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Asia-Pacific Network: 19 July 1999

POLITICS: SAMOAN ASSASSINATION EIGHTH IN THE PACIFIC

Samoan police are hunting for the assassin who gunned down Public Works Minister Luagalau Levaula Kamu in a telephone ambush that has left Pacific leaders and politicians stunned. His was the eighth assassination in the region.

By DAVID ROBIE

Samoa assassination
Fiji's Dr Tupeni Baba .... shocked by the assassination
of a Samoan cabinet minister.
Tearsheet: Fiji's Daily Post

SAMOAN police are hunting for the assassin who gunned down Public Works Minister Luagalau Levaula Kamu in a telephone ambush that has left Pacific leaders and politicians stunned. His was the eighth assassination in the region.

Fiji's Deputy Prime Minister Dr Tupeni Baba said he was shocked and saddened by the shooting.

And he warned that the killing was a worrying act for the region.

Samoa's Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi said the assassination should be left to the government to investigate.

"These are the kind of days that test our wisdom and also test our confidence and patience," Tuilaepa said.

Savea Sano Malifa, publisher of the Samoa Observer, often a fierce critic of the the Samoan government, said: "Luagalau should not have died in vain. His death should inspire unity, not division."

Luagalau had reportedly just finished introducing Prime Minister Tuilaepa at a function marking the 20th anniversary of the founding of the country's ruling Human Rights Protection Party (HRPP) when he was shot, just after 8pm on Friday, July 16 (Samoan time).

He collapsed, shot through the heart, and was carried outside with his shirt stained in blood.

Somebody had called him on his cellular phone and he had walked to the side of the crowd when he was gunned down at the St Joseph's College compound in Alafua.

The political assassination was the first in Samoa since independence in 1962 and the first in which a Polynesian government minister has been killed. Other killings have been:

  • On 12 October 1996, PNG government-appointed Premier Theodore Miriung of Bougainville was shot dead, apparently because he was seen to be too sympathetic to rebels seeking independence. An inquiry implicated six soldiers and a government-backed anti-independence "resistance" fighter in the killing.

  • On 4 May 1989, president Jean-Marie Tjibaou and Yeiwene Yeiwene of the Kanak Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS) were shot dead on the island of Ouvea, in the Loyalty Islands, New Caledonia. They were assassinated by pastor Djoubelly Wea and Andre Tangopi who believed the two leaders had betrayed the independence struggle against French rule.

  • 0n 30 June 1985, President Haruo Remeliik of Belau (Palau) was shot dead after he drove home after midnight in Koror. He was gunned down in what was described as a "gangland-style" murder.

  • On 12 January 1985, a schoolteacher leading Kanak militants, Eloi Machoro, and his lieutenant, Marcel Nonaro, were shot dead by French soldiers at the western New Caledonian hamlet of La Foa.

  • On 19 September 1981, a New Caledonian pro-independence politician of French descent, Pierre Declercq, was shot through the window of his study in the Noumea suburb of Mt Dore.

    The Fiji Daily Post declared in an editorial: "The assassination [in Samoa] has brought closer to home the reality of how wrong pollitical passions can turn in this part of the world.

    "Although it is not the first political killing in the Pacific Islands, this one is so frightening because Samoa is not only closer to Fiji, it is also so much like home to many of us."

    In a poignant report from Apia, Samoa Observer publisher Savea Sano Malifa wrote:

    "Today is Sunday in Samoa. For most Samoans, it's a day or worship. For little Samuel, it's a day or mourning.

    "He is mourning his father, the late Minister of Public Works, Luagalau Tevala Kamu, who was shot on Friday night.

    "While he was embraced by a friend yesterday morning, Samuel said sadly: "My dad died last night."

    In an address to the nation about the shooting, Prime Minister Tuilaepa said the government was investigating and Samoa would be told the results of the investigation.

    Broadcast on both state radio and television, he said in Samoan that the disastrous killing had wasted the useful life of an appointed servant of the country.

  • David Robie is publisher of Cafe Pacific.

    • Copyright © 1999 David Robie and Asia-Pacific Network. This document is for educational and research use. Please seek permission for publication.
    http://www.asiapac.org.fj/cafepacific/resources/aspac/samoa2.html

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