A shocking story is emerging from the Northern Vanuatu island of Maewo. Last week, two brothers, fugitives from Kaiovo village, appeared at Lolowei Hospital on neighbouring Ambae island. One was treated for injuries. Witnesses said he claimed he had been stoned following a village meeting. The other walked onward to Tumsisiro, an Anglican mission, and requested sanctuary.

Before long, a caller from Maewo ascertained the brothers’ presence in Ambae, and a motor boat was dispatched. Reports estimate that up to a dozen men armed with axes and bush knives arrived at Lolowei. They proceeded to the outpatient clinic and promptly murdered the first brother. Stunned onlookers watched as they struck him dead, then dragged his corpse down to the shore, mocking and abusing it as they went. The second brother met the same fate soon afterward.

Within hours of the events, the story began to spread that accusations of sorcery and murder were the cause of this tragic episode. As with most such events, speculation is rampant and details are difficult to corroborate. One distraught Ambaean related a tale that seems to align well with others:

She told of a meeting held in Kaiovo to deal once and for all with the death of two local school employees, widely suspected to have been poisoned. At its climax, a local church elder announced that God had given him the names of the perpetrators. He had no sooner identified the two brothers and an elderly male accomplice than the local chief instructed the villagers to kill them.

Before the brothers could react, she said, one of the villagers picked up a large volcanic cooking stone and launched it at one of them. He missed, and the two began to scramble to their feet. Another stone quickly followed, striking one of the brothers and injuring him. They nonetheless managed to escape, leaving the older man to be beaten severely by the villagers.

Reports indicate that they obtained a canoe and paddled across several kilometers of open ocean to Lolowei’s tiny cove. It was there that their pursuers caught them up and murdered them.

Poison, witchcraft, religious visions and mob justice. One could easily dismiss these events as the actions of a backward, primitive people, benighted in superstition.

We should be careful not to mock too loudly, lest we mock ourselves.

The same week this story emerged, Internet pundits noted the rise of a pernicious and dangerous trend in online ‘crowd sourcing’ behaviour. People in China have taken to organising themselves to avenge various social transgressions. Using social networking tools, they identify and publicly shame people who, they claim, have committed various acts of cruelty and callousness.

In one case, a Chinese woman posted a video of herself as she tortured and killed a kitten with her stiletto heels. Indignant viewers tracked down personal details including her name, address and employer and began a harassment campaign that culminated in her flight into hiding.

Good riddance to bad rubbish, one is tempted to say. Surely someone so thoughtlessly cruel brought her fate upon herself. Some have observed that it’s hardly surprising to see such behaviour arising in China, with its inept local police and corrupt administration.

But such vigilantism is everywhere. In a case whose circumstances closely mirror that of the young Chinese woman, a teenage American boy uploaded a video of a dog being molested and was subjected to nearly identical treatment. The loosely-organised confederacy of online activists known as Anonymous has a track record of posting incriminating information about their targets.

They too claim the moral high ground, arguing, for example, that their disruption of the Church of Scientology, both online and In Real Life (their term), is a reaction to Scientology’s suppression of information about their organisation. Their tactics, claims Anonymous, include kidnapping, torture and even murder their own members.

People often complain that the Law is impersonal, an uncaring instrument whose application too often punishes the innocent and allows the guilty to walk free. In practice, it is capricious and too often selectively applied. All of this is true, from time to time.

But the alternative is summary judgment and mob justice. Far too often, they’re driven by hysteria and a deep-seated desire to find a scapegoat in order to externalise the worst aspects of human nature that exists within all of us. A recent Daily Post story on the Lolowei murders reports that villagers had long made use of the two accused poisoners to settle their own petty differences.

The very people who had commissioned these despicable acts were the brothers’ accusers and ultimately their executioners.

