Prof Wadan Narsey: Air of optimism, but media censorship continues

Professor Wadan Narsey (3 July 2012)

There is an air of optimism in Fiji as potential voters aged 18 and over begin to register, but the media censorship continues unabated, undermining basic human rights, hurting the economy and the Regime itself.

Even though there are no Regime censors in newsrooms, media censorship has now taken the far more invidious form of "self-censorship",driven by continuing public intimidation of journalists and media owners.

The media is not only dropping stories which the Regime may object to, but for more than a year it has also been refusing to take articles from anyone who they assess may be out of favour with the Regime, such as Yours Truly.

Television and radio media have been effectively banned from running interviews with such persons, depriving the public of independent professional opinions and commentaries, which can enlighten them on critical economic issues of public interest.

This continuing media censorship will undermine the Yash Ghai Commission whose work has the potential to return Fiji to normalcy and solid economic growth.

It does not help investor confidence or our environment, both areas where there is an urgent need for senior civil servants (whether military personnel or normal civil servants) to offer professionally independent advice to the Regime decision makers.

It is not helping the Regime's own track record as "custodians" of the economy and the land, while undermining a future Regime attempt to become a viable alternative political force to existing political parties.

The Regime urgently needs honest and independent media advice.

The intimidation

In recent weeks, some Regime spokespersons (who vary from month to month, and continually undermine the civil servants at the Ministry of Information) have castigated the media for reporting speeches by political leaders.

The country's oldest TV station, Fiji TV, was held in limbo for months about the renewal of its license right up to the end of its 12 year license, despite the fact that there is no evidence that this station was in any way biased in its reporting, nor any inquiry or complaint from the Fiji Media Authority.

Fiji TV's license has been renewed for only six months, yet another totally unnecessary intimidating measure, as there is no reason why any subsequent changes in laws cannot be applied to any normal longer term license, which would give the media owners the confidence they need to plan for the future.

In contrast, the totally pro-Regime television station owned and heavily subsidized by tax-payers, and controlled by the brother of the Regime's Attorney General, has no such constraints at all.

The Regime has also passed an extraordinary Decree which allows the Minister of Information to refuse a television license, while strangely imposing the burden on the media outlets to prove why their license should be issued (instead of the other way round - "you are innocent unless proven guilty"), AND stipulating that the Minister's decision may not be taken to court, or challenged in any forum whatsoever.

Invidious self-censorship

The Regime may technically claim that they don't instruct the media on anything.But the reality on the ground is otherwise.

The senior employees of one newspaper will not respond to my emails seeking clarification on why even my purely educational articles are not being published, even if they have no bearing on this Regime's performance.

That hurts if you are a Fiji citizen, who has been writing developmental articles for the media for the last twenty eight years, and has no political alliances or ambitions whatsoever.

But I can understand there are hundreds of livelihoods of their workers at stake, and the owner of newspaper is facing a bench warrant for not appearing in court on a due date.

This newspapers'senior journalists heroically face a daily struggle to report accurately and fairly on what goes on in Fiji.

Another newspaper which has allowed full page attacks on Fiji citizens (including me) by pro-Regime foreigners, will not allow any"right of reply" articles, a principle practised by fair media globally.

The editor of this paper had initially agreed to run a short piece, but upon reading it, changed his mind, without any explanation.This article may be read here.

[This paper did print a "Letter to the Editor" which responded to only the marginal issues raised by the foreigner's article in this paper].

The tragedy in Fiji is that the self-censorship has extended even to academia. At a USP conference last year, a former Head of the USP School of Journalism (a friend of mine) gave a presentation on the challenges facing journalism in Fiji and the Pacific. While acceptably and comprehensively discussing the role of journalism as an instrument to foster development, he made no mention whatsoever of the draconian media censorship in Fijiat that time (continuing till today), abjectly ignoring the elephant in the room.

Abdication by the Fiji Media Authority

It is regrettable that the Fiji Media Authority (chaired by a dormant Professor Subramani) has yet to make any statement at all on the alleged infringements by any media outlet of the media laws of Fiji, or on the need for a healthy robust media, or on the need to strengthen Fiji citizens' basic human right of freedom of expression.

Has the Fiji Media Authority (Professor Subramani?) run any workshops for the media owners, for senior and junior journalists, outlining clearly what are legitimate approaches and content of their reporting, and what are not?

Or are journalists simply left to make their own fearful judgements, with senior media editors then facing the invidious task of deciding what will and will not go into print or on air- effectively doing the Regime's dirty work.

This is a totally unacceptable situation which is destroying the social responsibility functions of the media, from within.

