Captured German trenches near Messines, June 1917. Image: Daily Herald Archive/Getty Images/The Conversation
ANALYSIS: By Jeffrey McNeill
It was observed […] that the English had slain wounded and captured German prisoners.
So reads a disturbing war diary entry of the Bavarian 18th Regiment from June 7, 1917, quoting one Schütze (Rifleman) Jakob Eickert of the 2. Machine Gun Company.
Another Bavarian soldier, Karl Kennel, was nearly one of those slain. He later wrote to the Red Cross that he and his friend Friedrich Christoffel were wounded when enemy troops bombed their dugout.
They emerged, belts unbuckled in surrender, and begged for mercy. Christoffel was on his knees with hands raised when a soldier pointed a gun at him and pulled the trigger. Kennel escaped death by rolling into a shell hole.
The Bavarians were fighting the New Zealand Division that day in 1917, at the very bloody Battle of Messines. Both Eickert and Kennel were describing New Zealand soldiers’ actions — then, as now, war crimes.
These days, New Zealanders and Australians tend to place their soldiers on pedestals on Anzac Day. We are led to believe these mostly volunteer civilian soldiers were an exceptional body of fighting men (something the men themselves also believed).
But this reputation came at a price.
Luckier than some . . . wounded German soldiers captured at Messines arrive at the New Zealand field hospital. Image: Alexander Turnbull Library/The Conversation
‘It was quite common’ Anzac soldiers should have known such killing of enemy prisoners was forbidden. The British Manual of Military Law, which codified the 1907 Hague Convention on land warfare, forbade soldiers from killing or wounding an enemy who had surrendered at their own discretion.
“This prohibition is clear and distinct”.
Furthermore, officers and men alike were expected to know these regulations. Yet as I show in my book, Taking the Ridge: Anzacs and Germans at the Battle of Messines 1917, New Zealand soldiers’ diaries and memoirs confirm that killing prisoners and the wounded was a feature of the fighting at Messines, and likely elsewhere.
Some diary entries were matter of fact: “Our fellows used the steel [bayonet] a great deal so there were not so many prisoners as there might have been,” wrote one soldier. “Lots of Germans were bayoneted on the ground, wounded men. It was quite common,” wrote another.
One wrote of speaking to a German he took prisoner: “He was like the rest, full of the tales of British cruelty to prisoners. They all expect to be killed and I am afraid I saw some very dirty work done, which might account for the tales they hear.”
Others simply distanced themselves from such actions: “I’m proud to say it never entered my head to [kill wounded men] or shoot down people with their hands up,” wrote one.
There are also examples of compassion and soldiers comforting wounded Germans. But other actions were contingent on the circumstances – a case of “them or us”. When Rifleman Edward Miller and his officer struck a dugout of “Fritzes”, for example, they took prisoner a solitary German. But they took no chances with another group of Germans, one holding up a white handkerchief – they were “finished off”.
The past on a pedestal . . . commemoration service at the Messines Ridge (British) Cemetery in 2007. Image: Jeffrey McNeill/The Conversation
‘Officially sanctioned’ The New Zealanders sent some 300 prisoners to the rear in the battle. But that is only half the number the adjacent British 25th Division took prisoner. The discrepancy suggests particularly savage fighting by the New Zealanders.
Individuals must bear responsibility for their actions, but so must their commanders. The New Zealanders’ senior officers’ support for killing prisoners tended to be tacit. A bloodcurdling lecture on bayonet use by the Scottish firebrand Major Ronald Campbell to the New Zealanders before the Somme attack in 1916 gives some insight.
Campbell had discouraged taking prisoners. Rather, soldiers should bayonet surrendering enemy soldiers when they put they hands up – “that’s your chance to stick him in the soft part of the belly where the bayonet goes in easily and comes out quickly”, Campbell instructed.
The New Zealand Division’s commander, General Andrew Russell, approved: “Lecture by Major Campbell on bayonet fighting – very good indeed.” Captain Lindsay Inglis, a law clerk before the war and a brigadier in the next war, did not. He wrote in his diary:
It would be interesting to know to what extent [these lectures were] responsible for deeds of the kind which even in war amount to nothing less than brutal murder […] We were astonished that it should have been officially sanctioned.
Lest we forget
Airing this dirty laundry may seem inappropriate for Anzac Day, especially as many men did not commit war crimes. But knowing what happened in battle provides a more complete understanding of their experience.
War is brutal. Despite headlines at the time proclaiming Messines a great New Zealand victory “for extraordinarily light losses”, some 3700 New Zealanders were killed or wounded in the battle. Around 3600 of the Bavarians opposite them were killed, wounded or taken prisoner. Only three officers and 30 men of the three Bavarian front-line battalions returned.
And war is still brutal today, with similar consequences. Investigations into the behaviour of Australian and New Zealand troops in Afghanistan in recent decades only underline the contemporary relevance of older misdeeds.
This includes the inquiry into the conduct of New Zealand SAS troops during Operation Burnham, and the Australian Brereton Report, which found serious breaches of ethical, legal, professional and moral responsibilities by Australian Defence Force soldiers.
By acknowledging this kind of behaviour has occurred during past wars, the public will perhaps be less reluctant to accept evidence that it can still happen. It should also mean the military itself will work to ensure it doesn’t happen again in the future.
Former Green MP Catherine Delahunty . . . "We are activists who will take our truth to power. And I don’t think lobbying is necessarily about taking truth to power. It’s about vested interests that pay for their interests to be privileged inside the power system." Image: Johnny Blades/VNP
If elected representatives have their work cut out for them to create the slightest social or political change through Parliament, spare a thought for activists.
For the committed activist, in it for the long term, their work brings them inevitably to engage with the parliament system.
Protesting at Parliament, demonstrating, submitting to select committees, sending in petitions, or just being there to watch, activists are an important, if sometimes misunderstood, part of the system.
And we’re not talking about the agitators who talk about “hanging MPs”.
The House offers a look at four activists who have long participated in the Parliament space — from single or multiple issue campaigners to the lifelong activist who became an MP and got out the other side alive:
Anti-war and climate justice organiser Valerie Morse . . . “Parliamentary security stopped me from coming to the grounds, and trespassed me from parliament for two years.” Image: Johnny Blades/VNP
Valerie Morse is a well established activist who has organised many campaigns in anti-war and climate justice spaces among others. Over the past 20 years, she’s been part of hundreds of protests to Parliament, and has made “dozens and dozens of submissions on everything from the environment to defence to the SIS to local body matters, everything under the sun”.
In order to get MPs to listen, Morse has sometimes used theatre in her activism. Some of the highlights include a naked protest on the forecourt in support of the genetic engineering moratorium, and entering a select committee hearing on Security Intelligence Service legislation with a group who blew loud whistles to highlight the importance of whistle-blowing — to the dismay of the MPs.
There have been setbacks. In 2008, during an event to commemorate Vietnam War veterans, Morse attempted to enter Parliament with an A3-sized sign about then-prime minister Helen Clark and former foreign affairs minister Phil Goff’s anti-war activism during the Vietnam War being at odds with their subsequent support for the war in Afghanistan:
“Parliamentary security stopped me from coming to the grounds, and trespassed me from Parliament for two years,” Morse explained.
“Subsequently I challenged that by coming on to Parliament grounds at a protest around slashed funding for adult and community education in the John Key era. I came on to Parliament grounds with thousands of other people and was arrested by parliamentary security. I had to go all the way through the court system, and eventually, the speaker of the house at the time, Lockwood Smith, actually withdrew the trespass.”
There have been some wins too, such as when large protests against the Iraq war 20 years ago helped convince New Zealand’s government to not join it, as well as the work of Morse and others at the committee level to leverage some transparency from the intelligence services amidst heightened public interest in mass surveillance.
“Those processes are often very difficult to see very meaningful change in during the short term. Over the longer term, there’s been changes in the way those agencies operate, so there has been some greater openness.
“But particularly around submissions, unless you’re speaking to some very, very specific item that they (MPs) think is perhaps a mistake or a drafting error, they’re often hardened down party lines, so it can be really hard to make changes in that process.”
The Messenger
Activist Mike Smith . . . “I think it was here that we presented the petition to stop deep sea oil drilling after a ten-year campaign.” Image: Johnny Blades/VNP
To convey a message of activism means to demonstrate it, according to Mike Smith, a leading figure in numerous environmental campaigns. Smith’s activism has encompassed “all manner of things” and he has proven effective at getting his message noticed. Almost three decades ago he took a chainsaw to the great pine on One Tree Hill, or Maungakiekie, to raise attention to Māori rights and shortcomings in the Treaty Settlement process.
