Thursday, September 01, 2011

Pacific Forum, Fiji & The Moral Zeitgeist.

Pacific Scoop article, highlighted the media "pre-briefing" on this week's Pacific Islands Forum 40th anniversary and high level meeting complete with some new guests and members, Australia's first female Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, Commonwealth Secretary General, Kamalesh Sharma. 

Notable inclusions are UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon and the EC President Jose Manuel Borosso, both of whom are earmarked to address the Forum leaders in a dedicated session, to address regional matters of concern to them- as if the re-occurring Middle-East conflicts, the current European Financial calamities are not enough for these distinguished individuals to deal with.

Although, UN Secretary General may use the recent renaming of Asia group to Asia-Pacific, as a good enough excuse to fly to New Zealand and maybe watch the Rugby World Cup, as well as escaping the heat from the leaked report about UN military observers in Libya; EC President may not have the same luxury of escaping from responsibilities of the cascading Eurozone debacle of debt, but may use the aspect of ACP-EU trade negotiations as one; a thorny issue which a recent SiFM post addressed.

Roman Grynberg On Pacific Islands Forum"
For the islands leaders, driven as they are by the immediate political and financial concerns, the Forum communiqué is largely irrelevant.
The main objective of the Forum meeting is to be seen there with the great and the good (and the not-so-good); to go to cocktail parties and avoid aggravating their paymasters in Canberra and Wellington.
[...]
As it stands, the Forum summit is hardly even part of the problem, just a reflection of a sad reality where Australia and New Zealand pretend to solve problems and islands leaders pretend to care."

While Fiji has been suspended from the Forum and will not be present at the 42nd meeting in New Zealand, there are already some precursors of contempt and cracks in the regional edifice, reinforced with neo-colonial underpinnings.

First, were recent remarks from a leader of a client state, Samoa's Prime Minister, Tuilaepa Sa’ilele Malielegaoi which appeared in Pacific Islands Report article.

Malielegaoi's abrasive remarks were diluted and rebuffed by comments from Roman Grynberg a former senior Forum official stating that, it was pointless for a forum without Fiji.
"It becomes a patent nonsense, and it becomes obvious once officials in Canberra and Wellington start thinking about it," said Mr Grynberg, who is now based in Africa.
"So until that matter is resolved, I honestly don't see how the forum will be capable of saying very much."
Grynberg had earlier punched holes squarely into sentiments raised by New Zealand's Prime Minister, John Key's speech at Auckland University in mid-August, which touted the importance of sustainable development, according to Pacific Scoop.
PINA article published the entirety of Grynberg's views. The excerpt of the Grynberg's opinion article:

Making the Forum accountable and honest

By Online Editor
12:18 pm GMT+12, 09/08/2011, Fiji

PIFS Executive in 2010
By Dr Roman Grynberg for Islands Business Magazine, August 201, www.islandsbusiness.com

For years journalists would berate me at the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat for what they saw as the sheer uselessness of the annual leaders meetings and the empty promises they would make each year and then never do anything to implement.

Then one day, one of my many superiors at the Forum Secretariat asked me to review the various communiqués of the leaders’ summits and the results would have been funny if the reality of the yawning gap between what was promised and the facts on the ground were not so wide. The journalists were right!

If the over than 30 years of the Forum’s existence leaders had implemented half the commitments they had made, the Pacific islands would be the best run countries on earth. Alas, in general. neither is true and the commitments are rarely kept.

So why does it happen? The first reason is that the developed countries have an agenda at Forum meetings and they press it as hard as possible.

The agenda in Canberra has too often been negative—the AusAid bureaucrats and low level ministers who run Pacific policy would prefer if the islands just went away and didn’t bother them as they are not, with the possible exception of PNG, an important market or source of raw materials.

But since the Solomon Islands’ civil unrest over a decade ago, the sceptre of failed states with the possibility of hundreds of thousands of refugees has haunted Australian policy thinking.

Australia’s wealth is now linked inextricably to Asia and the islands are not even a small part of the formula. So at the Forum meeting, Australian officials are deeply concerned with governance, both political and economic, and the communiqué reflects their concerns.

For the islands leaders, driven as they are by the immediate political and financial concerns, the Forum communiqué is largely irrelevant.

The main objective of the Forum meeting is to be seen there with the great and the good (and the not-so-good); to go to cocktail parties and avoid aggravating their paymasters in Canberra and Wellington.

In the final analysis, the islands leaders know perfectly well that no-one at home is watching and no-one will ever bring them to book for not implementing their Forum promises.

After all, there is no election or accountability at a regional level and who in the islands actually reads the promises in any case?

On top of all that where the commitments do theoretically matter, the leaders always have the perfect defence that there was never the money from Canberra and Wellington to implement those commitments.

The last time I was at the Forum meeting in 2009, I made one of those moves you know will be part of a ‘career breaker’ and I tried to do something about this deplorable situation. I went to the executive and asked to call a staff meeting to see whether there was any way the Forum leaders could be made more accountable.

Reluctantly, those above me agreed and we called a general meeting on how we could better assure implementation. While most of the staff are good people, utterly committed to the islands as a whole, the executive was quietly aghast and either never saw or cared about the problem of implementation.

I had proposed two measures I felt were central to making the leaders’ summit and its communiqué a document of some meaning to the lives of the people of the South Pacific.

These suggestions included an independent and public review mechanism, perhaps every few years, to see how each country was actually implementing what it had promised and secondly, that there be a budget presented within 90 days of the Leader’s summit itemizing the actual cost of implementing the promises made and who was going to pay i.e. Canberra and Wellington.

These two measures would deflate the hubris of our leaders and make Canberra and Wellington think more than twice before getting Pacific islands leaders to make commitments which would have to be covered by real dollars.

My staff at the Forum politely laughed at me and said they would not waste their time preparing papers on a subject they knew the sycophants would never allow to leave the Forum gates. They were right of course and the matter died an unnatural death.

In September leaders will meet in Auckland to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the region’s paramount political institution. The Australians and New Zealanders will celebrate their continued dominance and unquestioned role as paymasters and hence scriptwriters for the region’s political agenda.

The islands leaders who will attend the Forum meeting have never paid heed to the concerns of the founding fathers of the Forum who in the early 1970s considered that including Australia and New Zealand would produce exactly these sorts of lamentable results. Just like the current generation, money and power got in the way of common sense and the right of free men to express their views.

