Fiji PM lashes out on his twitter handle over former vice President eulogy

Fijian Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama, has reacted petulantly to an eulogy at the funeral of the late former vice President Roko Tui Bau, Ratu Joni Madraiwiwi.

As the tribute by lawyer Graham Everett Leung – a close friend, confidante and colleague of Ratu Joni – spread across electronic media, Bainimarma responded with disparaging and homophobic tweets.

“Some people can’t figure out whether they’re coming or going. Worse still whether they’re Arthur or Martha,” Bainimarama tweeted from his personal Twitter handle.

Minutes later he tweeted: “Was an opportunity to reconcile but some people lost it.

The final tweet 14 minutes from the first was: “Ben Ryan would have said, Moce Jo.”

Leung’s eulogy made reference to Ratu Joni’s removal from office after Bainimarama’s 2006 coup.

“In the country’s constitutional crisis of 2006 when he faced the most public of humiliations and was forced to leave his official residence, he bore his fate with stoicism and good humour,” Leung said at the Ratu Cakobau Church on Bau.

“There was no bitterness or self-pity. He left with a quiet dignity, and forgave those that trespassed against him. That was Ratu Joni. It is therefore ironical and bittersweet that those that tormented him have now decided to lionize him.”

Bainimarama was visibly upset during the eulogy, hunched over in his pew and glaring at Leung.

“What a heavy price he paid for standing on principle,” Leung said.

“But he did not flinch – did not waver from the constant theme that in loving and forgiving one another, we would be enriched as individuals and strengthened as one people, as one country with one destiny, he said.


SOURCE: ISLANDS BUSINESS