In recent times, Smith (Ngā Puhi and Ngāti Kuri) has been absorbed in legal action against major fossil fuel users and suppliers over their polluting activities. But as we sat by the statue of Richard Seddon on Parliament’s forecourt, Smith took stock of his various forays to Parliament, from protests to petitions. He recalled the Foreshore and Seabed hikoi, mobilisations over asset sales as well as protests related to the Treaty — occasions on which he has delivered a message to Parliament.
“I think it was here that we presented the petition to stop deep sea oil drilling after a ten-year campaign. The prime minister came out and greeted us. We handed her a petition to halt deep sea oil drilling. She went back to her office, and within about two weeks the announcement came through that the government had indeed decided to put a moratorium on issuing new exploration permits,” he recalled.
“I think politics and indeed the law should reflect the morality or mood of the society at any particular time. However there will be powerful voices and vested interests that pull against popular opinion. It’s important that there are opportunities for the public to express themselves.
“The word ’demonstration’ sort of sums it up. We’ve got to demonstrate what that feeling is amongst the public.”
The activist from the far north said Parliament should be receptive to the expression of widespread public sentiment, and that it is up to the public to hold politicians’ feet to the fire if they are not responding constructively, or conversely if they are being accountable, to reward them at the polls.
“Anybody can arrange a meeting with ministers and they may or may not be listened to or heard, but there’s something far more powerful about an expression of a substantive section of society. I’ve been on marches where 50, 60,000 people have mobilised in Auckland or Wellington particularly on climate issues or (issues) about mining on conservation land. I know that the politicians, when they see that amount of people, they really do take notice of that.”
The Outsider Insider
Former Green MP Catherine Delahunty . . . “There were some issues I’d been involved in over many years that I wanted to see if I could advance.” Image: Johnny Blades/VNP
Catherine Delahunty isn’t the only activist to have been a member of Parliament, but perhaps what marks her out is the seamlessness with which she has resumed her activism and maintained a critical voice to power forged during her three-term stint, which ended in 2017. If there was any motivation to enter Parliament, she said it was to advance various kaupapa of her many years of activism.
“There were some issues I’d been involved in over many years that I wanted to see if I could advance. For example, the sawmill workers who were poisoned in the Bay of Plenty to whom I’m still deeply connected to and (on their behalf) lobbying ACC for change. I thought well, if I can get into Parliament, maybe I can make some change. And I did actually manage to get the National government to set up a national register of toxic sites and things like that,” the former Green Party MP explained.
In a sense, Delahunty never ceased being an activist when she came to Parliament. She used her wide range of connections with interlocutors from grassroots communities to media to civil society and political leaders in order to advance causes such as sustainable forestry, opposition to mining on conservation land, highlighting human rights abuses and the West Papuan struggle for independence.
“I started by protest. Been on many, many protests here in my life. In fact when I was an MP I probably went to more protests, because you’d see them out the window so you’d just go out to join them,” she explained.
“What you find out of course when you get here is: yes, you can make a difference, and no, you can’t. So if there was any conclusion I came to as an activist after leaving Parliament it’s that we need constitutional transformation of this country based on Te Tiriti (o Waitangi) and He Whakaputanga. But having said that, I still engage with select committees and I still engage with the system to get small things done. But I’m not under any illusion that we’re changing the world.”
“I always felt the system was rotten, but actually when you’ve been inside it you do have more knowledge and more contact. So it’s easier for me to walk in the door here now and have a chat with somebody that I wouldn’t have known before. Whether I can have an impact is another matter, but the first thing is to get through the door.”
When asked about the difference between activists and lobbyists, Delahunty said “we don’t have a PR firm who work for us to massage our messages, we are activists who will take our truth to power. And I don’t think lobbying is necessarily about taking truth to power. It’s about vested interests that pay for their interests to be privileged inside the power system. That’s very different from activists challenging the power system to actually do something in the name of justice.”
The ‘Gallery Stalker’
Drug reform advocate Gary Chiles . . . “It was all a bit of an eye opener. But I decided that I needed to know how things worked inside Parliament if I wanted to make change happen.” Image: Johnny Blades/VNP
Gary Chiles was only 13 years old when the Misuse of Drugs Act was passed in 1975, and it remains a bugbear for him that it’s still law 50 years later and that people are being criminalised for cannabis use or association with it. Drug law reform is Chile’s singular focus when it comes to his long running activism at Parliament.
Another regular protester outside Parliament during the Key years, Chiles decided to start going to the House to soak up the action inside the chamber. He made it his mission to attend each Question Time — around 90 days in a typical sitting year.
“It was all a bit of an eye opener. But I decided that I needed to know how things worked inside Parliament if I wanted to make change happen,” he explained.
“You’re not allowed to wave signs or wear sloganed t-shirts and things in parliament. But I found out the dress code allowed me to get in there if I have a suit on, so I bought a cannabis suit.”
Chiles stands out clearly in his dark suit emblazoned with bright green cannabis leaves, worn each time he attends Question Time. There he sits up in the public gallery, on one side or another, moving around to stay visible to MPs across the divide. A silent, persistent reminder of the need for drug reform.
“I think of myself as being the gallery stalker. They all know I’m there whether they’re engaging with me or not, and they all know what I’m about because of what I’m wearing. And it’s about reminding them (about the need for drug reform). What are you going to do about it? Do we have to wait another 50 years, what’s going on?”
Attending Parliament has given Chiles a greater appreciation for the work of the various parts of the system. He said that it has also humanised MPs for him, and that what goes on in parliament is often quite different to what is portrayed in the news media. Getting angry at the news isn’t political engagement, he pointed out, adding that the access the public has to this country’s Parliament is something unique and to be treasured.
“My whole attitude to Parliament changed the day that there was a person who set themselves on fire on the forecourt, and the first people on the scene to try and deal with that were Parliament security. That made me reappraise my attitude to them, because they walk the fine line every day between allowing public access and maintaining security, and I think they do a really good job of it.”
Short-term thinking The four activists all point to short-term thinking — the focus on retaining power in a quick electoral cycle — as something holding Parliament back from enabling systemic change. On the other hand, their own work to transform these views and inject a public voice into the deliberations of the lawmakers is very much long-term.
Johnny Blades writes for RNZ’s The House — an initative featuring parliamentary legislation, issues and insights. It is made with funding from Parliament. This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Dr Rebecca Miller of UNODC . . . blames "the collusion of corrupt officials and smugglers. They are essentially criminal networks". Image: Kalinga Seneviratne/IDN-INPS
By Kalinga Seneviratne in Suva
Since opening borders after the covid-19 pandemic, Australia and New Zealand have been aggressively sourcing Pacific Islander workers to help fill a severe labour shortage in their countries.
In the meantime, with investments from Asia, especially China and Korea, increasing in the region, Asian workers have been slowly filtering into the island nations, especially Fiji.
This month (18-20 April), the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) held a forum attended by government immigration and law enforcement officials and civil society organisations from the South Pacific region to discuss measures to enhance data and information on trafficking of persons and smuggling of migrants in the area for work.
Why did UNODC organise the forum, not the International Labour Organisation (ILO), the agency entrusted with addressing workers’ rights?
“We know human trafficking and smuggling of people cannot happen on a large scale it is happening in the Asia-Pacific region without the collusion of corrupt officials and smugglers. They are essentially criminal networks,” Dr Rebecca Miller, UNODC Regional Coordinator, Human Trafficking and Migrant Smuggling, Southeast Asia and the Pacific, told InDepth News.
She added that corruption within relevant government agencies had to be addressed because that had been the driving force in Southeast Asia.
“We need to start somewhere [and] we have found that governments in this region want to proactively address this.”
Concept note
UNODC plans to develop a concept note after this dialogue on trafficking in persons (TIP) data in the region.
The UN agency entrusted with addressing drug and corruption issues around the globe believes that the role of corruption in TIP and smuggling of migrants (SOM) has been particularly overlooked and undocumented in the region.
In 2021, UNODC conducted a training course for national officers in the Pacific on TIP and SOM, and its regional office has done a report on Fiji and Palau with the assistance of national bodies such as the Fiji Bureau of Statistics (FBS).
Preliminary results and findings were presented at the forum — the report shed light on how corruption facilitates such crimes, the actors involved, and the context in which such bribery occurs.
A closed-door session was held on the final day with government officials from the Immigration Department and the police to discuss the issues. An Australian immigration intelligence officer also attended it.
