As long as the 1997 Constitution remains in place, the likes of Mahendra Chaudhry, the military, the president, and all those associated with the Interim Government of Commodore Frank Bainimama, will have to tolerate the lecturing and hectoring by one of the co-architects of the Constitution, the Fiji -born and Australian based academic Dr Brij Vilash Lal. Some of us have fundamental issues with Dr Lal (no relation of mine, except that we share the same surname) on certain aspects of the Constitution, especially the multi-party concept and the electoral system but those who have taken the oath of office under it will have to swallow the academic doctor’s bitter lecturing pills as long as the Constitution remains the law of the land. And he himself has to engage in constructive criticism and debate on the Constitution. I have reluctantly stepped into the feud after the present Finance Minister, Mahendra Chaudhry, attacked Dr Lal, and his comments by extension, also apply to me and other academics and regular political commentators on Fiji. Replying to Dr Lal’s article in the media titled “Lal: regime lacks lustre”, Mr Chaudhry claimed the article was essentially a personal attack on him. “Let me state at the outset, that the writer has seriously impaired his academic credibility by continuously spewing venom against me, the Fiji Labour Party and the interim administration without substantiating his claims,” said Mr Chaudhry. He said Dr Lal’s vindictive attack on him was not surprising, considering his close links with the waning National Federation Party. Here I am reminded of the virulent attacks on me in the media by the previous interim Qarase regime that was formed after Mr Chaudhry was removed from power in 2000. I was consistently accused of peddling pro-Chaudhry and FLP propaganda from London, in my capacity as a member of the Movement for Democracy in Fiji, with Ratu Inoke Kubuabola accusing me: “Victor Lal’s articles all have a simple, indeed, simplistic stance: restore Chaudhry and impose democracy as defined by Lal and his friends.”Worse, I received a spate of hate e-mails and even death threats from extremists in the Fijian community and anti-Chaudhry Indo-Fijians when, in February 2001, in one of my regular political columns, I wrote that “Chaudhry is a sacrificial lamb at the altar of political opportunism”, and called him a political saint in Fiji politics. But when I turned my pen against Mr Chaudhry on issues of greater import to Fiji than only those concerning the Indo-Fijians and sugarcane farmers, I also became an object of hatred and derision from his supporters and followers in the FLP, both inside and outside Fiji.Meanwhile, Mr Chaudhry, while boasting what a marvellous job he is now doing with the economy (merely balancing the books, according to some economists) and the sugar industry, challenged Dr Lal to enter the political arena: “Let him put his money where his mouth is, come down and fight an election here, and make the necessary sacrifices to serve the people of Fiji. Perhaps then he would have won the right to sit in judgment on others.”He also asked pointedly: “What gives Lal the right to make pronouncements on Fiji from his sanctuary in Australia”.The answer to Mr Chaudhry’s last question, to put it brutally, is that Dr Lal is one of the co-architects of the Constitution under which Mr Chaudhry became the Prime Minister, fought tooth and nail to enter the multi-party Cabinet, and before the coup also felt that he should be appointed the Leader of the Opposition.Meanwhile, one does not have to prove oneself by standing for elections - elections that Mr Chaudhry claims have been repeatedly rigged since his overthrow in 2000. In any event, what is the point in fighting elections, when one can, after losing the elections, simply enter Government by hitching a ride on the back of military trucks and guns.On another serious note, if Dr Lal has no right to open his mouth while “hiding” in Australia, what right did Mr Chaudhry have to release nearly a quarter of a million dollars of taxpayers money to bring down Australian and New Zealand lawyers (with possibly no familial connections with Fiji) from their sanctuaries to fight the Interim Government’s legal case against Qarase in the High Court? What right did one academic from New Zealand have to come down from his sanctuary to Fiji to carry out an investigation into the 2006 general election? What right did Dr James Anthony have to come down from Hawaii to carry out an inquiry into the Fiji media? Why should the Interim Government go abroad to bring someone from his or her sanctuary to oversee the next general election? Why have we brought lawyers and judges from their sanctuaries to run the courts, the DPP, and the Solicitor-General and Attorney-General’s offices in Fiji? Who in these two last offices gave the wrong advice to the President on Adi Koila’s appointment to the Boundaries Commission?Above all, what right did Mr Chaudhry have, on his release from George Speight’s clutches, to travel abroad to raise support and money from us to fight his political battles in Fiji? Why didn’t he simply stay put in the country and fight his political battles at home? Why did be waste our time, money, and energy, with many of us making enemies with his political adversaries, when he now says those like Dr Lal (and countless others) should not “poke their noses” in Fiji’s affairs? Why was Mr Chaudhry pleading for EU money (which partly comes from my taxes in the UK) for the sugar industry, and presumably Dr Lal’s taxes in Australia are also being used for the benefit of Fiji?If politicians are so against