Bainimarama - the conventional view - today's "The Australian"

Letters Blog | April 17, 2009 | 4 Comments

GRAHAM Davis ("Dealing with the dictator”, Features, 16/4) must be naive indeed to believe Frank Bainimarama’s cover story for seizing complete power in Fiji. All Fiji’s coups have been justified by appeals to a greater good—the protection of “indigenous rights” in the case of the 1987 and 2000 coups, “national security” in the case of the army’s intervention in 2000, and “good governance” in 2006. The label may change but underneath lie the ambitions of individuals and groups who want power and are not willing to wait for the cumbersome process of democracy to get it.

What evidence is there that Bainimarama has any democratic instincts at all? He has systematically purged the Fiji Military Forces of constitutionalist officers, demanding they pledge an oath of personal loyalty to him and dismissing those who refuse. He never accepted the authority of the democratically elected government when there was one, and overthrew it by force in the end. He has comprehensively militarised the governing of Fiji, sacking civilians in favour of military officers in most key positions of the Fiji public service. He heads a military that consistently overspends its budget by tens of millions of dollars, draining Fiji of vital public resources. And, last year, he awarded himself Fijian $184,740 in back pay dating to 1978.

Now he has muzzled the free media, blocked the FM transmission of Radio Australia, dismissed the entire judiciary of the country so that he can appoint pliable judges, and sacked the able and well-regarded Governor of the Reserve Bank Savenaca Narube, a man who did much to keep the Fiji economy afloat through earlier crises. One fears for the future of the Fiji economy under a military leader who cannot abide opinions different from his own.

Davis is right to say that Fiji ought to have a new electoral system in which race plays no part. But how can we believe that there will be an election held in Fiji under any electoral system? And, if Bainimarama is such a democrat at heart, why do the people of Fiji have to wait five years for that election to happen? The truth is that Bainimarama is a disaster for Fiji.

Stewart Firth Bright, Vic