A massive crowd at Timika, Papua, greets the MSG decision to grant West Papuans observer status.
Image: Free West Papua Campaign
COMMENTARY: By David Robie
The Melanesian Spearhead Group leaders’summit in Honiara this week [June 2015] must go down as the most shameful since the organisation was founded two decades ago.
It had the opportunity to take a fully principled stand on behalf of the West Papuan people, brutally oppressed by Indonesia after an arguably “illegal” occupation for more than a half century.
Host nation Solomon Islands Prime Minister and chair Mannaseh Sogareve set the tone by making an impassioned plea at the start of the summit, predicting a “test” for the MSG. He said it would be an issue of human rights and the rule of law.
In the end, the MSG failed the test with a betrayal of the people of West Papua by the two largest members. Although ultimately it is a decision by consensus.
Instead, the MSG granted Indonesia a “promotion” to associate member status — an Asian country, not even Melanesian?
And the recently formed United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP), which had been forced to jump through many hoops over the past year or so provide a united “one voice” Papuan front, was given observer status as a “development partner” for overseas Papuans — the same level occupied by Jakarta since 2011 until its elevation.
Political bribery was at stake. Lucrative aid promises from Jakarta trumped blood ties between Melanesians.
Brave face
Most media and some commentators see this as a huge achievement by the West Papua lobby movement, and even the ULMWP is putting a brave face on it.
Disappointed . . . but a step forward. United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP) leaders Octo Mote (left) and Benny Wenda with observer status at the Honiara meeting of the Melanesian Spearhead Group. Image: Stefan Armbruster/SBS
A statement circulated by the Free West Papua Campaign has praised the MSG decision as “making history” with political recognition – but at what price?
“After 53 years of political struggle for the right to self-determination, the ULMWP representing West Papuans, was today granted observer status,” said the statement.
Thanking the Melanesian leaders, ULMWP secretary-general Octovianus Mote said: “We applied for full membership at the instruction of MSG leaders in 2013 and 2014. Despite not getting full membership [then], we welcome the decision of the leaders as it is our first step to full political recognition.”
Mote added that it was a welcome first step, and the struggle wouldn’t end there.
But the truth is the West Papuans have been betrayed, especially by the Papua New Guinea Prime Minister Peter O’Neill and Fiji leader Voreqe Bainimarama. For the Fiji and PNG delegations, Indonesian-funded aid is more important than human rights for their Melanesian brothers.
Solomon Islands supporters for the West Papuans. Image: SIBC
The West Papuans should have been granted full membership now.
But at least the Melanesian nations are actually trying to engage with Indonesia over West Papua, so much better than the wimpish Australian and New Zealand approach.
The Solomon Islands had declared support for a compromise of observer status before the summit began while both Vanuatu and the Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS) of New Caledonia both supported full membership.
The ULMWP had hoped to follow the FLNKS precedent in obtaining full MSG membership without being a sovereign government.
West Papuan petition
More than 150,000 West Papuans signed a petition supporting MSG membership and an under-cover Dutch journalist visiting the region shortly before the MSG summit reported overwhelming support for the ULMWP cause in spite of a crackdown by security forces.
Perhaps the wisest message made during the week was by former Solomon Islands Prime Minister Ezekiel Alebua who described the involvement of Indonesia in Melanesian political space as a mistake.
In an interview with Joey Tau of the Pacific Network on Globalisation (PANG), who was media adviser for the ULMWP camp, Alebua declared that the founding fathers of the MSG founded the bloc on the values of promoting Melanesian common interests such as heritage, culture and traditions of peace and harmony.
“With due respect to the current Melanesian leaders, we have a new wave of leaders in this region who are more interested in trade and commerce, and give very little attention to our true Melanesian recognition,” he said.
“There are economic interests with Indonesia, but our fellow Melanesians are being abused and tortured, and we must act morally.”
One of the great mysteries of all the hype is about “five Melanesian provinces” in Indonesia. This is patently misleading, there are only two: Papua and West Papua. Previously there was one, but it was split into two to make it easier to divide and rule.
While the other three provinces, Maluku, North Maluku and East Nusa Tenggara, may have Melanesian minorities, they cannot be genuinely characterised as Papuan.
Face value
Why were journalists in Honiara not challenging such statements?
Defending the MSG decision, Bainimarama said: “Fiji believes we are acting in the best interests of the people in West Papua.”
He added: “For our part, Fiji has been guided by a number of overriding principles in approaching the West Papua issue. The first and foremost of these is that Indonesian sovereignty over West Papua cannot be questioned. The province[s are] an integral part of Indonesia.”
Bainimarama even commended President Joko Widodo for the “steps they are taking to improve conditions in West Papua for its Melanesian population”.
Frankly, it seems that Bainimarama and O’Neill and their advisers have been either conned or seduced by the promises of development aid from Jakarta.
Timor-Leste was invaded illegally by Indonesia in 1975 and for the next 24 years, Jakarta argued the territory was “Indonesian sovereignty”. But Timor independence was restored in 2002.
David Robie in a 2015 interview with Tagata Pasifika about West Papua. Video: TP
‘Untrue statements’ Andrew Johnson, a 20-year veteran with the Australia West Papua Association, specialising in historical research and analysis, has taken issue with “untrue statements” in the Fijian and Indonesian “spin” at the MSG summit.
The Indonesian delegate has claimed that the United Nations has made a resolution granting Indonesia sovereignty over West Papua, “Kita harus tahu, resolusi PBB telah mengakui Papua Barat adalah bagian dari Indonesia.”
