On Easter Friday, 2009 I was employed in the newsroom of Fiji Television Ltd and sitting at the main grand-stand of Govind Park in Ba where the opening ceremony of the Sangam Convention was taking place.
I received a call from my superior in Suva, saying the military had abrogated the 1997 Constitution and that Public Emergency Regulations (PER) were to come into effect for 30 days.
From that day, these PERs would get extended for another 30 days for another three years when then interim prime minister Voreqe Bainimarama announced a consultation process on the drafting a new Constitution ahead of the 2014 General Election.
From April 10, 2009 to January 7, 2012 under the PER, the Fiji media industry was muzzled, attacked, abused, censored, suppressed, controlled, silenced and gagged like never before.
I was a firsthand witness to this assault on the media industry and recalling some of the incidents from then not only makes me feel stronger, but allows me to continue what I love the most and safeguard the key principles of a free media industry in Fiji.
Under the PER, the interim government appointed censors would walk into the Fiji TV newsroom daily to vet all stories that were to be aired in the 6pm bulletins, and tell us what could run, and what couldn’t.
They were sent to stop anti-regime stories, stories that put the government machinery in bad light, statements from people who questioned government policy, stories that condemned government services.
To stop the airing of pictures of individuals who were against the government, stories that put the economy in bad light, stories that were anti-tourism, stories that showed job losses, stories on poverty or mentioning the poverty level.
There were to be no interviews with victims of crime, no anti-police or anti-military stories, no stories of investment projects “on hold” or “delayed”, no stories that “put government statutory organisations in bad light”.
There were to be no stories that were anti-judiciary, no stories on subjects like homosexuality, no stories on police and army detention of individuals, no stories on detention or questioning of journalists.
There were to be no stories or views of people on the street on subjects like food price increases, fuel increases, electricity power bill increases.
Not only that, the censors would remove any stories from the world news section that showed protests and violence.
In the Fiji TV newsroom, we made a decision not refer to Voreqe Bainimarama as prime minister or refer to any interim ministers as substantive ministers after they took office in 2006.
We instead opted to use the term “head of government” for Bainimarama.
We continued this practice under the PER.
This irked the regime so much that we were ordered to change the words in the story to “prime minister”.
So we would drop that entire story in protest and the censors could not do anything about it.
As a result, many government statements went un-reported on Fiji One News.
On days when not much was happening, we would air government statements, but reference was made to “ministry statement says” or “public relations officer” or “permanent secretary “says”.
It was this decision which put people like manager news Netani Rika, Merana Kitione and I in the bad books of the regime in 2009 and we would pay a heavy price for taking this stand years later.
I had done a Close-up documentary on the sugar industry that aired on a Sunday.
Someone in the interim regime didn’t like the scenario that was portrayed in the program where farmers talked about the ailing industry and its future.
While in the office on Monday, I received a call that I was to go up to the military camp and see a senior ranking soldier.
I told my superiors and it was decided that Fiji TV’s manager legal, Tanya Waqanika, would take me to the camp, wait for me and bring me back.
This drive to Queen Elizabeth Barracks (QEB) was at a time when the military would call anyone up to the camp for a dressing-down or detention.
Tanya and I knew what was going to happen, but we didn’t speak about it.
At the QEB gate, the soldier at the gate ushered me in and told me to take a seat in one of the detention blocks.
After a short while, the officer walked in and sat opposite me.
A gun holster was strapped to his leg with a gun in it.
He said they were not happy about the sugar story run on Sunday night and that “I was told to rough you up”.
I listened to him, as he warned me not to repeat this or the next visit would be different.
I walked out the QEB gates and Tanya calmed me down before we headed to the office.
At the office, everyone was quiet and greeted me with the utmost sympathy.
I was the second one from the Fiji TV newsroom to be a guest at the QEB.
Our boss at that time, manager news and current affairs Netani Rika would undergo a much more gruesome encounter at QEB.
In November 2007, we broadcast a story on soldiers involved in alleged sexual assault on women in Savusavu.
The police were too afraid to comment and the army said no such incident had taken place.
Our report said claims had been made, police were investigating and the army denied the allegations.
On the way to work the next morning, Netani’s cell phone rang.
The same officer who had threatened me was on the phone.
“We need to discuss this report about rape in the North. You need to come to the (military) camp.”
Netani was instructed to park at the main gate and ask for directions.
At the QEB front gate, military police gave directions – to the last cell on the left – after taking his phone and car keys.
About 30 minutes later a tall, dark sergeant stormed in and let loose a volley of foul language and physical threats against Netani before demanding to know why the report had been broadcast.
No explanation would placate him.
