“New Zealand Acts To Protect Fijian PM”. Excuse me, but are my eyes deceiving me? Well, no, they’re not and haven’t times changed. It wasn’t so long ago when such a headline would have been inconceivable. Yet protecting Frank Bainimarama was precisely the motive when agents of the NZ Security and Intelligence Service (SIS) raided addresses in Auckland this week linked to opponents of the regime. Was the former Fijian MP, Rajesh Singh, conspiring with the renegade military officer, Ratu Tevita Uluilakeba Mara, and a former Fiji business figure, Anthony Fullman, to assassinate the Prime Minister and his Attorney General, Aiyaz Sayed Khaiyum? That’s the extraordinary allegation and as spy thrillers go, it doesn’t get much juicier.
When news of the alleged plot filtered through to Suva on Wednesday afternoon, there was a sense of disbelief in the upper reaches of government. Fiji’s own National Security and Assessment Unit appears to have had no prior warning and the Police Commissioner, Brigadier General Ioane Naivalurua, said he knew nothing about it. There was even a suspicion in some quarters that the whole thing was a stunt – that the agents weren’t agents at all but members of an opposing faction of the anti-regime lobby trying to embarrass the main target of the raids – former SDL cabinet minister Rajesh Singh.
There’s evidently a schism among these elements in Auckland, with some resenting the activities of Singh and his Movement for Democracy in Fiji. Yes, an opposition within an opposition. Which doubtless explains why the overall opposition to the regime in NZ appears to be much weaker than in Australia, which is so weak anyway that any “Freedom and Democracy Movement” rally invariably attracts barely enough people to fill a bus.
Even on Thursday, there was still a degree of scepticism in government. But then came a statement from NZ Prime Minister John Key that changed everything. This was evidently real and very serious. NZ intelligence officers, Key said, would not have searched Rajesh Singh’s home and seized his computer if there wasn’t a genuine concern over a possible assassination plot. “You can be quite sure that the SIS act within the law – they are thoughtful and careful and they only act if they believe it is in the best interests of New Zealanders. As the Minister of the SIS, there is nothing I have seen them undertake in my time as the minister where I’ve either been uncomfortable or I think they’ve acted unlawfully – or whether they haven’t acted in a considered and appropriate manner and I fully support their actions whatever they might be”, the PM said.
John Key knows precisely what information prompted the raids but, of course, he isn’t telling. Was it telephone or email intercepts? Do they have Rajesh Singh’s premises bugged? Or was it HUMINT – the official term for human intelligence and still the principal form of spying – when an informant blows the whistle? Or perhaps the information came from a secret agent who has penetrated the opposition movement in Auckland? All this is possible but, as is customary with intelligence matters, everyone’s lips are sealed.
As Rajesh Singh tells it, four officers from the SIS turned up at his shop on Tuesday morning and served him with a search warrant. They seized a computer and phone – both, he said, belonging to his daughter – and these were returned later in the day. Singh said the SIS asked him a series of questions about the alleged plot to assassinate Commodore Bainimarama and Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum. He quoted the agents as saying they had been told there was “credible evidence” that Ratu Mara – also known in Fiji as Roko Ului – and a New Zealand national, Anthony Fullman, had plotted the assassination while Mara was in New Zealand a fortnight ago. Fullman, the former head of the Fiji Water Authority, is a long time Mara associate. When the renegade officer fled Fiji last year, Fullman was rounded up and questioned about his disappearance. He subsequently left Fiji.
Rajesh Singh acknowledged meeting Mara and Fullman during that visit but he denied they had discussed killing anybody and said he had no knowledge of any plot. Fullman has also acknowledged being present at a meeting with Singh and Mara but also denies any plot. Singh professes himself to be outraged about the raid and says he plans to lodge a formal complaint about the SIS to NZ’s Human Rights Commission and the Ombudsman. But his own response to Wednesday’s events raises some questions. He says he was told by the SIS agents not to speak to the media. Yet the raid immediately became public knowledge and Singh was extensively quoted. The former Fijian MP must know that the SIS is bound to investigate allegations of the gravity of this one. If he was concerned about his own reputation, why talk to the media in the first place? Had he not done so, the whole episode might well have stayed out of the public arena.
From his exile in Tonga, Ratu Tevita Mara – who escaped Fiji last year before being arrested on charges of conspiring to overthrow Bainimarama – also denied being part of any assassination plot. “It’s news to me, I don’t know anything about it, so I can’t really comment”, he told the NZ media. Whatever the truth, Mara will be aghast at the apparent sea change in the attitude towards him in official NZ circles. Once able to come and go almost at will between Tonga, NZ and Australia, Prime Minister Key indicated that the welcome mat had now been withdrawn. He said Ratu Mara was banned from visiting New Zealand and could visit only if granted a permit. If the NZ authorities suspect that he may have been plotting an assassination attempt, that permit is unlikely to be granted. And the SIS is also certain to pass on whatever it knows to its Australian intelligence counterparts -ASIS, the foreign intelligence service, and ASIO, which handles domestic cases. All of a sudden, Ratu Mara’s travel options may have been severely truncated. His future horizons don’t appear to extend much past Nuku’alofa and perhaps Apia, where he still has a friend in Fiji’s chief critic, the Samoan prime minister, Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi. That relationship may also now be in doubt because Tuilaepa needs his Kiwi patrons more than he needs a problematic Fijian exile who hasn’t delivered the uprising in his homeland that Samoa once hoped for.
