Fiji has been ablaze with speculation about the seizure of weapons and ammunition from an incoming vessel, with memories of weapons shipments after the 1987 coups raising fears of a concerted attempt to stage some kind of takeover in the febrile atmosphere of the Coalition’s campaign to change the Constitution.
It turns out to be the seizure of ONE weapon – reportedly a hunting rifle – not 350 weapons, which is what the initial reports suggested. Which is something of a relief under the circumstances. Because 350 weapons would have been a different story altogether.
The police have disclosed that the weapon was imported from Tonga by a prominent chief but have refused to identify the person. Yet it hasn’t taken Einstein to figure out who it is. It is reportedly the incoming Tui Nayau, Ratu Tevita Uluilakeba Mara – also known as Roko Ului – the son of the nation’s founding prime minister, Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara, who is due to be installed as the paramount chief of Lau on July 8.
Ratu Tevita has spent much of the past 14 years in the royal household in Tonga, having fled there in 2011 on a Tongan naval vessel sent by his relative, the late King George Tupou V, to rescue him after he fell foul of Frank Bainimarama for conspiring – with Pita Driti – to remove the then military commander. He was officially a wanted man until an “arrest on sight” order against him in Fiji was lifted in 2023 by the former attorney general, Siromi Turaga.
But while Roko Ului is no longer under suspicion of importing enough weapons to start a small war, why does he need a gun at all? His chiefly seat, Tubou village in Lakeba – where Grubsheet partly grew up as a child – is a relatively quiet backwater. Presumably one gun is for hunting or perhaps personal protection. But who does Tevita Mara need protecting from?
We know that he has been extremely aggrieved in recent times by the renewed suggestions by Sitiveni Rabuka that his father, Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara, played a role in the coups of 1987. Grubsheet has learned that Tevita Mara erupted angrily when his father’s name was again raised in relation to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Yet any bad blood between him and the Prime Minister surely doesn’t require him to be in possession of a weapon?
Or is this the kind of thing that has become routine in Tonga as the country has grappled with the return of some pretty heavy criminals kicked out of Donald Trump‘s America. Maybe a gun is something Tevita Mara thinks he needs back in Lakeba just in case.
Lots of questions and few answers thus far. Though never a dull moment in Fiji, that’s for sure.
And when it was first reported that 350 weapons were seized, which really put the cast among the local pigeons.
UPDATE THURS AM
Fiji Sun front page coverage that avoids naming Roko Ului but identifies the type of weapon – a “.308 hunting rifle”.
If this is true, then it largely becomes a question about the licensing of such a weapon, Because possessing a hunting rifle for shooting pigeons, or instance, or putting down distressed animals is something that was unexceptional in Fiji until the population was disarmed in the wake of successive coups.
Then there is the known presence of armed drug traffickers passing through Fiji waters and the arguable need for an outer island chief – on behalf of his community – to at least have some form of defence or protection.
The problem for Roko Ului is that the Fiji Sun is also reporting that “the owner failed to renew his license”.
A Fiji Times story on Roko Ului’s upcoming installation in his father’s old role as Tui Nayau, the high chief of Lau.
Tevita Mara has made regular appearances in these columns over the years, including the following story about his escape to Tonga in 2011.
Well worth a look for our newer readers.
And for a great deal more about Roko Ului, just type his name into the Grubsheet search engine on the right.
I reckon the gun, ammunition and all the bullshit surrounding him gives him all the right qualifications and experience to make him an ideal person to be Tui Nayau. Never know, maybe to be next leader of the nation.
In Fiji, it is essential to be a idiot to be appointed to anything, and the locals love these sorts of people to keep the vulagi out.
I laugh each time Fiji media gets it so right that it is 100% wrong.
They must have thought that this is their one moment of fame to be proper journalists and that failed too.
Damn, next time Viti.
Hahahahahahaha
Another chief bred by the RFMF.
As Narube said, why are much-needed funds invested in the RFMF, which has continued to breed the Pacific’s useless leaders?
https://www.facebook.com/share/r/188tX1C4AB/?mibextid=wwXIfr
Rabuka, you see that bag Luxon is holding as a gift? Every item in that bag will be declared and if he is allowed then he can keep it. Otherwise it becomes a gift for NZ and not him. That is how NZ’s PM practices honesty.
As for the weapon, no surprises. I am sure there is more floating around with the elite 60 that Rabuka trained in 1987 and onwards. No doubt.
Probably for shooting cans off tree stumps.
Or hunting bats.
Can’t think of anything else more menacing out there in the sticks.
Yeah, but bring it in legally. Or are you so blind with prejudice that you don’t know which end your arse is?
Wonder who Number One is on his hit list?
Kapow!
The police and government are in damage control mode. There could be more guns and ammo out there. Because they know that tourism, investment and aid will cease if truth is out. This could be start of civil war and I hope I am very wrong.
In the same way that one swallow doth not a summer make, one gun doth not a civil war make. If it had been 350 – as the original reports put it – then it would have obviously been different. But we need to keep this is perspective as we seek an explanation as to what happened.
