Flashback to the 1968 My Lai massacre: 'Something dark and bloody'

RT's special report on the My Lai massacre and the cover-up of this atrocity.

THE MELBOURNE Sunday Observer -- the original newspaper of that name which campaigned against Australian involvement as a US surrogate in the Vietnam War -- published photographs of the My Lai massacre in December 1969. It was prosecuted for "obscenity" for reporting the atrocity but the charge was later dropped.

Image: David Robie from Al Jazeera

Michael Cannon was editor and David Robie chief subeditor at the time (and later the editor). The photographs were published by arrangement with Life Magazine and were later shown to Federal MPs in an attempt to change Australian government support for the war.

The photographs were published during a period when newspapers in Australia rarely published pictures of bodies, and certainly not as victims of "atrocities" by "our side". This website has a small selection of the photographs published by the Observer.

The Sunday Observer was the springboard for the launching of Nation Review in 1970:

Harsh response lessons abound in wake of PNG’s ‘invisible’ quake

Timu village from the top showing the site where 11 people were buried by landslips during the earthquake on
26 February 2018. Four of the bodies have been recovered, seven are still buried, including five children.
Image: Sylvester Gawi/Graun Blong Mi- My Land

By David Robie

Tomorrow Papua New Guinea is marking two weeks since the devastating 7.6 magnitude earthquake that devastated parts of Hela, Southern Highlands and Western Highlands provinces on February 26. Officials still have little idea of the full scale of the death and damage, because of the remote rugged terrain involved in what has been described by the BBC as the “invisible quake” – at least to the outside world. However, more than 100 people have died with landslides engulfing entire villages.

Some Papua New Guinean journalists have been doing an admirable job reporting the disaster to international media as well as their own people in difficult and risky circumstances – journalists such as EMTV’s deputy editor Scott Waide and NBC’s Sylvester Gawi. When communications were difficult through mainstream media connections, they have used their personal blogs. Here is the latest blog from Gawi republished from Asia Pacific Report:

BRIEFING: By Sylvester Gawi in Tari, Papua New Guinea

Papua New Guinea’s Highlands earthquake disaster has brought to light some of the many things that need to be considered in assisting those affected by disaster and restoring vital infrastructures and communication links between relief agencies and the people.

The response to the 7.5 magnitude earthquake on February 26 took almost a week for the National Disaster Centre to find out statistics of people who were affected, casualties, homes and food gardens destroyed and how to deliver relief supplies to those affected.

Where were the Pacific activists and independent media at climate summit?

Papua New Guinea’s Northern Province Governor Gary Juffa …he asked what about the climate
change activists and West Papuan advocates? Where were they? Image: David Robie/PMC

By David Robie at Te Papa

A recent Andy Marlette cartoon published by the Statesman Journal in Salem, Oregon, depicted a bathtub-looking Noah’s Ark with a couple of stony-faced elephants on board with a sodden sign declaring “Climate change is a hoax”.

The other animals on board floating to safety were muttering among themselves: “The elephants won’t admit that these 100-year events are happening once a month …”

At the other end of the globe in Wellington this week for the second Pacific Ocean Climate Conference at Te Papa Tongarewa Museum, I encountered a fatalistic message from a Tongan taxi driver counting down the hours before the tail-end of Tropical Cyclone Gita struck the New Zealand capital after wreaking a trail of devastation in Samoa, Tonga and Fiji.

He had it all worked out: “We don’t need climate conferences,” he said. “Just trust in God and we’ll survive.”

However, a key takeaway message from the three-day conference was just how urgent action is needed by global policymakers, especially for the frontline states in the Pacific – Kiribati, Marshall Islands and Tuvalu, where none of the sprawling atolls that make up those countries are higher than 2m above sea level.

Coups, globalisation and tough questions for Fiji's future

The General's Goose - three decades of Fiji "coup culture". And what now with the second
post-coup election due this year?

REVIEW: By David Robie of Café Pacific

Historian Dr Robbie Robertson ... challenges "misconceptions"
about the Bainimarama government and previous coups, and asks
fundamental questions about Fiji's future.

When Commodore (now rear admiral retired and an elected prime minister) Voreqe Bainimarama staged Fiji’s fourth “coup to end all coups” on 5 December 2006, it was widely misunderstood, misinterpreted and misrepresented by a legion of politicians, foreign affairs officials, journalists and even some historians.

A chorus of voices continually argued for the restoration of “democracy” – not only the flawed version of democracy that had persisted in various forms since independence from colonial Britain in 1970, but specifically the arguably illegal and unconstitutional government of merchant banker Laisenia Qarase that had been installed on the coattails of the third (attempted) coup in 2000.

Yet in spite of superficial appearances, Bainimarama’s 2006 coup contrasted sharply with its predecessors.

Bainimarama attempted to dodge the mistakes made by Sitiveni Rabuka after he carried out both of Fiji’s first two coups in 1987 while retaining the structures of power.

Instead, notes New Zealand historian Robbie Robertson who lived in Fiji for many years, Bainimarama “began to transform elements of Fiji: Taukei deference to tradition, the provision of golden eggs to sustain the old [chiefly] elite, the power enjoyed by the media and judiciary, rural neglect and infrastructural inertia” (p. 314). But that wasn’t all.

