FIJI: 'Parachute journalism' aids plotters' propaganda

July 19, 2000
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FIJI: 'Parachute journalism' aids plotters' propaganda

DAVID ROBIE, a respected commentator on Pacific island affairs and now head of the journalism program at the University of the South Pacific in Suva, spoke to Green Left Weekly's NICK FREDMAN.

The organisers of the May 19 coup in Fiji were astute in choosing an articulate and media-savvy front person in George Speight, who many still mistakenly consider the coup's leader. Speight's ability to repress dissenting voices while manipulating much of the local and international media coverage played an important role in strengthening the terrorist gunmen's position, as did widespread false assumptions about the nature of the struggle.

The role that the local and international media has played during the crisis is related closely to political struggles in Fiji since the two coups in 1987 led by Sitiveni Rabuka, according to Robie. At that time, the major newspapers were repressed and leading staff arrested, encouraging many media workers to permanently flee the country. Consequently, local media organisations are largely staffed by young and inexperienced journalists.

Fiji has a fairly extensive media infrastructure for a country of 400,000 people. Apart from a television station and several internet outlets, there are three daily papers owned by the local elite and by foreign interests.

The Murdoch-owned Fiji Times was particularly hostile to the Fiji Labour Party-led People's Coalition government, elected in May 1999. Mahendra Chaudhry's government "was elected with the largest ever mandate in Fiji, and was implementing a range of initiatives in welfare, education and health that benefited the majority of both indigenous and Indo-Fijians", said Robie.

Speight was chosen as coup front-person just hours before the May 19 attack on parliament, Robie stated. The real leadership were hardline Fijian chauvinists within the army's Counter Revolutionary Warfare Unit, set up by Rabuka in 1987. The unit's founder, former British Special Air Service major Ilisoni Ligairi, is believed to be the coup's real instigator.

One of the first acts of the coup was to cut all telephone communications, leaving the internet as the sole source of communication with the outside world. One of three local web sites which covered the early stages of the coup was the University of the South Pacific's (USP) Pacific Journalism Online (<http://www.usp.ac.fj/journ/>), set up as a training exercise for students. In contrast to mainstream press coverage, it provided "human interest, human rights, civil society stories, education and analysis" said Robie.

On May 29, Fiji Television's station was ransacked by 200 Speight supporters, following critical coverage of the coup. After this, USP forced Pacific Journalism Online to close. It was allowed to reopen on June 28 — but banned from covering the coup. Pacific Journalism Online created a new web site, hosted by the University of Technology, Sydney, to cover the crisis (see <http://www.journalism.uts.edu.au/archive/fiji_coup/index.html>).

At first, local newspaper reports and editorials were critical of the coup, but this soon became muted, particularly after the imposition of martial law on May 30. Journalists were by then hanging out with the rebels at the parliament building, eating pizza, drinking kava, and apparently obsessed with images of masked men with guns and the figure of Speight. "The media pack offered Speight a profile and credibility — it aided the rebel leaders' propaganda war", Robie said.

Foreign journalists were part of this game, although there was some more critical reporting, such as stories on Speight's business interests and how they were threatened by the Chaudhry government.

The nature of "parachute journalism" meant that coverage was superficial. "Journalists all stayed at the Central Hotel, a few minutes from the parliament and Fiji Television. Very few went outside, it was like the reporting of the Vietnam War from Saigon", Robie told Green Left Weekly. The most serious result of this was that the real nature of the crisis — it was a "class struggle, not a racial conflict" — was largely obscured, Robie explained.

After seeing 1000 people march in support of the coup, most mainstream journalists assumed Speight represented the majority of Melanesian-Fijians, not bothering to find out what the other 400,000 Fijians thought. Virtually no journalists visited areas outside Suva, where support for the coup is much lower, or sought the opinions of trade unionists, academics, church leaders or even members of the deposed government. The only "players" they deemed worth talking to were Speight and the military.

With the appointment of a government of indigenous capitalist and landowning figures, and the trade union movement targeted for repression, Robie sees that media and academic freedom are still under grave threat. However, he's adamant that pressure for a multiracial and democratic society will continue, arguing that "the majority want a society built with all people and everybody's contribution".

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