RESPECT AND COMPASSION VS VINDICTIVENESS AND CONTEMPT

Having watched the funeral procession from Suva to Nausori and his arrival home at Vaunuabalavu Airport and knowing the moment for Lai Qarase’s funeral draws to a close and the opportunity to renege on promises fades, allow me to share some further thoughts directed mainly at those responsible for his persecution and ill-treatment.

I am not sure how many took note of the details in the front-page report of the Fiji Times a few days ago headlined – ‘Qarase’s final wish fulfilled’ and in particular the remarks attributed to the Prime Minister Bainimarama who was quoted as saying

‘His office would provide an aircraft to transport his body to his island home and a boat would be provided to transport Mr Qarase’s family and he went on to say I extend my condolences to the family of Fiji’s sixth Prime Minister in this difficult time. And hope that this gesture from the Government he once served helps lift the burden of their grief’ unquote

There has certainly been an absence of genuine remorse from his ‘usurpers’ for what they did to him. They are of course psychologically incapable of that. It is not within them.

But hopefully they will have noticed with some trepidation I am sure the great outpouring of grief, affection and support for the late leader and just maybe they will start to understand that the consequences of their deeds will not go away and that Prime Minister Laisania Qarase’s memory and legacy will live on, and it will haunt them.

It is my opinion that any government that actually embraces the values of respect and compassion would have given orders for all the Fiji flags on government buildings to be flown at half mast from the moment they knew of the passing of the former prime minister. Their leader would have put the past behind him and immediately visited the grieving widow. He should have publicly expressed heartfelt sympathies and offered the full support of government to the family.

Even under the Covid-19 restrictions they could have offered a limited form of State Funeral. This would have given the people an opportunity to pay their final respects while complying with ‘social distancing’ requirements.

There was nothing to prevent the body of the deceased prime minister from lying in state in parliament in a closely supervised environment. A fully escorted funeral procession could have traveled to Parliament by a predetermined route to allow as many citizens as possible the chance to bid their final farewells. It would have been possible as well to have a modified state funeral at Mr Qarase's village of Mavana.

But given the contempt and vindictiveness this government has already dished out to former Prime Minister Qarase and his family over the past 14 years, expecting them to at least try to honor, uphold and comply with their 2013 constitutional promise to respect citizen’s human rights, and freedoms, citizens human dignity and respect for the individual, citizens personal integrity, freedom from cruel and degrading treatment as well as citizens right to equality and freedom from discrimination – was for the usurpers of our democracy, a bridge too far.

Instead the need to subject the former PM to one last act of contempt and vindictiveness was just too great an urge to pass over.

The false propaganda statement from PM Bainimarama suggesting the late Laisania Qarase had ‘once served’ their government and by their own admission they opted not to accord the former Prime Minister a proper and fitting state funeral but instead offered the grieving family [crumbs] by way of a ‘gesture’ of support with air and sea transport to his village, in the hope it would somehow lift the ‘burden of their grief’.

The condescending tone and arrogance of these people is so unfijian and unbelievable, however it does amplify for all of us to bear witness too, their inability and unwillingness to recognize their own lack of empathy.

With respect to the burden that the Qarase family has had to carry over the past 14 years and to the present day are those deliberately imposed on them by the Bainimarama government in their unsuccessful effort to ‘break the spirit of the man’. This included their banishment from Viti Levu, threats of imprisonment and death if Lai returned to the mainland, and the false accusations of him being a corrupt PM without a single shred of evidence being produced to substantiate that claim. Instead they had to trawl back some 18 years to find something with which to charge him, send him to goal for 12 months as a first offender and for good measure made the legal costs part of his punishment. Then they with-held his pension and entitlements as a former prime minister for eight years. This put him under intense financial pressure.

These were the actions that caused the former Prime Minister and his family’s suffering and distress. But through their faith in God they have endured. They remained unbroken.

Just to give some context to my concerns, here are some factors to be taken into account.

While this Government may think that in providing a ‘gesture of support’ for the past services of former Prime Minister Qarase they are being ‘generous’, based on their own records of reckless spending it is clear they are being disingenuous: Because :-

Just five years ago on the last working day of the regime on 3rd of October 2014 before the first sitting of the new Parliament on October 6th 2014, they introduced a decree that gave themselves salary increases of up to 350%. They have paid out $64.9 million in Public Service Broadcast fees to FBC, which has been insolvent for some time, they issued $35.2 million in grants over four years for the International Golf Tournament that is now defunct, They have spent $188.6 million on vehicle leasing since 2009, they have spent about $21 million for their annual Super 15’s clash in Suva and there is the $9.1 million paid to QORVIS to spin thier propaganda and for good measure there is the extraordinary $30 million fraud at WAF for the hiring of 1 digger. This totals $318 million in reckless spending already expended, but they could not or rather would not find the funds to fully support Mr Qarase's funeral. Shame on them! Shame! Shame!

Let us be clear, the costs associated with providing a former prime minister a fitting final farewell are paid by the taxpayers of Fiji. Given the exemplary service Hon Laisenia Qarase rendered the people and taxpayers of Fiji during his life of service to the nation, it should have been a “no-brainer” for any government that had compassion, respect and moral integrity to do the right thing

Take it from me if the situation had been reversed, Laisenia Qarase, as prime minister, would have put aside any differences and made sure his government met its obligations.