And Fiji’s Prime Minister is telling the MSG gathering that “Indonesian sovereignty over West Papua cannot be questioned. The province is an integral part of Indonesia.”
But neither of those statements are true.
I wrote a draft UN General Assembly resolution that the Vanuatu Parliament wanted to tender five years ago asking that the International Court of Justice be allowed to give its advice whether West Papua is legally part of Indonesia or is a non-self-governing territory.
As it happens, I also believe West Papua is a UN Trust Territory due to Indonesia asking and the UN General Assembly putting UN Charter article 85 part 1 into effect when it made General Assembly Resolution 1752; the result of which would mean that New Zealand and other UN members are legally required to promote West Papua towards independence under article 76 of the Charter.
Whether I am correct, or the Fijian PM is correct, is a matter that only the International Court of Justice (ICJ) can answer.
The MSG has raised the issue of the sovereignty of West Papua, and I think it is long overdue that our governments asked the ICJ to answer the question whether West Papua is a UN trust territory or not.
Flashback: This article was first published on David Robie’s blog Café Pacific here in 2015.
Professor David Robie, director of AUT University’s Pacific Media Centre, was presented with the award at the just-concluded 24th Asian Media Information and Communication Centre (AMIC) conference in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
AMIC board member Dr Pirongrong Ramasoota of Chulalongkorn University in Thailand said Dr Robie had been awarded one of two trophies for 2015 for his “unstinting contribution” as an Asia-Pacific journalist, media educator and “human rights and environmental champion”.
She read out a citation about Dr Robie’s work over more than two decades, saying he had made “outstanding contributions in all areas of the award categories — research, education, institution-building and excellence in journalism”.
Pacific Media Centre’s David Robie gets into the spirit of awards night, brandishing a sword during a traditional Arabian dance. Image: Khairiah A. Rahman/AUT
Dr Ramasoota mentioned a forthcoming book next month by Dr Robie, a fresh updated edition of his Eyes of Fire marking the 30th anniversary of the Rainbow Warrior bombing by French secret agents on 10 July 1985.
She also praised another recent book, Don’t Spoil My Beautiful Face, which the citation described as a “tribute to human rights in the Pacific, capturing the struggles of the oppressed and the pivotal role that journalism can play to initiate positive change”.
The other 2015 award winner was Dr Alan Hancock, a globally influential communicator, administrator and media development specialist from the United Kingdom.
Communication pioneer
One of the pioneers of modern communication development in Asia, Dr Hancock was based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, as UNESCO’s regional communication adviser for Asia in the 1960-70s and played a key role in planning the Asia-Pacific Institute for Broadcasting Development (AIDB).
He initiated many other UNESCO communication activities from Turkey to Japan and into the Pacific.
Dr David Robie . . . on AMIC’s Asian Communication Award wall of fame marking the organisation’s 50th anniversary. Image: AMIC
The 2014 award was made to Filipino journalist Juan L. Mercado for his “outstanding contributions and peerless leadership in Asian journalism and media development”.
Jailed without charge during martial law in the Philippines in the 1970s, Mercado founded DEPTHnews media agency, the Philippine Press Institute and the Press Foundation of Asia.
This award could not be made last year because a military coup forced the cancellation of the AMIC conference due to be hosted in Thailand.
Both Dr Hancock and Mercado were unable to be in Dubai for the awards at a dinner at the Mina A’Salam resort hosted by the American University of Dubai.
The board of AMIC also made three special awards to a national government and two organisations, which had “given birth, nurtured and sustained” AMIC for its first 44 years of existence.
Special awards
Awards were made to the Singapore government and the Nanyang Technological University for their commitment and contribution to the hosting and development of AMIC, and also to the German political aid agency Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES) for its “achievements in ethical and democratic media and communication development” in the Asia-Pacific region.
Nominations for the awards are screened by a special AMIC jury and the final selection is made by the board. The AMIC secretariat is this year moving from Singapore to Manila where it will be hosted by the Philippine Women’s University.
Chairman Arun Mahizhnan of Singapore stepped down as board chairman and his successor is veteran communication studies scholar and prolific author Dr Crispin Maslog of the Philippines, who was also winner of the 2011 Asia Communication Award.
AMIC’s annual conference is expected to be held in Manila next year.
David Robie is author of Eyes of Fire about the last voyage, and he carried on reporting on Asia-Pacific environmental, human rights and socio-political issues for the next few years.
In 1993, he embarked on a media education career at the University of Papua New Guinea and the University of the South Pacific.
He became founding director of AUT University’s Pacific Media Centre in Auckland, New Zealand.
After the bombing, David was awarded New Zealand’s 1985 Media Peace Prize for his reporting of the Rainbow Warrior voyage to the Marshall Islands and the sabotage by French state terrorists.
Interviewer:Hayley Becht, 21 May 2015 David Robie, Independent journalist (NZ)
Television and Screen Production, School of Communication Studies, AUT University, in partnership with AUT Pacific Media Centre and Little Island Press. http://www.pmc.aut.ac.nz
Author David Robie and Little Island Press are soon releasing the fifth edition of the Eyes of Fire book, marking the 30th anniversary of the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior.
Dr Robie, who was a journalist on board the ship in 1985, says his focus was on the humanitarian voyage to Rongelap Atoll and the new edition will put the bombing by French secret agents on 10 July 1985 into context.
“When I thought about it and planned what to do, I thought well this is going to be quite an extraordinary thing,“ he says.
