(PINA/IFEX) – On 16 June 2000, PINA Nius Online reported that Fiji Islands news media continue to fully and freely report on the country’s ongoing coup and hostage crisis, despite growing financial problems. “People in Fiji are hungry for news, but that doesn’t change the fact that media are businesses and, like most businesses in […]
(PINA/IFEX) – On 16 June 2000, PINA Nius Online reported that Fiji Islands news media continue to fully and freely report on the country’s ongoing coup and hostage crisis, despite growing financial problems. “People in Fiji are hungry for news, but that doesn’t change the fact that media are businesses and, like most businesses in Fiji, many are suffering”, PINA Nius Online reported, as the crisis headed into its second month without resolution. “All media organisations have taken cost-cutting measures – from turning off lights and air-conditioning to salary cuts to the unfortunate consequence of laying off staff. ‘Fiji’s Daily Post’ has laid off 40 staff members, and all remaining staff took a pay cut of 50 per cent. ‘The Fiji Sun’ has also had to resort to redundancies, and publisher Tony Singh said that management is reviewing the situation fortnightly.”
“The media is independent and this has a downside – it has to survive on revenues,” Godfrey Scoullar, managing director of regional magazine publishers Islands Business International, told PINA Nius Online. “Advertising is the one area where people immediately cut back.”
“Fiji’s Daily Post” publisher Ranjit Singh said: “We can’t survive on circulation numbers. Most of the businesses we target have shutters on their shops, and no one seems to be advertising anymore.” In addition, Australian and New Zealand trade unions have imposed trade bans, the vital tourism industry has nosedived, the sugar crop is not being harvested because of a boycott by mainly ethnic Indian farmers, and the garment industry is laying off thousands of workers because of the trade bans.
PINA Nius Online said all media bosses were consistent in their praise of staff’s efforts in covering the crisis. The managing director of the Communications Fiji Limited group of radio stations, William Parkinson, said the commitment of his staff is “fantastic.” He said he had to tell staff to go home and sleep so that they would not collapse. Parkinson added that he felt torn between his roles as head of a media organisation and businessman. “You have an important role in society, and listeners are demanding a high level from you. At the same time, everyone knows how our organisation works and everyone knows what the bottom line is. The biggest problem is there is no resolution: the business community doesn’t know what to do, as far as marketing is concerned. Some businesses fear taking a high profile will mean they’ll be targeted.”
Fiji Television Chief Executive Ken Clark, whose station was ransacked and temporarily put off the air on 28 May (see FEX alert of 29 May 2000), said his staff has had a “triple dose” of stress: “They’ve been attacked, they’ve been threatened and now their jobs have been questioned. Under the circumstances, they are bearing up really well.”
PINA Nius Online said that no staff have been laid off at the country’s biggest daily newspaper, “The Fiji Times”. All staff were given a bonus of one week’s salary because of their efforts during the opening weeks of the crisis. Alan Robinson, publisher of the Rupert Murdoch-owned newspaper, said: “The staff have been absolutely magnificent. The adrenaline has been going since this whole thing started.”
Background Information
The Fiji Islands has amongst the most diverse and free news media in the Pacific Islands. They include: three seven-day-a-week English-language daily newspapers; weekly newspapers in Hindi, Fijian, and English; news, business, trade and entertainment magazines; independent commercial, community and religious radio stations; government-owned public and commercial radio stations; and commercial and community television.
On 29 May, the Republic of Fiji Military Forces declared martial law and an interim military government. The military said they moved in to restore peace and stability because of the growing break down in law and order. On 19 May, the elected government led by Fiji’s first ethnic Indian prime minister, Mahendra Chaudhry, was seized in an attempted coup by Suva businessman George Speight and armed gunmen, including some soldiers. Speight and his indigenous Fijian followers still hold Chaudhry and an estimated thirty other members of his government hostage in the parliamentary complex.
The attempted coup by Speight and his supporters came amidst a march through Suva by indigenous Fijians protesting against what they said are threats to their indigenous rights and land ownership. Indigenous Fijians then looted and burned shops and restaurants owned by ethnic Indians in downtown Suva.
Chaudhry won power in general elections in May 1999. Fiji’s ethnic Indians are mainly descendants of indentured plantation labourers brought from India by the British colonial government in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
In 1987, following widespread unrest and growing violence after the election of what was seen as an Indian-dominated government, Sitiveni Rabuka, then a colonel, led two coups by the army. Fiji returned to parliamentary government in elections in 1992, with Rabuka voted into power as a civilian prime minister. Chaudhry’s government was elected under a new multiracial constitution adopted in 1997.
