Promise broken, says EU September 7, 2007

The European Union today said Fiji’s military-led regime had broken its promise when it re-imposed a state of emergency yesterday.

The full statement from the EU’s Pacific headquarters in Suva follows:

EU STATEMENT ON THE REACTIVATION OF FIJI’S PUBLIC EMERGENCY REGULATIONS 2007

The European Union is concerned about the re-invocation of the Public Emergency Regulations in Fiji on 6 September, 2007.

This re-invocation, and the measures associated with it, appear to be in contravention of Commitment no. 2 under Section 3 of the list of commitments the Interim Government made to the European Union in Brussels on 18 April, as part of the consultations under Article 96 of the ACP-EU Partnership Agreement.

In the European Union’s assessment, it is not apparent which threats to national security, public order and safety exist to justify such a drastic measure as bringing back the Public Emergency Regulations.

The Council of the European Union meets in Brussels today, Friday 7 September. The political situation in Fiji will be on the agenda. (END)

Regime plays down emergency September 7, 2007

[The following dispatch was filed for Pacific Magazine Online.]

Fiji‘s military junta played down the international repercussions of the state of emergency it declared today, saying it was only a “precautionary measure” aimed at ousted Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase.

The public emergency regulations imposed yesterday, and which are in effect for 30 days, effectively bans Qarase and his party officials from making public comments but the interim regime was vague on exactly how Qarase was a “threat to national security.” month exile on his home island of Vanuabalavu in eastern Fiji.

In a news conference yesterday to announce the move, interim Attorney-General Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum described the reason as Qarase’s “comments, rhetoric and intentions.”

(more…)

Junta brings back emergency September 6, 2007

[The following  dispatch was filed for Pacific Magazine Online.]

Fiji’s military junta this afternoon re-imposed a state of emergency following the return of ousted Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase from exile on Vanuabalavu Island in the Lau Group.

Qarase had been banished from the capital by the military after it seized power on Dec. 6. 2006.

Army chief and interim prime minister Voreqe Bainimarama confirmed to local radio his regime had invoked the Public Emergency Regulations because of Qarase’s comments.

An official in the Department of Information said the regulations were invoked effective from midday today local time.

Bainimarama said Qarase was “interfering” in the running of the country and was hampering its eventual return to democracy through his statements.

Qarase has been critical of the regime’s claims to be cleaning out corruption since he returned last Saturday.

Bainimarama also singled out a senior official in Qarase’s Soqosoqo Duavata ni Lewenivanua party, Peceli Kinivuwai.

Kinivuwai, the party’s national director, has also been vocal in his criticism of the regime.

“It (emergency) was invoked specifically for these two,” Bainimarama told Legend FM.

Under the regulations, any statement or act deemed a “threat to national security” could see the arrest of the person responsible.

Bainimarama has also threatened to send Qarase and Kinivuwai on a flight back to Vanuabalavu.

He added if that happens “they will be there for a very long time.”

The emergency regulations were imposed immediately after Bainimarama seized power and were lifted in at the beginning of June as one of the pre-conditions for securing continued European Union funding.

Interim Attorney-General Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum is scheduled to host a news conference at 4pm (local time) in which he will outline the interim regime’s decision to bring back the state of emergency.

A coup by any other name September 4, 2007

By now it’s old news that the Fiji Human Rights Commission – or to be more accurate, its director – has released another pro-coup report.

But the absurdity of the report (released on August 29), which presents FHRC director Dr Shaista Shameem’s findings on whether ousted Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase’s human rights were violated, deserves a mention.

In fact, not only is the report – the second – unabashedly supportive of the military-led regime, Shameem also makes a stunning revelation, something no serious analyst has ever put forward.

After thoroughly analysing the events of December 5, 2006 (and May 14, 1987, September 28, 1987 and May 19, 2000) she’s concluded that it was not a coup.

Fiji, according to Shameem, has had not four but just one coup. The only true coup Fiji has endured was that by Sitivieni Rabuka in September 1987 when he declared Fiji a republic, according to her “legal” analysis. How strange because by all accounts the September 1987 coup was the least traumatic.

Shameem is at pains to make the point that Voreqe Bainimarama’s 2006 coup was actually at President Ratu Josefa Iloilo’s direction in the “public good”.

Legend FM News reported in the days after Shameem released her report that she was advising those critical of it to “get a good lawyer to help them understand it.”

That was the height of arrogance to imply that it required lawyers to truly understand what she had written. It’s not the language that’s hard to follow – it’s the logic.

The report talks of the President’s “reserve powers” or “presidential prerogative” and how he used those powers on December 5 to authorise Bainimarama to remove Laisenia Qarase’s government.

That the President has these powers is not in dispute. It’s the way Shameem tries to imply that the coup was not actually Bainimarama’s doing but that of the aging President exercising his sovereign power.

But as the whole world knows, Bainimarama had been advertising his threat of a coup for years previously and began escalating his threats – and creating an impression of a crisis – in the second half of 2006 before finally acting on his threat.

So to now say that it was actually the President who recommended the removal of Qarase’s government because he allegedly had not been kept in the loop on matters of government, is far-fetched.

She tries to make out that the President had been struggling over the “constitutional dilemmas” created by the military’s threat.

“Our own investigations revealed that the President was confronted with a number of constitutional dilemmas as he attempted to steer the country through a turbulent political period. In the process, the office of the President came under great strain…”

She writes: “Finally, on the morning of December 5th the Prime Minister refused point blank to attend a meeting with the President when called to do so.” Actually, it’s a matter of public record that Qarase was on his way to see the President but was ordered by soldiers to get out of his vehicle and walk from the gates up to Government House, which he refused to do. That was not a refusal “point blank” but a refusal to be treated in an undignified manner.

