Since May, a powerful struggle has rocked Kanaky (New Caledonia), an archipelago located in the Pacific, roughly 1,500 kilometres east of Australia. The island, one of five overseas territories in the Asia-Pacific ruled by France, has been under French colonial rule since 1853. The indigenous Kanak people initiated this cycle of protests after the French government of Emmanuel Macron extended voting rights in provincial elections to thousands of French settlers in the islands. The unrest led Macron to suspend the new rules while subjecting islanders to severe repression. In recent months, the French government has imposed a state of emergency and curfew on the islands and deployed thousands of French troops, which Macron says will remain in New Caledonia for ‘as long as necessary’. Over a thousand protesters have been arrested by French authorities, including Kanak independence activists such as Christian Tein, the leader of the Coordination Cell for Field Actions (Cellule de coordination des actions de terrain, or CCAT), some of them sent to France to face trial. The charges against Tein and others, such as for organised crime, would be laughable if the consequences were not so serious.

The reason France has cracked down so severely on the protests in New Caledonia is that the old imperial country uses its colonies not only to exploit its resources (New Caledonia holds the world’s fifth largest nickel reserves), but also to extend its political reach across the world – in this case, to have a military footprint in China’s vicinity. This story is far from new: between 1966 and 1996, for instance, France used islands in the southern Pacific for nuclear tests. One of these tests, Operation Centaure (July 1974), impacted all 110,000 residents on the Mururoa atoll of French Polynesia. The struggle of the indigenous Kanak peoples of New Caledonia is not only about freedom from colonialism, but also about the terrible military violence inflicted upon these lands and waters by the Global North. The violence that ran from 1966 to 1996 mirrors the disregard that the French still feel for the islanders, treating them as nothing more than detritus, as if they had been shipwrecked on these lands.

In the backdrop of the current unrest in New Caledonia is the Global North’s growing militarisation of the Pacific, led by the United States. Currently, 25,000 military personnel from 29 countries are conducting Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC), a military exercise that runs from Hawai’i to the edge of the Asian mainland. Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research worked with an array of organisations – a number of them from the Pacific and Indian Oceans – to draft red alert no. 18 on this dangerous development. Their names are listed below.

They Are Making the Waters of the Pacific Dangerous

What is RIMPAC?

The US and its allies have held Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) exercises since 1971. The initial partners of this military project were Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States, which are also the original members of the Five Eyes (now Fourteen Eyes) intelligence network built to share information and conduct joint surveillance exercises. They are also the major Anglophone countries of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO, set up in 1949) and are the members of the Australia-New Zealand-US strategy treaty ANZUS, signed in 1951. RIMPAC has grown to be a major biennial military exercise that has drawn in a number of countries with various forms of allegiance to the Global North (Belgium, Brazil, Brunei, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, the Netherlands, Peru, the Philippines, Republic of Korea, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Tonga).

RIMPAC 2024 began on 28 June and runs through 2 August. It is being held in Hawai’i, which is an illegally occupied territory of the United States. The Hawai’ian independence movement has a history of resisting RIMPAC, which is understood to be part of the US occupation of sovereign Hawai’ian land. The exercise includes over 150 aircraft, 40 surface ships, three submarines, 14 national land forces, and other military equipment from 29 countries, though the bulk of the fleet is from the United States. The goal of the exercise is ‘interoperability’, which effectively means integrating the military (largely naval) forces of other countries with that of the United States. The main command and control for the exercise is managed by the US, which is the heart and soul of RIMPAC.

Fatu Feu’u (Samoa), Mata Sogia, 2009.

Why is RIMPAC so dangerous?

RIMPAC-related documents and official statements indicate that the exercises allow these navies to train ‘for a wide range of potential operations across the globe’. However, it is clear from both US strategic documents and the behaviour of the US officials who run RIMPAC that the centre of focus is China. Strategic documents also make it clear that the US sees China as a major threat, even as the main threat, to US domination and believes that it must be contained.

