Professor Stephen Howes, Director of Development Policy Centre at the Australian National University made a shocking revelation in ‘The Australian’ on May 29, 2013.
The daily newspaper quoted him as saying that the Australian Government has been vetoing loans to Fiji worth hundreds of millions of dollars from the World Bank (WB) and the Asian Development Bank (ADB).
He noted that Australia, in a bizarre twist, had doubled its annual aid to Fiji since December 2006, now valued at more than F$100 million.
It is interesting that on the one hand, the Government vetoes WB and ADB loans and on the other, doubles its aid to Fiji following the 2006 military coup.
Shameful practice
This approach is a duplicitous act that shows Australia never ceases to preach belligerently to island nations on democracy, good governance, accountability and transparency. Rightly, most island nations think of Australia as the big Pacific bully with New Zealand as its lapdog. Both connive and conspire to promote their agendas and the aid funds that they provide works as carrot and the stick, applied selectively.
Hounding Moti
In 2007, Australia organised an operation to kidnap Julian Moti QC, the Attorney-General of the Solomon Islands, on trumped up charges of sexual violation, involving a minor in Vanuatu. Interestingly, he was already acquitted of the charges in Vanuatu court in 1999.
However, it did not matter, the quarry, hounded and hunted for years, had to be delivered to the slaughter. In this sad saga, even Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare, an ardent supporter of Mr Moti, became its unfortunate victim, as he lost in a vote of no confidence motion passed against him.
Australian complicity in this affair is a logical conclusion.
His successor, Derek Sikua, facilitated sacking of Mr Moti as Attorney-General and court processes to swiftly deliver him in the arms of Australia.
In the court proceedings that followed, it was revealed that the Australian Federal Police had provided substantial financial incentive to the complainant and her family to elicit conviction of Mr Moti. After prolonged court battles, Australia’s highest court, dismissed the case.
Ethnic disadvantage
Mr Moti was targeted because he was seen as an impediment to Australian interests in the Solomon Islands. Though he was an Australian citizen, he was not given the honour and dignity to which he was entitled.
Besides, Mr Moti was no ordinary citizen, as he was a Queen’s Counsel, an internationally acclaimed law professor and Attorney-General of the Solomon Islands. However, his Indian ethnicity may have worked to his disadvantage, as he was placed in handcuffs and flown and delivered to Australia as a fugitive.
What more, a crime of this magnitude escaped the Australian media and was of no interest to New Zealand.
Global influence
There is no doubt that Australia holds considerable influence in the affairs of the WB and ADB because of its economic might and influence in the region.
Therefore, to bring Fiji to its knees and noting that its smart sanctions were not working; it used its power and influence to initiate economic sabotage against Fiji.
WB and ADB relented but in a dubious attempt to pacify Fiji and regain its lost ground (to China) it doubled its aid package.
This purported gesture made no difference to Fiji, since the country, as the hub of the Pacific, is now China’s protégé in the region.
China demonstrated it in no small measure, as Prime Minister Commodore Bainimarama became the first leader in the Pacific to meet the newly appointed President Xi Jinping, while Australia and New Zealand are not even in the queue!
Both Australia and New Zealand habitually malign Mr Bainimarama and his Government. If they analyse and compare it with the previous democratically elected Governments since independence, they will find that only validation they had was the elective process but the core value of each was to discriminate against its Indo-Fijian citizens, who were discriminated, alienated and marginalised.
For example, the Sitiveni Rabuka Government introduced positive discrimination against them and its successor, the Laisenia Qarase Government pursued it as affirmative action. In essence, the intent was the same, with a mere change of label to hide the lethal intend and content.
Indo-Fijians evicted
Following Qarase Government’s accession, there was a massive eviction of Indo-Fijians from land that they leased from indigenous landowners. It was a Government-initiated plan to persecute Indo-Fijians for their support to their own ethnic party (1999 elections) that displaced them.
Both Australia and New Zealand knew about the Government’s criminal intent and also saw thousands of Indo-Fijians made destitute. It did nothing to assuage their pain and suffering, presumably for reasons that the actions were perpetrated by a Government that was democratically elected!
Logical question
Australia today harbours those who were behind the 2000 coup and had categorically condemned the 1997 Constitution and asked for its abrogation because it failed to protect the political hegemony of the indigenous oligarchy.
But when they got back into power in a subsequent election through corruption and rigged voting, they embraced the same Constitution and lauded it as just and fair! From this, a logical question follows: Is Australian intelligence so naïve that it cannot distinguish between those who are true advocates of democracy and those who are opportunists? Australian politics is not based on principles but on opportunism.
Rajendra Prasad is a thinker, columnist and author of ‘Tears in Paradise,’ which describes in detail the trauma and struggles of Indians in Fiji during the ‘Girmit Era from 1879-2004. The book can be purchased from him. Email: raj.prasad@xtra.co.nz; Read another story written by him under Fijilink.
