More zzzzz over cagey 'open file' SIS spooks

JANE KELSEY’S recent welcome reality check on the so-called SIS “openness” files has sparked renewed concerns over the state of the surveillance society in New Zealand. Earlier in the year, the focus had been on activists getting a fair deal. Now the academics are also up in arms over the Security Intelligence Service’s inept prying into critical thinkers on campus. Calls have been renewed for a commission of inquiry reviewing the activities of the Security Intelligence Service, a move strongly supported by Café Pacific.

Many activists, academics, civil society stirrers and some journalists have applied for copies of their SIS files. But the period of “glasnost” ushered in by new SIS director Dr Warren Tucker, including release of personal information under the Privacy Act, has been shortlived. After a relatively brief stint of “open file” revelations in the media from surveillance subjects – some such as CAFCA (the only organisation to have had a file released), Green MP Keith Locke and human rights activist Maire Leadbeater were featured on Café Pacific – the inevitable chill wind has swept through espionage house. Many people are now receiving “neither confirm nor deny” responses about their SIS file, claiming the release of this information would prejudice national security. It is believed neither-confirm-nor-deny responses apply to still active files. Café Pacific’s publisher David Robie has received one of these letters (dated June 5) from the SIS after an earlier fob off in April, possibly over his close connections with independence movements and radical groups in New Zealand and the Pacific in the 1980s as a journalist.

The Global Peace and Justice Auckland group plans to hold a meeting next week for those who applied for their SIS files to discuss issues around the controversy. GPJA’s Mike Treen and John Minto noted: “As the number of people seeking information has increased so the amount released from each file has decreased. Some people have been refused access altogether while others have been told the SIS will neither confirm nor deny the existence of a file on them.”

The Tertiary Education Union (TEU) distributed a media release protesting against academics being spied on for simply doing their jobs. The union’s response followed a public condemnation of the SIS and the Privacy Commission by Jane Kelsey, a law professor of the University of Auckland and a high profile independent critic of free-trade policies, including New Zealand “bullying” of small Pacific nations over PACER-Plus. TEU president Dr Tom Ryan says:

We cannot afford to have a society where the SIS is spying on academics who are simply doing their job. News that a highly-respected University of Auckland professor of law, Jane Kelsey, has been spied on by the SIS because of her professional work is intimidating for all academics.

Our democracy will be weakened if tertiary researchers and teachers are scared off from questioning official policies in their own fields of expertise. But that seems to be exactly the outcome the SIS was aiming for with its long-running campaign against Dr Kelsey.

A chilling aspect of Dr Kelsey’s case is that the SIS appears to have been spying on her simply because of her views on our country’s economic and trade policies rather than any real concern that she might pose a physical or military risk. And much of the spying appears to have occurred in her university workplace.

New Zealand Herald columnist Brian Rudman scoffed at the SIS files furore, adding that in spite of "unmasking a fellow student as a spy" during his Auckland University days, he had never risked writing to Spy Central" when they "first offered to open their filing cabinets to the paranoid, and to anyone else who suspected the spooks might have been trawling for dirt on them over the years". On a more serious note, Kelsey’s own web-based background resource around the “open files” issue observes:

The SIS has a long history of spying on academics. The file of economist Wolfgang Rosenberg dates back 50 years, and includes comments he made in the common room and his applications for academic jobs. Recent files of several other academics focus on lawful activities undertaken in the course of their employment as academics, such as giving lectures, participating in conferences and convening meetings on university campuses. Various Students Association groups and activities have also been monitored.

• CAFCA on the SIS files
• SIS 'law unto itself'
• Declassified - the SIS files and Philippine Solidarity
• NZ spooks exposed by Asia-Pacific campaigners
• TEU on SIS spying on academics
• Jane Kelsey's toolkit on the SIS files
• Brian Rudman on 'spooky moments'
  

Burmese peace laureate back under house arrest for elections

BURMESE Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi has been sentenced to 18 more months detention for "violating her house arrest" by allowing an uninvited American into her home. The 64-year-old opposition leader has spent 14 of the last 20 years in detention, mostly under house arrest, and the extension ensures her absence from the political scene when the ruling junta stages elections next year.

According to a report by the Burmese independent Mizzima news service:

Home affairs Minister Lieutenant General Maung Oo, the minister of home affairs, arrived in court and read out an order signed by the head of the military junta, Senior General Than Shwe, dated 10 August.

The order stated that if the court convicted Aung San Suu Kyi, half of the sentence should be commuted. It added that she could be freed after serving the sentence if she showed good behaviour. The order explained that her sentence had been commuted because she is the daughter of General Aung San, the architect of Burma's independence from the British colonial
authorities.

"The verdict against Aung San Suu Kyi is that she will be taken back to her house and kept under restrictions for 18 months, after which if she shows good behavior she could be freed," her lawyer, Nyan Win, told Mizzima. He said she wiould be kept under restrictions but could write a
request asking for certain rights, including receiving guests. She would also be allowed to watch television and read newspapers.

Similarly, her two live-in political party members, Khin Khin Win and Win Ma Ma, who were also sentenced to three years in prison with hard labour, had their terms reduced to an 18-month suspended sentence each and would be sent back along with Aung San Suu Kyi to her home.

John William Yettaw, the American man who swam across a lake to reach Aung San Suu Kyi's house, however, was sentenced to seven years' imprisonment with hard labour. The court said that Yettaw's sentence relates to abetting Aung San Suu Kyi in violating the terms of her house arrest and other charges including violation of immigration laws.

In an attempt at transparency, the Burmese military junta allowed diplomats and journalists to be present at the court proceedings in Rangoon's Insein prison, where the trial of Aung San Suu Kyi and her three co-defendants was being held.

A Rangoon-based diplomat told Mizzima that several foreign missions based in Rangoon, along with journalists, were given permission to be inside the court room.

Picture: Filipino protesters holding cutout portraits of Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi during a rally outside the Burmese Embassy, south of Manila. Photo: Dennis M. Sabangan, EPA.

