A Narrative of Opinions.

Australian Broadcast Corporation footage (Real media) on the scenes in Suva, has captivated many by the surreal nature of this coup. Although the new interim P.M acknowledged the illegal nature of the coup, Senilagakali later summed up in an online article by ABC that, the ends justified the means.

Despite all the protests to the political shift, measuring the dimensions of all illegalities occurring in post-2000 coup Fiji will be a colossal task, even for the best paid lawyers on the globe.

To assist observers in arriving with a definite conclusion on the situation of Fiji, readers must also superimpose the reaction of Western nations to the Palestine model of democracy, with the Fiji Army's recent moral revolution.

How would the defenders of western styled democracy reconcile their cannard with the fact that, one nation's elected democracy is being ostracized by the international community along with a nation that, overthrew their elected Government?

While the coups conducted in the nations of Thailand and Pakistan, do not receive the same critical denouncements and sanctions levied by Western styled nations, as with Fiji.

This discourse has unveiled an embarrasing conundrum with the western ideal of democracy that, undeniably has failed to flower in the wilderness of third world development.

U.S Intelligence Squared forum, styled after the London original, organized a debate with podcast provided by NPR, analyzing the situation of Palestine and pondering whether the democratic elected party of Hamas should be considered by the international community, as a Government or a Terrorist organization.

Furthermore the positions of western democracies, have equivocally denied recognizing this democratic elected party, as a formal representative of Palestine.
Other observers have concluded that, the geo-politics in Thailand and Pakistan only underline the conspiracy premise that, any Government whether legal or illegal will be acceptable to the eyes of the international community, as long as it meets their agenda.


Australian P.M is interviewed on this podcast along with the snippets from the interim P.M.

The Chairman of the Great Council of Chiefs(GCC) being an unelected electoral college, misuses the appeal of democracy, to justify their inability in supporting to the interim Military Government as reported by a Fiji Times article.
Unable to redeem themselves for providing support for the 1987 and 2000 coups, the ironic position taken by G.C.C would ultimately accelerate their demise.

Fiji TV footage captures the swearing in interim Prime Minister, Dr. Jona Senilagakali including a brief interview. Included is the press conference of the head of state, Frank Bainimarama who named the new Commissioner of Prisons and Police.

CBS Survivor series may have bragging rights to surviving another coup in Fiji, as covered by this blog "Daily Dumpling".

Other dimension leading up to this management change were the concerns of the Army Commander outlined in an article by Australian correspondent, Graham Davis; whose article rationalizing with the Army commander's concerns and ruffled a few feathers.

This is an excerpt:

Fiji army chief has a valid cause

The Government of Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase, with its dangerously divisive policies, deserves no sympathy from Australians, writes Graham Davis

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November 25, 2006

IT'S a tale of the South Pacific James Michener could never have imagined: Australian warships off the coast of Fiji and high noon in Suva between the Australian federal officer locals call James Bond, and the tough guy who heads one of the fiercest fighting units in the world.

Unfortunately it's not fiction. Australia's impotence in dealing with events on its doorstep is about to be demonstrated in a way the Howard Government would never have envisaged when it launched its policy of active engagement in the affairs of its island neighbor's.

It seemed like a good idea to send the debonair Andrew Hughes to Fiji as police commissioner. The local force was demoralised and corrupt, and criminal activity was widespread.

The Aussie import has turned the force around, putting local bovver boys on the back foot and emerging in a recent opinion poll as the country's most popular public figure. But Hughes may find himself in trouble now he's decided to go head to head with the commander of Fiji's military forces, Frank Bainimarama.

The plot goes like this: Hughes wants Bainimarama to come in for an interview over his threats to remove the elected Government of Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase. The police chief is muttering about sedition and a range of other alleged offences. But Bainimarama has instead flown to New Zealand for a christening.

Bainimarama wants the Government to drop two key pieces of legislation: an amnesty for those involved in George Speight's 2000 coup and a bill that would give indigenous Fijians the right to claim money from other ethnic groups for using coastal waters.

