tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-77457852727535728712024-03-07T17:15:30.601+12:00Intelligentsiya- INTELLIGENT RESISTANCE - <br>
Free. Fair. Fearless. Intelligentsiya is made up of Fiji Islanders who are libertarians in their own way and who cherish the free flow of news, ideas and information and will peacefully resist any attempts by the country's military rulers to stifle free speech. intelligentsiya will also bear witness, report and discuss human rights abuses by the authorities.Chiefhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01291952121795963341noreply@blogger.comBlogger2326125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7745785272753572871.post-89640378861409417162018-08-30T21:51:00.000+12:002018-08-30T21:51:21.282+12:00(Temporarily) Back!<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">So yeah.. we've been on a long hiatus.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">We're back to support <b><u>HackzFJ</u></b> and the efforts to expose the apparent ill-gotten and rampant pillaging by this heinous lot.</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Jan, 2018</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> Feb, 2018</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">March, 2018</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> April, 2018</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitOoAE0kkp1h2G4C9GgNqo6NK7C0XFkobdcWcOf0aRKIAv62Ys4r2LWoYTC3b14xLwfESOgfWlE0fOS5iryziFEvHLTj4cyFKFCo1AmoCiqKJ3-iOnJpw6wRSJeoF4W7LrPbyW6FalOCcK/s1600/7.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="360" data-original-width="650" height="221" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitOoAE0kkp1h2G4C9GgNqo6NK7C0XFkobdcWcOf0aRKIAv62Ys4r2LWoYTC3b14xLwfESOgfWlE0fOS5iryziFEvHLTj4cyFKFCo1AmoCiqKJ3-iOnJpw6wRSJeoF4W7LrPbyW6FalOCcK/s400/7.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">May, 2018</span>Chiefhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01291952121795963341noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7745785272753572871.post-79897991080825612732015-05-24T19:43:00.001+12:002015-05-24T19:43:39.295+12:00Will FICAC Investigate the USP Vice Chancellor or is Political Persecution their only priority?<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">An email was sent to USP Council Members and various Fiji Government and Opposition members highlighting the concerns of alleged abuse of office, corruption and mismanagement by the Vice Chancellor by "Concerned Pacific Islanders".</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It will be very interesting to see whether FICAC will take this up with as much gusto as they have <a href="http://www.fijileaks.com/home/fijileaks-to-ficac-cut-the-bt-and-take-the-fnu-crooks-into-custody-first-ficac-probe-was-conducted-between-28th-june-to-8th-august-2012-and-charges-recommended">shown for FNU</a> or whether they are content to only carry out Gestapo type political persecution tactics of the Bainimarama Governments bidding. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Moreoever, it will be interesting to see whether key donor countries of the USP Council like Australia and New Zealand are happy to let their taxpayer funds continue pour down the gurgler by Chandra.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The covering note reads:</span><br />
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<i><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Dear Council members,<br />As pacific islanders and stakeholders in the University we are concerned about serious problems of management, abuse of office and deteriorating standards at USP under the leadership of VC Chandra. We have highlighted this before and once again we provide a summary of the problems which is attached. We trust that this time council members would take this seriously and institute at least an independent investigation. We have included in this email the Hon Attorney General of Fiji, the Hon Minister for education of Fiji and PMs office and some key opposition members as Fiji provides the bulk of government grants.<br />Concerned Pacific Islanders</span></i></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The summary of the issues raised is reproduced below.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>Corruption, abuse of office, dictatorship and Mismanagement at the University of the South Pacific- under the leadership of Vice Chancellor - Rajesh Chandra</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>A. Introduction</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We as concerned Pacific Islanders who are proud of USP have serious concerns about the future of the University under the leadership of Rajesh Chandra. We know there have been several complaints in the past but these have been conveniently ignored and Rajesh Chandra has been cleared and he got his contract renewed. We also know that the investigations were in-house by the former Chair of Council, Mr. Ikbal Janif who was elected under dubious circumstances and engineered by the VC himself. He only won on a casting vote by the Chair of the Council. Ikbal Janif was also supported by Filipe Bole, Former Minister who is VC Chandra’s good friend and VC Chandra was cleared without any independent investigation. Since then there have been more issues and we cannot ignore this anymore.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Some of us who complained last time by putting our names were sued in the court in Fiji and hence we are not putting our names on this issue. Most of us who complained against harassment continue to face harassment by the hands of the thugs that VC keeps in each section on the university. These thugs have become so brave that they even verbally harass us in corridors and nothing is done about it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But the issues we want to highlight are more serious and a lot of what was happening has accumulated to a point where it is now a crisis. We humbly request the USP Council and other stakeholders to have an independent investigation at USP.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1. There was much hype about the strategic plan for 2013- 2018 which was used as a transformation document to renew VC Chandra’s contract. A closer look would suggest a big failure. An honest assessment for the last two years- 2013-2014 would suggest that more than 60% of what was to be achieved has not been achieved, for example the STAR review, campus development and appointment of professors etc. An independent audit would spell all this out.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2. STAR project has also been a failure and again the review done by USP through a consultant hired by the VC does not provide a true picture.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3. The ‘good to excellent’ is a dream which will never be realized under the leadership of VC Chandra as espoused in the strategic plan. Leadership of the University at all levels has been wanting and that is why the objectives of the strategic plan will not be realized.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">4. There has been lack of leadership at the SMT level and one would have to ask the following questions: Why have so many SMT members left under VC Chandra:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">i. Greg Arrowsmith - HR Director – soon after joining USP</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">ii. Munish Malik - Director Finance - left prematurely</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">iii. Susan Kelly - Deputy VC - left after dispute. She was paid a large sum by USP as compensation for the left over contract. Susan Kelly’s only fault was that she raised the issue of the murder-suicide of a student (Joytika) and the role of some senior staff who were close buddies of the VC (professor Sudesh Mishra). This matter has only been superficially investigated and swept under the carpet.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">iv. Michael Gregory - Pro VC Planning and Quality - left in frustration. In this case VC Chandra committed abuse of office - where he authorized payment including tax paid on his behalf. This issue has also been swept under the carpet as well.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">v. Biman Prasad - Dean FBE - Resigned early in his second term. The acting Dean appointed is just a senior lecturer has been there for the last 3 years. VC has not been able to recruit a dean for FBE in the last 3 years.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">vi. Heather Stadel - new HR Director left early. No director and hardly any senior staff left.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">vii. Professor John Bythell - just left his DVC position. Privately John Bythell was very upset with the dictatorial style of the VC. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">To cover up, he hurriedly got an old man appointed as Acting DVC for a year and we think the University beached Fiji government immigration policy.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">viii. Mr. Adish Naidu - one of the best Director of Physical Planning and Facilities. He was wrongfully suspended. The first preliminary committee did not find anything against him but VC instituted another round of investigation (abuse of power and office) but still could not find anything. Adish Naidu was reinstated but after a while decided to leave the University and we believe a civil court action is underway and University will end up paying him compensation. We here now that VC has forced a appointment </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">of a foreigner who is not even qualified over </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">regional candidates.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">ix. We are told that there are serious cracks in the </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">SMT and it is likely that two senior SMT members could leave in frustration sooner than later. One of them is highly qualified regional Vice President from Tonga.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">x. The Vice Chancellor has adopted and increasingly dictatorial style of management and in the process has made several blunders and has hidden them from the council. The case of the promotion of Dr. Anjeela Jokhan to Associate Professor is a scandal and has been swept under the carpet. The Vice Chancellor reportedly manipulated the procedure, changed rules and forced his way to promote her despite objection by SMT members like Deputy Vice Chancellor Susan Kelly - who provided a written objection. THIS IS A MAJOR SCANDAL- IN ANY UNIVERSITY THE VICE CHANCELLOR WOULD HAVE BEEN SACKED. (all the papers should be in the HR office)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">xi. Apart from SMT members many senior professors have left the University in frustration. Tourism professor, psychology professor, geography professor, mathematics professor, economics head and professor and several </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">others. Officially they will appear like they have normally left but many of them left in frustration. In the strategic plan, the target was to get 60 professors- we hardly have 20 full-time professors in the university and it is almost impossible for the University to recruit more professors in the next few years.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">xii. It would be interesting to account for all the reviews that have been undertaken by consultants under VC Chandra. Every time he makes a blunder in a section such as HR, Finance etc. he orders a review and the recommendations of the review are never implemented. Just take the case of the HR section. Since his appointment as VC in 2008 VC Chandra has not been able to sort out that section. Recently he has decided again to review the HR section when many reviews and consultants have already done the review, made money and have left. Donors have happily funded these reviews in good faith but the results have been disappointing.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>B. UGC Submission 2016-2018 - LIES AND EXAGGERATION</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1. The University Council and stakeholders must scrutinize this document carefully because our analysis shows that it is actually a fraud on the University. Most of the responses are massaged to portray a good picture without any tangible outcomes. In some cases there are outputs but the outcome is still nowhere to be seen. Some key points to note and which needs further clarification and interrogation. They are as follows:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">i. The projected surplus of $22.5 million over the next three years is an exaggeration and unachievable.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">ii. For example recommendation 2.6 in the last UGC report on campus expansion. The response of the University is somewhat of a lie. The business plans for Kiribati, Solomon Islands, Lautoka and Labasa have all been exaggerated. While Kiribati campus is progressing - it had to go through new requests for funding. Solomon Islands campus site was not properly done and University pushed for an unrealistic location and is shifting the blame on the Solomon Islands Government when it should have known that the location was unrealistic. Lautoka campus land was traded for bigger land but the price for the new one was not negotiated well and USP now finds that the FSC wants a higher price. This project would be dead. So the response of the University to the last UGC recommendation has not been an honest one. This pattern of response is found in all the responses to the last UGC report.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">iii. UGC and council members would remember that VC Chandra pushed for government contribution reduction over the last six years, playing politics with the regional governments. Having asked for the reduction in government funding for the last several years- he now comes up with the request that government contribution be increased by 10% for the next three years. This is an absolute blunder. Governments will now be burdened to increase their contribution in a big way. This shows poor planning and management of finances by VC Chandra.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">iv. More worrying is his insistence that University could save $15 million dollars over the next three years. This is again exaggerated and design to hoodwink the council members. Our analysis shows that even a $5 million dollar saving in the next three years would be near impossible. In 2014 the surplus was only $300,000 - how he can save $15 million or even $5 million over three years is mindboggling.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">v. Careful analysis of the budgets and surpluses for the last several years shows that the University actually misled the council on surpluses, income and expenditure.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">vi. There seems to be confusion with the deferred revenue, projects funds and surpluses. These have not been clearly presented.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">vii. On the expenditure side, under VC Chandra, expenditure has been poorly managed. Large amounts have been paid as legal fees to lawyers (John Apted, Munro Leys operates from USP), and compensation paid to staff who have taken the University to court - a thorough investigation on this aspect will reveal poor management and leadership.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">viii. Several expenditures relating to buildings, repair and maintenance is done without careful planning and there are always over expenditures. Expatriates get the favour from the VC. Recently he has authorized a new flat for an expatriate Vice President as a special favour to him.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Project fund management. The biggest blunder USP made is with respect to the PICPA project and others. PICPA project had a budget of about $45-50 million but lack of leadership by USP and Vice Chancellor saw the Australian government withdrawing most of it (roughly F$40million). It is run by a small complement of staff who does consultancies at high rates and also receive pay. Arvind Patel – who is VC’s favourite (‘it needs to be noted that this academic had sexual, professional harassment cases, he even was investigated by FICAC for taking undeclared cash at the airport. He has never allowed anyone to be appointed/promoted.) His HoS appointment itself is against the staff policy</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">ix. is now acting Director and we are told – he receives close to $400,000 per year in addition to in-house consultancies he is getting.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">x. Payment of inflated salaries to certain favourite staff - Husmuk Lal - Director TVET; Jai Karan, receiving commission we here - Arvind Patel and others who are close to VC.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">xi. Engagement of foreign consultants - some of them are known personally to the Vice Chancellor. Some of them are retired people with not much to offer have been hired as consultants in a consistent manner and without any tender process. A fellow from Melbourne, called Frank Larkins travels business class on a regular basis to offer advice and on an astounding daily consultancy package.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">xii. Value for money for these consultants is a key question and how much the University has spent on them and what value it has added or how it has led to any tangible benefits.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>C. Concluding Comments</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The University is at the crossroads. IN MANY WAYS IT HAS REACHED A CRISIS POINT. It could end up being a big failure if the Council and the UGC and governments do not scrutinize the financial, academic and governance aspects of the University. We could be heading towards a sustainable decline of the University. Only and independent inquiry into the operations of the University would bring out the real mismanagement and decline of the university in the last several years.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The council should investigate why the VC has a rule that no staff can take any complaint to the Council level. What if a senior SMT is being discriminated and the VC has an issue. Where does this SMT member go to?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For several years the Vice Chancellor has managed to feed exaggerated outputs and achievements of the University to the council and donors especially Australia and New Zealand. They need to raise some critical questions in an independent manner.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Council may have been reduced to a rubber stamp by the VC because of the communication and his reporting to the Council based on what he wants from different sections to report.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">An independent inquiry is the only way to resolve and find out the extent of the rot in the University.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Fiji government which is a largest contributor to the budget should ask Fiji Independent Commission Against Corruption (FICAC) to investigate the abuse of office by the Vice Chancellor.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Council must take charge after its meeting in June so that a proper evaluation is taken before the funding commitment for the next 3 years.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7745785272753572871.post-82858480322519297552015-04-15T16:07:00.002+12:002015-04-15T16:07:44.935+12:00Wednesday Funny<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4ZBjcAS4TF3G8A5o4TP8nT9qAcYawDTzb7_fOs7YrxLFWaejOExMBuDqKjldvWEHA9gwNqj4XkIQdrqzqr0Bj_lWOUwCfDkBCxAveswXGUiJKz3AilYal8Gz55mvZRGpW2aLwH6p69uw/s1600/Holding+it+all+in.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4ZBjcAS4TF3G8A5o4TP8nT9qAcYawDTzb7_fOs7YrxLFWaejOExMBuDqKjldvWEHA9gwNqj4XkIQdrqzqr0Bj_lWOUwCfDkBCxAveswXGUiJKz3AilYal8Gz55mvZRGpW2aLwH6p69uw/s1600/Holding+it+all+in.jpg" height="640" width="480" /></a></div>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7745785272753572871.post-17999871314033174972015-01-17T21:10:00.000+13:002015-01-17T21:10:08.467+13:00From the Archives: Green Moon Rising: Islam Is Spreading In Melanesia (Pacific Magazine 2007)<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Pacific Magazine > Magazine > June 29, 2007 </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Cover Story</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://www.islamicboard.com/general/134273130-islam-spreading-melanesia.html"><b>Green Moon Rising</b></a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Islam Is Spreading In Melanesia</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">By Words and Photos by Ben Bohane, Port Vila</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">http://www.pacificmagazine.net/issue/2007/06/29/green-moon-rising</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Much of the funding for the Hohola mosque in Port Moresby comes from Malaysian and Saudi sources.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">For Mohammed “Sambo” Seddiq, a Ni-Vanuatu Muslim who provided land and a small building that houses Vanuatu’s first mosque, conversion to Islam didn’t happen overnight. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Sitting on a prayer mat inside the green-painted house in Mele village that from the exterior looks like any other house in the community, Seddiq tells me it was a process that happened over many years, beginning with a sense of curiosity, until he felt that “Allah had truly called me” and it was time to change his life.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">“I was a Pentecostal Christian before, with the Neil Thomas Mission, but I didn’t feel in control of my life and I had a problem with alcohol,” he says openly. “Islam is straight forward and disciplined and this is what I needed to be a better person in the eyes of Allah. You know, the Bible is only full of stories, but I found that the Qur’an gives direction to life.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">He was first exposed to the faith when one of his relatives, John Henry Nabanga, had returned from India in 1978 where he had been sent for Bible studies and scriptural translations but instead came home converted to Islam. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Seddiq watched how Islam had transformed John “Hussein” Nabanga into an honorable and generous man and the way his extended family began to embrace it through his personal example. In 1992, the Mele mosque was opened and each Friday since then, the dozen or two local Muslims who live in the capital Port Vila can be found at prayers in the stark room, unadorned except for a curtain screening off the women and a large clock with a picture of Mecca on it. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Today, there are between 100 and 200 ni-Vanuatu converts to Islam. Mosques are now springing up in the outer islands of the archipelago, such as in the islands of Malekula and Tanna. Chiefs are often the target of proselytizing efforts on the often correct assumption that if they convert then their extended families, clans and other islanders will also likely convert. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Of course, it is not just Vanuatu witnessing the phenomenon — throughout the Pacific Islands, Islam is on the rise and an umma (Islamic community) is being established in every country of the region. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Islam is the world’s fastest growing religion and the Pacific is proving no exception: indeed it seems to be actively targeted by Malaysian and Saudi-funded organizations, with oversight coming from within the established umma in Australia, New Zealand and Fiji. In many instances, African Muslim missionaries are being deployed in the belief that Pacific Islanders will naturally respond better to the efforts of fellow black missionaries.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Nowhere is the growth of Islam more palpable than in Melanesia, which has a culture of religious dynamism and experimentation, where kastom, cargo cult and Christian movements continue to evolve, blend, mutate, syncretise and spawn new belief systems. Now Islam can be added to the mix and its effect on traditional kastom, national politics and regional security can no longer be overlooked.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Although there are no official figures and few academic studies, it is believed there has been thousands of indigenous converts to Islam in recent years in Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and Fiji alone. New Caledonia also has a large, but unknown number of Muslims who have settled there from all over the Francophone world over the past 100 years. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It was while cruising PNG’s rugged highlands highway two years ago and noticing the increasing number of bush mosques springing up, that first prompted me to ask: why is Islam becoming a serious religious alternative for Pacific Islanders? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">My first instinct was to dismiss it, thinking: “nah — Islam is never going to take hold in a region which is based on pig culture.” But perhaps I’m wrong. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">There are indeed cultural parallels. First among these may be the fact that Islam developed from a tribal Arabic culture also and maintains decision-making bodies (shurias) that are similar, in their social organization and un-hierarchical nature, to Melanesian chiefly councils.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The notion of “payback” is one that resonates strongly in both Melanesian and Islamic tradition, ie the notion of “eye for an eye.” Although Christian influence is strong, Jesus’ example of “turning the other cheek” has not, it must be said, been largely adopted by Melanesians. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">One of the widespread frustrations among islanders to Western law stems from the fact that Western law does not compensate the victim, unlike traditional Melanesian and Islamic law. Polygamy and gender separation (such as Men’s Houses and Women’s Houses in Melanesia) are part of both Pacific and Islamic culture. Seddiq in Vanuatu even suggests that since his people traditionally sat on mats on the floor, mosques feel more natural to them than sitting in Church pews. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Part of the problem Western observers have in understanding the region is that they tend to have a secular outlook and place primacy of their analysis on the role of the State (issues of good governance, corruption, service delivery, unemployment etc) when in fact the world view of Melanesians today is virtually the opposite – their daily lives remain governed by kastom and religious obligations and subsistence agriculture. They place little emphasis on the role of the State since it is an introduced concept, heavily centralized in the capital cities and usually has little impact on the daily lives of islanders living in rural and remote areas.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Scott Flower, a PhD student at the Crawford School of Pacific Policy at the Australian National University in Canberra, is one of the few to take the growth of Islam in Melanesia seriously, with a regional view.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">“Melanesian people generally do not comprehend or desire the separation of religion and the State. The centrality of religion in their daily life is very important,” he says, suggesting an inherent feeling towards living in a theocratic State; whether it is in kastom, Christianity or Islam.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Flower argues that Muslim communities in each country will continue to grow in size and number because, like Christianity, Islam and its associated organizations provide islanders with public goods (such as health and education), a moral and spiritual system, and access to other global networks and opportunities, prestige and alternative paths to social and political power.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">“In general, conversions from traditional religions to Christianity in Melanesia were not only for theological and spiritual reasons but for practical purposes as well. It is unlikely that the attraction to Islam in this way will be any different,” he says.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Already, an Islamic school in Oro province in PNG is attracting children from neighboring villages happy for any schooling. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I have met families from poor squatter settlements in Port Moresby, Port Vila and other urban centers who are sending their children away to madrassas (Islamic schools) overseas in Malaysia, Yemen, Fiji, and Saudi Arabia “because they will have better opportunities there,” they tell me. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">When the deadly Solomons tsunami crashed through Gizo and Western Province killing 53 people and displacing thousands of villagers, the international Muslim Aid organization quickly dispatched medical teams and supplies for the affected areas and islanders embraced this aid as much as any other. It is believed to be the first time a major Islamic charity has offered assistance to a Pacific country following a natural disaster. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The process to become a Muslim is in itself simple, compared to other faiths: one needs only to have made the decision definitively in your mind and recite the basic tenet of the faith three times (“There is no God but Allah and Mohammed is His prophet”), in the company of fellow Muslims, to be accepted into the faith. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Foreign and local missionaries alike often suggest that what they offer is not conversion, but reversion–that is, by embracing Islam islanders are reverting back to kastom and ancestral ways. It is clever marketing, but slightly disingenuous. When I discussed this notion with Seddiq in Vanuatu and Yaqub Amaki from the PNG Muslim Association at the Hohola mosque in Port Moresby, both conceded that eventually Islam has primacy and there was little kastom that would survive.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The foundations of much Melanesian kastom relating to pigs, beetlenut chewing, kava drinking, ancestral worship as well as dancing related to courtship or ancestral/ nature worship is not halal ( therefore tabu) for those who truly embrace Islam. This prompts the question: what kastom is left? Can Pacific kastom find a place within orthodox Islamic interpretation?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">This question goes to the heart of one of the central questions facing Islam globally–how can Islam separate its faith and philosophy from Arabic cultural practices?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Those interested in preserving Melanesian kastom see Islam as potentially a damaging cultural force, rather than a security one. Professor Kirk Hoffman, one of the founders of the Vanuatu Cultural Centre puts it bluntly: “The growth of Islam will destroy Melanesian kastom in perhaps the same way that strict Christian missionaries did 100 or 200 years ago.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">There is also the issue of Pacific Islanders not being fully aware of the whole breadth and range of Islam to choose from, from the very tolerant, mystical Sufi tradition, to orthodox Sunni and Shia beliefs, to militant *******-ism, to explicitly non-violent sects of Islam such as the Ahmadiyyah, founded in 1889, who believe “there can only ever be a jihad of the heart” and who are deemed heretical by other Muslims for believing that a Sufi-inspired Indian prophet named Mirza Ghulam Ahmad was “the last prophet,” not Mohammed. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Often persecuted in their own Muslim countries, some of Ahmadiyyah’s 100 million followers worldwide are ironically seeking sanctuary in Christian countries, including the Pacific. There is already a strong community in Kimbe, PNG and in Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands. Unlike other Islamic groups, the Ahmadiyyah seem much more transparent with their activities, with information on its Australian and Pacific activities available on its website www.ahmadiyya.org.au.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Given that Islam is on the rise anyway, perhaps it is in the interests of Pacific governments to actively encourage the input of non-violent Islamic groups like the Ahmadiyyas in their local Muslim communities as one of the seeds of Pacific Islam. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Islam can offer a range of benefits to island communities in terms of local service delivery and access to global finance for development (through such organizations as the Islamic Development Bank). </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">As the Islamic world comes in contact with Pacific culture, so too is it important for Pacific island communities to have a better understanding of the range of Islam—particularly those drawn to the faith—and the likely impact it will have on their societies. Seddiq in the Mele mosque points out that in Vanuatu, unlike other Pacific Islands, Islam was established by “its own sons,” not foreign missionaries, so that it will always maintain a local flavor.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">“Islam here is homegrown, so we can control it. Other countries have foreign missionaries but what happens when they leave? Better that we send our children overseas to study and come back with good degrees than having to rely on overseas missionaries coming here.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Right now, 28 Muslims from Vanuatu are studying in Islamic colleges overseas: in Fiji, Malaysia, New Zealand, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Pakistan. Given that it is the smallest country in Melanesia, it is likely that at any one time hundreds of Pacific Muslims are studying overseas in madrassas throughout the Islamic world. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Already a debate is well underway at the Hohola mosque in PNG’s capital Port Moresby on what kind of Islam is most suitable for this part of the world. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Regular inter-faith dialogues with members of PNG’s Roman Catholic, Anglican, Bahai and Buddhist clergy are also a cause for optimism that dialogue is in progress and communal tensions can be kept in check.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">One rainy Friday I attended prayers at the Hohola mosque and was welcomed in with all the hospitality that Muslims are famous for.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The Imam, brother Mikail Abdul Aziz from Nigeria, was away, so I met the acting Imam, Khaled, a Bougainvillean who is the most senior Papua New Guinean Muslim. Khaled comes across as thoughtful and easy-going. He jokes about how his wife has remained a committed Christian who occasionally likes to argue with him on religious matters, but that ultimately it has not affected their personal relationship…why shouldn’t that be something of a metaphor for the wider community, he seems to imply?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Given that much of the funding for the Hohola mosque has come from Saudi and Malaysian sources, that its’ Imam is a Nigerian steeped in *******-ism, (the most puritanical of Muslim ideology which Osama bin Laden also subscribes to) and that all copies of the Holy Qur’an on their shelf have been printed in Saudi Arabia and follow *******-ist interpretations…I feel compelled to ask if this is the most appropriate form of Islam for PNG and the region?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Yaqub Amaki, a Sepik River man who is General Secretary for the PNG Muslim Association replies: “I can say that we have already had some very robust discussions on this issue. Some of us think that a more moderate interpretation, found in countries like Malaysia and Indonesia, will be more appropriate for the umma here. We are still finding our way here and while there are no real divisions in Islam, there are different paths and we need to be open to debate. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">“Since the Saudis and Malaysians were here in the beginning to assist us, it is only natural that we should follow their lead, but I am confident that Islam here will gradually take on a more PNG style over time.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The question of funding for Islam in Australia and the Pacific has become a prickly one at times. In January this year a minor spat broke out between the Australian government and the Saudi government following claims that the Saudi Embassy in Canberra was funding unidentified Islamic groups to pay wages for at least 20 Imams in mosques around Australia.