New Pacific programme to challenge 'outsider' history

By Pippa Brown: Pacific Media Centre

A pioneering new Pacific studies programme at Tonga’s ‘Atenisi University is set to change the way Tongan and Pacific history has been written, while embracing the institute’s classical philosophy.

“Traditionally history passed through generations orally and writing is a comparatively new thing,” says Pacific studies researcher Dr ‘Opeti Taliai.

The past was originally documented by missionaries who came to the Pacific in the 19th century and was therefore written from a colonial and outsider perspective, he says.

‘Atenisi Institute is encouraging Pacific Island students to rewrite their own history from an insider indigenous perspective.

“The emphasis on the new programme will be to encourage Pacific Island scholars and people that come from a background of oral history to start writing their own history,” says Dr Taliai, one of six international scholars inducted as fellows of the institute in a ceremony last month.

The four-day celebration honoured the life and achievements of founder and philosopher Professor Futa Helu.

Although the course structure is based on the history of the Pacific region, an emphasis is placed on research and the problems associated with it in the Pacific and the paradox of the insider and outsider viewpoint.

He says using the insider perspective with an outsider training will pull together both sides and give a clearer point of view.

“It ensures ‘Atenisi’s Pacific Studies will be able to publish a clearer interpretation and provide balance in the discourse and unity,” says Dr Taliai.

Misunderstanding can come from the misinterpretation of language.

“Tongan language is heliaki and this is quite common throughout the Pacific,” he says. “It is saying one thing and meaning another.”

Literal translation
“In comparison, English is a literal translation,” says Dr Taliai.

“Tongan language is poetic and English language scientific” and it is important to acknowledge the differences in the two languages, he says.

“English people go straight to the point and Tongan people go around and around before coming to the point because Tongan society is hierarchical and stratified.”

The key element in such a society is respect of people and their superiors.

“In Tongan society, we don’t go straight to the point as in Western society,” he says.

Special places and sacred historical places are used symbolically for particular chiefs and high-ranking officials and these symbolic places take the place of the high-ranking person in the conversation.

“We start with different places associated with those superiors,” he says.

It is common to use geographic locations and flora significant to chiefs and other high-ranking officials.

“Places they have come from and certain flowers can be very significant and these are distinguished in a metaphorical way,” says Dr Taliai.

To understand this it is necessary to know what and where these places are that people are using and talking about.

“This underlying meaning is only known to the indigenous people,” says Dr Taliai.

“We are starting to see more books written by indigenous people and we want to see more of that.”

Equal emphasis
There will be equal emphasis on teaching and research, says Dr Taliai.

The Pacific studies programme wants to recruit people who will teach and research at the same time and postgraduates who are already doing research in the Pacific.

“We hope to achieve from this programme more understanding of one another, not only in the Pacific but in the world.”

What makes the ‘Atenisi University Pacific studies programme different from the University of South Pacific in Fiji and other universities in Auckland is the method of analysis used in looking at data, oral traditions and literature, he says.

Dr Taliai says his life changed when he started attending ‘Atenisi Institute.

“I started to question,” he says.

“Education and religion co-exist like a coin,” says Dr Taliai. He says they cannot be separated and sees education as being scientific and objective while religion is mainly subjective.

Dr Taliai recently completed a PhD in social anthropology. His thesis, “The legitimation of economic and political power in Tonga: A critique of Kauhala’uta and Kauhalalalo Social Moieties”, discusses how the struggle for the control of power works in Tonga.

Tonga is a stratified society and has kings, nobles, and commoners; who make up the majority of the population he says. “The power in Tonga is in the hands of a very small group,” says Dr Taliai.

“In the Tongan riots people questioned the way the country was run and the position of the monarchy and started to demand the decentralisation of power,” he says.

Future dream
His investigations throughout his PhD researched the relationships and interconnectedness between Tonga and other Pacific Islands into parts of South East Asia. He wants the Pacific studies programme to be filled from people all over the Pacific.

“You can’t separate the rest of the Pacific from Tongan history,” he says.