There was only one gun. Ummh!
Can we trust what this government says. Tudravu is another of Rabuka’s personnel.
Watch Fiji Times and CFL make this story into a dramatic inter agency collaboration to make this super find – the not so smart PM has already praised the great bust under the new Police Minister and new Police Commissioner’s watch and his govt’s fight against crime – best to blame the previous govt for this gun-running scam while you’re at it.
Did you not know Fiji’s counting system is different.
1 is around 500.
2 is around 1000 and so on.
Same as if you get 500 votes, than imagine 20 thousand have voted for you and you become a minister 😀
We’ll just have to wait and see. Interesting times ahead indeed.
Nothing really interesting mikey other than Tudravu and his troops bumbling along.
After all, it is just one tonganese son of a gun who brought in one undeclared gun. Smuggled.
The big question is why is he and the captain not arrested already and in police custody like every Tomu, Dickie, and Hari. Why?
Why has he not appeared in court and remanded in custody? Why?
Are the police scared sh!tless to go get him and interview the suspect?
Afterall, this fella has form being a fugitive previously and does have a propensity to flee so he must be held in remand “while police investigations continue”.
May be this boat carried one gun and while another boat went straight to his home island with “350”to shoot bats and breadfruit out of the same tree?
This is the most dangerous and treacherous person “in terms of” the country”s national security and yet he roams free still (finally got to use this most favorite of native phrases!*)
Now if Hari has the audacity to as much as smuggle a bamboo gun, he be in all kinds of trouble. Deep sh!t for Hari as the police, AG, ODPP, Justice Baboon, and gonad CJ Santa Clause would have thrown the book at poor Hari.
And the entho-nationlist crowd would’ve roared their approval. And poor bamboo gun Hari would never be pardoned, held in solitary confinement and beaten up daily to confess the source of the bamboo.
Not this chief, no. Tough talking Tudravu did not include “prominent” natives, especially chiefs when he proudly declared no one is above the law, we are coming for you, he said. And no one will be spared if they break the law, they will be “taken to task.”*
What happened in this case Commissioner? Ofisa sa lamu shona?
* Some other favorites include
“Think outside the box”
“Likewise”
“Blessed day”
As Grubsheet understands it, Roko Ului is still in Tonga.
Even with one gun and the related news coverage, the jungle drums have started beating especially within the indian low socio-economic population. People would be getting scared and feeling insecure in their own country!
So will he be charged or given a “Second Chance Again” because of his ethnic background?
@Sireli
A matanigasau is all that is required in this instance.
Extract from FLP statement.
Very much 👍
“One wonders how many more coups and constitutions it will take to get the chiefs to accept that our indigenous community (i-Taukei) is not an endangered species requiring especially-loaded constitutional provisions to protect their interests.
“Resource-wise, our i-Taukei community is the richest. Besides, they also dominate the civil service, the disciplined forces and the Government.”
“If the chiefs still think that they are lagging behind the other communities, then the answer to that must lie in the inadequacy of their own leadership.”
I can smell another matanigasau coming up soon. This is Fiji and the vulagi will never understand.
In Taveuni they are celebrating the appointment of their pedo chief as President . No use us complaining because us vulagi will never understand the iTaukei culture and tradition.
Do a matanigasau. Get another expensive gift ( maybe a house on Denarau) and you are forgiven (for this minor indiscretion only) – PM won’t tell anybody, that’s for others to find out – Sherlock Holmes Vijay Narayan misses no clues ( he is just missing intelligence) so it’s a closed case for police and the media.
CFL and the Fiji Times will bury this while PM’s self-proclaimed smart supporters like Pramesh Sharma and Biman Prasad will say that it’s such an irrelevant matter, the previous govt did it all the time and let’s move on. Fiji is a moving circus .
Law for the elite will apply here. He had violated Fiji’s Immigration laws but was cleared following an intervention by the then AG. He is untouchable by Police and no way will CJ see his soon to be installed Paramount Chief in the dock. Hope I will be wrong. Meantime, those boxes and cells overflow with the non-elite. Discrimination at work!
Guns and gun licences isn’t something new in fiji or anywhere for that matter. Fact of the matter is it was not declared fullstop. You’ll get a fine and a remark marked against you just as you would entering through the airport system. The firearm was not even manifested to the chief now touted as being an arms smuggler lol. The bust in nadi of arms and ammunitions 5 years ago that we still have not heard nor anyone brought to court for is more worrying. Whose instruction halted all investigations and canned any further conversation around it and why. 1 firearm for hunting and 600 rounds hardly news but a pistol as in the fatal case in nadi many years ago with that air pacific pilot’s son who found the firearm and managed to discharge it and kill himself that we should question why a pistol. Not long now maybe open carry for safety???
Present the Magaichinasau. All good.
On other news, democracy related:
“The Department of Homeland Security has deported Brown University professor Dr. Rasha Alawieh, despite a judge’s order that she was not to be removed from the U.S.”
Trump Administration have no respect for Court orders. Oh dear.