Coming In From The Cold?

In recent months Fiji has welcomed to its shores, the Foreign Minister of Russia and more recently the senior diplomat of Qatar. Other bilateral meetings with Iraq and Kuwait have also eventuated, including other nations.

SiFM
"Both Foreign Minster's unscheduled visit to Fiji, is somewhat symbolic in nature, as well as a face saving gesture to restore what shreds of their spheres of influence left intact since their self-imposed absence."

The recent announcement of the nascent Australian Foreign Minister, Bob Carr to visit Fiji, in mid stream of his Washington stop, was quite surprising to say the least . However, Carr's Fiji's stop was undoubtedly influenced by a little chat with  the 'foggy bottom' folks quite concerned at Canberra and Wellington's incessant refusal engage directly with the Fiji Government and in the process isolated the Western aligned alliance diplomatically and undermining their regional moves on the geo-strategic chessboard. 

Tagging along with Foreign Minister Bob Carr to display a united front, is New Zealand Foreign Minister, Murray McCully who also confirmed his itinerary in joining this last minute Pacific Islands Forum Ministerial Contact Group (MCG) visit to Fiji.
It is understood that other Ministers from Pacific Island Forum (PIF) nations, notably from Polynesian client states are only present to bolster the island look of the Anglosphere duo, Carr and McCully respectively; whose nations dominate the proceedings of the Pacific Forum, an organization deemed as an anachronism by Melanesian and Micronesian states.

36th Parallel interview, (video below) outlines the current seismic change in regional affairs.





This disengagement with Fiji by the Trans-Tasman nations, had subsequently encouraged other friends of Fiji, to close ranks and displace the diplomatic rapport they once held. Both Foreign Minster's unscheduled visit to Fiji, is somewhat symbolic in nature, as well as a face saving gesture to restore what shreds of their spheres of influence left intact since their self-imposed absence.

Another unspoken agenda in their visit of both senior diplomats and colonial cousins from the metropolitan nations, is the ambition to shore up support to the former premier regional multi-lateral organization Pacific Islands Forum(PIF) that has since been languishing in the looming shadow of the regional sub-group Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG).

Another perspective by Dr. Wadan Narsey provides another independent view.

The excerpt:

Pacific tilting west to PNG – and Super Power rivalry

http://pacific.scoop.co.nz/2012/04/pacific-tilting-west-to-png-and-super-power-rivalry/

14:56 April 27, 2012 0 comments

Papua New Guinea gold ... vast mineral wealth changing Pacific politics

Photo: Kiridaresources

Pacific Scoop:
Commentary – By economist Professor Wadan Narsey

If this was a news release by a geologist, alarm bells would be ringing around the Pacific and international scientific community. But retitle it “Pacific politics tilting to PNG” and the alarm bells would be ringing in Samoa, Tonga and the Cooks (as I am sure they already are).

However, if Papua New Guinea ever decides to flex its burgeoning muscles, encouraged by a belligerent Fiji, the alarm bells would be ringing loudest in Canberra and Wellington.
Without doubt, Pacific politics is tilting towards the west, drawn by the all-powerful and inexorable gravitational forces of the massive LNG and other minerals wealth being generated in Papua New Guinea (and in West Papua – another sorry saga).

Pacific regional initiatives such as PICTA and EPAs with the European Union (administered by Forum Secretariat in Suva) or PACER Plus (administered through the Office of the Chief Trade Adviser in Vila) are going to be largely eclipsed by the Melanesian Spearhead Group of PNG, Fiji, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu, headquartered in the Chinese built secretariat in Vila. But are the PNG politicians prepared for the leadership role that comes with their wealth and markets?

Or will they be too bogged down in their debilitating internal squabbles for political power so as to ensure preferential access to the massive new wealth flows being created?
Relations with Australia and NZ are going to be a key factor in the direction taken by PNG and the MSG group, and that will depend critically on what PACER Plus offers the PICs, and how fast.
Understanding the complex chop-suey of forces at work in the Pacific is extremely difficult, as the diversity of issues discussed by this article indicates.

Super Power rivalry

But almost certainly, history, time and the “Pacific tilt” are not on Australia’s side. More than a decade ago, US withdrew its Peace Corps programme from the Pacific.  But in 2011, US Secretary Of State Hillary Clinton warned the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee not to cut the US foreign aid budget, citing the growing competition with China for global influence, specifically mentioning the Pacific and its vast natural resources.

The US is now back in the Pacific with a large new US Embassy in Suva, to rival the equally large Chinese Embassy. US has  also now stationed a small number of troops in North Australia, a move which is seen by an annoyed China as part of the US “containment policy” towards China.

The numbers of US troops will no doubt slowly grow, alarming Australian strategy advisers who see too close an attachment to US military strategies as being potentially harmful to long term Australian economic interests, which are inextricably linked to China’s economic growth (and which was the most significant factor saving Australia from the Global Financial Crisis).
Without doubt, super-power rivalry in the Pacific is now escalating.
PNG will have far more bargaining chips than ever before, especially if its leaders are able to successfully play off one Super Power against another, and take a leadership role in the Pacific, including the MSG.

W. Narsey
" Pacific regional initiatives such as PICTA and EPAs with the European Union (administered by Forum Secretariat in Suva) or PACER Plus (administered through the Office of the Chief Trade Adviser in Vila) are going to be largely eclipsed by the Melanesian Spearhead Group of PNG, Fiji, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu, headquartered in the Chinese built secretariat in Vila. "

Largest market

Papua New Guinea with its population of 7 million people is the largest market in the Pacific Island Countries Trade Agreement (PICTA), with the others just making up less than 2 million.
Yet 10 years ago, the PNG market was not given much importance by the other Pacific Island companies because the largely rural PNG consumers were too poor to spend money on modern goods. That has now totally changed with the massive economic growth now taking place in PNG, with equally large investment and consumer expenditures from both the private sector and government.

Foreign companies, including Australian, are taking a renewed interest in PNG. Even Fiji companies have made a beeline for PNG, pushed abroad by the last six years of economic stagnation in Fiji. All of a sudden, the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG) of PNG, Fiji, Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu has become the substantial integration movement in the Pacific, totally eclipsing PICTA.

The MSG is also achieving trade integration advances which PICTA has failed to deliver while PACER Plus totally stagnates.

Pacific countries will continue to talk endlessly on PACER Plus, as they did when PICTA was being negotiated, with every tiny trading or local commercial interest dragging the negotiations down to a snail’s pace, to the financial delight of an army of consultants.
This strengthening of the MSG has been assisted by Fiji’s belligerent attitude towards Australia and NZ, secretly admired by the political leaders of PNG, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu, who have long harboured intense resentment at what they perceive to be the paternalistic and condescending attitudes of Australian and NZ political leaders towards the Melanesians.
Underlying all this antagonism is the virtually taboo subject of Australian and NZ racism against the Melanesians, which surfaced in an oblique way at a recent conference at Deakin University in Geelong on PNG’s future.

Melanesians feel racism

This two-day conference produced many useful contributions from Australian and PNG academics and participants. But one jarring note in an otherwise diplomatic opening address by the debonair  Sir Charles Lepani (PNG High Commissioner to Australia) was his emotional complaint about the “galling” barriers faced by PNG nationals requiring a visa to come to Australia, while Australians come and go freely in PNG. This observation was greeted with applause by the largely white Australian audience, who had faced such difficulties when trying to get visas for PNG nationals.

