By killing the top Palestinian negotiator, Israel delivered a final and decisive message that Israel remains invested in violence, and in nothing else. Image: The Palestine Chronicle
ANALYSIS:By Ramzy Baroud
Israel’s assassination of the head of Hamas’ political bureau, Ismail Haniyeh, in Tehran, on yesterday is part of Tel Aviv’s overall desperate search for a wider conflict. It is a criminal act that reeks of desperation.
Almost immediately after the start of the Gaza war on October 7, Israel hoped to use the genocide in the Strip as an opportunity to achieve its long-term goal of a regional war — one that would rope in Washington as well as Iran and other Middle Eastern countries.
Despite unconditional support for its genocide in Gaza, and various conflicts throughout the region, the United States refrained from entering a direct war against Iran and others.
Although defeating Iran is an American strategic objective, the US lacks the will and tools to pursue it now.
After 10 months of a failed war on Gaza and a military stalemate against Hezbollah in Lebanon, Israel is, once more, accelerating its push for a wider conflict. This time around, however, Israel is engaging in a high-stakes game — the most dangerous of its previous gambles.
The current gamble involved the targeting of a top Hezbollah leader by bombing a residential building in Beirut on Tuesday — and, of course, the assassination of Palestine’s most visible, let alone popular political leader.
Successful Haniyeh diplomacy
Haniyeh, has succeeded in forging and strengthening ties with Russia, China, and other countries beyond the US-Western political domain.
Israel chose the place and timing of killing Haniyeh carefully. The Palestinian leader was killed in the Iranian capital, shortly after he attended the inauguration of Iran’s new President Masoud Pezeshkian.
The Israeli message was a compound one, to Iran’s new administration — that of Israel’s readiness to escalate further — and to Hamas, that Israel has no intentions to end the war or to reach a negotiated ceasefire.
The latter point is perhaps the most urgent. For months, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has done everything in his power to impede all diplomatic efforts aimed at ending the war.
By killing the top Palestinian negotiator, Israel delivered a final and decisive message that Israel remains invested in violence, and in nothing else.
The scale of the Israeli provocations, however, poses a great challenge to the pro-Palestinian camp in the Middle East, namely, how to respond with equally strong messages without granting Israel its wish of embroiling the whole region in a destructive war.
Considering the military capabilities of what is known as the “Axis of Resistance”, Iran, Hezbollah and others are certainly capable of managing this challenge despite the risk factors involved.
Equally important regarding timing: the Israeli dramatic escalation in the region, followed a visit by Netanyahu to Washington, which, aside from many standing ovations at the US Congress, didn’t fundamentally alter the US position, predicated on the unconditional support for Israel without direct US involvement in a regional war.
Coup a real possibility
Additionally, Israel’s recent clashes involving the army, military police, and the supporters of the far right suggest that an actual coup in Israel might be a real possibility. In the words of Israel’s opposition leader Yair Lapid: Israel is not nearing the abyss, Israel is already in the abyss.
It is, therefore, clear to Netanyahu and his far-right circle that they are operating within an increasingly limited time and margins.
By killing Haniyeh, a political leader who has essentially served the role of a diplomat, Israel demonstrated the extent of its desperation and the limits of its military failure.
Considering the criminal extent to which Israel is willing to go, such desperation could eventually lead to the regional war that Israel has been trying to instigate, even before the Gaza war.
Keeping in mind Washington’s weakness and indecision in the face of Israel’s intransigence, Tel Aviv might achieve its wish of a regional war after all.
Republished from The Palestine Chronicle with permission. The Chronicle is edited by Palestinian journalist and media consultant Ramzy Baroud, author of The Last Earth: A Palestine Story, who visited New Zealand in 2019.
More than 70 people died in tribal fighting in the PNG Highlands in February. Many Engans have lamented that the traditional rules of war have been ignored as children have not been spared. Image: RNZ
Warning: This report discusses graphic details of tribal violence in Papua New Guinea.
SPECIAL REPORT:By Scott Waide
The nauseating stench of dried blood hung in the air as we arrived in Karida village, a few kilometres outside of Tari in Papua New Guinea’s Hela province.
Through the landcruiser window, I could see two men carrying a corpse wrapped in blue cloth and a tarpaulin. They were walking towards the hastily dug graveyard.
A longstanding tribal fight by various factions in the Tagali area of the Hela province had triggered this attack. Several armed men came at dawn. The residents, mostly women and children, bore the brunt of the brutality.
The then Provincial Administrator, William Bando, advised us against travelling alone when we arrived in Tari. He requested a section of the PNG Defence Force to take us to Karida where the killings had happened less than 24 hours before.
Two men carrying the corpse, hesitated as we arrived with the soldiers. One of the soldiers ordered the men to disarm. The others who carried weapons fled into the nearby bush.
On the side of the road, the bodies of 15 women and one man lay tightly wrapped in cloth. The older men and women came out to meet the soldiers.
The village chief, Hokoko Minape, distraught by the unimaginable loss, wept beside the vehicle as he tried to explain what had happened.
“This, I have never seen in my life. This is new,” he said in Tok Pisin.
Complexity of tribal conflicts and media attention For an outsider, the roots of tribal conflicts in Papua New Guinea are difficult to understand. There are myriad factors at play, including the province, district, tribe, clan and customs.
But what’s visible is the violence.
The conflicts are usually reported on when large numbers of people are killed. The intense media focus lasts for days . . . maybe a month . . . and then, news priorities shift in the daily grind of local and international coverage.
Some conflicts rage for years and sporadic payback killings continue. It is subtle as it doesn’t attract national attention. It is insidious and cancerous — slowly destroying families and communities. In many instances, police record the one off murders as the result of alcohol related brawls or some other cause.
The tensions simmer just below boiling point. But it affects the education of children and dictates where people congregate and who they associate with.
Although, the villagers at Karida were not directly involved in the fighting, they were accused of providing refuge to people who fled from neighboring villagers. The attackers came looking for the refugees and found women and children instead.
According to a source, military guns are a fairly recent addition to tribal fighting in Papua New Guinea. Image: RNZ
The ‘hire man’ and small arms Over the next few weeks, local community leaders drew attention to the use of “hire men” in the conflicts. They are mercenaries who are paid by warring tribes to fight on their behalf. Their most valued possessions are either assault rifles or shotguns paid for by political and non-political sponsors.
The Deputy Commissioner for Police responsible for specialist operations, Donald Yamasombi, who has personally investigated instances of arms smuggling, said the traditional trade of drugs for guns along the eastern and southern borders of Papua New Guinea is largely a thing of the past.
“People are paying cash for guns. They are bringing in the weapons and then legitimising them through licensing,” Yamasombi said. “The businessmen who fund them actually run legitimate businesses.”
The involvement of political players is a subject many will state only behind closed doors.