Aung San Suu Kyi sentenced to 18 months in detention
Burma locks up Suu Kyi for 18 more months

Media freedom and dealing with the Fiji regime's gag

THE EXPECTED fallout from PINA 2009 has been fast flowing since the two-yearly regional media circus. Many rifts were on show long before the conference began in Port Vila late last month - for example, the criticisms of PINA's recent lukewarm actions over regional media freedom and the founding of the successful upstart Pacific Freedom Forum by PINA dissidents; the hostility between the conference hosts, Media Asosiesen blong Vanuatu (MAV) and the country's main newspaper, Vanuatu Daily Post, and publisher Marc Neil-Jones; and the calls for PINA and Pacnews to be relocated outside of Fiji as a protest against the regime's media censorship. The election of MAV president Moses Stevens as PINA president only served to fuel the animosity. Stevens was elected ahead of talented Stanley Simpson of Fiji's Mai TV, an innovative graduate of the University of the South Pacific, to take the regional body forward for the next two years. He cited training for young journalists as a policy priority and also hinted at the possibility of Australian and NZ media groups being allowed to fully join PINA. Reflecting on the conference's results, Matangi Tonga editor Pesi Fonua wrote:

What appeared to be a sincere intention by the former PINA board to turn its biannual convention into a Pacific Media Summit under the theme "Breaking Barriers - Access to Information'" did not live up to expectations.

Despite the great effort to attract as many participants as possible to attend the Vanuatu PINA inaugural summit, their contributions did not see the light of day, because most participants were not permitted to attend the AGM, and so some serious observations made by working journalists and media people were not translated into the decision-making process.

Café Pacific's correspondents report that the meeting became quite tense when it was realised that two military censors - both women - had been invited and were present. The mood was becoming ugly, with some people questioning why the censors were there - how dare PINA invite them?

Cook Islands News editor John Woods (elected vice-president as the Cook Islands is hosting the next conference) was a particularly strong critic. He wanted the pair to be barred from the meeting. He said their presence would have a chilling effect on Fiji journalists and discourage them from speaking their minds. Woods described their presence there as "despicable". However, some journalists thought the whole issue rather over-dramatised and that it was important to get an insight into the thinking of the Fiji censors - one of them even a former journalist.

One leading regional journalism educator, Shalendra Singh, is head of journalism and media at the University of the South Pacific. He is a former news magazine editor and is committed to all sides of the story. He defended the women's right to speak as representatives of Fiji's Ministry of Information (a PINA member, although there was some doubt over whether the Minfo was actually paid up).

"Talk about shooting the messenger! The irony is staggering," Singh said later. He said the women should be allowed to speak. The conference should not do to the women what the regime administration in Fiji had done in gagging the media. Singh also mentioned that journalism was about balance and getting all sides of the story. It was an opportunity to put the regime representatives under the spotlight and question them. He said journalists should practise freedom of expression, not just preach it. Singh also described how Fiji was facing draconian censorship and there was a danger that people might become used to the status quo.

Some views changed then and other people present, such as Lisa Williams-Lahari, founding coordinator of the Pacific Freedom Forum, spoke in favour of the women speaking but only in a session about censorship under a military regime, not this one devoted to regional stories of media freedom under fire. She also strongly asked the censors during the Q and A whether they felt Minfo should withdraw as a PINA member without waiting for PINA expulsion. Another panellist, Fiji Times editor-in-chief Netani Rika, walked out in protest at the presence of the censors after his presentation. (He was awarded the region's media freedom prize).

Only one journalist - Dev Nadkarni, a former USP journalism coordinator - commenting on this contentious issue noted the fact that one of the regime's representatives, Lance Corporal Talei Tora, was in fact educated on the USP regional journalism programme and herself a former broadcaster. Tora was well-trained in rigorous journalism skills and freedom of speech. But now as a soldier - one of Fiji's pioneering women officer cadet recruits - she follows military orders. Her elder sister, Luisa Tora, is also an award-winning journalist and long a free speech advocate.

Corporal Tora raised issues of media bias in Fiji, of media paying journalists badly and exploiting them, and other shortcomings - but these issues were not discussed at all. Media in the Pacific does not like to discuss criticism that is leveled at it - as Café Pacific has noted often in the past. There is no critical self-scrutiny as there should be at such meetings - or as happens in many other countries that have challenging "media watch" style radio and television programmes, such as Media 7 in New Zealand. Pacific media too often just plays the victim.

Café Pacific understands that some mention of Pacific Media Centre director associate professor David Robie's past research on Fiji media at the time of the Speight coup was cited - the detailed findings were published in his 2004 USP book Mekim Nius: South Pacific media, politics and education. In Nadkarni's review of freedom of speech issues at the PINA convention, he wrote:

[Corporal Tora] said she was a civil servant and had a job to do and pointed to a number of cases of inaccurate reporting (for which several of the media outlets have since apologised).

The questions flew thick and fast: Would she and her colleague be reporting the proceedings to their military bosses? Would the emergency regulations apply to Fiji journalists now they were in a different country? Would they be liable to action? Tora stood her ground and answered questions with confidence, although she used her comparatively junior rank to express inability to comment on the more sensitive matters.

Freedom of speech cuts both ways. If media bleatings over the gagging of Fiji news organisations are to be taken seriously in global contexts, then a major effort needs to be taken by the region's journalists to be fully informed about the complexities of Fiji politics and to report with more insight and balance and to defend open dialogue. Ironically, two of the best reports to come out of Fiji in recent times have not been from Pacific media at all but by Australian-based investigative journalists Graham Davis and Mark Davis for their attempts to give the "other side of the story" of Bainimarama's claimed plan for genuine democracy shorn free of racism.

Pictured: Fiji Times editor Netani Rika speaking at the PINA convention - he was awarded the PINA media freedom award for his defence of free speech in Fiji; Moses Stevens. Photos: Fiji Times; MAV.

