JOURNALISTS and the 1987 and 2006 Coups:
If Fijian journalists were to objectively compare the plight of journalists during the two coups, the Rabuka coups were simply sickening in the treatment of journalists and editors. The Fiji Times was shut down for seven weeks in 1987 but agreed to operate under "partial censorship" and remained afloat because it had since Ratu Mara's Alliance Party days exclusive contract to advertise all Government contracts, tenders, jobs etc. The old Fiji Sun, on the other hand, in September 1988, had to cease operations, and its printing machines were sold to Hari Punja for his company to produce soap products. The Fiji Sun publisher JIM CARNEY and one of its Directors and Lawyer MILES JOHNSON were thrown in the same cell as the deposed Prime Minister TIMOCI BAVADRA. Carney was later deported to his native New Zealand. Most Fiji Sun journalists lost their jobs and their livelihoods, including PETER LOMAS and NEMANI DELAIBATIKI. Our own Founding Editor-in-Chief and former General Secretary of the Journalists Association of Fiji, who was booked to return to his old job at the Fiji Sun on 28 May 1987, after an absence of four years at Oxford, was meted the same punishment as his journalist colleagues. In 1993, the Fiji Times Editor Vijendra Kumar was forced to migrate to Australia after repeated intimidation, harassment and detention by Rabuka's military thugs. Now, 1000 respondents want this MONSTER to lead Fiji once again, with Fiji Times quietly praying for the same. In 2006, Bainimarama had left the Fiji press to regulate itself until the Fiji media, in 2008, set out to name and expose his Interim Finance Minister as the Cabinet Minister that was hiding $2million in Australia. Once again, Fiji slipped back to dictatorship and deportations.
Worst, Rabuka unilaterally declared Fiji a Republic on 10 October 1987, so he could achieve his racist agenda, and total conntrol of Fiji. Again, the depraved and the deniers of his wrongs will turn a blind eye to celebrate Fiji Day on 10 October. Its a BLACK DAY FOR FIJI. Those depraved 1000 respondents might even be Rabuka's new People's Alliance supporters. CRY, THE BELOVED COUNTRY
