INFOCORE sets pace on global violent conflict media research project

Pacific Media Centre director David Robie at the INFOCORE stakeholders workshop in Brussels, Belgium.
Image: PMC

IT was a privilege for the Pacific Media Centre to be among the 27 global stakeholders involved in a progress feedback workshop for the European Union-funded €2.5 million violent conflict research project dubbed INFOCORE in Brussels last weekend.

Other stakeholders included the AFP Foundation, Deutsche Welle news agency, European Broadcasting Union, France 24, Global Forum for Media Development (GFMD), Institute for War and Peace Reporting, Internews Europe, Journaliste en Danger, Thomson Reuters Foundation, UNESCO Chair in Communication for Social Change and Media, War and Conflict journal. 

The two-day event was hosted by another stakeholder, Press Club Brussels Europe, at its friendly offices in Rue Froissart, Schuman, decorated with a range of political cartoons from Europe’s finest cartoonists.

INFOCORE stands for (In)forming Conflict Prevention, Response and Resolution: The role of the media in violent conflict.

The research mission is to provide a “systematically comparative assessment of various kinds of media, interacting with a wide range of relevant actors and producing diverse kinds of conflict coverage,” as the INFOCORE website describes it.

Powerful documentary on NZ military in Afghanistan poses tough questions

AWARD-WINNING filmmakers Annie Goldson (Brother Number One, An Island Calling), and Kay Ellmers (Canvassing the Treaty, Polynesian Panthers) present the feature version of He Toki Huna: New Zealand in Afghanistan.

It will be screened - full-length - for the first time at the New Zealand International Film Festival on Sunday.

Originally airing in a broadcast version on Māori Television, the film has been extended adding substantial more content.

Following non-embedded journalist Jon Stephenson into Afghanistan, the documentary discusses the role and legacy New Zealand troops have played in that beautiful war-torn country.

Revelations have surfaced that Stephenson was spied upon by US agencies while he was working in Afghanistan, and that as an investigative journalist, he was called a "subversive" by New Zealand's own Defence Force gives the film a currency - even urgency - begging the question of what the role of the media is within our democracy.

Using a range of Kiwi and Afghan voices, He Toki Huna asks why New Zealand became involved in the war, why it stayed so long, and why the public have learned so little.

He Toki Huna challenges the rosy picture presented by most media reports, which have side-stepped the realities of combat and death in a conflict that has dragged on for 10 years.

Jake Bryant's footage captures the extraordinary landscapes of Afghanistan.

• Finalist: Best Factual Script – Script Writers Awards of New Zealand 
• Film website 
• NZ Film Festival screenings:
  Auckland, Sunday, 4 August 2013
  Wellington, 9-10 August 2013
  Christchurch, 18 August 2013
  Dunedin, 21-22 August 2013

NZ Defence Force’s paranoia about journalism 'subversives'

Cartoon source: Bryce Edwards blog

By Gordon Campbell on Scoop

IF THE thousands of people who marched on the weekend against New Zealand's Government Communications Security Bill (GCSB Bill) wanted further justification for their concerns, the Defence Force has just provided it with bells on.

The mindset that treats journalists as being threats to security on a par with foreign hostiles, activist groups, criminal hackers and dishonest staff is an excellent illustration of why the surveillance powers bestowed by the Bill are so dangerous.

A Defence Force that treats the normal querying of the status quo by the Fourth Estate as being essentially treasonous in nature, has gone off the reservation, and is out of control.

Give it the power to do so, and such an organisation will readily use the surveillance powers in the GCSB Bill to substantiate its persecution complex.

It is already doing so. This isn’t just a theoretical danger, glimmering somewhere off in the future.

NZ protesters condemn GCSB ‘spy bill’ and spooks centre with Pacific targets

A young mother with a ‘nothing to hide’ placard during the ‘spy bill’
protest in Auckland today. Image: Del Abcede/PMC

Thanks to the Pacific Media Centre's report on Pacific Scoop

THOUSANDS of protesters took to the streets in New Zealand today to demonstrate against a government communications agency accused of spying on Pacific nations, including Fiji, and proposed law giving it greater powers to spy on NZ citizens.

More than 1000 people protested in central Auckland outside the Town Hall, including internet millionaire Kim Dotcom who is a vocal opponent of NZ's Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB).

Big crowds gathered in protest staged in 11 other cities and downs against Prime Minister John Key's proposed "spy bill", which would give extra powers to the GCSB.

The legislation is likely to be passed in Parliament after United Future's Peter Dunne confirmed earlier this week that he would back the controversial bill after changes that have been widely condemned as "window-dressing".