UN critics join global outrage over Duterte’s Rappler ‘free press’ attack

Rappler’s CEO and executive editor Maria Ressa says that the Philippine government spends a lot of effort to turn journalism into a crime which shouldn’t be the case. Video: Rappler

By David Robie from Asia Pacific Report

Three United Nations special rapporteurs have added their voice to the global protests this week over the President Rodrigo Durterte government bureaucracy’s attack on the independent online news website Rappler and a free press in the Philippines.

Rappler has been the latest media target for the administration’s wrath over a tenacious public interest watchdog that has been relentless in its coverage of the republic’s so-called “war on drugs” and state disinformation.

Some media freedom advocates claim that the Philippines is facing its worst free expression and security crisis since the Marcos dictatorship, with The New York Times denouncing the “ruthlessness” and “viciousness” of Duterte’s disdain for democracy.

The death toll in the extrajudicial spate of killings range between 3993 (official) and more than 12,000 since Duterte took office on June 30, 2016, according to Human Rights Watch.

One Palestinian family’s devastating story of Israeli military cruelty

Israel arrests 16-year-old Palestinian girl Ahed Tamimi in a night raid in the occupied West Bank. Video: Al Jazeera

COMMENT: By Sister Barbara Cameron

When I read last week of the detention of a young Palestinian teenage girl, 16-year-old Ahed Tamimi, dragged from her bed in the middle of the night by Israeli soldiers, for me it wasn’t just another Palestinian teenage protester.

I was devastated. This is the beautiful young woman I’d met as a happy, innocent 10-year-old, in whose house I’d slept, with whose family I’d sat at table, to whose grandmother I had listened as she shared the pain of the terrible things her own children had suffered at the hands of the Israeli military, her daughter shot in a military court room, her son detained innumerable times.

I was gutted thinking of this family having to deal with yet another trauma, fearing what might happen to their 16-year-old daughter in military detention.

READ MORE: Why is the West praising Malala but ignoring Ahed?

Ahed with her mother Nariman ... a family suffering
again from the cruelty and injustice of the Israeli
occupation. Image: Al Jazeera

Not only that but her 15-year-old brother, Mohammed, is now lying in an induced coma as the result of the injury caused by being shot in the face by a rubber bullet. For me it was heartbreaking news.

In 2011, as a NZ Catholic nun, a Mission Sister, I had volunteered with the International Women’s Peace Service group in Palestine on the West Bank, a group that supports the Palestinians in any nonviolent resistance to the occupation of their land by Israel, and reports on human rights abuses.

Film industry sources criticise TVNZ ‘devaluing’ of Māori programmes

New Māori and Pacific television programming commissioning move for TVNZ leaves many
in industry "shocked and questioning". Image: TEARA

 By Kendall Hutt of Pacific Media Watch

Independent filmmakers fear a slow erosion of Māori and Pacific content at Television New Zealand has begun.

Their fears have emerged after the role of commissioner for Māori and Pacific programmes was removed from a full-time commissioning role in recent restructuring by TVNZ.

The move has left some within the film and television industry shocked and questioning whether it is ignorance or arrogance.

“Given that we are an increasing demographic, this seems like a mad racist move,” said Joanna Paul (Ngai te Rangi), an independent television producer who was one of the pioneers of the Māori Television Service.

“That TVNZ considers this a part-time job is arrogant and ignorant enough, but given there is more Māori and Pacific programming on air than ever before beggars belief,” Paul said.

Tiny Timbulsloko fights back in face of Indonesia’s ‘ecological disaster’

Drone views of the village of Timbulsloko showing the scale of coastal erosion and sinking flatlands in an area that once used to be rice fields on the edge of the Central Java city of Semarang. Mangroves are being rapidly re-established. Drone footage source: CoREM (UNDIP). Video compilation: Scott Creighton (AUT), David Robie’s Café Pacific

ANALYSIS: By David Robie in Semarang, Indonesia

A vast coastal area of the Indonesian city of Semarang, billed nine months ago by a national newspaper as “on the brink of ecological disaster”, is fighting back with a valiant survival strategy.

Thanks to a Dutch mangrove restoration programme and flexible bamboo-and-timber “eco” seawalls, some 70,000 people at risk in the city of nearly two million have some slim hope for the future.

An area that was mostly rice fields and villages on the edge of the old city barely two decades ago has now become “aquatic” zones as flooding high tides encroach on homes.

Onetime farmers have been forced to become fishermen.

Villagers living in Bedono, Sriwulan, Surodadi and Timbulsloko in Demak regency and urban communities in low-lying parts of the city are most at risk.

Indonesian academic exchange an opportunity for unique collaboration

Universitas Gadjah Mada's Centre for Southeast Asian Social Studies (CESASS)
meets AUT's Pacific Media Centre with a Sky Tower backdrop. Photo: PMC

From AUT University

Pacific Media Centre director Professor David Robie will next week join academics from around the world in a global professorial exchange with Indonesia's Universitas Gadjah Mada. In return, six academics from the progressive Yogyakarta university have visited Auckland University of Technology for the first communication and publication research collaboration of its kind in New Zealand.

The academics from Yogyakarta, led by Gadjah Mada University's Centre for Southeast Asian Social Studies (CESASS) director Dr Hermin Indah Wahyuni, arrived in Auckland earlier this month for a two-week visit featuring workshops, seminars and joint research projects related to climate change.

They will also be collaborating with their newly published research journal IKAT, the PMC's 23-year-old Pacific Journalism Review and AUT Library's Tuwhera research platform on a major project involving ecological communication and Asia-Pacific maritime disasters.

