Fiji boycotts Pacific meeting in Niue

Updated August 18, 2008 19:46:22

Fiji's military leader Frank Bainimarama has announced he'll boycott this week's Pacific summit, avoiding an embarrassing confrontation over his broken promise to hold elections by March next year. Commodore Bainimarama says he won't be attending the meeting of the 16-nation Pacific Islands Forum which begins in Niue on Tueday.

Presenter: Mark Colvin
Speaker: New Zealand correspondent Kerrie Ritchie.

RITCHIE: This doesn't come as a surprise to officials in Niue. There's been a lot of speculation that Frank Bainimarama would pull out. The Fijian journalists that are here to cover the summit say they've been expecting this.

The Commodore has given the reason that he wants to focus on political issues at home in Fiji, and there is a lot that's going on in Suva at the moment. The Finance Minister Mahendra Chaudhry, who also used to be the prime minister there, has announced that he's resigning tomorrow, and we've got two other ministers that are following him. And this will end the association that the Labor Party has with the interim government. The Labor Party says it wants to prepare for elections, whenever they may be.

So, no, there's been no shock about this decision here. I guess, just disappointment.

COLVIN: Did New Zealand really have much of a choice? I mean, given that they're a member of the Commonwealth and Fiji has been expelled, or suspended rather, from the Commonwealth, could New Zealand have done other than it did in terms of what it's done with the visas?

RITCHIE: New Zealand relaxed the travel bans to allow Fiji to come. New Zealand and Australia have been some of the most vocal critics of Fiji and have been angry at what they see as Frank Bainimarama breaking the promise to have
elections in March next year.

So, no, New Zealand's been in a really difficult position with this because Helen Clark was actually expected to share a flight with Frank Bainimarama into Niue tomorrow night. We were all interested to see what the body language would be like when they got of the flight, but now that's not going to happen.

So, yeah, Helen Clark and Kevin Rudd would be very angry about this.

COLVIN: So what will this mean for the Forum itself? How will things change?

RITCHIE: Well this poses some really big problems for the Forum. The Forum's actually based in Suva, and Frank Bainimarama who's recently pulled out of a taskforce that's been monitoring the country's progress towards elections. So, there's recently been some, a dispute over that, and really this week was supposed to be all about Fiji.

There was supposed to be a real focus on the issues in Fiji and whether or not it can hold an election by March. Now, that's going to be interesting to see what happens. There'll still be a lot of talk about Fiji, but Frank Bainimarama won't be here to listen to it.

There's also some other issues that are expected to come up, like climate change, and the Pacific Island Labour Mobility trial. But really, everyone was hoping that Fiji would be here so that there would be 16 Pacific leaders, and there might be some progress towards democracy in Fiji.