Attorney General Aiyaz Sayed Khaiyum has accused NZ of denying a medical entry visa for Hon. Anjala Wati (photo), a judge in the Family Court, who is seeking to bring her 20-month old child to New Zealand for an urgent eye operation to prevent the permanent loss of eyesight in one eye. Arrangements had already been made with Auckland's Starship Hospital for children. Khaiyum said she was advised of this decision in an "undignified and disrespectful manner."
But a spokesperson for NZ Immigration said the visa was lodged late last week and a decision is yet to be made. My understating is that it normally takes at least 14 working days to issue visas, so Khaiyum could be jumping the gun. Let us hope NZ will show good sense and compassion in this case. Fiji needs a family court no less than a women's crisis centre (see story below). Even the Aussies could work that out.It would be ironic indeed if NZ forestalled help for this child. New Zealander Fred Hollows spent a lifetime providing free eye surgery in the Pacific and other developing countries. His Foundation still carries on the good work.
FWCC and AusAid
The Fiji Women's Crisis Centre will receive A$5.3m ovesr the next six years thanks to AusAid. FWCC Co-ordinator and longstanding critic of the Interim Government, Shamima Ali said the money will be used for counselling, legal advice, advocacy, training, education, awareness and other support services for women survivors of violence.
Unanswered Questions about Fiji Journalism
The special issue the Journal of Fijian Studies is on democracy and journalism over the past 20 years. The Pacific Scoop review of the issue by Thakur Ranjit Singh raises several unanswered questions about the racial compositon of newsrooms and the dearth of Indo-Fijian editors; the failure to investigate corruption leads; the derailing of the Labour-led Government; support for the SDL party; and the lack of support for the USP journalism course. He also asks what foreign aid sense it makes for the Australians to support a new journalism programme at the Fiji Institute of Technology when a well-established but under-resourced programme already exists at USP
Another review titled "The Politics of Fiji News Media Under Scrutiny" is posted on David Robie's Cafe Pacific together with a clever, mischievous cartoon of Bainimarama and the media.
Two End of the Telescope
The Australian Association for the Advancement of Pacific Studies website includes its 2009 annual report that focuses on "a national strategy for the study of the Pacific ... designed to revive and enhance the excellence in teaching and research that had once marked Australia as the leader in the field [although we say so ourselves]. AAAPS also acknowledged the increasing concern in Australia about security, good governance, stability and development assistance in the neighbouring region."
Meanwhile, rumour has it that a group of eminent Pacific Islanders are planning a regional programme to study Australian and NZ -- with courses on security, good governance, stability and development assistance!
24 comments:
Apparently in the course of the interview she was told not only that her application was unsuccessful, but also that she was a coup supporter, that the baby was not dying but only needed an eye operation,and that the President was the cause of all Fiji's problems!! Now the High Commission is going into damage control.
@anonymous
If this is true, it is a shameful act by New Zealand. I am ashamed not only of my country but also of every New Zealander who is standing by and watching this nonsense. How is this policy going to persuade Bainimarama to hold elections?
Interesting that this blog did not cover NZAID's funding of the Fiji Women's Crisis Centre - published in the Fiji media when it was announced a few months ago! One wonders why not!
In relation to the judge and her child, two thoughts come to mind.
First, based on the interview on Morning Report this morning, that the Regime (through its Attorney-General) is simply trying it on by publicing this instance. It never, of course, publicises its own actions in refusing entry to New Zealanders or denying them access to what could be deemed reasonable. This morning's interview was a bit of a sham to be honest.
Second, whose word do we trust - that of the Attorney-General who has an interest of course (as well as an axe to grind versus NZ), or Immigration New Zealand who are the agency responsible for processing the application and indicated to Morning Report that the case was not, as the Attorney-General indicated, closed but still under review.
I'd put my money on INZ rather than our good friend Aiyaz-Khaiyum!
@ Anonymous
This incident is an outrage and it has convinced me that a decision made some time ago never to beg for a visa to visit New Zealand (despite having many close family members living there) is justified. FOURTEEN working days to obtain a visa to go to the nearest developed country to Fiji? How obscene and insulting is this? "Must do better"! Who, unless they were in severe need of medical treatment would choose freely to subject themselves to such torment? An immediate enquiry must be conducted without delay. The honourable judge, who has chosen to serve us, deserves an immediate and a profuse apology. The trauma of a sick child is now to be compounded by rudeness and audacious assumptions? One would choose ministering justice to the worthy people of Fiji anyday over having to do business with such people.
Let us hope that the person who allegedly dared speak of Fiji's President in such a way is never clearly identified? We are not given to being overly generous about such shoddy slips-of-the-tongue. More than silly surely inane, if not insane?
New Zealand appears to be auditioning for a role in Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's 'Gulag Archipelago'.
