Gary Juffa: Why these PNG elections are taking us towards dictatorship

Oro Governor Gary Juffa speaking at a PNG campaign gathering ... explaining the qualities to look for in
national leadership. Image: JuffaFB

By Gary Juffa, Oro Governor and an opposition MP writing for Asia Pacific Report.

I SUSPECT that these Papua New Guinea elections have been so deliberately set to fail, leaving much room for fraud and confusion, and distracting from what is really going on – the establishment of a dictatorship.

Already Prime Minister Peter O’Neill has his own special police unit that flies around Papua New Guinea escorting him in his private airlines, he has a special army unit of 40 exclusively for his callout, he controls the media and Public Service, and, it seems, the Police and Defence commands — and perhaps the judiciary -- the signs and red flags are blinking bright red now…

Yet many people do not see it. We are inching closer towards dictatorship and the ensuing bloodshed and violence that must come from the hostility towards it. But, like lemmings and sheep, we are led to that reality with little resistance at all. Is this the Papua New Guinea we all believed in once upon a time?

Last Wednesday in Oro province, provided a demonstration of how much the PNG government is not for PNG.

What now for the Tongan Democrats looking ahead to 2018?

'Atenisi Institute's Dr Michael Horowitz with two Tongan newspapers -- Koe Kele'a and Talaki -- at the seminar
at Auckland University of Technology this week. Image: Del Abcede/PMC

By Kendall Hutt of the Pacific Media Centre

THE FUTURE of Tonga’s Democracy Coalition remains uncertain as next year’s election draws closer, a Nuku’alofa-based educator has concluded in a public seminar in Auckland last night.

Dr Michael Horowitz, dean of Tonga’s ‘Atenisi Institute, told the audience at his seminar entitled Can the Democracy Coalition retain power in Tonga? the fate of the party – and with it the election due late next year — was impossible to predict.

This is largely due to the fact no survey research is conducted, continuing Tonga’s “big surprise” election-day tradition, Dr Horowitz said.

Dr Horowitz, also a visiting research scholar with Auckland University of Technology’s Pacific Media Centre, said the Democracy Coalition may just hold on to power despite a bumpy term littered with controversy.

These controversies included a petition in 2015 for Prime Minister ‘Akilisi Pōhiva to surrender his education portfolio over the so-called “raw marks” policy controversy and the “cloudy issue” of state-owned Tongan Broadcasting Commission head of news Viola Ulakai’s suspension over alleged false representation, which prompted questions about Tonga’s media freedom status across the Pacific.

On Charlie Hebdo: An open letter to my 'Anglo' friends

What Voltaire might have said to Charlie Hebdo - and the answer below. Cartoon: Ironman

'We are all trying to find the narrow path – defending the French Republic against the twin threats of fundamentalism and fascism (and fundamentalism is a form of fascism). But I still believe that the best way to do this is to fight for our Republican ideals - secular and democratic.'*

By Olivier Tonneau writing for France's Mediapart

Dear friends,

LAST week, a horrid assault was perpetrated against the French weekly Charlie Hebdo, who had published caricatures of Muhammad, by men who screamed that they had “avenged the prophet”. A wave of compassion followed but apparently died shortly afterward and all sorts of criticism started pouring down the web against Charlie Hebdo, who was described as Islamophobic, racist and even sexist.

Countless other comments stated that Muslims were being ostracised and finger-pointed. In the background lurked a view of France founded upon the “myth” of laïcité, defined as the strict restriction of religion to the private sphere, but rampantly Islamophobic - with passing reference to the law banning the integral veil. One friend even mentioned a division of the French Left on a presumed “Muslim question”.

As a Frenchman and a radical left militant at home and here in UK, I was puzzled and even shocked by these comments and would like, therefore, to give you a clear exposition of what my Left-wing French position is on these matters.

