Fiji regime tightens grip, plans own media

By Pippa Brown: Pacific Media Centre

Fiji continues to head into a political and economic hole as Fiji’s military regime tightens its grip and communications in the country are heavily censored.

The regime now plans to begin broadcasting its own television programme in a deal with Fiji TV, and to publish a newspaper insert in the Fiji Sun, the second-largest daily.

The unanimous decision to suspend Fiji from the Pacific Islands Forum earlier this month further compounded Fiji’s woes.

The PIF responded to Commodore Voreqe Bainimarama’s failure to return Fiji to democratic governance by May 1 and name a date for elections this year.

“A regime which displays such a total disregard for basic human rights, democracy and freedom has no place in the Pacific Islands forum,” said the Forum chairman, Niue Premier Toke Talagi.

The forum will ensure that Fiji does not benefit directly from any regional cooperation initiatives, new financial or technical assistance until it returns to democratic rule.

Amnesty International is extremely concerned about the volatility of the situation. It says the human rights situation is getting worse by the day and the civilian population is living in fear as a result of draconian measures implemented by the military regime.

“What is developing is a nature of extreme fear and intimidation.

“As well as the media clampdown, the regime is now believed to be monitoring email traffic, blogs and telephone conversations,” says Pacific researcher Apolosi Bose after a trip to Fiji last month.

‘Chilling effect’
The censorship has affected the way people work and has had a “major chilling effect” on the operations of a non-government organisation whose work is critical for standing up to human rights abuses, says Bose.

Oxfam New Zealand executive director Barry Coates thinks communications have not entirely shut down.

“Technology and communications are still available through the internet. Ten percent of citizens have internet access; mainly in urban areas as a lot of rural areas still have traditional lifestyles,” says Coates.

China has an influence on Fiji and other Pacific nations.

“The influence of New Zealand and Australia is disappearing and there is a real problem with foreign policy,” he says.

China is not condemning Fijian policies and now gaining influence in the region.

The Chinese government has been accused of propping up the military regime by supplying hundreds of millions of dollars in aid, according to a Lowry Institute analyst, Fergus Hanson.

The Australian reported that although China maintains a strong relationship with Fiji and other Pacific nations, it does not want to be seen as the new international protector filling Fiji’s international relations vacuum, or writing cheques to underpin the country’s collapsing revenues.

Foreign exchange
Foreign exchange remittances sent home by Fijian peacekeepers are said to be worth millions of dollars a year to the Fijian economy.

The Chinese news agency Xinhua reported that the UN will continue to use Fiji police and soldiers in its current peacekeeping missions but will not increase the numbers in future deployments.

There are more Fijian police working under its peacekeeping mandate than soldiers, said the UN Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs, Ly Pascoe, during a conference in New York recently.

Bruce McConchie has extensive global experience within the development area through both government aid projects and NGOs over a period of 35 years.

He says that NGOs hold a distinct advantage in aid projects.

“They are better at reaching the poorest as they operate at grassroots level and are more effective at managing micro-finance initiatives. They commit to the lengthy time frame required to make a difference,” he says.

“They are used to times of strife and operating in an environment of poor communication,” he says.

Providing the resources are still available, the lack of communication isn’t a problem. NGOs operate best on mobilising and encouraging other people.

They are not solely dependent on outside resources and work effectively with what is available in their immediate environment. Change is often not obvious for another 10 to 15 years, he says.

Squatter settlements
Oxfam’s Barry Coates says there has been an increase in squatter settlements around Suva.

Relations between New Zealand and Australia toward Fiji have cooled further after both countries snubbed an attempt by Commodore Bainimarama for a summit with Prime Ministers New Zealand John Key and Australian Kevin Rudd.

Bainimarama expressed frustration with both prime ministers and their attitude at his attempts to rid Fiji of racism and undertake electoral reform before elections in 2014.

An election this year would restore the “racist” government of former Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase, whom he disposed at gunpoint in 2006, according to The Australian.

Can Fiji sustain itself operating alone in this environment?

“The problems are enormously complex,” says Coates. It is partly due to the coup and partly due to a decline in Fiji’s economy. The textile industry is breaking down as more manufacturing is going to China.

There have been major disruptions in the sugar and tourism industries. The impact on tourism is due to the coup.

Tourists nervous
“It made people nervous about going there with the military running the country,” he says.
The sugar industry and international trade issues are due to European Union policies.

“They are protecting their own distributors.” The EU suspended its $170 million aid package to Fiji’s sugar industry, the second- largest after tourism, following the coup and says future help depends on democracy being restored.

Coates says it is difficult to see how this situation is going to play out in the long term.