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The Saudi government refused to identify the groups and Canberra disputed claims that all the recipients getting Saudi cash had been vetted by Australia’s Foreign Affairs and Trade, as is required.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Numerous Pacific Island Muslims I have spoken to have said that they receive financial support and other assistance from the Saudi Embassy in Canberra, believing that the mission has diplomatic responsibility and religious oversight for the Pacific Islands as well. Saudi diplomats have visited numerous Pacific Island communities and help channel scholarship funds for students who want to study abroad, often with the assistance of the Islamic Development Bank.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Pacific Magazine approached an information officer at the Saudi Embassy in Canberra recently to ask for an official outline of its assistance to Pacific Island communities, but was told flatly, “the Saudi Government does not provide any help to the Pacific Islands – go and talk to the Malaysians and Indonesians. Further questions were not responded to. Although the range of assistance is likely to be for non-controversial purposes such as mosque-building and education in the islands, it is this lack of transparency that concerns some observers.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Meanwhile a Pacific Imam training course is available for Australians and Pacific Islanders to undergo at the Islamic University in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. A Malaysian organization called RISEAP (Regional Islamic Da’wah Council of South East Asia and the Pacific) has already funded dozens, maybe hundreds, of Pacific Island Muslims to do the intensive three-month course there. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Whether Malaysia and Saudi Arabia are in competition for the souls of Pacific Islander Muslims, or are actually working together in co-ordination is hard to tell at this stage. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>The Security Question</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">While Islam is being quietly and peacefully absorbed into central and eastern Melanesian nations and most parts of the Pacific, the same cannot be said for those in western Melanesia, particularly those under Indonesian control. Here, jihadi groups flourish and sectarian conflict periodically explodes, such as in Ambon and the Molluku islands, where more than 10,000 people died in sectarian conflict between Christians and Muslims in the late 1990s. Locals accuse sections of the Indonesian military of deliberately sparking the conflict in a divide and rule tactic, afraid the once-united community of these islands wanted to break-away from Indonesia after the fall of Suharto.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In West Papua, the OPM (Free West Papua Movement) has for years warned that militant groups such as JI and Laskar Jihad are operating there to suppress the independence movement as well as springboarding across unpatrolled borders into neighboring PNG, Australia and other Pacific Islands.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">OPM Commander John Koknak claims there are more than a dozen jihad training camps across West Papua, many of them close the border with PNG and Australia.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">An increasing number of bush mosques have sprouted in Papua New Guinea’s highlands region in recent years.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">“I have been warning Australia and PNG for some time, but they prefer to trust the Generals in Jakarta” Koknak told me from his base in PNG. “You know, militant Islam in the Pacific is nothing new: JI is using the same networks as the Libyan Mataban groups who came here in the 1980s to set up cells and support Pacific liberation groups.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Commander Koknak’s assessment is supported by “Robert,” a Papua New Guinean Defense Force intelligence operative with responsibility for PNG’s border, who complained to me recently that infiltration by militant groups and people smugglers is going on regularly across PNG’s unmonitored 800km border with Indonesia, which he described as “the gateway for terrorists into the Pacific.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">“The Australians and Americans keep focusing on Iraq and Afghanistan, but they should be concentrating on their own backyard here in the Pacific instead.” Other Pacific leaders are more skeptical of the threat of terrorism, like former Prime Minister of the Cook Islands, Sir Geoffrey Henry.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">“Terrorism is not part of our world, it doesn’t matter what anybody else says,” Sir Geoffrey told ABC radio in a 2003 interview, complaining that a regional police conference had taken the threat of terrorism as its top theme that year.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">“They’re all wrong. The fact of the matter is we are free of terrorism.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">If we discount the sectarian fighting in the Melanesian territories of Indonesia, it is true that the Pacific has so far not witnessed any Islamic-inspired terrorist incidents and local Islamic communities in the Pacific generally live in peace within the broader community. All Pacific nations have enshrined “freedom of religion” within their Constitutions.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">But that has not stopped periodic alerts and the possibility of small Pacific states acting as unwitting springboards for militant Islamic groups.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Two of the September 11 hijackers lived in Fiji for several months immediately prior to flying on to U.S. for their mission. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In August 2002 American Samoa put a blanket ban on visits by Muslim visitors from 23 countries, following the closure of the American consulate there because of a terrorist threat. Apparently two unidentified men “of Middle Eastern appearance” had been seen photographing the consulate and concerns were raised about the visit by Sheik Abdul Majid, director of the Islamic Institute of the South Pacific (based in the Fijian capital Suva) along with a Saudi official from the Ministry of Tourism and Culture. Sheik Majid claimed the visit was part of a tour of Islamic communities in the Pacific, but soon after, in February 2003 the Sudanese-born cleric was expelled from Fiji on the grounds that he was a security threat.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The Islamic Human Rights Commission had also raised concern for the umma in PNG, following an arsonist attack on the main mosque in Port Moresby in November 2002. The attack may have been inspired by comments made by PNG’s then Deputy Prime Minister that PNG’s Constitution should be changed to allow for the banning of “violent religions,” which many took as a reference to Islam. Muslims have also been periodically attacked in the highlands of PNG, including one incident in Mt Hagen when a mob turned on a group of local and foreign Muslims, which required police to intervene and fire shots into the air before escorting the Muslims to their homes in neighboring Chimbu province.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In the Solomon Islands, Radio SIBC reported in July 2005 claims made by the countries’ Finance Minister Peter Boyers, that Islamic militants from Indonesia had tried recruiting young Solomon Islanders for training camps in Indonesia. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The Minister said that Solomon Islands Muslim groups were against radical Islam and refused the request, something supported by Felix Narasia of the Islamic Society of Solomon Islands. Narasia said the Islamic Society denounces any recruitment of Solomon Island youth for such purposes, saying such contacts were “illegal” and outside the Islamic </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Society of Solomon Islands.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Then late last year came the intriguing story of Wolfgang Bohringer and his Slovenian girlfriend, who sailed into Kiribati’s Fanning island in 2005 to set up a flight training school on this remote island close to U.S. territory.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Suspicions arose over his motives, prompting Kiribati officials and the FBI to investigate, but when Bohringer got wind of it, he sailed off, leaving his girlfriend behind.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">How worried should we be about Islamic terrorism in the Pacific? Scott Flower at the ANU: “While the more alarmist government and media scenarios of terrorist threats in the Pacific are undoubtedly inflated, the other perspective of a completely benign security environment is also likely to be incorrect.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">While there have been some assessments done on threats to Australia and the U.S. from the region, Flower points out how little study has been done on the potential for domestic conflict within Melanesia as Islam grows. He warns of Muslim groups taking security into their own hands if they face repeated persecution in PNG, particularly in the volatile highlands. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In the Solomons, a situation has developed where the Ahmadiyyas have focused their proselytizing efforts on Guadalcanal island while orthodox Sunni organizations have targeted Malaita islanders. Several former Malaitan Eagle Force militants have reportedly converted to Islam and there is a danger that the on-going ethnic tension between Guadalcanal and Malaita (which caused civil war in the late 1990s and prompted the Australian-led RAMSI intervention) could become exacerbated by religious differences, too. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Clearly there are some warning signs there, but any threats to the Pacific are more likely to come from foreign militants using the cover of local Islamic communities, rather than from indigenous Pacific Muslims themselves. As these local Muslim communities grow, it will be in their interests to identify those among them who are straying from Mohammed’s message of peace, and to “out” militants among them whose actions will only rebound badly on local communities. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Regional Pacific and Australian governments also need to become more nuanced in their approach to dealing with Islam and to better understand the link between conflict and kastom, cargo cult and new religious movements generally, in Melanesia. Too much emphasis on “the State” and not enough on understanding the complex daily spirit worlds of Pacific Islanders risks misunderstanding their real hopes and aspirations.</span><br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7745785272753572871.post-4619078123024962122014-11-24T19:49:00.000+13:002014-11-24T19:49:50.033+13:00SCMP: Xi Jinping thanks Fiji for help in tackling corrupt officials, pledges raft of deals in return<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Xi Jinping expresses gratitude to nation once dubbed an island paradise for corrupt officials</span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">PUBLISHED : Sunday, 23 November, 2014, 6:51am</span><br />
<a href="http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1646577/xi-jinping-thanks-fiji-help-tackling-corrupt-officials-pledges-raft-deals"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">UPDATED : Sunday, 23 November, 2014, 6:51am</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Minnie Chan</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">minnie.chan@scmp.com</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-small;">President Xi Jinping attends a welcoming ceremony hosted by Fijian Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama in Nadi on Friday. Photo: Xinhua</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">China appreciates Fiji's efforts to help the government chase corrupt mainland officials and their illegal assets, President Xi Jinping said during his official visit to the South Pacific nation.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In his meeting with Fijian Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama on Friday in Nadi, Fiji's capital, Xi said Beijing hoped to strengthen bilateral law enforcement cooperation with Fiji, Xinhua reported yesterday.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Xi also pledged China's help to Fiji's developing economy, improving livelihoods and tacking climate change, Xinhua added.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">On August 19 last year, Chen Yi , former head of Shanghai's largest insurance agency who allegedly fled with 500 million yuan from the company, was caught in Fiji and escorted back to China by police officers.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">International relations experts said Xi's speech and other promises indicated that China would develop closer ties with Fiji. The island nation has a very large Indian community who make 38 per cent of the population and a smaller, mostly Cantonese-speaking Chinese community numbering about 8,000. More recently it has become known as an "overseas paradise" for corrupt Chinese officials.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">"Fiji has become one of the most popular destinations for corrupt Chinese officials and fugitives in recent years because the country has many hard-to-reach islands," said Zhou Fangyin , a professor at the Guangdong Research Institute for International Strategies, said.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">"Law enforcement in Fiji is very poor due to its imperfect legal system and unstable political situation."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Bainimarama, the former head of the army, has been Prime Minister since he staged a military coup in December 2006. China seized the advantage when Nadi's ties with neighbours Australia, New Zealand, other Pacific forum members and the British Commonwealth soured after the putsch.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Xi's state trip to Nadi is also the first by a Chinese president.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In a meeting his counterpart, President Chief Epeli Nailatikau, Xi said China regarded Fiji as a sincere friend and important partner in the Pacific.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">"[China and Fiji] should give play to complementary advantages and lift the level of cooperation," Xinhua cited Xi as saying. "China will continue to support and assist Fiji in dealing with climate change."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It said Xi also promised that China would import more Fijian produce, help it tap China's tourism market and encourage more Chinese investment.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">"Xi made many promises to Fiji because all the South Pacific nations have strategic value to China, with each country having a vote at the United Nations, despite their small populations," Zhou said.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Xi arrived in Nadi on early Friday. It is the last stop of his three-nation South Pacific tour that also included New Zealand.</span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as Fiji thanked for graft fight help</span></i></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7745785272753572871.post-52491037954504915782014-11-24T19:45:00.000+13:002014-11-24T19:46:03.330+13:00Indian Express - Chinese Takeaway: Modi’s Indo-Pacific<a href="http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/chinese-takeaway-modis-indo-pacific/" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Written by C Raja Mohan</a><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Posted: November 21, 2014 12:10 am</span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: x-small;">The last time an Indian prime minister traveled to Fiji was in 1981, when Indira Gandhi arrived there.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s decision to visit Fiji after his pre-scheduled trips to Myanmar and Australia was indeed a surprise. This underlines the new commitment in New Delhi to bridging the gap between the potential and reality of Delhi’s reach in the Indo-Pacific. The last time an Indian prime minister traveled to Fiji was in 1981, when Indira Gandhi arrived there. Since then, much has happened in Fiji and around it. The intensification of ethnic conflict in Fiji between Indian immigrants and the native populations saw Delhi focus exclusively on securing the interests of the diaspora. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The many coups in Fiji and the discrimination against the Indian community there led to Delhi’s efforts to isolate the government and lose its broader influence in the island. Modi’s visit comes in the wake of the UPA government’s decision to begin constructive engagement of Fiji a few years ago.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In the island itself, the elections earlier this year saw the strongman Frank Bainimarama shed his military uniform and win a democratic election with the support of ethnic minorities, including sections of the Indian community. If the restoration of democracy in Fiji set a positive context for Modi’s visit, the PM announced a number of steps to boost India’s relationship with Suva. This included the expansion of India’s development partnership with Fiji, improving air links and announcing visa on arrival for the citizens of Fiji.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Fiji Looks North</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The diaspora is not the only reason that has taken Modi to Fiji. Long seen as the backwaters of global politics, the region has increasingly become an important theatre in the emerging great power contestation in the Indo-Pacific. As elsewhere, the rapid rise of China and its intensive outreach to the islands in the last few years has stirred other major powers into action. What began initially as a competition with Taiwan for diplomatic recognition among the island states has now acquired an intensive strategic dimension. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">With their vast exclusive economic zones, the Pacific Islands occupy millions of square kilometres of ocean space and straddle vital sea lines of communication. Some provide ideal vantage points for military power projection. They are also important locations for gathering signal intelligence and monitoring outer space activity. Guam, for example, is now critical for the maintenance of American forward military presence in the Pacific. The US also tests many of its “star wars” systems in the littoral. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">For China, which seeks to expand its own strategic influence in the Pacific, limit American military primacy in the region and gain access to the rich natural resources of the littoral, the Pacific Islands have become an important priority. The last few years have seen China step up its presence through massive aid programmes, civilian as well as military, and frequent deployment of its naval units and the development of maritime infrastructure in the region. China also built a satellite-tracking station in Kiribati which, of course, was dismantled when the island switched its allegiance to Taiwan. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">China’s interest has given the islands more strategic options in their international relations and the means to resist political pressures from Australia and New Zealand. Fiji has consciously articulated a “look north” policy and played the China card with considerable deftness. With China raising its profile in the south Pacific, the US has ended its post-Cold War neglect of the islands and is back in play. Japan, too, is now committed to doing more for the islands. Australia and New Zealand, which had a free hand in the region after the Cold War, are now recalibrating their policies. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>India Card</b> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Hours after Modi left Fiji, Bainimarama was hosting Chinese President Xi Jinping. Xi is no stranger to the region, having visited the littoral as vice president a few years ago. Fiji and the other islands are eager for a strong Indian presence in the littoral. They know that India can’t match the Chinese, dollar to dollar, in providing economic assistance. The islanders have no desire to switch from a dependence on the West to a total reliance on China. India’s presence offers the prospect of greater regional balance in the south Pacific and offers more economic and political choices to the island states. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In meeting all the leaders of the Pacific Islands, promising to make the joint forum a regular affair, enhancing India’s economic assistance programmes and unveiling defence cooperation with Fiji, Modi has demonstrated that India is ready to turn its historic links with the south Pacific into a strategic partnership. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>The writer is a distinguished fellow at the Observer Research Foundation and a contributing editor for ‘The Indian Express’</i></span><br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7745785272753572871.post-11617642990451006382014-11-23T10:33:00.000+13:002014-11-23T10:33:49.806+13:00The Telegraph India: Fiji mission land-deal niggle for Modi Govt glare on ‘unequal’ swap<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Wednesday , November 19 , 2014</span><br />
<a href="http://www.telegraphindia.com/1141119/jsp/nation/story_19059153.jsp#.VHD_ad6liTc"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">K.P. NAYAR</span></a><br />
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<tr><td align="left" class="articleauthor"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Australian counterpart Tony Abbott with VVS Laxman, Sunil Gavaskar and Kapil Dev at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on Tuesday. (Reuters)</i></span><br /></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Nov. 18: </b>As Narendra Modi’s one-day visit to Fiji gets under way on Wednesday, the Prime Minister will discover that 135 years after the first Indian indentured labourers landed on what is now a popular Pacific honeymoon destination, land is still an issue of contention between New Delhi and Suva, the island’s capital.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">At issue since the BJP-led government assumed office is a decision taken by the government of Manmohan Singh without much application of mind to give away a precious plot of land in one of the priciest parts of the capital to Fiji.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The land is earmarked to construct its new high commission building after Suva opened its first diplomatic outpost in South Asia when bilateral ties were mended many years after a military takeover in May 1987 against Indian political domination of the island state.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Such allotments of land are normally done on reciprocity between governments: India has been similarly given a plot of land in Suva for its high commission. The mission was closed in May 1990 by Fiji after expelling the head of mission, T.P. Sreenivasan.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Sreenivasan was asked to leave the island in 72 hours for making an allegedly inflammatory speech in a gurdwara which was burnt and Sikh holy scriptures were vandalised by Fijian ultra-nationalists. The violence against the gurdwara was one of many incidents against Indian immigrants following the coup.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The Modi government’s hesitation in implementing its UPA predecessor’s reciprocal gesture is that land in Chanakyapuri, the prime diplomatic enclave in the capital, is worth many, many crores more than what India is getting in return in Suva, where property prices are a pittance compared to New Delhi.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">With a finance minister who is increasingly scrutinising overseas expenses instead of accepting the discretion of the ministry of external affairs, Arun Jaitley’s nominee in South Block on deputation from his ministry feels that the Suva-Delhi deal to build high commissions in each other’s capitals is only doing lip service to reciprocity.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Auditors who annually inspect all Indian missions abroad are also of the view that India has lost hugely on the allotment of land in Chanakyapuri to the Fijians because it is getting much less in exchange in Suva.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Land is also scarce in Chanakyapuri after Jawaharlal Nehru’s decision to give away entire </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">streets as in Shanti Path in the heart of the diplomatic enclave to countries like China and prominent western countries. Nehru was so generous that Sri Lanka declined a portion of the huge parcel of land that it was gifted.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Because there is no more land available in Chanakyapuri, a number of countries born after the end of the Cold War are being exiled to Dwarka where land has been given on a reciprocal basis.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Several other countries that have opened missions in New Delhi more recently following a growing global acknowledgement of India as an emerging power are operating out of rented premises in posh residential areas like Vasant Vihar. They also hope to get land only in faraway Dwarka, near the airport.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Opinion is, therefore, crystallising within the Modi government that if at all any remaining parcels of land are to be given in Chanakyapuri, it should not be for Fiji. Instead, India could negotiate reciprocity in pricey European capitals, where its missions are on rented premises, and thus save millions of euros through hard bargaining.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It is not clear if the issue will come up at the highest level in today’s talks in Suva. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Discretion on both sides may let the issue be discussed at official levels instead. But reciprocity in land allotment will be the elephant in the summit hall when Modi meets Fiji’s top leaders.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The issue will be a reminder to Modi that ever since 1879, when the first Indian labourer arrived in Fiji, land has been an issue between the two countries. Fiji’s constitution, which came into force in 1970, affirmed that native land was inalienable and Indians, even after generations, could only get long leases, not own it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">On the happier side of his visit, Modi will have the satisfaction of making a new beginning with Fiji not with ghosts from the past but after burying a distasteful bilateral baggage of many decades. Here, help from his native Gujarat, although unplanned and fortuitous, has come in handy.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In 2007, the young colonel who launched the anti-Indian coup, Sitiveni Rabuka, travelled to Gujarat. Of all the places in the world, even though Fiji’s government would have footed his medical bills anywhere in the world, Rabuka reached out to Bharat Mody, the well known anthroplasty surgeon in Vadodara who is known to the Prime Minister, to perform knee replacement surgery on him.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Inevitably, Rabuka’s choice of India, reckoned till then as the <i>raison d’etre</i> for an audacious coup, made news all over the Pacific, in Australia and in New Zealand. Gujarat benefited immensely.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">A statement attributed to surgeon Mody on the website of Vadodara’s Welcare Hospital, where he is chief of the centre for knee surgery, at that time said: “Prime Minister Rabuka’s visit to Vadodara will give an overall boost to the city’s medical tourism. People will now turn to Vadodara for other medical treatments along with knee problems. And this is just the beginning.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It is not certain at the time of writing if Modi’s path in Fiji will cross that of Rabuka. Sreenivasan’s judgement is that Rabuka “overthrew a democratically elected government, discriminated against the Fiji Indians, brought untold humiliation and suffering on them, tried to disenfranchise them, ordered me out of Fiji and closed down the Indian high commission.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">But these two men made peace in April this year. Sreenivasan was invited back to Fiji almost 25 years after his expulsion. They sat on the same chairs in the Suva Golf Club where they had their first conversation when Rabuka was a mere colonel and Sreenivasan was on the threshold of becoming a joint secretary.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">That gesture made it easier for South Block to work on the Prime Minister’s visit. Rabuka told Sreenivasan that after the surgery in Vadodara, his “quality of life had improved”. Few things could please Modi more than that remorseful acknowledgement from someone who was once against Indians.</span></div>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7745785272753572871.post-86513346992835887412014-11-19T18:43:00.000+13:002014-11-19T19:01:17.123+13:00Prof Wadan Narsey: MIDA Chairman changes his tune<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">19 Nov. 2014</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="https://narseyonfiji.wordpress.com/2014/11/19/mida-chairman-changes-his-tune-19-nov-2014/">Professor Wadan Narsey</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The Media Industry Development Authority was established by the Bainimarama Government in 2010, supposedly to regulate the media industry for the public good.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Yet MIDA’s ready condemnation of journalists from Fiji, ABC and NZRI for alleged biases (read <a href="https://narseyonfiji.wordpress.com/2014/11/19/mida-chairman-changes-his-tune-19-nov-2014/publicly%20asked%20the%20media%20to%20reveal%20their%20editorial%20policies%20on%20their%20decisions%20to%20publish%20or%20not%20publish%20Letters%20to%20the%20Editor%20and%20opinion%20pieces." style="color: #1b2ab6; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">here</a>), its ready condemnation of local media for running alleged “hate speeches” (read <a href="http://cafepacific.blogspot.com/2014/04/midas-chair-finds-fiji-tv-guilty-of.html" style="color: #1b2ab6; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">here</a>), and its reluctance to subject the Bainimarama Government to the same scrutiny (read <a href="http://www.radionz.co.nz/international/programmes/datelinepacific/audio/20154110/fiji's-mida-under-pressure-to-comment-on-decree-breach" style="color: #1b2ab6; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">here</a>), might suggest that MIDA is being used more to regulate the media in the interests of the Bainimarama Government,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">When the current MIDA Chairman (Ashwin Raj) was appointed, he announced his intention to tackle media censorship on a principled basis, and immediately demanded accountability from the media on their editorial policies for opinion articles and Letters to the Editor.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Much of the content of the censored articles and letters to the editor, could have influenced voters in the September 2014 elections.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Following the September 2014 elections and the victory of Fiji First Party (FFP) and Bainimarama, however, there has been a complete reversal in attitude of the MIDA Chairman.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The MIDA Chairman seems to suffer amnesia of the last six years history of the Fiji media being intimidated by the Bainimarama Government, and its biased treatment of different media.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The MIDA Chairman is currently achieving international prominence and status in the defense of the Bainimarama Government on its record on human rights.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It is quite unlikely that the MIDA Chairman will play any significant part in bringing about greater media freedom, and a level playing field for all media interests.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">This article is based on my personal experience.</span></div>
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<strong><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The media censorship and MIDA</span></strong></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">From 2009, with the Bainimarama Government tightening its media censorship, Fiji’s print media stopped publishing my critical articles and opinion pieces on public policy matters.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I resorted to writing <em>Letters to the Editor</em>, but found that even these were being censored (see <a href="https://narseyonfiji.wordpress.com/z4-censored-letters-to-editor/">this page</a> on my personal blog, <a href="http://narseyonfiji.wordpress.com/">Narsey On Fiji</a> for evidence).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">One after another, two professors of literature (Satendra Nandan and Subramani) were appointed as Chairmen of MIDA, only to distinguish themselves by their calculated silence on the ongoing media censorship.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I was more hopeful when an articulate USP administrator, Ashwin Raj, was appointed Chairman of MIDA and I began cc’ing him my <em>Letters to the Editor</em> so that he could see, at first hand, the censorship that was being practiced.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Apparently sympathetic, the MIDA Chairman asked the media to reveal their editorial policies on their decisions to publish or not publish opinion pieces and <em>Letters to the Editor</em>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">With no response from the media, I addressed specific queries to the MIDA Chairman outlining the factors undermining the even development of the media industry (letter of 3 July 2014, edited here for space):</span></div>
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<em><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Dear Mr Raj</span></em> </blockquote>
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<em style="color: #333333; line-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">1. Earlier in the year, you gave a commitment at the World Press Freedom Day panel that you had written to the editors of the newspapers, seeking clarification of their policies on what letters to publish and not. </span></em> </blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><em>(a) Could you please tell the public what has been their response and whether MIDA is comfortable with their position.</em></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><em> </em></span> </blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><em>(b) Could you also please ask all the television and radio stations what their policy is on interviewing experts on public policy issues in various fields (for example, the humble field of economics which all political parties, candidates and voters are focused on currently)?</em></span> </blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">2. </span><em style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">As a “level playing field” is an essential part of the development of a free, fair, competitive and transparent media industry, could you please inform the public what is your position on:</em> </blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><em>(a) taxpayers advertisement funds being channelled by the Bainimarama Government only to Fiji Sun with The Fiji Times, the oldest Fijian newspaper, being totally denied</em></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><em> </em></span> </blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><em>(b) outright subsidies given to FBC via government budget and government guarantees of loans from FDB, with no such subsidies given to either Fiji TV or the other radio broadcasters, Communications Fiji Ltd.</em></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><em> </em></span> </blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><em>(c) the clearly intimidating renewal of the license for Fiji TV on a six monthly basis, while FBC TV suffers from no such restriction</em></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><em> </em></span> </blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><em>(d) While Fiji TV’s accounts are available to the shareholders, FBC accounts are not available at all to the taxpayers who supposedly own FBC.</em></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><em> </em></span> </blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><em>(e) Mai TV’s “scoop” at obtaining rights to the broadcast of FIFA World Cup (a <span style="text-decoration: underline;">legitimate </span>entrepreneurial transaction admired in the business world) <span style="text-decoration: underline;">being forcibly shared by decree</span> amongst the other broadcasters, on financial terms dictated by the Bainimarama Government rather than negotiated amongst themselves as a market transaction.</em></span> </blockquote>
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<em style="color: #333333; line-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">3. Given that you (and the PS Ministry of Information Sharon Smith Johns) have often publicly admonished journalists to be “robust” and “boldly investigative” in their work, did you query Fiji TV and the owners Fijian Holdings Limited why respected senior journalist and administrator Mr Anish Chand was sacked from Fiji TV on this year’s World Press Freedom day, because of complaints from the Bainimarama Government (as was related to you during the World Press Freedom Day panel at USP).</span></em> </blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><em>Yours sincerely</em></span> </blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><em>Professor Wadan Narsey</em></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">There was no response from the MIDA Chairman.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Another letter to the MIDA Chairman (and the editors of the print media) on 16 July 2014 asked again why the print media were not publishing my Letters to the Editor which were calling on the Bainimarama Government to reveal the salaries of ministers between 2010 and 2013, and why the Bainimarama Government was not releasing the Auditor General’s Reports from 2007 to 2013. Both issues were of importance in the elections.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Ashwin Raj then cc’d to me a 19 July 2014 letter he wrote to Matai Akauola (CEO of MIDA).</span></div>
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<em><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Dear Matai,</span></em> </blockquote>
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<em><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">You will attest to the fact that on several occasions, I have requested the mainstream media to disclose their in-house editorial policy.</span></em> </blockquote>
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<em><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In the interest of transparency, the public should know exactly the rationale behind the publishing of select articles, opinion pieces, letters to the editor, to the exclusion of others. ….</span></em><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><em> </em></span> </blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><em>the onus is really on the media to substantiate their claim that they have in place an in-house editorial policy that ensures that the media is balanced, that they are committed to ensuring access and equity and are transparent at all times…..</em></span> </blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><em>to date, I have received nothing from the media houses. I am now requiring the media to disclose this. </em></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><em> </em></span> </blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><em>Appreciate it if you can circulate this e mail to the media. Can we convene an editors’ roundtable soon please? </em></span> </blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><em>Regards, Ashwin. </em></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The media still did not respond.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I sent another letter to the MIDA Chairman on 27 July 2014, and also to the print media as Letter to Editor, reminding him that he had not replied to my previous queries.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">On the 28 July, the MIDA Chairman, clearly irritated by now, replied:</span></div>
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<em><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">“While I acknowledge your contribution to public discourse on matters germane to national interest, it is imperative that I am not openly (or otherwise) copied in the quotidian nature your correspondence with the media. …. this act of openly copying me each time you request the media to publish your letters and opinion pieces can be construed as an act of coercion.”</span></em></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><em> B</em>ut he reiterated that he was still pursuing the media for their editorial policy.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><em> </em><em>“You might also be aware from my press conference this week that I am requiring all media outlets to disclose their in-house editorial policy. The public or any other concerned entity has the right to know why some letters, articles and opinion pieces get published to the exclusion of others.”</em></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Just prior to the elections I sent another letter on 20 August 2014 to the MIDA Chairman pointing out that with just a month to go to the elections, the evidence indicated that the media journalists who were interviewing political candidates, and MIDA itself did not appear to be neutral.</span></div>
<div style="color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">One Fiji Broadcasting Corporation journalist, Veena Bhatnagar, soon after showing her pro-Bainimarama bias when hosting an FBC hosted debate between two political candidates (Professor Biman Prasad of NFP and Aiyaz Khaiyum of FFP), became a candidate for FFP. So also did the MIDA Chairman (Matai Akauola) become a candidate for FFP.</span></div>
<div style="color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I asked the MIDA Chairman to explain when exactly his CEO began discussions with the FFP to stand as their candidate, and to ask the FBC CEO (Riyaz Khaiyum) when he was informed by his journalist Veena Bhatnagar that she was having discussions with Fiji First Party to stand as a candidate for them.</span></div>
<div style="color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">There was no reply from the MIDA Chairman.</span></div>
<div style="color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The September 2014 Elections took place, Bainimarama was appointed as a democratically elected Prime Minister.</span></div>
<div style="color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The MIDA Chairman then replied on 27 October 2014 with a clear reversal of attitude:</span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<em><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">“Please note that the media has the freedom to publish and can equally exercise their right not to publish your letter and MIDA will not interfere in this process. Should you feel that there is a systemic exclusion of your letters, please lodge an official complaint with MIDA”.</span></em></blockquote>
<div style="color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">How extraordinary that a MIDA Chairman who comes out all guns blazing at a call from Bainimarama, ignores a complaint in an email, and demands a “formal complaint” before he will take action.</span></div>
<div style="color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The MIDA Chairman also declines to be proactive about the refusal of the Fiji Sun to publish a Letter to the Editor complaining about an attack on me by its journalist Jyoti Pratibha, thereby breaching one of the fundamental principles of media freedom - that correspondents should be given a right to reply to attacks by the media.</span></div>
<div style="color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
<strong><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The MIDA Chairman and media intimidation</span></strong></div>
<div style="color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The MIDA Chairman, who easily remembers the wrong doings of British colonialism in Fiji a hundred years, has not been able to take heed of all the intimidation of the Fiji media over the last six years (which largely explains the self-censorship that is taking place currently) and which the public easily forgets as well.</span></div>
<div style="color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In February 2008, <em>Fiji Sun</em> publisher, Russel Hunter was deported in the middle of the night, despite a High Court injunction against the deportation. The Bainimarama Government ridiculously claimed that “Mr Hunter was conducting himself in a manner prejudicial to the peace, defence, public safety, public order, security and stability of the sovereign state of the Fiji Islands.” The facts indicate otherwise.</span></div>
<div style="color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Russel Hunter stated that he was deported because the <em>Fiji Sun</em> published articles by brilliant investigative journalist, Victor Lal, on the interim Finance Minister’s failure to pay his taxes on time and maintaining large secret bank accounts overseas. The Finance Minister then was Mahendra Chaudhry who was recently convicted by the Bainimarama Government on other charges relating to the same bank accounts. Does the MIDA Chairman Ashwin Raj see as relevant to the current media climate that both Victor Lal and Russel Hunter remain prohibited immigrants from Fiji, essentially for revealing the truth as dedicated investigative and analytical journalists that Aiyaz Khaiyum claimed to want all journalists to be?</span></div>
<div style="color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In May 2008, <em>Fiji Times</em> published Evan Hannah was deported as was his successor, Rex Gardner, in 2009.</span></div>
<div style="color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In 2010, outspoken editor of Fiji Times (Netani Rika) and Deputy Editor (Sophie Foster) resigned, “in the interests of the newspaper”, when their “crime” was that their principled refusal to formally recognize an illegal government which had taken power using a military coup.</span></div>
<div style="color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In 2013, the <em>Fiji Times</em> was fined $300,000, publisher Brian O’Flaherty received a six months suspended sentence, and its Editor, Fred Wesley given a two year suspended jail sentence (running out in February 2015) for the republishing of a NZ media item that would not be considered a crime in Australia or NZ.</span></div>
<div style="color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Does the MIDA Chairman care at all that the media and the journalists have been intimidated, and that he has a serious role to play in protecting the media and journalists so that they can be the responsible watchdogs on governments they should be?</span></div>
<div style="color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">To understand Ashwin Raj’s back-down from his earlier position, it is useful to understand his meteoric rise to power during the Bainimarama reign, both at USP and nationally.</span></div>
<div style="color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
<strong><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The rise and rise of Ashwin Raj</span></strong></div>
<div style="color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Just four years ago, Ashwin Raj was a temporary junior staff member at The University of the South Pacific, struggling to find a foothold as a permanent academic. With a remarkable ability to recognize and fill intellectual power vacuums, Raj soon rapidly rose in status there.</span></div>
<div style="color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">He also made powerful connections with the Bainimarama Regime and was appointed Chairman of MIDA.</span></div>
<div style="color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">He has not criticized the USP management for curbing academic freedom by removing a speaker from a USP program on World Press Freedom Day nor criticized them for the lack of academic debate at USP on matters of good governance.</span></div>
<div style="color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The MIDA Chairman has just been part of a large team led to Geneva by the Attorney General to present to the UN, the Fiji Government defense on human rights, including media freedom.</span></div>
<div style="color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In Geneva, the MIDA Chairman did not raise the many issues of media freedom, media censorship and lack of a level playing field for media companies, that have all been publicly raised with him as Chairman of MIDA, nor did he give any hint of his attempt and failure to obtain the editorial policy accountability he has publicly demanded from the media.</span></div>
<div style="color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Instead, Raj helped to put a gloss on the Bainimarama record on human rights and media freedom, while berating the international donors and international media for their alleged “neo-colonial” practices, as he has done quite frequently.</span></div>
<div style="color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">As the correspondence above indicates, the MIDA Chairman now refuses to be proactively tackle media censorship, government discrimination against some media in the use of tax-payers funds , penalization of critical journalists, the political bias and lack of objectivity of some media and their journalists, and the state’s intimidation of the media through fines, jail terms and insecurity of business licenses.</span></div>
<div style="color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">All these areas ought to be of central concern to a MIDA Chairman whose official remit it is to regulate the media industry in the public good.</span></div>
<div style="color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The MIDA Chairman is silent on the current failure of some media to inform the public about the damaging contents of the Auditor General Reports from 2007 to 2013, shrewdly released by the Bainimarama Government <span style="text-decoration: underline;">after</span> the elections, and whose contents clearly substantiate many of the concerns raised by Opposition parties, and critical Letters to the Editor, all censored by the media.</span></div>
<div style="color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Ashwin Raj is yet another in a long line of intellectuals who have materialized in post-2006 coup Fiji, to fill the propaganda power vacuum in the service of the Bainimarama Government. The public can only wait with bated breath (and a dictionary in hand) to see what further powerful roles he will enjoy in today’s Fiji, which is little different from the military dictatorship we have had for eight years.</span></div>
<div style="color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i><b>Postscript</b></i></span></span></div>
<div style="color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i><b>The Bainimarama Government is apparently in the process of ensuring complete control of the television media in Fiji by quietly designing and forcing a transition from analog TV to digital TV, in which the final outcome will be virtual control by Fiji Broadcasting Corporation and the total subservience of the other media companies.</b></i></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7745785272753572871.post-92170584262831941692014-11-09T15:20:00.000+13:002014-11-09T15:20:38.055+13:00Prof Wadan Narsey: The bombshell Auditor General Reports for 2007 to 2013<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><a href="https://narseyonfiji.wordpress.com/2014/11/06/the-bombshell-auditor-general-reports-for-2007-to-2013-6-nov-2014/">6 Nov 2014</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">an edited version appeared in <a href="http://www.islandsbusiness.com/">Island Business</a>, Nov. 2014</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Fiji tax-payers have received an absolute bombshell regarding the use of their money by the Bainimarama Regime, with the simultaneous release of the Auditor General Reports for the years 2007 to 2013, all 28 volumes of them (very much in keeping with the Diwali fireworks and in anticipation of the now forgotten Guy Fawkes night).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">These reports are detailed audits of government incomes, expenditures and borrowings, usually tabled annually in Parliament by the Minister of Finance, as a “report on the performance of the government” for the previous year.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">All taxpayers must understand what is in these reports, given that annually at least 25% (or more than a billion dollars) of their total incomes is forcibly taken from them by the government as taxes, hundreds of millions further are borrowed by the same government to be paid by the current and future tax payers, and the entire revenue is then spent allegedly on tax-payers’ behalf.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The Auditor General Reports try to verify whether the taxes are being collected according to the law, whether loans are being borrowed responsibly and as planned, and whether the revenues are being spent the way that parliament approved or as stated in the Annual Budget documents, or whether there are deficiencies in the above.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Upon tabling in parliament and with the elected parliamentarians, the Auditor General Reports are usually released to the media, and hence to the public to monitor and act if they see fit.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">That is what used to happen annually for forty six years after independence in 1970.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Then the cycle was broken by Commodore Bainimarama who seized power through a coup in December 2006.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Principles of a sound audit</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It is useful to first outline the basic principles which the owners of all organizations, private or public, expect from a good audit whether in accounting, economics or management:</span><br />
<br />
<ol>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The Auditor General must be totally independent of the Fiji Government (reasonably so) and must be adequately resourced (not so, according to his reports);</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The government ministries must give the Auditor General every information that they ask for (they refused in a number of cases);</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The audit must clearly point out the major faults (done pretty well), as well as the remedies to the owners, the people of Fiji (not so good);</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The owners must be able to make the organizational changes that are necessary to eliminate the faults pointed out (little chance of that);</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The next audit must check to see if the faults pointed out the previous year have been rectified (often not rectified) and the public notified of these failures (not done).</span></li>
</ol>
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Despite the Auditor General’s best efforts, some of these principles have been significantly compromised by the Bainimarama Government (as given in the brackets above), the most obvious being the complete failure to report annually.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>No AG Reports from 2007 to 2013</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">For seven years, the Auditor General Reports have been prepared and submitted to the Bainimarama Cabinet by a very brave group of civil servants in the Auditor General’s Office (read here my appreciation of them).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">But the Bainimarama Government and Minister of Finance refused to release any of the AG Reports, despite the many requests from the public and international condemnation. Read here one of my last critical articles to appear in <a href="https://narseyonfiji.wordpress.com/2012/03/17/when-security-guards-rob-the-bank-and-the-surveillance-report-goes-to-the-robbers-the-fiji-times-28-october-2008/">The Fiji Times, 28 October 2008</a>.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The flimsy excuse was that the law required Bainimarama to table the reports in Parliament and because there was no parliament (which he himself had removed), he did not have to table the reports, totally ignoring that the fundamental objective was for the Bainimarama Government to report to the people, not some empty hall in the Parliamentary complex at Veiuto or Government buildings.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">For eight years, the unelected illegal Bainimarama Government completely controlled the raising of taxes and loans, and the spending of all revenues, without any accountability whatsoever to the people.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Then, after becoming an elected Prime Minister in September 2014 (promising “equality for all” and “if you don’t want another coup, vote for me”), he released all seven sets of Auditor General Reports, totaling 28 reports altogether.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">They are now being read by the curious media and the public, many understandably searching for evidence of abuse and misuse of tax-payers’ funds.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>The revelations in the reports</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Professor <a href="https://www.facebook.com/nfpfiji">Biman Prasad</a>, the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee which is charged with examining the AG Reports, has already stated that “it has become abundantly clear there has been widespread abuse of public funds and blatant disregard of fundamental financial procedures (as well as) … pilferage, wastage and abuse of public funds”.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Professor Prasad noted that there had been “continuous disregard of recommendations by the Auditor-General” indicating that the Bainimarama Government carried on “business as usual” year after year for eight years, making no attempt at correcting the mistakes being pointed out by the Auditor General.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">These conclusions are quite damming of Bainimarama’s performance as Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, and also of the two most important Permanent Secretaries – of Finance and Public Service.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">They also explain why Bainimarama and Khaiyum were adamant in not releasing the reports before the September 2014 elections, given that they would have inevitably influenced the outcome and certainly Bainimarama’s support.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">With Bainimarama’s Fiji First Party campaign claiming great honesty, transparency, accountability and opposition to corruption, the Opposition parliamentarians can now legitimately state that the evidence in the Auditor General’s Reports suggest that the 2014 elections were won by Bainimarama and Khaiyum using lies and deceit.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Of relevance to this claim is the personal integrity of Prime Minister and Finance Minister Bainimarama and Attorney General Khaiyum, with respect to the salaries that they paid themselves during 2010 and 2013, and the blatant abuse of process of payment.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Ministers’ salaries</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">While the Public Accounts Committee will no doubt investigate the many revelations of costly abuse of public funds and lack of transparency and accountability, the public will be especially interested in the revelations about ministerial salaries between 2010 and 2013, and what is still not being revealed.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The public already know that in November 2011, Regime supporters John Samy and the late Archbishop Mataca (Co-Chairman of the National Council for Building a Better Fiji) wrote a letter to Bainimarama, complaining about the increasing lack of transparency and accountability of his Government.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Read <a href="https://narseyonfiji.wordpress.com/2013/04/06/the-peoples-charter-and-accountability-of-john-samy-and-archbishop-mataca-6-april-2013/">here</a>.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Samy and Mataca noted that there were rumors that Bainimarama and Khaiyum “both were being paid exorbitant salaries, not through the Ministry of Finance but a close relative of the AG, through a high-fees based contractual arrangement”.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The leader of the Fiji Labour Party (Mahendra Chaudhry) who had also been the Minister of Finance in the Bainimarama Government in 2007, is also on record accusing Bainimarama and Khaiyum of paying themselves multiple salaries from 2010 to 2012, before reverting them to the lower ones revealed after the elections.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Sure enough, the AG Report for 2010 (Vol. 2, Section 4, p11) reveals that as a result of a Cabinet instruction of 4 Jan 2010, the Prime Minister’s Office issued invoices to the Ministry of Finance to pay salaries through <a href="http://www.yellowpages.com.fj/listings/243/">Alizpacific</a>, (an accounting firm <a href="http://intelligentsiya.blogspot.com/2011/06/nur-bano-ali-benefits-from-relationship.html">associated with Dr Nur Bano Ali, an aunt of Attorney General Aiyaz Khaiyum</a>).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The Report noted that the $1.8 million paid (listed on a monthly basis) had no supporting documents, and was intended to “alter the terms and conditions of engagement of all Ministers”. The AG Report stated that this “compromises the transparency of payments being made”.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">But the Public Accounts Committee must investigate serious breach of process that the AG’s Report did not raise. First, why should Ministers’ salaries be increased by the Ministers themselves, when there have always been proper independent avenues available to do so?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Second, why should Ministers’ salaries be paid through a private accounting firm when that has always been the prerogative of the Ministry of Finance?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Third, what were individual Ministers being paid in totality in 2010?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Fourth, why was the Prime Minister’s Office refusing to reveal the information to both the Auditor General and the Ministry of Finance?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">That is still not the whole story.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The public should note that the AG Report for 2010 and for other years, had complained that there is a Head 50 under which many undocumented payroll expenditures in other Ministries were partly paid, and whose own payroll expenditures were being understated.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">For example, Table 4.9 in Volume 2 of the 2010 Report, noted that there was an unexplained $247,200 in emoluments paid to the Prime Minister’s Office, as well as $1,253,625 paid to the Royal Fiji Military Forces. Who exactly received these payments?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Fast forward to the AG Report for 2013, Vol. 2. Section O4, pp.13 and 14. The Report stated their review of the Head 50 Expenditure revealed that the Ministry paid a total of $1,860,947 as Cabinet Ministers’ salaries in 2013, based on the amounts provided by Alizpacific Chartered Accountants & Business Advisers) associated with the same Nur Bano Ali.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">This time, individual payments vouchers (but not the names of the Cabinet Ministers) were documented including one for $278,750 (presumably paid to Prime Minister Bainimarama, and which was still way above what had been paid previously to Prime Ministers).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In addition it was noted that Bainimarama received a “gratuity” payment of $57,500 from a different vote, bringing his total recorded salary for 2013 to $366,250 which is way above what Prime Ministers had been paid before 2006.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Again, there were large undocumented payments for emoluments from the Head 50.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Despite repeated requests for the associated documents from both the Auditor General’s Office and Ministry of Finance, the Prime Minister’s Office refused to make the details available, according to the Auditor General.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">What an extraordinary and serious breach of PSC rules by the PS in the Prime Minister’s Office (now an elected Minister in parliament) and the Prime Minister himself. Did the PSC take any action?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The 2013 AG Report on Ministers’ salaries also documented that there was another unexplained “additional Ministers payroll expenditure” of $137,150. Did this item include the “commission” charged by Alizpacific as had been questioned by John Samy, Archbishop Mataca and Mahendra Chaudhry?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The Public Accounts Committee will no doubt investigate further the Bainimarama Government’s practice of paying ministers’ undeclared salaries through a private accounting company, if necessary subpoenaing the AlizPacific, Ministry of Finance, FRCA and Fiji National Provident Fund officials.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The Public Accounts Committee will no doubt also want to investigate the back pay of $185 thousands that Bainimarama was paid in 2008, supposedly for accumulated leave from 1978, completely against all PSC regulations.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">They might also want to investigate the irregular massive increase of some Permanent Secretaries’ salaries just before the 2014 Budget, supposedly recommended by another private accounting company.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I personally believe that salaries of $300,000 or so for a Minister of Finance or a Permanent Secretary of Finance can be justified IF they are qualified and competent, given that they effectively manage “a billion dollar enterprise” with potentially massive benefits or costs because of their decisions.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">But the sad evidence before Fiji is that in 2011, an incompetent Minister of Finance and Permanent Secretary of Finance, and the Attorney General (why him?) with the <a href="http://intelligentsiya.blogspot.com/2011/05/anz-bats-for-bainimaramas-military.html">avaricious assistance of ANZ Bank</a>, borrowed $500 million internationally at 9% interest, when IMF was willing to lend the same sum at 2% interest, thereby costing Fiji taxpayers an unnecessary interest repayment of $40 million annually (which we are still paying) (read about that sorry saga here).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>More reports to come</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The public should note that these 28 Auditor General Reports are only for the Central Government accounts.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">They do not cover the dozens of public enterprises and semi-commercial organizations which Government either wholly or partly owns, or for which government and taxpayers have contingent liability for. The Auditor General is also required to audit them and he apparently has already done so for a number of them.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Some of these public enterprises, such as Fiji Roads Authority, Ports Authority, AFL and others spend hundreds of millions of dollars of tax-payers money, with an equally great capacity to misuse large amounts of tax-payer funds.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Some, such as Fiji National Provident Fund, have already written down $300 million in members funds at its investments in Natadola and Momi, and their associated audit reports have been suppressed as well.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">We can therefore expect that there will be perhaps another hundred reports coming out of the Auditor General’s Office in the next year or so, to be also examined by the Public Accounts Committee, parliament, the media and the general public. Academics will have a field day.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">While today Rear Admiral (ret) Voreqe Bainimarama is reminding Fiji that the<a href="http://fijilive.com/news/2014/02/hfc-must-not-be-like-nbf-bainimarama/56661.Fijilive"> terrible National Bank of Fiji disaster</a> that cost taxpayers a massive $220 million should never be forgotten or repeated, the next generation will be crying about the Bainimarama/Khaiyum disaster which has already cost Fiji more than a billion dollars over the last eight years, and they have another four more years to add to that.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Consequences of eight year delay</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The purpose of issuing the AG reports annually is that the elected representatives of the people can call on wrong-doers to be suitably disciplined and surcharged if necessary.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The public can then see whether there is any improvement taking place at all in the way government is managing tax payers’ money.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Not issuing the report for eight years is therefore a horrendous indictment of the unelected illegal Bainimarama Government’s arrogant refusal to account for tax payers’ money, especially when every year, the Auditor General has refused to give unqualified audits to most of the financial agencies they have audited.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It is as if a school refuses to give the annual report on a student for Forms 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Then it gives all the reports together with the Form 7 Report, which tells the student (and the parents) that he has been failing every year, and is now ineligible to enter university. What remedial action can the parents and the student take now?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">That is exactly the daunting situation faced by the Public Accounts Committee, whose scope for disciplinary action will be totally undermined for two reasons. First, the guilty civil servants or Ministers will have moved on (except for a prominent few).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Secondly, the Bainimarama Government has supposedly given itself “immunity” in the 2013 Constitution, for undefined actions between 2000 and 2014, although this ought to be tested in the courts, using the wonderful 2001 judgment by Justice Anthony Gates, that no tyrant has the power to change a constitution, regardless of how long he rules and how popular he may be. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Who should the Auditor General report to?</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It is surely ridiculous that the Auditor General reports to the very Government Ministers whose financial performance is being audited, and who allegedly become responsible for making it available to Parliament or the public.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It is equivalent to an examinations report for a student being given to the student himself, who can then decide whether to give the report to his parents or not.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Parliament needs to consider placing the Auditor General’s Office under the Secretary to Parliament, rather than the Ministry of Finance, who has a vested interest or conflict of interest, in the audit.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Better still, given our coup culture and the continuing possibility of lawful governments being removed and parliament being closed down, the Public Accounts Committee ought to consider changing the legislation (what legislation, you might well ask?) to ensure that the Auditor General’s Reports are launched publicly and put on their website, without having to go through any Minister or Parliament.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">That is the least that tax-payers can expect for the use of their money by elected or unelected government ministers.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Lessons for parliament and the Public Accounts Committee</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">For seven years, Bainimarama and Khaiyum have repeated over and over that they did the coup to remove corruption and give the people of Fiji a government that was more transparent and accountable.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The evidence in the Auditor General Reports indicates that the people and voters of Fiji have been grossly and deliberately misled by the current elected Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, through their suppression of the damaging Auditor General Reports, and their refusal to provide the Auditor General and the Ministry of Finance with the information that they asked for and were entitled to receive. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The evidence of the Auditor General Reports clearly indicates that these two government ministers obtained significant personal financial advantage by paying themselves large increases in salary, decided by themselves.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">These irregular salaries were then improperly paid through a private sector company associated with a relative of the former Attorney General and current Minister of Finance. The Auditor General Reports also revealed that this same company has received extremely favorable treatment on business consultancies awarded without tender, and this will no doubt be another focal point for the Public Accounts Committee.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In civilized countries, government ministers and even Prime Ministers resign over improper benefits of a few thousand dollars or allegations of vote buying, as happens regularly in Australia or Japan or NZ. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Here we are talking of hundreds of thousands of dollars obtained from the taxpayers of a much poorer country through irregular processes.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It would be perfectly legitimate for the Opposition in Fiji Parliament, following the debate on the Auditor General Reports, to file a motion calling on Bainimarama and Khaiyum to resign, if they genuinely believed that all are equal before the law.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The Opposition could call on other Fiji First Party parliamentarians to support their motion if they believed in the principles of good governance, or to at least abstain on the vote.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Lessons for the media</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">For several years now, some journalists at the Fiji Sun, Fiji Broadcasting Corporation and Communications Fiji Ltd, have waged blatant propaganda campaigns on behalf of Bainimarama and Khaiyum.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">During the elections campaigns, they have been viciously unfair towards Opposition candidates and parties who questioned the Bainimarama Government’s record on issues revealed by the Auditor General Reports to have substance after all.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">If these journalists had any ethics at all, they would apologize to the public and now present the public with critical analyses based on the unpleasant facts which have been revealed by the Auditor General’s Reports.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">What they do or not do over the next few weeks will reveal whether they were simply misguided naive ignorant journalists or they were and continue to be media prostitutes for their employers, whose financial interests, biases and objectives are well known.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Whatever they do, the media coverage of the Auditor General’s Reports will be visible to the world, and will give journalism students and academics excellent material for case studies on the role of the media and journalists in subverting or defending good governance and accountability in Fiji.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The public and the media might want to seek statements from the Fiji Institute of Accountants and Auditors, the Law Society , Transparency International Fiji or the several departments and professors of governance and law at USP, FNU and FU, but I suggest that given their record over the last eight years,the public would be well advised not to hold their breath waiting for a response.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>The record of the Bainimarama Regime on accountability</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Readers may wish to read the following earlier articles on the Bainimarama Government budgets:</span><br />
