People living in glass houses, Mr Khaiyum ….?

Attorney General Aiyaz Khaiyum has the gall to question the salaries of union officials such as Felix Anthony and Rajeshwar Singh in Parliament.

He should first of all come clean on his own super salary and that of Prime Minister Bainimarama paid to them secretly through the accounting firm of his aunt Nur Bano.

In 2010 the Fiji Labour Party revealed that Khaiyum and Bainimarama were being paid secret salaries in excess of $1 million each through this accounting firm. Since then despite being questioned repeatedly the two have remained silent about their salaries between 2010 and 2013.

The issue was raised in the Auditor General’s 2014 Report. Repeated requests sent to the Prime Minister’s Office for acquitals and details of these secret payments to be produced, were ignored.

The Finance Ministry made similar requests which were also ignored. When the Public Accounts Committee began questioning these issues, Aiyaz Khaiyum amended the Standing Orders to get rid of the Chair to the Committee ( Dr. Biman Prasad) and replaced him with one of own lackeys.

Now, Mr Khaiyum – why don’t you tell us first how much you and the PM received in salaries between 2010 and 2013 before you start pointing fingers at union officials? At least, their salaries are transparent and do not come from the public purse.

Aiyaz Khaiyum should also talk about how they manipulated the parliamentary process to award themselves huge increases to their sitting and travel allowances - $3000 per day to the Prime Minister and $2500 to him.

You know the good old adage, Mr Khaiyum, about people living in glass houses ……?

AG Aiyaz Khaiyum is once again trying to bamboozle the people of Fiji with statistics.

Referring to the UNDP 2016 Human Development Index which ranks Fiji 91 out of 188 countries, he says this puts Fiji in the high category of human development and shows “progression”.

Firstly, it does not put Fiji in the high category of development, as he claims – it puts Fiji in the medium category.

Even this ranking is #questionable considering the pathetic on the ground realities and social conditions of our people. It is also questionable because the UNDP does not carry out its own surveys – it merely uses figures presented by the government and we all know how concocted a lot of these official statistics are.

1. Take for instance, the #myth that Fiji’s life expectancy rate is 70.2 – it has hovered around this figure for decades. How does this reconcile with medical statistics that show only 16% of our population live past the age of 50 and only 8% live beyond their 60th birthday. This is because of the very high incidence of NCDs in Fiji. Our adult mortality rate is 3 times that of Australia and New Zealand. Malnutrition particularly among our children is a serious problem.

Our health care facilities are in a deplorable condition – hospitals and clinics lack basic supplies, equipment and drugs; there is an acute shortage of doctors and other medical personnel and most hospitals are in a dirty, neglected condition. Khaiyum has reduced the health budget by a whopping 33%.

2. Education – the report is based on expected years of schooling at 15.3. This figure completely ignores the falling standard of education in our schools and universities in recent years. There have been so many complaints from the business sector that our university graduates are not up to standard.

3. Poverty - Interestingly the UNDP report says data on this is not available. We all know that close to 50% of our people live in or on the edge of poverty.

The minimum national wage rate of $2.35 is a joke compared to the escalating cost of living in this country largely as a result of the FF government’s policies.

These are a few examples. There are other indications of the grossly deteriorating quality of life of our people:
- mushrooming squatter settlements in urban areas – showing an acute shortage of affordable housing for low income earners as well as increasing rural-urban drift.

- rural decline as a result of a marked drop in agricultural production including sugar cane and neglect of rural development by the government
- high rate of youth unemployment standing at around 25%
- increasingly high crime rates largely as a result of high unemployment and rising costs of living

No, Mr Khaiyum – our people are not fooled by your statistics. Our ground realities, the deprivation and suffering of our people show the true picture of the state of human development in Fiji.

#What the #Asian Development Bank says:

March 31, 2017
MEDIA RELEASE
 
NFP to PM: Charity begins at home
 
It is unbelievable that the Prime Minister, while calling for a grand coalition of nations and the private sector to tackle Climate Change, cannot even co-operate with others in his own country.
 
The Prime Minister, while addressing Private Sector Climate Leaders in the United States this week (29th March), called for a “grand coalition” between people in other countries on climate change.
 
They say “charity begins at home.” 
 