So where was the rule of Law? As with so many government services, policing is little more than a charade in rural areas. Newspaper reports indicate that, far from detaining the perpetrators and securing the bodies as evidence, police escorted the bodies to the attackers’ boat and allowed them to be taken away. The bodies were apparently fastened with stones and dumped into the ocean.

(It must be acknowledged that police dispatched criminal investigation staff to Ambae the very same day the reports first surfaced. As this column is being written, anonymous sources are reporting that 7 men will be summoned to face charges of unlawful assembly and murder. Whether these people are already in custody is not clear.)

Had these events happened even a few years ago, the brothers might have made good their escape. But with the advent of mobile telecommunications throughout Vanuatu, it only took a few phone calls to locate them, to coordinate transport and, yes, to propagate the sordid story across the nation.

Truly, technology can change lives, but it doesn’t change human nature.

A recent report from the Pacific Institute of Public Policy measuring the social effects of mobile telephony has solid evidence indicating that one of the primary benefits of mobile services is to reinforce social bonds and to sustain them over distance.

Such benefits are undeniably good, but development – especially social development – cannot consist only of technological advances. Improved access to information is a good thing, but it’s only as useful as our ability to process, filter and understand the information itself. No amount of technology will mitigate the worst excesses of jealousy, superstition and mob instinct.

One surprising datum emerging from the PiPP telecoms report is that people don’t recognise the role played by the Government in these recent changes. Satisfaction rose over last year’s report with regard to access to family and friends, business opportunities, travel, even education. But satisfaction levels with the government services actually dropped slightly this year, safeguarding their place at the very bottom of the index.

Social development is a complex, often amorphous and always difficult undertaking. But the government of Vanuatu has to state clearly, publicly and unambiguously what its role will be in this regard. If it doesn’t, people will continue to take matters in their own hands, sometimes with tragic results.

Even in the decades before Jimmy Steven’s Nagriamel movement, land has been at the core of ni-Vanuatu politics and society. Many battles have been fought – and far too many lost – over land rights.

Justin Haccius, a legal researcher for the World Bank’s Jastis Blong Evriwan project, has been looking at this issue for some time now. The conflict between kastom and law, he says, is one of the central issues affecting Vanuatu society today. The problem, as he sees it, is simple: “The system of the majority is not the system of the State.”

In a briefing note titled “Coercion to Conversion: Push and Pull Pressures on Custom Land in Vanuatu” Haccius highlights some of the pressures brought to bear on kastom land owners in their efforts to derive value from their land without becoming completely disenfranchised in the process.

Kastom varies widely from island to island, which makes it difficult to codify it in legal language. Nonetheless, certain commonly held principles are ignored by colonial legal tradition. At the core of the problem is the conflict between rigorous legal strictures and the fluid relationship in kastom between ownership and land use rights.

Haccius writes, “Land is generally owned by a family group, with allocations for use made by a patriarch….” This fluidity allows for compromise and accommodation, but that fluidity disappears when land is leased. The legal framework surrounding leasehold title requires a single, identifiable owner, and generally confers exclusive land use and access rights to the lessee.

The process of identifying an owner is often messy, to say the least. It compounds existing tensions at the village level as individuals and families position themselves to profit from land sales. The exclusive nature of land leases often leads to a winner-take-all scenario in which the person identified as the land owner reaps all the benefits, leaving others at a loss.

Shortly after Independence, the Minister of Lands was given the right to deal in disputed lands. While the purpose at the outset was to avoid upsetting agricultural production on plantations, the practice has since become commonplace. “Absent effective checks and balances this wide ranging power is open to abuse,” states the report.

The report notes that a 2008 Private Member’s Bill to remove this power was defeated in Parliament “on the grounds that disputes could not be allowed to hinder development.” But what is the point of development if it disenfranchises those who deserve most to benefit?

Haccius sees two forces at work here: ‘Push’ pressures pit family members against one another as they vie amongst themselves to parcel and sell their land. Economic necessity exerts a ‘pull’ pressure on land owners as well. Lands sales are often the only way kastom land owners can gain access to the cash economy. As families are drawn inexorably deeper into the cash economy, the pressure to give up access to their land increases.

