FEATURE: Battle of the beaches

December 2011 marked the fifth anniversary of the military coup in Fiji.

Commodore Frank Banimarama overthrew the democratically elected governnment of Laisenia Qarase on December 5, 2006.

Most Australians probably know Fiji as a pleasant place for a holiday. But increasingly they have been affected by what is happening in the South Pacific nation.

Bruce Hill

Last Updated: Fri, 30 Dec 2011 17:19:00 +1100

The band Rodrigo Brothers have put their perspective on Pacific developments in a song called Fiji Coup: "They're having a coup; They're having a coup in Fiji; On the TV. There's nothing we can do about the Fiji coup . . . "

They are indeed having a coup in Fiji, but as for there being nothing we can do, let us not be too sure.

Certainly the people protesting outside Fiji's diplomatic missions in Sydney and Canberra earlier this year felt this was an issue Australia should take a stand on.

Paddy Crumlin, president of the International Transport Workers Federation, addressed the rally at the Fiji consulate in Sydney, and he was passionate in his denunciation of what he saw as the coup-installed military government's crackdown on union rights.

The authorities in Suva had removed not only worker's rights, but the right of freedom of assembly, which affected churches and curtailed religion.

Responsibility

It was "no good jumping on a plane" for a Fiji break, he said. Australians should "look out externally and accept responsibility" in their region.

So why would people in this country get so worked up about events in Fiji?

Australia may be a middle-ranked power by world standards, but in the Pacific it is a giant.

That is particularly so when the region's other developed country, New Zealand, is included. In the Pacific it is almost as if there's a single entity by the name of Australia-and-New Zealand, and the two nations tend to be thought of as a single unit.

After the coup, Canberra and Wellington imposed what they call "smart sanctions" targeted at members of the regime and their families, preventing them from travelling through either country.

With air links set up the way they are, that is a major inconvenience.

Trade and aid has not been interfered with.

Irritate

Still, the travel bans clearly irritate the authorities in Suva, with interim Attorney-General Aiyaz Sayed-Khayum saying the country is ready to work with Australia and New Zealand, once they treat Fiji as their equal.

He says he is frustrated with Australia and New Zealand and will only work with them if their attitudes towards Fiji change. But, "it's either their way or no other way," he said. The media also lacks a willingness to "find out what is actually happening in Fiji".

The Australian government has stuck firmly to its guns over Fiji for the past five years, but as time has gone on there has been more and more activity aimed at Fiji by non-government groups, unions, churches and the legal profession.

That is actually the real story about the impact the Fiji coup has had on Australia and New Zealand - it has provoked much more engagement and activity from civil society and individuals than from governments.

Several groups of Fiji emigres living in Australia and in New Zealand have been formed to agitate for a swift return to democracy.

They have not been effective, partially because they cannot agree among themselves what they want to achieve.

At one stage it was grandly announced that a coalition of pro-democracy groups had been formed but that collapsed when one of the groups, the Fiji Freedom and Democracy Movement in Australia, insisted they had nothing to do with it.

Its president, Suliasi Daunitutu, says there was a meeting of several organisations in Auckland during the Pacific Island Forum leaders meeting, and there were arguments about the idea of forming a government in exile.

"It actually ended in a very nasty way, that meeting," he told Radio Australia.

Squabbling

Together with emigre pro-democracy groups squabbling among themselves, Australia has also seen attempts by individual Fiji citizens living in Australia trying to stay there on the grounds that they would face persecution if they returned home.

One of them, Inoke Qarau, reportedly went on hunger strike while in Sydney's Villawood detention centre, insisting he would face problems if he were deported to Fiji because he talked to the Australian media about treatment he and others allegedly received at the hands of the authorities after the 2006 coup.

A Fijian pastor assisting him, Livai Leone, said Mr Qarau and other workers had been tortured in Fiji, including being ordered to swim while tied to heavy logs.

That caused some political fall-out, with a Green Party Senator sayng she wants to make sure Fijians applying for asylum in Australia are being treated properly. Sarah Hanson-Young says Mr Qarau's case concerns her, and she wants to know if authorities have latest information about Fiji to help them decide whether or not to let people stay in Australia.

A particular point of contention between the Fiji interim government and the Australian and New Zealand governments has been a crackdown on Fiji's trade union movement.

Fiji introduced an Essential Industries Decree during the year, which severely curtails workers' rights and makes it almost impossible for trade unions to operate effectively in many industries declared economically vital.

Fiji's unions responded by working closely with their international counterparts for a campaign against the regulations, including organising Australian and New Zealand unions to put pressure on the tourist industry by asking people in those countries not to travel to Fiji for holidays.

Authorities in Suva subsequently arrested senior union leaders, including Fiji Trades Union Congress president Daniel Urai and secretary Felix Anthony.

That triggered a strong response from the international trade union movement, with the Australian Council of Trade Unions leading the change by urging Australians to boycott Fiji's tourism industry

ACTU President Ged Kearney said unionists in her country were particularly concerned about what is happening in Fiji. "This is happening in our very own backyard" and involved people known by Australian unionists, she said.

Rugby appeal

The Australia government added its condemnation of the actions against trade unions, and Australia's Parliamentary Secretary for Pacific Affairs, Richard Marles, dismissed claims from the interim Fiji government that Australia was interfering in Fiji's internal affairs by speaking out.

Not only governments responded to the issue. People attending the Rugy World Cup match between Fiji and South Africa in New Zealand were urged to show solidarity with trade unions in Fiji by wearing white armbands.

The call came from from human rights organisation Amnesty International, whose New Zealand chief executive, Patrick Holmes, said sometimes sport and politics do mix.

"We would not support any kind of disruption to the game, anything other than a purely peaceful demonstration," he said.

But the Fiji government insists that Fiji Trades Union secretary Felix Anthony has been simply misrepresenting the situation in the country to overseas unions.

Fiji Attorney-General Aiyaz Sayed-Khayum accused Mr Anthony of disloyalty to the country, and potentially endangering Fiji's economy and threatening jobs.

As well as trade unions, the Fiji interim government this year also came down hard on the infouential Methodist Church, which a majority of the country's indigenous Fijian population belong to.

It cancelled the church annual conference, and forbade it from holding any sort of meeting other than normal Sunday worship services.

That sparked a backlash in Australia, with the Reverend Dr Kerry Enright, national director of Uniting World, the Uniting Church in Australia's international section, condemning the move, but admitting the power of international churches to influence Fiji is limited.

But not all groups in Australia and New Zealand have taken an antagonistic stand. Business leaders have come out in opposition to the trade union movement's campaign to persuade Australians not to travel to Fiji or buy garments made there.

Frank Yourn, executive director of the Australia-Fiji Business Council, says such a boycott would only end up hurting the very Fiji workers the unions say it wants to help.

But there are other views within the business community about what is best for Fiji.

Delegation

The International Labour Organisation condemned the actions of the interm government and wants to send a delegation there.

This was backed by the Australia delegation at the ILO's regional meeting in Japan, which included Peter Anderson from the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, who says this is not simply a trade union issue.

This year saw the coup installed military government of Fiji crack down on almost all elements of civil society.

Unions, the church, academics, the media and the legal profession were all affected.

Their counterparts in Australia and New Zealand reacted by stepping up their campaigns against what is happening in Fiji.

But as the British writer George Orwell once observed, such governments can withstand moral pressure until the cows come home - what they really fear is physical force.

And no one in Australia and New Zealand is advocating that.