• Media Asosiesen blong Vanuatu
• Media management at PIF - Sean Dorney
  
• PINA fails to stand up for media freedom - Pesi Fonua
• Fiji's isolation and PINA - Dev Nadkarni
• Fiji's Frank Bainimarama - Graham Davis
• Perfectly Frank - Mark Davis
• Mekim Nius: South Pacific media, politics and education - Amazon Books | USP, Fiji
• Pacific Media Watch
  

Taking a breather - and giving Fiji a break

BACK from a month's sojourn in remote corners of Bora Bora, Papenoo and Maui and far busier moments in Alcatraz, Sausalito and Santa Monica, Café Pacific's publisher David Robie is refreshed and back in the thick of things. It was a delight being immersed in the stacks of quality newspapers (albeit endangered) in San Francisco after the paucity of a good press in NZ. Among the many colleagues encountered in the travels were Tagata Pasifika's Adrian Stevanon and Tagaloatele Osone Okesene on the ground in Pape'ete. Café Pacific missed the special Balibo film screening of the long-awaited story of the murder of six journalists in East Timor in 1975 at the Auckland Film Festival (a couple of days after the Melbourne premiere), but it's a delight to see that it is getting such a positive reception.

After a brief homecoming stopover in Fiji - thanks to Air Pacific - David was thrust back into the complex post-coup issues that cast a shadow over the Pacific. First the PINA media flop last week and now the Cairns "free trade" jackup prelude to the Pacific Islands Forum. Good to see the recent Mark Davis Dateline interview with Commodore Voreqe Bainimarama, which included some pithy insights into the "one person, one vote" mantra to repel three decades of a racist and corrupt so-called democracy.


It is also worth sharing this recent dispatch from NZ-based German journalist Ulli Weissbach. He doesn't run his own blog, so here's his personal perspective (abridged) directed to "friends and foes" alike following a three-week research trip:

Part of my job in Fiji was to prepare the ground for a German TV foreign affairs programme on Fiji. I had a chat with government spokesperson Lt Col Neumi Leweni, who assured me there would be absolutely no problem for the German TV crew entering Fiji and interviewing the "evil dictator".

Experience 1: I actually saw him once, entering the lobby of the Holiday Inn hotel in Suva. No heavily armed bodyguards around him, just a guy in a plain suit. If a waitress at the bar hadn't pointed him out to me "Look, there's Frank", I wouldn't have noticed him. Now, dear friends and foes, do you think an evil dictator, who is hated by half of the country, would dare to walk into the public arena without bodyguards?

Experience 2: I talked to an Indian girl working at a Denarau Hotel and asked her how she feels under Frank's dictatorship. She said she actually feels better, because she can now safely walk the streets of Nadi at night. The crime rate has come down considerably since Frank took over, which is backed by official statistics as well.

Experience 3: I circumnavigated the whole of Viti Levu without seing one military checkpoint, except for Nadi airport. Dear colleague Barbara Dreaver, can you please stop peppering your Fiji reports with outdated checkpoint footage from TVNZ's archive?

Experience 4: Along the road I saw a lot of Methodist Church gatherings, where priests thundered through loudspeakers to their congregation. I can't prove it but it all sounded too familiar to me and reminded me of the time when I worked in Fiji at the end of the 1980s. Back then, a Reverend called Lasaro was the chief ideologist of the fundamentalist Methodist Church and incited indigenous Fijians to burn down Hindu temples and mosques. He's still the chief mullah of the Methodist Church and it makes perfect sense to me that Frank is trying to constrain him and his other mullahs. The Methodist Church was behind all the coups before Frank, it is a highly politicised organisation with close ties to the ultra-nationalistic and racist Taukei movement. I call them the Fiji Nazis.

Experience 5: The tourism industry is doing rather well, due to a lot of Australians and Kiwis ignoring their countries' negative travel advisories. But still they are hurting and hotels are cutting jobs, which proves, that sanctions only hurt the little people, not the government they are aimed at. Same with the sugar cane industry, where EU sanctions and the cutting of subsidies will hurt the little people - ie. Indo-Fijian farmers.

Experience 6: Yes, newspapers and other media are constrained and intimidated and no journalist can agree with that. Yet many of them are Australian-owned and follow their own agenda. NZ journalists who are banned from Fiji, like "Pacific commentator" Mike Field and TVNZ reporter Barbara Dreaver, have only themselves to blame. Mike Field has been found guilty of inaccurate comments about Fiji by the BSA (Broadcasting Standards Authority). And Barbara Dreaver filed a report about poverty in the goldmine town of Vatukoula, which was highly inaccurate...

If that's the quality of NZ journos reporting about Fiji, who can blame the Fiji government for wanting to keep them away?

Experience 7: During my Fiji trip, Commodore Bainimarama held a widely publicised speech to the nation about his Strategic Framework for Change, which outlined his envisaged roadmap to elections and democracy. It reflected many of the goals of his proposed People's Charter for building a better Fiji, which has been rubbished repeatedly by Mike Field and consorts as an "idealistic" document.

Idealistic - yes, it's in the nature of constitutions that they promise a better future for their people. But criticising it from a country that doesn't have a constitution and a fair non-racial electoral law is a bit rich. None of these commentators and journalists has bothered to properly inform New Zealanders about the constitutional process in Fiji. Read the People's Charter and make your own judgment. Some of it's principles would suit NZ as well - like equal voting rights for every citizen no matter what his ethnicity is.

Conclusion: We can judge Bainimarama in 2014, when his promised elections will be held. It took my own home country Germany four years to develop and agree to a truly democratic constitution after WW2. And guess who forced it to do so - the military government of the occupying forces (USA, GB and France)?

So please: GIVE FIJI A BREAK!

Pictures: Top: Newspapers in San Francisco; Middle: A Bora Bora pareo; a Tagata Pasifika crew in Pape'ete. Photos: David Robie

Fiji People's Charter
PINA summit fails to stand up for media freedom
Perfectly Frank interview [transcript]
Perfectly Frank [video 20m 09s]

Post-putsch Fiji journalism training under cloud

MIXED REPORTS seem to dog the AusAID-spawned journalism schools that have been springing up around the Pacific. In spite of the usually gushing puff pieces that get turned out by the technical institutes and the donor guardians, things don’t seem to be as rosy as they’re portrayed. Given the climate of censorship and media paranoia in post-putsch Fiji, there should be a lot more scrutiny about their activities and progress. In the light of many jaundiced messages from media old hands around the region, Café Pacific wonders how rigorous these new schools are – certainly compared to the transparent and thorough practices in the universities.