Dr Robie is one of six academics invited by CESASS as part of the Indonesian government's World Class Professor (WCP) programme to strengthen international publication and research studies.

PNG activist blogger Martyn Namorong protests online in defiance of gag order

PNG blogger Martyn Namorong ... gagged but not silenced. Image: MN Twitter

By Mong Palatino of Global Voices

A Papua New Guinea court has issued a gag order against Martyn Namorong, a prominent political blogger and activist accused of defaming Patilias Gamato, the country’s Electoral Commissioner.

Gamato this week sued Namorong after Namorong compared him to a "fruit" (tomato) on social media, as reported by Pacific Media Watch. When Namorong learned about the court order, he posted this image on Twitter before adding the above blue gag selfie image:

He added that he also needed a lawyer.

Gary Juffa: Why these PNG elections are taking us towards dictatorship

Oro Governor Gary Juffa speaking at a PNG campaign gathering ... explaining the qualities to look for in
national leadership. Image: JuffaFB

By Gary Juffa, Oro Governor and an opposition MP writing for Asia Pacific Report.

I SUSPECT that these Papua New Guinea elections have been so deliberately set to fail, leaving much room for fraud and confusion, and distracting from what is really going on – the establishment of a dictatorship.

Already Prime Minister Peter O’Neill has his own special police unit that flies around Papua New Guinea escorting him in his private airlines, he has a special army unit of 40 exclusively for his callout, he controls the media and Public Service, and, it seems, the Police and Defence commands — and perhaps the judiciary -- the signs and red flags are blinking bright red now…

Yet many people do not see it. We are inching closer towards dictatorship and the ensuing bloodshed and violence that must come from the hostility towards it. But, like lemmings and sheep, we are led to that reality with little resistance at all. Is this the Papua New Guinea we all believed in once upon a time?

Last Wednesday in Oro province, provided a demonstration of how much the PNG government is not for PNG.

'Voice of the voiceless' - Al Jazeera's response over Saudi-led blog gag pressure

The Doha headquarters of the global news network. Photo: Al Jazeera

An important media freedom statement: An open letter from Al Jazeera
Republished on Café Pacific from the Doha-based global news network

OVER two decades ago, Al Jazeera Arabic was launched with a simple mission: to provide reliable information to viewers across the Arab world. Ten years later, in 2006, Al Jazeera English began broadcasting with the same mission - to provide people around the world with accurate, balanced and impartial information.

When Al Jazeera Arabic went on air in 1996, it was unique in the Arab world. Most media in the region at the time were state-controlled and often unchallenged mouthpieces for the different rulers and governments in the region. Al Jazeera was different, a truly independent voice, with a mission to hear and report the human stories that were otherwise ignored; to cover events with balance and integrity; and to hold power to account.

Al Jazeera Arabic quickly gained a huge and loyal audience across the region. The information we provided became a lifeline to millions of people who wanted to know what was really going on around them.

Rights groups condemn ‘cowardly censorship’ bid over Al Jazeera

Flashback to the US-led coalition invasion of Iraq in 2003 -- how the rolling 24 hour news station Al Jazeera played a key role in the  battle for hearts and minds and has made many political enemies. "We are surrounded by despots," says fiesty presenter Faisal Al-Qaseem. Video: Journeyman Pictures

Pacific Media Watch/Asia Pacific Report

PRESS freedom and human rights advocates, journalists and social media users have condemned a demand by Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries to shut Al Jazeera television network and other media outlets in Qatar.

The Arab states reportedly issued a 13-point list on Friday, demanding the closure of all news outlets that it funds, directly and indirectly, including Arabi21, Rassd, Al Araby Al Jadeed, Mekameleen and Middle East Eye.

“We are really worried about the implication and consequences of such requirements if they will ever be implemented,” said Alexandra El Khazen, head of Middle East and North Africa desk at Reporters Without Borders, a non-profit organisation promoting press freedom.

Speaking to Al Jazeera from Paris, Khazen said: “We are against any kind of censorship and measures that could threaten the diversity in the Arab media landscape and pluralism, for instance.

“The Arabic media landscape should make room and accept the broadest range of viewpoints instead of adopting repressive measures against alternative viewpoints that are found to be critical of some governments.”

Celebrating 30 years of Nuclear-Free Aotearoa -- the Pacific connection

Auckland mayor Phil Goff admiring a photograph by John Miller taken of the politician when he was a student activist campaigning for a nuclear-free New Zealand. Goff spoke at the "Celebrating 30 Years of Nuclear-Free Aotearoa/New Zealand" at the Depot Artspace in Devonport today. Image" David Robie

Reflections from David Robie

CONGRATULATIONS everybody for that tremendous achievement three decades ago. And thank you to WILPF Aotearoa and Ruth Coombes for inviting me. It was literally a David and Goliath struggle to make New Zealand nuclear-free against United States and global pressure – not just David Lange, prime minister at the time, although he was vital too.

The real “David” was the ordinary people of New Zealand who exerted extraordinary pressure on the government to deliver. The barrages of letters from citizens, constant lobbying by peace campaigners, local councils – such as right here in Devonport -- declaring themselves nuclear-free, the door-knocking petitioners – and, of course, the spectacular protests.

However, in my few minutes I would like to talk about the Pacific context, as this was my background. While the New Zealand campaign and success was tremendously inspirational for the Pacific, it should not be forgotten that some small Pacific countries and communities were actually ahead of the game.

