Sope seeks July amnesty

Vanuatu

IN four months’ time on July 30 the long-ruling government of Father Walter Lini will want to be giving out gifts in the Vanuatu capital of Port Vila. The event is the 10th anniversary of independence from Britain and France. For the government such an occasion should mark unique events, one of which could be the release from Port

Vila prison of 71-year-old political rebel

Jimmy Moli Stevens.

Stevens was jailed for 14 years and six months in August 1980 for his part in leading the Santo Rebellion, a secession ist movement which Lini’s government had to crush with the help of troops from Papua New Guinea. He was sent enced to an extra two years and three months in 1982 when he and other pris oners broke from prison and tried to flee the main island of Efate by boat.

But nearly nine years after being locked up, Stevens has again become a political football. His name has been brought into play again by the Melanesian Progressive Party which is led by political rebel Barak Sope, a prominent Port Vila

businessman, a former cabinet minister and now strong opponent of Prime Minister Walter Lini. In a convention which ended last month the party prop osed among other things to ask for Stevens’ release to mark the 10th

anniversary of independence.

The Government didn’t take too kind ly to the proposal, especially when other MPP resolutions called for a tougher campaign to topple Lini’s ruling Vanua’aku Party in general elections in November next year, and alleged the government did not encourage a free press. A spokesman for the Ministry of Home Affairs, First Secretary Martin Tamata, told Pacific Islands Monthly that by taking up Stevens’ imprisonment as a political issue, MPP may have jeopardised his release. “It is the pre rogative of the national government to grant amnesty to prisoners during the tenth anniversary of independence but Mr Sope is trying to gain credit by mak ing such a public appeal,” said Tamata.

Stevens, he said, “has a total of 16 years and nine months to complete . , . that means he could be a free man in 1995”.

Tamata explained that Stevens’ future is with the Government and the “approv al could only come from the Home Affairs Minister, Mr lolu Abbil,” □

Barak Sope: free Stevens.