Dear Editor

I write in response to Vai Autu’s letter titled “Stop reading about Samoa then” published in your newspaper yesterday. Mr. Autu, freedom of speech dictates that anyone anywhere in the world can comment on your country and if the editor of the Samoa Observer decides to print it and you don’t like it, too bad for you.

You think the Sixty Minutes man was harsh trying to find out what happened to that poor couple at Tiavi. Wendy Wonder trying to make things better; she’s not allowed to say anything, just go away and leave you to your own destruction.

Well cop this lot; how’s your Samoan doctrine of do nothing, say nothing and complacency working for you, how are those outcomes going? I’ll tell you: millions and millions of dollars (not pathetic Samoan Tala) have been poured into your country from people who have paid taxes in their own countries, to support you - and that’s me, so I will have my say and if you don’t like it, too bad again.

You only have 180,000 to 200,000 people living there, your crime rate per capita is through the roof and you have poor people. Where has my and others’ money gone to? What’s your P.M. and government doing with it? (We all know). With only that amount of people living in Samoa and the funds you have received, you should have just about no crime whatsoever and certainly no poor people wondering how on earth they are going to feed and house themselves and loved ones. It’s disgraceful.  

The Samoa Victim Support Group does a wonderful job, Lifeline and Rotary do their best, but your government is not going to do anything, so it’s up to the citizens to pull together.

Your P.M. studied economics. Has he used those skills to put money where he wants to - god knows where - or is he just straight up stupid with money? Probably both, is the answer to that, and you keep voting him in. Get off your lazy backsides and start doing something. Most Samoans I talk to here say they couldn’t go back, the mentality is not good and you just get stolen from.

Pretty place? Yes. Paradise? – nowhere near it. Not even close. Mucked up for all of us up by quite a few idiots living there. Mucked up for the good Samoans that I know that stay on Island. Yes I’m cranky, as I wanted to live there and see my days out in what looked like a nice place and the climate is good for my old age now, but it’s not safe for me and my family. And the mentality? Well as your own nice expats here say, it’s something else isn’t it?

I was a victim of unprovoked assault down near the fish market one evening a few years back. Just jogging along minding my own business and was clobbered in the back of the head from behind by some low life. 

That sort of thing has never happened to me anywhere around the world and I’ve run in some pretty scruffy places. Thankfully there was a nice security guard there who saw to my recovery and there were some nice words said in the paper about it by Mata’afa Keni Lesa, and about things that seem to escape your eyes, reported in the paper every day. Wake up. 

I liked the maketi and all that I came across there - had fun. I wrote highly of you in a book and about how badly the P.M. had treated you and badmouthed you. I’ve always said, it’s the best market in the Pacific. You have nice produce, nice people, but misguided it seems. Having said that, one day my wife and I were down there and a guy was punched to the ground, his head hit the pavement so hard I thought it must have killed him. The moron who hit him then dragged him by the arm down the road apiece. Nice place huh? Peaceful? Hmmm, doesn’t happen at my market here. 

There are decent people here, and children who are not subject to that sort of native/neanderthal rubbish behaviour. It doesn’t even cross their minds. Are you blind to that stuff, just used to it, or stupid? If you get where I’m coming from and don’t get your knickers in a knot you’ve made a start. Decent societies don’t have that happen! Great tourist attraction. Do you think your tourists want to witness that? Should that be happening? Do you think that it’s normal practice or amusing? You’re sick if you do!

My reference to tourists being ripped off is by one man. Then there’s the Psycho that did something to someone and has tried to get a stack of money out of his deeds. In a normal society he would have been locked up and his poor victim taken care of and given counselling. The poor thing is in for a lot of trauma when they get older. The whole thing is so weird, the work of a sick and greedy mind at the expense of others, especially one.

All the questions above are rhetorical and I don’t need small-minded stupid comments from the likes of the stupid people who have locked horns with Wendy Wonder. There are a lot of people like me who are just fed up with Samoa’s situation, but be polite or use soft language. 

Well I’ll be their mouthpiece of honesty and reality for once, just like the paper and not pussy foot around, so as I said, cop that lot! 

Everyone wants a safe and honest Samoa; it’s up to all to do something about it. I’ve tried and been ridiculed. There is no hope for those that won’t help themselves.

What I will agree with you is, yes, I am going to stop as of now, you won’t hear from me again, and I certainly don’t want to come back. There are far better places. 

We have all hoped for a better Samoa for everyone, but things will only get worse for you all because you do nothing to stop the rot and I don’t want to know or read about it, it’s too depressing and I certainly have better and happier things to do than waste my time on Samoa. 

Tofa soifua and may your God go with you also and give you peace, safety and most of all reality to see the wrongs and make a start to fix them!

Larry Murphy