Another senior and influential bureaucrat, a “mover and shaker” in PNG, complained bitterly that he had been coming to Australia for four decades, yet the Australian immigration department still wanted his bank balance and his grandparents’ addresses.
Ironically, while speaker after speaker (both PNG and Australian) complained about the post-independence debilitating deterioration in PNG civil service efficiency and widespread corruption, eminent Professor Ross Garnaut threw in a sobering reminder that the decades in which Australia controlled PNG before independence was “no golden era” for PNG people either, when they were required to have a permit to even come into their own capital, Moresby.

The conference was also reminded by yours truly that while Australia easily and freely gave out more than 600,000 work/holiday/study visas to a number of mostly white countries, PNG had yet to be confirmed for a quota of a mere 100

‘Blackbirding’ memories

Melanesian countries still remember their people being “blackbirded” a century ago, to clear the land in Australia for white farmers, and then callously and cruelly expelled (with the Chinese and Indians) to create the “White Australia” after federation in 1905 (led by Prime Minister Deakin). Today, the Melanesians are affronted that the descendants of that early slave labour are clearly not wanted in Australia in the way whites are.

In an evening function, very senior PNG people (including white Australian PNG “old hands”) confided quietly that the negative Australian attitude to PNG people was racism pure and simple – a continuation of the “White Australia” policy.
Few from the Melanesian Pacific would disagree, as they see that the Pacer Plus negotiations are bogged down by Australia on the one benefit that the Pacific countries feel would balance all the many costs of pure trade integration.

All PICs want is reasonable access for unskilled PIC “guest workers” into Australia – to ease their home unemployment and increase their valuable remittance earnings which has kept poverty at bay in several countries such as Fiji, Samoa, Tonga.
But for almost a decade now, Australia has been dragging its feet on proposals to let a few thousand Pacific Islands workers come to pick fruit, all under tightly controlled conditions, while 600,000 young workers from Europe, with minimal control or organisation whatsoever, come and go with a year’s permit for work and/or holiday, readily granted.

Add Sino-phobia

Many political strategists in Australia and NZ are worried about China’s rapid incursion into Pacific economies and politics, even though China is merely doing much the same kinds of things which other Super Powers and donors have done in the past century.

China may be extremely secretive about their financial flows to recipient countries and politicians. For instance, there is little publicly available data about what exactly are the loans which many Pacific countries are taking on for future generations.
But unlike Australian and NZ, China has little concern for insisting on local governance standards or basic human rights of the PIC citizens.

Sadly, the Western powers excluded China in their regional discussions with PICs, as I pointed out at a PIDP meeting in Honolulu early in 2011, on the future of the Pacific. The improbable excuse given was that there were “visa difficulties” for Chinese delegates.
It is open to question whether China will be any less racist or paternalistic or condescending than Australia or NZ.  But Chinese diplomats are not likely to make the political gaffes which Australian politicians make regularly with respect to the Pacific.
Australian failures
Australia’s failure to win the hearts and minds of Pacific political leaders may be contrasted with NZ’s greater success with Pacific countries, and with their Maori population.
No power-hungry Pacific politician is ever going to prise the Cook Islands, Tokelau or Niue (or even Samoa and Tonga) out of New Zealand’s camp.

Even Kiribati is now over the moon with Fiji, which has offered (sold) them a large block of land which will have more earth in it than all of Kiribati combined. While Kiribati’s President Tong hastily said the purchase was for food security and not settlement, there is little doubt that it also is going to provide a refuge for any I-Kiribati climate change refugees.
The I-Kiribati know that Tuvaluans are already quietly and happily acquiring property in Fiji, with no fuss whatsoever from Fiji authorities.  Tuvaluans are hard-working law-abiding residents of Fiji, enjoying all the benefits of good education for their children, health services for their sick, and a hospitable social environment.

Massive Australia, despite its daily acknowledgement of significant labour shortages for the foreseeable future, has made no such grand symbolic gesture towards the atoll countries which would have cost it so little and gained so much. It is not surprising that, apart from a few small Polynesian countries, the rest of the Melanesian and Micronesian Pacific has refused to speak out against the military regime in Fiji, despite the considerable diplomatic pressure from Australia and NZ.

W. Narsey
"Many political strategists in Australia and NZ are worried about China’s rapid incursion into Pacific economies and politics, even though China is merely doing much the same kinds of things which other Super Powers and donors have done in the past century. "

The PICs all know that Australia has been dragging its feet for a decade on PACER Plus negotiations and refusing to budge on access to Pacific unskilled labour, while the smaller NZ economy has had a small guest worker scheme operating very successfully for several years.
Australian needs to pay more attention to PNG views: one speaker at the Deakin conference on PNG futures quite bluntly told the gathering: “If Australia does not want to play ball with PNG, then we will play ball with China”.
The reality is that PNG is now positioned to lead a mass break-out of the economic barriers that Australia has built up against the ordinary poor and unskilled black populations in the Pacific.
While perpetually decrying the deterioration in governance and public services in PNG and other Melanesian countries, Australia has been ruthlessly extracting the very professional and skilled PIC citizens, whose departure is one fundamental cause of PIC economic and social disintegration.
It is a paradox to many Pacific economists why Australia is so backward in its policies towards the Melanesian countries.

Saying ‘sorry’

In the absence of any great Australian awareness of Australia’s exploitation of Kanaks in the past, it might be difficult to argue that Australia has any subconscious guilt complex towards Melanesians, as they seemed to have towards the Aboriginals.

But Australian political leaders, after a century of silence, finally said “sorry” to Aboriginals for all the horrifying injustices done to them in the past. It would be an interesting PhD to examine whether saying “sorry” has made any improvements at all to the political relationships between Australian and Aboriginal political leaders, and more importantly, to the welfare of the Aboriginals whose conditions are closer (by all the MDG criteria) to the poverty stricken people in sub-Saharan Africa, than to the rest of white or Asian Australia.

Perhaps the Melanesian countries should demand that Australia also say “sorry” to them, for the atrocities committed against the Kanak labourers a century ago. Acknowledging those past brutalities (and you might first need a few TV documentaries to drive that message home to the unaware Australian public) might encourage Australia to treat Pacific Island countries fairly and with human decency in the PACER Plus negotiations.

If PACER Plus delivers on the unskilled labour market benefits that PIC leaders want, and quickly, then Australian and NZ politicians might also have fewer nightmares about being outmanoeuvred by China in the Pacific, plus enjoy a lot of benefits as well.

Dr Wadan Narsey is a Fiji economist, academic, former parliamentarian and independent media commentator. He is a regular columnist on Pacific Scoop and Pacific Media Centre Online.

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Beazely Bi-lateral Gatekeeping & US Engagement In The Pacific

Fiji One TV segment covers the recent remarks of Australian Ambassador to the U.S, Kim Beazely (K.B) in an interview with "The Diplomat" dated April 14th 2012 titled "How Australia Sees America".

"The Diplomat "(T.D) interview excerpt that focused on US's engagement in the Pacific and Australia's assumed sphere of influence:

(T.D) Within the alliance, the South Pacific has traditionally fallen within Australia’s sphere of influence. In recent years, Australia has taken the lead on engaging its neighbors in the region on behalf of the West, including taking on major peacekeeping operations in Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands and taking the lead on engagement with Fiji. However, significant challenges have emerged in a number of these countries. Democracy hasn’t taken hold and there now appears to be a slitting of the Pacific Islands Forum along Melanesian and Polynesian lines.

