Venal political games played by Fiji Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka and others are putting Fiji United Nations peacekeepers into direct harm's way. Rabuka says Fiji supports Israel’s actions against Gaza and will support the United States at the International Criminal Court (ICJ) on February 26. Rabuka is taking the action to support a rather small, mostly wacky political party that he needs to hold his shaky coalition in power.
I set it out in South Pacific people caught in Israel. Rabuka believes he is taking a principled stance but he’s safe in Suva and its soldiers of the Republic of Fiji Military Forces (RFMF) sitting on the Golan Heights who are at risk. Behind that is murky stuff. Recall, in 2014 on the Golan Heights 44 Fiji soldiers surrendered, without a fight, to an Al Qaeda-backed group, Nusra Front. They were released only after Qatar paid a US$25 million ransom. What Fiji got out of the deal, or had to promise Qatar, is unknown.
Rabuka’s office has this week issued a tortuous statement ‘to clarify the misinterpretation in the social and mainstream media regarding Fiji’s position…’ The statement claims Fiji’s position at the ICJ relates to United Nations resolutions passed prior to last year’s October 7 Hamas attack on Israel. Fiji was now ‘concerned with the abuse of the ICJ on matters that should follow already established legally binding agreements and processes that were agreed to by the parties and endorsed at the international level.’
In an open insult to South Africa, who bought the case against Israel, Rabuka’s office says ‘the court must not be used as a political playground to assert long-held presumptions and biases, and in the course of doing so, misusing international law, against its intended purpose.’ It goes on: ‘In upholding its principled positions on matters that impact our core values, Fiji will continue to stand for what is right for the dignity of humankind.’ The ‘core values’ are not spelled out but can be taken to be a fundamentalist Christian view that Israel and the Jews (and certain Fijians) are God’s chosen people. It’s a view that at least a third or more of the country do not hold. As reported in Fiji Christians default on Israel charter, the small pro-Israel group now holding the balance of power in Suva, want a bail out. An Israeli group is coming up with the cash in return for Rabuka’s support. Its a variation of the Nusra Front-Qatar kidnap deal. Rabuka risks making Fiji a laughing stock and dangerous for its citizens.
Another former coup leader and prime minister, Voreqe Bainimarama says Fiji’s current action contradicts the nation's long-standing legacy as peacekeepers, a legacy upon which both our reputation and that of the RFMF have been founded. He says Fiji’s stance has been to keep peace, and now, for the first time, we have broken this stance - an insult to the memories of generations of peacekeepers who have always protected the innocent.
The ‘Government of Kiribati’ X account that has acquired a global following of late is said to be a fake. Although who calls who a fake on the Internet is something of an existential question. I reported earlier this week that @KiribatiGov - snapped at someone who questioned the toponymy of Kiritimati: ‘Fine. You’re not invited’. Now Agence France-Presse has run a story saying the account is not legit: ‘It's a fake account,’ senior presidential communications official Tearinibeia Enoo-Teabo said.
To my delight the story has gone global with a Kiribati photo I took in 1999 on South Tarawa. It is of the channel between the islets of Buota and Abatao. I was living in a guest house jutting out on the channel, as I researched A Last Secret, the story of New Zealand coastwatchers murdered by the Japanese on Tarawa during World War Two. There are more of Tarawa on my Flickr account, and a separate album Kiritimati . Here are some from a Kiritimati trip.
Niue has made it into the New York Times with a lengthy piece, The Two-Decade Fight for Two Letters on the Internet. The battle for control of dot.Nu, Niue’s top level domain name, goes back to the beginning of the Internet. I was writing about it on and off for decades. Found this 2007 one, Pacific atolls host world’s most dangerous websites. That was Niue and Tokelau and the same battle. Niue was always interesting; before the Internet their international telephone prefix, +683, was rented out to British and European sex sleaze operators. So many people called various numbers (Tuvalu sold them too) that one time Niue Premier Frank Liu told me Niueans were used to getting heavy breathing wrong numbers.
At much the same time Niue was into tax haven banking that grew so extreme New Zealand worried at the impact it was having on the credibility of the New Zealand dollar. The Panama Papers grew out of Niue. I wrote of it: Me and Jürgen Mossack: Michael Field on chasing the Panama Papers through the South Pacific in the ’00s.
The New York Times story says in the late 1990s, an American businessman offered to hook up the island to the internet. All he wanted in exchange was the right to control the .nu suffix that Niue was assigned for its web addresses. It turned out that .nu was, in fact, very valuable. “Nu” means now in Swedish, Danish and Dutch, and thousands of Scandinavians registered websites with that suffix, creating a steady business for Niue’s business partner, Bill Semich. Niue cancelled the deal in 2000 and has been attempting to reclaim .nu ever since. It is seeking about US$30 million in damages from the foundation. The dispute is in the Swedish courts, and a judge in Stockholm began hearing Niue’s arguments last week. A ruling is expected in the coming days.
Prime Minister Dalton Tagelagi of Niue, told the New York Times winning the case could help secure the financial future of the island.
‘It is the morality. Every nation, regardless of size, should be treated fairly and equally. We are sometimes overlooked for being a small island out there in the big blue. But you can only be patient for so long.’
©Michael J Field
In my substack postings
Efeso was only 49, much younger than me. I looked around, his body was respectfully covered and sheltered. Cared for. And yet just across the road a large cruise ship had docked and its passengers were heading across the plaza, up Queen Street. This life and death had taken place amidst tourists, people going to work, nut cases, the street people and the colourful, school kids running for trains knowing they were already late. People like me, boats to sail, small tasks to do. The food shops were open, people drinking coffee.
Roubles for Tonga from Russia with love
The airport improvements remained centrepiece of the anxiety, although Pacific Islands Monthly threw in an additional item, a Soviet naval base in Vava’u: ‘What exactly the Russians have asked for in return, nothing definite can be said at this stage, except that they want a foothold in the South Pacific.’