Croz Walsh's Blog -- New Zealand and Fiji: How Much Fairer They Could Be

N0280. CHINESE-CONSTRUCTED HYDRO DAM at Nadarivatu in the upper Sigatoka River valley that commenced construction in 2009 is 90% completed and should be finished this year. The dam will be able to store a billion litres of water which will travel through a 2km tunnel to the power station on the river. Power capacity is 41.7 megawatts, equal to an estimated saving of F$50million a year in fuel costs. The construction by the China based Sino-Hydro Corporation.  The dam cost will cost about F$283.2 million (US$155million).

N0281. 90% RENEWABLE ENERGY BY 2015?The Fiji Electricity Authority hopes new renewable energy initiatives will help it to meet this target, that would cover a peak daily demand of 217 MW (1045 GWh per annum), by 2015.

The projects include the waste-to-energy power generators by iVITI Renewable Disenergy Power Plants, and Pacific Renewable Energy's wood-fired Lautoka plant.

FEA is also investigating wind-farm possibilities for Ovalau, and the use of bagasse from the …

By Jenny Hayward-Jones Director of The Myer Foundation Melanesia Program at the Lowy Institute.  In The Australian, 22 March, 2011.The article first appeared on the blog www.lowyinterpreter.org  N0264.
While Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd has been busy pursuing Australian foreign policy interests in North Africa and managing the consular response to the earthquakes in New Zealand and Japan, he is unlikely to have had time to keep an eye on the neighbourhood.

This is probably not helping to counter perceptions of gradual erosion of Australian diplomatic influence in the Pacific Islands region (despite very generous aid spending and a successfulhosting of the Pacific Islands Forum in Cairns in August 2009). Even US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has found time to worry about the Pacific in the past month.

PHOTO OF SICK DOG REMOVED. I AGREE IT IS TOO DISTURBING. N0028. SAINT FRANCIS WOULD NOT LIKE THIS.  I'm unsure whether the shortage of veterinarians in the West  is due in any way to Fiji's political situation or its poor relations with Australia and the UK, but a concerned reader says there are now no trained vets and a severe shortage of drugs for small animals in the West Division than includes the provinces of Ba, Ra, and Nadroga and Navosa.  In the past, assistance came from UK and Australian visiting Vets to the SPCA West - which is served exclusively by voluntary help. All local vets left long ago.

Large animals fare a little better though assistance from the Dept of Agriculture in Lautoka but again the service is haphazard due to shortage of trained staff. Any developments in Tropical Agriculture and Animal husbandry require full and reliable veterinary services 24/7 365 days of the year. 

The reader says "the SPCA in the West would welcome a visit from diplomats …

WEEKEND READING  ♦Allen Lockington column ♦ Gerald McGhie on The Vexed Question of External Aid  ♦ Graham Reid's second article on his Fiji visit  ♦ Teaching Men and Boys by Sharon Bhagwan Rolls  ♦ The 2011 Budget: Claims and Counterclaims.

CANCELLATION OF MARCH. The annual Coalition of Human Rights march planned for tomorrow in Suva has been cancelled because of a warning to American citizens from the US Embassy that the march could be used by anti-government elements and become unruly. The planned march was of women, children and families to show their support for human rights.

The Ministry of Information blamed the American Embassy of causing confusion by issuing an alert based on an "anonymous blog which suggesting the march was not going to be a peaceful one."

The MOI does not normally "react to this type of information because it has proven time and again to be inaccurate and detrimental to the country. However, on this occasion for reasons unknown,  the Americ…

THE PACIFIC MEDIA CENTRE has a new website. http://www.pmc.aut.ac.nz/ Check it out.

THE US VISA REFUSALS. The US Suva Embassy has clarified this issue.  The visas were not exactly refused; they needed a longer application time. The Embassy said names of key supporters of the coup are  on the Department of State visa watch list, and those on the list have to be cleared by Washington, a process that could take three weeks. There can be no complaint about this. It is the right of all sovereign nations to determine who is allowed to enter — or stay — in their country.  One might have hoped for a better outcome, given Hillary Clinton's promising overtures, but it was not to be.

Some readers have misunderstood my position. I was disappointment with the "decision" but my main concern was the effective denial of access to the United Nations.  The Embassy also addressed this question, saying that "while the US takes seriously its obligations under the UN Charter to facilitat…

CALL FOR UN TO GET INVOLVED. Great, I thought.  RadioNZI has at last published something other than its usual  condemnation of Fiji. The email alert read: "Call for United Nations to get involved in liaising with Pacific neighbours. A New Zealand businessman with extensive interests in Fiji is calling for the United Nations to be brought in to help resolve the strained relations between ..."

So I clicked their website to read the rest of the story and this is what I got: "Error!Invalid Story ID<\p>. News Content © Radio New Zealand International ." We are left wondering why. 

SAD, VERY SAD.  Hillary Clinton's recent visit to Australia and New Zealand, — and her comments on a fresh engagement with Fiji — led optimists to think the US would take a lead in finding more appropriate policies on Fiji  than the failed policies of Australia and New Zealand that in four years have produced no positive results.  But now, with the US failure to issue three visas to F…

The body language shown in these photos of the Fiji Day dinner hosted by Fiji's Ambassador to the UN, Peter Thomson, speaksvolumes about the success of his work.

Address by Ambassador Peter Thomson, Permanent Representative of the Republic of Fiji to the United Nations, to the Fiji Day Luncheon, New York, 13th October, 2010.
Your Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen.  May I welcome you here today in some of the languages of Fiji, ni sa bula vinaka, noa’ia e mauri, salaam aleikum, namaste.  

Any of you who have experienced India, will recognise that last greeting as the beautiful Hindi invocation of peace.  In the early 1970s, when I was a Fiji district officer in the rural province of Navua, a local pandit told me that the namaste invocation means, “the highest in me greets the highest in you.”  I suggest to you, that in the halls and committee rooms of the United Nations, it is this invocation we should pass amongst ourselves as we go about our daily work in the cause of international upliftment.

PER UNDER CONSTANT REVIEW. Fiji’s permanent Secretary for Information Sharon Smith-Johns says  thePublic Emergency Regulations are under constant review and can be lifted at any time.

The regulations, or PER, include rules on public assembly and the media. They were first introduced when the consitution was made invalid in April last year and have just been extended for another month.

Ms Smith Johns says the rules on the media are under particular watch since the Media Decree was issued in June. “When the Media Decree came in the Attorney General commented that the PER would be lifted after three months. That is being reviewed but there’s no decision on it as yet.”

ONE STEP CLOSER TO TERRORISM. The call by the anti-Government Australia-based Fiji Democracy and Freedom Movement for economic and trade union sanctions against Fiji is so demonstrably "nutty" that its unlikely to be heeded. Earlier calls, also by the FDFM, for such sanctions were rejected by the Australian governm…

(TUESDAY 28thSEPTEMBER 2010 No:1545/PMO) Message by the Prime Minister Commodore Voreqe Bainimarama at the general debate of the65th session of the  United Nations General Assembly

METHODISTS AND INDIGENOUS SUPREMACY. A recent comment on the blog  by "Wither the Wesleyans" is worth sharing with a wider audience.  He writes:

The current Methodist hierarchy still doesn't understand what it has to do to get the monkey off its back. And that is to cut itself loose from Lasaro and Kanailagi (photo. L - R) the two indigenous supremacists so identified in the public mind with the events of 1987 and 2000. Tugaue and Waqairatu are only caught up in all of this because of the political machinations of these two aging warriors.

The truth is they're impotent to act against them because of their strong political base among the Methodist congregation. But until they do, the Church will be at the margins of national life, kept there by a regime that is determined to crush its influence at all costs.

A sad and sorry situation but pretty much the fault of the Methodists themselves. When they gained their independence from the Australian church in 1964, a huge…

ANONY-MOUSES. A reader questions why I'm letting people comment anonymously when I said I wouldn't. Frankly, because I've given up.  I still want people to use pseudonyms. It's so simple. Just click the Name/URL button and write a "name" before posting your comment. It's absolutely confidential. There's no way anyone, including me, can know who you are and if people use and stick with a pseudonym, comments and discussion will be more useful. It's not easy conducting a conversation with a mouse.

Don't Give Me that Nonsense about the Media Freedom in the Mickey Mouse Press
Q. What does the Fiji Times, the Townsville Bulletin, the Australian and the Courier-Mail have in common?
A. They are all owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Ltd and they've all employed Rory Gibson as editor, editor-in-chief,  chief sub-editor or senior journalist at some time or another.

Rory has the reputation of writing humourous articles. If you're a kookaburra,  yo…

And Australia Accuses Fiji! See left column item.
The Turaga na Tui Namosicalled on chiefs attending the Namosi Provincial council meeting yesterday to support Prime Minister Commodore Bainimarama's government. Photo: Fiji Village.

