The Prime Minister, Sitiveni Rabuka, sat in the audience for Professor Anthony James Regan‘s lecture on changing the Constitution at FNU last week taking the occasional note but giving nothing away – his face as inscrutable as a poker player.
As speculation rages about what changes the Coalition wants to make to the 2013 Constitution, the Prime Minister has studiously avoided taking any public position. Can we assume that he wants to complete the agenda he began in 1987 of enforcing indigenous supremacy by altering the key elements of the 2013 Constitution – the common and equal citizenry ( everyone equal), the common identity (everyone a Fijian ) and a secular state ( no one religion favoured by the State)? He isn’t saying. But he owes it to Fiji’s minorities in particular to declare his hand.
But how did the man who throttled democracy in his two coups of 1987 feel as he heard Professor Regan denounce Section 131 of the Constitution that gives the RFMF the role of protecting the security and well being of the entire nation? Again the PM remained totally inscrutable.
Yet here’s a fascinating vignette that seems to have escaped Professor Regan and that Sitiveni Rabuka would undoubtedly rather we all forget – that he personally supported such a role for the military when he was its commander 34 years ago.
Here’s what the 2013 Constitution – the current supreme law – says about the role of the RFMF that has become a prime cause of contention and has triggered a clamour for it to be abolished.
But raica na ka oqo, Fiji. Here’s what the 1990 Constitution said about the role of the military when Rabuka was RFMF Commander and before he made his move into politics that has brought us all to where we are today.
See that, Fiji? Almost precisely the same wording across a span of 23 years. ” IT SHALL BE THE OVERALL RESPONSIBILITY OF THE REPUBLIC OF FIJI MILITARY FORCES TO ENSURE AT ALL TIMES THE SECURITY, DEFENCE AND WELL BEING OF FIJI AND ITS PEOPLES”
And yet we are now being led to believe by Professor What’s His Name and his local fan club that Clause 131 of the 2013 Constitution was a construct of the evil duumvirate – Frank Bainimarama and Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum – to serve their own purposes. For God’s sake, they used the same clause that Sitiveni Rabuka imposed 23 years before.
It was lifted straight from the 1990 Constitution with “Fiji and its peoples” changed to “Fiji and all Fijians”. Because back then, of course, only the iTaukei were Fijians as far as Rabuka and his ilk were concerned. Whereas to their eternal credit, Bainimarama and Khaiyum insisted we are all Fijian, irrespective of ethnicity.
What has changed? Well back then, Sitiveni Rabuka was RFMF Commander and would have played a major role in formulating the 1990 clause. But now that he is the Prime Minister three decades on, of course he doesn’t want the military to have the power he insisted on holding himself in another galaxy a long, long time ago.
When the absurd current shadow-boxing about constitutional change gives way to a genuine debate about precisely what changes the Coalition wants, let’s hope the gormless media questions the Prime Minister about his glaring about face.
He relies on the notoriously short memories of Fijian voters and a generation which simply wasn’t around in 1990. Yet as he sat there listening to the Professor demolishing the constitutional justification of the military being the ultimate guardians of the people, did he feel even the slightest pang of conscience that he was once a champion for the very same thing?
Of course not. The Snake has shed his skin so many times and made so many hollow “apologies” that he knows he will get away again with not being exposed for his hypocrisy. He may be able to rely on the supine current Commander of the RFMF to fall into line and agree to removing the military’s core Constitutional obligation. But let the RFMF and the Fijian people again know that Sitiveni Rabuka is a hypocrite who bends with the wind and doesn’t practice what he preaches.
He probably thought he could get away with this one. Alas, history has caught up with him.
———————
The Professor specifically condemned Clause 131 without seeming to realise that it has almost precisely the same wording as the 1990 Constitution, when Sitiveni Rabuka was Commander of the RFMF.
How must it feel to be sitting in the audience (bottom right) nurturing your little secret in the knowledge that no-one else is likely to remember.
What Professor Regan said:
Rambo in his prime. Longevity in abundance but history shows that consistency is not his greatest point. Except, of course, in his single-minded determination to establish indigenous supremacy while pretending to govern for all Fijians.
