Blog Archives

SRILANKAGATE: Aiyaz Sayed Khaiyum pays out $1million to Sri Lankan company CINEC, owned by Fiji's Diplomatic Consul in Sri Lanka, Dr Parakrama, for contract work not carried out for FNU Maritime School

30/5/2017

19 Comments

Fijileaks: We will reveal more details and documents, and call on Aiyaz Khaiyum to explain the holiday he took to Sri Lanka? Who paid for the trip? This is what happens when coupists and their supporters take over Fiji. Now, the former master coupster Sitiveni Rabuka is vying to take a second dip at the coffers. Despite the exhortation of his supporters, the election should not be about Indigenous Rights versus Others. The electorate should make it clear that we don't want former and present coupist crooks to run Fiji. We will reveal Rabuka's financial crimes closer to the next election
Cry the Beloved Country

"That all payments due to CINEC shall be paid directly either through the Fijian Government Consolidated Fund or by FNU"
Why are the payments made through Attorney-General's Chambers?

THE PARTIES HAVE THEREFORE AGREED AS FOLLOWS:

OBLIGATION OF THE FIJIAN GOVERNMENT

The Fijian Government shall ensure:

The successful implementation between CINEC and FNU; and
That all payments due to CINEC shall be paid directly either through the Fijian Government Consolidated Fund or by FNU.
OBLIGATION OF FNU

FNU shall:
4.1Provide relevant finances and the necessary infrastructure;
4.2 Market to encourage the maximum number of students to be sent for training;
4.3 Market relevant courses in the Maritime field to all stakeholders in the Maritime sector in Fiji and in the region;
4.4 In conjunction with FNU, lobby for the employment and placement on ships for Trainers trained at FMS;
4.5 Sponsor the visit to FMS by CINEC Directors for Board Management Meeting;
4.6 Play a facilitating role to endure that the obligation under this Agreement and the objectives of the Fijian Government are fulfilled.
4.7 Provide accommodation and transport facility within Fiji to the Director-in-Charge CEO of FMS appointed by CINEC; and,
4.8 Cost for Resources Persons whether local or foreign to be borne by FMS.

5.0 OBLIGATION OF CINEC
CINEC Shall:
5.1 Appoint a Director-in-charge/CEO to head the management of FMS;
5.2 Provide all course material for IMO related courses;

Identify and design programmes for various organization sectors including Fiji Ports Corporation Limited, Tourism Sectors, and the Navy;
Design and introduce programmes required for class III qualification in both the

Navigation and Engineering disciplines within a period of one year while
Maintaining the international standards and IMO requirements.
5.5 Design and introduce programmes required for class II and class I qualification in
both the Navigation and Engineering disciplines by the end of 5 years while
maintaining the international standards and IMO requirements;
5.6 Identify and source the required lectures for all programs at FMS;
5.7 Train lecturers and trainers from Fiji, to conduct programmes at FMS. If required, train FMS lectures and Trainers at CINEC. The course fee of such training of Trainers program/s to be borne by CINEC;

To offer high end training programmes at CINEC for Fijian students at the prevailing local fee structure until facilities are upgraded at FMS;
Introduce the consultants for the Quality Management Systems (QMS) for FMS/ Administrationas required;

   5.10 Assist FNU to provide employment and placement on ships for Trainees trained
At FMS;
   5.11 Elevate FMS as a premier maritime training facility in the region; and’
   5.12 Assist the Fijian Government to obtain IMO White List status.
6.0 RENUMERATION AND EXPENSES
6.1 CINEC shall be remunerated during the period of the MoA

HON PM BAINIMARAMA SPEECH AT THE REBRANDING OF MARITIME SCHOOL

3/9/2015

The Attorney-General and Minister for Education;
Your Excellencies, Members of the Diplomatic Corp;
Captain Ajith Peiris President of CINEC Maritime Campus;
The Acting Vice-Chancellor of the Fiji National University;
The Management and Staff of the Fiji Maritime Academy;
Distinguished Guests;
My Fellow Fijians.

Bula vinaka and a very good morning to you all.

I’m delighted to be here to celebrate a milestone in Fiji’s development as a maritime nation – the official opening of the new Fiji Maritime Academy.

This is a major leap forward for our nation in the training of those men and women who we rely on to carry us over the seas and to carry the cargoes on which our economy and wellbeing depends. And also for the training of those men and women in the Fijian Navy who patrol our waters and keep us safe.

Men and women have always gone down to the sea in ships – to quote that memorable line from the Bible. But they will never again go down from Fiji with more training than they will receive from this institution – one of the most important ever to be established in our island nation.

As many of you know, I am very proud to have done my own training as a seafarer at this institute which was then the FIT School of Maritime Studies in 1981. So it’s a special pleasure for me today to see it attain new heights as a training facility that we could have never imagined in my day.

I was given a tour of the fantastic computerised training simulators that replicate actual conditions on the bridge of a ship and in the engine room. It is deeply impressive – not only from a technological standpoint – but the fact that Fiji now has this technology for the first time.

With the help of our Sri Lankan friends from CINEC – the Colombo International Nautical and Engineering College
– we have built a cutting-edge, world-class facility here in Fiji that is easily the best in the Pacific.

It establishes Fiji as the prime maritime training nation in the region. It establishes a centre of excellence that will reap huge dividends for ourselves and the other island nations. And it establishes a platform for the career development of tens of thousands of our young people, who will pursue maritime careers here in the years and decades to come.

I’m delighted that in this facility and in several other areas of our national life, we have forged close links with Sri Lanka.

The Sri Lankan judiciary came to our aid when some of our larger neighbours deprived us of the judges and magistrates we needed to keep our justice system going.

And it is the Aitken Spence company of Sri Lanka that has transformed the performance of our ports in Suva and Lautoka, has ended the delays that cost our importers and exporters dearly. This is spearheading Fiji’s export performance and removing costs from imported items and transforming our economy in the process.

And now, CINEC, the largest private higher-education organisation in Sri Lanka, has joined hands with Fiji to produce a new generation of seafarers – well educated, disciplined, experts in seamanship and with their eyes on a horizon that promises great things for them as individuals and for us all as a nation.

The partnership between CINEC, the FNU, my Government and other stakeholders is a wonderful example of the public and private sectors getting together to achieve world’s best practice.

So the Fiji Maritime Academy also becomes a symbol of what we can all achieve if the various sectors in the economy can work cooperatively together. And we tap the high level of expertise that a country like Sri Lanka can offer us as partners in developing Fiji.

We have rebranded this institution to act as that symbol. The School of Maritime Studies becomes the Fiji Maritime Academy – managed by CINEC, under the banner of FNU. And we have also given it a new symbol, which proudly reflects its new identity.

Symbols matter. This one and all others, not least our national flag, which as you all know, we are currently in the process of redesigning to embrace genuinely Fijian symbols we can all relate to.

I must say that I was surprised when I returned from Geneva on Friday to find that the Opposition is boycotting the national panel of citizens we are setting up to choose a new design for our flag from the ideas being put forward by ordinary Fijians.

I frankly don’t understand why the Opposition wants us all to continue to honour the symbols of the colonial power that has been gone from Fiji for 45 years.

Fiji is a young nation in every sense. But most importantly because most of our population are young people who have no recollection of colonial times beyond what they read in the history books. They deserve to honour symbols we can all relate to as Fijians – genuinely, authentically and proudly Fijian.

On this note I urge the Fiji Maritime Academy staff and students to also enter the competition in the design of our new Fijian flag.

I’m sure you will all agree that the new symbol of the Fiji Maritime Academy – its new flag – is one that everyone who passes through this institution in the months and years to come will honour and hold in the highest respect.

My Government is certainly proud to be part of this wonderful venture, which included providing $2 million to fund the bridge and engine room simulators that are transforming the learning experience of every cadet.

