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2TCP 26.2 263-591 CS5-Rgb.Indd Political Reviews The Region in Review: International Issues and Events, 2013 nic maclellan Melanesia in Review: Issues and Events, 2013 david chappell, jon fraenkel, gordon leua nanau, howard van trease, muridan s widjojo The Contemporary Pacic, Volume 26, Number 2, 459–552 © 2014 by University of Hawai‘i Press 459 Melanesia in Review: Issues and Events, 2013 Papua New Guinea is not reviewed in mission chair, Professor Yash Ghai this issue. (see Fraenkel 2013). Although the six hundred copies were impounded, the document was soon leaked and freely Fiji available on the Internet (fcc 2012). The adoption of a new constitu- In January, President Ratu Epeli tion figured centrally in 2013, as Fiji Nailatikau denounced the fcc draft as geared up for elections scheduled threatening “financial and economic before the end of September 2014. catastrophe and ruin” (Nailatikau Seven years on from the December 2013). The commission, he said, had 2006 coup, many in Fiji had become “succumbed to the whims of the few habituated to life under the military who have an interest in perpetuating commander Voreqe Frank Bainima- divisions within our society.” These rama. Formerly prominent politicians were bizarre claims, inspired by the hoped to make a comeback at the regime’s discomfort with the ground- 2014 polls and often prepared for this swell of popular political engagement by reviving old alignments. There was occasioned by the fcc’s deliberations. no sign throughout the year of the The fcc had accommodated all coup leader’s own much-anticipated of Bainimarama’s “nonnegotiable” political party. Economic recovery demands, even endorsing—at least for continued, but many investors held those swearing an oath of allegiance— off, awaiting the outcome of the elec- the far-reaching immunity provisions tion. Bainimarama’s anti-Australian in its enabling decrees not only for Pacific diplomacy figured promi- perpetrators of the 2006 coup but also nently, but the stomach for continued for those responsible for the 1987 and squabbles with Fiji’s government was 2000 coups (fcc 2012, schedule 6, steadily waning in Canberra. In Sep- section 27; Fiji Government 2012a, tember, an election in Australia ended 2012b; Fiji Government 1990, chap- the Rudd-Gillard Labor Government ter 14). Its core fault was that it had and brought to office the Liberal- offered a political settlement that was National Coalition under Tony Abbott palatable to those still, more or less with Julie Bishop as foreign minister publicly, opposed to the regime. This committed to “normalizing” relations was an affront to a government that with Fiji. was depicting its origins as a glorious The year commenced with the social revolution rather than as a mili- ditching and attempted suppression tary coup aimed at ousting Bainima- of the interim government’s own Fiji rama’s archenemy, the former Prime Constitutional Commission (fcc) Minister Laisenia Qarase. The military report, the shredded proofs of which commander’s close ally, Land Force were burned by police officers in the Commander Colonel Mosese Tikoi- presence of a visibly distraught com- toga, accused Ghai of “falling in with 476 political reviews • melanesia 477 the wrong crowd,” claimed that the Despite this major disruption to law professor’s attempts to distribute the Fiji government’s own roadmap the fcc draft were illegal, and said toward an election, there were signs that the Ghai constitution would have of an approaching accommoda- entailed a catastrophic return to the tion between Canberra and Suva. pre-coup order (Fiji Sun, 5 Jan 2013). Echoing Fiji’s president, Australian For Tikoitoga, who was to become Foreign Minister Bob Carr caused Fiji’s new military commander in some consternation within his own early 2014, it was the army’s nation- ministry and across the Tasman when saving experience on United Nations he expressed sympathy for the Fiji (UN) peacekeeping missions that was government’s ditching of plans for a the inspiration for what he saw as its “largely unelected national people’s heroic role within Fiji (The Australian, assembly” and for the “re-creation of 2 April 2013), and nothing could be an unelected Great Council of Chiefs” allowed to turn back the clock. (abc, 14 Jan 2013). In fact, both bod- One of the locally based constitu- ies would have had few powers under tional commissioners, women’s rights the fcc’s proposed arrangements activist Peni Moore—once an enthusi- other than selecting a largely ceremo- ast for the Bainimarama reform proj- nial president. Although accompanied ect (see McGeough 2009)—expressed by much rhetoric about doing away bewilderment at the rejection of the with ethno-nationalist traditional fcc report (Fiji Times, 22 Jan 2013). rulers, Bainimarama’s disbanding of Attorney General Aiyaz Sayed-Khai- the Great Council of Chiefs was better yum said that “it would be highly identified as just one among many discourteous for anyone to comment postcoup steps to remove or