Once passed into law, the bill would extend the powers of the GCSB to allow it to provide information for the New Zealand Police, Defence Force and the Security Intelligence Service.

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?

Rainbow Warrior, state terrorism and 'paranoid' French politicians

 Total Recall interview with David Robie by programme host Sam Bloore.

Thanks to Pacific Media Watch:

PACIFIC MEDIA CENTRE director Professor David Robie has spoken out about the 1985 Rainbow Warrior state terror attack in a recent interview on the Newstalk ZB programme Total Recall.

July 10 marked the 28th anniversary of the French attack, which Professor Robie wrote about in his 1986 book Eyes of Fire and also Blood on their Banner on Pacific independence struggles in 1989.

"The whole attack was outrageous in the first instance. It's just inconceivable that an attack like that could have been launched against a major nation in the world, a peaceful nation," Dr Robie said.

"It's bad enough that they did that, but then the French government at the time also blackmailed New Zealand over trade."

Dr Robie was on the Rainbow Warrior voyage more more than two months as a journalist, but had left the ship three nights before it was bombed in Auckland's Waitemata Harbour.

The end of Timbuktu's gate-crashing jihadists

Since French commandos parachuted on to the sand just north of Timbuktu and liberated the city from the jihadists, there is a growing sense of freedom, particularly among women. Video: The Guardian

Dancing in Timbuktu

Oh what a feeling dancing in Timbuktu
under a clear desert sky
with thousands of sparkling stars
gazing at the warm fire
sipping French Cognac.

Sisters and brothers relaxing on white satin
never reaching the end
rejoicing in freedom
singing Vive la France
we love you
oh, how we love you.

Bomb, baby, bomb! ... another Western no-brainer

A Tuareg independantiste in Mali ... sidelined by the Salafi-jihadis.
Photo: Global Dispatches

Getting to know the imperial disaster in Mali: Apparently, it's a no-brainer [excerpt]

By Pepe Escobar, an independent Brazilian investigative journalist and commentator

ONE has to love the sound of a Frenchman's Mirage 2000 fighter jet in the morning. Smells like... a delicious neo-colonial breakfast in Hollandaise sauce. Make it quagmire sauce.

Apparently, it's a no-brainer. Mali holds 15.8 million people - with a per capita gross domestic product of only around US$1000 a year and average life expectancy of only 51 years - in a territory twice the size of France (per capita GDP $35,000 and upwards). Now almost two-thirds of this territory is occupied by heavily weaponised Islamist outfits.

What next? Bomb, baby, bomb.

So welcome to the latest African war; Chad-based French Mirages and Gazelle helicopters, plus a smatter of France-based Rafales bombing evil Islamist jihadis in northern Mali. Business is good; French president Francois Hollande spent time last month in Abu Dhabi clinching the sale of up to 60 Rafales to that Gulf paragon of democracy, the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Turkish writer's 15-year struggle for justice over the Spice Market 'bombing'

The court ordered a life sentence for Pınar Selek. Photo: Selek's Facebook Page

RECENTLY, Café Pacific reported on the fate of many journalists in Turkey after an otherwise invigorating visit to this fascinating country. But the number of journalists, many of them ethnic Kurds, languishing in prison on trumped up charges reveals a sinister side. So does this Global Voices story.

By Baran Mavzer

PINAR SELEK, a French-based sociologist and a writer, previously accused of bombing the Istanbul Spice Bazaar in 1998, has been sentenced to life in prison in Turkey.

The final verdict was delivered on January 24, 2013. If she returns to Turkey, she will be arrested by the police.

During her nearly 15 year-long trial, she was acquitted three times. She now lives in Strasbourg.

First arrest
Selek's long journey with the Turkish Judicial System began on July 11, 1998, just two days after the explosions at the entrance of Istanbul's Spice Bazaar. The explosion killed seven and wounded approximately 100 people.

Despite suspicions regarding the cause of the explosion being caused by a PKK (Kurdistan Workers' Party) bombing, six investigative reports indicated that the explosion was not due to a bombing or terrorist attack.

Move over Taliban bogeymen, it's the turn of the Sahel's 'Afrighanistan'

FAR FROM STATE terrorism in the South Pacific, but the Sahel, a new Global war on Terror battleground now that the "Coalition of the Willing" has virtually lost the plot in Aghanistan, deserves reflection. Pontecorvo's 1966 The Battle of Algiers remains the classic counter-terrorism documentary and provides pointers to the contemporary Western mindset, such as displayed in Zero Dark Thirty about the decade-long hunt for Osama Bin Laden. Another excerpt from a "Roving Eye" column by Brazilian journalist and author Pepe Escobar in the Asian Times provides some insights. Café Pacific finds it extraordinary that Escobar's columns don't get a run anywhere in the Australian, NZ or Pacific media.

