Australia, NZ match Fiji's diplomatic volley
Updated
Australia and New Zealand are matching Fiji's latest diplomatic volley, announcing the expulsion of Fiji's envoys from the two countries and expressing frustration that their overtures for dialogue are continually frustrated. In Canberra, the Rudd government is steadfastly refusing to expand sanctions, though, to include trade and economic bans. It doesn't want to do anything, it says, to harm ordinary Fijians. Canberra has also dismissed as unjustified Fiji's allegations of interference in Fiji's internal affairs -- the justification for Fiji's expulsion of Australian and New Zealand diplomats. The Australian and New Zealand responses signal determination to stay the course in the push for a return to democracy in Fiji, though all efforts appear to end in yet more political upheaval.
Presenter: Linda Mottram, Canberra correspondent
Speakers: Kevin Rudd, Australia's Prime Minister; Stephen Smith, Australia's Foreign Affairs minister; Commodore Frank Bainimarama, Fiji's interim prime minister
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MOTTRAM: Australia's Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was emphatic in a slew of radio appearances responding to news of the expulsions.
RUDD: Their military coup is unacceptable to every country in the region. That's why they're unhappy with us.
MOTTRAM: And he repeatedly invoked what he says is the collective view of South Pacific nations insisting on an immediate return to democracy in Fiji.
RUDD: We have drawn a very hard line, not just as Australia, not just as New Zealand, but through the Pacific Island Forum with every other island democracy. We belong to a family of democracies in the South Pacific with the exception of Bainimarama's military rule.
MOTTRAM: And so as consultation and formulation of an Australian response proceeded, Fiji's acting High Commissioner, Kamlesh Arya, was seen entering the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in Canberra .. and then leaving again.
Shortly after, Australia's Foreign Affairs Minister Stephen Smith, speaking in the West Australian capital of Perth, announced why.
SMITH: Australian officials in Canberra firmly advised the acting Fiji High Commissioner to Australia that he had been declared persona non grata, and as a consequence was required to leave within 24 hours. This is deeply regrettable and Australia is deeply disappointed at Fiji's conduct in this matter.
MOTTRAM: It was a proportionate response he said, and it would go no further. Specifically, he rejected any consideration of widening Australia's travel, military and diplomatic sanctions against Fiji to include trade or economic sanctions.
SMITH: We don't want to do things which adversely impact on the Fijian people themselves, to the contrary, which is why we never engaged in trade or economic sanctions.
MOTTRAM: Describing the whole matter as a backward step, and his concern that Fiji wa s further isolating itself from the international community, Stephen Smith comprehensively rejected Fiji's allegations that Australia and New Zealand diplomats had interfered in Fiji's internal affairs, specifically in the appointment of judges.
SMITH: Both Australia and New Zealand have made it clear to Fiji in recent times, that as a consequence of the aggregation of the Constitution early this year and as a consequence of changed arrangements, so far as the appointment of judges in Fiji were concerned, that Australia would regard judges appointed as judges of Fiji after the aggregation of the Constitution as effectively appointments by Commodore Bainimarama and as a consequence subject to Australia's travel bans.
MOTTRAM: As Mr Smith spoke to the media in Australia, his counterpart in New Zealand, Foreign Minister Murray McCully was would be announcing similar moves. Earlier, Mr McCully told Australian radio that Australia and New Zealand had thought they were moving down a path to improve channels of communication with Fiji.
McCULLY: Last week I had agreed in principle to the appointment of a new counsellor position, at the Fijian mission in New Zealand and sort a reciprocal gesture in Suva from them and so we were moving down that path when this difficulty hit us.
MOTTRAM: Stephen Smith also said that he had held talks with Commodore Bainimarama on the sidelines of the recent United Nations General Assembly in New York.
SMITH: In recent times, I have been hopeful that once the dust had settled from Fiji's suspension from the Pacific Islands Forum, Fiji's suspension from the Commonwealth, that once the dust had settled on those matters, that we could find a way of having a dialogue with Fiji, to bring Fiji back to democracy, to bring Fiji back as a fully fledged democratic member of the international community. Indeed in December in New York in the margins of the United Nations General Assembly, I spoke to Commodore Bainimarama, and made precisely that point to him.
MOTTRAM: But speaking on Radio Tarana Commodore Bainimarama has cast doubt on Australian and New Zealand claims about wanting dialogue.
BAINIMARAMA: Australia and New Zealand only say we always want dialogue and we continue to ensure that our doors are open for dialogue, which is done to protect the sovereignty of this nation.
MOTTRAM: All sides then remain backed into their separate corners. And though the Commodore taunts Australian leaders with the continuing flow of Australian tourists to Fiji, Australia says that for ordinary Fijians economic gloom continues to deepen as a direct result of Fiji's increasing isolation.
