‘Secret plots’, sovereignty and covid challenges face Pacific for New Year

 

Independence and self-determination in the Pacific ... contrasting referendum experiences
between Bougainville, Kanaky New Caledonia and West Papua.
IMAGE: Screenshot of the Kanak flag in Middle East Eye

ANALYSIS: By David Robie in Auckland

THE PACIFIC year has closed with growing tensions over sovereignty and self-determination issues and growing stress over the ravages of covid-19 pandemic in a region that was largely virus-free in 2020.

Just two days before the year 2021 wrapped up, Bougainville President Ishmael Toroama took the extraordinary statement of denying any involvement by the people or government of the autonomous region of Papua New Guinea being involved in any “secret plot” to overthrow the Manasseh Sogavare government in Solomon Islands.

Insisting that Bougainville is “neutral” in the conflict in neighbouring Solomon Islands where riots last month were fuelled by anti-Chinese hostilities, Toroama blamed one of PNG’s two daily newspapers for stirring the controversy.

• READ MORE: Flashback to Kanaky in the 1980s – ‘Blood on their Banner’
• New Caledonia referendum: France’s last pocket of settler colonialism
• Solomon Islands riots push nation into slippery slide of self-implosion
• ‘Secret plot’ uncovered
  

“Contrary to the sensationalised report in the Post-Courier (Thursday, December 30, 2021) we do not have a vested interest in the conflict and Bougainville has nothing to gain from overthrowing a democratically elected leader of a foreign nation,” Toroama said.

The frontpage report in the Post-Courier appeared to be a beat-up just at the time Australia was announcing a wind down of the peacekeeping role in the Solomon Islands.

Kanaky New Caledonia vote to stay with France is a hollow victory - it will only rachet up tensions

"Keeping the peace" ... French police in Noumea for the third and final independence
referendum yesterday. IMAGE: Caledonia TV screenshot APR

 
ANALYSIS: By DAVID ROBIE

“Loyalist” New Caledonians handed France the decisive victory in the third and final referendum on independence it wanted in Sunday’s vote.

But it was a hollow victory, with pro-independence Kanaks delivering Paris a massive rebuke for its three-decade decolonisation strategy.

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.

West Papua, Palestine and other critical issues – why is NZ media glossing over them?

 

Indonesian police carry a body in the current crackdown against pro-independence Papuans
near Timika, Papua. IMAGE: seputarpapua.com

By DAVID ROBIE

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 Corners reported “Killing Field” about Australian war crimes in Afghanistan).

• READ MORE: Papuan resistance slams Indonesian internet gag amid leader crackdown
• Papuan armed resistance insists talks with Jakarta must be mediated by UN
• Other West Papua reports
• Reinstate victimised Palestinian journalists’ union leader, says IFJ

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.

West Papuans reject Jakarta plan for extension of special autonomy

 

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.

• READ MORE: More than half million Papuans sign petition opposing Indonesia’s Special Autonomy extension
• Other West Papua reports

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.

Fiji, PNG lead betrayal, but still West Papuans triumph

A massive crowd at Timika, Papua, greets the MSG decision to grant West Papuans observer status.
Image: Free West Papua Campaign

COMMENT By David Robie

THE Melanesian Spearhead Group leaders’ summit in Honiara this week must go down as the most shameful since the organisation was founded two decades ago.

It had the opportunity to take a fully principled stand on behalf of the West Papuan people, brutally oppressed by Indonesia after an arguably “illegal” occupation for more than a half century.

Host nation Solomon Islands Prime Minister and chair Mannaseh Sogareve set the tone by making an impassioned plea at the start of the summit, predicting a “test” for the MSG. He said it would be an issue of human rights and the rule of law.

In the end, the MSG failed the test with a betrayal of the people of West Papua by the two largest members. Although ultimately it is a decision by consensus.

Instead, the MSG granted Indonesia a “promotion” to associate member status – an Asian country, not even Melanesian?