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.”

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?

NZ documentary exposes litany of state injustices against the Tūhoe, but also offers hope

Pacific Media Watch contributing editor Alistar Kata's report on an incisive new documentary.

INVESTIGATIVE journalist Kim Webby’s incisive and compassionate new documentary, The Price of Peace, about Tūhoe campaigner and kaumatua Tame Iti and the so-called “Urewera Four” won a standing ovation at its premiere during the NZ International Film Festival this week.

It deserved this - and more. Webby has crafted arguably the most brilliant film portrayal of race and cultural relations in New Zealand in contemporary times. She has examined a criminal case of national interest to explore biculturalism and justice in general, and specifically the litany of injustices imposed on the Ngāi Tūhoe people for generations.

And Webby has exposed the hypocrisy and myth making over both the Tūhoe case of justice and the disturbing facets of the current political orthodoxy around state surveillance.

The 87-minute film – made over a period of seven years - is essentially about the trial of the Urewera Four and its aftermath following the notorious “terror” raids in Te Urewera in 2007.

It portrays a striking and polarised duality about how mainstream New Zealand viewed the arrests and the people who were brutalised by this masked “swat” team-style attack on a peaceful and laid-back community.

Indonesian ‘open door’ policy on West Papua ‘a lie’ as French journos still detained

Two arrested French journalists, Thomas Dandois (centre) and Valentine Bourrat (left), from Franco-German
television channel Arte, are photographed with an unidentified Indonesian immigration official in
Jayapura in Papua province last week. Image: AsiaOne

RECENT claims by Indonesian authorities that there was a fresh “open door” policy over inquisitive journalists wanting to enter West Papua and report “on the level” have turned out to be false.

Hopeful signs through insightful reports (long with intelligence minders) by SBS Dateline’s Mark Davis, Michael Bachelard of The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald’s Jakarta bureau and AAP’s Karlis Salna that the Indonesian government had indeed seen the light – or at least was having a serious rethink – have turned out to be nothing but a mirage.

In the latest July/August edition of The Walkley Magazine, a Bachelard article featured “Opening the doors to West Papua” about his experience in January 2013 as “the first foreign reporter (excluding travel writers) to be given entry for about 12 months, and the first Australian for significantly longer”. He wrote rather prematurely:

“I hope the Indonesian government sees that these stories have not caused the sky to fall in, because only then will they open up West Papua. Then perhaps, reporting there can become just like any other part of my job.”

However, the detention of two French journalists – who are facing charges of “treason” and “immigration crime” – and a West Papuan tribal leader early last month has made a mockery of the new Indonesian policy.

Australia ‘shockingly close’ to oil companies in discredited Timor treaty

AUSTRALIAN government negotiators were “shockingly close” to the oil companies in a controversial maritime treaty signed with the emerging nation of Timor-Leste in 2006, it is claimed in a new documentary about the recent spy drama that has stirred allegations of industrial espionage by Canberra.

The ABC Four Corners investigation, “Drawing The Line”, by Marian Wilkinson and Peter Cronau, will be broadcast on Monday night.

It provides fresh insights into Australian national security in the Asia-Pacific region in the post-Cold War environment.

“Do governments too freely use espionage for economic advantage? And is it in the national interest?” asks the investigation.

Earlier this month, a ruling by the International Court of Justice banning Australia from using documents seized during a controversial intelligence raid on the Canberra home of Timor-Leste’s Australian-based lawyer was hailed as a David-versus-Goliath victory by Australia’s neighbour.

East Timor's shocking saga of the principal, the minister and a schoolgirl

The controversial image on a Timorese Facebook group.

By Alex Tilman of Di'ak Ka Lae? Timor-Leste Reconsidered

OPINION: THIS STORY will make you cringe! Last month photos of a middle-aged man (one of which is reproduced here) embracing what looked like a uniformed schoolgirl inside a car, lip-locked, surfaced on a popular Timorese Facebook group.

It was soon revealed that the middle-aged man is the principal of a Catholic high school in Dili, the Colegio de São Miguel in Rai Kotu (Comoro), and the alleged uniformed schoolgirl, one of his students.

Needless to say, the photo instantly stirred a controversy surrounding what most people see as a highly inappropriate and despicable relationship between teacher and student even though no other detail of the relationship exists.

