Speight of Rumours

Photo: Janus, the Roman  god of gates, doors, doorways, beginnings, endings and time.

N0168  by Crosbie Walsh

February must be the rumour season in Fiji, such has been the spate of stories of arrests, detentions and manhandling that have hit the blog and international media airwaves in the past two to three weeks.

I'm not sure how complete my list is but Felix Chaudhary was the first journalist to be "taken to the barracks" this year.  He was released the same day and did not report ill-treatment. Then there were stories of the arrests of  Felix Anthony, Maika Namudu and 'two  (unnamed) politicians.' The blogs reported that Anthony and Namudu were beaten up and required hospital treatment. This was followed by the Sam Speight and  Apisai Tawake stories that were taken up in interviews by ABC's Pacific Beat interviewer Bruce Hill. Both admitted to what would be seen as anti-government activities and both claimed ill treatment.

More puzzling is last Wednesday's  story that three high ranking military officers who supported the 2006 coup — Ratu David Mara, Pita Driti and Mohammed Aziz — have been arrested on the strength of a story by conman Ben Padarath who claimed to have evidence that they had approached the President Ratu Epeli Nailatikau to replace Bainimarama. It appears that there is an investigation into an attempt to remove the government last year but it is not clear who is suspected. No one has been charged with anything so I assume the police  are still investigating.

No doubt the truth or otherwise of these stories will eventually  be revealed. I shall reserve fuller comment until more is known.  For the moment I'll restrict my comments to general remarks on the detentions, the Speight detention, and the reporting of the detentions, most especially by Amnesty International NZ.

On Detentions 

The Public Emergency Regulations (PER) give the police and military extra-ordinary powers  that include the arrest and detention of anyone suspected of threatening public security and anti-government activities.  I have previously argued that unless there is a genuine threat to public order, PER should be lifted, and other measures taken to maintain public order. There seems little doubt that a primary purpose of PER is intimidatory; a simple way to prevent the mobilisation of anti-government elements.

But there really could be very real threats to public order (if the anti-government bloggers are to be believed), and for this reason the continuation of PER may be necessary. No government anywhere would leave itself unprotected when its opponents have threatened violence and targeted assassinations.  But this does not mean that detentions should be unregulated, and the methods of interrogations left to the whims of individual officers.

The military seems to have assumed the role of political police, leaving the police force to deal with ordinary civil offences. From what one can gather, most of those detained have probably breached the emergency regulations. If this is so, their detention is understandable and acceptable. Several aspects of the detentions, however, are not acceptable because they breach minimal standards of justice for the persons interrogated and because they inevitably backfire on Government, making many doubt its sincerity of working towards a better Fiji.

To protect the individual and the state, standards similar to those listed below should be implemented:

1. Initial interrogations must take place at a police station and the detention, its cause and the names of all parties involved, must be recorded. Only in extreme cases should subsequent interrogations take place at a military barracks;
2. Those interrogated must be formally charged if they are detained for more than 24 hours, or if they are taken to a military barracks, and they must be able to inform their kin of their whereabouts;
3. All interrogations must be witnessed by an independent and respected observer who does not belong to the military or the police, such as a lawyer, religious official, senior teacher or NGO leader. The names of witnesses should be recorded;
4. Details of all detentions must be reported to the Chief Justice (or his nominee), and his advice taken on appropriate legal action;
5. No detainee should be physically manhandled;
6. The physical condition of released detainees  should be certified by a qualified medical practitioner;
7. Detainees must have the power of legal redress if any of these conditions are not observed;
8. The media or any other interested party has the right to enquire into and report on detainments if they have first sought the advice of the Chief Justice's office and if they comply in full with the conditions of the Media Decree.

Ardent government supporters may think these conditions overly favour detainees. I would argue that the absence of such conditions plays into the hands of those opposing government, and that adherence to these guidelines and greater transparency will win support for Government.

The Detention of Sam Speight

Sam Speight Junior, alias Samasoni Tikonisau, is the brother of George Speight who was the frontsman  for the 2000 coup that overthrew the elected FLP-led government of Mahendra Chaudhry. He was also a cabinet minister in Laisenia Qarase's SDL government, and a supporter if not a member of the extremist (and racist) CAMV party that dissolved to form part of that government.

He was detained at the SDL headquarters in downtown Suva by the military on the evening of Monday 21 February, taken to Queen Elizabeth Barracks in Nabua, interrogated at 3am Wednesday morning, when he was allegedly severely beaten up,  and released on Thursday at 10:30 pm when he walked to the CWM Hospital for treatment. On Friday he flew to Brisbane, received further medical treatment, and was interviewed by ABC's Pacific Beat radio journalist Bruce Hill at 5:34 pm EST the same day. Hill's interview (click here) would appear to be the most reliable source of events. Other reports include the anti-government blog Fiji Today, Radio New Zealand   and the Australian Network News  all of which report Amnesty International NZ's reaction to the Speight detention. There has been no mention of the detention  by the Fiji media and governnment has apparently refused comment.

