Address by His Excellency Commodore Josaia V. Bainimarama, Prime Minister and Commander of the Fiji Military Forces of the Republic of Fiji at the General debate of the 66th Session of the General Assembly of the United Nations (New York, 21-24 and 26-30 September 2011). Video of speech (posted below)
An islands owned regional body?
By Dr Roman Grynberg, www.islandbusiness.com
For the last few months, the region has been racked with highly contentious debate over the issue of the role and independence of its newest institution, the Office of the Chief Trade Adviser (OCTA).
OCTA was established with Australia and New Zealand funding to help the islands negotiate the PACER Plus trade agreement between the islands and Australia and New Zealand. From its very inception, neither the Pacific Islands Forum nor Canberra were willing to allow it to be what the islands wanted, which was a completely independent source of advice.
Several months ago, the situation was further complicated when PNG presented a paper asking for the extension of the remit of OCTA to go beyond the negotiations with Australia and New Zealand and help complete the negotiations with the European Union over the Economic Partnership Agreement, which has now continued for almost eight years.
The reason offered by PNG for shifting the policy advice away from the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat (PIFS) was the Forum had not done a competent job, and progress has been slow on key areas of interest such as fisheries and aid for trade.
More importantly, the membership of the Forum includes Australia and New Zealand, there might be potential conflict of interest in trusting the Forum to handle negotiations that would set a precedent for PACER Plus negotiations.
From a Forum Secretariat’s perspective and from the position of Canberra and Wellington this sent up a red flag as nothing could be more dangerous to their monopoly of advice to the region, in this case on trade negotiations.
This had always been the danger in creating OCTA in the first place. At the time the decision was made to create OCTA in 2008, the islands did not trust the Forum Secretariat’s chief executive to do anything other than serve the interests of Canberra and Wellington and in return Canberra and Wellington did not believe the trade advice going to the islands from the secretariat served their interests. But it was clear at the time that OCTA could eventually become the basis for an independent island-owned and controlled organisation where, for the first time in 40 years the islands could get independent advice and make their own decision without the overbearing presence of the two dominant powers.
By creating OCTA, this ‘remit creep’ could end up destroying the Forum Secretariat’s very reason for its existence, which is to provide advice to the islands which is acceptable to Australia and New Zealand.
Separate, but relevant to the PNG paper, is the scope of work of OCTA was a point of contention at the Forum Trade Ministers’ Meeting in Vava’u, Tonga, in May 2011. Australia insisted that the remit of the work of OCTA be limited to PACER Plus only.
The islands believe that since OCTA is theirs, this should be a matter for their decision, and theirs only. There was no agreement at ministerial level and the issue has now been kicked upstairs to the Forum leaders meeting.
At the August 2011, PACP Trade Ministers Meeting in Port Moresby, PNG presented a revised version of their country paper “Future Management of PACP Business including the Current EPA Negotiations”. Two main justifications were given for the need to consider the issue. First, PIFS faces a potential conflict of interest when supporting the PACPs because it owes a duty to all Forum members. Second, Fiji’s full participation in PACP business on an ongoing basis must be resolved. This has led to a recommendation to PACP Leaders for the convening of an Eminent Persons Group to look into the issue of the long-term management of PACP affairs.
It is here where the matters to be discussed by PACP and by Forum leaders interact. The PNG revised country paper raises the possibility of exploring whether OCTA could be a facility for the long-term management of PACP affairs, at least in the area of trade negotiations. There is obvious value in the FICs/PACPs having support in all trade matters provided by a single regional body to ensure coherence and coordination, if not for the practical reasons of resource-efficiency.
With appropriate terms of reference, findings from the Eminent Persons Group (EPG) would shed more light to the FICs on both the future scope of the activities of OCTA and as part of a broader review of the future management of PACP business.
The most difficult question will be who will be supporting and coordinating the group. Such a function might not have an insignificant control over the findings and recommendations of such a group.
If the Forum is tasked, this could result in a situation equivalent to where the accused is charged with choosing its own jury and helping determine its decision. The obvious decision is to ask a relatively independent body such as the Commonwealth or the ACP Secretariat to oversee the workings of the group.
With the recent resignation of Professor Chris Noonan as Chief Trade Negotiator, the region has now lost a skilled and dedicated negotiator who, once the actual negotiations commenced, would have proven invaluable to the islands. But Australia and New Zealand have done their very best to make his job extremely difficult and insecure. Tongan officials have also been instrumental in helping to undermine OCTA and will no doubt be rewarded by higher levels of aid from Canberra.
