Tevita Mara puppeteered by the Trans-Tasman cousins and acquiesced by their loyal client states of Tonga and Samoa respectively. Such realpolitik of under handedness in the region, have substantially increased in tempo and was foreshadowed in a previous SiFM post titled: "Islanders With A Dragon Tattoo-China's Rising Influence in The South Pacific".
In the particular light of the Trans-Tasman strategic policy of neo-colonialism, the undermining of Fiji is increasingly demonstrated with the skewed bias of the mainstream media of Australia, New Zealand that work hand in glove with certain blogs. A subtle choice of neo-colonial exploitation demonstrated in Libya and cogently pointed out in F.William Engdahl's opinion piece:
In mass media framing is a very well-researched subject. The technique refers to a technique of manipulating an individual's emotional reaction or more accurately, his or her perception of meanings of words or phrases[...] Gareth Evans' Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect, in addition to being active in North Africa and the Middle East, is also directly active in Asia from their center in Australia. In short they are making major efforts to propandagize the notion of responsibility to protect under the guize of protecting various populations from what they define as "genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity...". The world community is being subtly brainwashed to accept the radical new proposition with nary a peep of serious opposition.In fact, Gareth Evans was a former Australian Foreign Affairs Minister and during his time of office (1988-1996), the East-Timor violence occurred and legendary journalist John Pilger documented Evan's role. In addition, East Timor and Indonesia Action group (ITAN) website states:
Gareth Evans was the Australian Foreign Minister and tried to convince the international community that the Santa Cruz Massacre was a special occurrence and not a political decision taken by the Indonesian State. That is to say that Gareth Evans helped to maintain silence about the violence that was happening in Timor-Leste.It is certainly no accident that Australia's current Foreign Affairs Minister, Kevin Rudd embarked on the faulty premise of (R2P) or 'Responsibility To Protect' in Libya and categorically was one of the first politicians to broker the idea of foreign intervention according to Graham Davis' Grubsheet posting, using a neatly packaged ready-to-go, yet flawed policy designed by his predecessor, Gareth Evans.
Undeniably, with volumes of reported deaths of citizens and NATO airstrike mistakes, have ironically penciled Rudd's Libya brokered policy as damaged goods with an expired shelf life with such an extent, that the South African President recently lashed out on the failing NATO policy and the US President is about to duke it out with the congress regarding the legality of the mission coupled with the funding aspect, buttressed by a lawsuit and a languishing economy.
In a karmic sense, the East-Timorese have learnt a great deal from the inter-actions with the Australians and in a blowback situation of sorts, have received China with wide open arms, according to a Journeyman documentary showing the East-Timorese and their China funded projects, including newly purchased Shanghai class patrol boats.
Rudd's subsequent stance on Fiji have been ridiculed by the Fiji Club of New Zealand. Also, Australia's hegemonic and duplicitous role in the South Pacific was highlighted in a recent posting by Black and Blak:
What Australia is doing in the Pacific mirrors the process of colonization and Aboriginal dispossession that has taken place on the Australian mainland and Tasmania since that process began in the late Eighteenth Century [...]
As in all exploitive processors, the original and rightful owners of a resource are forcibly separated from their property through a combination of brute force, subtle manipulation and the imposition of foreign laws that are applied favourably to the aggressors and harshly to the indigenous victims.
What the Australian government has demonstrated in the Johnson, Moti and Grant cases is a total disregard for the ‘rule of law’ and a neo-colonial indifference to the sovereignty of ‘lesser’ states which are the pretentious hallmark of an aggressive and presumptuous third rate, would be, colonial power.
Unless the peoples of the Pacific stand up with one voice and tell Australia that its racism and selfish commercial exploitation of the region’s resources are unacceptable, the Pacific can look forward to a future of dispossession and poverty, similar to that currently being enjoyed by Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
With an incongruous display of yellow journalism, the Trans-Tasman media covered the Fiji/Tonga tensions as reported in a Radio Australia article and interviewed Samoa's P.M and the interviewer almost stoking him for a sound bite that would disparage Fiji (MP3 posted below).
In an almost hyped exclamation that was exuded by the likes of Michael Field, eerily similar to the 19th century American media calls of Remember the Maine and accordingly it was Field who even published a 'tale of the tape' comparison of forces and ushered in the accompanied media frenzy, as addressed in a Cafe Pacific blog posting.
WNYC's program's "On The Media" explains the origins of the phrase "yellow journalism". (MP3 posted below)
Samoa's P.M remarks on Fiji:
"...the parochial actions and words by Malielegaoi was glorified by the jaundiced perspective of Samoa Observer editorial, the obstinate narrative can be summed up in a 'coming of age' moment"
Evidence of yellow journalism is underscored on Croz Walsh's blog posting that berates the ex-journalist, Graeme Dobell, whose error laden posts on Fiji are published on Lowy Interpreter. Croz writes:"...the parochial actions and words by Malielegaoi was glorified by the jaundiced perspective of Samoa Observer editorial, the obstinate narrative can be summed up in a 'coming of age' moment"
Dobell’s overt advocacy gets in the way of a professional approach to facts in dispute. Dobell accepts as facts Roko Ului’s claims without recognising that these have been disputed and, in some cases, apparently refuted. One cannot help but wonder where Dobell left his journalistic training in critical analysis.Fiji Times article quoted from Fiji's Attorney General, who outlined the lack of reciprocity by Tonga, Australia and New Zealand regarding the intent of extradition by Fiji.
The excerpt of Fiji Times article:
We will not stoop to their level, says AG
Samantha Rina
Sunday, June 19, 2011
Sunday, June 19, 2011
TONGA, Australia and New Zealand authorities have yet to acknowledge Fiji's extradition requests for Ratu Tevita Uluilakeba Mara, says Attorney General Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum.
