Former NZ PM and former WTO Secretary-General Mike Moore (photo) has criticized Australia's and NZ's policies towards Fiji, calling them a failure. He says a "game changer" is needed to break the present impasse. Click here for a short Fiji Times Report, and here for the full interview of Mike Moore and former ACT MP Ron Mark by TV interviewer Paul Holmes.
Extracts:
Mark. I think New Zealand and Australia quite clearly recognize that the last thing they want to be doing is severely impacting upon the ordinary people of Fiji and it's a very difficult line to be walking when you're trying to get the regime to accept change and to adjust, but at the same time not wishing to severely harm the livelihoods of the ordinary Fijians.
Holmes. Yeah, but at the same time when you bring economic pressure, try and bring economic pressure to bring a regime to its senses, you are in fact trying to put economic pressure on the ordinary people aren't you so they bring the pressure on the regime?
Moore. Is that possible though? It'll be the World Bank not the IMF. This represents a huge diplomatic failure by New Zealand and by Australia over several decades.
Holmes. What does?
Moore. What's happened in Fiji. What is foreign policy about? Foreign policy is projecting and protecting your interests and promoting your values, and building up over many years those values and those interests. We have failed. Now having said that this is not going to be solved by beating our chest doing the Tarzan act, and pretend, you know, we criticize the Americans or the Aussies for being belligerent, and then we beat our chest and lecture and poke our fingers in the face of [Fiji] military people who don't particularly like that. This has to be worked through, you need a game changer, I know some people who are working on a game changer now, and this will not be resolved by hairy chested pp.
They went on to discuss the UN engagement of Fiji peacekeepers, both Moore and Mark applauding the good job they do and the difficulty the UN has in obtaining peacekeepers. Both thought the Aust. NZ request to the UN to cut Fiji peacekeepers was unrealistic.
Asked by Holmes about his "game changer" remark, Moore replied: "Yeah, there has to be a game changer there to allow people to move, keep their dignity and keep their faith ... but here's New Zealand, we beat our chest about this coup but we're very silent about coups in Thailand and elsewhere ..." Moore was vague about who the game changer could be.
3 comments:
The 'game changer' cannot come soon enough. Why would any intelligent and humane person wish to exert pressure upon the ordinary people of a country which has suffered continuous political instability over twenty years? How can such policies be justified? If President Obama has found that extreme care is required to speak out to Iran (to avoid further difficulty in his Administration's contact with ALL the Iranian people) then why would Fiji's close neighbours not think likewise? What has been done so far has failed. At least ten or fifteen years ago someone should have been carefully attempting to know the full Fiji picture: then putting the full Fiji story to that picture. This did not happen. Diplomats of limited calibre were sent to Fiji (from all quarters) and it was used as a pre-retirement posting by at least one major power (admitted to me recently here recently). We now see the result of such limited foresight. Mr Mike Moore should be congratulated for his understanding so far. We have our dignity and we still have our national pride. Why should we not have? Some of us have done our level best to 'bat on' despite the daily debacle. Yes, corruption is an issue - a big issue. Yes, impunity still reigns. Yes, the longer the delay in effective policy architecture, the greater the decay: morally, ethically, economically and, ultimately, of any dignity and esteem of the ordinary people.
Is this overstating the case? No, I think not.
Croz, I posted a comment here days ago but you''ve not published it. Was there an error in the posting process or did you choose not to authorise it despite encouraging me to do so?
John Egan
Croz, you've asked me to publish my email to you regarding the Q&A session. My comment was:-
I saw the Q&A segment yesterday. Two inaccuracies.
First, following Guyon Espiner's taped interview with Stephen Smith, Paul Holmes' starting point for the discussion with Moore and Mark was that Australia and New Zealand have imposed economic sanctions. As I've said to you in the past, this is not correct. The sanctions deliberately avoid trade and economic areas and are targeted at the leadership of the Fiji Interim Government and their family members.
Second, Moore's view that it's the World Bank that the government is talking to, not the IMF, is also incorrect. He is clearly not up to date. The government has not approached the World Bank but it has made specific requests to the ADB and to the IMF for emergency assistance following the flooding.
Your response was:-
"while you are technically correct on the economic sanctions (that would also have hurt our businesses), the cut in aid, approaches to the UN, Commonwealth., etc., and our policy's negative effects on tourism, must have affected their economy, and many ordinary Fiji people in the process."
The problem with this comment is:-
(1) ODA from NZ was reduced in line with the sanctions imposed on the Fijian interim regime but, following identification of civil society organisations able to deliver significant amounts of ODA, the amount has climbed again albeit not quite to the same level as originally envisaged. NZ has also offered a package of some $3.675 million in response to the floods in January 2009. All of this is designed to ensure that Fijians themselves are not discriminated against by sanctions imposed on the interim government.
While approaches have been made to the UN and the Commonwealth, there has been no reduction in UN development assistance in Fiji - in fact New Zealand has continued to fund a UNDP programme targeted at civics education - and there has been no reduction in Fijian military personnel involved in UN Peacekeeping Operations. The Commonwealth only has one programme in Fiji and the amounts are negligible.
New Zealand doesn't have travel sanctions. There is a travel advisory which one of your many "Anonyomous" contributors notes is not very different from those that are in place in Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu and certainly does not say don't go to Fiji! It is quite possible that New Zealanders, seeing flooding and devastation turned away, but the latest reports indicate that numbers of short-haul tourists from NZ and Australia are up but it is the long-haul tourists from Europe and the USA who are not coming - all to do with the global economic crisis presumably.
It is also important to note that ODA makes a very small contribution to the Fijian economy.
So, it would be reasonable to argue that there has been little impact on Fiji as a result of the actions of NZ and Australia (which has also continued development cooperation). Unfortunately, this is not recognised.
You noted in your comments that I was correct on the World Bank/IMF. Thanks.
Cheers
John Egan
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