Fiji claims NZ diplomat interfering in Govt

A key official in Fiji's coup regime claims she has email written by a senior New Zealand diplomat showing secret interference in Fiji's internal affairs.

Yet to be published in Fiji but obtained by the Sunday Star Times, a report by Fiji Human Rights Commission head and Ombudsman Shaista Shameem says Ministry of Foreign Affairs deputy secretary Michael Green is involved in a "conspiracy to cripple the administration of justice in Fiji".

The 41-page report ­ nominally on the deportation of two newspaper publishers links the conspiracy to a plot organised by the Albert Einstein Institution in Washington that she says is a Central Intelligence Organisation (CIA) front.

On Fiji Sun publisher Russell Hunter and Fiji Times publisher Evan Hannah, she says they had been "deliberately undermining the judiciary" and it was in Fiji's national security interest to remove them.

Mr Green was New Zealand's High Commissioner in Fiji until he was declared persona non grata last year.
Dr Shameem says he "was still interfering in Fiji's internal affairs".

Without providing details of Mr Green's email, she claims he wrote to Suva lawyer Graham Leung and discussed aspects of a Supreme Court case bought against coup leader Voreqe Bainimarama by deposed Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase.

She says he was part of "unsavoury email correspondence about the judiciary and individual judges" that was part of the conspiracy.

Earlier this year Mr Leung complained his computers had been hacked by the military. Dr Shameem says she got the emails from Bainimarama and the military.

She demanded from the New Zealand Government, and Australia and the US, an "immediate apology and a guarantee of non-repetition of the behaviour engaged in by their citizens."

She says Fiji should take Green's interference before the Pacific Forum.

She says the Sun and Times and FijiLive website are "directly implicated" in the conspiracy.

"Unless immediately and urgently curbed, such concerted efforts will lead to breaches of law land order and safety and security of the people of Fiji."

On the Albert Einstein link, Dr Shameem obtained email sent to most of the NGO groups that provided a web-link to an Institution "anti-coup guide" based on non-violent actions.

She wants all the people on the email list investigated by Fiji's re-created security intelligence service.

She quoted Venezuela President Hugo Chavez saying the institution was CIA based.

Crippling the judiciary was part of the Institution's recommendations to "collapse the essential elements of law and order". Its blueprint  "may include violent engagements as well".

"This is being done both for pecuniary and personal reasons by those involved as well as in support of foreign governments' interference with the internal affairs of Fiji." A link between the Institution and the US military "is of specific concern".

As well as assailing the media, she demands in investigation into the funding of NGO groups, while revealing many of them get money from New Zealand Government aid.

Dr Shameem has been a vocal supporter of the Bainimarama coup and previously claimed the Qarase administration had been involved in genocide against Fiji Indians. 

Her Commission reports, including an attack earlier this year on the news media, have little credibility outside the military regime.

Her sister, Justice Nazhat Shameem, headed a group soon after the coup that removed the Chief Justice, indigenous Justice Daniel Fatiaki.

A spokesman for Foreign Minister Winston Peters, said it was of "grave concern" that Shameem and the military were using what appeared to be hacked private emails.

He rejected any suggestions that New Zealand was interfering in the internal affairs of Fiji, saying their entire energy was "directed at getting Fiji to hold free and fair elections".

- © Fairfax NZ News