Habeas Corpus

We were all set to bury Marilyn Rebecca Dudley this morning, the thirteenth day since her passing. That's not going to happen.

I still have no death certificate, nor do I have the medical examiner's report.

Early Monday afternoon, 27 November the police came by to tell me that I could sign the transfer of custody document at the hospital in town, a 25-minute drive over a bumpy road. When we got to the place they were supposed to be at the hospital, there was no one to be found. We waited an hour, while someone phoned someone who phoned someone... then I pulled the plug and went back to Holonga.

On Thursday morning, 30 November, the local head of police came by to deliver a document which my friend Paino needed to pick up a load of sand for the grave site from a government supplier. He said that that the fee for storing Marilyn's body at the hospital morgue would be paid for by the police.

Paino and his wife Ngame finally tracked down around 10pm Friday night, 1 December, a document affirming death by natural causes. It was dated 27 November, and apparently this is a document I should have received on Monday when we were waiting to no avail in the hospital.

Earlier on Friday evening a morgue official told Paino and Ngame that they wanted $1,000 TOP for storing the body since Monday. Apparently, the police paid for storage up to the time the document was issued, which I did not see until 10:30pm on Friday. Paino told me that the morgue charges $100 TOP per day for deceased Tongans and $200 TOP per day for deceased foreigners. Tongan Rule #1: Gouge the palangi; they always have money. So, the morgue is demanding $200 TOP per day for the five days during which I could not move the body because someone couldn't do his job and hand me the document on 27 November.

I told Paino and Ngame to tell them that I would pay for half a day, from 11pm Friday night until 11am Saturday morning, 2 December, by which time we would take custody of the body and remove it from the morgue, at the $100 TOP rate for a total of $50 TOP, otherwise they should thank the morgue officials very much, and tell them that they were welcome to dispose of the body at their convenience. As "My Cousin Vinny" said, that's what we call a counteroffer. It was a lowball but justifiable opening position which I knew would insult them. They deserve to be insulted. Paino and Ngame delivered my message to a morgue official at her home around midnight. I have been given to understand that she was "furious."

So, no funeral today, Saturday, 2 December. Instead, I will work to compile a timeline of events, witnesses thereto, and documents in preparation of a legal case. Meanwhile, because Monday, 4 December, is a government holiday, Sitaleki Fainga’a, our neighbor from when Marilyn and I lived in Longolongo, and who has been a driver for Speakers of the Legislative Assembly for more than twenty years, plans to talk to someone at the Foreign Ministry on Tuesday, 5 December. I will have the timeline prepared for him so that he can explain clearly what has been happening. Sitaleki’s meeting at the Foreign Ministry is likely to be the first in a series of moves along that particular path. Transactions of this kind are based on personal connections. To get what one wants in Tonga, one needs to know someone who knows someone.

One move which I am prepared to make if necessary is lodge a complaint with the US Embassy in nearby Fiji (there is no US diplomatic mission in Tonga).

To some observers it may appear that a shabby game is being played over Marilyn’s corpse, but in my view, this is a matter of fairness and justice. Extortion abetted by incompetence cannot be tolerated. It is exactly the kind of fight which Marilyn relished. I have no doubt that if she is watching from Heaven, she is cheering me on. This is what she and I do: we fight for people's rights, no less our own. Although Marilyn has passed to another dimension of existence, we still fight together.

This is going to take time to play out, possibly even several weeks. But as Adlai Stevenson told Soviet representative in the United Nations Security Council during the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962, “I am prepared to wait until Hell freezes over.”