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EMTV’s head of news Neville Choi reports on the assault on the television crew — see item at 4min01sec. Video: EMTV News

Pacific Media Watch News Desk

The Media Council of Papua New Guinea today condemned the “unacceptable … harassment and violence” targeting media workers covering the country’s 2017 general election campaign.

An EMTV camera crew was “harassed and assaulted” last Thursday in the Moresby South electorate in the National Capital District of Port Moresby and was covered by the television network.

The MCPNG said in a statement the harassment and violence on May 11 was “unacceptable and unwarranted”.

The media had an important role to play in the dissemination of information and awareness about the 3331 candidates contesting the 89 open electorates and 22 provincial seats, said council president Alexander Rheeney.

“Papua New Guinea’s 4 million-plus eligible voters are depending on the media for critical information on the 2017 general election, the candidates as well as political parties and their policies,” he said.

“The media should be allowed to report without fear or favour in this general election as they have in previous elections.

“The incident last Thursday involving an EMTV camera crew and the supporters of a particular candidate is unacceptable,” Rhenney said

‘Accept responsibility’
“All candidates should accept responsibility for the conduct of their supporters so any unruly behaviour should and will be reported to the appropriate authorities.”

Rhenney said the media industry remained united and vigilant in striving to inform and educate the public. He called on candidates or supporters who “had issues” with the media to take their complaints to the MCPNG.

EMTV reports that its crew was verbally assaulted and a senior cameraman punched and hit in the back with a 16 kg tripod by supporters of sitting Moresby South Member of Parliament Justin Tkatchenko.

“The mob demanded footage[to be] deleted and threatened to assault four crew members in an EMTV vehicle on Lawes road,” EMTV reports.

Journalists Bethanie Harriman and Stanley Ove Jr were collecting generic pictures of election banners around Port Moresby with senior cameraman Konts Kara when the assault happened.

After collecting pictures at Gerehu, the crew stopped in Moresby South.

On Lawes Road in Konedobu, supporters loyal to sitting MP Justin Tkatchencko attacked senior cameraman Kara.

Threatened over footage
“Mr Kara was verbally assaulted by the mob who then threatened to break a camera if the footage wasn’t deleted,” EMTV reports.

“The crowd advanced on the company vehicle banging on the windows, taking the keys off the driver, and forcing the cameraman to delete footage of the sitting MP’s campaign banners.

“A senior coordinator of the minister’s campaigning team accused EMTV of being biased in reports while swearing at the crew.”

Tkatchenko’s first secretary Keith Puairia was contacted by journalist Harriman and Puairia contacted the campaign coordinator, confirming the incident.

Elections in Papua New Guinea have traditionally been considered a time of great risk.

Media Niugini Limited management made a statement saying that EMTV News remained independent and impartial.

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ANALYSIS: By Peter S. Kinjap in Port Moresby

Papua New Guinea has entered the third week of the eight-week election campaign before polling commences next month.

Unlike previous elections, this year’s campaign appears not as noisy as in the past.

Social media has played an important role in the campaign so far with political parties buying Facebook pages to launch their awareness messages.

Almost all the 15 political parties in PNG contesting the election now have a paid Facebook Page.

The ruling People’s National Congress (PNC) has reportedly disseminated a lot of information about its polices and continues running social media ads.

One of the PNC’s major party platforms is the Free Education policy. As the ruling party, it has implemented and PNG has felt its impact since 2012.

Like any other government policy, the PNC free education policy has its weaknesses. In order to defend this policy, party leader and Prime Minister Peter O’Neill said recently he wanted to make the PNC’s free education policy government policy so that future governments will continue implementing it.

‘Politically suicide’
In what looks like a counter attack, its rival Triumph Heritage Empowerment Party (THE) has issued a “politically suicidal” statement by party leader and Opposition Leader Don Polye saying it would scrap free education instead introduce a “compulsory and subsidised education” as it policy.

Polye went on to say that this policy would be a national policy if THE formed the next government, making it illegal for parents not to send children to school.

Firstly, THE party’s policy would make school compulsory, and secondly parents would need to pay from elementary to grade 12, but not at technical colleges and universities.

THE party wants government to take full responsibility to pay for develop the skills of those in tertiary institutions.

This policy sparked a response from Prime Minister O’Neill condemning the Opposition for developing “reckless policies” that could only set the country back, reverse development and undermine economic growth.

“This is the most reckless Opposition campaign to be seen in elections for a long time,” O’Neill said.

“These Opposition policies would hurt families, would see people miss out on education and have funding decisions taken away from the local level and returned to Waigani bureaucrats.

“How could anyone think that ending free education could be a good thing?

“Under our government, it does not matter if a family is rich or poor, urban or rural, we will make sure all of their children are able to attend school,” O’Neill said.

Some implications
Let us look at some of the implications of THE Party and PNC on their education polices, leaving aside other issues for a while.

Under PNC’s policy, there would be more children going to school because it is free to attend school from elementary to high school and perhaps colleges (some colleges are still paying fees this year at some colleges).

This will see an increase in the grades 8, 10 and 12 dropouts. These dropouts will add to the number of unemployed youths and unskilled laborers. After 10-20 years, there will be an increase in the number of school leavers compared with today.

This is a situation whereby students from well-off families may enroll further in private schools or take further studies abroad but this number is always a minority. PNC’s free education policy creates issues in the long-term but it may look good in a short-term.

THE party’s policy on education will put pressure on poor parents to firstly send their children to school or they be jailed for not sending and to pay their fees in full.

This is a harsh policy by THE party whereby parents would need more counselling on family planning as any child born must be educated by law and they have to meet the cost up to grade 12.

It is tough for parents but in the long-term it will benefit the country largely. Firstly, by concentrating on paying fees for higher education and colleges will ease parents of their financial burden.

Literate population
Secondly, compulsory education would produce a literate population and that is good for a developing country. Today, many young people are not going to school and are roaming the streets — even if it is free to go to school.

But when there is a law to force students to attend school, there will be no children on the street begging as we see today in cities like Port Moresby, Lae and Mount Hagen.

The PNC and THE party’s policies on education have both negative and positive implications.

The term or the phrase “free education policy” is in fact not proper because nothing is free, it would be better to say subsidised fees than to say free education.

Nothing is really free. It is not free to get educated, rather the government is using people’s tax money to subsidise the cost of education.

This confused phrase of free education is a brainchild of the People’s Democratic Movement (PDM)  which led two governments under Paias Wingti and Sir Mekere Mourata as Prime Ministers who implemented this policy.

The policy was fully implemented during Sir Mekere’s term as Prime Minister in 2000.

Before the Bougainville war
Before the Bougainville civil war, tertiary education at the universities and colleges was fully subsided (students were also given monthly allowances) when Panguna mine was in operation.

But after the Bougainville conflict there was a new “user pay” policy so all the benefits of allowances and fully subsidised fees for tertiary studies were withdrawn and students had to pay for university and college education.

