freedom

Media

Degrees of

Vanuatu government tries to disprove a Freedom House finding that its media is partly free \ especially in this crucial election year

By Patrick Decloitre

Last year Vanuatu (along with Fiji and Tonga) rated “partly free” in a survey published by Freedom House, a New York-based research organisation, which classified 10 countries of the region as “free”. But since it came to power in December 1991, the Vanuatu govern ment, led by Prime Minister Maxime Carlot, has regularly professed it promot ed freedom of expression and freedom of the Press.

What is the situation really like in Vanuatu in 1995, the year of general elec tions?

Vanuatu’s national media consist main ly of the government-controlled Radio Vanuatu and Vanuatu Weekly newspa per. Radio Vanuatu, an AM station, also has a sister FM station, Nambawan FM 98. The FM station broadcasts only to Port Vila and the town of Luganville and carries music and short news bulletins.

The French-funded TV Blong Vanuatu, which has four-hour daily broadcasts, alternately in English and French, does not carry local news at all - not even international footage it receives every day.

The rest of the non-govemment media are Trading Post, a newspaper, and

newsletters of political parties - like Vanuaaki Pali’s Viewpoints, edited by party coordinator Peter Taurokoto.

Viewpoints, published weekly and print ed on a small duplicating machine, con sists of a half dozen A 4 sheets. It is high ly critical of the government in the party press releases, stories, gossip and satirical poems it prints.

In 1992, former Prime Minister Walter Lini’s National United Party, a then junior partner in the government coalition with the ruling Union of Moderate Parties, published a weekly, Golden Express.

At around the same time, UMP printed another weekly party publication called I’Etoile (The Star). UMP announced in early February it was relaunching Golden Express because it wanted to inform the public about its achieve ments before the general elections later this year.

In addition, the Pacific news agency, Pacnews, moved from Solomon Islands to Vanuatu in 1993, where it puts out sto ries from member media organisations in the region, twice a day. The job, carried out by two journalists, however, does not place any special emphasis on news from Vanuatu.

Other foreign media agencies, radios and newspapers are also represented in

the capital through their correspon dents.

From time to time, Vanuatu media have been banned from covering some issues.

Two years ago, when the UMP-NUP coali tion split, the media were not allowed to carry press releases from the NUP fac tion.

In January this year, the Minister for Public Works, Ambae Amos Bangabiti, said he did not want the radio station to carry any more news about the dangers of volcanic eruptions on his home island because previous warnings, he said, had unnecessarily frightened the people of his constituency.

In an interview with PIM, government spokeswoman Yvette Sam said much had changed since the Carlot govern ment came to power. “Laws have been passed that can confirm the government wants to promote freedom of the Press,” she says.

She also points out that the Government Media Services was changed to Vanuatu Broadcasting and Television Corporation, following an act passed in 1992. “I think the opposition and government alike have access to the press”, although she admits VBTC is still heavily reliant on government funding.

“The government still pays an annual subsidy to VBTC,” she said.

This implies government control of the national radio and weekly. But Sam does not want to term it ‘control’.

“Journalists in the region call this gov ernment control of the media but I don’t agree. The government simply wants to make sure its views are carried in any story which talks about government mat ters. This is not control. We think all jour nalists should do this. This is their responsibility to check they have both sides of the story. Unfortunately, some of them don’t do this of their own initia tive, so what we’re doing is reminding them of their responsibility. That’s all we ask,” Sam explains.

She says she is informed of radio head lines daily to see if any news item con cerns the government. “If there is news about us, then we make sure our view is carried too. That’s what some journalists see as control. But sometimes I get the impression some journalists here are printing or airing news which is rumour and has not been checked.”

She said the procedure applied to all

local journalists.

“The government wants freedom of the Press but, at the same time, it has to ensure that our journalists do their jobs properly. You can’t change things overnight. As long as we don’t have real ly well trained journalists, we’ll have to do this. We are responsible for liberalisa

tion of the Press but we also have to be responsible for the impact this can have,” Sam told PIM.

The British High Commissioner in Port Vila,Tom Duggin, recently expressed his views on Vanuatu’s media. He said it was “unfortunate the main media outlets here are government-owned and have tended to become propaganda machines. I don’t mean this in a deroga tory sense but it operates differently to a free independent Press. Last year, Vanuascope, (a bi-lingual newspaper) opened a few eyes by supplying news that was not government controlled and people saw what an independent news paper was all about, with questions raised that were not normally asked and it woke a few people up”.

Ruling UMP party’s Secretary General, Petre Malsungai, estimates this control is still necessary in Vanuatu because “our

journalists are not really trained”.

“To say that VBTC is controlled by the government is not true. We need to fur ther train our journalists. Also, sometimes when a political party issues a press release, it is distorted when it comes out on the radio.”

As a result some journalists now do not want to take any chances; they sim ply read or print press releases verbatim.

“They sometimes think freedom of expression allows them to say some thing else than what the release says.

Many times this leads us to ask which side they are on,” Malsungai says.

He admits control of VBTC will be tighter this election year. “But other newspapers will not be controlled, even if the government does not like what they say. We’ll respect freedom of the Press.

“The Vanuaaki Pati newsletter has

been attacking us for years and it’s still here,” he says.

Malsungai says his party has already started briefing the government on moves to enforce tighter control of VBTC. “For the Press, we should do it soon because it’s very important for this election year ... But other parties will have the right to speak, this has hap pened under past governments,” he says.

In the meantime, moves are already underway which seem to indicate the government is preparing for this critical election - former deputy Director of VBTC, Kaltau Ayong, was promoted in early January to the position of Third Secretary in the Prime Minister’s Office (the office directly responsible for the media). It has not been stated what his job will be but his background in the media is likely to be put to use.