The Fijian government has already prepared a draft constitution that will be presented to the Constituent Assembly.
The draft constitution has been prepared by the government team from the Attorney General’s Office after it was decided that the Constitution Commission draft has to be changed.
Commodore Bainimarama said the draft constitution is now with him.
“The draft has been ready from the last couple of weeks and it’s with me. And as I’ve said we’re waiting for the constituent assembly to put it together.”
However Commodore Bainimarama stressed that the members of the Constituent Assembly will only be appointed when all the issues in relation to the registration of proposed parties are completed.
“The constituent assembly will not sit, until we’ve finalized the registration of political parties, as you know, we’ve been highlighting in the media lately, we are having a bit of a problem with the registration of political parties. Some fraud has been highlighted in the registration of these political parties but until political parties have been registered, we cannot go ahead and name the constituent assembly or put together the constituent assembly because it will not be inclusive.”
Stay with us we will have more later.
Story by: Vijay Narayan
Fiji Today FijiTodays Open Forum Blog 
Lasulasu u kulina illegal PM
Lamulamu , scared of fair elections you casava patch world record holder !
boso is liar con men ,this draft was done my nazhat in 2009
Big Brother,
We will not be releasing the new government draft until we are absolutely 100% sure that there is no one on the assembly who will think for themselves. Also, we want to make sure that there are no parties registered who will get more than 10 votes.
Mommy’s boy Saneem will do what Aiyaz tells him to. Aiyaz has promised to pay for his penile enlargement surgery and erection pills if all goes well.
Let the fools , sorry the citizens, know that the elections will be free (hee hee hee) and fair (ha ha ha). I can hardly keep a straight face when I say that.
The assembly will be inclusive. I think I just wet my pants I laughed so hard.
Who cares if we even have elections. I believe the PM is the best we have ever had. Elections are a waste of money anyway. Leave the current government where they are. The economy is the best it has been and the streets are safer than ever.
bill you must be from st giles .go check the debt level fiji is under frank the crank.
frank/khaiyum is so scared to hold any election.they know hotel naboro is waiting .
frank go f khaiyum and wipe all the lick with this bullshit constitution maichodo
Can’t believe anything this liar says. He is only playing for time as all these could have been completed by now. There was no mention of the party registration happening first before the CA formation. Now it suddenly becomes a requirement. And all his BS about fraud. Its all concoctions to prolong the process.
…read between the lines folks…the latest statement from the illegal PM says it all …NO ELECTION IN 2014!!
The above post by Bill Carson is from an impersonator. I did not make that posting.
The New Zealand Parliament will next week vote on a cross-party motion condemning the brutality shown in a video of the treatment suffered by a pair of escaped prisoners in Fiji.
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NZ parliament to vote on condemnation of Fiji torture video (Credit: ABC)
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Sponsored by the opposition Labour Party spokesman on foreign affairs Phil Goff, who is a former New Zealand foreign minister, it will call on the interim Fiji government to bring the perpetrators to justice.
Phil Goff tells Bruce Hill the torture depicted in the video is unacceptable, and its release could be a turning point in Fiji’s diplomatic relations.
We contacted the Fiji government for comment on this story, but have not received a reply.
Presenter: Bruce Hill
Speaker:New Zealand opposition Labour Party spokesman on foreign affairs Phil Goff
GOFF: Well next Tuesday when Parliament resumes in New Zealand I’ll be moving a notice of motion that I hope has the unanimous support of the House. That notice of motion essentially condemns the beating and the torture of prisoners. It calls on the interim government to hold to account those who are responsible for those actions, and more widely than that it calls for the interim government of Fiji to uphold international standards as set out in the United Nations Convention Against Torture and the international covenant on civil and political rights. I can’t see any New Zealand parliamentarian actually being ready to consider voting against such a resolution. It’s very basic, everybody’s seen the video, and I think that that has almost created a turning point in both international and perhaps in local feeling in Fiji. This was graphic, it was deliberate torture, it was carried out clearly by security forces and it was carried out by a regime that is prepared to let this happen.
HILL: The New Zealand and Australian governments are trying to maintain a dialogue with the interim government in Fiji. Might the New Zealand government see this statement in parliament as perhaps something which might not be very helpful to that dialogue?
GOFF: Well I think our desire as is Australia’s desire is to keep the dialogue going with Fiji is important. We want to see Fiji restored as a working democracy that respects people’s rights. But you can’t simply remain silent when confronted with evidence of human rights abuses of this nature. All of us have heard stories that this has been happening and happening for a long time. This video evidence though clearly puts it in front of people, both in Fiji and in the wider world, and that sort of behaviour, that sort of deliberate torture and brutality simply isn’t acceptable.