This means that Don Polye’s education policy will bring back the glory days prior to the Bougainville conflict when PNG enjoyed a fully subsided education at the tertiary level.

All in all, Peter O’Neill’s education policy is short-lived and may put pressure on the government budget to continue funding as the population increases each year.

Don Polye’s policy may look tough from the start but it is not a new policy in PNG to fully subsidise education at the tertiary studies. The new thing will be compulsory for every child in PNG to attend school.

For a country like PNG, we need a good policy on education and Don Polye’s policy will save Papua New Guinea for the years to come.

Peter O’Neill’s short-lived policy might mean Papua New Guinea would face social and unemployment problems and economic problems as the population increases.

Don Polye’s policy will also have an impact to control the population and I think this is a very good proposal for PNG.

It is my personal guess that Polye’s policy is what PNG needs and it speaks of more maturity than O’Neill’s, which lacks sustainability.

You decide which policy you need at the polls.

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Unite Union’s Mike Treen critiques the injustices of the New Zealand migrant policies and their fraud on foreign students, especially Asian. Skykiwi journalist Leon Li gets a shot. Video: Café Pacific

OPINION: By Mike Treen

Unionists and other progressive minded people need to put a stake in the ground in opposition to the latest immigration proposals from the New Zealand government.

Tens of thousands of workers in this country have been brought here under false pretences. Many have been conned into paying tens of thousands of dollars towards courses that they hoped would open the door to jobs and the chance for permanent residence.

The promises have proved to be nothing more than a fraud perpetrated by the government.

These students and workers had the rules changed on them after they arrived. Many have studied and worked here for up to a decade.

The government has now increased the points required to get permanent residence under the skilled worker category and imposed a minimum income requirement of almost $50,000 that many will not be able to meet. Those who don’t meet the new requirements will have a maximum of three years before they are kicked out.

READ MORE: Prediction: Crash in migrant numbers coming — let people stay

At the same time, the government is proposing to continue bringing temporary work visa holders for lower skilled and lower paid occupations but for a maximum of three years and no right to bring family members.

This will most likely lead to either a massive drop in numbers coming or those who do being so desperate they will be wide open to abuse and exploitation.

One-off ‘amnesty’
In their plan, the government has made a proposal for what they have called an “amnesty” for a group of workers in the South Island as a one-off pathway to residency for around 4000 temporary migrant workers and their families.

In the words of Immigration Minister Michael Woodhouse:

“Many of these migrants are already well settled in New Zealand and make a valuable contribution to their communities.

“It will also enable employers to retain an experienced workforce that has helped meet genuine regional labour market needs.

“My National colleagues in the South Island have advocated strongly on behalf their constituents throughout the development of this policy, so I’m pleased the government has been able to deliver on our commitment to enable this cohort of migrant workers to remain in their communities.”

Many of these workers will be working on dairy farms run by National Party stalwarts who have lobbied their MPs to keep these workers.

The “amnesty” being allowed these workers from the requirement to meet the new points or income thresholds for permanent residence should be extended to the whole country. The restrictions in the current amnesty proposal to bind workers to particular employers should also be removed. This is a form of bonded labour that needs to be got rid of as part of any genuine immigration reform.

Parties that want to reduce the number of permanent and long-term net arrivals to New Zealand from the current 70,000 plus number can also support this humanitarian policy towards those already here.

There are currently around 250,000 temporary work visas issued each year.

It makes no sense to throw out people who want to stay and have invested a significant part of their lives to creating homes in this country while continuing to bring in people on temporary visas only to throw them out again after three years.

The new policies are inhuman.

Extend the amnesty to all workers on temporary visas who want to make New Zealand their home.

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SPECIAL REPORT: It was early November 2016. As I waited for Laura Lyons from Grandmothers Against Removal (GMAR), a tall, thin, old-looking man with a young, energetic walk and an even younger grin approached me. He said he was here with Laura who would be arriving soon. Laura arrived looking distressed. Her 10-year-old daughter had just the day before run away again from the residential facility where she was being held.

Following my interview with Laura, Uncle Shane, as he introduced himself to me, said he wanted to tell his story. He said he wanted people to know what it was like being taken away from home and placed in state foster care or in residential care facilities. Uncle Shane said he was here to support GMAR and the work that they do as he never wanted to hear of another Indigenous Australian child being taken away from their family and culture.

As Uncle Shane told his story, he became angry at what had happened to him and others he knew, and at what was still taking place. Despite his anger, I was in awe at his apparent lack of bitterness and the enthusiastic and positive approach he had. But his past must have had some impact because I had thought Uncle Shane was in his mid-70s. In fact, Uncle Shane had just turned 59.

This is the story that Uncle Shane wanted to share as told to Camille Nakhid:  

Uncle Shane: I’ve written to them, to the government, and to the opposition — suggesting to them that they should start concentrating on those who’ve perpetrated the crimes against us, you know, ex-state wards – against the children such as us. We are the vulnerable ones, the ones without the voice.

Uncle Shane had been removed from an abusive family home only to be placed in an even more abusive state system from 1959-1982.

Which we had none. We had no choice. It was all forced on us, including the abuse, the abuse of drugs to testing for pharmacies, and the abuse of the slavery of the hours, long hours. Five in the morning until 11 at night, seven days a week. That’s long hours. No play, no birthday cards, no presents, nothing.

In the morning, I’d have to get up at five o-clock, we’d do the dairy. That finishes at nine. We’d do that, we go up to the house, polish all the floors.

And then we do the laundry, all day, and then we do the dairy in the afternoon, then we go back up the house and scrub all the pots. Or, you know, other chores that need to be done in the house. Polish all the floors by hand. With long hours, no play. You know, that’s all gone. The time you spent playing in parks with kids, that’s all gone. I see that today and I’m really angry. Because we didn’t get it. You know, it’s gone.

We’ve lost that. We’ll never get that back. And no human being has the right to take that away from us. You know, we couldn’t even go to our – you can’t even have friends. Outside, outside they go to their friend’s place and they play, and they go to beaches, they go to – forget about that, that’s all gone. That wasn’t allowed. All we did was work. And all we did was whatever they wanted us to do. We were at the mercy of them. That’s terrible. That’s not a way to treat a human being.

But I’m angry with the government because it hasn’t done anything. You know, it holds a royal commission, it’s only to shut up people, you know, because of the talk. When the abuse come out to the public, what’s the best way to shut the public up? What do you do as a government?

‘You get a media spin together’
You panic, you quickly get a media spin together, and you quickly turn it into a spin, a song and dance. And you say: “We’re going to hold a royal commission”. That should shut everything down. That should shut down the public talking and getting angry with the government of the day.

So you’re no better off.

How are you better off? You’re not safe at home, so you’re taken away and even then if you’d read the reports, the very DoCS department was at the home when these things were happening. And still nothing happened to protect you. They didn’t step up to the plate. Not a way to treat a human being – is it?

