Cambodia Rights Report Reveals Government Crackdown on Trade Unions

 A police officer blocks workers from the NagaWorld casino holding placards during a protest outside the National Assembly building after several union members were arrested, in Phnom Penh, Jan. 4, 2022.

Tommy Walker

November 21, 2022

BANGKOK —

A new human rights report released Monday said authorities in Cambodia used the COVID-19 pandemic as a distraction to crack down on independent unions and activist workers.

The 97-page report by Human Rights Watch, titled "Only 'Instant Noodle' Unions Survive," documents how authorities in Cambodia allowed employers to bypass labor regulations and commit unfair practices that are illegal in Cambodian and international law. The advocacy group headquartered in New York City interviewed over 30 independent union leaders and members in Cambodia's garment and tourism sector to compile the report.

Human Rights Watch Deputy Asia director Phil Robertson talks to reporters in Bangkok, Thailand, Oct. 18, 2017.

"The Cambodian government and unscrupulous employers used the COVID-19 pandemic as an excuse to further restrict independent unions instead of protecting worker welfare and rights at a desperate time," Phil Robertson, deputy Asian director of HRW, said in a press release sent to VOA.

During the pandemic, hundreds of thousands from Cambodia's garment and tourism sectors were laid off, leading to desperate times that included financial uncertainty, mass relocation and struggles for daily necessities including food, the report said.

But little was done to support these workers by unions registered under Cambodia's Trade Union Law, it added.

Trade unions controlled by employers or linked to the Cambodian government were able to register under Cambodia's Trade Union Law with ease, while on the contrary for independent unions, the process of being approved is tiresome and often includes lengthy requirements for registration.

"Only Instant Noodles Unions Survive," is a nickname given by independent unions, implying it is as easy as making instant noodles for the approved unions to be registered.

VOA contacted the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Cambodia requesting comment on the HRW report but has gotten no response so far.

Robertson slammed the suppression of independent trade unions during a press conference at the Foreign Correspondents' Club in Thailand, Bangkok.

"These are the unions that didn't lift a finger to protect workers during that time of crisis," he said, adding, "yet, it was precisely the independent unions who were trying to actually help, bore a brunt of a crackdown led by the Cambodia government or employers, who cynically saw the COVID pandemic to crush and get rid of independent unions once and for all."

Tourism sector crackdown

A crackdown at NagaWorld casino, run by Hong Kong-listed Nagacorp in Cambodia's capital Phnom Penh, also saw workers go on strike after the casino laid off 1,329 workers during the pandemic. However, authorities soon designated the demonstrations as "illegal" for breaking a curfew imposed to social distance and other COVID-19 measures at the time, as the reason to remove people protesting and confine them for virus testing.

NagaWorld casino workers hold up placards during a protest outside the National Assembly building after several union members were arrested, in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Jan. 5, 2022.

Chimm Sithar, the president of the Labor Rights Supported Union of Khmer Employees, protested the dismissal of hundreds of workers at the NagaWorld casino. But she says she was arrested by authorities and charged with "incitement to commit a felony" and was held in pre-trial detention for 74 days. Now she has been released on bail, but her charges are still pending.

"The authorities try to scare us. I am not scared to be rearrested. Even when I am not in prison, I cannot freely exercise my right to be a union leader. I cannot give up because of the threat of prison. I have to stand up for workers' rights," Sithar said in April 2022.

Garment industry

Cambodia relies heavily on its garment industry, accounting for around 80% of the country's exports, with the industry making up of approximately 16% of the country's GDP in 2016.

 Employees work at a garment factory in Kandal province, Cambodia, Dec. 12, 2018.

But the industry has been hit hard in recent years.

The EU, Cambodia's biggest trading partner that accounted for 45% exports in 2018, partially withdrew its agreement with Cambodia under the "Everything but Arms," tariff-free trade agreement, accounting for a 20% loss for Cambodia. This came after the EU cited the country's poor human rights record and lack of democratic progress, including the participation ban on Cambodia's main opposition party leading up to the General Elections 2018. This led to a victory for Prime Minister Hun Sen's long-ruling Cambodian People's Party in every contested government seat.

Cambodian Garment Workers Struggle After EU Withdraws Trade Perks

Labor standards

Cambodia has long been criticized for its poor labor standards and human rights violation. But strikes over conditions and pay often have been met with violence and clashes with police.

In recent years, global fashion brands that operate in Cambodia, including Adidas and Puma, have urged Prime Minister Hun Sen to amend its trade union law and drop charges against union leaders.

