Prime Minister Chris Hipkins told media a witness called the incident in at 7.23am, reporting there was a man with a gun shooting inside a construction site on lower Queen Street.
The gunman moved through the construction site shooting a pump-action shotgun.
When he reached the upper levels he hid inside an elevator shaft.
Police attempted to engage with him, but the gunman fired further shots, before he was found dead a short time later, they say.
He said there was no identified “political or ideological motivation” for the shooter and as such, there was no need to change the national security risk.
Coster said the shooter was a worker at the construction site, and had an exemption from home detention to go to work.
At 7.22am police received multiple emergency calls about a person shooting a gun on the third floor of a building under construction on lower Queen Street. Commissioner Coster said officers arrived on the scene within minutes.
“The offender made his way up the building site, discharging his firearm on multiple occasions. Police entered in the building within 10 minutes,” he said.
The police commissioner said the gunman fired at police, wounding an officer, and shots were then exchanged.
“The offender was later found deceased.”
The wounded police officer was taken to hospital in a critical condition, but has since stabilised.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Oppenheimer . . . a wait-and-see approach from the Japanese film industry, but stories of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are not a taboo topic in Japan. Image: Universal Pictures
ANALYSIS:By Peter C. Pugsley
While Christopher Nolan’s new film Oppenheimer is opening in much of the world this week, a Japanese release date has not yet been announced.
A delay in naming a release date is nothing new for Japan, where Hollywood releases often take place weeks or months later than other national markets.
Japan’s cinema industry is savvy enough to take a wait-and-see approach to blockbuster films.
If Oppenheimer fails at the box office in other markets, then Japan may decide on a quick opening in a smaller number of cinemas. If it is the global hit the producers hope, it may open across the country.
Some have speculated the tragic history of events in Hiroshima and Nagasaki make the film too sensitive for Japanese audiences. But concerns that the film contains sensitivities to Japan’s past can be easily discarded by a quick glance through Japan’s cinematic history.
The Oppenheimert trailer. Video: Universal Pictures
The Japanese film industry
The Japanese film industry began in 1897, developing quickly through studios such as Nikkatsu and Shochiku. In the 1930s, the industry gained international attention with emerging filmmakers such as Yasujiro Ozu.
By the late 1930s, studios and filmmakers were drafted into the war effort, making propaganda films.
Until the end of the Second World War, the Japanese government had been strictly censoring all films in line with efforts to produce this state-sanctioned propaganda. From 1945 to 1949, the US-Occupation forces set up procedures to ensure films avoided intensely nationalist or militaristic themes.
Japan’s film classification body was created in 1949 following the withdrawal of the Production Code. This gave Japanese authorities the chance to determine their own rules around film content based on themes of language, sex, nudity, violence and cruelty, horror and menace, drug use and criminal behaviour.
Japanese film was always quite progressive in terms of artistic licence, escaping the type of strictly enforced limitations found in America’s Hays Code, which put restrictions on content including nudity, profanity and depictions of crime.
Filmmakers in Japan had freedom to practise their art, so the pinku (soft pornography) films of the 1960s and 70s were the products of the major studios rather than underground independents.
These freedoms saw Japanese filmmakers absorb influences from Europe (particularly through French and Italian cinema), but saw significant content differences between Japanese and Hollywood cinema until the close of the Hays era.
Since the 1950s, censorship in the form of suggested edits or very rarely, “disallowed films”, has mostly been in response to violent or overly-explicit sexual imagery, rather than concerns over political or militaristic issues.
Japan is the third biggest box office market in the world, behind only China and North America, and cinema is dominated by local films.
While it can appear that Japanese cinema is dominated by anime and live-action remakes of manga and anime, it includes a rich array of genres and styles. The late 1990s saw a global appetite for horror films, under the mantle of J-horror. Films like Battle Royale (2000) and Ichi: The Killer (2001) created a new level of violence combining the horror genre with comic moments. Meanwhile samurai and yakuza films continue to find audiences, as do high-school themed dramas.
Internationally, the arthouse stylistics of films by Hirokazu Kore-eda, Kiyoshi Kurosawa and Naomi Kawase are feted at Cannes and Venice.
The war on screen Many Japanese filmmakers have explored the Second World War.
As early as 1952, Kaneto Shindo’s Children of Hiroshima directly addressed the aftermath of the war through confronting imagery then with a gentle, humanist touch.