This containment has come through the trade war against China, but more pointedly through a web of military manoeuvres by the United States. This includes establishing more US military bases in territories and countries surrounding China; using US and allied military vessels to provoke China through freedom of navigation exercises; threatening to position US short-range nuclear missiles in countries and territories allied with the US, including Taiwan; extending the airfield in Darwin, Australia, to position US aircraft with nuclear missiles; enhancing military cooperation with US allies in East Asia with language that shows precisely that the target is to intimidate China; and holding RIMPAC exercises, particularly over the past few years. Though China was invited to participate in RIMPAC 2014 and RIMPAC 2016, when the tension levels were not so high, it has been disinvited since RIMPAC 2018.

Though RIMPAC documents suggest that the military exercise is being conducted for humanitarian purposes, this is a Trojan Horse. This was exemplified, for instance, at RIMPAC 2000, when the militaries conducted the Strong Angel international humanitarian response training exercise. In 2013, the United States and the Philippines cooperated in providing humanitarian assistance after the devastating Typhoon Haiyan. Shortly after that cooperation, the US and the Philippines signed the Enhanced Defence Cooperation Agreement (2014), which allows the US to access bases of the Philippine military to maintain its weapons depots and troops. In other words, the humanitarian operations opened the door to deeper military cooperation.

RIMPAC is a live-fire military exercise. The most spectacular part of the exercise is called Sinking Exercise (SINKEX), a drill that sinks decommissioned warships off the coast of Hawai’i. RIMPAC 2024’s target ship will be the decommissioned USS Tarawa, a 40,000-tonne amphibious assault vessel that was one of the largest during its service period. There is no environmental impact survey of the regular sinking of these ships into waters close to island nations, nor is there any understanding of the environmental impact of hosting these vast military exercises not only in the Pacific but elsewhere in the world.

RIMPAC is part of the New Cold War against China that the US imposes on the region. It is designed to provoke conflict. This makes RIMPAC a very dangerous exercise.

Kelcy Taratoa (Aotearoa), Episode 0010 from the series Who Am I? Episodes, 2004.

What is Israel’s role in RIMPAC?

Israel, which is not a country with a shoreline on the Pacific Ocean, first participated in RIMPAC 2018, and then again in RIMPAC 2022 and RIMPAC 2024. Although Israel does not have aircraft or ships in the military exercise, it is nonetheless participating in its ‘interoperability’ component, which includes establishing integrated command and control as well as collaborating in the intelligence and logistical part of the exercise. Israel is participating in RIMPAC 2024 at the same time that it is waging a genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. Though several of the observer states in RIMPAC 2024 (such as Chile and Colombia) have been forthright in their condemnation of the genocide, they continue to participate alongside Israel’s military in RIMPAC 2024. There has been no public indication of their hesitation about Israel’s involvement in these dangerous joint military exercises.

Israel is a settler-colonial country that continues its murderous apartheid and genocide against the Palestinian people. Across the Pacific, indigenous communities from Aotearoa (New Zealand) to Hawai’i have led the protests against RIMPAC over the course of the past 50 years, saying that these exercises are held on stolen ground and waters, that they disregard the negative impact on native communities upon whose land and waters live-fire exercises are held (including areas where atmospheric nuclear testing was previously conducted), and that they contribute to the climate disaster that lifts the waters and threatens the existence of the island communities. Though Israel’s participation is unsurprising, the problem is not merely its involvement in RIMPAC, but the existence of RIMPAC itself. Israel is an apartheid state that is conducting a genocide, and RIMPAC is a colonial project that threatens an annihilationist war against the peoples of the Pacific and China.

Ralph Ako (Solomon Islands), Toto Isu, 2015.