Some examples:

An Indonesian oasis of progressive creativity emerges in culture city

Dr Max Lane, pictured here with Faiza Mardzoeki, talks about his project to establish a community and activist library for the student city of Yogyakarta in Indonesia. Video: Café Pacific

By David Robie in Yogyakarta

A VISION for a progressive activists, writers and researchers retreat in the lush outskirts of Indonesia’s most cultural city, Yogyakarta, is close to becoming reality.

Unfinished Nation ... one of Dr Max Lane's
many books.

The Indonesian Community and Activists Library (ICAL) is already an impressive “shell” in the front garden of Australian author and socio-political analyst, intellectual and consultant Max Lane, arguably the most knowledgeable English-language writer on Indonesian affairs.

Dr Lane, who has been writing and commenting about cultural and political developments in Indonesia, Philippines, Timor-Leste and his homeland since the 1970s, is delighted that completing the centre is so close.

“We have almost completed this building, the library, which will have a reading room, an office, and also some accommodation for those who would like to stay for a few days, or even longer to use the library,” he says, gesturing towards the empty rooms at the complex in the rice-producing and tourist village of Ngepas.

“The library will have about 4000 to 5000 books in the field of social sciences, humanities, history, feminism and so on.”

Rave hospitality, but Indonesia fails West Papua with media freedom hypocrisy

Al Jazeera's coverage by Step Vaessen of the Papuan protest at WPFD2017 in Jakarta.

By David Robie in Jakarta 

INDONESIAN hospitality was given a rave notice this week for hosting World Press Freedom Day 2017, but it was also given a huge black mark for its “gagging” of free discussion over West Papua violations. 

Four days before the WPFD event got under way, prominent Papuan journalist Victor Mambor had warned in the New Internationalist that Indonesian double standards had imposed a silence over West Papua.

Even a Papuan protest outside the Jakarta Conference Centre venue was kept at the margins, ensuring most of the 1300 journalists, media academics and communication policy makers from 90 countries were unaware of the shocking press and human rights violations that continue almost daily in the Melanesian provinces of Papua and West Papua (collectively known as West Papua).

Al Jazeera broadcast the most comprehensive television report from its Jakarta bureau on media freedom and West Papua with both Titro.id website and The Jakarta Post also carrying reports.

But for the rest, mostly silence.

Activists, media freedom advocates plan ‘global action’ for West Papua

"Gagged" West Papua. Instagram montage by tuckwolf_

By Pacific Media Watch

MEDIA freedom advocates and human rights activists are planning a “global action” for West Papua with demonstrations marking UNESCO world press freedom day events in Jakarta next week.

The advocates want to focus global attention on the “media blackout” long imposed by Indonesian authorities, in spite of promises to open up access to the two Melanesian provinces of Papua and West Papua adjoining independent Papua New Guinea.

The global action will begin on May 1 and run for three days climaxing with World Press Freedom Day on May 3.

Prominent UK-based West Papuan lawyer and civil rights campaigner Benny Wenda will then pay a visit to New Zealand the following week to raise awareness.

Latest West Papua journalist blacklisting another serious violation by Indonesia

French journalist Cyril Payen is still barred from entering Indonesia following his 2015 documentary film, Indonésie : la guerre oubliée des Papous (The Forgotten War in Papua).

Analysis by Tempo in Pacific Media Watch

THE blacklisting of Jack Hewson, a freelance journalist working for Al Jazeera, shows the Indonesian government’s paranoia towards foreign journalists.

The government should allow the foreign press to cover Papua. Preventing journalists from reporting the facts there is not a good testament on the claim of press freedom in Indonesia.

Hewson, who is based in Jakarta, planned to report on the Freeport issue from Timika in Papua. But after leaving for the Philippines last week, he learned that he has been banned from returning to Indonesia for no clear reason.

It transpires that the request for the ban came from the Indonesian Military (TNI).

According to the Immigration Directorate General, Hewson is suspected of “dangerous activities, endangering security and public order”.

LIVE: CAFCA’s Murray Horton on NZ independence and foreign policy

Graphic: Concept art for Planet of the Apes

Courtesy of the Pacific Media Centre and Asia Pacific Report
 
TIME FOR INDEPENDENCE FROM A CRUMBLING US EMPIRE - Murray Horton
The advent of President Donald Trump in the US provides an unprecedented opportunity to take a good, hard look at Aotearoa's place in the world.  And to ask the question - why are we still a loyal member of the American Empire?

As the old saying goes, you are judged by the company you keep.

CAFCA Murray Horton says it's time for this country to pull the plug, to finish the business started in the 1980s, which saw us out of ANZUS, and break the chains -- military, intelligence, economic and cultural -- that continue to bind us to the American Empire.

Speaker: Murray Horton, national organiser of the Christchurch-based Campaign Against Foreign Control of Aotearoa (CAFCA). Video in two parts.

• More information
• ‘Despicable’ Youi wins Roger Award for ‘worst transnational’ in NZ

Grief, repression, life and death in West Papua’s Highlands

Bonnie Etherington reading from her new book The Earth Cries Out at the Women's Bookshop in Ponsonby,
Auckland, this week. Photo: Del Abcede

THE Auckland launch of Bonnie Etherington’s thrilling debut novel, The Earth Cries Out, on grief, repression and life in another world -- the Highlands of West Papua -- this week was intriguing.

Along with the usual literati at events like this, were the human rights activists with “Free West Papua” emblazoned on their chests and the media freedom advocates intent on exposing the constant gags imposed on the West Papuans by the Indonesian military killing machine in defiance of an empty “open door” policy proclaimed by President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo in 2015.

