Out Spotlight CVXXII

The Red Cross has been in the forefront in the current relief efforts for Haiti. There are Directors, Presidents, and Director Generals that oversee Red Cross programs for individual countries as well as the head of the International Red Cross.

Today's Out Spotlight highlights one of the many Director Generals that oversee and carry out the mission of the Red Cross.

Today's Out Spotlight is John Maurice Scott,Director General of the Fiji Red Cross.

Born in Suva, Fiji, in 1948, Scott was a fourth generation European Fijian. His father Sir Maurice Scott, was the first European Speaker of Parliament of Fiji. Scott was educated in Fiji and New Zealand and held a number of prominent public positions for various national, regional and international councils and programs.

He favored reading biographies, enjoyed entertaining, loved his wine with dinner, and was characterized by friends, colleagues, and acquaintances as "professional and competent," "compassionate," and someone with "a big heart."

He met his long time partner Greg Scrivener he was 31. Scrivener met Scott when he was 18 and moved to Fiji around 1990 to be with Scott, although he retained close ties with his family in his native New Zealand. Scrivener acted as a contact for his brother-in-law's swimwear company, but his real passion was plants. The couple's sprawling tropical garden at their home culminated in an orchid greenhouse. Friendly and easygoing, Scrivener frequently assisted Scott in his Red Cross activities.

Scott left a lucrative position at Fiji Shell Ltd to join the Red Cross in 1994 and played a key mediation role after George Speight seized the Fijian parliament on May 19, 2000 and took Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry and his government hostage for 56 days. Scott was one of the few outsiders allowed into the building, daily delivering food, medicine, letters, and encouragement. He eventually was the person who oversaw their release.

During those trying days, Scott wrote in his journal, "I sensed clearly that my presence was initially considered to be very unwelcome. It would appear I was seen to be on the 'side' of the hostages.... Early on it was clear that the Red Cross neutral and impartial image was misunderstood on the inside."

He received a Red Cross award for his role in the hostage crisis during the coup d'état.

In the coup's wake, he became increasingly anxious and expressed fear for his life. Friends and family believe that while in the parliament Scott might have gleaned information implicating covert coup supporters among police, the military, cabinet ministers, and businessmen—information that could have created lethal enemies.

Scott hoped to avoid testifying in the impending trial out of concern that his testimony would compromise the Red Cross's neutrality. But an official investigating the coup, Inspector Waisea Tabalcau, confirmed in the ‘Fiji Times’ that Scott had been interviewed and might have been called as a state witness. Several days before his death, Scott was visited in his office by a man warning him not to testify.

Coinciding with the political unrest and Scott’s position in the public spotlight was the emergence of a nascent gay rights movement—and some disturbing signs of backlash. "Even before the coup they frequently mentioned being afraid of being woken up in the night and taken to jail for being gay," recounts Janice Giles, sister of his partner Gregory Scrivener. "They also said they did not trust Fiji police to protect them if they needed it. He and John were both afraid, particularly of police commissioner Isikia Savua, whom they described as 'hating them.' " Giles related an incident at a public gathering where Commissioner Savua had pointedly stated within hearing distance of Scott that "homosexuality is illegal in this country."

The penal code makes sex acts between men illegal, though the laws are rarely enforced; like the archaic British laws they were modeled on, they make no mention of sexual activity between women. In fact, Fiji’s constitution is one of only two in the world that protects gays and lesbians. (South Africa's is the other.) That happened in I998, when the Chaudhry government added a clause to section 38 of the bill of rights prohibiting discrimination based on race and sexual orientation.

Scott was also involved with others in the Fijian GLBT community in trying to restore Fiji's overthrown 1997 constitution and was among the members of the gay community that put forward submissions to keep the constitution because it protected GLBT rights.

On June 30, 2001 Scott was the Master of Ceremonies of the annual Red Cross ball held at Fiji's Queen Elizabeth Barracks is the culmination of the social calendar in Suva, the South Pacific nation's capital. Military leaders, government officials, tribal chiefs, and media celebrities ambled up the steps in tuxedos and evening gowns to attend the gala, co-hosted by the Fiji Red Cross and the commander of the Fiji military forces. Also present, though not as Scott’s escort, was his longtime partner, who had overseen much of the decor and flowers. As festivities wrapped up, Scott and Scrivener returned with friends to their elegant, art- filled home overlooking Suva's bay for an early morning breakfast party.

That next morning at around 9, their house boy entered their bedroom and found the horrific scene of Scott and Scrivener brutally murdered, they're hands and feet cut off and both beheaded. Terrified, he ran to the neighbors, who summoned the police. The murder weapon, a cane knife, was found nearby, along with discarded bloodstained clothing.

Fueling suspicions of assassination was the fact that the fingernails on one of Scrivener's hands had been yanked out. Fiji police countered by saying it's routine to remove nail clippings while collecting DNA evidence. A private autopsy was performed by a New Zealand coroner, confirmed that Scrivener was tortured, then beheaded as was Scott.

Scrivener’s other sister Judy Alvos, said the couple "had threats by phone before and during the coup, and Greg said their phone was tapped, and so they used E-mail instead. Greg even said that they may become refugees yet— hopefully in Paris—or they may just go out in body bags."

John Scott's memorial service was held in the National Gymnasium on July 11 and was attended by over 1,000 people, including his mother, brother, and son from his previous marriage, which dissolved eight years before meeting Scrivener. After a private ceremony in an Anglican church, he was laid to rest beside his grandparents. Though Scrivener was Scott's partner in life for 22 years, he was returned to his native New Zealand.

In an article that appeared in the Fiji Times on July 11, Graham Davis, a local journalist, wrote, "John Scott was gay.... He was in a loving relationship with his partner, Greg Scrivener.... But this wasn’t one of his imperfections—just the way he was. And Fiji needs to think long and hard about how it perceives such people. Homophobia is rampant in this country even though gays exist at the highest levels of society. Fiji is riddled with hypocrisy about a lot of things.... For such an ostensibly religious country, this had always been puzzling and never more so than in relation to same-sex relationships."

Scott's story has become the subject of a New Zealand documentary, An Island Calling. which is based on the book "Deep Beyond The Reef", written by his brother Owen Scott.