Tonga 'trying to put on a good impression' as govt put final touches to host Pacific leaders

The Pacific Islands Forum leaders' summit is just days away from opening in Nuku'alofa in Tonga, and frantic efforts are still needed to ensure visitors are housed.

Tonga's Prime Minister, Hu'akavameiliku Siaosi Sovaleni, told RNZ Pacific earlier this month that the leaders gathering "is one of the key meetings in the Pacific".

He said Tonga was "fortunate" to host the meeting this year and "trying to actually make it quite an experience".

"We are looking forward to actually show people what our culture is all about, what our food is all about, and what Tonga is all about."

RNZ Pacific spoke with our Tonga correspondent, Kalafi Moala, about this and other matters to do with the summit.

Moala began by talking about this week's dramatic revelations of 17 people arrested over ten days on charges of importing to sell millions of pa'anga of methamphetamine.

(The transcript has been edited for brevity and clarity.)

Don Wiseman: First up, we can talk about this what appears to have been a highly coordinated series of drug raids over the past couple of weeks, an impressive haul of methamphetamine and interesting array of people.

Kalafi Moala: There's 17 that have been arrested recently, and I just heard there's going to be more coming up. The leaders of this group that have been arrested are deportees. One of them has been identified as a deportee from Australia. But I think the interesting thing is, there's a build-up of, or there has already been a build-up of a gang, a group that have been formed here in Tonga, and they are suspected of being one of the main distributors of drugs here.

There's a lot of money involved. There's a lot of assets, like cars and motorbikes, that have been confiscated with this arrest. The word that we get from the police is that they have been waiting for the right time to do this. They have been following and have known about this for some time, and these arrests are a result of an investigation. They felt it's the right time to do so.

DW: You would think in a small place like Tongatapu, it's very hard to hide this sort of activity.

KM: Absolutely, very true. There's a lot more people that know about what's going on, and they just kind of either look the other way or shrug their shoulders and think 'that's none of my business'. But the encouraging thing to us that live here, is that the police had their eyes on this and they at least doing something about it.

DW: Do you think the upcoming Forum summit would have prompted them in any way?

KM: No, they have been doing this for some time. In fact, they would have avoided doing the arrests at this particular time if they were trying to make an impression on the Forum, because it does not go well for Tonga in terms of reputation, to do it right at the time when there are visitors. But I talked to one of my sources in the police department, and they say they finally got everything that they needed, and the timing of the arrest had nothing to do with the Forum. It was just the right time for them to do so.

DW: In terms of the Forum, we have talked at length about the issues of whether there will be enough housing, but I understand that some of it, at least, has now been opened and is ready to occupy, or is it?

KM: The temporary housing that has been set up, it's 150 prefab houses, and they are in four different locations. The biggest location was opened this past week, on Saturday. No one is living there yet. The accommodation is in another location. In fact, the location where the actual meetings will take place, right in town.

The housing there has been open. That's where they are opening a media centre and quite a number of the journalists that have arrived in Tonga early, particularly from the PIF, they are already staying there. The other two locations where the housing is set up are not yet completed. This may be an embarrassment to the government because they are giving out press releases and telling people that it's already completed.

But there are two locations, and I have just visited those locations today [Wednesday], and there's nothing inside. Those houses are still empty. There are no beds. They are still trying to connect the pipes, and the people are arriving before the weekend. So, I do not know what they are thinking, but the organisers here - they must be worried - but are trying to put on a good impression. They are going to have housing for everybody, and I am hoping that they do.

DW: There had been a call put out by the government to ask residents if they would be happy to put visitors up, and there has been a lot of response to that.

KM: There are people that are opening their homes, even with government assistance to fix up one or two rooms that are open in a home. What I have heard as of yesterday [Tuesday] is that some of those homes that have opened up, are already booked to be occupied. The concern has been the prefab homes - the 150 that are being constructed. Less than half of those are ready for occupation. The other half, they are still fixing it.

DW: As far as the Forum goes, it is clearly a very important event for Tonga, and Tonga takes the chairmanship of the organisation. What would be the most important things for Tonga? What are they looking to come out of the meeting?

KM: Based on the activities that have been going on in the last few months, I believe Tonga is really looking very much to see that this conference is going to help bring in funding for Tonga for things like climate change impacts [and] funding for development, economically and socially. Those are the things that this government is reaching out for. They feel that there could be some key friendships that will come out of this conference, and the fact that it is in Tonga, they are hoping that the visitors will at least see Tonga and see the kind of things that needs development and hopefully will provide funding.

You have got to remember that the Secretary General of the United Nations is visiting first time [the] Forum, you have a number of other development partners that are going to be observers or guests, whether it is from France, China, Japan, They are going to be here.

There is training going on now for journalists that are listening on just how to cover the Pacific Islands Forum. The training was started off with two the government journalists basically announcing to the training sessions to watch out for foreign journalists who will be here to give Tonga a bad name. And basically it was a propaganda advertisement to say, 'hey, let's have some good stories for Tonga'. That is why this story about the drug arrest and so on is in the view of government, it is not a good time. It's not a good story.

They did the beginning of the sessions this week. They continue to say, 'watch out for the foreigners who are here to give Tonga a bad name. Let's give Tonga some good stories."