At Auckland, the Forum leaders will celebrate their existence, make lofty promises yet again and waste another opportunity to be part of the solution to region’s growing list of problems.

As it stands, the Forum summit is hardly even part of the problem, just a reflection of a sad reality where Australia and New Zealand pretend to solve problems and islands leaders pretend to care.....PNS (ENDS)

• These are the personal views of Dr Grynberg who until 2009 was the Director of Economic Governance at the Forum Secretariat until he was removed.


Island Business article outlined that Fiji was using its back channels, calling for the current Forum chair, Neori Slade (also from Samoa) to step down, and be replaced with suitable candidate from Melanesia.

Fiji's parallel engagement of island leaders summit is starkly different in terms of the attendees and agendas. However, the high stakes aspect of these competing summits and geopolitical outcomes, is an entangled web of diplomatic and cultural relationships, which cannot be over stated.

Two outstanding articles that used Wikileaks cables undergirds a systematic pattern, orchestrated largely by Canberra and by connivance, Wellington.

WikiLeaks cables reveal Australian government divisions over Fijian junta

By Patrick O’Connor
1 September 2011
US diplomatic cables recently published by WikiLeaks have revealed sharp tactical divisions within the Australian Labor government over the Fijian military regime. In 2009, amid rising fears that China was gaining strategic ground in the region, Labor’s parliamentary secretary for Pacific Island affairs, Duncan Kerr, secretly urged Washington to pressure Prime Minister Kevin Rudd into abandoning his “hardline” stance and reaching an accommodation with the junta.

The cable describing the discussion between Kerr and US diplomatic officials, titled “Australia rethinking its Fiji policy”, was sent from Canberra on August 14, 2009 by the American ambassador to Australia, Daniel Clune. Classified “NOFORN” (not releasable to foreign nationals), it was sent to the State Department, Central Intelligence Agency, US embassies throughout the South Pacific as well as in Paris, and the US Pacific Command in Hawaii.


Under a subheading, “Diplomatic dead-end?” the cable reported: “With Fiji’s suspension from the PIF [Pacific Islands Forum] and imminent suspension from the Commonwealth, Kerr expressed concern that Australia will have ‘exhausted’ its diplomatic arsenal with no clear next step. He questioned the utility of gradually reducing engagement with Fiji, and appeared supportive of an idea by the GOA’s [government of Australia] High Commissioner in Fiji to conduct ‘a surprise gesture of goodwill’ towards the military regime.”

Under another subheading, “Searching for a way out,” the cable reported Kerr’s advice that junta leader Frank Bainimarama “cannot give up power as he would end up at the mercy of his enemies,” and that “the international community should find a safe way for him to step down.” Kerr warned that Bainimarama could be ousted by “less senior officers [who] are getting the taste of being in power”, and emphatically concluded that the junta leader will “either be shot or we’ll have to do business with him”.


After noting that “a decision to change course must ultimately come from Prime Minister Rudd”, Kerr “encouraged US ideas on how to address Fiji”. He urged Washington to “ask us the obvious questions” about what happens if Fiji’s suspension from the Commonwealth produces no results. In the cable, Ambassador Clune then commented: “Kerr’s request for the US to ask ‘the obvious questions’ appears to be an attempt to spur re-evaluation of Australia’s Fiji policy. It seems that the GOA is on cruise control toward increasing disengagement with Fiji, without achieving any desired effect.”


The extraordinary episode underscores the extent of the longstanding crisis confronting the Australian government in the South Pacific—and the cynicism of Canberra’s claims that it supports “democracy” in Fiji.

In December 2006, the Fijian military seized power in a coup. A US diplomatic cable sent shortly afterwards confirmed that then Australian prime minister John Howard considered a military intervention, but decided that an invasion was “not in Australia’s national interest”. The cable added that Howard “could not countenance Australian and Fijian troops fighting one another on the streets of Suva”. The Australian and New Zealand governments instead imposed diplomatic sanctions and moved to isolate Fiji internationally as a means of forcing a return to civilian rule.


Canberra and Wellington were never concerned for the democratic rights of ordinary Fijians. They instead feared that the coup would trigger political instability across the South Pacific, undermining their economic and strategic interests, and, above all, opening the door for China to gain ground. A US cable sent from Canberra in January 2008, noted that “Rudd is especially concerned with Chinese influence in the Pacific and sees Australian leverage ebbing thanks to massive Chinese aid flows.”

By 2009 it was clear to everyone that the sanctions regime was not advancing US-Australian interests. Bainimarama defied Canberra’s diktats and deepened ties with Beijing, receiving significant Chinese financial, diplomatic, and military support.


The Chinese government contemptuously dismissed Australia’s entreaties to toe the line on Fiji. US cables previously published by WikiLeaks revealed a highly unusual diplomatic incident in February 2009, when Beijing lied to Canberra about a visit to Fiji by Vice President Xi Jinping that involved the announcement of major new aid and investment projects (see “WikiLeaks cables reveal Chinese vice president’s secret visit to Fiji, in defiance of Australia”).


The affair clearly raised alarm bells both in Canberra and Washington. A rift within the Australian foreign policy establishment was evident with the publication in April 2009 of a report by the government-funded Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) think-tank that urged a rapprochement with Bainimarama. ASPI warned that sanctions had “pushed Fiji away from its traditional friends to others, notably China”. The latest round of WikiLeaks’ published cables now make clear that these tactical divisions extended right into Rudd’s cabinet.


Immediately after the 2006 coup in Suva, the US made clear to Australia that it would not sacrifice its independent interests in relation to Fiji. Canberra wanted Fijian soldiers barred from UN peacekeeping operations, to remove a lucrative source of income for the military and place greater pressure on the coup leaders. Washington refused to countenance this, because Fijian soldiers played a useful role in assisting its imperialist operations in the Middle East.


A US cable sent from Canberra on the day of the coup in Fiji described the issue of peacekeepers as a “US redline”. A US State Department official instructed Australian and New Zealand officials that there could be no “rush to remove Fiji’s participation in UN peacekeeping operations, noting the importance of Fiji to UN peacekeeping operations in Baghdad and elsewhere”. Another cable explained: “we are looking for steps that put pressure on Fiji but are not detrimental to larger US interests.”