My dream in the future will be to bring in experts and students from the Pacific and we will work together to write a comprehensive history of the Pacific from both the insider and outsider perspective, says Dr Taliai.

“The ideal student will have a combination of western methodology of analysis and local knowledge.”

Dr Taliai describes ‘Atenisi Institute as a small but independent institution. He relates it to the institute’s Latin motto, Pauca sed matura which translates literally as few, but ripe.

“It is always small but the outcome of the product is mature,” he says.

“We will do it more effectively at ‘Atenisi because there is also the philosophy in place to develop it further,” he says.

The institute’s name ‘Atenisi is Tongan for the Greek capital, Athens. It was founded by professor emeritus Dr Futa Helu who embraced the scientific and democratic ideals of the ancient Greeks into ‘Atenisi Institute’s philosophy of education.

It places criticism at the very heart of education and has as part of its core curriculum traditional subjects such as philosophy, logic, art and literature. It is unique compared to other educational institutions in the Pacific region, which are described as utilitarian in nature.

‘Atenisi Institute is portrayed as a “people’s university” and many of its students come from isolated and poor communities.

Picture: Dr 'Opeti Taliai (right) next to Professor Futa Helu at the fellowship induction at 'Atenisi Institute last month. Also pictured are Dr David Robie and Dr Ian Campbell. Photo: Pacific Media Centre.

Pippa Brown is an AUT Graduate Diploma in Journalism student on internship with the Pacific Media Centre.

'Atenisi University
'Atenisi University inducts six fellows

Pacific radio defends ban over 'unbalanced' Fiji interview

Pacific Media Centre

A New Zealand-based Pacific radio network has moved to defuse a controversy over a Fijian-language interview critical of the Methodist Church and alleged involvement of some leading clergy in past coups.

Pacific Media Network acting chief executive Tom Etuata told Pacific Media Centre reporter Pippa Brown today that the ban on experienced broadcaster Bulou Amalaini Ligalevu-Legge had been lifted after she had been suspended off air following last month’s wide-ranging interview with Citizens’ Constitutional Forum executive director Rev Akuila Yabaki.

Yabaki also spoke about the abrogation of the Fiji constitution, censorship of the media and freedom of expression in the June 6 broadcast, but the programme's criticism of the Methodist Church in the wake of the regime’s cancellation of the annual conference drew three written complaints to Radio NiuFM/531pi.

The controversy was picked up by the independent media watchdog blog Café Pacific.

Etuata said the radio tried to achieve balance in its programmes.

“She was suspended only from one programme, not from work,” he said. “She is still being employed as an announcer while we investigate and get an independent translation because we did get a number of complaints.

“Our community radio aims to provide both views of the topic and provide balance as a responsible broadcaster on air.”

Bulou Amalaini said the off air suspension was “very unfair”.

She denied claims by complainants that she was a supporter of regime leader Commodore Voreqe Bainimarama, saying little information was coming out of Fiji and she had been trying to provide more insight and research into political developments.

'Too scared'
Formerly of Radio Fiji and with 25 years’ broadcasting experience,” Bulou Amalaini said: “People are too scared to talk, but Rev Yabaki was not too scared to be interviewed.”

Rev Yabaki, who is an outspoken champion of human and constitutional rights in Fiji, spoke about the Methodist Church after the banning of the conference, saying Fiji’s largest and most influential religious institution was “in disarray”.

“If you look at the history of the stand that the Methodist Church has taken in the past 20 years, you will note that it supported the first coup of 1987 and also George Speight’s coup in the year 2000,” he said.

“But it opposed the coup of 2006 because it believes that Fiji should be governed by Fijians, who are their members, as if it were their divine right.

“This was the case when Dr Timoci Bavadra and Mahendra Chaudhry’s Labour Party won the general elections of 1987 and 1999.”

One complainant to 531pi/Niu FM said: “It would have been fair ... if Ligalevu [had interviewed] a member of the church in New Zealand or an official of the church in Fiji on matters concerning the church.

“But to do exactly the opposite does not only degrade the biggest domination in Fiji but also angers the members of the church who are in New Zealand.”