On the one hand, it is good to be providing more entry-level opportunities for both students and media practitioners to develop their professional skills, However, many oldtime professional educators are troubled about the “bypassing of establishing teaching institutions” and the undermining of the sustainable institutions in the region offering journalism programmes – the University of Papua New Guinea (j-school founded in 1975), Divine Word University at Madang, PNG (1982) and the University of the South Pacific (1987). Journalism being taught with a bunch of skills but without critical studies (the training of the ability to think and question) is rather pointless for a serious Fourth Estate role. And the universities are out on their own in this regard.

Some old hands are questioning the value of the Fiji Institute of Technology j-school, for example, describing it as “poorly thought out and implemented in a jiffy”. According to some media education and training critics:

Many courses are under-taught, poorly taught or not taught at all. Attendance by both lecturers and students are poor.

But somehow students are still graduating. Students are voting with their feet … and they have some horror stories to tell.

The TVets were supposed to have become self-funding. But this has not happened. Recently AusAID pumped another $190,000 into the FIT programme to stop it becoming yet another failed Pacific media aid project and an embarrassment.

Café Pacific wonders whether it was also to avoid uncomfortable questions from taxpayers. How much longer will AusAID continue propping up these schools. What happens when AusAID eventually bails out? And why is that there is virtually no critique of standards? Not just in Fiji, but in the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and elsewhere as well. For years, the university courses encountered flak from some industry quarters when in fact time and again they demonstrated value – by winning awards against international, competition in Australia and New Zealand, for example.

Where is the independent media being produced by these TVet programmes? All the university j-schools have run their own media for years – newspapers, television programmes, radio stations etc. This is the hallmark of good and challenging journalism programmes overseas. Yet the TVet outputs are almost invisible. Merely producing fodder for industry at a time when critical, independent journalism needs to be nurtured more than ever. And where are the transparent audits of these virtual courses? If a flourishing Fourth Estate across the Pacific is what they really had in mind, the AusAID moguls must be regretting their investment.

PM Sikua supports new journalism school
UNESCO supports new approach to journalism training

Timorese PM under fire in food contract scandal

By Matt Crook in Dili

PRESSURE to resign is mounting on East Timor's Prime Minster, Xanana Gusmão, amid claims that he misused authority when he signed-off on a multimillion dollar government contract last year to a company his daughter has ties with.

Fernanda Borges, leader of the opposition National Unity Party, has demanded that Gusmão be held accountable for his role in the awarding of a contract to import subsidised rice worth US$3.5 million* to Prima Food, a company his daughter Zenilda Gusmão owns a stake in.

"Did Zenilda Gusmão have a business before her father became important? No. Does Zenilda Gusmão have the right to a government contract? No," she said. "That's not why Mr Gusmão was elected."

Under East Timorese parliamentary law, the prime minister is required to sign off on all government contracts above $1 million, and government tenders cannot be awarded to companies in which close family members of government officials, including the prime minister, have a stake exceeding 10 percent.

Money for the rice contract came from the country's Economic Stabilisation Fund, which functions partly to ensure food prices are kept under control. The opposition is raising questions about whether the rice in question was even imported.

"Did the rice come in? Where is the rice? People out in the districts, a lot of them have not received any rice or had the opportunity of buying cheap rice from the government. So where did all that rice go or did it ever come in? We don't have proof," Borges said.

But the government refutes the allegation.

Deputy Prime Minister Mario Carrascalao says the contract being signed off may have simply been an oversight.

"OK, he signed that without going through and examining it," he said. "[The government] distributed money to [16] enterprises. In one of those enterprises there is the daughter of the prime minister, but she is not alone. The enterprise called Prima Food is not just her enterprise. She is one of the associated members, so I don't think the prime minister did anything wrong when he signed it."

Backing for PM
The prime minister also has the backing of the East Timorese President José Ramos-Horta.

"Just because someone became president, became prime minister, became a minister, does not mean his family all have to go into unemployment, all have to sell their business and stop," he told Radio Australia.

However, the opposition isn't buying the explanation.

"My worry is if he stays and he thinks that, especially with all this denial and weird interpretation of our Constitution and existing laws, that [the government] can give families contracts," Borges said. "What are we building here? A state for [their] families?"

Arsenio Bano, an opposition MP from the Fretilin party, demands that the prime minister step down.

"The rice contract is one of the biggest scandals. It is demonstrating nepotism. We will keep pushing for [Xanana Gusmão] to be accountable and even to resign as prime minister," he said.

"He can't sign under the law a contract with a company that his own daughter is in."

East Timor became independent in 2002 three years after an overwhelming majority of the population voted in favour of separation from Indonesia after a brutal 24-year occupation. If opposition protests grow louder, this scandal could pose a real threat to the stability of this new democracy.

But Christopher Samson, a campaigner from Lalenok Ba Ema Hotu, a Dili-based anti-corruption watchdog, cautions that it is a bit too early to jump to conclusions.

"[The] law did not say that families of ministers or the prime minister or members of government should not participate in business," he said. "I feel there should be an investigation before we speak about this process."

Matt Crook is a correspondent of the Inter Press Service (IPS). Image source: Timor Lorosae News

* East Timor's currency is US dollars.

• Resign calls mount in East Timor
• Charges fly over corruption in East Timor

Veteran Fiji broadcaster gagged on Pacific radio

A RECENT wide-ranging interview about Fiji has led to the suspension off air of veteran broadcaster Bulou Amalaini Ligalevu from her popular Pacific Media Network programme. Bulou Amalaini, an experienced former Radio Fiji broadcaster who started her 531pi Fijian-language Voqa Kei Viti (Voice of Fiji) in 1980, has fallen out with her bosses over a 20-minute interview with Fiji’s human rights advocacy group Citizens' Constitutional Forum (CCF) executive director Rev Akuila Yabaki (pictured). The programme included insightful views about media censorship and current developments in Fiji.

But while the programme drew some 25 comments complimenting Bulou Amalaini over the interview, three people emailed the radio station complaining about a section discussing the recent Methodist Church controversy. Regime leader Commodore Voreqe Bainimarama banned this year’s annual conference of the 200,000-strong church. The commander also demanded that the church sack two former presidents who were involved in previous coups, Rev Manasa Lasaro and Rev Tomasi Kanailagi, and are being blamed for “incitement”.