This dynamic creates a system in which kastom owners operate at a perpetual disadvantage. “Custom-owners need a quick sale. Seeking better offers, marketing land or prolonging negotiations is as likely to produce contesting claimant owners attracted by a cash sale.” Negative outcomes from such a scenario include lengthy court cases, disenchanted buyers and possible intervention by the Minister of Lands.

This gives the advantage to land speculators willing to overlook their own scruples in pursuit of a quick property flip. They swoop in, sweet talk one or two individuals, and before long a few pigs are dead and one villager has a new Hilux and some walking around money. His extended family and their children, meanwhile, have lost their birthright.

Jastis Blong Evriwan is a World Bank-funded project designed to create a better understanding of the issues of social justice at the grassroots level. The goal of the project, says Haccius, “is to train local researchers so that the skills stay in the country. We recognise that the knowledge is there, but the skills” don’t always exist. Too often, he says, when foreign consultants come, they take away the knowledge and skills with them.

By partnering with the Ministries of Justice and Lands as well as with grassroots organisations, Jastis Blong Evriwan aims to join extensive local knowledge with professional legal research and advocacy training in order to create more enlightened and effective policy-making on the national stage. “The research is not to introduce new ways of doing thing, it’s to inform – and reform – existing efforts.”
The formal legal system currently holds a monopoly on development. That shouldn’t be the case.

Haccius believes that kastom shouldn’t be seen as a problem but a resource.

By working closely with local organisations and providing expert training to 3 or 4 local individuals, Jastis Blong Evriwan hopes to build what Haccius calls “bridges of dialogue” between grassroots and the state.

These efforts are timely, even overdue. With a little luck and a lot of learning on both sides, efforts like this might be enough to start the transition for ni-Vanuatu from spectators in Vanuatu’s development to full partners in the wealth and growth of the nation.

This week, I feel I didn’t have nearly enough time to do a completely satisfactory job of mapping a morally, legally and ethically complicated landscape. While I feel I covered most of the main themes in the thousand or so words allowed me, much more needs to be said.

What follows is a somewhat lengthy consideration of what I chose to say – and chose not to say – in this column, and why I did so….

I wouldn’t have been able to write anything useful at all were it not for the patient and generous assistance of Daily Post staff and journalists, who shared their extensive notes and insights, and who talked me back from a more illiberal (and likely less accurate) piece. Even with their own deadlines looming, they bore the countless interruptions patiently and with grace.

Others with whom I discussed the issue were helpful to the extent they felt they could be, but there’s an atmosphere of intimidation, a natural animal caution, in the air right now. More than one individual said they’d love to help, but couldn’t afford to be seen talking to me. Given the threats and physical violence that have accompanied prior reporting on the issue of violence against prisoners, much of my time was spent corroborating facts and triple-checking the language of the article. I expect that some will still find it provocative.

The evening before my submission deadline, I talked for about two hours with a chief from John Bule’s island of Paama. I was interested to know how such an affair would be dealt with in kastom. The chief replied emphatically that these events simply could not have happened in the village.

I can’t replicate here the nuance and indirection of formal Bislama rhetoric. A poor translation will have to suffice:

Two generations ago, said the chief, John Bule would never have been allowed to stray as far as he did. According to the chief, a serial transgressor like Bule would have faced an escalating series of fines and penalties, authorised by the chief and enforced by the young men of the village. The alternatives painted by the chief were these: Bule would either have been intimidated sufficiently to come back into the fold, where he would have been welcomed, or his execution would have been ordered. Either would have occurred long before his final arrest, detention and unsanctioned death.

