A Papua New Guinean academic says the new security deals with the United States will militarise his country and anyone who thinks otherwise is naïve.

In May, PNG’s Defence Minister Win Barki Daki and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken signed the Defence Cooperation Agreement and the Shiprider Agreement.

Last week they were presented to PNG MPs for ratification and made public.

The defence cooperation agreement talks of reaffirming a strong defence relationship based on a shared commitment to peace and stability and common approaches to addressing regional defence and security issues.

Money that Marape ‘wouldn’t turn down’
University of PNG political scientist Michael Kabuni said there was certainly a need for PNG to improve security at the border to stop, for instance, the country being used as a transit point for drugs such as methamphetamine and cocaine.

“Papua New Guinea hasn’t had an ability or capacity to manage its borders. So we really don’t know what goes on on the fringes of PNG’s marine borders.”

But Kabuni, who is completing his doctorate at the Australian National University, said whenever the US signs these sorts of deals with developing countries, the result is inevitably a heavy militarisation.

“I think the politicians, especially PNG politicians, are either too naïve, or the benefits are too much for them to ignore. So the deal between Papua New Guinea and the United States comes with more than US$400 million support. This is money that [Prime Minister] James Marape wouldn’t turn down,” he said.

The remote northern island of Manus, most recently the site of Australia’s controversial refugee detention camp, is set to assume far greater prominence in the region with the US eyeing both the naval base and the airport.

US fighter jets now (21.06.23) at Jacksons International Airport, Port Moresby.

📷 Walen Parange pic.twitter.com/EVrOV7CWZ3

— Bobby Jr (@tambijr_4rmPNG) June 21, 2023

Kabuni said Manus was an important base during World War II and remains key strategic real estate for both China and the United States.

“So there is talk that, apart from the US and Australia building a naval base on Manus, China is building a commercial one. But when China gets involved in building wharves, though it appears to be a wharf for commercial ships to park, it’s built with the equipment to hold military naval ships,” he said.

Six military locations
Papua New Guineans now know the US is set to have military facilities at six locations around the country.

These are Nadzab Airport in Lae, the seaport in Lae, the Lombrum Naval Base and Momote Airport on Manus Island, as well as Port Moresby’s seaport and Jackson’s International Airport.

According to the text of the treaty the American military forces and their contractors will have the ability to largely operate in a cocoon, with little interaction with the rest of PNG, not paying taxes on anything they bring in, including personal items.

Prime Minister James Marape has said the Americans will not be setting up military bases, but this document gives them the option to do this.

Marape said more specific information on the arrangements would come later.

Antony Blinken said the defence pact was drafted by both nations as ‘equal and sovereign partners’ and stressed that the US will be transparent.

Critics of the deal have accused the government of undermining PNG’s sovereignty but Marape told Parliament that “we have allowed our military to be eroded in the last 48 years, [but] sovereignty is defined by the robustness and strength of your military”.

The Shiprider Agreement has been touted as a solution to PNG’s problems of patrolling its huge exclusive economic zone of nearly 3 million sq km.

Another feature of the agreements is that US resources could be directed toward overcoming the violence that has plagued PNG elections for many years, with possibly the worst occurrence in last year’s national poll.

But Michael Kabuni said the solution to these issues will not be through strengthening police or the military but by such things as improving funding and support for organisations like the Electoral Commission to allow for accurate rolls to be completed well ahead of voting.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The Refugee Action Coalition has called Australia’s apparent attempt to walk away from its responsibilities for the refugees it dumped in Papua New Guinea an outrage.

Australia announced last week that by the end of this year it will end its offshore detention arrangement with PNG.

The scheme was declared illegal by the PNG courts five years ago but 124 people, most of whom have been judged to be refugees, remain there.

The coalition’s Ian Rintoul said PNG had no capacity, or desire, to look after these people, or search for third countries to take them off their hands.

“I think it is just a continuation of the Australian government trying to distance itself from the atrocities they are responsible for in Manus Island in Papua New Guinea,” he said.