Cambodia's garment industry is worth around $7 billion, with over 700,000 workers, the vast majority of whom are female, and earn a basic wage of $190 per month.

In September, the Cambodian government has increased the country's minimum wage to $200 a month. But Yang Sophorn, the president of Cambodian Alliance of Trade Unions, or CATU, told Radio Free Asia that she was sad that the increase didn't match the rise in inflation.

"As labor rights in Cambodia backslide, the European Union, United States, and other trade partners should use their leverage and increase their pressure on the

 

India’s ratcheting Up Curbs On Christians, Muslims – OpEd

By UCA News 

By John Dayal

 November 22, 2022 

(UCA News) — The fate of the 70-year-old struggle of India’s converts from its erstwhile “untouchable” castes in the Hindu hierarchy may well be in the hands of a former chief justice of the Supreme Court.

Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan while in office had asked Church leaders if they were willing to say on oath that they exercised caste discrimination in their congregations. There was silence in the courtroom.

He was at that time hearing appeals against Article 341 Part 3 which assures affirmative action including scholarships, jobs and political representation to this group of citizens as long as they remain Hindu. If they convert to Christianity or Islam, they lose the benefits.

The converts may also be jailed if the government discovers that they had studied in Church schools on scholarships given to Christian students.

Justice Balakrishnan was the first Dalit, as the former untouchable castes now call themselves, to become the chief justice of India. His elevation was the direct result of a question raised by former President K R Narayanan, the first Dalit to hold such a high office, on why people oppressed for 3,000 years in India’s ancient religious social governance system, could not occupy high statutory offices.

Dalits who embraced other religions were denied the benefits of affirmative action by presidential order in 1950, which later became Article 341(3), due to pressure from Hindu upper castes that feared a large-scale exodus of Dalits to Islam or Christianity.

Ironically, six years after helping create India’s secular Constitution, Dalit icon Dr. B. R. Ambedkar led half a million Dalits into renouncing Hinduism and joining a reformed Buddhism in the city of Nagpur in 1956.

Nagpur is the headquarters of the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS), the militant Hindu majoritarian organization, seeking to create a Hindu nation, which will disenfranchise Christians and Muslims.

The constitution was later changed to ensure that Buddhists and Sikhs, defined as Indic religions because they were founded in this land, get the scheduled benefits given to Hindu Dalits.

Justice Balakrishnan was recently named by the Narendra Modi government to head a committee set up to examine the issue of caste transcending religion once again.

An earlier commission, headed by another former Chief Justice Ranganath Misra had found that caste and caste discrimination indeed transcended religion and that Dalit Christians and Muslims must get the same benefits as given to their Hindu, Sikh and Buddhist brethren.

The Congress government of the time did not respond to the Supreme Court notices. The RSS-affiliated ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is more categorical in rejecting any privilege for Dalit Christians and Muslims.

In fact, they want such privileges to be taken away from indigenous people, known as Adivasis, hoping this will stop all conversions.

The move to stop conversions is top of the BJP’s political agenda.

Religious minorities are aghast that barring regional parties like Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) in southern Tamil Nadu, no major political group is supporting their cause. No one, it seems, is willing to antagonize the Hindu vote.

The bogey of conversion has led to much persecution of the Christian community. While the Catholic Church has seen its institutions and parishes under attack, the Protestant and evangelical churches find their pastors arrested, house churches attacked, and small isolated communities ostracized. In some cases, they have been denied drinking water, grain, employment and even burial for their dead. 

Incidents of violence alone routinely number more than 500 every year with police blatantly partisan, and often complicit.

The cue has been picked up by the Supreme Court itself with several writ petitions filed by minority groups challenging Article 341 (3), or seeking other directives to ensure that India and its constitution do not lose their “secular” character.

“Secular” in India means the state does not show preference toward any religion. Although much diluted by anti-conversion laws in a dozen states and rules feeding into rampant Islamophobia, the states still remain largely untainted by religious bias. But for how long is the critical question before Church leaders and civil society.

Last week, a bench of the Supreme Court set Nov. 28 for a hearing on why exactly conversions out of Hinduism pose a threat to national security after being petitioned by the redoubtable Advocate Ashwini Kumar urging stringent steps to control fraudulent religious conversions through “intimidation, threatening, deceivingly luring through gifts and monetary benefits.”

Kumar has in the past filed similar petitions calling to protect the majority community’s interests in a variety of ways.