Two conclusions were offered:

1. Bule reached this point of deadly crisis because a gap has appeared in society, where neither kastom nor the law operate as they should. The distance from island to town, the newfound mobility affecting Vanuatu society, has left so-called ‘town’ chiefs with little power to enforce their views. While many chiefs – this one included – serve a useful and active role in their communities, that role has become more advisory than authoritative.
2. Because he’d passed beyond kastom’s ken, the chief felt there was nothing he could do but wash his hands of the whole unfortunate affair. “Bule i mestem rod long taem finis,” he told me. By ignoring the counsel of his family and his community, Bule had arrived in a place where helping hands could no longer reach him.

The chief refused to be drawn into a discussion of the propriety of the actions of those who arrested Bule. That, he said, was the Law, and had nothing to do with kastom.

While caution was the byword during the composition process, some people encouraged me to state plainly that the key problem highlighted by this tragic sequence of events was that the VMF, Vanuatu’s paramilitary force, was acting beyond its authority. They’d been instructed to assist with the search and return to jail of all escaped prisoners, but, I was told, there was no reason for them to hold Bule for ‘questioning’. Given that Correctional Services staff have been present at the temporary detention facility in the VMF barracks, some said, Bule should have been handed over immediately. They went on to say that even if questioning were necessary, that was the Police’s role.

Similar implications were drawn from the arrival in hospital of runaway criminal Jacky Saul, who was photographed being escorted back to Port Vila following his attempted escape to Southwest Bay on Malekula island. (The local community cooperated with authorities and facilitated his peaceful return to custody.) The photos show Saul, apparently unhurt, walking handcuffed between two individuals in plain clothes. Some time later, he was reported to have arrived in Vila Central hospital with both legs and one hand broken.

In a moving article that appeared in the same Daily Post issue as my column, Saul’s father appealed to people’s sense of humanity, denouncing the VMF’s actions as immoral and unlawful.

Opposition leader Sato Kilman made a statement this week decrying what he characterised as an undisciplined and unlawful atmosphere permeating the VMF.

But here’s the thing: The people who arrested John Bule were in plain clothes. The vehicles they used were not positively identified as belonging to any particular government agency. The unsigned statement issued from the Prime Ministers Office spoke only of ‘officials’ detaining and questioning Bule. The VMF themselves have not yet commented publicly. Neither have the Police or the Correctional Services department.

Despite the strong circumstantial evidence and vehement protestations from some informed sources, I was cautioned not to make any direct allegations of VMF involvement in this affair. Because no one was willing to go on the record, and there was no hard evidence supporting these assertions, I had no choice but to accept that advice.

If and when the findings of the Commission of Inquiry into last year’s prisoner protest are made public, I am told, one of the key points will be the involvement of the Vanuatu Mobile Force in acts of violence. Allegations have been made that prisoners were removed from Correctional Services custody when most of these alleged acts occurred, then returned, injured and in obvious distress. We can only hope that the Minister of Justice will make the report public sooner than later.

But until that time, we have to avoid jumping to conclusions, no matter how clear they may seem.

My greatest concern in this apparent spiral of violence, escape and retaliation is that people will find themselves in a position where they feel they have nothing to lose. It seems clear that many – if not all – of the prisoners currently being held feel this way. They are reportedly conducting a mass hunger strike as I write this.

But I worry about what will happen if and when people are actually charged with assault, battery, manslaughter or even murder against a prisoner. Surely they’ll feel that, with current facilities as they are right now, incarceration is as close to a death sentence as makes no difference.

This is precisely why we have to have some truth-telling; it’s why we have to short-circuit the cycle of violence that seems to be engulfing us. I don’t so much want to see someone ‘pay’ for what they’ve done; I want to see it stop.

The old chief from Paama was right in one regard: Until people come back of their own volition into the arms of their community, they are beyond our ability to help them. I only hope that everyone – captor and captive alike – reflects carefully on that.

Shortly before noon on Sunday, March 29, two Toyota pickup trucks arrived at a Malapoa residence occupied by 21 year old escaped convict John Bule, his girlfriend and their daughter, aged less than 2. Several men in plain clothes dismounted and entered the house in search of Bule.