Acting chief executive Tom Etuata, of Niue, suspended Bulou Amalaini off air in response to the complaints – even before discussing the programme with her. He says the radio network aims for "balance". Bulou has now been told the suspension has been lifted, but it is understood she has not actually been scheduled for the regular five-hour Saturday evening Fiji slot since her June 6 broadcast.

All three complainants were hostile over Yabaki's and her criticisms of the Methodist Church. Said one: "And to bring such a person to openly criticise my church and its affairs to the people on New Zealand, how dare she do that. She continues to add on comments and remarks with suggestions about how we should run our church - who the hell is she?"

In this current post-Easter climate of media censorship in Fiji and the dearth of quality comment about the political situation, Bulou Amalaini’s programme has been a gem. It has been marked by quality and in-depth research and credible commentators. “But a lot of people don’t like Rev Yabaki for his forthright and independent views – and for the same reason, some don’t like me,” she told Café Pacific.

Among views expressed in the Yabaki interview were:

On censorship:

It’s difficult to get national news broadcast out of Fiji without it being censored by the regime. We have to find an alternative way of transmitting this information to the outside world, particularly when we are depending on the international community to help out.

On the abrogation of the 1997 Constitution:

Yes, it’s true that our Constitution has been abrogated. However, basic human rights still exist globally - and this includes the right of freedom of speech. Every human being has the right to freedom of speech and although the Public Emergency Regulation is in force … we have to try and work a way around this censorship.

On the chilling of free speech:

People are not so forthcoming for fear of victimisation, whereby they could lose their jobs and all interviews are being screened as directed by the regime. This does not augur well for a solution. Instead we need to keep the dialogue open. And, as I have mentioned before, there were some discriminatory overtones in the last Parliament but that does not mean that freedom of expression should be curtailed altogether.

On arbitrary arrests and detentions:

We are concerned at the arrest and detention of people by the police and military. Following the abrogation of the Constitution on April 10, the Public Emergency Regulation (PER) was promulgated for 30 days [and Bainimarama says it will now be in force until the end of the year] ... This PER [was] embedded in our Constitution and can be executed by Parliament as a security measure if there is civil unrest or disturbance in the country. It had never been used before until the coup was staged in December 2006 and more recently after 10 April 2009.

On the banning of the Methodist Church annual conference:

The Methodist Church chose not to be a member of the National Council for Building a Better Fiji (NCBBF) ... The Methodist Church is very much in disarray. If you look at the history of the stand that the Methodist Church has taken in the past 20 years, you will note that it supported the first coup of 1987 and also George Speight’s coup in the year 2000. But it opposed the coup of 2006 because it believes that Fiji should be governed by Fijians, who are their members, as if it were their divine right. This was the case when Dr Timoci Bavadra and Mahendra Chaudhry’s Labour Party won the general elections of 1987 and 1999.

How ironical that those objecting to the Bainimarama regime’s censorship in Fiji should seek to gag a prominent Fiji broadcaster in New Zealand for trying to open up debate.

Picture of Rev Akuila Yabaki - The Fiji Times.

• Pacific radio defends banning action over 'unbalanced' Fiji interview
  
• Citizens' Constitutional Forum
• Fiji Methodists face ban
• Government’s decision ‘intact’
• Beware of conmen, warns PM
• Stop misleading members - PM
• English translation of the Yabaki interview
  

Resign calls mount in East Timor over corruption allegations against Gusmão

CALLS ARE mounting for East Timorese resistance hero and founding president Xanana Gusmão to resign as prime minister amid fresh allegations of corruption, this time involving a lucrative contract with his daughter Zenilda as a beneficiary. The Sydney Morning Herald’s Jakarta correspondent, Tom Allard, reports that if these latest allegations are proven, they could be a major problem for Gusmão, "who has staked his reputation on cleaning up East Timor’s bureaucracy and its tender system”.

The SMH cited a a spokeswoman for the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade saying the Canberra government “took allegations of corruption seriously and was working closely with the East Timorese government to increase accountability”. The unnamed spokeswoman said the Australian aid programme to Timor-Leste was carefully monitored to “prevent and detect fraud”. The Fretilin oppositionhas spearheaded these allegations and is already channelling protests. According to Allard, citing documents obtained by Fretilin:

Mr Gusmão awarded a $US3.5 million ($4.4 million) contract for rice imports to Prima Foods, a company Fretilin says is partly owned by his daughter, Zenilda. The contract was awarded under a $US45 million government program to import basic foodstuffs.

The allegations first surfaced in stories by Radio Australia reporters Steve Holland and Stephanie March, who reported yesterday:

Zenilda Gusmão, the prime minister's daughter, is listed as a Prima Food shareholder in East Timor's 2008 business registry.

Radio Australia has also confirmed that the wife of another senior minister has profited from government tenders.

The country's procurement law bans "agents of the administration", politicians and bureaucrats from awarding government contracts to businesses associated with close family members.

The deputy leader of the opposition Fretilin party, Arsenio Bano, alleges it is a blatant example of corruption in the Prime Minister's Office and called for the Prime Minister's resignation.

"It's absolutely a strong indication of corruption, he has violated Timor Law, and before it goes to the courts the prime minister should resign," Mr Bano said.

Gusmão was unavailable for comment. The Prime Minister's daughter, Zenilda Gusmão, declined to comment.

However, a spokeswoman for the government confirmed to Radio Australia that Zenilda Gusmão was a shareholder of Prima Food.

President José Ramos Horta has distanced himself from a scandal, involving the country's Prime Minister. He says it is not his business to intervene.

The Gusmão coalition government has faced persistent corruption allegations.

The administration awarded a $US400 million contract to a Chinese Government-owned company to build two powerplants without calling for open tenders. Under the deal,
East Timor will import expensive and highly polluting heavy oil, even though it is rich in natural gas.

The husband of the Justice Minister, Lucia Lobato, was reportedly awarded a lucrative contract to rebuild a prison and supply uniforms for guards. Lobato, who is responsible for the prison system, is suing the journalist who broke the story.

