Political Reviews
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Political Reviews The Region in Review: International Issues and Events, 2016 nic maclellan Melanesia in Review: Issues and Events, 2016 alumita l durutalo, budi hernawan, gordon leua nanau, howard van trease The Contemporary Pacic, Volume 29, Number 2, 321–373 © 2017 by University of Hawai‘i Press 321 Melanesia in Review: Issues and Events, 2016 New Caledonia, Papua New Guinea, regulating where people live and the and Timor-Leste are not reviewed in types of structures people occupy in this issue. these areas. This is partly a legacy of the colonial practice of “indirect Fiji rule,” whereby Fijian chiefs ruled Fiji’s vulnerability to climate change their people on behalf of the colonial was tested throughout 2016 with administrators. Villagers were not cyclones, the most powerful being really taught to develop their resources Severe Tropical Cyclone Winston on for economic benefit but rather 20 January 2016. Winston was the continued to live subsistence or semi- strongest cyclone ever recorded in subsistence lifestyles. This arrange- the history of Fiji or the South Pacific ment was still very much the same in Basin. This category five cyclone left 2016, but with some changes in the forty-four people dead and at least administrative system. Village bylaws thirty-five thousand people homeless did not include strict housing regula- in Fiji (Fiji Sun Online 2016; Thack- tions. Those who have money to do so ray 2016). can build safe houses; others can only Recovery efforts have been slow. afford very basic shelters. At the beginning of 2017, almost a Nonindigenous and indigenous year after Winston, tents were still Fijians who wanted to live closer to being used in parts of Fiji for hous- urban areas but cannot afford to pay ing and for schools. The devastation rent have ended up in squatter settle- has added not only to the Fiji govern- ments around the peripheries. Housing ment’s ongoing financial burdens but in these areas often does not adhere to also to its long-term responsibilities to any government-approved standard mitigate the impacts of climate change (see Fiji Government 2011). However, in the country. Recently, changing increasing climate change–related weather patterns have produced new emergencies such as cyclones and problems in Fiji requiring urgent flooding have amplified the govern- solutions. For instance, after Winston ment’s responsibility to implement destroyed so many buildings and new building standards to safeguard homes, it was realized that most were people from the devastating impacts of structurally weak and unable to with- natural disasters. stand such mega-storms. While the Fiji government has been From the colonial period on, a active in its attempt to help people significant percentage of Fiji’s popu- to rebuild, perhaps the main chal- lation has remained in rural villages lenge for its Climate Change Unit is or, increasingly, on the peripher- to ensure that these new structures are ies of urban centers. But also since able to withstand drastic cyclones and the colonial period, governments flooding. The Climate Change Unit have had very little involvement in has already relocated some villages 341 342 the contemporary pacific • 29:2 (2017) due to the direct impact of climate seventy-seven thousand people with change in some areas in Fiji (Chandra emergency needs. Besides rebuilding 2015). some of the schools destroyed by the Another challenge, evolving since storm, Fiji Red Cross has also “pro- 1987, is linked with Fiji’s political vided communities with clean water, economy and stalled development emotional support to help people issues due to recurring coups. Four process the trauma of the emergency coups in the small island state have and its aftermath, [and] information had ongoing and long-term socio- on health risks” (ifrc 2017). political and economic impacts on the A major contribution by Fiji Red government’s priorities. Each post- Cross, in partnership with the Inter- coup military government, from 1987 national Federation of Red Cross to 2006, has been concerned less with and Red Crescent Societies (ifrc), looking after people than with finan- has been the rebuilding “safer and cially securing military rule through stronger homes that are more resis- such policies as increasing the military tant to future cyclones.” As explained budget (Durutalo 2016, 106). Devel- by Filipe Nainoca, director of Fiji opment gaps exposed after the cyclone Red Cross: “Through our Build Back were partially filled by aid donors. Safer programme we design and After Tropical Cyclone Winston, build demonstration houses that are Fiji received initial international built to withstand severe storms. We contributions for rebuilding from have also trained more than 60 local New Zealand and Australia. Despite carpenters who have taken their skills her tough stand against these two back to their villages” (ifrc 2017). neighbors following the 2006 military Red Cross rebuilding efforts in Fiji coup, Fiji readily accepted their aid are quite