12:38 PM |
'First strike' method in Bainimarama's long-term strategy for Fiji?
Posted By Rua On January 14, 2010 @ 10:36 am In Articles, Fiji, NZ | 1 Comment
[1]Regime leader Voreqe Bainimarama ... vindictive moves, or part of a wider strategy? Photo: Selwyn Manning, Scoop
Pacific Scoop:
Opinion – By Crosbie Walsh
Something's going on. After months of easing tensions– no fresh reports of possible human rights abuse, supportive statements from many in Fiji, from blogs such as mine [2] and many overseas commentators culminating in the McCully-Kubuabola statements this week, slighter better relations between Fiji government and the Fiji Times, and better than expected economic news despite the recent cyclone — we have a rash of "aggressive" actions by government, all within the span of a few days.
First, international juror and government opponent Imrana Lala was charged by the Fiji Independent Commission Against Corruption (FICAC) with not having a licence to operate her part-owned restaurant and the dismissal of some magistrates.
Then Dr Padma Narsey Lal, wife of Australian National University's Professor Brij Lal and brother of the University of the South Pacific's Professor Wadan Narsey – both staunch government opponents – was refused re-entry [3] into the country.
Then 15 Suva City Council employees were sent home pending charges they were using SCC computers and time to write for anti-government blogs.
Then Commodore Voreqe Bainimarama announces that retired public servants — and that includes former PMs Laisenia Qarase and Mahendra Chaudhry — who speak out against the government will not receive their Fiji National Provident Fund (FNPF) pensions.
The very same day he says the Methodist Church will not be allowed to hold their annual conference until after the elections in 2014. He said government spies within the church report ongoing anti-government activity.
Why this sudden hostility and blustering when things seemed to be going so well for Government? Is it pure coincidence, or do at least some of these events, all of which threaten freedom of speech, have a common cause or explanation?
The wider context
The wider context within which these events can perhaps be better understood is one in which the government sees the "normal" workings of civil society, where opinions are freely expressed and exchanged, as distractions and impediments to what it says it is trying to do.
Hence their delayed attention to political change, and their immediate focus on economic and infrastructural changes — roads, electricity, the use of idle land, and agricultural initiatives in rural areas; getting rid of corruption and poor work ethics in the civil service; reforming national and local institutions such as the Native Land Trust Board (NLTB) and urban councils; opening up jobs and scholarships to all races; support for garment and tourist industry marketing; and a number of actions to reduce poverty, including housing assistance, the introduction of a minimum wage,access to micro-credit, a fairer distribution of land rent money to ordinary Fijian villagers, food coupons and free or subsidised school meals and transport.
Government wants to see major improvements in all these areas before it fully addresses political, constitutional and electoral issues in 2012-13. But just as foreign investors seek political stability to protect their investment, the Bainimarama government seeks to impose stability (where it is not freely given) so it can get on with the job.
Hence its constant references to the need for "unity" to "take the country forward."
This is not the normal way democratic governments operate, but it is not unknown. It is the way Allied governments operated during the two World Wars; how the US military, with and without government connivance, operates from time to time, and, perhaps even more relevantly, how Singapore dragged itself up from a poor, racially and politically fractured Third World country to become the country it is today.
In the early days, Lee Yuan Yew was far more oppressive than Bainimarama, and no less of a dictator. This, I think, is the wider context.
The immediate context
The more immediate context involves high celebrity court cases with Qarase, and possibly Weleilakemba and others, charged with corruption and abuse of office. My understanding is that these hearings will commence next week.
The other big event is the first meeting of the Citizen's Assembly on January 27-28.
Whenever the government anticipates its opponents will use events to trigger discontent, it is likely to send out strong warnings about "consequences", take measures to break or disrupt opposition networks, and forestall all overt expressions of opposition.
This is how it operated in the lead up to last year's Methodist conference, and this is how it could be operating now.
What we think of as unconnected, vindictive, arbitrary acts could in fact be part of a pre-conceived plan for civil society until 2014 — modelled on a first-strike military manoeuvre.
* Dr Crosbie Walsh [2] is emeritus professor of the University of the South Pacific and retired founding director of USP's Development Studies programme.
Article printed from Pacific.scoop.co.nz: http://pacific.scoop.co.nz
URL to article: http://pacific.scoop.co.nz/2010/01/first-strike-method-in-bainimaramas-long-term-strategy-for-fiji/
URLs in this post:
[1] Image: http://pacific.scoop.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/bainimarama_manning_scoop_horiz.jpg
[2] blogs such as mine: http://crosbiew.blogspot.com/
[3] refused re-entry: http://pacific.scoop.co.nz/2010/01/fiji-regime-deports-expelled-outspoken-academics-wife/
Click here to print.
Copyright © 2009 pacific. All rights reserved.
0 comments:
Post a Comment