Our totalitarian dictator is turning Fiji into a police state
Under the disastrous military dictatorship instituted by Frank Bainimarama, our beloved nation is fast taking on all the features of a secretive, totalitarian police state.
The opportunist illegal attorney-general and the slowly shrinking band of Bainimarama’s coup-coup supporters will scoff at this and dismiss it as another beat-up by anti dictatorship blogs.
But let them scoff because, as we suspect they already know, the hard evidence, the irrefutable facts, are not on their side.
Let’s take three case studies from our current and recent experience of life under Frank Bainimarama and consider the facts.
That’s right, the facts. No opinions, no inferences, just the simple hard facts.
First, let’s look at rule of law and how Frank Bainimarama has demonstrated total disrespect for it.
In an open and free state the rule of law is upheld and the processes of law are transparent. But this has never been the case in totalitarian dictatorships and it’s not in today’s Fiji.
We only have to look at Criminal Case No. HAC 165 of 2007, heard by Justice Daniel Goundar, presiding over the High Court of Fiji sitting at Lautoka earlier this year.
The case was the State versus Patrick Nayacalagilagi and others, who were originally charged with the murder of one Sakiusa Rabaka, later reduced to a charge of manslaughter.
After horrendous evidence of Rabaka’s torture, including beatings and his being forced to perform sexually perverse acts, the High Court ruled that Nayacalagilagi and the eight others were guilty.
On 17 March 2009 Justice Goundar sentenced each of the nine killers to four years jail for their role in the manslaughter of Sakiusa Rabaka.
But barely three weeks later when another properly constituted court ruled (Qarase versus Bainimarama) in effect that the “interim government” led by Bainimarama was illegal, our dictator immediately saw to it that our Constitution was abrogated, the judiciary was sacked and he was re-instated as prime minister, all within 24 hours.
Once back in the seat of power, he quickly slipped into dictator mode. One of his first executive acts, done secretly of course, was to order the immediate release of Rabaka’s killers.
His unilateral release of convicted killers was outside the law and quite clearly an act by a totalitarian dictator, the same dictator who had earlier “looked after” his convicted killer brother-in-law, Francis Kean.
For our second case study, let’s look at the basic human rights of freedom of speech and freedom of the media to report the facts.
Due to the PER our media is heavily censored. And it has been thoroughly documented that the principal criterion applied by the censors is “cut anything that is unfavourable” to the Bainimarama regime.
This was confirmed out the dictator’s own mouth. In a lengthy interview broadcast by Sky TV in Australia and New Zealand on 1 May 2009 Bainimarama stated clearly and categorically that the main reason for the PER was to curb Fiji’s media.
Anywhere in the world, outside times of war, such a harsh level of media censorship has only been seen in totalitarian dictatorships like the former East Germany, like Burma, like Cuba, and now, sadly, like Fiji.
In our third case study let’s look at the criminality of the Bainimarama regime and how it impacts harshly on the ordinary men and women of Fiji.
Criminality is defined as activity that is against the law, and much of the Bainimarama regime’s activity has been well and truly on the wrong side of the law.
As we have seen, the cynical exercising of dictatorial privilege by Bainimarama to look after his killer brother-in-law and to set the Rabaka killers free are each acts of criminality.
And while Frank Bainimarama is quick to look after the best interests of fellow criminals, what does he do to look after ordinary people?
For example, why are dairy farmers being denied their lawful entitlement to compensation for cattle slaughtered in the anti brucellosis campaign? Didn’t they obey the regime’s directions?
This might seem an odd example, but it goes to the heart of what happens to ordinary people under a totalitarian dictatorship: right or wrong, irrespective of the law, the ordinary people have no choice but to accept their fate, no matter how unfair or unlawful, which is not the way the world should be.
Under a dictatorship people have to accept their fate, just like the family of Sakiusa Rabaka has been condemned to live in the knowledge that true justice has been denied them.
Folks, as you can see, we have only served up the facts, and what do they tell you?
The facts tell you that investors are going to give Fiji a wide birth until the rule of law and accountability are restored though the free free and fair election of a government committed to democracy.
They facts tell you that, in the meantime, its we, the ordinary people of Fiji, who are going to pay a huge price while the dictator and his chosen few happily reap their ill-gotten harvest.
And the facts tell you that while our beautiful paradise has never been without its imperfections, it is now being fashioned into the singular ugliness of one-man totalitarian rule.
Our Fiji is becoming what the rest of the world calls a secretive, totalitarian, police state.
That’s not what we want, and it’s certainly not what we need.
Fiji Democracy Now