A coalition means you must be patient, listen to other viewpoints and be open to dialogue.  You must talk to each other, not at each other. And despite finger-pointing and acrimonious debates in Parliament, the national interest must always prevail over anything else.
 
The NFP has repeatedly called on the Prime Minister to begin national dialogue on the sugar industry and education. But he rejected this describing our call as “politics”. 
 
NFP has moved Parliamentary motions asking his Government to help people as diverse as dairy farmers and dialysis patients.  His Government votes them all down.
 
People bring petitions to Parliament. But his Government changes the Parliamentary rules so that they cannot be debated.
 
The Prime Minister’s biggest challenge as COP23 Chairman will be that the climate change-denying US government will not listen to him. 
 
Perhaps that will remind the Prime Minister, while he trots around the globe, how his fellow citizens feel at home.
 
 Authorised by:
 
Professor Biman Prasad
NFP Leader
 

March 31, 2017
 
MEDIA RELEASE
 
AN NFP GOVERNMENT WILL BUILD A NEW SUGAR MILL FOR RA CANE GROWERS
 
A National Federation Party Government after next year’s general elections will build a new sugar mill in Penang for the cane growers of Rakiraki.
 
This will be a priority of an NFP Government because we believe social responsibility to the people by a Government is paramount above anything else. And the NFP deeply values this principle.
 
The permanent shutdown of the Penang Mill is not only a “ill-conceived and irrational” decision by the Board of the Fiji Sugar Corporation, but also a decision of the Fiji First Government as confirmed by the Prime Minister, while rejecting a Petition in Parliament last Thursday by Ra cane growers urging the re-opening of the Mill.
 
The Prime Minister’s comment that the Mill was “beyond repair” and that the “FSC Board is meeting next week on the 27th to discuss exactly these issues”, confirms the Fiji First Government’s deviousness on this issue right from the outset in 2016 following the closure of the Mill after Severe TC Winston last year.
 
This Government and FSC have clearly prioritized FSC’s financial viability over the survival and livelihood of cane growers, therefore treating growers as sacrificial lambs.
 
FSC’s claim that any repair or refurbishment of the Penang Mill will cost 40-50 million dollars is untrue. This monetary value comes only after FSC cannibalized the Mill by stripping it of its parts, shipping them to other Mills and even transporting locomotives to Labasa. Even then the cost is baseless.
 
The Board is misleading people by saying it was unsafe to work inside the Mill. If this was true, how did employees strip the interior of the Mill of parts after being directed to do so by the Management.
 
That the PM failed to answer whether an assessment was done on the future of the mill by Indian experts as announced by him (PM) in July last year, confirms beyond any doubt Government had decided long time ago to shut down the Mill without any consideration to growers and the local economy of Ra.
 
The absence of any response from the PM leads us to believe he misled growers by giving them false hope of an assessment.
 
We also ask whether the USD$70 million credit facility offered by the Indian Prime Minister during his visit to Fiji in November 2014 for co-generation project at Rarawai has been utilized?
 
If not, why wasn’t it used to refurbish the Penang Mill?
 
Cane growers of Rakiraki and indeed throughout the cane belts of the 8 cane growing districts cannot hope for any solution from this Government that will positively impact their lives.
 
An NFP Government after the general elections will immediately set in motion plans and policies to build a new Mill. This is our commitment to the growers and people of Rakiraki.
 
Authorised by: -
 
Professor Biman Prasad
NFP Leader
 

[Author’s note: I publish this Letter to the Editor and to FHRADC and MIDA to ensure that the public gets to read this, whether the newspapers in Fiji publish or not. Further, with any number of persons being prosecuted, convicted and jailed, for all kinds of alleged crimes in the last few years (some still going on) it is important for the Fiji public to have a better  understanding  of the nature of the prosecuting arms of the Bainimarama Government and the institutions and persons who are paid by taxpayers to safeguard their basic human rights. This article is also directed to elicit the extent of commitment of some political parties and leaders (like SODELPA) to human rights and justice for all.]

