Anger in Vanuatu over death while filming traditional diving
Updated
The Cultural Council in Vanuatu is angry at what it describes as the clandestine approach taken by National Geographic to get banned footage at a traditional nagol or land diving tower. A ni-Vanuatu camerman Hady Ligo died during the filming on Pentecost. Several other people seriously injured when the tower collapsed remain in hospital. The Director of the Vanuatu National Cultural Council Ralph Regenvanu, has been involved in a long running battle with National Geographic since banning filming at nagols two years ago.
presenter: Geraldine Coutts
speakers: Aurthur Caulton, Acting Deputy Police Commissioner; Ralph Regenvanu, Director, Vanautu National Cultural Council; George Bogiri, First political adviser, prime ministers office
REGENVANU: We are not going to be receptive to National Geographic coming here again to do anything. They have proven times and this is just the latest incident that they have no respect for national laws and our own concerns for trying to maintain some sort of integrity in our cultural event, and also safeguard the people involved. So we have no interest in them ever again in Vanuatu. And our main course of action now is with the Vanuatu Tourism office to just make them know that we have had many discussions with them already and they are clear that we are the authority when it comes to granting approvals for commercial filming of cultural events and we're just going to try and make it very clear to them that it ends here with this death. That's the last time they bypass us in the name of trying to promote tourism, which of course is something we think is important, but not at the cost of our cultural heritage and not at the cost in this case of a death.
COUTTS: Mr Regenvanu, was angry at the methods used to get the footage. He says an Australian company, Beyond Productions, was used by National Geographic to hire Hady Ligo, the Vanuatu cameraman who was working for the Vanuatu Broadcasting and Television Corporation and is the son of well known journalist, Godwin Ligo.
Mr Regenvanu alleges Mr Ligo was hired to get around the cultural morays forbidding outsiders to film ceremonies at the Land Diving Towers.
REGENVANU: National Geographic were well aware of that we had instituted a ban on the commercial filming of the Land Diver on Pentecost, two years ago. They were actually trying to get around the ban by hiring a local person to go up and film, so that we would not think it was a foreign film crew doing it.
COUTTS: Beyond Productions was not available for comment when Pacific Beat returned their company's call at a pre-arranged time.
The General Manager of the Vanuatu Tourism Authority, Annie Niatu was also not available for comment, preferring that all inquiries be directed to the prime minister's office.
Prime Minister Ham Lini and his first political adviser, George Bogiri, are both from Pentecost. Mr Bogiri says Mr Ligo's death places the government in a very difficult position.
BOGIRI: No, at this we're caught in a dilemma, where on one side we are trying to promote our traditional cultures and then on the other side, we trying promote tourism. Now we want to do it in a sustainable way, while we are promoting our cultures for tourism purposes, but on the other hand, we try to protect traditional values in tact. So I don't think the prime minister is in a position at this stage to ban the nagol because tourism is big in Vanuatu and we would very much want to do anything to help tourism as much as possible.
COUTTS: The tower which was purposely built for the filming by locals was not constructed in the traditional manner around a tree, and the land diving tower collapsed under Mr Ligo's weight.
Acting Deputy Police Commissioner, Arthur Caulton, says police at this stage are not conducting an investigation into Mr Ligo's death.
CAULTON: We have not received any formal complaint from either the parents of the deceased or the local authorities in connection to his death. So if we have received a complaint, then we probably start a police investigation. But at this stage there's not complaint from the persons concerned.