Zero Dark Mali [Excerpt]

By Pepe Escobar

Goooooooood morning, Vietnam! No, sorry, that was another quagmire.

The soundtrack then was Hendrix, Jefferson Airplane, Motown and Stax. Now it's Goooooooooood morning, Mali! Yet the soundtrack can't be something as transcendental as Rokia Traore's Dounia, or as delightfully psychedelic as Amadou and Mariam's Dimanche a Bamako. It's way more menacing. Something like - he's inescapable - Hendrix in Machine Gun.

Timing - as in the expansion of the Global War on Terror (GWOT) - is everything. Carefully choreographed Libyan blowback in the Sahel could not be a better replacement for NATO raising a monster white flag in Afghanistan. There's no Goooooood morning, Kabul! anymore; there's just the sorry countdown to see the last NATO helicopter leaving Bagram - Saigon 1975-style.

The Economist - the voice of the City of London - is even promoting "Afrighanistan". There are nuances, of course. NATO had its ass kicked in Afghanistan by all sorts of Pashtun factions bundled up as "Taliban". But NATO "won" in Libya.

With a certainly foreseen spin-off; the Islamist brigade which attacked the In Amenas gas field complex in the Algerian desert was using NATO-facilitated Kalashnikov AK-104s, F5 rockets, 60 mm gun-mortars and, in a nifty NATOGCC fashion touch, the "chocolate chip" camouflage Qatar handed out to the NATO rebels in Libya (yellow flak jackets with brown patches). What next, the cover of Uomo Vogue?

A day in the jail life of Filipino NPA political prisoners

Eighteen political prisoners from Tagum City, Patin-ay in Agusan del Sur, Cebu and Taguig City on a hunger strike last July to underscore the call for the release of all political prisoners in the Philippines. Photo: Human Rights in the Philippines.

Last month, New Zealand law student Cameron Walker accompanied members of a Filipino prison welfare organisation on a visit to Tagum City Jail, near Davao, the largest city on the Philippines’ southern island of Mindanao. He reports here on his experience and interviews.

By Cameron Walker

AMONG Tagum City Jail’s inmates are 16 young men aged in their 20s and 30s who were members of the New People’s Army (NPA), the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP).  Some of them have been wounded in combat.

During my visit, one detainee lifted his shirt to show a sizeable bullet wound on his stomach, which still needed further surgery.  Their movement has been fighting the Philippine government since 1969.

Mindanao is considered one of the movement’s strongest regions.  Local media often report armed encounters between the NPA and the Armed Forces of the Philippines, which have resulted in casualties on both sides.

The Communist Party, along with the other member organisations of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDF) call for the implementation of a 12 point programme that includes genuine land reform, national industrialisation and upholding democratic rights.  They also demand an end to the extrajudicial killings of political activists by the Armed Forces and for the release of political prisoners.

The NPA is mostly based in rural areas.  It pursues the tactic of building up a strong base in the countryside, the area where the government is weakest, and fighting a protracted war.

In contrast, the Communist Party, which retains political control over the NPA, has a presence throughout the country, even in the cities.  The party is an underground organisation so members are unable to openly declare their affiliation.

As the Filipino journalist Benjamin Pimentel Jr wrote: a Communist cadre could be “…the guys sitting beside you in a jeepney, or the young women munching Big Macs at McDonalds”. (1)

Party cadres have important but less dramatic tasks than those of NPA fighters.  They write reports, prepare new policy, solicit funds and provide guidance to other cadre, amongst other responsibilities. (2)

Syria a graveyard for news workers amid conflict

A BELATED word of congratulations to Mazen Darwish, head of the Syrian Centre for Media and Freedom of Expression (SCM), and the Afghan daily 8Sobh, who were jointly awarded the 2012 Press Freedom Prize by Reporters sans frontières, Le Monde and TV5Monde.

Although there were many outstanding nominees, the awards jury paid tribute to Darwish, who “displayed extraordinary courage” in the face of danger and paid with his freedom.

RSF continues to demand his release by Syrian authorities.

Mazen Darwish ... held incommunicado
by Syrian authorities. Photo: AI

Darwish was arrested by Syrian Air Force intelligence agents on February 16 during a raid on the SCM office. He has been held incommunicado ever since.

At the time of his arrest, he was a key source of information when most foreign journalists were barred.

He has also reported to have been badly tortured and his health is suffering because of lack of treatment for a medical condition.

Syrian officials have refused to disclose his whereabouts or bring him before a judge.

