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Behind Fiji's Prison Troubles

ideas about rehabilitation. Some people think that these ideas are rapidly transforming Fiji gaols into homes from home.

More than a year ago a similar situation was avoided by what !sonic people regarded as a weakening of authorny-a parley with the men, Wh ThN ad nariev Sed was followed *bv a

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toTvel P mme ner th n an 0 *0 "ccusattom against the then Acting Gaoler. It seems he was “unkind” to them. Only several minor complaints were eventually found to have any substance.

One of the good things which came out of the inquiry was an admirable report by the magistrate, Mr. Moti Tikaram, which pinpointed several

weaknesses m the system, and led to the new Prisons Bill. what it failed to do, however, was to discover the real reason for the pr isoners’ complaints.

They were based on rac i a ii sm? and rac i a ii S m is one of the causes of the latest outburst . It is no secret t 0 those who haVe Cared ‘° lo ° k beneath Mixed Race The Acting Gaoler on whom the prisoners vented their spleen, and the present Superintendent of Prisons, are both of mixed race—part-Europeans.

Fijian and Indian prisoners have, in side and outside the prisons, expressed their opposition to being governed by a part-European.

An avowed aim of the criminal element is to force the Government to change the men at the top of the Prisons Department.

A second and more distant one, the aim of persons not usually bracketed with the criminal element, is a political one.

Attempts are being made and will be made to cause trouble and violence in the Colony as the various races and political groups tackle the problems associated with an emergent country, especially a country like Fiji which, racially, has many hurdles to jump.

There are elements who plan for active intervention by the United Nations in the affairs of Fiji. And for people such as these what better excuse than the excuse that the Colony, when it achieves self-govern ment, is not able to maintain law and order?