Region's first

internet cyclone

By Michael Held

It is a smudgy, dark picture, but it is a remarkable symbol of the terrifying power of nature - and the way even a remote place like Manihiki is on the information high way. Cyclone Martin was the South Pacific’s first internet cyclone and its hor ror was known around the world while the Cook Islands Government vainly tried to control what information was going out.

On Saturday November 1 Henry and Tarita Puna Williams were among nine people who jumped into a small boat as the cyclone tore their world apart.

Henry had with him a Canon water proof camera and in a single shot captured the drama of the moment. Then for anoth er 12 hours they drifted on the water. One of their number disappeared, later to be found dead.

By Monday November 3 Tarita Puna Williams was in Rarotonga and her fami ly’s survival story was picked up by Cook Islands Press owners Jason Brown and Barbara Dreaver. They are also stringers for Agence France-Presse (AFP) and with in hours the first survivor story was around the world.

Then Henry’s photos came to light and within days that single image appeared the Times in London, the New York Times, The Australian, the South China Morning Post and dozens of other newspapers around the world. The speed with which the world learnt of Martin is remarkable.

For Alex Sword, editor of the daily Cook Islands News, Martin was example of ridiculous political attempts to control the news. His staff, for example, were not allowed to photograph people working at the cyclone centre in Rarotonga. Neither his paper nor the Cook Islands Press were allowed to go on the early rescue flights.

The Cooks might be independent - but colonial cringe saw the Cooks government let the New Zealand Herald, state owned Television New Zealand and Canadian owned TVS from New Zealand to the

Island. Even a week after the cyclone the news was being kept out and was finally using a local stringer, Ruhau Tomaunu.

Sword felt the government constraints on information were a deliberate ploy. “They were being secretive and trying to control everything because we would have shown them to be incompetent in their cyclone disaster management plans,” Sword said.

Dreaver agreed.“ The people overseas were getting much more news and much faster than the Cook Islanders were,” she said.

“And anyway the government really didn’t know what was happening - we were well ahead of them but they would close off our information sources behind us.”

Cook Islands Television won praise from Sword for struggling against the odds to keep people informed while privately owned Radio Aktiv is in everybody’s bad books. Although their signal is only vague ly heard in Manihiki - they declined to broadcast a cyclone warning because a string band had paid for a live broadcast instead.

An official cyclone warning instead had to go out over Radio New Zealand. Brian Mason of the Prime Minister’s Office was the media spokesman, and he admitted that even before the cyclone there was a degree of tension between the government and the media that was “not helpful”.

He said there had been early concern about the media coverage going to the world so quickly and comprehensively. “It was of some concern about how it would affect the tourist industry,” he said.

“But by telling the truth you get more sympathy from people ... You have to wear the down-side.” Cook Islanders in Australia and New Zealand had the right to know what was going on.

Mason found himself fielding a flood of international media calls. “I think the media was pretty good. I didn’t get the feeling that I was dealing with a bunch of bozos.

It caught the imagination of people, this remote and tiny Island.” ■