Firstly, a few words on Charlie Hebdo, which was often “analysed” in the British press on the sole basis, apparently, of a few selected cartoons. It might be worth knowing that the main target of Charlie Hebdo was the Front National and the Le Pen family. Next came crooks of all sorts, including bosses and politicians (incidentally, one of the victims of the shooting was an economist who ran a weekly column on the disasters caused by austerity policies in Greece).

Democracy in Fiji a tender plant – now time to nourish it for the future

The Multinational Observer Group sees Wednesday's general election as a credible expression of “the will of the Fijian voters”. Video: Alistar Kata/Pacific Media Centre/Pacific Scoop

By Fiji affairs columnist and blogger Dr Crosbie Walsh

UNFORTUNATELY, it had to happen but all is not lost.

It started with Fiji Labour Party leader and former Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry – deposed in the 2000 attempted coup – complaining about a minivan showing a Fiji First sticker during the blackout period and another alleged election breach when a disabled voter at St Joseph’s in Suva was assisted by an election officer with no witness present.

Then there were complaints that the counting had stopped when all that had stopped were the announcements, and Radio New Zealand International quoted an unnamed SODELPA official saying its agents had noted anomalies in the transmission and counting of votes, and Fiji Leaks claimed the Multinational Observer Group (MOG) were having “a good holiday in Fiji”.

And then someone calling himself Thakur Loha Singh on a blog said he’d heard of a polling station where the votes of relatives of a candidate mysteriously disappeared and the candidate ending up with a zero vote.”

He said he’d “forewarned political parties of this some time ago.” Not a shred of evidence — but he made sure his prophecy came true.

Live blog: Bainimarama takes commanding lead in Fiji elections

Livestreaming with Repúblika editor Ricardo Morris and Pacific Scoop’s Mads Anneberg.

PACIFIC SCOOP TEAM
By Ricardo Morris, Mads Anneberg, Alistar Kata and Biutoka Kacimaiwai in Suva
WHILE the results are provisional at this stage, it is quite clear today that the people of Fiji have given coup leader Prime Minister Josaia Voreqe Bainimarama a democratic mandate.

His Fiji First party was polling way ahead of the opposition Social Democratic Liberal Party (SODELPA) at 6am this morning when counting was suspended until later today.

With 1244 of the 2025 polling stations tallied by the Fijian Elections Centre, Fiji First with a multicultural policy of “Fiji for all” had 233,094 votes, or 60.2 percent of the total vote – more than double the indigenous party SODELPA, which represents the political group ousted in the 2006 military coup.

Fiji elections live blog: Bainimarama takes early lead

Voters in Suva today. Photo: Wansolwara

By Alistar Kata of Pacific Scoop in Suva

PRIME MINISTER Voreqe Bainimarama took an early lead in provisional results in the Fiji general election tonight.

With provisional results from 43 out of 2025 polling stations processed, the Fiji First leader topped the five best-placed candidates with 2339 votes, well ahead of rival SODELPA’s Ro Teimumu Kepa with 628.

But in the party stakes, Fiji First held a narrow lead with 48.3 percent while SODELPA had 42.1 percent.

This is the first election in Fiji since Bainimarama staged a military coup in 2006.

Alistar Kata is a member of the student journalism team covering the Fiji elections as part of their Asia-Pacific Journalism course at the Pacific Media Centre. She is on internship with Wansolwara while her colleagues are Mads Anneberg with the Republika in Suva and Thomas Carnegie and Pacific Media Watch editor Anna Majavu with the PMC in Auckland. 

Their story archive is at Pacific Scoop. Read on with the Live Blog:

Bad news from East Timor as media faces petro fund 'guided democracy' gag

Timorese students protest over Australian spying in its efforts to manipulate Timor-Leste's oil industry
... free speech at risk under the new media law. Photo: Global Voices

By Tempo Semanal editor/publisher José Antonio Belo

SADLY, I have bad news to report from East Timor. It is not yet clear how long my colleagues and I will be able to freely report the news. But readers should know, things are not what they seem in the glowing press releases from Government Palace in Dili.

The government, through its members in the national Parliament, is taking steps to limit basic freedoms held by Timorese citizens.