22 March 2017
Letters to the Editor
Fiji Times and Fiji Sun,
Director Fiji Human Rights and Anti-Discrimination Commission (Ashwin Raj)
FHRADC Commission Members (Justice Mohammed Ajmeer, Faiz Khan, Selina Lee Wah)
Director of Public Prosecutions (Mr Christopher Pryde)
​
Dear Sir
​
It is encouraging to see that Mr. Ashwin Raj the Director of FHRADC (and Chairman of MIDA) is proactive in wishing to right the wrongs of some of the “institutionalized racism” of the past, an objective which I share.
By this Letter to the Editor, I request Ashwin Raj and the Commissioners of the FHRADC, and the Director of Public Prosecutions,  to inform the Fiji public whether they are investigating the denial of the most important human right of all- the right to life-  of the following five CRW soldiers who died under questioning, while they were in the custody of the RFMF following the mutiny in 2000: Selesitino Kalounivale, Jone Davui, Epeneri Bainimoli, Lagani Rokowaqa and Iowane Waseroma.

Raj, the Commissioners of the FHRADC and the DPP, might wish to
​
1. Interview the senior military officer (Viliame Seruvakula) who was apparently responsible for arresting these five soldiers and handed them into police custody at the Nabua Police Station;
2. interview the senior military officer (Jone Baledrokadroka) who was apparently responsible for signing them out of police custody and into military custody, taking them to the Stanley Brown Naval Base where the RFMF Commander (Bainimarama) was then located;
3. interview the senior army officer who ordered them to be taken to Nabua army barracks and be questioned in order to find out who were the instigators of the 2000 mutiny;
4. interview the soldiers who physically interrogated the five CRW soldiers and eventually delivered the bodies to the CWM Hospital;
5. read the very clear judgement of resident magistrate Ajmal Gulab Khan in the Workman’s Compensation Act case brought by Mrs Kalounivale, explaining the chain of events that led to the death of Kalounivale;
6. read the autopsy report by Australian pathologist Professor Stephen Cordner;
7. interview Father Akauola who tended to the tortured soldiers in their dying moments;
8. read (if they can find it) the Police Investigation Report into the torture and death of the five soldiers;
9. interview former FRMF officer Kaci Solomone who headed the court martial of the CRW soldiers accused in the mutiny and also Judge Advocate Graeme Leong;
10. interview the CRW soldiers involved in the mutiny and those (including some current SODELPA leaders and some former RFMF officers) who were named by Captain Shane Stevens (the leader of the mutiny) as  being instigators or supporters of the mutiny;
11. interview former Police Commissioner (Andrew Hughes) who stated in an ABC interview that the Fiji Police were close to laying charges against several individuals associated with these deaths.
12. interview the  UN which is not only an avowed global defender of basic human rights but who are currently employing some former RFMF and police officers who are alluded to in Questions 1, 2, 10 and 11 above.
13. interview the Fiji Law Society and UN as to their august views on amnesty provisions in the 2013 Fiji Constitution and their applicability to the five deaths referred to above.
As Chairman of the FHRADC (Justice Ajmeer) will no doubt appreciate, these five CRW soldiers were presumed innocent until proven guilty by the Fiji courts (some undoubtedly were innocent).
Only Ashwin Raj and the Fiji Human Rights and Anti-Discrimination Commission can provide closure to the still grieving families of the five CRW soldiers who were killed in  military custody in 2000 without trial, judge or jury.
Raj and the FHRADC can reassure the Fiji public that they are ready to defend the human rights of everyone in Fiji, whether they are powerful (like Madam Nazhat Shameem) or weak, like these forgotten deceased CRW soldiers.
In case Raj might feel inclined to label this letter also as “vitriolic diatribe” from “self-selected moral entrepreneurs and armchair critics” (The Fiji Times, March 18, 2017) I remind him of a well-known saying is supported by all world religions: “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me”.
Current SODELPA and Bainimarama Government (Fiji First Party) leaders  might also wish to explain to the Fiji public why none of them are demanding a Commission of Inquiry into the 2000 coup and the 2000 mutiny, which resulted in the above gross injustices, shoved under the carpet for the last seventeen years.
I cc this Letter to Editor also to Mr. Ashwin Raj as Chairman of MIDA in the faint hope that he will encourage the two newspapers to publish this letter as an indication that he will not be influenced by any conflict of interest in his two important positions as Chairman of MIDA and CEO of FHRADC.
Yours sincerely
Professor Wadan Narsey

By Ashwin Raj

​The vitriolic diatribe that the Permanent Representative to the United Nations and other offices in Geneva Ambassador Nazhat Shameem Khan has been subjected to for a principled intervention that Fiji made against institutionalised racism and the Human Rights and Anti-Discrimination Commission for its presence and participation at the 34th session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva necessitates a response.