Bulou Amalaini said she had been told by the station management that "the interview was good but it was not balanced - that I should have interviewed somebody from the Methodist Church as well".

She said Fijian programme producer Nemai Vucago had asked the head of the Fiji Methodist congregration in New Zealand, Rev Peni Tikoinaka, to speak on the programme but he had declined because he said he was not "fully versed" over the issue.

Another Methodist clergyman was also asked but declined.

Rev Yabaki told the PMC that Bulou Analaini had been dealt a "raw deal" by the radio station "in a manner that lacks transparency".

He said she had been denied a hearing involving the three complaints.

Pictured: Broadcaster Bulou Amalaini Ligalevu-Legge (top) and the CCF's Rev Akuila Yabaki.

Niu FM - Pacific Media Network
Full text of Rev Akuila Yabaki interview
Veteran Fiji broadcaster gagged on Pacific radio

Couple fight Pacific nuclear wall of silence

By Pippa Brown: Pacific Media Centre

Cook Islander Tau Greig and her husband Wayne Meyer hope this month’s granting of the right to sue over British nuclear testing in the Pacific will be the turning point in their private battle to succeed.

They are tired of fighting the wall of silence that greets them when they open up the debate.

They now want someone to help coordinate the victims and their descendants affected by the radiation from these tests.

About 1000 veterans from Australia, New Zealand, Fiji and Britain, who took part in atomic tests in the 1950s, won the right to sue Britain’s Ministry of Defence for exposure to radiation.

From their first letter to British Prime Minister John Major, 14 years ago, Tau Greig and Wayne Meyer have been fighting - and they are sick and tired of it. Other letters have been written to other ministers as well, among them former prime ministers Tony Blair, Jim Bolger and Helen Clark, and Phil Goff and Winston Peters.

They feel they have been ignored by the New Zealand and Cook Island governments who they think should assist them.

It is hard to recognise that Tau Greig was a very competitive sportsperson.

Greig is now in an Auckland rehabilitation home and has been told her condition is degenerative.

She is in a wheelchair, has difficulty speaking and is dependent on 24-hour care.

Sea sickness
It was 14 years ago that Meyer realised his wife Tau was sick, when after a bout of sea sickness she never got better. It took another 10 years before a diagnosis of the genetic disease spinocerebellar ataxia was made.

Her diagnosis is atypical, in other words, she only carries three to four genetic imprints and not the 10 that make up the disease.

“It doesn’t fully conform to the diagnosis,” says Meyer.

They think Tau’s ill-health is related to nuclear radiation exposure received from Britain’s Operation Grapple tests in the Pacific during the 1950s at Christmas and Malden Islands.

About 50 years ago, when Greig was only 10 years old, she and her family witnessed a test while playing on the island of Rakahanga, in the northern Cooks, when she saw a brilliant flash across the sky. Then the ground shook.

In the evening the sky turned red and stayed red all week. A few days later the lagoon became white and frothy. The fish all died and floated on the surface. The villagers burnt the fish.

The Grapple tests happened 10 years after the Japanese were devastated by nuclear bombs in Hiroshima. It is hard to believe they thought it was safe, says Meyer.

“We were never told to leave.

They said they would come back,” says Greig as she struggles to talk.

“They never gave food and never came back,” Meyer says.

Exploding bomb
The aircraft carrier HMS Warrior visited Rakahanga and advised the islanders they were going to explode an atmospheric hydrogen bomb over Christmas Island, north of Rakahanga. The islanders were told not to drink the water nor eat any vegetation or fish for the next three to four months.

“The Warrior never came back so we had to live on coconuts for the next three or four months,” writes Greig in an earlier letter to the British Home Office.

It is thought to be one of the biggest hydrogen bomb tests ever recorded, says Meyer.

After the bomb families started dying as soon as the next day, a lot of children died. They got dysentery and started vomiting and died, says Meyer.

“[Former Cook Islands Prime Minister Dr Terepai] Maoate told the people they had dysentery because they were unclean,” he says.

In fairness to him he said he didn’t know what caused the children to get sick and die, says Meyer.

“We don’t know how many died.

“There are no records,” says Meyer.