“So I planned the book right from the start.”
Publishing director at Little Island Press Tony Murrow says an innovative microsite was launched this week and it’s all about connecting communities. http://eyes-of-fire.littleisland.co.nz/
“I think what we’ve seen with the 30 years that have passed since the Rainbow Warrior bombing, there’s a whole generation that doesn’t really know about this part of the Pacific, this episode in Pacific history.”
French journalist Amelie David, who is now living in Auckland, wants to find out more about what the event means to the average New Zealander.
She says older generations of French people who live in Auckland know about the ship, but in her native France, it’s a different story.
“Back in the country though I would not say it’s a big topic and it’s a big issue,” she says.
Amelie says she hopes to help educate local French communities and encourage younger generations to learn about the incident.
Reporter/Editor: Alistar Kata, contributing editor of the Pacific Media Centre’s Pacific Media Watch freedom project.
Interviewees: Dr David Robie, director of the Pacific Media Centre Tony Murrow, publishing director of Little Island Press Amelie David, French journalist
Video clip sources: Euronews, Café Pacific, Fernando Pereira, Greenpeace
(CC) Pacific Media Centre, School of Communication Studies, AUT University, Auckland, Aotearoa/New Zealand. www.pmc.aut.ac.nz
Fiji Elections Supervisor Mohammed Saneem answers questions from journalists during the 2014 election. Image: Ricardo Morris/Repúblika
COMMENTARY: By David Robie
Almost eight months after the much-heralded election to usher Fiji back into democracy mode, the country will mark World Press Freedom Day today facing serious questions about its claims to have a free and fair media.
The harsh 2010 Media Industry Development Decree is still a spectre. Although Fiji has produced marked improvements over the past year, recognised by global freedom organisations, many challenges lie ahead.
The Multinational Observer Group’s final report on the 17 September 2014 election found the poll “credible” — as foreshadowed by its preliminary report in spite of critics’ cries of “fraud”. However, last month’s report also offers a raft of recommendations for improvement, including the news media.
Among these recommendations is a call for an independent watchdog for the Fiji Media Industry Development Authority (MIDA). The authority was spawned by the 2010 decree and played a mixed role during the general election.
Five months after the vote, Fiji was ranked 107th out of 179 countries listed in the 2014 World Press Freedom Index. The index is drawn up by the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders.
Fiji rose 10 places from the previous ranking in 2013. Major reasons for this improvement were the adoption of a new constitution on 6 September 2013, widely criticised as it had been over many months, and the “free and fair” elections promised by the end of September 2014.
News media and civil society groups hoped that the election would open the door to a free media climate, which had been lacking since Commodore Voreqe Bainimarama’s military coup in December 2006.
Expanding the bounds of public debate Public debate has improved markedly over the past few months. News media have been relatively more robust in terms of published political comment and debate, particularly in news columns and in letters to the editor.
But civilian Prime Minister Bainimarama, who retired as rear-admiral last year, retains an autocratic streak. This was on show in a recent tirade against The Fiji Times for alleged “irresponsible journalism” over the reporting of race-based education comments by Opposition Leader Ro Teimumu Kepa.
A major problem previously has been a “divided media” and a professional leadership void left by the now-defunct Fiji Media Council. The council had been accused of “failing to handle ethical lapses and controversies satisfactorily or fast enough”.
The harsh 2010 Media Industry Development Decree is still a spectre.
Ricardo Morris, editor of Repúblika and president of the revived Fijian Media Association, spoke at the recent 20th anniversary conference of Pacific Journalism Review in Auckland about problems facing the media after the election. According to Morris:
It can be argued that such division was one reason it was easy for the military government to bring into force the Media Industry Development Decree in 2010. The government justified its actions with reference to some of the unscrupulous journalist practices that should rightly be condemned.
Morris also pointed out that the Fiji Media Council’s legacy continued in the form of a code of ethics for media workers embedded in the decree.
We realised a bit too late that we were all in this together despite our personal political views or those of the companies that we worked for. United we stand, divided we fall.
Constitution leaves media exposed In a joint submission to the United Nations Human Rights Council’s second universal periodic review, the Auckland-based Pacific Media Centre (PMC) and Paris-based Reporters Without Borders (RSF) argued that the constitution, described by the Fiji government as “coup proof”, still restricted freedom of the press in four particular areas.
The first criticism was that too much executive power had been placed with the offices of the prime minister and the attorney-general. They controlled nearly all appointments to the judiciary and independent commissions.
Secondly, the chief justice and president of the Court of Appeal would effectively be political appointments. This created a risk of abuse of power.
Thirdly, the Bill of Rights is weakened by “severe limitations on many rights”. In what is known as the “claw-back clause”, governments would simply need to show that a limitation is “reasonable”.
Previously, the state had clamped down on independent journalists, bloggers and netizens. This so-called claw-back clause makes them vulnerable to selective government pressure in the future.
Fourthly, the constitution provides few avenues for citizens to participate and ensure “good and transparent government”.
Signs of self-censorship but also hope While online commentaries and letters to the editor have featured more vibrant debate in recent months – both in the lead-up to the election and since – a climate of self-censorship continues.
The recent tragic killing of a leading Fiji journalist and gender issues advocate, Losana McGowan, allegedly by her partner, was greeted by surprisingly muted media responses about Pacific-wide domestic violence. Some commentators saw this as reflecting self-censorship. However, some statements on this issue surfaced this week and Bainimarama himself gave a strong speech on the topic when opening the Pacific Women Parliamentary Partnership Forum on Wednesday.