No clothes on a kid, walking around, smelly, wet urine all over the place – and you’re not going to go and write a report about that and take the kid away somewhere safe? You’re not going to step up to the plate and help that kid?

Now, I’m hoping to wake the people up, you know. To shake them up and to wake them up to the injustice out there of children like us, you know, people like us.

I forget my tribe. I don’t know the name of it but I’ve been accepted down here in Sydney by my step-brother, which is the Wiradjuri.

We’ve got a lot of injustice, as you know, in Australia. It’s not like any other – some countries have some, which I’ve watched injustice there – But we have a lot here.

I fail to see the benefit of taking children away from their parents. I don’t see the benefit. If DoCS is trying to punish the children, then they’re doing a good job. If they’re trying to punish the parents, they’re doing a good job. So I don’t understand what they’re trying to do.

‘They should set up a home visiting programme’
I believe that they should set up a home visiting programme where the department should come into the home and work with the parents.

It’s not what the parents can do for the department, but what the department should be doing for the children and the parents.

There’s so much injustice – the culture is stolen right beneath us. Their culture is being pushed, you know, into the children of today. What they should be doing, is doing what people are doing in New Zealand and letting the elders take over and letting them decide how their children should be brought up.

Not like these government departments. They’re, to me, government departments only amp up the situation and make the situation worse, as you’ve seen.

I just think that, you know, the United Nations should’ve been doing more. All they’ve done is close their eyes on all this. They must’ve seen what was going on. They must see, they must know what’s going on. But they don’t raise their eyebrows to the abuse.

In the Northern Territory — the children that were abused there, they’re only now being mentioned by the UN Human Rights giving the Australian government a stern warning. But what they should’ve done is do that years ago. This has been going on for many, many years. This is not just a one-year off, you know, or a two-year trick.

It should be the community that should decide what should happen to the children. It should be the parents and the whole community to be involved in what they want for their own community and what they want for their own parents, you know, from what they want for their own children. And their housing, their legal services, all that has been cut as you are aware.

‘You never know what fight’s next’
Uncle Shane is a volunteer with GMAR.

GMAR teaches us further stuff as well, which is good. You never know what’s going to come around that corner. You never know what fight’s there for you.

It was only two months ago we held a rally in Campbelltown and we set that up, put it together with everybody and the first time they didn’t bite.

The second time outside the courthouse they bit. At the end I did ring them up and I told them: “We’re gonna keep doing this, we’re gonna keep coming back until the woman’s kids were given back. The next job we’re gonna do after the court case, we’re coming into your office –  And we’re not moving”.

We’ve got a hell of a struggle ahead.

Look at my case. The royal commission said to me, wanted to ask one question: “How the hell…did you survive?” Hope.

And hope’s a dangerous word for people like us. Hope is a very dangerous word. You’re hoping, you’re just praying that you get out of there one day. You know, they could have kept me further – You know, much more than 22 years. And in there, you probably notice, that they did pretend I was 80 percent retarded.

So these are the names you’re left with. The stigma that they put on you. When, if anything, the only thing you don’t have is the education — because of them.

Other Stolen Generation stories on Asia Pacific Report:

More about Grandmothers Against Removal

If you wish to donate to GMAR, click on this link:

Contact | Donate

If you want to sign the petition, click here

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By Muhamad Al Azhari and Eko Prasetyo in Jakarta

Incumbent Jakarta Governor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama’s defeat at the hands of rival candidate Anies Baswedan in the recent runoff election raised alarms among many observers that Indonesia’s young democracy still has a long way to go in combating religious and ethnic discrimination.

However, the capital was calm in the evening after the nail-biting election last month, defusing fears among some residents that mass gatherings or rallies would consume city streets during and in the wake of Wednesday’s vote.

READ MORE: ASEAN lawmakers alarmed at ‘blasphemy’ conviction of Ahok

Investors seemed relieved as well, as the country’s benchmark stock index dropped only slightly the day after the election, with businessmen observing that risks or uncertainties in Indonesian markets were largely dispelled due to the peaceful election turnout.

Indeed, more relief came later in the week, as state prosecutors pushed for reduced charges in a blasphemy case against Jakarta’s first ethnic Chinese and Christian leader in the post-Suharto era.

However, this came to nought when the trial judges ignored the prosecutors and imposed a harsher sentence of two years’ imprisonment on Ahok after finding him “guilty”.

However, rhetoric and methods used by politicians in defeating Ahok have nevertheless raised concerns among local and foreign political observers concerned about the future for democracy in the world’s largest Muslim-majority nation.

Stigma
Poet and senior journalist Goenawan Mohamad wrote a comment on his official Facebook account analysing what the defeat of Ahok – an outspoken governor who often drew ire from his political opponents – could mean for the path ahead.

“Ahok has lost; this has now been settled by the 2017 regional election. All that noise surrounding it will soon become history. Many are relieved ¬ either because Anies has won, or because the campaign, poisoned with hate that shattered many friendships, has finally passed,” said the former editor-in-chief of investigative magazine Tempo.

“But I hope one thing will not be forgotten. Ahok has entered the arena bound in fetters and labeled as ‘a blasphemer’. He can move and talk, but he is not entirely free.

“His achievements as the region’s head, which have been acknowledged by many and made him unparalleled, are now almost no longer seen or heard of.

“The use of the label against Ahok is probably the most successful stigmatisation technique in the history of Indonesian politics. A stigma derived from slander. He did not insult Islam, but the charge had been continuously repeated.

“If you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes ‘the truth,’ the Nazi’s propaganda chief used to say. We hear it at mosques, in social media, in everyday conversations; the allegation has been turned into a conviction,” Goenawan said.

“Now Ahok is tried by the court, charged under the anti-blasphemy law that was produced by the New Order regime ¬ a law with unclear provisions, unclear even on who has the right to represent the religion that had been insulted. As a result of it, Ahok has been treated unjustly in three ways: through slander, by being presumed guilty before the court’s verdict and by being tried under a dubious law.

“It is hypocritical to pretend to recognise this injustice while cheering his immutable political defeat. Ahok has lost, he may even be sentenced in a court process informed by mass pressure. The truth may also lose ¬ as it is wont to do in this ‘post-truth’ era,” Goenawan said.

Identity politics
Concerns over the future of democracy in the Southeast Asian country were shared by foreign observers as well.

Reuters news agency reported that international rating agency Fitch said in a statement previous religious tensions during the Jakarta gubernatorial election could resurface in the run-up to the country’s next presidential race in 2019.

“The early results of the tense Jakarta elections seem to suggest that religious factors could play an increasingly significant role in future Indonesian elections,” the statement said, as cited by Reuters.

Three mass rallies against Ahok were led by hardline Muslim groups in the campaign period before last week’s vote, threatening to erode the country’s longstanding tradition of practising a moderate form of Islam.

However, the rating agency still acknowledged Indonesia’s recent progress, explaining that the country has made “substantial” strides in improving good governance over the past two decades. The country’s democratic electoral processes, the statement said, were still intact.

