, yet beautiful, about Christchurch. This small, welcoming city, located on the east coast of New Zealand’s South Island, was devastated on February 22, 2011, by a massive earthquake that killed 185 people and destroyed much of the town.

Last May, I spoke at Christchurch’s Cardboard Cathedral, an innovative structure that was built as a temporary replacement to the Anglican Cathedral that was destroyed in the earthquake.

In my talk, I commended the people for their beautiful church, and for their own resilience in the face of hardship. The diversity, openness and solidarity of the audience reflected the larger reality throughout the city, in fact, throughout the country.

For me, Christchurch was not a place of tragedy, but a source of hope.

My audience, which also included members of the Muslim community, some coming from Al Noor Mosque – the main target of the recent attack – listened and engaged me as I argued that the genuine authentic voices of ordinary people should be placed at the core of our understanding of the past, and our hope for a better future.

While the focus of my talk was the history of the Palestinian people, the message exceeded the struggle for freedom in Palestine into the struggle and rights of all indigenous groups, guided by such uplifting experiences as that of the Māori people of New Zealand itself.

Unconditional solidarity
I also had the chance to meet with Marama Davidson, co-leader of the Green Party, among other MPs. It was strange to be in a position where solidarity from politicians came across as genuine as that of the unconditional solidarity of ordinary activists – once again, highlighting the uniqueness of New Zealand’s progressive politics and leadership.

Experiencing that myself, it was no surprise to see the outpouring of genuine love and support by Prime Minister Ardern and many members of her cabinet and parliament following the mosque attack. The fact that she, along with numerous women throughout the country, wore symbolic head-scarves in order to send a message to Muslims that they are not alone, while countless thousands of New Zealanders mourned the victims who perished in Al Noor and Linwood mosques, was unprecedented in the recent history of Western-Muslim relationship.

In fact, on Friday, March 22, when all of New Zealand’s TV and radio stations transmitted the call for Muslim prayer, and as Muslims and non-Muslims rallied together in a massive display of human solidarity while mourning their dead, for a moment, all Muslims became New Zealanders and all New Zealanders became Muslims.

At the end of my talk, a group of Muslims from the mosque approached me with a gift, a box of dates to break my fast, as it was the month of Ramadan, the holy month of fasting and repentance for Muslims worldwide. With much gratitude, I took the box of dates and promised to visit Al Noor when I return to the country in the future.

A few months later, as I watched the horrific images on television of the terrorist attack that struck this peaceful city, I immediately thought of the Cardboard Cathedral, of the beautiful solidarity of the Māori, of the numerous embraces of so many New Zealanders, and, of the kindly Muslims and the box of dates.

Peaceful co-existence
I also understood why the undeserving-to-be named terrorist chose to strike Christchurch, and the underlying message he wanted to send to Muslims, immigrants, New Zealanders and all of those who champion peaceful co-existence and tolerance worldwide.

But he failed. In fact, all other foot soldiers of racism and hate will continue to fail because tragedy often unites us. Collective pain helps us see each other as human beings first, where our differences, however great, can never be enough to justify or even explain why 3-year-old Mucad Ibrahim had to die, along with 49 other, beautiful and innocent people.

However, one can be comforted by the Māori saying, “Ka mate te kāinga tahi, ka ora te kāinga rua” – “when one house dies, the second lives”. It means that good things can always emerge from misfortune.

It will take much time for Christchurch, and the whole of New Zealand, to heal from this terrible misfortune. But the strength, will and courage of so many communities should be enough to turn a horrific terrorist act into an opportunity to heal our collective wounds, not just in New Zealand, but the world over.

Ramzy Baroud is a journalist, author and editor of Palestine Chronicle. His latest book is The Last Earth: A Palestinian Story (Pluto Press, London). He has a PhD in Palestine Studies from the University of Exeter (2015) and was a Non-Resident Scholar at Orfalea Center for Global and International Studies, University of California Santa Barbara. This article is republished with the permission of the author.

• More Christchurch mosque terror tragedy reports
• Earlier Ramzy Baroud articles

What is the shape of decolonisation in the present time, now long after the rush to independence that went on in countries around the world from 1960 to 1980?

Who will be there on November 4 and how did they come to the point where they will be voting together on a still uncertain future?

The thoughts of three best-informed persons are consulted here to provide answers – an historian, a lawyer and a leader in the indigenous Kanak community.

History of troubles and reforms
Luc Steinmetz, the historian and jurist has made detailed studies of the territory’s contested, sometimes blood-stained story.

He gave a recent long interview analysing the progression of different laws made in Paris for ruling the territory to the Noumea newspaper Les Nouvelles Caledoniennes.

It traces repeated changes, following the swinging interests of French governments, left-wing or right-wing, with one main event – a new law in 1963 transferring power back from a local elected government to French administration – that set off a period of conflict.

Nuclear testing – political trouble in New Caledonia
That was done after France having “lost” Algeria decided to move its nuclear testing programme to the Pacific, and, says Steinmetz, it “did not want to provide loudspeakers to voices that would be too critical.”

While the nuclear decision generated trouble and harm all over the Asia-Pacific, many historians also saw the taking-back-of-powers as the beginning of campaigns by Kanaks in New Caledonia for “revendication” – give us back our land.

Optimistic beginnings
The story had begun optimistically in 1958 with the conversion of New Caledonia from a colony to a partly-autonomous territory immediately after the Second World War. New Caledonia and its people had supported General Charles de Gaulle and the Allies against the Japanese.

It got an elected governing Council, including local ministers — and for the first time allocation of French citizenship to the Kanak population.

Kanaks were a majority then, and most of their leadership did not show much interest in independence at the time being achieved by former colonies in Africa.

In this analysis the change in 1963, reducing the elected Council to consultative status only, produced bad blood, and despite later changes back towards autonomy, it came to violence during elections held in 1984, after an “active boycott” by the Kanak political alliance, the FLNKS.

Insurrection and reforms
That was the time of an insurrectionist movement; the “outside” population from France had grown and received the vote, beginning to outnumber the local Kanaks, and in 1988 the tragic conflict on Ouvea Island saw the deaths of six police and 19 pro-independence militants.

The following reforms – the Matignon and Noumea agreements –which set up the referendum process, included creation of “custom” territories for Kanak tribal groups and the present elected system of government.

Futures
The historian judges the present system to be the best ever tried. He suggests that if the referendum supports staying with France, it could be improved with more revenue and power shifted from the Noumea government to the three provinces, and a possible new federal constitution.

A move to full independence with changing elected governments would need guarantees of stability and individual rights, against the risk of break-down, such as the military takeovers in Fiji.

Two cultures, two systems and the land
Philippe Bernigaud is a French lawyer from Burgundy, aged 50, who has lived in Noumea for 17 years and represents indigenous Kanak groups negotiating over land.

Like at least three other long-term residents consulted for this inquiry, he cannot vote, under provisions of the Accords restraining the number of French electors not in residence before 1988 – but he avers that the law was made clear at the time he moved there and so cannot complain.

Identity and land rights under the law
He explains a system with two distinct sets of official identity for persons (Kanak and others), and a strategic, strict land rights law for indigenous communities.

Kanak citizens have full rights and obligations under French law but also have an official “Custom” status, and can share in owning land zoned as “Reserve” property.

There are extensive Reserve lands, in the case of Northern province covering probably more than half the territory, which can only be held jointly by a tribe or clan, not individually, and cannot be mortgaged, subdivided or sold.

“When village owners have wanted to develop their land, and bring in outside investors, we have had to be creative”, Bernigaud said this week.

Working on cases
“For example in a district called Bako it was possible to enable investment in buildings for a shopping centre, for a set time, but not to buy or even lease the land underneath.”

A process has also been going on, the “revendication”, where tribal groups can get back land taken up by settlers, to make it a Reserve.

When there is an application to sell Private land, the lawyers are obliged to report it, a state agency called ADRAF may investigate and determine there is a case for returning it to custom ownership, and so it will exercise a priority right to make the purchase, and hand it to a claimant tribe, at no cost to them.

Bernigaud said such acts, now not too frequent, became important during a time of crisis.

“Especially in the East Coast region, around 1988, when New Caledonia was close to civil war, a lot of settlers left their land and it was handed back”, he said.

One ‘big day’
He had worked on a large claim, for half of one valley, three years ago, where under French law he was required to hold a meeting with owners to explain the transaction.

“This became a big day”, he recalled.

“I was in front of hundreds of people, with heads of the provincial government, there was music, dancing and a custom welcome, a big meal, and special symbols were brought out.

“Every participant had to plant a tree on the land and I had my tree.

“The chief explained why I had intervened, and I was given an honorary membership in that Tribu.

“It was a great memory.”

Marriages, births and deaths
He outlines other aspects of enforceable traditional law that applies to Kanaks as persons with Custom status.

Identity is with the tribe or clan, an individual does not exist under this system. In marriage, all property acquired after the wedding must be jointly owned by the couple, nothing separate. In death, the tribal group decides who will benefit from the estate, a provision causing difficulty now in the case of mixed couples with a “non-custom” partner or others wanting to act individually to give something to their own children. A recent law is being tested, which aims to provide some priority rights to spouses and children in such cases.

Future times
Bernigaud believes coexistence is possible under provisions like the 1988 Matignon Accord where the Kanak and settler communities recognised each other’s right to be in New Caledonia and agreed to live together.

If there was full independence, the laws would probably change only slowly, but both communities could endure hardship at the level of day-to-day life, for a long time, as investment and French government funding was withdrawn.

“For example you might pay double for the internet, and in an accident there would be no helicopter to take you to a beautiful hospital,” he says.

“Being prepared might have needed more than the 30 years at first thought, in 1988, but after some hard years people may succeed through working together.”

The experience might be seen differently, he says, in Kanak communities, where younger people – who would “watch Disney channel in the Tribu” and use modern audio-visuals in school – were becoming more “occidental” than their elders, but where a priority in life continued to be belonging to your land and having ownership there.

Sharing as a way of life
Andre Qaeze Ihnim confirms that sharing is key to the Melanesian way of life and is the main argument of the Kanak political organisation, the Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front – FLNKS.

A leader in the Kanak community and coordinator of the famed indépendentiste media outlet Radio Djiido, he says the community has been maintaining a traditional way of life while also in transition to modern practices.

“We have been following the route laid out when our leaders signed the documents in 1988, as a kind of guideline to go on to sovereignty and independence”, he says.

‘We are ready … we are not against them’
“We recognised the differences between ideology and reality, and have spent 30 years getting experience in managing the country — and showing that now we are ready.

“That is our understanding of what our leaders signed on to.

“You know that French interests want to maintain the status quo; we can understand that, and we want to explain that we are not against them — we just ask that now we can do things together.

“We can share and we can manage it together.”

Qaeze says the idea of sharing is in step with the Melanesian way of life and can include sharing with other French people.

‘Importance of the human being’
In terms of spending and wealth, his movement demanded more priority be given to public welfare – better access to work, health care and education, where there was still “not enough sharing”.

“The most important things is the human being”, he said.

“With not even 300,000 people, we are a small society and cannot do things like a big society; we have provided the country, the land, French people have brought technology and expertise, and we must cooperate. “

A main part of identity for Kanak people also was to be part of the Melanesian society throughout Oceania, to share culture and work on equal terms with neighbours, in Vanuatu, Solomon Islands, Fiji or Papua New Guinea, and Australia and New Zealand.

Dr Lee Duffield is an independent Australian journalist and media academic. He is also a research associate of the Pacific Media Centre and on the Pacific Journalism Review editorial board. This second article in his series was first published by EU Australia, and the final article will be published by Asia Pacific Report tomorrow.

Reference
Philippe Frediere, En Caledonie, les statuts successifs ont fait le yoyo, (In New Caledonia constitutional laws have come up and down like a yoyo). Interview with Luc Steinmetz. Les Nouvelles Caledoniennes, Noumea, 18 July 2018, pp 2-3.

