DIGNIFYING THE HINDU DEAD: Aiyaz Khaiyum on the new Vatuwaqa Crematorium: Unfortunately for decades, the Hindus did not have this kind of dedicated space. This is the reason [we] engaged into this project

14/6/2017

"This facility will not be a basic one but one which will have modern amenities. People will have the ability to go out and perform all the final rituals after the burial is done which will also include the ash disposal". Aiyaz Khaiyum at the ground-breaking ceremony
at Vatuwaqa Funeral Rites Ceremony

The prayers for a one of its kind modern Funeral Rites Facility has been answered by the Government after the ground breaking ceremony was done by the Acting Prime Minister and Attorney General Hon. Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum this afternoon.

This facility will be built in Vatuwaqa beside the Vatuwaqa Crematorium for the users convenience.

While doing the ground breaking ceremony, the Attorney General said the issue was raised in parliament back in the 1990s and since then nothing has been done.

"Unfortunately for decades in Fiji, the Hindu community did not have this kind of dedicated space. This is precisely the reason why government has engaged into this project," the AG said.

"This facility will not be a basic one but one which will have modern amenities. People will have the ability to go out and perform all the final rituals after the burial is done which will also include the ash disposal".

It will include all the sanitation facilities, showers, places for people to cook, parking space and a cremation facility itself.

The AG said that births, marriages and deaths are the three key types of events which brings people together where you actually perform certain rituals so it is essentially a very dear and personal component in anybody’s life.

He added that when we actually perform this rituals, the environment must be conducive that give people dignity, that make people feel that they are able to carry out the rituals in the manner in which that they should as religious rights and ritual require a level of sacredness.

The total cost for the project is $746,699.00. The government had allocated $100,000 in the 2016/2017 National Budget.

Similar facilities are also planned to be built in Nausori, Lautoka and in the Northern Division. Source: Fiji Government newsite

"The Hindus and Muslims are pagans who must be converted to Christianity. It will be a big challenge for us to convert all Indians. Those who do not choose to become Christians can continue to live here but they will probably find that is a difficult place to live in. We are trying to make this place perfect for the Fijian people, and if it is not perfect for others then that is too bad. They will have to go."
The ardent Methodist fundamentalist
Sitiveni Rabuka shortly after the 1987 coups
Fijileaks: SODELPA deliberately chose this RACIST and RELIGIOUS BIGOT (based on his CV) to lead them in the next election and to whip up native Fijians into a frenzy, as he did during the 1987 coups. In 1999 he was consigned to the dustbin of political history, only to emerge in 2016, after joining SODELPA, and now is their party leader

The Organizer 14 January 1990

HITLERIAN AGENDA: The racist's grand design to wipe out Indo-Fijians politically after the 1987 coups, as contained in confidential documents on VICTOR LAL, and which was partially revealed in his (Lal's) book

A VOTE FOR SITIVENI RABUKA IS VOTE FOR RACIAL AND RELIGIOUS BIGOTRY. Like 1987, when outspoken SODELPA MPs mouth INDIGENOUS RIGHTS, they MEAN Non-Fijians don't have right to be PM

NFP leader Professor Biman Prasad has every right to be Prime Minister of Fiji

UNLIKE the former NFP leader JAI RAM REDDY who was willing to be Rabuka's political poodle - Deputy Prime Minister - if Rabuka had won the 1999 general election

12 Comments

Dekho

15/6/2017 12:21:28 am

The reason Aiyaz Khaiyum gives for the Fiji First Party Government's engagement in the new Vatuwaqa Crematorium project is a spurious one. The real reason is to get the Hindu Indians to vote for FFP in the coming elections in 2018. They have been in power for over ten years and are looking at new ways to con the people to vote for them because they know more and more people are dissatisfied with their rule and are likely to vote for change.

Chiku

15/6/2017 03:00:30 am

Why now the " dignifying the Hindu dead " project? Khaiyum and his cronies have been running the country the last ten years. The timing is no coincidence. It's what Professor Biman Prasad aptly distinguished as " electioneering " in his address at the recent NFP convention at the Girmit Center in Lautoka. If the last election is anything to go by it's not hard to spot the FFP's electioneering with the use of State funds.

