- The Guardian,
- Wednesday June 7, 2000
The action against Fiji was less than the full suspension Nigeria received some years ago but similar to the move against Pakistan when an army coup overthrew its elected government last year.
Describing the moves as a "loud and clear signal", Britain's John Battle, a junior Foreign Office minister, emphasised that they were directed mainly at Fiji's army commander, Commodore Frank Bainimarama, for giving in to the hostage-takers' demands by imposing martial law and suspending the island's constitution.
"This is not the right way to act with hostage-takers," he said after an emergency meeting of the Commonwealth's ministerial action group in London. The Commonwealth had no option but to suspend Fiji after martial law was declared and the constitution was abrogated, he argued.
But a spokesman for the commodore said: "We are very disappointed by this announcement. The republic of Fiji military forces only took executive control and declared martial law with the greatest reluctance. It is not us who staged the coup . We are working as hard and quickly as we can to restore stability and normalcy."
The ministers decided not to take any economic or trade sanctions against Fiji. Alexander Downer, the Australian foreign minister, said that to bring pressure on the military, his country would implement a range of diplomatic sanctions as soon as the hostages were released by George Speight, who is holding them in Fiji's parliament building.
Mr Downer, who will be on the Commonwealth mission to the island, said: "To impose significant economic sanctions would destroy Fiji's economy. The islands would take years and years to rebuild and the people who would suffer wouldn't be the organisers of the civil coup but ordinary people." Australia is Fiji's largest trading partner.
The Commonwealth ministers took some comfort from the fact that the military appears to be gaining the upper hand over Mr Speight and his men. Three officers, including a colonel, who were with Mr Speight, defected back to barracks yesterday after Cdre Bainimarama threatened to withdraw their commissions.
Timoci Silatoliu, one of Mr Speight's advisers, reacted angrily to the Commonwealth action. "This is another form of blackmail," he said. "They're not looking at the problem of the indigenous people. They're looking at it from a different perspective, from their own western perspective. They're just being unfair. Everyone is trying to blackmail the indigenous Fijian people.
"What you have to realise is that this is a problem about Indian domination in Fiji. No one seems to understand that this is a problem that we have to sort out internally."
