A strange sort of coup in Fiji

A related phenomenon they needed to understand is called Backfire, in which repression can be calculated to rebound against the repressor in many ways.

This coup places pro-democracy activists in a severe dilemma. Many were as opposed to the Qarase Government's nationalist policies for Indigenous Fijian development, and its plans for qualified amnesty for 2,000 putsch plotters, as was Commodore Frank. They have rallied around the slogan, “It's the Principle - Just Peace and Democracy”, their support for the rule of law and the constitution navigating them through their dilemma of opposing both Qarase's policies and Bainimarama's coup.

Of course, some activists were threatened, a pro-democracy shrine set up at a house just west of Suva on the main road to Nadi was raided, apparently by soldiers in civilian dress, and some more vocal opponents of the coup have been detained, taken for verbal interrogation to the military HQ, and a purge is underway throughout the Fiji civil service to remove Qarase Government appointees. All the foregoing has been well reported by the Fiji media.

On Thursday lunchtime, December 14, a small group of pro-democracy activists met in inner city Suva's Sukuna Park, and walked up the hill to the Anglican Cathedral for a prayer vigil. Supporters were also lighting candles in their windows, wearing a blue ribbon - blue being the most prominent colour in Fiji's flag - and wearing black to symbolise the death of democracy. Soldiers were, apparently, nowhere to be seen as the activists conducted their protest.

Late last week, it emerged that the SDLV Party had been preparing for non-violent resistance to a coup as early as October, drawing up strategy documents for mass civil disobedience. The documents were leaked to the military, enabling them to prepare for such resistance, which has not eventuated.

In reaction to the coup, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer several times called on Fijians to passively resist the military, but did not suggest how they might do so effectively without getting themselves killed. Passive resistance is a long obsolete and completely inaccurate term to describe non-violent resistance. Local civil society activists were way ahead of him with their planning anyway.

But there have been no reports of the Australian High Commission, located on a hill about half way between Suva city and the military HQ in a northern suburb, handing out copies of The Anti-Coup Handbook, in line with the foreign minister's policy encouraging non-violent resistance to the coup. This would be helpful, as some Fiji NGOs cannot even afford to print the 72-page booklet.

The Bainimarama coup still has a long way to go, and its usurpation of legitimate power still needs considerable consolidation if it is not to go the way of the Rabuka coups, and contribute to an endemic coup culture in the country.

Much depends on how the peak Indigenous Fijian institution, the Great Council of Chiefs, itself seriously compromised by the events of 2000, responds to Commodore Frank's removal and internal exiling of Laisenea Qarase, whose SDLV Party attracted as much as 80 per cent of the Indigenous vote in the 2006 elections, his placing of the president and commander-in-chief, the ailing Ratu Josefa Ililo, under all but house arrest in Government House, and his removal of the universally respected vice-president, Commodore Frank's High Chief, the Roko Tui Bau, former jurist Ratu Joni Madraiwiwi, from office.

All in all, a very strange kind of coup going on in Fiji.