<br />
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><a href="https://narseyonfiji.wordpress.com/2012/03/17/when-security-guards-rob-the-bank-and-the-surveillance-report-goes-to-the-robbers-the-fiji-times-28-october-2008/">https://narseyonfiji.wordpress.com/2012/03/17/when-security-guards-rob-the-bank-and-the-surveillance-report-goes-to-the-robbers-the-fiji-times-28-october-2008/</a></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><a href="https://narseyonfiji.wordpress.com/2012/03/18/budget-2010-the-great-cover-up-various-blogs-2009/">https://narseyonfiji.wordpress.com/2012/03/18/budget-2010-the-great-cover-up-various-blogs-2009/</a></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><a href="https://narseyonfiji.wordpress.com/2012/03/18/the-2011-budget-oscars-burdening-future-generations-2010-blogs/">https://narseyonfiji.wordpress.com/2012/03/18/the-2011-budget-oscars-burdening-future-generations-2010-blogs/</a></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><a href="https://narseyonfiji.wordpress.com/2013/11/13/2690/">https://narseyonfiji.wordpress.com/2013/11/13/2690/</a> (“The 2014 Budget: selling the farm assets”)</span></li>
</ul>
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7745785272753572871.post-63387484719384630142014-11-09T14:34:00.001+13:002014-11-09T14:34:55.583+13:00Prof Wadan Narsey - Letter to the Editors: Is the Electoral Commission reluctant to conduct an independent audit of polling station results?<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b><i><a href="https://narseyonfiji.wordpress.com/2014/11/05/is-the-electoral-commission-reluctant-to-conduct-an-independent-audit-of-polling-station-results/">Letter to Editor (The Fiji Times, Fiji Sun, Ashwin Raj) (sent 27 October 2014)</a></i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">05/11/2014</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Dear Sir,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">This last week I have been in futile communication with members of the Electoral Commission on concerns held by some political parties and candidates that their votes at some polling stations were not reflected in the final results issued by the Elections Office and that the results may have been “rigged” in some way, between the polling station votes and the final results issued.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">These concerns are understandable, given the iron fisted control of the elections by the Bainimarama Government, with the banning of NGOs, pen and paper and electronic recording devices from the polling stations.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I have suggested to the Electoral Commission that these suspicions can be and should be put to rest by an easy audit of the votes of say 20 to 50 polling stations, chosen by the political parties themselves.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The Chairman of the Electoral Commission (Chen Bunn Young) apparently advised one of its members to “hold on” to this request. He has yet to respond to my request, although one member has, but not in writing.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I call on the political parties and concerned members of the public to request the Electoral Commission to conduct the independent audit that I am suggesting, in order to put these suspicions to rest.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It might also put to rest a public perception that the Electoral Commission members are “lackeys” of the Bainimarama Government who choose not to be professional with respect to their responsibilities to the voters of this country. The term “lackey” has been cogently used by a prolific writer of Letters to the Editor, Rajen Naidu.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Professor Wadan Narsey</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Suva</span><br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7745785272753572871.post-80875759898868707272014-10-14T12:23:00.000+12:002014-10-14T12:32:12.195+12:00Prof Wadan Narsey: The new catastrophic risks to Fijian sovereignty<a href="https://narseyonfiji.wordpress.com/2014/10/10/the-new-catastrophic-risks-to-fijian-sovereignty-fiji-day-10-october-2014/" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">(Fiji Day, 10 October 2014)</a><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">10/10/2014</span><br />
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<em><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">[This article is based on my presentation at a panel discussion on “Post-Election Issues”, organized by the Adi Cakobau Secondary School Senior Old Girls, at the QVSOB Club, Brewster Street, Suva, on 30 September 2014.]</span></em></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Some are describing the election of the Bainimarama Government on the 17 September 2014 as the “dawn of a new era” and who knows, it may turn out that way if Fiji miraculously sees the emergence of a genuinely transparent and accountable government that we have seen no trace of, over the last eight years.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">But the more probable outcome is that the Powerful Two (Voreqe Bainimarama and Aiyaz Khaiyum) will use the “people have spoken” popular mandate of the elections to further tighten their authoritarian and unaccountable rule and media control, under a façade of parliamentary democracy, while they now legally manipulate the revenues and assets of Fiji, including a fire sale of the most profitable public enterprises to preferred clients.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The next four years could see the Fiji economy dominated by a new breed of powerful investors whose disdain for the law could signal the beginning of the end of indigenous Fijian sovereignty in the only country which is home to a unique ethnic group comprising less than six hundred thousand people.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The experience of the last eight years and the 2014 elections make clear that the Powerful Two have defeated all opposition forces that could have defended Fijian sovereignty to take total control of a parliament, to which there are no checks and balances left.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">All the checks and balances under the 1997 Constitution, contained in the powers of Senate (Upper House), especially for indigenous Fijian rights and contentious new legislations, are gone, simply because the Powerful Two have decreed that there be no Upper House now.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Bainimarama and Khaiyum are unlikely to allow FFP Cabinet Ministers or backbenchers to act independently, even if Fijian national sovereignty is at stake.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The 2013 Bainimarama/Khaiyum Constitution (2013 BKC) has been meticulously designed to ensure that the Fiji Parliament will be largely ineffective in ensuring the transparency and accountability of the Bainimarama Government.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">While Adam Smith’s economic model argues that if all economic stakeholders follow their own selfish interests, then the paradoxical result will be an optimal economy, such a recipe in politics is likely to lead to the slow but sure, and irreversible loss of Fijian national sovereignty.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The writing is already on the wall for Opposition parties, but there are several indicators that the concerned public should monitor, such as: the continued refusal of the Bainimarama Government to make public the full uncensored Auditor General Reports and all other important reports, the likely inability of the Opposition MPs to have constitutional reform items placed on the parliamentary agenda, the lack of internal democracy of the Fiji First Party, the Bainimarama Government’s distribution of membership of public enterprise boards, and the tightening control of the media.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">There is an urgent need for a new breed of intellectual Fijian <em>bati</em>, if Fijian sovereignty is to have a reasonable chance of surviving in Fiji.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<strong><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Adam Smith’s model will not ensure Fijian sovereignty</span></strong></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In economics there is an elegant if paradoxical model which argues that if all economic interests behave selfishly, maximizing personal profits, incomes and consumer satisfaction, then society’s welfare will be optimized (with a few exceptions acknowledged such as externalities and public goods).</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">But this model is not going to work in Fiji’s politics, when it comes to safeguarding Fijian national sovereignty.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">If Government Ministers, parliamentarians, civil servants, corporate interests, professionals and professional organizations, media owners, journalists, anonymous bloggers, and ordinary citizens all continue their “business as usual” in looking after their own selfish interests, <em>as they have done for the last eight years</em>, then there is a catastrophic risk that indigenous Fijians will lose political control of Fiji, with corporate control and the accompanying corruption eventually permeating the highest levels of government.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The catalyst for this erosion of sovereignty will be the entry of new corporate global giants to the Fiji economy, many of whom have little regard for laws that limit their total freedom.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<strong><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">New corporate kids on the block</span></strong></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">With high economic growth of 5% or more being essential for the management of the increased Public Debt, it is likely that all large business investors will be given the green light, with minimal due process or regulation.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Over the years, Fiji’s powerful local business interests (usual multi-ethnic names) have exercised their influence over government ministers to obtain special financial and economic advantages in the grant of monopolies, tariff protection, tax exemptions or reductions, controlled price increases, restrictions on wage increases, etc.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">These local business houses will continue to receive their special benefits, as reward for their generous contributions to the FFP 2014 elections campaign.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">But they will be minor supporting cast to the new breed of new investors, who are global billionaires, with little difficulty, especially in poor developing countries, in influencing government ministers and senior civil servants, using the “universal lubricant”.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Should these giants obtain pervasive influence over Fiji’s key ministers and civil servants, there will be no turning back the clock on Fiji’s loss of national sovereignty, and we will not be the first country by far.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">There are several Central American countries whose political leaders and civil service chiefs became so subservient to American multinational corporations that they have been appropriately described as “banana republics”.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">There are African and Asian countries today where similar trends are leading also to the rapacious extraction of mineral resources, circumvention of environment laws, and severe erosion of national sovereignty.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Even the corporate giants’ own home governments have difficulty controlling their illegal activities, while the political will to do so is often weakened because of the commonality between global corporate and global imperial interests.</span></div>
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<strong><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The warning signs in Fiji</span></strong></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Over the last eight years, one visible indicator is that the Bainimarama Government has given permission for many business developments which have resulted in the illegal cutting of mangroves and <em>tiri</em>reclamation all over Fiji.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Despite many public queries and protests the Ministers and senior civil servants responsible have refused to reply (the planned rezoning and potential environmental destruction at Uduya Point will be an interesting test case), while continuing to make empty public speeches of their belief in green sustainable development, brazenly doing the opposite, which an intimidated media has been unable to highlight.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">There has also been total silence by the authorities on the alleged approvals given to rezoning already scarce public spaces, such as at Shirley Park and Churchill Park, for private commercial development.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">There has been no response to the anonymous query on <em>The Pensioner</em> website, on lease approvals apparently given to preferred clients, without public tender, at the Nadi Airport.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Many more such cases about which this government is keeping quiet, will become known in due course, about major mining concessions, government loans, the awarding of tenders, and the sale of shares in Fiji’s valuable public enterprises, some of which such as airports and ports, may also risk compromising national sovereignty at Fiji’s borders.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Many foreign investors have also contribute generously to the FFP elections campaign, and they will also expect return favors from government.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The danger is that elected FFP parliamentarians will not be able to resist unethical decisions by their government because of a fundamental lack of democracy in FFP.</span></div>
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<strong><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The lack of democracy in FFP</span></strong></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It might be thought that with elected parliamentarians being part of Cabinet, individual Cabinet ministers can be relied upon to protect Fijian national sovereignty, but the September 2014 elections processes and results suggest otherwise.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In one my <em>Fiji Times</em> Elections Issues articles, I had suggested that candidates and voters examine the internal democracy of their own parties. While some prickly friends in the Opposition parties took offence, that article was more relevant for FFP candidates and supporters.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Was there any transparent committee which selected the FFP candidates? Was there a FFP Committee which decided on the FFP manifesto?</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Was there a committee which decided on the elections strategy which deliberately engineered the voting to ensure that the bulk of the votes went to the Party Leader Bainimarama, while giving the ordinary MPs minimal votes, as a result of which not a single one can boast that they have any popular democratic mandate from the voters (except for the Powerful Two).</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Was there a FFP Committee that transparently decided on the appointment of Ministers and portfolios, or was it again the Powerful Two?</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The public have commented that some FFP ministers had marginal numbers of votes while others, with much higher number of votes, were left out, such as Brij Lal (who one would have thought as being appropriate as a Minister of Education).</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The public have noted that “proven performer” (according to the Regime spin doctor) Dr Neil Sharma was not returned as Minister of Health, while the new Minister of Health is one who has no experience in that area, and was the Minister of Labor previously.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Most astonishing is that the only elected FFP MP with a PhD in Economics (Dr Mahendra Reddy) was not made the Minister of Finance or the several other Ministries where his knowledge and experience should have been useful.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">No doubt these Ministers will do their best in their allocated responsibilities, and some might indeed be quite effective in their limited fields.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">But will they be allowed any collective democratic decision-making within the FFP Cabinet and party, with the freedom to oppose any decisions on professional and ethical grounds without fear of being expelled or victimized?</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Or will they be so desperate to keep their positions, that they will become pawns to be used by the two Grand Masters?</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">One indicator of concentration of FFP power outside government will be their future distribution of Board memberships which should be much easier now that sanctions are no longer being applied against Fiji citizens who take up board positions. Will the Powerful Two still continue the eight year pattern of multiple memberships for their select few, despite their inherent conflicts of interest? Will membership of Public Enterprise boards even be restricted to Fiji citizens?</span></div>
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<strong><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The subservience of military ministers and civil servants</span></strong></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">One of the worrying political developments over the last eight years, has been the pervasive appointment of former military officers in key positions, as cabinet ministers or senior civil servants, now legitimated by the elections.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Unfortunately, unlike normal democratically elected ministers or independently appointed senior civil servants, these former military personnel have been trained to obey orders without question, even if they have professional and ethical reservations.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">While some have displayed far more ministerial energy than some elected Ministers, will they question decisions which are not in the public interest, as for instance on environmental destruction or questionable decisions on contracts and tenders?</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">All the FFP cabinet ministers know that they can be easily sacked, since none of them have any independent political legitimacy with a proven voter base.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The same dilemma faces senior civil servants who oppose any political decision on professional grounds, that they can be dismissed with no recourse to appeal as they had pre-Bainimarama.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Most of these former military personnel have no alternative employment opportunities in the private sector. They are also now enjoying vastly increased higher salaries and perks as ministers and civil servants; they have acquired costly mortgages which require regular and substantial servicing; they are quite likely to obey orders blindly, even if it means compromising any professional and ethical principles.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<strong><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The concentration of ministerial power</span></strong></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">A powerful indicator of potential abuse of political power and vulnerability to corporate control, is that one individual has monopolized all the economically important portfolios, each of which would have been more than enough for one Minister.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">For eight years, Aiyaz Khaiyum repeated over and over in his public speeches that it was the vision and objectives of “Prime Minister” Bainimarama that were driving the policies of the Bainimarama Government, and Bainimarama supposedly had the responsibility for several portfolios.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">No doubt there is some branch of psychology which explains how subordinates to dictators must not only continuously glorify and legitimate the authority of the dictator but that is also a sure technique for wielding his powers from behind the throne.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">But the eight year pretense of Bainimarama looking after several portfolios has now been discarded, and Khaiyum has been explicitly given control of all ministries which have the real power over Fiji’s economic resources, some not declared in the original list of five ministries.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">[Since my presentation at the panel discussion, Khaiyum has relinquished two ministries (with little discretionary ministerial powers) and reacquired the Attorney General position which will be absolutely critical in the next four years during the likely challenges to the 2013 BKC, and the need for many more new decrees to expedite the fire sale of public enterprises worth hundreds of millions of dollars.]</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">One dangerous consequence is that important investors seeking favors in any field, will now legitimately have a “one stop shop” (Aiyaz Khaiyum) to make their requests and exchange incentives. Khaiyum’s powers of micro-management will be immense, with only Bainimarama to be kept satisfied, as he has done quite successfully these last eight years,.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Unfortunately for civil service delivery, senior civil servants in a wide variety of ministries will continue to face a “paralysis of decision-making” as they wait for one minister, Khaiyum, to make the decisions.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It is quite likely that most of the other Ministers will have defer to Khaiyum for the final important decisions, as they have done over the last eight years.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It is highly unlikely that any individual Cabinet Ministers or senior civil servants will oppose any decisions by the Powerful Two, even if they undermine national Fijian sovereignty.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Contrary to all our expectations, the elected Parliament will also be unable to stop such erosion of national sovereignty or even raise it for debate within Parliament.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<strong><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The emasculation of parliament</span></strong></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">While many of us have tried to take comfort that after the September 2014 elections, government will now be more transparent and accountable, this may turn out to be “wishful thinking”.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Already, senior appointments have been irregularly made to the positions of Speaker and Secretary General to Parliament, with the Opposition not even being thrown the “crumbs from the table”, with the election of the Deputy Speaker.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">There is every likelihood that parliament will be called as few times in the year as the Bainimarama Government wishes, and with limited agenda approved totally by themselves.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Despite the façade of high technology being made available to each and every MP and parliamentary proceedings televised to the world, the reality is that parliamentary proceedings and outputs will be tightly controlled, as will be the media reporting of issues, which is already unfairly monopolized and manipulated by the Fiji Broadcasting Corporation.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It is wishful thinking that the Opposition parliamentarians will be able to question and revise the many objectionable elements of the 2013 Bainimarama Khaiyum Constitution (2013 BKC) that have eroded the basic human rights of our people.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">One spin doctor profitably employed by the Bainimarama Government has already given the game away by declaring on his personal blog that the 2014 Elections results should be seen as a referendum on all past policies and decrees of the Bainimarama Government, including all elements of the 2013 BKC, which had been unilaterally imposed on the people of Fiji.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It will be next to impossible for Opposition parliamentarians to bring about any changes without the approval of the Bainimarama Government, because their 2013 BKC requires a 75% majority that the Opposition simply will not be able to muster, even if they could induce a few from government side to vote with them (also an impossibility).</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The moving of parliament from the ample more suitable complex at Draiba, to the much smaller Government buildings space was strangely justified by Bainimarama as “coming full circle” to the pre-1987 parliament.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">But the physical reality is that situating the parliament at Government Buildings severely restricts the space for the Opposition parties and their research staff, compared to the old spacious parliamentary complex at Draiba.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">If the parliament is not going to be too fruitful an avenue for the real restoration of basic human rights, can the Fiji public look to civil society organizations and individual citizens?</span></div>
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<strong><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The pliant NGOs and professional organizations</span></strong></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It is tragic that over the last eight years, professional organizations of lawyers and accountants have been quiet on the many decrees which have reduced the human rights of Fiji citizens.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Civil society organizations have disputed some, but eventually accepted the illegal “laws” and constitution imposed on them, despite the powerful intellectual and legal comfort of a 2001 ruling by Justice Anthony Gates (current Chief Justice) that no individual has the power to abrogate the 1997 Constitution, regardless of the number of years a tyrant may remain in control, and regardless of his popularity.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">But Fiji’s civil society and professional organizations of lawyers and accountants have failed to defend democracy and freedom, because they have not been supported by society at large.</span></div>
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<strong><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The Indo-Fijian apathy</span></strong></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">There is an astonishing intellectual and social apathy of Indo-Fijian academics and students in all the three universities, made evident by their total absence from any national public debate, and refusal of university managers to provide ethical intellectual leadership.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The educated Indo-Fijian elite will continue to enjoy whatever benefits come their way and plan their date of emigration, while immersing themselves in the daily escapist diet of Bollywood that is their new “opium of the masses” peddled by Fiji’s businesses and the media.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The local Indo-Fijian business community have hedged their bets by taking out permanent residency or citizenship in Australia, NZ, US and Canada and moving their families there, “in case things go wrong in Fiji”. You can be sure that they will make lots of money in Fiji before they go.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Expect no ethical activism from them about loss of Fijian sovereignty or lack of accountability of government.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<strong><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The absence of Fijian whistle blowers and Fijian collaboration</span></strong></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">For eight years the public and political parties have been calling for the Bainimarama Government to release all the Auditor General Reports since 2006, to reveal details of ministerial salaries between 2010 and 2013, to release the reports on the massive financial losses in FNPF investments, audits of the RFMF Regimental Funds, and how approvals were given for projects that resulted in environmental destruction.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">What should be deeply worrying to the indigenous Fijian community, is that there has not been a single “whistle blower” who has made the information available to the public.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The indigenous Fijian intellectual elites, who merrily wine and dine at the annual charades of accountants’ or lawyers’ conferences, willingly dance along with the smooth propaganda that is thrust down their throats, apparently unconcerned about the dangers to Fijian sovereignty.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Increasing numbers of intellectual indigenous Fijians are escaping by taking up safe employment with regional and international organizations or emigrating like their Indo-Fijian colleagues, to greener pastures, leaving their Fijian communities totally vulnerable and leaderless.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The Fijian <em>bati</em> to defend Fijian sovereignty are only to be seen performing <em>meke</em> for tourists, or lining the driveway to Government House with their clubs and daubed with ashes looking fierce, but only after their High Chief had already been hounded from his presidential office, to die in sorrow at his home in Lau.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">While the defense of Fijian sovereignty requires a new breed of intellectual <em>bati</em>, very few of the hundreds of educated Fijians have stepped up to assist those brave few in SODELPA who struggled against the mighty propaganda machine of the FFP and the likelihood of victimization by the powerful state machinery.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">A few Fijians continue to vent their anger and frustrations through the blogs, but always anonymously, which reduces their social value to young impressionable Fijians to zero and indeed, had little impact on their very important votes in the September 2014 elections.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Anonymous bloggers also rant and rave about Aiyaz Khaiyum implementing his Master’s degree’s “Sunset Clause” on the Fijian race, when it should be obvious that it is the indigenous Fijians themselves who are driving the tanks and firing the shells at Fijian sovereignty.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Khaiyum, without any personal political base, just happens to a most efficient strategist, very smooth, suave, and successful at serving Bainimarama, who is backed completely by his Military Council and the RFMF, all also completely indigenous Fijian.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Ominously, there is a never-ending supply of prominent indigenous Fijians, (including High Chiefs) who have been willing to join Bainimarama’s Government, parroting the Bainimarama Government propaganda, while keeping the government machinery running, all personally befitting in the process of course.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The uncomfortable reality that Fijians leaders have to face up to is that if indigenous Fijians (including Bainimarama) follow their own individual self-interest according to Adam Smith’s model, as they have done over the last eight years, they could be hammering the last nails into the coffin of indigenous Fijian sovereignty.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Let us hope that this “gloom and doom” scenario of catastrophic risk to Fijian sovereignty is all pessimistic conjecture which will be proven wrong by the next four years.</span></div>