The apex court seems to agree with the petitioner, and in an initial order, described incidents of “forced religious conversions” as “posing a serious threat to national security” while seeking sincere efforts to check the practice.

The bench warned that a “very difficult situation” will arise if forced religious conversions are not stopped.

The Christian community has not responded so far to Kumar’s petition, though they certainly should be aware of it.

Civil society holds the hope that DMK leader and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin may respond in court with data to prove that conversions are voluntary and pose no threat to national security.

India’s federal government knows there is almost no data on forcible and fraudulent conversions. There is hardly any data even on voluntary conversion as citizens are not asked questions about their religion at birth and at the time of the census.

There are no recorded court convictions of Christians for forcibly or fraudulently converting anyone. In fact, almost every pastor jailed on complaints of the RSS affiliates or others has been found not guilty. 

A few Muslim youths are facing the wrath of the police in states such as Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh because they married or eloped with Hindu girls, an act termed “Love Jihad” by political groups and governments.

There is no officially declared definition of “force,” “allurement” and “fraud,” other than what can be derived from the criminal codes or the local laws.

For the RSS and some governments, the statement attributed in the Bible to Jesus that “no one goes to the Father other than through me” is both intimidation and fraud.

Others hold education and medical care extended to the poor as allurement. 

Violence is well defined in the Indian Penal Code and the Criminal Procedure Code along with state responses. But the National Crime Records Bureau hesitates to record sectarian violence, or in fact any violence in terms of the religions of the victim and aggressor.

BJP leaders and Hindu spokespersons cite census data to say the Hindu population has dipped below 80 percent while the population of Muslims is growing. The Christian population, officially, is static at about 2.3 percent.

The BJP says Hindus are in danger of becoming a minority in the land of their birth.

There are occasional rays of hope amid the gloom.

In Madhya Pradesh recently, the high court found the provision requiring interfaith couples to declare a change of religion before a government official as “prima facie unconstitutional” and said the ability to choose one’s faith and the choice whether to express it or not is implicit under Article 25 (Freedom of Religion).

Last year, the Gujarat High Court stayed certain operative sections of the Gujarat Freedom of Religion (Amendment) Act, 2021, observing that they infringed upon Section 21 (Right to Life and Personal Liberty).

But at the moment, there is reason to be pessimistic.

Muslims praying at Jama Masjid, Delhi, India. Photo by Mohd Danish Hussain at Unsplash.

*The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official editorial position of UCA News.

UCA News

The Union of Catholic Asian News (UCA News, UCAN) is the leading independent Catholic news source in Asia. A network of journalists and editors that spans East, South and Southeast Asia, UCA News has for four decades aimed to provide the most accurate and up-to-date news, feature, commentary and analysis, and multimedia content on social, political and religious developments that relate or are of interest to the Catholic Church in Asia.

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for HINDUISM IS FASCISM 

RIP

Charles Norris-Brown and his love for Nepal, tigers, and conservation — A tribute

The late anthropologist was a kindhearted scholar, artist, conservationist, and storyteller

Written bySanjib Chaudhary

Posted 22 November 2022 

Dr Charles Norris-Brown, an anthropologist, artist and storyteller, travelled extensively to western Nepal in search of stories about tigers. Screengrab from a YouTube video by Falls Area Community TV about his book ‘Did Tiger Take the Rain?’

A quick sketch of a jittery jeep with a bulky man sitting on the roof — this was the last sketch Dr. Charles Norris-Brown showed me after our month-long trip to western Nepal in February 2011. We had travelled to five western districts of Nepal — Banke, Bardiya, Kailali, Kanchanpur and Dang in search of myths and stories related to tigers.

When I asked what was so special about the drawing, he gave a wry smile and said, “I can’t forget this vehicle, I spent two-thirds of my budget on hiring it. And the man on top of the jeep is the driver who seldom smiles.”

Charles, an anthropologist, artist and storyteller from Vermont in the United States, planned to write a children's storybook about tigers. He wanted to visit the Tharu villages in western Nepal to find out the community perception of tigers and collect related stories. He emailed me because I had led the early phase of the World Wildlife Fund's TX2 campaign in Nepal to double the tiger numbers by 2022. As I was interested in collecting stories about tigers, I decided to accompany and help him with the project.

Charles had a unique smile. Whenever he saw a group of children, he would go near them and say, “Haansa, haansa.” Though he meant “smile” for a picture, it sounded like “duck” in Nepali. The children would start giggling and I would join them, too. Then a big grin would light up Charles’s face. He was a man of few words. But his eyes would do the talking. 

