KEY POINTS:
New Zealand's Commissioner of Police Peter Doone resigned after his behaviour in connection with his car being stopped in a traffic incident.
Laisenia Qarase's regime, which New Zealand is defending, promoted its former Commissioner of Police, Isikia Savua, as its representative to United Nations in New York after this commissioner was disgraced for bringing into disrepute Fiji's once proud police force.
He was implicated in the failed coup of 2000 and accused of allowing police resources to be used by rebel soldiers.
Would the New Zealand Government appoint such a disgraced and incompetent person as its representative at the United Nations? Then why should Fiji be allowed to get away with this?
Attorney General David Parker stepped down for action considered inappropriate for the Government's chief legal adviser after he had inadvertently ticked a wrong box in taxation declaration. Subsequently he was cleared and reinstated.
Qarase's regime appointed a disgraced and disbarred lawyer as its chief legal adviser and unelected Attorney General. In New Zealand, a lawyer of such standing would not be considered worthy of practising the profession let alone becoming the Government's chief legal adviser.
John Tamihere, another Labour Minister, lost his position for actions deemed inappropriate.
In Fiji, an indigenous investment company, Fijian Holdings Limited (FHL), was established to promote and encourage the entry of provinces (not individuals) into business. PM Qarase, when chief executive of Fiji Development Bank, acquired for himself and his family four times more class A shares than his Lau Province. This is well documented in senate sitting proceedings.
Would Helen Clark allow herself to abuse her position in such a way or allow any of her Ministers to get away with this? This is the leadership that Fiji inherited from the events of 2000 when Qarase went in as interim PM.
New Zealand passed the controversial Foreshore and Seabed Act to vest full legal and beneficial ownership of public foreshore and seabed in the Crown as trust for all its citizens.
Fiji's controversial Qoliqoli Bill did the complete opposite. To win indigenous support, the Government was selling off the national asset to native landowners who are already stopping tourists and local people from using the sea and beaches.
One needs to ask the New Zealand Prime Minister if what is deemed good for the wider New Zealand citizenry should not be so in Fiji as well.
My issue with the New Zealand Government is that Fiji is its neighbour and political uncertainties on its doorstep are bad for New Zealand. So why did it not advise Qarase on his poor governance?
New Zealand's position, and Australia's stance against the people of Fiji and the imposition of sanctions affecting common people, defies logic. Their protection of a questionable, immoral, unethical and a corrupt democracy is ideological and of little practical use. The poor people of Fiji will become poorer with the double standards of New Zealand's leadership.
If the New Zealand Government, instead of barking at Bainimarama, had used its bark against Qarase and his racist, corrupt and ultra-nationalist regime in time, then Fiji would have been spared its misery today.
What Bainimarama did was to stop another Zimbabwe on New Zealand's doorstep. Perhaps he was a bit late, because Fiji's lush green cane farms have already been rendered into bush, as has happened to the farms confiscated from white farmers in Zimbabwe. That country is now on the verge of bankruptcy.
Fiji has been lucky in this respect. Things are still reversible with good, visionary national leadership and good governance.
New Zealand and Australia need to pitch in and act like good and caring neighbours and help Fijians to mould Fiji into a model of democracy that we all can be proud of.
Go ahead, Clark, Howard and Downer, make our day, drop all sanctions and help to bring Fiji's young and faltering democracy back on its feet. Fiji today needs help and understanding, not punishment from our caring big brothers and neighbours.
* Thakur Ranjit Singh is a third-generation Indo-Fijian migrant to New Zealand. He is a human rights activist who works at Amnesty International, but the views he expresses here are his personal opinions.
