While there has been a lot of talk about abolishing the Military, what I want to know is what we are going to do with the soldiers?

In order to convince well trained killers with a damn good arsenal of weapons that we want to send them packing, we the people must come up with an alternative to resettle them into. After all they do have mortgages to service and schoole fees to pay, let alone mouths to feed and mistresses to maintain

Kutu. 

as predicited two days ago by blogger Corruption Fighter in his article “Silence can tell you more then words”, the head of the Illegal Military Charter monitoring unit has quit as reported in teh Fiji Times.

THE chairman of the Independent Monitoring Group for the People’s Charter process has resigned.

Geert van der Linden resigned last week, citing another offer and his inability to continue with the group, said Robin Nair, a member of the group.

News of Mr van der Linden’s resignation came as a surprise to the President’s Office last night.

Head of the Technical and Secretariat Support team John Samy could not be reached for comment. He was not at home during attempts to raise him.

Mr Nair said from Australia he was aware of Mr van der Linden’s resignation.

“We would have liked him to stay. But we understand why he had to leave and move on,” Mr Nair said.

He said Mr van der Linden’s resignation did not impact on the work of the group, which is expected to be completed by June.

“Work in the group will continue. It is for the President (Ratu Josefa Iloilo) to decide if we need another replacement.

“I’d like to see a chair appointed, because we each have our different strengths which we bring to the group,” he said.

Another member of the group Reverend Caroline Chambers said she was unaware of the matter.

Where does Chodo get the inspiration for his wild schemes to become Fiji’s President?

The first Asian Indian to become President of a foreign country was Cheddi Jagan of Guyana, the son of ethnic Indian sugar plantation workers and co-founder of the PPP. 
 
Jagan won in a colonially administered election in 1953, but was removed from power militarily by Britain which, under strong behind-the-scenes pressure from the United States and the CIA, asserted that he had ties to the Soviet Union.  Jagan resigned as British Guiana prime minister after 133 days. Britain suspended the constitution and chose an interim government. Jagan’s movements were restricted to Georgetown from 1954-1957.
 
After a PPP victory in the August 1957 election, Jagan became Chief Minister for a second time, serving for seven years. In the December 1964 election, the PPP won a plurality of votes, but Burnham’s party, the People’s National Congress, and the conservative United Force were nevertheless invited to form the government.
Having broken off links with the increasingly authoritarian Burnham, who divided the country among racial barriers, Jagan was active in the government as a labor activist and leader of the opposition. After 28 years in opposition, he and the PPP won the October 1992 election with about 54% of the vote, and Jagan became President.
 
Jagan suffered a heart attack in the morning of February 15, 1997 and was taken to Georgetown Hospital before being flown by U.S. military aircraft to Walter Reed Army Hospital in the U.S. capital, Washington DC, later that day.  He underwent heart surgery there and died in Washington on 6 March, 1997.  
 
The current President of Guyana is Bharrat Jagdeo, who assumed office in 1999, and was re-elected in 2006 for another 5 year term.  Politics in Guyana falls along a racial divide, between ethnic Indians and ethnic Africans.  Both groups are non-indigenous, largely descended from labourers brought to work the plantations under colonial administrations.  According to reports, the 2006 re-election of Jagdeo, a member of the Indo-Guyanese majority, caused rioting among the minority Afro-Guyanese, who claimed widespread election fraud.  Unlike Guyana, the racial divisions in Fiji are between indigenous and non-indigenous peoples. 
 
The parallels to Chodo are obvious – first Indian elected leader, descended from sugar cane labourers, British colonial influences, both Jagan and Chodo were deposed, etc. 
 
What is also obvious is Chodo’s desire to join the ranks of Jagan and Jagdeo.  He feels he was cheated of his term as PM.  He will stop at nothing to get it back, with the added bonus of a shot at the Presidency. 
 
Interestingly, Guyana has a huge problem with corruption, and illegal drugs.  The International Narcotics Control Strategy Report says :
“Guyana is a transit point for cocaine destined for North America, Europe, and the Caribbean… More than two years after launching its National Drug Strategy Master Plan (NDSMP) for 2005-2009, the GOG has not effectively implemented it. Cooperation among law enforcement bodies is fragmented and minimally productive; weak border controls and limited resources for law enforcement allow drug traffickers to move shipments via river, air, and land without meaningful resistance. Guyana is a party to the 1988 UN Drug Convention.
 
