EU furious at erronous Fiji media item of support
Updated
The European Union has reaffirmed its total opposition to the Fiji military's refusal to allow a return to democracy for at least another five years. One of the EU's commissioners says virtually all financial assistance to Fiji has been suspended.
Presenter: Sean Dorney, Australia Network's Pacific correspondent
Speaker: Joe Borg, European Commissioner for Fisheries and Maritime Affairs
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DORNEY: The European Commissioner for Fisheries and Maritime Affairs, Joe Borg, has been meeting in Canberra with Australian Ministers including the Minister for Trade, Simon Creen. Mr Borg said he was disturbed that the censorship now being imposed in Fiji had led to a totally erronious report in the Fiji media quoting the EU's Commissioner for Development Cooperation as saying the EU wanted to assist Fiji.
BORG: Commissioner Michel was very clear in that he expressed his extreme disappointment with the recent developments that have taken place in Fiji and that these are completely unacceptable to the European Union.
DORNEY: The censored report on the Fiji Live website omitted any criticism and instead claimed the European Union was extending a helping hand.
BORG: And in actual fact all, virtually all financial assistance has been suspended in view of these developments.
DORNEY: Duran Angiki is a Solomon Islands journalist studying for doctorate at the Queensland University. He believes the censorship will eventually lead to nobody in Fiji believing anything Commodore Bainimarama says.
ANGIKI: Honsetly I feel sympathetic to my colleagues in Fiji. I used to live in Fiji for four years and I know how hard it is to deal with a military government that supresses media freedom.
DORNEY: The drastic censorship goes well beyond just the news pages. The Australian Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, wrote an opinion piece which was circulated to all three newspapers explaining Australia's support for Fiji's suspension from the Pacific Islands Forum. But not one of the three papers in Fiji was allowed to print it. The country's chief censor, Lieutenant Colonel, Neumi Leweni, says the tight censorship might be imposed for another five years.
