Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
09SUVA255
2009-06-16 21:25:00
UNCLASSIFIED
Embassy Suva
Cable title:  

FIJI GOVERNMENT BANS METHODIST CONFERENCE

Tags:  PGOV PREL FJ KDEM PINR 
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P 162125Z JUN 09
FM AMEMBASSY SUVA
TO SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 1323
INFO AMEMBASSY CANBERRA 
AMEMBASSY WELLINGTON 
AMEMBASSY PORT MORESBY 
AMEMBASSY MAJURO 
AMEMBASSY KOLONIA 
AMEMBASSY KOROR 
AMEMBASSY LONDON 
AMEMBASSY PARIS 
AMEMBASSY TOKYO 
AMEMBASSY APIA 
USEU BRUSSELS
USMISSION USUN NEW YORK 
HQ USPACOM HONOLULU HI
UNCLAS SUVA 000255 


E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PGOV PREL FJ KDEM PINR

SUBJECT: FIJI GOVERNMENT BANS METHODIST CONFERENCE

UNCLAS SUVA 000255


E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PGOV PREL FJ KDEM PINR

SUBJECT: FIJI GOVERNMENT BANS METHODIST CONFERENCE


1. Summary: On May 28, Fiji's military-led government banned the
Methodist Church from holding its annual national conference after
deeming the conference a threat to national security under the
Public Emergency Regulations (PER). The agenda for the August
conference reportedly included a discussion of the April 10
abrogation of Fiji's constitution and the deferment of elections
until 2014. Fiji's Methodist Church supported the 1987 and 2000
coups but opposed the December 2006 coup that brought Commodore
Bainimarama and the current de facto government to power. Church
President Reverend Ame Tugauwe met with Bainimarama, who demanded
the removal of two Methodist ministers. The Church leadership
refused the demand but has sought another meeting with Bainimarama
in what Embassy believes will be a futile attempt to resolve the
impasse. Effectively tipping over the collection plate by banning
the Church's main fundraising event, Bainimarama has only
exacerbated the regime's conflict with the Methodists. End
summary.

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Nationalist Leanings
--------------


2. The current impasse began on May 14 when police arrested
Reverend Manasa Lasaro, a former president of the Methodist Church
and currently the director of the Church's Social Programs Division.
The government released Lasaro without charge on May 15, but
Bainimarama demanded his resignation. Bainimarama also insisted on
the removal of Reverend Tomasi Kanailagi. Both ministers were close
supporters of past nationalist coup leaders. Lasaro is a
nationalist politician who ran for office unsuccessfully in the 1999
and 2001 elections. When the Fiji Methodist Church initially
opposed the first coup in 1987, Lasaro led a faction against the
church leadership. The faction ousted then-President Josateki
Koroi, and Lasaro became president. Lasaro was close to then-coup
leader Sitiveni Rabuka. Lasaro and the Church leadership succeeded
in getting Rabuka to impose a ban of all commercial activities and
sports on Sundays. In the 1990 Constitution, Rabuka also declared
Fiji a Christian state, despite the presence in Fiji of a large
Indo-Fijian community comprised mostly of Hindus and Moslems.
Reverend Tomasi Kanailagi was president of the Methodist Church
during the 2000 coup by George Speight. Kanailagi openly supported
that coup and won appointment as a senator when Laisenia Qarase won

the 2001 general election. The Methodist Church refused to dismiss
Kanailagi and Lasaro but did agree to removing politics from the
meeting agenda for its annual conference scheduled to convene in
August. Bainimarama stated that the annual conference will not take
place until the Church removes Lasaro and Kanailagi.

--------------
Preempting Formal Opposition
--------------


3. The Methodist Church relies on its annual conference for its
budget in the form of a choir and fundraising competition among its
52 divisions. These annual conferences collect on average over USD
1 million, which is necessary for the running of the church
administration and its schools. The May 29 decision of the military
to ban the conference appears to be aimed at making the
Methodist leadership rethink the costs of its opposition to the de facto
government. In April, Lasaro authored a paper sent out to the 52
divisions discussing the removal of the constitution and the
limitation of rights after the April 9 decision of the Fiji court of
appeal in favor of ousted Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase. Lasaro
recommended that the 52 divisions endorse his proposal for peaceful
resistance to the de facto government. The 52 divisions, comprising
both laity and clergy, met in early May. Fifty divisions approved
the proposal, which was on the agenda for the annual meeting of all
of the Methodist clergy. The meeting was to have convened in Rewa,
a province that happens to be a center of anti-regime sentiment.
Were the conference to have gone ahead as scheduled, the Church
likely would have formalized its opposition to the de facto
government.

--------------
REGIME'S ONLY REMAINING ORGANIZED OPPOSITION
--------------


4. Since its December 2006 coup, the military regime has succeeded
in stifling opposition from all quarters, including the previously
powerful Great Council of Chiefs, which it disbanded in April 2007.
The PER, enacted by presidential decree following the abrogation of
April 10, provided the regime with a potent legal pretext for the
new Draconian measures it has taken since to prevent political
assembly, neutralize the Fiji Law Society, remove unfavorable judges
from the judiciary, and censor the media. To all intents and
purposes, the Methodist Church was the only remaining major
organization opposed to the coup. It had organized a campaign
against the Peoples Charter, touted by the de facto government as
its reform manifesto. After three very senior chiefs made a formal
request in the traditional manner at the 2008 annual conference, the
Church leadership distributed a form to its congregants urging them
to reject the Charter. (The regime claims over 60 percent of Fiji's
people approved the Charter, but few critics believe the figure in
the face of the Methodist opposition and in the absence of a
referendum.)

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SECTARIAN DIVIDE
--------------


5. Fiji's two biggest Christian denominations are divided on the
coup. The Catholic Church, which did not support the 1987 and 2000
coups, appears to be supporting the current de facto government.
Archibishop Petero Mataca even agreed to co-chair, with Bainimarama,
the National Council for Building a Better Fiji, which produced the
draft Peoples Charter, the de facto government's manifesto.
Prominent Catholic priests close to Mataca sit on the Electoral and
Constituency Boundaries Commission. The Methodist Church, however,
has joined with other Christian denominations with membership in the
Assembly of Christian Churches in Fiji (ACCF) by refusing to
participate in the NCBBF process. In total, ACCF claims about
300,000 members, most of whom are indigenous Fijian. Catholic
Archbishop Mataca called for calm after the military announced the
ban on the Methodist conference. ACCF members have remained silent
about the Methodist conference but held a joint church service
attended by 5,000 people in Nausori two weeks ago.

--------------
COMMENT
--------------


6. Whether the Methodist Church in Fiji will allow itself to be
muzzled remains to be seen. By pre-empting the Church's internal
debate on its future direction in Fiji's post-constitutional
environment, the regime has now embittered the leadership and laity
of Fiji's largest congregation. The deeper antagonism could surface
as a source of friction in the Fiji military's rank and file,
especially if the government takes even more drastic measures, such
as censoring sermons from its pulpits or interfering in its
administration. Effectively tipping over the collection plate by
banning the Church's main fundraising event, Bainimarama has only
exacerbated the regime's conflict with the Methodists. End
Comment.

MCGANN