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Open letter to PM Albanese: Canberra must call on UN to ‘rectify breaches’ over West Papuan decolonisation

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A montage from Australian human rights advocate and author Jim Aubrey's website
A montage from Australian human rights advocate and author Jim Aubrey's website stressing the hypocrisy of Canberra's foreign policy. Image: Screenshot CP

Café Pacific

An author and human rights advocate for West Papuan self-determination today sent an open letter to Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and the federal parliament calling for act of “decency” to correct years of alleged failure in foreign policy.

Jim Aubrey, author of the 1998 book Free East Timor and editor of a pro-independence for West Papua website, claimed in his statement that Australia had supported “impunity for Indonesia’s litany of every universally known classification for crimes against humanity”.

Aubrey called on Canberra to press the United Nations to “rectify breaches” over West Papuan decolonisation.

READ MORE: Other West Papua reports

He also called for a Royal Commission to “investigate the roles of consecutive Australian governments as accessories to Indonesia’s unlawful military occupation and annexation of West Papua” and Indonesia’s “six decades of crimes against humanity”.

Aubrey claimed there were deliberate acts of geopolitical convenience and economic exploitation “while a slaughterhouse of decades of crimes against humanity in both West Papua and East Timor were international public knowledge”.

Author and human rights advocate Jim Aubrey
Author and human rights advocate Jim Aubrey . . . a scathing condemnation of the Australian government over West Papua policy. Image: Jim Aubrey’s website

Unlike Timor-Leste, which gained its full independence in 2002 after 24 years of brutal Indonesian occupation, the Melanesian region of West Papua was annexed by Jakarta after a paratrooper invasion and then a contested “Act of Free Choice” plebiscite in 1969.

The consensus vote for Indonesian rule by 1250 handpicked Papuan elders purportedly under UN supervision has been challenged ever since by both peaceful Papuan activists and a war of liberation fought by the West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNPB-OPM) as not a genuine expression of self-determination by the Indigenous Papuans.

Aubrey’s open letter to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and the federal parliamentarians – attached to an image of two child victims of an atrocity in West Papua — states:

Dear Prime Minister and Parliament,

I cannot confirm for you if these young children are sleeping in exhaustion or sleeping in eternal peace after falling prey to your mates in Indonesia’s defence and security forces.

What I can confirm is that you, with your multiple predecessors, are responsible for failing in decency as a human being … the type of decency that is effortlessly evident in people who do not forsake principle for geopolitical convenience and economic exploitation of a vulnerable people who have the same right to freedom and nation-state sovereignty that we have.

What I can confirm is that your, and your predecessors, multiple acts of dissembling and wholesale lies over six decades of foreign policy treachery and deceit are the reason the average citizen despises politicians. Who can blame them – certainly not I!

What I can confirm is that one West Papuan warrior in their war of liberation has an understanding of elemental and existential values and spiritual belief and ancestral land that is genuine — whereby yours … all of yours, the poison of your can of worms … your delusional superiority … your identity crisis of ambitious self-importance … your inability to support the victims of Indonesia’s illegitimate landgrab and the subsequent six decades of multiple crimes against humanity … must be seen as a testimony of cowardice and deceit and treachery in governance that is anathema to what is stated every year on April 25 to be the noble Anzac tradition.

What I can confirm is that West Papua’s war of liberation will have the same conclusion as East Timor’s war of liberation and that you will be held accountable for upholding a foreign policy that protected Indonesia’s slaughterhouse in West Papua and that this protection provided an environment of impunity for Indonesia’s litany of every universally known classification for crimes against humanity … and that this heinous failure in leadership and duty of care is why Indonesia has got away with it, until now.

What I can confirm is that you and your predecessors have been wilful accessories to these crimes against humanity … wilful accessories to infanticide … by slaughter or by impoverishment where West Papua’s spectacular natural resources and mineral reserves have been plundered by the criminal occupiers and their collaborating governments – ours and many others.

This message is not to simply admonish you. It is to advise you that there are several actions you can undertake before you are overtaken by the events of liberation in West Papua that you and your predecessors have wilfully denied and even sabotaged. We do not need another pathetic fool so besotted with a mass murderer that he embraced him as his long-lost father (Keating to Suharto).

Of course, you can continue to be advised by DFAT’s morally and ethically bankrupt Indonesia desk, or you can straighten your spine and cross the Rubicon with the following meaningful measures:

  • Call upon the United Nations to rectify the many breaches of the UN Charter in regard to West Papua’s decolonisation process. This includes tabling whatever is required at the United Nations General Assembly to implement this process. There are several distinguished West Papuans and other distinguished academics who can advise you on this.
  • Reject out-of-hand any Indonesian claim to the western half of the island of New Guinea.
  • Declare Indonesia’s military occupation and annexation of West Papua unlawful.
  • Recognise West Papua’s nation-state sovereignty as declared by declaration of independence on 1st July, 1971, at the Victoria Headquarters in Jayapura where the OPM raised the Morning Star flag and unilaterally proclaimed West Papua as an independent democratic republic.
  • Suspend all bilateral defence and trade agreements with Indonesia until Indonesia has left West Papua and has coughed up a financial compensation package for the victims of its six decades of crimes against humanity and its unlawful military occupation and annexation of West Papua, and for the destruction and devastation of West Papua’s once pristine environment, and for the theft of the mineral and forestry and agricultural resources. (NOTE: A similar financial compensation package should be forthcoming from the Australian Government, and every armaments exporter to Indonesia, and every multinational corporation that put plunder before principle.)
  • Send a letter to your Indonesian counterpart stating that unless all the above measures are accepted by Indonesia, you will expel the Indonesian ambassador and close all Indonesian embassies and consulates within the Commonwealth of Australia.
  • Initiate a Royal Commission to investigate the roles of consecutive Australian governments as accessories to Indonesia’s unlawful military occupation and annexation of West Papua and as accessories to Indonesia’s six decades of crimes against humanity in West Papua.
  • Initiate a Royal Commission to investigate measures to complete the constitution of the Commonwealth of Australia i.e., by providing chapters on governance of transparency and accountability and judicial measures where the expectations of honesty and integrity are befouled with deliberate acts of geopolitical convenience and economic exploitation while a slaughterhouse of decades of crimes against humanity in both West Papua and East Timor were international public knowledge. (I am happy to act in an advisory capacity for these “missing chapters” to the constitution.) (NOTE: The federal government workplace should have the same workplace standards of employment that exists across every other workplace in our so-called democracy. It should be remembered that you are employed by the Australian people and that the Australian people, as your employers, want transparency and accountability in governance.
  • Clean sweep all positions within DFAT that have contributed to the legally challengeable advice of protecting Indonesia’s criminal military occupation and annexation of West Papua.
  • Establish parliamentary governance based on constitutional accountability i.e., a constitution that will never allow the protection of crimes against humanity for geopolitical convenience and economic exploitation.

Prime Minister, I am sure I have missed some of the prerequisite mechanics for democratic and ethical governance, and for all matters on West Papua. Please don’t kid yourself that you can sidestep your political party’s perpetual failure on West Papua.

Innocent civilians, including children, are victims of Indonesia’s air and ground combat operations, systemic racism and apartheid, every week. Six decades of infanticide!

West Papua’s war of liberation is one of the longest ongoing wars of liberation since the end of the Second World War, a war where the Papuan people were our reliable and courageous allies. It is also, without any exaggeration, a miscarriage of justice unlike any other. High time to set things right and to be on the side of truth and justice.

Yours sincerely,
Jim Aubrey

‘Callous betrayal’ of West Papuans

The TPNPB-OPM statement 1May23
The TPNPB-OPM statement condemning Australia and New Zealand. Image: Screenshot APR

Later today, the TPNPB-OPM issued a statement supporting author Jim Aubrey’s call for a Royal Commission into Australian policy over West Papua and the consecutive Australian government’s alleged roles in Indonesia’s illegal military occupation and annexation of the region.

OPM leader Jeffrey Bomanak said the West Papuan people had suffered “callous betrayal and abandonment” by the Australian government and he also criticised New Zealand.

“If somebody had told me our Second World War allies, Australia and New Zealand, would treat us as collateral damage to Canberra and Wellington’s criminal defence and trade collaboration with Indonesia to steal and plunder my country, and to avert their gaze to the rivers of our blood and guts, I would have found this impossible to believe.

“Unfortunately, the Australian and New Zealand governments are well versed in their own appalling history of crimes against indigenous First Nations people.”

Jim Aubrey is the editor-author of Free East Timor: Australia’s Culpability in East Timor’s Genocide (Random House, 1998). He campaigned in person on East Timor, West Papua, and Tibet in Washington, DC, in 1998 and 2003, as well as touring with an international photographic exhibition displaying the atrocities in East Timor in 1998. This exhibition was endorsed by the Melbourne Holocaust Museum.

Owen Wilkes: Exposing foreign militarism on the ‘backside of the earth’

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Part of the PAX vover showing the alleged
Part of the Fredstidningen PAX cover showing the alleged "spy" equipment. Image: Screenshot APR

By David Robie

When I first encountered Owen Wilkes it was at a range of 17,000 kilometres — the distance between Auckland, Aotearoa, and Stockholm, Sweden. He was already something of an extraordinary and increasingly well-known, although humble, celebrity in the final decade of the Cold War. As a researcher for the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), Owen had taken on the Scandinavian security establishment and challenged and embarrassed it in a quiet and unassuming way for a second time (after an earlier skirmish in Norway), and the powers that be were not going to let him get away with it.

The PAX edition cover, February 1982
The PAX edition cover, February 1982.

My attention was drawn to Owen Wilkes while I was back in Auckland freelancing after working for three years in Paris with the French news agency Agence France-Presse as an editor and correspondent. Before that I had spent several years editing newspapers and reporting on the African continent, mainly in Kenya and South Africa. In that time I had stumbled across an edition of the Fredstidningen PAX, a Swedish magazine featuring sustainable peace and disarmament, in February 1982, which carried the intriguing headline ‘Spionutrustningen’ — ‘Spy gear’.(1)

It was a cover story devoted to the trials of Owen Wilkes. The cover illustration depicted the alleged ‘spy equipment’ belonging to Owen — a trusty bicycle, kitbag, small camera and pocket binoculars.