Sir Terepai Maoate, who worked as a young doctor on neighbouring Manihiki Island, told a Cook Islands Research Association conference in 2008 that he had treated fatal cases of diarrhoea and vomiting. He said he had seen people with enlarged thyroids, but there had not been any connection to nuclear testing.

Birth defects
There were a lot of children born with the birth defect club foot in the northern Cooks, says Meyer.

“The islanders buried their limbs in the sand to stop them twisting, but a lot still died.

“People left the northern Cooks because they thought there was a curse on them,” says Meyer.

He says the Cook Islands government refuses to acknowledge the likelihood of damage because of the distance of Rakahanga from the Christmas and Malden Islands. There was a no-go zone of 400 nautical miles.

It is estimated that the northern Cooks are in an area 300–500 miles south-west of Malden Island.

Roy Sefton, nuclear test veteran and chairman of New Zealand Veterans Association, served on the ship HMNZS Rotoiti during Operation Grapple. He suffered his first bout of ill-health at 21 which has continued throughout his adult life.

The HMS Warrior was part of an exercise involving most of the ships at Operation Grapple where their job was “showing the flag” aiming to generally placate and ease any fears Islanders had, says Sefton.

The area of the exclusion zone that was declared dangerous to ship and aircraft covered 750,000 sq miles but there was no logic to how this zone was drawn up he says. It was not drawn out in a square or circle and there are large areas that are just cut out from the edge of the square in the ocean.

“It looks very much like a doctored scenario,” says Sefton.

Wind hotspots
The only reason he can think that this was done was to lessen the concern of people on the islands.

“Even with exclusion zones there is no guarantee that the radiation will stop exactly at that point,” says Sefton.

Other factors such as the unpredictability of wind at altitude and the phenomena of hotspots or blowback affect the spread.

Hotspots and blowback are created where either large or small areas are affected by radioactive fallout that has been blown together as weather conditions change. It was predicted that the wind would blow in a north easterly direction for 5000 sq miles but it may not have, he says.

“There may have been areas which were quite a considerable distance outside the exclusion zone where these hotspots have occurred,” says Sefton.

In 1973, the New Zealand government took a legal case against the French nuclear testing at Moruroa Atoll through the International Court of Justice at The Hague.

They argued about the danger of the tests and consequential spread of radiation to the population and environment of the radiation in New Zealand and other Pacific Islands, says Sefton.

“In relation to Tau’s case, it illustrates the ability of radioactive materials to go anywhere,” he says.

Grapple 4 was a particularly dirty bomb and it made atomic bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki look like firecrackers,” says Sefton.

Painless, invisible
“If you have been impregnated with this stuff, it’s painless and invisible and you don’t know about it.

“If you get hit with a bit of shrapnel you know and you have an idea if you are going to survive or not,” he says.

Dr Al Rowlands is the molecular scientist and the lead researcher of the Massey University study which strongly influenced the veterans’ win to sue Britain’s Ministry of Defence.

In his research, Dr Rowlands found huge disparities between the control group and veterans group.

The control group showed genetic damage of 10 translocations per 1000 cells against the veteran’s group where the frequency was 29 translocations per 1000 cells. In comparison workers close to the Chernobyl accident and clean-up had about 20 translocations per 1000 cells.

“The New Zealand government never fail to surprise me,” says Sefton.

Back in 1973, when they took their case to court at The Hague in a very well researched case on the dangers and ill-health of radiation to the Pacific, they would have spoken with a lot of expert advice.

Sefton claims the government and Veteran Affairs have applied double standards and never used this information.

• This week French Polynesian nuclear test veterans, who had their case for compensation rejected, have vowed to fight on. The French government has previously said it would compensate for any victims from nuclear testing carried out in French Polynesia from 1960 until 1996.

Eight former test site workers who took their case to the Tahiti court have been unsuccessful because under local ruling the complaints cannot be ruled on.

Top picture: Tau Greig and husband Wayne Meyer in Auckland 2009 (Pippa Brown) and above, on Rarotonga 2008.

Pippa Brown is an AUT Graduate Diploma in Journalism student on internship with the Pacific Media Centre.