While Fiji made a number of substantial interventions premised on principles of non-discrimination, human dignity and substantive equality spanning from social and economic rights to civil and political rights such as the rights of persons with disabilities with a particular focus on Article 5 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, protection of the rights of children in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, Fiji’s commitment towards the ratification of all core human rights instruments by 2020 and its presidency over the United Nations Conference on Climate Change COP23, the enjoyment of human rights by persons with albinism, the inexorable relationship between human rights and peace, the abolishment of death penalty, the impact of climate change on the rights of children and the incorporation of human rights education into the school curriculum in response to Fiji’s commitment to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and access to medicine as one of the fundamental elements of the right to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, the polemicists have strategically and exclusively focused on racism.

So what exactly did the Ambassador say about racism that has riled the NFP, SODELPA, Wadan Narsey, self-selected moral entrepreneurs and arm chair critics? “It must be noted”, the Ambassador said, “that racism was institutionalised in Fiji to such an extent that it instilled in a privileged class a sense of entitlement based on ethnicity and CLASS, and that racist attitudes were engrained in all communities, which have resulted in mistrust, resentment and suspicion”.

The Ambassador never used the word “caste” as has been reported by the NFP and SODELPA and uncritically reproduced by the Fiji Times, Radio New Zealand and the ABCamongst various other social media platforms. She actually used the word “class”.

This begs the question, is the NFP and its leadership deliberately encouraging the conflagration of communalism given that the word “caste” has a particular historical and sociological resonance with the Indo-Fijian community?
One does not need a doctorate in sociology to appreciate the political purchase of the term caste or indeed need such a credential to condemn racism!

The string of racist, sexist and bigoted comments following the NFPs post on Facebook is a sad indictment of the fact that racism and prejudice is alive and thriving.

Extremely derogatory things have been said and continue to be said about the Ambassadors ethnicity, her gender, and her religion and the NFP did not even once intervene in the barrage of these attacks which are simply unconstitutional.

Not only did they selectively focus on the issue of racism, they also deliberately distorted what was said about racism to suite their own political agenda.

The Ambassador never apportioned the charge of racism to a single community. She actually said “…racist attitudes were engrained in all communities”. The following statement that Wadan Narsey so casually and conveniently dismissed is a testament to that:

“Fiji has embarked on a path of substantive equality and this path requires a level of gender, disability and cultural competence and the ability to understand that poverty and disadvantage exists in all cultural groups”.
So is it not obvious then that it is precisely these detractors who are reproducing a racist epistemology to give credence to their own political agenda?

Their vitriol raises fundamental questions about whether a non-indigenous can speak on indigenous issues. It is also a sad indictment of the fact that Fiji has yet to learn to speak meaningfully about race without descending into racism.

Incidentally, in reiterating Government’s priority in light of Fiji’s presidency over the United Nations Conference on Climate Change COP23 and underscoring the inextricable relationship between climate change and human rights and in particular recognising the specific vulnerabilities of women, children and persons suffering from disabilities in disasters and climate change induced movement, the Ambassador had adduced the significance of ensuring that “natural relocation policy is sensitive to indigenous rights in ensuring that the rights of the iTaukei to use land, food security including the protection of cultural rights, customary fishing rights and safeguarding of traditional grave sites are protected”.

So why did the NFP, SODELPA and Wadan Narsey not make any reference to these subsequent paragraphs appearing immediately after the paragraph that the NFP deliberately misquoted, SODELPA, the Fiji Times, Radio New Zealand, ABC reproduced and Wadan Narsey once again conveniently glossed?

Your guess is as good as mine!

So are the Ambassador and the Fijian Government really complicit in the erosion of indigenous rights and the distortion of the concerns of the iTaukei at the UN as has been intimated or are her interventions an affront to the political elite that have profited from racism in the last three decades?

