A deep and satisfying love affair

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One of the more shameful aspects of our foreign policy is our two-tier approach to human rights abuses.

Appalling treatment of human beings take place in many parts of the world but New Zealand only speaks out strongly against abuses occurring in countries which the United States sees as enemies while refusing to speak out against abuses in countries the US regards as its friends.

Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta has been strong and principled in challenging China over “severe human rights abuses” against the Uyghur people for example, with strong public statements and even supported a parliamentary motion condemning China.

That this House is gravely concerned about the severe human rights abuses taking place against Uyghurs and other ethnic and religious minorities in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, and that it call on the Government to work with the United Nations, international partners, and to work with all relevant instruments of international law to bring these abuses to an end.

But when it comes to the struggles of indigenous peoples in West Papua, Palestine and Western Sahara against brutal oppression by Indonesia, Israel or Morocco respectively, Nanaia Mahuta is silent.

The government says they prefer to raise human rights issues with these countries behind closed door where criticism can be made constructively – blah, blah, blah – with endless drivel written by foreign affairs officials to pretend they take these issues seriously. They don’t.

The reason these struggles have continued for so long (West Papua from the 1962 Indonesian invasion, Palestine from Israeli ethnic cleansing of 1948 and Western Sahara from Morocco’s 1975 invasion) is because countries like New Zealand have refused to speak out. We have pulled our punches. We are a serious part of the problem.

Previous government ministers have told us Aotearoa New Zealand must temper its criticism of other countries because it could rebound on our trade but this is not the case. We have minimal trade with Indonesia, Israel and Morocco but massive trade with China.

TDB Recommends NewzEngine.com

The reason we criticised China so directly but pull our punches over Indonesia, Israel and Morocco is because our foreign affairs officials are in a deep and satisfying love affair with the United States.

 

36 COMMENTS

  1. Absolutely agree John. Aotearoa New Zealand’s foreign policy statements are not only morally abhorrent but especially shameful coming from someone who, despite her own people’s history of suffering at the hands of colonialism, is prepared to see it exercised on others in the interests of US global Fascism

    • Well, if this is happening, perhaps we need to review the 5 eyes agreement, indeed, the remnants of ANZUS. If tracked back enough, we would see the Genesis of these western geopolitics. I cant see Nanaia Mahuta as one who would tread the traditional western political line,… she would be all too well informed of that regards colonialism and its effects here,… I would say that its done in context,… what is good and paramount for NZ, taking into account modern circumstances and what she has to deal with at present. Hard as that may seem, she has to deal with modern day NZ. And what that entails as pertains to the 5 eyes.

      Therein lies the problem, – we would have been far off better not being part of the 5 eyes but being and holding out for an independent trading nation. We should have stressed an entirely bold and independent trading policy rather than being succored into being a minor partner in a western military alliance.

      Mahuta must draw a fine line. She is doing well, but only within the parameters within which she is able to move. And those restrictions are imposed on her because of the framework with which she is given to operate in. And much of that is because of foreign pressures, – particularly because of the 5 eyes.

      I do not think any other Minister of Foreign Affairs including Winston Peters could do any better considering the restraints put on both of them. They have both served us well.

      • From what I have seen of Winston’s statements re China, he is very steeped in Western propaganda. Sadly Nanaia is staring to seem that way too. Pity. We must get ourselves into a position where we are not forced to choose a side.

        • Except we do need to take side. A pox on both their houses but USA is the lesser evil. Two systems cannot coexist forever. either the world will be a totalitarian authoritarian red fascist dictatorship or it will be a liberal democratic one. Democratic Socialism/Libertarian Socialism of course will be the answer to both, but I believe that can only happen after a fully totally globally integrated world system is established …either as a peaceful evolution/transition from/out of liberal democracy or from/out of a violent revolution against the potential future tyrant CCP Red King.

          • How is the US a lesser evil? How many countries has China invaded in the past 50 years? How many has the US invaded during this time?

            The treatment of the Uyghurs and other significant groups is appalling, kidney takes etc. But there is plenty that the US does in their country that is appalling also.

            • One reason China hasn’t invaded anyone is because the US is a deterrent. It would be foolish to believe they are actually peaceful

              • You mean the America that has never actually won a war is a deterrent to China? Better do a rethink on that one.

                • I was thinking of the ‘last 50 years’. So yes, of course the US is a deterrent and still is. Although perhaps that will change in a few years

                  • So which wars has the US won in order to be a deterrent to a country that has seen no need to invade anywhere in that time?
                    Actually, the US did successfully invade the major military state of Grenada in 1983 with the help of six Caribbean nations because it was a threat to the US.

                    • The US doesn’t need to have won any wars. Common sense says the US is a military force to be reckoned with. China would ruin its economy if they started a full scale war. They would suffer deaths that the chinese people do NOT want. COMMON SENSE!

          • I cannot support the USA hegemony. It will not deliver the outcome you want CrimsonGhost, just look at it’s track record since WW2. Therefore I do not see it as the lesser evil, and I believe the USA is the current most dangerous aggressor.

            • There is a price that every hegemon must pay. The more enemies they have (and the greater the tendency to create them), the more criminal they are. The US today would rather make allies. The Chinese government creates more enemies. They would probably have to commit genocide to become global hegemon

      • Your fav issue at play Wild Katipo. Neo Liberal politics.
        The scourge of the western world and especially Aotearoa.
        Invades every issue and stops every progression.