The “Free West Papua” movement, fuelled by inspired and continuous social media exposes and debate, has been growing exponentially in recent years.

But you wouldn’t know that if you merely relied on the parochial New Zealand media, which doesn’t seem to have woken up to the human rights catastrophe happening on its Pacific doorstep. (Instead, global news services such as Al Jazeera English, or local services such as Asia Pacific Report and Radio NZ International are having to do the job for them).

Speaking at the Women’s Bookshop in deepest Ponsonby – a world away from the mountain jungle near Wamena in West Papua, Nelson-born Etherington gave three readings from her book, which she says is aimed at a more nuanced understanding of West Papua, one of them a chilling rendition of the fate of a woman accused and slain as an alleged “witch”.

West Papuan students stage anti-Freeport protests in Indonesia

KBR audio report on the Jakarta protest in Bahasa. Audio: KBR/Asia Pacific Report

From the Pacific Media Centre's Asia Pacific Report.
West Papua is the ongoing Pacific human rights story that the mainstream New Zealand media ignores. Freeport in West Papua is the copper and gold mine - the world's second largest -- that the $20 billion NZ Superannuation Fund was forced to pull out of in 2012 after sustained protest about its "unethical" investment in the company.

PROTESTERS from the Papuan Student Alliance (AMP) and religious pupils from an Islamic boarding school (pesantren) have faced off against each other at the Malan city hall in East Java.

Both groups held the protests on Friday under tight police security, as West Papuan protests over Freeport took place at several other places across Indonesia.

Scores of demonstrators from the AMP and the Indonesian People’s Front for West Papua (FRI-West Papua) unfurled banners and conveyed a number of demands, including the closure of the PT Freeport gold and copper mine in Papua.

They also brought banners with demands such as, “A joint action to support the Papua problem at the United Nations Human Rights Council” and “Close and Expel Freeport”. Protesters took turns in giving speeches.

The spokesperson for the AMP and FRI-West Papua, Wilson, said that the action represented Papuan society’s anxiety saying there are so many violations at PT Freeport that it was creating ever more misery in the land of Papua.

Worlds of Journalism global research project produces NZ findings

The latest Pacific Journalism Review ... publishing for 22 years. Image: Hans Tommy/AUT

From Asia Pacific Report

NEW ZEALAND journalists are working longer hours, and feeling more pressure, both ethically and resource-wise, than they were only two years ago, a new research survey has found.

A survey of New Zealand professional journalists, published today in Pacific Journalism Review, also shows for the first time that women journalists are paid less than men, despite making up the bulk of the workforce.

The survey shows female journalists, despite predominating in the profession, are significantly disadvantaged in terms of promotion and income.

The average before tax income of all journalists was $69,400 (in 2015 dollars) but the median after-tax salary of women was 26 percent lower than that of men of equivalent rank and experience.

READ MORE: Pacific Journalism Review on the new Tuwhera platform

Febriana Firdaus, following in the courageous footsteps of Suara Papua editor Pogau

The last video posted by Oktovanius Pogau on his YouTube channel before he died early last year
- a KNPB rally in Jayapura posted on 31 May 2015.

WEST PAPUAN editor Oktovianus Pogau, who died last year aged just 23, would have been proud. An inaugural award for journalism courage named in honour of him has been presented to a brave young woman, freelance journalist and blogger Febriana Firdaus, who has been covering human rights abuses in Indonesia.

This published on Asia Pacific Report from the Pantau Foundation that has made the award and which has made a point of shunning cash prizes and extras to concentrate on the recognition:

Febriana Firdaus ... winner of the inaugural Pogau Award
for journalism courage. Image: Pantau Foundation

“We want to honour our colleague, Oktovianus Pogau, a smart and courageous journalist, who edited Suara Papua newspaper and highlighted human rights reporting. He passed away at a very young age – just 23 years old. We want to honour his legacy by establishing this Oktovianus Pogau award,” said Imam Shofwan, chairman of the Pantau Foundation in a speech to a small gathering at his office.

The Pantau Foundation selected Febriana Firdaus, a Jakarta journalist, to receive the inaugural award.

Firdaus covered Indonesia’s efforts to deal with the 1965-1966 massacres, disappearances and arbitrary detentions. She also covered discrimination, intimidation, and violence against the LGBT community in Indonesia.

Colourful, vibrant Aotearoa rally condemns Trump’s ‘racist, Islamophobic’ bans

Video and images by the Pacific Media Centre’s Del Abcede. Video: Cafe Pacific on YouTube

From Asia Pacific Report

MORE than 2000 people have taken part in a colourful and vibrant  “Aotearoa Against Muslim Ban” march in New Zealand’s largest city to condemn the “racist and Islamophobic” immigration bans ordered by US President Trump.

The protest rally was held in Auckland’s Aotea Square yesterday in solidarity with those affected by President Trump’s executive orders to implement a 90-day ban on people from seven Muslim majority countries and 120 day ban on all refugees, with an indefinite ban on Syrian refugees.

The Aotearoa Against Muslim Ban coalition condemned the US bans ordered by Trump.

“These border policies are racist, Islamophobic and unacceptable,” said Mehwish, one of the organisers of the “No Ban, No Wall” protest.

“They continue a pattern of white supremacist immigration exclusion in colonial settler countries like the United States. Bill English refusing to call it for what it is – racist – is a dangerously weak response and doesn’t represent the people of Aotearoa.