The report goes on to say:

“Subsequent to these series of events, the President reportedly sought a number of opinions regarding the dismissal of the Prime Minister for breaches of the Constitution. The President appears to have contemplated these opinions in private for some time on the morning of December 5th. An hour or so later, the RFMF Commander visited the President and a decision to remove the Prime Minister was reportedly made. Shortly afterwards this decision was executed by the Commander who announced to the public at 6pm that evening that he had ‘stepped into the President’s shoes…’ …

The Commander of the RFMF ‘stepped into the President’s shoes’ to remove the Prime Minister and do what the President himself was prevented from doing.”

I’m curious: if the President was really in control and grappling with his “reserve powers” on the morning of December 5 why then did he not make a broadcast from Government House to reassure the nation that he was in control? Why did he not inform the nation of what was happening if he really was the sovereign head of state?

Why did he not speak then and why was he incommunicado for the entire time Bainimarama was president until January 5, when he handed “power” back to Ratu Iloilo who then read a speech, no doubt written by the military’s speechwriters, praising the military and blessing its takeover?

Meanwhile, Shameem being a lawyer should have known better than to comment on a case that’s already before the courts – sub judice as the lawyers say.

She makes the extraordinary assertion that the courts – and Fiji’s people – had no right to question the President’s decision to support the overthrow of the government:

“Whether or not the President employed the right approach in exercising sovereign power in December 2006 is not for the courts, nor the people of Fiji, to judge. The constitutional and conventional power of prerogative was provided to the President as Head of State to make his own judgment in this regard, and the specific justification for them cannot be investigated by the courts.”

Oh and by the way, she found that Qarase’s human rights had not been violated. Not when he was surrounded by soldiers in his home in Suva as the military seized power, not when he was forced to flee to his home island of Vanuabalavu and not when he was prevented for months on end from returning to Suva (until last Saturday).

It’s sad that Shameem is using what must now be dwindling FHRC funds to set up inquiries (the completed one-man media inquiry and the ongoing 2006 election inquiry) and spend time writing reports that try to legally justify the overthrow of an elected government.

What about the two deaths in military custody of civilians? If the FHRC was truly independent it would be calling on the authorities to bring to justice those responsible for Nimilote Verebasaga’s death in January Sakiusa Rabaka’s death in February.

It doesn’t seem right that while the policemen allegedly responsible for Tevita Malasebe’s death in June have already been charged and appeared in court, the two deaths that occurred months earlier at the hands of the military remain unresolved.

What this says to me is that soldiers are protected from prosecution while everyone else – policemen included – will certainly have their day in court.

I leave you with a line from letter to the editor, written by an Andy Rooney from Oregon in the US, printed in the Fiji Times on Saturday, September 1.

“When it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, it’s a duck no matter what sort of spin the spin doctor (Dr Shaista Shameem) puts on it.”

 

• To read Dr Shaista Shameem’s extraordinary report for yourself, go here.

Black Friday poll date for Fiji August 16, 2007

Commodore Frank Bainimarama, Fiji’s army chief and self-imposed prime minister, has out of the blue named a date for when Fiji is to hold general elections – and it’s a Black Friday.

Bainimarama told journalists on Wednesday, the country is to go to the polls on March 13, 2009 at 10am.

But perhaps not taking him seriously, the mainstream media did not play it up much. The Fiji Times reported it on page five today, while a rugby story occupied the front page.

Bainimarama’s sudden preciseness was lost on most of the media – only the Fiji Times reported his comments, until it was picked up by the radio stations this morning.

Bainimarama has previously been vague on an exact date for an election. After the joint Pacific Islands Forum-Fiji Working Group on the return to democracy released its report in June suggesting Fiji could go to elections as early as the last quarter of 2008 or the first quarter of 2009, Bainimarama only went so far as to say the interim regime had accepted the report “in principle.”

Apart from the little omen of elections being scheduled for a Black Friday (and as far as my young mind can recall, Fiji’s elections have begun on a Saturday), a constitutional expert has labelled the date as unrealistic.

Dr Brij Lal, one of the framers of the 1997 Constitution, expressed “deep doubts” to Radio Australia because the mechanisms for an election had not even got under way, including the filling of the top posts.

He said the Supervisor of Elections was yet to be appointed, a census has not been conducted, the electoral roll not yet updated, and the Constitutional Boundaries Commission not appointed.

The national census will be held in mid-September, while no word has come yet of the other electoral appointments.

Lal said while Bainimarama has continually spoken of the “pre-conditions” before an election could be held, including the completion of his “clean-up campaign” of the government bureaucracy, and the Fiji Labour Party saying last week an election was not a priority, he was baffled by the sudden announcement.

“I think there is something else that is driving the interim administration,” Lal told Radio Australia.

Perhaps that something else is pressure on the cash-strapped regime to commit to a date.

In March, Fiji’s military-led regime promised the European Union it would make a firm commitment to a return to democracy in return for promised aid amounting to some 200m euros (about $430m at today’s rates) for the sugar industry and other areas.

Semesa Karavaki, the sacked supervisor of elections, told the Fiji Times Online there was more to an election than the announcement of a date.

If Fiji does indeed to the polls on March 13, 2009 it will be two years and three months since Bainimarama seized power on December 5, 2006.