EZLN announce First Global Festival of Dignified Rage

Communiqué from the of the Indigenous Revolutionary Clandestine Committee—General Command, of the Zapatista Army for National Liberation
Sixth Commission—Intergalactic Commission of the EZLN

Mexico

September 15 and 16 of 2008

To the adherents of the Sixth Declaration and the Other Campaign:

To the adherents of the Zezta Interazional:

To the People of Mexico:

To the Peoples of the World:

Compañeras and Compañeros:

Brother and Sisters:

Once again we send you our words.

This is what we see, what we are looking at.

This is what has come to our ears, to our brown heart.

I.

Above they intend to repeat history.

They want to impose on us once again their calendar of death, their geography of destruction.

When they are not trying to strip us of our roots, they are destroying them.

They steal our work, our strength.

They leave our world, our land, our water, and our treasures without people, without life.

The cities pursue and expel us.

The countryside both kills us and dies on us.

Lies become governments and dispossession is the weapon of their armies and police.
We are the illegal, the undocumented, the undesired of the world.

We are pursued.

Women, young people, children, the elderly die in death and die in life.

And there above they preach to us resignation, defeat, surrender, and abandonment.

Here below we are being left with nothing.

Except rage.

And dignity.

There is no ear for our pain, that is not like what we are.

We are no one.

We are alone, alone with our dignity and our rage.

Rage and dignity are our bridges, our languages.

We must listen to each other then, learn to know each other.

So that our courage and rage grows and becomes hope.

So that our dignity takes root again and births another world.

We have seen and heard.

Our voice is small to be the echo of that word, our gaze small for so much dignified rage.

The process of seeing each other, looking at each other, speaking to each other, listening to each other, is still lacking.

We are others, the other.

If this world does not have a place for us, then another world must be made.

With no tool other than our rage, no material other than our dignity.

We still must encounter each other more, know each other better.

What is missing is yet to come…

II.

Now, three years after the Sixth Declaration of the Lacondon Jungle, the EZLN has undertaken a collective reflection, nourished by the broad horizon that our compañeros of the Other Campaign in Mexico and in the Zezta Internazional across the world have given to us.

It is not little that we have seen and heard, sometimes directly, sometimes through the words and the gaze of others.

The rage that we felt and the dignity that we found was so great that we think now that we are smaller then we thought before.

In Mexico and on the five continents we have found what we intuited when we began our sixth step: there is another world, there is another path.

If the catastrophe that is coming can be avoided and humanity is to have another opportunity, it will because these others, below and to the left, not only resist, but are already drawing the profile of something else.

Something different than what is occurring above.

In the impossible geometry of political power, the fundamentalists are distributed evenly: the right becomes ultra-right and the institutional left becomes the impossible cultured right. Those who make up the progressive media complain that the fanatics of the mainstream press censure them, twist their words and slander their cause, but they at the same time censure, twist the words, slander, and silence any movement that hasn’t bowed down to the dictates of their ringleaders. And without shame they condemn and acquit to the rhythm of a senseless media rating. Fanatics on all sides fight over lies dressed as truths and crimes are measured by the media time that they occupy. But this is nothing other than a pale reflection of what is happening in politics.

Weariness of the cynicism and incompetence of the traditional political classes has been converted into rage. Sometimes this rage is oriented toward hoping for change in the same paths and places as always, and it is there immobilized by disillusionment or trampled by an arbitrary force. The unsettled and brutal north goes back to its old ways. When it is not sponsoring electoral fraud (like in Mexico), it is promoting, encouraging, and financing state coups (as attempted now in Bolivia and Venezuela). War continues to be its primary and favored form of international diplomacy. Iraq and Afghanistan burn, but, to the despair of those above, are not consumed.

The impositions of hegemony and homogeneity on a global scale find in nations, in regions, and in small locales, their witches’ apprentices that try for that impossible historic return to a past where fanaticism was law and dogma, science. Meanwhile, the governing political classes have found in the world of bright lights an adequate disguise to hide their full participation in organized crime.

Sickened by so much greed, the planet begins to pay the unpayable bill of its destruction. But “natural” disasters are also class issues and their devastation is felt most by those who have nothing and are no one. Faced with this, the stupidity of Power has no limits: millions and millions of dollars are dedicated to manufacturing new weapons and installing more military bases. The Power of capital does not worry about training teachers, doctors, engineers, but rather soldiers. It doesn’t prepare constructors, but rather destructors.

And those who opposed this are the pursued, incarcerated, murdered.

In Mexico, farmers who have defended their land are in prison (San Salvador Atenco); in Italy those who opposed the installation of military bases are pursued and treated as terrorists; in the France of “liberty, equality, and fraternity,” humans are only free, equal, and brothers if their papers say so; in Greece being young is a vice that must be eradicated; again in Mexico, but now in that city of the same name, young people are criminalized and murdered and nothing is done because it is not on the agenda that those above dictate. Meanwhile, a legitimate referendum is converted into a shameful way for and assassin-governor to wash his hands of a situation. In the Spain of the modern European Union, publications are closed and a language, Euskera, is criminalized—they think that by killing the word they can kill those who speak it; in that Asia that is so close, the peasant demands are answered with armored injustices; in that arrogant American Union, born in the blood of migrants, the “other colors” that work there are pursued and killed; in the long wound that is Latin America, the brown blood that sustains it is despised and humiliated; in the rebellious Caribbean, a people, the Cuban people, are forced to live under an imperial embargo that is nothing other than a punishment without crime.

And in all of the corners of the world’s geography, and in all of the days of its calendars, those that work, those that make things run, are plundered, despised, exploited, and repressed.

But sometimes, many times, as many times as a smile sets it off again, rage looks for its own paths, new paths, other paths. And the “no” that these multiple rages raise now not only resists, but begins to propose, to become.

Since our appearance in public, now almost 15 years ago, it has been our goal to be a bridge on which the many rebellions in the world can walk back and forth.

Sometimes we have achieved this, sometimes we haven’t.

Now we see and we feel not only the rebellious resistance that, as sister and comrade, stays at our side and encourages our steps.

Now there is something that before wasn’t there, or that we weren’t able to see before.

There is a creative rage.

A rage that paints all of the colors of the paths of below and to the left on the five continents….

III.

FOR THESE REASONS, AND AS PART OF THE ACTS COMMEMMORATING THE 25TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE BIRTH OF THE ZAPATISTA ARMY FOR NATIONAL LIBERATION, THE 15 YEARS SINCE THE BEGINNING OF THE WAR AGAINST OBLIVION, THE FIFTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE GOOD GOVERNMENT COUNCILS, AND THE THIRD YEAR OF THE OTHER CAMPAIGN AND THE ZEZTA INTERNAZIONAL, THE MEN, WOMEN, CHILDREN, AND ELDERLY OF THE EZLN CONVOKE ALL OF THE REBELLIOUS OF MEXICO AND THE WORLD TO THE:

FIRST GLOBAL FESTIVAL OF DIGNIFIED RAGE

WITH THE THEME OF:

ANOTHER WORLD, ANOTHER PATH: BELOW AND TO THE LEFT

TO BE CELEBRATED ON THE FOLLOWING PLACES AND DATES

THE OTHER MEXICO CITY, FEDERAL DISTRICT, December 26, 27, 28, and 29, 2008. IN LIENZO CHARRO OF THE ASSOCIATION LOS CHARROS REYES DE IZTAPALAPA, Frente Popular Francisco Villa Independiente-UNOPII, Avenue Guelatao # 50, Colonia Álvaro Obregón, Delegación Iztapalapa, close to the metro station Guelatao, where an exposition will be presented. AND IN THE HEADQUARTERS OF UNÍOS, Dr. Carmona y Valle street #32, colonia Doctores, close to the metro station Cuauhtemoc, where other activities will be held.

THE CITY OF SAN CRISTÓBAL DE LAS CASAS, CHIAPAS, on the 2nd, 3rd and 4th of January 2009 in CIDECI, located on the Camino Real de San Juan Chamula s/n, Colonia Nueva Maravilla.

SOME OF THE SUBTHEMES OF THE FESTIVAL WILL BE:

AN OTHER COUNTRYSIDE AN OTHER POLITICS
AN OTHER CITY AN OTHER SOCIAL MOVEMENT
AN OTHER COMMUNICATION AN OTHER HISTORY
AN OTHER ART AND AN OTHER CULTURE AN OTHER SEXUALITY

THE FESTIVAL “ANOTHER WORLD, ANOTHER PATH: BELOW AND TO THE LEFT” WILL HAVE THE FOLLOWING CHARACTERISTICS:

1. In Mexico City, a national and international exposition will be installed where every struggle, every experience, every rage, will have a space where it can set up and show its struggle and its courage. This way we can all see, hear, and know each other.

2. In zapatista territory, dignity and rage will become art and culture, music and song, because rebellion also dances. And with words, pain will become hope.

3. In San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas, the word will go back and forth in order to give birth to new words and give strength and reason to rage.

4. The national and international groups, collectives, and organizations that participate in the festival will be only those who are invited to do so. To this end, the Sixth Commission of the EZLN has initiated consultations with political and social organizations, as well as with groups and collectives of anarchists, libertarians, alternative communication workers, human rights defenders, sexworkers, intellectuals, social activists, ex political prisoners, all adherents of the Sixth Declaration; and with groups, collectives, and organizations of other countries, all part of the Zezta Internazional. The criteria for invitations and participations will be made after these consultations.

5. For the roundtables, the EZLN will invite social organizers, thinkers, and leaders of anticapitalist projects from Mexico and around the world. The list of invitees will be released later.

6. More details about what we are thinking the festival of dignified rage could be will be made known at earliest convenience (that is, when we have an approximate idea of the problem we have gotten ourselves into).

That’s all for now.

LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ATENCO!

From the mountains of the Mexican Southeast.
For the Indigenous Revolutionary Clandestine Committee—General Command, of the Zapatista Army for National Liberation.

Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos.
Mexico, September of 2008.

translated by el Kilombo Intergaláctico

----------------------------------------------

For more information see:
www.ezln.org.mx

AND/OR come along to the film screening (of Atenco: Break the Siege) and discussion this Wednesday night from 6.30pm at Happy, corner Tory and Vivian Sts, Wellington. entry by koha/donation all proceeds to the political prisoners of Atenco and their families.

For more info about the film screening, the Wellington Zapatista Support Group, and the Zapatistas in general, please visit:
www.floweroftheword.wordpress.com

Related

• http://www.ezln.org.mx
• http://www.floweroftheword.wordpress.com

Australia Bullying Pacific Over Free Trade Deal

Wednesday: August 06, 2008

Australia has been accused of trying to fast-track new free trade negotiations with Pacific Island countries at a recent regional trade ministers' meeting in the Cook Islands.

Trade officials from the Pacific leaked details of the meeting to the Pacific Network on
Globalisation (PANG) because they were outraged that an Australian trade delegation had tried to bully Pacific ministers to fast-track work on a new free trade agreement (FTA), said PANG coordinator Maureen Penjueli, who is based in Fiji.

She said the Australian government tried to secure agreement on which areas would be included under any FTA negotiations, and begin formalizing the negotiating process.

"They know very well that Pacific countries are not ready to start any negotiations," said Penjueli. "We are still negotiating a controversial FTA with the European Union, and a regional trade deal among ourselves. We haven't even begun to prepare our regional negotiating framework, or undertake social impact assessments, or reviews of Pacific legislation that could be affected by a new FTA with Australia and New Zealand."

She said the Australians were attempting to set the terms of negotiations.

Pacific trade ministers reportedly want to establish an office of a Chief Trade Advisor, potentially to be based in Port Vila, Vanuatu, before any PACER-Plus negotiations get under way.

Penjueli said Australia and NZ were not interested in supporting a strong regional negotiating team.

"Negotiations haven't even begun, and the Australians are splitting the region, by refusing to support a regional negotiating office, and by holding out carrots — like new workers' schemes — to gain support from individual Pacific countries," said Penjueli.

"It would be unfortunate if Australia and NZ were to use their position as key aid donor countries for the region, to secure their own trade interests in any FTA negotiations."

Australia and NZ are keen to pursue a FTA with 14 Pacific Island Countries as part of the Pacific Agreement on Closer Economic Relations (PACER). The FTA is being called PACER-Plus.

Both countries stand to gain hundreds of millions of dollars in increased exports, but there are concerns the Pacific nations will be hurt by free trade with their big brother neighbors, she said.

Penjueli said churches, unions and civil society organizations in the Pacific were concerned that pursuing an FTA with Australia and NZ would lead to rising inequality, losses in government revenue, job losses, a reduction in the quality and supply of essential services and the closing off of policy space that governments use to stimulate development.

"We need to use international trade to enhance our development opportunities in the Pacific," said Penjueli. "The Australians are pressuring us to open all our markets to competition and to reduce our ability to stimulate local firms and service suppliers, or to channel foreign investments toward local industry and employment.

"Pressure to liberalize according to timeframes and frameworks promoted by Australia and NZ makes a complete mockery of the calls for good governance in the Pacific."

WHO concerned about 'alarming' death rate in Pacific

WHO concerned about 'alarming' death rate in Pacific

The World Health Organisation (WHO) says something has to be done in
the Pacific to tackle the alarming death rate from diseases like diabetes, heart disease and cancer.

The WHO's Dr Temo Waqanivalu says up to 80 per cent of people in the Pacific die from one of these three diseases and it is primarily tobacco, alcohol and substance
abuse, obesity and poor diet that causes them

He says the World Health Organisation has noted that people are dying before their
retirement age so it is not only a health issue but an economic one as
well.

Dr Waqanivalu has made the comments at a three-day health conference underway in the Northern Marianas, which aims to develop a five-year plan to prevent non-communicable diseases through educationand better health policies.

Funny how trade liberalisation in the Pacific means the dumping of food that is contributing to this alarming death rate in the Pacific.

Who Wants More Mutton Flaps?
Peoples Guide to PACER
Jane Kelsey

The New Zealand government is trade policy is driven by its obsession with agriculture. Even where it already dominates a market, it demands new concessions or commitments that might create a precedent for demands of other countries. Equally, it wont accept below quality commitments that might be used to undermine NZs hard line approach with countries that really matter. The needs of those countries and their people are subordinated to NZís global trade strategy. Most stories about the PACER negotiations said NZ was less badly behaved than Australia. It is generally the opposite for Islands seeking to join the WTO. It seems likely that NZ will make similar demands if it gets to negotiate on free trade in agriculture under PACER. Tonga is currently applying to join the WTO. In April 2004, New Zealandís Trade Minister hailed the terms on which NZ had agreed to this as saving NZ exporters $6 million in tariffs. In revenue terms that means Tonga, which currently draws over 40% of government revenue from border duties, will need to make up a $6 million fall in revenue from somewhere. The options are user charges, broader sales tax or a consumption tax - in a country where 80% of the people are subsistence farmers whose cash income is largely from remittances. Reports suggest that similar demands are being made of Samoa in its WTO accession negotiations. Why, when Tongans and Samoans are already buying NZís products, even with the tariffs? Primarily, it is about creating precedents

But those precedents also have consequences. Around one third of New Zealandís meat exports into the Pacific are a fatty waste product known as mutton flaps. New Zealand supplies around one third of Tongaís imports. About one third of that is foodstuffs, including a large proportion of mutton flaps. According to trade theory, consumers will benefit by lower prices once tariffs are removed and people will by more of the product. Although experience suggests that the exporters and distributors tend to increase their prices almost back to the previous level, there are also sound development reasons for hoping that prices for mutton flaps from NZ wonít fall. A World Health Organisation report in 2001 drew explicit links between dependence on imported foods, especially mutton flaps, diet-related disease and trade liberalisation. It found that people were making conscious decisions to eat less healthy foods because they were cheap and available: One effect of globalisation has been to increase reliance on imported foods, rather than traditional foods. Imported high fat-content meats, especially corned beef, mutton flaps, and chicken parts, are among the main causes of the rising rates of noncommunicable diseases. Although educational programmes have increased awareness about healthy diets and nutritional foods, people in the Pacific nonetheless choose to consume less-healthy foods because of cost and availability (i.e. they make economically rational, but nutritionally detrimental decisions to consume certain foods). Thus, poor diet is not simply a health or health-education issue, it is also economicÖ.

Healthier low-fat Tongan sources of proteins, such as fish, generally cost between 15% and 50% more than either mutton flaps or imported chicken parts, and in many areas mutton flaps and imported poultry were more easily purchased than indigenous chicken. Not only are the health consequences of these imported foods detrimental, but the availability of these cheap imports is also constraining the development of domestic markets. Food security and balance of trade have long been of concern in the Pacific, but in Tonga the negative balance of trade is critical. Food imports are significant factors in both
issues.

It appears that the solution to diet-related non-communicable diseases in Tonga cannot be based solely on nutritional education. Both the problem and the solution appear to involve economics. One possible answer would be to follow the example of Fiji and ban the importation of fatty foods. Other policy alternatives would promote the development of sustainable indigenous fishing and farming industries that could make the preferred and healthier traditional foods readily available at a reduced cost. However both these solution could run afoul of the GATT and WTO [and therefore PACER]Ö It behoves national policy-makers to be aware of the health impact of ìcommodities of doubtful benefitî, and of the role of trade in the health of the population.î [Abridged from M Evans et al, (2001) Globalization, diet and health: an example from Tongaí, 79 (9) Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 856] Tonga has urged the NZ government to end mutton flap exports and encourage a return to healthier traditional diets, such as fish, organic chicken and taro that simply canít compete in Tongaís small domestic market. There is no sign of that happening. When questioned about this, NZ Samoan MP Taito Phillip Field said NZ would not interfere...with what Tongan business people decide to buy into Tonga.î Fiji, a WTO Member, has imposed a ban on mutton flaps, claiming there are proven links to obesity. New Zealand threatened retaliation at the WTO, but has backed off doing so. It would be interesting to know whether it fears losing the case - or fears being exposed to accusations that it knowingly dumps unhealthy waste products on the Pacific Islands. People might also ask why NZAID bothers to fund health education programmes in Pacific Islands such as Tonga.

Fighting FTAs: a global review of people’s struggles against bilateral free trade and investment agreements\\\\\\\

Fighting FTAs: a global review of people’s struggles against bilateral free trade and investment agreements (January 2008)

Fighting FTAs: a global review of people’s struggles against bilateral free trade and investment agreements (January 2008)
A 60-minute documentary programme produced for Fighting FTAs

A 60-minute radio documentary providing a global picture on the current state of free trade policy, focusing on regional and bilateral trade accords and their impacts on the environment, people, economies internationally, brought to you by FightingFTAs.org. This important radio documentary includes interviews from all corners of the world, allowing the listener to develop a critical understanding of the contemporary nature of ’free-trade’ policy around the world, while also understanding the perspectives of grassroots social movements to such trade accords.

The documentary, produced by Stefan Christoff, includes interviews with the following people:

* Christine Ahn, Korean-Americans for Fair Trade, U.S.
* Nick Buxton, journalist in Bolivia
* Beverly Keen, Jubilee South Network, Argentina
* Manuel Rozental, organizer with Canada-Colombia Solidarity Campaign, Colombia
* Silvia Rodriguez, the Biodiversity Coordination Network, Costa Rica
* Burke Stansbury, Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES)
* John Hilary, War on Want, U.K.
* Anthony Akunzule, the Ghana Poultry Network
* Armin Paasch, of Food First Action and Information Network (FIAN), Germany
* Kole Kilibarda, the Coalition against Israeli Apartheid, Toronto
* Jennifer Moore, Canadian journalist, Ecuador
* Charly Poppe, Friends of the Earth Europe, Belgium
* Marc Maes, 11.11.11, Coalition of the Flemish North South Movement in Belgium
* Wallie Roux, Namibian based campaigner against EU bilateral trade accords, Namibia
* Azra Sayeed, Activist / Academic, Pakistan
* Daoud Hamoudeh, Stop the Wall Campaign, Palestine
* Aziz Choudry, bilaterals.org, international
* Laura Carlsen, the Americas Program of the International Relations Center, Mexico City

• 
  

play streaming audio

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el último Zapatistas: VIVA E.Z.L.N.

