THE only good factor about the military coup in Fiji is that no lives have been lost. While this in no way makes the fourth coup in 20 years any more acceptable, it does seem to offer an easier way back to the restoration of democracy.
After over a month of rumblings and warnings, Commodore Frank Bainimarama has seized power. Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase is exiled to his distant home island and the military has appointed a 77-year-old retired army doctor as caretaker prime minister. After he had taken an oath of office, this man, Jona Senilagakali, explained rather oddly that he had accepted the post only because he had been ordered to.
Before he was taken from his official residence, Premier Qarase had called for peaceful noncooperation with the new authorities. This appears to be happening. Certainly the international community has reacted angrily with an immediate suspension of military aid and cooperation by Australia and New Zealand as well as the former colonial power, Britain. The highly risk-sensitive tourist industry is also likely to slash its bookings. Last year 400,000 people visited Fiji which itself has a population of 900,000. Tourist arrivals have boomed recently, so the loss of tourist income is likely to hit the economy far harder than during the first and longest lasting coup in 1987, when a range of economic sanctions was imposed.
It is hard to see where the coup leader Bainimarama thinks he is going with his intervention. It is however clear why he intervened now. The Qarese administration was about to pardon a former coup leader, businessman George Speight, who in 2000 kidnapped Premier Mahendra Chaudry in a 56-day attempted putsch. The irony is that it was Bainimarama’s military intervention at that time which defeated the Speight coup and restored democracy.
Bainimarama is an ethnic Fijian who believes in a multiethnic Fiji with equal rights for the ethnic Indians, imported by the British in the 19th Century to work on sugar plantations. Speight, like the previous double coup leader Col. Sitiveni Rabuka is ethnic Fijian and acted against the increasing political and economic success of the ethnic Indians. Qarese is also ethnic Fijian. It was Bainimarama’s public contention that if Speight and his fellow coup plotters were released, it would seriously damage relations between the country’s two communities.
Bainimarama may be correct that Fiji’s delicate racial amity is in danger. But overthrowing the elected government is not the way to protect it. Indeed, it might actually make things worse. Because it pins the cause of a multiethnic Fiji to an illegal act. The middle ground in Fijian politics stands to be undermined. It must be hoped that all politicians, including those with Indian backgrounds, will continue to back the return of Premier Qarese.
Bainimarama could have challenged the government legitimately by himself running for office. He may now be planning new elections in which he will stand. If they are fair, and Bainimarama loses, so will unfortunately the cause of a multiethnic Fiji.
