AsiaPacificReport.nz

By Bernadette H. Carreon in Koror

Palau President Tommy Remengesau Jr. has declared a state of emergency due to the worsening drought in the country as a result of El Niño.

Remengesau is the third leader in the North Pacific to declare a state of emergency after feeling the effects of El Niño through declining water levels in its reservoirs. This has resulted in the implementation of water rationing throughout the country.

The Federated States of Micronesia and the Republic of the Marshall Islands are also experiencing extreme drought.

In Palau, the extreme drought is adversely affecting several government services such as power utilities, schools, the hospital and the prison.

“The declining water levels caused by this drought seriously threaten the availability and quality of potable water,” stated Executive Order No. 389, which was issued by Remengesau.

The executive order declared a state of emergency due to extreme drought.

The water shortage in Palau was induced by El Niño which, according to the president, “will exist and will continue to exist for all islands and atolls of Palau, with below average rainfall projected for the next two to three months.”

Disease fears
Several states in Palau including its two populous areas, Koror and Airai, are only getting at the most six hours of water daily.

Remengesau said there are also fears that the quality of water will be affected by the drought causing food and water-borne illnesses.

The Olbiil Era Kelulau (OEK) immediately adopted a resolution backing the president’s declaration.

The president will now have the power to identify and allocate funds to courses of actions chosen to tackle the crisis.

In earlier statements, Remengesau said Palau was looking into the procurement of desalination units and trucks to find alternative sources of water supply on the island.

The trucks would also help bring the water to the areas in Palau which have the lowest water supply.

According to weather reports, “cumulative rainfall for Koror over the past four months was the lowest recorded since 1951, with rainfall likely to continue to be below normal for the next months”.

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AsiaPacificReport.nz

By Peni Mudunavonu in Suva

The Fiji Council of Churches and the Ecumenical Centre of Research for Education and Advocacy brought together people from different Christian faiths for a combined Resurrection Easter Sunday event at Ratu Sukuna Park in Suva yesterday.

The theme of the event was “Rise with Christ: A Vision of Hope for the Future” and it was attended by church leaders of different Christian denominations including United Church Program co-ordinator for Pacific Reverend Dr Cliff Bird, Catholic Church Archbishop Peter Loy-Chong and Church of God Pastor Sikeli Vadei as well as many others.

In his address, general secretary for the Fiji Council of Churches Rev Simione Tugi, said Easter marked not only the death of Christ but most of all his Resurrection when he conquered death and rose to life.

“Easter is one of the most important events in the Christian calendar for it is the beginning of a new hope to every Christian that not even death can stop rising to new life with Christ,” Rev Tugi said.

“Tropical Cyclone Winston has taken and threatened many lives in Fiji and reports have highlighted that the many affected have taken their own initiatives and collectively rebuilt their lives.

“This act of hope and faith signifies their convictions and zeal in the Lord portrayed in their ability to rise.

“The Easter celebration of Christ’s victory over death is a significant reminder of hope as we rise together as brothers and sisters in Christ despite this trying time.

“Our rising together as one in Christ to build a new Fiji is the test of this moment,” he said.

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AsiaPacificReport.nz

By Linawati Sidarto in Amsterdam

A unique photographic exhibition in Amsterdam shows what the Dutch state tried to hide from its people about the grueling war it fought against Indonesia, its former colony.

An Indonesian girl playing a tiny banjo sits among smiling Dutch soldiers on a military vehicle, surrounded by locals. This jovial image belies the fact that the streets of Surakarta, Central Java, on December 21, 1948 ­ the day the photo was shot ­ were deserted as the Dutch had just renewed its military offensive on Java.

“The official image of the war on Java and Sumatra aimed at manipulating public opinion,” said the opening text of the exhibition “Colonial War 1945–1949: Desired and Undesired Images” at Amsterdam’s Dutch Resistance Museum.

“Without images of violence there seemed to be no war.”

During World War II, the Netherlands was occupied by Germany on their home soil and by Japan in their colony of the Dutch East Indies. The Dutch barely had time to savour their freedom after Germany’s surrender in May 1945 when it was jolted by its colony’s independence proclamation on August 17, 1945.

In the next four years, close to 100,000 Dutch soldiers ­ out of a population of just under 10 million ­ were sent off to Indonesia in what the exhibition calls “the biggest war the Dutch had ever fought”. Most of the soldiers were drafted. Almost 6,000 Dutch soldiers lost their lives, while 150,000 Indonesians ­ military and civilian ­ died during the clashes.

The Dutch government, however, did its best to hide the intensity of that war, calling it a politionele actie, police action.

‘Serving the people’
“The government wanted to present the image that their soldiers were serving the people in the colony,” said historian Erik Somers of the Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies NIOD,  ­ one of the exhibition’s initiators.

During that war the Dutch military information service DLC, the exhibition explains, “basically decided what could be reported”.

“There were barely any Dutch journalists and photographers in the country [Indonesia] at the time and many areas were extremely dangerous […] people in the Netherlands saw very little pictorial evidence of the violence.”

The exhibition lets the images tell the story: it chronologically goes through the four years of war, with “desired” and “undesired” images put side by side.

One corner, for example, shows photos of Dutch soldiers distributing food to villagers, while the next panel shows unpublished photos of terrified Indonesian prisoners. Or corpses in a ditch.

The censorship went as far as staging pictures, said exhibition co-initiator Louis Zweers.

“There is one photo of a supposedly jubilant local crowd welcoming Dutch soldiers in Malang [East Java]. If you look closely, however, you can see a soldier on the sidelines directing the crowd,” historian Zweers said during a seminar in January at Amsterdam’s Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences KNAW.

Photos that did not pass the censor include one from August 1946, which still had the original caption written by photographer H. Wilmar: “An extremist who fired on our marines from a ditch tried to escape, but was captured by a marine. The marines would possibly take the man as a prisoner to extract information about the enemy”.

“I’d be surprised if this man made it out alive,” commented a visitor at the exhibition, Klaas Westrene, as he scrutinised the photograph. “It’s good that this exhibition sheds some light on this episode.”

Also on display are illustrated magazines, such as Panorama and De Spiegel,which “showed little of the military operations”, and instead presented “soldiers on patrol, distributing clothes and providing medical care to the native population”.

Somers points out that “there was hardly any reporting in the Dutch press on the euphoric mood among Indonesians regarding their independence [in August 1945]”.

The most stirring part comes at the end of the exposition, where ageing photo albums belonging to soldiers are displayed.

One yellowed page shows small black-and-white photos: first of Indonesian prisoners marching, while the next are of their corpses. The neat hand-written captions read: “There were prisoners being held, but when we’re being fired upon things get nasty, and then some people die”.

Linawati Sidarto is a Jakarta Post contributor in Amsterdam.

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AsiaPacificReport.nz

As Easter is celebrated by Christians across the world this weekend, Arun Kundnani reflects on the “global war on terror”, the Brussels outrage, the West’s “double standard” on terrorism and religious intolerance.

The “war on terror” was supposed to contain violence, but the whole world is a battlefield now.

The promise of the “global war on terror” was that “it was better to fight them there than here.” That promise brought mass violence to Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Palestine, Yemen and Somalia — in the name of peace in the West.

That formula has clearly failed. Tuesday’s bombings in Brussels come on the heels of similar incidents in Grand-Bassam, Ivory Coast; Maiduguri, Nigeria; Istanbul; Beirut; Paris; and Bamako, Mali, all in the last six months. Rather than containing violence, the war on terror turned the whole world into a battlefield.

We should not be surprised. Violence inflicted abroad always comes home in some form. Last year, the U.S. military dropped 22,110 bombs on Iraq and Syria. The Pentagon says these bombs “likely” killed only six civilians, along with “at least” 25,000 Islamic State fighters.

The true number of civilian deaths, though, is likely to be in the thousands as well.

War on terror kills more civilians
Indeed, we know that the war on terror kills more civilians than terrorism does. But we tolerate this because it is “their” civilians being killed in places we imagine to be too far away to matter. There is no social media hashtag to commemorate these deaths; no news channel tells their stories.

Because we pay little attention to the effects of our violence in the places we bomb, it appears that terrorism comes out of the blue. When it does happen, then, the only way we can make sense of it is by laying the blame on Islamic culture.

When opinion polls find that most Muslims think Westerners are selfish, immoral and violent, we have no idea of the real causes. And so we assume such opinions must be an expression of their culture rather than our politics.

Donald Trump and Ted Cruz have exploited these reactions with their appeals to Islamophobia. But most liberals also assume that religious extremism is the root cause of terrorism.

