For want of wisdom in Solomons II
That idiotic woman opens her yap hole once again.:
Prime Minister Helen Clark says she is "aghast" at the appointment of two Solomon Islands MPs accused of inciting last month's violent riots as cabinet ministers.
[...]
Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare has handed Charles Dausabea the police and national security portfolio and Nelson Ne'e has been given tourism and culture.
Both were arrested and charged with fomenting the riots that erupted last month after Snyder Rini was elected prime minister amid corruption allegations.
Mr Sogavare today said on National Radio that there was nothing wrong with the appointments as the charges against the ministers were unsubstantiated and unproven.
But Miss Clark today said the appointments risked further damaging the Solomons already fragile international reputation.
"When I heard about it I was absolutely aghast frankly, because these people are both in prison," she said on Newstalk ZB.
"They are charged with very very serious offences."
[...]
"There's going to be very strong views from New Zealand expressed that these appointments, if they go through, would have serious ramifications not only for the Solomon Islands but also for the Solomon Islands international reputation."
She should be aghast that they were charged and even more aghast that they were imprisoned in the first place. It is the quality of Australian justice and administration that ought to be under scrutiny here - not the democratic decisions of duly elected representatives.
Just because she has her lackies in positions of power so she avoids being charged with forgery and defeating the course of justice over Paintergate does not give her a platform to be aghast at anything that the Solomon Island leaders have done. And as for ramifications for international reputations, the hypocrite ought to try reading the UN investigation into the dirty little secrets about her government's treatment of Maori as second class citizens before she dares to make aspersions on our neighbours.
Full post on Solomons and the Australian take-over/riots etc. The magistrate responsible for the jailings, Kieren Boothman was a Kalgoorlie magistrate in the Court of Petty Sessions: "Magistrate Boothman came to WA from Northern Ireland. In 1999, he set up the Family Violence Court in Joondalup, north of Perth. "
posted by Bomber @ 2:18 pm
2 comments
2 Comments:
I seem to recall someone telling me that the MPs in prison (and some others) were corrupt members of the previous regime and fully deserve to be in clink. I take that to mean that the trouble in SI may not yet be over...
Well they may have been - like so many other characters there - part of a former corrupt regime, but the fact is two elected MPs charged in connexion with political protests that ended in political vindication for the concerns they raised* remains imprisoned at the behest of an Australian judge. The Police Minister is in jail! The Aussie judge said the reason he was locking them up was because they were going to definitely create trouble - now obviously that can't be the case with the Police Minister can it? He is the exact opposite of that now isn't he. If Boothman was out on a very shaky limb then, he's at the end of a quivering fig leaf now.
In this country we don't have enough independence in prosecutions and in the Solomons the judiciary is so independent that they aren't even citizens of the state. What a fix! The PM's paternalist instincts towards the Pacific nations are tied up with the Aussie and foreign interests and she must make sure she doesn't tread on the toes of those she is suppossedly assisting. I hope she understands that she is supposed to be helping the Solomon Islanders not necessarily the Australians.
*But I'm charged with sedition so I'm likely to be sensitive to the "offenders'" perspective in this case :)
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