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HUNTER: 'Fiji's dictator can rail all he likes about foreign media stories. But the distortion comes from him and not the journalists he's targeting'

13/6/2016

15 Comments

 
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By RUSSELL HUNTER

Fiji's dictator can rail all he likes about foreign media stories. But the distortion comes from him and not the journalists he's targeting.


To claim, as Frank Bainimarama did, that journalists who report fairly on Fiji are welcome is typical nonsense.

I don't think I have reported unfairly. I don't think Victor Lal has. And I don't think Sean Dorney has.

Bainimarama evidently differs. But his idea of free and fair reporting - as the Fiji journalists who still have regard to accuracy and balance will tell you in private - extends to reportage that praises him and his cronies.

Anything short of adulation is not permitted.

And those same journalists will tell you this only in private because to say so publicly exposes them to massive fines and even jail (not to mention the inevitable late night visit by gangs of thugs out of uniform).

They dare not even ask questions that might be seen by the regime as unwelcome.  

All this is known to New Zealand Prime Minister John Key whose visit to Fiji seeks and fails to legitimise thugs and criminals.

So the beatings, torture, lies, corruption and even deaths are "water under the bridge", then, Mr Key? 

A seemingly decent man, Mr Key would have had to overcome his revulsion to feed the hunger of an agitating NZ business community that feels it is being denied access to contracts in Fiji and to acknowledge the need to suck up to China.

One can only imagine the man's true feelings at having to listen to the Bainimarama bombast and not flinch.
Then again he's by now well accustomed to the insults to his country routinely offered by that particular rear admiral.

Why does the New Zealand Prime Minister have to swallow this bile?

Politics, we have to suppose.

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15 Comments
Dekho
13/6/2016 09:16:33 am

What Hunter says about Bainimarama bitching about foreign journalists is 100% correct. It is a classic case of blame shifting by the dictator. The isn't and has never been foreign journalists reporting on Fiji. The problem is and has always been rogue leaders like Bainimarama imposing their self-serving agenda on the Fijian people and not wanting anyone,local or foreign, to question what they were doing. Anyone who had the audacity to do so was deemed anti-Fijian and all that kind of bullshit.

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Samjha
13/6/2016 10:55:52 am

What can one say about John Key? Well, let's face it he is a relatively minor leader of a minor first world democracy who has taken to sucking up to a third world dictator. History records many big time world leaders of democratic nations rubbing shoulders with big time dictators.
In either case it's a disgrace.

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Media Freedom
13/6/2016 11:45:33 am

Thanks Barbara Dreaver, Russell Hunter and Victor Lal for harping on the importance of free and fair media and for jounalists giving due regard to accuracy and balance reporting.

Media is an essential element of democracy and a watchdog for ensuring accountability, transparency, fundamental principles of good corporate governance, human rights based development and democratic processes. Its watchdog role could extend as far as becoming a mechansm for safeguarding against investigation of allegations fraud, abuse of office or malpractice.

I am not a jounalist but I believe that the Bainimarama government is now paying heavily for their arrogance, stupidity, naivety and lip service for independence and freedom of the media which has come out loud and clear in Bai’s welcome speech during John Key's visit to Fiji.



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Welcome Home
13/6/2016 12:05:51 pm

While it is encouraging to see that Deputy Police Commissioner Ligairi is chairing a seminar in the Northern Division on police response to cases of domestic and targeted violence against women and children in Fiji, it will achieve little without substantive change in mindset and outlook. This is often culturally-based. In 2011 pro bono on a Saturday morning in Nadi, fifteen officers were addressed at request of new Superintendent. They were given substantial and detailed information on a number of unsolved murders and attempted rape cases. Information was shared about Organised Crime and its suspected role in targeted threats to known recipients - who lived in daily fear and perceived peril. Questions were posed and invited. The response was singularly unimpressive. Indeed it was alarming in the apparent incomprehension of the seriousness of Nadi's lawlessness. The floods of 2012 confirmed and compounded this impression and the Saturday morning seemed a waste of time when police were seen apparently looting flooded business premises on rudimentary 'bilibili'. The eyewitness report came from a known professional living nearby.

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Ah..Ha!
13/6/2016 10:00:01 pm

..pro bono...anti-thesis of nur bono?

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Media Freedom
13/6/2016 05:33:36 pm

One of the many things that is coming out loud and clear from Bainmarama’s speech is troubled mental state that depicts people very deep in trouble waters and trying to swim and keep afloat so as to stay alive.

It is inevitable that the Bainimarama government will be experiencing storm that will intensify into something like Severe Tropical Cyclone Winston with winds up to 230 km/h, heavy rain and tidal waves making landfall.

They have done too many bad things to too many people, stolen from government treasury and abuse of office. The most recent one is the unfair suspenson of the Hon. Draundalo. Bai’s useless and pathetic lawyer advisers have miserably failed to uphold the fundamental principles of common law and the laws of Fiji and that is to “love thy neighbor as thy self” and this comes from the holy bible and the fundamental teachings of all religion.

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Alby
13/6/2016 09:12:41 pm

Unfortunately the 'love thy neighbour as thy self' mantra is no longer being practised by many religious leaders in Fiji.