“They have been trying for many years to try and distance themselves from the responsibility for people that they took there illegally, according to PNG law, but who they take no responsibility for.”

Last month Australia signed a new long term commitment with Nauru to continue to run its detention facility — the only place where Australia will send people trying to arrive on the mainland illegally by boat.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

By RNZ Pacific

Australia should help Manus Island develop industries like tourism, a journalist who covers refugee detention in Papua New Guinea has said.

Melbourne’s Michael Green has visited Manus Island twice, and from his research has produced an award winning podcast, The Messenger, a book, They Cannot Take the Sky, and an artwork, How Are You Today, which is currently on display in New Zealand.

Green said formal employment increased by 70 percent on Manus Island through Australia’s detention regime.

LISTEN: Michael Green on RNZ’s Dateline Pacific

READ MORE: UN Human Rights chief scorns Australian offshore detention

But, with the refugees now transferred to Port Moresby, Green said employment opportunities were needed on Manus.

“I’ve spoken to people there who think that there’ll be an opportunity for a big tourism industry on Manus. It’s a beautiful place,” he said.

“There are now a lot of hotels which weren’t there before. Perhaps that might be possible. It will require a big shift.”

The people of Manus should decide what industries they wanted to develop and ask Australia for help, Green said.

“People will adapt. They’ve been adapting to colonial influence on that island for a long time. But I do think the Australian government has a responsibility to not just walk away,” he said.

“It would be good for the people on Manus to work out what they want and then demand it of the Australian government.”

About 1500 refugees have been detained on Manus by Australia since 2013 and Green said media coverage during that time had damaged the island’s reputation.

“There’s been some really bad coverage. And lots of the guys [refugees] will slip into saying things like, ‘Manus is a hellhole’. There’s some really terrible language that’s used,” he said.

“Actually Manus Island is a stunningly beautiful place and when I’ve visited there the people have been incredibly kind and generous.”

About 300 refugees remain in Papua New Guinea. Now in Port Moresby, some are in hotels awaiting resettlement in the United States, others are being forced into residential accommodation and about 50 men not given refugee status are locked up in a new immigration detention facility at Bomana.

Green said those not accepted by the US were unlikely to be able to settle in PNG.

“People who have tried to stay haven’t been able to access permanent residency,” he said.

“I know that some of those people… would like to go New Zealand. I hope that there would be a change in the Australian government’s attitude to the prospect of New Zealand resettlement.”

He was particularly concerned for the Bomana men.

“Lots of those people can’t be deported. It baffles me. I can’t understand what the Australian government thinks is going to happen to people who’ve been held indefinitely, without charge for this period of time. You can’t pretend the problem is going to solve itself.”

• This article is published under the Pacific Media Centre’s content partnership with Radio New Zealand.
• More refugee stories

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

By RNZ Pacific

Papua New Guinea Prime Minister James Marape wants Australia to close the detention centre it has been running on PNG’s Manus island for six years.

According to Australian media, Marape has asked Canberra to give him a timeline for closing the facilities where Australia has been holding refugees and asylum seekers who are not allowed to enter Australia.

Marape met the Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton and told the ABC that he would like the offshore processing to end as soon as possible.

READ MORE: Manus Island police chief calls for state action over suicidal refugees

Australia has a deal with the United States to shift a total of 1250 refugees but hundreds still remain on Manus.

Consecutive New Zealand governments have offered to take 150 a year but neither Australia nor PNG has acted on it.

New Zealand also offered assistance to PNG to run services on Manus two years ago, which Dutton described as a waste of money.

• This article is published under the Pacific Media Centre’s content partnership with Radio New Zealand.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

By RNZ Pacific

A refugee journalist detained on Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island says winning an Italian award for investigative journalism could end censorship of offshore detention in the Australian media.

Behrouz Boochani, who has made a documentary and written a book during his five years in exile, has won the Anna Politkovskaya Prize for Press Freedom from the Italian magazine Internazionale.

