Rumours, the Shopkeeper and Mary Bainimarama's One Million Dollars

N0115.
The latest story from CoupFourPointFive (citing a "source that has been reliable from the outset and is from within the military ranks") is that Renee Lal, a female lawyer accused of fraud, was "beaten about her head with a full bottle of water and that her beating was apparently organised by an army officer by the name of Ben Naliva.

"The officer is believed to be part of the illegal leader Frank Bainimarama's personal security detail. And it's claimed, as we said, that he was given $10,000 to ensure Lal got beaten.".

Saras'sista, a  commentator only too well known to readers of my blog, had this to say on CoupFourPointFive (I leave it unedited) :

"of course Croz would see nothing contradictory in the police commish demanding that police know the 2009 domestic violence decree by April, but the governments own thugs beating upa woman. No sir. For all the bleatings about how we should be nice, polite, positive and constructive, Croz is never keen to decry the appalling treatment handed out by the military before some has even been charged. Credibility anyone ??"

I'm not sure how or why  I should decry something before it is known to have happened but it should go without saying that such behaviour, if it did happen, is to be condemned, but until we have some reliable report on the incident I'll go along with the following letter about Renee Lal and rumours that was published by Fiji Today, another —but more reasonable and reliable—  anti-Government blog.

Letter to Fiji Today

"Sir, When the mainstream media cease to report or investigate anything controversial the rumour mill winds up and goes into overdrive. It is a quirk of our Fijian nature that rumours are treated as fact and passed on and added to with relish. Recently we have been hearing new rumours of beatings and unreported detentions under PER.

"One story had a shop owner at Nine Mile detained and beaten for being vocal in his opposition to the “Bainimarama Junta”.  I admit he was never slow at letting his opinion be known and his customers were under no illusions as to his opinions.  In fact I was leaning towards believing this story as he was suddenly not serving in his store and his wife was evasive on his whereabouts. 

"This story was in my mind as a fact when I ran into the gentleman concerned in Lami yesterday in the Hot Bread Shop.  He looked unmarked and greeted me effusively. I raised the story of the beating with him and he sheepishly told me he had been caught out with a neighbour’s wife and had been kicked out of home. As his wife’s relatives had financed the store he had lost that also.  His wife was obviously embarrassed and this showed as being evasive and helping the rumour along. Small facts apparently confirming the rumours become proof. No investigative reporting by the media is making “facts” out of any and all claims that manage to get into the public arena.

"We have a recent Coup 4.5 story claiming that Renee Lai was beaten by the military. While we all accept beatings have happened in the past I have problems with the idea of paying a soldier $10,000 to beat someone up. This to me sounds far fetched.

"But the part of the story that is believable to me is the use of a bottle of water as a club to beat her. This is a tactic first used in the Sinai to extract confessions without leaving visible marks on the prisoner.  Our boys from the Sinai would know of this. Small facts apparently confirming the rumours.

"We urgently need the news media to step up and investigate such rumours even if they have to report that the military refuses to answer the queries. Find the person concerned. Ask them what happened. I believe most of the rumours would go down the path of the Nine Mile shop owner and have a more mundane and  logical answer."

 Last Year's Prize Rumours

Small "facts", of course, only apparently "confirm" rumours.  Readers may  remember the rumours last year that the PM was dead (Rumours of my death are greatly exaggerated) or seriously ill, and that Public Service Permanent Secretary Parmesh Chand had resigned and Solitor-General Christopher Pryde had been sacked. I didn't comment on these rumours either, until I'd checked them out. The Permanent Secretary was still in his office and the S-G told me he was going on a short overseas trip. Yet all these rumours had been "reliably" reported by CoupFourPointFive.

But last year's top prize must surely go to another anti-government blog, Solivakasama, that reported on September 20th that PM Bainimarama and Attorney-General Aiyaz Sayed Khaiyum had been arrested by "some senior military officers."  They told their readers to "Watch this space."  We're still watching.

Rumours Serve Political Purpose, Need Oxygen to Live and Multiply

I agree rumours abound partly because of PER (that I also would like to see lifted) and I agree the media should verify the more serious and credible rumours, but rumours of this particular type also abound because they serve an important political purpose.

Those inventing and spreading these rumours believe the old saying: Thrown enough mud at the wall and some of it is sure to stick. They seek to distract and destabilise government, and keep alive the dwindling hopes of the government's opponents, most especially the SDL supporters of Laisenia Qarase, Ratu Naiqama and others like them.

Giving such rumours unnecessary publicity is to give them the oxygen they need to live and multiply.  So I'm no more likely to rush in to publish them than I am to publish the "reliable" rumour that Mary Bainimarama recently won a UK $1,000,000 lottery.   -- Crosbie Walsh