Pacific Dialogue: Looking to the future

[posted 3 Feb 2011, 1300]

Labour Leader Mahendra Chaudhry returned on Sunday from a State of the Pacific Dialogue meeting at the East West Centre (EWC) in Honolulu, Hawaii.

The meeting held from 25-26 January was sponsored by the Pacific Islands Development Program (PIDP) and was chaired by Mr Charles Morrison, President of the EWC.

The main objectives of the Dialogue were to:

• assess the state of the region from multiple internal and external perspectives

• identify common interests in the region in light of changing strategic arrangements and new resource investments; and

• formulate suggestions for advancing multilateral cooperation

Mr Chaudhry commended the initiative taken by the PIDP and the EWC. “A dialogue forum of this nature has been long overdue. One of its particular achievements was the fact that it brought together the island communities of the North and South Pacific.

“It opened up new vistas for the participants and underscored the realisation that we need to build closer ties between the two regions and deepen our understanding of the challenges facing us,” he said.

“It was also reassuring to see the attendance of a number of officials from the US State Department led by Kurt Campbell, Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and Pacific Affairs who spoke briefly about the developments in the region. He gave an account of Myanmar (Burma) following the elections held there last year. He said there was no change in post-election Burma and the elections and the release of Aung San Suu Kyi was only a front for the military regime to continue in office as an “elected” government.

The meeting observed that Fiji could develop along similar lines and that very little was in evidence on preparations for elections in Fiji.

The entire morning session on the opening day was devoted to recent developments in Fiji.

Permanent Secretary for Foreign Affairs Solo Mara spoke on the interim administration’s Strategic Framework for Change roadmap and assured the meeting that elections would be held in 2014 as promised under it. He said meanwhile, the administration was focusing on the economy, infrastructure development and on strategies to foster a “non racial society”.

Mr Chaudhry who spoke immediately afterwards emphasised that a solution to Fiji’s problems lay in resuming the dialogue process which had been aborted by the regime on 10 April 2009 with the abrogation of the Constitution and the imposition of emergency rule.

He said problems and challenges facing Fiji were extremely serious and required the special attention of the international community. Its economy had contracted four years in a row and was now ranked as the worst performing economy in the region. Directly linked to a contracting economy was the sharp rise in poverty levels, as revealed by figures released by the Prime Minister’s office, which put it at 45% of the population.

Mr Chaudhry pointed out that the only way forward for Fiji was through dialogue and consensus in the Pacific Way. He called on the international community to help facilitate the process. The process had to be inclusive, time bound and without prejudice as to its outcome, he said.

Other major grievances and the rule of law issues raised by political parties, trade unions and civil society organisations in Fiji concerned:

• rigorous censorship of the media
• imposition of the Public Emergency Regulations
• ban on all political activities
• the promulgation of draconian decrees
• compromised state of the Judiciary and its restricted jurisdiction
• interference with the Office of Director of Public Prosecutions
• trumped up charges being laid against critics
• increasing militarization of the civil service
• worrying lack of transparency and accountability in the affairs of the interim administration
• outmigration of skills
• Fiji’s increasing isolation from the international community

He also called for greater awareness and vigilance on the part of the international community to avoid situations such as that which led to the Army takeover of December 2006.

The other invitees to the Dialogue from Fiji were Adi Teimumu Kepa, Roko Tui Dreketi; Dr Wadan Narsey, Prof Faculty of Business and Economics, USP; Ray Baleikasavu, First Secretary Embassy of Fiji, Washington, DC; Andie Fong Toy, consultant.

Adi Teimumu spoke on the current Fiji situation and Dr Narsey gave an overview of the economics of selected island countries in the Pacific.

Members of the diplomatic missions in Fiji who participated were:
Mr Albert Mariner (UNDP); Steven McGann (US Ambassador), Mac McLachlan (British High Commissioner) and Wiepke van der Goot, Head of Delegation of the European Commission to the Pacific.

Lekh Ram Vayeshnoi