“Without the restoration of democracy, the rights of minorities like the Indo-Fijians will suffer,” he says. He believes tension is building and the Fijians are suffering economically.

Pippa Brown is a Graduate Diploma in Journalism student who is on the AUT Asia-Pacific Journalism course. Photo: Pacific Media Centre.

Student report slams Burmese military’s ethnic land grabs

By Violet Cho: Pacific Media Centre

Three Burmese ethnic youth and student organisations in Thailand have strongly condemned the military regime’s policy of increasing militarisation and seizing land without compensation.

The forced land confiscations cause widespread problems for civilians throughout Burma, the movements say in a new report.

The report, titled "Holding Our Ground" - documented by the All Arakan Students’ and Youths’ Congress, Mon Youth Progressive Organisation and Pa-O Youth Organisation, says military government mismanagement and militarisation of ethnic lands causes daily suffering for Burmese citizens who do not have enough food and water or enough income to provide education for their young.

According to the report, the regime has confiscated lands for house barracks, outposts and training sites for the troops.

The seized lands are also being used for farming and gardening in order to supplement rations and generate additional income for the troops.

The land grabbing from civilians has increased drastically due to a policy of self-reliance whereby the Burmese army must produce its own food and obtain basic materials.

Aung Marm Oo, chief author of the report, said: “The abundance of natural resources and biodiversity, together with the presence of rebel groups, have seen these three areas suffer a high level of land confiscation as part of the SPDC’s [“State Peace and Development Council”] policy of increased militarisation and the exploitation of natural resources for profit.”

Another reason for land confiscation is government construction and so-called development projects of building dams, mining and destruction of the forest for building roads.

Forced labour
These projects often use forced labour and have disastrous environmental effects in many areas.

Burmese troops have set up their posts in civilian lands to protect international corporations that are working in Burma.

A villager from near Kyauk-phyu township in Arakan state, in western Burma, said: “The army is based there not for waging war but for guarding foreign companies involved in oil and gas exploration in Arakan coastal areas.”

The military regime policy of increasing troop deployments has caused many ethnic villagers to flee, abandoning their land and property. Consequently, tens of thousands of people are fleeing Burma in search of a better life.

The Burmese military is constantly expanding to sustain the continual growth of the regime’s power.

Military infrastructure is developed while civilian needs are repeatedly neglected.

The obsession with increasing the size of Burma’s army is underlined by the fact that in the period 1993-2004, 29 percent of central government spending went on defence, while the corresponding health and education figures were only 3 percent and 8 percent respectively.

Today, the SPDC Army numbers around 490,000; having more than doubled in size since 1989. There are an additional 72,000 people in the Myanmar Police Force, including 4500 in the paramilitary police.

This corresponds to roughly one soldier for every 100 citizens, despite Burma facing no external enemies.

Violet Cho is the Asian Journalism Fellow at AUT’s Pacific Media Centre.

Irrawaddy magazine
Holding Our Ground report

Underground 'VJs' expose Burmese horror

By Violet Cho: Pacific Media Centre

REVIEW: A dramatic film exposing the struggle of underground Burmese video journalists who chronicled the monk-led Saffron Revolution has featured in this month’s New Zealand world cinema showcase.

Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country is a mix of original footage of the popular and peaceful protests in September 2007 shot by Burmese video journalists, international media footage and dramatic reenactments filmed from the safety of Thailand.

The military junta brutally crushed the protests and a Japanese journalist was among more than 30 people shot dead.

The footage is strung together through the narration of Joshua, a young and enthusiastic journalist who flees Burma soon after the protests start, after getting some sensitive footage and attracting the attention of police intelligence.

He was investigated but fortunately the police did not realise who he was.

The film, shown at Auckland’s Academy cinema, follows Joshua and his group of young video journalists as they film the oppression by the military junta inside Burma and send it to the exiled Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB), based in Thailand, and Norway.

It is the only Burmese independent satellite TV. It is broadcast back into Burma, providing a key source of information for citizens who otherwise have to rely on a mediascape restricted by heavy government censorship.

From Thailand, Joshua continues to coordinate a small group of video journalists who were doing daily documentation of the event. They were one of the key sources of footage for international broadcasters , such as BBC, CNN and Al Jazeera - who were denied access to Burma.

The atmosphere of the film is raw – with lots of handheld cameras and quick editing techniques, designed to give viewers a feel for what it is like being a video journalist in a closed country in crisis.

While Joshua is the main character of the film, we do not see his face – he is only shown from behind. This is for his security, so he can go back to Burma and continue working for media.

Risking lives
Apart from documenting journalists, the film effectively shows how average Burmese people are suffering from economic crisis and military mismanagement and how this was important to push people onto the streets, risking their lives in doing so.

