When prompted by a phone call from Radio NZ International, Prof Brij Lal said it’s a sad development when institutions whose role and responsibility is to investigate human rights abuses, fail to do so. “And this is a question that should rightfully [be] asked of human rights agencies, UN agencies in Fiji and the Pacific, why they are keeping silent in the face of such serious allegations, made not by outside critics only but by members from within the regime, and so they must be held accountable.”
Brij, as you well know, Ratu Tevita’s ‘torture’ claims referred specifically to events in 2006 which did not tally with the accounts at the time of the three women assaulted. No police investigations will proceed without evidence. It is no wonder Suva-based regional bodies have refused all comment on the matter now.
As an historian who normally sifts though a range of sources before evaluation and assessment, I must ask why have you chosen not to follow your research training in Ratu Tevita’s case?
The same question can be put to the media that has also accepted his statements without question, but I have come to expect less from journalists than a fellow academic. They have something to sell.
The issue, in this particular instance, is not whether Ratu Tevita is telling the truth, which he may well be, in whole or in part. The issue is that the words of a person, with such a strong self-interest in being believed, have not been questioned by you or the media.
6 comments:
President of the Democracy Movement in the USA Loruama Tawawili’s Comments on http://www.matavuvale.com
8 June 2011
Reply by Loruama Tawawili 2 hours ago
Why do you want to know ? We were all here doing what we are doing now and what is it to you? You were the ones saying that we had no hope of successeding . Now that we have Bainimaramna's former Chief of Staff to justify our cause of Freedom in Fiji you have the balls to come and Question us? Don't worry about kai Idia worry about the backlash I will undo on your race for causing so much pain to the Taukei's of Fiji. You ain't seen nothing yet mate.
Reply by Loruama Tawawili 2 hours ago
Bainimarama through Khaiyum started the deepening of the racial divide. Now we the Taukeis know what was on Khaiyum's mind when he convinced Bainimarama to bring in this so called bullshit no race politics when everything they were doing were of a very unfair racial canotations. The Indians were given everything they wanted and the Taukeis were being reduced to nothing in the land they own 85% of.You Sharneet still think we want to bring in racial differences? Pity that when the Taukeis accepted you the Indians into our midst you still wanted to have what we have and went behind our backs to get it. Now get ready to face us the Taukeis face to face. I have always fought for a race tolerant society where we can be co habitate and respect each other. Now I know for a fact that it will never happen because the IndoFijians who are a migrant race in Fiji are nothing but back stabbers.From now on I will dedicate my life to making sure that all Fijians who are of Indian decent go back to India.
Reply by Loruama Tawawili 1 hour ago
Good for you, because the game is going to change now. For me it is going to be "Fiji for The Taukeis " all IndoFijians fuck off to where your forefathers came from
Reply by Loruama Tawawili 1 hour ago
Khaiyum and Bai pray to God that I will not meet you face to face in Fiji one day because Fiji is too small for the three of us to live in.
Reply by Loruama Tawawili 17 minutes ago
Fallen I spend a good part of my life protecting these IndoFijians from the wrath of the Taukeis.In 1987 as you were there bashing them I was protecting them and even got abused by the Taukeis for protecting then in the Suva markets when the taukeis unloaded on them after Rabuka's adress at the New Town hall.
Like you fallen I even fell in love with one and I almost married her but she had to move away from Fiji for greener pastures and today we are the very best of friends with this girl.
Now as I try to find a way to move the peoples of Fiji to a better understanding of one another I have come to the realization that it will never happen.
I am a ITaukei in Fiji and am held at a very high esteem by my people in Ono i lau. Now I am seeing the IndoFijians in a very different light. They are the worst scums of this earth and they should not be given refuge in Fiji if they are not willing to accept our way of life the Taukeis of Fiji.They must go back to India.
Why, why indeed. We fear that this now demonstrates amply and sufficiently how orchestrated violence in Fiji has been not only perpetrated but also propagated by the consistent refusal of NGOs in receipt of considerable aid funding support to ensure and assure safety and security reporting.
This is far from a pretty picture. It deserves immediate investigation and those who state that they have been terrorized and abused must now reveal the detailed evidence. Fiji is most certainly NOT a special case. It is no different from any other country in which instability over an extended period of time has led to post- traumatic societal distress through violent abuses: rape, gross humiliation and physical abuse as well as mental stress through continuing uncertainty and criminal intimidation. Let us also remember Home Invasions which are really a refined form of domestic terrorism driven by Serious Organised Crime.
And more: those who do the abusing in the main benefit from considerable impunity. Now, where is the aid support to these NGOs going? Siphoned off by salaries,
administration, and overseas and local consultants,
AGAIN?
Brij is not bridging the gap - only widening it to hit the regime that has turfed him out of Fiji. All right thinking people should help the Government to rebuild the house of democracy where chiefs, Methodist Church hierarchy, racists and former politicians who advocated racism are kept out of it. Sometimes means justify the end. Do we no go to war for getting enduring peace?
Today, the protector of self-serving chiefs and elites, the Army, is doing the work which should have been done by the democratically elected Governments. It is the Army that is going to liberate the people of Fiji, particularly, i-Taukei who have suffered most under their chiefs and leaders.
...everything is the agencies and NGO's fault ?
Last time I checked it was the military under Franks command that is handing out the beatings. Do they not have some responsibility here ?
Three. Questions are repeatedly not asked in Fiji and they are the key to everything:
Who pays you?
Who benefits?
Who should benefit?
ADD. What Conflicts of interest do you have?
Has any NGO in Fiji taken up the non-availability of Passports to bona fide citizens? Have they concerned themselves with the acute anxiety this causes, the risk of job losses for those who work overseas (having been obliged to see employment in more favourably endowed countries)and the threat to health of families forced to wait in uncertainty?
This is a legitimate area of concern in the entire field of human rights. Any stable state provides travel documents which are widely and internationally acceptable for its citizens to travel 'at will'. It does not permit its citizens to live in a Gulag akin to Solzhenitsyn's work where only the High and Mighty travel. The serfs remain inside?
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