FIJI
Aristocrats
stick
together
ONE OF THE clearest lessons of the May 14 coup in Fiji is the dangers of the monarchical institutions maintained by Britain and the Commonwealth countries that have adopted its constitution. In 1975, a representative of the queen in Australia removed a Labour prime minister. Now one has given legitimacy to a naked military takeover. GERRY FOLEY T HE FIJIAN governor general,
Penaia Ganilau, is moreover an aristocrat himself, a paramount chief and a former military man. On May 21, the Great Council of Chiefs, the organization of the hereditary communal rulers, set up an advisory council of 19 headed by the leader of the coup, Colonel Sitiveni Rabuka. This body was recognized by Ganilau, who claims to be exercising executive power personally. In that capacity, he has dissolved the legally elected parliament and government of the islands.
New elections are to be held in six months, after "reform" of the constitution presided over by Colonel Rabuka, according to Le Monde of May 23. The "Advisory Council" is reportedly an amalgam of the cabinet chosen by Rabuka and members chosen by Ganilau. The relationship between the Alliance Party, which ruled the islands since they became independent 17 years ago, and the Great Council of Chiefs has been a close one.
Investigations of corruption
2 Investigations of corruption under the
Alliance Party government had been announced and the Australian premier,
8 Bob Hawke, has accused former prime
minister Kamisese Mara of backing the coup in order to prevent them.
The government toppled by the coup was a coalition of the Labour Party, International Viewpoint• June 1, 1987 founded in 1985, and the National Federation, a party of the community descended from Indian bonded laborers introduced by the British. They are denied the right to own land, but have been using more and more of it under leases from Melanesian landowners.
The Labour Party is a noncommunalist party with a program of reform. The Labour Party prime minister, Dr Timoci Bavadra, a Melanesian, entered public life nine years ago when he was elected president of Fiji's Public Service Union. He left that post in 1985 to help found the Labour Party, of the trade-union
The unions had strong reasons for undertaking political action. The rate of unionization is low. Striking workers face fines of up to US$1,700 a day, according to the New Zealand Socialist Unity paper, Tribune of April 13.
Unemployment is rising. Layoffs have been becoming common. There is no unemployment insurance, no pensions, no social security at all. And even education is not free.
Labour played the key role in the for the Coalition, won by 28 seats to 24 for the Alliance. The Coaliton's parliamentary fraction was predominantly of Indian origin, 19 out of 28. But the new cabinet included six Melanesian ministers and seven Indians. A dispatch by Karen Magnal in the May 5 issue of The (published in Christchurch, New Zealand) estimated that about 9 per cent of the Melanesians the voted for the Coalition. Another report said that the Melanesians voting for the Coaltion
Non-aligned, anti-nuclear stance
In an editorial May 6, The Press wrote: "One of the hopeful signs is that the new government... is moving slowly and avoiding measures that would inflame the opinion of the indisome of the most sensitive portfolios have been allocated to Fijians. The prime minister, Dr Bavadra has the Fijian affairs and home affairs portfolios. Mr Tupeni Baba has education, and Mr Vola Vola has lands, energy, and mineral resourc-
The non-aligned and anti-nuclear position of the new government immediately drew fire from Washington. The Coalition announced that it would follow New Zealand's lead and refuse to роль, из . allow nuclear-powered or nuclear-armed
US warships to visit the islands. In resued a perver. on Apil sponse, US assistant Secretary of state
Press quoted Richard Fisher of the US foreign policy think-tank, the Heritage
"Obviously the snowball effect that we feared is becoming a reality right before our eyes."
The Soviet Union signed a protocol to the 1985 South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty, the so-called Rarotonga Treaty, which was ratified by a majority of the South Pacific States in 1986. The United States, France and Britain refused. But, The Press reported, Prime Minister Mara, had not been very hapPy about nukes in the South Pacific either, and had protested bitterly about the refusal of the Western powers to sign the anti-nuclear pact. On April 14, Jim Shrimpton wrote in The Press: "This is one subject at least on which the Coalition is in accord with the Alliance." However, in general, the Alliance has been firmly pro-imperialist.
### Campaign of civil disobedience
The Coalition government was described as "left leaning" in the New Zealand press, but created no great fears in South Pacific business circles, despite tensions both before and after the election: In its May 9 issue, The Press reported: "Investors were apparently reassured by government statements promising attractive conditions, tax concessions, and duty drawbacks, the sources said."
The New Zealand Labour government in particular, and also the one in Australia, have expressed support for the legally elected government of Fiji. In the first days after Ganilau's legitimization of the coup, Bavadra refused to accept it, and called for a campaign of mass civil disobedience. He will obviously be under considerable pressure to yield. But if he persists, the Fiji conflict could become a focus of political contradictions in a South Pacific area that the big imperialist powers are finding more and more difficult to conColonel Sitiveni Rabuka