The Gordian Haloes

Unoriginal Recollections
By Tolo Tiafa MacBoozle
Some more footnotes to remembered history.
Reader advisory notices.
1. Parts of this narrative may contain ethnically offensive or religiously offensive
material. Reader discretion is recommended. If unsure at any point whether you have
been insulated, the writer suggests the reader should stop reading, turn off all
electrical appliances, and not proceed further.
2. This is a draft, which is a side effect of going around wearing a skirt, a kilt or an ie,
which the writer is hoping to make as factually accurate as possible, honing it to a
greater extent as time goes on. Hence revisions or deletions may occur in the text
without prior warning and without reason.
3. The writer is largely working from the writers memory of names and events dating
back up to 30 years ago. However, some original accounts, contemporary
documentation and miscellaneous independently published material have also been
relied on while writing the narrative.
4. Although the surnames or paternal names of all personages have been omitted, the
writer has used the correct first name, Christian name, or Samoan title of each person
mentioned in the narrative. This is done so that anyone reading this who is familiar
with the names of the actual personages (personages in some cases now deceased, in
other cases still alive as at 2015) can know unambiguously & precisely who the writer
is writing about in each case.
About the writer.

MacBoozle is a Pelham Puppet. He is of Scots ancestry and wears a skirt known in Scotland
as a kilt. In Samoa this skirt would be called an ie. Most Samoan males and some nonSamoan ones wear an ie from time to time. MacBoozle goes around with a rickety gait while
suspended from a wooden cross. Despite that he is not religious. There are about 10 strings
leading from the wooden cross to various parts of his body, like his hands, his knees, his
body, both sides of his head, and so forth. Some of the strings are coloured, others not. Each
of his limbs is pierced with nails in multiple places. He can move his head forwards and
backwards, and from side to side. He can open his mouth when in need of liquid refreshment.
He drinks an unidentified liquid carried in a green bottle in his left hand, allegedly whiskey.
But MacBoozle is a wowser. MacBoozle recently felt vindicated when in 2012 the International
Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC, associated with the WHO, World Holiday Organisation)
classed alcoholic beverages such as beer and wine as Group 1 carcinogens. Group 1 means
definitely cause cancer, Group 2 means probably, and Group 3 means possibly, Group 4
means safe for human consumption. MacBoozle lives in Coffs Harbour, where he sleeps in a
coachwood box for most of the year, and is seldom seen in public. About MacBoozles given

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names: There is no D sound in Samoan nor letter D in the Samoan alphabet, which only has
12 letters. Savaiian Samoans who cannot speak English cannot pronounce D, so if your name
has a D in it, that D may be heard by a Savaiian as a T. Worse still, words in Samoan never
end with a consonant. So if your name ends with a D, a Savaiian Samoan cannot say it - and
will instead attempt to produce a word for your name that ends with a vowel, hence Tolo, and
hence Tiafa.

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Once upon an ocean.

