Alexis Huni, a retired Tongan worker living in Auckland, told the Militant that protests were held in all four main groups of islands that make up the Pacific Island nation of 104,000 people. “If the people are marching, it shows the law is not for the good of the people,” he said. “It’s to restrict the freedom for people to say what they want to say and write down what they want to.”

The constitutional changes proposed by King Taufa’ahau Tupou IV and adopted by the royalist parliament limit the powers of the judiciary to review royal decisions. He sought the restrictions after the High Court twice this year overturned government bans on Taimi’o Tonga, a newspaper that has regularly criticized government actions. Parliament approved the changes October 16 by a vote of 16-11.

The king already rules Tonga with near-absolute power. Only nine of the country’s 30 members of parliament are popularly elected. Of the nine, all eight who were present at the October 16 vote opposed the restrictions.

The king and the holders of the country’s 33 noble titles choose the other 21 members among themselves. The king appoints the 12 cabinet ministers, all nobles for life, and can dissolve parliament at will.

Writing in the October 22 New Zealand Herald, columnist Tapu Misa called the October 6 march “a rare move of defiance,” and commented, “Unlike the only other march back in 1991, when 1,500 Tongans protested against constitutional changes to cover the illegal selling of Tongan citizenship to non-Tongans, this one wasn’t as subdued or polite. This time there was chanting, shouting, and banners: ‘Clive Edwards, Minister of Police. We’re not afraid of you.’”

Kalafi Moala, Taimi’o Tonga’s New Zealand-based publisher, told the October 7 Herald that the march and other actions signaled the people’s growing anger and the gathering strength of the pro-democracy movement in Tonga. “People are feeling that their freedom is going to be infringed on, not just the media, but their freedom to speak. There was a lot of passion from people at the march.”

Like most Pacific Island nations, Tonga is kept underdeveloped by the world imperialist system. A former British protectorate, Tonga became independent in 1970. Squash, coconuts, bananas, and vanilla beans make up two-thirds of total exports. They are produced on land leased from the nobles by small farmers, or by an increasing number of larger enterprises that employ up to 100 wage workers.

Sixty-five percent of the labor force is engaged in agriculture, yet the country must import a high proportion of its food, mainly from New Zealand. By far the biggest contribution to the national income is remittances from Tongans who have traveled overseas in search of work, chiefly to New Zealand, Australia, and the United States.

The imperialist rulers of New Zealand and Australia have long regarded Tonga and the other islands of the Pacific as within their special sphere of influence. Tonga’s dependence on these exploiting powers is perpetuated through “aid,” which amounts to a quarter of the government’s annual budget. In June of this year the New Zealand government released a report by Bryan Smythe, its former high commissioner in Tonga, which raised concerns about growing instability in the island kingdom. The report also noted that “the growing influence of China in the islands to our north may at some stage make us feel uncomfortable.”  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home