ALEXANDER DOWNER
"The coup leader we cant control"
2 August 2010
The Advertiser
English
Copyright 2010 News Ltd. All Rights Reserved
IN the world of geopolitics, the power of a country is determined by a number of factors - its GDP, its population, its defence capability and its cultural influence.
But power is also determined by the capacity of the country to have a decisive influence over other countries in its area of strategic interest. Now some countries don't have an area of strategic interest or, if they do, it is constrained by geography.
Brazil may be a large country in both area and population but its power is limited because it is strategically remote. Turkey, by contrast, which has a smaller population, exercises greater global influence because of its strategic location.
Australia's neighbourhood is South-East Asia and the South Pacific. Given the geographic proximity of the South Pacific and the very small economies of the region, the Pacific island states are very much part of Australia's sphere of influence. If anything goes wrong in the region, there is an expectation from the outside world that Australia will fix it.
When there was a civil war in Bougainville, it was incumbent on Australia to try to find a solution - which we did. When the Solomon Islands started to disintegrate, the international community looked to Australia to fix the problem.
And when there have been coups in Fiji - and there have been three of them - then, not unreasonably, the world looks to Australia to sort out the problem.
In a sense, this is a test of strength for Australia. To be a really effective country, we have to be able to exercise control over the security environment in our own backyard. If we can't, then the world will mark us down and our status will be diminished. Our influence will decline and our credibility as a leading proponent of good governance and stable and orderly societies will be severely damaged.
At the moment, we are looking decidedly weak over the question of Fiji.
After the coup in 2000, the Australian Government worked tirelessly to rebuild democracy in Fiji. We succeeded. But it involved a lot of pushing and shoving and moments of tension.
The pain was worthwhile and Australia was able to demonstrate to the world that it had the capacity to put a democracy which had collapsed back in place. That is impressive to outsiders. But tragically for Fiji, the eccentric commander of its military force, Commodore Frank Bainimarama, seized power from a democratic government and established a dictatorship which has lasted until this day.
Whereas previous coups in Fiji have reflected ethnic tensions between the indigenous Fijians and the nation's ethnic Indians, this coup was very personal. Commodore Bainimarama claims the government he overthrew was somehow corrupt. Frankly, it was cleaner than most Fijian governments, though short of squeaky clean.
Commodore Bainimarama's real motive for a coup was somewhat different. He was being investigated by the police for his alleged role in the murder of two Fijian soldiers at the time of the coup in 2000. In his first act as military dictator, he sacked the police commissioner, Australian Andy Hughes, and had the investigation dropped.
AUSTRALIA has to find policies which will encourage Fijians to force their dictator out of office. Initially, the Australian Government introduced sanctions against all those who were involved in the coup in Fiji. But since then, the Australian Government has done nothing and the dictatorship continues.
It is time for new policies to be developed. Comprehensive economic sanctions against Fiji would be devastating to its people and plunge the country into a severe economic depression.
Understandably, Australia has been reluctant to do that.
But it does need to use its relationships with other South Pacific governments to ramp up the pressure on the illegal Fijian regime.
Australia has failed spectacularly to do that. When the Fiji government expelled the acting Australian High Commissioner, Foreign Affairs Minister Stephen Smith said Australia would not retaliate.
He was wrong. A major country like Australia should not allow its top diplomat to be expelled for the most fatuous of reasons without responding strongly.
A series of retaliatory measures should have been announced. For a start, Fiji's High Commissioner in Australia should have been expelled himself. The Australian Government should also have lobbied other South Pacific countries to take steps to put substantial pressure on the Fiji government.
Australia should be enlisting other countries in the region to join Australia's sanctions against Fiji, denying any members of the regime any access to countries in the South Pacific. We should also be looking at introducing financial restrictions on any transactions conducted by people in any way associated with the regime.
In the next week, all of the countries of the South Pacific and beyond will get together for the Pacific Islands Forum meeting. Julia Gillard cannot be expected to attend this meeting less than three weeks before the election; that is only reasonable and will be understood. But the Foreign Affairs Minister should go himself. I went to the 2007 Pacific Islands Forum meeting even though it was in the middle of the 2007 election campaign. Yet Stephen Smith is suggesting he may not even attend the forum this month. If the Australian Government cannot even be bothered to send its most senior diplomat to the Pacific Islands Forum, it is hardly surprising other countries in the region are not prepared to take action against Fiji.
The message the Australian Government is sending out to the international community is a simple one: Australia does not have the diplomatic power to do anything about the situation in Fiji.
That is a disaster. It is not only bad news for the ordinary people of Fiji who are suffering because of the illegal dictatorship which rules them, but it demonstrates Australia is not able to control the environment within its own sphere of influence. That makes Australia look weak and irrelevant.
Alexander Downer was foreign affairs minister from 1996 to 2007