The Scots novelist Robert Louis Stevenson spent the last few years of his life in Samoa on an
island called Upolu. He went there for his health, but died anyway. The writer could have told
him that would happen, except that I got there too late to do any good. RLS is buried in a
grave on a hill at Vailima overlooking his large house. Vailima means five rivers in Samoan.
Characteristically Samoans have trouble with mathematics, and there are not in reality five
rivers, only three. Vailima is about 4 km inland and uphill from Apia, the capital of Samoa.
Apia - or the general area - has a population of about 75 000.
Samoa as a whole has a population of about 180 000, about the same as Geelong in Victoria.
The two biggest islands Upolu and Savaii would together just about fit inside Port Philip Bay.
Samoa is a sovereign country. It is a constitutional Westminster democracy (sic) and there is
one member of parliament per about 2000 people (more than half of the 2000 would be
children).
Vailima is reached from Apia by the sealed Cross-Island Road. This road was built by the
U.S. military during World War II, ahead of the advancing Japanese, who only got to Samoa
later, in peacetime. The Cross-Island Road makes a short cut, but a steep and winding one,
taking 15 km across the middle, from the north coast of the island to the south coast, rising
and falling about 730 metres each way. It saves about 40 to 50 km compared with going
around the coast the long way. Directly opposite Vailima, on the other side of the Cross-Island
Road, is Avele. There is a gravel / tar / dirt access road leading off the Cross-Island Road at
Avele, through some farmland, past a now destroyed structure called Pineapple Cottage.
Pineapple Cottage was a film set, built as a replica of the original. After about 300 metres
along this graveled road one reaches the compound and other scattered & scarred buildings of
Avele College.
In the 19th century, in the late 1880s, there was a combination of:
internal political turmoil roiling the natives on Samoa;
and external colonial expansionism coveting the Samoan islands.
Stevenson was there through part of this and saw the later developments first hand until he
dropped dead. On one day in 1889 there were 3 US warships, 3 German warships, 1 British
warship, as well as 6 lesser merchant ships, all moored in the harbor. The warships were
there if needed, by which I mean to say that if the opportunity arose that the war ashore
among the natives entered Apia, it could become a free for all between the US and Germany
as to who colonized first under the guise of protecting European lives. By the next day there
was only one warship left afloat, and it had left. Everything else had been either sunk,
beached or wrecked. It was not what you might think. The day before a hurricane had arrived.
During the onslaught of the hurricane only the 2,200 tonne HMS Calliope escaped the harbor
and was able to ride out the heavy seas in the open waters of the Pacific.

Stevenson wrote about the 1889 events in his piece A footnote to history which I have not
read.
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/536/536-h/536-h.htm

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In Chapter X RLS describes the hurricane. I get the impression RLS implied it was only a bad
storm. A genuine full-bore hurricane would have been far worse and ripped up the island
something bad. RLS was correct, a real hurricane does far more damage ashore, I have seen
it. Metal roofing can get folded flat around tree trunks like greeting cards, and wooden flooring
can go straight through a tree trunk and be left sticking out horizontally from both sides like
an arrow through a head.
The hurricane neutralized or destroyed both Germanys and the USs Samoan theatre
squadrons and drowned parts of their respective crews. This put a dampener on their military
capacity to colonise Samoa. One month later the stealth colonization of Samoa was achieved
peaceably, at the Berlin Conference, culminating in the 1889 Treaty of Berlin. The US, UK and
Germany reached agreement amongst themselves as to which Samoan king would become the
sole ongoing king. The US Navy got the use of the better harbor and coaling station in the
form of Tutuila / Pago Pago. Whereas the Germans got the use of the better plantation land
and a bigger island in the form of Upolu. I think the UK got the use of Savaii. Overall
everyone (forgetting the Samoans for the time being) got something in a delicate international
arrangement termed a Tripartite Condominium.
Stevenson reportedly saw himself as a bystander or observer to events, whereas some
historians consider Stevenson was an unwitting participant. That is in the sense that it can
be seen that Stevenson was actually used by the Samoans to further their own ends - without
Stevenson ever realizing he was being used by the Samoans.
The balance or equilibrium of the Tripartite Condominium was preserved for 10 years until
1899. After that the UK pulled out (I think), until the outbreak of World War I saw the
German agricultural and administrative interests on Samoa supplanted by New Zealand
troops.
Now readers might think that replacing the dreaded Huns with New Zealanders was a good
thing. But it actually led or dovetailed into the worst single thing that ever happened to
Samoa. That is because Samoa thereafter got a NZ administration, and during the 1918-1919
world influenza epidemic the military man in charge broke quarantine and let flu-infected
foreign persons on a visiting ship ashore in Apia, which in turn led to a contagion that killed
22% of the Samoan population. In the case of the NZ military man, not only did he make a
mistake, but after making the initial mistake he made - and persisted in making - a second
mistake that served to make things even worse for the Samoans, rejecting medical assistance
from the US on Tutuila about 100km away.
The fate of Stevenson as an instrument of the Samoans is a suitable entry into what the
current writer considers some relevant and salient aspects of Samoans. Samoans are
reckoned to be the most civilized of all Polynesian sub-groups, other sub-groups being
Tahitians, Hawaiians, Maori etc. In a measure of civility among Polynesians, Samoans are the
cream. First and foremost Samoans are not cannibals. The writer can attest to this as he
married one, and she never even bit me the slightest bit.
The Samoan language is the only Polynesian language with a word for please. Samoan is
spoken in both honorary and common forms, with distinct vocabularies. Overlaying the
honorary and common forms, Samoan is also spoken in a k pronunciation and a t
pronunciation. t is polite, whereas k is vulgar. For example if someone says uka they are