This raises the question of whether the United States should not only take a more assertive role in the region, but also advance an alternative diplomatic approach in situations like Fiji or PNG. From Australia’s perspective, do you see any tension forming within ANZUS on diplomatic engagement in the South Pacific? And, how concerned are you about the rise of anti-Australian sentiment and the emergence of the Melanesian Spearhead Group as a possible alternative to the Pacific Islands Forum?

(K.B) The thing that we have always appreciated in our relationship with the United States is that the U.S. has always kept its engagement with the South Pacific islands under constant discussion with us. They engage us on where American policy is going. Clearly, from our point of view, the U.S. determines its own direction wherever it goes. It will rationalize that policy direction with its friends and others as the U.S. sees fit.

From our point of view, what’s much more important is that the U.S. is engaged. We think that it is good for the countries of the region that the U.S. involves itself. We have been arguing to – rather than with – the United States for a very long time that they become more involved in the region. So, we would do nothing but encourage them.

The region is getting increasingly complex as the leaders in the region become more adept at international diplomacy and more aware of the character of international relations. Australia doesn’t own any of this territory. We did once – at least part of it. But, we don’t own any of it now. So, our concern for that region is that they be wealthy, happy, cheerful, well-governed. That is our objective. And, we all stand for democracy. So, we are prepared to provide material assistance where that aid is sought – not imposed – by countries in the region. Because the U.S. tends to have very civil values, the U.S. is engaged in pursuing those objectives too. 

We don’t have any problems with the U.S. keeping the backdoor open as long as they consult with us. Clearly the U.S. will make up its own mind on what direction it wants to go. So long as it doesn’t give us any surprises, we have no basis for complaint.
The MSG has been around quite a long while, and we have coexisted with it jointly. So, it’s not something that has us phased or fussed.

More views from Kim Beazely below:

Trade &  Security Lecture At University of Virginia March 28 2012(Video posted below)

CSIS Interview Oct 17th 2011 (video posted below)




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Bob Carr and Australia's Foreign Policy 2.0

News of the constitutional consultations have prompted many view points. One such perspective from Jenny Hayward Jones, speaks of the alignment of stars:

For the first time in some years, the stars may be aligning for a change in the relationship: Bob Carr's appointment as Australian Foreign Minister and a constructive and positive announcement from Commodore Bainimarama this morning on a constitutional consultations process create an opportunity.

Bob Carr was alluded to have "softened Australia's stance on Fiji", in an article by News Corp owned, Adelaide publication- "The Advertiser"

The excerpt of article:

Carr softens Australia's stance on Fiji

• by: Ian McPhedran and Steve Lewis
• From: The Advertiser
• March 07, 2012 11:00PM
• 5 comments

Bob Carr will extend an olive branch to Fijian dictator Frank Bainimarama, above, during talks in New Zealand. 

 

BOB Carr will begin to reverse six years of hard-line Labor policy against the government of Fijian dictator Frank Bainimarama.

Mr Carr will offer an olive branch to the military strongman, who seized power in the small Pacific island nation after a military coup in 2006.
The new Foreign Affairs Minister will travel to New Zealand tomorrow to meet NZ Prime Minister John Key to discuss Fiji's banning from the Pacific Islands Forum in 2009.

Incentives for Fiji are likely to include lifting some of the "sticks" against the regime, including the forum's ban on the junta - and some reversal of Australian sanctions set up in the wake of the coup.
These include a blanket ban on the supply, sale or transfer to Fiji of arms and related material, the provision of technical advice, assistance or training, a financial service or financial or other assistance to Fiji related to military activities or  any activity that involves the sale or supply of any export-sanctioned goods to Fiji.

The package also bars entry or transit through Australia for Fijian citizens declared by the Foreign Minister, such as members of the military junta, their families and other supporters of the Fijian regime.
The New Zealand talks would focus on common regional interests in the Pacific Islands Forum, the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands and Pacific maritime surveillance.

In the span of several days and since meeting the New Zealand Foreign Minister, Murray McCully, the conciliatory approach many expected from Carr, has since reversed as reported in a Radio Australia article. 

The excerpt:

Carr rejects talk of softening Fiji stance

By New Zealand correspondent Dominique Schwartz

 

Posted March 09, 2012 20:26:46

Foreign minister designate Bob Carr has rejected media reports that he is planning to soften Australia's hard stance against Fiji. Mr Carr was speaking in Auckland after holding informal talks with his New Zealand counterpart Murray McCully.
Mr Carr said he had noted Friday's announcement by Fiji's military leader Frank Bainimarama about planned public consultation over a new constitution. Both Mr Carr and Mr McCully greeted the announcement with caution and said time would tell if the Fiji's rulers were truly moving towards democratic elections.

The former New South Wales premier also says he will be seeking more information from the ACTU about the human rights situation for workers in Fiji. Mr Carr says he wants to further investigate claims that any union official who speaks out against the interim government still risks life imprisonment. "Certainly one of the tests we'd consider in the future is the right of organisation in the workplace," he said. "That's a fundamental human right. I'd expect to have more conversations with unionists, in particular the ACTU."

Mr Carr said his hour-long discussion with Mr McCully about the region was wide-ranging and helpful. He will meet prime minister John Key on Saturday morning. It is his first overseas trip since being named the replacement for Kevin Rudd. He is due to be sworn in as a senator and foreign minister on Tuesday.

It is becoming increasingly apparent that many observers waiting for Bob Carr to change policy on Fiji were in for a major disappointment. Since becoming Foreign Minister, Carr has demonstrated a unique ability to flip-flop, like his initial opposition to the R2P operation in Libya, brokered by his predecessor Kevin Rudd.

Many that had withheld judgment on Carr ever since his appointment as Foreign Minister, will be soon making  up their minds. SiFM is among them. 

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Bob Carr and Australia's Foreign Policy.

Bob Carr looks at Julia Gillard [Image source: ABC]

Babasiga post highlights the appointment of Bob Carr as Australia's Foreign Affairs Minister.

Radio Australia article suggests that the new incumbent will focus on the Pacific region, after being neglected by Carr's predecessor.

Lowy Institute's blog "The Interpreter", addressed the content of Bob Carr's blog and some of the perceived view points, the nascent Foreign Minister holds with regards to Foreign Policy.

All things considered, it would be naive at best for the Pacific region to expect a sudden change in DFAT and its abysmal track record under Rudd's tenure. WSWS article underscored Rudd's uncanny ability to self promote:

US Ambassador McCallum wrote a scathing cable, describing the APC idea as “hastily rolled out, with minimal consultations.” He continued: “Rudd seems to be in a hurry not only to demonstrate Australia’s regional influence as a ‘middle power’, but also to begin to establish his legacy

SiFM also addressed the same concerns in a numerous posts- here , here and here.

The capability of Carr is not in question, however, the Pacific region will soon determine whether a new chapter in Australian Foreign Affairs has indeed been opened.

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X-Post from Grubsheet: #56 KEVIN RUDD’S PACIFIC NEGLECT

By Graham Davis

– February 25, 2012Posted in: All

Frank Bainimarama ( photo: Graham Davis )

Frank Bainimarama – Fiji’s prime minister and the current chair of the four-nation Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG) – has joined the chorus of criticism of Kevin Rudd in advance of Monday’s leadership vote in Australia, accusing him of having neglected the Pacific as foreign minister. He said Canberra’s lack of attention to the region – and especially its policy of shunning Fiji – had weakened Australian influence in the Pacific and had created a vacuum that bigger powers were moving to fill. Countries such as China and Russia were building relations with the smaller island states and strengthening their presence in Australia’s backyard. “They should be worried but they’re not”, he said. “ I don’t think they are taking it very seriously”.

