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Correspondents Report - Tongans coming to grips with shock riots
[This is the print version of story http://www.abc.net.au/correspondents/content/2006/s1797213.htm]
Correspondents Report - Sunday, 26 November , 2006
Reporter: Peter Lewis
ELIZABETH JACKSON: The people of Tonga are still struggling to come to terms with the most tumultuous civil unrest in the history of the 160-year-old Kingdom.
It's just over a week since drunken mobs rampaged through the capital Nuku'alofa looting shops and offices then setting them alight.
Six people died in the riots that have brought into dramatic focus the deep divisions within this tiny Pacific nation that used to be known as "The Friendly Islands".
Peter Lewis has spent the past week in Nuku'alofa.
PETER LEWIS: Casual observers and one time tourists struggled to reconcile their knowledge and experience of this sleepy semi-feudal society with the dramatic eyewitness accounts, the photographs and the television pictures that flashed around the world last week.
But those of us who've been monitoring the rising tensions between Tonga's haves - the Royal Family, hereditary nobles and close associates - and the have nots - the vast majority of the Kingdom's 100,000 people who earn on average the equivalent of six dollars Australian a day - weren't greatly surprised.
Not only has the ruling elite creamed off most of the valuable concessions for themselves over the years - everything from electricity, telephones, airlines, TV and the internet - they've stubbornly refused until now to lessen their grip on political power; an incendiary mix that exploded on the streets of Nuku'alofa with such deadly and devastating consequences.
NEWS REPORT: The tinderbox Kingdom has finally ignited.
(Sound of explosion)
Years of discontent and anger at the Royal Family's rule has spilled over into destruction. An angry mob looted and burned around 80 per cent of Tonga's business centre, targeting anything owned by the Royals. And amongst the charged…
FRED SEVELE: I never thought that the day would come when I see Tongans taking to the streets like that.
PETER LEWIS: Dr Fred Sevele was a prominent pro-democracy campaigner until the King appointed him as the first commoner to be the country's Prime Minister. His family was the first to be evacuated out of the strife-torn capital aboard a New Zealand Air Force jet.
PRISCILLA SEVELE: We heard that we might get… the children might get hurt. We shouldn't be suffering. We don't have anything to do with this, so we'll just have to be strong.
FRED SEVELE: It's the day of shame for us Tongans.
PETER LEWIS: He made the difficult decision to accept the Australian and New Zealand offers of military and police intervention. Remember, this is a country that's never been colonised.
John Howard says the extraordinary events demanded a firm response from friends.
JOHN HOWARD: It's too important to the stability of the whole region to ignore or be less than willing to respond to a request from a country that does look particularly to New Zealand and also to Australia for protection and help in an hour of need.
PETER LEWIS: New Zealand's one of Tonga's nearest neighbours, biggest benefactors, and home to 40,000 Tongan expats.
Foreign Minister Winston Peters says simmering tensions and the slow pace of democratic reforms have been a concern for sometime.
WINSTON PETERS: Well sadly, it just underscores the fact that we in New Zealand and alongside Australia are dealing with some very difficult circumstances, not of our making, but which we must respond to, otherwise a vacuum will be quickly filled by nations less benevolent, less honest in their intentions.
PETER LEWIS: But not everyone appreciated this well-meaning intervention of heavily-armed Australian and New Zealand troops and specialist police teams into yet another Pacific trouble spot.
FINAU TUTONE: Those who are behind the riot is the King and the Government.
PETER LEWIS: Pro-democracy leaders like Finau Tutone feared the Taskforce would defend an unrepresentative and repressive regime which had already effectively muzzled political dissent and free speech as part of sweeping powers under martial law.
FINAU TUTONE: We can't control the people. They have the understanding. In the past we slept with obedience and so forth. Now they have been enlightened of their rights, they are going to have them.
PETER LEWIS: Exactly a week after the trouble started, Tonga's new King George
Tupou V restated his commitment to handing ordinary Tongans a greater say in how their country is run, but without a detailed timetable for when all that will happen.
The priority instead is to clean up the destruction in downtown Nuku'alofa, prosecute those responsible for the riots and begin the huge task of rebuilding the shattered economy and goodwill among all those with a stake in Tonga's future.
FRED SEVELE: As leader, my main concern is to look at what needs to be done to reconstruct Tonga.