advanced in local com- packages, which included military munities, not only teaching people personnel to help with the rebuilding. how to build stronger homes but also Additional assistance poured into Fiji how to safeguard freshwater springs from the international community from contamination. Red Cross including France, India, Japan, the Cyclone Winston recovery efforts in People’s Republic of China, the United Fiji will continue through May 2017 States, and regional countries such as (ifrc 2017). French Polynesia, Tonga, and Nauru. In January 2016, prior to the Assistance was also received from arrival of Winston in the Fiji group, international financial institutions Moscow’s export to the Fiji military like the Asian Development Bank and forces had already arrived at Suva’s international humanitarian organiza- Kings Wharf. The export reflected tions like the Red Cross (Fiji Govern- Fiji’s new (post–2006 military coup) ment 2016). foreign policy focus on “looking to The Red Cross has been particu- Moscow.” The load of twenty-five larly active in helping Fiji to rebuild, sealed containers that were taken to despite a shortage of builders and the Queen Elizabeth Army Barracks building materials. One year after in Nabua under heavy military guard Winston, Fiji Red Cross has helped was described by the Fiji govern- political reviews • melanesia 343 ment newspaper, the Fiji Sun, as an high-ranking military officer, was “Arms Boost from Russia” (Bolatiki appointed as police commissioner. 2016). The containers held “Russian After the 2000 and the 2006 military weapons, ammunition and vehicles” coups, other army officers became (The Economist 2016), which were to diplomats and police commission- be used by Fijian soldiers on inter- ers. Sitiveni Qiliho, former Land national peacekeeping duties in the Force commander in the Fiji Military Sinai desert in Egypt and in the Golan Forces (who was also linked with Heights, near the Israel and Syrian army brutality after the 2006 coup), borders. is the current police commissioner. He This deal was brokered in 2013 replaced Fiji’s former commissioner of between Fiji Prime Minister Voreqe police, Ben Groenewald, who resigned Bainimarama and Russian Prime after alleging military intervention in Minister Dmitry Medvedev and came police work. Groenewald completed into clear view in 2014 when Fiji an investigation into the beating of abstained from voting against Russia several prison escapees by police in the United Nations on Russia’s officers. Three of the police officers bid to annex Crimea (The Economist who were charged in the beating were 2016). This is the usual price paid for subsequently recruited to join the political favors or aid by small, vulner- army (abc News 2015). able Island states that have nothing to Fiji’s ongoing attempts to revali- offer their big rich friends but votes in date and reinterpret the rule of law the United Nations. to suit certain agenda pose a chal- Reacting to the “Russian delivery,” lenge to the legal system. Two written Opposition members of Parliament constitutions—the 1990 one after claimed that the Russian military Sitiveni Rabuka’s 1987 coup and the weapons had entered Fiji illegally, 2013 version after Bainimarama’s without proper authorization by 2006 coup—included “Immunity the police. Additionally, some even Decrees” pardoning all those who claimed that arms were bought for the took part in the military coups and purpose of “threatening the opposi- the illegal overthrow of two elected tion” (The Economist 2016). governments (see Constitution of the Between 1987 and 2016, suppress- Sovereign Democratic Republic of Fiji ing opposition to government has been 1990, chapter 14; Constitution of the more conspicuous and the militariza- Republic of Fiji 2013, chapter 10). tion of the state more pronounced. Between June and September 2016, Military control of police and other two Opposition members of Parlia- institutions of the state has been ongo- ment—Tupou Draunidalo from the ing since the 1987 military coups and National Federation Party (nfp) and includes the appointment of army offi- Ratu Isoa Tikoca from the Social cers to serve as diplomats in overseas Democratic Liberal Party (sodelpa)— missions, in senior civil service posi- were suspended indefinitely from tions, and as police commissioners. Fiji’s Parliament (rnz 2016a, 2016e). For instance, in 1992, after serv- They joined another Opposition ing as a diplomat, Isikia Savua, a member of Parliament, Ratu Naiqama 344 the contemporary pacific • 29:2 (2017) Lalabalavu, also from sodelpa, who prior to the interrogations, they had been suspended in 2015 for two were part of a group that attended years (rnz 2015a). The decision by a public forum organized by Pacific the Inter-Parliamentary Union (ipu) to Dialogue on Fiji’s 2013 Constitu- lift the two more recent suspensions tion (abc News 2016). Despite the was ignored by the Fiji government fact that the group was later released (rnz 2016b). The nfp’s Draunidalo without any charges, their case files has since resigned from Parliament.