Old mates make up as the kava flows

By AUDREY YOUNG

The recurring sirens heard on the streets of Suva have been to warn of mini-motorcades for visiting dignitaries - vast numbers of them - not an emergency in progress.

Shipping containers that protected shops from rioting mobs during Parliament's 56-day hostage drama two years ago are long gone.

KFC has reopened. The markets are ticking over.

The President sleeps safe in his bed at night. The Prime Minister holds office by election.

And the world is returning in droves - and in BMWs.

Fiji bought a bulk order for the 78-member annual summit of African, Caribbean and Pacific leaders, including South African President Thabo Mbeki, hosted by Fiji a few weeks before the 16-member Pacific Islands Forum.

Helen Clark and John Howard have restored a friendship with Fiji.

It may not be long before the country is considered a very, very, very close friend.

The leaders' retreat was held at the restful Lagoon Resort bought a year before the 2000 coup by a Hamilton insurance broker, Jim Sherlock. It takes about 45 minutes to get there - or 30 minutes in a BMW.

The drivers aren't always as flash as the cars. The motorcycle out-rider for the motorcade of Papua New Guinea Prime Minister Michael Somare took the left fork just out from the resort; fortunately the driver knew the way and took the right road.

The fuss irritates Robert Keith-Reid who as Fiji-based publisher of Islands Business magazine has seen about 20 of the 33 leaders' forums, many at a time when officials, leaders and Pacific watchers could mingle together in the unpretentious Pacific way.

"They are getting stupid with security, rushing around in high speed cars, breaking the speed limits for absolutely no reason, arrogant as hell, gestapo types."

Mock lines of demarcation are drawn in the lawn to ensure reporters and leaders never make eye contact during tea breaks.

"Most of them aren't worth talking to, anyway" says Keith-Reid.

"Most have got the brains of gnats. Most of them are here today and gone tomorrow."

The retreat was followed by a day of talks back in Suva at the handsome headquarters of the forum secretariat.

From time to time when Fiji Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase popped out of the meeting room, he would take a swig of kava - a mildly intoxicating sedative resembling (and tasting) like Thames flood water - from the communal bowl.

Mr Howard took a sip, too. The health conscious Helen Clark was grateful she was not offered it.

Kava received attention in the communique. The drink, made from mashed kavaroot mixed with water or coconut milk and fermented, has been banned in Switzerland and France where it is blamed for liver disease.

Work is continuing on the science, and intellectual property issues where other countries are producing it. The communique said leaders would develop a joint response.

Mr Qarase, aged 62, said he had been drinking the stuff since he was four years old. "I look pretty healthy."

He said the forum members had "very friendly and frank exchanges of views" on a variety of issues.

He did not mention the hair flying among officials in the back rooms over how to note in the communique Australia's refusal to ratify the Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse gas emissions.

(It said it won't sign, but it would try to abide by it.)

The decision to make Australian Greg Urwin the next forum secretary-general has riled many of the small island states.

The Federated States of Micronesia and Marshall Islands has suggested that another forum be established without New Zealand and Australia.

It is simple posturing, and will be sorted out at the next forum - to be hosted by New Zealand.

Feature: the Fiji coup

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