East Timor is now a vibrant and peaceful young democracy, but a few weeks ago it took a significant step backwards towards the days of the Suharto regime, when Indonesia occupied East Timor for 24 years between 1975 and 1999.

On May 6, the national Parliament of East Timor passed a law to regulate the media and freedom of expression in East Timor. The law has yet to be promulgated by the President of the Republic, Taur Matan Ruak, although it was sent to him to pass last week.

The law is not only undemocratic but is also in violation of the constitution. The constitution gives rights to the media and citizens for freedom of expression in articles 40 and 41, but the new law seeks to limit, restrict and in some cases terminate those rights.

Exposing the Invisible - digital technology for social justice

Unseen War ... one of the trilogy of Exposing the Invisible films.

By DAVID ROBIE

IN A remarkable “before we are launched” event organised by the fledgling Sydney Democracy Network in one of Australia’s oldest lecture theatres, a digital technology collective has demonstrated dramatic and progressive examples of the global “information war”.

The Berlin-based Tactical Technology Collective co-founders, Stephanie Hanley and Marek Tuszynski, treated a packed theatre at Sydney University to a smorgasbord of video and technology at the forefront of ground-breaking social justice information collaborations.

The video Unseen War was an inspiring and provocative investigation into the use of drones for illegal targeting killings in Pakistan’s Tribal Areas bordering Afghanistan – far from the glare of media publicity.

An estimated 2500-3500 civilians have been killed in this “unseen war” through drone attacks on urban areas.

Twelve journalists have also been killed in the past decade, many as a result of investigating these targeted killings.

Fiji's 'rocky ride' back to democracy - a media opportunity?

DAVID BEATSON’S wide-ranging and perceptive current affairs programme Interview was back on Auckland-based New Zealand independent community broadcaster Triangle TV this week. He featured the latest setbacks to the return to democracy in Fiji. Describing the situation as Fiji’s “rocky ride” to democracy, Beatson interviewed Pacific Media Centre director Professor David Robie. Among other interviews this week, Robie also talked to Radio NZ International’s news editor Walter Zweifel, welcoming an apparent “opening” in the Fiji political debate in the media in spite of censorship in recent years:

A leading New Zealand journalism educator says it is auguring well for Fiji’s future that the media has broadened its coverage of political affairs. 

Working under the tough terms of a number of decrees, Fiji media outlets largely ignored the criticism of the regime decision to dump the draft constitution which it had commissioned last year.

That prompted the Fiji Labour Party to claim that the local media only regurgitated the regime’s platitudes without looking at the accuracy of the statements.

Professor David Robie, who is the director of the Pacific Media Centre at AUT University, says days later after the regime released a decree on political parties, coverage improved.

“When it brings in a decree like this on political parties and expects one political party to dance to a tune of accountability and yet not provide that accountability itself, that seems to have opened the flood gates of open criticism and debate.”

Professor Robie says to have a genuine democracy in 2014, there needs to be a proper political debate, and the media is critical for this.

Meanwhile, Triangle TV will soon be launching a new public broadcasting channel Face Television on Sky and it plans to host a new current affairs programme, Public Interest, presented by Pacific Scoop and Scoop Media former co-editor Selwyn Manning. According to Manning, Public Interest is committed to “analysing issues” at a time when in-depth and investigative programmes are in retreat in New Zealand.  

“Public Interest is about promoting ideas that progress New Zealand’s bicultural society while empowering our communities and peoples to reach their potential.”

Strong independent Pacific content is expected to be a feature.

• David Robie interview on Triangle
• David Robie interview on Radio NZ International
• Public Interest current affairs demo
• Valentine's Day massacre: What next for Fiji? 

