Former Green Party MP Golriz Ghahraman . . . a leading New Zealand advocate for human rights and justice for Palestine. Image: VNP/Daniela Maoate-Cox/RNZ
RNZ News
Former Green Party MP Golriz Ghahraman — a leading voice in Aotearoa New Zealand’s Parliament for human rights, an independent foreign policy, and justice for Palestine — was subject to “pretty much continuous” death threats and threats of violence, says party co-leader James Shaw.
Ghahraman said in a statement today stress relating to her work had led her to “act in ways that are completely out of character. I am not trying to excuse my actions, but I do want to explain them”.
“The mental health professional I see says my recent behaviour is consistent with recent events giving rise to extreme stress response, and relating to previously unrecognised trauma,” she said.
She said she had fallen short of the high standards expected of elected representatives, and apologised.
In a joint media conference with Green co-leader Marama Davidson, Shaw said Green MPs were expected to maintain high standards of public behaviour.
“It is clear to us that Ms Ghahraman is in a state of extreme distress. She has taken responsibility and she has apologised. We support the decision that she has made to resign.”
Party ‘deeply sorry’
The party was “deeply sorry” to see her leave under such circumstances, he said.
Shaw said that Parliament was a stressful place for anybody.
“However, Golriz herself has been subject to pretty much continuous threats of sexual violence, physical violence, death threats since the day she was elected to Parliament and so that has added a higher level of stress than is experienced by most Members of Parliament.
“And that has meant, for example there have been police investigations into those threats almost the entire time that she has been a Member of Parliament, and so obviously if you’re living with that level of threat in what is already quite a stressful situation then there are going to be consequences for that,” Shaw said.
“And so I have a lot of empathy for you know the fact that she has identified that she is in the state of extreme mental distress.
“Ultimately Golriz is taking accountability for her actions, she’s seeking medical help and she is in a state of extreme distress, that’s where we are at and we support her decision.”
Asked whether the Greens should review how they should support and select MPs, Green co-leader Marama Davidson said the party had a high quality and very robust selection process.
MPs ‘are still human’
“It is also understandable that all MPs across all political parties are still human when they come into politics.
“We will continue to support Golriz through a really distressing time that she is having at the moment and that is a Green Party responsibility also.”
Ghahraman was clearly distressed, Davidson said.
“We know that this is a decision for her to apologise and to resign from Parliament, for her well-being, for her to be able to focus and our responsibility is to make sure she has the support she has needed and to continue to give her aroha and compassion.”
Asked why the Greens did not front up to the situation earlier, Davidson said the Green Party co-leaders needed to seek clarity about the situation before making statements and Ghahraman was still overseas.
“I think people can understand how important it is to have face-to-face and in person conversations with such allegations.
“Also to allow her to have the support that she needs to be able to discuss those allegations.”
Once the co-leaders had received advice and worked out a course of action, Ghahraman returned “at the earliest possible convenience”, Davidson said.
Treatment of women of colour
Davidson said there had been conversations in recent times about the particular treatment of women and women of colour who had public profiles.
“It is incumbent on all political parties and the parliamentary system to be able to support everyone under the pressure of political profiles and the Greens certainly have always taken that seriously to make sure there are avenues for MPs feeling that stress to be able to communicate and seek help.”
Asked whether the co-leaders were aware that Ghahraman was experiencing mental distress before the allegations came to light, Shaw said it would not be appropriate to comment on the mental health condition of one of their colleagues.
“Professional support is available to all of our MPs and we do know that people do access them and we encourage people to access that professional support,” Shaw said.
Davidson said it was a sad day and she was losing a friend and colleague who she had worked with for six years.
“We are here to give aroha and hold her leadership in the portfolio work, kaupapa work that she has often been a lone voice in,” she said.
“We just have aroha and sadness for the value of her kaupapa and for her as a person and she was a part of our team.”
Green caucus support
Shaw said Ghahraman was getting a lot of support for her colleagues in the Green caucus, other Green Party members, as well as from other communities that she is well-connected to.
“And of course most importantly, she’s got professional support as well.”
Davidson said that they would continue to support Ghahraman by ensuring she continued to know “that our aroha and compassion that we are holding that as colleagues, as friends, as women in politics, and that’s really important to us”.
Shaw said Parliament had improved in terms of making support available to MPs over the last few years.
“We strongly encourage our MPs and our staff to access professional support if they feel that they need it and we will continue to do so.”
Shaw said Ghahraman was not looking for an excuse by disclosing her mental health issues and she said she wanted to take full accountability for her actions.
“She’s not looking for an excuse here, she’s trying to sort of seek a reason to explain her behaviour, not to justify it and I think that’s really really important,” Shaw said.
Shaw said pressures on MPs were discussed as a caucus including at monthly staff meetings of senior MPs and staff, at a quarterly weekend meeting, as well as working closely with parliamentary security, police and IT.
Davidson said losing Ghahraman was a big loss but the party would continue to uphold her portfolio areas, legacy and mahi.
Ghahraman was elected on the Green Party list, ranked 7th. She held 10 spokesperson portfolios, including Justice, Defence, and Foreign Affairs.
Her resignation allows the next person on the list to enter Parliament — former Wellington mayor Celia Wade-Brown.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ and Asia Pacific Report.
Leni Riefenstahl pictured filming with two assistants in 1936 . . . epic films glorifying the Nazis. Image: Bundesarchiv, CC-BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons
John Pilger tirelessly and fearlessly exposed Western crimes against the Global South. A master of his craft whose integrity was unmatched, he died on 30 December 2023. Consortium News published a series of tributes to him on 1 January 2024 and republished this insightful article by him about propaganda first published in 2022.
ANALYSIS:By John Pilger
“Leni Riefenstahl said her epic films glorifying the Nazis depended on a ‘submissive void’ in the German public. This is how propaganda is done.”
In the 1970s, I met one of Hitler’s leading propagandists, Leni Riefenstahl, whose epic films glorified the Nazis. We happened to be staying at the same lodge in Kenya, where she was on a photography assignment, having escaped the fate of other friends of the Führer.
She told me that the “patriotic messages” of her films were dependent not on “orders from above” but on what she called the “submissive void” of the German public.
