Pacific Island journalists and broadcasters in New Zealand have paid tribute to veteran broadcaster and journalist Elma MaUa who has passed away after a long illness.
MaUa was one of the first Pacific Island women journalists in the NZ media industry.
Journalists and broadcasters remembered MaUa in their own way, hosting their own memorial events.
Former colleague and Pacificeyewitness website publisher Vienna Richards shared her memories.
“I first met Elma in the mid-1990s. She was doing a story on Pacific women and the issues they faced with the mainstream health system,” Richards said. “I was working in health at the time and she called me up out of the blue for an interview.” Richards remembers thinking “this woman is on to it”. It was only after MaUa’s death on April 28 did Richards recall that it was her first experience of being interviewed by a Pacific Islands journalist - and a woman.
MaUa was known for her passion for Pacific media with her involvement with the Pacific Islands Media Association (PIMA).
Richards said: “She was a real professional, and told it like it was.”
“I will miss her and it’s a real shame we won’t have her as a mentor for the next lot of Pacific journalists and broadcasters coming through.”
Pacific Radio News newsreader Jae’d Victor, a veteran of 18 years in Pacific radio, recalled his time working with MaUa at Niu FM.
“She was a woman who had so much knowledge. She was an expert in her field, particularly in sport,”he said.
“Elma was never one to mince words!” Victor added.
“Those of our Pacific journalist/broadcasters already in the media industry, need to put their foot forward and ensure the doors are open for up and coming journalists so they can make their mark like Elma did.”
MaUa, who migrated to New Zealand in the mid-1950s from the Cook Islands, was one of the first Pacific journalists to work for Radio New Zealand in the mid-1980s.
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.
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.
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.
Congratulations to John Woods for his new role! And especially to Phil and Wendy for keeping the Cook Islands News daily going through an economic crisis - something I wasn't able to do - and providing one of the stronger examples of media independence in the face of years of political interference in the industry. Look forward to hearing some day what will be their next venture. But in the meantime, some well deserved rest is long overdue! Kia manuia, Jason Brown
Kia orana all, After my last clumsy contribution to an email discussion regards issues facing the Cook Islands media industry I thought I would express apologies again to all concerned. And try again! In the end, I did not get around to making a submission to the select committee - too many parliaments not enough time. However I will try to get something to government in some form or another. In the meantime, I am concerned that a senior member of the industry profession is saying he would not support re-establishment of a journalism association. I can only compare this with the news that journalists in New Zealand are holding their first convention in twenty years this weekend. Twenty years! By comparison, journalists and media workers and managers in the Cook Islands and other island states have been a model of good governance, meeting dozens if not hundreds of times in the last decade. In retrospect, I think it is little short of astonishing what has been achieved nationally and regionally in a short space of time with very limited resources. It is my hope that some debate can be continued centred around recognising those achievements and the fundamental fact that no industry is an island and needs to reach out to colleagues and even competitors. Burying our heads in the sand is not an option. Too many hurricanes for a start. Enough for now, but also like to pass on feedback from the media audience that coverage of corruption and other issues is proceeding in feisty fashion, on to it! Kia toa, Jason Brown
Post to us! This blog is for stories filed by the Asia-Pacific Journalism course Global Watch postgraduate student team and your responses. Post comment on articles published on the PMC and Pacific Media Watch websites at AUT University, Auckland, Aotearoa/New Zealand. The views expressed on this blog are those of the authors and do not represent the university. PMC director: David Robiewww.pmc.aut.ac.nz
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