Winner of the media freedom category, Afghanistan's 8Sobh (8 am), was described by the award jury as “living evidence that freely reported quality journalism can develop in the most difficult corners of the planet”.

Noting the horrendous global journalist death toll during 2012 - reported by RSF as 88 , The Guardian’s Roy Greenslade wrote on his blog:

At least 17 journalists, 44 citizen journalists and four media assistants killed in 2012 during the conflict between Bashar Al-Assad's government and various rebel groups.
Syria has hit news providers hard because they are the unwanted witnesses of atrocities being committed by the regime and armed opposition groups.

Due to the polarisation of information sources, news manipulation, propaganda, technical constraints and the extreme violence to which journalists and citizen journalists are exposed, anyone trying to gather or disseminate news and information in Syria needs a real sense of vocation.

Of growing concern is the number of Al Qaeda factions reportedly involved in the rebel forces (as happened in the Libyan version of the so-called “Arab Spring”). This is exposed in the above video.

In an attack on a Sahara desert gas plant by Al Qaeda and the killing of hostages in a shoot-out with Algerian troops on January 16, it was reported: "Western and African allies who fear that al Qaeda, flush with men and arms from the defeated forces of Libya's Muammar Gaddafi, is building a desert haven in Mali, a poor country helpless to combat fighters who seized its northern oasis towns last year."

• The Al Qaeda Executive 

Libyan intervention - two views from contrasting camps

WAS there any real justification in the devastating intervention in Libya - initially French, British and US-led and now with NATO driving? Is there really a moral case for this "no-fly zone" sham? Is it really all about saving civilian lives, or blatantly ensuring a regime change with control of oil once again the bottom line? There is a long list of countries that probably deserved foreign intervention in recent years, but were simply ignored with fossil fuels not being a critical factor: Somalia and international piracy, Ivory Coast, Sudan and Zimbabwe just to name a few. All left in the dustbin of Western hypocrisy. Here are some contrasting views from two columnists - Gordon Campbell on Scoop and the London Daily Mirror's Tony Parsons. Campbell contrasts the Libyan and Iraqi scenarios, defending the attack on Libya while condemning the invasion of Iraq, but Parsons brands the British involvement in Libya as simply "insane". Campbell writes:

Was the intervention in Libya justified – and if so, does that mean the invasion of Iraq in 2003 was justified? The conditions laid down by the French for their participation in enforcing a no-fly zone over Libyan air space go some way to answering those questions. Before they would join in any military action in Libya, the French were asking for (a) a clear UN resolution for the intervention(b) it had to be a UN operation, not one led by NATO (c) there would have to be some Arab involvement in the force, however token and (d) there would have to be a direct request and support for that intervention from a significant part of the civilian population.

Image: Tim Denee

France’s stance is relevant not simply because it is one of the three main partners in the military force now attacking Libya. In 2003, it had been the most articulate opponent of the US invasion of Iraq, for reasons set out in this speech to the UN in 2003 by its then Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin. All the conditions France have asked for in 2011 stand in striking contrast to the Iraq situation – which had no valid UN mandate, was a unilateral American-led adventure, had no Arab participation, and was in response to no direct threat to the people of Iraq, unlike the direct threat being posed to the people of Benghazi.

The immediacy of the murderous threat that Colonel Gaddafi posed to the civilian populations in the Libyan towns and cities that contain the rebels mark the main difference from the situation in Iraq. Without that immediate threat, the rationale for military action to topple the tyrant in Libya sounds almost identical to the Bush administration’s justification for intervening to topple the tyrant in Iraq.

Parsons in the Mirror says that if British prime minister David Cameron "had to send his kids to war, we'd all live in peace". In his latest column, he wrote:

It costs £900,000 for every Tomahawk missile ­– I am so glad we didn’t waste all that money on something stupid.

Oh, what a stupid war. Oh, what a dumb Britain. Stark raving mad – a country with empty pockets starting another open-ended, multi-billion pound conflict when we haven’t even finished the last one.

Are we insane? Have we learned nothing?

A country that can’t afford to police its own streets acting as though it can police the world. A country that is cutting back on military spending sending its ­undermanned, ­overstretched forces off to fight some more.

A country that can’t take care of its old people taking on the burden of caring for the oppressed people of Libya. A country that is currently closing down day centres for disabled children deciding it can afford another conflict that will waste millions every single day.

Barmy. Yet somehow so easy to understand. Thatcher, Blair and now Cameron – they all found it impossible to ignore the ­seductive call of war.

How much more satisfying it must be to confront the likes of General Galtieri, Saddam Hussein and Colonel Gaddafi than to deal with the problems of rising unemployment, soaring inflation, failing schools, housing ­shortages, a stagnant economy and all the rest.

