These decrees clearly show where we are: In a dictatorship of the common variety. After his abrogation of the constitution last year Cassava Franks actions have been utterly consistent with those of any other tin pot dictator presiding over an opera state. Even the most gullible have in the meantime received the message loud and clear: If you are a judge trying to do your job to be independent, you get sacked for disobedience. If you dare to voice an opinion in the media you will be gagged. If you contemplate opposition you will be suppressed by tactics seen in Zimbabwe, Iran, Myanmar or China. If you are on a government pension and critizise the dictator well there is no food on the table of your familiy. And Driti, one of his stooges and major coup beneficiary has announced that in 2010 the military will even come down harder on anyone who disagrees. While still postulating his determination to fight against corruption he has used the anticorruption bureaucracy established by him to harass regime critics such as human rights lawyer Jalal. Banimarama at the same time has committed nepotism and corruption at a scale unseen in Fiji by giving posts, power and money to cronies and yes-creeps.
Cassava Frank sometimes whines that he is misunderstood by the Western world and other Pacific leaders and demands that more notice must be taken of the underlying issues of racism corruption and the need to fight terrorism all of which he names in attempting to justify his coup. While the terrorism claim he made in a speech at the UN was dismissed as right out laughable and he has in the meantime refrained from uttering this nonsense, the other issues were – at least initially- seen by the outside world as worth a consideration. Unfortunately for Cassava Frank, there are still records intact that clearly suggest that his coup coincided with a closing in of investigators on this involvement in the brutal murder of soldiers in 2000. Most people in Fiji believe that his ulterior motives for his coup were not democracy but were self-preservation and the temptations of the absolute power he now holds. In the context of the history of dictatorships that makes a lot more sense than fighting for freedom and democracy through brutal oppression of any dissent.
What will be next? What about a total travel ban on anybody, the style the Eastern Block dictators used to avoid that their people see how a democracy works? Or a mandatory 'praise the dictator' at the beginning of every school day, North Korea style? Switching off the internet would hurt a few private enterprises in Fiji, but they hurt anyway as with all the power Cassava Frank holds he failed to do anything about a collapsing economy.