For his part, Prime Minister Bainimarama said he wasn’t surprised to hear about an assassination plot against him and called on New Zealand to do something about “terrorists” lurking there. Speaking from South Korea – where he is opening Fiji’s new embassy – Bainimarama described the plot as “the work of cowards.” It would fit Colonel Mara’s mode perfectly, he told Auckland’s Radio Tarana. “There is nothing new from that camp. Whether they can come to Fiji is a different matter, because they are cowards.” He challenged anybody to try and assassinate him once he got back to Fiji: “They will have to get through the security people at home.”
One thing is certain. New Zealand has sent a clear signal that it is not going to tolerate any conspiracy against the Fiji Government on NZ soil. And the wider reason for that is that the Key Government – and especially Foreign Minister Murray McCully – is now convinced that Commodore Bainimarama is serious about returning Fiji to democracy in 2014. As things stand, he may well be the country’s best hope, the only person on the national scene capable of producing a democracy that takes into account the interests of all Fijians. New Zealand – and presumably Australia – want him alive to complete his reform agenda, not for Fiji to be plunged into the abyss of total mayhem and uncertainty that an assassination would trigger. The neighbours mightn’t be prepared yet to give Commodore Bainimarama a glowing public endorsement but they’re certainly watching his back.
This article has subsequently appeared in the Fiji Sun.
@ Graham
I think you’ll find the SIS and NZ Police were merely doing their jobs – information came to light, it was investigated and action was taken. Hardly an endorsement of Frank, but the security service and a competent police force doing what they are supposed to do.
@Cin Cin
Yes, that too. But the national interest invariably comes first. New Zealand is dealing with the devil they know. And he’s not quite the devil they expected – embarked on a program to restore a purer form of democracy and smash the racial paradigms of the past.
Fiji is also stable and is an active member of the regional and global community. Assassinating Bainimarama would destroy that stability and there’s no guarantee that his replacement would be any better. He could well be a lot worse.
Does anyone seriously think that installing Roko Ului would be a better option? Except some of his fellow chiefs who know they will have their privileges restored? You don’t have to scratch around too deeply to find that there’s no grassroots support for Roko Ului at any level, including his own people in Lau. And the Kiwis and Aussies know it.
Because people with policy influence like Brij Lal and Jon Fraenkel backed Mara as a alternative and wrote his ten-point plan for the restoration of democracy, the foreign policy establishment was willing to see how high his kite would fly. But it didn’t get off the ground. It was a dud.
It staggered me that people of this intellectual calibre were supporting a man who’d been specifically branded a torturer by the US ambassador to Fiji in one of the Wikileaks cables. On what basis was he preferable to Bainimarama? How was he morally superior? What were his democratic credentials?
Mara is denying all knowledge of an assassination plot. But let’s look at the cast of characters here. A renegade military officer, a deposed SDL cabinet minister and a New Zealand “businessman”. Would they be a preferable option for Fiji?
Graham,
Both Rajesh Singh and others availed themselves to the NZSIS. Unlike your coward hero who instead of subjecting himself to be interviewed for the murder of the CRWU soldiers, executed the coup. He had even demanded that all investigations against him and the military must be dropped for if not he was going to overthrow the Fiji government.
Fijian CID, this obsession of yours with Bainimarama’s role in the “murder” of the CRW soldiers isn’t shared by me and most other people. They did the murdering of innocent loyalist troops in an attempt to kill Bainimarama and take over the country. They were killed in reprisal. “As ye sow, so shall ye reap”.
@ Fijian CID
A previous poster calling himself ‘SAS’ pointed out that Frank had escaped to the naval base at Walu Bay and that it Baleidrokdroka who led the assault on QEB and that it was Baleidrokodrka’s men who went down to the Nabua police station and demanded that the captured rebels be handed over to them. They then took them to Rifle Range at Vatuwaqa wher they were bashed up.
Frank could not have been at two different places at the one time.
Baleidrokadroka is now enjoying PR status there in Oz where he has linked up with Suli Dauniveidulu and the pro-democracy mob there to whom Baleidrokadroka, backed by Brij Lal and Jon Fraenkel, are the strategic advisors or the ‘intellectual shadow’ behind Suli who never had much of a formal education.
Tevita Mara came along and eventually joined them – at their Melbourne meeting where they launced their ’10 Point Plan’, Mara deferred all questions to Baleidrokadroka who was clearly the man in charge of that shindig they had there, in much the same way he was in charge of what took place at QEB after Frank had ‘left the building’.
