West Papuan independence advocate Octovianus Mote is in Aotearoa New Zealand to win support for independence for West Papua, which has been ruled by Indonesia for more than 60 years.

Mote is vice-president of the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP) and is being hosted in New Zealand by the Green Party, which Mote said had always been a “hero” for West Papua.

He spoke at a West Papua seminar at the Māngere Mountain Education Centre tonight.

• WATCH: Michael Cugley‘s video report on Te Ao Māori News
• READ: Other West Papua reports

Former ULMWP president Benny Wenda has alleged more than 500,000 Papuans have been killed since the occupation, and millions of hectares of ancestral forests, rivers and mountains have been destroyed or polluted for “corporate profit”.

Current president is Manasa Tabuni.

The struggle for West Papuans
“Being born a West Papuan, you are already an enemy of the nation [Indonesia],” Mote says.

“The greatest challenge we are facing right now is that we are facing the colonial power who lives next to us.”

If West Papuans spoke up about what was happening, they were considered “separatists”, Mote says, regardless of whether they are journalists, intellectuals, public servants or even high-ranking Indonesian generals.

“When our students on the ground speak of justice, they’re beaten up, put in jail and [the Indonesians] kill so many of them,” Mote says.

Mote is a former journalist and says that while he was working he witnessed Indonesian forces openly fire at students who were peacefully demonstrating their rights.

“We are in a very dangerous situation right now. When our people try to defend their land, the Indonesian government ignores them and they just take the land without recognising we are landowners,” he says.

The ‘ecocide’ of West Papua
The ecology in West Papua is being damaged by mining, deforestation, and oil and gas extraction. Mote says Indonesia wants to “wipe them from the land and control their natural resources”.

He says he is trying to educate the world that defending West Papua means defending the world, especially small islands in the Pacific.

West Papua is the western half of the island of New Guinea, bordering the independent nation of Papua New Guinea. New Guinea has the world’s third-largest rainforest after the Amazon and Congo and it is crucial for climate change mitigation as they sequester and store carbon.

Mote says the continued deforestation of New Guinea, which West Papuan leaders are trying to stop, would greatly impact on the small island countries in the Pacific, which are among the most vulnerable to climate change.

Mote also says their customary council in West Papua has already considered the impacts of climate change on small island nations and, given West Papua’s abundance of land the council says that by having sovereignty they would be able to both protect the land and support Pacific Islanders who need to migrate from their home islands.

In 2021, West Papuan leaders pledged to make ecocide a serious crime and this week Vanuatu, Fiji and Samoa submitted a court proposal to the International Criminal Court (ICJ) to recognise ecocide as a crime.

Support from local Indonesians
Mote says there are Indonesians who support the indigenous rights movement for West Papuans. He says there are both NGOs and a Papuan Peace Network founded by West Papuan peace campaigner Neles Tebay.

“There is a movement growing among the academics and among the well-educated people who have read the realities among those who are also victims of the capitalist investors, especially in Indonesia when they introduced the Omnibus Law.”

The so-called Omnibus Law was passed in 2020 as part of outgoing President Joko Widodo’s goals to increase investment and industrialisation in Indonesia. The law was protested against because of concerns it would be harmful for workers due to changes in working conditions, and the environment because it would allow for increased deforestation.

Mote says there has been an “awakening”, especially among the younger generations who are more open-minded and connected to the world, who could see it both as a humanitarian and an environmental issue.

The ‘transfer’ of West Papua to Indonesia
“The [former colonial nation] Dutch [traded] us like a cow,” Mote says.

The former Dutch colony was passed over to Indonesia in 1963 in disputed circumstances but the ULMWP calls it an “invasion”.

From 1957, the Soviet Union had been supplying arms to Indonesia and, during that period, the Indonesian Communist Party had become the largest political party in the country.

The US government urged the Dutch government to give West Papua to Indonesia in an attempt to appease the communist-friendly Indonesian government as part of a US drive to stop the spread of communism in Southeast Asia.

The US engineered a meeting between both countries, which resulted in the New York Agreement, giving control of West Papua to the UN in 1962 and then Indonesia a year later.

The New York Agreement stipulated that the population of West Papua would be entitled to an act of self-determination.

The ‘act of no choice’
This decolonisation agreement was titled the 1969 Act of Free Choice, which is referred to as “the act of no choice” by pro-independence activists.

Mote says they witnessed “how the UN allowed Indonesia to cut us into pieces, and they didn’t say anything when Indonesia manipulated our right to self-determination”.

The manipulation Mote refers to is for the Act of Free Choice. Instead of a national referendum, the Indonesian military hand-picked 1025 West Papuan “representatives” to vote on behalf of the 816,000 people. The representatives were allegedly threatened, bribed and some were held at gunpoint to ensure a unanimous vote.

Leaders of the West Papuan independence movement assert that this was not a real opportunity to exercise self-determination as it was manipulated. However, it was accepted by the UN.

Pacific support at UN General Assembly
Mote has came to Aotearoa after the 53rd Pacific Island Forum Leaders summit in Tonga last week and he has come to discuss plans over the next five years. Mote hopes to gain support to take what he calls the “slow-motion genocide” of West Papua back to the UN General Assembly.

“In that meeting we formulated how we can help really push self-determination as the main issue in the Pacific Islands,” Mote says.

Mote says there was a focus on self-determination of West Papua, Kanaky/New Caledonia and Tahiti. He also said the focus was on what he described as the current colonisation issue with capitalists and global powers having vested interests in the Pacific region.

The movement got it to the UN General Assembly in 2018, so Mote says it is achievable. In 2018, Pacific solidarity was shown as the Republic of the Marshall Islands, Tuvalu and the Republic of Vanuatu all spoke out in support of West Papua.

They affirmed the need for the matter to be returned to the United Nations, and the Solomon Islands voiced its concerns over human rights abuses and violations.

What needs to be done
He says that in the next five years Pacific nations need to firstly make the Indonesian government accountable for its actions in West Papua. He also says outgoing President Widodo should be held accountable for his “involvement”.

Mote says New Zealand is the strongest Pacific nation that would be able to push for the human rights and environmental issues happening, especially as he alleges Australia always backs Indonesian policies.

He says he is looking to New Zealand to speak up about the atrocities taking place in West Papua and is particularly looking for support from the Greens, Labour and Te Pāti Māori for political support.

The coalition government announced a plan of action on July 30 this year, which set a new goal of $6 billion in annual two-way trade with Indonesia by 2029.

“New Zealand is strongly committed to our partnership with Indonesia,” Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters said at the time.

“There is much more we can and should be doing together.”

Te Aniwaniwa Paterson is a digital producer for Te Ao Māori News. Republished by Asia Pacific Report with permission.

New Zealand’s Foreign Minister Winston Peters is putting off recognition of Palestine as a state, despite opposition Labour’s formal request that he make the move.

Peters said diplomatic recognition of Palestine was a matter of “when not if”, but doing so now could impede progress towards a two-state solution — and the focus should be on aid for civilians.

Labour’s foreign affairs spokesperson David Parker had written to Peters, calling for New Zealand to take “meaningful action” by recognising Palestine as a state.

• READ MORE: Gordon Campbell on Winston Peters’ pathetic speech at the UN
• Other reports on Palestine

He noted this did not mean a recognition of Hamas, “which is one political party in the Palestinian territories”.

“There can be no lasting peace without Palestinian statehood,” Parker wrote, pointing to 139 of the 193 member states of the United Nations having already recognised it.

“Recognition signals this. It doesn’t matter that the state is yet to be fully established, with agreed borders. Many states and much of the Western world recognised Israel well before it was established as a state. Similarly with Kosovo.”

Parker said New Zealand should do this by inviting the Palestinian Authority to send an ambassador to present their credentials to New Zealand, a role which could be performed by the Head of the General Delegation of Palestine based in Canberra Izzat Abdulhadi.

‘Immediate ceasefire’ needed
Peters, however, said the “immediate and urgent need is for an immediate ceasefire and the provision of aid to help alleviate the desperate plight of an innocent civilian population”.

“The government supports the establishment of a Palestinian state and has done so for decades. We must see momentum towards this goal and it’s a matter of ‘when not if’ we see Palestinian statehood,” he wrote.

However, he said they could not afford to take focus away from the current crisis.

“Bluntly asserting statehood unilaterally at this point, however well intentioned, would do nothing to alleviate the current plight of the Palestinian people. Indeed, it might impede progress.

“We would need to be sure that any change in our current settings would contribute credibly to a serious diplomatic push to achieve a two-state solution. We do not believe we are currently at that point.

“We are realistic that achieving this will require serious negotiations, including over the territory and political authority of a future Palestinian state. Statehood is neither a prerequisite for renewed negotiations, nor is it a guarantee they will progress faster.

“It is important for any Palestinian state that it does not contain elements that threaten Israel’s security, and that the Palestinian Authority can govern effectively. That is why we have said an organisation like Hamas — which commits terrorism — cannot be part of future governance in Palestine.”

Case for recognition
Parker had laid out his case for recognition, saying Israel had ignored two resolutions of the UN General Assembly backed by an overwhelming majority of the world’s nations, including “its closest ally, the United States, which has repeatedly said the loss of civilian life in Gaza is an unacceptable price to pay for Israel’s pursuit of Hamas”.

“The international community, including New Zealand, should not stand by and watch Israel breach international law and ignore entreaties without taking meaningful action,” he wrote.

“The absence of progress for many years, and the current war, make the status quo ever more untenable.

“The occupying Israeli government forces cannot legitimately continue to deprive Palestinians of basic rights to govern themselves.

“We believe it is time now for New Zealand to reinforce our opposition to the war and our support for a lasting peace including Palestinian independence.”

Parker said Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong’s recent statements also contemplating recognition was coincidental, and Labour had already decided to make the proposal to Peters.

He accepted it was unlikely Peters would be able to give an immediate response, other than to say no.

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

• Asia Pacific Report says that in the UN Security Council vote last week, only the US voted against Palestine becoming a full member of the United Nations by using its veto. But an overwhelming majority of 12 nations out of the 15 voted in favour of admission, including three of the permanent members (China, France and Russia). Only the fifth permanent member, UK, and Switzerland abstained.
• Palestine currently has had permanent observer status since 2012.

Cabinet Minister David Parker recently told The Spinoff he’s reading The Triumph of Injustice – how the wealthy avoid paying tax and how to fix it, by Berkeley economists Gabriel Zucman and Emmanuel Saez.

The book complains that leftwing politicians throughout the world have forsaken their historic duty to innovate on taxation and force wealthy vested interests to pay their fair share. The authors say governments of both left and right have capitulated unnecessarily to the interests of the wealthy in setting policies on tax and spending.

Parker shares this ethos and it’s undoubtedly a big part of his decision to revolt against his leader.

• READ MORE: Other Bryce Edwards reports

First, Parker ignored constitutional conventions and spoke out against the Prime Minister’s decision last month to rule out implementing any capital gains or wealth taxes. And last week he resigned as Minister of Revenue, saying it was “untenable” for him to continue in the role given Hipkins’ stance on tax.

Clearly, Parker is highly aggrieved at Hipkins’ decision to rule out a substantially more progressive taxation regime, especially when there is such strong public openness to it.

In May, a Newshub survey showed 53 per cent of voters wanted a wealth tax implemented. And last week, a 1News poll showed 52 per cent supported a capital gains tax on rental property.

Parker has become the progressive voice of Labour
Parker has thrown a real spanner in the works for Chris Hipkins at a crucial time in Labour’s re-election campaign. Such dissent from a Cabinet Minister is highly unusual.

It’s also refreshing that it’s over a matter of principle and policy, rather than personality, performance, or ambition.

There will be some Labour MPs and supporters annoyed with Parker for adding to Labour’s woes, especially when the government is already looking chaotic. He’s essentially declared a “vote of no confidence” in his own party’s tax policy.

This is not the staunch loyalty and unity that Labour has come to expect over the last decade, whereby policy differences are suppressed or kept in-house.

But even though Parker was being criticised last week by commentators for throwing a “tantrum” in resigning his Revenue portfolio, this charge won’t really stick, as he just doesn’t have that reputation.

His protest is one of principle, not wounded pride or vanity, and it’s one that will be shared within the wider party.

In taking such a strong stance on progressive taxation, and so openly opposing Hipkins as being too cautious and conservative, Parker has become something of a beacon for those in Labour and the wider political left who are discontented over this government’s failure to deliver on traditional Labour concerns.

Is there a future for Parker in Labour?
Parker’s outspokenness may be a sign that he’s had enough, and is looking to leave politics before long. Being on the party list means he can opt out of Parliament at any time.

After the election, he may decide it’s time to retire, especially if Labour loses power. In fact, Parker has long been rumoured to be considering his retirement from politics, so it might just be that the time has finally come.

A private decision to leave might explain why Parker has decided to put up and not just shut up, and publicly distance himself from Labour’s decisions on tax for the sake of his reputation.

It’s also possible that Parker has chosen to try to pressure Labour towards a more progressive position on taxation, and this is the start of a bigger campaign. If so, he would be playing the long game.

Parker is now established as the most progressive voice in Labour, which could see him move up the caucus ladder when Hipkins eventually moves on — especially if Labour is defeated at the election in October.

And Hipkins might have inadvertently invited opponents to want to replace him with a more progressive politician when he made his “captain’s call” to rule out any sort of real tax reform for as long as he holds the role.

Given that they had an absolute majority in the last three years they can’t blame anyone else. And should they lose the election, the analysis from within Labour will certainly be that they were too centrist and didn’t do enough.

Parker would be a strong contender for the leadership sometime in the next term of Parliament. That is if he wants it and hasn’t simply had enough. There are signs that he would be keen — he ran for the top job in 2014, with Nanaia Mahuta as a running mate, but lost out to David Cunliffe.

Last week he reiterated that he was up for a fight, explaining his decision to stand down as Minister for Revenue, saying, “I’m an agent for change — for progressive change.

“I’ve been that way all of my political life and I’ve still got lots of energy as shown by the scraps that I’ve got into in the last couple of weeks on transport.”

Of course, when the time comes to replace Hipkins, the party will face the temptation to look for a younger and “fresher” leader. Until very recently, the likes of Kiri Allan and Michael Wood were seen as the future, but those options have disappeared.

And the party might do well looking to someone with more proven experience.

Parker could fit that bill — he’s been in Parliament for 21 years and served in the Helen Clark administration as Attorney-General and Minister of Transport. He is seen as an incredibly solid, reliable politician, with a very deep-thinking policy mind.

By contrast, the rest of the cabinet often seems anti-intellectual and bereft of any ideas or deep thinking, which means that they are too often captured by whatever new agendas the government departments have pushed on them.

Arguably that’s why the blunt approaches of centralisation and co-governance have so easily become the dominant parts of Labour’s two terms in power.

Labour needs Parker’s progressive intellectual politics
Regardless of whether Parker ever gets near the leadership again, it’s clear he has much to offer in pushing the party in a more progressive direction. Certainly, Labour could benefit from a proper policy reset and revival — which Hipkins hasn’t been able to achieve.

The new leader managed to throw lots of old policy on the bonfire, and he successfully re-branded Labour as being more about sausages and “bread and butter” issues, but Hipkins hasn’t yet been able to reinject any substantial positive new policies or ethos.

Parker’s dissent this week indicates that frustration from progressives in Labour is growing, and there are some very significant policy differences going on in the ruling party of government.

For the health of the party, and for the good of the wider political left, hopefully Parker will continue to be a maverick, positioning himself as an advocate of boldness and progressive change.

Parker recently selected Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century as the book “Everyone should read”. He explained that “As a politician who believes in social mobility and egalitarian outcomes, this book inspired me to seek the revenue portfolio”.

That Parker has now had to give away that portfolio says something unfortunate about the party and government he is part of. And if the last week also signals that Parker is on his way out of politics, that too would be a shame.

After all, in a time when parliamentary politics is about scandal, and the government has lost so many ministers over issues of personal behaviour, it would be sad to lose a minister who is passionate about delivering policies to fix the problems of wealthy vested interests and inequality.

Dr Bryce Edwards is a political scientist and an independent analyst with The Democracy Project. He writes a regular column titled Political Roundup in Evening Report.

Nothing much changed in a 1News Verian poll released last Monday. However, some commentators treated the boring results as a blank canvas on which to express their creativity.

1News presenter Simon Dallow described the results of the newly named 1News Verian poll on Monday as a harsh verdict on the government.

“It is just under three months until the election and Labour seems to have been dented by a series of ministerial distractions,” he said as he introduced the story at the top of the bulletin.

• READ MORE: Other NZ elections reports
• LISTEN TO RNZ MEDIAWATCH: NZ election poll analysis

Despite that effort to dress up the poll as a tough verdict on the government, it was mostly notable for how un-notable it was.

Few parties moved more than the margin of error from the last 1News poll in May, which also showed National and Act with the numbers to form the next government — just. National and Labour both dropped the same amount: 2 percent.

You might have thought the damp squib of a result would put the clamps on our political commentators’ narrative-crafting abilities.

Instead, for some it proved to be a blank canvas on which they could express their creativity.

‘Centre-right surge’
At Stuff, chief politics editor Luke Malpass called the poll a “fillip for the right” under a headline hailing a “centre-right surge”.

One issue with that: the poll showed a 1 percent overall drop for the right bloc of National and Act.

“Fillips” generally involve polls going up not down. Similarly, a drop in support doesn’t traditionally meet the definition of a surge in support.

The lack of big statistical swings wasn’t enough to deter some commentators from making big calls.

On Newstalk ZB, political editor Jason Walls said Labour was plunging due to its disunity.

“All [Chris Hipkins] has been really able to talk about is what’s happening within the Labour Party — be it Stuart Nash, be it other ministers who are behaving badly. Jan Tinetti. Voters punish that. And we’ve seen that from the Nats in opposition. They punish disunity.”

It’s uncertain what National’s equivalent 2 percent drop was down to. Perhaps voters punish unity as well.

Wider trends context
Mutch-McKay’s own commentary was a bit more nuanced, placing the poll in the context of wider trends.

On TVNZ’s Breakfast the day after the poll’s release, she said some people inside Labour couldn’t believe the results hadn’t been worse for the party.

Perhaps that air of disbelief also extended to the parliamentary press gallery.

After all, the commentators are right: Labour has had a terrible few months, with high-ranking ministers defecting, being stood down, being censured by the parliamentary privileges committee, facing allegations of mistreating staff, or struggling with the apparently near-impossible task of selling shares in Auckland Airport.

Maybe a sense of inertia propelled some of our gallery members to keep rolling with the narrative of the last few months, in spite of the actual poll result.

Or maybe part of the issue is that hyping up the significance of these polls is a financial necessity for news organisations which pay a lot to commission them.

“You’ve got to squeeze the hell of it. You’ve paid $11,000 or $12,000 for a poll, it’s got to be the top story. It’s got to be your lead. It’s got to have the fancy graphics,” Stuff’s political reporter and commentator Andrea Vance said recently on the organisation’s daily podcast Newsable.

‘Manufacturing news’
“It just feels like we’re manufacturing news. We’re taking a piece of information that’s a snapshot in time and we’re pretending that we know the future,” she said.

Vance went on to say these kinds of snapshot polls don’t actually tell us all much — but she said long-term polling trends are worth paying attention to.

It’s probably no coincidence then that the most useful analysis of this latest poll focused on those macro patterns.

In a piece for 1News.co.nz, John Campbell noted the electorate’s slow drift away from the centre, with Labour losing 20 percent of the electorate’s support since 2020 and National failing to fully capitalise on that drop-off.

He quoted Yeats line, “the centre cannot hold”, before asking the question: “What do Labour and National stand for? Really? Perhaps, just perhaps, this is a growing section of the electorate saying — you’re almost as bad as each other.”

That sentiment has been echoed by other commentators. In his latest column for Metro magazine, commentator and former National Party comms man Matthew Hooton decried the major parties’ lack of ambition.

“At least Act, the Greens and Te Pāti Māori aren’t insulting you with bullshit. Instead they offer ideas they think will make your life better, even if they’ll never happen. So here’s a better idea than falling for the big scare from National or Labour.

‘Reward ideas-based parties’
“How about using your ballot paper to tell them to f*** off and reward one of the three ideas-based parties with your vote instead?” he wrote.

And on his podcast The Kaka, financial journalist Bernard Hickey and commentator Danyl McLauchlan criticised our major parties for their grey managerialism.

“You kind of have to go back to the mid-1990s when so many people just hated the two major parties because they didn’t trust them,” he said.

“We seem to be going through a similar phase now. The two major parties are just these managerial centrist parties. They don’t have much to offer by way of a vision.”

Maybe it’s a little shaky to say anyone’s surging or flopping on the basis of a couple of percentage points shifting in a single poll.

But if you zoom out a bit, at least one narrative does have a strong foundation — voters saying, to quote Shakespeare this time — “a plague on both your (untaxed) houses”.

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

Papua New Guinean chief executives believe the country’s entire workforce needs to be vaccinated against covid-19 to be fully productive, says Business Council of PNG executive director Douveri Henao.

Although there seems to be a large number of vaccine hesitant people, Henao said that sooner or later it would be mandatory for companies or businesses that have more human contact, reports the PNG Post-Courier.

However, Lae Mayor James Khay said business houses in the country’s second-largest city must not force their employees to be vaccinated as this was against their constitutional rights of freedom of choice.

• READ MORE: Other PNG covid crisis reports

Khay said company managers, supervisers, human resource or anybody in management had no right to force their employees to get vaccinated as this was optional, not compulsory.

He said companies imposing strict “no jab, no job” policies as a preventive measure against covid-19 must remember that they would be depriving the rights of their employees to decide. This was totally wrong.

The controversy arose after 500 employees of Mainland Holdings Limited (MHL) walked off their jobs in Lae in protest over the their management’s vaccine policy.

Mainland Holdings Limited (MHL) management, in an unsigned circular, has advised staff members who have been vaccinated to come back to work.

Workers’ petition
In the company’s response to a five-point petition presented by staff to the company directors, the company advised:

• The company’s vaccination policy will not change; and
• The company will follow “Niupela Pasin” protocols

MHL has agreed to pay wages and salaries, long service leave entitlements, rental fees and other entitlements.

All payments will be paid into bank accounts in compliance with company policies

The CEO refused to resign for keeping employees, families and the business safe.

Meanwhile, a major political party in the coalition government has weighed in on the “no jab, no job” controversy, saying it would support the people in a fight against companies demanding that their employees get vaccinated or lose their jobs.

The United Labour Party’s acting secretary Ruben Giusu, speaking from Lae, told the Post-Courier citizens had the constitutional right to choose whether or not get the covid-19 vaccine.

He said the party had met with unions in Madang and in discussion with the unions in Morobe Province about this and other issues affecting workers around the country.

“We have also received a petition from the Morobe Union and will be presenting that to the Prime Minister’s office,” he said.

Protests over the past few days against Indonesia’s recently passed Job Creation Law have turned violent with clashes between protesters and the police in several regions.

When police attempted to disperse a demonstration on Monday held by hundreds of university students in an industrial area in Cikarang, West Java, the students, mostly from nearby Pelita Bangsa University purportedly struck back using stones and bamboo sticks, tribunnews.com reported.

