Fiji

On behalf of the people of Fiji, I extend to you, Mr. President, and to the General Assembly, our warm greetings: Ni sa bula and Namaste. We would also like congratulate you, Sir, on your election to the presidency of the General Assembly at its sixty-second session. I would also like to acknowledge the presence of Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. We wish to extend to him our warmest congratulations, as this is his first full Assembly session as Secretary-General. We note with gratitude the initiatives he has taken in the brief period since he assumed leadership to enhance momentum in the work of the United Nations. Fiji appreciates in particular his policy of inclusiveness and the attention that he is giving to the vulnerable situation and the special needs of small island nations. At the outset, Fiji wishes to reiterate its unwavering commitment to achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), pursuing environmentally friendly and sustainable development activities and addressing the challenges of climate change. As those issues have been widely debated in the Assembly, I would like to take this opportunity to address other issues of particular concern to Fiji. United Nations-led peacekeeping operations are renowned worldwide and have become the human face of this multilateral body in war-torn and conflict-prone regions of the world. For its part, Fiji continues to stand ready to shoulder the burden of promoting international peace. In that regard, we have offered our services to the African Union-United Nations hybrid peacekeeping operation in the Sudan. In the same vein, Fiji is committed to our collective resolve to enlarge the presence of the United Nations in Iraq. We are willing to contribute further towards that end, should the need arise. Today, the demand for peacekeeping continues to grow. With it comes the need for institutional reform to adequately cater for the ever-changing nature of world conflict. I would like to reiterate Fiji’s support for all reform efforts, including the latest initiative of the Secretary-General to reform the Department of Peacekeeping Operations. At the same time, I would urge the Secretariat to continue to resist the politicization of United Nations peacekeeping and to maintain the sanctity of its independence as a forum wherein the willing may volunteer their services freely and without bilateral mangling and interference. I now seek your indulgence, Mr. President, and that of the Assembly, to speak about the situation, particular circumstances and needs of Fiji at this stage of its nationhood as an independent sovereign nation. Fiji’s overall situation is that it is in a deep rut. It needs the understanding and support of the international community to be able to move forward to regain its dignity and its rightful place as a responsible member of the international family of nations. I am mindful, as I stand here today in the presence of the Assembly, that members may see me as the military leader who removed an elected Government. I cannot begrudge them that, because that indeed is a fact. I submit to the Assembly that, although the Government of the day was removed from power last December, such action was taken with extreme reluctance. I am not a politician; nor do I aspire to be one. I am certainly not much of a diplomat, and I am not used to speaking in forums such as this. Therefore, in what I say and in how I may put it, if in any way I am remiss with regard to the protocols of the Assembly, I seek understanding. By the time the military intervened last December, Fiji’s overall governance situation had regressed to a catastrophic level. The international community needs to fully understand the special local context of Fiji’s situation. Fiji became independent on 10 October 1970, inheriting an institutional infrastructure that could potentially have evolved further and been strengthened to allow democracy to take root. At that time, almost four decades ago, Fiji’s future appeared to be one of promise and potential. For instance, in terms of per capita income, Fiji was then in the same league as Malaysia and Thailand. We, the people of Fiji, viewed our country with pride and dignity and felt that that was the way the world should be. For more than a decade after achieving independence, Fiji did continue to make steady progress in economic development, education, poverty reduction and generally improving the living conditions of its people. Yet, in 1970, Fiji started its journey as a young nation on a rather shaky foundation, with a race-based constitution that rigidly compartmentalized our communities. The “democracy” that came to be practiced in Fiji was marked by divisive, adversarial, inward-looking, raced-based politics. The legacy of leadership, at both community and national levels, was a fractured nation. Fiji’s people were not allowed to share a common national identity. Of the two major communities, indigenous Fijians were instilled with fear of dominance and dispossession by Indo-Fijians, and they desired protection of their status as the indigenous people. Indo-Fijians, on the other hand, felt alienated and marginalized as second class citizens in their own country, the country of their birth, Fiji. The dates 14 May and 25 September 1987 are fateful in Fiji’s history and also for Fiji’s military forces. The military coups of that year were motivated by an ethno-nationalist, racist supremacy agenda. Those political, communal and military leaders who were responsible for the coups and related actions in 1987 carry a very large burden in their collective conscience for the severe ruptures to the very fabric of Fiji society and the dislocations and suffering that they caused in the lives of many of Fiji’s citizens. In May 2000, Fiji suffered yet another major setback. Again, a group of ethno-nationalist opportunists, backed by a small errant group within the Fiji military, overthrew the Government of the day. As Commander of the Republic of Fiji military forces, I did not support or condone the coup. I drew upon the structural and cultural organization of the military to intervene and to restore order and a state of security. The