In an interview with Grubsheet in Suva, Commodore Bainimarama revealed that both the United States and New Zealand had broken ranks with Australia and had renewed their official contacts with Fiji, severed after his coup in December 2006. No Australian diplomat or minister has had a formal meeting with the Fijian leader in the intervening five years in protest at the removal at gunpoint of the elected government of Laisenia Qarase, which Bainimarama claimed was racist and corrupt. Yet the United States no longer has such qualms, evidently concerned that Australia’s continuing hard-line stance has driven the Fijian leader into the arms of the Chinese.

Contact resumed : Frankie Reed 
( Photo: US State Dept) 

The American ambassador in Suva, Frankie Reed, has resumed regular contacts and a team of FBI agents has been in the Fijian capital training local police. “We have no problems with our relationship with the United States”, Bainimarama said. “The American ambassador came to see me and attends all our functions. She’s friendly and our relationship is good”. While the Fijian leader is banned from Australia – along with anyone associated with his regime – he was granted an open visa to visit the US last September and had engagements in Connecticut, Florida and Tennessee. “It seems odd that I am welcome in the world’s greatest democracy and not Australia and NZ but I’ve come to accept it”, he said.

In the case of New Zealand, Commodore Bainimarama said the renewed level of engagement was more modest. The travel bans on him and members of the regime remained but unlike Mr Rudd, the NZ foreign minister, Murray McCully, had been in contact with Fiji’s foreign minister, Ratu Inoke Kubuabola. “I think the Kiwis are more understanding than the Australians. I don’t really know why but there’s a large number of Fijians in NZ and I think they’ve put pressure on them to talk to us”. “I see representatives of some of the world’s biggest democracies – the Americans, the Indians, the Indonesians, the Japanese, the South Koreans and the French but not Australia. It doesn’t make sense”, he said.

"Increasing acceptance"(photo: Graham Davis)

While the Fijian leader declined to speculate on why American policy had changed beyond agreeing that an “about face” had taken place, concern has been expressed in Washington about Beijing’s ambitions in the region and especially its close ties with Fiji. Describing China as a “friend” which had given Fiji “about $200-million in soft loans”, Commodore Bainimarama said Australia only had itself to blame for the increasing Chinese presence in the region. “They are giving us support politically because everyone has withdrawn. They have recognised our sovereignty, which is very important for us”, Bainimarama said.
The Fijian leader said Mr Rudd had been noticeably absent from regional capitals during his 17 months in the foreign affairs portfolio. He had made only one foray into the region, a single weekend trip to Papua New Guinea last October. “We have never seen him around the smaller Pacific island nation states”, Bainimarama said. “He’s complained about everyone coming here but hasn’t come here himself.”

Sergey Lavrov in Nadi (photo: Jet newspaper)

The Fijian leader contrasted Mr Rudd’s lack of interest with the recent visit to Fiji by Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, who made the first ever journey to the region by a senior Russian official. He said that unlike Australia, Russia appeared to recognised the growing importance of the smaller island states and wanted closer ties. “Maybe he (Lavrov) thinks everyone has backed off and this part of the world needs assistance”, he said. During his visit to Nadi at the beginning of the month, Mr Lavrov held talks with Commodore Bainimarama and other Pacific leaders who are members of a new voting bloc at the United Nations that Fiji has played a major role in forging – the eleven member Pacific Small Island  Developing States ( PSIDS).

Graham Davis On Grubsheet

"Describing China as a “friend” which had given Fiji “about $200-million in soft loans”, Commodore Bainimarama said Australia only had itself to blame for the increasing Chinese presence in the region[...]
The Fijian leader contrasted Mr Rudd’s lack of interest with the recent visit to Fiji by Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, who made the first ever journey to the region by a senior Russian official. He said that unlike Australia, Russia appeared to recognised the growing importance of the smaller island states and wanted closer ties
[...]The Fijian leader accused Australia and NZ of driving a wedge through the Pacific by playing Polynesian countries off against their Melanesian neighbours. He described the Samoan leader, Tuilaepa Malielegao, as an “Aussie and Kiwi puppet” for his continuing attacks on Fiji."

The Fijian leader castigated Mr Rudd’s junior minister for the Pacific, Richard Marles, for having expressed concern that Russia was exploiting small states in the Pacific and was engaged in chequebook diplomacy. “He (Marles) is a hypocrite. He’s talking about chequebook diplomacy? Hasn’t he been giving money to the Pacific island nations in the last five or ten years?” Commodore Bainimarama denied that Mr Lavrov had offered Fiji and the other PSIDS countries financial assistance to recognise its puppet governments in South Ossetia and Abkhazia – territory also claimed by Georgia. “He gave Fiji a donation to help us with our flood appeal but that was it”.

"Hypocrite" - Richard Marles (Photo: DFAT)

Australia cut off ties with Fiji after Commodore Bainimarama’s 2006 coup and imposed a set of “smart sanctions” – including travel bans – in support of its demand for an immediate return to democracy. The Fijian leader has steadfastly refused to comply, insisting instead on a new constitution to remove racial inequality, followed by elections in 2014 based on one man one vote. Previous elections in Fiji have been weighted in favour of the indigenous majority.

As foreign minister, Mr Rudd resolutely ignored pleas to re-engage with Fiji, including from two influential foreign affairs think tanks, the Lowy Institute and the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI). Last year, the head of the Lowy Institute’s Melanesian program, Jenny Hayward-Jones, also accused Mr Rudd of neglecting the region and called for re-engagement to encourage Fiji to stick to its promise to restore democracy in 2014.

Commodore Bainimarama said Australian policy towards Fiji under Kevin Rudd was governed by “pride, not good policy”.“ He has personalised it, the way he called me a pariah and a dictator. He is a very ambitious politician and it’s been clear that he wanted to be prime minister again”. Describing Mr Rudd as the “main impediment” to better relations with Australia, Commodore Bainimarama said Canberra had continued to insist on an immediate election in Fiji even though it could never be truly democratic without fundamental reforms. “We are beginning work in a couple of weeks on a new constitution. We are not going to have elections tomorrow. We’re not going to have elections next year. We’re going to have elections when we’re ready and that will be before September 2014, as I’ve said all along”.

Commodore Bainimarama said his election as chairman of the Melanesian Spearhead Group after Australia succeeded in having Fiji suspended from the Pacific Islands Forum – the other major regional grouping  -showed that Canberra was out of touch with sentiment in the region. The MSG encompasses 95 per cent of Pacific islanders, living in its member states of   Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu plus the Kanaks of New Caledonia. “Only Canberra and Wellington see me as an outcast”, Commodore Bainimarama said. “Nobody else does”.

Prefers another Queen's man, Tony Abbott (Photo: Graham Davis)

The Fijian leader accused Australia and NZ of driving a wedge through the Pacific by playing Polynesian countries off against their Melanesian neighbours. He described the Samoan leader, Tuilaepa Malielegao, as an “Aussie and Kiwi puppet” for his continuing attacks on Fiji. Tuilaepa has accused Commodore Bainimarama of “lying” about his intention to return to democracy in 2014 and said he was “leading everyone down the cassava patch”.

