Fijigirl's Weblog

Illegal junta asks – who can we rob next?

FijiGirl — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 07:55:46 +0000

Having realised that We The People have no more money, having pre-spent the money they’ve haven’t yet got from selling our natural resources to China and having not been able to hawk their junk bonds, the illegal regime is now hijacking our tourists, filling in the final missing colour in their rainbow of Killing The Goose That Lays The Golden Egg.

http://www.3news.co.nz/Fiji-departure-tax-jumps-50-percent/tabid/372/articleID/240161/Default.aspx

An instant hike in departure tax from $100 to $150 is so transparently stupid that it almost defies belief. Is this the only way they have left of paying Qorvis? iArse, you have outdone yourself, yet again.

God bless Fiji

Minfo responds to YPCN statement

FijiGirl — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 00:11:16 +0000

In the best of Orwellian tradition, the idea that ‘you should not feel threatened by the amendment to the Public Order’ Decree if you ‘do not want to create public disorder’ is utterly fatuous.

Let’s turn that one on its head, shall we?

If the regime did not want to suppress the collective will of We The People, it should not feel sufficiently threatened by Us to warrant needing to rule Us by Decree. It would allow Us to elect Our Own representatives to debate the decree before it passes into law. But no. This tinpot regime won’t even allow Us to vote in a Personality Contest without interference.

The regime calls POAD ‘an enabling statute’. This is the same warped, twisted logic that calls the 2006 coup a ‘sunset clause’ on our native land rights. The decree is intended to DISable Our voice. The regime is interested in ENabling nothing of We The People because it fears Our legitimate voice and Our legitimate powers.

How are We The People to voice Our aspirations, Our hopes, Our dreams, which this illegal regime continues to ravage as though Our beloved country were its own personal piggybank?

When are We The People allowed to speak? If they insist on stifling Our collective voice, how else can We The People be heard other than by standing up for Ourselves and saying simply “No. No more.”

God bless Fiji

From: Minfonews <news@info.gov.fj>
Date: 16 January 2012 17:09
Subject: GOVERNMENT RESPONDS TO YPCN STATEMENT
To: Minfonews <news@info.gov.fj>

Government responds to YPCN LINK

GOVERNMENT RESPONDS TO YPCN STATEMENT

The Ministry of Information permanent secretary Sharon Smith Johns released the following statement today in response to the Young People’s Concerned Network:

If the Young People’s Concerned Network seeks to represent the leaders of tomorrow, it will need to do a better job of understanding recent Fijian history and of assessing Government provisions, such as the Public Order (Amendment) Decree—which it misreads either out of a desire to manipulate public sentiment or simply because of ignorance.

To compare the Public Order (Amendment) Decree to most other government’s laws regarding terrorism and extremism, such as the United States or Australia, would reveal immediately that Fiji is in fact more liberal than other countries. The U.S., for example, under the National Defense Authorization Act signed by President Obama, allows the military to indefinitely detain terror suspects, including American citizens arrested in the U.S., without charge. Fiji does not even come close to this. The United Nations General Assembly further encourages all nations to be proactive in taking steps to “prevent and combat” domestic and international terrorist threats in all their forms.

To be clear: If you do not want to engage in racial or religious vilification or create public disorder, then you should not feel threatened by the amendment to the Public Order Act. The amendment is an enabling statute—one that creates a safe place for open discussion and critical thinking across Fijian society for the formation of a true liberal democratic state.

This is because throughout Fiji’s history demagoguery and religious, racial and ethnic vilification have been used openly to harass and intimidate, and at times hold Fiji for ransom. Politicians and religious leaders have used race and religion, not just to denigrate others but as a political tool of ascendency. In the process, they created public disorder, inhibiting true democracy to flourish.

The Bainimarama Government takes seriously the welfare and opinion of Fijian youth, which underscores all of its activities to strengthen the Fijian economy, create jobs, invest in education and technology, and establish the basis for a new future.

-ends-

Probes After BainiVore Loses Rigged Poll

FijiGirl — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 12:17:43 +0000

First reported by intrepid Pacific correspondent, Michael Field, on Stuff.co.nz, this story just keeps on giving as a superlative demonstration of the regime’s ethos – incompetent, egotistical, ill-tempered, unpopular and sore losers to boot. With this kind of attitude, does anyone truly believe these bozos will allow us elections in 2014?

Fiji’s military dictator Voreqe Bainimarama has ordered two regime inquiries after he failed to win a television text message competition for personality of the year.

The regime’s attorney general Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum told a press conference in Suva that the poll result has been changed and Bainimarama is first – beating out a woman who won it on January 1, Premila Kumar of the Fiji Consumer Council.

Bainimarama, who ended democracy with an armed coup in 2006 and refuses to restore democracy until 2014 at the earliest, claims the text polling run by semi-privately owned Fiji TV and Vodafone, was undemocratic.

“The allegation is that members of the public could text in and give their vote and the announcement was going to be made on the first of January,” Sayed-Khaiyum says.