Loud voices were heard from within the house, and 3 shots were fired, apparently as a warning. Nobody was hurt. Shortly afterward, John and his girlfriend were escorted from the house, their hands bound behind their back. They were placed together in the back of one truck and driven to the VMF barracks.

The girlfriend later recalled that she pleaded with those holding her to be allowed to return to her home and her daughter. She told them she’d done nothing wrong.

As she pled with them, she says, she heard her boyfriend John crying out in pain in an adjacent room.
Shortly before 2:00 p.m. that same day, authorities brought John Bule to Vila Central Hospital for treatment of wounds to both legs, both arms, his ribs, back and head, which had multiple lacerations, including a gash above his left eye about 10 cm. long and 3 cm. wide.

Soon after 4:00 p.m. Sunday, John Bule was pronounced dead.

Hospital authorities have not yet commented officially on the cause of death.

An unsigned statement issued from within the Prime Minister’s Office claimed that John Bule was apprehended in the Malapoa neighbourhood, then ‘questioned’ for 30-40 minutes. The statement asserts that he then tried to run away and was injured during the ensuing struggle. It goes on to say that a Commission of Inquiry will be created to investigate the circumstances of Bule’s death.

Available evidence shows that John Bule sustained grievous injuries over his entire body. This wasn’t the first time he’d sustained injuries in custody. On December 20th last year, when inmates burnt down the Stade prison and marched in protest to the Chiefs’ Nakamal, Bule was spotted with both legs bandaged. Unable to walk unaided and in obvious pain, he was supported by two of his fellow prisoners.

Roadside rumour and kava bar conversations tend toward simplistic conclusions, and the case of John Bule is no different. One otherwise sweet-natured mother uttered, “An escaped prisoner is dead? Good!” She accompanied the statement with a single, swift nod of her head.

But it’s not that simple. It never is. Issues that in the abstract appeal to our most predatory feelings take on a completely different complexion when they affect us, or our loved ones. John Bule was not that woman’s son, but he did belong to someone.

While we sometimes feel that Hammurabi may have had it right, John Bule didn’t deserve to die like this. Not according to any law I can find. Neither the New Testament, kastom nor Common Law condone this kind of senseless death.

Vanuatu is a nation of laws. In real terms, it operates using a mostly pragmatic mix of kastom, Christianity and Common Law. First and foremost, family ties bind us together, guided by our chiefs and our churches. The law is our ultimate arbiter.

Let me ask, then: What chief, what pastor, what judge can sit idly by when something like this happens? The answer, I am ashamed to say, appears to be: Most of them.

We’ve known about problems in the prisons for years now. We’ve seen what happens when people, jailed and jailer alike, are hidden from the public eye. If the testimony of Prison Report 2008 is to be trusted, no sooner did convicts pass out of our sight then they were susceptible to treatment that contravenes not only the law, but our own collective conscience.

And yet, because it’s hidden from our sight, we allow it to go on.

While I confess to an unusual anger over this incident, I don’t especially blame the men who arrested Bule. Just a few days before these events, I spoke with one of them. The long, late hours of constant, often fruitless searching had taken their toll. It was clear to me that his good nature, his professionalism even, were being strained by the effort.

But it is precisely because of such stresses that the enforcement of rules, discipline and routine is critical to Vanuatu’s Correctional Services. Had Bule been returned immediately to their custody, there is every reason to believe he would be alive today.

Donors, politicians, chiefs and especially the staff of the Correctional Services Department have invested time, money and no small emotion over the years to improve things. All to no avail. They failed because we, as a society, didn’t care to know what was happening on the other side of the prison wall.

We are all of us responsible for this tragic death.

When Correctional Services announced their intention to build a proper detention facility, a chorus of voices complained about money wasted on a ‘country club for criminals’. When the truth about conditions inside the prison became clear, we tut-tutted soberly, and turned our heads.