Still, experts and academics around the world say that religious and ethnic discrimination should be expected to play a greater role in future elections if the government and high-ranking Muslim figures do not take significant steps to promote tolerance.

“Going forward, the politics of religion is going to be a potent force,” Keith Loveard, an analyst at Jakarta-based Concord Consulting and an author of books about Indonesian politics, said in a report on Wednesday.

Reluctant to vote
According to Loveard, some residents may have been reluctant to vote for Ahok due to worries of “five more years of protests on the streets by Muslim hardliners”.

Muhammad Najib Azca, a professor of social and political sciences at Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta, viewed religious and ethnic intolerance as a driving factor in the election’s outcome.

“What happened in Jakarta was an anomaly. Ahok and Djarot were unable to translate their high approval rating […] into real political support,” Najib said.

“There were variables beyond public approval ratings, including strong undertones of religious-based identity politics,” he added.

Najib argued that identity politics has become a main force in driving public opinion, even in the face of successful governance programmes directed by Ahok. “This intervening variable has affected voters through a very sophisticated and elaborate political process.”

Ian Wilson, a lecturer in politics and security studies and a Research Fellow at Murdoch University’s Asia Research Center, said – in an article published by newmandala.org – the election results will most likely have a lasting impact on national politics for years to come.

“Judging from national and international headlines, Jakarta’s gubernatorial election on April 19 represents not just a major turning point for the nation’s capital and city of 12 million, but potentially for the entire country,” he wrote.

“The alarmist tone is largely due to the unsettling direction campaigning has taken over the past eight months, that has seen any possible substantive policy debates over how to best tackle Jakarta’s complex infrastructural, economic and social problems subsumed by sectarian identity politics.”

Economic inequality
Wilson, whose research touches on the political economy of gangs, organised crime and violence in Indonesia, went on to say that: “While the campaigns present, at one level of analysis, a stark contrast between ‘diversity’ on the one hand and sectarian populism on the other, a shared point of commonality is the respective silence regarding a significant shaping force in Jakarta, and arguably the election: rising levels of economic inequality.”

He pointed to data from the country’s Bureau of Statistics – which shows a steady increase in levels of economic inequality in Jakarta – that reflects a broader trend that has been sweeping the nation over the past decade.

“The country’s much-heralded economic growth has been marked by growing concentrations of that wealth in the hands of a few, and a stagnation if not deterioration in the standard of living of a vast majority of Indonesians,” he said.

Wilson also pointed to a 2017 Oxfam report on the widening wealth gap in Indonesia, in which “inequality has been driven by a combination of ‘market fundamentalism,’ high concentrations of land ownership,” and the fact that Indonesia registered the second lowest rate of tax collection in Southeast Asia.

“The poor and precarious bear the most drastic and damaging impacts of economic inequality, though in a densely populated megacity like Jakarta, it is felt by all social and economic classes ¬ albeit in often vastly different ways and with a range of social and political consequences,” he said.

Wilson continued, “For Jakarta’s upper middle classes the desire for security, lifestyle and convenience ¬ together with the push by developers for profitable all-inclusive developments ¬ has meant increasingly self-imposed spatial separation from other social and economic groups within gated estates, apartment towers, shopping malls and private vehicles.”

“Once a city of economically mixed neighborhoods, large parts of the city are spatially divided by class and ethnicity. This can be seen in the city’s north, where remaining kampung sit in uneasy tension alongside luxury apartments and gated communities,” Wilson said.

Old political and business elites emerge
For President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, the election outcome poses a new challenge of rising Islamism and the renewed influence of Indonesia’s old political and business elites in the public sphere.

Many old guard figures have shown support for Anies during the election campaign, including moguls Aburizal Bakrie, Hashim Djojohadikusumo and Hary Tanoesoedibjo and retired general and failed 2014 presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto.

All were prominent businessmen or military officers linked to the three-decade authoritarian regime of Suharto before his ouster in 1998.

Reconciliation
While Jakarta remains hampered by a dizzying array of social and political hurdles, scholar Komaruddin Hidayat, dean of Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University in Banten, Jakarta, called on city residents to eliminate any racial, religious or ethnic intolerance.

“We should eliminate the notion of majority and minority, and the government should establish a way to bridge any gaps through the improvement of people’s welfare,” Komaruddin said.

Komaruddin, a widely known liberal Muslim scholar and author of several books on religious diversity, said minority groups in Indonesia have existed long before the country achieved independence in 1945-48 and have worked hard to personify the ideals of the state ideology, Pancasila.

“Therefore, they should be granted equality in our society and government,” he said.

Indeed, Ahok is not the first Chinese Christian governor of Jakarta. From 1964-65, Hendrik Hermanus Joel Ngantung, known as Henk Ngatung, served as the capital’s chief executive and was instrumental in installing artistic statues and monuments throughout the city as befitted his status as one of the country’s leading painters at that time.

Various reports show that ethnic Chinese, who currently comprise about 15 percent of the country’s population, have historically fought alongside local freedom fighters, known as pribumi, against the Dutch – Indonesia’s colonial masters – and the Japanese.

Sadly, their participation in building modern Indonesia has been expunged from the country’s historical consciousness.

Muhamad Al Azhari and Eko Prasetyoare journalists with the Jakarta Globe. This article includes some news agency content.

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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.

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 village of Ngepas.

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

The books have been donated, but they mainly comprise the collections of some of Australia’s leading activists, such as John Percy, over more than five decades of his life.

Percy was a veteran socialist who co-founded the radical youth organisation Resistance and the Socialist Workers Party in Australia. He edited Direct Action for many years and helped establish Green Left Weekly. He died in 2015 and his passing inspired the library project with Lane, a close friend.

Filling a gap
The progressive book collection will help fill a gap in the literature for young activists and lecturers.

“We think the books are going to be very much put to use because this particular collection is probably still very difficult to find in Indonesia because of 35 years of authoritarian rule. Many books were not allowed, or difficult to be positioned, in libraries,” Lane says.

Under the Suharto regime between 1965 and 1998, book acquisitions for Indonesian school, university and community libraries were “underfunded and, when funded, narrow and censored”.

Lane hopes that ICAL will, in a “small but effective way”, help improve the situation.

“The books will comprise the collections of Australian progressive activists and intellectuals,” he says.

“The complex here is a very nice area to work in. It is less than half an hour from the three main university campuses and we expect university students, lecturers, NGO activists, political activists and others to be using the facilities here.

“It’s almost finished. We are still short of funds — we need US$3000 or $4000 to finish the central part of the library so people can start to use it. And probably another $5000 or $6000 to finish the accommodation area so people can stay over.

Team managing
“So I can say it is 80 percent or 90 percent funded and it will only take one or two months for the builder to complete work on it.”

Dr Max Lane and his wife, Faiza Mardzoeki, will manage the centre. She is one of Indonesia’s leading women playwrights and theatre directors, whose works include the 2006 play Nyai Ontosoroh (Madame Ontosoroh). She will be the day-to-day manager of the library programme.