A year later, Hideo Sekigawa’s Hiroshima upped the political ante with a docudrama critical of the United States’ actions in a film that included real survivors from the nuclear blast acting as victims.
The obvious metaphorical imagery of successive Godzilla films reflect fears of the potential horrors nuclear activities could unleash.
The title of Shōhei Imamura’s Black Rain (1989, not to be confused with Ridley Scott’s yakuza film of the same name and same year) referenced the colour of the acid rain following the nuclear blast in Hiroshima, and was recognised with some of Japan’s highest film honours.
Anime has also directly shown the damage wrought by Oppenheimer’s device, most notably with Barefoot Gen in 1983, and its sequel in 1986.
In the style of Astro Boy and Kimba the White Lion, a young wide-eyed boy, Gen, is caught in the horrors of the conflict, watching as his mother literally melts in front of him.
Summer with Kuro (1990) and In This Corner of the World (2016) each gave their own, less graphic, anime versions of lives touched by the conflict.
Foreign films
Foreign films about the second world war have also found an audience in Japan.
Alain Resnais’ intensely serious French New Wave drama, the French/Japanese co-production Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959), exposed the international implications of personal relations after the bomb.
Japan warmly welcomed Clint Eastwood’s 2006 twin-release of Letters from Iwo Jima and Flags of Our Fathers, which showed the battle from the views of Japanese and US soldiers, respectively.
Stories of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are not a taboo topic in Japan. Of all the nations in the world to be banning films, Japan must surely be near the bottom of the list.
Whether there’s a release date or not, Oppenheimer must have the appeal to be a box office hit to determine its suitability for release in Japan.
Suspended Papua Governor Lukas Enembe when he was taken to the Gatot Subroto Army Central Hospital (RSPAD) last Sunday night. His health is reported go have sharply deteriorated. Image: Odiyaiwuu.com
SPECIAL REPORT: By Yamin Kogoya
Suspended Papua Governor Lukas Enembe, who is detained in Indonesia on corruption charges, was supposed to go on trial yesterday but this did not go ahead as he is gravely ill and could not attend.
Upon realising the governor’s health had deteriorated, the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) tried to transport him to Gatot Subroto Army Central Hospital (RSPAD) last Saturday.
However, the governor refused due to what he said was KPK’s “mishandling” of the legal case.
A member of the Governor’s legal team, Petrus Bala Pattyona, said he had been contacted by the KPK prosecutor on Sunday.
Bala Pattyona was asked by the prosecutor to convince Enembe to be taken to the hospital. Enembe had not eaten for two days, was vomiting, nauseous, and dizzy, reports Odiyaiwuu.com.
The Governor is currently in an intensive care unit — suffering from a serious life-threatening illness.
Jakarta’s ‘legal mishandling’ of Governor
Governor Enembe was on trial a week ago on July 10, but public prosecutors failed to bring witnesses to the hearing.
After the trial was adjourned for another week until yesterday, he was taken to a KPK prison cell despite being seriously ill.
Prior to these two failed trial hearings, the Governor appeared in court on June 24.
However, the hearing wqs suspended after a panel of judges rejected Governor Enembe’s appeal for the charges to be waived.
Given the governor’s ill health, the judges ruled to prioritise his health and grant his request to suspend proceedings until he was medically fit to stand trial.
On June 12, an anticipated and highly publicised trial was scheduled to take place in Jakarta’s District Court. However, the trial was not held due to KPK’s mishandling of the ordeal.
To date, a total of nine attempts have been made to deliver a satisfactory closure of the Governor’s legal case since he was “kidnapped” from Papua in January 2023.
New August date set
The trial is now rescheduled for early August 2023. However, there is no guarantee that this will be the last hearing over what critics describe as a tragic and disgraceful mishandling of the case concerning a respected tribal chief and Governor who is fighting for his life.
For the government of Indonesia, KPK and judges, every moment that is mismanaged, mishandled, or delayed might mean just a delay in justice, but for the Governor and his family it means life and death.
According to the governor’s family, KPK are already waiting to bring this sick man back from hospital and lock him up in a KPK prison cell again.
The Governor’s family ask how could this “cruel treatment be happening”?
Yamin Kogoya is a West Papuan academic/activist who has a Master of Applied Anthropology and Participatory Development from the Australian National University and who contributes to Asia Pacific Report. From the Lani tribe in the Papuan Highlands, he is currently living in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.
