A Tale of Two chiefs: Mara, the Father and Mara, the Son

From Whale Oil Beef Hooked.

Guest Post — A Tale of two chiefs: Mara, the father and Mara, the son 

by WHALEOIL on MAY 27, 2011  

This com­men­tary, through his­tor­i­cal per­spec­tives, analy­ses the flight of Bainimarama’s for­mer right hand man, Ratu Ului Mara to Tonga and the dis­ap­point­ing role of media.

As the Air Pacific’s French built turbo prop ATR 42 glided into Apia’s Fale­olo Inter­na­tional Air­port, I was over­joyed with the prospect of vis­it­ing Nukualofa.
The year was 1988, in the after­math of Sitiveni Rabuka’s coup in Fiji which had an interim gov­ern­ment. I was an inter­nal audi­tor with the Car­pen­ter Group of Com­pa­nies which owned Mor­ris Hed­strom (MH) stores in Fiji, Apia (Molesi), and Nukualofa. I, together with my fel­low audi­tor Chat­tur Singh was sched­uled to audit MH Nukualofa after the Apia stop. 

T. R Singh On NZ Govt. Policy

"New Zealand Gov­ern­ment and John Key should take heed of this rev­e­la­tion. They have been warned not to bend rules to wel­come Ratu Ului, who still has con­nec­tions with the Mil­i­tary per­son­nel in Fiji, thus fur­ther dis­tanc­ing and pro­vok­ing Fiji."

How­ever, this dream of vis­it­ing Tonga was dashed when Tonga imposed a racially dis­crim­i­na­tory rule that Indo Fijians from Fiji were pro­hib­ited from enter­ing the King­dom. Then, Fiji’s interim Prime Min­is­ter was Ratu Ului’s father, Ratu Sir Kamis­ese Mara who was defeated in 1987 Fiji’s elec­tions by Dr Tim­oci Bavadra’s Fiji Labour Party. Bavadra’s gov­ern­ment was over­thrown on 14 May, 1987 in a coup exe­cuted by Rabuka just after a month in power. 

It had been widely spec­u­lated and also exposed by Rabuka that Ratu Sir Kamis­ese Mara was aware of the coup and had given his bless­ings for the rape of democ­racy in favour of indige­nous supe­ri­or­ity and ethno nation­al­ism. Mara Senior claimed he accepted the posi­tion of Fiji’s Interim Prime Min­is­ter because he could not stand by and watch his house burning.Ratu Sir Kamis­ese remained silent and failed to raise any objec­tion against this bla­tant racism by his cousins in Tonga against half of his sub­jects in Fiji. It there­fore should not now come as a sur­prise at accu­sa­tions that the Ton­gan gov­ern­ment aided and abet­ted the escape of Ratu Ului to Tonga by breach­ing Fiji waters, sup­pos­edly in a sea res­cue mis­sion. 

The evi­dence from the murky waters sug­gests that Ratu Ului may be less than hon­est about his escapade. His check­ing into a hotel under a false name, hid­ing his iden­tity, the cus­tom­ary pro­to­cols of fish­ing alone by a chief, and the fail­ure of respec­tive New Zealand and Fiji navies to detect any dis­tress sig­nals indi­cate that the truth is some­where out there.This case also exposed New Zealand main­stream media’s blind depen­dency on a polit­i­cal blogsite, Coup Four Point Five, which hardly resem­bles a respectable, free and inde­pen­dent media. This site has anony­mous and face­less pub­lish­ers and edi­tors whose cred­i­bil­ity has been under scrutiny by var­i­ous aca­d­e­mics and this author because of their selec­tive, unsub­stan­ti­ated and unbal­anced news-postings. 

