Tributes for former Fiji Vice President Madraiwiwi

Transcript

BRIJ LAL: He was a widely known and widely-respected figure in Fiji history, probably the most widely esteemed Fijian chief in 21st century Fiji, but he was also important in the broader Pacific as well. From 2008 to 2011 he was a member of the truth and reconciliation commission in the Solomon Islands and in 2013 he accepted a three-year appointment as the Chief Justice of Nauru. The thing about Ratu Joni that endeared him to so many people was that he was a man of great accomplishments but never stood on protocol. He was accessible to all and sundry and that's the mark of a truly great man. And the other thing about Ratu Joni was that he had friends right across all communities in Fiji and that cannot be said for many other people of his eminence and his stature. And to be quite frank, his enemies, his political opponents are like pygmies beside a man of Ratu Joni's stature. And he tried to go about breaking down barriers in his own inimitable way through dialogue and discussion, privately, and he thought that if more leaders engaged in that kind of open discussion then those barriers would come down and he worked tirelessly to bring communities together.

ALEX PERROTTET: And one example of that effort of bringing people together was the peace deal that he brokered really in the beginning of 2006. The Qarase government looked like it was at loggerheads with the military commander Frank Bainimarama. And really effectively he settled that. We know the coup happened but almost a year later. What does that say about his efforts?

BL: Well he was certainly well-meaning. He was then the Vice President. The President Ratu Iosefa Iloilo was ill-disposed for most of the time so Ratu Joni Madraiwiwi performed effectively the functions of the head of state and he tried genuinely to reconcile the differences between the military commander and the prime minister Qarase. But I think at that point Frank Bainimarama had made his mind up, after he returned from New Zealand he was going to depose the democratically-elected government and so all of Ratu Joni's efforts came to naught and he himself was sacked as Vice President on the 5th of December, 2006.