Did that include the liberal, educated bourgeoisie? I asked. “Yes, especially them,” she said.
I think of this as I look around at the propaganda now consuming Western societies.
Of course, we are very different from Germany in the 1930s. We live in information societies. We are globalists. We have never been more aware, more in touch, better connected.
Or do we in the West live in a Media Society where brainwashing is insidious and relentless, and perception is filtered according to the needs and lies of state and corporate power?
The United States dominates the Western world’s media. All but one of the top 10 media companies are based in North America. The internet and social media — Google, Twitter, Facebook — are mostly American owned and controlled.
In my lifetime, the United States has overthrown or attempted to overthrow more than 50 governments, mostly democracies. It has interfered in democratic elections in 30 countries. It has dropped bombs on the people of 30 countries, most of them poor and defenceless. It has attempted to murder the leaders of 50 countries. It has fought to suppress liberation movements in 20 countries.
The extent and scale of this carnage is largely unreported, unrecognised, and those responsible continue to dominate Anglo-American political life.
Harold Pinter broke the silence In the years before he died in 2008, the playwright Harold Pinter made two extraordinary speeches, which broke a silence.
“US foreign policy,” he said, is
“best defined as follows: kiss my arse or I’ll kick your head in. It is as simple and as crude as that. What is interesting about it is that it’s so incredibly successful. It possesses the structures of disinformation, use of rhetoric, distortion of language, which are very persuasive, but are actually a pack of lies. It is very successful propaganda. They have the money, they have the technology, they have all the means to get away with it, and they do.”
In accepting the Nobel Prize for Literature, Pinter said this:
“The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them. You have to hand it to America. It has exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good. It’s a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis.”
Pinter was a friend of mine and possibly the last great political sage — that is, before dissenting politics were gentrified. I asked him if the “hypnosis” he referred to was the “submissive void” described by Leni Riefenstahl.
“It’s the same,” he replied. “It means the brainwashing is so thorough we are programmed to swallow a pack of lies. If we don’t recognise propaganda, we may accept it as normal and believe it. That’s the submissive void.”
Leni Riefenstahl and a camera crew stand in front of Hitler’s car during 1934 rally in Nuremberg, Germany. Image: Bundesarchiv, CC-BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons
In our systems of corporate democracy, war is an economic necessity, the perfect marriage of public subsidy and private profit: socialism for the rich, capitalism for the poor. The day after 9/11 the stock prices of the war industry soared.
More bloodshed was coming, which is great for business.
Today, the most profitable wars have their own brand. They are called “forever wars” — Afghanistan, Palestine, Iraq, Libya, Yemen and now Ukraine. All are based on a pack of lies.
Iraq is the most infamous, with its weapons of mass destruction that didn’t exist. NATO’s destruction of Libya in 2011 was justified by a massacre in Benghazi that didn’t happen. Afghanistan was a convenient revenge war for 9/11, which had nothing to do with the people of Afghanistan.
Today, the news from Afghanistan is how evil the Taliban are — not that US President Joe Biden’s theft of $7 billion of the country’s bank reserves is causing widespread suffering. Recently, National Public Radio in Washington devoted two hours to Afghanistan — and 30 seconds to its starving people.
At its summit in Madrid in June, NATO, which is controlled by the United States, adopted a strategy document that militarises the European continent, and escalates the prospect of war with Russia and China. It proposes “multi domain warfighting against nuclear-armed peer-competitor.”
In other words, nuclear war.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg (left) and Spain’s Prime Minster Pedro Sánchez on 28 June 2022 in Madrid. Image: NATO
It says: “NATO’s enlargement has been an historic success.”
I read that in disbelief.
The news from the war in Ukraine is mostly not news, but a one-sided litany of jingoism, distortion, omission. I have reported a number of wars and have never known such blanket propaganda.
In February, Russia invaded Ukraine as a response to almost eight years of killing and criminal destruction in the Russian-speaking region of Donbass on their border.
In 2014, the United States had sponsored a coup in Kiev that got rid of Ukraine’s democratically elected, Russian-friendly president and installed a successor whom the Americans made clear was their man.
Then US Vice-President Joe Biden meets with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko in Kiev on 7 December 2015. Image: US Embassy Kyiv, Flickr
In recent years, American “defender” missiles have been installed in eastern Europe, Poland, Slovenia, the Czech Republic, almost certainly aimed at Russia, accompanied by false assurances all the way back to James Baker’s “promise” to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in February 1990 that NATO would never expand beyond Germany.
NATO on Hitler’s borderline Ukraine is the frontline. NATO has effectively reached the very borderland through which Hitler’s army stormed in 1941, leaving more than 23 million dead in the Soviet Union.
Last December, Russia proposed a far-reaching security plan for Europe. This was dismissed, derided or suppressed in the Western media. Who read its step-by-step proposals?
On 24 February 2022, President Volodymyr Zelensky threatened to develop nuclear weapons unless America armed and protected Ukraine.
On the same day, Russia invaded — an unprovoked act of congenital infamy, according to the Western media. The history, the lies, the peace proposals, the solemn agreements on Donbass at Minsk counted for nothing.
On April 25, US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin flew into Kiev and confirmed that America’s aim was to destroy the Russian Federation — the word he used was “weaken.” America had got the war it wanted, waged by an American bankrolled and armed proxy and expendable pawn.
Almost none of this was explained to Western audiences.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is wanton and inexcusable. It is a crime to invade a sovereign country. There are no “buts” — except one.
When did the present war in Ukraine begin and who started it? According to the United Nations, between 2014 and this year, some 14,000 people have been killed in the Kiev regime’s civil war on the Donbass. Many of the attacks were carried out by neo-Nazis.
Watch an ITV news report from May 2014, by the veteran reporter James Mates, who is shelled, along with civilians in the city of Mariupol, by Ukraine’s Azov (neo-Nazi) battalion.
In the same month, dozens of Russian-speaking people were burned alive or suffocated in a trade union building in Odessa besieged by fascist thugs, the followers of the Nazi collaborator and anti-Semitic fanatic Stepan Bandera.
The New York Times called the thugs “nationalists.”
