Tonga

To some Tonga is seen only as an island paradise. To others, it’s a country caught up in a global drugs trade, with an economy that relies on overseas relatives, and is being forced to accept a growing influx of convicted criminals. To put it another way, losing a rugby match 102-0 to the All Blacks is the least of its worries.

If you draw a line on a map from Bogota, Colombia to Canberra, Australia, it goes through the Pacific Islands. It’s not something many of us have done, but it does have an appeal to some – it’s known as the South Pacific Drugs Highway.

Ships transporting vast quantities of cocaine and meth (known as P in this part of the world), will take this route, but it’s far from without risk. Not least, because these are difficult waters to navigate, it’s easy for ships to run aground. In December, a ‘ghost boat’ containing 649 kilos of cocaine washed up on the Marshall Islands, one of many islands also used as staging posts between the supplier and the consumer, with drugs stashed on beaches.

What happens next is smugglers then either seek to bribe a customs officer, or will have somebody on the inside working at a port or customs who can help the drugs reach their intended destination.

Tonga is one of the Pacific Islands that has unwittingly found itself caught up in a multi-billion dollar drugs industry fuelled by a boom of cocaine and P consumption in Australia and New Zealand. 

Tony Wall is an investigative journalist who writes for the New Zealand news site Stuff. Five years ago, he decided to focus on Tonga following a string of major drugs busts. It resulted in him writing a series of stories under the title of ‘Corruption in Paradise’. “There had been a notorious case in which a member of parliament was busted for firearms and had been involved with a drugs cartel,” he recalls. “So, we followed him around.”

Malakai Fakatoufifita, aka Lord Tu’ilakepa, facilitated a visa for Colombian drug lord Obeil Antonio Zuluaga Gomez to visit Tonga. According to Australian Federal Police, Gomez wanted to use Tonga as a base for a drug smuggling operation. 

But wire-tapped conversations were deemed inadmissible in Tonga and Lord Tu’ilakepa only received a fine for the firearms charge, which meant he kept his position in government. “I thought ‘what the hell is going on in Tonga?’”

Tony also wanted to meet Alamoni Liava’a. Back in the 1980s Liava’a captained the Tongan rugby team and was vice-captain when the ‘Ikale Tahi played at the first Rugby World Cup back in 1987.

He retired in 1989 but wasn’t qualified to do much else and earned no money from the game as rugby was still an amateur sport. 

Liava’a met up with some old Tongan school friends who were living in Hawaii and had become drugs smugglers. He then hooked up with a major dealer and came up with the idea of smuggling cocaine into New Zealand through hollowed-out yams. 

What he didn’t know was that his conversations were being recorded and a sergeant with the drugs squad listening at the other end recognised Liava’a because they’d played against each other some years earlier. In Tonga, one way or another, it usually comes back to rugby.

Liava’a now lives alone in a ramshackle hut in a remote part of Tongatapu, the largest of the nation’s 170-odd islands. “He was a likeable character and almost saw the funny side of using yams,” says Tony. “But ultimately I found the story to be quite sad because his wife and child were still in Auckland. And, because of the drug convictions, he can’t go back to NZ.”

Another story. Angus Stafford Naupoto was Tonga’s team manager for the World Cup in 2007 when they won two Pool matches and narrowly lost 30-25 to eventual champions, South Africa. He had also been secretary of the Tongan Rugby Union.

In 2012, Naupoto was convicted, along with ex-union player, Peter Lawrence Tanginoa, and former league player, Willie Wolfgramm, for acting as middlemen in a fake drugs deal. 

It is an incredible and complicated tale. The short version is that Naupoto had been told about a stockpile of meth in Tonga that would have been worth millions. Except, it didn’t exist. 

Naupoto said he could broker a deal with some buyers in New Zealand. Initially, he planned to smuggle around twenty kilos of meth on a boat, but the shipment never arrived. 

He had also been conned into thinking the skipper of the boat had been kidnapped and the drugs were being used as security and so Naupoto and his cohorts tried to pass off a set of blocks, largely consisting of rock salt, as P. 