The steady drum beat of events is moving in one direction, the isolation of Fiji after the coup, the negotiations of EPA and now PACER Plus have moved the islands to finally push for an institution that is both permanent and genuinely independent of Australian and New Zealand domination.
The push by PNG for such a body was almost inevitable. There will remain a residual role for the Forum and its secretariat as a place where the islands talk to Australia and New Zealand but the genuinely independent body that gives the islands advice that is untainted is still waiting to be born and the EPG will almost certainly be the mid-wives.
• These are the views of Dr Roman Grynberg who was Director of Economic Governance at the Forum Secretariat until he was removed in 2009.
COVER REPORT: Forum in ConflictFiji and trade raise possible conflict of interest questionsAs things stand, PIFS is the current Regional Authorising Officer (RAO) for Pacific members of ACP.
Samisoni Pareti
Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat’s (PIFS) “exposure” in trade negotiations with Australia and New Zealand over PACER Plus has placed the secretariat in a prejudicial position over its management of trade talks with the European Union (EU), a confidential Papua New Guinea Government paper has said.
And Waigani wants PIFS to exclude itself from future Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) negotiations with the EU by establishing a separate and independent office to oversee EPA matters.
“PNG believes there exists a possible issue of conflict of interest in the management role PIFS plays in the EPA negotiations,” said the PNG paper, a copy of which was leaked to this magazine.
“[...]PIFS’ exposure to PACER Plus negotiation places PIFS in a possible situation of prejudice in the EPA negotiations management advice. This is therefore a situation of conflict of interest that exists in the current role PIFS plays in the EPA negotiations.”
PNG’s position was discussed at the trade ministers meeting of Pacific members of the ACP group in Port Moresby last month. The paper was “noted” according to the meeting’s outcome statement, and Ministers have asked their leaders at their meeting in the margins of the Forum Leaders summit in Auckland early September to form an Eminent Persons Group to consider the PNG proposal in detail.
In this role, PIFS manages all ACP matters between its Pacific members, as well as with their counterparts in the other two regions of Africa and the Caribbean, and with the EU.
Thorny issues
But the PNG paper claimed two recent developments have made PIFS’ role as RAO “questionable.” One is the need for Pacific members of PIF to negotiate the free trade agreement PACER Plus with their two bigger and wealthier members of Australia and New Zealand. The other thorny issue is Fiji.
While its membership of PIF has been suspended due to the military coup of December 2006, Fiji’s membership of the ACP grouping is still very much intact. “PIFS’ management of the PACP EPA negotiations may not be consistent with its core functions,” said the PNG Government paper.
“Its core functions and responsibilities should be to provide equal service to the full membership of the Forum. What may be happening by the PIFS’ management role in the EPA negotiations is a situation of serving the interest of one group of members to the exclusion of others."
“PIFS’ responsibilities are to the Forum and its duties are to serve the collective interests of the Forum membership, consistent with the Forum Leaders’ decisions. EPA negotiations management is an additional responsibility PIFS has taken on.
Chris Noonan resigns as Chief Trade Adviser
Pacific Islands negotiations with Australia and New Zealand on PACER Plus has hit a major snag with the resignation of Chief Trade Adviser, Dr Chris Noonan of New Zealand.
Dr Noonan heads the Office of the Chief Trade Adviser, which is based in Port Vila, Vanuatu, and has only been in the job for just over a year.Although Islands Government Trade Officials were informed of his resignation at a meeting in Papua New Guinea in early August, no public announcement ha[d] been issued.
“Yes, it is correct, I have tendered my resignation,” Dr Noonan said in response to questions from Islands Business about his future at the OCTA. “There is really nothing to tell,” he added in his electronic mail response. “It was for personal reasons. OCTA will carry on—business as usual.”
But it was certainly no business as usual when the New Zealand lawyer and trade expert got appointed as CTA by the Pacific Islands Forum in December 2009. Two months after receiving his appointment letter, Dr Noonan was still debating the actual nature of his contract and structure of the OCTA, a matter Islands Business had reported in its February 2010 edition.
The story quoted from a letter from then Solomon Islands Foreign Minister William Haomae to PIFS (Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat) Secretary-General Tuiloma Neroni Slade, complaining bitterly about the delays in Dr Noonan’s appointment.