“The historic mission of our nation in this critical moment,” said Andreiy Biletsky, founder of the Azov Battaltion, “is to lead the White Races of the world in a final crusade for their survival, a crusade against the Semite-led Untermenschen.”
Since February, a campaign of self-appointed “news monitors” (mostly funded by the Americans and British with links to governments) have sought to maintain the absurdity that Ukraine’s neo-Nazis don’t exist.
Airbrushing, once associated with Stalin’s purges, has become a tool of mainstream journalism.
“I have reported a number of wars and have never known such blanket propaganda.”
In less than a decade, a “good” China has been airbrushed and a “bad” China has replaced it: from the world’s workshop to a budding new Satan.
Much of this propaganda originates in the US, and is transmitted through proxies and “think-tanks,” such as the notorious Australian Strategic Policy Institute, the voice of the arms industry, and by journalists such as Peter Hartcher of TheSydney Morning Herald, who has labelled those spreading Chinese influence as “rats, flies, mosquitoes and sparrows” and suggested these “pests” be “eradicated.”
Andriy Beletsky, commanding officer of the special Ukrainian neo-Nazi police regiment Azov, with volunteers in 2014. Image: My News24, CC BY 3.0, Wikimedia Commons
News about China in the West is almost entirely about the threat from Beijing. Airbrushed are the 400 American military bases that surround most of China, an armed necklace that reaches from Australia to the Pacific and south east Asia, Japan and Korea.
The Japanese island of Okinawa and the Korean island of Jeju are like loaded guns aimed point blank at the industrial heart of China. A Pentagon official described this as a “noose.”
“Palestine has been misreported for as long as I can remember.”
Palestine has been misreported for as long as I can remember. To the BBC, there is the “conflict” of “two narratives”. The longest, most brutal, lawless military occupation in modern times is unmentionable.
The stricken people of Yemen barely exist. They are media unpeople. While the Saudis rain down their American cluster bombs with British advisers working alongside the Saudi targeting officers, more than half a million children face starvation.
This brainwashing by omission is not new. The slaughter of the First World War was suppressed by reporters who were given knighthoods for their compliance.
In 1917, the editor of TheManchester Guardian, C.P. Scott, confided to Prime Minister Lloyd George: “If people really knew [the truth], the war would be stopped tomorrow, but they don’t know and can’t know.”
The refusal to see people and events as those in other countries see them is a media virus in the West, as debilitating as covid. It is as if we see the world through a one-way mirror, in which “we” are moral and benign and “they” are not. It is a profoundly imperial view.
The history that is a living presence in China and Russia is rarely explained and rarely understood. Vladimir Putin is Adolf Hitler. Xi Jinping is Fu Man Chu. Epic achievements, such as the eradication of abject poverty in China, are barely known. How perverse and squalid this is.
“The news from the war in Ukraine is mostly not news, but a one-sided litany of jingoism, distortion, omission.”
When will we allow ourselves to understand? Training journalists factory style is not the answer. Neither is the wondrous digital tool, which is a means, not an end, like the one-finger typewriter and the linotype machine.
In recent years, some of the best journalists have been eased out of the mainstream. “Defenestrated” is the word used. The spaces once open to mavericks, to journalists who went against the grain, truth-tellers, have closed.
Julian Assange in 2014 . . . celebrated then made a public enemy. Image: David G Silvers, Wikimedia Commons
The case of Julian Assange is the most shocking. When Julian and WikiLeaks could win readers and prizes for TheGuardian, The New York Times and other self-important “papers of record,” he was celebrated.
When the dark state objected and demanded the destruction of hard drives and the assassination of Julian’s character, he was made a public enemy. Vice President Joe Biden compared him to a “hi-tech terrorist.” Hillary Clinton asked, “Can’t we just drone this guy?”
The ensuing campaign of abuse and vilification against Julian Assange — the U.N. rapporteur on torture called it “mobbing” — brought the liberal press to its lowest ebb. We know who they are. I think of them as collaborators: as Vichy journalists.
When will real journalists stand up? An inspirationalsamizdat already exists on the internet: Consortium News, founded by the great reporter Robert Parry, Max Blumenthal’s The Grayzone, Mint Press News, Media Lens,DeclassifiedUK, Alborada,Electronic Intifada, WSWS, ZNet, ICH,CounterPunch, Independent Australia, the work of Chris Hedges, Patrick Lawrence, Jonathan Cook, Diana Johnstone, Caitlin Johnstone and others who will forgive me for not mentioning them here.
And when will writers stand up, as they did against the rise of fascism in the 1930s? When will film-makers stand up, as they did against the Cold War in the 1940s? When will satirists stand up, as they did a generation ago?
Having soaked for 82 years in a deep bath of righteousness that is the official version of the last world war, isn’t it time those who are meant to keep the record straight declared their independence and decoded the propaganda? The urgency is greater than ever.
This article is based on an address the author delivered at the Trondheim World Festival, Norway, and first published by Consortium News on 7 September 2022. The late John Pilger twice won Britain’s highest award for journalism and was International Reporter of the Year, News Reporter of the Year and Descriptive Writer of the Year.He made 61 documentary films and won an Emmy, a BAFTA and the Royal Television Society prize. His Cambodia Year Zero was named as one of the 10 most important films of the 20th century.
Fiji human rights activists have paid tribute in a Suva vigil this week to the more than 100 journalists — most of them Palestinian — killed in Israel’s War on Gaza.
The NGO Coalition on Human Rights (NGOCHR) staged a #ThursdaysInBlack vigil to remember the dead journalists, but only one local Fiji reporter turned up (from The Fiji Times).
The coalition had invited local journalists to attend and share their views. However, according to coalition chair Shamima Ali (of the Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre), Fiji media is reluctant to engage with the global crisis over the war.
“Within the media outlets, we have Zionists themselves, so there is reluctance to report (on the Gaza conflict),” she said, reports Jake Wise of The Fiji Times.
In Australia and New Zealand, there is an ongoing controversy over some journalists and editors having been on junkets to Israel and then attempting to “silence” fair and balanced reporting on the war enabling a Palestinian voice.