And Fiji as a whole is proud that already, our maritime academy has received certification from the ISO – the InternationalOrganization for Standardization– which tells the region and the world that this is a place of excellence and worthy of international respect.

To all those who have worked so hard in the lead-up to this wonderful day, I say vinaka vakalevu on behalf of our nation and maritime communities across the Pacific – for whom this institution means so much.

It is a proud day for Fiji. A proud day for FNU. A proud day for CINEC. A proud day for all of you who will either teach here or have the privilege of undergoing courses here. And it is a proud day for me personally, as a member of the alumni of the old School of Maritime Studies, to have the privilege to formally launch the new Fiji Maritime Academy.

Every Fijian wishes you fair winds and a following sea.

Vinaka vakalevu. Thank you.

19 Comments

SUGAR INDUSTRY NEEDS HELP, screamed Fiji's Daily Post Editorial in July 2001; 16 years later we are still struggling to sort out the ailing industry, with Sugar Minister Bainimarama busy with COP23 presidency

26/5/2017

13 Comments

Bainimarama was elected to run Fiji and not run around the world over climate change but who can blame him: $3000 a day travelling allowance!

13 Comments

HARBOURING ESCAPE TO Fiji?: Captain Ravi Jayawickrama, former Harbour Master, Port of Colombo, on bail and accused of financial crimes in his native Sri Lanka is allegedly trying to sneak into a top job in Fiji

26/5/2017

4 Comments

Fijileaks: We will bring more update developments later on and the Sri Lanka and Fiji links and players involved in the saga

4 Comments

CANE FARMERS FURY: 400 cane farmers take to the streets in Labasa, led by NFU, to push their demand for a minimum guaranteed cane price of $100 a tonne and $10 top up from government for their 4th payment

25/5/2017

10 Comments

Fijileaks: Our Founding Editor-in-Chief VICTOR LAL will reveal the role of Aiyaz Sayed Khaiyum shortly before and after the 2006 coup:
"Bloody hell, I know that asshole, he is Aiyaz Khaiyum..." muttered a senior army officer as Bainimarama introduced the shadowy figure in the dark who spoke to them on the legal aspects to the impending 2006 coup. The army officer recognized Khaiyum's voice - for he knew him. There are parallels to the Father of the Coups SITIVENI RABUKA, who had gone to a planning meeting for the 1987 coups: "I saw all these people sitting down, and realized it was some kind of meeting. Some of the people greeted me, although I could not see everyone clearly because it was fairly dark in the lounge room. When my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I discovered it was a formidable group..."

SUGAR AND AIYAZ KHAIYUM: “I should tell the AG that the sugar industry was doing extremely well in the hey- day of these unions. Mr Khaiyum must admit that the major decline in the industry has taken place in the past 10 years under the stewardship of PM Bainimarama and Khaiyum. They have a habit of blaming everyone else except themselves”
NFU general secretary Mahenda Chaudhry

Fijileaks: The National Farmers Union should have taken to the streets when they found out that their general secretary had accepted to prop up the fledgling Bainimarama-Khaiyum dictatorship following the 2006 coup by becoming the Interim Finance Minister and MINISTER FOR SUGAR REFORM and National Planning; in August 2008 Chaudhry resigned as Finance Minister; Bainimarama took over Chaudhry's portfolio, including SUGAR. The deposed Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase had criticized Chaudhry's performance as Finance Minister, saying that he "failed badly as Finance Minister and the economy has shown very little sign of progress. He's just running away from the mess he has created." Qarase also condemned Chaudhry's participation in what he described as "an illegal administration"

About 400 cane farmers took to the streets in Labasa yesterday to push their demand for a minimum guaranteed cane price of $100 a tonne and a $10 top up from government for their 4th cane payment.

It ended with the National Farmers Union President, Surendra Lal, handing over a petition with six other demands to Provincial Administrator Macuata, Mr Semi Kuru.

NFU general secretary Mahendra Chaudhry said he was extremely pleased with the turnout and the resolve shown by the farmers to do something about getting their grievances addressed.

“It is good that the growers have finally found their voice which had been suppressed for 10 years under the Bainimarama administration.

“The government and FSC should take heed of their legitimate demands. The Union will now mobilise farmers nationwide to secure their rights,” he said.

Mr Chaudhry said it was very important that growers remained united: “It is only through the strength of their solidarity that they can get their voice heard and their demands addressed.”

Mr Lal was also pleased with the turnout yesterday. “Farmers are now raising their voice and we know that there are many more who are supporting us from behind the scenes.”

Mr Lal said farmers had only received $10.57 a tonne for their 4th cane payment. This was hardly sufficient to meet their preparation costs for harvest.

“This is why we are calling for a $10 a tonne top up from government. Besides, Labasa farmers are not benefiting from the $10m government grant recently announced for growers who had suffered losses from Cyclone Winston. It is only fair that growers in Labasa also receive government assistance,” Mr Lal said.

Farmers are also calling on government to regulate harvesting and haulage charges to arrest escalating costs.
They want the withdrawal of the Sugar Industry Bills 19 and 20 which have been widely rejected by growers, the reinstatement of sugar industry institutions, the holding of Growers Council elections and recognition of growers unions, an independent inquiry into irregularities at FSC during the tenure of Abdul Khan as executive chairman and the merger of Cane Producers Associations with the Growers Council.

Meanwhile, in response to AG Aiyaz Saiyed-Khaiyum’s statement in Parliament that growers’ organisations were off-shoots of political parties, Mr Chaudhry said the National Farmers Union was formed long before the Fiji Labour Party.

“I should tell the AG that the sugar industry was doing extremely well in the hey- day of these unions. Mr Khaiyum must admit that the major decline in the industry has taken place in the past 10 years under the stewardship of PM Bainimarama and Khaiyum.

“They have a habit of blaming everyone else except themselves,” Mr Chaudhry said.

The former US ambassador Larry Dinger to Washington on Mahendra Chaudhry's appointment to Bainimarama's Interim Cabinet:

Six more interim-government ministers were sworn in on Jan. 9, with another in the cards. They include: -- Mahendra Chaudhry, Interim Minister for Finance, Sugar Reform, and National Planning. The head of the National Federation Party (NFP), the arch-rival within Fiji's Indian community to Chaudhry's FLP, said accepting the jobs was "a betrayal of democracy." In remarks after the swearing in, Chaudhry noted the incongruity of having been removed as Minister of Finance by the RFMF's Rabuka coup in 1987 and now reassuming the job following the Bainimarama coup. When asked about Bainimarama's "no running in the next election" mandate for interim ministers, Chaudhry suggested that it would be a shame if those who perform really well couldn't run, so maybe the issue can be revisited one day in Cabinet.

From Fiji Sun archive, December 2006:
Economists warned Chaudhry: Coup will hurt Indo-Fijians

By VICTOR LAL

As the military tightened its noose around the Laisenia Qarase’s SDL-FLP multi-party government with threats to depose it, two of the country’s leading Indo-Fijian economists, Professor Biman Prasad and Dr Mahendra Reddy, wrote to the Fiji Labour Party leader Mahendra Chaudhry on 26 November 2006, calling upon him to recommend the formation of a government of national unity to avert a military coup.

The economists were writing to Mr Chaudhry not only as concerned citizens but also as members of the Indo-Fijian community, and the fact that Mr Chaudhry had the mandate of the majority of their respective community. Uppermost in the minds of the two economists was the spectre of violence against the Indo-Fijians, and Mr Chaudhry’s alleged “conspicuous silence on the role of the military”.

They recalled the violence that emanated from the 2000 coup and did not rule out new outbreak of violence in the event of a coup: “Any intervention by the military could start widespread violence against the Indians throughout the country and this may be hard for the army to control. There is evidence of this happening in 2000.” As members of the Indo-Fijian community the two of them told Mr Chaudhry that “the Indians could be the targets of all sorts of violence and discrimination”.