He would analyse the traits of a person and bestow a memorable moniker. He named one of our friends “Database” because he could identify the right persons at the right places. It was with Database’s help we could easily traverse the western districts of Nepal.

We had many moments of joy, laughter and frustration during the trip. At one place, we reached a river we needed to cross that was narrow but deep. One could easily cross the river on foot, and it would not have taken more than 15 minutes. However, we were in the jeep. We urged the driver to try crossing the river, but he was afraid of getting stuck in the middle. So, we ended up driving for two hours in the dark through dense forest on a bumpy road along the riverbank. Finally, we found a bridge, near the Indian border, where we could cross the river.

One of the paintings by Charles Norris-Brown which he gave to Sanjib Chaudhary as a gift. Image by Sanjib Chaudhary, used with permission.

At times, we would feel like dropping the idea and returning only after proper planning. This was partly because most of the community members we met would narrate anecdotes shared by their elders but only a few remembered fables about tigers told by their forefathers.

Luckily, we met an old man in Dang District, around 450 kilometres west of Nepal’s capital city, Kathmandu. He could go on telling moral stories for days, though he had never read nor even heard about Panchatantra, the famous collection of fables in Sanskrit. He told us a story of a monkey, a jackal and a tiger. The story was about a jackal who moved his family into a tiger's den during the rainy season, and how they managed to be saved from being killed by the tiger.

As I translated the story into English, Charles’s face lit up while he was jotting it down in his notebook. He must have found his “Eureka” moment, including some characters for the book he planned to write.

Later, we met two little girls, one in Kanchanpur District and another in Bardiya District, and the story started unfolding — they would make perfect subjects for the story Charles was brewing in his mind.

He would take pictures of men, women, children, trees and landscapes and sometimes sketch quickly whatever seemed interesting to him, and he would also ask children to draw tigers.

He emailed me as he returned to his home in Vermont, USA: “If you remember, I asked them to draw tigers and they drew these fascinating images of their village and the tiger on the other side of the river. So, since I have wanted to base the book on this ‘crossing over from culture to nature, I have been trying to find a way that makes sense for a small child to cross the river.”

He had plans to publish two books. He had said in an interview for the blog Voice of Tharus: “In the first book, the response to the tiger is carried out by children who go off into the jungle to find out why the tiger came to the village. There they meet with a jackal and some langurs who explain the forest and its animals and plants, and why it is so important to keep the forests healthy.”

A page from the book ‘Did Tiger Take the Rain?’ Swinging girls by Charles Norris-Brown (©Charles Norris-Brown, 2016), published under a (CC BY 4.0) license on StoryWeaver.

I met with Charles again in 2015 and accompanied him to meet the two girls featured in the book. He wanted to make sure they were happy with the storyline before it was published. We continued to be in touch and he taught arts to a group of Nepali children, including my daughter.

“Did Tiger Take the Rain?” was first published in hardcover by Green Writers Press of Brattleboro, Vermont, USA, in 2016. It is now available as an open-source book on the Pratham Books’ StoryWeaver platform, already translated into six other languages.

Charles wanted to feature a Tharu traditional healer and his granddaughter in the second book. The story would revolve around tigers and conservation, just like the first book.

“I still have a dream of seeing a Tharu-based ecotourism plan take shape in a format similar to the one being managed by the Saami people of northern Sweden,” he had said. “This way it might be possible to help provide some funds for Tharu girls to go to school.”

But fate had other plans. Charles passed away unexpectedly on October 19, in Concord Hospital, New Hampshire.

When I recollect the sketch of the jeep with the driver on its roof, I remember asking Charles, why he didn’t colour it? He chuckled and said, “I would paint the picture when I visit Nepal next – the lush green wheat fields in the background with a layer of mustard flowers above them.”

The land will once again turn green with wheat and wear a layer of yellow mustard flowers this winter. But Charles’ sketch will remain in black and white.

Rest in peace, Charles!

CHINA

Shougang Park: An amalgam of history, industry and modernity

By Xu Xiaoxuan

China.org.cn,

November 22, 2022

"From steel production to production suspension, I felt uncertain about my career and future. With the renovation of the plant, however, I have acquired diverse skills and improved myself. I'm proud of the present plant," said Li Hongji, a worker-turned-director at Shougang Park, an expansive exhibition and commercial area renovated from an old steel plant in Beijing's western Shijingshan district.