Various individuals, including members of Parliament, called for criminal investigation and the principal's sacking. Most were appalled by the principal's behaviour, yet there were a persistent few who attempted to trivialise the significance of this photo.

The case is currently being heard in a court (see article below). But the nature of the controversy took on a new twist after journalists confronted Timor-Leste's Vice-Minister of Education in charge of secondary education, Virgilio Smith.

End petro 'shoddy deals' with East Timor by maritime boundary justice, says advocate

Timor-Leste's government "palace" in the capital Dili ... seeking a fair deal over
the Timor Sea maritime boundary. Photo: David Robie/PMC

Report by The Independente in Dili
AUSTRALIA should stop "short-changing" Timor-Leste with "shoddy deals" over oil and gas and establish permanent maritime boundaries with its island nation neighbour, says a Timor Sea justice advocate.

Tom Clarke, spokesperson for the Timor Sea Justice Campaign, says it is high time the Australian government stopped "jostling" Timor-Leste over the temporary boundary.

In a strongly worded statement, Clarke kept up his criticism of the Australian government's strategy of manoeuvring Timor-Leste into temporary resource-sharing agreements over oil and gas extraction in the Timor Sea, arguing such contracts were not a long-term solution.

"Only permanent maritime boundaries - established in accordance with current international law - can put this matter to rest," he said.

"Prime Minister [Tony] Abbott has a chance to cement Australia's strong relationship with Timor-Leste by agreeing to permanent boundaries that would ensure Timor-Leste is not being short-changed through shoddy deals regarding oil and gas resources."

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.

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)

Ouvéa massacre film gripping tale of betrayal and political opportunism

Kanak militant leader Alphonse Dianou … “played superbly by his cousin Iabe Lapacas”. Image: Rebellion

WHEN THE headlines hit France in April 1988 about the latest saga in “les évènements” down under in New Caledonia, filmmaker Mathieu Kassovitz was just 18. He remembers the gritty images of the Gossanna cave siege on television.

Indigenous Kanaks had massacred a quartet of gendarmes with machetes and shotguns and taken 27 others hostage.

There were also false reports of alleged decapitations and rape on Ouvéa in the remote Loyalty Islands.

But 13 years ago, Kassovitz’s father handed him the League of Human Rights report on the cave siege and he read the chilling real story for the first time.

A French military force of some 300 had been deployed in a retaliatory “invasion” of the island and the report detailed atrocities and summary executions that had left 19 Kanak hostage-takers dead in a dawn assault on 5 May 1988.

Kassovitz (La Haîne and Café au Lait) noted then how an elite police counter-terrorism unit negotiator, Captain Philippe Legorjus of the CIGN, was a central character in the disturbing events.

“I knew then there was the material for a wonderful movie and the script was virtually written,” Kassovitz recalled in a Femail interview. “The dramatic structure was in the report of those 10 days.”

Director Mathieu Kassovitz as the negotiator Captain Philippe Legorjus … “inspirational and credible”. Image: Rebellion
 

Many obstacles
On his first trip to Ouvéa to explore the possibility of making the movie, it seemed many obstacles could block getting such a project off the ground.

“Ten years had passed but people were still withdrawn into their grief. The subject was tabu. There had been no closure,” he says.

“There was a lot of religious and political in-fighting within the Kanak community.”

A decade on and 25 film scripts later, against all the odds and being forced to make the film on the French Polynesian island of Anaa instead of Ouvéa, a courageous 136min testimony to the Kanak struggle and search for justice has been finally achieved.

The film was released in France last November with the title L’Order et La Morale – a play on words from the title of the Legorjus autobiography, La Morale et l’Action, and on a statement by the hated Minister of Overseas Territories Bernard Pons, who said rather cynically: “Sometimes some deaths are necessary to uphold order and morality.”

Last night, the gripping docudrama was screened for the first time at the New Zealand International Film Festival – under the English-language title Rebellion, which loses the nuances of the French name.

But the film was never shown in New Caledonia on general release in the largest cinema chain. The Pacific territory's French operator refused to screen it.

Smaller cinemas played the film to packed audiences, both Kanak and French.

Inspirational performances
The movie succeeds with the inspirational and credible performances of both director Kassovitz as the frustrated but professional lead character Legorjus – who tried hard to seek a peaceful solution to the hostage crisis – and the Kanak pro-independence militant leader Alphonse Dianou, played superbly by his cousin Iabe Lapacas, aged only six at the time of the tragedy.