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<em><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">[The term “catastrophic risk” is usually applied to global phenomena such as global warming, which endanger the planet on a global scale. I believe that the term can also applied to the risks to “Fijian sovereignty” for which there is only one geographical host in the world, Fiji.]</span></em></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7745785272753572871.post-27053877002244149652014-10-14T12:18:00.000+12:002014-10-14T12:33:14.111+12:00FBC News: RFMF is the ultimate guarantor of national security: PM<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">13:07 Mon Oct 13, 2014</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 20px;"><a href="http://www.fbc.com.fj/fiji/23678/rfmf-is-the-ultimate-guarantor-of-national-security-pm">Report by: Edwin Nand</a></span><br />
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<a href="http://media.fbc.com.fj/news/2014/10/rfmf-is-the-ultimate-guarantor-of-national-security-pm_650x300.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://media.fbc.com.fj/news/2014/10/rfmf-is-the-ultimate-guarantor-of-national-security-pm_650x300.jpg" style="border: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" /></a><strong style="background-color: white; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The role of the military has come up in the first sitting of the new parliament as MPs debate the President’s opening speech this week.</span></strong></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama has paid tribute to the <span class="caps" style="border: 0px; display: inline; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">RFMF</span> for standing by him as the military commander, saying the military could not stand by and watch Fiji be destroyed by corruption and nepotism.</span></span></div>
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<em style="background-color: white; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">“History will eventually make its own pronouncements on the events of 2006, but those of us in the military who believe passionately in national unity came to the conclusion that the fabric of our nation was unraveling and that only radical intervention would enable us to pick up the threads. None of us wanted to remove the civilians we had appointed to take our forward, but when it appeared that they had precisely the same racist and corrupt agenda as the instigators of 2000 we had no choice.”</span></em></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">However, Opposition leader Ro Teimumu Kepa in her address also made reference to the military, saying it’s been involved in every coup in Fiji’s history.</span></span></div>
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<em style="background-color: white; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">“Coups cannot occur or succeed in this country, unless the military is involved and we therefore look to the new military commander to return the military to the professional and disciplined force it once was and to re-commit itself to the defence of our people and not against them. I believe the question of the transparency and accountability of this parliamentary process is something that in time, will reveal itself.”</span></em></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The Prime Minister has stressed in parliament that national security has always been the responsibility of the <span class="caps" style="border: 0px; display: inline; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">RFMF</span>.</span></span></div>
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<em style="background-color: white; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">“Only a radical intervention was capable of getting Fiji back on track of establishing once and for all the universal democratic principle that all men and women are equal. I want to thank the <span class="caps" style="border: 0px; display: inline; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">RFMF</span> for supporting the reform process, of carrying out its duty to be the ultimate guarantor of national security, of holding Fiji together and for the personal support I received as commander.”</span></em></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The first parliament session continues at the Government Buildings in Suva.</span></span></div>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7745785272753572871.post-83593496988702186522014-10-14T12:15:00.000+12:002014-10-14T12:33:29.680+12:00The Mercury: A snake with a taste for soy latte<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">REX GARDNER</span></span><br />
<a href="http://www.themercury.com.au/news/opinion/a-snake-with-a-taste-for-soy-latte/story-fnj4f64i-1227067780800" style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">MERCURY</span></a><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">SEPTEMBER 23, 2014 12:00AM</span></span><br />
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<span class="caption-text" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-small;">A soldier mans a roadblock in Suva the day after Frank Bainimarama took over in a bloodless coup in 2006. Picture: AFP</span></div>
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<strong style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">SOY latte. Nice drink, but just the thought of it leaves a bad taste.</span></strong></div>
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<strong style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">This is the preferred brew of Fiji’s true powerbroker – a lawyer, fashion-plate, cunning strategist, smooth-talking charmer who can move like a snake in the grass.</span></strong></div>
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<strong style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It is not Frank Bainimarama but Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum, attorney-general in the military regime who ran Fiji for the past eight years, the primary brains behind the throne.</span></strong></div>
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He is not exactly loved in Fiji but curiously admired by many for plotting the sometimes nasty path for Bainimarama from a military coup in 2006 to winning last week’s election.</div>
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Bainimarama, heading the Fiji First party, is now legitimately in power. Aiyaz, who was minister in charge of the election, was comfortably voted in.</div>
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But back to soy latte.</div>
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I met Aiyaz soon after arriving in Fiji in 2008 for a second stint as general manager of the 140-year-old <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">Fiji Times</i>.</div>
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I was sitting with a group at a tourism convention on the patio of a beachfront hotel along the Coral Coast from Suva.</div>
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The palms swayed gently in the warm night zephyr as everyone sat around in bula shirts, relaxing after a meal.</div>
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I was introduced to Aiyaz by a mutual friend and invited him for a nightcap at our table.</div>
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“Soy latte, please,” he said.</div>
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“And maybe a nightcap, too?” I inquired.</div>
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“No, just the latte, thanks. I don’t drink.”</div>
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He wanted to meet the new <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">Fiji Times </i>general manager, and I was keen to meet the strategist behind the military rulers.</div>
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We had an issue to get our teeth into. Just that afternoon I had refused to run a full-page government ad in the next day’s <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">Fiji Times </i>that had clear errors of fact in it.</div>
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He wasn’t happy and made it clear. My response was that surely, as a lawyer, he would agree that factual errors were not acceptable.</div>
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We were not off to a great start – but I did pay for the latte.</div>
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<span class="caption-text" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: x-small;">Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum, left, and Frank Bainimarama during a 2008 press conference in Suva.</span></div>
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Over the next few months he remained firmly on the <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">Fiji Times</i>’ case.</div>
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The military government, and particularly the AG, seemed obsessed with the newspaper and any criticism through its columns or letters.</div>
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The paper was the only voice of reason and balance in Fiji, taking the military government to task.</div>
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Our editor, Netani Rika, a brave Fijian, infuriated the regime by referring to it as an “interim government”.</div>
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The opposition <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">Fiji Sun </i>was on side with the military and sweetly rewarded with a steady flow of government advertising, even though the<i style="box-sizing: border-box;"> Fiji Times </i>had a much higher circulation and readership.</div>
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We ran letters from all sides, many critical of the military rule, high unemployment, failing economy and lucrative jobs dispensed to military mates in the public service.</div>
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Bainimarama would phone Netani, shouting abuse and invective. He was an editor under immense pressure but, if anything, this seemed to steel him.</div>
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Some months after the first soy latte, the interim AG and I agreed to meet again, at a cafe in a busy Suva side street.</div>
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Aiyaz looked sharp in a nicely tailored shirt and trousers and designer glasses. Under his arm was the official <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">Fiji Times </i>dossier, bulging with articles cut from the paper since the coup: letters, highlighted headlines and captions, stories that didn’t synch in with the rulers’ communications strategy.</div>
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I shouted two soy lattes as the conversation proceeded, but there was a chasm between the paper and the politician. In a country where most acquiesced in the military rule, the<i style="box-sizing: border-box;">Fiji Times</i> was an obstacle.</div>
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Soon after, a letter appeared on our letters page from someone in Brisbane criticising a Fiji High Court decision rejecting a case brought by the deposed prime minister and validating the Bainimarama coup.</div>
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The soy latte AG struck – like a viper!</div>
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He and the Solicitor General quickly instigated court proceedings against the editor, the general manager and the paper for contempt of court, publicly calling for the High Court to jail Netani and me for running the letter which, they claimed, asserted the judge was biased and corrupt.</div>
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<span class="caption-text" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: x-small;">Former <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">Fiji Times</i> general manager Rex Gardner at Sydney Airport in 2009 after having been deported from Fiji.</span></div>
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Our lawyer advised that we should plead guilty but emphasise there was no attempt to discredit the court.</div>
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The litigation was well-publicised and the judge saw it very much through the government prism. Down we went.</div>
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The editor was given a three-month jail term, suspended for two years. My contempt charge was dismissed, but somehow I got a 12-month good behaviour bond. The <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">Fiji Times</i> company was fined $100,000.</div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: normal; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 14px; margin-top: 10px;">
Just days later, my work permit was revoked and I was very swiftly directed to the airport. A second <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">Fiji Times </i>general manager in 10 months was on his way but was quickly replaced.</div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: normal; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 14px; margin-top: 10px;">
The noose tightened on the <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">Fiji Times</i>. Censors were in the newsroom every night, and a government decree had come through eliminating foreign ownership of the media. News Limited had three months to divest itself of this very proudly held newspaper.</div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: normal; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 14px; margin-top: 10px;">
Fiji is a land of ironies.</div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: normal; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 14px; margin-top: 10px;">
On my first day back at the <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">Times</i> in June 2008, the phone rang and, in a deep gravelly voice, the paper’s star columnist asked to drop by to say hello.</div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: normal; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 14px; margin-top: 10px;">
The caller? Sitiveni Rabuka, the leader of two military coups during 1987, who closed the paper for five days during the first coup and five weeks during the second. We had a friendly chat in which even he expressed misgivings about the state of things.</div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: normal; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 14px; margin-top: 10px;">
And, so, with Bainimarama legitimately in power, will the Fiji Military Forces fade into the background?</div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: normal; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 14px; margin-top: 10px;">
Last week, for the first time in months, members of the FMF marched through the streets of Suva, in an action one observer said was to remind people they are still around.</div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: normal; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 14px; margin-top: 10px;">
Their leader, Mosese Tikoitoga, has assured diplomatic missions in Fiji the army will operate within the constitutional democracy.</div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: normal; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 14px; margin-top: 10px;">
But military coups have happened with lamentable frequency in Fiji – and while love is in the air at the moment, the balance can be tipped again.</div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: normal; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 14px; margin-top: 10px;">
And that would be the ultimate irony.</div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: normal; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 14px; margin-top: 10px;">
<b style="box-sizing: border-box;">Rex Gardner is managing director of Davies Brothers Ltd, which publishes the Mercury and Sunday Tasmanian.</b></div>
</span></strong></div>
</div>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7745785272753572871.post-12378138582232622832014-08-11T13:54:00.000+12:002014-08-11T13:54:02.758+12:00Prof Wadan Narsey: The continuing myths of “1 person = 1 vote = 1 value”<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><a href="https://narseyonfiji.wordpress.com/2014/08/11/the-continuing-myths-of-1-person-1-vote-1-value-11-august-2014/">Professor Wadan Narsey</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">11 August 2014</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Over and over, one hears claims from Bainimarama supporters that Fiji now has the most democratic electoral system ever, in which Indo-Fijians are now finally “equal” to indigenous Fijians, with “1 person = 1 vote = 1 value”.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">New Zealand citizen Rajendra Prasad recently enthused (Fiji Sun, 30 July 2014) that “The 1970, 1990 and 1997 Constitution advocated ethnic voting whereas the 2013 Constitution has removed this provision and every citizen of Fiji is now on one roll. The basic precept of such provision is “one person, one vote, one value” for all. Equality and dignity of every citizen is the rallying cry of this Constitution.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">While Rajendra Prasad’s article has many outlandish claims such as the great positive impact of Bollywood and rugby on multiracial harmony in Fiji, let me focus here on his myths about the new electoral system compared to the old.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Myth 1: That all previous electoral systems were biased against Indo-Fijians</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Of course, previous electoral systems had ethnic constituencies, called Fijian, Indian and Generals (not to be confused with our current military generals) and there were some small biases, mostly in favor of the Generals.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">But these ethnic constituencies were created after painful compromise between the political leaders of those times, to give emotional security to indigenous Fijians, who were afraid that the numerically superior Indo-Fijian voters would dominate elections under the common roll, as they probably would have before the Indo-Fijian emigration after 1987,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">But even in those years, there were also mixed constituencies called “Cross-voting” (1970 Constitution), or Open constituencies (1997 Constitution) in which all citizens could stand, and all eligible voters could vote- effectively “common rolls”.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The electoral system under the 1970 Constitution did not stop the Indo-Fijian National Federation Party (NFP) from winning in the first 1977 election, nor the Indo-Fijian Fiji Labor Party/NFP Coalition from winning in the 1987 election. They could hardly be called biased against Indo-Fijians, although the military coups that followed them certainly were.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Let us look at the 2006 results which Bainimarama has repeatedly claimed as “ethnically biased” against Indo-Fijians, supported by similarly wild allegations from from Australian citizen Father David Arms, here in Fiji to assist an illegal government with his electoral missionary work.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The 2006 election had both ethnic and Open (Common Roll) constituencies.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Basic fact: the proportion of seats in parliament held in aggregate by the Indo-Fijian parties (FLP and NFP) was 44% and only slightly less than their share of the total votes (46%),</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Basic fact: the Fijian political parties (SDL, SVT, PANU, NAP) in aggregate obtained 49% of the votes, and a slightly higher 51% of the seats.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">With similar results prevailing in 1999 and 2001 under the same 1997 Electoral system, it was clearly not racially biased against Indo-Fijians at all.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Indeed, in 1999, the largest Indo-Fijian Party (the FLP) managed to win control of the Fiji Parliament, with the same Alternative Vote electoral system, until they were booted out by the military.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It is a blatant lie and sheer propaganda to keep repeating that the 1997 Electoral system was ethnically biased against Indo-Fijians.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The real unfairness of the Alternative Vote system was to smaller political parties, both Fijian (NAP, PANU, SVT) and the Indo-Fijian party (NFP) in that when they could not win more than 50% of the votes in a particular constituency, their preference votes shifted to the larger parties who benefited.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Thus the Fijian SDL had around 44% of the votes, but a much larger 52% of the seats.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Similarly, the Indo-Fijian FLP had 40% of the votes but a larger 42% of the seats.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The Bainimarama propagandists should take note that the 2013 electoral system also discriminates against smaller parties and Independents, to the benefit of the larger parties.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Myth 2: “1 person = 1 vote = 1 value” in the 2013 Electoral System</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The Rajendra Prasad quote I gave earlier (also echoed by Thakur Ranjit Singh, Satendra Nandan and many others) is the rallying cry of the Bainimarama Regime.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">But the 2013 Electoral system has many inequalities which negate the “1 person = 1 vote – 1 value” claim, still frequently advertised by the Elections Office.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In a strictly proportional system, each of the 50 seats in Parliament would represent roughly 2% of the votes cast, or roughly 10,000 votes.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">But under the 2013 Constitution and Electoral System, successful parties and Independents MUST obtain the 5% threshold, or a massive 27,000 votes, or they will be disqualified.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><u>Inequality 1</u></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">If any small Party or Independent does not get 5% of the vote (the threshold), these candidates will not be elected, even if their candidates get more than 2% of the total votes cast.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">All their votes will be totally discarded and will be worth exactly ZERO.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Only the political parties which satisfy the 5% threshold will then share the 50 seats in proportion to their total votes, EXCLUDING the votes for small parties and independents which have been discarded.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In other words, the larger qualifying parties will get a higher proportion of seats than the votes they receive, at the expense of all the small parties and independents.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">If for example the total votes received by those not reaching the threshold amount to, say, 10% of all the votes (quite a plausible result, I believe in the forthcoming elections), then the 5 seats that would have gone to them proportionately (10% of 50 seats), will go instead as bonus to the larger parties.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">There are many small parties and 1 Independent contesting this 2014 Elections and I believe that most of the votes for them will be wasted and have ZERO value.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Small regional constituencies which would previously have able to elect their own Independent candidate to Parliament will no longer be able to do so, unless their candidate stands for some large party guaranteed to obtain the 5% threshold.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><u>Inequality 2</u></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">If any Independent gets more than 5% or more of the votes (and is therefore elected), all those voters supporting this Independent will still have only 1 parliamentarian to represent them.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Had these voters voted for a large Party, this same number of voters would have elected between 2 and 3 parliamentarians to represent them.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The value of each vote for a successful Independent will therefore be worth only a third of the vote for a successful party candidate. Hardly equal value of the propaganda.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><u>Inequality 3</u></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">As I have explained in a previous article, once a large party gets it quota of seats, then the “successful” candidates are decided by going down the list of candidates ranked by the votes they receive.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Suppose the Leader of a successful Party gets 150,000 votes, while the remaining 49 candidates get 100,000 between them.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The Leader may be entitled to take the top 24 of his own Party, in order of votes received into Parliament.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">His last successful candidate may have received only a few hundred votes, and will still be elected, while any number of candidates and Independents will be disqualified, despite getting far more votes. In other words, totally unpopular candidates may creep into Parliament under the umbrella of their popular leaders.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Every vote for a large party is worth far more than a vote for a small party of Independent.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">All voters remember to examine how many of the “successful” parliamentarians in the September 2014 Elections will get more than 10,000 votes, the likely average for parliament.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The Elections Office should stop the false advertising propaganda that “1 person = 1 vote = 1 value”.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The propaganda of “1 person = 1 vote = 1 value” will not stop racism</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">There is a ridiculous propaganda that the “1 person - 1 vote - 1 value” electoral system will end the racism against Indo-Fijians who can now live with dignity, and this is believed by many of them, helped by the massive advertising campaign calling everyone “Fijian”.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">How patently unrealistic.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">United States, Australia, NZ, Germany all have had “one person=one vote=1value” electoral systems for decades, and everyone there are called Americans or Australians or New Zealanders or Germans, yet racism against non-whites (blacks, Aboriginals, Asians, Maoris, Islanders, Arabs) is alive and well in all these four countries.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Racist attitudes in Fiji are also quite entrenched amongst all our ethnic communities, Fijian, Indo-Fijian, European, kailoma, and Chinese and they will not end because of military decrees calling everyone “Fijian” or perpetually repeating the slogans “1 person=1 vote = 1 value”.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Racism may even have worsened amongst some groups as a reaction to the dictatorial Bainimarama policies.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">One would have expected Indo-Fijian leaders to keep in mind that with the continuing emigration of Indo-Fijians, the proportion of indigenous Fijian voters will keep rising above 60%, and all future parliaments under a strictly proportional electoral system, will have the majority of the parliamentarians elected by indigenous Fijian voters.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Will these elected indigenous Fijians parliamentarians be any different from the general Fijian community?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Indeed, how multi-racial are some of the members of Bainimarama’s indigenous Fijian team, which includes people like Inoke Kubuabola, Filipe Bole and Isikeli Mataitoga, some of the leaders of the coups in 1987 and 2000?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Throwing away the Multi-Party Baby with the Bathwater</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">One of the most unwise aspects of the 2013 Constitution, is the rejection of the 1997 Constitution’s Multi-Party provision that could have been of great value in establishing multi-racial co-operative governments.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Under this provision, any party with at least 10% of the seats (today 5 seats out of 50) would have been entitled to be invited into Cabinet.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">This provision was not used wisely in 1999 by the FLP (to their cost) or the SDL in 2001.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">However, it was being made to work in 2006 with the SDL/FLP multi-party government, until Bainimarama’s 2006 coup with the active support of Mahendra Chaudhry and other Indo-Fijian leaders, torpedoed it.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">This provision would have allowed all minority groups (whether regional groups, such as all those from Vanua Levu, or ethnic groups such as Indo-Fijians) to be represented not just in Parliament, but far more importantly, in Cabinet.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">How useful would this have been for Indo-Fijians who will live in Fiji for the foreseeable future and who still comprise 30% of the voters, decreasing further with time?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The saddest aspect of the current propaganda about the glorious equality of all races under Bainimarama, is that most of it is coming from Indo-Fijian intellectuals who have already made their decision to leave Fiji, and settle in the safety of Australia or NZ.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Rajendra Prasad’s concluding lines in his Fiji Sun article were: “Will this election be won on deceit and lies, or will it be won on truth and understanding? Only time will tell.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">He should ask himself why the Bainimarama Government would need to spend millions of dollars on propaganda created by American PR company Qorvis, if it has truth and understanding on its side.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">For certain, I can tell him that the propaganda that “1 person = 1 vote = 1 value” will not apply to the thousands of voters who wish to vote for small parties and Independents.</span><br />
<br />
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7745785272753572871.post-45902364102003604362014-08-01T20:31:00.001+12:002014-08-01T20:31:44.158+12:00Prof Wadan Narsey - MIDA unaccountable while papers continue to censor<a href="https://narseyonfiji.wordpress.com/2014/07/27/mida-unaccountable-while-papers-continue-to-censor-sent-to-ashwin-raj-chairman-mida-and-also-as-open-letter-to-editor-the-fiji-times-fiji-sun-island-business-27-july-2014/"><span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Sent to Ashwin Raj (Chairman, MIDA) and also as Open Letter to Editor</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">(The Fiji Times, Fiji Sun, Island Business) </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">27 July 2014</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div style="background-color: white; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Dear Mr Raj</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I sent a Letter to you on the 3 July 2014, requesting your response to a number of matters concerning the development of the media industry but you responded to only one query- that you had requested the media to give you their general editorial policy.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">You have refused to respond to the other queries directed to you as Chairman of the Media Development Industry (MIDA).</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Nor have you asked the media why they did not print my previous letter on the salaries for Bainimarama and Khaiyum for the years 2010 to 2013. This question has been publicly raised by not just taxpayers and voters, but no less than Mr Mahendra Chaudhry a former elected Prime Minister of Fiji, and also Bainimarama’s own former Minister of Finance who one would expect to have a clue or two, on this particular issue.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">While we wait for the media to respond to what you had asked them, I wish to ask you again to respond publicly to the following questions which all media are still interested in despite your previous refusal to respond.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">As a “level playing field” is an essential part of the development of a free, fair, competitive and transparent media industry, could you please inform the public what is your position on the continuing biases in the media industry itself:</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">(1) tax-payers advertisement funds being channelled by the Bainimarama Government only to <em>Fiji Sun </em>with <em>The Fiji Times</em> being totally denied.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">(2) outright subsidies given to FBC via government budget and government guarantees of loans from FDB, with no such subsidies given to either Fiji TV or the other radio broadcasters, Communications Fiji Ltd.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">(3) the clearly intimidating renewal of the license for Fiji TV on a six monthly basis, while FBC TV suffers from no such restriction</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">(4) While Fiji TV’s accounts are available to the shareholders, FBC accounts are not available at all to the taxpayers who supposedly own FBC.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">(4) Mai TV’s “scoop” at obtaining rights to the broadcast of FIFA World Cup (a legitimate entrepreneurial transaction admired in the business world) being forcibly shared by decree amongst the other broadcasters, on financial terms dictated by the Bainimarama Government rather than negotiated amongst themselves as a market transaction.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">(5) have you queried Fiji TV and the owners Fijian Holdings Limited why respected senior journalist and administrator Mr Anish Chand was sacked from Fiji TV on this year’s World Press Freedom day (as was related to you during the World Press Freedom Day panel at USP).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Given that you have personally made many public pronouncements that you want MIDA to be accountable to the Fiji public, I would be grateful if</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">(a) you would request the media to print this Letter to the Editor,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">(b) so that the public and the media can also note that these questions have been posed to you, and can wait eagerly for your usual interesting response.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Yours sincerely</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Professor Wadan Narsey</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Suva</span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7745785272753572871.post-88194664068027315112014-08-01T20:26:00.002+12:002014-08-01T22:20:45.563+12:00Discombobulated Bubu: The Chicken or the Egg or Bainimarama<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 20px;"><a href="http://discombobulatedbubu.blogspot.com/2014/08/the-chicken-or-egg-or-bainimarama.html">The question today ragone is which one of these really cameth first?</a></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 20px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 20px;">The yolk of the matter is this.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 20px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 20px;">The lovely Makereta Waqavonovono has a simple wish. To stand up and be counted like any of us ordinary citizens. SHE WISHES TO REPRESENT HER PEOPLE IN THE ELECTIONS. She is well educated, is a great thinker and gave up many years of her life to accumulate knowledge and wisdom, but because of this it seems she is being treated like a criminal, or but wait - is it perhaps because of precisely this that she may represent the threat to Bainimarama's aspirations?</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 20px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 20px;">Here is </span></span><a href="https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=gmail&attid=0.1&thid=14789af11f2bac63&mt=application/pdf&url=https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?ui%3D2&ik=2baee7e6d0&view=att&th=14789af11f2bac63&attid=0.1&disp=safe&realattid=6407137e3a5d4c72_0.1&zw&sig=AHIEtbQaSU-pH5fZdkvfnB2DRmd4yqzOgg" style="color: #993322; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 20px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">her letter</a><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 20px;">.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 20px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 20px;">It is plain to see she is being blocked by one of Bainimarara and Kaiyum's vacuous decrees churned out to protect their first race to the polls:</span><br />
