The SDL (Soqosoqo Duavata ni Lewenivanua) was founded in 2001 by Laisenia Qarase. It is widely seen as the successor to the Alliance, the former ruling party that had dominated Fijian politics from the 1960s to the 1980s. It draws its support mainly from indigenous Fijiians.

The recommendations are contained in the SDL's submission to the Constitutional Commission. The SDL say they want the name "Fijian" to be reserved for the indigenous Fijians and all citizens to be called "Fiji Islanders".

SDL also proposes that there should be no provisions for dual citizenship.

SDL officials say that the party wants the term "sexual orientation" to be removed from the Bill of Rights of the 1997 constitution.

In that section it states that a person must not be unfairly discriminated against, directly or indirectly, on the ground of his or her sexual orientation.

They propose that parliament and senate should be retained, some communal seats to be retained and the balance to be won under the one man one vote system.

On the appointment of the country's President and Vice President, SDL has suggested that they should still be appointed by the Great Council of Chiefs.

Recently the blogger Graham Davis said, "The recent observation by the former vice-president, Ratu Joni Madraiwiwi, that race relations in Fiji have never been better is an important acknowledgement of unquestionably the Commodore Bainimarama Government's greatest achievement."

"This is its crusade to bridge the gulf between the races in Fiji and try to draw a line under the entrenched separateness that has always bedeviled the country and retarded its development. Whatever else it may have done since it seized the reins of power five and half years ago, the attempt to create one Fijian identity has been the most daring of the regime's initiatives and the most noble."

Source

• FijiVillage.com
• Wikipedia
• FijiSun
• Image: The Muslim Times

This announcement was made following a meeting in Sydney on Tuesday attended by New Zealand Foreign Minister Mr McCully, Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr and Fijian Foreign Minister Ratu Inoke Kubuabola.

The decision has met with a mixed reaction. "Oceania's greatest power - Australia - has finally bowed to the inevitable. That five and-a-half-years of trying to destroy the Bainimarama Government in Fiji has failed. That one of its island satellites has thumbed its nose at its big neighbour and determined its own course in the world," says blogger and freelance journalest Graham Davis, a longtime commentator on Fiji Affairs .

"For all its economic and political power, Australia could not bring Fiji to heel. It ended in Sydney on Monday not with a bang but a whimper, with Australia being dragged reluctantly to the table by little New Zealand under the distant but relieved gaze of their giant ally, the United States. How humiliating. How unnecessary."

But a Fiji union leader, Felix Anthony, says there's much disappointment in Fiji over New Zealand, Australia and Fiji's decision to restore full diplomatic links.

Anthony, who is National Secretary of the Fiji Trades Union Congress, says Canberra and Wellington are jumping the gun as the Fiji regime has yet to prove the constitution review preceding elections is truly democratic.

"The decision was a bit hasty, premature, simply because we haven't seen anything concrete on the ground as yet in terms of improvement to human rights, trade union rights in this country and also there have been some serious concerns that have been raised by almost every organisation in this country which are concerned to see a return to democracy."

Last Friday Akuila Yabaki and his Citizens Constitutional Forum, appeared in the High Court in Suva charged with contempt of court. The charge relates to an article in Tutaka, CCF's quarterly newsletter which argued there was no rule of law in Fiji. They were remanded till October 5

On Tuesday the Suva High Court found the deposed prime minister, Laisenia Qarase, guilty of six charges of abuse of office, and three charges relating to discharge of duty as a public servant, for property in which he had a private interest. He is to be sentenced on Friday.

Source

• Stuff.co.nz
• Grubsheet
• Radio New Zealand International
• The Conversation
• Radio New Zealand International
• Image: Dawn.com/AFP

An opinion article in a pro-government newspaper criticised her for threatening a calamity, but she says she was simply raising the concerns of indigenous Fijians, and was making no threats. Listen to interview

Graham Davis reports these repeated disasters are being "regarded as no coincidence".

Davis says that developments upstream and downstream are contributing to the severity of the flooding problem.

"In truth, the town has always sat on a flood plain," he says, "yet flood waters have only reached the commercial centre once in a decade at most. But three times in three years and with such ferocity?"

