Epilogue, 15 August 2000:

This is the final version of the first note, that was sent out to different correspondents, with minor variations in the text, during 20 May. Because I had been following the demonstrations and growing Fijian anger about the Chaudhry Government's proposed amendments to the Fijian land laws, I at first assumed this was an extension of those issues. It quickly became apparent to at least some of us watching events unfold that the demonstrations had merely provided (perhaps had been orchestrated to provide) the climate of confusion needed by the kidnappers. I, like most of the world, at that stage knew nothing about George Speight or his links to some powerful business interests of dubious repute. As discussed in my essay on the New Western Confederation, indigenous land was actually far less of an issue for these men than the business accountability being demanded by the Chaudhry government, but they cleverly disguised their motives as indigenous nationalism.

In hindsight, this first "take" on the Fiji situation was wildly optimistic about the length of time the hostage situation would continue. But it did accurately foreshadow that if the insurrection was not quashed promptly it might quickly get massively out of hand. Had the military been rapidly mobilised to isolate Parliament both physically and in terms of communication with the outside world, perhaps the problem might have been contained. In particular, the media should have been denied access to the kidnappers, and prevented from turning a crime into a sideshow. Unfortunately, Fijian leaders at the highest levels showed weakness and indecisiveness during those critical early hours and days, and the situation was permitted to degenerate into the ghastly farce that the world watched in disbelief.

Having said all that, the comments here about Fijians' relationship to the land, and the ill-advised approach the government was taking to the problems of leases, I still consider to be valid. When Speight and the footsoldiers who carried out the insurrection have had their day in court, and all of the current turmoil finally dies down, these issues will loom as large as they did before the events of mid-2000. Fiji's future will almost certainly depend more on what strategies their leaders are able to devise to address the issue of land , than on any of the other vexatious issues that beset Fiji.

It is very sad for those of us who love Fiji and indigenous Fijians to witness the current civil insurrection. I decline to call it a 'coup' until it becomes one, which now that the police and army have declared loyalty to Mara, may not eventuate. Everything now depends on him, and he will need show more leadership and decisiveness than he did in 1987 if this attempt is to be thwarted. Provided he can muster those qualities, and maintain the loyalty of the other high chiefs and the military and police, it is doomed. If he vacillates, it may gain momentum and a degree of grass-roots support that it clearly does not have at present, and the situation could assume an explosiveness far greater than that of the 1987 Coup and second military intervention (which has also incorrectly been called a coup, which it was not, since it was supporting the group that had seized power).

The future is indeed bleak for the country if that should happen. It is still, 13 years later, not fully recovered from the after-effects of the Coup, indeed in many ways will never recover. Media reportage (often by reporters who are locally called 'paratroops' because they are outsiders who drop in out of the sky, engage with the situation briefly, then fly out again) are vaguely waffling about the extent to which this current business is or isn't racially motivated, the extent to which Speight and his little gang have other motives, and so on.

All of these things are undoubtedly playing a part. But at the base of it all is the land. Two things have to be understood:

First,that Fiji was not annexed, unlike Hawaii and most other Pacific territories. It was ceded to Britain by a consortium of chiefs who in return were granted ongoing sovereignty over most of their lands. To come to some comprehension of what that has meant to Fijian identity in the 125 years since, one should reflect on what the situation might be in Australia, NZ, Canada and the US had similar actions been taken there at the outset, and the treaties or agreements stuck to instead of being broken again and again. The indigenous peoples of those countries could only dream of the situation Fijians have enjoyed since 1874, notwithstanding the importation of Indian migrants against their express wishes. The reason for their resistance was even then tied to fears of pressure on their land ownership. The attempt to destroy the Girmit memorial in Lautoka, commemorating the first Indian migrants, is in this context highly symbolic

Second, it is important to understand that Fijians, like other Austronesians, define themselves not only in terms of genetic lineage but in terms of journeys and places. Thus an individual Fijian has deep emotional connections not only to the geographical locale of his/her own place of birth or domicile, but to all of the other parts of the group he/she traces origin from. That comprises an extraordinary network of profoundly important association which should not be understood as locally parochial or economic, but rather as deeply spiritual.

The history of Fiji since Cession has seen numerous attempts to provide longterm access to the land by settlers of other ethnicities, particularly the soon-numerous Indians. The leasehold system was negotiated as a solution, and since it was brokered by Ratu Sukuna, highly-ranked and almost deified by his people, it received widespread acceptance despite misgivings. But given the fact that Fijians have perceived themselves to be steadily losing ground economically and politically in the period since Independence in 1970, one of the ways they have attempted to re-empower themselves is resuming leasehold land as leases have been reaching full term over the past few years. This has displaced many Indian farmers whose families have known no other home for several generations, and has incidentally struck at the agricultural economic base of the country, particularly in the sugar industry, second only to tourism as foreign income earner. The human and economic impact of this situation would be hard to overstate, but the emotional basis of Fijian action has to be recognised as going far beyond bloody-mindedness or racism per se. It has to do with attempting to exert some control over what becomes of them as a distinct people.

This issue was inevitably going to be far and away the greatest challenge facing whichever government won last year's election. That the incoming PM and a significant proportion of the cabinet and back bench ended up being Indian merely exacerbated the difficulties, since any action this government took was bound to be viewed with suspicion. In that climate, that the course chosen was to attempt to legislate for the government to wrest control of the whole domain of land use and leasing from the people, seems to me to have been almost suicidal on the part of the Chaudhry government, and accounts for the protest marches and widespread indigenous unrest.

There was only ever one course that had the slightest chance of success, in my view, and that was to provide irresistable incentives to the landowning Fijians to lease their land. Most have today become very materialistic and desirous of the wherewithal to educate their children, travel, and so on, but following a long period of colonial sidelining from the mainstream economy they remain cash-strapped. To therefore attempt to provide them with a means of accessing more than tiny amounts of cash, and perhaps gaining other perks, would have had a good chance of overcoming their reluctance to renew leases, provided their title, attachment and ultimate longterm authority over their land was preserved.

I have no more information than anyone else about the specifics of the present civil insurrection by the Speight gang, and I think it is very likely that, as some reports have suggested, they have other fish to fry and have seen this as a great opportunity in which to do so. This parallels the self-interest which caused the traditional élites to either act like the 3 wise monkeys or to actively support the 1987 events, whereas in the nature of Fijian society at that time, had the highest chiefs in the land condemned it, it would quite certainly have failed. In this case, it appears that the actors are an ill-assorted group of nonentities, not traditional élites but wannabes, and the status panic the chiefs already feel is unlikely to make them sympathetic, indeed they may be sufficiently antipathetic to bring them down. I for one sincerely hope that is the case.

But if that happens,the problem of the land will be there as large as ever. It is to be hoped that lessons will be learned by the parliamentarians, as a result of this excessive reaction, about the foolhardiness of the most recent plan of attack on the problem. What is needed is an approach which has more of the carrot and less of the stick. If not, this will almost certainly not be Fiji's last encounter with insurrection.

Rod Ewins © May 2000. This essay is copyright. Apart from those uses permitted under theCopyright Act 1968 (as amended), no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission from the author.