<br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><a href="http://fijilive.com/news/2014/07/defendants-want-waqavonovono-case-dismissed/58421.Fijilive" style="color: #993322; line-height: 20px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">http://fijilive.com/<wbr></wbr>news/2014/07/defendants-want-<wbr></wbr>waqavonovono-case-dismissed/<wbr></wbr>58421.Fijilive</a></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 20px;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="line-height: 20px;"><br /></span></span></span></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPCVmx-Ee-ZhT9GolmdPMCK2g29uJeK_cPT83OiKl2LtpU_h4x2DS3ndV_8SpoFm9wRcKhczcK072DE9OXpHcIrxkCKgCvhlCCVQCFsPeR8cO1zLEW8pm-TnceLa2igAyln3IZW2RklvA/s1600/cartoon-chicken-and-egg.jpg" style="clear: left; color: #993322; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPCVmx-Ee-ZhT9GolmdPMCK2g29uJeK_cPT83OiKl2LtpU_h4x2DS3ndV_8SpoFm9wRcKhczcK072DE9OXpHcIrxkCKgCvhlCCVQCFsPeR8cO1zLEW8pm-TnceLa2igAyln3IZW2RklvA/s1600/cartoon-chicken-and-egg.jpg" height="226" style="-webkit-box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.496094) 1px 1px 5px; border: none; box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.496094) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 8px; position: relative;" width="320" /></span></span></a><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Meanwhile back in the barn, we have the judge in this case called Chen Bun Young who JUST HAPPENS to be a former associate of the Electoral Commission Chairperson. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">The court is being asked to rule on the meaning of who/what is an "<a href="https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?ui=2&ik=2baee7e6d0&view=att&th=14789af11f2bac63&attid=0.2&disp=safe&realattid=6407137e3a5d4c72_0.2&zw" style="color: #993322; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">ordinary resident of Fiji</a>" (<span style="color: black;">under section 56 (2) (c) of the Constitution and section 23 (5) of the Electoral Decree 2014)</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">____________</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b style="color: #333333; line-height: 20px;"><i>UPDATE 1st August 2014</i></b></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 20px;">As predicted - the Decree-churners have stayed up all night and churned out another amendment to the decrees that would rule Makereta out of the Elections.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 20px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 20px;">They are trying their best folks to win the race to the polls by <a href="http://fijivillage.com/news/High-Court-dismisses-Waqavonovono-application-92s5kr/">deceipt and desperation</a>.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 20px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 20px;">However, It ain't going to happen as the WILL of the collective is far more powerful than any of Bai and Kai's decrees.</span><br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/votefijifirstout" style="color: #993322; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 20px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">VOTE FIJI FIRST OUT</a><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 20px;"> NOW.</span><br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7745785272753572871.post-1679770034252073282014-07-27T16:15:00.000+12:002014-07-27T16:25:03.251+12:00Prof Wadan Narsey: Fiji Times - The facts on Poverty and Social Justice<a href="https://narseyonfiji.wordpress.com/2014/07/27/the-facts-on-poverty-and-social-justice-the-fiji-times-26-july-2014/" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Professor Wadan Narsey</a><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The Fiji Times, 26 July 2014</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>[Qualification: There are many voters who believe that an unelected government, deemed illegal by the highest Fiji Court of Appeal, should not be changing policies on taxation, government expenditure and public debt for eight years. One founding slogan for the American War of Independence was: “no taxation without representation”.]</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Economies can show high rates of growth, but have mixed results on the poor:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">(1) the poor can become poorer, because the cost of living increases more than their incomes (some evidence of this).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">(2) the poor can become poorer because of increased Value Added Tax, while the rich can become richer because of reduced direct taxes reduced (some evidence of this).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">(3) the poorest can become better off even as the rich become richer, and income distribution can still become worse (no evidence of this).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">As with the economic growth analysis, the analysis of changes in poverty may also be broken into two periods: one of increasing poverty between 2005 and 2011, and the second between 2011 and 2014 when many positive budget measures were brought in in the areas of education and infrastructure especially.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The likely changes in poverty are examined through household survey data form the Fiji Bureau of Statistics, the Wages Councils, changes in taxation, and the annual budget measures of the last three years.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Changes between 2002-03 and 2008-09</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The FBS Household Income and Expenditure Surveys (HIES) for 2002-03 and 2008-09 give the changes in poverty between these two survey periods, with four years during the Qarase Government, and two years during the Bainimarama Government (the Bainimarama coup took place in December 2006).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Poverty between 2002-3 and 2008-9:</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">* in rural areas increased from 40% to 43%</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">* in urban areas reduced from 28% to 18%.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">* Fiji as a whole, reduced from 35% to 31%.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Given the declining agricultural output in the sugar and non-sugar sectors, one can say confidently that rural poverty would have increased steadily through this entire period, both under the Qarase Government and the Bainimarama Government.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">But because of the overall cumulative positive economic growth rate of 15% between 2000 and 2006, urban poverty under the Qarase Government would have been decreasing.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Changes in poverty between 2004-05 and 2010-11</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The first year of this period was under the Qarase government, while the remaining five years were under the Bainimarama Government.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Assuming that the patterns of remittances were roughly the same throughout, the Employment and Unemployment Survey (EUS) data for 2004-05 and 2010-11, can be used to examine poverty at both the individual worker level, and also at the household level.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The EUS data at the household level indicate that the percentage of population in households below an estimated poverty line, changes as follows, between 2004-05 and 2010-11:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">* in Fiji overall, poverty increased from 30% to 45%</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">* in rural areas, poverty increased from 34% to 55%</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">* in urban areas, poverty increased from 25% to 35%</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The EUS individual worker data indicate that</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">* poverty of the workers depending on subsistence increased from 35% to 67%.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">* the poverty of employees not covered by Fiji National Provident Fund, increased from 50% to 60% (those covered by FNPF remained the same at 20%).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">This last result is not surprising given Governments’ failure to implement Wages Councils (next section).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Government failure to implement Wages Councils</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The poorest wage earners who are not represented by unions are supposed to be protected by the ten Wages Councils, set very sensibly at different levels for different sectors depending on how well each sector was doing.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">For most of the post-coup period, the Wages Councils were under the Chairmanship of Father Kevin Barr.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Unfortunately, Father Barr’s Wages Regulation Orders were postponed year after year by the Minister for Labor under orders from the Bainimarama Government, because of unethical pressures by employers and the Employers’ Federation.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">While the stagnating economy after the 2006 coup may well have been an important factor for some employers, not a single employer ever showed their audited accounts in justification for their inability to pay, to the Wages Council Chairman (Barr) or the Labour Minister.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">After postponement for four years, small partial adjustments were allowed, which did not keep pace with the large increases in the cost of living, and most of these workers, already extremely poor and numbering about 50,000, slipped further into poverty (as the EUS data indicates).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Eventually, Father Kevin Barr was sacked as Chairman of Wages Council, after accusing the Bainimarama Government of practicing “crony capitalism”, and threatened with expulsion from Fiji (Father Barr is an Australian citizen).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Then there was the National Minimum Wages debacle by the Chairman of the Commerce Commission (Dr Mahendra Reddy), who with great public fanfare, set a “scientific” national minimum wage of $2.32 per hour, only to retreat into silence, when the Bainimarama Government unilaterally, again under pressure from employers, reduced it to $2 per hour.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Regressive taxation: taxing the poor and helping the rich</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">There has been a false claim that because of the raising of the income tax threshold to $15,000, the poor now do not pay any tax, but the reality is that all consumers pay tax through VAT, on essential and non-essential expenditures alike.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Since 2006, the Bainimarama Government has changed the taxation system heavily in favor of the rich and increased the burdens on the poor:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">(a) VAT has been increased from 12.5% to 15% increasing the cost of living for the poor;</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">(b) Income tax at the highest income levels has been reduced totally unnecessarily from 30% marginal tax to 20%, lower even than all our neighbouring countries, thereby increasing the after-tax income for the rich (except for those earning over $270k).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">(c) Corporate tax has also been reduced totally unnecessarily from 28% to 20%, with most foreign companies repatriating their increased profits.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">These tax reductions have probably given back more than $150 million to the rich, and the lost revenues regained by taxing the poor and the middle classes more, through the VAT.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Income distribution and social justice has worsened in this period.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">However, there have been some positive measures for the poor through budget measures in the last two years.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Changes in poverty 2011 to 2014: high growth and budget measures</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The period 2011 to 2014 has seen an average growth rate of 3% growth rate, massive infrastructure investments amounting to more than $1 billion, and the continuation of the remittance receipts from abroad (now amounting to more than $370 millions according to RBF figures).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">While there is no data to assist, almost certainly, poverty will have been reducing between 2011 and 2014 but annual budget figures also have a bearing on household poverty from the government expenditure side, which may be picked up in future household income and expenditure surveys.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The Bainimarama Government in the last three years has also brought in comprehensive subsidies on bus fares and tuition fees, and increased access to scholarships and loans for tertiary education. Commitments have also been made to make pre-schools free.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">These are all clear and much appreciated benefits for the poor and there is statistical evidence of the positive effects.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The EUS data indicates that between 2005 and 2011, the percentages of children attending school have increased by 4% at primary schools (to almost complete coverage now), and by 7% at secondary to reach 88%, and by 7% at tertiary ages to reach 40%.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Almost certainly, the improvements in school attendance have continued to grow after 2011, especially at the secondary and tertiary levels given the easier access to scholarships and loans.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Of particular benefit to Indo-Fijian families is that there are no obstacles in their children’s paths to higher education, whereas previously there used to be quotas on scholarships, and limited access to loans.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">These education policies by the Bainimarama Government counter, to some extent, the changes in taxation policy described above, but not for those poor families without children at school.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Note that the awarding of scholarships in select areas based totally on academic merit has meant reduced access to indigenous Fijians in these areas.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Given that the emigration data indicates clearly that qualified non-Fijians are far more likely to emigrate than indigenous Fijians, then the current ethnically blinkered scholarship policies, are likely to lead to severe skill shortages in the future in those areas.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Another recent positive measure has been the allowances for the elderly which is of some assistance to the destitute.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">More importantly, the building of rural roads and other socially necessary infrastructure on water and sewerage throughout Fiji (especially in the poorest Northern Division) will be of great assistance to the rural poor, facilitating the marketing of their produce and better access to essential urban services, and improving their livelihoods and standards of living.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">However, these future benefits will only eventuate, if the increased infrastructure expenditure translates into higher economic growth, which can pay for the current large increases in Public Debt, which will otherwise be a burden on the future generations of the poor and middle classes.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It also depends crucially on the Republic of Fiji Military Forces respecting the democratic outcome of the September 2014 elections and staying clear of politics whatever the result.</span><br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7745785272753572871.post-30891483326649247532014-06-17T20:23:00.000+12:002014-06-17T20:23:30.096+12:00Prof Wadan Narsey: Letter to Editor - Green sustainable development strategy in Fiji and mangroves<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="https://narseyonfiji.wordpress.com/2014/06/16/green-sustainable-development-strategy-in-fiji-and-mangroves-letter-to-editor-16-june-2014/">Letter to Editor (The Fiji Times, Fiji Sun, Island Business)</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">16 June 2014</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Dear Sir</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Many environmentalists would have been happy to hear the excellent speech made by the keynote speaker to the Green Growth Summit last week, Rear Admiral Bainimarama, who is quoted as saying that (The Fiji Times, 13 June 2014):</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">“We need to build green economies in which the driver of growth is a more intelligent and effective use of our resources, along with their sustainable management” and that “Fiji was taking the lead in the region”.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Unfortunately, the facts suggest otherwise.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">As I have asked previously (with no answers forthcoming) could anyone in the Bainimarama Government responsible for the environment, explain who gave the permission for the massive destruction of mangroves in</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">(a) Nasese the extent of which can be seen in <a href="http://wikimapia.org/#lang=en&lat=-18.158646&lon=178.428655&z=17&m=b">this Wikimapia map</a></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglO-L9J0Q6BVzH71g9vb01GEw_dtM1sstcDTszwBxVOH_OvwZr-sWadaTUqA_XMpRlyv-Qpkkxzu1vJtGDyMrRInq2p105ekuUxvfvwV_ys7JuraF30K94ZFu99FogAiBfE4EeaABt6MM/s1600/1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglO-L9J0Q6BVzH71g9vb01GEw_dtM1sstcDTszwBxVOH_OvwZr-sWadaTUqA_XMpRlyv-Qpkkxzu1vJtGDyMrRInq2p105ekuUxvfvwV_ys7JuraF30K94ZFu99FogAiBfE4EeaABt6MM/s1600/1.jpg" height="370" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">(b) between Grantham Road and Fletcher Road, the extent of which can be seen <a href="http://wikimapia.org/#lang=en&lat=-18.142640&lon=178.452124&z=18&m=b">in this Wikimapia map</a>.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidBg6n8Q3gDqjqCpzyoX7gKHL0PDljOiJJXUtMPOhF2Llvy_d-4Pn8Ts2Zv2RwEZ29oJf3VPvcOYGLsALUZM5iN1UgFckPhlAFDW-Cj8aewFEF_CC7uWcofn2xu6pxeFwQ44VFIPPAy3o/s1600/2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidBg6n8Q3gDqjqCpzyoX7gKHL0PDljOiJJXUtMPOhF2Llvy_d-4Pn8Ts2Zv2RwEZ29oJf3VPvcOYGLsALUZM5iN1UgFckPhlAFDW-Cj8aewFEF_CC7uWcofn2xu6pxeFwQ44VFIPPAy3o/s1600/2.jpg" height="370" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I would be grateful if Mr Donald Singh would refrain from replying on behalf of the Fiji Government as he did previously, without declaring his interest that his employer is one of the companies benefiting from this government’s largesse.</span><br />
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<i><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Professor Wadan Narsey</span></i><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Note: Google Earth will also give you a good picture of any environment destruction that is happening anywhere in Fiji, such as in Lami, Veisari etc.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I have also previously put a video on Utube of the destruction of our mangroves.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/XKFOtAfVbfE" width="420"></iframe></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7745785272753572871.post-2958119990388355122014-06-17T20:03:00.000+12:002014-06-17T20:03:35.749+12:00Prof Wadan Narsey: Letter to Editor - Accountability of Fiji Roads Authority and PS Finance to tax-payers<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="https://narseyonfiji.wordpress.com/2014/06/16/accountability-of-fiji-roads-authority-and-ps-finance-to-tax-payers-letter-to-editor-16-june-2014/">Letter to Editor (The Fiji Times, Fiji Sun, Island Business)</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">16 June 2014</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Dear Sir</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It is positive that the CEO of Fiji Roads Authority is now frequently in print explaining what FRA is doing with the almost $1 billion (one thousand millions) of tax-payers’ money allocated to roads for 2013 and 2014.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">But there have been no replies to several letters to the editor I have previously sent, requesting the Fiji Roads Authority and the Permanent Secretary of Finance, to explain several matters of interest to the tax payers.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">If they feel they are in any way accountable to the Fiji tax payers who fund them, can the PS Finance and CEO FRA please reply to these questions.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">(a) who is auditing the expenditure by the Fiji Roads Authority</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">(b) what is the cost per kilometre of the new roads being build using these funds</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">(c) what is the total cost of the roads beautification around Cost U Less and USP.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">(d) what is the total remunerations (salary and perks) of the top 10 persons employed by the FRA</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">(e) have tax-payers been responsible for any bad debts of the Black Top Company which closed down in Vanuau Levu.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">(f) could the bridge over Nabukalau Creek be safely kept open as a single lane traffic for private and light goods vehicles, instead of closing it down totally OR was closing it down totally “proof of sorts” that the Public Works Department was not doing its job previously?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>Professor Wadan Narsey</i></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7745785272753572871.post-49030079078263658582014-06-15T20:06:00.000+12:002014-06-15T20:06:23.810+12:00Prof Wadan Narsey: Election Issues 15 - How many voters do you really need?<div style="margin-bottom: 10px;">
<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">OR </span></b><b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">“Do you really need 100% voter registration and 100% voter turnout to have a democratic elections”?</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="https://narseyonfiji.wordpress.com/2014/06/14/election-issues-15-how-many-voters-do-you-really-need-the-fiji-times-14-june-2014/">Professor Wadan Narsey </a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">(<i>The Fiji Times</i>, 14 June 2014)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The Elections Office has already registered more than 550,000 voters.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">This is pretty close to the number of all potential voters in the country, aged 18 and over.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In September, these 550,000 voters will be asked to make a very simple choice between 5 or 6 political parties, and an Independent candidate or two.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">So, here is an interesting question, whose answer can be read between the lines of my previous article (<i>The Fiji Times</i>, 6 June 2014):</span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">How many voters do we really need to vote, in order to get the same result as if all 550,000 voters actually voted?</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>SHOCKING ANSWER</b>: If randomly selected throughout Fiji (e.g. by the Fiji Bureau of Statistics), <b>you would only need about 10,000 voters to vote</b>, and the result will be pretty much <b>the same as getting all 550,000 voters to vote</b>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">But as I explained previously, it would be a costly exercise to select a true random sample of 10,000 voters, and if the result is very close between any two parties, then even this random sample will not be good enough.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">But remember that the Tebbutt Poll asks only 1030 voters and the Razor Team only asks 600 voters, as to which Party is most popular.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">So despite having almost complete coverage already, why is the government still trying to register more and more voters at great taxpayers’ expense, virtually everywhere in the world except Timbuktu?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Is it to back up the frequent claim that this will be the most democratic elections Fiji has ever had?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Cynics might say that this is a “bit rich” coming from a government which has not bothered with voters or an elected parliament for eight years.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">But two practical questions voters should consider are: will having all 100% of voters registered , or having all 100% of registered voters vote, make Fiji a more perfect democracy?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">What is the voter turnout in most democratic countries?</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Voter turnouts and democracy</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Throughout the democratic world, the percentage turnout of voters for national elections show great variation without any significant impact on the democratic process.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Voter turnout can be around 50% (as in United States or Switzerland), or around 60% (as in India), or in the 70% zone (as in UK or France), in the 80% zone (as in Australia, Sweden or Germany), or in the 90% zone (as in Belgium and Austria).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Very rarely, the outcome might have been changed, if those not voting, had voted.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">For a contrary example, there is a view that in a US election not too long ago, non-white voters in one state were deliberately discouraged from voting because they would have supported the Democratic Party and that state went to the Republicans by the narrowest of margins, also thereby giving the national presidency to the Republicans that year.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">But that is hardly the case in Fiji even if some political strategists might be thinking that these extra voters being registered overseas will vote for a particular party (“the best laid plans of mice and men tend to go awry” – Robert Burns).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Voters should remember that in the past Fiji elections, only some 85% to 90% of all registered voters have actually voted, and that is pretty high by international standards.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">There would have been very little difference to the outcome, if the remaining 10% to 15% not voting, had actually voted.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Often those not voting are old and infirm (remember that 4% of Fiji’s potential voters are more than 70 years old), or sick, or occupied in some other activity far more important to them personally than voting for a political party who will care little about them for the next four years.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In any case, most absentee voters would have voted in exactly the same way as their other family voters, making little difference to the eventual outcome.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">But of course, it always makes a great media story (on television or newspaper) to show a hundred year old staggering along or being carried to a polling booth. Hurray for democracy!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">But political parties, candidates and voters should not suffer from any illusion that all these extra voters being registered or the small numbers not being registered, will make any great difference to the final outcome in September.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">A financially responsible government would ask: are the extra votes worth the huge extra costs to tax-payers?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Please do note that money for the September election is flowing like water under the Niagara Falls.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">When all the costs are added up, these elections will be the most expensive Fiji has ever had, ironically engineered by an unelected government.</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Other democratic choices?</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">For months now, the public has been inundated with messages that in these September elections, Fiji people will have their say on the government they want. Again, hooray for democracy!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">But why don’t we take the same principle a step further, on other important and contentious issues where national decision making is just as urgently needed.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">For example, in addition to choosing one number from 280 numbers on the ballot paper, why not also ask voters (i.e. in a national referendum):</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>(1) which constitution do you want? (tick one)</b>:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">A The 1997 Constitution</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">B The Yash Ghai Draft Constitution</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">C The 2013 Bainimarama Constitution</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">(2) tick “Yes” or “No” to the question: do you want the GCC returned?</span></b></div>
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<span style="color: red; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>(3) tick “Yes” or “No” to the question: should all Fiji citizens be called “Fijians”?</b></span></div>
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<div style="color: #323333; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">These are contentious issues on which the people of Fiji can very legitimately give their collective view on, thereby making politicians’ lives that much easier: “if that is what the people want, let them have it”.</span></div>
<div style="color: #323333; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Who knows, if all the Opinion Polls are reasonably accurate, the September elections might see the Fiji First Party form government</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">AND</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">the people’s democratic choice in the three referenda might give you the majority answering A or B to question 1, and “No” to questions (2) and (3).</span></div>
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<div style="color: #323333; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">But that would really test the Bainimarama Government’s commitment to genuine democracy, wouldn’t it?</span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7745785272753572871.post-7315662177293327512014-06-11T16:47:00.001+12:002014-06-11T16:47:47.424+12:00ABC News for Australia Network: Censors gone but press freedom concerns remain in Fiji<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/KGxo1DxAHNg" width="560"></iframe>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7745785272753572871.post-68332538300837185952014-06-11T14:10:00.000+12:002014-06-11T14:16:10.925+12:00Prof Wadan Narsey: Elections Issues 14 - Making sense of opinion polls<b style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 11pt; text-align: left;">Professor
Wadan Narsey </b><br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;">
<b style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 11pt;"><a href="https://narseyonfiji.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/j-making-sense-of-opinion-polls.pdf">The Fiji Times, 6 June 2014</a></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Voters
are being presented with the results of opinion polls by different
groups of people.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Allegations
are being made about polls being deliberately “biased”.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">But
there is no need to allege that results are being deliberately
manipulated one way or another.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The
reality of sample surveys is that errors in methodology can easily
give “wrong” results, even if the pollsters are genuine in their
intentions.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Readers
will find it easier if they read through my tabular comparison of the
Razor and Tebutt polls, with a genuinely good sample survey (even as
low as 2%), run by the Fiji Bureau of Statistics.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Basically,
if today we wanted to waste tax-payers’ money by asking all of Fiji
550,000 voters in an “Opinion Poll” to give their answers in the
<u>same secret way</u>
they will do in the polling booth in September (i.e. without telling
any official how exactly they voted), of course, you will get <u>a
perfectly accurate answer</u>,
the same as you would get in the September elections.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">To
save some money, you could ask a genuine random sample of 20,000
voters, and you would still get a pretty accurate result of each
Party’s support.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">To
save even more money, you could ask an even smaller 5,000 voters
randomly selected by the Fiji Bureau of Statistics, to vote in the
same secret way, and in my opinion, you will still get a pretty
accurate answer, even if there will be some small errors.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">BUT,
a genuine random survey of even 5000 voters all over Fiji, urban and
rural areas, including the outer islands, will cost you heaps of
money, which no polling company wants to spend.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The
possibility of sampling error becomes larger, as the sample size
becomes smaller.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">And
if, to save money by not going all over Fiji, the persons polled are
<u>not truly randomly
representative of all voters,</u>
then the results can be quite biased, or even worthless.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">What
happens then when you ask only 600 voters (Razor Group) or 1032
voters (Tebbutt Poll), using their particular methods?</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>What
is a good opinion poll?</b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">For
any opinion poll, the possibility of systematic errors and biases
depend on the following:</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">(1)
who owns and/or controls the opinion poll? Could it lead to bias?</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">(2)
how are the question asked and responses recorded?</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">(3)
how randomly are the respondents selected?</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">(4)
<u>how many</u>
respondents are selected relative to the population of voters (which
will be around 550,000)?</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">(5)
how close might be the <u>true</u>
party support results in the September elections, for both large
parties and small?</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Using
these five criteria, I present a comparison of the Razor and Tebbutt
polls with <u>the
independent accurate sample surveys done by the Fiji Bureau of
Statistics.</u>
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Although
FBS surveys are household incomes and expenditures or employment, the
principles are exactly the same as in Opinion Polls.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<table border="1" bordercolor="#00000a" cellpadding="8" cellspacing="0" style="page-break-before: always; text-align: left; width: 861px;">
<colgroup><col width="307"></col>
<col width="25"></col>
<col width="192"></col>
<col width="270"></col>
</colgroup><tbody>
<tr valign="TOP">
<td width="307"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Fiji Bureau of
Statistics Sample Surveys</b></span></td>
<td colspan="2" width="233"><div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Razor
Group</b></span></div>
</td>
<td width="270"><div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Tebbutt
Poll</b></span></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr valign="TOP">
<td width="307"><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><u><b>1.