The No. 3 blast furnace at Shougang Park in Beijing, Nov. 16, 2022. [Photo by Yan Bin/China.org.cn]

Li became a steelworker at the No. 3 blast furnace at Shougang Park in 1998. At that time, he slogged through the steel with a big hammer and a shovel in high temperatures. 

Put into operation in 1959, the No. 3 blast furnace was suspended in 2010 and began to be repurposed in 2017. The original structure and external appearance were preserved to the maximum extent and the interior space was rearranged to form different functional areas such as exhibition sectors and viewing platforms.

Li is now the cultural and tourism quality director of Beijing Shougang Park Integrated Service Co., Ltd. He is also responsible for introducing tourists to the transformation process of the No. 3 blast furnace. 

The Big Air Shougang at Shougang Park in Beijing, Nov. 16, 2022. [Photo by Yan Bin/China.org.cn]

The Big Air Shougang, which was repurposed from a steel mill, witnessed Chinese snowboarder Su Yiming's gold in the men's snowboard big air final and Gu Ailing's historic gold in the women's big air freestyle skiing. It has simultaneously retained the capital city's industrial history and became an eye-catching feature at the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics and Paralympics. 

As the world's first permanent big air venue for long-term usage, the Big Air Shougang will host professional ice and snow events, including those hosted by the International Ski Federation, provide extreme sports for the public, and facilitate various cultural activities such as concerts and ice and snow carnivals, explained Han Dong from Beijing Shougang Park Sports Center Operation Management Co., Ltd.

"Many citizens come here for a visit at weekends, especially in summer and during public holidays," said Han. "The accumulative number of visitors in a single day once registered 50,000 to 60,000 since the Big Air Shougang opened to the public."

The Shangri-La Hotel at Shougang Park in Beijing, Nov. 16, 2022. [Photo by Yan Bin/China.org.cn]

The Shangri-La Hotel at Shougang Park was converted from a power plant suspended in 2010 and put into service last year. Consisting of three buildings, the hotel can accommodate more than 500 guests. It also offers functional spaces like a banquet hall and conference center as well as leisure areas, including a children's playground, swimming pool, bar and large green space.

"At weekends and during public holidays, the hotel can serve as a resort hotel for tourists. On weekdays, we can host business conferences. Therefore, the overall occupancy rate is relatively impressive," said the hotel's general manager Cai Jiancheng.

The Shangri-La Hotel at Shougang Park won the "Hotel Conversion" and "Lobby and Public Spaces" categories of the AHEAD Asia Awards 2022 and the special "Hotel of the Year" award. AHEAD is a leading award for hospitality experience and design.

Gaoxian Park is a 2.9-kilometer-long elevated footpath transformed from industrial pipes. The trail connects the main scenic spots and cultural and leisure facilities at Shougang Park, constituting a perfect place for photography, exercise and landscape appreciation. It is also equipped with elevators for people with disabilities to get easy access. 

On Wednesday, more than 40 journalists from home and abroad paid a visit to Shougang Park under the auspices of the All-China Journalists Association and the Publicity Department of the Beijing Municipal Committee of the Communist Party of China. The international journalists came from the U.S., the U.K., Germany, France, Hungary, Japan, and Kazakhstan.

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Health or jobs: Peruvian mining town at a crossroads

The mining city of La Oroya in Peru is one of the most polluted places in the world, a desolate high-altitude place abandoned by many residents since a heavy metal foundry went bankrupt 13 years ago - Copyright POOL/AFP Haiyun Jiang

Carlos MANDUJANO

The Peruvian mining city of La Oroya, one of the most polluted places in the world, is seeking to reopen a heavy metal smelter that poisoned residents for almost a century.

The Andean city, situated in a high-altitude valley at 3,750 meters (12,300 feet), is a grey, desolate place.

Small houses and shops — many abandoned — cluster around towering black chimneys, surrounded by ashen mountain slopes corroded by heavy metals and long devoid of vegetation.

In 2009, the gigantic smelter that was the economic heartbeat of La Oroya went bankrupt, forcing residents to leave in droves and bringing local commerce to its knees.

Since 1922, the plant processed copper, zinc, lead, gold, selenium, and other minerals from nearby mines.

If the metallurgical complex reopens, as announced by its new owners in October, it could breathe life back into the economy.

“The large majority of the population is eager and has waited a long time for this to start up again, because it is the source of life, the economic source,” said 48-year-old taxi driver Hugo Enrique.

But at what cost?



– A lifetime of disease –



In 2011, La Oroya was listed as the second-most polluted city on Earth, falling into fifth place two years later, according to the Blacksmith Institute, an NGO which works on pollution issues.