Since then, rugby players from both codes have made headlines across the Pacific Islands, Australia and New Zealand following drugs busts – albeit usually for recreational use – including Manu Vatuvei. 

The former New Zealand and Tongan Rugby League star took to social media in May to reveal he had been charged with importation, possession and supply of methamphetamine. Vatuvei denies the charges. “It’s wrong to say people are turning to dealing or smuggling en masse,” says Tony, “but meth has become more of an issue. Some of it is filtering into communities and some may see it is a quick way to make a buck in a poor country.”

Tonga is one of the poorest nations outside of Africa. A significant chunk of the nation’s income comes from Tongans who live abroad and send money back home to their relatives. 

According to a report from World Bank, this equates to 35.9 per cent of GDP. 

More than half of that money comes from Tonga’s most successful export – players in contact sports, including rugby league, American football and, of course, rugby union. 

But families migrating from Tonga to seek a more prosperous life has created another import that the country neither wants nor needs.

Around 65 per cent of inhabitants are registered with the Mormon Church. Thousands of people left the country in the 1960 and 1970s for the USA and the prospect of living in the promised land. Around 10,000 Tongan-Americans currently live in America’s Mormon capital of Salt Lake City. 

And there is a growing number of players in the NFL that have Pacific Island roots.

Other families, however, traded the tranquillity of island life for urban chaos and live in the most deprived areas of cities like Los Angeles. 

Some of the younger generation either joined gangs or formed gangs of their own. If they are found guilty of crimes ranging from drug dealing to murder, they will do time in America before being deported back to Tonga – a country which they left at an early age or had never so much as visited.

Deportees also come from Australia and New Zealand. Nobody knows for sure how many there are in Tonga but estimates put it at around 1,000, out of a total population of 102,000.

Not every deportee reverts to type, but when you’ve got gang members being dumped into a country without any money or a job and there’s a burgeoning drugs trade, you can see why that’s a recipe for trouble. “For a long time we’ve been lucky in the Pacific Islands because our proximity and distance from the rest of the world has protected us from a lot of these problems,” says Dan Leo, the former Samoan international and the man behind the Oceans Apart documentary, which exposed how Pacific Island rugby players have been exploited by the game. “Until recently, there were no iPhones or internet. So you had nothing to do after school but play rugby with your mates. That’s only really changed in the last ten years.

“Then you’ve also got the rising problem of obesity and the outside influence of foods that get dumped in the Pacific Islands like Turkey Tails. In Samoa and Tonga, they’re a delicacy.”

Turkey Tails? “They’re dreadful, mate!” explains Dan. “Turkey Tails are all fat and we marinate them in soy sauce so you can’t taste them. And then we fry them!”

The pandemic actually immunised the Pacific Island from those outside influences. “We’ve had no cases of Covid,” says Dan, “and a lot of the shipments of imported food, all the crappy stuff that usually ends up here, hasn’t been able to make it through. 

“So, that means people are going back to traditional means of living in the Islands, fishing, climbing coconut trees, planting taro and yams, living off the land.”

Whether that becomes a permanent trend remains to be seen. For many Tongans seeking prosperity, rugby represents more than a national sport and a source of national pride. It also provides the best route out of poverty.  

While he was filming Oceans Apart, Dan saw something that caused him to do a double-take. The moment contextualised the economic reality that exists for a lot of families on the islands and the part that rugby plays within it.

“I was just about to board a plane, and normally there are one or two flights a week from Tonga to New Zealand,” he recalls. “On this particular occasion, there were five flights all going there on the same day. I was trying to work out what was happening. So I asked (ex Tongan international) Epi Taione, who was with me, and he said, ‘Oh, they are the agricultural workers, the fruit pickers.’

 “There aren’t too many ways to make money in Tonga,” he continues. “So, every year there is a lottery and a couple of thousand people are chosen to pick fruit in New Zealand. 

“It’s great for these guys, but it means that every rugby club in Tonga loses about four or five of its best players. The people on these planes are young men that fit that description of what you need for agricultural work.”

Fruit picking may conjure an image of strolling through a field with a wicker basket, plucking strawberries at your leisure. The reality is that it’s physically demanding work, often involving long hours and picking produce at speed, at the height, and heat, of summer. “In the region of 2,000 potential rugby players leave Tonga when there are only around 10,000 players in the country,” says Dan. “It’s the same in countries like Fiji and Samoa. A lot of those young men will pick up a rugby ball while picking fruit in the heartlands of New Zealand. 

“And that’s a pathway towards playing club rugby in New Zealand,” explains Dan. “Some of those lads come from small island villages and can be talent-spotted through the fruit picking trade.” 

The ultimate prize is to sign for a team in New Zealand, which could also see that young man’s family being relocated.

Tonga provides a production line of players in both codes, primarily for New Zealand and Australia, but also England, France, Ireland, Japan … in fact, pretty much anywhere that plays professional rugby. Just a few weeks ago, English champions Harlequins signed Tongan back-row forward Viliami Taulani.

“There’s something that makes these Pacific Island special, that’s part of their heritage or where they’ve been raised,” says Dan. “The culture is brilliant for breeding very good rugby players because we are all about putting the community above all else. 

“No matter what, even if you disagree with a call, you’ll still put your body on the line, and that’s embedded into our cultures.” 

Vili Ma’asi echoes Leo’s sentiment. The former Leeds and Cornish Pirates hooker, Vili is currently a coach at Championship side Ampthill, where he was also once club captain. Born in Tonga, he won 36 caps for his country, and says it’s a nation built on family and faith. “Every family lives and survives because we all look after each other, and that extends beyond your own household,” he says. “If you’re short of food, your neighbour will always help you out. They are like your family. That’s how we live back home. 

“Religion is massive. Everything shuts down for church on Sunday.

“But there aren’t too many career opportunities. You usually have two options; you either study hard to work in an office, or you go into the bush and do farming.”

Rugby has provided Vili and countless other Tongans with the chance to go out into the world and seek their fortune. The drain of homegrown talent, however, recently contributed to an extraordinary situation on the eve of a Rugby World Cup qualifier against the Cook Islands in July.

A perfect storm of Covid restrictions prevented players travelling from Europe and New Zealand, coupled with an injury crisis, and a chronic lack of domestic players with experience beyond club rugby. 

It left national team coach Toutai Kefu frantically making phone calls to try and put a team together. The former No.8 tried to lighten the mood at the time, saying he was “ringing agents, ringing coaches, club coaches – even asking players, ‘does anyone know any Tongans?’” 

He ended up fielding seventeen new caps, although his team of rookies did manage to silence talk of an upset by beating Cook Islands 54-10.

Tonga Rugby Union CEO Peter Harding adds that because people who play overseas sign clauses in contracts tying them to whichever nation they ply their trade in, “we had 30 players pull out in July because of those clauses”.

As we go to print, Kefu had more serious issues to contend with, as he’s currently recovering from the horrific attack that left him in a critical condition. This followed a home invasion at his house in Brisbane and led to a fifteen-year-old being charged with attempted murder.

Hopefully, he will able to return and lead Tonga when they meet Hong Kong in a World Cup play-off, as well as ‘Ikale Tahi’s autumn internationals in the UK.

When the Tongans take on England at Twickenham in November it will be the first time these nations have ever met outside of a World Cup.

The contest could be billed as a meeting of rugby’s haves and have nots. “In England, a player is getting twenty-odd grand for a test match,” says Peter Harding. “That’s more than my entire player budget for the November tour, and they don’t have to choose between their family’s financial security and playing for their country.

“I have no doubt (that Tongans) all want to play for us but there’s more to making that decision than simply playing for your country. 

“Nobody is criticising our guys for doing that. It’s a decision that’s right in their face, and whether they can make house payments or provide for their parents.”

