Floreat Publius.

Attempts by the S.D.L Government to remove the standing Army Commander Frank Bainimarama has fallen embarrassing flat on its face.

Letter to Fiji Sun's Editor sums up the sentiments of the grassroots community.

Don't crucify him


He has spoken the truth and the guilty ones are once again out to gag him. Frank Bainimarama has uttered facts about the state of Fiji and has demanded a very simple and honorable thing any public office holder would have been asked to do if under investigation.

Why are some people trying to make it look as if he is the guilty one?
If we the people of Fiji have voted in the government of today then we have put a lot of faith and trust in you and it looks like this trust has been broken and most of you do not deserve to be there.

Mr Bainimarama's calls therefore, are very much justified. Besides being commander of the Fiji army he is also a human being and a good one too. Cutting ribbons and making flowery speeches is one thing but actually having guts to fight injustice and corruption is another.

The commander has shown that the human race is what he has remained loyal to. Why are some of you out to crucify him?
Mr Bainimarama, I am just a simple, law abiding and loyal citizen while you are a pillar of strength to me and many more like me. Your family and true friends must be so proud of you. I together with the silent majority salute you. Keep up the good work and remember truth triumphs.

Prabha Singh
Suva

This failed lobby has also embolded the Commander to return with a vengeance and tie up the loose strings associated with the abysmal track record of the S.D.L Government.

This is the excerpt of the Fiji Sun article.

I'’ll be back to make PM resign: Commander

Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase has to quit now, army commander Commodore Voreqe Bainimarama said last night. He confirmed that he will return from his Middle East tour and continue his fight for a nation free of corruption.

I'll be back to see that Qarase and his cronies step down, he said. Commodore Bainimarama said the army was the only voice of hope for the nation, as the corruptive practices of the Qarase-led government had gone from bad to worse[...]Qarase is trying to weaken the army by trying to remove me,” [Commander] said[...]It has been his aim from day one.
If [Qarase] succeeds then there will be no one to monitor them and imagine how corrupt it is going to be"[...]If civil servants speak out against the Government they are sacked. If the provincial councils speak out their allocated funds are reduced so we are the only hope of the silent majority.

Commodore Bainimarama said such corruptive and unconstitutional practices had been supported by the European Union, Australia, New Zealand and the US governments.
These countries are saying it is a democratically elected government, said Bainimarama.
Sure that'’s fine - but what about the corruptive practices. That means these countries condone such practices"[...] What has the E.U done about all those unanswered questions [regarding] the general election? Can Australia, New Zealand or the US allow people who are involved in the overthrow of a democratically elected government to sit in positions of power?

“What about those coup convicts who went to prison but yet their seat in parliament was kept for them till they come out?"[...] Will Australia, New Zealand and the US allow that in their country and anyway these countries have not experienced any coups, so they have not experienced that. [Commander] said what was more frightening was the appointment of Qoriniasi Bale as Attorney-General.

He was not voted in by the people but through the Senate. And we know Qoriniasi Bale'’s record and involvement in some trust fund a few years back that saw him being disbarred for some time"[...]“This is the kind of people who are dealing with the country's legal policies and are supported by these overseas countries.

Commodore Bainimarama said he had regretted putting Mr Qarase in as the interim Prime Minister in 2000. “[Qarase] betrayed our trust when he went back to team up with the very people who caused the political instability of 2000,” [Commander] said.
“
Although George Speight is in prison, the policies that he made are now being adopted by the Government and also the very people behind him are now in parliament making decisions for the nation. [Commander Frank] said that for the nation to progress the only viable option was for Mr Qarase is to step down". Commodore Bainimarama vowed that the army would continue its fight to pressure the Government to:

1.)Drop the controversial Qoliqoli and Reconciliation, Truth and Unity Bills.

2.) Abolish the Native Land Trust Board'’s commercial arm Vanua Development Corporation. The NLTB has to only serve its core function of helping the landowners.

3.)Audit the provincial council's’ financial status, which had not been done for the past years.

Above image: Soldiers in Queen Elizabeth Barracks, the main encampment of Fiji's Army.

Fiji Daily Post, the Government owned newspaper has responded to the latest rumblings with their Editorial.

This is an excerpt.

The risk
Source: Fiji Daily Post
1-Nov-2006

As our military leaders risk descending into a personality cult of their commander by their refusal to accept the instructions and advice of their commander-in-chief, the president, the observation of two Harvard social scientists, Herbert Kelman and Lee Hamilton, in their 1989 classic, "Crimes of Obedience" seems pertinent. The authors describe therein two psychological process, authorisation and routinisation - that permit otherwise law-abiding persons to engage in unlawful acts.

Authorisation processes, as they define it, create a situation in which people become involved in an action without considering its implications and without really making a decision. Once they have taken the initial step, they are in a new psychological and social situation in which the pressures to continue are powerful’. Indeed, ‘many forces that might originally have kept people out of a situation, reverse direction once they have made a commitment (once they have gone through the “gate region) and now serve to keep them in the situation.

Kelman and Hamilton note, for example, that because of authorisation, ‘concern about the criminal nature of an action, which might originally have inhibited a person from becoming involved may now lead to deeper involvement in effort to justify the action and to avoid negative consequences.

Kelman and Hamilton argue further that ‘the likelihood of moral resistance is greatly reduced by transforming the action into routine, mechanical, highly programmed operations by a second process they term, routinisation’. As they put it: routinisation fulfils two functions. First, it reduces the necessity of making decisions, thus minimising the occasions in which moral questions may arise. Second, it makes it easier to avoid the implications of the action, since the actor focuses on the details of the job rather than on its meaning’.

Routinisation operates both at the level of the individual actor and at the organisational level. Individual job performance is broken down into a series of discrete steps, most of them carried out into a series of discrete steps, most of them carried out in automatic, regularised fashion. It becomes easy to forget the nature of the product that emerges from this process.

Organisationally, the task is divided among different offices, each of which has responsibility for a small portion of it. This arrangement diffuses responsibility and limits the amount and scope of decision making that is necessary.

There is no expectation that the moral implications will be considered at any of these points, nor is there any opportunity to do so. The organisational processes also help further legitimise the actions of each participant.

By proceeding in routine fashion the different units mutually reinforce each other in the view that what is going on must be perfectly normal, correct, and legitimate. The shared illusion that they are engaged in a legitimate enterprise helps the participants assimilate their activities to other purposes, such as the efficiency of their performance, the productivity of their unit, or the cohesiveness of their group’.

We trust that our military is well exposed to the risks by placing their allegiance in a man, their commander, rather than in the institution of the presidency that represents their constitutional mandate and legitimacy.



Note from S.i.F.M to the Editors of Fiji Daily Post:

Refer to the Agricultural scam and Kunatuba's case currently in Suva High Court for the real application of "Crimes of Obedience".

The moral datum of crime then becomes the universal standard which all things must be measured against. Not a sliding scale of perceptions that are routinely abused by individuals in positions of authority.

Fiji Times Editorial also comments on the matter. The timing of these editorial also adds to the suspicion of external forces (within Fiji) pressuring some of the Fiji media to potray the Army Commander as a villian.

The degree of Editorial sameness underlines these suspicions with historic trends in Fiji and the lack of objectivity, including the apparent absence of direction and oversight from media watch dogs.

Fiji Media Council and the Media Watch Fiji both of whom have been accused of being toothless tigers that have long been muzzled by the powers that be.



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