Peter Thomson is a sixth generation Fiji Islander, born in Suva, schooled in Lautoka, fluent in Fijian, with a passing knowledge of Fiji Hindi, who now lives in Sydney. Last week he presented a paper to the joint conference of the NZ-Fiji Business Council and the Fiji-NZ Business Council in Auckland. He was the key mover in establishing both councils and their counterparts in Australia some years ago.
The paper is entitled "The Lessons of '87" -- lessons he sees as very relevant to the 2006 coups, despite their different origins. He was a secretary to two prime ministers, Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara and Dr Timoci Bavadra, and permanent secretary to the Governor-General Ratu Sir Peni Ganilau following the 1987 Coup.* His book Kava in the Blood is a personal account of those years. He is a man who, as they say, "has been around;" he knows something about coups and he knows a lot about Fiji.
Where does he stand on the 2006 coup? "I know in my bones", he said, "there are better ways than military intervention to change governments and troublesome policies [but] neither am I in the camp of those whom one witty blogger describes as 'We Love Fiji So Much We Want to Destroy It from Overseas Front.'"
He sees Australia's and New Zealand's policies as unhelpful and damaging -- "They hurt the country when good friends would have been expected to lend a hand ... It should be glaringly obvious to [both governments] that continuing measures to isolate Fiji and choke off its income will come home to roost not just on Fiji's damaged economy, but on all of us in the South Pacific Region."
His advice to the Interim Government-- "Work with the media, not against it ... The solutions to Fiji's recalcitrant problems lie in an ongoing process of national dialogue towards reconciliation and reform". To those who think the Military Council will not budge, he says "If the carrot is enticing enough and if an accord is one that everyone can work with, the military will be on board. There is no shortage of intelligent people in the Fiji officer corps, and they know there are imperatives ahead that make a reconciliatory accord a better prospect than the current course."
He has this advice for the people of Fiji: "They must embrace acceptance of a common destiny ... reject hard-line political leaders who polarize their respective communities ... a new generation of moderate leaders [is needed]"
He looks to Fiji's many "bridgebuilders ... who are prepared to sit around the kava bowl ...[and] help the hardliners come to the middle of the meeting ground. [They are to be found]... in the churches... political parties ... the business sector ... the Great Council of Chiefs ...and in the Military Council."
To read the full paper,click here. You will be taken to the web storage programme Mediafire from where you'll be able quickly to download the paper. It's well worth the trip to cyberspace.
* Peter Thomson has also been Permanent Secretary for Information, Fiji Consul-General in Sydney, First Secretary in Fiji Embassy, Tokyo, Senior Assistant Secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Fijian Affairs, and district officer in Taveuni, Macuata and Navua.
2 comments:
It's interesting, isn't it, what one can read into things. Both this blog and Thomson accuse the NZ government of trying to damage the Fiji tourism industry through travel advisories. NZ's advisories are by no means sophisticated when compared with the UK and USA sites (linked on MFAT's travel advisory site for Fiji). But their warnings about Fiji are no worse than those about Papua New Guinea or the Solomon Islands. Perhaps it would make more sense to suggest that MFAT distinguish more carefully between tourist areas and what travellers can expect there vs what they might experience in, say, Suva. More resources to consular advice would appear to be the order of the day.
NZ and Australia are hardly likely to want the Fijian tourist industry to fall over given the amount of investment that their countries make into it!
An interesting omission from the blog's analysis of Thomson's piece is his opposition to 'the “Agree with the cause but not the method” school of thought, an agnostic line of thinking that gives comfort if not overt support to coup-installed regimes' which is possibly a little to close for comfort?
Final comment. It would be interesting to know who can stimulate the dialogue process that Thomson suggests is the way forward. As he notes, Fijians are the ones who need to do this. But which ones?
The Fijians best placed to assist the dialogue process will be those who are scrupulous concerning their focus on the interests of the nation rather than on partisan or narrow community interest. They will require a history of transparent action in this regard. They will need to be entirely honest concerning their own vested interests and they will be found out if they are not. It is no easy task finding such people in a small country which has been beset by long-term destabilising factors and with far-reaching networks and threads of inter-woven family relationships and connections. Fiji is not Pakistan nor Afghanistan, it is not Iraq nor Northern Ireland. But there may well be similarities in our present predicament. All sides to this on-going saga must be heard and they must know that their perceived and often well-founded grievances and anxieties are being given a fair hearing. Allowances must be made for what 'may not' be said although it might well be implied. Great care must be taken with consultations: often those most deserving and vulnerable will be excluded, as they have for so many years in all kinds of seemingly worthy endeavours. Conflicting interests must above all be avoided by open and honest declarations of where people stand and whom they represent. We have done this so many times before in Fiji and it has always fallen short in implementation. However, to achieve a lasting solution a novel and smart formula must be found. Fiji requires change. Fiji has to move ahead and it must bring everyone into the momentum towards this goal. Not too much emphasis now on failed, past initiatives. Energy and time are are in short supply.
VIIth Generation
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