Her interventions affirm the intersectional nature of indigenous community’s human rights concerns that affect the ordinary iTaukei in Fiji as opposed to the obsession with political preponderance unabashedly lampooned as an affirmation of indigenous rights.  Are these human rights costs of climate change to our iTaukei any less pressing because it has been conveyed to the world on behalf of Fiji by a woman, a Muslim and an Indo-Fijian?
The Ambassadors allusion to the creation of a privileged class as a result of institutionalised racism is about the complicity between the political elite across the racial divide in which the only people who suffered were the marginalised. To those who are suffering from social amnesia or wilful forgetfulness, here is the legacy of institutionalised racism in Fiji:
​
             The politicisation of the sugar industry by the political elite of both major ethnic communities and the consequent non-renewal of cane leases, displacement, social death and poverty accentuating existing class polarities not only between but within communities;
             An electoral system premised on ethnicity that entrenched racial compartmentalisation;
             The exploitation of non-unionised workers mostly iTaukei and Indo-Fijian women, in tax free zones established to arrest Fiji from the economic malaise following the 1987 coup;
             Social justice initiatives such as the enactment of the Social Justice Act 2001 and the implementation of the 2020 Affirmative Action Plan which were contrary to Section 44 (1) of the 1997 Constitution which mandated the design of programmes to achieve equality for all groups or categories of persons who are disadvantaged and therefore deprived of access to education and training, land and housing and participation in commerce and in all levels and branches of service of the state;
             Discrimination in the education sector as evidenced in the selection criteria for scholarships. Not only were Indo-Fijians deprived of equal opportunity, the requirements for a Fijian Affairs Board (FAB) scholarship also precluded children that were not registered under the Vola Ni Kawa Bula (VKB). Furthermore,the applicant had to have paternal lineage if she or he were a Rotuman  effectively depriving any child who had maternal lineage to iTaukei but paternal lineage to any other race;
             Not only were Indo-Fijian farmers rendered landless because of institutionalised racism, both the SVT in the 1990s and the SDL after coming into power in 2001 introduced policies that surreptitiously and permanently alienated the iTaukei from their customary land through the conversion of iTaukei land into freehold land. A damning example is the Momi Bay;
             Accumulation in the hands of a few in the name of indigenous capitalism to at least putatively bridge the gap between Indo-Fijians and iTaukei. The unlawful allotment of Fijian Holdings Limited shares by Laisenia Qarase who was the Director of Fijian Holdings Limited and a Financial Advisor to the Fijian Affairs Board and the Great Council of Chiefs after all prioritised immediate family members over the provincial, Tikina Councils and eligible iTaukei people;
             The introduction of the Reconciliation, Tolerance and Unity Bill and the Qoliqoli Bill  not only deprived Indo-Fijians from ownership and access to land and ocean, but precluded the iTaukei community as well;
             The unequal distribution of lease money and the introduction of goodwill payment over lease renewals.
​
Is the coalition of detractors denying that Fiji has a history of institutionalised racism? Erasing the ignominy of racism from our public memory will require the courage of conviction to confront this history. Will we speak up against racism and structural inequality again? Absolutely and unabashedly.

​
Fijileaks: In August 2006, four months before the December coup, VICTOR LAL had analysed in the Fiji Sun the Social Justice Bill and had revealed how the Qarase Goverment had lied that it was not consulted by the Fiji Human Rights Commission

FHRC consulted Government on Affirmative Action Report

The consultant who reviewed the Affirmative Action programme for the Fiji Human Rights Commission provided ample opportunity to the Prime Minister's Office to respond to various queries. The consultant's recommendations titled 'Report on Government's Affirmative Programmes 2020 Plan for Indigenous Fijians and Rotumans and the Blueprint - June 2006', which the Commission is yet to officially release, notes that 'the government had decided that rather than the Government submitting comments on the consultant's draft report to the Commission, the Commission should proceed to its publication and public release'.

If it is true, than the Prime Minister is clearly wrong to raise the concern that FHR report on the Blueprint is definitely biased as the Commission consultant did not approach him or his CEO to get the government's side of the story on the setting up of the program. He also expressed concern that the report was only prepared by one consultant who never spoke to anyone at the PM's Office.

