Fiji vital to any effective regional system
Growing strength ... Chinese representatives during a visit to the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG) Secretariat in Port Vila.
OPINION
By RICHARD HERR and
ANTHONY BERGIN
(Richard Herr and Anthony Bergin are the co-authors of Our Near Abroad:Australia and Pacific islands regionalism, for the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. Professor Herr is now director of the Centre for International and Regional Affairs at the University of Fiji. He taught at the University of Tasmania for 38 years and has written widely on aspects of Pacific islands affairs. Dr Bergin has held senior positions at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute and at Australian defence studies institutions. He is the author and editor of a number of leading works relating to Australian defence policy. This Opinion was originally published in The Australian, Australia’s national newspaper).
Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr’s announcement last week that Australia and Fiji are to restore full diplomatic relations and that travel restrictions on Suva will be eased has engendered some passionate debate.
Some analysts explained that Australia’s turn around on its policy settings on Fiji was to preserve our leadership role in the neighbourhood.
Others dismissed any suggestion that Carr’s move was a cave-in to Suva that might risk our regional hegemony.
Fiji’s move away from its traditional friends isn’t much different from the rest of world adjusting to China’s rise in the Asian Century.
But that didn’t stop some arguing that Canberra’s shift from its hard line stance on Fiji was driven by urgent pleas from Washington that Australia re-engage to stop Fiji’s slide away from Western influence, especially in the direction of China.
Our trade unions and other groups have long supported a strong exile and expatriate lobby in demanding that Australia not have any truck with the government in Suva.
FIJI HASN’T
DEVIATED
But now that Australia has decided to reattach the high commissioner’s brass plate to the chancery in Suva, serious thought ought to be given to how to use the more elevated relationship.
The Fiji government hasn’t deviated one jot from its roadmap for elections in 2014 since Prime Minister Bainimarama announced it in July 2009.
Keeping travel sanctions won’t assist restoring parliamentary democracy to Fiji: they have simply resulted in capable Fijians being deterred from contributing to good governance in their own country and been partly responsible for Suva looking beyond its traditional friends to keep the country afloat.
Life goes on in Fiji with or without sanctions.
But while they are there, they are perceived by Suva as a calculated insult against the Fiji government that ensures that Suva looks to other partners.
Following Foreign Minister Carr’s very positive announcement last week we should move to restore relations between our military and Fiji’s armed forces.
REBUILD FIJIAN
MILITARY TIES
We need to build trust with Fiji’s military, who will continue be somewhere between the background and the foreground depending on the constitution.
We should open Duntroon, the Defence Academy and Staff Colleges to Fijian Defence force members. After all, we built on military connections with Jakarta when Indonesia was in transition to democracy.
We need to re-engage with Fiji not out of fear of Suva’s Asian connections but to ensure balance in these new relationships. This balance is especially important for our regional relationships with the Pacific Islands.
FORUM IN BIG
DIFFICULTIES
Fiji is vital to any effective regional system. Using the Pacific Islands Forum against Fiji was tantamount to cutting off our nose to spite our public face in the Pacific Islands.
The Pacific Islands Forum is in serious difficulties due to having been sidelined by the imbroglio over Fiji. The regional torch is being carried by other arrangements, such as the Melanesian Spearhead Group, where our voice isn’t present or welcome.
If the Forum is to prosper then Fiji should be brought back into a leadership role.
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