Britain's 'regret' at Maori killings when Cook landed

Yahoo – AFP, October 2, 2019

A statue of Captain Cook stands in Sydney's Hyde Park (AFP Photo/WILLIAM WEST)

Britain's top diplomat in New Zealand made a low-key "expression of regret" to Maori on Wednesday over deadly clashes that occurred when Captain James Cook's arrived in New Zealand 250 years ago.

British High Commissioner Laura Clarke travelled to the North Island town of Gisborne for a ceremony with the Maori iwi, or tribes, who Cook met when he landed in October 1769.

The explorer's arrival sparked a series of skirmishes in the following days that resulted in nine deaths and is still recalled with anger by locals.

In a statement posted on its Facebook page, the Rongowhakaata Iwi Trust said the ceremony with Clarke was to acknowledge the hara, or atrocities, committed 250 years ago.

"Cook and his crew landed on the banks of the Turanganui river at 4pm, within 30 minutes they had opened fire and (local chieftain) Te Maro was dead," it said.

"Our whanaunga (relative) was the first casualty of The Collision."

It added: "After only being here for two hours, Cook and his crew had trespassed, terrorised, killed and stolen from us."

The British High Commission issued a brief statement about the event but refused to provide further details, saying it was a "private dialogue between the envoy and the iwi.

"The expression of regret responds to a request from the local iwi for this history to be heard and acknowledged," the statement said.

"The British High Commissioner will acknowledge the pain of those first encounters, acknowledge that the pain does not diminish over time, and extend her sympathy to the descendants of those killed."

Local media reported British officials had "sworn the iwi involved to secrecy" and carefully avoided framing the statement as an apology.

However, New Zealand's race relations commissioner Meng Foon, a former Gisborne mayor, had no such qualms.

"It's a significant day today... I hope that the apology or message will acknowledge the murder of nine Maori from Turanganui-a-Kiwa (Gisborne)," he told Radio New Zealand.

"I hope they both can move forward and tell our history."

On three epic voyages, Cook helped chart the vast Pacific Ocean more than any other, making him one of the most celebrated explorers of his era.

But his legacy has been questioned by many modern scholars amid accusations that his "discoveries" led to colonialism and the devastation of the traditional societies he encountered.

Pacific's Cook Islands mulls new name

Yahoo – AFP, 5 March 2019

Dancers from the Cook Islands perform during a ceremony in the capital,
Avarua. The government is considering changing the name of the tiny nation to
something more traditional

The tiny Pacific nation of Cook Islands is considering changing its name to something that reflects its Polynesian culture, rather than honouring the British explorer James Cook.

The government set up a committee in January to find a new indigenous name for the grouping of 15 islands, about 3,000 kilometres (1,900 miles) northeast of New Zealand.

Initially the idea was to have the indigenous moniker feature alongside the existing Cook Islands name, in the same way that its larger neighbour is sometimes known as Aotearoa-New Zealand.

But committee chairman Danny Mataroa said Monday that once discussions began it became apparent there was support for dropping the Cook Islands name altogether in favour of one in the local language, known as Cook Islands Maori.

Map showing the Cook Islands

"When the committee members, which include Cook Islands historians and people with deep traditional knowledge, met we decided it was time we change the name of the country," he told AFP.

Mataroa said the new name should reflect the country's heritage, its people and its strong Christian belief.

Deputy Prime Minister Mark Brown backed the move, but said there was still a long way to go before the nation of 12,000 people changed its name.

"I'm quite happy to look at a traditional name for our country which more reflects the true Polynesian nature of our island nation," he told Radio New Zealand.

It is not the first time the issue has surfaced, with a 1994 referendum to change the name to Avaiki Nui resoundingly defeated.

Weightlifter Sam Pera parades the Cook Islands flag during the opening ceremony 

of the 2004 Olympic Games. The tiny Pacific Ocean nation is considering a name 

change to something more traditional

The Cook Islands were a British protectorate from 1888 until 1900, when they came under New Zealand's jurisdiction.

The Cooks gained independence in 1965 but maintains close ties to Wellington, which takes responsibility for the Cooks' external affairs and allows its citizens to live and work in New Zealand.

Britain should give up Chagos Islands: UN court

Yahoo – AFP, Danny KEMP, Jan HENNOP, February 25, 2019

Britain allowed a few of the evicted Chagossian islanders back for a brief visit in 

2006 (AFP Photo/STRINGER)

The Hague (AFP) - Britain should give up control of the Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean "as rapidly as possible", the UN's top court said Monday in a decades-old row with Mauritius over an archipelago that is home to a huge US airbase.