British nuclear test Grapple Y 1958
Cook Islanders may have been exposed to radiation

Thousands of Pacific children 'miss out on school'

By Pippa Brown: Pacific Media Centre

Thousands of Pacific children – possibly up to 5000 – may be missing out on education in New Zealand because their parents are overstayers, says a Pasifika school trustee spokesperson.

“It is an issue that affects not just Pacific students, but all students whose parents are non-residents, no matter where they come from,” says Ben Taufua from the Pacific Island School Trustees Aotearoa.

A select committee looking into New Zealand’s relationship with Pacific Island countries has been told hundreds of Pacific children were missing out on education, according to Radio New Zealand.

Ben Taufua from the Pacific Island School Trustees Aotearoa, told the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee in Manukau City that granting overstayers amnesty might help.

Taufua later told the Pacific Media Centre that the figures were probably much higher and New Zealand needed to take responsibility otherwise thousands of children may end up without access to health or education.

He says these children have lost their voice because they have been tied into the immigration status.

“Their rights have been breached.

“It is not their choice they end up being here,” he says.

Taufua said although Dr Jonathan Coleman, who has both the Minister of Immigration and Associate Minister of Health portfolios, said on Radio New Zealand that every child had access to education, he had failed to say that every child in New Zealand can access free education and free health.

Huge problem
“It is huge,” says Taufua. “We are talking about a generation of people without education and who when they grow up might still be in our system.

“To do nothing about this issue is both immoral and criminal,” says Taufua.

He says New Zealand needs to honour its signature to the Ottawa Charter and give children free education and health.

“The Labour government initiated a law that says children born in New Zealand of non-residential parents are not automatically New Zealanders,” says Taufua. He wants to see this changed.

Taufua told the committee that they must deal with immigration issues that affect these people as their children are suffering.

According to Radio New Zealand, Makelita Kolo, from the Tongan community, said the children rarely got health care and never used their own name when they saw a doctor. Select committee chairman John Hayes responded by saying the amnesty call was beyond the scope of the committee’s brief.

Pippa Brown is an AUT Graduate Diploma in Journalism student on internship with the Pacific Media Centre.

Potential Pacific school trustees sought
Hundreds of Pacific Island children not at school
Taufua says more needs to be done to demystify university education for Pasifika peoples

Moala explores Tongan democracy and identity issues

By Pippa Brown: Pacific Media Centre

Publisher and broadcaster Kalafi Moala led an intimate and spirited philosophical public discussion last night on what it means to be Tongan with a sense of place in the world.

The issues of modern Tonga and how to take the country forward without losing its sense of identity dominated the discussion as the kingdom moves into a fresh era as it progresses toward developing a new constitution.

When Tongans express a sense for democracy there is also a voice saying “please don’t touch my Tonganness, my identity that was established over 3000 years ago,” says Moala.

“Even radical reformists do not want to break up this system.”

Moala, who publishes both the Taimi ‘o Tonga and Tonga Chronicle, was being hosted by the Pacific Media Centre at AUT University to talk about his new book In Search of the Friendly Islands and the constitutional reform consultations.

As the problems of diaspora and the dispersing of people and culture become greater with the issues of globalisation, consequential loss of identity were likely to become more prominent, he says.

Moala introduced the statement, ‘I belong, therefore I am’, and contrasted it to ‘I think, therefore I am’, as being fundamentally important to Tongans and other Pacific peoples in knowing who they are.

He says young people are starting to question who they are as they move among other social structures and although this can relate to anyone, it applies in particular to people in the Pacific.

The quest for identity is a huge thing in the sense that for so many years being Tongan has been taken for granted.

Social relationships
“It is not so much that ‘I have’ but my belonging that shapes everything else that I am,” says Moala.

“In Tonga, the social relationship starts with the family, from the immediate family to the kainga (extended family) which contribute to the grouping of the families who make up the village which combine together to become a region and a nation which then become the fonua.

Moala says the more people look at this belonging and social structure within Tonga, it shows how the relationships work within the family and the strong traditions and headships that lead.

“It’s the people, it’s the land, it’s the nation,” says Moala.

