that became

“The scandal that became a bore”

Under the headline “The scandal that has become a bore”, jour nalist Stephen Rice wrote in The Sydney Morning Herald of Sep tember 9: “Almost everyone in Fiji will heave a sigh of relief later this month when Sir John White hands down his report on allega tions of outside interference in the country’s last elections.”

Rice noted that the relief will undoubtedly be shared by the Australian Broadcasting Com mission producer Peter Manning, whose Four Comers programs sparked both the Fiji inquiry and another Royal Commission held in Sydney earlier this year into suggestions on a Four Comers program that the Premier of New South Wales, Neville Wran, may have acted to pervert the course of justice in a 1977 court case in

Sydney. The Sydney inquiry

completely vindicated Mr Wran, but Rice adds: “ ... it seems unlikely that Fiji’s Prime Minis ter Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara will emerge from his Royal Commis sion with as little evident damage as Mr Wran.

“The Wran Royal Commis sion undoubtedly left some bit terness in its wake, but the Fiji inquiry has been forced to ex amine allegations which go to the heart of racial policy in that country.”

After canvassing the issues in the Fiji inquiry, including the alleged involvement of Aust ralians Alan Carroll and Clive Speed in devising the election campaign strategy of Ratu Mara’s Alliance Party, and Ratu Mara’s allegations of Soviet political and financial involve ment in supporting the Opposi tion National Federation Party, Rice writes: “Ratu Mara has claimed the Russians wanted him to lose the 1982 election because they re garded him as an obstacle to their efforts to win influence in the South Pacific Islands . . .

“Many people in Fiji have become bored by the examina tion and re-examination of the

Carroll-Speed allegations and

consider the Royal Commission

an unjustified waste of time and money (about $lOOO a day).

“The inquiry was promised by the government (and supported by the oppostion) in the highly charged atmosphere of last year’s election campaign.

“But neither side has emerged well from the inquiry, and both will probably be happy when it is well behind them.’’