Part of the Fiji vigil featured Australian journalist Alex McKinnon, who shared insights into his life as a reporter covering the conflict and the censorship involved in silencing the Palestinian voice.
Heavy death toll
The coalition said more than 100 journalists, videographers and media workers had been killed in Gaza since the current war broke out last October 7, adding more journalists had been killed in three months of Israel’s War on Gaza than in all of World War Two (69) or the Vietnam War (63).
New investigations on U.S. and UK media bias have exposed chilling double standards by Western media when it comes to reporting on killings of Israelis compared to killings of Palestinians in Gaza. pic.twitter.com/uQ0I7cT340
The high death toll in Gaza comes despite journalists being protected under international law — making attacks on them a war crime.
The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists says that an unprecedented number of reporters were killed in the first 10 weeks of the genocide. It currently lists 82 confirmed killed, but it is verifying additional numbers.
Gaza’s media office has documented the killing of at least at least 110 media workers since the genocide started. Al Jazeera today reported 117 journalists killed.
“Why are so many journalists being killed in Gaza?” Firsthand reporting on the onslaught there has been left to Palestinians already locked into the occupied territory — documenting their own genocide. Video: Al Jazeera’s Listening Post
Last May, the CPJ published “Deadly Pattern,” a report that found members of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) had killed at least 20 journalists over the previous 22 years with impunity. Nobody had ever been charged or held accountable for their deaths.
The Israeli government has prevented independent entry to foreign journalists seeking to cover the genocide from within the Gaza Strip.
The Biden administration’s dramatic escalation toward yet another horrific war in the Middle East has been hotly criticised by lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, who argue that the attacks were illicit because they took place without congressional approval. Image: Caitlin's Newsletter
For weeks Yemen’s Houthi forces have been greatly inconveniencing commercial shipping with their blockade, with reports last month saying Israel’s Eilat Port has seen an 85 percent drop in activity since the attacks began.
This entirely bloodless inconvenience was all it took for Washington to attack Yemen, the war-ravaged nation in which the US and its allies have spent recent years helping Saudi Arabia murder hundreds of thousands of people with its own maritime blockades.
The Biden administration’s dramatic escalation toward yet another horrific war in the Middle East has been hotly criticised by lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, who argue that the attacks were illicit because they took place without congressional approval.
This impotent congressional whining will never go anywhere, since, as Glenn Greenwald has observed, the US Congress never actually does anything to hold presidents to account for carrying out acts of war without their approval.
But there are some worthwhile ideas going around.
After the second round of strikes, a Democratic representative from Georgia named Hank Johnson tweeted the following:
“I have what some may consider a dumb idea, but here it is: stop the bombing of Gaza, then the attacks on commercial shipping will end. Why not try that approach?”
By golly, that’s just crazy enough to work. In fact, anti-interventionists have been screaming it at the top of their lungs since the standoff with Yemen began.
All the way back in mid-October Responsible Statecraft’s Trita Parsi was already writing urgently about the need for a ceasefire in Gaza to prevent it from exploding into a wider war in the region, a position Parsi has continued pushing ever since.
“Huge Miscalculation”: Biden’s Refusal to Push for Gaza Ceasefire Could Drag U.S. into Middle East War https://t.co/eJuzswi2BJ
As we discussed previously, Israel’s US-backed assault on Gaza is threatening to bleed over into conflicts with the Houthis in Yemen, with Hezbollah in Lebanon, with Iran-aligned militias in Iraq and Syria, and even potentially with Iran itself – any of which could easily see the US and its allies committing themselves to a full-scale war.
Peace in Gaza takes these completely unnecessary gambles off the table.
And it is absolutely within Washington’s power to force a ceasefire in Gaza. Biden could end all this with one phone call, as US presidents have done in the past. As Parsi wrote for The Nation earlier this month:
“In 1982, President Ronald Reagan was ‘disgusted’ by Israeli bombardment of Lebanon. He stopped the transfer of cluster munitions to Israel and told Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin in a phone call that ‘this is a holocaust.’ Reagan demanded that Israel withdraw its troops from Lebanon. Begin caved. Twenty minutes after their phone call, Begin ordered a halt on attacks.
“Indeed, it is absurd to claim that Biden has no leverage, particularly given the massive amounts of arms he has shipped to Israel. In fact, Israeli officials openly admit it. ‘All of our missiles, the ammunition, the precision-guided bombs, all the airplanes and bombs, it’s all from the US,’ retired Israeli Maj. Gen. Yitzhak Brick conceded in November of last year. ‘The minute they turn off the tap, you can’t keep fighting. You have no capability.… Everyone understands that we can’t fight this war without the United States. Period.’ ”
In the end, you get peace by pursuing peace. That’s how it happens. You don’t get it by pursuing impossible imaginary ideals like the total elimination of Hamas while butchering tens of thousands of innocent Palestinians.
You don’t get it by trying to bludgeon the Middle East into passively accepting an active genocide. You get it by negotiation, de-escalation, diplomacy and detente.
The path to peace is right there. The door’s not locked. It’s not even closed. The fact that they don’t take it tells you what these imperialist bastards are really interested in.
We Could Try Simply NOT Provoking A Wider War Via The Continued Destruction Of Gaza
The US has carried out another air raid on Yemen, with targets reportedly including the international airport in the capital city of Sanaa. This comes a day after US and UK airstrikes on Yemen in…
Amnesty International responds to the looting and protests that erupted across Port Moresby and Lae on Wednesday 10 January 2024 after about 200 military and police personnel went on strike over a pay dispute. Image: AI screenshot APR
By Caleb Fotheringham
Amnesty International is calling on Papua New Guinea authorities to protect human rights in response to the riots.
The violence broke out with shops and businesses being set alight after public servants went on strike over what has been described as a payroll error.
Prime Minister James Marape announced at a late night news conference on Thursday that more than 1000 defence force personnel were ready to step in wherever necessary.
PNG’s State of Emergency Acting Controller Donald Yamasombi . . . briefing the news media in the wake of this week’s rioting and looting in Port Moresby. Image: InsidePNG screenshot APR
Amnesty International Pacific researcher Kate Schuetze told RNZ Pacific firearms was often never an appropriate way to respond to protests.
