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Melanesia in Review: Issues and Events, 2009 Melanesia in Review: Issues and Events, 2009 FIJI meeting, attended instead by Attorney Fiji’s three coups have each occurred General Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum, settled in two stanzas: first an illegal over- on yet another ultimatum to Fiji’s throw of the elected government, and interim government, insisting that then a later abrogation of the con- a credible timetable for elections be stitution. Unlike its predecessors, the drawn up by 1 May. Australian Prime 5 December 2006 coup took twenty- Minister Kevin Rudd said “a line in eight months to reach the second the sand” had been drawn (Post Cou- denouement. On 10 April 2009, the rier 2009). Bainimarama responded constitution was ditched, the judiciary that he had no intention of complying sacked, and the scheduled date for with the ultimatum and said that the elections was pushed back to 2014. inevitable suspension should have been The military was digging itself in for immediate (FijiLive, 29 Jan 2009). the long haul, in defiance of domestic His nonattendance at the pif summit and international protest. Domestic generated some controversy within the criticism was to be silenced by stiff ranks of the interim administration. media censorship, public emergency Permanent Secretary in the Ministry regulations, travel bans, corruption of Foreign Affairs Ratu Isoa Gavidi charges, clandestine firebombs, as well and Fiji’s High Commissioner to PNG as cancellation of pensions. The inevi- Ratu Isoa Tikoca were both sacked table storm of international protest after urging Bainimarama to make an after 10 April was less easily silenced. appearance in Port Moresby. Gavidi In response, military commander and said later that Bainimarama’s familiar- interim Prime Minister Josaia Voreqe ity with top-down military authority Frank Bainimarama claimed to be a made it difficult for him to accept victim of Australian and New Zealand advice (Fiji Times, 3 March 2009). “bullying” and appealed for solidarity Over the course of 2009, other regime from the Melanesian Spearhead Group insiders urging a more conciliatory states. Over 2009, as Bainimarama’s stance—including Permanent Secretary enemies faltered, he visibly grew in in the Prime Minister’s Office Parmesh domestic self-confidence. On the inter- Chand, as well as Robin Nair and national stage, he projected an image former Citizen’s Constitutional of a wronged and misunderstood Forum activist Jone Dakuvula—also champion of modernism in Fiji. found themselves demoted, sacked, or In January 2009, Bainimarama marginalized. refused to attend a meeting of Pacific During late 2008, hopes for Islands Forum (pif) leaders in Port some resolution to the coup-related Moresby, insisting that severe flood- impasse had focused on the scheduled ing in Fiji required him to stay home President’s Political Dialogue Forum, to assist clean-up operations. The pif which the United Nations and the 416 pol i t ical reviews • melanesia 417 Commonwealth had been invited to Far from embracing pressures for a chair. But preliminary dialogue ses- restoration of democracy, the interim sions with political parties—assisted government was busily dismantling by interlocutors Hawai‘i-based Ton- yet another tier of elected leadership. gan academic Sitiveni Halapua and In January, Fiji’s town and municipal Robin Nair, a Fiji Indian who formerly councils—the country’s only elected worked in the Australian Department bodies for which all Fiji citizens vote of Foreign Affairs and Trade—gave together without race-based electoral little cause for optimism. Through rolls—were dissolved, and administra- early 2009, meetings were regularly tors were instead appointed to run the canceled or delayed, and Bainimarama urban authorities. This was another made clear that he wanted to exclude blow for Fiji’s political elites, still Laisenia Qarase’s Soqosoqo Duavata reeling as a result of the dissolution ni Lewenivanua (sdl) party and any of Parliament in 2006. The councils others who refused to sign up to his had been important bases for the sdl, government’s People’s Charter (for nfp, and the Fiji Labour Party (flp). details, see Fraenkel 2009). Qarase’s For the flp in particular, the shift SDL, together with the National Fed- in position over 2009 was dramatic. eration Party (nfp), and former Oppo- Party leader Mahendra Chaudhry sition leader Mick Beddoes, as well as had joined the interim cabinet as trade unions and civil society organi- finance minister in January 2007, as zations, met under the auspices of the well as taking responsibility for sugar, Democracy Movement in January, but national planning, and public sector this too was soon silenced. In March, restructuring. His departure in August there were attacks on the homes and 2008 had been due to a rift with the vehicles of prominent government crit- cabinet and the Military Council, ics, including Democracy Movement ostensibly over a