| Sports |
by MARK HAYES
Undertones of ‘The Pacific Way’ echoes in Fiji again
WHILE most media attention on Fiji
recently focused on Labour Party prime minister Mahendra Chaudhry
being appointed interim finance minister, it was Commodore Voreqe
(Frank) Bainimarama’s choice of two other ministers in his interim
government that gave a much more telling sign of the coup leader’s
agenda.
The appointment of Ratu Epeli Nailatikau as interim foreign
minister and Ratu Epeli Ganilau as interim Fijian affairs
minister signal something of a return to the ideals propounded by
the “founding father” of post-independence Fiji, the late Ratu Sir
Kamisese Mara.
In essence, Mara sought a united, multi-racial, multi-religious
Fiji in which indigenous Fijian interests and aspirations would
always be protected and respected, but not at the significant
expense of other ethnic interests and aspirations.
The Rule of Law, as set out in the 1997 Constitution, (which Mara
supported, and which was a significant improvement on the earlier,
racist, 1990 Constitution,) would ensure this occurred.
To be sure, Mara also fully recognised that politics is the art of
compromise, and his vision of “the Pacific Way” idealised an
Islander process whereby decisions would be arrived at through,
sometimes protracted, consensus.
Nailatikau, a son-in-law of Mara, was head of the Fiji military
when Col Sitiveni Rabuka pulled off the country’s first coup in
May 1987, and was subsequently removed from his post.
He was later Fiji’s high commissioner to the UK, then a roving
ambassador for Fiji, speaker of Fiji’s parliament between 2001 and
2006, and the UNAIDS special ambassador for the Pacific.
Aside from the ousted vice-president, the universally-respected
Ratu Joni Madraiwiwi, Nailatikau is probably the most
generally-respected Fijian high chief.
New Australian high commissioner James Batley, (who was until
recently the special commissioner to Ramsi), will have a
formidable local minister with whom to deal. Australian foreign
minister Alexander Downer will not win any regional plaudits
either, should he denigrate or refuse to deal with Nailatikau.
Fiji needs an inquiry to deal with endemic corruption and
decisively institute far better governance.
Last year, then Fijian police commissioner Andrew Hughes, who, as
a senior Australian Federal Police officer occasionally commented
that Fiji needed a major “clean out” of corruption.
The problems with this proposal in Fiji are its small population,
its significantly smaller and far more vulnerable economy, its
uneven governance infrastructure, and a severe dearth of talent.
That is not to say that Fiji does not have suitably-qualified
lawyers and investigators – it is just that there are not enough
to go around normal lawyerly activities and properly staffed or
appear before a serious, and certainly lengthy, inquiry which,
among many other things, must puncture Fiji’s notorious “cones of
silence” which have seriously retarded investigations into the
2000 crisis.
Only Madraiwiwi , the ousted vice-president, has the necessary
combination of traditional mana and modern legal expertise to head
a Fijian commission of inquiry, and a bunch of excoriating
investigative lawyers and incorruptible police, is needed to staff
the thing.
Madraiwiwi has returned to private law practice in Suva.
Last week, Bainimarama asked for Australian and New Zealand
assistance to investigate alleged corruption in the Qarase
government, and conduct a long delayed census (which has not
occurred since 1996) prior to revising electoral rolls, and
holding elections to return Fiji to civilian rule.
The snap 2006 election, which returned the Qarase government, was
conducted without these needed, and usually routine,
administrative reviews being done.
By week’s end, the Kiwis were warily interested in coming to the
party, but Canberra flatly refused to have anything to do with
assisting Fiji with a corruption investigation because the request
was coming from an illegitimate, coup-installed, regime.
“Australia will not do anything to encourage or support the
illegitimate government’s efforts to discredit the
democratically-elected government it overthrew by force of arms,”
a spokesman for the department of foreign affairs and trade told
ABC.