I contacted Owen to find out more about the back story and these enquiries led to an article and years of correspondence and debate, plus collaboration on two books — Blood on their Banner: Nationalist Struggles in the South Pacific (1989)(2) and Tu Galala: Social Change in the Pacific (1992)(3). We formed a long friendship that stretched to his final years in Kāwhia and his ‘retirement’ from the peace movement and ‘rebirth’ as an archaeologist and occasional community coastal tour guide.

My 1982 New Zealand Times account of the Swedish witch hunt against Owen opened with him questioning the supposed Swedish neutrality of the Cold War era:(4)

Bicycle Snoop Riles the Baltic
Is Sweden breaching its long tradition of neutrality and secretly cooperating with Nato countries? Yes, believes controversial peace researcher Owen Wilkes.

If true, disclosure that the Swedish military really is cooperating with Western nations would be politically disastrous in Sweden. And Wilkes may have touched a panic button by his ‘snooping’ on the Swedish defence communications system.

‘The reason why I got into trouble on this case is simply that Sweden doesn’t want the public discussing the details of military policy the way it is happening in other countries, like Britain and West Germany,’ he says.

Wilkes, 41, a research worker with the highly reputable Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) and an acknowledged expert on defence communications systems, is now out on bail awaiting the 27 April 1982 verdict on his appeal against a six-month prison sentence for allegedly endangering Swedish security by gathering information.

An important new witness for the defence will be Professor Gunnar Myrdal, winner of the 1974 Nobel Economics Prize, and Wilkes has completed his SIPRI duties to concentrate on gathering additional evidence. Both Wilkes and his lawyer, civil rights campaigner Hans-Goran Franck, are confident he will be acquitted in the traumatic affair which has been branded by Sweden’s peace fraternity and leading newspapers as a witchhunt.

‘A witchhunt and a legal disgrace,’ says the Swedish Peace and Arbitration Society, Sweden’s umbrella peace movement. It has called for a parliamentary inquiry.

In a stinging editorial headlined ‘Witchhunt’, the daily newspaper Aftonbladet declared the case had become out of all proportion and suggested Sweden’s defence was ‘run by fools’.

‘It is an over-exaggeration to assume a person on a routine cycle holiday in one of Sweden’s most visited areas, using for the most part only his eyes, can create an equal amount of damage as a renowned spy who sells military secrets,’ the paper said.

New Zealand peace movement campaigners have also reacted strongly. Wilkes has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by Canterbury University sociology professor W E Wilmott in recognition of his 18 years of ‘selfless research on issues related to peace and war.’ And a national petition challenging the Swedish authorities on their handling of the case has been widely circulated.

Christchurch campaigner Larry Ross, chairman of the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation, has lambasted the case as a ‘total nonsense verdict’ and he is among many Australians, Americans and New Zealanders who have protested to Stockholm. ‘The Swedish government is covering itself in embarrassment,’ he says. ‘Owen Wilkes is not a spy.’

Petition organiser Christine Dann, Wellington researcher for the Clerical Workers Association and a member of the Campaign Against Foreign Control of Aotearoa (CAFCA), says she has strong feelings for a fellow researcher in trouble. ‘Owen is a model of how effective you can be as a thorough researcher,’ she says. Dann believes Wilkes has been made a scapegoat amid crucial changes in Swedish politics.

Controversy has long been a fact of life for Wilkes. He believes the activities of the military in any country must be open to scrutiny. But his experiences in Scandinavia — two breach of security convictions in less than a year — have been sobering, and he plans to return to New Zealand as soon as possible…

Until 1981, he was unknown to most Scandinavians. But by the end of the year his bearded face was as familiar to Swedes as tennis ace Björn Borg. In May 1981, Wilkes travelled from Sweden to Oslo for the so-called ‘rabbit trial’, named after the book Onkel Sams kaniner (Uncle Sam’s Rabbits: Technical Intelligence in Norway) about US-funded technical intelligence stations in Norway.(5) Both Wilkes and Norwegian peace researcher Nils Petter Gleditsch, authors of the book, were convicted, given a six-month suspended sentence and fined 10,000 crowns ($2200) each for compiling and publishing information that Norwegian military authorities wanted kept secret.

They maintained that their work was based entirely on open sources, but the court held that the combination of open sources could be detrimental to national security.

They appealed but the Norwegian Supreme Court upheld the verdict in March 1982. Supporters began raising funds to pay the fines. Since 1978, Wilkes has been working with SIPRI, probably the most reputable peace research institute in the world. Its publications are regarded as impartial and accurate, and its research is carried out from ‘open’ sources — that is, information available to the public.

His job at SIPRI? ‘My work concerns a project on foreign military bases — for example, United States bases on foreign territory, which includes New Zealand, Soviet bases abroad, French bases in Africa, and so on. Sweden, a militarily non-aligned country, has no foreign bases on its territory.’ But it wasn’t this work that got Wilkes into hot water with the Swedish security authorities. In the northern summer, in June 1981, he went on a ten-day cycling tour of Gotland and Öland, historic Swedish islands off the southeast coast in the Baltic.

‘Everybody had been telling me that Gotland was extraordinarily beautiful and that I must go and see it. So I did,’ he recalls.

While planning for the trip, he and his companion noted that the northern part of Gotland was a defence area, closed to all foreigners.

When they cycled onto Gotland, Wilkes observed antennae belonging to the Swedish defence system outside the closed area. Wilkes made notes, drew sketches and took four poor photographs — from public roads where there were no signs banning photography and with a cheap, short focal length camera.

The photographs showed no detail and he used pocket binoculars for making his notes. But Wilkes broke a cardinal SIPRI rule: No field work. Six weeks after his cycling holiday, on 17 August 1981, he was arrested. Wilkes believes SÄPO, Sweden’s security police had tapped his telephone and heard him discuss ‘secret’ documents from Denmark with a Washington colleague. (The documents had actually been declassified and released to the public.)

One August weekend, while Wilkes was spending a brief holiday in Finland, SÄPO broke into his office at SIPRI. On the Monday, August 17, security police seized him.

‘I had just come off the ferry from Finland that morning and came into town on a bus,’ he says. ‘A couple of minutes after I got off the bus this very ordinary car drove up beside me, stopped and a couple of guys jumped out. ‘It was a bit melodramatic — in the best Hollywood style. But it’s okay when you’ve got a clear conscience.’

At SÄPO headquarters, Wilkes was stripped, searched and interrogated on and off for four days. SÄPO and Sweden’s chief prosecutor, K G Svensson, publicly branded Wilkes as a ‘spy’, claiming he had been seen in suspicious circumstances close to Swedish defence installations.

Many newspapers similarly branded Wilkes. Yet when the charge of suspected espionage was later dropped and substituted by ‘gross unauthorised access to secret information’, some papers hardly bothered to print the news.

Aftonbladet was one newspaper that did, rebuking SÄPO for ‘another mistake’
following a case in which a man was jailed for six months before all charges
were dropped.

Wilkes was sentenced on 22 January 1982 to six months’ jail after a trial partially conducted in secret. His lawyer, Hans-Göran Franck, says the case raises several important civil rights issues.

‘It’s mainly a question of how far can a peace researcher go and how much is he/she permitted to make field research,’ he says.

‘But another problem is the secrecy. There is too much secrecy throughout the world on the problem of military questions as well as armaments.’

Swedish authorities have been reluctant to be drawn on the significance of the case.

One aspect of the so-called ‘Wilkes affair’ which has particularly bothered Wilkes himself is the apparent undermining of the reputation of SIPRI. In fact, some of his supporters believe SÄPO was tipped off that Wilkes allegedly worked for an East German power by someone who wanted to ruin SIPRI’s reputation, or damage Wilkes’ SIPRI project.

Wilkes admits he could have happily done without the controversy. As soon as Wilkes is cleared — or serves his sentence — it will be back to a quiet life in New Zealand, probably on the West Coast doing a spot of part-time peace research again.

And what about the Nobel Peace Prize nomination — does he think he has a chance?

‘The Swedish papers made quite a thing of it. And while it hasn’t been taken too seriously, it certainly hasn’t been treated as any kind of joke.’

Research for this article, written from a distance, put me in touch with Owen and on track for a long friendship and several publication collaborations. However, it wasn’t until long after I had actually met Owen and had later conversations with him at his Kāwhia bach in the 2000s, when he seemed to have given up on the peace movement, that the full depth of this farcical witchhunt by the Scandinavian intelligence establishments became so much
clearer. Thanks to his Uncle Sam’s Rabbits co-author and friend, Nils Petter Gleditsch, I was able to reference Owen’s detailed notes and timeline in the aftermath. In an 11-page typescript by Owen entitled ‘Sweden’s roadside secrets’, dated March 1982,(6) which was an ‘account of the events and circumstances surrounding my arrest and trial’, he began with characteristic meticulous attention to detail:

In August 1981, I was arrested on a charge of espionage by the Swedish Security Police. This charge was quickly dropped but five months later I was convicted on a charge of ‘gross unauthorised dealing in secret information’ and sentenced to six months in jail. The allegedly secret information had been casually collected during the course of a 10-day cycle tour, and consisted of five small pages of notes about radar and other antennas, all observed from public roads.(7)

Peacemonger book cover
Peacemonger . . . the first full-length account of peace researcher Owen Wilkes’ life and work. Image: Raekaihau Press

The statement continued from the moment of his arrest on 17 August 1981:

I was arrested by SÄPO, the Swedish Security Police, and held in solitary confinement for four and a half days while under interrogation. The charge was espionage, that is, collecting information on behalf of a foreign power. In the course of my interrogation I was questioned about all my travels in Sweden, my contacts with foreign embassies, and my research project at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). Meanwhile, SÄPO spent three days ransacking my research files and interrogating several of my friends and colleagues. It soon became obvious that I was not a spy and I was released. A charge of ‘gross unauthorised dealing in secret information’ was substituted for that of espionage.(8)

What had he really done that caused all the fuss?