In the highlands, the hire men are a recent addition to the complex socio-political ecosystem of tribal and national politics. Political power and money have come to determine how hire men are used during elections. They are tools of intimidation and coercion. The occupation is a lucrative means of money making during what is supposed to be a “free and fair” electoral process.
“Money drives people to fight,” Yamasombi said. “Without the source of money, there would be no incentive. There is incentive to fight.”
Rules of war At the end of elections, the hire men usually end up back in the communities and continue the cycle of violence.
In February, Papua New Guineans on social media watched in horror as the death toll from a tribal clash in Enga province rose from a few dozen to 70 in a space of a few hours as police retrieved bodies from nearby bushes.
The majority of the men killed were members of a tribe who had been ambushed as they staged an attack.
Traditional Engan society is highly structured. The Enga cultural center in the center of Wabag town, the Take Anda, documents the rules of war that dictated the conduct of warriors.
Traditionally, mass killings or killings in general were avoided. The economic cost of reparations were too high, the ongoing conflicts were always hard to manage and were, obviously, detrimental to both parties in the long run.
Engans, who I spoke to on the condition of anonymity, said high powered guns had changed the traditional dynamics.
Chiefs and elders who once commanded power and status were now replaced by younger men with money and the means to buy and own weapons. This has had a direct influence on provincial and national politics as well as traditional governance structures.
A roadblock is set-up in Wabag, the provincial capital of Enga. Image: Paul Kanda/FB/RNZ
Tribal conflicts, not restricted to the Highlands In 2022, a land dispute between two clans on Kiriwina Island, Milne Bay province, escalated into a full on battle in which 30 people were killed.
The unusual level of violence and the use of guns left many Papua New Guineans confused. Milne Bay province, widely known as a peaceful tourism hub, suffered a massive PR hit with embassies issuing travel warnings to their citizens.
In Pindiu, Morobe province, the widespread use of homemade weapons resulted in the deaths of a local peace officer and women and children in a long running conflict in 2015.
The Morobe Provincial Government sent mediators to Pindiu to facilitate peace negotiations. Provincial and national government are usually hesitant to intervene directly in tribal conflicts by arresting the perpetrators of violence.
This is largely due to the government’s inability to maintain security presence in tribal fighting areas for long periods.
Angoram killings Two weeks ago, 26 women and children were killed in yet another attack in Angoram, East Sepik.
Five people have been arrested over the killings. But locals who did not wish to be named said the ring leaders of the gang of 30 are still at large.
Angoram is a classic example of a district that is difficult to police.
The villages are spread out over the vast wetlands of the Sepik River. While additional police from Wewak have been deployed, there is no real guarantee that the men and women who witnessed the violence will be protected if they choose to testify in court.
Will new legislations and policy help? The Enga massacre dominated the February sitting of Parliament. Recent changes were made to gun laws and stricter penalties prescribed. But while legislators have responded, enforcement remains weak.
The killers of the 16 people at Karida remain at large. Many of those responsible for the massacre in Enga have not been arrested even with widely circulated video footage available on social media.
In April, the EU, UN and the PNG government hosted a seminar aimed at formulating a national gun control policy.
The seminar revisited recommendations made by former PNG Defence Force Commander, retired Major-General Jerry Singirok.
One of the recommendations was for the licensing powers of the Police Commissioner as Registrar of Firearms to be taken away and for a mechanism to buy back firearms in the community.
Scott Waide is the RNZ Pacific PNG correspondent. This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Forget a 10-month genocide in Gaza. Only when Israel can exploit the deaths of Syrians living under its military occupation are we supposed to start worrying about the “consequences”, writes Jonathan Cook.
ANALYSIS:By Jonathan Cook
BBC coverage of the attack on a football pitch in the Golan Heights last Saturday has been intentionally misleading.
The BBC’s evening news entirely ignored the fact that those killed by the blast are a dozen Syrians, not Israeli citizens, and that for decades the surviving Syrian population in the Golan, most of them Druze, has been forced to live unwillingly under an Israeli military occupation.
I suppose mention of this context might complicate the story Israel and the BBC wish to tell — and risk reminding viewers that Israel is a belligerent state occupying not just Palestinian territory but Syrian territory too (not to mention nearby Lebanese territory).
It might suggest to audiences that these various permanent Israeli occupations have been contributing not only to large-scale human rights abuses but to regional tensions as well. That Israel’s acts of aggression against its neighbours might be the cause of “conflict”, rather than, as Israel and the BBC would have us believe, some kind of unusual, pre-emptive form of self-defence.
The BBC, of course, chose to uncritically air comments from a military spokesman for Israel, who blamed Hizbullah for the blast in the Golan.
Daniel Hagari tried to milk the incident for maximum propaganda value, arguing: “This attack shows the true face of Hezbollah, a terrorist organisation that targets and murders children playing soccer.”
Except, as the BBC failed to mention in its report, Israel infamously targeted and murdered four young children from the Bakr family playing football on a beach in Gaza in 2014.
Much more recently, video footage showed Israel striking yet more children playing football at a school in Gaza that was serving as a shelter for families whose homes were destroyed by earlier Israeli bombs.
Panic as Israeli strike hits near Gaza school playground on 11 July 2024. Video: The Guardian
Doubtless other strikes in Gaza over the past 10 months, so many of them targeting school-shelters, have killed Palestinian children playing football 0- especially as it is one of the very few ways they can take their mind off the horror all around.
So, should we – and the BBC – not conclude that all these attacks on children playing football make the Israeli military even more of a terrorist organisation than Hizbullah?
Note too the way the western media are so ready to accept unquestioningly Israel’s claim that Hizbullah was responsible for the blast – and dismiss Hizbullah’s denials.
Viewers are discouraged from exercising their memories. Any who do may recall that those same media outlets were only too willing to take on faith Israeli disinformation suggesting that Hamas had hit Gaza’s al-Ahli hospital back in October, even when all the evidence showed it was an Israeli air strike.
(Israel soon went on to destroy all Gaza’s hospitals, effectively eradicating the enclave’s health sector, on the pretext that medical facilities there served as Hamas bases – another patently preposterous claim the western media treated with wide-eyed credulity.)
It’s not just ‘unlikely’ that a Palestinian rocket destroyed the Gaza hospital. It’s impossible. The media know this, they just don’t dare say it. My latest:
The BBC next went to Jerusalem to hear from diplomatic editor Paul Adams. He intoned gravely: “This is precisely what we have been worrying about for the past 10 months — that something of this magnitude would occur on the northern border, that would turn what has been a simmering conflict for all of these months into an all-out war.”
So there you have it. Paul Adams and the BBC concede they haven’t been worrying for the past 10 months about the genocide unfolding under their very noses in Gaza, or its consequences.
A genocide of Palestinians, apparently, is not something of significant “magnitude”.
Only now, when Israel can exploit the deaths of Syrians forced to live under its military rule as a pretext to expand its “war”, are we supposed to sit up and take notice. Or so the BBC tells us.
