(o+) How to Stir the Pot by Pramod Rae

Wednesday 11th March. The Fiji Times (11 March 2009) reported ("Police Search Two News Media Offices for Letters") that police have searched FijiTV and FijiTimes offices for letters addressed to the Interim PM. Police wanted to obtain copies of the letters and know how they had been obtained. Earlier the PM said he had not yet received one of the letters. If this were true, someone was tampering with the mail, and passing it on to others to whom it is not addressed, who then made the letters' contents public. Police must respond to accusations of theft or the publication of letters to which an individual or the media has no legal right.

The very same day, Wednesday, relying entirely on what they had been told from Fiji, the International Federation of Journalists condemned police (and by inference Government) action as "harassment of Fiji media". "The search warrants and questioning of Rika appear to be part of a systematic campaign of intimidation against Fiji's media," said IFJ Asia-Pacific director Jacqueline Park in Sydney.

Deeper things may be afoot than the IFJ knows. The whole situation may have been staged. For the IFJ to "cry wolf" every time an office is searched could mean they will not be listened to when it really matters.

Thursday 12th March. The Fiji Times editorial ("Intimidation Tactics") wrote of "a new level of intimidation" and police "heavy-handed tactics [that] do little to repair relationships strained by events of the past two years." They said the "copy seized by police was an unaddressed facsimile signed by representatives of the UN and the Commonwealth" and sent to all parties involved in the UN/Commonwealth discussions , not just the PM.

Also on Thursday. NGO Coalition on Human Rights chairperson, Virisila Buadromo (and the Fiji Women's Rights Movement), complained about "repeated attacks against the freedom of the media".

Friday 13th March ... And the Truth is Revealed. "Yes, We Released Letter, Says NFP" in the Fiji Times. National Federation Party GenSec Pramod Rae announced he was the person who gave the media the UN/Commonwealth letters which led, as he must have known it would, to the police questioning, the condemnation of police action -- and the Interim Government -- by the International Federation of Journalists, further condemnation of assaults on media freedom by the NGO Coalition on Human Rights, and others.

The Fiji Times reports: "He said the NFP felt obligated to identify itself as the source of information that the regime was raving and ranting about for no reason." After allowing the situation to grow and fester for two days? When he could have made an immediate statement and prevented the subsequent sequence of events?

His point that the letter was not a personal letter addressed exclusively to the PM may well be true (and the action of the police, acting properly on a complaint, may therefore have been unwarranted and excessive). But -- and my wording is generous -- his actions (in the use of the media and today's late revelation) were transparently "mischievous". He had achieved his purpose. A less generous person might wish it to come back and bite him!