HILL: You said earlier that this seems to be some sort of turning point in the way people view Fiji. What did you mean by that?
GOFF: It’s one thing hearing the allegations that have been made by reputable organisations like Amnesty International, and hearing it from other people saying this is what happened to me when I was detained. But actually seeing it screened as it happened on that video recording, I think it’s really brought it home to people that this is a country where security forces are able to act in that way, and they’re able to act in that way because there is no longer a free media in Fiji, there isn’t an independent judiciary, and there are no opposition political parties to actually stand up against the abuse of human rights in that country. So people are confronted with this and my message to the Fijian government is that not only does this put under pressure the ability to normalise the relationship and the way that we would probably want to with Fiji all other things being equal, but for every Australian and New Zealander that is considering holidaying in that country, when they look at that they must wonder do they really want to go to a country where this is happening. And if it can happen in some instances, what if something goes wrong in their life and they’re detained by the security forces, could it happen to them? I think this is incredibly damaging to Fiji and the interim government needs to act, not just to investigate, but to act against those who are perpetrating that sort of abuse and to put in place safeguards for human rights.
HILL: This declaration you want the New Zealand parliament to make next week, would it have any practical effect or would it just be words?
GOFF: Well I think it has the practical effect of representing the unanimous viewpoint and the strongly unanimous viewpoint of all New Zealand parliamentarians. So it’s not a case of the interim government being able to play one party off against the other as they’ve sometimes tried to do in the past. This would be a strong statement made from across the House, and that in terms of declaratory statements is as strong as you can get. But what we need to be demanding as well is that this investigation not just sweep the matter under the carpet. One has to wonder about the strength of the assurances given by the police commander. This investigation needs to be real, there needs to be tough action taken against the people who perpetrated the violence, and there needs to be a change in culture that says that this sort of violence is simply not tolerable in a civilised country.
Prime Minister John Key says a video of Fijian men apparently being beaten is “alarming and concerning” and it will be raised with the Fiji government.
The brutal, nine-minute-long video posted on the internet shows one man handcuffed in the back of a ute being beaten with rods, while another man is on the ground being tugged at by a dog.
Human rights groups have accused the Fiji military of carrying out the assaults on the men, and the Fiji police say they are investigating.
Speaking to media during his trade trip to Mexico, Mr Key said the video was “alarming and concerning” and Foreign Minister Murray McCully would raise it with his Fijian counterpart.
“We expect the Fijian authorities to deal with them appropriately and hold those people who have undertaken those beatings to account. It’s the sort of thing we worry an awful lot about.”
He said New Zealand was also concerned about Fiji’s progress towards the election promised for 2014 after the Fiji government overrode many of the recommendations of the independent Constitutional Commission it had set up, including requiring political parties to have 5000 members to contest the election.
“We have real concerns about the constitutional changes that have been recommended. We were firmly of the view that [Commission chair] Professor Yash Ghai’s recommendations were more in the right line, but we are dealing with reality on the ground in Fiji and it’s not perfection but let’s see how things go.”
Mr Key said if Fiji could reach a point where democracy was possible it would be pleasing “but let’s see the conditions under which parties are ultimately able to participate”.
Fiji police Inspector Atunaisa Sokomuri, speaking on behalf of the Commissioner of Police, said a thorough investigation to establish the circumstances of the incident has been ordered.
“We want to stress from the outset that no-one should prejudice this investigation by speculating on what happened. We need to formally establish the precise facts and we are determined to do so,” Fijilive reported him as saying.
He said some reporting on the video had been incorrect, and police had established the men in the video were not prisoners who had escaped from Naboro last year.
Police were not prepared to speculate on the identities of those involved, so as not to prejudice the investigation.
Mr Sokomuri said the procedures of the police investigation would be similar to those when complaints against police were lodged in countries like Australia and New Zealand.
The video has appalled human rights activists here, who are calling on the Government to lean on the interim Fiji Government to take action over the video.
Human rights campaigner and lawyer Peter Williams QC said New Zealand aid could be withheld from Fiji if no charges were brought against the perpetrators of the alleged torture and beatings.
“I think we’re waiting in New Zealand to see what the authorities are going to do about it. If no charges are brought then I think the New Zealand Government should bring some pressure on the dictatorship over there, the military government, to do something about it.”
The video showed “shocking brutality”, Mr Williams said.
Amnesty International executive director Grant Bayldon said they had a team in London working on verifying the video.
He said the humiliation of the men, and their injuries, were “very serious”.
“Forced to undress and harassed by a dog, as men nearby laugh, it is difficult to watch. The subsequent brutal beating with batons is harrowing. It is torture.”
The video showed the beatings being administered by plain-clothed men speaking Bauan – a Fijian dialect.
