Fiji born Historian Brij Lal, who is based in Australia National University, recently made legal interpretations on the 1997 Constitution; regarding the issue of GCC members.
GCC suspension unlawful: Dr Lal
Sunday, August 12, 2007Dr Lal said the idea that the GCC was to be part of any government of the day was incorrect because the council was an autonomous institution as clearly stipulated in the Constitution.
A co-architect of the 1997 Constitution, Doctor Brij Lal, says the institution of the Great Council of Chiefs still exists because the laws of Fiji have not been abrogated.
Dr Lal said any suggestion that the GCC had been suspended was unlawful. "The membership of the GCC is provided for in the Fijian Affairs Act," Dr Lal said.
"The Act would have to be amended to provide for any Fijian Affairs Minister to make any intervention at all to the august institution as that move is against the current laws that exist," he said.
"The prevailing feeling within the community is for the council to remain autonomous so it can discharge its responsibilities to the nation as a whole rather than to the tune of any particular government in power," [Lal] said."Dr Lal said the chiefs wanted to be seen as a voice of reason and wisdom providing guidance to all the people of Fiji regardless of race. "
"If need be the chiefs can be critical of the government which is within their moral authority. Making the council part of the Government would be completely inappropriate because the country wants to see them for everyone and free from any political affiliation or agenda. After all, they are not just a rubber stamp as members of the council, elect the President and the Vice-President of this country and people need to respect that important role," [Lal] said.
Interim Fijian Affairs Minister Ratu Epeli Ganilau has announced plans to revamp the composition of the council.
On the four chiefs and their legal team who filed for legal redress over the council's suspension by the interim Government, Ratu Epeli said they had misinterpreted the revocation of the regulation that formalised the suspension.
The chiefs include ousted GCC chairman Ratu Ovini Bokini, Ka Levu Ratu Sakiusa Makutu, Bau chief Ratu Epenisa Cakobau and Ratu Ratavo Lalabalavu. They were seeking a judicial review of the council's suspension and termination of its membership by Ratu Epeli.
After the revocation of the suspension was announced, [GCC members] asked the court that the case be discontinued. [GCC members] said they had reached an amicable arrangement in which the regulation of April 17 which suspended the council had been revoked.
Ratu Epeli later said there were no conditions attached to the agreement with the chiefs to revoke the regulation.
The following excerpt, is another opinion article of Dr. Brij Lal, who speculates on the events arising in the wake of Fiji's 2006 coup.
Fiji: Like a duck treading water
BRIJ V LAL
Saturday, August 11, 2007
Fiji today is like a duck treading water, a Fijian political operative told me the other day. 'All calm on the surface, but unknown currents churning beneath.' As a description of the current state of affairs in Fiji, the imagery is pretty apt.
From various government quarters, the talk of change and improvement is optimistic. The so-called 'clean up campaign' is proceeding apace, we are told, the economy is on the mend, the country is at peace, and the people are 'moving on.' That is the official line: nonchalance in some circles, assertive self-confidence, arrogance even, in others." It is true that the country has not descended into the kind of civil strife some feared when the coup took place and people in all walks of life are muddling along, coping as best they can with what they have. But there is a palpable sense of fragility in the air, the sense that things could go wrong at any time."
Mr Taniela Tabu's experience is a case in point. With the Public Emergency Regulations suspended, Mr Tabu thought he was entitled to his freedom of speech guaranteed under the constitution.
He believed the interim administration was in charge of the country. But arrested and taken to the barracks, he was, he has told the country and the international community, physically humiliated and his life threatened if he continued to speak up. The military council was apparently still in place and in control, very much so. There were the predictable denials from the QEB, but Mr Tabu's account was credible, his injured outrage believable.
The extreme touchiness of the interim administration and the military to any criticism of its action is evident. It instills fear and fosters self-censorship in the populace. To be issued death threats for calling for the resignation of a minister from government says a great deal about the state of affairs in Fiji today.
The revocation of the suspension of the Great Council of Chiefs by the interim Minister for Fijian Affairs is widely welcomed, encouraging the hope that it may be a harbinger of things to come. The dropping of the cases against Superintendent Josaia Rasiga and Mr Ali is also noteworthy, suggesting perhaps that the State's case against them lacked credible evidence. Is this too a harbinger of things to come? The legal fraternity's mettle will be sorely tested in the months ahead as other notable cases come up before the courts.
