There’s a striking passage in the speech Sitiveni Rabuka made to the UN General Assembly that is definitive proof of the chasm between what he says and what he does and the manner in which he is hoodwinking the Fijian people. And now that he is back from his personally lucrative swing through Solomon Islands, Israel and New York – having pocketed thousands of dollars in extra allowances – he needs a little quiet time to himself to reflect on the hollowness of what he told the world.
“We cannot compromise on truth, love, faith and justice”? What an appalling exercise in hypocrisy when Sitiveni Rabuka and the shambles of a government he leads has taken lying to the people to Orwellian proportions, displays love only for their supporters, has betrayed the faith of those who voted for them and has mounted a full-blown attack on the integrity of the criminal justice system.
Let’s just examine each of these in detail as they apply to one very brave individual who took a personal stand for truth and justice yet who the Prime Minister has abandoned – Francis Puleiwai, the former acting deputy commissioner for FICAC who is now in exile in New Zealand and, along with her chief investigator, Kuliniasi Saumi, are the principal victims of the sordid Barbara Malimali affair.
TRUTH:
Sitiveni Rabuka has lied to the Fijian people by telling them that the Chief Justice, Salesi Temo, is not the subject of a police investigation into Francis Puleiwai’s complaint against him that he perverted the course of justice – a complaint already endorsed by the Ashton-Lewis Commission of Inquiry – when he relayed a message to her that no case she brought would be heard by any court in Fiji.
Grubsheet understands that a police investigation IS proceeding into Salesi Temo. Why can’t the Prime Minister tell the truth about it? Undoubtedly because until Temo is removed and his influence over the ODPP comes to an end, no police docket is going to get beyond his gatekeepers, the Acting DPP, Nancy Tikoisuva and her Deputy, John Rabuku.
The Prime Minister had to lie to cover up his lack of action in suspending the Chief Justice for misbehaviour when the evidence is all there and is not “hearsay” but was recorded on tape by Kuliniasi Saumi. And we now have the debacle and very clear threat to the government’s political fortunes of the presiding Judge in Temo’s application for a judicial review against the COI’s findings, Justice Dane Tuiqereqere, saying that the case will not be heard until next year. Election year.
LOVE:
What love has the Prime Minister shown to Francis Puleiwai? He reached out to her in the aftermath of the CoI having cleared her of any wrongdoing offering to enable her to return to Fiji and be reinstated in her job. Most Fijians would agree that Pulaiwai at least deserves that much, if not significant financial compensation for the appalling injustice that has been done to her.
What has happened instead? The Prime Minister took exception to Francis Puleiwai doing what HE should have done – publicly calling for Salesi Temo’s suspension and lodging a police complaint against him – and said the offer of her being able to return to her job was withdrawn.
Why? The Commission of Inquiry has found that she was unlawfully removed. Barbara Malimali – who was parachuted into FICAC to shut down the cases that Puleiwai and her team were pursuing against a string of government ministers, including the two deputy Prime Ministers, Biman Prasad and Manoa Kamikamica – is gone. The law should have by now taken its course and the CoI recommendation that Puleiwai be reinstated ought to have been implemented.
Instead, Francis Puleiwai remains in exile in New Zealand. She cannot return to Fiji because Salesi Temo is actively pursuing her in the courts and she is under threat of immediate arrest. Why? For doing her job. She has little or no money and is separated from family and friends. And she now has no choice but to try to obtain formal asylum in New Zealand so that she can get another job there and get on with her life.
Is that your idea of love, Prime Minister?
FAITH:
Faith in the government to do the right thing has collapsed across a broad front. The Prime Minister and the President continue to refuse to suspend Salesi Temo when it is clear to everyone else but them that someone accused of serious criminal conduct cannot be allowed to remain at the pinnacle of the judiciary.
Temo has been accused of obstructing and perverting the course of justice by a Supreme Court Judge yet is still dispensing justice himself. It is a gross perversion in itself – a view shared and expressed publicly by every opposition politician in Fiji. But what does the Prime Minister do? Nothing.
The substantive DPP, Christopher Pryde, also remains in the job of chief prosecutor yet has been sidelined and subjected to trumped up charges that were already dealt with by three High Court Judges. Why won’t Salesi Temo suspend him again if he thinks he is guilty of those charges and put him before three more High Court judges?
You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to work that out. Temo knows that Pryde will again be exonerated. So we have the extraordinary spectacle of an Assistant DPP in the form of Laisani Tabuakoro – who Pryde rightly dismissed – prejudicing the trial of Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum by expressing the view on Facebook that it is a matter of “when”, not “if”, the former AG is convicted. And Tabuakoro is still allowed to remain as a senior prosecutor.
No, Prime Minister. There is no faith in the criminal justice system under your government. You have systematically presided over the erosion and destruction of that faith.