The leaked cables have revealed that in September 2009, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton invited Fiji’s UN representative to a meeting of Pacific Island officials in New York during a UN General Assembly summit. One cable refers to “Australian and New Zealand concerns” about the initiative, but the Fijian government apparently declined the invitation. Australian National Security Advisor Duncan Lewis told the US embassy in Canberra that the failure to accept Clinton’s invitation was a “blunder” on Fiji’s part, adding that he was not surprised that Bainimarama had “missed another opportunity”.


One year later, in September 2010, another US invitation was extended and this time accepted, with Fiji’s foreign affairs minister Ratu Inoke Kubuabola speaking with Clinton and other Pacific leaders in an hour-long meeting in New York. Clinton told Kubuabola that the US wanted “dialogue and partnership with Fiji”, and the State Department subsequently indicated that they accepted Bainimarama’s proposed “road map” for elections in 2014.


This marked an apparent breach between Australia and the US on a key policy issue in the South Pacific. Recently, however, the US appears to have shifted back to support for sanctions and diplomatic isolation. Last June, a State Department delegation conducted a week-long tour of the western Pacific, but excluded Fiji. Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell denied any differences with Canberra on their approach towards the junta.


The various diplomatic shifts no doubt reflect continued behind-the-scenes discussions between the Australian and American governments over how to forge a pliant administration in Fiji and sideline Beijing.

The ruthlessness of these calculations clearly emerges in the US cables that describe Australian moves to instigate an economic crisis in Fiji without causing a complete collapse that could backfire on Canberra.


In August 2009, Kerr told US officials: “We’ve made a cabinet-level decision that we don’t want to see Fiji move to a social and economic collapse.” The cable continued: “He [Kerr] said that Australia would be responsible for picking up a failed state, at a cost much higher than the GOA’s intervention in the Solomon Islands.” Another cable sent from Canberra in October 2009 reported: “Australia supports International Monetary Fund (IMF) engagement (with tough conditionality) sooner rather than later ‘when the inevitable fall comes’, so that people and processes are already in place to pick up the pieces.”


Earlier in 2009, according to one US cable, New Zealand’s foreign minister Murray McCully privately indicated that “perhaps things need to get much worse in Fiji before Fijians themselves decide to create the circumstances under which the international community can help things improve”.

What is apparent throughout these cables is the callous disregard for the plight of ordinary Fijian people as the US, Australia and New Zealand all manoeuvre to protect their economic and strategic interests in the South Pacific against rival China.


The end result of these protracted neo-colonial bullying in the Pacific region, is examined by Susan Merrell, which was published in Solomon Star.

Sex, lies and diplomatic cables; Wikileaks, SI and the Moti Affair

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With the leaking of embarrassing diplomatic cables, Susan Merrell asks whose best interests are really served by the continuing deployment of RAMSI in the Solomon Islands?

  They say there’s no such thing as objectivity, even in journalism – one person’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter.

Language is revealing.  No more so than in the recently released Wikileaks cables from the US Embassy in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea which must be proving to be a source of great embarrassment. 
The cables display a profound disrespect and contempt for the Solomon Islands’ government. 
The intemperate language suggests disdain.

Robert Fitts, the US Ambassador is the authorand, as there is no diplomatic US mission in Honiara, it is reasonable to assume that the US is using their ‘deputy in the Pacific’ – Australia as their source.

One cable, dated 22 September 2006, deals with the political situation in the Solomon Islands at that time. It was sent to Washington, Canberra, Wellington and Honolulu.

Under section headings “AN ODIOUS A/G [Moti]”, “AN ERRATIC PM [Sogavare] “BIRDS OF A FEATHER” and “AN UNPREDICTABLE PARLIAMENT”,the diplomatic cable slanders many prominent members of Solomon Islands’ political society including the then Prime Minister and members of his cabinet.

The arguably libellous accusations stand as justification for the writer to canvass ways to influence the then upcoming vote of ‘no confidence’ against the Prime Minister while maintaining an official position of not interfering in the political affairs of a sovereign nation.

Many of the assertions in the cable are, at best, widely inaccurate, suffering from egregious omissions - the assertions coming from a jaundiced and self-interested viewpoint.  At worst, there are lies and distortions of the truth.

The cable fires its first bullet at Julian Moti.

It’s widely known that Moti who had been appointed attorney general of the Solomon Islands just days before this cable was written has been fighting charges of child-sex tourism in the Australian courts since his arrest in Brisbane 2007. 

There’s a plethora of evidence that this charge was to remove Moti from political influence. With the release of this cable it has become even more evident.

The cable uses increasingly pejorative adjectives to describe Moti saying: “In a region strewn with dubious characters, Moti is particularly odious.” 

On what do they base this?The cable makes four accusations in support.

Firstly Fitt accuses Moti of, “In 1994 […] pressing the then Governor General to bring down a government which was trying to assert control over Malaysian/Chinese logging companies which had retained Moti.” 
Whereas, the truth of the matter is that Moti only ever once represented a logging company and this was in an industrial dispute. In this matter, he appeared with Dr Gavan Griffith, former Solicitor-general of Australia.

Moti’s position was, in fact, anti-logging, not pro-logging as the cable suggests and in this, he often found himself at odds with his political allies. 
In a sworn affidavit dated March 27, 2009 he states: “Notwithstanding my friendship with many leaders of the […] Government, I did disagree with a number of policy decisions made by the Government in relation to logging…” The year in question was 1995.

Secondly, referring to the charges of the alleged rape of a 13-year-old girl in Vanuatu in 1997, the cable says, “he [Moti] beat the rap” on a technicality, as if that was illegal or immoral while the cable studiously ignores the questionable actions of the prosecution in their desperation to have Moti removed from political influence in the Solomon Islands.
And questionable they have been. In a statement made on video three days before his death Mr Ariipaea Salmon, the father of Moti’s alleged victim slammed the “mighty Australian government’ for using his daughter to “take over a country [The Solomon Islands]”.

The Australian authorities were not deterred from prosecution even knowing that in 1997/1998 the alleged victim had lied in a sworn statement.

They even went as far as to obtain an indemnity against charges of perjury. Ariipaea Salmon claims that the family were coerced into co-operating with the Australian prosecution and their testimony coached.