This is Qarase’s SDL Party site tasked with get­ting the racist régime back into power under the sham of democ­racy. It is such ques­tion­able blogsite that the main­stream New Zealand media, includ­ing NZ Her­ald and TVNZ, have relied upon as a source.The Indo-Fijian bash­ing angle is used once again. With Tonga’s his­tory of racially humil­i­at­ing Indo-Fijians in 1988 with ban on entry, it is no won­der Ratu Ului had a field day in using the race card as well, where he said that Aiyaz Saiyed Khaiyum, Fiji’s Indo-Fijian Attor­ney Gen­eral was solely call­ing the shots in Fiji. 

What a gullible media fails to realise is that Fiji’s mil­i­tary is 99.95 per cent indige­nous Fijians. Of the 21 Per­ma­nent Sec­re­taries, only three are Indo-Fijians, only two min­is­ters are Indo-Fijians and other top ech­e­lons of the civil ser­vice com­prise of some 80 per cent indige­nous Fijians. Yet, Ratu Ului, sup­ported by NZ media, wishes us to believe that one Indo-Fijian had Frank Bain­i­marama in a trance. Ratu Ului is degrad­ing and sham­ing his own race by say­ing that Khaiyum single-handedly manip­u­lates Fiji’s admin­is­tra­tive, polit­i­cal and mil­i­tary machin­ery dom­i­nated by indige­nous peo­ple. This is the biggest insult hurled on indige­nous Fijians since the uncer­e­mo­ni­ous flight of Ratu Ului’s’ father from the Gov­ern­ment house.Ratu Ului’s defence of the Great Coun­cil of Chiefs (GCC) and the Methodist Church as sav­iours of democ­racy is highly laugh­able. 

These two insti­tu­tions have been the biggest threat to democ­racy, human rights and social jus­tice in Fiji. I still remem­ber, how in 1987 after Rabuka’s coup, the church­go­ers from the Methodist Church used to go and man the road­blocks which were put in place to per­se­cute non-Christians. Dur­ing 2001 Fiji elec­tions, the Assem­bly of Churches, led by the Methodist Church, took out paid adver­tise­ments, urg­ing indige­nous Fijians not to vote the hea­thens and non-believer Indo-Fijians into the lead­er­ship of the nation. Is this the Methodist Church which is now iden­ti­fied as the defender of democ­racy? The Chiefs were so immensely engrossed in pol­i­tics, sup­port­ing ethno-nationalism of George Speight that the non elected GCC lost all its cred­i­bil­ity, respectabil­ity and neu­tral advi­sory sta­tus. The GCC which had been an ini­tia­tive and legacy of the British colonists had been ban­ished by Bain­i­marama after 2006. 

Its absence had hardly been felt by the rank and file indige­nous peo­ple in the last five years.Ratu Sir Kamisese’s son, now absconded to Tonga, appears to suf­fer from mem­ory loss. In 2000, the GCC and the Methodist Church hier­ar­chy fully backed George Speight in cru­elly remov­ing his esteemed father, Ratu Sir Kamis­ese Mara as Pres­i­dent of Fiji. 

In a hugely undig­ni­fied man­ner, Ratu Sir Kamis­ese had to flee in the night, fear­ing for his life. He was trans­ported by navy boat to the safety of his home in the Lau Group, never to recover from this humil­i­a­tion. He died a very sad, bit­ter and lonely man.  What Mara’s son Ratu Ului for­gets is that this was the unkind­est act of betrayal by the Fijian chiefs against one of their great­est chiefs. 

Today, for con­ve­nience and expe­di­ency, Ratu Tevita Mara has heaped insult to the mem­ory of Ratu Sir Kamis­ese by embrac­ing and prais­ing those who had dis­graced, humil­i­ated and indi­rectly exter­mi­nated Fiji’s great­est polit­i­cal leader– his own father.Nowhere in the NZ media has there been any reports that other promi­nent busi­ness­men, bureau­crats, civil ser­vants and chiefs have gone through Fiji’s jus­tice sys­tem, so what was par­tic­u­lar about Ratu Ulai who absconded. There is hardly any men­tion of inves­ti­ga­tions and alleged fraud of $3 mil­lion from Fiji Pine Commission. 