By blaming Frank, you are barking up the wrong tree
@ Fijian CID
How can someone who executes a coup, knowing that it carries the death penalty, be a ‘coward’? Please explain.
The Fiji government under Qarase failed to provide a unifying vision for all races in Fiji.
Its Affirmative Action policies were discrimminatory eg taukei students attending top colleges such as Indian High in Rewa Street, Shri Vivekenand College in Nadi, Mahatma Ghandi High School in Vatuwaqa, Suva Muslim College in Samabula and likewise the Nadi Muslim College where the FRU High Performance Unit is located etc…etc…
Taukei students were penalised by not being elegible for a government scholarship just because they attended a non taukei school! Hows that for discrimmination?
For sure, the Qarase government takes the cake when it comes to conjuring up discrimminatory policies.
The Qarase government also excluded the Commander RFMF from the national Security Council!!! The top military officer in the country not even alowed to have a ‘look in’ into affairs afecting the national security of the country!
Yet, COMPOL Andrew Hughes was a member of this National Security Council. So too was Lesi Korovavala, that two-faced wannabe soldier cum civil servant with an inflated ego who was one of Rabuka’s co-conspirators in 1987. Korovavala, like Baleidrokadroka, are enjoying PR status in Oz. Tevita Mara is enjoying his regular ‘puaka’ feasts courtesy of the King of Tonga.
And the list goes on.
Bottom line is that Frank came in and cleaned all those pigs out who had their snouts at the trough. Good riddance to them all.
Is this the same Rajesh Singh who promised voters he would donate his entire salary to charity if elected to Parliament, then changed his mind once he became an PM?
“Mongrel”, you just got whacked for your appalling and totally unacceptable assassination comment. Do it again and I’ll dispatch you to the permanent cyber bin with Terry T and Wilson K. You’ve been warned.
Bula Graham
You tell us all how much you reject violence, but why did you say you couldn’t care less about Bainimarama’s role in the ‘murder’ of the CRW soldiers. You said “they did the murdering of innocent loyalist troops in an attempt to kill Bainimarama and take over the country. They were killed in reprisal”.
.
Just one question.
Is your rejection of killing, a qualified one? Some killing is OK?
But let’s get more specific: why did Selestino Kalounivale, Jone Davui Epineri Bainimoli, Lagani Rokowaqa and Iowane Waseroma deserve to die without any sort of investigation and judicial process?
Do you know for a fact that any or all of them was actually guilty of killing anyone, or attempting to kill anyone? Do you know if they were all actually involved in the mutiny at all? (And pls don’t mention any involvement in the Speight coup – you were talking about the mutiny.)
“Navosavakadua”, I specifically did NOT say I “couldn’t care less” about the CRW soldiers. I said I didn’t share “Fijian CID’s” obsession with their fate. And especially at the expense of the dead loyalist troops, who are never mentioned by those who protest so vigorously about what might or might not have happened that day.
Of course, these people shouldn’t have been killed without a fair trial. Any extrajudicial killing is unacceptable. But that does not make it incomprehensible. They were killed in the heat of the moment, in blind rage at their roles in the mutiny. Are you saying they weren’t involved? Or are you saying that a court of law didn’t get to determine the facts of their participation? The two are quite separate.
Please give me what evidence you have that any of these individuals did NOT take part in the mutiny and were killed by mistake or for other reasons. Then we can have a discussion along the lines you suggest.
@ Navosavakadua’
You have the names of those who lost ther lives in the mutiny off pat.
Are you also able to tell us off the top of your head the names of those loyal soldiers who killed or wounded by he CRW?
I suspect not. Such is your focus which tells me a lot about your biases.
Vinaka vakalevu Graham
My apologies for my paraphrasing, your subtlety must have gone straight over my dull iTaukei head.
So, could I paraphrase you as saying you do care, but just a lot less than some of Bainimarama’s critics, about the brutal deaths of some people, who may or may not have been guilty of something?
As to evidence, I wonder why you are asking for evidence of innocence? Are some people required to prove their innocence? Do some crimes require suspects to prove their innocence? I suspect that the canons of evidence and guilt employed by judicial processes are vastly different to those of journalism.
My own view is clear and I’m puzzled why you have trouble understanding it. Everyone deserves the benefit of legal process because it’s not due process if it’s not extended to everyone.
Whatever Bainimarama’s involvement in the murders of the CRW soldiers, he was being accorded due process in 2006. The police force under an internationally recruited professional Commissioner were investigating, but all that ended with the coup and the forced expulsion of the Commissioner.
That doesn’t make Bainimarama guilty but it does mean there are grounds for suspicion of his involvement in the CRW deaths. So what I think you need to tell us is what grounds were there for suspecting the loyalty of the murdered CRW soldiers.
What do you know about these men and any evidence against them in relation to the mutiny?
These questions have been asked by the pro-demcracy people over and over again like a cracked record. It happened 12 years ago and many posters here dont even care any more about those CRW killers who cold-bloodedly cut down their own comrades in the greatest act of betrayal in Fiji’s history.
They behaved like feral animals and were treated likewise.