Could poll ownership bias results?</b></u></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The
FBS is part of government, representing all Fiji, and hence
usually not seen to be biased in any way.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">But
there was a perception of bias in one Bureau survey with
disastrous results.
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The results of the 1991
Household Survey on incomes and expenditure, so soon after the
1987 coup, was seen internally by FBS to be totally unreliable,
because most responding Indo-Fijian households did not trust the
Bureau interviewers (who were mostly indigenous Fijian). The
Bureau never published a Report on the 1991 Survey.</span></td>
<td colspan="2" width="233"><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The
Razor Research team and the <i>Fiji
Sun</i> are both owned
by CJ Patel.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The
<i>Fiji Sun</i>
receives more than a million dollars in advertising revenue from
the Bainimarama Government, denied to its main competitor, <i>The
Fiji Times</i>.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">CJ
Patel received preferential treatment in its purchase of the Rewa
Dairy Company and continues to do so, with its imports of dairy
products. CJ Patel’s Financial Controller chairs some of the
most powerful government controlled boards such as Fiji National
Provident Fund, Fiji Revenue and Customs Authority, and the
several telecommunication companies owned by FNPF.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Voters naturally feel some
doubt about the independence of the Razor Research results, even
if they do not deliberately try to manipulate the results.</span></td>
<td width="270"><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The
Tebutt Polls is an independent company polling private company,
but financed and the results published by <i>The
Fiji Times</i> (as
they used to do prior to the 2006 coup).</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">A
<i>Fiji Times</i>
article recently (24 May 2014) claimed
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">“The
Tebbutt Times Poll was a scientific and objective measure of
public opinion in Fiji, based on true random sampling and using
globally-accepted measures and procedures.”
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">There
are some doubts about the methodology, which I suggest below in
Question 3.
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Several prominent
Bainimarama Government supporters have also claimed that the Fiji
Times some years ago was biased against the Fiji Labor Party
Government in 1999, and against the Bainimarama Regime from 2006.</span></td>
</tr>
<tr valign="TOP">
<td width="307"><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>2.
</b><u><b>What
questions are asked and how</b></u><b>?</b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The
FBS asks hundreds of questions on all major items of income and
expenditure.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">All
questions are on the Bureau questionnaire and the answers are all
faithfully recorded by civil servants. Most questions are not
of a sensitive nature and so householders answer quite honestly.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">But
often some of the households, especially the rich ones, will not
give the true answers on how much income they earn, or how much
they spend on alcohol, or luxury goods, or other sensitive
matters.
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">So
the results can be biased downwards for the rich households. But
results are fairly accurate for the rest of the 95% of all
households.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></td>
<td colspan="3" width="519"><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><u><b>For
both Razor Research and Tebutt Poll</b></u></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Respondents
are asked “face to face” these questions,
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">(1)
Who is your preferred Prime Minister?</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">(2)
Which is your preferred party?</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Some
respondents are not likely to give an honest answer to either the
Razor Research Group, or the Tebbutt interviewers.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">As
the moderate Leader of NFP has said, there is a climate of fear in
Fiji where Regime critics have been punished, civil servants’
employment terminated, resources denied people who do not support
government, and recently, even a scholarships terminated for the
exercise of a basic human right.
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">What
respondents say to interviewers or even if they agree to sign up
for the political parties registration, does not indicate how they
will actually vote.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The
“liu muri” or “aage piche” factor is very much alive and
well in Fiji amongst all ethnic groups, and also <u>amongst
all political parties</u>.</span></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr valign="TOP">
<td width="307"><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>3.</b><u><b>
How are the respondents selected?</b></u></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The
sample households are selected in a <u>very
random and technically sound</u>
way from all the households in the country, based on the last
census information.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The
sample comes proportionately from urban and rural and remote
areas, including outer islands and Rotima, and the four divisions.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Hence
a truly random survey is logistically extremely difficult with
Bureau staff wading through rivers, walking long distances where
there are no roads, and hence very expensive (over $2 million).</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">BUT,
the results are pretty accurate about the whole country and
accurate generalizations can be made about many variables.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Note however, that many
rich households will refuse to answer questionnaires from the
Bureau, and often they are replaced by poorer households, so the
results are not representative of the rich.</span></td>
<td colspan="2" width="233"><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The
Razor group is asking people around bus stations in major towns.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">How
they are selected is anybody’s guess.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The
Razor Group are hoping that they will get a mixture of urban and
rural people.
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Will
that urban/rural mixture be around 50% as it is currently in Fiji?</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Quite
unlikely and the public are not given the detailed break-downs, so
we are no wiser.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Will
the Razor Group get all classes of voters in Fiji by asking bus
travellers?</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Not
likely as bus travellers are generally the poorer people?</span></div>
</td>
<td width="270"><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The
Tebbutt Poll, asks respondents from Suva, Lami, Nasinu, Nausori,
Nadi, Lautoka and Ba. i.e. mostly urban Viti Levu.
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It
is not clear how random these selections are.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">They
may get a good break-down of responses of urban groups by
ethnicity, age and gender, but not of rural Fiji or Vanua Levu.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The
recent Tebbutt Poll was done between Monday and Wednesday when
rural people are unlikely to be in towns.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">If
rural Fijians for example have different views on FFP/Bainimarama
and SODELPA/Temumu, then even the Tebbutt Poll results will be
biased probably in favor of FFP/Bainimarama.
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">What
might be the extent of the bias because of the lack of proper
random sampling?
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">We don’t know.</span></td>
</tr>
<tr valign="TOP">
<td width="307"><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>4.
</b><u><b>How many
households/persons in the sample survey</b></u><b>?</b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The
Bureau’s random sample numbers have been around 3,000 to 5,000
households, or about 2% to 3% of all the households in the
country.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>A
2% sample of all 550,000 voters would require a poll of 11,000
voters </i><i><u>randomly
selected from ALL OVER FIJI</u></i><i>.</i></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">But
of course, the FBS surveys ask questions about hundreds of
variables, and tries to get solid results for divisions,
ethnicity, urban/rural and provinces.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></td>
<td colspan="2" width="233"><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Since
Opinion Polls ask very simple questions (as in 2 above), the
sample size for the “Political Opinion Poll” can be much
smaller than 11,000.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">But
how much smaller?</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The
Razor Team only asked 600 persons (300 were from the Central
Division, 200 from the West and 100 from the North).
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">This
is probably far too small a number, and we don’t have any idea
of the urban/rural, ethnicity, gender, age breakdown.</span></div>
</td>
<td width="270"><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Since
Opinion Polls ask very simple questions (as in 2 above), the
sample size for the “Political Opinion Poll” can be much
smaller than 11,000</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">But
how much smaller?</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The
Tebbutt Poll interviews just around 1032 persons.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The
results are probably accurate on urban voter views, <u>if
respondents give honest answer</u>
(see 2 above).</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">But
will rural voters vote the same way as urban voters?</span></div>
</td></tr>
<tr valign="TOP"><td colspan="2" width="349"><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><b>5.
</b></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><u><b>How close
are the true expected answers</b></u></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><b>?</b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">If
the true answers are very close, than the sample result can give
you a wrong opinion.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">For
example, the Fiji Bureau of Statistics sample survey results for
average household incomes in 2008-09 were as follows:</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> Fijian $17,000</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> Indo-Fijian $15,500</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> Others
$34,000</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Since
“Others” includes Europeans, Part-Europeans, Chinese and
Rotumans, one can very accurately say that the Others’ average
household income <u>for
ALL households in Fiji</u>
is almost certainly more than that for the two major ethnic
groups, perhaps double the average for Fijians.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The
margin for error (or the percentage of time you would be wrong)
with this particular conclusion would be very small indeed,
perhaps less than 1%.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><u>What
about comparing Fijians with Indo-Fijians?</u></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">An
ordinary member of the public might say that the Fijian average
household income is definitely higher than that of Indo-Fijians by
$1500 or by about 10%.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">But
the statistically smart person would remember: “hey, did I not
just say that the very rich households often refuse to be part of
the survey?”
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">And
“did I not say that even when they are, they under-state their
true incomes to the Bureau interviewers?”</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">So
the Indo-Fijian average income <u>from
the survey</u> is
biased downwards: in reality, the true Indo-Fijian average income
in all Fiji <u>might
even be higher than the average Fijian household income.</u>
i.e. the OPPOSITE of the survey results.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">So
it can be with political parties whose support throughout Fiji is
about the same: read the opposite.</span></div>
</td><td colspan="2" width="478"><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;">
<u style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><b>For
both Razor Group and Tebutt Poll</b></u></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Supposed
that an Opinion Poll says that the “margin of error” for their
results is 20% of the percentage support the poll reports for each
party(usually they all claim much lower % margins of error).</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Suppose
the poll results are:
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Party
A has 45% plus or minus (20% of 45%)
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: red;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">i.e.
the true support could be anywhere between 36% and 54%</span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Party
C is 15% (plus or minus (20% of 18%):</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: red;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">i.e.
the true support is between 12% and 18%</span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><u>You
can conclude, almost certainly</u>,
that the September 2014 elections will have similar ranking
results.
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Even
if there are maximum errors, the ranking will not change: Party A
will have roughly three to four times as many elected persons as
Party C.
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />But
suppose that the poll says that Party B has 40% plus or minus (20%
of 40%):
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: red;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">i.e.
true support could be somewhere between 32% and 48%</span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Then
while the Opinion Poll reports that Party A will have more elected
parliamentarian than Party B (45% is more than 40%), if you allow
for errors, the reality after the September 14 elections, based on
the same poll may be as follows:</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><u>Possibility
1</u>. Party A may
have the lower possibility of 36% while Party B may have the
higher possibility of 48%.
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">i.e.
Party B may have more in parliament than Party A (opposite of the
apparent poll result).</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">BUT
neither will have absolute majority,
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">BOTH
will need a coalition to form government.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><u>Possibility
2</u> Allowing for
errors in the other direction,
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Party
A may have 54% (i.e. absolute majority)
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">and
can form government on its own, without any coalition.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">While
Party B could have a mere 32%.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><u>In
summary : </u>Where
a Party’s support in the September elections is going to be
close to that of another Party, then the opinion poll results
today may not be good predictors of who will be the larger party.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">This
applies equally to the small parties as well.</span></div>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"></span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">While
the Razor Research team results are not necessarily biased because of
these relationships, the intelligent voters cannot avoid a perception
of the possibility of bias in favour of the Bainimarama Regime,
especially when the internal Razor Research processes are not
available to public scrutiny.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>What
of other opinion polls?</b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">There
are <u>online opinion
polls</u> run by various
blogs, where the readers can click on the possible answers and the
blog site automatically adds up the numbers supporting the various
options.
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">While
the respondents are anonymous, and no one knows how many times they
can “vote”, the blog-sites are already known to be either opposed
or supportive of the Bainimarama Regime.
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Most
of respondents therefore also probably have similar opinions to that
of the blog-site, so the results may be inherently biased.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Sometimes,
“opinion polls of taxi drivers” are used by lazy international
journalists. Landing at Nadi sloshed and jet-lagged from their
flights from London or Sydney, they want to want to write a quick
story on Fiji’s politics, before heading off for fun and frolic to
Denerau.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">But
70 percent of voters do not regularly travel by taxis, hence the
taxi-driver poll is also unreliable.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Then
you can have the “1 person opinion poll”.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Making
the rounds on the Internet currently are stories that Nostradamus
five hundred years ago predicted the victory and even the name of
India’s latest Prime Minister, Narendra Modi.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.18cm; margin-top: 0.18cm; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.18cm; margin-top: 0.18cm; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b><i>So
here is this “Narseydamus Opinion Poll” with 3 predictions:</i></b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.18cm; margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.18cm; text-align: left; text-indent: -1.27cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b><i>1. There will be a hung
parliament (i.e. no party will win more than 25 seats) with two large
parties very close in the results, so there will probably be a
coalition government;</i></b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.18cm; margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.18cm; text-align: left; text-indent: -1.27cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b><i>2. There will be the rise of a
third party whose support might even approach that of the two large
parties, with the third smaller party being the “king-maker”.</i></b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.18cm; margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.18cm; text-align: left; text-indent: -1.27cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b><i>3. <u>At
least</u> 1 Independent
candidate will get more votes than at least 10 of the
parliamentarians elected under the umbrella of the larger parties.</i></b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.18cm; margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.18cm; text-align: left; text-indent: -1.27cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.18cm; margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.18cm; text-align: left; text-indent: -1.27cm;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">But I would not put any of my
hard-earned personal money on the “Narseydamus Opinion Poll.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.18cm; margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.18cm; text-align: left; text-indent: -1.27cm;">
<br /></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7745785272753572871.post-30283003065459781802014-05-10T17:34:00.000+12:002014-05-10T17:34:07.970+12:00Prof Wadan Narsey: Letter to the Editor - Ministers for Elections, and Party Officials. <span id="docs-internal-guid-3d401532-e49d-350b-5377-7e03df006ce8"></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="font-weight: bold; line-height: 1; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<b id="docs-internal-guid-3d401532-e49d-350b-5377-7e03df006ce8"></b></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="display: inline !important; line-height: 1; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<b id="docs-internal-guid-3d401532-e49d-350b-5377-7e03df006ce8"><b id="docs-internal-guid-3d401532-e49d-350b-5377-7e03df006ce8"></b></b></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="display: inline !important; line-height: 1; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<b id="docs-internal-guid-3d401532-e49d-350b-5377-7e03df006ce8"><b id="docs-internal-guid-3d401532-e49d-350b-5377-7e03df006ce8"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Letter to Editor (</span><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Fiji Times, Fiji Sun, Island Business, Republika)</span></span></b></b></div>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="font-weight: bold; line-height: 1; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<b></b></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="display: inline !important; line-height: 1; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<b><b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">9 May 2014</span></span></b></b></div>
<br />
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="font-weight: bold; line-height: 1; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="https://narseyonfiji.wordpress.com/2014/05/09/elections-ministers-and-party-officials-letter-to-editor-9-may-2014/">Professor Wadan Narsey</a></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-weight: bold;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="font-weight: bold; line-height: 1; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Dear Sir,</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-weight: bold;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="font-weight: bold; line-height: 1; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">According to news reports Mr Aiyaz Khaiyum is reported to be justifying his remaining as Minister for Elections while also being General Secretary to the proposed Fiji First Party by claiming that Rabuka in 1999 and Qarase in 2001 and 2006 were also in a similar position.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-weight: bold;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="font-weight: bold; line-height: 1; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">While it might raise some eyebrows a teensy weensy bit to see Khaiyum justifying his behaviour today by referring to similar behaviour by previously maligned “old politicians”, there are some profound differences, other than age and maturity.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-weight: bold;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="font-weight: bold; line-height: 1; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Rabuka and Qarase were lawfully elected Members of Parliament, Ministers and Prime Ministers while Khaiyum holds all his ministerial positions courtesy of Rear Admiral Bainimarama’s illegal military coup and an unelected government.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-weight: bold;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="font-weight: bold; line-height: 1; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Rabuka’s and Qarase’s governments annually published all the Auditor General Reports on their respective governments’ revenue collection, expenditure and public debt borrowing, thereby showing their willingness to be accountable to the voters (and taxpayers) of Fiji. </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-weight: bold;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="font-weight: bold; line-height: 1; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In contrast, Bainimarama and Khaiyum, arrogantly refuse to release the Auditor General Reports, showing their utter contempt for the basic principle of accountability of all Ministers (including the Minister for Elections) to tax-payers for the last eight years (two normal terms of government), and also suggesting to voters with any active brain cells, that this government has a lot to hide.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-weight: bold;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="font-weight: bold; line-height: 1; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">There is therefore a mountain of difference between an elected accountable Minister of Elections holding a political party position, and an unelected and unaccountable Minister such as Mr Khaiyum.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-weight: bold;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="font-weight: bold; line-height: 1; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Even more so when the same Minister for Elections (Khaiyum) is also the source of a totally unreasonable and unpopular Electoral Decree and Constitution, which has been unilaterally imposed on the voters of Fiji, supposedly setting the election rules, but which apparently cannot be applied to Bainimarama’s yet- to-be-registered Party, its yet-to-be-confirmed Party Leader, and yet-to-be-confirmed Secretary General Khaiyum. Khaiyum also has appointed his own personal choice of Supervisor of Elections who does not have the slightest chance of being called “old” anything.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-weight: bold;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="font-weight: bold; line-height: 1; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">This is like the manager of a street fighter insisting on being the referee of a boxing match with the opponents having to follow all the Queensberry rules set by the manager himself, with the rules not applying to his own street fighter.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-weight: bold;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="font-weight: bold; line-height: 1; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Or perhaps a more colourful analogy splashed with lots of red, this situation is comparable to a smooth and suave Count Dracula insisting on being the General Manager of the Blood Bank.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-weight: bold;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>Professor Wadan Narsey</i></span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>Suva</i></span></span></div>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7745785272753572871.post-12353843286279390152014-04-11T13:20:00.000+12:002014-04-11T13:21:40.094+12:00Prof Wadan Narsey: Kerosene and water, mixing slowly: the internal racisms (a personal view) -- Part III. <span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22px; text-align: left; text-transform: uppercase;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="https://narseyonfiji.wordpress.com/2014/04/11/kerosene-and-water-mixing-slowly-the-internal-racisms-a-personal-view-part-iii-11-april-2014/">11/04/2014</a></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22px; text-align: left; text-transform: uppercase;"><br /></span>
<div style="background-color: white; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 60px; text-align: left;">
<em><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">“You hypocrite! First remove the beam from your own eye, and then you will see clearly enough to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.” (Matthew 7:5)</span></em></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">This is the third part of an article which began with the MIDA incident, premised on the allegation that Vesikula’s “kerosene and water don’t mix” statement was an expression of racism or “hate speech” against Indo-Fijians.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">[Part I of the article pointed out that raising concerns about indigenous people lagging behind systematically, such as in education and commerce, and calling for Affirmative Action was not racism. Part II of the earlier article focused on the mutual prejudices or racism of Indo-Fijians and Fijians.]</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">This article, drawing on my own personal experience over the years, focuses on the many internal racisms, which might equally be described by Vesikula’s metaphor “kerosene does not mix with water” and his statement “race is a fact of life”.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I suggest, that on the contrary, both are being eroded as Fiji moves towards a multi-racial society, pushed along by the young folk especially, and the forces of globalization.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I conclude by suggesting that Fiji’s political leaders can either destructively perceive our multicultural diversity as “forces that divide us” (as our political dinosaurs have in the past), or they can constructively use the diversity as a wonderful asset that can enrich our lives, both spiritually and materially (as in the tourism industry).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I first cast stones in my own family glass house, which not only illustrates the racism of Gujarati against Hindustani (i.e. “non-Gujarati Indo-Fijians”), but also the great progress made within just one generation, of racial barriers breaking down, holding much hope for Fiji’s future.</span></div>
<h3>
<strong><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Gujarati racism: a personal journey</span></strong></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Gujarati are the descendants of an exclusive group of Indians from Gujarat, who migrated freely to Fiji, in contrast to most other Indians who came as indentured laborers for the colonial sugar industry.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Parental attitudes to inter-ethnic marriages are an interesting barometer of racial prejudices and how they have changed in just thirty years.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Gujarati children, especially girls, were discouraged from marrying Hindustani, with the occasional elopements scandalizing the Gujarati society.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">My <em>dhobi </em>community (originally laundry people) are but one of the many “castes” within Gujarati who previously did not intermarry – i.e. not even with other Gujarati groups like the <em>sonars, kshatriyas, darjis, patels, mochis, </em>etc.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Forty years ago, my parents were very happy when one of my sisters (No.2 out of 4) married another Gujarati boy from our own <em>dhobi</em> community.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">But my Hindu parents expressed strong opposition to my marrying a Chinese girl. While they may have had the usual Indian prejudices (“don’t Chinese eat beef, cats, and dogs”?) their plea to me was: “Who will marry your sisters if you marry a Chinese girl?” So this marriage was postponed, eventually for a decade.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Then Sister No. 1 caused great parental alarm by insisting on marrying a Hindustani boy from a Labasa cane farming family, a bright USP graduate, who would later achieve academic and constitutional fame.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">My parents reluctantly agreed, but the marriage conveniently took place in Vancouver where the groom was studying for his Masters Degree (and my older brother was available to fill in on my parents behalf).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">But very soon after, when Sister No.3 decided to marry a Canadian Punjabi, my parents’ attitudes had changed enough to host this wedding in Fiji, with the full Gujarati rituals and celebrations, stoically putting up with the expected snide remarks from their community.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Yet another barrier was broken when my parents did not object to Sister No. 4 marrying a British/Australian <em>kaivalagi</em> fellow student at Cambridge, with the wedding taking place in Canada.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">My two brothers obligingly married two Gujarati girls from India, the weddings occurring in Fiji with the usual grand expensive Gujarati celebrations.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Eventually, with my sisters “out of the way”, my parents also agreed to my marrying my Chinese lady, conveniently and very cheaply for them, occurring in a British registry office (thereby also denying my <em>dhobi</em> community an early taste of the Chinese feasts they appreciate so much today). My parents got along fine with their Chinese daughter-in-law, and my mother began adding soya sauce to some of her recipes.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">But an indicator of the positive future of multiracialism in my own family, was that my parents adored all the grandchildren and great grandchildren who came along, whatever their Gujarati, Hindustani, Punjabi, Chinese, white Australian, Jewish, German components. The extended <em>mataqali</em> of all the families associated with my wife and I are even more international in character, all happening in one generation.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">My children have had the good fortune to grown up in a lovely rich environment of doting Chinese and Gujarati grandmothers, uncles and aunts. With double-barreled Indian and Chinese names, they are ready for the new world order, dominated by China and/or India.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I am comfortable with multiculturalism because I grew up in multi-racial Toorak, attended the then multi-racial schools like Marist Primary and Marist Secondary, had many multiracial friends amongst USP colleagues and students, YWCA and Fiji Civil service, my university studies in NZ, Jamaica, and UK, and my extended <em>mataqali</em> coming with the families of my wife, and hers and my siblings.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I point out that similar multicultural environments are being replicated through most schools and workplaces in Fiji which are now becoming racially integrated, despite lingering pockets of racial concentration (Indian College is now 80% Fijian).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">There are dozens of Gujarati families in Fiji who have made the same transition as mine, over the last few decades. More and more Gujarati families are accepting non-Gujarati marriage partners for their children. Some of these marriages work, and some don’t, just like any other marriage.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Of course, Gujarati racism against Hindustani has not disappeared: Gujarati still privately look down on the Hindustani and call them “<em>kakka</em>” (not to be confused with <em>kaaka</em> or uncle).</span></div>