New Zealand Gov­ern­ment and John Key should take heed of this rev­e­la­tion. They have been warned not to bend rules to wel­come Ratu Ului, who still has con­nec­tions with the Mil­i­tary per­son­nel in Fiji, thus fur­ther dis­tanc­ing and pro­vok­ing Fiji. Any such action less than six months before the Rugby World Cup, in which Fiji plays, and the gen­eral elec­tions, are not advis­able. With a siz­able Indo-Fijian pop­u­la­tion and Indi­ans and Asians sym­pa­thetic to Fiji’s cause of self deter­mi­na­tion, Key needs to play his cards wisely, before offi­ciously embroil­ing in a domes­tic squab­ble of Pacific relations. 

NZ needs to be reminded that despite his­tory bestow­ing him with this hon­our, Ratu Sir Kamis­ese Mara had not really been that last bas­tion of mul­tira­cial­ism and social jus­tice in Fiji. Nei­ther is his son Ratu Ului Mara. 

(E-mail: thakurji@xtra.co.nz] 

(Thakur Ran­jit Singh is a polit­i­cal com­men­ta­tor and had been through Rabuka’s and Speight’s coups. Dur­ing the lat­ter, he was the pub­lisher of Fiji’s Daily Post news­pa­per, which has since been closed because of past gov­ern­ment inter­fer­ence. He was AUT/PIMA Pasi­fika post­grad­u­ate scholar in 2009/10).

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Lines Of Demarcation- The Dispute Over Minerva.

In a follow up to an earlier SiFM post titled "The Rush To Mine The Seabed- A Fiji Perspective" is worth revisiting, more so after an online article from Pacific Scoop, that quotes from Tonga Chief Secretary regarding the removal of a beacon by the Fiji Navy.

Deputy Permanent Secretary of Foreign Affairs Sila Balawa
"Fiji’s ownership of the reef has been re-asserted time and again - through the United Nations Law of the Sea and the Minerva reef is located within Fiji’s exclusive economic zone. Fiji says its claim to the reef – is based on UN laws and history. "

The excerpt of the Pacific Scoop article:

Tonga Accuses Fiji of Vandalism of Innocent Minerva Reef Beacon.
May 25th 2011
Pacific Scoop:
Report – By Alex Perrottet of Pacific Media Watch

Tonga’s Chief Secretary Busby Kautoke has hit back at Fijian allegations of a breach of sovereignty, accusing the Fiji Navy of “vandalism” of a navigation beacon on the disputed Minerva Reef.

Kautoke today responded to initial comments from Fiji’s military-backed regime leader Voreqe Bainimarama that the presence of the Tongan patrol boat Savea in Fijian waters was a breach of Fiji’s sovereignty.

Bainimarama has called fugitive colonel Ratu Tevita Mara’s “fishing incident” a calculated plan and an “illegal extraction”.

In response, Kautoke maintained that the rescue earlier this month was a “humanitarian act” and accused Fiji of vandalising a Tongan navigational beacon in the Minerva Reef.

“At this lonely outpost, a perfectly innocent navigational beacon, erected on the wishes of our Late King Taufa’ahau Tupou IV for the benefit and safety of mariners, was officially vandalised,” he said.

“Such an act, for example, cannot be elevated to the status of a legal argument and there is strong evidence to suggest that the full might of Fijian sea power, on the instructions of the military regime, was deployed to attack a defenceless and inanimate object.”

The Minerva Reef, also known as the islands of Telekitonga and Telekitokelau, is about 490km south-west of Tonga.

The Chief Secretary said Bainimarama’s comments would have been best left to official communications between the countries. “Sovereignty should be considered separately as the subject of bilateral engagement between the Fiji regime and Tongan diplomats,” he said.

Alex Perrottet is contributing editor of the Pacific Media Centre’s Pacific Media Watch.

However, the issue of Minerva reef and its ownership was a subject simmering beneath the diplomatic niceties for awhile, until Kautoke's ill-advised remarks considering the current bilateral tensions, forced the issue towards the front and center.