Te Kuaka (Aotearoa)
Red Ant (Australia)
Workers Party of Bangladesh (Bangladesh)
Coordinadora por Palestina (Chile)
Judíxs Antisionistas contra la Ocupación y el Apartheid (Chile)
Partido Comunes (Colombia)
Congreso de los Pueblos (Colombia)
Coordinación Política y Social, Marcha Patriótica (Colombia)
Partido Socialista de Timor (Timor Leste)
Hui Aloha ʻĀina (Hawai’i)
Communist Party of India (Marxist–Leninist) Liberation (India)
Federasi Serikat Buruh Demokratik Kerakyatan (Indonesia)
Federasi Serikat Buruh Militan (Indonesia)
Federasi Serikat Buruh Perkebunan Patriotik (Indonesia)
Pusat Perjuangan Mahasiswa untuk Pembebasan Nasional (Indonesia)
Solidaritas.net (Indonesia)
Gegar Amerika (Malaysia)
Parti Sosialis Malaysia (Malaysia)
No Cold War
Awami Workers Party (Pakistan)
Haqooq-e-Khalq Party (Pakistan)
Mazdoor Kissan Party (Pakistan)
Partido Manggagawa (Philippines)
Partido Sosyalista ng Pilipinas (Philippines)
The International Strategy Center (Republic of Korea)
Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (Sri Lanka)
Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research
Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Socialist)
CODEPINK: Women for Peace (United States)
Nodutdol (United States)
Party for Socialism and Liberation (United States)

When the political protests began in New Caledonia in May, I hastened to find a book of poems by Kanak independence leader Déwé Gorodé (1949–2022) called Under the Ashes of the Conch Shells (Sous les cendres des conques, 1974). In this book, written the same year that Gorodé joined the Marxist political group Red Scarves (Foulards rouges), she wrote the poem ‘Forbidden Zone’ (Zone interdite), which concludes:

Reao Vahitahi Nukutavake
Pinaki Tematangi Vanavana
Tureia Maria Marutea
Mangareva MORUROA FANGATAUFA
Forbidden zone
somewhere in
so-called ‘French’ Polynesia.

These are the names of islands that had already been impacted by the French nuclear bomb tests. There are no punctuation marks between the names, which indicates two things: first, that the end of an island or a country does not mark the end of nuclear contamination, and second, that the waters that lap against the islands do not divide the people who live across vast stretches of ocean, but unite them against imperialism. This impulse drove Gorodé to found Group 1878 (named for the Kanak rebellion of that year) and then the Kanak Liberation Party (Parti de libération kanak, or PALIKA) in 1976, which evolved out of Group 1878. The authorities imprisoned Gorodé repeatedly from 1974 to 1977 for her leadership in PALIKA’s struggle for independence from France.

During her time in prison, Gorodé built the Group of Exploited Kanak Women in Struggle (Groupe de femmes Kanak exploitées en lutte) with Susanna Ounei. When these two women left prison, they helped found the Kanak National Liberation and Socialist Front (Front de Libération Nationale Kanak et Socialiste) in 1984. Through concerted struggle, Gorodé was elected the vice president of New Caledonia in 2001.

Stéphane Foucaud (New Caledonia), MAOW! (2023).

In 1985, thirteen countries of the south Pacific signed the Treaty of Rarotonga, which established a nuclear-free zone from the east coast of Australia to the west coast of South America. As French colonies, neither New Caledonia nor French Polynesia signed it, but others did, including the Solomon Islands and Kūki ‘Airani (Cook Islands). Gorodé is now dead, and US nuclear weapons are poised to enter northern Australia in violation of the treaty. But the struggle does not die away.

Roads are still blocked. Hearts are still opened.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Vijay Prashad.

The partnership will see the two nonprofits share journalists’ requests for financial and non-financial support, including security assistance, with each other, as well as information about journalists who have been killed, jailed, or threatened.

CPJ provides comprehensive, life-saving support to journalists and media workers around the world, including safety consultations, up-to-date security information, and rapid response assistance to those who are injured, forced to flee, or imprisoned for their work.

Forbidden Stories’ “SafeBox Network” allows journalists at risk to share documents and information via a secure platform and it works with media partners to publish the investigations of reporters who have been threatened, jailed, or killed to ensure that their stories do not disappear with them.

