The referendum is likely to be seen as a failure,
a capture of the vote by settlers without the meaningful participation
of the Indigenous Kanak people. Pacific nations are unlikely to accept
this disenfranchising of Indigenous self-determination.
In the final results on Sunday night,
96.49 per cent said “non” to independence and just 3.51 per cent “oui”.
This was a dramatic reversal of the narrow defeats in the two previous
plebiscites in 2018 and 2020.
However,
the negative vote in this final round was based on 43.9 per cent
turnout, in contrast to record 80 per cent-plus turnouts in the two
earlier votes. This casts the legitimacy of the vote in doubt, and is likely to inflame tensions.
AFTER three decades of frustratingly slow progress but with a measure
of quiet optimism over the decolonisation process unfolding under the
Noumea Accord, Kanaky New Caledonia is again poised on the edge of a
precipice.
Two out of three pledged referendums from 2018 produced higher than
expected – and growing — votes for independence. But then the delta
variant of the global covid-19 pandemic hit New Caledonia with a
vengeance.
Like much of the rest of the Pacific, New Caledonia with a population
of 270,000 was largely spared during the first wave of covid
infections. However, in September a delta outbreak infected 12,343 people with 280 deaths – almost 70 percent of them indigenous Kanaks.
With the majority of the Kanak population in traditional mourning –
declared for 12 months by the customary Senate, the pro-independence
Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS) and its allies
pleaded for the referendum due this Sunday, December 12, to be deferred
until next year after the French presidential elections.
FROM Auckland Tāmaki Makaurau in Aotearoa New Zealand to Paris,
France, and from Wellington Te Whanganui-a-Tara to Jayapura and far
beyond, thousands of people across the world today raised the Morning Star flag — banned by Indonesian authorities — in simple acts of defiance and solidarity with West Papuans.
They honoured the raising of the flag for the first time 60 years ago
on 1 December 1961 as a powerful symbol of the long West Papua struggle
for independence.
One of the first flag-raising events today was in Wellington where Peace Movement Aotearoa and Youngsolwara Pōneke launched a virtual ceremony online with most participants displaying the banned flag.
Four months ago Papua New Guinean journalists had been warning about increasing tensions over misinformation about
COVID vaccines and a lack of clear communication from health
authorities. IMAGE: Screenshot Guardian Pacific Project
IN RESPONSE to the escalating COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic in mid-February 2020 came a warning by the World Health Organisation (WHO) Secretary-General, Dr Tedros Adhanom, who declared that “we’re not just fighting an epidemic; we’re fighting an infodemic”. He added that fake news “spreads faster and more easily than this virus” .
The following month, in March 2020, UN Secretary-General António Guterres identified the “new enemy” as a “growing surge of disinformation”.
However, the term “disinfodemic” – which I much prefer – was adopted by the authors of a policy brief for UNESCO to describe the “falsehoods fuelling the pandemic”.
This disinfodemic has been rapidly leading to upheavals in many countries – including in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand in the weeks with protests, civil disobedience and attacks on health officials, medical staff and frontline workers.
Such assaults and violent confrontations have taken particular nasty turns in some of our neighbouring microstates of the South Pacific – notably Fiji and Papua New Guinea, the largest countries and biggest economies in the region.
Filmmaker and journalist Max Stahl, 66, has died almost 30
years after capturing images of the Indonesian massacre at Santa Cruz cemetery
in the Timor-Leste capital Dili, which helped accelerate the country’s
struggle for independence.
By coincidence, he died on the same day in 1991 as Sebastião Gomes,
the young man who was buried in Santa Cruz and whose death led to the
protest that ended in the Santa Cruz Massacre.
More than 2000 people went to Santa Cruz to pay tribute to Gomes, who
was killed by Indonesian-backed militia in the Motael neighbourhood.
Filmmaker Max Stahl speaking to the 20th anniversary of Pacific Journalism Review in Auckland in 2014. Image: Del Abcede/APR
The atrocity by the Indonesian military was secretly filmed by Max
Stahl and footage smuggled out of the country. International attention
on East Timor dramatically changed as a result.