stand-off between the coup perpetrators and the military in May 2000 was potentially explosive at the time and, if not resolved, could have resulted in much bloodshed and even greater chaos. As military Commander, I played a key role in the handing executive authority back into civilian hands in the wake of the 2000 coup. This rested on a number of critical preconditions being met in taking Fiji forward. An Interim Government was appointed by His Excellency the President of Fiji, with Laisenia Qarase as caretaker Prime Minister. The Interim Government was tasked to pave the way to fresh elections to be held in September of 2001. The other fundamental conditions were that all of the perpetrators of the May 2000 coup, including the military rebels, would be prosecuted, and that the 2000 coup would be publicly renounced as racially motivated. It is tragic that Fiji’s recovery from the brink of chaos in May 2000 did not endure. In the ensuing years, Fiji’s overall governance took a dramatic turn for the worse. In particular, this was characterized by the politicization of the prison services and the criminal justice system. There was also a significant weakening of the key institutions of governance, a pervasive increase in corruption, serious economic decline combined with fiscal mismanagement, a sharp deterioration in the law and order situation and a deepening of the racial divide in the country. The convicted coup perpetrators were prematurely discharged from prison, and certain coup perpetrators and sympathisers were appointed as senior Government ministers and officials. There was also a series of legislative acts that were deeply divisive and overtly racist. The 2001 and 2006 general elections were not credible. They were characterized by massive rigging of votes, with an incumbent Government using the State’s resources to buy support. By late 2006, Fiji’s overall situation had deteriorated sharply, heightened by massive corruption and lawlessness, a severe erosion of confidence and an economy on the brink of collapse. Also, during the latter part of 2006, Fiji’s military had to pay particular attention to certain external threats to the sovereignty of the nation. Under our current constitution, Fiji’s military is charged with national security, defence and the well- being of Fiji’s people. Under the circumstances, the military, under my stewardship, could not possibly see such an unacceptable situation unfold without seeking to address it. History is testament to how I did in fact respond to the situation. For almost four years, I was strenuous in my efforts to constructively engage the elected leadership of the country, seeking to cause it to reverse its course of action, which was taking the country down the path of destruction into an abyss. The protracted efforts that I made to constructively engage with the previous Government came to no avail. On the contrary, a prominent High Chief connected to the ruling Soqosoqo Duavata Lewenivanua (SDL) party incited a mutiny within the military, and attempts were made not only to remove me, but also to eliminate me. It was with the utmost of reluctance that Fiji’s military, under my leadership, removed the former Government from power in December 2006. Many have criticized that decision. In response, I say this: Fiji has a coup culture, a history of civilian or military coups executed in the interests of a few and based on nationalism, racism and greed. In order to remove that coup culture and to make a commitment to democracy and the rule of law, policies which promote racial supremacy and further the interests of economic and social elites must be removed once and for all. Racism, elitism and disrespect for the law are undemocratic. They lead to hatred. They lead to violence, poverty and moral bankruptcy. We saw that in the years leading to the Second World War. We saw the genocide, the concentration camps, the rampant imperialism which resulted, in turn, in the creation of the United Nations. Within a month of the removal of the previous Government, the President of the Republic of Fiji resumed his constitutional authority. On 5 January 2007, the President appointed an Interim Government which is mandated to govern Fiji until a new Government is duly elected. With the exception of myself, the make-up of the Interim Government is all civilian. The presidential mandate provides the framework within which the Interim Government, in which I serve as Prime Minister, administers the affairs of the State. We are resolved to take the measures necessary to convene free and fair elections as soon as practically possible. On this, the Interim Government is coordinating closely with Fiji’s fellow members of the Pacific Islands Forum and the larger international community, including the European Union. Steady progress has been made in a number of areas pertaining to upholding the existing constitution, investigation into alleged abuses of human rights, maintaining the independence of the judiciary and preparatory work for the return of Fiji to parliamentary democracy. Fiji’s situation is not only complex; its problems are also deep-rooted and structural. There are no quick or easy fixes. The country is now at a very critical crossroad; the situation could escalate into more serious deterioration and instability. It is imperative that any such greater disaster or civil strife be averted. We therefore seek constructive dialogue and engagement with the international community, with all our bilateral and multilateral development partners, whom we urge to work with us, to help support us, in addressing our fundamental problems in moving Fiji forward. Fiji needs the support of the international community to develop a political and governance framework that is truly democratic, accountable, inclusive, equitable and non-racial and that unifies Fiji’s diverse communities as a nation. That is indeed the larger and most critical of challenges that Fiji now faces. For our part, we firmly resolve to tackle these challenges on at least four levels: first, to restore stability, law and order and confidence; secondly, to strengthen institutions for good governance including transparency, accountability and