“Forbidden Stories has shown that killing a journalist won’t kill their story,” said CPJ CEO Jodie Ginsberg. “This partnership will magnify both our organizations’ efforts to protect journalists and their work, secure justice for murdered journalists or those unjustly jailed, and ensure the corrupt and the criminal are held to account.”

As part of the new initiative, CPJ will provide safety consultations to journalists working with Forbidden Stories, while journalists seeking CPJ’s assistance will be able to use Forbidden Stories’ “SafeBox Network.”

“In 2024, journalists continue to be targeted and murdered for their work. With this partnership, we are joining forces to keep stories alive and to send a strong message to the enemies of the press: there is no point in killing a journalist,” said Forbidden Stories’ Founder and Executive Director Laurent Richard.

Both organizations have made commitments to step up collaborations with like-minded partners to reverse the global decline in media freedom and address rising attacks on journalists worldwide.

You can read more about CPJ’s strategy, including its increased direct assistance to journalists at risk, here.

About the Committee to Protect Journalists

The Committee to Protect Journalists is an independent, nonprofit organization that promotes press freedom worldwide. We defend the right of journalists to report the news safely and without fear of reprisal.

Media contact: press@cpj.org

About Forbidden Stories

Forbidden Stories is a network of international journalists whose mission, unique in the world, is to carry forward the investigations of other reporters who have silenced.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

On Wednesday, Deputy Head of the Central Committee for Internal Affairs Nguyen Thai Hoc told the Tuoi Tre Newspaper the party had met its goals in 2022 and would tackle more long-standing cases in 2023.

Last year, the party’s Central Committee, the Politburo and the Secretariat disciplined 47 officials under the supervision of the Politburo and Management Secretariat, 15 more than the previous year.

The Central Committee also dismissed two deputy prime ministers, three ministers and many other senior officials in connection with COVD-19 scandals such as Viet A and the ‘rescue flights’ affair.

Hoc did not talk about the Central Committee’s decision to ask President Nguyen Xuan Phuc to resign on Jan. 17 “after realizing his responsibility before the party and the people,” for the bribery scandals that took place during his time in office.

The ‘rescue flights’ case involved officials taking bribes for allowing airlines to jack up the price of tickets in order to repatriate nationals stranded abroad during the COVID pandemic

The Viet A scandal involved the company’s chief executive officer bribing officials the equivalent of U.S.$34 million to win contracts to sell substandard kits to hospitals at a 45% markup, earning his company U.S.$172 million in profits.

Some Vietnam watchers interviewed by RFA said that the Party was not transparent in forcing Phuc’s hasty resignation without disclosing the specifics of his violations. 

In a recent commentary for RFA, Zachary Abuza, a professor at the National War College in Washington called the move a “power play” saying the days of collective leadership in Vietnam are over.

He said, with Nguyen Phu Trong likely to resign this year, the party General Secretary wanted Phuc to step down to pave the way for his favored candidate National Assembly Chairman Vuong Dinh Hue to take his job.

Another reason for Phuc’s resignation could be the social media rumors that his family and friends were involved in the Viet A scandal. RFA has not been able to independently verify these claims.

Talking to the Tuoi Tre newspaper, Nguyen Thai Hoc said that the new thrust of the “blazing furnace” crackdown on corrupt cadres is to encourage them to quit if they are disciplined and see their reputation decline.

Hoc said this year there needs to be a more coordinated and determined effort from central to the local level to find corrupt officials and deal with them promptly, no matter how small the violations.

Translated by RFA Vietnamese. Edited by Mike Firn.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Vietnamese.

The Pegasus Project, an investigation by Amnesty International and a consortium of media outlets coordinated by Forbidden Stories, revealed in July 2021 that at least 180 journalists were among those from over 50 countries who may have been targeted with the sophisticated surveillance software.