The ‘I gave myself the authority to do the coup’ self promoted Brigadier is a “use it or lose it” kinda person.
There only yo use public coffers for self promotion and enrichment. For someone who promotes himself as looking after the interests of the itukei people, his policies have failed them all. After years of giving preferential treatment, scholarships and draining out banks how much better has he made life for the people he promised to help.
He won’t have the support to change the constitution let alone stay long in parliament. People have seen it all about him.
Sitiveni needs to be removed from power.
Sitiveni Rabuka, sat in the audience for Professor Anthony James Regan’s lecture and he sat same way at ten o’clock on 14th May 1987 in Parliament at Government buildings in Suva until the gunman barged in.
He also lectured those parliamentarians as well.
Rest is history.
Moce!
The masked gunmen who stormed in and took Bavadra hostage on 14 May 1987 was led by a current ‘crossbencher’ in the Fiji parliament. The coup leader also sits in parliament.
The more important issue here is the Immunity clause. It allows the next coup leader to rock up and demand that he be also included in the list of other coup luminaries.
Constitution should have coup makers or supporters including any businesses will face firing squad at Nukulau Island.
Gunman is the right word even though they were soldiers with RFMF uniform.
A true and loyal soldier should be protecting it’s democratically elected government and it’s people.
Those dozen of them were cowards in mask who sold their souls for some pieces of silver.
They were not dozens but hundreds.
Look at the photos of the ones training in Rabuka’s biography.
Bastards. Rabuka should be with Speight and Bainimarama. All must be sent to prison.
U are forgetting one crucial element: the Chairman of the Constitutional Review Commission that saw the birth of the 1990 Constitution was the late Colonel Paul Manueli, a former RFMF Commander who recruited Rabuka.
Manueli, like Rabuka, was pro the chiefly establishment. It’s an open secret in Fiji that in the 1977 political crisis when the Governor General Rt Sir George Cakobau intervened and reinstated Ratu Mara to lead a minority govt after his Alliance Party fell at the polls, Colonel Manueli had been preparing his soldiers to assume power.
Rabuka would have been a junior officer then and would have been an active participant. So Section 131, Rabuka’s decree that you cite plus its replica in the 1990 Constitution merely brings to the fore what has already been in existence within the RFMF from the earliest of times.
It ties up well with Rabuka’s 2014 admission to Dr Sue Onslow in Suva that Fiji Leaks reminded us of in a post in December 2023 that tells how Rabuka quietly went about preparing for his 1987 coup after his two senior officers, Nalitkau and Sanday refused to carry out Rt Mara’s edict for the 1970 Constitution to be changed. This occurred at a time when the nation was again drawn into a crisis after Rt Mara’s Alliance Party yet again lost the election.
Two important lessons we learn from this, For Fiji to progress to reach its true potential as a nation, we gotta abolish the RFMF like Costa Rica did successfully, though maybe keeping a navy to police our borders and second, we must abandon the GCC and rebuild the nation on democratic principles.
I know it would be contrary to the Grahaeme Leong:Jone Baledrokadroka GCC-Plus thesis, but it is essential if the country is to transition smoothly to a sound future. We must look forward, not backwards.
@ Janus
Nonsense. Are you able to substantiate that in 1977 Manueli was preparing soldiers for a coup? Come on man, Manueli was much smarter than that. He also had British and NZ Army officers on his staff who would have deterred him.
Ratu Mara did not issue an edict for a change to the 1970 Constitution. Go ask Colonel Sanday who is currently here in Suva doing Review for Government. He was the only professional officer at the time who remained loyal to his Oath.
Do you know the difference between Costa Rica and Fiji? Go do some research. It will educate you and make you realise your comparison is based on ignorance.
Any solution that does not take account of the perceptions and values of the indigenous Fijian community is bound to fail. For them democracy is a ‘foreign flower’ as stated by Adi Finau Tabukaucoro in 1987.
Moce Jo
Forgetfulness is not only with our ageing PM but also with younger and overly ambitious politicians like Siromi, who should be an embarrassed son of Lomaiviti. Anthony Sahai nails it when he blasts the Coalition’s recent “Lavish party” in today’s Fiji Times, ending his letter with, “Meanwhile, the Levuka Hospital has been without a mortuary for seven months now.” What an achievement, among others, for the forgetful PM and his greedy lot to celebrate at the GPH!
