Issue No: 1022; 17 August 2001

Madraiwiwi made the comments while giving a lecture at the University of the South Pacific. In his lecture, he stated:
"The politicians pontificate and manoeuvre with eloquent manifestos and pronouncements saying little about the challenges we must confront."

"We are a divided society but the ethnic differences so often remarked upon by observers and lay people alike are but one aspect of the problem."'

"One … has to look beyond ethnicity to understand that promoting national unity will require separate but complimentary approaches," he said."

Madraiwiwi stated that the law must take its course and those guilty of the offences against the state must pay for them. He said:
"Justice requires that those who broke the law regardless of the nature of the cause be punished for it."

"Those who played a leading part in the flouting of the law on May 19, 2000, and following must bear the consequences of their actions."

"If we are to forebear all legal proceedings against the perpetrators of the events of 19 May, 2000 what does that say about our sense of right and wrong?"

"And this is an issue which should concern all of us as citizens of this country, irrespective of our political beliefs and ethnicity."

"Those who have done wrong and broken the law must be punished."

'"There can be no setting to rights or settling of accounts without that element."