For anyone with a long memory and a healthy dose of scepticism, there was something decidedly unsettling about Jone Kalouniwai‘s “reconciliation” love-in up at the Camp yesterday, not least because some very big military names decided to give it a miss.
There was no sign of the big three former military officers in the parliament – the Opposition Leader, Inia Seruiratu, the former RFMF Commander and Kalouniwai’s predecessor, Viliame Naupoto, or the former Secretary of the Military Council, Ioane Naivalurua. Why did they choose not to turn up?
Could it be that they shared the opinion of many Fijians that the teary matanigasau ( tradition apology) was more an exercise in spin than genuine contrition and they were having none of it? Yes, Readers, I know, I know. As a non iTaukei, I will never understand. But to have three military heavy-hitters now in the parliament absent from the event was always going to raise eyebrows.
And of course there was the Invisible Man who hovered over the proceedings like Banquo’s ghost – Frank Bainimarama, the former RFMF commander and prime minister, who is behind bars at Korovou but who will be out soon enough and without whom any reconciliation just isn’t going to happen.
And where were Bainimarama’s most ardent loyalists? Sitiveni Qiliho, of course, is in the slammer with him and Penioni (Ben) Naliva and Aseri “Rocky”Rokoura have been sent to Australia to be under the watchful eye of the ADF. But the point is there were just too many big guns absent for Jone’s love-in to be totally convincing. And this also included the former president, RFMF commander and staunch Bainimarama supporter, Ratu Epeli Nailatikau.
And then there was the sight of Sitiveni Rabuka, the Prime Minister and first rapist of democracy, up at the Camp a week after the Coalition freed George Speight, the leader of the 2000 rebellion, and Shane Stevens, who led the mutiny in the RFMF in the same year in which three loyalist soldiers were murdered in cold blood.
Now how do we all feel, Fiji, about Rabuka being at the Camp as an honoured guest when we know that, by Shane Stevens’s account, he wanted Frank Bainimarama removed as commander in 2000, appeared at the height of the firefight with his uniform in the car and is still suspected of being involved in the mutiny? Come to think of it, Shane Stevens also wasn’t there yesterday. But perhaps that would have been a bridge too far.
Rabuka’s shameless chutzpah never ceases to amaze. Nor does his shameless use of the Christian scriptures to add a veneer of respectability to his temporal manoeuvrings. Frank Bainimarama got him in one. Rabuka really is the “Snake”. And once again, he has a verse from the Bible ready to pull from his pocket for any event.
The latest goes like this : “Yes, I might have benefited more than anyone else by using the RFMF as a vehicle to rape democracy but that is all the past. Look at 2 Corinthians 5:17. The old has passed away; behold the new has come!”
Seriously. Where are the lions when we need them? This guy really gives Christianity a bad name.
But of course, this was an exclusively Christian event and attended exclusively by iTaukei, with a bit of Rotuman (Jioji Konrote) and Kailoma (Francis Kean) thrown in. Yes, the RFMF is almost exclusively iTaukei so that’s to be expected. But for anyone with a sense of history and that healthy dose of scepticism, here are a few of the takeouts from yesterday:
1/ The upheavals of the last four decades have had nothing to do with the minorities. We were in no way a threat to the iTaukei yet they upended the national furniture pretending that we were when it was always, in truth, a grubby tussle for power among the iTaukei elite.
2/ Even when iTaukei were in the minority in Fiji, we were not a threat. And when tens of thousands of Indo-Fijians and others left in the wake of the coups, the threat evaporated altogether. Yet we are still scapegoats as the iTaukei elites continue to elbow each other for the national spoils.
3/ For non iTaukei, the sight of Jone Kalouniwai having a truth and reconciliation love-in is neither here nor there. Let the iTaukei have their matanigasau. Because it is about them being sorry for what they have done to each other and what they have done to the nation, not what we – the “vulagi” – have done to them.
4/ No, the really worrying thing for Fiji’s minorities is that the RFMF is meant to be the last bastion of defence against the tyranny of the majority in Fiji lording it over the “vulagi” and depriving us of our equal rights and common identity. Section 131 of the Constitution requires Jone Kalouniwai to “defend the wellbeing of all Fijians”. But he is now specifically ruling out doing so and leaving the way open for a third of the nation to be at the mercy of the indigenous supremacists who have control of the parliament and Fiji’s institutions.
So we’re sorry, Jone, if the rest of us are underwhelmed by your “sorry” pantomime up at the Camp. The fact that you couldn’t get all the major players there “raises questions about the depth of unity in the military’s ranks” – as the Fiji Sun so aptly puts it in its editorial today. So if this was an exercise in reassuring everyone that all is hunky dory in the RFMF and in the new Fiji, it is decidedly less than convincing, even to many of your own supporters.
Worse, with the likes of George Speight and Shane Stevens now out on the streets and the military under your leadership pledging to stay out of politics, the minorities suddenly feel very vulnerable indeed.
Biman Prasad is just the latest member of the leadership team to tell us there is nothing to worry about (see below). Yet given Fiji’s sorry history and the way the “vulagi” have always been scapegoats, the more we’re told not to worry, the more anxious many of us become.
“Embrace hope”? The more they told us not to worry, the more anxious we became.
Today’s Fiji Sun editorial. Naisa Koroi on the money again.
On another subject, the Fiji Sun also confirms that Pita Wise was removed as the Prime Minister’s right hand man for sexual impropriety, not for undermining Biman Prasad as we speculated yesterday.
