Letters

Court clarifies rape approach

TWO of the matters raised by Ms Peni Moore of the Women’s Rights Movement in the article “Fighting the Battle Against Rape” (January issue) need to be clarified.

First, Ms Moore was wrong in thinking that the Chiefjustice could direct that all rape cases be heard in the High Court rather than in the Magistrates’ Courts as well as at present.

To take away the jurisdiction of Magistrates’ Courts to hear rape cases would need a change in the law.

The Chiefjustice sees much merit in a change of the law to exclude Magistrates’ Courts from dealing with rape cases. Their involvement has not been a great success. Prior to 1974 all rape cases used to be dealt with only by the Supreme Court (now the High Court). It was in 1974 that the

Magistrates’ Courts were given

jurisdiction to hear rape cases. It may well be that a return to the pre-1974 position is call for. However, that is a matter for the government.

Second, Ms Moore complained about the withdrawal of the earlier guidelines on rape sentencing. This was done for technical reasons. The law gives

Magistrates’ Courts complete discretion

in their sentencing of rape cases. Such discretion is subject only to the constraints set by the ambit of their lawful powers. The earlier guidelines were inappropriate in that they could be construed as impinging upon the

exercise by Magistrates of their judicial

discretion. Therefore the guidelines had to be withdrawn.

Sekove Naqiolevu

Chief Registrar,

High Court of Fiji Free Jimmy Stevens!

TEN years after the independence of Vanuatu, former Nagriamel leader Jimmy Stevens, who must now be a very old man, is still in prison. To me, this runs counter to common decency and is a breach ofhuman rights. Jimmy Stevens is one of the few people in the ex-New Hebrides to have actually paid for his political convictions with his blood and his liberty; the blood of his son, shot down by the New Guinea soldiers called in to put down what is now known as the Santo Rebellion, and 10 long years of imprisonment.

As a descendant of both the European

planters of the ex-New Hebrides and the Melanesian people of those same islands, I feel duty bound to express my indignation at this state of affairs, which does no honour to those responsible for it. Freejimmy Stevens, and let us have more liberty and less pettiness in the Pacific countries and in the world.

Ronald Corlette Theui

Paris, France Review was ‘unfair’

IN her review of my recent book, Blood on their Banner: Nationalist Struggles in the South Pacific {PIMBooks, November), Sandra Tarte well highlighted the key themes and issues. It was a generous and favourable commentary.

It was unfortunate that it was marred by many typographical errors (as in the headline “Of martyrs and nationalism”) and misspellings (as in Bloi Machoro twice becoming “Marchoro”). More importantly, however, the review contained several distortions which need to be corrected. I’ll confine myself to just two of these.

First, Ms Tarte unfairly

misrepresented my perspective on

women in nationalist struggles. Perhaps she has a point about not enough being said about women (although this has far more to do with the theme of another publishing project that I have in progress and the fact that other books have concentrated on a woman’s

perspective).

The three examples of what Ms Tarte purports to be my “women’s perspective” are selectively cited out of context or (in one case) misquoted. The “self-confessed liar and heroin user” (my actual words, p. 164) in the Remelik assassination case was necessarily described this way because her

“inherently incredible” (the appeal

judge’s judgement) testimony led to

three men being wrongfully convicted of murder (they were later acquitted); the sexual inclination description about the French spy was crucial to explaining her

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infiltration strategy and success; and the cited women interviewers of Rabuka accepted the propaganda without any critical analysis.

Does the fact that I gave “jaundiced” descriptions of many men in the book somehow suggest a certain perspective on men? Really.

Ms Tarte makes no mention of the timing or publishing history of the book, which is vital when considering the Bougainville crisis and economic implications for the region. The book was written before the present crisis began in November 1988 (apart from some brief factual changes to the typeset in May 1989).

Blood on their Banner was first translated into Swedish and published as a hardcover edition in Scandinavia in mid-1989. Editions followed in Britain, United States and then Australia. It is

shortly being published in the

Philippines, and French and German language editions (including sections on

Bougainville) are also being planned.

David Robie

Auckland Correction: key part of Fabian Hutchinson’s review of Missionary Lives published in January’s PIM was left out due to lack of space. The omitted section is as follows: ‘The Pacific history ‘group portrait’ approach was pioneered by Dr Niel Gunson: his Messengers of Grace (1978) analysed the backgrounds of EVvangelical missionaries in the South Seas and the importance they gave to ‘converting’ and ‘civilising’. ...It is necessary to note an unfortunate tendency that this reviewer has noticed in some recent Pacific histories: selective referencing that fails to acknowledge fellow scholars’ work on the same subjects and sources.

Readers of PNG history may be surprised to find no acknowledgement, in ch. 5, of Dr David Wetherell’s writings, specifically in discussion of Anglicans’ cultural attitudes ... (pp 112-113) ... full referencing is essential to respect the interest of readers.

Finally, what of the wider context of colonial Papua? ... mission differences among themselves with the traders, and with officials, over policies such as polygamy (and), prohibition, are thoroughly discussed.’