<h3>
<strong><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Hindustani racism against Gujarati</span></strong></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">But there is also reverse Hindustani racism against Gujarati, once again rearing its ugly head on anonymous blogs.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Fiji Hindustani have contemptuously referred to Gujarati as “<em>Bombaiya khitchdri</em>“, a soft rice and dhal dish that is a favorite of the allegedly cowardly (“soft”) Gujaratis.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">To growth up in Toorak, a Gujararati “<em>Bombaiya Khitchdri</em>) boy had to be prepared to fight back against bullying by Hindustani (and other) boys not just in the protection of one’s dignity, but the more valuable footballs, kites, tops, marbles, and pocket money which used to be easy targets for the bullies of the time. A Gujarati mother used to be quite fed up with her son frequently coming home with blood on his face.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Fiji’s Hindustani politicians have long played the “race card” against Gujarati, usually alleging that the Fijian political parties were being supported by prominent Gujarati business houses (Punjas, Patels, Tappoos, etc.) and who allegedly also made their fortunes by commercially exploiting the descendants of the <em>girmitiya</em> (the original indentured laborers) in the cane belt.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">These allegations conveniently ignored that the majority of Gujarati immigrants, including the current business giants, originally came to Fiji as poor service people who were laborers in all but name: small traders, barbers, tailors, shoe makers, and laundry people (like my parent’s <em>dhobi</em> community).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The descendants of the original Gujarati (and certainly the children of the <em>dhobi</em>) have grown up with the same kinds of opportunities and tough times, as have the descendants of the <em>girmitiya</em> and they also diversified from their original “caste” work, as have the descendants of the <em>girmitiya</em>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The Gujarati have done extremely well in Fiji as a group, not because of any affirmative action by the colonial government or banks, but due to their work ethic, commercial acumen, and frugality (which latter trait, so useful for capitalist accumulation is contemptuously labeled by the Hindustani as<em>kanjoosai</em> (being miserly with money or <em>mamaaqi</em>).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Some of the Hindustani racism against Gujarati is no doubt a reverse reaction against the exclusivity of the Gujarati community, while some is probably driven by sheer envy of a successful minority group, who are successful everywhere in the world (like the Jews).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">But urban Fiji stands out among the other Pacific Island countries because of the quality products, services, corporations and business complexes built by many Gujarati families- such as Punjas, Motibhais, Kasabias, the numerous Patels, Jacks, Tappoos, Damodars, Narseys (no relation) and many others. But the majority of Gujarati today are NOT businessmen.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Of course, a few Gujarati tycoons have exercised significant political influence (some very unethically indeed for their own business interests) on ALL Prime Ministers, whether Ratu Mara, Rabuka, Chaudhry, Qarase or Bainimarama.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">But so also have the business tycoons of all other races- North Indians, South Indians, white, <em>kailoma</em>, Chinese or even a few indigenous Fijians, as indicated by prominent business names in Fiji: Hedstroms, Stinson, Cupit, Lee, Seeto, Maharaj, Prasad, Narayan, Reddy, Weleilakeba, to mention just a few.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">While racism against Gujarati business interests is obvious today from the anonymous posts on blogs, not so the Hindustani racism against Gujarati that has crept into academia and affected me personally.</span></div>
<h3>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><strong>Making Gujarati economists invisible</strong></span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It amazes me that so many Hindustani academics, writers and historians have succeeded in making prominent Gujarati economists invisible in their writings on Fiji and Fiji’s Indo-Fijians. The problem may have started with my brief three year stint in politics.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">From 1996 to 1999, I was a National Federation Party (NFP) representative and Shadow Finance Minister in the Fiji Parliament, where on common issues, I used to co-operate with all parties, including the Fiji Labour Party and SVT. So it was a total shock to me in the 1999 Elections, when a few FLP candidates (including some former USP colleagues, friends and even my former students), merely to obtain Hindustani votes, callously labeled me as a “Gujarati anti-worker economist in the pockets of Gujarati businessmen”. Many Indo-Fijian voters believed these spurious allegations and not only lost me votes, but also many golfing friends throughout Fiji.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">This labeling was grossly unfair. I had been a founding member of the Fiji Labour Party in 1985. I had consistently supported workers and farmers interests in my academic work over the decades, continuing through to current times with my support of Father Kevin Barr’s efforts in the Wages Councils through my <em>Just Wages</em> study. Ironically, many Gujarati employers even saw me as a “traitor” to “the Gujarati community” (of which I have never been exclusively part of).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The 2004 celebration of the 125<sup>th</sup> anniversary of the arrival of the first <em>girmitiyas</em> saw the creation of a <a href="http://www.fijigirmit.org/articles.htm">special website</a> focused on the indenture/<em>girmitiya</em> experience, launched with the hope that it would be, according to the Chief Guest, a “useful source of information on the history of Indo-Fijians in Fiji”. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The website did have many useful more recent writings about the <em>girmitiya</em> experience and the sugar industry. But it totally omitted any reference to one of the earliest articles commemorating the centenary of the arrival of indentured laborers in Fiji (Wadan Narsey “Monopoly Capital, White Racism and Super‑profits in Fiji: a Case Study of the Colonial Sugar Refining Company”, <em>Journal of Pacific Studies</em>, Vol.5, 1979. pp. 66‑146).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I initially thought that exclusion of references to my writing was due to my brief political role as an NFP parliamentarian, but the <em>Fiji Girmit</em> website also excluded the writings of another prominent Gujarati economist (Dr Padma Narsey Lal my sister), who has been a prolific and solid analyst of the sugar industry in recent years, with major publications. She has also been a senior research colleague to many of Fiji’s Indo-Fijian economists, including those who set up the <em>girmitiya</em> website. She is a pioneering graduate of USP, and through marriage, solidly integrated into her husband’s Hindustani family. But evidently all these were not good enough to get her extensive works on the sugar industry mentioned.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Similar exclusions were obvious in a book launched for the 125<sup>th</sup> anniversary of the arrival of the <em>girmitiya</em> in Fiji: “<em>Children of the Indus, 1879-2004: a history of Indians in Fiji portraying the struggles of an immigrant community for justice, equality and acceptance</em>“. This book, like the several others that have been published since, also make no references to the writings of the two Gujarati economists.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">[I thank another website (and editor Ms Vanita Nair) on <a href="http://girmitunited.org/index.html">the girmitiya</a>) which readily published my writings on the <em>girmitiya</em> and the sugar industry when they were made aware.]</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It is sad that the quite legitimate acknowledgement of the great g<em>irmitiya</em> contribution to the development of Fiji, is also used to deliberately exclude, for political or other reasons, the valuable contributions to Fiji by the Gujarati and their descendants, whether academics, professionals, businessmen or ordinary responsible citizens.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It will be interesting to see whether some former FLP stalwarts who are currently in the Bainimarama camp, will continue their anti-Gujarati speeches in their campaigns, given not just Bainimarama’s friendship with prominent Gujarati business interests, but also the public statements by the MIDA Chairman against “hate speech” of any kind against any ethnic community. The irony is that we continue our friendships and our developmental work in Fiji, regardless of our ideological or ethnic differences.</span></div>
<h3>
<strong><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">North Indians and South Indians</span></strong></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Another largely ignored internal Indo-Fijian racism is that by North Indians against South Indians (called “<em>Madraasis”</em> in Fiji), also exhibited in discouragement of marriages across this divide.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I very belatedly noticed the resurgence of South Indian identity when I became part of the “<em>Tata</em> Golf Club” with their greetings of “<em>namaskaaram</em>” (not the usual “<em>Ram Ram</em>“) and in which a Gujarati golfer was renamed “Wardana Narsaiya”.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Some of my South Indian friends engaged in heated discourses about North Indian cultural imperialism against South Indians in India and Fiji, one dear departed friend even going back to India to trace his South Indian roots.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I also became aware that some inverted the famous Rama and Sita mythology in Hinduism, in which the “good” northern Hindu God, Rama battles the evil <em>rakshas</em> king Ravan from southern India (Lanka). In the inverted South Indian version, Ravan becomes the “Good Guy” battling the northern Aryan invaders.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The resurgence of the South Indian identity also took root amongst USP South Indian academics, some of whom took prominent roles in South Indian organizations, such as the various Sangams which ran schools and cultural events.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">While the North Indians at USP joked about the USP “<em>Madraasi</em> mafia” and “<em>khatta paani</em>” (the sour tamarind taste loved by South Indians), the South Indian gatherings made equally contemptuous references to the North Indian “<em>kurvi</em>“.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">For the older generations, the North Indian prejudices against South Indians continue in full force, despite the respect for South Indian fire walking, and their unique curries.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Thankfully, the young North Indians and South Indians, could not care less about this divide.</span></div>
<h3>
<strong><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Castes, Color, Muslims, and Hindu Sects</span></strong></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Then there are the historical complexities and continuing pervasive racism by the Indo-Fijian upper castes (Brahmins) against the lower castes, expressing itself in all kinds of exclusiveness, including marriage and religious barriers (all too complex to treat here).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Thankfully, these “caste” distinctions are also becoming less important to the younger Indo-Fijians, although they prevail in many families.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Also continuing strongly today is the pervasive racism by light skinned Indo-Fijians against dark-skinned Indo-Fijians, very visible in the dominance of Bollywood images by fair Indians who could be virtually Caucasians. I addressed this topic in <a href="https://narseyonfiji.wordpress.com/2012/03/28/fair-and-foul-the-racist-skin-whitening-ads-the-fiji-times-19-march-2002/">a 2002 article</a>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">At a religious level, there is a huge gulf between the supporters of Sanatan Dharam and the Arya Samaj (the main Hindu sects) who have done great service to Fiji and students of all racese through the quality schools they manage. Ironically, the leading lights of both sects have been prominent Bainimarama supporters.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">A sad development since 2006 is the worsening of the gulf between Muslims and Hindus (and indigenous Fijians), largely contributed by extraordinary “in-your-face” media presence of one Bainimarama supporter. Of course, there are Muslims beating a path to the Regime’s door with money-making schemes, just as businessmen of all other races are also doing. Of course, there are a number of prominent Muslim appointments being made to high places, some good, some weak.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Yet for every prominent Muslim being appointed, there are three times as many Hindus or ten times as many Christian Fijians, also being appointed by the Bainimarama Regime without any comment from the diehard Regime critics. Just as there always were appointments of “friends and colleagues”, some good and some weak, in the days of other Prime Ministers like Ratu Mara, Rabuka, Chaudhry and Qarase.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It is a tragedy that many anonymous cowardly bloggers are inciting anti-Muslim sentiments with outrageous claims that the “Taliban are taking over Fiji” when the ordinary Muslims have no particular role in the Bainimarama coup as Muslims. I remind that there will be no winners from strife caused by religious bigotry.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It is unfortunate also that all our coups have encouraged other religious divides. The Methodists supported the coups in 1987 and 2000, while the Catholics, Sanatan Dharam, Arya Pratinidhi, and the Islamic organizations, by association of their leaders, are perceived to have supported Bainimarama’s coup.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In the last few years, the Bainimarama Regime has come down quite unfairly on the Methodists, while the other religious organizations have looked on with indifference (and some with vengeful delight). But two “wrongs” will never make a right. The failure of our religious organizations to take the opportunities <a href="https://narseyonfiji.wordpress.com/2012/03/18/ending-the-cycles-of-religious-intolerance-pacific-scoop-aut-3-september-2011/">to end the cycles of religious intolerance</a> is quite sad.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">There are many PhDs waiting to be written about the changing nature of the religious divides in Fiji.</span></div>
<h3>
<strong><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">What of the <em>kaivalagi</em> and <em>kailoma</em>?</span></strong></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">There has been more than enough written about the historical racism against both Fijians and Indo-Fijians by Fiji’s <em>kaivalagi</em> and <em>kailoma</em>, many of whom for decades after independence in 1970, were still hankering for the “good old days when the natives knew their place in the world”.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">One only has to read <em>The Fiji Times</em> in the Len Usher era when the colonial whites under the guise of “noble defenders of Fijian paramountcy”, used to freely rant against Indo-Fijians, effectively dividing and ruling both.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">But the <em>kailoma, </em>often derogatively referred to as “half-castes”, also faced discrimination from <em>kaivalagi </em>and Indo-Fijians. Even the Fijian term <em>vasu</em>, while used by <em>kailoma</em> as implying a complimentary “special” relationship with the indigenous Fijians, can also be seen as derogatory (according to one doubtful interpretation of the word in Vesikula’s statement).</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">So what explains the quite widespread support of Bainimarama by prominent <em>kaivalagi</em> and <em>kailoma </em>(the Thompsons are not unique)?</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I suspect that one factor is that many old colonial <em>kaivalagi</em> and <em>kailoma</em> have been quite resentful of being marginalized during the Rabuka and Qarase eras by the Fijian ethno-nationalists, with their services not being called upon as they were for the previous decades.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Many <em>kaivalagi</em> and <em>kailoma</em>, like many Indo-Fijians, support Bainimarama precisely because they feel that the Bainimarama Regime willingly accepts their services which they offer Fiji, although part of his strategy may well be to have some white faces (citizens or non-citizens) fronting up to the world media.</span></div>
<h3>
<strong><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Internal Fijian “isms”?</span></strong></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">With all the above discussions of internal Indo-Fijian racisms, it is natural to ask: what about the internal Fijian racisms? I offer the following brief comments on a subject deserving a real expert.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">We all know that there is the yawning gap between Fijian chiefs and commoners, and the strong limitations that the commoners feel in the presence of chiefs, even if they are being materially disadvantaged by chiefly decisions (cf the Monosavu landowners’ claims).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Fijian commoners of merit have long silently faced discrimination with the appointment of chiefs (men and women) over them, whether in the Fiji Military Forces or civil service.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">We are all aware of the social pressures that children of chiefs face in their marriage choices, some ending in much pain for individuals.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It is generally perceived that fairer Eastern Fijians (with their traces of Tongan blood) have looked down on the generally darker hill tribes, who were the last fiercely independent Fijians to be conquered by the British colonials with the assistance of Eastern Fijians- hence the contemptuous term “<em>kai colo</em>” (uncivilized).</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Another aspect of this “racism” is that the written history of early Fiji and Fijians is largely a history written from the point of view of Eastern Fijians, not of the western Fijians or the hill tribes, while historical icons of the Fijians in the interior (like the Nacule fort) are largely ignored by successive governments dominated by Eastern Fijians, while the first government headed by a western Fijian (Dr Bavadra) was quickly removed in the 1987 coup.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">One of Fiji’s historians used to claim that the current history of Fijian politics is exactly the same as pre-Cession, as if the British colonial era had never been. Some have even claimed that once the Indo-Fijians are gone, the Fijians will be “at each other again” as they were in pre-Cession Fiji.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">But I suggest to serious researchers that this can be serious challenged by solid totally original data from the 2007 Census, which sadly have still not been fully published and pertinent results fully discussed. One of the very new datasets (resulting from questions not asked in previous Censuses) is not just the current location of Fijians, but their origins elsewhere in Fiji. This will indicate the extent to which different Fijian tribes have inter-married and relocated within Fiji, I believe, significantly diluting the old tribal tensions which in my opinion, are not going to be as strong as before.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">An external expression of Fijian racism (or “prejudices”, according to one of my critics) could be seen in regional politics with most Fijian leaders post Independence, having a proclivity towards the Eastern Polynesian countries, while having a clear sense of superiority to the less-developed Melanesian countries and people.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It is only recently that the Melanesian Spearhead grouping has assumed greater political importance to Fiji bringing Fijians closer to Melanesians, partly because of the MSG countries’ unqualified support for the Bainimarama Regime, but also because of the solid material incentives emanating from the new-found minerals and LNG wealth in PNG, and PNG’s central role in today’s Super Power Rivalry in the</span></div>
<h3>
<strong><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Lessons for future leaders: using diversity to unite rather than divide</span></strong></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Our people, and Fiji’s political and social leaders, continue to face the enormous challenge of breaking down the all pervasive racial compartments, stereotypes, and prejudices, that have plagued us for decades, and build a genuine united nation.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It would help if we did not sweep expressions of our ethnic and cultural difference under the carpet or into shadowy corners.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It would help if the media were not prevented from reporting such dissonance, by a pugnacious MIDA Chairman.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It would help if there was a cleansing national acknowledgement by our leaders, of ALL the racial prejudices within ALL our ethnic communities, and not just a targeted few.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It would help if we continued to strengthen the trend towards the greater appreciation of each others’ cultures and religions. This is clearly happening to a greater extent cultures, with national celebrations of Christmas, Easter, <em>Eid, Ram Naumi, Holi, Deepawali</em>, and other rich cultural events.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">One may disagree with Bainimarama’s strategy of trying to create a national identity and unity by decreeing that everyone should be called “Fijians”.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">But all indigenous Fijian leaders could learn from the wily Bainimarama that continuously telling Indo-Fijians, <em>kaivalagi</em> and <em>kailomas </em>that the State is going to treat them as equal to the indigenous Fijians, is likely to get their votes.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Of course, this does not preclude Fijian political leaders from also calling for affirmative action for indigenous Fijians where they systematically lag behind others, such as in education and commerce, and nothing precludes the State form legitimatly implementing such affirmative actions.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Note also that Bainimarama has not actually ensured even a semblance of racial equality in numbers of Indo-Fijian Ministers in his Cabinet, or numbers of senior civil servants or the Fiji Military Forces (or gender balance).</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It is unfortunate that Fiji has also not explored fully how we can gain economically from our rich cultural diversity. For instance, our tourism industry still does not project the many Indo-Fijian cultures and cuisines that our tourists might like to pay to be exposed to, as suggested in this <a href="https://narseyonfiji.wordpress.com/2012/03/28/why-no-indo-fijians-in-the-tourism-imagefiji-times-26-september-2004/">2004 article here</a>.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Most major communities in Fiji do not fully appreciate the wonderful contributions that <em>kailoma</em> have made to the history of Fiji, the music, the food, the bridge between indigenous Fijians and <em>kaivalagi</em>. There are also other interesting cultures in Fiji such as Rotuman, Banaban, and increasingly, Tuvaluan, Kiribati and Nauruan, which could all be given greater national prominence, just as the minority Chinese are quite prominent now.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">One of these days, some Fiji government will put their money behind their frequent but generally empty rhetoric of wanting to preserve and strengthen Fijian culture, by ensuring that there are national venues and events which bring out the great diversity of indigenous Fijian cultures - such as <em>mekes</em>, songs, and dialects. (Note that the foremost authority on Fijian language and culture continues to be a non-indigenous Fijian, Dr Paul Geraghty, who occasionally suffers resentment from some Fijians, precisely because of that fact).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Political leaders have a choice. They can keep emphasizing our multi-cultural diversity as a divisive force with “kerosene won’t mix with water” speeches; or they can build a rich nation on our multi-cultural diversity as an asset.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="color: #333333;">Politicians could do worse than emulate one of Fiji’s foremost Fijian musicians, Saimone Vuatalevu, who not only has popularized Indian songs among Fijians, but also composed wonderful music that tries to unite our people, such as the lead song in his newly released album </span><strong>“Healthy Multicultural Fiji”<span style="color: blue;">.</span></strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><strong><span style="color: blue;"><br /></span></strong></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7745785272753572871.post-29118300913222957862014-04-07T17:17:00.000+12:002014-04-07T19:45:08.843+12:00Pacific Media Centre: AUDIO: Electoral decree provision for phone, internet monitoring 'open to abuse'<a href="http://www.pmc.aut.ac.nz/pacific-media-watch/audio-electoral-decree-provision-phone-internet-monitoring-open-abuse-8545" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Monday, April 7, 2014</a><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Item: 8545</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.6em;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">SUVA (<em>Radio NZ International / Dateline Pacific / Pacific Media Watch</em>): The Fiji Law Society says a decree provision allowing phone and internet monitoring in the days before the general election in September is open to abuse and could allow the government to access people's telephone and internet records, reports <a href="http://www.radionz.co.nz/international/programmes/datelinepacific/audio/2591516/fiji-law-society-says-decree-provision-open-to-abuse" style="color: #003366; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Radio NZ International</a>.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://www.radionz.co.nz/audio/player/2591516" style="color: #003366; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Play audio 3m 16s</a></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><strong>Transcript:</strong></span><span style="background-color: white;">The Fiji Law Society says a decree provision allowing phone and internet monitoring in the days before the election is open to abuse.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white;">Section 63 says any person is prohibited from communicating political messages by telephone, internet, email, social media or other electronic means 48 hours before polling opens.</span><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">Violating the decree can result in a US$27,000 fine, or 10 years in jail.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white;">Mary Baines reports:</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<em style="background-color: white; line-height: 20px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The Law Society president, Dorsami Naidu, says the provision, worded to include all people in Fiji, is not a result of poor drafting but was intended to try to control the public. Mr Naidu says restrictions on what the media and political parties can say in the days before an election are not uncommon internationally. But he says a provision restricting all citizens is very unusual, and is a breach of freedom of speech, expression and privacy.</span></em></div>
<span style="font-family: Lucida Sans Unicode, Lucida Grande, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="line-height: 20px;"><i><br /></i></span></span>
<i style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 1.6em;">DORSAMI NAIDU: It's not poor drafting. I think it was done very intentionally, they must have something in mind. It seems as though they want to control our thoughts and minds prior and during the election process, when we're supposed to be going back to democracy.</i><br />
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<i style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 1.6em;">Mr Naidu says the provision suggests surveillance by government on citizens is a possibility.</i><br />
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<i style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 1.6em;">DORSAMI NAIDU: Though we won't be privy to what our own secret surveillance people do, or what the government does, it's open to abuse. Political parties and individuals can be targeted in the name of this Decree, and that may affect the elections.</i><br />
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<i style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 1.6em;">A Fiji academic, Dr Wadan Narsey, says the provision is intended to strike fear into people. Dr Narsey says the Bainimarama government has been successful in controlling the media in Fiji, but cannot control people expressing opinions on social media.</i><br />
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<i style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 1.6em;">WADAN NARSEY: My goodness, how are they going to monitor it? This is electronic surveillance - are they being authorised by this Decree to conduct electronic surveillance on our citizens and to influence what they do and say to other people, their friends, their relatives or anybody? I mean the whole thing is quite frightening in this sense.</i><br />
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<i style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 1.6em;">A media expert, Pat Craddock of the journalism programme at the University of the South Pacific, says such a provision is unworkable.</i><br />
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<i style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 1.6em;">PAT CRADDOCK: Surely I can talk on my cellphone, on my computer, on Facebook, and there are those things the government can't control. There are blogs all over Fiji, and many of them are very scurrilous, and the government has wanted to control them in the past and they haven't managed to date.</i><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 1.6em;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 1.6em;"><i>Communications companies Vodafone Fiji and Telecom Fiji Limited could not be reached for comment. The Elections Commission chair, Chen Bunn Young, or the elections supervisor, Mohammed Saneem, could not be reached for comment on how it planned to enforce the provision.</i></span><br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0