AG mum on specifics
Thursday September 06, 2007

Fiji’s interim Attorney General has rebuffed attempts to discuss the comments or ‘rhetoric’ made by deposed Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase that has led to the interim administration to invoke the Public Emergency Regulations.

Interim AG Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum during the press conference today said the emergency regulations has been bought back due to “recent statements and rhetoric” made by Qarase that the interim administration has assessed to be contrary to the security interests of the country.

However, when asked what comments triggered the invoking of the declaration, Sayed-Khaiyum said, “Well I cannot give you the specific statements, I do not know them off by heart”.

“The point is these assessments have been done by experts. They know how it affects the people on the ground,” he said.

“Essentially this has been put in place as a precautionary measure and obviously there is enough material there to warrant the implementation of the regulations.”

When pressed further about the specific of the comments made by Qarase, Sayed-Khaiyum said, “Its not like everybody is making these comments, I think that the ordinary citizen is quite responsible in that respect”.

“The issue here is over the past few days the gatherings that has been held and obviously the security persons who have been involved in gathering intelligence, they have made a call,” he said.

“Its only the happenings of the past few days and my brief has been the security people who gain intelligence they obviously have done their homework.

“They have realised that the impact of certain rhetoric and certain meetings that have been held, which is having a negative impact.”

However, when explicitly asked if Qarase’s claims of military intimidation on him and his party members, Qarase’s claims of the military’s alleged stopping of an SDL meeting were a precursor to the invoking of the Emergency Regulations, Sayed-Khaiyum said that was a “silly question” to be asked.

He then contradicted his earlier statement and said, “The meetings had nothing to do with the emergency regulations being introduced”.

“We are talking about stability, that has nothing to do with meetings persay.”

“No one is going to impose public emergency regulations to stop a meeting.”

Sayed-Khaiyum said the claims that the military were threatening Qarase “remain unsubstantial to date”.

“These claims seem to be some sort of a ploy to discredit the military,” he said.

“To date if anybody were to be sure that these claims, these phone calls were being made by the military, why aren’t they coming out and being specific.

“It is not a responsible action taken by a person who has been a prime minister, a seasoned politician and anybody who is infact concerned about the future of this country.”