The interim administration's optimistic claims about the economy go against the assessments of virtually all the leading businessmen with whom I have spoken.
Contraction is the order of the day, they tell me, in some sectors by as much as 30-40 percent. There is no new investment, and many projects with huge investment and employment potential have been frozen.
They are not likely to re-activated any time soon. 'We are in a shock,' a leading businessman tells me, after attending a board meeting of his company.
What, I ask, will it take to kick-start the economy?
Firm commitment to returning the country to parliamentary democracy, the businessmen tell me. They place much hope on the interim administration's undertaking given to the European Union that the next general election will be held by March 2009. Without that, the country is looking down at the barrel of the gun, so to speak.
The question is: will general election be held within the time frame stipulated by the EU?
There are those who are optimistic, but I have deep doubts. The Fiji Labour Party has stated that holding general election should not be the country's priority; getting the essential electoral infrastructure right should be: conducting a census, drawing up electoral boundaries, educating the voters. Accomplishing these before 2009 may not be feasible.
The interim Prime Minister has said on various occasions that the timing of the next general election is a matter for Fiji to decide, not for the international community to dictate. The 'clean-up campaign' should be seen through to completion. Then there is the so-called 'President's Mandate' whose fulfilment forms a critical justification of the interim administration's existence. The deeply fraught proposed charter to build a better Fiji with the assistance of the civil society is another story, possibly another delaying tactic. But there is a deeper fear that drives the interim administration." That is that if elections were held today, or in 2009, the SDL will be returned to power with a thumping Fijian majority. In this assessment, they are correct. Fijian support for the SDL has strengthened, not lessened, in the last six months."
And it will not diminish any time soon. The more the Fijians feel marginalised and excluded, the greater the support for the SDL will be.
'Qarase is not coming back,' Commodore Bainimarama and others in the military have said over and over again. Delaying the election would hopefully achieve that goal, given the former prime minister's advancing years.
The SDL's party infrastructure too could be weakened, if not dismantled in the intervening period, paving the way for a political party, so it is hoped, more acceptable to the military and more understanding of its plans for Fiji. But this thinking is myopic and victory, if there is one, will be pyrrhic.
If the Fijian community continues to feel marginalised and excluded from power, its cherished institutions symbolically humiliated and sidelined, there will be Qarases galore in the future. And they could well be less mindful of multi-ethnic sensitivities and the need for multi-ethnic accommodation than Mr Qarase and other politicians of his vintage.
Talking to Fijians on the streets in Suva, admittedly a small sample, I get the definite sense of frustrated silence in the Fijian community. They feel helpless, hobbled and humiliated. 'What can we do,' a man says to me. 'The guns are there.' There is a silent but definite hardening of race relations. The signs are everywhere.
Every issue, every challenge, is viewed through the prism of race. Predominantly Indian trade unions struck an early deal with the interim administration while predominantly Fijian ones struck, I am told. It is not as simple as that, for support for or against the interim administration is divided across the communities. Not all Indians support the coup, nor all Fijians oppose it. But perceptions, right or wrong, do matter. And the omens do not look good.
The government's handling of the strike has left a bitter taste in many mouths. Its rigid and even vindictive approach to industrial relations, its unwillingness to go to arbitration, its determination to frustrate and break up the trade union movement not willing to succumb to its pressure, all done ironically with the support of some compliant trade union leaders, leaves a sad legacy. The government says its coffers are empty, but then spends funds on purchasing vehicles and paying private attorneys to fight its cases. Somewhere, the priorities have gone wrong.
Repairing or in some instances rebuilding bridges of understanding and tolerance between the two main communities is an urgent challenge for the interim administration.
Preoccupied with its own survival amidst unrelenting international pressure unlikely to end any time soon, it has adopted an ad-hoc, fire-containing, approach to the challenges facing it: an enquiry here, a raid there, a plea for aid and assistance and skilled personnel from this country or that.
All this points to one inescapable truth: Fiji is a part of the international community; it is an island, yes, but an island in the physical sense alone. We cannot afford to thumb our noses at the international community and then expect to escape retribution. Sooner rather than later, the larger challenges of the proper way to build a multi-ethnic nation will return to haunt the nation.
The revocation of the suspension of the GCC augurs well for the future of the country. One hopes that the currents underneath are as calm as the surface upon which the duck treads water. Any other scenario is simply too terrible to contemplate.
Brij V Lal is a historian and writer based at the Australian National University. Views expressed here are his own, not his employer's.
