WHY VILIFYING FIJI WON’T WORK

Dev Nadkarni

October 2009 Issue

Fiji’s suspension from the Commonwealth on September 1 has unleashed a rash of media reports around the world with organisations and commentators slamming almost everyone from budget backpackers to Barack Obama and a galaxy of Hollywood A-listers in between for ‘supporting’ the regime, no matter how convoluted and tenuous the link.
The International Federation of Journalists’ Sydney-based spokeswoman, Deborah Muir, told Radio Australia that anyone thinking of holidaying in Fiji should reconsider as a protest against the government’s media censorship and the military-backed regime of Commodore Frank Bainimarama. “Fiji is no paradise right now. Any advertising campaign that says it is a paradise is false advertising,” she said.
Another media report asked if Paris Hilton, Brad Pitt and Barack Obama were actually propping up the military backed government by not just drinking Fiji Water but being photographed with its distinctive square bottle in the media. Fiji Water has long been hailed as a success story in placing the product in the right place at the right time in the right media. It has been photographed at the highest levels of US diplomacy, in the company of celebrities and in television series like The Sopranos, West Wing and Desperate Housewives to become the second largest selling bottled water brand in the United States.
Mother Jones, a radical US based publication, said that while not actually abetting the dictatorship, the US company that owns Fiji Water allowed the military to use the Fiji Water image for positive PR spin.
Journalist Anna Lenzer said she believed “Fiji Water is a major source of global recognition and legitimacy for the junta at this time”.
“Fiji and its fragile government are falling apart while in the meantime most Americans remain out of the loop, sipping the water of paradise,” wrote another American journalist.
Fiji’s internal problems notwithstanding such publicity is unlikely to have any substantial effect on what still happens to be the most promising tourism product as well as the most bankable economy among the islands of the South Pacific—not to mention its geopolitically strategic importance for countries with ambitions in the resource-rich region.
Over the past two years, some of the sanctions—notably the suspension of the European Union’s funding for Fiji’s substantial sugar industry—have certainly hurt the country’s economy but it is not easy to determine exactly how much of the downturn in its other sectors like tourism has been caused by the political situation and how much by the global financial meltdown.
The tendency in the media, however, has been to blame the former. In the case of the Momi real estate deals that turned sour for several New Zealand investors, the real problems were caused by the troubled New Zealand finance companies rather than by the Fijian authorities.
With aid drying up and sanctions likely to be in place at least until it demonstrates a clear plan for the restoration of democracy, the military regime has obviously realised that business and investment are the only options left to keep the economic engine running.
Bainimarama has publicly invited the business community for suggestions on the national budgets in the years to 2014, when, according to his repeated assurances, the country will have elections. The Fijian business community also expressed its confidence in the regime during its meeting with the Commonwealth special envoy Sir Paul Reeves last month.
Last month Bainimarama announced the country was ready to consider casinos—something that ruffled the powerful Methodist Church’s feathers and some others. In 2000, the financially troubled Fiji Rugby Union had thought of a similar idea—importing gambling machines to generate revenue. But this was opposed by the Methodists.
Despite severe criticisms of its style of operation, the military regime has helped open up the business environment not just in Fiji but also in the rest of the islands.
Telecom Fiji’s monopoly which previous governments had found too much of a hot potato to deal with was ultimately dismantled under the regime’s watch paving the way for private players like Digicel to take root in Fiji and then spread its wings to six other islands states offering affordably low roaming rates. 
Commentators last month also raised fears for the future of the country’s international airline amid news that Qantas was looking at offloading its 46 percent stake in Air Pacific (the Fiji Government owns the major stake). More than anything else, what may perhaps be worrying Qantas is the regime’s willingness to ratify PIASA (the Pacific Islands Air Services Agreement), which Fiji had avoided signing all these years because the opening up of Pacific routes to competition had implications on Air Pacific’s decades-long near monopolistic hold on the routes—and therefore profitability.
In keeping with the opening up of the Pacific Islands skies, however, Air Pacific has also introduced a number of new routes in the past few months, the latest being the Nadi-Apia-Honolulu route, introduced last month.
Also last month, Cathay Pacific announced a new Nadi-Hong Kong service from December, and Virgin Blue said it would slash fares to Fiji after it introduced a wide-bodied Boeing 777 Australia-Fiji service. Meanwhile, according to Tourism Fiji, visitor numbers for July were just 800-odd short of numbers for the same month last year. 
Which, indeed, is ample evidence of Fiji’s bankability as an economy and strategic importance for businesses operating in the Asia Pacific region.
Fiji is too important economically and logistically to be handled with the insensitive approach that New Zealand and Australia have had towards it over the past two-and-a-half years—an approach that is now being parrotted by some sections of the global media.
Fiji has always been the gateway to the South Pacific and will remain so.
The geopolitics of the Pacific has been in slow ferment for about two decades now with Asian powers like China, Taiwan and Japan playing increasingly important roles in its development. There is little to stop that from gathering speed. And the West’s handling of the Fiji situation since early 2007 has already proved to be the catalyst.
So as long as doing business with Fiji for the tourism industry remains viable and profitable irrespective of the internal political situation—and as long as it is perceived to be safe for tourists as it has been—there is little effect media campaigns aimed at dissuading people from travelling there can have.