Professor Prasad and Dr Reddy also feared that the military might abrogate the 1997 Constitution and there was also a possibility of the re-introduction of a more racially based constitution as the 1990 Constitution following the Rabuka coups of 1987. For the full letter to Mr Chaudhry see page 3:

STRIDING WITH DICTATOR: Chaudhry, Bainimarama's Interim Finance Minister and Minister for Sugar

10 Comments

SITIVENI TO SALMAN: There he goes, again, denouncing the carnage unleashed by terrorist Salman Abedi in Manchester while hiding behind IMMUNITY after killing DEMOCRACY in 1987 with his Operation Kidacala

25/5/2017

6 Comments

Like the faceless terrorists, Rabuka hid the faces of his "coup jihadis" under Balaclavas and Gas Masks when he stormed Parliament armed with HATE for Indo-Fijians, moderate and progressive native Fijians and Others. Dr Timoci Bavadra's Minister for Education, Youth and Sport, Dr Tupeni Baba thought the "Clown" was joking: What Kind of Joke Is This? Baba was wrong. The fanatical racist was a man with a mission, and like the Islamist terrorists, he prepared his men to the wire, for 14 May 1987! Significantly, he deposed the Queen as Head of State and declared Fiji a REPUBLIC, ending over 100 years of link with the British Crown
Fijileaks:
A VOTE FOR RABUKA IS A VOTE FOR FANATICAL NATIONALISM IN FIJI
SODELPA deliberately and cynically chose him to whip up native Fijian emotions in the party's hunt for ethnic Fijian VOTES

24 May 2017

Former Prime Minister and Social Democratic Liberal Party (SODELPA) Party Leader, Major General (retired) Sitiveni L Rabuka today expressed his condolences to the Queen, the Prime Minister and the people of the United Kingdom and especially to the families and people of Manchester who lost loved ones in the terrorist attack on 23 May 2017.

Former PM Rabuka conveyed his personal condolences to the families of the victims of the bomb attacks in Manchester city which has left over 23 people dead and 59 people injured, with a death toll that sadly continues to rise.

"I am deeply saddened by this cowardly and calculated attack. Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims and the families of those who have been affected in this calculated and barbaric attack."

Major General Rabuka acknowledged the sacrifice and effort of all those in the police, security and emergency services for their tireless energies to save lives and secure properties around the bomb-affected areas, and to fully investigate the attack.

“This is a cowardly attack on freedom and must be roundly condemned. Our nations must work together and do all we can to prevent future attacks and to keep our people safe. The people of Fiji stand wholeheartedly with the people of the United Kingdom, in solidarity against these cowardly attacks.”

ENDS//

Authorised by:

Party Leader Major General (Retired) Sitiveni L Rabuka
Social Democratic Liberal Party of Fiji
Tel: 3301544
Email: fijisodelpa@gmail.com

Pastor Paul Sanyangore (in the grey suit) claims to be on the phone to heaven in the video

From The Fiji Sun, August 2006

Fiji Labour Party needs leadership change

By VICTOR LAL

In another country, the Leader of the Opposition after loosing a parliamentary election for the second time in his political career might have gracefully stepped down. Even if the leader lost with a razor-thin minority, it is never prudent for him to cling on to the leadership. Such a practice is disdainfully frowned upon in most democratic systems, except in Africa, where dictatorial leaders hold on to party leadership in the hope of capturing power at the next election.

On the other hand, if the twice-defeated party leader in a western-style democracy refuses to relinquish control, he is humiliatingly forced out of the Opposition office through a ‘palace coup’ by one or some of his colleagues, supporters, or by a potential challenger.

Why should the Fiji Labor Party change its leader? Firstly, Mahendra Pal Chaudhry had his chance in 2001, and now again in the 2006 general election, to wrest political control of the nation from the Laisenia Qarase-led SDL party, but has failed.

This should be sufficient ground for him to take a parliamentary back seat, and let another Fiji Labor Party parliamentarian take the helm.

As his deputy Poseci Bune indicated during the campaign, there are parliamentarians in the party who have the clout and the experience to even become Prime Minister.

Secondly, I still believe that it was a strategic blunder on the part of Mr. Chaudhry to have boycotted Parliament for a long spell over the issue of the allocation of Cabinet portfolios following the 2001 elections.

I pleaded with him to be visibly and vocally present in Parliament while continuing to pursue his legal case but it was to no avail. After all, his new found coalition partner Mick Beddoes, had stepped in and did a sterling job as Opposition leader.

Mr. Chaudhry’s entire political posture on the land issue, despite his genuine concern for the Indo-Fijian tenant farmers, was a potential vote loser among the Fijian voters.

It would be no exaggeration to suggest that its Coalition partner [Party of National Unity] PANU felt the full brunt of the Fiji Labor Party’s posturing on the land question at the ballot box.

The SDL was able to privately persuade the Fijian voters that PANU would not hesitate to ‘sell’ the landowners in a post Chaudhry-led government.

What other explanation can be put forward to explain why PANU was trounced in its own backyard in Ba and other western constituencies?

Cynics will attribute it to the politics of preference sharing and the electoral system.

Thirdly, despite being frequently described as a wily and cunning old political fox and one of the shrewdest of political operators in the country, I think Mr. Chaudhry miserably failed to take the Fijian pulse and gauge the political tempo of the 2006 election.

I was surprised that, having secured the Indo-Fijian communal seats through last-minute deals with the National Federation Party, he again popped up in the midst of electioneering to explain the alleged frauds and malpractices in terms of race i.e. that there was a sinister plot to disenfranchise the Indo-Fijian voters.

In the minds of many Fijian voters, he stamped an image of being a closet ‘Indo-Fijian nationalist and racist’, a charge that was frequently hurled at his political opponent and rival, Mr. Qarase.

In view of the dramatic shift in population where Fijians are now a majority race in the country, it is very important for any non-Fijian political leader to pitch at the Fijian voters, even if it means ‘betraying’ a part of the Indo-Fijian constituents. Elections, after all, are about winning, and Mr. Qarase played his cards very cleverly and strategically.

For example, once he forcefully made the point that Fiji was still not ready for an Indo-Fijian Prime Minister, his view, even if it was construed as racist, was relegated to the political backburner.

Mr. Chaudhry did not have the same fall back opportunity. He still needed the Fijian voters to make up the winning numbers.

Worse, by speaking the counterfeit sudh (standard) Hindi, the Fiji Labor Party failed to reach the 30 per cent of Fijians who speak Fiji Hindi.

These are just some of the reasons why I personally think it is time for Mr. Chaudhry to honorably relinquish the party leadership.

And if he refuses to go, well, it is up to those parliamentarians with clout and experience to become the next Prime Minister to come out of his political shadow.

Leaders and supporters come and go but the party has a life of its own.

There is nothing stopping Mr Chaudhry from becoming the elder statesman of the party that he helped found in 1985 with many visionary and multi-racialist Fijians.

The Fiji Labour Party blunderingly placed all its political eggs in one basket: it calculated that if it won at least 30 seats, and PANU and UPP their share of seats, it would go on to form the next government.

It was also hoping that the leader of the National Alliance Party, Ratu Epeli Ganilau, was going to win his seat until the NFP disclosed its preference against the paramount chief.

It also seems likely that the Fiji Labor Party had expected that Commodore Frank Bainimarama’s frightening and threatening statements might just persuade a sufficient number of Fijian voters to swing the results in the Fiji Labor Party-UPP-PANU’s favour.

I had thought otherwise, that the Commodore’s intervention in politics would backfire on the Fiji Labor Party.

Why does the Fiji Labor Party need a new leader? There are other indisputable reasons.

This was the last general election where race really mattered. In 2011 the Fijians will be the majority of the voters, and fully groomed in democratic politics. For this reason, the Fiji Labour Party will have to broaden its outlook, and cannot rely on Indo-Fijian voters in the Open seats to win future elections.

