NZ 'Spying' No Surprise, Says Fiji

By Roland Koroi

SUVA (Fiji Broadcasting Corporation/Pacific Media Watch): News of New Zealand government spying on Fiji and tapping phone lines before and after the 2006 coup comes as no surprise, says permanent Secretary for Information Sharon Smith-Johns.

Smith-Johns says Fiji has always maintained that New Zealand was indeed spying on Fiji and the leaked documents revealed today have validated those claims.

The cables released by the Wikileaks website show that NZ used signals intelligence to listen in on phone conversations between Fiji’s military and leadership.

Smith-Johns say the Fiji government has nothing to hide and New Zealand could go on listening if they want.

>>> “Let them listen to what the government has to say. We’ve got nothing to say, we know where the Roadmap is taking us, we know of elections in 2014, we know when the constitution will come into place, we talk about this openly so let the NZ government spy on us and pass that information onto America or to Australia or to whoever they’re passing the information to.”

Smith-Johns has also refuted claims in overseas media that the leaked reports would anger Fiji Prime Minister Commodore Voreqe Bainimarama.

Smith-Johns says the reports only show that Fiji was right and that New Zealand was spying on Fiji.

ENDS

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