The Fijian leader said he was not willing to trade insults with his Samoan counterpart but it was clear that he was doing the bidding of Australia and NZ. “It seems that every time he runs out of money, somebody winds him up and he plays to their tune. He goes “Fiji is no good, there’s a lot of problems in Fiji”. I don’t know why he spends a lot of time rubbishing Fiji but I have no time to be thinking about him”, he said.
Commodore Bainimarama said that while he “didn’t want to get involved in Australian domestic politics”,

Fiji’s best hope for a change in Australia’s attitude rested with Tony Abbott winning the next election. “I understand that Abbott is more understanding of the situation than Kevin Rudd and his team. And, yes, I would think there may be a change in policy.” Commodore Bainimarama agreed that Tony Abbott’s reputation as a sportsman and champion boxer meant that he was more likely to get on with him. “I would love him to bring about some change in policy, in the way we conduct our business. Yes, I will try to reach out to him if he wins. He’s welcome in Suva at any time”.

A shorter version of this article has appeared in News Limited papers in Australia, including Sydney’s Daily Telegraph.


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X-Post:: Blak and Black -Lost Sovereignty; a disgraced judge and a kidnapped Attorney-General

Posted on January 31, 2012 by Bakchos

 

Carl Schmitt’s Political Theology: Four Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty is both famous and obscure. A twentieth-century political theory, containing two canonical sentences: “Sovereign is he who decides on the exception” and “All significant concepts of the modern theory of the state are secularized theological concepts.” These statements are regurgitated by contemporary political and legal theorists time and again. Standing alone, Schmitt’s statements are both puzzling and shocking.

Schmitt’s claim of a theological origin for political concepts stands against the common faith view that Western political theory as advocated by figures such as Locke, Hume, and Smith, not to forget Machiavelli and Hobbes, laid the groundwork for the modern theory of the state. The social contract, not the divine covenant, is at the centre of modern political theory. The concept of a single sovereign, deciding on rules and exceptions, is similarly inconsistent with current thinking about the rule of law, separation of powers, and judicial review.

Blak and Black

"Corruption not by an indigenous people living on a remote island in the Pacific, but corruption in the very seat of power in Australia, corruption that Australia has subsequently exported to our Pacific neighbours."

Today, if somewhat naively, we are prone to ask “what exception?” rather than who decides the exception; how, after all, can we reconcile Schmitt’s definition of sovereignty with the accepted maxim of Western jurisprudence, “extraordinary conditions neither create nor enlarge constitutional power”? In a system of popular sovereignty, we do not know a “he” who can claim to be the sovereign; in our system of constitutional law, we do not know a state of exception.

In reality there are exceptions, there always have been. In Australia the exceptions are usually decided by the police or the Director of Public Prosecutions (“DPP”) and are generally, if not exclusively, based on race. I have written at length on Blak and Black and elsewhere about organisations such as the Australian Federal Police (“AFP”) and the Australian Capital Territory Department of Public Prosecutions making decisions about whether to investigate or prosecute a crime based solely on race. In these situations, the decision almost always goes against the person of colour. This is unabashed racism. This racism becomes more pronounced if the person of colour is an Indigenous Australian or Pacific Islander. This unabashed racism is currently being exported to Australia’s Pacific neighbours via the Australian directed Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (“RAMSI”) and the AFP.

“We went into the Solomon Islands in order to restore the rule of law. What happened on 27 December [2007] did not involve the Australian government participating in a process of restoring the rule of law.” (Patrick O’Connor, Australian High Court concludes hearing into Julian Moti appeal)

Indeed, Australia did claim to go to the “… Solomon Islands in order to restore the rule of law …”, but far from restoring the ‘rule of law’ Australia stripped the Solomon Islands of its sovereignty and imposed in its place a form of neo-colonial rule far more oppressive than anything the European powers of the nineteen century could have dreamed up. What happened on 27 December 2007 is that the Australian Government kidnapped and unlawfully brought to Australia the former Attorney General Mr Julian Moti of the Solomon Islands to stand trial on what the former Prime Minister of The Solomon Islands Manasseh Sogavare described as “a sham and malicious conspiracy to indict an innocent man.”

In fact, in a media release dated 7 August, 2007 then Prime Minister Sogavare stated that and I quote this document in full:

Prime Minister Sogavare, with the full support of Caucus, has decided today to table in Parliament a questionnaire containing 666 questions addressed to the Australian Federal Director of Prosecutions, Damian Bugg QC, for his independent examination of the Moti case.
The questionnaire deals with the unsuccessful and unmeritorious Vanuatu prosecution of Moti, the shameful and politically motivated Australian investigation of Moti, and the violations of human rights, international law, and the national laws of the Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea and Vanuatu. 

Sogavare says: “Our forensic and legal advisers have told the Solomon Islands Government that the Australian Federal Police investigation of Attorney General Moti QC is a sham and malicious conspiracy to indict an innocent man. Moti is a target of a vicious campaign to topple a democratically elected Government concerned about the protection of sovereignty.”
 “My Government will not enter into any further debate on the Moti case until DPP Bugg QC complies with our legitimate request under Solomon Islands and international law”, says Sogavare.“We know that DPP Bugg QC has not personally looked at the Moti file, yet his name is being used to authenticate the Australian prosecution of Moti.”
(My emphasis)

The entire Solomon Islands ‘666 questionnaire’ together with the Australian Governments responses can be read on Blak and Black by following this link.

“Our forensic and legal advisers have told the Solomon Islands Government that the Australian Federal Police investigation of Attorney General Moti QC is a sham and malicious conspiracy to indict an innocent man. Moti is a target of a vicious campaign to topple a democratically elected Government concerned about the protection of sovereignty.” Strong words from a democratically elected Prime Minister, but nonetheless true.

“There are other areas in which public confidence in the administration of justice is said to be relevant. One is… the abuse of process which arises when legal processes are used for purposes alien to their proper purposes.” Heydon J Moti v The Queen [2011] HCA 50.

If Carl Schmitt is correct and the “Sovereign is he who decides on the exception”, then based on what happened on 27 December 2007 RAMSI is sovereign in the Solomon Islands. Make no mistake, it was RAMSI in the form of the AFP who targeted Moti and engaged in “a vicious campaign to topple a democratically elected Government”. It was also RAMSI in the form of the AFP who engaged in conduct that had the potential to diminish public confidence “in the administration of justice” by using legal processes for “purposes alien to their proper purposes.” The final attack on the sovereignty of the Solomon Islands by Australia came in the form of the immunity provisions contained in the RAMSI Treaty.

The effect of these immunity provisions is that the AFP officers responsible for undermining the sovereignty of the Solomon Islands are immune from prosecution both in the Solomon Islands and in Australia. The immunity clause in the RAMSI Treaty is an ‘exception’, an ‘exception’ which makes RAMSI sovereign in the Solomon Islands.

An act of hubris, a loss of sovereignty

In August 2006 a car owned by former Federal Court judge and current barrister, Marcus Einfeld, was photographed speeding in Mosman. Einfeld said that his silver Lexus was being driven by Teresa Brennan, a visitor from the United States. But when it was found that Brennan had died three years earlier, Einfeld was soon in trouble over other traffic offences and faced serious charges including perjury.

This extraordinary act of hubris by former Australian Federal Court Judge Marcus Einfeld not only resulted in him being sentenced to a term of imprisonment of two years for lying under oath and perverting the court of justice in relation to a $77 speeding fine, but had consequences for the sovereignty of one of Australia’s near pacific neighbours.