Update – ‘Tightening the noose’: Facebook instantly removed a post linking to this article — and for reasons that are entirely opaque to me (apart from the fact that it is critical of the BBC and Israel).
Facebook’s warning, threatening that my account may face “more account restrictions”, suggests that I was misleading followers by taking them to a “landing page that impersonates another website”. That is patent nonsense. The link took them to this Substack page.
As I have been warning for some time, social media platforms have been tightening the noose around the necks of independent journalists like me, making our work all but impossible to find. It is only a matter of time before we are disappeared completely.
Substack has been a lifeline, because it connects readers to my work directly — either through email or via Substack’s app — bypassing, at least for the moment, the grip of the social-media billionaires.
If you wish to keep reading my articles, and haven’t already, please sign up to my Substack page.
Jonathan Cook is the author of three books on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and a winner of the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His website and blog can be found at www.jonathan-cook.net. This article was first published on Substack and is republished with the permission of the author.
Names on the Wall of Shame . . . where are the rest of the names of the Pacific women killed in gender-based violence? Image: Netani Rika
One report of a five-part series focused on the 15th Triennial Conference of Pacific Women that took place in the Marshall Islands last week. The rest of the series can be read here at Asia Pacific Report.
SPECIAL REPORT: By Netani Rika in Majuro
On a hastily-erected wall in the Marshall Islands International Conference Centre hang the names of dead women, victims of gender-based violence (GBV).
At least 300 Pacific women were killed in 2021, many at the hands of intimate partners or male relatives, yet there are but 14 names on the board after four days of a Triennial Conference.
Have these women died in obscurity, their deaths confined to the dust heap somewhere in the region’s collective memory?
Does the memory of their deaths invoke such pain or, perhaps, guilt, that it is impossible for delegates to pick up a pen and put names to paper?
Have these women become mere statistics, their names forgotten as civil society spreadsheets and crime reports log the death of yet another woman.
Or have the deaths of women due to gender-based violence become so common that in the minds of delegates it is normal for a woman to die at the hands of a husband, boyfriend, father or brother?
Falling victim to violence
It has been a conference attended largely by women — ministers, administrators, civil society representatives and local grassroots representatives. Each day there have been more than 200 women at the event.
The 15th Triennial Conference of Pacific Women addressed at its core the need to improve the health of women and children. That includes the need for better access to services and treatment of women who fall victim to violence.
JENELYN KENNEDY (Papua New Guinea) . . . a 19-year-old mother murdered in Port Moresby in 2020. Image: Netani Rika
Gender-based violence is also a key focus of the talks. It is that violence — past, present and future – which results in death.
Yet three times a day for three days, on their way to grab a quick coffee or indulge in lunch, friendly conversations or bilateral dialogue, delegates have walked past the wall paying scant attention to the names of their dead Pacific sisters.
No names have been added to the wall since the initial appeal on Day One for attendees to remember the dead, to memorialise women whose lives were cut short in actions which were largely avoidable.
In Fiji, 60 percent of women and girls endure violence in their lifetime. Two of every three experience physical or sexual abuse from intimate partners and one in five have been sexually harassed in the workplace.
The trend is common throughout the region with Kiribati, Papua New Guinea, Fiji and the Solomon Islands recording the highest incidence of crimes against women.
LOSANA McGOWAN (Fiji) . . . a journalist who was murdered aged 32 during a domestic argument in 2015. Image: Netani Rika
Not one asked for silence
Delegates know these figures. The statistics are, sadly, nothing new.
On the third day, delegates quibbled over the nuances of language and the appropriate terms with which to populate a report on their deliberations. Yet not one asked for a moment of silence to remember the people whose names hung accusingly on a wall outside the meeting chamber.
When delegates left the convention centre on Friday afternoon, it is unlikely they would have remembered even one of the names on the wall.
Those names and the memories of all the women who have suffered violent deaths will await a team of cleaners, strangers, who will bury the Pacific’s collective shame in the sand of Majuro Atoll.
Netani Rikais an award-winning Fiji journalist with 30 years of experience in Pacific regional writing. The joint owner of Islands Business magazine he is communications manager of the Pacific Conference of Churches and is in Majuro, Marshall Islands, covering the 15th Triennial Conference of Pacific Women.
Lujain Al-Badry spoke of the latest Israeli massacres in Gaza and of the “forgotten” atrocities by illegal settlers in the West Bank at today’s rally. Image: David Robie/APR
By David Robie
Former New Zealand attorney-general David Parker spoke on day 295 of Israel’ genocidal war on Gaza in Auckland today, condemning the National-led government’s inaction over the ongoing crisis.
Responding to the recent International Court of Justice’s landmark advisory ruling that Israel’s occupation of Gaza, West Bank and East Jerusalem — Occupied Palestine — was illegal and must end as soon as possible, Parker said he was disappointed in New Zealand’s “equivocal” response.
He also called on the government to recognise the state of Palestine, along with some 145 countries around the world that have already done so.
Opposition Labour Party MP David Parker . . . critical of the US Congress lauding of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who has been accused of war crimes by the ICC chief prosecutor. Image: David Robie/APR
A large banner at the rally illustrated the massive global support for Palestine statehood, with a map showing the main countries that have not supported recognition to be the white English-speaking settler colonial nations such as Australia, Canada, New Zealand, United Kingdom and United States.
The map banner at today’s Auckland rally showing NZ among a minority of US-led countries that have failed so far to recognise Palestinian statehood. At least 145 countries – an overwhelming majority of United Nations members – have already recognised Palestine. Image: David Robie/APR
Among the speakers were two Palestinian teenagers, Lujain Al-Badry, who spoke of the litany of the latest Israeli massacres in Gaza — but she also highlighted the “forgotten” atrocities by illegal settlers and the military in the West Bank — and the other a poet who spoke passionately of the constant evictions of Palestinians from their own homes and land.
More than 700,000 Israelis have illegally settled on Palestinian land since the territory was occupied during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war in defiance of repeated UN resolutions declaring the settlements unlawful.
Irish activist and trade unionist Joe Carolan, just back from a visit to Ireland, spoke of the political drift to the right in France and other European Union countries and reminded the crowd that support for the Palestinian cause and against colonialism was “liberation for all”.
The crowd marched around the block to protest outside the US consulate in Auckland, calling on Washington to end its support and funding for the Israeli genocide.
At least 39,324 Palestinians have been killed and 90,830 others wounded in Israel’s war on Gaza since October 7, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
Protesters at today’s Auckland rally calling for an immediate ceasefire in Israel’s nine-month war on Gaza. Image: David Robie/APR
The Surafend massacre
Meanwhile, an RNZ podcast released at the weekend has revealed new insights into what has been described as the worst New Zealand military atrocity — the Surafend massacre during the First World War in Palestine in 1918.
