Who calls the shots?

Samisoni Pareti
Who is really running Fiji? Any doubts about it were removed for all and sundry to see during the most recent standoff between the nation's outspoken military chief and the four-year old government of Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase.

Frosty relations... PM Qarase and Commander Bainimarama will be talking to each other more regularly now.

Not only was Commander Frank Bainimarama late by 10 minutes to his meeting with his acting commander-in-chief, Vice-President Ratu Joni Madraiwiwi and Qarase, the army chief walked off from the meeting with his job still very secure.

He also got most of his concerns noted and accepted. His apprehension about the controversial pieces of legislations like the reconciliation bill, which the army feared would provide a blanket amnesty to those convicted for the coup and the military mutiny in 2000, would be addressed.

In addition, the commander and the police commissioner would join members of the country's national security council as observers.

The military's concerns about voter registration in the forthcoming general election have been directed to the appropriate authorities.

For his part and in some ways through the urging of Qarase, Bainimarama, according to a post-meeting statement drafted by Madraiwiwi and released to the media, agreed “to forebear further comment in the media without first communicating his views to the government.

“In that regard, it is critical that elements in government and the military exercise circumspection and discretion in their dealings with each other at all times,” the Madraiwiwi statement said.


Need to communicate views

What stood out in the acting president's statement, observers noted, was the fact that Bainimarama was not told to toe the line nor to stop telling the media about his frustrations with the Qarase administration. All he was required to do was to “first” communicate his position to the government.

Expectation by some that the meeting would result in the sacking of the controversial military head were way off the mark.

Exiting... Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase’s official vehicle exits Government House after the meeting with acting President Ratu Jone Madraiwiwi and Commander Frank Bainimarama.

The only achievement of the Madraiwiwi brokered meeting was two-fold. First, it allowed the two men to re-state their positions and secondly; it re-established regular channels of communication between the government and the military.

Qarase elaborated on this in a statement issued several hours after Madraiwiwi issued his, although both Qarase and Bainimarama had agreed that only the acting president would make a public pronouncement of their January 16 meeting.

“I confirm that as head of government I will be pleased to receive the commander for regular discussions,” Qarase said.

“This will give him the opportunity to communicate directly to me issues of concern from the military forces.

“These meetings will create a new avenue for dialogue between the government and the military rather than discussions through the media.”

This statement drafted with the help of a private media consultant was silent however on why in agreeing to meet with the commander “for regular discussions,” the PM was bypassing his minister responsible for the military, Josefa Vosanibola.

For his failure to “rope in” Bainimarama necessitating the intervention of Qarase, coupled with the refusal by the Office of the President to accept his recommendation that the army chief be disciplined for his public outbursts and his threat to take over the running of the nation, there were speculations that Vosanibola might do the honourable thing and resign.

Asked about this on the evening of January 16, the besieged minister retorted on his mobile telephone, “why should I resign?”

Whether by design or accident, the PM's statement also contained some subtle nuances and innuendoes.

On the issue of Bainimarama (and the commissioner of police's) membership of the national security council which Qarase chairs, the PM says the attendance by the two heads of the security forces will be by “invitation” only.

His statement went on to explain that the council by law is a cabinet sub-committee and as such only cabinet ministers are voting members.

Sources in the Fiji military said their commander had proposed to Madraiwiwi that the security council be politically “neutralised,” with membership limited to security analysts and officials only.

The sources said that having ministers as members would only allow for political considerations to impact on security matters.

The acting president, however, proposed observer status as a compromise. In reaffirming his government's promise to note the military's objections to the reconciliation bill, the Qarase statement also found it necessary to re-state that it holds the responsibility to “initiate legislation and determine its final form”.

Through the clever use of phrases like “it was stressed”, or “I stress again” and “it was explained once more,” the PM statement seemed to imply that the military raised no new issue that his government hadn't offered an explanation to.

But unlike Qarase, Bainimarama walked off from the meeting with a record of what transpired.

This magazine was told the commander had entered the President's office with a voice recorder. He told the acting president that the military would like to record the meeting for future reference.

Madraiwiwi didn't object and amongst the military's archives now is an audio recording of the meeting.

