Asia Times: Pariah status stalks Fiji


	July 20, 2000	atimes.com

Oceania

Pariah status stalks Fiji
By Bob Burton

CANBERRA - The composition and direction of a new Fijian government, announced Wednesday by a military-installed president, has resulted in a wave of sanctions imposed by New Zealand, Australia and the United States crashing against Fiji's shores. The new administration contains only a handful of coup leader George Speight's nominees. Feeling snubbed, Speight has threatened further violence. This highlights how Fiji's future remains uncertain, despite last week's end to the hostage crisis involving the deposed prime minister of Fiji, Mahendra Chaudhry.

For 56 days, Chaudhry was held at gunpoint with other 26 government officials by businessman George Speight and special operations troops. Speight claimed his men had ousted the first Indo-Fijian led government, elected last year, on behalf of all ethnic Fijians. Speight and his supporters say Indo-Fijian's, who were brought to Fiji a century ago by British colonizers and make up more than 40 percent of the 800,000 population of Fiji, are too politically and economically dominant in the Pacific island.

The hostage crisis was resolved on Jul 13, when Speight and his supporters were granted an amnesty from prosecution and the emergency military regime proposed to the nation's traditional governing body, the Great Council of Chiefs, that Speight supporter Ratu Josefa Iloilo be appointed president.

The chiefs agreed and also adopted a 10-year plan of action negotiated with Speight, which excludes Fijians of Indian descent from any major role in government and provides for sweeping tax concessions for Fijian businesses. Iloilo replaced the former president Ratu Kamisese Mara who had supported the introduction of a multi-racial constitution in 1997 and who resisted pressure to topple Chaudhry, the first Indian elected to lead Fiji.

Critics say these changes far from reverse the damage to the democratic process, since a legally elected government has been edged out by force. The threat of Fiji becoming an international pariah now looms. Chaudhry himself welcomes the prospect, which has become close to reality with Australia, New Zealand, and the United States announcing limited sanctions and aid cuts against Fiji this week.

The Fiji Trade Union Congress, too, has backed Chaudry calls for sanctions. ''We certainly support the call. We have to understand that in such situations, sanctions are inevitable,'' Felix Anthony of the congress said. ''I think that there is going to be a fair bit of opposition to the political decisions that are being made now, not only from the Indian community but from the population at large, who cherish democracy and the rule of law.''

International human rights groups view the amnesty for Speight as a recipe for instability. They argue that peace will not last without justice, and there can't be justice without human rights for all. Australian Prime Minister John Howard has also been quick to denounce Speight and urge for the reinstatement of democracy in Fiji.

Facing the prospect of economic santions and international isolation has only hardened Speight's resolve. He was quoted recently in Fiji's press as saying other countries ''should butt out of Fiji's affairs''. This, however, is an unlikely prospect. The Pacific island nation was suspended from the Commonwealth following the coup eight weeks ago, and the indications from the Commonwealth are that more action may follow.

This is not the first time Fiji has suffered international wrath following military intervention in politics. In 1987, the first Labour Party government since the country gained independence from Britain in 1970 was toppled by a coup led by Sitiveni Rabuka. Indeed Teresia Teaiwa, lecturer in Pacific Studies at Victoria University in New Zealand, says the recent political conflict is the result of 30 fraught years of modern indigenous Fijian leadership that has sacrificed the economic and cultural well-being of a people for the advancement of a few.

''The the real struggle is amongst indigenous Fijians,'' she notes. '' But this has been continually masked by the rhetoric of a racial conflict between indigenous Fijians and Indo-Fijians in the media.''

However, the difference between then and now is that in the years after the 1987 coup, Rabuka helped prepare the now suspended 1997 Constitution under which Chaudhry was elected. In contrast, under the deal brokered with Speight last week, the interim government will bar Indo-Fijians from Fijian politics.

''They don't have a vote right now but it's up to us to see whether we can craft an appropriate model so that they can participate in future,'' said Speight last week, dismissing concerns about Indo-Fijians being denied a vote. ''The challenging thing is the fact that voting is not everything, you know?''

It was in response to such statements that New Zealand Foreign Minister Phil Goff announced at the weekend the impostition of sanctions against Fiji to show his country's ''total rejection of the moves toward an undemocratic and a racist constitution''. For the moment, however, Goff is still holding out an olive branch to the new president and vice president, promising ''to work with, encourage and support the new administration if there are signs of goodwill''.

After the 1987 coup, tens of thousands of Fijians left the country and the fragile economy was battered with a collapse in tourists and foreign investment. The then villain of the peace Sitiveni Rabuka knows only too well the the costs of coups on his troubled nation. Speaking to journalists recently, he observed: ''Nobody wins a coup. The whole nation suffers.''

(Inter Press Service)

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