Fiji citizens urged to buy up the flag before regime bans them

Fiji flag: synonymous with the struggle for democracy.

Fiji citizens are being urged to snap up all available flags before the regime bans them ahead of introducing its one.

The former Opposition leader and the president of the  United Peoples Party, Mick Beddoes, says given its actions people can expect the regime to issue a decree banning the current flag as soon as its reveals its replacement.

Beddoes says the current Fiji flag can become the people’s symbol of opposition and resistance leaving the regime's flag to symbolize 'oppression and evil.'

Bainimarama and Khaiyum challenged on their incomes and assets

Show us what's in YOUR offshore accounts and tell us why you refuse to publish government accounts, especially the Auditor General’s report.

Khaiyum's aunt, Nur Bano Ali.

That's the challenge today from the country's main four parties and the trade union, FICTU, who've sent a joint statement to the regime demanding it reveal its books and personal funds.

It follows the release yesterday of the Political Parties Registration, Conduct, Funding and Disclosure Decree, which stipulates political parties re-register within 28 days or otherwise lose their assets to the 'state.'

The decree also threatens political parties who fail to wind down with $50,000 fines.


SDL, the Fiji Labour Party, the United Peoples Party, the National Federation Party and FICTU say Frank Bainimarama and Aiyaz Sayed Khaiyum should disclose monies they hold and show transparency in the dealings of family members - a particular reference to Khaiyum's accountant aunt, Nur Bano Ali, who is known to have her fingers in many pies.

Royal send up of Fiji regime hypocrisy

Darling Grubby, 

We are winning the battle. First we have stopped the whole concept of a democratic constitution and now we have destroyed all the existing political parties in the country - not bad for a week’s work by two Aussies. It was a masterstroke of your's to say each party needed 5,000 members. The only party that can achieve that is the army. All the soldiers will be ordered to sign their allegiance to the army party and we are there. 

You know, we have these Chinese satellite spy ships that come to Fiji. Well, one of them intercepted this letter from Her Majesty the Queen to the Governor General of Australia. It's shocking that she stoops so low and interferes in the perfectly legal activities of a sovereign nation. You would have thought she would understand what the word sovereign meant better than anyone.

From Her Majesty’s iPad, typed by Gertrude the House Maid:

Dear Quentin,

I know this form of communication is most unusual but needs must and all that. The situation in Fiji has taken a terrible turn and it is quite obvious to everybody except your foreign minister Carr Crash that Fiji is moving permanently to dictatorship. 

I am going to let you in on a very closely guarded secret which I am sure you will honour. My Great Great Great Grandmother, Queen Victoria, set up a system of spy portraits as a way to keep her eye on the goings on around the empire. Every portrait of Her Majesty in every High Commission, every Governor’s Mansion and every office was set up to send mail back to Buckingham Palace by carrier pigeon. In her day it used to take 3 months for the poor pigeons to deliver the mail but what with the Internet it is all pretty instant now. By the way I hope you enjoyed your kippers and scrambled egg for breakfast. Yes, I was watching as you tucked in.

Fiji unions react to full details of political party decree

BOB CARR: Taking Inoke Kubuabola's word

FICTU says regime aiming to line its pockets with assets of parties and FTUC says it's still forming its own party. An optimistic Carr meanwhile insists there's no cause for concerns just yet because the regime's  election plans are still on track.



Fresh concerns surfacing with the release of the full decree detailing what political parties can and can't do. (see document in previous story)

The Fiji Islands Council of Trade Unions says the decree will not only wipe out all of the country's political parties within 28 days but allows the regime to make a killing financially.

Under the decree, all the net assets of political parties will go to the 'state' if they're not registered after the required 28 days starting from tomorrow (Friday January 18).

FICTU's General secretary, Attar Singh, suggests this may be the real purpose behind the decree.

"Why should party assets built over years of operation transfer to State when an application is refused? Should it not be distributed in accordance with the rules or decision of the party itself?"

Political party decree released - read it here on C4.5

Can Fiji's political parties see the big picture and make the sacrifice?

"We are not targeting anyone". 

So says the country's illegal attorney general but anyone looking at the provisions of the Political Parties Registration, Conduct, Funding and Disclosure Decree can see the truth: political parties are being killed off to secure the regime's longevity through to the election and beyond. (see images and link to decree at end of story)

Aiyaz Sayed Khaiyum insists the 'government has taken a principled approach to laws and is not targeting anyone in particular', claiming that even Frank Bainimarama will have to toe the rules if he wants to be a party executive.