JUSTICE:
There is no proper justice in Fiji when the criminal justice system has been so degraded from the top down.
- The Prime Minister told Justice David Ashton-Lewis that he wanted him to “remove the crocodiles from the pond” Yet after an inquiry that has cost the taxpayer millions, the crocodiles are still in place. And they are fighting back, again using public money to do so.
- It is Justice Ashton-Lewis who has had the blowtorch turned on him and will have to defend himself in court – the extraordinary spectacle of a member of the Supreme Court, Fiji’s highest, appearing before a judge of lesser status, Justice Tuiqereqere, and facing the prospect of all his findings being trashed. Yes, Fiji. The crocodiles are winning.
You call that justice, Prime Minister?
On all four counts – TRUTH, LOVE, FAITH and JUSTICE, it is a big fail. And yet you have the gall to get up in the UN General Assembly and preach these principles as virtues that the whole world should embrace when you have so glaring ignored them yourself.
By rights, the Prime Minister should be returning to Fiji in disgrace. Fortunately, the opposition parties are now onto him and all these issues will now form part of their campaigns to dislodge the Coalition at the election.
We were at least spared the sight of Lynda Tabuya posing with the Prime Minister in his brief photo call with Donald Trump. That would have been simply too much altogether. But the sight of Sitiveni Rabuka on his feet at the UN podium preaching virtues to the world that he has so blatantly abandoned would have been sickening for any Fijian with an ounce of integrity and judgment.
We are all Francis Puleiwai at this moment. Betrayed. Spare a thought for her and Kuliniasi Saumi. Because they are living, breathing examples of iTaukei with integrity who have had their rights trampled on by a government that pretends to stand up for the rights of the iTaukei but only those iTaukei it chooses to have on the gravy train that passes for proper governance in Rabuka’s Fiji and powers merrily on.
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What the police are now investigating – Francis Puleiwai’s complaint against the Chief Justice.
Grubsheet’s last article on Francis Puleiwai…
No doubt that the sheer irony and hypocrisy is lost not only on Rolex Rambuke, but on his mindless, blind and deaf supporters.
In Fiji, everything is defined by racism and a racially charged view that allows Rampuke to ride roughshod. In the 1990s it was a less pliant media, a stronger opposition and international pressure especially from Australia and New Zealand that ruptured his reign. Now geopolitics allows him to ride a tractor over love, faith and justice with a fawning ethnonationalist mass and an unquestioning international community pressing flesh and breaking bread with this evil, evil beast.
Coalition of the unwilling is the laughing stock of the diaspora.
Rabuka should be ashamed of himself standing next to that wannabe dictator.
Pity the escalator hadn’t stopped abruptly as he was getting on!
He needs his walking stick shoved up his you know where. Bloody useless primate.
What has he ever done for Fiji and Fijians in the last 40 years? So why is he still around? What the f*ck are the people of Fiji thinking – Unless all the primates stick together.
And the aider and abetter of all these shenanigans, Biman Baiman Prasad, tells parliament this week how his government has done so well with its record $4bn tax collected.
He omits to say that when his government has been spending all those borrowed funds around in the economy – more than $800m this year – it’s not rocket science: of course, there will be a larger pool of tax to draw from.
Further analysis may reveal that the record $4b tax collected has a significant portion from previous financial years that Tax dept has been better resourced and focused on to collect arrears and close loopholes of dileberate tax evasion. And this may not be repeated in future if collection of arrears are fully achieved.
However the new measures taken by Tax dept to widen the net for tax collection are commendable efforts to make sure non taxpayers become taxpayers and give to Caesar what is due.
Hi Grubsheet, can you explain the Mr & Mrs Trump photo with Mr and Mrs Rabuka. There are hundreds of similar photos on the Web the Trumps posing with other delegates at UN Convention and both of their poses are exactly same.
Perhaps they have been mass produced from the same photo and the foreigners have just been inserted digitally? Nothing would surprise me anymore.
Strange, even Australian PMs photo, has same Trump & Mels pose..as with Rabukas picture with Trump. Unless all these people only stood beside Trump and wifes cutout poster is the only explanation which means they hoaxed us
Graham, I just saw a facebook post, it’s a hoax, Rabuka and other world leaders including PM Albo took photos of Trump and Wife , it’s a wax museum lol
Truth says Rabuka?
He could not tell the truth at any time in his miserable life. The examples of him saying one thing and doing another are too numerous to list. As I have said before, I believe nothing he says!
Love? He only loves two things, women other than his wife and money from any source.
As for faith, the only faith I have is that he will eventually die!
Justice in his world and in Fiji’s is a myth. The actions of the CJ and his cabal of followers in FICAC, ODPP and Registry are well documented and continue. The people of Fiji will see no justice whilst Rabuka is in Government.