Owen Wilkes (carrying his daughter Koa) and Joan Wilkes during an anti-apartheid march in Christchurch 1971. CAFCA organiser Murray Horton recalls: "The march was headed to a Christchurch beach to protest the presence of a South African surf lifesaving team. Owen later swam out and disrupted one of the races by moving the marker buoys, all the while dodging enraged race officials who rode after him, trying to grab him with a big boat hook." Image: Ron Hazlehurst/Labour History
REVIEW: By Ken Mansell
The recent publication of a book of essays honouring the life of legendary New Zealand peace researcher and activist Owen Wilkes is a must read for historians of social movements, those who were active in the anti-nuclear and peace movements of the seventies and eighties, as well as those growing numbers who today carry on the resistance to escalating militarism.
Wilkes, an iconic figure revered in the Peace Movement, exposed covert military activity worldwide and inspired many in the fight for New Zealand’s nuclear-free status.
Thirteen of Owen’s contemporaries, all of whom were associated with him in his peace movement activities, have contributed essays. They are New Zealanders Mark Derby, May Bass, Robert Mann, Ken Ross, Murray Horton, Maire Leadbeater, Diane Hooper, David Robie, Peter Wills, Nicky Hager, and Neville Ritchie; and the Norwegians Ingvar Botnen and Nils Petter Gleditsch.
Their individual memories combine and overlap to provide a detailed biographical sketch. It has not been possible to write a conventional review because this would have required a review of each of the various essays.
I have, however, drawn on the contents of each essay to pen, in summary form, the story of Owen’s extraordinary life. Here I mainly have an Australian reading audience in mind.
Owen Wilkes was a household name in New Zealand but was comparatively unknown in Australia beyond those, like myself, who knew him in the Australian peace movement of the eighties. Hopefully, however, my article, because it includes Owen’s exploits on this side of the ditch, will also arouse some interest in Aotearoa.
Who then was Owen Wilkes?
Owen Wilkes – peace researcher
Owen, born in 1940 and raised in Christchurch, dropped out of university in 1960 but soon displayed a remarkable proclivity for exposing the hidden and obscure, initially on Māori rock art digs for the Canterbury Museum (1963-64) and then in jobs that awakened him to hidden militarism.
As a field entomologist in Papua New Guinea, Owen exposed a secret US Army germ warfare research programme; at the US McMurdo Sound Antarctic base, he found evidence that Christchurch Airport’s “Operation Deep Freeze” was a cover for US military activity (and later exposed the installation of a small nuclear reactor at the base); at the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation, he responded to the horror of the Vietnam War by researching US military activities in New Zealand and the Pacific.
Peacemonger . . . the first full-length account of peace researcher Owen Wilkes’ life and work. Image: Raekaihau Press
In June 1968, the New Zealand government proposed to establish an Omega transmitter in the South Island high country, ostensibly only for civilian navigation purposes. Owen acquired a 364-page report from the US Navy Omega Implementation Committee that described Omega’s role in sending VLF signals to submerged ballistic missile submarines, enabling them to locate their position and calculate trajectories to their targets.
Canta, the University of Christchurch student newspaper, published 72,000 copies of a special Omega edition featuring an article by Owen. Three days later, 4000 marched in protest through the streets of Christchurch. Owen Wilkes, a pioneer peace researcher, was now a household name.
A militant anti-bases movement was built in New Zealand, inspired by Owen’s knowledge and leadership. In the early 1970s, he exposed two US Air Force operations, “Project Longbank” (monitoring nuclear tests by France and China) and the Mt John Observatory (providing targeting data for a US anti-satellite weapons system), and found that Christchurch Airport (Harewood) was being used to service American spy bases in Australia under cover of the Antarctic “Operation Deep Freeze”.
In the 1980S, Owen uncovered the role of the Black Birch US Naval Observatory in improving the stellar guidance system of long-range missiles (Trident, MX) and the role of two electronic spy bases linked to the US National Security Agency — at Tangimoana in the North Island (contributing to the targeting of US naval weapons) and at Waihopai in the South Island (targeting the international Intelsat system).
Owen Wilkes addressing protesters at Waihopai, Aotearoa New Zealand, in February 1988. Image: Ken Mansell/Labour History
From 1976-1982 Owen lived in Scandinavia and worked for peace research institutes in Oslo and Stockholm. At the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO), he researched technical intelligence systems (sonars, seismometers detecting nuclear explosions) and foreign military installations linked to nuclear weapons command and control systems (including navigation aids for nuclear missile submarines). For the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), he compiled a database of 1500 US bases and 300 Soviet bases, and contributed articles to three SIPRI Yearbooks.
