Filipo Tarakinikini appointed as Fiji’s Acting Permanent Representative to the UN in New York

Former Republic of Fiji Military Forces spokesperson,(Retired) Colonel Filipo Tarakinikini has been appointed as Fiji’s Acting Permanent Representative to the United Nations in New York.

Acting Permanent Secretary for Foreign Affairs, Pita Wise confirms that Tarakinikini will act in the position until the post is advertised, and a selection is made.

Tarakinikini replaces Doctor Satyendra Prasad.

The former military spokesperson served the United Nations for over 20 years after resigning from the RFMF.

Tarakinikini worked at the UN headquarters as a Senior Planning Officer and was on secondment from the RFMF, approved by the late former Qarase led government, for a period of one year.

However the Army Commander at the time, Voreqe Bainimarama announced that the military will charge Tarakinikini either with desertion or being absent without official leave.

He had said that the senior officer will be arrested once he arrives in the country.

Tarakinikini tried to resign from New York but this was rejected by Bainimarama.

Tarakinikini was earlier selected to be the RFMF candidate to the Royal Military Academy in Sandhurst in the United Kingdom.

In his resignation letter to the RFMF, Tarakinikini had said to Bainimarama that it appears to him that Bainimarama’s agenda against him was a personal one and that the investigation conducted at the time in RFMF by Bainimarama was a discriminatory and selective means to frame and purge those professional officers, including Tarakinikini, who questioned Bainimarama’s command ethics.

He also highlighted that in their telephone conversation a few weeks before the resignation, Bainimarama categorically stated that a full public commission of inquiry into the RFMF and its failures before and during the May 2000 coup is irrelevant.