Greek free speech editor Kostas Vaxevanis acquitted over leaked 'tax evader' list

Greek editor Kostas Vaxevanis (right): “My job is simply to tell the news and tell it straight.
My job is to tell the truth,” he says. Photo: Orestis Panagiotou/EPA

By HELENA SMITH, reporting from Athens for The Guardian
  
KOSTA VAXEVANIS hates being the centre of attention. On Thursday moments before taking the stand in one of the most sensational trials to grip Greece in modern times, the journalist said he was not in the business of making news. "My job is simply to tell the news and tell it straight," he averred. "My job is to tell the truth."

Truth in the case of Vaxevanis has been a rollercoaster that has catapulted the 46-year-old from relative obscurity to global stardom in a matter of days. But, after a hearing that lasted almost 12 hours – with a three-member panel of judges sitting stony-faced throughout, he was vindicated: the court found him not guilty of breaking data privacy laws by publishing the names in Hot Doc, the weekly magazine he edits, of some 2059 Greeks believed to have bank accounts in Switzerland.

"Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed; everything else is public relations," Vaxevanis said, citing George Orwell, before observers packed into the crammed courtroom broke into applause. "As such it was my duty to reveal this list."

Even before Thursday's court drama – proceedings that veered from comic to tragic as handcuffed Asian migrants looked on in bewilderment – the nation was up in arms over the list.

In the two years since it had been handed to Greek authorities by the IMF's chief Christine Lagarde, the infamous tally of suspected tax evaders had caught the popular imagination. With tax avoidance widely blamed for the debt-stricken country's inability to balance the books, the failure of successive governments to act on the list and crack down on tax evaders had raised suspicions that corrupt vested interests ran to the top of society.

"It is quite clear the political system did everything not to publish this list," said Vaxevanis, who had faced up to two years in jail and a €30,000 fine (£24,000) if convicted.

"If you look at the names, or the offshore companies linked to certain individuals, you see that these are all friends of those in power. Phoney lists had also begun to circulate. It was time for the truth," he told the Guardian during a recess.

Tax evasion rampant
"We live in a country where, on the one hand, tax evasion is rampant and, on the other, people are eating out of rubbish trucks because of salary cuts, because they can't make ends meet."

Three years after Europe's worst crisis in decades erupted in Athens, Vaxevanis has emerged as an unwitting crusader – a defender of truth in an environment ever more electrified by the perceived menaces of malfeasance and mendacity.

Five days after a public prosecutor ordered his arrest – dispatching special agents to seize the journalist in a nation whose justice system has almost never moved with such alacrity – there are few who do not agree that his trial has been "politically motivated". For defence witnesses such as the popular singer Dimitra Galani, bringing Vaxevanis before the court was proof that even press freedom was now at risk in the birthplace of democracy. "The whole thing is absurd, the theatre of the absurd. Greeks really don't know what to think anymore," she said.

For veteran leftists such as Nikos Kostantopouloulos, one of the reporter's three lawyers, the affair was further evidence that the country at the centre of the continent's debt drama was falling down a very slippery slope. "We have a schizophrenic situation where, on the one hand, a journalist is being penalised for revealing a document in the interests of informing public opinion and, on the other, the parliament itself is now saying the handling of the list should be investigated."

From the outset, said Kostantopouloulos, a former leftist politician, the case had defied the principles of justice.

"Right down to the way the prosecutor so hastily issued the charge sheet without even bothering to stamp it, it has been handled very badly," he said. "Furthermore, none of those on the list have even filed a complaint about privacy violation."

With ordinary Greeks hammered by a fifth year of recession, the case has ignited widespread fury. The list, reprinted on Monday by the leading daily Ta Nea, includes politicians, businessmen, shipping magnates, doctors, lawyers – a far cry from those who have borne the brunt of relentless austerity measures on the margins of society.

'Stashing their loot'
"While we have been paying our taxes, some out there have been stashing their loot away in Switzerland, not being taxed at all," said Petros Hadzopoulos, a retiree, who had come to the court to get a glance of the journalist he called "his new, best hero". Hot Doc, which normally has a circulation of about 25,000, sold 100,000 last week.