Thanks to Guevaristas

Call to protect jobs in free-trade era

Fiji times Tuesday, January 22, 2008 THE Pacific Network on Globalisation (PANG) says Pacific governments should not pursue foreign-imposed free trade policies that will lead to business closures and more job losses. This follows news that Flour Mills of Fiji (FMF) has closed down two milling factories and put on hold $30 million worth of projects that would have created 120 new jobs. The closure of the mills, which have been operating for 15 years, forced 20 people into unemployment and affected at least 20 more. The reduction of import duties on competing products (split peas and rice) led to the closure of the mills. PANG coordinator Roshni Ram said the private sector in Fiji was not ready for open competition with far larger corporations in developed nations and that signing free trade deals with the EU, Australia and NZ would devastate local industry. She welcomed calls from the Suva Chamber of Commerce president Dr Nur Bano Ali for the Fiji government to support a thriving local private sector and to ensure existing employment levels are maintained. "All Pacific economies already suffer from high unemployment levels," said Ms Sami. "We need pro-development trade policies to support local industries, not trade policies that fill the pockets of corporations in New Zealand, Australia and other wealthy trading partners. "We just can't afford to institute policies designed for the benefit of wealthy nations that will push even more people out of jobs." In late 2007, Fiji (and Papua New Guinea) was pressured into initialing a free trade agreement on goods with the European Union, which means Fiji will have to permanently reduce tariffs on most goods entering the country from the EU. In explicit violation of their commitments under the Cotonou Agreement (2000), the EU had threatened to raise tariffs on Pacific exports of tuna and sugar if Fiji and PNG did not sign. The Pacific's big brother's neighbours, Australia and NZ, are already calling for similar concessions to be offered for their exports. Ms Sami said Australia and NZ were far and away the Pacific's biggest trading partners. If we are pushed to offer the same trading terms there will be devastating consequences for the Pacific," said Ms Sami "Pacific leaders have been warned about this by their own advisors and leading economists. It's time this advice is reflected in their trade and economic policies." Sweeping trade liberalisation would result in major losses of government revenue, cuts to public services, business closures and job losses, and a flood of imports undermining local producers.

Add Tonga To The Growing List Of NZ’s Pacific Interventions

Peace Researcher 33 ran a detailed account of New Zealand’s rapidly developing role as the deputy to George Bush’s Australian deputy sheriff in the Asia/Pacific region (November 2006, “The Deputy Sheriff’s Deputy: New Zealand’s Military Foreign Policy in Asia & Pacific”, by Murray Horton, which can be read online at http://www.converge.org.nz/abc/pr33-138.html ).This described the intervention by the Australian and NZ military and police in both Timor Leste and the Solomon Islands in 2006, in both cases responding to a “crisis” and in both cases taking a partisan stance in each countries’ internal politics.

In the case of Timor Leste (formerly East Timor) the Australasian military intervention played a crucial role in removing Mari Alkatiri from the office of Prime Minister, because he was deemed inimical to the interests of the Western powers. He was replaced by Jose Maria Horta, a veteran Timorese political figure who is now very much part of “our team” in Timor Leste (thus continuing a three decades long inglorious history of New Zealand behaving shabbily towards the East Timorese people. Elsewhere in this issue you can read Jeremy Agar’s review of Maire Leadbeater’s “Negligent Neighbour”, the definitive book on the subject).

This intervention has continued, unbroken, into 2007 and provided crucial backing for Horta’s election as the fledgling nation’s second President this year. Upon winning, he promptly declared that he wanted the Australian and New Zealand troops to stay on indefinitely. The Howard and Clark governments are happy to oblige. And the Australasian deployment in the deeply troubled Solomon Islands has been extended through until 2008, despite the increasingly antagonistic relationship between its Government and that of Australia, which seeks to administer the Solomons as a colony in all but name.

Most recently Australia has extended its military sphere of influence further north into Asia, signing a May 2007 Status of Forces Agreement with the Philippines. This will allow Australian troops to be stationed in that country from 2008 and will see Australian military assistance to the Armed Forces of the Philippines which have been fighting two major civil wars since the 1970s - against Muslim separatist guerrillas in the South and against Communist guerrillas throughout most of the archipelago. This is only the second such Agreement that the Philippines has signed, the first one being with the US, its former colonial master (the Philippine government is proud to be called America’s “most reliable ally” in South East Asia and George Bush has declared the country the “Second Front in the ‘War On Terror’”).

New Zealand has not been standing idly by. In November 2006 it added Tonga to the list of Pacific neighbours in which it has militarily intervened. This arose from the crisis following the massive rioting and burning which destroyed a significant proportion of Tonga’s capital, Nuku’alofa, killing several people in the process. Tonga is the one of the world’s last feudal monarchies, certainly the last in the Pacific, and the excesses of the Royal Family have been chronicled by the outside world in recent years with a mixture of incredulity and outright horror. King George Tupou V succeeded his late father in 2006, bringing to the throne the man known as the Clown Prince, the worst possible person to be in charge of Tonga as it has been shaken by a years-long peaceful mass protest movement calling for democracy. The November 2006 riot erupted after the King’s handpicked Parliament adjourned for the year without addressing the democracy movement’s concerns.

But the violence was something completely new and totally out of character with the history of the pro-democracy movement. Only one mainstream NZ journalist, Michael Field, explained just who these rioters were (Press, 27/1/07; “Urban gangs wreak havoc in islands”). They were not from the pro-democracy movement, but hardened members of criminal youth gangs from both the US and NZ who had been either deported to their country of origin or sent back there by their families in a misguided attempt to get them away from bad influences. Many of them were not even Tongan-born but of Tongan descent, born in the US or NZ. Once back “home” they resumed their intimidatory habit of forming into gangs and terrorising their host community. These were the lumpen proletariat elements who rioted, looted and burnt Nuku’alofa, doing it not for any political motive but for the sheer malicious thrill of it all.

The new King and the nobles who dominate the Government wasted no time in taking advantage of this golden opportunity to smear and attack the pro-democracy movement, falsely blaming it for the riot and arresting its leading figures on sedition charges (hundreds of rank and file rioters also face a raft of criminal charges). The feudal regime’s hand was greatly strengthened by Australia and NZ rushing to its assistance, sending both troops and police to “restore order” and to track down and bring to trial those involved in the riot. NZ judges were also involved in helping to manage the resulting huge upsurge in caseload for the courts. This goes far beyond “restoring order” and is a major commitment by New Zealand to prop up Tonga’s repressive feudal regime, despite having regularly condemned it in recent years. This did not go unnoticed by the feisty pro-democracy movement, which condemned the partisan involvement of Australian and New Zealand troops and police. Clive Edwards, a Tongan politician, said: “Tonga’s government, legitimate and legal though it may be, has failed the country and its people badly and now must turn to foreign governments for support in running the country in ways that have never been necessary before and should not be necessary now” (Press, 22/11/06, “Stop backing regime, troops told”, Dan Eaton).

A pattern has emerged. Initially these regional Australasian military interventions are justified by some life or death crisis (such as Indonesian troops and militias running amok in their East Timor colony in 1999; or Solomon Islander mobs burning down Chinatown in the capital, Honiara, in 2006). But the troops and police stay on long after the crisis has been solved and become major partisan participants in local politics, invariably to ensure that Western interests (such as control of hotly disputed offshore oil and gas deposits in the case of Timor Leste) are given primacy. This has got nothing to do with “aid”, let alone “development”. It is a shabby tale of mini-imperialism by Bush’s two regional Mini Mes, namely Howard and Clark. It replicates the pattern established by Howard in Iraq and Afghanistan, and by Clark in the latter (NZ’s “feelgood” military participation in the illegal occupation of Iraq turned out to be shortlived and ended ignominiously before things got really bad for “our boys”). In Timor Leste, the Solomons and Tonga, Clark needs to do what she had to do it Iraq – get NZ’s troops out. They have no business being there and their continued presence makes New Zealanders complicit in a very shabby regional state of affairs.

http://www.converge.org.nz/abc/pr34-147a.html

see also:
http://uriohau.blogspot.com/2007/10/us-military-to-move-into-south-pacific.html

Solomon Islands government in crisis after parliamentarians join opposition

By Patrick O’Connor
12 December 2007

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The Solomon Islands government of Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare has been thrown into crisis by the defection of 12 parliamentarians to the opposition last month. Among them were nine ministers, including Deputy Prime Minister Toswell Kaua and Finance Minister Gordon Darcy Lilo, who triggered the political turmoil by quitting the government after he was demoted to the justice ministry on November 8. Sogavare has since accused Lilo of corruption and mismanagement of public funds.

While opposition leader Fred Fono claimed he had the numbers to force a vote of no-confidence and form a new government, some of the 12 MPs have since switched back to Sogavare, along with other opposition members who have accepted government positions. The prime minister now says he has a 25-23 majority in the 48-member parliament, though Fono disputes this. It remains unclear when the parliament will next meet. The governor-general has ruled that it is to be convened tomorrow while Sogavare has insisted that government members will not attend until December 24.

Australian police and heavily-armed soldiers were deployed yesterday and today to strategic locations around Honiara. The authorities claimed that this was for security reasons but there is little doubt that the show of force is intended to strengthen the opposition. Australian troops wearing camouflage gear are currently guarding the gated entrance to Honiara Hotel, where opposition parliamentarians have based themselves. Government MPs earlier accused opposition leaders of locking away their supporters to prevent them switching over to the government side.