In the course of my tour of Gotland I began to notice that there were also a number of radar and other military electronic installations. Such installations were a subject of some interest to me because I had earlier written an article about the NATO air defence radar system called NADGE. [This] consists of a relatively limited number of large powerful radars often prominently located on mountain tops, in a chain stretching through the NATO lands from northern Norway to eastern Turkey. I had criticised this system because the radars were so powerful that some of them penetrated far into Warsaw Pact airspace and hence were useful for aggressive purposes; because the radars were so few and so prominent they were very vulnerable and hence not reliable for defence purposes. On the basis of what I had read I suggested that the equivalent Swedish system, called STRIL, was much better, consisting of numerous small radars of limited range. It was useless for aggression but well suited to defence. My description of STRIL had been criticised by a Swedish researcher, who claimed that STRIL had just the same disadvantages as NADGE.

What I began to notice in the course of my holiday confirmed my thesis: I could see with my own eyes that STRIL did include small and closely spaced radars. After covering a distance of some 70 km I had seen three such radars. Had this been NATO territory there would have been only one radar for the whole island. On the first day of my holiday I began to take notes. Since I was unsure what was and what was not part of STRIL, I made notes about every antenna I could remember having seen, and I continued making notes for the remainder of the trip. The notes filled five small notebook pages (A5) and totalled 363 words, describing 13 objects which I was later to be prosecuted for looking at (i.e. 28 words per object). I observed only such antennas as happened to be visible along our route, chosen on the basis of the tourist attractions described in the guidebook. We never left the public roads to go closer to any of these installations, although it would not have been illegal to have done so. Towards the end of the holiday I took four photographs of three of the installations with a small, cheap camera. The photographs showed no technical details, but merely the general appearance of the installations and how relatively inconspicuous they were in the landscape.(9)

About the trial, which began on 8 December 1981 in the Stockholm City Court (Tingsrätt), continuing from Owen’s notes:

[It] began in open session with the Prosecutor describing at some length how I had exposed military installations in New Zealand, Australia, Japan, Norway and Denmark. He omitted to mention that what I had exposed in all these countries were foreign military installations. These were not related to the defence of the host countries mentioned; rather they served the military objectives of the USA. He then described at length my investigation of a Swedish electronic spying installation at Lövön, although according to the Prosecutor this was not secret and I was not being prosecuted for looking at it.

All the proceedings which dealt with the objects I was being prosecuted for looking at were held in closed, secret court sessions. All details about the 15 locations were kept secret. This served to give journalists and the general public the impression that the observations for which I was being prosecuted must have been more detailed than those I had made at Lövön, whereas in fact the reverse was true.

Two military witnesses were heard in closed session. An army major showed my field notes and the four photographs and described the 15 places I was alleged to have observed. The notes and photographs constituted the only evidence of my activities. Apparently SÄPO had not followed us on our holiday.

Evidence about the potential harm I had caused Swedish security was given by Admiral Schuback, second-in-command in the Swedish military hierarchy. He described how the sites I had looked at were involved in the ‘total defence’ of Sweden. He described how the kind of information which I collected, should it come into the hands of a foreign power, could be used to attack Sweden. If there had been any evidence that a foreign power had received this information, then the Defence Command would have to spend many million Swedish crowns (the actual figure is secret) on total replacement of the radars concerned.(10)

Owen’s defence case rested on the simplicity and low-key basis of his bicycle trip, whose route was planned in advance from a six-day ‘Cycle Package No 3’ of the Swedish Touring Association. He also denied that he had ‘formed a penetrating picture’. Since his arrest, he had discovered that a much more ‘penetrating’ picture could be obtained by reading the official and non-secret publications Flygvapennytt (Air Force News) and Marinnytt (Navy News).

I was quite ready to admit that I had observed 13 of the 15 sites. However, I denied having observed a particular depot, the location of which was not even revealed to the court. My field notes included only the general observation that there were many military depots on Gotland. I also denied having observed an important and secret site. My field notes had been misinterpreted to make it seem like I had seen this place, and the major gave false information about the antennas located at another site to make it seem that my field notes referred to the secret place. Because of the secrecy of the trial I cannot explain this more specifically…

All the other 12 sites could in no way be thought of as secret. All were easily visible from main roads or tourist routes, and some were so high that they could be seen from a distance of 10 kilometres. While preparing for the trial I found that eight of the 13 installations were marked on publicly available maps, usually as ‘telemasts’. At six sites the masts were so high that they are marked on aeronautical charts as navigation hazards, with their heights marked accurate to within one foot. This information is of far greater precision that I could have gathered on my trip. (These maps are published on behalf of the International Civil Aviation Organisation, of which the Soviet Union is a member). At least five of the sites have masts which are so prominent that they are shown in nautical charts as bearing red lights which can be used as landmarks by ships at sea. They are even marked on Soviet nautical charts.(11)

Owen wrote that they were obviously not ‘secret’ installations and he ridiculed the military view that they were.

Since all these installations were all easily visible and obviously not secret I could hardly ‘know’ they were secret when I observed them, as the prosecution alleged. They certainly did not look secret. Some were painted in distinctly military colours, one was painted in alternating red and white to make it more visible. None were located in such a way as to reduce their visibility or hide their function. My interpretation of the word ‘secret’ is along
the lines of the definition in the Concise Oxford Dictionary: ‘kept private, not made known or exposed to view.’ However, the military view, as expressed in the court, is that anything they wish to be secret is secret by definition even if it is visible to passers-by, to reconnaissance satellites, to people who use topographic maps, and so on. At only one place did I come close enough to read a sign which said: ‘Photography, etc … is forbidden’, and here I took no photographs, although I did make notes and a sketch later.

According to the prosecution evidence seven of the sites had no such signs, and six of them were not enclosed by any kind of fence. If the military authorities build antennas on hilltops along public roads, can they really expect me to ride past without looking at them? It is especially hard to ignore something which might help to confirm a theory which has been under criticism.

Neither the technology nor the function of these installations were secret. All the equipment I saw is either illustrated and described in publications such as
Flygvapennytt and Jane’s Weapons Systems or is of an easily recognised common type – such as microwave dishes for radio relay. Flygvapennytt pictures show more detail about the radars than I could observe in the field, and give far more detail than any photograph which I took.(12)

Owen wrote these notes when he was preparing for an appeal after being convicted on 22 January 1982 with a 17-page verdict and a three-page ‘secret appendix’ that largely accepted the prosecution ‘evidence’ and ignored all evidence showing that the information gathered was not secret. He was sentenced to six months’ jail followed by permanent deportation. Only the ‘jail sentence was significant to me’ as he was returning to New Zealand anyway and his SIPRI contract had expired at the end of 1981. The appeal case was scheduled to begin on 27 April 1982 — to be ‘reheard in its entirety’ in the
Stockholm Court of Appeal (Svea Hovrätt).

He noted that at the time he was being held in Sweden against his will and without income, residence permit or work permit. ‘The police hold my passport, I can travel outside Stockholm only with the permission of the prosecutor, and I must report to the police once a week. Although I have no income, I am expected to pay all the costs of my defence apart from those of my lawyer who is paid by the state. If I cannot pay the travel expenses of my witnesses, for example, then I must do without them.’(13)

At the conclusion of the appeal hearing, Owen’s original six-month jail sentence was suspended and he was ordered to leave Sweden and not return for 10 years. Although pleased about not actually being jailed, Owen was still unhappy with the ‘guilty’ verdict and initially wanted to take the appeal to the Swedish Supreme Court. ‘It’s very rarely that appeals are accepted by the Supreme Court but, according to my lawyer, there are strong grounds for this case. It’s very unusual to deport someone for 10 years,’ he explained to the New Zealand Press Association correspondent in London.(14)

One of the Appeal Court senior judges said in a dissenting opinion that Owen should not be deported, but fined instead. ‘I’m pleased with the decision insofar as it’s moving in the right direction, but I’m dissatisfied with it in that they’re still saying the information I gathered was secret and a danger to Swedish security, which I deny.’(15) According to Owen, a Swedish magazine had sent a reporter over the same route he had cycled with his Swedish girlfriend in June 1981 and published pictures and information about the installations, but had not been prosecuted. Not long before the appeal hearing, about 70 people had travelled around the route taking pictures of the installations and police had told them
they were not doing anything wrong.

So why was there so much hysteria at the time in Sweden over the false allegations against Owen? In his case notes, Owen refers to trial by media and the ‘atrocious’ newspaper coverage of the entire affair. ‘On the first day after my arrest newspapers carried headlines such as “New Spy Seized”. There were no sub judice courtesies such as use of the words “accused” and “alleged”.

‘Newspapers reported, wrongly, that I had already been convicted for espionage in Norway, and they continued to call me a spy long after the espionage charge had officially been dropped. It was reported that I had been spying at several places that I have been to, in a car which was later traced to my ownership. I have no car, no driving licence, and do not drive.’(16)

Out of all the Swedish news media coverage, Owen wrote off the Stockholm conservative morning daily Svenska Dagbladet as ‘the worst’.(17) He admits that initially the newspaper concentrated its attacks on him personally, but that it ‘became apparent that this was just a build-up for a more general offensive against SIPRI.’ The daily had been ‘hostile to SIPRI’ long before it took an interest in Owen and his case. At first, Svenska Dagbladet ‘characterised me as wildly pro-Soviet, now it finds that SIPRI as a whole is pro-Soviet, and suggests that SIPRI is actually being controlled from Moscow.’ Owen concluded:

Basically, I believe that this whole affair is a product of the need of the prosecutor and the military to have a spy. This has been backed up by the desire of Svenska Dagbladet and the people it represents to destroy SIPRI, or at least tilt it decisively toward the West and destroy whatever objectivity there has been until now in its publications.(18)

In September 1982 Owen put the Swedish saga behind him and arrived back in New Zealand. Three weeks later he gave a public lecture at Auckland University, declaring a nuclear-free Pacific would help lower global tensions and slow the nuclear arms race. He told the Auckland Star that ‘most people are only aware of the French tests in the Pacific and do not realise that America and Russia carried out extensive nuclear missile testing there. It is these more accurate missiles that increase the threat of nuclear war.’(19)