At the graveyard, the Indonesian military opened fire on the crowd,
killing 74 people at the scene. Over the next few days, more than 120
young people died in hospital from their wounds or as a result of the
crackdown by occupying forces.
Most bodies were never recovered.
Born on 6 December 1954 in the United Kingdom, journalist and
documentary maker Christopher Wenner, better known as Max Stahl, began
his ties to the country in 1991 when he managed to enter East Timor for
the first time.
He became a Timorese citizen in 2019.
Hiding among the graves
On November 12, hiding among the graves of Santa Cruz cemetery, he
filmed the massacre — one of many during the Indonesian occupation of
the country. Images were circulated around the world’s media and this
changed history.
Decorated with the Order of Timor-Leste, the highest award given to
foreign citizens in the country, the Rory Peck Prize for filmmakers, and
several other rewards, Max Stahl leaves as a legacy the main archives
of images from the last years of the Indonesian occupation of the
country.
The archive was adopted by UNESCO for the World Memory Register and
has been used for teaching and research on Timor’s history under the
framework of cooperation between the University of Coimbra, the National
University of East Timor and CAMSTL.
The original 1991 Dili massacre footage by Max Stahl. Video: Journeyman Pictures
Stahl studied literature at the University of Oxford and he was a
fluent speaker of several languages, including the two official
languages of East Timor — Portuguese and Tetum.
He began his career writing for theatre and children’s television
shows. However, he found his calling as a war correspondent when he
lived with his family. At the time his father was ambassador to El
Salvador where Stahl reported on the civil war between 1979 and 1992.
Stahl covered other conflicts such as those of Georgia, former
Yugoslavia and East Timor (from 30 August 1991), where he arrived as a
“tourist” at the invitation of resistance groups.
“The king is dead. With great sadness, I write to inform you that Max passed away this morning.”
— Max Stahl’s wife Dr Ingrid Brucens
Historic resistance leaders
Throughout his long ties to East Timor, where he lived until he had to
travel recently to Australia for medical treatment, he interviewed
historic resistance leaders such as Nino Konis Santa, David Alex and
others.
Santa Cruz and the 12 November 1991 massacre made the name Max Stahl
known internationally with his images exposing the barbarism of the
Indonesian occupation.
In Portugal, the images made a special impact — both through the
brutality of the violence portrayed and because the survivors gathered
in the small chapel of Santa Cruz, praying in Portuguese while listening
to the bullets being fired by the Indonesian military and police.
The 1999 referendum prompted Max Stahl to return to East Timor when
he covered the violence before the referendum and after the announcement
of independence victory. He also accompanied families on the flight to
the mountains.
News of Max Stahl’s death on Wednesday at a Brisbane hospital quickly
became the most commented subject on social media in East Timor,
prompting condolences from several personalities during the struggle for
independence.
In statements to Lusa news agency, former President José Ramos-Horta
described Max Stahl’s death as a “great loss” to Timor-Leste and the
world. He said it would cause “deep consternation and pain” to the
Timorese people.
“Someone like Max, with a big heart, with a great dedication and love
for East Timor … [has been] taken to another world,” he told Lusa.
Dr Ingrid Brucens, Max Stahl’s wife, and who was with him and the children in Brisbane, announced his death to friends.
“The king is dead. With great sadness, I write to inform you that Max
passed away this morning,” she wrote in messages to friends.
Antonio Sampaio is the Lusa correspondent in Dili.
Pacific
Journalism Review investigation poses questions about the “silence” in
Australia over the controversial Bougainville documentary Ophir that has
won several international film awards in other countries. IMAGE: Ophir
still
A FRONTLINE investigative journalism article on the politics behind
the decade-long Bougainville war leading up to the overwhelming vote for
independence is among articles in the latest Pacific Journalism Review.
The report, by investigative journalist and former academic Professor Wendy Bacon and Nicole Gooch, poses questions about the “silence” in Australia over the controversial Bougainville documentary Ophir that has won several international film awards in other countries.