This process of sharing current knowledge on TIP and SOM and applying lessons learned to encourage regional action, UNODC argues, addresses Sustainable Development Goal 16 (SDG 16), which is Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions.
FBS chief executive Maria Musudroka speaking on the forum’s opening day, said that despite the extent of these crimes, both TIP and SOM remain under-researched in the region.
Domestic trafficking
Referring to the problem of domestic trafficking in Fiji, she explained that researchers had to be trained to do it in a conversational manner to let the victims tell their stories.
Maria Fatiaki, Research Officer with UNODC’s Crime Research Section, who coordinated the five-year research project between 2017-2021 in Fiji, told IDN that during this period, through community-based research, they detected about 5200 hidden victims of trafficking. She said most were domestic trafficking into forced labour, agriculture, forestry, construction industry, service and retail industries.
“We also found foreign workers from Bangladesh, Philippines and China who have come here with contracts”, Fatiaki explained.
“But, once they came here, they found that the work was not what they expected.”
She added that in recent years Fijian workers had travelled across borders, and the incidents of them “being in exploitative situations” had increased.
“That is why now we are talking about [trafficking of] migrant workers,” she noted. “What is needed in Fiji is a training of border officials, and there is also a need for a questionnaire (to be prepared), which people leaving and coming in have to fill so that we can detect potential cases of trafficking.”
The Pacific island state of Palau has had Filipino workers flying in to work there for some years.
Pandemic reduced workforce
According to one of the delegates, 5000 Filipinos worked there before the onslaught of the pandemic. The numbers have come down to 2500 now.
“Palau is only a two-hours flight from Manila,” he said. Fiji also had Filipino and Chinese migrants working in the sex industry before the pandemic.
UNODC chose Palau and Fiji to study in TIP because both countries faced these issues earlier.
“Human trafficking is not reported as much as domestic violence [in the media]”, said Ronald Ledgerwood of the Micronesian Legal Service Corporation in Palau.
“This has got much to do with losing their jobs”, he added, explaining that exploitation of migrant workers in Palau occurs not in the sex industry.
He pointed out that a complicated issue to tackle was coercion that ha happened before their arrival, including hefty agent fees, false job promises and family connections (to trafficker).
“[When they arrive] domestic workers are exploited such as multiple jobs among families and violation of other labour laws,” Ledgerwood told the forum.
‘Raising awareness’
“Now the government is raising awareness in the community about the exploitation of foreign workers. There are now laws against human trafficking with mandatory jail terms, which could deter people from trafficking and exploiting foreign workers”.
As a lawyer, he also agrees that you need to build relations with people to speak up.
During discussions at the forum, participants from Fiji, Tonga and other Pacific Island countries pointed out that most of them have no laws against trafficking, and any cases detected have to be charged as assault cases under local laws.
Many foreign workers in the Pacific islands tend to come from China, the Philippines and Bangladesh. At the same time, in Fiji, people from other Pacific islands, such as Vanuatu and Solomon Islands, have been exploited at workplaces.
But they are on student visas, usually studying here. With Australia and New Zealand opening up their borders for workers from the Pacific, there are many agents here who are demanding hefty fees to get visas for locals to go there to work.
Recently the Fiji government has begun investigating the migration of some 400 members of a Christian cult from South Korea who have come on investment visas.
The church has set up farms, restaurants, spas, salons and manufacturing plants employing hundreds of locals, but some of the Koreans working in these businesses are suspected to be cases of TIP.
Under investigation
It is under investigation as a corruption case where the church may have bribed certain members of the previous government to get visas.
The US government has just announced a US$10 million grant through USAID over five years for a project called “Pacific Rise” to counter TIP in the region.
US Ambassador to Fiji, Marie Damour, addressing the opening session, said what we see around the world is “modern-day slavery”. She said the US government was committed to fighting this menace “because it is wrong, and it has to stop”.
“We now need to go into tangible action like improve prosecution, intelligence and coordination. We need to build on that,” Fatiaki told IDN when asked what the follow-up action would be.
“Now we have research [data] and established a baseline that shows the type of action we have to take”.
Dr Kalinga Seneviratne is a teaching and research fellow at the University of the South Pacific journalism programme and IDN-InDepthNews correspondent. IDN-InDepthNews is the flagship agency of the nonprofit International Press Syndicate. Republished under a Creative Commons licence.
Tahitian pro-independence presidency hopeful Moetai Brotherson . . . condemns the rushed deal between the incumbent Édouard Fritch and the Amuitahiraa leader Gaston Flosse. Image: 1er TV
By Walter Zweifel
Politicians in French Polynesia have reacted with scorn over the ruling party’s hastily-convened electoral alliance with an opposition party, which has been eliminated from the territorial elections after failing to reach the 12.5 percent threshold.
Under the deal, President Édouard Fritch’s Tapura Huira’atira ceded four positions to Amuitahiraa on the list of candidates for next week’s run-off round.
Fritch warned of “chaos” should his party lose power to the pro-independence Tavini Huira’atira, which won most votes in the first round a week ago.
The Tavini’s Moetai Brotherson, who wants to succeed Fritch in the top job, derided the arrangement, saying that Fritch and the Amuitahiraa leader Gaston Flosse were serving up the “same soup” by warning that white people would be chased away and independence would “usher in misery” if Tavini formed government.
Nuihau Laurey of A Here Ia Porinetia said while he also stood for continued autonomy, it was very hard to work with people who admitted that they had lied for 30 years, a reference to Fritch’s admission in 2018 that he had lied about the French weapons tests.
The Greens’ Jacky Bryant said that the hasty deal was serious as this way of doing politics contributed to voter apathy.
Coup for Fritch, Flosse?
He said Fritch and Flosse must “feel horror” if they believed they could be a uniting force, in particular since Flosse for years “vomited” over the Tapura.
Tauhiti Nena of Hau Māohi said it was a coup for Fritch and Flosse because if they managed to combine the two parties’ support from the first round, they would win.
In the first round of the territorial elections, Fritch’s Tapura party came second, winning 30 percent of the votes against Tavini’s 35 percent, with Amuitahiraa on 11 percent.
Flosse, who leads the party despite being ineligible because of corruption convictions, had been campaigning for French Polynesia becoming a sovereign state in association with France.
While in opposition, he claimed that Fritch was the worst president in the territory’s history.
In the last elections in 2018, the Tapura won two thirds of all seats.
Was it inevitable that Jacinda Ardern would face hostility from a noisy New Zealand minority that disliked being governed by a young woman, who became a mother while in office and who used the language of kindness? Image: The Conversation/Getty Images
This week marks the beginning of Jacinda Ardern’s life outside parliament, since she officially ceased to be an electorate MP at midnight last Saturday.
Her legacy as prime minister will be discussed and disputed, but there’s no doubt her influence will continue to be felt, both in Aotearoa New Zealand and internationally.
When Ardern delivered her valedictory statement earlier this month, I was in Canada as a visiting speaker at the University of Alberta. My lectures and workshops included sessions on gender politics and the pandemic, media representations of women leaders, and the possibilities for leading with kindness.
Invariably, audiences wanted to know more about Jacinda Ardern.
People questioned why New Zealanders appeared to have forgotten their country’s internationally recognised success in the fight against covid-19. They were curious about why New Zealanders were reportedly feeling antipathy towards a prime minister whose commitment to tolerance and multilateralism was praised overseas.
As citizens of a country that is home to three constitutionally recognised Aboriginal groups and numerous treaties, Canadians asked why the Ardern-led government’s Indigenous policy initiatives seemed so “unsettling for settlers”.
And they wondered whether it was inevitable that Ardern would face hostility from a noisy minority that disliked being governed by a young woman, who became a mother while in office and who used the language of kindness.
There was also some bemusement. The coverage they had seen of Ardern’s leadership experience sat at odds with their perception of New Zealand as an egalitarian and liberal society where women prime ministers and party leaders were almost commonplace.
More in common than gender: Finnish leader Sanna Marin with then NZ Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern in November 2022. Image: Getty Images
Gender politics In response, I drew on evidence demonstrating how the media often view women as a novelty in the upper echelons of politics. For example, in her study of news coverage of four women prime ministers from New Zealand, Australia and Canada, Linda Trimble reveals that gender is explicitly referenced.
As she notes, we seldom see men asked about the challenges of being a male leader, and this informs assessments of female leaders’ performance. The research also shows this use of gender references is most common when a country experiences its first female political leader.
Yet when Ardern became Labour leader, throughout her tenure and on her departure from politics, it seemed her gender continued to have news value: we first read about “Jacindamania” just two hours after she became leader, followed by questions from talk show hosts about her motherhood intentions.