Negotiator Legorjus – who is also taken captive – and Dianou ironically form a trusting bond of fraternity and understanding and the French officer is released in a bid to broker a deal.

But tension builds as the film covers the 10 days of negotiations until the expediency of the power struggle between rightwing Prime Minister Jacques Chirac and socialist President François Mitterrand in Paris over the imminent outcome of the presidential elections takes over. Mitterrand calls for negotiations – but in reality orders the full catastrophe assault on the cave to free the hostages.

He wins the election.

Legorjus feels betrayed and subsequently resigns from the elite force after the assault. Dianou feels betrayed and is horrendously allowed to die from his wounds from the cave firefight.

Other Kanak prisoners were simply killed in cold blood.

And the Kanak community feel betrayed by both Legorjus and the pro-independence FLNKS. This sense of betrayal ultimately led to the assassination of charismatic FLNKS leader Jean-Marie Tjibaou and his deputy Yéiwene Yéiwene a year later in a ceremony marking the anniversary of the martyrs.

History lesson
Pastor Djubelly Wea, whose character features in the film giving Legorjus a Kanak history lesson while manacled to a coconut tree, was the assassin. He never forgave the FLNKS leadership for failing to negotiate on their behalf. (Although the FLNKS villain portrayed in the film is Franck Wahuzue).

Wea (played by relative Macki Wea) in turn was gunned down by Tjibaou’s bodyguard.

Having reported on the Kanak independence struggle for several years, watching Rebellion was an emotional rollercoaster for me. (In fact, I shared a hotel room in Manila at a “peace brigade” conference with Wea just months before the assassination).

Gossanna cave was tabu – and the film portrays traditional “custom” and beliefs very evocatively. In Kanak tradition, a promise made face-to-face is never broken.

Legorjus promised that the militants that they would live, a pledge that his superiors sabotaged for political capital. 

I don’t believe the militants ever intended to harm their captives – they were simply negotiating leverage after things went wrong in the Fayaoué hostage-taking. In fact, as portrayed in the film, the hostages were about to be freed anyway.

At the time, I wrote an account in my book Blood on their Banner – the blood being that symbolised by the Kanak flag as being shed by the martyrs of more than a century of French rule.

• Read the full article here at Pacific Media Centre Online
• The need to remember the Ouvéa tragedy 
• Gossanna cave - the hostage site [video] 
• Top protest videos

Covert trip reveals rule of law ‘lost’ in Fiji

Cartoon by Marc Snyder - thanks to Fiji Island Mermaid Press.

By Eduardo Reyes in the Law Society Gazette

A SECRET fact-finding mission to Fiji has concluded that the rule of law "no longer operates" in the country. The independence of the judiciary "cannot be relied upon" and "there is no freedom of expression", council member and Law Society Charity chair Nigel Dodds reports in Fiji: The Rule of Law Lost.

Dodds visited Fiji on a tourist visa in late 2011. Following the 2006 coup by Voreqe Bainimarama, ruled illegal by its court of appeal in 2009, Fiji is ruled by decree through emergency measures renewed every 30 days. Fiji (pop. 850,000 people) is currently suspended from the Commonwealth.

The report claims that Fiji’s Attorney-General, Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum, has been central to ending the rule of law by limiting the power of the courts and ending the independence of legal sector regulation. Fiji’s late President, Ratu Josefa Iloilo, revoked all judicial appointments in 2009. Dodds’ report reveals the extent to which the government depends on the appointment of judges and senior law officers from Sri Lanka on short-term contracts.

Chancery Lane’s human rights adviser, Courtenay Barklem, notes: "Judges have to have security of tenure. We don’t know how these judges are being selected."

Meanwhile, the country’s largest commercial law firm, Munro Leys, once the government of Fiji’s main provider of legal services, no longer receives government instructions, independent sources told Dodds.

The 2009 Administration of Justice Decree removed the jurisdiction of the court to hear or determine a challenge to any government action. This has now been supplemented with a practice direction, seen by Dodds, pinned to the walls of the courts, noting that the Chief Registrar will terminate any such case that slips through the net.

Dodds told the Gazette: "I found a significant number of lawyers endeavouring to do the best for their clients in intolerable circumstances. They deserve tremendous credit."

