ANALYSIS: By Jonathan Cook in Middle East Eye

There should be nothing surprising about the revelation that troops at Sde Teiman, a detention camp set up by Israel in the wake of Hamas’s October 7 attack on southern Israel, are routinely using rape as a weapon of torture against Palestinian inmates.

Last month, nine soldiers from a prison unit, Force 100, were arrested for gang-raping a Palestinian inmate with a sharp object. He had to be hospitalised with his injuries.

At least 53 prisoners are known to have died in Israeli detention, presumed in most cases to be either through torture or following the denial of access to medical care. No investigations have been carried out by Israel and no arrests have been made.

Why should it be of any surprise that Israel’s self-proclaimed “most moral army in the world” uses torture and rape against Palestinians? It would be truly surprising if this was not happening.

After all, this is the same military that for 10 months has used starvation as a weapon of war against the 2.3 million people of Gaza, half of them children.

It is the same military that since October has laid waste to all of Gaza’s hospitals, as well as destroying almost all of its schools and 70 percent of its homes. It is the same military that is known to have killed over that period at least 40,000 Palestinians, with a further 21,000 children missing.

It is the same military currently on trial for genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the highest court in the world.

No red lines
If there are no red lines for Israel when it comes to brutalising Palestinian civilians trapped inside Gaza, why would there be any red lines for those kidnapped off its streets and dragged into its dungeons?

I documented some of the horrors unfolding in Sde Teiman in these pages back in May.

Months ago, the Israeli media began publishing testimonies from whistleblowing guards and doctors detailing the depraved conditions there.

The International Committee of the Red Cross has been denied access to the detention camp, leaving it entirely unmonitored.

The United Nations published a report on July 31 into the conditions in which some 9400 captive Palestinians have been held since last October. Most have been cut off from the outside world, and the reason for their seizure and imprisonment was never provided.

The report concludes that “appalling acts” of torture and abuse are taking place at all of Israel’s detention centres, including sexual violence, waterboarding and attacks with dogs.

The authors note “forced nudity of both men and women; beatings while naked, including on the genitals; electrocution of the genitals and anus; being forced to undergo repeated humiliating strip searches; widespread sexual slurs and threats of rape; and the inappropriate touching of women by both male and female soldiers”.

There are, according to the investigation, “consistent reports” of Israeli security forces “inserting objects into detainees’ anuses”.

Children sexually abused
Last month, Save the Children found that many hundreds of Palestinian children had been imprisoned in Israel, where they faced starvation and sexual abuse.

And this week B’Tselem, Israel’s main human rights group monitoring the occupation, produced a report — titled “Welcome to Hell” — which included the testimonies of dozens of Palestinians who had emerged from what it called “inhuman conditions”. Most had never been charged with an offence.

It concluded that the abuses at Sde Teiman were “just the tip of the iceberg”. All of Israel’s detention centres formed “a network of torture camps for Palestinians” in which “every inmate is intentionally condemned to severe, relentless pain and suffering”. It added that this was “an organised, declared policy of the Israeli prison authorities”.

Tal Steiner, head of the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, which has long campaigned against the systematic torture of Palestinian detainees, wrote last week that Sde Teiman “was a place where the most horrible torture we had ever seen was occurring”.

In short, it has been an open secret in Israel that torture and sexual assault are routine at Sde Teiman.

The abuse is so horrifying that last month Israel’s High Court ordered officials to explain why they were operating outside Israel’s own laws governing the internment of “unlawful combatants”.

The surprise is not that sexual violence is being inflicted on Palestinian captives. It is that Israel’s top brass ever imagined the arrest of Israeli soldiers for raping a Palestinian would pass muster with the public.

Toxic can of worms
Instead, by making the arrests, the army opened a toxic can of worms.

The arrests provoked a massive backlash from soldiers, politicians, Israeli media, and large sections of the Israeli public.

Rioters, led by members of the Israeli Parliament, broke into Sde Teiman. An even larger group, including members of Force 100, tried to invade a military base, Beit Lid, where the soldiers were being held in an attempt to free them.

The police, under the control of Itamar Ben Gvir, a settler leader with openly fascist leanings, delayed arriving to break up the protests. Ben Gvir has called for Palestinian prisoners to be summarily executed — or killed with “a shot to the head” — to save on the costs of holding them.

No one was arrested over what amounted to a mutiny as well as a major breach of security.

Bezalel Smotrich, Israel’s finance minister, helped whip up popular indignation, denouncing the arrests and describing the Force 100 soldiers as “heroic warriors”.

Other prominent cabinet ministers echoed him.

Three soldiers freed
Already, three of the soldiers have been freed, and more will likely follow.

The consensus in Israel is that any abuse, including rape, is permitted against the thousands of Palestinians who have been seized by Israel in recent months — including women, children and many hundreds of medical personnel.

That consensus is the same one that thinks it fine to bomb Palestinian women and children in Gaza, destroy their homes and starve them.

Such depraved attitudes are not new. They draw on ideological convictions and legal precedents that developed through decades of Israel’s illegal occupation. Israeli society has completely normalised the idea that Palestinians are less than human and that any and every abuse of them is allowed.

