FIRST STEPS IN DEALING WITH POST-CONSTITUTIONAL

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 SUVA 000131

SIPDIS

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E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/15/2019
TAGS: FJ KDEM PGOV PREL
SUBJECT: FIRST STEPS IN DEALING WITH POST-CONSTITUTIONAL
FIJI

REF: A) SUVA 000013 B) SUVA 000031

Classified By: CHARGE D'AFFAIRES, A.I. RICHARD K. PRUETT. REASONS 1.5 (
B) AND (D)

SUBJ: First Steps for Dealing with Post-Constitutional Fiji

REF: A) Suva 000013 B) Suva 000031


1. (SBU) Summary: The abrogation of Fiji,s 1997
Constitution and the reinstatement of Fiji,s military-led
interim government (IG) is the denouement of a series of IG
blunders that has compounded the serious racial and economic
problems already confronting ethnic and Indo-Fijians. The
challenge for the United States will be in striking the right
balance between the need to pressure the IG to take the
necessary steps to restore democracy as soon as possible and
the imperative to engage with the IG in a measured manner
calculated to help Fiji end its &coup culture.8 We need to
continue to engage with Fiji to ensure that whatever form of
democracy emerges from its current struggle is stable,
functional, and durable, and protects minority rights. The
United States alone has succeeded in achieving and
maintaining strong credibility with the IG, its largely
Indo-Fijian supporters, and its democratic opposition.
Mutual trust will be important to carrying forward the work
of restoring democracy to Fiji and returning Fiji to its
former position of regional leadership. To help the parties
establish that trust will not be possible if we lose our
credibility with either side. We need to find ways to
register our strong disapproval of what has happened without
sacrificing our ability to influence the present regime on
important bilateral issues as well as such transcendent
issues as the protection of fundamental human rights, an end
to media censorship, genuine political dialogue leading to
early elections, economic development, the re-integration of
Fiji with regional institutions, and the rehabilitation of
Fiji to a position of regional leadership. End summary.

BACKGROUND


2. (C) The abrogation of Fiji,s 1997 Constitution by
President Ratu Josefa Iloilo Uluivuda was undoubtedly at the
urging of Commodore Josaia Voreqe &Frank8 Bainimarama, the
commander of Fiji,s military, who until April 9 was Fiji,s
interim prime minister. Although Fiji,s head of state and
theoretically the commander-in-chief of its armed forces,
Iloilo is in fact little more than a figurehead, as reported
in Ref A. He serves at Bainimarama,s pleasure to give the
IG a patina of legality. Bainimarama,s apparent
acceptance of the April 9 appeal court ruling against the
legality of his interim regime was almost certainly a cynical
ploy preparatory to his engineered reinstatement by Iloilo
April 11. The &necessity8 for abrogating the constitution
was supposedly the power vacuum created by the April 9 ruling
invalidating Iloilo,s 2007 appointment of Bainimarama as
interim Prime Minister and the need to &map out a smooth
path to holding parliamentary elections based on electoral
reforms and other reforms as set out under the (People,s)
Charter.8 However, the abrogation of Fiji,s constitution
in order to hasten the return of democracy is akin to cutting
down a tree to harvest its fruit. Moreover, Bainimarama,s
reappointment as interim prime minister raises the question
of who was actually wielding the ax.


3. (C) Iloilo could have simply followed the court ruling by
appointing Bainimarama as caretaker prime minister, ignoring
the court,s non-binding obiter dicta calling for an
independent figure to assume that role and to lead the
country to early elections. Embassy considers that the
decision not to take such a direct approach is likely rooted
in the IG,s fear that it would do nothing to restore the
grant of immunity that Iloilo conferred on Bainimarama and
his supporters at the time of Bainimarama,s 2007
appointment. Iloilo,s decision to abrogate the constitution
was likely foisted on him by the IG for the purpose of giving
the IG expanded powers and to foreclose the possibility of
treason proceedings by a successive government. The
abrogation of the 1997 constitution also served to eliminate
former Prime Minister Qarase,s claim to office. Among the
expanded powers the IG is seeking to exercise under Iloilo,s

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purported emergency authorities are the complete replacement
of Fiji,s judiciary, prohibitions against assembling in
groups of three or more, and severe limitations on media
freedoms. At this writing, three foreign journalists have
been deported since the abrogation, a small number of
protesting attorneys have been arrested, and a small number
of dissenting officials have been sacked, but the security
situation remains relatively peaceful.


