THE PRESS FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 1987. Settling down in Fiji

Press, 25 September 1987, Page 18

THE PRESS FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 1987. Settling down in Fiji

The first substantia! step towards restoring some kind of consensus in Fiji was taken this week when the Governor-General announced tht establishment of a caretaker Government. Tlfe road ahead remains hard and rocky, and it will require considerable patience and wisdom to get down it peacefully. Ratu Sir Penaia Ganllau’s proposal nevertheless offers a better chance for peace than could have been hoped for immediately after the coup d’etat on May 14.

The caretaker Government is not democracy in the Western tradition. The coup of May 14 changed Fiji utterly. In spite of the repeated assertion by the deposed Prime Minister, Dr Bavadra, that his Government should be restored to power, once the coup had occurred there was never any chance of a return to the way things had been. The Fiji constitution had always had reservations anyway that gave indigenous Fijians greater rights than those enjoyed by any other race in the islands. The caretaker Government will be a coalition of Fiji’s two main political groups and will presumably govern by consensus. If it holds, it will be a small guarantee that the demands of some of the wilder Fijian nationalists will not be allowed to ride roughshod over the rights of Fiji Indians.

The caretaker Government, to be called the Council of State, will be installed next week. The Governor-General will be chairman and membership will be balanced, presumably equally, between Dr Bavadra’s coalition of the National Federation Party and the Labour Party on one side and the Alliance Party, led by the former Prime Minister, Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara, on the other. Important portfolios will also be balanced.

The arrangement was made after five rounds of talks between negotiators led by Dr Bavadra and Ratu Mara and is a compromise by both sides. Notably absent from the announcement made by Government House on Wednesday is any mention of the coup leader, Colonel Rabuka. It is clear now that, when he staged the coup, Colonel Rabuka had not thought at all about how, having ousted the legitimate elected Government, he would govern afterwards. This happy circumstance, in fact, allowed the Governor-General to take control.

Colonel Rabuka, however, is now head of the army, which has itself been expanded from 3500 at the time of the coup to 5000 now. His supporters speak menacingly of the “necessity” for another coup in six months if the Council of State does not meet their demands. The Council of State will find it impossible to ignore his presence.

The radical Taukei movement, whose strident racist nationalism and attacks on Indian shops in Suva recall horribly the time when Hitler bellowed across Europe, lurks in

the background, too, possibly with some army sympathy and protection. Those responsible for burning and looting shops and beating up Indians may be few, but Taukei’s crude expression of the somehow superior "rights” of indigenous Fijians undoubtedly articulates a feeling that many share. Indeed, satisfying these demands remains the most difficult task facing the Council of State. The Governor-General himself has appeared to face both ways on the question. On the one hand, he has said that the rights and aspirations of all people of Fiji, regardless of race, must be a central part of consensus. He has also said: “It is clear that it will be necessary, as part of this consensus, to meet the demands for a strengthening of the position of indigenous Fijians.” As the Fijians already have considerable entrenched rights it is hard to see how they could get more without diminishing the rights of the other main race, the Fiji Indians. Since most Indians in Fiji have families with a - history in the islands going back three generations or more, it is hard to see why they should be treated as second-class citizens. It is even harder to see how any consensus could be reached on a form of government that ruled out a Parliament that could never have an Indian majority. The reservation of land ownership by law was tolerated. No doubt it still will be tolerated by the Indian population as the price for coexistence with the Fijians. A compromise that diminishes political rights of other races in Fiji seems highly unlikely. However much the Council of State may look like a temporary expedient, it at least offers the chance of firm, responsible government. Such government is urgently needed to restore financial and economic stability to the country. Scenes, like the episode out of “Black Mischief’ on Wednesday in which more than 100 prisoners burned down their jail and escaped to seek an audience with the Governor-General and then paraded through the streets of Suva, grinning and shouting, with an army escort, do not inspire business confidence.

If the council can just trundle on for long enough to allow tempers and fears to settle, and if it ensures a rule of law fairly applied to all people, the chances of bringing some sense to bear on the divisions must be increased. Few people could have hoped in May that, within four months, the parties could have gone as far as they now have. The hot-heads have to be shown that they have nothing useful to offer the people of Fiji. Political restraint must now be allowed to show that it can secure the lives and livelihoods of people of all races in Fiji. Any more threats of the Rabuka kind must be seen to be fatal to Fiji’s interests.