Furthermore, as I write, the High Court of Australia is considering whether to grant Moti a permanent stay of prosecution because of an alleged abuse of process that had Australian authorities “conniving and colluding” in his illegal deportation in 2007.

Justice Heydon, one of seven judges hearing the appeal of former Attorney General Julian Moti, conceded that although Moti’s 2007 illegal deportation from the Solomon Islands was a decision of the Solomon Islands’ government, Australia failed to fulfil its mandated role (under RAMSI).
“We [Australia] went to the Solomon Islands in order to restore the rule of law,” he said. “What happened on 27 December [the illegal deportation] did not involve the Australian Government participating in a process of restoring the rule of law.”

As for the cable’s assertion that subsequent to the Vanuatu court case Moti was “…made unwelcome in Vanuatu.” 

This is simply wrong as Moti retained property interests in Vanuatu where the sometime lessee was the Vanuatu government. 

In an affidavit sworn by Moti on 3 June 2009, Moti speaks of visiting Vanuatu as late as March 2006 and meeting with two government ministers and other political affiliates. 

This scenario does not suggest Moti was “unwelcome”- in fact, quite the opposite.

Thirdly, the writer notes Moti’s nationalistic and anti Australian political stance, calling Moti “resentful”.

 The underlying assumption of the whole cable is that anything that is anti-Australian/RAMSI is wrong because the interests of the Solomon Islands should be subjugated to those of Australia/America.

Lastly, the cable expresses the fear that Moti’s first task would be to defend the two politicians, Charles Dausebea and Nelson Ne’e that were then in jail charged with inciting the riots that had their roots in the elections earlier that year. 

With the benefit of hindsight, we now know that both were acquitted of the charges when witnesses, paid by the prosecution to testify, failed to appear in court.

It was in the best interests of Australia/America to compromise Dausebea as according to the cable Dausebea was the only Solomon Islands’ politician that would take on RAMSI “head on.”

Moreover, in another Wikileaked cable of 20 April 2006, the same Robert Fitts writes “Some 180 Australian troops and police arrived in Honiara April 19.  Resident Americans tell us that troops did not deploy to the areas affected until the late hour and general exhaustion had quieted the havoc.”  Why didn’t they?

There were unsubstantiated rumours at the time that RAMSI deliberately let the riots happen.
 Certainly, the riots justified Australia sending even more troops to the Solomon Islands which was pure serendipity considering that yet another wikileaked cable from the same source dated 27 April 2006 contained a note saying: “…members of the most likely new government are indicating that it might reverse a number of Solomon Islands foreign policies, switch recognition from Taiwan to Beijing for example.”
 Their intelligence was correct and it explains much.  Chinese influence in the Solomon Islands would have been the worst-case scenario for Australian/American interests and it was under consideration by this government.

The cable’s next salvo is reserved for Manasseh Sogavare, then Prime Minister and the Solomon Islands’ parliament.

In this section no punches are pulled as it spells out what it believes to be the corrupt nature of Sogavare and how his political manoeuvrings, especially the push to negate RAMSI’s influence, had been designed to perpetuate that corruption.
The cable describes Sogavare as a “con” it calls his initiatives “loopy” and says that: “his [Sogavare’s] government earned a reputation for casual corruption that was notable even by Solomons standards.”

In the most disrespectful of language the cable describes the Solomon Islands cabinet as “odd ducks.”It says that although Foreign Minister, Paterson Oti talks responsibly, he, in practice, “…waddles along the same as the PM.”

The cable states the belief that the only reason that the Solomon Islands parliament wants to loosen its ties with RAMSI is in order to perpetuate corruption – to “…regain the freedom of the cookie jar…” 

Then ominously, the cable goes on to say that it’s “Time to speak”.

And why was it time to speak?  It was because the US wanted to influence the outcome of the upcoming vote of no confidence against the Sogavare government – to interfere in the affairs of a sovereign nation.
The endgame of these diplomatic maneuvers have been pointed out by an earlier SiFM post: "Islanders With A Dragon Tattoo" and a 2009 article written by Dev Nadkarni, published in India Weekender.



Club Em Designs

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Sound & Fury?

Australia Network News (ANN) covering the allegations of Fiji Independent Commission Against Corrruption (FICAC) and political interference.

FICAC website

There is much to be said about interference, whether it involves cases in Fiji or abroad concerning political interference in judiciary, the effects of judicial activism or both.

In this regard it is based on allegations made by a Sri Lankan born, former FICAC prosecutor, Madhwa Tenakoon . ANN posted video,  interviews Radio Australia host Bruce Hill, whose full audio interview is posted subsequently.




FICAC is independent – Sayed-Khaiyum
Fiji Village
Publish date/time: 17/08/2011 [09:13]

The Attorney General stresses that the Fiji Independent Commission against Corruption is an independent body investigating and prosecuting cases of corruption.

Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum has rejected the claims made on the ABC by Sri Lankan lawyer and former Manager Legal for FICAC Madhwa Tenakoon of political interference.
Sayed-Khaiyum said Tenakoon was dismissed for under performance. He said Tenakoon’s information is not credible.

Story by: Vijay Narayan

Radio Australia Pacific Beat, Audio (MP3 posted below) [Segment on Fiji 0-15mins]





ICJ to investigate Fiji legal allegations


Radio Australia
Updated August 17, 2011 16:45:08

The independence of Fiji's legal system is to be examined by the International Commission of Jurists, following allegations of political interference.

The claims were made on Radio Australia by a former senior prosecutor with Fiji's Independent Commission Against Corruption, Madhawa Tenakoon.

The Sri Lankan lawyer says individuals have been targeted for prosecution because they are opponents of the coup installed military government.

However Sri Lanka's honorary consul in Fiji, Ajith Kodagoda, says none of the other Sri Lankan lawyers or judges working in Fiji have complained to him about interference by the government in their work.

But John Dowd QC, President of the Australian branch of the ICJ, says the allegations from the former FICAC prosecutor are serious and warrant further scrutiny.

Presenter: Bruce Hill
Speaker: John Dowd QC, President of the Australian branch of the International Commission of Jurists; Ajith Kodagoda, Sri Lanka's honorary consul in Fiji


DOWD: We will examine the issue as best we can. I'm here in Bangkok at our regional office at the moment and we need to highlight this. The Fiji government is obviously very concerned about what other organisations think about it, so we will examine the matter and try and bring pressure to bear on them to set up perhaps with the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting some examination of Fiji to see what can be done to bring it back into rule of law.

