Fiji bans national

Press, 11 October 1988, Page 2

Fiji bans national

PA Wellington Fiji has banned a Suvaborn journalist who was to report an inaugural South Pacific rugby tour for New Zealand newspapers. Sri Krishnamurthi, a Fiji Indian, aged 25, who moved to New Zealand a week after the first Suva coup in May last year, has been refused permission to visit his homeland on a journalist visa and report matches in Fiji for the New Zealand Press Association.

A Fiji Government spokesman said the decision was made because of “unfavourable and negative” articles allegedly written by Krishnamurthi about post-coup Fiji. Krishnamurthi denies he wrote any articles about post-coup Fiji or that there is any ground for the banning. Krishnamurthi was to travel to Fiji, Tonga and the Cook Islands with a New Zealand team

selected from second and third division provincial representatives. The NZPA has declined a request by the Fijian authorities to nominate another representative and will now not send a correspondent with the touring party. The main focus of the tour is the Fiji matches. The team, captained by the Hawke’s Bay flanker, Mark Shaw, will leave Auckland for Rarotonga today on the first leg of its six-match trip, playing two matches in each of the countries.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Wellington told NZPA that a senior news editor with the Fiji Ministry of Information, Mr Eliki Bomani, said the Krishnamurthi decision was not directed against the news agency itself. The Foreign Ministry said Mr Bomani explained that the decision “stemmed from unfavour-

able and negative articles about the post-coup situation in Fiji allegedly written by' Krishnamurthi in New Zealand last year.” Krishnamurthi said that while he did not write any article he was interviewed by the “Waikato Times” and Christchurch “The Press” newspapers and described conditions in Fiji after the first coup, instancing such developments as the need to carry passports at all times.

The interviews could not justify the ban, he said, and he had steered clear of becoming involved in the political situation, deciding against even voting in the April, 1987, elections.

Fiji’s senior diplomatic representative in New Zealand, the Embassy charge d’affaires, Mr Peni Polatagici, said he was “sad” and surprised at the Suva Government’s decision.