It will need a leader who has a ‘clean slate’ and preferably speaks the Fijian language (there are many Indo-Fijian parliamentarians who are fluent in Fijian).

It must also stop clinging to the politics of land to win votes.

I also think the NAP should spend the next five years building up a multi-racial platform, and if need be, replace the Fiji Labour Party as a truly genuine multi-racial party.

Over the years, Fijians from outer islands and other areas of Fiji have migrated to these areas, and the SDL ‘secret agents’ had done preparatory election homework by routinely attending funerals, church meetings, weddings, solis etc, and were able to exploit demography and democracy to their electoral advantage.

Most commentators, including the Fiji Labour Party, were too busy concentrating on the displaced farmers from Labasa, while some parties were exploiting their misery for political purposes.

When his own political obituary is written one day, Mr Chaudhry’s Fijian political rivals will sorely miss him: his towering and controversial presence on the political stage has so far welded the taukei Fijians into one political unit.

His presence has suppressed the politics of tribalism and regionalism so rampant on the continent of Africa, where their own ‘Chief Lutunasobasobas’, after expelling or marginalising the Asians (Indians) in their midst, are tearing their countries apart as they vie for political, economic, and military supremacy.

The Fiji Labor Party needs a complete political makeover if it is to win the next general election.

It needs to attract significant taukei Fijian political ‘kai vatas’ of its own to achieve that goal.

And the Indo-Fijian farmers will have to realise that in the rapidly changing demography they, and not their political representatives, will ultimately pay a price if they leave the decision on the land question in the hands of their new chosen Fiji Labour Party Members of Parliament.

The taukei Fijian landowners magnanimity and patience will finally run out on the politics of land leasing.

And any new Fiji Labor Party leader must begin his leadership on that cautionary note.

On 5 December 2006, Frank Bainimarama emerged as a new dictator, deposing the SDL-FLP government led by Laisenia Qarase. GOD was no where to be seen helping Qarase starve off the coup. As for Chaudhry, he surfaced as Bainimarama's Interim Finance Minister and Minister for Sugar; today he is talking coalition with Sitiveni Rabuka, Father of Coups

CRY THE BELOVED COUNTRY AND FREE US FROM COUPISTS AND CONVICTS

6 Comments

POISON CHALICE? Fiji First Party government re-advertises PS Foreign Secretary position after it had failed to attract any applications after the closing date. Sources say word has gone around the job 'poison chalice'

23/5/2017

10 Comments

http://www.fijileaks.com/home/robin-nairs-parting-requiem-to-his-foreign-ministry-staff-as-an-example-of-interference-in-the-work-of-the-ministry-i-attach-a-personal-email-to-me-as-an-example-of-manipulation-and-interference-in-my-work

COMING LATER: How Supervisor of Elections Mohammed Saneem exploited his connections with Minister for Elections Aiyaz Sayed Khaiyum, and got Fiji's High Commissioner to India, Namita Khatri, fired from her job, ending her stellar career in Fiji's Ministry of Foreign Affairs; all reminiscent of Sitiveni Rabuka's racist policies in the Foreign Ministry, and a reminder of the ugly "Dove" (Muslim) and "Flower" (Hindu) spat of the NFP in the second 1977 general election

From The Fiji Sun archive, October 2005:
Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase's visit to India with Love
By VICTOR LAL
"When Fiji set up its High Commission in Delhi, I expressed regret that an Indo-Fijian was not posted to represent us, and had suggested the name of the late Dr Ahmad Ali, as a suitable candidate. He would have been following in the footsteps of India ’s first High Commissioner to independent Fiji , Bhagwan Singh, the father of the current Indian High Commissioner. In November 1970, Mrs Gandhi appointed Bhagwan Singh to our islands after the Fijian delegation to India, comprising Ratu Mara and the late Opposition leader Siddiq Koya, cracked a pre-dinner joke with her that in case at any time the Indian Government found Bhagwan Singh missing from India , they could always trace him in Fiji where he really belonged. Both Singh’s father and grandfather had served as bonded labourers on the sugar plantations here. It was a dream come true, as Singh later narrated in his autobiography My Father’s Land – Fiji. His son Ajay Singh is today the new
Indian High Commissioner to Fiji."

In the 21st Century every sixth human being will be Indian, says a former distinguished member of the Indian Foreign Service and currently director of the Nehru Centre in London, the author Pavan K. Varma in his book Inside the Real India-Being Indian. I would strongly suggest that the Indian High Commission in Suva send a complimentary copy to the Prime Minister [Laisenia Qarase] before his trip to India, for it is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand India. Being Indian is an essential book for foreigners who wish to understand Indians and for Indians who wish to understand themselves.

In the book the Prime Minister will, no doubt, find many of the parallels and contradictions to his own problems in our country. In it, he will find that the Fijians are more akin to the Indians than the Indo-Fijians, whose old world, in many respects, vanished under the rigours of the indentured labour system.

India, as Varma reminds us, is the world’s largest democracy. It is a nuclear power. Soon it is bound to join the even more exclusive club of manned flights into space. By the year 2050 India will be the third largest economy in the world, after the US and China . And yet how, for example, does the appalling indifference of most middle-class Indians to the suffering of the poor square with their enthusiastic championing of parliamentary democracy? How, Varma asks, can a people who so wholeheartedly supported Mahatma Gandhi’s strategy of non-violence during the struggle for independence burn young brides for more dowries, and beat domestic servants to near-death?

Why do Indians have a reputation for being spiritual and ‘otherworldly’ when their philosophy and traditions exalt the pursuit of material well-being as a principal goal of life. They worship animal Gods, and yet the Indian dog is the worst treated animal in the country. Moreover, like the Prime Minister, the Indians thought of democracy as a British ‘foreign flower’ and yet hero-worship it.

Varma also points out how Indians take to factions as naturally as a fish to water, something that finds echo in the current Fijian political factions. It is a cliché that if there are two Indians there will be two parties, says Varma. Swami Vivekanada had once observed that ‘three Indians cannot act together for five minutes. Each one struggles for power and in the long run the whole organisation comes to grief. A strong centre of power can keep factions in abeyance’.

But why will India, despite all her above-mentioned negative traits, not fall apart, and why can its people expect to prosper in the years ahead? According to Varma, no one reason can answer these questions satisfactorily, but a combination of factors can. The unexpected survival of democracy, in a people not democratic by temperament or heritage, is one factor. Democracy has given Indians an institutional framework for the exercise of political choice and the freedom to express dissent. This has acted as an indispensable safety valve in an inequitable context with great discrepancies in the distribution of power and wealth. Although the more privileged citizens saw it primarily as a means for their own advancement, democracy has by the sheer miracle of its survival, given the weakest and the poorest a stake in the system.

In Fiji, the fundamentalist Christians want to declare the country a Christian state. And yet, why have so many faiths found a home in India (Christianity, Buddhism, Judaism, Islam etc etc). The first reason, according to Varma, is that Hindus (despite a militant few) are not and have never been, insecure about their religion. Historically, Hinduism has shown a supreme complacency towards any threat to its existence. Co-existence is an imperative, not an option, in India. Indians are pragmatic enough to understand this. The great majority of Hindus and Muslims feel that it is in their self-interest to swim away from the islands of religious exclusiveness inhabited by mullahs and mahants (Muslim and Hindu priests), towards the mainland of greater secular opportunities. In 1947, against the background of the massacres of partition, many learned observers felt that Hindus and Muslims could never live together.

The people of India have proved them wrong, and whatever the pessimists may say, Varma claims, the situation can only improve because of the emergence in the last decades of a sense of Pan-Indianness that refuses to be circumscribed by religion or region. If religious fundamentalism has not taken over the Muslims in India, one of the main reasons is democracy. A new India has emerged in the last fifty years. It does not deny the past, nor is it immune to its influence. But, it is more a product of the challenges of the present, and the opportunities of the future.

