Foreign Minister Winston Peters has “hung . . . out to dry” Fiji’s suspended New Zealand Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) who wrote to him seeking assistance, a former Fiji government advisor-cum-critic says.

On July 11, Christopher Pryde, who was stood down for alleged misconduct in April 2023, wrote to Peters seeking New Zealand government intervention after his salary was “unilaterally” cut off by the Fiji government midway into his seven-year employment contract.

“The sudden cessation of my salary at the eleventh hour whilst I am in the middle of instructing legal counsel in Fiji to defend myself against charges brought by the Fijian government is a denial of natural justice that has left me with little choice but to seek your assistance,” Pryde said in a five-page letter to the minister.

A spokesperson from Peters’ office told RNZ Pacific today: “This is a matter between Mr Pryde and the government of Fiji. It is not a matter for the minister to comment on.”

However, according to the Fiji Sun, Peters — in an exclusive interview with the newspaper — said that “he was not happy” with the New Zealander’s “approach to seek assistance from him”.

“He (Pryde) wrote to everybody and sent me a copy,” he was quoted as saying in a frontpage news story with the headline ‘Winston slams Pryde’s email action for help’.

“He sent me a copy? He wrote me a letter and sent it to everyone else at the same time!. What do you think about somebody that wrote to you — asking for help and then sent it to everyone else at the same time? What would you think?,” the newspaper reported.

‘Bereft of principle’
The Deputy Prime Minsiter’s comments reported in the Fijian daily have been labelled by a former Fiji government communications advisor and Grubsheet blog publisher, Graham Davis, as “highhanded and bereft of principle”.

“Winston Peters has clearly hung Christopher Pryde out to dry,” Davis said.

“His dismissive attitude to suspended DPP Pryde now being unable to defend himself against a false charge of misbehaviour because his salary has been severed is . . . highhanded and bereft of principle.

“And it sends an ominous message to every New Zealander working in the Pacific or contemplating doing so that if they fall foul of their host governments, Winston [Peters] will cut them loose. They are on their own.”

Fiji Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka told local media that Pryde was entitled to receive all salaries until he was removed from office.

The Kiwi lawyer was suspended 15 months ago after he allegedly “spent about 30 to 45 minutes conversing alone” with former Attorney-General Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum at a public event hosted by the Japanese Embassy in the capital Suva.

In April last year, Rabuka said people in high office needed to be “very aware of who is watching what we do”.

‘Fraternising’ with person under investigation
“For the DPP [Pryde] to be seen to be fraternising with high profile person under investigation would not be the right thing for the DPP to [have] done.”

Pryde, who has held the top prosecutor’s role since 2011, warned other New Zealand citizens who have taken up positions in Fiji’s criminal justice system “may potentially be adversely impacted if the Fijian government is permitted to ignore due process and the rule of law”.

“The NZ government provides substantial aid to Fiji in support of the rule of law which is being undermined,” he wrote to Peters.

The Fiji Law Society and the New Zealand Law Society (NZLS) have expressed concerns on the issue.

NZLS president Frazer Barton has encouraged “respect for and compliance . .. of the rule of law”.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

A public relations disaster for Fiji just as Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama and Attorney-General Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum head to Glasgow for COP26 as one of Britain’s leading media outlets — The Independent — carries out a detailed investigation into events at the University of the South Pacific.

Fiji’s reputation in Britain and the academic community the world over has suffered a grievous blow.

What emerges is a sordid tale of cronyism, bullying, repression and a frontal assault on regional cooperation by the FijiFirst government that has undermined Pacific solidarity and adversely affected the education of ordinary Pacific Islanders at USP, including Fijian young people.

The length and scope of this article and its impeccable pedigree guarantee that it will become the dominant global narrative about events at USP and have a far reaching impact on Fiji’s reputation, including its current role as Chair of the Pacific Islands Forum.

And for what? For Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum’s ego.

A festering wound that will cripple the FijiFirst government all the way to the 2022 election, when its prized “youth vote” will get to make its own pronouncement at the ballot box on events at USP.

Be genuinely dismayed at the AG’s shortsightedness and Bainimarama’s stupidity for allowing his number 2 to embark on a battle he simply cannot win.

This is what The Independent describes as a “long read”:

“At first there is a woman’s voice coming from the back of the house in the dead of night. Then there is repeated ringing of the doorbell. Other voices, male ones, are coming through the front door now; the voices are authoritative and increasingly impatient. Instructions are barked, telling those inside to open up. Fists bang the door. Soon plainclothes police officers are inside and shortly afterwards 63-year-old Professor Pal Ahluwalia and his wife Sandy Price are forcibly escorted to the airport. The vice-chancellor of the most prestigious university in Fiji is being deported on the orders of the Fijian government.