The threats now turned to a sexual nature, specifically forced oral and anal sex.
His final act of humiliation was to spit on Netani.
The senior officer – the one who had phoned Netani arrived some time later, sidearm strapped to his thigh, and sat so the weapon was inches from Netani’s face.
He demanded a retraction of the story and threatened the closure of our the newsroom.
Netani decided to live to fight another day as we retracted the story.
Another colleague, Sakiusa Bolaira, was subjected to a harsh and violent threat that resulted in him leaving the Fiji TV newsroom permanently.
We had received documents that showed top military brass were paid out large sums of money for leave that was owed to them, authorised by the then interim finance minister.
We decided we needed to get comments from those in the army who were paid out and Sakiusa Bolaira started making the calls one morning.
All of a sudden, he was standing in front of me.
The only words that came out of his mouth were: “I have just been told that if we do the story, you, Merana (Kitione) and I will be killed, our bodies put in a 44 gallon drum and dumped in the sea”.
After telling us this, he said he was resigning and walked off the Fiji TV newsroom, never to return to journalism.
We took the threat seriously and that story was never broadcast by Fiji TV.
Then there were marching orders issued by someone in authority that would come to the Fiji TV Board from 2013 onwards – and from the board of directors to the Fiji TV chief executive officer.
Department managers were summoned to an early morning meeting in April 2013 in the boardroom.
Our CEO announced that Sports Editor Satish Narain had left the company and would not be returning.
All present in the meeting were shocked.
Satish had been on air the previous day and the reason gathered was that during the Coca-Cola games he had suggested that the Fiji Sports Council should turn off the loud music being played during races.
That was enough to get him sacked.
The Fiji Police Force was also used now and then by the interim government to intimidate and threaten the media.
In August 2008, Fiji TV had broadcast a story that was based on an email written by the head of the National Council for Building a Better Fiji, John Samy, to interim prime minister, Frank Bainimarama.
Hours after the story broadcast at 6pm, while I was home drinking kava, three police officers came to the gate and called me out.
One of them politely told me they had a search warrant to search laptops and computers in order to find out how we had got the email correspondence.
I told them the email correspondence was given to us in hard copy.
I made some calls to my superiors and I was told to inform the officers, they could come and execute the search warrant on the company the next morning.
They called someone and left.
The next day, I was on a day-off and watching a movie at Village 6 when my phone rang.
I was asked to come to the office immediately.
There, I was told the officers had executed a search warrant and gone through the email accounts of several reporters.
The officers had the hard-copy of the email, but weren’t satisfied and had decided that were going to take Fiji TV’s information technology software infrastructure with them for further analysis.
This would mean, all businesses would need to stop and there would be enormous losses and damage to the infrastructure if they were removed.
To stop this from happening I was asked to make a call to the source who had given the email correspondence to us and seek his permission to tell the police who he was.
He happily agreed and asked me to give his name, phone number and address to the officers.
They cops never visited him.
In June 2008 the police marched into the Fiji TV office with a search warrant and seized a Close-Up program tape hours before it was to be broadcast on Sunday evening.
The interview was with Rajendra Chaudhry, son of then interim minister for finance, Mahendra Chaudhry.
The interview was done at a time when it became public knowledge that Mahendra Chaudhry had received about $2 million from India in an Australian bank account.
We had played a promotion of the Close- Up on a Saturday.
It seemed that the wheels were put into motion to seize the program tape.
The tape was given to the police and it was never returned to Fiji TV.
The owners of Fiji TV were Yasana Holdings Ltd.
In March 2013, Fijian Holdings Ltd bought out 100 per cent of Yasana Holding Ltd, making FHL the new owners of Fiji TV.
It was now only a matter of time before senior newsroom staff like Netani Rika, Merana Kitione and I would get the boot from the newsroom.
“I want their heads on a platter,” a FHL board member at that time said to a senior Fiji TV manager.
Close to the 2014 General Election, I was removed from the newsroom and sent to Fiji TV’s the Local Programs Department.
One year later, I was sent home on “voluntary leave of absence” for three months as the company decided what do with my future.
A new CEO, in Tevita Gonelevu came in.
I was brought back to in the newsroom as manager operations.
Soon after Mr Gonelevu and manager legal Tanya Waqanika were dismissed in December 2014, I was again a target of those in power at FHL and the government.
I left Fiji TV in October 2015 on good terms to reside in Rakiraki, look after my mother, do some freelance work, play golf, wear bright and
lively bula shirts, share in good and bad moments with friends and watch my pet dog Titu grow from a pup.
When Titu was four years old in September 2019, I returned to the media as The Fiji Times West Bureau Chief.
