Tuesday, November 06, 2007



Fiji: a tinpot dictatorship

The result of the weekend's arrests in Fiji is becoming clear, with seven people charged with offences including treason, instigating invasion, and incitement to mutiny - the sorts of charges you'd expect from a military regime which regards dissent as treason and sees an enemy behind every tree. The seven are due to appear before a court today, but in an interesting twist, the Fijian police (who are under army control) decided to lay the charges themselves, bypassing the Director of Public Prosecutions who would normally handle this sort of case. The latter is now refusing to take the case to trial, and is now expecting to be arrested for doing so. This is what Fiji has sunk to - a tinpot dictatorship where the regime arrests its enemies on spurious grounds, then arrests its laywers when they refuse to go along with it. Will they arrest the judges too if the charges are thrown out?