He said the least that authorities of each country could do was acknowledge receipt of the extradition orders sought by Fiji.
"They could at least acknowledge receipt of the documents we sent and say 'we are looking into it or processing it'. But there has been no acknowledgement from Tonga, Australia and New Zealand to which we recently filed extradition papers," he said.
He said extradition papers were sent to the Prime Minister's office, Attorney General's office and the Foreign Affairs Ministry in Tonga, Australia and New Zealand respectively.
"We have been facilitating a number of extradition requests from Australia and recently did so under the Hague Convention where a parent wanted their child returned.
We also facilitated another extradition request involving an American who was wanted in the United States for a crime he committed there," he said.
The AG said the Government had always and would continue to honour bilateral and international obligations regardless of the foreign policies Australia and New Zealand imposed against Fiji.
"This shows the (Australia and New Zealand) bonafide or willingness to adhere to international bilateral obligations. They're always picking and choosing their rules but don't apply the same rules when the situation is reversed," he said.
The AG said Fiji would not stoop to their level and would consider extradition cases based on merit.
Dev Nadkarni on N.Z policy:
"The action smacks of desperation at the failure of this isolationist strategy. New Zealand's reasoning for handing the man a visa despite knowing his racist past and that he was involved in beatings during the early days of the regime are as vacuous as its reasons for looking the other way in the face of its big red friend's human rights abuses."
Although, the parochial actions and words by Malielegaoi was glorified by the jaundiced perspective of Samoa Observer editorial, the obstinate narrative can be summed up in a 'coming of age' moment; a characteristic that is closely mirrored in Samoa's obtuse decision to change lanes, jump through the time-continuum and the frivolous appeal to a BSA decision to a TV investigative story. "The action smacks of desperation at the failure of this isolationist strategy. New Zealand's reasoning for handing the man a visa despite knowing his racist past and that he was involved in beatings during the early days of the regime are as vacuous as its reasons for looking the other way in the face of its big red friend's human rights abuses."
Dev Nadkarni's opinion piece that was published in the Fiji Sun, illustrates the said game plan and the gutter level of foreign policy analysis exercised by both Wellington and Canberra.
The excerpt of Dev Nadkarni's opinion article:
FIJI GAME PLAN
The New Zealand government's handling of the Fiji situation has shown an appalling lack of imagination and exposed the brazen double standards it applies in its international relations.It sheepishly kowtows to China's every whim, even inventing childishly naïve reasons for not meeting with the likes of the Dalai Lama when he is a visitor to this country known far and wide for its warm and friendly peace loving people.
It has officially hosted dictators like former Pakistan strongman Pervez Musharraf with absolutely no qualms whatsoever and has refrained from making official statements on other "undemocratic" events even in the Pacific Rim, such as the Thailand coup.Yet it has been stubborn in its unwillingness to look at the dynamics of what led to the Fiji situation despite being in a position to know better because of its long and deep involvement in the Pacific Islands region.
All along in the years since December 2006, it has failed to accept that the single pronged "restore democracy now or else" strategy was never going to work.It refuses to accept that its ill-advised persistence in following that tack of feverishly campaigning to isolate Fiji was always doomed to fail and has long come unstuck.This has forced the Fijian administration led by Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama to seek and cement friendships from the likes of China, Indonesia and other Asian powers that have been only too willing to oblige because of Fiji's strategic location in the South Pacific.
Thanks to their expanding exclusive economic zones because of changes wrought by the redrawing of their continental shelf boundaries under the provisions of the United Nations Law of the Sea, the islands are hot property for resource hungry nations. Several island nations, along with Fiji, have opened their territories - both on land and the seabed - to prospecting firms from distant nations.
Missed
By sticking to its unrealistic, single demand of "restoring democracy" in Fiji, without the changes that are needed to turn its polity into one based on true democratic principles, New Zealand has missed the South Pacific boat, now helmed by the likes of China. Enough has been written about how brazenly corrupt, blatantly racist and undemocratic the deposed Fijian government was.
Its former members and supporters, now living overseas are demanding a return to that kind of administration.The Australian and New Zealand governments have played into their hands by handing out the visa to turncoat military man Ratu Tevita Uluilakeba Mara. The action smacks of desperation at the failure of this isolationist strategy. New Zealand's reasoning for handing the man a visa despite knowing his racist past and that he was involved in beatings during the early days of the regime are as vacuous as its reasons for looking the other way in the face of its big red friend's human rights abuses.
It has displayed appalling casuistry by bending every rule that it has put in place as regards travel to New Zealand for Fijian nationals associated with the administration - whether they are sportspeople or simply passengers wishing to transit through, though Murray McCully has said his ministry has been making exceptions regularly on a case-by-case basis.
Opportunity
A big opportunity looms in the form of the Rugby World Cup (RWC) for New Zealand to change tack and bring Fiji back on the democratic track. Both are rugby-mad nations and the sports arena could well be the setting of a new beginning.The governments of both countries could potentially earn enormous goodwill of the entire region.There is some hope this will happen. In the past few weeks, the Fijian administration has been at pains to put out news releases about holding elections in September 2014.
On his part, Mr MuCully has offered New Zealand's assistance in redrawing electoral boundaries, compiling lists and helping with the election process.Making it possible for Fijian players and fans to visit New Zealand without restrictions during the world cup in exchange for working with Fiji and convince it to stick to its September 2014 promise by providing it with the wherewithal to achieve that goal would be a win-win for all.
*The author is editor-in-chief of the Indian Weekender newspaper in Auckland, New Zealand. He is originally from Mumbai, India, where he was a journalist and journalism academic before becoming head of the journalism programme at the University of the South Pacific in Suva.
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