The International Court of Justice said in a legal opinion that Britain had illegally split the islands from Mauritius before independence in 1968, after which the entire population of islanders was evicted.

Mauritius and the exiled Chagossians reacted with delight to the "historic" opinion delivered by judges in The Hague, which is non-binding but will carry heavy symbolic and political weight.

Britain however defended its hold on the islands, saying the Diego Garcia military base, which has been used to bomb Iraq and Afghanistan, protected people around the world.

"The United Kingdom's continued administration of the Chagos Archipelago constitutes a wrongful act," chief judge Abdulqawi Ahmed Yusuf said.

"The United Kingdom is under an obligation to bring an end to its administration of the Chagos Archipelago as rapidly as possible, thereby allowing Mauritius to complete the decolonisation of its territory."

The UN General Assembly in 2017 adopted a resolution presented by Mauritius and backed by African countries asking the ICJ to offer legal advice on the island chain's fate and the legality of the deportations.

'So happy'

Colonial power Britain split off the islands from Mauritius -- which lies around 2,000 kilometres (1,200 miles) away -- three years before Port Louis gained independence in 1968. It also paid Mauritius three million pounds.

Between 1968 and 1973 around 2,000 Chagos islanders were evicted, to Britain, Mauritius and the Seychelles, to make way for a military base on Diego Garcia, the largest of the islands. The evictions were described in a British diplomatic cable at the time as the removal of "some few Tarzans and Man Fridays".

The Chagos Islanders have already taken their battle through the courts in Britain,
where their supporters include the current leader of the opposition, Jeremy Corbyn 
(second from the right in this 2007 photo) (AFP Photo/ADRIAN DENNIS)

Diego Garcia is now under lease to the United States and played a key strategic role in the Cold War before being used as a staging ground for US bombing campaigns against Afghanistan and Iraq in the 2000s.

Olivier Bancoult, chairman of the Mauritius-based Chagos Refugees Group, told reporters outside court that he was "so happy".

"It is a big victory against an injustice done by the British government for many years. We people have been suffering for many years -- I am so lucky today," he said.

Mauritius Prime Minister Pravind Jugnauth hailed it as a " historic moment for Mauritius and all its people".

"Our territorial integrity will now be made complete, and when that occurs, the Chagossians and their descendants will finally be able to return home," he said in a statement.

The ICJ opinion comes as a stunning blow to London in a case that goes to the heart of historic issues of decolonisation and current questions about Britain's place in the world as it prepares to leave the European Union.

Mauritius' lawyer Philippe Sands said there was "no wiggle room" in the judges' view and that Britain would resist pressure to comply.

"I suspect the United Kingdom will say to itself, what resistance can we put up to moving forward -- and particularly in the context of Brexit, as the United Kingdom finds itself a little bit isolated in the world," he told reporters outside court.

Britain's foreign ministry rejected the court's opinion.

"The defence facilities on the British Indian Ocean Territory help to protect people here in Britain and around the world from terrorist threats, organised crime and piracy," the Foreign and Commonwealth Office said in a statement.

'Shameful' evictions

When judges heard the case in September, Mauritius argued that it was illegal for Britain to have broken up its territory while it was still the colonial power.

Britain, while apologising for the "shameful" way it evicted thousands of islanders, insisted Mauritius was wrong to have brought the case to the ICJ.

The United States meanwhile said the court had a "duty" not to take a position on the row.

The Chagos Islanders have already taken their battle through the courts in Britain, where their supporters included the current Labour opposition leader, Jeremy Corbyn.

The legal opinion is only the 28th since the ICJ was set up in 1946 in the wake of World War II to provide a tribunal to resolve disputes between UN member states.

Previously such opinions include one on Israel's West Bank barrier in 2004, which judges said was illegal, and declaring legal Kosovo's declaration of independence in 2010.c

Colombia finds treasure galleon, ending 300-year mystery

Yahoo – AFP, Paula Carrillo, 6 Dec 2015

The remains of the Spanish galleon San Jose sunk off the Caribbean coast

 of Cartagena de Indias, Colombia in an undated picture released on 

December 5, 2105 by the Colombian Culture Ministry's press office (AFP Photo)

Cartagena (Colombia) (AFP) - Colombia says it has found the shipwreck of a storied Spanish galleon laden with gold, silver and precious stones, three centuries after it was sunk by the British in the Caribbean.

"This is the most valuable treasure that has been found in the history of humanity," President Juan Manuel Santos declared on Saturday.

