Let’s get one thing straight, Dear Reader. I am not condemning the charges laid against Frank Bainimarama and Sitiveni Qiliho for allegedly inciting mutiny in the RFMF. If crimes have been committed, justice must obviously take its course.
But it is legitimate and certainly in the public interest to raise a number of questions about the timing of these charges based on what we already know, which is what I did yesterday and has upset some of Grubsheet’s readers.
For a start, we have all been here before 15 years ago – when the former Land Force Commander, Brigadier General Pita Driti and his co-accused, Lieutenant Colonel Tevita Uluilakeba Mara were charged with uttering seditious comments and inciting mutiny against Frank Bainimarama when he was RFMF Commander.
History records that Pita Driti was sent to jail for five years. Yet to this day, Tevita Mara still hasn’t been brought to justice. He escaped to Tonga and spent a decade evading the law until the Coalition government allowed him to return to Fiji with a clean slate and Mara was eventually installed as the Tui Nayau, the high chief of Lau.
Yes, one rule for the goose and one for the little black duck. Or one rule for commoners and one rule for the chiefs. Either way, so much for consistency when it comes to RFMF personnel shooting their mouths off. It may be the usual collective amnesia in Fiji but it is certainly something that has passed unnoticed in the current debate about the charges laid against Frank Bainimarama and Sitiveni Qiliho.
But let’s examine the issue of timing. Take a look at the following extract from Victor Lal‘s latest article over at Fijileaks and especially the time frame in which these alleged offences occurred.
So over a six month period from January 1 to July 31, 2023, Frank Bainimarama allegedly sent Viber messages to Brigadier General Manoa Gadai urging him to remove the RFMF Commander.
Those messages – presuming they were retained – are hard evidence against Bainimarama, who does all his communications on Viber, so much so that he is less like “Tiberius with a telephone” – a term the Australian leader, Gough Whitlam, once used to describe someone overbearing – but Tiberius with a telephone and a Viber account.
But why is there a six month window here? Were there multiple Viber messages? Because surely the precise dates of these offending messages could have been included in the charge sheet if only to make it more convincing.
On the second charge, the window isn’t six months but one month – that between July 1 and July 31, 2023, Frank Bainimarama and Sitiveni Qiliho allegedly incited three senior RFMF officers – Atunaisi Vakatale, Aseri “Rocky” Rokoura and Viliame Draunibaka – to “unlawfully arrest and take over the authority of the Commander”.
The ABC ‘s Lice Movono has reported that the alleged offence occurred at a “grog session”. That’s one hell of a grog session. These were trusted former colleagues of Bainimarama, especially Rocky Rokoura. Insiders. So perhaps there was more than one grog session. Yet again, the lack of precision about dates is eye-brow raising.
What is even more unusual – as Grubsheet observed yesterday – is why it has taken three years for all of this to surface and for formal charges to be laid. Because it comes at the precise time when Frank Bainimarama is making a return to politics as founding member of a new party that is about to seek official registration to contest the coming elections.
Here are some unanswered questions for which we will certainly be looking for answers at the upcoming trials.
1/ When did Manoa Gadai tell Kalouniwai about his six month-long Viber exchanges with Frank Bainimarama about getting rid of him? Was it at the time or more recently?
2/ When did Vakatale, Rokoura and Draunibaka tell Kalouniwai about their month-long conversations with Bainmarama and Sitiveni Qiliho? Was it at the time or more recently?
3/ How long has Kalouniwai been aware that Bainimarama and Qiliho were plotting against him? Was it back in 2023 or more recently? Or has all of this only reached the rest of us and the courts because an election is looming and Bainimarama is planning something of a political comeback?
These are all legitimate questions under the circumstances. Because six-month long Viber exchanges and month-long grog sessions are one thing. Waiting three years to move against the man who got more votes in the 2022 election than anybody else is quite another.
If Grubsheet is suspicious about the timing of all of this, a great many other Fijians will be too. And we have every right to be.
And a final question. How must the Tui Nayau, Ratu Tevita Mara, be feeling about the arrests of Bainimarama and Sitiveni Qiliho when he was charged with precisely the same offence in 2011 and got away with it?
Oh to be a fly on the wall at Mara’s chiefly home in Lakeba. And at the Bainimarama family home in Suva. And up at the Camp. Oh to be a fly full stop.
POSTSCRIPT:
When I was reporting to Frank Bainimarama as Qorvis comms advisor, he would sometimes say that he was “doped” because of some grog session or other the night before.
Was it the grog speaking? Surely he must have remembered what happened to Driti and Mara when they tried to remove him?
We will find out soon enough.
UPDATE FRIDAY 1130:
Making news overseas…
Yes, 3 year delay is certainly an issue for an important national security issue. Komanda was recently happy to facilitate Bai’s cake cutting with Rambo but then some ting went wong after that joint famous cake cutting with that very big knife. Is it Bai’s new party that now puts all on knife edge?