These allegations have been around for months. But of course, in the way of these things with this government, it has taken this long for the PM to deal with them.
My view is that the Fijian military forces of the post 1987 era is a disgrace. To the institution itself which in most countries invokes feelings pride, patriotism and appreciation of sacrifice in defending a country and it’s freedom. And an insult to the memory of those armed forces, especially on the allied forces side, who fought to rid the world in WWII of Hitler in Europe and Japanese ambitions. Mr Rabuka, Don’t even try and draw a parallel illustration, even if it is sementics, by saying Never Again as was echoed after the armistice. It is delusional to elevate the last generation of the RFMF to such almost divine status in Fijian society.
It has in the last generation been a mercenary tool of power hungry internal sectarian interests – and nothing of what a proud disciplined national defence force is expected to be.
What a load of baloney with regards to crying and hugging session at RFMF barracks. Only the short sighted will gasp in awe of the useless talanoa session and the chapel service. Why block the media from covering? Because of course there is still plenty to hide. With some of the big guns missing it’s very obvious that there is still a dirty underbelly within RFMF circles. Only time will tell what this whole crying and confessing and hugging session was all about. Hypocrites claiming to be christians. The whole bang lot needs to closely examine what it means to be called a Christian. Whole lot of cow dung that session was. Almost throwing up reading about what they all carrying on about truth and sorry and love you. Yuck!!!!!🤮
The last Christian that was in Fiji was named Ratu Epenisa Seru Cakobau. When he died Jesus packed up and left the place to Ratu and Adi Lucifer pretending to be Christian.
Satanic greedy people go to church everyday and come out with added hatred for Christ’s creation ,these being every human who is not itaukei. There is a special place reserved for these Lucifers, its called Hell aka Viti.
No media!
So much for truth and reconciliation.
This whole institution wreaks of shame and distrust.
Back to Savusavu?
Savusavu, lock your wives up, the baku is coming.
SLR n Peewee Wise, The Two Bros, small head rule the big head, one down one to go.
I do not think anybody has ever understood the Taukei better than Frank.
I am lost for words. Call it the greatest hypocrisy, irony, paradox or whatever….it is surely yet another attempt to insult the intelligence of the Fijians.
Surely all this drama, allegedly by RFMF, is designed first and foremost to give Rabuka and his merry Coalition band the lease of life they wanted. Now he can carry on without fearing any perceived or real threat from RFMF.
I am still baffled why Rabuka, who is the instigator and the perpetrator of all coups and upheavals in Fiji, and now the greatest beneficiary of all this, was part of the circus at QE Barracks. It undermines the legitimacy of the process even if it is well intentioned.
You asked about the other dons. Well Seruiratu was spotted in New York with the President’s party! He has been bought wholesale by the Coalition in case anyone has any credibility in Seruiratu and his lame utterances as a Leader of Opposition.
Rabuka’s actions matter not words which are without any authenticity and principle. Is it surprising he backtracked and has put on hold the investigation into his Ministers and into FICAC and Malimali. As is becoming clear his Ministers would have demanded this knowing how unstable and spineless their PM is.
The reality is Rabuka is a joke and has lost all credibility not just in Fiji but in the region and internationally. He is trying to gain some attention through the dubious ‘Ocean of Peace’ crusade, which ironically is already part of regional declarations like the 2050 Blue Strategy, Biktetawa, Boe and Rarotonga Declarations, just to name a few.
The only officer who remained loyal to his oath of allegiance to the Queen in 1987 and who paid a heavy personal price for it, was not there at yesterday’s “Group Hug” session at QEB. He is the guy the coupists should be reconciling with as he represents the ethical and moral Values that the RFMF forgot about in all those wretched coups.
I presume you are referring to Jim Sanday? Let’s give credit where credit is due.
It’s all a pretext for fomenting “unrest” that will result in abrogation of the constitution in order to “protect democracy”
A coup by any other name..
So, does never again mean that if a Fijian of Indian heritage is elected as PM, the power base in the ITaukei will do “never again”
Before this happens, can we at least get a girmitya to be the President of Fiji.
Because their foreskin had been done away with, it has somehow affected their brains. Bloody bunch of hypocrites
It’s usually the whole organ that affects the brain and gets blokes into trouble. 🙂
Give that organ credit…it has a brain of its own and is capable of thinking independently. Just ask our PM..
My father, uncles and many cousins served in the Fiji Army. I am ashamed for these men because they are the men of integrity and values. Rabuka is no way near what these men mean when they talk about service.
Rabuka should not even be given the chance to step foot in RFMF. Keep the bastard and his clowns out.
There are so many apologies and reconciliations it is getting boring. I would have been bored brainless after the first one. I would have been bored brainless after the first salusalu and the first kalavata. But these muthurf*ckers seem to love the crocodile tears. They cannot get enough.
The reality is, anyone of them will do a liumuri when it suits and all the crocodile tears and reconciliation and apologies will be forgotten very fast.
The real apology will be realsied when they make an Indian the PM. Do these f*ckers have the balls to really apologise and reconcile by making an Indian PM.
What say mutherf*uckers? Show us some balls and show us the truth and the real apology and the rael reconciliation, or esle all this is just fake news and a load of bullshit – Fiji style.
Bunch of wankers starting from the office of the PM.
Self entitled swine.
That is what he is. He thinks that Fijians are old fools like him. Watch the educated ones rise next election. Either that or they will vote with their feet and leave the country. They will decide Fiji’s future come next election.