Fiji's military regime is purging its legal services, firing four prosecutors and three magistrates without giving reasons.

The action comes as the military's number two, Brigadier Pita Driti, issued a public warning for regime critics.
Fiji military chief Voreqe Bainimarama has ruled Fiji since a coup in December 2006 and last year created what he called "a new legal order".

After earlier removing the chief justice, he now rules by decree, advised by a military council whose members are not known.

Fiji's Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions plays a key role in the country, but this week the military installed a new director, Aca Rayawa, a supporter of the regime.

Rawaya then sacked his predecessor John Rabuku and three other prosecution lawyers who he did not name.
Sources name them as Heilala Tabete, Nancy Tikoisuva and Navinesh Nand - who were all fired and told to leave immediately, without explanation.

All were survivors of the democratic government.

Last year when Bainimarama removed the constitution he also sacked judges and magistrates and replaced them with those more acceptable to the regime.

However three of them - Eparama Rokoika, Elsie Hudson and Mary Muir - were fired this week, also without explanation.

When Bainimarama took over the country he vowed to end "high level corruption" and created the Fiji Independent Commission Against Corruption.

But in the four years since then, the commission has had no significant prosecution success and not revealed any major corruption.

Yesterday it announced it was bringing charges against a prominent lawyer, Imrana Jalal, who has been critical of the military regime.

She and her husband Sakiusa Tuisolia have been charged with operating a restaurant, Hook and Chook, without a licence. Jalal denies the charge.

In a broadcast yesterday on military-censored Fiji Broadcasting, Driti, who is commander of Land Forces and is effectively the second ranked head, said 2010 should be a very stable and peaceful year.

"As a member of the military council and interim government I know that the majority of our citizens do agree with that," he said in his broadcast.

"There are only a few people who could term as adversaries - but I would discourage them from doing anything and I would like to tell them to keep low and try to co-operate with us in trying to maintain peace, otherwise they will be in for something really hard in terms of how we will treat them this year."

Driti's plain speaking, which has included an attack on New Zealand, has caused problems in the past. Bainimarama attempted to have him made Fiji's high commissioner to Malaysia, but Kuala Lumpar would not accept him as a diplomat - Michael Field

On 1 January 2010 while breakfasting with my family at a hotel in Denarau, Nadi, Fiji, I was served by two officers from the Fiji Independent Commission Against Corruption (FICAC) with seven charges alleging breaches of the Public Health (Hotels, Restaurant and Refreshment Bars) Regulations, the Food Safety Act and the Penal Code.

The charges relate to a business operated by a company , Bottomline Investments, of which I am a director but have not been involved in the day to day running. The restaurant charges normally attract a penalty of FJD20.00 (USD10.00) and are Suva City Council offences. A large number of businesses in Suva operate without a licence, whilst their applications for licences are being processed. The allegations are categorically denied and the charges will be strenuously defended.

These charges are part of a continuing strategy by the current military regime to target, persecute and silence critics. I am a human rights lawyer with a long record of public opposition to all unlawful (military and non-military) undemocratic regimes, including that of Sitiveni Rabuka, George Speight and now, Voreqe Bainimarama. Since the coup d’etat in December 2006 I have regularly called the current military regime to account for the violations of human rights in Fiji. 

In December 2006, after my published opposition to the military takeover, I was threatened with rape, in graphic detail, via an anonymous call to my mobile. I was warned to shut my mouth or “they” would shut it for me. That call was traced to a phone booth just outside the gates of the Queen Elizabeth Barracks, home of the Fiji Military Forces. Twenty minutes prior to the call, Colonel (now Brigadier) Mohammed Aziz had asked Major Davina Chan to call my office to get my mobile number. I made a police complaint about that threat of rape including this information. Brig. Aziz has a close relationship with the FICAC lawyer, also a  military officer ,  prosecuting me.

