Blog Posts

HOLD ON, Just PHONE RABUKA and he will FIX IT. A very DANGEROUS pattern is being set in motion where Businessmen and Companies are just picking up phones to get STOP WORK ORDERS lifted against THEM

17/1/2023

In Dayals Steel Pte Ltd case, residents are complaining that they can't sleep in the night. The black smoke is causing unreasonable interference with the comfortable enjoyment of life and property.
Strangely, LENORA QEREQERETABUA, Rabuka's new Cabinet minister and Deputy Speaker, is no where to be seen near Dayal's Steel company. In 2021, she was running around in her famous T-Shirt in Lami, protesting against cement dust and clink emitted by Tengy, the Chinese cement factory.

BLACK Smoke billowing from Dayals Steel Pte Ltd

We wonder if there was an appeal process against the Environment Department decision. Jay Dayal: 'I did request the PM's Office to intervene as we felt we were treated unfairly, the PN was too harsh for a very small number of non-compliances especially when there was absolutely no evidence of any material or physical damage to our environment.'
*But residents are complaining that they can't sleep in the night. The black smoke is causing unreasonable interference with the comfortable enjoyment of life and property.
The DAYALS with Rabuka's Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister.

HANG ON, I WILL ASK RABUKA TO LIFT STOP WORK ORDER AT LAUCALA ISLAND AIRPORT: CABINET MINISTER MANOA KAMIKAMICA.
He hasn't REVEALED to us why work was stopped by FFP government
*The Minister says when they got into office, they got a call from Laucala, where they were issued with a stop order from September, with absolutely no explanation on why the stop order was issued. He says thanks to Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka and Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Tourism and Civil Aviation Viliame Gavoka, they released a stop order on Monday, and now Laucala is back to constructing a hanger that is worth about $30 million, and they have already spent $9 million

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for External Trade, Cooperatives and SMEs, Manoa Kamikamica, say they have removed the stop order for the construction of a $30 million hangar for Laucala Island on Monday as it was causing concern to investors.

Kamikamica highlighted this while delivering his address during the Fijian Competition and Consumer Commission's Knowledge Economy Lecture PART 2 - New Approaches to Economic Progress Panel discussion at the Grand Pacific Hotel. He says he has noticed that there are still several bottlenecks where investors face multiple bottlenecks that discourage new investments and re-investment activities in Fiji.

He adds that this is hindering major investment projects, and there is a need to harmonise and streamline processes to remove bottlenecks. The Minister says when they got into office, they got a call from Laucala, where they were issued with a stop order from September, with absolutely no explanation on why the stop order was issued.

He says thanks to Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka and Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Tourism and Civil Aviation Viliame Gavoka, they released a stop order on Monday, and now Laucala is back to constructing a hanger that is worth about $30 million, and they have already spent $9 million. Fijivillage.

From Fijileaks Archive, 15 April 2021

In 2001, the democracy activist JONE DAKUVULA had claimed that Rabuka's cousin and the then General Manager of NLTB, MAIKA QARIKAU, owned a 2,000 acre property - Yalave Estate in the same area as Rabuka. Dakuvula wrote: "One of the advantages of working for the NLTB is that you have the information first hand and can make choices like this...I wondered how Rabuka was managing in his loan repayments to his Bankers."

“I have never seen that Chinese, the agent that brought him in said he was a livestock breeder in Brisbane, so I thought he was an Australian.”
In July 2018 he revealed that he had sold his 2000 acre plus Valavala Estate. The revelation had come in the wake of an interview with 60 Minutes television programme, which reported that Rabuka was angered by the growing Chinese influence in Fiji. In 1987, he was happy to welcome Chinese farmers and businessmen into Fiji to replace the Indo-Fijians. They were to come from mainland China and Hong Kong. 'The Chinese would be the best substitute. They are hard workers and have no political ambitions,' he said. What about the Indo-Fijians? 'As far as I am concerned Indians (Indo-Fijians) are welcome to stay and make as much money as they like.' Now, when the 'Indians' have made their money and have donated millions to FFP, he has run to FICAC

RABUKA'S proxy TIKODUADUA must be sacked and told to GO and read Military's role in Constitution. His boss Rabuka has a history of using his proxies to achieve his racial, military, political ambitions. Its in his DNA.

17/1/2023

Like the way Sitiveni Rabuka was hiding himself under the snooker table when the 3rd FIR Battallion stormed the Officers’ Mess during the November mutiny in 2000. The Battalion Commander, Colonel Seruvakula, while the current Commander Ratu Jone Kalouniwai was held hostage and blood was flowing through the barracks, marched right onto the spot where Rabuka was hiding under the table, saluted and shouted “Sir, come out from there now, go into your vehicle and drive straight out of the camp". As he surfaced, Col Seruvakula again saluted and motioned him to his vehicle parked outside with his old Commander’s uniform still hanging from the rear seat window.

*During the recent general election, Rabuka wanted Commander Kalouniwai to exercise his powers under Section 131 (2) of the 2013 Constitution and stop the counting of votes, claiming serious irregularities in the counting process that had put the legitimacy of the polls in doubt.
Sitiveni Rabuka was backed by other political leaders.

Army Commander, Major General Jone Kalouniwai says the Republic of Fiji Military Forces is raising its concerns with regards to the sweeping changes of the current government to establish a firm transition of power and democratic control as the government of the day.

Major General Kalouniwai says the RFMF has quietly observed with growing concern over the last few days, the ambition and speed of the government in implementing these sweeping changes are creating shortcuts that circumvent the relevant processes and procedures that protect the integrity of the law and the Constitution.

The Army Commander says whilst the RFMF recognizes the justifications by the current government to establish these changes, the RFMF believes that trying and failing to democratize in adverse circumstances has the potential to bring about fateful, long-term national security consequences.

He says the RFMF is concerned, whether these rapid changes are being pursued without a full understanding of the process and procedures or intentionally done to challenge the integrity of the Law and the Constitution of this land.

Major General Kalouniwai says whatever the reasons may be, the RFMF feels that such actions and decisions is putting at risk the very nature of the Law and the separation of powers that clearly demarcate the independence of the three arms of government.

He says given that Fiji is a very new democracy and given our unfortunate past experience of governments exceeding or attempting to exceed its powers, section 131 of the Constitution ensures that the RFMF plays a guardian role where the excesses of the past are not repeated and any new assaults on our emerging democracy are not tolerated.

The Commander says this provision is also in place to ensure that the values and principles of democracy including the checks and balances enshrined in the Constitution are not undermined.

The RFMF firmly believes that the separation of powers between the executive and the judicial arms of the state must be respected.

He says it must be important to understand and appreciate that a strong rule of law is built on respect for and adherence to a clear separation of powers between the executive, the legislature and the judiciary. Source: Fijivllage

GET OUT OF 2006. Fijileaks to Pio Tikoduadua. White-washing the 1987 coups started by your BOOT BOY Sitiveni Rabuka is the root of all COUPs in Fiji. Its rank hypocrisy to lecture Commander Kalouniwai, for Rabuka is still hiding behind the IMMUNITY he obtained by the GUN.
The Coalition is hell-bent on changing the 2013 Constitution and REMOVE the role of the MILITARY in that Constitution but it must follow the process as stipulated in the Constitution.

From Fijileaks Archive, 12 January 2023

From Fijileaks Archive, 14 February 2022

STARTING SHOT: Rabuka and his PROXIES (Tikoduadua) must read between the lines Commander Jone Kalouniwai's statement.
Fiji has a history of COUPS, started by SITIVENI RABUKA

Founder of the journalist fellowship programme has died

The founder of the fellowship programme which has brought hundreds of journalists from around the world to the University of Oxford has died at the age of 93. Neville Maxwell oversaw the programme for its first 10 years, initially awarding two fellowships to journalists in 1983 through the Institute of Commonwealth Studies.

Fijileaks: Our Founding Editor-in-Chief and former Senior Sub-Editor cum Investigative Reporter on the original Fiji Sun was one of the two first journalists from throughout the Third World to be selected for the prestigious Reuters News Agency study scholarship to Oxford. His book, in which he foresaw the 1987 coups, was with the publishers, waiting to be released when Rabuka seized power on 14 May 1987. The book had to be re-written with additional chapters and re-titled Fiji: Coups in Paradise. Race, Politics and Military Intervention.

The book was written under the academic supervision of Dr (later Sir) David Butler at Nuffield College, Oxford. Sir David, who died in Oxford last October at the age of 98, was the principal adviser to the late Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara, the Allaince Party, and on the drafting of the 1970 Constitution of Fiji that Rabuka abrogated in 1970 to fulfil the aims of his two racially motivated coups in 1987.

The late Neville Maxwell (1926 – 23 September 2019) RIP>

Neville Maxwell, was author of the well-researched and widely read book,
India’s China War, 1970.
He had an academically fulfilling career. In 1971, his controversial book played a key role in bringing about a historic meeting between US President Richard Nixon and China’s Chairman Mao.

In 1959, Maxwell was posted to New Delhi as the South Asia correspondent. In the next eight years, he traveled from Kabul to East Pakistan and Kathmandu to Ceylon, reporting on the end of the Nehru era in India and the post-Nehru developments. During the 1962 Sino-Indian War, Maxwell wrote for The Times from New Delhi and was the only reporter there who did not uncritically accept the official Indian account of events.

This eventually led to his "virtual expulsion" from India.[

'I felt that the 1970 Constitution was right and I had consulted a constitutional expert, David Butler by name, and his opinion was that the Constitution is right and [if] the Fijians stay united, we should still have power for a long time.'
Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara on the abrogation of the 1970 Constitution shortly after the Rabuka coups.
50 YEARS AGO, Fijileaks Editor: "One of these days I will reveal all the correspondence made available to me between the late President Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara and my former academic supervisor at Oxford, Sir David Butler, on race, ethnicity, chiefs, party politics, and constitutionalism in Fiji."

Sir David Butler, pioneering election analyst, dies aged 98
And he developed a theory: that the number of seats a party won in a general election was proportional to the cube of the votes it received. It wasn't exactly a page turner, but he got the Economist to publish it. Out of the blue, he was summoned by Churchill. Butler hastened to Chartwell - where the great man emerged, glowing pink from his bath.
Sir Winston had read the article - but swiftly tired of discussing its complexities. Instead, he delivered a long, private masterclass on the art of wartime leadership. "You're 25? You'd better hurry up, young man," he told an awed Butler. "Napoleon was 26 when he crossed the bridge at Lodi." See Obituary below:
Sir David Butler, pioneering election analyst, dies aged 98 - BBC News

RESIGN, PARMESH CHAND. THE PAP loser candidate's appointment is unprecedented and highly irregular. PSC has to first sit, and approve his appointment but that happens only after due process is COMPLETED

15/1/2023

We assert that no such acting appointment can be made even on a temporary basis. His appointment is unprecedented. The only other legitimate way he could be appointed is by way of an 'Adviser or Consultant' but not as Permanent Secretary by Sitiveni Rabuka.

In Chand's case, he is disqualified from being considered as an applicant for a permanent appointment in the public service (and especially as a Permanent Secretary of the Public Service) for anyone who is a failed candidate in any national elections.
*That is why it is mandatory for all civil servants to resign from the civil service if or should they offer themselves as candidates for national elections either standing for a political party or as an independent. This is based on the principle that civil servants must be politically neutral and independent at all times.

GO BACK TO YOUR LECTURE NOTES, PARMESH CHAND:
We are shocked that after he resigned from the PSC, he learnt nothing as the Director of Pacific Islands Centre for Public Administration. He is also credited as having led the design and change management of a number of major public sector reform programs.

July 2008:

“He came to see me this morning and tendered his resignation which is being considered..He did not give any reason for his resignation which has been handed to the permanent secretary for processing," said PSC permanent secretary Taina Tagicakibau
"At the moment we’ll be looking at the appointment of someone from within (the interim PM’s office) to act in his (Mr Chand’s) place,” said PSC Rishi Ram.

Fijileaks: Like 15 years ago, the recent Acting appointment of Chand should have come from within the Ministry.
In other words, there should have been an advertisement and consideration and approval by the PSC then police clearance before final endorsement by Sitiveni Rabuka.
Here they are obviously trying to push the cart before the horse which is unprecedented. Why don’t they simply maintain Susan Kiran to continue to act as Secretary PSC and Secretary to Cabinet (for next 30 days or so or assign another incumbent PS from another Ministry to act at PSC) until due process has been completed in the case of Chand's application?
In Chand's case, he is disqualified from being considered as an applicant for a permanent appointment in the public service (and especially as a Permanent Secretary of the Public Service) for anyone who is a failed candidate in any national elections.
That is why it is mandatory for all civil servants to resign from the civil service if or should they offer themselves as candidates for national elections either standing for a political party or as an independent. This is based on the principle that civil servants must be politically neutral and independent at all times.

"An acting appointment can only be made to those already holding substantive appointments or posts and are required to carry out partially or fully the duties and functions of the higher post in a department or ministry of the Public Service."

SILENT AS A LAMB (CHOP)
We reminded Fijians recently that once Rabuka has sucked NFP/SODELPA into a Coalition, he will be able to ride roughshod over them, for if they revolt and the Coalition collapses, Prasad and Gavoka, with their Cabinet ministers are in the wild. Its over 50 years and still the NFP, boasting its the oldest party in Fiji, has only 5 seats, and its leader less than 12,000 Votes

But the long standing tradition of the public service from colonial days to post independence to be politically neutral and independent at all times, was grossly abused and incinerated by the FFP government when it approved FFP’s failed 2014 election candidate, Commander Viliame Naupoto, to be appointed as Commander of the RFMF for two terms during which time he had, with PM Bainimarama’s aggressive connivance, totally destroyed the political neutrality and independence of our Royal Fiji Military Forces.

It is therefore quite obvious that the Prime Minister Rabuka of the new Coalition Government, faced perhaps by relentless public pressure to achieve his Government’s ambitious 100-Day Plan, has decided to borrow from FFG’s infamous doctrine of appointing one of his failed national election candidate to the highest Permanent Secretary appointment in the nation.

