Fiji's Struggle Against a Corrupt Government

[Applause] on August the 1st 1994 Sofia gave birth to her first child a son she called filamin for a native Fijian he had surprisingly dark skin and straight hair but sfia put it down to an inheritance from his grandfather the birth of a light-skinned child on the same day at the same hospital to an ethnic Indian family caused considerable upset farida's cane farmer husband accused her of sleeping with a Fijian and treated her cruy because of it of course it was a hospital mixup but now it's been discovered farida doesn't want to give up the Fijian boy that she suckled and loves as a son an hour's rough Drive Away filin's Fijian mother finds herself torn by conflicting emotions but she'd like to swap the boys back what's enlightening for an outsider about this remarkable story of mistaken identity is the patience and the tolerance with which the two families one Fijian and one ethnic Indian have treated each other during such a difficult time you see the race card tensions between the communities the question of who owns Fiji have been used as an excuse and a reason for a coup for a change in the Constitution and for a government that is anything but Democratic and yet speak to the two mothers Sophia and Farid and they'll tell you that the race issue is a nonsense [Music] listen to some of fiji's politicians and you'll get a very different view of race relations ilasa duovo gets treated like a chief when he visits Fijian Villages but he's just a politician a front runner for the Nationalist movement his message is that native fijians are under attack their culture and land ownership threatened by immigrant Indians who number almost half the population I'm not stirring up anything if anything I'm staring up I am speaking against injustices which has been legalized in places like Australia and New Zealand and and Hawaii you know I mean how can you legalize injustices it's exactly the same nationalistic justification used by The Men Who led Fiji military coup 9 years ago but Duval loo warns of a new plot to steal Fijian rights do you see a conspiracy of Indian leaders to take power from the fijians some of the the Indian leaders there's a conspiracy but not only confined here it's a it's it's a networking throughout it could be behind the Indians are the the superpowers like America England and Australia could be including why would they be behind that there's a lot of wealth here even in N loto this gold and marble up the those Hills Gold and oil underneath you there's a lot of wealth but the thing to take it away from them is to take control of their political political power first do you think perhaps you and the people who support you are just being a bit paranoid about the fears of losing power it's not paranoid being paranoid it's a reality the reality is the Fijian Elite that now rules the country is running it into the ground National and international investors have fled amidst reports of corruption and mismanagement many local Indian businessmen have lost confidence and to top it off the government-owned National Bank of Fiji has been used as a sort of private piggy bank by the Fijian Elite there is no question that the National Bank of Fiji disaster uh is a very very serious event Peter Stinson fiji's ambassador to Australia and former Minister for economic planning um I would like to be an optimist and hope that we've learned from that experience we cannot uh just have freedom of of handing out loans to to individuals without proper checks and so on and it's very important that we have the right management uh in such institutions but there are those who believe the government's learned nothing and nor does it want to we have an extraordinary degree of financial incompetence appointment to the boards and the management of these organizations has always been the selection of politically pliable people cronyism nepotism all its forms miles Johnson is a corporate lawyer and third generation Fijian who stood up against the 1987 coup and today Crusades against what many see is a propagate and self-serving Elite I would certainly love to get the bastards because we know who they all are and they're trying to assume a a more respectable sort of guys but they haven't really succeeded they're all the same so as far as my views towards those people who locked me up and chased me around the country occupied my house and did a whole lot of other rather unpleasant things to me no my view hasn't changed at all in fact everything they've done since confirms what sort of people they are actually Johnson convinced us to visit the nearby island of tuni to witness the scale of the problem now was going to log timber in the Hills up here process it here and Barge it out away from the on that Old Ship over there yeah a former president of Fiji was part of this failed Timber operation never a tree was processed nor the log barge ever launched and the National Bank of Fiji took a $5 million bath on the deal the sorry fact is that at the moment there's virtually no foreign investment in Fiji at all as for investment in the real sense of the term bricks and mortar and jobs and Industrial Development there's just none and so the general picture that anyone from outside the country must get is that it's uh it's badly run it's shaky it's in the hands of incompetent people a few kilometers further south on tuni lies one of the nation's biggest white elephants on its own little stretch of Tropical Paradise in the mid 7s the tunia state was planned as a Haven hundreds of plots for the wealthy Jaded by the cadell soul or for that matter the Gold Coast the owner of the estate was none other than the Fijian ambassador to Australia Peter Stinson who ended up with a huge outstanding debt to the National Bank two years ago the then Minister for finance he got up in Parliament and he said that the Stinson loan was $24 million now that's 2 years ago what we were told only weeks ago is that the loan no longer exists