Since resigning from USP in 2002, Professor David Robie (right) has maintained close links with USP Journalism. He was chief guest at the 18th USP Journalism awards in 2018. Picture: Wansolwara File
By Monika Singh in Suva
New Zealand Order of Merit (MNZM) awardee Professor David Robie has called on young journalists to see journalism as a calling and not just a job.
Dr Robie, who is also the editor of Asia Pacific Report and deputy chair of the Asia Pacific Media Network, was named in the King’s Birthday Honours list for “services to journalism and Asia Pacific media education”.
He was named last Monday and the investiture ceremony is later this year.
The University of the South Pacific’s head of journalism Associate Professor Shailendra Singh told Wansolwara News: “David’s mountain of work in media research and development, and his dedication to media freedom, speak for themselves.
“I am one of the many Pacific journalists and researchers that he has mentored and inspired over the decades”.
Dr Singh said this recognition was richly deserved.
Dr Robie was head of journalism at USP from 1998 to 2002 before he resigned to join the Auckland University of Technology ane became an associate professor in the School of Communication Studies in 2005 and full professor in 2011.
Close links with USP
Since resigning from the Pacific university he has maintained close links with USP Journalism. He was the chief guest at the 18th USP Journalism awards in 2018.
Retired AUT professor of journalism and communication studies and founder of the Pacific Media Centre Dr David Robie. Image: Alyson Young/APMN
He has also praised USP Journalism and said it was “bounding ahead” when compared with the journalism programme at the University of Papua New Guinea, where he was the head of journalism from 1993 to 1997.
He is a keynote speaker at the 2024 Pacific International Media Conference which is being hosted by USP’s School of Pacific Arts, Communications and Education (Journalism), in collaboration with the Pacific Island News Association (PINA) and the Asia-Pacific Media Network (APMN).
The editors will be inviting a selection of the best conference papers to be considered for publication in a special edition of the PJR or its companion publication Pacific Media.
Professor David Robie and associate professor and head of USP Journalism Shailendra Singh at the 18th USP Journalism Awards. Image: Wnsolwara/File
Referring to his recognition for his contribution to journalism, Dr Robie told RNZ Pacific he was astonished and quite delighted but at the same time he felt quite humbled by it all.
‘Enormous support’
“However, I feel that it’s not just me, I owe an enormous amount to my wife, Del, who is a teacher and designer by profession, and a community activist, but she has given journalism and me enormous support over many years and kept me going through difficult times.
“There’s a whole range of people who have contributed over the years so it’s sort of like a recognition of all of us, especially all those who worked so hard for 13 years on the Pacific Media Centre when it was going. So, yes, it is a delight and I feel quite privileged.”
Reflecting on his 50 years in journalism, Dr Robie believes that the level of respect for mainstream news media has declined.
“This situation is partly through the mischievous actions of disinformation peddlers and manipulators, but it is partly our fault in media for allowing the lines between fact-based news and opinion/commentary to be severely compromised, particularly on television,” he told Wansolwara News.
‘Respect for media has declined due to disinformation, but it is partly our fault in media for allowing the lines between fact-based news and opinion to be severely compromised’: Prof Robie.https://t.co/Gad0AZN5Td
— Dr Shailendra B Singh (@ShailendraBSing) June 10, 2024
He said the recognition helped to provide another level of “mana” at a time when public trust in journalism had dropped markedly, especially since the covid-19 pandemic and the emergence of a “global cesspit of disinformation”.
Dr Robie said journalists were fighting for the relevance of media today.
“The Fourth Estate, as I knew it in the 1960s, has eroded over the last few decades. It is far more complex today with constant challenges from the social media behemoths and algorithm-driven disinformation and hate speech.”
He urged journalists to believe in the importance of journalism in their communities and societies.
‘Believe in truth to power’
“Believe in the contribution that we can make to understanding and progress. Believe in truth to power. Have courage, determination and go out and save the world with facts, compassion and rationality.”
Despite the challenges, he believes that journalism is just as vital today, even more vital perhaps, than the past.
“It is critical for our communities to know that they have information that is accurate and that they can trust. Good journalism and investigative journalism are the bulwark for an effective defence of democracy against the anarchy of digital disinformation.
“Our existential struggle is the preservation of Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa — protecting our Pacific Ocean legacy for us all.”
Dr Robie began his career with The Dominion in 1965, after part-time reporting while a trainee forester and university science student with the NZ Forest Service, and worked as an international journalist and correspondent for agencies from Johannesburg to Paris.
In addition to winning several journalism awards, he received the 1985 Media Peace Prize for his coverage of the Rainbow Warrior bombing. He was on a 11-week voyage with the bombed ship and wrote the book Eyes of Fire about French and American nuclear testing.
Professor David Robie (second from right), and USP head of journalism Associate Professor Shailendra Singh, (left) with the winners of the 18th USP Journalism Awards in 2018. Image: Wansolwara/File
Geopolitics, climate crisis and decolonisation
Dr Robie mentions geopolitics and climate crisis as two of the biggest issues for the Pacific, with the former being largely brought upon by major global players, mainly the US, Australia and China.
He said it was important for the Pacific to create its own path and not become pawns or hostages to this geopolitical rivalry, adding that it was critically important for news media to retain its independence and a critical distance.
“The latter issue, climate crisis, is one that the Pacific is facing because of its unique geography, remoteness and weather patterns. It is essential to be acting as one ‘Pacific voice’ to keep the globe on track over the urgent solutions needed for the world. The fossil fuel advocates are passé and endangering us all.
“Journalists really need to step up to the plate on seeking climate solutions.”
“In addition to many economic issues for small and remote Pacific nations, are the issues of decolonisation. The events over the past three weeks in Kanaky New Caledonia have reminded us that unresolved decolonisation issues need to be centre stage for the Pacific, not marginalised.”
According to Dr Robie concerted Pacific political pressure, and media exposure, needs to be brought to bear on both France over Kanaky New Caledonia and “French” Polynesia, or Māohi Nui, and Indonesia with West Papua.
He called on the Pacific media to step up their scrutiny and truth to power role to hold countries and governments accountable for their actions.
Monika Singhis editor-in-chief of Wansolwara, the online and print publication of the USP Journalism Programme. Published in partnership with Wansolwara.
At least 274 Palestinians were killed and more than 698 others were wounded on Saturday in the central Gaza Strip, in what Israel is celebrating as a “heroic” military operation to rescue four Israeli captives that were being held in Gaza.
Palestinian media reported intense bombardment in the early afternoon local time in various areas in the Nuseirat and Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.
Video footage from the main market in the Nuseirat refugee camp showed crowds of Palestinian civilians fleeing under the sound of heavy artillery fire.
— أنس الشريف Anas Al-Sharif (@AnasAlSharif0) June 8, 2024
Translation: A horrific scene shows the first moments of the [Israeli] occupation committing the Nuseirat massacre in the middle of the Gaza Strip.
Al Jazeera reporter Anas al-Sharif reported that Israeli forces “infiltrated” the Nuseirat refugee camp in trucks disguised as humanitarian aid trucks.
