Suva stops for rally against foreign unions

Press, 20 July 1977, Page 1

Suva stops for rally against foreign unions

NZPA Suva About 5000 people staged a mass rally in Suva yesterday in protest against foreign trade union interference in Fiji’s affairs during the dock strike crisis.

Hundreds of people, waving placards, marched through central Suva in a rally organised by a Sv.va housewife. Mrs Leibling Marlow, and a committee of 13.

The crowd, led by Mrs Marlow and one of the founders of the tradeunion novement in Fiji, Mr B. D. Lakshman, in a wheelchair, was swelled by hundreds of city workers who were let off early yesterday afternoon for the event. Most stores in Suva closed early, and public servants were given permission to join the marchers. The marchers included former servicemen, wearing medals and carrying the Fijian flag, women, schoolchildren, community leaders, city workers, and even nuns.

Two Government Ministers and the retiring Attorney-General were in the ranks. At the end of the march was a banner saying “Fiji for Fiji.’’ Other banners and placards said “Keep

the Kiwis Out’’, “Stand by Your Country”, “Right On, Ratu Mara”, “Hands Off Fiji”, and other slogans.

Crowds lining the streets applauded as the marchers passed through Suva to the civic centre, where the Prime Minister (Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara) addressed

them. Mrs Marlow, overcome by the huge response to her protest plan, wept openly.

Ratu Mara said the march was a spontaneous and encouraging demonstration of support for the Government’s dealing with the dock strike.

“It will be a sad day if we have achieved independence from political colonialism; if we are beginning to free ourselves from commercial colonialism, only to suffer from the colonialism of foreign trade unions,” he said.

Foreign unions had besieged Fiji on the scantiest of information, he said.

New Zealand trade unions had launched a “vicious propanganda barrage," and the Fiji Trades

Union Congress had been called “insignificant” by an overseas union leader (the president of the New Zealand Federation of Labour. Sir Thomas Skinner).

Ratu Mara urged merchants to continue to seek new sources of goods, because Fiji was still open to “unscrupulous attack” by foreign unions. Twenty-two leaders of dockworkers’ gangs in Fiji will face charges in court in Suva, after the 13day national dock strike. The charges follow others against nine leaders of the Fiji Waterside Workers’ and Seamen’s Union.

They are all charged with refusing to continue work as they were bound to do as registered dockworkers, giving rise to suspicion that they were taking part in a strike declared illegal by the Minister for Labour.

Work at Fiji’s ports continued yesterday, clearing the backlog of cargo which built up during the strike.