President Obama, for example, has spoken of “a violent, radical, fanatical, nihilistic interpretation of Islam by a faction — a tiny faction — within the Muslim community that is our enemy, and that has to be defeated.”

Based on this assumption, think-tanks, intelligence agencies and academic departments linked to the national security apparatus have spent millions of dollars since 9/11 conducting research on radicalisation. They hoped to find a correlation between having extremist religious ideas, however defined, and involvement in terrorism.

In fact, no such correlation exists, as empirical evidence demonstrates — witness the European Islamic State volunteers who arrive in Syria with copies of “Islam for Dummies” or the alleged leader of the November 2015 Paris attacks, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, who was reported to have drunk whisky and smoked cannabis.

‘Radicalisation’ models
But this has not stopped national security agencies, such as the FBI, from using radicalisation models that assume devout religious beliefs are an indicator of potential terrorism.

The process of radicalication is easily understood if we imagine how we would respond to a foreign government dropping 22,000 bombs on us. Large numbers of patriots would be volunteering to fight the perpetrators. And nationalist and religious ideologies would compete with each other to lead that movement and give its adherents a sense of purpose.

Similarly, the Islamic State does not primarily recruit through theological arguments but through a militarised identity politics. It says there is a global war between the West and Islam, a heroic struggle, with truth and justice on one side and lies, depravity and corruption on the other. It shows images of innocents victimised and battles gloriously waged.

In other words, it recruits in the same way that any other armed group recruits, including the US military.

That means that when we also deploy our own militarised identity politics to narrate our response to terrorism, we inadvertently reinforce the Islamic State’s message to its potential recruits. When British Prime Minister David Cameron talks about a “generational struggle” between Western values and Islamic extremism, he is assisting the militants’ own propaganda.

When French President François Hollande talks of “a war which will be pitiless,” he is doing the same.

Utopian and apocalyptic vision
What is distinctive about the Islamic State’s message is that it also offers a utopian and apocalyptic vision of an alternative society in the making. The reality of that alternative is, of course, oppression of women, enslavement of minorities and hatred of freedom.

But the message works, to some extent, because it claims to be an answer to real problems of poverty, authoritarian regimes and Western aggression. Significantly, it thrives in environments where other radical alternatives to a discredited status quo have been suppressed by government repression.

What’s corrupting the Islamic State’s volunteers is not ideology but by the end of ideology: they have grown up in an era with no alternatives to capitalist globalisation. The organisation has gained support, in part, because the Arab revolutions of 2011 were defeated, in many cases by regimes allied with and funded by the US.

War creates terrorism
After 14 years of the “war on terror,” we are no closer to achieving peace. The fault does not lie with any one administration but with the assumption that war can defeat terrorism. The lesson of the Islamic State is that war creates terrorism.

After all, the organisation was born in the chaos and carnage that followed the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Russia and Iran have also played their role, propping up Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime — responsible for far more civilian deaths than the Islamic State — and prolonging the war in Syria that enables the militant group to thrive.

Meanwhile, the alliances that we consider crucial to the war on terror have worked in the Islamic State’s favor. The group’s sectarianism and funding have come from the Saudi and Gulf ruling elites, the West’s closest regional allies after Israel.

And the groups that have been most effective in fighting the Islamic State — the Kurdish militia — are designated as terrorists by Western governments because they are considered threats to our ally Turkey.

The incoherence of our response to the Islamic State stems from our Islamophobia. Because we believe religious extremism is the underlying problem, we prop up Arab dictatorships that we think can help us contain this danger.

Paradoxically, we support the very regimes that have enabled the Islamic State’s rise, such as the Saudis, the most reactionary influence in the region.

With our airstrikes, we continue the cycle of violence and reinforce the militants’ narrative of a war by the West against Islam. Then, to top it all off, we turn away the refugees, whom we should be empowering to help transform the region.

If we want to avoid another 14 years of failure, we need to try something else — and first, we need to radically rethink what we’ve been doing.

Arun Kundnani writes about race, Islamophobia, political violence, and surveillance. His latest book The Muslims are Coming! Islamophobia, extremism, and the domestic War on Terror was published by Verso Books in March 2014. Born and bred in London, he moved to New York in 2010 on a fellowship with the Open Society Foundations and now lives in Harlem. He is the author of The End of Tolerance: racism in 21st century Britain, which was selected as a New Statesman book of the year in 2007. A former editor of the journal Race & Class, he was miseducated at Cambridge University, holds a PhD from London Metropolitan University, and teaches at New York University. This article first appeared on the Washington Post website.

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AsiaPacificReport.nz

A feedback message by TJ Aumua after her PCF internship in Fiji last year.

By TJ Aumua

New Zealand-based Pacific Cooperation Foundation has launched its annual appeal for student applications for the 2016 media programme.

Now in its second year, the two-week media exchange programme provides an opportunity for aspiring graduate journalists to intern in New Zealand and regional Pacific media organisations.

PCF project manager Michelle Curran said the programme was unique because it offered practical media experience in a foreign setting.

“During the internship, recipients will learn how the newsroom operates and they will be asked to go out on jobs and contribute news pieces,” she told Pacific Media Watch.

“The students will gain a real sense of what it is like to work in the industry. Perhaps most importantly, they will learn the skill and importance of networking – they will have a chance to meet journalists and senior management of organisations and learn from their personal experiences.”

Last year’s recipients included three university students from Samoa, Papua New Guinea and Fiji who travelled to New Zealand and worked in Auckland-based newsrooms. Two Auckland University of Technology students were also chosen to intern to Samoa and Fiji.

The media programme is a part of PCF’s Pacific engagement strategy, which Curran said was “in line with our aim to capture the hearts and minds of Pacific youth”.

“It is focused on improving the level and quality of media exposure in the Pacific and on creating a greater awareness and better understanding of regional issues across a wide audience.”

Curran said successful applications would showcase potential of what was needed to make a great journalist and work in the media industry.

“This includes having a passion for news and a good sense of what makes a great story, strong and clear communication skills, an interest in the Pacific, and knowledge about issues affecting the region and a desire to learn from all the contacts they will be exposed to through this programme.”

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AsiaPacificReport.nz

More than 200 people gathered in Auckland this week to protest against the country’s largest oil industry conference, warning that increased attempts at oil exploration will be harmful to both New Zealand and the Pacific. Jihee Junn of Asia-Pacific Journalism reports.

Greenpeace has long experience at non-violent direct action. But this week’s demonstration against policy failure on climate change was the first time in New Zealand the general public have been invited by Greenpeace to take part in civil disobedience en masse.

Environmental activist and main organiser of the event Steve Abel says they were demonstrating as part of a global movement.

Civil disobedience was chosen as a protest method at Auckland’s SkyCity convention centre on Monday in order to convey the seriousness of climate change.

“I think when you still have this intransigence on the part of the government and industry to act on this all-important issue, then you need to up the ante,” says Abel.

“We operate in that proud tradition of peaceful civil disobedience. For us, the peaceful nature is really important. We’re really about non-violence and peaceful action. Hopefully it has some effect in disrupting the oil conference.”

The protesters demonstrated against an oil conference organised by the Petroleum Explorers and Production Association of New Zealand (PEPANZ), convening leaders in the oil and petroleum industry for the three-day event.

The protestors were part of a Greenpeace-led act of civil disobedience titled #RealClimateAction. Delegates were disrupted from entering the convention centre, some of whom were delayed by more than an hour.

No oil found
“We’ve been protesting the deep sea and off-shore oil drilling for many years now. They so far haven’t found any oil (in New Zealand). It’s been a very successful protest to date,” says Abel.

“But what we’ve got here is a government that’s still hell-bent on drilling for more oil, and it’s the exact oil that we need to leave in the ground if we want to avoid catastrophic climate change.”

At an early morning briefing hours before the demonstration, protestors were told about the day’s plans.

Organisers split protesters into five groups to block all five entranceways into the conference center.

Two more groups were located inside SkyCity.

The protesters were also briefed on police procedures, discouraging protesters from resisting arrest. They were told that faced with any legal proceedings, Greenpeace would be willing to cover the financial costs, providing the protest protocols were followed.

Protester Perry Wilton believes that if the government is going to engage in deep sea oil drilling, then raising environmental awareness is important.

“I think that this (protest) does that. I think this says that people care and with this stopping people from getting in, it will definitely come up in any discussion that goes on in there.”

Hottest month
The protests come in the wake of new findings which showed February was the warmest month in recorded history. Scientists are already predicting 2016 to trump last year’s temperatures in being the hottest on record.

The report cited the dangers that climate change was already posing to countries around the world.

In the Pacific, a prolonged and damaging drought in the Marshall Islands has forced the government to declare a state of emergency.