But there are hopeful signs on the horizon. These include the recent buy-out of the regional Islands Business news magazine by a group of feisty local journalists, including former Fiji Times editor-in-chief Netani Rika and current editor Samisoni Pareti.
This should strengthen what is arguably the most influential Pacific publication based in Fiji.
The book by the PMC’s director covers many countries and territories in the Asia-Pacific region such as Bougainville, Fiji, New Caledonia, Papua New Guinea, Indonesia Philippines, Samoa, Tonga, Timor-Leste, Vanuatu and West Papua, and wide-ranging issues such as human rights, nuclear testing, climate change refugees and the “changing paradigms in Pacific journalism”.
Dr Thomas writes:
This book is a compendium of writings by David Robie and is a reflection of his long and eventful career as a journalist, media educator, political commentator and human rights activist in the Asia-Pacific region.
There are expats who opt for patronising accounts of the realities that they have been part of and others who have intentionally learned from the communities that they have been privileged to be a part of.
Thankfully, Robie belongs to this latter category. It is difficult to understand the Pacific precisely because of its extraordinary diversity, but also because there is a paucity of information on the realities of life in the Pacific.
David has tried hard to set that record straight and this book is a reflection of the reporting of key events that have shaped the Pacific – from the struggles related to the decolonisation of New Caledonia to the 1985 bombing of the Rainbow Warrior (on which Robie incidentally was still on board two days prior to the bombing), the political economy of the media in the Pacific in particular in Fiji, the travails of media education in the Pacific and the general volatility in the region caused by economic and political instability and the impunity with which colonial and neocolonial relationships continue to shape the Pacific.
The writings are important historical accounts of the shaping of Pacific nations caught as they are between their own internal ethnic complexities on the one hand, and external drivers of change on the other, who quite often deal with the symptoms and not the causes, thus opting for the “dependency” model and band-aid solutions.
It is extraordinary that David has been writing about climate change and nuclear fall-out refugees in the Pacific perhaps for much longer than anyone other journalist. The stories on the nuclear crisis include textured accounts of the lives of ordinary people who were mere pawns in the context of French nuclear testing in the Pacific and who endured humanitarian tragedies that were scarcely reported in the rest of the world.
That David covered such stories with an eye for detail and commitment to truth-telling is one of the strengths of this volume.
While the book includes accounts of struggles in the Philippines, Timor-Leste and Fiji, it also includes a very interesting section on the status of, and the challenges faced by journalism education in the Pacific.
Having been involved in assessing the programme at the University of the South Pacific, Fiji, I am familiar with David’s critique, in particular, the lack of enabling environments supportive of journalism education in the Pacific.
The volatility in the region shapes all enterprises including the practice of journalism and David’s account clearly reveals the consequences of this continuing uncertainty on both the practice of journalism and journalism education in the region.
This is an important addition to the literature on the media in the Pacific. Investigative journalism at its best, uncovering the lapses of failed states, distant empires and domestic politics.
Fijian voters line up at a polling station in Suva, Fiji, in the 2014 general election. Image: AUT/NZH/AP
AUT University
Coverage of the Fijian elections by three New Zealand postgraduate student journalists has been awarded a top prize at the annual Ossie Awards.
Mads Nyborg Anneberg, Alistar Kata and Tom Carnegie from Auckland University of Technology’s (AUT) Pacific Media Centre won the prize for best use of convergent media at the awards in Sydney, which celebrate top student journalism in the South Pacific region.
Ossie judge and Australian journalist Tania Bawden said the students’ coverage “provided wide-ranging insights into a range of issues and election dramas, in the first democratic elections in Fiji since the military coup of 2006”.
Professor David Robie, head and founder of the Pacific Media Centre (PMC) and editor of independent news outlet Pacific Scoop, says their coverage was of extremely high quality: “In my opinion they provided the best New Zealand media coverage of the elections.”
The trip, part of course requirements for the Asia-Pacific Journalism paper run through PMC, was a first for a New Zealand journalism school.
“No school has done anything like this before,” Dr Robie says. “Mads and Alistar were blown away by the experience in Fiji — it was a real opportunity for growth.”
Anneberg and Kata (based at Wansolwasa and Republica newspapers respectively) flew to Suva a week before the election; Carnegie acted as coordinating editor and was based at PMC.
Dr Robie says that being on the ground a week before the election gave them head start when it came to connection with local people:
“People can be a bit wary of media who descend around election days and then disappear. By spending longer in Suva they were able to develop good relationships and gain greater insights into attitudes about the election.”
Dr Robie says there was always potential for difficulty covering an election in such a volatile political environment.
“We never quite knew what would happen if things didn’t go Bainimarama’s way,” says Robie. Would there be another coup? What impact would that have on our students?”
Anneberg says that there was one situation that made him uneasy when he was reporting from Suva : “I was wandering around taking photos of the new Parliament Buildings and was taken in for a small interrogation, where I pretended to be a tourist because I felt uneasy about the situation. But it was understandable they were on edge because the building also housed the Prime Minister’s office.”
Carnegie says there were some difficulties getting the stories out of Fiji: “There was a three-day media blackout that ended at midnight on election day; the penalties for breaching were either a fine of $50,000 and/or 10 years imprisonment. It is common for a country to have a media blackout but three days is extensive, and the threat of imprisonment is unheard of.
“I believe the electoral commission stopped us from publishing one of Mads’ stories. I also received a ‘friendly reminder’ email from the commission that the blackout applied to international media. That made no sense…plus I was outside their jurisdiction, so I continued to cover the election during the blackout. However Mads and Alistar had to stop.”