When journalists broke the news of prisoner protests, they were threatened and even beaten.

Though a Commission of Inquiry was established to investigate the issue, the public has yet to see its report. An article in the Independent quoting Professor Don Patterson, a Commission member, appears to corroborate some – if not all – of the prisoners’ claims.

Not to diminish the importance of this document and the urgent need to publish it, but we already know what the problem is. The answer too, should be clear. We need to recognise that prisoners are not outcasts – inmates, even escapees, are not magically transported out of society’s purview. We still bear responsibility for their lives.

We all abhor the actions of those we send to prison. So why, then, would we choose to emulate them? Since when was violence – absent justice, orders or oversight – the solution to anything?

What chief would stand up and explain to the Paama community that Bule’s death was just and deserved? What pastor would claim that sin excuses sin? What minister would state that his employees acted beyond order or instruction, but rightly?

By whose authority did John Bule die?

John Bule’s death overshadows and derogates all that we hold dear in this society. We must – all of us – work to ensure that it never happens again.

On December 5, a remarkable document surfaced. Prison Report 2008, authored in secret by Vanuatu inmates on a contraband laptop, is a long, ambling document that alternates between history, documentary and cri de coeur as it recounts the hardships faced by those incarcerated in Vanuatu’s prisons.

At times uncritical, naive and even occasionally self-serving, the report nonetheless contains well documented reports of violence and mistreatment in our prisons.

The report paints a picture of regular physical abuse and neglect in an environment that resists our best efforts to improve it. The prisoners claim that it is precisely these conditions that not only lead them to escape but allow them to succeed.

The prisoners are frankly foolish in their expectations. They make claims for compensation to the tune of 100 million vatu and finish with a warning that if these claims are not addressed within 14 days the prisoners will walk out.

Director of Correctional Services Joshua Bong initially insisted his department had not seen the report, but has since assured the prisoners that a commission of inquiry will be established to investigate the claims. On Thursday, he indicated his intention to stop any effort to leave the prison – with or without outside help –by blockading the road in front of the Stade.

Notwithstanding all precautions taken, the prisoners made good on their threats. On Friday morning at roughly 9:30 a.m., they set the prison alight. In the ensuing chaos, they exited the building, tossed a bible astride the concertina wire atop the fence, and used that foothold to effect their escape.

Some prisoners stayed behind, but the bulk of them marched, first through the Freswota neighbourhood, then on to the Chiefs’ Nakamal, where they remained at the time this column was going to press. The police followed, but there have not yet been any reported arrests.

It is often easy to forget that even after they are sentenced, criminals still possess basic rights. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, celebrating its 60th anniversary this year, states that these fundamental rights are not granted by government, nor can they be taken away.

Vanuatu’s Correctional Services Act of 2006 outlines the proper and respectful treatment of criminals with the goal of successful reintegration into society once their sentences are completed. At its heart is the contention that society has the right and responsibility to take away someone’s liberty if they break the law, but it must consider as well what happens following their release.

Translating this enlightened legislation into reality has proven difficult at best. Among the litany of accusations made by prisoners are incidents of extreme brutality. Some claim they have been beaten beyond recognition, burned on their lips and genitals with cigarettes, had their kneecaps, hands and arms broken with clubs and rifle butts. There are reports of deliberate neglect, in which prisoners with gunshot and other wounds were denied medical care for extended periods. They report being held in solitary confinement for months at a time, well in excess of the limits allowed in the Act, and of being shackled together for extended periods.

The upcoming commission of inquiry will determine the veracity of these claims, but no one I spoke to with knowledge of prison conditions expressed surprise at the accusations.

Relations between prison guards and prisoners everywhere are rife with petty abuses. No country is exempt from the innate, lamentable tendency of some people to mistreat those under their power. But the abuses described in the prisoners’ report go beyond the pale.