As Athens teeters once again on the brink of bankruptcy – its public coffers set to run dry in less than a month – Vaxevanis's arrest has highlighted the pitfalls of press freedom in a nation where this week alone two anchors on state television were also fired for publicly "undermining" a minister.

The presenters' "crime" had been to question the failure of the public order minister Nikos Dendias to act on a threat to sue the Guardian for publishing a story alleging police torture of protesters that he said had "defamed Greek democracy".

For those packed into the chamber it was clear that in the birthplace of freedom, democracy itself was at stake. Yesterday's often shambolic proceedings, which frequently saw the panel's presiding female magistrate thumping the bench as she demanded "silence" under an icon of Jesus Christ, included court-appointed interpreters being unable to translate with one confusing friend for French and absurd with illegal.

"I am very pained to have to be here in Greece the mother of democracy explaining the obvious," said Jim Boumela, who, as president of the International Federation of Journalists, flew in from London to testify at the trial.

"This is what I have to do in countries like Uganda," he said. "Kostas should be applauded for what he has done. It's a very worrying turn that journalists are being suppressed in Greece – and I think we are going to see more of it."

BRITISH REVENUE OFFICIALS SCOUR LISTS
More than 500 individuals on the so-called "Lagarde list" of suspected tax evaders with secret bank accounts in Switzerland have been, or are currently, under investigation by UK Revenue and Customs for serious fraud.

Tax investigators are still working their way through the 6000 names on the list, two and a half years after it was handed over to the UK by then French Finance Minister, Christine Lagarde, who also passed versions to other European members states, including Greece.

While HMRC said its handling of the data was "a major success" and expected to recover hundreds of millions of unpaid taxes, only one person has been successfully prosecuted so far. The long-standing HMRC policy of reaching settlements and imposing penalties mean that the vast majority of those on the list are unlikely to be prosecuted or named as a result. - Ben Quinn

• Original Guardian publication
• Former Greek finance minister defends 'Lagarde list' action
• Greek is 'governed by a corrupt clique' 

Rabuka's post-coup Fiji 'forgiveness', corporate civil-military consultation proposal

The logo for the Macmillan Brown Centre
for Pacific Studies-organised conference.

MILITARISM has always been part of Fijian society and the country needs to find a “corporate” bridge between its civil and military based sectors, believes the man who sparked off the modern day coup culture more than 25 years ago.

Sitiveni Rabuka, then a lieutenant-colonel and third-ranked military commander in the Republic of Fiji military Force (RFMF), led the first two of four coups in 1987. The other coups followed in 2000 and 2006.

Former Fiji coup leader Sitiveni Rabuka speaks
at the Democracy in the Pacific conference
at the University of Canterbury on Friday.
Photo: David Robie/PMC

Rabuka, later an elected prime minister, was giving his views on “democracy” as keynote speaker on Friday in a Pacific-wide conference hosted by Canterbury University’s Macmillan Brown Centre for Pacific Studies.

“Militarism has always been a part of Fiji culture,” he said. “Militarism has always been a way of thinking.”

The military traditionally believed that they were the final guarantors of the security of the Fijian people.

“Unfortunately, I broke the democracy way and I stand accused,” Rabuka said, adding that he hoped for better relations with the military in future.

‘Corporate’ committee
He said what was needed was a “corporate” style special committee consulting between the military and the civilian government after the hoped for return to democracy in 2014.

“This would keep tabs on civil-military relations to prevent them breaking down again.”

But he said he believed that the return to democracy in Fiji rested on a fragile election plan that may not eventuate.

If elections did not go ahead, regime Prime Minister and 2006 coup leader Commodore Voreqe Bainimarama would remain in power.

So far, Bainimarama had made no move to establish a new political party, join an existing party or distance himself from the military.

Talking about traditional tribal rivalries and earlier military traditions leading to United Nations peacekeeping duties and politicisation of the army, Rabuka several times cited the famous Battle of Marathon in 490BC when a smaller Athenian army defeated the Persian invading force.

A runner sped to Athens to break the news, declaring: “We have won!”