HILL: Mr Dowd believes Fiji's legal system faces a fundamental problem of legitimacy.

DOWD: Once you get an illegitimate regime and this regime of course is not set up under the Fijian Constitution, you're bound to have this sort of problem. The difficulty that when they approach judges to sit there is that the judges are in fact not exercising proper legal authority, but that doesn't stop judges getting the decision right. The fact that they're legally supporting the regime doesn't mean they won't do the right thing.

HILL: But Sri Lanka's honorary consul in Fiji, Ajith Kodagoda, insists that the allegations of interference are coming from only one Sri Lankan lawyer. He says none of the other almost two hundred Sri Lankan legal professionals working in Fiji have complained to him.

KODAGODA: Nobody Bruce has brought any of this to my attention officially, none of the prosecutors or the lawyers or the judges. About two years ago, the Fiji government made official representations which has been for assistance in filling up some of the division we can see in Fiji and then I made contact with my counterpart in Australia, the High Commissioner and also the foreign ministry in Sri Lanka, and the Sri Lankan government officially from the president onwards sanctioned, the judicial officers to come and work in a friendly country even Fiji. So as far as I'm aware of it, it was done with the sanction of the Sri Lankan government and most of these officers are no pay leave or they're on all paid leave, so they are almost seconded to be serving the Fiji judiciary.
And at this stage we've probably got about 30 officers working in the judicial capacity. I've really personally heard no complaints from anybody. I understand this particular officer was dismissed by the FICAC about three months or two months ago, so he's apparently alleging that there are allegations that there was interference in his work which he didn't bring to my notice here. So like I said, nobody's complained to me as of now.

HILL; Are these allegations any source of concern for you though?

KODAGODA: Very hard to ...(inaudible) because nobody has made any specific allegations to me in my capacity as honorary consul. If somebody was uncomfortable, I would expect them to come and talk to me directly, if they're intimidated in any way or if there is any influence on them, then I would really expect them to come and talk to me. Apparently he's been working here for two years, so I don't know if he was uncomfortable, why he continued to work in Fiji for that long. And this particular case that he's talking about I think came in front of a Sri Lankan high court judge and I think the case was dismissed anyway. So I expect all the judicial officers here to be totally independent and so far I haven't had complaints from either party. This has been going on, the judicial officers have been coming here before my time 1980s onwards.

HILL: The ICJ's John Dowd says overseas lawyers and judges should stay away from Fiji entirely.

DOWD: The regime is not legitimate under the rule of law, the regime is not under the Constitution, therefore any judge that takes the position gives legitimacy to regime that's illegitimate and we in the ICJ are opposed to people taking positions. It doesn't mean that they won't do the right thing when they get there, but it's not legally the right thing, because of the lack of constitutional basis.

HILL: Do you think that judges from places like Australia and New Zealand and the UK should be prevented from taking jobs in Fiji or should there be sanctions against them once they return home?

DOWD: No, I don't think what they do in other countries is a matter for them, it's not for Australia to interfere, it's for Australia to protest.

Thursday, August 11, 2011

Truth or Dare?

Fiji anti-IG blog posting raises some important questions about U.S selective policy regarding their own interests, on which there is no debate.
Intelligentsiya: Truth and Rhetoric: Why the US selectively backs F...: "When fellow bloggers from Real Fiji News posted up their expose on the US's tacit support (despite all the rich political rhetoric ) [...]"

Radio Fiji (R.F)article on the matter. Excerpt of R.F article below:
Cables confirm Qarase sought Australia military intervention
Friday, August 12, 2011


Leaked cables released by Wikileaks confirm that Fiji's former Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase sought the intervention of the Australian Military during the December 2006 takeover.

According to the cable - then Australian Prime Minister John Howard told the press on December 5, 2006 - that Qarase had telephoned him that morning to request for military intervention to prevent a coup.

Howard stated he had declined the request as it was 'not in Australia's national interest' to intervene - adding he could not countenance Australian and Fijian troops fighting each other on the streets of Suva.

In response to the takeover - Australia's Foreign Minister Alexander Downer imposed bans on defense, travel and trade on Fiji.

Sydney Morning Herald (SMH) article outlines Australian Government efforts to side line Fiji from UN peacekeeping.

Excerpt of SMH article:
Push to block Fiji from UN peacekeeping
Jonathan Pearlman Foreign Affairs Correspondent
April 29, 2009

THE Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, says the United Nations should look at punishing Fiji's military rulers by further limiting the involvement of its soldiers in peacekeeping forces - a move that would seriously damage the country's economy.

Australia and New Zealand have been leading efforts to pressure Fiji's interim government over its recent abrogation of the constitution and crackdown on the media and the judiciary.


Covered ... Fiji's economy is reliant on peacekeeping payments.
Photo: AP

(Note by SiFM Image above was from 1996 Qana massacre, caused by Israeli shelling of a Fiji BATT UN refugee compound, where dead bodies were cropped out. It was covenient for SMH to omit the origin of the image, ironically, 15 year anniversary is in 2011.)

Original Caption: The bodies of Shiite Muslim refugees lay covered by blankets at the headquarters of the Fijian battalion attached to the U.N. peacekeeping forces in the village of Qana, Lebanon Thursday, April 18, 1996 after Israeli shelling killing at least 70 and wounding at least 100. (AP Photo)   
  

More images of 1996 Qana massacre. Journalist  Robert Fisk eye-witness account of Qana.  Video of incident. BBC article.
The country's military ruler, Frank Bainimarama, seized power in a bloodless coup in 2006 and has backed away from earlier plans to hold elections this year.
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Mr Rudd discussed the crackdown at a meeting in Canberra yesterday with Papua New Guinea's Prime Minister, Sir Michael Somare. The two agreed to press ahead with efforts to suspend Fiji from the Pacific Islands Forum. "Australia's position is hardline," Mr Rudd said. "You cannot sustain within a family of democracies [such as] the Pacific Island Forum or the Commonwealth a government like that of Fiji which simply treats with contempt the most fundamental democratic institutions and press freedoms.

