*Ratu Josefa Dimuri was jailed for his part in the Sukanaivalu Barracks mutiny following the George Speight coup in May 2000
 SEFANAIA Sukanaivalu's citation for the Victoria Cross in the London Gazette dated 2 November 1944 ends with: “This brave Fiji soldier, after rescuing two wounded men with the greatest heroism and being gravely wounded himself, deliberately sacrificed his own life because he knew that it was the only way in which the remainder of his platoon could be induced to retire from a situation in which they must have been annihilated had they not withdrawn.” |  The late hero Sukanaivalu |
When Chiefs Forgot Honour. The former Lands Minister Ratu Naiqama Lalabalavu and Government Senator Ratu Josefa Dimuri's 2000 siege at Sukanaivalu Barracks Mutiny in Labasa Stained the Bravery of Corporal Sefanaia Sukanaivalu, VC. Worse still, instead of serving their full prison sentences, they were released early and allowed to return to Parliament. |   |
Once upon a coup, he was Minister for Information under Sitiveni Rabuka in 1993. Now, he’s President of Rabuka’s People’s Alliance Party. In between, Ratu Josefa Dimuri was convicted for his part in the 2000 mutiny, sentenced to eight months in jail, and served just 11 days.
It’s the kind of comeback story that would make Hollywood blush and Transparency International cry.
Dimuri’s career reads like a manual on how to fail upward in Fijian politics. A loyal “Rabuka man” since the 1990s, he first rose to prominence as Information Minister in the post-coup government that institutionalised Fiji’s racial divide. Later, when the 2000 coup threw the nation into chaos again, Dimuri wasn’t just a spectator. He became part of the machinery that legitimised it.
In 2005, justice finally caught up, or rather, brushed past. He was convicted and sentenced to eight months’ imprisonment for his role in the Sukanaivalu Barracks mutiny, one of the ugliest episodes of that era. But after 11 days behind bars, Dimuri was out, released to “serve the balance extramurally”. The ink on his conviction was barely dry before he was back in public life.
Critics at the time were furious. The release, they said, smacked of preferential treatment for chiefly elites and political insiders. And yet here we are, two decades later, watching Dimuri being sworn in as President of the People’s Alliance Party, under the very man whose 1987 coup first militarised Fiji’s politics - Sitiveni Rabuka.
You couldn’t script irony like this.
Dimuri’s former prison mate, Ratu Naiqama Lalabalavu, another alumnus of the 2000 coup saga, now occupies the Presidential Palace. Dimuri now runs Rabuka’s ruling party. The old guard is not just back; they’re running the show. Fiji, it seems, has mistaken recycling for reform.
To be clear, redemption is a noble thing but redemption without remorse, accountability, or reform is just reputation laundering. Dimuri’s political rehabilitation was never earned through a record of reform or moral leadership; it was conferred by a network of old loyalties and chiefly privilege.
The message to ordinary iTaukei is unmistakable: if you’re a commoner, justice is a sentence; if you’re a chief, it’s an inconvenience.
Dimuri’s political journey from cabinet minister to coup convict to party president says less about his personal resilience than about the system that keeps restoring men like him. A system built not on merit or integrity, but on connections, memory loss, and the quiet rewriting of history.
And so Fiji’s political carousel keeps spinning: yesterday’s mutineer becomes today’s moral authority, yesterday’s offender becomes tomorrow’s leader. Eleven days in prison, twenty years of public amnesia, and voilà, another “statesman” is reborn.
At this rate, the slogan for the next election should be: 'Coup now, campaign later. Redemption guaranteed, chiefly style.
It's hard to find a better advertisement for Fiji's brand of political forgiveness than the career trajectories of Dimuri and his one-time jailbird comrade Lalabalavu, or should we say, His Excellency the President of Fiji.
Both men now stand at the pinnacle of political legitimacy: one as President of Fiji, the other as President of the People's Alliance Party.
Fiji (aka Sitiveni Rabuka) it seems, doesn't just forgive. It recycles. Convictions fade, coups are rebranded as "events", and the protagonists are reborn as elder statesmen, dispensing wisdom on democracy, accountability, and leadership - "Liumuri, Style".
It’s the kind of comeback story that would make Hollywood blush and Transparency International cry.
Dimuri’s career reads like a manual on how to fail upward in Fijian politics. A loyal “Rabuka man” since the 1990s, he first rose to prominence as Information Minister in the post-coup government that institutionalised Fiji’s racial divide. Later, when the 2000 coup threw the nation into chaos again, Dimuri wasn’t just a spectator. He became part of the machinery that legitimised it.
In 2005, justice finally caught up, or rather, brushed past. He was convicted and sentenced to eight months’ imprisonment for his role in the Sukanaivalu Barracks mutiny, one of the ugliest episodes of that era. But after 11 days behind bars, Dimuri was out, released to “serve the balance extramurally”. The ink on his conviction was barely dry before he was back in public life.
Critics at the time were furious. The release, they said, smacked of preferential treatment for chiefly elites and political insiders. And yet here we are, two decades later, watching Dimuri being sworn in as President of the People’s Alliance Party, under the very man whose 1987 coup first militarised Fiji’s politics - Sitiveni Rabuka.
You couldn’t script irony like this.
Dimuri’s former prison mate, Ratu Naiqama Lalabalavu, another alumnus of the 2000 coup saga, now occupies the Presidential Palace. Dimuri now runs Rabuka’s ruling party. The old guard is not just back; they’re running the show. Fiji, it seems, has mistaken recycling for reform.
To be clear, redemption is a noble thing but redemption without remorse, accountability, or reform is just reputation laundering. Dimuri’s political rehabilitation was never earned through a record of reform or moral leadership; it was conferred by a network of old loyalties and chiefly privilege.
The message to ordinary iTaukei is unmistakable: if you’re a commoner, justice is a sentence; if you’re a chief, it’s an inconvenience.
Dimuri’s political journey from cabinet minister to coup convict to party president says less about his personal resilience than about the system that keeps restoring men like him. A system built not on merit or integrity, but on connections, memory loss, and the quiet rewriting of history.
And so Fiji’s political carousel keeps spinning: yesterday’s mutineer becomes today’s moral authority, yesterday’s offender becomes tomorrow’s leader. Eleven days in prison, twenty years of public amnesia, and voilà, another “statesman” is reborn.
At this rate, the slogan for the next election should be: 'Coup now, campaign later. Redemption guaranteed, chiefly style.
It's hard to find a better advertisement for Fiji's brand of political forgiveness than the career trajectories of Dimuri and his one-time jailbird comrade Lalabalavu, or should we say, His Excellency the President of Fiji.
Both men now stand at the pinnacle of political legitimacy: one as President of Fiji, the other as President of the People's Alliance Party.
Fiji (aka Sitiveni Rabuka) it seems, doesn't just forgive. It recycles. Convictions fade, coups are rebranded as "events", and the protagonists are reborn as elder statesmen, dispensing wisdom on democracy, accountability, and leadership - "Liumuri, Style".
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