Referring to the ‘arrest in Sweden for spying’, the Star’s reporter described
Owen characteristically:

Toting a knapsack bulging with books and papers, he has travelled from Dunedin, stopping to give talks on his ‘legal adventures’ in Sweden, his work with the Swedish International Peace Research Institute and the nuclear arms race. One of his main topics will be the implications of the new nuclear missiles and what New Zealanders can do to stop their development. New Zealanders must oppose the Black Birch astronomical telescope the United States Navy wants to install in the hills behind Blenheim.(20)

Owen himself explained: ‘It would be manned by civilians measuring the positions of the stars, which does not seem sinister, but the important thing is that the United States wants this data to improve the accuracy of the new nuclear missiles.’ Missiles such as the Trident and new laser weapons which vaporise enemy missiles would be even more accurate if guided by the stars. ‘That is why we must oppose Black Birch, not because it is a nuclear target, but because it is contributing to the accuracy and perfection of nuclear missiles.’(21)

Reporting for NZ Geographic magazine about the revival of the observatory at the turn of the century, after the Americans had handed over the installation, which had passed its use-by date, to Operation Deep Freeze in Christchurch during 1996, Louise Thomas wrote: ‘The observatory made detailed sky photographs and also collected very precise positional information on stars. Speculation was rife that the survey provided data for targeting tactical nuclear weapons — in short, that the observatory’s purpose was to set up a guidance system for Tomahawk missiles, thus tying New Zealand to the nuclear arms
race.’(22)

Owen revealed in that Auckland Star interview that he wouldn’t return to Sweden for the appeal against the questionable conviction for ‘endangering Sweden’s security’ and his sentence. ‘Basically, I have achieved what I wanted to in Sweden,’ he admitted. ‘Swedes can now cycle around the countryside with their eyes open.’(23)

Owen Wilkes investigates the Cook Islands submarine affair
Owen Wilkes investigates the Cook Islands submarine affair.

The next time that I wrote about Owen for the New Zealand Times (by then it was titled the Dominion Sunday Times, which even later became the Sunday Star-Times) was when I wrote about his claims that a mystery submarine sighted in Cook Islands waters during February 1986 was ‘on an American covert operation aimed at scuttling New Zealand’s anti-nuclear policy — but it misfired’.(24) Owen had alerted me to his forthcoming publication in NZ Monthly Review about his accusations that the Cook Islands and NZ governments and the military were covering up the real identity of the submarine.(25) His account said the facts pointed to a special operations submarine deployed by the US Navy: ‘The entire submarine affair has all the hallmarks of a United States covert action. A covert action that went wrong.’

My article continued:

Among the spotters of the submarine’s conning tower was a Tahitian policeman who had done military service. He was out fishing with a Tahitian colleague about five kilometres offshore near Ngatangiia, southwest of Rarotonga, and they reported to the Cook Islands police [that] the submarine came to within 30 metres of them, almost bumping into their boat. They sketched a silhouette of the conning tower and gave a detailed description. Two RNZ Air Force Orions searched the area and identified the submarine with sonar buoys, but the identity was not made public. American and Soviet officials denied that the submarine belonged to either country more than a month after the sightings.

However, Wilkes cites a Cook Islands government source as saying Prime Minister Sir Thomas Davis’s office was advised by New Zealand the submarine was ‘probably American’. Opposition Leader Geoffrey Henry and rebel Democrat leader Vincent Ingram were both told the submarine was American.

Wilkes claimed Cook Islanders were supposed to sight the submarine, presume it to be Soviet and trigger off a Russian scare in New Zealand which could have dramatically influenced public submissions for New Zealand’s Defence Review.(26)

Owen wrote in his Monthly Review article:

The submarine had shown itself on February 17 and though it was reported in the Cook Islands News, nothing more happened and so the submarine showed itself again on February 21. What the United States did not allow for was that this time there was a New Zealand Orion in the islands. The Orion not only detected the submarine, which would have been fine from the United States viewpoint, and may have even been in the script, but also identified it correctly, which was definitely not in the script.(27)

In another article about the submarine affair, in the Canadian Ploughshares Monitor, headed ‘Russian Submarine: a scare in the South Pacific seems to backfire’, Owen detailed how the whole affair appeared to have ‘come unstuck’:

Whatever the New Zealand air force found, it was obviously embarrassing for them. The search was immediately called off and no further press statements were made … A ‘Soviet submarine’ scare just now in the South Pacific would have been useful from a US viewpoint. It would help panic New Zealanders into welcoming US nuclear warships back into their ports, and to undermine the establishment of a South Pacific nuclear-free zone under the treaty signed last August in Rarotonga.(28)

Over the next few years Owen and I collaborated a lot, with his expertise contributing to my books on nationalist struggles and environmental campaigns in the Pacific and a collection of essays on social and political change in the region. While preparing my book Blood on their Banner(29) on nationalist struggles, which incidentally was translated and published in Sweden (Wiken Books)(30) in advance of the English edition (Zed Books), Owen had lots of pithy background, reflections and insights. I am sure the Swedish edition of my book was published thanks to Owen’s connection and also through Bengt Danielsson, the Tahiti-based Swedish adventurer and researcher of Kon Tiki raft voyage fame(31) and longtime nuclear-free campaigner.(32)

Among Owen’s letters to me in our correspondence exchange was his assessment on why France wanted to retain its hold in the Pacific:

1. To preserve access to their nuclear test centre [in French Polynesia].
2. To keep New Caledonia as one of their biggest remaining colonies (in the sense of a settlement of French people) — as a kind of jewel in the French imperial crown. (And for the nickel? But probably they know they will have little problem keeping control of the nickel even after independence — compare their access to uranium in Upper Volta [now Burkina Faso, where another coup took place in January 2022], phosphate in Mauritania etc.
3. To keep access to the world’s second-largest aggregate 200 mile economic zone (EEZ). This is a unique part of French foreign policy — no other nation so jealously guards its EEZ. Note the French Foreign Legion garrison on Matthew Island [the disputed Matthew and Hunter islands near Vanuatu]; Kerguelen, with its garrison, the biggest in the subantarctic (despite all the Latin American squabbling in their sector; the sinking of the Southern
Raider; their illegal occupation of islands in the Madagascar channel; and the Mayotte secession [it voted to remain a French department in 2011 in defiance of the rest of the Comoros that opted for independence].
4. As part of a grand imperial design — keeping their girdle of French possessions intact right around the globe for reasons or pride, prestige, vainglory etc. Also, of practical military significance — as I keep pointing out France is number two in distribution of military bases globally after the US. They are stretched like military stepping stones around the globe — from France to Djibouti to Mayotte to Reunion to New Caledonia to Tahiti to
Martinique (Caribbean) to Senegal and back to France. Plus oddities like Saint Pierre and Miquelon [off the Newfoundland coast, Canada].
5. The difference between France and the US is that the US is much more ideological — they really see themselves as a kind of ideological police force. They are determined to hold onto any bit of dirt they can possibly get to allow for a total military control of the globe, while France is more fine-tuned, more practical, more into defending their own more clearly defined self-interest.(33)

Before I left for the Pacific in 1993, living for a decade in Papua New Guinea and then Fiji, Owen, Fijian academic professor Steven Ratuva, now director of the Macmillan Brown Centre for Pacific Studies at Canterbury University, and I collaborated with a group of 18 authors, journalists and activists to produce Tu Galala: Social Change in the Pacific.(34) It was an activists’ take on contemporary upheaval in the Pacific — ‘growing poverty, nuclear testing, independence struggles, militarisation and massive social dislocation’ — and was ironically funded by the Pacific Development and Conservation Trust, a fund set up in New Zealand with compensation money from the French government for the bombing of the Greenpeace flagship Rainbow Warrior in Auckland Harbour on 10 July 1985. As we reflected in the introduction to the book, although in global terms the Pacific is relatively peaceful, it is also highly militarised. Owen and Steve examined this militarisation in their chapter from two perspectives — Owen regionally and globally, and Steve through the then-emerging ‘coup culture’ in Fiji.(35)

Owen outlined an overall picture of military activity and military infrastructure in the Pacific. In general it fitted into four categories. Some of the military activity, at time of publication, was concerned with the global standoff between the US and the Soviet Union, which collapsed on 25 December 1991 with the end of the Gorbachev presidency. These were the installations and activities that served for global nuclear war. Much of it was military activity that was ‘too dangerous, too secret or too unpopular to do in North America or Europe — with French nuclear testing as a prime example’.(36) As Owen explained, ‘Johnston Atoll is a microcosm of the backside-of-the-earth syndrome. Here to an extreme degree the US military does anything which is too secret to do elsewhere in the Pacific.’(37)

Then there was the military activity located in the Pacific because the Pacific was the ocean separating North America from East Asia — if North America wanted to wage war against Asia, or vice versa, then such bases as those in the Philippines and Northern Marianas would be central to such a war. The fourth and final category of militarisation was the multitude of local, ‘parochial’ or indigenous reasons for military presence and warfare — exemplified by the counter-insurgency forces of France in Kanaky New Caledonia, by indigenous forces such as the Tongan Defence Force, and by the armed components of Pacific liberation movements. Of the four categories, only the last can be seen as possibly relevant to defending Pacific interests. Discussing the Pacific as a ‘war theatre’, Owen outlined the case against the enormous military bases in the Philippines (Subic Bay Naval Base and Clark Air Field).

