Wansolwara: 28 August 1999
MEDIA: BLOOD ON THE CROSS IN WEST PAPUA
While coverage of East Timor and West Papua affairs gains worldwide attention, Pacific news media give cursory coverage and many developments are not covered at all. Backgrounder on a recent ABC Four Corners documentary.
DAVID ROBIE: Fourth Estate Column
ELSEWHERE in this edition of Wansolwara, the fate of West Papua and East Timor is in the news - student petitions and coverage of Monday's ET referendum issue for a start.
East Timor has even spilled over into a campus domestic slanging match.
But, sadly, the fact is that most of the Pacific doesn't give a hoot about their plight. Most Pacific countries gained their independence on a platter, so why be troubled over the misfortunes of others in the region?
Self-determination used to be a catchcry in the Pacific - and nowhere was it more evident than right here among the student body on this campus. Today it raises little more than a yawn.
On Page 5, the head of USP's School of Social and Economic Development, Dr Vijay Naidu, quite rightly berates students for their insular attitudes and says "the rest of the student body must wake up to the wider issues that confront the region and the world. The violation of human rights and denial of sovereignty to the people of East Timor is one of them".
The same message goes for journalists and news media in the region. The lack of awareness and preoccupation with covering safe and inane issues mean many important stories of the day are ignored.
A narrow view of globalisation and its impact in the region (rarely do local media publish or broadcast more than economic platitudes with a simplistic analysis that ignores the many failures of market rationalism, such as in New Zealand), means other perspectives are squeezed out.
One local media organisation is smugly fond of patting the Fiji news media on the back for how "diverse and free" it is. However, in my more than 30 years as a global journalist, I would rate this country as having one of the least free media I have experienced.
This is not so much because of overt attempts by the last two governments to suppress information, although that is certainly an irritation from time to time. The real problem is the lack of diversity and narrow world view of some of the country's editors and news directors. The gatekeepers have a field day in Fiji.
East Timor and West Papua are good examples of this. Even though elsewhere in the world East Timor, at least, has become a major story, local coverage is pathetic.
When was the last time a Pacific Islands journalist went to West Papua, or even to Indonesia (not on a government-paid junket) to give a regional perspective? Neville Togarewa of PNGšs The National is one of the few to maintain a watching brief.
It often requires a foreigner to do the probing. When I was in Sydney recently as the Australian Press Council 1999 Fellow, I visited the ABC Four Corners investigative programme (unique in this hemisphere but unfortunately we can no longer see it in Fiji after Fiji TV heaved Australian Television broadcasts off its downtime) while it was putting the finishing touches to a controversial report on West Papua, "Blood on the Cross".
When the report was subsequently broadcast on July 12, it immediately stirred headline news and was reported by wire services such as Agence France-Presse.
Did it rate a mention in Fiji? Hardly.
According to allegations in the report, made by arguably the best investigative reporter in the region, Mark Davis, Britain's crack SAS army regiment was involved in a 1996 mission to rescue hostages from rebels in Irian Jaya (West Papua) during which eight civilians died.
The program also alleged the Special Air Service worked with mercenaries in planning the operation, and used a helicopter with the International Red Cross logo.
Some of the mercenaries came from Executive Outcomes, a South African company involved a year later in the so-called Sandline scandal which ended with Papua New Guinea Prime Minister Sir Julius Chan being forced to resign.
A helicopter with the International Red Cross logo was claimed in the ABC report to have been used by soldiers who shot the villagers in the southern highlands of West Papua in May 1996.
The truth about the mission had allegedly been concealed and the Indonesian military was credited with a rescue that triggered a crackdown in which many West Papuans were massacred, raped, tortured or dispossessed.
Among researchers on the programme was Peter Cronau, who is also co-convenor of Pacific Media Watch. Dramatic rare footage of OPM leader Kelly Kwalik, filmed by a youth given a crash video course by Davis on a previous trip, was included.
Although the report didnšt go so far as to allege the SAS directly took part in the mission, to rescue a team of European biologists and Indonesian researchers, it claimed SAS personnel were implicated as advisers.
AFP reported: "Four Britons, a German, a Dutchman and his pregnant wife, and four Indonesians had been held for four months while the International Red Cross negotiated for their release.
"According to the programme, Free Papua Movement (OPM) guerillas had captured the team to draw international attention to their battle against Indonesia for independence.
"Indonesia was accused of bombing and strafing villages near the giant Freeport mine whose loyalties were regarded as suspect during a campaign that brought famine to the region.
"Officially, eight OPM soldiers were killed by Indonesian Kopassus special forces in a battle that reached its climax after two of the Indonesian captives had been killed by the OPM.
"But Daniel Start, leader of the British team, was quoted as saying the Indonesians weren't killed by their OPM captors, but by grieving civilian friends and relatives of eight innocent people 'murdered days before under extraordinary circumstances'.
"Start claimed those murdered had been lured to their deaths by a Red Cross flag and gunned down by four or five white people and Indonesians behind them."
Although the International Red Cross denied it had authorised use of the helicopter with the ICRC logo, it curiously failed to make further inquiries.
Incidently, while we are deprived in Fiji of Four Corners and other quality current affairs programmes from Australian Television, we are bombarded late night with what must be one of the world's most boring networks, CNBC. As a recent correspondent of the Fiji Times called it - a "gobbledegook" channel!
On a positive concluding note, the Daily Post must be complimented on its enterprise for chasing up a front page local angle on the July assassination of the Samoan Public Works Minister, Luagalau Levaula Kamu.
While its main competitor relied on sketchy agency reports and didnšt give this dramatic story the prominence it deserved, the Post showed that it was able to take a wider view of the world - even if only once in a while.