Pandit Kamlesh Arya heads up Arya Pratinidhi Sabha of Fiji again

Back at the helm
Elenoa Baselala
Saturday, June 25, 2011

PANDIT Kamlesh Arya has been appointed president of the Arya Pratinidhi Sabha of Fiji. Mr Arya previously held the position from 1996 to 2009 until his posting to Canberra as Fiji's High Commissioner.

A career schoolteacher, Mr Arya has taught in primary and special education schools around the country and after 20 years of service to education, he resigned in 1993 to join the Fiji Teachers Union as industrial relations officer, a position he held until 2001 when he ventured into politics.

After serving a full five-year parliamentary term as a Labour Party representative, Mr Arya did not seek re-election in 2006.

In 1996, Mr Arya contested the position of the president of the Arya Pratinidhi Sabha of Fiji and having won then, he held the position until 2009.

On his appointment as Fiji's High Commissioner to Australia, Mr Arya relinquished his position as president of the Sabha.

Pandit Arya was recalled to Fiji by the Government in October 2009 and re-engaged with the Sabha on his return.

During his presidency, the Sabha undertook the establishment of The University of Fiji of which he is the foundation trustee and a member of the UniFiji Council. At UniFiji, Mr Arya is the chairman of the Finance and Physical Planning and Development Committees.

Mr Arya is married to Urmila Arya - a teacher.

The Economist: Island asylum

Tensions between neighbours rise
May 19th 2011 | CANBERRA | from the print edition

SEVERAL hundred years ago, the Pacific island state of Fiji was a place of refuge for exiled princes from neighbouring Tonga. Now it is Tonga that serves as a destination for Fiji’s blue-blooded asylum-seekers. Roko Tevita Uluilakeba Mara, the youngest son of the modern state’s founder, the late Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara, fled by sea, with the Tongan navy’s help. He is now under the protection of the homburg-wearing Tongan monarch, King George Tupou V, a distant relative of Mr Mara’s father.

The contrasting switches of fortune do not end there. Tonga, long an autocratic monarchy, took a giant stride towards democracy in November, when the country chose its first elected government. Meanwhile Fiji has lurched towards ever more authoritarian rule. Draconian public-emergency regulations have been in force, with few let-ups, since a military coup in December 2006.

Until he was suspended in October, Mr Mara was commander of Fiji’s biggest regiment. He had been a loyal ally of the coup leader and military chief, Frank Bainimarama. Now at liberty in the Tongan capital, Nuku’alofa, Mr Mara denounces what he says is the baneful control over Commodore Bainimarama’s government exerted by the attorney-general, Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum. He calls for regime change.

In a television address, Commodore Bainimarama, who doubles as prime minister, responded by condemning the Tongan navy’s role in extracting Mr Mara from Fiji’s territorial waters. Tonga’s prime minister, Lord Tu’ivakano, says the courts will impartially consider a request for extradition. Yet for all his protestations that King George’s hospitality does not imply a guarantee of immunity for Mr Mara, Tonga’s judiciary remains answerable first and foremost to the king, not the elected government. It also happens that Tonga’s chief justice, Michael Scott, a former Fiji high-court judge and himself a refugee from Fiji’s coup, is an arch-opponent of Fiji’s chief justice, Anthony Gates, controversially appointed in the wake of the Bainimarama takeover. A bitter feud between these two British-born judges was a lively subplot of events leading to the 2006 coup. Justice Scott will presumably take a dim view of the impartiality of Fiji’s courts.

The suspension of Mr Mara and the former land forces commander in October came because of allegations of a planned counter-coup. Both officers were brought before the courts earlier this month, and charged with incitement to mutiny.

Mr Mara’s flight from Fiji is a further sign of the growing breach between Commodore Bainimarama and the Mara dynasty. Ratu Mara died in 2004, but his family played a critical role in backing the 2006 coup. Mr Mara’s brother-in-law is the current president, Ratu Epeli Nailatikau. Another brother-in-law resigned as defence minister in November after a quarrel with Commodore Bainimarama over arbitrary taxes imposed on a bottler of mineral water. After Mr Mara’s flight, New Zealand’s foreign minister suggested that “there is a lot to play out yet.” Rumours in Suva, Fiji’s capital, are swirling. Though some claim that the president is plucking up courage to remove the prime minister, Commodore Bainimarama is more likely eventually to usurp the position of the president.