Dr. Lal's selective perspective was fact checked and rebutted by a 'Letter to the Editor', published in Fiji Daily Post from newly appointed consultant to Fiji's Media Inquiry, Dr James Anthony. The following is an excerpt:
Brij-ing that gap
JIM ANTHONY (PhD)
21-Aug-2007
T
he public has been treated to two recent statements (Saturday August 11 and Sunday August 12) by Brij Lal, a historian who is attached to the Australian National University in Canberra.
Dr Lal, it should be noted, is a historian – he is not a lawyer or a political scientist by professional training. More importantly, Lal, as far as I know – does not speak or read Bauan – or, if he does, his command of the language is brittle and limited at best.
1. The “duck treading water” article in one of the dailies is full of unsupported Brij Lal speculation. Some examples: “… there is a palpable sense of fragility in the air, the sense that things could go wrong at any time.” People who read Brij Lal’s newspaper speculation are entitled to know what are the “things that could go wrong”, what evidence is there, besides Lal’s bland speculation, for the suggestion that there is a “sense of fragility” in the air. Or, are these kinds of generalisation designed to create a general sense of unease, a tendency to create instability?
2. Lal speculates that “Fijian support for the SDL has strengthened, not lessened.” Has Lal conducted any polls to reach such a conclusion or is this assessment born of his “talking to a small sample of Fijians on the streets of Suva – in fact, talking to a small sample of Fijians on the streets of Suva in English?
3. Lal said that he gets the definite feeling that Fijians are possessed of a sense of frustrated silence and says that they feel “helpless, hobbled and humiliated … and that there is a definite hardening of race relations”. Granted that Lal has a right to voice these musings but he does not have the right to foist them on us without evidence.
4. And then there have been shallow and simplistic statements: “Not all Indians support the coup, nor all Fijians oppose it”! Do we need a historian from the ANU to tell us this? That all Indians do not support the present government and neither do all Fijians, is a glimpse of the obvious.
People’s opinions on recent and not so recent political events in Fiji differ. They have always differed – the sign of a healthy society where different views exit and compete with each other for acceptance. Perhaps we don’t do this very well or very elegantly in Fiji but, nevertheless, we try: we are learning … perhaps too slowly for Lal but we are learning slowly and perhaps, painfully. But we are learning.
The second article headed “GCC suspension unlawful” is pretty thin by any standard."First of all, Lal is not a lawyer. To blandly pronounce the GCC suspension unlawful is to engage in what Americans call the “unauthorised practice of law.” The tenor and substance of Lal’s arguments on this issue are thin at best. "
But there is a larger issue at stake here. I have learned from many years in Hawaii, looking at and studying indigenous people’s movements and the dynamics of their politics, that one has to realise that these are complex matters possessed of many layers, many sinews, many shades of meaning.
The metaphor of indigenous people’s cultures and their cultural motifs are subtle and often times possessed of a complexity that is elusive. All of us – and that includes historians, perhaps, especially historians, are all ill equipped by reason of intellectual preparation to analyse politics and the ebb and flow of indigenous people’s political events, need to be especially careful in our pronouncements about indigenous matters.
In this great debate about sovereignty that has occupied native Hawaiians for the last 40 years – one thing has been made manifestly clear: Hawaiians resent and are deeply suspicious of non-Hawaiians offering speculative and other thoughts on what Hawaiians think or – what might be good for them.
Lal, who has spent time in Hawaii, appears not to have learned that important lesson. That’s unfortunate. When Lal, under cover of his historian mantle and his connection to the 1997 Constitution makes pronouncements about current events in Fiji he is not a duck treading water but acting like a tourist, unaware that he is in shark-infested waters, ventures sufficiently far away from shore that he leaves himself open … well … for want of a better term … shark attack.
The complex issues that have to do with indigenous people’s politics – indeed all politics of whatever culture, Fijian, Hawaiian, Samoan, Tongan – whatever else – are areas of intellectual inquiry into which we should tread carefully, and with great respect – particularly – if like Dr Lal, we are hobbled by the fact that we force ourselves into the mine-ridden field of indigenous politics presumably without speaking their language. Lal’s observation – and there have been many in recent months – ought to be taken with the proverbial grain of salt – full of apparent sound and fury, not signifying very much.
The views, opinions and arguments expressed in the article above are entirely those of the author and not the Fiji Daily Post.
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