Politics
In a number of ways, Rabi is a political anomaly. Though part of the Province of Cakaudrove, Rabi has a degree of autonomy, with its own council controlling local affairs, though this council is to be merged with its counterpart from Kioa, according to a Cabinet decision of 15 January 2006. And though citizens of Fiji, the Rabi Islanders still hold Kiribati passports, remain the legal landowners of Banaba, and send one representative to the Kiribati parliament (a second one is elected in Banaba), and the Rabi Council municipally administers their original homeland of Banaba. They are also represented in the Fijian House of Representatives, classified as General Electors (an omnibus category for Fijian citizens who are neither indigenous nor of Indian origin). Rabi Island forms part of the North Eastern General Communal Constituency, one of three reserved for General Electors, and of the Lau Taveuni Rotuma Open Constituency, one of 25 seats elected by universal suffrage.
On 19 December 2005, Teitirake Karoro, the Rabi Island Council's representative to the Parliament of Kiribati, said that the Rabi Council was considering giving the right to re-mine Banaba Island to the government of Fiji. This followed the disappointment of the Rabi Islanders at the refusal of the Kiribati Parliament to grant a portion of the A$786 million trust fund from phosphate proceeds to elderly Rabi islanders. Karoro asserted that Banaba is the property of their descendants who live on Rabi, not of the Kiribati government. "The trust fund also belong to us even though we do not live on Kiribati," he asserted. He condemned the Kiribati government's policy not to pay the islanders. Council Secretary Molly Amon said, however, that the Rabi Council had yet to reach a consensus on the matter of transferring any mining rights to the Fijian government.
On 23 December, Reteta Rimon, Kiribati's High Commissioner to Fiji, clarified that Rabi Islanders were in fact entitled to Kiribati government benefits - but only if they returned to Kiribati. She called for negotiations between the Rabi Council of Leaders and the Kiribati government.
Read more about this topic: Rabi Island
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