The military chief maintains neither is in the national interest and has garnered significant community support for his stance.

He has now added another demand that is far from popular in Suva or Canberra: the removal of Hughes as police commissioner. That must be done, he says, in the same two-week timeframe as his other demands.

And although Bainimarama is talking about a clean-up campaign rather than a coup, Australia's Foreign Minister Alexander Downer says he fears a coup within two weeks and has issued fresh travel advisories for Fiji.

The reasons Bainimarama has made the tough statements he has - crude as they may seem to the casual observer - are not properly understood in Australia.

I'm not alone among Fiji-born Australians in being perplexed at the Howard Government's support for the Qarase Government. It is a racist Government pursuing racist policies, and has in its ranks many of the shadowy figures behind the 2000 coup who are desperate to avoid justice.

Race has always been at the heart of Fijian politics, especially the divide between indigenous Fijians and the descendants of the Indians brought to Fiji by British colonialists in the 19th century.

But it is Qarase who has made race an issue in this stoush, hitherto a power struggle between indigenous Fijians - Qarase and Bainimarama - that the Indians have wisely avoided.

When a Fiji Times-Tebbut poll last week showed that most of the Indians questioned sympathized with Bainimarama, it was the cue for Qarase to play the race card. On Wednesday he told parliament: "It is deeply troubling that the majority of one section of the community seems to favour military intervention in government. This is the conclusion to be drawn. The other major ethnic group does not support this. This leaves us in a finely balanced and potentially dangerous situation."

This is classic Qarase, an oblique message to his extremist Fijian supporters that the Indians favour his removal and to act accordingly. This is tantamount to unleashing the dogs of race on the basis of a poll of only 1000 people of all ethnicities. Small wonder Bainimarama is incensed and so many Fijian citizens of all races find themselves wondering about the true worth of democracy, if this is what it delivers.

It evidently hasn't reached Downer's ears that many would prefer Bainimarama to seize power and return it to civilian hands when the country is stabilised. Jerry Rawlings did it in Ghana, Olusegun Obasanjo did it in Nigeria: both were military men who subsequently became popularly elected civilian leaders.

Bainimarama opposes an amnesty for the perpetrators of the 2000 coup - some of whom are in Qarase's cabinet - in order to stop Fiji's cycle of coups, not perpetuate it. And he opposes the qoliqoli or coastal resources bill because it is inherently racist.

Fijian law already enshrines indigenous ownership of more than 80 per cent of the land, so there is no question of Fijians being dispossessed. By giving them dominion over coastal waters, Qarase is forcing other Fijian citizens to pay to use a resource that should be universally accessible.

Already, individual Fijians have been intercepting groups of people, including foreign tourists, at sea and demanding money before allowing them to resume their journeys. Yet when the country's peak tourism body said the qoliqoli bill could spell the beginning of the end for tourism, the country's biggest revenue earner, Qarase accused it of trying to sabotage the national economy.

Unlike the Prime Minister, Bainimarama is a committed multiracialist who subscribes to the vision of Fiji's founding father, Ratu Kamisese Mara, of a nation in which Fijian rights are respected but all races are treated equally.

The military chief has many friends among Indians and other ethnic groups, having attended the multiracial Marist Brothers High School in Suva.

If Bainimarama does seize power, as Downer now expects, he'll only be taking back what he gave Qarase when he invited him to form a government after locking up Speight in 2000.

What's not appreciated in Australia is the intensity of his rage at what he sees as Qarase's betrayal of the understandings between them, especially the need to punish those behind the coup.

Instead, Qarase brought many of the coup-makers into government and now wants a general amnesty that would lead to the likes of Speight being pardoned.

The Prime Minister could be about to learn the truth of an old adage: the hand that giveth also taketh away.

Fiji Human Rights laywer provides her feedback in the Fiji Times to the opinion article contributed earlier by Graham Davis. This is an excerpt:

Flirt with the rule of law at your peril

IMRANA JALAL
Thursday, November 30, 2006

+ Enlarge this image

A policeman stands guards over ballot boxes during the May 2006 general election

I refer to the opinion piece on Fiji by Graham Davis (High Noon in Fiji) in The Australian newspaper on 25 November 2006 and in The Fiji Times 29 November.

There is little doubt that Fiji has a special place in Davis' heart and that he is sincerely motivated.

However, his opinion piece is unsophisticated, is an irresponsible piece of journalism, particularly at this time of crisis, is deeply flawed from a legal perspective and is extremely dangerous for those of us trying to build a democracy based on the rule of law.

The essence of the rule of law requires us to solve our problems using lawful processes and democratic institutions such as the courts, the police and civil society.

To suggest that an illegal alternative might be justifiable undermines the building of democratic institutions, the ultimate power of the courts to rule any proposed law unconstitutional and makes a mockery of democracy and legitimate elections.

We Fijians wish to solve our problems using the rule of law.

This might involve challenging legislation that is unconstitutional or in violation of human rights, as has been done before, or voting out a government in a general election, and not by supporting the illegal removal of a government through the rule of the gun.

That is precisely what Davis is indirectly advocating: he is feeding the coup cycle and giving succour to the military.

Using the rule of law is certainly a longer and more tedious process, one which takes time, but to dispense with it in times of trouble is courting disaster.

Flirt with the rule of law at your peril.

I am curious to know whether Davis would indirectly advocate the same method in Australia whenever Howard attempts to pass unconstitutional and anti-human rights legislation through parliament or is he willing to wait out the lawful processes including the right of Australian citizens to use the courts for their grievances?

Where is it written that in those "uncivilised islands" of the Pacific live lesser people entitled to lesser rights then that accorded Australians, namely to use democratic processes and the rule of law to hold their governments accountable?

Davis and Australia need to be reminded that it was not Commander Bainimarama who brought back constitutional democracy to Fiji following the crisis in Fiji in 2000, but a poor, marginalised (now completely disenfranchised) Indo-Fijian farmer, eventually backed by civil society, through the landmark Chandrika Prasad court case.

Bainimarama actually filed a lengthy affidavit supporting the abrogation of the constitution.

It might be prudent to remember also, that it was the Commander who the courts have said committed the final illegal abrogation of the Constitution, when he unlawfully removed our former President Ratu Mara from Office.

We should let the rule of law and lawful processes take their course without any threat or perceived threat of illegal removals of government and of coups.

Have faith in us Mr Davis. Have some faith in the ability of us Fijians to build our democracy without illegal interference.

What you must remember is that the current government was only voted in a few months ago.

Surely the electorate made its choice at that time, and whether we like that choice or not is not the issue.

The Fijian people cast their vote. Respect that.

We the citizens of Fiji deserve a country without coups. Our children and the future generations certainly do.

Ms Jalal is an international human rights lawyer, a former Fiji Human Rights Commissioner, a Commissioner of the Geneva-based International Commission of Jurists and a Board member of both the Geneva-based International Council of Human Rights Policy and the Fiji Women's Rights Movement. These views are her own and not necessarily of the organisations with which she is associated.

This is the counter response by Micheal Fields to the opinion article written by laywer Imrana Jalal.

Within the law

Imrana Jalal accuses me of irresponsible journalism in her response to my opinion piece in The Australian, reprinted by The Fiji Times.

Irresponsible journalism is journalism that suppresses and doesn't enlighten.

I did not advocate the overthrow of anyone.

I tried to explain something not widely appreciated in Australia that Commodore Bainimarama has reason to be unhappy with a prime minister pursuing a racist agenda.

I said that many Fiji citizens would prefer to be rid of the Qarase government rather than see the 2000 coup makers pardoned and the Qoliqoli Bill enacted.

Ms Jalal says Fijians want to resolve their differences within the law.

I agree with her but if the rule of law in Fiji is as absolute as she maintains, then Mahendra Chaudhry would still be prime minister.

We all want a lawful resolution to the crisis but it will not be resolved while the Qarase Government pursues policies that are to the detriment of other races in Fiji and deny them natural justice.

Graham Davis
Sydney

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