KEY POINTS:
For the fourth time in two decades, Fiji is poised to venture down a path that invites the world's condemnation and retribution.
A seizure of power by the military seems to have been put on hold, purportedly because of a rugby match between the Army and the police. But the outlook remains bleak unless wiser counsel can quickly persuade Commodore Frank Bainimarama that action against a democratically elected Government is the most dead-end of propositions.
Not only would his ambitions go unrealised but the Fijian people would pay a harsh price. Not, of course, that Fiji's military commander has lacked advice over the past few months. The United Nations Secretary-General and the Prime Ministers of Australia and New Zealand are among those who have cautioned against a coup, and warned of the implications.
All that has changed is the pretext that Commodore Bainimarama imagined would justify his intervention. First, it was a belief that Fijian democracy was a sham and then the threat of "foreign" intervention.
Over the past few days, it has become obvious that not only is his attitude unreasonable but his action is becoming increasingly irrational. Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase's significant concessions over his Government's legislation programme should have been the catalyst for talks that built on this week's meeting between the two men in Wellington.
Instead, Commodore Bainimarama declared them a ruse and a delaying tactic, demanded iron-clad guarantees that would have flown in the face of the constitution, and gave Mr Qarase 24 hours to "clean up" his Government or face a coup. At that point, it became clear the military commander wanted nothing less than total power.
Given the failure of outside influences to sway Commodore Bainimarama, the focus must now switch to voices within Fiji.
Mr Qarase has called on the Great Council of Chiefs, the country's traditional rulers, to help resolve the crisis.
The obvious starting point would be an appeal to other senior members of the Fijian military, some of whom must surely be appalled by their commander's tenuous grasp of democracy.
Some must also recognise that military intervention would, ultimately, be self-defeating. Commodore Bainimarama may well remove the senior Government and public service figures who he says are connected to the 2000 coup.
He could suppress the Qoliqoli Bill, which he says discriminates against the ethnic Indian minority by giving native Fijians proprietary ownership of foreshore land, and the Racial Tolerance and Unity Bill, which, in its original form, allowed for individual amnesties for coup perpetrators.
But he could do nothing to overturn the fact that these were the impulse of a democratically elected administration. Or that a similar strand of thought would likely re-emerge once democracy was restored.
Nor could the military commander do anything about the cessation of international development aid or the collapse of Fiji's tourism industry. Ironically, his action could also result in a significant lessening of the power of the Fijian Army. The UN has indicated that its presence in peacekeeping operations would be reviewed. The impact of this should not be underestimated, given that the size of Fiji's Army owes much to its role with the UN.
The final irony, of course, is that, in time, Commodore Bainimarama would have to face the judicial consequences of his action, just as he wants the perpetrators of an earlier coup to face theirs. Democracy has clearly frustrated him, as it disappointed them. But no coup against a democratically elected Government can ever be justified.