It was thought the footage was from an incident last year where five prison escapees were apparently assaulted by the military when the inmates were eventually recaptured.
– Claire Trevett of the NZ Herald and APNZ staff
APNZ
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The UK’s Daily Mail blared the headline: “Attacked with truncheons and chewed by dogs: Harrowing torture video that shows Fijian soldiers beating prisoners triggers global backlash”. Hundreds of thousands of Qorvis PR dollars vanish in a flash of publicity. After a succession of pictures of Inoke Kubuabola being greeted by forgettable diplomats from even more forgettable countries, which have been reported nowhere but in our captive media and the media of the forgettable states, the name of Fiji has at last got some big publicity all around the world. And all of it is bad.
The brutal beating and torture of prisoners in Fiji, captured on video, could prove a turn off for tourists thinking about heading to the country, a New Zealand MP warns.
A video posted online on Tuesday shows two men screaming on the ground as they are repeatedly struck with batons by Fijian security forces.
Fijian Police Commissioner Brigadier-General Ioane Naivalurua says the men are understood to be recaptured prisoners and there will be a thorough investigation.
New Zealand MP Phil Goff – who is Labour’s foreign affairs spokesman and a former Foreign Affairs Minister – likened the attack to the vicious beating of New Zealand millionaire Ballu Khan in 2007, after being accused of masterminding an assassination plot against Fiji’s Prime Minister Commodore Frank Bainimarama.
Mr Goff wants to introduce a motion in parliament next week condemning the latest violence, and expects other politicians to help send a unanimous message to Fiji that it must hold the perpetrators to account.
“This isn’t isolated, but because it’s so graphic and because it’s out there and everybody can see it, I think it’s brought an unprecedented focus on what’s happening in Fiji,” he told Radio New Zealand.
He says there are “economic reasons” why Fiji should listen to condemnation from “friends and neighbours” in the Pacific region.
“New Zealand and Australia are a huge part of the tourist market to Fiji. The average New Zealander or the average Australian won’t really be encouraged to continue to holiday there if elements within the police force can go around, beat you up, and there are no consequences or accountability for them doing that.”
Mr Goff says Fiji should heed the condemnation if it truly wants to restore diplomatic ties with Australia and New Zealand.
The three countries agreed last year to exchange high commissioners, but both Australia and New Zealand are waiting for Fiji’s agreement over their appointees.
Source: AAP
Australia & Pacific
beatings
discouragement
Fiji
torture
Tourists
frank release the video to scare the people of fiji before election.vote me or you get the same beating by my thugs
he he ,,,,,frank said in week end he stands by his men….fool doesnt understand international standards of conduct,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,ULUKAU
“Some fraud has been highlighted in the registration of these political parties but until political parties have been registered, we cannot go ahead and name the constituent assembly”
Fraud shouldn’t stop the CA from been assembled in fact all is needed is one member from each political party,two or three members for academia, six from the general public and two foreign constitutional expert to chair and oversee the process.
Since the amended constitution is now complete, the process must therefore be expedited and this regime must be seen to doing right by the people..
OK, let me honest with you (for once). It has dawned on Khaiyum that we won’t be able to win the 2014 elections. He has consulted with his aunty who told him that people won’t see all the good things that we have done in Fiji, things like the essential industries decree, the media decree, the amnesty decree and the successful public private partnership in payroll management for senior people like myself. In the presence of a uneducated, slightly moronic electorate we have to have more time to educate voters and to improve their eye sights. As we have to look after more than half a million short sighted morons, we need more time until we can hold elections. The new date is now set at 2030. This is a nice round figure and will be appreciated by Carr and McCully who have already said that they want to double their engagement efforts in the light of these new developments.
The only political “fraud” in Fiji is the litany if so many lies and broken promises from Frank and Aiyaz. They are both so crooked I doubt that they even sleep straight.
We can’t vote , We not allowed to protest march , news papers won’t print our letters so we cant show our feelings against this illegal government !
So all we can do is graffiti ! Use paint ,Spray can or marker and show this illegal government and people how u feel
“Illegal , torture , murder”
Radio Facinorous.
“They are both so crooked I doubt that they even sleep straight”.
The same could be said of a lot of people including yourself, I on the hand have no problem sleeping straight.
Do you have problems sleeping straight?
If so than maybe you ought to come clean and confess your malfeasance.
Jone.
“So all we can do is graffiti ! Use paint ,Spray can or marker and show this illegal government and people how we feel”
Isa Jone, yalovinaka qua ni vakaraitaka mai ni o tamata e sega ni tiko vei iko na yalo ni bati.
You must give this regime credit because they managed to strike fear right into the very beings of the weak.
I can only but encourage you to confront your demons and the best way is to take them head on.