Regime attack dog hounds Samoan Prime Minister

Even as the hunt for Ratu Tevita Mara continues, their extradition applications don't seem to be getting the illegal and treasonous military regime anywhere.

Tonga can't help the regime out and it now appears that Australia will follow suit despite the regime's best attempts to tempt Australia to reciprocate. The illegal and treasonous Attorney General in trying to take the high road and whining about not "stooping to their level", is going to get exactly what he wanted: mere acknowledgements of the receipt of extradition requests and a "thanks but no thanks".

The bottom-line for governments, for whom the military regime seeks assistance for, in attempting to apprehend Mara, is that they will not entangle themselves with a government that has no legal standing. It is as simple as that. And they have continued to make this abundantly clear.

Meanwhile the newest of the illegal and treasonous regime's attack dogs, Graham Davis, has been given orders to start yapping at the heels of Samoan Prime Minister, Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi.

Unfortunately for Mr Davis he knows not nor what he deals with. Already his proxy master, Aiyaz Sayed Khaiyum upon recently getting a right interview beat-down, will continue to cause much concern publicly lauding Hitler as being democratic.

Paradise fades as Samoa upsets the neighbours
Graham Davis
From: The Australian
June 27, 2011 12:00AM

THE principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries is a cornerstone of international law, yet that principle is being flagrantly breached by Samoa in its dealings with Fiji.

In a remarkable development, the Samoan government has publicly endorsed a campaign spearheaded by renegade Fijian military officer Ratu Tevita Uluilakeba Mara to overthrow the government of Fijian dictator Frank Bainimarama. In doing so, it has set the scene for an even bigger rift between the two countries with potentially serious consequences for the entire region.

Bainimarama is not only Fiji's Prime Minister, but also chairman of the Melanesian Spearhead Group, which links Fiji with Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and the Kanaks of New Caledonia.

There's already a clear faultline between the Melanesians and their Polynesian neighbours in regional forums. But now a longstanding sense of unease has turned to anger that one of the biggest and most influential Polynesian nations has seen fit to jettison traditional notions of sovereignty and become a partisan player in Fiji's domestic affairs.

In Canberra earlier this month, Samoa's Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi gave his personal blessing to a concerted effort by Tevita Mara - the son of modern Fiji's founder, the late Ratu Kamisese Mara - to remove Bainimarama and return Fiji to democracy in advance of the regime's current timetable of 2014.

Mara - who made a dramatic escape to Tonga last month after he fell out with Bainimarama and was charged with sedition - is trying to drum up support for a 10-point plan that would also revive Fiji's Great Council of Chiefs, marginalised since Bainimarama's coup of 2006.

Tevita Mara said the Samoan leader had assured him of his backing and had invited him to visit Apia next month for further consultations. "I welcome his support, and this meeting was part of the process of isolating the Bainimarama regime internationally, regionally and locally within Fiji", Mara said.

Tuilaepa confirmed that endorsement in an interview with Radio Australia: "I tend to look at the defection and the proactive role he (Mara) is playing now as part of the process of a solution initiated by the Fijians themselves."

In comments that have caused widespread consternation in regional capitals, the Samoan leader called for tougher sanctions against Fiji aimed at provoking a popular uprising.

"There should be additional sanctions. Once the people realise that the sanctions are making their lives difficult, then it will motivate them to take the necessary action," he said.

Tuilaepa went on to criticise the Lowy Institute for suggesting Canberra modify its hardline stance and re-engage with Fiji. And he launched an extraordinary attack on Bainimarama's domestic policies, saying Fiji's coffers were empty and the regime was illegally raiding the superannuation savings of ordinary Fijians.

All this puts Fiji on a collision course with its two closest Polynesian neighbours. Already furious with Tonga for sending one of its patrol boats to rescue Mara from within Fiji waters, the Bainimarama regime is now being provoked by Samoa.

Tuilaepa's decision to meet Mara in Canberra has also fuelled suspicions in Fiji that Australia is the hand in the glove of this new alliance. It lifted its ban on Mara entering the country to enable him to address pro-democracy rallies in spite of accusations that he had abused pro-democracy activists in the wake of the 2006 coup, in which he played a role.