The difference is that Western identity is based on what a person does while Tongan and Pacific identity are based on who people are and the relationship with family, village and so on.

“It is not what you do that really matters in the relationship,” says Moala.

“I belong, therefore I am: Belonging is the relationship of who we are and how we base our relationships in Tonga,” says Moala.

The structure is clearly defined even before Christianity. It is always important that we have a head of the structure from the immediate family where the father figure protects, provides and teaches to the emotional support the mother brings, he says.

Within the relationship courtesy, loyalty, sharing and love are very much part of the social structure. In this sense of structure or Kainga there is always a headship person to relate to.
It is very clear in this society knowing who people relate to, family, kainga, village, and nation and within this nation, the head, says Moala.

“We as a nation are progressing toward reform and the people want changes to happen but they are saying please don’t let it affect my Tonganness and my relationships and relationships to the land and the issues that need to be resolved spiritually for our future,” he says.

Concept of land
Tongans have a strong relationship to the land. The Tongan concept of land and the spirit and life of the land we belong to always remains even as generations come and go, says Moala.

The system of tenure and generational inheritance remains in the sense of Tonganness when returning to the homeland.

“The issues of land extend to the ocean and seabed,” says Moala.

The oceanic kingdom of Tonga comprises 169 islands, 36 of them inhabited and extends over a distance of about 800 kilometres.

Spirituality plays a large part in Tonganness. Moala sees the strong thread of spirituality that binds the people in their relationship with one another and the land as becoming stronger.

“The movement of people across borders is opening up more spirituality as there is more out there to explore,” he says.

Modernisation has made some issues difficult to grasp within the Tongan and Pacific world which are clearly defined in Western terms.

“It is important for us to find conceptual tools that we can use to construct new thought patterns to allow us to find what we are looking for,” says Moala.

“As scholars, media and academics we are trying to probe into this new era of Pacifica and we need to find and create the right conceptual tools."

“The challenge of walking into the future is how we develop new tools,” he says.

Consensual methods
The consensual methods we traditionally use to provide solutions to problems are deep in our culture together with the peace and harmony that come with it says Moala.

He says one of the problems of cultural dispersion and diaspora is that wherever Tongans and Pacific Islanders are in the world they encounter these issues of identity.

“In international cities where there are large populations of Pacific Islanders churches become very important and almost like a refuge,” says Moala.

He thinks the Pacific as a region identifies with a lot of similar issues that we need to find a solution for.

“It is important to find the tools to walk down the aisle together and discover who we really are,” says Moala.

Vaea Hopoi is a student who also works with youth who are dependent on alcohol and drugs. He thinks the biggest problem for Polynesians is a loss of identity and not knowing where they come from.

“I believe you must know your history to know who you are now and to know where you are going in the future,” says Hopoi.

Moala questions why the Pacific region is trying to solve the current Fiji political problem in an confrontational way.

“Why not solve it in a Pacific way and let the Pacific sovereignty leaders meet Fiji and see how we can open up the dialogue,” he asks.

Moala thinks New Zealand is a country that is standing in confrontation with Fiji so Māori may offer a solution. Going in as an outsider hasn’t worked but to look at the issue as Pacific brothers in the broader sense of fonua may work.

New framework
“It hasn’t been solved within the current framework so we need to find another one,” he says.
He thinks the Forum had the right to suspend Fiji “but we don’t need to keep beating them up.”

Moala says the heads of government in the Pacific Island Forum may have some conflict with the duality of the Pacific and Western frameworks.

It is important to apply criticism and look at the challenges facing the Tongan and Pacific Island people he thinks. He says rather than standing outside and looking in we need to come to the culture.

“While it hurts talking about these things it feels good to be a part of it,” says Moala. “We need to report on it but report on it from our own perspective.”

David Robie, associate professor in communication studies at AUT and director of the Pacific Media Centre, commented on how Moala was one of the only journalists in the Pacific who is reflecting on these new issues of belongingness and sense of identity.

“Media reflects a society and its sense of identity and yet in the Pacific this is very much influenced by New Zealand and Australia,” says Dr Robie.