Published this week,
the journal also features a ground-breaking research special report by
academics Shailendra Singh and Folker Hanusch on the current state of
journalism across the Pacific – the first such region-wide study in
almost three decades.
Griffith University’s journalism coordinator Kasun Ubayasiri has
produced a stunning photo essay, “Manus to Meanjin”, critiquing
Australian “imperialist” policies and the plight of refugees in the
Pacific.
Reflections on 9/11 from a Fiji newsroom ... warnings about scapegoats and the media. IMAGE: Al Jazeera screenshot APR
FLASHBACK TO 9/11:By David Robie
WHEN I arrived at my office at the University of the South Pacific in Fiji on the morning of 12 September 2001 (9/11, NY Time), I was oblivious to reality.
I had dragged myself home to bed a few hours earlier at 2am as usual, after another long day working on our students’ Wansolwara Online website providing coverage of the Fiji general election.
One day after being sworn in as the country’s fifth real
(elected) prime minister, it seemed that Laisenia Qarase was playing
another dirty trick on Mahendra Chaudhry’s Labour Party, which had
earned the constitutional right to be included in the multi-party
government supposed to lead the country back to democracy.
Greenpeace campaigner Davey Edward ... in the workshop on board the
bombed ship Rainbow Warrior when he was chief engineer in 1985. IMAGE:
David Robie/APR
Earlier that year, he had been part of the Rainbow Warrior mission to relocate the Rongelap Atoll community in the Marshall islands who had suffered from US nuclear tests.
After that UK-born Edward sailed as chief engineer on several expeditions, including the Antarctic.
Censured or punished? Conflicting reports about the alleged punishment
of the two Indonesian Air Force military policemen who stomped on the
head of young Papuan Steven Yadohamang at Merauke last week. IMAGE: Yumi
Toktok Stret
IT IS open season again for Indonesian trolls targeting Asia Pacific Report and other media with fake news and disinformation dispatches in a crude attempt to gloss over human rights violations.
Just three months ago I wrote about this issue in my “Dear editor” article
exposing the disinformation campaign. There was silence for a while but
now the fake letters to the editor – and other media outlets — have
started again in earnest.
The latest four lengthy letters emailed to APR canvas the following topics — Jakarta’s controversial special autonomy status revised law for Papua, a brutal assault by Indonesian Air Force military policemen
on a deaf Papuan man, and a shooting incident allegedly committed by
pro-independence rebels – and they appear to have been written from a
stock template.
Two
Indonesian Air Force military policemen stomping on the head of a deaf
Papuan teenager, Steven Yadohamang, in the Merauke region on 26 July 2021. IMAGE: Screenshot
from video
By YAMIN KOGOYA
Shocking video footage showing a brutal and inhumane assault on a
deaf Papuan teenager named Steven Yadohamang has emerged from the Merauke region of
Papua and sparked outrage.
The video shows
an altercation between the 18-year-old and a food stall owner. Two
security men from the Air Force Military Police (Polisi Militer Angkatan
Udara, or POMAU) intervened in the argument.
One of the officers grabbed the young man and pulled him from the food
stall. The victim was slammed to the pavement and then stomped on by
the Air Force officers.
The two men, Serda Dimas and Prada Vian, trampled on Yadohamang’s head
and twisted his arms after knocking him to the ground. The young man was
seen screaming in pain, but the two men continued to step on his head
and body while the officers casually spoke on the phone.
1981
Springbok tour protest leaders Ripeka Evans (left) and John Minto speak
to the protesters 40 years on at the restrospective exhibition at the
Hamilton Museum - Te Whare Taonga o Waikato. IMAGE: David Robie/APR
AFTER his release from prison in South Africa and he became inaugural
president of the majority rule government with the abolition of
apartheid, Nelson Mandela declared in a speech in 1997: “We know too
well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the
Palestinians.”
Founding Halt All Racist Tours (HART) leader John Minto invoked these
words again several times in Hamilton on Sunday as veterans and
supporters of the 1981 Springbok Rugby Tour anti-apartheid protests
gathered to mark the 40th anniversary of the historic events.