The bitch and rapist of everything Fijian is Rabuka. The land, the culture, the banks, the people, the Constitution, and now dragging RFMF.
He lied and the i-taukei followed.
The change is here to hit them on their faces.
A lie all along.
Whoever trusts this man and his line of MPs and ministers must hang their heads in shame.
History doesn’t lie about this man and it will keep repeating itself if one gives him the place to thrive. His apologies are meaningless.
Rabuka will have staged a consultative process to facilitate his agenda, then calmly distance himself from the decision and any responsibility, as he has done all along this term. No transparency, all covert, true to his nature.
Kudos to you Graham for displaying a greater degree of journalistic objectivity that our media outlets chronically lack.
The nature of the circle; what goes around come around. Rabuka’s conscience will be haunting and tormenting him big time. This alone will determine the character of the man.
In all the apologising etc that he has done left right & center…i wonder if there will ever come a time that he can be man enough to apologise to those like me whose daddys were under his command during the 87 coup. I saw and heard stuff that i should not have at a young age back than. That 87 coup changed my Dad & me as well. It was traumatic!
The damage 87 coup and others that followed was like a atomic bomb that struck Fiji.
Till to date Fiji hasn’t recovered.
Mentally, spiritually, physically and economically .
It will haunt the many generations to come.
The word Kaindia and Kaiviti is cemented.
The simplest way to amend the Constitution is to replace it with one drawn up by the current Government, ably supported by the ‘Independent Members’ (formerly Fiji First).
That way you don’t have to have a vote on any individual section of the existing Constitution. Just a vote on a wholesale replacement. I am sure the new Attorney General, advised by the self appointed ‘Constitutional Expert’ from Australia could easily produce a draft, based on the previous versions and are probably well advanced with a draft.
The current PM and some existing MPs are well versed in the previous (they wrote) and will no doubt provide ‘expert’ advice on what the new version should contain or perhaps not contain!
One can be certain that the causes related to the RMF and immunity will appear in any version.
The question is how do you convince 75% or more of the electorate to vote for any proposed amendment? Does the current electoral legislation cover a referendum? If it does not then seperate legislation would be required. A perfect opportunity for the Government and their supporters to define who could vote? Hmmm….. Is that a possibility?
We will soon know I think.
A nation deserves the leaders it has. For Indo-Fijians, when choosing between two evils, always choose the one that has done less damage to the community. And never listen to someone whose name can be converted to mean Traitor (Baiman) by inserting an alphabet or in Hindi a ‘matra’. You deserve what you’re about to get.
What a jolly mess we’re in. A PM who had no other option to use taxpayer monies for a junket while the doctors and nurses are crying for consumables. A finance minister who has completely lost the plot and is putting his name to papers so that he has a future in academia and consulting after he is freed of his misery in two years.
In a real true democracy the State has the military.
Since 1987 the MILITARY has had the STATE!!
Instead of having the responsibility to ensure the overall security, defense and well being of the people, the miltary has been providing security for communalism, ethnonationalism and apartheid/racism.
This military madman coupist and treasonist has the majority of the elite iTaukei hailing him as their hero since 1987!
They didn’t even bother when Immunity Rabuka unceremoniously declared Fiji a republic as well.
The NFP enabled the falsehood under which we have been living when it agreed to include the immunity clause in the 1990 consitution for political expediency.
And with the gutless mute Biman it still continues to do so while IndoFijians and minorities gradually get regulated to being second class citizens.
And it’s been 37 years since we’ve been living under such false pretences and also under the Bainimarama/Khaiyum dictatorship as a consequence of the military coups of 1987.
One can only wonder as to when all this falsehood is going to end.
Indians as second-class citizens?
What hogwash !
They are now sitting at the top table while other ethnic minority groups have been pushed under table by the 2013 Constitution.
GD lives in the comforts of Oz and tenaciously defends a Constitution that was designed in a smoke-filled back room by a cigar-smoking card playing cabal with their own longevity in mind.
Fiji deserves better.