Cikarang Police chief Adjutant Commissioner Sukadi said the police had not granted permission for any mass rallies because of the ongoing covid-19 outbreak. “But they opted to carry on with the protest, thus [the clash happened]”.

• READ MORE: Jakarta Post editorial: Sustaining reform momentum

Similar scenes also occurred in Bandung, West Java, on Tuesday where hundreds of people staged a protest in front of the West Java Legislative Council (DPRD) office.

Chaos broke out as protesters managed to knock down the office’s front gate and throw stones at the police, who responded with water cannon and tear gas.

Thousands of workers and students across the country have decided to carry on with the protests against the contentious law, despite many arrests.

Scores of protesters from Samarinda and Kutai Kertanegara in East Kalimantan blocked Samarinda’s main thoroughfare, the Lembuswana intersection, on Wednesday, forcing authorities to divert traffic.

Protesters from eight universities
Rally participants, comprising workers and students from at least eight universities in the two cities, called on the government to revoke and reevaluate the law.

A similar mass demonstration was held in Pasar Rebo, East Jakarta. Hundreds of students took to the street to burn tires and wave banners expressing opposition to the law.

The protests were a part of a three-day national strike against the Job Creation Law, which started on Tuesday.

At least nine people were arrested during Tuesday’s protest in Bandung for allegedly attacking police personnel.

“We’ve arrested nine people, in total, from yesterday’s incident. They are all students,” West Java Police spokesperson Senior Commander Erdi A. Chaniago told kompas.com on Wednesday.

Fourteen people have also been detained by the Banten police following a similar protest on Tuesday.

“They threw stones at our personnel when asked to bring the rally to an end,” Banten police chief Inspector General Fiandar said.

17 students arrested at Manado
Seventeen Manado State University students were also arrested in Manado, North Sulawesi, on Wednesday, while staging a protest against the Job Creation Law on campus grounds.

From The Jakarta Post’s observations, a clash broke out when the Minahasa police barred students from leaving their campus. The police then appeared to take several of the students into custody.

Minahasa Police chief Adjutant Senior Commander Denny Situmorang, however, claimed that no such clash occurred and that the students were not actually arrested.

“The 17 students were not arrested, it’s just part of Operation Yustisi,” Denny said, referring to an ongoing joint National Police-Indonesian Military (TNI) operation aimed at monitoring and disciplining the public in relation to health protocols. “They have all been let go.”

The House of Representatives and the government passed the contentious omnibus bill on job creation into law on Monday, sooner that its original plan to pass the bill on Thursday.

Despite mounting opposition over fears that it will negatively impact the environment and labor rights, the government has insisted that the law is necessary to improve bureaucratic efficiency and to boost business and investment.

The Covid-19 pandemic, which is spreading like wildfire in Indonesia, has taken not just lives but also the earnings of millions of workers, one month after the government announced Indonesia’s first two confirmed cases of the virus.

Jumari, a 61-year-old who works in a shoe factory and lives in Jakarta, has not received his daily wages for more than two weeks and will likely not receive his April salary at all. The factory has been shut, and he and his colleagues had been told to stay home.

His boss claimed the dismissal was “not the company’s will” given that Covid-19 had affected almost all of the world’s countries, Jumari said. He is now depending on last month’s wages to pay for his family’s daily needs.

READ MORE: Al Jazeera coronavirus live updates – WHO defends pandemic handling, UK death toll rises

“The government said it would disburse funds to those who are affected by COVID-19. What’s the regulation and how do we get it so that we can have something to eat?” he said recently. “We’re not expecting anything grand.”

The Covid-19 outbreak has devastated workers’ hours and earnings. Businesses have shut down factories and furloughed or laid off their employees as a result of low demand and the call for social distancing.

More than 1.2 million workers from 74,439 companies in both the formal and informal sectors have either been told to stay home or have been laid off as a result of the pandemic, Manpower Ministry data showed on Tuesday.

The Confederation of Indonesian Workers’ Unions (KSPI) released a statement last weekend saying its worries about massive layoffs had come true, Jakarta Manpower Agency data that at least 162,416 workers in the capital city alone had reportedly been laid off or furloughed.

Partial dismissal plan
In a separate statement last month, KSPI suggested an alternating shift system or partial dismissal in a bid to keep production running without laying off workers. In the case of a partial lockdown, it also urged employers to send their employees home without cutting their salaries.

Manpower Minister Ida Fauziyah urged all industry players to make layoffs their last choice during the pandemic. Instead, companies could lower salaries or reduce working days and hours, among other alternatives.

“The situations and conditions are indeed challenging, but this is the moment for the government, business people and workers to work together and find a solution to mitigate the impact of Covid-19,” Ida said in a teleconferenced briefing on Wednesday.

Statistics Indonesia data shows that out of the country’s workforce of 133.56 million, 7.05 million are unemployed and more than 55 percent of those employed work in the informal sector.

Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Kadin) vice chairman for manpower and industrial relations Anton J. Supit said on March 20 that companies had been implementing alternating shifts, reduced working hours and had offered “voluntary layoff” packages to keep layoffs a last resort during the crisis.

The Covid-19 crisis is expected to wipe out 6.7 percent of working hours globally in the second quarter of 2020, equivalent to 195 million full-time workers, according to an International Labor Organisation (ILO) report published on Tuesday. The ILO described the pandemic as “the worst global crisis since World War II”.

The ILO stated that there was a high risk that end-of-year worldwide job losses would be significantly higher than the initial ILO projection of 25 million, depending on future developments and policy measures.

‘Facing catastrophes’
“Workers and businesses are facing catastrophes in both developed and developing economies,” said ILO director-general Guy Ryder. “We have to move fast, decisively and together. The right, urgent, measures could make the difference between survival and collapse.”

The government has announced plans to spend Rp 405 trillion of additional state expenditure to fund health care, social spending and business recovery programs. Of the amount, Rp 110 trillion has been allocated for social safety net programs, including Rp 20 trillion for a pre-employment card program to cover 5.6 million laid-off workers and Rp 150 trillion for a small and medium business economic recovery program.

Airlangga University labor law expert M. Hadi Subhan said the current economic stimuli and the preemployment card launched last month were insufficient to cushion short-term shocks in the labor sector. He advised the government to provide cash compensation to workers who suffered income loss to avoid social unrest in the short term.

“[If workers are not compensated], I predict that the social costs will be high. Riots, looting and burning public infrastructure could occur, just like during the 1998 crisis,” said Hadi.

As the government scrambles to disburse social aid, small business owners and vulnerable workers have to fight by themselves for sustenance.

While waiting for the Covid-19 outbreak to pass, travel agency owner M. Sela Sulyadi, who lives in Lombok, West Nusa Tenggara, has been forced to furlough his employees while continuing to help them pay for basic needs such as electricity, water and rice.

“Like it or not, the reality is that income from tourism will be low for the next few months. And we have to accept that,” he said.

Made Anthony Iswara is a reporter on The Jakarta Post.

Climate change, labour mobility and West Papua are some of the issues that Vanuatu played a key part in discussions during this week’s Pacific Islands Forum leaders summit meeting in Nauru.

Foreign Affairs Minister Ralph Regenvanu, who was part of Vanuatu’s delegation attending the just-ended Forum meeting, said the issue that was discussed more than anything else was climate change, reports the Vanuatu Daily Post.

He said there was a bit of tension as all Pacific Island Countries recognise that climate change is the single biggest threat to the survival of Pacific people but one member of the Forum does not recognise that it is a threat and is not taking any action on it.

READ MORE: Australia signs declaration on Pacific climate ‘threat’ – islands call on US to return to Paris deal

That member is Australia.

The United States, a dialogue partner of the Forum, has similar views on climate change to Australia in terms of not sticking to the Paris Agreement.

Regenvanu said Australia’s stand may be due largely to Australian domestic politics, the Daily Post reports.

He said all Pacific island countries in the Forum were moving in one direction on climate change – and Australia alone in the other direction.

Another issue Vanuatu was part of in Nauru were the agreements signed with Australia for the next stage of labour mobility to get semiskilled ni-Vanuatu to work in hospitality and aged care sectors as well as an agreement to allow Vanuatu to test certain medicines used in hospitals in Vanuatu in Australian laboratories.

On the issue of West Papua, Regenvanu said a resolution would be put before the UN General Assembly next year for West Papua – or what used to be called the Netherland New Guinea’s case – to be re-enlisted with the UN Decolonisation Committee.

He said he had informed his foreign affairs minister colleagues in Samoa last month that Vanuatu would be be tabling the resolution in the United Nations.

He called on Pacific Island countries to support the resolution.

Regenvanu said only Papua New Guinea, Fiji and Australia were not in support of the West Papua proposal.

• Australia tried to water down climate change resolution at Forum

The Solomon Islands faces a “time bomb” with a youth unemployment rate of 82 percent and New Zealand needs to do more to help the Pacific country, says former Prime Minister Helen Clark.

Youth unemployment is “one of the huge challenges of our time”, she says.

“They’ve all got ideas, they want to do things, and . . . I really urge our aid programme to focus back on some of these basics again,” she told the annual conference of the National Council of Women (NCW) in Auckland yesterday.

READ MORE: Violence against women is a national crisis: Clark

Clark, former Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), is the new patron of NCW and is the author of a new book launched this weekend, Women, Equality, Power.

She said the New Zealand government needed to rethink how its aid programme was structured.

“A country like the Solomon Islands could have a future but it needs investment in its agriculture.”

She said New Zealand used to invest its aid programme – in places like Thailand, for example – in the country’s agriculture.

“How much focus have we got on agriculture now?” she asked.

‘No brainer’
“It’s just a no brainer to try to support people back into the value chain.”

She made the call during a discussion on the UN Sustainable Development Goals which Clark was instrumental in developing during her time with UNDP.

Dr Gill Greer, chief executive of NCW, said that the inclusive manner in which Clark went about developing the goals was “not typical of the UN at many times”.

“It was a vision, it is a vision,” said Dr Greer, adding that the goals did not go far enough on the issue of gender.

“The living framework has one indicator, and that is all, and in this room [of 200 people] just think of how many we could suggest immediately?”

Clark replied: “Gender is in every goal”.

Clark also discussed the issue of migrants in Nauru, proclaiming it to be a crisis.

“There is something fundamentally wrong, this is not a sustainable situation and it’s no way to treat people.”

Earlier yesterday, the BBC reported that children had been attempting suicide and self-harm on the island.

The Pacific Islands Forum leaders summit opens in Nauru tomorrow.

Jessica Marshall is a student journalist on AUT’s Postgraduate Diploma in Communication Studies (Journalism) course.

• Aid groups calls on Forum leaders to end Nauru refugee ‘stain in region’
• Gallery: Stimulating insights, vision for gender diversity conference

Vanuatu’s minister responsible for labour matters, Alfred Maoh, has warned foreign workers engaged in paid employment in the country without a valid work permit will be deported.

He has also warned that his ministry will no longer tolerate foreigners who enter the country through a visitor visa but later engage in paid employment.

The Internal Affairs Minister said that any foreigners intending to take up paid employment in Vanuatu must first obtain a legally approved work permit issued by the Vanuatu Labour Department in accordance with the relevant sections of the Employment Act before entering the country to work.

Illegal workers that do not possess a valid work permit will be deported, Minister Maoh said.

The Labour and Immigration laws must be adhered to by those intending to work in Vanuatu, the minister told a media conference.

The minister said the Labour Department also needed to be strengthened in ensuring that labour laws in regard to work permit and employment in Vanuatu were fully adhered to by employers or anyone intending to hire foreign workers to work in Vanuatu.

This included overstayers whom the minister stressed would also face deportation.

South Pacific Mini Games
“I am happy to announce that arrangements are in process for the Customs Department to take over Immigration matters before the South Pacific Mini Games and we now have a one-stop-shop with Labour and Immigration Departments under one roof at the former French Embassy in the centre of Port Vila town,” said Minister Maoh.

The South Pacific Mini Games open on December 4.

He assured the public that the government through the Internal Affairs Ministry would effectively provide 100 percent smooth transfers of administration responsibilities from the Immigration to the Customs Department and in border control for arrivals and departures before the South Pacific Mini Games kicks off towards the end of this year.

On the issue of many Asians that seemed to be entering Vanuatu and doing jobs that ni-Vanuatu could do – such as in building and construction and other employment sectors – Minister Alfred Maoh said this was being addressed by the Labour and Immigration Departments.

The Internal Affairs Minister outlined policy directions he was now embarking on in the departments and institutions under his ministerial portfolios.

These portfolios include Provincial Affairs, the Vanuatu Police Force and national security, civil status and electoral matters, Land Transport, and labour matters.

He pledged to hold regular conferences in order to update the public at large on the developments, changes, and approaches his ministry was taking in order to ensure that the people of Vanuatu as well as investors and visitors enjoyed a peaceful life.

Godwin Ligo is a senior journalist with the Vanuatu Daily Post.

• South Pacific Mini Games 2017 in Vanuatu

A youth employment survey report in Samoa is seeking to inform government policy decisions after its findings take a closer look at young people.

Published by the Samoan National Youth Council, the report highlights the economic and employment status of youth and the reasons behind leaving school and calls for greater inclusion of youth in policy development.

Called the Tracer Youth Employment Survey (TYES), the report was commissioned with the assistance of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and funded by the Australian High Commission in Samoa.

The survey sampled 790 people aged 18-to-35 years from 14 villages across Upolu and Savai’i and was launched to the public on Monday in Apia.

Results found that out of the sample size, 78.93 percent of young people dropped out of school at primary and secondary level.

The main reason being families could no longer afford school fees with others becoming caretakers for family members.

A 2015 study by the Ministry of Women, Community and Social Development’s youth division identified that just over 16 percent of Samoa’s youth were unemployed.

The TYES report found that the most significant challenge to young people in continuing their education is the increasing rate of dependent peoples – elderly and younger children.

Findings found this to be particularly challenging for rural youth.

Priority report hope
The report was funded by Australia as part of its Pacific Leadership program in the region.

Australian Deputy High Commissioner Amanda Jewell says the report gives young Samoans more of a voice and is a priority that they will be looking at with the Samoan government.

“This is like a beginning for us because this particular survey has started and it’s given us some good ideas, and they’ll be some recommendations coming out of that, that we can go forward with.”

Findings in the survey found that despite a majority of respondents being unemployed, over 30 percent of them still identified themselves as “economically active”.

These activities include, crop farming, cooking, family run canteens, part time referees and a florist.

Report recommendations call for greater inclusion of youth in policy development at local and national level.

Jewell says “the priority for the commission here is to work in partnership with the government of Samoa so anything they identify as priority, and obviously by having this report produced it is a priority that we’ll be looking at having with them”.

Brandon Ulfsby is a final year Auckland University of Technology Bachelor of Communication Studies student journalist on a two-week Pacific Cooperation Foundation internship in Samoa.

• The Tracer Youth Employment Survey (TYES)
• Pacific journalism ‘awareness’ internship begins

An abrupt increase in Fiji’s national minimum wage for workers in the informal sectors could have an adverse impact on the economy, says a consultant tasked with reviewing Fiji’s minimum wage.

University of the South Pacific academic Professor Partha Gangopadhyay is conducting the review of the National Minimum Wage and the Wages Regulations, reports Newswire Fiji.

The national minimum wage for the informal sector is currently $2.32 an hour since 2015. It was increased from $2.00 an hour after being first enforced in 2014.

Professor Gangopadhyay said in Lautoka that although Fijians needed a reasonable wage rate, its impact on the economy needed to be looked at holistically.

“Our preference is for $2.68 since we find strong evidence that the national minimum wage of 2015 did not have any negative impact on the efficiency in the sectors we examined.”

The academic said the productivity gains anticipated in 2015 seemed to have materialised.

“On the contrary, from the sample survey of workers, we find concrete evidence that labour productivity has increased in Fiji after the enactment of the new minimum wage in 2015,” Professor Gangopadhyay added.

Intended for ‘unskilled’ people
Employment Minister Jone Usamate earlier told Parliament that the National Minimum Wage was intended for “unskilled” people who did not have any agreement to guide their employment.

The Fiji Trade Unions Congress last year launched a campaign to increase the national minimum wage to $4.00 an hour.

The Fiji Commerce and Employers Federation had said that FTUC’s proposed increase was “premature” as the 80 percent increase demanded was unprecedented. The FCEF said most of its members were already paying workers more than $4.00 an hour.

FTUC added that according to its research, the proposed $4 an hour minimum wage rate was affordable to SMEs and small employers.

The Attorney-General said that the minimum wage was for “unskilled” workers in the informal sector.

“Those who are fishermen who go out to catch fish, most of them don’t have a TIN. Some of them employ their nephews from the village. They may catch the fish, and they share the profits of the sale.”

The Wage Regulation Orders supervised the National Minimum Wage, and they articulated the minimum conditions within different sectors:

printing trade
wholesale and retail trade
hotel and catering trade
garment industry
sawmilling and logging industry
road transport
building and civil engineering
electrical engineering trade
manufacturing industry
mining and quarrying industry
security services

The National Minimum Wage review began in April, with 88 people conducting a nationwide survey.

OPINION: By Mike Treen

Unionists and other progressive minded people need to put a stake in the ground in opposition to the latest immigration proposals from the New Zealand government.

Tens of thousands of workers in this country have been brought here under false pretences. Many have been conned into paying tens of thousands of dollars towards courses that they hoped would open the door to jobs and the chance for permanent residence.

The promises have proved to be nothing more than a fraud perpetrated by the government.

These students and workers had the rules changed on them after they arrived. Many have studied and worked here for up to a decade.

The government has now increased the points required to get permanent residence under the skilled worker category and imposed a minimum income requirement of almost $50,000 that many will not be able to meet. Those who don’t meet the new requirements will have a maximum of three years before they are kicked out.

READ MORE: Prediction: Crash in migrant numbers coming — let people stay

At the same time, the government is proposing to continue bringing temporary work visa holders for lower skilled and lower paid occupations but for a maximum of three years and no right to bring family members.

This will most likely lead to either a massive drop in numbers coming or those who do being so desperate they will be wide open to abuse and exploitation.

One-off ‘amnesty’
In their plan, the government has made a proposal for what they have called an “amnesty” for a group of workers in the South Island as a one-off pathway to residency for around 4000 temporary migrant workers and their families.

In the words of Immigration Minister Michael Woodhouse:

“Many of these migrants are already well settled in New Zealand and make a valuable contribution to their communities.

“It will also enable employers to retain an experienced workforce that has helped meet genuine regional labour market needs.

“My National colleagues in the South Island have advocated strongly on behalf their constituents throughout the development of this policy, so I’m pleased the government has been able to deliver on our commitment to enable this cohort of migrant workers to remain in their communities.”

Many of these workers will be working on dairy farms run by National Party stalwarts who have lobbied their MPs to keep these workers.

The “amnesty” being allowed these workers from the requirement to meet the new points or income thresholds for permanent residence should be extended to the whole country. The restrictions in the current amnesty proposal to bind workers to particular employers should also be removed. This is a form of bonded labour that needs to be got rid of as part of any genuine immigration reform.

Parties that want to reduce the number of permanent and long-term net arrivals to New Zealand from the current 70,000 plus number can also support this humanitarian policy towards those already here.

There are currently around 250,000 temporary work visas issued each year.

It makes no sense to throw out people who want to stay and have invested a significant part of their lives to creating homes in this country while continuing to bring in people on temporary visas only to throw them out again after three years.

The new policies are inhuman.

Extend the amnesty to all workers on temporary visas who want to make New Zealand their home.

• Review of temporary work migrant scheme

A bishop in Papua has called for government aid for thousands of Papuans made jobless because of a bitter contractual dispute between the government and U.S.-based mining giant PT Freeport McMoran Inc.

The row, which has reduced operations at the world’s second biggest copper mine in Papua’s Mimika district by about 60 percent, stems from Indonesia seeking to change mining industry regulations over ore processing and foreign ownership.

The government wants to cap copper concentrate exports to boost its domestic smelting industry.

Freeport says the regulations breach its current contract with the government, which runs until 2021. The company says the rules would also affect contracts it has with its customers overseas.

However, the dispute has resulted in job losses for contractors and workers.

“The company has laid off more than a thousand workers. It also threatens to reduce ongoing programs offered to the local community, such as scholarships and health-care services. This is a problem,” Bishop John Philip Saklil of Jayapura said.

The prelate recalled that he and some Papuans owning indigenous land rights, known as hak ulayat, met with Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Ignasius Jonan on February 27 in Jakarta to find a solution to the problem.

People victimised
“Such a lay-off has victimised many people who depend solely on the company. Many other Papuans, benefit from the programmes,” he said.

According to the local Manpower, Transmigration and Public Housing Agency nearly 1100 workers were laid off as a result of the dispute.

“They dreamed of a good future but then were laid off. Many still have debts to pay. It is not easy for them. Now everyone is worried about their future,” Bishop Saklil said.

A local tribal leader said laid off indigenous people could revert to old traditional activities like hunting to get by, but mining activities have caused havoc with the local ecosystem.

“Due to polluted waters, their feet and hands start to hurt when they go into rivers. Also, animals living in or near rivers have died. So how can we hunt to live?” Amungme tribal leader Yanes Natkimu said.

• Papuan students call on Indonesia to close Freeport mine
• Freeport’s arbitration threat simply ploy to block mining reform

By Jewel Topsfield of The Sydney Morning Herald in Jakarta

It’s hard to comprehend it happened in this century: human slaves trapped on fishing boats being whipped with poisonous stingray tails, having ice blocks thrown at them and being shot.

“If Americans and Europeans are eating this fish, they should remember us,” says Hlaing Min, 30, a runaway slave from Benjina, a remote fisheries weight station in eastern Indonesia’s Aru Islands.

“There must be a mountain of bones under the sea…. The bones of the people could be an island, it’s that many.”

In 2015 more than 1300 foreign fisherman from Myanmar, Cambodia, Thailand, and Laos were rescued from Benjina and Ambon, after an Associated Press investigation revealed the brutal conditions aboard many foreign vessels reflagged to operate in Indonesian waters.

Extraordinary images of men being kept in a cage exposed the chilling reality of 21st century slavery.

“They were trafficked from their home country, mostly by means of deception, forced to work over 20 hours per day on a boat in the middle of the sea, with little to no chance of escape,” says a report on human trafficking in the Indonesian fishing industry released this week.

Some were kept at sea for years at a time.

After the rescue, the International Organisation for Migration interviewed the fishers.

They were told of excessive work hours — 78 percent of 285 victims interviewed in depth claimed they worked between 16 and 24 hours a day, cramped conditions, meals of watery fish gruel, physical and psychological abuse and even murder.

‘Several crews died’
“While on board, I often heard the news from the boat radio that several boat crews had died, either falling to the ocean, fighting or killed by the other crews,” a Cambodian fisher says in the report.

“While I was working on the boat, I saw with my own eyes more than seven dead bodies floating in the sea.”

Witnesses testified that requesting to leave the boat could be a death sentence for some victims. Those who did might find themselves chained on the deck in the middle of the day or locked in the freezer.

“The heartrending stories of these fishers could not be left untold,” says IOM Indonesia’s chief of mission Mark Getchell.

The report says the Benjina and Ambon cases highlight the lack of adequate policing of the fishing industry and a lack of scrutiny of working conditions on ships and in fish processing plants.

Seafood caught by modern day slaves entered the global supply chain, with legitimate suppliers of fish “unaware of its provenance and the human toll behind the catch.”

“The situation in Benjina and Ambon is symptomatic of a much broader and insidious trade in people, not only in the Indonesian and Thai fishing industries, but indeed globally,” the report says.

Repatriation of enslaved fisherfmen
In 2015 the Australian government provided $2.17 million to IOM to support the daily care, repatriation and reintegration of formerly trafficked and enslaved fishermen from Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos, who had been stranded on islands in Indonesia’s Maluku province.

“This funding support has since been extended to enable IOM to provide assistance to foreign fishermen stranded in any area of Indonesia,” an Immigration Department spokesman said.

“This assistance plays a crucial role to support and protect victims of trafficking and slavery in the fishing industry by reuniting victims with their families and providing them with limited financial assistance which can help them establish an alternative livelihood.”

IOM spokesman Paul Dillon said Australia provided the lion share of the funding for its emergency response to the human trafficking crisis, which included returning more than 1000 victims to their home countries.

“This would not have been possible without the Australian government,” he said.

At the launch of the report in Jakarta this week, Indonesian Minister of Marine Affairs and Fisheries Susi Pudjiastuti unveiled a new government decree requiring all fisheries companies to submit a detailed human rights audit.

This was one of the report’s key recommendations to protect fishermen and port workers from abuse.

“That being said, Indonesia still has homework towards the approximately 250,000 Indonesian crews on foreign vessels operating across continents that remain unprotected,” Pudjiastuti says in a foreword to the report.

The report also called for greater diligence in recording the movement of vessels in Indonesian waters, more training on human trafficking, independent inspections of ports and vessels at sea and centres in ports where fishers could seek protection.

Jewel Topsfield is the Jakarta-based Indonesia correspondent for The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald.This article was first published by the SMH and has been republished by Asia Pacific Report with permission.

When a ship docked in Mauritius on November 2, 1834, carrying 36 Indian indentured labourers, the British called it the “great experiment”.

Almost 45 years later, when the Leonidas docked in Fiji, 479 girmitiya were to become the first group of this experiment in Fiji.

Most of the girmitiya could not read or understand the agreement they signed. Surely then they would not have known that this agreement would be their new lifestyle. More importantly, they were oblivious that the decision to sign on the agreement would leave a permanent legacy for their descendants.

For the girmitiya the longest journey of their lives was symbolic of their unforgiving struggle that lay ahead; at least in their lifetime.

In 87 voyages that were made to Fiji between 1879 and 1916, some 60,600 indentured labourers arrived.

Last week – May 14, 2016 – spanned 137 years since the first arrival of indentured labourers.

This year is worth remembering the girmitiya for another reason. The indenture system was discontinued in November, 1916, 100 years ago. For Fiji, this happened four years before the system was abolished worldwide.

Paying tribute
How do we remember and pay tribute to the girmitiya — our forefathers? We can begin by celebrating the achievements and legacy of the girmitiya.

Beyond doubt, the indentured labourers during indenture but more importantly after indenture as ‘freed’ men and women transformed Fiji’s social and economic landscape.

The indentured labourers became a source of cheap labour for the European planters who were struggling after the failure of the cotton industry. Capital investment from Colonial Sugar Refining Company of Australia in milling was probable on the back of the availability of this human capital.

This combination transformed the Fijian economy from a traditional agrarian to a blend of agrarian and milling. Soon sugar industry established itself as the key sector of the economy, with the indentured labourers essential to its success.

Sugar production in 1916 was 122,000 tonnes with 99 per cent of that volume exported. This initial involvement in foreign trade shaped Fiji’s first step towards the process of integration into the world economy.

On the whole, the sugar industry was largely not only responsible for the success of the individual planters but in changing the landscape of the Fijian macro-economy.

Sugar held its stronghold among the export commodities by comprising 65 per cent of total merchandise exports until 1970. The industry was basically responsible for the rise and development of Western division.

Work ethics
Apart from the economy, the lives of the grimitiya continue to influence generations after them. The girmitiya are well recognised for their work ethics and determination to break away from the norm to improve their lot. The descendants seem to have followed on the heels of girmitiyas.

Majority of indentured labourers chose to stay in Fiji after the end of their indenture and after indenture itself was abolished. Despite fresh from the bonds of girmit and the benighted work on the plantation, the girmitiya were swift to move on to entrepreneurship such as shopkeepers, hawkers and transport providers.

A new existence and determination to be oneself unleashed the power of personal initiative and entrepreneurship that soon challenged the existing commercial enterprises at that time.

There were also free migrants from India during the indenture period. By 1925, the free migrants mostly owned businesses such as tailoring, jewelry businesses, laundry and bootmakers.

The girmitiya and their descendants, on the other hand, owned majority of construction companies, transport/taxi businesses and services such as auto servicing and photography.

This structure and arrangement turned the first stage of the economy into a more merchant oriented and expanding the scope of labour for wages. This entrepreneurial energy helped prepare the ground for economic success of Fiji. It also set the foundation for industrial development (for example, domestic manufacturing sector) which has a robust association to trade and investment.

Despite the common purpose towards improving their lives, descendants of the girmitiya were obliquely divided, mostly along religious lines but also along language and cultural grounds. Out of these fractures emerged socio-cultural and religious organisations promoting their distinct agendas.

Social cohesion
These organisations were, however, necessary to build social cohesion, identity, ethnic binding towards achieving common problems. Organisations such Then India Sanmarga Sangam (TISI), Sanatan Dharm Pratinidhi Sabha and Arya Samaj are important examples.

One of the outcomes of these organisations is the provision of education by building schools. This is also true of other organisations that do not have any particular links to the girmitiya. The spirit of community partnership has had a huge impact on the development of education policy and contribution to national development.

While it may sound regular to start a school these days, the girmitiya had to carve out schools amid tough policies of the colonial government. Resources were meagre but the community spirit overruled this and other challenges.

The economic returns to education would have been the key motivating factor as well. Educated and literate people earned more than farmers. These organisations ensured that spread of education did not remain limited to the elite as in other countries during British colonial rule.

The legacy does not stop with the economy and education; there are other far reaching spillovers beyond these two important dimensions. Our present is inextricably intertwined with the past. Others are free to argue about the bittersweet legacy that still influences many facets of our life today.

Dr Neelesh Gounder is an economics lecturer at the University of the South Pacific. This article was first published by The Fiji Times and is republished here with the author’s permission.

“Coinciding with this March 8 – as International Women’s Day – we women also have the right to equal wages and prosperity,” said one of the women protesters in a speech.

Based on Tribun Jabar’s observations, a number of police personnel were mobilised to secure the protest action.

Several worker representatives also entered the city hall in order to meet with officials and discuss their demands.

Translated by James Balowski for the Indoleft News Service. The original title of the report in Tribun Jabar was “Buruh Perempuan Demo Menuntut Kesetaraan Upah di Balai Kota Bandung”.

When Dian Septi Trisnati decided to take part in a labor protest demanding a review of the calculation used to set the minimum wage, she never expected she would end up a victim of police brutality — and a criminal suspect.

Dian, a member of the Cross-Factories Workers Federation, said the protest that took place in front of the State Palace in Central Jakarta on October 30 had been held, as with similar rallies, because workers had been left with little choice.

“It ended violently,” she told The Jakarta Post. “A lot of workers were beaten by the cops. They treated us like dangerous criminals, even though none of us brought any weapons.”

The demonstration in question involved thousands of workers from across Greater Jakarta who staged a rally demanding the revocation of the then newly issued Government Regulation (PP) No. 78/2015, which stipulated that the calculation of minimum wage increases takes into account the current fiscal year’s inflation and gross domestic product (GDP) growth rates.

The rally ended with a clash between protesters and the police. The latter claimed the demonstrators had refused to disperse at the agreed time of 6 pm, but organisers said it merely took some to disperse, given that the protesters numbered in the thousands.

The police arrested 23 workers and two lawyers from the Jakarta Legal Aid Foundation (LBH Jakarta) accompanying the demonstration. All were subsequently charged with articles 216 and 218 of the Criminal Code on disobeying an official order, with a maximum sentence of four and a half months in jail.

‘Kicked me in head’
“I was taken to a police truck, where a police officer kicked me in the head. They finally released us from the Jakarta police headquarters 24 hours later, but we went home as suspects,” Dian said at the Indonesian Ombudsman office.

Along with lawyers from LBH Jakarta, Dian and her fellow suspects filed a report to the Ombudsman, claiming that the police had committed “maladministration” in their duties by beating them and charging them with crimes.

They demanded the institution investigate the case and decide if any violation had been committed by the police. Their case dossiers are to be submitted to state prosecutors by the end of the week.

“The police officers responsible, as well as assaulting citizens who were merely fighting for their rights, were furthermore not wearing uniforms,” LBH Jakarta lawyer Maruli Rajagukguk said.

The officers in question had been wearing blue shirts rather than uniforms, he said, making it impossible for workers and LBH Jakarta lawyers to identify the name and rank of the officers who beat them.

He added that while the workers were staging a protest to fight for the annual minimum wage calculation, the legal aid activists had not taken part in the protest.

“They were there just to make sure that the workers’ rights were not violated in the protest, but the police showed no mercy,” Maruli continued.

Contacted separately, Jakarta police spokesperson Sr. Comr. Mohammad Iqbal insisted that all measures during the incident had been conducted based on standard operation procedure, adding that prosecutors had, moreover, accepted the dossiers.

The suspects, he insisted, had the legal right to challenge their suspect status.

“That’s what pretrial motions are for. They have the right to file for a pretrial petition.”

—

One of the biggest and most controversial trade deals in history has been signed by ministers from the Asia-Pacific region and the Americas, as tens of thousands of protesters hit the streets to denounce it.

Security was stepped up across Auckland for representatives who travelled here to sign the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) – a deal involving 12 economies worth about $28 trillion.

Prime Minister John Key said the deal would benefit everybody.

“The opening of our markets will enhance the lives of our people. The TPP will make new trade opportunities. It is overwhelmingly in the best interests of our countries and our citizens,” Key said.

The TPP is a free trade agreement promising to liberalise trade and investment between the 12 nations, which make up about 36 percent of the world’s GDP.

The deal – which will cut tariffs, improve access to markets and sets common ground on labour and environmental standards and intellectual property protections – was finally reached in October after five years of negotiations.

It includes Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the US, and Vietnam.

Cheaper access
The TPP is supposed to ensure everyone from Vietnamese shrimpers to New Zealand dairy farmers get cheaper access to markets and bring in economic benefits.

Ministers received a traditional Māori welcome from members of the Ngati Whatua tribe – including a hongi, which involves the pressing of noses and exchange of breath.

But the welcome wasn’t as warm in downtown Auckland where thousands of protesters from different groups blockaded the inner city in a rally against the deal.

Many carried flags and banners and chanted outside the SkyCity convention centre where the signing took place.

Protest organisers estimated the crowd to be more than 20,000 – it was one of the biggest protests seen in New Zealand since the 1981 Springbok tour.

‘No balance of interests’
Rowan Brooks, a protest organiser, said he was concerned about the power the agreement would give to big corporations.

“Basically it eats away at New Zealand’s sovereignty and the whole process was undemocratic… The agreement gives power to corporations and takes it away from the people,” Brooks said.

Jane Kelsey, a law professor at the University of Auckland, is one of the agreement’s fiercest critics.

She said she was concerned about how the deal could be used by the US to counter China’s influence in the region.

“It’s kind of a Cold War by proxy of trade and investment agreements,” Kelsey said. “And that’s a real worry because not only do the corporations who have special insights and input to this agreement get to be centre stage but there is no balance of interests.”

The deal has not only triggered protests in New Zealand but has also drawn international criticism.

Former World Bank economist Joseph Stiglitz said it “may turn out to be the worst trade agreement in decades”.

Investors’ right to sue
In an opinion piece for the Guardian, Stiglitz wrote: “It gives foreign investors the right to sue governments in private international tribunals when they believe government regulations contravene the TPP’s terms.

“In 2016, we should hope for the TPP’s defeat and the beginning of a new trade era of agreements that don’t reward the powerful and punish the weak.”

The TPP is expected to come into force within two years, once countries have completed their domestic legislative procedures.

Questions have been raised over the ratification process as it coincides with the buildup to this year’s US presidential election. But US trade representative Michael Froman is confident it will be passed by the US Congress.

“We all have our domestic processes to go through and ours is clearly laid out… I believe at the end of the day… We will have the necessary bipartisan support for it to be approved,” he said.

A version of this article first appeared on Al Jazeera.

Earlier story, video and more images

Father Francis X. Hezel reviews a new book on climate change corruption and development in the Pacific. And the message is rather sobering.

BOOK REVIEW: Giff Johnson’s latest work – Idyllic No More: Pacific Islands Climate, Corruption and Development Dilemmas – is a call to serious planning and more. The author summons leaders to recognise that life has changed in the Marshalls and the status quo is the road to disaster.

There was a time when this might not have been true – when people who wanted to kick back and live a simple island life could quietly opt out of school and retire to the family land to provide for themselves as their ancestors had done for generations in an island society that offered the resources, physical and social, to support its population.

But times have changed, the author convincingly argues. That kind of idyllic fallback is no longer an option. Residents of the Marshalls, including those outer atolls where life was simple and cheap, are voting with their feet.

The outflow of Marshallese to the United States is steadily increasing, slowly emptying the remote atolls even as it drains the population of the two large population centers, Majuro and Ebeye. Islanders today expect meaningful employment but find none at home.

Marshallese today want more but seem to be getting less. Water supplies are contaminated in many places, the copra industry which once provided modest disposable income for those who worked the land has gone south, and the quality of education is not what it once was.

No wonder people now describe themselves as “poor”. Normal household tasks have become more challenging with the breakdown of the old extended family on which they relied. As a result, even basic care of children often leaves a lot to be desired.

In today’s world no island is simply an island. All nations have subscribed, willingly or not, to standards that are spelled out in global millennium development goals.

Stalled progress
Measured by these standards, progress in the Marshalls has stalled.

Donors may open their hearts and wallets to the Marshalls, but the money given is all too often regarded as a treat to be passed around the table and sampled by everyone rather than for its real purpose. Consultants come in and craft a report outlining reform measures that goes unread and unimplemented.

Government employees fly off to attend meetings that multiply each year and leave them little time to provide the public services their people so badly need.

How does this small island nation chart a new course for itself? One that offers it the hope of finding new resources while conserving those it now has? One that provides a pathway to the development that government and people claim to want for themselves? One that is, in that over-worked phrase, sustainable?

The answer is not nearly as elusive as it might appear, the author suggests. But making this happen will require reform: a change in habits, especially on the part of the government, and a readiness to implement practices that we know can be successful but threaten our own interests.

That’s what it will take, no matter whether we’re dealing with global warming, preserving fish stock in national waters, improving education and health services, or trying to make the heavy emigration work to the advantage of the Marshall Islands.

Father Francis X. Fran Hezel was the founder and long-time director of the Micronesian Seminar in Pohnpei. He is now based on Guam and writes a regular blog at: www.wheresfran.org.

—