Their home is a bungalow next door, on the banks of an attractive stream. Dr Lane injected about US$25,000 into the project himself and provided the land on their property.

Between them, Lane and Mardzoeki hope to see the centre become a lively base for creative and cultural activity. Classes, forums, discussions, short course training sessions on a range of topics relating to social sciences and humanities, and literature will be on the bucket list.

Dr Lane introduced the English-speaking world to the celebrated revolutionary Indonesian author Pramoedya Ananta Toer, who was imprisoned by Suharto for a decade on the Maluku island of Buru, by translating his classic Buru Quartet novels, starting with Bumi Manusia (The Earth of Mankind) in 1980. He was an officer working at the Australian Embassy at the time and it was not a popular move among his superiors.

According to an Asymptote profile of Dr Lane by Fadli Fawzi and Nazry Bahrawi, it was a dangerous era.

“At this time, Indonesian president Suharto’s New Order regime (the Partai Golongan Karya — Party of the Functional Groups, known as Golkar) was in power, propped up by foreign investment and backed by the army.

Heavy-handed repression
“It was also when heavy-handed repression was the norm in Southeast Asia, and Suharto’s New Order government was no exception. In the early 1980s, corpses began surfacing in public places as a result of extrajudicial killings.”

This was also a period when the Indonesian military was involved in bloody repression in East Timor after the country was invaded at the end of 1975.

Dr Lane’s own extraordinary literary outputs, apart from his translations, include his Unfinished Revolution: Indonesia Before and After Suharto (2008), Catastrophe in Indonesia (2010), and Unfinished Nation (2014) and collections of poetry.

Currently, Dr Lane is visiting senior fellow at the Institute for Southeast Asia Studies in Singapore. Previously he has lectured at universities across the region, including the University of Sydney in Australia and Gadjah Madah University in Yogyakarta, and internationally.

The ICAL venture will be supported by a membership drive with the original members being invited on the basis of recommendations from of a panel of university professors and social justice activists.

Prospective new members will need to be recommended by two existing members.

More information about ICAL and a donations link is on the centre’s crowdfunding page.

AsiaPacificReport.nz

AsiaPacificReport.nz

By Kendall Hutt in Auckland

A lifelong campaigner for a free and independent West Papua has issued a stark warning to New Zealand politicians as he visits the country this week.

Benny Wenda, a tribal chief of West Papua exiled to the United Kingdom by Indonesia, told Asia Pacific Report that time was running out for West Papua if governments such as New Zealand do not act.

“If we live with Indonesia for another 50 years, we will not be safe. We will not be safe with Indonesia.”

He said the purpose of his visit to New Zealand was to highlight the importance of West Papua returning to its Melanesian family.

“We really need Pacific Islanders, our sisters and brothers across the Pacific – particularly New Zealand and Australia – to bring West Papua back to its Pacific family. Then we can survive. Otherwise, it will be very difficult to survive with Indonesia,” he said.

Since Indonesia took over West Papua following a controversial Act of Free Choice – dubbed by critics as an “Act of no choice” – in 1969, Wenda said his people had suffered.

“Everyday someone is dead, or has been killed, and someone has been stabbed, but no one is brought to justice.”

Human rights violations
In its rush to claim former Dutch colonies in the Asia-Pacific region following West Papua’s self-declared independence from the Netherlands in late 1961, Indonesia has subjected West Papua to continued human rights violations.

Many West Papuans have been imprisoned for non-violent expressions of their political views and widespread allegations of torture have been consistently made against Indonesian authorities.

Raising West Papua’s flag – the Morning Star – can incur 15 years in prison.

Wenda, the 42-year-old founder of the Free West Papua Campaign, has himself been imprisoned, accused of inciting an attack on a police station — despite the fact he was not even in the country at the time.

With foreign media all but denied access to West Papua – despite apparent lifting of restrictions by President Joko Widodo in 2015 – much of Indonesia’s atrocities remain secret, hidden.

It is for these very reasons, Wenda said, that West Papua was fighting.

“We are fighting for our independence, but we are also fighting for our land, our forest, our mountains.”

New Zealand support sought
Wenda is calling for the New Zealand government’s integral commitment to the campaign for a free West Papua.

He said this was because New Zealand had a duty, as a part of the Pacific, to raise awareness of the atrocities in West Papua.

“West Papua is a very close neighbour, so that’s why I hope the New Zealand government will speak more about the human rights situation in West Papua.”

Wenda said it was high time for New Zealand to pull away from its business, trade and investment focus with Indonesia and speak about Indonesia’s human rights abuses.

New Zealand “needs to do more” as a country, he said, because New Zealand is a country which is meant to value human rights, respect the rule of law, freedom of speech and the right to self-determination in other parts of the world.

It is therefore time for New Zealand’s foreign policy on West Papua to change.

“West Papua’s hope is Australia and New Zealand. This is a regional issue, this will never go away from your eyes and this is something you need to look at today. Review your foreign policy and look at West Papua.”

‘We are the gatekeepers’
“Australia and New Zealand need West Papua. We are the gatekeepers, and for security reasons, West Papua is very important,” Wenda said.

Catherine Delahunty, a Green Party MP who has campaigned strongly for West Papua on New Zealand’s political front, echoed Wenda’s views.

“They are insistent – the New Zealand government – that West Papua is part of the territorial integrity of Indonesia, so we can’t get past that critical issue.”

She said she therefore did not have much faith in the current government to step up and was looking for future leadership, such as through the Labour-Greens alliance, to move the campaign for West Papuan self-determination forward on the home front.

“I really do think we need a different government that actually has some fundamental commitment to human rights over and above trade and being part of the US military complex around the world. We have to have change to get change. It’s not going to happen through these guys.”

In her eight years in Parliament, Delahunty said the situation in West Papua was the toughest she had had to face.

“This issue, for me, has been one of the most disturbing things I’ve ever worked on. It’s been one of the most horrible and one of the most powerful examples of the cynical use of power and the way in which people can just completely close their eyes.”

Mainstream media role
Both Wenda and Delahunty said in light of the resounding silence surrounding West Papuan media freedom during Indonesia’s hosting of World Press Freedom Day last week that raising awareness of West Papua was key for the world to finding out about the atrocities there.

The mainstream media had a large role to play in this, both acknowledged.

“West Papua really needs the media in terms of the publicity. Media publicity is very important,” Wenda said.

Wenda said it was time for New Zealand’s mainstream to pick up the baton from smaller, independent news agencies and carry stories of West Papua’s atrocities themselves.

“I really hope the mainstream media here carries this. It’s very important. We need more mainstream media. They really need to pick up on this issue.”

Paris-based Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has reported that it was not unusual for both local and foreign journalists in West Papua to be threatened anonymously or by authorities. Data by the Alliance for Independent Journalists (AJI) has revealed there has been an increase in the number of assaults on journalists in the region over the past two years.