"Through our interventions with the United Nations, supported by New Zealand and other countries, the UN now is not going to engage future Fijian troops for new operations. There is a question which now arises as to whether there should be a further tightening on top of that."

Fiji's economy is heavily reliant on UN payments for peacekeeping contributions and remittances from soldiers abroad. About 600 soldiers serve as peacekeepers in Lebanon, Iraq, East Timor and in the Sinai.

Fiji's interim government dismissed claims it would not be allowed to provide further peacekeepers, saying the UN had not taken action against other countries that have had coups.

"Precedents have been set, like Pakistan, Thailand, all these are very big troop contributing countries to the UN, so what are they talking about?" a government spokesman, Neumi Leweni, told the news website Fijilive.

Two commentators on Fiji from the Australian National University, Jon Fraenkel and Stewart Firth, have argued in a new book that UN peacekeeping operations helped build up the strength of Fiji's military and led to the coups in 1987 and 2006.

"Over the 30 years since 1978, around 25,000 Fiji soldiers have served on overseas peace-keeping missions, bringing home an estimated $US300 million [$428 million]," they write in The 2006 Military Takeover in Fiji: A Coup to End All Coups?, published by ANU E Press.

"In recent years the Iraq War has brought more income to Fiji … Tens of thousands of Fijians have served in foreign theatres in almost 30 years of peacekeeping … The overall effect has been to boost the morale of officers and troops … and to professionalise the [force] as a military institution."

Although, Australian Government efforts coupled with an online petition drive by the likes of overseas based Fijian political opportunists were ineffective and Fiji continued its commitment to peacekeeping missions unabated.

Fiji reiterates commitment to UN peacekeeping

05-10-2011 15:12 BJT
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SUVA, May 10 (Xinhua) -- Fiji has reiterated its firm commitment to peacekeeping and peace-building around the world, saying it is a manifestation of the island nation's trust in the multilateralism of the United Nations.

Fiji's Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Ambassador Peter Thomson made the remarks in a speech during his recent visit to the Republic of Fiji Military Forces (RFMF) first Battalion at its Baghdad garrison, the Ministry of Information said in a press release Tuesday.

For all Fijians, "it can be said with great national pride, that from just a few years after Fiji's independence, UN peacekeeping has been central to Fiji's foreign policy," Thomson was quoted as saying.

This has been so because "Fiji is determined to play a positive role as a signatory to the United Nations Charter, and because small countries like ours depend on membership of the United Nations for our security, sovereignty and independence," he said.

According to the Fijian envoy, to date, Fiji's peacekeepers have served in Angola, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cambodia, Croatia, Kosovo, Lebanon, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Rwanda, Sinai, Solomon Islands, Somalia and Timor Leste.

In thanking the Fijian men and women peacekeeping soldiers in Baghdad, Thomson praised them for "doing a difficult job in a dangerous environment and holding Fiji's name high".

The RFMF first Battalion has since 2004 served as the UN Guard Unit (UNGU), made up of 223 Fijians led by Colonel Netani Rika. It is tasked with guarding the facilities and personnel of the United Nations as they undertake their work of assisting the Iraqi people rebuild their nation.

Thomson said he had heard nothing but praise from UN representatives in New York and Iraq for the battalion's conduct of duties, adding he was in Iraq to show them the respect they deserved and to thank them on behalf of the government and people of Fiji for their service.

Posted below are videos of Fiji soldiers in Iraq interacting with US personnel.










Wednesday, August 10, 2011

A Fair Exchange Is No Robbery.

The magazine Island Business reports that  the dead line for comprehensive accord for Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) between Pacific African Caribean Pacific (PACP) and the European Union (E.U) has been shifted to 2012.

Fiji's position on EPA.

PANG paper  (PDF) on EPA.

Fiji Sun article quotes from Pacific Island Forum chair, on the pending negotiations. The excerpt of Fiji Sun article:


Pacific ACP should work together
writer : RACHNA LAL
8/11/2011





The need for the Pacific African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries to work together in the negotiation of a comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) has been highlighted at the meeting in Papua New Guinea.Trade Ministers from the Pacific ACP Group of States are meeting in Port Moresby to finalise positions, including market access offer and arrangement in preparation for the next round of negotiations for an EPA with the European Union (EU).
Secretary general of the Forum Secretariat Tuiloma Neroni Slade said, with the exception of Fiji and PNG, who have signed an interim EPA to protect their key exports to the EU, all other Pacific ACP countries continue their engagement as single region.
“The Pacific ACP States and the European Commission agree that the interim Agreement is a stepping stone towards a comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement, and that is the basis for our continued engagement.
“We need to ensure that the comprehensive Agreement provides the Pacific ACP States an improved framework and greater market access relative to the interim Agreement,” he said.
Pacific ACP countries and the European Commission have been negotiating the PACP - EU EPA since 2004.
Mr Slade pointed out the European Commission has indicated that they will not be interested in meeting with the Pacific region or offering the region flexibilities on contentious issues unless the region submitted revised market access offers in the required format.
He therefore announced eight Pacific ACP State have submitted their conditional market access offer to the EU and work continues in the remaining four countries to develop their market access offers.
“This now empowers the Pacific ACP region to demand of the European Commission reciprocal focus and seriousness about the negotiations and show flexibility.
“The offers submitted by these eight countries are conditional on the satisfactory resolution of a number of unresolved contentious issues. These include the issue of development co-operation provisions, export taxes, infant industry, standstill clause, the Most-Favoured Nation provisions, the non-execution clause, taxation and governance issues, market access and rules of origin for fisheries products amongst other issues.
Mr Slade further proposed lifting the Kava ban placed on Kava-producing countries.
“We are now at that juncture of the negotiation where we need to look into all the unresolved contentious issues and determine the impact that these issues would have on our economies if they stay unresolved.
“We have to consider a proposal from the Kava-producing countries suggesting that we actively pursue with the European Commission, through the current negotiations, lifting the ban currently imposed by a number of EU members on the import of kava.
“The kava industry is certainly very important in a number of Pacific ACP States and has the potential of channeling development benefits at the grassroots level.
“We need to determine the best way forward in supporting this initiative,” he said.

Roman Grynberg On A.C.P Negotiations

  • The ‘A’ (Africa) is too important to Europe’s prosperity and something more coherent and intelligent than the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) will replace it.