Kautoke maintained that the rescue earlier this month was a “humanitarian act” and accused Fiji of vandalising a Tongan navigational beacon in the Minerva Reef.
“At this lonely outpost, a perfectly innocent navigational beacon, erected on the wishes of our Late King Taufa’ahau Tupou IV for the benefit and safety of mariners, was officially vandalised".

The dispute over the Minerva reefs has resurfaced in the wake of the fugitive saga involving Tevita Uluilakeba Mara and the Tongan Government, which had been reported to have violated Fiji's sovereign territory, as well  as illegally removing a person from the country.

It would be ideal to separate the alleged humanitarian act from the breach of sovereignty, as advocated by Tonga’s Chief Secretary Busby Kautoke. Unfortunately, the latter acts are the most worrying. These documented violations of International Law should not be swept under the proverbial rug by any honest broker and most probably will be addressed in due course, by the relevant authorities in Fiji.

Fiji Foreign Affairs official responded to the allegations, as reported by a Radio Fiji article.

The excerpt of Radio Fiji article:

Fiji to protect territorial integrity of Minerva reef

Thursday, May 26, 2011 

Fiji had told the Tongan government last year it reserved the right to take any appropriate necessary action to protect the integrity of its territory by removing structures built by Tonga at the Minerva reef. 

FBC News has sighted a letter sent by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to the Tongan government dated 23rd September 2010, notifying them that they were building the structures on Fiji’s territory.

Fiji’s Deputy Permanent Secretary of Foreign Affairs Sila Balawa says Fiji received a report late last year that Tonga was constructing two structures on the reef, namely a lighthouse. 

Fiji authorities confirm the two structures were removed last year – however Fiji and Tonga are continuing discussions on the issue – led by their ambassadors at the United Nations.

Balawa says Fiji’s ownership of the reef has been re-asserted time and again - through the United Nations Law of the Sea and the Minerva reef is located within Fiji’s exclusive economic zone.

Fiji says its claim to the reef – is based on UN laws and history. 

Tonga has criticised the removal of their structures by what it describes as the “full might of Fijian sea power.” Balawa told FBC News in February that Tonga is one of Fiji’s closest friends and they hope to resolve the issue through peaceful dialogue.

Fiji's Maritime claims have been documented in a 1984 report "Limits In The Seas- Fiji's Maritime Claims" compiled by the US State Department.

The above mentioned report also highlights the contentious issue of Minerva reef ownership and does reinforce Fiji's claim to the atoll located in the southern Lau group, stating that the atoll lies within Fiji's economic exclusive zone (EEZ).

Excerpt of Page 6 & 7 of the report:

Maritime Boundaries 

In claiming its economic zone, Fiji is able to extend fully to 200 nautical miles only to the south and to the northwest. Similar or potential claims to extended maritime jurisdiction by its neighbors will create six maritime boundary situations for Fiji. Boundaries will be required with Tonga to the east and southeast, Tuvalu to the north, the Solomon Islands west of Rotuma, Vanuatu to the west, and France to the northeast (Wallis and Futuna) and southwest (New Caledonia). 

In 1983 Fiji and France signed an agreement delimiting the boundary between the economic zones claimed by the two states. The line between Fiji and New Caledonia is an apparent equidistant line, about 300 nautical miles in length, using as controlling basepoints Ceva-i-Ra for Fiji and Hunter Island for France. A sovereignty claim to Hunter Island has been made by Vanuatu and it is unclear what impact this dispute may have on the Fiji-France agreement. The other four boundaries remain to be negotiated. 

Tonga's claim to the Minerva Reefs, situated south of Fiji's archipelago, may complicate Tongan-Fijian maritime boundary negotiations. Although Fiji acknowledges Tonga's claim to these reefs (as noted on its Chart 81/3), Fiji's economic zone limits enclose the reefs. North and South Minerva Reef are about 18 nautical miles apart and more than 165 nautical miles from the nearest Tongan island. The Tongan Government has built an artificial island and installed navigation beacons on each. 

