29 JUNE 2000 NUKU'ALOFA (Pacnews) ----- The racially motivated seizure of
Fiji's elected Government is merely the latest manifestation of a deeply
ingrained racism prevalent throughout the South Pacific says Tonga's Crown
Prince Tupouto'a.
"The approach to life in the Pacific Islands sails closely to what we
refer
to as ethnicity, which is the way anthropologists and paternalistic aid
donors forgive our basic racism," the Prince said in a magazine interview.
A group of gunmen led by failed businessman George Speight has held Fiji's
ethnic-Indian Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry and much of his Government
hostage since May 19. Speight said he was acting on behalf of indigenous
Fijians. One of his demands was the denial of voting rights to ethnic
Indians, who make up 44 per cent of Fiji's population.
Ethnic animosity also led to the overthrow of the Solomon Islands Government
earlier this month.
"In such a climate of trendy racism we should not at all be surprised
that
common thugs such as Speight and his fellow traitors are able to justify
treason with blatant racism," Tupouto'a said in this week's Matangi Tonga
magazine.
"As long as racism is practised against white men, the native peoples
of the
South Pacific are always said to be finding their identities or asserting
their traditional values."
The 52-year-old Prince, a former Minister of Defence and Foreign Affairs,
said he was speaking personally rather than as the King's eldest son and
heir. He did not spare Tonga from his criticism.
"Many countries have racially based land laws and, in Tonga's case,
actually enshrined for so long that they have been hallowed by time and have
undeservedly assumed the quality of religious and cultural truth," he said.
In Tonga, land can be held only by Tongan men and is passed down through
families. "Another example ... was the racially motivated and cowardly
violence which young jobless and, dare I say it, hopeless Tongans, visited
on our Chinese-owned shops last year; an act of such barbarity that it
shamed and disgusted me and every other Tongan of my generation," Tupouto'a
said.
The Tonga Chinese Association complained last year of around 40 cases of
harassment of Chinese businessmen, including some assaults, during a
political row over the alleged sale of Tongan passports to Chinese people.
The Prince also criticised Australia and New Zealand trade unions for
refusing to handle cargo to and from Fiji, a tactic he said failed in the
last Fijian coup in 1987. "I fail to see how immediately impoverishing
the
Fijian people could, at a stroke, restore the legally elected Government and
shame Speight into releasing the hostages...PNS (ENDS)
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