Guyana is a transit country for cocaine, and to a lesser degree marijuana. Guyana’s vast expanse of unpopulated forest and savannahs offers ample cover for drug traffickers and smugglers. Government counternarcotics efforts are undermined by inadequate resources for law enforcement, poor coordination among law enforcement agencies, an inefficient judiciary, and a colonial-era legal system badly in need of modernization. Murders, kidnappings, and other violent crimes commonly believed to be linked with narcotics trafficking are regularly reported in the Guyanese media. Guyana produces high-grade cannabis and is not known to produce, trade, or transit precursor chemicals on a large scale.”
 
Full report - http://www.state.gov/p/inl/rls/nrcrpt/2008/vol1/html/100778.htm
 
Fiji’s position in the centre of the Pacific Ocean makes us an attractive to the illegal drug trade as a potential ‘transit point’. 
 
So, just who is funding Chodopu$$?  And how do they make their money?  What are their plans for Fiji? 
We have a right to know. 
 
God bless Fiji

Budhau, regarding your first statement regarding the non-involvement of Indians in the 2006 coup I have the following to relate. You decide. I have a military officer friend who I served with and of high enough rank to be able to stand in the same exclusive group at a cocktail party at the US Ambassador’s residence sometimes in 2005 I believe, as Mahendra Chaudary and Frank Bainimarama where Chaudary exhorted Bainimarama to just carry out the coup and he and the FLP and other friends would worry about trying to repair the situation. I have no reason to disbelieve the guy because he had no cause to lie to me. He said that at the time, Chaudary made the plea in an ironic jesting and jousting sort of way. He couldn’t believe his ears and Bainimarama just replied that the time was not yet right. Obviously the rest is history. Now, following that fateful evening, prior to the 5 Dec coup, more meetings were reported by the Special Branch (Fiji Police) between Bainimarama & Chaudary, Bainimarama & Nazhat Shameem, Bainimarama & Shaista Shameem, Chaudary & the Shameem sisters. The meeting continued well into 2006 up to the day of the coup. Now am I mistaken in saying that Chaudary and the Shameem sisters and Aiyaz-Saiyad Khaiyum are all Indians. Have they suddenly become others on the arrivals immigration form? Am I mistaken still in saying that the Fiji Labour Party is the party of choice for most Indo-Fijians. Am I mistaken in saying that the majority of Indians seem to have a twinkle in their eyes and a shining glint to their toothy smiles now and a spring to their step that was absent pre-5 Dec 06? Budhau, you just have to accept the glaring truth that Indians have learnt the tricks of the trade as well and this is their coup. Without these Indo-Fijian coup catalysts, I have no doubt that Bainimarama would not have had the guts to carry out the coup. He surely had to weigh the pros and cons of carrying out a coup and Chaudary and company supplied him with all the pros bits. He was given the idiotic notion that we Fijians would all just roll over and accept what he shoved down our throats. That like Rabuka, all would be well in a few years and that the world would have no choice but to work with the regime. How wrong they were, weren’t they? The post 9/11 world is a vastly different world from that of 1987. If you are Indian, Budhau, then this is your coup. It was done in your name and it belongs to you no matter how much you try to deny it. Those who have benefited from it should enjoy the fruits of it while they can. When the tide returns, we will give them fair trials that they refused to give others, we will treat them with respect and dignity that they do not deserve. And the tide will come in!

Now to your generalisations and simplified reasonings regarding Fijian Chiefs and the RFMF. You accuse me of insulting my own people yet without any effort you carry on insulting us Fijians and our Chiefs to the marrow. I explained that some of the social attitudes and beliefs of the Fijian people are and were racist in nature and that many of us had decided to actively unlearn those negative values that were passed down to us. I wonder if the same is happening in the Indo-Fijian context. If it is, then good, but if not, then the Indian elders have their work cut out for them.

