Our Prime Minister hit a new low yesterday morning when he justified the Fijian government’s detention of three opposition party leaders, the trade union head, a leading academic and an NGO spokesperson. Their crime was to attend a small roundtable discussion on the Fiji Constitution.
When RNZ’s Morning Report asked him about the arrests John Key claimed they were “legally authorized” . He went on to say that “there was a law on the books that allowed them to do what they did.” At no point in the interview did Key condemn the arrests.
So where did this “legality” come from? In 2012, when Fiji was still a military dictatorship, Commodore Bainimarama issued a Public Order Amendment Decree requiring people to get a government permit for any political meeting. Opposition meetings could be deemed threats to “public order”.
Later in 2012, as the country was moving towards elections, the decree ceased to apply to indoor public meetings, which is why the latest arrests were a surprise.
Surely, as leader of a democratic country, John Key has a duty to defend free speech and assembly, which are guaranteed in our Bill of Rights and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Instead he accepts as “legal” a Fijian decree which restricts those very same rights.
In some ways the PM is being true to form. While visiting Saudi Arabia last year John Key saw that country’s beheadings (50 had just taken place) as a “philosophical difference”. He said that Saudi Arabia “set their own laws and people live by those laws…. if they don’t like that the best they can do is leave.”
Key’s posture is that human rights don’t really matter, or at least are secondary to maintaining warm relations with repressive governments.
Why else would he express so little regard to the arrest in Fiji of Labour leader Mahendra Choudhry, National Federation Party leader Biman Prasad, Sodelpa Party leader Sitiveni Rabuka, CTU leader Attar Singh, academic Tupeni Baba and Pacific Dialogue spokesperson Joni Dakuvla?
John Key has invited Fiji’s PM to make an official visit to New Zealand. The least Key should do is to say that the visit is no longer appropriate.
Bainimarama has probably done just what Key has in mind for us.
Most governments are government of occupation, formed after land was forcibly taken from the inhabitants using extreme violence. That is true of England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand……
Having acquired the land via extreme violence and control of the populace via genocide and terrorism, the occupation governments then proceeded to legalise their crimes.
In more recent times, international money-lenders and corporations have established governments of occupation in most nations, and have used bought-and-paid-for politicians to alter laws in favour of money-lenders and corporations. It has all been perfectly legal because the bought-and-paid-for politicians passed laws to make it so.
Legal is not the same as legitimate.
As leader of a democratic country he does but key is first and foremost a leader of a dictatorial clique that abhors human rights. As such he will, IMO, celebrate the opposition being taken down through such ‘legal’ means no matter how unethical they are.
Give him and his government time and they will put in place such ‘legal’ but unethical means here.
Oh, wait..
They’ve already done it:
Welcome to the freedom of the rich from ever being held to account by everyone else.
Great comment, we need more like this!
Yeah well, are we terribly surprised though?
I mean this is the same Key Government that likes cozying up at any cost to Saudi Arabia, a country whose contempt for human rights is as well known as its reliance on oil.
This is the same Saudi Arabia that arrests bloggers and sentences them to 1000 lashes – Raif Badawi. This is the same Saudi Arabia that bombs hospitals and what not in Yemen using American and British ordnance and delivery systems.
This is a Key Government that is an ABBA song at all costs “Money, Money, Money” including peoples lives.
This is a Key Government that see’s the Housing crisis like a monopoly board.
So tells N.Z. “you will do as you are told”, similar to Commodore Bainimarama.
Dunnokeyo doesn’t give a crap about human rights. His only loyalty is to doing whatever is needed to stay in power and continue to destroy our once great country. Or was it? In any event, human rights and social justice are well behind political spin and manipulation, mass surveilance, privatisation and monocultural colonialism. Despite this a large section of the voting public is totally oblivious to this – which is what he is banking on.
“When RNZ’s Morning Report asked him about the arrests John Key claimed they were “legally authorized” . He went on to say that “there was a law on the books that allowed them to do what they did.” At no point in the interview did Key condemn the arrests.”
Would you expect an aspiring dictator to condemn the actions committed by police in a virtual police state, I ask?
That is what we must consider, when we talk about Mr Key.
He is comfortable with nice, warm meetings with the likes of the leaders of the People’s Republic of China, with the King and his servants in Saudi Arabia, with any other leader from whatever country, I am sure he would enjoy a cuppa tea with Mugabe also, no problems there, when it may involve some potential trade deals or what else may be of interest.
And I bet you, once Donald Trump is president of the US, Key will swiftly congratulate him, arrange a meeting and exchange views with the man in “warmest terms”.
Key is a privileged boot licker, look at his visits to the Queen, all kinds of state leaders, he is a pleaser, a chatter and willing mercenary. He loves the limelight and photo shots with the big ones from the planet.
https://www.google.co.nz/search?q=john+key+photos+with+leaders&biw=928&bih=568&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjV8c6AqY7PAhVr4YMKHcQEAlYQsAQIGQ
Key does not care, he only cares about the limelight and his power, so he does things like this, to appeal and please the ones he meets:
http://www.gettyimages.co.nz/event/prime-minister-john-key-visits-sikh-temple-507323779#new-zealand-prime-minister-john-key-speaks-to-the-congregation-during-picture-id453714534
John Key = wolf in sheep’s clothing.
The photo of Key say’s it all and he had the cheek to label Little, angry Andy!
Why do I get the feeling that Key looks on Fiji in admiration and wonders if he could get away with similar actions……..
Has anyone done a OIA request to ask, “What contingency plans has the Government made to explore the logistics of an “emergency government”, during a “crisis”, and how big would detention camps need to be to house left-wing activists, trade unionists, bloggers, University academics, Maori leaders, and other malcontents and critics?”
Forget OIA requests, I know people waiting over three years already for information that was asked from MSD. A complaint at the Office of Ombudsmen is lying around in their Office struggling to work off a huge backlog of complaints, many OIA related.
Key see democracy as a suppression mechanism – being elected gives one the levers to pull.
But our Neo liberal Free Market model NEEDS countries to be as dysfunctional and/or as oppressed as possible.
For National it means cheap labor, and its illusion of ‘Growth’.
And Labour sure wouldn’t let any moral concerns get in the way of a Free Trade Deal. I wonder how many Chinese workers ended up with ‘Paul Holmes’ olive oil in the cupboard??
Key is TOTALLY OVERRATED by his Kiwi audience. He is incompetent and WEAK on an international scale. Watched his childish speech at the UN today, how WEAK and useless, like a child that learned his or her speech for a school outing to say so. Perhaps he may get away with such a speech at the local Rotary Club, but on a world scale, FFS, a total fail, an amateur, for sure, why do the NZ MSM still celebrate the clown?
I posted this under another post, but it deserves to be mentioned here also.
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