Articles Search

By Ian Timberlake and Amy Chew

JAKARTA, Indonesia (April 27, 2002 - The Times [UK] Online/Kabar-Irian)---A human rights group says that for the first time it has obtained documentary evidence linking the Indonesian military with East Timor-style militias in the eastern province of Papua, which is fighting for independence from Jakarta.

The Institute for Human Rights Study and Advocacy (ELS-HAM) said that it was concerned that the document, dated April 8, 2002, was part of a wider strategy to increase anti-independence activity and provoke violence in a province still traumatized by the murder of Theys Eluay, the pro-independence leader, last November.

Three members of the Indonesian Army's Kopassus special forces have been detained but not formally charged in the case.

Government-sponsored militias were used by Indonesia to try to destroy the independence movement in East Timor at the time of the United Nations-sponsored referendum in 1999.

"I'm...

PAPE‘ETE, Tahiti, French Polynesia (April 29, 2002 – Tahitipresse)---With less than one week to go before the end of the French Presidential election, May 5th, Tahitian political parties now are getting ready for the French Parliamentary election.

French Polynesia will have to choose, June 1st and 15th, two of the 577 representatives to the French National Assembly.

Current representative Emile Vernaudon said during a meeting Sunday that he will run again.

Vernaudon (opposed to the President of the government of French Polynesia, Gaston Flosse) will be supported by some pro-autonomy political parties.

When he ran and was elected in 1997, he was then an ally of Flosse.

The candidates from Flosse's Tahoeraa Huiraatira Party this year are Pape‘ete Mayor and current representative in the French National Assembly, Michel Buillard, on the west coast, and former minister Beatrice Vernaudon, against Emile Vernaudon, on the east coast.

The pro-...

EDITORIAL

Marshall Islands Journal Majuro, Marshall Islands

April 5, 2002

OVER CLIMATE CHANGE ALLEGATIONS

There is an oddly uninformed tenor to the increasing complaint of small islands such as Tuvalu about the impact of global climate change. At a Pacific leaders meeting in Hawai‘i in March, the Prime Minister of Tuvalu made an impassioned statement about how Tuvalu’s islands were fast disappearing under the onrushing tides brought about by climate change.

This grabbed headlines worldwide. But a follow-up story from the French news agency AFP carried the next week in the Pacific Islands Report Internet site contrasted the Tuvalu leader’s comments with the scientific data obtained by Australian researchers from a tidal gauge that was placed in Tuvalu 10 years ago to provide daily ocean data. According to the data from the tidal gauge, there has been no sea level rise in Tuvalu.

Frankly, we think both are missing the point. Given...

PALIKIR, Pohnpei, Federated States of Micronesia (April 30, 2002 – FSM Information Services)---Ambassador Zhang Binhua presented his credentials to President Leo A. Falcam on April 18, as the new Ambassador of the People’s Republic of China to the Federated States of Micronesia.

Binhua replaced former Ambassador Xu Jun, who had served as the Dean of the Diplomatic Corps until his tenure ended in March.

Ambassador Binhua presented his credentials to the President Falcam and expressed his Government’s commitment to expand the mutually beneficial relationship of cooperation between the two nations as based on the "Principles of Peaceful Coexistence…"

According to the Ambassador, since the establishment of diplomatic ties in 1989, the relationship has grown to a fruitful exchange of cooperation in the economic, cultural and educational fields. He said his government attaches "great importance to the relations with Micronesia and stands ready to work together to...