Chiku

15/6/2017 03:28:20 am

Of course NFP leader Professor Biman Prasad has every right to be Prime Minister of Fiji. He is a Fiji citizen, isn't he? And if Fiji is a democracy citizenship should be the only criteria for eligibility for that high office. And, what's more Professor Biman is a meritorious citizen more than capable of discharging the duties and responsibilities of the Prime Minister of Fiji considering some mediocre people have held that position or acted in that position. It's 2017 not 1977. No reason why Biman Prasad can't be PM of Fiji. He would make a very good PM - for Fiji and all its people regardless of race and religion. He is a person who genuinely believes in creating an inclusive and socially cohesive Fiji governed by democratic values and the rule of law.
Voting for Professor Biman Prasad would be voting for a better Fiji.

Refugee

15/6/2017 12:18:16 pm

If Professor Biman had not invited COUPIST PIO into the NFP the question would never have arisen ! But the cheek of Vijay Narayan -from a million important questions to ASK - he chose a RACIST one!

The convention gives the Leader of the winning Party to be the PM - but Pio is a COUPIST so Biman should really watch his back. Once a COUPIST always a COUPIST and in politics one should never TRUST a COUPIST. Now tell if I'm wrong !

Ratu

15/6/2017 04:11:52 am

There is no longer anything sacred abt the Vatuwaqa cemetry. It's a popular drinking and party place for itaukei youth from nearby squatter settlements where graves are regularly desecrated and dead bodies dug up and stripped of their clothes and jewellery. Jobs and affordable household budget is the priority in Fiji that Khaiyum's failed economic policies are unable to provide. The are the main policy planks of the NFP for the 2018 election and Khaiyum's electioneering pork barrelling handouts are being exposed.

Samjoe

15/6/2017 02:20:30 pm

Ratu it's also a place where young people who can't afford the hourly motel room go for open air fornication. Used condoms can be seen there all the time and uncollected panties some times.

Samjoe

15/6/2017 02:50:56 pm

Aiyaz Khaiyum wants to take credit for himself and his FFP mob for the setting up of the new Vatuwaqa crematorium with modern amenities using public money.
I hear in Auckland NZ one Indian man from Taveuni is operating a modern funeral facility with imported sophisticated American equipment on his own resources.
That's your brain drain from the coup country.

Bula

15/6/2017 11:40:46 pm

Refugee
It is true Pio was in RFMF when the Bai committed treason and became the illegal PM and promoted himself to Rear Admiral. However Pio was in training in Melbourne during the coup and he was sent back home by the Australians, not because he had committed a crime but the whole of RFMF was ostracised by the Australia for the criminality of one desperate man who was running away from the law for yet other heinous crimes. Pio had to return home as he had no alternative. He returned home and to his old employer the Military. You do not call an employee a fraud when his CEO commits the fraud. What PIo did during his time in the Military after the coup is worth your research. This man tirelessly worked with the civil society under the auspices of the United Nations to find a consensus based political solution in the true Pacific Way, to the situation created by the fraud . Prof Biman Prasad was one of those that Pio worked with in this exercise. Pio is a man of Faith and Peace. We must know our facts before we throw stones.

Refugee

18/6/2017 10:58:25 am

Bula, Mate, Pio was the official mouthpiece, as the PS in the office of the dictator, where from post-Pio’s appointment; many atrocities against citizens were orchestrated, only with pursuit of sustaining the dictatorship. The Peoples’ 1997 Constitution was abrogated during Pio’s tenure-ship as the mouth-piece of the dictator – an act of treason in itself. Pio was in unison with the vision of the Party with the STOLEN name, i.e. FFP, being a member of the inner cabal until things went sour, as they do, amongst the crooks.And Pio was definitely too sickly to work 'tirelessly' then and now.

My stone is aimed at the right target, Bula, no mistake and many more are coming. Coupists are Coupists and they don’t deserve any respect. That goes also for Bainimarama, Aiyaz, Rabuka, Chaudhary. And people like Pio and Robin are terribly BAD because they have come to pollute the only alternative party, which was thus far, promising for Coupist hating voters, like me.