In Indonesia, forest fires have ravaged farmlands, blanketing both the country and its neighbours in a dense screen of smoke and haze.

Professor Richard Betts, head of climate impact research at Exeter University, cites in the report that soaring temperatures caused by rising carbon emissions have caused Indonesia to be turned into a “tinder-box”.

Part of Monday’s action was former Green Party co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimmons. She insists that the climate impacts of deep sea oil drilling would be profound.

“Pacific nations are at the frontline of experiencing the effects of carbon emissions, which are rising sea levels and increasing tropical storms. We know what just happened in Fiji. There’ll be more and more of that and it’ll get worse and worse,” she says.

Going underwater
“Islands like Kiribati and Tuvalu will go underwater and we’re here to tell the petroleum industry: ‘enough’.

“I think New Zealand should be putting all its weight behind alternatives to fossil fuels and assisting Pacific Island nations to develop plans to cope with climate change that’s already underway. We have to be prepared to accept refugees from the Pacific when they have no where else to go.”

Indigenous rights activist Catherine Murupaenga-Ikenn echoes Fitzsimmons’ sentiments.

Having worked with many Pacific human rights advocates, she says that both New Zealand and Australia will have to deal with the impacts of rising sea levels in the region.

“How are we going to accommodate the mass mobilisation — forced mobilisation — of Pacific peoples and others who won’t have any homelands? That’s major. People need to think beyond themselves in terms of wider society.”

Regional leadership

Former executive director of Oxfam NZ Barry Coates also says that New Zealand must do more for the Pacific region.

“New Zealand often draws a distinction between New Zealand and Australia in the sense that Australia visits the Pacific while New Zealand is part of the Pacific. But I don’t think that’s true when that comes to climate change.

“New Zealand relied on the help of Pacific Island countries in order to, for example, get appointed to the UN Security Council. But then it turned its back on the Pacific when it comes to taking on a strong role with regards to emissions reductions, which are obviously important for the future of the Pacific Islands.”

In Paris last year, more than 190 countries signed an agreement to reduce carbon output and keep global warming well below two degrees Celsius. But New Zealand is being accused of skirting many of its international obligations.

“NZ has used climate finance to help some Pacific countries, but the climate finance that is used is really recycled aid,” says Coates.

“Whereas the Copenhagen agreement talked about ‘new and additional’ climate finance which would not be part of aid budgets, what they’ve done is they’ve taken items from their aid budget and called them ‘climate finance’.

“What we’ve seen New Zealand do is to not abide by either the spirit or even the letter of the agreements on climate change that have been made.”
As a protester, Wilton believes that this week’s conference shows the “hypocritical” nature of the New Zealand government despite signing the Paris agreement. He also believes that hosting such conferences for the petroleum industry will only serve to damage the country’s environmentally friendly image.

“New Zealand is expected to lead the global environmental movement. I think people see us as being a 100 percent pure country. I think that it might not only compromise our image but suggest that that isn’t the reality.”

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AsiaPacificReport.nz

By a Vanuatu Daily Digest correspondent in Port Vila

In an outpouring of popular protest, several hundred women, men and children marched in Port Vila and Luganville yesterday to demand an end to violence against women in Vanuatu.

The march was organised in response to an attack earlier this month on tourism industry worker Florence Lengkon, who was kidnapped and assaulted by seven men after she complained on social media about the aggressive behaviour of some bus and taxi drivers at Port Vila’s wharf.

In Port Vila, the protesters marched from the seafront to Parliament House, currently in session, where they met by MPs from government and the Opposition.

At Parliament, Florence Lengkon presented a petition demanding stronger action against gender-based violence to Justice Minister Ronald Warsal.

The protesters in Vila included members of the general public, representatives from NGOs, womens’ groups, government departments and staff from numerous local businesses who were given time off work to attend the march.

Law students from the University of the South Pacific’s Emalus campus also joined in along with local Pacific communities.

The Tongan community’s group was led by a royal visitor, the Hon Alematea, son of Princess Fusipalo.

Late yesterday, Vanuatu’s Parliament passed a motion to adopt Commonwealth parliamentary procedure and allow the petition to be presented.

This is a first for the country – the petition was read out inside Parliament.

Vanuatu women united to end violence

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AsiaPacificReport.nz

Does the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership “free trade” agreement between Pacific Rim nations fail to address “the most important issue of our time”? Dominic Pink reports for Asia-Pacific Journalism.

Advocacy groups are criticising what they see as the harmful impact the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement could have on the environment.

Several critics have also highlighted fears for Pacific Island nations on the climate change frontline and a lack of environmental coverage from mainstream media.

A recent “expert” paper by Simon Terry, executive director of the Sustainability Council of New Zealand, found that “the environment is a significant casualty under the TPPA”.

Governments can be sued by corporations — under the Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) provisions — over environmental regulations such as changes to the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) and restrictions on the mining of fossil fuels.

The words “climate change” were removed from the final TPPA text, as was any reference to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

One of the deal’s strongest critics is Barry Coates, spokesperson for the It’s Our Future campaign. He outlines two ways the TPPA would negatively impact on the environment if it comes into force.

“One is that action on climate change would be undermined by the ISDS mechanism in particular – if we look at cases that have been taken under ISDS around the world … calculations by public citizens show that around 85 percent of those are related to environmental regulation of some sort,” he says.

‘Chilling effect’
The other is a “chilling effect” that the threat of lawsuits would have on a government’s willingness to enact environmental reform.

Laura O’Connell-Rapira, campaigns director for ActionStation, points to recent ISDS examples in North America as evidence of the difficulties that governments are already facing when addressing climate change, such as a US$15 billion lawsuit filed by TransCanada against the Obama administration for rejecting their proposed Keystone XL pipeline.

She is “deeply concerned” about the environmental ramifications.

“In the 21st century, should we be allowing arguably antiquated trade rules to trump climate agreement?” she asks.

Environmental organisations such as the Sierra Club and Greenpeace have pointed out that threats to endangered species would increase under the TPPA, as the unrestricted reduction of tariffs and taxes on imports would include trade in shark fins, palm oil and ivory.

The controversial free trade deal was signed in Auckland last month amid peaceful demonstrations by a crowd of more than 20,000 people, say some reports.

The march was organised by It’s Our Future in collaboration with ActionStation and Real Choice. Several groups of protesters managed to gridlock the city by blocking major arterial routes.

Coates acknowledges that the TPPA is a “complex” issue to grasp, but he believes that the public “understand the big principles behind it … I think there are a lot of people worried that big businesses have too much power”.

Concerns such as secrecy surrounding negotiations, insufficient public discourse, and the perceived threat to New Zealand’s sovereignty as well as Māori rights under the Treaty of Waitangi have been major points of contention among critics since details of the TPPA were first released in November.

‘Liberalising’ trade aims
The TPPA aims to liberalise trade and investment between the12 member nations — Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore,  United States and Vietnam — which represent approximately 36 percent of the world’s GDP (or about US$28 trillion).

In an official statement, Trade Minister Tim Groser described the TPPA as “a very positive agreement for New Zealand,” breaking new ground as the country’s first Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the United States, the world’s largest consumer market.

Climate change is increasingly becoming an existential threat to Pacific Island nations, with small states such as Kiribati and Tuvalu facing a bleak future if rising sea levels persist.

Dr Pala Molisa addressed the urgency at the Pacific Climate Change Conference at Victoria University last month, saying, “we’re going to lose islands – we’re going to lose whole countries – because of rising sea levels …

“The Pacific is one of the most vulnerable areas to these super storms and extreme weather events.”

On TPPA, Dr Molisa said it “undermines our ability to respond effectively to these climate crises”.

Biggest issue for Pacific
Economist Dr Biman Prasad, opposition leader of Fiji’s National Federation Party, says “the whole issue for Pacific Island countries right now is climate change adaptation and mitigation”.

He says the touted benefits of a free trade agreement like the TPPA are not key concerns for many Pacific Islands nations, which are “talking about non-tariff barriers, non-trade issues,” including labour mobility and quarantine issues.

Prasad also worries that Pacific nations may find “to their dismay” that the deal impacts on their ability to access funding for climate change adaptation.

350 Aotearoa national director Niamh O’Flynn also expressed concern for Pacific Island nations on the climate change frontline, calling attention to New Zealand and Australia’s “duty of care” to their smaller neighbours.

“If we are unable to carry out that duty it’s a big problem for the Pacific”.

New Minister for Climate Change Paula Bennett has said she wants New Zealand to be a global leader in transitioning to a low-carbon economy. However, she remarked at the Pacific climate conference that “support for climate action has to support sustainable economic development”.