According to the new season RNZ’s Black Sheep podcast, New Zealand and Australian soldiers “murdered upwards of 40 Arab civilians in a Palestinian village” in December 2018.
“But,” continued the podcast report, “more than 100 years later, we still don’t know exactly who did it, or why.
“We investigate what one military historian describes as ‘by far the worst war crime ever committed by New Zealand military personnel’ — The Surafend massacre — and other allegations of war crimes against Anzacs in the Middle East and North Africa.”
Dr David Robie is editor and publisher of Asia Pacific Report.
Watermelon protest placards at today’s pro-Palestinian rally in downtown Auckland. Image: David Robie/APR
The thing I hate about Western electoral politics in general and US presidential races in particular is that they take the focus off the depravity of the US-centralised Empire itself, and run cover for its criminality.
In the coming months you’re going to be hearing a lot of talk about the two leading presidential candidates and how very very different they are from each other, and how one is clearly much much worse than the other.
But in reality the very worst things about both of them will not be their differences — the worst things about them will be be the countless ways in which they are both indistinguishably in lockstep with one another.
Donald Trump is not going to end America’s non-existent “democracy” if elected and rule the United States as an iron-fisted dictator, and he’s certainly not going to be some kind of populist hero who leads a revolution against the Deep State.
He will govern as your standard evil Republican president who is evil in all the usual ways US presidents are evil, just like he did during his first term.
His administration will continue to fill the world with more war machinery, implement more starvation sanctions, back covert operations, uprisings and proxy conflicts, and work to subjugate the global population to the will of the empire, all while perpetuating the poisoning of the earth via ecocidal capitalism, just as all his predecessors have done.
And the same will be true of whatever moronic fantasies Republicans wind up concocting about Kamala Harris between now and November. She’s not going to institute communism or give everyone welfare, implement Sharia law, weaken Israel, take everyone’s guns, subjugate Americans to the “Woke Agenda” and make everyone declare their pronouns and eat bugs, or any of that fuzzbrained nonsense.
She will continue to expand US warmongering and tyranny while making the world a sicker, more violent, and more dangerous place for everyone while funneling the wealth of the people and the planet into the bank accounts of the already obscenely rich. Just as Biden has spent his entire term doing, and just as Trump did before him.
Caitlin Johnston’s article on YouTube.
The truth is that while everyone’s going to have their attention locked on the differences between Trump and Harris these next few months, by far the most significant and consequential things about each of these candidates are the ways in which they are similar.
The policies and agendas either of them will roll out which will kill the most people, negatively impact the most lives and do the most damage to the ecosystem are the areas in which they are in complete agreement, not those relatively small and relatively inconsequential areas in which they differ.
You can learn a lot more about the US and its globe-spanning empire by looking at the similarities between presidential administrations than you can by looking at their differences, because that’s where the overwhelming majority of the abusiveness can be found.
But nobody’s going to be watching any of that normalised criminality while the drama of this fake election plays out. More and more emotional hysteria is going to get invested in the outcome of this fraudulent two-handed sock puppet popularity contest between two loyal empire lackeys who are both sworn to advance the interests of the Empire no matter which one wins, and the mundane day-to-day murderousness of the Empire will continue to tick on unnoticed in the background.
US military commander’s casual declaration of independence from democratic control.
“Regardless of who’s in our political parties &whatever is happening in that space, it’s allies &partners that are always our priority”
The other day the US Navy’s highest-ranking officer just casually mentioned that the AUKUS military alliance which is geared toward roping Australia into a future US-driven military confrontation with China will remain in place no matter who wins the presidential election.
“Regardless of who is in our political parties and whatever is happening in that space, it’s allies and partners that are always our priority,” said Admiral Lisa Franchetti in response to the (completely baseless) concern that Trump will withdraw from military alliances and make the US “isolationist” if elected.
How could Franchetti make such a confident assertion if the behaviour of the US war machine meaningfully changed from administration to administration? The answer is that she couldn’t, and it doesn’t. The official elected government of the United States may change every few years, but its real government does not.
To be clear, I am not telling you not to vote here. These elections are designed to function as an emotional pacifier for the American people to let them feel like they have some control over their government, so if you feel like you want to vote then vote in whatever way pacifies your emotions.
I’ve got nothing invested in convincing you either way.
Whenever I talk about this stuff I get people accusing me of being defeatist and interpreting this message as a position that there’s nothing anyone can do, but that’s not true at all. I’m just saying the fake election ritual you’ve been given by the powerful and told that’s how you solve your problems is not the tool for the job.
You’re as likely to solve your problems by voting as you are by wishing or by praying — but that doesn’t mean problems can’t be solved. If you thought you could cure an infection by huffing paint thinner I’d tell you that won’t work either, and tell you to go see a doctor instead.
Just because the only viable candidates in any US presidential race will always be murderous empire lackeys doesn’t mean things are hopeless; that’s just what it looks like when you live in the heart of an empire that’s held together by lies, violence and tyranny, whose behavior has too much riding on it for the powerful to allow it to be left to the will of the electorate.
Cultivate A Habit Of Small Acts Of Sedition
Fighting the machine can be disheartening and disappointing as power comes up victorious time and time again. But that doesn’t mean you are powerless, and it doesn’t mean there’s nothing you can do.https://t.co/O0vZRHX2ue
Your vote won’t make any difference to the behavior of the empire, but what can make a difference is taking actions every day to help pave the way toward a genuine people’s uprising against the empire later on down the road.
You do this by opening people’s eyes to the reality that what they’ve been taught about their government, their nation and their world is a lie, and that the mainstream sources they’ve been trained to look to for information are cleverly disguised imperial propaganda services.
What we can all do as individuals right here and now is begin cultivating a habit of committing small acts of sedition. Making little paper cuts in the flesh of the beast which add up over time. You can’t stop the machine by yourself, but you can sure as hell throw sand in its gears.
Giving a receptive listener some information about what’s going on in the world. Creating dissident media online. Graffiti with a powerful message.
Amplifying an inconvenient voice. Sharing a disruptive idea. Supporting an unauthorised cause. Organizing toward forbidden ends. Distributing eye-opening literature.
Creating eye-opening literature. Creating eye-opening art. Having authentic conversations about real things with anyone who can hear you.
Every day there’s something you can do. After you start pointing your creativity at cultivating this habit, you’ll surprise yourself with the innovative ideas you come up with.
Even a well-placed meme or tweet can open a bunch of eyes to a reality they’d previously been closed to. Remember: they wouldn’t be working so frantically to restrict online speech if it didn’t pose a genuine threat to the Empire.
Such regular small acts of sabotage do infinitely more damage to the imperial machine than voting, talking about voting or thinking about voting, which is why voting, talking about voting and thinking about voting is all you’re ever encouraged to do.
The more people wake up to the fact that they’re running to nowhere on a hamster wheel built by the powerful for the benefit of the powerful, the more people there will be to step off the wheel and start pushing for real change in real ways that matter — and the more people there will be to help wake up everyone else.