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just conversing vulgarly and mean away from the sea, whereas if someone says uta they
also mean away from the sea but they are saying it nicely.
Samoan has singular, dual and plural pronouns (English only has singular and plural).
Samoan has inclusive and exclusive pronouns (inclusive and exclusive versus the listener
i.e. we excluding the addressed, versus we including the addressed). There are also two
ways or degrees of registering the possessive case in Samoan: the Samoan word for my in
my island is different from the my in my face. The indicators of possession differ only in
that the vowel changes like from y to i or something else, my versus mi.
Western Samoa is one part, about 12 islands, of the Samoan group, which in all is about 20
or so islands of a volcanic chain in the Pacific Ocean. The other part is currently called
American Samoa. In the 1980s Western Samoa had a population of about 180 000 people, a
seat at the United Nations, various other forms of international representation, and a
voluntary representative on the International Olympic Committee.
Western Samoa also had three government high schools, one of which was Avele College,
which is where I worked through the 1986 and 1987 academic years. Avele College then had
about 300 students, all boys, although a dozen of these boys were faafafine, of ambiguous
status. Avele College also had a certain reputation, sometimes receiving newspaper coverage
for the wrong reasons. Two examples are:
The 1986 street brawl in central Apia between Avele boys and students from Chanel College (a
church high school) after a rugby match.
And, several years later an incident when Avele students burnt down the house of a family
nearby over a conflict concerning (I think) the Head Boy and a girlfriend who had two
boyfriends, only one of whom was the Head Boy, with the other boyfriend being from this
neighbouring village.
During World War II a lot of bad things happened on all sides. Since losing that war, the
Japanese governments in various manifestations have generally been eager to erase or rewrite history about Japanese atrocities. Often the Japanese government characterizes the
Japanese people as victims. It denies the status of many other victims who had happened to
not be Japanese. Millions (or tens of millions) of these non-Japanese were silenced by virtue
of being Chinese or Korean and being dead. Foreigners know the Japanese are lying, the
Japanese know they are lying, everyone one knows the Japanese are lying. Yet the Japanese
continue to teach lies to Japanese schoolchildren in textbooks. Strange, the prototypical
inscrutable oriental. Possibly it has something do with the Japanese cultural aversion to
losing face.
This sanitising of Japans international reputation is perennially assisted by Japanese aid
programmes to developing countries in the Pacific. This is augmented by a volunteer
organization Japanese Overseas Co-operation Volunteers. I thoroughly recommend JOCVs.
They are dedicated and reliable colleagues. I have never had a bad experience with a JOCV.
That may be part of the problem, you give Japanese a task and they will not give up until they
do it. Then they will come back for more assignments, regimented chauvinists, as it indeed
turned out previously in the case of WW2.
At some point prior to 1986 Japanese aid money had been applied to building a new science
block (two laboratories and a staff room) at Avele College. In addition the Japanese had
donated two 20-seater school bus vehicles. I am not sure who paid for and built a wooden

