PACIFIC ISLANDS REPORT

Pacific Islands Development Program/East-West Center
With Support From Center for Pacific Islands Studies/University of Hawai‘i

By Peter Wagner

HONOLULU (Pacific Islands Report, Dec.9) – Pressure is mounting in the Pacific island nation of Tonga to reconsider its censure of a probing newspaper.

But Tonga, oldest of Polynesian cultures and the region’s only monarchy, is standing firm in the face of growing condemnation over its conflicts with the free press.

"All things have limits," said His Royal Highness, Prince Ulukalala Lavaka Ata, in rare interview outside his native country.

The 44-year-old prince, who is also Prime Minister and a potential heir to Tonga’s throne, spoke recently with Pacific Islands Report about his government’s running battle with the weekly newspaper Taimi o Tonga and with continuing pressure in the region to conform to Western ways.

"It seems to me that newspapers need to be accountable to society and to themselves, just like everybody else," said the prince. "They just railroad over everybody and do these things in the name of the free press."

The Taimi o Tonga, or "Times of Tonga," earlier this year was banned as a threat to the Kingdom of Tonga, a government action that was overturned by the country’s supreme court in June. But the Tongan language newspaper – a discordant alternative to Tonga’s government-controlled news media – now finds itself on the wrong side of a recent constitutional amendment.

The newspaper, published in New Zealand by expatriate Kalafi Moala, has been nipping at the heels of the Tongan system of government since 1989 (See: Battling Taimi o Tonga Flourishing Abroad). While the government, a constitutional monarchy since 1875, has a 30-member parliament to enact laws, just nine members known as "commoners" are elected by popular vote. The rest are appointed for life by the 85-year-old King Taufaahau Tupou IV or elected by an aristocracy of "nobles" created under the country’s constitution more than a century ago. The result has been a parliamentary hybrid under the full control of the king that has changed little in Tonga’s long history of absolute rule.

But Prince Ulukalala said the Taimi o Tonga’s conflict with authority was brought on by one-sided reporting and a lack of professional standards - something he notes can only be judged by those able to read the Tongan-language newspaper. The paper, he said, has broken all the rules of fair reporting in a crusade to undermine the authority of the ruling family.

"We’d rather they self-regulate," Ulukalala said. "The government of Tonga doesn’t have the time to go around persecuting and prosecuting the press. I’ve got a country to run. But anything that is prejudicial to the public good, whether it’s that particular newspaper or any newspaper, I think has got to have limits. To me, it’s bigger than one newspaper."

The government’s battle against the Taimi o Tonga has indeed broadened in recent months. Moving from arrests and charges of sedition last year to an outright ban on the Taimi o Tonga in February, Tongan lawmakers in October took the dramatic step of changing the country’s constitution to put an end to troublesome newspapers forever. Moala, whose newspaper triggered the recently signed amendments, said the action will not only silence the Taimi o Tonga but bring and end to free speech in Tonga.

"It’s like an American citizen waking up one morning without the Fifth Amendment," said Moala, who predicts the Taimi o Tonga will leave Tonga by the end of the year. "It really puts us back in the dark ages."

Moala’s 1992 book "Island Kingdom Strikes Back," which details his experiences as an independent publisher in Tonga, says Tongans have no wish to overthrow the King.

"Abolishing the monarchy is not an option. Most Tongans seem happy to have a monarch. The balance of power is the issue," Moala writes.

King Taufaahau Tupou IV made a strong statement of authority when he signed the controversial free speech amendments into law two weeks ago. It came in face of a major public demonstration against the amendments – a rarity in the quiet kingdom.

In October, days before the amendments were approved by parliament, more than 5,000 Tongans took to the streets of the capitol of Nukualofa and elsewhere in Tonga to protest the planned changes. It was reportedly the largest and most vocal public protest in an increasingly restive community.

Ten years earlier, in the country’s only other recorded protest, a far smaller and less demonstrative crowd showed up at the gates of parliament to humbly petition the government against selling passports to Chinese immigrants. That event was similarly overlooked by Tongan authorities.

But Ulukalala said Tongan rulers should not be swayed by such uprisings.

"We all swear an oath when we enter the government of this country that we will do what we think is best for this country, and not to be influenced by other things or other people," he told Pacific Islands Report.

The tall, well-educated Prince Ulukalala is the third son, and fourth child, of King Taufaahau Tupou IV. Well-spoken and diplomatic, Ulukalala was selected by the king as Prime Minister in 2000, over his older brother, Crown Prince Tupoutoa.

In the Tongan system of government, Ulukalala also serves as Minister of Civil Aviation, Minister of Defense, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Minister of Forestry, and Minister of Telecommunication.