Questions on the Speight Story and the role of Amnesty International NZ 

Two questions need to be asked about these events. First, how accurate are Speight's and his supporters' accounts of what happened? Secondly,what steps did Amnesty International NZ take to ensure their accuracy before condemning the military's alleged actions?

First, the Speight interview and other reports.  There would appear to be a number of inconsistencies in these reports.  Speight told Bruce Hill that he was detained because of a DVD found at the SDL office made by the "freedom community in Australia"" (Tui Savu's Fiji Democracy and Freedom Movement.)  Speight said the  DVD was received in December last year, and it concerned "truths" leading up to and around the time of the Bainimarama coup in 2006.  Speight said he'd helped to distribute the DVD, which is in Fijian, to rural Fijian villages, but he claimed to be unclear of its contents, which seems strange, and he also said he was unclear how he had broken the PER regulations by distributing the DVD, which is stranger still.  Others say the DVD revealed far more recent "truths" about the Bainimarama government than the events of  2006. Given the difficulty in keeping any major happening a secret in Fiji, it is also strange that Government remained unaware of the widely-distributed DVD for nearly two months.

It would seem Speight was first interrogated on Wednesday at 3am, two days after his detention (although this is not altogether clear from what he told Hill) when he  said "they took me from the cell, got me to crawl and into the interrogating room and tactics were used to kind of extract information further regarding the disk." Asked about the extent of his injuries, he said, "Well, basically bruising to the face and all that and swelling on my head and on sprained fingers which they tried to sort of bend back to get information, use of the pain and overall body aches and all of that, yeah." I do not dispute the likelihood that he was assaulted but his account is surprisingly vague on the "tactics" used given that Amnesty International claims he was repeatedly "beaten until he lost consciousness" and others claim he was "kicked and beaten with rifle butts."  Why did Speight not provide these important details in the Hill interview, and where, if not from Speight,  did others obtain these stories?

Events following his release at 10.30pm on Wednesday also raise questions. Why did he walk to the CWM Hospital instead of taking a taxi home or to the hospital? How could a severely injured man (who later, we are told, needed urgent medical treatment in Australia) walk five kilometres at night time to the hospital?  Why did his relatives not have him inspected by a medical doctor to assess and record the extent of his injuries?  Was he whisked so quickly to Australia  for his personal safety and for medical treatment, as is claimed, or were there other reasons? What further treatment was needed in Brisbane? And why in Suva or Brisbane was he not photographed to provide evidence of his ill-treatment? In the absence of medical information from Suva or Brisbane, or photographs of his injuries, his story will be seen by many as politically motivated exaggeration.

This brings up an equally important question: the role of Amnesty international NZ in disseminating information and protesting his detention and treatment. Most people see AI as an independent  and outspoken critic of political torture and abuse by oppressive governments worldwide. With their endorsement, Speight's story will be taken by many as fact.

But where, and from whom, did they obtain their facts of  his "severe beatings amounting to torture"? Did they talk with Speight? Did they listen to his Hill interview? Did they check with their Fiji counterpart organization? Did they ask whether his story or, more likely, the story relayed to them by his family and SDL supporters,  could be politically motivated,  as Hill did? What measures did they take to ensure its accuracy? Did they consult several sources to cross-check for inconsistencies? Why did they report the story they were told without questioning its plausibility, imprecisions, inconsistencies and likely motivation?

I am saddened to say that this is not the first time Amnesty International NZ  has jumped in to take a partisan stance on Fiji. We know some things in Fiji are not as we might hope but their accusations would be more believable if they were less dramatically expressed  and if they had provided some verifiable evidence to support their allegations.  They should at least have had the honesty to say their sources were anti-government bloggers and similar-minded "activists."

Amnesty International NZ has called on the Fiji government to:

• Immediately stop the arbitrary detention, torture and other ill-treatment of critics and activists;
• Immediately initiate an independent impartial investigation into the arbitrary detention, torture and other ill-treatment of Sam Speight and others, and ensure that those military officers suspected of involvement in these acts, irrespective of rank, are brought to justice;
• Immediately suspend the Public Emergency Regulations;
• End the censorship of the media;
• Ensure that freedoms of expression and peaceful assembly are respected.

Reasonable as these demands may be in ordinary circumstances, Amnesty International needs to recognize that Fiji's current circumstances are not ordinary. Most of the people they cast as villains seek a fairer Fiji stripped of its institutional racism and many of those they rush to protect have far less worthy intentions.  The Fiji situation is volatile. The people detained are few. They are political detentions. The beatings cannot be condoned but beatings have long been used in interrogations in Fiji, and they fall far short of what would usually be considered as torture.

Suva is not Naypyidaw, Yangon or Pyongyang but neither is it Wellington, Christchurch or Auckland.  A slower, more cautious and less hysterical response from this otherwise reputable organization is very much needed.