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CAPE TOWN - The military coup that deposed Fiji's prime minister and led to the South Pacific island nation's suspension from the Commonwealth can be resolved, Commonwealth Secretary-General Don McKinnon said on Monday.
"I believe it can be resolved. I don't think that Commander (Frank) Bainimarama sees himself as a sort of chief executive for ever," McKinnon said on the sidelines of a meeting of Commonwealth education ministers in Cape Town.
McKinnon said his envoys were putting out feelers to gauge the political climate in Fiji, but did not say whether they were pressing the coup leaders to restore democracy.
The Commonwealth, an association of mostly former British colonial territories, suspended Fiji on Friday after a bloodless military coup last week that has been widely condemned.
McKinnon said resolving the crisis could take from six months to a couple of years, but noted that the coup was "very unpopular" and opposed by leaders of the Commonwealth, including the prime ministers of Australia and New Zealand.
"When we start a dialogue with the Fiji military regime we will be doing so with the backing of ... a pretty solid block. The obvious thing (to discuss) is what is your road map back to democracy, and that is something we are doing all the time," he said.
McKinnon said on Monday that when a member country was suspended from the 53-nation Commonwealth, it was normally as a result of a "level of antagonism" developing between the member state and mother body.
"When we see temperatures coming down we start to make low-level contact," said McKinnon, adding that the coup had been on the Commonwealth's radar for the last four or five weeks.
Deposed Fijian Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase is remaining defiant in the face of the coup, calling on bureaucrats last week not to co-operate with the military.
Qarase appeared to concede his government was finished but said he would return to the capital Suva sometime this week.
- REUTERS
