SAD, VERY SAD. Hillary Clinton's recent visit to Australia and New Zealand, — and her comments on a fresh engagement with Fiji — led optimists to think the US would take a lead in finding more appropriate policies on Fiji than the failed policies of Australia and New Zealand that in four years have produced no positive results. But now, with the US failure to issue three visas to Fiji officials, the forewarnings of the the pessimists have proven correct.
The Chief Justice was to have attended the 9th Session of the Assembly of States Parties at UN HQ in New York. The invitation came from the International Criminal Court.
Permanent Secretary for Fisheries Viliame Naupoto was denied entry to the US to attend an international Convention for the Conservation and Management of Highly Migratory Fish Stocks in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean.
The Minister for Local Government and Environment needed a transit visa to attend the 16th UN Conference on Climate Change (COP16) in Cancun Mexico. Fiji attended the 15th Conference in Copenhagen last year that failed to lay out a concrete plan to maintain global temperature rises and legally binding reductions to CO2 emissions. High level participation and involvement of all countries and Governments including Fiji at COP16 in Cancun, Mexico was therefore crucial.
Bigger Issue : US Blocks Access to UN
The failure to issue visas to these, and other Fiji representatives, raises a larger and more general issue: how on earth did the international community allow the United Nations to be located in New York without first ensuring that UN-recognized state representatives were guaranteed freedom of access?
One must note that similar restrictions were not applied against Communist countries during the Cold War, nor are they applied against BIGGER countries with far less legitimacy and far worse civil rights issues than Fiji.
One reader observed: "This is typical of the bullying of small insignificant states that goes on hypocritically under the radar. Designed to be insulting, and another obvious interference with the Fiji judiciary."
The action (or lack of it) by the US Embassy gives the clear impression that it does not want Fiji, as a small developing country which is vulnerable to the immediate effects of climate change, to be involved in and to address issues such as climate change, global carbon trading system, rising sea levels, emission reduction and renewable energy technology transfer. These issues are of utmost importance to Fiji as an island State and Fiji, like all other countries in the world, must be allowed to raise these issues at the global level."
Fiji Vital to US National Security: Wikileaks.
There are two other related issues to consider: In most matters Fiji may be "insignificant" in US eyes but as Wikileaks recently pointed out US documents have listed Fiji’s Southern Cross undersea cable landing in Suva as vital to US national security. Fiji is one of 300 countries listed by the US as “critical infrastructure and key resources located abroad" – also known as potential terrorism targets. US State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley told CNN, "Without discussing any particular cable, the release of this kind of information gives a group like al Qaeda a targeting list."
Big Brother is Watching
Finally, another cause for reflection on the "Free World." My blog reader Global Citizen had this to say: "An entirely speculative question here, but one now wonders whether your rights under the visa waiver programme still qualify... you have, after all, and no doubt noticed by Washington, become a lobbyist for a military regime to whom they do not give visas for.... tried visiting the US recently? It is actually a serious issue - you will have been noticed and reported upon. Lobbyist for undesirable regimes is something Washington takes note of. I'd check if I were you; detention at LAX is very tedious. You might even share the facility with an Australian woman from MinFo."
I'm not a lobbyist nor do I wish to visit the USA, but Global Citizen raises a worrying question for others who may choose not to toe the mainstream line. It is always easier to swim with the current.
ACP- EU FACT-FINDING MISSION. The joint parliamentary assembly of the African, Caribbean and Pacific group and the European Union has decided to send a fact-finding mission to Fiji next year. Solomon Islands representative at the meeting, Milner Tozaka, described the mission as an important and positive engagement with Fiji because it will give ACP and EU MPs the opportunity to get first-hand information from the Fiji authorities.