Burma VJ was directed by Danish documentary filmmaker Anders Østergaard and has received international success, being shown at international film festivals. It won an award at Amsterdam Film Festival last December.

As a Burmese exiled journalist, I don’t feel like the film is for me – I was in Thailand reporting about the Saffron Revolution at that time, making daily phone calls so it is an all too familiar story.

I am also less interested in the views of journalists from exile like me, sitting in an office trying to comprehend events.

I would have liked to have seen more from the perspective of those working from Rangoon during that time, as they are working in the battleground.

It reminds me of a journalist friend I met in Thailand a month after the crackdown and was reporting from Rangoon secretly for exiled media.

When the government soldiers tried to crack down and shoot protesters - she was there watching soldiers shoot people and taking photos of it.

She wept when she told me about that. She also had to run for her life.

Out of fear of being arrested, she hid under a car for about two hours, because at that time carrying a camera in Burma was a serious crime.

I would like to see more from the standpoint of people like her.

Violet Cho is the Asian Journalism Fellow at the Pacific Media Centre. Burma VJ has also screened in Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin.

Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country, directed by Anders Østergaard. 84min.

More on BurmaVJ at Hotdocs

PMC condemns 'ruthless censorship' in Fiji

Pacific Media Watch

The Pacific Media Centre has condemned the Fiji regime's 'ruthless censorship' of news organisations and called for an end to intimidation.

The condemnation follows a canned news bulletin by Fiji Television tonight and a blank page and story spaces in today's Sunday edition of the Fiji Times by news editors in protest over censored content.

Fijilive also reported "withdrawing" some news items as censors maintained a presence in the country's newsrooms since the 30-day public emergency regulations came into force.

Some journalists reported a "climate of silence" in some newsrooms in response to the censorship.

Associate Professor David Robie, director of New Zealand's AUT University-based PMC, called on the Fiji regime of Commodore Voreqe Bainimarama to "end this Orwellian era of ruthless censorship and intimidation".

"The people of Fiji should be allowed free and unfettered media coverage, especially at this time of uncertainty and anxiety," he said.

"A gagged and intimidated media will only lead to rumours, disinformation and more instability."

The regime earlier called on the nation's media to refrain from publishing "negative" stories about the actions of the President Ratu Josefa Iloilo over the past few days.

On Good Friday, the president abrogated the 1997 Constitution, sacked the nation's judges and declared himself Head of State.

This followed a Court of Appeal judgment on Thursday which ruled that the interim government of Prime Minister Bainimarama was illegal.

The president reappointed Bainimarama as prime minister and Fiji is now being ruled by decree, including one that has imposed newsroom censorship by Ministry of Information officials and police.

Editors were told not to publish or broadcast items that may involve "incitement" and undermine law and order.

Major Neumi Leweni, who is also Permanent Secretary of Information, asked all news media to “immediately refrain from publishing and broadcasting any news item that is negative in nature, relating to the assumption of executive authority on 10 April by his Excellency the President, and the subsequent appointments of the Prime Minister and Cabinet Ministers”.

Section 3 of the regulations state that anybody or organisation that “fails in any way whatsoever" to comply with the state provisions may be ordered to "cease all activities and operations".

In today's Sunday Times, page 2 was left blank apart from a downpage box that declared: "The stories on this page could not be published due to government restrictions."

Five dummied up story spaces were left blank on page 3 and a political cartoon space on the page 6 opinion section was also blank.

The ministry has reportedly warned the Fiji Times to stop leaving blank spaces or face closure under the decree.

After leaving out an item in last night's 6pm bulletin news due to censorship, Fiji Television pulled its main bulletin tonight.

Cafe Pacific on censorship
Fiji Times editorial - A sad day for Fiji
Croz Walsh's blog comment

Quiet Papuan 'father' takes on military with his pen

By Jessica Harkins: Pacific Media Centre

At first glance, Father Neles Tebay isn’t the kind of man you would think is under military surveillance. He’s a “father” after all.

He’s not a vigilante, militant or “terrorist”. He’s a theologian and a writer – a good one. In Indonesia, this warrants being watched, constantly.

He doesn’t write about violence or retribution. Nor does he advocate these things.

Like many of his ilk, he writes about dialogue. Something people in the West often take for granted that everyone has an opportunity to share.

When did Fr Tebay first know he was “of interest” to the Indonesian government?

“In 1986, the Indonesian military went to a public market to ask about me. They asked: ‘Where is Neles?’,” he recalls.

“They already knew where I stayed - at that time I was a student.

“They did it in order to frighten me, or terrorise me.”

Did it work?

“No”. He pauses. “No I think they failed in this.”

Important role
Fr Tebay’s mission, under military scrutiny or not, is to raise awareness in his own community, and around the world, about the struggle for autonomy in West Papua.