‘Forgiveness’ process
He said a truth and conciliation “forgiveness” process involving chiefly protocols of “vakaturaga” of the iTaukei culture would contribute to a lasting resolution of Fiji’s problems.

During a plenary session later in the day, Rabuka admitted that he had initially thought the invitation for him to speak at the democracy conference was "a joke”.

“Fiji has had an army destroyer of democracy and a navy destroyer of democracy [Bainimarama] and now I thought they wanted to hear an army destroyer of democracy.”

In a reply to a question about the state of the press in Fiji, Rabuka replied there was a "selective" freeing up of news media debate: "My submission to the Constitution Commission hasn't been reported, for example."

The two-day conference included keynote addresses from current NZ Foreign Affairs Minister Murray McCully, former Labour Minister of Foreign Affairs Phil Goff and wide-ranging papers from Pacific politicians (including a former Pacific Islands Forum chairman), foreign diplomats, academics, researchers, civil society advocates and doctoral students.

Conflict resolution
"Topics included alternative governance for conflict resolution in the Solomon Islands; conflicting “democracies” in customary and parliamentary governance in Samoa; Tongan constitutional reform; grassroots or top down approaches in overseas territories development aid?; the role of the military in post-colonial Fiji; and peace journalism in the South Pacific: a media and democracy frame in Timor-Leste and West Papua.

Macmillan Brown Centre acting director Dr Malakai Koloamatangi  praised the "successful" outcomes of the conference, vowing to plan towards a comparable future event and to establish an "Institute for Pacific Research and Governance".

• Pacific Scoop report on the conference
• Christchurch Press report
• Radio NZ International on Rabuka
• Democracy in the Pacific conference details
• Democracy critical to Pacific region, but poverty needs addressing
• Full Rabuka 'democracy' speech
  

In Egypt, the 'lamestream media' shows its courage and value

By Kathleen Parker of The Washington Post

THE TURMOIL in Egypt has been a lesson in the fragility of a right we so often take for granted: to speak.

It also has been a reminder to those who deride the "lamestream media" as the enemy, traitors and worse that many members of that maligned tribe are also very brave.

A list of journalists who have been assaulted, beaten, harassed and arrested in Egypt since demonstrations began would consume the balance of this column. They include attacks on CNN's Anderson Cooper, as well as reporters and photographers from The Post, Fox News, the New York Times, and numerous other publications and broadcast organisations from around the world.

The attacks have been well organised and strategic, suggesting something more than an organic eruption from the street. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), founded in 1981 to protect press freedom and journalists, has added its voice to those asserting that the attacks were arranged by Hosni Mubarak's government.

Mohamed Abdel Dayem, CPJ's Middle East and North Africa program coordinator, reported Wednesday that:

The Egyptian government is employing a strategy of eliminating witnesses to their actions. The government has resorted to blanket censorship, intimidation, and today a series of deliberate attacks on journalists carried out by pro-government mobs. The situation is frightening not only because our colleagues are suffering abuse but because when the press is kept from reporting, we lose an independent source of crucial information.

Outrage expressed
Outrage that journalists are being targeted has been appropriately expressed by various heads of state, including President Obama.

Attacks on journalists are nothing new. Five have been killed already this year, including one Friday in Cairo. Since 1992, 850 have died in the line of duty. Of those, more than 500 were murdered with impunity, according to CPJ. An additional 145 journalists are in prison worldwide for the offense of reporting.

What is new to most eyes are these real-time attacks on people we know. Watching Katie Couric being harassed and shoved by a crowd of angry men in Cairo was especially jarring. Our little Katie? Make no mistake. Perky Katie is also brave Katie.

For journalists, there's no adrenaline rush like Being There. There's something in the constitution of those who sign up for Journalism 101 that makes them want to be part of the action but also to do something of value. The bias so many recognise in the media is, among other things, a bias toward the underdog, whether that's an unwed mother or an oppressed people. That government thugs want to silence reporters in Egypt is understandable. The camera is focused on the powerless masses who want to unseat their pharaoh.

