Behind the coup in Fiji is a retreat by sections of the Melanesian Fijian elite to the tried and tested divide-and-rule tactic of chauvinist scaremongering.
Late on May 25, the Great Council of Chiefs (GCC) announced the result of three days of discussion on the coup attempt led by businessperson George Speight. A statement outlined the "compromise": the president shall have sole authority to appoint a council of advisers (as an interim government) for up to three years and some may be from Speight's group; the coup participants are to be pardoned; the prime minister, president and other senior positions are to be held by "indigenous" Fijians and Rotumans; and the 1997 constitution, which began a process of again granting equal political rights to all racial groups (deprived after the 1987 coups), is to be reviewed to ensure Melanesian-Fijian control of Fiji's political institutions. In return, Speight and his armed gang would release the hostages.
Speight did not agree to the compromise. He demanded that President Ratu Kamisese Mara step down and an amnesty be immediately granted for the "rebels". Speight feared he may be jailed.
When Speight, who led the gunmen who took the Fiji Labour Party (FLP)-led coalition government members hostage on May 19, says he is fighting for "indigenous" Melanesian Fijians, he is repeating the rhetoric of the two 1987 coups led by Colonel Sitiveni Rabuka, which overthrew the first FLP-led coalition government and installed a repressive military regime.
Speight's action was not officially supported by the traditional nationalist groups, including the GCC, President Mara, the Melanesian-Fijian-chauvinist Taukei movement, the military or Rabuka, but he did receive support for the "grievances" he raised from members of the GCC and the Taukei. The GCC has met nearly all his demands.
Racial scapegoating
Fiji is a society where racial scapegoating remains integrated into the political system. Prior to the coup, support for the measures to replace the FLP government had begun.
Fiji's Daily Post editorial on March 12 declared: "There is indeed great concern among the indigenous Fijians and Rotumans, especially among those holding senior positions of the government and pseudo-government organisations, that there is an attempt by some people in influential positions, not necessarily in government, to paint the picture that Fijians cannot run anything successfully".
A march of 5000 people on April 28, reported to have been organised by the Melanesian-Fijian-chauvinist opposition party Soqosoqo ni Vakavulewa ni Taukei (SVT), demanded that Labour Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry step down and be replaced by an "indigenous" Fijian. The demonstrators accused the government of acting with "disrespect" towards the GCC, moving to usurp land from "indigenous" Fijian landowners, unfairly distributing money to Indian Fijians, removing Melanesian Fijians from top civil service posts, weakening the power of the president and increasing the power of the cabinet.
Apisai Tora, the interim president of the Taukei movement, also complained that Chaudhry had ignored the decisions of the GCC and the Native Land Trust Board on the renewal of leases to Indian-Fijian farmers and handed out $28,000 in re-habitation grants to predominantly Indian-Fijian farmers whose leases had expired while ignoring the Melanesian-Fijian tenants who had replaced them.
Like in 1987, the coup has nothing to do with the interests of the Melanesian-Fijian population. According to Sitiveni Ratuva, a sociologist at the University of the South Pacific in Suva, the coup leaders are members of a new Melanesian-Fijian middle class who benefited from contracts during the Rabuka regime but lost out when the Labour-coalition government came to power last year. They are using "indigenous rights" as a cover to further their personal interests.
Teresia Teaiwa, lecturer in Pacific studies at the Victoria University, pointed out that the "impoverishment and disaffection of indigenous Fijians is not a result of 12 months of leadership by an Indian-Fijian prime minister ... [but] 30 years of modern indigenous Fijian leadership that sacrificed the economic and cultural well-being of a people for the advancement of a few".
Notably absent from the GCC's "compromise" settlement is any reference to the land issue. Speight has claimed that the FLP is introducing policies to take indigenous Fijian land. However, Ratuva said that the Melanesian-Fijian middle class, which Speight represents, supports the privatisation of Melanesian-Fijian land for commercial development because they will benefit.
At present, 83% of land in Fiji is owned and controlled by the Native Land Trust Board and the traditional Melanesian-Fijian chiefs. Both Indian-Fijian and Melanesian-Fijian farmers lease the land. Tenants, many of whom are Indian Fijians, would like to renew their leases for longer than the 30 years available so they can confidently invest in long-term projects. Most leases are currently expiring. In April, the FLP-led government received approval from the GCC to set up a land use commission.
Since it was elected, the FLP has come into conflict with the Taukei Movement, which represents landowning chiefs. Taukei opposes any rights for Indian Fijians. The land issue is being used to create conflict between the racial groups to re-win Melanesian Fijians' support for the "traditional leaders".