The Solomons’ government has been the target of a long-running “regime change” campaign orchestrated in Canberra. The former Howard government first targeted Sogavare for removal in mid-2006 after he was identified as an obstacle to Australia’s ongoing military-police occupation of the impoverished Pacific country.

In July 2003, more than 2,000 soldiers and federal police were dispatched under the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI), along with scores of bureaucrats, legal officials, and financial “advisors” who took effective control of the country’s state apparatus, including its police force, prisons, courts, public service, central bank and treasury. The neo-colonial takeover was driven by Canberra’s concern to safeguard Australian corporate interests and maintain its regional domination amid intensifying great power rivalries that have been stoked by China’s growing economic and diplomatic influence in the South Pacific. RAMSI was hailed as a model for future interventions in neighbouring countries such as Papua New Guinea.

Sogavare came to power in May 2006 and moved to wind back certain aspects of RAMSI’s control, especially over public spending and economic reform. The Howard government responded by orchestrating a series of filthy operations—involving lies, dirty tricks and provocations—against the prime minister and senior government members.

Attorney-general Julian Moti was targeted on the basis of a trumped up extradition order relating to statutory rape charges that were thrown out of a Vanuatu court years earlier. Moti had been centrally involved in establishing the still ongoing Commission of Inquiry into the April 2006 Honiara riots. Australian officials adamantly opposed the inquiry, fearing any examination of RAMSI’s responsibility for the disturbances. Significant evidence indicates that RAMSI police and soldiers were deliberately stood down to allow the destruction to proceed. (See “The Howard government, RAMSI, and the April 2006 Solomon Islands’ riots”) Moti also played an important role in establishing a pending parliamentary review, which threatens to strip RAMSI personnel of their blanket immunity from Solomons’ law.

Opposition leader Fono has aligned himself with Canberra and pledged to satisfy RAMSI’s demands, including the extradition of Moti. Two opposition attempts to unseat the government through no-confidence motions, in October 2006 and August this year, failed, despite enjoying the support of the Howard government and RAMSI authorities.

Government minister Charles Dausabea has claimed that RAMSI is directly backing the opposition in its third no-confidence attempt. “They want to topple the government led by Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare,” he said on December 3. “I appeal to RAMSI to stay out of politics and let the leaders of the country solve this issue. We are the people ... mandated by the people to run this country and not RAMSI.”

Dausabea said he had lodged a formal complaint to police after two officers, one a Solomon Islander and the other a New Zealand national working with RAMSI, followed him as he was driving around Honiara on government business. “They said that they received information from their special unit that I was planning another riot,” he told a press conference. “This is just unbelievable. I told them straight that they have no solid evidence to justify their allegations.” Dausabea alleged that the police national intelligence unit told the prime minister’s office he was planning to stage a riot if the government were removed.

Dausabea, who has opposed RAMSI, was arrested by Australian police immediately after the April 2006 riots and charged with incitement and related offences. The parliamentarian was repeatedly refused bail by Australian judges working in the Solomons’ court system and held in prison for eight months, before being acquitted of the central charges last August. If it is true that RAMSI personnel are now spreading rumours that senior government figures are preparing violence, this represents another provocative intervention by Australian authorities.

RAMSI leaders help Kemakeza evade jail time

The full extent of Australian involvement in behind-the-scenes manoeuvring against the Sogavare government cannot yet be determined. There is no doubt, however, that the RAMSI leadership wants a more compliant administration. In a revealing episode, senior RAMSI personnel directly intervened in the trial of former prime minister Allen Kemakeza to ensure he evaded imprisonment despite being found guilty on December 6 on charges of demanding money with menace, intimidation, and larceny.

Kemakeza was prime minister in 2003 and played a critical role in facilitating Canberra’s takeover. His government acceded to Howard’s demands that the Australian-led forces be formally invited to intervene and also approved the Facilitation Act, which granted RAMSI legal immunity and is now under parliamentary review. The Kemakeza government functioned as little more than a fig-leaf for Canberra’s control. While RAMSI authorities arrested and charged a series of senior Solomons’ politicians for alleged corruption and complicity with rival Guadalcanal and Malaitan militias, Kemakeza was never investigated despite being widely suspected of involvement in criminal conduct. The quid pro quo was obvious—Kemakeza did RAMSI’s bidding in return for avoiding imprisonment.

National elections in April 2006 saw the Kemakeza government thrown out of office amid overwhelming opposition to his government’s corrupt record, as well as growing dissatisfaction with RAMSI’s presence. Kemakeza subsequently joined the anti-Sogavare opposition after he retained his seat. Last month, however, the government claimed that the former prime minister had switched sides and accepted a government post. Opposition leader Fono has denied this and insists Kemakeza remains on board. According to some calculations, government and opposition MPs are evenly divided, with Kemakeza holding the deciding vote. The Solomon Star reported that the former prime minister earlier declared himself neutral, pending the outcome of his court case.

Kemakeza was found guilty of ordering members of the Malaita Eagle Force (MEF) militia to destroy and steal equipment from Australian-run law firm Sol Law in May 2002. He reportedly told the militants that the firm had too much influence over the country’s financial institutions. While four members of the MEF pleaded guilty and received prison sentences of up to 30 months, Kemakeza, who denied the charges, was sentenced to two months jail, with another three months suspended and a fine of $SI7,500 ($US1,100). Under Solomons’ legislation, parliamentarians lose their seats only if sentenced to six months imprisonment or more—leaving Kemakeza free to continue as a MP. In addition, the court granted bail pending an appeal, allowing him to participate in upcoming parliamentary sessions.

According to an AAP report, Australian magistrate Chris Vass “said he was lenient in his sentencing and took into account referees’ accounts of Kemakeza’s service to the nation... He particularly cited Kemakeza’s role in helping restore peace to the Solomons after years of ethnic unrest and his role in inviting in the Australian-led regional assistance mission.”

Among the “referees’ accounts” were those from Australian Federal Police officer Ben McDevitt, who headed RAMSI’s policing component when the intervention was first launched, and former RAMSI chiefs Nick Warner and James Batley. “The improvements that have taken place in security and economic well-being is due to the work of RAMSI members from Pacific countries in partnership with many Solomon Islanders,” Warner and McDevitt declared in a joint statement to the court. “But without Sir Allan Kemakeza’s vision and support, it is likely there would not have been a RAMSI.”

As well as again demonstrating the hypocrisy of Canberra’s claim to be advancing the rule of law in the Solomons, the political character of Kemakeza’s sentencing suggests that a deal may have been done whereby Australian authorities ensure that the former prime minister stays out of jail in return for his political support against Sogavare.

Sogavare looks to cut deal with Canberra

The Solomon Islands prime minister has responded to the latest political ructions by redoubling his efforts to reach an accommodation with Canberra. For all his anti-colonial rhetoric, Sogavare has no principled opposition to RAMSI and Australian imperialism. He represents a layer of the Solomons’ ruling elite which has grown dissatisfied with aspects of the Australian intervention, hopes to recast RAMSI on a new basis more favourable to its commercial and political interests and is looking to other powers for support.

Throughout the period when the Howard government was seeking to destabilise and overthrow his administration, Sogavare repeatedly pleaded for negotiations. Howard, however, had too much at stake politically to compromise. His government’s entire strategic orientation in the South Pacific was tied up with RAMSI’s fortunes; it was feared that any concession to Sogavare would weaken Canberra’s position by emboldening other regional leaders, such as PNG’s Michael Somare, who were similarly looking for more room to manoeuvre with other powers.

Last month’s defeat of Howard has raised hopes in Honiara for an end to hostilities. Sogavare quickly extended his congratulations to new Prime Minister Kevin Rudd after the November 24 vote and has since said he intends to invite both Rudd and Duncan Kerr, Labor’s parliamentary secretary for the Pacific, to visit the Solomons. “I would like to see all the issues clouding our relationship to be dealt with as quickly as possible so we can move on with our lives and get on with the business of development,” Sogavare declared.

The Rudd government will be no less ruthless than its predecessor in prosecuting Australian interests in the South Pacific. The Labor Party fully supported all the Howard government’s manoeuvres in the region, including its military-led interventions in East Timor in 1999 and 2006 and in the Solomons in 2003. It encouraged the Howard government to move toward a “Pacific Union” that would systematically integrate the region’s economy and administrative apparatuses under Canberra’s domination. More recently, however, Labor criticised the former government for an over-reliance on military force and a failure to utilise diplomatic, aid and other instruments to advance Australian corporate interests. These tactical criticisms reflected concerns within the foreign policy establishment that the Howard government’s approach was generating too much opposition from both ordinary people and the political elites of the South Pacific countries.

Kerr, who was dean of law at the University of Papua New Guinea before entering the Australian parliament in 1987, said he hoped to establish better relations with PNG and the Solomon Islands. “We are not big brother,” he declared the day after being appointed parliamentary secretary. “We can’t demand outcomes that are always in accordance with Australia’s view of the world, but we can do everything possible to get us outcomes that are consistent with the national aspirations... I think there is no doubt that at least some of the leaders of our neighbours have seen Australia as somewhat too ready to use instruction rather than a partnership relationship.”

Such remarks may foreshadow the negotiation of a new arrangement between Canberra and the Solomons’ government. Whatever adjustments may be made to RAMSI, however, there is no doubt that the Rudd government will insist that Canberra retains control over the indefinite intervention.

For his part, Sogavare has again stressed that his attempts to reduce RAMSI’s influence and review its operations are not intended to force the Australian personnel out. A number of the recent parliamentarians’ defections, both to and from the government, may strengthen calls from within Sogavare’s ranks for a complete capitulation to Canberra’s demands. Significantly, Peter Boyers is among those opposition parliamentarians who have recently joined the government. Boyers was finance minister under the previous government and has now been appointed to the same post by Sogavare. He has been among the most vociferous pro-RAMSI parliamentarians. A leaked email written by a RAMSI finance official in April 2006 described Boyers as RAMSI’s “effective voice in cabinet”.