He was speaking from the northern port city of Cartagena, close to where experts made the hugely valuable find.

Treasure hunters had searched for the ship for decades, described by some as the holy grail of shipwrecks.

The loot is estimated to be worth around $2 billion, its value having dropped significantly due to the falling price of silver, according to US-based company Sea Search Armada.

SSA, whose subsidiary claimed in the early 1980s that it had found the galleon's final resting place, was engaged in a long-running battle with the government of Colombia.

The find was not confirmed and a US court ultimately ruled it was Colombian property.

The San Jose has long been the source of fascination and popular legends, and even figures in Gabriel Garcia Marquez's "Love in the Time of Cholera."

Mystery solved after centuries

Although they found plenty of other wrecks, the San Jose's location had remained a mystery until now.

The San Jose was sunk in June 1708 near the Islas del Rosario, off Colombia's Caribbean coast, during combat with British ships attempting to take its cargo, as part of the War of Spanish Succession.

The galleon was the main ship in a treasure fleet carrying gold, silver and other valuable items from Spain's American colonies to King Philip V.

Only a handful of the ship's crew of 600 survived when the San Jose sank.

A team of Colombian and foreign researchers, including a veteran of the group that discovered the wreck of the Titanic in 1985, studied winds and currents of the Caribbean 307 years ago and delved into colonial archives in Spain and Colombia searching for clues.

The remains of the Spanish galleon San Jose sunk off the Caribbean coast of 

Cartagena de Indias, Colombia seen in an undated picture released on December 5, 

2105 by the Colombian Culture Ministry's press office (AFP Photo)

Experts confirmed that they found the San Jose on November 27 "in a place never before referenced by previous research," Santos said.

At least five other major shipwrecks were discovered when searching the ocean floor.

The experts confirmed that they located the San Jose, which was lying on its side, identifying it by its unique bronze cannons with engraved dolphins.

"The amount and type of the material leave no doubt of the identity" of the shipwreck, said Ernesto Montenegro, head of the Colombian Institute of Anthropology and History.

There could be up to 1,000 shipwrecks off the Caribbean coast of Colombia, but of those only between six and 10 had a large cargo of treasures, anthropologist Fabian Sanabria told AFP.

The biggest find, and the most sought after, was the San Jose, he said.

The discovery "is an unprecedented event for the country," said Cartagena Mayor Dionisio Velez.

On Twitter, the issue was trending under #GaleonSanJose, as users of the one-to-many social network debated whether to return the loot to Spain, and made various estimates about its current value.

Chagos islanders ‘betrayed’ by UK failure to decide on their return

Supporters of Chagossians’ return to the Indian Ocean atolls condemn the government’s postponement and ‘lack of political courage’

The Guardian, Jamie Dowrad, 4 April 2015

Diego Garcia, the largest island in the Chagos archipelago and site of
 a major US military base. Photograph: Reuters

Supporters of the inhabitants of a British overseas territory deported from their homeland are furious that the government has reneged on a promise that it would decide before the election on whether they could return.

Shortly before parliament disbanded, the government said it would delay confirming whether the Chagossian people could go back to the Chagos Islands, a series of atolls in the Indian Ocean. The main island, Diego Garcia, has been leased to the US military since 1966. That agreement expires next year. Novelist Philippa Gregory, secretary of the UK Chagos Support Association, branded the delay “another serious betrayal of the Chagossian community”. She added: “Chagossians have suffered in exile for years, and it is disgraceful the government has failed to deliver a small measure of justice by supporting return.” Television presenter and author Ben Fogle will hand a petition to Downing Street after the election urging the next government to let the Chagossians go back.

A recent government-commissioned report from the consultancy giant KPMG suggested that allowing the Chagossians to return was feasible. Many Chagossians support a pilot resettlement of between 50 and 150 people which could be expanded if successful. However, James Duddridge, the Foreign Office minister, said the KPMG study “found there was not a clear indication of likely demand for resettlement, and costs and liabilities to the UK taxpayer were uncertain and potentially significant”. Some estimates suggests the cost of resettlement could be as high as £60m, a figure the association describes as “disingenuous”. It said money could be found from US payments for the use of Diego Garcia, the European Development Fund and private sector investment.

Some conservationists have expressed concerns about a repatriation programme. “The Chagos marine biodiversity and condition are a valuable international asset,” said Professor Charles Sheppard, chair of the Chagos Conservation Trust. “If these are damaged, or reduced in quality, the ocean’s peoples will be the losers.” But David Snoxell, a former high commissioner to Mauritius and co-ordinator of the Chagos Islands all-party parliamentary group, called on politicians from all sides to show leadership on the resettlement issue.