He has no qualms about saying what he means.

Maire Leadbeater, a spokesperson for the Auckland-based Indonesia Human Rights Committee (IHRC) and a tireless activist in her own right, who met Fr Tebay just this week, says: “He certainly doesn’t mince his words.”

“Fr Tebay is taken very seriously in his country. His role is important.”

Fr Tebay’s main concern in his homeland is the apparent failure of Law 21/2001. This is supposed to have granted Papua province special autonomy from the Indonesian state to oversee its own affairs.

Despite this law, there are proposals to divide West Papua into four smaller provinces, and in recent months the military presence in Papua has been increased visibly.

Fr Tebay has said the move to further split Papua will “only serve the needs of new bureaucrats and would do nothing to address the pressing problems of poverty, an inadequate education system, environmental destruction, poor health care and the spread of HIV/AIDS.”

He adds: “Militarisation is going on. More troops are being deployed in West Papua, more military security posts are established. There are three more battalions, around 700-1000 more troops.”

He criticises the actions of the military, calling them arrogant.

“They can hit anyone, anytime, anywhere, with or without reason,” he says.

“It’s enough to say ‘he is a separatist’ and…”

“That’s why the Papuans are traumatised when they see the military,” he says.

Peace, justice
Fr Tebay is in New Zealand to take part in public discussion about environmental sustainability, as well as the issues close to his heart of peace and justice in West Papua.

Kevin McBride of the international Catholic peace organisation Pax Christi, which is hosting Father Tebay, is disappointed in media exposure about the issue in New Zealand.

“It’s virtually nil, but it’s hidden deliberately by the Indonesian government,” he says.

McBride says foreign journalists are banned from entering the province for “security reasons” - but that doesn’t mean they don’t try.

Four Dutch journalists travelled to the Papuan capital of Jayapura to report on an independence protest this week. They were arrested and detained at a police station for more than 12 hours.

One of the journalists has been released and has returned to Jakarta, but the other three still have not had their passports returned and are not allowed to leave Papua until police investigations into their reporting of a major Papuan demonstration calling for independence are completed.

They are also not allowed to report until the investigation is over, police say.

McBride says that on the Wellington leg of Fr Tebay’s tour of New Zealand, they will pay a brief courtesy visit to the Indonesian Embassy.

A search of the New Zealand Herald website for articles on West Papua yielded only one incorrect reference to plans for transmigration of peoples into West Papua.

Transmigration, a scheme by the Indonesian government to relocate poor people from over-populated areas of Indonesia to West Papua, was implemented in the 1960s and has now ceased - although there is still spontaneous migration into the area, according to Fr Tebay.

Suspect opinions
“When you want to raise your opinion, usually you are suspected of being a separatist,” says Fr Tebay.

He adds that the stigma of being a separatist is a risk factor for the Papuans, especially with the stepped up military presence in the region.

Over the years, Fr Tebay has written opinion pieces for the Jakarta Post, as well as news articles for some of his local newspapers.

Now he questions the impact of his writing.

“There is no guarantee. No guarantee that my articles would be read by the right people.

“I just wrote hoping that somebody would read it, or hoping that government people would read it, and that perhaps it would change their policy,” he says.

Maire Leadbeater says New Zealand should be able to play a role in independence negotiations because of our own colonial history.

“Historical grievances need to be faced,” she says.

“That’s why I get upset with our government sometimes,”

“We should be at the forefront in the push for justice in historical crime,” she says.

“They are immense crimes against humanity,” she says of West Papua’s history with Indonesia.

Sony Ambudi, also of the IHRC and the Mt Eden Islamic Information Centre, describes Father Tebay as an academic researcher and not only a priest.

“Being a researcher is fundamental in giving strong evidence on every human rights violation,” he says.

“He is a man in the field, a real campaigner.”

Fact file

The Indonesian policy on West Papua since the end of World War Two has been focused on Papua being part of its claim over former Dutch Territories.

In 1962, the Netherlands brokered a deal with the Indonesian government and handed the territory over, with the promise that in five years time the people of West Papua would be given an act of self-determination overseen by the United Nations.

In 1969, Indonesia and the UN conducted a referendum called the Act of Free Choice, now widely criticised as a sham and labelled the “Act of No Choice”.

Less than 1 percent of the population voted under severe duress and violent threats. The unanimous result? Stay within Indonesia.

The Free Papua Movement (OPM) has waged a sporadic guerrilla struggle since the 1960s for independence.

Photo of Father Neles Tebay by Jessica Harkins. Jessica Harkins is a student journalist on the Asia-Pacific Journalism course at AUT University.

A Neles Tebay article
Jakarta Post