Source

• Grubsheet
• Image: The Telegraph

New Zealand Foreign Minister, Murray McCully, has already broken ranks and begun to engage with Fiji. While New Zealand has maintained its travel sanctions on members of Frank Bainimarama's regime, McCully has, in a personal capacity, resumed direct contact with Fiji's foreign minister, Ratu Inoke Kubuabola.

Some thought that there may now be some softening on Australia's part as well. It was suggested that such a change in policy towards Fiji may have been announced after the newly appointed Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr and McCully met in Auckland last week. However after the meeting Carr said it was premature to flag any change in policy towards Fiji and he was seeking more information about the situation there.

"All I can say at this stage is that I am talking to colleagues about Fiji but at this stage, the statement from the Fiji government is something we will look at, it's interesting, but we wouldn't go beyond that at this time."

In his blog GrubSheet, Fiji Watcher Graham Davis, who was predicting a change in policy, say he thought that Carr has had to deal with a backlash to any suggestion of a change in policy towards Fiji on the part of the regime's critics in Australia, especially the trade unions.

"It's now clear that the ACTU has both the will and the power to maintain Australia's hard line stance on Fiji. Never mind the decision by the United States to re-engage with Fiji."

Source

• Croz Walsh's Blog
• GrubSheet
• Radio New Zealand International
• Image: Sky Australia

In his interview with Grubsheet in Suva, the Fijian leader said the allegations were "not true". In the case of 2000, Lal and Hunter report that Bainimarama demanded that the military should be given the authority to rule Fiji for 50 years but this was opposed by the then president, Ratu Josefa Iloilo.

Denying the account, Commodore Bainimarama said he was already in control of Fiji in 2000. "For their information, I was in charge of the nation in 2000, so I took over in 2000. I gave the government to (Laisenia) Qarase". The Prime Minister said it was historical fact that he had handed the reins of power to Laisenia Qarase hoping that he would govern for all Fijians and not just the indigenous majority. "Everyone knows the story of 2000 when I came in, so why they change this and (have) people believing it, I don't know".

Source:

• GrubSheet
• Image: FijiVillage.com

Davis asked, "In reporting in Fiji which version gets told the most? Which is the prevailing orthodoxy on events in Fiji? Bainimarama the torturer or Bainimarama the reformer?"

"On the evidence," he said, "demonising the dictator is the dominant narrative of much of the regional media, and especially a clique of so-called Pacific specialists in Australia and New Zealand."

Davis said that he thought much of what is said about Fiji in the international media is woefully short of integrity or judgment. "Indeed, we live in a truly parallel universe when it comes to media coverage … alleged versions of the truth so polarised that your ordinary reader, viewer or listener can be excused for having no idea what to believe."

"What disturbs me," he said "is that so many of my fellow journalists seem willing to embrace those agendas and portray the country in a way vastly at odds with reality."

Smith-Johns called on the media to act responsibly and to understand "that as a developing nation, we need to take in cultural and socio economic factors against the size of our population. The media must realize that for a developing country like ours, information given needs to take into consideration the socio-economic situation of the country. The media must also realize how influential they can be when citizens speak a variety of languages and messages can be interpreted through poor reporting and a race to get a front page story."

Source

• Croz Walsh's Blog - Graham Davis
• Croz Walsh's Blog - Sharon Smith-Johns
• Image: Matatauvavale

Mara began his campaign in Australia by invoking the mana of his father, Fiji's respected founding father, the late Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara.

However, according Graham Davis, "The problem is that some of his new acolytes are people who Mara senior loathed and blamed for the destruction of his own presidency in 2000 and the destruction of his attempts to forge a thriving multiracial nation in Fiji."

Graham Davis is a journalist best known for his incisive investigative stories over a twenty-year period for the Nine Network's flagship Sunday program, which he joined in 1983 after a radio career in the BBC, ABC and Macquarie Network.

Source

• Australia Network News
• Grubsheet - Unholy Alliance on Fiji
• Grubsheet - The Camera Does not lie
• Image: 3.bp.blogspot.com