Bear witness
This is to say that those reporters who put their boots on the ground go willingly. I'd wager that every reporter confined to a cubicle at this moment wishes he or she were there, even with a touch of quiet gratitude for being safe. It isn't only to be where the action is but also to bear witness to history and to the eternal human struggle to be free.

It is rare to get to see our constitutional rights (and responsibilities) so starkly displayed or to have the courage of our convictions tested, if only vicariously. The Egyptian people are brave, too, but it is their fight. Another lesson: Democracies have to emerge from the passions of their own constituents. Freedom may be God-given, but, like life, it has a gestation period and is usually born with much pain. Afterward comes nurturing through the conscientious exercise of human will and institutions yet to be conceived.

Fundamental to this process, as our own Founding Fathers understood, is the freedom to gather and to express oneself. Every day we tolerate posers, pundits and porn along with klanners, clowns and clambering ninnies for the greater good of a free society where no one gets his head bashed for speaking truth to power.

Not so lucky are the hundreds or thousands of Egyptians who have suffered blows (or death) as they have sought their own route to liberty. Reporting from Cairo, New York Times columnist Nicholas D. Kristof tells of a carpenter named Mahmood who had needed medical treatment seven times in 24 hours. His arm was in a sling, his leg in a cast and his head was bandaged. He was going back for more.

Kristof was "awestruck" when Mahmood told him: "I'll fight as long as I can."

We should all be so awed - not only by the Mahmoods, but also by the Kristofs.

Cartoon: "Stop intimidating journalists," says the newspaper headline in Arabic. Source: Menasset.com

• Pacific media freedom groups join call on Egypt regime to respect free speech
• Washington Post on the struggle for media freedom in Egypt

Chan blasts PNG's 'filthy rich' government

NEW Ireland Governor Sir Julius Chan accuses the Papua New Guinea government of being "filthy rich" while many of the country's people still "live in saksak houses [with] no medicine, dilapidated schools and [are] totally forlorn".

“The Parliament is no longer the People’s House, but a rubber stamp for the multi-billionaires who can influence our leaders to introduce laws and agreements we know very little about, yet the long term impact is unpredictable," he is quoted as saying in today's front page splash story in The National.

Chan, a former prime minister who resigned in the wake of the Sandline mercenary crisis in 1997 after defeating a motion for him to step down, was reported as saying at a gathering of women in Faniufa village outside Goroka:

“The Speaker is totally biased, the courts are tired, law enforcement agencies can no longer cope with computerised white collar crimes, whilst our jails have become transit picnic grounds for criminals.

“The people of this country are tired of sitting on the outside and begging for what is properly theirs,” he said.

“For too long, Papua New Guineans have been spectators of resource developments on their traditional lands which do not equate with the wealth and benefits derived from their rich resources.

“It is time for the Government to transfer wealth from the State to the people,” Sir Julius said. “The people are tired of others telling them what they can and cannot do with papagraun.

“The people are tired of seeing pay raises and allowance raises in Waigani, when the State does not even consider it necessary to provide them with the pittance the State has promised to provide.

“Under the current and previous governments, New Ireland has not improved after 15 years of Lihir gold and three years of Simberi mining, and this would be the same scenario in all mining provinces across the country,” he said.

Sir Julius said mothers in Bougainville, after the 16 years of the crises, had shown determination and resilience to sustain a society built out of nothing, making the best use of them to rehabilitate and rebuild families and communities.

“This is the reason we need strong representation of the women in all spheres of endeavour, a step that we, in New Ireland, have accepted and submitted to the autonomy committee to have nine seats of deputy presidents of LLG to be contested only by women and give them free choice to contest all other seats in the provincial elections.

“We need to re-look and reassess our policies and strategies and exercise fairness and justice that will position our people to access more benefits from what they already inherit and own as citizens of our country,” he added.

Sir Julius said women must start exerting their influence as equal stakeholders of the wealth of the land to attain balanced social-economic development for the country.