What now for the Tongan Democrats looking ahead to 2018?

'Atenisi Institute's Dr Michael Horowitz with two Tongan newspapers -- Koe Kele'a and Talaki -- at the seminar
at Auckland University of Technology this week. Image: Del Abcede/PMC

By Kendall Hutt of the Pacific Media Centre

THE FUTURE of Tonga’s Democracy Coalition remains uncertain as next year’s election draws closer, a Nuku’alofa-based educator has concluded in a public seminar in Auckland last night.

Dr Michael Horowitz, dean of Tonga’s ‘Atenisi Institute, told the audience at his seminar entitled Can the Democracy Coalition retain power in Tonga? the fate of the party – and with it the election due late next year — was impossible to predict.

This is largely due to the fact no survey research is conducted, continuing Tonga’s “big surprise” election-day tradition, Dr Horowitz said.

Dr Horowitz, also a visiting research scholar with Auckland University of Technology’s Pacific Media Centre, said the Democracy Coalition may just hold on to power despite a bumpy term littered with controversy.

These controversies included a petition in 2015 for Prime Minister ‘Akilisi Pōhiva to surrender his education portfolio over the so-called “raw marks” policy controversy and the “cloudy issue” of state-owned Tongan Broadcasting Commission head of news Viola Ulakai’s suspension over alleged false representation, which prompted questions about Tonga’s media freedom status across the Pacific.

Honouring independent journalist and film maker Mark Worth

Mark Worth ... suspicious death in the cause of West Papuan independence. Image: NFSA video still

From Australians for a Free West Papua Darwin

ON this day we honour Australian award-winning journalist and film maker Mark Worth who died in West Papua on January 15, 2004 - suspiciously just two days after the ABC announced his documentary, Land of the Morning Star, would be screened across Australia.

Many of Mark's friends and colleagues deemed his sudden death as suspicious and many called on the Australian government for a thorough investigation.

Yet the Australian government predictably left any investigation up to the Indonesian government, which buried his body so quickly that no one was able to properly establish his cause of death, which was officially left as mere pneumonia. His death remains an unresolved issue with many.

Mark Worth's sudden death shocked Papuans and all involved in Free West Papua campaigns in West Papua, PNG, Australia and the world.

Mark Worth had worked tirelessly exposing the truth about the cruel occupation of West Papua from inside West Papua, which ultimately, many assume was the real cause of his sudden death.

Florida airport massacre – few basic questions being raised

Surveillance footage of the accused guman Esteban Santiago opening fire at Fort Lauderdale Airport last Friday. Video: TMZ website

By DAVID ROBIE

JUST having missed the shootings by a US veteran at Florida’s Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport last Friday by less than a couple of hours after returning from a Caribbean vacation, I have been following the aftermath with intense interest.

From the safety of Little Havana in Miami, I have monitored the Spanish and English-language press (almost 60 percent of the population are Hispanic speakers) and live local television reports on the Fort Lauderdale massacre.

What has struck me most is that several key issues have barely been covered in the media soul-searching, topmost being the bizarre gun culture itself.

A professor commenting on CNN about another issue – the fate of the so-called Obamacare "universal" health law after Donald Trump is inaugurated next week – compared the US culture unflatteringly with the European citizens’ sense of “commonwealth” described his countryfolk as “still cowboys”.

This sentiment was reflected in at least one letter in the press. Writing in a letter to the editor in the Los Angeles Times, Barbara Rosen noted with irony:

Carry on Fidel Castro’s global legacy, says Cuban ambassador

Cuban ambassador to New Zealand Mario Alzugaray during his passionate tribute to Fidel Castro
at Auckland Trades Hall tonight. Video clip: Café Pacific

By David Robie 

CUBAN revolutionary leader Fidel Castro’s contribution to global social justice and dignity, and to developing nations worldwide – including the Pacific, was praised in New Zealand tonight.

Activists, politicians, academics, journalists, teachers, trade unionists and community workers were among about 100 people gathered at the Auckland Trades Hall to hear Cuban Ambassador Mario Alzugaray and other speakers give tributes to Castro’s life.

Alzugaray challenged the audience to continue Castro’s half century of struggle for a better society: “The best way to remember Fidel is to carry on his legacy and keep it alive.”

The ambassador said Castro had social justice at the core of his ideals and action.

“He was an internationalist since the very beginning,” Alzugaray said. “He was involved in every movement connected to the anti-imperialist struggle in Latin America.”

Media coverage of war atrocities opens debate on INFOCORE research

 
Media is going through a "tremendous transformation as a result of the ever-changing, global media landscape". Video: Euronews

By Elena Cavalione of Euronews

IN A world torn apart by conflicts old and new, the issue of the media’s role seems to have growing importance.

Media coverage of atrocities committed during wars is opening up debate on the power images have to influence public opinion and political decisions.

INFOCORE is an international research study funded by the 7th European Framework Programme of the European Commission. It brings together experts from the Social Sciences to investigate the media’s role in violent conflicts in three regions: the Middle East, the Balkans and Central Africa.

Romy Frohlich from Ludwig Maaximilians University in Munich explains that journalism is under a state of tremendous transformation as a result of the ever-changing, global media landscape.

“What we see so far”, she says, “is that this change in journalism does affect or had an effect on the power balance within the shaping of public discourse, for example the relation between journalism and political actors or journalism and propaganda and public relations.”

