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| Dr Scott MacWilliam (Image: Mary Walta) |
The reactions after the 2006 coup in Fiji was very different from the
recent coup in Egypt, even though both coups overthrew democratically
elected governments.
In July 2013, a military regime overthrew and imprisoned an
elected Prime Minister and government, jailing as well as killing regime
supporters. The US, Australian and New Zealand governments have done little more
than warn their citizens about the possible dangers of travelling to
that country as the protests against army rule escalate.
The Australian Foreign Minister Senator Bob Carr, a USA-phile and
most suitable deputy sheriff has been
conspicuously silent about a
democratically-elected government being overthrown in a coup. Foreign aid has continued from the USA, including military aid
despite ostensible bans against such assistance: a get-out clause in the
relevant legislation has been invoked to permit the continuing
provision of arms and other aid.
Bob Carr On Egypt- (Interview with Fran Kelly- Radio National
"
I think it’s got to be considered as a military intervention whether it can be regarded as a coup I think will depend on what happens now[...]We’re not supporting it, we’re not opposing it. We’re saying all sides should show restraint."
No travel bans have been put in place against any of the coup-makers
or the new regime’s top officials, even as the death toll among civilian
protesters rises. IMF officials are now more willing to advance a
massive, previously delayed dollar loan to assist rebuild the country’s
fragile economy.
On December 5, 2006, in another country Fiji, a military regime
overthrew an elected Prime Minister and government. For that coup the
international response was and remains quite different, a difference
examined here.
The responses to events in Egypt and Fiji will immediately raise the
question of how to explain the actions of particular ‘western’
governments: hypocrisy, or two faces of liberal democratic power?
Military action
The first step in constructing an explanation is a rejection of the
romantic idea that military action is incompatible with liberal
representative democracy. A useful starting point is the recognition that in both Egypt and
Fiji, the elections which preceded the coups as well as the governments
which were subsequently deposed were military-supervised and backed.
Prior to the 2001 election in Fiji military commander, now PM Frank
Bainimarama publicly stated that only the SDL leader Laisenia Qarase
would be acceptable as PM. Qarase had himself been installed by the military before the election
as the least worse option compared to the initial candidate proposed by
the nationalist insurgents who had taken over parliament the previous
year. There would be no return to the previously elected FLP Mahendra
Chaudhry-led Peoples Coalition government, an outcome also favoured by
foreign governments.
In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood-led government formed after the 2011
elections which followed the ousting of long-term dictator Hosni
Mubarak also received initial military support. This was even though the
party won a near-majority of seats with only slightly more than 30 per
cent of the 60 per cent of the eligible electorate who voted. That is,
the government had simple majority support not absolute.
What followed the Egyptian parliamentary elections and the
presidential election in the following year was a government which
sought to implement a political platform that was sectarian.
The parallels with the post-election behaviour of the Qarase
government deserve consideration. In Egypt, the government headed after
the presidential elections by the Brotherhood’s candidate Mohamed Morsi
took an Islamist route, whereas in Fiji the Qarase government was
suffused with nationalist indigenous zeal, leavened by Methodism and
intolerance to other religions.
In both cases the military withdrew its earlier hesitant support, and
toppled the elected government promising fresh elections under revised
rules, forms of constitutional reform.
Different reactions
However for Fiji, international condemnation of the 2006 coup was
immediate: it took just one day for Liberal Foreign Minister Alexander
Downer and the Department of Foreign Affairs to impose sanctions aimed
at the restoration of the Qarase government and ‘returning the military
to the barracks’.
These sanctions were retained by the Kevin-Rudd led ALP government
which won the 2007 elections and re-confirmed by the subsequent Gillard
ALP -led coalition government. The increase in Australian aid since
2006 has been matched by deliberate attempts to ensure that the Fijian
government’s support throughout the region remains limited.
Scott MacWilliam
"
The responses to events in Egypt and Fiji will immediately raise the question of how to explain the actions of particular ‘western’ governments: hypocrisy, or two faces of liberal democratic power?"
It is tempting to describe the differing behaviours of the three
foreign governments to mere hypocrisy, what has been described as ‘the
state of pretending to have virtues, moral or religious beliefs,
principles, etc., that one does not actually have’. However, there is
far more at work here.
The differences between the official government responses to the two
coups are so striking that it is worth asking if and what do events in
Egypt suggest about the behaviour of ANZ governments to the coup and
subsequent military takeover in Fiji. In other words why the appearance
of hypocrisy, democracy for Fijians but not for Egyptians, and what does
this appearance screen?
While the Egyptian military’s under-pinning of all governments in
that country has some similarities with the military’s role in
post-independence Fiji, there is at least one major difference.
Successive US governments have bolstered the Egyptian military, and
thus a dictator such as Mubarak, because of that country’s crucial role
in the region. Access to oil supplies provides a major component of the
US and western European foreign policy position, with the fear of
radical Islam of increasing importance.
For Egypt , US foreign policy has hewed to the well-established line:
‘we don’t care if there is a dictatorship as long as it is our
dictator’.
Democracy and dictatorship
The only comparable role which the Fijian military has played is in
providing peace-keeping support, much of it in that same ‘Middle East’
region.
However for Fiji, not strategically significant though becoming more
so as the consequence of a growing Chinese influence in the South
Pacific, liberal democratic governments have shown the always present
other policy face, that concerned with imposing representative
democracy no matter how thin or shallow.
This face suits ANZ governments in particular because of close ties
with the people and commercial concerns reduced in importance by the
Bainimarama government. Re-installing these particular interests under
the banner of bringing economic growth and political stability is, in
the eyes of those who hold political power in ANZ, best served in Fiji
by representative democracy.
Despite all the defects of the 1997 constitution, with its unelected
president, upper house of parliament and Great Council of Chiefs,
malapportioned electorates, institutionalised racist identification with
citizenship, this remains the bedrock of what ANZ governments see as
the appropriate democratic form for Fiji.
In Egypt, however, democratic form is unimportant for the USA and ANZ
governments: military power which can bring order, however temporary,
is preferable and the flow of international funds can occur.
Which of the two faces will be foremost after the next elections in
each country will, of course, be largely irrelevant for the bulk of the
people whose impoverishment has been and continues to be a major feature
of life in both countries.
For the reductions in living standards have been much longer term in
Egypt and in Fiji, with Ratu Mara noting in 1994 the extent of
unemployment and impoverishment particularly among the young. Indeed
what is more and more apparent is that neither representative democracy
nor military dictatorship has a direct causal connection with
improvement in living standards. The two faces of international power
serve other objectives.
Dr Scott MacWilliam is a Visiting Fellow, State Society
and Governance in the Melanesia Programme, School of International,
Political and Strategic Studies, Australian National University in
Canberra. He is a contributor to Pacific Scoop.
Jemma
Williams has an honours degree in international studies specialising
in international development. She currently works for the Australian
Fair Trade and Investment Network.