I agree with your conclusion that the Mara siblings are deeply involved in the 5th Dec coup. Adi Ateca and Adi Koila according to another friend of mine and senior RFMF officer of Field rank, came to Bainimarama one day in late 2005 to tearfully beg him at his office not to forget the shame that was caused their late father, the former President, Ratu Sir KKT Mara, by the nationalistic hordes and to remove the SDL government which they alleged was siding with them. Bainimarama was having second thoughts about the whole proposal. Bucket loads of tears were cried that day and everything fell into place.

Every member of this foul company had bones to pick with Laisenia Qarase for the threat that he posed to them. For Bainimarama it was because he was about be prosecuted on Treason charges, for Chaudary, it was because of the combined causes of old hurts due to the previous coups and the aforementioned perception that he was fast becoming irrelevant in Fiji’s political landscape, for the Mara and Ganilau siblings it was vengeance for some form of injury caused to their pride by the SDL Government. For the Shameem sisters, Khaiyum, and Pathik, it was the perceived racist nature of LQ and SDL as well as the slight against Nazhat Shameem for not backing her up for the UN job. A good number of Indo-Fijian members of the FLP such as Vayeshnoi and others would have been in the know or would have supported a coup against the SDL government anyway. Jokapeci Koroi’s pre-5 Dec comments are legendary. Now, if the above named Indo-Fijian gang members are not of the Indian persuasion then what are they? Ethiopian?

In short, Indians have learnt the tricks of the trade and said, well if you can’t beat ‘em then join ‘em.

Now, I have spoken to you, Budhau of what I have personally experienced in my travels across the breadth of the country, speaking to Fijian communities and from my own experience as a Fijian. The reason I am criticising many of your statements is that you continue to espouse many of the epithets and pronouncements that cause Fijians to despise Indian attitudes and by extension persons, in the first place.

I speak from first hand account experiences, but you speak in banal generalities about matters that are sacrosanct in Fijian. You speak of urban Fijians as if you are the only existing authority on the subject. I speak as an urban Fijian and after having spoken to so many urban Fijians as well.

To your last line I respond, yes, some selfish Chiefs with the able guidance and cooperation of many Indians have decided to push us Fijians into a corner. And OUR fight is with THEM!!!!

SDL to Da Bone

As someone who has closely watched the antics of Fiji’s bumbling regime over
the past 18 months or so I have learned a very important lesson: often
it’s not what the regime says that you should take note of. Instead, it’s
their silences on particular topics that indicate that there is something
afoot.

This is because this regime has not only sought to create a climate of
fear and mistrust, but because deep down it knows it’s illegal and that
makes it also a victim of fear and distrust. Fear and distrust of being
shown to everyone once again for what it is.

Here’s a case in point: why has it been several weeks since we heard
anything from the regime and its minions, including from the talkative
John (yap-yap) Samy himself, about the IMG (the independent monitoring
group)? Like the proverbial ship in the night, they seem to have come and
gone.

Could it be that the IMG was just a front to give the charter process a
cloak of respectability? Or, as I suspect, has something gone badly wrong?
For example, have the members of the IMG suddenly developed a bad case of
cold feet after getting up close and personal with the deadbeats on the
NCBBF? Has the IMG simply dissolved like an ice cream exposed to the hot
sun?

What strikes me as particularly strange is that we haven’t heard anything
about the IMG drawcard, Dutchman Geert Van Den Linden, who is after all
something of a VIP, and certainly of sufficient stature to give the regime a
touch of class, even by association. Linden is a former senior vice
president of the Asian development bank.

You would think that with all the pressure he’s getting from everyone from
Winston Peters to the Commonwealth Ministers Action Group and with more
and more provinces voting with their feet, Bainimarama would have by now
got Linden to strut his stuff for the cameras once again.

I ask this for a simple reason that is obvious, at least to me; when it
comes to selling the charter and keeping the Commonwealth dogs off his
heels. Linden’s prestige could do a lot for Frank’s credibility when he
needs it the most. Someone of Linden’s stature is about the only card
Frank has up his sleeve without pulling out the gun he always keeps up the
other one.

