Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Military Justice

Yesterday, the Ministry of Home Affairs confirmed that the Public Emergency Regulations will not be reviewed; ie it will not be lifted.

An official statement was then issued by the Ministry to the EU obviously aimed at explaining (ie. hoodwinking) the EU into believing the IG's actions are justified.

I don't know much about international politics and diplomacy but I would hope that the EU will recognise the deceptive purpose of that statement and will act accordingly.

I would hope also that the EU will not, in the general scheme of international politics, try to trade off the rights and freedoms of hundreds of thousands of Fiji citizens for favours (of the peacekeeping sort) from this military controlled junta.

The military are already running this country like its their own private club and the people of Fiji really don't want the international community to fund that anymore!

The statement by the IG to the EU is a complete fabrication of what is actually going on in Fiji and I hope the EU can see that.

One particular statement by the IG caught my eye. The junta said:-
…they would continue to uphold the principles of justice, dialogue, collective bargaining and the process of dispute settling machinery available to all parties who subscribe to it.

I realise this was intended to refer to the impending strikes by the Unions, but…"continue to uphold the principles of justice"?

Are they serious?

Does this military backed IG actually think it can say these words just days after its henchmen in the military unlawfully detained, tortured and humiliated a local businessman (in violation of almost every convention on human rights)… and be believed?

What exactly does "justice" mean to the IG (and its idiot AG)?

Or more pertinently, what does it mean to the military?

Put another way, what does military justice mean in relation to our general understanding of the word?

I think Groucho Marx summed up the answer to this quite well:-
Military justice is to justice what military music is to music.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Very well said. Keep it up Hide and Seek!!!

Anonymous said...

Vinaka Hyde.n.Seek
Good reading and good pressure.