Previously criticised by the Law Society in open correspondence, a professional accreditation regime remains in place whereby the government issues practising certificates, Dodds reports. In 2011 the government refused to permit Fiji’s Law Society to hold its annual meeting.

Dodds’ subterfuge was deemed necessary following the refusal of the Fiji government to admit an International Bar Association delegation to the country in 2009. He funded the trip personally.

Fiji’s High Commission did not provide a comment on the report in the time available.

Stop Press: Check out the Graham Davis/Russell Hunter/Victor Lal/Crosbie Walsh media debate on the alleged "four would-be coups" of Bainimarama here.

East Timor’s Santa Cruz massacre - reflections 20 years on

An American social justice and development campaigner who has devoted much of his life to the East Timorese cause and lives in the independent nation, reflects on the struggles since the Santa Cruz massacre in Dili on 12 November 1991. Photo:La’o Hamutuk

By Charles Scheiner in Dili

TONIGHT, I’m honored to be with so many young Timorese people who believe in justice and independence. Twenty years ago, brave people just like you peacefully demonstrated against the Indonesian occupation of your country. Nobody paid them, or ordered them, or told them it would be safe or easy.

The Santa Cruz protesters inspired people around the world, including me. I was in New York, and I heard about the massacre on community radio. Although I already knew about Indonesia’s illegal occupation here, and about the criminal support my US government was giving to it, I hadn’t done much to stop it.

A month after the Santa Cruz massacre, I and some other friends organised a peaceful protest at the Indonesian Mission to the UN. We didn’t risk being shot or tortured, but we knew we had to speak out in solidarity with the heroes of Santa Cruz who risked and lost their lives in the struggle for self-determination.

It was much easier for us than it was for your parents – but it was also hard, because so many other Americans didn’t know or care that our government was complicit with Indonesia in committing crimes against humanity in Timor-Leste.

Our demonstration grew into a movement – the East Timor Action Network (ETAN) – that had more than 15,000 members and 25 chapters all across the United States by 1999.

Through public education, lobbying, demonstrations, outreach, coalition-building and every other kind of nonviolent action we could think of, we turned US policy around.

Washington had provided most of the weapons and training for the Indonesian military from 1975 until 1991, but pressure from American citizens cut it off.

Door opened
By 1998, the United States gtovernment had abandoned Suharto and was supporting self-determination – helping to open a door for the people of Timor-Leste to finally end Indonesia’s occupation.

It’s 12 years later now, 20 years after the Santa Cruz massacre and the founding of the East TimorAction Network.

East Timor has been independent for nine years. You have your own government, your own leaders, your own political debates, your own successes… and your own mistakes.

I feel privileged to live here during this period, traveling that journey with you. Building a peaceful, democratic nation, with economic and social justice for its entire population, may be even harder than throwing out the Indonesian army and police.

We are still far from some of our goals. In particular, the foreigners responsible for crimes against humanity and war crimes committed against the Timorese people have not been held accountable.

These were international crimes – the Indonesian invasion of Portuguese Timor (RDTL after 28 November 1975, but Indonesian aggression started before that) violated international law, as did the thousands of massacres, tortures, rapes, killings and other crimes that were part of the occupation.

When people are ordered or paid by one government to commit crimes against people in another country, those are international crimes. When other governments, including my own, give political, military, diplomatic or financial support to these crimes, they also become criminals.

Apology to Timorese
As a US citizen (I am not yet a Timorese citizen, but hope to become one), I have to apologise to the people of Timor-Leste because I and my fellow Americans took so long to stop our government from supporting crimes against you, while tens of thousands of Timorese people were killed.

As a human being, I join the Timorese people – including survivors and victims’ families – in calling for an end to impunity for crimes against humanity.

A hero of my country – ex-slave Frederick Douglass – once said that “Power never concedes anything without a demand.”

If we want justice, we have to demand it – it will not come by itself.

As you know, there was progress a few years ago. Between 1999 and 2005, Commissions of Inquiry established by the United Nations, Indonesia and Timor-Leste recognised the international nature of the huge crimes committed here and called for the prosecution of those who perpetrated them.

During UNTAET, the UN Serious Crimes Unit indicted nearly 400 people for crimes committed during 1999, bringing 87 to trial and convicting 84. But everyone brought to trial was Timorese, and none of them are still in prison.

None of the people who murdered Santa Cruz protesters 20 years ago were Timorese.