The Gaza government media office said in a statement that Israeli forces launched an “unprecedented brutal attack on the Nuseirat refugee camp” directly targeting civilians, and that ambulances and civil defence crews were unable to reach the area and evacuate the wounded due to the intensity of the bombing.
The media office added that according to its count, at least 210 Palestinians were killed and an estimated 400 others were wounded during the Israeli operation.
Video footage published on social media showed dozens of bodies of men, women and children lying in the streets in the Nuseirat area, as well as bloodied and injured civilians being rushed to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah.
Hind Khoudary reports from Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir el-Balah. Video: Al Jazeera
‘Complete bloodbath’
Al Jazeera quoted Dr Tanya Haj-Hassan with Doctors Without Borders as saying the emergency department at Al-Aqsa Hospital “is a complete bloodbath . . . It looks like a slaughterhouse”.
“The images and videos that I’ve received show patients lying everywhere in pools of blood . . . their limbs have been blown off,” she told Al Jazeera, adding “that is what a massacre looks like.”
As the death toll from the central Gaza Strip continued to rise, Israeli reports emerged that four Israeli captives were rescued in the operation and transferred back to Israel.
The four captives were identified as Noa Argamani, 26, Almog Meir Jan, 21, Andrey Kozlov, 27, and Shlomi Ziv, 40. They were all reportedly taken on October 7 from the Nova Music festival in southern Israel close to the Gaza border.
According to Israeli media, the four captives were found in good health, and were transferred to a hospital in Israel where they were reunited with their families. One member of the Israeli special forces was killed during the attack.
The Israeli newspaper Haaretz cited Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari as saying the captives were “rescued under fire, and that during the operation the IDF [Israeli Defence Force] attacked from the air, sea, and land in the Nuseirat and Deir al-Balah areas in the center of the Gaza Strip.”
Haaretz added that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant approved the operation on Thursday evening. Netanyahu hailed the operation as “successful,” while Gallant reportedly described it as “one of the most heroic operations he had seen in all his years in the defence establishment”, according to Israeli media.
Families praised military
The families of Israeli captives held a press conference on Saturday afternoon in reaction to the news. Relatives of the four captives rescued on Saturday praised both the Israeli military and the government.
Some relatives of the remaining captives still being held in Gaza demanded an end to the war and a prisoner exchange in order to secure the release of those still being held in Gaza.
On Saturday evening local time, spokesman for the Qassam Brigades Abu Obeida said “the first to be harmed by [the Israeli army] are its prisoners”, saying that while some of the captives were freed in the operation, a number of other Israeli captives were reportedly killed.
The Israeli government and military have not commented on the reports that Israeli captives were killed in the operation.
It is reported that there are 120 captives still held in the Gaza Strip, including 43 who have been killed since October, many reportedly by Israel’s own forces.
On its official Telegram channel, Hamas said the release of the four captives “will not change the Israeli army’s strategic failure in the Gaza Strip” and that “the resistance is still holding a larger number of captives and can increase it.”
Reports of US involvement in Nuseirat massacre As news flooded on the scale of the massacre in central Gaza, and of celebrations in Israel at the release of the four captives, reports emerged of alleged US involvement in the operation.
Axios, citing a US administration official, reported that “the US hostage cell in Israel supported the effort to rescue the four hostages.”
Of the operation, US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said: “The United States is supporting all efforts to secure the release of hostages still held by Hamas, including American citizens. This includes through ongoing negotiations or other means.”
Some reports claimed that American forces were involved in the operation on the ground, and that the humanitarian aid trucks that were reportedly used to disguise the entry of special forces into Nuseirat departed from the US built humanitarian pier off the Gaza coast.
Mondoweiss has not been able to independently verify some of these reports.
Videos circulating on social media showed the helicopters that were used in the operation to evacuate the Israeli captives taking off from the vicinity of the US pier that was built off the coast of Gaza in order to deliver “much-needed humanitarian aid” to Gaza.
The US$230 million pier, which was completed last month, has drawn significant criticism from rights groups and activists who say the pier is an ineffective way to deliver aid.
According to Axios, citing a U.S. administration official, the American hostages unit in Israel assisted in the release of the four Israeli captives in Gaza.
Footage published by an Israeli occupation soldier confirms Israel’s use of the American temporary pier in central Gaza… pic.twitter.com/GJJp1ZSA7T
Intense criticism
Reported US involvement in the attacks on central Gaza on Saturday, and the alleged use of the pier in the operation, has sparked intense criticism and outrage online.
In response to the reports, Hamas said it proves “once more” that Washington is “complicit and completely involved in the war crimes being perpetrated” in Gaza.
US President Joe Biden has not commented on US involvement in the operation, but in response said: “We won’t stop working until all the hostages come home and a ceasefire is reached. It is essential that it happens.”
Reported by the Mondoweiss Palestine Bureau. Republished under Creative Commons in partnership with Asia Pacific Report.
Israel is not a country, it’s like a fake movie set version of a country. A movie set where the set pieces won’t even stand up on their own, so people are always running around in a constant state of construction trying to prop things up and nail things down. Image: caitlinjohnstone.com.au
COMMENTARY: By Caitlin Johnstone
Everything about Israel is fake. It’s a completely synthetic nation created without any regard for the organic sociopolitical movements of the land and its people, slapped rootless atop an ancient pre-existing civilisation with deep roots.
That’s why it cannot exist without being artificially propped up by nonstop propaganda, lobbying, online influence operations, and mass military violence.
Israel is so fake that its far right Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir has been stoking religious tensions by encouraging militant Zionists to pray on the Temple Mount — known to Muslims as Al-Aqsa.
This is an illustration of how phony Israel and its political ideology are because Jews were historically prohibited from praying at the Temple Mount under Jewish law; a sign placed there in 1967 and still upheld by Israel’s Chief Rabbinate reads, “According to Torah Law, entering the Temple Mount area is strictly forbidden due to the holiness of the site.”
It’s just this weird, evangelical Christian-like thing that Zionists have started doing in contravention of their own traditions and religious texts to advance their nationalist agendas.
“‘Prayer’ on the Temple Mount is 100% a Zionist invention in total contravention of Jewish law. Jews don’t step foot onto the Temple Mount, let alone ‘pray’ there. That’s why the sign below is posted at the entrance non-Muslims use.
“Ben Gvir publicly announced this in order to provoke a reaction to use as a pretext to restrict and expel Muslims from the site, explode Jerusalem and the West Bank, and expand the regional war.
“Ben Gvir holds Netanyahu hostage. Together, they’re leading Israel to self-destruction.”
“Prayer” on the Temple Mount is 100% a Zionist invention in total contravention of Jewish law. Jews don’t step foot onto the Temple Mount, let alone “pray” there. That’s why the sign below is posted at the entrance non-Muslims use.
There’s no authentic spirituality in such behaviour. It has no roots. No depth. No connection. It’s the product of busy minds with modern agendas, with nothing more to it than that.
Israel is so fake that Zionists artificially resurrected a dead language in order for its people to have a common “native” tongue for them to speak, so that they could all LARP as indigenous Middle Easterners together in their phony, synthetic country.