There is a Russian proverb he quotes in the Author's Note:
'Don't dig up the past! Dwell on the past and you'll lose an eye'.
But the proverb goes on to say:
'Forget the past and you'll lose both eyes'.
Has New Zealand forgotten the past? It seems so. But in Fiji we shall NEVER forget the past. Like proverbial elephants we recall the indignity and the suffering that was visited upon us first twenty years ago; and then again, nine years ago.
And now AGAIN in the New Zealand High Commission in Suva: DAILY. Shame, shame, 'madua'.
@ posting #3
What has funding for the Women's Crisis Centre got to do with the price of fish? Other than that this tale of woe at the NZ High Commission does represent a real crisis for many Fiji mothers and children. Such conduct is not only reprehensible but it is also inimical to the interest of Fiji's women and children as a whole.
The whole saga puts New Zealand and its High Commission in Suva quite 'beyond the pale'. If this is how democracy and freedom work in practice, give us the Czar!
While surfing around the blogs and online newspapers today, one article struck my interest. That regarding Solomon Islands former Attorney General Julian Moti.
You can read the article here:
http://www.fijisun.com.fj/main_page/view.asp?id=28308
The article published in today's Fiji Sun clearly exposed Australia and New Zealand's covert activities to subvert the Solomon Islands government and judiciary under Julian Moti as Attorney General.
This case is one of the many that these two countries have been undertaking to subvert countries of the South Pacific in order to extend their hegemony over.
The Australian and New Zealand government need to know a few things. The time of colonialism is over.
The Fiji Sun has, to its detriment, reproduced a poorly researched, badly written, blatantly biased article which demonstrates the low level of investigative journalism for which the Fiji Times used to be, quite rightly, pilloried.
Ironically the story does demonstrate that the AFP and the Fiji Military have the same way of thinking when they feel that they’re acting for the greater good.
@ Jon
What are you a government agent of New Zealand and Australia?
The article wasn't poorly researched. In fact it was well researched by Patrick O'connor from the World Socialist Web Site.
Underscoring the truth behind the article, just take a look at Justice Debra Mullins latest ruling on the case. You can read it here:
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/oct2009/moti-o21.shtml
The good thing about Frank's coup is that it is exposing all the covert, overt and subversive activities of the Australian and New Zealand government in the entire Pacific Island countries.
The Pacific Island Forum is gone. Every other Pacific regional bodies has been hijacked by the agendas of Australia and New Zealand. It looks like the last bastion of preventing the ceding of total control of the South Pacific island sovereignty to Australia and New Zealand is Fiji. This is probably why Australia and New Zealand are acting as such towards Frank Bainimarama's Fiji government.
PACER Plus would be the icing on the cake for New Zealand and Australian hegemony in the Pacific.
Leaders of Pacific island countries need to wake up and chart a new course for Pacific solidarity. In that regard I suggest killing the Pacific Island Forum as their main regional body because they moreorless have no more say in it. Create a new one that is wholly Pacific without the inclusion of Australia and New Zealand.
There is a much faster route for trade to Asia for Pacific Island countries looking at the alignment on the world map. In fact, it would be better to follow the alignment of islands towards Asia then going the other route to Australia and New Zealand.
Pacific island people have a lot more in common with people in the Asian regions than Australian and New Zealanders.
The saga of the Julian Moti case continues. Read it here:
http://www.fijisun.com.fj/main_page/view.asp?id=28359
Some people’s emotions understandably run high when Australian/ NZ/ Chinese/ American/ Japanese (take your pick) interests are seen as being promoted in the South Pacific, especially when those interests are perceived to be to the detriment of island residents. However it’s important that emotion doesn’t blind reasoned argument.
Mr Moti’s attempt over several years to evade answering questions pertaining to alleged sexual intercourse with a Solomon Island child is, I feel, a poor example to use in order to demonstrate Australian/ NZ’s desire for hegemony over the South Pacific since there are many other, far more pertinent, examples that could be used.
It is the lack of balance in Patrick O’Connor’s article that shows it to be biased and therefore badly written. There are a wealth of articles available giving both sides to this matter and Max may be interested to know that the Solomon Islands government, having declared Mr Moti ‘persona non-grata’ when he was deported, has now declared him a prohibited immigrant to the Solomons, regardless of the outcome of his case. http://www.solomontimes.com/news.aspx?nwID=1267.
Dr Sikua’s (Solomons PM) statement may be viewed by some to have been a political statement but that is the view of the present government. Regardless of politics, Justice Mullins will, over the next several months, presumably deliberate to firstly determine whether or not Mr Moti (an Australian citizen) has a case to answer under Australian law, then whether or not his deportation was legal (or even relevant), and finally – if this complex case gets that far, whether or not Mr Moti is guilty of having sex with a child.