Larger problem
A larger problem is the 300 people indicted by the SCU who have never been arrested because Indonesia is sheltering them. And even more fundamental, no action has been taken against those who directed and executed the 99 percent of occupation-related crimes committed during its first 23 years.

Those perpetrators were carrying out criminal policies of the Suharto dictatorship, and most of them were soldiers following orders from Jakarta, shooting guns made in the United States, flying bombers from Britain or the US, getting political support from Australia or Malaysia or France.

The United Nations says there must never be impunity for Crimes Against Humanity. In 2002, nations from all over the world established the International Criminal Court to try such crimes when national processes are unwilling or unable to – but unfortunately it has no power to judge crimes committed before the court was set up.

In 2005, this global consensus was reflected by a UN Commission of Experts, who concluded that an international tribunal should be created if judicial processes in Indonesia and Timor-Leste fail to achieve justice for crimes committed during Indonesia’s occupation of Timor-Leste.

But today, the UN runs away – they and the other responsible governments and agencies say that Timor-Leste’s government has the responsibility but not the will to end impunity.

For some of us – Timorese and foreigners – the struggle is not over. We draw courage from people like Argentinian justice activist Patricia Isasa, who visited here last month. She campaigned for 33 years before her torturers and kidnappers were finally sent to prison.

Here, our justice campaign is only 12 years old. Although the UN, other governments, and some Timorese politicians prioritise diplomatic relations with formerly hostile nearby governments over justice, and although some say economic development is more important than accountability, there is no need to choose.

Criminal masterminds
Relations between democratic states can go well even while criminals are brought to justice. People’s economic lives – including victims of past crimes — can improve at the same time that masterminds of those crimes are brought to court. There is no need to choose among economic, social and criminal justice.

We, citizens of countries from around the world who support Timor-Leste’s people, will continue to demand that our governments and the United Nations keep their promises that impunity can never be accepted.

Today, ETAN issued a press release calling “for the US and other governments and the United Nations to commit to justice for the victims and their families. The 1991 massacre was a major turning point in Timor-Leste’s struggle for liberation.

“When we saw and heard about the Indonesian military shooting down hundreds of peaceful, unarmed student protesters, we knew we had to do something to stop the killing. The Santa Cruz massacre inspired many around the world to work for justice for the East Timorese people.”

Earlier this week, former General Taur Matan Ruak said: “Justisa sei iha” (there will be justice).

President Jose Ramos-Horta hopes that a courageous, young Indonesian prosecutor may bring high-level criminals to court five or ten years from now.

But it will never happen if we don’t continue to demand it. People in Timor-Leste, together with our friends in Indonesia, the United States and around the world, should see today’s anniversary as an opportunity – and a challenge – to renew our commitment to struggle for justice.

Since neither the Indonesian nor Timor-Leste governments are yet ready to end impunity, it is up to us.

Obrigado. A luta continua!

• ETAN says US and UN must act - November 12, 2011
• The Santa Cruz massacre - November 12, 1991
• Rushes of the Santa Cruz massacre on November 12, 1991 – Journeyman Pictures

Indonesians shoot Papuan strikers – new Pacific media freedom report targets oppressors

© 2011 Malcolm Evans PJR
THIS Malcolm Evans cartoon in the latest Pacific Journalism Review spotlights the blood on Indonesia’s hands in four decades of occupation in West Papua. Tension has been building up since early August as thousands of Papuans prepare for their Third Papuan People's Congress in Jayapura. The strife has escalated and erupted into shooting on Monday by Indonesian security forces at the Freeport-McMoran gold and copper mine at Timika, Papuan Province, as they tried to suppress striking miners. At least one man was shot dead and about a dozen others wounded.

Kontras, the Commission for the Disappeared and Victims of Violence has condemned the shooting of the Freeport workers who were seeking negotiations with the management of the company. Since the strike began on September 15 there has been no sign that the management is seeking to provide any space for peaceful dialogue which could address the issues for both sides.

At the time of the shooting on October 10, about 8000 workers were involved in the protest against the company for recruiting new workers to replace those now on strike. The strikers marched from their SBSI trade union headquarters to the mine drains, a distance of about 500 metres along a road that was six metres wide. A short distance away, hundreds of policemen were standing on guard and they opened fire. Petrus Ayamiseba a catering worker at the company was shot in the waist and died.