Boyers only left the opposition after the prime minister gave him a written guarantee that the government would “uphold the existing arrangements” with RAMSI.

---

Copyright 1998-2007
World Socialist Web Site
All rights reserved

Samoa ready for WTO

12:00PM Sunday November 11, 2007
By Cherelle Jackson

Rohan Ellis. Photo / Cherelle Jackson

New Pacific island countries ready to enter into the World Trade Organization.

This is according to Trade Representative of the Pacific Island Forum Trade Office in Beijing, Mr Rohan Ellis.

"Samoa has a strong government, is pro private sector and it has shown tremendous success in the reforms," Mr Ellis said.

Not all Pacific countries are ready for the move according to Mr Ellis, but Samoa is certainly poised to do so.

"In the long run, it is a great opportunity for Samoa as it is a stepping stone to better trade," he said.

All that Samoa is missing, according to Mr Ellis, is "innovation drive."

Convinced about Samoa's potential, Mr Ellis said Samoa needed to provide a product of difference to cater for a niche market.

"Samoa should make use of traditional and cultural products but create something that is different, that can be in demand," he said.

Currently Samoa is in accession status to the WTO, with negotiations currently underway at the national level.

A working party on the accession of Samoa was established on July 15 1998 and the Memorandum on Samoa's Foreign Trade Regime was circulated in February 2000.

A first revision of the draft Working Party Report was circulated in November 2006. Samoa submitted initial offers in goods and services in 2001.

The services offer was later revised in 2005 and 2006.

Mr Ellis said: "Not all countries are ready, but those who can afford to should enter."

He said although there was much to be gained through the WTO smaller islands also stood to lose if they were not careful.

"Samoa should make sure that the country is armed and ready to deal with the implications of the WTO," he said.

Mr Ellis, however, insists that the special privileges allowed by the WTO to smaller nations should give Samoa the chance to explore what the trade agreement has to offer.

He is one of the few who have expressed favourable support for Samoas accession to the WTO.

The last visit by the WTO to Samoa in June was met with scepticism by locals during a national level consultation.

Members from the Samoa Umbrella for Non Government Organization raised their concerns about the accession supporting notions by Oxfam New Zealand that Samoa may be taken advantage of by larger economies, once in the WTO.

Members of SUNGO expressed their concerns about the size, structure and strength of the Samoan economy to survive in the WTO.

Barry Coates, Executive Director of Oxfam New Zealand told Newline in an interview during the fifth Civil Society Forum in Samoa said that the decision to enter the WTO would have an impact on the independence of Samoa.

Mr Coates - who identified the islands need for "protection" - was adamant that there was more to lose than be gained from joining the organisation.

"Tough" was the word he used to describe the attitude towards new members of the WTO.

The demands include the observance of Intellectual Property (IP) rights and exercising Patent regulations whereby the entering nation will suffer strict policies by the WTO.

According to Mr Coates this would cause major problems Samoa.

"There have already been cases of new medicinal plants discovered in Samoa and once Samoa is in the WTO those plants can be patented by foreign companies."

But that's not it, when IP is observed many of the local bands, video stores and unsolicited content used on local TV stations will be taken out.

Samoans will face heavy penalties and repercussions for their actions.

"There's a lot that needs to be considered before Samoa moves into the WTO and everyone needs to be aware of the implications of it," Mr Coates said.

But WTO Counselor from Geneva and Coordinator for Asian and Pacific Economies Edwini Kwame Kessie, told Newline during the consultations that all trade negotiations are transparent in the WTO.

"Probably the most important of all principals is the accepted retaliation which consists in the cost of ignoring WTO commitments. It means that if a country chooses to ignore its WTO commitments, then those other members of the WTO whose trade has been negatively impacted can seek compensation."

The second central principle according to the WTO is non-discrimination which means that members of the WTO must treat all other members equally.

The most common example of this principle is the extension of most-favoured nation tariff rates to all members of the WTO.

A country that joins the WTO therefore agrees to extend the lowest tariff rate it charges any country on a particular customs category of goods to all other members.

But Mr Kessie said current Least Developed Countries (LDCs) members of the WTO have yet to benefit from the agreement.

"The share of LDC in world trade is 0.5 per cent, obviously the reason why they are not benefiting has got to do more with site supply constraints, most of them have not enacted the right economic and trade policies, they are unstable, the reality is, for most of these LDCs, it is not because of the WTO but due to current fundamental problems in those countries, that is why I stress that Samoa adopts the right economic and trade policies," Mr Kessie said.

The WTO was established in 1995, replacing the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) as the only international body with the global rules of trade between nations.

Mr Kessie reminded that it was a common misconception that WTO was a law-making and enforcement institution similar to a domestic legal system.

"It is not. It is an international organization that countries voluntarily agree to join. It has no coercive powers and all the countries that have chosen to become members have voluntarily accepted its rules."

According to him: "the WTO is therefore a political compromise."

>>>>>Haere Atu apec<<<<<

part of a speech given at a protest against APEC in Melbourne, Australia May 10 2007

Fighting and organising globally against neoliberalism!

Latin American and Asia Pacific International Solidarity Forum Oct
11-14, 2007. Melbourne, Australia

A global call for participation

We call on all activists, organisations and communities who are
committed to building a better world to join together at the Latin
American and Asia Pacific International Solidarity Forum to be held in
October 2007, in Melbourne Australia.

The forum has been initiated by the organisers of several successful
conferences and gatherings in solidarity with Latin America and the
Asia Pacific, the Australia-Venezuela Solidarity Network (AVSN), Asia
Pacific International Solidarity Conference (APISC) and the Latin
American Solidarity Network (LASNET). With this call we would like to
invite you to participate in this international forum.

A time of resistance, progress and struggle

Today, cracks are beginning to appear in the neo-liberal capitalist
ruling system. In the Asia-Pacific there is a growing crisis of
legitimacy for neo-liberal governments and mass movements of
resistance are on the rise. In Latin American a people's rebellion is
growing across the continent. An echo of the massive independence
struggles against colonialism and imperialism can again be heard.

Old ideas are being re-examined and new ways experimented with.
Discussion and debate have been revived among whole communities -- on
issues such as workers' control and management; indigenous autonomy
and self-determination; building trade unions and social movements;
electoral campaigning and counter-power strategies. These discussions
have given birth to some of the most dynamic and successful social
movements and political organisations in recent decades.

There is great diversity among these movements. Some are working to
achieve power, while others, such as the Zapatistas, aim to completely
re-define and recreate the notion of power. Some have formed links
with political parties and are constantly adjusting how they relate to
the government of the day.

Popular governments have won elections with the support of social
movements, and in countries such as Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador we
are seeing progressive and radical changes. The Venezuelan idea of
socialism for the 21st century is giving renewed hope and energy to
other liberation processes.

Many of these movements and political organisations are winning. They
are strengthening people's participation, strengthening their
communities, developing people's power and inspiring a new generation
of political activists.

Another world can only be realised if people like you and me also
commit to this emerging project of struggle against neoliberalism.

http://solidarityforum2007.org/?q=node

International participants

Aotearoa / New Zealand
* Sina Brown-Davis, Maori/Pasifikan activist, G20 Arrestee
* Vaughan Gunson, Socialist Worker NZ
Bangladesh
* Abul Hossain, President, United Labour Federation
Bolivia
* An activist from the life and water social movements coalition
Canada
* Roger Annis, Canada Haiti Action Network
* John Riddell, Socialist Voice
* Suzanne Weiss, Venezuela We are With You
Colombia
* A representative of the National Federation of Agricultural Farming
Unions (Fensuagro)
Cuba
* Nélida Hernández Carmona & Ifrahim Miranda León, Cuban
Consul-General & Consul in Australia
East Timor
* Avelino Coelho, General Secretary, Socialist Party of Timor
Eucador
* Efren Calapucha, Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of
Ecuador (CONAIE)
El Salvador
* Sigfrido Reyes Morales, Member of Parliament, FMLN Political Commission.
Indonesia
* Dita Sari, Founding chairperson of Centre for Indonesian Workers
Struggle (FNPBI)
* Agus Priono, Chairperson, National Liberation Party of Unity (PAPERNAS)
Korea
* Reverend Jang Chang Weon, Osan Laborers and Migrants Shelter,
Reconciliation and Unification Mission Center
Malaysia
* Irene Xavier, Coordinator, Transnational Information Exchange Asia
Philippines
* Franciso Nemenzo, Chairperson, Laban ng Masa
Pakistan
* Farooq Tariq, General Secretary, Labour Party Pakistan
Pakistan
* Farooq Tariq, General Secretary, Labour Party Pakistan
Papua New Guinea
* John Chitoa and Rosa Koian, Bismarck Ramu Group
Venezuela
* Eva Golinger, author of The Chavez Code and Bush vs Chavez:
Washington's War on Venezuela
* Vladimir Villegas, Vice-Minister for Asia, Middle East and Oceania.
* Sandino Carrizales, Youth activist and Communal Councils organiser.
* Nelson Davila, Venezuela's Charge d'Affairs in Australia
Vietnam
* Tran Quoc Khanh, Vietnam's Deputy Consul General in Australia
West Papua
* Anak Jehudi, Patron, West Papua Students Association, Port Morseby.

Aussies 'had better go home': Alkatiri ups the stakes in East Timor

The leader of East Timor's largest political party has denounced the Australian troops occupying his country, saying 'they had better go home because they are not neutral'. Mari Alkatiri, the Secretary-General of the Fretilin party, made his call after Australian troops waded into an anti-government protest held in a village near the East Timorese capital Dili yesterday. The Aussies provoked fury by ripping down two Fretilin flags and wiping their backsides with them. Fretilin led the fight against both the Portugese and the Indonesian occupations of East Timor, and its flag is seen by many Timorese as a symbol of national independence.

