'The irrationality of the basis of some of the sanctions and their potentially inflaming pronouncements following last month's coup further expose the two countries' poor understanding of the dynamics of islands politics and their shocking inability to em


New Zealand and Australia's reaction to Fiji's coup last month has exposed their complete lack of empathy for the beleaguered country's ordinary people and an appalling disdain for both their ability and their right to take stock of things and make their own decisions about their situation. It has also shown their politicians' glaringly half-baked understanding of the ground reality in Fiji.  

To say this is not to condone in any way the brazen manner in which the country's military forcefully took over the administration after summarily sacking its democratically-elected government, no matter how much a section of the public may think such an act is justifiable. That deplorable act has not just plunged Fiji into yet another coup cycle from which it will take years to recover but also reinforced the image of the chain of geopolitical volcanoes that continually rumble beneath the idyllic isles of the South Pacific.

Sanctions on a regime that snatches power by force from a government that has been elected by its own people are completely understandable. Members of the new military government and their families have been barred from entering or even passing through New Zealand and Australia. All military aid, joint military exercises and training of military personnel have been scrapped.

What is hard to understand is the swiftness and the wide ranging sanctions that have been slapped on the country that will ultimately hurt its hapless people the most. Why ban Fiji citizens from the recently announced seasonal migrant labour scheme? How will banning a few hundred people from working in New Zealand cause a change of heart in the new military leadership?

Suspension of aid for development projects that will impact vital sectors like water supply and healthcare is another sanction that will only increase people's hardship for no fault of theirs-for they have not contributed to the current crisis in any conceivable manner.

What is even harder to fathom is their convoluted rationale for sporting bans. Banning sporting ties to the extent to which they have been banned defy all logic. Just days after the coup took place, Prime Minister Helen Clark's government pronounced wide ranging sanctions against sports. She would have liked to keep Fiji out of the International Rugby Board's World Rugby Sevens event in New Zealand next March if she had her way.

But she back-tracked from that rigid position after advice that such a move would jeopardise the tournament and there was the risk of the event being moved out of the country. Forty thousand ticket holding fans, the hospitality and transportation industries and countless other businesses across New Zealand would be livid if that were to happen. That would have caused irreparable political damage to her and her Labour party-a political hara-kiri to be sure.

So it is only realpolitik on home turf that made her reconsider and scrap the ban-not any consideration for the situation in Fiji. A couple of political parties and a section of New Zealand's media are still keeping the pressure on her for enforcing the ban. Their argument is that Fijians' national pride would be hurt if their world beating team is prevented from participating in the tournament. That will cause large sections of Fijians to rebel against the military regime, is what one newspaper editorial suggested, pressing its case for a ban on the Fiji team.

That line of thought portrays such a poor understanding of the ground reality in Fiji. Even as the coup unfolded, people went about their daily chores with exemplary calm. Of course there were protests-but all were carried out in a most civil manner. There was no strife, looting and violence of any kind-not a rock was even hurled and not a single property damaged. Their primary concern, it would seem, was to just get on with things. At worst, it showed just how much the people of Fiji are inured to coups and at best it displayed their commendable resilience to political upheaval.

To think that people with that kind of calm and peaceful attitude could be so easily incited or galvanised to rebel against the military regime because of a ban on participation in a rugby tournament is utterly simplistic if not downright naive. It is an insult to the intelligence of the people of Fiji to suggest such fanciful schemes and to think they will accept them as remedial measures.

Both Australia and New Zealand also gratuitously urged the people of Fiji to rise against the military regime-though peacefully-with some quarters even inciting sections of the military to rebel. While they are fully justified in cobbling international opinion against and focusing the world's attention on the undemocratic actions of the military in Fiji, inciting people into an uprising is a blatantly condescending interference in Fiji's internal affairs. Such suggestions would only serve to worsen the situation, adding the possibility of an extremely undesirable dimension of violence.

Commentators have rightly said that events in Fiji and many other countries of the South Pacific starkly reflect the failure of Australia and New Zealand's policies in the region. The irrationality of the basis of some of the sanctions and their potentially inflaming pronouncements following last month's coup further expose the two countries' poor understanding of the dynamics of islands politics and their shocking inability to empathise with the ordinary Pacific Islander.