The following year, a BBC interviewer asked about Ardern’s feminist credentials in light of her intention to marry her partner, and whether she felt guilt about being a working mother.
Even in late 2022, Ardern had to respond to a journalist’s suggestion that her meeting with then Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin was about them both being young female leaders.
Needless to say, both women rejected this outright, with Ardern pointing out the same question had not been directed at John Key and Barrack Obama.
Highlights of Jacinda Ardern’s valedictory address. Video: NZ Herald
Ardern’s ‘otherness’
The combination of being both a woman and the youngest prime minister in 161 years may have led to this personalised coverage. Certainly, having a baby while in office accentuated her as novel and newsworthy, nationally and internationally.
In her valedictory statement, Ardern implicitly addressed this “otherness”:
I leave knowing I was the best mother I could be. You can be that person and be here […] I do hope I have demonstrated something else entirely. That you can be anxious, sensitive, kind, and wear your heart on your sleeve. You can be a mother, or not, an ex-Mormon or not, a nerd, a crier, a hugger – you can be all of these things, and not only can you be here, you can lead.
New Zealanders will recall that Ardern did not seek the party leadership ahead of the 2017 election. Furthermore, when all votes were counted, Labour was a distant second to the centre-right National Party in both votes and seats.
But by navigating Labour into an unlikely coalition with New Zealand First, Ardern positioned Labour to win at least two terms in office. Had National formed a government in 2017, it may have gone on to win again in 2020. After all, that party’s leadership had considerable experience in managing crises.
Great expectations That said, Ardern’s version of an ethics of care and her emphasis on kindness were new to New Zealand politics and important to pandemic management. This eventually became intolerable to those who opposed vaccine mandates and managed isolation, and those disturbed by policies and programmes aimed at realising the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and Te Tiriti o Waitangi.
But Ardern’s non-adversarial, inclusive communication style, and her demonstrable competence, helped Labour win back a large number of women voters who had steadily abandoned the party during its time in opposition under a series of male leaders.
Not long after Ardern became party leader in 2017, one political columnist wrote
that she did not “have to become Labour’s Joan of Arc to succeed”. Those “expecting her to be the party’s salvation and deliver them the government benches”, the columnist went on, “have set their expectations too high”.
Perhaps by promising policy “transformation”, Ardern set her own expectations too high. And by being a relentlessly positive young woman leader, perhaps the gendered media coverage was inevitable.
But ultimately she succeeded in saving Labour from ongoing opposition, becoming the legend it was suggested she could be. And, as I witnessed in Canada, there are young people elsewhere who Jacinda Ardern has inspired to lead with kindness.
Change of tactics? . . . while the Indonesian military have increased their crackdown in West Papua some soldiers have also been engaged in a softer "socialisation" campaign in villages. Image: Human Rights Monitor
Indonesian security forces have intensified operations in various conflict areas in West Papua, reports Human Rights Monitor.
According to information received by the Germany-based watchdog, security force members have raided villages and set residential houses on fire.
The raids reportedly occurred in conflict hotspots in West Papua, predominantly in the Puncak, Nduga, and Intan Jaya regencies, but also in less conflict-affected places such as the districts Elilim and Apahapsili in the Yalimo regency on 1 and 2 April 2023 – two weeks before last weekend’s clash between Indonesian soldiers and pro-independence militia.
Indigenous Papuans, including women and children, were arrested and tortured.
Observers predicted an aggravation of the conflict weeks ago after the Indonesian military deployed more than 2000 additional personnel to West Papua throughout March 2023.
‘Ground combat ready’
Meanwhile, the Indonesian chief-of-armed forces, General Laksamana Yudo Margono, announced that the mode of operations against the West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNPB) was switched from a “soft approach” to “ground combat ready” operations after a disputed number of soldiers were killed in a firefight with TPNPB members in Nduga on 15 April 2023.
Meanwhile, the increased security force presence comes with government-driven “socialisation” programmes, where military and police members directly interact with local communities.
They participate in collective work, visit schools, and take over or accompany essential healthcare services.
For decades, many indigenous Papuans have been traumatised due to the history of violent military operations in West Papua, says Human Rights Monitor.
They fear becoming victims of arbitrary arrest, torture, killings, or enforced disappearance.
The military presence in schools, health facilities, and churches limits indigenous Papuans from accessing essential public services.
Fiji Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka in Suva today . . . "we are vulnerable to events . . . beyond our control." Image: Viliame Tawanakoro/Wansolwara
By Viliame Tawanakoro in Suva
Fiji’s Coalition government strongly believes that addressing the country’s priorities head-on is the cornerstone to building a progressive and prosperous nation for future generations, says Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka.
Speaking at the National Economic Summit 2023 in Suva today, Rabuka said the event was an opportunity for Fiji to take stock, make necessary changes, and move forward decisively.
Rabuka said the meeting would address daunting challenges faced by Fiji, including unsustainable national debt levels, geopolitical and global economic uncertainties, and the impact of the covid-19 pandemic, particularly on small island developing economies like Fiji.
“As a Small Island Developing State, we are vulnerable to such events which are beyond our control,” he said at the Grand Pacific Hotel.
“It is critical that we must make timely adjustments so that we can cope and be able to survive in the global trading environment.
“We have just been through one of the world’s worst pandemics of modern times, with covid-19. It affected the whole world.
Russian-Ukrainian war
“The Russian-Ukrainian war in Europe made our efforts to recover from the pandemic more challenging, particularly due to the supply-chain issues. We must address these challenges collectively through this summit, and craft solutions together as a nation.”
Rabuka, wearing an Adam Smith tie, referenced the renowned economist’s 1776 book The Wealth of Nations, and urged those implementing the summit’s outcomes to be mindful of Smith’s principles of free market and capital formation for economic growth.
The Prime Minister also noted a need to strengthen laws and institutions, as well as restore investor confidence and improve the business environment while protecting the country’s natural resources.
“We need to rebuild our infrastructure which has been neglected, and most importantly look at ways to ease the burden of the high cost of living for our people,” he said.
“We need to strengthen the private sector which we so glibly call the ‘engine of growth’. It is important to promote trade and build the confidence of the private sector.”
Strengthening multilateral and bilateral relations with Fiji’s trading and development partners was also a key point raised by Rabuka as he shared that the findings and recommendations from the summit would contribute to the formulation of the national budget and “our National Development Plan”.
“Reshaping our future means more than just promoting economic growth and development.
Brighter future
“A brighter future for our nation requires our communities to be united and move away from divisions,” he said.
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance Professor Biman Prasad said plenary sessions had been organised to set the scene for more detailed discussions on macroeconomic management, key growth sectors, governance and reforms and human development.
“We have an intense two days ahead of us. We are putting special focus on critical issues such as water resource management, transport, energy and technology.
“We are also casting a wider net over rural and outer islands development, land and marine-based economic activities and indigenous participation in business.
“There are 32 specific subject areas for discussion,” Professor Prasad said.
It is understood each summit participant has been allocated a thematic working group with a communique expected to be issued at the conclusion of the event tomorrow.
Viliame Tawanakoro is a final-year student journalist at USP’s Laucala Campus. He is also the 2023 student editor for Wansolwara, USP Journalism’s student training newspaper and online publication. USP Journalism collaborates with Asia Pacific Report.
Participants of Fiji’s National Economic Summit 2023 at the Grand Pacific Hotel in Suva today. Image: Viliame Tawanakoro/Wansolwara
Some members of the Kanaky delegation in Paris . . . Gilbert Tyuienon (UC); Ernest Demene (FLNKS staff); Victor Tutugoro (UPM), signatory of Nouméa Accord; Mickaël Forrest (UC); and Aloisio Sake (RDO). Image: FLNKS
Brief reports have surfaced about the separate bilateral meetings of the Kanaky New Caledonia pro- and anti- independence representatives with French Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne in Paris last week. Here the leader of the Front de Liberation Nationale Kanak et Socialiste (FLNKS) delegation, Roch Wamytan, outlines their case as presented to Prime Minister Borne at the Hôtel Matignon on 11 April 2023.
By Roch Wamytan
First of all, allow me, Madam Prime Minister, to greet you on behalf of the Front de Liberation Nationale Kanak et Socialiste (FLNKS) delegation for this first meeting with you.
Despite the difficult situation prevailing in France, you were able to take some time in your busy schedule to discuss with our delegation and we recognise your significant consideration of the situation of New Caledonia (NC). We have also had the opportunity to communicate with you by phone with some of our delegation members and I thank you.
