Martial law brutality in ‘educational’ musical drama Katips touches raw nerve in NZ

A Gabriela poster honouring martyred women during the Marcos martial law years
in the Philippines on display at the AUT film screening. IMAGE: David Robie/APR

By DAVID ROBIE

Seven weeks ago the Philippines truth-telling martial law film Katips was basking in the limelight in the country’s national FAMAS academy movie awards, winning best picture and a total of six other awards.

Last week it began a four month “world tour” of 10 countries starting in the Middle East followed by Aotearoa New Zealand on Sunday – hosted simultaneously at AUT South campus and in Wellington and Christchurch.

The screening of Vincent Tañada’s harrowing – especially the graphic torture scenes – yet also joyful and poignant musical drama touched a raw nerve among many in the audience who shared tears and their experiences of living in fear, or in hiding, during the hate-filled Marcos dictatorship.

• READ MORE: Two films duel for last word on brutal Marcos dictatorship in Philippines

The martial law denunciations, arbitrary arrests, desaparecidos (“disappeared”), brutal tortures and murders by state assassins in the 1970s made the McCarthy era red-baiting witchhunts in the US seem like Sunday School picnics.

Vanuatu PM’s speech spotlights Indonesian Papuan atrocities and Pacific ‘blind eye

Vanuatu Prime Minister Moana Carcasses Kalosil (left) with Papuan journalist
Victor Mambor in Noumea. Photo: Tabloid Jubi

By DAVID ROBIE

SHAME on New Zealand politicians. With the courageous exception of the Green Party’s Catherine Delahunty, most of the rest offer a shameful silence over Indonesia’s human rights violations in West Papua.

The Melanesian brothers and sisters of the colonised region, forcibly invaded by Indonesian paratroopers in 1962 and annexed under the fraudulent United Nations “Act of Free Choice” in 1969, have suffered under Indonesian atrocities and brutal rule ever since.

But it took the Prime Minister of Vanuatu,  Moana Carcasses Kalosil, to take the podium at the United Nations Human Rights Council and condemn Jakarta for its past and ongoing crimes in West Papua, before the world took notice.

This not only shames New Zealand, it also exposes most Pacific leaders for their lack of spine over Papuan human rights.

When Vanuatu became independent from the British and French joint colonial condominium, better known as “pandemonium”, in 1980, founding Prime Minister Father Walter Lini was a champion for West Papuan independence.

Dodging censorship to see The Act Of Killing

DRAFTHOUSE FILMS have announced their award-winning controversial, shocking and surreal film The Act Of Killing about the Indonesian anti-communist massacres in the 1965-66 purge - screened at the New Zealand International Film Festival last year - is now available on video on demand.

Winner of more than 50 awards internationally, appearing on more than 40 official critics' top ten lists, and shortlisted for best documentary at this year's upcoming Academy Awards, Joshua Oppenheimer's groundbreaking documentary The Act Of Killing is finally available to watch everywhere.

At the time of checking, 352,000 people had seen the trailer.

In this chilling and inventive documentary, executive produced by Errol Morris and Werner Herzog, the unrepentant former members of Indonesian death squads are challenged to re-enact some of their many murders in the style of the American movies they love.

Fiji torture series wins Pacific Media Watch editor trauma journalism prize

Torture of the captured Fiji fugitive being filmed on mobile phones.
Photo: Pacific Media Watch/Freeze frame from video

A MULTIMEDIA news report series about the torture of a fugitive prisoner and his suspected accomplice by Fiji prison officers has won a Pacific Media Watch editor a coveted international prize in trauma journalism.

Daniel Drageset, a Norwegian journalist interned at the Auckland University of Technology’s Pacific Media Centre and a postgraduate student in the School of Communication Studies, won the Dart Asia-Pacific Centre for Journalism and Trauma Prize for reporting on violence, disaster or trauma in society at the 2013 Ossie Awards for student journalism in Mooloolaba, Queensland, this week.

Drageset has been contributing editor of the PMC’s Pacific Media Watch freedom project for the past year, and has also been a student intern editor on the associated independent Pacific Scoop news website.

Judge Cait McMahon, director of Melbourne's Dart Asia-Pacific Centre, said Drageset’s winning Fiji entry had showed an “impressive investigation into alleged police torture”.

“Daniel had to straddle important ethical issues and clarify potential bias of sources to produce an impressive piece of reporting,” she said.

West Papua activists will 'rot in jails' if Freedom Flotilla not helped

Aboriginal elder Kevin Buzzacott in silhouette with the West Papuans' Morning Star
- banned by Indonesian authorities - and Aboriginal flags on
the West Papua Freedom Flotilla.

CAMPAIGNERS on board the West Papua Freedom Flotilla will ‘rot in jail’ if the Australian government doesn't help them if they get into trouble, says Aboriginal elder Kevin Buzzacott.