the loan was the single biggest debt on the national bank's books and what happened to it has been the subject of intense public speculation Mr Stinson agreed to talk about it for the first time with foreign correspondent and he says it was nowhere near the 24 million quoted in Parliament that was a previous Minister of Finance and having been a parliamentarian myself often when you're on your feet you figures are plucked out of the air but so he got it wrong he got it wrong yes there there's no indication that the debt ever reached that figure so if the debt didn't reach 23 million what did it reach 8,399 188 what happened to it it was repaid in fact what happened was the bank offered Mr Stinson an amazing deal first it set up the former director of the lands Department as an independent valuer then gave him his first job of valuing the estate the result a mere 25 plots of undeveloped land were reportedly valued at conveniently $8 million yet just 12 months before that the estate had been advertised around the world and there was only one bidder for one plot of land a derisory $5,000 And1 either you have done an incredibly smart deal an Inc incredibly clever deal as a businessman or the bank has made an incredibly stupid decision I think history will have to decide that the whole thing's turned into a complete disaster um commercially it's a disaster from fiji's point of view it's a disaster um what investors from overseas must think about this I've got no idea but it just must be awful so today the bank is able to say it's cleared a big debt from its books while Mr Stinson continues to run Tav uni also known as the S Gulu estate I am confident that that estate uh can be successful in the future the dreams I had for it in the' 70s can still be achieved it was one one of the biggest employers on the island in the 70s and early 80s it represents probably the largest single private investment on an outer Island in Fiji ever and if s Gulu succeeds the island of tuni succeeds as well if some have prospered since the coup many more native fijians have fallen into poverty Economist father Kevin bar sees the growth of Shanty towns around the capital soua as the most Stark example of increasing problems for indigenous fijians five children five children but these would be the grandchildren you're looking after now right so where are the parents oh increasing poverty social collapse and a rising crime rate Kevin bar sees no likelihood of improvement without political change that people feel that okay if those higher up can go and take what they want uh why not us and even recently with the increase in the salaries of our parliamentarians I I actually heard people say that you know that uh our potential criminals are going to say well they can take what they want well why not us having failed its people so obviously the Fijian Elite still opposes any change that undermines its control of the country or lets the Indian Community share power power but change has to come change recommended this year by an independent constitutional review panel headed by a former New Zealand governor general fijians voted for fijians Indians voted for Indians that sort of dynamite because it means that one side is locked into being perpetually within opposition we're trying to say let the particular things that are precious to fijians be taken out of the party political Arena let them be protected constitutionally L let the political process flow more easily I I disagree with it and uh we showed this we Manifest this by burning the thing because we disagree with it totally but whether nationalists like it or not the Indian Community is pivotal in fiji's future from the energetic business Community to The crucial cane farmers always prevented from owning land and today frozen out of the political process confidence in their adopted country is at a lowb instability filters from the top down to small farmers like nazia father of the little Fijian boy swapped at Birth Nazir is a fifth generation cane farmer his land rents have doubled his income has halfed and the National Bank collapse has caused a credit squeeze and worse like thousands of others his lease may not be renewed because the traditional Fijian land owner is afraid of committing himself in these uncertain times I think it it is it is very very essential I think it is crucial uh if we do not uh uh get the Constitution fixed and make it acceptable Mahendra chowri is the Indian leader of the multi-racial labor party now the World Bank uh in its report on the economy of Fiji has pointed to the fact that Fiji cannot expect reasonable rates of economic growth unless it solves these two problems gets a Constitution which is largely acceptable to all its people and gets the land lease uh uh problems resolved for some it goes beyond politics or even Revolution for Miles Johnson it's a long pursuit of Justice that's lost him business clients status and friends I've lost a few friends but I don't think I'm any worse off and the the fact is I've made a lot of friends the um the coups have Unmasked A lot of people and I don't think at the end of the day I've in terms of friendship I've lost anything I mean financially and so forth yes I've lost an enormous amount when they devalued the currency by a half Bang there goes half your asset um but you know that's all really water under the bridge um because it's it's really had its rewarding qualities too in the end the coup has made life worse for most fijians no matter what their racial Heritage and without constitutional change the tensions between Indians and fijians will seep out into communities that for now live in harmony and seek to resolve even their most perplexing problems [Music]

Channel: Journeyman Pictures

Views: 88,939

Keywords: Fiji, History, Goverment, documentary, Journeyman, Pictures, news, current affairs, journeyman, journeyman pictures

Id: jxxiUMGkXDA

Length: 18min 59sec (1139 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 15 2007