The leader of East Timor's largest political party has denounced the Australian troops occupying his country, saying 'they had better go home because they are not neutral'.

Mari Alkatiri, the Secretary-General of the Fretilin party, made his call after Australian troops waded into an anti-government protest held in a village near the East Timorese capital Dili yesterday. The Aussies provoked fury by ripping down two Fretilin flags and wiping their backsides with them. Fretilin led the fight against both the Portugese and the Indonesian occupations of East Timor, and its flag is seen by many Timorese as a symbol of national independence. Fretilin vice-President Arsenio Bano backed up Alatiri's statement, saying that the actions of the troops reflected the 'cultural insensitivity and arrogance [that] typifies Australian military operations in the Pacific region'.

Yesterday's incident came amidst continuing protests against an Australian-backed government that is widely seen as illegitimate. Although it won the largest number of seats in parliamentary elections held last month, Fretilin was snubbed by East Timor's pro-Australian President Jose Ramos-Horta, who invited his close political ally Xanana Gusmao to form a government. Gusmao and Horta's National Congress for Timorese Reconciliation party won only 22% of the vote in the elections, and Gusmao's inauguration as Prime Minister on August the 8th sparked big protests in Dili and in the eastern towns of Baucau and Viqueque.

When the Australian and New Zealand troops and police who comprise the majority of the UN-sponsored 'International Stabilisation Force' tried to shut the protests down rioting broke out. Vehicles carrying Anzacs were stoned, and buildings associated with the UN, the Australian government, and the CNRT were burnt. Ambushers fired shots at a convoy of UN vehicles on a road south of Baucau.

In some places criminal gangs joined in the riots, attacking civilians and churches and looting shops. In Baucau, a gang broke into a convent and raped several girls. The government and its Anzac allies have used the criminals as an excuse to launch a campaign of repression against their political opponents. In the four days after Gusmao's inauguration as Prime Minister, the International Stabilisation Force fired more than two hundred rounds of tear gas at protesters. Dozens of peaceful protesters were arrested for offences like 'blocking the road'.

Comparing protesters to the pro-Indonesian militia that killed hundreds of East Timorese in 1999, Horta and Gusmao have warned that civil servants who take to the streets could lose their jobs. Such a threat carries great weight, in a country where 50% of the population is unemployed and the public sector offers the best hope of well-paid work. The new government has also tried to discourage protesters by insisting that they must apply for a permit to march through public streets a full twenty-one days in advance.

Anzac troops and police have often been accused of using their muscle to interfere in the politics of East Timor. Fretilin complained about Australian harassment of its election workers and candidates during the elections earlier this year, and in February big protests broke out in Dili after Australian soldiers killed two youths who had been demonstrating against the destruction of a refugee camp near the city's airport.

Alkatiri was Prime Minister of East Timor until the middle of last year, when he was forced to resign by the Anzac force that had arrived in his country in the aftermath of rioting that killed thirty-seven people. Alkatiri and other Fretilin leaders have argued that the Australian government stirred up the riots, and then used Anzac troops to force him to relinquish power in favour of Horta.

The left-wing journalist and long-time observer of East Timor John Pilger has backed Alkatiri's claims. Pilger believes that the Howard government wanted a government in Dili which would agree to greater Australian control over the rich oil and gas reserves under the seas off Timor. Alkatiri had angered Canberra and its ally in Washington by playing hardball over the oil reserves, refusing to support Bush's 'War of Terror', and bringing Cuban medics to East Timor. Horta, by contrast, is an outspoken supporter of the invasion of Iraq who calls John Howard a personal friend and has taken a conciliatory attitude in negotiations over oil.

Alkatiri has also found support for his complaints amongst the leaders of some of East Timor's neighbours. Last week, Papua New Guinea Prime Minister Sir Michael Somare accused Australia of interfering in East Timor's politics, and warned that it was trying similar tricks in his country. The Solomon Islands is saddled with its own Anzac occupation, and its new, independent-minded Prime Minister Manasseh Sogovare has expressed his solidarity with Alkatiri.

Despite his hatred of the Howard government, Alkatiri has never before called so directly for the withdrawal of Australian forces from East Timor. An astute and often cynical political player, he has feared angering those parts of Fretilin who had hoped the occupation could be made to work in the party's interests. Alkatiri's new boldness and the ongoing protests suggest that the mood in Fretilin has turned decisively against accommodation with the occupiers of East Timor. Together, the illegitimate government in Dili and the Anzac troops that support it have alienated large numbers of Timorese. Arsenio Bano summed up the feelings of many when he said yesterday that the Australian government 'has had one overriding aim — the removal of the democratically elected Fretilin government and its replacement with the illegitimate government of Gusmao'.

The ongoing protests in East Timor should be a wake-up call to New Zealanders. Most Kiwis oppose the Howard government and the neo-colonial occupation it is helping George Bush maintain in Iraq, but few realise that their army and police force is helping prop up a similar occupation in East Timor. Kiwi troops and cops operate under Australian control in East Timor, and are supporting a government which is deeply unpopular. It is not surprising, then, that they are being targeted alongside the Australians. They should be withdrawn before they get sucked further into the escalating conflict between Australian imperialism and the East Timorese people.

http://readingthemaps.blogspot.com/2007/08/aussies-had-better-go-home-alkatiri-ups_20.html

Protest Australian Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer, at NZ National Party Conference.

ImagineNative Action, in collaboration with Radical Youth, is organising an action this weekend to protest the presence of Alexander Downer at the National Party Conference being held at the Langham Hotel in central Tamaki Makaurau (Auckland). We want to send a clear message to Alexander Downer and the National Party that we do not support the Australian Colonial Government's recent military/police invasion of Aboriginal Lands.

More importantly we wish to stand in solidarity with the Indigenous Peoples of Occupied Australia as this plays a vital role in lifting the spirits of the Aboriginal People, strengthening their will to resist the colonial invasion and economic exploitation of their lands.

Saturday August 4th

2.30pm Mass demo against Downer and the National Party. Meet corner of Symonds Street and K'rd to march on the Langham Hotel, Symonds Street.

7.00pm: Disrupt Downer's Dinner.
Meet corner of Karangahape Road and Symonds Street, Auckland.

Bring musical instruments (especially taonga puoro - traditional Maori instruments) and noise makers. Some kai will be provided but donations are always welcome!

Since Don Brash resigned as National Party leader the National Party has put in a lot effort to convince us that they care about Tangata Whenua, the environment, and the poor of Aotearoa. Alexander Downer is a leading representative of a colonial government that has invaded Indigenous lands, supported similar actions in Indonesia and supplied troops to the invasion/occupation of Iraq. His government has publicly advocated using Aboriginal lands for large scale mining and nuclear waste dumping operations.

Downer's presence at the National conference clearly shows that National hasn't changed at all. It is still a party that endorses racism against indigenous people and represents the interests of the rich and powerful, at the expense of ordinary people and our whenua.
As it is likely that National will form the next colonial government of Aotearoa it is essential they know we will not tolerate racist and exploitative policies such as those enacted by Alexander Downer and his government.

For more information or to endorse this action email indigenous.solidarity (at) gmail.com or call/text 021 1551154

Endorsed by:

ImagineNative Action
Radical Youth
Indonesia Human Rights Committee
A Space Inside: Tamaki Makaurau Anarchist Collective
Global Peace and Justice Auckland (GPJA)

More endorsements to come.

Reminder: A planning and banner making session for this action is being held this Wednesday, August 1st from 7pm at 43 Warwick Ave, Westmere (Look for the Tino Rangatiratanga flag). Bring red, black and yellow paint, banner materials.
As always some kai will be provided but koha always welcome!

Mauriora!
na Te Kanikani Tangata Hara (ImagineNative Action) & Nila Yung (Radical Youth)



--
ImagineNative Action

"Building solidarity between Indigenous and Peoples of Colour communities. Defending our whenua & peoples against racism and exploitation since 2007"

Don't want to get panui/mail anymore?
Send an email to us with 'I suffer from Apathy' in the subject line & we'll take you off the list. Chur

Pasifika Unite Stand Up Fight back

Big ups to the Aotearoa Indymedia Crew for their excellent work & recent feature articles bout the Pacific. With Press censorship a reality for many Pacific Islands these reports and voices are crucial....go the grass roots.


Tuvalu: Global Face Of Climate Change

As the leaders of the G8 summit in Heiligendamm in Germany hammered the final communiqué on climate change, half a world away, in the small Pacific island country of Tuvalu, Silafaga Lalua, a born and bred islander pondered her shaky future on the islands, as she has always done again and again.

Silafaga Lalua has a difficult decision on her hands, to either pack her bags and leave Tuvalu for safer territories or stay and watch her country slowly sink under the rising sea levels in the Pacific and hope for the best. Scientific predictions from the Australian Government predict dire consequences for the island in the next 50 years. Other predictions say it could be sooner. So for Silafaga, both issues are not easy to deal with , but she is increasingly aware that something has got to give.

http://indymedia.org.nz/newswire/display/73197/index.php

On the Eve of a Free Trade Area of the Pacific – Occupation, neo-colonialism and enclosure

New Zealand Minister for Trade Phil Goff has announced that talks will begin in August to begin the process of imposing a Free Trade Agreement to bind the economies of the sixteen nations of the Pacific Islands Forum together. Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Vanuatu, Tonga, the Solomon Islands, Samoa, Papua New Guinea and a range of other small island nations together comprise the Pacific Islands Forum.


The Free Trade Area of the Pacific has been in the pipeline at the Pacific Islands Forum for years now as New Zealand and Australian capital seek to carve out throughout the Pacific new markets, cheap natural resources and a flexible and disposable labour force.