Dr Robie says in spite of the increased transparency offered by the internet, such situations reveal how difficult reporting in the Asia-Pacific region can be.
“There are a lot of media freedom issues, journalists face dangers not present in New Zealand; the Asia-Pacific Journalism course helps prepare students for that. We also help students to make sense of the different legal systems around the region.”
Dr Robie, a journalist in the Asia-Pacific region for more than two decades, has experienced the difficulties they can face. He has written 10 books on politics and media freedom in the region; the most recent being Don’t Spoil My Beautiful Face: Media, Mayhem and Human Rights in the Pacific, published this year by Little Island Press.
This story is part of a content partnership with AUT University.
On the eve of a vital meeting in Port Vila planning a more unified stance over independence in West Papua by disparate Melanesian solidarity groups earlier this month, the issue of Papua and Indonesian human rights violations was also the topic of a conference almost 2200 km away in Aotearoa New Zealand.
In Vila, the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP) emerged as the umbrella organisation to carry forward Papuan aspirations and to negotiate with the Melanesian Spearhead Group.
The Indonesian news agency Antara sent one of its most senior journalists all the way from Jakarta to cover last week’s conference in Auckland, yet the local New Zealand media barely noticed the lively political conference.
Comprising the National Committee for West Papua (KNPB), West Papuan National Coalition for Liberation and the Federal Republic of West Papua, the group wants to reverse the MSG refusal last year to grant membership status without it becoming “more representative”.
“I’m really confident that we will be a full member next year,” said a spokesperson, Benny Wenda. “We are the ultimate because we are Melanesian. Geographically and racially, we are Melanesia.”
The Indonesian news agency Antara sent one of its most senior journalists all the way from Jakarta to cover last week’s conference in Auckland, yet the local New Zealand media barely noticed the lively political conference.
In Auckland, a series of journalists, media educators and human rights advocates spoke about the situation in Fiji since the first post-coup general election in 2006 and also the ongoing West Papua issues at the first-ever “Political journalism in the Asia-Pacific” conference in New Zealand.
The Indonesian news agency Antara sent one of its most senior journalists all the way from Jakarta to cover last week’s Pacific Journalism Reviewconference in Auckland, yet the local New Zealand media barely noticed the lively political conference.
Apart from a half-hour interview on Radio NZ’s Sundaywith Max Stahl, the Timor-Leste film maker and investigative journalist world-famous for his live footage of the 1991 Santa Cruz massacre — images that ultimately led to the world’s first independence-by-video triumph some eight years later — and a couple of bulletins on RNZ Pacific, you would have hardly known the event was on.
But the conference was packed with compelling and newsworthy presentations by journalists and media educators. Topics ranged from asylum seekers to the emerging “secret state” in Australia; from climate change to the logging of “cloud forest’ on the island of Kolombangara; from postelections Fiji to the political ecology of mining in New Caledonia.
All tremendously hard-hitting stuff and a refreshing reminder how parochial and insignificant the New Zealand media is when it comes to regional Asia-Pacific affairs.
New Zealand editors are more interested in the ISIL beheadings of Syria and Iraq than the horrendous human rights violations happening under their noses in their own Pacific “front yard”.
Ampatuan massacre Take the 2009 Ampatuan massacre, for example, in the southern Philippines, where 58 people were killed in cold blood in an ambush of an electoral motorcade — 32 of them journalists. A candlelight vigil took place on the AUT city campus at PJR2014 to remember the victims.
Not a word in the local media.
One of the lively exchanges at the conference involved a clash of “truths” over alleged and persistent Indonesian human rights abuses in West Papua.
This was precisely why Antara’s Rahmad Nasution made the trip — to give the government spin to deflect any accusations and statements such as those made by West Papuan Media editor Nick Chesterfield from Australia, and New Zealand-based Maire Leadbeater of the West Papuan Auckland Action group.
Nasution’s business card simply states “journalist” (although he is described as “chief executive” in other sources after a decade working with the agency) and he stayed in the back row of the auditorium for most of the conference. But he became instantly animated as soon as Indonesia came in for any criticism.
Nasution pointed out that the new President, Joko Widodo, had singled out Papua to make his first visit to a “province’ during the election campaign: “There is a big hope in Indonesia that the new government will do its best to improve the situation there.”
“West Papua is more than 4400 km from Jakarta — it is a long, long way,” replied Chesterfield.
“When Jokowi surrounds himself in cabinet with unreformed human rights abusers, he has sent a message to the military as well that he is not going to challenge it.
“So — I had better be careful how I say this — but it is very much up to the way the Indonesian people hold Jokowi to his promises, and take action if he doesn’t fulfil his promises.
“I agree that Indonesian civil society is very much pro-peace in West Papua — not necessarily pro-independence — but it is certainly pro ‘Let’s sort this out, let’s have dialogue.’ This is a really positive sign [compared with] before.
Papuan right “But at the end of the day, it is not up to the Indonesian people. It is up to the West Papuan people and their right to self-determination, and their right to organise their own media.”
Chesterfield shared the podium with two speakers from Fiji, Repúblika editor Ricardo Morris, who is also president of the Fijian Media Association, and senior journalism lecturer Dr Shailendra Singh of the University of the South Pacific.
