(Since the following was written something of an explanation for the Vatican's strange behaviour has come out. Their once legendary diplomatic corps slipped up (their priests are getting much older) and they did not notice the Commodore in town. He was not given an audience at all, but some of Suva's priests - who like taking part in illegal coup activities - let him know that he could still see the Pope. A couple of times a month he gives public audiences and so the Commodore and wife simply purchased a ticket and stood in line with the Catholics (Frank, of course, is a sometimes Methodist). The Pope, who has no clue who he is meeting, simply found himself with the Coup Plotter and a camera -  a master stroke for Suva's fallen priests)

Statement from Ahamdiya Anjuman Ishaat-e-Islam

June 8, 2008

Michael Field

     When Pope Benedict XVI warmly greets Voreqe Bainimarama you know it is not out of Christian love or religious charity.

     It is just crude politics.

     A clique of Catholic priests in Suva, failures in their religious tasks as diminishing membership underlines, use church donations to fund their political agendas which are neatly aligned to the military coup.

     Catholics do not have it on their own.

     Events in the Vatican merely highlight the curious religious world behind Fiji’s coups. Ahmadiyyas, Islamic heretics who not only run the military regime ­ but who, evidence suggests, were actually behind the coup.

     Fiji’s Catholics and Ahmadiyyas have one thing in common; they’ve given up on god and gone for politics.

     The head of the political wing of the Ahmadiyyas in Fiji is Justice Nazhat Shameem whose wields considerable influence over Bainimarama.

     All who know the Commodore are struck by one thing; he is not very bright.

     Security sources say that when he went on military officer courses ­ such as a high level one in Malaysia ­ he actually failed them. Only diplomacy saved him from embarrassment and his marks were always dressed up so that he got a certificate. Even a non-expert glance at his CV points to a man of very modest achievement. As a soldier he has only been shot at once; and on the occasion he ran away.

     So how does a man like this conceive of a coup and run a state? The answer is clear; Nazhat Shameem does. Look at the ruthless way she destroyed the Chief Justice, unconcerned at setting fire to the credibility of the Fiji court system.

     Her investment in Fiji is summed up by the way she got her children out of the place, just before the coup.

     Her sister Shaista Shameem, head of the incongruously named Fiji Human Rights Commission, supports the Voreqe-Nazhat Coup with increasingly disjointed statements.

     Another Ahmadiyya is the military appointed attorney-general Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum, a rather corrupt fellow failed in public prosecution and went off to work for Colonial. His law degree is somewhat vague; its questionable if it is even a real one. Certainly, he does not stand by the one piece of academic work he says he wrote while in Hong Kong; it strongly advocates democracy. He even got his brother a job.

     Then there is Colonel Mohammed Aziz; the handsome Ahmadiyya inside Bainimarama¹s office. He is often the author of the tortured public statements put out by the Commodore who can barely read the big words contained therein.

     In the months before the December 2006 Nazhat Shameem had two frequent visitors to her house; Bainimarama and Mahendra Chaudhry. The trio was often together, although one can imagine they were not talking about religion.

     Chaudhry was perhaps the only honest, open man there; he just wanted power and would do anything to get it. Voreqe and Naz had to come up with some kind of justification.

     That, of course, was the contrived claim that Laisenia Qarase's government had cheated on the elections and that they had a racist programme of legislation.

What we've got now, is a military government whose kitchen cabinet is dominated by Ahmadiyyas.

     They are not a particularly extremist sect.

     They are a bit like Mormons are to Christianity ­ embarrassing weirdos who were led astray from the mainstream but oddballs who thought they had a direct line to god. In Pakistan, where Ahmadiyyas (and the Shameems as it happens) trace their roots, they  are not allowed to preach. And so they have become a global church, claiming around 200 million members. Their founder, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad had, like Mormon founder Joseph Smith, some kind of vision that he was a new prophet. He claimed to have a fresher mandate from god that would take Islam back to Mohammed¹s original directions.

     Meanwhile Catholics have a legendary tradition of deeply interfering in Pacific politics. Usually they were the agent of France, but these days it is rather duller than that; its nominally celibate aging men (in Fiji's case exclusively men, and often white) wanting power.

     Benedict was seen as a Pope interested more in the religious rather than political side of life; like his predecessor, he is not big on liberation theology. For example, he instructed Catholic priests in Kenya not to accept public office.

     So what does he do about Suva's Archbishop Petero Mataca who is now the head of the National Council for Building a Better Fiji (NCBBF)? It is the hobby of a part-time Auckland economist John Sami who is receiving disgustingly large amount of money to prop up Bainimarama. These confused alliances in Fiji; economist and soldier, Muslim heretics and Catholic eccentrics.

     Bainimarama went to Rome as a head of government to attend the United Nation's World Food Summit. Some months before he had tried to go to Rome but the Italian Government refused to give him a visa. This time he got into Italy under the Robert Mugabe Clause; we don't like you, but as it's a UN do, we cannot stop you.

     Benedict did not meet Mugabe this time (through sheer carelessness he got into the last Pope's funeral) but Mataca did his work well and got his local boss into meeting his bigger foreign boss.

     All this suggests the Vatican really does not care much about the people of the Pacific.

     The Vatican has a long history of cooperating with military dictatorships, particularly of the South American kind, and doing the same for the Pacific is par for the course. The Pope was plainly clueless about Bainimarama; a depressing commentary on the Vatican these days.

     The shameless politics of the local priests has been highlighted by New Zealand expatriate David Arms who, rather than say Mass and minister to his parishioners (should he have any) and set out to subvert Fiji's constitution.

     He has said that “as the military regime was more or less acting outside the constitution, the NCBBF should take the opportunity to push through the electoral reforms and amend the constitution, by taking advantage of the military authority and ignoring the legal constitutional requirements for making such changes“.

   Arms is devoid of any knowledge of history. Such appeasement and opportunism has been the handmaiden to many a corrupt government.

     Perhaps instead of banning journalists, Fiji should start tossing a few irksome priests out. The moral decline of Fiji Catholicism suggests they are not working in accordance with their visa rules.

Copyright: Michael Field