There were 78 violent attacks on journalists in 2016, up from 42 attacks in 2015 and 40 in 2014.

The AJI found only a few attackers from those 78 attacks had been brought to justice.

Only last week, independent photojournalist Yance Wenda was arrested and beaten by police while covering a peaceful demonstration, prompting condemnation from RSF that Indonesia was ‘double-dealing’ over media freedom.

‘Everything swept under the carpet’
Wenda said there was deep-seated inaction on Indonesia’s part because of its prejudice in prosecuting people who have attacked and tortured and beaten both West Papuans and also West Papuan journalists.

“Indonesia is getting away with impunity. Nobody is brought to justice. Everything is swept under the carpet.”

Delahunty reflected, however, that the world was seeing the lack of free and frank reporting play out in West Papua.

“We see the consequences of nearly fifty years of no honesty about West Papua and it’s just up the road. It breaks my heart, but it also fires me up because I really believe there are some very, very brave young people, including journalists, who are committed to this issue and I guess it’s that thing: if you have a voice, use it.”

This was Wenda’s call to an audience gathered at his talk at the Pacific Media Centre-hosted Auckland University of Technology on Tuesday evening.

“Today you are the messengers for West Papua.”

Wenda highlighted a “united” Pacific was key in raising awareness of the “Melanesian genocide” occurring in West Papua.

‘United’ Pacific key
He called on his “brothers and sisters”, but was deeply thankful of the support given already by several Pacific nations for West Papua’s cause.

These nations raised grave concerns regarding human rights violations in West Papua at the 34th session of the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Council in March.

Recent declarations by both the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu were also acknowledged by Wenda.

“We cried for 50 years, but then these countries sacrificed to take on this issue.”

Wenda told the Solomon Islanders and the people of Vanuatu gathered they should “be proud” and that their action was something to “take away in your head and heart”.

Wenda also told the remainder of his audience it was “ordinary people” and “mostly young generations” who were needed to continue the fight, with social media being their greatest tool.

Delahunty added people power and the growing solidarity movement across the globe were also central.

“The only way they’ll speak and respond to this issue at all is if we have growing public pressure and that’s the job of all of us, both inside parliament and outside parliament to raise the issue and to make it something people will feel accountable for, otherwise we just ignore the plight of our neighbours and the killing, torture, environmental desecration and human rights abuses continue.”

Wenda and Delahunty both closed their interviews with a clear message for Indonesia: “Start talking, start listening, and stop thinking that you can ever brow beat people into the dust because you want their resources because in the end, the human spirit doesn’t work like that and these people will never give up. It’s up to us to support them.”

Kendall Hutt is contributing editor of Pacific Media Watch.

AsiaPacificReport.nz

Al Jazeera’s Step Vaessen reports from Jakarta on the sentencing of Ahok to two years in prison for insulting the Quran.

Pacific Media Centre newsdesk

Parliamentarians from across Southeast Asia have expressed concern over the sentencing of Jakarta’s Christian governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, known as “Ahok”, to two years in prison for blasphemy.

“The verdict is deeply disconcerting not only for Indonesia, but for the entire ASEAN region. Indonesia was thought to be a regional leader in terms of democracy and openness,” says Charles Santiago, a member of the Malaysian Parliament and chair of ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights (APHR).

“This decision places that position in jeopardy and raises concerns about Indonesia’s future as an open, tolerant, diverse society.

“Ahok has become a victim of rising extremism and religious identity politics.

“But this decision has impacts beyond justice for one individual. It is a triumph for intolerance and an ominous sign for minority rights.

At a time when fundamental freedoms, including freedom of expression and freedom of religion, are under increasing threat region-wide, this verdict sends the wrong signal to Indonesia’s neighbors in the ASEAN community,” Santiago added.

Ahok, Jakarta’s first Christian governor in five decades, was convicted of blasphemy by an Indonesian court and sentenced to two years in prison yesterday, despite the prosecution in the case having recommended conviction on a lesser charge and no jail time.

He has vowed to appeal the decision.

The charges stemmed from a September campaign speech, in which he invoked a verse from the Quran in criticising the arguments of those who suggested that Muslims could not vote for a Christian leader.

Discussion of the charges and trial dominated coverage of his campaign for reelection, which he lost to rival Anies Baswedan on April 19.

APHR said the ruling could embolden religious hardliners in the country and called into further question Indonesia’s harsh blasphemy law, which permits jail sentences of up to five years for those found guilty.

“This case demonstrates the need for Indonesia to take steps to address rising religious intolerance and revise its legislation to ensure compliance with international human rights standards, including freedom of thought, expression, and belief,” Santiago said.

APHR vice-chair Eva Sundari, a member of the Indonesian House of Representatives, said: “These blasphemy accusations are often used by majority conservative groups to silence political opponents and minorities, and it’s causing Indonesian democracy to move backward.

“ASEAN must find ways to ensure that democracy will not be eroded by religious intolerance and groups that take advantage of religious divisions to pursue political agendas.

“This has already happened in countries like Myanmar, and now we’re seeing the same in Indonesia, which is a barometer of regional democracy.”

AsiaPacificReport.nz

AsiaPacificReport.nz

Tukuraki after the landslide … video by Julie Cleaver.

In January 2012, a small Fijian village on Viti Levu was almost wiped off the map by a deadly landslide. In the same year, the barely recovered village of Tukuraki was hit by Cyclone Evan. Four years later, Tukuraki was devastated once again by the wrath of Tropical Cyclone Winston, scattering the community far and wide across the northwest of the island. The inland village near Ba is now in the process of relocating to a new site. The Pacific Media Centre’s Kendall Hutt and Julie Cleaver travelled to the remote village to find out how the people are adapting.

By Kendall Hutt and Julie Cleaver in Tukuraki, Fiji

Vilimaina Botitu was fast asleep when the earth from a nearby hill tumbled down, burying her uncle’s house in mud, trees, and rock.

Her small Fiji village of just 10 houses, located in the mountainous highlands of Ba, Viti Levu, had been pummelled by rain for a week prior to the landslide in January 2012.

The people of Tukuraki are no strangers to heavy downpours — even as we sit cross-legged on a flax-weaved mat in Botitu’s new temporary home, located just 10km away from the old village, the rain moves in quickly and heavily, seemingly out of nowhere.

But on the day of the landslide, Botitu knew something was wrong.

“I begged Uncle Anare to bring his family to stay with me, because where I live it is safe,” she tells us through tears. “But he didn’t listen. He just said, ‘If God thinks it is my time to go, then I am okay with that.’”

Botitu tells us the ridge behind her uncle’s house was unstable, as it had unknowingly been destabilised by the removal of pine trees from a nearby timber farm above. She says the hill near her place was made of rock and therefore less likely to slip.

Despite this, Uncle Anare was reluctant to move his family to sleep at her house, and that night he, his wife, and two daughters, aged just only six months old and a year-and-a-half, were buried alive in their sleep.

