Lane switch-and-bait for land grab?

Jason Brown




Samoa may face months if not years of bloodshed over new laws affecting land, water and law.
Carnage on the road after a proposed lane switch will be exceeded by deadly disputes over access to land and water, some fear.
Last month, the September 7 lane swap was centre stage.
“What we’re saying is that people will die as a result of this,” said Viopapalii Annandale, a member of PASS, People Against Switching Side.
His views were backed up in the Supreme Court by a New Zealand witness appearing on behalf of the action group.
“Based on my experience and from what I’ve seen during my trips to Samoa, come September 7, there will be a dramatic increase in the number of road crashes,” the Supreme Court justices heard.
“An increase in road crashes will naturally follow an increase in injuries and possibly deaths,” said Graham Williams, an independent crash investigator.
He dismissed as “crazy” a suggestion from a government lawyer that visibility from US-style cars would actually be improved by the switch—saying it would be 30% less.
The lane swap has attracted huge opposition within Samoa with thousands marching in protest.
“Common sense” is how Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi described the change to the Wall Street Journal.
“The only thing to fear is fear itself," Tuilaepa later told the nation in a TV address, quoting former US President John F. Kennedy.
Government explained the change as a way of saving people money with cheaper imports from New Zealand and Australia.
Samoans have driven on the right lane, American style, for decades.
If the PASS court challenge fails, they will be ordered to drive British style, on the left, the first nation in the world to swap sides since the early 1970s.
Reporting the Supreme Court hearings, local daily Samoa Observer said the lane change had claimed a life even before it becomes law.
“A young woman died when a right-hand-drive car she was driving plunged into a roadside ditch.
“There will be a lot more blood on the roads if the switch goes ahead as planned.”
Publisher Savea Sano Malifa warned the lane swap and other law changes were a step backwards.
“Today, we see history repeating itself. We see the government once again heading down that treacherous path it took back in the nineties. It was then that the road led inevitably to our first political assassination and bitter shame.”
A small section of road, perhaps 200 metres either way, next to a China built sports venue, has been set aside for people to practice driving in the new style.
Most people took to the main road in the capital Apia instead, to protest.
Thousands of people marched against the lane switch.
A petition organised by PASS gained 30,000 signatures, an unprecedented outpouring of opposition against the Human Rights Protection Party, in power now for two decades of unbroken rule.
A few saw a conflict of interest with some politicians linked by family to car dealerships.
Others say the corruption goes much deeper than that, with some insisting the whole exercise is a smoke screen for ‘other’ law changes.
“This is all due to the greed of a few individuals,” claimed Auckland-based lawyer James Faleauto.
“This is not elite—this is evil.”
One of the most prolific critics of the new land laws, Faleauto has conducted a letter writing campaign through local newspapers, online bulletin boards and his own website, Samoaatoa.
Faleauto claims corrupt motives are behind the left-hand drive laws.
He says the entire lane switch has been engineered to distract attention from the most fundamental changes to land laws since Samoa emerged from the mists of prehistory centuries ago.
“The Samoan Law Society stands by and ignores this shameful pretense. For all of their legal training and all of their privilege and wealth, not one has the heart among them to protect the people.
“Just like the politicians, the lawyers as a privileged class, will make money from the theft of customary land by the State. We are witnessing the theft of traditional resources by a small Samoan elite group from the majority of Samoans.”
The Land Registration Titles Act was passed in 2008 but has gained much less attention than the lane swap.