  • The EPA is so weak, fragile and ill-conceived in Africa that other rising powers will be able to have much better access than the EU to Africa’s resources.



  • C & P, due largely to their complete irrelevance to the commercial interests of the EU will surely be dealt with in the context of the EPAs, but the EU, like India and China, will continue to need access to Africa’s vast resources.



  • The Caribbean and the Pacific are being increasingly differentiated from Africa.



  • After 2020 the ACP group will become part of post-colonial history [...]And that makes the C (Caribbean) & P (Pacific) redundant in the equation, argues Grynberg, who until 2009 was the Director of Economic Governance at the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat.





  • Pacific Island Forum position also is reflected in the sentiments by former Caribbean diplomat, Sir Ronald Sanders that appeared in the Jamaican Observer article:


    The 79 African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries should use the strength of their combined numbers and access to their natural resources to demand a voice in global economic and financial arrangements that directly affect their economic well-being and the welfare of their people.
    With resources ranging from oil to gold, diamonds, timber, bauxite and a range of natural resources to which the rich countries of the world want access, the ACP countries miscalculate the clout that they could exercise in unison to demand a better share of the world's wealth.

    They also underestimate how powerful a force they could be in international organisations if they could agree to vote together. Effectively, they could be a blocking force or a strong bargaining entity with the rich and powerful countries that need wider support to achieve their own national ambitions. They could also bargain more strongly and with more advantageous results if they could agree - and adhere - to standards that they would apply to foreign investors who now play them off against each other.
    The problem is that, even though the agreement that established the ACP allows the grouping to bargain collectively with any third party, the ACP has confined its activity to negotiations with the European Union (EU). Further, the group lacks unity - a fact well known to the EU and to other rich nations. This lack of unity has been exploited by the EU, and others, to keep the ACP divided and weak. Therefore, the group has failed to realise the enormous potential it has for bargaining more effectively for its member states.
    Of course, there is an argument that the interests of ACP countries are so diverse, and even competitive, that it would be difficult (some would argue that it would be impossible) for them to agree on objectives and negotiating positions that would serve their collective interests.

    However, another perspective of the EPA negotiations with EU was published in Island Business (I.B) magazine article.
    The excerpt of I.B article:


    TRADE: The future of ACP, Europe relations

    What happens after Cotonou expires in 2020?



    * Makereta Komai 


    ACP–EU relations have been in existence for quite a while but what great gains has it achieved, for at least one of its small islands member in the Pacific, Palau, asks its former Vice President, Sandra Pierantozzi. Pierantozzi is one of hundreds of contributors in an online discussion on the future relationship between the rich global north (European Union) and its former dependencies in the global south (African, Caribbean and Pacific). 
    The online discussion has generated vigorous debate so far. Reactions have been posted from various parts of Africa, the Caribbean, Pacific and Europe.“To me, it’s a mistake to group so many countries from several very different and distant regions of the world together. “Within each region are so many countries, peoples, cultures and so on, with just as varied socio-economic needs. “I agree that trade, not aid, is the best way to develop these countries to a self sufficient level of development. “However, applying the same guidelines and levels of assistance, financial and in kind, to resource-rich African countries and resource-limited small islands nations in the Pacific and the Caribbean may be more destructive than helpful,” said Pierantozzi. 
    Could this spell the fragmentation of the 79-member ACP group into its three different regions, ending the world’s largest North-South political and economic co-operation? Judging from the various comments posted in the online discussion, there is a growing feeling, at least in Europe that the Europeans are only interested in the natural resources of Africa, now being aggressively pursued by China and India.
    “The ‘A’ (Africa) is too important to Europe’s prosperity and something more coherent and intelligent than the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) will replace it, said Professor Roman Grynberg, also posting on the discussion forum. “The EPA is so weak, fragile and ill-conceived in Africa that other rising powers will be able to have much better access than the EU to Africa’s resources. 
    And that makes the C (Caribbean) & P (Pacific) redundant in the equation, argues Grynberg, who until 2009 was the Director of Economic Governance at the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat.
    “C & P, due largely to their complete irrelevance to the commercial interests of the EU, will surely be dealt with in the context of the EPAs, but the EU, like India and China, will continue to need access to Africa’s vast resources.
    “The Caribbean and the Pacific are being increasingly differentiated from Africa. After 2020 the ACP group will become part of post-colonial history,” according to Grynberg. 
    But Vanuatu’s top diplomat in Brussels thinks otherwise. Ambassador Roy Mickey Joy holds the view that “the EU will not let go of the ACP easily because of the close political, social and economic ties built over 35 years”.“The writing is on the wall for us and it’s no secret that the status quo must change fundamentally. “While we hope to count on Europe’s generosity, we must take full responsibility of our own development,” said Ambassador Joy. 
    For us in the Pacific, we can determine our own future with the EU if “we remain fully and meaningfully engaged with them in the coming years”. And this means concluding the Economic Partnership Agreement at the earliest time to show our commitment to the partnership. “While no size fits all in terms of the negotiations, the Pacific needs to find the right formula to reflect the collective interests of its 14 members in the EPA talks, said Ambassador Joy.

    Some political commentators say the only hope for small islands nations in the Caribbean and the Pacific would be to establish Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) with the European Union. 


    The Caribbean as a region, through CARIFORUM, initialled an EPA with the EU in 2008, while the Pacific is attempting to conclude negotiations and sign up by December this year. Some, from both sides of the equation, are asking for an honest clarification from the EU on how it wants to further the development co-operation with the ACP after 2020.


    One respondent said the ACP could become a slimmed down ‘niche’ entity—perhaps without the Caribbean and Pacific members, who are already working on separate EPAs with the EU. 


    Whatever form it will take after 2020, the new entity could become the trade arm of the African Union, suggested the respondent. 


    Or as this respondent said, the key question is whether there is still a role for an ACP configuration. However, he suggested a radical reshuffle of the current set-up.Then there are those who have sentimental attachment to the 35 years of development co-operation between the two groups and see a future in the partnership.Former Director General for Development at the European Commission, Dieter Frisch commenting on the same online discussion said, “The relationship is evolving and will remain relevant and substantive beyond 2020. 

