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 Found Dismembered Openly-Gay Red Cross Hero and Partner Hacked to Death Bravery Shown Negotiating with Rebels Holding Hostages |
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"The thugs who murdered John Scott have deprived Fiji of one its most dedicated servants. A man who had devoted the later years of his life to the service of those less fortunate than himself, John Scott will be remembered by all who knew him and many who only knew of him as a selfless man ever willing to help the needy, the downtrodden and the plain unlucky. "In the dark days of floods, cyclones and drought John Scott and his team at Red Cross Fiji worked around the clock to ferry supplies of food, clothing, medicine and emergency shelter to those who had lost everything." Fiji is also now recalling how, last May, Scott walked bravely into a nest of kidnappers holding members of Fiji's Parliament hostage. He helped keep high the spirits of the captives while bringing them needed goods. Throughout a 56-day ordeal he was the only person allowed access to the hostages. He systematized mail and food distribution, moving goods between the hostages and their families. The gang members occasionally released hostages, relying on Scott to arrange their pick-ups. The Fiji Times' editorial eulogized John Scott, a native Fijian, in an amazingly reverent tone: "Where there was hunger he brought food, where there was disease he brought treatment, where there was storm he brought shelter-- and where there was despair he brought hope." Police, who found bloody footprints outside Scott's Princess Road home in Tamavua, first suggested that the male lovers had been engaged in a domestic dispute. But Scott had been scheduled to testify at a trial in which Fiji's kidnapper-rebels would be facing charges. The family of Gregory Scrivener, John Scott's partner, has accused Fiji's police of a cover-up for even suggesting such a domestic dispute. Both men's arms had been severed. They'd been discovered by a downstairs assistant lying "half nude." Their faces and upper torsos had borne the brunt of cutting blows. Janice Giles, Gregory Scrivener's sister, scoffed at the lawmen's 'domestic dispute' theory. She said:
Fiji's Caretaker Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase, addressing Scott's co-workers, said: "I convey our deep sorry at the death of your director John Scott and his personal colleague Gregory Scrivener. Our prayers are on their families and all of you at the Fiji Red Cross". Deposed Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry said: "It's an irony that a man as gentle as that should meet this death in a gruesome manner. "I got to know him closely in my days of detention in parliament because he usually brought in our daily supplies. "My sincere condolences go out to his family. We've lost a man who was dedicated to the poor." |
