FDN feature article
As "foreign minister" the greatest challenge facing Ratu Inoke Kubuabola is how to put a respectable face on the appalling behaviour of the military dictatorship that employs him.

For example, apart from some photos and a couple of platitudes, the hapless envoy achieved no other outcomes from his recent talks in Canberra with the foreign ministers of ANZ.

That's not surprising. With such a large elephant in the room, what issues of relevance could Inoke Kubuabola have possibly put on the table for discussion?

The elephant, of course, is the ever-widening credibility gap between the words and deeds of our desperate dictator.

Even some one as glib as Kubuabola would be unable to argue that the harsh reality of our increasingly repressive regime is in any way consistent with the stated lofty aims of the dictator's much-vaunted roadmap.

History tells us that actions speak louder than words, and the most recent actions of our dictator Frank Bainimarama leave no doubt that his promise of a return to democracy by 2014 is a shallow and transparent lie.

It's a clear case of the end justifying the means; the end is the establishment of a dictatorship and the means is promising what ever it takes to achieve that end.

As we see daily, Bainimarama has no hesitation lying through his teeth about creating a Utopian democracy while all the time consolidating a ruthless totalitarian hold over the people of Fiji.

As Ratu Inoke travelled to Australia the dictator was busy presiding over further persecution of the Methodist Church, including a ban on divisional and quarterly meetings and the arrest of a further 19 ministers.

And how would our "foreign minister" have explained the Gestapo tactics of FICAC and the misuse of the judiciary, all of it aimed at prosecuting the respected human rights advocate, Imrana ]alal?

And what of Bainimarama's move to selectively cancel pensions of retired politicians and government appointees? Did Kubuabola explain to Smith and McCully that this was simply a handy way of putting the screws on Fiji's judiciary, both serving and retired?

We would be fascinated to hear how our foreign minister explained the Crime Decree's restrictions on the reporting of criminal proceedings, which in effect establishes secret courts.

Or perhaps Ratu Inoke was able to explain in unambiguous but polite diplomatic language why peace and prosperity in Fiji will be advanced when anti-regime bloggers are charged with treason and "punished" by life imprisonment.

Folks, as we all know, civilized people like the foreign ministers of Australia and New Zealand would have no truck with any of the recent actions of Frank Bainimarama's totalitarian police state. Like us, they understand that Fiji's future will never be assured for as long as it rests in the hands of a man whose most distinguishing feature is his criminal dishonesty.

Fiji Democracy Now