Or does the silence tell us something else? Does it tell us that Frank can
no longer use Linden because Linden is no longer available to the regime?
Does the silence about Linden and the IMG tell us that yet another name
has been added to the abandoned ship list?

Another silence that is more telling than words is the silence of the
police in relation to the two death threats received by the Australian
Ambassador,
James Batley. When the first threat was received on 8 May the police behaved
like something out of the TV series, the FBI. There were announcements and
statements that there would be a quick arrest.

Then everything fell silent. Significantly, the police maintained their
silence even after the media reported widely on the second threat on 15
May, one week after the first.

What does that silence tell us? Perhaps it’s telling us that that the
police have got nowhere in their investigations and are downright
embarrassed. Or
perhaps it’s telling us something far more sinister:

(a) that the police have a very good idea who is responsible

(b) but because the people the police believe are responsible just happen
to be who they are, no further action can be taken.

Welcome to Fiji under Frank and the Chodopu$$. Yes, we have heard lots of
words from those two (far too many of them empty and false in my opinion),
but it’s sometimes the silences that can tell you more about what is really
happening.

CORRUPTION FIGHTER

As SOME people, mark the 21st anniversary of Rabuka’s coup, a lot of public debate and ideas are flying around as to what should be done to END THIS COUP CULTURE and really move-on. I know it has been raised numerous times before that MAYBE the answer to all our woes is to ABOLISH THE MILITARY.

Although for now I, and other law-abiding-sick-of-coups-citizens believe that that would be the BEST STEP our nation should take, some people (maybe the current military personnel themselves and their supporters) may think otherwise.

However, if we study how some coup-ridden countries have overcome this problem of “military involvement” in their governments, the BEST example there is to date, is Costa Rica.

And this is how they did it. More information can be found in this site

Source: http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/2019.htm

HISTORY

An era of peaceful democracy in Costa Rica began in 1899 with elections considered the first truly free and honest ones in the country’s history. This began a trend that continued until today with only two lapses: in 1917-19, Federico Tinoco ruled as a dictator, and, in 1948, Jose Figueres led an armed uprising in the wake of a disputed presidential election.

With more than 2,000 dead, the 44-day civil war resulting from this uprising was the bloodiest event in 20th-century Costa Rican history, but the victorious junta drafted a constitution guaranteeing free elections with universal suffrage and the abolition of the military. Figueres became a national hero, winning the first election under the new constitution in 1953. Since then, Costa Rica has held 14 presidential elections, the latest in 2006.

GOVERNMENT
Costa Rica has no military and maintains only domestic police and security forces.
POLITICAL CONDITIONS
Costa Rica has long emphasized the development of democracy and respect for human rights. The country’s political system has steadily developed, maintaining democratic institutions and an orderly, constitutional scheme for government succession. Several factors have contributed to this trend, including enlightened leadership, comparative prosperity, flexible class lines, educational opportunities that have created a stable middle class, and high social indicators. Also, because Costa Rica has no armed forces, it has avoided military involvement in political affairs, unlike other countries in the region.

So, there we have it. If a small country like Costa Rica (who shares some similarities with ours) can make it successfully without a military, why can’t we do it?

So, the challenge is: WHO can be the hero to have the guts to ABOLISH OUR MILITARY?

EnufDictatorship

If you have names, and the positions they have taken up please post it in the comment areas of this request.

Vinaka,

SV team.

Thought this might interest bloggers:

Tui writes in with this comment on our Fiji debate:

One inadvertent result of the Bainimarama coup which will be its undoing, is the creation of various blog sites set up by professional Fijians like Soli Vakasama, which in Fijian means ‘let’s discuss’ and at the moment currently enjoys the most popular status having received over 370,000 hits.

There are other blog sites such as Kutusebeneivore, Hearts and Minds, Hyde n ceek, Fiji Democracy Now, Discombobulated Bubu, Fiji Silenced and Sai Lelea, which are irrefutable signs of professional Fijians standing up to the illegal government and criticising them on issues and facts, which were non existent during the previous coups.

I support general elections to be held in 2009 and it seems inevitable the SDL will be re-elected with an even larger Fijian vote.