Negative impact on investor confidence

One can see two policy areas where the Regime's inability to get independent media advice or popular feed-back through the media, is harming the Regime itself: laws affecting investor confidence, and government policies that affect the environment.

A few large building complexes going up in Suva are welcome signs of economic recovery, but they are not going to raise the incomes throughout Fiji, and will certainly not raise private investment up to around 25% of GDP which is desperately required for healthy economic growth.

It is therefore puzzling to me why the money-making legal advisers to the Regime are not telling them bluntly that every Decree that stops corporations and residents from taking their perceived grievances to court is undermining investor confidence and reducing potential investment and economic growth.

The latest decree stopping media companies from taking any ministerial decision to court is yet another legal mill-stone around the Fiji economy, adding to similar millstones in the form of decrees on the Momi Bay and Natadola investments, the FNPF pension changes, and the arbitrary ending of Airports concessions.

Such decrees damningly tellinvestors that they cannot expect to have the protection of the Fiji judiciary, who the Regime clearly does not trust to fairly apply the laws of Fiji, by preventing  by hearing any perceived grievances by any media outlet (whose very existence and investment is at stake), or by its employees (whose very livelihoods may be jeopardized by the Minister's decision).  It is odd indeed that the intellectually sharp head of the judiciary has made no public statementsabout this.

Every such decree builds up the mountain of distrust that the ordinary business community currently feels towards this Regime, stopping generalized investment. 

Damaging the environment

A second area where the Regime's reputation is being harmed is that of the environment. Coming back to Fiji after a year, it is dismaying to see the large areas of mangroves which are being filled up around Suva (and no doubt elsewhere as well).

There is a large area between Fletcher Road and Grantham Road where the tiri has been cleared and large scale land-fill is going on.

There is another large area between the Parliamentary Complex, Sukuna Road, Queen Elizabeth Drive and Nasese.  This land fill may worsen even more the flooding that has already been increasingly occurring in Nasese for the last five years, because of illegal land-fills by residents adjoining the mangroves (I declare my interest: I am a Nasese resident).

Both land-fills are destroying the precious mangrove environment on which the surrounding marine resources and subsistence fisher folk depend through the biological chains. There are no doubt others.

Did the Department of Environment give its approval for these mangrove landfills to take place or were they over-ruled?

Have the media been able to raise any concerns on this and other major environmental issues by environmentalists and NGOs who are no doubt fully aware of the degradation that is taking place?

At my first seminar presentation at the James Cook University, I had made the mistake of acknowledging (as I thought was the practice) the "owners of the land". I was corrected by a friend: owners can do "what they like with their property"; but the Australian Aboriginals and Torres Straits Islanders see themselves as "custodians" of the land- merely looking after it for the future generations. 

The Military Regime's eight year rule of Fiji will eventually be assessed by many criteria, but one will certainly be how good they were as "custodians of the land" and environment: whether they left it better or worse off, for the future generations.

The "million trees" initiative (oops, where has that gone?) will be a plus on their Report Card, but the mangroves will not, especially to all the young voters of Fiji, who are going to be far more environmentally conscious than the oldies.

Neither will be the total lack of growth in formal sector jobs for school leavers, the current bane of the economy.

A fearful Civil Service?

In the absence of a totally free media, there is a broader question: do senior civil servants feel free to question, on professional grounds, instructions coming from the top, as for instance, on the environmental issues?

The recent trend of placing military personnel in top civil service positions, while no doubt leading to a more obedient civil service,has an inherent disadvantage.

The duty of all professional military officers is to obey, without question or hesitation, any instruction coming from the top. Professional civil servants on the other hand are required to express alternative views if the situation warrants.

Some military officers may have made the transition to being good civil servants, while most probably have not.  Numerous press releases and statements are no substitute for professional productivity and real output.

I suspect that with some civil servants being dismissed without recourse to any appeals mechanism, many civil servants are afraid of voicing any disagreement with any order that comes from the top.

It would be interesting to know whether the Chairman of the Public Services Commission or the Permanent Secretary in the Public Service has ever raised the importance of professional independence with his senior civil servants, especially the former military officers.

If the civil service itself cannot raise issues of public concern, it is even more important that the media is freely allowed to do so -- even if it appears that they are continuously critical about the government of the day -- but that is one of their jobs in all transparent societies, and should never be narrowly interpreted as being "anti-development" in some way.

As the Rabuka Regime did after the 1987 military coup, the Bainimarama Regime also needs to think seriously about how to make the transition from being a dictatorship to a government accountable to the public and comfortable with public scrutiny, especially by journalists.