Boochani regularly contributes to The Guardian and the Saturday Paper in Australia but said other publications supported the Australian government’s efforts to restrict information about its offshore detention regime.

READ MORE: Australia needs a moral revolution

“The Australian government couldn’t keep 2000 people, including children and women, in a harsh prison camps on Manus and Nauru without systematic censorship,” Boochani said.

“I have many experiences working with the media in Australia and also internationally over the past five years and I know that the government always tries to manage the information and censor the situation,” he said.

-Partners-

“But after five years I think they are defeated because international media and public opinion are aware completely of what the government has done on Manus and Nauru.”

Condemning a fact
The Guardian reported that the award’s organisers paid tribute to Boochani’s “commitment to condemning a fact which has been intentionally kept out of the spotlight”.

The prize was a symbol of the struggle of the refugees who had spoken out from offshore detention as well as their advocates, human rights defenders and independent journalists who had covered their stories, the journalist said.

“I think it is very important because our work is acknowledged and recognised internationally.”

This article is republished under the Pacific Media Centre’s content partnership with Radio New Zealand.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

COMMENT: By Scott Waide

The global trade war between China and Western powers has reached new heights in the Pacific, and in particular in Papua New Guinea. As the government of Peter O’Neill courts China on the one side of the bargaining table, receiving, aid and other benefits, PNG’s traditional military partner, Australia, is growing anxious.

Australian media has reported that their government is planning to establish a military base on Manus Island to counter the growing Chinese influence in Papua New Guinea and the Pacific.

The PNG government has been largely silent since Australia’s announcement.

Last night, when I contacted the Defence Minister, Solan Mirisim, he said the Papua New Guinea has been in negotiations with Australia for “a military base and a training facility on Manus”.

The plans by Australian has brought about concerns.

A former PNG Defence Force Commander, Major-General Jerry Singirok, says any decision by the Australians to place troops in Papua New Guinea must have wide consultation as well as debate in Parliament.

-Partners-

So far there has been none.

Retired Major-General Jerry Singirok … “threat of being smothered or over run by a behemoth of an economic and military power are real.” Image: My Land, My Country

Sovereign nation
“Australia must be mindful that Papua New Guinea is a sovereign nation. There has to be wide public consultation as well as debate in parliament because this is a strategic decision.

“Australia has neglected this region for so long. This issue has to be approached with diplomacy.”

Australia’s choice of Manus is of strategic military importance. The maritime corridor between Guam to the north and Manus to the south was used by the Japanese in World War Two to reach the Pacific.

A possible Australian presence in Manus means they get to police the northern region. The move places Papua New Guinea in the centre of a global power struggle between the US and its allies and China.

For Papua New Guinea, things are a bit complicated. How does the government call China a threat and receive aid and development loans? And how does it support Australia’s military ambitions and still view China as a friend.

Another Former PNGDF Commander, feels Australia has to find a middle ground to deal with the trade war instead of placing military personnel in Papua New Guinea.

“China is not a threat,” says retired Commodore Peter Ilau, who also served as ambassador to Indonesia.

“We have to learn to work with China. We cannot respond with a show of military force,” he says.

Both former commanders agree that the threat of being smothered or over run by a behemoth of an economic and military power are real.

China’s economic influence in Papua New Guinea extends to nearly all sectors.

In the 13-year period between 2005 and 2018, China has spent close to 12 billion kina in investments and aid in Papua New Guinea. That is 3 billion kina short of Papua New Guinea’s annual budget of 15 billion.

Chinese money has been spent of monumental projects like buildings, transport infrastructure and energy projects in Papua New Guinea and the Pacific.

But what concerns many in Papua New Guinea is debt to China driven by loans and obligations and the possible take over of state assets by a foreign power.

Lombrum naval base on Manus Island following World War Two in 1949. Image: Australian War Memorial

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

By RNZ Pacific

A legal advocacy group has told the UN Human Rights Council that more than 100 asylum seeker and refugee children are living without hope on Nauru.