The security services in both countries cracked down hard on him. Owen had been subjected to surveillance and harassment (opening of mail) in New Zealand, but his treatment at the hands of the security state in the Nordic countries went beyond this level.
The controversial book Uncle Sam’s Rabbits: Technical Intelligence in Norway, Oslo, 1981.
Owen and PRIO colleague Nils Petter Gleditsch discovered that Norway was secretly hosting NATO/U.S electronic direction-finding bases (“Uncle Sam’s Rabbits”). This brought charges under the Official Secrets Act and a June 1981 trial in the City Court of Oslo, where they were fined and given suspended prison sentences (confirmed by the Norwegian Supreme Court in February 1982).
Owen’s arraignment in Sweden was even more dramatic. After an innocent bicycle tour of the Swedish island of Götland, where he stopped occasionally to photograph or jot down notes about glaringly public antennae, Owen was grabbed by secret police on a charge of “espionage”, later revised to the spurious “piecing together data from open sources and field observations”.
His suspended sentence and deportation for 10 years meant that Owen left Sweden in a blaze of publicity and with an international reputation as a “spy”. One interesting suggestion in an endnote is that SIPRI disapproved of Owen’s adventurous fieldwork and failed to defend him (and its own independence).
‘Jigsaw puzzle principle’
In their detailed treatment of Owen’s research methods, the investigative journalists David Robie and Nicky Hager are both at pains to refute the charge of “espionage”. What really offended the Defence authorities was the “jigsaw puzzle principle” — Owen’s ability to piece together information from multiple publicly available (albeit obscure) open sources (such as what could be gleaned from US Congressional hearings, Defence Department reports to Congress, and aerospace trade journals) to create new information that governments wanted to keep secret.
Many of Owen’s insights and discoveries were the result of “fieldwork”, where the self-taught researcher used his expertise to deduce the functions of military installations (antennae and radar systems) simply from observing them. His efforts resulted in a vast store of accumulated knowledge about electronic signals intelligence systems, and communication systems for land/sea-based nuclear forces.
Hager describes Owen’s meticulous filing system, every page having a file code, allowing him to write about a wide variety of subjects, such as, for example, his history of New Zealand’s involvement with chemical warfare.
Based in Wellington from 1984-1994, where he worked for Peace Movement Aotearoa (PMA), much of the time in libraries (Alexander Turnbull; US Embassy), Owen increasingly widened his investigative scope to include foreign military activities across the whole of the Pacific, including the intelligence (spying) activity associated with it.
He conducted speaking tours of “intelligence sites” in Wellington and exposed the destabilising activity of the CIA in New Zealand (Māori Loans Affair) and the Pacific (Fiji) with his articles in PMA’s Peacelink and in the newsletters Wellington Confidential and Wellington Pacific Report. Owen was dedicated to sharing his documents with peace researchers and with activists. Likewise, his discoveries, such as when Owen informed the anti-nuclear movement in the Philippines of the existence of a secret US nuclear test detection facility in Bukidnon, Mindanao.
Protesters from Sydney prepare their camp at Mildura, Victoria, during the 1974 Long March against the US communications base at North West Cape . . . Owen Wilkes is pictured in the centre carrying his steel box of research files. Image: Peter Lusk
Owen Wilkes in Australia Owen Wilkes made an enormous contribution to the anti-nuclear and peace movements in Australia from the early 1970s to the early 1990s. Very little of this aspect of Owen’s career is covered in Peacemonger, so here I’ll fill in some of the gaps. Owen’s association with the peace movement in Australia started soon after the announcement in March 1971 that an Omega transmitter, having been rejected by New Zealand in May 1969, would be sited in Australia.
Owen was hosted by the Melbourne Stop Omega Committee and produced (with Albert Langer) a detailed submission on Omega’s military role as a navigation aid for Polaris ballistic missile submarines to the (August-November 1973) hearings of the Australian Parliamentary Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs and Defence.
Owen was one of 11 New Zealanders who participated in the 1974 “Long March” to North West Cape, a three-week-long bus trip to Exmouth in Western Australia, the site of the sprawling US Navy nuclear submarines communications base. The North West Cape demonstrators benefited from Owen’s knowledge and leadership and inspired the 1975 South Island “Resistance Ride” in New Zealand.