Are Australia and New Zealand using Samoa as a stalking horse to try to bring about regime change in Fiji? Is Mara being groomed as an alternative Fijian leader in waiting? The coconut radio is abuzz with speculation about what it all might mean.

For the moment, Bainimarama is striking a nonchalant pose about the threat Mara presents, thumbing his nose at the chief recently by visiting his home village in the Lau group and securing an apology from Mara's clan for his errant behaviour. Until now, he's also dismissed Tuilaepa as "an Aussie and Kiwi stooge" whose sole achievement has been "to force Samoan motorists to drive on the other side of the road". But with the Samoan leader openly encouraging rebellion in Fiji, that nonchalance is being tested.

The intervention is seen as "irresponsible and potentially dangerous" by Australian academic Richard Herr, author of a landmark report on Fiji 18 months ago for the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.

"When Toke Talagi, the Prime Minister of Niue, urged Fijians to rise up and overthrow the regime during the Cairns Pacific Forum in 2009, it was regarded as embarrassing and inflammatory and the then Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd sought to tone it down", Herr said.

"This is potentially just as inflammatory and dangerous and yet there's been no public response thus far from Australia that might help defuse what is certainly an irresponsible intervention by the Samoan leader."

Already, Fijian and Tongan naval vessels have been engaged in a tense stand-off over the ownership of Minerva Reef, a coral outcrop with rich fishing grounds claimed by both countries. That dispute has been exacerbated by Tonga's action in sending one of its patrol boats to pluck Tevita Mara from the clutches of Fijian justice.

Now that he's also being feted by the Samoans, Fiji's relations with its near neighbours are under even more strain. All of a sudden, the Pacific of legend is looking anything but.

Speech by Ratu Tevita Mara, Melbourne, Australia: 6pm, 25 June 2011

Good Evening, Bula Vinaka, Namaste

Before I start, as the outgoing Chairman of the Lau Provincial Council, I would like to thank Bainimarama for his commitment to spend $30m dollars in the province in the next 12 months. It is much needed and we will be able to accelerate the development of Lau. However, please don’t believe our support can be bought cheaply or in this case expensively. I would also be happier if it was real money and not borrowed money that the people of Fiji will have to repay in the future.

First of all I would like to express my sincere gratitude for your invitation to this meeting and for your solidarity in the course of freedom, human rights and dignity for the people of Fiji. In that course and in that commitment, I am delighted to be with you here today and to share in your desires for Fiji’s future and its well-being. From the outset I would like to thank you and your families for your faith, resilience and hard work in the course of freedom for Fiji.

There has been a lot of talk about my Damascene conversion. How one day the scales were lifted from mine eyes and I could see the light. Some people say this is just a ruse to save my own skin. But I and many senior officers in the military have been pushing for a return to democracy before 2014.

Well let’s ask the following questions:

1 -  Why was I charged with a frivolous and trumped up accusation in May

2 -  Why was I discharged from the military in March

3 - Why was I sent on leave in September of last year

4 - Why was the Military council been sidelined as a decision making body from early 2008


The answer is simple the military council objected to the new direction being taken by Bainimarama. We did not carry out the coup in 2006 to have Bainimarama lead this country for 8 years until 2014 and beyond. Brigidier Driti and I were the members of the council who spoke out most against this new and unplanned direction.

The question is should I and could I have done more to stop the increasing power of the puppet and his master. The answer to both questions is yes.

But NOW I am doing more.

NOW I am taking action

And NOW with your help we will put an end to this dictatorship

A few people say I should come back to Fiji and face the charge of sedition. They know as well as I do that under the stewardship of Khaiyum there is no independent judiciary, the courts are not free to make their own decisions. I will not have a fair trial in Fiji under this regime.

In April of this year 3 Sri Lankan magistrates resigned on the same day including the acting Chief Magistrate Mrs Pamila Ratnayake. They all left Fiji on the same day within a week of resigning. The reason given by Khaiyum was they had resigned for “personal reasons”.  So 3 unrelated Magistrates all resigned on the same day for “personal reasons”. That does not sound like a true story, Khaiyum!