The Human Rights Law Centre addressed the latest council session in Geneva.

The centre’s Daniel Webb told the council that despite the fact the Australian government was professing its committment to human rights in Geneva, it continued to indefinitely imprison 102 children in its offshore detention centre on Nauru.

“Imprisoned for fleeing the same atrocities our government comes here and condemns. And after five years of detention, these children have now lost hope.

“Some have stopped speaking. Some have stopped eating. A 10-year-old boy recently tried to kill himself.”

Webb said if the detention was not stopped there would be deaths.

-Partners-

He said even the government’s own medical advisers were warning that the situation was untenable.

“Yet the Australian government still refuses to free these kids, and is fighting case after case in our Federal Court to deny them access to urgent medical care. Mr President, we are talking about 102 children.”

Australia presented their concerns regarding human rights around the world at the same session but did not mention their detention camps on Nauru or Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island.

This article is republished under the Pacific Media Centre’s content partnership with Radio New Zealand.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Pacific Media Watch Newsdesk

Amnesty International has joined 80 other NGOs in urging Pacific leaders to demand the closure of the Australian-funded immigration detention camp on Nauru  when they meet in the Pacific nation next week, reports SBS News.

The 18-nation Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) will hold its annual summit in Nauru from September 3-6, with delegates meeting just a few kilometres from the camp dubbed “Australia’s Guantanamo”.

Amnesty, along with the 80 other non-government organisations, released an open letter calling on PIF leaders to act and end “a stain on the region”.

READ MORE: Regional leaders must act to halt escalating child health crisis on Nauru

“Pacific island leaders cannot ignore this issue any longer and need to ensure that it is at the very top of the forum’s agenda,” Amnesty’s Pacific researcher Roshika Deo said this week.

“This is a desperate situation that requires urgent action. Regional leaders must show that they will not stand by while the Australian government’s abusive policies continue to risk more lives.”

-Partners-

The rights groups said asylum-seekers on Nauru and PNG’s Manus Island were subjected to “cruel and degrading treatment” that must stop.

“[There are] widespread reports of violence against refugees in Papua New Guinea and violence and sexual harassment of women and children on Nauru,” the letter said.

200 people detained
There are more than 200 people in the Nauru facility, according to the Refugee Council of Australia, including dozens of children.

However, the Canberra-bankrolled facility has been an economic lifeline for Nauru, which has an area of only 21 sq km and has depleted its only natural resource, phosphate, reports SBS.

The Nauru government has imposed strict conditions on media covering the PIF summit, threatening to revoke journalists’ visas if they capture images of the camps or asylum-seekers.

It has also limited the number of reporters attending and barred Australia’s public broadcaster ABC, after taking exception to its coverage.

A child in Australia’s Nauru detention centre. Image: SBS/World Vision

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Pacific Media Watch Newsdesk

Papua New Guinea has been condemned for violent mob attacks on people accused of sorcery – especially women or girls, repeated assaults and robberies on refugees, failure to address police brutality and corruption in the latest country report by Human Rights Watch.

The New York-based rights watchdog flagged a Madang trial that began in March of 122 people accused of killing five men and two children suspected of witchcraft and serial attacks on women.

Almost 40 percent of the country’s 8 million people live in poverty, and the government is far too reliant on religious groups and non-government organisations to provide charitable services for the economic and social rights of citizens.

Among other key points of the chapter in its annual world report:

• The government has not taken sufficient steps to address gender inequality, violence, excessive use of force by police;
• Rates of family and sexual violence are among the highest in the world, and perpetrators are rarely prosecuted; and
• Papua New Guinea has one of the highest rates of maternal death in the world.

‘Electoral violence’
Last August, Peter O’Neill was reelected as prime minister following an “election marred by widespread electoral irregularities and violence”, Human Rights Watch says.