A scandal in Australia, and an engrossing matter within legal circles, had its impact on the Solomon Islands where Einfeld had been appointed to chair an inquiry into the April 2006 riots in Honiara. When Einfeld withdrew, Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare moved to replace the Attorney-General Primo Afeau with Julian Moti, a Fiji-Indian by background and an Australian lawyer by training and citizenship. Sogavare was seen by his opponents in the Solomon Islands and some Australian observers as attempting to use Moti to oversee the terms and conduct of his riot inquiry to shift blame to RAMSI and away from the two members of parliament (Charles Dausabea and Nelson Ne’e) who were jailed for their involvement in the riots and have subsequently sued the Solomon Islands Government over their jailing.

After Sogavare announced the appointment of Moti as Attorney-General, the AFP issued a warrant for Moti’s arrest for an alleged child sex offence in Vanuatu in 1997. Sogavare saw a deliberate plan by Australia to frustrate his attempts to set up a separate inquiry and he appealed to arguments about Solomon Islands’ sovereignty and prejudice against a big and distant Australian bully.

Acting on an Interpol alert triggered by Australia, the Port Moresby police arrested Moti on 29 September 2006 in the transit lounge of Jackson’s airport when he was flying from Singapore to Honiara. After his arrest Moti was released on bail and decamped to the Solomon Islands High Commission in Port Moresby. As reported by the National Broadcasting Corporation and the two national dailies, the Prime Minister Sir Michael Somare advocated the release and transfer of Moti and punishing the police who arrested him. Somare’s reported words were explicit:”Let Moti go” and “my view was to make sure that he gets past our system and goes through [to Honiara]“. On Monday 9 October the only operational PNGDF CASA aircraft took off from Jackson’s airport and dropped Moti and other Solomon Island officials at a disused airstrip on Munda Island.

Had Einfeld not been forced to withdraw as chair of the inquiry into the April 2006 riots in Honiara, Sogavare might not have found himself in a position to appoint Moti as Attorney-General of the Solomon Islands. Likewise, if Australia had not been so paranoid about one man who was determined to defend the rights of his indigenous public for whom he was a servant, his appointment would not have mattered.

A former Judge caught lying under oath and perverting the court of justice cannot be seen as anything other than a form of corruption. Corruption not by an indigenous people living on a remote island in the Pacific, but corruption in the very seat of power in Australia, corruption that Australia has subsequently exported to our Pacific neighbours. Was Einfield’s fall from grace simply a matter of justice prevailing over corruption or were there more sinister forces at play?

In any event the results for the Solomon Islands have been profound in terms of its national sovereignty. One of the first national sovereignty issues we encounter when considering the role of RAMSI in the Solomon Islands is that of national or sovereign accountability. Under the FIAA the Participating Police Force (“PPF”) is accountable to the Deputy Police Commissioner who is a senior Australian Police Officer. The FIAA is silent on whether the Deputy Police Commissioner should resign his/her Australian commission before acceding to the post of Deputy Police Commissioner of the Solomon Islands.

If the Deputy Police Commissioner is allowed to accede to that post without first resigning their Australian commission, a parallel line of accountability is created within a sovereign state. Is this constitutionally sound?

This parallel line of accountability in turn gives rise to the question of immunity. Under the Solomon Islands Constitution, an aggrieved party may apply to the High Court for redress for the contravention of his/her fundamental rights. Section 18 (1) provides:

…if any person alleges that any of the [human rights provisions] of this Constitution has been, is being or is likely to be contravened in relation to him for, in the case of a person who is detained, if any other person alleges such contravention in relation to the detained then, without prejudice to any other action with respect to the same matter which is lawfully available, that person (or that other person) may apply to the High Court for redress.

If a situation arises where a member of RAMSI is alleged to have violated the fundamental rights of a citizen of the Solomon Islands, the courts would be powerless to act unless RAMSI waives its immunity, which in turn raises the question: are the immunity provisions con tained within the FIAA consistent with Schmitt’s test of Sovereignty?

On the point of Schmitt’s test of Sovereignty, it is worth quoting from the Memorandum of Advice written by Mr Julian Moti QC in his capacity as Attorney-General of the Solomon Islands dated 27 August, 2007. In this advice Moti argues that if it is the intention of the Solomon Island’s Parliament to:

…incubate a permanent state of exception in Solomon Islands by retaining the presence of the visiting contingent here indefinitely, it might simply achieve that by delegating its plenary legislative power to “make laws for the peace, order and good governance of Solomon Islands” to the head of the visiting contingent. Assuming that would not be acceptable, it is necessary to enter into dialogue with all affected parties to reconcile identified problems before legislating future amendments to the existing FIAA regime.

As Carl Schmitt reminds us “Sovereign is he who decides on the exception” therefore if RAMSI personnel and support corporations are exempt from the equal application of Solomon Islands national registration and revenue laws and are further entitled to privileges and immunities which FIAA grants only to individual members of the visiting contingent, which as Moti argues can amount to nothing less than a permanent state of exception can the Solomon Islands Government still be seen as being sovereign in its own territory or has it, as Moti has suggested ceded its sovereignty to the Australian controlled RAMSI?

Club Em Designs 
 

The Last Foreign Policy Bender - Australia's Dwindling Influence In The Pacific.

Revisiting an earlier post titled "Crouch, Hold Or Engage- Australia's Failing Pacific Policy",
Australia's foreign relations are presently being ascertained, analysed and audited.

While Australia's Foreign Minster Kevin Rudd stopped over for a chat with U.S Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton in Washington D.C, on his way back from the 35th Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group (CMAG) meeting in London on 28th April 2011, there are reasons to believe that some changes are in store regarding the policies of Australia.

(Video posted below)



In the press conference post-meeting, Clinton heaped praises on Rudd's efforts:

"Minister Rudd was very influential in helping us to work toward a greater, more relevant involvement in the Pacific-Asian institutions, such as joining the East Asian Summit. The Trans-Pacific Partnership, which is exploring ways to expand opportunity, is critical, and APEC and ASEAN are two other organizations where we work together."

There is much speculation whether that particular chat with Clinton was simply a social visit or a one-way dressing down, considering the results of Rudd's failed initiatives.

Rudd's uncanny ability to pursue tangents in Foreign Affairs are not in dispute. The results of the such cantankerous detours, at the expense of more important concerns are at the fore.

The question of whether those praises on Rudd are equally shared from all quarters, is a question worth asking, given the dismissal results of Rudd's handling of the Foreign affairs issues.

The Diplomat web publication, highlighted in a 2010 opinion article titled:"Rudd's Pacific Plan Lost At Sea" is prima facie evidence of Rudd's over reach:

[...]Rudd’s vision for an Asia-Pacific super forum was first outlined in a June 2008 speech to the Asia Society Australasia, entitled ‘It’s Time to Build an Asia-Pacific Community.’ Delivered shortly before his first and somewhat delayed visit as prime minister to Indonesia and Japan, the proposal called for ‘strong and effective regional institutions’ to address issues including security, terrorism, natural disasters, disease, trade, energy and food.

While acknowledging the region’s existing architecture, the new Australian leader argued for the creation of ‘a regional institution which spans the entire Asia-Pacific region—including the United States, Japan, China, India, Indonesia and the other states of the region.’ It was to be capable of engaging in the ‘full spectrum of dialogue, cooperation and action on economic and political matters and future challenges related to security.’

Rudd also stated that he didn’t intend the ‘diminution of any of the existing regional bodies.’

‘APEC, the ASEAN Regional Forum, the East Asia Summit (EAS), ASEAN Plus Three and ASEAN itself will continue to play important roles, and longer-term may continue in their own right or embody the building blocks of an Asia Pacific community,’ he said.