@ Jon
You just don't get it. Who are you trying to fool? Read Patrick O'connor's article properly. He is shredding the evidence and they are now appearing for everyone to see.
Julian Moti's rape allegation happened in Vanuatu where he was tried in 1998 and eventually dismissed by the Vanuatu Magistrate for lack of evidence and so forth.
This is no running of emotion here on my part. Just stating facts as it now appears and exposed in the rooftops for everyone to see.
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what's going on. Evidence are just lying around everywhere.
Pacific Island leaders need to stop for once and have a reality check about themselves and what they are doing in regards to the sovereignty of their countries.
@ Jon
Patrick O'connor doesn't need to balance anything else in the story as the story merely exposes the truth on its own if one follows the court case carefully currently underway in Brisbane.
The case clearly exposes Australia's intervention to subjugate the sovereignty of a country. It is a crime against the people of the Solomon Islands.
For all the talk on rule of law, anti-corruption, anti-terrorism etc, this case is exposing Australia and New Zealand's subversive activities to undermine the rule of law in foreign sovereign countries of the Pacific. Viewing it from another angle, I would classify this subversive activities as white collar terrorism.
On the local front here in Fiji, some of these kinds of activities are coming by way of funding for the Fiji Women's Crisis Centre and other NGO pressure groups. I'm pretty sure the intelligence arm of the Fiji Military Forces are aware of these and are watching it carefully.
As I said, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure all these out. Just follow the trail and one shall surely find the secrets.
Further balance is provided in this report, http://rspas.anu.edu.au/papers/melanesia/working_papers/07_01wp_Nelson.pdf which gives a brief and interesting history of the events that culminated in Mr Moti’s extradition and the Solomon Island government’s decision to prohibit his re entry to the country.
This article http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24463264-601,00.html also gives another view. This is not to infer that either report is necessarily correct, but they do provide alternative observation and the reader is then able to make an informed assessment of what, in their opinion (not a journalist’s) is closest to the truth.
The assertion that Australia is interfering in Solomon affairs is interestingly set against the fact that Mr Moti is himself an Australian. Max feels that, in order to bring one of their own citizens to face the court, Australia is interfering in Solomon’s affairs. However, since Mr Moti stands accused of having sex with a child, there are probably many in the Solomons who welcome the fact that their government has refused to allow him re entry.
The full link in my previous post for the ANU working paper didn't appear. It is
http://rspas.anu.edu.au/papers/melanesia/
working_papers/07_01wp_Nelson.pdf
I think Jon misses the point. The issue is not what Moti did, nor how reprehensible his behavior might have been. The point is that the motive for deporting him IN THE WAY HE WAS DEPORTED was to remove him politically from the position he held or might have held in the future, in the Solomons because he was seen as a threat to RAMSI and Australian interests. In other words according to memos written by the Australian High Commissioner in the Solomons, that was the ONLY motive for deporting him, and not the concern for the victim or for the justice system. That in a nutshell is what is called an abuse of the process. It means a misuse of the justice system for the wrong motives. The English police tried it in the Bennet case when they colluded with the South African police to deport Bennet from South Africa for far more serious offences than Moti's charges. The House of lord stayed the whole prosecution because the English police had abused the court's process. Ring a bell? It will be interesting to see how independent the Australian judiciary is, in the hearing of the Moti case. Remember the unfortunate Dr Haneef and the AFP? Not a great example of respect for the rule of law. And what about the evidence of the Aus govt bribing the victim to persuade her to give evidence against Moti? Ever heard of perverting the course of justice Aus?
@ The Max
Not at all surprising that the oh so respectable Dr Sikua has named Moti persona non grata. It was for precisely that reason that Canberra engineered a regime change as O'Connor puts it, by ensuring that an obedient and cheque book conscious government was in place to protect RAMSI's interests. And so it has come to pass. Methinks Jon protests too much.
I don’t profess to hold a candle for Australia’s policies in the South Pacific. My original post addressed what I perceived to be blatant bias by a journalist. Whether that bias is pro or anti establishment is immaterial – bias in any form insults the reader’s intelligence and is ‘lazy’ reporting.
However posts in reply have moved the subject on somewhat. Most recently Anonymous has quite correctly called into question the way in which Mr Moti was deported and alludes to the concept that illegal acts carried out in support of legitimate aims render those aims invalid. This fair, but nevertheless arguable, point doesn’t take into account the alleged way in which Mr Moti evaded, or perhaps corrupted, justice in his original court case in 1998. In brief, the Vanuatu magistrate dismissed the charges against Mr Moti, supposedly in return for financial sponsorship to study at an Australian university. Apparently in 2004 evidence was found to support the allegation and the magistrate resigned from the bench.