        • Unfortunately so, – as the forming of the Mont Pelerin society back around 1949 as a ‘ bulwark against the spread of communism’ had much to do with hijacking the generally accepted Keynesian consensus of the west along with the IMF ( austerity, loans to be paid back at a certain date ready or not) and World Bank. And we can see how Reaganomics had much to do with being used as a tool and weapon against the former Soviet Union. In one of Chris Trotters excellent posts we saw how ‘ whoever controls the center of the world controls the world’,… ie: Russia.

          Thus, western hegemony.

          • WK. You haven’t factored in ‘Mellinials’ Woke Doctrine as they will be the future!
            They will cancel the fuck out of anyone and anything that does not belong in their bubble ideology and doctrine!

            Only gen Z and Mels know best. If you don’t know that already. It means that you have been cancelled.

            • Apart from being irrelevant, your comment speaks to just how delusional you are being… It’s only a matter of time before the “adults in the room” push the woke idiots completely out of the way, and get on with dealing with reality.. The prcess has already started, as the willful, childish, and self serving hyper sensitivity of the child minds at the center of the idiocy is already making them irrelevant.. Every generation has it’s over educated mediocrities, and the woke are ours…

        • I cannot think offhand of any peoples down throughout history who have not been at some stage either an aggressor or victim of aggression in turn. An example being, Napoleon , then World War one and two,… massive slaughter and yet , in each case in time a kind of reconciliation. Huge numbers of people at each others throats in Europe, and yet – here they are now with open borders. And the peoples of Europe are as different as chalk and cheese.

          Colonialism always has a negative connotation for most indigenous peoples, usually the destruction of their culture and economics,…and while there must be actions of recompense and equity in many areas , I think it may be difficult in todays globally intermeshed politics to always look backwards in history when it comes to foreign relations , – having one eye on the past and other in the present and future. Unless that ‘history’ is of what we would term ‘recent history’, and viewing human rights abuses ongoing in which case one Foreign Minster holds far less clout than say, the U.N.as a body.

          I would think our traditional links with English foreign policy and now ensconced within the 5 eyes has a lot to do with our stance of the ‘traditional western political line’,… esp after the Second World war,…its disdain for communism and the cold war era that ensued. And those attitudes which are pushed today are hard to shake .

          I’ve always felt that we should have developed our armed forces sufficient for defensive purposes, disaster relief and the patrolling of our waters and fisheries and become an aggressive trading nation, – if you will, – a kind of little brother Switzerland of the South Pacific and left the 5 eyes altogether.

          • New Zealand cannot become a neutral state while the Realm of New Zealand remains in existence as a colonialist entity. Colonialism must go before New Zealand can sever its Five Eyes connections.

  2. Mahuta is another believer in incrementalism and selective diplomacy. Do as you are told by the NZ handler in the US. The hear no evil, see no evil doctrine.
    With 20 years at the trough and ample opportunity to achieve something in her political career, she is determined to ‘flame-out’ with all that she touches. From the 3 Waters pseudo, quasi-government takeover of ratepayers assets to supporting dodgy Treaty Settlements with fraudulent boards to general laziness in important interviews with the public.

    It all seems like a severe dose of ‘trough-fatigue’ to me!

    Time for an early election to clear them out.

      • Gagarin, tiring work being a tool for the establishment? Multiple historical precedents disagree with you.

        • name them with citations….no

          note– some numpty using the word in a rightard bubble does not count as a precedent….just to save you wasting your time..

          • Gagarin, if I was in a ‘rightard’ bubble I wouldn’t be here.

            Civil rights movement in the US. Apartheid in SA. Nazi Germany. Leper colonies. Witch hunts. HIV.

            All wrong, all perpetrated by the likes of you, yet justified by the perpetrators. So, deny, deny, deny.

            • so where are our, townships bantustans and camps then whitey a list will suffice…as for equating the civil rights movement with apartheid you’ve lost it mate, now if you’d said the panthers or one of the more extreme black nationalist factions you might have a tiny tiny bit of traction.

              perpetrated by the likes of me and what prey tell am I?

              • Gagarin, I’d like to think you’ll figure it out but you probably won’t. Segregationists don’t until it’s too late.

  3. how about Nanaia sending a very tetchy note to the nation with the greatest per capita imprisonment rate in the world, who’s prisoners are targeted by race and gender (black males) for use as unpaid labour in a
    gulag-esque prison/industrial sector….
    after all she’s supposed to be sensitive to colonial oppression or have the baubles bought her?

    I wonder just for the sake of the exercise how many Uygers are in chinese work camps and how many african/americans are in effect slaves within the US prison system.

    never gonna happen is it? USA=good

  4. I understand the need for this blog to be moderated but does anyone else get the right hump at the time it takes some posts to appear,…it destroys the immediacy and flow of the conversations…..just sayin like.

  5. Seems in much diplomacy of a short stint in each destination there is not much wriggle room for a Foreign Minister hence diplomats who live there. It may be unwise to always takes sides and maybe worsen some situations which will not benefit us. And for those concerned. I suppose it must be a softly softly situation in order to enter dialogue. Mahuta has found herself in some such places on her trip and acted accordingly.

  6. John
    You used to be someone I respected and stood next to at protests fighting for the rights of the people. Man what happened. Interesting read, Meanwhile your own backyard is being torn apart by your employer creating fear and segregation.
    My how the tables have turned

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