O’Flynn suggests that “actions speak louder than words” and the government has “certainly not shown any action” on Bennett’s recent climate change rhetoric.

“Coming back from Paris [2015 Climate Conference] and instantly opening up more parts of New Zealand’s coastline to be bid for oil shows that the National government is seriously uncommitted to taking any kind of action on climate change”.

‘Lazy’ media coverage
Coates has been “pretty disappointed” by much of the TPPA coverage in New Zealand, claiming “a lot of the media have been lazy and unquestioning of the government’s spin”.

O’Connell-Rapira and O’Flynn echoed these thoughts, criticising a lack of serious reportage on climate change, “the most important issue of our time”.

Coates emphasised that “New Zealanders care deeply about their environment, they care about climate change” and would like to see the media focusing on some of the threats to the environment and climate change.

When asked whether we can expect future anti-TPPA actions, Coates promised “lots”.

“In the meantime [Prime Minister] John Key tends to get confronted in every place that he goes … and I think the government’s very much on the back foot around the TPPA”.

Shortly before going to press, Climate Change Minister Paula Bennett responded to questions for this article, rejecting claims about the environment chapter of the TPPA draft as “simply not true”.

“The environment chapter is the most comprehensive and ambitious outcome that New Zealand has achieved in any free trade agreement and includes a specific article on the transition to a low emissions economy,” she said in a statement to Asia Pacific Report.

Dominic Pink is an Auckland-based student journalist reporting on the Asia-Pacific Journalism course.

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AsiaPacificReport.nz

Dancers of the Ura Tabu group treated guests with a performance of “Yellow Bird” at the launch of the NZ Institute of Pacific Research at Auckland University’s Fale Pasifika last night.

Foreign Minister Murray McCully launched the think-tank, saying it was aimed at supporting sustainable development in the region. Photographs by Del Abcede of the Pacific Media Centre.

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AsiaPacificReport.nz

Ura Tabu dancers perform the Calypso medley song “Yellow Bird” at the launch of the New Zealand Institute of Pacific Research last night. Video clip: Del Abcede/PMC

Foreign Minister Murray McCully has welcomed the launch of a New Zealand-based Pacific think-tank aimed at supporting sustainable development in the region.

“We have identified the need for more targeted research on the Pacific, to underpin development initiatives and support Pacific decision makers,” said McCully, who launched the new institute at Auckland University’s Fale Pasifika last night.

“The New Zealand Institute for Pacific Research will work in support of Pacific governments and regional agencies, and will focus on producing the kind of hard-headed analysis that can support sustainable economic development.

“Our aim is for the NZPIR to become a centre of excellence for research on Pacific development, governance, public policy, and security issues.

“The government has provided a cornerstone investment of $7.5 million over five years to establish the Institute and develop an initial programme of research,” McCully said.

The NZPIR will be based at the University of Auckland.

The research programme will be delivered by a consortium led by the University of Auckland, and including Auckland University of Technology and Otago University.

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AsiaPacificReport.nz

Samoa’s Rugby Union is encouraging more of its country’s women to participate in rugby. Sport administrators and gender equality advocates are seeing greater participation in the sport as a step toward women’s equality and bettering the overall gender balance in Samoa, Anuja Nadkarni reports for Asia-Pacific Journalism.

The Pacific nation’s leading rugby organisation, Samoa’s Rugby Union, has hosted its first Samoa Women’s Rugby Conference and has announced it will be making this an annual event.

The conference was held earlier this month to commemorate International Women’s Day on March 8 in the capital Apia. It highlighted the importance of supporting and encouraging the country’s women in rugby.

The SRU’s women’s development officer Toluiva Keneti says the event’s main focus was to address the issue of gender imbalance prevalent in the sport.

“We are looking at using rugby as a tool to break barriers and stereotyping in the community, especially for women playing rugby,” she said.

Senior programme officer for the Ministry of Women Community and Social Development Robert Wong Sin says there are numerous cultural barriers that contribute to the impediment of women’s participation in rugby but he believes things are changing.

“The idea that ‘rugby’s a man’s sport’ or those stereotypes that women are too fragile… those barriers are slowly starting to break down.

“Families are embracing the idea of having their girls participate in more physical sports,” he says.

Room for improvement
Wong Sin says although things are getting better, “there’s still a lot of room for improvement and definitely lots more room for participation”.

The SRU Women’s Rugby Conference took place over the course of two days and brought in 15 female secondary school teachers to partake in workshops to become coaches, referees and sports administrators in their schools.

According to SRU there are currently just over 500 registered female rugby players in Samoa but Keneti says the union lacks female coaches and referees and believes conferences like these will increase female contribution to the sport.

Samoan National Rugby League (NRL) game development manager Gabrielle Apelu is the country’s last remaining pioneer of Samoan women’s rugby and says she understands the challenges of sportswomen best because of her background in rugby but believes Samoa is given a bad rap from New Zealand on issues of gender equality, especially in sport.

“Most Western philosophies that categorise women and barriers to sport never take into consideration cultural values and standards and quantify results in Western terms which are very often misleading and badly interpreted.

“In this day and age there is no stigma. What changes are women’s priorities,” Apelu says.

Chairwoman of the Samoa Women in Sports organisation Nynette Sass says as Samoan women grow up their domestic responsibilities influence their decisions and their focus shifts to their family.

Sports active when young
“Girls are usually active in sports when young, but progress to refrain from sports as they get up to the university level to focus more on studies. By the time they are in the workforce, they’re required to work and prioritise their families and all other obligations ahead of themselves, hence there is no time to do what is deemed at times as frivolous activities.”

United Nations Samoa representative Mele Maualaivao says financial challenges are also a contributing factor to sports lacking female involvement.

“If women’s sports were able to be the great income earner that they are for men, many more young women would be encouraged to play professionally,” Maualaivao says.

Nynette Sass says encouraging women to play rugby also has health benefits for the nation.

“Samoa is waking up to the realisation of the bad effects of a sedentary lifestyle and unhealthy eating of processed food with increasing numbers of people falling prey to Non Communicable Diseases (NCD). Lately the message has really hit home with the increase in cancer deaths.”

According to the World Health Organisation half of all adults in Samoa are at high risk of developing NCDs such as cancer, diabetes and obesity. A report by the Samoan government last year showed that cases of high blood pressure and obesity have almost doubled in the past 10 years.

Domestic violence
Keneti, Maualaivao and Wong Sin are taking their gender balance message beyond rugby and sport. They are also encouraging women to take a stand against domestic violence through their initiatives.

A study carried out by the WHO last year found that from the 1640 women aged between 15 and 49 years surveyed 65 per cent of respondents reported violence that was either physical, emotional or sexual.

According to Wong Sin, initiatives through sport are the most efficient and effective way to strive toward addressing issues like gender equality.

“In sport there should be no discrimination. Sport encourages team building and character development and develops leadership. So we feel having this forum sustained over the next few years will encourage women to take essential positions not only on the field but also in the background and contributing to sports development overall.”

Keneti says initiatives like the SRU conference are educating women to stand up to violence and encouraging women to play alongside men.

This, she says, nurtures a sense of equality, which can build confidence to face any environment and to “never go silent”.

“This is not just about rugby itself, it’s not about a rugby ball, not about how famous rugby can become in Samoa: it is about educating women that it is a game for all,” she says.

Maualaivao believes “it is an exciting time to be a woman in Samoa,” and says she is optimistic about bringing change in attitudes toward women’s issues in Samoa.

“Any time a woman is asked to think of herself as a woman first, it can bring enlightenment to her situation and to her understanding of the challenges she may face.

“Empowerment of women is key to all other aspects of gender equality being addressed.”

Anuja Nadkarni is a journalism graduate from AUT and is completing her Honours degree in Communication Studies. She is currently on the Asia-Pacific Journalism course.

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AsiaPacificReport.nz

Women in Vanuatu’s capital have banned together to call for an end to violence against women.

The Vanuatu Daily Post reported that a  “Stop violence against women” parade planned for Port Vila today brought together women from microfinance businesses, NGOs, the formal employment sector, church and women in the informal employment sector.

Together they were presenting petitions to the Minister of Internal Affairs, Alfred Maoh, and the Minister of Justice and Social Welfare, Ronald Warsal, at Vanuatu’s Parliamentary Complex.

The peaceful protest comes after the recent abduction and abuse of local female tourism manager, Florence Lengkon and coincides with the first sitting of the country’s new Parliament.

It was organised by a committee led by the Deputy Lord Mayor, Leimara Malachai and the President of the Women Against Crime and Corruption, Jenny Viregagaru Ligo.

