(PINA/IFEX) – Fiji Islands newspapers have sharply criticised the holding behind closed doors of an inquiry into the behaviour of Fiji’s police commissioner before, during and after the 19 May 2000 coup. On 1 September, the country’s biggest daily newspaper, “The Fiji Times”, said the decision to exclude public and news media from the inquiry’s […]
(PINA/IFEX) – Fiji Islands newspapers have sharply criticised the holding behind closed doors of an inquiry into the behaviour of Fiji’s police commissioner before, during and after the 19 May 2000 coup. On 1 September, the country’s biggest daily newspaper, “The Fiji Times”, said the decision to exclude public and news media from the inquiry’s hearings “can only lead to suspicion. Whatever verdict the tribunal delivers will now be tainted by public distrust.”
Police Commissioner Isikia Savua, whose behaviour has been the subject of public controversy, has been suspended during the inquiry by a three-person tribunal headed by the chief justice, Sir Timoci Tuivaga. “The Fiji Times” said: “The principle of justice being seen to be done should override all other considerations. What is there to hide? There may well be nothing to hide but the fact that the tribunal will sit, hear evidence and deliberate behind closed doors gives the public impression of a secret trial. Secrecy creates suspicion and rumour.
“Already the Suva rumour mill, never inactive for long, is churning out a series of scenarios each more unlikely than the one before. It is also clear that there are few less than disinterested parties helping those rumours gain currency. This will not change while the tribunal sits in secret. It is always difficult to justify closed-door tribunals but in this case the public sense of suspicion is heightened by the high-profile nature of the matters under scrutiny.
“The public is surely entitled to hear the evidence for and against the nation’s most senior policeman. Much of it has already been rehearsed publicly but will not now be put in the perspective of a proper hearing. In a public hearing the identity of witnesses could be protected where the members of the tribunal were convinced that this was necessary and justified. Similarly, State secrets could still be protected in an open hearing.
“As things stand the inquiry runs the risk of increasing public anxiety over Mr Savua’s role, if he had one, in the Speight illegal takeover of the Government. The inquiry began as a golden opportunity to tell the people the truth once and for all. Unfortunately, it has become a device that will only heighten suspicion and rumour by keeping the public in the dark. If the nation is to recover and move on from May 19, it is important that the ghosts that still haunt us be laid to rest. A tribunal sitting behind closed doors will do nothing but raise more ghosts.”
On 30 August, “Fiji’s Daily Post” described as “shocking” the decision by the chief justice to hold the inquiry “in camera”. “What’s good for coup maker George Speight must also be good for Police Commissioner Isikia Savua. It must be remembered that the inquiry has come about as a direct result of a public outcry. It has come about because members of the public began questioning the role Commissioner Savua played during the events of May 19 and its aftermath.
“What is there to hide? Do we have two sets of rules applicable in our effort to bring about transparency – one for the elite in society and one for people like George Speight and others who now suffer the indignity of open court? Let’s thrash it out in the open. Too many people have suffered and are carrying the scars of May 19. If we believe in open government, this is our chance.”
Chief Justice Tuivaga has said that holding the inquiry “in camera” would encourage people – including police officers – to come forward and give evidence.
BACKGROUND
On 19 May, armed indigenous Fijian gunmen took over parliament and held hostage the government led by Mahendra Chaudhry, Fiji’s first ethnic Indian prime minister. It came during an indigenous Fijian protest march through Fiji’s capital, Suva. Indian-owned shops and restaurants in downtown Suva were then looted and burnt. The violence followed growing indigenous Fijian
protests against Chaudhry and the policies of his year-old coalition government.
Fiji is now governed by a mainly indigenous Fijian interim administration. This is backed by the indigenous Fijian Great Council of Chiefs and the Fiji Military Forces, which declared martial law and temporarily took power as the crisis escalated. Many of those involved in the coup, hostage taking and crisis which followed have been charged and put on trial. The Great Council of Chiefs has approved the establishment of a multiracial constitution review committee as part of the process leading to general elections.
The Chaudhry government was elected in 1999 under a new multiracial constitution adopted in 1997, ten years after an earlier coup which also followed protests against an Indian-dominated coalition government. Fiji’s ethnic Indians are mainly descendants of indentured sugar plantation
labourers brought to Fiji in the late 1800s and early 1900s by the British colonial government.