“Soldiers and extra police were sent to the Highlands in response to fighting triggered by the election, where dozens of people, including police, had been killed in election-related violence.

“Refugees and asylum seekers on Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island have suffered repeated violent attacks and robberies by locals, with inadequate hospital care on the island and no action by police.”

The watchdog says that more than three years after the 2013 Family Protection Act was adopted, Parliament in May finally passed regulations to implement the law, which criminalises domestic violence and allows victims to obtain protection orders.

However, police and prosecutors “rarely pursue investigations or criminal charges against people who commit family violence” — even in cases of attempted murder, serious injury, or repeated rape — and instead prefer to resolve such cases through mediation and/or payment of compensation.

Police often demand money (“for fuel”) from victims before acting, or simply ignore cases that occur in rural areas.

There is also a severe lack of services for people requiring assistance after having suffered family violence, such as safe houses, qualified counselors, case management, financial support, or legal aid, the report says.

Violent mobs
Violent mobs attacked individuals accused of sorcery or witchcraft, particularly women and girls.

In March, a trial involving 122 defendants began in Madang. The defendants were charged in connection with the killing of five men and two children suspected of sorcery in 2014, Human Rights Watch says.

The prosecution alleged that the men raided a village in search of sorcerers to kill, armed with “bush knives, bows and arrows, hunting spears, [and] home-made and factory-made shotguns.”

No further details were available at time of the watchdog’s report regarding the trial’s progress.

Papua New Guinea has one of the highest rates of maternal death in the world. Just over 50 percent of women and girls give birth in a health facility or with the help of a skilled birth attendant.

Although the PNG government supports universal access to contraception, two out of three women still cannot access contraception due to geographic, cultural, and economic barriers.

Abortion remains illegal in PNG, except when the mother’s life is at risk.

Police abuse rampant
Police abuse remained rampant in Papua New Guinea, says Human Rights Watch.

In May, police detained and assaulted a doctor at a police roadblock on his way home in Port Moresby. The case triggered a public outcry, but no one had been charged for the offence at time of writing.

Few police are ever held to account for beating or torturing criminal suspects, but in December 2016, a mobile squad commander was charged with the murder of a street vendor, six months after the alleged offence occurred.

A court granted him bail in January 2017. In September, police charged a former police officer with the 2013 murder of two people in Central Province.

Despite the ombudsman and police announcing investigations into the 2016 police shooting of eight university students during a protest in Port Moresby, at time of writing no police had been charged or disciplined and neither body had issued a report.

About 770 male asylum seekers and refugees from countries including Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Burma, and Iran, live on Manus Island.

Another 35 or so have signed settlement papers to remain in PNG, although only four of these are working and financially independent.

Temporary living
About 70 are temporarily living in Port Moresby. All were forcibly transferred to PNG by Australia since 2013, says Human Rights Watch.

Australia pays for their upkeep but refuses to resettle them, insisting refugees must settle in PNG or third countries, such as the United States.

Refugees and asylum seekers do not feel safe on Manus due to a spate of violent attacks by locals in the town of Lorengau.

Local youths attacked refugees and asylum seekers with bush knives, sticks, and rocks and robbed them of mobile phones and possessions.

Police failed to hold perpetrators to account.

In April, soldiers fired shots at the main regional processing center, injuring nine people including refugees and center staff.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

By Nick Baker of SBS News

The Australian government has been slammed for a lack of transparency amid news that the healthcare provider for refugees on Manus Island will wrap up its work today.

The International Health and Medical Services (IHMS) has been providing healthcare for refugees on Manus for several years but their contract is due to expire today.

However, despite the end date, the government did not publicly indicate a new provider was confirmed until last Friday. Although details remained scant.

In a statement, the Department of Home Affairs said it had “engaged a new health services provider from 1 May 2018 (and) IHMS will work with the new health service provider during a transition period”.

“Individuals will continue to have access to appropriate primary health services,” it said.