Access to the village via the road was wiped out in the fatal landslide, as was the community’s path to fresh water. The villagers of Tukuraki were subsequently cut-off from the outside world for three days and left to recover the bodies of Anare Taligo and his family themselves.

“It was very hard because there was no machine to help us … so they were struggling to take out the bodies.”

Botitu was in shock. It was hard to imagine that just a few hours ago, she was drinking grog with her uncle, having a good time.

“You know, it was family time, teasing each other, laughing at each other, having fun.”

Now, she was staring at the Taligo’s home, completely covered by mud and rock.

“I didn’t know what to do,” she tells us through tears.

Girls walked to safety
In a grief-filled daze and to keep her two daughters safe, Botitu walked her girls to a nearby cave to take shelter, half-an-hour away from the village. She then rushed back to the village to help the elders who were left behind. Once the bodies of the Taligo family had been recovered, it was Botitu who volunteered to wash them and prepare them for burial.

“The first body out of the mud was their mother. I washed the mother, but we couldn’t see her face. It was black and the tongue was popping out. The two daughters – the eldest one, she was smashed on the head, and the small one, it’s just like she’s sleeping.

“Then at 1.30pm, they took out the father’s body. The father — there were not even any clothes on the body. His hands were covering his ears, I thought maybe for the thunder storm, but his body was good. So I washed them properly, then lay them down in the hall.”

The landslide not only destroyed 50 percent of the village, but also left the community traumatised. Botitu tells us, as we struggle to hold in our own tears, that after the burial ceremony the small village of 10 houses was in shock. It was a sleepless and fearful night for the people of Tukuraki.

“It took me three months for the smell of their bodies to go away, because during the time I bathed them, I didn’t have any gloves. I didn’t use any protection.”

Today, the pain of losing her Uncle, Aunty-in-law and nieces is still fresh.

“When I go to Tukuraki [the old village] I can’t stay there for very long. Every time I go there, as soon as I reach the village, it’s too hard. It brings back too many memories.”

Relocation decision
Due to such damage and loss, the Fijian government made the decision to relocate the Tukuraki community soon after the landslide. This was a unique move, as the past three relocations to take place in Fiji — Vunidogoloa village in the province of Cakaudrove, Yadua in Bua province, and the partial relocation of Vunisavisavi village, also in Cakaudrove — have all taken place due to rising sea levels caused by climate change.

Tukuraki is therefore the first relocation to take place inland.

In early 2014, the site for the new Tukuraki village was gifted to the community by a neighbouring clan. But for the villagers, who were living in makeshift shelters made out of what the landslide left behind, tragedy would strike again only 11 months later, when Cyclone Evan, a category four tropical cyclone, struck them.

Cyclone Evan wiped out what homes and belongings had been salvaged from the landslide at their temporary site, a few kilometres down the road, and also destroyed more of Tukuraki’s livelihood — its crops.

“This place, there’s no working, we just do the farming and sell in the market,” Botitu says.

But despite being in the midst of relocating to a new site, climate change was not quite done with Tukuraki just yet. In 2016 severe Tropical Cyclone Winston destroyed what remained of the small mountainous village. The caves, which had kept Botitu’s daughters safe following the landslide, were the residents of Tukuraki’s only shelter from the wrath of Winston.

“We had a very hard time after the cyclone because everything we owned was lost,” Botitu explains.

Salvaged belongings
What belongings she managed to salvage now sit in boxes in her temporary home. The villagers crops, consisting of vegetables and fruit trees, were once again ruined.

“We used to sit under the mango trees and drink grog,” Botitu reflects, “we led a simple life, but we were rich.”

Six years on from the fatal landslide, the forest and a broken church are all that remain of Tukuraki. But as the buildings of the relocated village near completion, there is hope: the displaced community will have the chance to come together again, something Botitu is looking forward to.

“It gets very lonely up here, with just your family and construction workers around.”

For George Dregaso, project manager of the relocation, seeing the villagers return to a normal way of life is what motivates him.

“I just want to see them become a community again. That’s what really drives me.”

However, the relocation and adapting to climate change has not been an easy journey. Although the people of Tukuraki are grateful for the relocation, the process has been long and gruelling.

“It happened in 2012 and now it’s 2017. For that long period of time we have had to struggle.

“It’s been very challenging for us. It’s taken a very long time.”

Significant setbacks
The relocation project was meant to be completed in November 2016, but has faced significant setbacks due to a shortage of building supplies following Cyclone Winston. Dregaso says the lack of materials is not unique to the project, but “endemic to Fiji as a whole”.

“But we’ve researched and found more building materials.”

The project is now due to be completed in July this year, ending six years of limbo for the Tukuraki community. Sadly, the new village is not without its drawbacks. The relocated village site is mostly bare and Botitu says this is the hardest part about leaving Tukuraki behind.

“The old Tukuraki, it was a nice village. The relocated site just gives us a place to sleep. There is no place to do the farming.”

This means the villagers have to walk approximately 10km across hilly ground to get to their old crops. As we stand on a hill overlooking the site with Dregaso, it is easy to understand Botitu’s disappointment. All of the houses bar one have been completed and the Methodist church is yet to be built, and there are no trees in sight.

Strands of grass are barely visible against the red-brown clay, and the only way to traverse the village easily is in gumboots, which were kindly donated to us by a couple of the contractors.

The only consolation seems to be that the villagers now have access to clean, running water, flushable toilets, showers, and shelter from future storms. The community hall, which doubles as an evacuation centre, can withstand a category five cyclone, meaning the villagers will no longer be forced to take shelter in the caves.

If the reinforcement of the evacuation centre is anything to go by, it is certain the people of Tukuraki, and indeed people across the Pacific, will continue to face head-on the effects of a warming planet.

800 communities hit by climate change
Fiji’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs states that approximately 800 communities within the country have been affected by climate change. In the Pacific alone, the London School of Economics estimates 1.7 million people could be displayed by 2050.

For Fiji’s main island, Viti Levu, home to the village of Tukuraki, the impacts of climate change are expected to cause economic damages of up to F$52 million (NZ$35.7 million) a year. That is four percent of the country’s total gross domestic product.

For Tukuraki, the everyday, ongoing effects of climate change are visible. “It shouldn’t be raining now,” Botitu comments.

She highlights that evenings are hotter than they used to be, meaning her family eats and sleeps later: their lifestyle is changing. Also, every time it rains, the roads are washed out and unusable: if the villagers are not busy in the fields, they are working on the road. As we drove in we passed Botitu’s husband and several other men busy at work on the road, and as the truck’s tires continued to spin uselessly in the loose gravel, it is easy to see why.

Even at lunch, as we sit eating soup filled with noodles, pumpkin, potato, bacon and spinach, surrounded by the contractors, we were warned by Dregaso: “If we don’t leave now, we’ll have to stay the night, maybe for a couple of nights, would you girls be happy with that?”

