Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama has told the leaders present at the 73rd Session of the United Nations General Assembly that Fiji will not return to the painful days of division.
He made the remarks at the Nelson Mandela Peace Summit, a meeting celebrating the 100th anniversary of the South African leader’s birth.
Bainimarama says the life and legacy of the late Mandela is an inspiration for all Fijians.
“That legacy should mean a great deal too every person on our planet. But it holds a special meaning for the nation and people that I lead, because like South Africa, Fiji and the Fijian people suffered for decades under a political culture based on ethnicity. This fuelled hatred and disunity between our communities.”
Bainimarama adds it is only in recent years that we have begun to shed that legacy and unshackle ourselves from our difficult history of ethnic division.
He says this has been done through a strict and unrelenting adherence to the same principles that Mandela so nobly sacrificed to defend in his life.
The Prime Minister is in New York to attend the 73rd Session of the United Nations General Assembly, which ends next Wednesday.
Heads of states from around the world are at the summit, which aims to promote world peace.
