Foggy
Bottom is, of course, the suburb of Washington DC where the US State
Department is located, along with major international institutions,
including the World Bank and the IMF. Sydney has had repeated heavy
fogs this winter. Canberra too gets lots of fog, particularly during
autumn, winter and early spring. Now, courtesy of an interview with
ANU Professor Stephen Howes, it is apparent that Australian foreign
policy toward Fiji remains blanketed by a heavy fog under which utter
confusion reigns.
In
a newspaper story, which was reproduced in Fiji, Professor Howes has
told how the Australian government has been vetoing loans to Fiji by
the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank. At the same time
Australian aid to the country has doubled since the Bainimarama
government came to power. Professor Howes, who has agreed with ANZ
sanctions on the military regime, is concerned that the vetoing while
doubling policy `seems hypocritical’.
But
he does not seem concerned with the far greater hypocrisy and
futility, identified repeatedly by critics of ANZ policy, of
providing aid and loans while imposing sanctions. Instead in his most
recent comments, Howes encouraged WB and ADB lending on the grounds
that it was: “Better in my view to have these institutions active
in Fiji trying to promote economic reform and development, including
through sound lending”.
Opposition
spokeswoman on Foreign Affairs Julie Bishop demonstrated that
confusion was gender neutral by trying to separate funding for health
and education from giving money `directly to the government’. While
acknowledging the possibility of fungibility, that is the military
government being able to utilise internally generated revenues for
its own purposes because of the availability of foreign aid for other
expenditure, Ms Bishop seems politically naïve. Who does she think
head the government departments and agencies in Fiji through which
international loans and aid is channelled? The very people against
whom ANZ have imposed travel and other sanctions, Ms Bishop!
Of
course it is possible to argue that hypocrisy is a necessary, even
desirable component of politics and that form of it known as foreign
policy. Anyone who doesn’t accept the necessity of hypocrisy is
being simplistic, overly pure. It is also possible to argue, as many
economists do, that economics should and can be separated from
politics, ethics and so on: what appears as hypocrisy is simply a
clash between distinct spheres of human understanding for which
different principles or rules apply.
But
Professor Howes, in arguing against the politics of Australian
relations with the WB and ADB which influenced these institutions’
behaviour toward Fiji, is not making this separation. He is in fact
arguing that they are and should be intertwined: keep lending to
affect policy and politics in Fiji. When the dominant feature of
Fiji’s politics now and into the foreseeable future is the
existence of a military regime, Professor Howes is proposing aid and
lending to affect the regime. He does not however ask if the effect
will be to weaken or strengthen the Bainimarama regime.
But
what if these funds strengthen the regime’s position by lifting
living standards and increasing its popular support? So increasing
the military government’s popularity and power is good, but
sanctions are still necessary to show condemnation of military rule?
In short, after nearly seven years, confusion still reigns regarding
the most appropriate policies for dealing with the military regime in
Fiji.
There
is however a little ray of sunshine, certainty in one part of the
Lake Burley Griffin establishment. Over the water from Foreign
Affairs at the ANU, the State, Society and Governance in Melanesia
Program (SSGM) is hosting a two day State of the Pacific Conference.
At the end of June, in a major session on the State of Democracy:
Fiji, the anti-regime critics still predominate and there is no
attempt at even the usual academic pretence at balance.
Seeking
clarity, Australian foreign policy-makers could take a lesson from
this section of the ANU where consistency reigns. However that
clarity is unlikely to lead to any greater influence over the
Bainimarama regime than the official confusion. There must be many in
official circles who are hoping that the fog will thicken in Canberra
so the chaos below remains obscured.