In politics, the idea of cohabitation has become inevitability. Caste and communal leaders have made it their virtue to share the spoils of power. Today, the Centre in Delhi is ruled by a coalition of over a dozen parties, and more than half of the states are governed by a coalition whose parties have hardly any common ideology. For too long, both the Indian and the foreigner, have been struck by the bewildering diversity of India, a nation of many languages and ethnicities, deeply divided by insular fealties. But today the great salad bowl of India is gradually emptying into a melting pot. In a pan-Indian context, most Indians are ‘minorities in India ’.

The first Prime Minister of independent India, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, whose ancestral original roots lie high in the valleys of Kashmir, spoke emotionally of Indians’ ‘majesty of soul’; he saw her as an anthropomorphic unity, Mother India, ‘a beautiful lady, very old but ever youthful’. He also spoke of Mother India’s ‘Overseas Children’. On the eve of India ’s independence Nehru raised the issue of citizenship, including that of Indo-Fijians, in the Lok Sabha on 8 March 1948: ‘Now these Indians abroad. Are they Indian citizens or not? If not, then our interest in them becomes cultural and humanitarian, not political. Take the Indians of Fiji and Mauritius : are they going to retain their nationality, or will they become Fiji nationals or Mauritians? The same question arises in regard to Burma and Ceylon . This House wants to treat them as Indians, and with the same breath it wants complete franchise for them in the countries where they are living. Of course, the two things do not go together. Either they get the franchise as nationals of the other country, or treat them as Indians minus the franchise and ask for them the most favourable treatment given to an alien.’

We are all too familiar with Nehru’s most memorable speech to the Constituent Assembly on the eve of India’s independence: ‘Long years ago we made a tryst with destiny. At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom.’ For us in Fiji, Nehru should be remembered for his famous speech much earlier, when he was fighting for the abolition of the Indian indentured system. On 29 December 1929, he told the Lahore Congress: ‘This is not from any want of fellow-being with our brethren in East Africa or South Africa or Fiji or elsewhere who are bravely struggling against great odds. But their fate will be decided in the plains of India and the struggle we are launching into is as much for them as for ourselves.’

And yet, when Indian independence came, he was far-sighted enough to urge Indo-Fijians to make Fiji their home, a point reinforced by her daughter, the late Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi when she visited Fiji in 1982: ‘India wants to see the Indians, wherever they have settled, adopt the country as their own and continue with their traditions, culture, and religion.’

The Indo-Fijians had already taken the advice to their heart, for 98 per cent of them opted to take out Fiji citizenship on independence in 1970. They could also take comfort and pride in the words of a former Indian High Commissioner to Fiji, Mrs Sonu Kochar, who reminded them, and inter-alia, the Fijian nationalists in 1982: ‘The Indian contribution to Fiji is no less a feat of pioneering endeavour than that of European settlers in Australia, New Zealand or USA, but with one notable difference. The Indians did not decimate the indigenous people. Instead, in many ways, they became shock absorbers in the harsh reality of a colonial era.’

She also reminded the Indo-Fijians of their rightful status in Fiji: ‘To those Indians who themselves want to migrate, to seek greener pastures, I have always said that they are chasing mirages. This is the piece of earth on which you were born, shaped, made aware; whose flowers you have learned to love and whose paths to roam. You belong here.’

It was not long after that statement that I found out what she had actually meant. In the late 1980s, I went to the Indian High Commission in London for a research visa to India. I thought of myself as a prodigal son returning ‘home’ for the first time since our arrival in Fiji in 1879. It was a shock to my system when I was told to pay for the visa. I jokingly put to the Indian High Commissioner, whom I had met when he had accompanied Mrs Gandhi to Fiji as her Private Secretary, that it is India that has to pay for ‘selling’ our forefathers as coolies to work on the sugar plantations. In reply, and in zest, he gave me a simple test to fulfil – the three Rs. I failed the test miserably. I was a non-Returnable Indian (India was not my home), a non-Recognisable Indian (no caste or regional language), and a non-Rupee Indian (didn’t send remittances to India ).

I was, however, a truly Recognisable and proud Indo-Fijian. As a matter of fact, the majority of the descendants of Indo-Fijian labourers had lost contact with ‘Mother India’ long ago, except some like the Chaudhry family whose relatives live in Haryana. The following declaration of an ex-indentured woman labourer Rangamma, in 1979, who arrived in Fiji with her parents in 1899, still applies to the majority of Indo-Fijians today: ‘Fiji is my place. There is nobody in India for me.’

And it is this truly unique identity of ours in Fiji that the Indo-Fijian leaders must nurture and cultivate if we also want to turn the country into a truly melting pot. I always find it obnoxious and insulting to our history and heritage in Fiji when Indo-Fijian leaders talk down to us during radio interviews, at election rallies, funerals, and on other religious occasions, in pukka Hindi, which a vast majority of us fail to understand or absorb, instead of the colloquial Fiji-Hindi, which even our Fijian brothers understand and speak in many parts of the country. It is time we cultivated our Indo-Fijian heritage and history and not merely Indian history. It would be the first step towards reconciliation of the two major races.

The PM and Indigenous Rights Test

Finally, why do I support Prime Minister Qarase’s trip to India. I have already outlined some of the lessons he will be able to bring back with him in nation-building, hopefully. I would go further, and urge him to take Mahendra Chaudhry, as Leader of the Opposition, with him for the opening of the Fiji High Commission in New Delhi .

When Fiji set up its High Commission in Delhi, I expressed regret that an Indo-Fijian was not posted to represent us, and had suggested the name of the late Dr Ahmad Ali, as a suitable candidate. He would have been following in the footsteps of India ’s first High Commissioner to independent Fiji , Bhagwan Singh, the father of the current Indian High Commissioner. In November 1970, Mrs Gandhi appointed Bhagwan Singh to our islands after the Fijian delegation to India , comprising Ratu Mara and the late Opposition leader Siddiq Koya, cracked a pre-dinner joke with her that in case at any time the Indian Government found Bhagwan Singh missing from India , they could always trace him in Fiji where he really belonged. Both Singh’s father and grandfather had served as bonded labourers on the sugar plantations here. It was a dream come true, as Singh later narrated in his autobiography My Father’s Land – Fiji. His son Ajay Singh is today the new Indian High Commissioner to Fiji .

But the ball is in Chaudhry’s court, if Qarase makes an offer to him to accompany the official delegation to India . If Chaudhry rejects the offer, India must neither encourage nor condone if, by some quirk of events, the FLP sends him separately to Delhi, to coincide with the Prime Minister’s visit. The FLP has a remarkable history of sending its people to right places at the right time. To remind India, the Prime Minister Qarase is booked to be their honoured guest from 8-10 October 2005.

Significantly, the trip is important in another very important respect, which may be even beneficial to Chaudhry if he decides to once again gun for the Prime Minister’s job: should a minority leader rule over an indigenous majority? The Prime Minister’s visit might take the indigenous/immigrant rights debate over leadership out of the debate in the 2006 election.

For today THE KHANS-Shah Rukh Khan, Aamir Khan and Salman Khan, all Muslims whose ancestors came with their culture and religion from Arabia, rule the box-office destiny of Bollywood and feel no need to appear to be anything but themselves. A.P.J.Abdul Kalam, the President of India, is a Muslim and the Oxford-educated Dr Manmohan Singh, the Prime Minister of India, is a Sikh, whose 3,000 co-religionists were only two decades ago murdered during the anti-Sikh riots following the assassination of Prime Minister Mrs Indira Gandhi by two Sikh bodyguards.

In an overwhelming indigenous Hindu India, no one has objected to a Muslim President and a Sikh Prime Minister. In Mrs Sonia Gandhi’s case, despite being married to the Gandhi family, she had still clung on to her Italian citizenship. Of course, it should not have been held against her. After all, a vast majority of Indians had voted for her and her Congress Party.