In a statement published by the Daily Post, the commitee said: “We must lift our voices and ask that men listen to our petition and stop violence in Vanuatu. We women have human rights also. We are also born as human beings and we plead that you give us due honour and respect when dealing with us.

“We call on the Vanuatu government to deal with the perpetrators of Florence Leingkone. We also ask the Vanuatu government to investigate the killings at the Tebakor/Seven Star Dark Corner.”

The Stop Violence against Women Organising Committee is concerned with the constant cases of domestic and physical violence against women in Vanuatu.

In spite of the passing of the Family Protection Act 28 of 2008, the brutal killing of innocent victims and the battering of women, spouses and girls in Vanuatu has continued.

According to the Daily Post, Vanuatu acceded to the United Nations’ Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (UNCEDAW) in 1995, but the Pacific nation continues to discover serious cases of domestic and physical violence.

The committee’s petition is asking for the support of international and local audiences.

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AsiaPacificReport.nz

The launch of the New Zealand Institute of Pacific Research (NZIPR) at the University of Auckland last night has been hailed as a milestone for advancing student learning on Pacific issues.

The new institute has been established by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in partnership with the University of Auckland, Auckland University of Technology and Otago University as a consortium for Pacific research and engagement.

Newly appointed director of the NZIPR, Associate Professor Damon Salesa, said it was the first time the NZ government had funded a national centre of excellence in Pacific research.

“It is a remarkable opportunity not only to research but to deliver opportunities to learn and to grow our students and research, especially our Pacific students, which our consortium has counted are in the thousands.”

Salesa said the institute also created opportunities for solo researchers to engage in conversations for purposeful and transformative Pacific relationships and resolutions.

Foreign Minister Murray McCully launched the institute, saying the think-tank’s objective was to support sustainable development in the Pacific region.

A pro vice-chancellor of Otago University, Tony Ballantyne, said the intellectual programme of the NZIPR would connect students with “cutting edge” research on the Pacific region.

The NZIPR will also offer students supervision in specific Pacific postgraduate research, postgraduate scholarships and student internships and placements.

The Head of Pacific Advancement at AUT, Walter Fraser, said the move for a nationally recognised Pacific institute had been desired for a long time.

Informed position
He said the NZIPR was a result of two years of discussions but its launch finally gave an opportunity for institutions to advise governance with an informed position on Pacific issues.

Professor Jenny Dixon, deputy vice-chancellor of strategic engagement at the University of Auckland and chair of the new institute, said the challenges of the consortium had concerned how the three institutions would achieve a strategy and operations consensus for the new institute.

“I think we have to remember the institute will be present at a number of places, events are going to take pace at the other universities and also overseas, so it is very much a collective effort.”

“AUT, like Otago, has a large representation of Pacific students, Pacific staff. AUT has the Pacific Media Centre — these were assets the collective bid offered.”

A launch statement noted:

• The three universities in collaboration educate 75 percent of all Pacific Island university students in New Zealand, and produce 60 percent of Pacific PhDs. They also employ 90 percent of the 175 Pacific academics working in universities across New Zealand.

• The ministry is contributing $7.5 million over five-years to the NZIPR.

• Research of the NZIPR is agenda-driven by the ministry. The first five research cases of interest for the institute are: Mapping donor contributions in the Pacific, labour markets for sustainable and economic development in the Pacific, commercial potential of land in the Pacific, private-sector investment in the Pacific and the role of sovereign trust funds.

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A report into illegal fishing is set to make waves across the Pacific, Kendall Hutt of Asia-Pacific Journalism reports.

Officials from 17 nations across the Pacific are welcoming the findings of a landmark report into illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing.

With the largest tuna fishery on the planet, the report, Towards the Quantification of Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated Fishing (IUU) in the Pacific Islands Region, will allow officials to bolster their monitoring, control and surveillance efforts across the breadth of the Pacific Ocean.

Forum Fisheries Agency director-general James Movick says the report’s findings enable them to identify where key illegal fishing risks are, and in turn, enable them to strengthen their monitoring (MCS) framework.

“It will help us to target our MCS activities in the future much more appropriately.”

Duncan Souter, chief executive of M-RAG Asia Pacific, an independent fisheries and aquatic resource consulting company, which authored the report, says it enables effective tracking of investment.

“What it [the report] does allow for Pacific Island countries is that it allows them to prioritise where they should be putting their MCS resources and it allows us to track the effectiveness of those investments over time.”

However, this does not mean that MCS efforts in the past have been unsuccessful, officials warned.

Technology key
Pita Elisala, chairman of the Forum Fisheries Committee, addressing media at a press conference last week acknowledged the “astonishing” achievements in MCS to date, such as the addition of the first centralised regional satellite-based vessel monitoring system (VMS).

“There should be no doubt in anyone’s mind that without that historical and ongoing effort, we would be looking at a much different report today.”

Officials point out that such “astonishing” achievements could not have been made without the high presence of technology.

Hugh Walton, former team leader and policy specialist for the EU-funded DevFish II project, says technology is increasingly important, particularly for MCS efforts.

“The collective of technology for real time reporting and data entry at source means MCS administrations can focus more directly on analysis and follow up on anomalies.”

Delivering a presentation at the 19th Monitoring, Control and Surveillance Meeting in Auckland last week on electronic reporting and electronic monitoring, Walton noted that these technologies play an “evolving role” in MCS.

Potential benefits of adopting both systems in the purse seine and longline fisheries include, among others, enhancing coverage in existing human observer programs, along with eliminating costly, time-consuming shore-based data entry.

Ensuring the future
Movick has also acknowledged the big role technology plays in managing the region’s fisheries and says it is something FFA member countries need to continually take advantage of as it evolves.

“The continual search for new technology is always there and it’s very fundamental to ensuring the future.”

A lack of data in the longline sector (tropical longline and southern longline) however, both M-RAG Asia Pacific and the FFA agree, needs addressing.

The report argues stronger catch monitoring arrangements are required, singling out the fishery in both its main messages and measures to further deter illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing (IUU).

The lack of these arrangements are seen as a rather gaping weakness in the current MCS regime.

Longline fishing does not currently meet the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission’s five percent benchmark for observer coverage, a policy directive which has not escaped the notice of officials.

Souter says the five percent benchmark is currently being met by few fleets and says meeting this would “certainly be a very good first step”.

Bolstering the network
Movick agrees and says reporting in the longline sector needs the most work, and will be a central focus in bolstering the current MCS network.

“We will be continuing the trials and moving beyond trials to the implementation of electronic monitoring surveillance, moving, where we can, to reduce fishing on the high seas, and to banning, where we can, transhipment.”

Reporting and post-harvest offences accounted for around 58 percent of the total ex-vessel value (market value) of IUU activity.

But the bad news for the longline sector does not end there.

The FFA and Secretariat of the Pacific Community’s Regional Roadmap for Sustainable Pacific Fisheries acknowledges its regional longline fisheries are “barely economic”, while its Tuna Fishery Report Card 2015 highlights that “clear challenges and opportunities” remain in increasing returns from this fishery.

Longline fishing currently represents a small proportion in value for the FFA’s Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs), both in terms of catch value and value access.

Purse seine dominates both arenas, increasingly doing so since 1997, climbing to a catch value of over US$4 million.

Though longline fishing may be seen as a blight on the report’s landmark implications, the blow is lessened by the report effectively debunking several misconceptions about IUU in the Pacific.

Illegal fishing culprits
The report has revealed that the source of illegal fishing in the Pacific is closer to home.

The most prevalent and costly form of IUU in the region is in fact from misreporting and underreporting by licenced vessels, and not rogue, pirate vessels as some may believe.

“Assuming catch transhipped illegally is taken by licenced vessels, IUU fishing by the licenced fleet accounts for over 95 percent of the total volume and value of IUU activity,” the report says.

This is a stark contrast to the five percent of unlicensed vessels, and it is something officials have taken comfort in.

Movick acknowledges that although such illegal fishing is an affront to the Pacific’s sovereignty, there has been marked improvement.

“We can take comfort that this is a big change from years gone by, where patrol vessels and aerial surveillance would routinely detect vessels in fishing areas that they were not licenced to be in.”

However, it does not mean that Pacific nations have escaped unscathed.

Although the report has been able to place a more accurate dollar figure on the proportion of illegal catch — an estimated US$616 million — Movick says the actual loss is better reflected in looking at lost fishing access revenues.

“Using economic rent calculations this report estimates that the actual loss to Pacific Island countries from lost fishing access revenues is around $152 million.”

Figures “bandied about in the past” have seen the loss estimated at between US$750 million to $1.5 billion.