Israel has no real culture of its own — it’s all a mixture of (A) organic Jewish culture brought in from other parts of the world by the Jewish diaspora, (B) culture that was stolen from Palestinians (see “Israeli food”), and (C) the culture of indoctrinated genocidal hatred that is interwoven with the fabric of modern Zionism.
The way Israel has become a Mecca of electronic dance music points clearly to an aching cultural void that its people are trying desperately to fill with empty synthetic pop fluff.
Even international support for Israel is fake, manufactured astroturf that has to be enforced from the top down, because it would never organically occur to anyone that Israel is something that should be supported.
The phenomenally influential Israel lobby is used to push pro-Israel foreign policy in powerful Western governments like Washington and London. Just this week US Representative Thomas Massie told Tucker Carlson that every Republican in Congress besides himself “has an AIPAC person” assigned to them with whom they are in constant communication, who he describes as functioning “like your babysitter” with regard to lawmaking on the subject of Israel.
Massie:”I’ve Republicans…say: that’s wrong what AIPAC is doing to you…let me talk to my AIPAC person”
The Israel lobby exists with the full consent of the Western imperial war machine and its secretive intelligence cartel, because Western military support for Israel is also phony and fraudulent.
The Western empire whose strategic interests directly benefit from violence and radicalism in the Middle East pretends it is constantly expanding its military presence in the region in order to promote stability and protect an important ally, but in reality this military presence simply allows for greater control over crucial resource-rich territories whose populations would otherwise unite to form a powerful bloc acting in their own interests.
The Israel lobby is a self-funding consent manufacturer which helps the empire do what it already wants to do.
Support for Israel in the media is also phony and imposed from the top down. Since October outlets like The New York Times, CNN and CBC have been finding themselves fighting off scandals due to staff leaks about demands from their executives that they slant their Gaza coverage to benefit the information interests of Israel.
Briahna Joy Gray was just fired by The Hill for being critical of Israel as co-host of the show “Rising”, a fate that all mass media employees understand they will share if they are insufficiently supportive of the empire’s favorite ethnostate.
Israel’s support from celebrities is similarly forced. A newly leaked email from influential Hollywood marketing and branding guru Ashlee Margolis instructs her firm’s employees to “pause on working with any celebrity or influencer or tastemaker posting against Israel.”
As we discussed recently, celebrities are also naturally disincentivised from criticising any aspect of the Western empire by the fact that their status is dependent on wealthy people whose wealth is premised upon the imperial status quo.
After the beginning of the Gaza onslaught Israel spent millions on PR spin via advertising on YouTube, Instagram and Facebook, and The New York Times has just confirmed earlier reports that Israel has been targeting US lawmakers with fake social media accounts to influence their policymaking on Israel.
In truth, nobody really organically supports Israel. If they’re not supporting it because their lobbyists and employers told them to, they’re supporting it because that’s what they were told to support by the leaders of their dopey political ideologies like Zionism, liberalism and conservatism, or by the leaders of their dopey religions like Christian fundamentalism.
It’s always something that’s pushed on people from the top down, rather than arising from within themselves due to their own natural interests and ideals.
Israel is not a country, it’s like a fake movie set version of a country. A movie set where the set pieces won’t even stand up on their own, so people are always running around in a constant state of construction trying to prop things up and nail things down, and scrambling to pick up things that are falling over, and rotating the set pieces so that they look like real buildings in front of the camera.
Without this constant hustle and bustle of propagandising, lobbying, online influence ops, and nonstop mass military violence, the whole movie set would fall over, and people would see all the film crew members and actors and cameras for what they are.
Clearly, no part of this is sustainable. Clearly, something’s going to have to give. Those set pieces are going to come toppling down sooner or later; it’s just a question of when, and of how high the pile of human corpses needs to be before it happens.
"It is no coincidence that the US wants to install [the Palestine Authority] as administrators of a post-war Gaza, as sort of the reservation cops for what is already the world’s biggest outdoor prison and permanent free fire zone for the Israeli military." Image: Visualing Palestine graphic
ANALYSIS: By Murray Horton
The general consensus is that Gaza is this generation’s Vietnam. There are some similarities between the two wars — and a whole lot more differences. But it is true as far as the global protest movement is concerned. Even some of the chants are the same – substitute Biden or Netanyahu for Johnson in “Hey, hey, LBJ. How many kids did you kill today?” (The answer in both cases is an awful lot).
And the putdowns are much the same. If you were a critic of the Vietnam War, you were labelled “anti-American”. Today, if you’re a critic of the Gaza War or Zionism in general, you’re labelled “anti-Semitic”, which is just ludicrous.
I’m old enough to have actively participated in both Vietnam and Gaza demos. There is one conspicuous absence from the latter. In the Vietnam demos it was common for people to chant “Victory to the NLF” (National Liberation Front or the “Viet Cong” to the Western world) and to carry their flag — I have old photos of me as a callow youth with that flag.
But nobody is chanting “victory to Hamas” or carrying its flag. I can only speak from my personal experience of months of Christchurch demos but I have no doubt that if anyone was supporting Hamas at any NZ demo the media would be shouting it from the rooftops.
Why is this? Simply that people want to keep separate their outrage at Israel’s genocide in Gaza from any perception of support for Hamas. There are big differences between Vietnam’s NLF of half a century ago and Hamas today. One was communist and nationalist; the other is Islamist. I distrust all religious fundamentalists, regardless of which religion they are imposing on people.
Murray Horton in his younger protest days in 1969 . . . spokesperson for the Progressive Youth Movement (PYM). Image: canterburystories.nz
The same goes for ideological fundamentalists, so I put the Khmer Rouge in the same bracket as the Taliban (this country has been afflicted by capitalist fundamentalists in government at various times in recent decades, including among the present coalition).
Israel has only got itself to blame for the existence of Hamas. Israel defeated and ruthlessly repressed the previous secular Palestinian armed resistance, the one led by Yasser Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), which fitted into the pantheon of global liberation movements of the day. That old guard ended up as Israel’s collaborators, the corrupt and powerless administrators (not rulers) of the Occupied West Bank.
It is no coincidence that the US wants to install them as administrators of a post-war Gaza, as sort of the reservation cops for what is already the world’s biggest outdoor prison and permanent free fire zone for the Israeli military.
The Palestinian people have made clear that they do not want this.
Peace Researcher editor, Anti-Bases Coalition organiser and protester Murray Horton . . . “Israel will not achieve peace by military means – it will have to be a political solution (which has to be more than a ceasefire).” Image: Asia Pacific Report
Israel laughably conflates Hamas with ISIS, which everyone agrees is a terrorist organisation and ideology, with no redeeming features. I guarantee that if Israel does succeed in its murderous mission to exterminate Hamas, it will be replaced by something more extreme, maybe something actually like the ISIS fascists. That would be a very sad day but the Palestinian people are not going to lie down and lick the boots of their oppressors. They will continue to fight back.
The Hamas surprise attack into Israel in October 2023 was an impressive military feat, catching the arrogant and complacent Israeli military and intelligence machine completely off guard. But Hamas definitely committed war crimes by terrorising, murdering and kidnapping Israeli civilians. As for killing and capturing enemy soldiers, that is normal in a war (which Israel and Hamas have been fighting for decades).