Once enough eyes are open, the people will be able to use the power of their numbers to force real change and shrug off the chains of their abusers like a heavy coat on a warm day.
There is nothing that could stop us once enough of us understand what’s happening. That’s why so much effort goes into obfuscating people’s understanding, and keeping everyone endlessly diverted with empty nonsense like presidential elections.
An interview with former University of the South Pacific (USP) development studies professor Dr Vijay Naidu, a founding president of the Fiji Anti-Nuclear Group (FANG), has produced fresh insights into the legacy of Pacific nuclear-free and anti-colonialism activism.
The community storytelling group Talanoa TV, an affiliate of the Whānau Community Centre and Hub and linked to the Asia Pacific Media Network (APMN), has embarked on producing a series of short educational videos as oral histories of people involved in the Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific (NFIP) Movement to document and preserve this activist mahi and history.
The series, dubbed “Legends of NFIP”, are being timed for screening in 2025 to coincide with the 40th anniversary of the Rainbow Warrior bombing in Auckland harbour on 10 July 1985 and also with the 40th anniversary of the Rarotonga Treaty for a Nuclear-Free Pacific.
Legends of NFIP – Professor Vijay Naidu. Video: Talanoa TV
These videos are planned to “bring alive” the experiences and commitment of people involved in a Pacific-wide movement and will be suitable for schools as video podcasts and could be stored on open access platforms.
“This project is also expected to become an extremely useful resource for students and researchers,” says project convenor Nikhil Naidu, himself a former FANG and Coalition for Democracy (CDF) activist.
In this 14-minute interview, Professor Naidu talks about the origins of the NFIP Movement.
“At this time [1970s], there were the French nuclear tests that were actually atmospheric nuclear tests and people like Suliana Siwatibau and Graeme Bain started the ATOM movement (Against Nuclear Tests on Moruroa) in Tahiti in the 1970s at USP,” he says.
“And we began to understand the issues around nuclear testing and how it affected people — you know, the radiation. And drop-outs and pollution from it.”
A Kanak prison parallel with Palestine. Since the 2000s, the incarceration of Palestinians has systematically been synonymous with being torn away from their families and loved ones. Image: Samidoun
In the West Bank, one in three Palestinians has experienced one or more incarcerations during their life since 1967, or 35 percent of the population, while in Kanaky, the Nouméa prison, known as Camp Est, is populated by 95 percent Kanaks, while they represent only 39 to 43 percent of the Caledonian population of 270,000.
SPECIAL REPORT:Samidoun
On Friday, July 5, France announced the continued provisional detention on mainland France of 5 Kanak defendants, out of seven pro-independence “leaders” who had been deported from Kanaky New Caledonia on June 23.
The subsequent announcements of the arrest of 11 pro-independence activists, including 9 provisional detentions (including Joël Tjibaou and Gilles Jorédié, incarcerated in Camp Est) and 7 incarcerations in mainland France (Christian Tein, Frédérique Muliava, Brenda Wanabo-Ipeze, Dimitri Tein Qenegei, Guillaume Vama, Steve Unë and Yewa Waethane), more than 17,000 kilometres from their homeland, revived the mobilisations that had begun a month earlier as part of the fight against the plan to “unfreeze” the Kanaky electoral body.
Suspended after President Emmanuel Macron announced the dissolution of the National Assembly, this project actually aims to reverse the achievements of the Nouméa Accords signed in 1998.
It is part of the strategy of strengthening French colonialism in Kanaky by extending the ability to vote on local matters, including independence referandums, to an even greater number of settlers, making the indigenous Kanaks a de facto minority at the ballot box.
On July 11, 10 Centaur armoured vehicles, 15 fire trucks, a dozen all-terrain military armoured vehicles and numerous army trucks were landed by ship in Kanaky, where the population remains under curfew.
This entire sequence bears witness to the manner in which France, through its colonial administration, deploys a repressive security arsenal that on the one hand protects the settlers on the land and their reactionary militias, and on the other, attempts to destroy the country’s Kanak independence movement.
Imprisonment and incarceration are a weapon of choice in this overall colonial strategy.
Imprisonment is one of the key weapons of choice in colonial strategies to try to stifle independence and national liberation struggles, from the Zionist regime in Palestine to allied imperialist countries and colonial empires such as France.
While the figures are incomparable due to differences between the populations and conditions, in the West Bank, according to Stéphanie Latte Abdallah, one in three Palestinians has experienced one or more incarcerations during their life since 1967, or 35 percent of the population, while in Kanaky, the Nouméa prison, known as Camp Est, is populated by 95 percent Kanaks, while they represent only 39 to 43 percent of the Caledonian population.
Camp Est Prison in Nouville, on the outskirts of Nouméa. Image: Samidoun
Nicknamed “the island of oblivion” by the prisoners, the Camp Est prison locks up many young Kanaks excluded from the economic, educational and health systems, and symbolises the French colonial continuum, especially as the building partly occupies the space of the former French penal colony imposed there.
Silence of sociologists
Few studies exist of this over-incarceration of the Kanak population, and as Hamid Mokadem reminds us:
“The silence of sociologists and demographers on ethno-cultural inequalities is inversely proportional to the chatter of anthropologists on Kanak customs and culture.”
The incarceration rate is significantly higher than in mainland France, so much so that a new prison has been built.
The Koné detention center, and a project to replace Camp Est was announced in February 2024 by the Minister of Justice. He promised a 600-bed facility (compared to the 230 cells available at Camp Est) that would emerge after a construction project estimated at 500 million euros (NZ$908 million).
This is the largest investment by the French state on Kanak soil, a deadly promise that at the same time reaffirms France’s imperialist project in the Pacific, driven by its financial and geopolitical interests to retain its colonial properties there.
While waiting for this large-scale prison project, new cells have been fitted out in containers on which a double mesh roof has been installed, many without windows, and where the conditions of incarceration are even harsher than in the other sections of the prison, including those for men, women and minors, pre-trial detainees and those who have been convicted and sentenced.
The over-representation of the Kanak population has only increased, since incarceration has been one of the mechanisms through which the French government attempts to stem the movement against the plan to “unfreeze” and expand the electoral body, with 1139 arrests since mid-May.
The penalty of deportation
Local detention was supplemented by another penalty directly inherited from the Code de l’Indigénat: the penalty of deportation.
On June 23, after the announcement of the arrest of 7 Kanak independence activists in metropolitan France, the population learned that they were going to be deported 17,000 km from their homes.
A plane was waiting to transfer them to metropolitan France during their pretrial detention, all seven of them dispersed across the prisons of Dijon, Mulhouse, Bourges, Blois, Nevers, Villefranche and Riom.
This deportation of activists in the context of pre-trial detention directly recalls the events of 1988, and more broadly the way in which prison and removal were used in a colonial context.