It was in insalubrious company, rubbing shoulders with Ukraine’s nuclear-sullied Chernobyl and Russia’s Dzerzhinsk, the site of Cold War-era factories producing chemical weapons.

According to the International Federation for Human Rights, in 2013, 97 percent of La Oroya children between six months and six years of age, and 98 percent between age seven and 12, had elevated levels of lead in their blood.

Manuel Enrique Apolinario, 68, a teacher who lives opposite the foundry, told AFP his body has high levels of lead, arsenic, and cadmium.

Residents had “gotten used to the way of life, surrounded by smoke and toxic gases,” he said.

“Those of us who have lived here for a lifetime have been ill with flu and bronchitis, especially respiratory infections.”



– Another 100 years?-



The foundry was opened in 1922, nationalized in 1974, and later privatized in 1997 when US natural resources firm Doe Run took it over.

In June 2009, Doe Run halted work after failing to comply with an environmental protection program and declared itself insolvent.

Now, despite years of residents accusing Lima and Doe Run of turning a blind eye to the harmful effects, some 1,270 former employees want to reopen the smelter next March — with the vow not to pollute.

Luis Mantari, one of the new owners, who is in charge of logistics, said the plant would operate “with social and environmental responsibility.”

“We want this unique complex to last another 100 years,” added human resources boss Jose Aguilar.

The company has stockpiled 14 million tonnes of copper and lead slag waste waiting to be converted into zinc.

“Those of us who fought against pollution have never opposed to the company working. Let it reopen with an environmental plan,” said Pablo Fabian Martinez, 67, who also lives near the site.

For many, though, the decision comes down to pure pocketbook issues.

“I want it to reopen because, without the company, La Oroya lost its entire economy,” added Rosa Vilchez, a 30-year-old businesswoman. Her husband left to work in another city after the closure.



– Respect health –



In 2006, La Oroya residents sued the Peruvian government at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights for allowing the company to pollute at will.

Hearings began in October with the court sitting in the Uruguayan capital Montevideo, and residents recounted how they struggled with burning throats and eyes, headaches, and difficulty breathing.

Others told of tumors, muscular problems, and infertility blamed on pollution from the smelters.

The commission found last year that the state had failed to regulate and oversee the behavior of the mining company and “compromised its obligation to guarantee human rights.”

“We are aware that the metallurgical complex is a source of employment. We don’t deny that,” said Yolanda Zurita, one of the litigants, who plants trees to counter the pollution.

“But it must respect the population’s health.”

 
By AFP
November 21, 2022

How a US President set NZ’s drug laws

Guyon Espiner, Investigative reporter, In Depth
@GuyonEspiner guyon.espiner@rnz.co.nz
 1 December 2022

It's half a century since the War on Drugs was declared. New Zealand was an enthusiastic ally of then-US President Richard Nixon in the battle. A new documentary from RNZ - Guyon Espiner: Wasted - investigates the costs of continuing the fight.

When the 79-year-old President of America, where the War on Drugs began, pardons thousands of people for the crime of possessing marijuana you can smell that change is in the air.

When the Economist, a sober, rigorous adherent to economic liberalism, says that Joe Biden is being too timid and it's time to legalise cocaine, you get a sense of how far-reaching that change might be.

When you consider New Zealand, which sees itself as a socially liberal democracy, still maintains a prohibition on cannabis and locks people up just for possessing drugs, you realise how far we are falling behind.

President Richard Nixon, who later resigned after the Watergate scandal, launched the War on Drugs in 1971, declaring "America's public enemy No 1" was drug abuse and vowing to "wage a new, all out offensive".

New Zealand joined the war effort a few years later and our legislation to combat drug harm is still anchored in that era with the Misuse of Drugs Act 1975.

"New Zealanders might be a little bit disturbed to think we have Richard Nixon's legislation in place to govern our drug policy today," Drug Foundation executive director Sarah Helm says in the new RNZ documentary Guyon Espiner: Wasted.

WATCH THE DOCUMENTARY

Guyon Espiner: Wasted premiered on RNZ and TVNZ1 on Wednesday night. You can watch it on demand any time by clicking here.

In a world still reeling from the Covid-19 pandemic, and askew with disinformation, we are urged to follow the facts and the science. It's instructive to take that advice and overlay it on our approach to drug harm.