The Subic Bay base, at 680 square kilometres about the size of Singapore, was, after the closure of Clark Air Field in 1991, the largest US military installation overseas. When the vast naval base was finally shut by the US the following year, the Philippine government turned it into the Subic Bay Freeport Zone. The sheer scale of the US military operations in the Pacific were demonstrated by Owen’s description in the chapter:

The Pacific is the location of the world’s largest military empire, that of the US Commander-in-Chief (CINCPAC) in Hawai’i, covering half of the earth’s surface and 60 percent of the world’s population. It includes most of the Pacific basin and Pacific rim, together with about two-thirds of the Indian Ocean. CINCPAC, who is always a US Navy admiral, may also be the most powerful man on the earth: certainly, as far as nuclear megatonnage is concerned, in peacetime he has more power at his fingertips than does the president of the United States. It is like comparing the power of the old British Raj with that of the British monarch.(38)

At the other end of the scale, Owen noted the contrast with what was ‘probably the world’s smallest self-contained military force — the Tonga Defence Force, numbering about 200’ which seemed to ‘have little role other than discharging a big gun on occasion as a salute’ to the King of Tonga…

As Michael Szabo noted in his 1991 history Making Waves: The Greenpeace New Zealand Story, it seemed initially that the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior would set back the Pacific campaign by several years, but in fact ironically ‘the French saboteurs had massively boosted the organisation’s international reputation.’(39) Owen, who had carried out research project reports with Greenpeace, observed, ‘The New Zealand government is beginning to treat Greenpeace almost like another government’. However, that wasn’t quite the experience of the Greenpeace Aotearoa staff . I also recall Owen saying, ‘Everybody thinks we have this brilliant Labour government which is dedicated to pacifism. But it isn’t,
the government simply responded to public opinion, whereas in other countries where there have been similar big percentages against nuclear weapons, governments haven’t reacted.’(30)

In June 1986, to revive the Pacific Peace Voyage that had been cruelly interrupted by the 1985 bombing, the yacht Vega was deployed on a nuclear-free and environmental educational voyage to the Cook Islands, Samoa, Tonga, Fiji and Vanuatu to meet a wide range of Pacific people, including peace, trade union, women’s, church and political groups. On board, for the Cook Islands leg, was Owen Wilkes. Greenpeace coordinator Elaine Shaw flew ahead to Rarotonga with Māori activist Augie Riini to take Owen’s place for the rest of
the Vega voyage. Augie ‘was a good diplomat — always out until late with the locals and more adept at making friends than we Pākehā,’ Owen reflected.(41) Owen’s research work on the Philippine bases Subic Bay and Clark Air Field in particular, and other Asia-Pacific bases generally, along with his general knowledge, wisdom and humility, made him very popular in activist circles in the Philippines. As the national chair of the Nuclear-Free-Philippines Coalition (NFPC), Roland Simbulan, a former vice-chancellor and professor
in development studies at the University of the Philippines, put it, Owen’s work, both published and unpublished, on foreign military bases and facilities, especially when he was with SIPRI, had been of vital importance to peace advocates and organisers of the peace movement all over the world. In that sense, he had ‘an important role in ending the Cold War’. Added Simbulan, ‘In the Philippines, Owen’s work inspired me and others to do more serious peace research in support of peace advocacy and organising.’(42)

Simbulan, detained and tortured for peace advocacy while a student by the Marcos dictatorship, recalled how he had first met Owen in 1981 at an international peace conference in Tokyo, Japan. They were both speakers at that large conference of about 800 participants, and Owen at the time was a senior researcher at SIPRI:

Owen immediately impressed me as SIPRI’s highly knowledgeable technical expert on foreign military bases and facilities, specifically as a specialist on communications and signals intelligence (SIGINT). He could look at photographs of any kind of logistics/communications facilities and interpret what they were used for. He knew by just looking at the set-up of foreign military bases and facilities, or the configuration of naval and air force vessels and determine whether they were nuclear-armed and nuclear-capable.(43)

The professor admitted, ‘I was glad he was on our side, a veritable walking think tank for the international peace movement.’ However, Simbulan also stressed how Owen ‘was so modest, so full of humility and had a good sense of humour — a humour that was in itself so sharp.’

Simbulan recalled how on one occasion Owen had remarked to him that he was unsure of the ‘shooting effectiveness’ of the élite US Rapid Deployment Force (RDF) because ‘they too, as human beings, would be suffering from jet lag after an eight-to-ten hour trip through different time zones.’ And when Simbulan once asked Owen why he always wore shorts and sandals, even in the very formal international peace conferences in Japan, ‘he just smiled and said, “this is me.’”

The professor saw Owen ‘so vigorously full of zest and fulfilment during the Beyond ANZUS Conference in New Zealand in 1984, on the eve of the Labour Party’s election victory that [brought David Lange to power as Prime Minister] and eventually made New Zealand nuclear free’.(45) Owen had returned from Europe to work full-time for the peace movement. During Simbulan’s lecture tour in Australia and New Zealand, where he also addressed the Beyond ANZUS Conference at Wellington, he invited Owen to visit the Philippines. In the late 1980s Owen finally did visit the Philippines, and checked out the vast and then still active US military bases and facilities, especially at Subic Naval Base and Clark Air Base. Owen’s technical expertise helped the Filipino peace movement interpret the bases’ role in the context of the American global nuclear infrastructure.

‘I had my disagreements with him though, especially on the particular nature and placement of the facilities, their counter-insurgency role,’ admits Simbulan, ‘but our discussions were very productive, constructive as well as instructive.’ He said that the technical information about the US bases and facilities that Owen had shared with them — especially in the light of the nuclear weapons-free 1987 Philippine Constitution — ‘helped in no small way in the Philippine Senate’s decision to reject the proposed bases treaty of renewal, thus ending 470 years of foreign military bases in the Philippines.’(46)

At Owen’s funeral I, too, reflected on his life and achievements and what it
meant for us:(47)

For me, Owen Wilkes was a truly brilliant researcher and original critical thinker. He was a down-to-earth Kiwi and no-nonsense innovator who had no time for the rampant political correctness engulfing us today. But he was also a very warm-hearted, amusing and generous friend. I personally found him an inspiration and he was a vital source of encouragement, especially when working in the tough environment of freelance journalism in the 1980s. He was enormously respected throughout the peace and progressive movements and in the media. This respect continued even when he eventually spurned peace activism and moved to Hamilton to share his life with dedicated former Peacelink editor May Bass away from the political limelight.

I sometimes felt the respect was even greater abroad. In the Philippines, activists and journalists described him in awe as the ‘walking encyclopaedia.’ In the Pacific, his word on military and strategic issues was gospel. While most activists and the media focused on conventional military bases, Owen was busy exposing the worldwide network of American surveillance and communication bases. His exposés of Tangimoana and Waihopai are well known, but in 1989 he also exposed a little known Bukidnon spy base in the Philippines, more significant in realpolitik terms than the Subic Bay and Clark military bases. His work inspired me to join the post-Marcos International Peace Brigade and carry out an investigation into a New Zealand aid project in Mindanao with a series of media articles, such as in the Listener.(48)

In our last encounter together, about a year before he took his life, we shared some drinks and reflections one evening while he stayed with Del and me at our home in Grey Lynn. He revealed some of his cynical mood amid the laughs when he turned to me and said, ‘David, we’re just two old farts.’ Owen was referring to defensive responses from some quarters about our unpopular criticisms of aspects of the Nuclear Free and Independent (NFIP) movement in the Pacific, and the waning progressive struggle in the Philippines [which he partially blamed on ‘over-population’ and the conservatism of the Catholic church in a
country of 107 million that in May 2022 elected ‘Bongbong’, the only son of former dictator Ferdinand Marcos, as president].

Owen Wilkes was an extraordinary peace researcher without peer, and a defiant liberal nationalist. He stubbornly defended his intellectual and moral integrity, and enriched all who crossed paths with him.

Acknowledgements
Thanks to Nils Petter Gleditsch, who read an early draft of this chapter and provided a copy
of Owen’s 1982 unpublished ‘roadside secrets’ paper; Del Abcede, for her reflections, amusing anecdotes and advice; Mark Derby, for Owen’s copies of our correspondence; and May Bass for her vision to turn this book into reality and our shared good times with Owen.

Endnotes
1 Fredstidningen PAX. No 1, February, 1982. https://www.svenskafreds.se/om-oss/pax/
2 David Robie, (1989), Blood on their Banner: Nationalist Struggles in the South Pacific, London, United Kingdom: Zed Books.
3 David Robie (Ed.) (1992), Tu Galala: Social Change in the Pacific. Wellington: Bridget Williams Books.
4 David Robie (21 March 1982), ‘Bicycle snoop riles the Baltic’, New Zealand Times.
5 Nils Petter Gleditsch & Owen Wilkes (1981). Onkel Sams kaniner. Teknisk etterretning i Norge [Uncle Sam’s Rabbits. Technical Intelligence in Norway]. Oslo, Norway: PAX.
6 Owen Wilkes (March 1982). Sweden’s road-side secrets. Unpublished paper.
7 Wilkes (1982), p. 1.
8 Wilkes (1982). p. 1.
9 Wilkes (1982). p. 2
10 Wilkes (1982). p. 2
11 Wilkes (1982). p. 4
12 Wilkes (1982). p. 4
13 Wilkes (1982). p. 4
14 NZPA. NZ man ordered to leave, Auckland Star, 8 June 1982.
15 Ibid.
16 Wilkes (1982). p. 9.
17 Wilkes (1982). p. 10.
18 Wilkes (1982), p. 10.
19 N-free Pacific ‘way to peace’, Auckland Star, 24 September 1982.
20 Ibid.
21 Ibid.
22 Louise Thomas, Black Birch resurrected. New Zealand Geographic, April-June 1999. https://www.nzgeo.com/stories/black-birchresurrected/
23 N-free Pacific ‘way to peace’, Auckland Star, 24 September 1982.
24 David Robie, Submarine from US, says Wilkes. Dominion Sunday Times, 19 October 1986.
25 Owen Wilkes, Owen Wilkes investigates the Cook Islands submarine affair, NZ Monthly Review, October 1986, pp. 7-16.
26 David Robie, Submarine from US, says Wilkes. Dominion Sunday Times, 19 October 1986.
27 Owen Wilkes, NZ Monthly Review, op. cit., pp. 7-16.
28 Owen Wilkes, ‘Russian Submarine: A Scare in the South Pacific seems to backfire’, Ploughshares Monitor, June 1986.
29 David Robie, Blood on their Banner: Nationalist Struggles in the South Pacific, London,
United Kingdom: Zed Books, 1989.
30 David Robie (1989). Och Världen Blundar … (And The World Closed its Eyes …). Wiken Books, Höganäs, Sweden, 1989.
31 Bengt Emmerik Danielsson was a Swedish anthropologist, writer and crew member on the Kon Tiki raft expedition from South America to Tahiti in 1947. He made ‘French’ Polynesia his home, married Marie-Thérèse and was a staunch environmental and anti-nuclear campaigner until he died in 1997.
32 Bengt Danielsson and Marie-Thérèse Danielsson, Moruroa, Mon Amour: The French
nuclear tests in the Pacific. Penguin Books, Melbourne, VIC., 1977.
33 Owen Wilkes, personal letter to David Robie, 29 March 1988.
34 David Robie (ed.), Tu Galala: Social Change in the Pacific. Bridget Williams Books, Wellington, 1992, pp. 53-69.
35 Owen Wilkes and Sitiveni Ratuva, ‘Militarism in the Pacific and the Case of Fiji’, in
David Robie (ed.), Tu Galala: Social Change in the Pacific, Bridget Williams Books, Wellington, pp. 53-69.
36 David Robie, Tu Galala, op. cit., p. 17.
37 Owen Wilkes and Sitiveni Ratuva, op. cit., p. 54.
38 Ibid., p. 53.
39 Michael Szabo, Making Waves: The Greenpeace New Zealand Story. Reed, Auckland, 1991,p. 149.
40 David Robie, ‘Challenging Goliath’ in New Internationalist, September 1986, Retrieved https://asiapacificreport.nz/2017/06/11/flashback-to-nzs-nuclear-free-law-1987-challenging-goliath/
41 Szabo, op. cit., p. 150.
42 Roland Simbulan, Tributes to Owen Wilkes: In memory of Owen. Roland
G. Simbulan, Philippines. 12 May 2005. http://www.apc.org.nz/pma/owentr.htm
43 Ibid.
44 Ibid.
45 Ibid.
46 Ibid.
47 David Robie, Tribute for Owen Wilkes, Hamilton, 17 May 2005. https://bit.ly/3uMyHPY
48 David Robie, A cloud over Bukidnon, in Robie, Don’t Spoil My Beautiful Face: Media,
Mayhem and Human Rights in the Pacific, Little Island Press, Auckland, pp. 174-183.