“Despite the importance placed by the trade ministers on the urgent establishment of OCTA, FICs (Forum Islands Countries) have noted with surprise that the handling of the matter by the secretariat has been characterised by extraordinary delays,” wrote the Solomon Islands’ minister.
New South Wales Green Senator Lee Rhiannon
"I call on the Australian government, when it attends this year’s Pacific Islands Forum Leaders Meeting to live up to its call for good governance and aid ownership in the region and respect the rights of Forum islands leaders to decide for themselves what the mandate of the OCTA is. At the end of the day, they are asking only for funding, not permission."
“FICs are concerned that the significant time lags between Dr Noonan’s communication with the secretariat and its responses are interfering with the fulfillment of the mandate given to the secretariat by the Forum Ministers. "Repeated requests for urgent updates from some FICs have yielded at best, delayed responses". Similarly, it has been brought to the attention of FICs that Dr Noonan’s requests for the chance to travel to Fiji and Vanuatu to assist in moving this process forward have been rejected.
“Given the low costs of the proposed travel and its importance, and the significant amount of funding that remains available, the Forum Secretariat’s recalcitrance is puzzling, contrary to its mission to serve all the members’ interests, and might set a worrying precedent for the on-going PACER Plus process.“More seriously, FICs are alarmed to see that the actions of the Forum Secretariat have been characterised by an inappropriate degree of opacity. In particular, while the governance structure of OCTA was discussed through successive rounds of PACER Plus meetings, the contract discussions between the Forum Secretariat and Dr Noonan have not been made available to FICs.”
Dr Noonan’s appointment was finalised in no time after Haomae’s letter was leaked and published by Islands Business. But for the new CTA, the fight had just begun. Over the past 12 or so months, he has had to fight to get funding for OCTA, with Australia particularly being accused of interfering with the office’s financial independence.
The accusation became too close for comfort for the Australian Government recently when New South Wales Green Senator Lee Rhiannon told Australia’s Upper House that Prime Minister Julian Gilliard’s Government should stop its interfering and bullying tactics.“Australia would under no circumstances accept such a compromise of its sovereignty,” said Senator Rhiannon."Yet through its aid programme, the government is attempting to make such an imposition on the Forum islands countries".The islands have asserted that the OCTA is theirs and should be under their control, and not the control of all Forum countries.“It is a sad irony that I stand in the building that asserts Australia’s sovereignty, asking for it to allow other countries to do the same".
"I call on the Australian government, when it attends this year’s Pacific Islands Forum Leaders Meeting to live up to its call for good governance and aid ownership in the region and respect the rights of Forum islands leaders to decide for themselves what the mandate of the OCTA is. At the end of the day, they are asking only for funding, not permission.”
The NSW Green Senator referred to the “documentation” of Australia’s “arm-twisting, power politics and pressure” over the OCTA affair. In particular, she questioned the need for Canberra to attempt to limit the scope of the OCTA to PACER Plus negotiations only, and its insistence that OCTA funding be released and reviewed on a quarterly basis.
PIFS role redefined
“This would normally be the responsibility of the ACP Secretariat to its members, ACP being a different legal entity to PIFS. It would therefore be in the best interest of both the PIFS and PACPs that the PIFS role in the EPA negotiations be redefined.”
The Waigani paper asserted that removing the RAO role of PIFS would also resolve the “inappropriate issue” of Fiji’s participation in EPA negotiations.
“Fiji’s case provides a substantive impetus for PACP matters to be managed independently of the Forum. Fiji’s case with PIFS is an example of what can happen if the PACPs, which are members of a completely different legal entity, surrender the management responsibilities of their affairs to another legal entity.
“Hence, the inappropriate issue of Fiji’s eligibility or otherwise comes into play.”
PNG’s view was echoed by a Fiji Government paper which was also presented at the same Port Moresby meeting of Pacific ACP Trade Ministers last August.
In this paper, which was also obtained by Islands Business, Suva made the call that the RAO role should be removed from PIFS.
“PIFS is not a signatory to the Cotonou (Agreement between ACP countries and the EU) and therefore its role to coordinate and provide technical advice to the PACPs was consequential to the PACPs’ commitments and decisions.
“It therefore follows that the PACPs are at liberty to assign this role to the PIFS (which they did in 2004) or to transfer it to another organisation if they feel PIFS is unable to perform the role effectively.”
Fiji is particularly displeased that because of its suspension from PIF, its leader Commodore Frank Bainimarama would not be able to attend this month’s Pacific ACP Leaders summit in Auckland.
