KEY POINTS:
At first glance there is nothing too intimidating about the further sanctions imposed on Fiji by the Government after High Commissioner Michael Green's expulsion from Suva. Much more was on the table. The Government could, for example, have frozen the assets of members of Commodore Frank Bainimarama's unelected regime, or have withdrawn the $6 million of aid budgeted for this financial year. That, indeed, might have seemed more in line with the "serious and significant" response that Prime Minister Helen Clark deemed appropriate.
As it is, the Government has decided to widen the travel restrictions on the perpetrators of last December's coup, the military and members of Fiji's interim government to include anyone appointed since the coup to head government departments, statutory boards and suchlike. The ban will also apply to transit visas through New Zealand. Additionally, aid, while continuing, will be channelled only through non-governmental agencies.
It would be easy to dismiss these steps as irritants. But that would underestimate the frequency of visits by Fijians to New Zealand, and Auckland's significance as a transit point. It would also ignore the fact that these measures are designed to penalise and frustrate members of the junta and their acolytes without damaging the lot of ordinary Fijians. The Pacific Islands Forum has noted that travel bans are affecting Fiji's ability to fill positions in various institutions. And Fiji's interim Attorney-General confirmed this week that the approach was hitting a nerve. According to Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum, New Zealand is trying to create public disorder by discouraging people from joining the interim regime. "They are inciting people to rise up against the interim Government," he said.
The stridency of that reaction will be welcomed by Helen Clark. It may not be totally without substance, given the Prime Minister's previous unsuccessful calls to senior military officers to mutiny against the commodore and appeals for passive resistance from the Fijian people. But it is also representative of the naivety that has dominated Fiji's response to pressure from this country. Commodore Bainimarama played right into the Prime Minister's hands by dispatching Mr Green for doing what diplomats do, espousing their countries' policies. That act served to justify her earlier use of extravagant language against the junta. It seemed not to occur to the commodore that this unrelenting tough talk was as much directed at points-scoring on the domestic front as at Suva.
That is not to say the Prime Minister's criticism is unjustified. The overthrowing of a democratically elected administration cannot be condoned, whatever the junta's accusations of corruption and ethnic favouritism. But the Clark Government has demonstrated it knows that, whatever the vigour of its public comment, a more stringent tightening of sanctions would have driven a deeper wedge between New Zealand and Fiji. There is a bigger picture, and that involves constructive diplomacy aimed at extracting a firm timetable for a return to constitutional government.
So far, Commodore Bainimarama has delivered only an in-principle agreement to stage elections by March 2009, itself a response to an aid-related ultimatum from the European Union. This country will seek to accelerate that, acting in concert with Australia, the Pacific Islands Forum and the EU. The latest raft of sanctions, with the like of travel advisories, will be a useful bargaining chip in that process. Beyond the rhetoric, a foreign policy based solely on foreign issues will be played out.
