Today’s topic: Frank Bainimarama will surely be chuckling the loudest

Well, what do you know? It takes a tragic tsunami to reveal Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele has another obsession we did not know about. It now appears the man is greedy too.

He already owns Parliament, Cabinet, the Public Service, the Church, the business community, all the villages and their happy, itching mayors as well, the public media and the little boys and girls there jumping eagerly to his command - in fact, the man owns practically the whole country.

What is he planning to do with all those minds and souls he’s skillfully gathering around him by the way? Use them as platforms at Tiafau and Tuana’imato for more monuments when filthy-clothed children are hawking for a living on the streets of Apia since their parents are too poor to care whether or not they’re in school?

The mind shudders trying to imagine the enormity of one man’s incredible power! Last week our PM sent a love letter to JAWS (Journalists Association of Samoa) telling it all reporters in Samoa are idiots so they should go back to school.

He reminds about a recent public address of his where he proposed JAWS should set up a media council to control the way reporters write their stories, and punish the fools.
Although he did not specify at that point who he was referring to, in last week’s letter he singled out the “Observer” as the major culprit.

“I talked publicly about the Observer and its unfounded reports giving a bad image of Samoa despite the good deeds done, which suggests a low level to which Samoan journalism has descended,” the PM writes.
“What has happened with the proposal discussed with Sano Malifa and others about setting up a media council to control its members from writing reports that are unfounded and stupid?”

Well, unfounded and stupid? Is the truth unfounded and stupid? Where are we going from here by the way? How high does a condescendingly bold lunatic rise before the descent begins?

In any case, since Tuilaepa insists, this is what happened. Several years ago the matter was discussed by JAWS during a visit by a legal representative of the Commonwealth Press Union (CPU), Mr Ian Beales. Among the matters discussed were existing laws designed to protect members of the public against possible media abuse.

Two of them - the Printers and Publishers Act 1992 and the criminal defamatory libel - were looked into thoroughly.
Incidentally, the first one is one of the first laws the governing Human Rights Protection Party (HRPP) enacted.
It requires publishers to reveal their sources of information to those who claim to have been defamed by them.

Since previously this requirement had been the jurisdiction of the court alone, the new law is a sinister threat to freedom of information.
It appears it had been designed to protect corrupt bureaucrats from being exposed by unnamed sources, which in turn effectively impedes the free flow of information.

Criminal defamatory libel, on the other hand, is even more evil. It is an ancient British law designed to quell rebellion and treason in its far-flung colonies, by throwing troublemakers in the dungeons.

And even now that Britain has long ceased to be politically responsible for Samoa, we are still holding on defiantly to the evil called criminal libel.
Why? Well, the last time it was paraded along Samoa’s system of justice for longer than a year was around December 1998; it was when the late PM Tofilau Eti Alesana used it in an attempt to put the editor of the Observer behind bars.

The maximum penalty is six months. Fortunately for the editor, Tofilau passed away and the matter was discontinued.
Which takes us once more to one of Tuilaepa’s previous growls: “Why haven’t you been able to set up a body where you can investigate yourselves?
“I’m talking about journalists who carry stories without investigating them first. In New Zealand and Australia, they have councils who punish writers like that.”

Well, to remind him, neither New Zealand nor Australia who are so dear to him had deliberately drafted a law called Printers and Publishers Act to thwart freedom of expression and impede the free flow of information.

Neither have they been holding defiantly on to the British law of criminal libel to punish reporters and editors who insist on exposing corruption despite the odds stacked up against them. Like all other former British colonies, New Zealand and Australia have long ago erased that evil law from their law books.

Which was why JAWS and Mr Beales agreed that for a media council to go ahead, the government should perhaps agree to some sort of compromise.
Mr Beales therefore offered to write to the Attorney General requesting that the two laws in question be repealed, and in turn JAWS would set up a media council. The council would insist on its members to respect set-down ethical standards, accept complaints about its members, investigate where necessary, and punish when this is warranted.

Later Mr Beales showed the writer a letter showing the Attorney General’s positive response saying the request was accepted; it also promised the matter would be raised with the proper authority and JAWS would be advised accordingly. Since then the writer has been waiting.
But since the government’s pastor and senior official in the Prime Minister’s Department, Papali’i Uale, is also now the president of JAWS, perhaps he is in a better position to help his boss.

We suggest then that if he has received a letter of advice from the Attorney General’s Office, would he be kind enough to pass a copy of it on to his boss so that he stops referring to me when matters pertaining to JAWS arise. I say this because quite frankly, the JAWS I once knew no longer exists.
Perhaps the government might as well take over JAWS and turn it into another member of the public media. Better still, why not just turn JAWS into the media council Tuilaepa wants?

What’s to stop them from doing anything they want? Go ahead boys and girls! Have fun!
And why not? They’ve done it before with the land bill, the road switch, and now the election bill. They can do anything they want. All we have to do is sit back and watch.

Then when they start expelling foreign journalists and jailing resilient dissidents, remain quiet still. Don’t be impatient. Your turn will come. Meantime remember always that Frank Bainimarama is watching; he will surely be chuckling the loudest.
Have a peaceful Sunday Samoa, God bless.

Back