“They have declared a state of emergency under the constitution which gives extraordinary powers to the authorities like the police and the military,” Schuetze said.
“What we really want to do is just remind them that protesters have human rights, that people in the streets have rights as well and ultimately, they have to work in a way to use the least lethal force possible and uphold the right to life.”
Members of the disciplined forces were among those protesting after their fortnightly pay checks were reduced by up to 300 kina (US$80).
Schuetze said the deductions for some officers amounted to half their pay packet.
“The deductions we’re talking about here are not an insignificant amount … understandably they were concerned.
“There’s questions around how much the government knew prior to the strike around this pay area and why they didn’t take steps to address it sooner.”
Amnesty International’s response . . . “It is imperative that Papua New Guinea authorities respond to this violence in a way that protects human rights and avoids further loss of life.” Image: AI screenshot APR
Schuetze said inflation was a concern for people.
“A lot of people are doing it tough in Papua New Guinea and I think it could be a sign of rising resentment and dissatisfaction with the leadership of the government, as well as livelihood factors that people feel are not being addressed.”
Marape is under increasing political pressure to step down, with six members of his coalition government resigning in the aftermath of the deadly violence.
Among them, Chauve MP James Nomane and Hiri-Koiari MP Kieth Iduhu made their resignations public via social media and blamed blamed Marape for the riots.
Schuetze said there needed to be “prompt, impartial and independent investigation” into what happened, including the causes of the riots.
“Likely there will be several colliding factors which cause this to happen.
“Any government, if this happens on their watch, if it happened in Australia, in New Zealand, we would expect there to be a full independent public inquiry.”
She said there tended to be an absence of appropriate police response to address the violent acts once they had occurred in Papua New Guinea.
“Obviously, the fact that people have died in the course of these riots is a really strong indicator that there may be human rights violations by the state.”
Schuetze said there were lots of videos uploaded to social media that showed police actively encouraging and participating in the chaos.
“If the police themselves were involved in acts of violence, there is a responsibility of the state to hold them accountable as well, as much as any other person engaged in active violence.”
‘Dysfunctional government’ Anti-corruption watchdog Transparency International PNG (TIPNG) said the frustration among police, and other public servants over tax calculations, was just the tip of the iceberg of a dysfunctional government system.
It is calling on the PNG government to engage immediately in genuine open dialogue with the police representatives to address their legitimate grievances.
The organisation’s board chair Peter Aitsi said this must be done quickly through transparent and open communication in order to resolve this crisis.
Aitsi said the public service and police were institutions of the state, and if truly independent and free of political control, should play a critical role as a check and balance to the executive government.
Open for business Meanwhile, PNG’s largest retail and wholesale organisation — the CPL Group — has re-opened for business.
In a statement on Friday, the company said its Stop & Shop outlet at Waigani Central, Town, Boroko, Airways was now open.
The City Pharmacy chain in Waigani Drive, Boroko and Vision city are also open for trading.
However, the group says those outlets in areas which “suffered devastatingly” remained closed.
It is also warned people not to use stolen pharmaceutical products, including baby formulas, off the counter and prescription medicines.
It is urging the public not to buy these products as they may be damaged and tampered with and wrong doses could be administered.
Caleb Fotheringham is an RNZ Pacific journalist. This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ and Asia Pacific Report.
Australia’s ABC Pacific reports the death toll rising to 22 in Port Moresby after the charred remains of six people were found in two shops that had been looted and set on fire. Image: ABC screenshot APR
Al Jazeera’s senior political analyst Marwan Bishara says Israel’s legal team “started off weak” but made a few strong points near the end.
Bishara said the lawyers’ efforts at the genocide hearings at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague yesterday to deflect blame for Israel’s attacks and ignore the context of Israel’s 75-year occupation of Palestine came across as “illogical”, the Al Jazeera video clip reports.
Their claims that Israel’s forces are “trying to protect, rather than harm”, civilians were also unconvincing, he said, given the toll of the war: 23,357 Palestinians, including 9,600 children, since October 7.
However, Bishara said Israel’s lawyers did well to zero in on the jurisdiction of the ICJ — pointing out that the court must specifically prove Israel was guilty of genocidal intent, not any other violations.
“You can claim Israel has committed heinous crimes, but if they do not fall under the framework of genocide, the court has no jurisdiction,” Bishara said.
Speaking to reporters outside the ICJ in The Hague, Palestinian Foreign Ministry official Ammar Hijazi said Israel’s legal team was not “able to provide any solid arguments on the basis of fact and law”.
“What Israel has provided today are many of the already debunked lies,” he added, referring to, among others, Israeli clams that hospitals in Gaza were being used as military bases.
“Additionally, we think that what the Israeli team today has tried to provide is the exact thing that South Africa came to the court for — and that is, nothing at all justifies genocide.”
Thomas MacManus, a senior lecturer in state crime at Queen Mary University of London, said the ICJ was likely to see a “massive disconnect” between the picture Israel painted of its humanitarian concern for Gaza and “the reality on the ground where UN agencies say people are starving, lacking water, and seeing attacks on hospitals, schools, and universities.”
Marwan Bishara comments on the Israeli ICJ defence. Video: Al Jazeera
‘Nothing can ever justify genocide’ South Africa’s Minister of Justice Ronald Lamola told media “Self-defence is no answer to genocide”.
Here are the main points from his interaction:
“”Israel failed to disprove South Africa’s compelling case that was presented;
Israel tells the court that statements read out by senior Israeli political, military and civilian society leaders are simply rhetorical, and we shall not ascribe them any importance;
“There is no debate about what Prime Minister Netanyahu’s term ‘Amalek’ means and how it is understood by soldiers fighting on the ground and by the Israelis;
“How can you ignore Netanyahu’s statement, the statement of the defence minister and the ground forces? That is a clear implementation of policy.
“Israel chose to focus extensively on the events of October 7. South Africa has not ignored this event as Israel alleged because it has unequivocally condemned and continues to condemn October 7; and
“Self-defence is no answer to genocide. Nothing can ever justify genocide.”
