NUKU'ALOFA (Pacific Media Watch): The fugitive Fiji army colonel who fled to Tonga last week after being charged with sedition in an alleged mutiny plot against the military backed dictatorship has struck back with two new video messages on YouTube.
Ratu Tevita Mara, youngest son of the late President Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara, who has taken refuge in the kingdom with support from the royal family replied to accusations by Commodore Voreqe Bainimarama with another bitter attack on the regime.
In one message, in Fijian, he has appealed to his former soldiers, and in the other, in English, he took another swipe at the "hateful regime".
In court action yesterday, a bench arrest warrant was issued and the regime sent extradition papers to Tonga in a bid to force Mara to return to Fiji to face trial.
Mara's second statement:
Firstly I would like to thank Commodore Bainimarama for his statement yesterday. Without his help my arrival in Tonga would have been unnoticed by the world’s media. But now it has become global news and people the world over will learn of Bainimarama’s oppression of the Fijian people.
The commodore has never qualified as a naval officer from any naval academy so his confusion of two points on the charts which are 100 miles apart, though understandable, bodes ill for the Fijian Navy. The Brotherhood of the Sea, in an emergency demands that the saving of life temporarily supersedes bureaucratic considerations of sovereignty. It is exactly under these rules that RNZAF aircraft are permitted often to overfly the waters of South Pacific Islands once an EPERB transmission is received. It is an exemplary and selfless act which is in the highest traditions of the RNZAF. Does the dictator now suggest that, having found shipwrecked victims in future they should now be interrogated by the crew of the rescue craft and put back in the water if they were found to have been critical of the military regime? I can assure you that Kaiyum [sic] and Bainimarama will not get far instructing a tough bunch of Kiwis to carry out these inhumanities!
He has accused me of being under investigation for the disappearance of $3 million from the Fiji Pine Board. These are the desperate attempts by a mentally and morally bankrupt man to smear the Mara name. There is no truth to the allegations. In fact that money went missing long before I became chairman of the Fiji Pine Board. And it was under my chairmanship that the loss was discovered and it was I who made it known to the authorities. All of this is recorded in the minutes of the Fiji Pine Board.
I was charged with using Seditious language. In a conversation to a fellow officer, whilst in Korea last year, I am alleged to have said “This government is F*** All!” If saying that is sedition then everyone in Fiji, except for Bainimarama and Khaiyum, is also guilty of sedition. What he is saying is that anyone who criticises any aspect of his regime in a private conversation can be reported and charged. That is not the Fiji I know and love, that is more like Nazi Germany and the Gestapo or the Soviet Union and the KGB.
I will come back to Fiji and I will face my fellow Fijians and answer for my part in the 2006 coup. However, I will not come back to face frivolous charges whilst the puppet master, Khaiyum, interferes with the Fiji judiciary on a daily basis. There are no longer fair trials in Fiji. The courts pass verdicts and the sentences dictated by Kaiyum.
I am more than happy to face any attempts for my extradition from Tonga. They have had democratic elections for the first time in November and they have a government accountable to the people. They have a judiciary free from interference and I am sure that my side of the story will be heard fully and justice will prevail.
I want to give my thanks to the Tongan people for their hospitality and kindness.
Pacific Media Watch