Hamas’s attack on October 7 simply brought the long-standing moral corruption at the core of Israeli society more obviously out into the open.

In 2016, for example, the Israeli military appointed Colonel Eyal Karim as its chief rabbi, even after he had declared Palestinians to be “animals” and had approved the rape of Palestinian women in the interest of boosting soldiers’ morale.

Religious extremists, let us note, increasingly predominate among combat troops.

Compensation suit dismissed
In 2015, Israel’s Supreme Court dismissed a compensation suit from a Lebanese prisoner that his lawyers submitted after he was released in a prisoner swap. Mustafa Dirani had been raped with a baton 15 years earlier in a secret jail known as Facility 1391.

Despite Dirani’s claim being supported by a medical assessment from the time made by an Israeli military doctor, the court ruled that anyone engaged in an armed conflict with Israel could not make a claim against the Israeli state.

Meanwhile, human and legal rights groups have regularly reported cases of Israeli soldiers and police raping and sexually assaulting Palestinians, including children.

A clear message was sent to Israeli soldiers over many decades that, just as the genocidal murder of Palestinians is considered warranted and “lawful”, the torture and rape of Palestinians held in captivity is considered warranted and “lawful” too.

Understandably, there was indignation that the long-established “rules” — that any and every atrocity is permitted — appeared suddenly and arbitrarily to have been changed.

The biggest question is this: why did the Israeli military’s top legal adviser approve opening an investigation into the Force 100 soldiers — and why now?

The answer is obvious. Israel’s commanders are in panic after a spate of setbacks in the international legal arena.

‘Plausible’ Gaza genocide
The ICJ, sometimes referred to as the World Court, has put Israel on trial for committing what it considers a “plausible” genocide in Gaza.

Separately, it concluded last month that Israel’s 57-year occupation is illegal and a form of aggression against the Palestinian people. Gaza never stopped being under occupation, the judges ruled, despite claims from its apologists, including Western governments, to the contrary.

Significantly, that means Palestinians have a legal right to resist their occupation. Or, to put it another way, they have an immutable right to self-defence against their Israeli occupiers, while Israel has no such right against the Palestinians it illegally occupies.

Israel is not in “armed conflict” with the Palestinian people. It is brutally occupying and oppressing them.

Israel must immediately end the occupation to regain such a right of self-defence — something it demonstrably has no intention to do.

Meanwhile, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), the ICJ’s sister court, is actively seeking arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Defence Minister, Yoav Gallant, for war crimes.

The various cases reinforce each other. The World Court’s decisions are making it ever harder for the ICC to drag its feet in issuing and expanding the circle of arrest warrants.

Countervailing pressures
Both courts are now under enormous, countervailing pressures.

On the one side, massive external pressure is being exerted on the ICJ and ICC from states such as the US, Britain and Germany that are prepared to see the genocide in Gaza continue.

And on the other, the judges themselves are fully aware of what is at stake if they fail to act.

The longer they delay, the more they discredit international law and their own role as arbiters of that law. That will give even more leeway for other states to claim that inaction by the courts has set a precedent for their own right to commit war crimes.

International law, the entire rationale for the ICJ and ICC’s existence, stands on a precipice. Israel’s genocide threatens to bring it all crashing down.

Israel’s top brass stand in the middle of that fight.

They are confident that Washington will block at the UN Security Council any effort to enforce the ICJ rulings against them — either a future one on genocide in Gaza or the existing one on their illegal occupation.

No US veto at ICC
But arrest warrants from the ICC are a different matter. Washington has no such veto. All states signed up to the ICC’s Rome Statute – that is, most of the West, minus the US — will be obligated to arrest Israeli officials who step on their soil and to hand them over to The Hague.

Israel and the US had been hoping to use technicalities to delay the issuing of the arrest warrants for as long as possible. Most significantly, they recruited the UK, which has signed the Rome Statute, to do their dirty work.

It looked like the new UK government under Keir Starmer would continue where its predecessor left off by tying up the court in lengthy and obscure legal debates about the continuing applicability of the long-dead, 30-year-old Oslo Accords.

A former human rights lawyer, Starmer has repeatedly backed Israel’s “plausible” genocide, even arguing that the starvation of Gaza’s population, including its children, could be justified as “self-defence” — an idea entirely alien to international law, which treats it as collective punishment and a war crime.

But now with a secure parliamentary majority, even Starmer appears to be baulking at being seen as helping Netanyahu personally avoid arrest for war crimes.

The UK government announced late last month that it would drop Britain’s legal objections at the ICC.

That has suddenly left both Netanyahu and the Israeli military command starkly exposed — which is the reason they felt compelled to approve the arrest of the Force 100 soldiers.

Top prass pretexts
Under a rule known as “complementarity”, Israeli officials might be able to avoid war crimes trials at The Hague if they can demonstrate that Israel is able and willing to prosecute war crimes itself. That would avert the need for the ICC to step in and fulfil its mandate.

The Israeli top brass hoped they could feed a few lowly soldiers to the Israeli courts and drag out the trials for years. In the meantime, Washington would have the pretext it needed to bully the ICC into dropping the case for arrests on the grounds that Israel was already doing the job of prosecuting war crimes.