Bainimarama also wants to recall the former deputy director of
public prosecutions Peter Ridgeway, an Australian lawyer, who was
suddenly sacked in the middle of 2005. The suspicion was that
Ridgeway’s investigations were getting too close to charging the
financiers of the George Speight-fronted putsch, and other
miscreants with close links to the Qarase government.
Ridgeway did not dismiss the suggestion of his recall, but told
ABC Radio that a proper authority would need to be in place to
give him the necessary powers to return to his work.
Ratu Epeli Ganilau, appointed to the crucial Fijian affairs
portfolio, is Nailatikau’s brother-in-law and son of former
president the late Ratu Sir Penaia Ganilau. He was military
commander between 1992 and 1999 (recommended that Bainimarama
succeed him) and was chair of the Great Council of Chiefs when
Laisenia Qarase disrespectfully removed him in July 2004 for his
public criticisms of the more extreme nationalist policies being
pursued by the government.
(Ganilau’s removal won the Qarase government few points, even
among its more nationalist supporters.)
He is also the leader of Ratu Mara’s old political party, the
National Alliance.
As Fijian affairs minister, Ganilau at least has the credibility
to be taken seriously as he grapples with what is certainly Fiji’s
most difficult issue: land.
The other new interim government ministers are spread across
ethnic and political groupings, and as of writing, no serious
criticisms have been mounted against the appointees, except in
Fiji’s Blogosphere, and for the circumstances which led to their
appointment.
They certainly do not appear to represent an organised cabal of
self-serving military stooges jostling to get their own snouts and
trotters into the trough after chasing the last lot out of the pig
pen.
A fortnight ago, the director of the constitutionally-legitimated
Fiji Human Rights Commission, Dr Shaista Shameem, released her
controversial analysis of the Bainimarama coup.
She basically argues that the two Qarase governments, elected in
the 2001 and 2006, were illegal and that, to protect Fiji from
extreme policies, the military had the constitutional
responsibility to act.
Needless to say, Shameem was roundly criticised from several
quarters, including by several leading lawyers and NGOs. It was a
pity her 32-page paper was not better annotated and footnoted.
Also last week, the Great Council of Chiefs (GCC), after typical
vacillation and indecision, finally announced its support for the
Bainimarama coup, after executive authority was returned to the
president Ratu Josefa Iloilo, Bainimarama took on the interim
prime ministership.
The GCC was later joined by the influential Methodist church, and
by the Catholic church, who both urged their members to pray for
the interim government, despite remaining opposed to the coup in
principle.
Meanwhile, Fiji is still under a State of Emergency; the military
checkpoints strategically deployed around Suva and other key
locations remain, driving peak hour commuters crazy; vocal
opponents of the coup are out of the country, lying low, or being
taken to military camps for a talking to and occasionally a
roughing up – some have been prevented from leaving Fiji; and a
small group of pro-democracy activists continue their Thursday
lunchtime vigils at Suva’s Anglican Cathedral.
Britain and New Zealand have relaxed their travel warnings to Fiji
somewhat, but Australia’s remain in place, particularly for Suva,
along with travel bans on the Fiji military and interim government
officials.
The pragmatic-as-always business sector, particularly the tourism
operators, is quickly accommodating themselves to the new Fijian
order.
Suva’s water and electricity problems continue as if nothing has
happened.
The coup is still in progress, as University of the South Pacific
political sociologist Dr Steven Ratuva wrote in the Fiji Times a
fortnight ago, and its consolidation and then governance
transformation stages could take several years to run their
courses.
Suva is also awash with rumours, themselves destabilising, as Dr
Ratuva later opined.
Aside from the disgraceful monstering of its fairly few and
harmless outspoken opponents, an emerging pattern of apparently
random military intimidation needing prompt officer discipline to
prevent, and its usurpation of civilian power, Bainimarama’s coup
appears to be proceeding along rather promising lines.
*The writer is a Brisbane-based
journalist and media and journalism educator who specialises in
Pacific media and journalism practices and contexts. He still
wishes he was back in Suva reporting directly on the continuing
Fiji crisis.
 
|
