Interesting also that ABC's Pacific Beat, in reporting DFAT's denial, continues to seek and report comments from anti Fiji Government experts. This time Brij Lal; other times Jonathan Fraenkel. Why didn't they also contact Rod Ewins in Tasmania (see earlier post) or -- more obviously -- one of the Sri Lankan judges?
Admittedly, ABC's Pacific Beat correspondent Campbell Cooney once rang me from Melbourne. He seemed a reasonable bloke and we spoke for a while, but as far as I know he never used what I said, and he never rang back. And this also goes for other media too! For the record: ABC receives funding from the Australian Government but insists it is independent.
Australia and New Zealand Stuff Up in Fiji
"It is very revealing that with travel to Fiji booming, every single Aussie and Kiwi I spoke to while in Fiji last week could not understand why the Australia and New Zealand Governments had implemented travel advisories to Fiji." -- John Alwyn-Jones, e-Travel Blackboard Correspondent.
To be pedantic, the NZ advisory is no worse than that for the UK (watch out for terrorists) but it's the accumulated baggage that comes from almost all sources that spells out the NZ Government's and media's position.
Photo: Map Sri Lanka CNN
3 comments:
I am told just now from Auckland that the Talk Back radio shows do not in the main support their government and its position on Fiji and Fiji's determination to have an independent and impartial judiciary free from internal as well as external influence.
That is it. In a nutshell. We insist that our judiciary led by Chief Justice Anthony Gates be: unbullied, impartial and independent. We welcome the judges and magistrates from Sri Lanka and we applaud their courage and determination to serve Fiji. Cannot put it plainer than that.
It is perhaps fortuitous that the Sri Lankan judges and magistrates en route to Fiji have ample experience of what twenty-five years of war and political instability can to to a nation. They are already seasoned in the 'tricks and threats' game viz the taping of the "courtesy call" from the Australian HC in Colombo. So most of what Fiji's near neighbours might throw at them could have been anticipated. It takes real guts and dedication to do that in someone else's country. In your own country it is called, rightly, patriotism.
Lest we forget, read this:
http://www.rnzi.com/pages/news.php?op=read&id=17520
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