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garage structure for sheltering these two buses, but that was there at Avele too. By 1986 the
shed was still standing, and the two school buses had been joined by a school flat bed truck
purchased with money I think was raised by the Avele College old boys association. However,
by 1986 one of the school busses was permanently defunct (possibly an accidental wreck or a
terminal engine failure/passenger overload/both I am not sure which).
In 1986 the School Principal was Tupae. Tupae also was an old boy. In a country as small as
Samoa, the Avele College old boys formed an influential pressure group.
About during 1986 someone came up with the idea that Western Samoa needed a new
university. The Japanese were willing to pay for it, possibly to atone for Japan being the victim
of World War 2. A place to put the university needed to be found, which was not easy. But the
grounds of Avele College would have been big enough if Avele College could be obliterated.
This would as it turns out solve two problems in one step. It would get rid of Avele, which was
a problematic school, and it would provide lebensraum for the university.
Japanese surveyors appeared at Avele. Rumours started to circulate. Tempers flared.
The Principal Tupae was one of the leaders of the defence of Avele. It turned out in the eyes of
the political powers that it was going to be desirable to get rid of Tupae along with getting rid
of the school. The first gambit to silence Tupae was to offer the Deputy Principal, Joe, a
promotion to Principal. Joe later told me he thought he knew what would happen if he had
accepted - so Joe declined. The second gambit was to offer the position of Principal to the
head geography teacher Fonoti.
Fonoti accepted, possibly an excess of hubris and ambition over discretion.
This led to the situation where for much of the next school year 1987 Avele College had two
principals working side by side in the same office, as both seemingly held valid appointments.
Tupae had not been terminated. According to Tupae, and there was no evidence otherwise,
Tupae was never sent any notice of his termination. This could be true, as I never heard of
anyone producing the relevant transfer, demotion or whatever. Possibly this situation arose
because under the Public Service Act there were no legal grounds to replace Tupae, as the
only justification was a question of political expedience. Alternatively, there was no school left
to transfer Tupae to, the department only having three high schools to play musical
headmasters with, and no empty seats. The department did not seem to know what to do.
They should have acted the year before, in 1986, while Tupae was neglecting his official duties
for the three months he spent having his body and legs painfully traditionally tattooed.
In retrospect, it occurs to me another option would have been to call the place Avele University
and make Tupae the vice-chancellor.
Part way through 1987 someone came up with a new plan. This involved giving Tupae a
UNESCO scholarship to study in Paris for a year or two. The plan worked, Tupae took the bait
& left for France.
At the end of 1987 Fonoti was the sole principal in charge of Avele. The campaign to save
Avele had been crippled by the departure of Tupae, and Avele was quietly closed down. The
Avele students were dispersed to other schools, mostly Samoa College. The teachers were
distributed to various primary, middle or high schools. Fonotis school was wiped out from

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under him and he lost his job as Avele principal. Fonoti was posted to Samoa Secondary
Teachers College as a lecturer. I was moved to the Public Service Commission, where it was
thought the Samoan public service could make alternative use of me.
Unexpectedly, the best laid plans. There was a national election coming. In due course, the
government lost the election. The opposition policy had included an undertaking to revive
Avele, or should that be resurrect, or exhume Avele ? After being closed for two or so years the
school re-opened. The new Avele was made co-educational, having girls around might give the
boys something else to expend their energies on rather than rioting and burning things down.
In the interim I had been working at the PSC while still living in the same government house
at the school in which I had been living in while I had been teaching (?) mathematics,
unarmed hand to hand combat, fire-fighting etc. Avele had become a kind of ghost school. It
was inhabited by myself in one house, and Fonoti and his family in the Principals house
about 40 metres from me, a third government house with Japanese volunteers in it (or empty),
and a few other adult education department leftovers in other simpler housing
accommodation.
Applications were called for a new headmaster for the reviving Avele. Fonoti applied, but
something went wrong for Fonoti, his application was unsuccessful.
The Samoan public service had about 3700 permanent staff, a number of temporaries (such
as myself) and an indeterminate number of casual labourers. The Public Service Commission
itself consisted of 3 members, and 31 staff. The PSC had files on mostly everyone else,
excluding judges, police and politicians. The PSC was responsible for selecting people,
employing people, setting salaries and watching that everyone behaved and did their jobs. The
PSC was also the primary recipient of spare or surplus cooked pigs from the Inland Revenue
Department. We and they shared the same floor of the three storey National Provident Fund
Building. I am not sure who was giving the Inland Revenue department more baked pigs than
they needed. I suppose there could have been a lot of taxpayers who wanted favours or
favourable treatment from Inland Revenue from time to time. In the case of Michael, an
Australian contract employee at Inland Revenue, he considered it prudent for all Inland
Revenue staff to keep away from Chinese restaurants in Apia as the Chinese reputedly knew
how to poison Inland Revenue staff slowly and undetectably over the course of time.
So from 1988 onwards the writer had been working at the Public Service Commission, in
central Apia, while residing for free (as usual, or as normal for any person there as an
Australian Volunteer Abroad) 4km uphill at Avele in a semi-rural secluded tranquil habitat.
There were normally not many witnesses if anything went on Avele. One thing I remember
going on is that after the school closed the air-conditioners from the relatively new Japanese
science block were removed and re-installed down at Education Department headquarters at
Leifiifi, which did not have air conditioners of its own.
Fonoti for his part had been living with his family in the school principals residence, renting
out his own city house in Apia to tenants, while lecturing at Secondary Teachers College.
Fonoti used to get to the teachers college by driving the school truck down and back. For
some (good) reason at some point he took a disliking to me and studiously ignored me.
Fonotis way of showing his displeasure, or perhaps the Samoan way of doing this, was to turn
your back whenever the object comes within sight, so your back is facing the person you
dislike or want to insult. More forcefully, one can reinforce the insult if you stand with your

