'While the attitude towards homosexuals is now generally relaxed, except in some church and political circles, sex between men is still a crime and men caught engaging in it are liable to stiff punishment'


Local male homosexuals in Fiji parade their proclivities as flamboyantly as the tens of thousands in Sydney, Auckland, or Los Angeles.

Suva...gay life is rife in Fiji, but just don’t get caught.

They abound in bars, star in fashion parades and beauty contests. In flourishing numbers as male prostitutes, they parade certain streets of Suva and the Nadi Airport locality at night, ignored by patrolling police.

Many move in professional levels of society rather more discretely, but for the most part socially accepted.

Social research has shown that male prostitutes get steady custom from numerous local and resident expatriates and many tourists. While the attitude towards homosexuals is now generally relaxed, except in some church and political circles, sex between men is still a crime and men caught engaging in it are liable to stiff punishment. Gay life is rife in Fiji. Just don't get caught.

In April, one visitor, Thomas McCoskar, 55, a retired teacher from Victoria, struck it unlucky. He arrived at Nadi for a jolly time and picked up Dhirendra Nandan, 23.

McCoskar hired Nandan for sex and a session of taking pornographic photographs that Nandan was assured would be posted on a website to make money, magistrate Syed Mukhtar Shah heard.

Relations between the libidinous pair turned sour. McCoskar made a complaint to the police and was shocked to find himself and Nandan charged under a 1944 section of the Penal Code that prescribes up to 14 years jail, with or without a flogging, for men convicted of having sex with each other. A term of up to five years jail is prescribed for a man convicted of gross indecency with another man in public or privately.

“I didn't know,” exclaimed McCoskar, accustomed to the free and easy attitudes of decadent Australia.

He and Nandan became the first homosexuals for years to be caught by the 1944 law. Awarding them two years each, the magistrate commented that their behaviour was “something so disgusting that it would make any decent person vomit.”

The convictions aroused a global shrill of protests with homosexual activist organisations beseeching their governments to protest to the Fiji government on the grounds of a breach of human rights. They and critics in Fiji pointed out that the 1944 law conflicted with sections of the country's 1998 constitution that ban discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation and which prescribe rights of privacy.

Abroad, indignant homosexual groups urged their fellows to give Fiji a miss as being a dangerous ground for play. Britain's foreign office issued a travel advisory warning travelling homosexuals and lesbians that “Fijian attitudes towards homosexuals are complex” and that “despite examples of cross-dressing within the traditional Pacific culture, there can be aggressive attitudes towards homosexuality.”

Lawyers for the jailed lodged an appeal against their convictions and sentence, citing the 1998 constitutional protection and claiming that police had misled McCoskar and denied him his right to contact a lawyer and the local Australian diplomatic mission.

A high court judge allowed them bail and invited the Fiji Human Rights Commission and Citizens Constitutional Forum to tender their submissions on the matter to him.

The Australian mission in Suva sent a protest letter to the Fiji government, complaining it had not been notified of the arrest of an Australian citizen, as required by international convention. McCoskar had been tried without being told of his entitlement to hire a lawyer for his defence.