Swimming with Sharks

Michael Field, banned in four Pacific countries including Fiji, has been a newspaper and agency reporter for 35 years, mostly covering the South Pacific. Working for Fairfax Media, he is a former Agence France-Presse correspondent. For over a decade he was a commentator on Radio New Zealand National’s ‘Nine to Noon’.  His previous books include a landmark study of Samoa’s independence movement, the Mau, which led New Zealand to formally apologise, and an account of Fiji’s coups.      

Swimming with Sharks

Tales from the frontline of South Pacific turmoil

Michael Field

First published Penguin Group (NZ) 2010

Conquerors come, conquerors go, the ocean remains, mother only to her children. And this mother has a big heart; she adopts anyone who loves her. - Epeli Hau’ofa

Contents

Prologue

For most, the Pacific is an image of alluring beaches and warm welcomes - ‘the way the world should be’ as Fiji once described itself….

1. Never was paradise

• Nights are warm & its hard to sleep

• They have the same joy!

2. Samoa

• From modest grade to pork prime cuts

• Assassination: ‘try and keep on playing’

3. Disasters

• Let tears fall (read here)

• Lord of the ship (read here)

4. Tonga

• Nobles and dirt eaters

• Tonga’s royal jester scam

• Tonga’s royal businesses

5. Pacific Forums

• Halfway around the world just for you (read here)

• Writing on marbles in places (read here)

6. Kiribati

• Ghost on the phone (read here)

• Brave lads - murdering coast watchers (read here)

• Coast watcher children - ‘best for her’ (read here)

7. Nauru

• Stealing Pacific soils to enrich western farmers (read here)

• Nauru’s president dies in line of duty (read here)

8. Bougainville

• Bougainville: ‘You die today, we will kill you’ (read here)

• 'Please give us good coverage' - PNG (read here)

9. Solomon Islands

• Potholes bigger than cars (read here)

• Guadalcanal prisoner: Man you were shakin’ (read here)

• Wave flags for Australian soldiers (read here)

10. Fiji

• Fiji’s ‘cause’ coup

• Checking the mini-bar

• Confused statesmen come calling

• It's the beef, mad cow disease

• Deposed Fiji Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry… freed

11. Fourth Fiji coup

• Boys, we shall be killed today, let us go now

• Another coup - this without ammunition

12. Paradise whatever

• ‘It’s not too bad here in Tokelau after all’

• Not paradise, lost, found or regained...

©Michael J Field

Prologue; Roaming around