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".
No comments:
Post a Comment