• Lee Duffield’s review of Nic McLellan’s Grappling With The H Bomb in Pacific Journalism Review.

• Part 1 in the New Caledonia series: New Caledonia celebrates Bastille Day and thinks about independence
• Part 2: Decolonisation in New Caledonia – who decides the future?
• Part 3: Reconciling New Caledonia: A vote to clear the air on independence?

Volunteer teachers are being maliciously labelled as “terrorists” by the Philippine government while paramilitary and mining activity increases in the country, say visiting indigenous Lumad education advocates.

Fritizi Junance Magbanua, a volunteer teacher and administrator with the Save Our Schools network, says teachers, schools and communities of indigenous peoples are being targeted and labelled as terrorists by the government.

The Save Our Schools network is a collection of 215 community based schools that operate throughout the southern Mindanao island region in the Philippines.

VIEW MORE IMAGES: Lumad campaigners appeal for NZ support to defend schools

The network is part of community groups and advocates that fight for indigenous peoples rights to “defend their land, right to education, right to self-determination,” said Lorena Sigua at a public meeting in Auckland’s Peace Place last night.

She is a volunteer at Education Development Institute (EDI) curriculum development based in Mindanao.

Auckland Philippines Solidarity, a group sponsoring the visit of the Lumads to New Zealand,  also launched an “open letter” to the Philippine government at the meeting, supporting a campaign by human rights defenders for the indigenous schools.

The letter called on the Philippine government to immediately scrap the “baseless, malicious and arbitrary terrorist listing of community activists”.

Magbanua said: “Save Our Schools has documented 89 harassments of our schools, 18 military activities inside our school vicinity, 27 schools forcibly shut down because of the intensifying military presence in our area.”

This does not just apply to school teachers. “The environmental activists, human rights activists are also being targeted and tagged as terrorists,” said Sigua.

The indigenous people, known collectively as Lumads, are the main people suffering. “Our indigenous peoples in the Philippines are now being attacked by our government,” said Magbanua.

“Mostly those who are killed are our parents and our tribal leaders who constructed the schools.”

Mining behind military threat
The threat of paramilitary and government military activity is part of the government’s move to allow mining by multinational corporations in the area.

“The southern Mindanao is blessed with a lot of resources. It is the mining capital of Philippines. As you know, big businesses are coming over to take advantage of that,” Sigua said.

“Ironically, we are the poorest region but it is the mining capital,” said Magbanua.

“When mining is in our area, the first step our government will do is deploy their troops to give way to the mining equipment. They harass people to vacate their land.”

It can also turn violent. “One of our supporters was killed a couple of weeks ago by a paramilitary group.”

Magbanua pointed to the actions of President Rodrigo Durterte which she said were encouraging the violence.

“In the first six months that President Durterte was elected, we were hopeful for a change… he says he was a socialist, and a leftist, a pro-Lumad, and anti-mining.”

‘Changed his tune’
But in November 2017 when the APEC summit took place in Manila and President Trump visited the Philippines, Duterte seemed to change his mind.

“After the visit of Trump, he changed his tune. He welcomed all the investors to extract our natural resources. So he’s a puppet,” said Magbanua.

Sigua said: “The educators in Mindanao are being targeted as terrorists.

“The indigenous peoples are now being empowered and educated because of the schools. If they are empowered, they know their rights.”

Magbanua said: “Duterte was the one who says he would bomb our schools… Under his regime, 37 Lumads have been extra-judicially killed under martial law.”

Sigua said: “There is massive militarisation in the in area. Students are evacuating, the community is evacuating.”

“There is now militarisation in the indigenous communities,” she said. This was a reaction against the fear and tension caused by other military forces in the area.

‘Land is life’
Land is often at the center of the conflicts. “We believe that land is life,” says Magbanua.

“We, the indigenous people, need to protect it from mining and multinational corporations. We have to defend this for the next generation.

“We get all our needs from the mountains. From our medicines, our foods it is our supermarket and hospital.

“We call our land the land of promise. The greedy people want to take it away from us and convert it into banana plantations and mining areas.”

After getting her university degree, Fritzi Junance Magbanua committed herself to serving indigenous people.

“For six years now I’ve been teaching and monitoring my co-teachers, facilitating the training, and doing some psychosocial therapy with my students.”

Magbanua has never thought about doing anything different than being a volunteer teacher.

‘Indigenous need me’
“After I graduated, a lot of opportunities came my way but I turned them down. Somebody needs me and it is the indigenous people.”

“It is my commitment and responsibility to be with them and serve them without anything in return.”

A turning point for her was her personal connection to the Lumad’s struggle. “By blood I am also a Lumad. I see their plight, their hunger for education. When I have this knowledge, I just want to help and educate them also.”

I am a part of their struggle to defend their land. Their plight at Mindanao is to uphold their right to self-determination.”

Lorena Sigua is from Manila. She is a graduate of the the University of the Philippines and currently is a volunteer at the Education Development Institute (EDI) curriculum development based in Mindanao.

Sigua was inspired to get involved with Save Our Schools after witnessing the Lakbayan march, where indigenous peoples were protesting about their concerns.

Challenging life
Life as a volunteer teacher in Mindanao is challenging, said Magbanua.

“Once you are a volunteer, you are not just a teacher. You are a counsellor too. The community respects us and sees us as their hero because no body cares. Especially the government in our communities, but only us teachers and the institutions we came from.

Being a teacher for the indigenous peoples has a lot of sacrifices. We are not salary based. We receive NZ$100 a month.

The teachers often must travel to remote locations to reach local communities. “We are deployed in far flung areas.”

The furtherest place the network serves requires a two-day walk through a snaking path to travel to. “We cross one river 52 times. But it’s just a little sacrifice. For us we are ready to commit ourselves to the less fortunate who are hungry for education.”

The organisation demands no payment for their work. “Our education is free for all. We don’t ask for anything in return. In fact, we provide school supplies, toiletries to continue and sustain their education.

“On our island in Mindanao, there is no electricity, no signal. You have to walk an hour to search for a signal. You literally have to climb up a tree just to search for the signal.”

Asia-Pacific consultation
Kevin McBride, national co-ordinator of Pax Christi Aotearoa, hosted the talk.

“I had expectations it would be a good revelation of the situation in Mindanao of the Lumad people,” said McBride.

In December 2017, McBride represented Pax Christi in attending an Asia-Pacific Consultation in the Philippines.

With the New Zealand government being in touch with President Duterte, McBride believes New Zealand should try to do more to help.

“We do have opportunities to raise these issues and hold them to account for their activities. Shamefully, too often we don’t as it would affect our trade.”

Appeal for help
Every year the indigenous peoples go to the capital region in the Philippines to rally and send a message to the government about their concerns.

It is called a Lakbayan, said Sigua, and it was similar to the Hikoi taken by indigenous Māori in New Zealand.

“We are sharing a struggle with Māori,” said Magbanau.

“We are appealing to your government to support our calls to stop the attacks on the activists. The activists in the Philippines are being tagged as terrorists.”

Jean Bell is contributing editor of the Pacific Media Centre’s Pacific Media Watch freedom project. Additional reporting by Rahul Bhattarai who is an Auckland University of Technology student working towards a postgraduate diploma in Journalism.

• More Philippine stories

The Indonesian government has relinquished control over nine tracts of forest to the indigenous communities that have lived there for generations, President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo announced at a recent conference on land tenure in Jakarta.

The move follows the government’s recognition last December of nine other communities’ rights to their ancestral forests, in line with a 2013 decision by Indonesia’s highest court that removed indigenous peoples’ customary forests from under state control.

“The spirit of agrarian reform and community forestry program is how lands and forests, as part of natural resources in Indonesia, can be accessed by the people, and provide economic justice and welfare for the people,” the president said in a speech to open the conference on October 25.

The nine newly designated “customary forests,” or hutan adat in Indonesian, cover a combined 33.4 sq km, on the islands of Sumatra, Borneo and Sulawesi.

The move is consistent with Jokowi’s campaign pledge to give indigenous and other rural communities greater control over 127,000 square kilometers of land, which helped him earn the first-ever presidential endorsement of the Indigenous Peoples Alliance of the Archipelago (AMAN) ahead of the 2014 election.

Three years into his presidency, however, the programme is running behind schedule. The administration has rezoned just 10,800 sq km of community forests, of which 164 sq km are customary forests, according to data from the Presidential Staff Office. The latter figure includes the nine customary forests the administration recognized at the beginning of the year and the nine last month.

Dozens of other indigenous communities are hoping to secure rights to their ancestral lands, too. The day after Jokowi’s speech, three groups from Enrekang district in South Sulawesi province submitted their own proposals to the Ministry of Environment and Forestry. The proposed customary forests there would cover 4.04 square kilometers.

“The government hasn’t really been performing in making this promise happen,” AMAN researcher Arman Mohammad said.

Land mapped out
AMAN has mapped out 19,000 sq km of land, home to 607 indigenous communities, which it says must be rezoned as customary forests. These groups have already obtained the required documents from district and provincial governments for state recognition of their rights, Arman said.

The official recognition last month represented just a fraction of what AMAN had proposed, he said.

As the agrarian reform conference wrapped up, a senior official said the president would issue a decree by year’s end to help indigenous groups like that in Enrekang obtain control of their forests. Yanuar Nugroho, a deputy at the Presidential Staff Office, told reporters that the decree would lay out the framework for regulation, bureaucracy and accountability.

Details of the decree were not immediately available. However, Yanuar said at the time that one of the key points was to iron out overlapping authorities between related ministries.

For instance, he said, the environment ministry would concentrate on recognizing land rights inside forests, while the Ministry of Agrarian Affairs and Spatial Planning would oversee those outside forests. Currently, the matter is handled by those two ministries as well as the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Ministry of Villages, Underdeveloped Regions and Transmigration.

“The country is returning sovereignty to the people, and I believe this program for community forestry and agrarian reform is the spearhead,” Yanuar said.

Some observers welcomed the promise of a decree, saying it would help streamline the process for indigenous communities in obtaining state approval of their land rights.

Single agency
“There should be a single agency focusing on the land reform program so that the people don’t get confused,” said Dewi Kartika, general secretary of the Agrarian Reform Consortium, an NGO.

Arman called on the government to involve NGOs in drawing up the decree in order for it to be effective once implemented on the ground.

But even with a decree in place, the government may miss its target.

Environment and Forestry Minister Siti Nurbaya Bakar noted at the conference that the government would only realistically be able to approve a total 43,800 sq km, just over a third of the promised total, for community forestry schemes by 2019, when President Jokowi will stand for re-election.

To achieve even that pared-down goal, the minister called on local governments to accommodate indigenous groups, who depend on district chiefs and local legislatures to issue decrees that recognise them as indigenous.

“We must now push for getting more areas that will potentially be appointed as customary lands in order to reduce conflicts,” Siti said on the sidelines of the conference.

Observers say the Jokowi administration’s actions and policies in general have failed to resolve land conflicts, which have led to the wrongful eviction of indigenous communities from their homes over the years.

Agrarian conflicts
“The locations that the government has been targeting so far are not the ones with agrarian conflicts or where there are overlapping claims between local communities,” Dewi said.

She added that policies issued by the federal government often failed to be implemented at the local level.

“A clean and just bureaucracy is our top concern,” said Rukka Sombolinggi, AMAN’s general secretary. “We have trust in the president and the ministries, but not quite in [officials at] the regional levels.”

Others also highlighted land conflicts resulting from other government programs, including its flagship infrastructure development projects and issuance of plantation permits. Efforts at land reform have also been criticized for overlooking communities in coastal areas.

“The president must take groundbreaking actions so that land reform will truly happen, otherwise it’s just a fake agrarian reform,” Rukka said.