Under its travel sanctions policy, Wellington bans Bainimarama, his cabinet ministers and senior military officers and their families from visiting New Zealand. Canberra has a similar policy.
EPA – interim or comprehensive?
The future structure of a free trade agreement between Pacific members of the ACP and Europe hangs in a balance as parties scramble to meet the once again changed negotiation deadline of mid-2012.
As a negotiating bloc, the 14 members of the Pacific ACP countries have agreed to negotiate as a region with the EU (European Union) and to all aim for a full, comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA).
However, the two larger members of Papua New Guinea and Fiji opted out of that agreement when they individually signed an interim EPA (I-EPA) with the European Union in 2007 to protect their tuna and sugar exports respectively. PNG has since ratified that agreement.
The race to meet the EPA negotiation deadline, which has now been pushed from the end of December 2011 to mid-2012, has only added pressure on what is already a complex and highly charged negotiation environment.
To-date, only eight out of the 14 members of the Pacific ACP have submitted their market offers to the EU—a pre-requisite for negotiations over a comprehensive EPA.
But if that’s not complicated enough, the European Union has upped the tempo when at the Pacific ACP Trade Ministers meeting in Papua New Guinea last month, proposed that the islands of the Pacific should follow PNG and Fiji by opting for a revised interim agreement, something that has been dubbed I-EPA Plus.
“Accession to the interim EPA would greatly reduce negotiating requirements and would provide countries wishing to benefit from this option with quick access to the EU market,” acting Head of the Delegation of the European Union in Papua New Guinea Dr Kay Beese told Pacific ACP Trade Ministers.
“If a substantial number of countries would be joining the agreement, the existing agreement could later be amended and new chapters added.
“These could concern fisheries or development cooperation, if the parties to the agreement so wish.”
According to Dr Beese, an interim EPA Plus was much more realistic and takes into account the specific nature of members of the Pacific ACP.
Whilst the outcome document of the Trade Ministers meeting showed that Dr Beese’s proposal was not accepted, it was Fiji that officially expressed some support for the interim EPA Plus option.
“Fiji had always supported that the comprehensive EPA was its long-term vision for the region’s relations with the EU,” a Fiji position paper said.
“It had initialled and signed the I-EPA as an interim solution to maintain its market access into the EU.“This position will be reconsidered if the current arrangement of Fiji’s participation in the EPA continues.“The EU mooted the idea of I-EPA Plus this year.
“Two of the PACPs have indicated their strong interest to join the I-EPA.“Fiji would join the like minded countries in pursuing the proposed I-EPA Plus concept with the EU if its participation in the comprehensive EPA negotiations is frustrated,” the Fiji paper said.
EPA negotiations crucial stage
At the Port Moresby meeting in August of Pacific ACP trade ministers, Fiji lobbied for support to get an invite to attend the Pacific ACP Leaders summit, or failing that, the venue of the PACP leaders summit be changed from Auckland to Port Vila.
“Given that the EPA negotiations are at a crucial stage, the consequences of excluding Fiji from the next PACPs leaders meeting would be more significant than past meetings,” the Fiji paper argued.
“Fiji cannot agree to a process where the outcomes are beyond its control and where it cannot defend its own interest.”
Islands Business was told Fiji received a lot of support at the Port Moresby meeting, but because of time and logistical constraints, ministers felt it would be very difficult to change the venue of the Pacific ACP Leaders meeting.
As a way forward, PNG is proposing a permanent independent Pacific ACP trade facility or office.
“In PNG’s original paper (tabled at the last Trade Ministers meeting in Apia in April 2011), the possibility of the transfer of current EPA negotiations management to the Office of the Chief Trade Advisor (OCTA) was raised,” the PNG position paper had said.
“Some of the arguments used in favour of OCTA in the original paper still remain useful for consideration for a possible long-term arrangement for the management of PACP affairs.
“This may be more feasible to consider, now that the OCTA is an established legal entity under Vanuatu laws.”
PNG went onto suggest that in addition to the formation of an Eminent Persons Group from amongst Pacific ACP countries to consider its proposal, Pacific ACP ambassadors based in Brussels should sound out the ACP Secretariat and the European Commission to fund a study on a separate Pacific ACP office.
This proposal would be put before Pacific ACP leaders at their Auckland meeting.
Issue of conflict
Papua New Guinea has raised this issue of conflict of interest against PIFS before.