"We've legislated certain types of drugs in certain ways because of history and prejudice, not because of science and evidence," Tim McKinnel, a former drug squad detective, says in the documentary, which also tracks his path from kicking in the doors of tinny houses to concluding that all drugs should be decriminalised.

McKinnel, who did a masters degree in criminology, is alluding here to the dark roots of the War on Drugs, which sprouted in the fertile ground of racism and moral panic.

The chief architect was Harry Anslinger, who served five US presidents over 32 years as chief of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics.

Anslinger was an adept propagandist and used what he called 'the gore files' to spread fear about drugs in the popular press.

The 1937 film Reefer Madness picked up one of his most lurid tales, where he claimed that a "quiet young man" murdered his entire family while "pitifully crazed" on marijuana (it later emerged the man was mentally ill).

Anslinger's claims of despicable crimes committed while under the influence of drugs were often racially charged, and chief among his targets were African American jazz musicians.

The history is neatly outlined in British journalist Johann Hari's book Chasing the Scream (2015) and the movie The United States vs. Billie Holiday (2021) is based on Hari's book.

Private Investigator Tim McKinnel Photo: RNZ / Cole Eastham-Farrelly

In the Wasted documentary McKinnel and others point out how far New Zealand lawmakers have diverged from the science in their approach to combating drug harm.

International studies - most famously Professor David Nutt's 2010 study - have shown that alcohol is the drug that causes the most harm to the individual and to the community.

The drugs that do the least harm both to the user and to society, psychedelics like LSD and mushrooms, are Class A drugs in New Zealand, attracting a life sentence for supply and six months in jail for possession.


In 2016, the Drug Harm Index estimated that New Zealand spends about $350 million dollars a year on drug interventions.

Of that, $170 million was spent on courts and prisons, $100 million went on policing and just $80 million was allocated for health care.

New Zealand still locks people up just for taking drugs. In 2021, about 3100 people were convicted for low level drug crimes like possession and personal use. Of those, about half were Māori.

In the last ten years, 35,000 New Zealanders have been convicted of a cannabis offence and 5500 have been sent to prison.

New Zealand came close to major drug reform in 2020 but the referendum to legalise cannabis narrowly failed.

Portugal decriminalised all drugs more than 20 years ago now and the model has spread to other countries including Canada and parts of America and Australia.

New Zealand doesn't usually look to Australia for progressive social reform but the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) has moved well ahead of us.

In Canberra, it is legal to smoke cannabis at home and to grow up to four cannabis plants per household or possess up to 50 grams of cannabis.

In Wasted, Health Minister Rachel Stephen-Smith outlines how the ACT plans to expand the policy to include 11 of the most commonly used drugs.

If users are caught with small amounts of these drugs - including MDMA, LSD, psilocybin (magic mushrooms), heroin, cocaine, and methamphetamine - they would get a $100 fine rather than jail time.

Possession of these drugs would cease to be a criminal matter, Stephen-Smith says.

"We know that one of the significant harms associated with illicit drug use, as well as the health harms, is the criminalisation of people and that comes from being engaged in the criminal justice system, but also the stigma associated with that and the reluctance to seek treatment and seek support."

There are pockets of New Zealand where a health approach is being used. The law was changed in 2021 to allow people to have their drugs tested, and checking stations have popped up in the major centres and at music festivals.

This is the harm reduction approach at work: the idea that some people are always going to take drugs so it's better they have a big party night out rather than kill themselves taking a mystery, or contaminated, substance.

But largely New Zealand is still fighting the War on Drugs. Wasted asks: is that a waste of time, money and lives.

 

NZ

Brett Gartrell: Avian influenza could devastate native birds

From Saturday Morning, 3 December 2022 

 

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The New Zealand fairy tern is one of the country's most endangered birds. Photo: DOC

A wildlife vet is worried a strain of bird flu currently circulating the US and the UK could have a devastating impact on wild native bird populations, if it reaches New Zealand.

The strain of Avian Influenza A(H5N1) has been circulating throughout Asia since 2014 but has now spread to other parts of the world. In Europe 48 million birds have been culled in the last year in an effort to limit the spread, and in the United States 50m birds have died.

The disease has also recently been detected in Peru where nearly 14,000 pelicans and sea birds have died.

Massey University Professor Brett Gartrell who is a veterinary expert said this strain of Avian Influenza was highly infectious.

Avian influenza had been present in birds for a long time and in the past it mostly hit poultry breeders overseas but currently a "really scary variant of the avian influenza" was spreading and this global outbreak was unprecedented, he said.