But they closed the poll on December 30 and ignored 1500 votes sent in on December 31 – and almost all of the votes on the last day were for Bainimarama. The uncounted votes appear to make up almost all of the submitted text votes.

Sayed-Khaiyum says Fiji TV has apologised and on January 9 reversed the result awarding the title to Bainimarama.

But the regime has sent a formal complaint to the Commerce Commission and to the Media Development Authority “in respect of unethical practices”.

The authority was established by military decree and has dacronian powers to close down media outlets or force them to change owners – as they did to the Rupert Murdoch owned Fiji Times.

Under the revised Personality of the Year results, Bainimarama apparently scored 1700 votes to Kumar’s 464.

– © Fairfax NZ News

January 13, 2012

AAP

Two government inquiries have been ordered after Fijian military dictator Frank Bainimarama lost a television popularity poll.

Fiji TV reported on January 1 that Bainimarama came second in the text poll run by Fiji TV and Vodafone for Personality of the Year, behind Consumer Council chief executive Premila Kumar.

But another announcement was made by Fiji TV on January 9 that Bainimarama was the actual winner, FBC Radio reported.

Attorney-General Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum says he has subsequently reported the matter to the Commerce Commission and the Media Development for unethical practices.

“The allegation is that members of the public could text in and give their vote and the announcement was going to be made on the first of January,” he said.

“Unbenounced (sic) to many members of the public, Fiji TV closed the actual polls on the 30th of December as opposed to the 31st of December.

“We understand that Fiji TV subsequently made an apology and reversing the outcome, but what we are concerned about is the manner in which it was done in the first place.”

FBC said efforts to get comment from Fiji TV “proved futile”.

Blog Fiji Today reported that the December 30 cutoff was made because of “a suspiciously large number of texts on the 31st from numbers allocated to the military”.

One number voted 23 times.

This was considered suspicious by the television station and the earlier cutoff was to avoid the results being tainted, it said.

© 2012 AAP

Tell BainiVore Only What He Wants To Hear

FijiGirl — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 12:02:14 +0000

This scathing article in the Sydney Morning Herald shows what a stupid lot Qorvis’s latest client is. But of course Qorvis already knew that. They probably value their clients for their stupidity, megalomania and need to hear only what they want to hear.

Come in spinner: Fiji pays Washington lobbyists for image makeover

Dylan Welch in Suva, Fiji

January 14, 2012

THE Fijian regime of Voreqe ”Frank” Bainimarama has recruited one of Washington’s most notorious lobbyist firms – which has been raided by the FBI and represents repressive regimes in the Middle East and Africa – to help manage its reputation and lobby foreign journalists.

And diplomatic sources believe the firm, Qorvis Communications, may be behind the decision by Commodore Bainimarama to lift the widely condemned public emergency regulations, only to enshrine them in a permanent law.

The company is represented in Suva by a fresh-faced former business journalist, Seth Thomas Pietras, who has been in the country on and off since October. A contract published by the US Justice Department under the Foreign Agents Registration Act reveals that in October the Fijian Attorney-General, Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum, signed a deed with Qorvis worth $US40,000 a month for a year. In return, Qorvis has agreed to provide ”public relations services relating to business and investment to the government of Fiji”.

But it appears to the Herald, which spent the week in Suva being lobbied by Mr Pietras, that his ambit is far greater than spin.

It is likely Mr Pietras, described as Qorvis’s chief speechwriter, helped draft Commodore Bainimarama’s recent speeches, including his New Year’s Day address announcing the lifting of emergency regulations.

Several countries with an interest in Fiji expressed a belief to the Herald that, given the timing, Qorvis might have played a role in Commodore Bainimarama’s decision to lift the emergency regulations.

A diplomatic source also expressed concern that the kind of role played by such lobbyists in the Middle East and Africa was being imported to the Pacific.

Mr Pietras, an executive vice-president of Qorvis’s geopolitical solutions section, is at least the second Qorvis employee to travel to Fiji, after Tina Jeon, an Olympic archer and Qorvis spinner.

In early November Ms Jeon posted on Twitter a photo of herself and Commodore Bainimarama aboard a boat in Fiji with the caption: ”No better place to write a press release”.

Last year, during the Arab Spring, Mr Pietras was Qorvis’s spokesman when its role in defending Middle East regimes was the subject of debate.

”Our clients are facing some challenges now,” Mr Pietras told The New York Times. ”But our long-term goals to bridge the differences between our clients and the United States haven’t changed. We stand by them.”

In 2004 Qorvis was raided by the FBI as part of an investigation into whether an advertising campaign it helped run broke federal law by not disclosing Saudi funding.

At the time, Qorvis was the beneficiary of a six-month contract with the Saudis worth almost $US15 million to help improve its reputation after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

Last year an Egyptian steel tycoon with ties to the Mubarak regime retained Qorvis to manage his public relations during a trial regarding claims of widespread corruption. He was eventually sentenced to 10 years in jail.