Ironically, both Morris and Dr Singh — and also Television New Zealand Pacific correspondent Barbara Dreaver — came in for some flak from Fijian authorities and the propaganda press (i.e. the Fiji Sun). None of the criticism from Fiji Media Industry Authority chair Ashwin Raj was based on an actual reading of the speeches or observing the livestream feed.
Instead, Raj was reacting to a Pacific Media Watch headline “Fiji media still face ‘noose around neck’ challenges”. In fact, Morris was referring specifically to the “noose” around Fiji Television because of its six-monthly licence renewals. At any time, the licence could be revoked.
However, in reality the “noose” also applies to the whole of the Fiji media while the draconian Media Industry Development Decree remains in force. It needs to be repealed at the first available opportunity for real press freedom to return to Fiji.
Media freedom as an issue in the Pacific has been defined in far too narrow terms, as if Big Brother governments and politicians ignorant about the role of media are the only problem. Of course, they’re not. There are many other issues that are vitally important in the region that impinge on media freedom yet are rarely mentioned — such as self-censorship, media ownership and convergence, poor qualifications and salaries for many journalists (which make them potentially open to undue influence and bribery) and lack of education.
ANALYSIS: By David Robie
A former news magazine editor turned media educator at the University of the South Pacific, Shailendra Singh, has cautioned about not taking many of the these issues more seriously. As he notes, criticisms of media standards in Fiji, for example, ought to be taken more constructively in a quest for improved standards and strengthening media freedom.
“The litany of complaints against the media cannot always be dismissed out of hand,” he says. “Concerns about unbalanced and unethical reporting, sensationalism, insensitivity, lack of depth and research in articles and a poor understanding of the issues are too frequent and too numerous.
Another common complaint is that the media is loath to make retractions or correct mistakes. It has even been accused of bringing down a government or two.”1
While the 1987 coups were a “watershed year” for the Fiji media (with one of the two daily newspapers closing, never to reopen because of censorship, and the other temporarily adopting self-censorship to survive), the media learned to be cautious in its reporting.2 By the time the George Speight attempted coup happened in May 2000, many of the experienced journalists who had reported the 1987 political upheaval had left the country:
“A new generation of reporters found themselves in the frontline of another history-making episode. Again there are examples of courageous reporting, along with allegations that the media had fallen for the photogenic and quotable Speight, and his nationalistic message.”3
By the time of the 2006 coup by Commodore Voreqe Bainimarama, the nationalist and indigenous paramountcy rhetoric had vanished. Instead, this coup was claimed to be a “‘clean up’ campaign against corruption and racism” that the military commander alleged had become entrenched under the leadership of elected Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase, a former banker who rose to political power after the Speight putsch due to Bainimarama’s patronage.4
The Bainimarama regime was just as critical of the media as the ousted democratic governments. Self-censorship by the media was replaced by the longest sustained censorship regime of any Pacific country, imposed when the 1997 Constitution was abrogated at Easter 2009.
Failure by the Fiji Media Council to get its own house in order led first to a deeply flawed media “review” by Hawai’i-based former Fiji academic Dr Jim Anthony commissioned by the Fiji Human Rights Commission amid controversy, and then the imposition of the notorious Fiji Media Development Decree 2010.5 Two Fiji Times publishers (Evan Hannah in 2008 and Rex Gardner in January 2009) and the Fiji Sun’s Russell Hunter (in 2008) were deported.
Although the Bainimarama regime never succeeded in closing The Fiji Times in a cat-and-mouse game, as it undoubtedly wished, the government did manage to force the Australian-based owner News Limited (a subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation) to sell the newspaper to the local Motibhai Group in 2010. Chief editor Netani Rika, long a thorn in the side of the regime, and deputy editor Sophie Foster were also ousted and replaced with a more compliant editorship by Fred Wesley.
A change of direction It was a refreshing change from the usual back-slapping and we-can-do-no-wrong rhetoric by media owners to hear comments from people such as the then Fiji Human Rights Commission director, Dr Shaista Shameem, and media and politics lecturer Dr Tarcisius Kabutaulaka at a University of the South Pacific seminar marking World Press Freedom Day (WPFD) on 3 May 2002.
Dr Shameem wants a higher educational standard for Pacific journalists. In her view the region’s journalists need to know far more about history, politics, sociology, philosophy and the sciences.6
“Anyone can learn the technical skills of journalism – that’s the easy part,” she says. “The hard part is to understand the worlds that you are writing about. My definition of a good journalist is someone with such in-depth understanding of the issues that the words, though simply written, virtually leap out from the page.”
Solomon Islander Kabutaulaka, who has written widely as a columnist as well as critically examining the profession of journalism, raises the issue of media monopolies: “This raises the questions such as: Who controls or owns the media? Whose interests do they represent?” he asks. “In the world of globalisation and with the advent of the internet we must realise that a variety of media does not always mean a variety of sources.”
Kabutaulaka also wonders whether Pacific media provide “adequate information that will enhance democracy”. As he points out, “it is not an impartial medium. Rather, many [in the media] also have vested interests.”
One of the problems in the region is that there is virtually no in-depth reportage of the media itself. While some sections of the media attempt valiantly to ensure power is accountable, there is little reflection about the power of the media.
In fact, there is little media accountability to the public — nothing comparable to ABC Television’s Media Watch in Australia, or TVNZ7’s Media7 (later TV3’s Media3) in New Zealand, and Radio New Zealand’s Mediawatch to keep news organisations on their toes. Most media councils are rubber stamps for their media members with little proactive action.