bungled attempt to President Attar Singh, Fiji Times editor impose punitive duties on the bottled Netani Rika, and Colonel Sakiusa mineral water industry. The subse- Raivoce, a former army officer who quent break with Bainimarama had is also head of Global Risks Fiji, a not been complete, but it sharpened recruitment organization for security in early 2009. In February, Chaudhry personnel bound for Iraq. Qarase trav- criticized the interim prime minister eled to Australia in February, where he for showing “an apparent lack of con- claimed his life was at risk in Fiji, but cern for the poor in our society,” and he nevertheless returned to face trial in response, Bainimarama accused the on corruption charges in March. The flp leader of failing “to understand deposed prime minister spent much the dynamics of the world’s economy” of 2009 away from Suva on his home (Fiji Times, 14 Feb 2009). Efforts to island. In January, he was installed as heal that breach, reportedly includ- the new chief of his Mavana village on ing an offer that Chaudhry rejoin the Vanuabalavu. Reports of that event cabinet, proved unsuccessful (FijiLive, were carried back to Suva by the new 26 Feb 2009). Tui Kubuca’s traditional herald, Daily Not only had flp-run councils in Post editor Mesake Koroi. Labasa, Lautoka, and Nasinu been 418 the contemporary pacific • 22:2 (2010) liquidated, but Nasinu Mayor Rajesh- old hands from the 1980s, Gautam war Kumar, a close ally of Chaudhry, Ramswarup and Rasheed Ali, both was also being pursued by the Fiji post-1987 coup émigrés. Sugar down- Independent Commission Against sizing was not primarily an attack on Corruption for alleged misappro- the farmers’ unions or the flp. It was priation of funds. In addition, the an inevitable retrenchment given the flp’s power base in the sugar indus- ratcheting down of European Union try was under threat. In February, (EU) preferential pricing. But the con- the interim government dismantled sequences were the same. the Sugar Commission of Fiji, Fiji Chaudhry also had other rea- Sugar Marketing Ltd, and the Sugar sons for concern about the chang- Research Institute, and was accused ing political situation. In February, by Chaudhry of a “consequential a Times-Tebbutt opinion poll found marginalisation of the cane growers, that 37 percent of Fiji Indians favored as was the case in the colonial era” Bainimarama as prime minister in (FijiLive, 21 Feb 2009). In May, the contrast to only 15 percent in favor of government refused to continue to Chaudhry—a dramatic change from bail out the heavily subsidized South May 2006 when Chaudhry’s flp had Pacific Fertilizers Ltd, a move also captured 81 percent of the Indian opposed by the flp. Floods in Janu- vote. Among indigenous Fijians, ary had destroyed the old Sigatoka Qarase remained the favorite, with Bridge, across which tramlines used 52 percent, compared to 19 percent to carry cane from Olosara Sector preferring Bainimarama (Fiji Times, on the eastern side of the river to the 20 Feb 2009). Although opinion polls mill at Lautoka in the west. In July, in Fiji are notoriously unreliable, the the nfp-aligned Fiji Cane Growers Times-Tebbutt poll entailed interviews Association accused the government of with 11,256 people, an unusually abandoning the two hundred farm- large sample, and other than this, only ers in Olosara. Permanent Secretary anecdotal surveys of the public mood for Sugar Parmesh Chand responded were available through 2009. Given that spending f$7 million to repair the the climate of intimidation and the bridge did not make financial sense usual urban bias in polling, the survey and urged farmers to “switch to non- probably understated the backing for cane from 2010” (FijiLive, 19 Sept Qarase and the sdl at the time, but 2009). (f$1.00 equals approximately few doubted the findings about Fiji us$.52.) The thirty-eight-member Fiji Indian support for Bainimarama’s Sugar Cane Grower’s Council was government. dissolved in August. It had previously Nevertheless, this was a curious been controlled by the flp-aligned reaction from a community that had National Farmers’ Union, and the flp protested vigorously against the coups responded by furiously attacking the of 1987 and 2000. Fiji Indians, who Fiji Sugar Corporation’s “local /expa- for the most part lack the safety net triate consultants from Australia” of owning land in rural areas, had (flp 2009), a reference to the growing been hit hard by steep fuel and food influence of two returning industry price rises in 2008. Acceleration in pol i t ical reviews • melanesia 419 the decline of the sugar industry over Brothers School in Suva. His actions 2007–2009 lowered living standards after the 2000 coup, and in particu- particularly in the cane belts of lar his seizure of executive authority northern Vanua Levu and western Viti and abrogation of the constitution on Levu, and strengthened the longer- 29 May 2000, had at the time been run exodus toward the towns.
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