Fijian bus drivers and bus checkers wake up early in the morning to serve the public so it is disappointing to see school students harassing and bullying them, says the bus operators industry group.

Fiji Bus Operators Association general secretary Rohit Latchan said he was responding to a recent video on social media involving a high school student threatening a bus checker.

Latchan also pleaded with parents and teachers to teach students respect towards everyone, especially bus drivers and checkers.

• READ MORE: Other Fiji bus driver reports

“People should realise that bus drivers and checkers are also humans,” Latchan said.

“They’re providing service to the public, especially to students.

“I am pleading with parents and teachers to respect and appreciate bus drivers and checkers. There is no need for abuse or threats.

“Driving all day is not an easy job. We don’t want our drivers to get hurt.”

Closed fist threat
The video shows the student threatening a bus driver and a bus checker saying, ‘Au sega ni rerevaki kemudrau’ (I am not afraid of you) after he got on board with a closed fist.

Although it is unclear what caused the incident, many found the issue of a young student challenging adults alarming.

Acting Police Commissioner Juki Fong Chew said the matter had been directed to the Central Deputy Police Commissioner for investigations and a team would visit the school tomorrow.

Meanwhile, Education Secretary Selina Kuruleca said all necessary processes had been followed, including informing parents and the Child Protection Services.

“We again request parents to remind their children on the importance of proper behaviour at all times,” Kuruleca said.

“Even though the student was responding to some earlier incident by the driver, he could have reported the incident to the police instead of this swearing and threatening behaviour.

“The student is undergoing counselling at the moment.”

Temalesi Vono is a Fiji Times reporter. Republished with permission.

Vanuatu police have appealed to the public to remain calm and have warned drivers and owners of public transport to ensure they provide a high quality service and start behaving professionally.

During his visit to the Vanuatu Tourism Offiice this week, Deputy Prime Minister Joe Natuman was informed that their staff have pulled away after the issue at the wharf escalated by the alleged stoning of an Adventures in Paradise bus and the alleged abduction and assault of a tour employee by some drivers at the wharf.

The VTO information officers, who are normally the first people to meet tourists before the bus and taxi divers, play a vital role in equipping tourists with information about available tours.

Natuman was told that the main reason they pull out of the wharf during cruise ship days was for safety.

“Agencies and police are working on the wharf issue,” said Natuman.

According to the first political adviser to the Minister responsible for Tourism, George Iapson, seven of suspects had surrendered themselves to the police to give their statements.

They were due to appear before the Magistrates Court yesterday afternoon.

“I hope we learn a lesson from this incident and that is to teach our people to respect the work you are doing for the industry,” Natuman said.

The Deputy Prime Minister’s visit to the VTO is part of a series of visits which he began last week to the departments under his ministry.

The kidnapping and attack on a local Vanuatu female tourism manager, Florence Lengkon, has stirred strong criticism of violence against women in the island nation.

Deputy Prime Minister Joe Natuman, who holds the Tourism, Commerce, Trades and Ni-Vanuatu Business portfolio, was quoted by the Vanuatu Daily Post today as saying: “Enough is enough.”

He sent a clear message which told police to “arrest those involved in the kidnapping and assault of a female employee of the Vanuatu Helicopters”.

Lengkon was allegedly abducted and beaten after posting criticism of Vanuatu bus and taxi drivers on social media.

In an email to the Auckland-based Pacific Media Centre, Post media director Dan McGarry, who broke the story on Monday after interviewing Lengkon, said today: “I think this might just be a watershed moment in Vanuatu society.

“It’s the very first time that the preponderance of opinion has been in defence of the vulnerable instead of deferring to bullies.”

McGarry has written numerous articles concerning the unequal treatment and violence against women in Vanuatu.

He told Pacific Media Watch that he had been waiting for almost a decade for a “brave woman” to confront the public with details surrounding their circumstances.

“That woman is Florence Lengkon, as it turns out. Her treatment at the hands of a small group of out-of-control bullies transcends the long-standing tensions at the wharf itself. And for once, people are willing to admit that.”

He said he was satisfied Deputy Prime Minister Joe Natuman had spoken out defending Lengkon’s case, citing that the frequent lack of pressure and action from the government’s highest authorities was a fundamental factor that had resulted in similar cases being ignored and then forgotten.

“It’s certainly true that, no matter what his motivations, DPM Joe Natuman reacted swiftly and decisively, giving everyone their marching orders and making it abundantly clear that this case was not going to be swept under the carpet. So far, events indicate that officials are in fact intent on stopping this kind of behaviour,” McGarry said.

“Nobody is pretending that Florence’s case marks the end of gender-based violence and systemic discrimination against women in Vanuatu society. But I think we can mark this moment as the point where a vocal and influential group began to say, ‘enough’.”

Lengkon posted on her Facebook page, saying she was going “to stay positive to the end”.

Court warrant
The Post reported local police had so far arrested seven people alleged to have been involved in the kidnapping and attack on Lengkon.

Even though the prosecution unit reportedly applied for a court warrant to detain the seven suspects until police completed the investigations and subsequent court hearings, the suspects were released under strict conditions and must appear in court on March 31.

