Fiji's military leader and Prime Minister, Voreqe (Frank) Bainimarama. Photo: Selwyn Manning

Pacific Scoop:
Commentary – By Graham Davis

The folly of Australian policy towards Fiji is at the centre of a damning new landmark report that suggests the United States has lost confidence in Canberra’s ability to influence events in the Pacific and counter rising Chinese influence in the region.

It calls for the immediate and unconditional lifting of regional sanctions against Fiji and for Australia to “repair its relationship at the highest level” by re-engaging with the Bainimarama regime through the Pacific Islands Forum.

“It is well past the time to treat this festering regional wound,” it declares. Read more »

Flashback to the Santa Cruz cemetery massacre in Dili on 12 November 1991. Source: TVTL

Pacific Scoop:
Commentary – By Charles Scheiner in Dili

Tonight, I’m honored to be with so many young Timorese people who believe in justice and independence. Twenty years ago, brave people just like you peacefully demonstrated against the Indonesian occupation of your country. Nobody paid them, or ordered them, or told them it would be safe or easy.

The Santa Cruz protesters inspired people around the world, including me. I was in New York, and I heard about the massacre on community radio. Although I already knew about Indonesia’s illegal occupation here, and about the criminal support my US government was giving to it, I hadn’t done much to stop it.

A month after the Santa Cruz massacre, I and some other friends organised a peaceful protest at the Indonesian Mission to the UN. We didn’t risk being shot or tortured, but we knew we had to speak out in solidarity with the heroes of Santa Cruz who risked and lost their lives in the struggle for self-determination. Read more »

A new era for the Burmese press as the regime tries to win friends. Photo: Mizzima

Pacific Scoop:
Analysis – By Naing Ko Ko and Simon Scott

Burma’s (Myanmar) one-time military generals, who have miraculously transformed themselves into benign politicians, really do seem to be taking remarkable steps to restructure both the domestic and foreign policy of that fragile nation.

U Thein Sein’s new administration recently released approximately 208 out of the country’s 2000 political prisoners; unblocked the information super highway and has begun to ease media censorship in a land famous for blacklisting foreign reporters and imprisoning domestic ones.

He even invited charismatic democracy and traditional arch enemy of the regime Daw Aung San Suu Kyi to the presidential palace for a friendly chat and a cup of chai. Read more »

Cartoon: matavuvale.com

Pacific Scoop:
Analysis – By Dr Wadan Narsey

Two recent media releases indicate that the Fiji National Provident Fund board and management (at the instigation of the military regime) are digging the hole deeper for FNPF, with no accountability to the owners of FNPF and media censorship blocking all public discussion.

The first is the bad restructuring of the $303 million loan by FNPF to Natadola Bay Resort Limited (NBRL); and the second is the massively risky $200 million loan to help Air Pacific buy 3 Airbuses in 2013, completely contradicting the most recent advice by recent consultants (Promontory) on sound investment policy for FNPF.

Why interest free indefinite loan to NRBL? Read more »

France rugby fans in the Tricolore colours. Photo: Bleacher Report

Pacific Scoop:
Column – By John McBeth

Now that the Rugby World Cup has been done and dusted and we guage what it’s done for New Zealand, there is one point I hope has been absorbed by all rugby fans and critics.

That is the realisation that it’s damned difficult to win the tournament.

Every four years avid All Black fans have expected, demanded even, that their team wins the Webb Ellis Cup. Most times when the All Blacks enter a World Cup competition, they have such an enviable record that favouritism is heaped upon them. Read more »

This  is raw footage of Wednesday’s attack by the Indonesian military and police on the Third Papuan People’s Congress in Jayapura. The footage was shot by several observers. The last sequence was shot while the camera person was hiding from gunfire. Police have now confirmed that five people were killed in the attack – human rights groups say more have died. Video: Engage Media

Pacific Scoop
Opinion – By Senator Richard Di Natale

The violence in West Papua this week is deeply worrying – and raises uncomfortable foreign policy questions for the Australian and New Zealand governments.

News reached my office that on Wednesday unarmed Papuans — women, young people, church leaders, academics, tribal elders — and at least one Australian citizen, were being shot at by the Indonesian security forces.

We now know that at least four people are confirmed dead, scores severely wounded and hundreds have been detained at the police station in Jayapura, the capital of West Papua. Read more »

Benny Wenda with British MP Andrew Smith in 2008. Photo: Cherwell.org

Pacific Scoop:
Opinion – By Benny Wenda

As a child growing up in the remote highlands of West Papua, we often heard stories from the elders about how our ancestors’ spirits lived in the mountains and forests. How they would cry if they saw what is happening today.

Illegal logging is rife, and the world’s largest gold and copper mine, Freeport, has caused permanent environmental devastation to our sacred lands that is visible from space.

Earlier this week, Indonesian security forces opened fire on striking workers at the Freeport mine. It left one person dead and several others wounded, leading Sam Zarifi, Amnesty International’s Asia Pacific director, to say that “Indonesian police have not learned how to deal with protesters without resorting to excessive, and even lethal, force”. Read more »

West Papua graphic representing the banned Morning Star flag of independence. Image: Jakarta Globe

Pacific Scoop:
Analysis – By Dr Warren Doull

The Indonesian government has adopted a two-pronged strategy to maintain control of its Papuan provinces: intense military presence and intense public spending. Neither is working.

Since July 2011, violence and pro-referendum campaigning has surged in Papua. In August alone, two Indonesian soldiers were shot dead in separate incidents in Abepura and Puncak Jaya, and there were demonstrations in Jayapura and Mimika for a referendum on whether the Papuan provinces should remain with Indonesia.

On Aug. 22, more than a hundred Tiaka villagers reportedly tried to vandalize an oil rig being guarded by the police, and two of these villagers were killed. And now comes news of deadly clashes in Freeport between the police and striking miners when security forces fired on the protesters and killed at least one. Read more »

Fiji regime's Attorney-General Aiyaz-Sayed-Khaiyum ... Photo: Jet

Pacific Scoop:
Analysis – By Professor Crosbie Walsh

One day, 10 or more years hence, someone will attempt to write a accurate history of Fiji during the first two decades of the 21st century, and blogs will be one source of their information.

It would be a formidable task in any event but with the vast number of sources available in the electronic age, and with every Tomasi, Rajieli and Hari expressing opinions with no evidence, or citing anonymous information relayed from so many “usually reliable sources”, it will be near impossible to know what weight to give to give to each source.

What will make it even more difficult is that some histories are already being written, and rewritten with deliberately distorted material posing as facts. Read more »

Sakurajima Volcano belching across the bay from Kagoshima City, Japan. Photo: Wadan Narsey / PMC

Pacific Scoop:
Commentary – By Dr Wadan Narsey in Kagoshima, Japan

In May, I came to Kagoshima University – located on the southern tip of Japan – for my sabbatical from the University of the South Pacific.

It was just two months after the March 11 earthquake, the seventh largest recorded in history.  The resulting 10m high tsunami created a massive disaster  in coastal north-east Japan, including the virtual melt-down of the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant.

Night after night, the television channels were portraying accounts of the devastation to people’s homes and livelihoods, the economic costs, the radiation leakage affecting people, crops, farm animals, and the environment. Read more »