A spokesperson from IHMS confirmed the April 30 end date but said “it will, however, maintain a core group of staff in Manus and Port Moresby to support the transition to a new health service provider”.

New provider
But neither the Department of Home Affairs or IHMS would say who the new provider would be, leaving open questions about the quality of the care.

-Partners-

Greens Senator Nick McKim said Australians were once again “in the dark” about the treatment of refugees on Manus.

McKim said getting information from the Department of Home Affairs was “like getting blood from a stone”.

“And of course that’s deliberate and part of the intent of establishing Australia’s offshore detention system in the first place – to drop a veil of secrecy over what’s happening in those places.”

He said although IHMS had a very checkered history, there was now a danger of gaps in health care over the coming months and beyond.

“Ultimately the risk is yet more people will come to harm … as a result of Peter Dutton’s negligence.”

McKim said the use of Manus and other offshore immigration detention facilities will go down as “one of the darkest chapters” in Australian history.

Harm ‘very rare’
“Because it’s very rare that in Australia’s history we’ve deliberately caused harm to innocent people and that’s exactly what Peter Dutton is doing.”

Refugee coordinator at Amnesty International Australia Graham Thom similarly expressed concerned around healthcare for those on Manus after today.

“Ever since the Australian government began shipping refugees out to detention centres on remote tropical islands, they have been trying to hide from the consequences of this cruel policy.”

“Withdrawing healthcare is Australia’s latest deplorable attempt to shift the responsibility for the suffering it has caused.”

“The health situation for refugees and asylum seekers in Papua New Guinea is already dire, but the end of the IHMS contract threatens to turn this into an all-out crisis.”

“The only way for Australia to ensure the health of the refugees and asylum seekers on Manus is to end offshore processing for good.”

SBS News coverage on the Pacific.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Pacific Media Watch Newsdesk

The Journalism Education and Research Association of Australia (JERAA) has expressed its deep concern about reports that Behrouz Boochani, an Iranian-Kurdish journalist and regular contributor to Australian publications, was arrested on Manus Island early last Thursday.

He was released later in the day.

READ MORE: Médecins Sans Frontières denied access to refugees as thousands rally in Australia

The Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA) chief executive, Paul Murphy, said Boochani appeared to have been deliberately targeted by Papua New Guinea (PNG) police in the crackdown on November 23 because he was well known as a journalist reporting from inside the detention centre.

“Behrouz has been one of the main sources of factual information about conditions inside the Manus Island detention centre for the past few years, and his reporting has been published in Australia and internationally,” Murphy said.

“His reporting in the finest traditions of journalism has been critical when the Australian and PNG governments have done everything they can to prevent media from having access to the asylum seekers on Manus Island.

“If, as the case appears to be, he has been targeted and arrested because of his profile and his role as a journalist in an attempt to silence him, this is an egregious attack on press freedom that cannot be let stand.”

Like MEAA, JERAA has called on the Australian and PNG governments to inform the public about his safety, and allow him to continue doing the journalistic work he has been for so many months.

Amnesty Award for journalism
Just three weeks ago, Boochani was awarded the Amnesty International Australian Media Award for his journalism from Manus Island.

JERAA president, Matthew Ricketson, was a guest speaker at the awards in Sydney, and testified to the loud applause that greeted the award as well as the heartfelt admiration of his colleague at Guardian Australia, Ben Doherty, who accepted the award in Boochani’s absence.

Professor Ricketson said: “Behrouz Boochani’s reporting has been brave and inspiring, not least because he has been pursuing it while at the same time he has been detained indefinitely.

“Governments for nearly two decades now have been fighting determinedly to hide from public view – and the possibility of public empathy – what has been happening inside offshore detention centres.

“Boochani’s reporting is a vital counterweight to this campaign”.

Earlier this year, MEAA, the journalists’ union, co-ordinated an open letter to Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, calling for him to be resettled in Australia. Dozens of high-profile journalists and writers co-signed the open letter.