In fact. it first raised the matter in October 2010 when its then Trade Minister Sam Abal complained bitterly about PIFS, accusing it of stalling EPA negotiations with the EU.
He specifically called for the removal of the PIFS legal adviser and questioned the independence of Director of Economic Governance and leading trade adviser Dr Chakriya Bowman of Australia.
PIFS now has a new legal adviser but Dr Bowman, a former AusAID trade negotiator, is still with the Suva-based regional organisation.
Official meeting documents do not show them, but Islands Business has been told the perception that PIFS is too close to Canberra and Wellington is still very much alive and common amongst islands government officials. This, they said, is also driving the push to strip PIFS of its RAO role on ACP matters.
An official in particular pointed to the agenda that PIFS prepared for the September Pacific ACP Leaders meeting in Auckland.
Although PACER Plus is a key factor, this item was not included in the meeting agenda initially, prompting the Solomon Islands Government, as the current chair of the OCTA Governing Board, to direct PIFS for a PACER Plus briefing on the agenda.
“In my own discussions,” this government official said, “a number of FOC officials do share the view that PIFS share a bed with Australia and New Zealand and some PIFS officials, especially the senior ones, do show that during our meetings or in drafting sessions of outcome statements and in their body languages.”
With the Melanesian Spearhead Group meeting in Fiji a week before the Forum leaders meet in Auckland, it is obvious the PNG’s position on PIFS and Fiji will be adopted by other members of the group.
The message would be that PIFS has too much on its plate and the matter of conflict of interest over EPA negotiations makes it a compelling case for this role to be shifted elsewhere.
Snag in fishing talks
Pacific negotiators for an economic partnership agreement with the European Union have drawn a line on the sand over their fish resource negotiations. At their summit in Auckland this month, leaders of the Pacific ACP countries would be urged to adopt a strong stance on negotiations with the EU over their lucrative fish resources.
Documents made available to Islands Business showed that Pacific ACP countries view the global sourcing concession under its rules of origin provision already offered to them by the EU is immutable and cannot be re-negotiated.
This concession applies specifically to items labelled as HS tariff headings 1604 and 1605.
These refer to canned tuna and processed tuna loins. Under this concession, Pacific members of the ACP could export canned tuna or processed tuna loins to the EU, so long as they are processed in the Pacific. Where the raw fish was fished or by whom is irrelevant.
As signatories to an interim EPA, Papua New Guinea and Fiji (once it ratifies its I-EPA) could access this facility. However, in their push for a comprehensive EPA with the EU, smaller members of the Pacific ACP bloc particularly, want similar concessions for O304 and 0305, which are fish fillets and fish pieces.
The EU, on the other hand, reportedly countered that it would only consider negotiations on this front provided the Pacific ACP offers access into their fishing waters and that the fish species be limited only to tuna.
Both counter proposals were rejected by the Trade Ministers at their meeting in PNG in early August. They said fishing access was not on the table, although this could be pursued bilaterally between the EU and any interested Pacific ACP member. The Pacific also wants the EU to remove limitations on the concession to tuna species only. Already the word from Brussels is that the Pacific would be in for a tough fight.
Addressing the Port Moresby meeting of Pacific ACP Trade Ministers, acting head of Delegation of the European Union in PNG, Dr Kay Beese said the EU understands why global sourcing for fresh and frozen fish is an “important objective” of some islands in the Pacific. An EPA without such a provision would be of little interest to you, Dr Beese said.
“At the same time, you are aware that the provisions on global sourcing, which are part of the interim agreement, have become the subject of significant controversy between some of the European Union stakeholders.
“This controversy also dominated the recent Parliamentary ratification process in the European Union.” Dr Beese urged Pacific members of the ACP to wait for the outcome of a study the EU is jointly conducting with the PNG Government about the implementation of global sourcing under its interim EPA.On Tuna Fishing, Green Peace briefly outlines the matters of concern, with respect to sustainability.
Outcome of the study would be available in mid-December, and until that is available, Dr Beese warned it would be difficult for the EU to start talking about extending the global sourcing provision to fresh and frozen fish.
"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.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.
"So until that matter is resolved, I honestly don't see how the forum will be capable of saying very much."
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.
WikiLeaks cables reveal Australian government divisions over Fijian junta
By Patrick O’Connor
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.
1 September 2011
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 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.Sex, lies and diplomatic cables; Wikileaks, SI and the Moti Affair
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.
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| FICAC website |
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
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.
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.
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
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| 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."
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.
Julian Moti