Epeli Ganilau

Brigadier-General Ratu Epeli Ganilau, MC, MSD, (10 October 1951 – 23 March 2023) was a Fijian military officer and politician.

His career previously encompassed such roles as Commander of the Fiji Military Forces and Chairman of the Bose Levu Vakaturaga (Great Council of Chiefs).

Ganilau was educated at Wanganui Collegiate School, in New Zealand, from 1965.

He later graduated from the University of the South Pacific and from the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, England, and the Royal New Zealand Air Force Staff College.

There were also accusations that Ganilau was undermining the so-called political neutrality of the Bose Levu Vakaturaga with his calls for a revival of the defunct Alliance Party, the multi-racial political party founded by Ratu Mara, which governed Fiji from 1967 to 1987.

Ganilau's call received support from a number of political factions, including the Indo-Fijian-dominated National Federation Party, but received a cold reception from Prime Minister Qarase's Soqosoqo Duavata ni Lewenivanua.

He enlisted in the Royal Fiji Military Forces in June 1972, and attended the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst in the UK.

He had served several tours of duty with the UN forces in Lebanon (UNIFIL) and with the Multinational Force & Observers (MFO) in Sinai, Egypt.

In 1979, as a company commander with the Fijian battalion serving with UN forces in Lebanon (1st Battalion, Fiji Infantry Regiment) Ganilau was awarded the Military Cross (MC) for his leadership on operations at a time when UN forces and the Fijian battalion in particular, was being frequently attacked by armed groups in southern Lebanon.

He attended the RNZAF Staff College in Auckland, NZ, and rose through the ranks to attain the rank of Brigadier.

In July 1991, he was appointed Commander of the Military, succeeding Sitiveni Rabuka.

In 1998, he helped to found the Christian Democratic Alliance, which won three seats in the House of Representatives in the 1999 election, although he personally was not elected.

He held this office for eight years, retiring in 1999 to pursue a career in politics.

Ganilau was appointed to the Bose Levu Vakaturaga (Great Council of Chiefs) in 1999 as one of six representatives of the Fijian government.

As chairman, Ganilau took a strong stand for law and order, and supported the prosecution of persons implicated in the 2000 coup.

He spoke in support of Commodore Frank Bainimarama, who was then becoming increasingly vocal in his criticism of the Qarase government's ethno-nationalist leanings and sympathies for the 2000 coupists.

Both Ganilau and Army Commander, Frank Bainimarama, viewed Qarase's appeals to the primordial instincts of indigenous Fijians with deep suspicion.

They saw Qarase's affirmative action policies and his subtle use of imagined threats to indigenous Fijian interests as polarising society along ethnic lines.

They resented Qarase's use of ethnicity as a device to mobilise indigenous Fijian support.

As far as Ganilau and Bainimarama were concerned, Fiji under Qarase was sliding headlong down a slippery slope towards a divided society with the spectre of a failed state looming large on the horizon.

More importantly, it was a view shared by the Army.

On 6 August that year, Ganilau said that all persons implicated in that coup should be brought to justice, regardless of their position in the community.

Culture and tradition should not, he said, impede the investigation of chiefs who had participated in the George Speight coup.

He also rejected a call from Ratu Naiqama Lalabalavu, a Cabinet Minister and the Paramount Chief of the Tovata Confederacy, for the Great Council of Chiefs to replace the Senate as the upper house of the legislature.

Ganilau argued that the chiefly system with its class distinctions and quasi-feudal values was incompatible with the democratic values underpinning modern representative government.

To merge the two would create further confusion in the minds of indigenous Fijians who were already subject to two different administrative systems i.e. the laws and regulations of the central government viz a viz the laws regulating indigenous Fijian society under the Fijian Affairs Act (administered by the Ministry of i'Taukei Affairs).

Kaitani went on to accuse Ganilau of hypocrisy, saying that he (Ganilau) was involved in the forced resignation of his father-in-law, Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara, as President on 29 May 2000.

He chose not to run in the 2001 elections.

He also contested the traditional title of Tui Cakau in 2001 which was vacant at the time.

Ratu Naiqama Lalabalavu succeeded to the title of Tui Cakau, the Paramount Chief of the Tovata Confederacy which encompasses the provinces of Cakaudrove and Lau.

Ganilau was elected chairman on 3 May 2001 after his predecessor, Sitiveni Rabuka, stepped down amid accusations that he (Rabuka) may have been involved in the George Speight-led ethno-nationalist coup that deposed Fiji's elected government in May 2000.

The Bose Levu Vakaturaga was a formal assembly of Fijian hereditary chiefs, along with a number of specially qualified commoners, chosen mainly by Fiji's provincial councils.

The Council of Chiefs also had a constitutional role in functioning as an electoral college to elect the President of the Republic of Fiji, the Vice-President of Fiji, as well as 14 of the 32 Senators.

On 11 April 2003, he was quoted as saying that the ethnic politics promoted by nationalist politicians had resulted in coups that caused immense damage to the country.

Ganilau held the chairmanship until 21 July 2004 when Prime Minister Qarase did not renew Ganilau's membership on the Council and replaced him with Ratu Ovini Bokini, a former deputy chairman and the chief of Tavua.

He was a government appointee to the Council and the government decision not to renew his membership effectively removed him from that body.

The Qarase government gave no reason for its decision not to reappoint Ganilau but there were strained relations between Ganilau and the ethno-nationalists in Qarase's Cabinet who did not agree with Ganilau's multiracial agenda.

Information Minister and staunch nationalist, Simione Kaitani, had criticised Ganilau for calling for the resignation of Vice-President Ratu Jope Seniloli, who in 2004 was on trial for his involvement in the 2000 ethno-nationlist coup led by George Speight.

Defending Seniloli, Kaitani argued that Seniloli was legally entitled to a presumption of innocence until proven guilty and until such guilt was proven, Seniloli should remain as President.

On 15 January 2007 he was sworn in as Minister for Fijian Affairs in the interim Cabinet formed in the wake of the 2006 Fijian coup d'état which deposed the Qarase government on 5 December 2006.