I work for an NGO vested with human rights in New Zealand and generally, as a professional courtesy, we are not openly critical of each other.

However the situation in Fiji has gone beyond my tolerance limit. The hypocrisy and double standards coming from outcries of Shameema Ali, Virisila Buadromo, Laisa Digitaki, Angie Heffernan and company are sickening at best and a shame to all agencies that fund such NGO chameleons that change their colour to suit the situation.

I have no sympathy with the changing colours of NGOs who condone blatant, naked and institutionalized racism, yet are crying when a few stupid people get what they deserved when they fail to heed warnings and realize and appreciate the reality of the situation. Where were these champions of human rights when Qarase regime blatantly practiced racism against Indo Fijians? Where were they when Anare Jale and Laisenia Qarase’s PSC openly practiced double standards against Indo Fijian civil servants at all levels? Where were they when there were obvious cases of ethnic cleansing from all works of life of Indo Fijians by the Lauan Mafia?

Where were they when thuggery and sacrilege were committed by indigenous thugs on Indo Fijians and their worship places?

They obviously unashamedly mix around with and blaze the cocktail circuits and rubbed shoulders with those who were committing gross abuses of human rights under a charade and guise of democracy. Dr Shaista Shameem of the Fiji Human Rights Commission is correct in her actions and decisions, and I can say that as a Director who also works for a human rights organisation in New Zealand.

Our cardinal, first and foremost responsibility is safety, preservation and protection of human life, and if life is lost because of folly of people, then there is no use protecting the rights of dead people. That is exactly what she was saying when she warned people to exercise caution with due regards to the prevailing situation, because of curtailed rights, which is the reality of the situation, given the circumstances. The Fiji Military is in power now and despite the rhetoric of legalities from Angie Heffernan and Shameema Ali, Dr Shaista Shameem was being sensible, pragmatic and a realist in trying to stop stupid people from doing stupid heroics, which I view as grandstanding and reeking of hypocrisy, and could result in loss of lives in extreme cases.

Instead of calling on Dr Shameem to resign, the activists with selective sense of activism should look at their own suitability for their respective positions where they are not prepared to act without fear or favour in all cases. My cane farmer father, who had warned me about diving in the Ba river and passing faeces, had also crudely told me about another truth of life. He told me “khooti pe baitho, tab taqdeer ke dokn nahi do”  Translated this means that if somebody takes off his pants and sits on a sharpened stick fixed upright on the ground, then he should not blame or curse your fate or anybody else for the injury, but your own stupidity.

The Same applies to the so called freedom fighters who failed to heed commonsense and tried to gain publicity by gazing up the barrel of guns. Under the circumstances they have only themselves to blame for their fate, bruises and bruised egos.

Comments (6)

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watchman said:

	quite stinging criticism there thakur... it's sure to raise some hackles.
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04 January, 2007
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byt3ripp3r said:

I totally agree with your blog Thakur. I think Fiji has become a breeding ground for NGO's who would normally find it difficult to survive in developed countries where NGO's maintain a neutral ground and work more as a watchdog rather than getting embroiled with gutter-level politics and taking sides. Its a well known fact the NGO's here in Fiji are merely the tails of their masters - Australia & New Zealand Governments. One will note that during the early days of the coup and well before the coup, the NGO's were not making any gurgling noises but sprang to life when the NZ & Australian governments began to kick and scream. The NGO's know their aid (and ultimately their existence) depends totally on the foreign governments and if they (the NGO's) are not seen to be making the right squeaks, they lose their aid and their poshy lifestyle comes to an end. Dr. Shameem was right in releasing the report which I reckon is one of the most intriguing articles I have read because it contains facts well researched and referenced. To those who oppose the report: truth hurts, doesn't it? - especially when it's written down and exposed for the world to see.

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11 January, 2007
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ThisIsChristchurch said:

	Oops, is it not nakedly obvious that your views like your friends in the Fijian HRC are all grossly one sided. I guess that your idea of human rights is a socialist one. There are of course no human rights at all in the hardest core of socialism like in China.
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13 January, 2007
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Boss said:

	The report does provide some food for thought. No one until now had published anything like this. It takes courage to publish a report like this and wait for the flak to hit. I would suggest people read it with open mind and perhaps publish their opposition to what Dr. Shameem reported.
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14 January, 2007
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FijiButterfly said:

	Good one Thankur! I use to manage projects in the Pacific and yes some NGOs and certain activists are only out there for an image booster..looking like they doing something when in actual fact they are not..and talk about double standards.ha!ha! so true..Dr Shammeem is right and people need to be more open-minded and of course sensible.
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16 January, 2007
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Tim said:

While we're making assumptions about people's motives, let's assume that every person who has stood up or been martyred for what is right throughout all history was stupid, grandstanding and hypocritical. They should have known better than to put themselves anywhere they could be hit by the stray boot, sword, bullet, or 50mm shell (in the case of the guy who stood in front of a line of tanks approaching Tianamen Square). It sure feels better to think of them like that, rather than feeling guilty I didn't do something 'stupid' like acting with a clean conscience... I feel so much better now - I wasn't apathetic, I was sensible. By the way, does your NGO see it as an asset that you have no sympathy for people who "get what they deserved"? I hope so. You've shown me the light, and I can now see that civilisation is going to take a giant leap forward when we all start to replace those old-fashioned feeling like sympathy with good sense and self-preservation. Now if Mahendra Chaudhry hadn't stared down the barrel of a gun and just accepted the reality of the situation we could have avoided that whole 56 day siege thing, too. My God, how did somebody that stupid end up in the interim government? Tim.

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30 January, 2007
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