Victims of torture by the military

PLEASE allow me to comment on the recent FT coverage of allegations relating to torture by a senior Republic of Fiji Military Officer who has been appointed as a Deputy Commander of an Australian Defence Force brigade.

I commend the victims for standing up to those in authority trying to brush the matter aside.

I too, suffered unlawful detention and torture by our security forces! Two weeks after the second coup of 1987, I was taken from my office on USP’s Laucala Campus by a senior police officer in the morning to the Totogo Police Station and put into a cell.

This officer was caring a pistol.

Very late in the night I was driven by the police to the QEB gate and handed over to military personnel. I was locked up in the cell block. There were other detained civilians in the neighbouring cells.

A day or so later, Richard Naidu, now a prominent Suva lawyer, and I were separately driven by heavily armed soldiers in two Toyota twin cab trucks to the Suva prison. We were locked up in separate rooms in an old wooden building for another 2-3 days.

One morning we were both subjected to psychological torture and beatings. I suffered a hairline rib fracture from either being struck by a boot or the butt of a gun.

I was released when the then registrar of USP initiated habeas corpus proceedings.

I was in pain for weeks afterwards.

As far as I know, there has been no official hearings regarding the detention and torture of civilians following each one of the military coups in Fiji.

There has never been any public apology by the Fiji Police Force or the RFMF regarding the four coups, and their failings.

Nor has the Fiji Corrections Services ever apologised for releasing prisoners to march to Suva from Naboro in the destablisation campaign in 1987.

The current PM Hon Sitiveni Rabuka has apologised on numerous occasions for being the original coup perpetrator and the initiator of

Fiji’s coup culture.

However, former PM and coup maker, Voreqe Bainimarama and his righthand man, Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum, have shown no remorse for the 2006 coup against late PM Laisenia Qarase’s democratically elected government and its aftermath. Mr Bainimarama had also failed to reinstate PM Mahendra Chaudry’s government in 2000 following the government members being held hostage for 56 days by RFMF’s CRW soldiers and a assorted gang of armed thugs.

I look forward to the institution of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission so that the perpetrators of coups and their supporters as well as the victims of gross human rights violations can have their say in an independent and safe space.

The families of those who have lost loved ones because of being tortured and killed may also be able to share their grief with the wider community, and bring to some closure their quiet suffering these many years. PROFESSOR VIJAY NAIDU Suva