Nor are the Israeli settlers innocent bystanders. Throughout history, and up until today, settlers are a common denominator in wars, land theft and dispossession. This applies across the world, including in New Zealand.
Ongoing colonisation of Palestine . . . from David Ben-Gurion (1947) until Benjamin Netanyahu (2024). Image: Visualising Palestine Graphics
Terrorism
Hamas is routinely presented in the West as a terrorist organisation — in 2024 New Zealand has designated it, in its entirety, as one (previously NZ only designated Hamas’ military wing as a terrorist organisation). “Terrorist” is a very subjective term and it depends on who’s telling the story. In wartime it is usual to brand one’s enemy as terrorists. Thus, the Nazis branded the French Resistance as such.
“Our boys” who incinerated huge numbers of German and Japanese civilians in WW2 bombing raids were as much terrorists committing war crimes as were the Nazis who bombed British civilians during the Blitz.
There are politicians in office now whose organisations and parties were previously branded as terrorists — South Africa and Northern Ireland are two examples. Look no further than the history of Palestine itself — when it was part of the British Empire in the 20th Century, Zionist Jews waged a very effective terrorist campaign against their occupiers, featuring bombings and murders.
Hamas doesn’t seem to have thought far beyond that initial surprise attack into Israel in October 2023. Which brings up another similarity with the Vietnam War. In 1968, the NLF and North Vietnam took the US and its South Vietnamese puppets completely by surprise by launching the Tet Offensive right across South Vietnam and right into the grounds of the US Embassy in Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City).
At the time, the West judged it to be a military failure, a suicide mission. The same with Hamas’ attack — deemed a suicide mission. But both Tet in 1968 and Hamas in 2023 were looking beyond the purely military. They were both making a political point, issuing a wake-up call, putting their struggle front and centre on the global agenda.
In both cases the impact was seismic. And there are other similarities. Tet finished the Presidency of Lyndon Johnson. 1968 was an election year — he announced that he would not run again.
This year, 2024, is an election year in the US. It remains to be seen what impact Biden’s “ironclad” support of Israel’s genocide has on his re-election. Here is an even stranger coincidence — the 1968 Democrat convention was in Chicago (the protests became a legendary event in the history of the US anti-war movement). The 2024 Democrat convention is also in Chicago, with this generation’s anti-war movement building up a head of steam in advance.
Important differences between the Vietnam and Gaza wars
Vietnam could count on the rock- solid support of its ideological allies, the Soviet Union and China, who armed it and enabled it to have some air defences that could shoot down the US bombers that waged a much more devastating bombardment on Vietnam (and Laos and Cambodia) than anything Israel has unleashed.
Gaza has no friendly next-door neighbours — Vietnam had China, Gaza has Egypt, which regards Hamas as a threat and an enemy. The Arab states sold out the Palestinians decades ago, after they lost several wars to Israel. It was no coincidence that Hamas launched its attack just before Israel was about to announce a normalisation of relations with Saudi Arabia, the most vicious of the regional dictatorships.
Hamas does not even have the support of the Palestinian Authority in the Occupied West Bank, headed by the people who lost the 2006 Palestinian election to Hamas and were subsequently driven out of Gaza by it. So, Hamas is basically on its own, apart from Iran and its allies in the region, such as Hezbollah and the Houthis, but they are all a long way from Gaza.
There are other differences with the Vietnam War. Hamas has no air defences and, although it has done a very good job of protecting its own ranks with tunnels, it has provided no network of air raid shelters for civilians.
It has effectively left its own civilian population defenceless against Israel’s genocide from the sky. And, unlike Vietnam, it seems to have done little or nothing to mobilise those civilians, either for defence or guerrilla war.
A striking feature of the Vietnam War was the military participation of women. Hamas appears to be an all-male military and political movement. Having said that, there is no sign of Hamas having lost popular support in Gaza. There has been no uprising or mass clamour to escape.
Indeed, Hamas has apparently increased in popularity in the Occupied West Bank, which is run by its Palestinian rivals. The reason why is obvious — it is the only organisation offering any kind of effective armed resistance to the Israeli occupation from within.
Ongoing massacres in Palestine . . . from the Nakba (“The Catastrophe”, 1947-8) until Gaza (2023-2024). Image: Visualising Palestine graphics
Murderers, liars, cowards
Which brings me to the other side in this one-sided war. If Hamas is a terrorist organisation, then Israel is a terrorist state. If one has committed atrocities, the other is committing genocide. The keyword here is disproportionality.
Yes, Israel is entitled to defend itself. But so is Palestine, specifically Gaza, which has been used as a real-world testing ground for Israeli weapons and surveillance systems ever since Hamas won that 2006 election.
The West is fed a constant diet of soothing noises about “surgical strikes” and “smart bombs”, which is all just so much bullshit. The world sees that the reality is massive death and destruction. If Israel really was “smart”, then it might have won the allegiance of some of Gaza’s people (there were never going to be cheering crowds throwing flowers onto Israel’s conquering troops).
But, no, it declared that its war was against all Gazans, that they are all the enemy, that they are sub-humans, and it is a war of annihilation. Despite their worst efforts, the Israeli military has still not won (at the time of writing) — whatever “won” means in this context.
Hamas has neither surrendered nor been exterminated. I would say Israel’s methods have guaranteed a fresh supply of Hamas recruits.
Because Israel can count on the unquestioning support of the US, other major Western governments and a supine Western media, it knows it can commit genocide with impunity. Mass murder in broad daylight and in plain sight.
It got such a fright from the successful Hamas attack that it reacted with an all-consuming blood lust, killing everyone in its path in Gaza. It has killed its own hostages, by accident or design; it has murdered record numbers of women and children; civilians; aid workers; health workers; journalists and UN staff.
It has weaponised the withholding of desperately needed humanitarian aid and deliberately induced mass starvation. It has systematically destroyed hospitals, schools, universities, mosques, homes, etc., etc; to make Gaza unliveable for the foreseeable future.
In some cases, it tried to concoct a cover story — “Hamas had a control centre and/or tunnels under this hospital”. It gave up on that because it realised it didn’t have to pretend – it could do anything it liked without consequences, provoking only the feeblest of tut-tutting from its Western allies who bankroll and arm it, to the tune of billions of dollars per year.
So much for “the international rules-based order” that they tiresomely, and lyingly, pontificate about.
It is plainly obvious that the Israeli military are mass murderers. They are also liars — they ordered Gazans to relocate to “safe zones”, which then made them easier to attack and murder. And their chosen method is to murder a defenceless civilian population from the air (a tactic favoured by their American accomplices in their various wars in recent decades).
That’s why I call them cowards.
US is the enabler of genocide
If Israel is the mass murderer, then the US is the enabler of that mass murder, providing vital military support and political cover at places like the UN. Minor US satellites like NZ follow the US lead.
Gaza is certainly not the only war at present, not even the biggest. Until October 2023 the West was fixated on Ukraine, whose war includes old-school features from both World War One (trench warfare) and World War Two (long-range rocket attacks), combined with modern features such as drones and cyber-warfare.
Syria has become yesterday’s story; the war between rival gangs of thugs in Sudan has been forgotten. The West has only ever taken passing interest in the Congo, Africa’s decades-long world war, one in which millions have died.