Despite this, Elisala and officials agree, the report serves as an incentive for the Pacific to continue its fight against illegal fishing.

“It’s a hard fight…but it is a fight that we have made significant ground on, and one that we will continue to challenge.”

Kendall Hutt is a graduate journalist from AUT University, currently completing her Honours year in Communication Studies. She is reporting on the Asia-Pacific Journalism course.

Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Agency

Pacific-wide study tipped to show ‘real value’ of lost fisheries

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Research into the challenges and opportunities facing the Pacific Islands and their communities will flourish thanks to the uniting of the resources and expertise of three New Zealand universities.

The University of Auckland, Auckland University of Technology and the University of Otago have collaborated to form the New Zealand Institute for Pacific Research (NZIPR).

The institute is funded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade to deliver a world-class research programme focused on Pacific development, investment and foreign-policy issues.

Drawing on further support from a range of international partners across the Pacific region, the NZIPR will advance New Zealand’s thinking on Pacific research.

The Ministry is contributing $7.5 million over five years to the NZIPR, which will be launched at the University of Auckland’s Fale Pasifika tonight by Foreign Affairs Minister Murray McCully.

By joining forces, the three universities have created a consortium that brings together their multi-disciplinary expertise. The NZIPR will be hosted at the lead institution, the University of Auckland.

The University of Auckland’s Vice-Chancellor, Stuart McCutcheon says that the NZIPR marks a milestone both in Pacific research and New Zealand’s relationship with its Pacific neighbours.

“The New Zealand Institute for Pacific Research will be a national and global focal point for research in the Pacific region, a chance to highlight and develop innovative research and engagement,” he says.

“This is an exciting opportunity to collaborate with our New Zealand partners, and with researchers in the Pacific region and beyond, in order to offer thought leadership on Pacific research.”

Founding director
The University of Auckland’s head of Pacific studies, Associate Professor Damon Salesa, has been appointed as the NZIPR director.

“The University of Auckland is honoured to be hosting the NZIPR, an innovative collaboration with AUT and the University of Otago, which also includes researchers from the Pacific and the US.

“The NZIPR is a groundbreaking initiative to develop research and understanding about the Pacific and its opportunities and challenges.

“The collaborative model of the NZIPR means it is committed to research that is anchored in the relationships that come from New Zealand’s unique position as a Pacific nation itself, a country with a rich Pacific heritage.”

AUT Head of Pacific Advancement Walter Fraser says the formation of the NZIPR consortium is a significant step in enhancing New Zealand’s Pacific research capacity.

“AUT is proud to be a key partner in producing world-class multi-disciplinary research on the Pacific,” Fraser says.

“Together, we look forward to advancing a much deeper understanding of the issues and challenges that face the communities in the entire Pacific region, so that we can collectively provide tangible, sustainable and durable solutions and recommendations for the region.

“AUT students and researchers already conduct world-leading research in and on the Pacific – across the areas of health, nutrition, media, tourism, culture, environment, and more. Our strengths in Pacific research, together with University of Auckland and University of Otago, will help ensure national policy in the Pacific is informed and effective.”

Long tradition
Professor Tony Ballantyne, pro-vice-chancellor of humanities at the University of Otago, says the university is keen to be involved in this initiative because of its long tradition of research on the Pacific.

“The creation of the NZIPR means that Otago researchers have the opportunity to bring their expertise into much more direct engagement with the complex processes that frame government policy and aid strategies.

“The institute will enable our researchers and students to build new research connections, to undertake more fieldwork in the Pacific, and to participate in a research consortium that will regularly bring leading international and national experts on the Pacific to Otago.”

The three universities educate 75 percent of all Pacific Island university students in New Zealand, and produce 60 percent of Pacific PhDs.

They also employ 90 percent of the 175 Pacific academics working in universities across New Zealand.

The consortium will work to make the NZIPR a focal point for the sharing of knowledge in the Pacific region to governments, businesses, community groups and other stakeholders.

The aim is to produce research that charts the changing shape of Pacific Island societies, the challenges they face and the opportunities for their future development.

Five-year programme
Over the next five years the three universities will deliver a five-year programme of world-class research on Pacific development.

Research projects set to start in 2016 include mapping donor contributions in the Pacific and their impact on the region, an analysis of labour markets and the skills needed to underpin economic development, and a study of the drivers and barriers to private sector investment in the region.

The three universities will also work with associated universities and organisations including the University of Hawai’i, University of the South Pacific, Australian National University and Peking University.

Visit the New Zealand Institute for Pacific Research here, and follow them on Twitter.

McCully welcomes launch of new Pacific think-tank

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Asia Pacific Report photographer Del Abcede captures some colourful and poignant moments at today’s SkyCity climate change protest against the New Zealand Petroleum Conference.

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AsiaPacificReport.nz

Most news media took pictures of the climate change “civil disobedience” protest today at vantage points outside the SkyCity Auckland Convention Centre.

But Asia Pacific Report had a photographer on the inside – with the protesters blockading the lifts to the New Zealand Petroleum Conference.

Asia Pacific’s Del Abcede captured these images of police dragging away the protesters.

The non-violent civil disobedience action was organised by Greenpeace.

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AsiaPacificReport.nz

“I hear the voice of my granddaughter saying climate action now,” sing protesters at the main entrance to the SkyCity convention centre. Image: Del Abcede/Cafe Pacific/PMC

By Mackenzie Smith

Climate change activists formed a singing blockade around the SkyCity Auckland Convention Centre today in an effort to disrupt the Petroleum New Zealand Conference.

The protesters dispersed peacefully around 10:30am after a dawn start and were confident that the action was a success.

Chris Hay, an actions coordinator for Greenpeace NZ, said that the conference was effectively shut down for 2.5 hours and that was “a really great achievement”.

“More than 200 people committed to, if necessary, being arrested in order to tell the oil industry that it’s no longer business as usual,” he said.

He believes that the “radical” image normally associated with protests is beginning to change due to increased awareness from the public regarding issues such as climate change.

“The men and suits that we saw today… those guys, for too long, have been determining our future,” he said.

“This is democracy in action. Democracy doesn’t happen every three years, it happens every day.”

Hottest month
Last month — February — was reported to be the hottest month in recorded history,  something that Greenpeace NZ, which organised the protest, wanted everyone to remember.

The organisers have drawn comparisons between today’s “peaceful civil disobedience” and civil rights movements such as the 1981 Springbok Tour protests and Rosa Parks’ effort to end segregation in America.

“The climate justice movement has in front of it a job which is as big as the civil rights movements had in front of it,” said Greenpeace NZ executive director Russel Norman.

He said that although the historical movements had their differences to what was achieved today, the tactics used in order to achieve a civil rights victory were extremely relevant — and that with that history came a certain validity.

Organisers felt that while getting their message across was the main focus, it was important to preserve the kaupapa, which Hay explains as being “the spirit of things”.

Greenpeace NZ officials made it clear to protesters that today’s protest was to be non-violent and would involve no shouting, chanting, loudhailers, or active resistance of arrest.

Any protesters who did not conform to this definition of non-violence would not be provided with the customary legal support.

Greenpeace NZ chose not to apply their brand to this protest in a move that Norman describes as being “quite experimental”.

They hope that this will bring the strength and diverse representation of a people’s movement rather than that of a singular body.

Norman believes there is a “balance to be struck” between the building of broad social movements and providing support to the institutions that support them.

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AsiaPacificReport.nz

Indonesian police recently banned the Turn Left Festival in Jakarta. The Jakarta Post’s Margareth S. Aritonang and Pandaya analyse the incident, which has raised fears concerning the return of authoritarianism and put young leftist movements in the spotlight.

It all started with Yayak Yatmaka writing Militarism for Beginners, an Indonesian picture book intended for younger audiences that he wrote years ago when he lived in Germany.

Then, last year a member of a discussion group, consisting mostly of young idealist intellectuals, students, artists and activists like Yayak, became born-again after reading a book about the history of communism in Indonesia.

To make a long story short, the artist stumbled upon a historical fact that it was the Indonesian Communist Party’s (PKI) anti-colonialist and nationalist spirit in the early 1920s that fired up our founding fathers’ struggle for independence.

The reading gave the artist a whole new perspective that was never available to him at school — the PKI was in fact a significant movement in laying down the foundations of Indonesia but its contribution is nowhere to be found in history books.

“The only communism the youth know comes from the propaganda created by the New Order [regime], which stigmatised the PKI as a frightening party worthy of nothing but loathing,” says sculptor-cum-activist Dolorosa Sinaga, referring to Suharto’s authoritarian military-backed regime that controlled Indonesia between 1965 and 1998.