The patent problem with this strategy is that the ICC isn’t primarily interested in a few grunts being prosecuted in Israel as war criminals, even assuming the trials ever take place.

At issue is the military strategy that has allowed Israel to bomb Gaza into the Stone Age. At issue is a political culture that has made starving 2.3 million people seem normal.

At issue is a religious and nationalistic fervour long cultivated in the army that now encourages soldiers to execute Palestinian children by shooting them in the head and chest, as a US doctor who volunteered in Gaza has testified.

At issue is a military hierarchy that turns a blind eye to soldiers raping and sexually abusing Palestinian captives, including children.

The buck stops not with a handful of soldiers in Force 100. It stops with the Israeli government and military leaders. They are at the top of a command chain that has authorised war crimes in Gaza for the past 10 months – and before that, for decades across the occupied territories.

What is at stake
This is why observers have totally underestimated what is at stake with the rulings of the ICC and ICJ.

These judgments against Israel are forcing out into the light of day for proper scrutiny a state of affairs that has been quietly accepted by the West for decades. Should Israel have the right to operate as an apartheid regime that systematically engages in ethnic cleansing and the murder of Palestinians?

A direct answer is needed from each Western capital. There is nowhere left to hide. Western states are being presented with a stark choice: either openly back Israeli apartheid and genocide, or for the first time withdraw support.

The Israeli far-right, which now dominates both politically and in the army’s combat ranks, cares about none of this. It is immune to pressure. It is willing to go it alone.

As the Israeli media has been warning for some time, sections of the army are effectively now turning into militias that follow their own rules.

Israel’s military commanders, on the other hand, are starting to understand the trap they have set for themselves. They have long cultivated fascistic zealotry among ground troops needed to dehumanise and better oppress Palestinians living under Israeli occupation. But the war crimes proudly being live-streamed by their units now leave them exposed to the legal consequences.

Israel’s international isolation means a place one day for them in the dock at The Hague.

Israeli society’s demons exposed
The ICC and ICJ rulings are not just bringing Israeli society’s demons out into the open, or those of a complicit Western political and media class.

The international legal order is gradually cornering Israel’s war machine, forcing it to turn in on itself. The interests of the Israeli military command are now fundamentally opposed to those of the rank and file and the political leadership.

The result, as military expert Yagil Levy has long warned, will be an increasing breakdown of discipline, as the attempts to arrest Force 100 soldiers demonstrated all too clearly.

The Israeli military juggernaut cannot be easily or quickly turned around.

The military command is reported to be furiously trying to push Netanyahu into agreeing on a hostage deal to bring about a ceasefire — not because it cares about the welfare of Palestinian civilians, or the hostages, but because the longer this “plausible” genocide continues, the bigger chance the generals will end up at The Hague.

Israel’s zealots are ignoring the pleas of the top brass. They want not only to continue the drive to eliminate the Palestinian people but to widen the circle of war, whatever the consequences.

That included the reckless, incendiary move last month to assassinate Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Iran — a provocation with one aim only: to undermine the moderates in Hamas and Tehran.

If, as seems certain, Israel’s commanders are unwilling or incapable of reining in these excesses, then the World Court will find it impossible to ignore the charge of genocide against Israel and the ICC will be compelled to issue arrest warrants against more of the military leadership.

A logic has been created in which evil feeds on evil in a death spiral. The question is how much more carnage and misery can Israel spread on the way down.

Jonathan Cook is a writer, journalist and self-appointed media critic and author of many books about Palestine. Winner of the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. Republished from the author’s blog with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

COMMENTARY: By Qadura Fares

On August 3, last Saturday, prisoner rights institutions and Palestinians all around the world were standing in solidarity with Gaza and Palestininian prisoners. This day is dedicated to highlighting Israeli crimes and violations of Palestinian prisoners’ rights and the continuing genocide in Gaza.

The machinery of brutality that punishes and tortures in secrecy in Israeli prisons must be brought to light.

Since October 7, Palestinian detainees have faced horrific crimes.

Shortly after Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant announced that Israel was cutting off food, water, electricity and fuel to Gaza, effectively announcing the start of the genocide, Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir launched his own war against Palestinian political prisoners and detainees held in Israeli jails and camps, by declaring a policy of “overcrowding”.

Since then, the Israeli army and security services have launched mass arrest campaigns, which have swelled the number of Palestinian citizens from the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem to 9800.

At least 335 women and 680 children have been arrested. More than 3400 have been put under administrative detention — that is, they are held indefinitely without charge. Among them, there are 22 women and 40 children.

There has never been such a high number of administrative detainees since 1967.

Gaza arrests number unknown
Israel has also arrested an unknown number of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, possibly exceeding thousands, according to our humble estimates. They are held under the 2002 “Incarceration of Unlawful Combatants Law”, which allows the Israeli army to detain people without issuing a detention order.

Israeli prisons cut food rations for Palestinians to the point of starvation since 7 Oct.