Most are “struggling for relevance” to the rapidly changing digital industry, according to a PACMAS-funded review of national media councils in 2013.7 “They are politically and financially challenged to continue to uphold their advocacy role for a plural, independent and professional media … A new generation of graduates and younger media practitioners … is challenging the ineffectiveness of media associations in several countries.”8
Call for an independent Pacific Islands journalists’ network Many challenges lie ahead in “navigating the future” of Pacific Islands media. In my experience, while there are a number of Pacific Islands media organisations and workshops around the region, rarely do they acknowledge the remarkable growth in the past few years of New Zealand-based Pacific media, both vernacular and English-language.
Quality and informative programmes such as Tagata Pasifika on Television New Zealand and the Pacific Radio Network, the magazine Spasifik, and newspapers such as Taimi `o Tonga, which is now based back in Tonga, are just some examples.
“Don’t Spoil my Beautiful Face” . . . the cover. Image: Little Island Press
There is a need for an independent Pacific Islands journalists’ network which nurtures and develops their needs and there is a need for more Pacific Islands journalists working in the mainstream media in Australia and New Zealand. This is especially so in this age of globalisation. The large attendance at the inaugural Pacific Islands Media Association (PIMA) conference at AUT University in Auckland in October 2001, and subsequent conferences, was testimony to this. The establishment of the Apia-based Pasifika Media Association (PASIMA) resource website in 2010 is another example.9
However, more than a decade on, PIMA is now struggling to retain this leadership role in New Zealand and also needs to be more involved in the region in support of its sister and brother journalists. There is a vital need for a greater plurality of media voices and education if freedom of speech and the press are to flourish in the Pacific.
The late New Zealand High Commissioner to Fiji, Tia Barrett, made an important statement about indigenous issues and journalism at the University of the South Pacific journalism awards presentation in Suva during November 2000, which riled the military-installed regime:
“What is difficult to accept in this dialogue on indigenous rights is the underlying assumption that those rights are pre-eminent over other more fundamental human rights. This just cannot be so, not in today’s world … Nowhere is it written in any holy scripture that because you are indigenous you have first rights over others in their daily rights. You should be respected and highly regarded as an indigenous person, but respect is earned not obtained on demand.”10
As Tia Barrett said, information would make the difference in the process of cultural change for Pacific Islanders in the face of globalisation to improve people’s lives. This is where the journalist plays a vitally important role, always bearing in mind the needs of the people and their thirst for knowledge.
Since the fourth coup on 5 December 2006 by Commodore (now Rear Admiral) Voreqe Bainimarama, press freedom has been on a downhill slide in Fiji culminating in the draconian Fiji Media Industry Development Decree 2010. Although formal military censorship virtually ended later at the start of 2012, Freedom House’s annual media freedom report in 2013 said the harsh penalties under the decree – such as FJ$1000 fines or up to two years in jail for journalists and up to FJ$100,000 for organisations breaching the law – had “deterred most media from criticising the regime”.
Press freedom on a downwards spiral. Image: WACC
Defenders of the regime claim there is “freedom of the press” and it is the media editors who are failing to take advantage of the freedom that they have. New director of the Fiji Media Development Authority (MIDA), Matai Akauola, former general manager of the Pacific Islands News Association (PINA), said in a Radio Australia Pacific Beat interview:
“In the last few years, we haven’t taken anyone to task, so that speaks for itself … We even have clauses in the new Constitution that have provisions for free media in Fiji. So for us everything is open to the media …”11
But in February 2013, The Fiji Times was fined FJ$300,000 and the editor given a suspended jail term for contempt of court for a news report critical of the Fiji judiciary published by the New Zealand Sunday Star-Times in 2011.12 While this was not related to the decree, the harsh penalty added to a “chilling” climate for media, echoed by the experience of commentators on the ground such as US journalism professor Robert Hooper who ran an investigative journalism course for Fiji Television during 2012:
“I stressed the coverage of controversial stories on issues of national importance that, if produced, would be banned under Fiji’s Public Emergency Regulations (PER) — an edict issued in April 2009 that placed censors in newsrooms — and the Media Industry Development Decree 2010, a vaguely worded law that criminalises anything government deems is “against the public interest or order”.
“Under PER, overt censorship as well as self-censorship became routine at Fiji Television in 2009, in stark contrast to the openness and independence of the newly launched Fiji TV whose reporters I trained in the 1990s. “Until PER was lifted in January 2012, military censors arrived at Fiji TV’s newsroom daily at 2pm and 5pm to suppress stories deemed “political” or “critical of government”. The arrest of reporters and confiscation of videotapes led swiftly to self-censorship in a demoralised newsroom.”13
In October 2013, the regime banned foreign journalists, media trainers and freelancers, and aid donors offering training from Fiji unless they were registered and sought approval from the state-run MIDA.14
The self-censorship climate also impacted on academic freedom. At the University of the South Pacific in 2011, one of its most eminent professors, economist and former National Federation Party MP Dr Wadan Narsey, was gagged and ultimately forced out of the academy.15
Lamenting in one of his prolific columns that the Fiji media was no longer a genuine watchdog, Dr Narsey added: “The real weakness in Fiji’s media industry currently is that Fiji’s media owners are not ‘dedicated independent media companies’, but corporate entities with much wider business interests which are far more valuable to the media owners than their profits from their media assets.”16
He was later gagged17 from giving an address to journalism students on the UNESCO World Press Freedom Day event in 2013.18
In the inaugural UNESCO World Press Freedom Day lecture at AUT University on 3 May 2013, Professor Mark Pearson said that like teaching and nursing, a journalism career based on “truth-seeking and truth-telling in our societies had an element of a ‘mission’ “ about it. “All societies need their ‘Tusitalas’ – their storytellers,” he added.19
But he also warned that social media and blogging seemed to have “spawned an era of new super-pamphleteer — the ordinary citizen with the power to disseminate news and commentary” immediately. This raises the stakes for media accuracy, credibility and freedom. “It would be an historic irony and a monumental shame,” Professor Pearson said, “if press freedom met its demise through the sheer pace of irresponsible truth-seeking and truth-telling today.”20 n
An extract from David Robie’s media freedom book Don’t Spoil my Beautiful Face: Media, Mayhem and Human Rights in the Pacific (Little Island Press, Auckland, 2014). The book is available from Little Island Press.
