A man of two worlds.


“In early 1984 after 11 years in the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forests (mainly in the Economic, Planning and Statistics Division of the Department of Agriculture), I resigned from government and joined Fiji Sugar Marketing (FSM) Co Ltd as its company representative in London.

At that time, the FSM company representative had an office in the Fiji High Commission and operated as Commercial Counsellor on a cost-sharing basis. In return, the company representative enjoyed all the diplomatic privileges. That arrangement ceased in the mid-1990s when the FSM board decided to close its representative office in London and move all the company's work to its representative in Brussels, Belgium.

In 1988, the FSM board struck a deal with the government to have me transferred to Brussels as Head of Mission, when the position remained vacant after the coup of 1987, on a cost-sharing basis as well, but with the company taking on the lion's share of the cost. This arrangement prevailed for the first three years in the post. After that, the government assumed all the costs for the next seven years of my stay in Brussels.”


FROM DIPLOMACY TO POLITICS

“Fourteen years of being a diplomat is an excellent training ground for any prospective politician.

I certainly found that to be the case. What helped was the nature and the variability of the work that I had to do.

The major part of my involvement was multilateral in nature, being Fiji's Permanent Representative to the European Union.

The work here derived of course from the ACP-EU cooperation under the various Lome Conventions, which later became the Cotonou Agreement.

The post included bilateral representation to eight of the EU member states: Belgium, Netherlands, France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Luxembourg and Greece.

Apart from that, I was also Fiji's representative to a number of UN organisations: UNESCO (Paris), FAO (Rome), GATT/WTO (Geneva) and International Court of Arbitration (The Hague).

Furthermore, there were other ad-hoc representation works from time to time, including to the World Tourism Organisation, UN in Geneva and the Organisation for the Prevention of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).

A number of experiences during this time were particularly instructive for any budding politician.

I was, for instance, the main ACP negotiator for what became the Special Preferential Sugar (SPS) Agreement, which operates separately from the Sugar Protocol, and under which Fiji sells its sugar to Portugal.

I was the main Ambassadorial negotiator in the last six months for negotiations that led to the Fourth Lome Convention.

In 1993, I took Fiji to become a member of GATT, and thus a foundation member of the WTO.

I signed the Marrakesh Agreement in 1994 which led to the establishment of the WTO in 1995. After ratification, Fiji became a full member of WTO in 1996.”


AS FOREIGN MINISTER

“Including one year in the Interim Government, it's been five years altogether as Minister for Foreign Affairs & External Trade. The experience has been more than any Foreign Affairs Minister could have asked for, or could have expected.

The work in the earlier years was directed at regularising or normalising our bilateral and multilateral relations after the dislocation and the sanctions and the suspension of assistance resulting from the political upheaval of 2000.

Since then, the work has been directed at enriching, expanding and deepening relations, and of course, ensuring Fiji's participation and contribution to the normal scheme of things at all levels-bilaterally, sub-regionally, regionally, extra-regionally and globally.

The task has not been easy, but it has been enriching, rewarding, and one at which I can look back at as personally satisfying.”