Testimonies of freed prisoners reveal that Israeli authorities rapidly converted more than a dozen prison facilities into a network of torture camps for Palestinian detainees. >> pic.twitter.com/BzciJGfzGY

— B’Tselem בצלם بتسيلم (@btselem) August 7, 2024

Under Ben-Gvir’s orders, the already grave conditions in Israeli prisons have been made even worse. The prison authorities sharply reduced food rations and water, closing down the small shops where Palestinian detainees could purchase food and other necessities.

They also cut off water and power and even reduced the time allocated to using the restrooms. Prisoners are also prohibited from showering, which has resulted in the spread of diseases, especially skin-related ones like scabies.

There have been reports of Palestinian prisoners being deprived of medical care.

The systematic malnutrition and dehydration Palestinian prisoners are facing has taken a toll. The few that are released leave detention centres in horrific physical condition.

Even the Israeli Supreme Court ruled that such weaponisation of food is “unacceptable”.

The use of torture, including rape and beatings, has become widespread. There have been shocking reports about prison guards urinating on detainees, torturing them with electric shock and using dogs to sexually assault them.

Human shield detainees
There have been even testimonies of Israeli forces using detainees as human shields during combat in Gaza.

The systemic use of torture and other ill-treatment has predictably gone as far as extrajudicial killings.

According to a recent report by Hebrew daily Haaretz, 48 Palestinians have died in detention centres. Among them is Thaer Abu Asab, who was brutally beaten by Israeli prison guards in Ketziot Prison, and died of his injuries at the age of 38.

According to Haaretz, 36 Gaza detainees have also died in the Sde Teiman camp. Testimonies from Israeli medical staff working at the detention centre have revealed horrific conditions for Palestinians held there.

Detainees are reportedly often operated on without anaesthesia and some have had to have their limbs amputated because they were shackled even when sleeping or receiving treatment.

Palestinians who have been released have said what they were subject to was more horrific than what they had heard took place at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo detention centres, where American forces tortured and forcibly disappeared Arabs and other Muslim men.

They have also testified that some detainees were killed through torture and severe beatings. One prisoner from Bethlehem, Moazaz Obaiat, who was released in July, has alleged that Ben-Gvir personally took part in torturing him.

Denied lawyer, family visits
Israeli authorities have denied prisoners visits by lawyers, family, and even medics, including the International Committee of the Red Cross. They have carried out acts of collective punishment, destroying the homes of their families, arresting their relatives and holding them hostage, and illegally transferring some to secret detention camps and military bases without disclosing their fate, which constitutes the crime of enforced disappearance.

Despite condemnations from various human rights orgaisations, Ben-Gvir and the rest of the Israeli governing coalition have doubled down on these policies. “[Prisoners] should be killed with a shot to the head and the bill to execute Palestinian prisoners must be passed in the third reading in the Knesset […]

“Until then, we will give them minimal food to survive. I don’t care,” Ben-Gvir said on July 1.

Electric shocks, rape, and torture to death.. Palestinian detainees in Israeli prisons face serious violations, with some families receiving news of their deaths weeks later.

Euro-Med Monitor regularly documents dozens of testimonies from released Palestinian detainees and… pic.twitter.com/o04T1JS9bG

— Euro-Med Monitor (@EuroMedHR) August 7, 2024

By using mass detention, Israel, the occupying power, has systematically destroyed Palestinian social, economic and psychological fabric since 1967. Over one million Palestinians have been arrested since then, thousands have been held hostage for extended periods under administrative detention and 255 detainees have died in Israeli prisons.

Israeli crimes against the Palestinians did not begin in October 2023, but are a continuation of a systematic process of ethnic cleansing, forced displacement and apartheid that began even before 1948.

But Israel’s colonial regime overlooks the Palestinian people’s resilience. Inspired by the experiences of the free nations of Ireland, South Africa and Vietnam, we draw strength from our determination to achieve our right to self-determination, freedom and independence.

This is why on this day, August 3, we urged the world to collectively protest against Israeli occupation crimes and racist laws and we call on governments to uphold their legal duties to prevent such crimes from happening.

Political prisoners solidarity
We also called on unions, universities, parliaments and political parties to effectively participate in large-scale events, demonstrations and digital campaigns in solidarity with Palestinian political prisoners.

The international community should hold the occupying power to account by imposing a complete arms embargo on it, applying economic sanctions, and suspending its UN membership.

They should also nullify bilateral agreements, and halt Israel’s participation in international forums and events until it abides by international law and human rights. The international community must compel Israel to protect civilians according to its obligations as an occupying power.

Israel must also reveal the identities and conditions of people it has forcibly disappeared. We demand an end to arbitrary and administrative detention policies. The bodies of those who have died inside and outside prisons must also be released, and all prisoners must receive legal protection.

Israel, the occupying power, is under the obligation to allow special rapporteurs, United Nations experts, and the International Criminal Court prosecutor to visit Palestine, inspect prisons and deliver justice for the victims, including material and moral compensation.

Israel must not be allowed to get away with these horrific crimes.

This article was first published on Café Pacific.

Family members keep silent on the issue of violence in Fiji and individuals continue to be the victims, according to Jonathan Veitch, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) representative to the South Pacific.

While raising his concern on the issue at Nasinu Gospel Primary School on Friday, he said 83 percent of children in Fiji had reported some level of violence, either in their family or in school over the past six months.

