#MAORI CULTURE COULD BE TRADEMARKED BY TPP MULTINATIONALS

by Aaryn Niuapu

Imagine a world where indigenous knowledge, language and customs are outright owned by multinational corporations and copyright enforcement is heavily backed by government police forces. Once the TPP is implemented, this sadistic dream could very well ooze into reality.

Land, language and family are the pillars of everything Māori (the Indigenous Peoples of Aotearoa New Zealand), yet all three are certain to be negatively impacted by the impending Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP/TPPA). Sadly, Iwi (tribal) corporations and the so-called Māori elite have given little voice to the impending ramifications of the TPP on indigenous rights. Evidently though, indigenous advocacy movements have been left to make sure Māori tino rangatiratanga (self-determination) is not undermined by the TPP. Te Wharepora Hou, is a collection of Māori women primarily concerned with the wellbeing of tangata whenua and Māori stewardship of the Earth. The group have been an active voice against the TPP:

“As wahine Maori, our long and deeply-held traditional values and understandings of collectivity, of manaakitanga, of kaitiakitanga (Caring for Earth Mother), for Tangaroa (god of the sea) and for their children, is in direct opposition to what is being proposed in the TPPA. The New Zealand government has a responsibility to ensure Tangata Whenua have a voice in these negotiations as part of our Treaty partnership and our rights as Indigenous peoples.” (1)

Primarily as tangata whenua (people of the land), Māori are intrinsically intertwined with the ecosystem – Māori spirituality, family links (geographical indicators are included in a family tree), medicinal practices, traditional knowledge and customs are embedded in the indigenous relationship with Papatūānuku (the primordial Earth Mother) and her children. Like many other indigenous nations around the globe, Māori have been protesting against colonial and now capitalist ideologies that further take away indigenous sovereignty and further cement indigenous nations at the bottom of the socioeconomic scale. The scary thing about the TPP is that it won’t only affect indigenous free-hold land (or land waiting to be settled by the corresponding governments) nor will it just push our people further into poverty. The TPP will give multinationals the right to exploit and rape the ecosystem and further aid them in the acquiring of enforced trademarking and copyrighting of indigenous intellectual property and cultural/traditional knowledge.

Iwi leaders and the corporate arm of tribal organizations need to show their blatant disregard for the TPP, as it will significantly impact the majority of Māori. Traditional knowledge like rongoā (medicinal practices and customs), carving, weaving, and even the Māori language are in danger of being hijacked by TPP investors. Indeed, Auckland University law professor Jane Kelsey, a forefront activist against the free trade agreement, says that tribal leaders need to see the ecological, socio-economic and intellectual property fallout that will transpire once the TPP is employed.

“It is also likely to lead to more Māori names being trademarked by foreign companies, and traditional knowledge about things like rongoā or natural medicine being claimed by companies.” (2)

Last week WikiLeaks released the TPP draft chapter on ‘intellectual property’; its heavy silhouette (95 pages) confirms the corporate threat to indigenous self-determination and ownership rights over traditional knowledge and practices. In Article QQ.E.23 (traditional knowledge, cultural expressions, and genetic resources), the New Zealand govt. clearly opposes the “informed consent or approval and involvement of the indigenous or local community holding such knowledge”, before user rights (and later on copyright and trademark rights) are given to TPP members and their corresponding investors (multinational corporations). If Iwi leaders do not comprehend the threat of Māori culture being trademarked by TPP multinationals, than they would relegate themselves to the same geopolitics as colonial governments.

Clearly the trickle-down theories of neo-liberal economics and free trade agreements have not been favourable for indigenous rights and wellbeing. Scarier than the TPP’s ability to strip indigenous intellectual property of all ownership, is the absent voice of corporate tribal leaders. Yet again it has been the grassroots movements that have stood up for tino rangatiratanga, hopefully though our leaders will see the need to protect indigenous land, language and families from the capitalist grasp of the Trans-Pacific Partnership treaty.

https://intercontinentalcry.org/maori-culture-trademarked-tpp-multinationals-21125/

Protests in New Zealand against Trans Pacific Partnership

By John Braddock

Last Saturday thousands of people joined nationwide rallies in New Zealand against the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement, which is being negotiated by 12 Pacific Rim countries, including New Zealand and the US.

The protests took place in 22 cities and regional centres. The “National Day of Action” against the secretive negotiations was the fifth such event to be held in the past year and followed demonstrations in 2012 and 2013. National Party Prime Minister John Key has indicated a TPP deal, which has been repeatedly delayed, could be signed by mid-year.

