FIJI: Government criticised for acting without consultation
Updated
Fiji's interim government is being criticised for introducting three major initiatives without proper community consultation. The issues causing controversy are the de-reserving of native land for the sugar industry; Commodore Frank Bainimarama appointing himself as Chairman of the Great Council of Chiefs; and recent talk of national service being introduced in the military.
Presenter: Geraldine Coutts
Speakers: Professor and Director of Development Studies at the Univesity of the South Pacific, V.J. Naidu
NAIDU: Well, I think there is a whole range of issues facing the country and I think I'm mainly speculating that because the interim government has agreed to elections in the first quarter of next year, there is some urgency in addressing some of these outstanding issues that the interim government sees. The issue of the land indigenous de-reservation, is one of those, and there is some urgency in addressing some of these outstanding issues that the interim government sees.
COUTTS: So again, I come back to that point. What are people thinking, because these are significant issues, aren't they?
NAIDU: Yes, yes. Well the issue of the land de-reservation does not have wide support in all the communities here, I think there's a preference for an open consultative process. With respect to the Great Council of Chiefs, well the Great Council of Chiefs is not a representative body, but they themselves are quite unhappy about it and perhaps because it concerns them, they should be consulted.
With respect to the business of national service, now this is quite an interesting turn of events, because as you know, 99 per cent of the Fiji military forces is ethnic Fijian, indigenous Fijian and so if there is a national service in place, that will begin to address the ethnic imbalance in the military and those trained by the military. I myself take the view that we really don't need a military force in Fiji, but it is not likely that the military in Fiji will be disbanded for the next quarter of a century. So meanwhile, if there is some initiative to address this business of one ethnic community and a multi-racial society being trained and armed and another being totally unarmed I think has got some merits in it. But again, it's a process that requires consultation and open discussion.
COUTTS: How wide ranging is the consultation process? Are people being widely asked for their opinion and what do they think about each of these significant initiatives?
NAIDU: The business about de-reserving native land in the sugar cane areas is a proposal that has been made by a consultant based in India and there's been a lot of controversy over that, because the process hasn't been open and transparent and the land tenure issue is in the mix of the whole range of problems that the sugar industry is currently facing. It's absolutely important and this is where the controversy is that the indigenous landowners are fully consulted in the process. Now having got this consultancy report, the government is saying that they will consult the landowners. But I think it would have been better if the government had consulted the landowners from the word go.