If indeed the reefs themselves are only low-tide elevations, they would not have a territorial sea (LOS Convention, Article 13(2)). Tonga's rights, under the LOS Convention, to construct, operate, and use an artificial island, such as North or South Minerva Reef, within its economic zone, may be complicated by the fact that these reefs, under Fiji's claims, are situated in the Fiji EEZ.

4 The area of the exclusive economic zone was measured from Fiji Marine Spaces Chart 81/3.

Fiji's claim that the Minerva's reef lies within its EEZ is based on the distance from the baseline of Ono island.
According to the Page 2 of the Fiji Maritime Limits report:

Fiji's legislation establishes two different types of baselines. Archipelagic baselines join most of the country's islands to form the Fiji Archipelago; seaward of those baselines is the territorial sea and high seas, landward of them are archipelagic waters and internal waters.

The other type of baseline delimits the internal waters from archipelagic waters (if situated inside archipelagic baselines) or from the territorial sea (as in the Rotuma Island area).

The image (posted below) from Google earth reinforces that claim of Minerva being within 200 nautical miles of Ono island, Lau. In actual fact, Minerva lies 178 odd nautical miles south of Ono.

In comparison, Minerva reef according to Google Earth image (posted below). Minerva is 240 nautical miles South West from Tongatapu island, where the Tongan capital is located.

From the preceding facts, it is would be difficult to place any credence on Tonga's claim to the disputed atoll.

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Café Pacific - David Robie | Media freedom and transparency: Freedom of the press on Fiji? You’re joking!

David Robie On NZ Media Reportage
"At long last, I thought, a factual article with opinions from people of differing views, leaving readers to form their own conclusions. My faith in the NZ media went up a notch, but it was not to last"

Café Pacific - David Robie | Media freedom and transparency: Freedom of the press on Fiji? You’re joking!: "Breathless NZ media coverage on Fiji ... Independent Fiji blogger Crosbie Walsh pens an 'editorial' on a New Zealand Herald editorial a..."




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Tonga Singles Out Fiji Passport Holders

PACNEWS online article published some disturbing developments in the wake of the tensions in Fiji-Tonga bilateral relations.

The excerpt of PACNEWS article:

Fiji passport holders scrutinized at Nuku’alofa airport 

By Online Editor
5:54 pm GMT+12, 17/05/2011, Tonga 

As tension between Fiji and Tonga begins to emerge after a senior Fijian military officer fled to Tonga, Fiji passport holders arriving into the island kingdom now undergo thorough check at Fu’amotu International Airport. 

PACNEWS Journalist Pita Ligaiula

"Yes I can confirm that our passport was checked by government officials in one room"[...]"Only Fiji passport holders were singled out and it’s an unusual situation never seen before"

Tongan authorities have beefed up security checks after Fiji’s Prime Minister and Military commander Commodore Frank Bainimarama announced that former Third Infantry Regiment (3FIR) Commander, Lieutenant Colonel Ratu Tevita Uluilakeba Mara has been declared fugitive and is hiding in Tonga. 

On Monday, all Fiji nationals arriving on the Pacific Sun flight FJ271 were scrutinised for their purpose of travel and were asked to supporting documents for their stay in Tonga. 

“Yes I can confirm that our passport was checked by government officials in one room, after it was stamped by immigration officials upon arrival,” said PACNEWS Journalist Pita Ligaiula speaking from Nuku’alofa. “Our travel information card was photocopied and officials questioned us on the nature of our visits to the island kingdom. Only Fiji passport holders were singled out and it’s an unusual situation never seen before", he said.

No comments could be obtained from the Tongan government on the latest security measures on Fiji passport holders. The situation in the capital Nukualofa is normal as Commodore Bainimarama appeals to the Tongan Royal family to return the former military man to Fiji to answer charges of sedition. 

SOURCE: PACNEWS

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