In conclusion, India is the only country on the planet where no Fijian Prime Minister will be able to sell the ‘Indigenous Race Card’ to justify Fijian nationalism, racism, and exclusive political control of the country.

For the Indians will be able to shoot it down by reminding the Prime Minister of his hosts – a Sikh and a Muslim- who are ruling a billion indigenous Hindus.

We hope that the Prime Minister will, on the other hand, immensely benefit from the India trip, a country that has skilfully straddled the modern, medieval and the ancient at the same time. As India Today magazine noted in August 2005:

‘The world today is a different place and so is India. India may be an old country but we are a young nation with 70 per cent of our citizens under 35 years. With all its traditions and heritage, India is now a forward-looking nation. It is almost as if we have been freed again from the shackles of our past.’

We hope that the people of Fiji will also benefit from the Indian state visit.

It is high time the Indo-Fijians should say with Mark Anthony in Julius Caesar, ‘I love Caesar but I love Rome more’- ‘We love India but we love Fiji more.’

It is equally time we formed a GOPIFO (Global Origin of People of Indo-Fijian Origin) to help Fiji survive in the 21st Century.

For their part, the Fijians must also play a constructive role, and extend their hand of togetherness, for it will take both hands to wash away the ugly stains from the 1987 and 2000 coups.

Unfortunately, a glaring omission from the Delhi celebrations in October will be the voice of Indo-Fijians through our national anthem. For one reason or another, while the national anthem ‘Blessing grant oh God of Nations’ has been translated into Fijian, ‘Meda Dau Doka’, it has NEVER been translated into Fiji Hindi or Indian Hindi, for that matter.

Surprisingly, no Indo-Fijian leader of repute has called for a translation of the national anthem.

It is no doubt, therefore, that many Indo-Fijians have grown up singing Sa reh jahan se aacha, Hindustan hamara, hamara (Of all the lands, India is the best land).

Its time the Fiji Government’s actions spoke louder than words.

Bon Voyage. To India With Love! Jai Hind.

Fiji mata ki jai ho! Isa Lei, Fiji.

The views expressed are those of VICTOR LAL and not that of the Fiji Sun.

THE FACE OF HATE
WHO HAD NAMED HIS 1987 COUP PLAN OPERATION KIDACALA (SURPRISE):

Fijileaks: Sadly, SODELPA have chosen a medieval racist bigot in SITIVENI RABUKA to lead them in the general election, refusing to banish this racist opportunist who tortured and tore the soul of
"Fiji-The Way the World Should Be"

10 Comments

STOP PRESS: No discrimination against Fiji Times says Khaiyum, in his role as Civil Aviation Minister; he says Fiji Airways is a limited liability company so they decide what complimentary paper should be on board

23/5/2017

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From Fijileaks Archive, 24 July 2016:

8 Comments

CRAP! Fiji Sun runs with story about Aiyaz Sayed Khaiyum demanding NFP leader Professor Biman Prasad withdraw the word "crap" he used in Parliament but paper ignores Khaiyum describing opponents as "SISSY"

22/5/2017

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STOP BEING SO "SISSY!", shouts Aiyaz Khaiyum to Opposition; the pejorative term is also deployed against gays and lesbians by homophobes

CRAP also means DEFECATE. Fijileaks had run a story some years ago on the November 2000 mutiny and had revealed how Bainimarama, as commander of the army, had defecated in his pants (we had used soiled his pants) as he dashed through the cassava patch. What we meant was that he had CRAPPED in his pants - the SIZZY!

CRW soldier Selesitino Kalounivale was taken to Bainimarama at the Naval Base (where he had fled during the mutiny) who instructed his soldiers to take Kalounivale to Central Police Station. He was later taken out of CPS by soldiers and battered to death; Kalounivale had taken no part in the mutiny; he was home attending to his sick child on mutiny day

Fijileaks: During the November 2 mutiny, Pita Driti and his troops were the only group of soldiers who held out as Bainimarama fled the scene, crapping in his pants in the cassava patch

Fijileaks to Aiyaz Sayed Khaiyum: You filed all the MIL returns in April 2014, and brought in the Companies Amendment Decree in June 2014? What for or who for, can you tell us?

15 March 2005: Aiyaz Sayed Khaiyum (99 shares) and his mother Latifa Khaiyum (One share) formed Latifa Investments Ltd
31 May 2005: Particulars of mortgage: $284,000, Property Mortgaged, Lot 1 on DP 1280, Certificate of Title No 66993, with ANZ Bank
23 August 2006: Four months before Khaiyum suddenly bolted out of the blue as the interim Attorney-General and Minister for Justice, Latifa Investments secured a new mortgage of $675,000 on the same above land title with National Bank of Fiji (NBF), trading as Colonial National, Fiji
15 August 2006: Aiyaz Sayed Khaiyum (99 shares) and his mother Latifa (One share) formed Midlife Investments Ltd to facilitate the purchase of Lot 13 from Faiyaz Koya, Sahim Arif Khan, Mohammed Altaf and Anwar Hussein for $100,000 at Wailoaloa
29 August 2006: Faiyaz Koya and three others transferred LOT 13 to MIL for $100,000; in fact to "Mr 99 Per Cent MIL Director Khaiyum"
29 August 2006: MIL borrowed $80,000 from NBF trading as Colonial National Bank via
mortgage against Lot 13 at Wailoaloa
19 August 2008: The mortgage was discharged
24 February 2015: Under his Political Parties Decree Khaiyum declared his Income, Assets and Liabilities stating that he owned a plot of land (Lot 13) owned through MIL at Wailoaloa worth $80,000
16 October 2015: The Opposition Leader Ro Kepa filed a complaint with FICAC that Khaiyum had under declared the value of the land by $20,000 when it bought for $100,000
23 October 2015: FICAC ruled that Khaiyum overstated value of Lot 13 by $60,000 when he declared it was worth $80,000; he only had an equitable contribution of $20,000 in Lot 13, owned by MIL
QUESTION: Who owned MIL? We could not get the answers because the file had been missing from the ROC for several months but now we can reveal that MIL is owned by none other than AIYAZ SAYED KHAIYUM, who owns 99 shares and his mother LATIFA KHAIYUM owns the remaining ONE SHARE in MIL
FINDINGS:
(1) Aiyaz Khaiyum owns 99 per cent of the MIL for the past 9 years including its assets; he is also Company Secretary and Director;
(2) FICAC is WRONG to claim that Khaiyum’s interest in the asset is not the majority interest; in the Annual Returns of MIL for 2006 and 2007 the liability listed is $80,000, which is the amount borrowed by MIL from National Bank of Fiji T/A Colonial National Bank - Mortgage No 593803 on 29 August 2006, and discharged on 19 August 2008, No 708225;
(3) When Khaiyum declared Lot 13 as his asset, he owned 99 per cent of it through his equitable contribution of $20,000 and ownership of 99 per cent of the shares in MIL;
(4) Khaiyum and Midlife Investments Limited paid $100,000 for Lot 13 on 29 August 2006 and that is the value of the property and not the $80,000 he stated in his declaration;
(5) Khaiyum also failed to furnish information about his 99 shares in Latifa and all of these are required to declared by his own Political Parties (Registration, Conduct, Funding and Disclosures) Decree 2013; he merely stated the company was dormant and de-registration has been applied for (he didn't say when ROC was notified) - LIL file is missing and we have not seen a gazetted notice that it has been de-registered!
Fijileaks: By declaring LOT 13 to be worth $80,000 in 2015, 9 years after he purchased it for $100,000 from Faiyaz Koya and three others, Khaiyum committed an offence under his own Political Parties (Registration, Conduct, Funding and Disclosures) Decree 2013 and he must be held to ACCOUNT, and either hauled to the QEH barracks or before the COURT!

Briefing Paper - CRW Murder Investigation conclusions to former Police Commissioner Andrew Hughes - Bainimarama and other officers should face murder charges so what did they do - carried out 2006 coup!