Gaza is not the only recent example of ethnic cleansing. Just the month before it started, Azerbaijan launched a victorious one-day long lightning strike into the Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, resulting in the exit of nearly 100 percent of ethnic Armenians.
This was one of the big stories in world news until Gaza wiped it out of global consciousness.
The world has been fed this myth of “plucky little Israel”, surrounded by enemies. Furthermore, we’ve been told it’s the only democracy in the Middle East. Maybe, but Israeli democracy is only for the occupiers, not the occupied.
It certainly has never accepted the result of the 2006 Palestinian election which brought Hamas to power in Gaza. It has barred international media from Gaza during the war and shut down al Jazeera in Israel.
Zionism: An inherently racist and terrorist ideology
In fact, Israel is a bully, both domestically and regionally. A heavily militarised bully which wages continual war, both internally and regionally. Armed to the teeth and politically sheltered by the US superpower, it recklessly tries to provoke a wider war with Iran in order to draw in the US and its Western allies.
A state governed by Zionism, an inherently racist and terrorist ideology, it is an apartheid state on the same model as the former white-ruled South Africa.
A state currently governed by the extreme Right and headed by a corrupt Prime Minister who is a literal criminal (in addition to being a war criminal), one who is keen to keep the Gaza War going indefinitely in order to postpone his various criminal trials. A lawless state which arms vigilante settlers and lets them rob, starve, terrorise and murder Palestinians with impunity.
Yes, Israel has got a problem neighbour in Hamas. Any country is entitled to defend itself against being regularly attacked by barrages of low-grade rockets. But Irael’s response has always been disproportionate and the most recent response is the most disproportionate of all.
Israel is modelling its response on Sri Lanka, which ended the decades-long separatist war with the Tamil Tigers by finally driving them, and a huge number of civilians, into a corner, then bombarding them all into death and defeat.
But Israel will not achieve peace by military means — it will have to be a political solution (which has to be more than a ceasefire. Korea has had one of those since 1953, and it’s not a good precedent).
Above all, Israel, the US and its fellow accomplices and enablers of genocide have to recognise that old truism: no justice, no peace.
Activist Murray Horton is editor of Peace Researcher, organiser of the Anti-Bases Coalition (ABC), and a contributor to Café Pacific. Republished with permission from Peace Researcher at the Converge website.
This is a clarifying moment for all of us. We will be forced to confront our real values. Will deep attachment to American power and white supremacy trump our belief in the rule of law, of justice for all? Image: Solidarity
COMMENTARY: By Eugene Doyle
Could the final act of the US Global War on Terror (GWOT) be the conviction of a US President for terrorism? Tantalising but implausible? Read on.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) request for arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and others is only the beginning. Around the world evidence is being gathered and cases are being prepared, including against British, American and EU politicians and officials for complicity in genocide and other crimes against humanity.
Last week the ICC received a request from jurists and human rights groups to investigate European Union chief Ursula von der Leyen for complicity in genocide.
Tayab Ali, a human rights lawyer and director of the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians told journalist Owen Jones that a tremendous amount of preparation is underway out of sight of the public.
“I’ve spent a significant amount of time this year travelling the world meeting with heads of state, meeting with foreign ministers, meeting with justice ministers, and I’ll tell you: the appetite, particularly in the Global South, to prosecute people complicit in war crimes, is high.”
South Africa has been a leader in this regard.
The reality is Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Joe Biden are guilty of far worse crimes than Osama Bin Laden, Ismail Haniyeh, Marwan Barghouti or Nelson Mandela.
I don’t condone Bin Laden or minimise what he did; a good friend of mine John Lozowski was killed in the Twin Towers on 9/11. He didn’t deserve to die.
Murdered far more innocents
The current US President and the PM of Israel, however, just happen to have murdered far more innocent men, women and children — and, unlike Bin Laden and the others, are clearly guilty of the crime of crimes: genocide. The game changer, however, is the looming presence of the combined legal and moral authority of the ICC and ICJ.
Bearing down like angels of justice, they will pursue Israel, and, ultimately even top US officials, to the ends of the earth. In the case of the ICC, no signatory nation to the Rome Statute can provide a safe haven once the arrest warrants go out.
Which is why the ICC seeking Netanyahu’s arrest has triggered something approaching a nervous breakdown, a shattering of the psyche for the Western elites. Impunity is in the job description.
Josep Borrell, the EU’s foreign policy chief, told Deutsche Welle this week that some European countries had been trying to intimidate the International Court of Justice following its decision, under the Genocide Convention, to order Israel to halt its onslaught on Rafah, Gaza.
He said the court’s ruling poses a dilemma for the EU.
“We will have to choose between our support of international institutions and the rule of law – or our support to Israel.” Borrell said. Ponder those words and, depending on the choice, where they lead.
Could the US and Europe be on the cusp of walking away from the decades-long charade that they stand for justice, law and order?
Which gets to the next Gordian dilemma that is impossible to cut through: terrorism.
US war theory lies in mangled ruins Like the Twin Towers that came tumbling down in 2001, the architectural framing of the American theory of war now lies in mangled ruins. After Gaza, where is the Global War on Terror, launched by George W Bush, and supported by countries like Australia and New Zealand to this very day?
It was based on the argument that while terrorists like Al Qaeda deliberately kill innocents, America and its allies deliver justice. In response to the charge that America, or Israel or the UK have killed countless more innocents than any “terrorist” organisation, the answer always came back: but we never meant to . . . our intentions were noble, they just died as a result of collateral damage, unforeseen or unintended consequences, or that hoary old chestnut: the lesser of two evils.
On the death of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children as a result of US sanctions, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright sighed: “This is a very hard choice but we think the price is worth it.” Israel trots out the same argument in respect to incinerating men, women and children in Gaza.
This is the Doctrine of Double Effect — which goes all the way back to St. Thomas Aquinas. It argues that there is a moral difference between consequences that you intend and those that you merely foresee.
“The moral basis of the distinction evaporates as consequences become ever more horrific and approach certainty,” says Ramon Das, senior lecturer in moral and political philosophy at Victoria University of Wellington.
“Consider a pilot who drops a hydrogen bomb on a city. Afterwards, he claims that although he foresaw that he would kill the city’s inhabitants, his intention was merely to destroy a weapons factory. We would not be impressed.
“Yet when we consider Israel’s indiscriminate bombing and medieval-like siege of Gaza, its claim that it does not intentionally target civilians has about as much moral credibility as the hydrogen bomb pilot.”
Volumes of evidence
Enter the ICC and ICJ: volumes of evidence have been presented that Israel’s military and civilian leaders deliberately targeted civilians, aid workers, journalists and civilian infrastructure, and that Israel is using starvation as an instrument of war. The US — the Arsenal of Genocide — is fully aware of this, yet has continued to send billions of dollars of bombs and other instruments of death to continue both the slaughter and the destruction of everything necessary to sustain social, economic, political and physical existence.
It calculates it can get away with mass murder — until now a pretty safe bet.
John V Whitbeck, a Paris-based lawyer who has spent much of his distinguished career on Middle East issues, has written that “the poor, the weak and the oppressed rarely complain about ‘terrorism’. The rich, the strong and the oppressors constantly do.