Moala thinks people need to learn to be comfortable with the two sides of traditional belonging and Western way of thinking, to overcome the confusion with identity.

He says some concepts cannot be explained because the tools are not there and “it may be a role for Pacific scholars to investigate and construct these tools and find how to put it in words”.

Top photo of Kalafi Moala last night by Pippa Brown; photo of Moala and Taimi in Nuku'alofa by David Robie. - PMC .

Pippa Brown is an AUT Graduate Diploma in Journalism student on internship with the Pacific Media Centre.

In Search of the Friendly Islands, by Kalafi Moala, published by the Pasifika Foundation
Taimi 'o Tonga

NZ media 'misses point' in visa scam, says Tongan group

By Josephine Latu: Pacific Media Watch

Tongan Advisory Council chairman Melino Maka (pictured) has criticised New Zealand’s mainstream media for “missing the point” in coverage of an alleged visa scam on Pacific Islanders.

Manukau-based immigration consultant, Gerrard Otimi, appeared in court yesterday and entered no pleas on three charges of deception.

The charges against Otimi involve the alleged stamping of passports with visas for overstaying Pacific Island immigrants at a cost of $500 and adoption by his hapu.

The New Zealand Herald reported that $40,000 had been uncovered by police yesterday in the Manukau area as well as 5000 blank “hapu certificates”.

The police and immigration departments have since called for duped Pacific Islanders to come forward, although there is no guarantee of amnesty.

Maori Affairs Minister Pita Sharples said he sympathised with the islanders involved in the alleged scam, while Pacific Island Affairs Minister Georgina te Heuheu called the deceit “deplorable”, especially with “some of the most vulnerable people in our country” as victims.

Maka told Pacific Media Watch he planned to arrange a lawyer to look into the Tongan cases involved in the alleged scam.

He also added that the spotlight should be on the perpetrators and not the victims.

“The mainstream [media] is not sympathetic. They don’t know how it is, and perhaps they don’t want to know. But they tend to sensationalise the issue,” he said.

A news release from the council stated that most media fail to recognise two major issues “driving people to take such extreme steps”.

This includes a “very mixed history” in NZ Immigration Department’s dealings with Pacific Island issues, including a “high level of poor decisions”.

Also, the council claimed that complaints from Pacific Islanders about misinformation and mishandling on the part of immigration consultants were “not treated as high a priority as removing the overstayers themselves”.

Maka said the Tonga Advisory Council would organise “free advice workshops” for immigrants next month to deal with these issues.

Courts 'have no right to judge tikanga Māori'

Tributes farewell the 'father' of Pacific studies

By Pippa Brown: Pacific Media Centre

Tributes flowed as families, friends and colleagues gathered in Auckland to say goodbye to the man they called “Papa Ron”, before his final journey home to the Cook Islands today.

About 150 people gathered at a memorial service yesterday at the Pacific Islands Presbyterian Church in Newton to remember professor emeritus Dr Ron Crocombe, known as the father figure of Pacific studies.

Family and friends were joined by ex-students, politicians, learned colleagues and academics who spoke of this great - but humble - man, a leading academic in the Pacific and founding professor of the University of the Pacific’s Institute of Pacific Studies.

Professor Ron Crocombe died suddenly in Auckland on Friday while on his way home to Rarotonga, where he will be buried today.

Born in Auckland and brought up in the King Country, he lived his life as a passionate advocate for the Pacific Islands and the people.

A great traveller, during his time in the Pacific he mentored many Pacific Islanders, a lot of them becoming outstanding leaders in governments and organisations throughout the region.

His family spoke of his love of people, how their home would fill with young people who would return years later as judges, prime ministers and leading academics.

Tata Crocombe, the eldest of Dr Crocombe’s four children, honoured his father at the service and spoke about his strong sense of duty and inclusiveness.

“It was a hand up not a hand out,” he said.

He said his father had tremendous respect for everyone and went beyond the barriers people created and had a natural ability to connect with all people.

Bridge builder
He treated everyone with the same respect and his trademark was to stick out his hand, to anybody and everybody and introduce himself, said Tata Crocombe.