The company has also represented the man widely known as ”Africa’s worst dictator”, Equatorial Guinea’s Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo.

Arms?

FijiGirl — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 19:23:59 +0000

Recent reports that the illegal regime is considering becoming a manufacturer of arms are further indications of how low they are willing to stoop for so-called “easy money”.

I mea – FFS – these guys can’t even mill sugar affordably with the help of international consultants and aid money. And they expect to be able to manufacture arms?

But clearly THEY are not expecting to do the manufacturing. Some shady overseas “investor” type (read ‘triad’ or ‘mafioso’ or ‘yazuka’ or similar) is proposing to handle the sweat work (probably using sweat shop labour from their home country) and all they need is a location in which to do it and a puppet government of corrupt bastards who are willing to look the other way.

For whom would such arms be intended? We know that China already sells arms to African countries in the grip of civil war (and sells to both sides of the divide, to boot). Perhaps the regime’s investor is another of these? Who knows? Not us – not with this regime’s zero-transparency.

Meanwhile OmniVore continues to supply guns to his troops but only ammunition to his body guards because he’s just not quite sure that his own troops won’t fire on him themselves.

End this illegal regime now, and take us back to free and fair elections. Tabu soro.

God bless Fiji

What is needed

FijiGirl — Mon, 30 May 2011 14:53:06 +0000

If you haven’t yet seen it, take a look at Lt Col Tevita Uluilakeba Mara’s latest post on YouTube – a hard-hitting strike against the regime in which the Lauan Chief positively identifies BainiVore as having lead the beatings of Fiji’s women democracy activists who were tortured in December 2006. Other soldiers in the room who had held back from beating the women, soon joined in, in true Monkey-See, Monkey-Do style.

This is the first time any member Fiji’s military has admitted to and apologised for taking part – even passively – in beating civilians for having spoken out against the junta. May others in the military follow his lead.

What OmniVore has achieved with a small section of our military forces, is to convince them that normal ethical considerations no longer apply to them. In this morally disengaged state, they can be manipulated to commit acts which they would acknowledge in the cold light of day are atrocities against our own people.

There are many psychological experiments which show how to balance authority and conformity to influence individuals to behave in ways they know are wrong. In the Milgram Experiment, which took place after the trial of a Nazi war criminal in Jerusalem, Yale University psychologist Stanley Milgram tested the theory of whether accomplices in the Holocaust simply followed orders, even when those orders violated their beliefs. Subjects were instructed to administer electric shocks to another human if that person gave a wrong answer, with the shocks becoming stronger on each successive incorrect response. Although before the experiment, Milgram and his colleagues believe only a small percentage of the subjects would administer the maximum shock (450V), in fact 65% did so. In his summary, Milgram noted:

Ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process. Moreover, even when the destructive effects of their work become patently clear, and they are asked to carry out actions incompatible with fundamental standards of morality, relatively few people have the resources needed to resist authority. (Milgram, Stanley (1974). Obedience to Authority. Yale)

Another illustration of this principle is if you select a random group of people, give them each a sledgehammer and instruct them to destroy a high-value object, such as a car. At the beginning, the group will hesitate and then, when once one member of the group overcomes their qualms and begins to destroy the car, the rest of the group will join in, increasingly with gusto. This particular experiment is very popular with psychology undergraduates.

Another reason that the soldiers and officers are able to follow BainiVore’s atrocious orders is BECAUSE NO-ONE IS TELLING THEM THAT IT’S WRONG.

This is where We The People have made a rod for our own backs through our inaction. None of the soldiers fully understand our collective disgust with the regime because none of us will voice our rage.

The time has now come.

We KNOW that the illegal President would happily disengage BainiVore & iArse if the conditions were right. We KNOW that there are senior officers in the military who are willing to risk insubordination to overthrow BainiVore & iArse. We KNOW that, once BainiVore is incapacitated, iArse is toast. We KNOW that BainiVore FEARS any sign of public protest – and he always has. Now that he has seen the strength of public protest in North Africa and Asia, BainiVore KNOWS that We The People hold the key to topple him. We KNOW that BainiVore won’t issue live ammunition to his soldiers because he fears that they will use it against him. We KNOW that, if we work with the governments of the Forum countries and international Aid and donor agencies, they will keep a close eye on the wellbeing of our people as we march to Freedom.

In 2006, a young man told me that all it takes to get rid of the illegal regime is one bullet in BainiVore. As an advocate of peaceful, non-violent protest, I would never agree with violence (the young man was tortured by the regime shortly afterwards, and I think now agrees with the pacifist viewpoint), but it is undeniable that, with BainiVore out of the picture, the regime’s House of Cards falls away.

We need to co-ordinate with the senior officers. If we hold our peaceful protest for the world to see, and to distract the military’s attention, the senior officers can stage their own coup. And we could be back to free and fair elections before the end of 2011.

So – how badly do you want freedom? Tabu soro.

God bless Fiji