We left promptly after that and were confronted by a grader and steam roller on the way out. For two city girls from New Zealand, this was a shock, but for the people of Tukuraki, it’s a normal, daily occurrence. It makes the difficulty of accessing the village all the more challenging.

Dregaso tells us that only a month ago Tukuraki was inaccessible for almost three weeks.

Because of this all, the contractors are forced to live on-site, and if it was not for Dregaso bringing up much-needed supplies, such as bags brimming with food and large fuel cans, both the villagers and contractors would be forced to live off what little crops remain.

For Fiji, a giant question mark looms over the future of climate change relocations. Potentially 45 villages have been earmarked for relocation, although Fiji’s Climate Change Unit says this number is not final. These relocations are also not expected to occur within the next five to 10 years.

A source from the Ministry of Economy’s Climate Change Unit says: “I doubt it. Relocation is a long process and quite expensive.”

The source says the Fijian government therefore cannot realistically afford to complete all of these relocations. “It can only be possible with the help of donor funds, financial institutions, and co-finance with the community itself.”

In Fiji, climate change is not coming, it is already there. For Vilimaina Botitu and the community of Tukuraki, global warming is not an idea: it is a lived and daily experience. When asked if she was mad at industrialised countries for changing her way of life, Botitu had no anger, only sadness: “I pray to God that climate change will stop.”

Julie Cleaver and Kendall Hutt are in Fiji for the Bearing Witness project. A collaborative venture between the University of the South Pacific’s journalism programme, the Pacific Centre for the Environment and Sustainable Development (PaCE-SD), the Auckland University of Technology’s Pacific Media Centre and documentary collective Te Ara Motuhenga, Bearing Witness seeks to provide an alternative framing of climate change, focusing on resilience and human rights.

AsiaPacificReport.nz

AsiaPacificReport.nz

Photographs by David Robie and Bernard Agape in Jakarta

The World Press Freedom Day organisers, UNESCO and the Indonesian Press Council, marginalised the highly sensitive issue of West Papuan media and human rights violations in Jakarta last week.

But they failed to silence West Papuan media freedom advocates.

This seminar, at one of the other WPFD cluster of hotels, was a resounding success at raising the issues.

AsiaPacificReport.nz

New Zealand’s Commerce Commission has declined a merger which would have seen two of the country’s largest media outlets merge.

Commerce Commission chairman Dr Mark Berry, in a statement, described the merger as a harmful move to democracy because it would have seen NZME and Fairfax collectively own 90 per cent of the daily newspaper circulation and a majority of traffic to online sources.

“This merger would concentrate media ownership and influence to an unprecedented extent for a well-established modern liberal democracy. The news audience reach that the applicants have provide the merged entity with the scope to control a large share of the news consumed by a majority of New Zealanders.

“This level of influence over the news and political agenda by a single media organisation creates a risk of causing harm to New Zealand’s democracy and to the New Zealand public,” Dr Berry said.

Media plurality, diversity
More importantly, the merger would have spelled the end of media plurality and diversity in the country, the commission warned.

“Our primary concerns remain that this merger would be likely to reduce both the quality of news produced and the diversity of voices (plurality) available for New Zealanders to consume.”

This is due to the fact current, healthy competition between the media outlets would have come to an end.

“In our view, the merged entity’s competitors would not be able to constrain it in any real way from making cost-cutting decisions that reduce quality and plurality.”

The commission did, however, acknowledge that their decision left NZME and Fairfax in a precarious position. The media outlets currently face a challenging commercial environment as they seek to transition from traditional print products to a sustainable online model, the commission noted.

Job cuts looming
“In our view, without the merger NZME and Fairfax will be increasingly focused on their online businesses as their print products diminish in number and comprehensiveness over time,” Dr Berry said.

“We accept there is a real chance the merger could extend the lifespan of some newspapers and lead to significant cost savings anywhere between $40 million to around $200 million over five years. However these benefits do not, in our view, outweigh the detriments we consider would occur if it was to proceed.”

Several hours after the Commerce Commission’s decision, Fairfax’s stuff.co.nz reported job cuts with the owner’s regional papers were likely.

Fairfax’s acting managing director Andrew Boyle stated the no decision on the merger brought into stark reality the need to address what publishing model was sustainable for the company. He was quoted as saying: “Tough decisions will have to be made in terms on ensuring that ongoing viability.”

Declined decision welcome
The Commerce Commission’s decision to reject the merger has been welcomed by Auckland University of Technology’s Centre for Journalism, Media and Democracy (JMAD).

“I think the decision is in the public’s interest if you think that there’s now no single company which controls most of the online and print news assets in New Zealand. So I welcome that decision,” said Merja Myllylahti, JMAD’s project manager.

“I congratulate the Commerce Commission on keeping their head cool and do the best available decision at the time.”

Myllylahti warned however that the decision was not entirely something to be celebrated.

“We should actually remember that there is no winner in this situation. We really shouldn’t gloat and celebrate this because the future of the New Zealand media is actually very gloomy.”

She explained this is because the industry is likely to face “drastic changes” namely in the form of job cuts and closures.

If the merger had gone ahead, Myllylahti said it would have affected media freedom.

“We would have had less competition, less voices, less diversity, less plurality in the market.”

More importantly, the merger would have meant “more junk food news”, Myllylahti added.

Dr Peter Thompson, a senior lecturer in media at Victoria University, shared Myllylahti’s views.

“I think it was absolutely the right ruling, so I congratulate the Commerce Commission in having the courage to uphold its draft determination.

“Ultimately the Commerce Commission has done the right thing in prioritising the interests of the New Zealand public over the interests of Australian shareholders.”

However, Thompson said the commission’s decision highlights that the media in New Zealand is in crisis.

Media in crisis
This was not only down to the fact regional and local papers were under threat from the decision, but also because of weaknesses in current legislation.

The rejected merger therefore represents the opportunity for the government to rethink its regulatory framework, Thompson said.

“This decision makes the Commerce Commission incumbent upon the current government to recognise that our news media are in crisis and they need to look at the regulatory levers available to remedy that.”

Thompson, who is also part of the Coalition for Better Broadcasting, added the controversy over the merger – an “absolutely ridiculous, completely unthinkable scenario” – speaks to the weakness of the Commerce Act.

Both Fairfax and NZME have 20 working days to appeal the ruling and if this happens, Thompson said, a virtual monopoly in the print media sector will be created.

“If it goes to court and the unthinkable happens and the ruling gets overturned, then it’s going to be a very dark day for our news media and it’s going to be a very dark day for democracy in New Zealand and it will underline the urgent need, regardless of the current decision, to revise and review the Commerce Act and to revise and review the overall media regulation settings in New Zealand.”

AsiaPacificReport.nz

“We firmly condemn the police violence against Yance Wenda and we call for an investigation so that both the perpetrators and their superiors, who endorse their brutality, can be brought to justice,” said Benjamin Ismaïl, the head of Reporters San Frontiéres (RSF) Asia-Pacific desk.