HIS EXCELLENCY RATU EPELI NAILATIKAU
CF, LVO, OBE (Mil), KStJ, CSM, MSD
President of the Republic of Fiji
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ADDRESS AT STATE DINNER IN TIMOR LESTE
Hotel Timor Friday 28 February 2014
Dili 7.00pm


The Honourable Prime Minister, Xanana Gusmao,
Honourable Ministers,
Your Excellencies the Ambassadors and High Commissioners
Members of the Diplomatic Corp,
Distinguished Guests,
Ladies and Gentlemen

Ni sa Bula Vinaka, Good Evening and Bonoite,

I bring you the warmest greetings of the Fijian people and the Fijian Government.

It is a great honour for me to be making this official visit to Timor Leste.

And it is an even greater pleasure to be among friends - men and women whose courage and perseverance in nation building we admire and respect.

The people of Timor Leste for your independence had captured the imagination of every Fijian, just as it did for so many people around the world.

And we have been privileged as a nation to contribute to that process, first by providing our troops as peacekeepers in the lead up towards independence and then by supporting you since in whatever way we can.

Our formal relationship – established eleven years ago - has always been close and cordial.

The overriding purpose of my visit is to bind us even closer, and to discuss ways in which our relationship can be enhanced and expanded.

Fiji strongly supports the diplomatic effort being made by Timor Leste to engage more with the Melanesian countries and the pacific as a whole.

You are doing so through your status as an observer at the Melanesian Spearhead Group – which Fiji played a large part in facilitating – and through your participation in other regional forums.

We especially welcome and appreciate your support for the Pacific Islands Development Forum and your presence at the inaugural gathering of the PIDF in Nadi last august.

It was indeed a great privilege to have had you Prime Minister in Fiji, where you are regarded as a genuine hero among our own people.

Greatness is measured not only in a nation’s struggle for self-determination but also in its ability to heal and reconcile.

And you, Prime Minister, along with many of your colleagues, have admirably demonstrated those qualities to the region and to the world.

As well as your participation in the M-S-G, Fiji regards Timor Leste as a valued partner in the Pacific Islands Development Forum, which has strengthened the voice of the grassroots in our member countries by including representatives of civil society and business.

We are grateful to you for having sponsored the PIDF’s participation in side meetings at the united nations general assembly in 2013. And we especially appreciate your donation of us$250,000 towards the establishment of the PIDF Secretariat in Suva.

Fiji and Timor Leste are also making our voices heard in the great forums of the world through such groupings as the Pacific Small Island Developing States, which you have also joined.

Together with our regional partners, we are placing the issues that matter to us, like climate change, before the international community.

It is the best opportunity that we have of getting our needs and concerns addressed. Because only by working closely together and speaking with one voice can we hope to be heard above the competing interests of other nations.

Honourable Prime Minister, Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, aside from seeking an even closer engagement, I have also come to Timor Leste to convey to you our own attempts at nation building.

To explain the huge strides that we have made and are making in Fiji to produce a nation that is fairer, more just and provides better opportunities for every Fijian.

Before the end of September this year, we will hold the first genuinely democratic election in our history, of equal votes and of equal value instead of the weighted formula used in the past based on race and province.

We have a new Constitution. The Constitution establishes a common and equal citizenry that guarantees a range of civil and political rights and that provides ordinary Fijians with an unprecedented array of social and economic rights, such as the right to education, housing, and clean water.

This year, we have achieved a landmark transforming breakthrough in being able to provide our young people with free primary and secondary school education. We have also established a tertiary loans scheme so that poverty is no longer a barrier to higher studies.

Our national infrastructure - such as our roads and ports - is also being upgraded to encourage investment and to create jobs on which the ultimate fortunes of every Fijian depends.

And all over Fiji, rural and maritime communities are gradually and finally receiving basic services such as electricity and water that have been continually promised over the years but never delivered.

This social, economic and political revolution – coupled with the holding of elections - will soon deliver a genuine democracy in Fiji that meets the highest international standards.

We are determined that our general election by the end of September will be free and fair and express the genuine will of the people.

Fiji is proud to have forged an independent foreign policy based on the fundamental premise of being friends to all and enemies to none.

We have the men and women of our disciplined forces serving in overseas countries.

For example, we have five hundred and eight Republic of Fiji Military Forces personnel serving in the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force in the Golan Heights, Syria; one hundred and ninety five in the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq; fifteen in the United Nations Mission in South Sudan; twenty in the United Nations Mission in Darfur, Sudan; twenty three in the United Nations Mission in Liberia; three hundred and twenty eight in the Multi-National Force and Observers in Sinai, Egypt; and two in RAMSI, Solomon Islands.

All these Fijians are deployed in those countries protecting vulnerable ordinary people.

We are also sending our civilian volunteers, including teachers and health workers, into our pacific neighbours to boost their capacity and to improve the lives of their people.

The Fiji Volunteer Services Scheme is already an outstanding success. We have plans to considerably boost this program in the coming months and years and to expand the capacity building to other professional fields.

I am delighted that Fiji and Timor Leste have signed an agreement whereby a number of Fijian volunteers will soon be coming here.

Nothing builds relations between nations more effectively than people-to-people contact. And this engagement is certain to cement our ties even further.

I also want to repeat the message that I am carrying on my visits throughout the region: that we must all do more to take charge of our own affairs. We need a fundamental change in our psyche – in our mindset - and the way we see the world.

We need to take ownership of our problems, to acknowledge our own roles and responsibilities instead of seeing them as someone else’s.

When someone once asked the great Singaporean Statesman Lee Kuan Yew: quote: “what are you going to do for me?”, he replied: “what are you going to do for yourself?” This carries a very important message for us all.

We need to stop looking for donors and start looking for development partners.

And we need to stop asking those partners, “what are you doing for us?” But “what can you do to help us to help ourselves?”

We need to abandon our tendency to seek for handouts.

One of the things that we have learned as a nation is the importance of not compromising on our national sovereignty. Some nations, because of their relatively small size, sometimes feel obliged to give way to their larger neighbours.

I am sure that Timor Leste – like Fiji - believes that any relationships it forges must be conducted on the basis of mutual respect and the preservation of our dignity. Fiji will always stand by its neighbours in asserting this right.

Honourable Prime Minister, Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, thank you for the wonderful hospitality you have shown me and my delegation.

I look forward very much to seeing more of Timor Leste, of meeting more of your people and of strengthening the great ties of friendship between our countries.

Vinaka vakalevu and Obrigado Barak.