Thatcher set the tone for the modern British Prime Minister. A nice little war can define your entire career. It’s far easier than creating jobs, wealth, hope.

But Parsons reckons that Thatcher had at least an achievable - and winable - goal. And he is decidedly nervous about a crop of "soft" politicians with little appreciation of the devastation of war; who can decide so casually on a warmongering path.

As I have noted before, it is terminally dangerous to have an army, navy and air force commanded by politicians who have never heard a shot fired in anger.

• On the intervention in Libya - Gordon Campbell
• If Cameron had to send his kids to war ... - Tony Parsons

Shooting of terrorist Dulmatin overshadows key media conflict seminar

WHAT an irony that the Jakarta media headlines were focusing on a “terrorism training camp” scare in Indonesia’s western-most Aceh province and shootouts in an outlying suburb that left fugitive Dulmatin and two other suspects dead just when a regional East Asia media forum opened with a focus on the “intersections of conflict, culture and religion”.

The forum, jointly hosted by the New Zealand government, the European Union and the Indonesian government, brought together some 57 senior journalists and media educators from 16 countries to reflect on how well the region’s media is coping with complex new challenges to culture and conflict reporting.

Coinciding with the three-day conference, Indonesia’s President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono was visiting Australia and Papua New Guinea and news commentators noted how the death of Dulmatin would ease Yudhoyono’s “task to convince the Australian public and Parliament that Indonesia is a key security and economic partner”.

The shooting of 40-year-old Dulmatin came as a shock as the Jemaah Islamiyah bomb-maker, strategist and financier was believed to be still in hiding with the Abu Sayyaf group in the Southern Philippines.

Some newspapers warned of a “resurgent and expanding military network” just as Indonesia seemed to be making spectacular headway against terrorist groups.

Indonesian and Filipino journalists at the media conference speculated on how many other terrorists may have slipped across the porous border triangle bounded by Indonesia, Malaysia and Mindanao in the Philippines, unknown to security authorities in all three countries.

Media also commented on the high risk public ambush that killed Dulmatin – a onetime Islamic boarding school teacher suspected of being part of the 2002 Bali bombings - in a suburban internet café but, miraculously, this did not harm any bystanders.

Criticism also focused on sensational media coverage - especially by television of the drama - such as "terrorist manhunts, complete with graphic footage of dead bodies and puddles of blood sandwiched between comments from terrorism experts".

A day after the conference ended, two further terrorism suspects were killed in Aceh.

The conference irony was that Aceh and Maluku were both featured as examples of “post-conflict achievement” in contemporary Indonesia.

Two impressive speakers from the Maluku Media Centre, Lucky Sopacua and the Antara news agency bureau chief in Ambon, Muhammad Din Kelilauw, gave moving accounts of how both Christian and Muslim media people put aside their differences and worked hard to rebuild community trust in a shattered island province torn apart by religious conflict from 1999-2002.

A classic example of “peace journalism” having a strategic impact.

New Zealand has been a key supporter of the Maluku Media Centre with assistance for training.

Speaking on Aceh, courageous Jakarta Post reporter Nani Afrida, who had been a “frontline” journalist covering both sides of the war with the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) until the peace agreement in 2005 in the wake of the devastating tsunami, gave an insightful account of Aceh’s history of struggle and hope for the future.

Afrida has now “retired” from frontline reporting and has taken up economics reporting at the Post’s head office.

The conference opening featured a keynote speech by former Vice-President Jusuf Kalla, who has been touted as something of a regional peacemaker on the strength of his spectacular success at home with resolving several Indonesian secessionist and insurgency problems.

Kalla, currently Indonesia’s Red Cross chairman, blamed “inequality” as being mainly responsible for ethnic conflicts and separatist movements in Indonesia and in other countries.

His recipe for success included efforts to reduce “wealth gaps” in the process conflict resolution.

According to the Jakarta Post’s Lilian Budianto, Kalla is “preparing to play a role in peace negotiations in southern Thailand”, but he was reluctant to confirm this:

In 2005, the then vice-president offered Aceh separatists a special autonomy deal, including receiving 70 percent of the share of its natural resources yield, implementation of its own Islamic law and the formation of local parties.

The peace deal with GAM ended three decades of guerrilla insurgency in the impoverished province.

Apart from the Aceh peace deal, Kalla also successfully brought conflicting parties in the two provinces of [Central] Sulawesi and Maluku, in 2001 and 2002 respectively, to sign peace pacts when he served as coordinating public welfare minister under president Megawati.

Kalla is regarded as a strong negotiator who can “effectively convince hardline insurgents to put down their guns”, the Post quoted Sanata Dharma University history professor Baskara T. Wardaya as saying.