THE CLIMATE OF IMMUNITY: The world leaders should call on the COP23 President Frank Bainimarama to hand himself to the long arm of the law, to answer to the murder charges that had been levelled against him

And guess who is MINISTER FOR CLIMATE CHANGE among other titles?

Fijileaks: We also call on all those who have Fiji at heart and are fed up of the coupists and their associates to reject SODELPA leader Sitiveni Rabuka - The Father of the Coup Culture in Fiji; let us not forget that he is also a beneficiary of the IMMUNITY Culture in Fiji

Fijileaks: We would like to express our condolences to the victims of Monday night's bombing of a concert venue in Manchester, England, and condemn the attack, in which at least 22 people (mostly young and children) were killed and 59 others injured

11 Comments

PETER WAQAVONOVONO: RABUKA IS A CON-ARTIST - '[Rabuka's] Free Tertiary or Higher Education is not FREE HIGHER EDUCATION. He is actually proposing a return to his SCHOLARSHIPS, will be ethnic based"

22/5/2017

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"RABUKA IS A CON-ATRIST: The biggest Conman in the political arena today is Sitiveni Rabuka. Imagine this, he claimed that God told him to COUP the Democratic Government of Bavadra in 1987 and since than he has issued numerous statements before three different elections asking for forgiveness and admitting he was wrong. So what does that say about God?"

Waqavonovono

My views on Sitiveni Rabuka's FREE TERTIARY EDUCATION and Bainimarama’s TELS

■ WHAT IS FREE EDUCATION

FREE education refers to education that is funded through taxation or charitable NGO's rather than tuition funding.
I repeat, Free education refers to education that is funded through taxation or charitable NGO'S rather than tuition funding.

■ IS FREE EDUCATION A HUMAN RIGHT?

Article 13 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights ensures the right to free education at primary education and progressive introduction of it at secondary and higher education as the right to education.

So Free Education is a Right, including Free Higher Education. Our Leaders actually have no choice but to provide the means necessary to make Higher Education free or affordable

■ ARE THERE COUNTRIES THAT HAVE FREE EDUCATION?

Norway, Sweden, Argentina, Germany, Slovenia and even Greece are part of the few nations that have free higher education

■ DOES FIJI HAVE FREE HIGHER EDUCATION?

We have partial Free higher education, but at a Certificate level and in various TECHNICAL INSTITUTES throughout Fiji. From what I understand, these institutes offer TRADE QUALIFICATIONS.

■ WHY HAVE FREE HIGHER EDUCATION IN FIJI?

In a highly fluid and highly competitive global economy, we need the best-educated workforce to offer the world. It's actually stupid and counter-productive to the best interests of Fiji, that thousands of young people cannot afford to go to Higher Education Facilities like USP FNU or UNIFIJI , and that thousands graduate with a pile of debt that burdens them for decades. That shortsighted path to the future must end.

I have and will continue to fight to make sure that every Fijian who studies hard in school can go to University regardless of how much money their parents make and without going deeply into debt.

■ RABUKA IS A CON-ARTIST

The biggest Conman in the political arena today is Sitiveni Rabuka. Imagine this, he claimed that God told him to COUP the Democratic Government of Bavadra in 1987 and since than he has issued numerous statements before three different elections asking for forgiveness and admitting he was wrong. So what does that say about God?

In regards to Free Tertiary or higher education, what RABUKA is proposing is not FREE HIGHER EDUCATION. He is actually proposing a return to his SCHOLARSHIPS!

His scholarships will look like this:
- likely to be ethnic based as SODELPA wants FAB scholarships back
- will be limited in both scope and substance
- will be limited to certain fields
- will keep you in country
- does not mean that you will get a good paying job
- those who are on Loan contracts with government will have to pay it back still
- does not have a plan for the free Technical College currently on offer.
- does not solve the problem of Young people wanting to study but don't meet the LISTED areas of Study

So I don't understand why people are so excited over this plan. It actually means that he wants to take us back 30years to a scholarship scheme that is outdated and discriminatory. I'm amazed people actually buy that lie. That's not FREE HIGHER EDUCATION!!! That's a blarry Con-Job.

He apparently told one of his own youth council leaders that the SVT Government (his Government ) created the nation's first scholarships program. This is another proof that Rabuka is a political opportunist and a liar. As a young independent nation the Alliance Government created scholarships that took over the British run scholarships program, NOT Rabuka.

■ YOUNG PEOPLE BE ALERT

I ask that you focus on the issues here.. we have a scholarship program that does not work - 600 top students a year ... and we have a pathetic loans system that places students in debt before they even graduate or have a job.

We also have an economy that can't sustain jobs in Fiji. This is why we need to qualify as many young people as we can and get them jobs either in Fiji or overseas. It's time we had a sport Institute that could help land contracts for promising athletes especially Rugby players,

That's what we need! A talent agency that scouts for Fiji's best musicians and performers and preps them for overseas jobs even if we can get them contracts to perform overseas that will be superb. They will send money here - we end the cash flow problems and the economy peaks - Fijians prosper .. end of story

We have the best caregivers, nurses, doctors, lawyers and accountant's - we should allow them to attain contracts overseas and aide them.

This all starts with free tertiary or higher education and debt forgiveness. I will not rest until this happens.

We must go beyond votes and look at problem solving

Be careful of buying into what politicians say. Your support and vote is what want, and they will do anything to get it. So don't fall for their lies, read their statements properly and think carefully before deciding to embrace their plans.

One thing is for sure, TELS is going away. What replaces it is the issue.

From Fijileaks Archive:

http://www.fijileaks.com/in-depth-analysis.html

20 Comments

There is NO DIALOGUE but MONOLOGUE from Aiyaz Khaiyum or his FFP MPs, with the Fiji PRESS too scared to publish highly critical views and arguments before Standing Committees - proof from PACIFIC DIALOGUE

21/5/2017

5 Comments

STOP BEING SO "SISSY!" - SHOUTS AIYAZ SAYED KHAIYUM TO THE OPPOSITION IN PARLIAMENT AND GETS AWAY WITH HIS COMMENTS. The "Sissy" who betrayed his colleagues in the fight against Sitiveni Rabuka and the 1987 coups and fled to Australia to do "drama studies" only recently was pushing for a BILL to punish those who demean, defame or undermine Parliament

National Federation Party wants Khaiyum to be held to account

Are these Fijian soldiers a bunch of Aiyaz Sayed Khaiyum's "Sissies"?

And what about the biggest "SISSY" of all who fled the QEH barracks at the height of the November 2000 mutiny, and is now gallivanting the world as President of COP23 while fleecing Fijians $3,000 nightly in travelling allowance, as if he is entitled to the money. As we pointed out previously, Khaiyum very cleverly made Bainimarama Foreign Minister (dangling $3,000 per night allowance) so he (Khaiyum) could be acting Prime Minister and demean the Opposition in Parliament, calling them Monkeys and Sissies

Fijileaks: The submission produced below from Pacific Dialogue was made to the Parliamentary Committee on Justice, Human Rights and Foreign Affairs on Thursday 17th May, last week. One FFP Government member, Alvic Maharaj, objected and asked that the presentation be stopped because TIME was UP!They were not reported in the Fiji Sun and Fiji Times (very little). The Summary provided to the Media was not published.The Fiji Media is still frightened of Aiyaz Khaiyum. We publish it the public interest.

Opinion

Jone Dakuvula

On 18 May 2017, I presented with Mrs Suruj Mati Nand a Submission to the Parliamentary Committee on behalf of our NGO, Pacific Dialogue. I note that there is no report of our Submission in your issue of 19/05/17 even though you had received a copy of our submission and a copy was given to your reporter at the hearing. I am therefore, sending you this summary of our Submission in the public interest so you can publish it as a Letter to the Editor or an Opinion.