FICAC, as with most significant government bodies, is headed by a military officer. FICAC was established to investigate and prosecute corruption but instead has been used to also persecute persons not supportive of the military regime. The basic import of the charges against me is that the business was run without a licence – not a corruption matter – nor one which FICAC is legally permitted to prosecute. Such prosecutions are normally commenced by the Central Board of Health or the Suva City Council.

The maximum fine prescribed is FJD20 (approx USD20). The Penal Code charges allege a failure to obey a lawful order. No lawful (nor indeed unlawful) order has been issued against myself or the business.

The method of service chosen by FICAC appears to have been a deliberate attempt to humiliate and embarrass me in a public place with my family. I live and work in Suva, where the offices of FICAC are located, and where service would be a simple matter. At the time of service we were on holiday with friends and staying in their private villa, part of a hotel complex 200 km away. We were not registered at the hotel thus making it surprising that FICAC was aware of my whereabouts.

Fiji’s Military Forces Land Force Commander Brigadier Pita Driti, was reported in the media on 5 January 2006 warning Fiji citizens that they should remember “who is in control.” He went on to threaten any dissenters “...there are only a few people who [we] could term as adversaries - but I would discourage them from doing anything and I would like to tell them to keep low and try to cooperate with us in trying to maintain peace otherwise they will be in for something really hard in terms of how we will treat them this year.”

This current targeting of me by the regime follows legal action taken against my husband. He has had numerous charges presented and later withdrawn by FICAC. Similar charges relating to running a business without a licence were served on my husband prior to me, again in a manner designed to maximise humiliation and harm. When my husband’s charges were raised in the Magistrates Court on 29 December 2009, Magistrate Mary Muir queried the basis on which FICAC was prosecuting minor local authority misdemeanours. She suggested that it was outside FICAC’s jurisdiction and a matter for the Suva City Council.

There was an unedifying altercation between the FICAC prosecuting lawyer and the magistrate. It has been reported in the media on 5 January 2010 that shortly after this matter was   first raised in court , the magistrate had her contract terminated. This is not an isolated incident. Other magistrates have had their contracts terminated after making decisions contrary to the submissions of FICAC.

It appears that the strategy of FICAC in the various actions taken against myself and my husband is not to go to trial, but to keep the matters pending in order to harass, intimidate, persecute and to wear us down. In particular they are likely to want to stop me from travelling to high level human rights meetings and to divert me from my work.


P. Imrana Jalal,

Human Rights Lawyer

Fiji’s Independent Commission Against Corruption has declined to disscuss reports it laid charges against prominent human rights lawyer Imrana Jalal.

Jalal has been charged alongside her husband Sakiusa Tuisolia for allegedly operating a restaurant without a proper license.

She was charged on New Years day while holidaying in Nadi.

Jalal is expected to appear in court this Friday.

The Public Emergency Regulation will be lifted in Fiji as soon as the new Media Decree is implemented.

Permanent Secretary for Information Lt Colonel Neumi Leweni confirms that work on the new Media Decree has started and it should be in place soon.

When Fijivillage News questioned Lt Colonel Leweni whether the PER is now only in place only for the media, he said there are some other matters apart from the media.

But he confirms that the introduction of the Media Decree will end the PER.

Meanwhile the Public Emergency Regulation has been extended for another 30 days.

The extension was made on the January 3. (Fijivillage.com/Pacific Media Watch)

Peter Foster: Well, I suppose I've been going there since I was four or five years of age, so it has always been a happy place for me. It's a place of childhood memories, of laughter and frolicking in the water and time that I think we all look fondly back on our childhood ...

Monica Attard: Now the extremely cynical, Peter, I'm going to tell you right now, will say that you like Fiji cause it's small, it's tucked away, it's relatively naive, there are 800,000 people there who when you first started meddling in business there might not have heard of you, that it was just there for the taking.

Peter Foster: Yep. Well, what can you say to them? I know what's in my heart, the Fijians know. You know, we have a track record there of 30 years, it's well documented. Sure, people are going to be cynical - let them be.

