Politics: Military coup: More on the troubles of the Republic of Fiji in the southwest Pacific

Again today, via Thinknet brother Bruce Wearne sends us news from the troubled island of Fiji. Bruce has an introductory comment, and then he conveys Dr Robert Wolfgramm's editorial in Fiji Daily Post:

When a "failed régime" refuses to reform its modus operandi in the way of public justice it simply makes for more problems. An insightful editorial follows, but I would ask thinknetters [let's add refWrite readers here too - P] to read this prayerfully with Robert Wolfgramm and staff and family in mind because it clearly exposes the arrogance of the RFMF [Royal Fiji Military Force], a "thuggish" aspect of which was reported on in my report yesterday. -- Bruce Wearne

But it’s not that simple

Fiji Daily Post editorial (Feb21,2k7)

ONE thing is obvious: there is only so much an Eminent Persons Group can do. The released summary of their report which is to be tabled at the next Pacific Forum Foreign Ministers get-together contains a predictable wish-list of human rights hopes and democratic dreams.

What the EPG are not offering in their package (so far as we know) is a practical set of steps for arriving at the laudable ends they have in mind for Fiji. We have yet to see from them is a set of strategies that meets with the fact of our military-backed regime and with the reality of having to come to terms with their view of things on a day-to-day basis.

No one in Fiji would dispute the desirability of the aims put forward by the EPG that the military and their commander should return to camp and desist from engagement in the political process, that the constitution should be upheld, that Fiji’s domestic and international obligations to human rights should be respected, and that our citizens should have untrammelled access to legal redress in the courts.

SouthWestPacific > Republic of Fiji

That is all good and well, but the question left un-addressed by the EPG is, how? How can these things be fully undertaken in view of the military’s over-riding vision for Fiji’s future. How can these demands be reconciled peacefully with the Interim rule whose authority ultimately emanates from the barrel of the gun? That is to say, it is one thing to spell out an ideal world, but quite another to find a methodology for effectively reconciling it with the prickly actualities of the real world. Yes, it is great to have a theory for moving the nation forward. But what use is it if it ignores the straight-up fact that those currently in power have neither the interest nor the will to consider the theory, let alone to act on it and make it practical in the terms prescribed by the EPG.

If the EPG report is to be any use at all to Fiji, it must in its fuller version (21 pages we are advised), provide a step-by-step, blow-by-blow account of at least just two issues: (1) how and why the military can disengage from their political involvement without losing face and losing ground against perceived corrupt enemies of the state; and (2) how the and why the commander can step out of his Interim Prime Ministership without history repeating itself so that the train of events that led us to December 5 in the first place is not recapitulated in another nightmarish future (fifth) coup.

While the EPG report is an important symbolic gesture of solidarity for righting Fiji’s present wrongs, that is all it is. Its members do not have to live in Fiji and face the fact of a military insistence to insinuate itself into the political fabric of the nation since 5 December. The EPG can simply parachute in, test the waters, fly out and make their pronouncements from afar. What Fiji needs is a bi-focal international group willing to see and interpret both sides of the present stand-off in all of its difficult ethical, cultural and legal-political complexity. When that is undertaken, we may move closer to a resolution of our democratic knot more speedily. As it stands, we should not be surprised if the EPG report – as morally upright and encouraging as it is for our democracy - simply delays the process.

It's just sinking into my consciousness that for Robert and his friend in Australia, Bruce, a framing factoid of the situation in Fiji was the banning of Fiji Daily Post (correction of an earlier blog-entry > Post, not Press). This ban was for a period beginning in December. The ban meant that FDP could not attend press conferences of the military-coup anti-democratic government which still remains in power, but is doing a bit of nicing-over and backtracking, it seems from this distance.