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arms crossed on your chest. I had learnt not to think much of Fonoti, so for me this backturning was an amusing kind of gesture of respect towards me.
Another figure in my life at this time was Clive. Clive was an Australian food scientist. Clive
was in charge of a government corporation called the Food Processing Laboratory. This was
one of several enterprises set up by the government / treasury / department of economic
development to foster business development. Clive was also the commodore of the Apia Yacht
Club, and I am not sure but perhaps he was involved in other sporting associations. Evidently
Clive had met or knew Juan, the then head (President) of the International Olympic
Committee. At the same time Clive had a sideline in ornamental plant rentals. I used to do the
plant rental accounts or invoices for Clive on computer, initially using an Apple //c or
Macintosh SE computer I had bought. This was labour saving and professional looking, and
not something many householders in Samoa could handle in the late 1980s. Back in 1986,
after various enquiries, I had reached an estimate that there were about 20 personal
computers in Samoa. From 1987 onwards this number of personal computers in business
and in government rapidly grew.
As a consequence of the book-keeping, I spent many Saturday nights at Clives house with his
family eating bought-in Chinese food and watching videotapes that had been hired in Apia. I
normally returned to the house at Avele about midnight by motorcycle.
One Saturday night, the worst night possible, I happened to return to Avele by motorbike
somewhat earlier than my usual predictable routine. As I arrived back there were lights
shining outside Fonotis government house, a few people moving about, and seemingly a lot of
activity and crashing or thumping noises. One or more of these people presumably either
thought they may have heard the motorcycle engine coming or thought they may have seen
the beam of the headlight in behind long lush grass as I approached the house where I
stayed. The grass concerned can grow to 3 or more metres high. I am not exaggerating, you
can park a bus beside the grass and the grass tips are over the roof of the bus.
My impression was that they stopped whatever they were doing, their behavior changed, they
became quiet and listened, and perhaps they were alarmed. I let myself into the house without
turning on any lights, nor showing myself.
After a short time, all the lights went out. An hour later the school truck engine started up
and it drove off. I hastened to follow it at a sufficiently undetectable distance by motor bike out as far as the Cross-Island Road - to see which way it turned, left or right. It turned south,
which was away from Apia towards the hinterland and remoter side of the island. I assume
the lumber ended up at Fonotis ancestral village in another part of the island, far from Apia.
On Sunday I prepared a memorandum to Fonoivasa - the head of department at the PSC and first thing Monday morning I left it on his desk in his air-conditioned room. Fonoivasa
was the only person at the PSC with an air-conditioned room. I later saw that he read the
memorandum quite attentively with some diligence. I mostly sat a couple of metres from him.
I used to work in the library, another closed off room, which was joined to Fonoivasas office
by a solid but folding concertina wall. This could be opened to share or inter-circulate the airconditioning.
I do not remember if Fonoivasa ever said anything directly to me about that memorandum, I
think probably he didnt. However, some days later Lydia spoke to me, Lydia was the Chief

