February 27, 2008

By Michael Field 

A lecture from Voreqe Bainimarama on ethics is akin to taking the word on good governance from Hermann Goering.

Fiji's military strongman returned from India over the weekend (where he went entirely unnoticed and more on this below) and launched a bitter attack on journalists, saying, in a rather tortured fashion typical of his modest schooling, that "the media still misconstrues by deliberately ignoring the ethics of a responsible media organization...."

What would Bainimarama know about ethics? When he heard the word in 2006 he did not reach for a Lugar but rather his M16 clone and using the implied violence of his armed force, sent soldiers among the civilian public to wave guns at elected representatives. He had them fire mortars late at night to scare people and then he removed the government. Was any of that ethical?

He goes on: "The performance of the media recently leaves much to be desired. Some of its reporting has been inciteful (sic) and destabilising and therefore a threat to national security and stability."

Excuse me? Name the Fiji soldier who for several years threatened to overthrow an elected government. He sent his soldiers marching through streets whenever he wanted to re-emphasize his threat. 

What is destabilizing; legitimate questions about Mahendra Chaudhry's wealth, or setting a two week deadline on removal of a government ­ then doing so.

Let us not overlook as well the entirely destrabilising behaviour of murdering three citizens in the name of the military, or remorselessly beating people to pulp.

If anybody is the master of inciting unethical and destablising behaviour it is the Commodore.

Fiji Sun publisher Russell Hunter was this week thrown out of Fiji. Bainimarama's flacks say that they conducted "a proper investigation" into Hunter. That investigation (which was secret, undefined and without any input from Hunter) found that Hunter was "conducting himself in a manner prejudicial to the peace, defence, public safety, public order, security and stability of the sovereign state of the Fiji Islands".

So he was declared a prohibited migrant.

Just what he did was not spelt out. Buried in is the hand of the fiscally and morally corrupt Mahendra Chaudhry and a parliament of rooks sitting in what grandly passes these days as the Fiji High Court.

Briefly forgotten in the drama of Hunter's departure was the fact that he
and his paper had already had a fatwa imposed on them by none other than Justice Nazhat Shameem, friend and adviser to Bainimarama. She dragooned a couple of fellow judges into a Star Chamber like court on February 12 and had the Fiji Sun editor and activist Virisila Buadromo paraded before them; sans any charges! It was downright medieval, and not in the nature of Bainimarama's ethics.

Shameem had Justice Jocelyn Scutt read out a statement that was curious for some of what it said. Scutt said that she had never supported the report by Fiji's morally loopy Human Rights Commissioner, Shaista Shameem, sister of the self-same judge, who had proved intellectually and legally bankrupt report hailing Bainimarama¹s coup and accusing Laisenia Qarase of genocide.

Apparently the Fiji Sun had implied Scutt supported Shaista's work. But it got kind of confused when later Scutt ­ who seems not to have followed the S Sister's Scheming, found herself mysteriously robbed in the street.

Remember that happened to the Australian High Commissioner and the husband of Fiji-New Zealand lawyer Janet Mason. Bainimarama's boys like street thuggery; they see it as ethical.

Buadromo and the Fiji Sun were represented at the Rookery by top lawyer Richard Naidu. Just after the coup he had been hauled out of his home late at night and harassed by the military. It completed a double for him: Sitiveni Rabuka's boys beat up Naidu in the first coup in 1987.

As his clients were crowed over, Naidu wisely had them remain silent. The vision of judges destroying their own credibility did not require assistance from the cheap seats.

The prepared statement took exception to the way the judges, notably Shameem, had been described in reports. She did not like some reporting and acting in the bully fashion Bainimarama has now legitimized, threatened the paper. Her fatwa did not work and the paper continued publishing, so harsher measures had to be taken, as we have seen this week.

The Fiji court system is actually dominated by hard working ethical judges and some of them are even known to excuse themselves from cases where unconstitutional process is underway. But others, motivated by their own role in the coup and self interest, seem willing not only to risk their own reputations, but that of the entire Fiji judiciary. Who can now safely seek recourse from the courts when some of its judges send out press gangs to drag in citizens, without charge, to educate them? Is this Fiji's answer to Mao's Cultural Revolution?

