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Policy Overboard: Australia's Increasingly Costly Fiji Drift

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Policy Overboard: Australia's Increasingly Costly Fiji Drift POLICY BRIEF May 2011 Policy Overboard: JENNY HAYWARD-JONES Australia’s Increasingly Program Director The Myer Foundation Melanesia Costly Fiji Drift Program Tel: +61 2 8238 9037 [email protected] W h a t i s t h e p r o b l e m ? Australia’s tough-love policy towards Fiji has failed to persuade the government of Voreqe Bainimarama to restore democracy to Fiji and may even be helping to entrench his regime. The Fiji government, resistant to external pressure, has instead developed new allegiances and partnerships which undermine Australia’s influence. Australia’s reputation as a major power in the South Pacific and as a creative middle power more broadly may be diminished by the Fiji government’s continued intransigence. Over time the Fiji people’s once-strong connections with Australia may dwindle and Australia’s relevance to Fiji gradually diminish unless the Australian government takes decisive action now. W h a t s h o u l d b e d o n e ? Canberra needs to redefine its relationship with Fiji to focus more sharply on protecting Australia’s long-term equities there and on supporting democracy rather than on increasingly hollow demands for early elections. The Australian government should build and lead a new coalition with traditional and non-traditional partners which works with Fiji to develop a package of assistance for electoral and constitutional reform. To support this effort, Australia should also offer a range of confidence-building measures to prepare the ground for Australia to assist Fiji’s transition to democracy. The Foreign Minister should foster support for this new approach in the region and LOWY INSTITUTE FOR INTERNATIONAL POLICY with other key international partners. In doing so one objective should 31 Bligh Street be to put the onus for action back on the Fiji government, where it Sydney NSW 2000 properly belongs. Tel: +61 2 8238 9000 Fax: +61 2 8238 9005 www.lowyinstitute.org The Lowy Institute for International Policy is an independent international policy think tank. Its mandate ranges across all the dimensions of international policy debate in Australia — economic, political and strategic — and it is not limited to a particular geographic region. Its two core tasks are to: • produce distinctive research and fresh policy options for Australia’s international policy and to contribute to the wider international debate. • promote discussion of Australia’s role in the world by providing an accessible and high- quality forum for discussion of Australian international relations through debates, seminars, lectures, dialogues and conferences. Lowy Institute Policy Briefs are designed to address a particular, current policy issue and to suggest solutions. They are deliberately prescriptive, specifically addressing two questions: What is the problem? What should be done? The views expressed in this paper are entirely the author’s own and not those of the Lowy Institute for International Policy. Policy Brief Policy Overboard The current Australian approach Canberra’s response to the coup – then and now – is designed to persuade the Fiji Almost four and a half years after the government to hold elections, protect the Fiji December 2006 coup, Australian policy people and restore democracy to the country. towards Fiji is virtually unchanged. Three Australian Prime Ministers have so far failed to The rhetoric of the Australian government in persuade Voreqe Bainimarama to hold condemning Fiji is generally stronger in tone elections. Targeted travel sanctions imposed by than that it adopts in statements about many the Howard government at the time of the coup other undemocratic states because Fiji, unlike remain in place. An arms embargo and other non-democracies, is squarely within suspension of defence cooperation prevail. Australia’s sphere of influence. Australia is Ministerial contact with the Fiji government is Fiji’s most important economic partner, the suspended. Diplomatic contacts are limited. biggest investor in Fiji, second-biggest merchandise trading partner, the largest source Australia champions the continued suspension of tourists and home to approximately 50,000 of Fiji from the Pacific Islands Forum and from Fiji-born people. Its relative influence there the Commonwealth – including through gives Australia the capacity – at least in theory Australia’s membership of the Commonwealth – to respond to Fiji differently from the way it Ministerial Action Group.1 Australia has not approaches other authoritarian countries like resiled from its advocacy at the United Nations China or North Korea. to prevent Fiji participating in new UN peacekeeping missions. Prospects for change The Howard government’s response to the coup in Fiji in December 2006 was measured. Not unreasonably, given the many From the traditional international options objectionable aspects of Bainimarama’s rule, available in response to illegal overthrows