“This 83 percent rate is far too high, and it’s not acceptable,” he said.

“The problem is that when the violence is happening, there’s kind of a curtain of silence.”

Visiting UNICEF executive director Catherine Russell said although legal processes should be ensured, it was also important to acknowledge the rehabilitation process for the victim to deal with the trauma.

Speaking during a student-led press conference at Nasinu Gospel Primary School, Veitch expressed his concern about the alarming rate of violence against women and children in Fiji, whether physical or sexual.

“You (Fiji) do have high rates of violence against children,” Veitch said.

“This (83 percent rate) is far too high, and it’s not acceptable.

‘Curtain of silence’
“The problem is that when the violence is happening, there’s kind of a curtain of silence.”

He said it was common in Fiji for family members to keep silent on the issue of violence while individuals continued to be victimised.

“If that particular person has to be stopped, we have to deal with it in our village.

“So, it’s not just UNICEF and the Government; it’s also the village itself.”

Veitch said significant pillars of communities must be involved in key conversations.

“We really need to talk about it in our churches on Sundays; we have to have an honest conversation about it.

“These kids shouldn’t be hurt; they shouldn’t be punished physically.”

Multifaceted approach
He said the issue should be dealt with through a multifaceted approach.

Visiting UNICEF executive director Catherine Russell expressed similar concerns and called for a change in norms.

“It requires government leadership and good laws,” she said.

“It requires the government to come together and say that this is a priority where violence against children is unacceptable.”

She said conversations regarding the matter needed to focus on changing the norms of what was acceptable and unacceptable in a community.

“A lot of times this issue is kept in the dark and not talked about, and I think it’s very important to have those conversations.”

She said although legal processes should be ensured, it was also important to acknowledge the rehabilitation process for the victims to deal with the trauma.

She added that society played a role in condemning violence against women and ensuring they were safe in their homes and in their communities.

Russell said while most cases were directed at men, there was a need to train the mindset of young boys to change their perspective of using violence as a solving mechanism.

Sainimili Magimagi is a Fiji Times reporter. Republished with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Hawai’ian academic Dr Emalani Case has condemned the 2024 Rimpac military exercise that began off the coast of Hawai’i today, saying the military personnel from 29 countries taking part are “practising to invade”.

“They call it practising defence but they’re really learning how to defend an empire while putting indigenous people at risk,” she said.

Hawai’i has been heavily impacted on by militarisation.

Dr Case, a senior lecturer at Auckland University, said her people had had to deal with military harm and damage to their people and environment for more than 100 years.

The kingdom of Hawai’i was invaded by the US in 1893. The monarchy was overthrown, and the islands have stayed under US control since, with several large military bases.

Dr Case said the military made it a hard place to live when the land and people were routinely dismissed and disregarded.

The US Navy had publicly said it was committed to the environment and reducing harm.

Nonetheless, it had had a highly destructive track record when it came to pollution and environmental harm, she said.

For example, SINKEX was an activity during Rimpac where various navies shoot ammunition at decommissioned ships off the coast of Kauai island.

Dr Case told Te Ao Māori News, “The ships just sink and they leave them there. So there are toxins leaking out into our ocean.”

Anti-war groups demand end to war games as Rimpac begins.  Video: Hawai’i News Now

Tourism paradise?
Te Ao Maōri News asked Dr Case why Hawai’i was known as a “paradise” tourist destination but many people did not know about the violent history.

Dr Case referenced the works of the late Dr Teresia Teaiwa, an I-Kiribati and African-American scholar, who had said tourism and military worked together to dispossess and displace Hawai’ians.

“‘Militourism’ is a phenomenon by which a military or paramilitary force ensures the smooth running of a tourist industry, and that same tourist industry masks the military force behind it.”

— Teresia Teaiwa

Tourism masked the military violence by placing a flower over it, or a swinging hula girl, Dr Case said.

“[Hawai’i] is beautiful but the US military is one of the biggest abusers of that beauty.”

The people of Hawai’i were often left behind and focus placed on tourists, yet residents were without enough water or resources to house and care for the people. Dr Case said this explained the “enormous diaspora of Kānaka Maoli” living outside Hawai’i.

“We cannot be thinking about relying on the 25,000 personnel who are going to be coming, bringing their dollars, but also bringing their violence, bringing the increase in sex trafficking, bringing in an increase in violence against women.”

The only year there was not an increase in sex trafficking and violence during Rimpac was in 2020 because of the covid-19 pandemic, which downscaled Rimpac and meant military personnel were not able to go ashore, she said.

“That’s what they’re bringing to our islands.”

Violent attack on akua
Kānaka Maoli say they have a spiritual and genealogical connection to the oceans and lands. This includes Kanaloa and Papahānaumoku, the gods of ocean and earth, which is similar to Tangaroa and Papatūānuku in Aotearoa.

Papahānaumoku is the akua in Hawai’i that births their moku, islands.

“Any assaults against our akua, our gods, is an assault against us, it’s an assault against our whakapapa, it’s an assault against everything that we stand for,” Dr Case said.

