Angie Heffernan

Love her or hate her, Angie Heffernan has proved impossible to silence, nor has she stepped back or held back on her views as the director of the non-government organisation, the Pacific Centre for Public Integrity (PCPI). Throughout the year, Angie has been on the run or gone into hiding from the military several times for her outbursts against the interim government. The military denies that they have ever tried to arrest or harass Angie for speaking out, but Angie has been at their heels every step of the way, even taking the same flight with interim prime minister Commodore Frank Bainimarama when he travelled to New York to address the UN General Assembly. Her critics decry her as a self-appointed misguided spokesperson without a constituency who is only speaking for herself, but Angie has provided an opposing and alternative view to almost every decision made by the interim government that she has unrelentingly attacked as unelected and illegal. For her bravery in standing up to be counted and speaking out during some of the most tense and difficult times of 2007, Angie Heffernan is one of Mai Life’s Activists of the Year.  

 

Shamima Ali

Shamima Ali has already been slated as one of the 100 most influential people in Fiji over the last century, but if people thought that the high-achieving and often controversial women’s rights activist would slow down and retire in the new century, they had better think again. The coordinator of the Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre (FWCC) has been a rock on human rights issues over the last three decades and came to the fore again in 2007 during some of the most difficult human rights situation in the country’s history. She has been unwavering in pointing out and attacking various forms of injustice, and was one of the very few voices that remained vocal while many others around her were silenced.

 

Voreqe Bainimarama

Commander of the Republic of Fiji Military Forces, and interim Prime Minister, Commodore Frank Bainimarama has trod where very few, perhaps no other Fijian leader, has dared to tread. Bainimarama is leading an astonishing revolution in his quest to remove the racism and corruption he sees as the cause and root of the country’s political instability, defying some of the country’s most entrenched and powerful social and political forces. As head of one of the three most powerful institutions in the country, the Army, the Commodore has taken on the next two most powerful institutions: the Methodist Church and the Great Council of Chiefs, and remains in control of the country’s tense but volatile political situation. Bainimarama is clearly not a politician, but is single-minded in his leadership style, which is both a strength and a weakness. Despite daily attacks from almost all quarters, including major partners Australia and New Zealand, he has not wavered in his determination to fulfil his vision for the country, which many of his critics see as idealistic but unrealistic. The legality of his actions since 5 December 2006 is before the courts, he has seen an alleged assassination plot against him smashed, confronted his two biggest foreign detractors John Howard and Helen Clark in Tonga, and has virtually squashed for now, those that have tried to stand in his way. He induces both deep resentment and deep admiration, and his actions may have deeply divided the nation, but Commodore Bainimarama is Mai Life’s 2007 Man of the Year.