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(by Jone Dakuvula)
I supported SVT joining the government because I had anticipated at that time that with SVT outside as Opposition, Fijians feelings of disappointment and fear would be roused against the government and the new Constitution settlement and that could spell disaster for this country. Thereafter I had warned a Coalition Minister close to Mr Chaudhry that his boss had made what could prove to e the most costly mistake of his political life in excluding the SVT from his Cabinet. I am also on public record in the Business Review magazine and this newspaper last year and early this year warning about the likely consequence of the SVT exclusion. However, Mere has laboured this point too much because the refusal of Chaudhry did not really disappoint many SVT supporters who I believed looked forward to the role of Opposition. One of the reasons I left the SVT Parliamentary Office was because I did not want to be party to illegal opposition activities. Mere Samisoni was not a "regular" or "in the loop" at the SVT Office at that time to know what was in the offing. In any case Dr Ahmed Ali, (who usually writes under a terrorist name) was happy to play the role of schemer and drafter of SVT members' racially slanted speeches and press statements. Mere Samisoni can't convince readers that the Taukei Movement was a "spontaneous" opposition to the Chaudhry government. It was an opposition that was roused and organised at the direction of people like Kubuabola and Tora and their network of political activists in the urban and rural areas. A coup was an option that was considered by these leaders right from the beginning. Of course they would not be involved in leading the attack or put records of discussions in writing (although I have the early records in writing). The Coup option had been so widely discussed, even in the news media, that it became legitimate for those Fijians Mere said "had lost their cool". Unfortunately, the SVT and other opposition politicians were largely responsible for encouraging these Fijians who "lost their cool" and in that respect were responsible for George Speight's actions. Instead of refraining from overt support for this criminal act, they went and publicly expressed their support in Parliament. And now we have Mere (and the relative of Omar bin Laden, who helps) write screeds trying to justify the unlawful overthrow of a democratically elected government. She asks why supporting George Speight after holding the government hostage is a crime. She should ask a lawyer what accessory after the fact means. Her argument that the SVT was pushing for the "amendment" of the 1997 Constitution by legal means in Parliament is nonsense. It was the government that was pushing through the "Constitutional amendments" (originally prepared by the SVT government) and the SVT opposing them and deliberately distorting the purpose as intended to undermine indigenous Fijian institutions. So for Mere, (and her Taliban-leaning Balase), it really does not matter whether one gets into power by unlawful means or Constitutional means. She is still bitter about the result of the 1999 Elections. "Politics is the art of the possible", she says. Great she now acknowledges some of the positive aspects of the 1997 Constitution and even now talks about reconciliation. With me, she does not need reconciliation because we are just members of the same political party with different views on certain fundamental issues. However, it would be better for her to talk reconciliation with Mahendra Chaudhry, Dr Tupeni Baba, Adi Kuini Speed, Poseci Bune and their colleagues because she had supported their overthrow. In the interest of "indigenous rights and self determination". For genuine reconciliation to take place, there must first be an acknowledgement to the party that had been wronged that the action that they took was wrong. This needs to be done irrespective of whether she and the SVT believe that their support of George Speight was justified by the "taukei interests" that they believe they represent or what she perceived to be bad behavior of the Coalition government. In other words, she and the SVT should have the humility to acknowledge that supporting criminal actions that involved threatening to murder members of an elected government that were held hostage for 55 days, was wrong. If she and the SVT can have that Christian humility of understanding, then they can apologise to Mahendra Chaudhry and his colleagues first. After all, Mrs. Virmati Chaudhry, who is a Christian, has already said she had forgiven George Speight and his supporters. And so had Mahendra Chaudhry after his release. And so have many of us who had opposed the actions of George Speight and the Fiji Military Force. Some of these members of Chaudhry's Cabinet and their families have been hurt more than once by these coups conducted in the "interests of the indigenous Fijians". They are only human, and their hurt need to be healed by genuine reconciliation. And then there are thousands of others who have lost their jobs, their businesses or had their income reduced drastically as a consequence of the illegal seizure of the government and the abrogation of the Constitution. Many families cannot send their children to school. Others have emigrated or are planning to. Thousands more stand to lose their livelihood in the next year or so. Yet in the Interim Administrations' Constitutional Review Commission and Reconciliation Plan, there is no recognition of what real reconciliation is about. It is about acknowledging wrongs, injustices and the hurt of people that need to be healed by dialogue that recognise these, and seek redress through agreement that last. It is also about telling the truth. As Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara said recently (DP, 16/10/2000) at the Lauan Provincial Council "The reconciliation that has been undertaken today will be worthless if investigation into the coup do not reveal the truth behind the staging". The SVT must support full and fair investigation of the causes of the coup and who were responsible, for creating the conditions for it before and after in supporting it. Even if it means some of the SVT stalwarts being taken to Court and jailed. Will Mere Samisoni support that? Or does the importance of "the cause" justify anything? Mere Samisoni says reconciliation should provide opportunities for working together. That is exactly why we are calling for the formation of a government of National Unity with the deposed Coalition government. The 1997 Constitution should not be given up as a failed national reconciliation settlement but a base from which to build a settlement that can be more widely supported and lasting. Genuine reconciliation can only begins with a Government of National Unity. This is the best path for restoring confidence in the future of this country and immediate normalisation of relations with the international community. |
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People's Coalition Government - Fiji Islands |