Philippines president’s ‘hit man’ allegations spur renewed calls for killings probe

Time magazine and Singapore Sunday Times reports on Philippines 'killing fields'. Image: David Robie

By DAVID ROBIE in Manila

MOUNTING calls for the Philippines president to be investigated over the allegations of human rights violations deepened over the weekend with revelations by a confessed hit man that at least 1000 extrajudicial killings had been ordered when the president was mayor of the southern city of Davao. 

Fresh reports featuring the allegations were included in a cover story in the latest Time magazine, the Singapore Sunday Times and a new inquiry by the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism into the so-called “Davao Death Squad”.

It is only 80 days since President Rodrigo Duterte was sworn into office, and the PCIJ reports that he now “commands an armed contingent that is a hundred times bigger than it was in Davao, and his ‘enemy’ a thousand times more numerous”.

More than 3000 people have reportedly been killed so far in the so-called Project Tokhang – or “Double barrel” -  war on drugs. The president has also called for a six-month extension on his policy, claiming that the drugs business is largely "operated by people in government".

Time magazine branded its report the “killing season” in the Philippines with a subheading of “Inside President Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs”.

The ‘nuclear free’ Vanuatu girl with the enchanting smile

Riding out from Aneityum Island to the grass airstrip for the return flight back to Tanna.

By DAVID ROBIE

She had the most enchanting smile, even though she had lost her baby teeth. Her toothless grin turned out to be perfect for the role.

The five-year-old girl had her face painted with a black anti-nuclear symbol – different motifs on both her cheeks.

Beside her was a neatly sketched poster: “No nukes: Please don’t spoil my beautiful face”.

This was the scene in Port Vila’s Independence Park in 1983 during the region’s second Nuclear-Free and Independent Pacific Movement conference.

It was during the heady days of nuclear-free activism with Vanuatu, the world’s newest nation only three years old and founding Prime Minister Walter Hadye Lini leading the way.

‘That day I saw the power of media, and how it can be tragic’

University of Papua New Guinea's Emily Matasororo ... in the background, images of heavily armed police
shortly before they opened fire on peaceful students. Image:" Del Abcede/PMC

By DAVID ROBIE

SURPRISING that a conference involving some of the brightest minds in journalism education from around the world should be ignored by New Zealand’s local media.

Some 220 people from 43 countries were at the Fourth World Journalism Education Congress (WJEC) conference in Auckland.

The range of diversity alone at the Auckland University of Technology hosted event was appealing, but it was the heady mix of ideas and contributions that offered an inspiring backdrop.

Topics included strategies for teaching journalism for mobile platforms – the latest techniques; “de-westernising” journalism education in an era of new media genres; transmedia storytelling; teaching hospitals; twittering, facebooking and snapchat -- digital media under the periscope; new views on distance learning, and 21st century ethical issues in journalism are just a representative sample of what was on offer.

Keynote speakers included Divina Frau-Meigs (Université Sorbonne Nouvelle) with a riveting account on how "powerful journalism" makes "prime ministers jump", the Center of Public Integrity’s Peter Bale (a New Zealander) on the need to defend press freedom, and Tongan newspaper publisher and broadcaster who turned “inclusivity” on its head with an inspiring “include us” appeal from the Pacific,"where we live in the biggest continent on planet Earth".

UPNG students speak out - their own story, video of the police shootings

AN EXCLUSIVE video created by the University of Papua New Guinea's Student Representative Council about the events on 8 June 2016 involving the shooting of at least 8 UPNG students by police officers outside of their Waigani campus in Port Moresby.

Hospital authorities denied news reports of deaths, but confirmed at least 23 people had been treated for gunshot wounds, four with critical injuries

The students were assembling at the campus for a peaceful march to Parliament to call for the resignation of Prime Minister Peter O'Neill to face an investigation into corruption allegations.

The narrator is Kenneth Rapa, president of the SRC, and he explains the sequence of events leading up the police opening fire on the students with gunshots and tear gas.

Story on Asia Pacific Report

More reports at APR

History repeats itself with tragic impact in Papua New Guinea

Student footage as the Papua New Guinean police tried to arrest the leader, Kenneth Rapa, moments before opening fire on the crowd. Video: Cafe Pacific on YouTube

By DAVID ROBIE

BARELY had the whiff of teargas and gunshot smoke drifted away from the University of Papua New Guinea campus this week when the blame game started in earnest with the O'Neill government pointing the finger at the parliamentary opposition and also international media.

The media were blamed for initial reports by some reputable international brands that up to four people had been killed. There were no deaths, but four of the 23 people reported to be injured were taken to Port Moresby General Hospital critically wounded and stabilised.

It could have been an even worse tragedy.

Sadly, the scenes of chaos shown on campus and chaotic news reports are not uncommon.

I lived in Papua New Guinea for five years during the 1990s when I headed the journalism programme at UPNG.

There were at least two occasions when I was there when police came onto campus - a provocation in itself as there is an understanding that police don't do that, if not actually illegal - and fired teargas at protesting students.

Standoff in PNG: Students take on Prime Minister Peter O'Neill

An NBC News report on May 17 - a useful backgrounder, but much has happened since.

Prime Minister Peter O'Neill's "I will not resign" reply to UPNG and Unitech student presidents over their "stand down" petition - May 23

By Bal Kama

Students at the University of Papua New Guinea are the latest in a long list of those in the firing line for denouncing the leadership of PNG’s seemingly impregnable Prime Minister Peter O’Neill.

