Berio report too negative

I wish to thank PIM for excellent cover age of some of the issues in Kiribati that have not received that much attention by the local media here in Kiribati.

However, I was dismayed to read one of the special reports under the headline “Tarawa’s main islet in appalling state,” (PIM July 1999). I think the report is a bit sensational, biased, prejudicial and racist.

I grew up in Betio, which the report calls "... the cesspit of disease - a public health disaster waiting to happen”. But I have not been struck by the diseases that it seems to be so concerned about.

The report’s tone is so alarming that those who have never visited Betio would be forgiven - after reading the report - if they believe that people in Betio are living on a rubbish strewn, foul smelling and dis ease ridden islet, full of human excrement.

The story of Betio is more of an opinion

than an objective piece of reporting.

Nowhere in the report do we hear from the locals, Betio health workers, council and government officials, or non-govem ment organisations’ workers on what is being done to address the problem of waste disposal.

The only person quoted in the special report is Kiribati’s former president leremia Tabai who shouldn’t have commented. The former president should have tackled the Betio waste disposal problem a long time ago when he was in a position to do so.

In addition, the report contains a number of factual errors. Betio has a functioning piped sewerage system built in 1978. But not all houses are connected to the system.

It has a population of less than 10,000 and not 28,000 as the report said. However, the figure for all of South Tarawa including Betio is about 28,000.

It said Betio families live right on each other and ailing children roam crying among the shanties and mothers sit around

smoking a foul smelling concoction. It then went on to say that almost nobody has jobs and as each day wears on the men pass their time in a haze induced by the thou sands of cans of VB they consumed.

PIM should carefully study the I-Kiri bati way of life before writing such gross

ly misleading and overly generalised state

ments. Does PIM really mean that Betio children are a sickly lot, or did it just hap pen to see one or two children crying and suddenly every child in Betio is ailing.

Does PIM really believe that “almost nobody” has a job in Betio and all the men do nothing but drink? It’s a pity the report seems to aim a telescope only at the dirty and filthy face of Betio because it didn’t see the beaming and smiling faces of the rest of the healthy children that are so numerous on the islet. The foul smelling smoke mentioned is a favourite of both the women and men in Kiribati. But why did the report use a negative term to describe a smoke favoured by I-Kiribati? I uige PIM to be more objective and fair next time you write a story on Betio.

Taoroba Takenteiti

Tarawa Kiribati

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