Either this is a misnomer overlooked by Bainimarama and his supporters or there's another plan adrift behind the scenes. Either way, political parties - existing and in the wings - are out of the picture unless they can outsmart the regime.

The trickiest provision in the decree is the ruling regarding membership that says there must be five thousand members all up - and that two thousand of them must come from the Central Division, 1,750 from the Western Division, 1,000 thousand from the North and 250 from the Eastern Division.

None of the political parties have such a support base on tap, either on paper or even electronically as major campaigns elsewhere in the world have used to solicit funding or rally numbers before and after elections.

Fiji's self-appointed PM and G77 chair calls Aussie national a 'fucked up priest'

Bainimarama is mouthing niceties in New York where he is chairing the G77 forum but back home where people really know what he's like, it's been revealed he abused former Wages Council chair, Father Barr, via text. One of his text messages was 'Fuck U arsehole'

 

A SURPRISING DAY IN MY LIFE

On the 8th January 2013 The Fiji Sun published I short letter I had sent in to them. The letter noted that a change was to be expected in the Fiji Flag to represent changed realities in Fiji. With tongue in cheek, I asked: “Is the rumour true that the Union Jack is going to be replaced with a small version of the Chinese flag to show that our old allegiance to Britain is being replaced with a new allegiance to China?”

On the morning of the 10th January I was at my desk at the PCN Office when the phone rang and someone who said he was a Colonel in the Prime Minister’s Office asked if this was my number. I said it was and he hung up. 

A few minutes later I received a call from the Prime Minister. I greeted him and wished him a happy New Year. Then in a very angry voice he said that I should apologise to the people of Fiji for my letter concerning the Fijian flag in the newspaper. I said that I thought it expressed a real concern with a touch of joking humour.

The PM said it was irresponsible coming from a recognised leader in the community. He stated he was not a Catholic but a Methodist. 

He then called me “a fucked up priest” and said I had become anti-government. He said he used to try and help me but would do so no longer. I said I would be prepared to come and speak with him. Instead he repeated I was a “fucked up priest”, threw in a few swear words, told me to go back to where I came from and put down the phone. 

Newest decree hints at Bainimarama's presidential ambitions

Where does the regime's newest decree leave Fiji's self-appointed prime minister?

The Political Parties Registration, Conduct, Funding and Disclosure Decree says all new and existing political parties must be registered within 28 days and have five thousand signatures - where is Frank Bainimarama's party and will it register?

The new decree also stipulates that no-one holding a position in the RFMF, police, government boards can be members of a political party. 

If Bainimarama is to launch a party (otherwise how will he and regime members engage in the elections and secure seats in the new Parliament), then he will have to resign as commander of RFMF. 

Will he do this - or will he ascend to the all powerful position of president and someone else front the party?

The terms of the Political Parties Registration, Conduct, Funding and Disclosure Decree outlined today is clearly aimed at killing off any competition.

New Constitution ammendment decree formalises regime control of process

Today's newly released Fiji Constitutional Process and Adoption of Constitution Decree empowers the president Epeli Nailatikau and dictator Frank Bainimarama to make any changes they want to the Ghai constitution draft. 

Last Thursday the regime dumped the Ghai draft saying it was not right for Fiji and claimed it reflected the interests of political parties.

The process initially announced required the Constitution Commission's draft received by the  president to be handed over to the Constituent Assembly for debate. 

Any amendment to it required a 2/3 majority of the Assembly failing consensus. 

The president was not empowered to make or authorise any changes to the Commission's draft outside the Assembly.     

The regime will now appoint a majority of its supporters to the Constituent Assembly so that they are unlikely to have the 2/3 majority to effect any  amendments to a draft prepared by the regime. 

Attar Singh

The Constituent Assembly will just become a rubber stamp of the regime, which the Fiji Island Council of Trade Unions predicted would happen last week. 

FICTU has called for people to boycott the Constituent Assembly and not participate in the process.

Mick Beddoes

The trade union has also voiced its concern over the Australian Foreign Minister, Senator Bob Carr's decision to endorse the changes made by the regime to the Constitutional process.