To make things worse, the prisons themselves were, everyone admits, in a frightful state even before being gutted by fire. The photos included in the report are frankly shocking.

Until action is taken to remedy the state of the prisons, it is hard to imagine how the ideals expressed in the Correctional Services Act can ever be achieved.

Happily, that is easily – if not quickly – resolved. New Zealand is committed to assisting in this endeavour. Made confident by the wide support shown throughout Vanuatu for a penal system premised on rehabilitation and reintegration into society, it promised material support and skills development to the transformation of Vanuatu’s prisons.

But New Zealand’s commitment is not unconditional. Says High Commissioner Jeff Langley, “New Zealand is committed to supporting Vanuatu’s Corrections Department. We have a partnership with the Government of Vanuatu that includes responsibilities and obligations on both sides…. Mutual respect for basic human rights makes our partnership possible.”

Prisoners and Correctional Services staff have endured a 3 year wait for the government to follow through on one integral aspect of the plan: the grant of land to construct a new penitentiary.

It’s hard to overstate the benefits of an improved prison environment. The most common complaint among prisoners is of the condition of Port Vila’s two jails. Dating from colonial times, these buildings are almost beyond repair. They are, by any measure, unfit for human habitation.

The inhumane conditions in which the prisoners are kept are the most frequently cited reason for their frequent escapes. Indeed, their dire condition makes escaping that much easier. Friday’s incidents offer further proof, if any were required.

A new prison creates significant opportunities. Not least is the ability to segregate prisoners. High risk individuals would have their own section. Likewise, young offenders and prisoners in remand. This last is critically important. Because they have not yet been found guilty of any crime, remand prisoners must be treated differently, especially where access to legal counsel is concerned. The prisoners’ report details cases of remand prisoners being held in the general prison population for 6 months or more without access to legal resources.

Consider the case of Jimmy Kawia, an 18 year-old from Tanna. He speaks no English, French or even Bislama. His village, made famous by the British TV documentary Meet the Natives, is largely isolated from the outside world, following a lifestyle little changed since pre-colonial times. Since his incarceration, he remains mostly isolated, barely speaking a word to the warders or inmates. It’s hard to imagine how he could have understood, much less participated in, his trial. It’s harder still to imagine his condition when he returns to his village once his 2 ½ year sentence is complete.

It’s long been known that the tensions between kastom and the criminal justice system need to be reconciled. The Malvatumauri and numerous village chiefs have demonstrated their concern in the past, and have taken steps to affect a reconciliation between the two. These actions must be recognised and integrated into the normal operation of the system.

Chiefs play an integral role in our daily lives. There is no reason why this should stop once someone steps through the prison gates. Many quiet victories have been achieved through kastom-inspired village justice and parole programmes, but, with a few notable exceptions, our prisons have been largely neglected.

The Minister of Justice has it within his power to designate Official Visitors. These individuals have the right to visit our prisons whenever they want. While they possess only moral authority over the management of the facilities themselves, that authority, properly exercised, could exert tremendous influence. Our current minister, a chief himself, must surely be aware of the benefit of our chiefs bearing witness and offering guidance to captor and captive alike.

By reminding prisoners that they still have a role in village life, that they are still under the watchful eye of society, it’s likely that many a foolish action could be prevented. Likewise, it’s easy to imagine that guards may restrain themselves from the worst abuses if they know someone is watching.

It’s easy to say that prisoners deserve what they get, that they’ve made their bed and now they should lie in it. And it’s true, to a degree. But there is a point past which a man ceases to be a man. The measure of our society, of our capacity to care for one another, is made according to where we draw that line. There is nothing in kastom or natural justice that condones crossing that threshold.

The great comfort of kastom is that every person has their place, in life, in the village, in the world. The government needs to commit to building a new prison and to allowing our chiefs to continue to watch over their children. If it does –when it does – it will ensure that conditions will improve, both for our prisoners and for society as a whole.