[8]

Executive Officer. Without me asking her, Lydia volunteered that in relation to that matter
Do-on, about that , keep calm, everything is under control.
As an aside, something else I recall. Another time Lydia said they (i.e. the native staff) liked
having me (an Australian) at the PSC. She explained the reason was that I was able to keep
my mouth shut. Lydia drew a comparison with a former employee at the Prime Ministers
department, a thin, diminutive, old and conspicuous character who tended to dress in white
like a woman out of belle poque Paris gone to the tropics. This was Rosie, she looked like a
European, but she was a local of part European part Samoan descent. Rosie talked too much
- in public - like in cafs or restaurants to strangers or anyone ready to listen talked about
business in the Prime Ministers Department. She was quite a character, a fixture of Apia.
Alas, sometime around then (1988 ?) Rosie retired (or died, or both). Hearing this from Lydia,
it accorded with what I knew from personal experience. As early as my first days in Samoa, in
the first week even, she had spoken to me about business at work. Rosie was a blabbermouth.
I would have thought I was a blabbermouth too, but apparently I was not one in Lydias eyes
maybe Lydia was getting old too Lydia was overdue for retirement I think. Chronologically,
but not mentally.
I never found out what the resolution of my memorandum was. I do know that when Fonotis
application to be appointed principal of the forthcoming re-established Avele was rejected
Fonoti subsequently appealed the decision. His appeal was heard by Fonoivasa. As I was
normally the only person sharing the same air-conditioned area as Fonoivasa, because of the
computer in the library, I happened to be present throughout Fonotis interview with
Fonoivasa for his appeal. I do not know what, if anything, Fonoti knew about my
memorandum, such as if Fonoti realized Fonoivasa had read about the adventure with school
bus shed from the eyewitness who was sitting two metres away working on a computer.
I got the impression Fonoti was a little unnerved that Donald was a third person of just three
present, working in an adjoining room, conspicuous to his front left. I am sure he did not
stand up, turn his back on me, fold his arms on his chest and conduct his appeal in that
stance. Rather he remained seated throughout.
I am not sure when, but by 1992 I had learned from Thor that Fonoti was deceased from
something like a heart attack. Fonoti had been excessively obese for years, a common
predicament among Samoans. I also learned more about Fonoti from Thor, but Thors
commercial experience of Fonoti was not anything that would redeem Fonotis repute.
Readers could be wondering what this has to do with a puppet and five-ringed circus, or with
the five rivers that were really three rivers ?
In historical events there are sometimes coincidences that defy reasonable expectations.
Logically disconnected bits of actuality can get intertwined in places where they shouldnt.
Seven warships show up off Apia and wait there together as a hurricane approaches. None of
them tried to leave before it was too late. No captains wanted to risk leaving port and letting
another country occupy Samoa first. Calliope survived despite leaving port after the hurricane
struck.
Somewhere in my experience of Samoa there are multiple complicated stories. They actually
happened and resist attempts to prevent them each from weaving in and out of each other. I