*This has never been done by previous Governments since independence.
HEIL TO SITIVENI RABUKA AND THE COALITION GOVERNMENT

CHIEF INJUSTICE and KAMAL KUMAR: During the constitutional redress hearing he ordered a police orderly to remove Makereta Waqavonovono out of "HIS" Court. In 2014, he conspired to bar her contesting election

14/1/2023

Fijileaks: Is the FFP general secretary Aiyaz Khaiyum now
'ordinarily resident' in Australia?

Kumar was very quick to rule against Waqavonovono from contesting the 2014 election but when it came to the legal challenge from 7 women for constitutional redress so they and over 100,000 other women could vote in the 2022 election, he sat on the judgment until the election was over

From Fijileaks Archive, 1 August 2014;
Re Makereta Waqavonovono v Electoral Commission
and the Supervisor of Elections.

Fijileaks: It was perfectly acceptable for Khaiyum to undergo 'enema' at the Suva Private Hospital to relieve him from a week-long constipation but his courts must remain 'judicially constipated' until general election

Just see how the Chief Justice Anthony Gates colludes with regime to change decree at the eleventh hour to bar Waqavonovono from poll:

KARMA IS A BITCH: And guess who was behind the drafting of the Decree, and the lawyer who argued before Kamal Kumar to prevent Waqavonovono from contesting the election - YES, Sharvada SHARMA.
This man drafted most of the highly oppressive decrees for Khaiyum. It is ridiculous to defend him by arguing that he was simply doing his job. No, he had the choice to resign and walk away. We were told recently that Munro Leys were planning to HIRE him after he got the boot as Solicitor-General after Kamal Kumar snitched him to Bainimarama and Khaiyum.
Kamal Kumar's judgment against Makereta Waqavonovono:

IN THE HIGH COURT OF FIJI AT SUVA
CIVIL JURISDICTION

Civil Action No. HBM 92 of 2014

IN THE MATTER of the Constitution of the Republic of Fiji

AND

IN THE MATTER Section 23, 26 & 56 of the Constitution of the Republic of Fiji.

AND

IN THE MATTER of Section 23 of the Electoral Decree 2014

AND

AND THE HIGH COURT (Constitutional Redress) Rules 1998

BETWEEN:

MAKERETA WAQAVONOVONO
Plaintiff

AND:

CHAIRPERSON OF FIJIAN ELECTORAL COMMISSION
First Defendant

AND:

SUPERVISOR OF ELECTIONS
Second Defendant

AND:

ATTORNEY GENERAL OF FIJI & MINISTER FOR ELECTIONS
Third Defendant

BEFORE: Hon. Justice Kamal Kumar

COUNSEL: Plaintiff in Person
Mr. S. N. Sharma and Mr. N. Chand for the 2nd and 3rd Defendants

DATE OF HEARING: 28 July 2014
DATE OF RULING: 1 August 2014

RULING

1.0 Introduction

1.1 On 11 July 2014 the Plaintiff filed Notice of Originating Motion pursuant to Section 44 of the Constitution of the Republic of the Fiji Islands (2013) upon grounds contained in Plaintiff's Affidavit sworn on 10 July 2014 seeking following relief:

1. A declaration that the definition of 'ordinarily resident in Fiji' and 'a person that has been out of Fiji for official Government business or duties' provided in section 23(5) of the Electoral Decree 2014 is invalid because it unlawfully discriminates against the political rights of citizens and infringes on their right to a fair and free election because it restricts their options and they will not be able to vote for the candidate of their choice under section 23 (2) of the Constitution.

2. A declaration that the definition of 'ordinary resident in Fiji' and 'a person that has been out of Fiji of official Government business or duties' provided under section 23(5) of the Electoral Decree 2014 is invalid because it unlawfully discriminates against the Plaintiff and infringes on her political right to be a candidate for the public office guaranteed by section 23 (3) (c) of the Constitution.

3. A declaration that the definition of 'ordinary resident in Fiji' and 'a person that has been out of Fiji for official Government business or duties' under section 23 (5) of the Electoral Decree 2014 is invalid because it unlawfully discriminates against the Plaintiff and infringes on her right to equality before the law and right to equal protection, treatment and benefit of the law under section 26 of the Constitution.

4. An injunction restraining the First Defendant and the Third Defendant, whether by themselves, their subordinate officers, servants or agents or otherwise howsoever, from interfering with the Plaintiff's right to be a candidate in the 2014 General Elections in the Republic of the Fiji Island.

5. An order that the Defendants pay the Plaintiff's costs on full indemnity basis.

6. Such further or other relief as shall be just."

1.2 Notice of Motion was listed to be called on 22 July 2014, when Plaintiff was represented by her Counsel and Second and Third Defendants were represented by their Counsel.

1.3 On 22 July 2014 Counsel for Second and Third Defendants raised the issues that this Court does not have jurisdiction in respect to matters raised in the Notice of Originating Motion and also that this Court cannot usurp the powers of the Electoral Commission and nor can it grant injunction against the State.

1.4 Leading Counsel for the Plaintiff sought an early hearing date as a matter of urgency.

1.5 This Court in view of the nature of the subject matter gave following directions:

(i) Defendants are at liberty to file and serve Affidavit in Opposition to the Notice of Originating Motion by 24 July 2014.

(ii) Second and Third Defendants to file and serve Application to strike out Action by 23 July 2014.

(iii) Plaintiff is at liberty to file and serve Affidavit in Reply by 25 July 2014.

(iv) Hearing on preliminary issue on Jurisdiction, Striking Out Application and Notice of Originating Motion dated 10 July 2014 be adjourned to 28 July 2014 at 10.00am.

1.6 Parties were also directed to file their submissions on date of hearing.

1.7 On 24 July 2014, Second and Third Defendants filed and served Summon to Strike Out Notice of Originating Motion and Affidavit in Response to Plaintiff's Affidavit in Support.

1.8 On 25 July 2014, Plaintiff attempted to file Amended Notice of Originating Motion and Supplementary Affidavit when I directed the Registry to inform the Plaintiff that she will need to obtain leave of this Court prior to filing of such documents.

1.9 On 28 July 2014, Plaintiff by her Counsel made Oral Application to Amend Notice of Originating Motion and handed in a copy of the Amended Notice of Originating Motion dated 25 July 2014.

1.10 Proposed Amend Notice of Originating Motion seeks following relief:

"1. A declaration that on the proper meaning and application of the phrase 'ordinary resident' in section 23(4)(c) of the Electoral Decree 2014 includes Fiji citizens who are temporarily absent from Fiji for brief periods whether for non-government business or other activities;

2. A declaration that on the proper meaning and application of the phrase 'ordinary resident' in section 56 (2) (c) of the Constitution includes Fiji citizens who are temporarily absent from Fiji for brief periods whether for non-government business or other activities;

3. A declaration that the phrase 'on government business or duties' in section 23(5) of the Electoral Decree 2014 as applied to those prospective candidates deemed to be ordinarily resident in Fiji unlawfully discriminates against those individuals who are temporarily absent from Fiji on non-government business or other activities and therefore infringes on the Plaintiff's constitutional and political right to be a candidate for public office as guaranteed by section 23 of the Constitution;

4. A declaration that the phrase 'on government business or duties' in section 23 (5) of the Electoral Decree 2014 as applied to those prospective candidates deemed to be ordinarily resident in Fiji unlawfully discriminates against those individuals who are temporarily absent from Fiji on business or other activities and therefore unlawfully discriminates against the Plaintiff on grounds of her personal circumstances and infringes on her right to equality before the law and right to equal protection treatment and benefit of the law under section 26 of the Constitution;

5. A declaration that the Plaintiff is entitled (or qualified) to be a candidate in the general elections scheduled for 17 September 2014 under the provisions of section 23 of the Electoral Decree 2014 and section 56 of the Constitution."

1.11 Application to amend Notice of Originating Motion was opposed by the Second and Third Defendants.

1.12 At the close of submissions Plaintiff's Counsel informed the Court that Plaintiff does not challenge the Constitutional validity of the provisions of the Electoral Decree 2014 (Decree No. 11 of 2014) but wants the Court to define the term "Ordinary Resident in Fiji for at least 2 years immediately before being nominated" in Section 23 (4) (c) of the Electoral Decree 2014.

2.0 Background Facts

2.1 Electoral Decree 2014 (Decree No 11 of 2014) commenced on 28 March 2014, being date of publication in the Government of Fiji Gazette.

2.2 Section 23 of the Electoral Decree provides as follows:

"23 - (1) A person is not eligible to be elected as a member of Parliament unless duly nominated as a candidate in the election.

(2) A candidate for election to Parliament may be nominated by a registered political party or nominated as an independent candidate in accordance with the procedures prescribed in this Decree.

(3) A person is not eligible to be nominated as a candidate unless he or she is a registered voter, and a person who has been disqualified from voting by an order of a court under section 151 shall for this purpose be regarded as not registered to vote.

(4) A person is eligible to be nominated as a candidate for election to Parliament only if person -

(a) is a citizen of Fiji, and does not hold citizenship of any other country;

(b) is registered in the Register of Voters;

(c) is ordinarily resident in Fiji for at least 2 years immediately before being nominated;

(d) is not an undischarged bankrupt;

(e) is not a member of the Electoral Commission, and has not been a member of that Commission at any time during the 4 years immediately before being nominated.

(f) is not subject to a sentence of imprisonment when nominated.

(g) has not, at any time during the 8 years immediately before being nominated, been convicted of any offence under any law for which the maximum penalty is a term of imprisonment of 12 months or more; and

(h) has not been guilty of any offence under a law relating to elections, registration of political parties or registration of voters, including any offence prescribed under this Decree.

(5) For the purposes of subsection (4) (c), a person is deemed to be ordinarily resident in Fiji if that person has been out of Fiji for official Government business or duties or has been holding an official Government position in any other country." (emphasis added).

2.3 On 14 May 2014 National Federation Party wrote to the Chairman of Electoral Commission seeking an "interpretation from the Commission on the definition of "Ordinarily Resident" for the purposes of candidacy for the 2014 General Elections."

2.4 On 19 May 2014 Electoral Commission responded to aforesaid letter advising that "it is not for the Commission to give legal opinion to political parties or to interpret - statutory words on hypothetical basis.

2.5 On 9 June 2014, Plaintiff wrote to the Chairperson of Electoral Commission raising her concern regarding Section 23 (4) (c) of the Electoral Decree 2014.

2.6 On 11 June 2014 the Electoral Commission wrote to the Plaintiff advising her that her letter has been referred to Solicitor General and Supervisor of Elections.

2.7 On 23 June 2014 Plaintiff wrote to the Chairperson stating that she has not heard from Solicitor General's Office, raising her concern as to why letter was sent to Solicitor General and advising of her intention to take the matter further.

3.0 Application to Amend Notice of Originating Motion

3.1 Leading Counsel for the Second and Third Defendants submitted that this Court cannot allow Amendment of the Notice of Originating Motion prior to determining the jurisdiction.

3.2 In Ex-parte McCardle 74 U.S (7 walls) 506 (1868) the Chief Justice of Supreme Court of United States stated as follows:

"Without jurisdiction the Court cannot proceed at all in any cause. Jurisdiction is power to declare the law, and when it ceases to exist, the only function remaining to the court is that of announcing the fact and dismissing the cause. And this is not less clear upon authority than upon principle."

In Ex-parte McCardle the congress enacted an Act granting several Court of the United States power to grant to writ of habeas corpus in all cases where persons liberty is restrained in violation of the Constitution. Final decision of any Court inferior to Circuit Court, may be appealed to Circuit Court of the United States of the District and from Judgment of the Circuit Court to the Supreme Court of the United States.

Petitioner was held by military for trial before a military commission who caused writ of habeas corpus to be issued and upon hearing the petitioner, he was held in military custody. Petitioner appealed to Supreme Court and whilst the appeal was pending congress amended the above Act to remove the right to appeal to Supreme Court. Supreme Court of United State dismissed the appeal for want of jurisdiction.

3.3 It is well established that if the Court does not have jurisdiction to grant relief sought then the matter ends at that point.

3.4 In Padarath & Anor v. His Excellency the President of Fiji & Ors [2013] FJHC 116; HBC 33 of 2013 (14 March 2013) her Ladyship Justice Wati stated as follows:

"Whether the Court has powers to consider any proposed application for leave to amend the originating summons or give directions to the registry to accept the amended originating summons the Court must first establish that it has jurisdiction on the existing substantive cause. If the Court does not have any jurisdiction to hear the substantive cause, it cannot hear any oral or formal application for leave to amend. Hearing the application for leave to amend or giving directions for filing of amended process will tantamount to exercising of jurisdiction. It was therefore prudent that the preliminary issues on jurisdiction be heard and determined."

3.5 In Padarath's case the Plaintiff sought an injunction against Registrar of Political Parties from de-registering Fiji Labour Party under the Political Parties (Registration, Conduct and Disclosure Decree 2013). At the date of hearing of the Application for injunction Counsel for the Plaintiffs informed the Court that Plaintiffs intend to amend their Application and that Application to Amend has been filed in Court Registry.

At that point in time Counsel for the Defendants raised the issue that Court has to first decide the preliminary issue of jurisdiction and if Court holds that, it does not have jurisdiction to grant relief in the Original Application then it cannot allow the Amendment.

3.6 It is therefore imperative that this Court will first need to determine as to whether it has jurisdiction to grant relief sought in Notice of Originating Motion dated 10 July 2014, and if this Court finds that it does not have jurisdiction to grant relief sought in the said Notice of Originating Motion then it cannot deal with Amendment Application.

4.0 Jurisdiction

4.1 Leading Counsel for the Second and Third Defendant's submitted that pursuant to Section 173(4) of 2013 Constitution and Sections 5(3), (4), (5), (6) and (7) of the Administration of Justice Decree 2009 this Court does not have jurisdiction to deal with the unconstitutionality and unlawfulness of the provisions of the Electoral Decree 2014.