As human rights protests gathered momentum this week, Pacific Journalism Review was being published with a comprehensive 39-page report on Pacific media freedom. The PJR report quite rightly focused on West Papua as the worst territory for human rights abuses against journalists. In fact, West Papua is now considerably worse than Fiji in terms of brutal assaults on media freedom. The research journal, published by the Pacific Media Centre, said in an editorial:

By far the most serious case of media freedom violations in the Pacific is in Indonesian-ruled West Papua — far from international scrutiny … In August, in particular, “sustained repression has also hit the news media and journalists”. At least two journalists have been killed in West Papua, five others abducted and 18 assaulted in the past year.

Ten West Papuan activists were arrested by Indonesian authorities in Jayapura last week for being in possession of material that featured the banned West Papuan Morning Star flag of independence.

Poengky Indarti, executive director of the Indonesian human rights monitor Imparsial, said recently: “Freedoms of expression, association and assembly are routinely violated in Papua, which seriously fuels tensions. Besides, gross human rights abuses, such as acts of torture, remain unaccounted for.”

This free media report, compiled by Pacific Media Watch contributing editor Alex Perrottet and Pacific Media Centre director Dr David Robie with a team of contributors, including West Papua Media editor Nick Chesterfield, is the most comprehensive and robust media freedom dossier published in recent years in the region.

• Pacific media freedom report 2011 [Pacific Journalism Review / Pacific Media Watch]

Fiji high chief, seven others jailed over Fiji kill plot

IN HIS summing up in the controversial Fiji assassination conspiracy case, High Court judge Justice Paul Madigan put the blame on a ninth man who wasn't in the dock - New Zealand businessman Ballu Khan. Eight other co-conspirators in the alleged plot to assassinate the regime leader, Commodore Voreqe Bainimarama, were jailed for sentences ranging between three and seven years. But the judge said he was convinced the plot had been orchestrated by Khan, in collaboration with the eight accused. The New Zealand government has since denied any knowledge of the plot, saying it had merely provided consular assistance to Khan.

Madigan made his statement while sentencing the eight accused men in a packed courtroom. According to Fijilive, the judge said Khan’s business interests in Fiji had "waned after the military takeover in December 2006", and that the businessman was eager to "restore his fortunes to their former felicitous state”. Justice Madigan added the idea of weakening the military, “removing” Bainimarama and the President, and ridding the country of Indo-Fijians had both sinister and racial intentions. Fijilive reported that Fiji high chief Ratu Inoke Takiveikata - described as a "ringleader" - and seven others had been sentenced to prison terms ranging from seven years for Takiveikata to three years for the others for plotting to assassinate Bainimarama and two other senior government figures in 2007:

Takiveikata and former Pacific Connex employee Sivaniolo Naulago were both jailed for seven years while former Fiji Intelligence Services director Metuisela Mua was jailed for three and a half years.

Former Counter Revolutionary Warfare soldier Barbado Mills was jailed for six years and six months while CRW fellowman Feoko Gadekibau was given a prison term of five and half years.

Other former CRW men Eparama Waqatakirewa and Pauliasi Namulo were jailed for three years each while fifth CRW figure Kaminieli Vosavere was jailed for four years.

Justice Madigan walked into a packed court room, filled with different nationalities. Members of the media were allowed in first.

The defendants, found guilty earlier this week by a five-member team of assessors, looked relaxed as they awaited the judge’s decision. They faced a maximum prison term of 14 years for the offence.

Pictured: The accused chief, Ratu Inoke Takiveikata. Photo: Fijilive.

• Ballu Khan was main conspirator, says judge

Two out of three murder charges dropped in Fiji plot case

FIJI'S ASSASSINATION conspiracy case has taken a dramatic turn with the dropping of two of three charges against eight men indicted.

The eight - including a high chief - had been accused of plotting to assassinate the self-appointed Prime Minister, Voreqe Bainimarama, and two senior regime ministers in 2007.

Presiding judge Justice Paul Madigan dropped the charges of conspiracy to murder Mahendra Chaudhry and conspiracy to murder the Attorney-General Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum because of “ambiguous” evidence.

The eight men now face one remaining count of conspiring to murder Bainimarama.

Fijilive reports:

Ratu Inoke Takiveikata, Feoko Gadekibau, Barbedoes Mills, Metuisela Mua, Sivaniolo Naulago, Eperama Waqatairewa, Kaminieli Vosavere and Pauliasi Ramulo are now free on charges that they conspired to murder Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum and Mahendra Chaudhry.