So then, why has Rabuka not been charged? He carried out a coup in 1987 and there is more then ample evidence to show he discussed his plan with several people before he executed it.
There were individuals who knew about the 1987 coup before it happened. Why have they not been charged?
There were individuals who knew about the 2000 coup and they have never been charged as well.
The g-string wearing RFMF Commander is certainly a tool of this corrupt government as he seems to be willingly assisting this government to engage in corruption and racial oppression. As someone quite rightly stated yesterday that the bloke doesn’t have a shred of professionalism or a moral compass, given he ran off with a young sheila, leaving his own children and wife to fend for themselves.
1. Fiji’s president – a pedophile/rapist and China’s native poodle
2. Rabuka – known (well-documented) womaniser and philanderer
3. Kalouniwai – g-string wearing regime apologist, lacking the spine to behave like a true soldier and hold this government to account for its seditious actions
4. Tudravu – another “full chow” regime apologist hired to ensure cases against the government, other elitist iTaukeis, chiefs and “friends” of Rabuka never get to prosecution.
Our chiefs, government officials, rugby stars, soldiers etc. will do anything for King Charles, who says “the law must take its course” in response to his brother’s arrest. And our response in turn is “tabu, that’s the Vulagi way”!
The chiefs have used Rabuka a commoner for their gain. Perhaps Rabuka has not realized that to date as he hobbles about weary, sick and burdened with the curses of his country. Frank another commoner is a threat now. So what do they do. Use rats from within FMF to bring about the downfall of fiji (commoners again)
The people are speaking up on their chiefs and the chiefs don’t like that. That Mara falla recently asked his people to do a traditional reconciliation after 3 teachers were attacked. Imagine that. Everything now is a diversion except for 400 or so voices on social media behaving like thugs. People go and read Fijileaks and Richard Naidu’s comments on sedition. Don’t jump about with glee just because Frank and Qiliho were arrested.
Watch this 2024 video of RFMF Commander Kalouniwai telling media he was asked to remove someone ..oopos Sorry Grubs doesnt have fb account.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1690312757895725/permalink/4119717484955228/?mibextid=rS40aB7S9Ucbxw6v
The Commander didn’t mention any names, and importantly FRANK’S name is not mentioned. Neither is relevant context divulged by KALOUNIWAI.
So it could have also been that someone from the coalition, the GCC or a lackey benefactor was requesting KALOUNIWAI to remove men loyal to Frank.
Because he didn’t want to ask for forgiveness when the reconciliation drive at RFMF was going on, didn’t want to participate in the Truth & Reconciliation Committee.
To top it off, still haven’t learnt his lesson appearing with his smart kaidia to open a garage. Just goes to show how stupid he is. Cannot read the game. The Fijian don’t want him and he can rot in jail along with his advisor.
Non-participation at the bullsh*t TRC and not seeking forgiveness is not tantamount to a legitimate reason contrary to what you are alluding to.
More so, that smart kaidia you are referring to will forever remain one of the most intelligent and well spoken AGs Fiji ever had. None of these Clowns who “err” “mmm” each time they open their mouth in the current govt come nowhere close to his level of intelligence – including you and your intellectually devoid comment.
Well well well..there shouldn’t be any doubt now that the military owns the state..rather than the state owning the military.
It’s been this way since the grandfather of military coups in Fiji, Rabuka, removed the legitimate democratically elected government of the late Dr Timoci Bavadra.
That happened when the state actually owned the military before Rabuka did his dirty deed. The country has remained “dirty” ever since.
Every government election vis-a-vis 2000 and 2006 in my opinion has been illegitimate ever since.
And we have been kidding ourselves that true democracy had been restored at a certain point in time with all those general elections the country has held.
Rabuka, Biman, Aiyaz Khaiyum, the Coalition every single politician, the Parliament, the President…every government since 1987 have all been farcical.
May I pose this question..Is Fiji heading towards becoming a failed state?
Cry the beloved country!!
So help me understand this.
Three-and-a-half years ago, Frank Bainimarama is allegedly sitting around drinking grog with senior military figures. During that session, someone—still unnamed—floats the idea that the only solution left is to remove Kalouniwai. Yeah, I smell a big kalavo.
What follows, we’re told, is six months of Viber messages involving Frank, discussing how this might be done, and by whom, interspersed with further grog sessions, I’m assuming. It just doesn’t ring true with me.
The timing of all this is just a little too convenient. And in true Fiji fashion, instead of dealing with things openly and properly, it starts to look like the problem is simply removed by whatever means are available.
I’m buying none of it.
The definition of inciting to mutiny under s 131 is crucial in this case, it is being used loosely by the prosecution without a legal interpretation of that word.
We all are guilty of inciting by our venting against the COI military stance if we take the literal meaning as the persecution has.
Does a person of Frank and Qiliho stature when calling for action for racial violence that was being perpetrated during the 2022 elections become inciting, just as anyone making such a call to the commander. GD your post on the commander just as mine would be incitement to mutiny.
We eagerly await your Intel on Charters being arrested…….