The re-Mara-isation of Fiji

While most media attention on Fiji in January focused on former Labour Party Prime Minister, Mahendra Chaudhry, being appointed interim Finance Minister, a post he held in the Bavadra Government ousted by Rabuka's first coup in 1987, and then ousted as Prime Minister by Speight's gang in May, 2000, for those who can read the signs, the recent appointment of Ratu Epeli Nailatikau as interim Foreign Minister and Ratu Epeli Ganilau as interim Fijian Affairs Minister in the Bainimarama-led interim government was a clear signal that a major part of Commodore Frank's agenda is something of a return to the ideals propounded by the “founding father” of post-independence Fiji, the late Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara.

In essence, Ratu 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 Ratu Mara supported, and which was a significant improvement on the earlier, racist, 1990 Constitution, would ensure this occurred. To be sure, Ratu Mara also fully recognised that politics is the art of compromise, and his vision of “the Pacific Way”, informed by Island practices such as Talanoa, idealised an Islander process whereby decisions would be arrived at through, sometimes protracted, consensus.

Of course, Ratu Mara was also a patrician autocrat. The High Chief of the indigenous Fijian confederacy of Lau, based on the islands to the east of Fiji's main islands, a Tongan prince thanks to traditional and familial ties between the Tongan nobility and Fijian royalty, and a product of British colonial grooming of local elites, about the only unusual facet to Ratu Mara and his family was that they were Catholics rather than Methodists. In his dual traditional and modern roles, and given his enormous contributions to Fiji, and indeed the Pacific Region and beyond, during the decolonisation process, Ratu Mara was accustomed to obedience and deference such was his towering mana (status).

In many respects, the humiliating removal of Ratu Mara, then Fiji's President, by Commodore Frank at the end of May, 2000, amounted to a more significant coup than the Speight-fronted putsch earlier that month. After heated meetings, the details of which have only partly been made public, Ratu Mara and his immediate family were bundled on to a Fiji Navy vessel in the dead of night and ignominiously shipped home to Lakeba in the Lau islands, his long career in ruins.

On the face of it, removing Ratu Mara was Commodore Frank's attempt at unblocking the catastrophic failure of Fijian governance caused by the Great Council of Chiefs' apparent refusal to decisively condemn the Speight putsch, not the least because several high chiefs, actively supported, if not Speight's gang, then the espoused agenda for Fijian paramountancy Speight was supposedly promoting.

The Mara coup was also the result of continuing rivalries between competing Fijian confederacies which pre-date British colonisation of the islands in the 1870s. Ratu Mara, an easterner Lauan, was opposed by Buan and Cakaudrove forces centred on Vanua Levu with significant influence in parts of Viti Levu.

Ratu Epeli Nailatikau, a son in law of Ratu Mara, was Fiji military commander when Colonel Sitiveni Rabuka pulled the country's first coup in May, 1987, and was subsequently removed from his post in the military. He was later Fiji's High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, then a roving ambassador for Fiji, Speaker of Fiji's Parliament between 2001 and 2006, and the UNAIDS Special Ambassador for the Pacific.

After the ousted Vice-President, the universally respected Ratu Joni Madraiwiwi, Ratu Epeli is probably the other most generally respected Fijian High Chief.

New Australian High Commissioner to Fiji, James Batley, recently Special Commissioner to the Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands (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 Ratu Epeli Nailatikau.

For as long as I have had a serious grip on Fijian issues, and as a Queensland journalist who helped report on the demise of the Bjelke-Petersen regime and the Fitzgerald Inquiry, I have argued that Fiji needs a Fitzgerald-style inquiry to deal with endemic corruption and decisively institute far better governance.

Post-Fitzgerald Queensland had an Electoral and Administrative Review Commission (EARC) which unravelled the state's notorious gerrymander, and has a permanent corruption investigative commission, now called the Crime and Misconduct Commission (CMC), similar to ICAC in New South Wales.

During 2006, former Police Commissioner Andrew Hughes, who, as a senior AFP officer would well recall the Fitzgerald Inquiry and similar investigations into police and official corruption here, occasionally opined along these lines: Fiji needs a major “clean out” of corruption.