In Auckland 3,000 people marched down Queen Street with a mock Trojan horse symbolising, according to organisers, that “elite US corporations” are “pulling the strings behind the scenes” on the TPP. Over 1,000 people marched through the Wellington CBD to parliament while 3,000 participated in Christchurch and 1,500 in Dunedin.

The Obama administration is aggressively pushing the TPP as a weapon for dictating economic and trading terms to countries throughout the Asia-Pacific. The grouping began in 2005 with an agreement between Brunei, Chile, New Zealand and Singapore to manage trade and integrate their economies. After Washington joined the group in 2011, negotiations were expanded to cover Australia, Brunei, Chile, Canada, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the US and Vietnam.

The TPP has become the economic front in Washington’s confrontational “pivot to Asia,” mirroring the rapidly intensifying US military build-up throughout the region aimed at China. At the Asia Pacific Economic (APEC) summit in Beijing last November, Obama called a special meeting of TPP participants to steer the conference to isolate and undercut China and establish the TPP as “the model for trade in the 21st century.”

The TPP is a mechanism through which Wall Street SEEKS to open up economies in the Asia Pacific for American trade and investors. The US is pressing in particular the dismantling of national regulatory measures, including those favouring state-owned enterprises, and the protection of the “intellectual property rights” of American corporations in areas such as software, media and pharmaceuticals. Governments that fail to comply could face multi-million dollar lawsuits or exclusion from the US market.

Key sections of New Zealand capital are also seeking to benefit. The finance sector, which dominates the country’s economy, wants more financial deregulation. The dairy industry is also pressing for freer access to the US market while fighting off new restrictions on access into China. In joining the TPP, New Zealand, like every other country in the region, is forced to balance its trade relationship with China against its long-standing strategic alliance with the US.

The recent protests have tapped into widespread concern over the potential impact of the TPP. An open letter to the government from 260 health practitioners last May warned that any attempt to regulate the activities of businesses that affect community health, such as the advertising and sale of tobacco or alcohol, will be over-ridden by the TPP. Higher costs for medicines are forecast as pharmaceutical companies oppose national programs that regulate prices.

Underlying this relentless drive for pro-market restructuring is the deepening crisis of global capitalism. However, far from challenging in any way the profit system, the organisers of the anti-TPP campaign in New Zealand seek to divert opposition into reactionary nationalist channels.

The protests have been co-ordinated by the well-funded “It’s Our Future New Zealand” organisation, an umbrella for an assortment of trade unions, academics, Greens, and the Maori nationalist Mana Party—all dedicated to the defence of capitalism.

Chairing Wellington rally last Saturday, Sandra Grey, the Tertiary Education Union president, declared that the TPP would place a straitjacket over “our ability to make the laws that govern us,” and said the government should be “ashamed of itself” for giving away “our sovereignty.” Grey called on protesters to fight the agreement “in any way we can,” including by petitioning parliament and local authorities.

In a statement, Green Party MP James Shaw demagogically declared that “National’s TPP deal will make us second class citizens in our own country by ceding sovereignty over policy decisions to big businesses.” Mana member John Minto similarly told TV1 that the deal was “not in New Zealand’s interests,” but those of “US corporations to come and plunder the New Zealand economy.”

Big business, however, already dictates the country’s policies and has always done so. These politicians and their servants in the trade unions and the pseudo-left outfits merely represent sections of New Zealand business which fear that international competition through the TPP will cut across their own interests.

Maori-owned companies represented by Mana have significant stakes in tourism, forestry, fishing and agriculture, and are adamantly opposed to any “foreign” threats to their profits.

Mana, which is supported by the pseudo-left groups Fightback, Socialist Aotearoa and the International Socialist Organisation, calls for “withdrawal from free trade agreements that favour multinationals over local production or prevent support for locally owned businesses.” Like the racist New Zealand First Party, Mana advocates a ban on foreigners buying houses and discrimination against migrant workers.

NZ First MP Fletcher Tabuteau, who was invited to address a rally in Rotorua last November and in Wellington on Saturday, declared that “New Zealanders must rule our country, not foreign businesses.”

Since 2012, the Greens and Mana, along with Labour and the anti-immigrant NZ First Party, have also been involved in protests against investment from China. This chauvinist anti-Chinese campaign happens to dovetail with US efforts to incorporate New Zealand more fully into its “pivot to Asia,” including intelligence and military cooperation.

Other sections of New Zealand business, including the ICT and high-end manufacturers, have also expressed reservations over the TPP. Prominent investment banker and multi-millionaire Gareth Morgan, an advocate of “free trade,” criticises provisions which would “stop our government being able to legislate for the public good if that hurts an international business interest.”