Picture of Xanana Gusmão - Repúblika Banana.

• Minister's legal pressure on journalist whistleblower
• Corruption charge levelled against Gusmão
• Gusmão faces corruption charges
• Corruption scandal “not my business’, says Ramos-Horta
• Timor-Leste's tenders system

Tribute from Brij Lal - Farewell, Ron, Fare Well

By Brij Lal

IT SAYS a lot about the nature of the world we live in that I received the news of Ron Crocombe's death via email in Switzerland where I am on holidays. The message is brief: Ron was on his way back to Rarotonga from Nukualofa via Auckland when he suffered a massive heart attack and died on a bus to the airport. No doubt more details will become available in due course as obituaries are written and assessment made of the contribution Ron made to the development of Pacific studies at the University of the South Pacific, where he taught from 1969 onwards before becoming an emeritus professor. I suspect Ron would be happy the way he went: mobile and alert, returning from an academic gathering of distinguished peers, talking and listening while crisscrossing his beloved Pacific Ocean.

Ron had written to me just a few weeks ago about Fiji, saying how sad he was with the way things were there. I had met Ron in person the last time at the PHA Conference in Suva last December. He was in fine form, as always: lively, energetic, full of anecdotes about this Pacific personality or that, full of opinion about everything under the sun. That was Ron, or one side of him. He was more busy in retirement than when he was a fulltime academic, he said. Tome after fat tome testified to his inexhaustible thirst for knowledge about things Pacific. He appeared to know everything and everybody who ever worked on the Pacific. Kenneth Emory: yes, and he would recall some event to make a point. Douglas Oliver, Jim Davidson, Harry Maude, Oskar Spate, "Jack" Crawford, John Gunther, Dick Gilson. That kind of knowledge in one person is now hard to imagine. Ron was one of a kind. There won't be another Ron Crocombe in our lifetime, if ever.

Ron taught me at USP in the early 1970s. I particularly remember his course on Advanced Pacific History. The course ranged from prehistory to the future of the postcolonial Pacific. We were not expected to master every topic, but after a broad introduction, Ron expected us to choose a topic and do an indepth study of it. Despite his affable nature, Ron was a stickler for standards, a task master who did not hesitate to push you near to the edge. He saw a talent for history in me, but I think he wanted me to work on something more in the present. Ron had an instrumentalist view of history: as a means to an end, not as an end in itself. Why would a bright lad like me want to be marooned in the past? But he encouraged me nonetheless. Ron was not a disciplined lecturer. Discipline was "alien" to him. A lecture on prehistory could traverse a very large field, even venture into the present. But that did not matter. He had his reading list, and he expected us to do the learning on our own. He was not an Ivory Tower academic. That side of him impressed me deeply, perhaps even influenced my own intellectual development.

Ron was personally kind to me. As I was finishing my undergraduate degree, Ron wrote to at least two dozen places around the world, from SOAS to the East-West Centre, singing my praises and urging them to accept me (on a scholarship). Eventually, the University of British Columbia did. Its head of History Department, Margaret Prang, was on a cruise ship in Suva. Ron pleaded with her to give me a teaching assistantship in her department. She did: a full graduate fellowship. Ron then arranged with Canadian Pacific to fly me over to Vancouver at their own expense. I shall never forget his personal generosity. Over the years, I disagreed with Ron on many things, but a deep residue of respect for him remained. For Ron, disagreements and debates were never personal. I have a lot to learn from his example.

Ron will be remembered for many things, but perhaps most of all for his work in facilitating the study of the Pacific islands by Pacific islanders themselves through the Institute of Pacific Studies at USP. His vision was right for its time: for its time, I would emphasise. He hoped that after the initial encouragement, those who wanted to pursue an academic career would enter more rigorous institutions for further training. Few did, content to rest on their USP laurels. In private, Ron sometimes muttered his disappointments, but his overall enthusiasm for things Pacific and for Pacific Islanders remained undimmed.

In his early years at USP, Ron was an important institution builder. He founded the South Pacific Social Sciences Association which published a number of important monographs. He founded the journal 'Pacific Perspectives,' which lasted for about 10 years. With Marjorie Crocombe and Albert Wendt, he was instrumental in setting up the South Pacific Creative Arts Society, which published the literary journal Mana. He was the organiser of the first "Pacific Way" conference in Suva in the early 1970s from which came the influential publication The Pacific Way: Social Issues in National Development. (I am quoting the title from memory). The list goes on.

Ron's passing marks the end of an era in the evolution of Pacific studies. He was there at creation, so to speak, and he saw the emergence of a new era with different intellectual and cultural concerns. I am not sure that he totally approved of the new trends. He was a man with his feet firmly on the ground. I feel sad that Ron is not among us today. It is hard to believe that he is not. But he lived a long and rich life with his beloved Marjorie, and has left behind a legacy that will remain long after many of us are gone. Vinaka vakalevu, Ron, moce maca.

• Brij V Lal is professor of Pacific and Asian history at Australian National University's Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies.

Pictured: Emeritus professor Ron Crocombe with Tongan Prime Minister Dr Feleti Sevele at his 'Atenisi University fellow induction ceremony just three days before he died. - Photo: Pacific Media Centre

• David Robie's tribute
• Croz Walsh's tribute
• Father figure of Pacific studies passes away - The Fiji Times
• Memorial service in Auckland - Pacific Media Centre
  

Balibo thriller exposes brutal murders of six journalists

BALIBO, the film about truth and justice in East Timor and the brutal murders of six journalists while the fledgling nation struggled for its independence against the Indonesian invasion in 1975, is certain to cause shock waves in the region.

The film, being screened at the Melbourne film festival next month and due for general release in August, is an indictment of successive Australian governments.

And New Zealand authorities are also bound to be embarrassed by the chilling story of political betrayal and death.

Five journalists – including a New Zealander – working for Australian television networks – were killed in the border village of Balibo on 16 October 1975 and a sixth in the capital of Dili eight weeks later.

