"Blood on Their Banner is an excellent introduction for the general reader to the contemporary Pacific. Challenging and well-researched, it should prove equally valuable as a text for studies on the nature of nationalism and struggles for justice and democracy."
Robbie Robertson, Arena
"David Robie's vivid and well-documented account is a powerful indictment of the foreign policies of the United States, France and Indonesia. Even New Zealand and Australia are implicated."
Nemani Delaibatiki, Waikato Times
"David Robie is one of the better known New Zealand-based journalists currently reporting on the Pacific. His investigative articles on issues and conflicts of the day have brought a new and welcome seriousness to writing on the politics of this region."
Ian Frazer, Otago Daily Times
Reviews with the most likes.
OK so fuck. I wrote a review and Goodreads crashed and lost it.
So what I wrote the first time was something like:
David Robie's book is a somber read.
The dirty pacific nuclear politics of France and America with their nuclear testing in Muaroa/Fangataufa and Marshall Islands respectively and the appalling treatment of those who were exposed to this (some evidence of this being intentional in one case) is bordering on impossible to comprehend. The French government mission to bomb the Greenpeace ship the Rainbow Warrior at port in New Zealand is the subject of a separate book by Robie, but gets a chapter in here is demonstrative of the most unbelievable arrogance by the French, and despite the outrage of the NZ Government at the time, I can't believe there is no ongoing demand of restitution for the crime (yes, money was paid, but France released the operatives from ‘imprisonment' in French Polynesia after a very short time on false pretenses and repatriated them to France as heroes).
Similarly Indonesia, France and America's treatment of their colonies who wish only to claim their independence is also appalling (Indonesia - East Timor (Timor-Leste) and West Papua; France - French Polynesia and New Caledonia; USA - Belau.) Aside from simply disallowing them their rights they employed methods such as assassination, corruption, bribery and just blatant refusal to give up their strategic military bases. Terrible to learn that Australia and New Zealand were complicit in some of these situations purely to maintain their relationships with the USA.
But not only the colonial powers were covered in this book. There is a good portion of the book dedicated to Fiji and its struggle with democracy, with Rabuka and his two coups, and his refusal to allow a democratic outcome there.
Written in 1989, much has happened since this book, and a followup from Robie would be worthwhile, although I am not sure he is still involved in the journalism of the Pacific. France maintains its hold on French Polynesia and New Caledonia; Fiji has been suspended from the Commonwealth and in 2009 promised to hold democratic elections by September 2014; Timor-Leste declared independence from Indonesia in 2002, and after a turbulent time is more settled now; West Papua remains in Indonesia, but is afforded more autonomy as a province.
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