COMING SOON: How Pio Tikoduadua prepared and submitted a project paper to Inia Seruiratu, then PS. Tikoduadua did roads, culvert and clearing of his farm in 2011, allegedly misusing Provincial Development Funds; As PAC chairman Biman Prasad expresses satisfaction with military for appearing before them, Prasad and his Committee should investigate why military bulldozers and other earth-moving equipment are being misused by Commander Mosese Tikoitonga for development of his (Tikoitonga's) ginger farm access road from Qiolevu Rd, Sawani
On the Cabinet Dogfight
AIYAZ SAYED KHAIYUM should have seen it coming. After all, he was our delegated and trusted bomb maker shortly after the 1987 coups, assigned to STOP one of the most violent racist thug of a man - Ratu Inoke Kubuabola - the co-leader of the I-taukei Movement. Today Kubuabola is Fiji's Foreign Minister in the Fiji First Party. In 1987 he was terrorizing Indo-Fijians in the name of bogus indigenous nationalism! When Fijileaks saw his name on the ballot paper for the September 2014 election, the pro-democracy blog rightly proclaimed: HE IS BACK: The OLD violent racist and nationalist Inoke Kubuabola who drove thousands of Indo-Fijians out of Fiji in 1987 is standing for election under FijiFirst Party banner, led by Bainimarama and Khaiyum!
As we revealed recently, Kubuabola was the only candidate who did not dip into FFP election fund managed by Khaiyum. Kubuabola had funds from some Indo-Fijian businessmen to fight the election, and hence is not obligated to Khaiyum. In fact, he spends most of his time with the Opposition, with some in the FFP suggesting he should join them instead of holding the post of Foreign Minister. Others say he is still a racist and an opportunist - now wanting to become Prime Minister for Frank Bainimarama, whom Pio Tikoduadua refers to as 'a bumbling idiot', plans to replace Ratu Epeli Nailatikau as the next President.
Again, Khaiyum should have seen the writing on the wall. Like Kubuabola, Bainimarama's struggle since the 1987 coups has been his very own survival; after all, he was the young naval officer who was guarding Khaiyum and other detainees at the Central Police Station on behalf of Sitiveni Rabuka's 1987 coupists and men of religion and terror. Khaiyum is equally aware that one of the ten balaclava soldiers who stormed Parliament on 14 May 1987, 108 years to the day when the first Indian indentured coolies had landed in Fiji in 1879, was none other than Iowane Naivalarua - Kubuabola's ambassador designate to China. Naivalarua's son is married to Kubuabola's daughter.
The 1987 coup conspirators are still at-large, so we are not surprised at the conspiracy to get rid of Khaiyum, not because of his dictatorial style but also because he is an Indo-Fijian - once 'a coolie always a coolie' tag at play in the recent political power struggle going on inside the Cabinet. The extent of Kubuabola's role in the violent and brutal beatings of 1987 Indo-Fijian coup opponents was starkly revealed in evidence submitted by those close to him in my own asylum trial in London in 1988. In 2000 he re-emerged after the George Speight coup to condemn me.
As interim Minister for Information he told the world media in August 2000: "Victor Lal’s articles [in Fiji's Daily Post] all have a simple, indeed simplistic stance, restore [Mahendra] Chaudhry and impose democracy as defined by Lal and his friends. What he is advocating is an Indian supremacist doctrine, a new version of Hitlerian herrenvolk for Fiji. The racism lies in his desires, not those of us Fijians. His obsession to control Fiji, blinds him to his own ambitions.”
This racist opportunist has not changed his stripe nor his views and the dislike of Indo-Fijians, especially those like Khaiyum who are standing up to him, preventing his ambition to replace Bainimarama as Prime Minister. In his appointments Kubuabola still keeps his 1987 racist comrades well greased and rewarded - take, for example, Isikeli Mataitoga, the ambassador. Mataitoga and I clashed on BBC television in 1987 on opposite sides of the racial divide; he was dressed in Fijian army uniform, defending the torture, naked racism, beatings, Sunday Methodist ban etc etc etc in the name of indigenous rights. Sadly, many Indo-Fijians now abusing me had quietly slipped into hiding from Rabuka, or sought greener pastures overseas. Many are in Kubuabola's sulu. During the BBC TV exchanges I had asserted: "The coup raises one fundamental question: how many generation does it take one to become a native. My coolie ancestors were foreigners to Fiji in 1879, not me nor other Indo-Fijians."
To be continued