Green-Left Weekly: 14 July 2000
FIJI: 'PARACHUTE JOURNALISM' AIDS PLOTTERS' PROPAGANDA
An interview with the Cafe Pacific publisher who was one of the keynote speakers at the Australia and New Zealand Communication Association conference in Ballina, New South Wales, on July 3-5.
By NICK FREDMAN
THE PLOTTERS 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 media commentator David
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
800,000 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, 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 authorities forced Pacific Journalism Online to close. It was allowed to
reopen on June 28 -- but barred from providing coverage of the coup. Pacific
Journalism Online created a new web site, hosted by the
University of Technology, Sydney, to cover the crisis.
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 much coverage was
superficial. "Journalists 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. Few 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''.