4.2 Section 173 of the 2013 Constitution provides as follows:

"(4) Notwithstanding anything contained in this Constitution, no court or tribunal (including any court or tribunal established or continued in existence by the Constitution) shall have the jurisdiction to accept, hear, determine, or in any other way entertain, or to grant any order, relief or remedy, in any proceedings of any nature whatsoever which seeks or purports to challenge or question:

(a) the validity or legality of any Promulgation, Decree or Declaration, and any subordinate laws made under any such Promulgation, Decree or Declaration (including any provision of any such laws), made or as may be made between 5 December 2006 until the first sitting of the first Parliament under this Constitution;

(b) the constitutionality of any Promulgation, Decree or Declaration, and any subordinate laws made under any such Promulgation, Decree or Declaration (including any provision of any such laws), made or as may be made between 5 December 2006 until the first sitting of the first Parliament under the Constitution;

(c ) any Promulgation, Decree or Declaration, and any subordinate laws made under any such Promulgation, Decree or Declaration (including any provision of any such laws), made or as may be made between 5 December 2006 until the first sitting of the first Parliament under this Constitution, for being inconsistent with any provision of this Constitution, including any provision of Chapter 2 of this Constitution; or

(d) any decision made or authorised, or any action taken, or any decision which may be made or authorised, or any action which may be taken, under any Promulgation, Decree or Declaration, and any subordinate laws made under any such Promulgation, Decree or Declaration (including any provision of any such laws), made or as any be made between 5 December 2006 until the first sitting of the first Parliament under this Constitution, except as may be provided in or authorised by any such Promulgation, Decree or Declaration (including any provision of any provision of any such laws), made or as may be made between 5 December 2006 until the first sitting of the first Parliament under this Constitution.

(5) Notwithstanding anything contained in this Constitution, despite the repeal of the Administration of Justice Decree 2009, subsections (3), (4), (5), (6) and (7) of Section 5 of the Administration of Justice Decree 2009 shall continue to apply to any Promulgation, Decree or Declaration (including any provision of any such laws), made or as may be made between 5 December 2006 until the first sitting of the first Parliament under this Constitution."

4.3 Section 5(3) to (7) of Administration of Justice Decree 2009 provides:

"5(3) Notwithstanding anything contained in this Decree or any other law, no court shall have the jurisdiction to accept, hear and determine any challenges whatsoever (including any application for judicial review) by any person to the Fiji Constitution Amendment Act 1997 Revocation Decree 2009 (Decree No. 1) and such other Decrees made or as may be made by the President.

(4) Notwithstanding anything contained in this Decree or any other law, no Court shall have the jurisdiction to accept, hear and determine, or in any other way entertain, any challenges whatsoever (including any application for judicial review) by any person to the validity or legality of any Decrees made by the President from 10 Aril 2009 and any Decrees as may be made by the President.

(5) Any proceedings of any form whatsoever, as well as any application of any form whatsoever in a proceeding, seeking to challenge the validity or legality of the Fiji Constitution Amendment Act 1997 Revocation Decree 2009 (Decree No. 1) or any other Decrees made by the President from 10 April 2009 or as may be by the President, shall wholly terminate immediately upon the commencement of this Decree, and a Certificate to that effect shall be is issued by the Chief Registrar to all parties to the proceedings.

(6) Where any proceeding of any form whatsoever, as well as any application of any form whatsoever in a proceeding, seeking to challenge the validity or legality of the Fiji Constitution Amendment Act 1997 Revocation Decree 2009 (Decree No. 1) or any other Decrees made by the President from 10 April 2009 or as may be made by the President, is brought or made before a judicial officer or a Tribunal, then the judicial officer or the Tribunal, without hearing or in any way determining the proceeding or the application as the case may be, shall immediately transfer the proceeding or the application to the Chief Registrar, for termination of the proceeding or the application and issuance of Certificate under subsection (5).

(7) In this section, 'judicial officer' includes Judge, Master of the High Court, Chief Magistrate and resident magistrate." (emphasis added)

4.4 Reliefs 1, 2 and 3 in the Notice of Originating Motion dated 10 July 2014 challenges the validity of provision of Section 23 (5) of the Electoral Decree 2014.

4.5 Provisions of Section 173 (4) of the Constitution and Section 5 (3) to (7) of Administration of Justice Decree ousts the Court jurisdiction to deal with any action challenging the validity of the provision of Electoral Decree. These provisions are drafted in very wide terms.

4.6 Relief 4 in Notice of Originating Motions seeks injunctions against the State and its officers which is specifically prohibited by Section 15(2) of Crown Proceedings Act which provides as follows:

"15(2) The Court shall not in any civil proceedings grant any injunction or make any order against an officer of the Crown if the effect of granting the injunction or making the order would be to give any relief against the Crown which could not have been obtained in proceedings against the Crown."

4.7 Fiji Court of Appeal in Bainimara v. Heffernan [2008] FJCA 78 Civil Appeal No. ABU0034 of 2007S stated as follows:-

"44. No Court will knowingly make an order beyond its power and any judge would need to be satisfied that he or she had the power before making an unusual or novel order.

45. However here there was no analysis by the trial judge of the submission by Dr. Cameron. The trial judge in his decision to grant the injunction did so knowing that it was only "arguable" that the Court had the power to do so and therefore that it was only "arguable" that the Court was not committing an illegal act.

46. This is a matter which ought to have tipped the balance beyond reason. At the very least the trial judge ought to have satisfied himself that it was more likely than not that the Act did not prevent him from ordering the injunction. He did not do this but took the risk in a case that could not justify such a risk, in a case where there seemed little urgency and where there was doubtful utility in granting the injunction.

47. In failing to properly take into account this highly relevant material consideration the trial judge made a serious error in the exercise of his discretion."

4.8 In any event this relief is a clear abuse of Court process in that there is not any frailest of evidence that the Defendants and/or its officers servants or agents or otherwise whosoever have in any way interfered with Plaintiff's right to seek nomination as a candidate.

4.9 At the close of submission on 28 July 2014, Plaintiff by her Counsel informed the Court that Plaintiff is not challenging the validity, lawfulness or Constitutionality of the Electoral Decree but moves the Court to define the phrase "Ordinary Resident" in Section 23(4)(c) of the Electoral Decree.

4.10 It must be noted that even though this court has unlimited original jurisdiction to hear and determine any civil or criminal proceeding under any law or matters arising under the Constitution or involving its interpretation as provided for in Section 100(3) and (4) of 2013 Constitution the jurisdiction to determine matters relating to election is special jurisdiction.

4.11 Jurisdiction/Power to determine the pre-election matters such as registration of voters, registration of political parties and nomination of candidate and so on are granted to Supervisor of Elections and Electoral Commission whereas jurisdiction to determine dispute post-election is granted to Court of Disputed Return which is the High Court of Fiji (Part 5 - Electoral Decree 2014).

4.12 In Prasad v. Singh [2002] FJHC 8:HBC 0 269 of 2011 (8 February 2002). His Lordship Justice Gates (as he then was) the current Chief Justice in dealing with post-election dispute stated as follows:

"It is clear the Court of Disputed Return exercise a special jurisdiction allowed by the Constitution and under the Electoral Act which legislation is in the nature of a code Osborne v, Shepherd [1981] 2 NSWLR 277 at p208G: Josefa Rusaqoli v. Attorney - General & Anor. (unreported) Suva High Court civil Action No. 0149 of 1994S; 6 June 1994 at p6."

4.13 No jurisdiction has been granted to this court in respect to pre-election matters.

4.14 The rationale for the special jurisdiction is that matters relating to pre-election issue and post-election issue must be determined expeditiously. (see Prasad v. Singh supra)

4.15 During the course of finalising this Ruling I was referred to Electoral (Amendment) (No. 2) Decree 2014 (Decree No. 26 of 2014) published in yesterday's Government of Fiji Gazette by Counsel for 2nd and 3rd Defendants which repealed subsection 5 of Section 23 of the Electoral Decree 2014 and substituted the following:-

"(5) For the purpose of subsection (4)(c), a person shall only qualify to be ordinarily resident in Fiji for at least 2 years immediately before being nominated, if that person has been present and living in Fiji for an aggregate period of not less than 18 months out of the 2 years immediately before being nominated."

Amendment Decree also inserted the following subsection after subsection (5):-

"(6) Notwithstanding anything contained in subsection (5), any person who has been out of Fiji for official Government business or duties or has been holding an official Government position in any other country, shall be deemed to be ordinarily resident in Fiji for the purposes of subsection (4)(c)."

4.16 Subsection 6 has the same effect as Subsection 5 in the Electoral Decree 2014 prior to the amendment and as such for all intent and purpose Plaintiff's Notice of Originating Motion is deemed to challenge subsection 6 of Section 23 of the Electoral Decree.

4.17 I hold that this Court does not have jurisdiction to deal with or grant the relief sought by the Plaintiff in the Notice of Originating Motion dated 10 July 2014.

4.18 It follows that this Court cannot therefore deal with Plaintiff's Oral Application to amend Notice of Originating Motion dated 10 July 2014.

4.19 If the Plaintiff and/or her legal advisors are of the view that this Court has jurisdiction to grant the relief in the Proposed Amended Notice of Motion then Plaintiff should seek such reliefs in a separate action and not by amending the motion in this proceedings.

5.0 Costs

5.1 Second and Third Defendants seeks costs on indemnity basis but has not made any submissions on to why indemnity costs should be awarded.

5.2 Even though the Plaintiff sought reliefs which could not be sustained or dealt with in light of the Section 173 of 2013 Constitution, Section 5 of Administration of Justice Decree 2009 and subsection 15(2) of the Crown Proceedings Act, I am inclined to award cost on party-party basis.

6.0 Conclusion

I make the following orders:

(i) Plaintiff's Notice of Motion dated 10 July 2014 and this action is dismissed and struck out for want of jurisdiction;

(ii) Plaintiff is to pay Second and Third Defendants costs jointly assessed in the sum of $3,000.00.

Kamal Kumar
JUDGE

At Suva
1 August, 2014

NO MANDATE: Minister for iTaukei Affairs, Ifereimi Vasu, will initially be the chair of the GCC, says Rabuka. SODELPA's MANIFESTO on GCC cut no ice with i-Taukeis. VASU won 1,427 votes, mostly in Eastern Division

13/1/2023

Rabuka

Rabuka says they are working on rebuilding the fire gutted Vale ni Bose

Gavoka

Social Democratic Liberal Party provisional candidate Ifereimi Vasu says he was not involved in the removal of former Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase during the 2006 coup led by then military commander Voreqe Bainimarama.

“I am a clean man,” the former Republic of Fiji Military Forces Lieutenant Colonel and Fiji Corrections Service Commissioner said.

He said this in response to recent comment by former SODELPA MP and Opposition Whip Ro Filipe Tuisawau, who said it was “total hypocrisy” and a “betrayal” that the party allowed three former military officers who were directly involved in the removal of Mr Qarase to join their party.

“I was never involved in any coup that took place in this country because I was away overseas when it happened,” he said in an interview at his farm in Lokia, Nausori. The Fiji Times, 11 November 2022.

Vasu

Fijileaks: It beggars belief that Coalition is trying to shove down the throats of i-Taukeis the GCC when election results clearly reveal that neither Sitiveni Rabuka, Viliame Gavoka or Vasu were able to attract huge swathes of votes on the bringing back of the GCC. Many prominent Ratus and Adis obtained between 500 to 750 votes, with Ro Kepa and Ratu Naiqama Lalabalavu rejected by their own subjects.
In Vasu's case, who will chair the proposed GCC, most of his votes came from the Eastern Division: 899 votes. In the Central Division, he got 367 votes, Northern Division 21, and in the Western Division, he got merely 129 votes, and yet Rabuka is appointing Vasu, as Minister for I-Taukei Affairs, to sit as an overlord over the GCC. Where is his mandate? It is quite clear only 1,427 i-Taukei voted for him.
SODELPA leader GAVOKA got a meagre 3,793 votes. He got 56 votes in the Eastern Division, 64, Northern, 905 Central, and 2,705 votes in the Western Division.
As we pointed out previously, Bainimarama trounced Rabuka in all the four provinces, 136,829 votes to 77,748 votes.
We are reverting back to 1987, when Rabuka got the Chiefs to commit TREASON against the Queen, so his two racially motivated COUPS could succeed, by declaring Fiji a Republic on 10 October 1987.
In 1999, he got the same chiefs to endorse and bless his new SVT Party.
It is quite clear neither Rabuka, Gavoka or Vasu have mandate to bring back the GCC. Yes, they promised it in their manifestoes but from the voting results, the i-Taukei voters refused to buy the bringing back of the GCC. As for Vasu, he has no support at all in the other three provinces, except in the Eastern Division, and yet will chair Rabuka's new GCC.

The Great Council of Chiefs is expected to convene sooner than the agreed 12-month window in the coalition government’s agreement.

This has been confirmed by Prime Minister, Sitiveni Rabuka. He did not confirm the date of the first meeting.

“First of all, the assembling of the chiefs. At the moment, it may only involve an amendment to the Act where we bring back the Great Council of Chiefs and put it under existing legislation or an existing Act … which is the iTaukei Affairs Act. To include the provision for the establishment and function of the GCC.”

Rabuka says they have started drafting the provisions to be brought into the House.

He says the Minister for iTaukei Affairs, Ifereimi Vasu, will initially be the chair of the GCC as it has to be independent like it was before.

The Prime Minister says they are also working on rebuilding the GCC complex.

From the Archives, July 2000:
Chiefs, Thieves, Commoners, Democracy
and George Speight's Coup

'The situation in Fiji reminds one of nothing so much as the story of the circus showman & and his educated mule. 'Ladies & gentlemen', he (the showman) is reported to have said, ''you see before you a most remarkable animal - an educated mule. I have educated him myself. For the last 15 years I have done nothing but educate him. And the consequence is that I am in the proud position tonight, as I shall presently show you, of being able to make him do anything I like. So with the Fiji Government and the Chiefs. After many years of governing Fiji through the chiefs we are able to make them do anything we like.'
Colonial Governor Sir George O-Brien, 14 December 1897

'Tradition should be a guide and not a Jailor'.

"The Fijian Commoners will be imprisoned by George Speight and the Chiefs’ escapades: 'One dead, the other powerless to be born".

By VICTOR LAL
(currently Fijileaks Founding Editor-in-Chief)
in Fiji's Daily Post, July 2000.