Originally earmarked for Tasmania (and then Boort in north-west Victoria), Omega was eventually constructed near Sale in Gippsland but only after a vigorous anti-base campaign had delayed its opening until 1982.
On 28 August 1982, in Melbourne, the fledgling People for Nuclear Disarmament (PND) movement held a seminar on Omega as part of the preparation for a protest rally at the site later in the year. Owen, one of three listed speakers, arrived late after having passed through Sydney on his return from Stockholm. His deflating message was that he had changed his mind about Omega.
The system had originally been intended to play a role as a navigation aid for ballistic missile submarines but was now unlikely to be used by them because it had been sidelined by the more advanced VLF radio navigation system of Loran-C. Omega was more useful to “hunter-killer” (attack) submarines and to other anti-submarine warfare systems, and as such, was still involved in counterforce nuclear strategies against Soviet military forces.
On September 2, Owen called a press conference in Wellington to convey the same message, admitting publicly he had been partially wrong in his original criticism of Omega.
In the years that followed, Owen maintained contact with the growing Australian nuclear disarmament movement. He regularly posted copies of documents across the Tasman to Australian researchers and was welcomed here as an expert guest speaker at public meetings and on the radio.
Owen visited Melbourne in July 1984 and completed four separate speaking engagements in the space of a week, including a meeting of the Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific (NFIP) movement and a meeting of the group organising a peace camp at the satellite terminal in suburban Watsonia (confirmed by Owen as involved in the US Naval Ocean Surveillance Information System).
Owen Wilkes addressing protesters outside the Melbourne Magistrates Court where he appeared as an expert witness, March 1986. Image: Ken Mansell/Labour History
In March 1986, Owen appeared as an expert witness for the Christian activists on trial in the Melbourne Magistrates Court for splashing blood on the Watsonia dish at Easter 1985 and was eagerly sought for interviews by the Watching Brief public broadcast team.
In June 1988, Owen (accompanied by CAFCA organiser Murray Horton) again made the trip to North West Cape for the demonstration organised by the Australian Anti Bases Campaign Coalition and then followed up with a month-long speaking tour focusing on the destabilisation of the Pacific.
In early 1990, Owen lived in Melbourne for several weeks, taking the time for a spot of “fieldwork” while researching (with Peter Hayes) the history of US ballistic missile testing in the Pacific for the 1991 Nautilus Pacific Research publication Chasing Gravity’s Rainbow. No wonder that Owen filled multiple file boxes about Australia.
Owen Wilkes on “fieldwork” near Rockbank, Victoria, in March 1986. Image: Ken Mansell/Labour History
Owen Wilkes – the man (1940-2005) Owen Wilkes was always much more than simply a busy and committed peace researcher. Most of the chapters in the book are also mini-biographical sketches that variously describe aspects of Owen’s personal life and his many interests and preoccupations outside of the peace movement.
In his earlier years, Owen supported his activism with a succession of part-time jobs as dustman, tomato grower, baker, ski field attendant and beekeeper. A lover of the outdoors and proudly Spartan in lifestyle, he lived at one time in a railway carriage as a member of a remote West Coast hippy commune, at another time in his own self-built energy-efficient house.
In 1995, Owen took permanent leave from the peace movement and worked for the Department of Conservation on an inventory of archaeological sites, a life-long passion. He spent his final years living in remote Kawhia, yachting, sailing, tramping, and tending to his vegetable garden.
The contributors to Peacemonger have explained why Owen Wilkes was such a revered activist. Explaining his personal characteristics would have been more difficult, but they have not shied away from it, describing him as a complex, eccentric personality with many admirable qualities (“stubborn, but generous and honest”, according to his partner May Bass).
Several of the essays, however, contrast Owen’s physical sturdiness — in Sweden he was known to ski in shorts with the temperature as low as minus 25 centigrade — with his apparent psychological fragility. As a researcher and campaigner, Owen displayed an iron will, but he was also prone to occasional debilitating depression and negativity.
In the 1990s, Owen took issue with the New Zealand peace movement, his somewhat hostile and cranky views including the outlandish notion that visiting nuclear-powered ships were perfectly safe. However, none of this could have prepared all who knew and revered him for the shock and devastation they would feel upon learning that Owen had taken his own life.
RIP Owen Wilkes.
Ken Mansell contributed this review to Labour History, the website of the Australian Society for the Study of Labour History, and it is republished by Café Pacific with the permission of both the author and society.
