Military regime targets Melanesia for support

Well looky-look what we have here.

The illegal and treasonous military regime and their supporters and inept mouthpieces have been sent their brief to seize the hearts and minds of Melanesia via the Solomon Star media outlet, hoping in their artificiality, that their lone supporter will help them apprehend and score points over regional Fiji's fugitive drama.

Unfortunately for them the tide tends to turn very swiftly in Melanesia.

Double standards over Mara, Moti
Wednesday, 22 June 2011 04:19

How does the saying go? Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown. So far Fiji’s Commodore Voreqe Bainimarama has enjoyed an untroubled run.

He has the country firmly under his thumb. Dissenting forces, or areas of possible dissent, have been neutralised. For once no one is cursing the Indo-Fijians for Fiji’s problems.

The two coups of 1987 and 2000 were based on supposed indo-fijian takeover of Fiji and stated to be the saviour of the embattled indigenous Fijian race.

But Commodore Bainimarama’s agenda is different.

Graham Davis, a Fiji-born journalist, when accused of supporting a coup summed the position thus:
“I believe there’s a fundamental difference between the coups of 2000 and 2006.
The former was supposedly a coup to uphold indigenous rights but, in fact, seems to have been carried out by a group of opportunists pursuing the spoils of office.

What’s the evidence for that? That indigenous rights weren’t under any threat. It was a smokescreen for a much more grubby lunge for power.

The coup of 2006 - on the other hand - was to uphold the notion of a multiracial Fiji against what the military believed to be a clear and present threat.

This was the legislative programme of the Qarase government that would have created two nations - one for indigenous Fijians and one for the rest.”

I endorse his remarks.

To seek to achieve that goal Commodore Bainimarama has had to pull out all stops and, for the time being, stifle or silence all dissent .

It began, of course, with parliament itself. As we see in Australia today, parliament continues to reflect a nation evenly divided.

Qarase had won a majority with a blatantly racial approach to i-Taukei Fijians to vote on racial lines.

He denied this, of course, but a tape recording of one of his speeches caught him out. Qarase persisted with that blatantly racial agenda.

He sought to declare all sea and shores of Fiji as indigenous land; he wanted the 2000 coup perpetrators “reconciled” and thus forgiven; and finally he sought every i-Taukei outside Fiji to have a vote.

After months or warnings including a “settlement” conference in New Zealand, Commodore Bainimarama acted on December 6, 2006.

Commodore Bainimarama would go on to neutralise the Fiji Law Society, the Council of Chiefs and finally the Methodist Church.

There has been unrelenting pressure on Commodore Bainimarama to hold elections.

Commodore Bainimarama does not want those who I may call “the usual suspects” to end up in parliament.

Fundamental to Commodore Bainimarama’s success is loyalty of the military - the only single political force that remains in Fiji.

Speculation abounds. The world powers - USA, UK, EU, Australia and New Zealand - are pressing Frank for a return to civilian government.

Commodore Bainimarama originally promised elections in 2009, but has extended this date to 2014.

Commodore Bainimarama does not want any of the “old guard” to come back to parliament.

Commodore Bainimarama does not want any discrimination. Frank wants one-man, one-vote, one-value. Equality for all. Very high and noble motives.

The European Union is somewhat neutral to Commodore Bainimarama. China is silent and it is one country which shuns political decisions in cases such as Fiji.

China is there to lend a helping hand, but excites the envy of other nations who shun Fiji.

But the West is suddenly becoming strident despite showing some signs recently that Commodore Bainimarama should be accommodated and “understood.”

A recent drama, where a soldier accused of sedition has been spirited to Tonga in a Tongan vessel which brazenly entered Fiji’s waters.

Unlike Julian Moti (Fiji-born former Solomon Islands’ Attorney-General) who was hunted like a fugitive by Australia, this soldier Ratu Tevita Mara has been made welcome in Tonga and Australia where he was invited to deliver a speech.

Suddenly the Machiavellian doctrine that the enemy of my enemy is my friend is being invoked.

Why did Australia give Ratu Ului a visa? On what basis? Australia is very selective in choosing who will come to Australia.

Unlike Julian Moti, Roko Ului was actually a fugitive from Fiji’s judicial and legal system.

Remember the American CIA ? As one of its operatives confessed to a Fiji journalist, “The purpose of the CIA is to foster unrest in the rest of the world.”

Yes, indeed, while the rest of the world is squabbling and disunited Uncle Sam rules.

Remember Indira Gandhi’s wheat sales to USA which paid her in Indian rupees.

Yes, rupees which could only be spent in India. The CIA used that money to bribe and destabilise. Mrs Gandhi cancelled the deal.

Remember Kwame Nkrumah.

The CIA admits it had him killed. Nkrumah’s crime: he would have united Africa.

So Australia and New Zealand are playing the same CIA game and marching to its beat. Divide and conquer. Conquer and divide.

We watch how the Ratu Ului drama will pan out. Tonga once nearly conquered Fiji.

Tongan chief Ma’afu who tried to conquer Fiji is buried in Fiji at Ratu Ului’s home in Lau.

Parts of Lau speak Tongan.

Yes, if anything, this dispute highlights the reality of Commodore Bainimarama’s dream of a free Fiji with equality for all.

By: Karam Chand Ramrakha*
In Sydney, Australia

*Karam Ramrakha, a lawyer admitted to practice in Fiji and New South Wales, draws on his experiences as a former Fiji parliamentarian and one of the “Founding Fathers of Free Fiji” to analyse recent events.