Today is the first time that we meet, and it is important to be able to discuss face-to-face and try to understand each other. It is a huge responsibility has been passed on to you, that of an ancient civilization characterised as “the Kanak people of Melanesian and Austronesian descent” which has been present in the Caledonian archipelago for more than 3000 years.
Close to 250 years ago (1774), this ancient people crossed the path of Europeans through James Cook, and then that of the French on September 24, 1853, the date of the possession of the islands by France. It is from this time onward that the chaotic history of relations between France and us, the Kanak people, began.
Almost 170 years later, we are still debating these relations that bind us: You as the representative of France, and us, the members of the FLNKS delegation, led by two of the signatories of the Nouméa Agreement, Victor Tutugoro and myself, accompanied by Gilbert Tyuienon, Mickaël Forrest, Jean Pierre Djaïwé, Digoue, Aloisio Sako, Jean Creugnet and our technical team.
Roch Wamytan, leader of the FLNKS delegation to Paris, pictured with Yael Braun-Pivet, President of the French National Assembly. Image: FLNKS
As you know, Madam Prime Minister, the FLNKS represents the national liberation movement of the colonised Kanak people, since the re-inscription in 1986 of New Caledonia on the United Nations’ list of countries to decolonise. Therefore, we stand in front of you as the representative of the governing authority of France, according to international law.
On February 26, 2023, the popular congress of the FLNKS and the nationalist and Indigenous movement has validated the unique and unitary trajectory for the country’s achievement of full sovereignty and independence, through negotiation with the governing authority, France, which is the governing power since the possession of New Caledonia on September 24, 1853.
For 170 years (September 24, 1853) we have lived under the governance of France, which has become since 1986 the administering power of the New Caledonia, the latter being considered a non-self-governing territory. This governance has never been accepted by our people and the genealogy of the struggle to free ourselves of it is well known. Allow me to share some key dates:
● From 1774 (arrival of James Cook) to 1853 (formal possession): People had to struggle against the harmful effects of microbial epidemics introduced by the first Europeans, faced with a population which lacked immunity. As a result, close to 90 percent of the population was eradicated. Survivors organised themselves and survived thanks to their ancestral resilience when faced with diseases and European invasion. Then, colonisation followed.
● From 1853 to 1924: The violent possession of land, the settlement of convicts and deportees, the revolts of chiefdoms and the bloody repression of the colonial army with its massacres, ethnocide, population displacement and transportation.
● From 1925 to 1946: The population reaches its lowest point, approximately 25,000 people. It is the point of departure for a rebirth, through reconstruction, the restructuring of chiefdoms with catholic and protestant missions.
● From 1945 to 1946: New Caledonia misses its first opportunity to achieve independence. Indeed, the President of the United States of America, [Franklin D.] Roosevelt, was of the idea that the French defeat would de facto, lead to the end of its empire, then in ruin. He was therefore planning on changing the status of Dakar, Indochina and other French possessions and was advising France to progressively give up its
possessions in Asia and Africa.
When it came to New Caledonia, this colony was to be removed from France and placed under the governance of the USA, similarly to Palau, before giving it its independence back. That is what the work of Marie Claude Smouts, researcher at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), shows in her book La France à l’ONU.
● From 1946 to 1958: It is the end of the Native Code, the Kanak people are granted citizenship and enter institutions. It also marks New Caledonia’s second missed opportunity to become independent since in the 1958 constitutional referendum where the electoral roll was predominantly Kanak.
Under the influence of the Catholic and Protestant churches supported by the European section of the Union Calédonienne (UC) party, this party opted for YES, and therefore to remain within the French Republic. The framework law or autonomy law was in turn put in place.
● 1963-1968 and 1975-1984: Abolition of the framework law and birth of the Kanak pro-independence movement. 1975 was the year of the “Mélanésia 2000” cultural revolution, and the creation of the Front Indépendantiste in 1979.
● 1984 – 1988: It was the semi-failure of the Nainville-les-Roches discussions, the creation of the FLNKS, and the Kanak nationalist insurrection and revolts which lasted four long years.
● 1988 – 1989: [This] was the year of the signing of the Matignon Agreement and one year [later] the murder of Jean-Marie Tjibaou and Yeiwene Yeiwene since they did not have the FLNKS mandate to sign this agreement. An agreement which aimed to restore peace and initiate the rebalancing, but not to settle the issue of independence.
● 1988-1998-2018: the country enters a process of emancipation and decolonisation with the Matignon and Nouméa agreements by having “rebalancing” and “the impartiality of the state” as guiding principles.
● 2018-2022: this was the series of three referenda which resulted, according to France, in three NOs to full-sovereignty and independence. A progression of the YES to full sovereignty and independence between the first and second consultations is, however, notable. The third one is not recognised as politically legitimate by the FLNKS and its regional and international support due to 60 percent of non-participation, which includes the almost entirety of the Kanak people.
This explains the procedure at the International Court of Justice at The Hague. It is possible to estimate that the participation of the Kanak population to a third referendum organised in normal and transparent conditions, with an impartiality of the State would have allowed the country’s achievement of independence.
However, it marked the third missed opportunity to reach independence in our chaotic history of relations with France.
This brief historical reminder traces a trajectory that began with the arrival of the Europeans in Oceania in 1774 and which will continue until the achievement of full sovereignty in the coming years as part of a renewed relationship with France and Europe for a country that will be fully integrated in its geographical area. This has been its history for 3000 years, and this will be its future.
Indeed, experience has demonstrated that in the history of decolonisation in the Maghreb region, in Asia, in sub-Saharan Africa and other parts of the world: the colonised never give up on the question of their asserted identity. It is the same for our people which have always fought against an oppressive and forced assimilatory system.
While it fought against a system, the Kanak people respect France and its inhabitants. France has a history that we respect: it is a great nation which defends universal values. Moreover, hundreds of our youth have given their life during the two world conflicts. France has brought us [the] Catholic and Protestant religion[s] as well as education. That is what the preamble of the Nouméa Agreement acknowledges.
Due to being unheard in its struggle against a colonial system, we can consider that the nationalist movement which started in the early 1970s was a response to the abolition of the framework law put in place by the 1958 constitution, then removed in 1963. The movement peaked in 1984-1988, with the painful events of Ouvéa, where the special troops of the French armed forces intervened to maintain the public order.
The number of Kanak leaders having lost their life during this period up until 1989 is significant, especially considering their quality and our small population. In light of this dead-end situation, the handshake between Jean-Marie Tjibaou, Jacques Lafleur, and Michel Rocard, as planned, allowed for peace to be restored.
And the rebalancing included in the Matignon Agreement approved by the national referendum of 1988.
This ten-year period between 1988 and 1998 was meant to be an opportunity for a more balanced development of the territory. The no. 1 text of the Matignon Agreement is entitled: “The condition for a lasting peace — The impartial State at the service of all.” The press release of June 26, 1988, also insists on this point: “The impartiality of the State must be guaranteed, the security and protection of all must be ensured”.
And on August 20, the Minister of Overseas Departments and Territories, Louis Le Pensec, declared before the agreement signing ceremony: “France can only be a referee if its spoken word inspires trust”.
In 1998, the Matignon Agreement gave way to a new agreement, the Nouméa Agreement, which won the support of the Kanak people but was rejected by the non-independence majority of the South[ern] Province. This agreement has received an almost unanimous approval from the Kanak people for several reasons:
– It maintained peace and allowed for the continuation of rebalancing policies;
– It allowed the construction of a project of society that would take colonialism into account, following the Nainville-les-Roches Agreement in 1983; [and]
– Its preamble and guidance document de facto recognised Kanak identity and committed to the establishment of a new governance of New Caledonia, in the form of a sui generis collectivity with autonomy, in a perspective of independence.
New Caledonia, whose vocation for independence was recognised following the 1988 national referendum, was taking the path of the construction of a common destiny resting on a “Caledonian citizenship” and the irreversibility of the process of decolonisation and emancipation.
Thus, for the colonised Kanak people, the responsibility of the State as the third partner of the Nouméa Agreement is to guarantee this irreversible and sincere process, allowing New Caledonia to endorse its vocation to be a sovereign state, like the other sovereign states in the region. That is the meaning of the massive YES which was given by the Kanak people at the referendum to ratify this agreement on November 8, 1998.
It was the same for the national referendum of November 6, 1988. Under no condition can these two referenda be considered a reason for yet another status of integration of New Caledonia within France.
