Inter Press Service: 15 July 1999
MEDIA: PACIFIC MEDIA FENDS OFF ATTACK BY GOVERNMENTS
Media freedom in the South Pacific has come under heavy attack from governments in the region, in moves aimed at maintaining the interests of those at the helm of these island nations.
By EDMOND TOKA
PORT VILA, Vanuatu, Jul 15 (IPS) - Media freedom in the South
Pacific has in recent weeks come under heavy attack from
governments in the region, in moves aimed at maintaining the
interests of those at the helm of these island nations.
The latest of such attacks came from the government of Solomon
Islands, where the current state of emergency provides penalties
of imprisonment for up to two years or a fine of up to 1,050 U.S.
dollars or both, for journalists who violate state-imposed
reporting regulations.
Under an emergency powers act imposed Jun 28, journalists are
barred from any reporting that ''may incite violence, is likely to
cause racial disharmony,'' or that is ''likely to be prejudicial
to the safety or interests of the state''.
Under the Emergency Powers Act of 1999 as amended by the
country's Governor General, anyone caught in possession of an
official document but ''who has no right to retain'' such a
document will face criminal charges.
The media restrictions were part of measures taken under the
emergency powers to deal with ethnic unrest in the Melanesian
country of around 400,000 people, where militants on the island of
Guadalcanal have taken up arms to press their claims against
settlers from the neighbouring island of Malaita.
The Guadalcanalese's long-standing grievances primarily concern
the loss of sovereignty over their island which hosts Solomon
Islands' capital, Honiara and in particular the loss of
traditional lands to settlers from the island of Malaita.
The new regulations were in force following official concerns
that reporting on the ethnic conflict on Guadalcanal was
undermining government-sponsored efforts to end the fighting.
Clashes between armed native Guadalcanalese and settlers from
Malaita island have mounted over the past six months, forcing
thousands of Malaitans from their homes.
The media restrictions have forced the country's national
broadcaster, the Solomon Islands Broadcasting Corporation, to
cancel all live broadcasts of news produced by the British
Broadcasting Corporation, Radio Australia and Radio New Zealand
International to avoid the risk of harsh penalties.
Also, all foreign journalists left Solomon Islands by June 30.
The new regulations have provoked an international outcry over
what the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ)
called a ''draconian'' measure.
''The regulations are a flagrant violation of Article 19 of the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights which guarantees the right
to freedom of opinion and expression and includes the right to
seek, receive, and impart information and ideas through any
media,'' CPJ Executive Director Ann Cooper told Solomon Islands
Prime Minister Bartholomew Ulufa'alu in July 1 letter.
She also the premier to repeal the media restrictions.
Letters of protest were also sent in recent weeks by the Fiji-
based Pacific Islands News Association (PINA), Pacific Media Watch and Reporters Sans
Frontieres.
PINA said the emergency regulations invoked by the Solomon
Islands government were from colonial times and ''not
appropriate'' for a modern democracy, especially one that
therefore had ''one of the best'' records for media freedom in the
region.
Elsewhere in the Pacific, media has been battling threats to
its freedom from governments irked by what they are reporting.
Here in Vanuatu, Deputy Prime Minister Willie Jimmy threatened
to smashed the offices of one of only two independent newspapers
in the country, the 'Vanuatu Trading Post', unless his name was
removed from a news item the paper was running on assault by one
of Jimmy's associates on the paper's publisher, Marc Neil-Jones.
Neil-Jones was assaulted over a story on an election dispute
which his paper earlier carried.
In Fiji, the newly elected Labour-led government of Prime
Minister Mahendra Chaudhry has come under fire being intolerant of
criticism. A police officer serving as Chaudhry's security guard
has manhandled reporters who tried to speak to him.
Last month, the new assistant minister for information, Lekh
Ram Vayeshnoi, attacked media organisations in Fiji, a country
which has come a long way with its media freedom from the era of
two military coups since 1987.
In a parliamentary statement, Vayeshnoi accused Fiji's media of
distorting and misrepresenting ''facts to arrive at preconceived
conclusions''.
In Samoa, a Polynesian country northeast of Fiji, one of its
independent newspapers, the 'Samoa Observer', and its publisher
Savea Malifa have faced real difficulties in recent years.
The paper's offices and printing plant went down in a fire
believed to be the work of an arsonist. It lost a defamation
lawsuit against it brought by a former premier a few years ago and
lost previous advertising revenue following the government
instructed government officials not to place advertisements with
the 'Observer'.
The newspaper says its travails are due to its efforts to
report on corruption in government and Malifa last week issued an
appeal for legal help for a court appeal coming up on Aug 23.
Then, the Samoan government enacted a law authorising ministers
to use public funds to pay for defamation lawsuit costs against
media, which made it easy for a lawsuit to be filed instantly when
they are offended.
Yet governments throughout the South Pacific say they agree
that the media should rail against non-reformed politicians and
non-accountable practices.
''The courts are an expensive exercise and news organisations
should report the issues with accuracy and responsibility to
ensure that people do not seek compensation for defamation in
courts,'' Vanuatu Prime Minister Donald Kalpokas said at Vanuatu's
Press Club here to mark Media Freedom Day in May.
Dr Ian Ward, author of the book 'Politics and the Media' and
now deputy director of Australia's Centre for Democracy, agrees
that freedom of information legislation might help reporting in
Pacific societies.
Still, he warned that it would be as ''disappointing in the
Pacific as in Australia and in New Zealand where such legislation
has been in operation''. (END/IPS/ap-cr-hd/et/js/99)