Fiji coup Is actually a failure for Australia and New Zealand

Emma O’Brien reporting from New Zealand for Bloomberg said this morning that the island nation’s opposition leader Mick Beddoes says that Fiji’s military coup shows the failure of Australia and New Zealand to engage with countries in the Pacific region and treat their neighbours as equals.

Mr Beddoes says that the Dec 5 military takeover could have been averted if the Australian and New Zealand governments had developed better relations with Fiji and reacted sooner to tensions between the army and government.

He added, “There needs to be a shift and there needs to be a lot more fairness in terms of the way Australia and New Zealand deal with the Pacific.”

The coup made Fiji the third country in the region, along with Tonga and the Solomon Islands, to experience political unrest this year, prompting some analysts to question the effectiveness of Australia and New Zealand’s engagement in the Pacific with governments in Canberra and Wellington saying they have stepped up their efforts in the region.

“Ultimately, the leaders of the island nations have to accept responsibility for whether their societies succeed or fail,” said Tony Parkinson, a spokesman for Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, adding “Australia and New Zealand have both shown they are willing and eager to help.”

Australian aid to the region stands at $331 million for 2006-2007, while New Zealand has budgeted $271 million during the same period.

The report goes on to say that after decades of financial assistance and relying on their Pacific neighbours to solve their own problems, the two countries have adopted a more assertive role, with both countries sending troops to Tonga last month, at the request of the government, after at least eight people were killed in riots in the capital, Nuku’alofa, when riots started on Nov 16 after Tonga’s Government refused to immediately approve democratic changes.

They both sent more soldiers to the Solomon Islands in April, after rioters looted and burned most of Chinatown in the capital, Honiara and Australia has led an international force of police and soldiers since 2003 aiming to end years of ethnic violence and endemic crime in the country.

Australian police and civil servants are working with the authorities in Papua New Guinea to tackle crime and bolster democratic institutions.

Also, when civil unrest broke out in East Timor in May, both countries contributed to a multinational peacekeeping force in the South East Asian nation.

Australia’s military muscle in the region must be matched by greater diplomatic efforts, said Sinclair Dinnen of the Australian National University, adding the country doesn’t “historically” send its best diplomats to the Pacific.

The Fiji coup is “embarrassing for Australia on the international stage given that it has adopted the deputy sheriff role in the region,” he said.

New Zealand’s Foreign Ministry pays “lip service” to the region, said John Hayes, Pacific Affairs spokesman for the country’s opposition National Party, saying that its diplomats receive “very little” training in Pacific languages before they are posted, contributing to a lack of cultural understanding, said Hayes, a former diplomat and lead negotiator to the Bougainville peace process in 2001, which ended the separatist conflict in the Papua New Guinean island.

Diplomats receive “four weeks full time Fijian language training,” said James Funnell, spokesman for New Zealand’s Foreign Minister Winston Peters, adding the program had been “stepped up”.

New Zealand hosted talks in Wellington on Nov 29 between Fiji’s military commander Voreqe Bainimarama and Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase in an effort to avoid the coup and funded visits by several experts in governance to the country, he added.

Tensions between Bainimarama and Qarase had been evident though since 2004, said Beddoes and the approach by Australia and New Zealand was “reactive not proactive”, he added.

Australia used “heavy-handed language” in the build-up to the crisis, Beddoes added, citing Prime Minister John Howard’s pledge to send warships to Fiji to evacuate Australian citizens.

Australia and New Zealand offer “good advice”, although, as richer neighbours, tend to have a paternalistic attitude that can be damaging, said Jon Fraenkel, professor in governance at Fiji’s University of the South Pacific, adding, “It’s important that political processes in these countries remain free of interference”.

Repercussions from the coup will harm Fiji’s economy, which is dependent on tourism and sugar production, with between 300,000 and 400,000 visitors annually, tourism is its biggest earner of foreign exchange.

Visitor numbers are expected to drop 30% next year, said Bill Gavoka, CEO of the Fiji Islands Visitor’s Bureau, adding “We’re really at ground zero”.

Report by The Mole with material from Bloomberg in New Zealand