Addressing the Pacific Islands Business Forum in August 2007, Commodore Bainimarama said, ‘To tackle corruption, strong and committed leadership is required’. He then quoted from the former Prime Minister of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew, who had said:
The moment key leaders are less than incorruptible, less than stern in demanding high standards, from that moment the structure of administrative integrity will weaken and eventually crumble…Only when we uphold the integrity of the administration, can the economy work in a way which enables (us) to clearly see the nexus between hard work and high rewards….instead of hoping for a windfall through powerful friends and relatives or through greasing contacts in the right places.[9]
No one would disagree with the Commodore’s endorsement of Lee Kuan Yew’s views on corruption. They are noble principles worthy of emulation. The real question which must be asked is whether or not the interim administration is keeping to the lofty principles so eloquently articulated by the Commodore. The taxpayers of Fiji are entitled to ask whether or not he has demanded of his ministers the high standards he says he espouses and which he expects of other citizens.
Respected prosecutor Peter Ridgway, no friend of the ousted government, said in a recent interview that Fiji had become 'filled with a thousand little treasons being committed on a daily basis, by police, military, people in power’.[10] A slight exaggeration perhaps, but the message is clear. In light of the emerging and known facts, who can disagree with his rather sobering assessment of events in post-coup Fiji? But then maybe Ridgway is lying? Or is he just another expatriate troublemaker? It is hard not to conclude, despite all the spin, that the grave departures from constitutionalism that I alluded to in a speech in Hong Kong in June last year continue. More likely they have intensified.
[9] Bainimarama, ‘Opening Address at Pacific Islands Business Forum’, Radisson Resort Fiji, Denarau, 6 August 2007, http://www.fiji.gov.fj/publish/page_9704.shtml.
[10] Peter Ridgway, interviewed on ‘Fiji’s Faltering Freedoms’, ABC, The Law Report, 4 March 2008, http://www.abc.net.au/rn/lawreport/stories/2008/2177850.htm.