'People's coalition'
The FLP formed a coalition government with the Fijian Association Party and the Party of National Unity, both Melanesian-based parties, in May last year. The FLP campaigned against Rabuka's SVT's privatisation policies, and in favour of a social welfare system for the poor and unemployed, bringing down food prices and improved education. These issues convinced sections of the Melanesian-Fijian population to support Labour's "people's coalition".
While Chaudhry is the first Indian-Fijian prime minister, the FLP-led coalition cabinet included 12 Melanesian Fijians and six Indian Fijians. Of the 71 members in parliament, the coalition has 58.
In July 1985, the Fiji Trade Union Congress formed the FLP in opposition to the Alliance government (then led by current president Ratu Kamisese Mara) that had ruled Fiji since independence from Britain in 1970. The FLP was the first party committed to multi-racial democracy and improving workers' rights. In April 1987, the FLP formed a coalition with the National Federation Party, a party based on professional Indian Fijians, and won the national elections.
The FLP's win was a victory against the stifling and undemocratic political system that was hinged on a race-based electoral system and race-segregation inherited from the British administration and maintained by the Alliance party. Dissatisfaction with the Alliance government's pro-business policies and corrupt practices, plus the enrichment of an elite group of chiefs, caused up to 15% of Melanesian Fijians, predominantly workers and trade unionists, to vote for the FLP or to abstain.
The FLP-led coalition supported Fiji joining the Non-Aligned Movement of Third World governments, supported a ban on all nuclear weapons activity in the Pacific — including nuclear tests and the passage of US nuclear-armed and/or powered war ships — and opposed some Western neo-colonial trade practices.
On May 14, 1987, Rabuka, with financial assistance from the CIA and international big business, overthrew the elected government and reinstated Mara as prime minister and the Alliance party's control of parliament. Following a second coup by Rabuka 19 weeks later, a military regime was established.
Like Speight, Rabuka justified his coup and military regime by accusing the FLP-coalition government, led by Melanesian-Fijian prime minister Timoci Bavadra, of attacking the rights of "indigenous" Fijians.
Legacy of colonialism
While most FLP supporters have been Indian Fijians, this was the result of its trade union roots. The Indian-Fijian population was used by the British colonial administration as indentured labour, under terrible conditions, in the sugarcane fields. Between 1879 and 1916, some 60,000 Indian labourers were brought to Fiji.
The British kept the Indian and indigenous communities apart, in 1910 enforcing the concentration of Indians into the sugar provinces of Viti Levu and Vanua Levu. The British rulers gave a higher political status to the Melanesian population, but also introduced laws to prevent Melanesian Fijians from moving into commerce, restricting them to the villages. It maintained political control by nurturing an elite of landowning chiefs.
After independence, a British-style parliamentary system was superimposed over the administrative rule of the GCC. The country's constitution guaranteed representation for each racial group, but ensured that power remained in the hands of the GCC and functioned on the basis racial segregation.
Victor Lal, previously with the Fiji Sun and now with the Reuters News Agency fellowship at Oxford, pointed out: "Although a minority for several decades, the [Melanesian] Fijians never suffered the effects of dispossession, discrimination and political marginalisation. In fact, it was the Fijian chiefly leaders who enjoyed sustained political control of the country since independence ...
"The Great Council of Chiefs' nominees in the Senate have a veto over any Bill affecting Fijian land, custom or tradition. The entrenched land rights makes it impossible for any dispossession to take place without the consent of the chiefs."
Because the British prevented Melanesian Fijians from gaining economic interests outside the villages, Indian Fijians own many small businesses. However, most Indian Fijians and Melanesian Fijians are small farmers, labourers and workers.
It is foreign-owned and multinational companies, mainly Australian, European and US, which dominate Fiji's economy. Alliance and SVT governments were supported by the GCC landowners, some sections of Indian big business, as well as most of the Melanesian-Fijian population who were convinced by racist ideology.
While the FLP is not a radical party (it supports the privatisation of certain industries and policies to encourage local and foreign investment), it has implemented policies which have benefited workers and farmers from both the Indian-Fijian and Melanesian-Fijian populations. It supports workers' rights to form trade unions.
A return to Melanesian-Fijian-chauvinist policies will be a step backwards for all of Fiji's workers, farmers and poor people. While the "compromise" and the divisions within the Fijian elite have demonstrated competing economic and political interests between Rabuka's old guard, President Mara, the GCC and the new business elite supporting Speight, the biggest losers will be the ordinary Fijians of all races who suffer equally, but are deliberately kept divided to prevent them from fighting back.
BY MARK ABBERTON