Massey University Professor Brett Gartrell Photo: Supplied

"This current strain is different in that it is much more likely to spread between different species of wild birds and it's much more likely to cause serious disease and death in those wild birds as well."

That had allowed this strain of bird flu to travel around the globe in a way that had not been seen before, he said.

"The nearly 50 million birds that have died in the US, that's just this year alone and it only entered the country the previous year."

The risk of this strain of avian influenza causing illness in people was low, however it could if it mutated or changed, he said.

Wherever the disease occurred, health authorities "tended to take very strong precautionary principles around human health", Gartrell said.

This avian flu epidemic was moving into areas where highly pathogenic avian influenza had not been seen before, although like all epidemics it would eventually run its course, he said.

Fears for endangered bird species if A(H5N1) gets to NZ

The birds that are being exposed to this avian flu have no immunity to it, he said.

"That's our concern with New Zealand birds in particular, is that we haven't had an avian influenza outbreak here for a very long time, we've got what we call low pathogenic avian influenza circulating in water fowl, but they're not going to give our birds any immunity at all to this virus if it gets into the country."

Gartrell said he feared for New Zealand's more critically endangered bird species if the avian influenza did arrive here.

Internationally, measures around the avian influenza were to protect poultry industries and human health rather than wild bird populations, he said.

"So trying to control it in poultry flocks and things like that is about killing every infected bird and all of those in an area around it to try and stop the disease spreading."

New Zealand was extremely lucky because of its geographically isolated position which had kept the virus out so far, he said.

"But I think we can't get complacent about this because we do have migratory birds that come down from the Northern Hemisphere and we have seabirds that migrate across the circum polar regions of the Southern Hemisphere and if those birds can bring it here then ... it only takes one infected bird to get established in a country."

It has been said that if a bird got avian influenza it would be too sick to migrate, he said.

The disease had a variable incubation period although generally the time between when the bird became infected and when it started to show symptoms was about a week, he said.

Ornithologists have discovered that shore birds could migrate from Alaska down to New Zealand in as little as seven days, he said.

A more likely risk was that the disease could leap-frog bird species to New Zealand, perhaps spreading from a species that moves through Europe, to one that moves into Australia and then into a species that moves across to New Zealand, Gartrell said.

Seabirds, shore birds were being seen in this outbreak, with migratory water fowl a major way that the virus had been moving through Asia and Europe, he said.

Although there were not any water fowl that migrated into New Zealand, if it came to this country via shore birds and then infected water fowl, ducks would spread it right around the country, he said.

The disease could also potentially enter the country via smuggled eggs, he said.

The key was to stop it getting here in the first place, he said.

MPI response

In a statement, the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) chief veterinary officer Mary van Andel said it was continually monitoring the situation overseas and New Zealand had never had a case of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza.

The risk of it arriving was still considered low and there were systems in place to ensure early detection if it were to arrive, she said.

That included summer surveillance programmes which screened ducks close to migratory bird sites and liaising with wildlife hospitals and Poultry Industry Association vets.

"Biosecurity New Zealand works closely with the Department of Conservation (DOC) in preparedness and awareness within New Zealand and on avian influenza screening kits. These kits would be deployed by DOC to sub-Antarctic Islands if an unusual mortality event was detected," she said.

Gartrell agreed that MPI was doing good work, but said he would like to see them doing more surveillance "at that front line" by going out and sampling shore birds and seabirds.

The public should notify any mass bird deaths or strange behaviour to MPI's Exotic Pest and Disease Hotline - 0800 80 99 66.

Gartrell said migratory birds would now start to come in to New Zealand after the breeding season in Alaska and the Northern Hemisphere.

Anyone working with the birds on the shoreline who noticed unusual deaths should be very proactive about calling the hotline as quickly as possible, he said.

What if it did get here?

The Ministry for Primary Industries said if highly pathogenic avian influenza was detected, Biosecurity New Zealand would be the lead agency to coordinate any response.  

"Any actions such as movement control, vaccination or culling, would depend on the extent of the detection and whether it is found in wild birds, zoo/sanctuary/pet birds or poultry," van Andel said.

Gartrell said if the disease arrived in New Zealand, based on overseas experience, the most likely approach would be to try and cull any infected birds and any birds that posed a risk of further spreading the infection.

There was no clarity on what a mass cull of infected birds would mean for wildlife populations, including endangered birds, he said.

There would be some extremely difficult decisions to make if the disease did arrive, and decisions would need to be made very quickly to stop the virus becoming established in the country, Gartrell said.