‘Drunkards urinating, fights – Nadi is like Beirut’, says McDonalds Fiji boss

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McDonalds Fiji managing director Marc McElrath
McDonalds Fiji managing director Marc McElrath . . . “The issue is that we have 16 nightclubs with six police officers [in Nadi] -- the police are overwhelmed, there are drunk people and then fights.” Image: Jonacani Lalakobau

By Arieta Vakasukawaqa in Suva

Drunkards urinating in public, people fighting and nightclub goers passed out on the streets are usually the first things tourists arriving in Fiji through Nadi International Airport see while being taken to their hotels.

McDonalds Fiji managing director Marc McElrath highlighted this while sharing his views at a consultation for the review of the opening of nightclub hours at Suvavou House in Suva this week.

“There are 16 nightclubs in Nadi and that is a big number for a small town,” McElrath said.

He said every day around 4am, drunkards were often scattered along the streets when nightclubs closed for business.

McElrath said they had raised the issue with the police many times.

“Tourists arriving from the USA — or wherever they come from — at 6am, when they come through Martintar, it looks like they’re driving through Beirut,” he said.

“There are people knocked out on the footpaths, drunkards fighting, people punching each other, and they urinate all over the place.

‘Doesn’t look good for tourists’
“It really doesn’t look good for our tourists.

“The issue we face in Nadi is the fact that a lot of people who come out of nightclubs at around 4am to 5am are drunk and it spills out onto the streets.”

He said the police did not have the manpower to control the issue of early morning drunkards in Nadi.

“The issue is that we have 16 nightclubs with six police officers — the police are overwhelmed, there are drunk people and then fights.”

McElrath called on the authorities to consider the safety of people while reviewing the opening hours for nightclubs.

“I understand there are special zones, and I am not an expert on these hours.

“I think the hours need to be reduced in certain areas where police can’t control the overwhelming numbers.”

Arieta Vakasukawaqa is a Fiji Times reporter. Republished with permission from Asia Pacific Report and The Fiji Times.

Porgera mine ‘killing fields’ – 21 Papua New Guineans die since March 6

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The Porgera
The Porgera "killing fields" front page in the PNG Post-Courier yesterday . . . An attempted hijacking at gunpoint of a truck laden with market produce near Kalik airport. Inset: Barrick Gold CEO Dr Mark Bristow. Image: PNG Post-Courier screenshot APR

By Miriam Zarriga in Port Moresby

The successful restart of Papua New Guinea’s New Porgera Limited gold mine is currently at high risk due to the security crisis in the valley.

Twenty one people have died since March 6 as Porgera, Enga Province, has turned into a “killing field” amid tensions between two ethnic groups, the Nomali and Aiyala.

Barrick Gold chief executive and president Dr Mark Bristow responded to questions raised by the Post-Courier saying that “a safe and stable operating environment is critical for the restart of Porgera Mine.

“Therefore, we see a need for an immediate intervention to address the lawlessness in Porgera as the current conditions put in jeopardy the restart of mining operations.

“Safety is paramount at the Porgera mine site. Our primary concern is the welfare of our local employees who reside in Porgera and commute to and from the site.

“As with the rest of the community, we rely on the police and other law enforcement agencies to provide law and order.

“Our local employees are directly impacted [on] by the ongoing violence and the resulting closure of vital government services, including schools and hospitals.

Support for special police operation
“We support the community’s calls for a special police operation and sustainable security solutions to the many social issues that have grown since the mine was placed into care and maintenance, including tribal violence and murder, kidnapping, hijacking, vandalism, and the widespread proliferation of high-powered firearms.”

Losses from illegal mining and theft are estimated at K100 million (NZ$46 million) a year and K200 million (NZ$92 million) from Hides Tower Lines sabotage — not including sizeable PJV security costs and the substantial ongoing costs for constant repair of fences, buildings, vehicles and other equipment and infrastructure.

Speaking to the Post-Courier, Police Commissioner David Manning said that the focus of security personnel would be to secure the surrounding communities of the mine site.

Commissioner Manning also confirmed the deployment of an extra 100 Special Services Division (SSD) officers to assist in curbing the rise in crime and to help restore normality.

“We are ready to assist, and I have had briefings with the local leaders and we will be working closely with the district development authority (DDA) to ensure we have the support but also work together in bringing back peace to Porgera,” he said.

A security brief released on Wednesday has shown that the high number of killings are in the town area.

As of Wednesday, critical community services such as the BSP Bank, Paiam Hospital and local schools are closed again indefinitely.

Law and order crisis
The law and order crisis applies to the whole Porgera Valley and not just the mine site and its infrastructure — this also extends to other operational footprints (Hides Power Station, HTL Corridor, Riverine, and Highlands Highway).

Law and order is at the lowest point ever since the opening of the mine and this is  affecting the operation of the mine, landowners, and the communities.

A security update from the district has reported:

  • Continued deterioration of security (law and order) in the Porgera valley;
  • Firearms sightings and discharges within SML/LMP continue to increase;
  • Multiple instances of armed holdups and theft from employees and contractors. Since January 2023 a number of supply trucks and passenger buses have been ambushed and looted between Laigam and Kairik Airport;
  • Security incidents involving the kidnapping of women and children have increased,
  • Effectiveness of MS and PNG Defence Force personnel on the ground is limited due to the absence of necessary resources and specific orders; and
  • Tribal fighting throughout the valley and at Hides continues, with ongoing fatalities and widespread property destruction.

The Post-Courier understands that local police numbers are down, firearms are used regularly within the valley and intrusions into restricted areas continue with armed men entering the mine site.

It is alleged there is a lack of support from the district, province and the national government for more security forces at Porgera.

The lack of leadership and support from community leaders and landowners have seen criminal elements protected and served by the clan and communities.

Miriam Zarriga is a PNG Post-Courier journalist. Republished with permission.

Vila-based Indonesian ‘troll’ page targets Papuan advocates

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"View Information" Indonesian "troll" page . . . some of the memes attacking West Papuan self-determination advocates as "extremists". Image: APR screenshot

By David Robie

As part of an Indonesian-backed disinformation and troll campaign against West Papuan pro-independence advocates, a Facebook page has emerged making bitter and slanderous attacks on campaigners, Papuan exiles and media people in the Pacific region.

Among the targets for this page — dubbed “View Information”, purportedly based in the Vanuatu capital of Port Vila — are Pacific Council of Churches general secretary Reverend James Bhagwan over a “false campaign” on Papua, and Australian-based Indonesian human rights lawyer Veronica Koman who is accused of being “an imposter”.

Other targets include London-based United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP) president Benny Wenda for allegedly “masterminding the Wamena riots” in 2019, Canberra-based youth advocate and activist Ronny Kareni for “cultural mockery” and New Zealand academic and journalist David Robie.

I am accused of “continuously meeting” Benny Wenda to discuss issues relating to Papua and of “ignorance and prejudice”.

True, I did meet Benny when we hosted him at the Pacific Media Centre during his New Zealand visits in 2013 and 2017 and our team interviewed him at the time. Indeed, he was interviewed by several journalists and appeared on a number of programmes such as RNZ Pacific.

Benny Wenda visits the Pacific Media Centre in 2017
Benny Wenda (centre) visits the Pacific Media Centre in Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand, in 2017. Image: Del Abcede/PMC Toktok

He does an extremely impressive job as a tireless and impassioned advocate for his indigenous people and independence.

One of the regular themes of the View Information page is the plight of the New Zealand pilot, Philip Mehrtens, being held hostage since February 7 by pro-independence fighters of the West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNPB-OPM).

Broker negotiations
Originally the fighters wanted New Zealand to broker negotiations with the Indonesian government in Jakarta, but the military and political authorities have refused to talk, endangering the life of the Susi Air pilot.

“Philip Mark Mehrtens is a human being and deserve[s] medical attentions [sic] as we do not know under what conditions he is living in. This sepratist [sic] are abusing his freedom and holding him against his consent and will,” says View Information.

“Isn’t this an abuse of human rights?

