Only the Coalition would think it could go to an election with any credibility at all when its response to the escalating incidence of HIV infections in the country has been so woeful.
As we reported in our previous article, Parliament is being recalled for a special session next Tuesday yet it isn’t about the HIV crisis but to fast-track the introduction of a new constitution before the next election.
The Coalition not only thinks the Fijian people are stupid but the world is stupid. Yet Fiji’s donors and the international media have woken up to the scale of the threat to ordinary people and the blow-torch of publicity is already being applied at the worst possible time for the government’s global standing.
Radio NZ, ABC and the Guardian Australia – which cater for a mainly regional audience – are one thing. But now CNN’s estimated global audience of 150-million is getting the full picture just weeks out from the Pre-COP 31 in Fiji, when any visiting journalist now has another story to tell.
And it isn’t about vulnerable Pacific Islands as victims of climate change but the host nation’s abject failure to deal with a crisis almost every other nation in the world is confronting successfully. Except Fiji, of course, whose leaders have well and truly lost the plot in their mishandling of a major health threat to their own people.
It includes a Minister for Climate Change in the form of Lynda Tabuya who was found guilty by her own party of illicit drug use yet has been elevated to represent Fiji at COP31. Combined with the “brutal” sex session with Aseri Radrodro in Room 233 and the leaked sex tape/s, what a juicy little saga awaits those elements of the world’s media who just can’t resist a rollicking sex and drug yarn. Grubsheet stands ready to assist.
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How’s the following to tell us about the chasm between fact and spin…
Quote: “Fiji is a deeply religious society, where premarital or casual sex is generally considered taboo”. Unquote.
Now who fed CNN that line, Fiji? The Minister for Information, Climate Change, Bonking and Weed?
Another angle for visiting journalists to root out, er, investigate if they can be bothered to attend the Pre-Cop gabfest.
Kaila!
The prevalence aside , it is the trajectory of this disease in recent history which is particularly alarming. It is currently experiencing what UNAIDS and the Doherty Institute describe as the fastest-growing HIV epidemic in the world, with a tenfold increase in new infections since 2014 and a roughly 3,000% rise in diagnoses since 2010.
To make matters worse the woman supposedly tasked with being the face of action for climate initiatives was busted in a sex scandal which strikes at the very heart of the debate. A POOR example set from a reckless bunch of despots. She should have been thrown to the wolves long ago. These people need to made examples of NOT given second chances without good reason.
It’s such a shameful blot on the countries image. Pristine clear water, untouched white sands and the HIGHEST TRAJECTORY OF HIV IN THE WORLD…..hmmm what’s wrong with that picture?!
And now 7 bars of cocaine have gone missing from the exhibit room at the H court house!
Lord have mercy on the nation…WTF is that country coming to? Did the weed bonking minister run out of stash and send for someone to raid exhibit A out of desperation that she couldn’t face another round of meetings whilst in a fully sober state of mind? I heard she was outed in another video that is circulating getting bent over by the son in law of another member of parliament…Man o man you couldn’t script this shit in a horror flick…and if you did it would have the Nation running for the Exits!!
I previously commented here that I couldn’t remember a single good thing this Government had done. Thinking about what I actually remember them doing, three things stand out.
1. Israel.
As Israel continues to face enormous international condemnation over Gaza, Fiji has gone in the opposite direction, opening an embassy in Jerusalem and approving an Israeli embassy in Suva. What is Fiji’s longstanding obsession with Israel? I remember Fijians making trips to the so-called Promised Land for years, then we had that specially chartered Fiji Airways flight taking hundreds of Fijians to Israel. Now this relationship has become part of our foreign policy too.
2. Climate change.
Seriously, how much more conferencing, travelling, hosting, eating, drinking, talking and planning do we need while problems at home get worse? Increasingly it seems to be about accessing more climate money while everyone conferences away about a force of nature already unfolding around us.
Meanwhile there is a much more direct connection between drugs and Fiji’s HIV crisis. Our health system is struggling. Education is deteriorating, teachers and skilled people keep leaving the country. HIV, drugs, hospitals, crime and education are affecting Fijians right now. Where is the same urgency?
3. Australia and Vuvale.
I really recommend watching ABC Foreign Correspondent’s Cartel Paradise and Narco Islands. Drugs are moving from the Americas through Pacific countries towards the very lucrative Australian and New Zealand markets, and Fiji is suffering the consequences along the way.
Australia is smart. Helping Fiji stop transnational drugs also helps Australia stop those drugs reaching Australia. Fair enough. That’s what governments are supposed to do, protect their own people.
But is Fiji being equally smart about Fiji’s interests?
Australia supports our education system while we continue losing teachers and skilled people overseas. Australia also requires HIV testing for permanent visa applicants aged 15 and over. HIV doesn’t automatically mean refusal, but Australia quite reasonably protects its own interests.
And since Australia is our very close Vuvale, I’d genuinely like to know what it thinks about Fiji potentially moving away from secularism. Australia has marriage equality. Penny Wong is openly gay, married to a woman, and has visited Fiji repeatedly while helping deepen this relationship.
So if Fiji moves towards constitutionally privileging Christianity, where does Australia stand? What about LGBT Fijians, and everyone else who doesn’t fit somebody else’s definition of a Christian state? We hear “shared values” all the time. Surely these are shared values too?
And now CNN is telling the world about Fiji’s HIV crisis just as Fiji prepares to host Pre-COP. Instead of the usual international story about Fiji and climate change, visiting journalists have another Fiji story sitting right in front of them.
And don’t forget tourism. LGBT people travel. Buddhists, Hindus and Muslims travel. Atheists and agnostics travel. And Gen Z travels too, a generation far less attached to organised religion than those before it. Fiji sells itself to the world as this safe, welcoming paradise for everyone.
Drugs, an escalating HIV crisis and a health system struggling to cope are already grim enough international headlines for a country that depends so heavily on tourism. And then there are the hypochondriacs among us! If CNN is telling 150 million people about Fiji’s HIV crisis and our hospitals struggling to cope, imagine what Dr Google is going to tell an anxious traveller researching their next tropical holiday. Not exactly the tourism campaign Fiji was hoping for.
In my opinion, the proof has been shouted from the rooftops: a government bereft of principles, blinded by self-interest and driven by greed.
And unfortunately, Fiji—as a country and a people—is paying the price of our collective choices.
We romanticise our values and taboos, yet the reality tells another story: alarming NCDs, HIV, crime and growing social ills. Overindulgence, lack of restraint, denial and the lies we tell ourselves eventually have consequences.
Wake up, Fiji.
We are the sum of the choices we make—governments, families and individuals alike. We cannot control everything, but we can take responsibility for what we can control and stop passing the buck.
The good news is that we can still change course.
It’s time to cut back. It’s time to take responsibility. It’s time for change.
If the government want an Itaukei majority they better act fast because otherwise their share of the vote will drop off as the death rate from aids takes off .