“If the FCO hadn’t dragged its feet on commissioning the feasibility study a decision on resettlement would have been taken long ago, and it would very probably have been in favour,” Snoxell said.“Now we have to wait until a new government settles in and that can take up to two years. Uncertainty on cost and on the number wanting to return are not the real obstacles. Nor are the handful of conservationists who do not want to share the territory with its former inhabitants The blockage is lack of political courage and direction.”

Related Article:

'Poo protest' topples British imperialist in South Africa

Mutiny on the Bounty descendants to lose self-rule

Yahoo – AFP, March 19, 2015

Mutiny on the Bounty descendants to lose self-rule

Sydney (AFP) - A remote Pacific island whose residents are descendants of the swashbuckling British sailors and Tahitian women immortalised in the "Mutiny on the Bounty" movies is set to lose its right to self-rule.

Norfolk Island, 1,500 kilometres (900 miles) east of the Australian coast and settled by the descendants of Fletcher Christian and other Bounty mutineers in 1856, has governed itself since 1979.

But it is effectively bankrupt and Canberra on Thursday said it would introduce legislation next week to scrap the Australian territory's parliament.

If it passes, the island's legislative assembly will be temporarily replaced by an advisory council, before local government elections in 2016.

Personal and business tax will be introduced from July 2016, and residents will in return be able to access social security and healthcare benefits and services enjoyed by other Australians.

Australia's assistant regional development minister Jamie Briggs said the changes were long overdue and it was not sustainable to ask a community of just 1,800 to deliver local, state and federal services.

He said the infrastructure on Norfolk Island was run down, the health system not up to standard and laws out of date.

"The community overwhelmingly supports reform and is of the view that the current governance arrangements are not suitable," he said, adding that Norfolk Island was effectively in administration and reliant on Australian bailouts.

"It is diabolical -- it is quite concerning that it's been left for so long," he said.

Norfolk Island Chief Minister Lisle Snell said it was unfair to impose such a decision on the tiny outcrop, just eight kilometres long by five kilometres wide (five miles by three miles) and perched on steep cliffs above crashing surf.

"Norfolk Islanders will lose their identity, they will lose their way of life," Snell told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Most of the core population are descendants of the mutineers who set Captain William Bligh adrift from British warship the Bounty when they famously fell in love with the South Seas, and its women, in 1789.

The mutiny gained such a romantic gloss that chief mutineer Christian has been portrayed by a series of Hollywood heart-throbs over the years, including Errol Flynn, Clark Gable, Marlon Brando and Mel Gibson.

Christian and eight other mutineers first made their home on Pitcairn Island with a group of Tahitian women, but their descendants moved nearly 6,000 kilometres to Norfolk Island in 1856 when Pitcairn became too small for them.

Queen Victoria granted them the right to settle in the abandoned former penal colony.

Fiji to remove union jack from flag, says PM Bainimarama

BBC News, 3 February 2015

After a national competition a new design for the flag of Fiji will be
unveiled in October

Fiji is to remove the UK's union jack from its flag, Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama has announced.

Mr Bainimarama, a former coup leader who was elected last year in Fiji's first elections in eight years, said it was "time to dispense with the colonial symbols".

The Pacific and nation gained independence from Britain in 1970.

New Zealand, which also has the symbol on its flag, will hold a referendum on whether to change it in 2016.

'Truly independent'

The current Fiji flag is light blue with the union jack - also known as the union flag - and a shield with the cross of St George and a lion. It also features a sugar cane, bananas, a palm tree and a dove of peace.

"We need to replace the symbols on our existing flag that are out of date and no longer relevant, including some anchored to our colonial past," Mr Bainimarama said.

"The new flag should reflect Fiji's position in the world today as a modern and truly independent nation state."

After a national competition, the new design will be unveiled on 10 October, the 45th anniversary of independence, Mr Bainimarama said.

He pointed to the fact that only four sovereign states which were once British colonies still retain the union jack as a national symbol: Australia, New Zealand, Tuvalu and Fiji.

Australia's foreign minister said there was no great demand to change the flag

New Zealand will hold a referendum in 2016 on whether to change theirs

And Tuvalu has not announced any plans to remove the Union Jack

New Zealand said last October that it would hold a referendum this year to decide on an alternative flag, and another referendum in 2016 on whether to officially adopt the new design.

After New Zealand announced its referendums, Australia's Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said there was "no great demand" in Australia to change the national flag.