Professor Robie is the semi_retired director of the Pacific Media Centre at Auckland University of Technology in New Zealand and convenor of the Pacific Media Watch freedom project. The cartoon is by Malcolm Evans/Pacific Journalism Review.
Notes 1. Shailendra Singh (2002). Of croaking toads, liars and ratbags. Wansolwara, 7(4): 6.
2. Shailendra Singh and Biman Prasad (eds) (2008). Coups, media and democracy in Fiji [Editorial]. Fijian Studies: A Journal of Contemporary Fiji, 6(1 & 2): 1–8; see also David Robie (ed.) (2001). Crisis and coverage. Pacific Journalism Review, 7(1).
3. Ibid.
4. Singh and Prasad (eds) (2008). Coups, media and democracy in Fiji [Editorial], p. 3.
10. Tia Barrett (2000). Journalism and Indigenous Issues. Address by the New Zealand High Commissioner at the USP Journalism Awards, Suva, November. Retrieved on November 2011.
"Ask about our military dictatorship stimulus specials!" Cartoon: David Pope/The Walkley Magazine
Brent Edwards looks at journalist and academic David Robie’s scrutiny of the Pacific region’s governance and journalism. Cartoon by David Pope
By Brent Edwards
David Robie has spent 35 years working as a journalist and journalism teacher in the Asia-Pacific region. In Don’t Spoil My Beautiful Face: Media, mayhem and human rights in the Pacific, Dr Robie summarises his reportage on many of the significant events that have marked his years working in the Pacific.
It is part autobiography, part history and part journalism treatise.
As well as providing his perceptive analysis of human rights and democracy, or lack of, in the Pacific, Robie also spends time commenting on journalistic practices, particularly as they relate to reporting on our immediate neighbourhood. For someone like me, who is not an expert on the Pacific, the book is a valuable reference to the significant issues that continue to bedevil the region.
Robie’s book is broad in its compass. It covers the Kanaky struggle for self-determination in New Caledonia, the rise of the Flosse dynasty in Tahiti, coups in Fiji, Chinese influence in Tonga, the struggle in Bougainville, the fight for independence in Timor-Leste, the ongoing struggle in West Papua and the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior in Auckland in New Zealand.
His stories range as far away as covering indigenous struggles in Canada to the violence in the Philippines. And always he is concerned with human rights in the Pacific.
Robie includes articles he has written over the past 30 years or so, updated by his contemporary analysis of what is happening now. Take New Caledonia, for instance. That chapter includes an article Robie wrote for the New Zealand Listener in 1984 titled “Blood on their banner”.
He writes that his reporting on New Caledonia led to a protracted and acrimonious dispute with Fiji’s Islands Business publisher Robert Keith-Reid, when the magazine accused him in 1989 of “leftist” support of Kanak activists. It is just one example of the pressure that has been exerted on Robie and other journalists over their coverage of independence movements in the region.
Journalists as part of the solution
But it is Robie’s comments on the practice of journalism that should excite the most debate. He makes no bones about his distaste of regimes and other vested interests in the region trying to suppress press freedoms, often by intimidation and threats.
His views on journalism in the region have not just been shaped by his experience as a journalist. He has also been the head of journalism at both the universities of Papua New Guinea and the South Pacific and he is now professor Pacific journalism and head of AUT’s Pacific Media Centre in Auckland.
Robie praises those journalists throughout the region who struggle to do their job in the face of intimidation, legal restraints and poor pay. But he is less effusive about the role of Western journalism in covering the Pacific.
He questions whether the Western notion of news is appropriate to covering the many complex issues in the region. And, before some journalists protest too loudly, this is not a cry for the media to go soft. But Robie does raise some interesting questions about the role of journalism and whether its approach could be altered.
Robie puts forward the case for journalists practising what he calls critical deliberative journalism — and talanoa journalism — in the region. He argues that Pacific journalists now have a greater task than ever in encouraging democratisation in the region and informed insights into development, social justice and peace issues facing related island states. In other words, he says journalists should be part of the solution, not of the problem.
He says this does not mean allowing political slogans, such as “cultural sensitivity”, to be used as a smokescreen for the abuse of power and violations of human rights. Instead, he says the approach he advocates will put greater pressure on journalists to expose the truth and report on alternatives and solutions.
Robie sums it up this way: “Critical deliberative journalism also means a tougher scrutiny of the region’s institutions and dynamics of governance. Answers are needed for the questions: Why, how and what now?”
Those questions do not just apply to the island states. Here in Australia and New Zealand we, too, might consider a different approach to the way we practise journalism.
Brent Edwards is political editor at Radio New Zealand News. David Pope is the editorial cartoonist at The Canberra Times. This review was first published in The Walkley Magazine, No. 80, July-September 2014