Starting at the “1981” tour retrospective exhibition
at the Hamilton Museum – Te Whare Taonga o Waikato, the protesters
gathered for a luncheon at Anglican Action and then staged a ceremonial
march to FMG Stadium – known back then as Rugby Park – where they had
famously breached the perimeter fence and invaded the pitch.
The exhibition features photographs by Geoffrey Short, Kees Sprengers
and John Mercer of that day on 25 July 1981 when about 2000 protesters
halted the second match of the tour.
Three generations of Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific activists
crossing paths - Hilda Halyard-Harawira, Ena Manuireva, and India
Logan-Riley - asking for reparations for the damage caused by nuclear
testing and fighting for a better future for the next generation. IMAGE:
Jos Wheeler
Moana activists, campaigners, scholars, researchers and Green MPs
gathered last Sunday in a show of solidarity for Tahiti’s Ma’ohi Lives Matter
rally at Auckland University of Technology and vowed to work towards
independence for the French-occupied Pacific territory.
A live feed from the Tahitian capital of Pape’ete was screened and
simultaneous events happened across the Pacific, such as in Fiji.
Many of the Auckland participants were stalwarts from the early days
of the Nuclear-Free and Independent Pacific (NFIP) movement from the
1970s and 1980s and declared their support for pro-independence Tahitian
leader Oscar Temaru.
Human rights defender Carmel Budiardjo ... many lives "touched - and
sometimes transformed - by her passionate and determined campaigning for
human rights, justice and democracy in Indonesia, East Timor, Aceh and
West Papua". IMAGE: TAPOL
BRITISH and Indonesian human rights defender Carmel Budiardjo,
founder of TAPOL watchdog and the movement’s driving force for many
decades, has died peacefully aged 96.
TAPOL said in an announcement that she had died on Saturday and would
be greatly missed by an extensive network of people whose lives had been
“touched — and sometimes transformed — by her passionate and determined
campaigning for human rights, justice and democracy in Indonesia, East
Timor, Aceh and West Papua”.
For many, she had been a great mentor as well as a beloved friend, TAPOL said.
A younger Tahitian leader Oscar Temaru (centre) leads an anti-nuclear
protest in Pape'ete during the height of the demonstrations against
three decades of French nuclear testing at Moruroa and Fangataufa
atolls. Image: RT
On 27 May 2021, a significant event took place in Rwanda where French President Emmanuel Macron asked for forgiveness from the people of Rwanda after admitting for the first time that France bore a “terrible responsibility” for the deaths of hundreds of thousands in the 1994 genocide.
“France played its part and bears the political responsibility for the events in Rwanda. France is obligated to face history and admit that it caused suffering to the Rwandan people by allowing itself lengthy silences at the truth exam …”
On the other hand, the French government assumes no liability for the genocide and ecocide perpetrated in Mā’ohi Nui (French Polynesia)- the "crown jewel" of France’s overseas territories.
The French administration is living in denial concerning its responsibility to the Ma’ohi Nui people vis-a-vis the impact of nuclear tests in the region.
It really is bizarre. After 26 months of wrangling, stakeholders’ representations and appeals by the Pacific Media Centre participants to Auckland University of Technology management, in the end the innovative unit remains in limbo.
In fact, sadly it seems like a dead end.
In my 28 years as a media educator across four institutions in four countries I have never experienced as something as blatant, destructive and lacking in transparency as this.
Six weeks after I retired as founding director of the centre last December, the PMC office in AUT’s Sir Paul Reeves building was removed by packing up all the Pacific taonga, archives, books and files supporting student projects without consulting the stakeholders.
And then the award-winning staff running the centre on a de facto basis were apparently marginalised.
As former Green Party MP Catherine Delahunty noted: “I am really shocked that a vibrant well developed centre is being treated like this - what is wrong with this institution?”
International reporting has hardly been a strong feature of New
Zealand journalism. No New Zealand print news organisation has serious
international news departments or foreign correspondents with the
calibre of such overseas media as The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.