PETER LEWIS: Parliament went into recess this week and won't sit again for six
months, so the people's patience is still being tested.
Peter Lewis in Nuku'alofa for Correspondents Report.
It's just over a week since drunken mobs rampaged through the capital Nuku'alofa looting shops and offices then setting them alight.
Six people died in the riots that have brought into dramatic focus the deep divisions within this tiny Pacific nation that used to be known as "The Friendly Islands".
Peter Lewis has spent the past week in Nuku'alofa.
PETER LEWIS: Casual observers and one time tourists struggled to reconcile their knowledge and experience of this sleepy semi-feudal society with the dramatic eyewitness accounts, the photographs and the television pictures that flashed around the world last week.
But those of us who've been monitoring the rising tensions between Tonga's haves - the Royal Family, hereditary nobles and close associates - and the have nots - the vast majority of the Kingdom's 100,000 people who earn on average the equivalent of six dollars Australian a day - weren't greatly surprised.
Not only has the ruling elite creamed off most of the valuable concessions for themselves over the years - everything from electricity, telephones, airlines, TV and the internet - they've stubbornly refused until now to lessen their grip on political power; an incendiary mix that exploded on the streets of Nuku'alofa with such deadly and devastating consequences.
NEWS REPORT: The tinderbox Kingdom has finally ignited.
(Sound of explosion)
Years of discontent and anger at the Royal Family's rule has spilled over into destruction. An angry mob looted and burned around 80 per cent of Tonga's business centre, targeting anything owned by the Royals. And amongst the charged…
FRED SEVELE: I never thought that the day would come when I see Tongans taking to the streets like that.
PETER LEWIS: Dr Fred Sevele was a prominent pro-democracy campaigner until the King appointed him as the first commoner to be the country's Prime Minister. His family was the first to be evacuated out of the strife-torn capital aboard a New Zealand Air Force jet.
PRISCILLA SEVELE: We heard that we might get… the children might get hurt. We shouldn't be suffering. We don't have anything to do with this, so we'll just have to be strong.
FRED SEVELE: It's the day of shame for us Tongans.
PETER LEWIS: He made the difficult decision to accept the Australian and New Zealand offers of military and police intervention. Remember, this is a country that's never been colonised.
John Howard says the extraordinary events demanded a firm response from friends.
JOHN HOWARD: It's too important to the stability of the whole region to ignore or be less than willing to respond to a request from a country that does look particularly to New Zealand and also to Australia for protection and help in an hour of need.
PETER LEWIS: New Zealand's one of Tonga's nearest neighbours, biggest benefactors, and home to 40,000 Tongan expats.
Foreign Minister Winston Peters says simmering tensions and the slow pace of democratic reforms have been a concern for sometime.
WINSTON PETERS: Well sadly, it just underscores the fact that we in New Zealand and alongside Australia are dealing with some very difficult circumstances, not of our making, but which we must respond to, otherwise a vacuum will be quickly filled by nations less benevolent, less honest in their intentions.
PETER LEWIS: But not everyone appreciated this well-meaning intervention of heavily-armed Australian and New Zealand troops and specialist police teams into yet another Pacific trouble spot.
FINAU TUTONE: Those who are behind the riot is the King and the Government.
PETER LEWIS: Pro-democracy leaders like Finau Tutone feared the Taskforce would defend an unrepresentative and repressive regime which had already effectively muzzled political dissent and free speech as part of sweeping powers under martial law.
FINAU TUTONE: We can't control the people. They have the understanding. In the past we slept with obedience and so forth. Now they have been enlightened of their rights, they are going to have them.
PETER LEWIS: Exactly a week after the trouble started, Tonga's new King George
Tupou V restated his commitment to handing ordinary Tongans a greater say in how their country is run, but without a detailed timetable for when all that will happen.
The priority instead is to clean up the destruction in downtown Nuku'alofa, prosecute those responsible for the riots and begin the huge task of rebuilding the shattered economy and goodwill among all those with a stake in Tonga's future.
FRED SEVELE: As leader, my main concern is to look at what needs to be done to reconstruct Tonga.
PETER LEWIS: Parliament went into recess this week and won't sit again for six
months, so the people's patience is still being tested.
Peter Lewis in Nuku'alofa for Correspondents Report.
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