The TPP is part of the relentless drive to impose the burden of the global capitalist breakdown on working people. All sections of the New Zealand capitalist class—both those for and against the TPP—support the austerity measures that destroy the jobs and living standards of workers and youth. The working class can only defend its interests through a unified international struggle against the profit system to establish a world planned socialist economy. This requires the rejection of all forms of nationalism and chauvinism.

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2015/03/12/tppa-m12.html

Open letter sent to Political Leaders on Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement

By Online News Team 

An Open Letter has been sent to Leaders New Zealand and  other countries involved in  negotiating the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement.

New Zealand politicians are among those who have endorsed the letter and includes Labour leader, Andrew Little, Winston Peters of NZ First, Russel Norman and Metiria Turei of the Green Party, Te Ururoa Flavell and Marama Fox of the Māori Party.

A number of other political leaders from other countries including Japan, Australia, Canada and Malaysia have also supported the letter.

The Open Letter expresses grave concern, “about the potential for the Government of the United States of America to apply the process known as ‘certification’ to the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement.”

According to those who penned the letter, in the past the United States has used Free Trade Agreement negotiations to influence law making in other countries.

It claims, “the US government has included a requirement to withhold implementation of that agreement until the other government has satisfied the US understanding of that country’s obligations under the agreement by changing it’s laws, regulations and procedures to satisfy the US demands.”

The letter calls upon the New Zealand Government to protect the sovereign law making of New Zealand and resists attempts by another TPP Party to influence drafting of laws prior to agreemenr coming into force.

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https://www.maoritelevision.com/news/politics/open-letter-sent-political-leaders-trans-pacific-partnership-agreement

The Murder of Ali Saad Dawabsha, a Palestinian Infant Burned Alive by Israeli Terrorists

by JOHN WIGHT

Western liberals came out in their droves to condemn the slaying of Cecil the Lion in Africa. How many will now come out to condemn the savage slaughter of a Palestinian infant, Ali Saad Dawabsha, by Jewish terrorists in the West Bank village of Duma?

I think we already know the answer to this question. For such people the blood of an African lion is more valuable than the blood of a 18 month-old Palestinian child. We know this to be true because for decades Palestinian children, along with their parents and families, have been routinely slaughtered and/or terrorized by Israelis, whether through individual acts of terror committed by illegal settlers and religious fanatics, or as is more common by the state via the IDF, the most cowardly army in the world bar none.

The gall of Israeli Prime Minister in describing this latest act of primeval violence against a baby as an “act of terror” when he has ordered the mass murder of babies and children in Gaza; when his government has created a culture of extremism in its consistent and determined policy to demonize and dehumanize the Palestinian people in order to justify their continued oppression, is off the scale.

As for the so-called international community – in truth the US and its allies – it is an accessory to this child’s murder with the political, economic, military, and diplomatic support it provides the apartheid state of Israel, a state whose crimes, to paraphrase the Irish revolutionary James Connolly, would shame all the devils in hell. Indeed for your average Israeli the very word Palestinian is synonymous with subhuman, the product of a mindset encapsulated in the now infamous words of former Israeli Prime Minister, Golda Meir, when she said, “There were no Palestinians.”

What Meir revealed was the status of ‘non-people’ that had long been ascribed to the Palestinian not by extremists but the political mainstream within this settler colonial state. Her words were not spoken as statement of historical fact but rather as a statement of intent. It is this intent that drives Israeli policy towards the Palestinian people to this day, whose suffering shames a world in which justice is a gift to be given instead of a universal right, as set out in the UN Charter.

Israel’s claim to victimhood throughout its existence is as hollow as it is perverse. It is a state founded on the mass ethnic cleansing of the land’s indigenous population, and a state that continues to exist at the negation of the remaining Palestinians every hour of every day.

The unfailing and ignoble pandering to Israel that informs the West’s entire policy with regard to the Middle East has only succeeded in creating a monster in the shape of the intransigent, rejectionist, and brutal political culture that now holds sway there, one that is underpinned by a flagrant disregard for international law and the human rights of some 3 million people in the occupied West Bank and 1.8 million in Gaza, which at time of writing remains a pile of rubble after Israel’s summer 2014 air, land, and sea assault in which 2100 Palestinians were slaughtered – around 500 of them children – and up to 9000 injured or maimed, many of them permanently.

Gaza remains under siege, cut off from the outside world, its people and their suffering a symbol of the callous indifference of an international order in which Palestinian blood is not only cheap it is deemed worthless. Israel’s exceptionalism, on the other hand, remains sacrosanct.