A list of the new customary forests (from the Presidential Staff Office):

Hutan Adat Tawang Panyai (Sekadau district, West Kalimantan province, 0.4 sq km)

Hutan Adat Marena (Sigi district, Central Sulawesi province, 7.6 sq km)

Hutan Adat Batu Kerbau (Bungo district, Jambi province, 3.2 sq km)

Hutan Adat Belukar Panjang (Bungo district, Jambi province, 3.3 sq km)

Hutan Adat Bukit Bujang (Bungo district, Jambi province, 2.2 sq km)

Hutan Adat Hemaq Beniung (West Kutai district, East Kalimantan province, 0.5 sq km)

Hutan Adat Baru Pelepat (Bungo district, Jambi province, 8.2 sq km)

Hutan Adat Bukit Pintu Koto (Merangin district, Jambi province, 2.8 sq km)

Hutan Adat Rimbo Penghulu Depati Gento Rajo (Merangin district, Jambi province, 5.3 sq km)

• Other Indonesian stories

A civil society group has urged the Indonesian government to revoke a presidential decree on the indigenous resettlement schemes in forest areas, which was issued about a month ago.

The forest areas in the decree signed by President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo on September 6 are classified as conservation forests, protected forests and production forests.

Muhammad Arman, head of legal and advocacy division of the Indigenous Peoples Alliance of the Archipelago (AMAN), said the resettlement programme under the decree could threaten and potentially criminalise indigenous communities that for years have been living in the areas.

“[Indigenous communities that live on] 1.6 million hectares of conservation forests are in threat of resettlement,” Arman told reporters.

The lands constitute 20 percent of 8.2 million hectares registered by the Ministry of Environment and Forestry and the Ministry of Spatial Planning as indigenous.

Association for Community and Ecology-Based Law Reform (Perkumpulan HuMa) researcher Erwin Dwi Kristianto said in a statement that the decree “creates uncertainty” and damages social forestry and communal rights.

While the decree, of which implementation started on September 11, obliges local governments to provide legal protection for the communities living in the forest areas, it also permits their resettlement.

Dames Alexander Sinaga is a Jakarta Globe journalist.

West Papua has experienced a “significant aggravation” of the human rights situation in the past two years compared to previous years, says a new report from more than 40 faith-based and civil rights organisations.

“Reports by local human rights defenders describe an alarming shrinking of democratic space,” says the report.

“Although Indonesian President Joko Widodo pushed economic development and granted clemency to five long-term political prisoners, the police strictly limited even the most peaceful dissident political activities.”

READ MORE: Pacific Media Watch on Indonesia’s hit back at Oceania nations

The report says that Indigenous Papuans – particularly women – “continued to have a high risk of becoming victims of human rights violations.”

It adds that “racist attitudes toward West Papuans among the police and military, insufficient legal protection, the lack of proper law enforcement, inconsistent policy implementation and corruptive practices among government officials contributed to the impunity of security forces.”

Local journalists in West Papua also continued to face “intimidation and obstruction” from the security forces.

This is the fifth report of the International Coalition for Papua (ICP) covering events from January 2015 until December 2016.

Human rights analysis
More than 40 organisations in West Papua, Jakarta, and worldwide have brought their analysis on the human rights and conflict situation in West Papua together.

The executive summary of the 218-pages report explains how several human rights standards have deteriorated over the last two years.

The report is compiled by the International Coalition for Papua (ICP) and the German Westpapua-Netzwerk (WPN). The executive summary says:

“The years 2015 and 2016 were characterised by a significant aggravation of the human rights situation in West Papua compared to previous years. The term West Papua refers to the Indonesian easternmost provinces of ‘Papua’ and ‘Papua Barat’. Reports by local human rights defenders describe an alarming shrinking of democratic space.

“Although Indonesian President Joko Widodo pushed economic development and granted clemency to five long-term political prisoners, the police strictly limited even the most peaceful dissident political activities.

“Indigenous Papuans, particularly women, continued to have a high risk of becoming victims of human rights violations. Racist attitudes toward West Papuans among the police and military, insufficient legal protection, the lack of proper law enforcement, inconsistent policy implementation and corruptive practices amongst government officials contributed to the impunity of security forces.

“Government critics and activists faced legal prosecution with varying charges. Using a charge of treason (‘makar’) remained common against non-violent offenders.

Increasing ‘incitement’ charges
“West Papuan political activists also faced an increasing number of charges incitement or violence despite the non-violence of protest and almost all activism.

“The deterioration of the political and civil rights situation in West Papua during the past two years was most obvious in the sheer number of political arrests.

“Those arrests drastically increased to 1083 in 2015, and then quadrupled in 2016 to 5361 arrests, in tandem with growing political protest for self-determination.

“Almost all of the arrests came during peaceful protest in support of the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP). In addition, the Indonesian government and the regional police in West Papua increasingly restricted the right to freedom of opinion and expression using official statements (Makhlumat) issued by the Papuan Regional Police in 2016.

“Local journalists in West Papua faced continued intimidation and obstruction from the security forces. In comparison to previous years, the number of reported cases against local journalists has slightly decreased throughout the reporting period 2015 and 2016.

“President Joko Widodo’s promise in May 2015, to make West Papua freely accessible to foreign journalists and international observers was not implemented. Foreign journalists were in an increasing number of cases prevented from entering West Papua or when permitted to enter, they faced obstruction, surveillance, intimidation and physical violence.

“International human rights organisations and humanitarian organisations such as the Inter­national Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) remained banned from freely accessing West Papua.

Threatened, obstructed
“Human rights defenders in West Papua had to work under fear of being monitored, threatened and obstructed by the security forces. The killing of well-known human rights defender Joberth Jitmau, marked the sad highlight of attacks against human rights defenders during these two years.

“The police termed Jitmau’s killing a traffic accident and did not conduct a criminal investigation. Jitmau’s case was a representative example of the widespread impunity in West Papua.

“Only in rare instances were security forces prosecuted in public or military trials. Two of the three cases of prosecution resulted in considerably low sentences for the perpetrators in view of the severity of the criminal offences.

“Security force members also continued to use torture and ill-treatment as a common response to political protest or incidents of alleged disturbance of public order. Extra-judicial killings occurred particularly often as an act of revenge or retaliation for violent acts or other non-violent interactions with members of the security forces.

“The situation with regard to economic, social and cultural rights in West Papua was stagnant. The quality of education in West Papua remained considerably low, due to poor management of the education system, inadequate competencies, high absence rates amongst teachers, and inadequate funding. (Less than 1 percent of Papua Province’s annual budget goes to education.)

“There is still no culturally appropriate curriculum in place, which is capable of improving the educational situation of indigenous Papuan children and of preserving local cultures.

“Health care and education remained in a devas­tating condition, far below the national average, despite the large amount of special autonomy funds that flow to the two administrative provinces Papua and Papua Barat.

Strong imbalance
“There is a strong imbalance in the fulfillment of minimum standards in terms of health, education, food and labor rights between the urban areas and the remote inland areas of West Papua.

“Indigenous Papuans, who mostly reside outside the urban centres, suffer the most of this imbalance. Both Papuan provinces are amongst the regions with the highest prevalence rate for HIV/AIDS infections and child mortality of any ‘Indonesian province’, while the quality of health services is alarmingly low.

“Insufficient equipment in rural health care institutions and a lack of adequate health monitoring and response mechanisms remained strikingly evident. These shortcomings were highlighted when a pertussis epidemic broke out in the remote highland regency of Nduga, killing least 51 children and three adults within a span of three months in late 2015. Malnutrition enabled the rapid spread of the epidemic.

“The case also mirrors the government’s growing challenge to guarantee indigenous Papuans right to food. Palm oil plantations and other agri­cultural mega-projects have led to the destruction of local food sources, livestock and access to clean drinking water.

“Cases of domestic violence are often settled in non-legal ways, which fail to bring justice for the victims and lack a deterrent effect for perpetrators. Women living with HIV/AIDS are particularly often facing discrimination and stigmatization.

“The very existence of West Papuans is threatened by the uncontrolled migration from other parts of Indonesia. This particularly applies to the urban centers where they have largely become a marginalised minority facing strong economic competition.

“In most rural areas, where indigenous Papuans are still the majority, government-promoted large-scale natural resource exploitation projects attract migrants and continue to cause severe environmental degra­dation as well as the destruction of live­ stock of indigenous communities.

“Govern­ment institutions continued to facilitate the interests of private Indonesian and foreign companies. This practice negatively impacts indigenous people’s right to their ancestral lands and resources as well as their right to determine their development.

“Resource extraction often means clearing large forest areas and polluting of water resources, thereby forcing indigenous communities to change their very way of life. Destruction of forests and hunting grounds as a life source puts an additional burden on women, in particular.”

• Read the full report here
• Banned West Papua independence petition handed to UN

This has emerged in the launch of research results and discussion “From Decolonialisation to Marginalisation: Portrait of Government Policy in Tanah Papua for the Last 46 Years” held by ELSAM in Jakarta yesterday.

Research coordinator on Papuan issues Budi Hernawan said that the research focused on three issues — demographic changes in Papua and the impact of development policy, environmental degradation, and militarisation.

ELSAM provided several recommendations related to the three issues.

According to the coordinator of information and documentation of ELSAM, Ari Yurino, the transmigration programme in Papua has evidently brought negative impact to the social life of Papuan natives.

Due to the uneven transmigration and development programme, it has caused the increase of the number of migrants in Papua and the rise of conflict between the newcomers and the indigenous Papuans.

The transmigration programme must be terminated and its policy must be evaluated, Yurino said.

‘Alternative solution’
“As an alternative solution of regional development, the national government should facilitate the cooperation among regions to strengthen the local government in order to be able to seek for autonomous development,” he said.

One of the recommendations to the local government, he added, was to also formulate Perdasi (Provincial Regional Regulations) and Perdasus (Special Regional Regulations) which would encourage the assimilation of the migrants into Papuan culture through formal and informal education.

Meanwhile, in the context of environmental degradation, ELSAM’s programme staff, Kania Mezariani, said the national government needed to urgently conduct environmental auditing on all national scale projects in Papua, especially in the plantation and mining sectors.

According to her, those two sectors often became the triggers of conflicts, both locally and nationally

“The national government should focus on economic development which directly connects to the peoples’ needs,” she said.

Mezariani added that the local government should establish spatial planning in Papua and West Papua provinces in order to guarantee the life space of the indigenous Papuan people, especially related to the domination of the rainforests and lands of Papua.

Also the coordinator of human rights defenders capacity building of ELSAM, Mike Verawati, spoke about the importance of reviving community police in Papua.

‘NZ-aided community police’
“In Java, such a pattern is applied. Previously, the community police was run — through assistance from the Netherlands and New Zealand police institutions — quite successfully.

“That project should be run again. The government officers assigned in Papua should also receive the briefing about anthropology in order to understand and use the approach in accordance with Papuan characteristics,” she said.

Other than that, she also called on the national government to terminate the extension of authority to the Indonesian National Army over the defence role as specified in Law No 34/2002 on Indonesian National Army.

Budi Hernawan saisd ELSAM also urged Komnas HAM and the Attorney-General to immediately complete the documentation of human rights violations cases in Papua.

Hernawan added that local government must immediately establish a human rights protection instrument, especially like the Regional Commission on Human Rights, Human Rights Court, and Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Papua and West Papua, as mandated by Law No 21/2001 on Special Autonomy.

ELSAM’s website

Rukka Sombolinggi has been selected as secretary-general of the Indigenous Peoples Alliance of the Archipelago (AMAN), becoming the organisation’s first female leader since its founding in 1999 — the year after Indonesia became a democracy.

The closing day of AMAN’s fifth congress began with some uncertainty over who would be chosen. But by the time Sombolinggi was announced, it appeared to be preordained.

Her selection by consensus was reportedly cemented in the late afternoon last Sunday when a picture of AMAN leaders said to be congratulating her circulated among congress participants.

When the five candidates were trotted out on stage to say a few words, Sombolinggi stood in the center, and she spoke last.

Sombolinggi is a Torajan from the highlands of Sulawesi, a starfish-shaped island the size of Florida.

Her people have gained fame for their elaborate funeral rituals and the way they have built a local tourism industry while preserving their culture.

She is known for her fiery oratory and her longtime dedication to the indigenous rights movement. Her parents hosted a meeting in 1993 that is often cited as its genesis in Indonesia.

“I will fight for this cause with all of my heart, mind and soul,” she said in her acceptance speech.

Abdon Nababan, the current secretary-general, will stay on as a member of AMAN’s national council after Sombolinggi takes the reins in June.

It was also decided that AMAN’s next congress, in 2022, will be held somewhere in the West Papua region.

Indigenous people on a small Christian majority island in Indonesia’s North Sulawesi province are claiming victory after the government revoked a Chinese company’s mining licence.

Ignasius Jonan, Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources, the only Catholic minister in President Joko Widodo’s cabinet, recently revoked the licence of Mikgro Metal Premium (MMP), which wanted to mine for iron ore on Bangka Island.

The revocation followed the end of a legal battle begun by the Kauku, the island’s indigenous population, who claimed the mining operation was illegal.

Opposition to the mine, which covered almost half the total area of the island, began as soon as the firm obtained a licence in 2014.

The islanders filed a lawsuit in which they claimed the mine violated Indonesia’s 2007 Law on Management of Coastal Areas and Small Islands, which forbids mining on islands under 200,000 hectares.

Bangka Island is less than 5000 hectares.

The lower courts and the Supreme Court all ruled in favor of the islanders.

Fruit of hard struggle
Merah Johansyah, coordinator of Mining Advocacy Network (JATAM) who assisted the Bangka people, said the licence revocation was the fruit of the community’s hard struggle.

“Although the company has not yet started mining the ore, building facilities to prepare for the production process had caused environmental damage,” he said.

Forest areas have been damaged, while “land has been cleared, mangroves have been buried and coral reefs destroyed to build roads, a port and warehouses,” Johansyah said.

Maria Taramen, from Nature Lovers Group, a local NGO on Bangka, said the company’s presence severely disrupted people’s lives.

“Many families were fighting with each other because of differing opinions about the mine,” she said.

Ulva Novita Take, a resident of Lihunu, a village on the island, said the whole operation was threatening the livelihood of fishing communities.

“It was a threat to coral reefs and marine life, and we depend on that,” he said

The island has a population of about 2400 people with 70 percent being Protestant.

According to the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources, Indonesia has issued 9721 mining licences.

However, JATAM says about 1890 of them are in violation of the law because they are on small islands under 200,000 hectares.

Ryan Dagur writes for UCANews.

Media were still not permitted to film on Te Tii Marae premises in Waitangi, reports Māori Television.

Police also restricted media from filming the arrival of New Zealand Governor-General Patsy Reddy on her first official welcome.

WATCH MORE: Wikitoria Day and Kim Melbourne reporting for Māori Television

WATCH MORE: A new generation of kaihoe rangatahi

Media were still not permitted by the Te Tii Marae committee to film any proceedings, despite marae kaumatua Kingi Taurua disapproval.

Waitangi Day tomorrow celebrates the signing of New Zealand’s founding document, the Treaty of Waitangi – Te Tirito o Waitangi, on 6 February 1840.

“The horse has already bolted and I am sad,” said Kingi Taurua, the Te Tii Marae kaumātua.

“The reason we have the media is that the nation is informed about what’s going on here. How else would they know what’s going on here, this marae actually belongs to the nation, not Ngāpuhi — we are only the caretakers.”

“While police had also pushed the media from the road we were still able to get a glimpse of the Governor-General’s first official welcome onto Te Tii Marae,” reported Māori Television’s Heeni Brown.

Naida Glavish of Ngāti Whātua said: “No matter the marae, each has its own system of running things and we all know that the first custom is taking care of our guests and based on that I could never tell any marae how they should be treating their manuhiri.”

Jackson standing for Labour
Meanwhile, broadcaster and commentator Willie Jackson revealed that while he would be maintaining his community roles next week he would be resigning from his positions at Radio Live, Waatea, Marae and Te Mātāwai.

Labour Party leader Andrew Little confirmed today Willie Jackson would stand for a position as a Labour List MP in this year’s general election, reported Māori Television.

Flanked by Jackson and fellow Labour Party members, Little told media at a press conference at Waitangi that Labour wants to deepen and strengthen its representation of Māori.

“There is a voice that is not being heard and that is the voice of urban Māori and I think Willie brings very strong credentials in that regard,” Little said.

• Waitangi video updates from Māori Television
• Willie Jackson confirms he will stand for Labour

In 2016, two of Fiji’s main media organisations, the privately owned Fiji Times and state-owned Fiji Broadcasting Corporation, came to public attention, for the wrong reasons — laws regarding ethnic sensibilities in multiracial Fiji.

The international community needs to note that taken together, they call into question the neutrality of Fiji’s prosecuting, regulating and defending institutions.

I make no statement on the neutrality of the judiciary presiding on the case currently — the public can make their own minds up when the judgments are given.

The Fiji Times (Na Lalakai)
On the 27 April 2016, Nai Lalakai (the Fijian vernacular publication owned and published by The Fiji Times) printed an article by one Josaia Waqabaca who pointed out that a petition had been handed to Aiyaz Khaiyum (Fiji’s Attorney-General) to either engage in a “veisorosorovi” (a formal indigenous Fijian reconciliation) with indigenous Fijians or leave Fiji.

The article also alleged:

“The Muslims are not indigenous Fijians. These people are the very ones who have invaded various countries, including Bangladesh in India, and have committed murder there and raped the women and abused their children, until they have come to power, and are now in possession of it.”

The generalisations about Muslims are abhorrent to most decent Fiji citizens and me, while the statement conveniently ignores that some indigenous Fijians are also Muslims.

The Director of Public Prosecutions promptly pressed charges, not just against the article’s author (Waqabaca) and the editor of Nai Lalakai editor (Anare Ravula), but also against the editor of the English language daily, The Fiji Times (Fred Wesley), to whom Ravula reports to, the Fiji Times publisher (Hank Arts) and Fiji Times Limited as well.

The charge was that they made or caused to be published, a statement in the iTaukei language Nai Lalakai newspaper that was likely to incite dislike, hatred or antagonism of the Muslim community.

While the original charges were laid in August 2016 with Magistrate Shageeth Somaratne presiding, the case has dragged on (justice delayed is justice denied?), with the presiding judge being changed at least once.

Opposing the bail variation for Arts
The DPP’s Office has subjected itself to even great public scrutiny through their opposition to a request for a bail variation by publisher Hank Arts.

The State Prosecutor and Deputy DPP (Lee Burney) alleged that the charges against publisher Hank Arts were “serious” and he should not be allowed to travel to New Zealand for two weeks.

No doubt the presiding judge will decide whether the charges against Arts are serious.

But why on earth would the DPP’s Office think that this responsible elderly citizen, who has not a hint of a criminal record, might abscond in New Zealand?

Arts had even offered his two properties in Fiji and his FNPF balance as surety, basically his life savings.

Even more, two prominent Fiji businessmen with unquestionable reputations in Fiji (David Aidney and Jinesh Patel), had also agreed to be Arts’ surety and not travel abroad while he was away.

But not just the previous magistrate, but also the current judge, Justice Thushara Rajasinghe, concluded that these financially massive sureties were not enough to grant the bail variation.

The judge’s judgment cannot be called into question by mere mortals like me.

But the treatment of Hank Arts and Fred Wesley by the DPP’s Office is extraordinary when viewed alongside the contrasting treatment accorded to the CEO of the government-owned Fiji Broadcasting Corporation (FBC) in a comparable situation of the division of responsibility between the producer/editor and the CEO.

Is FBC privileged?
In November 2016, complaints were made by members of the public (Peter Waqavonovono, Seni Nabou and Jope Tarai) against the state-owned Fiji Broadcasting Corporation to the Police, Media Industry Development Authority (MIDA) and the Fiji Human Rights and Anti-Discrimination Commission (FHRADC), about the allegedly racist contents of an FBC programme Wasea Bhasha in which the host Nemani Bainivalu said in the Fijian vernacular words to the effect that Fijian education was lagging because:

* iTaukei did not speak English; some teachers drank grog all night and came to work lazy; if only iTaukei boys concentrated on their studies and not play, they too could reach universities and graduate.

Bainivalu is also supposed to have said that  “many iTaukei boys roam around in the night with their mobile phones, wasting time”  and that  “Indo-Fijian boys and girls do not roam around in the night”.

The complainants claimed that the content was tantamount to “explicit racism” insinuating that iTaukei people are inferior because they fail in universities because they spend more time participating in sports and that iTaukei people are academically poor because they do not know how to read in English.

The Citizens’ Constitutional Forum issued a statement noting that “promoting broad generalised comparisons between Fiji’s major ethnic groups without facts to base them is irresponsible journalism.” The CCF urged MIDA follow on with necessary investigations and recourse.

The Leader of the Opposition in Parliament, Ro Kepa, called on the CEO of FBC to resign and for an investigation to be made.

The Leader of the opposition National Federation Party (NFP), Professor Biman Prasad,  asked if MIDA was being neutral and asked him to resign from one of his two posts so that he could do an effective job.

Government reactions
The Chairman of MIDA and FHRCAD Ashwin Raj stated that that the Wasea Bhasha episode contained generalisations and stereotypes that lacked “accuracy, balance and fairness about social progress of the iTaukei community”.

But he concluded that “the programme failed to meet the threshold for inciting communal discord.. There was no overt call to violence. …  there is no pattern of hostility towards any community…  The journalist has offered a public apology in all of the three major languages admitting negligence on his part as the producer and presenter of the programme.”

Raj determined that the issue would not be referred to the Media Tribunal.

The Director of Public Prosecutions (New Zealander Christopher Pryde) considered laying charges against the Wasea Bhasha producer and presenter (Bainivalu), the chief executive officer (Vimlesh Sagar), and the acting manager (Mohammed Faiyaz Khan).

He concluded: “In order for a charge of inciting communal antagonism to succeed, the broadcast must have been of such a nature and sufficiently egregious to justify the sanction of the criminal law. In other words, the broadcast must do more than simply insult or cause offence to people. .. the item does not reach the necessary threshold for a reasonable prospect of conviction were the matter to go to trial”.

He announced regally “I decline to sanction a prosecution”.

Contrasting the two cases
It is clear that many indigenous Fijians took offence at the ethnic generalisations.

But I might even largely agree with the sentiments expressed by Cristopher Pryde and Ashwin Raj on the content of the sentences being translated by Nemani Bainivalu, Bainivalu’s statements were made as examples in a mere language translation programme, probably based on Nemani Bainivalu’s own personal observations and views. They were not presented as definitive statements by an FBC expert on the issues.

My personal view is that some of Bainivalu’s statements on ethnic behavioural differences are probably correct in general (for example the detrimental effects of not speaking English, drinking grog excessively, playing sports excessively) and can be backed by survey data from the Fiji Bureau of Statistics and Ministry of Education.

One of Bainivalu’s statements is anecdotal (which ethnic community in general roams around more at night) while one is probably incorrect (which ethnic community wastes more time on mobile phones).

But the real issue is not the content of Bainivalu’s translation examples, but the contrasting approaches taken by DPP Pryde and MIDA Chairman Raj to the Fiji Times case, as to who exactly are charged for mistakes made by subordinates.

The approach with FBC
In the FBC case, it is reported that the DPP considered laying charges against the Wasea Bhasha producer and host Nemani Bainivalu (as expected), but only against the acting chief executive officer Vimlesh Sagar and the acting manager Mohammed Faiyaz Khan.

There was no mention of the possible charging of the CEO of FBC, Riyaz Khaiyum or even of the board members of the FBC or the relevant government minister who are ultimately responsible for FBC, just as some Patels are owners of The Fiji Times and are being charged.

