FIJI UPDATE, MAY 25, 2007: INTERIM GOVERNMENT

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 SUVA 000287 SIPDIS SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 05/24/2017 TAGS: PGOV MARR PHUM ASEC FJ SUBJECT: FIJI UPDATE, MAY 25, 2007: INTERIM GOVERNMENT REASSERTS THREE-YEAR ELECTION TIMEFRAME; HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS ON THE UPSWING REF: STATE 70355 Classified By: CDA Ted Mann, per 1.4 (B,D) Summary -------------- ¶1. (C) During a visit to India, interim Finance Minister Chaudhry repeatedly stressed that elections in Fiji would not take place until 2010. Bainimarama echoed that view May 22, stating it would be idiotic for the interim regime to take Fiji to elections before it had achieved its goals. This backtracking on the election timetable coincides with backsliding on human rights as well. In recent weeks several prominent individuals have been brought to the military barracks for questioning; some have been beaten. Several international organizations and countries, including the United States, have expressed concern about these continuing human rights violations. End summary. Bainimarama, Chaudhry Still Talking Elections in 2010 -------------- -------------- ¶2. (U) During his current visit to India, interim Finance Minister Chaudhry made several statements to the effect that Fiji would not hold elections until 2010. According to an interim government press release dated May 18, Chaudhry told India's Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh that elections could not take place for at least another three years. According to the press release, PM Singh responded that this is an internal matter best left for the authorities in Fiji to decide. According to the Fiji Times, Chaudhry later told reporters in India that the election would be held in June, 2010, noting it would take three years to conduct a census, prepare election boundaries, educate voters, etc. Chaudhry also reportedly thanked India for its understanding, and expressed regret that some other nations are still pressing for what he termed an unrealistic timetable for elections. When asked by television news reporters about Chaudhry's comments May 22, interim PM Bainimarama backed up his finance minister. "We'd have to be idiots," he said to hold an elections before the interim regime had completed its goals. To do so, he said, would make the regime a "laughing stock" of the whole world. The interim government will decide when elections take place, he went on, not the EU or anyone else. NZ Reacts to Comments; EU Takes "Wait and See" Stance -------------- -------------- ¶3. (SBU) The spokesperson for New Zealand's foreign ministry said on May 22 that the dates put forward by Chaudhry were not acceptable and would put in jeopardy hundreds of millions of dollars in aid from the European Union. The EU has not made any public comments about the statements from Chaudhry and Bainimarama. The EU representative in Fiji, Roberto Ridolfi, and the French Ambassador to Fiji, Jean-Francois Bouffandeau. told a group of representatives from foreign missions May 23 that the EU is taking a wait and see stance. Policy pronouncements like that offered by Chaudhry are not necessarily definitive, and are often changed or clarified at a later date, he said. Bouffandeau insisted that the EU does not want to make any precipitous judgments about future interim government actions. In time, he said, the actions would speak for themselves. ¶4. (SBU) The New Zealand representative at the meeting questioned whether this "wait and see" approach would work, since there is every indication, he said, that the IG plans to string the international community along for weeks or months without making its intentions clear. In the meantime, he said, foreign governments need to make decisions about funding Fiji's elections office, etc. (Comment: The issue of greatest urgency for the EU is the IG's upcoming decision whether to lift the public safety regulations by the end of May. As of this date, the IG's intentions remain unclear.) Human Rights Violations Continue -------------- ¶5. (C) After some weeks of relative quiet, the RFMF has again taken in several people and subjected them to intimidation and mistreatment. Former minister of state in deposed PM Qarase's office, Mrs. Losena Salabula, was summoned to the military's Queen Elizabeth barracks May 8 to be lectured by the head of the RFMF's main infantry regiment, Lt. Col. Tevita Uluilakeba Mara. According to Salabula, Mara SUVA 00000287 002 OF 002 threatened her and other outspoken members of the former government. She said he told her to warn PM Qarase and his former Education Minister and high chief Ro Teimumu Kepa that they should stop speaking out against the interim government. The military could, he reportedly said, come and take them out of their homes at any time. Salabula also said Mara dismissed concerns that the military's actions could threaten promised assistance from the EU, a point Mara subsequently denied. ¶6. (C) The same week, the military took a prominent young Fijian businessman into custody on suspicion he was behind an anti-military Internet blog. According to Ulai Taoi, president of the Fiji Indigenous Business Council, he was taken to the military's Queen Elizabeth barracks, interrogated by the same Lt. Col. Mara, left stripped in a bar cell, beaten by a group of eight soldiers some of whom were masked, and harangued and mistreated in his cell for some 24 hours before being released. Taoi denies any involvement with any of the Internet blogs that are campaigning against the military and the interim government. Ten days later, on May 21, former MP Ted Young, who is currently acting national director of Qarase's SDL party, was hauled up to the barracks. There, he said, a senior officer struck him in the face without warning, reportedly because of a press interview in which Young had said the military lacked discipline. Interestingly, all three victims pointedly declined to lodge formal complaints with Fiji's Human Rights Commission. Taoi said the image of the Commission is now tainted. Fiji Women's Right Movement Executive Director Virisila Buadromo, speaking on behalf of a coalition of human rights NGOs, demanded that these human rights violations stop. "The coalition is disappointed," she said, "that the interim government continues to insist that human rights are still intact, despite the recent well-publicized cases of gross human rights violations." U.S., EPG Chair, Commonwealth, Express Concern at Recent Developments -------------- ¶7. (U) Vanuatu Foreign Minister Sato Kilman, Chairperson of the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) Eminent Persons Group (EPG) on Fiji, told reporters May 23 he was concerned about reports of continued human rights abuses. According to Radio New Zealand, Kilman said, "The Pacific Islands Forum was formed to be able to work together, to stand together, and have one voice in the international circuit. But if Fiji is not going to play with the other group(s) in the region you start to see, probably, the start of the disintegration of the PIF." In another press interview, Kilman said that it appears the IG "is not acting in good faith" to meet commitments it made to the PIF. Bainimarama, characteristically, shot back, "He (Kilman) should relax and not comment on things of no concern to him." According to press reports, Commonwealth Secretary General Don McKinnon also expressed "grave concern" about recent human rights developments in Fiji. On May 24, the Embassy delivered a letter from DAS Davies to interim Foreign Minister Nailatikau expressing our continuing concern about human rights abuses and stressing the need for a quick return to democracy (reftel). MANN