Just listen to the hate filled angry voices blasting out of so many supposed teachers of religion these days and being forced upon the populace.

When the institution of religion you talk of acts in total contravention of what it should teach you have to ask yourself is it any surprise that others follow their example.

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King Rat
14/6/2016 11:08:53 am

Oi, Draunidalo lied when she claimed Mahen referred to the i'taukei as 'dumb natives'.

She then went on to call him an 'idiot' on the floor of Parliament, when Mahen has a PhD...when she only holds an LLB.

She has been exposed as a closet ethno-nationalist, not the moderate that she wants everyone to believe. Sa qai kune tu!

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Socho
13/6/2016 07:48:08 pm

NOBODY is free to do anything under the Bainimarama-Kaiyum dictatorship in Fiji. All the freedoms that are enshrined in a genuine democracy are absent in Fiji. There is only the pretence of democratic freedoms in Fiji. This masquerade is for leaders in the international community like John Key.

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Rustam
13/6/2016 07:48:40 pm

When very important things are so adamantly and deliberately kept in dark, hidden from the People, going to the extent of expelling a political party (NFP) from our Parliament, for such flimsy reasons (like the wrong accountant) motion of which originating outside our Parliament from the nephew of our AG, SOE Saneen, (whose only claim to position is via NEPOTISM) and in the absence of the expelled political party (NFP) a Bill is very dishonorably passed so as to do a ‘legal’ COUP into the chairmanship of PAC, only to protect Begam aunty NUR BANO from public scrutiny. Wah! Wah! (Applause!) The more they hide it, the more ‘intellectually’ intriguing BANO becomes.

Saving aunty BANO is seemingly the holy grail of Khaiyum /Bainimarama’s new funny democracy. Nur Bano is a Thesis, on its own –researchers!

The media wallas in Fiji MUST understand that the most compelling curiosity of the People and indeed the most urgent and demanding public interest STORY is the doings and misdoings of Begam aunty NUR BANO. Please…we beg…we beg a STORY on Begam NUR BANO …please!

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Builder
13/6/2016 09:26:47 pm

He is the lying puppet of a vicious dictator. Why does anyone expect any different from him. But the moment the puppet is cut off from the dictator, the puppet becomes a different person.

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Chiku
13/6/2016 10:41:14 pm

It's a good thing we have a foreign media wallah like Hunter, who was arbitrarily and in humanely deported from Fiji following Bainimarama's unlawful takeover of government, still taking an interest and keeping an eye on what's happening in Fiji and challenging the propaganda of the Bainimarama regime - when the mainstream Fiji media has mostly gone into hibernation .
Democracy is incomplete, if not absent, when the media abdicates its watch dog civic duty.
Remember, " Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence" ( Leonardo da Vinci ) and that's precisely what the Bainimarama gang in government has been seeking to do ever since its conspiratorial grab of power.
That's where Fijileaks and other social media come in to fill the Fourth Estate gap in Fiji.

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Welcome Home
14/6/2016 08:12:08 am

The anti-thesis is very relevant. What is done 'pro bono' must be verifiable and what is more,looking ahead, it will be the only escape for some. Even the Charter Exercise was littered with per diems. Few questioned the validity of their per diem receipts. Or were happy to oblige? Interpreting in the High Court in a noteworthy cocaine trafficking case at request of Judge Kishore Govind had to be done pro bono since there were no funds available for remuneration. The Chartered Institute of Linguists has a tariff! However the 'mule' - a grandmother BTW was eventually incarcerated for eight years. She spoke not a word of English but should be fluent in all vernacular languages by now. Who is paid WHAT for WHAT ? "To be or not to be? That is the question. Whether tis nobler ....... etc, etc, et cetera.

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Aaraam Se link
14/6/2016 08:20:19 am

"It is a paradox that every dictator has climbed to power on the ladder of free speech.Immediately on attaining power each dictator has surpassed all free speech except his own" Herbert Hoover.....Fijian PM is a step further.He knows he can effectively control Fijian Journos,by intimidating,victimizing,harassing , beating,having them locked up etc.But to effectively control foreign Journalists could be difficult.So ,simple -ban them,black list them.When they are not here,they can not confront him with questions like and on:A) Auditor General's report.B)In two years removing two chiefs(MPs) from the Opposition and further weakening the Opposition.C) Amending the Standing Orders to remove another Opposition MP from the Chair of PAC.D)Why FBC is allowed to operate despite being Bankrupt.E) Keeping developments out in chief's provinces if they do not cooperate with his regime.F)Only Opposition political opponents/Academics (Wadan and Brij La) are being targeted and the list goes on and on.The PM and his AG shall be rattled with questions of nepotism,the foreign media has the potential to rip these two apart (metaphor) .They (MP n AG) want a fair play on an uneven platform,that is not possible hence the ban,folks.These two have in actual fact started a very dangerous situation for both the people of Fiji and the parliament....dictators free themselves,but they enslave us.....

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Marika link
15/6/2016 04:10:24 am

He always do that, he is very good at doing it, he loves doing it. LIE, LIE, DISTORT, DISTORT.. etc.

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