Defer Pacific Islands Forum Meeting

[posted 22 Jan 2009,1400]

The Fiji Labour Party is calling on the Pacific leaders to defer the Pacific Islands Forum special meeting scheduled to be held in Papua New Guinea next week.

FLP’s Acting Secretary General Lekh Ram Vayeshnoi said considering how important it was for the Prime Minister to attend the Forum meeting which will be discussing the Fiji situation, the wise thing would be to defer the meeting to a later date to enable him to attend.

“Forum leaders must understand that Fiji is facing a humanitarian crisis of major proportions. As Prime Minister Commodore Bainimarama’s first duty is to oversee the relief programme and the rebuilding and rehabilitation of the economy and infrastructure so severely damaged by the floods,” said Mr Vayeshnoi.

“We call on the Forum Island Leaders to understand the extremely critical situation our nation is facing, to exercise discretion and defer the PNG meeting to a later date.

“We expect our neighbours to understand our predicament and to adopt a more humanitarian stance on the issue. It is by now very clear that Fiji is in no position to hold national elections by March, or in fact, any other time this year.

"All our effort and resources need to be channeled into rebuilding our nation and rehabilitating our economy devastated by the floods,” Mr Vayeshnoi said.

Meanwhile, the PM has announced that should the meeting go ahead, he will send Attorney General Aiyaz Khaiyyum and Permanent Secretary for Foreign Affairs, Ratu Isoa Gavidi, in his stead.