The Strange Career of Commodore Frank Bainimarama's 2006 Fiji Coup

The Strange Career of Commodore Frank Bainimarama’s 2006 Fiji Coup BRIJ V. LAL SSGM DISCUSSION PAPER 2013/8 Five December 2006 may well go down in the Crown colony. The policies that the colonial gov- annals of modern Fijian history as the date when ernment enunciated at the time had the overall the country dramatically changed course — a turn- effect of creating a racially segregated society in ing point when the country finally turned. What which each of the three principal ethnic groups the future holds for that ill-fated island nation state — the Fijians, the Indo-Fijians and the Europe- is not at all clear, nor likely to be for some time, ans — had their own distinctive understandings of but it is now surely beyond dispute that the 20th their place in the larger scheme of things. Fijians century, with its assumptions and understandings assumed, or were encouraged to assume, that in about the nature and structure of Fiji’s political the governance of the colony their interests would culture, effectively ended not in 2000, but in 2006 remain paramount. Indo-Fijians, invoking promises when Commodore Bainimarama executed his mili- made by both the imperial and the colonial govern- tary coup. The break with the past is decisive and ments, sought parity with other groups. And the irreversible. An improbable coup has largely suc- Europeans claimed privilege on account of their ceeded in destroying the foundations of the old preponderant contribution to the colonial economy order, and a new one is promised to ‘take the coun- and ethnic and cultural affinity with the ruling elite. try forward’. That promise for now remains just The position hardened as independence approached that: a promise. Everyone accepts that a race-based in the 1960s, with the threat of violence made peri- electoral system is counterproductive for a multi- odically to maintain the racially segregated order. ethnic democratic society, that gender inequality The essential features of that order were is indefensible, that all citizens should have equal entrenched in the Independence Constitution rights, that citizenship should be race neutral. of 1970 by the political leaders of the three Change in a society, as in any living organism, is communities. They were never put to referendum inevitable, constant, though it is more easily assert- or even an election but adopted after a feel-good ed than effected. But the larger question is change debate in the House of Representatives (Lal 2006). for what purpose? To what end, at what pace, on Fiji had a mix of racial and cross-racial seats whose whose terms, under what conditions, through what logic dictated an appeal for unity in one’s own means, at what price? This is the conundrum at the community and fragmentation in the opposition’s heart of the current political debate in Fiji. I will sufficient to form government. Fijian victory would not attempt to answer these questions here. My be assured if Fijians remained politically united purpose is not to speculate about what Fiji’s future with the support of an over-represented European might look like under Bainimarama, but to under- group, which the fear of ‘Indian dominance’ stand the constellation of forces that served to con- ensured. For a while, the formula worked. The solidate the Commodore’s coup. This, I hope, may mood in the immediate post-independence period provide us with some pointers for the future. was celebratory. Fiji was a ‘symbol of hope to the world’, Pope John Paul II had intoned Origins of the Crisis during a fleeting visit in 1986, which The roots of Fiji’s political turbulence in the late eventually morphed into the national 20th century reach back to the origins of its mod- slogan ‘Fiji: The Way the World ern history in 1874, when Fiji became a British Should Be’. State, Society & Governance in Melanesia ips.cap.anu.edu.au/ssgm Brij V. Lal In truth, things were not as rosy. None of the (GCC) to demand Fijian control of government. underlying problems about the nature of power- They came to the fore in May 1987 when a demo- sharing among the different communities, the cratically elected Labour Coalition government kind of political culture Fiji needed to have for its was ousted in a military coup with the quiet sup- multiethnic population, whether a racial electoral port of the luminaries of the Fijian establishment. system should continue, or the terms and condi- They were present in the 1990 constitution, which tions of leasing agricultural land, were resolved, put political power back in the hands of the Fiji- but brushed aside by a government entrenched in ans. They were present on the sullen faces of many power and likely to remain so for a long time (Lal nationalist-leaning Fijian parliamentarians who 1992). The logic of racial politics inevitably dic- voted for the 1997 constitution and then promptly