“While most of mankind has more reason to fear the high-technology violence of the strong than the low-technology violence of the weak, the fundamental mind-trick employed by the abusers of the word ‘terrorism’ is essentially this: The low-technology violence of the weak is such an abomination that there are no limits on the high-technology violence of the strong that can be deployed against it.”
Have we now come to an epoch-making tipping point? The recent actions by the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court could shatter the Shield of Impunity – the idea that international institutions are there as tools for the West to attack their enemies and can never be used against the US and its allies. Until the past week the ICC was considered by many progressives as the International Caucasian Court; the idea that the Prime Minister of Israel could have an arrest warrant issued against him broke the unspoken rule that the court was there to pursue Africans and Slavs.
I think this is a clarifying moment for all of us. We will be forced to confront our real values — a bit like Josep Borrell. Will deep attachment to American power and white supremacy trump our belief in the rule of law, of justice for all?
If we think a British foreign secretary, or an EU president or even the US president himself is above the law, we really are back to what Thrasymachus argued when he wrangled with Socrates thousands of years ago: Justice is a scam — an elaborate set of rules, conjured up by the powerful to control the weak.
This was certainly the conclusion Nelson Mandela made when he formed Umkhonto We Sizwe, the Spear of the Nation — the ANC’s military wing — in the wake of the Sharpeville massacre by police in 1960. It was certainly the conclusion Hamas came to after the West ignored countless massacres and land thefts against the Palestinians.
Is international law a scam? Make up your own mind.
Eugene Doyle is a Wellington-based writer and community activist who publishes the Solidaritywebsite. His first demonstration was at the age of 12 against the Vietnam War. This article was first published at Solidarity.
The Kanak flag of independence (and West Papua Morning Star flag inset) . . . The average French citizen in Paris is not fully aware of the decolonisation process in Kanaky New Caledonia and why the electoral roll has been restricted to Kanaks and “citizens”, as per the Nouméa Accord. Image: Kanaky Online
COMMENTARY: By Jimmy Naouna in Nouméa
The unrest that has gripped Kanaky New Caledonia is the direct result of French President Emmanuel Macron’s partisan and stubborn political manoeuvring to derail the process towards self-determination in my homeland.
The deadly riots that erupted two weeks ago in the capital, Nouméa, were sparked by an electoral reform bill voted through in the French National Assembly, in Paris.
Almost 40 years ago, Kanaky New Caledonia made international headlines for similar reasons. The pro-independence and Kanak people have long been calling to settle the colonial situation in Kanaky New Caledonia, once and for all.
FLNKS Political Bureau member Jimmy Naouna . . . The pro-independence groups and the Kanak people called for the third independence referendum to be deferred due to the covid pandemic and its high death toll. Image: @JNaouna
Kanak people make up about 40 percent of the population in New Caledonia, which remains a French territory in the Pacific.
The Kanak independence movement, the Kanak National and Socialist Liberation Front (FLNKS), and its allies have been contesting the controversial electoral bill since it was introduced in the French Senate by the Macron government in April.
Relations between the French government and the FLNKS have been tense since Macron decided to push ahead with the third independence referendum in 2021. Despite the call by pro-independence groups and the Kanak people for it to be deferred due to the covid pandemic and its high death toll.
Ever since, the FLNKS and supporters have contested the political legitimacy of that referendum because the majority of the indigenous and colonised people of Kanaky New Caledonia did not take part in the vote.
Peaceful rallies
Since the electoral reform bill was introduced in the French Senate in April this year, peaceful rallies, demonstrations, marches and sit-ins gathering more than 10,000 people have been held in the city centre of Nouméa and around Kanaky New Caledonia.
But that did not stop the French government pushing ahead with the bill — despite clear signs that it would trigger unrest and violent reactions on the ground.
The tensions and loss of trust in the Macron government by pro-independence groups became more evident when Sonia Backés, an anti-independence leader and president of the Southern province, was appointed as State Secretary in charge of Citizenship in July 2022 and then Nicolas Metzdorf, another anti-independence representative as rapporteur on the proposed electoral reform bill.
Macron can deploy thousands of troops and military arsenals. France will never silence Kanaky aspirations for freedom ✊🇳🇨 https://t.co/GJcXFCDvLY
This clearly showed the French government was supporting loyalist parties in Kanaky New Caledonia — and that the French State had stepped out of its neutral position as a partner to the Nouméa Accord, and a party to negotiate toward a new political agreement.
Then last late last month, President Macron made the out-of-the blue decision to pay an 18 hour visit to Kanaky New Caledonia, to ease tensions and resume talks with local parties to build a new political agreement.
It was no more than a public relations exercise for his own political gain. Even within his own party, Macron has lost support to take the electoral reform bill through the Congrès de Versailles (a joint session of Parliament) and his handling of the situation in Kanaky New Caledonia is being contested at a national level by political groups, especially as campaigning for the upcoming European elections gathers pace.
Once back in Paris, Macron announced he may consider putting the electoral reform to a national referendum, as provided for under the French constitution; French citizens in France voted to endorse the Nouméa Accord in 1998.
“To me Kanak independence is inevitable” /
“I think France is prolonging the inevitable.” Sir Collin Tukuitonga
New Caledonia’s fires for freedom https://t.co/PB0edo9XWg
More pressure on talks
For the FLNKS, this option will only put more pressure on the talks for a new political agreement.
The average French citizen in Paris is not fully aware of the decolonisation process in Kanaky New Caledonia and why the electoral roll has been restricted to Kanaks and “citizens”, as per the Nouméa Accord. They may just vote “yes” on the basis of democratic principles: one man, one vote.
Yet others may vote “no” as to sanction against Macron’s policies and his handling of Kanaky New Caledonia.
Either way, the outcome of a national referendum on the proposed electoral reform bill — without a local consensus — would only trigger more protest and unrest in Kanaky New Caledonia.
After Macron’s visit, the FLNKS issued a statement reaffirming its call for the electoral reform process to be suspended or withdrawn.
It also called for a high-level independent mission to be sent into Kanaky New Caledonia to ease tensions and ensure a more conducive environment for talks to resume towards a new political agreement that sets a definite and clear pathway towards a new — and genuine — referendum on independence for Kanaky New Caledonia.
A peaceful future for all that hopefully will not fall on deaf ears again.
Jimmy Naouna is a member of Kanaky New Caledonia’s pro-independence FLNKS Political Bureau. This article was first published by The Guardian and is republished here with the permission of the author.
Asia Pacific Media Network's Professor David Robie . . . "The other big challenge facing the Pacific is the climate crisis and consequently that's the biggest issue for journalists in the region and they deal with this every day." Image: Alyson Young/APMN
This King’s Birthday today, the New Zealand Order of Merit recognises Professor David Robie’s 50 years of service to Pacific journalism and Asia-Pacific media.
He says he is astonished and quite delighted, and feels quite humbled by it all.
“However, I feel that it’s not just me, I owe an enormous amount to my wife, Del, who is a teacher and designer by profession, but she has given journalism and me enormous support over many years and kept me going through difficult times,” he said.