4. (SBU) The road to Fiji,s abrogation is littered with
broken promises and missteps by the IG. The most prominent
of these were Bainimarama,s July 2008 reneging on his pledge
of elections by March 2009 to the leaders of the countries
comprising the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) and his effective
scuttling of Fiji,s initially promising political dialogue
process. In fact, the appeals court ruling occurred on the
very day that Bainimarama had chaired a lopsided Leaders of
Political Parties (LOPP) &dialogue8 that deliberately
excluded the main opposition parties, which together had
amassed over 70 percent of the popular vote in the last
elections. Bainimarama told the opposition parties not to
attend after they balked at accepting some last minute
pre-conditions he sought to impose--such as a restriction on
dealings with media or foreign governments--that flew against
the principles of inclusion and open-mindedness set out in
the first LOPP meeting. The United Nations and British
Commonwealth were to use the fruits of the LOPP process to
lead a President,s Political Dialogue Forum (PPDF) to lead
the parties toward fashioning an all-Fijian plan forward to
political reconciliation and elections. Tellingly,
Bainimarama also excluded UN and Commonwealth observers from
the April 9 LOPP meeting. The UN and Commonwealth are said
to be reviewing their plans for a joint mission in leading
the PPDF process.

U.S. ACTIONS/RESPONSE


5. (C) The United States, position on the dialogue process
has been clear. We have endorsed the joint mission,s
insistence that any mediation be on the basis of a commitment
by all parties to the principles that the process would be
independent, inclusive, time-bound and without prejudice to
its outcome. The concluding statement of the April 9
&rump8 LOPP also claimed to endorse those principles.
Embassy Suva believes that the United States should encourage
the IG and the UN/Commonwealth to move ahead with the PPDF
process despite the IG,s bad faith dealings to date. We
believe that honest dialogue is the firmest and shortest
route to the restoration of democracy in Fiji. The first
LOPP buoyed hopes of a dialogue process that would lay the
foundation for durable democratic institutions and end
Fiji,s &coup culture8 once and for all. The IG
effectively rejected dialogue in favor of a stultifying
monologue. Fiji needs the UN and Commonwealth to step into
the role of honest broker and lift the process from the IG,s
control. It will not be an easy task: the IG likely will try
to exert its control at every step of the way to weaken and
delay the process. The UN/Commonwealth joint mission should
seek to recover the initial promise of the PPDF. It should
be led by a highly-reputable team and have generous donor aid
with which to establish a secretariat. Support for the joint
mission and for genuine dialogue in general should be central
elements of U.S. strategy in the earliest days of Fiji under
its new order.


6. (SBU) U.S. policy toward Fiji has been far from
&business as usual8 ever since the December 2006 coup
d,etat. In accordance with Section 508 of the Foreign
Operations Assistance Act, the United States suspended
military assistance and some foreign assistance programs
because of the coup, and those restrictions will remain in
force until Fiji returns to democracy. In close coordination
with our allies and partners in the region, we also imposed
visa sanctions and took other targeted measures directed
against the coup leaders and their supporters. We have
sought to avoid restrictions that would add to the suffering
of the Fijian people. The targeted nature of these sanctions
has won widespread acceptance and even support among the
Fijian people. Those sanctions should remain in place and
constitute an enduring element of our policy toward Fiji
until it makes measurable progress on the path back to

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democracy.


7. (SBU) Although of intrinsic merit, restoring elections is
not an end in itself, or even as a step to a new political
order in Fiji; it is more importantly an essential
prerequisite to our pursuit of expanded regional engagement
and cooperation, and to greater harmonization of Pacific
programs with U.S. interests. Fiji,s role as a
transportation hub makes it a key focal point for regional
engagement. Regional efforts toward addressing the daunting
economic, environmental, security, energy and other
challenges facing the Pacific island countries are unable to
gain strong traction as long as Fiji is absent from the
leadership on such issues and is instead itself a focus of
regional insecurity. It is therefore essential that Embassy
Suva continue to work with all elements of Fijian society and
regional partners to promote the rule of law, strengthen
civil society, and encourage the rebuilding of democratic
institutions. Ref B lays out a strategy for calibrated
engagement while underscoring the opportunity costs to the IG
of continued intransigence through the loss of assistance,
senior-level visits to Washington, an Open Skies Agreement,
regional coordination and planning for future military
cooperation.


8. (SBU) While enforcing existing sanctions, the United
States should resist the temptation to levy new sanctions
barring a significant deterioration in Fiji,s human rights
situation. We will monitor these carefully in the days
ahead. Fiji,s armed forces now play a constructive role in
a range of peacekeeping operations, including in Iraq and the
Sinai. Until other contributors step up to make up the
resulting shortfall, we should avoid punishing Fiji in such a
way as to weaken our larger peace-keeping efforts.
Nonetheless, Fiji,s military should remain subject to the
visa sanctions and Leahy vetting, and future Fijian
peace-keeping or Coalition deployments must wait until
Fiji,s military and police are re-trained and
re-indoctrinated for civil affairs missions.

