I would like to respectfully note former Prime Minister, Mahendra Chaudhry’s concerns about Colonel(retired) Filipo Tarakinikini’s acting appointment as the Permanent Representative to the United Nations but please note his appointment is temporary.
That’s the comment from Acting Prime Minister, Manoa Kamikamica as he says Tarakinikini will return to Suva after the delegation’s visit to Panama for the Oceans Conference.
Kamikamica says he does not want to get into a public debate with Chaudhry but the Prime Minister has stated all along that all posts are advertised, with a review and recall of overseas Heads of Missions, following due process.
He says if Tarakinikini is successful, he will be appointed as the Permanent Representative to the United Nations.
The Acting Prime Minister says Tarakinikini can also answer the questions being raised by Chaudhry and others, himself when he arrives in the country.
Kamikamica also says many people are returning to Fiji, and it is very positive for Fiji.
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We are currently trying to speak to Tarakinikini.
Mahendra Chaudhry is urging Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka to reconsider the appointment.
Chaudhry says Tarakinikini escaped being brought to justice when former Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase facilitated his appointment as Senior Planning Officer with the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations in New York in March 2001.
The FLP Leader says former Army Commander and Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama had made it clear that Tarakinikini would be arrested on his return to Fiji.
In his resignation letter to the RFMF, Tarakinikini had said to Bainimarama that it appears to him that Bainimarama’s agenda against him was a personal one and that the investigation conducted at the time in RFMF by Bainimarama was a discriminatory and selective means to frame and purge those professional officers, including Tarakinikini, who questioned Bainimarama’s command ethics.
He also highlighted that in their telephone conversation a few weeks before the resignation, Bainimarama categorically stated that a full public commission of inquiry into the RFMF and its failures before and during the May 2000 coup is irrelevant.