We now have the tricky conundrum of whether an illegal act to subvert justice can legitimately be countered by another illegal act to see justice rendered. Shades of Fiji’s situation, perhaps? I fully accept the assertion that Australia’s subsequent prosecution of Mr Moti is politically motivated and has, probably, stemmed from the desire to have a more malleable Attorney General in place in the Solomons.
But what of the original allegation? Is it reasonable to accept that a person who has been charged with such a crime should continue to hold high public office, never mind that of the highest legal position in a country? Or is our Pacific community so bereft of morals that it’s prepared to take no heed of such cross border crime. Remember the allegation of sex with a 13 year old child was supposedly committed by an Australian, on a Solomon Islander, in Vanuatu.
If we redirect our concern over the original allegation into a concern over sovereignty then it is facile for us, as a community, to be concerned about similar crimes in our own countries or trafficking across borders.
@ Jon
Don't you know what the word DISMISSED means?
The allegation against Julian Moti itself was dismissed by the Vanuatu Court. That means Moti wasn't guilty at all.
Why the hell did Australias High Comm in Solomon Islands want to bring the case up again? Now we know the Australian government bribed the girls family and then relocated them to the South of France.
Read carefully and get the cobwebs out of your stupid head. We are not the fools you think we are.
Max – It’s not my intention to accuse you of being foolish, nor even of paranoid schizophrenia (“...we are not the fools you think we are…”). I’ve already acknowledged that it’s highly likely Australia has ulterior motives for pursuing this case in the way it has.
However I’ve tried and, in your case evidently failed, to alert readers to the fact that there are always two sides to a story. To retain balance and credibility in debates it’s necessary to look at both sides before coming to a conclusion.
Both your questions are rhetorical, so you’re not expecting a reply to them, however it concerns me that proven corruption in Mr Moti’s case, which led to the resignation of the magistrate, should be dismissed in such a cavalier fashion. This is not to say that evidence of bribing his magistrate proves Mr Moti’s guilt in his sex case. However it doesn’t say much for Mr Moti’s own belief in his innocence that he should have felt the need to bribe the very person who sat in judgement on the matter.
He is indeed fortunate to have such a rousing cheer leader in yourself.
http://www.fijisun.com.fj/main_page/view.asp?id=28407
Has everybody commenting on the Moti case seen this?
Actually if the magistrate was wrong in 1998, was the High court wrong too? And the Court of Appeal in the Solomons which had on it none other than our very own Chief Justice Fatiaki? The appeal courts all upheld Moti's acquittal!! Were they corrupt too? And why is it now necessary to bribe the victim to give evidence? And is it correct that she made a similar and false allegation of child rape against her own father only to withdraw it later when she admitted that she made it up? Mr Jon (er Howard), what of the presumption of innocence, even more compelling in this case? This Moti affair is so obviously a political set up engineered by the aussies that it is a blot on the justice system. Shame on Australia to so manipulate justice.
Crosbie, I’ve read the Fiji Sun like to which you refer and it appears possible that the Sun itself might be guilty of manipulating Mr O’Connor’s words to suit its agenda.
Fiji Sun (23 October 2009):
“…Is there a connection between the form in which the case has proceeded and the content of the charges themselves-charges which the defence argues represent a politically motivated abuse of judicial process?”
Report wording attributed to Mr O’Connor.
Solomon Star News (19 October 2009)
solomonstarnews.com/index2.php?option=com_content&do_pdf=1&id=12558
“…Hore-Lacey (Moti Defence Council) told the court: We would say they [the sex allegations] were used in this way [to influence political appointments]. This is what drove the investigation.
Judge Mullins replied by saying that even if that were the case, it did not amount to a bad prosecution or an abuse of process; even if a government official thought an investigation was good for extraneous reasons, so long as there was a material basis for an investigation there was no problem.”
Report wording attributed to Mr O’Connor.
The Solomon Star appears to have quoted Mr O’Connor’s report verbatim. However the Fiji Sun appears to have edited Mr O’Connor’s report to ignore Justice Mullins’ reply and pose a rhetorical question instead, pertaining to political motivation behind Australia’s pursuit of charges.
Anonymous infers that Mr Moti’s case went to the High Court and Appeals Court This is unlikely, since it would have done so on the basis that he had lost in the magistrates court and the High Court beforehand.
However in reply to Anonymous’ claim (with which I agree) that Australia pursued this matter for political reasons, I believe Justice Mullins’ reply above “…as long as there was a material basis for investigation…” goes to the heart of this matter.
This is a complex case, with possible interference of the witness by both Australia and Mr Moti. It is now up to Justice Mullins (who appears to have adequately demonstrated her impartiality) to assess whether or not Mr Moti is guilty. Solomon’s sovereign right to employ a foreigner who is charged with child sex is now, and always has been, irrelevant.
Funny how the Australia media are treating this story with a ten foot pole.
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/sep2009/moti-s24.shtml
As for Jon's comments, shoot the messenger comes to mind.
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