From the 19th century and the deportation of Toussaint Louverture of Haiti to France, thousands of Algerians arrested during the uprisings against the French colonisation of Algeria at the same time as the detention of the prisoners of the Paris Commune in 1871, the Vietnamese of Hanoi in 1913, were deported to Kanaky or other colonies such as Guyana.
More recently, the Algerian revolutionaries, were massively incarcerated in metropolitan colonial prisons. From a principle inherited from the indigénat, and although today we have moved from an administrative decision to a judicial decision, the practice of deportation remains the same.
Particularly used in the context of anti-colonial resistance movements, the deportation of Kanak prisoners to metropolitan colonial prisons has been used on this scale since 1988 in Kanaky.
Ouvéa cave massacre
After the massacre of 19 Kanak independence fighters who had taken police officers prisoner in the Ouvéa cave, activists still alive were imprisoned, then deported, then released as part of the Matignon-Oudinot Accords.
Twenty six Kanak prisoners came to populate the prisons of the Paris region while they were still in preventive detention — while awaiting their trials and therefore presumed innocent, as is the case today for the CCAT activists currently incarcerated.
In the 1980s, French prisons were shaken by major revolts, particularly against the racism of the guards, who were mostly affiliated with the then-nascent Front National (FN), and more broadly against the penal policy of the Mitterrand left and the massively expanding length of sentences imposed at the time.
In 1988, as former prisoners wrote afterwards, some made a point of showing their solidarity with the Kanaks by sharing their clothes and food with them.
Because many of the activists were transferred in T-shirts, shorts and flip-flops, in trying conditions, with their hands cuffed during the 24-hour journey, underhand repression techniques of the Prison Administration that are still in force.
Similar deportation conditions were described by Christian Téin, spokesperson for the CCAT incarcerated in the isolation wing of the Mulhouse-Lutterbach Penitentiary Center. The shock of incarceration is all the more violent.
CCAT leader Christian Téin, organiser of a series of marches and protests, mainly peaceful . . . he was deported and transferred to prison in Mulhouse, north-eastern France, to await trial. Image: NZ La 1ère TV screenshot APR
Added to this is the pain of the forced separation of parents and children, which is found not only in the current situation in metropolitan France but also in Palestine. Also there is great difficulty in finding loved ones, in attempting to find out which prisons they are in, or even if they are currently detained, continually encountering administrative violence, with the absence of information and the cruelty of official figures.
Orchestrated psychological impact
All this is orchestrated so that the psychological impact, in the long term, aims to induce the prisoners and also their families to stop fighting.
At the time of the events in Ouvéa, the uprooting of independence activists from their lands to lock them up in mainland France was commonplace, and the Kanak detainees joined those from the Caribbean Revolutionary Alliance such as Luc Reinette and Georges Faisans, incarcerated in Île-de-France during the 1980s alongside Corsican and Basque prisoners.
Since then, this had only happened once, in the context of the uprisings in Guadeloup in 2021, where several local figures, mostly community activists, had been deported and then incarcerated in mainland France and Martinique in an attempt to stifle the revolts in which a large number of Guadeloupean youth were mobilised.
Here again, we could draw a parallel with Palestine. As Assia Zaino points out, since the 2000s, the incarceration of Palestinians has systematically been synonymous with being torn away from their families and loved ones.
Zionist prisons, located within the Palestinian territories colonised in 1948, “are integrated into the civil prison system [. . . ] and entry bans on Israeli soil are frequently imposed on the families of detainees for security reasons,” which in fact aims to attack the relatives of detainees and destabilise the national liberation struggle.
Ahmad Saadat, Ahed Abu Ghoulmeh and their comrades in detention – date and location unknown. Image: Samidoun
From prison, the struggle continues This mass incarceration is confronted by the powerful presence of prisoners as symbols of courage and resistance.
We know that in Palestine, as during the Algerian war of national liberation, incarceration is an opportunity to learn from one’s people, to forge national revolutionary consciousness but also to continue the struggle, very concretely, by mobilising against incarceration.
Because the Palestinian prisoners’ movement has transformed the colonial prison into a school of revolution: each political party has a prison branch whose political bureau or leadership is made up of imprisoned leaders.
These branches have real weight in the decisions taken outside the walls, and they are the ones responsible for leading the struggle in the colonial prisons, in particular by declaring collective hunger strikes and developing alliances of struggle that can mobilise several thousand prisoners, but also for organising the daily life of revolutionaries in prison.
It was this movement of prisoners that played a major role in driving the Palestinian resistance groups to unite under a unified command with the total liberation of historic Palestine as their compass, and to overcome internal contradictions.
Historically, the prisoners also constituted a significant part the most radical elements of the Palestinian revolution, notably by massively refusing any negotiation with the Zionist state at the time when the disastrous Oslo Accords were being prepared.
Resistance in colonial prisons can also take cultural forms, as illustrated by the very rich Palestinian prison literature, composed of literary works written in secret and smuggled out by prisoners to bear witness to the outside world of the vitality of their ideals, their struggle and the conditions of detention.
Courage of the children
An example is Walid Daqqah, a renowned writer and one of the longest-held Palestinian prisoners, who was martyred on 7 April 2024 during his 38th year of detention in colonial prisons.
In short, from the children and adolescents who wear courageous smiles as they leave their trials surrounded by soldiers, to the women of Damon prison who heroically stand up to their jailers, to the resistance of the prisoners who fight by putting their lives and health at risk while having a central role in the Resistance outside, it is the daily struggle of the prisoners’ movement that makes detention a place where resistance to the colonial regime is organised, continuing even inside detention.
As Charlotte Kates, Samidoun’s international coordinator, said:
“Despite the intention to use political imprisonment to suppress Palestinian resistance and derail the Palestinian liberation movement, Palestinian prisoners have remained political leaders and symbols of steadfastness for the struggle as a whole.”
In Kanaky, it was the announcement of the incarceration of CCAT activists on June 23 that relaunched the movement, who became the driving forces behind this new round of mobilisation.
On May 13, while the population was setting up roadblocks on the main roads of Nouméa, a mutiny broke out in the Camp Est prison in reaction to the plan to unfreeze the electoral body.
The prison was therefore directly part of the mobilisation, and three guards were taken hostage on this first day of struggle. They were quickly released after the RAID (French national police tactical unit) intervened.
But during the night of May 14-15, another revolt took place in the prison, rendering no fewer than 80 cells unusable.
It is therefore in this context of uprising and intifada throughout Kanaky, both in prisons and outside, that the announcement of the deportation of the 7 Kanak leaders took place.
In addition to these highly publicised deportations, there were also dozens of similar cases of transfers from Camp Est.
Completely ignored by the government, these took place both before May 23 and during the month of July, including participants in the prison uprisings as well as long-term prisoners transferred to relieve congestion in the Kanak prison.