“There’s a whole range of people who have contributed over the years so it’s sort of like a recognition of all of us. So, yes, it is a delight and I feel quite privileged,” he said.
Starting his career at TheDominion in 1965, Dr Robie has been “on the ground” at pivotal events in regional history, including the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior in 1985 (he was on board the Greenpeace ship on the voyage to the Marshall Islands and wrote the book Eyes of Fire about it), the 1997 Sandline mercenary scandal in Papua New Guinea, and the George Speight coup in Fiji in 2000.
In both PNG and Fiji, Dr Robie and his journalism students covered unfolding events when their safety was far from assured.
David Robie standing with Kanak pro-independence activists and two Australian journalists at Touho, north-eastern New Caledonia, while on assignment during the FLNKS boycott of the 1984 New Caledonian elections. (Robie is standing with cameras strung around his back). Image: Wiken Books/RNZ
As an educator, Dr Robie was head of journalism at the University of Papua New Guinea (UPNG) 1993-1997 and then at the University of the South Pacific (USP) in Suva from 1998 to 2002.
Started Pacific Media Centre
In 2007 he started the Pacific Media Centre, while working as professor of Pacific journalism and communications at Auckland University of Technology (AUT). He has organised scholarships for Pacific media students, including scholarships to China, Indonesia and the Philippines, with the Asia New Zealand Foundation.
Running education programmes for journalists was not always easy. While he had a solid programme to follow at UPNG, his start at USP was not as easy.
He described arriving at USP, opening the filing cabinet to discover “…there was nothing there.” It was a “baptism of fire” and he had to rebuild the programme, although he notes that currently UPNG is struggling whereas USP is “bounding ahead.”
Dr Robie recalled the enthusiasm of his Pacific journalism students in the face of significant challenges. Pacific journalists are regularly confronted by threats and pressures from governments, which do not recognise the importance of a free media to a functioning democracy.
He stated that while resources were being employed to train quality regional journalists, it was really politicians who needed educating about the role of the media, particularly public broadcasters — not just to be a “parrot” for government policy.
Another challenge Robie noted was the attrition of quality journalists, who only stay in the mainstream media for a year or two before finding better-paying communication roles in NGOs.
Independence an issue
He said that while resourcing was an issue the other most significant challenge facing media outlets in the Pacific today was independence — freedom from the influence and control of the power players in the region.
While he mentioned China, he also suggested that the West also attempted to expand its own influence, and that Pacific media should be able set its own path.
“The other big challenge facing the Pacific is the climate crisis and consequently that’s the biggest issue for journalists in the region and they deal with this every day, unlike Australia and New Zealand,” he said.
Dr Robie stated his belief that it was love of the industry that had kept him and other journalists going, that being a journalist was an important role and a service to society, more than just a job.
He expressed deep gratitude for having been given the opportunity to serve the Pacific in this capacity for so long.
Kanak activist Jessie Ounei . . . trying to balance the skewed information in New Zealand media and "shed light" on the independence struggle in Kanaky New Caledonia. Image: Photo: RNZ/Angus Dreaver
By Pretoria Gordon
Jessie Ounei is following in her mum’s footsteps as a Kanak pro-independence activist.
“It is depicting us as savages, as violent, and not giving proper context to what has actually happened, and what is happening in New Caledonia,” Ounei said.
Her mum, Susanna Ounei, was born in Ouvéa in New Caledonia, and was a founding member of the Kanak independence movement, now the umbrella group FLNKS (Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front).
More power to Kanaks In 1988, an agreement, the Matignon Accord, between the French and the Kanaks was signed, which proposed a referendum on independence to be held by 1998. Instead, a subsequent agreement, the Nouméa Accord, was signed in 1998, which would give more power to Kanaks over a 20-year transition period, with three independence referenda to be held from 2018.
Jessie Ounei (left), her mum Susanna Ounei, and her brother Toui Jymmy Jinsokuna Burēdo Ounei in Ouvéa, New Caledonia. Image: Jessie Ounei/RNZ
In 2018, the first of the three referenda were held with 57 percent voting against, and 43 voting for independence from France.
In 2020, there was a slight increase in the “yes” votes with 47 percent voting for, and 53 percent voting against independence.
The third referendum however was mired in controversy and is at the centre of the current political unrest in New Caledonia.
The date for the vote, 12 December 2021, was announced by France without consensus and departed from the two-year gap between the referenda that had been held previously This drew the ire of pro-independence parties.
The parties called for the vote to be delayed by six months saying they were not able to campaign and mobilise voters during the pandemic and appealed for time to observe traditional mourning rites for the 280 Kanak people who died during a covid-19 outbreak.
France refused new referendum
France refused and Kanak leaders called for a boycott of the vote in December which resulted in a record low voter turnout of 44 percent, compared to 86 percent in the previous referendum, and the mostly pro-French voters registering an overwhelming 96 percent vote against New Caledonia becoming an independent country.
But France and pro-independent French loyalists in New Caledonia insist the vote was held legally and the decision of Kanak people not to participate was their own and therefore the result was legitimate.
Because of this, for the past several years New Caledonia has been stuck in a kind of political limbo with France and the pro-French loyalists in New Caledonia pushing the narrative that the territory has voted “no” to independence three times and therefore must now negotiate a new permanent political status under France.
While on the other hand, pro-independence Kanaks insisting that the Nouméa accord which they interpreted as a pathway to decolonisation had failed and therefore a new pathway to self-determination needs to be negotiated.
Paris has made numerous attempts since 2021 to bring the two diametrically opposed sides in the territory together to decide on a common future but it has all so far been in vain.
“Free Kanaky” . . . pro-Kanak independence protesters outside the French Embassy in Wellington last week. Image: RNZ/Angus Dreaver
New Caledonia’s ‘frozen’ electoral rolls Despite the political impasse in the territory, France earlier this year proposed a constitutional amendment that would change the electoral roll in the territory sparking large scale protests on the Kanak side which were mirrored by support rallies organised by pro-French settlers.
But what is so controversial about a constitutional amendment?
Under the terms of the Nouméa Accord, voting in provincial elections was restricted to people who had resided in New Caledonia prior to 1998, and their children. The measure was aimed at giving greater representation to the Kanaks who had become a minority population in their own land and to prevent them becoming even more of a minority.
The French government’s proposed constitutional amendment would allow French residents who have lived in New Caledonia continuously for more than 10 years to vote. It is estimated this would enable a further 25,000 non-indigenous people, most of them pro-French settlers, to vote in local elections which would weaken the indigenous Kanak vote.
Despite multiple protests from indigenous Kanaks, who called on the French government to resolve the political impasse before making any electoral changes, Paris pressed ahead with the proposed legislation passing in both the Senate and the National Assembly.
On Monday 13 May, civil unrest erupted in the capital of Nouméa, with armed clashes between Kanak pro-independence protesters and security forces. Seven people have been killed, including two gendarmes, and hundreds of others have been injured.
Last Wednesday, Jessie Ounei organised a rally outside the French Embassy in Wellington to raise awareness of the violence against Kanak in New Caledonia.
“For decades, the Kanak independence movement has persevered in their pursuit of autonomy and self-determination, only to be met with broken promises and escalating violence orchestrated by the French government,” she said.