Marwan Bishara is Al Jazeera’s senior political analyst. He assesses the Israeli defence submitted at the ICJ over South Africa’s genocide allegations. Pacific Media Watch is a media freedom monitoring watchdog.
"Israel has so far failed to achieve either of its primary war aims: the destruction of Hamas and freedom for the remainder of the 240 Israelis taken hostage on October 7." Image: @warongaza
ANALYSIS:By Ian Parmeter
The 19th century German war strategist and field marshal Helmuth von Moltke famously coined the aphorism “No battle plan survives first contact with the enemy”. His observation might well be applied to the tragedy we are witnessing in Gaza.
Three months after the current conflict began and as the International Court of Justice (ICJ) hears two days of legal arguments in the South African case alleging genocide against Israel, civilians have borne the brunt of the violence on both sides — with the deaths of more than 23,000 Palestinians in Gaza and 1200 Israelis.
Some 85 percent of Gazans have also been displaced and a quarter of the population is facing a famine, according to the United Nations.
The conflict still has a long way to run and may be headed towards stalemate. From a geopolitical perspective, here’s where the main players stand at the start of the new year.
Israel: limited success … Israel has so far failed to achieve either of its primary war aims: the destruction of Hamas and freedom for the remainder of the 240 Israelis taken hostage on October 7.
Hamas fighters continue to use their tunnel network to ambush Israeli soldiers and are firing rockets at Israel, albeit in much lower volumes: 27 were fired at the start of the new year, compared with 3000 in the first hours of the conflict on October 7.
There are still around 130 Israelis being held hostage, and only one hostage has been freed by the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF), as opposed to releases arranged through Qatari and Egyptian mediators.
Israeli society is divided between those who want to prioritise negotiations to release the hostages and those who want to prioritise the elimination of Hamas.
Israel achieved an important symbolic success with the apparent targeted killing of Hamas deputy leader Saleh al-Arouri in Beirut on January 2. Though Israel has not formally claimed responsibility, there is little doubt it was behind the killing.
But the two Gaza–based Hamas leaders Israel most wants to eliminate, political leader Yahya Sinwar and military leader Mohammed Deif, are still at large.
Israel still has US support in the UN Security Council, which has managed to pass only one toothless resolution since the war began. But the Biden administration is publicly pressuring Israel to change its tactics to minimise Palestinian casualties.
…and facing a ‘day after’ conundrum The Israeli government is also divided on how Gaza should be run when the fighting stops.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he won’t accept Gaza remaining “Hamastan” (Hamas-controlled) or becoming “Fatahstan” (ruled by the Palestinian Authority, which is dominated by the secular Fatah party). US President Joe Biden prefers a Gaza government led by a reformed Palestinian Authority, but Netanyahu has rejected this and has not articulated an alternative plan.
Defence Minister Yoav Gallant this week outlined what seems to be his own plan for Gaza, involving governance by unspecified Palestinian authorities. His plan did not immediately have Israeli cabinet approval and has been slammed by hard-right ministers.
Two of these, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben–Gvir, have called for a solution that encourages the Palestinian population to emigrate and for Israeli settlers to return to the strip. That would be unacceptable to the Biden administration.
Israel’s massive bombing campaign has also slowly turned international opinion against it, as expressed in the UN General Assembly vote last month in which 153 of the 193 member states called for a ceasefire.
Are Netanyahu’s days now numbered? The current issue of The Economist features a headline that reads “Binyamin Netanyahu is botching the war. Time to sack him”. Whether or not that’s a fair judgement, it’s clear that internal divisions and indecision within his government are hindering Israel’s prosecution of the war.
Hamas — still standing The militant group has obviously been hurt. Israel claims to have killed or captured between 8000 and 9000 of Hamas’ approximately 30,000–strong fighting force — though it has not explained how it calculates militant deaths.
Hamas’ main achievement is that it is still standing. To win, the militant group does not have to defeat Israel — it needs merely to survive the IDF onslaught.
Hamas can claim some positives. Its attack on October 7 has put the Palestinian issue at the top of the Middle East agenda.
Citizens in the Arab states that have signed peace agreements with Israel are clearly angry. And an Israeli-Saudi agreement to normalise relations between the countries, which had been imminent before the conflict, is off the table for now.
Opinion polling also shows support for Hamas has risen from 12 percent to 44 percent in the West Bank and from 38 percent to 42 percent in Gaza in the past three months. If it were possible to hold fair Palestinian elections now, they could produce results Israel and the US would not like.
⚠️ Every State is obligated under the Genocide Convention to prevent and punish genocide. ICJ decisions are binding. All States must accept verdict and recommendations. As of Jan 9, supportive states include OIC, Bolivia, Malaysia, Jordan and more. #InternationalLaw#GenocideCasepic.twitter.com/DcDZclUNRT
United States — weakness in dealing with Israel
Biden embraced Netanyahu immediately after the Hamas attack, but US efforts since then to influence Israel’s war plans have not yielded any results.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken failed in his effort to persuade Israel to end the war by the start of the new year. His current visit to the region is unlikely to yield any major changes.
Moreover, divisions in the US may hurt Biden in the lead–up to the presidential election in November. Young, college–educated progressives, who tend to vote Democratic, have taken part in demonstrations against Biden’s public support for Israel’s right to defend itself, if not its way of doing so.
These progressives won’t vote for the almost–certain Republican candidate, Donald Trump. But they could stay home on election day, handing the election to Trump.
US support for Ukraine has also become a casualty of the war. Republicans, taking their cue from Trump, are prioritising support for Israel and stopping the flow of migrants across the US-Mexico border. They are losing interest in Ukraine – which clearly benefits Russian President Vladimir Putin. Those benefits will be reinforced if Trump wins the presidency again.
United Nations – irrelevant The UN has also failed in its mission of maintaining world peace. The only Security Council resolution on the war meant nothing, as Russia was pleased to point out.
The recent UN General Assembly resolution illustrated Israel’s growing isolation, but has done nothing to change the course of the war. UN Secretary–General Antonio Guterres has been powerless to influence either Israel or Hamas.
Iran — watching for opportunities The Hezbollah militant group will do a lot of huffing and puffing over the killing of al-Arouri in a Hezbollah-controlled part of Beirut. But it takes its orders from Tehran, which still shows no sign of wanting to become directly involved in the war.
