Fiji — The truth is emerging

Since I started blog­ging on my place of birth, Fiji, I have received many emails of abuse and of course com­ments about how I could pos­si­bly sup­port a coup.

I have explained many times just how poorly Fiji has been rep­re­sented by its so-called democ­racy. In fact it was a democ­racy that was set up to fail.

Amongst the abuse I have received also many emails in sup­port that at least some­one in new Zealand is telling the truth about the sit­u­a­tion in Fiji. The only other blog­ger to be so stren­u­ous in his sup­port of Fiji that I am aware of is Adolf at No Minister.

Over the week­end sev­eral inter­est­ing arti­cles were brought to my atten­tion. It has taken much time to digest them and to assim­i­late the knowl­edge with my on the ground knowl­edge and with my con­tacts in Fiji. These two arti­cles can­not be ignored and they speak for themselves.

The first is the exclu­sive inter­view granted to Maori Tele­vi­sion and the arti­cle pub­lished in the Sun­day Star Times. Enti­tled a “A Dif­fer­ent Kind of Coup” It makes for inter­est­ing reading.

Men­tioned in the arti­cle is  Fijian Attor­ney Gen­eral Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum. Just the other day  Rod Alley from Vic­to­ria Uni­ver­sity of Welling­ton Cen­tre for Strate­gic Stud­ies will def­i­nitely have to eat the words he said on New­stalk ZB last week to Mike Hosk­ing.  Rod Alley said that we have heard very lit­tle from Attorney-General Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum and he has been “sus­pi­ciously silent” for the past few weeks – indi­cat­ing that there were prob­lems between him and Frank Bain­i­marama. AG Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum accom­pa­nied Frank Bain­i­marama at the meet­ing with Sir Paul Reeves.

In fact Attor­ney Gen­eral Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum should be applauded.From this arti­cle in the Fiji Sun;

Fiji needs to stand on its own two feet and not depend on Aus­tralia and New Zealand, a gov­ern­ment offi­cial told employ­ers last night.

Speak­ing at the Fiji Employ­ers Fed­er­a­tion din­ner at the Hol­i­day Inn, Min­is­ter of Com­merce Aiyaz Sayed Khaiyum said the gov­ern­ment is now focused on noth­ing but the economy.

“There was a lot of con­tro­versy when this gov­ern­ment came to power,” Mr Sayed Khaiyum said.

“And the polit­i­cal stand is dif­fer­ent from the stand in the 1987 and the 2000 coup.

“NZ and Aus­tralia have taken their polit­i­cal stand against Fiji and you the employ­ers should realise the very issue relat­ing to inde­pen­dence or per­tain­ing a strong foun­da­tion in business.

“Fiji needs to stand on its own and move away from depen­dency,” he said.

For instance, Mr Sayed Khaiyum said busi­nesses should not depend entirely on concession.

“If you believe that it is a God given right to have con­ces­sion then you should not be oper­at­ing in the market.”

He said busi­nesses, work­ers and trade unions should now work together and focus on Fiji.

“That is the very rea­son the Prime Min­is­ter (Com­modore Voreqe Bain­i­marama) has called on busi­ness houses to attend a forum before the Bud­get so their views can be taken on board,” Mr Khaiyum said.

Is this not what we would want for all Pacific Island nations – to grow up and stand on their own two feet and not have to rely on big brother?

So con­trary to what aca­d­e­mic fool Rod Alley had to say, AG Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum had been in Malaysia. Just goes to prove that rumours and telling lies are a bit of a way of life when dis­cussing Fiji in New Zealand.

AG Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum is def­i­nitely alive and well and from the looks of it should fit very nicely into the Act Party.

Mean­while here in NZ Here in New Zealand there has been vir­tu­ally no media cov­er­age of Sir Paul Reeves visit to Fiji since Sep­tem­ber 2nd. I find this rather strange as Fijian media inter­net web­sites have been post­ing news about the visit, but per­haps the main­stream media here in NZ have decided not to cover Sir Paul’s visit, for what­ever reason.

In any case most inter­na­tional news sto­ries of late regard­ing Fiji are some­what neg­a­tive – what is called “bad press”. An exam­ple is last Tues­day (Sep­tem­ber 8th) when Amnesty Inter­na­tional tried to stir up about human rights abuses in Fiji and called on China to help with Fiji’s human rights sit­u­a­tion. (Ridicu­lous really con­sid­er­ing China’s human rights record). New­stalkZB broad­cast this story a cou­ple of times, but then it was sud­denly dropped. It didn’t grow legs. When I “Googled” NewstalkZB’s web­site I could not find that story posted, but I found the same story and com­ments were made back in April by Amnesty International’s Apolosi Bose, except China’s help was not men­tioned then. Was it coin­ci­dence that this story broke again at the same time that Sir Paul Reeves was due to visit Fiji? Who knows?

The last piece of infor­ma­tion that com­pletes a great deal of the puz­zle for me was anony­mously mailed to the tipline. It is a doc­u­ment writ­ten by some­one who osten­si­bly pur­ports to have been or is a spy. It makes for fas­ci­nat­ing read­ing and shows clearly just how bent the for­mer regime in cahoots with the Great Coun­cil of Chiefs, The Methodist Church and the Fiji Police were in rig­ging the elec­tions. (1M pdf) Elec­tions mind you that Labour Min­is­ter at the time Mar­ian Hobbs declared were full and free. This doc­u­ment would sug­gest otherwise.

I sug­gest the pol­icy wonks at MFaT pull their heads out of their col­lec­tive arses and read this infor­ma­tion and I humbly sug­gest that Mur­ray McCully does the same.

Fiji can be sorted, but it won’t be if we con­tinue to push the failed poli­cies of the past 20 years in deal­ing with Fiji.

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