Apology. Josephine, my apologies. You did not deserve my attack. You were asked to report on the content of the AI report, not to comment on or analyze it. I think I "saw red" with the comparision between the Gestapo and Fiji. To my generation, or anyone who knows about Nazi atrocities, there is no comparison, but all you did was quote the uninformed and hysterical words of another. I'm sorry!Josephine Latu in Pacific Media Watch had to comment and publish the latest Amnesty International report on Fiji, but to do so quite uncritically,with no indication of when the report was mainly researched, and with a headline taken from the emotional outburst of one person interviewed (regime's "gestapo-like intimidation) is not good journalism.*
As for the report itself, I can only say I'm deeply disappointed with Amnesty International, an organization that over the years I have admired and financially supported. Its title tells all: Fiji: Paradise Lost: A Tale of Ongoing Human Rights Violations April - July 2009. Its researcher and author is ethnic Fijian Apolosi Bose. Its methodology involved 80 interviews with journalists, lawyers and others, all hostile to the Interim Government, based largely on Bose's visit to Fiji from 4-18 April, and 2008-2009 inputs from "activists in Auckland, Sydney, Melbourne and London. " The Fiji April visit overlapped the Abrogation of the 1997 Constitution and the introduction of the Public Emergency Regulations. Other than the period immediately following the coup, this was the most troubled period in the past six years.
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The reports introductory, anonymous and inaccurate quotation further indicates its unbalanced -- and therefore questionable-- research. I quote: There is no Constitution, the entire judiciary was sacked, the Fiji Human Rights Commission has been and continues to be a strong supporter of Bainimarama. The military government has passed a decree which gives them blanket amnesty to do what they want do to ‘enforce martial law’. There is nothing to stop the soldiers from harming or killing us if we try to protest, march or speak out.
The issues covered are the previously reported human rights abuses in 2006; the Abrogation and PERs; the sidelining of the Fiji Law Society; supposed interference with the judiciary; travel bans on some Government critics; the earlier deportation of foreign journalists and later detentions and harassment of local journalists; the supposed government firebombing of opponents' homes; the cancellation of the Methodist Church conference and the court cases against Adi Teimumu and the ministers for breaking the PERs. In sum, the issues covered contextually in this blog over the past several months, and little to nothing new. None of the real or alleged human rights abuses mentioned is placed in any context, and no contrary viewpoint is reported.
There have been human rights abuses in Fiji, and not all of them have been properly addressed by the Government. There have also been abuses of office by opponents of the Government. These things happen in post-coup situations. All such happenings need to be place in context, weighed and balanced; compared with earlier (pre-coup) abuses; and considered within a future context: where is Fiji now, and how may we help it to move towards a better future? The Amnesty International investigation does none of these things. It is a report by and about "activists" aimed at an international audience, and it will be used by them to further isolate Fiji to no useful purpose. Click here for the full report.
* I wonder whether she or anyone else using such comparisons have any ideas of what the Gestapo and the Nazis were like? I am old enough to know a little, and Jewish schoolfriends told me more. Take, for example, Auschwitz. The lives of 28,000 inmates were terminated in one day, and by the end of the war between 1 and 3 million human beings, mainly Jews, but also communists, gypsies, homosexuals, Poles and Russians were killed in this one concentration camp alone. I've been to Auschwitz and seen the gas chambers and ovens and kilometres of charred bone fragments along the railway track, for the bodies were burnt after they were gassed or shot, and old people, the sick and children were burnt alive. I find it exceedingly disrespectful to the memory of those killed by the Nazis to liken three wrongful deaths carried out by a small handful of over-zealous Fijian soldiers to their millions.
2 comments:
I’ve not had time to read Amnesty’s whole report therefore cannot comment on it. However you noted that it was unbalanced and then went on to provide a quote containing 5 points
1. There is no constitution - please refer Decree # 1
2. The entire judiciary was sacked – please refer Decree # 4
3. The FHRC has been a strong supporter of Bainimarama – please refer to the FHRC report on the coup. The fact that it no longer makes public pronouncements means it’s not possible to be sure if it continues to be a supporter.
4. Blanket amnesty decree – please refer to the Immunity Promulgation 2007. Although Justice Goundar found this did not allow for murder, to all intents and purposes it did, since soldiers convicted of manslaughter were released under compulsory supervision orders very shortly after their sentencing.
5. Nothing to stop soldiers harming or killing us – please refer above.
Each of the points in the quote therefore appears to be correct – if not to the letter, than at least in spirit. How does this display the inaccuracies and lack of balance you feel makes the rest of the report so questionable?
You also make caustic reference to the parallel the report draws between the ‘gestapo-like’ tactics of the military government and the Gestapo itself. I don’t believe it’s disrespectful (as you feel) to the memory those in WW II who died at their hands, to cite the Gestapo when condemning murder of civilians by armed military. In fact it could be considered respectful since the analogy perpetrates the memory of those who died at that time in the minds of the two generations that have grown up since the war.
On the contrary, I feel your language describing the deaths of 3 men at the hands of armed soldiers to be disrespectful to both the memory, and the families, of those who died. Please consider for a moment how you would feel if you read of the murder of an immediate family member being described as the result of an ‘overzealous’ policeman/ club bouncer/ enraged driver acting ‘wrongfully’. The manner of anyone’s murder be it burning, gassing, shooting, or physical beating is tragic and excessive numbers don’t make it any more so.
To compound their grief, the families may well have the feeling that some in Fiji felt at the time that ‘there’s no smoke without fire’ and that therefore their murders might have even been vaguely condoned.
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