SUVA, Fiji — Following this week’s bombing of prominent members of the Fijian media, the police have begun an investigation into the violence that has sparked criticism from a Fiji women’s awareness group.  FemLink Pacific.

Organization representative Sharon Bhagwan Rolls, says that the police needs to do more than “look for foot prints in the sand.”  This is the time when the people of our country need to be feeling safe to be able to say, this is what I feel is the way forward, this is what I would like to see happen,” Rolls said.  “But with this kind of environment, people aren’t going to be comfortable to speak.”  She went onto say that these attacks are only a manifestation of a violent climate that has been in place since the 2006 coup.

Criticism has also been leveled against the police for their reaction to the attacks themselves.  After the explosions, the government issued a statement stating that the Fiji Times, whose editor in chief had been the target of a bomb, had been giving unbalanced coverage of the investigation.  In response the chairman of Fiji’s Media Council, Daryl Tarte, “The media in Fiji, just as in Australia, is entitled to be be partisan if they want to be. It’s probably more dangerous to be partisan in Fiji than it is in Australia but the fact is that I think most media in Fiji are trying to report as objectively and in a balanced way as they can. It is very dangerous for them not to do so. And the examples of the recent attacks on the editor of the Fiji Times is evidence of this”

Police spokesperson, Atunasai Sokomuri, defends the police saying that they are doing the best that they can.  “It’ll take time as all these incidents are happening late at night and in the early hours of the morning. So we are just pleading with members of the public just to bear with us because Fiji police is trying to do its best in investigating all these cases.”  After calls for him to do so, interim Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama has also come out to condemn the firebombings and denies rumors that his government was in anyway involved in the attack.