The real reason was that they were fed up having interference in their cases. It was not just from the Chief Justice but also from the Executive branch of Government. Christopher Pryde the Solicitor General and also on Occasion Khaiyum himself would actively advise on the way these magistrates should progress individual cases. As one of the Magistrates said to a local colleague “We are leaving before the Sh** hits the fan!”

I have a number of specific examples but I cannot talk about them in public as the whistleblowers are all still in Fiji and some still in judiciary.

It does not stop with the judiciary. The police are also under total control of the Puppet master and his puppet.

Let me give you a recent example. Also in April Assistant Police Commissioner, Henry Brown, ordered one of his officers to investigate the salaries of Bainimarama and Khaiyum. The officer went to the accountancy firm run by Dr Nur Bano Ali, Khaiyum’s Aunt. This firm as we all know is responsible for paying Bainimarama’s $700,000+ salary, so it is kept hidden from the Fijian people. The aunt made a call to her nephew and the poor officer was taken to the barracks for some questioning. Brown went to China after ordering the investigation. But as soon as he returned to Fiji on Good Friday, he too was captured, held and questioned for the whole Easter Weekend. Ioane Naivalarua, The Police Commissioner, was standing right beside him at the time and did nothing to stop his own deputy being taken in by the military.

Khaiyum openly boasts to the business community. “If you want to go against me, bring it on. I have hundreds of men who will destroy you” He can say that because he controls the police, he controls FICAC, he controls the Courts.

Khaiyum I say to you if you want to extradite me you need:

- To Stop interfering with the police

- To Stop interfering with the Magistrates

- To Stop interfering with the judges

Yesterday the following announcement was made in Tonga.“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of Tonga regrets that the Laws of the Kingdom of Tonga do not permit His Majesty’s Government to comply with the aforementioned Extradition Request.”

I am obviously very pleased I cannot be extradited back to Fiji. It clearly demonstrates the difference between a democratic country operating under the rule of law compared to a dictatorship operating under the whim of Bainimarama and Khaiyum, the puppet and the puppet master.

I believe that no country in the free world will send me back to a totalitarian state where it is a crime to criticize the Government. It shows what Fiji has become under Bainimarama; its laws have more in common with North Korea, Burma, Syria and Libya and less like the other Pacific Islands such as PNG, Tonga, Samoa, Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands.

I would like to take this moment to express my sincere appreciation to the Government of Australia for its understanding and goodwill for allowing me to come to this beautiful country to share my views about the dictatorship and situation in Fiji. To Australia, I say, THANK YOU so very much.

On New Zealand and the Pacific Islands, I also seek their understanding. I thank NZ, Tonga and Samoa for having opened their doors to receive me and discuss the situation in Fiji. In advance I express hope to those other Pacific islands countries, who in their own goodwill and care for the people of Fiji and the region will be able to receive me as well. I look forward to my forthcoming visit to New Zealand and Samoa. I thank their leaders for their concern and leadership. I look forward to meetings with the Fiji communities in New Zealand and in the Pacific Islands. The oppressed peoples of Fiji attach a lot of importance to my visits and hope in the goodwill of these countries.

The military regime ignores principles of good governance and decency. It has no ethical backbone. Rather it focuses on processes and activities. Why? Because its leader and his cronies do not have principles. They jump straight to and immerse themselves in processes and activities for one sole reason – to hide their bad faith. A reason their shifty arguments cannot stand in the face of international due diligence and scrutiny. This is not surprising because they rejected the Pacific Islands Forum requirements which previous governments and leaders have been instrumental in their formulation and implementation. Also, they cannot abide by the requirements of the EU, IMF and World Bank. We see through their fudging by their using of democracy narratives and languages to hide their real motives.

Unfortunately for the people in Fiji, time is not on their side. The economy is crumbling at a faster rate than the people are led to know.

The economy has shrunk before our eyes since Bainimarama took control.

The sugar industry has shrunk by two thirds since 2006.

There is no investment in Fiji. In 2010 there were investment projects worth $591m in the pipeline only $17m was implemented. That is truly disastrous.

Now we learn of the rape of the FNPF by this regime.