Boochani’s work has been published in The Saturday Paper as well as Guardian Australia, while his film about life inside the Manus detention centre, Chauka, Please Tell Us the Time has been screened at the Sydney and London film festivals. He tweets at @BehrouzBoochani

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Pacific Media Watch Newsdesk

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) joins its affiliate Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA) in condemning the reported arrest of Iranian-Kurdish journalist Behrouz Boochani by Papua New Guinea police earlier today.

The IFJ and MEAA have deplored the arrest as a targeted attack on press freedom by Papua New Guinea’s police.

A police operation was launched on Manus Island with PNG police and immigration officers entering the former Australian detention centre.

The centre was closed three weeks ago, but refugees have refused to leave, due to concerns over their safety.

Large numbers of officers, including the paramilitary police mobile squad unit entered the grounds and told the refugees they had an hour to leave. They tried to confiscate mobile phones and reportedly damaged personal belongings.

Behrouz Boochani, an Iranian-Kurdish journalist, was arrested during the raid, with reports that officers were specifically looking for him.

-Partners-

Silencing a critic
He was led away in handcuffs by two police officers.

Boochani has been in the detention centre on Manus Island since August 2013.

Boochani has been a main source of factual information about the conditions inside Manus Island detention centre, with his reports been published in Australia and internationally.

Earlier this year he was shortlisted in the journalism category for the 2017 Index on Censorship’s Freedom of Expression Awards and just three weeks ago he was awarded the Amnesty International Australia Media Award for his journalism from Manus Island.

Earlier this year, MEAA and the IFJ launched a campaign with IFEX calling on the Australian government to resettle Boochani in Australia.

MEAA chief executive Paul Murphy said: “If, as the case appears to be, he has been targeted and arrested because of his profile and his role as a journalist in an attempt to silence him, this is an egregious attack on press freedom that cannot be let stand.

“We call on the Australian and PNG governments to release him from custody, assure his safety, and not to hinder him from continuing to perform his role as a journalist.”

The IFJ said: “The arrest of Behrouz Boochani, if it is because of his work as journalist, is a blatant attack of press freedom and an attempt to silence a critical voice. We join MEAA in calling for the Australian and PNG governments to release him for custody immediately, and guarantee his safety.

“Journalists should never be stopped from doing their work.”

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

You have to go a long way to find anything remotely resembling Australia’s current treatment of New Zealand.

For a supposedly friendly government to deliberately inject inflammatory disinformation into the political bloodstream of its supposedly closest neighbour is an extraordinarily provocative act. Not quite an act of war, but the sort of intervention that can all-too-easily provoke a catastrophic loss of trust.

It’s the sort of thing that the Soviets and the Americans used to do to one another all the time during the Cold War. Except, of course, those two superpowers were ideological and geopolitical rivals of the first order. It takes a real effort to re-cast the relationship between New Zealand and Australia in similar terms. Nevertheless, it’s an effort we are now obliged to make.

So, what is it that Australia has done? Essentially, its national security apparatus (presumably at the instigation of their political leaders) has released, mostly through media surrogates, a number of related stories calculated to inflame the prejudices of a certain type of New Zealander.

Like Australia, New Zealand harbours a frighteningly large number of racists. Politically-speaking, such people are easily aroused and have few qualms about setting-off ugly, racially-charged, debates on talkback radio, in the letters columns of the daily newspapers and across social media. These individuals are trouble enough when all they have to fight with are their own stereotypes and prejudices. Arm them with the carefully assembled disinformation of “fake news” and they instantly become quite dangerous.

Planting stories
And yet, this is exactly what the Australian authorities have done. Planting stories in their own press (knowing they will be picked up almost immediately by our own) about at least four boatloads of illegal immigrants that have set out for New Zealand only to be intercepted and turned back by the ever-vigilant officers of the Royal Australian Navy and their Coast Guard comrades.