Peter became CEO in January. An adopted Tongan, he speaks fondly about his son never having worn shoes to school and extolls the virtues of island life. 

He’s also a pragmatist, having had various coaching roles around the world, including four years as head of performance with Tonga, and produced a report for World Rugby on ‘Player Drain in Pacific Talent’. 

Peter’s arrival will hopefully bring some structure and organisation to Tongan rugby, which was drifting from one crisis to another.

Take, for instance, 2018, when team manager Inoke Afeaki had to go into a local sports shop and write an IOU because the team’s shorts failed to arrive ahead of a Pacific Islands Cup match. The TRU hadn’t provided any backup funds for Afeaki, inevitably prompting headlines of Tonga being ‘caught short’.

The ‘Ikale Tahi played four tour matches that year. When it became public that the players had not received their fees, they finally got paid. It amounted to just over £300 – or just short of £80 a game. And no, we haven’t left off a zero by mistake. 

World Rugby threatened to strip Tonga of funding because it failed to address key issues around governance and the TRU lost its seat on the World Rugby board. 

Repairing the relationship with World Rugby was at the top end of the ‘to do’ list when Peter took the role. “The thing I must stress is that this is a very difficult job,” he says. “We’ve only got four people running a national rugby union. 

“Anyone who takes on this role will have challenges that people wouldn’t understand until you’ve been here. 

“And context is important,” continues Peter. “New Zealand Rugby just sold one-twelfth of its business for $325m. If we could get our hands on a million we could give them a game.” 

Instead, a makeshift Tongan team hampered by Covid restrictions played the All Blacks in July and lost 102-0. “We’ve worked hard to rebuild those bridges,” adds Peter. “Some people criticise World Rugby, but I can tell you there would be a lot of Tier 2 countries that wouldn’t be around if it wasn’t for the development and performance money that they dish out.

“As a nation, we’ve got to do our part. World Rugby are a strategic partner, not a donor. They want to make sure we meet their requirements, we meet the governance requirements and we bring sponsors on board.

“People here are smart, they just need a bit of experience around them.”

Perhaps the biggest issue, certainly for the immediate future, surrounds World Rugby’s ‘Regulation 8’ and the fact that once a player has represented one country, they cannot go on to represent anyone else. 

Both Vili and Peter agree that changing rules on international eligibility would certainly have an impact for the next World Cup, assuming that Tonga beat Hong Kong. 

A vote on Regulation 8 is due to be held in November. “If regulation does change that would help for 2023 but I’m not sure about 2027 or 2031,” adds Peter. What it would do is give us a chance to show people what we can be and entice more young people to play.

“It could give young players the chance to choose Tonga but still play overseas.

“The thing we want to do is somehow get unions overseas to change the clauses in contracts because some of those players will never play for that country but still have to sign a contract to say they are eligible.

“I don’t know how that vote is going to go but the question is whether they want to look after their union or have a vibrant and competitive World Cup?” 

The financial hit that all the unions have taken through the past eighteen months probably means their generosity knows its bounds. “Nobody is going to give you any advantages, although, to be fair, the RFU and Scottish RFU have been very helpful recently, and so have New Zealand,” says Peter.

The RFU is providing a financial donation to Tonga as a ‘goodwill gesture’ plus support with coaching staff ahead of November’s match. 

But Dan [Leo] believes that’s the least they should do and that giving Tonga even just five per cent of the gate receipts would make a tangible difference. 

You’re left with a sense that Tonga is a remarkable and resilient nation. But, one way or another, it is battling against forces beyond its control and resources.

It has given so much to rugby, the players have enriched the game, and the national team has appeared in every Rugby World Cup bar one (1991).

When the Tongan team comes to the UK in November, it is worth remembering that this sport would be much poorer without them.

Story by Ryan Herman

Pictures by Stuff Limited, Linny Folau, Matangi Tonga, Getty Images and Eleanor Gee

This extract was taken from issue 15 of Rugby.
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