Journalist receives death threats: correction

(RSF/IFEX) - The following is an RSF correction to its 29 September 2000 Solomon Islands alert:

There is a small error in our protest letter about the Solomon Islands. The first sentence of the last paragraph should read "Malaitan" rather than "Malay" immigrants.

The corrected version follows. RSF regrets the error.

In a letter to the minister of the police and national security, William Haomae, RSF expressed its concern about the threats received by journalist Duran Angiki, a correspondent with the Pacific Islands Report web site. The organisation asked the minister "to guarantee the journalist's safety". Robert Ménard, the organisation's
secretary-general, reminded the minister that "he had to protect journalists, who merely exercise their right to inform."

According to information collected by RSF, Angiki has been threatened several times by Andrew Nori, one of the leaders of the Malaita Eagle Force (MEF) militia. On 27 September 2000, Nori phoned Angiki at his home in Gizo (an archipelago in the west of the Solomon Islands), threatening him with "reprisals" after the publication of an article on two web sites, Pasifik Nius and Pacific Islands Report. In his report, the journalist had stated that Nori had received money from the authorities. The MEF leader allegedly told the journalist that he and his family "were in danger" if he failed to withdraw his articles from the web sites and write a letter of apology. If not, according to Nori, Lesley Kwaiga, another leader of the MEF, could avenge him for this article.

Since 1998, the Isatabu Freedom Movement (IFM) and MEF militias have been fighting on Guadalcanal Island (in the east of the country) for the defence of native inhabitants and Malaitan immigrants, respectively. Over 60 people have been killed and 20,000 have been displaced.