For the Kanak people, the process of self-determination must continue to follow up on the two referenda of 2018 and 2020. The Nouméa Agreement, which remains the basis on which the future of New Caledonia must be permanently built and sealed, is clear and unambiguous both in the preamble and the guidance document: Decolonisation is the way to rebuild a sustainable social bond between the communities that live in New Caledonia.
A new step must be taken to mark the full acknowledgement of Kanak identity, conditional to the reviewing of the social relationship between all the communities that live in New Caledonia and through the sharing of sovereignty with France before the full sovereignty of the country to be.
The culminating point of this Agreement is completely unambiguous because: “The State recognises the vocation of New Caledonia to benefit from a complete emancipation at the end of this period.” This Agreement will then remain at its last development stage without the possibility of going back in the event that the consultations do not lead to the new political organisation suggested. This irreversibility being a constitutional guarantee.
However, based on the decisions concerning the third referendum specifically, and the statements made by French government officials, the Kanak people observe that once again, the French State never follows through with its promises, and that in the last moment, it systematically aligns its interest as a “great power” to the French population it has settled in New Caledonia.
It was the case in 1963, when the French government unilaterally decided to cancel the framework law which had granted a wide autonomy status to New Caledonia, thus reflecting General De Gaulle’s desire to rely on New Caledonia and French Polynesia for France’s ambitions as a great world power. It also reflected the wishes of the [New] Caledonian colonial Right. This rupture unilaterally decided by Paris, created the conditions for the birth of Kanak nationalism from the 1970s, followed by its radicalisation in 1984-1988.
Today, almost forty years after 1984, it would seem that we are witnessing the same scenario, especially since the use of the concept of Indo-Pacific, with a renewed alliance between the President of the Republic and the Caledonian loyalists. Clearly, since 2021 and the Minister [Sébastien] Lecornu, the organisation of the third referendum has been the scene of the tipping of the State’s position towards the “No to independence” camp, undermining the very principles of the Matignon and Nouméa Agreements, the impartial State at the service of all, which resulted in a deadly loss of trust.
Since the possession of the islands by France, everything is done or organised based on French, European or Western norms, usages, traditions, or social structures, with an almost blind application of them in the context of a traditional society that is fundamentally different. Thus, basic organisations, structures, concepts, or processes, which are not that of Oceanian societies, continue to be imposed, without question as to the degree of constraint or acceptation that it implies.
However, this society, like any Oceanian society, carries deep values, drawing on the spiritual world, nourished by the sacred and inhabited by a way of thinking in harmony with nature and the cosmos as it has been valued, anchored mythological corpus on par with the great Mediterranean civilizations. We have not invented all this, it has been made explicit and rehabilitated by academia and anthropological research.
For a long time, the representatives of the Kanak people, whether it be the great chiefs, political leaders, or religious leaders have asked the question “but why does France, the governing power, not hear us?” It remains deaf to our points, to what the Kanak people wants, because it is its right to recover its lost sovereignty. But France does not think so and does not respect the recommendations made by the United Nations. It does exactly the opposite or interprets what is presented to it within the framework of the defence of superior national interests.
Could France, for once, carry a process of decolonisation through? This unfinished process of decolonisation carried on into the third referendum, which the FLNKS considers a “stolen” referendum. Has France forgotten the history of the colonisation of this people and of its millennial civilisation?
The Melanesian civilisation is not an invention of the mind, it was demonstrated, scientifically confirmed by the community of researchers in the field of anthropology. Indeed, within the context of anthropology and approaching “deep nthought”, academic research led on the path of understanding the spirit of man and his relationship with the material and spiritual world around him. The aforementioned work provides for the first time an exploration and in-depth reading of the mythical thought of the Kanak people; thus, this research establishes the sacralising vision of ancient Kanak myths and an integral landscape of life in the Kanak world, the visible and the invisible; rehabilitating the power of myth in the 21st century and by attributing it an academic dignity, it valorises the cultural capital of people.
This work has been welcomed as a true exploration, both novel and original, it underlines the height and strength of Kanak deep thought and highlights fundamental themes such as cosmological knowledge, the power of symbols and archetypes, etc. This observation encourages the total recognition of the qualitative aspect of this people. However, the current evolution is not going in this direction and has never acknowledged these immaterial and intellectual resources. Therefore, its formalisation and institutionalisation is suggested, since the State cannot ignore the fundamental elements of Kanak society which can infer the proclamation of a prior sovereignty.
One cannot deny that the French presence in New Caledonia, the successive leadership and the institutional changes have never integrated in writing or in speech the “pre-eminence, the full and legitimate connection to their land (existential and ontological link, startling for the Cartesian mind, Kanak belong to their land, land does not belong to them) and the sacred and inalienable character of the presence and existence of the Kanak people, as well as the sovereignty they possess: the later comes from the people and is complementary to the immaterial heritage . . .”
On this note, customary senators expressed their deep gratitude to an academic researcher in structural anthropology, whose novel work was welcomed as having valued and sacralised the fundamentals which structure Kanak civilisation. This original contribution fills a gap and demonstrates that “others” can understand, respect, and give the Kanak people their essential and existential values back. Above all, this contribution disrupts the one directional relation, which prevents the establishment of a real exchange, and which leads to forceful imposition, regardless of the qualities and values of the other. We seriously believe that France can take a step that it has never taken before to show that it is a great nation capable, like the Kanak who welcomes others, of recognising “a timeless and original sovereignty”, an essential condition for sharing in acceptance and understanding.
Indeed, it constitutes a new approach because a part of Kanak civilisation was destroyed in its anthropological foundations and its sociocultural organisation by the violence of French possession and the imposition of a “pax romana” without any counterpart. The impacts are known: the annihilation of the history which precedes September 24, 1853, the loss of identity in relation to languages, land, culture, beliefs, etc. Kanak people’s ancestral land was considered “terra nullius”. This “terra nullius” status was assigned to make it “lawful” for better armed countries which pretended to be “more civilised” to seize, colonise and exploit territories and resources. That is in spite of the fact that, in our traditions, not one centimeter of land or maritime territory escaped the ontic link of belonging between the human and their land.
But in the meantime, the impacts on the being and doing of Kanak people have been of a great violence and these harms are still present in 21st century Kanak society. Some of these impacts have been acknowledged notably in the preamble of the Nouméa Agreement, but no solution followed, through a holistic approach which could have defined some “just” measures to implement so that the Kanak people could recover its dignity.
It is time for France to react because in New Caledonia, a sly colonialism or neocolonialism is currently at play, attempting to erase and negate the natural sovereignty of the Kanak people on its territory, condemning it to eternally look for a lost paradise. We do not want to die assimilated like a sugar cube in water and we will resist to survive. Fortunately, some moral voices make themselves heard to denounce this unjust system, as is the case with the Vatican.
In its “colonial” history, the Vatican shared discovered lands with different European Christian countries, among which Portugal, Spain, France, etc. It ended up ubi et orbi declaring the abandonment of the doctrine of discovery, which operated from the 16th century and provided a framework to lay possessive claims, to appropriate and to colonise, due to the destruction, damage, and other ills of colonisers. More recently, Pope Francis declared in a message addressed to the participants of the “colonisation and neocolonialism: a social justice and common good perspective” forum, which took place on March 30th and 31st, 2023 that neocolonialism is sly, that it is a crime, and that there isn’t any possibility of peace in a world that rejects some people in order to oppress them.
We even remember the unforgettable sentence marked by the “presidential” seal, of candidate Emmanuel Macron in Algeria, stating that colonisation is a crime against humanity. This gives more weight to the papal message. Restorative action is thus unavoidable and must lead to a deep reflection: Which people has suffered? To whom do we owe reparation and apology before imposing and controlling?
We do not ask for pity, nor do we beg or repent, a confessional notion. We only ask for justice through a holistic and recognised approach, that of transitional justice with its four pillars, to reinvigorate a damaged people, which drags generation after generation, the negative impacts on its being and its doing, as Solgenystine and other experts remind us on the topic of colonialism.
But we are also aware of the “cultural” difficulty for the great colonising countries to go in the direction of colonised countries. As evidence, in the work of French anthropologist François Pouillon on this issue:
Nations states hardly appreciate Native peoples, even more so when the latter manifest some inclination toward autonomy, or worse, independence. At stake is the power of sovereign states over the territories they govern and from which they most often exploit the Native populations which are marginal in their eyes. If they resist, they break the law and expose themselves to economic, juridical or even military sanctions.
