Plea for more NZ pressure on Tonga

By ANGELA GREGORY

New Zealand has not put enough pressure on the Tongan Government to relinquish its autocratic rule, says the founder of Tonga's pro-democracy movement, Professor Futa Helu.

Neither the New Zealand nor the Australian Government has done enough to help Tongans who are suffering under a system in which they have no control, he says.

Professor Helu, founder of the university in Nuku'alofa, the 'Atenisi Institute, wants New Zealand to take a more active role in the kingdom's affairs.

"New Zealand and Australia have been very tardy in instigating changes in countries like Tonga where ancient structures have led to deprivations and suffering."

He thinks the New Zealand select committee investigating relations with Tonga is too soft in its approach.

The inquiry follows international concerns about the Tongan Government which surfaced last year when it passed controversial media laws requiring newspapers to be licensed.

Hundreds of Tongans are represented in a legal challenge to the new laws, which they argue are unconstitutional and attack the right to freedom of speech.

The select committee, which wants to find ways of "enhancing" relations with Tonga, is at pains to avoid any perception of interference by New Zealand.

But Professor Helu told the Herald that while the New Zealand Government might argue a foreign policy of "non-interference", that was "just a favourite excuse of people who do not want to help".

He attacked claims made by some Tongan MPs that any more attention from New Zealand amounted to an attempted colonisation.

"That is just emotive rhetoric which ignores the realities of what is needed."

Professor Helu said the gap between the haves and have-nots in Tonga was worsening.

"Many have had educational opportunities but the majority have had nothing.

"Tonga presents a stable face but that is a veneer. Inside, the people are suffering, and increasingly so."

Tongan MP 'Akilisi Pohiva said the 1875 constitution needed to be reviewed urgently and a new system installed where the people had a real say in who ran the country.

Otherwise he foresaw civil unrest and potentially a coup.

"There is a possibility someone might snap."

Mr Pohiva has represented the Tongan people for 18 years and in the last election got 60 per cent of the vote.

But he and the other elected MPs are a minority in a legislature dominated by appointed Cabinet ministers, outer-island governors and nobles.

A New Zealand-educated Tongan businessman and elected MP, Dr Fred Sevele, agreed that the only way Tonga could save itself was with a new system of governance.

"We need democratic change. People are still the best judges of their representatives."

New Zealand Foreign Minister Phil Goff said neither Wellington nor Canberra could intervene directly in another sovereign country without invitation.

But he said he was already on record as saying reform was needed to achieve democracy in Tonga, and that the Government's action regarding freedom of the press was taking it in the wrong direction.

New Zealand had clearly put its views and its willingness to help with reform, he said.

"I've put it very clearly and gone as far as I can without being seen to be lecturing from on high and attracting a backlash against the ideas I would want to promote."

Mr Goff said Tonga's future and how it should bring its political system into the 21st century should be decided by its people.

He saw no point in cutting aid, because that would achieve nothing.

"It is not our desire to punish the poorest people in Tonga because they don't have a democratic system."

Who rules Tonga

* The Kingdom of Tonga is a hereditary constitutional monarchy.

* King Taufa'ahau Tupou IV, ruler since December 16, 1965, appoints the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister.

* The 12-member Cabinet is appointed by the monarch.

* The Legislative Assembly, or Fale Alea, has 30 seats - 12 reserved for Cabinet ministers, nine for nobles selected by the country's 33 nobles, and nine elected by popular vote. It has limited authority.