The recent year in the Pacific has only heightened the increasing tension between the interests of Australian, New Zealand and American capital and those of Pacific peoples subject to increased repression, surveillance, control and impoverishment. In Timor Leste, Tonga and the Solomon Islands Australia and New Zealand have intervened directly into the political affairs to enforce their control over these nations and curb, criminalise and destroy popular social movements.

http://indymedia.org.nz/newswire/display/73189/index.php

TONGA: Sedition charges going to court


Five Tongan People's Representatives, charged with sedition in relation to the Nuku'alofa riots, have asked not to be tried by a jury, but by judge alone. The accused, 'Akilisi Pohiva, 'Isileli Pulu, William Clive Edwards, Lepolo Taunisila and 'Uliti Uata will be submitted in six weeks time to the Supreme Court for a trial date to be set. The alleged incident took place in the Cabinet Room at the Prime Minister's Office on the afternoon of November 16 last year.


A second sedition charge jointly for Pohiva, Edwards and Uata, relates to speeches they made at Pangai Si'i on November 14. There is also a joint charge of unlawful assembly for all five accused, which will be submitted also to the Supreme Court because it is under their jurisdiction. The preliminary inquiry hearing into the sedition charges ran from May 14-3

http://indymedia.org.nz/feature/display/71672/

We will eat your Tear Gas- Zimbabwe's Fight

Fighting Zimbabwe's Two Dictatorships
by Munya Gwsai
30 March 2007
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO0704/S00383.htm

The people of Zimbabwe are suffering from both the political dictatorship of President Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) as well as the economic dictatorship of employers, businesspeople and the rich. While Mugabe unleashes repression, businesspeople unleash vicious price increases on the basic necessities of life.

Monthly wages are less than Z$200,000 despite the official Poverty Datum Line being over $600,000. Transport alone costs over $220,000 a month. Prices of food, clothing and the anti-retroviral drugs necessary to fight HIV, have gone through the roof and thousands die each week as a result. The Zim dollar has again collapsed and inflation is over 2000%.

Despite this, not everyone is suffering. The architect of government neoliberal policy himself, Reserve Bank governor Gideon Gono, was exposed earlier this year as having splashed billions on posh cars and mansions. The bosses and many of the "Lords of Poverty" who run the foreign-funded non-government organisations are "earning" huge, often forex (foreign exchange) denominated, salaries and benefits. Capitalists' profits have been such that the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange was voted among Africa's top three performing in 2006!

The very same Western diplomats who now laud Zimbabwe's bourgeois opposition were the same ones who applauded Gono as he rolled out increasingly harsh neoliberal economic policies, slashed subsidies that provided some relief for the poor and paid money to the International Monetary Fund these past three years.

However, the economy has now become the weakness of the elites — both dictatorships fear the entry of workers, the urban poor and the rural masses into the political equation.

The virtual state of emergency imposed in the towns and the killing by police of Movement for Democratic Change activist Gift Tandare have failed to quell anger and struggle.

The Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) has called for a national mass action in the form of a stay-away on April 3-4. The economic, social and political demands now being raised link the various political and economic demands of the poor and oppressed in a manner that goes beyond the limited demands of the bourgeois opposition parties and civic societies.

The elites realise this and want to pre-empt the current struggles and prevent them from radicalising further. Such a mobilisation could challenge not only the corrupt and brutal Mugabe regime but also the neoliberal free-market capitalist foundations on which it is now embedded. They want to prevent a movement similar to the anti-neoliberal, anti-capitalist, anti-dictatorship and anti-imperialist movements seen in Latin America.

This is now the common objective of local and international elites in regards to the Zimbabwe crisis, as shown in the March 5 International Crisis Group review of Zimbabwe. The elites in government and in opposition would like to reach a settlement or "social contract" between themselves that would see an end to Mugabe but not to Gono's policies. This is what lies behind the manoeuvring of the various factions within ZANU–PF.

Such a project would, at least at the beginning, incorporate compliant sections of the opposition, organised labour and "civic society" to be used as a safety valve to contain mounting anger from below as the new government embraces a total and naked neoliberal agenda.

However, workers, residents, traders, women, HIV/AIDS activists, students, disability rights activists, debt cancellation activists, and the rural poor have their own interests that need to be linked with both political and economic democracy in the public and private spheres of life.

This means a fight for a new people-driven democratic constitution that not only guarantees free and fair elections but also guarantees the right to free and quality education; access to health, anti-retroviral drugs, water, housing, electricity, and facilities for the disabled; an end to patriarchal and capitalist oppression of women; and support for poor farmers; as well as a living wage, pension and state support for workers, the elderly, pensioners, vendors and traders, war veterans and the disabled. Such a constitution must subordinate both public and private wealth to fulfil such demands. By definition that movement can only be anti-neoliberal, anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist.

The Zimbabwe Social Forum has committed to mobilise the different segments and clusters of the social forum process in Zimbabwe and regionally for this action as we did for the 2005 ZCTU-led anti-poverty demonstrations. It is heartening to see the solidarity actions already being planned in South Africa, Botswana and Britain.

The challenge is to develop this kind of action into a sustainable programme of full-scale democratic united actions from below in the next couple of months. Without this, there remains the real danger that the courageous fight, sacrifices, including that of blood that we have seen in the last few months, might be channelled into a dead-end elite settlement for the benefit of the few rather than the many.

ENDS

Australian PM outlines indefinite military agenda in South Pacific

Australian PM outlines indefinite military agenda in South Pacific

By the Socialist Equality Party (Australia)
18 January 2007

http://wsws.org/articles/2007/jan2007/sep-j18.shtml

Australian Prime Minister John Howard has revealed the real
motivations behind his government's interventions in the South Pacific
and foreshadowed permanent military operations there. Speaking to the
Sunday Telegraph on December 31, Howard acknowledged his concern that
hostile rival powers, such as China and Taiwan, could "take over" the
region. The prime minister also pointed to Washington's expectation
that Australia would take responsibility for maintaining "stability"
in an area US imperialism regards as its own sphere of influence.

Howard's comments are intended to signal that his government will not
back down in the face of mounting hostility to its activities in the
region, and will be prepared to utilise military force to suppress
opposition. The Telegraph interview confirms that Australia's recent
interventions in East Timor, the Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea
(PNG), Tonga, and Fiji are only the beginning of its long-term plans.

Howard's Pacific agenda is marked by recklessness, arrogance and
complete disregard for international law. The government—and behind it
the entire Australian political establishment—aims to politically and
economically restructure the South Pacific in line with the strategic
and economic interests of Australian imperialism. National sovereignty
and the basic right of ordinary Pacific Islanders to determine their
own future are regarded by Howard and his accomplices as totally
irrelevant.

The emergence of Australian neo-colonialism in the Pacific occurs amid
the eruption of US militarism and the re-surfacing of bitter
inter-imperialist antagonisms, comparable to those that dominated
world politics in the 1930s. Under the banner of the "global war on
terror", the Bush administration has torn up international law and
conventions, embarking on pre-emptive wars of aggression in an attempt
to overcome America's declining economic status relative to its
European and Asian rivals. Bush's recently announced escalation of the
Iraq war, and its likely extension to Iran and Syria, underscores the
speed with which the American ruling elite is resorting to outright
criminality and truly barbaric methods of rule.

No part of the globe—including the South Pacific—is immune from the
consequences of the breakdown of the international order established
after World War II. Howard pointedly warned the Australian people to
get used to permanent military deployment throughout the region. "This
is a long, hard road, and it will need great patience and
understanding by the Australian public to live with, probably for a
period of 10 to 20 years, with a two-steps-forward, one-step-backward
situation," he told the Telegraph.

"I can understand Australians saying, `Well, look, let's forget about
it. Leave them to their own devices; don't waste any money', but
that's the wrong approach to take, because they will fall into the
hands of the evil from other countries and we have to work very hard,"
he continued. "Certainly there's a bit of a battle between China and
Taiwan... If we just throw up our arms and go away, you'll end up with
these places being taken over by interests that are very hostile to
Australia."

Notably, the prime minister made little effort to repeat his
government's usual justifications for Australia's neo-colonial
interventions: rescuing "failed states", preventing terrorism,
providing humanitarian aid, combating corruption, promoting democracy
and the rule of law, etc. That he set these aside, pointing instead to
the "evil" from Australia's rivals, indicates his alarm at the growing
opposition to Canberra's manoeuvres among ordinary Pacific Islanders
and the move by sections of the political elites in East Timor, Papua
New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Fiji towards other powers, especially
China, as a counterbalance to Australian demands and dominance.

China's growing influence

The South Pacific has long been an arena for great power rivalries
between the old colonial powers, France, Britain, and Australia, as
well as Asian countries including Japan, Malaysia, and Indonesia. The
rising economic and diplomatic influence of China, however, is a new
and profoundly destabilising factor that is challenging
long-established relations. While Howard describes the South Pacific
as Australia's "special patch", Beijing now has substantial economic
interests in the region, and is seeking to develop its geo-strategic
position.

The Chinese and Taiwanese governments are competing to secure
diplomatic recognition from the various Pacific states. Of the 24
countries in the world that recognise Taipei over Beijing, six are in
the Pacific (Palau, the Marshall Islands, Tuvalu, Nauru, Solomon
Islands, and Kiribati). Governments in the region have played off the
two powers against each other, granting diplomatic recognition and
support in the UN General Assembly to the highest bidder in terms of
aid and trade agreements. Both China and Taiwan have been accused of
bribing favoured politicians and factions to ensure the installation
of friendly governments.

China's interest in the South Pacific, however, goes far beyond the
question of Taiwan and the "one China" policy. An estimated 3,000
state-owned and private Chinese companies operate in the region,
including in mining, logging, fishing, and tourism. Economic ties are
rapidly developing. Bilateral trade between China and Papua New
Guinea, the South Pacific's largest economy (and until 1975
Australia's colony), has increased from $A5 million in 1991, to $A233
million in 2000, to $A540 million in 2005.

The region's natural resources now help fuel China's ongoing
industrial expansion. Papua New Guinea, for example, was China's
second largest source of logs in 2005, behind Russia, and 80 percent
of PNG's log exports go to China. One of China's largest overseas
investment projects, the Ramu nickel mine, is located in PNG. Opened
late last year, the mine was developed by China's Metallurgical
Construction Corp after Beijing reached a $US915 million financing
agreement with the PNG government. The investment was directly driven
by a shortage of raw materials for China's stainless steel industry.