Riyaz Khaiyum hedged that it was an “unfortunate choice of words by the producer/presenter that was in total contradiction to the intention and policy of FBC as a responsible national broadcaster”.

When asked if FBC TV has checks and balances in place for the program before it goes on air, Riyaz Sayed-Khaiyum easily passed the buck, alleging that Nemani Bainivalu eventually became responsible for the content of the show, implying that he himself, the CEO or his organization was not in any way responsible.

While the DPP thought that the charges against the FBC were not “egregious” enough (Pryde’s obfuscating version of “outstandingly bad” or “shocking”), the FBC CEO Riyaz Khaiyum thought it bad enough to terminate Bainivalu’s contract.

FBC then ran a slot on TV in English, Fijian and Hindi in which Bainivalu admitted abjectly that he had “acted irresponsibly” and said he had resigned, when he could have also asked “why only me?”

Before you rush to compare it all to Pontius Pilate washing his hands off the matter, remember it was not Pilate but the Jews who  crucified Jesus, whereas here it was Riyaz Khaiyum himself who gave Bainivalu “the boot” rather than taking any responsibility himself.

But more important than futile biblical comparisons, the Fiji public needs to ask why the DPP’s prosecution of the five entities associated with The Fiji Times case was so different when it came to those higher up.

The book is thrown at The Fiji Times
Every Fiji citizen with common sense understands that the language proficiency requirements of vernacular papers means that in practice, it is the vernacular editor who makes the day to day decisions on the content of each issue before it goes to print, just as the FBC CEO alleged for his program producer, Bainivalu, before it went to air.

In practice, neither the English edition editor, nor the publisher nor the owners of the parent publishing company can be reasonably expected to have direct daily roles in the vetting of content in the vernacular, as they cannot reasonably be expected to know the vernacular language enough, just as I doubt if FBC CEO (Riyaz Khaiyum) has any in-depth knowledge of the Fijian vernacular, enough to vet its sophisticated content.

Nevertheless, in The Fiji Times case, the DPP chose to prosecute not only the article author (Waqabaca) and the Nai Lalakai editor (Ravula) but also the English medium editor (Fred Wesley), the English-speaking publisher (Hank Arts) and the (English-speaking) Gujarati owners of The Fiji Times Limited.

Whether the English-speaking publisher Hank Arts and Fiji Times editor Fred Wesley can be held responsible for allegedly racist content in the vernacular newspaper they do not vet in practice, will be decided by the presiding Sri Lankan judge, even if cynics note that it will be under the constitution and media decrees that have been imposed on Fiji without the approval of any Parliament (before any generalisations are made about Sri Lankan judges, note that at least one Sri Lankan judge – in the Soko case- has gone against the political tide).

Note that there was no explicit call for violence in the Nai Lalakai/Fiji Times case either, a fact deemed by Ashwin Raj to be pertinent in not charging FBC’s producer/presenter of Wasea Bhasha.

But the public can legitimately ask, and indeed, if they want a free media in Fiji, it is their deep social responsibility to ask: are there different prosecuting standards for The Fiji Times CEO and for the FBC CEO?

Is the more severe and protracted treatment of The Fiji Times by the DPP’s Office intended to intimidate them further than has already occurred?

The public (and researchers into Fiji media) are reminded that Riyaz Khaiyum is the brother of the Attorney General (Aiyaz Khaiyum) and he not only became the CEO of FBC in “unusual” circumstances after the 2006 military coup, but his editorial policies have arguably favored the Bainimarama Government, while receiving preferential financial assistance from Government, assistance denied to their primary television competitor (Fiji One) or the private radio communication companies like Communications Fiji Limited.

The peculiar roles of Pryde, Raj and Riyaz
Historians of contemporary Fiji will one day put under the microscope all the many individuals (such as Christopher Pryde, Ashwin Raj and Riyaz Khaiyum) who have kept the Bainimarama regime ticking over.

Christopher Pryde appeared in Fiji soon after the 2006 coup and quickly assumed prominent positions in the military state’s apparatus, despite the military government being declared illegal by the 2009 Fiji Court of Appeal, a judgment never reversed.

Six years ago, Ashwin Raj was relatively unemployed or underemployed at the University of the South Pacific until two economics professors (no prizes for guessing who) prevailed upon the USP Vice Chancellor to offer him more substantive work, which he eventually obtained under a belligerent and aspiring Deputy VC of USP managing USP’s STAR project (now apparently gone into a Black Hole).

It was not long before the Bainimarama government discovered that Raj’s gift of the gab requiring the public to futilely buy dictionaries, would be a great asset as Chairman of MIDA.  Indeed, media censorship, intimidation and media funding biases flourished under Ashwin Raj’s benign gaze, while he pounced on any allegedly anti-government statements, such as the so-called “kerosene and water” comment by Ratu Timoci Vesikula at a village meeting.

Then Ashwin Raj was also appointed as the Chairman of the Human Rights and Anti-Discrimination Commission, apparently or conveniently choosing not to recognise the many possible conflicts of interest in the two roles (“power corrupts absolutely”?).

The public might note (if they care) that the websites of both MIDA and the Human Rights and Anti-Discrimination Commission are virtually empty of serious content, probably an accurate reflection of the extent to which Ashwin Raj is fulfilling his responsibilities to the wider Fiji society (although no doubt pleasing the Bainimarama government).

Raj has made no public statement about the curtailment of the basic human right of Hank Arts to travel abroad for two weeks for an important family occasion — the marriage of his stepdaughter — despite his giving more than ample sureties.

Riyaz Khaiyum was once a good journalist and we oldies will remember his penetrating and humorous interview of Prime Minister Rabuka while both were jogging on the Suva Point sea front after the 1987 coup.

One of the sad outcomes of all of Fiji’s military coups is that the smears generated by the coup leaders inevitably sticks to even the well-intentioned citizens who choose to support illegal governments, their laws and their unfair prosecutions (no doubt personal benefits also help).

History may be harsh on coup supporters and accomplices who think that a few “good things” done by the coup makers justify the coups, and their own behavior.  But that is no comfort to those who continue to suffer the ill effects of coups and even more into the future when the huge increase in public debt has to be paid.

Especially when Fiji history proves that such individuals will merely brush off the dirt before they depart, scot-free and with their ill-gotten gains, to their eventual peaceful permanent abodes abroad, which follow rules of law and social behavior that they so readily helped to trash in Fiji.

An even bigger tragedy for indigenous Fijians and their future, is that those that remain in Fiji will be forgiven in “true Fijian tradition” and welcomed back into the fold, without ever fully and honestly revealing,  atoning or being punished for their sins.

While the carrots have always been there for those who have supported coups, there have been no sticks to discourage future coup makers.

The incarceration of George Speight is merely a reminder to sleeping historians to explain why that one jailed sparrow does not represent the caging of summer.

Academic and media commentator Professor Wadan Narsey blogs at Narsey on Fiji – Fighting Censorship and this article is republished here from his blog with permission.

• Muslim bashing in Fiji is a crime. But why is the law not applied equally to others? — FijiLeaks
• Court bars overseas travel for accused Fiji Times publisher

Indonesia’s Statistics Office has produced an ethnic breakdown of the Papua region, based on the last census in 2010 which established an overall population of 3.6 million.

While the proportion of Papuan people as a percentage of the population continues to decline, this process varies widey between different regencies, reports Dateline Pacific.

The percentage of Papuans has fallen catastrophically in some regions, particularly in urban centres, but Papuans still make up the vast majority in the Highlands.

Using the new data, Dr Jim Elmslie of Sydney University’s West Papua Project has produced a new paper at Global Research updating his previous work on Papua’s demographic transition.

He talks to Johnny Blades of Dateline Pacific:

Transcript:
JIM ELMSLIE: You’ve got to handle the figures with some degree of care and you’ve got to sort of doubt the accuracy to some extent because the large area that’s there, the terrain, the fact that large areas of the Highlands, I don’t know if you’d call it a revolt, but there are certain areas that are conflicts between certain areas of the island and the state are fairly entrenched. So the figures – what you can get clearly from them is the trend and the change over time and that’s clearly continuing because of the large-scale inward migration of non-Papuan settlers drawn into the region mostly for economic opportunity, and most of that economic opportunities are on the plains.

JOHNNY BLADES: You’ve established that the Melanesians – the Papuans – their growth rate is quite a bit less than the non-Papuans.

JE: That’s what the research shows and that’s even given that the numbers are a bit rubbery. Because for [Indonesia] to conduct an accurate census would be damn-near impossible and the figures that we have to use, so we use them. But anecdotally as well – from talking to health experts and looking at what’s going on on the ground compared to say PNG – then yeah the birth rate clearly is lower. There’s a whole range of reasons for that. One is the infant mortality and the maternal mortality rate is very high, there are untreated diseases that cause infertility. But that’s fairly clear and it’s also clear that large numbers of migrants are coming in, the government is building new ports, there are ships that come in on a weekly basis, there’s many flights every day from other parts of Indonesia. There’s clearly the demand, and as we’re talking, they are clearing tens of thousands of acres of rainforest and putting in labour-intensive things like oil palm plantations, where the workers are being brought in from Java rather than being recruited locally.

JB: Back in 2010 you had estimated that the total population of West Papuans in West Papua, that whole Papua region, was some 48 percent. And now with these new BPS [Indonesian Statistics Office] figures it’s indicating that their percentage is something like 66 percent. Isn’t that in some ways a positive, given that in the last couple of years a lot of the discourse around the West Papuan diplomatic wrangle has been around them having become a minority in their own land?

JE: Well, when you extrapolate these figures forward, and there’s two different population growth rates, you come up with these figures of the minoritisation of the Papuan population. And that was a projection, I guess, if all else remained the same. And I think the exact figures may vary but the trend is still there. So in terms of whether that’s positive or not… I think it certainly is positive that large areas of the Highlands of West Papua are still populated very strongly by groups of indigenous Melanesian people, even if that’s not the case in the lowlands. But it means that the Papuans, certainly in the Highlands, are not on the verge of disappearing under the weight of inward migration. So yes, I think that’s a positive thing. Some people seem to feel that the general conflict in West Papua would disappear over time as the Papuan population became a minority. Well that’s obviously not going to happen. That is happening in the lowlands, but it’s not going to happen anytime soon in the Highlands, even though – I must stress again – that there’s a lot of development going on there which will bring in outsiders, bring in more military, which will always be a threat to them [Papuans].

JB: Transmigrasi is no longer an official programme, is that right? But these people are still coming in?

JE: Yeah so there’s no official transmigration, but it’s the policy, I think, of the Indonesian government because looking at the bigger picture of Indonesia and the Indonesian  economy – and people talk about it growing – West Papua makes up something like 23 or 24 percent of the land mass of Indonesia and it’s got huge resources: obviously the forestry, when most of the rest of the trees of Indonesia have been cut down, so Papua is really the last place where there’s huge stands of rainforest; there’s also the mineral wealth which is possibly the richest part of the entire world – the Freeport mine is probably the biggest gold mine in the world, the biggest copper mine, it’s also the biggest economic entity in Indonesia and also the biggest taxpayer. So looking into the future, the Indonesians’ capacity to exploit the natural resources of West Papua, and with all that brings, that will be one of the factors that allow Indonesia to grow as people are predicting it to grow, and become one of the main economies in southeast Asia, and certainly bigger than Australia. Which is one of the fears, I guess, which is underlying Australian policy, that in some future when the Indonesian economy overtakes the Australian economy in size, and Indonesia becomes a more important country internationally, then that’s going to be quite a different situation than has been the case in this part of the world up until now, where the Australian economy and therefore its military resources and the rest of it were superior to the Indonesians. So a lot of that long-term growth will come out of West Papua. And if that continues, it will involve shifting more and more people down to that region.

• West Papuan demographics revisited

Fiji Times publisher Hank Arts’ bail variation application has been dismissed by the Suva High Court.

Justice Thushara Rajasinghe told Arts and his lawyer that they had 30 days to appeal to the Fiji Court of Appeal.

