People have a sense of some hope, some improvement. The “change of style” introduced by the Democracy Coalition to Tonga’s politics is something the people can still support despite the “hiccups”, says ‘Atenisi’s Dr Michael Horowitz.
What has struck me most is that several key issues have barely been covered in the media soul-searching, topmost being the bizarre gun culture itself.
Fundamental rights – the right to food, education and health – need to come before a narrow Western concept of human rights.
“Our job was to kill criminals like drug pushers, rapists, snatchers. That’s what we did. We killed people almost every day.” Allegations of a former hit man in Senate testimony about life with the new Philippines president.
“No nukes”: A remarkable scene in Port Vila’s Independence Park in 1983 during the region’s second Nuclear-Free and Independent Pacific Movement conference revisited three decades on.
Emily Matasororo was on campus that fateful day last month in Papua New Guinea when heavily armed police in camouflage fatigues opened fire with tear gas and live rounds on the peaceful students. She tells her story and what needs to happen now.
“The biggest human rights disaster in the Pacific is happening [just north-west of New Zealand] and we West Papuans are worried that if this genocide and illegal occupation continues to be ignored, in the next few decades we will be completely wiped out from our own country.” – Benny Wenda
The Papua New Guinea police opened fire yesterday on a group of students at the University of Papua New Guinea who were peacefully protesting against the alleged corruption of Prime Minister Peter O’Neill. Several eye-witnesses have come forward to say they saw students beaten and shot at, including one case where a student was shot in the head. Why the muted attention from much of our media?
From the voices we do not hear in the New Zealand media about West Papua. Hundreds of peaceful Papuan protesters were arrested and detained this week. Visit Asia Pacific Report for comprehensive reports and read West Papuan Reverend Benny Giay’s measured analysis in this guest blog.
Peter Willcox was captain of the bombed Rainbow Warrior in Auckland in 1985. Now he has a new book out next week that tells his agenda-setting story over three decades from the Rainbow Warrior sabotage to being thrown into Russian jails for two months and charged with piracy as skipper of the Arctic Sunrise in an oil drilling rig protest.