of the prevailing view in Canberra has been that elected governments, Australia chose a Australian policy should not be altered absent a relatively mild one. Canberra could have significant gesture from the Fiji government. imposed an embargo on Fiji akin to that imposed by the United States on Cuba in 1960. A trilateral meeting between then Foreign It could have launched a military response to Minister Stephen Smith, New Zealand Foreign restore the elected government, imposed full Minister Murray McCully and Fiji Foreign economic and trade sanctions and sporting Minister Ratu Inoke Kubuabola in February sanctions, frozen assets of Fiji citizens in 2010 did not result in any significant changes Australia or penalised Australian businesses in Fiji. Smith’s stated willingness to ‘have a dealing with Fiji and Australian tourists dialogue’2 was later rebuffed by Kubuabola travelling to Fiji. It chose none of these during the Australian election campaign, when options, as it did not want to punish the people he inferred that Smith had not been ‘genuine’ of Fiji (or Australian business) for an act not of about wanting to help Fiji.3 their own making. Page 3 Policy Brief Policy Overboard Australian Parliamentary Secretary for Pacific would be understandable if Mr Rudd, having Island Affairs Richard Marles participated in supported the democratic push in North Africa, the Pacific Islands Forum Ministerial Contact were loathe to authorise any shift in Australian Group (MCG) on Fiji meeting in Vanuatu in policy towards Fiji that might signal the February 2011. Ministers confirmed the democracy he thought so important in a region Forum’s interest in supporting Fiji’s early far from Australia did not matter as much for return to parliamentary democracy and Fiji. ‘encouraged Fiji to engage Forum members in a detailed dialogue on the types of assistance In a recent interview, Mr Rudd said there was required to enable it to move forward on its ‘often a tendency in parts of the region for the plans as quickly as possible’ and the Fiji question to be put in terms of what should Foreign Minister said Fiji was willing to invite Australian and New Zealand diplomacy be the MCG to visit Fiji in the near future.4 This doing’, which bought into ‘a Bainimarama kind of exchange with Fiji was not new and has assumption that the problem lies with the rest yet to translate from formulaic rhetoric into of us rather than with the Bainimarama practical action in Suva. regime.’7 The generally antagonistic rhetoric of the Fiji The Foreign Minister is correct, and his government– including most recently a strong frustration that others are held responsible for statement from Fiji’s Foreign Minister, Ratu the present impasse is justified. Australia and Inoke Kubuabola, reiterating that elections New Zealand did not create the situation in would be held in 2014 and not before 5 – Fiji. The problems now facing Fiji’s economy, suggests there is little prospect of any the lack of any concrete plans for a new significant gesture from Suva before 2014. The constitution or a democratic future, the absence Fiji government is focused on implementing a of freedom of speech, and reported rise in series of economic reforms and it is not yet human rights abuses are all the work of ‘ready’ for discussions about elections. Bainimarama and his unelected government. The Australian Government’s proper Ultimately, however, Australia’s reluctance to commitment to democratic values, both in its see the Fiji people suffer has strengthened rhetoric and in substance, constrains its options Bainimarama’s hand. In the absence of broader in respect of Fiji. Rudd has said Australia is economic sanctions, Australian businesses ‘not in the business of legitimising what has which continue operating in Fiji in the face of been a very ugly military coup.’6 some challenges and the 318,000 Australians who visited Fiji in 2010 (over 50 per cent of Consistency is always an important total visitor arrivals) have thrown Fiji a vital consideration. Australia has an activist Foreign lifeline.8 Minister in Kevin Rudd who has championed democratic movements in Egypt and Tunisia Outside Fiji, frustration amongst people with and who was prominent in calling for the no- an interest in the bilateral relationship is more fly zone in Libya to protect rebels there. It readily vented on Canberra than on Suva. It is Page 4 Policy Brief Policy Overboard relatively easy for Australian citizens with Pacific and, as part of that enhanced attention, interests in Fiji to complain to officials in indicated the US would Canberra. The worst that can happen to them is that they will be ignored. ‘...seek more direct engagement with Prime Minister Bainimarama to encourage his In Fiji – in an environment where critics of the government to take steps to restore government have been taken to military democracy and freedom that would allow barracks for questioning or had their business movement toward normalization of Fiji’s examined by the government – attempting to relations with other countries in the region.
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