It’s not too often that the central hero of a news story isn’t named, so I had to take note of what occurred in the realm of Kiribati politics last month. For much the year, the current president has been trying hard to deport an Australian-born judge—a man who just happens to be married to the leader of the nation’s opposition. On August 11th, the government finally managed to drag the judge, David Lambourne, to the airport in South Tarawa and tried to place him on an outbound Fiji Airways flight. But the plane’s captain wouldn’t accept a passenger who was being forced to travel against his will:
The ongoing separation-of-powers saga, which in recent months has seen the government suspend both Lambourne and the chief justice, New Zealand judge William Hastings, exploded on Thursday morning when police attended Lambourne’s home with a deportation order.
An urgent hearing by the appeal court, consisting of three retired New Zealand judges, saw the Kiribati authorities ordered not to proceed with the deportation.
Immigration officials nonetheless attempted to forcibly place Lambourne on a Fiji Airways flight on Thursday afternoon. After a dramatic standoff – which saw the flight captain refuse to allow authorities to board Lambourne, following which the flight was denied permission to take off – the judge was detained and taken to nearby accommodation. The plane eventually departed.
I have yet to find mention of the captain’s identity, and I assume I never will: As a pilot merely doing his job, he likely desires no publicity. And my hunch is that he knows little about the internecine strife that’s plunged Kiribati into a constitutional crisis. But he knew the code of the skies, and that his chief obligation to protect his passengers above all other concerns. Hopefully someone bought him a grateful drink upon his touchdown in Suva.
More on Kiribati’s slide toward authoritarianism here; things are not going well.
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