The objective is “to free our brothers and sisters up there with all the bad stuff that’s happening”, Buzzacott says in an exclusive audio interview on YouTube with the Pacific Media Centre's Daniel Drageset, reporting for Pacific Media Watch and Pacific Scoop.

The flotilla has gathered a range of pro-independence campaigners on the journey going from Lake Eyre in northern South Australia, via New South Wales and the Queensland coast, across the Torres Strait to Daru in Papua New Guinea and finally Merauke in West Papua, where the flotilla is scheduled to arrive early next month.

Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr says Australian authorities have informed the Freedom Flotilla that local laws and penalties will apply in Papua New Guinea and Indonesia.

“We’ve given them this warning. Therefore, should they end up in prison as a result of breaching the law of Indonesia or Papua New Guinea we’ve got no obligation to give them consular support,” Carr said, according to news.com.au.

A ‘dirty war’, NZ military cover-up and the vindication of a journalist

 Trailer for the Jeremy Scahill film Dirty Wars about the hidden truth over America's covert wars.

INDEPENDENT investigative journalist Jon Stephenson called it a “moral victory”. The Herald on Sunday described it as a “vindication” in an editorial.

And for many New Zealand journalists it was a humiliation of the military even before the defamation case was over.

Although the jury couldn’t make up its mind on whether it was defamation, the NZ Defence Force chief, Lieutenant-General Rhys Jones, had already conceded the factual issues, the smear webpage against Stephenson had been removed and the military had pledged to make public statement accepting the journalist’s version of events in his reports of New Zealand’s role in the “dirty war” in Afghanistan.

An independent journalist had taken on the might of the Defence Force with its battery of lawyers and legal resources – and won.

Jon Stephenson’s credibility was intact, the Defence Force’s credibility in tatters. But at what price?

Fiji prisoner beating: 'They treated my son like an animal'

A tearful Viriseini Sanawa tells of the trauma she endured while watching the online video.
Picture: Jone Luvenitoga/Fiji Times

By Nanise Loanakadavu of The Fiji Times

"ISA na luvequ! Oilei turaga! Sa mosi dina na yaloqu, na cava beka e leqa (Oh my son! Oh Lord! My heart is in pain, what is the problem)."

These were words of 42-year-old Viriseini Sanawa, the mother of one of the two handcuffed men being brutalised by a group of men - identified as security forces - in an online video that went viral on Monday night. It is now being investigated by Fiji police.

It was after midday on Wednesday when Sanawa's neighbour called her to watch what they believed was her son being brutalised by the group in the tray of a truck. She said the family did not mention anything about the video until she watched it and confirmed it was her son, Iowane Benedito.

"Isa, koya saraga qo na luvequ. Isa, Iowane na luvequ (That's my son ... Iowane, my son).

Viral 'horror' torture video prompts Fiji Times editorial

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL has called for an independent and transparent investigation into the Fiji assault of two prisoners by apparent plainclothes security forces as a public outcry climbed over brutal torture scenes portrayed in a leaked video.

The global human rights organisation said torture was unacceptable under any circumstances and those responsible for the shocking scenes on the video should be brought to justice.

Police spokesman Inspector Atunaisa Sokomuri said in a press conference in Suva yesterday that the force was disturbed to see the video of what appeared to be the abuse of two men understood to be recaptured prisoners. But added that they were not the fugitives who escaped from Naboro Prison last year.

BRUTAL SCENARIO

Fiji Times EDITORIAL by Fred Wesley
Wednesday, March 6, 2013

AS police investigate the circumstances surrounding a video that shows a group of men brutally assaulting two handcuffed men, a lot of questions will emerge.

Burma: Press freedom? What the freed journalists really say

AS PART of its reforms, Burma has been releasing its imprisoned journalists. Their stories offer a glimpse into the frightening world of those who kept going despite torture and regular imprisonment.

"I lay there naked and they kicked me in the back", recalls prominent video-journalist, Sithu Zeya.

While his treatment at the hands of Burmese interrogators may be consigned to Burma's past, he hasn't been allowed to forget it.

Despite the fact that new freedoms have been transforming Burma, he is still followed by the man who tortured him.

For the moment Burma's journalists don't know when the tables may be turned again.

But the reforms are continuing at a rapid pace.

Killing of Papuan journalist puts focus on Indonesian human rights

THE NAKED and handcuffed body of a murdered Papuan journalist has incensed human rights activists and media freedom activists alike. The discovery of the body dumped in a river comes just days after the Obama administration has been widely condemned over the decision to resume engagement with Indonesia’s notorious Kopassus special forces. Kopassus has a bloody record throughout the republic, but especially in the former repressed "colony" of East Timor and in the annexed territory of West Papua.

The East Timor and Indonesia Action Network (ETAN) has been among those groups at the forefront of protest against the Indonesian red-berets: "Slipping back into bed with Kopassus is a betrayal of the brutal unit's many victims in Timor-Leste, West Papua and throughout Indonesia. It will lead to more people to suffer abuses," says John M. Miller, national coordinator of the US-based ETAN.