Arts had asked to travel overseas to New Zealand for medical treatment and to attend his daughter’s wedding next month.

This is the second application to be rejected by the court.

Arts had offered to surrender his properties in Vuda and Lami as well as his entire superannuation savings to the court.

He is charged with inciting “communal antagonism” along with Fiji Times editor-in-chief Fred Wesley, Nai Lalakai editor Anare Ravula, Josaia Waqabaca and Fiji Times Limited.

They are alleged to have made, or published, a statement that could likely
incite dislike, hatred, or antagonism against the Muslim community.

The charges relate to an article published in April 2016 in the newspaper’s i-Taukei language newspaper Nai Lalakai.

Defence counsel Feizal Hannif said they will go through the ruling before deciding whether to appeal.

Tokasa Rainima is a Fiji Times reporter.

• Fiji Times report of the court ruling
• Court hears Fiji Times bail variation case

By Len Garae in Port Vila

The five most prominent ni-Vanuatu charitable organisations in the country — led by the Vanuatu Free West Papua Association (VFWPA) — have petitioned the Australian government to “stop killing Melanesian people in West Papua” by providing financial support and military training for Indonesian elite forces Kopassus and Detachment 88.

The training programme is made possible under the Australia/Indonesia bilateral military cooperation.

The petition says the decision has come at the right time to support and encourage all the West Papua Solidarity Groups in Australia to change the heart of the Australian government to “stop the killing of Melanesian brothers and sisters in West Papua”.

The petition describes Melanesians as “the most hated ethnic group in the world”, saying “The Australian government should have learned and repented from the past barbarous treatment our forefathers received during the black birding and slave-trade era”.

Spirit of solidarity
In the true spirit of solidarity and partnership with all the Pacific civil society organisations and the people of Vanuatu:

• Convince that all indigenous peoples have an inalienable right to complete freedom, the exercise of their sovereignty and the integrity of their national territory;

• Re-affirm our solid stand to continue always to be the voice of the voiceless; and

• Express solidarity with the commitments of the leaders of the MSG, other Pacific countries and all the West Papuan support groups around the globe to condemn the ongoing genocide and human rights violation in West Papua.

• Further petition the Australian government to respect all the Articles of the following International Instruments on Human Rights which were adopted and proclaimed by the UN General Assembly:

• Universal Declaration of Human Rights. (GA resolution 217 A (111) of 10 December 1948);

• (11) International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights;

• (GA resolution 2200 A (XX1) of 16 December 1966 and came into force on 23/03/1976);

• (111) Declaration On The Granting Of Independence To Colonial Countries and Peoples. (GA resolution 1514 (xv) of 14 December 1960; and

• (1V) International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. (GA resolution 2200 A (XXXI) of 16 December 1966, but entered into force on 03/01/1976.

End of colonialism
• Finally, petition the Australian government to solemnly proclaim the necessity of bringing to a speedy and unconditional end of colonialism in all its forms and manifestation in the world and especially in West Papua.

The chairman of VFWPA says the First Secretary Head of Political and Economic Unit, Sonya Gray, attended the signing ceremony at the PCV Office on Thursday.

The chairman read the petition in her presence then handed her a copy to deliver to the Australian High Commissioner.

The First Secretary said thank you and assured the petitioners with words to the effect that the Australian government, like Vanuatu, does not support all forms of mistreatment of all colonised peoples but that at the same time respects Indonesia’s sovereignty.

Len Garae is a senior journalist on the Vanuatu Daily Post.

Martina Wanago was sick. In fact, she was sure she would die. She had contracted HIV, which has reached epidemic proportions here in Indonesia’s remote and restive province of Papua. And like many of those infected, she didn’t know what was wrong with her.

“All I could do was just wait for God to call me,” Wanago said, closing her eyes as firelight flickered on her face in a traditional roundhouse in Kambele, a remote artisanal mining village deep in cloud-shrouded mountains.

But it was here, in this unlikely spot, that she found salvation. Or rather, she found treatment – at the Waa Waa Hospital in the nearby community of Banti.

The hospital was built by Freeport McMoRan, one of the world’s largest mining companies, based in Phoenix, Arizona. It is one of very few positive developments that the industry has brought to indigenous Papuans.

Grandmothers Against Removals (GMAR) were recipients of the Aboriginal Justice Award at the Justice Awards in Sydney this month.

The group were recognised for their advocacy against indigenous children being forcibly taken away from families as well their contribution to guiding principles for strengthening the participation of local Aboriginal community in child protection decision making.

Laura Lyons, a member of GMAR Sydney, told Asia Pacific Report earlier this year of the forced and unjustified removal of her children and the abuse they faced in a residential care facility.

‘Proud moment’

She said the award was a “proud moment” for the group and believed their ancestors were present to witness it.

‘On our way to the awards we saw a rainbow,’ Lyons explained.

“It was actually Bianca (Lyons daughter) who looked up in the sky and said, ‘mum there’s the rainbow’. I said to her, ‘that’s our ancestors with us’ and I knew we were going to win the award.”

‘Ongoing’

Lyons said her case with the Department of Children Services (DoCS) is ongoing but GMAR continues to be busy travelling to other communities to assist and support families.

GMAR have set up a GoFundMe page to raise money for transport costs to visit other families who need their help.

• Guiding principles for strengthening the participation of local Aboriginal community in child protection decision making
• Laura Lyons case: ‘stolen generations’
• Still stealing the generations – the abduction of Indigenous Australian children goes on
• Stop Stolen Generations

By TJ Aumua in Auckland 

Filmmakers of the New Zealand documentary Price of Peace were honoured this week with the producers receiving an award for their contribution to “peace and aroha”.

Director Kim Webby with co-producers Christina Milligan and Roger Grant were recipients of the Te Pou Tatau Pounamu NZ Peace Foundation Award at the Ngā Aho Whakaari (Māori in Screen Production) 20th Anniversary.

Milligan told the Pacific Media Centre that they were honoured to be recognised by their peers and the film community.

She added the film has achieved more success than they had hoped for, reaching mainstream and indigenous audiences around the world.

Tūhoe activist

The film provides exclusive access to the world of Tūhoe activist Wairere Tame Iti and the trial of the Urewera Four’ in which Iti and three others were accused of plotting terrorist activities in 2007.

International screenings

International screenings of the film continue this week, with the documentary being featured in the Margaret Mead Film Festival at the American Museum of Natural History in New York.

It was recently aired on Al Jazeera as a Witness documentary under the title An Innocent Warrior. 

In January 2017, it will be filmed at the Skábmagovat -Indigenous Peoples’ Film Festival in Finland.

·       A list of all the recipients at the Ngā Aho Whakaari award ceremony

·       New documentary gives fresh side to Tame Iti story

A Buzzfeed article stated eight indigenous crew members are currently involved in the film, including: cinematographer Cornel Ozies and award-winning actor Shari Sebbens are both working directly with Waititi, and Jaru producer and writer, Kodie Bedford, is working in the stunts department.

An indigenous water company has also been contracted to provide water to the production.

According to a Māori Television article, Waititi said: “Being Māori, it’s extremely important to me to have native presence on any film. We’re bringing a huge Hollywood production to this country [Australia] and it’s only right that we make an effort to include indigenous film makers on the journey.”

Penny Smallacombe, head of the indigenous department at Screen Australia said: “We are enormously proud of the talent and ambition of this cohort. From an attachment comes practical and hands-on experience, invaluable networking and the opportunity to forge a sustainable career in the industry.”

A group of Indigenous Australian grandmothers have organised themselves to stop the Australian government from taking away Indigenous children from their immediate families and their mums and dads.

The group — who call themselves Grandmothers Against Removals (GMAR) — says the stealing of Indigenous children has been going on for more than 20 decades and the group is fighting the government to have the children returned to their families.

Linda Jackson, a 61-year-old Indigenous woman, a child of the Stolen Generation, said she was taken away from her mother in the 1950s when she was a baby in Western Australia. She said her parents had no rights to them so she and her siblings were placed in institutions and missions and the practice of taking Indigenous children away from their families has continued ever since.

Catherine Jackson, Linda’s 42-year-old daughter, said that GMAR was formed because of the large numbers of Indigenous children who were being taken from the hospitals as soon as they were born or from the family homes.

“It’s like a slave industry but better for the white man because they are taking innocent children who will grow up not knowing their culture,” says Jackson.

Jackson blames the high rate of teenage and youth suicide among Indigenous Australians on their growing up without knowing their culture. The police, says Jackson, come in with the DoCS (Department of Children’s Services now called Family and Community Services) social worker and take the children away without any consideration for their families or the children’s well-being.

‘Very scary’
The children are then placed in “horrible situations with people who don’t know how to handle Indigenous kids” and taught the “white man’s ways”. The children are put “in unsafe care where they are raped by paedophiles…they get beat up, they get stressed out, they don’t eat properly. They can’t sleep because they don’t know what’s happening to them. They’re innocent children so it’s very scary for them, very scary”.

The Stolen Generation is not a thing of the past.

Catherine Jackson says it began more than 200 years ago — when “the white man came here and invaded this country” — and it continues today.

GMAR became involved because of their continued concern for the growing number of suicides among Indigenous youth and the large numbers of children going missing. “Not just children, people that are Aboriginal. They were just being slaughtered and wiped out never to be found when the white man finished with raping these kids in care. What do they do with the kids, you know?”

Laura Lyons,* herself a grandmother who has had children and grandchildren stolen from her, agrees that the children have suffered at the hands of their caregivers: “I know through neglect of these white carers our children have died while in care.”

GMAR has been active in the last two and a half years since it was formed and says that stealing and selling Indigenous Australians is a money industry. “They see dollar signs…they think that they can sell these children into adoption agencies. It’s just another slave industry where the white man can come in, take whatever and sell the kids off”.

“They get thousands of dollars per child” says Linda and says that Indigenous Australian families get half the amount of money for fostering a child than white families.

Many reasons
Laura said that she knew of one residential care facility where the carer was being paid the sum of A$11,000 per month for the care of 3 children, aged 11, 10 and 8.

According to GMAR, the police and government officials give a number of reasons for taking the children, such as the use of drugs and alcohol in the families, unsafe homes, accusations of molestation in the family, and often use prison records and mental health records against the families.

“They’ll come up with allegations that have never been proven before but all of a sudden they’re there. So then they build up a case on lies against families,” says Jackson.

One of the grandfathers, Christopher Simpson, said he was taken as a child up to Bomaderry. Back then, he said, a car pulled up full of Aboriginal children and they were taken to Bomaderry where he stayed for 16 years, 14 of them in a home without his own family. The grandfather said that children were kept until they were 21 and that “if you’re a good worker they won’t let you go”.

According to Linda Jackson, the boys are stolen to carry out domestic work, farm work, dairy work or sent to the cattle stations.

Linda Jackson has had three of her grandchildren taken away from her. The grandchildren are currently 14, 2 and one year old. It has been 14 years since the eldest was taken away. Linda Jackson said there was no reason for the grandchildren to be taken away.

“The white woman she come in my house and saying we were all drinking and on drugs. And I’ve never taken drugs! And there was no alcohol there. All of my grandkids. I raised all of my grandkids. Even my sister’s daughter too. I mean this white woman turns up to the door. Sees the Aboriginals in there, then she puts an act on, goes, ‘Ah black fellas, I’m gonna get attacked!’ You know what I mean? Then she goes, ‘I’ll be back in about half an hour’. Goes and gets a tank full of cops!’

‘Still a mystery’
Linda Jackson still does not know why the woman showed up at her place. “It’s still a mystery to me. Why? Because she had no reason to come there.”

Linda Jackson’s son had been arrested and the son’s wife and child had been taken to the police station. Catherine Jackson said that her mother should have been given the option to take the grandchild but the police and government officials put the child in welfare. “So my niece has grown up without family and got a new family.”