Contemporary centralised states are more so convinced of their efficacy and legitimacy as they promote ideologies and values which they are always proud of: the development of their technical and medical knowledge, the “universality” of their confessional or secular beliefs, their “influence” in the world and, at last, their advanced position in the evolution of humankind, all of this supported, more prosaically, by a solid armament.
Native peoples, in their emphasis on their own territories, memories, institutions and knowledges, would only slow them down on their path to perfection.
This tyrannical self-satisfaction feeds on the conviction, as François Pouillon underlines, that “if others, abroad, sometimes have an enviable quality of life, in their closeness to nature and the spiritual warmth of their group (which, however, does not protect them from bloody dictatorships, ethnic cleanings, natural disasters and great modern pandemics), they are, we believe, in a pitiful political state and remain, after all, ‘backward’.” (Anthropologie des petites choses, Le Bord de l’eau, 2015)
Colonial attitudes feed off this “naïve evolutionism” from which contempt originates. From the lack of consideration to enslaved people in the Code Noir (royal decree passed in 1685 aiming to define the conditions of slavery and its practices in the French colonies) to the dehumanisation of Jewish and Tzigane [Roma] people in extermination camps, through the stigmatisation of “primitive” people and other “indigènes” of the colonies, the same deadly chant is sung: May impure blood water the fields of the civilization we embody.
These references are not historical since, today, Amazonia has been transformed into a gigantic inferno where the last Indians die, while Uighurs, Rohingya, Roma, Aboriginal people, African Americans, Native Americans and many others suffer a thousand deaths under the rule of nation-states convinced of being at the top of social and human progress.
Will Kanaks of New Caledonia also pay the price of the narcissism of the powerful? And thus, of France?
“Rebalancing” policies all over the Pacific, Native populations have already historically undergone a spectacular demographic decline (due to epidemics, massacres, poisonings), land spoliation from non-Indigenous people, both rural and urban, exclusion from the benefits of new economic initiatives (mining, extensive breeding, exportation) and the moral attacks of Western monotheisms.
The Tjibaou Cultural Centre on the outskirts of Noumea . . . an expression of Kanak identity. Image: Creative Commons
The paradox of New Caledonia is that France has recognised parts of its faults by committing, from 1988, to important “rebalancing” policies aimed primarily at Kanaks. Michel Rocard, when he was Prime Minister from 1988 to 1991, then Lionel Jospin, from 1997 to 2002, also supported the industrial ambitions of pro-independence leaders by enabling them to acquire a mine and to successfully extract, process and export nickel. At the same time, strong support for the expression of Kanak identity has marked the last thirty years with the creation of the Tjibaou Cultural Centre in May 1998, the revival of the Customary Senate [Kanak advisory assembly] and taking into account the Indigenous point of view in the courts.
These significant developments, which have never been questioned by the successive governments of the French Republic, have noticeably appeased the minds and improved the daily life of all Caledonians in general, and Kanaks in particular.
They were combined with unprecedented institutional measures: the scheduling of three referenda for self-determination, the creation of a special electoral roll used for polls open solely to Caledonians who had settled before 1994 and the urge to all the communities living in the archipelago to elaborate a “common destiny”. Alternative forms of sovereignity.
This momentum did not lead to New Caledonia’s access to full sovereignty in the first referendum on November 4, 2018, but it signaled a surprise surge in votes in favour of independence (43.3 percent), a cause which Caledonian of European, Asian or Oceanian descent have evidently joined. This trend was confirmed on October 4, 2020, with 47 percent of the population expressing their wish for New Caledonia to become independent. If this progression is significant, these results won’t change the outcome. The issue is not purely electoral or numerical.
Kanak delegation leader Roch Wamytan (second from right) with other members. Image: FLNKS
It refers to much deeper forces. Oceanians, despite being victims of a denial of existence, have created social organisations, practices and knowledge related to their doing and being that are specific to them. Through relations to land, legitimacies to power and counter power, strategies of political and matrimonial alliances, whether near or far, connections to the past, and visual and narrative creations, they have developed an alternative form of sovereignty to the monolithic and absolute one that is glorified by nation-states. The challenge of French and British colonisation has matured this nuance and complex political thought, which is a source of resistance and projects for the future. These gains are ineradicable and will not be phased by the ephemeral results of a referendum.
In this context, how can we forge a genuine dialogue?
It seems to us that it is high time for the governing authority to look at the “other” in order to have a mutual understanding, the basis of trust to create, promote, and walk together with the ability and willingness to share a “modus operandi” through the discussions and negotiations to come on the topic of other forms of governance.
Consensus proves to be a fundamental element in the important choices that we had to make for the evolution of New Caledonia in light of the challenges of 21st century.
You have no other choice than to integrate this practice specific to the Pacific or miss out on a successful statutory development project for New Caledonia.
Madam Prime Minister, your government would gain from being in a “win-win” approach, because everyone can assess what New Caledonia represents in this part of the world. We are ready to discuss it.
Building new relationships of trust between our two countries, committing to stability for the populations which have chosen to participate to New Caledonia’s prosperity, and lastly, mastering the stakes, notably environmental, that we will have to face are all challenges that we are willing to undertake. Therefore, the unique trajectory assumed by the FLNKS for the accession to full sovereignty and independence offers the outline that we wished to present to you.
The past 30 years of social stability have provided a conductive environment for the unprecedented development of our country. The irreversible process of decolonisation put in place by the Nouméa Agreement has placed New Caledonia in front of its growing responsibilities, leading us to be standing at the doors of the “concert of nations”.
Considering our emancipation process, the FLNKS believes that we are ready to assume the attributes of our sovereignty. Through a co-construction approach, we propose that the adoption of a political treaty enabling to seal a political basis for this final phase of statutory evolution be studied.
This political agreement will guarantee:
● Reaching an independence bilaterally negotiated with the governing power;
● The continuation of the irreversible process of decolonisation of New Caledonia;
● Obtaining an ultimate process that implements a programme of accession to
full sovereignty and independence; and
● Constitutionalising the political agreement and the accession to independence status, which includes the transition phase, the sovereignty act and the proclamation of the birth of a new state.
Since 1986, New Caledonia has been on the UN list of non-self governing territories. This acknowledgement on the international stage guarantees us rights without which our deepest aspirations would not have been heard. And as long as our ultimate conviction will not be respected, we will continue to make our struggle known.
Madam Prime Minister, this year will mark the 25th year since the Nouméa Agreement. It is our duty to cultivate this consensual state of mind, which has guided all the stakeholders to this juridical innovation that recognised “the shadows of colonisation”.
Madam Prime Minister, we will have to stand by the choices we make for our future generations. As far as we are concerned, it is our duty never to surrender our right to independence and we are convinced that the French State can succeed in the statutory evolution of New Caledonia, within the context of the UN’s Fourth International Decade for the Eradication of Colonialism.
To conclude, Madam Prime Minister, this long introduction allows us to place in front of you a historical and political trajectory for the country to access full sovereignty and independence is a logical destiny. We would like to know the ambitions of the central government.
Thank you for your attention.
Roch Wamytan Head of Delegation
Members of the FLNKS delegation in Paris for the bilateral talks with the French government. Image: FLNKS
This statement has been lightly edited for publication style. Republished from Asia Pacific Report.
The captive NZ pilot Philip Mehrtens (in brim hat) . . . held hostage by West Papuan rebels seeking independence since February but the Indonesian government fails to heed past dialogue lessons. Image: TPNPB
By Singgih Wiryono in Jakarta
An Indonesian human rights researcher has cricitised his government’s failure to negotiate with West Papuan rebels, saying security officials should learn from the 2005 Aceh peace pact.
The Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras) research and mobilisation division head, Rozy Brilian, said the Indonesian government had always refused to hold a dialogue with Papuan pro-independence fighters.
He gave this message during a virtual public discussion titled “Failing to Address the Roots of the Conflict and the Window Dressing of a Development Illusion” last Friday — just two days before several Indonesian soldiers were believed to have been killed in a clash with West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNPB) rebels in the Papuan highlands.
The Indonesia soldiers were searching for New Zealand hostage pilot Philip Mehrtens who has been held captive since early February.
“The government always refuses to hold a dialogue with armed groups that the government refers to as KKB [armed criminal groups] even though the push for dialogue has often been encouraged by different parties,” said Brilian.
Yet, according to Brilian, the model of dialogue with an armed group has successfully been pursued by the Indonesian government in the past.
Aceh peace talks
Brilian gave the example of the Aceh peace talks conducted during the era of former president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY).
“This dialogue then concluded in negotiations that produced a Memorandum of Understanding (Mou), or agreement, between the Indonesian government and GAM [Free Aceh Movement] in Helsinki,” said Brilian.