The two part series was written while Speight, like a copycat Mussolini, was roaming around Suva after the signing of the Muanikau Accord, and the freeing of Chaudhry's MPs

The Fijian Commoners will be imprisoned by George Speight and the Chiefs’ escapades: 'One dead, the other powerless to be born'.

The failed businessman turned rebel coup leader, George Speight, might have succeeded in ousting a democratically elected government and escaping criminal charges but in the process he and his henchmen have set back the progress and development of ordinary Fijian commoners.

In their crude racist submission to the Great Council of Chiefs, the group have once again silenced the voices of their ordinary fellowmen who seemed to have been coming out of the shadow of their chiefs. In stripping Mahendra Chaudhry of his political power, the group have, in fact, stripped the ordinary Fijian of his or her power.

For once again, it is the traditional chiefs who are being called upon to decide the fate of the Fijians and non-Fijians alike: the very role they were groomed to perform during Fiji’s turbulent history.

The Circus Showman and Educated Mule

In the old and dusty records of the British Colonial governors experiences, stored in the vaults of Rhodes House, the University of Oxford's library on Colonial and Imperial studies, I found the following letter to the Colonial Office in London from one of the many governors to Fiji, Sir George O' Brien. The letter, written from Government House in Suva, is dated the 14th of December 1897. The subject matter is Britain's policy of governing Fiji through the native chiefs. Governor O'Brien, who successfully argued against the federation of Fiji with New Zealand and Australia, wanted to express his mind on 'native policy' in a few words privately. And he did indeed, in a language which made me cringe on the first reading of his letter.

The Governor O’Brien’s Letter

The colonial governor O'Brien begins his letter by informing the Colonial Office that 'the situation in Fiji reminds one of nothing so much as the story of the circus showman & and his educated mule.' He continues the letter in the following vein: ''Ladies & gentlemen'', he (the showman) is reported to have said, ''you see before you a most remarkable animal - an educated mule. I have educated him myself. For the last 15 years I have done nothing but educate him. And the consequence is that I am in the proud position tonight, as I shall presently show you, of being able to make him do anything I like.'' Governor O'Brien continues:

'So with the Fiji Government and the Chiefs. After many years of governing Fiji through the chiefs we are able to make them do anything we like.'

It is not surprising, therefore, that some radical native Fijians have branded the chiefs as 'colonial or bureaucratic chiefs'. Others have accused them of being experts at political manipulation; they are fronts for big-time multi-national companies and commission agents, they promote racial hatred; they thwart every genuine move towards national cohesion and democracy; in short, theirs is, in many senses, a role actually subversive of the unity, progress and stability of this country. They have held back the economic, educational, and political progress of commoner Fijians. The very existence of these traditional rulers is inconsistent with the main goal of our struggles and efforts: building a united country, democracy, and a just, fair and stable political order.

Some claim that the Great Council of Chiefs, based as it is on inheritance, is not only thoroughly undemocratic, but most of those who man it are part of the tiny class of Fijians whose activities are some of the main causes of the country's racial problems. If democracy is to grow and flourish, its roots must be planted in a healthy, vibrant soil, and not on a murky and undemocratic foundation. The radical Fijians claim that at the grass-roots level, democratic structures, specifically democratically elected village, district, and local government councils and committees, manned by the elected representatives of the people should be established to decide matters of Fijian and national concern.

The defenders of the chiefs, on the other hand, have welcomed them as 'boundary-keepers' or mediators between different races who have used their authority and prestige, not to mention the strong weapon of coercion at their disposal, to stabilise crisis situations, and only to re-establish their chiefly control of Fiji.

Understandably, the deposed President and the paramount chief, Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara was concerned with the way politicians played with the lives of his people during the last elections. Addressing a meeting of the Lau Provincial Council in Moala, Ratu Mara said these were evident in the statements made, in which chief's were insulted. In a sombre tone, the President and Tui Lau, Ratu Mara asked why statements such as 'don't elect your chiefs but elect a commoner because its easier to deal with them' were made to his people only. And according to Ratu Mara, the situation was worsened when the leader making those statements said nothing about other high chiefs from other provinces. He named numerous provinces whose high chiefs also contested the May elections.

Ratu Mara was referring to statement by the former Prime Minister and leader of the Soqosoqo ni Vakavulewa ni Taukei (SVT), Sitiveni Rabuka, now the chairman of the Great Council of Chiefs. The former PM had made such statements saying it is easier for the common people to approach commoner parliamentarians with their needs than it is to go to chiefs for help. Ratu Mara said he has been dwelling on the issue for quite sometime and has reminded his people, that those who are chosen to lead in government must always respect their chiefs. He asked the meeting to discuss ways in which all the chiefs in the province could support each other.

Traditional Authority in Colonial Era

British colonial rule was established following the Deed of Cession in 1874 whereby Fiji became a possession and dependency of the British Crown. In Ratu Seru Cakobau's words, the self-styled 'King of Fiji', the British were called upon to 'exercise a watchful control over the welfare of his children and people; and who, having survived the barbaric law and age, are now submitting themselves under Her Majesty's rule to civilization'. Of the several factors that had compelled the Fijian chiefs to pass their country to the British Crown, one was the menacing threat from the restless white settlers. Soon after the Deed of Cession the British government appointed the aristocratic Sir Arthur Gordon Hamilton (later Lord Stanmore), as the first Governor of Fiji.

The youngest son of the forth Earl of Aberdeen, in Scotland, Gordon, who had earlier ruled Trinidad (1886-70) and Mauritius (1870-74), arrived in Fiji with a reputation-although his true intentions have since been closely questioned-as 'an uncompromising guardian of native rights', and his influence can still be found in the land policies in Fiji. He also introduced a new ethnic group into Fiji-the indentured Indian labourers-in order to provide a work force for the colony's cane fields, while simultaneously safeguarding Fijian culture through the chiefs.

Consequently, the chiefs-Fiji's traditional rulers-were recognized by the British colonial government. Through the system of indirect rule, evolved by Lord Lugard in West Africa, and applied by his successors elsewhere, separate Fijian institutions were established to facilitate ruling them. These institutions, while creating a 'state within a state', gave the Fijian chiefs limited powers to rule their subjects, and to deeply influence the subsequent history of the colony. The objectives underlying Gordon's policies were similar to those which had given rise to colonial practices elsewhere: a divide and rule policy whereby the colonial government divided in order to rule what it integrated in order to exploit.

The partnership between the chiefs and Gordon not only enabled, according to the historian R. T. Robertson, 'the domination of the eastern chiefs particularly over the west, but it also resulted in the rise of a new type of bureaucratic chief, aware of the need to adjust to the demands of the colonial state if they were to achieve their class aims'. Others have written elsewhere that the ruling Fijian class had greatly benefited from colonial education, as the Council of Chiefs demanded that Fijian commoners should not receive education in the English language. The result was that very few Fijians, mostly of chiefly rank, entered the civil service as junior members of the 'bureaucratic bourgeoisie'. The white planters of the colonial era, however, condemned Gordon's native policy, and saw one of the most powerful chiefs in Fiji as only fit to be a white man's gardener. But the chiefs saw their roles through a different mirror-as guardians of the commoner Fijians.

It must be pointed out that the Deed of Cession was never universally accepted by Fijians, especially those of western and central Viti Levu. These people were the first to rebel against the colonial order, 'believing that it implied also domination by eastern chiefs who had signed the Deed of Cession'.

Chiefs in Post-Independent Fiji

When Fiji became an independent nation on 10 October 1970, it was the traditional eastern chiefs in the Alliance Party who took control of the nation's political leadership, with only two brief interruptions in 1977 and 1987. It was only in the recent elections that the chiefs found themselves not at the helm of government. The first high-profile challenge to chiefly rule came from one Apolosi Nawai [described as the Rasputin of the Pacific], who was banished to the island of Rotuma in 1917, 1930 and 1940 for portraying himself as the Messiah of the Fijian people. The demise of Nawai, however, failed to discourage other Fijians from taking up the challenge.

In the 1960s it was Apisai Tora who was in the forefront of western dissent against the eastern chiefs; in the 1980s it was Ratu Osea Gavidi and his Western United Front. But in 1973, the late Sakeasi Butadroka, a former Assistant Minister in the Alliance government, declared an all-out verbal war on Ratu Mara. The legitimacy of chiefly rule, based on traditional norms, faced an internal challenge. Butadroka himself is from a non-chiefly background and hails from Rewa province whose paramount chief is Adi Lady Lala Mara. But Butadroka described his dispute with Ratu Mara as a political one claiming that 'European politics and traditional matters are two different things'.

He went on to state that 'in traditional matters I greatly respect this man of noble birth and I have also reverence and try at all times do what is right'. Thus Butadroka (a man who had 'lost his senses', according to Ratu Mara) permanently revolutionized Fiji's politics, paving the way for other disgruntled Fijians to follow suit in the future. He had finally broken the tenuous thread of political tolerance for the chiefs, and the effects were to be felt in the future, especially during elections in Fiji.

In the 1987 general election, Dr Tupeni Baba, than the chief spokesman for the NFP/FLP Coalition, offered the following explanation as to why the Fijians were no longer going to elect people merely because they were chiefs: 'The Fijians have always viewed the Alliance as being the Fijian party. That base is being eroded. For the first time Fijians are being offered a list of credible Fijians standing against the Alliance. These Fijians can match the Alliance on its own front. They have comparable experience and now-how. For the first time there are Fijians who are willing to sacrifice their jobs and positions. Fijians will no longer elect people merely because they are chiefs.'

The Coalition seemed to have caught the Fijian people's imagination. The message to them was clear, as the late Prime Minister Dr Timoci Bavadra told one Fijian political gathering: 'There is a need to realize the difference between the traditional role and our democratic rights as citizens of this country.' He also called on the Alliance Party to stop employing abuse of Fijian tradition as a means of furthering its political ambitions. In a statement apparently directed at other Fijians caught in the traditional struggle, Bavadra made his position clear: 'I have great respect for both my great uncles, the Tui Vuda and the Taukei Nakelo in so far as the traditional chiefly system is concerned. But I beg to differ from both of them as far as political belief and standing are concerned…My loyalty to the Tui Vuda as chief of the Vanua is unshakable. But as far as my political affiliation is concerned I owe allegiance to my party. We belong to two different parties and we have different ideologies.' Moreover, the sorry state of the Fijian's plight must be blamed on the Alliance, for it was under the Alliance government that the Fijian remained in the economic backwater. The Alliance hit back with a vengeance.

Some leading Alliance candidates demonstrated the resurgence of Fijian nationalism in a bewildering variety of pronouncements. For example, Ratu David Tonganivalu warned that the Fijian chiefs must remain a force for moderation, balance and fair play against such extremism. He said the chiefs were a 'bulwark' of security for all and custodians of Fijian identity, land and culture. Ratu David, himself a high chief, said to remove chiefs would 'pave way for instability'. Ratu Mara also joined the political fray. Declaring that 'I will not yield to the vaulting ambitions of a power-crazy gang of amateurs-none of whom has run anything-not even a bingo', charged that there was an FLP ploy to destroy the chiefly system.

Dr Baba, speaking for FLP, denied these charges. He accused Ratu Mara and others of attempting to reverse the tide of history in order to prevent the old Fijian order from dying, saying it was a desperate bid by Ratu Mara to cling to power, and added that political manipulation of Fijian people's emotions on the eve of a general election devalued democratic leadership. Whether the Alliance was attempting to reverse the tide of history or not is questionable, but one thing is clear; history was not only repeating itself but had come full swing, except that the main players now were Fijian commoners versus the chiefs. In the past, it was the Indo-Fijian politicians who used to take the Fijian chiefs to task over political and traditional authority. The establishment and perpetuation of the separate Fijian Administration however made it extremely difficult for them to establish alternative bases of legitimacy.

The Chiefs and the Indians

The Indo-Fijians are all chiefs and no commoners. In the context of Fijian politics, therefore, their political leaders have always found themselves caught in the conflicting traditional, bureaucratic, and charismatic forms of authority in Fiji. The Indo-Fijian leaders had agreed to confer veto power to the chiefs in the Senate during the 1970 Constitutional Talks in London, which meant that for the first time in Fiji's history, the Great Council of Chiefs suddenly enjoyed its say in the mainstream of Fijian politics. In the old colonial days, much of what was deliberated was often decided in advance by judicious consultation between the chiefs and the colonial administrators.

Ironically, in post-independent Fiji it was the very Indo-Fijian leaders who attracted virulent criticism whenever they condemned the 'political chiefs' in the Alliance Party or their traditional institution-the Great Council of Chiefs.

In the 1982 general election the Indo-Fijian leaders were accused of collaborating with the infamous 'Four Corners' programme on elections in Fiji which claimed that the present leaders of Fiji were descendants of the Fijian chiefs who 'clubbed and ate their way to power'. But the most vicious attack on the Indo-Fijian leaders was made in the Senate where one Fijian senator, Inoke Tabua, stoutly defended Ratu Mara, his paramount chief. He warned: 'I want to make it clear in this House that whoever hates my chief, I hate him too. I do not want to make enemies but to a 'Kai Lau' like me, if someone is against my chief he is also against me and my family right to the grave.'

Tabua refused to isolate politics from chieftaincy. Understandably, as Ratu Mara himself had told the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the 1982 election that his evidence should be considered and treated in the light of his three main roles in Fiji: 'On the one hand I live, think and act as an ordinary citizen of this State and also as a chief in the Fijian traditional social system. I am also a politician and leader of the Alliance Party, which is closely interested in these proceedings. And, lastly, I am Prime Minister of this State and leader of its government.' It was these three roles that dominated the sentiments and minds of Fijians when it came to passing judgement on the actions of Indo-Fijian leaders during the general election. They invoked their traditional ties with their chiefs to condemn the Indo-Fijian leaders.

The Ra Provincial Council and the Great Council of Chiefs, through two resolutions, tried to reassure the Fijian people of their determination that Fijians should, and always would, rule Fiji. The first tentative step was taken during a meeting of the Ra Provincial Council which resolved that the offices of Governor-General and Prime Minister must be reserved for Fijians and that this should be the subject of constitutional changes, a demand first voiced by Butadroka's FNP in the 1970s.