The Beijing bureaucracy is investing considerable resources in its
diplomatic relations with the South Pacific countries. China now has
more diplomats in the region than any other country, and Pacific
leaders visiting Beijing are granted lavish receptions. While there
are no official figures available, Chinese aid to the South Pacific is
estimated at more than $A300 million annually—a sum nearly twice the
total gross domestic product of the three poorest nations in the
region (Kiribati, Nauru, and Tuvalu). Much of Beijing's aid is devoted
to prominent "prestige projects"—sports stadiums in Fiji and Samoa, a
parliamentary complex in Vanuatu, and new foreign ministry
headquarters in PNG—and unlike Australian aid money, Chinese funding
does not require Pacific governments to fulfil "good governance" and
other obligations.

Several American and Australian foreign policy analysts have warned of
the long-term strategic implications of China's growing influence. In
World War II, the US was forced to wage a series of bloody battles
against the Japanese to secure control of the Pacific Islands. After
the war, US authorities considered the entire Pacific Ocean to be an
"American lake". In partnership with allies such as Australia,
Washington's intent was to maintain exclusive control and prevent any
potential adversaries from gaining a foothold in the strategically
significant region.

Stratfor, an American security and intelligence think tank, has warned
that, "China's need to counter American power—combined with Beijing's
limited naval capability—makes a Pacific Island strategy as natural to
them as it was to the Japanese decades ago." Stratfor raised the
prospect of Beijing attempting to counter US naval dominance by
stationing missiles in South Pacific countries. "While Beijing is
unlikely to deploy forces to the South Pacific soon, its relationships
with the island nations offer it a strategic tool to counter US naval
power in Asia. The Chinese military has paid great attention to the
development of shore-based anti-ship missile systems it eventually
could deploy throughout the South Pacific and Southeast Asia."

The US has already made clear its unwillingness to allow any erosion
of its military position in the Pacific. Washington paid considerable
attention to a satellite tracking station constructed by the Chinese
government in Kiribati in 1997. While Beijing insisted the station was
only used for scientific and commercial purposes, the Bush
administration alleged that it was being used to develop a Chinese
space warfare program and also spy on the US military's missile
testing facility in the neighbouring Marshall Islands. This facility
is vital for the development of the Bush administration's Strategic
Defence Initiative ("Son of Star Wars") missile defence system. The
Chinese tracking station was shut down in 2004 after Kiribati's
government recognised Taipei. Although never proven, Washington was
widely believed to have been involved in behind-the-scenes manoeuvres
encouraging the diplomatic switch.

Canberra as Washington's proxy

Canberra fears Beijing's growing influence in the South Pacific for a
number of reasons. China's increasing commercial ties—particularly its
aggressive pursuit of oil, gas, minerals, timber, and fishing
investments—threatens corporate Australia's dominant position in the
exploitation of the region's natural resources. Canberra's foreign
policy establishment is also hostile to Beijing and Taipei's aid and
trade rivalry, which it considers a threat to its efforts to cultivate
compliant pro-Australian regimes in the Pacific states.

Canberra's alliance with Washington is a critical factor shaping the
Howard government's response to Beijing's entry into the South
Pacific. Bush has previously designated China as a "strategic
competitor" and looks to Canberra to defend US interests in the region.

In the Sunday Telegraph interview, Howard explained, "That's why we've
been increasing the size of our army. It's all designed to give us the
capacity to deal with things in the region. And this is our
responsibility. The rest of the world looks to us to do it, and the
more we are able to play our part effectively here, the less is
legitimately expected of us in other parts of the world. That's not to
say we won't do other things, but if we can have an effective
stabilising role in the whole Pacific region, I can assure you that is
mightily important to the Americans and to our allies in Europe."

The Howard government has unconditionally backed the Bush
administration's criminal interventions in the Middle East,
dispatching troops to both Afghanistan and Iraq. In return, Washington
has provided critical backing for Canberra's operations in the
Pacific. Underlying this quid pro quo is a convergence of interests,
with the Howard government advancing its agenda in the region under
the aegis of US imperialism's claim to global hegemony. This is the
essence of Howard's self-proclaimed role of "deputy sheriff".

The Bush administration's so-called war on terror and its doctrine of
"regime change" and pre-emptive war were the basis for the Howard
government's takeover of the Solomon Islands in 2003, when it
dispatched hundreds of soldiers, police, and bureaucratic personnel to
the tiny country. The Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands
(RAMSI) was subsequently hailed as a model military-led intervention
into a "failing state" that could be applied throughout the region.
When announcing the expansion of the Australian military last year,
Howard named Papua New Guinea, Fiji, and Vanuatu as further potential
targets.

The Bush administration has repeatedly expressed its appreciation of
Canberra's role. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was asked last
month whether she was disappointed that Australian troops were not
playing a more front-line role in Iraq. "I would never use the word
disappointment in the same line with Australia," she replied. "This is
a country that, not only in Iraq, not only in Afghanistan, not only in
tsunami relief, not only in support for all that we're doing in the
Asia Pacific, but also in taking really primary responsibility in
places like the Solomon Islands, Fiji, East Timor, has put its
resources and its assets at the disposal of peace and security in the
region, and in the spread of freedom. And I just can't think of a
better friend and a better ally."

Nevertheless, Canberra and Washington do not share identical positions
in relation to Beijing. The Howard government has generally adopted a
less belligerent stance than the Bush administration. This is due to
the Australian ruling elite's interest in maintaining its lucrative
exports of natural resources such as gas, gold, iron ore, coal, and
aluminium to China. These exports have been crucial for Australia's
economic growth—and Howard's electoral successes—over the past decade.
Canberra is currently seeking to negotiate a free trade deal with Beijing.

Despite these differences, the Howard government and the Bush
administration agree that no potentially hostile power can be
permitted to advance its strategic and economic interests in the South
Pacific at their expense. That Howard abandoned his usual caution in
the Telegraph interview and identified China as a rival indicates just
how much is at stake.

The struggle against neo-colonialism

The Howard government's vision of neo-colonial military-led
interventions in the Pacific lasting 10 to 20 years presents enormous
dangers to working people and youth in the Pacific Islands and in
Australia.

It will inevitably produce a catastrophe. The population of the
Pacific Islands have suffered a long history of British, French,
German, and Australian colonial domination. It is impossible that such
forms of rule can be peacefully imposed in the twenty-first century.
Pacific Islanders have every right to resist Canberra's machinations
and it is only a matter of time before Australian soldiers and police
are targeted. The initial stages of such a struggle are already
evident in East Timor and the Solomon Islands. Canberra will respond
by escalating its violence and repression, unleashing military force
on a scale not seen in the Pacific since World War II.

The domestic repercussions will be no less calamitous. Democratic
rights are already under sustained attack, and this will intensify as
opposition to Howard's agenda mounts. Bourgeois democratic norms and
basic legal and constitutional rights are fundamentally incompatible
with a state of permanent military mobilisation. In its efforts to
forge a constituency for war and divert mounting social tensions, the
political and media establishment is pumping out the poison of
national chauvinism—involving the incitement of anti-Muslim racism and
promotion of "Australian values"—and glorifying militarism.

Young people face a future of being dragooned into the armed forces as
cannon fodder for military interventions. School children are already
being encouraged to enlist in the cadets and then the army. The Howard
government has introduced a military "gap year" for those who have
finished school but do not wish to immediately begin their tertiary
education. Last year Howard announced that an additional $10 billion
will be spent to recruit another 2,600 troops, on top of a 1,500
increase announced in December 2005, bringing the total increase to 20
percent. Half a billion dollars has also been committed for the near
doubling of the Australian Federal Police's "international deployment
group"—an outfit focussed on operations in the South Pacific.
Inevitably, these initiatives will soon be accompanied by moves to
introduce conscription.

The billions of dollars in public funds being poured into the military
represent a massive social misappropriation. While funding for public
health and education, social infrastructure, and welfare and social
services have all been gutted by successive state and federal
governments, "defence" spending has skyrocketed. Australia is now the
eleventh largest military spender in the world and ranks ahead of
countries such as Israel, Turkey, Brazil, and Iran.

The political starting point for a struggle against the turn to
militarism and war is the recognition that not a single element within
the Australian political and media establishment opposes any aspect of
the Howard government's neo-colonial operations in the South Pacific.
To the extent that the opposition Labor Party and its new leader Kevin
Rudd have any criticisms of the government, they are all from the
right. Rudd accuses Howard of incompetence for allowing an "arc of
instability" to develop, and advocates greater tact in diplomatic
efforts aimed at browbeating Australia's neighbours. Like the Greens,
Labor calls for the redeployment of Australian troops from Iraq to the
South Pacific in order to bolster operations in East Timor, the
Solomons, and elsewhere.

The unanimous defence by Labor and the minor parties of Australia's
Pacific interventions ultimately derives from their support for the
profit system and the nation-state system upon which it rests.
Opposition to war, militarism, and neo-colonialism can only be
advanced on an independent socialist and internationalist basis.

The Socialist Equality Party (SEP) will be standing candidates in the
New South Wales state election scheduled for March 24 and the federal
election due later this year. Our campaign will be focussed on
building a mass movement of the working class against militarism and
war—in Iraq, the Middle East and in the South Pacific. We demand the
immediate withdrawal of all US, Australian and other troops from Iraq
and Afghanistan, and all Australian soldiers, police, and bureaucratic
personnel from the Pacific. We demand an end to all those regional
"aid" programs that function as nothing more than international slush
funds for Australian corporations.

Instead, billions of dollars in genuine aid must be spent to lift the
Pacific Islands out of poverty and undo the terrible legacy of
colonialism and the damage still being inflicted by International
Monetary Fund and World Bank programs.