tated the political process. In time, unsurprisingly, orchestrated campaign against it. And they were every issue of public policy, whether affirmative there in 2000 when George Speight attempted his action in the allocation of tertiary scholarships, improbable putsch, which deposed another Labour appointments to or promotion in the civil service, Coalition government. Throughout the 1990s, as in diplomatic postings, and the deployment of in the 1960s, the battle lines were drawn between development aid, came to be viewed through the those who wanted the political architecture of Fiji prism of ethnic interests. Fijians demanded a big- to reflect indigenous concerns and aspirations ger share of government largesse on the supposed entrenched in the constitution, and those who grounds of being the more disadvantaged com- favoured a more democratic, inclusionary model of munity, while the Indo-Fijians asked for a fairer non-racial polity. Fiji was revisiting the unresolved share of state resources based on need rather than debates of the earlier decades. Commodore Baini- ethnicity. By the late 1970s and early 1980s, the two marama promises finally to close the door on the ethnic groups were not as homogenous as they had obsessive and enormously counterproductive racial been portrayed to be, divided by class and regional politics of the past. interests. Disadvantage stalked Fijian and Indo-Fiji- The Transformation Scene an communities in roughly equal measure. Public perceptions and policies were markedly at variance Fiji on the eve of the 2006 coup was a very different with the reality on the ground. place to what it had been in 1987. The changes had Race was only one of the facts of life, not the a direct bearing on the fate of the Bainimarama fact of life as the leading politicians of the day pro- coup. Among the factors that changed the funda- claimed from the self-created safety of their ethnic mental character of the broader Fiji society was compartments. But racial politics became the order the demographic transformation in the country. of the day, with Fijians determined not to relin- In 1987, Indo-Fijians were around 49 per cent of quish or even equitably share power. Tension sim- the total population, but since then the percentage mered beneath the surface, threatening to erupt at has declined substantially because of a continuing election times. The signs of imminent rupture were lower birth rate and increased emigration. Now, visible throughout the 1970s and 1980s (Lal 1992). they are around 33 per cent of the population, and They were there when Sakiasi Butadroka launched declining. Any Indo-Fijian who can leave will leave. his ‘Fiji for Fijians’ Fijian Nationalist Party with its That is the incontrovertible truth about contempo- platform to deport all Fiji Indians to India. They rary Fiji. Indigenous Fijians (iTaukei) on the other were visible in the manufactured constitutional hand, are now closer to 60 per cent of the popu- crisis of April 1977 when the ruling Alliance Party lation, and confident of continued demographic temporarily lost power to the National Federation dominance. With the changed demographic equa- Party because of a split in the indigenous Fijian tion has forever disappeared the threat of ‘Indian communal vote. They were lurking beneath the domination’ that cast such a dark shadow over surface in 1982 when the Opposition came close to political debate in Fiji for much of the 20th century. winning power, leading the Great Council of Chiefs The ‘wolves at the door’ syndrome is dead. The 2SSGM Discussion Paper 2012/1 State, Society http://ips.cap.anu.edu.au/ssgm & Governance in Melanesia SSGM Discussion Paper 2013/8 second important consequence of the change is the by the bitter wrangling of heightened racial politics opening up of space for democratic debate within of which they were at the receiving end. Many agri- Fijian society itself about issues once considered cultural leases that began to expire under the Agri- taboo: the relevance of the chiefly system, its privi- cultural Landlord and Tenant Act were not renewed, leges and priorities, its role in the modern political the formerly productive farm land reverting to bush arena, about the distribution of power, about the (Lal, P.N. 2008). Some Fijian landowners wanted barriers and boundaries that kept people apart. It to enter commercial agriculture themselves, but is a change with profound implications both for other leases were not renewed for political reasons indigenous Fijians as well as for Fiji. as a punishment for Indo-Fijians’ refusal to accept The years leading up to the 2006 were unhappy Fijian political paramountcy. The idea that land ones for Indo-Fijians. Governments elected with was power — Fijian power — was well understood their support were deposed, not once but twice. and opportunistically deployed.

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