We criticised the penalties for offences in the Bill as too harsh and to steep when compared to similar legislation overseas.
The Bill lacks a provision on who and how these offences are formulated and the procedures by which they are decided. For example, who hears the charge of bribery of an MP and who decides the penalty.
The power to both fine and imprison offenders as these do not exist in similar legislation overseas.
The formulation of criminal defamation, which is usually a civil wrong that does not attract criminal punishment. The Bill converts defamation into a crime for which people are fined and imprisoned.
Under the Australian Parliamentary Powers and Privileges Act defamation of Parliament is abolished as a potential crime.

Under the Australian law the Parliament by resolution can only imprison an offender for up to 6 months.

Under the New Zealand law, all offences committed within the precincts of Parliament are referred to the Courts to deal with.
New Zealand has only one power of penalty for “contempt of the House” for which the House by resolution makes an Order and can fine up to $1000 only. This is referred to the Courts to enforce. In Fiji, the Bill has 13 offences for which the Fiji Parliament can fine the offender between $400 to $100,00 and imprisonment up to 10 years. Who decides these offences and penalties is not stated in the Bill.
In overseas legislation, the offences are only those that occur within the precincts of Parliament. However, this Bill under Section 24 (3) extends the power of Parliament to both fine (between $30,000 to $100,000) and imprison up to 5 years both ordinary citizens and Members of Parliament who utter “words or take action that defame and demean or undermine the sanctity of Parliament, the Speaker or a Committee”.

The provision is inconsistent with the purpose of Parliamentary Power and Privileges Law that in other countries are about how offences committed within Parliament Precincts and are dealt with, usually by the Courts.

This is an abuse of the Power of Parliament and threatens freedom of expression rights.
The Bill is unconstitutional under Section 17 (3) of the Bill of Right. It cannot be justified as a “necessary law”.
Section 24, is also an attempt to retrospectively “legalise” unlawful decisions of the Parliamentary Privileges Committee in expelling the three Opposition MP’s, namely Hon Tupou Draunidalo, Hon Ratu Naiqama Lalabalavu and Hon Romanu Tikotikoca, trying to make legal in future past illegal decisions. This is against the rule of law principles and should never be agreed to by law makers in a Parliament.
The fact, the suspension of the three Opposition MPs was recommended by the Parliamentary Powers and Privileges Committee and passed by majority of MPs on the Government side did not make the resolution “legal” because it was not framed as an amendment to the Parliamentary Powers and Privileges Act Cap 5 or as a new provision to the Standing Orders of Parliament.

The Government does not have any power under the current Privileges Act to suspend or expel any Member of Parliament for any period of time, in these cases up to 2 years. The suspension amounted to expulsion as the Members’ salaries and allowances were deprived and they were not allowed into the precincts of Parliament. The Fiji Parliament, also has no power to punish ordinary citizens who criticise Parliamentarians outside of Parliament.
The Submission pointed out that the Attorney General, Hon Aiyaz Khaiyum, the Chief legal adviser of the Government, is largely responsible for these illegal expulsions from Parliament and the drafting of this draconian and punitive Bill. He persuaded the Speaker, Hon Dr Jiko Luveni to refer the cases to the Privileges Committee even though the Speaker had already received apologies from the MPs concerned and had considered the issues resolved.
There is already in existence a Defamation Act Cap 34 under which Members of Parliament and the Speaker can sue any individual or organization for defamation and that law is adequate. It only need some updating.
Pacific Dialogue recommended the Bill be withdrawn and the office of the Attorney General be asked to do more research and come back to Parliament with a much better Bill.
Pacific Dialogue has a suggested some amendments to the Bill
Pacific Dialogue also requested the Committee to ask the Government to revoke the expulsion of the three MP’s.

The submission pointed out this had been the recommendation of the Inter Parliamentary Union Conference that Hon Dr Jiko Luveni had attended in 2016 and the Report that has the recommendation is with the Speaker and the Attorney General.

Pacific Dialogue recommended that the Members responsible for the expulsions of the three Opposition MP’s be ordered to compensate them for their loss of income, humiliation and other injuries to their reputation.
Pacific Dialogue also asked the Committee to advice the Attorney General, Hon Aiyaz Khaiyum, to reconsider his position as the Chief Legal Adviser of the Government.

Jone Dakuvula
Chairman
Pacific Dialogue
Ph: 9469446

*You can publish this as it was circulated in Parliament to some members of the Committee and it is protected under Parliament Privilege.

Khaiyum to Privileges Committee: "You did not have to call him a fool."I said. "You could have come up with a smart response like, "Well, we are not as obtuse as you are. "Obtuse means thick, you could have said that, and that is acceptable. She [Draunidalo] said, "Aw, I am not as eloquent as you are" and that is where we left it. I then went and sat down, Mr Chairman, to have my tea."

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"That all payments due to CINEC shall be paid directly either through the Fijian Government Consolidated Fund or by FNU"Why are the payments made through Attorney-General's Chambers?

Bainimarama was elected to run Fiji and not run around the world over climate change but who can blame him: $3000 a day travelling allowance!

Fijileaks: We will bring more update developments later on and the Sri Lanka and Fiji links and players involved in the saga

The former US ambassador Larry Dinger to Washington on Mahendra Chaudhry's appointment to Bainimarama's Interim Cabinet:

From The Fiji Sun, August 2006

CRY THE BELOVED COUNTRY AND FREE US FROM COUPISTS AND CONVICTS

THE FACE OF HATEWHO HAD NAMED HIS 1987 COUP PLAN OPERATION KIDACALA (SURPRISE):

Fijileaks: Sadly, SODELPA have chosen a medieval racist bigot in SITIVENI RABUKA to lead them in the general election, refusing to banish this racist opportunist who tortured and tore the soul of"Fiji-The Way the World Should Be"

From Fijileaks Archive, 24 July 2016:

STOP BEING SO "SISSY!", shouts Aiyaz Khaiyum to Opposition; the pejorative term is also deployed against gays and lesbians by homophobes

Fijileaks: During the November 2 mutiny, Pita Driti and his troops were the only group of soldiers who held out as Bainimarama fled the scene, crapping in his pants in the cassava patch

Fijileaks to Aiyaz Sayed Khaiyum: You filed all the MIL returns in April 2014, and brought in the Companies Amendment Decree in June 2014? What for or who for, can you tell us?

Briefing Paper - CRW Murder Investigation conclusions to former Police Commissioner Andrew Hughes - Bainimarama and other officers should face murder charges so what did they do - carried out 2006 coup!

THE CLIMATE OF IMMUNITY: The world leaders should call on the COP23 President Frank Bainimarama to hand himself to the long arm of the law, to answer to the murder charges that had been levelled against him

And guess who is MINISTER FOR CLIMATE CHANGE among other titles?

Fijileaks: We also call on all those who have Fiji at heart and are fed up of the coupists and their associates to reject SODELPA leader Sitiveni Rabuka - The Father of the Coup Culture in Fiji; let us not forget that he is also a beneficiary of the IMMUNITY Culture in Fiji

Fijileaks: We would like to express our condolences to the victims of Monday night's bombing of a concert venue in Manchester, England, and condemn the attack, in which at least 22 people (mostly young and children) were killed and 59 others injured

From Fijileaks Archive:

Are these Fijian soldiers a bunch of Aiyaz Sayed Khaiyum's "Sissies"?

editor@fijileaks.com

"That all payments due to CINEC shall be paid directly either through the Fijian Government Consolidated Fund or by FNU"
Why are the payments made through Attorney-General's Chambers?

THE FACE OF HATE
WHO HAD NAMED HIS 1987 COUP PLAN OPERATION KIDACALA (SURPRISE):

Fijileaks: Sadly, SODELPA have chosen a medieval racist bigot in SITIVENI RABUKA to lead them in the general election, refusing to banish this racist opportunist who tortured and tore the soul of
"Fiji-The Way the World Should Be"