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am not sure if in this text there will be five interwoven stories or three stories or some other
number. At least one of these stories reached international, global, notoriety - but that
notoriety was not seen in the way it would have been seen by someone from Samoa.
Notwithstanding the international notoriety it fundamentally had very little to do with Samoa,
and may have gone largely ignored in Samoa.
Stevenson saw political developments in 1889, and saw them through his own eyes, without
realizing his observation of events was helping the participants in those events to manipulate
those same events through Stevenson. Analogously, back then Samoa was not significant on
the world stage either, but the kind of international behavior that was happening in Samoa
then (the 1880s) ultimately reached a head in the outbreak of WW1. RLS later wrote down his
reported experiences, before dying, without ever realizing anyone had been pulling his strings,
much less that the people doing the pulling in his case were Samoans.
Seiuli and the International Olympic Committee.
Apart from formerly being on the IOC, Seiuli is a former star rugby player, weight-lifter,
Principal of Avele the incumbent prior to Tupae, and old boy of Avele College. At the time I
was familiar (but distantly) with Seiuli, he was no longer the Principal of Avele and was
instead the permanent secretary (i.e. Head of Department) of the Ministry of Youth, Sport and
Culture. I remember him, with his wife Julia, sitting behind me at the annual Avele school
concert, in 1987.
I only knew of Julia indirectly also, without knowing her personally, from Julia reputedly
being the butt of private criticism from U.S. Peace Corps volunteers for the way Julia
managed the funds of a charity for children called Lototaumafai.
I had a connection with Lototaumafai too, but nothing to do with Julia. Instead, my
connection came through Jill, another Australian Volunteer Abroad, who was married to
Malcolm, yet another AVA. Malcolm worked as an accountant at the Food Processing
Laboratory 1985-1986, with Clive. Jill worked at Lototaumafai. Malcolms children used to
bring me milk, say a gallon at a time, from the FPL cows, in pales, which I would buy.
The focus of Lototaumafai was disabled children. One such disabled child was a teenage boy
Atonio. Periodically Atonio would be brought to me at home by van or a sort of wheelchair.
Atonio had the condition I think was called Spina Bifida, and had a reduced life expectancy. I
had an Apple //c computer. Using this computer was an occasional therapy or entertainment
for Atonio, who could hardly move, but could slowly press keys on a computer keyboard. A
couple of times a young woman was the person who brought and stayed with Atonio during
his visits. I dont remember what her name was. Jill once said something like those girls who
work at Lototaumafai only get paid 35 tala a week. 1 tala is 100 sene. Or 1 tala was about 70
Australian cents in 1986. I am contrary enough that some Samoan who works for 35 tala per
week (about 25 dollars Australian a week) is likely to impress me.
I sometimes try to rub normal people up by forming unconventional expressions (or covert
insults) I devise. An example is The bigger the salary - the smaller the person.
From 1987 onwards the Western Samoan voluntary unremunerated - representative to the
IOC was Seiuli.

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In 1992 the IOC was to select the host city for the 2000 Olympics. At the front of the running
was Peking. The announcement came, televised, lots of people in Australia were watching,
Juan opened the envelope, took out a piece of card:
The winner is, a split second pause as if Juan was about to say something else, then a
stutter, S-Sydney.
John Fahey, the then Premier (or was it Treasurer ?) of NSW, nearly became airborne as he
sprung out of his seat as soon as S-Sy broke from Juans lips.
My understanding was that various people including Juan had been quietly but strenuously
pushing for Peking. I speculate Juan may not have known in advance what the envelope
contained and he mistakenly anticipated the envelope contained the word Peking. The
selection of Sydney thus came as an upset to some, probably including Juan. For the
Olympic movement, Peking would have been more beneficial.
The anomalous aftermath of this came in another piece of television. I think it was an ABC TV
news report. If this was 1992, in 1992 in Coffs Harbour there may have been only two or at
most three TV channels: ABC NRTV, and perhaps NBN. There on television was a face I knew,
the face was the face of the interviewee. This segment did not last long. He was a slightly
stocky man with short curly black hair, dressed in an ie (Samoan mans skirt), shirt, and
leather sandals (formal Samoan attire). He was standing outside some convention centre type
of building. What he said as his concern about proceedings was that someone had offered
him a bribe to cast his vote for Sydney. I assume he did not vote for Sydney. I think that what
he meant the audience to understand was that he was saying he had been offered, but
refused, a bribe.
I think many Samoans who happened to be living in Australia at the time would have known
who the man on TV was if they had seen that item. That is, if they saw this footage. On the
other hand, among Australians, very few, perhaps only a few hundred may have had any idea
who that person in front of the camera was. I only saw the clip once. I now wonder that
somewhere in the TV archives that vision and sound may still exist. If it had happened now
with the internet and Youtube etc, one could go back and re-watch it online as many times as
one wanted, but in 1992 ?
The other people who would know who this face was would be international sports officials,
particularly those at the IOC.
Nothing by way of reaction to this bribe allegation, caught on video, ever happened, that I am
aware of.
But things started happening 8 years later. 2000 was when the Olympic Bribes Scandal broke
into the headlines for months. Seiuli was one of a handful of people who was expelled from
the IOC, on the basis that his allegedly temporarily estranged wife Julia had accepted an
alleged loan of USD$30 000 from one Tom Welch, a businessman associated with the Salt
Lake City 1998 (and/or 2002) Winter Olympics bid.
When Seiuli was expelled, he said he was innocent and ignorant of what his wife Julia had
done by herself without his knowledge. Readers can find some more explanation in the book
Tarnished Rings (parts of which are online). Some of the other expelled members also made

