Qarase, Bainimarama finally talking

Samisoni Pareti
Breakthrough is how a meeting last month of coup leader, Frank Bainimarama, and the man he ousted from office in December 2006, Laisenia Qarase, has been hailed by mainly the opponents of the military-led regime.

It was their first meeting since the 2006 coup and was brokered by the heads of the two largest Christian denominations in the country—the Methodist Church and Roman Catholic. Reverend Laisiasa Ratabacaca persuaded his lay member Qarase to attend the May 20 meeting, whilst Archbishop Petero Mataca successfully convinced Bainimarama to be present.

A brief and generally worded statement was released after the 45-minute long meeting, held in one of the committee rooms of the country’s parliament, a five-minute drive from downtown Suva.

“The meeting was marked by an informal exchange of views with all leaders noting in particular the great importance of constructive dialogue not only amongst political leaders but also amongst Fiji’s diverse communities and leaders of religious and civil organisations,” the statement said.

“Genuine, trust-based dialogue is essential in order for real progress to be achieved in any national level efforts at healing and reconciliation,” it added.

Speaking to this magazine at last month’s summit of Melanesian leaders in Vanuatu, Bainimarama confirmed he told Qarase that elections would only take place if his proposed people’s charter was accepted.

“I told Qarase that the military did what it did on December 5, 2006 in order to bring about changes in the way we do things in this country. Those changes will only come about if the charter is accepted. I told him we also want to go to elections, but the elections must be held under my terms, not his.”

The coup leader also confirmed that he would agree to further meetings with Qarase, adding that it would be Qarase, not him, who would need to change his position.

The two leaders met amidst a chain of serious setbacks for the Bainimarama regime.

May is usually the month in which the country’s 14 indigenous provincial councils hold their sessions and the score so far has been a losing run for the coup leader and his supporters.

One province after another voted against the regime’s new-look council of chiefs and its initiative to draw up a people’s charter.

Some provinces like Cakaudrove, in northern Fiji, and Tailevu, north of the capital, which happens to be Bainimarama’s home province,  went so far as to ban promoters of the people’s charter setting foot on their soil.

A casualty too has been the chair of the restructure team of the chiefs’ council, Ratu Josateki Nawalowalo, who was voted out as chairman of his own provincial council.

By press time, 12 provinces had held their meetings of which 10 rejected the two initiatives of the military regime.

Out of the two which had given their endorsements, one declined to submit its three nominees to the new-look council of chiefs. It said none of its chiefs qualify under the new membership rules.

Such rules which were created by the regime stipulated that chiefs must be traditionally installed and must not have been a recent member of parliament.

Straight away, the latter rules out two out of the three of Fiji’s most powerful chiefs, both of whom served in the ousted cabinet of Qarase and are now leading critics of Bainimarama.

These are the Marama na Roko Tui Dreketi, Ro Teimumu Kepa, who was Qarase’s education minister; and the Turaga na Tui Cakau, Ratu Naiqama Lalabalavu, who was lands minister.

Test of tolerance

A leading player in Fiji’s private sector likened the provincial councils’ decision to a test of tolerance amongst the country’s indigenous population.

“Like a rubber band, the level of tolerance can only be stretched to a certain level,” this businessman told ISLANDS BUSINESS.

“The fear is when the tolerance limit is reached and the rubber band snaps.”

Quite recently, the news media has been tipped off about the next political development through rumours.

As it was still reeling from the forced deportation of the second newspaper publisher on May 2, several journalists were told the next target would be Australia’s High Commissioner to Fiji, James Batley.

Batley was not served with a deportation order like Russell Hunter and Evan Hannah—the two Australian publishers of the Fiji Sun and the Fiji Times newspapers respectively—but only a day after the rumours were received by local journalists, the chief Australian diplomat received a death threat.

The Fiji police headed by Bainimarama’s deputy—Commodore Esala Teleni—was still giving assurances it was hot on the heels of the source of the threat when the second death threat was received by the Australian 10 days later. No arrests had been made when this edition went to press.

Fiji police have also turned down a request by Canberra that unarmed members of the Australian Federal Police be allowed into the country to provide security for Batley and his staff. Both Bainimarama’s foreign and defence ministers argued local police were more than capable of protecting the Australian Government envoy and his staff.

Australia’s foreign minister Stephen Smith said he was disappointed at the Fiji Government’s refusal and called on the regime to dispatch more police officers to the high commission. Family members of Australian diplomats were also encouraged to return home.

This magazine has also been reliably told that Canberra is wary about the possibility of soldiers being deployed to the high commission as police officers.

Around this time, some journalists were hearing rumours the authorities were casting their attention on one of the most successful expatriate chief executives currently working in Fiji, John Campbell. He is CEO and managing director of Air Pacific, Fiji’s successful international airline. Rumours were such that a local woman was being eyed to replace him.

On May 22, the regime’s information department released a statement to confirm that a four-member cabinet committee will review the operations of the national carrier.

They will look into what the government statement says are “staff grievances, deteriorating standards of the airline’s in-flight service and chronic delays to flights caused by mechanical problems to its aging fleet of aircraft”.

The statement, however, was silent on whether the airline’s other major owner, Qantas, was told of the review. The only reference to Qantas’ 49% shares in Air Pacific was that the review would also include the shareholder’s agreement with the Australian carrier.

“[Fiji] Government wants to see changes that will ensure Fiji’s national interest is not subordinated to that of Qantas.”

No doubt, the reviewing ministers would need a briefing about the massive fleet upgrade programme of Air Pacific totalling over F$2.4 billion, which will start with the arrival in 2013 of three Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft.

In accusing the national carrier of being in a “state of stagnation” because no new destination has been added to its network, the four ministers would also learn that new destinations are dictated by traffic.

The review team would also be briefed about the debilitating cost of fuel jet—now surpassing a record US$100 per barrel—which is driving many airlines around the world to bankruptcy.

The intervention on the national airline, which is poised to announce one of its biggest profits in recent times, comes as the regime still flounders over the appointment of a new supervisor of elections, raising speculations it won’t be able to meet its promise of holding elections by March next year.

It was not until late last month that the country’s constitutional offices commission appointed a New Zealand woman lawyer to be its new elections chief.