Asia-Pacific Network: 18 July 1999
MEDIA: BAR ON FIJI'S TV CHIEF SENDS SHOCK WAVES
A Fiji government move to deny a newly appointed chief executive of Fiji Television, New Zealander Kenneth Clark, a work permit has been branded as "immoral" and "draconian" by media industry spokespeople.
By DAVID ROBIE
THE CASE of New Zealander Kenneth Clark, ordered to leave the Fiji Islands on Friday after a month on the job as chief executive of the national television station, has shocked the local news media industry.
Many believe he is being made a "sacrificial lamb" by the new Fiji Labour Party-led coalition government, determined to slash the use of expatriate consultants and ensure locals are employed in top-level positions wherever possible.
And 59-year-old Clark, with extensive Canadian and New Zealand television experience, is seen locally as a man who could strengthen the fledgling Fiji television industry.
Newspaper editorials have branded the decision to send Clark packing by July 25 as "immoral" and "draconian", and warned that the drive against expatriates in the country's news media would send "alarm signals to corporate offices".
Clark has pledged to fight for his work permit, his staff have petitioned the government in his support, and he says he will seek a meeting with Prime Minister Chaudhry to review the decision.
"I came here to take on an assignment that I share with the Fiji TV staff and the board - and I think I should be allowed to get on with it," he said.
Alan Robinson, the Australian publisher of the Rupert Murdoch-owned Fiji Times, a newspaper often criticised by Labour, has speculated on who might be next on the government's list.
In an editorial, the Fiji Times, said: "The government now stands guilty of double standards. The prime minister has one rule for the media and another for all other businesses - at least for now. Who will be the next target is anybody's guess".
Claiming that the government thought it would be easier to control the media when expatriate executives had been expelled, the Fiji Times said: "This latest decision will send shockwaves throughout the region and the wider world".
According to the Immigration Department, Fiji TV failed to train a local person to succeed the former chief executive, another New Zealander, Peter Wilson.
However, the chairman of the Fiji TV Ltd board, Isoa Kaloumaira, says the company had provided appropriate training for local managers, and that it had chosen the best person for the job.
Chaudhry holds the information portfolio, but Assistant Minister Lekh Ram Vayeshnoi, a former vegetable farmer, has done most of the recent talking on media issues.
In Parliament last month, he claimed that "arrogant" news media "deny fair and equal coverage to the opinions that may be contrary to their agenda, they distort and misrepresent facts to arrive at preconceived conclusions, and they have shown that while quick to criticise others, they drag their feet and are not above refusing to acknowledge their own mistakes".
The minister also talked about his plans for media legislation, presently being dusted off from the draft laws under the previous government of coup leader Sitiveni Rabuka.
Although government indirectly has a majority stake in Fiji TV Ltd, the independence of its board, management and editorial policy several times brought it into conflict with the previous administration..
In July last year, Fiji TV was put under pressure from politicians over its coverage of the Monasavu land rights protests in the highlands of Fiji's main island of Viti Levu.
Fiji TV's images - broadcast worldwide - of a group of landowners daubed in warpaint and wielding spears, and threatening to "kill" for their rights in political theatre drew angry political responses.
Also last year, then Communications Minister Ratu Inoke Kubuabola, directed Fiji TV to broadcast on its free-to-air channel coverage of the Hongkong Sevens tournament after the company had made a comercial decision to broadcast it on its pay channel Sky Sports.
Elsewhere in the Pacific, news media have faced attacks on their independence.
International media freedom organisations such as the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists and Paris-based Reporters Sans Frontieres, last month condemned the "draconian regulations" governing media coverage of ethnic tensions in the Solomon Islands.
On June 28, the Solomon Islands government imposed emergency powers which threatened journalists who violated state-imposed reporting restrictions with up to two years' imprisonment or a fine of up to SI$5,000, or both.
This effectively gagged relays of regular British Broadcasting Corporation, Radio Australia, and Radio New Zealand International broadcasts on the local Solomon Islands Broadcasting Commission's stations. Foreign journalists also left.
In Vanuatu, a week before the Pacific celebrated World Press Freedom Day on May 3, the publisher of the Trading Post, Marc (rpt Marc) Neil-Jones, was assaulted over a story on an electoral feud.
Neil-Jones was allegedly attacked by a close associate of Deputy Prime Minister Willy Jimmy at a Port Vila nightclub.
Meanwhile, the Ken Clark affair in Fiji is a test case with considerable implications for media freedom in the region.
Appealing to Prime Minister Chaudhry to think again, the Fiji Times said: "The government's determination to control what is written or said about it in the media is irrational, immoral and ultimately delf-defeating."