Mr Qarase said he is now analyzing the report following comments by the Commission that it would take the government to court if it does not make immediate changes to the Affirmative Action Program. According to the report, the Government was provided with a number of opportunities to be heard during the investigation.

It was advised of the intention to investigate and invited to provide information about all affirmative action programmes. In March 2005 the Office of the Prime Minister was advised that a number of government ministries, departments and agencies had not responded to requests for information, and the assistance of that office was sought in obtaining their cooperation - some departments subsequently responded, others did not; That same month the CEO of the Prime Ministers Department, the report claims, advised that at a discussion of departmental Chief Executive Officers on 18th March 2005 it had been agreed that the Prime Minister's Office would reply on behalf of Government through its Chief Executive Officer, though no response was received.

​Over two months later, on 23rd May 2005, the CEO of Prime Ministers Office sent a copy of the publication For the Good of All, which had been tabled in Parliament in 2004. Later, on 24 November 2005, the same CEO sent copies of a second report on the implementation of the affirmative action programmes under the Social Justice Act that had been tabled as Parliamentary Paper No 108 of 2005. The CEO also supplied the Commission with a copy of the Preliminary Analysis by the ADB of the 2002/2003 Household Income and Expenditure Surveys (September 2005) together with comments.

Despite these opportunities already given, the Commission claims, it provided the Government with a final opportunity to comment on the investigators report and the draft report was sent to the government with the request that a response be received by 23 March 2006. The government subsequently sought an extension of time, and the date for final response was amended to 1 May 2006.

On 19 May 2006, according to the report, the CEO of the Prime Minister's Department wrote to the Commission to advise that the government had decided that rather than the Government submitting comments on the consultant's draft report to the Commission, the Commission should proceed to its publication and public release.
In 2004 the Commission had instigated an 'own motion' investigation into the Government's affirmative action programmes under the Social Justice Act 2001, aspects of the Blueprint initiated by the Interim Government in July 2000 and adopted and continued by the SDL Coalition Government, and the Social Justice Act itself. When notified of the Commission's intention to undertake the investigation, the SDL Coalition Government had offered its cooperation, says the report.

The Commission's decision to instigate the own motion investigation was triggered by the number of complaints it received from different sources about the Affirmative Action law and policy as well as by the Commission's own concerns about the proposals of two different Governments to enact Social Justice legislation for Fiji.
​
The investigation examined whether each affirmative action and blueprint programme, the policy, and the law complied with the requirements for affirmative action in Chapter 5 (section 44) of the Constitution. Based on the consultant's research, the report concludes that overall, but with some exceptions, the affirmative action programmes put in place by Government under the Social Justice Act 2001 do not comply with the Constitution.

The Social Justice Act 2001 does not comply with the Constitution.

It continues as follows:l Affirmative action programmes based on ethnicity do not comply with the Social Justice provisions (Chapter 5, section 44) of the Constitution.l The programme as a whole lacks a proportional balance between any disadvantage intended to be addressed and the measures being taken to alleviate the disadvantage. Minor or even presumed but non-existent disparities between ethnic groups have been used to justify the complete exclusion of groups other than indigenous Fijians and Rotumans from the bulk of the programmes

The programmes fail to make provision for all who are disadvantaged. This is particularly so in relation to women, who are far more disadvantaged than men. Individual programmes are weighed so disproportionately against Indians, women and other disadvantaged groups as to undermine the legality of all the programmes based on ethnicity.

No programme accurately links its goals to the disadvantage borne by the target group that it is intended to overcome.

Few programmes identify any performance indicators and those that do have no historical component. It is therefore not possible to monitor the effectiveness of the programmes without data that identifies trends before and after the programmes were initiated. There is no data that relates to whether alleged disparities between indigenous Fijians and Rotumans and Indians, for example, have reduced in the areas where affirmative action programmes have been introduced.

On the question whether Government has discharged its burden of establishing justification for the programmes, the report says that the Government's principal justification for its affirmative action programmes, that the rural sector is poorer than the urban sector and a majority of indigenous Fijians live in rural areas, is seriously flawed. In fact, the poorest households in rural areas are Indian.

