MICK BEDDOES ON TIKODUADUA: 'Another rewarded for Wrong Doing'

11/6/2017

As a concerned citizen, I wish to express my strong opposition to the continuing trend of politically rewarding coup-makers and accomplices.

The latest example is the election today [3 June] of Pio Tikoduadua as the president of the National Federation Party. I know Pio personally and I have many friends in the NFP, so it gives me no pleasure saying this, but I feel it must be said.

Mr Tikoduadua is a former close military government colleague of 2006 coup leader Voreqe Bainimarama and went on to become his aider and abettor as a Cabinet member in the Fiji First government.

So we now have three political party leaders who have yet to be held to account for their capital crimes against the people. They continue to hide behind the immunity provisions of Chapter 10 of the current constitution.

Yet the other coup leader George Speight, who committed the same crime as the three evaders of justice, is still serving a life sentence.

Where is the equality, fairness and justice in all this?

The excuse by the NFP that Mr Tikoduadua was overseas when Bainimarama committed his act of treason is not credible. Mr Tikoduadua came back and decided to fully participate in what Bainimarama had done. Other military officers had resigned in protest. Mr Tikoduadua could have done the honorable thing and resigned as well. But he did not.

Instead he chose to be part of the Bainimarama takeover and was well rewarded for that.

As long as we the people are stupid enough to keep rewarding these wrongdoers, we will always be cursed with coups. Our dysfunctional behavior gives future potential coup instigators a form of incentive to follow the same course which has done so much damage to our country.

They know they can commit a capital crime, get immunity for it, then seek to reach the highest offices in the land, while enriching themselves along the way.

"So we now have three political party leaders who have yet to be held to account for their capital crimes against the people. They continue to hide behind the immunity provisions of Chapter 10 of the current constitution" -
Mick Beddoes

"This [2006] coup is different because the Qarase Government was so awful...Fiji could not have survived another five years." - Bainimarama's Interim Finance Minister Mahendra Chaudhry to US ambassador Larry Dinger

REMORSELESS RABUKA ON BAVADRA'S DEATH: 'On 3 November [1989] Dr Bavadra died after a long battle with cancer. Rabuka's reaction, he recalls, was to FEEL GOOD that his enemy was gone, for a major obstacle had been removed by his death. Bavadra's death confirmed for Rabuka the rightness of his action in May 1987' -
John Sharpham, Rabuka of Fiji, The authorised biography of
Major-General Sitiveni Rabuka

9 Comments

Ratu

11/6/2017 10:11:44 pm

"The true political leader does not need the people. The people need the true political leader", This coming election will prove the truth of the dictum coined by Andreas Papendreuos, former Prime Ministet of Greece.
Rabuka's 1987 coup created a schism in Fiji, a split between the past and the future where the Military, not civil society, became the most powerful institution in Fiji. Bainimarama removed the Council of Chiefs, weakened the trade unions and the churchleaving the military unchallenged as the ore-eminent institution which then provides legitimacy in the eyes of the people for inferior products of the system like Bainimarama, Rabuka, Teleni, Aziz, Naivalurua and to some extent Pio who happens to be the most intelligent, articulate and humble of a very low quality bunch. On this basis it's best for voters to backPio and Biman and demand as a condition that he clips the military's wings and put them back in the barracks where they belong.

Welcome Home

12/6/2017 01:08:40 am

The equation is quite simple: IMMUNITY = IMPUNITY. No self-respecting human being can subscribe to a 'Culture of Scot-free'. All who try are colluders and co-conspirators in serial and serious criminal enterprise. Therefore the murdered, the raped, the sexually-assaulted and violated, "The Disappeared"(by their own hands or by those of others - who know full well who they are) remain unavenged, unmourned and cry out for Justice. The beneficiaries of heinous and criminal acts are quite cognisant of who they are. The ICC Hague Tribunal awaits indefinitely such perpetrators as eye witness and other evidence mounts. There can be no rest and no ultimate escape from repeated follies and abuses of power and privilege. To claim ignorance of such deeds is the Ultimate Insult to the dead and bereaved. Negligence/incompetence will be insufficient pleas.

Welcome Home

12/6/2017 03:33:10 am

What measure of responsibility do these initiators, instigators and executors of Fiji's multiple coups d'état and resultant iniquitous social dysfunction consider devolves upon them as individuals? Do they reflect upon their contribution towards the19 Primary School pregnancies recorded in 2016? Has the violence unleashed in so many Fiji homes and schools since 1987, 2000 and 2006 impinged upon their imagination - if they have one let alone their conscience? Add to the primary school pregnancies the statistics for suicide, attempted suicide and self-harm, the drownings and children injured and killed on the roads. Do they sleep at night?

Rajend Naidu

12/6/2017 06:00:34 am

Editor,
Explaining The Coup Culture
We read the following in Dr Nicholas Farrelly's paper ' Why democracy struggles : Thailands elite coup culture' in new mandala 2/12/2013 :
"...the long history of coups will continue to shape Thailand's political culture and the behaviour of its elite actors.
At moments when democratic institutions are put under pressure, there is a chance that new compromises could emerge, and respect for electoral mandates might follow. The alternative is that the Thai military, and perhaps the palace, may never be prepared to accept any diminished status. The risk of smaller budgets, political marginalisation and less prestige could prove too much to bear. That could mean continued justification for occasional coups - and that new generations will become acculturated to military interventionism in a system where elite decision-makers have only hazardly embraced the democratic ideal..."
Although Fiji does not have as long a history and tradition of coups as Thailand, the insights Dr Farrelly offers are quite instructive for the situation prevailing in Fiji. The coup culture has common tendencies regardless of the country specific setting.
People familiar with Fiji's post coup politics will not fail to notice the parallels with " Thailand's elite coup culture".
Sincerely,
Rajend Naidu

Kym

12/6/2017 06:37:53 am

Mick is hardly a "concerned citizen" - he's a political operative - for SODELPA recently, and now his proposed HOPE party. He loses credibility when he tries to rubbish others not for the sake of the country's interest, but to advance his own political ambitions.

Sa sivia na Butako

12/6/2017 04:03:42 pm

Agree.

Richard Wah

12/6/2017 10:24:27 am

Change can only come from inside ... Change from outside would tend to use force or is very slow

Rajend Naidu

14/6/2017 08:00:52 am

When Dr Bavadra died thousands of ordinary fellow Fijian citizens of all races converged spontaneously to his home village in Veseisei to pay their respect to a decent man, a man of integrity and honour. Fiji has not seen the likes of such an adored and respected political leader ever since.
Now it's mostly self-serving, arrogant scoundrels in political leadership in Fiji.
And, that's a real shame when you consider the same country had a leader of Dr Bavadra's intellect, calibre and temperament.

Rajend Naidu

14/6/2017 01:11:40 pm

Editor,
Humanity's madness : What We Admire And Reward.
We learn from Yahoo Sport 15/6 ' Date set for Mayweather - McGregor super fight ' that it's a fight " which could pay each man in excess of $100 million".
Why? What for?
Medical scientist dedicate their entire life to researching for cures/ remedies for intractable diseases to benefit humanity and they get peanuts by comparision.
And we claim we are homo sapien - " wise man ".
Nothing wise about rewarding a man in excess of $100 million to throw punches at another man in a bread and circus show.
Sincerely,
Rajend Naidu

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