Media organisations in Papua — including the Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI) of Jayapura City, the Indonesian Journalists Association (PWI) of Papua and the Indonesian Television Journalists Association (IJTI) of Papua — have lambasted intimidation against Abdel Gamel Naser, a reporter with the Cenderawasih Pos.
The incident occurred while he was covering the issue of mangrove forest destruction in the Youtefa Bay Nature Park conservation area in Jayapura City last Tuesday.
Gamel, as he is commonly known, allegedly faced intimidation from two police officers who were present near the location.
The officers approached Gamel and questioned why he was photographing the area.
Despite explaining that he was a journalist, the officers forced him to delete three images from his reportage.
“To avoid further conflict so I can continue my reporting elsewhere, I deleted the photos,” he explained.
“As I was leaving the location, [the police officers] issued further threats,” Gamel said in a press release issued by the media groups.
A halt to logging
Gamel was among a group of about a dozen journalists who were covering the halt of logging and material stockpiling in the mangrove forest area of Youtefa Bay Nature Tourism Park.
The halt was carried out by the Papua Forestry and Environment Service, the Papua Natural Resources Conservation Center, and the Papua Police Special Crimes Unit.
According to Gamel, the intimidation occurred while he was capturing images near a location where police lines had been established, and several police officers were nearby.
Lucky Ireeuw, chair of the AJI Jayapura, strongly condemned the alleged intimidation faced by Gamel during his work. he said such repressive actions hindered the exercise of press freedom in Papua.
“The intimidation suffered by Gamel obstructs press freedom and violates Law No. 40/1999 on Press,” Ireeuw said.
He called on the Papua police to take decisive action against the officers implicated in the alleged intimidation.
“We urge the police to ensure press freedom in Papua,” Ireeuw added.
‘Arrogant’ display
Meanwhile, PWI Papua deputy chair Ridwan Madubun strongly condemned the “display of arrogance” that resulted in the intimidation of his fellow journalist Gamel. Madubun saoid such actions were unjustifiable, especially when they happened while journalists were carrying out their responsibilities in the public domain.
He also expressed dismay at the ongoing repressive acts against journalists in Papua.
Journalists are safeguarded by law in carrying out their coverage duties to inform the public.
Papua police spokesperson Senior Commander Ignatius Beny Ady Prabowo said efforts had been made within the police institution to educate officers about press freedom since their training at the National Police School.
“I have just been made aware of the alleged intimidation against Gamel,” Prabowo said. “Journalists who encounter such incidents can report them to our Internal Division.”
Professor Steven Ratuva . . . Coups "corrupt and destroy the very principles on which constitutional democracy is built." Image: Jonacani Lalakobau/The Fiji Times
Professor Ratuva, director of Canterbury University’s Centre for Pacific Studies in New Zealand, said coups had no place in modern politics and Fiji was no exception.
“It corrupts and destroys the very principles on which constitutional democracy is built, it is destructive to the economy, disrupts social relationships and wellbeing and creates a cycle of instability in the long run,” he said.
“A coup is like the covid epidemic with a long tail and unfortunately, we are still in the shadows of the long tails of the previous coups because the impacts are still with us, even as years pass.
“Up to a point, people will reach the coup-fatigue threshold and Fiji would have reached it long ago, as people are just fed up [with] coups and simply hearing rumours associated with coups, it is psychologically traumatising to say the least.”
Professor Ratuva said the whole nation had collectively been traumatised by the series of coups in the past since 1987 and it was time to “put a stop to this scourge”.
He added that the military, as a professional security institution, was often subjected to external political interests and pressures to serve narrow political and personal ends.
Military for ‘nation-building’
He also commended the Republic of Fiji Military Forces (RFMF) Commander Ro Jone Kalouniwai for his conduct during this time.
“The military must be an independent institution for national security and nation-building, not a tool for illegal state capture by some,” Professor Ratuva said.
“Fiji’s military commander is a highly educated officer with an internationally reputable status and his calm and intelligent response to destabilising rumours, gives the nation a sense of assurance and comfort.
“He and the military will need support by all political parties and citizens generally to maintain stability in these challenging times.”
Political prisoners during the 1793 French Reign of Terror awaiting their fate. Most of the 17,000 people executed across France during the French Revolution were guillotined in the Terror. Image: Detail from an etching in the Wellcome Collection/The Conversation
ANALYSIS:By Claire Rioult and Romain Fathi
For a lot of people, mention of the French Revolution conjures up images of wealthy nobles being led to the guillotine.