Dr Case grew up and her whānau still live in Waimea, 45 minutes from Pōhakuloa, one of the largest military training facilities. She grew up feeling and hearing bombs all the time.

“I grew up hearing and feeling bombs all the time and it’s a kind of pain you don’t ever want to experience because you know what’s happening to Papa, what’s happening to your family. We view land, mountains, rivers, ocean as family.”

— Emalani Case

Rimpac and Palestine, West Papua and Kanaky
Rimpac was an international issue, Dr Case said, and a gateway event.

“We’ve got to think about these colonial nations coming together to train and provide so-called security and safety to the world while really putting all of us at risk, who have never been deemed human enough to be worthy of that same safety and security,” she said.

The nations participating in Rimpac include Israel and Indonesia.

Dr Case said her homeland was being turned into a training ground for “imperial genocidal regimes” which learned, practised and honed their skills to then commit genocide in Palestine and West Papua.

She also cited the participation of France, which had no proximity to the Pacific but had “oppressed Pacific brothers and sisters in the French-occupied Kanaky”.

“Militarism is upheld by and supports settler colonialism. It supports white supremacy.”

Dr Case said calling for an end to Rimpac and demanding that New Zealand withdraw was not just about saving Hawai’i.

She said boycotting Rimpac was about peace, demilitarisation, decolonisation and climate justice.

“The US military is one of the largest contributors of pollutants into the environment.”

Rimpac and FestPAC
Dr Case was in Hawai’i for Protecting Oceania, part of FestPAC — the festival of Pacific arts and culture hosted by Hawai’i this year.

She said there was a lot of discussion about Rimpac during Protecting Oceania.

“Rimpac and FestPAC didn’t happen at the exact same time but it’s interesting to think about the convergence of these cultural celebrations and violent military detonations around the same time, in the same waters, and on the same land.”

She was pleased to see people holding banners saying “STOP RIMPAC” in the closing ceremony at FestPAC. She said culture and politics went hand in hand.

Te Aniwaniwa Paterson is a digital producer for Te Ao Māori News. This article is republished with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Pacific Media Watch

A controversial report by a French metropolitan not-for-profit about sexual and sexist violence in France’s overseas territories — including Kanaky New Caledonia — has had its findings reported in mainstream French media, stirring strong criticism by Kanak social justice and human rights advocates.

The report has led to a condemnation and accusations of “colonialism and racism” in an open letter directed at the NGO, En Avant Toute(s), and two mainstream media outlets that carried news about the findings, France 24 and France Info.

“It is really about journalism, feminism, and decolonisation of knowledge production,” says an Pacific Media Watch correspondent about the issue.

“The problem is the organisation didn’t actually travel to New Caledonia. Instead, they conducted phone interviews with a select, small group of NGOs in New Caledonia’s Southern Province, leading to comments in the media about Kanak tradition and sexual abuse which were wrong.”

The open letter, sent to Asia Pacific Report, says:

We are gathering to send you this letter on the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples, which aims to raise awareness among the public on the problems faced by Indigenous people.

Our approach is first rooted in our need to denounce the severity of the lies that have been mediatised and to minimise the harm done, but also to educate on the struggles of Indigenous peoples and the fight against sexual and sexist oppression, specifically in a colonial context, and so that the tools and resources that are deployed in these struggles serve the people who are affected first and foremost.

We are Indigenous, Kanak, French, women, men, people from Kanaky/New Caledonia committed to social justice in our country at a personal level, professional level, but also as volunteers, advocates and militants in associations.

Recently, we have come across the report “Des ponts entre les territoires d’outre-mer et l’hexagone” (“Bridges between overseas territories and the hexagone”) through French hexagonal media [the hexagon is a synonym for metropolitan France].

This report was produced by the French association named En Avant Toute(s) and it attempts to explore the contexts of the French overseas territories when it comes to sexual and sexist violence against women and LGBTQIA+ people.

It also assesses the needs for their chat service, currently mostly operating in hexagonal France. We are alarmed by two main points: 1/ Misinformation in the media; 2/ How weak the report is as well as its colonial approach, which shows a lack of understanding of French overseas territories, and of Kanaky/New Caledonia more specifically, since that is what affects us.

Misinformation in the media
In an interview published on July 12, 2023 by France Info, Aurélie Garnier-Brun declared: “customary law [is] being superimposed on common law.

“What will the victims turn to? Customary law or common law?… It is not the same text. Customary law is based on ancestral practices. Sometimes, victims must apologize to their perpetrator to settle conflicts within a clan.’”

This information is shared once again in an interview published on July 29, 2023 by France 24 in which Garnier-Brun indicates that “in New Caledonia, the co-existence of common law and customary law can represent a risk factor for women in terms of their exposure to violence” and that “some Kanak tribes have traditions which demand that the victims of violence ask their perpetrators’ for forgiveness”.

We would like to ask you the following questions: What are these allegations based on? This is a scoop that Kanak women and men are finding out about with surprise and horror from our dear islands on which you have not had the pleasure to set foot on to conduct your research.

What do you know about our traditions, about Kanak culture, about the stakes at play in the coexistence of customary and common law? What do you even know about violence against women in Kanaky/New Caledonia to draw such dangerous conclusions, make them into statements easily shareable by French media, which don’t even seriously fact check the information, especially when we know how important and worrying the topic of violence against women is?