Dolorosa was the lead organiser of the Turn Left Festival that was disrupted by a bunch of intolerant thugs with the apparent backing of the police, with the latter then forcibly dispersing attendees when the event was just about to begin at Taman Ismail Marzuki, a government-owned cultural center in Jakarta on February 27.

Scores of people from an alliance of Islamic and nationalist groups chanted slogans, intimidated the organisers and accused them of being sympathetic to the PKI.

No official permit
The police argued that the gathering should be banned because “some groups” had raised objections and the organisers had failed to obtain the official permit.

The ban, which forced the organisers to relocate the festival to the premises of the nearby Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation, was only the latest incident in a string of banned events that include seminars, film screenings and publications containing anything that smacks of “leftist” activism (see “Left out in the cold”).

Instead of cowering, the festival organisers have vowed to extend the festival — that features discussions, leftist books sales and art shows — every weekend “until the nation has transformed for the better”.

They will be marching on with the battle cry of “resist Suharto’s propaganda”.

The more than 32 activists that spearheaded the festival have a noble purpose of making a better Indonesia that is free from fear, which has been deeply rooted due to the corrupt culture built by the Suharto regime, since he seized power on the heels of the 1965 deadly aborted coup, blamed on the PKI.

“Until today, we all see the continuing reproduction of the New Order [regime’s] culture and values,” Dolorosa says.

“With the Turn Left Festival, we want to resist the whole legacy of the New Order that managed to cling to power for so long thanks to their effective propaganda.

Suffering now
“Intolerance as we [festival organisers] are suffering now is an example of the New Order political culture I’m talking about.”

The main event was the launch of a provocatively titled book History of Indonesian Leftist Movements for Beginners and discussions about leftist movements that “few young people know about”.

“The festival aims to inspire the young and make them aware of the need to learn history that hasn’t been twisted, [in order] to build a better Indonesia. I’m wondering why the government is so afraid of the festival,” Dolorosa said.

It is not that the activists want to promote the “isms” as some government officials may suspect.

In fact, they believe that communism, Marxism and Leninism are dead and irrelevant. They seek to rewrite history, which they say has been distorted.

The Turn Left Festival is a major collective project mostly by and for younger activists who strive for greater freedom of speech. With the preparatory work having begun a year ago, the canceled event was hosted by 40 volunteers aged between 18 and 40 from major cities across Indonesia in addition to the 32 authors of the 527-page History of Indonesian Leftist Movements.

Among familiar names that co-authored the book are Ayumail, Harry Waluyo, Iwan Gunawan, Kuncoro Adibroto, Tsoe Tjen Marching, Usman Hamid and Yayak Yatmaka, just to name a few.

‘Education city’
Dhyta Caturani, one of the organising committee members, said Turn Left was only one of many similar events initiated by young people.

In Yogyakarta, an “education city” where activism has always been vibrant, the city held a discussion on the 1965 tragedy.

In Salatiga, Satya Wacana University students published Lentera despite a ban on its August 2015 edition on 1965.

The young want the state to allow them greater room to exercise their freedom of speech and have a say in policymaking.

“Our aim is to encourage young people to exercise critical thinking. We are targeting the young […] many of them quench their curiosity about what actually happens to their rights through the internet.”

The Indonesian Military (TNI), which officially quit politics after Suharto’s downfall but still wields clout in the government, retains its strong stance against communism as it believes the ideology still poses a threat to the state ideology, Pancasila.

A week after the festival was banned, Defence Minister Ryamizard Ryacudu told a media gathering that communism was one of the four main ideologies in the world that the military closely watched, with the other three being radicalism, socialism and Leninism.

Adopted liberalism
“It’s not that they are bad but it’s just because they are not suitable for Indonesia. The US may not be as strong as it is now had it not adopted liberalism. Communism is good in China. In Indonesia, radicalism began only after the Bali bombing [in 2002].”

Sharing Ryamizard’s concern, the Home Ministry’s director-general for political affairs and general administration, Sudarmo, warned that the danger of leftist movements were that they “lurk in the dark and wait for the right time to come into the open”.

Leftist ideologies, Sudarmo said, provoke civil organisations — especially the Islamic ones — to come forward and oppose activities they see as adverse to Pancasila.

Sudarmo, who also formerly worked at National Intelligence Agency (BIN), acknowledged most of the various hard-line groups that helped disperse the Turn Left Festival were registered with the Home Ministry and that the police did not use them to intimidate organizers as many suspected.

“Supporters of the festival may hold a grudge against the New Order but remember that everyone living in the country must follow the rules.”

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AsiaPacificReport.nz

More than 200 protesters converged on New Zealand’s largest oil industry conference at dawn today, blockading its entrances as part of a Greenpeace-organised demonstration of peaceful civil disobedience.

It is the first time in New Zealand that Greenpeace has invited the general public to take civil disobedience action en masse.

The day’s activities are being livestreamed by Greenpeace and Asia Pacific Report also has Storify coverage.

Climate campaigner Steve Abel said today that despite years of public opposition and a failure to find any deep sea oil, Prime Minister John Key’s government had continued to invest in the drilling that threatened New Zealand communities, coastlines and climate.

The protest comes just days after the announcement that February 2016 was the hottest month in history.

“We have a government and an oil industry hell-bent on drilling for the very oil that must stay in the ground if we’re going to avoid climate change causing human catastrophe,” said Abel.

Hundreds of people planned to sit outside the main entrances of SkyCity in Auckland, where the 2016 Petroleum New Zealand Conference is being held.

Tuvaluan protesters
Protesters are expected to include Anglican ministers, nurses, teachers and members of the Tuvaluan community, whose Islands are on the frontline of sea-level rise.

Inside the conference, Minister of Energy and Resources Simon Bridges is expected to announce the 2016 “Block Offers” – the areas of New Zealand’s ocean that will be on the market for oil exploration this year.

Last year, almost 430,000 sq km were opened up for potential drilling.

‘Life and death’ action needed

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AsiaPacificReport.nz

LIVE NEWSFEED: Peaceful civil disobedience in Auckland, March 21 – Greenpeace

On Monday, March 21, Greenpeace will be at the oil industry conference in Auckland – and so will masses of other people.

Through non-violent peaceful civil disobedience, Greenpeace pledges to “send the strongest message we can that New Zealand must join the global fight to quit oil and meet the greatest challenge of our time – climate change”.

#RealClimateChange

More information

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Democracy has died and been reborn several times in different countries in the region, writes Mong Palatino.

On March 2, 1962, General Ne Win led a coup in Myanmar (then known as Burma) and established a military dictatorship which lasted until 2010.

Slightly more than a decade later, on September 21, 1972, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law which allowed him to remain in power until 1986.

And just a few years before that, on September 30, 1965, a mutiny led to the killing of some generals which provoked the Indonesian military to retaliate by arresting and killing communists and suspected sympathisers of communist groups across the country.

In Myanmar, the Philippines, and Indonesia, these were historic events which made a lasting political impact. For local scholars and activists, these were the days when democracy died in their countries.

The 1962 coup in Burma gave the military absolute power to rule over the whole country. While it didn’t end the ethnic civil wars which are still raging up to this day, it made the junta the most powerful political force in the country.

A student uprising in 1988 challenged the junta but it was violently suppressed. Elections were held in 1990 but the junta ignored the results and arrested leaders of the winning party, the National League for Democracy (NLD).

It was only in 2010 when significant political reforms were instituted which led to the release of political prisoners, the lifting of media censorship, and the holding of an and open and free election.

Major defeat
The military is still influential in the bureaucracy but its party experienced a major defeat in last year’s election, which saw the NLD win a supermajority. Some observers noted that after 54 years, democracy was restored in Myanmar when the NLD assumed control of the government.

While there are various reasons why Myanmar remained an underdeveloped nation in the past half century, many are blaming the “death of democracy” in 1962 as the crucial turning point in the country’s history.

Historian Thant Myint-U, who is also executive director of Yangon Heritage Trust, wrote a Facebook post which quickly became popular about the significance of the 1962 coup. The historian wrote:

“Burma was then one of the better off countries in the region, with a per capita income three times greater than Indonesia, twice that of Thailand and nearly equal to South Korea. Over the coming decades, the Burmese people would receive little in return for having to surrender their basic freedoms.”

This argument is also invoked by pro-democracy forces when they accuse the junta of subverting not only Myanmar’s democracy but also the country’s development.

Interestingly, Filipinos also attribute the country’s lack of development to the brutal reign of a military-backed government. Marcos placed the country under military administration in 1972, purportedly to thwart a communist takeover.