In May the FNPF announced it was going to have “Symposium on The Future of FNPF”. That sounds nice and friendly, very reasonable and good of the FNPF to inform the country about where it is going and what it is doing with OUR money. And it is OUR money every working person in Fiji has given to the FNPF. It is OUR money for them to safeguard for when we retire.

Let’s look at this regimes approach to Pensioners.

First they make sure there are more pensioners by forcing anyone over 55 to retire from the PSC. There are exceptions of course. There is no retirement age for puppets like Bainimarama, not even in 2014.

Secondly they have made life tougher for pensioners by destroying the economy, devaluing the dollar and increasing inflation. All of which means pensioners are already struggling to put food on the table.

And now they want to cut the pension by as much as 64% for some but at least by 40% for all. Let’s take 50% which is about halfway between the 2. That means that if in June you were getting $100 a week pension. In July you will only get $50 a week.

You can’t complain in the media. And when the decree is gazetted in July you won’t be able to go to court to get justice. Because we are living in a dictatorship we just have to accept it FOR NOW!

Why is the regime rushing this through now? All previous reports on the FNPF changes have said they should be done gradually over a number of years so pensioners have got time to make changes and to plan for their future in other ways.

But not Bainimarama he needs this done now. He needs to do it now because he needs to borrow money cheaply. He has learnt the hard way borrowing internationally is expensive at 9%. The only source of cheap borrowings for the Government is the FNPF. The FNPF can only give him cheap money if it halves the pensions.

Bainimarama stealing the money of the pensioners of Fiji.

Bainimarama and Khaiyum are stealing the money of all the workers in Fiji.

And where is that money going?

·         It is going to pay Bainimarama and Khaiyum’s  $700,000+ salaries

·         It is going to pay for their jet set life style

·         It is being used to line their pockets in kickbacks on their Asian infrastructure deals.

·         It is being used to bribe the people of Fiji

The only way we can stop the biggest robbery in Fiji’s history is to change the regime. We need to remove Bainimarama and Khaiyum.

We will isolate the regime internationally, regionally, and in Fiji. Piece by piece we will remove all their support.

I will meet leaders globally and plan on meeting senior officials here in Australia, New Zealand, The USA, The UK and the EU. I will meet with the UN, the Commonwealth, and the ACP. I will unveil the truth about Bainimarama and Khaiyum to the world.

We will embark on meetings around the region and tell the leaders of the regional countries the truth about Fiji. I have already met with the PM of Samoa, Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi, who was outspoken in his support for the return of democracy to Fiji. He has also said “a promise by Fiji’s leader to hold elections in 2014 is not taken seriously by Pacific Islands Forum leaders.

This is because Commodore Frank Bainimarama has been consistently dishonest in his dealings with the leaders and therefore cannot be trusted.”

It makes me weep. Bainimarama has sunk so low in the eyes of the other Pacific leaders they openly say he cannot be trusted.

We have already started spreading the message in Fiji. We can see we are having an effect. But we need your assistance. We need you to talk about the true situation every time you are in touch with Fiji.

·         Tell the truth by phone,

·         Tell the truth by text,

·         Tell the truth by email,

·         Tell the truth by letter.

·         Tell the people of Fiji to prepare for passive resistance and civil disobedience

·         Send our DVD’s to Fiji

Above all let the people of Fiji know what is really going on in their own country because Smith Johns will never do that.

We need to build the confidence of the people back home, so tell everybody you know to do the THUMBS UP FOR DEMOCRACY! It is a small first step but one that will give the people the strength to take bigger steps in the future.

We are working on a roadmap towards democracy. It will be published soon but first we need to coordinate the plans and actions of the pro-democracy movement worldwide and within Fiji.

I want to make it clear we need to make this change by peaceful means. We will use passive resistance and civil disobedience. There will be no violence.

I can assure the people of Fiji the military will not shoot. There have been many discussions informally at the camp and the soldiers know that shooting is not an option. Even if Khaiyum orders his puppet to order the soldiers to open fire, THEY WILL NOT FIRE ON CIVILIANS. They know it is wrong.

We will have democracy, we will have a new government and we will have them soon.

Remember Fiji belongs to all of us and not just to two people.

Thumbs up for Democracy.