Fugitive Fiji military colonel Ratu Tevita Ului Mara is due to visit Auckland next Saturday, 23 July 2011.
Pacific Media Centre research associate Ranjit Singh, a former publisher of the Fiji Daily Post, commented:
"You may recall Ratu Tevita Mara is enlisting support of questionable nationalist elements - among others, former George Speight 'Minister' Simione Kaitani who later became Fiji PM Laisenia Qarase’s Assistant Minister of Information. Kaitani was later promoted as full minister after controversial admissions on his role over the 2000 attempted coup."
In February 2003, Singh and Kaitani (then in the Qarase government) appeared on Fiji TV's Close-Up programme hosted by Riyaz Saiyed-Khaiyum, now chief executive of the Fiji Broadcasting Corporation. In the programme, Kaitani admitted an allegedly seditious statement in 2000 in support of an indigenous government through George Speight's attempted coup.
Pacific Media Centre