That said, Iran appears to have no problem with its proxies — Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen — providing token support for Hamas through limited rocket, drone and artillery attacks.
Iran is likely to be reinforced in this approach by the bombings at the tomb of former Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani last week, which killed almost 100 Iranians. The bombings have been claimed by the Islamic State, which will likely make Iran more focused on its internal security than on assisting Hamas.
South African lawyer Adila Hassim told judges at The Hague that “genocides are never declared in advance, but this court has the benefit of the past 13 weeks of evidence that shows incontrovertibly a pattern of conduct and related intention that justifies as a plausible claim of genocidal acts”.
“Israel deployed 6000 bombs per week . . . No one is spared. Not even newborns.
UN chiefs have described it as a graveyard for children,” she said told the court on the opening session of the two-day preliminary hearing.
“Nothing will stop the suffering except an order from this court.”
Israel’s ongoing three-month war in Gaza has killed more than 23,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, lawyers told the court.
Most of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million has been displaced, and an Israeli blockade severely limiting food, fuel and medicine has caused a humanitarian “catastrophe”, according to the UN.
‘Genocidal in character’
South Africa submitted its case against Israel at the ICJ last month and has said Israel’s actions in Gaza are “genocidal in character because they are intended to bring about the destruction of a substantial part of the Palestinian national, racial and ethnic group”.
Tembeka Ngcukaitobi, another South African lawyer and legal scholar at the hearing, said Pretoria was not alone in drawing attention to Israel’s genocidal rhetoric.
He said that at least 15 UN special rapporteurs and 21 members of the UN working groups had warned that what was happening in Gaza reflected a genocide in the making.
Video: Middle East Eye
Ngcukaitobi added that genocidal intent was evident in the way Israel’s military was conducting attacks, including the targeting of family homes and civilian infrastructure.
“Israel’s political leaders, military commanders and persons holding official positions have systematically and in explicit terms declared their genocidal intent.”
Ngcukaitobi said the “genocidal rhetoric” had become common within the Israeli Knesset, with several MPs calling for Gaza to be “wiped out, flattened, erased and crushed”.
Israeli defence
On Wednesday, Nissim Vaturi, a member of Israel’s ruling Likud party, said it was a “privilege” for his country to appear at The Hague as he doubled down on earlier remarks where he said there were “no innocent people” in Gaza.
This is the first time Israel is being tried under the United Nations’ Genocide Convention, which was drawn up after the Second World War in light of the atrocities committed against Jews and other persecuted minorities during the Holocaust.
During yesterday’s proceedings, Professor Max du Plessis, another lawyer representing South Africa, said Israel had subjected the Palestinian people to an “oppressive and prolonged violation of their rights to self-determination for more than half a century”.
Dr Du Plessis added that based on materials shown before the court, the acts of Israel were plausibly characterised as genocidal.
“South Africa’s obligation is motivated by the need to protect Palestinians in Gaza and their absolute rights not to be subjected to genocidal acts.”
Genocide cases, which are notoriously hard to prove, can take years to resolve, but South Africa is asking the court to speedily implement “provisional measures” and “order Israel to cease killing and causing serious mental and bodily harm to Palestinian people in Gaza”.
Three hour hearing
Yesterday’s hearing consisted of three hours of detailed descriptions detailing what South Africa says is a clear example of genocide. Israel will today have three hours to respond on Friday.
The spokesperson of the Israeli Foreign Affairs, Lior Haiat, hit out at the comments made in the hearing, calling it “one of the greatest shows of hypocrisy,” and demonstrated “false and baseless claims.”
He also accused South Africa of “functioning as the legal arm of the Hamas terrorist organisation”.
As South Africa did in its 84-page legal filing ahead of the case, the country’s Minister of Justice Ronald Lamola repeated that he “unequivocally condemns Hamas” for the October 7 attack on southern Israel.
Republished from Middle East Eye.
The full first day hearing – South Africa’s submissions. Video: Middle East Eye
Armed PNG solders from Murray Barracks protecting Taurama Foodland Shopping Centre from citywide looting and arson in the capital Port Moresby on Wednesday. Image: InsidePNG
By Miriam Zarriga and Gorethy Kenneth in Port Moresby
Fires from the 24-hour spate of looting, rioting and mayhem in Papua New Guinea’s Port Moresby — the worst ever social unrest in the city — have all but subsided into skeletal remains of ash and buildings in National Capital District (NCD).
The smoke has cleared with six members of Parliament resigning from the Pangu Pati-led government, 10 people are dead in in Lae and NCD, 46 are wounded and hospitalised, and multiple people are suffering non-threatening injuries.
The government responded by declaring a State of Emergency in NCD and suspending Police Commissioner David Manning and secretaries of the Department of Finance Sam Penias, Treasury Andrew Oeka, Personnel Management Taies Sansan for 14 days.
Looted, burnt and damaged businesses count the cost in Port Moresby after a day of mayhem caused by a police pay dispute strike. Image: PNG Post-Courier
Under fire Prime Minister James Marape . . . 14-day suspension of police chief and other top civil servants. Image: PNGPC
The Post-Courier understands there was disagreement on the suspension and that the SOE was not the way forward.
However, National Executive Council decided on going ahead with the SOE and suspension.
According to details released by Prime Minister James Marape, cabinet deliberated yesterdy afternoon and in a decision invoking Section 226 of the Constitution a a 14-day SOE was declared in Port Moresby only.
“14 days is the limit of the SOE, any longer period would require Parliament approval,” Marape said.
Meanwhile, according to the details released by Marape, Deputy Commissioner of Police-Special Operations Donald Yamasombi is now acting Police Commissioner and Controller of the country.
“Secretaries for Treasury, Finance and Personnel Management who are suspended for 14 days, their respective deputies are now acting.”
Headlines from yesterday’s Asia Pacific Media Network coverage of the Port Moresby rioting. Image: Asia Pacific Report
Prime Minister Marape reiterated his claim that Wednesday’s riots in Port Moresby had been organised, but declined to say they were political, instead saying his government would only be removed on floor of Parliament.