Silence which masks the scale of these colonial deportations only intends to make the task of the families and political supporters of the Kanaks even more difficult in their attempt to show solidarity with the prisoners.
Furthermore, upon their arrival in mainland France, the CCAT activists were separated into 7 different prisons, directly recalling the policy of dispersion already at work in Spain at the end of the 1980s against ETA prisoners, in reaction to the effectiveness of their prison organising.
Today as yesterday, the colonial power dispatches prisoners throughout the mainland to prevent a collective counter-offensive. The prisoners’ connections with one another, but also with the outside, are consequently largely hampered.
This isolation directly aims to break the movement by tearing off its “head” and preventing any form of common struggle against this confinement. We therefore know that the momentum of struggle outside seems to respond to a hardening of detention conditions inside prisons, as evidenced by the isolation in which the CCAT activists are kept.
Likewise in Palestine, where since last October 7, mass arrests have escalated to the development of military concentration camps characterised by inhumane conditions of incarceration where severe torture is a daily, routine occurrence.
Currently, both for the more than 9300 Palestinian prisoners detained in the 19 Zionist colonial prisons, and for the thousands of prisoners from Gaza arrested during the genocidal offensive of the occupying forces on the Strip incarcerated in military camps, the conditions of detention have deteriorated significantly.
If in the colonial prisons Palestinian prisoners suffer hunger, collective isolation, overcrowding, violence and physical and psychological torture, conditions which have led to the martyrdom of at least 18 prisoners since October 7, in the military detention camps the situation is even more extreme.
The thousands of prisoners from Gaza held there are handcuffed and blindfolded 24 hours a day, forced to kneel on the ground, motionless for most of the day, raped and sexually assaulted and tortured daily, which leaves the released prisoners with enormous trauma.
Sick prisoners are crammed in naked, equipped with diapers, on beds without mattresses or blankets, in military airplane hangars and warehouses and without any medical care.
In all cases, isolation reigns, in prisons as in military detention centers, and the Zionist regime aims to cut off the Palestinian prisoners — and their collective movement — from the outside world.
A “Freedom Brigade” Palestinian prison escape poster. Image: Samidoun
Stories of prison escapes Beyond the heroic prison uprisings, many stories of escapes from colonial prisons also fuel resistance and demonstrate the resilience of prisoners.
In Palestine, to cite a recent example, we recall the “Freedom Tunnel” operation, where six Palestinian prisoners freed themselves from the Zionist-occupied Gilboa high-security prison by digging a tunnel using a spoon.
The six Palestinians — Mahmoud al-Ardah, Mohammed al-Ardah, Yaqoub Qadri, Ayham Kamamji, Munadil Nafa’at and Zakaria Zubaidi — became Palestinian, Arab and international symbols of Palestinian resistance and the will for freedom.
While they were all rearrested, their escape exposed the weaknesses under the colonial myth of “impenetrable Israeli security”, plunging the occupation’s prison system into an internal crisis.
In France, the CRAs (Administrative Detention Centres) represent an ultra-violent manifestation of racism and the management of exiles. People are locked up in terrible and therefore deadly conditions.
Thus, faced with colonial management of populations, particularly from former French colonies, resistance is being organised.
For example, on the night of Friday, June 21 to Saturday, June 22, 14 people held at the CRA in Vincennes managed to escape (only one person has been re-arrested since).
This follows the escape of 11 detainees in December from this same place of confinement. However, these detention centres are often recent and very well equipped.
From Palestine to the Hegaxone and the colonial prisons in Kanaky, the resistance fighters fight day by day within the prison system itself, and the escapes and uprisings in the prisons are events that weaken the colonial propaganda and its myth of invincibility and total superiority.
A “Freedom for the Kanaky CCAT comrades” banner. Image: Image: Samidoun
Resistance continues
Despite the tightening of detention conditions and the security arsenal that is deployed against liberation movements, it is clear that the resistance is not stopping and that, on the contrary, organizing is becoming even more vigorous.
In Kanaky, new blockades in solidarity with the prisoners have spread well beyond Nouméa since June 23, demanding their immediate release and repatriation to Kanaky, since “touching one of them is touching everyone”.
In mainland France, numerous gatherings have also taken place since Monday at the call of the MKF (Kanak Movement in France), and among others led by the Collectif Solidarité Kanaky in front of the Ministry of Justice in Paris, and also in front of the prisons where the activists are still incarcerated.
Their prison numbers have been made public so that it is possible to write to them and so that broad and massive support can be communicated to them in order to provide them with the strength necessary for this fight from metropolitan France.
From now on, tributes to the Kanak martyrs who fell under the bullets of the colonial militias and the French State are joined by banners for the freedom of the prisoners.
Marah Bakir, a representative of Palestinian women prisoners, arrested at the age of 15 by the colonial army and imprisoned for 8 years, made these comments during her first interview given upon her release on 24 November 2023:
“It is very difficult to feel freedom and to be liberated in exchange for the blood of the martyrs of Gaza and the great sacrifices of our people in the Gaza Strip.”
The Kanaky ‘martyrs’:
Stéphanie Nassaie Doouka, 17, and Chrétien Neregote, 36, shot in the head on May 20 by a business manager.
Djibril Saïko Salo, 19, shot in the back on May 15 by loyalist settlers at a roadblock.
Dany Tidjite, 48, killed by an off-duty police officer who tried to impose a roadblock.
Joseph Poulawa, 34, killed on May 28 by two bullets in the chest and shoulder by the GIGN (the elite police tactical unit of the National Gendarmerie of France)
Lionel Païta, 26, killed on June 3 by a bullet to the head by a police officer at a roadblock.
Victorin Rock Wamytan, known as “Banane”, 38 years old, father of two children, killed on July 10 by a shot in the chest by the GIGN on customary lands
In Kanaky, the names of these martyrs, just like the 19 of the Ouvéa cave, will remain forever in the memory of the activists and people, and as one could read on another banner in Noumea: “The fight must not cease for lack of a leader or fighters, this direction remains forever. Kanaky”
This article, by Samidoun Paris Banlieue, was published first in French at: https://samidoun.net/fr/2024/07/la-question-carcerale-dans-la-colonisation-de-la-kanaky-a-la-palestine/. During the protests in Kanaky in May and ongoing, French military forces targeted demonstrators, imposed a countrywide ban on TikTok, and have seized multiple political prisoners from the Kanak independence movement. This article is republished from Samidoun.
Tahiti's veteran politician Gaston Flosse (left) with Bruno Sandras, vice-president of the Amuitahiraa o te Nunaa Maohi party . . . his doctor "tells me I must stop completely". FLASHBACK: David Robie's 1986 Islands Business cover story "Papa Flosse's iron grip". Image: Montage: Polynésie la 1ere TV/screenshot APR/David Robie
By Patrick Decloitre
French Polynesia’s veteran politician, 93-year-old Gaston Flosse, announced last week he is stepping down from his position as president of his Amuitahiraa o te Nunaa Maohi party.