One has to wonder too at the behaviour of a number of once prominent Fiji journalists who have swallowed the Bainimarama line and endorse, indeed promote and work for, this new Bainimarama Charter. Do they agree with the silencing of journalists; or only the silencing of those journalists who disagree with the Commodore? Or is it all about family and cult?

What strikes one as particularly odd here is that all this effort is designed to protect Chaudhry, a one-time advocate of democracy and now a military appointee. Even back in late 2000, after his release from George Speight's gang, Chaudhry was suspect. He raised a lot of money in the name of democracy; it was never accountable and much went into his private bank accounts.

He filed incomplete tax returns in the years since, at the same time as  Bainimarama was railing against the alleged corruption of the Qarase Government. Then, straight after the December  2008 coup Chaudhry accepts the illegal appointment of Finance Minister. (Read: The Chaudhry Papers)

While Bainimarama gets to can police investigations into possible murder charges against him over the 2000 mutiny, Chaudhry gets to cover up his sins. Scratch my back, I'll scratch yours.

This is rather odd; Bainimarama staged his December 2008 coup to end corruption and clean up government. So far evidence of any actual corruption has yet to be produced. They have just laid charges against Qarase. It really matters not at all because the case will inevitably fail. The charges have been concocted by the entirely unconstitutional Independent Commission Against Corruption. The self same judges and military dictator who rebuked the media on ethics have now allowed this commission the right to prosecute cases in court; even though it is outside the constitution. Indeed, it is spitting on the constitution.

So while Qarase will, no doubt, be found guilty given the way courts are now rigged, when it finally staggers to the Fiji Court of Appeal, as it will, it will have to be thrown out.

It is really very simple; even the Commodore should get a grip on that one.

By chance I shared the sub-continent with Bainimarama. He was in India in his role of Commander of the RFMF, the now largely unemployed and unemployable drain on the Fiji tax base. Ailing Fiji soldiers were treated
at Wellington's Wakefield Hospital but they are no longer welcome.

With dictatorships on all its borders ­ Pakistan, China and Burma ­ India is casual about military upstarts that do not threaten them. Besides, sources in India pointed out to me, Bainimarama is seen as a protector of the Indian Diaspora, a man who will work for Indo-Fijians rather than Fijians. He's a friend. Still, he got no coverage at all in the Indian press.

Bainimarama issued a statement claiming to have met Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee. If he did the normally loquacious Indian Foreign Ministry decided to make no statement at all on this event.

Actually most of the work involved Bainamarama knocking out discount prices for Fijian soldiers at Batra Hospital, outside Delhi. Batra is at the forefront of medical tourism in India, and what Bainimarama's statement did
not say was that the Indian police are taking a close look at it. Seem it might have some, as yet unproven, connection to one Amit Kumar, the Delhi kingpin in the illegal kidney trade. He stole kidneys from poor Indians and transplanted them into rich foreigners. When exposed he fled to Nepal, but is now under arrest in Delhi.

Bainimarama always comes with strange connections.

Illustrative of the bizarre behavior attached to the Commodore headed down to Chennai, in the words of his statement, "a number of patients from Fiji are seeking treatment for cardiovascular and kidney diseases."

Bet they are; they cannot get them in Bainimarama's Fiji.

His statement did not name the Chennai hospital, but it was more than likely Aswene Soundra. There, poor Tamils are paid around US$900 to "donate" a kidney and then its implanted into some rich foreigner. If Bainimarama's word is anything to go by, chances are some rich Fijians are alive now thanks to some poor Chennai auto-rickshaw driver.

Wonder how the Family Connections view that, and one can only wonder at the way Bainimarama lectures us on ethics?

Press statements:

Media Freedom is secure- PM Bainimarama. February 28, 2008

Bainimarama press conference. February 24, 2008

Copyright: Michael Field