SUVA, Fiji (10 Dec 2006) -- Something messy and bloody is lurking ahead for Fiji. Military dictator Voreqe Bainimarama is giving off the stench of unfinished business and a coup or a mutiny or just plain old civil war will result. With the experience now of four coups in 20 years behind them, Fijians are a patient people. The credit and the blame rests mostly with the Methodist Church, which has preached that in the face of injustice, wrong or disaster, it's best to pray rather than do anything practical. We saw that in May 2000 as traitor George Speight held the government of Mahendra Chaudhry hostage for 56 days. Today a very different undercurrent is at work as Bainimarama tramples on democracy, Fijian traditions and its churches. The political and cultural tapa has a complex and sophisticated fibre, but it boils down to one thing - power and the need to have and hold it. With Chaudhry out of the way in 2000, Laisenia Qarase became prime minister. His first election in 2001 was deeply corrupt and he shocked many with what was seen as racist policies, a costly blueprint for affirmative action to fund ethnic Fijian advancement. He said democracy was a dangerous delusion and the Speight coup had been God's plan. What was behind Qarase was an older, tribal arrangement; he was a Polynesian governing in an alliance with Melanesians from the main island Viti Levu. His racial blueprint seduced the unelected Great Council of Chiefs (GCC). Bainimarama had ended the Chaudhry hostage drama with a deal with Speight that contained a double-cross about the number of military weapons to be returned. Several prominent paramount chiefs endorsed the deal and were then shocked when Bainimarama executed the double-cross and arrested Speight. Worse, Bainimarama sent his soldiers in and beat up 300 Speight supporters who came from Naitasiri, north of Suva. This led to the November 2000 mutiny which has so unhinged Bainimarama who was its assassination target. He is convinced Qarase's government and the GCC was stacked with Speight followers. He was probably right but most of them did jail time, paid their debt and returned to society. Many of them even got fairly elected in May this year. Bainimarama's dismissal of the traditional structures contains the seeds of his doom. Military training in Fiji works to remove tribal affiliations from individuals; units are made up of various tribes. Currently it is working. Complete with their American provided helmets and flak jackets, the soldiers ruthlessly stomp around the place, oblivious to the deep shock they create. What was intriguing though when up against their physical force was the difference in individuals. About a third of any group would be almost embarrassed at what they were doing. It was the corporals and sergeants that were nasty and indifferent, the men who have spent most of their lives in relative poverty in the army. They don't care and they probably no longer have villages. The army is their vanua. But the others have homes to go to and when they return there it will be to face chiefs who are deeply offended by what their boss is doing. Pressures will mount. The chiefs of Fiji will move slowly, they will drink a lot of kava and talk endlessly, they will pray and they will consult. And Fijian history shows that when all else fails, war will inevitably follow. All Fijians, indigenous and Indian, are cursed with a view of themselves that says they are special, unique and that the world simply doesn't understand them. They also believe that the world wants to steal Fiji. Indigenous Fijians, particularly Bainimarama, absolutely believe the world wants to conquer Fiji. It is such a blinding view of themselves that they cannot see their faults - or the disaster moving toward them. Bainimarama would do well to reflect on the fate of English missionary Thomas Baker, who in 1867, violated custom and touched the head of the chief of the village of Nabutautau. They ate him, even boiling his shoes for days in an attempt to make them edible. Bainimarama can view the shoe relics at the Fiji Museum, across the road from where he played touch rugby on Thursday. Fiji's Indians are making a monumental misjudgement over events in the past couple of weeks. Now probably about 35 per cent of the population, they are badly led by Chaudhry who, even in victory in 1999, was bitter and angry. In the May elections this year, he won 80 per cent of the Indian vote, yet claimed the election was corrupt. It was fair and mostly clean; international observers said so. Chaudhry lost because there are more indigenous Fijians than Indians and 80% of the Fijians voted for Qarase. What riles the Indians is that when Speight overthrew Chaudhry, hundreds of Fijians flooded into parliament to support the coup. Those people, they believe, are now being rightfully punished. They also believe it was Bainimarama and the army that ended the crisis. What they overlook is that it was inaction by Bainimarama and his first coup - May 29, 2000, when he overthrew President Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara - that actually brought down Chaudhry. Bainimarama appointed Qarase and never restored Chaudhry. | | It used to be known as `the way the world should be' but Fiji is plunging back into its dark violent past. Today Indo-Fijians are performing mental gymnastics and see the events of this last week as pure revenge. They wondered where the hundreds of Fijians who backed Speight had disappeared too when Qarase needed them. Indo Fijians have a very narrow mostly derogatory view of rural Fijians; sadly Fijians simply fail to understand Indians. Indians are angry at the perceived corruption and racism in Qarase's Government. Forgotten is the same that was seen in the one-year-old Chaudhry administration. Indo Fijians are likely to feature prominently in Bainimarama's new administration. He has no passion for Indians - his army has only a handful - but they will serve him while the bulk of indigenous people are recoiling from the military. When the trouble comes Indo-Fijians will have, for reasons of misguided revenge, put themselves into harm's way. For Prime Minister Helen Clark and her Foreign Minister Winston Peters, Fiji is the tombstone of their foreign policy. It has not worked and just as Bainimarama is cleaning out his civil service, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs must now be a target for a sweeping review. This is a department that is pushing a tiny colony like Tokelau out of New Zealand, to join the likes of Tonga and Fiji which have become failed states. New vision is needed. Questions must be asked about the "Pacific Plan" which Clark and Australian Prime Minister John Howard foisted on the Pacific with music, poetry and flim-flam in 2002, after coups in the Solomons and Fiji. Veteran Australian diplomat Greg Urwin was put in to head the 16-nation Pacific Forum and the Pacific Plan became the main foreign policy plank. At the lavish headquarters on an estate down the road from the New Zealand High Commission's official residency, the Forum Headquarters are quiet now. Urwin is silent and the current Forum chairman, Qarase, is in internal exile. The Forum, founded in Wellington in 1971 and the author of a torrent of worthy words, has no credibility left in it. New Zealand's Pacific foreign policy is heading the same way. [Fairfax correspondent Michael Field has covered Fiji politics since 1976 and wrote Speight of Violence: Inside Fiji's 2000 Coup.] SOURCE - Sunday Star TimesCDNN Travel Alerts UK - Fiji Travel Warning: 2006-12-01AUSTRALIA - Fiji Travel Warning: 2006-11-26CDNN Special Report FIJI - Racism in ParadiseCDNN Related News FIJI - Commonwealth suspends Fiji after coupFIJI - Military coup likely to ruin Fiji's economyFIJI - Resorts 'dead empty'--all Fiji bookings cancelledFIJI - Here We Go Again: Fiji Coup #4FIJI - Coup leader declares state of emergencyFIJI - Military takes control of Fiji, PM 'dismissed'FIJI - Military coup under way: Fiji PM refuses to resignFIJI - Commander Coup: Fiji's fuse burns fastFIJI - Army disarms police, sets up roadblocksFIJI - Military likely to take over government tomorrowFIJI - UK warns tourists not to travel to FijiFIJI - Pacific island nation in chaos as rival leaders claim controlFIJI - Military commander Bainimarama 'deranged' and 'unstable' says PMFIJI - Suva quiet as deadline passesFIJI - Coup imminent: Fijians brace for high noonFIJI - Tourist cancellations surge amidst fear of Fiji military coupFIJI - Australia warns tourists not to travel to FijiFIJI - Trouble in paradise: Tourism meltdown leads to mass layoffs |