A Kanak flag raised high at the New Caledonia protest outside the French Embassy in Wellington last week. Image: RNZ/Angus Dreaver
‘Time to stand in solidarity’
“It is time to stand in solidarity with the Kanak people and demand an end to this cycle of oppression and injustice.”
Ounei said she was very sad, and very angry, because it could have been prevented.
“This was not something that was a surprise, it was something that was foreseen, and it was warned about,” she said.
Ounei was also born in Ouvéa, and moved to Wellington in 2000 with her mum and her brother, Toui Jymmy Jinsokuna Burēdo Ounei. Susanna Ounei died in 2016, but had never gone back to New Caledonia, because she was disappointed in the direction of the independence movement.
“Ouvéa has a staunch history of taking a stand against French imperialism, colonialism,” Jessie Ounei said.
“I have grown up hearing, seeing and feeling the struggle of our people.”
She said her mum, and a group of activists, were the original people who had reclaimed Kanak identity.
“If I can stand here and say that I’m Kanak, it is because of those people,” she said.
Now Ounei has picked up the baton, and is following in her mum’s footsteps.
She said after spending her entire life watching her mum give herself to the cause, it was important for her to do the same.
“I have two daughters, I have family, if I don’t do this, I don’t know who else will,” she said.
“And I can’t just stand back. It’s not the way that I grew up. My mum wouldn’t have stood back. She never stood back.
“And even though I feel quite under-qualified to be here, I want to honour all the sacrifices that the activists, including my mum, made.”
Pretoria Gordon is a RNZ News journalist. This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
"Peace in Kanaky is independence" from France . . . a sprinkling of Palestinian banners was among the sea of Kanak flags at the protests in Nouméa this month. Image: FB @Tishphotographer
COMMENTARY: By Teanau Tuiono
There is an important story to be told behind the story Aotearoa New Zealand’s mainstream media has been reporting on in Kanaky New Caledonia. Beyond the efforts to evacuate New Zealanders lies a struggle for indigenous sovereignty and self-determination we here in Aotearoa can relate to.
Aotearoa is part of a whānau of Pacific nations, interconnected by Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa. The history of Aotearoa is intricately woven into the broader history of the Pacific, where cultural interactions have shaped a rich tapestry over centuries.
The whakapapa connections between tangata whenua and tagata moana inform my political stance and commitment to indigenous rights throughout the Pacific. What happens in one part of the South Pacific ripples across to all of us that call the Pacific Ocean home.
Since the late 1980s the Kanak independence movement showed itself to be consistently engaging with the Accords with Paris process in their struggle for self-determination.
The Nouméa Accord set out a framework for transferring power to the people of New Caledonia, through a series of referenda. It was only after France moved to unilaterally break with the accords and declare independence off the table that the country returned to a state of unrest.
Civil unrest in and around the capital Nouméa which has continued for two weeks, was prompted by Kanak anger over Paris changing the constitution to open up electoral rolls in its “overseas territory” in a way that effectively dilutes the voting power of the indigenous people.
Coming after the confused end of the Nouméa Accord in 2021, which left New Caledonia’s self-determination path clouded with uncertainty, it was inevitable that there would be trouble.
Flew halfway across world
That France’s President Emmanuel Macron flew across the world to Noumea last week for one day of talks in a bid to end the civil unrest underlines the seriousness of the crisis.
But while the deployment of more French security forces to the territory may have succeeded in quelling the worst of the unrest for now, Macron’s visit was unsuccessful because he failed to commit to pulling back on the electoral changes or to signal a meaningful way forward on independence for New Caledonia.
Green MP Teanau Tuiono (left) with organiser Ena Manuireva at the Mā’ohi Lives Matter solidarity rally at Auckland University of Technology in 2021. Image: David Robie/APR
Paris’ tone-deafness to the Kanaks’ concerns was evident in its refusal to postpone the last of the three referendums under the Nouméa Accord during the pandemic, when the indigenous Melanesians boycotted the poll because it was a time of mourning in their communities. Kanaks consider that last referendum to have no legitimacy.
But Macron’s government has simply cast aside the accord process to move ahead unilaterally with a new statute for New Caledonia.
As the Kanaky Aotearoa Solidarity group said in a letter to the French Ambassador in Wellington this week, “it is regrettable that France’s decision to obstruct the legitimate aspirations of the Kanak people to their right to self-determination has led to such destruction and loss of life”.
Why should New Zealand care about the crisis? New Caledonia is practically Aotearoa’s next door neighbour — a three-hour flight from Auckland. Natural disasters in the Pacific such as cyclones remind us fairly regularly how our country has a leading role to play in the region.
But we can’t take this role for granted, nor choose to look the other way because our “ally“ France has it under control. And we certainly shouldn’t ignore the roots of a crisis in a neighbouring territory where frustrations have boiled over in a pattern that’s not unusual in the Pacific Islands region, and especially Melanesia.
There is an urgent need for regional assistance to drive reconciliation. The Pacific Islands Forum, as the premier regional organisation, must move beyond words and take concrete actions to support the Kanak people.
Biketawa Declaration provides a mechanism
The forum’s Biketawa Declaration provides a mechanism for regional responses to crisis management and conflict resolution. The New Caledonian crisis surely qualifies, although France would be uncomfortable with any forum intervention.
But acting in good faith as a member of the regional family is what Paris signed up to when its territories in the Pacific were granted full forum membership.
Why is a European nation like France still holding on to its colonial possessions in the Pacific? Kanaky New Caledonia, Maohi Nui French Polynesia, and Wallis & Futuna are on the UN list of non-self-governing territories for whom decolonisation is incomplete.
However, in the case of Kanaky, Paris’ determination to hold on is partly due to a desire for global influence and is also, in no small way, linked to the fact that the territory has over 20 percent of the world’s known nickel reserves.
Failing to address the remnants of colonialism will continue to devastate lives and livelihoods across Oceania, as evidenced by the struggles in Bougainville, Māo’hi Nui, West Papua, and Guåhan.
New Zealand should be supportive of an efficient and orderly decolonisation process. We can’t rely on France alone to achieve this, especially as the unrest in New Caledonia is the inevitable result of years of political and social marginalisation of Kanak people.
The struggle of indigenous Kanaks in New Caledonia is part of a broader movement for self-determination and anti-colonialism across the Pacific. By supporting the Kanak people’s self-determination, we honour our shared history and whakapapa connections, advocating for a future where indigenous rights and aspirations are respected and upheld.
Kanaky Au Pouvoir.
Teanau Tuiono is a Green Party MP in Aotearoa New Zealand and its spokesperson for Pasifika peoples. This article was first published by The Press and is republished by Asia Pacific Report with the author’s permission.
Indigenous Kanaks in Kanaky (New Caledonia) have sprung into revolt in the last two weeks in response to moves by the colonial power France to undermine moves towards independence in the Pacific territory.
Journalist David Robie from Aotearoa New Zealand spoke to the Green Left Show today about the issues involved.
“We acknowledge that this video was produced on stolen Aboriginal land. We express solidarity with ongoing struggles for justice for First Nations people and pay our respects to Elders past and present.”