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defenses along the lines that they were scapegoats. The BBC inaugurated its own elite sports
honours roll, calling it the BBC Hall of Shame, with Seiuli being automatically granted
induction.
If the reader thinks that is the story. Well, think again. The writer does not know that it is the
story. Look at it again a few more times. Things may not be as straightforward as they appear.
If you look at it long enough, there is information missing, a lot of information is missing,
think long enough and one can ask a lot of pointed questions. There may never be answers.
I think you can say where there is smoke there can be fire. Or if there is smoke, there is
always at least more smoke.
One can be highly confident that when a bribery allegation is made public at least one
participant is going to start lying. And it can be both participants. Whatever either participant
will say will prove inconclusive, without objective evidence, documentation, money appearing
out of nowhere, video and sound surveillance etc.
I think it correct to say that 8 years later the Sydney bid team denied and successfully
defended suspicions that it was involved in bribery.
Assume (perhaps incorrectly, but assume) the Sydney bid was clean. Why in 1992 would
Seiuli come out publicly on television and lie that he had been offered a bribe to vote for the
Sydney bid, and why say that after Sydney won ?
That brings me to another informative manifestation of the corruption and bribery theme.
This case also shows the strange intersection of coincidence with improbability.
Savaii is a largely undeveloped volcanic island about 50km across with 60 000 people. Most
of the island is covered in uncut primeval forests with some big and very old trees. In Japan
the Japanese like to use fancy ornamental timbers to make decorative plywood panels to line
the office walls of their skyscrapers.
My last employer Thor was a businessman with connections. His older brother was the
Minister of Public Works, and once the acting Deputy Prime Minister and once the acting
Prime Minister. To a Japanese, that meant Thor had credibility.
In 1990 or 1991 a Korean businessman Christopher brought a team of four or five Japanese
log buyers to Samoa. Somehow Thor was the person who took the visitors for some days on
the expedition to Savaii in his minibus/van. This led to a business opportunity where
Japanese interests would set up a logging operation to export logs to Japan where it could be
used (a) make money, (b) make plywood office paneling. For foreigners to set up a business in
Samoa they need a Samoan partner for a 50% stake, and I think they need government
approval to despoil the forest and to export the logs.
I do not know if Thor was going to be local partner, but Christopher (I heard later) handled the
question of official approval.
Approval would be granted if the Japanese provided Christopher with $100 000 US to forward
to whoever was the authority that could be the Minister of Agriculture. Arrangements were
made. The Japanese waited for the decision. I dont remember, but I guess Christopher went

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back to Korea or somewhere in the meantime. Approval was not granted. The Japanese were
understandably upset. The Minister knew nothing about any USD$100 000. The assumption
may be made that there never had been any need for a bribe. That was something Christopher
inserted in the process for his own enrichment. The end of the story as I remember it was
when Thor received a Christmas card from Christopher. No one in Samoa ever saw
Christopher again. I guess he never came back.
That is to make readers think more about the possibilities vis--vis Peking, Sydney, and the
network of various other individuals involved in major sports event decisions.
As I have not mentioned it before, two connections between Thor and Clive were that they
played chess with each other, and they possibly played squash with each other.
To be continued.

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