Kanak custom condemns violence against women, and does not protect perpetrators, contrary to what is suggested in these interviews.

Then, in an interview published on July 18, 2023 by Causette magazine, la Case Juridique Kanak (ACJK) is described as a “local religious community”. For your information, the ACJK is an association of volunteer lawyers who are mobilised around questions of customary law. Therefore, it is not a “local religious community” as the interview suggests.

It is clear, and we regret it, that these declarations belong to a time we wished was in the past, but apparently persists since it is resurfacing through your narrative. It is part of a discourse that suggests that Indigenous and colonised peoples, including the Kanak people, supposedly have backward traditions, unaligned with Western civilisation, which is seen as the reference, given that it is supposedly more advanced on the question of gender equality.

The mediatisation of this type of discourse is an insult, an example of colonial ignorance, a major contribution to misinformation and the reproduction of a backward, discriminatory, racist and colonial vision of the French overseas territories. Consequently, this misinformation makes us question:

Firstly, the legitimacy of the En Avant Toute(s) representatives to speak about sexual and sexist violence in the overseas territories, and more specifically, in Kanaky/New Caledonia;

Secondly, the fact that this information is shared by French media without any control or verification with knowledge holders in the country.

The production of colonial knowledge
En Avant Toute(s) is clear in its motivations. As is indicated in a publication made on the association’s Linkedin page, one of the objectives of the report was to analyze the situation in the overseas territories to think about the implementation of their chat service Commentonsaime.fr in our territories.

En Avant Toute(s) did not travel to our countries but spoke to some associations through videoconferences. When it comes to Kanaky/New Caledonia, En Avant Toute(s) was in contact with two associations: Le Relais and Centre d’Information Droit des Femmes et Egalité (CIDFE), both associations based and funded by the Southern Province, one of the three provinces in the country.

According to us, having only spoken to a small number of associations, En Avant Toute(s) is not in a position to produce an empirical, informed and critical report, which would allow a better understanding of violence perpetrated against young women and the LGBTQIA+ community in Kanaky/New Caledonia.

For this to be the case, they should have been in conversation with many more actors and partners across the country, to have a more extensive and representative sample.

Looking at the lack of sufficient data and the primary aim which was to analyse different overseas contexts to assess the possible implementation of the chat service, it seems that calling the document a “report” is a little ambitious, if not inappropriate.

The approach does not come from our territories and is not led or co-produced with local populations or associations. It would be more appropriate to speak of the beginning of a market research or a feasibility survey. Here, words matter, since the publication of a report confers authority and suggests expertise.

However, in our context, we do not think that En Avant Toute(s) is able to speak about sexual or sexist violence in Kanaky/New Caledonia in the media, nor to produce a report on the topic. We would like to invite the members of En Avant Toute(s) who have participated to this survey as well as the media who have participated to its legitimisation to think about the conditions that authorise individuals who have never set foot on, nor are implicated in, our territories, to publish “reports” and be interviewed by national media as experts of our contexts.

In addition, we condemn that the launch of the so-called report took place in hexagonal [mainland] France and that many associations committed to the struggle against sexual and sexist violence in our country were not invited to participate.

Indeed, we only learnt about this study through the media. We denounce this type of colonial practices, where resources are extracted from our territories so that organisations, companies, associations in France can benefit from them, without us being directly implicated.

We understand that the stakes are the possible implementation of a tool which would complement what is already in place to tackle sexual and sexist violence in our territories, and that the intention is commendable. Nevertheless, without any real collaboration with the most affected and informed people, we remain sceptical of its possible results.

We also cannot be convinced of the efficacy of such a tool when we have no information regarding the performance of the chat service in hexagonal France, nor any about the ways in which En Avant Toute(s) would adapt it to our territories.

Faced with these alarming observations and in order to minimise the harm done to the Kanak people in the name of tribal Kanak women, whose voices are absent from the report and in the media, here are our demands:

• A statement written by En Avant Toute(s) to be published on all their social media platforms and on their website, which would refute the declarations made in relation to a so-called Kanak tradition that would require victims of sexual violence to ask their perpetrators for forgiveness in some tribes;
• The deletion of this misinformation in the interviews published by France Info and France 24, with an explanatory note; and
• A right of reply in the media that published this information, France Info and France 24, in order to deny these harmful declarations and enable the women who are involved in the struggle against sexist and sexual violence in Kanaky/New Caledonia to have their voices heard nationally.

Our primary aim remains social justice in our country, and it is only attainable if we pay attention to all the axes of oppression, including the ways in which colonialism and racism play a significant role in the oppression of women.

Racism and colonialism also impact [on] our relations as militants, advocates, members of feminist associations, and particularly when it comes to North/South and Hexagone/Overseas territories relations.

This requires that for all collaborative work with associations, groups and collective that are not based in our territories, there is a shared understanding of our historical and political contexts and of the power dynamics at play, an attention paid to not reproducing harmful discourses which participate in the silencing of colonised women, and the consideration of people who are involved in and from our territories as the most suitable to speak about the issues they face and struggle against.

Signatories
La Pause Décoloniale (Kanaky/Nouvelle-Calédonie)
Union des Femmes Francophones d’Océanie (UFFO) NC (Kanaky/Nouvelle-Calédonie)
Arnaud Chollet-Leakava, Porte-Parole du Mouvement des Océaniens Indépendantistes (MOI) (Kanaky/Nouvelle-Calédonie)
Oriane Trolue, Chargée de la condition féminine de politique décoloniale du Mouvement des Océaniens Indépendantistes (MOI) (Kanaky/Nouvelle-Calédonie)
Hugues Vhemavhe, Sénateur Coutumier de l’Aire Hoot Ma Whaap (Kanaky/Nouvelle-Calédonie)
Rolande Trolue, feminist and resource person (Kanaky/Nouvelle-Calédonie)
Fara Caillard, Marche Mondiale des Femmes (Kanaky/Nouvelle-Calédonie)
Billy Wete, pastor (Kanaky/Nouvelle-Calédonie)
Morgane Lepeu ép. Goromoedo (Kanaky/Nouvelle-Calédonie)
Denis Pourawa, Kanak poet-writer (Kanaky/Nouvelle-Calédonie)
Teva Avae, artist (Kanaky/Nouvelle-Calédonie)
Ronny Kareni, West Papua Merdeka Support Network & Rise of the Morning Star (West Papua)
Florenda Nirikani, Militante Éducation Populaire CEMEA Pwârâ Wâro (Kanaky/Nouvelle-Calédonie)
Virginie Murcia, president of the Union des Groupements Parents d’Élèves UGPE (Kanaky/Nouvelle-Calédonie)
Doriane Nonmoira, Union des Femmes Francophone d’Océanie (Kanaky/Nouvelle-Calédonie)
Wendy Nonke, Mouvement pour un Souriant Village Mélanésien (Kanaky/Nouvelle-Calédonie)
Patrick Tara (Kanaky/Nouvelle-Calédonie)
Justine-Rose Boaé Kéla (Kanaky/Nouvelle-Calédonie)
Swänn Iché (Kanaky/Nouvelle-Calédonie)
Laurent Lhermitte, Les Insoumis du Pacifique (Kanaky/Nouvelle-Calédonie)
Raïssa Weiri (Kanaky/Nouvelle-Calédonie)
Marie-Rose Yakobo, student (Kanaky/Nouvelle-Calédonie)
Yvette Danguigny, Association Natte Kanak (Kanaky/Nouvelle-Calédonie)
Nathanaëlle Maleko (Kanaky/Nouvelle-Calédonie)
David Robert, Union Calédonienne (Kanaky/Nouvelle-Calédonie)
Alexia Babin (Kanaky/Nouvelle-Calédonie)
Pierre Chanel Nonmoira, customary leader (Kanaky/Nouvelle-Calédonie)
Gladys Nekiriai (Kanaky/Nouvelle-Calédonie)
Sabrina Pwéré (Kanaky/Nouvelle-Calédonie)
Xavier Nonmoira, young Kanak revolutionary (Kanaky/Nouvelle-Calédonie)
Adeline Babin (Kanaky/Nouvelle-Calédonie)
Ghislaine Pwapy (Kanaky/Nouvelle-Calédonie)
Valentin Nemia (Kanaky/Nouvelle-Calédonie)
Célestine Beleouvoudi (Kanaky/Nouvelle-Calédonie)
Mériba Karé (Kanaky/Nouvelle-Calédonie)
Présence Kanak (Kanaky/Nouvelle-Calédonie)
Jacques Guione, Association Djors (Kanaky/Nouvelle-Calédonie)
Ludmila Jean, Association Djors (Kanaky/Nouvelle-Calédonie)
Yvette Poma (Kanaky/Nouvelle-Calédonie)
Marie-Madeleine Guioné, Kanak woman (Kanaky/Nouvelle-Calédonie)
Augusta Nonmoira, Kanak woman (Kanaky/Nouvelle-Calédonie)
Lucien Sawaza (Kanaky/Nouvelle-Calédonie)
Monique Poma (Kanaky/Nouvelle-Calédonie)
Jean Rock Uhila (Kanaky/Nouvelle-Calédonie)
Vaïana Tiaore, Corail Vivant Terre des Hommes (Kanaky/Nouvelle-Calédonie)
Laurie Anne Le Pen (France)
Aaron Houchard Mitride (Kanaky/Nouvelle-Calédonie)
Roger Nemia (Kanaky/Nouvelle-Calédonie)
Atrune Palene (Kanaky/Nouvelle-Calédonie)
Amandine Tieoue (Kanaky/Nouvelle-Calédonie)
Iouanna Gopoea (Kanaky/Nouvelle-Calédonie)
Sylviany M’boueri (Kanaky/Nouvelle-Calédonie)
Valentine Wakanengo (Kanaky/Nouvelle-Calédonie)
Simane (Kanaky/Nouvelle-Calédonie)
Jacinthe Kaichou (Kanaky/Nouvelle-Calédonie)
Romain Purue (Kanaky/Nouvelle-Calédonie)

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz