A review of American Taboo – A murder in the Peace Corps
by Philip Weiss, Harper Collins, 2004.
Indeed, there was a murder in Tonga, a very small Pacific
Island nation, in 1975. Deborah Gardner, a Peace Corps teacher was murdered by
a fellow volunteer, Dennis Priven. He even confessed. The saga, of course, was
complicated. Deborah was a vivacious young lady, who enchanted all she met.
Priven became smitten with her; enthusiasms she did not fully reciprocate. That
seems to have been the underlying theme of the crime. She had other romantic entanglements
but refused Priven.
The author painted a complicated scene of Peace Corps life
in Tonga. It was a small place with many volunteers. They all knew each other
and socialized together frequently. Tonga
is portrayed as a place where there were two types of volunteers – those who
engaged in Tongan culture and those who disdained it, preferring the company of
other expatriates. The latter group and
certainly some of the former often apparently engaged in drunken revelries and
revolving relationships. It is not a pretty picture of Americans abroad. There
is some, but not much revelation of what volunteers actually did or what
contributions they made. Politically, however, the American presence was
important to Tonga and vice versa. The Peace Corps was the tangible expression
of America’s interest in the island nation. As it turned out, neither side
wanted to lose that connection on account of a murder.
Everyone was, of course, shocked by the murder and the violence
of it. Priven was quickly fingered and hunted around the island prior to his
turning himself in. He confessed but said nothing further. The evidence was
clear and incriminating: eyewitnesses placed him at the scene, his knife was the
murder weapon and Deborah’s dying statement was that Dennis did it.
Tongan Peace Corps officials, with the backing of Peace
Corps Washington, soon turned to facilitating, mounting and financing a defense
of Priven, claiming that he was mentally impaired at the time. Truly, he was a
troubled soul but was he crazy? This defense
took lots of maneuvering especially with psychological interventions at the
trial but was ultimately successful.
All in all, American Taboo is a sordid tale where
power and manipulation on the part of official Americans offset the delivery of
justice under Tongan law. Tonga too was guilty of not wanting to hang an ugly
American if the cost – justice for Deborah – was too high in terms of eliminating
the Peace Corps presence and souring ties with the United States.
Author Weiss did an astonishing amount of research for this
book. Literally chasing down and interviewing dozens of folks who had little
desire to relive these sordid events.
The book contains lots of details from overlapping and conflicting
memories, after-the-fact justifications, and regrets. Sometimes it is too much.
If, however, a reader wades through it all, the result remains disquieting;
justice was not served.
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