FICTU says the issue in debate is not the substance of the Constitution Commission's Draft, it’s the unilateral changes to the process to debate the draft.

“Senator Carr should have advised his counterpart to follow the initial process, not endorse such a substantially changed process which has the potential for serious consequences for the people of Fiji.” 

Pramod Rae

UPP Leader Mick Beddoes says Carr’s endorsement of the regime’s decision to ‘scrap’ the Draft Constitution suggests he has confused the need to ‘engage’ the regime with ‘embracing’ the regime.   

Beddoes says Carr's statement is a mistake and he needs to step back from it if Australia wants to stay on the side of supporting and upholding the rule or law.

He says if Carr doesn't, he will be seen as ignoring the majority of the people of Fiji by appeasing their oppressors and creating a new Australian foreign policy laced with ‘hypocrisy’.

The general secretary of NFP, Pramod Rae, says it has long held view that the regime has no intentions of relinquishing power any time in the future.

It says the regime has also confirmed beyond any doubt that its rhetoric of true democracy and equal citizenry is a façade.

It says it issued a statement on November the 7th forecasting the fate of the following the regime’s decision to amend the constitutional process through the promulgation of Decree Number 64.

"The amended decree confirmed the regime’s fear that the Commission would not bow down to its demands and instead finalise a draft constitution in conformity to international standards on democracy, human rights, fundamental freedoms and have mechanisms for free and fair general elections."

Rae says the regime has been shifting the goalposts since the coup  and has no definitive timetable to hold free and fair general elections to return the country to genuine democracy, parliamentary rule and constitutional government.

"Throughout the last 6 years, the regime has been falsely accusing those who negotiated the 1970 and 1997 Constitutions of being elitists. They were elected representatives of the people, and not a bunch of un-elected individuals who have been enforcing their rule on the people through force."

Rae says the NFP will not be party to a process, which is compelled to ride roughshod over the people, and ultimately rubber-stamp a document entrenching the rule of individuals who have put self-interest above national interest.

Read the Fiji Constitutional Process and Adoption of Constitution Decree. 

Narsey: political parties will either endorse or boycott

Trashing the Ghai Constitution: the positives

Professor Wadan Narsey

14 January 2013

How can there be positives, you might ask?  But first note, even diehard supporters of the Bainimarama Regime must be worried that the Bainimarama Regime is trashing the Draft Constitution, and is going to write its "own".

After all, the Regime itself appointed Professor Yash Ghai (Khaiyum's teacher at Hong Kong University) as Chairman, and the Commission was stacked with three known Regime supporters (Satendra Nandan, Taufa Vakatale and Penny Moore), none of whom have ever disagreed with the review process with its country-wide consultations, or the final product.

Penny Moore, to her great credit, has defended their Draft Constitution, while Vakatale has maintained a discrete silence. Nandan merely complained that Professor Yash Ghai, the Chairman of the Constitution Commission had released the "people's constitution" to the "people" without a collective decision by the Commission- an "illegal" act, roared the Military Regime.

Voices of the ordinary Fijian coming through: boycott Constituent Assembly

"If we don’t participate, their plans come to naught. There is strength in UNITY and we must use this strength NOW. Please do not let ANYONE tell you otherwise. All other differences will be addressed once we have the key document in place."

Contributed by a Fiji citizen who made the effort to engage in what they thought was going to be a transparent process. She, like thousands of others, now knows that it was yet another lie from a regime that refuses to give up the power it stole from the people in 2006. Her message? Don't engage. 

  People in Fiji feel embittered and taken for a ride. First the military takes away our rights, then plays this cat and mouse game, saying you have a right to say anything you want, it’s your constitution and then takes it away again. The majority in the army are Christians. Is this what Christianity teaches, no it doesn’t. They must have a demon telling them what to do. They think they are infallible.
 

Every citizen in his/her right mind should not support this government. The fact that they speak with guns and bodyguards around them is an indication of their paranoia and spineless character. All they are worried about is going back to the barracks and leading normal lives. For the last 6 years they have been like vultures, living off the hard earned money of the citizens of Fiji. They don’t care at all about good governance, human rights, accountability etc., they don’t even know what it means.

They claim to have done so much, what have their done? If they have fixed the roads, built bridges etc.then it’s their duty and they have used our money to do so, that’s what governments do. They haven’t done us a favour. Any government has to make improvements to infrastructure. 

Al