Fiji Indians subject to ‘persecution’

Press, 23 January 1988, Page 10

Fiji Indians subject to ‘persecution’

PA Wellington Fiji’s military was continuing to persecute and torture Fiji Indians amid an atmosphere of fear and suspicion, Fijian solicitor, Mr Muttu Krishna, said yesterday.

Mr Krishna met Foreign Affairs officials in Wellington to discuss human rights in Fiji and to present them with sworn affidavits by people who had been tortured.

They outline instances of Fiji Indians being picked up by soldiers and forced to walk or sit in sewage ponds while answering questions.

One tells of a farmer bashed by a soldier over his head with a rifle butt.

Mr Krishna had personally verified an instance where five women were picked up for washing clothes on a Sunday and taken to an army camp where they were made to wash clothes for the rest of the day.

The affidavits also said the military would ask for

the names and addresses of family members and relatives when questioning someone.

One complainant said in his affidavit that after being taken by soldiers to an army camp about Bkm from his home, he saw another man from his village sitting at the edge of a refuse water drain.

“He was soaked up to his chest in filth,” the affidavit said.

“He looked up at me and then lowered his eyes.”

Another man, accused of making a phone call the military did not approve of, was made to walk repeatedly through knee-deep refuse water until his shoes fell away.

“The stench was unbearable and for days I felt like. vomiting at the

very thought of it and had difficulty having my meals,” he said.

Another man who was made to sit on top of an ash heap while being questioned, then had to give the names and addresses of all his family members. “He told me if I did anything he would break all my teeth and fix my family members,” the complainant said. Complaints such as these and rape complaints against soldiers were not being recorded because people were too frightened to go to the police. "After the first coup, if someone wanted to lay a complaint with the police, they first had to report to an army post outside the police station,” Mr Krishna said.

The army would decide whether a complaint was allowed to be laid. But since then there seemed to have been a merger of police and military, and police now simply refused to register any complaints against the army.

Mr Krishna had to leave Fiji quickly when the military found out he was taking affidavits of torture, he said. Mr Krishna recently closed down his seven-year-old legal practice in Fiji as a matter of conscience.

“When I was admitted to the bar, I took an oath of office to uphold justice in the courts, but once the courts were over-run by the army, they were no longer legally constituted.” he said.