The purpose of this story (unsourced and lacking in detail, making it, almost certainly, fake news) was to paint New Zealand’s prime minister as an ill-informed and ungrateful diplomatic naïf: an inexperienced young idealist who doesn’t know which way is up when it comes to dealing with real-world problems.

This, alone, was an extraordinary intervention. To gauge how extraordinary, just turn it around. Imagine the reaction in Australia if some unnamed person in New Zealand’s national security apparatus leaked a memo to one of this country’s daily newspapers in which the negative diplomatic and economic consequences of being tainted by association with Australia’s flouting of international law is set forth in clinical detail. If the memo also contained a collection of highly critical assessments of Turnbull’s cabinet colleagues, allegedly passed-on by a number of unnamed western diplomats, then so much the better!

Canberra would not be impressed!

If the Australians had left it at just one intervention, then perhaps New Zealanders could simply have shrugged it off as yet another case of bad behaviour from the land of the under-arm bowlers. But when have the Aussies ever left it at “just one”?

Former guard’s ‘intervention’
The next intervention came in the form of “Ian” – formerly a guard (or so he said) at both the Nauru and Manus Island detention centres. For reasons it has yet to adequately explain, RNZ’s Checkpoint programme provided “Ian” with nearly ten, largely uninterrupted, minutes of air-time during which he poured-forth a stream of accusations and characterisations which, to put it mildly, painted the protesters occupying the decommissioned Manus Island facility in the most lurid and disquieting colours. The detainees were criminals, drug-dealers – paedophiles even! Not at all the sort of people New Zealanders would want in their country.

“Ian”, it turns out, is a “witness” well-known to the many Australian NGOs that have taken up the cause of the detainees on Manus and Nauru. They have noted the curious similarities between “Ian’s” supposedly personal observations and experiences, and the inflammatory talking-points constantly reiterated by Australia’s hard-line Immigration Minister, Peter Dutton. A cynic might describe the grim “testimony” of “Ian” and Dutton as mutually reinforcing.

No matter. New Zealand’s racist, Islamophobic and militantly anti-immigrant community had been supplied with yet another truckload of Australian-manufactured ammunition.

Enough? Not hardly! Only on Friday morning New Zealanders were fed the shocking “news” that the protesting Manus Island detainees are harbouring within their ranks an unspecified number of men guilty of having debauched and prostituted local girls as young as 10 and 13!

Too much? Over the top? Redolent of the very worst instances of the murderous racial-incitement for which the Deep South of the United States was so rightly infamous? It sure is! Which is why we must hope that the internet does not operate on Manus Island. Because, if the local inhabitants were to read on-line that the detainees were responsible for prostituting their daughters, what might they NOT do?

Disinformation campaign
One almost feels that the Australian spooks behind this extraordinary disinformation campaign would actually be delighted if the locals burned down the Manus Island detention centre with the protesting detainees inside it.

“This is what comes of 37-year-old Kiwi prime ministers meddling in matters they know nothing about!” That would be the consistent theme of the right-wing Australian media. It would not take long for the same line to be picked up here: first on social media, and then by more mainstream media outlets.

Right-wing outrage, mixed with a gleeful “we told you so!”, could not, however, be contained within the news media for very long. Inevitably, the more outré inhabitants of the Opposition’s back bench would take possession of the controversy, from there it would cascade down rapidly to Opposition politicians nearer the front.

Before her enemies could say: “It’s all your fault!”, Jacinda would find herself under withering political fire from both sides of the Tasman. Canberra would register her increasingly fragile government’s distress with grim satisfaction.

As the men and women responsible for organising “Operation Stardust” deleted its final folder, and fed the last incriminating document into the paper-shredder, one or two of them might even have voiced a judiciously muted “Mission Accomplished!”

This essay, by Chris Trotter, was originally posted on the Bowalley Road blog of Saturday, 18 November 2017, under the title: “Not quite an act of war: Analysing Australia’s push-back against Jacinda’s Manus Island outreach.  It is republished by Asia Pacific Report with the permission of the author.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz