King Tupou VI has proclaimed ʻAkilisi Pōhiva’s cabinet will continue on as Tonga’s caretaker government, which will run the kingdom until after the upcoming general election in November.

The Lord Chamberlain made the announcement yesterday.

“His Majesty commanded that new representatives of nobles and the people to be elected to enter the Legislative Assembly at elections to be held in no later than November 16,″ the Lord Chamberlain said in a statement.

“Until those elections take place, the present government will continue as caretaker government.

“During this time, the administration of government services, especially Health and Education services to the people, should remain a priority”.

Pōhiva and his cabinet were dismissed on Friday after King Tupou VI had dissolved Parliament.

NZ troops in Tonga come home
Meanwhile, the New Zealand SAS troops in Tonga will be brought home as soon as possible, the New Zealand government announced.

A group of 20 SAS soldiers are in Tonga, where the Prime Minister has suddenly been dismissed by the King.

Foreign Minister Gerry Brownlee told The New Zealand Herald the troops were there for a routine exercise, and yesterday confirmed they would be pulled out of the country as soon as possible.

“Rather than continuing on to do their scheduled training exercise, we’ve concluded this is a time for Tonga to have some clear air, uncomplicated by the coincidental presence of NZDF personnel in the country.”

Pōhiva to stand again
ʻAkilisi Pōhiva plans to run for Parliament again in the November election, his son and personal assistant Poʻoi Pōhiva confirmed to Kaniva News.

The dissolution of the Parliament came after the king was advised by his Privy Council and the Speaker of Parliament.

In an interview with Pōhiva three years ago, the long-time democratic veteran campaigner said he would stand for election one last time in the 2014 general election.

The revelation of Pōhiva’s plan could give his great number of supporters in the kingdom and abroad a sense of relief, after many of them were devastated by his dismissal.

Po’oi Pōhiva did not give further details about his father’s plan but most of ‘Akilisi’s supporters had called on him to stand again for Parliament since his dismissal.

His supporters do not believe there were solid reasons for the king to dismiss the people’s first elected Prime Minister.

The Privy Council has yet to give any reasons why it made the surprising royal command.

ʻAkilisi Pōhiva’s supporters have questioned the Privy Council and the Speaker of the House over their advice to dissolve Parliament given they were only elected to their positions by the king and the only 33 members of the nobility.

• NZ troops to be brought home
• Other Tongan crisis stories

By Philip Cass in Auckland

There was disappointment and fears of violence early today in the aftermath of King Tupou IV’s dismissal of Tongan Prime Minister ‘Akilisi Pohiva.

New Zealand Foreign Minister Gerry Brownlee said the possibility of civil unrest was a concern.

A leading Tongan academic said last night there was “a very real fear of violence” following the dismissal of Pohiva.

Dr Malakai Koloamatangi, Pasifika director at Massey University, said Pohiva had a lot of support among the people of Tonga.

Dr Koloamatangi told TVNZ last night that while the kingdom had been moving towards a more democratic government, King Tupou IV’s dismissal of the Prime Minister was ”highly unusual”.

Radio New Zealand described the move as the downfall of Pohiva and noted that his government had been marred by controversy and allegations of incompetence.

As Kaniva News reported yesterday afternoon, the dismissal followed an approach by the Speaker of Parliament to King Tupou VI and a decision made by the Privy Council.

According to the government gazette, fresh elections must be held by November 16.

High hopes for change
Former parliamentarian Dr Sitiveni Halapua said the people had high hopes for Pohiva’s government, but had not seen any real fruits from the democratic change.

“It’s a great disappointment all round,” Dr Halapua said.

Tongan publisher Kalafai Moala said the King’s decision was a setback for democracy, but told Agence France-Presse the dismissal had support.

“Pohiva has a core of supporters and they’re out there on social media expressing disappointment,” he said.

“But I think most people are happy and felt like this had been coming for some time.”

Meanwhile, Brownlee said New Zealand SAS troops that were in the kingdom were confined to barracks.

He said it was a complete coincidence the troops were in the kingdom.

Brownlee told The New Zealand Herald the government had had no indication the royal intervention was coming.

“We will be trying to work out over the next couple of days what it is going to mean for democracy in Tonga and what the implications will be for New Zealand,” he said.

Dr Philip Cass is an Auckland media academic and adviser to Kaniva News. He is also a research associate of the Pacific Media Centre.

• Tongan king sacks democracy PM
• TVNZ One News Pacific correspondent Barbara Dreaver analyses ‘volatile’ Tonga

Investigative journalist and author Nicky Hager has taken journalism students inside the process behind the controversial book Hit & Run, outlining an example of investigative journalism.

He described Hit & Run as a book which “reconstructs a crime scene” five or six years after a botched raid by New Zealand’s SAS allegedly killed six and wounded 15 innocent civilians, as opposed to the fighters believed responsible for killing a fellow soldier in a roadside bomb in Afghanistan in 2010.

But more importantly, Hager told students and staff at Auckland University of Technology last week, Hit & Run — co-authored with independent journalist Jon Stephenson — concerned “local business”.

“This is about us as New Zealanders and our military, that we pay for, and works on our behalf, whether it is sticking up for the values and beliefs and playing the role that we would want our country playing in the world, which we’ve got every right as New Zealanders to have opinions about, and feel strongly about,” he said.

“This is our business.”

1000-piece jigsaw puzzle
Hager described investigative journalism as a “related trade” to more traditional, everyday journalism, which is the “bloodstream of democracy”.

Hager told the third-year journalism students investigative journalism – sometimes a 1000-piece jigsaw puzzle – could take “weeks, months, years” and explained it differed from regular journalism due to a few, key “ingredients”.

“Investigative journalism is actually just the people who put the time into chasing up that issue and sticking with it until they crack it.

“In other words, there’s no reason why anybody can’t be doing the work I’m talking about. Who has that public interest motivation, who likes research, and has some determination to stick at something until they crack it. Those are the ingredients.”

Hager also said drawing information together “is one of the vital components of investigative journalism”.

“It’s trying to crack the facts.”

More importantly, Hager stressed, investigative journalism is about protecting sources.

‘Am I hiding my sources?’
“When I’m writing, I’m always asking myself: ‘Am I hiding my sources well enough?’ Half my brain is in source-protection mode.”

This was true of Hit & Run, Hager said.

“From the very first meetings, I had to make sure that there were no connections between us, so for when the inevitable witchhunt came, nobody would be able to find a connection. No metadata.

“There is no story which is worth ruining someone’s life for.”

Speaking with Asia Pacific Report after the talk, Hager said this was highly important in New Zealand, where a culture of persecuting whistleblowers exists.

“New Zealand is very unkind to whistleblowers. Apart from an occasional, very brave, determined person, hopefully near the end of their career who speaks up, I usually would never recommend someone to be a whistleblower in the sense of being open.

‘We’re going to skin them alive’
“I think it’s much safer for people to leak. We’re a small society where the ‘old boys’ network’ can punish people too much.”

Hager said this was disappointing, given New Zealand’s “long and honourable history” in which people from every sector of society quietly talk to journalists and politicians.

But the ‘old boys’ network’ will not be a deterrent, Hager affirmed.

“As long as we’ve got a country where people want information, there will be people leaking information, that’s guaranteed. We’ll keep going.”

However, he added the military’s actions after the release of Hit & Run prove it has every intention to “punish whistleblowers”.

“They’re having an inquiry right now and the inquiry’s called: ‘Which bastards spoke to them, and we’re going to skin them alive.”

Hager said Hit & Run was the “real story” behind New Zealand’s military role in Afghanistan, in which the SAS had been involved in a “misguided, disastrous raid”.

‘Unscrupulously covered up’
“It struck me that if we could take one incident from a war, out of all the incidents, and write it really carefully and fully, then somebody who bothered to read that would actually – hopefully – get what a war is like: Real people, in a real situation, where people are fighting on sides and trying to kill each other. Who are these people?”

He also told Asia Pacific Report his thoughts on the military’s decision to hold no inquiry on the claims made in Hit & Run, the origins of which have been “unscrupulously covered up”.

“The military’s reaction to Hit & Run is nothing more than a continuation of a cover-up. This is what a cover-up looks like. They are dodging and weaving. Their arguments are weak, but there’s an underlying determination not to be scrutinised.

“In a normal government world, if someone had been accused of serious things, which they thought weren’t true, they’d want there to be an inquiry, they’d want someone to look at the facts and say, ‘those scurrilous authors were wrong and our reputations have been impugned’. But they don’t want that because we’re right. So what we’re seeing is them desperately trying to avoid being caught out.”

More importantly, the claims made in Hit & Run, Hager said, reveal a problem at the heart of the New Zealand military — secrecy.

“We’re seeing the inevitable results of an organisation which is too secretive. That believes it can keep all of its activities secret. This comes out in all sorts of dodgy, and petty, behaviour inside the Defence Force, because they’ve got used to never being properly scrutinised.

“We’re seeing a systemic problem in a secretive organisation which shouldn’t be so secret.”

On a more positive note, however, Hager closed his talk with a final piece of advice for the aspiring journalists in the room:

“We should be absolutely trustworthy.”

• Innovation and collaboration key to success: Nicky Hager
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• Hit & Run reply: This is what a military cover-up looks like

The co-authors, Nicky Hager and Jon Stephenson, also criticised the prime minister for taking the “next step in the seven-year cover-up” by rejecting an inquiry.

The book has alleged six civilians were killed and 15 injured in a “revenge” raid after the first death of New Zealand soldier in Afghanistan, Lieutenant Tim O’Donnell on August 4, 2010.

“In the past two weeks since Hit & Run was published, there have been calls for an independent inquiry from New Zealanders from all sides on the political spectrum,” said Hager.

“It is disappointing and concerning that Bill English has refused.

“When the book came out, Jon Stephenson and I emphasised that Bill English had no responsibility for the deeds done in 2010 and so was in a good position to offer aid to the Afghan villages and launch a proper inquiry. But he has joined the people trying to hide and dodge over what happened.

“I believe this decision is the result of military pressure on the government: the tail wagging the dog. That is not good for the country.

“Bill English is an experienced minister who knows the difference between being shown selective information by an interested party, as he has been by the Defence Force, and having an independent inquiry.

“This does not appear a rational decision based on evidence; it is helping the military bureaucracy to avoid having to front up. It is the next step in the seven-year cover-up.

“But, most of all, Bill English has just ensured that the issue will continue to boil and fester. It is not going to go away until it is properly addressed.”

After receiving Defence Force chief Lieutenant General Tim Keating’s advice that troops involved in the raids met the “benchmark” of acting according to the rules of engagement, Prime Minister English yesterday watched video footage taken from aircraft involved in the 2010 raids in Afghanistan’s Baghlan province, reports The New Zealand Herald.

The classified video he saw confirmed the “extensive steps, restraint and care” that forces took to minimise the chances of civilian casualties, English said.

English would not go into detail about what the footage showed and said it would not be publicly released.

He did not watch footage of the whole operation but was confident in what he saw.

• SAS soldier backs up Afghan raid claims
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It can’t have been easy for the New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) and their political leaders to deny the results of a botched military intervention in which 21 civilians were killed or wounded as outlined in Hit & Run.

The task becomes next to impossible in the face of testimonies from survivors and witnesses and the local government documents listing the names of the killed and wounded.

When such evidence is fact-checked against the known coordinates and timeline of the operation, only one conclusion seems plausible: the official deniers inhabit an alternative world beyond the reach of inquiry, research, proof, disproof and argumentation.

The situation reminds me of a hilarious Monty Python sketch in which hapless game show competitors make fabricated claims of authorship or accomplishment. It goes like this:

Host: Good evening and welcome to Stake Your Claim. And first this evening we have (John Cleese) with us Mr Norman Bowles from Gravesend who claims he wrote all Shakespeare’s works… Mr Bowles, I understand that you wrote all those plays normally attributed to Shakespeare.

Mr Bowles: That is correct, I wrote all his plays and my wife and I wrote his sonnets (Michael Palin)

Host: Mr Bowles, these plays are known to have been performed in the early 17th century. How old are you Mr Bowles?

Mr Bowles: Forty three.

Host: Well, how is it possible for you to have written plays performed over 300 years before you were born?

Mr Bowles: Ah well, this is where my claim falls to the ground. There’s no possible way of answering that argument, I’m afraid. I was rather hoping you wouldn’t make that particular point. But I can see that you are more than a match for me.

Here, Mr Bowles’ claims cannot survive the merest scrutiny. In the absence of time travel, he could not possibly have written any of Shakespeare’s plays.

Contradicts testimony
Satirically speaking, recent statements from the Chief of the New Zealand Defence Force, appear just as untenable. His claim that NZDF troops never operated in the villages of Naik and Khak Khuday Dad contradicts all available testimony and documentary records.

The onus of proof is on the NZDF. They have to demonstrate, empirically and legally, that the “hit and run” case compiled by Nicky Hager and Jon Stephenson is false.

The NZDF’s associated claim, that the military operation took place elsewhere in a settlement called Tirgiran requires justification. Available geographic evidence suggests that Tirgiran is a river valley rather than a settlement.

If the NZDF cannot prove that such a substantial raid occurred (at a particular location outside of Naik and Khak Khuday Dad), then Hager and Stephenson’s case stands.

These and other matters must be addressed by an independent commission of inquiry. The public needs to know whether the SAS committed war crimes in their pursuit of enemy combatants.

In this eventuality, Hit & Run represents a basic outline of the prosecution case. The authors argue that operation Burnham was an attempted retaliatory raid against the insurgents responsible for a roadside bomb which had killed a New Zealand solider, Lieutenant Timothy O’Donnell in August 2010.

Based on the intelligence gathered, and the kill-capture authorisations of US military commanders, the SAS along with Afghan commandos landed near the villages, supported by US Apache helicopters.

No insurgents found
Although no insurgents were found, a dozen houses were burnt or blown up. At Naik and Khak Khuday Dad, four civilians including a three-year-old child were killed by helicopter fire.

The extent to which Apache helicopter pilots were directed by the SAS on the ground is yet to be determined.

According to local testimony, two other deaths at Khak Khuday Dad are said to have resulted from bullet wounds, perhaps from sniper fire.

Hager and Stephenson maintain that SAS soldiers later returned to the villages to destroy partially rebuilt houses.

Furthermore, a leading insurgent, allegedly involved in the death of Tim O’Donnell, is said to have been bound and beaten inside an SAS vehicle after capture. These need to be legally tested at a commission of inquiry.

The construction of this book was a painstaking and dangerous enterprise. Jon Stephenson risked life and limb by returning to the villages and interviewing survivors, and assembling the family trees of the dead and wounded.

Empty shell casings from Apache helicopter cannon rounds were collected and photographed. A series of locally sourced stories from the Pajhwok News Agency, pointing to civilian deaths and casualties were filed.

Triangulated material
And, as mentioned earlier, a locally documented list of the dead and wounded was obtained and photocopied. By triangulating this material with the admissions of anonymous sources throughout the SAS and NZDF, Hager and Stephenson have built a powerful case.

The ramifications of the events described are considerable. Allow me to compile a small list:

• The official cover up and denials concerning the raids within the NZDF suggests a lack of top level accountability;
• Government deference to the NZDF has allowed a military clique to usurp civilian authority over foreign policy;
• The range of military sources available to the authors points to division and dysfunction within the Army, SAS and the NZDF itself; and
• The rationale and purpose of New Zealand’s foreign policy, in contradistinction to our “five eyes” obligations is impossible to determine.

Is the New Zealand government and New Zealand Defence Force likely to reflect upon these ramifications? Probably not. I think it is more likely that Mr Bowles did in fact write all of Shakespeare’s plays.

Dr Wayne Hope is a professor of communication studies at Auckland University of Technology. This review was first published by The Daily Blog.

• Hit & Run: The NZ SAS in Afghanistan and the meaning of honour, by Nicky Hager and Jon Stephenson. Nelson: Potton and Burton. 160pp. ISBN 9780947503390. $34.99
• Analysis of the NZ Defence Force ‘defence’ by Nicky Hager and Jon Stephenson

The Chief of Defence Force Lieutenant-General Tim Keating presented the NZ Defence Force response to the book Hit & Run at a press conference on Monday, 27 March 2017. For 45 minutes he and his colleagues suggested that everything in the book was incorrect.

The Hit and Run authors have now had time to study the defence chief’s statements. Our conclusion is that the NZDF criticisms are wrong – with one exception – and that they have failed to address almost everything of substance in the book.

This is what a cover up looks like.

READ MORE: Villagers say both NZDF and authors wrong on village names – but confirm civilian deaths

1. The raid described in the book “is not an operation NZSAS conducted”: INCORRECT

The information presented in Keating’s press conference leaves no doubt that the book and the defence chief are talking about the same raid. Keating gave the name of the raid (Operation Burnham), the times and date (12.30-3.45am on 22 August 2010), the location in the Tirgiran Valley, and said the SAS arrived in two Chinook helicopters, used SAS snipers, found a quantity of ammunition in one building and had one SAS trooper injured by falling debris.

All of these are details of the SAS raid publicised first in chapter 3 of the book. There were not two different raids with the same operation name at the same time in the same valley. It is obviously the same raid.

An NZDF power point presentation shown in the press conference showed three main SAS objectives in the valley called A1, A2 and A3. The book had already identified the SAS’s main targets as being the house and guest house of an insurgent named Abdullah Kalta and the house of an insurgent named Naimatullah, neither of whom were present during the raid.

The NZDF objectives A1 and A2 are the buildings belonging to Abdullah Kalta seen in a photo on p. 60 of the book and NZDF objective A3 is the house of Nematullah shown on pp. 39 and 60 of the book.

2. The SAS raid was in a different village with a different name: INCORRECT

The defence force claimed that the SAS raid occurred in a village called Tirgiran, not the villages of Naik and Khak Khuday Dad named in the book. This is not true. The locals know the names of their own villages and they are called Naik and Khak Khuday Dad. The raid occurred there.

3. The SAS raid was about two kilometres from the position we gave in the book: CORRECT, BUT DOES NOT CHANGE THE STORY IN ANY SIGNIFICANT WAY

After the NZDF press conference, Nicky Hager said that the authors stood by the whole story and that at most the NZDF denials might mean that the events in the book occurred two kilometres from where we thought they were, ie. a slightly different location in the isolated mountain valley.

We have checked the NZDF maps shown at the press conference and it appears the location of the raid and the villages is indeed slightly different to what our local sources told us. But the villages at that location are definitely called Naik and Khak Khuday Dad, and all the rest of the story in the book is unchanged.

Likewise the photos in the book of the villages attacked in the raid are correct, as are the photos of the victims and destroyed houses.

The Defence Force leapt on this and tried to sow doubt about the rest of the book. Keating said the “central premise” of the book was incorrect; that there were “major inaccuracies – the main one being the location”.

But the location is a minor detail, difficult to establish in mountains with no roads or detailed maps (there are no known maps of the valley that include the locations and names of the villages along it).

Contrary to what Keating said, the central premise of the book is that the actions of the SAS and its allies in the villages of Naik and Khak Khuday Dad led to civilian deaths and injuries, destruction of houses, neglect of wounded people and then a cover up – and none of that has changed.

4. The NZDF has now replied to the allegations in the book: INCORRECT

The defence force has not replied to most allegations in the book. Most strikingly, Keating’s presentation did not address the deaths and injuries suffered by children, mothers and elderly people who were obviously not insurgents – which are the most important allegations in the book.