The new institution was immediately panned by Australia’s Deputy Opposition Leader Julie Bishop, who described it as ‘another example of the prime minister just coming up with policy whims, floating it out there without doing any of the necessary groundwork.’

She was not alone.

Graham Davis, former journalist wrote an article that appeared in Pacific Scoop titled "How Australia's Foreign and Pacific Policy Is Hostage To One Man's Ego", was scathing of Rudd:

Anyone else might be content to strut the international stage as Rudd does, posing as one of the big players and studiously trying to paper over Australia’s status as a middle ranking power at best.

Only someone with a world class ego would claim credit – as Rudd does – for being a prime instigator of the no-fly zone over Libya. That’s right. Not Barak Obama, not Nicolas Sarkozy but Kevin – the Tintin lookalike Wonder Boy from Down Under.

Although, both Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd criss-crossed the planet with the unsure objective of firmly anchoring Australia's drifting foreign policy; Brisbane Times article singled out the mending of ties effort, a central priority during Gillard's Asia tour:

IT COULD have got a bit nasty, given the pressures on Julia Gillard to put her stamp on foreign policy and her inexperience in the field, but the Prime Minister's visit to Beijing has shown both sides determined to make the best of the fast-expanding relationship between Australia and China.

Gillard has essentially returned Canberra's handling of the relationship to the patient, pragmatic and optimistic approach that her predecessors have found to be the best, ending the prickly tone in some of the messages of the former prime minister Kevin Rudd.

Pacific regional observers pointed out repeatedly for a different approach to Fiji for some time now.

Fiji Sun article features Andrew Drysdale's opinion

The entire excerpt of Drysdales article:

Australia’s failed relationship with Fiji writer : ANDREW DRYSDALE 4/30/2011 Australia’s relationship with Fiji have featured in both political and media discussions of late. As someone who grew up in Fiji, and who played a part in rebuilding the economy following the 1987 coups, I should like to add to that debate.In the aftermath of Fiji’s 2006 takeover of the elected Qarase government by Commodore Voreqe Bainimarama, the Australian government imposed sanctions and took a hard line against the new military government. This in turn (and not unnaturally) resulted in strong negative feelings towards Australia within the Fiji government; and it should be said, throughout Fiji. One typically large and friendly doorman at a Fijian hotel asked recently “the Australians like us and come to see us - why their government hates us?” Standing in the lobby of a five star hotel looking across the pool to the islands beyond; it is a hard question to answer. After several years of reverses following political disturbances, floods, difficulties in the sugar industry and the global economic downturn, Fiji’s economy has turned the corner. The latest Standard and Poor report has revised Fiji’s long term foreign currency ratings upwards from “stable” to “positive”. The report states “the positive outlook on Fiji’s foreign currency rating reflects the improvement in Fiji’s external position, including the level of foreign exchange reserves.” A recent Fiji government International bond issue for US$250 million was fully subscribed with the order book closing almost three times oversubscribed within three hours of opening. Even the IMF in its most recent report says there are “encouraging signs of recovery”. If the Australian government’s sanctions were intended to place economic pressure on Fiji then one could be forgiven for wondering how effective they have been. Presumably to the chagrin of the Australian government, this financial improvement is in large part due to a rapid growth in the tourism sector, particularly from this country. Australian visitor arrivals to Fiji last year were a record and Australia now represents 53 per cent of all tourist arrivals; hence the validity of the Fijian doorman’s question. What is particularly puzzling is that Commodore Bainimarama did not overthrow the Qarase government in order to enshrine dominance by the indigenous Fijian over the Indian people as the previous coups have sought to do - and as the Qarase government was actually doing. Quite the contrary, his stated reasons for his actions were to bring about an electoral process where there will be equality of rights for all citizens of the country. He has repeatedly promised elections in September 2014 under a new constitution that ensures a balanced electoral system based on the principles contained in his “Peoples charter for change, peace and progress”. This document is publicly available on the Fiji government website. He is also dealing firmly with corruption that had become endemic under previous governments. Whilst it is right that Australia should protest at the overthrow of an elected government, to continue to alienate such a government and its policies is indeed difficult to understand. That is not to say all is sunshine and light in Fiji. Quite the reverse, the media is censored, meetings are constrained, a number of judicial findings are difficult to comprehend, and there are reports of individuals being taken to the army camp and abused. Nevertheless, when viewed from a Fiji perspective there is a dichotomy in Australia’s policies. Without intending any disrespect to the Peoples Republic of China, for the Australian prime minister to say on her recent state visit to Beijing “Our policy is to positively engage with China. A China that’s fully engaged in our region is good for the region, it’s good for Australia, it’s good for China” at a time when one of Australia’s own leading newspapers reports that Ms. Gillard’s visit “is taking place in the midst of the largest crackdown on Chinese civil society in two decades” reaffirms the argument that trade, money and politics are inextricably linked. By contrast Australia’s policy of alienating Fiji makes it easy to imagine that Fiji is insignificant in Australia’s trade and presumably therefore expendable politically. The Rudd government took a hard line in 2006 but in doing so painted itself into a corner. Policies intended to bring pressure on Commodore Bainimarama have in fact created a vacuum in the political and economic balance of the Pacific - and China is now filling that vacuum. Australian companies have failed to win a single major contract in Fiji for several years; losing out mostly to Chinese competitors, many of whom are implementing Chinese Aid programmes. Chinese are also buying up large tracts of land (6000 acres in one recent deal) and are building the much needed new infrastructure. Unless Australia changes its attitude and policies towards Fiji soon, Australian companies may well become invisible in the future commercial life of Fiji.At one point Australia sought to have the United Nations cease using Fijian soldiers in peacekeeping duties. The Fijian army is to a large part, armed and trained by the UN for these peacekeeping duties - duties that they have performed with great credit. These soldiers remit a portion of their UN salaries home to their families and this forms a very important part of Fiji’s economic and social life. Until he goes to an election, Commodore Bainimarama’s strength is derived from the army. Had Australia been successful, Fiji would have almost certainly turned to China to support its military. In this event Australia would have had on its own doorstep a politically alienated country that was increasingly allied with China and whose military was trained and armed by China. Fortunately the UN refused to go along with this plan. That this was even contemplated by Australia would demonstrate a lack of understanding of the forces at play in the Pacific. Australia has used the Forum Secretariat as a vehicle to alienate Fiji from its neighbours. They have also used Aid funding in an attempt to drive a wedge between Fiji and the other Pacific Island Nations. In the early days this worked; millions of dollars of Australian taxpayer’s money to the relatively impoverished Pacific Island Nations is a powerful weapon. However in a sign that things are changing, these Island leaders recently elected Commodore Bainimarama as leader of the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG) - Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Fiji and the Kanaks of New Caledonia. These are the largest Island Nations in the Pacific. They have the largest landmass, significant natural resources and the largest populations. The MSG has now publicly supported the Fiji Government’s policies and Bainimarama’s roadmap towards elections. It should be noted that whilst this was going on, Australia’s foreign minister was on the other side of the globe calling for a no-fly zone over Libya. The Fijian Prime Minister has just returned from an official visit to Indonesia where he met with the Indonesian president, opened a Fiji Embassy office and held talks with Indonesian fisheries organisations and business houses.He also met their senior military officers. Agreement was reached on co-operation between the Fijian and Indonesian military which includes training and possible joint exercises to be conducted in Fiji. So, what does this mean? It means that every one of the major island nations circling the Australian coast from east of Sydney to north of Darwin are supporting Commodore Bainimarama and his policies. These countries have large natural resources and a combined population of over 245 million people - indeed their numbers dwarf Australia by 10 times. It is entirely possible that these new political alliances may result in Australia’s foreign policies having the effect, not of isolating Fiji; but rather of isolating Australia. Australia was behind the move to throw Fiji out of the British Commonwealth, and in this they were successful. But one might ask - so what? The Fijian people remain loyal to the Queen because of the covenants contained in the 1874 Deed of Cession where their chiefs unequivocally ceded Fiji to Queen Victoria, her heirs and successors. This deep-felt loyalty is to the Queen, not to some artificial and impotent remanent of the British Raj. A public relations victory for Australia perhaps, but in terms of bringing about real change it was a failure. That the Australian government has consistently failed to understand Fiji, its politics and its people is a matter of historical record. To quote Sir Robert Foster, the last British governor of Fiji in his final dispatch to the Colonial Office on the eve of Fiji’s independence in 1970 “Relations with Australia may be more difficult. Many here consider that the Australian Government has a large debt to repay, because Fiji has been exploited by big business from there and that official Australian attitudes are too often overbearing and when they are not, then indifferent”.That was forty one years ago - regrettably it would seem very little has changed.

