Rabi (pronounced ) is a volcanic island in northern Fiji. It is an outlier to Taveuni (5 kilometers west), in the Vanua Levu Group. It covers an area of 66.3 square kilometers, reaching a maximum altitude of 463 meters and has a shoreline of 46.2 kilometers. With a population of around 5,000, Rabi is home to the Banabans who are the indigenous landowners of Ocean Island; the indigenous Fijian community that formerly lived on Rabi was moved to Taveuni after the island was purchased by the British government. The original inhabitants still maintain their links to the island, and still use the Rabi name in national competitions.
Geography
Rabi has four main settlements – all named after, and populated by the descendants of, four villages on Banaba that were destroyed by the invading Japanese forces in the Second World War. Tabwewa Village, formerly known as Nuku or Kai Nuku in Fijian, is the administrative centre of Rabi. Located in the far north of the island, Tabwewa boasts administrative buildings, a wharf, a post office, court house, a hospital, and a guest house – the only one on the island. 14 kilometers to the south of Tabwewa is Tabiang (formerly Siosio), the home of Rabi's only school and an airstrip. Other major settlements include Uma (formerly Wiinuku), between Tabwewa and Tabiang, and Buakonikai (formerly Aoteqea), some 22 kilometers from Tabwewa. Rabi is the eighth largest island of Fiji and the antimeridian passes through this island.
History
In 1855, the Tongan military conquered Fijian rebels who were on Rambi (Rabi), following a request by the Tui Cakau in Taveuni. On their departure, a few years later, the Tui Cakau sold the island to Europeans to cover outstanding debts. In 1941, the British government purchased Rabi from the Australian firm Lever Brothers for £25,000, to serve as a new home for the Banabans of Ocean Island in the Gilbert Islands, whose home island was being ravaged by phosphate mining. World War II began before they could be resettled, and it was not until December 1945 that the move was made (Stanley 1993: 179).
Rabi was the first place in Fiji where Indian indentured labourers were employed. When the first Indians were brought to Fiji in 1879, aboard the Leonidas, most European planters refused to employ them because of the extra cost involved. One planter, Captain J. Hill, who was sympathetic to Government policies, agreed to take 106 indentured labourers as field workers.
Prior to the Banaban resettlement on Rabi, the island was owned by the Lever's Pacific Plantations Pty Ltd, and was used as a copra plantation. At the beginning of World War II, the British government purchased the island with phosphate royalties derived from Ocean Island, in the quest to relocate the Banabans from Ocean Island.
At the end of World War II, the British colonial rulers of the Gilbert Islands and Fiji decided to resettle most of Ocean Island's population on Rabi Island, because of the devastation of Banaba caused by phosphate mining. Some have since returned to Banaba, but the majority have remained on Rabi, or elsewhere in Fiji.
The Banabans came to Fiji in three major waves, with the first group of 703, including 318 children, arriving on the BPC vessel, Triona, on 15 December 1945. Accompanying them were 300 other Gilbertese. The Banabans had been collected from Japanese internment camps on various islands and were not given the option of returning to Banaba, on the false grounds that the Japanese had destroyed their houses. Although they were told that there were houses waiting for them on Rabi, they were only given tents to live in, along with food rations which lasted for only two months. It was the middle of the cyclone season, and they were still weak from years of Japanese imprisonment. 40 of the oldest Banabans died. They were joined by a second wave between 1975 and 1977, with a final wave arriving between 1981 and 1983, following the ending of phosphate mining in 1979. Recognising the lack of opportunities for Banabans in their homeland, the Rabi Council assisted the remaining population to move to Rabi after 1981.
On 15 December 2005, sixty years to the day since the arrival of the first Banabans, more than 500 Rabi Islanders were granted citizenship at a ceremony led by Minister for Home Affairs Josefa Vosanibola and fellow-Cabinet Minister Ratu Naiqama Lalabalavu, who was also the Tui Cakau, or Paramount Chief of Cakaudrove and Tovata, to which Rabi belongs. The Banabans, who had not previously been naturalized, came from the second and third waves of migration, which were technically illegal but tolerated by the Fijian government on humanitarian grounds.