It has traditionally been that way for decades. And it became much worse after the demise in 2011 of the New Zealand Press Association
news agency, which helped shape the identity of the country for 132
years and at least provided news media with foreign reporting with an
Aotearoa perspective fig leaf.
It is not even much of an aspirational objective with none of the 66 Voyager Media Awards categories recognising international reportage, unlike the Walkley Awards
in Australia that have just 34 categories but with a strong recognition
of global stories (last year’s Gold Walkley winner Mark Willacy of ABC Four Cornersreported “Killing Field” about Australian war crimes in Afghanistan).
Aspiring New Zealand international reporters head off abroad and gain postings with news agencies and broadcasters or work with media with a global mission such as Al Jazeera.
Coalition
for Democracy chair Adi Asenaca "Dia" Uluiviti and Jo Elvidge do an
impromptu reenactment of a "banana republic" protest - complete with
balaclava mask - by Fiji democracy protesters in Auckland during 1987
at last night's Bavadra memorial reunion. IMAGE: David Robie/APR
Bananas, balaclavas and banners … these were stock-in-trade for human
rights activists of the New Zealand-based Coalition for Democracy in
Fiji who campaigned against then Colonel Sitiveni Rabuka’s original two coups in 1987 and the “banana republic” coup culture that emerged.
Many of the activists, politicians, trade unionists, civil society
advocates and supporters of democracy in Fiji gathered at an Auckland
restaurant in Cornwall Park to reflect on their campaign and to remember
the visionary Fiji Labour Party prime minister Dr Timoci Bavadra who was ousted by the Fiji military on 14 May 1987.
Speakers included Auckland mayor Phil Goff, who was New Zealand foreign minister at the time, and keynote Richard Naidu,
then a talented young journalist who had emerged as Dr Bavadra’s
spokesperson — “by accident” he recalls — and movement stalwarts.
The mood of the evening was a fun-filled and relaxed recollection of
coup-related events as about 40 participants — many of them exiled from
Fiji — sought to pay tribute to the kindly and inspirational leadership
of Dr Bavadra who died from cancer two years after the coup.
Participants agreed that it was a tragedy that Dr Bavadra had died
such an untimely death at 55, robbing Fiji of a new style of social
justice leadership that stood in contrast with the autocratic style of
the current Fiji “democracy”.
WHEN Nanaia Mahuta was appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs, there
were hopes for a change in government thinking towards the struggles of
indigenous people. The minister said she hoped to bring her experience
and cultural identity as an indigenous woman to her role on
international issues.
Palestine, West Papua and Western Sahara are places where the
indigenous people are struggling for freedom and human rights and early
on there was hope New Zealand would join the 138 member states of the
United Nations that recognise Palestine.
However the hope has faded and Mahuta finally spoke on Tuesday,
via a tweet, saying she was “deeply concerned” about the deteriorating
situation in Jerusalem and Gaza. She called for a “rapid de-escalation”
from Israel and the Palestinians, for Israel to “cease demolitions and
evictions” and for “both sides to halt steps which undermine prospects
for a two-state solution”.
Branding armed Papuan resistance groups as “terrorists” has sparked
strong condemnation from human rights groups across Indonesia and in
West Papua, some describing the move as desperation and the “worst ever”
action by President Joko Widodo’s administration.
Many warn that this draconian militarist approach to the Papuan
independence struggle will lead to further bloodshed and fail to achieve
anything.
Many have called for negotiation to try to seek a way out of the spiralling violence over the past few months.
Ironically, with the annual World Press Freedom Day being observed on Monday many commentors also warn about the increased dangers for journalists covering the conflict.
Setara Institute for Peace and Democracy chairperson Hendardi
(Indonesians often have a single name) has criticised the government’s
move against “armed criminal groups” in Papua, or “KKB)”, as the Free Papua Movement (OPM) armed wing is described by military authorities.
A WEST Papuan envoy who was gagged while addressing the United
Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues two years ago has been
blocked again while trying to speak out.