“In the wake of the mineral, oil and gas boom, they must seize the opportunities to benefit as equal stakeholders of the land,” he said at a gathering of women in Faniufa village outside Goroka yesterday.

He said the role of women needed to be redefined and strengthened to uphold their status.

“They have been taken for granted as participants in the various levels of landowner agreements and investment undertakings with developers and the State irrespective of their special status and role in the communities.

“You have to move on from housemaids to housekeeping and stop the men from squandering and signing agreements that cannot be fulfilled,” he added.

• Sir J: Govt filthy rich, people poor

Moala reflects on 'Black Thursday' in new book

IRONICALLY, just as a trial of six people accused of sedition at the time of the 2006 "Black Thursday" riot in Tonga is running its course, one of the Pacific's most respected newspaper publishers, Kalafi Moala, has a new book being launched next week addressing the topic. In Search of the Friendly Islands is a sequel to his Island Kingdom Strikes Back and it explores many of the major cultural, philosophical, political and social dilemmas facing the kingdom today.

Only one chapter actually deals with that fateful day that shook his nation to the core on 16 November 2006 - just days before Fiji's fourth coup - and left eight people dead and a trail of destruction through the heart of the capital of Nuku'alofa. But Moala seeks to dissect what went wrong for the kingdom and what are the lessons for the future.

Jailed unconstitutionally in 1996 for alleged contempt of Parliament - and then set free - the turning point of his campaign for democracy and social justice came eight years later in October 2004 when he won a court case overturning a government ban on his newspaper Taimi 'o Tonga.

This book reflects on his long crusade. The message is inspirational and positive but is also tempered by the warning that while Tonga is becoming much "friendlier", the campaign for "system reform" alone is not enough for real change to come.

The solutions to Tonga's problems are going to involve more than just a system reform. As is evident in many of our island neighbours, reforming into a democracy does not solve problems of poverty, crime, and social injustice. There’s much more to be done than just a change to the system.

There is more to Tonga than just government, economics, and media; more cultural depth and breadth, more history and complexity. What do our past and our present reveal to us about our culture and social structure – and us as a people?

Are there things in our culture that can offer us guidance for our future? Can there be solutions embedded in our social structure that we can dig out and apply to problems that perplex our modern minds? What can journalism’s mission to enlighten offer us as answers in this regard? With 19 years of trying to provide piecemeal snippets on a weekly basis in Taimi ‘o Tonga, and decades of life as a Tongan, both in Tonga and overseas, I have stories – and some insights – which may add to our collective wisdom as a people.

It is often said that you can only discover what is really best in a culture when you also make provision to look at what may be its worst aspects. This notion is what has characterised my search for the Friendly Islands.

Writing as a Tongan and as a journalist, Moala examines recent events in Tonga and the future in the context of his own experiences and insights. A fascinating and insightful read. Many lessons too for the rest of the Pacific.

Picture of Kalafi Moala at the PIMA 2008 conference in Auckland. Photo by Alan Koon.

Tonga: In Search of the Friendly Islands, by Kalafi Moala; published by the Pasifika Foundation Hawai'i (ISBN 978-0-9823511-0-9) and in NZ by AUT University's Pacific Media Centre (ISBN 978-1-877314-75-9). NZ price: $34.95.

• Pasifika Foundation Hawai'i
• Pacific Media Centre
• South Pacific Books
• Review of Island Kingdom Strikes Back
• Tonga's sedition trial

Damien's perceptive piece

Fretilin's post-election woes are given a good airing in Damien Kingsbury's Melbourne Age piece about how Timor is embracing democracy in spite of the impoverished country's strife. What now for Alkatiri? Ranjit Singh has taken another potshot at NZ hypocrisy over "democracy" and Fiji. And Jason Brown has a barbed dig at media freedom awards and back-scratching.

But for those seriously contemplating the poor state of Asia-Pacific regional reporting, Louise Williams has a few sobering comments with this account of how she got started.