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Title – 6082 SAMOA: Dreaver stands by controversial guns and drugs story
Date – 8 April 2009
Byline – Tupuola Terry Tavita
Origin – Pacific Media Watch
Source – Savali, 8/04/09
Copyright – S
Status – Unabridged
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BARBARA DREAVER STANDS BY TVNZ STORY
www.mcit.gov.ws/savali_eng.cfm
Drugs, guns and gangs in Samoa: Barbara Dreaver explains:
http://tvnz.co.nz/view/video_popup_windows_skin/2622963By Tupuola Terry Tavita
APIA (Savali/Pacific Media Watch): Television New Zealand Pacific affairs reporter Barbara Dreaver is standing by her story on alleged drugs and firearms smuggling in Samoa.
Since the news item was aired Sunday night on TV One, one alleged gang member, Vaitagutu Lefano, interviewed by Dreaver, has claimed they were asked by the reporter to "play act American gangsters".
He also claims that the supposed cannabis they were smoking was instead "just rolled-up tobacco".
The whole episode was staged, claims Lefano.
"She told us to act like American gangsters and we thought she was shooting a movie. We didn't know she was doing the news."
Not so, says Barbara Dreaver in a telephone interview with Savali this morning.
"We took video footage the moment we stepped off the car and those boys were already heavily into it…we also asked them to cover up they faces but they didn’t want to."
On supposed rolled-up tobacco, Dreaver says, "well it didn’t smell like it."
Dreaver describes the knife and axe-wielding youths she interviewed "as little guys and not the major players."
"They were just guys who sold drugs."
A teary-eyed Lefano, who appears in his teens, made a public apology on TV One last night "for the misery our stupidity had caused the country".
"We're not gang members, just a bunch of harmless boys messing around.”
Police Commissioner Papalii Lorenese Neru says that the youths' actions on television amounted to public intimidation and challenging the rule of law which is "criminal".
"We have laws that govern that sort of conduct and it appears that those boys have overstepped it."
Late yesterday, the commissioner revealed that they have brought one of the youths to the station for questioning and the rest are "being rounded up".
But Dreaver says she "stands by her story" and she had corresponded by email yesterday with Acting Prime Minister Misa Telefoni over the matter.
Dreaver says she is putting together another story on the police and government’s address of the problem.
"We’re also putting together another segment for Tagata Pasifika that will reveal a little bit more."
TVNZ, she says, is putting together a press release on the matter.
* TVNZ on ‘dumping ground for criminals’: www.pacmediawatch.aut.ac.nz
* Comment on this item www.pacificmediacentre.blogspot.com
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