The grandmothers of GMAR have vowed to keep fighting to take back their stolen grandchildren and to reunite them with their families and culture.

Associate Professor Camille Nakhid of Auckland University of Technology is a contributor to Asia Pacific Report and chairperson of the Pacific Media Centre Advisory Board.

• *Laura’s story will be featured in an upcoming edition of Asia Pacific Report.

Journalism educators from across the Pacific have raised concerns about the current state of journalism globally at the 4th World Journalism Education Congress (WJEC) at the Auckland University of Technology this week.

The panel of educators from across New Zealand and Australia agreed better practice in journalism is required in order to truly represent diverse communities and those seen as “minorities” and disadvantaged.

Bernard Whelan, manager of Whitireia’s journalism programme, Tara Ross of the University of Canterbury, Professor David Robie of the Pacific Media Centre, and Kathryn Shine of Western Australia’s Curtin University, all said better practice could be achieved through instilling improved methods with young and aspiring journalists. 

This echoed points raised by both Dr Lee Duffield and journalism educator Dr Philip Cass on Wednesday at the JEERA preconference that students were at the heart of developments in the industry.

‘Bicultural responsibility’
Whelan noted how the mainstay of American news values left no apparent room in the mainstream media to explore more “indigenous” and alternative models of reporting.

He stressed journalists, particularly in New Zealand regarding Māori, had a “bicultural responsibility” to at least consider these forms and hoped that through his PhD research a bicultural model for journalism education could be “deeply ingrained” into Whitireia’s programme.

Ross noted how students needed to report with and not on the community, which was not currently the norm as it was different from “normative” educational process.

She stressed the importance of students understanding the consequences of their stories and noted how they need a measure of accountability.

This evoked a vocal response from one of the delegates present, who stressed that a journalist’s stories are not momentary for those that are featured, as the story has a “lasting, lifelong digital attachment”.

Negative focus detrimental
Shine however, raised the important issue of the prevalence of negativity in the media and the media’s seeming inability to pull away from the “if it bleeds, it leads” mentality that continues to drive the mainstream news cycle.

She said such a negative focus might mean the media was “out of sync” with the very community it sought to inform. This echoed sentiments delivered earlier by Ross, who noted that what the media perceived as the community needing was not necessarily what it wanted.

Shine also highlighted the importance of pulling away from such negative stories and perceptions with her research into teachers’ perceptions of the news and journalists.

She found more than 80 percent of teachers believed coverage of their work was negative, while 60 percent said “sweeping generalisations” resulted in media coverage being biased.

More than half concluded that the media did not convey the realities of both schools and teaching, she said.

Such revelations were concerning, as it led the community to question the credibility of the media.

In the Q and A session following the panel, one delegate raised the concern that such issues in the coverage of education posed serious dilemmas for the potential influx of young journalists, as “teachers have a fundamental influence in students career choices”.

Independent media important
Pacific Media Centre director Professor David Robie drew on the examples of Pacific Scoop and Asia Pacific Report in a case study to stress the importance of the presence of independent, alternative media in journalism schools for students to explore their potential.

Dr Robie highlighted how such media demonstrated best practice as a “cornerstone of democracy”.

He said it was integral to involve students in such a process, and noted the “innovative” work that had been achieved by postgraduate students on the PMC’s Asia-Pacific Journalism Studies course over the past few years, including missions to the Pacific.

Students from the course had covered the the 2014 general election in Fiji — the first since the 2006 militrary coup — and had assignments involving climate change in Fiji, and the Pacific Islands Forum in the Cook Islands and Vanuatu.

Both the panelists and delegates noted that if changes were not made to dominant paradigms and mainstays of journalism soon that the “rubber would hit the road” leading to an internal moral crises within the industry.

• WJEC16: Role of journalism students
• Asia Pacific Report

Indonesia’s Minister of Land and Spatial Planning Ferry Mursyidan Baldan has declared the government’s recognition of communal rights of nine indigenous communities in Papua.

The declaration was held at the closing of the  9th Sentani Lake Festival at the province’s Khalkhote region in East Sentani last week.

“We want to affirm how Jayapura becomes the living space for indigenous communities. No more actions against the living and cultural spaces of indigenous communities,” Ferry said.

The state had supported available space for Papua’s indigenous communities so no more people are evicted or forced from their native land, Ferry said.

“On behalf of the country, we affirm that in all Papuan regions, the entire space, mountain, beaches and others are owned by Papua’s indigenous communities. Whoever wishes to take benefits, to develop, should recognise the presence of indigenous communities within.”

“There should no longer be the elimination of indigenous communities’ rights,” Ferry said.

Daniel Toto, head of Jayapura’s indigenous communities, has called on the central government to strengthen the practical presence of indigenous communities.

Since President Widodo’s inauguration on 20 October 2014, there were considerable expectations for improvement in Indonesia’s human rights situation, particularly in Papua and West Papua.

President Widodo was believed to have a strong commitment to addressing the various human rights violations in Papua, providing remedies for victims and families, and evaluating the presence of security forces in the province.

Over a year of his presidency however, has neither resolved any of the past human rights violations, nor seen any adequate remedy and guarantee for non recurrence given to the victims.

Law No. 21 of 2001 on special autonomy for Papua and West Papua province has yet to bring benefits to local indigenous Papuans. Similarly, government development of public infrastructure has an economic and business orientation rather than benefits for the local community.

The government’s attempts to boost international investment to Papua and West Papua will likely see an increase in migration to the provinces from elsewhere in Indonesia, further fuelling local discontent.

Police involved
Furthermore, criminal justice institutions in the provinces do not function to address human rights problems.

The police are frequently involved in various human rights violations in the two provinces, and the accountability mechanism has failed to address this problem.

The Paniai case of 8 December 2014, where four indigenous Papuan children were shot to death, two adults seriously injured, and 17 others injured (AHRC-UAC-089-2015) is an indicative example of the brutality faced by Papuans, as well as the lack of any effective investigation or remedies.

Other cases that have also not been investigated and prosecuted under President Widodo’s administration include the case of a member of the Air Force heavily maltreating 22-year-old Amsal Marandof (AHRC-UAC-143-2015), the case of arbitrary arrest and torture of three indigenous Papuans on 27 August 2015 (AHRC-UAC-003-2016), and the case of the shooting and brutal attack on 10 indigenous Papuan youth conducted by police officers of Tigi Police Sector (AHRC-UAC-090-2015).

The AHRC has also observed the Indonesian government’s lack of willingness to deal with past human rights abuses in Papua and West Papua provinces.

The investigation report of the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) on the gross violations in Wasior Wamena Papua (2001 and 2003), for instance, has been sitting with the Attorney General for the past eight years, without any action taken by that office.

In the allegations of genocide in the Central High Lands of Papua from 1977-1978 as well, although the AHRC submitted a report to Komnas HAM, as of yet there is no progress in the investigation.

While Komnas HAM initiated establishing a team in November 2015 to audit human rights violations beginning from the integration of Papua to the Republic of Indonesia until the case of Tolikara (AHRC-UAC-106-2015, AHRC-UAU-002-2016), since then there has been no clear information on the team’s existence or work.

Recently, a government initiative under the Coordinator Minister of Politic and Security (Menkopolhukam), Luhut Binsar Panjaitan, was announced, to establish a special team dealing with human rights violations in Papua and West Papua provinces.

Initiative rejected
Local human rights groups however, have largely rejected the initiative, saying that representative indigenous Papuans in the team are not genuinely representing indigenous Papuans on the ground.

In fact, the initiative is typical of the government process to suddenly establish a team without proper consultation and discussion with Papuans on the ground.

The government tends to simplify the problems in Papua, and its economic and infrastructure perspective on Papua does not seriously take into consideration the history of human rights violations occurring from the time of integration to the present.

The AHRC therefore calls for President Joko Widodo and his administration to take serious and comprehensive steps to deal with the various human rights problems facing Papua and West Papua provinces.

The government should stop seeking political benefits in dealing with the provinces, and focus on improving the situation of the local communities.

In particular, the government must guarantee protection of local indigenous Papuans, local human rights defenders and journalists, and consistently open Papua and West Papua to international monitors to ensure the progress of resolution.

• Asian Human Rights Commission

Indigenous landowners from the Marap people in Arso in Papua’s Keeron regency have this week invoked customary law to take back 1300 ha of oil palm land owned by PTPN II for 30 years as part of its Arso plantation.

The action took place at Yamara village PIR 3, Manem sub-district, Keerom Regency, in the province of Papua near the Papua New Guinea border on Wednesday.

Maickel Fatagur, head of the Fatagur clan which holds customary land rights, alongside other clans such as the Wabiager and Gumis clans, said that they would no longer hold any kind of meetings with the company.

That is because they have used customary law to take back the land PTPN was using, specifically the Core III, Core IV and Core V divisions.

“We used customary law to take the land back. That means now there will be no more meetings with the company. The land now belongs to us.” he said.

“We invite PTPN II Arso to take back its oil palm and we will take back our land. That’s all,” Fatagur made clear to the manager of PTPN II’s Arso plantation on Wednesday at Tami in Manem District, in Keerom.

According to Fatagur, PTPN II has operated the Arso plantation on the Fatagur clan’s land, and that of its sub-clans, for about 30 years, but the local community, who hold the customary land rights, have never felt economically secure

Action supported
“All these years attention has never been paid to the wellbeing of the community, who hold the customary land rights, ” said Fatagur.

Dominika Tafor, secretary of the Boda Student Association (Himpunan Mahasiswa Boda) in Keerom, who is also an indigenous member of the Marap ethnic group, said she was supporting the action taken by local indigenous people.

“We strongly support the action which the Marap community of Workwama village are taking today. We support it, because for so many years the company has not paid attention to the fate of the community. They only come to destroy,” she said.

When the indigenous people arrived at the plantation office in Tami, PTPN II’s Arso plantation manager, Hilarius Manurung, received them. He said he would take their wishes on board and pass them on to the Keerom local government.

“Since we’re a state-owned company, we can only listen to all aspirations and complaints and pass them on to the local government for further action. There’s not much we can do. What we can do is to follow up all these complaints from the community,” said Manurung.

Suarapapua.com observed that security forces from the Keerom police headquarters were present – 11 armed policemen in a Dalmas truck, ready to police the Marap people’s action.

The indigenous people’s main banner said: “We don’t need oil palm, we only need forest … for our grandchildren”

As a symbol, the indigenous people brought soil from the three oil palm locations and taro yams from their gardens, placing them in a noken string bag made from forest palm frond midribs, and using traditional rituals took them to PTPN II’s office located in the plantation
administration centre in Tami.

[Translation].

#savehutanpapua
#savehutankeerom

Six of the Auckland participants who attended the UN Commission of the Status of Women held in New York in March have had an opportunity to report back on the discussions that were held on the international stage.

An echoed concern among the participants was the lack of Pacific and indigenous representation at the commission.

Some even feel disappointed with a particular presentation and report by New Zealand’s Ministry for Women at the commission that “named and shamed” Māori and Pacific women.

At the “report back” session held by the Pacific Women’s Watch NZ (PWW), Denise Ewe, area representative for Tāmaki Makaurau and national executive at the Māori Women’s Welfare League (MWWL), said she felt honoured to participate in the commission but was “ashamed” over the ministry’s presentation.

Ewe said singling out these specific ethnicities and attaching them to domestic violence data on a world stage was “sloppy” when there were groups in New Zealand that have concerns around the same issue.

“There was over 4000 women from every country and no other country specifically and deliberately named [the ethnicity].

“That for me was one of the lows I have to say,” said Ewe.

Formal letter
Another participant who is also national president of the Māori Women’s Welfare League, Prue Kapua, said the league was in the process of writing a formal letter about the issue to the ministry and will be meeting with them for a debrief within the next month.

“The issue about that particular report, and how it was used has already been raised, we have discussed that with the minister last year but it seems to find its way back into that forum.”