The students have been on strike against the government since the end of last month. Students from the University of Technology and Divine Word University are also boycotting classes.

The UPNG students want O’Neill to resign from office and have demanded the police commissioner not suppress criminal investigations against the PM.

The students have threatened to withdraw en masse from their studies if the Prime Minister refuses to go. [Editor: He refused on Monday].

But what are their ultimate chances of success? Will O’Neill give in?

West Papua: The crackdown aftermath - finding a dignified solution

The arrests of more than 1600 protesters in West Papua earlier this week are part of a broader systematic oppression of Papuans by the Indonesian government. Pictured are many detained protesters in the Mobile Brigade compound at Kotaraja, Jayapura.  Photo: Tabloid Jubi

OPINION: By Rev Benny Giay
 
LAST MONDAY, Indonesian police arrested more than 1600 people in Jayapura, Papua. They were rallying in support of a coalition of groups representing West Papuans’ aspirations for independence.

The police stopped the protesters, who were heading to the local parliament, forced them to board military trucks, and took them to the Mobile Brigade compound.

The protesters were demonstrating their support for the United Liberation Movement of West Papua's (ULMWP) bid to gain full membership in the grouping of Melanesian countries, the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG).

The ULMWP holds observer status in the group, which consists of Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu and Solomon Islands. Last year, Indonesia was granted associate membership.

To prevent further violent mistreatment of protesters, together with several Papuan councillors and church leaders, that day I [May 2] went to the Mobile Brigade’s compound to negotiate with the security forces to release the detainees peacefully.

Pacific human rights advocacy as a ‘mindful’ journalist

Pacific Media Centre's Professor David Robie and Tongan publisher, broadcaster and communications adviser
Kalafi Moala at the human rights forum in Nadi, Fiji. Image: Jilda Shem/RRRT

FROM HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES REPORTS TO DEFENDING FREEDOM OF SPEECH TO RIGHTS-BASED JOURNALISM

(Note: This commentary is extracted from David Robie's notes as part of a multimedia keynote presentation at the Enhancing a Human Rights-based Approach to News Reporting Forum in Nadi, Fiji, 13-15 April 2016 . The notes were written originally to go with a series of slides and embedded video clips).

SOME of you perhaps may be mystified or puzzled about why I have included the term ‘mindful’ journalism in the title of this presentation. I’ll explain later on as we get into this keynote talk. But for the moment, let’s call it part of a global attempt to reintroduce “ethics” and “compassion” into journalism, and why this is important in a human rights context.

Human rights has taken a battering in recent times across the world, and perhaps in the West nowhere as seriously as in France on two occasions last year and Brussels last month. After the earlier massacre of some 12 people in the attack on the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in January, there was a massive wave of rallies in defiance and in defence of freedom of speech symbolised by the hashtag #JeSuisCharlie – I am Charlie.

Investigators in both Belgium and France worked on the links between the two series of attacks and have made a breakthrough in arresting two key figures alleged to be at the heart of the conspiracy, Salah Abdeslam and Mohamed Abrini, a 31-year-old Belgian-Morrocan suspected to be the “man in the hat” responsible for the bomb that didn’t go off at Brussels airport.

Polar bear mojo for Greenpeace captain’s environmental thriller

 

A pensive Peter Willcox at a detention hearing at the Kalininskiy Court in Saint Petersburg in 2013 before being set free. Originally charged with "piracy" with a penalty of up to 15 years, Willcox faced the prospect of languishing in a Russian jail for the rest of his life. Image: Igor Podgorny/Greenpeace

Review by David Robie

WHEN Anote Tong, the former president of Kiribati, a collection of 33 tiny atolls sprawling across the Pacific equator in the frontline of climate change, believed he wasn’t being listened to, he thought of a simple strategy – polar bears.

By comparing himself and his country’s meagre population of 102,000 to the endangered creature, he suddenly got more headlines.

The endangered polar bear … anecdote for former President Tong,
FB mojo for Peter Willcox. Image: Still from Greenpeace video

And he got the idea after having just seen a polar bear in the wild.

“I drew a comparison that what happens to polar bears will also be happening to us in our part of the world,” he explained.

Tong feared that the bears in their Arctic habitat, like the people of Kiribati in the Pacific, were in danger of losing their homes in the near future.

Today the polar bear is the mojo adopted by Greenpeace skipper Peter Willcox on his Facebook page.

Kurdish hacker targets Fiji police, military websites - offline all day

11:05am This page replaced the homepage of the RFMF, Fiji Police, and Fiji Immigration websites this morning. Image: Newswire Fiji

SIX hours after this hacking was reported by Newswire Fiji, Café Pacific checked and found these Fiji websites still "defaced, offline or under repair ..."
By Allison Penjueli of Newswire Fiji
Websites belonging to the Republic of Fiji Military Force (RFMF), Fiji Police Force and the Immigration Department were today “defaced” apparently by a Kurdish hacker known for his anti-ISIS views.

In the attack, MuhmadEmad uploaded a picture of the Kurdish flag along with the words, “KurDish HaCkerS WaS Here” and “HaCKeD by MuhmadEmad, Long Live to peshmarga.” This was a reference to the Kurdish army of Peshmerga, which has been fighting to defend its homeland from the so-called Islamic State force based in Iraq.

Fiji police spokesperson Inspector Josaia Weicavu said the force was aware of the hack and was working to rectify it.

An RFMF spokesperson was unaware of the incident when contacted, but said he would look into the issue.