My Position in a Nutshell. Maverick former South Australian MP  questions Australian and NZ policy on Fiji. Peter Lewis said the country seemed to be doing well under the leadership of someone who gained absolute power without elections, and the best way forward is to take the current Prime Minister at his word and remind him of it at regular intervals, through objective remarks.

Fiji's Suspension: Forum Secretariat Says Time Not Right, Ratuva Says it Could be Too Late Already. According to RadioNZ International, the PI Forum Secretariat  says it has decided the time is not right for it to discuss publicly questions pertaining to its operation and Fiji's ongoing suspesion from membership, even though at least one member, Vanuatu, has said  i…

Comment and Analysis
I've just read, taken notes and quickly summarised the 20-page UN Human Rights report*, and its 103 recommendations that Fiji is asked to consider, and I must say I'm impressed. It is far more balanced than we were led to believe. The report is part of the UN's periodic review of human rights in its member countries.

My copy of the pdf document came from Mosmi Bhim of the Citizen's Constitutional Forum (CCF) with the note "that it appears that Fiji’s media are not being allowed to publish these recommendations as the recommendations are critical of the current regime in Fiji. There is no way of informing the ordinary citizens of Fiji, of what’s in the recommendations by the UN, due to the heavy media censorship."

If this is the case, it's a pity because the report contains far more than the already well publicised criticisms.

The report actually commends Fiji for its work in a number of human rights areas, including human trafficking, p…

Read David Robie's blog Cafe Pacific for how some people saw the media coverage of  the recent UN Geneva Human Rights conference. Link. This is what I had to say:
The real Fiji issue here is not human rights (though some, affecting very few people, have been abused). The real issue is the abuse of " media rights"   that have been allowed, if not encouraged, to so distort the situation in Fiji, past and present. -- Photo AUT.

UN in Iraq. Land Force Commander Col. Pita Driti  (photo) will lead an 86 member taskforce to Iraq this month. They will join over 200 Fijian soldiers already there. Col.Rt Tevita Uluilakeba Mara will become acting Land Force Commander.

The cases the Chief Registrar Ana Rokomokoti is prosecuting -- and about which CCF objects because of her roles as Registrar and prosecutor-- involve two lawyers and a law firm. Between them the lawyers face 21 charges of alleged professional misconduct, one from six years ago.

Free Bus Fares for Elderly and Disabled. The Land Transport Authority is proposing the elderly and disabled pay no bus fares between 9am to 2.30pm and half fares outside these times. A levy on fuel would meet the cost. The LTA is also proposing it should collect all outstanding court fines which now stand at over $28 million dollars.

More than 2,000 water pipe leakswere repaired along the Suva Nausori corridor between January and June. Most of the pipes are more than thirty years …

Police Roadshow to Replace Christian Crusade
The Police have cancelled the nationwide Christian Crusade scheduled to begin today and replaced it with a road aimed at informing the public about police work and how they can assist the community. The suddenness of this last minute decision makes one think it is a result of the widespead criticism of the forced "christianization" of the Force. If so, the decision is particularly welcome because it shows Government is receptive to public thinking.The roadshow will be opened by Police Commissioner Cde Esala Teleni, the instigator of the now hopefully-abandoned Crusades. Click here. Photo: Police Marching Band. The Fiji Times.

Diplomats, of course, are diplomatic. They are very careful to say nothing critical of their minister's views until after they retire, when from their many years of experience, typically far exceeding that of their former ministers, they can say what they think. Former NZ senior diplomat Terence O'Brien, who recently chose "hamfisted" to describe NZ's efforts to have Fiji excluded from UN peacekeeping missions, had 40 years with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Its present Minister, Murray McCully, has one.

Fiji will have to get rid of its old elite and their influences before it fully embraces democracy, PM Bainimarama told world leaders UN General Assembly on September 26. “The way of the old elite must never triumph again.” Click here for full report.

Minor revisions, 28.9.09
It's not been a good last few days for Fiji internationally. PM Bainimarama called on the UN General Assembly for "patience and understanding" but it is doubtful any of the powers that count took any notice. That's what happens to little players on the international stage. He expressed disappointment that Fiji troops had been barred from new UN peacekeeping operations, despite its long "proud record" since 1978.

There was no doubt who he was referring to when he said, “Our people pose no threat to anyone, least of all to the big powers of the South Pacific who have abrogated to themselves the right to dictate to us our future and the way we govern ourselves. In all of this, they have used their extensive diplomatic and financial resources to deny Fiji to participate in new peacekeeping operations."

Not for the first time he said overseas critics had little understanding of the Fiji situation. They still seem "largely unaw…