"Working with Kopassus, which remain unrepentant about its long history of terrorising civilians, will undermine efforts to achieve justice and accountability for human rights crimes in Indonesia and Timor-Leste (East Timor)."

In an abridged translation by the Indonesian human rights movement Tapol of an article published by the Jayapura newspaper Bintang Papua, the Indonesian government has been urged to pass a law to protect journalists and civil rights activists.

Missing stringer
A Pacific Media Watch despatch has summarised the Bintang Papua article about the tortured Merauke environmental TV journalist who had been reportedly investigating alleged military corruption. He had been a stringer for the national television broadcaster Anteve and had been missing for two days:

The death of Ardiansyah Matra'is , known to his friends as Ardhi, 31 years old, whose badly wounded body was discovered on the banks of Maro River, is deeply disturbing and is seen as a threat to other media workers and civil society activists.

The Regional Representative Council - DPD - and the Anti-Corruption Institute, has called on the Indonesian government to immediately adopt a law guaranteeing protection for activists and media workers and called on the security forces to investigate this case, to find out who was behind this murder of the Merauke TV journalist.

Saly Maskat, speaking on behalf of the institute, said that democracy in Papua was now dead because there was no guarantee of safety for journalists who were seeking the truth.

It is ironic that shortly before his death, Ardhi and several of his colleagues had received SMS death threats.

The government has for too long delayed adopting a law providing protection for activists and media workers. Only recently, an ICW activist was beaten up by unknown persons while carrying out an investigation into several cases involving government officials.

Saly said that colleagues have frequently been threatened by unknown persons while investigating cases concerning Papuan officials similar to the cases in Merauke.

Such incidents, which have also occurred in Bali, have had a serious impact on our activities, he said, as well as on our organisation.

People feel constrained about continuing with their activities in the media if there are no legally guaranteed safeguards from the government.

He also called on the police to thoroughly investigate these incidents and find out who was behind the ghastly murder of the journalist. "This is essential to provide journalists with a sense of security in the pursuit of their journalistic activities."

The chairman of the Papua branch of the journalists organisation, PWI, has also called for the murder of the journalist in Papua to be thoroughly investigated.

West Papuan activists welcome a statement from the Pacific Islands Forum Secretary-General, Tuiloma Nerom Slade, highlighting a forum theme to “protect the most vulnerable communities within the Pacific”.

A media release from West Papua National Coalition for Liberation (WPNCL) spokesperson Rex Rumakiek said it was the sincere hope of the West Papuan people - "who continue to suffer under Indonesian rule - that the forum will not keep ignoring the genocide and will actively address the truely vulnerable communities in West Papua".

The WPNCL and other NGO groups claim more than 100,000 people have died during the past 40 years of Indonesian colonial rule.

Pictured: Papuans in tribal dress protest for independence outside the US Embassy in Jakarta in 2007. Photo: Irwin Fedriansyah, agencies

• IFEX report on TV journalist's killing, death threats
• Body of missing journalist found in river
• Investing in Papua: The dual challenges of governance and development - New report

Justice for the abduction and torture of Anirudh Singh

Back in 1990, I wrote a series of news features about the case of Fiji academic Dr Anirudh Singh - his brutal abduction and torture by special forces soldiers in the post-Rabuka coups climate of oppression. One of my stories in the old Auckland Star stirred the wrath of then "Disinformation" Minister Ratu Inoke Kubuabola. So I am pleased to see Anirudh finally get justice 17 years on. The High Court has awarded university lecturer Anirudh some $400,000 and five per cent interest for compensation for the abduction and torture. According to the Fiji Times, this would reach a total of $793,022.63 if interest is calculated for every 14 years as the judgment suggests.
High Court Judge Justice Roger Coventry also ruled that the Attorney General as sixth defendant be liable to payout $250,000 plus five per cent interest.
The army officers whom Justice Coventry had previously found to be represented by the Attorney General have been ordered to pay Anirudh a further $150,000 plus five per cent interest.
University of the South Pacific academic Anirudh, an outspoken campaigner for human rights, was abducted from his home in Rewa Street, Suva, by five soldiers from the Special Operations Security Unit and taken to the forests of Colo-i-Suva where he was hooded, beaten up and tortured.
The five soldiers involved, including former Special Air Services officer Captain Sotia Ponijese, pleaded guilty and were sentenced to 12 months in jail. In 1993 Dr Singh took the case to the High Court claiming general, special and exemplary damages for his pain, suffering and loss of enjoyment of life.
Ironically, the judgment came on the same day that the current regime in Fiji reimposed its state of emergency and a further clamp on free speech!
Inset: Auckland Star clipping of one of my stories about the abduction and torture of Anirudh Singh, 17 December 1990.

High Court awards $400,000 plus to Dr Singh
Keep quiet, Qarase told