Three journalists from the West African country of Togo were included on the Pegasus Project list. They told CPJ at the time about how the revelations had caused “nightmarish nights” and damage to their personal as well as professional lives. Twelve months on, they say the prospect of being monitored still generates pervasive paranoia and hinders their communications with sources.

“Since I heard this news until today I can no longer easily communicate with my phone,” Ferdinand Ayité, director of L’Alternative newspaper, recently told CPJ about the implications of his phone number being listed. “There is a kind of permanent fear that forces me to change my means of communication.”

That fear is aggravated as Togolese authorities intensify their crackdown on independent press since the Pegasus Project revelations.

NSO Group, the Israeli company that sells the Pegasus spyware, has denied any connection to the Pegasus Project list and has said it only sells spyware to governments to fight terrorism and crime. However, research shows that journalists and those close to them have been targeted, along with activists and politicians, around the world.

Citizen Lab, a University of Toronto-based research group, found Togolese clergy had been selected for Pegasus surveillance in 2019. Similarly, Amnesty International reported that a Togolese human rights defender, who requested anonymity for security reasons, had been targeted with a different, Indian-made spyware in late 2019 and early 2020.

Ayité, like other journalists whose phones were reportedly listed for potential surveillance in countries ranging from Morocco to Mexico to India to Hungary, said the disclosures had affected their ability to work. “Sources treat us differently. Several people are reluctant to take our phone calls, and we are forced to proceed otherwise,” he said. “Personally, I no longer call certain sources…To this day I continue to think that my communications are always followed and listened to and this has a negative impact on the work.”

Ayité and two other journalists⁠—Komlanvi Ketohou and Luc Abaki⁠—whose contacts featured among the over 300 Togolese phone numbers on the Pegasus Project list, have not confirmed if their devices were ever infected with the spyware. But they told CPJ how the threat of surveillance shaped their broader concerns about freedom of expression in Togo. Spyware was just one of the reasons the Togolese Press Patronage (PPT), a local association of media owners, called 2021 the “darkest [year] of the democratic era in Togo in terms of press freedom.”

Days after he learned that his number had been listed, Ayité told CPJ he was not surprised and described himself as “a journalist on borrowed time.” Less than six months later, in early December 2021, police arrested Ayité and Fraternité newspaper director Joël Egah, and detained them for over 20 days on accusations of “contempt of authorities” and “propagation of falsehoods.” Ayité said authorities retained his passport until mid-June; Egah died of a heart attack in March.

In May, Ayité and his newspaper lost their appeal of a separate defamation case. The ruling they sought to reverse had ordered them each to pay 2 million West African francs (US $3,703) in damages over a June 2020 report accusing a local official of embezzlement. Ayité said he and his legal team were preparing to appeal again to Togo’s Supreme Court.

Ketohou, who also uses the first name Carlos, told CPJ that even a year after learning his number was listed, people still worried about being in contact with him.

“They have fear to speak with me,” Ketohou said. “Fear that what they say will be listened to by Togolese authorities.”

Even when people do agree to speak with him over the phone, Ketohou said they often request a video call to be able to see that it’s really him on the other end of the line. Ketohou recognized that this would not necessarily protect against spyware that can grant remote access to a phone’s microphone and camera, but people were looking for ways to build confidence in their communications with him.

Reached by phone on July 15, Togo communication minister Akodah Ayewouadan said the government had no connection with the NSO Group, “has not used that [Pegasus] spyware and we have not communicated on it.” Ayewouadan requested that he be sent questions in writing, but as of Monday, July 18, CPJ had not received any response to those written questions.

Months before learning his number was listed, Ketohou was arrested by Togolese police and detained for several days over a report published by his L’Indépendant Express newspaper alleging corruption by government ministers. That paper was barred from publishing following his release and he fled the country amid ongoing threats against him and his family, setting up the L’Express International news site in exile.

Living outside Togo, Ketohou told CPJ that he has remained worried about the transnational reach of the Togolese government. He said in recent months he had received video calls from numbers he did not know, which he refused to answer. Even without evidence to suggest the callers wished to harm him, Ketuhou said he feared they sought to confirm visually that it was his phone and to collect information about his location.