The Jakarta conflict and media conference had a strong line-up among is presenters and on the opening day, Monash University politics lecturer Waleed Aly, an Egyptian-Australian and author of People Like Us: How Arrogance is Dividing Islam and the West, gave an inspiring address on “culture, conflict and coexistence”.

A panel on “media and democracy” featured India’s Mail Today deputy editor Dr Manoj Joshi; Marga Ortigas of the Manila bureau of Aljazeera; a Korea Times editor, Cho Jae-hyun; and Philippine Star executive editor Ana Marie Pamintuan.

Jakarta Post chief editor Endy Bayuni chaired a panel on “Breakdown: Reporting war, terrorism, insurrection and civil unrest” with Pakistani presenters Zahid Hussain, senior editor of Newsline magazine and Rahim Ullah Yusufzai, senior analyst for the television channel Geo who is also working for BBC Radio’s Urdu, Pashto, Hindi and English services.

The AUT University’s Pacific Media Centre director, Dr David Robie, chaired the “post-conflict” panel on Aceh and Maluku and Tempo Weekly editor-in-chief Bambang Harymurti headed a workshop featuring “local conflict” case stories in Indonesia and the Philippines.

Twenty nine of the delegates signed a strong open letter to President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo of the Philippines in the wake of the Mindanao massacre last November when 32 journalists were among 57 people killed by a local politician’s militia.

"Their murder, and the death of countless other media workers in your country in recent years, will not be forgotten by us," the letter said. "We urge you, your government and the institutions of state to take the appropriate action to ensure justice is done and to create a better, safer environment for journalists in your country."

A proposal for a regional journalism training programme was inconclusive, especially when Filipino journalists questioned the need for such an initiative when at least two such regional programmes based in the Philippines were well established.

One of the highlights of the week came at the end of the conference when Pesantren Darunnajah Islamic Boarding School wowed delegates and presenters with an spectacular display of cultural and campus activities by the delightful students.

Pictures: Top: The Indonesian police turned down a $10 million reward offer for Dulmatin's capture. National police chief General Bambang Hendarso Danuri is pictured by the Jakarta Globe holding a wanted poster for the shot suspect. Middle Top: Metro TV coverage of the police shooting of terrorist suspects. Middle Bottom: A Jakarta newspaper street hawker and Jakarta Post chief editor Endy Bayuni (left) with the New Zealand Herald's Edward Gay and Pacific Media Centre's Dr David Robie. Above: Students at Pesantren Darunnajah welcome media conference delegates.

• Terrorists 'still a strong threat' - Jakarta Globe
• Kalla looks to champion global peace efforts - Jakarta Post
• NZ sponsors regional conflict reporting media forum
• Ratings-hungry media under attack for excessive violence in terror coverage - Jakarta Globe
  

'Anti-terror' law expose and HIV/AIDS docos among media peace awards

Joe Barratt, an AUT University graduate diploma in journalism student, topped the rangatahi/student award for print media in the annual NZ Media Peace Awards for a Scoop article revealing changes flagged by the draft anti-terrorism law amendment. The June report exposed aspects of the draft legislation before they had been widely reported in the mainstream media. The judges described the story as a “very timely and well-written” article which “delves into the relatively unknown bill” currently before Parliament. “It makes compelling reading, given that there has been very little public debate on the bill in question and the events of recent weeks,” they said. It's certainly timely that Joe should win this - on the very day that the Solicitor-General, Dr David Collins, canned the police hopes of bringing terrorism charges against the so-called Urewera 17. Among the many other prizes dished out for wide-ranging issues journalism at the NZ Peace Foundation function was a new Oxfam-sponsored Pacific Peace and Development Award - this went to independent television journalist Ingrid Leary for two "inspiring" docos about a suffering Samoan and a ni-Vanuatu woman who have become community advocates. Radio NZ's Don Wiseman was highly commended for an Insight programme on the Papua New Guinea elections. Among the three commended entries was the Pacific Radio News (Niu FM and 531pi) team of news editor Lito Vilisoni, Christine Gounder and Mema Maeli - for their coverage of the Fiji and Tonga political upheavals and reconciliation and also for Pacific Radio News coverage generally. Well done!
Pictures: Liz March. Top: Joe Barratt; centre: Ingrid Leary with Oxfam's Barry Coates; above: Pacific Radio News team Christine Gounder, Lito Vilisoni and Mema Maeli.

