There are comments on this posting. Click 'comments' below.An email from Peter Waqavonovono of the Fiji Young Peoples Concerned Network invited me to read "a new report by Amnesty International of Fiji condition." He said the report, published on 8 September, "reveals Fiji's human rights violations."
The"latest violations" reported and written by AI's Apolosi Bose ( a Fijian national) were the detention of Adi Teimumu Kepa and the Methodist ministers who violated the public emergency regulations in July. But, coupled with violations and alleged violations dating back to 2006, all these earlier events were fuzzily presented as recent.
Whatever they might think of the Bainimarama Government, the recycling -- and repetition-- of old news as new, and urging people to act on it, is just straight-out deceit. People who deceive lose credibility.
10 comments:
The problem with Waqavonovono and Bose is that they do not know who they are really working for. Who is going to benefit from their report? Are they going to or is the people of Fiji going to benefit from it?
Who is this Bose? He is son of Isemeli Bose, my Maths and English teacher at DAV College, Ba Fiji in early 1970s, who then went on to become Ratu Mara's Alliance party's Campaign Manager in the election of 1987 that he (Mara) lost which led to Rabuka's coup. Bose Senior was a SVT Minister in Rabuka's Government and former CEO of Ba Holdings Limited.
Therefore, this son of Isimeli Bose working for Amnesty International is a "Child of 1987" where his father and indirectly he is a beneficiary of all those on the gravy train of affirmative action started by Rabuka government and unfairly and blatantly abused by Qarase regime. Bainimarama's removal of Qarase regime denied the goodies to all the fat cat Fijians and those who were unfairly getting the crumbs of a racist unfair system. This Bose at Amnesty International and his relatives were those who were denied this and obviously have a grudge against Bainimarama for removing the gravy of the unfair and racist affirmative action.
If Amnesty International is unaware of this, then they are criminally negligent for allowing a biased person to use its name to carry his personal agenda. I will later write a more detailed account of this response on this.
Spot on as usual Thakur. I have been amazed at the blindness of these fact-finding missions in Fiji. They only talk to those who have a known grudge against anyone who is anti-nationalist. Waqavonovono is the son of the former National Bank deputy Manager, at the time when the National Bank was used as an affirmative action gravy train for the elite of all races. Neither Bose nor Waqavonovono have the necessary objectivity to comment on the current situation. In fact the more they comment, the worse they look! They display their own inherent bias and hatred for anything that upsets the gravy train. Shame on Amnesty, IBA and every other organisation which refuses to issue balanced reports.
@ Siti
Cannot disagree with all you have to say. However, the term 'elite' is questionable. "The choice part or flower of society" (1848 - Oxford Dictionary Volume 1 referring to the Russian nobility) Really?
"These fact finding missions to Fiji" are not unlike the observers who came into Fiji in May 2006 to observe the May election. They were on a 'gravy train' and their objectivity (despite some impressive looking qualifications) was 'zilch'. They were here for the ride, it seemed to me and I had things I wished to say to them. 'Who is the beneficiary' - should be their first question when they ask anything of anyone in Fiji. "Who pays you" - should be the second question. Their minds appear filled with received opinion. This is useless to anyone. Neither the IBA (who should know better) nor Amnesty International appear to have a clue about these simple, initial pre-conditions to asking anything of anyone. So, why should we take anything that they have to say or conclude with any degree of seriousness. It is all 'hot air' and made up on the hoof. They should bury their airpoints and save the earth from their carbon footprints. Stay at Home! For all our sakes.
@ Anonymous on the matter of 'deceivers':
You can 'deceive people some of the time' but do not make the mistake that you can pull it off 'all of the time'. Most Fijians have now had enough of these silly games. Infantile, stupid, time-wasting games conducted in the main at other peoples' expense. It's time now to STOP IT. And the International Bar Association and AI and any other NGO or professional body tempted to play this game, should desist. We are not all as stupid as you appear to think. Your posturing at our expense is a gross insult. Your minions and accomplices 'on the ground' have lost all credibility. Their self-interest and folly is demonstrable. Cut off the funding and they are all lost. It is time to hold NGOs and some professional bodies accountable for their funding with - full transparency.
Good on you S.O.E. In other countries NGO's are required to declare the sources of their funding.Not in Fiji.Perhaps Transparency International should look into changing our laws. Transparency? Are you there? While you're at it would you like to declare yours?
@ Anonymous
We ought not to be surprised that those who think nothing of making fast and loose with tax-payers' money in their own country, should think so lightly of using that of their funders' taxpayers also? NGOs and all who are funded by overseas taxpayers ought now to be accountable and transparent with regard to this funding. There are good reasons why this should be so. Activists who are funded from elsewhere should be demonstrably transparent about who pays them for their activism. This is only reasonable and mandatory provision would ensure that everyone is 'on the level', so to speak. Far less likely that abuse will ensue: no more frivolous and vexatious litigation, for example (funded allegedly from aid monies?). A shocking waste of scarce court resources and judges' time.
In addition to the comments posted by various people above, surely it would be appropriate to ask of both Waqavonovono and of Bose the following:
1. What human rights violations would they suppose took place in Fiji when the courts were misused and due process was subverted by malfeasant lawyers and the antics of ridiculous human rights activists like Angenette Heffernan?
2. Do they suppose that human rights in Fiji have been furthered or enhanced by the misuse of funding to NGOs and other organisations most of which have failed to identify or produce evidence of widespread corruption? They appear to have failed to assist in this regard: corrupt activity continues. Not a word has been heard from them about this. They have thus failed so far to support FICAC or ALAC with evidence which may be used in court to convict dishonest civil servants/police officers/employees of statutory bodies and private sector developers who have ripped the people of Fiji off. Yet, they cannot claim to have no knowledge of such activities? Their purported ignorance and silence about corruption and all who are party to it, further erodes their standing. Corruption is a violation of human rights. Silence may be deemed complicity.
@ Anonymous re 'Fact Finding Missions to Fiji':
Today one learns that a gentleman by the name of Peter Galbraith, formerly a UN Official in Afghanistan, has lost his job as a result of his exposure of fraud in the recent Afghan election. He was on AL Jazeera this morning explaining how he had reached this conclusion. What a hero! Because the methods he recites match, almost exactly, what some of us know took place in Fiji in May 2006
What Fact Finding Mission took the trouble or the interest to come and speak to those of us who KNOW that the May 2006 elections were rigged? Not one. And, to make matters worse, a former US diplomat had the temerity, yes,the temerity and the audacity to say to me in my own house that he "did not care one way or the other way who won". Have I got news for him because many of Fiji's citizens cared deeply about who won and if they were to win fraudulently, we cared even more. Who put them up to using the insulting and deceitful methods deployed? Ask yourself this. Never cease to ask the questions that matter.
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