Luc Abaki, who works as a freelance reporter, told CPJ that while being listed in the Pegasus Project leak didn’t significantly change his private life, “certain people, especially close to power carefully avoid my calls, in particular telephone. This means that I no longer have access to certain information that is sometimes essential for the work that I do as a journalist.”

“I work conscientiously with the main objective of aiming for the common good,” Abaki said. “I always observe prudence.”

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Jonathan Rozen/CPJ Africa Research Associate.

Wearing certain items of clothing, such as tight-fitting pants or t-shirts with foreign words, or having hair longer than a certain length, has always been potentially problematic in North Korea. But now the government is redoubling its efforts to make sure that people don’t flaunt styles associated with capitalistic countries.

“At the end of last month, the Socialist Patriotic Youth League held an educational session nationwide, where they defined the act of imitating foreign fashion and hairstyles as ‘capitalist flair,’ and examples of ‘anti-socialist practices,’” a resident of the city of Hamhung in the eastern province of South Hamgyong told RFA’s Korean Service on condition of anonymity for security reasons.

The league, formerly known as the Kimilsungist-Kimjongilist Youth League until last year, is modeled after the Soviet Komsomol, a group of teenagers and young adults who spread communist propaganda.

“The youth league’s patrols are cracking down on young people who wear long hair down to their waists, and those who dye their hair brown, as well as people who wear clothes with large foreign letters and women who wear tight pants,” the source said.

“This time the crackdown mainly targets women in their 20s and 30s. If they are caught, they are made to wait on the side of the road until the patrols can finish their crackdown in that area. Only then will they be taken to the youth league office in the district, where they must write letters confessing their crimes. They must then contact someone at home to bring acceptable clothes for them, and then they are released,” she said.

The country has been on a crusade against the infiltration of foreign — especially South Korean —culture.

RFA previously reported that authorities ordered members of the country’s main youth organization to turn in the cellphones for inspection, so they could determine who was watching and distributing foreign media or spelling words in the South Korean way or using Southern slang.

Patrols in the city of Chongjin, in the province of North Hamgyong, targeted the marketplace where many young people are known to hang out, a resident there told RFA on condition of anonymity to speak freely.

“If they are caught, the company they work for and the Socialist Patriotic Youth League will be notified. They are then subject to criticism and in the most severe cases, the violator’s name, home address and workplace will be revealed publicly on the Third Broadcast,” she said, referring to government-controlled loudspeakers placed throughout most cities and towns to spread messages of propaganda.

“Even though they have these kinds of crackdowns all the time, the young people do not stop trying to look and dress like people in foreign films and TV.”

Illegal activities

The government is also working to suppress what it deems to be illegal capitalistic activities, an official in Chongjin told RFA.

“Recent arrests here in Chongjin caught five property brokers who illegally facilitated state-owned housing transactions and collected fees for their services. Meanwhile, six fortune tellers and a fake medicine seller were also arrested. The guy selling fake traditional medicines claimed they could treat diseases,” he said.

“Everyone was sentenced five to seven years of hard labor and put in jail,” said the official.

Chongjin authorities are also targeting the scalping of rail tickets, bribes given to train crews and rail police by merchants who don’t have the proper government permission for travel, and payments to police to look the other way when they catch someone doing something illegal, he said.

In Ryanggang province, west of North Hamgyong, authorities there have been using the Third Broadcast to warn citizens against the evils of drugs, superstitions like fortune telling, and fake medicines, a resident there told RFA.

“The people are complaining that the authorities are coming down hard on them again so soon after the April national holidays have ended, under the pretext of eradicating anti-socialist acts,” she said, referring to holidays that commemorated the life of country’s founder Kim Il Sung on April 15 and the formation of the country’s military on the 25^th.

Translated by Claire Lee and Leejin J. Chung. Written in English by Eugene Whong.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Chang Gyu Ahn and Myung Chul Lee.