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#59 THE ROLLBACK ON FIJI BEGINS

Posted on March 8, 2012 6 Comments

Bob Carr - a clean slate

Australia is set make a dramatic about face in its policy towards Fiji, re-engaging with Frank Bainimarama’s regime and assisting it with its plans to return the country to democracy in 2014. After the Grubsheet/Sky News interview with Bainimarama at the weekend – which revealed the extent of Australia’s isolation from its ANZUS partners, Australia and New Zealand, in relation to Fiji – the mood for change in Canberra has hardened on both sides of politics.

The Australian reports today that the opposition wants the incoming Labor foreign minister, Bob Carr, to set aside his predecessor, Kevin Rudd’s, hardline stance on Fiji.  That policy became known as the “Rudd block” in relations between the two countries. Five years after Bainimarama’s coup, it had demonstrably failed in its aim to force the regime back to the polls but Rudd was too proud and too obstinate to recognise that failure. Only his departure from the foreign affairs portfolio has been able to pave the way for change. And now that he’s gone, events are moving quickly.

News Limited newspapers are also reporting today that Bob Carr plans an immediate shift in policy and will discuss the about-face at his forthcoming talks in NZ with its foreign minister, Murray McCully, who’d already broken ranks with Rudd and begun to engage with his opposite number in Fiji, Ratu Inoke Kubuabola. It’s a fair bet that Fiji will do everything it can to make Carr’s job easier. Bainimarama’s strident comments in the Sky/Grubsheet interview have achieved their purpose and the tone of that rhetoric will now be lowered to oil the wheels of diplomacy.

All through Saturday, the Fijian leader’s interview had played continuously on a Multiview channel on the one network that every Australian politician turns to for news. While much of the rest of the media – and especially the ABC – chose to ignore the Sky broadcast, today’s story in The Australian confirms its importance in changing attitudes. Whatever the politicians think about Bainimarama, many hadn’t grasped the interview’s central tenet that Australia was now the last man standing in refusing to have anything to do with him. The fact that the United States and New Zealand had broken ranks had made Australia’s position untenable.

None of this is news to those whose job it is to ply the corridors of government in the Pacific gauging opinion. For months, American diplomats and the US military hierarchy have been privately expressing concern that the “Rudd block” on Fiji had become counterproductive and was weakening the position of the ANZUS allies where it really counted –  in containing China. Abandoning Fiji had driven Frank Bainimarama into the arms of the Chinese. And his comments in the Grubsheet/Sky interview about his personal friendships with the Chinese hierarchy again underlined the folly of Fiji’s traditional friends turning their backs on him.

Of all his passions, Bob Carr’s love of the United States is one of the greatest. So it’s to be expected that such a pro-American Australian foreign minister would share Washington’s view that Canberra’s policy on Fiji has long since passed its use-by date. His arrival at DFAT is the clean slate needed to finally change direction. And he’s set to begin that change in dramatic fashion.

POSTSCRIPT:  Fiji’s Foreign Minister, Ratu Inoke Kubuabola, has released the following statement:

“With regard to media statements about Australia reconsidering its relations with Fiji, we have always been open to dialogue with Australia, but given the history of Australian policy towards Fiji, we are in a wait and see position. Fiji remains committed to its path of creating a new constitution and holding democratic elections.”

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Gone Qase says

    March 8, 2012 at 11:07 am

    Thank you Graham for your consistency and unwavering commitment to put Fiji’s case forward to the world. In spite of all the oppositions we face, you have been there all the way advocating on Fiji’s behalf. I believed your efforts has been rewarded. Fiji is proud of you for the dedication you put forward in present Fiji’s point of views to the world convincingly, now Australia has a accepted the failure of the “Rudd Block” policy, and is force to look at Fiji on the premiss of Geo-political change.

    Reply
  2. Lesley says

    March 8, 2012 at 7:10 pm

    The NZ media have not bothered to publish any stories today about Bob Carr and his change of direction concerning Fiji – only heard about this through the blogs. Is this selective censorship? The NZ media probably are not happy about this news because since 2006, most NZ media have done everything in their power to paint a bad picture about what is happening in Fiji. Will be very interesting when Bob Carr reaches our shores.

    Reply
  3. anon says

    March 9, 2012 at 2:59 pm

    Now is not the time to blink, whince or simply give up Australia.

    The tide has turned. All of us who were coup supporters have had enough.

    All previuos coups resulted in short interim administrations.

    The scenario we have been subjected to (8 years of dictatorship) was never the outcome expected.

    Australia needs to stay the course and in addition introduce some very seet carrots with corresponding big sticks.

    If Dictator Frank and his thieving thugs and criminals should try to move the goal posts or shirk from their promises than Fijians will understand your position and remember you loyality to principle.

    Any weakening at this point will play right into the Dictators hands to the detriment of the people of Fiji

    We have had enough.

    Reply
    • Had enough says

      March 10, 2012 at 4:20 pm

      screw australia

      Reply

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About Grubsheet

Graham Davis
Grubsheet Feejee is the blogsite of Graham Davis, an award-winning journalist turned communications consultant who was the Fijian Government’s principal communications advisor for six years from 2012 to 2018 and continued to work on Fiji’s global climate and oceans campaign up until the end of the decade.

 

Fiji-born to missionary parents and a dual Fijian-Australian national, Graham spent four decades in the international media before returning to Fiji to work full time in 2012. He reported from many parts of the world for the BBC, ABC, SBS, the Nine and Seven Networks and Sky News and wrote for a range of newspapers and magazines in Australia, New Zealand and Fiji.

 

Graham launched Grubsheet Feejee in 2011 and suspended writing for it after the Fijian election of 2014, by which time he was working at the heart of government. But the website continued to attract hits as a background resource on events in Fiji in the transition back to parliamentary democracy.

 

Grubsheet relaunches in 2020 at one of the most critical times in Fijian history, with the nation reeling from the Covid-19 crisis and Frank Bainimarama’s government shouldering the twin burdens of incumbency and economic disintegration.

 

Grubsheet’s sole agenda is the national interest; the strengthening of Fiji’s ties with the democracies; upholding equal rights for all citizens; government that is genuinely transparent and free of corruption and nepotism; and upholding Fiji’s service to the world in climate and oceans advocacy and UN Peacekeeping.

 

Comments are welcome and you can contact me in the strictest confidence at grubsheetfeedback@gmail.com

 

(Feejee is the original name for Fiji - a derivative of the indigenous Viti and the Tongan Fisi - and was widely used until the late 19th century)

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