He was an educator, social scientist and bridge builder and believed in the University of the South Pacific whole heartedly.

Tata Crocombe said the memorial service was a “celebration of a good man who left a good legacy”.

Passionate about the Pacific he would argue with anybody in order to get them to understand the Pacific better.

Dr Crocombe also had a strong connection with New Zealand Māori. He spoke many of the Pacific languages including Cook Islands Māori, New Zealand Māori, French and Tok Pisin.

He wanted the Pacific Island people to find their own confidence and ways to go forward. “All he wanted was for people to find their own conscience, wisdom, truth and have the willingness to listen and be open to others opinion,” said Tata Crocombe.

He was a true educator and always helping someone out. He wanted to bring the best out in people. He believed people should be “the best you can be”, and would try to get everyone to achieve that goal, said Tata Crocombe.

Dr Crocombe was the author of many books and an energetic writer. One of his recent volumes Asia in the Pacific Islands: Replacing the West, points to the decline in influence of New Zealand, Australia and European countries within the Pacific, and the rapid acceleration of Asian migration and power into the Pacific Islands.

Tata Crocombe spoke about his father’s ability to see through the political and social structure and understand how the country was going to change.

“He predicted 20 to 30 years ago the rise of Asia, not only in the Pacific but in the world,” said Tata Crocombe.

Definitive book
Younger son, Kevin Crocombe spoke of a lost chance as Dr Crocombe had really wanted to write a definitive book on the Cook Islands that he had started drafting.

“It is a tragedy that it was not finished,” said Kevin. “Reading Dad’s books are like having a chat with him. They are such an easy read.”

He was a cheerful academic said Kevin Crocombe.

“He was always wisecracking, joking and had a different point of view on everything.”

Dr Robert Woonton, former Prime Minister of the Cook Islands from 2002 to 2004, spoke of his deep respect for Dr Crocombe and the standards he set in education and for the people of the Pacific Islands.

He said Dr Crocombe was not just a Kiwi but a Cook Islander over and over again. He covered the Pacific from Polynesia, Melanesia and Micronesia.

Dr Mary Salisbury, lecturer in linguistics at Massey University said she spoke on behalf of Kiwi academics and the mark he had left on academia. He had such breadth of knowledge, not just in one area but the whole of the Pacific.

“No one could fill his shoes,” she said.

Dr Salisbury told of his generosity and open heart, the time he always had to give, the time he gave because he loved people so much. She thought it a great legacy if his dream, his final word and book on the Cook Islands could be written by a Cook Islander.

International fellows
Dr David Robie, associate professor in communication studies at AUT University and director of the Pacific Media Centre, had been with Dr Crocombe in Tonga last week when, together, they and four other international academics were inducted as international fellows of ‘Atenisi University in a special ceremony.

Dr Robie paid homage to Dr Crocombe as an exceptional man who was an inspiration all over the Pacific.

“He was an extraordinary mentor to Pacific Islanders and wherever he went he took books,” said Dr Robie.

He quoted from a tribute from Professor Rajesh Chandra, vice-chancellor of the University of the South Pacific, emphasising that Dr Crocombe would be remembered as a humble man, disdainful of hypocrisy and of self-proclaimed experts, who devoted his professional life to explaining the Pacific to those from elsewhere.

He will be remembered with enormous respect by all those with whom he worked and those he taught.

“A scholar and a gentleman, Ron Crocombe is sadly missed by his numerous friends and admirers at the University of the South Pacific,” said Dr Robie.

Just four months short of turning 80, Dr Crocombe is survived by his wife, Marjorie, four children Tata, Ngaire, Kevin and Sam, and many grandchildren.

Top photograph: Ron and Marjorie Crocombe (The Fiji Times); other photos - the pallbearers, Tata Crocombe and PMC's David Robie (Photos: Pippa Brown).

Pippa Brown is an AUT Graduate Diploma in Journalism student on internship with the Pacific Media Centre.

David Robie's tribute
Brij Lal's tribute
Croz Walsh's tribute
Pacific Minister Te Heuheu says Crocombe will be sadly missed