The attack on Lengkon came after she commented on a Facebook post in an online discussion where members of the public blamed the Port Vila and Efate Land Transport Authority (PVELTA) for a recent string of violent activity at the wharf.

Dan McGarry’s article about the incident on Monday reported that Lengkon’s comment had called the bus and taxi drivers “big headed” and “unprofessional”.

In her interview with the Daily Post, Lengkon she was approached by three men who pulled her from office, located on the Port Vila waterfront, on mid-Sunday morning. They forced her into a bus and took her to the wharf.

She said there were lots of taxi and bus drivers, who she was ordered to apologise too, but received verbal abuse and eventually was hit. McGarry’s report quoted her as saying:

“I apologised. I apologised for a second time, and one of them gestured like he was going to hit me. That’s when I started to cry and bent down to hide my face. I don’t know who hit me, but someone did. Blood began to run down my face.”

Details have not been released on why Lengkon’s comment was singled out and targeted as a threat when her comment was only one of more than 100 responses to the public Facebook post.

Her attack emphasises the escalating tensions between bus and taxi drivers who are dealing with loss of tourism at the port due Vanuatu’s shaky economy.

In February, rocks were thrown at a passenger-full tour bus.

A Daily Post article stated “eye witnesses reported that the ‘bus drivers were banging on the back of the buses, yelling at them and then started to stone the vehicles'”.

TJ Aumua is contributing editor of the Pacific Media Centre’s Pacific Media Watch freedom project.

Brave woman tells of beating by Vanuatu drivers – 7 arrested

Bus and taxi drivers stand accused of forcibly abducting the local tour company employee, striking her repeatedly and forcing her to apologise to a transport association “president” for saying that local drivers were “big headed” and were acting “unprofessionally”.

[Vanuatu Daily Post’s Facebook feed reported today a police statement saying they had arrested seven men allegedly involved in the attack. Police were applying for a court warrant to remand the accused behind bars until “completion of police investigations and subsequent court hearings”.]

Mid-morning Sunday, witnesses saw three men, said to be local transport operators, approach the booking offices of Vanuatu helicopters, located on the Port Vila Seafront. One of them was seen to be gesticulating angrily, pointing to something on his mobile phone.

Moments later, Florence Lengkon, Vanuatu Helicopters’ office manager, was pulled by the arm from her office and allegedly forced to climb into the passenger seat of a nearby bus.

“I was in the office when they came. They shouted at me to explain myself,” said Lengkon. “I was confused. I didn’t know what they were talking about.”

“One of them ran up to me,” she continued, “and showed me his mobile phone, saying, ‘Your comment on Facebook’.”

The comment they were referring to, she said, was one of over 100 that comprised a discussion in which some blamed the Port Vila and Efate Land Transport Authority (PVELTA) for the recent spate of violence down at the wharf. Her comment, written in Bislama, said there were too many “big-headed” bus and taxi drivers, and labelled them as “unprofessional’” for their behaviour.

Negative comments
The overwhelming majority of the comments in the discussion were negative, many included swearing and intemperate language. It is not known why this particular comment was singled out.

“I was inside the office,” she said. “One of them, who wasn’t wearing a shirt, came and pulled me out of my office.” She demonstrated how he had grabbed her upper arm and pulled her outside the kiosk.

“He pulled me out of the office, and told me I had to go see the president of the taxi drivers. We would go down there together and I must apologise to them.”

Asked to specify which association they were referring to, Lengkon said, “They didn’t mention any association. They only called him the president. They mentioned the name Melten, and said he was from Eton.”

“After I came out of the office, they pushed me into the front seat of a bus, a red bus…. I was frightened. I asked them, ‘If I get in the bus, what guarantee do I have that I’ll be safe? How do I know you won’t beat me?’”

She said they assured her that they wanted only to talk, and that she would not be harmed.

Lengkon says that she was slapped in the back of the head the moment she descended from the bus.

“There were a lot of taxi and bus drivers there [at the wharf]. A lot of them began to swear at me. I’d just got down from the bus when one of them slapped the back of my head. Another one blocked me and told the others, ‘Don’t hit her. We’re just here to talk’.

‘Apologise to the drivers’
“We came to the place where the president was, and he was continuously telling me I had to apologise to all the taxi and bus drivers because of my comment in Facebook.

“I apologised. I apologised for a second time, and one of them gestured like he was going to hit me. That’s when I started to cry and bent down to hide my face. I don’t know who hit me, but someone did. Blood began to run down my face.”

A medical report indicated that Lenkon had bruising below both eyes, abrasions on her lip, a swollen nose and one eye swollen shut.

The entire episode was over within 15 minutes. Lengkon was brought to hospital for examination, treated and released. Police officials told her that the appropriate staff were not in the office that day, and she was given criminal complaint forms to fill out. No arrests were made and no investigation had begun as of press time yesterday.

There have been numerous reports of similar acts of violence and intimidation by local transport operators in recent months.

It is rare that someone has the courage to tell their story to the public.

Dan McGarry is media director of the Vanuatu Daily Post group.