Fijileaks: What qualification did Frank Bainimarama have after seizing power in 2006 from the SDL-FLP government to RUN FIJI? Zilch- ZERO
Incidentally, before Bainimarama was recruited into the Navy in 1975, he was the “velovelo” boy for the coastal cutter “MV Maroro" skippered and owned by Captain Sam Brown (a friend of his dad from the days of nuclear testing by the UK Government over Xmas Island) which plied the waters off the Yasawas and Mamanuthas. When Captain Brown was appointed Commander of the Fiji Navy in 1975, he recruited his "velovelo boy" into his Navy as well but because he obviously lacked requisite qualifications for entry into any recognized naval academy in NZ, Australia, and UK, he was then sent for a 6 months stint with Dictator General Pinochet’s Navy in Chile. He served on the Esmeralda – The Ship of Death. The above Chilean Navy ship has a brutal and bloody terrifying history. In 1973, in the aftermath of a bloody coup, supported by business leaders and the CIA, against the democratically elected government of President Salvador Allende, the Chilean Navy helped the new military junta led by General Augusto Pinochet, to be used as a prison and torture chamber. The former Mayor of Valparaiso, where the ship was stationed, described being tied to one of the ship’s masts and subjected repeatedly to electric shock. “I couldn't sleep for six days because they woke me up every six minutes, night and day,” he said. “We could hear how the others were tortured right where we were.”
Bainimarama: "Again I can’t figure out why Biman is always attacking the military. Maybe in 1987, somebody from the Force gave him a clip in the ear ". In the aftermath of 2006 coup Bainimarama regularly, brutally, and violently, began "clipping" opponents around "ears"
"He began life as an ordinary midshipman on a paltry pay in 1975 but after his 2006 treasonous coup ordered Warrant Officer J. Degei, a low ranking officer in the military and the RFMF’s chief clerk, to hand over to him a cheque of $184,740. In total the military leader and self-appointed Prime Minister stole a whooping $205,147.29 from the taxpayers of Fiji under the guise of leave pay and other payments he claimed was due him for thirty years."