assume on or preempt the statement made by control over organs of popular or his excellency to the people of Fiji” communal representation, including (Fiji Times, 22 Jan 2013). President also the municipal authorities, the Nailatikau had reserved particular provincial councils, and the Sugar opprobrium for Ghai’s plans for a Cane Growers’ Council. In any case, 144-member National People’s Assem- both provisions might easily have been bly (including civil society appointees amended by the scheduled constituent and representatives from the Great assembly. Council of Chiefs and tasked with ini- In contrast, New Zealand Foreign tiating a national dialogue and electing Minister Murray McCully reacted in the head of state), which he described horror at the wastage of his country’s as “anathema to democratic represen- aid money entailed by the ditching of tation.” He also disliked provisions the fcc report (abc, 11 Jan 2013). for a “transitional cabinet,” which he According to one of the Fiji-focused claimed would empower “corrupt” Weblogs, PricewaterhouseCoopers’ and often “incompetent” civil servants audited accounts indicated that, of the (Nailatikau 2013). Like his predeces- f$1.6 million used by the fcc, New sor Ratu Josefa Iloilo, the president Zealand had provided f$582,510 was obviously dancing to a heavily (36.4 percent), Australia f$601,772 scripted tune. (37.6 percent), and the European 478 the contemporary pacific • 26:2 (2014) Union f$248,054 (15.5 percent), 2013a). Yet the weeks rolled by, and with the remainder coming from the self-imposed deadlines slipped. In British High Commission (f$108,330) the meantime, the government issued and the American Bar Association a decree requiring Fiji’s established (f$59,648) (Coup Four Point Five, political parties to register within 18 Dec 2013; f$1.00 is equivalent to twenty-eight days, with party names us$0.54). No funding had come from to be in English and each party to the Fiji government, although Yash collect 5,000 signatures (2,000 in the Ghai’s team had been allowed to use Central Division, 1,750 in the Western the otherwise empty parliamentary Division, 1,000 in the Northern Divi- complex at Veiuto. sion, and 250 in the Eastern Division) There were also other reasons for (Fiji Government 2013f). In a Febru- weak Fiji government commitment ary amendment, trade unionists were to the fcc process. The Ghai draft disqualified from holding office, par- created the possibility of revival of ties were forbidden from complying by court proceedings to seek redress for changing names but retaining the same past injustices (fcc 2012, schedule acronym, and media organizations 6, section 24), potentially opening were threatened with f$50,000 fines the door to action by disgruntled or five-year prison terms for depict- pensioners angered by reforms to the ing non-registered groups as “parties” Fiji National Provident Fund. Criti- (Fiji Government 2013e). cally, the “transitional arrangements” The new rules drew protest from would have entailed Bainimarama and both the politicians and overseas his cabinet colleagues relinquishing lawyers about breaches of human power ahead of the 2014 elections to rights and International Labour Orga- a “caretaker cabinet” comprising a nization Convention rules (rnzi, 22 maximum of fifteen “former senior Feb 2013). In the Australian Senate, public officers” recommended by a Foreign Minister Carr rejected sugges- “Transitional Advisory Council” (fcc tions that his government had “gone 2012, schedule 6, section 10 [5], sec- soft” on Fiji and justified continu- tion 17 [3]). This the government was ing travel bans on military officers manifestly unwilling to do. Indeed, as and interim government ministers by the year elapsed, it became ever clearer referring to Fiji’s draconian political that the scheduled election was not party regulations (Carr 2013b). Fiji’s intended to permit the ouster of the established political organizations Bainimarama/Sayed-Khaiyum govern- eventually complied with the new ment but rather to supply it with the decrees, but the interim government oxygen of popular legitimacy. suggested that they had collected In a January address to the nation, fraudulent signatures. The new rules Bainimarama promised a new draft most obviously targeted the deposed constitution by the end of the month Prime Minister Qarase’s Soqosoqo and said that the scheduled Con- Duavata ni Lewenivanua (sdl), which stituent Assembly would gather in in response initially changed its name February, with the constitution to to the Social Democratic Liberal Party be finalized in April (Bainimarama so as to conform with the requirement political reviews • melanesia 479 for an English rather than Fijian name On 21 March, a new deadline of while retaining the publicly well- 5 April was announced for public known acronym sdl (rnzi, 28 Jan submissions, only two weeks away. 2013). After the second decree forbid- After protests, the deadline was ding continued use of earlier initials, extended.
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