• AUT student journo wins award for anti-terror law story
• Other Joe Barratt and Scoop reports on the Urewera 17
• Hone Harawira on state terror
• Police go for trial by media
• Questions that need to be asked - Moana Jackson
• Pacific Radio News finalist at Media Peace Awards
• NZ Peace Foundation

Tuhoe and Maori grievances - another perspective

In an article in The Guardian by Jon Henley, "The Maori resistance", University of Auckland sociologist and Tuhoe tribe member Dr Tracey McIntosh is quoted at length about injustices suffered by the Maori. In the article, which sets out to provide a bit of context to "colourful Tuhoe activist Tame Iti" (pictured) and "the arrest of an alleged terrorist cell", she says:
"The land issue is the legal, cultural and spiritual focus of almost all Maori grievances today. Many tribes, including mine, never even signed the treaty, so we just view our land as having been stolen. And above and beyond the Maori's spiritual relationship with their lands, you can make a very strong evidence-based argument for saying that the alienation of our land removed our whole economic base and distorted the whole range of social relationships. That's why this history is so important: for Maori, the injustices of the past have real implications for our present lives. We're still seeing their consequences.
"There has been some attempt to address the land issue, but not with any tremendous success: the Waitangi Tribunal, established in 1975 to hear complaints of alleged treaty violations, has in the 32 years of its existence registered 1,400 cases, heard around 150, issued 50 reports - and settled barely 20 claims, for a total value of just over NZ$700m."

• The full article - The Maori resistance
• Previous blog - Demonising dissent
• Waitangi Tribunal

Demonising dissent - New Zealand-style

From Global Peace and Justice Auckland's newsletter:
"It’s a grim time for democracy and civil rights in New Zealand with 17 'terrorism suspects' arrested in para-military raids across the country this month. For many people the situation is confusing at best but for those who know the people arrested it is astonishing. How could the police believe a group of Maori sovereignty activists, peace campaigners and environmentalists could pose a credible terrorist threat to New Zealand?
The police have raised the spectre of terrorism despite, after 15 months of intensive surveillance, no decision yet being made as to whether terrorism charges will be laid. In the meantime the damage is being done. The public are being softened up to accept that we have terrorism in New Zealand. Under the Terrorism Suppression Act 2002 a terrorist is defined as someone who, for political reasons, causes '…serious disruption to an infrastructure facility, if likely to endanger human life…' This broad definition would include many of the protests against the 1981 Springbok tour. It threatens to demonise legitimate political dissent. Even people committed to non-violence with no intention to harm anyone or damage property can qualify as terrorists.
"Meanwhile the latest Terrorism Suppression Amendment Bill is being pushed through Parliament. Under this law New Zealand would automatically adopt the UN (effectively the US) list of terrorists and terrorist organisations. A law like this in the 1980s would have made it illegal to provide support for the African National Congress in the fight against apartheid or for campaigns to have Nelson Mandela released from jail. Today groups such as Hamas, despite being democratically elected to government in occupied Palestine, would be a designated terrorist group (as it is in Australia).
"A Kiwi added to the list by another country (as a result of police action last week for example) would have great difficulty being removed from the list. Sweden and the Canada have faced huge difficulties with their citizens being designated in this way through the UN process. The new legislation also sidelines our courts in favour of the Prime Minister designating and then reviewing terrorist classifications. Why should the PM be judge and jury? Under this proposal someone like Ahmed Zaoui wouldn’t have had a chance. Prime Ministers are susceptible to international pressure. It is only a phone call away. At least with the courts there is the semblance of independent scrutiny.
"The government says the police, SIS and lawmakers are all working hand in hand to keep New Zealand safe. The truth is that our lawmakers are blindly putting in place savage attacks on civil rights while the police and SIS are eager to test their new powers and are excited at the prospect of joining the war on terror.
"As it is New Zealand’s anti-terror legislation is set up to demonise dissent and legitimate political protest while removing civil rights safeguards. Dissent provides the oxygen on which a democracy depends. We throttle it at our peril."

• No terror charges
• Immediate bail for all arrestees (innocent until proven guilty
• Withdraw the Terrorism Suppression Act and its amendments
  
  Check out the website http://www.civilrightsdefence.org.nz/

Moana Jackson - extract from his "primer on terrorism allegations":
"Maori see symmetries between the Terrorism Suppression Act and the 1863 Suppression of Rebellion Act. The targeting of mainly Maori as 'terrorists' in fact mirrors the earlier legislative labelling of those Iwi [that] resisted the land confiscations as 'rebels'. Tuhoe see particular parallels with the fatal police raid on Maungapohatu in 1916. The unthinking or deliberately provocative setting up of the latest police roadblock on the confiscation line simply add to the grievance and the sense of colonising deja vu."