Thanks to countless movies, books and half-remembered history lessons, many have been left with the impression the revolution was chiefly about chopping off the heads of kings, queens, dukes and other cashed-up aristocrats.
But today what’s known in English as Bastille Day and in French as Quatorze Juillet — a date commemorating events of July 14 in 1789 that came to symbolise the French Revolution — it is worth correcting this common misconception.
Bonne fête nationale aux Française! The Régiment de Service Militaire Adapté always steals the show at Noumea’s Bastille Day parade, with their moving song in the Negone language. I was very proud a marching pipe band of fellow Aussies participated too – recognise this song? pic.twitter.com/jMZRKEakAL
In fact, most people executed during the French Revolution — and particularly in its perceived bloodiest era, the nine-month “Reign of Terror” between autumn 1793 and summer 1794 — were commoners.
[…] more carters than princes were executed, more day labourers than dukes and marquises, three or four times as many servants than parliamentarians. The Terror swept French society from base to comb; its victims form a complete cross section of the social order of the Ancien régime.
The ‘national razor’
The guillotine was first put to use on April 15 1792 when a common thief called Pelletier was executed. Initially seen as an instrument of equality, however, the guillotine soon acquired a grim reputation for its list of famous victims.
Miniature guillotine, French revolution era, Musée Carnavalet. Image: Les musées de la ville de Paris/The Conversation
But it wasn’t just “celebrities” executed at the guillotine.
While reliable figures on the definitive number of people guillotined during the Revolution are hard to find, historians commonly project between 15,000 and 17,000 people were guillotined across France.
The bulk of it occurred during the the Reign of Terror.
When the decision was made to centralise all (legal) executions in Paris, 1376 people were guillotined over just 47 days, between June 10 and July 27, 1794. That is about 30 a day.
The bulk of the executions occurred during the the Reign of Terror. Image: Bibliothèque nationale de France/The Conversation
The guillotine wasn’t the only method However, the guillotine represents just one way people were executed.
Historians estimate around 20,000 men and women were summarily killed — either shot, stabbed or drowned — during the Terror across France.
They also estimate that in just under five days, 1500 people died at the hands of Parisian mobs during the 1792 September massacres.
The vast majority of these people killed were ordinary French men and women, not members of the elite.
Overall, Greer estimates 8.5 percent of the Terror’s victims belonged to the nobility, 6.5 percent to the clergy, and 85 percent to the Third Estate (meaning non-clerics and non-nobles). Women represented 9 percent of the total (but 20 percent and 14 pecent of the noble and clerical categories, respectively).
Priests who had refused to take the oath of loyalty to the Revolution, émigrés who had fled the country, hoarders and profiteers who made the price of bread much dearer, or political opponents of the moment, all were deemed “enemies of the Revolution”.
Why was so much blood shed during the Reign of Terror? The paranoia of the regime in 1793–94 was the result of various factors.
France fought at its borders against a coalition led by Europe’s monarchs to nip the revolution in the bud before it could threaten their thrones.
Meanwhile, civil war ravaged the west and south of France, conspiracy rumours circulated across the country, and political infighting intensified in Paris between opposing factions.
All these factors led to a series of laws voted up in late 1793 that enabled the expedited judgment of thousands of people suspected of counterrevolutionary beliefs.
The measures contained in the infamous “Law of Suspects” were, however, relaxed in the summer of 1794 and completely abolished in October 1795.
How the focus came to be on beheaded nobility
For many people, however, mention of this period of French history leads to the vision of a bloodthirsty Revolution indiscriminately sending to their death thousands of nobles.
This is largely influenced by the fate of Queen Marie-Antoinette and its many depictions in pop culture.
British counter-revolutionary propaganda in the 1790s and 1800s also helped popularise the idea that aristocrats were martyrs and the main victims of revolution executioners.
This representation was mostly forged via the abundant publication in the 19th century of memoirs and diaries of survivors and relatives of victims, usually from the social and economic elite fiercely opposed to the Revolution and its legacy.
A broader legacy Beyond the guillotine and the Reign of Terror, the legacies of the revolution run far deeper.
The revolution abolished entrenched privileges based on birth, imposed equality before the law and opened the door to emerging forms of democratic involvement for everyday citizens.
The Revolution ushered in a time of reforms in France, across Europe and indeed across the world.
