Koila Nailatikau
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Adi Koila Mara Nailatikau is a Fijian lawyer, who has served as a career diplomat and politician. She is currently a Senator, and serves as chairperson of the Senate's Privileges Committee.
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Family background
Vasemaca Koila Josephine Mara was born in 1953, the daughter of the Fijian statesman Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara (1920-2004) and Ro Lady Lala Mara (1931-2004). Her father, considered the founding father of the modern Fijian nation, was Fiji's first Prime Minister (1967-1992, apart from a very brief interruption in 1987) and later served as President (1993-2000).
In 1981, Adi Koila married Ratu Epeli Nailatikau. The scion of another chiefly family, Ratu Nailatikau (born 1941) has had a distinguished career of his own, serving variously as Commander of the Royal Fiji Military Forces in the 1980s, High Commissioner (equivalent to an ambassador in Commonwealth countries) to the United Kingdom in the 1990s, and as Deputy Prime Minister in 2000 and 2001. He currently (2005) serves as Speaker of the House of Representatives. The Fijian Parliament is thus one of the few legislative bodies in the world in which a husband and wife have had simultaneous parliamentary careers. They have two children: a son, Kamisese (named after Adi Koila's father), and a daughter, Litia.
Career
After a serving her country as a diplomat in the 1980s and 1990s, Adi Koila decided to follow in her father's footsteps, and was elected to the House of Representatives in 1999 as a candidate of the Christian Democratic Alliance, representing the Lau Fijian communal constituency, which had earlier been held by both her father and her brother, Ratu Finau Mara. In the coalition Cabinet that was subsequently appointed, Adi Koila became Minister of Tourism.
Adi Koila's cabinet career was brought to a sudden end on May 19, 2000, when George Speight, an extreme Fijian nationalist who objected to the presence of Indo-Fijians in the government, seized power, kidnapping the Prime Minister, Mahendra Chaudhry and most of the Cabinet, including Adi Koila, and forcing her father to resign as President. A period of political turbulence followed. Democracy was restored in 2001, and Adi Koila was chosen by the Lau Provincial Council, on behalf of the Great Council of Chiefs, to fill one of fourteen Senate seats reserved for Fijian chiefly representatives. She has since played an active role as chairperson of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Post-coup controversies
In the aftermath of the coup that deposed her father and the government in which she was a minister, Adi Koila has been an outspoken critic of the Qarase government's handling of the prosecution of persons implicated in the rebellion, accusing it of showing lenience to its perpetrators and insensitivity to its victims. She has also criticized what she sees as government efforts to foster national "reconciliation" without fundamentally addressing the wrongs that were committed.
Fiji Week (2004)
On 25 September 2004, Adi Koila rejected the efforts of Speight and his accomplices Ratu Timoci Silatolu and Josefa Nata to offer an apology to the parliamentarians they had held hostage in the 2000 coup. Following a supposed "religious conversion" experience, Speight announced in mid-2004 that he had had a change of heart about the coup and the reasons for it. Saying that she was still grieving for her parents, who died within three months of each other in 2004, Adi Koila said it was too soon for her to consider any apology from the perpetrators of the coup which deposed her father. "I feel that the rule of law must be upheld," she said. "I simply will not accept any apology until justice is done." Adi Koila added that her refusal to accept any political attempts at reconciliation was motivated by her belief that the "culture of coups" must be discouraged.
In a speech from the floor of the Senate on 22 October 2004, Adi Koila explained refusal to participate in the Fiji Week reconciliation ceremonies, also known as Reconciliation Week, by quoting her late father's words spoken at the Lau Provincial Council in October 2000: "The reconciliation that has been undertaken today will be worthless if investigations into the coup do not reveal the truth behind the staging."
Adi Koila expressed anger that Simione Kaitani (whom she accused of making speeches against her father inside the parliamentary complex during the coup) and Ratu Naiqama Lalabalavu (whom she accused of having ordered the burning of a property owned by her father, the Matailakeba Cane Farm in Seaqaqa, on July 29 2000) both now held Cabinet positions, and that former Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka and former Police Commissioner Isikia Savua, both of whom her late father had accused of involvement in the coup, now either occupied or had been nominated for senior diplomatic posts.
Adi Koila wondered aloud why the government had decided to organize the reconciliation ceremonies only after both of her parents had died. "Why was the concept of reconciliation never done for the late Turaga Bale the Tui Nayau (Ratu Mara) or for that matter the late Marama Bale the Roko Tui Dreketi (Ro Adi Lala Mara)?" she demanded. "Was all this conjured overnight immediately after their demise?" she questioned.
Adi Koila said she was baffled that in the reconciliation ceremonies, the apology was offered, not to the victims of the 2000 coup, but to President Iloilo and Prime Minister Qarase, whom she said were the principal beneficiaries of the coup. "Because if it was not for the coup they would not be in those positions as the Turaga Bale the Tui Nayau would still be the President and Mr Chaudhry Prime Minister. "More so, if it was not for the coup my parents would still be alive today," she said. Ratu Mara's health had deteriorated following his overthrow, leading to his death in May 2004; Adi Lala had died three months later.
Clarifying her remarks of a further Senate speech on 29 October, Adi Koila reiterated that the reconciliation ceremony was inappropriate because the person who received the whale's tooth and forgave the people in the ceremony at Albert Park had not been a victim of the May 2000 coup.
Adi Koila repeated that there could be no genuine forgiveness until questions were answered about who was involved in organizing and funding the 2000 coup. "An individual will forgive when he or she is ready. There must be truth telling, as to why they participated and who gave the orders," Adi Koila said. "Reconciliation cannot eventuate or materialise until the proper legal procedures have been followed, that is without interference from external forces."
Rejecting the criticism, the Prime Minister's spokesman Jioji Kotobalavu retaliated by accusing Adi Koila's father, Ratu Mara, of having benefited from the 1987 coups. He went on to say that the Prime Minister had not benefited from the coup because he had quit a lucrative career in the private sector in order to "rescue a Fiji in turmoil." He did not address Adi Koila's charge that the present government is full of individuals who were involved in the 2000 coup. Simione Kaitani, one of those implicated, accused Adi Koila of "crying over spilt milk," and insisted that there was "no truth at all" in her accusations against him. He added only God knew why her parents died.
Reconciliation and Unity Commission
Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase announced on 4 May 2005 that a Reconciliation and Unity Commission would be set up, empowered to recommend amnesty to persons convicted of coup-related offence, provided that their motive had been "political" rather than "criminal," and to recommend compensation for "deserving" victims. On 7 May, Adi Koila joined Opposition Leader and former Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry, United Peoples Party leader Mick Beddoes, and National Alliance Party president Ratu Epeli Ganilau in opposing the Commission and its purpose. She asserted that if her father were alive, he would have insisted on the rule of law, adding that there could be no reconciliation outside of the courts. Unless all of the perpetrators were put on trial, she said, "Fiji cannot put to rest the ghosts of the coup."
External links
- Senate speech, 22 October 2004 (http://www.parliament.gov.fj/hansard/viewhansard.aspx?hansardID=266&viewtype=full)
- Senate speech, 29 October 2004 (http://www.parliament.gov.fj/hansard/viewhansard.aspx?hansardID=271&viewtype=full)