SUPPORTING PIF and UN-COMMONWEALTH INITIATIVES


9. (C) The PIF Forum Leaders Special Retreat Communique on
Fiji of January 27 committed the PIF to targeted measures in
relation to Fiji unless the IG announced an election date by
May 1 and set that election to take place by December 2009.
The PIF statement also tasked its Ministerial Contact Group
with monitoring the situation in Fiji and directed it to
report to the leaders before their next meeting scheduled for
August in Cairns, Australia. The concluding statement of the
31st Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group meeting of March 4
expressed its full support for the statement issued by the
Forum leaders, including its milestones and benchmarks. The
PIF should take formal cognizance of what has happened in
Fiji by convening its Ministerial Contact Group for the
purpose of weighing the possibility of additional measures,
which might include full suspension from the Forum. The
United Nations should perform a similar assessment to review
Fiji,s progress and report it to the Commonwealth, as it
requested at its March 4 meeting. The statements from these
meetings would be for the purpose of either bringing forward
the deadlines or emphasizing their imminence, re-stating the
serious consequences should they lapse without action, and
underscoring the importance of an inclusive, independent,
time-bound PPDF without predetermined outcomes as the only
realistic way forward toward a Fijian solution.


10. (C) We cannot cast a blind eye to the follies of the
interim government and its lead in Fiji,s descent to
dictatorship. Yet, neither should we now vilify the
leadership of Fiji,s government of the day at the time
President Iloilo is inviting the nation to assist it in
&wiping the slate clean8 and cooperating with it as it
flexes sweeping new powers. It has already posted military
and police in the offices of Fiji,s media to censure
articles it deems injurious to the public order, such
as Secretary Clinton,s remarks at the Australia-United States
Ministerial. (Similarly, a leading newspaper replaced the
USG press statement on Fiji drafted by Embassy Suva with
white space and the statement: &This story could not be
published due to government restrictions.8) We intend to be

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similarly &subversive8 in the days ahead by continuing to
speak out. At the same time, we need to maintain our
existing channels to the IG. This allows us to apply
pressure directly, serving not only our own interests but
those of our regional partners. Their resident
representatives have asked us to continue to engage in direct
dialogue with the IG on Fiji,s future, and some of Fiji,s
leading political parties have asked us to do so as well.


11. (C) We also need to anticipate that some of our regional
partners may approach us regarding one or more of at least
three possible initiatives. The first is the idea of
applying pressure directly on Fiji,s military by withdrawing
our support for Fiji,s continuing deployments to the
Multinational Force and Observers mission in the Sinai. Post
opposes this idea for the reasons stated in Para 8. The
second is the idea of pressuring South Korea to join the
travel sanctions regime against Fiji,s military and
supporters of the December 2006 coup. Should it choose,
Seoul could follow Tokyo,s example by imposing the travel
sanctions but not announcing them. Korean Airlines is the
main air link now available to the IG for access to
international air travel routes. Seoul,s imposition of visa
restrictions similar to those imposed by the United States
and described in Para 6 would dramatically tighten Fiji,s
international isolation. The obligations of the United
States as host country of the United Nations would remain
unchanged and require our continuation of the present waiver
policy for related travel, but we would need to exert the
same discriminating care in any other waiver cases as we
would hope to expect from the Koreans. The third approach is
to dissuade Japan from inviting high-level Fijian
participation in the Pacific Island Leaders Meeting (PALM 5),
now scheduled for May 21-23 in Hokkaido. Canberra and
Wellington have interceded with Tokyo against Fiji,s
participation. Under the present circumstances, we should
ask Tokyo to consider restricting Fiji,s participation to
its Ambassador to Japan, Ratu Inoke Kubuabola.


12. (C) Fiji,s challenge to the region and its institutions
deserves the clearest possible regional response, beginning
with implementation by the PIF of the targeted measures
agreed to at Port Moresby. The &Pacific Way,8 which
emphasizes group consensus, tends to militate against a more
robust response by the PIF. A military intervention along
the lines of the Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon
Islands is unrealistic in Fiji,s non-permissive environment.
Unfortunately, a prime objective of the People,s Charter,
pushed by the IG as its manifesto for Fiji,s future, is an
even larger role for Fiji,s military. So, the difficulty of
mounting an adequate response may only grow as the military
becomes more entrenched in Fiji,s institutions. We need to
engage the IG directly to dissuade it from pursuing that
longer-term course. Our best options now are to support the
initiatives of the PIF, UN and Commonwealth, sustain the
pressure of our present sanctions regime, seek new travel
restrictions by other partners in the region, and continue to
engage directly with the IG with a view to helping it resolve
Fiji,s longer-term systemic issues. We need to recalibrate
our public diplomacy effort in Fiji by adding additional
speakers and shifting other resources, in order to aid our
effectiveness in speaking out against the excesses of Fiji,s
military government. At the same time, we need to temper our
severe disapproval of what has happened with a dispassionate
eye to all that we seek to achieve if we are to remain an
effective intercessor with this government. We believe that
to be the best way to advance U.S. interests on bilateral
issues and the broader regional agenda, and to influence
better IG behavior on such transcendent issues as media
freedom, judicial independence, democracy and human rights.

PRUETT