Exiled academics can return to Fiji, new govt says

Thursday, 29 December 2022

Former Fijian parliamentarian Nitya Reddy shares his views at an Auckland condolence gathering for Professor Brij Lal, who died in exile on December 25.

Vice Chancellor of the University of the South Pacific Professor Pal Ahluwalia and Dr Padma Lal, the widow of historian Dr Brij Lal, are now free to return to Fiji, the government has announced.

Newly-elected Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka said he would end the “injustices” suffered by Professor Pal Ahluwalia, the late Dr Brij Lal and his wife Dr Padma Lal at the hands of Frank Bainimarama’s government.

Rabuka said he would meet the academics and apologise on behalf of the Fijian people.

He said the prohibition orders against the couple and Ahluwalia were unreasonable and inhumane, and should never have been issued.

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Professor Pal Ahluwalia, vice-chancellor of the University of the South Pacific, can now return to Fiji.

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Canadian-born Ahluwalia and wife Sandra were forced to leave Fiji in February 2021 after the authorities claimed they had breached the country’s Immigration Act.

Ahluwalia has been working out of the university’s Apia campus in Samoa since his deportation.

Ahluwalia said he was thrilled at the prospect of returning to Fiji.

Dr Brij Lal's ashes will be brought to his family home in Labasa, his wife said.

He said Rabuka had made a commitment when he was in opposition, that he would pay Fiji’s outstanding debt of NZ$65 million to the USP and allow Ahluwalia to return to Fiji.

Rabuka’s Peoples Alliance Party (PAP), National Federation Party (NFP) and the Social Democratic Liberal Party (Sodelpa) formed the coalition government last weekend after a close election.

“Mr Rabuka said it, National Federation Party leader Professor Biman Prasad said it, and the Social Democratic Liberal Party leader also said it,” Ahluwalia told local media.

“It’s part of all three parties’ manifestos and part of their public statements, so we as a university are delighted that this amount that has been outstanding for so long will finally come to the university.

“It’s excellent news, not just for the Fijian students but for the entire region because the region has been carrying Fijian students for quite a while and there will now be a chance for us to do a lot of things that we have deferred and not been able to do, particularly issues around maintenance.

“It also means we can now aggressively look for quality academic staff,” Ahluwalia said.

Rabuka said he had received a clarification from Fiji’s Immigration Department that neither Ahluwalia nor the Lals were the subject of written prohibition orders.

“I am ready to meet Dr Lal and Professor Ahluwalia personally. I will apologise on behalf of the people of Fiji for the way they were treated,” Rabuka said in a statement.

Finance Minister and National Federation Party leader, Professor Biman Prasad, said the coalition government had all promised to pay Fiji’s debt to the USP in their election campaigns and manifestos.

The former Fiji First government withheld the payments since 2019 over a protracted battle with Ahluwalia.

“They didn’t like a man who was doing the right thing and who exposed corruption within the university,” Prasad said in a statement.

“And it has done, to some extent, terrible damage not only to the university, but also the unity in the whole region.”

Padma Lal, an ecological economist who resides in Brisbane, will now be able to bring her late husband’s ashes home after the couple was refused entry to Fiji since March 2015.

Bainimarama, then military commander, staged a coup in December 2006 against the government of the late Laisenia Qarase, who died in 2020.

Mrs Lal said she received a telephone call from the Fijian High Commission in Canberra on Christmas Eve advising her of the government’s decision to lift the travel ban against her family.

She thanked the government, adding “it meant a lot” to her and the family to be able to fulfil her husband’s wishes and bring his ashes their home in Tabia near Labasa.

She said Rabuka had fulfilled his promise to her when he visited Auckland last year.

The family celebrated the “restoration of democracy in Fiji, the rule of law and the right to freedom of expression, amongst other things that were so dear to my husband.”

“The government has renewed hope for the upholding of their core principles and collaboration across the Fiji public,” she said.

Brij Lal was part of the three-member constitutional review commission, whose work culminated in the adoption of Fiji’s 1997 constitution in 1997-1998.

Former New Zealand governor-general Sir Paul Reeves and the late Fijian politician Tomasi Vakatora were also on the review commission.

A harsh critic of the Bainimarama government, Lal was forced to leave Fiji after he condemned the 2006 coup.

He died in his Brisbane home on Christmas Day in 2021, aged 69.