For six years, John Anari, leader of the West Papua Liberation
Organisation (WPLO) and an “ambassador” of the United Liberation
Movement for West Papua (ULMWP), has been appealing to the forum to push
for the Indonesian-ruled Melanesian region to be put on the UN
Trusteeship Council.
He was speaking for the two groups combined as the West Papua
Indigenous Organisation (WPIO), or Organisasi Pribumi Papua Barat, when
he attempted to give his address at the forum last Thursday.
The struggle of the Palestinians is integral to a larger struggle for
fundamental human rights that can be witnessed throughout the Middle
East. IMAGE: France 24
COVID-19 cases in Palestine, especially in Gaza, have reached record highs, largely due to the arrival of a greatly contagious coronavirus variant which was first identified in Britain.
Gaza has always been vulnerable to the deadly pandemic. Under a hermetic Israeli blockade since 2006, the densely populated Gaza Strip lacks basic services like clean water, electricity, or minimally-equipped hospitals. Therefore, long before covid-19 ravaged many parts of the world, Palestinians in Gaza were dying as a result of easily treatable diseases such as diarrhoea, salmonella and typhoid fever.
Needless to say, Gaza’s cancer patients have little fighting chance, as the besieged Strip is left without many life-saving medications. Many Palestinian cancer patients continue to cling to the hope that Israel’s military authorities will allow them access to the better equipped Palestinian West Bank hospitals.
Alas, quite often, death arrives before the long-awaited Israeli permit does.
The tragedy in Gaza - in fact in all of occupied Palestine - is long and painful. Still, it ought not to be classified as another sad occasion that invokes much despair but little action.
One of AUT’s Pacific research centres has been without a director since the end of last year and a lack of clarity around its future is causing division among staff and supporters. Teuila Fuatai reports for The Spinoff.
SINCE 2007, AUT’s Pacific Media Centre has built a considerable portfolio and solid reputation for its research and reporting on issues throughout the Asia Pacific region, and as a training ground for Pasifika journalists and academics.
However, a month after veteran Pacific correspondent and researcher Professor David Robie retired as director late last year, the centre was packed up without any formal notification or explanation to the remaining AUT staff members associated with it.
The move prompted a social media outcry among supporters and regional journalists, who raised concerns about the centre’s closure and the lack of communication from the university.
ASIA PACIFIC REPORT, the Auckland-based independent news and
analysis website, has been increasingly targeted by Indonesian trolls
over the past three months, involving a spate of “letters to the editor”
and social media attacks.
One of the most frequent letter writers, an “Abel Lekahena”, who
claims to be a “student” or “writing on behalf of the people of Papua”,
has accused APR of “only taking the separatists’ narrative as they played the victim”.
Sometimes he is purportedly a student living in “Yogyakarta”, West
Java; at other times he is a migrant from East Nusa Tenggara “currently
living in Manokwari, West Papua”. He has written to Asia Pacific Report 10 times in the past eight weeks – twice in one day on December 29, 2020.
“Lekahena”, if that is even his real name, claims in his latest
“template” letter on Monday that since January, “the armed separatists
prowled in Intan Jaya” and burned a missionary plane
on January 6 and he has cited several clashes between pro-independence
militants seeking independence for West Papua and the colonial
Indonesian security forces.
Author Margaret Mills speaking at the launch of The Nine Lives of Kitty K at Waiheke Library today. IMAGE: David Robie
Introduction for the book launch of
The Nine Lives of Kitty K by Margaret Mills Waiheke Library, Waiheke, 27 February 2021
AUTHOR Margaret Mills and I go back a long way. All the way back to 10 July 1985 (and a bit before) when a certain environmental ship sank in Auckland Harbour in outrageous circumstances that sent shocked headlines around the world.
The fateful bombing of the Rainbow Warrior by French secret agents has etched its memories deeply into our lives - and the lives of many activists on Waiheke Island. This is how I first came to get to know Margaret as a journalist on board the Greenpeace flagship when researching one of my own books, Eyes of Fire: The Last Voyage of the Rainbow Warrior.