Military sources who had listened to the recording said the audio version of the meeting was “telling' and “quite revealing”. It was conducted in the Fijian language with both Bainimarama and Qarase frequently using “sir” before Madraiwiwi, who is of noble rank in his own right.

As the current holder of the Roko Tui Bau title, Madraiwiwi is the immediate warlord of Bainimarama.

The voice recorder might have been closer to the army chief which was why his voice sounded forceful as opposed to Qarase's whose contributions at the meeting were sometimes inaudible.

At one stage in the two-hour long meeting, Bainimarama was heard assuring Madraiwiwi that he and the army he led had no desire to be involved in politics.

He explained that their objections to the Qarase sponsored reconciliation bill were related to its implications on national security and their fear that the current administration was going soft on coup and mutiny plotters.

One of the most trying moments of the meeting was when the army chief told the acting president that the army views the PM as a “liar.”

If Qarase immediately launched into a vigorous defence against the label, the voice recorder didn't pick this up.

For a four-page statement, Madraiwiwi would be expected to leave out other pertinent issues raised at the meeting.

One of these was the sacking days before by Bainimarama of his deputy, Colonel Jone Baledrokadroka, who he accused of trying to muster support within the army's rank and file for his removal.

Baledrokadroka who had only spent three days as the army's Land Force Commander denied the charge, although an investigation was being instigated.

Only after he spoke to the local media did the military confirm that the unusual closure of the army barracks on January 12 which triggered rumours that a military takeover was imminent was related to Baledrokadroka's decision to question Bainimarama's authority.

Baledrokadroka told a local journalist that his reading of a press statement issued by Bainimarama on January 8 in which he said that if the government could not complete the 2000 coup rehabilitation work, the military would be just too happy to finish it off, meant that his commander was planning another takeover.


A threat

History shows that those who drum up the courage to question the commander tend to do so at their own peril. Baledrokadroka, a seasoned and highly trained army officer of 25 years, now joins a growing list of people Bainimarama views as traitors and therefore a threat.

The group includes the late Colonel Ulaiasi Vatu, Alfred Tuatoko, Ratu George Kadavulevu, and Lieutenant Colonels Filipo Tarakinikini, Samuela Raduva, Akuila Buadromo and Commander Semi Koroi.

Still in the establishment but reported to be no longer in the commodore's circle of advisers are Colonel Meli Saubulinayau who led Fiji's contingent to Iraq last year.

The man who succeeded him in Baghdad, Coloel Iowane Naivalurua, who was until his transfer was Bainimarama's deputy as Land Force commander.

The officer who led loyalists in re-taking the military camp from mutineers in November 2000, Lieutenant Colonel Viliame Seruvakula, resigned from the army last year.

Colleagues say he was disillusioned with the direction the institution had taken. He is now with the United Nations.

Proof that Bainimarama demands no less than absolute loyalty from his men and women in uniform was shown in the case of Captain Mika Dreu, who is now with the Australian Defence Force in Darwin.

Dreu was summoned before the commander late last year and told to hand in his resignation after Bainimarama learnt the officer had applied for migration to Australia.

If he has his way, Bainimarama would like to see the removal of another officer, Lesi Korovavala. Korovavala holds the rank of lieutenant colonel and has a doctorate degree in military science from London.

He's the chief executive officer at the Fiji's Ministry of Home Affairs-the department that is responsible for the country's disciplined forces.

At their meeting with Qarase and Madraiwiwi, the commander asked that Korovavala be removed, accusing him of being the main cause of the terse and frosty relations between the military and the government.

Korovavala was also accused of trying to undermine the commander's authority by seeking to get Qarase to meet Baledrokadroka.

Bainimarama had successfully removed Korovavala's predecessor, Colonel Jeremaia Waqanisau, now Fiji's envoy in Beijing.

It was Waqanisau who had recommended that the commander's contract not to be renewed when it expired in early 2004. This triggered a nasty and public war of words between the two men.

Soon after Waqanisau's posting to China, his minister Joketani Cokanasiga was relegated to the backbench and Vosanibola took over as home affairs minister in a cabinet reshuffle.

With the intervention of the man likely to be the new commander in chief of the Fiji military forces, will the off-again on-again public standoff between the Fiji Government and the military end?

Many believe it will be just a matter of time before it flares up again.