Indonesian special forces led by Yunus Yosfiah murdered Australian-based journalists Greg Shackleton, Tony Stewart, Gary Cunningham (a New Zealander), Brian Peters and Malcolm Rennie, who were reporting on Indonesia’s then covert invasion of East Timor.

Roger East, who went to investigate their deaths, was also murdered in Dili during the formal invasion, on December 7 – he was among 86 people summarily executed on the Dili wharf and their bodies dumped in the sea.

The military commanders involved in these atrocities today lead lives of impunity in spite of their crimes.

Director Robert Connolly unveiled some of the footage in a preview of his film at the recent 58th World Press Institute conference in Helsinki, Finland, earlier this month.

Balibo tells the story of the six murders through the eyes of war correspondent Roger East (played by Anthony LaPaglia) and a young José Ramos-Horta (now President of Timor-Leste).

In 2007, New South Wales deputy coroner Dorelle Pinch ruled that the Balibo five were deliberately killed by Indonesian troops to cover up the invasion of East Timor.

Associate Professor Damien Kingsbury, of Geelong’s Deakin University Centre for Citizenship, Development and Human Rights, writes:

As a movie, Balibo is confronting, heart-wrenching, and raises a sense of legitimate anger. These responses parallel how many Australians responded to events in East Timor in 1999, when by their numbers they compelled the Australian government to finally intervene.

Such responses also parallel how many Australians felt in 1975, and in the years since. If the concerns of 1975 faded, it was because our governments so effectively covered-up the truth of these events, and the horrors subsequently perpetrated upon the people of East Timor. The Indonesian government led that complicity, culminating in the carnage and its ignominious departure from East Timor in 1999. But our own governments, under Whitlam, Fraser, Hawke, Keating and Howard, participated in that complicity.

The movie Balibo also captures the reality that East Timor’s people were just ordinary human beings caught in terrible circumstances. The scenes, too, in the forests and of streams, over the steep mountains and of the sea and sky are so accurate because they are East Timor. Dili’s emblematic Hotel Turismo had, and retains, the atmosphere of a Graeme Greene novel.

Balibo’s critics will attack it not for its art, but citing that Australia’s relationship with Indonesia is, these days, positive, and East Timor is now an independent state with its own aspirations and struggles. What they are unlikely to admit it that the problems that East Timor has endured since independence have been rooted in its brutal past.

• Balibo: Film, truth and justice
• World journos preview Balibo film
• Coroner finds Balibo five deliberately killed
• A date with the ghosts of Balibo

Papa Ron dies after lifetime contribution to Pacific

THIS PICTURE must be one of the last of “Papa” Ron Crocombe, who died suddenly on Friday while on a shuttle taking him to Auckland International Airport on his return to the Cook Islands. Café Pacific’s David Robie had been with him just a couple of days earlier in Tonga for the induction ceremony of six international fellows (Ron and David included) at ‘Atenisi University.

One of the fathers of Pacific regionalism, Ron Crocombe (top: on far right, next to Tongan prime minister Dr Feteli Sevele), had been emeritus professor of Pacific studies at the University of the South Pacific in Fiji since his "retirement". After working in Papua New Guinea for seven years where he ran the New Guinea Research Unit, he became the founder of the Institute of the Pacific Studies at USP and was director for more than two decades. Sadly, the IPS and his legacy have virtually disappeared in restructuring at USP.

In his so-called retirement, Professor Crocombe, aged almost 80, was also a great achiever and continued to work tirelessly for the South Pacific region as an inspiration, critical thinker, adviser to governments and politicians, mentor to Pacific writers and researchers, and contributor to developing a strong regional civil society. While at ‘Atenisi, he spoke strongly of the achievements of founding Professor Futa Helu and 40 years of education at the university and institute. Among a collection of books he donated to the university was an original edition of Mariner’s 1817 classic Tonga Islands. (William Mariner was a teenager on board the English privateer Port Au Prince, captured by Tongan warriors in the Ha'apai island group. He was one of the few who survived and after living in Tonga for four years wrote a detailed account of his experiences).

Professor Crocombe was a frequent critic of Australian and New Zealand policies in the region and about hypocrisy over aid (and Fiji’s disproportionate influence on regionalism). For example, he made these comments about the Pacific Plan in one ABC Radio interview:

Australia and New Zealand have always – Australia particularly – always tried to kill any question of labour mobility. Australia says, “You must open up everything where Australia will benefit from – your markets, your investment, your everything else. But anything that you will benefit from ...” – and about the only thing [Pacific countries] will benefit from is some labour market access – “No, you can't have that.”

In recent years, Professor Crocombe had worked towards benefits from greater cooperation with Asia, particularly China, in the region. He advocated greater awareness and preparation in Pacific countries for the “Asian century”. Among his recent works for the IPS were publication in 2007 of the 623-page tome about the “spectacular transition” underway in the Pacific detailing a half century of growing Asian involvement in the Pacific and declining Western influence. Entitled Asia in the Pacific Islands: Replacing the West, the latter book notes:

Asia is already more important than Western sources in some dimensions (eg. exports and investments) and the relative importance is increasing steadily. However, few in the Islands are preparing for the change. It has been clear for over 30 years that Pacific curricula need to emphasise Asia more, and that many more Island students, media and diplomats sent abroad for study should spend more time in Asia – especially its Pacific coast nations, which they will need to understand and deal with. One hopes too that more Asians will take a positive interest in the islands.

Ron Crocombe is survived by his wife, Marjorie Tuainekore, four children, 14 grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren. He will be sorely missed by academics, politicians, civil society advocates, writers, colleagues and friends throughout the region for his refreshing, insightful and uncompromisingly independent views. Café Pacific offers our condolences to Ron's family.

• A memorial service was held at the Pacific Islands Presbyterian Church in Newton, Auckland, on Monday afternoon.

Pictured: ‘Atenisi fellows: Dr David Robie (from left), Dr Ian Campbell, Professor Futa Helu, Dr 'Opeti Taliai, Dr Wendy Cowling, Prime Minister Dr Feleti Sevele and Dr Ron Crocombe. - Pacific Media Centre. Dr Niko Besnier, of Amsterdam University, was also inducted but is not in this picture.