Kapua said the commission was a huge learning experience where she gained perspectives on the process of negotiating on human right laws.

But she was disappointed with the “invisibility” of indigenous women in the world arena.

PWW board member and former Shakti Community Council employee Sara Daneshvar was also present at the commission and told Pacific Media Watch that in future she would like to see increased Pacific “grassroots” representation.

She said the Pacific was unfamiliar territory on the world stage and urged the New Zealand government to provide assistance for island nations to attend UN conferences and commissions like this one.

“For example, Papua New Guinea was not represented but we know there are plenty of organisations doing work on the ground there, but they barely have the funds to run their services. How are they going to have the funds to go to these conferences?”

Real issues
Daneshvar emphasised the real issues affecting indigenous and Pacific women were not going to be heard unless their voices and perspectives were presented directly by them.

Her message to women in New Zealand is the need to be aware of the resources they can access if their rights are abused.

“A lot of women do not know the threats committed against them are actually [human rights] abuses. All of them need to be aware that they should be treated as equals to men, that is their right as women, and if that is abused they need to know what can they do about it.”

Beverley Turner, international secretary for PWW, said New Zealand had got a reputation of being “this first country for women to vote, but [other world countries] don’t realise all the other issues beneath the surface.

“We would very much like an action plan for women,” Turner said. “This government refuses to have a plan of action for women; categorically refused that recommendation from the Human Rights Council.”

Turner’s message: “You are women, you have the same rights as women anywhere—go for it.”

TJ Aumua is contributing editor of the Pacific Media Centre’s Pacific Media Watch freedom project.

Australian trade union groups and Philippines solidarity networks have joined in protesting over the Kidapawan massacre in the southern island of Mindanao last Friday, leaving 3 dead, 87 missing and 116 wounded.

According to Interaksyon, security forces opened fire as they dispersed farmers and indigenous lumad tribespeople who were blockading the Cotabato-Davao highway in Kidapawan City.

The number of wounded had climbed to 116, according to Ariel Casilao of Anakpawis, speaking by phone from the United Methodist Church (UMC) compound in Kidapawan. But other reports have indicated a lower number of casualties.

The Australian Council of Trade Unions; Maritime Union of Australia, SEARCH Foundation; Philippines Australia Union Link; Action for Peace and Development in the Philippines, and Migrante Australia are among those who have prostested.

A protest letter has been delivered to the Philippines consulate in Sydney.

“We are outraged at the shooting of a large and peaceful protest of farmers in Kidapawan, Mindanao, last Friday morning, by the Philippines National Police,” Peter Murphy, spokesperson for the International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines, said today.

“We demand action from the Philippines President today, along with protests around the globe.”

The casualty figures given were smaller than those reported by Interaksyon.

A statement by the International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines (ICHRP) said he shootings left two people dead, and at least 37 hurt and wounded.

Many were still unaccounted for after the violent dispersal, including women, elderly and six minors.

45 arrested
At least 45 men were illegally arrested and are now under police custody at the Kidapawan Gym, while 27 women (three are pregnant and two senior citizens) were arrested and are now at the Kidapawan City Convention Center.

The rest of the protesters who are in sanctuary at the UMC’s Spottswood Methodist Center  continue to experience harassment, as combined elements of the police and military surround the church compound and restrict the entry and exit of farmers, their supporters, and churchgoers.

The farmers mounted the protest against the government’s attention to the much-needed distribution of relief goods and agricultural assistance amid the impact of the El Niño climate phenomenon.

The government had promised billions of pesos to mitigate the situation. But nothing followed.

The ICHRP called for:

1. Immediate independent investigation of the incident;
2. Pull-out of police and military elements blocking the entry and exit of protesters and support groups in the UMC compound;
3. Release of protesters illegally detained by the PNP;
4. Immediate distribution of the rice support and other calamity assistance to the farmers;
5. Relief and prosecution of police officials involved in the dispersal and shooting of farmers pending an impartial investigation;
6. The accountability of Governor Emmylou Taliño-Mendoza and all involved officials;
7. The Philippine government to adhere to/respect the basic fundamental right of its citizens to freedom of association and assembly, and to come to its defence and aid when disasters have deprived them of their basic needs.

• Demand for rice turns bloody
• North Cotabato governor slammed for threatening bishop

Last year Radio New Zealand cut its last Māori dedicated news in prime time, Manu Korihi, from its airwaves and not a word of criticism was directed their way in the Pakeha media world.  Politicians irresponsibly also said nothing and a station that gets $35 million in taxpayers’ funding now not only doesn’t have one Māori presenter in prime time but it doesn’t have any Māori news.

It’s a story I have tried to get on mainstream media, particularly in the main national newspapers, but none were interested in doing anything — not the Herald, Dominion Post or any of the Sunday weekend papers.  Of course I knew the reluctance or resistance to support my request was probably based on the fact that all those outlets have virtually No Māori working for them.

So obviously they were not going to back my call for an examination of RNZ’s Māori policy when their situation is equally questionable.  Still my campaign which is in fact a campaign that we initiated on Radio Waatea which I head and is supported by our iwi radio network has been going well. People are asking the question: “How does RNZ get away with it?”

My view is that they get away with it because no one bothers to challenge them. Mainstream media don’t care and politicians do nothing apart from greenlight the racist strategies that they come up with.

RNZ is one of the best examples of institutionalised racism in this country.  There is no other way to describe how this organisation is operating, they have had generations of tax payers’ dollars and they are meant to be the voice for all New Zealanders yet the Māori voice is silent and to many of our people stories are untold.

Recently my team at Waatea carried out an audit of RNZ’s Māori stories over a 12 week period.  The results were alarming but even more alarming was the way RNZ tried to defend themselves.

Audit ‘rubbished’
Our evaluators determined that in the 12 week period only 0.1 percent of stories were Māori focussed. RNZ rubbished our audit and said we missed some stories which was true but when they calculated what we had missed it worked out to a mere one percent.

Paul Thompson, the RNZ CEO, then decided to release their new Māori policy after reluctantly acknowledging that I might have had a point over their lack of Māori content.

Instead of coming up with a plan that would see more Māori stories on RNZ, his main priority for the next few years will be to train his Pakeha journalists to speak Māori.  It is the most stupid and insulting Māori strategy that I have ever seen.  The strategy is born out of ignorance and the belief that anything is probably better than what they have now, which is nothing.

RNZ seem to think simply hiring the odd Māori journalist and getting their Pakeha journalists to pronounce Te Reo properly is all they have to do to live up to their public broadcasting obligations under the Treaty of Waitangi but they need to come up with a proper Māori strategy that will see Māori news and programmes go from 2 percent to at least 15 percent and they need to throw away the silly strategy that CEO Thompson has come out with.

They must go back to having Māori specific news, after all they have Pacific Island news, media news, political news and farming news.  In fact it seems sometimes that even native birds might have a better chance of getting a news show before Māori, given how many bird sounds we hear daily.

Once upon a time they even had Māori language segments on National Radio, but that was cut five years ago, they probably thought their Pakeha announcers who try their best, but sadly can’t speak Māori to save themselves, were more than capable in the reo to honour their Māori language obligations.

So getting te reo Māori back on air should be mandatory.  And wouldn’t it be great to hear a Māori presenter on one of their frontline shows.  It seems incredible that in the whole 91 year history that we have not had one person deemed good enough to present a daily National Radio show.

Top presenters
Think about all the top Māori radio and TV presenters you’ve heard and seen over the years.  Here’s just a few of them – Henare Te Ua, Derek Fox, Selwyn Muru, Julian Wilcox, Wena Harawira, Scotty and Stacey Morrison, Shane Taurima , Miriama Kamo,  Mihi Forbes — who is now a reporter with RNZ — and of course let’s not forget RNZ head of news Carol Hirschfeld has also been a TV presenter and producer.

Yet not one of those people have ever been given an opportunity to front a regular national daily show.  RNZ has a colonialist BBC mind-set which discriminates against Māori presenters. Surely as we debate the merits of removing our colonial relics from the flag it’s time to do the same with RNZ.

All people should be outraged by this shutout of Māori on our National network. I implore politicians to act. Māori are 15 percent of this country’s population and we currently get 2 percent of the action on our National station that purports to be the national voice — that is not how the treaty partner should be treated.

If it’s not a breach of Radio New Zealand’s charter then it should be and if we get a zero response which is highly likely then Māori seriously need to consider a Waitangi Tribunal claim against RNZ and the government similar to the Te Reo Maori claim of 1986.

I have spoken to Māori Development Minister Te Ururoa Flavell about this issue and he has asked the right questions.  However, Te Ururoa needs help and asking questions isn’t going to do it, this lot need to be given clear directions in terms of their Māori strategy or they will continue with the current nonsense.

The Minister of Broadcasting, Amy Adams, has to act, she must recognise the discrepancies here, talk with the RNZ board and demand that RNZ change their Māori strategy to one that will see Māori properly reflected in their programming, the aim has to be 15 percent.

Anything less will mean that Māori stories and Māori announcers will remain tokenistic and an afterthought.  Go to the RNZ National radio website right now if you don’t believe me and count how many Māori presenters they have.

It is a disgrace but what will be even more shameful will be if our politicians and the RNZ Board do nothing. Let’s see what happens.

Willie Jackson is a broadcaster and former politician. He is chief executive of Radio Waatea and chairman of the Māori Radio Network Te Whakaruruhau. This commentary was first published by The Daily Blog.

Pacific Island peoples could be “early reclaimers” of a zero-emissions lifestyle, while also urging the international community to take “extreme” mitigation measures, says Dayle Takitimu.

In her keynote address to the In the Eye of the Storm Pacific climate change conference, the indigenous rights and environmental lawyer said she had planned to discuss facts, figures and the details of international agreements, but had torn up her speech after attending the conference’s first day.

Instead, she said: “What I want to offer you today is a part of me, and a part of my truth.”

Arguments about climate change were often too technical and neglected the basic “truths” surrounding the issue, Takitimu added.

“Before we run to textbooks and graphs, it’s about being in touch with what we know, and being in touch with our ways of knowing.” Appreciating these truths — in particular the danger of a reckless disregard for the planet — was needed before serious action could take place.

Takitimu said politicians had all the necessary information to tackle climate change.

While scientists still debated the exact temperature and sea level rises likely over the next century, there were few unknowns regarding the causes of climate change.

‘We know who’s causing it’
“We know where it comes from, what’s causing it, who’s causing it, and that it’s repairable,” she said.

However, politicians chose not to act so as to maintain the status quo and please business interests.

“[Politics] is a dirty word for a reason. It’s cluttering up a lot of stuff.”

Emphasising her status as a prominent indigenous rights lawyer, Takitimu stressed the special, longstanding connection of native people to their land and the potential leadership role of Pacific Islanders in combating climate change.

“We can be early reclaimers of a zero-emissions lifestyle … It’s beautiful, it’s awesome, and we’re awesome.”

Takitimu also urged solidarity between Pacific Island peoples, calling on them to reform their bond as “Tangaroa people”.

A lifestyle of “intergenerational equity” was required to respect the land as the home of forbearers and descendants alike.

Complete trust
“Trust completely that we are worthy of the hope of our grandchildren,” she said.

The climate change discussion should shift towards resolutions – and more radical ones than were contemplated even at last year’s COP21 conference in Paris, Takitimu said.

“Paris was out of date before it was even signed. Extreme mitigation measures are now required … the window for incremental reduction has closed.”

Global climate change education was also needed to inform people about the gravity of the issue and the necessary action.

“Climate change exists between the ears of humanity … up here as a condition,” she said.

Correcting this condition meant spreading an understanding that climate change was a threat to human survival.

“They talk about us being greenies and trying to save the planet … no mate, we’re trying to save you.

Thomas Leaycraft is a Scoop student journalist intern covering the In the Eye of the Storm conference for Scoop, Asia Pacific Report and Evening Report.

Read more about the In the Eye of the Storm Pacific Climate Conference.