Letter: A dog and pony show

The KR’s Prerogative of Mercy and Pardon for Papa Arapati, signed and sealed to be a done deal before the eyes of the southern hemisphere focus on the Pacific Islands Forum Leaders meeting, is certainly a historic event.

And well carried out apparently, unlike the amateur curb painting and hedge-trimming-butchery at Constitution Park for example, as, once again, like lazy teenagers expecting Mum’s arrival home after work we clean up the household messes that we should have done, not out of fear, but out of honour to our parents for providing us a home.
Our Cook Islands leaders, again, with so-called VIPs arriving, put on the dog and pony show and doing the chores that they should have done for us, month after month and year after year but simply have not, save for the few months before each Parliamentary election.
Could our leaders be any more transparent than to pull out all the stops to assure the Pacific Islands Forum Leaders have fresh water aplenty in Aitutaki where the residents there have been neglected for years? Anyone taking bets on the odds that Aitutaki families will be back to third-world status soon after the VIPs are fed and washed?
Desperate not to be seen by the world as backwards natives living in grass huts by showing wisdom and forgiveness to the family of Papa Arapati, why is it that Parliament has not taken steps to undo the equal harm to the families of Cook Islanders convicted and imprisoned for growing and consuming the herb cannabis by resolving that the KR exercise the Prerogative of Mercy and Pardon?
Has the family of a Police Officer convicted of possessing herbs years ago faced any less suffering than Papa Arapati’s family? Will our alcohol-supporting Parliamentarians now announce, during the Forum, that they will show the same forgiveness?
That would go a long way to giving us the mana we dream of, long after the hurried curb painting has faded in the sun.

(Name and address supplied)