Primer on terrorism allegations

GLOBAL DAY OF ACTION OCTOBER 27:
Saturday 27 October is an international day of action to defend civil liberties and oppose the use of terror laws. Stand up for all our rights. What is happening where.
Auckland: Demonstration Saturday Oct 27th at 12 noon meeting in Aotea Square.
Auckland marches against 'terror suppression' raid - Joe Barratt at Scoop

Previous posting - Hundreds protest over NZ state repression

Hundreds protest over NZ state repression

More than 200 people have protested in downtown Auckland on Saturday over this week's controversial dawn raids in New Zealand and the arrest of some 17 activists. The protesters condemned the police actions and ridiculed the country's proposed new terror laws. Scoop's Joe Barratt reported: "Showing a unified front, the protest was attended by a wide range of activist groups, and also included family and friends of the accused. But for many there is also the larger fear of what the arrests represent, and of what could happen if the legislation amending the Terrorism Suppression Act of 2002 currently before Parliament is passed."
Leading Tuhoe activist and campaigner Tame Iti (right) was among the 17 arrested, as police swept Maori sovereignty, peace and environmental activist groups. Tuhoe people accused the police of terrorising an entire community with heavily armed raids and by boarding school buses. The Tuhoe tribe never signed the Treaty of Waitangi and has a long history of resistance for their tangata whenua rights against colonial and state rule. The police raids follow international pressures for New Zealand to adhere to the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. New Zealand was one of four countries that voted against the UN Declaration, along with the US, Canada and Australia. Mainstream media have been accused of being one-sided.
Former Listener editor Finlay Macdonald, writing in his weekly Sunday Star-Times column "Law of the jungle" , said: "Once again, the interests of national security trump those of open justice. Public scepticism quite reasonably grows. Last week's raids and arrests were conducted under both normal criminal law as well as the Terrorism Suppression Act, although no actual charges have been laid under the latter. The question has to be what distinguishes these alleged offences from any ordinary criminal or conspiracy case? As ever with issues such as these, we are implicitly asked to take the authorities on trust. Unfortunately, recent experience only encourages cynicism."

A Defend Civil Rights website has been established.
Auckland protest photo by Joe Barratt.

• Scoop report and pictures - Hundreds march for 'terror' accused
• Police fail to account for all 17 accused
• This average Kiwi bloke has had enough - Aziz Choudry
• Maori protest anti-terror raids
• Tame Iti among 17 arrests - Censored and under-reported news
• Video: Tuhoe - history of resistance
• Rua - Tuhoe prophet
• Civil Rights Defence resource website

Hidden voices - a Filipina Muslim on the US 'war on terror'

Amirah Ali Lidasan is national vice-chairperson of the Suara Bangsamoro Party List Organisation, which aims to get representation in Congress for the Philippines' several million Muslims (known as Moros and heavily concentrated in the southernmost islands). I've had an email from PSN's Murray Horton about her visit to NZ next month to talk about "The US 'war on terror' and its impact on her people". As Murray explains:
Amirah is a young progressive Muslim woman, with a history of senior leadership in the student movement in Manila, and is a leader in groups such as the Moro Christian People's Alliance. She has an international profile. In March 2007 she was part of a Philippine human rights delegation which toured North America and Europe, drawing international attention to the human rights crisis at home.
The Philippine military has been waging a full blown conventional war in the southern Philippines since the 1970s (simultaneous to the better known and equally long war against the Communist guerrillas throughout the whole country). Right now that war is seeing some of its heaviest fighting in decades, with direct involvement from the US Special Forces who have been
stationed in the southern Philippines since 2002. It has had hugely negative consequences for the whole Muslim population in the South (including Amirah and her family) and it has now become part and parcel of Bush's global "War on Terror" against "Islamic terrorists". Indeed, he has proclaimed the Philippines to be "The Second Front" in that war.
Dates: October 23-November 1, 2007

More details: Philippines Solidarity Network

Sison walks free after court order

Filipino political dissident Jose Ma. Sison is out of jail and the Malacañang is far from happy. Dutch authorities set Sison free after a court ordered his release because the case accusing him of involvement in political murders of former colleagues in the Philippines had apparently collapsed. He is another political leader turned into a scapegoat by the US-led "war on terror". But, according to the Philippine Daily Inquirer, Sison, founder of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and its armed wing the New People's Army (NPA), isn't off the hook yet.
The District Court of The Hague reportedly hasn't precluded him from being prosecuted on murder charges. Spokesperson Wim de Bruin of the national prosecutor's office told the Inquirer: "The charges are not being dropped. The investigation will continue." The Malacañang is still hoping that the case against the communist leader will proceed.

• Sison supporters accuse Dutch authorities
• CPP leader Joma Sison arrested in shock move