Regime hurting itself

One of the inevitable consequences of this widespread media censorship is that the Regime leaders cannot know the true state of popular feelings towards it and its policies.

Positive and flattering responses will abound, especially from the myriads of sycophants and money-making carpet baggers who are attracted by all dictatorships, while all negative responses will be filtered out by the "minders", effectively telling theleaders what they want to hear.

When the winds of change eventually come (as they inevitably do), it can be like a bolt out of the blue, as Egypt's Mubarak and Fiji's Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara and Sitiveni Rabuka will ruefully testify, even though the latter two operated under fairly free media.

In Australia, political leaders like Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott may dislike unfavourable opinion polls,  or Letters to the Editor or radio and TV talk-back shows, but you can be sure that they analyse them thoroughly, for their own political survival.

Whether the fundamental objective of the Military Regime is social popularity or success of their yet-to-be-formed political party, they need to know what the honest opinions of the voters are.

Media censorship totally blocks the easiest and most accurate channel to obtain this understanding.It is in the Regime's own interest to let the media be free.

The Regime (helped by Professor Subramani) might want to revisit the words of Voltaire (probably paraphrased by Evelyn Beatrice Hall): "I may not agree with what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it".

Solomon Star: FLNKS delegate visits Fiji after New Caledonia trip flop

WEDNESDAY, 04 JULY 2012 04:12

RNZI: The spokesman of New Caledonia’s pro-independence FLNKS movement, Victor Tutugoro, has flown to Fiji after last weekend’s planned Melanesian Spearhead Group mission to Noumea was called off.

Mr Tutugoro will meet the MSG chair and Fiji interim prime minister, Commodore Frank Bainimarama, but no details of the agenda have been given.

The week-long MSG mission to look at the implementation of New Caledonia’s Noumea Accord was called off last week when Mr Tutugoro said the Fiji regime leader couldn’t get a French visa in time.

The French embassy in Suva says no visa was ever requested although every Fiji citizen needs one to enter New Caledonia.

Mr Tutugoro, who was in Vanuatu over the weekend to meet the MSG secretary-general, Peter Forau, also said the recent election success of the anti-independence Caledonia Together Party made the planned visit difficult.

The party’s leader, Philippe Gomes, had said there was no call for the region’s only dictator to visit.

Mr Forau says French officials in Suva discussed the travel plans with Fiji but the embassy has refused to say what it advised.

- RNZI

New York Times: Wariness in Fiji

View the slideshow here:
http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2012/07/02/world/asia/20120702-fiji03-11.html

New York Times: In Fiji, a Detour on the Road to Democracy

Andrew Quilty for The International Herald Tribune

Children in the town of Sigatoka, which is on the route between Suva and Nadi, a popular tourist destination. Fiji has been without an elected government since Commodore Josaia Voreqe Bainimarama took power in a 2006 coup. More Photos »

By MATT SIEGEL

Published: July 2, 2012

SUVA, FIJI — Fiji’s military ruler sat behind an imposing wooden desk, deep in thought. This was the most attention he had given to any of the questions posed to him in the interview thus far, and he seemed to be struggling to find an answer. Finally, after a lengthy pause, he said that he could think of only one mistake regarding his seizure of power more than six years ago.

“I wish I had done this in 2001,” he said.

Fiji, a former British colony made up of about 330 islands in the central Pacific Ocean, has been without an elected government since Commodore Josaia Voreqe Bainimarama, also known as Frank Bainimarama, took power in a 2006 coup. It was the country’s fourth putsch since independence in 1970, and he insisted that military rule was the only way to ensure an end to the spasms of political and ethnic violence that have so often destabilized the country. Mr. Bainimarama, who now eschews uniforms for civilian dress, carries the title prime minister and describes his tenure as a cooling-off period before an eventual return to democracy.

Mr. Bainimarama seemed to be keeping his word when, in January, he lifted the state of emergency that had been in place since he abrogated the Constitution in 2009. He then went further in March by announcing public consultations on the drafting of a new Constitution and a return to free elections by 2014, moves that were praised by Australia, the United States and other countries.

But before the ink was dry on the order lifting emergency rule, Mr. Bainimarama had issued sweeping new public order regulations, which many say contain provisions harsher than the laws they replaced. Censors may no longer stalk newsrooms to vet stories before they are published, but editors still risk heavy fines and prison terms if what they publish is deemed objectionable. Political parties and labor unions can hold meetings, but they must first secure permission from the police.

The effect has been chilling, as the cautious optimism surrounding the lifting of emergency law seems to have given way to plain old caution.

Newspapers must print the names of their writers and photographers to reveal who is responsible for an article. “If you miss a byline or a photo caption you can face a $100,000 fine” — the equivalent of $55,000 — “or two years in jail. That should tell you all you need to know,” said a local journalist, who requested anonymity for fear of retribution against his news organization.

“I think we’re in for a tough ride,” he said.

A tough ride is a good description of recent Fijian history. In 2000, during the country’s third coup, ethnic Fijian nationalists held the country’s first Indo-Fijian prime minister hostage in Parliament for 56 days. Mr. Bainimarama narrowly escaped an assassination attempt during that episode, which saw the eruption of ethnic riots in the heart of the capital, Suva.

It was in an attempt to quell that unrest, in 2006, that the military stepped in and removed the government of Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase. Mr. Bainimarama accused him of corruption and inflaming the racial tensions between native Fijians and the descendents of Indians brought in by the British to serve as cheap labor in the sugarcane fields.

Members of the current government, and in particular its powerful attorney general, Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum, seethe over what they consider a lack of international appreciation for their accomplishments, which they say include one of the longest periods of relative economic and political stability in the country’s post independence history. Instead, the British-led Commonwealth of Nations suspended Fiji’s membership in 2009, while New Zealand and Australia have each imposed travel, financial and other sanctions against those involved in the 2006 coup.

Sitting in his spacious office in central Suva as the setting sun turned the bay outside his window from gold to deep red, Mr. Sayed-Khaiyum, who is Indo-Fijian, insisted that any criticism of the new regulations that took effect earlier this year is based on either a misunderstanding or the entrenched biases of neocolonialists.

Eventually, he said, people will see that while the new regulations contain strong law and order provisions, the government has no intention of using them unless absolutely necessary.

“The proof is in the eating of the pudding,” he said.

Such reassurances, however, are cold comfort for critics of the government and those who claim to have suffered abuse at its hands. International rights monitors like Amnesty International have blasted Fiji for its human rights record, which allegedly includes the torture of prisoners and the arbitrary detention of activists and government opponents.

Nowhere is the sense of fear this has engendered more evident than in the behavior of Fiji’s journalists. Not one would consent to be interviewed on the record, even though more than six months had passed since Fiji reinstated a free press. The only reporter who had agreed to speak for attribution sent an e-mail just days later asking that his name not be used out of fear of retribution.

Although several Western diplomats said they were encouraged by the government’s promises to hold elections and write a new Constitution, they nonetheless expressed serious concerns that the credibility of its pledges to return to democracy was being undermined by the public order regulations.

“Most of us don’t like the POAD” — the Public Order (Amendment) Decree, said a Western diplomat based in Suva, speaking on the condition of anonymity in line with diplomatic protocol. “It is certainly a vehicle they could use to silence dissent.”

Netani Rika is not used to keeping silent. He is the former editor in chief of The Fiji Times, the country’s oldest newspaper, which was owned by Rupert Murdoch’s company, News Corp., until it was forced by the Fijian government to sell to a local owner in 2009. Mr. Rika, who in the early days of martial law defied the censors by leaving whole columns of his newspaper blank instead of running censored copy, left the job in 2010 after soldiers threw gasoline bombs at his home. No one has been charged over the incident, which he said had followed a telephone call from Mr. Bainimarama asking him to back off his criticisms of the government.

“I’m not optimistic,” Mr. Rika said, sitting at the bar in the Defense Club, a colonial-era institution in Suva that serves as a gathering point for the capital’s elite. “A lot of what they’ve done and will do leading up to the 2014 elections is going to be superficial.

“Unless some good people stand up, we’ll be left with those army guys who will morph into politicians,” he said. “And then they’ll be in power for 10 more years.”

The question of who will run in the elections is a critical one. Mr. Qarase, who was ousted as prime minister in 2006, faces charges of corruption and abuse of office that many say are politically motivated. Mahendra Chaudhry, the prime minister held hostage in 2000, also faces corruption charges stemming from his time in office. Both may be disqualified from running for office if convicted, which would eliminate the two most popular alternatives to Mr. Bainimarama, who in the interview on May 29 would neither rule out nor commit himself to a run for office.

Even if the elections proceed smoothly, Mr. Chaudhry said in an interview in his hilltop offices overlooking Suva, there is no guarantee they will result in the end of Fiji’s so-called “coup culture.” There are always scores that need to be settled.

“Maybe this time what we need to take a look at,” he said, “is the role of the military.”

A version of this article appeared in print on July 3, 2012, in The International Herald Tribune.