New Gaol Terms For

Fiji Unionists

Two prominent trade union leaders in Fiji received gaol terms in October on charges which rose from the waterside workers’ strike in July and August. They were Taniela Veitata, industrial adviser of the Fiji Waterside Workers’ and Sea men’s Union, and Apisai Tora, general secretary of the Sugar and General Workers’ Union, and a member of the National Federation Party in parliament until his defeat in the September general election.

Veitata, already serving a term for an earlier breach of the Trade Disputes Act, received another nine months, on each of two charges of counselling and influencing mem bers of the union to break their con tracts of service. The terms are to be served concurrently at the end of four six month terms (at present being served concurrently) imposed for the earlier breaches of the act.

Tora, a stormy petrel in Fiji trade unions for nearly 20 years, was sen tenced to 12 months imprisonment for a violation of the Sugar Industry Ordinance. He was arrested and charged after a slopwork meeting at the Lautoka mill in August.

The magistrate, Mr Hugh Sinclair, did not mince his words in finding Tora guilty.

“His warlike and chauvinistic words in a press release to the media leave me in no doubt he firmly in tended to do battle with the govern ment and with the rule of law to secure the release of a fellow trade unionist,” Mr Sinclair said. “By it he wanted also to establish the pre cept that might is stronger than right.”