The first count still stands and that is the [alleged] plan to kill the Army Commander.

First accused Ratu Inoke Takiveikata has opted to give sworn evidence from the witness box as the case on the first count proceeds.

Five local assessors are also presiding over the case, now into its fourth week.

Ironically, the Citizens’ Constitutional Forum today also issued a statement calling on the regime to take urgent action over the independence of the judiciary. Reverend Akuila Yabaki, director of the CCF, called on the government to invite the UN Special Rapporteurs on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers to visit Fiji as soon as possible.

• Human rights or corruption? Trotting out the real Fiji issues
• Croz Walsh's updates on the conspiracy case
  

Hepi Krismas - and political fallout from the Moti affair

AS Café Pacific has been on "vacation" - a rare event - over these past few weeks, many significant happenings have passed without comment from this blog. Issues such as the unravelling of the Indonesian "case" over the Balibo Five murders in the wake of new pressures from the film Balibo, developments over the embryonic Fiji media decree and the views of the detractors and the more critically reflective and the killing of OPM leader Kelly Kwalik in West Papua have passed without a murmur by Café Pacific.

However, a delightful Christmas present has come Julian Moti's way with the throwing out in a Brisbane court of those trumped up charges against the former Solomon Islands Attorney-General. Many in the Pacific were deeply concerned about how once again Australian diplomatic and "legal" bullying was being used to impose a political outcome on a compliant state in the region. This issue was often seen to have more to do with regime change in the Solomon Islands than any genuine pursuit of justice. (See past Café Pacific items on Motigate.) A backgrounder just posted on the World Socialist Website:

Political lessons of the Julian Moti affair
23 December 2009

By Patrick O’Connor and Linda Levin

Last week’s Queensland Supreme Court decision to throw out the prosecution of former Solomon Islands’ Attorney General Julian Moti on trumped up child sex charges is a major blow to the Australian government, its federal police and public prosecutors. The vicious five-year vendetta has cast light on Canberra’s filthy neo-colonial operations in the South Pacific, as well as the complicity of the entire political and media establishment—ranged across the official political spectrum, from the openly right wing to the ex-radical “left”.

The charges originated in an attempted blackmail against Moti, a constitutional lawyer and Australian citizen, in Vanuatu in 1997-98. They were dismissed by a Vanuatu magistrate as “unjust and oppressive”, a decision the prosecutors chose not to appeal. The allegations were
resuscitated in 2004, not by the alleged “victim” but by Patrick Cole, the Australian High Commissioner to the Solomon Islands. They became the means through which the Australian government sought to remove Moti from the Pacific, and permanently destroy his personal reputation and professional standing, for the sole reason that he was perceived as a
threat to Australia’s economic and strategic interests.

Not accidentally, Moti’s victimisation coincided with a shift in Canberra’s foreign policy in the Pacific. Washington utilised the September 11 terror attacks as the pretext for invading Afghanistan and Iraq—thus pursuing a long-held ambition to reorganise the Middle East under conditions where its post-World War II domination was being challenged by rivals, particularly in Europe and Asia. In similar manner, the Australian ruling elite sought to revive its neo-colonial operations in the South Pacific—a region long regarded as Canberra’s
“sphere of influence”—to shore up its position in the face of mounting rivalries.

Within months of the US-led attack on Iraq, the Australian government dispatched troops and police to the Solomon Islands in July 2003. Involved was the effective takeover by Australian military and civilian officials of the impoverished country’s state apparatus, including its
finance department and central bank, judiciary, police, prisons, public service, and other central institutions. The so-called Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI) was conceived as a model for potential interventions into other Pacific states, most notably the resource-rich former Australian colony of Papua New Guinea. Moti was a well-known opponent of this agenda. A prominent lawyer, he had worked in several Pacific countries, and had connections with Melanesian nationalist politicians, whose aim was to promote small agricultural producers rather than international investors and who were not averse to cultivating ties with Asian powers as a counterbalance to Canberra’s role in the region.