That pact brought peace after three decades of warfare.
According to Brilian, the current government should learn from earlier experiences of holding dialogue with armed groups.
In addition to this, said Brilian, Indonesia could also learn from the Philippines which succeeded in “taming” armed independence groups through dialogue.
“Learn from other experiences in the Southeast Asia region, dialogue between the government and pro-independence armed groups were once held by the Philippines government with the pro-independence Moro Islamic Liberation Front group,” he said.
Tavini Huira'atira leader Oscar Temaru . . . his pro-independence party has won a decisive first round victory in the Ma’ohi Nui territorial elections. Image: Tahiti Infos
SPECIAL REPORT: By Ena Manuireva in Pape’ete
As the ballots were counted after the first day of voting in Mā’ohi Nui/French Polynesia territorial election first round, the “blue wave” of the pro-independence party Tavini Huira’atira led by Oscar Temaru topped the seven party lists competing.
Tavini was followed by the pro-French incumbent governing party Tapura Huira’atira of Édouard Fritch and the surprise alternative group led by a former finance minister under Fritch, Nuihau Laurey.
As for the other autonomist-leaning political parties who did not reach the 12.5 percent threshold required to enter the second round, they would probably encourage their followers to vote for autonomy.
In this first round, 56 percent of the population voted for the members of the Parliament, who will then elect the territory’s President.
This first result has come as no surprise to Oscar Temaru, giving him and his party a two-week campaign to entice the other 44 percent who did not vote in the first round to choose “blue” on April 30.
Undemocratic voting system
When I interviewed Oscar Temaru before the elections, he repeated to me that it should be one vote, one person and that’s the way democracy should work.
However, because France decides on the voting system, it also decides on the allocation of bonus seats (33 percent) for the party that wins most votes in the 57-seat chamber.
This extra bonus seat ploy appeared in 2004 under Gaston Flosse under the pretence of achieving political stability.
This strategy only favours big parties and is likely to keep the same party in power for a long time.
It is part of France’s responsibility to decide the type of vote, to dictate when to vote and how to organise the voting system.
The 33 percent bonus seats was geared to favour the autonomist parties but had the opposite effect in 2004 — despite all predictions — and put the UPLD (union for Democracy, which included Tavini) in power.
Temaru is hoping for a repeat of 2004. By the end of the second round on April 30, we will have the answer on who is going to govern Mā’ohi Nui for the next five years.
How the seven party lists fared in the first round of the Ma’ohi Nui territorial elections. Image: EM
Temaru’s winning strategy
Riding on the back of their win at the last French national elections that saw all three seats allocated to Mā’ohi Nui/French Polynesia in the French Parliament won by pro-independence representatives, Temaru says it was a historic surprise for the French administration and for his people in Tahiti.
He knows that if he uses the same strategy for the territorial elections, he has a good chance of winning.
His approach is to concentrate on what he calls the “disillusioned youth”.
By applying the same approach, he is pitting youth against age because he noticed that the young people weren’t interested in the election because they were not given a voice.
When Oscar Temaru talks about young people, he means 18 to 35 years old — those who the governing administration do not see as potential voters and who rely on their “old guard” approach.
Temaru also talks about how the return of the Tahitian language during political meetings and rallies has had a huge influence on the Tahitian population that still represents about 75 percent of the electorate.
By giving the stage to young, committed and fluent speakers of both Tahitian and French, a whole new communication gap appears.
Fluent bilingual speakers
The pro-independence party offers a space for fluent bilingual speakers compared to the other sides’ representatives who are only fluent in French and speak hardly any Tahitian.
Temaru sees communication in politics as the winning formula.
If you control communication, you are in luck. That is what he did in the last elections in the capital city of Pape’ete for the first time and it was an important victory.
Temaru has also played on the generation gap that exists between the various candidates who are presenting themselves.
He cited veteran politician Gaston Flosse as the main example, emphasising that the future of the Mā’ohi people belongs to the young generation.
When Flosse presented himself in the last elections, he was 91 years old and the youngest lawmaker in the whole of the French Republic from Tavini was only 21 years old. There is a difference of more than three generations between these two candidates.
‘Disrespectful behaviour’
According to Oscar Temaru, the polls show that a huge number of people are against the Fritch government because of:
The “appalling handling “of the covid pandemic;
the intervention of the French government in the local health system;
the disrespectful behaviour of President Fritch against the opposition in parliamentary debates; and an unpopular new social tax that has penalised the poor even more.
People now look to the idea of independence as an alternative. Winning these elections would give the Tavini a historic majority in both the Territorial Parliament and the French National Assembly as the only representatives of Mā’ohi Nui would be pro-independence.
Oscar Temaru sees both victories as a stronger mandate enabling Mā’ohi Nui to go to the United Nations and discuss the issue of independence.
He says that every time he talks about Mā’ohi Nui as an independent country, the representatives for France stand up and leave — they don’t want to discuss it.
President Édouard Fritch would go to the UN and say that the population supported their attachment to the French state.
So, this is why it’s really critical for Oscar Temaru to win these elections and change many things in this country.
Internal discords at the Tavini
Is there a tug war between factions of the Tavini Huira’atira after one of the party’s pillars, Eliane Tevaitua, was replaced by a newcomer?
“No. Everybody understands that we have to work together – the older generation and new generation, we need to mix them up,” Temaru says.
“The young generation understands that they need the experience of people who know what is going on. It’s very easy to make them quickly operational because they are smart young people and very interested in politics.”
What Tahiti Infos reported on 28 March 2023 – wrongly: “After 4 years as the general secretary of the Tavini Huira’atira, Vannina Crolas has given her resignation last week after the political upheavals that happened among the Tavini ranks that shook the party. The leader of the Tavini Huira’atira has yet to accept her resignation.” (Translation). Image: Tahiti Infos/APR
When the long serving Tavini Huira’atira member of the Territorial Assembly was replaced, the online Tahiti Infos ran an article claiming that Tavini’s general secretary Vannina Ateo had offered her resignation to Oscar Temaru.
However, Ateo said she had never offered her resignation and this was a campaign of disinformation.
Tavini’s vision
Oscar Temaru: “If we win the territorial elections, we will be able to tell France, let’s sit around the table and talk about the future of our country in the presence of the UN as a referee.
“We will put on the table everything that concerns the people of this country. Let’s talk together step by step about agreements of cooperation in the different areas for the future.
“The UN will be the referee between us and France regarding those agreements.
“For us this will not be a repeat of the Noumea Accords because I am one of those who knew what happened exactly to the New Caledonia issue.
“In 1986 after the resolution was adopted by the UN to put New Caledonia on the list of countries to decolonise, there was no talk about going to Paris and meeting with the right-wing Jacques Lafleur.
“It was a decision taken by Jean-Marie Tjibaou and we knew after that the freemason people were the ones who worked behind the scenes to organise that meeting in Paris.
“So, it took more than 30 years from 1986 to 2008. And from 2008 until today the Noumea Accord has become a stalemate.
“We don’t want that kind of accord because while the Noumea Accord was being discussed, at the same time we have had a statute of autonomy which started in 1977 and is now 46 years.
“So, after the autonomy — call it as you like, autonomy management, autonomy intern, self-governance — no we don’t want any of those new titles for our country.
““We will not go through the nearly 40 years of negotiations that New Caledonia went through. For us the UN will fix the date for the referendum so maximum, let’s say 10 years.
“We want to put the economy of this country on the right track, to educate our people — that’s the main point, how to change the mindset of our people and that is a hard job.
“It won’t an easy discussion so we will need top people to go to the UN to talk to the French, because they don’t want to lose their stronghold on this country that is as huge and as big as Europe, with all the resources.
“So that’s why the French administration don’t want to lose it.
“Thanks to the UN for having adopted the last two resolutions in 2020 and 2021 which tell the French to respect our sovereign right and our rights on every resource on this country.
“If France loses this part of Ma’ohi Nui, it will lose everything and Noumea will follow suite when their turn comes again.”
In response to the last question, about Oscar Temaru himself — what is going to happen to him, he says “we will wait and see what God decides, aye!”
At the age of nearly 80, he still has the fighting spirit and he hopes that in five years’ time he will still be here.
“Maybe there will be a new leader for this country. I don’t know, but at the moment I am still fighting.”
Ena Manuireva is an Aotearoa New Zealand-based Tahitian doctoral candidate at Auckland University of Technology and a commentator on French politics in Ma’ohi Nui and the Pacific. He contributes to Asia Pacific Report.