It also seems highly probable that the National Federation Party (NFP) will make great inroads into the Indian vote and the biggest loser with be the Fiji Labour Party (FLP), however I disagree with Sanjay Ramesh’s conclusion that it will lead to an ‘even more violent outcome’.

Electoral reform can be carried out during parliamentary debates, but I maintain that the only guarantee to total eradication of the coup culture in Fiji is to hold people accountable for their actions and allow the law to bring them to justice.

There has been much speculation over the much-anticipated GCC Meeting to nominate a Vice President.

Nawalowalo, the head of the Task Force sent out to the 14 Provinces has stated that as long as they obtain the 2/3 or 32 out of the 52 delegates, they have a quorum to convene the GCC.

So far, Tailevu, Rewa, Cakaudrove, Naitasiri, Namosi, Lomaiviti, Ra and Nadroga have rejected both the People’s Charter and the newly constituted GCC and will refrain from sending its delegates to the GCC.

Ba, on the other hand chooses to abstain and awaits the outcome of Ratu Ovini Bokini’s & Ors court challenge, but will not send its delegates as well.

9 Provinces will refrain sending its 27 delegates to the GCC (the majority traditionally owners of native lands throughout Fiji) under the 2008 GCC Regulation; a quorum of 34 delegates is required before the GCC Meeting can legally proceed.

Therefore the proposed GCC Meeting for June is already damned because it lacks the necessary legal quorum and further rejections from other Provinces only substantiates what many Fijians have been claiming all along, which the IG has been rejecting, that the majority of the Fijians reject the IG and all what it stands for.

It is intriguing when you muse that if another Province was to either reject or abstain from sending its 3 delegates to the GCC Meeting, then it brings up the total of 30 delegates or more than 2/3 of the total 42 delegates from the 14 Provinces even including Rotuma’s delegates will not be present, which is undisputed evidence of where the Fijian peoples’ true loyalty and sympathies lie.

Bainimarama and the IG are aware they are the scourges of Fijian society despite what they claim to the contrary and this is evidenced in the fact, they cannot freely travel in Fiji without bodyguards.

Why then continue with the charade that they have the right to rule Fiji, bringing about great misery, poverty, unemployment, injustice, nepotism, threaten the media, unilaterally make decisions without regard to the rule and law as seen in the unlawful deportation and perversion of the course of justice in Evan Hannah and Russell Hunter’s case amongst others and their wasteful expenditure of hard earned tax-payer funds in numerous questionable overseas trips and white elephant NCBBF?

Why prolong the inevitable? The coup in December 2006 was illegal and there is simply no justification at all despite all the legal jargon and claims.

Even if the illegally appointed Gates, Pathick and Byrnes rules in favour of the IG and against Qarase, their decision will never withstand proper scrutiny and will never be accepted by the majority of Fijians and other Fiji law abiding citizens and may trigger massive unrest in Fiji.

The majority of Fijians and all law abiding citizens everywhere eagerly await the demise of the IG and anticipate the time when they and their shadowy advisors are brought to justice.

I foresee courts reconvened in large auditoriums, such as the Tradewinds Convention Centre, to accommodate the large interest both domestically and internationally observing due process of law at work in holding people accountable for their actions and bringing them to justice.

It is the due process of the law, holding people accountable for their actions and bringing them to justice and not the self-claimed white elephant People’s Charter, which will guarantee the permanent eradication of the coup culture in Fiji.

Tui Savu.

Lawyer.

Townsville. QLD.

Eveli & Teca’s Trips to Australia paid for by RFMF. Actually by you and me, the taxpayer!

The audit noted the military used its Telesat Project fund of $500,000 to buy goods and services that were not related to the project and it included:
The payment of rugby gear and travel expenses for the RFMF rugby team; and,
$150,000 worth of expenses for the Truth and Justice Campaign of which details of only $55,467 were provided, including details of airfares to Taveuni for a former Commander and wife (Eveli & Ateca Butabutako) on three occasions and one to Australia including domestic travel and accommodation. This suggests that the campaign was practically the spearhead for the failed election campaign of the National Alliance Party,

It was not enough what they did to the Regimental Fund while in the Military. De mataivalu nei Ta!