From Matangi Tonga Magazine, Vol. 16, no. 1, June 2001.

An on-line direct link between the Tongan Police, the Interpol and five other Pacific island countries will be established soon under a $210,506 project that was approved at the 66th General Assembly of the Interpol in New Delhi last year.

The Minister of Police, Hon. Clive Edwards, said that the assistance from Interpol was part of a regional project to apprehend the movement of international criminals in the region. He said that during January alone, 35 hardened international criminals were known to be in the region. “We were not able to apprehend some of them, but the Interpol was providing us with the identity of the criminals who were coming here and may find Tonga an ideal place.”

The Tongan police will acquire a computerised finger printing machine under this project. Clive said that it would enable the police to get immediate confirmation on the identity of a fingerprint, compared with their existing manual data collection, which could take days.

“With an increase in house breaking this is an ideal piece of equipment to have. We should be able to maintain law and order more efficiently if we are equipped to deal with the expertise of criminals who have been deported back from overseas.” The Minister said that some of the most serious cases of housebreaking were committed by criminals with overseas experience, “but I am confident that we are containing the situation and we are in a state of preparedness all the time.”

Clive said that a program to computerise the Police Force had been underway for some time. “We have been working on traffic, which is nearly completed. We have also been working with the CID and eventually the whole force will be computerised.

“The force is entering a new century and we are changing with the times and older people are retiring, making room for the young ones who are coming up.”

Computer Centre

Second Officer John Racine, who was responsible for writing a proposal to acquire computer hardware and software, and for the setting up of a computer centre for the Tongan Police Force, was excited about the assistance promised by the FBI, the New Zealand High Commission and Interpol.

John said that the agreement that was approved by the 177 member countries of the Interpol was the main impetus for the computerising of the force. “They agreed to enhance the development of international police co-operation between different regions of the world, and the modernisation of the international police telecommunications network,” he said.