ULMWP president Benny Wenda
ULMWP president Benny Wenda pictured with journalist Dr David Robie (in an “open access” for West Papua journalists tee-shirt) during the exiled Papuan advocate’s NZ visit in 2017. Image: “View Information” screenshot CP

“[These] separatists are abusing his right to freedom from being held as a captive for unreasonable grounds. He is treated as some kind of product in a grocery store.”

About the Pacific Conference of Churches (PCC), View Information page claims: “PCC considers Papuans as [a] product or commodity in grocery stores.” That phrase again!

“PCC has become a parody conquistador for the religious groups in the Pacific and a sign of betrayal to the Papuans.

“Papuans are this cheap that the PCC has to sell them for money.

“Say no to PCC before it is too late.”

Riots ‘mastermind’
About the 2019 rioting in Wamena and across the region characterised by advocates of an independent West Papua as the “Papuan Rising” and likened to the Arab Spring: “The Papua Extremist Group (ULMWP) led by Benny Wenda is the mastermind behind the West Papua riots.

“They were designed a riot exactly one day before the UN General Assembly (24/9) began with student access campaign.”

Like most of the other claims on this FB page, there is not a single source given in any attempt to back up the hostile statements. Genuine information about the ULMWP is available here.

About the United Nations, View Information claims: “The UN has never declared there is genocide taking place in Papua or West Papua. It has addressed issues of civilians being killed by the armed separatists in Nduga Regency.”

This another lie. The UN has reported about allegations of “slow genocide” in Papua in 2014 and on other occasions, and last year UN special rapporteurs reported on the “shocking abuses against Indigenous Papuans”. There have been countless such reports and a 2018 agreement by Jakarta for the UN Commissioner for Human Rights to visit Papua to make an independent report has never materialised.

A feature of this anonymous propaganda page is the wild and sweeping statements and allegations without a shred of evidence. No information about the “publishers” or “writers” is divulged, although it claims to provide “factual, balanced, quality and fair reporting”.

Jakarta causing confusion
Jakarta’s misinformation campaign that has been causing confusion throughout the world has been stepped up in recent months.

“Indonesian intelligence has allocated considerable funds globally, especially in Oceania, to target and discredit any person or institution sharing information about the genocide in West Papua,” says Yamin Kogoya, a regular contributor and commentator for Asia Pacific Report.

“The same thing is happening inside West Papua – the spreading of fake, false information often under the names of OPM, ULMWP and other groups advocating for a free West Papua.

“The internationalisation of West Papua’s issue has been Jakarta’s primary concern, knowing how they stole it — West Papua’s sovereignty — 60 years ago.”

Doc Edge abandons ‘provocative’ Israeli Embassy sponsorship for 2023 festival

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Doc Edge Film Festival has abandoned Israeli Embassy sponsorship
Doc Edge Film Festival has abandoned Israeli Embassy sponsorship for 2023 after boycott threats.

By John Minto

The Doc Edge Film Festival has abandoned Israeli Embassy sponsorship this year after a furore caused by such sponsorship last year.

We are very pleased to chalk this up as a success.

This is a win for the international BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions) campaign against apartheid Israel — a Palestinian-led initiative since 2005.

Earlier this year the Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) wrote to all the Doc Edge festival sponsors urging them to ensure the 2023 festival was an “apartheid-free zone”.

We told them it would be highly provocative for the festival to receive money from the Israeli Embassy particularly given the strident anti-Palestinian policies of the new far-right Israeli leadership.

It seems Doc Edge is following the policy of the Sydney Festival which was thrown into turmoil in January last year over its sponsorship by the Israeli Embassy.

Sydney has since abandoned foreign sponsorship and Doc Edge has done the same this year.

Doc Edge claimed last year that it was “apolitical” but this is untrue.

Festival organisers tweeted in support of the people of Ukraine under Russian invasion and occupation but have never tweeted in support of Palestinians living under Israel’s military occupation.

Just as this country campaigned to help end apartheid in South Africa through boycotts, we are doing the same to help end Israel’s apartheid policies.

We will remain vigilant.

John Minto is a political activist and commentator, and spokesperson for Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa. This article is republished with the author’s permission.

How Palestinian land has shrunk since 1948
Disappearing Palestine . . . How Palestinian land has shrunk since 1947 due to illegal action by the Israeli military and authorities. Image: Palestine Awareness Coalition

West Papuan rebels condemn NZ for ‘collusion’ with Indonesia, risks to hostage pilot safety

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NZ hostage pilot Philip Mehrtens
NZ hostage pilot Philip Mehrtens . . . captured by West Papuan pro-independence fighters and held for 80 days so far. Image: TPNPB/Jubi News

Jubi News in Jayapura

Captured pilot Philip Mehrtens has called on the Indonesian government to stop military operations in the Nduga highlands in a bid to rescue him while his West Papuan rebel captors have condemned New Zealand for alleged “collusion” with Jakarta.

According to Mehrtens, a New Zealander, last weekend the Indonesian military (TNI) dropped bombs on an area where he was being held along with other Nduga residents.

“Indonesia dropped bombs on this [Nduga] area last weekend, and it was unnecessary because it was dangerous for me and the people here,” Mehrtens said via a video recording made on Monday and received by Jubi yesterday.

In the 1min 38sec video, Mehrtens was seen wearing a black t-shirt and shorts. He was sitting flanked by two men, allegedly West Papuan National Liberation Army (TPNPB) members. He also said he was in good health.

“Today, April 24, 2023, it has been almost three months since the TPNPB captured me in Paro.

“I am alive and well. I live with the people here, sit together, walk together, rest together, there is no problem with me,” Mehrtens said in the poor quality video, alternating between two languages, Bahasa Indonesian and English.

In a written statement, TPNPB spokesperson Sebby Sambom urged President Joko Widodo to immediately stop military operations in Nduga and asked Indonesia to open negotiations.

‘Negotiations, not military operations’
“We emphasise that the release of Philip Mark Mehrtens must be through negotiations, not through military operations. Therefore, Indonesian President Joko Widodo must stop military operations in Nduga immediately, otherwise they only jeopardise the pilot’s life,” Sambom said.

TPNPB-OPM Jeffrey Bomanak
TPNPB-OPM leader Jeffrey Bomanak . . . “Your [Australian and New Zealand] governments helped Indonesia to steal the land that has never been theirs.” Image: SBS screenshot APR

In a separate statement received today by Asia Pacific Report from the Free Papua Movement (OPM) leader, Jeffrey Bomanak, the pro-independence fighters called on New Zealand Prime Minister Chris Hipkins to “resign” over a failure to press the Indonesian government for a negotiated solution.In the statement dated April 28 and addressed to the New Zealand and Australian parliaments, Bomanak said:

“My people have been in a war of liberation from Indonesia’s illegal invasion and annexation for six decades. Our fallen number hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children.

The Free Papua Movement-OPM statement
The Free Papua Movement-OPM statement today. Image: OPM

“Your governments helped Indonesia to steal the land that has never been theirs. You call it ‘Cold War geopolitics’. We call it collusion and complicity in six decades of Indonesia’s crimes against humanity.

“You call it ‘national interest”. We call it being a wilful accessory to allow you to plunder a vulnerable people … an accessory in the manipulation of events for the economic rape of our ancestral lands.

“You call it ‘foreign policy’. We call it treachery and deceit of the same people who were your friends and allies during the Second World War.

‘Why are you afraid of Indonesia?’
“Our rights to freedom and nation-state sovereignty are no different to yours … no different to the valiant Ukrainian people, whom you have no problem supporting.

“Why are you so afraid of Indonesia? Why can East Timor be liberated and not West Papua?”

There was no immediate NZ government response to the OPM statement.

Earlier, Sambom said the video containing the Mehrtens testimony was also addressed to the New Zealand government and Mehrtens’ family.

“We initially made a video showing Mehrtens in good health for the New Zealand government and the pilot’s family in New Zealand. However, because Indonesia is bombing the Nduga Region, we want the people to know,” he said.

Mehrtens has been held hostage by the TPNPB for 79 days since he was arrested on February 7.

The Indonesian government so far has increased the status of military operations.

Indonesian military (TNI) commander Admiral Yudo Margono
Indonesian military (TNI) commander Admiral Yudo Margono announces that the operation to free the Susi Air pilot in Papua has become a “land combat alert” operation during a media conference at Yohanis Kapiyau Airbase, Timika, Central Papua on Tuesday. Image: Rabin Yarangga/Jubi News

‘Land combat alert’
On April 18 in Timika, TNI commander Admiral Yudo Margono upgraded operations in Papua to a “land combat alert”.

Admiral Margono said the operation was upgraded after the TPNPB attacked TNI troops on April 15.The casualties were unconfirmed as the military admitted one soldier had been killed while the rebels claimed up to 13 dead and several captured.

He said the increase in the status of this operation aimed to awaken the combat instincts of TNI soldiers.

“The land combat alert means the operation is increased,” Admiral Margono said at the time at Yohanis Kapiyau Air Base in Central Papua’s Timika.

A military observer from the Institute For Security and Strategic Studies (ISSES), Khairul Fahmi, said the combat alert in Papua meant that all troops were ready to fire.

“’Combat alert’ is the term for the condition of the troops ready for battle. This means that soldiers are allowed to shoot their weapons at any time whenever the threat is present,” Fahmi said.

“The troops no longer need to hesitate to open fire if there is an obstacle or attack.”

Republished from Asia Pacific Report and Jubi News with permission.

Papuan church leaders call on Jokowi to stop military ops over NZ pilot

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NZ pilot Philip Mehrtens
NZ pilot Philip Mehrtens who has been held by pro-independence West Papuan fighters for more than two months . . . Indonesian military operations have led to several deaths in clashes. Image: TPNPB

Jubi News in Jayapura

Church leaders across denominations in Papua have urged President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo to stop military operations and to promote a humanitarian approach with negotiations in handling the Papua conflict instead.

Attempts to free New Zealand pilot Philip Mehrtens who was taken hostage by the West Papua National Liberation Army (TNPPB) on February 7 were highlighted.

Mehrtens also pleaded for an end to military operations in a video released by his captors earlier this week, saying: “Please, there is no need, it is dangerous for me and everybody here.”

