17 September 2025: GEORGE SPEIGHT attentively listening to Professor Steven Ratuva, the Pro-Vice Chancellor Pacific and Director of the Macmillan Brown Centre for Pacific Studies at the University of Canterbury, NZ. Ratuva was speaking at the Grand Pacific Hotel on the theme Turmoil and Hope: Where is Fiji Heading.
No More Victims on Display. Put the Perpetrators in the Witness Box First.
TRUTH Before TEARS. The Three Coupists Owe Fiji Their Testimony.
In other words, start with the Guilty and NOT the Grieving
"If the Commission truly seeks to foster “truth” before “reconciliation,” then the first witnesses who must appear are not the broken and the bereaved. That means Sitiveni Rabuka, architect of the 1987 coups that institutionalised racism and broke our democratic spine. It means George Speight, the public face of the 2000 putsch who, after orchestrating a hostage crisis and nearly plunging the country into civil war, now roams the streets as if nothing happened. And it means Frank Bainimarama, who justified his 2006 military coup as a “clean-up campaign” but left in its wake deep constitutional ruptures and widespread fear. They are the ones who authored the violence and chaos that ordinary Fijians are now being asked to relive. |   |
| The historic Fiji Truth and Reconciliation Commission held its first-ever public hearing today (7 October 2025) in Suva this morning. However, the family that was invited to share their story virtually on a Zoom call did not turn up. Regardless, the Commission reiterates that sharing stories of past trauma is not an easy task, and they encourage people to share their accounts with them. Source: FBC News |  |
Let the Perpetrators Speak First. Then the Victims Will Follow
As Fiji’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission stumbles into its first round of public hearings, there is a glaring flaw in both its structure and its sequencing: the very people who orchestrated or benefited from the nation’s darkest chapters are nowhere to be seen. Instead, we are once again asking survivors to bare their pain before a room of commissioners, while those responsible walk free, some even still occupying positions of influence.
If the Commission truly seeks to foster “truth” before “reconciliation,” then the first witnesses who must appear are not the broken and the bereaved. That means Sitiveni Rabuka, architect of the 1987 coups that institutionalised racism and broke our democratic spine. It means George Speight, the public face of the 2000 putsch who, after orchestrating a hostage crisis and nearly plunging the country into civil war, now roams the streets as if nothing happened. And it means Frank Bainimarama, who justified his 2006 military coup as a “clean-up campaign” but left in its wake deep constitutional ruptures and widespread fear.
They are the ones who authored the violence and chaos that ordinary Fijians are now being asked to relive.
These men, and those who enabled them, should be summoned first. They should be placed under oath and asked, in front of the nation, to explain their actions: their motives, their networks, their orders, their regrets, if any. Only then will the process have moral weight. Only then will victims believe this Commission is not another stage-managed ritual designed to absorb their pain and do nothing with it.
At present, the message is backwards. We are asking victims to speak into a void, to relive traumas while the perpetrators enjoy impunity and, in some cases, political power. This not only risks re-traumatizing them, it reinforces the same hierarchy that allowed coups to happen in the first place: the powerful act, the powerless explain.
If the TRC wants to be more than an exercise in public catharsis, it must reverse that script. Begin with those who broke the nation, and then, once they have spoken, invite those who suffered to speak their truth. Only in that order will “reconciliation” mean anything more than a slogan.
It is a perverse inversion of justice. Survivors are invited to relive their trauma before a commission whose mandate is truth, yet the truth we most need to hear is not theirs. It is the truth held by the men who tore this country apart: Sitiveni Rabuka, George Speight, and Frank Bainimarama.
All three have shaped the trauma we now ask ordinary Fijians to recount. Yet all three remain beyond scrutiny: one as prime minister, one as a free man strolling the streets, and one as a former leader still casting a long shadow over our politics. Until they are compelled to speak, the TRC is little more than political theatre.
A real truth commission does not start with the broken. It starts with those who broke the nation. Until that happens, this exercise risks becoming another empty ritual, a stage for tears, but not for truth.
As Fiji’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission stumbles into its first round of public hearings, there is a glaring flaw in both its structure and its sequencing: the very people who orchestrated or benefited from the nation’s darkest chapters are nowhere to be seen. Instead, we are once again asking survivors to bare their pain before a room of commissioners, while those responsible walk free, some even still occupying positions of influence.
If the Commission truly seeks to foster “truth” before “reconciliation,” then the first witnesses who must appear are not the broken and the bereaved. That means Sitiveni Rabuka, architect of the 1987 coups that institutionalised racism and broke our democratic spine. It means George Speight, the public face of the 2000 putsch who, after orchestrating a hostage crisis and nearly plunging the country into civil war, now roams the streets as if nothing happened. And it means Frank Bainimarama, who justified his 2006 military coup as a “clean-up campaign” but left in its wake deep constitutional ruptures and widespread fear.
They are the ones who authored the violence and chaos that ordinary Fijians are now being asked to relive.
These men, and those who enabled them, should be summoned first. They should be placed under oath and asked, in front of the nation, to explain their actions: their motives, their networks, their orders, their regrets, if any. Only then will the process have moral weight. Only then will victims believe this Commission is not another stage-managed ritual designed to absorb their pain and do nothing with it.
At present, the message is backwards. We are asking victims to speak into a void, to relive traumas while the perpetrators enjoy impunity and, in some cases, political power. This not only risks re-traumatizing them, it reinforces the same hierarchy that allowed coups to happen in the first place: the powerful act, the powerless explain.
If the TRC wants to be more than an exercise in public catharsis, it must reverse that script. Begin with those who broke the nation, and then, once they have spoken, invite those who suffered to speak their truth. Only in that order will “reconciliation” mean anything more than a slogan.
It is a perverse inversion of justice. Survivors are invited to relive their trauma before a commission whose mandate is truth, yet the truth we most need to hear is not theirs. It is the truth held by the men who tore this country apart: Sitiveni Rabuka, George Speight, and Frank Bainimarama.
All three have shaped the trauma we now ask ordinary Fijians to recount. Yet all three remain beyond scrutiny: one as prime minister, one as a free man strolling the streets, and one as a former leader still casting a long shadow over our politics. Until they are compelled to speak, the TRC is little more than political theatre.
A real truth commission does not start with the broken. It starts with those who broke the nation. Until that happens, this exercise risks becoming another empty ritual, a stage for tears, but not for truth.
From Fijileaks Archives
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 |  Indo-Fijians punched and kicked freely outside old Suva Travelodge |
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 "An Opponent of a Dictator Is An Enemy of the State" |  |