But his political rivals believed it was only a ruse to extend his term which was supposed to end in 1973. During martial law, opposition leaders were detained, media censorship was enforced, and the people’s civil liberties were taken away.

‘Sick man of Asia’
When Marcos was ousted by a peaceful uprising in 1986, the Philippines was already known as the “sick man of Asia” because of widespread poverty in the country. Marcos and his cronies were accused of plundering the nation’s coffers while the majority of Filipinos lived a life of penury.

Marcos declared September 21 as National Thanksgiving Day. But for most Filipinos, it was the day when democracy died in the Philippines. A presidential and legislative election is due this year on May 9.

The events that led to the communist purge in Indonesia are not widely known and discussed because the government is unwilling to determine what really happened during those critical months when almost a million people died across the country. What is clear is that it led to the rise of General Suharto, who went on to rule Indonesia until 1998 when he was ousted.

Suharto is often compared to Marcos because both relied on the military for political support, both were accused of taking part in unprecedented corruption and committing human rights abuses during their term; both were unseated by a mass uprising.

It was only after Suharto’s fall from power when survivors and other witnesses were able to testify about the 1965 mass killings. Indonesia’s democracy suffered during the reign of Suharto and the collapse began during the failed coup attempt on September 30, 1965.

Remembering the day when democracy died proved useful in mobilizing the people to take action in order to expel or challenge the anti-democratic elements in society. It is also an effective information campaign to keep the democratic struggle relevant.

In the case of Myanmar, it sustains the narrative to push the country’s transition to modern democracy. In the Philippines, it is once more a potent political issue because the son of Marcos is running for vice president in the May 2016 elections. In Indonesia, survivors and relatives of the 1965 anti-communist hysteria continue to seek justice and apology from the state.

Ruling parties accused
Elsewhere in the region, civil society groups are accusing the incumbent ruling parties of killing democracy as part of a campaign to build a strong political movement. Thai activists are calling for the restoration of civilian rule after the army grabbed power in May 2014.

In Malaysia, various groups formed a coalition to demand the resignation of Prime Minister Najib Razak who is battling corruption charges. Najib is also accused of stifling the people’s right to free speech.

Democracy has died several times in Southeast Asia and its death has often inspired many people to join forces in order to bring it back to life. At times, it has taken many years and decades before democracy has been restored. But what is important is that the democratic ideal has become the true, unifying goal in the region.

• The Philippines faces presidential and legislative elections on May 9.

Mong Palatino is a regular blogger and Global Voices regional editor for Southeast Asia and Oceania. This article was first published in The Diplomat and is republished here with permission.

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AsiaPacificReport.nz

By Jen Maman

In April 2014, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, a tiny island country part of Micronesia, filed groundbreaking lawsuits to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) against the world’s nine nuclear-armed countries.

Now, almost two years later, the ICJ has heard preliminary oral arguments in three of the cases.

Between 1946 and 1958, 67 nuclear tests were conducted by the US in the Marshalls, making it one of the most contaminated places in the world. With a population of less than 70,000, the Islanders suffered greatly from the impact of radiation; the land and sea poisoned as well.

In 1985, the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior helped to relocate the residents of one of the most severely impacted islands, Rongelap, after it became clear that high levels of radioactive contamination made most of the island unfit for habitation.

Between 7-16 March 2016, the ICJ’s panel of 16 judges heard oral arguments by the Marshall Islands and three respondent nations – the United Kingdom, India and Pakistan.

Tony de Brum, Co-Agent of the Marshall Islands and former Foreign Minister, reminded the court why the Marshall Islands, a small nation with limited resources that is seriously threatened by climate change, would bring these lawsuits against some of the world’s most militarily powerful nations.

During the second day of the hearings, he recalled one occasion in 1954 of the testing of a thermonuclear bomb that was 1,000 times the strength of the Hiroshima bomb. When the explosion occurred, it began to rain radioactive fallout at Rongelap.

Within hours, the atoll was covered with a fine, white, powder-like substance.

Radioactive fallout
“No one knew it was radioactive fallout,” said de Brum. “The children thought it was snow. And the children played in the snow. And they ate it.”

The other six nuclear-armed nations – the United States, Russia, France, China, Israel and North Korea – do not accept the compulsory jurisdiction of the ICJ and therefore, would not appear before the Court.

The Marshall Islands contends that the UK, India and Pakistan are in breach of existing international law, which requires good faith negotiations for an end to the nuclear arms race and nuclear disarmament.

The court is expected to deliver its decision in approximately six months from now. Greenpeace will continue to stand with the people of the Marshall Islands in their fight to rid the world of nuclear weapons.

To read more about the hearings just concluded at the ICJ, advocates at the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation have been writing daily summaries here. Asia Pacific readers can also access to all relevant court documents at the ICJ website for the cases against the UK, India and Pakistan.

Nuclear Zero petition at www.nuclearzero.org.

Jen Maman is the senior peace adviser at Greenpeace International.

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AsiaPacificReport.nz

Investigative journalist Adele Ferguson has accepted the Graham Perkin journalist of the year award at the state of Victoria’s Quills, using her speech to rally against job cuts at Fairfax Media, reports ABC News.

The Quills are awarded for excellence in Victorian journalism and “acknowledge outstanding work produced by journalists, photographers, camera people, cartoonists, illustrators and editors”.

Ferguson took out the top award as Fairfax staff continued to strike in protest at plans to cut 120 editorial jobs as part of cost-cutting measures at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and Australian Financial Review.

Ferguson’s work for The Age, in partnership with ABC Four Corners, last year revealed retail giant 7-Eleven was systematically paying its workers about half the minimum wage at stores around the country.

The story prompted the resignation of the company’s chairman Russell Withers, along with chief executive Warren Wilmot and general manager of operations Natalie Dalbo.

The company has since established a panel led by former Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) boss Allan Fels to help staff recover wages, and the Fair Work Ombudsman expects to take more court action over worker exploitation.

Ferguson told the audience gathered in Melbourne that the cuts would make her job and others’ much more difficult.

‘Heavy heart’
“Given the past 24 hours at Fairfax, it’s with a heavy heart I’m here tonight,” she said.

“If there are job cuts it’s going to be harder.

“I hope we’re not going to go on cutting, cutting, cutting until there’s nothing left.”

The Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA) believes the cuts amount to one-quarter of the editorial workforce.

The mood at the awards has been a sombre one, with journalists wearing “Fairgo Fairfax” T-shirts in support of the diminishing editorial workforce at the company.

A number of media professionals have tweeted in support of Ferguson and other Fairfax staff for their commitment to quality journalism.

Fairfax cuts hurt democracy: protesters

Fairfax job cuts plan produces mass walkout as staff ‘take a stand’

#FairGoFairfax

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AsiaPacificReport.nz

By Ariane Adam

​The Veiqia Project Exhibition is now open at Auckland University of Technology’s St Pauls St Gallery Three as a result of the journey of seven women reconnecting with a “sleeping” cultural practice.

The exhibition boasts the artwork of five contemporary artists from Australia and New Zealand that were developed from 12 months of research and museum visits, in the hope of further understanding “Veiqia” – the practice of female tattooing in Fiji.

“The project is about reawakening ourselves as Fijian woman,” says curator Tarisi Sorovi-Vunidilo.

“The exhibition highlights a process each artist took to learn more about Veiqia, an ancient practice that is part of the rite of passage for young girls before they become a woman,” says Sorovi-Vunidilo.

“It reminds us of our role in Fijian society and reaffirms our place in our family.”

Artist Donita Hulmes says she only heard the word Veiqia a year ago.

“What came to me was the question – why don’t we know about this? This project now gives me hope that we can put the practice back into light and give the names back to our great-grandmothers.”

Artist Joana Monolagi says this is not the end for the Project.

“This has opened up a lot of our personal life as a Fijian women and who knows where this will take us.”
​​
The artists: Donita Hulmes, Dulcie Stewart, Margaret Aull, Luisa Tora
and Joana Monolagi.

The Veiqia Project is supported by AUT’s Office of Pacific Advancement.

“Pacific communities across the world have a wealth of Pacific artistic talent,” says Head of Pacific Advancement Walter Fraser. “We are pleased to be a part of helping showcase this diverse talent.”

​The exhibition is at the St Paul Street Gallery Three from March 16-26, and is aligned with the Pacific Arts Association XII International Symposium.

Artists: Margaret Aull, Luisa Tora, Dulcie Stewart, Donita Hulmes, Joana Monolagi.

Curators: Tarisi Sorovi-Vunidilo and Ema Tavola.

When: 16-26 March 2016

Where: St Pauls St Gallery Three, AUT, Auckland City

More about the Veiqia Project

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AsiaPacificReport.nz