Annie Are You OK?

Just like Michael Jackson (RIP), we just gotta ask Annie Reymond-Rogers the CEO of the Fiji Trade and Investment Board if she's indeed OK, or if she's buddying up with the smooth criminals aka the treasonous terrorists of Bainimarama et al.

Her latest statement certainly has us scratching our heads.

Ms Reymond-Rogers asserts that in 2008, 279 investment applications were received totalling a proposed investment level of $428.3 million.  These proposed investments should have generated 3637 job opportunities.

From those 279 applications received, only 245 foreign investment registration certificates with a total proposed investment worth $405.5 million were issued.

That however was not the crux of this media report. The "story" was embedded (perhaps compliments of the illegal censors) in another related story.

Turns out that for hoped for 3,000 or so jobs (with total proposed investment $405.5 million) only 281 projects valued at $623.8 million were realised, which apparently created 2262 jobs for locals. It would be very interesting to suss out exactly which sector these investments were made in.

The CEO finally concedes that registration for 2008 was a "a decline from the 398 projects in 2007 with proposed investment value of $495.1 million and 7302 employment".

The two winning CYA sentences however are:

1. "The decline is attributed largely to the global financial and economic crisis and its impact on global growth and Fiji's main trading partners, the latter from which a significant proportion of foreign investment is sourced for Fiji,"
   
2. "It could also be attributed to the increase in the FIRCA application fee from $14 to$2812.50, which took effect in July 2008,"

Any economist worth their salt know's that the political stability of any country soliciting international investment is paramount. Unsurprisingly there is no mention of that whatsoever.

It must be easier to pin all their investments aspirations on China.

Flogging all our products in China may help but what we are offering may not be what they really want or need.

NZ-Fiji rapproachement doomed

Another winning piece by Michael Field who returns with his spot-on views on Fiji.

Our thanks to Ex Fiji Tourist for the heads-up.

NZ-Fiji rapproachement doomed

What is surprising about Fiji's "test" of New Zealand, is that Foreign Minister Murray McCully fell for it.

Not for a second did he believe, I am sure, that Fiji would be so stupid as to put up a completely unacceptable character as its diplomatic representative in Wellington.

Voreqe Bainimarama out-smarted himself by suggesting military band drummer Neumi Leweni could represent Fiji as its senior diplomat in New Zealand.

Kava sodden Leweni has risen through Fiji military ranks faster than anybody since Sitiveni Rabuka staged his coups back in 1987.

For Fiji-watchers, the mystery is just what it is that Leweni has on Bainimarama. It must be really good, because he is hopeless at whatever he does. He was sent to China as a diplomat and promptly came home after screwing up.

What did Bainimarama do; he promoted him. Leweni better be careful though that he does not overplay his hand.

What is puzzling is that Bainimarama was given a strategic opportunity by McCully with the secret meeting in Nadi. This was his big chance; he could have seized the high ground and changed the complexion of New Zealand perceptions of Fiji. Rather than "test" New Zealand, by sending one of the dullest knives in his draw, he could have created a sensation in Wellington.

All he had to do was find one of Fiji's brighter and enthusiastic minds, somebody who would look good on television in New Zealand, who could give a 21st century media look to his military regime. Is this the image of a new Fiji that Bainimarama wants New Zealand to see - a man who slurs his words and looks like a janitor on television?

In current circumstances, to be Fiji's main diplomat in New Zealand is a route to fame and media attention. Put up somebody dynamic, interesting and fluent; then let New Zealand hear the case. No one, and certainly anybody who has ever dealt with Leweni, will ever take him seriously.

Brute military force does not cut the ice in Wellington, talent is needed. I can think of at least five people in Suva who would, in a single television appearance on a news show, win tens of thousand to Bainimarama's case. Leweni's mumbles will send them screaming to the hills.

For New Zealand, the issue revolves around the skill and wit of Murray McCully. He went to Nadi and made peace with Inoke Kubuabola. Even Bainimarama knows not to trust Kubuabola, one of the most devious characters in Fiji.

He claimed to have invented the concept of "taukei" and was quickly alongside Rabuka in the 1987 coups. Very quickly, be stabbed Rabuka in the back and tried, unsuccessfully, to take over.

When George Speight overthrew the Chaudhry Government in 2000, Kubuabola was quickly into that. He signed up with Speight and was advising him, right from day one. So complex was Kubuabola's role that a treason file was opened on him.

On the face of it, Kubuabola and Bainimarama have nothing in common; Kubuabola is the very essence of the "ethno-nationalism" that the commodore says he so hates. He is an untrustworthy man.

Kubuabola is a man of no credibility; as we have now seen in the Leweni saga, he is outside the loop.

Whatever Kubuabola told McCully has no value. Perhaps he knew, as newly promoted zealot Brigadier Pita Driti (and my, isn't it getting crowded with scrambled egg now at the top end of the RFMF - Frank for admiral soon, surely, just so that everybody can have a big title) put it, Leweni is a test.

Did Kubuabola deliberately trap McCully this way?

Did McCully fall for it?

Or perhaps, as is more likely, Kubuabola did not have a clue about what was going on.

He's not in Bainimarama's inner circle at all. He had a job simply on the basis of that old saying - keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.

Its surprising McCully and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs went along for the ride. But then MFAT these days is staffed by children who dream of Paris and London, not Suva and reality.

Words To Live By...

...the struggle for justice should never be abandoned because of the apparent overwhelming power of those who have the guns and the money and who seem invincible in their determination to hold on to it. That apparent power has, again and again, proved vulnerable to human qualities less measurable than bombs and dollars: moral fervor, determination, unity, organization, sacrifice, wit, ingenuity, courage, patience---whether by blacks in Alabama and South Africa, peasants in El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Vietnam, or workers and intellectuals in Poland, Hungary, and the Soviet Union itself.

from A Power Governments Cannot Suppress by Howard Zinn (RIP)
Read the e-book.

Nazhat Shameem Defends Her Handiwork

Don't you just love it when professional pride takes over common-sense, and individuals defend their handiwork without realizing just how much of the un-said they're inadvertently stating?

Here's another piece of evidence we're chalking down for future "developments".

We highly recommend that you download and read this illegal Crimes Decree 2009 for yourself.

Shameem clears air on treason offense
Publish date/time: 02/02/2010 [07:01]

Former High Court Judge Nazhat Shameem has rejected suggestions by some people that the Crimes Decree lists treason as an offence if people speak out against the government.

Shameem said the decree does not include anything of this nature and people making these comments may not have read the new law in detail.

Under the Crimes Decree, a person commits the offence of treason, if at the time of the offence being a Fiji citizen or resident, the person causes the death of the President or the Prime Minister, causes harm to the President or the Prime Minister, or imprisons or restrains the President or the Prime Minister.

Under the new decree, a person can also be charged with treason if he or she instigates a person who is not a citizen of Fiji to make an armed invasion of Fiji.

The penalty of treason is life imprisonment.

Receiving or assisting another person who has committed treason with the intention of allowing him or her to escape punishment or apprehension, also carries a maximum penalty of life imprisonment.