Meanwhile the settlements continue to expand across the West Bank, despite their illegality. Over half a million illegal Jewish settlers now colonize land belonging to the Palestinians, who are subjected to daily acts of violence, intimidation, and terror at the hands of religious extremists. In this they are left exposed by an Israeli government that turns a blind eye to their treatment, and indeed arrests and imprisons those who dare complain or protest too vociferously.

There will be no justice for the Palestinians as long as organized hypocrisy continues to impersonate democracy in Washington and throughout European capitals with regard to their plight. Adding insult to grievous injury is how the Palestinians’ courage in resisting the juggernaut of oppression that has reduced their lives to misery is depicted as terrorism, thus used as justification for the status quo

Those responsible for Ali Saad Dawabsha’s  murder are the human product of the injustice that sits at the very foundations of a state that wears its brutality as a badge of honour. No state and no people can escape the crimes it commits, and no people can be forever denied justice on the altar of expediency and exceptionalism.

This is why the international campaign of boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) against Israel offers the Palestinians a lifeline of solidarity, providing them with a semblance of hope. Despite the supine disregard for their rights by political leaders in the West, more and more people are answering their cry for help. It is here, with this international solidarity campaign, where Israel is most vulnerable – for far greater than any economic or material impact the boycott campaign has had and is having is the way it is slowly but surely chipping away at the moral foundations upon which this apartheid state rests.

Ali Saad Dawabsha was burned alive by animals who claim to be acting in the name of God and religion. This innocent child’s murder cannot be allowed to pass without a renewed determination to defeat the system of apartheid, siege, and occupation that nourishes the bigotry and hate that passes for democracy in Israel.

As such, it has never been more important for all who care about justice to declare that we are all Palestinians.

John Wight is the author of a politically incorrect and irreverent Hollywood memoir – Dreams That Die – published by Zero Books. He’s also written five novels, which are available as Kindle eBooks. You can follow him on Twitter at @JohnWight1

http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/07/31/the-murder-of-ali-saad-dawabsha-a-palestinian-infant-burned-alive-by-israeli-zealots/

MH17: Who is hampering the investigation?

After the failure of the hastily arranged UN Security Council vote on a resolution that hadn’t been properly debated, Russia is once again being accused of creating obstacles to justice for the victims of the MH17 disaster.

These official statements and media coverage come as no surprise to us. However, let’s face the facts.

Russia was the first state to demand a full and independent investigation of this abhorrent crime. We did everything to ensure the early adoption of Security Council Resolution 2166 that not only insisted on a proper investigation, but also, at Russia’s initiative, provided for an immediate ceasefire at the crash site. The Russian Defense Ministry has been the only one among its counterparts to publish its satellite data relevant for establishing the truth. We have declassified certain technical documentation related to the Buk missiles and provided the Netherlands with a thorough analysis of possible Buk involvement in the downing of the aircraft performed by experts from the Almaz-Antey Corporation, the missiles’ manufacturer.

We have been calling upon the Security Council to remain actively involved in the investigation by, for instance, inviting the Secretary-General to appoint a special envoy for MH-17 and providing the Council with wide-ranging proposals as to how it could help the investigation in the most effective way. Finally, we introduced an alternative draft resolution that would encourage the investigation to be more conducted more quickly, transparently and comprehensively, rather than politicize the matter further by creating an unprecedented tribunal that would have to operate under immense political pressure.

Why the rush? Is it to help the investigation, or rather to replace it? Progress towards justice must be seen. So far, we have seen nothing. Our partners preferred to conduct a vote that is impossible to explain by any other motive than seeking a fresh pretext for pointing a finger at Russia. It is only to be regretted that the unity and authority of the Security Council has once again become hostage to political ambitions having nothing to do with either justice or a peaceful resolution of the crisis in Ukraine in its entirety. For its part, Russia will continue to seek both.

http://www.rt.com/op-edge/311299-mh17-who-is-hampering-investigation/

Britain freed 100s of Nazis under US pressure, claims historian

Britain freed hundreds of suspected Nazi war criminals involved in the Holocaust under pressure from the United States, a leading historian has claimed.

Dr. Dan Plesch uncovered United Nations War Crimes Commission documents which prove the Nazis were freed from British prisons under pressure from the US.

Among the suspected war criminals released was Oskar Groening – dubbed the ‘Bookkeeper of Auschwitz’ – who was handed a four-year prison sentence for his role in the Holocaust earlier this month.