The Government's other main justification (that the average income of indigenous Fijians is below that of Indians and Others and therefore all indigenous Fijians are disadvantaged and entitled to affirmative action) does not meet the legal standards imposed by the Constitution, the Human Rights Commission Act, and international law.
The programmes fail to justify the distinctions based on ethnicity on which most of the programmes are based. The Government has not established that 'the race-based affirmative action programmes meet the legal standards for these particular programmes'.

According to the report,

the programmes have not been established in response to a justifiable compelling Government interest;

the programmes are not narrowly tailored to remedy the past discrimination or present disadvantage that they purport to correct;

the programmes are not narrowly tailored to exclude from the indigenous Fijian group preferred, any members who are not, or are no longer disadvantaged, through means testing, or class-based and other appropriate measures;

the programmes are inflexible, without waiver provisions to narrow their scope;l criteria in relation to targets make no reference to those qualified group members in the relevant sector or industry;

there is no evidence that the Government has considered race-neutral alternatives;l although the programmes are temporary, the periodic review mechanisms are inadequate;l there is little or no consideration given to degree and type of burden, including on excluded groups, caused by the programme.The report goes on to ask whether affirmative action law and programmes are lawful, and answers in the following:

Since the Affirmative Action programmes do not fulfil the requirements of the Social Justice Chapter in the Constitution, they are not protected by the exemption in section 44 (4). Accordingly, to the extent that certain disadvantaged groups are excluded from the Affirmative Action programmes, they are being unfairly discriminated against in contravention of their rights contained in section 38 (2) of the Constitution.l Since the Affirmative Action programmes do not fulfil the requirements of section 21 of the Human Rights Commission Act, they amount to unfair discrimination in breach of section 17 of the Act.

Since the Affirmative Action Programmes do not fulfil the 'special measures' requirements contained in international human rights instruments such as the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD), they amount to a contravention of the rights contained in section 38 (2) of the Constitution.

Since the Affirmative Action programmes are based on the Social Justice Act 2001, and the Social Justice Act itself breaches Chapter 5 of the Constitution, the programmes cannot be justified on grounds that they comply with the Act.It concludes by noting that the 50/50 by 2020 Development Plan, the Blueprint and the Social Justice Act 2001 have the combined effect of imposing large-scale discrimination against the minority ethnic groups, specifically on the disadvantaged categories within these groups, and more generally on other disadvantaged groups who have not been provided with affirmative action programmes to improve their conditions of life.

The affirmative action law, policies and programmes do not comply with the requirements of Chapter 5 of the Constitution.

Biman Prasad demands an explanation while Ashwin Raj considers action against NFP

The Leader of the National Federation Party Professor Biman Prasad is now demanding the Director of Fiji Human Rights and Anti-Discrimination Commission, Ashwin Raj to explain why there are two different versions of Ambassador Nazhat Shameem Khan’s statement at the 34th session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva.

He says Raj needs to explain this first before he begins to shout at others and make wild allegations.

We questioned Prasad whether he agrees with Shameem’s comments where she said that racism was institutionalised in Fiji to such an extent that it instilled in a privileged class a sense of entitlement based on ethnicity and class, and that racist attitudes were engrained in all communities, which have resulted in mistrust, resentment and suspicion.

Prasad did not give a clear answer but said there can be different interpretations.

We also questioned Prasad about Raj’s comments on why NFP has not even once intervened in the barrage of attacks on Shameem’s ethnicity, her gender, and her religion. 

Raj had said that the string of racist, sexist and bigoted comments following the NFPs post on Facebook is a sad indictment of the fact that racism and prejudice is alive and thriving.

We asked Prasad whether he has seen those comments on NFP’s official facebook page.

The Leader of the NFP says they do not condone any of those comments.

Meanwhile, the Director of Fiji Human Rights and Anti-Discrimination Commission Ashwin Raj has confirmed that there are no two versions of Ambassador Nazhat Shameem Khan’s statement at the 34th session of the Human Rights Council.

Raj says the Leader of the NFP who is also an academic should have done his homework before vilifying Khan publicly.

Raj says he is also not satisfied with Biman Prasad’s comments that NFP does not condone those abusive remarks that were put against Nazhat Shameem Khan on NFP’s Facebook page.

When questioned by Fijivillage, Raj has confirmed that he will consider taking action against NFP in relation to the racist, sexist and bigoted comments made against Nazhat Shameem. Source: Fijivillage News