The allegations that the defence force has avoided or answered inadequately to date are:

• SAS-controlled attack helicopters fired at civilians in Khak Khuday Dad village with many casualties, including the three-year-old child Fatima;
• SAS snipers appear to have shot at least one civilian, a recently graduated school teacher home on holiday;
• SAS-controlled attack helicopters pursued two farmers who opposed the Taliban along the valley and killed them;
• Twelve houses were destroyed despite there being no military necessity to do so;
• No assistance was given to the wounded at the time, including in houses that Defence now says it knew might have contained civilians;
• Nor did the SAS go back to render assistance later, despite knowing that civilians were likely to have been injured;
• The SAS returned for a second raid on the village Naik and blew up a house or houses;
• A bound and blindfolded prisoner was beaten by an SAS trooper while his colleagues looked on and did nothing;
• The prisoner was then handed over to the Afghan secret police who were known to have a notorious reputation for torturing prisoners;
• That prisoner was then tortured by the Afghan secret police and when the defence force learned about this it kept it secret;
• The SAS arranged the extra-judicial killing of some other insurgent suspects; and
• The NZDF repeatedly denied and covered up what the SAS have done, and continue to do so to this day.

5. An ISAF investigation has already occurred, there is no need for another inquiry: A WEAK SELF-SERVING ARGUMENT

First it is important to explain about the investigation done in August 2010 by the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) coalition headquarters, which was cited repeatedly during the NZDF press conference. In 2010 the subject of civilian deaths was very sensitive in Afghanistan and so ISAF was attempting to investigate all suspected cases of civilians being killed by ISAF forces. But these “assessments” were very far from being full or independent.

The ISAF investigation into the 22 August 2010 raid was completed in less than a week and did not involve anyone going to the area or talking to the affected villagers. It included a review of attack helicopter weapons system video and concluded that several “errant rounds”, caused by a gun sight malfunction, “may have resulted in civilian casualties”.

However reports from SAS members and local people interviewed for the book describe multiple heavy attacks that wounded and killed civilians in different locations. Thus the hastily-conducted ISAF review appears far from being adequate. It is silent on most of the allegations in the book.

There is no need for New Zealand to rely on the brief and inadequate ISAF review. Most of the information needed to confirm whether or not the allegations in the book are correct is located here in New Zealand, in the SAS files. The best option is an independent inquiry where this information can be gathered and assessed.

6. Keating said the insurgents may have used civilians as human shields; aircraft video showed insurgents were killed; the conduct of the New Zealand ground forces was “exemplary”; and so on: UNSUBSTANTIATED CLAIMS AND SELECTIVE INFORMATION

Much of Keating’s presentation was unsubstantiated assertions. This does not help the public find the truth since the defence force has an obvious interest in avoiding bad news about itself. He also said that the book claimed the SAS “deliberately killed civilians”, which we did not say. If we are correct that bad things are being covered up, we cannot expect the people at the heart of the cover up to provide impartial information.

Once again, this means that the only acceptable option is a full and independent inquiry.

7. Lieutenant General Tim Keating told the press conference: “The ground force commander was an NZSAS Officer who controlled both the ground activities and provided clearance, after the appropriate criteria had been met, for any involvement of the aircraft. These elements were co-ordinated by an air controller in his location.” CORRECT AND IMPORTANT INFORMATION

This statement contradicts earlier statements by the government (in 2014) where ministers suggested that if there had been any civilian deaths they were the responsibility of the US pilots, not the New Zealand SAS. It confirms what we said in the book: that the SAS commanders in charge of the raid have responsibility for deaths and injuries caused by the US attack helicopters, which they controlled and had requested to be part of the raid.

8. Finally, Keating told the press that there were legal complications for having an inquiry: INCORRECT

This is not correct. We are not proposing an inquiry by the Defence Force about itself. The government has the power to launch a full and independent inquiry at any time. We believe the NZDF is trying to avoid a full and independent inquiry precisely because some officers are scared of what it will show. But the issue will continue to fester, as it has for years, until that happens.

This article was first published in The Daily Blog.

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