Among the clergy voicing the appeal to the President were Bishop Yanuarius You of the Jayapura Diocese, GIDI President Reverend Dorman Wandikbo, president of the West Papua Baptist Churches Fellowship Reverend Socratez Sofyan Yoman, chair of the Kingmi Synod in the Land of Papua Reverend Tilas Mom, chair of the GKI Synod in the Land of Papua Reverend Andrikus Mofu, and moderator of the Papua Council of Churches Reverend Benny Giay.

The pastors said this concern stemmed from the fear of civilian casualties following the recent upgrade of Papua military operation status to a “ground combat ready” alert by Indonesian military (TNI) commander Admiral Yudo Margono last week.

“We do not want civilian casualties, therefore, with utmost respect, we ask the President of the Republic of Indonesia to strongly order the military commander to withdraw troops from Papua,” said Bishop You on Wednesday.

The Papuan clergy from the Interdenominational Church in the Land of Papua who made the appeal
The Papuan clergy from the Interdenominational Church in the Land of Papua who made the appeal . . . Reverend Dr Socratez S Yoman, Reverend Dominggus Pigay, Bishop Yanuarius You, Reverend Dr Benny Giay, and Reverend Dorman Wandikbo. Image: Yuliana/Jubi

“And it is necessary to take a humanitarian approach, through negotiations.”

91 extrajudicial killings
Amnesty International Indonesia noted that from 2018 to 2022 there were at least 91 cases of extrajudicial killings involving the Indonesian Military (TNI), police, prison officers, while the TPNPB had killed at least 177 civilians.

Meanwhile, the number of security forces members who were killed in the same period was 44 with 21 TPNPB dead.

Data from the Institute for Policy Analysis and Conflict Studies (IPAC) also shows that the number of violent incidents related to armed conflict in Papua from 2010 to 2021 continued to increase, exceeding 80 cases in 2021.

In these violent cases, at least 320 people were killed, with as many as 98 percent of the deaths (316 people) occurring in Papua Province.

The victims are mostly civilians (178), followed by security forces (92) and members of the armed group (50).

Research from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) also revealed that violence in Papua is four times greater than the Indonesian national average.

This is ironic considering Papua has the highest ratios of security forces per population compared to other provinces.

Special envoy to free Susi Air pilot
The church leaders asked President Jokowi to appoint a special envoy to negotiate with the TPNPB to release pilot Mehrtens.

“President Joko Widodo should appoint a team of special envoys to negotiate with the TPNPB, such as in the settlement with the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) on August 15, 2005,” said Reverend Socratez Sofyan Yoman.

“That is an example the current government can follow.”

Another negotiation alternative, said Yoman, is through the church.

“Let the negotiation team from the church approach TPNPB leader Egianus Kogoya,” he said.

Reverend Dorman Wandikbo said that because of the armed conflict, both Indigenous Papuans and non-Papuans had lost access to basic services such as housing, health services, schools, and churches.

“Today there are more non-organic troops in Paniai, Dogiyai, Deiyai, Intan Jaya and Nduga than in 2018.

Children ‘can’t go to school’
“Children cannot go to school because schools are used by the military, as well as the community health centers, pastorate houses, and churches.

“Papuans cannot stay at their home, many have fled to the forest due to concerns for their safety,” said Wandikbo.

Reverend Benny Giay said that their demand for solving the Papua problem without weapons was in line with President Jokowi’s public statements.

He hoped that Jokowi would fulfill his commitment.

“We as church leaders have followed the political development in Papua since August 2019,” he said.

“After all, the president himself in his speech on June 15, 2021, talked about solving the Papua problem without weapons.

“Even before that, on September 30, 2019, he had spoken his intention to meet with the TPNPB,” said Reverend Giay.

Republished from Asia Pacific Report and Tabloid Jubi with permission.

PNG authorities try to quell unrest after 16 prisoners on run shot dead

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PNG Corrections officers
PNG Corrections officers . . . 16 escaped prisoners from Lakiemata prison shot dead, seven still on the run. Image: The National

RNZ Pacific

A curfew has been imposed in part of Papua New Guinea and extra police have been moved in to quell unrest over the shooting dead of 16 prisoners.

The prisoners attempted to escape on Sunday by cutting open part of the fence at the Lakiemata prison in West New Britain province.

One inmate is in hospital and a further seven are on the run.

PNG media reports in the aftermath of the shooting say angry relatives and opportunists looted several stores with police shooting two men inside a local hardware shop in Kimbe town.

Police commander Chief Superintendent Peter Barkie has confirmed the arrival of Mobile Squad 18 to assist in easing tensions in the province.

Provincial Chairman for Law and Order John Rova said: “We are trying to address the issue and allow normal businesses to commence and operate and allow for outside communities to travel in to receive basic services.

“After the PEC meeting, we have agreed that a curfew will commence at 8pm and go until 5am every day and we will try to monitor the movement of residents because of law and order issues.”

Full investigation promised

Internal Security Minister Peter Tsiamalili Jr
Internal Security Minister Peter Tsiamalili Jr . . . says those who seek to escape custody do so at their own risk. Image: PNG govt

The PNG Post-Courier reports Internal Security Minister Peter Tsiamalili Jr saying Corrections officers are mandated by law to ensure that the orders of the court are adhered to and that they are stopped.

But he said any death was regrettable, and he offered assurance that when seeking to prevent a prisoner from escaping, the last thing that anyone wanted was for loss of life to occur.

He promised a full investigation.

“There are several points that I think is important to I make,” he said.

“The first is that the men who escaped were in custody because of the crimes that they had committed.

“In Papua New Guinea, our criminal justice system is underpinned by the Criminal Code that mandates that when individuals commit certain crimes that they must serve time in prison.

“In this sense, those individuals in prison are re-paying their debt to society.

“The second point I would make is that our corrections system is focused on rehabilitation and preparing those detained for re-integration to society.

“It is a requirement that prisoners participate in rehabilitation and re-integration programmes before they can become eligible for release.

“Those that seek to escape custody before serving their term of imprisonment are demonstrating contempt for our laws.”

Some escapees on remand
However, Papua New Guinea’s Correctional Services Commissioner has confirmed that seven out of the 24 prisoners who tried to escape were not yet convicted of an offence.

Commissioner Stephen Pokanis said the ages of the prisoners who tried to escape was  between 22 and 40.

He said the court system was often slow, which meant someone could be on remand for years while they waited for their court session.

“Time spent in prison as a remandee sometimes goes up to even eight years. For them I do not know but I would think they would have been in prison for maybe two to three years or more,” he said.

RNZ Pacific is investigating reports that a number of the prisoners who were shot had already turned themselves into authorities.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with Asia Pacific Report and RNZ.

Rich-lister supports NZ capital gains tax as new research opens fresh debate

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A two-year investigation by Inland Revenue
A two-year investigation by Inland Revenue has found New Zealand's ultra-rich pay tax at less than half the rate of the average person. Image: 123rf/RNZ

By Anneke Smith

One of New Zealand’s wealthiest people says he supports a capital gains tax, as new research lays the groundwork for a fresh tax debate.

A two-year investigation by Inland Revenue has found New Zealand’s ultra-rich pay tax at less than half the rate of the average person.

The findings come as no surprise to many, including one of the 311 richlisters who responded to the government survey.

The man, who did not want to be named, made his fortune on untaxed capital gains but supports taxing those gains — saying it was only fair to bring New Zealand into line with other countries.

However, he said a more broad-brush approach — like a capital gains tax on all properties beyond the family home — would do more for the government’s revenue.

“You could take all the money off [rich listers] and it would fund the government for a day. The government spends about $100 billion a year and taxes about $100 billion a year, so anything that happens needs to materially contribute to the revenue side of things. Otherwise, it’s just the politics of envy.”

Labour MP David Parker
Revenue Minister David Parker . . . the tax report is not an excuse to attack the rich. Image: Angus Dreaver/RNZ

In a speech on Tuesday, Revenue Minister David Parker described the report’s findings as “ground-breaking” but would not venture any suggestions as to how the government might respond.

Answers – for the future
“What, if anything, do we do about that [disparity] here in New Zealand? We’re not providing the answers today. That is for the future.”

Other political parties have split down ideological lines with National and ACT on one side and the Greens and Te Paati Māori on the other.

National leader Christopher Luxon on Tuesday came to the defence of New Zealand’s uber-wealthy, arguing they already pay their fair share of tax.

“It’s not the wealthy that are the problem here… this government has pumped up asset values and the wealthy have done well,” Luxon told reporters.

“The top 2 percent of New Zealanders are paying about 26 percent of all our income taxes and I think that is entirely fair.”

Opposition National Party leader Christopher Luxon
National Party leader Christopher Luxon . . . uber-wealthy people “pay their fair share” of tax. Image: Samuel Rillstone/RNZ

Luxon said National would deliver “middle working-class New Zealanders” a tax cut, while Labour was “softening us up for a tax grab”.

ACT leader David Seymour criticised the study as a “politically-driven fishing expedition to find people with money and take it from them”.

‘Fishing expedition’
“[Parker’s] fishing expedition wasn’t about gathering information,” he said. “It was about creating a narrative that he can ride to more taxes on Kiwis.”

On the other side of the argument, Green revenue spokesperson Chlöe Swarbrick put up an empassioned argument for a comprehensive capital gains tax or wealth tax.

“The super rich in Aotearoa are much much richer than we thought them to be,” Swarbrick said.

“To allow millionaires to continue to not pay their fair share after this explosive evidence is a political choice. Poverty is a political choice.”

Te Paati Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi
Te Paati Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi . . . “It’s just absolutely shocking, cruel and very unkind” that New Zealand’ ultra-rich pay tax at less than half the rate of the average person. Image: Samuel Rillstone/RNZ

Te Paati Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi told RNZ there was no excuse for inaction.

“It’s just absolutely shocking, cruel and very unkind. Until they do something about it Labour, National and ACT will continue to be the bullies at school picking on the poor people.”

The government was yet to announce a new tax policy but is promising to bring one to this year’s election campaign and Parker has signalled it will be informed by this latest research.

Anneke Smith is an RNZ News political reporter. This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with Asia Pacific Report and RNZ.