• Leading Pacific academic, author dies
• 'Atenisi webpage tribute to Papa Ron
  
• 'Atenisi University inducts six fellows
• Ron Crocombe among 'Atenisi fellows
• Croz Walsh's tribute to Professor Crocombe
• Professor dedicated his life to people of the Pacific Islands
• Professor 'Papa Ron' a true son of the Pacific

The browning of New Zealand media

CURIOUS how a seminar with many of the movers and shakers in the New Zealand diversity media industry running the show didn’t cut it in the news itself. Hardly a mention in news coverage, apart from on the Pacific Media Centre niusblog at AUT University and a John Drinnen item in the NZ Herald's Business about how public broadcasting was being ignored. Nevertheless, this year’s NZ On Air seminar with the theme “Screen and Heard: NZ broadcast audiences in 2020” was really worthwhile with many contributors giving fascinating and inspirational insights into this country’s media future – from SBS managing director Shaun Brown’s rundown on multicultural programmes in Australia, through BBC’s Murray Holgate on the changing role of the global broadcaster in the Asia-Pacific region to Oscar Kightley and Stan Wolfgramm on the future of diversity creations such as bro’Town and Pacific Beat Street. Brown encountered some light hearted flak over his metamorphosis from his old role in market-driven TVNZ to cross-cultural SBS – “the browning of Shaun Brown”, as Asia Downunder’s Bharat Jamnadas (and onetime Fiji journo) coined it. Brown himself said:

New Zealand is – in at least some respects – ahead of Australia in confronting and debating the issue of diversity in programme making.

For a start, while Australia has a vibrant sector dedicated to advocating on multicultural and indigenous issues, I cannot recall a discussion of this scale taking place between Australia’s broadcasters about our contribution (or even obligation) to reflect cultural realities on screen.

Also, an important element in reflecting diversity on either side of the Tasman is the place indigenous content occupies on our screens. Here particularly Australia has much to learn from New Zealand.

The outstanding success of Māori Television and the scale of Māori programming on other broadcasters places New Zealand well ahead of Australia.

Asked if he had “seen the light” about public broadcasting after he left TVNZ for SBS, Brown launched into a candid attack on a succession of NZ governments for their failures over broadcasting policy, which had been turned into a political football: “Without a charter, you don’t have a compass.”

The “scene setter “ was provided by demography professor Richard Bedford of Waikato University’s Population Studies Centre, who outlined the two-pronged challenge for New Zealand media – the demographic changes making the audiences “browner” and more culturally and ethnically diversified, and also becoming older. As PMC’s Pacific Media Watch contributing editor Josephine Latu reports:

In fact, by the year 2021, current statistical projections show that the Asian population will have increased by more than 70 percent, the Pacific Islander population by 44 percent, and the Māori population by about 24 percent since 2006.

New Zealanders of European or “other” ethnic backgrounds (including from African and South American and other nations) are altogether predicted to
increase by just below 6 percent in the same timeframe.

The number of people aged over 35 is also set to swell for all ethnic groups. Figures showed that between 2006 and 2021, those aged 35 and over will increase by 22 percent, compared to only about 5 percent for those under 35.

Café Pacific’s David Robie has produced an overview of the state of demographics and the rise of the ethnic media, published in the latest edition of Pacific Journalism Review with the theme “Diversity, identity and the media”. (The edition was launched by the Human Rights Commission’s Sam Sefuiva at the seminar).

Radio Tarana’s Robert Khan and broadcasting manager Terri Byrne of Planet Radio – “the best thing we ever did” was moving from AUT University campus to Unitec, where it has been thriving – gave inspirational insights into how “minority” broadcasting was in fact becoming “mainstream”.

But in spite of the optimistic mood of the day, the seminar crashed to earth in the final session about “the broadcast media scene in 2020”. TVNZ head of television Jeff Latch, TV3’s associate director of programming Andrew Szusterman and Radio NZ’s head of news Don Rood didn’t seem to get it about the dramatic changes facing NZ’s media audiences. No visionary solutions there for the twin targets of diversity and age.

Bro'Town graphic from NZ On Air; photo of Shaun Brown by the Pacific Media Centre's Del Abcede.

• Diversity reportage in Aotearoa - by David Robie
• From minority to mainstream broadcasting - by Terri Byrne
• NZ faces growing media challenge over demographics
  
• NZ On Air
• NZ On Air to the rescue for TV
• Pacific Beat producer calls on ethnic groups to 'break into' mainstream
  

A date with the ghosts of Balibo

FORMER ABC journalist Tony Maniaty, now a senior journalism lecturer at the University of Technology, Sydney, has scored a coup with his new book on East Timor - Shooting Balibo. He covered the war in the self-declared independent former Portuguese colony in 1975 for ABC TV News and came under heavy shelling in Balibo. A few days later, five other journalists working for Australian media - who had ignored his warnings not to go to Balibo - were murdered by Indonesian soldiers in the dusty border town. The martyred journalists were Brian Peters, Gary Cunningham, Malcolm Rennie, Greg Shackleton and Anthony Stewart.

Maniaty was aged 26 during the war. Thirty-three years later, in his role as consultant to the forthcoming feature film Balibo about these gruesome Indonesian killings, Maniaty returned to Balibo for the first time.

Shooting Balibo is his memoir of going back to that traumatic event, and of how Timor has changed since. Together with the haunting experience of watching five young actors playing his murdered colleagues (and watching himself portrayed as a young reporter), Maniaty also conducted revealing interviews with some of Timor's key players, including President Ramos-Horta, about the events that led up to the Indonesian invasion.

In the book, Maniaty joins the cast and crew of Balibo as they travel to the gutted shell of the burned house where his colleagues were killed a generation earlier. The book has already had an emotional and well-received launch in Timor. Maniaty reflects:

They say we've only got one war in us, and my days in Timor in 1975 were enough to teach me many things, not least that experience in the house of conflict is expanded, and that the exhilaration of war, once felt, can never be replicated in everyday life; that risk goes hand in hand with raw beauty; that life is never so intense as it is, or was, in that compression of life called war...

Tony Maniaty's article about television war reporting in Pacific Journalism Review.
The Shooting Balibo trailer