In late 2004 Moti was touted as a possible Solomons’ attorney-general, and in 2006 the government of Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare appointed him to that position. The case in the Queensland Supreme Court from mid-September until earlier this month saw the disclosure of damning classified memos, emails, and other internal Australian Federal Police, Australian High Commission, and Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade documents that provided a rare glimpse into Canberra’s modus operandi throughout the South Pacific. While the witch hunt began much earlier, by 2006 senior Australian politicians, police chiefs, and diplomatic officials were publicly slandering Moti and demanding his expulsion from the Solomons. Meanwhile, other officials and police were working behind the scenes to ensure his return to Australia. The
operation culminated in Moti’s unlawful deportation from the Solomons in December 2007, following the ousting of the Sogavare government after a protracted regime change campaign by Canberra.

Justice Debra Mullins’ decision to award Moti’s permanent stay application, while at the same time whitewashing the Australian government’s role, was highly political. By choosing the most limited and narrowly focussed grounds on which to throw the charges out, the court’s judgment amounted to political damage control. The judge’s argument was entirely spurious; it centred on the assertion that there was no political motivation behind the case and that Moti’s expulsion
from the Solomons was a decision made by that country’s “sovereign” government alone, independent of any Australian pressure. The evidence established the contrary, namely that the 2007 deportation was instigated and facilitated by Canberra with the assistance of its newly
installed satrap in Honiara.

The judge made no attempt to answer the obvious question: why, if there were no political motivation, did Australian police and authorities act as they did? While ruling that the unprecedented witness payments made by the AFP, totalling around $150,000, represented an “affront to the public conscience” and thus deciding to stay the prosecution on that basis, she failed to address the reason behind the payments to the witnesses, without whom the prosecution case would have had no chance of succeeding. To even raise these issues would begin to lift the lid on the role of Australian imperialism in the Solomons, something regarded in official circles as politically taboo.

Throughout the sordid saga, the media functioned as the fifth wheel of the government’s vendetta, sensationalising every lurid sexual assault allegation and then effectively censoring the Supreme Court hearings. As the damning evidence mounted and the Australian government’s operations began to come to light, an effective media boycott was imposed. Few Australians had any idea the case was even underway.

The handful of critical voices after Moti’s arrest in late 2006 quickly fell silent once the Labor Party took office in November 2007. Consistent with Labor’s unconditional support for the former Howard government’s stance, the new government of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd consummated the operation, overseeing Moti’s unlawful return and arrest in Australia and authorising his prosecution.

The entire Labor fraternity fell into line. As the case unfolded, lawyers and civil libertarians kept their mouths firmly shut. South Pacific experts in the academic world similarly lent support to the anti-Moti campaign.

The most revealing response came from the so-called “lefts”. Since Labor’s election, not one of the various petty-bourgeois protest organisations, or any of their publications, has uttered a single word on the Moti frame-up or its collapse. While these outfits will, from time to time, denounce the crimes of US imperialism, Britain, Israel, etc., when it comes to the imperialist depredations of their “own” bourgeoisie it is quite another matter. This is especially so under
Labor. After all, the entire ex-radical fraternity worked to get the Rudd government elected on the basis that it was a “lesser evil” to the coalition. The reaction of these groups to the Moti case is yet another expression of their class hostility to the fight for the political independence of the working class from Labor and its nationalist, pro-imperialist agenda.

The role played from the outset by the World Socialist Web Site in the detailed exposure of the Moti witch hunt flowed from our internationalist principles and perspective. Developing an understanding of the role of Australian imperialism throughout the Asia-Pacific region is a vital precondition for the development of a mass revolutionary socialist movement of the Australian working class, and for unifying the working class and oppressed masses throughout the
region—and the world—in a common struggle against imperialism. The bourgeoisie’s exploitation of the region’s resources, wealth, and labour power has been underway for more than a century, even before the federated nation-state of Australia was founded in 1901.

The Moti affair constitutes a devastating exposure of the machinations of successive Liberal and Labor governments in the Solomons, and of the entire RAMSI operation. Despite the best efforts of the Australian political and media establishment, the collapse of the prosecution’s case stands as a damning indictment of Australian neo-colonialism. It is yet another sign that, amid growing hostility in the Pacific towards Australia’s military-police operations, the humanitarian pretexts for the post-2001 turn to militarism and repression are beginning to unravel.

Pictured: Julian Moti when Attorney-General of the Solomon Islands. Photo: Solomon Times.

• Australian government frame-up of Julian Moti collapses as court throws out charges
• Julian Moti accuses Australia of 'ulterior political objectives'
• Other Café Pacific items on 'Motigate'
  
• Portrait of Kelly Kwalik