We Say - 1
We Say
Pacific Islands politicians, either those elected or those installed by custom, are not alone in making hostile, sometime justifiable attacks on the qualities of the local media, whether print or electronic. Officially, it is politic for them to support a free media. Being only human they are antagonised when their frequently very personal interests‹political, financial and private‹are publicised in a manner not unto their liking.
In April, the Pacific Islands News Association (PINA), which represents most South and Central Pacific newspapers, radio and television stations, thought it necessary to, as it puts it, ring alarm bells about threats to media freedom in three countries: Kiribati, Papua New Guinea and Tonga.
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In Kiribati, where the media is in the embryo stage, difficulty resolved itself almost as PINA uttered. Kiribati's president, who had enacted laws that effectively enabled him to close down any newspaper critical of him, was removed from power by the defeat of his budget. He is blocked constitutionally from another term as president. The person almost certain to succeed him is committed publicly to the swift repeal of anti-press laws.
The only worry is that buried press control laws will lie one day to be resurrected by some less liberal future leader.
In Papua New Guinea, the chairman of the parliamentary privileges committee, Nick Kuman, demanded to enact laws to "deter critics who persistently and knowingly publish damaging articles" - really meaning damaging to MPs. Does Mr Kuman have anything to hide? So many of Papua New Guinea's politicians do and generally their only risk of exposure is by Papua New Guinea's lively probing newspapers. Fortunately media freedom is embodied in Papua New Guinea's constitution‹although there are always means of skirting around that‹and it would need a constitutional amendment to protect parliamentarians to the drastic extent proposed.
In Tonga, the situation is rather more serious. In April, after the country's chief justice ruled that an absolute ban on the import and sales of a newspaper, the Times of Tonga, was illegal, the government promptly by decree overrode the judicial decision. The Times of Tonga has a record of assailing what it views as being the deep corruption inherent in Tonga's monarchial style of government and frequently causes the country's rulers and monarchy considerable and not infrequently deserved discomfort. It has a peculiar status since it is produced in New Zealand and is owned by a former Tongan citizen who has a United States passport.
The government thus argues that Tonga's peace, security and stability is being dangerously undermined by an evil foreign-owned newspaper. Well, there is some truth in that. The Times of Tonga is not quite the immaculate font of truth, accuracy and enlightenment that scatty, biased admirers promote it as being, but it does score painful hits on sensitivities that Tonga's rulers hate having exposed.
Tonga cannot be said to be entirely without a free media, nor can the very limited range of independent local publications that appear can be said to be repressed. But they are apt to be restrained. To press the point, without reprisal, would they be allowed or even be able to continue, should they begin to daringly emulate the exposes of the Times of Tonga? Given the attitudes of some deeply conservative figures in Tonga's ruling circles, probably not.
Johnson Honimae, the PINA president and who as head of the Solomon Islands broadcasting service has a notable record of preserving his station's independence in extraordinarily difficult, and physically dangerous times, in ringing those bells remarked that threats to freedom of expression and information have one common theme. "This is that those who are in power do not want the people to know about or debate their actions."
Tonga's conservatives won a short-term victory in banning a "foreign" but still rather local newspaper from their shores. But the Times of Tonga has a strong following in Tonga and more than a smattering of credibility. By banning it, the government has further eroded its own credibility as a form of government that more Tongans are becoming critical of.
A small group of academic commentators insist on projecting media freedom as being under severe attack throughout the Pacific Islands region. This is nonsense but being so is no cause for complacency. A key role for the Pacific Islands New Association is to remain alert and poised to clang those bells when necessary.