Monica Attard: Okay, now instead of leading a kind of quiet island life you became involved in the corruption in the political intrigue of Fiji between the years 2001 and 2007, and you got badly burnt trying to operate in that society. Why did you decide to become involved in the political processes there? Funding the new Labor Party to the tune of one million dollars, secretly filming government officials - why all of that?

Peter Foster: I suppose it was a battle of good versus evil, it's as simple as that. I'm very concerned about what's happened in Fiji. I was very concerned about the previous government, I was concerned about the Howard government, how they facilitated the rigging of the 2006 election ... and with police assistance the ballot boxes were rigged and the elections were rigged. And then we have a chap called Frank Bainimarama who's come along and I believe for all the right reasons has removed a very corrupt, very dangerous government.

Monica Attard: So in the meantime of course the world shuns him, don't they, Commodore Bainimarama? And you're not a lone voice in defending him; he is, in fact according to you, Fiji's best hope in tackling endemic corruption. Why do you think that?

Peter Foster: He's a very honest man and that's the thing that people are failing to realise. At the height of the George Speight coup in 2000, he was offered the prime ministership and he knocked it back. He was nearly killed, you've got to understand that the people that were there previously were the most horrific, unattractive, dishonest bunch of politicians you could ever come across. I understand everyone says you cannot remove a democratically elected government through a military coup. Of course I understand that. However there isn't a thinking man, woman or child in the world today who wouldn't understand if the military regime in Zimbabwe had stood up and got rid of Mugabe. And I'm using the same analogy.

We had to remove the Qarase government; they were corrupt to the core and what I find insidious is how the Howard government turned a blind eye and then tried to actually assist Qarase by putting three warships inside Fijian waters, by turning a blind eye to the rigging of the ballot boxes.


And then of course when I came out with this evidence, what do we find? We found the AFP Commissioner Keelty, we had Alexander Downer, everybody was shooting the messenger. They were saying, well you know, why is he relying upon a con man? Why is he relying upon Peter Foster? Instead of for a moment, just saying 'Well look, these are serious allegations, let's investigate them', they shot them down within minutes of them coming out, and I found that most disturbing. For example, the AFP used that old chestnut saying 'well Foster, you know, he has been charged with inducing witnesses to give false testimony'.

Monica Attard: So why did they turn against you when you had co-operated with them in the past as an undercover drug operative in the 1990s?

Peter Foster: I don't know, really it's one of the great mysteries. I mean that old chestnut about me, my conviction was in '93, but in '94 and '97 I worked for the AFP and went undercover for them.

Monica Attard: So are you still in contact with Bainimarama?

Peter Foster: I'm hoping to speak with him, but it has been very difficult getting any communications through to him, like a lot of people, they just struggle to be able to talk to him. But I am hoping to get the opportunity.

Monica Attard: And why do you want to be in contact with him?

Peter Foster: I believe in what he's doing, I believe that he is misunderstood, he's had terrible PR. But he is trying to bring about change in Fiji which is necessary.

Monica Attard: Do you think he should hold elections?

Peter Foster: Not at the moment, no. Because I believe that the election process over there, the rules need to be changed. They are, you know, on racist lines that just simply won't work.

Monica Attard: Don't you think it's a real shame that while you have the ability to use your notoriety to bring attention to Fiji's problems, like you are right now, that really at the end of the day, you can't be taken seriously because of your chequered past?

Peter Foster: This is why I said at the time ... I worked for Fiji military intelligence and I wore listening devices and I had these tiny little video cameras on me and I videoed three top people who said that the elections were rigged. And when we came out with this, I said "I don't expect anybody for one minute to believe one word Peter Foster says, I'm just a silly bugger who wore the video camera and listening device. Listen to what they say".

Monica Attard: The AFP says it doesn't believe your footage, it doesn't believe those tapes.

Peter Foster: Oh, they're trying to say it's staged. Now while the silly old United Nation inspectors are being led around like only Fijians can lead the white man around, whilst they're over looking in one constituency at the ballot boxes, you know, the Fijians, like stealing coconuts, are changing it at the other end.
It needed a clean-up and the clean-up has come in the form of a military takeover.