Blood on their Banner: Nationalist Struggles in the South Pacific
by David Robie
Image: French riot police confront Kanak protesters at Mont Ravel in Noumea, 1984. © David Robie
"As Robie makes clear in this eloquent book, the South Pacific is far from pacific." - Ross Fitzgerald, The Sydney Morning Herald, September 29, 1990 (Australia)
David Robie is a New Zealand author, journalist and media educator specialising in Asia-Pacific affairs. He is founding director of the AUT Pacific Media Centre and editor of Pacific Scoop, Asia Pacific Report, Pacific Media Watch and PMC Online. He was on board the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior bombed by French secret agents in 1985 and his book about that fateful voyage to the Marshall Islands is called Eyes of Fire. Mekim Nius: South Pacific media, politics and education. A sequel in 2014, Don't Spoil My Beautiful Face: Media, Mayhem and Human Rights in the Pacific (Little Island Press), are among his many other books. David's media blog is Cafe Pacific.
Dr Robie was awarded New Zealand's 1985 Media Peace Prize for his reporting of the voyage and the subsequent sabotage of the Greenpeace vessel.