Ulukalala’s diplomatic skills were evident during the recent Pacific Islands Conference of Leaders at the East-West Center in Honolulu, where he was elected chairman of the regional forum. He has appeared before the United Nations and travels widely in the region to meet with heads of government.

But despite his personal charm, Prince Ulukalala is facing both internal rumblings and condemnation in the region over Tonga’s authoritarian rule. The New Zealand Government, which strongly protested the 1996 arrest and jailing of Moala and an outspoken member of parliament, Akilisi Pohiva, recently undertook a formal review of its US$3.6 million annual aid program for Tonga.

But Prince Ulukalala, whose lineage runs deep in Tonga’s system of ruling chiefs, is far from bowed.

"Don’t you think we should control our own destiny? he asked. Why should people overseas who don’t help us, who spend all their time trying to pull the government down, pull the Tongan system down, why should we let those people win? It’s a crusade; a crusade against us because we’re not the same as you."

While most of the Pacific has followed the path of Western democracy – a legacy of nineteenth century colonialism – Tonga escaped the full attention of American and European imperialists. "The Friendly Islands" – a scattering of 169 islands south of Samoa, were united as a kingdom in 1845 by Ulukalala’s ancestor, King George Tupou I. Tonga became a constitutional monarchy in 1875 and a British protectorate in 1900. Full independence came 1970 and, as a member of the British Commonwealth, Tonga remains the only monarchy in the Pacific.

"I think we have to work it out our own way," Ulukalala said. "And maybe we make mistakes, but they’re our mistakes. Democracy is not the great end-all and be-all. Why do you want to impose your values upon us? Thank you, we have values of our own."

And as other Pacific island countries continue to struggle for stability, Tonga hearkens to a 3,000-year-old culture and a ruling dynasty that reaches back to 950 A.D.

The prince said his Western critics fail to understand Tonga and its proud culture.

"You don’t see things as a Tongan," he told Pacific Islands Report. "You see things as a Westerner. So it’s very hard for you to understand. This is an independent country."

Pacific scholars say that Tonga, and its Polynesian neighbor to the North, Samoa, indeed stand apart from other cultures in the Pacific. While both countries were profoundly changed by Christian missionaries – Tonga is predominantly Methodist and Samoa Congregational – both have held proudly to their ancient system of ruling chiefs.

Ulukalala notes that Tonga’s loudest critics are in Australia and New Zealand – the dominant Western democracies in the region.

"Why should we follow your path?" he asked. "Pure democracy doesn’t work for island countries. Cite me an island country where democracy has worked in the Pacific."

He points to the instability that has torn Bougainville and the nearby Solomon Islands in recent years.

But with advanced degrees from colleges in Australia and the United States, Prince Ulukalala sees much worth borrowing from Western culture. He cites high technology as a particular boon to Tonga, where residents are scattered among 36 of the country’s 169 islands.

"I think we should take the things from the West that are good and technology is certainly one of them," he said. "We can use technology to cut down distances and to enable ‘tele-health’ and ‘tele-education’."

He notes that Tonga has among the lowest telephone and Internet rates in the Pacific – about .25 U.S. cents per minute for calls from Tonga to the United States. Tonga has also achieved rapid growth in telecommunications in recent years, going from about 6 percent market penetration in 1990 to over 15 percent today, he said.

"We brought in competition," he said. "Instead of the government owning the only phone company, we opened it up and now we have two phone companies – one government-owned and the other private. And there may be room for a third. We’re looking at that."

The country’s current Internet providers include the government-owned Tonga Communications Corp., which operates as Kalianet, and the privately-operated Tonfon. Tonfon, which recently approached American Samoa to join its network, is owned by Shoreline Group Ltd, which is  headed by Crown Prince Tupoutoa.

These and other business involvements by members of the royal family – Ulukalala’s sister, Princess Pilolevu Tuita is majority shareholder in a telecommunications satellite company that represents the Tongan government - have drawn concern from critics of Tonga’s ruling system and provided fodder for the Taimi o Tonga.

But despite its interest in telecommunications, Tonga characteristically seeks to use it to protect, not change, its culture. Ulukalala said Tonga has built primary and secondary schools on its outlying islands to keep school children at home and in their villages. Access to the Internet, he said, will allow college students to stay at home as well, taking online courses from schools around the world.

"History has shown that once high school students are taken from their island and go to the main island, where there are lots of distractions - like nightclubs, noisy neighbors, beer; things that aren’t very good for study - their study habits degenerate," he said. "But if you supply their studies to them, where they are, where their parents are, where they have family safety nets, they actually do better."

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