those working in overseas universities, why on earth do they send their own sons and daughters abroad to acquire education, mostly in Australia and New Zealand?It is ridiculous to argue that just because someone is away from Fiji, one has no right to comment on the state of affairs in the country of their birth. We still have homes, friends and families in Fiji. In Dr Lal’s case, he is one of the leading chroniclers of Indo-Fijian history and politics, and he has more to teach them than any Indo-Fijian politician.If Mr Chaudhry has spent his lifetime fighting for sugarcane farmers and Indo-Fijian rights in Fiji, Dr Lal has equally spent his lifetime interpreting them. It is true that Dr Lal was the former NFP leader Jai Ram Reddy’s nominee on the Fiji Constitutional Review Committee (CRC), to which Mr Chaudhry and his FLP made submissions regarding the new 1997 Constitution. There is no evidence however to suggest that Mr Chaudhry ever protested against Dr Lal’s presence on the committee, along with Sir Paul Reeves of New Zealand, and Tomasi Rayalu Vakatora, the former Speaker of Parliament.To assist the Commission, two legal counsel were appointed, Alison Quentin Baxter and Jon Apted. The secretary to the Commission was the affable lawyer Walter Rigamoto. Although Mr Chaudhry had reservations, opposing the provincial allocation of Fijian seats, and was unhappy about the electoral arrangements, he signed off the final Joint Parliamentary Select Committee report.When the new 1997 Constitution was unanimously passed by both Houses of Fiji’s Parliament, a jubilant Mr Chaudhry declared after the parliamentary vote that a long-standing grievance about the racist 1990 Constitution had ended. Two years later he won a landslide election under the very electoral system to which he had grave reservations, prompting Professor Steward Firth of USP to rightly point out that, “Labour was advantaged by the preferential system (Alternate Vote).”Mr Vakatora claimed that the FLP noticed a flaw in the AV used in the 1999 May general elections and used it to win. The FLP saw that the AV system could be used to their advantage since voters had no control over where their votes would end up. They also took advantage of the expertise that was available to them from their Australian counterparts where the AV system is in use in elections.Dr Lal commented after the 1999 elections: “Labour’s unorthodox tactic breached the spirit and intention of the preferential system of voting, where like-minded parties trade preferences among themselves and put those they most disagree with last. Political expediency and cold-blooded ruthlessness triumphed.”In May 2000, George Speight ended Mr Chaudhry’s political reign, with one of Mr Chaudhry’s own coalition partners from the Fijian Association Party, Ratu Tu’uakitau Cokanauto, after crossing over to Qarase’s Interim regime, said he no longer supported Mr Chaudhry’s leadership because the former Indo-Fijian Prime Minister was directly responsible for the events of 19 May 2000.He said: “Chaudhry has been identified as one of the people directly or indirectly who caused the problem.” The rest is history, with Mr Chaudhry launching one legal challenge after another under the 1997 Constitution to re-insert himself into the corridors of power. In the process, he spared no one, including the President, Commodore Bainimarma and former Prime Minister Qarase over the post 2000 events.In August 2006, he attacked them for violating the rule of law after the 2000 coup. He accused the President and the Commodore of colluding with Mr Qarase to exclude the FLP from sharing political power. In particular, Mr Chaudhry claimed that “the nation would not be in the present condition were it not for the farce the President enacted in March 2001, when he appointed Ratu Tevita Momedonu as caretaker (puppet) Prime Minister for 24 hours”.Mr Chaudhry also told his fellow Commonwealth parliamentarians: “What took place in Fiji next was a blatant and willful distortion and manipulation of the constitutional and legal system to allow the army-backed regime to continue in office.”He also berated Ratu Iloilo: “The constitution requires the President to be appointed by the Great Council of Chiefs in consultation with the Prime Minister. In the next questionable move Ratu Josefa Iloilo, placed in office after the coup and who the Appeals Court declared to be in an acting capacity only, convened a meeting of the Great Council of Chiefs, and got himself appointed President.”What all these events clearly meant, he claimed, was that Fiji’s post-coup authorities had no respect for the rule of law.To date, Mr Chaudhry has provided no evidence that Ratu Iloilo had himself appointed by the GCC. If we are to believe Mr Chaudhry, is Ratu Illoilo illegally occupying the presidency since the 2000 coup? The President must come out clean before the High Court on his role in the post December coup, to prevent a repeat of Chaudhry-like claims.There is no point in the Interim administration and the military calling upon us to respect the Presidential Office, when one of its own interim Ministers and a former prime minister had cast grave doubts on its impartiality in a previous coup.Dr Brij Lal’s only crime is that he is, to quote the late Sir Vijay Singh, Speaking Out, which he should in his capacity as the co-architect of the 1997 Constitution. And as long as Mr Chaudhry is functioning under the Constitution, he has to listen to (although he does not necessarily have to agree with) Dr Lal’s interpretation of it. He must stop accusing Dr Lal of being an NFP stooge.What is Mr Chaudhry – a coup stooge?
Victor Lal