Flosse, known locally as “the old lion”, has been President of French Polynesia on several occasions over a span of more than 30 years.
Once known as the strongman of the French Pacific territory, he was also a member of the French government with the portfolio of Minister of State in charge of overseas territories, during the second half of the 1980s under then Prime Minister Jacques Chirac.
Tahiti’s veteran politician Gaston Flosse (left) with Bruno Sandras, vice-president of the Amuitahiraa o te Nunaa Maohi party . . . his doctor “tells me I must stop completely”. Image: Polynésie la 1ere TV/screenshot APR
He was also the President of French Polynesia when, once elected President, Chirac resumed nuclear testing at the atolls of Moruroa and Fangataufa (until 1996).
The resumption triggered riots at the time in the capital Pape’ete.
With his party, then known as the Tahuiraa Huiraatia, he was a strong advocate of French Polynesia remaining a part of France, under an “autonomy” status, but over the past few years became in favour of France obtaining a new status in “association” with France.
Flosse said he was stepping down for health reasons, but he still believes he is fit to keep contributing to his party.
“Now health is the priority. The doctor had already told me to stop at least 4 days a week, now he tells me I must stop completely,” he told journalists.
“But apart from that, I feel very good, physically and intellectually.”
The date of September 28 has been earmarked for the election of a new party president. One of the candidates is his wife, Pascale Haiti-Flosse.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ Pacific and Asia Pacific Report.
“Papa Flosse’s iron grip” in Tahiti . . . cover story in April 1986. Image: David Robie/Islands Business
A media crush at the recent Pacific International Media Conference in Fiji. Image: Asia Pacific Media Network
ANALYSIS: By Shailendra Bahadur Singh and Amit Sarwal in Suva
Given the intensifying situation, journalists, academics and experts joined to state the need for the Pacific, including its media, to re-assert itself and chart its own path, rooted in its unique cultural, economic and environmental context.
The tone for the discussions was set by Papua New Guinea’s Minister for Information and Communications Technology Timothy Masiu, chief guest at the official dinner of the Suva conference.
The conference heard that the Pacific media sector is small and under-resourced, so its abilities to carry out its public interest role is limited, even in a free media environment.
PNG Information and Communications Technology Minister Tmothy Masiu (second from left) at the launch of the book Waves of Change: Media, Peace, and Development in the Pacific in Fiji earlier this month. He is pictured with coeditors (from left) Fiji Deputy Prime Minister Professor Biman Prasad, Dr Shailendra Singh and Dr Amit Sarwal. Image: Asia Pacific Media Network
Masiu asked how Pacific media was being developed and used as a tool to protect and preserve Pacific identities in the light of “outside influences on our media in the region”. He said the Pacific was “increasingly being used as the backyard” for geopolitics, with regional media “targeted by the more developed nations as a tool to drive their geopolitical agenda”.
Masiu is the latest to draw attention to the widespread impacts of the global contest on the Pacific, with his focus on the media sector, and potential implications for editorial independence.
In some ways, Pacific media have benefitted from the geopolitical contest with the increased injection of foreign funds into the sector, prompting some at the Suva conference to ponder whether “too much of a good thing could turn out to be bad”.
Experts echoed Masiu’s concerns about island nations’ increased wariness of being mere pawns in a larger game.
Fiji a compelling example
Fiji offers a compelling example of a nation navigating this complex landscape with a balanced approach. Fiji has sought to diversify its diplomatic relations, strengthening ties with China and India, without a wholesale pivot away from traditional partners Australia and New Zealand.
Some Pacific Island leaders espouse the “friends to all, enemies to none” doctrine in the face of concerns about getting caught in the crossfire of any military conflict.
This is manifest in Fiji Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka’s incessant calls for a “zone of peace” during both the Melanesian Spearhead Group Leaders’ meeting in Port Vila in August, and the United Nations General Assembly debate in New York in September.
Rabuka expressed fears about growing geopolitical rivalry contributing to escalating tensions, stating that “we must consider the Pacific a zone of peace”.
Papua New Guinea, rich in natural resources, has similarly navigated its relationships with major powers. While Chinese investments in infrastructure and mining have surged, PNG has also actively engaged with Australia, its closest neighbour and long-time partner.
“Don’t get me wrong – we welcome and appreciate the support of our development partners – but we must be free to navigate our own destiny,” Masiu told the Suva conference.
Masiu’s proposed media policy for PNG was also discussed at the Suva conference, with former PNG newspaper editor Alex Rheeney stating that the media fraternity saw it as a threat, although the minister spoke positively about it in his address.
Criticism and praise
In 2019, Solomon Islands shifted diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to China, a move that was met with both criticism and praise. While this opened the door to increased Chinese investment in infrastructure, it also highlighted an effort to balance existing ties to Australia and other Western partners.
Samoa and Tonga too have taken significant strides in using environmental diplomacy as a cornerstone of their international engagement.
One of the outcomes of the debates at the Suva conference was that media freedom in the Pacific is a critical factor in shaping an independent and pragmatic global outlook.
Fiji has seen fluctuations in media freedom following political upheavals, with periods of restrictive press laws. However, with the repeal of the draconian media act last year, there is a growing recognition that a free and vibrant media landscape is essential for transparent governance and informed decision-making.
But the conference also heard that the Pacific media sector is small and under-resourced, so its ability to carry out its public interest role is limited, even in a free media environment.
Waves of Change: Media, Peace, and Development in the Pacific. Image: Kula Press
Vulnerability worsened
The Pacific media sector’s vulnerability had worsened due to the financial damage from the digital disruption and the covid-19 pandemic. It underscored the need to address the financial side of the equation if media organisations are to remain viable.
For the Pacific, the path forward lies in pragmatism and self-reliance, as argued in the book of collected essays Waves of Change: Media, Peace, and Development in the Pacific, edited by Shailendra Bahadur Singh, Fiji Deputy Prime Minister Professor Biman Prasad and Amit Sarwal, launched at the Suva conference by Masiu.
No doubt, as was commonly expressed at the Suva media conference, the world is watching as the Pacific charts its own course.
As the renowned Pacific writer Epeli Hau’ofa once envisioned, the Pacific Islands are not small and isolated, but a “sea of islands” with deep connections and vast potential to contribute in the global order.
As they continue to engage with the world, the Pacific nations will need to carve out a path that reflects their unique traditional wisdom, values and aspirations.
Dr Shailendra Bahadur Singh is head of journalism at The University of the South Pacific (USP) in Suva, Fiji, and chair of the recent Pacific International Media Conference. Dr Amit Sarwal is an Indian-origin academic, translator, and journalist based in Melbourne, Australia. He is formerly a senior lecturer and deputy head of school (research) at the USP. This article was first published by The Interpreter and is republished with permission.