West Papuans rally in support of full membership of the Melanesian Spearhead Group in defiance of a crackdown by Indonesian security forces. Image: ULMWP
A West Papua pro-independence leader says Indonesia is ramping up its repression of peaceful activists while people mobilise in favour of the province gaining full membership of the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG).
Benny Wenda said 10 activists were arrested earlier this week while handing out leaflets advertising a peaceful rally to support his United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP) gaining full membership of the sub-regional group.
Wenda added that the next day rallies in Jayapura and Sentani were forcefully disbanded and 21 people arrested.
He said at the rallies activists were demanding that their birthright as a Melanesian nation be fulfilled.
Wenda said West Papua was entitled to full membership of the MSG by “our ethnic, cultural, and linguistic ties to the rest of Melanesia”.
“If Melanesian leaders needed further proof of the necessity of ULMWP full membership, then Indonesia has provided it,” he said.
“Only as full members will we be able to expose grave abuses such as these arrests on the international stage, and to defend our identity as a Melanesian people.
‘Why the quietness?’
“Indonesia claims that they are entitled to membership of the MSG because they represent other Melanesian populations. If that is the case, then why are these populations staying quiet?
“Indonesia cannot claim to represent West Papuans in the MSG, because we already have representation through the ULMWP.”
Wenda is demanding on behalf of the ULMWP and the West Papuan people “that no further arrests are made of Papuans rallying peacefully for full membership”.
He said Indonesia had nothing to fear from West Papuans returning to “our Melanesian family”.
“At the same time, they must understand that West Papuans are speaking with one voice in demanding full membership. All groups, ages, genders and tribes are totally united and focused on achieving our mission. We will not be deterred.”
The MSG is due to meet in Port Vila, Vanuatu, this month, although the dates have not yet been announced.
Last week, the Indonesian President Joko Widodo visited Papua New Guinea (PNG) with trade, border arrangements and education foremost on the agenda.
However, as reported by RNZ Pacific, one topic that was not discussed was West Papua despite the countries sharing a 760km border.
An estimated 10,000 West Papuan refugees live in PNG, escaping a bloody conflict between armed separatists and the Indonesian army.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
New Caledonia's Assembly President Roch Wamytan talking to news media in Baku . . . the "page of French colonisation should be closed". Image: APA News
Kanaky New Caledonia’s parliamentary President (speaker) Roch Wamytan says it is time for France to end colonisation in the Pacific territory.
Speaking to journalists while in Baku, Azerbaijan, for the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) ministerial meeting last week, he said: “It is time for France to grant independence to New Caledonia.”
Wamytan, president of the Territorial Assembly in Noumea, noted that France had made New Caledonia its colony for more than 160 years, reports APA.
He said the page of colonisation should be closed and that Kanaky New Caledonia should be granted independence.
Wamytan thanked Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev for his statement on colonialism at the NAM meeting and emphasised that the president’s words were an important support for the Kanak people to gain independence.
West Papua National Committee (KNPB) protesters in Jayapura rally in support of full West Papuan membership of the Melanesian Spearhead Group. Image: Jubi News
An Australian advocacy group for West Papua self-determination has condemned yesterday’s arrest by Indonesian security forces of 10 West Papua National Committee (KNPB) members.
The activists were arrested “simply because they were handing out leaflets informing people of a rally to be held today” to show support for West Papua becoming a full member of the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG), said the Australia West Papua Association (AWPA) in a statement.
The security forces detained the activists and took them to the Jayapura Resort Police station in Sentani for questioning.
They were eventually released after being detained for eight hours.
It was reported that the police were threatening the KNPB activists and asking therm to make a statement not to carry out West Papuan independence struggle activities.
“Yet again we have peaceful activists arrested for simply handing out leaflets about an upcoming rally, which is their right to do under the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” said Joe Collins of AWPA:
Article 19 Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
Article 20 1. Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association.
“Hopefully any rallies that take place today will be allowed to go ahead peacefully and there will not be a repeat of the brutal crackdowns that occurred at other peaceful rallies in the past.”
The Melanesian Spearhead Group is due to meet in Port Vila, Vanuatu, this month, although the dates have not yet been announced.
The MSG consists of Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and the Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS) of Kanaky (New Caledonia).
West Papua has observer status while Indonesia has associate membership and Jakarta has been conducting an intense diplomatic lobbying with MSG members over recent months.
The United Liberation Movement of West Papua (ULMWP) has applied for full membership.