The Council also proposed that the composition of the House of Representatives should be two-third Fijian and one-third all other races. The Council also resolved that the two resolutions be forwarded for inclusion on the agenda of the Great Council of Chiefs meeting scheduled for November 1982. Council members were of the opinion that the issues should be discussed at the Bau meeting, when the chiefs from the various traditional Fijian confederacies discussed issues of Fijian interests.

Both resolutions were condemned by the Western United Front (WUF) and the NFP, then in a Coalition pact for the 1982 election. The WUF expressed surprise that some Fijians still felt so strongly about the last general election and dismissed as totally unfounded the allegations that the Fijians and their traditional systems had thereby been insulted. WUF also considered that there was nothing derogatory in the 'Four Corners' programme. While linking the programme with the Alliance's involvement with the Carroll team, WUF's general-secretary said, 'Cannibalism was part of life in Fiji in the early days and we Fijians are descendants of cannibals. What is wrong with that? Only powerful chiefs in those days enjoyed on bokolas. I cannot find why some Fijians are annoyed about the Four Corners programme'.

The Great Council of Chiefs moved to endorse the two manifestly racist resolutions thus presenting itself in the eyes of the Indo-Fijian community as the political champion and promoter of Fijian nationalism, as preached by the FNP. The resolutions were finally passed despite the abstention from Ratu Mara and then Deputy Prime Minister, Ratu Penaia, who pointed out that to change the Fiji Constitution required the consent of a two-thirds majority in both Houses. The role of Ratu Mara, who abstained from voting, did nothing to allay Indo-Fijian fears. As an NFP/WUF Coalition statement later charged: 'It should be apparent even to a political novice that the whole exercise was carefully stage-managed to intimidate non-Fijians, especially Indians and the Fijian supporters of the Coalition'.

It also expressed surprise that Ratu Mara had abstained from voting rather than opposing the two resolutions. Ratu Mara replied angrily that he 'was is no way obligated to his political party to say what he did or said in the Council'. It was during the debate on the resolution that trade unionist Gavoka had likened Indo-Fijians to dogs; and Mrs Irene Jai Narayan, branding the Bau resolution as racist, went on to state: 'To liken Indians to dogs…is a grave and unwarranted provocation to the entire Indian community. It is now obvious that those indulging in the abuse of Indians are not reacting to any so-called insults…[but] because the NFP/WUF Coalition dared to challenge for power in the last general election and came within a whisker of wresting it from the Alliance.'

Mrs Narayan further observed: 'It is indeed curious that the controversial motion came up while the Prime Minister claims that the worst insults he received were from Fijians themselves, why the focus of attack and resolution adopted by the Great Council of Chiefs have been designed to rob of the few rights they (Indians) have left to live in the country of their birth.' Clearly, the statement continued, racial policies espoused by the FNP leader, the commoner Butadroka, had found greater favour with the chiefs than had the so-called multi-racial policies of the paramount chiefs leading the Alliance Party.

Another Fijian senator, Ratu Tevita Vakalalabure, warned that unless Indo-Fijians united with Fijians and if what happened in the 1982 general elections was repeated at the next, probably 1987 election, 'Blood will flow, whether you like it or not. I can still start it. It touched me, and also touched my culture, tradition and my people. We have carried this burden too long'. The political maverick Apisai Tora also entered the fray, claiming in Parliament that the action of the NFP in the 1982 election was a show of arrogance (viavialevu) and insults heaped on the Fijian chiefs could only be made by people belonging to the lowest caste (kaisi bokola botoboto). Tora's passionate outburst however came as no surprise to many political observers who had closely followed his political career.

In 1977 he had hit out at the chiefly system in Fiji and said many Fijians were getting 'fed up' with the 'archaic' system, and that Fijian chiefs were using chiefly status to gain and keep power. He had also told another political rally in September 1977 that the Fijian chiefs were out to 'threaten' Indo-Fijians by indirectly telling people not to vote for the then leader of the NPF, Koya. 'Do not subjugate the future of Fiji in the hands of the power-hungry Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara. And whatever provocation people are under we do not want any violence in this (1977) election'.

It is not surprising therefore that a decade later the rightful place of the chiefs in the national life of the Fijians again became a burning issue when the Fiji Labour Party went into coalition with the Alliance Party's political arch rivals, the NFP. But it was also to herald the arrival of a military-cum civilian dictatorship following the two military coups in 1987. In fact, the writing was already on the walls, as a Fiji Sun editorial had feared shortly after the Bau meeting in 1982:

'The Great Council of Chiefs has passed an incredible resolution calling for a constitutional change which, if it occurred, would change Fiji overnight from a democracy to an autocracy, or even a dictatorship. It is a horrendous thought. For many years Fiji has been held up to the world as a multi-racial society which works-where two races with widely disparate religions, culture and ethnic backgrounds have lived and worked harmoniously for a hundred years. Now, with a stroke of a pen, a group of our most respected elders and statesmen are prepared to throw all that away and march backwards into the 19th Century and beyond.’

The Fijians in the Fiji Labour Party

The rise, fall, rise, and the fall of the Fiji Labour Party can be attributed to two primary reasons. In the perspective of history, the formation of the FLP and the statements of its leaders saw the rebirth of the 'agitational politics' whose origins can be traced to militancy among the Indo-Fijian labourers on the sugar plantations. The most notable were the strikes and riots of 1920 which, in the words of the historian turned Alliance government minister Dr Ahmed Ali, 'heralded a new facet of Indians: their assertiveness and willingness to enter into confrontation with other groups in their effort to obtain what they considered equality of treatment in a land to which they had come as immigrants but where they were fast anchoring permanent roots'. Their descendants have since continued the struggle and, with one notable exception, the strikes these days have assumed a multi-racial rather than a racial dimension.

We have already recalled Dr Baba's explanation on the shift in Fijian political thinking. In 1987 a Fijian sociologist, Simione Durutalo, who later became a founding vice-president of the FLP, blamed the British for introducing communal politics into Fiji and creating a situation of occupational specialization along communal lines. Durutalo, in terms of class struggle, condemned the Alliance and the NFP for perpetuating those divisions. He further maintained that the political nature of the crisis confronting the people of Fiji could not be discussed without a closer look at the state structure built up during the colonial period. He noted that in the phase of decolonization, power was transferred through virtually unchanged government institutions, to largely hand-picked heirs, the new ruling group in Fiji. For example, laws were changed from Ordinances to Acts but their contents remained the same. The colonial Parliament changed its name from Legislative Council to House of Representatives (with an appendix, the Senate) but its whole racial foundation and electoral system remained the same, as did the education and public health system, the Council of Chiefs, and the army and bureaucracy.

Durutalo also recalled the remarks of Professor Ron Crocombe of the USP that many Fijians failed to realize that what they believe to be their ancient heritage is in fact a colonial legacy. He claimed that the British used the economic disparity between the Indo-Fijians and the Fijians to increase the Fijian ruling class dependence for protection on the colonial government. The creation of the 1944 Fijian Administration, the NLTB and the constitutional guarantee on Fijian matters were cited as examples. Durutalo also charged that the British manipulated local, regional, and ethnic differences to emphasize divisive rather that unifying national interests.

Such divisions were then deposited in the independence Constitution to assail the cohesion and survival of the new Fijian state from its inception. Ethnic differences, he maintained, and the use of the new Fijian chiefs, were the main instruments used by the colonialists to defuse and neutralize the 1959 Oil and Allied Workers' strike. In summary, Durutalo, himself a commoner, indirectly appealed to the underprivileged Fijians and Indo-Fijians to unite and undermine the established political order. In his opinion this could be achieved 'if Fijian society produces the political will that is required to overcome the present impasse, and the labour movement, with the trade unions at the centre, is the only force which now has the potential to produce that political will to take us out of the present inertia'.

The Alliance Party responded in kind. Tradition was mixed with politics. For example, Ratu Mara, in his September 1986 address to a mini-convention of the Fijian Association, called upon the Fijians to remain united in order to retain the nation's leadership. He told the meeting that despite being outnumbered by Indo-Fijians, Fijians had political leadership; if they became divided this leadership would slip away from them. In reply, the future prime minister Dr Timoci Bavadra immediately criticized Ratu Mara for raising the race issue. He also lodged a formal complaint to the Director of Public Prosecutions asking him to investigate whether Ratu Mara's remarks contravened the Public Order Act, under which Butadroka was jailed for six months in 1977 for inciting racial hatred.

Bavadra went further: 'In previous elections, the Alliance fear tactic [included] asking people whether they wanted an Indian Prime Minister; now, with the historic uniting of all races under the umbrella of the Coalition, the leader is a Fijian, so the question is whether a non-chief should be Prime Minister. One would thus imagine that if an equivalent chief from another province challenged Ratu Sir Kamisese, the Alliance question would be: 'Can we let a Prime Minister of Fiji come from any province but Lau?'.

From this analysis emerge two inherently contradictory tendencies of exclusivism and accommodation among the conservative, nationalist and moderate Fijians. While the traditionalists were advocating the retention of the old established order, Durutalo was calling upon the disgruntled Fijians, especially the Fijian commoners, to respond to the demands of practical politics, rather than surrender to the forces of conservatism.

The rest is history. The FLP-NFP Coalition romped to power in the 1987 election with Dr Bavadra as prime minister, only to be cut down by a third-ranking Fijian soldier Sitiveni Rabuka and his cohorts. As for the change in the political landscape in 1987, with the Alliance, comprising mostly chiefs, becoming the major Opposition party, with Ratu Mara as leader, Ramrakha's words are instructive: 'And the Chiefs who have yielded so much power, and have made Fiji what it is today. Yes, they too have to recognise this change…a political adjustment has to be made. The genius of the Fijian people allowed them to cede this country and remain in charge of it. Their society has come down the centuries intact; their people still cling to their valued culture, tradition and customs.' But with a fundamental difference; the mutli-racial FLP-NFP Cabinet was like 'a new marriage taking place, a meeting of minds of the educated elite in Fiji, an elite which will bring in a new era to the country'.

In April 1987 it seemed that a majority of Fijians had quietly accepted the leadership change. Ratu Mara's resignation statement was also greeted quietly. He told the nation: 'You have given your decision. It must be accepted. Democracy is alive and well in Fiji…The interests of Fiji must always come first. There can be no room for rancour or bitterness and I would urge that you display goodwill to each other in the interest of our nation. We must now ensure a smooth transition to enable the new government to settle quickly and get on with the important task of further developing our country. I wish them well…Fiji was recently described by Pope John Paul as a symbol of hope for the rest of the world. Long may we so remain. God bless Fiji.'

But almost as soon as Bavadra and his ministers were sworn in, they began to attract not good wishes but  a stream of curses. A Fijian nationalist movement calling itself the Taukei, led by no other than Tora and a few prominent Alliance personalities, sprang up. Tora announced a campaign of civil disobedience and called for the 1970 Fiji Constitution to be changed in so far as to guarantee Fijian chiefly leadership in government permanently. Shortly after the Alliance's defeat, its most powerful arm, the Fijian Association, convened a meeting and passed a vote of no confidence in the new government. Among those who attended this meeting, which was chaired by the newly-elected Alliance MP and FNP convert of old, Taniela Veitata, were Ratu Mara's eldest son, Ratu Finau Mara who was a lawyer in the Crown Law office; Qoriniasi Bale, the former Attorney-General; Filipe Bole, the former Minister of Education; and Jone Veisamasama, general secretary of the Alliance Party who, in 1983, was secretary to the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the 1982 general election. What followed shortly before the historic coup can be summed up by two key players. Ratu Inoke Kubuabola, now the Leader of the Opposition, told Islands Business magazine of May 1988 that for more than six hours on April 19 he and Rabuka, later joined by Jone Veisamasama, 'talked about different options'.

It was on 19 April that the groundwork for the coup was laid and according to Kubuabola, 11 May was the day his co-conspirators decided to proceed with its execution. He also claims that when it was learnt that Parliament would not sit on Friday they had agreed to bring forward the coup to Thursday. Another crucial intermediary between the Taukei Movement and the military, the Rev Tomasi Raikivi, provided his house in Suva as a centre for overall planning. Thus it was there that Rabuka met the other conspirators on Easter Monday, nine days after the defeat of the Alliance Party. We will let Rabuka explain the rest, as he did to Eddie Dean and Stan Ritova in his infamous autobiography No Other Way. He went to Rev Raikivi's for,

' … What he understood was an ordinary 'grog' party. It was early evening, and he just walked in, as he normally would, throwing his 'sevusevu' of yagona towards the bowl where the 'grog' was being mixed. 'I saw all these people sitting down, and realised it was some kind of a meeting. Some of the people greeted me, although I could not see everyone clearly because it was fairly dark in the lounge-room. Nobody asked me to leave.' When his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he discovered the gathering was 'quite a formidable group'. He says it included Ratu Finau Mara, Ratu George Kadavulevu, Ratu Inoke Kubuabola, Ratu Keni Viuyasawa, the brother of Brigadier Epeli Nailatikau, Filipe Bole, Ratu Jo Ritova of Labasa, Ratu Jale Ratum, 'Big Dan' Veitata, and the host Raikivi. Another leading light at this meeting was Apisai Tora.

This handful of allegedly God-fearing men, some of chiefly rank, told their plans to Rabuka, exchanged opinions, and turned to Gold for help. On 14th May 1987 when the parliamentary session began at 9.30am, one of the conspirators, Taniela Veitata, stood on his feet to repeat to the House his October 1985 'Tribute to Chiefs' speech. The chiefs in Fiji were the guardians of peace, he declared. As long as chiefs were there, political power would never grow from the barrel of the gun. Unfortunately other races had not thanked the Alliance Party for its racial harmony.  He did not spell out the punishment for the other races 'ingratitude' or pose the rhetorical question: what if chiefs are not in power?; in fact he did not have to, for shortly afterwards Lieutenant Colonel Sitiveni Ligamamada Rabuka, and a 'hit squad' of ten soldiers, led by Captain X, launched the first military coup against a democratically elected government of the South Pacific, ending the Coalition's 33 days in office.

In short, democracy died in Fiji on Thursday 14 May 1987; albeit temporarily. Captain X has been identified as Isireli Dugu, and his second in command was Captain Savenaca Draunidalo, the ex-husband of Adi Kuini Bavadra Speed. Rabuka later explained that it was the calling of God to execute the coup. Another was the frontal attack on the 'chiefly system' and its rightful place in national politics; and the personal attacks on Ratu Mara, that Rabuka claimed were too much for ordinary commoner Fijians

What happened in the next years until the passing of the new non-racial Fiji Constitution; the rise to power of FLP, and the demise and rise of Rabuka - the 'Hero of the Fijian Revolution' need not ve revisited except to point out that the Great Council of Chiefs appropriated to themselves a high profile role during these turbulent years.

The Great Council of Chiefs

In 1972 the Great Council of Chiefs (Bose Levu Vakaturaga) took a bold step forward-the Council decided that members of Parliament in both Houses who were indigenous Fijians would be members of the Great Council of Chiefs. By doing this, they gave out three NFP Members of Parliament, Captain Atunaisa Maitoga, Isikeli Nadalo, and Apisai Tora a voice in the Council of Chiefs. This move, taken quietly and without any fuss or bother, according to Ramrakha in 1978, came as a great surprise to the Members concerned, and they took full advantage of it all. But it was a major concession to make. Here were these members who belonged to a Party that was undoubtedly predominantly non-Fijian in membership, and was often suspect in the eyes of the rank and file Fijian, and its members were freely allowed to participate in the deliberation. It was a thoroughly progressive move on the part of the Council. And yet the leader of the NFP, Koya, made a blunt call for its abolition.

The NFP had often advocated absorption of the Fijian Affairs Board into the mainstream of political life and coming under the ageis of one single administration, and it had advocated the ultimate redundancy of the NLTB by giving titles to the Fijians, and giving them the incidents of ownership short of power of sale. Reaction to Koya was savage. Personally, Ramrakha remained unconvinced that the Council of Chiefs had outlived its usefulness. On the other hand, the Chiefs themselves 'must recognise that we live today in a basically democratic society, and that changes will have to come'. Ramrakha continued: 'I would ask the Chiefs to behave as Chiefs: there are many mountains to be moved; there is a great deal they have to do. Your society still looks to you to deliver the goods-you are subjected to old pressures, and new ones. The only reservation I make of the Great Council of Chiefs is that we do not hear enough from them.' Ramrakha had uttered these words two decades ago; in the 1987 street demonstrations against the Bavadra government, led by Tora and others, he however found himself the target of Fijian anger through one of the placards which read: 'K.C. Ramrakha-the deserter, shut up.'

Ironically, these Fijian demonstrators were totally oblivious to Ramrakha's role at the 1970 Constitutional Talks where he and other NFP delegates gave the Council of Chiefs the power of veto on decisions affecting the Fijian race. Another irony, in fact a comical farce, was the pronouncements of Tora at the demonstrations: 'We shall recover the rights of Fijians sold out in London in 1970. We have no need for your system, your democracy. We shall never have such things imposed on our paramountcy…They [Indians] have tried to blackmail us with economic power. It is becoming Fiji for Fijians now. We took in the Indians which Britain brought us…They won't learn our language, our customs, join our political parties. It is time for them to pack and go.'

What Tora failed to tell his fellow demonstrators was that he had changed his name from Apisai Vuniyayawa Tora to Apisai Mohammed Tora after becoming a Muslim while serving with the Fijian forces in Malaya. He had provided the prefix 'National' to the Federation Party to form the NFP. As recently as July 1986 he asserted that 'Government policy is that Indian people are here to stay whether people like it or lump it. Without Indians Fiji would never have been what it is today, economic-wise and otherwise.'

Moreover, the Great Council of Chiefs finally gave to Ramrakha more than he may have bargained for in the 1970s. In the name of Fijian ethnicity, they hurriedly endorsed Rabuka's revolution and seized a large chunk of responsibility on behalf of the Fijian people through the promulgation of a new Constitution in 1990. In their pursuit for total and absolute control the chiefs, however, were also beginning to lay the foundation for their own gradual destruction for history, time, and the people were no longer totally on their side, not to mention the Colonial government.

As a Maori professor, Ranginui Walker, declared in Auckland in 1987: 'The coup is nothing more than a shameful use by an oligarchy that refuses to recognize and accept the winds of change in Fiji. It would appear from this distance that the Great Council of Chiefs, still living in their traditional ways, have been misled. Their land rights are secure under the 1970 Constitution. But because they have not been taught their rights, they are readily manipulated and swayed by demagogues.'

The chiefs also launched a new political party, Soqososo ni Vakavulewa ni Taukei (SVT), that it hoped would unite the Fijian people under one umbrella. The reality, as we know from the recent election results, turned out to be quite different. Some Fijian leaders questioned the wisdom of the Council of Chiefs, as a formal non-political institution, to sponsor a political party. Tora wanted to know what would happen to the dignity of the Council if it failed to capture all the Fijian seats. 'Our firm view,' he said, 'remains that the Bose Levu Vakaturaga should be at the pinnacle of Fijian society, totally removed from the taint of ordinary politicking'. The biggest shock was the election of Rabuka, a non-chief, to lead the SVT, who defeated Ratu William Toganivalu and Adi Lady Lala Mara. Butadroka was quick to respond: 'If the SVT delegates can put a commoner before the chief, then I don't know why a chiefs-backed party can do such a thing. - putting a chief-in this case the highest ranking chief, Ro Lady Lala-before a selection panel.'

The greatest shock of all was the recent election of Rabuka as the first 'independent' chairman of the Great Council of Chiefs. It is not surprising therefore to read of Ratu Mara's expressed concerns. Shortly after the first coup Rabuka wanted to exclude commoners from the Great Council of Chiefs altogether: 'I respect chiefs. I do not like the composition of the Great Council of Chiefs. There are so many non-chiefs there who will try to dictate the resolutions of the Great Council of Chiefs. The Chiefs are so humble, their personalities and their character do not make them forceful enough when they discuss matters. They will agree, they will compromise…whereas those who are not Chiefs in there tend to be very, very selfish.'

After Rabuka secured the prime ministership, he however began to develop ideological justifications for his ambitions. In August 1991, while professing to be a loyal commoner, he wondered whether it was appropriate for chiefs to involve themselves in electoral politics. Their proper role was at the local village level, because 'when it comes to politics, the chiefs do not have the mandate of the people'. While counting himself  as an ideal candidate for leadership he reiterated that 'there are a lot of capable commoners who can play a very, very important role in the Fiji of the next decade'. He pointed out that 'the dominance of customary chiefs in government is coming to an end' and soon 'aristocracy' would be replaced by 'meritocracy'. Ratu Mara, who thought Rabuka was an 'angry young man, speaking off the cuff in any instigation', also faced Rabuka's wrath. Rabuka described Ratu Mara as a 'ruthless politician who has been allowed to get away with a lot. Maybe it's because of the Fijian culture that he is a big chief and because he was groomed well by the colonial government'.

The sudden change of Rabuka's tune on chieftaincy can be best illustrated by quoting Jone Dakuvula. Accusing the 'colonial' chiefs of keeping the commoner Fijians in political subjugation and economic morass, Dakuvula had personally challenged Rabuka on Fijian unity, specifically for his remarks during the two coups that 'I want all the Fijian people to be on one side. The whole thing is a solidarity of the Fijians and then we can compete'.

In Dakuvula's words, 'This reactionary notion has no basis in history or current realities. We Fijians have never been united at any time, either at the village level or national level. The various confederations of competing and warring vanuas, now roughly reflected in the provinces, outline these divisions. Any experienced village chief will tell Colonel Rabuka that all Fijian villages are riven with competing divisions along family, tokatoka, mataqali and other lines.' Furthermore, Dakuvula maintained that any chief who claimed to command his villagers' loyalty and unity at all times these days was 'a liar'.

He said Rabuka need look no further that the position and history of his mataqali. Dakuvula went on the claim that 'what the Taukei Movement and the Great Council of Chiefs proposal will achieve is the exact opposite of what they desire: it will result in provincialism, parochialism, unhealthy rivalries, patronage, corruption and the discrediting of the chiefly system'. Strangely Rabuka, on becoming prime minister, himself began to invoke the 'Melanesian' model of achieved leadership against the 'Polynesian' model of ascribed leadership. He compared his paramount chiefs (Mara included) to the banyan tree 'where you don't see anything growing', and suggested that they should step down.

Chieftainship versus Democracy

A general review of the trend of events clearly reveal that commoner Fijians have become increasingly strident in their criticism of the traditional chiefs, displaying spontaneous or calculated outbursts of individualism. One governor, Everard im Thurn, in 1905, dared to point out that excessive subordination of the Fijian people by their chiefs was a serious impediment to their progress and, indeed, a danger to their survival as a race. In his opening address to the Council of Chiefs, he outlined what were to him the worst aspects of chiefly rule in Fiji:

'You Fijians have done very little to help yourselves. You few chiefs are fairly prosperous. But your people-such of them as are left-are mere bond servants. They work for you partly because the law to some extent compels them. The reason why they do not care to work more for themselves is that your chiefly exactions prevent them from gaining anything for themselves-and property to make life interesting to them…Do you know what we mean by the word 'individuality'?…the man that has individuality uses his own brain to guide his own actions. He thinks for himself…he uses his own hands for his own benefit. To him life will be worth living. That is the habit of thought which we and you should encourage the Fijians.’

The late Dr Rusiate Nayacakalou, in his study of modern and traditional Fijian leadership, warned that 'attempts to displace existing leaders are viewed with suspicion and jealousy and may be met with drastic action'. It also reflects the trauma of an indigenous people struggling to encompass tradition within the framework of democracy. Ratu Mara's call for respect of the chiefs is a familiar one. When the SVT was formed, Durutalo said: 'This is the last hurrah of the chiefs. It is an attempt to stem the tide and salvage their hold and support of the Fijian people. There has been a gradual erosion of their political influence, accelerated particularly in the urban areas and this is a last ditch attempt to contain that'. The perennial question is how: through chiefship or democracy?

We often hear in Fiji that 'a chief is a chief by the people'. On 6 May 1972 Ratu Mara told the Fiji Times that 'there is a misconception that the chiefs form a club and think as group…The chiefs are the chiefs of a group of people. They think more in line with the groups of which they are chiefs rather than their own class'.

But one Tevita Vakalomaloma argued five years later (2 February 1977), in a letter to the Fiji Times to the contrary: 'Most of the Fijian chiefs no longer serve their people. In fact most of them think that the people have nothing to do with their privileges and status. What they are forgetting is that they are what they are because they have people below them. In other words, a chief is a chief because he or she is supposed to have some people to lead'.

The Alliance however blamed the Fijian Nationalist Party for the sorry state of affairs. In the Nai Lalakai (14 November 1977) it charged: 'They [the FNP] have divided families, mataqalis, villages, vanuas and our race, severing our Fijian bonds, weakening our traditional and religious life and our political unity.' The FNP, however, argued to the contrary, claiming that it was under the Alliance chiefs that Fijians so-called special rights and interests had been exploited for the chiefs' own economic and political benefits. In 1989 the FNP submitted that the chiefly system be abolished altogether.

What is really at issue, then, is what form of leadership should the Fijian commoners follow to remain within the traditional communal system? In 1982, the old Fiji Sun newspaper editorial, commenting on the Bau resolution, called for its rejection as well as a firm statement from the Alliance government, and put the issue in perspective: 'The sticking point is the question of the place and role of the chiefly system, now and in the future. It is not possible for the two systems to operate in tandem successfully at national level.' It is clear from recent pronouncements that the modern day chiefs still live, or pretend to live, in two worlds, 'one dead, the other powerless to be born'.

The great Fijian leader Ratu Sukuna was also a man of two worlds, that of the traditional Fijian and the official European. His biographer, the Australian Deryck Scarr, a rabid anti-Indian historian, argues that Sukuna attempted to keep the Fijian society close to its 19th century moorings, to the 'classic patterns of his childhood'. For Sukuna, 'the true religion of the Fijian is the service to the chief'; he was cynical on the value of democracy, and as an aristocrat, remained sceptical about 'how far ability can carry a man in modern society'. Ratu Mara, in the preface to Scarr's biography, Ratu Sukuna: Soldier, Statesman, Man of Two Worlds, (1980), hails Ratu Sukuna for bringing the Fijian society into the 20th century.

But as one reviewer of Scarr's book put it, 'the Fijian people cannot afford to contract out of the 20th century and seek succour in the traditional society of Sukuna's childhood'. Moreover, Ratu Sukuna had little understanding of, and even less sympathy for, the predicament and aspirations of Indo-Fijians, 'Mother India's more enlightened children', who should have accepted their designated place in the colonial hierarchy instead of challenging it, and whose lives were deeply affected by Ratu Sukuna's activities.

The self-contained, self-sufficient Fijian world of Ratu Sukuna's time, and that of other high Fijian chiefs like Ratu Mara, has vanished beyond recall. Ratu Sukuna's view on the rightful education of Fijian commoners may be the starting point of the historical departure. He believed, 'in bigger and brighter villages, with schools teaching, for the most part, agricultural subjects and handicraft rather than academic groundwork'. It seems that the modern day commoner Fijian has other perspectives on education and political power in contemporary Fiji. He believes in 'ability' and not 'chiefly' status for his or her rightful place in Fijian society.

The Educated Fijian Commoner: A Mule or a Galloping Horse?

It is interesting to draw a parallel with educated commoner Fijians and their rightful place in Fijian society with those of the sons and daughters of Indo-Fijian indentured labourers. There was firm opposition towards education of Indo-Fijians. A former chairman of the Levuka School Board, D.J. Solomon, told the 1909 Education Commission:

'If an Indian desires to educate his children let him pay for it himself. This question should not be considered one moment by the Government, for to educate an Indian is to create inducement for crime on the part of the educated Indian and oppress the uneducated Indian'. The Methodist missionary, Rev J. W. Burton, had this qualification: 'The training which suits admirably a boy at Eton (in England) or one in our Australian High Schools may not be useless., but probably vicious in its effect upon a Fijian nature. We have made a tragic mistake in India in raising up a few to inordinate heights of suitable education and thus divorcing them from usefulness to the Commonwealth. A half-educated Indian babu, with his staccato English and metronomic syllables is torture enough; but a Fijian babu-! May heaven forfend'.

The manager of the Vancouver-Fiji Sugar Company, E. Duncan, in 1914, was not to be outdone: 'We most emphatically do not require an Indian community of highly educated labourers, with the attendant troubles the 'baboo' class has brought to the Indian government teaching and preaching sedition and looking generally for immediate treatment on a parity with educated Europeans accustomed to self-government for many centuries. We require agriculturalists only and the education provided by the colony (or planter) should for that reason be but elementary, and in as far as possible, technical on these lines'.

The quotations provided illustrate in detail, according to Dr Ahmed Ali, the former Education Minister in Mara's Alliance government, 'European attitudes towards Indians and the place that they felt Indians should have in Fiji. Not surprisingly their views were in conflict with Indian aspirations. Their determination to keep Indians as labourers and to deny them equality and reserve for them a separate compartment in the colony were also steps that thwarted the integration of Indians into the wider society. Europeans who opposed them did so not only because of beliefs in Anglo-Saxon racial superiority but also through fear and resentment of Indian competition'.

A similar parallel can be drawn between the role and place of commoner and individual Fijians in the overall Fijian traditional society vis-a-vis the chiefs and the Great Council of Chiefs. The rise of commoner Fijians through the Fiji Labour Party in 1987 brought the conflict between commoners and chiefs to the forefront of Fijian politics. Their dissent and criticism of the chiefly leaders could not be dismissed as racially motivated attacks upon Fijian institutions. They refused to abide by the tenets of tradition and custom while the chiefs were entering the world of commerce and business and doing well for themselves.

As Bavadra asserted: 'By restricting the Fijian people to their communal life style in the face of rapidly developing cash economy, the average Fijian has become more and more backward. This is particularly invidious when the leaders themselves have amassed huge personal wealth by making use of their traditional and political powers'.

It can be argued that modern-day Fijians (teachers, doctors, journalists, skilled workers, and civil servants) represent, in many ways, the coming of age of  a new generation of Fijians who have achieved success by the dint of their individual efforts and sacrifices. They are role models for the young Fijians and not the tradition-bound chiefs of the Fijian villages.

Why? As Professor O. H. K. Spate had reminded us in 1959, 'The functions of the chief as a real leader lost much of their point with the suppression of warfare and the introduction of machinery to settle land disputes, but constant emphasis seems to have led to an abstract loyalty in vacuous, to leaders who have nowhere to lead to in the old terms and, having become a sheltered aristocracy, too often lack the skills or the inclination to lead on the new ways. Hence, in some areas, a dreary negativism: the people have become conditioned to wait for a lead which is never given.' The impasse could only be broken with the advent of liberal democratic values, of which individualism as the defining characteristic.

But it seems that the chiefs, averse to individualism, have once again turned to the chiefly system, a system which according to the late Bavadra, 'Is a time-honoured and sacred institution of the taukei. It is a system for which we have the deepest respect and which we will defend. But we also believe that a system of modern democracy is one which is quite separate from it. The individual's democratic right to vote in our political system does not mean that he has to vote for a chief. It is an absolutely free choice'.

Democracy, that great swear word which denotes freedom and choice, is the Achilles heel of Fijian politics. The question is: whose version of democracy - the Fijian or European one?

On 16 December 1965, speaking in the Legislative Council, Ratu Mara, while arguing against common roll which would bring Indo-Fijian domination, argued that it was European culture 'to which only we will submit as Fijians, and to no other culture'. In 1987, on losing power, he claimed that 'Democracy is alive and well in Fiji'. In other words, the people of Fiji, including the commoner Fijians, had exercised their democratic right to choose who should lead the Government of Fiji. The FLP-NFP victory brought to the fore also the true and proper place of the traditional rulers and the chiefly system in modern Fiji.

Overall, in the 1987 general election there was a genuine meeting of minds of educated commoner Fijians and the descendants of educated coolie Indo-Fijians, the two groups most feared by the chiefs, colonialists, and Indo-Fijian merchants in Fiji.  For the next 33 days, the people of Fiji enjoyed their choice of government until Rabuka, with his 'men on horseback', came on the scene to proclaim: 'The chiefs are the wise men in Fijian society, guardians of our tradition. Take that power away and give it to the commoners and you are asking for trouble.'

Will he now, as a commoner, hand back the power - the chairmanship of the Great Council of Chiefs- to the traditional chiefs, as many are demanding from him, including Georghe Speight.? The Great Council of Chiefs has once again ridden on the minority crest of Fijian racism and nationalism to portray themselves as ”fathers of the nation”, George Speight and a circle of inward-looking commoner Fijians, it seems, have once again set back the opportunity for commoner Fijians to create a multi-racial Fiji where their own individuality and voices could be heard in the affairs of the nation. They have consigned commoner Fijians to be the subservient 'educated mules' of the chiefs, as the chiefs allegedly were in colonial days to the British.

It will take a long time for Fijian commoners to be individual, strong-minded, and fiercely independent 'galloping horses' in a multi-racial and modern Fiji, and the larger world around them? The Great Council of Chiefs has once again re-inserted itself at the helm of Fijian politics – through the backdoor and with the help of a barrel of a gun.

In the guise of Fijian nationalism, George Speight has escaped from the clutches of the law for his alleged criminal activities in a court of law and the Great Council of Chiefs have once again stepped into the centre court of power which was gradually slipping away from their clutches.

The commoner Fijians will be made to pay the price for Speight and the chiefs’ great escapades.

The release of the hostages means that Fijian commoners, led by their chiefs, have once again being imprisoned in the cloth of tradition, although 'tradition should be a  guide and not a jailor'.

The burnt out remains of Govinda's Restaurant in Suva: over 100 shops and businesses were ransacked in Suva's central business district on 19 May.

JALE MOALA, the former Daily Post Editor, recalling 19 May 2000. Our Founding Editor-in-Chief and Moala are also former journalist colleagues who worked on the original Fiji Sun, shut down by Sitiveni Rabuka after his 1987 racially motivated coups. A month after the Speight coup, Moala left for New Zealand on 19 June and joined The Southland Times newsroom in Invercargill, New Zealand, as a sub-editor.

"Shops were burning and men and women were smashing through glass windows and doors and looting every shop on the streets below. A group of men led the way, breaking through doors and windows then moving on, allowing the throng behind to get in and take as they pleased in a free-for-all scramble for anything that could be carried away – TVs, shoes, clothes, stereo sets, food, anything. There was cursing and shouting and the noise was deafening and frightening. The sound of breaking glass would haunt me for months after that. Indo-Fijians had abandoned the city and fled for their lives, and many who had been unable to leave had gone into hiding in back rooms and anywhere, leaving their business at the mercy of this maddest march of madness; a few Indo-Fijians drove by still trying to get out, and some of them were forced to stop, dragged out of their car and assaulted.

I was scared, really scared, especially for the Indo-Fijian members of our staff. Our financial controller was Indo-Fijian, and a big man too, but when he came up to me in the newsroom and put out his hand, I knew he was afraid for his life and when I held his hand I felt him trembling. Indo-Fijian members of the staff, especially women, like my young reporters, fresh out of university, had crawled under desks, crying, “I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die”. Our newsroom was quickly turning into a sanctuary, too, with owners of shops and anyone nearby who had been slow to leave the city, seeking safety there. We called the police several times but no one came."

Fijileaks Editor-in- Chief: As I have revealed recently, Mesake Koroi, Daily Post Editor, asked me to analyze the Muanikau Accord (see below). I came to the conclusion that George Speight could be nabbed because of the violation of clause (c) – re the handing of all weapons. The Director of Public Prosecutions Office personnel had been wrongly claiming that the Muanikau Accord was invalid because it was signed under duress. It was not until I published the three part series on the Accord showing why and how Speight could be brought to justice that the army finally, on 26 July 2000, summoned its muscles to nab Speight. I put forward the 1994 precedent in Trinidad which was later employed by the DPP that saw Speight stripped of immunity and the gang behind bars. Don’t get me wrong, I am not blowing my own trumpet nor that of Koroi. (P.S. I had authorized DPP officers to take an advance copy of my analysis off Koroi at 2am, English time before its publication; in fact, it was none other than the then Interim Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase (a cousin of Koroi) who had taken the copy of my analysis to the military and DPP for consideration. Ratu Ului Mara had captured George Speight.)

FLOTSAM AND JETSAM from PAP appearing in prominent positions. All mirroring the FFP appointments. Now, the failed PAP candidate Parmesh Chand appointed as acting PSC, Public Service and Public Enterprises

13/1/2023

The 2022 election was a referendum on Aiyaz Sayed Khaiyum. Now, the Coalition are borrowing his blueprint to place their own in key positions

Parmesh Chand has been appointed as the new Acting Permanent Secretary of Public Service and Public Enterprises. Chand was a candidate for the People’s Alliance in the 2022 General Elections. Susan Kiran has been moved to the Cabinet Office where she will be the Secretary to Cabinet.

From Fijileaks Archives

HANG Your BOOTS, Old FARTS and GET OUT OF RFMF. Anger brewing at the Barracks after PIO Tikoduadua tells Commander Jone Kalouniwai to RETIRE the RFMF soldiers below rank of Colonels who have turned 55

12/1/2023

14 May 1987: "In the national interest that I carry out the events of this morning, the TAKEOVER of the [BAVADRA] GOVERNMENT."
Sitiveni Rabuka, an obscure Third-Ranking Colonel

HIGH STAKE CALL TO KALOUNIWAI
2 November 2000: Many, as young officers over twenty years ago, took part, along with other loyalist soldiers, while Kalouniwai was held hostage, to bring the bloody MUTINY to an end at the RFMF barracks

The Home Affairs Minister has expressed his concern to Major-General Ro Jone Kalouniwai, Commander of the Republic of Fiji Military Forces, about the number of army officers who continue to serve in the army after the age of 55.

Despite the government’s decision to raise the retirement age for civil servants to 60, Minister Pio Tikoduadua maintains that army officers are always expected to retire at the age of 55.

“These guys in my view are beyond 55, beyond the retirement age and I’ve aired my concerns with him and he knows what to do. He knows what to do and I respect that he has a process that he needs to take.”

Tikoduadua says only colonels and others above the said rank can continue in the RFMF after 55 years of age. He states that he had a meeting recently with Kalouniwai and the meeting was focused on political issues. Source: FBC News

SOUND THE GAVEL ALOUD: Its time to suspend the Chief Justice Kamal Kumar, set up an Inquiry to examine how he was appointed CJ, and ask him to EXPLAIN why he 'prevented' over 100,000 women from VOTING

12/1/2023

Kumar

Some of the women who had filed for constitutional redress in November 2022

Apted

ELECTION HAS COME AND GONE: On 17 November 2022, seven Fijian women of all races had filed a constitutional redress case to challenge the legality of the new legislation requiring women to change their names to their married names in their birth certificates if they wished to vote in their married names under which they were already registered to vote, or to otherwise use their married names for legal purposes. Given the urgency of the case, and fundamental constitutional and democratic right to VOTE, Kumar should have made the case a priority, and delivered a speedy judgment, like he had done in the past for his FFP buddy PARVEEN BALA on whether Bala could contest the 2014 election. Of course, as expected, he had ruled in Bala's favour, and against the Fiji Electoral Commission. In the current constitutional case, he wrapped himself in the judicial sari and did sweet b*****all.
We are not surprised that now ten women have written a letter of complaint to Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka and Attorney-General Siromi Turaqa against Kumar. They are: Shamima Ali, Judy Compain, Elizabeth Fong, Bernadette Ganilau, Patricia Imrana Jalal, Seni Nabou, Nalini Singh, Shiromani Priscilla Singh, Salote Qalo and Makereta Waqavonono.
The women in the complaint letter have made allegations of delayed justice and indirect sex and gender discrimination, and are calling for an inquiry into the Chief Justice's alleged incompetence, unjudicial, and unbecoming conduct.

LOOKING back at our Fijileaks archives, we have run scores of articles against Chief Justice KAMAL KUMAR, arguing he was incompetent, his judgments could be called into question, in some cases even flawed, and that he is a FFP appointed lackey Judge, and is notoriously slow in delivering urgent judgments because he is allegedly NOT fit to write judgments on his own accord without assistance from outside the Judicial Chambers.
We publish the full letter below:

From Fijileaks Archive, 16 April 2017

OUR RECORD TESTIMONY TO OUR FIGHT FOR ACCOUNTABILITY. We will never be cheerleaders to any Fiji government but hold it to ACCOUNT

The current Chief Justice KAMAL KUMAR had worked in Chen Young's Chambers in Lautoka

FINANCIAL IMPROPRIETIES: PAP failed candidate and Public Service Commission new member MERESEINI BALEILEVUKA yet to respond to Fijileaks that she allegedly didn't truthfully declare her finances to FEO

11/1/2023

We wrote to her daughter Unaisi Baleilevuka to ask her mother Mereseini to comment on the allegations that had been passed to us, and which read as follows:
Dishonest declaration by PAP candidate Mereseini Baleilevuka

"Mereseini had been working for Freebird Institute in Fiji & Japan for more than 10years. She was terminated at the end of June. She had been receiving her Board allowances from both companies but Freebird Institute company's accountant states that Mereseini never asked the accountant to prepare her income & tax certificate.
Then ________went to FEO to check her declaration. Her declaration said she declared only an annual income of $5,000 as her private business. She didn't declarae her allowance income from Japan, her salary income from Fiji, money she had received as dividend.
In other words, she allegedly didn't declare $80,000 to the Supervisor of Elections. The matter was brought to Saneem's attention but he is yet to respond to the allegations'. 6 December 2022.

Fijileaks: We are also waiting to hear from the Baleilevukas' that they allegedly provided FAKE RECEIPTS acknowledging donations of $1,700 and PAP leader and now Prime Minister had to be involved to obtain proper receipts. The argument was whether the money was 'a donation or gift' to PAP.
*We are also waiting for comments that the Baleilevukas' allegedly illegally appropriated $170,000 that was compensation money to a family overseas - two Freebird Institute students (Mother & Daughter) were involved in a car accident in Fiji.
The mother was killed. The daughter suffered life-changing serious disability.
FULL EXPOSURES TO FOLLOW SOON.
The two, Mereseini and Unaisi, were also accused of providing fake receipts and Rabuka was dragged into the matter

Fijileaks:
"The FPSC seems to have completely ignored the basic premise that the members of the PSC must be apolitical to ensure the total independence and political neutrality of that body."

GIRMIT DAY MINUS FIJI HINDI = INSULT TO OUR HISTORY IN FEEJEE. We must remain vigilant against the FACIST Hindu BJP government and its proxy the Indian High Commission in Fiji pushing to replace Fiji HINDI

11/1/2023

In a bid to deflect the accusations levelled against him by Mrs Taniguchi, Prasad is now prominently promoting the HINDI language charade

Fijileaks: RACIST FIREBRAND and Co-founder of the 1987 violent I-Taukei Movement, the late APISAI TORA, had abused the parliamentary privilege to speak in the i-Taukei language in Parliament by calling Indo-Fijians 'Bloody Kaisi Bokola Botobotos', prompting the then NFP leader the late Jai Ram Reddy to demand that the Speaker evict Tora from Parliament.
The Speaker declined, saying such language had been used in the august house in the past. Tora had unleashed his racist remark when Reddy was protesting about the Alliance Party government's pro-itaukei (then referred to as Fijians) policies.
Reddy had alleged that in 'all aspects of government work and activities, from its composition, its development work and appointments to Boards, promotion in the Civil Service, its Crown land policy, everywhere, the Alliance government was practising discrimination'. In other words, the Alliance Party had a Sunset Clause against the Indo-Fijians.
The motive, claimed Reddy, was purely racial, and he charged that Fiji was implementing a policy designed to ensure that all strategic levels of government were staffed by 'loyal personnel', which in effect meant that i-Taukei (Fijians) were placed in positions of command in order to deliberately create an 'out group', namely the Indians (Indo-Fijians). Reddy also cited figures to demonstrate that many candidates of Indo-Fijian extraction were better qualified and that the percentage of Indo-Fijian passes in internal examinations conducted by the Fiji Public Service Commission (FPSC) were significantly higher than those of their Fijian (i-taukei) counterparts.
The Alliance Party fell back on that insidious argument, that since i-taukei were so 'backward', affirmative action was required to level the playing field, even if it meant lowering marks for i-Taukei students to enter the USP.
Reddy also condemned the racial disparity in the composition of Fiji's armed forces - the key instrument of power and an essential feature of any multi-party system, particularly in an ethnically divided society. The RFMF were, and still are, the exclusive preserve of the i-Taukei, and a reservoir for support that was exploited by Sitiveni Rabuka in 1987, George Speight in 2000, and Frank Bainimarama in 2006
Fijileaks:* We are watching with increasing alarm (and a defeafening silence from NFP leader BIMAN PRASAD) of the recent appointments by the Rabuka Coalition government of i-Taukeis in key government positions. We are returning to the dark old days of the 'Fijianization' of Fiji, backed by the rejuvenated Methodist Church of Fiji.
There is nothing to cheer about NFP's boast that the Rabuka government to 'recognize Hindi and i-Taukei language. We have fought against the imposition of HINDI over Fiji Hindi, a plantation Hindi that attests to our girmit history in Fiji, starting in 1879.

From The Guardian, London, December 2022

*According to Ganesh Narayan Devy, one of India’s most renowned linguists who dedicated his life to recording India’s over 700 languages and thousands of dialects, the recent attempts to impose Hindi were both “laughable and dangerous”. “It’s not one language but the multiplicity of languages that has united India throughout history. India cannot be India unless it accommodates all native languages,” said Devy.

*Devy said being multilingual was at the heart of being Indian. “You will find people use Sanskrit for their prayers, Hindi for films and affairs of the heart, their mother tongue for their families and private thoughts, and English for their careers,” he said.
“It’s hard to find a monolingual Indian. That should be celebrated, not threatened.”

Tensions are rising in India over prime minister Narendra Modi’s push to make Hindi the country’s dominant language. Modi’s Bharatiya Janaya party (BJP) government has been accused of an agenda of “Hindi imposition” and “Hindi imperialism” and non-Hindi speaking states in south and east India have been fighting back. One morning in November, MV Thangavel, an 85-year-old farmer from the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, stood outside a local political party office and held a banner aloft, addressing Modi. “Modi government, central government, we don’t want Hindi … get rid of Hindi,” it read. Then he doused himself in paraffin and set himself alight. Thangavel did not survive.
“They want to transform India from a union of diverse states to one a nation state, where people who speak Hindi are treated as first-class citizens while we non-Hindi people, including Bengalis, are second-class citizens.”

“We Bengalis are being talked down to in Hindi but now we are pushing back. Our language is who we are and we will die for it.”

BIMAN PRASAD CAN GO TO HELL WITH INDIAN HINDI and the NFP supporters screaming to close down Radio Mirch, claiming Fiji Hindi is 'Jungli Hindi'.
He has already sold Indo-Fijian rights to Rabuka and the Methodists.
He is trying to deflect the accusations levelled against him by Mrs Taniguchi, by now prominently pushing for the HINDI language

What is Fiji-Hindi - Fiji Baat (extracted from Wikipedia)

Fiji Hindi is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by Indo-Fijians. It is an Eastern Hindi language, considered to be a dialect of Awadhi that has also been subject to considerable influence by Bhojpuri, other Bihari dialects, and Hindustani. It has also borrowed some words from the English and Fijian languages. Many words unique to Fiji Hindi have been created to cater for the new environment that Indo-Fijians now live in. First-generation Indians in Fiji, who used the language as a lingua franca in Fiji, referred to it as Fiji Baat, "Fiji talk". It is closely related to Caribbean Hindustani and the Bhojpuri-Hindustani language spoken in Mauritius and South Africa. It is largely mutually intellegible with the languages of Awadhi, Bhojpuri, etc. of Bihar and the dialects of Hindi of eastern Uttar Pradesh, but differs in phonetics and vocabulary with Modern Standard Hindi.

Indian indentured labourers mainly spoke dialects from the Hindi Belt. Initially, the majority of labourers came to Fiji from districts of central and eastern Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, while a small percentage hailed from North-West Frontier and South India such as Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Over time, a distinct Indo-Aryan language with an Eastern Hindi substratum developed in Fiji, combining elements of the Hindi languages spoken in these areas with some native Fijian and English. The development of Fiji Hindi was accelerated by the need for labourers speaking different languages to work together and by the practice of leaving young children in early versions of day-care centers during working hours. Percy Wright, who lived in Fiji during the indenture period, wrote:

Indian children born in Fiji will have a mixed language; there are many different dialects amongst the Indian population, and of course much intercourse with the Fijians. The children pick up a little of each language, and do not know which is the one originally spoken by their parents.

Other writers, including Burton (1914) and Lenwood (1917), made similar observations. By the late 1920s all Fiji Indian children born in Fiji learned Fiji Hindi, which became the common language in Fiji of North and South Indians alike.

Later, approximately 15,000 Indian indentured labourers, who were mainly speakers of Dravidian languages (Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam), were brought from South India. By this time Fiji Hindi was well established as the lingua franca of Indo-Fijians and the Southern Indian labourers had to learn it to communicate with the more numerous Northern Indians and their European overseers. After the end of the indenture system, Indians who spoke Gujarati and Punjabi arrived in Fiji as free immigrants. A few Indo-Fijians speak Tamil, Telugu, and Gujarati at home, but all are fluently conversant and able to communicate using Fiji Hindi.

The census reports of 1956 and 1966 shows the extent to which Fiji Hindi (referred to as 'Hindustani' in the census) was being spoken in Indo-Fijian households. Hindu schools teach the Devanagari script while the Muslim schools teach the Nastaliq script.

Fiji Hindi is also understood and even spoken by Indigenous Fijians in areas of Fiji where there are large Indo-Fijian communities. A pidgin form of the language is used by rural ethnic Fijians, as well as Chinese on the islands, while Pidgin Fijian is spoken by Indo-Fijians.

Following the recent political upheaval in Fiji, many Indo-Fijians have emigrated to Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the United States, where they have largely maintained their traditional Indo-Fijian culture, language, and religion.

Some writers have begun to use Fiji Hindi, until very recently a spoken language only, as a literary language. The Bible has now been translated into Fiji Hindi, and the University of the South Pacific has recently begun offering courses in the language. It is usually written in the Latin script though Devanāgarī has also been used.

A Fiji Hindi movie has also been produced depicting Indo-Fijian life and is based on a play by local playwright, Raymond Pillai.

Fijian loan words
Indo-Fijians now use native Fijian words for those things that were not found in their ancestral India but which existed in Fiji. These include most fish names and root crops. For example, kanade for mullet (fish) and kumaala for sweet potato or yam.

Words derived from English

Many English words have also been borrowed into Fiji Hindi with sound changes to fit the Indo-Fijian pronunciation. For example, hutel in Fiji Hindi is borrowed from hotel in English. Some words borrowed from English have a specialised meaning, for example, garaund in Fiji Hindi means a playing field, geng in Fiji Hindi means a "work gang", particularly a cane-cutting gang in the sugar cane growing districts and tichaa in Fiji Hindi specifically means a female teacher. There are also unique Fijian Hindi words created from English words, for example, kantaap taken from cane-top means slap or associated with beating.

Linguist Gounder says that Fiji-Hindi is a Pacific language as it was born on the plantations of Fiji and is spoken by a community of people who have lived for generations on the island.

Narratives around the Girmit language or Fiji-Hindi as a broken language are erroneous and endanger growth progression.

Linguist Dr Farzana Gounder, a direct Girmit descendant and a representative of Fiji on the UNESCO International Indentured Labour Route Project, said Fiji-Hindi is often seen as an inferior language to the Hindi and Urdu languages spoken in India and Pakistan.

Gounder said this attitude towards the Fiji-Hindi language amongst the community and those outside it are causing psychological impacts on the younger generation.

"I ran a UNESCO-funded workshop in Auckland around Fiji-Hindi and we had workshop participants talking about how they were bullied and mocked in school for the language they speak. These were young people who were very passionate about their language. These are issues that need to be addressed."

She cautions if Fiji-Hindi is to survive in the future, narratives need to change, public awareness needs to be fostered, and the uniqueness of the language ought to be celebrated.

The development of Fiji-Hindi as a language

"In order to address the complexities surrounding the Fiji-Hindi language, understanding its history is vital," Gounder said.

Fiji-Hindi language developed during the peak of the British Indentured labour system, where Indians were recruited as labourers to work on the sugarcane and cotton plantations in Fiji.

"Fiji-Hindi was established during this period based on Hindi and Urdu. However, it also incorporated languages from the South of India, which included Tamil and Telegu, becoming a common means of communication among the labourers. This language was passed down, and today, it is the first language for people of Fiji-Indian descent, incorporating words from both iTaukei and English and is a common language spoken by the people of Fiji," Gounder said.

Gounder adds that Fiji-Hindi is a Pacific language as it was born on the plantations of Fiji and is spoken by a community of people who have lived for generations on the island.

Endangerment and Sustainability

For a relatively young language developed over a hundred years ago, questions of its survival are already in discussion, especially here in Aotearoa.

"There is a danger for the children growing up in New Zealand that Fiji-Hindi will increasingly not be their first language for several reasons, and their first language will likely become English as it is commonly spoken and taught. This means that the language is in danger of not being passed down to the next generation, and I think the language is at risk of extinction."

Gounder adds the perception of the Fiji-Hindi language plays a crucial role in its future survival and sustainability efforts.

Those advocating the retention of formal or standard Hindi in Fiji's education system resurfaced in recent years, sparked by the state broadcaster's decision to allow announcers on Hindi station Mirchi FM to speak Fiji Hindi. It prompted calls from an Indo-Fijian organisation that the youth should speak formal Hindi and that the radio station was a bad influence. Also raised were calls for a change to the constitution, which demands Fiji Hindi be taught in schools, a requirement never enforced.

Gounder, however, believes as a linguist, the community needs to be engaged with the public and realistic about what will keep the language alive, as opposed to having a purist view.

"What matters is that the next generation speaks it. What will it take to maintain this connection between language, people, and their identity? As that will help keep the language going. All efforts in this space are much appreciated whether they come from the purist or those who want an extremely colloquial version of Fiji-Hindi as it continues to create a conversation that helps keep our language alive."

First Fiji-Hindi script in the world

Work on an initiative to formalise the Fiji-Hindi language script has begun through the support of UNESCO. The Universal Roman Orthography for Indentured Hindustani Languages aims to create a Fiji-Hindi script that will allow information to be conveyed to the community in their language (Fiji-Hindi).

Gounder said linguists from around the world who study other indentured languages have come together to develop a standardise Roman script. Our languages maybe not be the same, but they are quite similar."

"The idea is that we can all write in our languages - just as we write in English using that same script. Therefore, increase our reach around the world. So, our audience or the people who can read what we have written will dramatically increase, and this will hopefully help raise the profile of Fiji-Hindi and increase interest amongst its speakers."

Fiji Hindi is a spoken language yet to be formalised in a written script, and Gounder said when it has, then it can be taught in schools in Fiji with its distinct flavour as one of the main written languages.

"I think it is an easy script because it is written in the same form as English, and this is something that we could pursue in Fiji. Suriname is another Indentured country that has used the Roman script to form a written version of its language. It has been used in their school curriculum since the 1970s. So, we are hopeful that the community will be receptive to this idea, and hopefully, it will feed back into the school system," Gounder said.

Meanwhile, this week marks the commemoration of the Fijian Language week here in Aotearoa, with the Fijian community getting together to celebrate their language, traditions and culture.

The Macawa ni Vosa Vakaviti - Fijian Language Week focuses on nurturing, preserving and sustaining the languages of Fiji.

ECHOES OF RABUKA'S RACIST COUPS:
"Because of racial tensions [in Surinam], I had to leave my beloved country for the second time, [to Holland].
A 104 year-old Indentured Woman, Surinam

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