February 26, 2011

Military regime families to rattle visa bans using Netball

As we alluded to earlier, family member's of the regime are attempting to agitate the visa bans put in place by Australia and NZ, knowing full well what the restrictions are, and what the outcomes are most likely to be.

This is simply an exercise in futility, that will obviously be exploited to whip out the vicitm routine that we have all come to know and abhor and seems like a convenient ploy to seek the support of the "largest women's sport" in the country to champion their visa cause.

Equally baffling is why the President of the sporting body need's to accompany the team if the purpose of these matches is simply for "exposure".
Cloud of doubts
Rashneel Kumar
Friday, February 25, 2011

TOUR plans for four members of the Netball Fiji (NF) team to New Zealand and Australia for build-up matches are in doubt over travel ban.

Australia and NZ have imposed bans on Government officials and the Republic of Fiji Military Forces (RFMF) officers and their families.

The four are NF president Wainikiti Bogidrau, assistant coach Una Rokoura, acting secretary Alini Sovu and player Bernie Daurewa.

Rokoura's brother is a military officer while the rest have their husbands working for the RFMF.

Bogidrau said they would apply for the visas and hope to get a favourable response from both embassies.

"We will be submitting visas for all our players and officials (regardless of their military connections) who are expected to be part of this tour," she said.

"We hope that both countries (Australia and NZ) can consider the visa applications that we will be submitting on the basis of the request, sports."

NF is eyeing the Australia and NZ tour as a build-up for the national team to the upcoming World Netball Championship (WNC).

The Gabrieli Qoro-coached side is hoping to play six elite teams from each country in a bid to retain their top five status when they face the giants in Singapore from July 3-10.

"The one and only reason we are headed for both countries is to ensure that our team is exposed to high-level netball as part of our build-up to the WNC in Singapore," Bogidrau said.

"The team leaves for Australia on March 20 and to New Zealand on March 24 both trips would be about 7-9 days long."

Meanwhile, the first of the two expat coaches sought by NF will be in the country by the mid of next month.

"Our overseas-based players are expected to be in Fiji for this part of the training (conducted by the overseas experts)," Bogidrau said.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Instead of attacking NF, we should have pointed out the wrong reporting involved here and how the media twists the angle of this story to suit them.

Bogidrau and Alini are not part of the team - so they would not be travelling to Australia or New Zealand anyway.

Fiji Times needs to be corrected here.

Keep The Faith said...

@ Anon: No one is attacking NF but it is interesting that you would attack the media when they are after all censored by the regime.

The "news" we get is what the regime wants us to get, so it is quite inappropriate to shoot your messengers in this instance.

ex Fiji tourist said...

Actually, you both have good points.

BUT, I believe that Anon was trying to highlight the manipulation that the misministry of lots of misinformation is passing on to the media to be regurgitated without comment.

It makes you wonder why Rashneel Kumar would even put his name to this garbage when it was written by Sharon goebells.

girlie said...

Wainikiti should never have been allowed near impressionable young women. She has a sordid and despicable past. She only achieved anything by lifting her skirt to the highest bidder. Watch your girls, parents!

Keep The Faith said...

@ EFT: OK we concede that perhaps Anon may have a valid point.

However the fact that Anon is giving info that is NOT in the public domain ie Bogidrau and Sovu not travelling to Aust or NZ, reeks of an insider's view, and thus leads us to suspect that the deflective tactic against the media is in fact a defense mechanism of one of their own.

We stand to be corrected but either way, you the reader can judge for yourself.

Anonymous said...

Girlie - Remember that one who lives in a glass house should not throw stones. I suspect a bit of jealousy for the NF President's achievements - be it in an academia (three or four gold medals for academic excellence- USP only dishes out these medals through merit and nothing else), professionally or in sports. Let us celebrate instead of tear down or degrade the achievements by our women. Let us give credit where it is due - and netball has achieved so much under the current executives led by Wainikiti! Love her or hate her ... she seems to be doing better than

Keep the Faith: Wainikiti and Alini are not members of the national team, so how right is this report.
Whatever the

Anonymous said...

@ Girlie you need to get real. You sound almost envious, we all know where this sport was several years back. Let us support them anyway, the current leaders under Bogidrau are doing so much better than other sports, rugby included.

@ Keep the Faith - read the story. It states Netball Fiji Team. Bogidrau and Sovu are not part of the team.

JoeG said...

Wow. Girlie if you are a real woman, then shame on you. Why resort to such despicable posts? Let us address the issues not the personalities. Only cowards attack people through their pseudonyms. Why can't you give credit where it's due? Netball is where it is today thanks to the dedication and leadership of its President.

Keep The Faith said...

OK last word on this because we're not going to get drawn into a silly cat-fight to defend the honour of families of the illegal and treasonous military regime, and pretend that this is about breaking the glass ceiling -- spare us please!!

If the families of the regime (now all nepotistically embedded in rugby and netball) were so pro-women, than it would have been nice to see them offer their help to Mrs Rabaka, Mrs Verebasaga, Mrs Anthony, Mrs Speight, Mrs Chaudhry, Mrs Tawake etc -- before they abused and even killed unarmed civilians.

Anon I don't know what you're reading but this story does not say ANYTHING about Bogidrau and Sovu's non-travelling status, so clearly you are giving us insider info.

However if YOU actually read it, the story is quite clear:

"TOUR plans for four members of the Netball Fiji (NF) team to New Zealand and Australia for build-up matches are in doubt over travel ban.

Australia and NZ have imposed bans on Government officials and the Republic of Fiji Military Forces (RFMF) officers and their families.

The four are NF president Wainikiti Bogidrau, assistant coach Una Rokoura, acting secretary Alini Sovu and player Bernie Daurewa.

Rokoura's brother is a military officer while the rest have their husbands working for the RFMF.

Bogidrau said they would apply for the visas and hope to get a favourable response from both embassies.

"We will be submitting visas for all our players and officials (regardless of their military connections) who are expected to be part of this tour," she said."



And furthermore if you want to applaud the regime please take it Croz Walshe's blog.

Without any help from us they will trip themselves up soon to show just how low they are willing to go, to manipulate the sports arena for their political purposes.

I hope Vidya Lakhan is paying attention because his lame bleating to the Commonwealth about how sports in Fiji is "apolotical" sounds quite hollow right about now.