“The University of the South Pacific (USP) is pretty. Its main campus building in Fiji has a clean, modern design and is fronted by rows of palm trees. But behind the attractive facade and beneath a clear blue South Pacific sky, all hell is breaking loose. An internecine conflict has broken out. On one side stands the vice-chancellor, Professor Pal Ahluwalia, who claims to have blown the whistle on mismanagement and malpractice at the university; opposing him are pro-chancellor Winston Thompson and the Fijian government, who say Ahluwalia is guilty of both breaking USP hiring protocols and of unspecified immigration violations.”

Read on at The Independent or if you want to dodge the paywall, read here.

Republished with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Stung by successive Grubsheet articles revealing how the military wants changes to the Fiji government and also revealing the name of his designated successor, Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama has made an astonishing personal attack on me on the front page of the government-controlled Fiji Sun newspaper today and in the government-controlled Fiji Broadcasting Corporation news.

While conspicuously failing to deny the substance of anything I have reported, the PM accuses me of “trading in gossip” and makes a number of snide personal references that are gratuitous and totally beside the point.

Once again, the PM has evidently been used by his Attorney-General, Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum, to engage in an ill-considered public relations blunder that elevates me personally and the substance of what I have written and drives even more Fijian readers to my website.

Whether it was on the advice of my former colleagues at Qorvis Communications is an open question.

One of them has already commented that: ”Someone should tell him [the PM] to keep a cool head. He’s doing his own negative PR by being so aggressively defensive”.

If Fiji is going to pay Qorvis $800,000 this year in highly straightened circumstances on top of the many millions it has expended over the years, the Prime Minister and his de facto number two could at least heed their advice.

Bainimarama’s statement
Here’s the text of what the Prime Minister said to the Fiji Sun:

“It’s funny, people outside of Fiji often have the most to say and the least to offer the country. Graham is no different. I know him, and he did some work with Qorvis, but that ended sometime back.

“I think I remember the stress was sometimes too much for him. I don’t know why he’s dealing in gossip these days, but I also remember even in the best of times he always seemed to find drama. And if he couldn’t find it, he’d make it up.

“I have no idea what he wants now. Maybe attention, maybe a job. I really don’t know. I don’t care and we don’t want to give him either. But he needs to understand that an attack on Fijian democracy, our Constitution, any of our independent institutions, or any of my ministers is an attack on me.

“If you’ve read our Constitution, you know Fiji is a democracy. We are not a dynasty and I do not handpick my successor. The only ones who choose the Prime Minister of Fiji are Fijian voters.

“I know, because they have picked my government twice. As the leader of FijiFirst, I am appointed under our party’s constitution, like all our office bearers. And I will once again work hard to earn the votes of the Fijian people when I lead FijiFirst into the next election.

“Until then, we have to recover our economy and get industries running again, get jobs back and get help to those who need it most. I am working on these issues every day. We don’t have time to waste on gossip blogs. But for old time’s sake, I wish Graham all the best in his retirement in Australia.”

The Davis response
And here is the text of the statement that I have released to the Fiji media in response and that it is obliged to publish under Fiji’s media laws guaranteeing the right of reply to criticism of this nature.

“I thank the Prime Minister for drawing public attention to my blogsite – grubsheet.com.au – in that many more Fijians will know that far from me criticising him or eroding his position, I am in fact trying to strengthen it by calling for the government to re-invent itself so that it can win the next election.

“I take it as confirmation that what I have said is fact that in his statement, the Prime Minister does not deny anything at all that I have reported over the past month or for that matter, dispute any opinion that I have expressed.

“In relation to his comments about the Constitution, the Prime Minister knows that a political party such as FijiFirst decides its candidate as leader before the people get to vote on that selection. So his preference as party leader is critical and as I reported, he has told the Military Council that his designated successor is Inia Seruiratu.

“While I thank him for his best wishes, I am far from being retired – being of the same age as the Prime Minister – and am working for his re-election to prevent him from going into enforced retirement himself. He remains a person for whom I have a great deal of respect and affection.”

The Davis column drew some lively online debate today, including from Rajend Naidu who writes:

“People from outside Fiji comment on Fiji’s situation on behalf of people inside Fiji who have been silenced by a repressive state and are fearful of reprisal should they have the audacity to speak out against the corruption, nepotism, favouritism, debasement of institutions of state through politisation and patronage, and a sword of Damocles hanging over the free press in the country.”

• Grubsheet Feejee is the blogsite of Graham Davis, an award-winning journalist turned communications consultant who was the Fiji government’s principal communications adviser for six years from 2012 to 2018 and continued to work on Fiji’s global climate and oceans campaign up until the end of the decade.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz