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Deal gives Fiji its best hope of stability
CANBERRA: Fiji’s interim prime
minister Frank Bainimarama will be offered a deal at the end of
next week, if the report of the South Pacific Forum eminent
persons’ group is a guide. Last December, he took power from the
civilian government of Laisenia Qarase.
A meeting of South Pacific Forum foreign ministers in Sydney set
up an EPG to go to Fiji, talk to everyone involved and make
recommendations. Retired general Peter Cosgrove is the Australian
representative in a group of distinguished jurists and
politicians.
The report will be considered by a South Pacific Forum foreign
ministers’ meeting at the end of next week in Vanuatu. The
Australian has obtained a copy of the report and it makes sober
and depressing reading.
It seems Bainimarama plans to delay a return to democracy through
new elections for five years. The report notes a lot of Fijians
want an immediate return to democracy and the restoration of
Qarase. However, the report identifies a possible middle ground.
This would involve Bainimarama stepping down as PM so that an
interim government could be appointed by the president to prepare
for elections within 18 months to two years. This would also
require Qarase to formally resign from office and desist from his
claim for reinstatement. Although out of office, Qarase so far has
not formally resigned.
Bainimarama’s plan involves setting up an anti-corruption body and
holding exhaustive inquiries into corruption under Qarase, as well
as holding a new census so electoral boundaries can be properly
redrawn. Bainimarama wants “a multicultural policy which does not
elevate indigenous rights above those of other citizens” and
doesn’t want an election until the socioeconomic conditions are
right.
The EPG report canvasses the reasons for the coup. As reported
exclusively in The Australian at the time, it may be, according to
the EPG report, that he wanted to shut down police investigations
into his role in the death of four soldiers after the coup led by
George Speight in 2000, which Bainimarama opposed.
However, Bainimarama certainly had other serious grounds for
complaint against Qarase’s government. One was that it involved
people who had been active in the Speight coup. Another was that
it planned to give amnesty to those from the Speight coup who were
still in custody. And finally, it planned to enact racist
legislation, further entrenching official privilege for ethnic
Fijians as opposed to other groups, especially Indians.
The EPG report rejects Bainimarama’s claims that his actions were
legally justified on the basis of the doctrine of necessity. This
is because, it says, the necessity was provoked by Bainimarama’s
own actions. The report concludes that the coup was illegal.
The combination of issues that provoked the coup means there is
now a strange, and inherently very dangerous, situation. The
report says: “Support for the ousted government among indigenous
Fijians remains strong while the interim government seems to have
gained support among other communities.”
By “other communities” the EPG report means Indians. This
situation is so strange because the Fijian army is overwhelmingly
ethnically Fijian and previous military coups have been designed
to bolster the position of Fijians and introduce further
discrimination against Indians. Indeed, Bainimarama enjoys so much
Indian support that former prime minister Mahendra Chaudhry, an
Indian who was himself kidnapped and deposed from office in the
Speight coup, is finance minister in Bainimarama’s government.
Incidentally, the Fijian economy is suffering grievously from the
effects of the coup, especially from the decline in tourist
numbers, and an emergency budget last week included a 5% pay cut
for all public servants.
The EPG report is a critically important document for, as it
notes, the attitude of the South Pacific Forum (and especially of
Australia, though the report is too collegial to say that
specifically) will have a great bearing on how other international
actors, such as the European Union and the US, respond to Fiji.
The report recommends seeking a compromise along the lines
outlined above and, if Bainimarama accepts this, offering extra
financial assistance for the electoral process, for an
anti-corruption body and for restoring independence to the
judiciary.
This is a good concept from a good report, but the chances are
that Bainimarama won’t accept the compromise. – Pacnews
 
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