an independent and effectively functioning judiciary; thirdly, to carry out major reforms in the economy to facilitate sustainable private-sector-led growth; and lastly, to convene free and fair general elections within a constitutional and governance framework that will ensure that parliamentary democracy is not only restored but can be sustained in Fiji. To achieve all this, the Interim Government is preparing to launch a major national initiative, referred to as the Peoples Charter for Change and Progress the PCCP. Through the PCCP, the broad cross section of Fiji’s people will be fully engaged and involved, through consultation and participation, in the development of a comprehensive agenda of actions and measures, as Fiji’s own way of addressing its problems. For the future, Fiji will look at making the necessary legal changes in the area of electoral reform to ensure true equality at the polls. At present, all citizens have the right to vote for two candidates: one for a national seat of any ethnicity, and another from a communal raced-based seat. This in turn has kept our races apart. Although democracy in the form of electing a Government was introduced in Fiji at the time of independence, researchers and analysts have suggested that Fijians live in a democracy with a mentality that belongs to the chiefly system. In essence this means that at election time, Fijians living in village and rural areas are culturally influenced to vote for the candidate selected for them by their chiefs, their provincial councils and their church ministers. This leads me to ask whether the countries that are demanding that Fiji immediately return to democracy really understand how distorted and unfair our system is, both legally and culturally. This must change. Every person will be given the right to vote for only one candidate, irrespective of race or religion. This will send a message to our people that Fiji’s leadership no longer tolerates racial divisions and race-based politics. All men and women are equal in dignity and in rights. Electoral reform in this respect will be looked at by a National Council for Building a Better Fiji, which is designed to entrench the very principle on which the United Nations was founded. The draft Peoples Charter that will emerge from such a national-level undertaking will provide the political and governance framework, with effective supporting and functioning institutions, to make Fiji a truly democratic and progressive nation. The draft of the PCCP proposal was circulated widely within the country, with comments and suggestions invited. Additionally, I personally wrote to the leaders of Fiji’s bilateral and multilateral development partners, including the United Nations Secretary-General, on the PCCP initiative. I am pleased to report that in general this initiative has been received with very strong support within Fiji, in particular from highly reputable and respected civil society and community leaders in the country. The Peoples Charter, once formulated and adopted, will provide the strategic framework or fundamental foundation within which the Interim Government, and successive elected Governments, will be expected to operate. In the current absence of an elected Government, there is the issue of legitimacy and mandates. To deal with this, the Interim Government is willing to consider putting the draft Peoples Charter to a referendum to get the mandate of the people for the fundamental changes, including changes to the Constitution of Fiji, as may be considered necessary and appropriate. Fiji needs both financial and technical support from its bilateral and multilateral development partners to be able to effectively realize the vision that underpins the PCCP initiative. Above all, we seek the understanding of the international community to help us rebuild our nation in the true spirit of internationally acceptable precepts of good governance and a democracy that can be made to work and that can be sustained in Fiji. We must thank those Governments that have stood by and supported Fiji in our hour of need. Fiji is indeed very grateful and is deeply touched by their understanding and goodwill. Some in the international community, including the closest of our neighbours in the Pacific, have seen fit to impose punitive measures upon Fiji. Of course we know that those powerful States are protecting their own economic and political interests in the region. However, we in Fiji are protecting our democracy and strengthening our democratic institutions. Those powerful States are undermining our attempts to rebuild our nation on strong foundations and are undermining our attempts to appoint people of merit and honesty to our State institutions, regardless of race and religion. Current sanctions target any person appointed by the Interim Government. This is hypocrisy at its worst on part of those States as they are clearly undermining our efforts to promote and practice good governance. These actions such as the travel bans, described as smart sanctions have had a debilitating impact on our struggles to revive, to recover and to reform. Good governance requires effective, functioning institutions. Since the coups of 1987, Fiji has suffered a massive exodus of the country’s skilled and educated people. The major beneficiaries of the transfer of those quality human assets have been Australia and New Zealand, and from those neighbours in particular we seek understanding and support. Our capacities and institutions have been severely eroded over the years. In all of this, we desperately need help, not a closing of doors. I shall conclude my statement by reaffirming Fiji’s commitment to the United Nations and to the various United Nations conventions on human rights, the rule of law and democratic governance. Fiji does not seek any unwarranted exemptions from any of those obligations. All we seek is your deeper understanding of our particular circumstances and the complex situation of Fiji. We hope that you will work with us, assist us to rebuild and move Fiji forward. In closing, I take this opportunity to extend to the Secretary-General an invitation to Fiji and indeed to our Pacific region during his tenure.