As it turned out, while it might have been the last voyage of the original Warrior, two more campaigning ships of the same name came in its wake.
Papuan students demonstrating against extenson of the special autonomy
law for Papua and provincial expansion plans in front of the Ministry of
Home Affairs in central Jakarta on Monday. IMAGE: APR special
A West Papuan correspondent has compiled and translated this special article for Asia Pacific Report and Cafe Pacific drawn from Papuan news media.
THE INDIGENOUS people of West Papua have rejected the extension of special autonomy and the planned expansion of new provinces announced by the central government of Indonesia.
The rejection comes from grassroots communities across West Papua and
Papuan students who are studying in Indonesia and overseas.
Responding to the expansion of a new province, Mimika students
demonstrated in front of the Ministry of Home Affairs, Jl. Medan Merdeka
Utara, central Jakarta, this week.
Representing Mimika students throughout Indonesia and abroad, about
30 students who are currently studying in Jakarta, took part in the
protest on Monday.
A statement received by Asia Pacific Report said that the
Mimika regency students throughout Papua, Indonesia, and globally
rejected the division of the Central Papua province and return the
provincial division to the MRP and DPRP of Papua Province, and return
the customary institutions (LEMASA & LEMASKO) to the tribal and
Kamoro indigenous communities in Mimika regency.
The Sepik storyboard plaque marking the 2007 opening of the Pacific Media Centre by then
Pacific Affairs Minister Luamanuvau Winnie Laban – gone, relocated? IMAGE: CAFÉ PACIFIC
February 16, 2021
PACIFIC journalists, media researchers, students and other stakeholders have expressed
concern about the future of New Zealand’s Pacific Media Centre after more than
two months without a director and a recent shock “closure” of the centre’s office.
The centre,
founded in 2007 and described by an external review as a “jewel in the AUT
crown”, had worked in its current Communication Studies office in the Sir Paul
Reeves Building at the Auckland University of Technology’s city campus since it
opened eight years ago.
It was abruptly
emptied earlier this month of more than a decade of awards, books, files,
publications, picture frames and taonga, including a traditional carved Papua
New Guinean storyboard marking the opening of the centre by then Pacific
Affairs Minister Luamanuvao Winnie Laban in October 2007.
The official line
is that it is a “move” for the centre but there is confusion over the actual
location of any replacement space.
It is understood
that none of the centre’s staff or the PMC Advisory Board members were
consulted, nor were they notified before the removal took place. None were
present at the removal.
USP's Australian Professor Pal Ahluwalia ... deported today on a flight to Brisbane. Image: PMW
By Pacific Media Watch
POLITICIANS, educators and civil society advocates around the region
today condemned the “barbaric” and “shameful” detention and deportation
of the regional University of the South Pacific’s vice-chancellor
Professor Pal Ahluwalia and his wife.
Reformist Professor Ahluwalia, an Australian, and his wife, Sandra, were detained by Fiji authorities at their Suva home late last night and deported on a flight to Brisbane this morning.
The USP Council is due to meet in Suva tomorrow and the chancellor,
Nauru Lionel Aingimea said today a statement would be made later.
National Federation Party leader Professor Biman Prasad said at a
time when Fiji should be supporting victims of cyclones Yasa and Ana,
government was “instead focused [on] its own petty jealousies”.
Social Democratic Liberal Party leader Viliame Gavoka condemned the
arrest and deportation of Professor Ahluwalia and his wife as “barbaric
treatment”.
“We are alarmed by the way that the government of Fiji broke into the
vice-chancellor’s residence in the middle of the night (03.02.21) and
orchestrated the removal of VCP Pal and his wife,” the unions said.
“The manner in which the VCP and his wife were removed is a violation of human rights and due process.
“Given the seriousness of the decision, we demand the Fiji government … provide the justification for this Gestapo tactic.”
The unions said USP was a regional organisation like Pacific Islands
Forum Secretariat, SPREP, FFA, SPC and demanded the same respect given
to any regional organisation.