He said that Chief Secretary and others would undertake an investigation of what happened in Port Moresby.
After the rioting . . . confusion as Port Moresby waits to be back in business. Image: PNGPC
Few shops open
Port Moresby was in confusion yesterday following the aftermath of the worst ever civil disorder as reality sets in leaving people with no shops open to buy food and essentials from.
While the PNG Defence Force and members of the police patrolled the city’s streets in an attempt to restore normalcy many genuine city residents were queued at the only three service stations open to refuel their vehicles in anticipation of the weekend.
A-Mart supermarket at Manu Auto Port was the only shop open within the vicinity of Taurama and Boroko suburbs where angry shoppers crowded around the shop begging for entry which was heavily guarded by PNG Defence Force soldiers.
On Wednesday, more than 20 shops were looted and 8 others burnt leaving the streets of Port Moresby covered in papers and plastics from the items that were looted by hundreds of people who took advantage of the city polices strike over their salaries.
A mother of four who wished to be anonymous was worried where she would buy food for her children over the next couple of weeks as all the shops, she knows have been either looted, burnt or are closed for security reasons.
“I went to a shop at Hanuabada and waited for three hours for it to open to buy my children’s food but unfortunately, it was not open so I came back,” she said.
The Post-Courier’s cover stories today after Wedesday’s rampage in Port Moresby. Image: PNGPC
‘How are we going to survive’
“If these issues are not resolved, how are we going to survive.
“These shops are our gardens. They are where we get our food from.”
Meanwhile, many tucker boxes and canteens in the city were open today and their prices have sky rocketed only hours after Wednesday’s wild rampage.
For example, at Konedobu a 1kg packet of rice now costs K10 (NZ $4.50) — double the price prior to the looting.
Following the disorder, many clinics were also closed to the public over safety concerns.
Miriam Zarriga, Gorethy Kenneth and Claudia Tally are PNG Post-Courier reporters. Republished with permission on the Post-Courier and Asia Pacific Report.
Looting has spread to at least four other towns, including Kavieng, reports the PNG Post-Courier.
Footage and images circulating on social media show crowds of people leaving shops with looted goods — everything from merchandise to soft drinks to freezers — as the National Capital District (NCD) descended into chaos overnight.
Rioting breaks out in Port Moresby as looters take advantage of a protest by the Papua New Guinea’s police and military. Image: Isaac A Itsima/FB/RNZ
The national daily newspaper PNG Post-Courier labelled the events the “Darkest day in our city” and NCD Governor Powes Parkop appealed to the looters to stop.
Port Moresby General Hospital say eight people have been killed, and another two have been confirmed dead by police central command in Lae, the country’s second biggest city.
‘My heart goes out’
“The cost of the ensuing looting and destruction is substantial, and my heart goes out to all the businesses in the city that have been affected,” Parkop said according reports.
People flee with merchandise as crowds leave shops with looted goods in Port Moresby. Image: Andrew Kutan/RNZ
Unverified videos have also emerged of bodies of several men allegedly shot dead who were involved in the unrest on Wednesday and children and women wailing around them in Port Moresby.
RNZ Pacific is trying to verify the footage.
Police and the PNG Defence Force reinforcements have been called from outside the capital to restore order.
Emergency service providers have been working overnight attending to high numbers of people injured in the violence at various locations.
“The ambulance service has received a large number of emergencies calls in the National Capital District relating to shooting incidents and persons injured in an explosion,” St. John Ambulance Service said on their Facebook page.
“The ambulance operations centre are prioritising high-priority emergencies only at this point.”
Stretched to limit
The Papua New Guinea Fire Service has had its resources stretched to its limits as it struggled to contain fires in multiple locations.
The Port Moresby General Hospital had to close overnight while a smaller hospital at the Gerehu suburb, evacuated its patients as a nearby shop was set on fire.
Large businesses suffered big losses in just a few hours.
The City Pharmacy Limited (CPL) group, which owns one of the biggest supermarket and pharmacy chains in Port Moresby, had most its shops raided and burned overnight.
Looters also stole electronic appliances from warehouses and shops owned by the Brian Bell group of companies.
Mobile squad called in
Last night, additional police from the Highlands Mobile Group (HMG) were flown in from from Lae to help restore order.
The government also issued a call out for the military to assist police.
A protest over unexplained pay deductions to salaries of police, military and correctional services staff has triggered looting in Port Moresby. Image: RNZ
The events began on Wednesday morning local time, after about 200 police and the military personnel gathered at the Ungai Oval to protest over pay deductions from their wages.
They wanted answers from authorities about the “tax” in their most recent pay period, but a government minister who addressed them could not convince them why the deductions had been made.
The tax office said the issue caused by a “glitch” in the accounting system.
What triggered the chaos In the last fortnight pay cycle, several service members saw a reduction in their pay, ranging from $100 PNG kina to $350 PNG kina (US$26-US$80).
It was not clear whether it was due to a tax, or a glitch in the system.
Many of them were told later, through a statement from the Internal Revenue Commission (IRC), and the prime minister’s office that there was a glitch in the payrolls system.
That triggered a gathering of about 200 policemen and women, military personnel and correctional services personnel in Port Moresby. They demanded an answer from the government, saying a “glitch” wasn’t a satisfactory answer.
They then moved from Unagi Oval to Parliament house, opened the gates of Parliament, and the Police Minister Peter Siamali Jr tried to address them. The security personnel then withdrew their services, and the city descended into chaos overnight.
Initially it was sporadic looting in various suburbs of Port Moresby. In the Gerehu suburb one shop was burned, and a few kilometres down to Waigani there was a shop that was burnt, and over the next three to four hours it became worse and several more shops were looted because there was no police presence there.
Policemen were there, but nothing could be done to the looters, so it has degenerated to a point where there is widespread looting.
The Finance Department and prime minister have tried to explain the so-called “glitch”, saying it was being fixed, but that has not gone down well with the service members.
The Northern Mobile Group, a mobile squad unit from out of Port Moresby which looks after one part of the region, has been flown into Port Moresby, and is expected to restore order.
The military has been called out to assist police.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ and Asia Pacific Report.