Other prominent Nazis freed by the UK were Erich von Manstein, Gerd von Rundstedt and Albert Kesselring.

Plesch said Britain freed the Nazis under pressure from the US, which wanted Germany as an ally in the Cold War against the Soviet Union.

The director of the Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy at SOAS, part of the University of London, added that Germany also applied pressure to release suspected war criminals.

“There was a political argument at the time in which those opposed to international criminal justice succeeded … There were lots of people who were either released without much investigation — and then there were people who were actually in prison camps and let out. Hundreds of suspects and convicted Nazis [were released],” Plesch told the Jewish Chronicle.

“Indeed, British jails were empty by 1957 after much pressure from Germany and German army veterans associations who refused to support rearmament against the USSR while they remained in jail.”

Oskar Groening, theformer guard at Auschwitz jailed earlier this month by a German court, was found guilty of being an accessory to the murder of at least 300,000 Jews at the infamous death camp.

Plesch said governments should learn from this incident and investigate charges of war crimes levied against countries such as Israel and Syria.

“These are very important lessons for our own time … states, including Israel, need to give much more serious attention to the importance of international criminal law today,” Plesch told the Jewish Chronicle.

Israel faced accusations of war crimes on Tuesday when Amnesty International published a report stating there is “strong evidence” that at least 135 civilians were killed in a bombardment of Rafah during last year’s Gaza War.

The United Nations implicated Syrian leader Bashar Assad in war crimes earlier this year, claiming he is responsible for “vicious” abuses including torture, mass killing and rape.

http://www.rt.com/uk/311240-britain-freed-nazis-us/

US spied on Japanese govt, companies, passed intelligence to Australia, New Zealand

Washington spied on its key ally, Japan, and passed intelligence on to Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the UK, WikiLeaks has revealed. The NSA targeted 35 high-ranking Japanese officials and top companies, and also tracked trade negotiations.

After dismantling the illusion of US relations built on mutual trust with Brazil and its European allies, Germany and France, WikiLeaks has turned to the Asian activities of the NSA. In a press release published on Friday, the website revealed “Target Tokyo” – a list of 35 of the US National Security Agency’s “top secret” targets.

The list includes Japanese Cabinet officials, major banks, and top Japanese companies, such as the natural gas division of Mitsubishi and the petroleum unit of Mitsui. There were also intercepts about “sensitive climate change strategy” and the “content of a confidential prime ministerial briefing that took place at Shinzo Abe’s official residence,” according to WikiLeaks.

READ MORE: WikiLeaks: NSA spied on German FM for years, ‘helped CIA to kidnap and torture’ 

“The lesson for Japan is this: do not expect a global surveillance superpower to act with honour or respect. There is only one rule: there are no rules,” Julian Assange, WikiLeaks editor-in-chief, said in the press release.

Japan is America’s closest ally in the Asia-Pacific region. They closely cooperate in trade and defense. Yet, according to the whistleblower website, some of the NSA reports were released to Australia and New Zealand, as well as to Canada and the UK – the members of the “Five Eyes” intelligence alliance.

READ MORE: US a surveillance superpower spying on foes & allies alike – Assange 

If the allegations are confirmed, Tokyo will protest the NSA’s spying activities, which date back to 2006, Kyodo news agency reported, citing sources in the Japanese government. However, it is “unlikely to have a major impact on the core of Japan-US relations,” Yoshinobu Yamamoto, a professor of international politics at the University of Niigata Prefecture, told AFP, a French news agency.

The revelations come as Japan is embroiled in a heated debate regarding a recent move by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe which is set to expand the role of the country’s military forces. The shift in policy has been greeted by Washington, but is regarded as controversial by Japan’s neighbors and the Japanese public.

“I think some interest groups and opposition parties will use this news to stick a spoke in the government’s wheel,” Celine Pajon, a Japan specialist at the French Institute of International Relations, told AFP.

READ MORE: NSA spied on Brazil’s President Rousseff, dozens of top officials – WikiLeaks 

While the prime minister’s phone wasn’t on the wiretapping list, WikiLeaks said that Trade Minister Yoichi Miyazawa and Bank of Japan governor Haruhiko Kuroda appear to have been direct targets NSA surveillance.

This report is particularly significant in wake of the commencement of the latest round of negotiations over the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement this week. Ministers of 12 countries in the region, including the US and Japan, the largest economies participating in the talks, have gathered on the Hawaiian island of Maui to discuss a free-trade bloc that would encompass about 40 percent of the world’s economy.

http://www.rt.com/news/311302-nsa-target-tokyo-wikileaks/