    “There is no use predicting the end of a privileged relationship as long as no other and better and politically feasible model has been drawn up.”Frisch said the question of the raison d’être of the ACP-Group was their right from the outset: on the European side many of us were indeed surprised when in 1973 six Caribbean and three Pacific countries decided to join forces with the Africans. “While they had some problems in common with Africa (e.g. sugar), their main motivation was political, being part of an important group of 46 negotiators led by Nigeria—a member of the then just founded OPEC—and sharing its bargaining power.The director of ACP General Affairs at the European Commission, Klaus Rudischhauser said the Cotonou Agreement is not “done and old but rather active and working very well”.“This is why it can be used as a very good model. Compared to the partnership of the EU with Africa as a whole, Cotonou is different and more established, it is the most wide-ranging agreement of the EU,” Rudischhauser said.
    ACP’s comparative advantage
    EU’s expanding global agenda has nothing to do with the ACP, apart from further marginalising the group while exposing them to more exploitation. 

    The earlier the ACP group realises that development can never be achieved through aid and preferences the better, he added.

    The expanding global agenda is meant to protect and enhance EU interests without necessarily promoting the ACP-EU relations where interests in other regions are more important. As a consequence, the new global agenda can only drive the last nail into the coffin of an already hopeless relationship that has not helped the ACP group to attain any meaningful development.
    “We see the emerging economies becoming more active in the ACP countries by way of exploiting the available resources with impunity. ACP countries have continued to export commodities and unprocessed raw materials to the emerging economies and importing poor quality products, like it has always been with the EU, wrote Edmund Paul Kalkyezi.
    He strongly supported a move towards forging a new partnership with emerging economies like China and India.“They should review the relations with all their trading partners and determine the development path they want to take even if this means abandoning the EU.
    ACP, which consists of countries from both ends of the political and economic spectrum, is assessing its strengths and weaknesses to determine its future, in nine years time.The ACP group could assert itself as a global player based on its collective human and natural resources, its historical links with the EU as well as its proximity to emerging economies. 
    A member of the European Parliament, Ska Keller said South-South co-operation is crucial if the ACP is to stay relevant in the transformed geopolitical environment now facing the globe. “I do find South-South cooperation crucial in light of the experience the emerging donors have in fighting poverty in their own country. “The ACP and EU have lots of common interests to bring forward on the global agenda, like the eradication of poverty, sustainable development, the preservation of public goods, etc. These are aims that can only be achieved together,” said Keller.
    The ACP-EU relations can serve as an example to other regions in the world. It is about identifying the positive things that work and expand these to other regions in the world. 

    Future perspectives post-2020

    On 6 June, the ACP celebrated its 36th anniversary in Brussels. It was an opportune time for Secretary-General Dr Mohamed Ibn Chambas to reiterate his challenge to the 79-member group to re-assess its place in the world as its key partner, the European Union, undergoes changes.


    “I need not remind us that our world is changing with breathtaking rapidity. “Globalisation imposes new competitive pressures on the economies of our member countries even as the rules-based World Trade Organisation (WTO) international trading regime no longer accommodates the privileged trading arrangements that we once enjoyed with Europe.


    “We also face a new era of uncertainties. The New Europe, with its changing institutional architecture and emerging geopolitical priorities, poses a challenge for us to reassess our place in the world.“While we appreciate the support we have continued to receive from our EU partners, it is evident that we must take our future into our own hands while embracing a South-South cooperation and the opportunities opened up by the emerging economies of China, India and Brazil.”Hope is not lost within the ACP. It has a nine-year timeline to come up with various options and scenarios for the group after 2020. From this year, the ACP Secretariat will engage in an outreach and consultation campaign to elicit opinions and ideas from all stakeholders which include the EU and ACP regional organisations, other developing countries and organisations of developing countries (G77, G24 & Non-Aligned Movement).
    Submission of a report on the outreach exercise, including conclusions and concrete proposals will form the final future perspective of the ACP Group, according to the draft report of the ACP Committee of Ambassador’s Working Group tasked with the future perspectives of ACP.A study will be commissioned to examine the continued relevance of ACP as a group in the new and evolving global environment. The study will also review ACP’s privileged relations and co-operation with the EU, taking into account the second Revised Cotonou Partnership Agreement, the Lisbon Treaty as well as relations with other development partners.
    So does the ACP-EU relationship have what it takes to survive? As one respondent puts it…“The status quo is not good enough, dramatic changes will have to occur if the relationship is not to be subsumed by EU’s other partnerships in the developing world.”

    *Makereta Komai is the Editor of PACNEWS, the news arm of Pacific Islands News Association.     



    What prompted the review 
    When it was signed in 2000, the Cotonou Partnership Agreement between the 79-member African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) States and the European Union was widely viewed as offering an ambitious and innovative agenda that would enhance political dialogue, encourage the participation of non-state actors and result in a more effective development cooperation framework. 
    It therefore went beyond the narrow trade and aid focus that was the hallmark of earlier ACP-EU treaties, right from the first post-independence framework agreed in Yaoundé in 1963 through the four successive Lomé conventions implemented between 1975 and 2000.Increasingly however, it appears that a constellation of global changes and internal dynamics has thrown the future of the partnership wide open.
    A key driver in this has been the adoption of the new Lisbon Treaty in 2009, under which the EU has embarked on fundamental institutional reorganisation to strengthen its position as a global player. This includes a review of all existing EU partnership agreements on a geopolitical basis and along regional lines that has undermined the unity of the ACP Group and heightened doubts on the relevance of the ACP-EU framework.
    Further complicating these internal dynamics is the growing political and economic muscle of the emerging powers, which has opened up new avenues of cooperation for developing countries.  It is not surprising that one of the very first actions taken by the incoming ACP Secretary General, Dr. Mohamed Ibn Chambas, was to appoint an Ambassadorial Working Group on the Future Perspectives of the ACP Group after 2020.    
    —By J Laporte

    Given the various observations on the Pacific ACP negotiations with EU regarding Economic Partnership Agreements (EPA), no word has been mentioned by regional observers on the current debt crisis in the Euro zone and the Greece like contagion, of which, even the U.K is not immune to, according to Daily Telegraph article.





    Furthermore, the multiplier effects of the euro zone debt crisis in the Pacific region, to which the EPA is viewed. Given that the EPA deadline has since shifted to Dec 2012, the space of time may be a unique opportunity for Pacific ACP states to reevaluate the status of global economy and strongly prompt for re-negotiation of terms.