Engaging meaningfully with the Fiji leader in the collective presence of other islands leaders on neutral ground is a once in a year opportunity ANZAC nations must take best advantage of.

Dev Nadkarni
Reacting to Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer’s comments on the issue of Air New Zealand ferrying Australian troops to the Middle East, New Zealand Defence Minister Phil Goff was quoted by the New Zealand Herald as saying he had known Downer a long time and “sometimes he goes off the deep end a little”.

He seems to have gone off the “deep end” once before last month after the Pacific Islands Trade Ministers meeting in Port Vila when he said there was a general feeling among Pacific islands leaders that Fiji’s Interim Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama would be unwelcome at the Forum Leaders Summit in Tonga in October.

While there certainly was discussion among the leaders on the issue, especially given Australia’s open opposition to the Fiji leader’s participation as well as New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark’s recent comments about him being treated like a ‘leper’ if he attended, there was never a consensus on keeping him away. And by the end of the month, it became clear that islands leaders were nowhere near endorsing the ANZAC nations’ tough stand.

Despite clear indications to that effect from particularly the Melanesian nations, it is surprising how Downer came to his conclusion.

On the Solomon Islands government’s position, Foreign Minister Patterson Oti had already said his country had no formal notification of that trend, or the general feeling amongst Pacific Islands countries of Bainimarama being unwelcome to attend the Forum meeting in Tonga.

Attending the inaugural Pacific Business Forum meeting in Nadi early in the month, Vanuatu Trade Minister James Bule echoed that sentiment saying no ‘trend’ one way or the other was discernible.

In fact only a week earlier, the matter had been discussed at length among Pacific Islands trade ministers during their meeting in Port Vila.

Like Bule, several other leaders who attended that meeting disagreed with Downer’s view that there was a growing feeling about Bainimarama being unwelcome. 

The Pacific Islands Forum has already made it stand clear. Secretary-General Greg Urwin stated in Nadi that as a member state, Fiji would be invited. But it was up to the member states to decide on the levels of their representation at the leaders’ meeting. In other words, there is no provision to exclude a member nation’s participation from the meeting.

Current Forum chair, Papua New Guinea Prime Minister, Sir Michael Somare, had suggested about two months ago that Fiji’s Interim Foreign Minister, Ratu Epeli Nailatikau, lead the Fiji delegation instead of Commodore Bainimarama. If that was meant to be some sort of a compromise to avoid a possible confrontation at the meet, it did not receive any support from member countries.

“It is all a little fallacious,” a senior leader from a Polynesian country told me on condition of anonymity. “As a member, Fiji is invited and has the right to decide who it should send to the meeting. For another country to opine on who it should or should not send simply does not make sense.”

In fact, most leaders at the Port Vila meeting were veering towards this view, rather than the one Downer is suggesting, says the leader.

Bainimarama has clarified that he would attend. Shortly after addressing the Pacific Business Forum meet, he said he would fly to Tonga leading the Fiji delegation and would return to Fiji without attending the meeting only if he was denied entry into Tonga by its immigration authorities. Fijian and Tongan citizens need no visas to visit each other and a case would have to be made out to deny entry to Bainimarama.

And would hosts Tonga do that? Prime Minister Feleti Sevele’s secretary, Lopeti Senituli initially said that his government was not in a position to define its stand on the issue. But the Tongan government has now clarified that it has no objection to the Fijian Interim Prime Minister’s attendance.

Leaders of the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG) countries—comprising the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Fiji and Papua New Guinea—are scheduled to meet early this month to discuss their collective stand on Fiji’s participation and their response to Australia and New Zealand’s tough, uncompromising opposition to Bainimarama’s attendance.

After the leaked PNG Defence Force report that sought to implicate Prime Minister Michael Somare about his involvement in Julian Moti’s flight out of PNG, Australia demanded action on Somare. The Prime Minister now buoyed by his re-election was quoted in the media as saying, “Ask Australia to go hell.”

Solomons Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare has already begun to blame “foreign forces” for fomenting the no-confidence motion against him last month.

The Melanesian block’s relationship with Australia (with the possible exception of Vanuatu) is prickly enough not to toe the Australian line. Despite all these clear indications, it is hard to fathom how Downer came to his conclusion.

Samoa did not convey its official response on the issue but it has also not objected in any way to Bainimarama’s attendance in Nuku’alofa. But senior government bureaucrats have said the general consensus was to endorse the Forum Secretariat’s position that it was Fiji’s prerogative as a Forum member to decide who it should send to represent it.

Rather than trying to prevail upon Islands leaders to oppose Bainimarama’s presence at the Tonga summit, Australia and New Zealand need to put together a strategy to engage with the Fijian leader and ask the tough questions face-to-face in the presence of other islands leaders.

This may well lead to a consensus on how to deal with the Fiji situation at the regional level—something that has never been seriously attempted so far.

Any possibility of a serious regional initiative has seemed impossible to forge amid the stridency of the ANZAC nations’ rigid, unbending stance.

Engaging meaningfully with the Fiji leader in the collective presence of other islands leaders on neutral ground is a once in a year opportunity ANZAC nations must take best advantage of.

Our leaders have already set the stage for this to happen by not opposing the Commodore’s attendance. It is time Australia and New Zealand toned down their shrill opposition to the Fijian leader’s attendance and look at constructive and inclusive ways of dealing with the situation.

It’s pretty clear the unfortunate ‘leper’ comment has boomeranged.