Andrew Drysdale's article was refuted by Dr. Max Quanchi, an academic in University of South Pacific (USP) The entire excerpt Quanchi's response:

Fiji, Aussie ties writer : Dr Max Quanchi USP 5/3/2011 Readers of the Fiji Sun (30/4/2011) were misled by Andrew Drysdale when he argued that Fijians think Australia has a debt to Fiji for past commercial exploitation and overbearing and indifferent attitudes.His source for claiming that anger towards Australia was found “throughout Fiji” was a doorman at a five-star hotel. His claims that Australia “consistently failed to understand Fiji” were contradicted in the same edition of the Fiji Sun, when a full page advertisement invited organisations from Fiji civil society to apply for AusAID grants of FJ$20,000 to FJ$200,000. He also claimed Australian visitor arrivals made up 53 per cent of visitors, but in the papers that day the Bureau of Statistics announced the figure was 40 per cent (for the month of February). Newspapers the same day also carried a photograph of Australia’s Acting High Commissioner at a hand-over ceremony for a FJ$250,000 boat to Health officials on Ovalau and another full page advertisement invited Fijians to apply for full time study grants under generous Australian Development Scholarship (ADS) and Australia Leadership Award (ALA) programs. These are not evidence of a “failed” relationship, but suggest a carefully thought out, long-term, bilateral relationship. Mr Drysdale has merely repeated a tired, negative refrain. He has not acknowledged the many little AusAID, non-government and private development projects scattered across Fiji which demonstrate that while bureaucrats and diplomats might be in a stand-off situation, there is a valuable relationship being continued at the local level. His claims that the former Rudd government took a hard line towards Fiji, ignores the 11 years of the John Howard government when not only Fiji, but the Pacific generally “fell off the map”. Rudd in his first year reversed this trend by ending the Nauru refugee camp experiment, signed the Kyoto Agreement, hosted a Pacific Forum meeting in Cairns, reinstalled Pacific Affairs at a Parliamentary Secretary level and visited Port Moresby to make a joint declaration with PNG’s Michael Somare on a new relationship with the Pacific. There are several other unsupported claims by Mr Drysdale such as Australia being responsible for plans to end Fiji’s participation in UN peacekeeping duties, that Australia caused Fiji to be expelled from the Commonwealth, imposed sanctions in order to destroy the Fiji economy, that development aid was used a bargaining chip in diplomatic deals, and that the Pacific Forum was in some way compromised by Australian involvement. No evidence is offered to suggest any of these populist and indeed improbable claims are accurate. Finally Mr Drysdale relies on a comment made by the departing British Governor at the time of independence that Australian-Fijian relations might turn out to be difficult. Mr Drysdale might have gone back further in history to the 1860s and 1870s when there was a “Fiji Rush” of Australians to settle on so-called Polynesia Company land, or the 1880s when there were moves in Australia to link Fiji formally to the colony of Victoria, and later to include Fiji in a wider federal union including Australia and New Zealand. Fijians now migrate to and from Australia, form a large part of the NRL player list, and go back and forth for medical support, training and education, “Australian idol” and shopping. Fiji and Australia’s histories are entwined through these and many more episodes in the 19th and 20th centuries. That they now follow separate diplomatic pathways is not unexpected. They were both once British colonies, linked by British shipping lines, telegraph and air routes, but are now independent nations, and seek to be key players and even leaders in the region. After a two-year survey of 38 universities, 50 museums, galleries, libraries and archives and a 100 or so government and non-government agencies in Australia with connections to the Pacific, which resulted in a 203 page report, my colleagues Samantha Rose and Clive Moore and I concluded that the Pacific Islands were important to Australia and that the relationship was “personal, geopolitical, historical and permanent”. We also concluded that “this complexity and mix of bilateral and multilateral relationships now demands a high level of sophistication, long-term planning and collaborative development”. The bilateral relationship with Fiji since Australia became a Commonwealth in 1901, and Fiji became independent in 1970, has not always been characterised by the sophistication and collaboration we identified. Andrew Drysdale’s tirade adds little to improvement in this relationship. In contrast to his closing comment that “very little has changed” in the relationship since 1970, I would argue that the relationship has changed unrecognisably over the last 150 years, and even more so since 1970. Today many more new links are being forged. Confusing diplomatic rhetoric with actual ground level, people-to-people relationships is part of the problem. Governments have their own domestic, national and international agenda, but villagers see the world through different lens. The Fiji Sun’s readers deserve a more thorough analysis supported by evidence and a deep view of history than they were presented with last Saturday.  Dr Quanchi stresses he is writing in a personal capacity.

  Croz Walsh's blog posting points out, Dr. Sandra Tarte's sentiments: 

The dilemmas facing Australian diplomacy and foreign policy in the region include the obvious ones that have been highlighted in the media debate. 

Most prominent is the fact that Australia’s efforts to isolate the Fiji government have encouraged Fiji to actively seek new partnerships, including most notably with China. This has led to the growing influence of China, and what seems to be a commensurate loss of influence by Australia. Another obvious dilemma is that Fiji’s suspension from the Forum has only served to undermine what was once the region’s premier regional organisation and shifted the political focus to other regional and international groupings.

Fiji has made it clear it does not seek an early return to the Forum’s fold but is cultivating new alignments – the Melanesian Spearhead Group, the Pacific Small Islands Developing States group, the Non-Aligned Movement and the Association of South East Asian Nations (where it has sought observer status).

Most recently was Lowy Institute's Jenny-Howard jones who advocated in a 180 degree course correction, in Australian Government's policy towards Fiji:

In a speech to the Press Club in February about Australia's interests in the Middle East, Mr Rudd said: 'a creative middle power recognises that we have to work in partnerships and coalitions to achieve change — including with non-traditional partners to establish better understanding of the issue at hand and to come up with better informed solutions...Australia always stands ready to propose new partnerships to tackle new problems, to tackle old problems in new ways' [...]

But in promoting Australia's credentials as a creative middle power on the world stage in the context of the Arab awakening, Rudd has inadvertently drawn more attention to Australia's diplomatic failings in Fiji [...]Kevin Rudd believes Australian foreign policy should make a difference. If Australia wants to maintain its credibility as the dominant power in this region and be a creative middle power on the world stage, it should start by making a difference in Fiji.

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