If it is only the choices between the COUPISTS then I might as well chose the meanest and the corruptest of them all, the incumbents, who have at least, given us the dignity of being ‘equal’ citizens in the country of our births, which none of the previous governments could give us and which the NFP (even with Pio) can’t guarantee.

Lasu

16/6/2017 12:03:35 am

Yes, pork barrelling. This man would sleep with the pigs and sell his soul for power and to keep his dirty hands on the national purse strings. He was virtually a bankrupt, living once again with mum and dad after his second divorce, when he joined the Bai regime and got his salary revised heftily. He kept it secret (so he thought and wished) from the public whose money he was being paid with, through creating a shadow treasury with the ugly auntie Bano. Now he is an elite, the privileged with tax payers money, living a wealthy lifestyle, suddenly owns his own palatial house in Tamavua. But he does not feel safe from people whose money he stole to build the house, the public. His home is fortified by the military guards who is paid by the public purse. He travels in a convoy of three government cars with soldiers in the cars to protect him. He thinks he has the last laugh on the public. So he does! Now he builds a state of the art crematorium for the Hindus after 11 years in power when he feels the heat of Hindu votes dissipating fast. But what does he do, he pork barrels for his own selfish reasons from the money of the same public, but it is borrowed money this time, borrowed by him in the name of the public. Who is paying off the loan and high interest, the public, of course. Hahaha. Where did he get the loan from? Through ANZ with the help of yet another Sri Lankan who looks like a starved dead man walking, his banker mate, Vishnu who lives in Canada and commutes to work in Fiji from Canada at our expense to be the Chairman of Everything, following the footsteps of the Minister of Everything. Vishnu has never paid a cent income tax to our dear Fiji. He accompanies Arse to the bank, doing what? Laughing. What do we do? Feel helpless and even disenfranchised. Can't even have confidence in our electoral system, owned by whom. Arse. Laughing again at us idiots?

Rajend Naidu

16/6/2017 06:02:40 pm

Editor,
On The Misguided Pursuit Of The Perfect Society
If the then semi-literate military General Sitiveni Rabuka had acquainted himself with Arthur Koestler's 1949 book The God That Failed he would not have said " We are trying to make this place perfect for the Fijian people...". In fact if he had that level of political consciousness he would not have carried out the coup in 1987 to make Fiji a perfect place for Fijian people ( by scapegoating the Indian people ).
He would have known that is an exercise in futility. Far better minds than the one Rabuka and his political sidekicks like Kubuabola possessed had attempted and failed to created the perfect state.
Wikipedia tells us Koestler's The God That Failed collects together 6 essays with the testimonies of a number of famous ex- communists, who were writers and journalists. The common theme of the essays is the authors' disillusionment with and abandonment of communism ( the perfect, secular eschatological state).
Now in a way Khaiyum and company are embarked on the same misguided project with their " peoples' charter ", " new constitution ", " true democracy ", " village by laws " etc to creat the perfect society.
Atleast Rabuka can be excused in a sense . The poor bugger did not have decent higher education.
Khaiyum by contrast had the benefit of education under a constitutional expert Professor Yash Ghai.
Well, come to think of it. Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's son Saif al Islam had a doctorate from London School of Economic!
Sincerely,
Rajend Naidu

Rajend Naidu

17/6/2017 12:44:19 pm

Editor,
Political leadership of the Undignified Kind.
We learn from Yahoo!7 Lifestyle 16/6/17 article ' Julie Bishop savaged for $32K dress ' that the Australian foreign minister attended the charity Mid Winter Ball in Canberra in " a jewel and feather- embellished gown" costing $32,000.
The elitist politician has given prove of her elitism and just how how out of touch the elitist politician is from the common people.
The money she spend on her fancy feathered dress is what an old age pensioner gets to cope with his or her needs for a whole year.
Perhaps it's a good thing the foreign minister dressed that way at the charity ball - like a strutting peacock - because when she's gone from politics the Australian people might only remember her for it!
Sincerely,
Rajend Naidu

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