Problems for Fiji with this scenario are its small population - three-quarters that of metropolitan Brisbane - it’s significantly smaller and far more vulnerable economy, its uneven governance infrastructure, and a severe talent dearth. Not because Fiji doesn't have suitably qualified lawyers and investigators; there aren't enough to go around normal lawyerly activities and properly staff 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. Commissioner Hughes also occasionally gave voice to his frustration at Fiji's “cones of silence”.

Only Ratu Joni Madraiwiwi, the ousted vice-president, has the necessary combination of traditional mana and modern legal expertise to head a Fijian Commission of Inquiry: it must be headed by an impeccable Fijian and a bunch of excoriating investigative lawyers and incorruptible police, like Fitzgerald's indomitable “Untouchables”, is needed to staff the thing. (I developed these arguments in my second Web Diary piece in mid-December, 2006.)

In January, Commodore Frank asked for Australian and New Zealand assistance with investigating alleged corruption in the Qarase Government, and conducting a long delayed census (which hasn't occurred since 1996) preparatory 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 helping Fiji as requested by Commodore Frank, 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 DFAT spokesperson told ABC News, later reported by PacNews.

Commodore Frank 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 Mr Ridgeway's investigations were getting too close to charging the financiers of the Speight-fronted putsch, and other miscreants with close links to the Qarase Government. Mr Ridgeway did not dismiss the recall suggestion outright, but told ABC Radio's AM a proper authority would need to be in place to give him the needed powers to return to his work.

Ratu Epeli Ganilau, appointed to the crucial Fijian Affairs portfolio, is Ratu Epeli Nailatikau's brother in law, son of former President, the late Sir Penaia Ganilau, also military commander between 1992 and 1999, recommended Commodore Frank 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 more extreme nationalist policies being pursued by the Qarase Government.

He's also the leader of Ratu Mara's old political party, the National Alliance. Ratu Epeli Ganilau's removal won the Qarase Government few points, even among its more nationalist supporters. As Fijian Affairs Minister, Ratu Epeli at least has the credibility to be taken seriously as he grapples with certainly Fiji's most difficult issue - land.

The other announced new interim government ministers are spread across ethnic and political groupings, and as of this writing, no serious criticisms have been mounted against the appointees, except in Fiji's blogsphere, and for the circumstances which led to their appointment subsequent to a coup. They certainly don't 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 constitutionally-legitimated Fiji Human Rights Commission's Director, Dr Shaista Shameem, released her controversial analysis of the Bainimarama coup, basically arguing the two Qarase Governments, elected in the 2001 and 2006, were illegal and that, to protect Fiji from the extreme policies of the Qarase Government, the military had the constitutional responsibility to act. Needless to say, Dr Shameem was roundly criticised from several quarters, including by several leading lawyers and NGOs. It was a pity her 32-page paper was not heavily annotated and footnoted (PDF via Fijivillage.com).

Some wry amusement came when Peter Foster reappeared, with videos secretly shot, of SDL party officials apparently explaining how they rorted the 2006 election in some key Suva electorates. The military promptly fed the videos to Fiji TV and beyond. If Forster thought his efforts for the military would get him out of court on immigration and fraud charges, he was mistaken, and now appears to have done another flit.

Also recently, the Great Council of Chiefs, after typical vacillation and indecision, finally announced its support for the Bainimarama coup, after executive authority was returned to the President, Ratu Josefa Ililo, and Commodore Frank took on the interim prime ministership. The GCC was later last week joined by the influential Methodist Church, and by the Catholic Church, both urging their members to pray for the interim government, while remaining opposed to the coup in principle.

Meanwhile, 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 roughing up; some have been prevented from leaving Fiji; a small group of pro-democracy activists continue their Thursday lunchtime vigils at Suva's Anglican Cathedral; and Britain and New Zealand have relaxed their travel warnings somewhat. Australia's remain strongly in place, particularly for Suva, along with travel bans on the Fiji military and interim government officials, and the pragmatic as always business sector, particularly tourism operators, are quickly accommodating themselves to the new Fijian order. Oh, and Suva's water and electricity problems continue as if nothing has happened.

The coup's still in progress, as USP political sociologist, Dr Steven Ratuva, wrote in the Fiji Times a few weeks ago, and its consolidation and then governance transformation stages could take several years to run their courses.

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, Commodore Bainamarama's coup appears to be proceeding along rather promising lines.