Should he, shouldn’t he. Fiji Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase arrived in India for an official visit on 10 October 2005, his ears, in all probability, still ringing with echoes of a debate in Fiji and elsewhere about whether India should welcome him or not. Indian diaspora groups have been urging the Indian government to reconsider technical or financial assistance to Fiji in view of what they term as the Qarase administration’s discriminatory policies against Fiji’s ethnic Indian community. 

Media reports elsewhere meanwhile indicated that purpose of the visit was, in fact, to calm New Delhi’s anxieties about the “anti-Indian” administration headed by Mr. Qarase. Whatever the motive, India would do well to use this opportunity to impress upon Mr. Qarase – after the Fiji High Commission is formally “opened” and the trade agreements signed – that there are concerns among civil society in Fiji, and in India, about the Fijian government’s divisive and inaptly named Promotion of Reconciliation, Tolerance and Unity Bill. The proposed legislation is not only undemocratic; it may also prove to be a destabilising influence in a nation with continuing high levels of ethnic tension. New Delhi must urge him to strike out or seriously amend portions of the Reconciliation Bill. 

The bill in context 

In May 2000, indigenous Fijian nationalists led by George Speight overthrew the first ethnic Indian Prime Minister, Mahendra Chaudhry, precipitating both political crisis and violence directed primarily toward the ethnic Indo-Fijians. Inciting ongoing ethnic tensions, the plotters of the coup d’etat wanted to rid the country of its multiracial constitution and allow only indigenous Fijians to hold the nation’s top offices. The standoff ended when the military granted the mutineers their basic demand and deposed Mr. Chaudhry’s government permanently, installing instead an interim government led by Laisenia Qarase as interim Prime Minister. 

Though Mr. Qarase later won an election, legitimising his leadership in the eyes of much of the international community, his government’s track record in pursuing justice for the victims of the coup-related events and in maintaining equitable treatment of its two principle ethnic groups is mixed if not poor. While some of those responsible for the coup and subsequent human rights abuses – including George Speight himself, whose death sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment – have been successfully prosecuted, others have escaped with impunity. 

Such criminal investigations have proceeded against a backdrop of general favouritism on the part of the government towards indigenous Fijians. In the name of protecting indigenous rights, it has enacted legislation on economic and educational funding to benefit its supporting ethnic constituency to the detriment of the other. This has helped raise tensions further. Compounding the problem, the government has for several years stalled and obstructed court rulings that it is in violation of the Constitution, which requires that the Cabinet be multiparty (which amounts to multiethnic) in composition. After four years of litigation, they reluctantly offered the ethnic Indian opposition party its place in the Cabinet, but the offer was ultimately refused, because Mr. Qarase wanted to exclude the opposition leader and his deputy and was only willing to offer junior portfolios with no budgets. 

Recently Mr. Qarase has raised further doubts among observers about his commitment to principles of democracy and human rights by defending Fijian traditions in direct contradiction to the principle of equality. At a meeting of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association on 29 August, the Prime Minister spoke of the hierarchical nature of indigenous Fijian society and its contrast to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which affords equal rights for all. His seemingly dismissive approach to this fundamental principle serves to increase concerns about his government and the proposed Reconciliation Bill. 

What the Bill says 

The governing coalition proposed the Promotion of Reconciliation, Tolerance and Unity Bill this year ostensibly to heal past wounds and bring the nation together again. Essentially, the bill seeks to establish a commission to carry out two main evaluative procedures: processing applications for victims’ reparations, and processing applications for perpetrators’ amnesties. 

The preamble of the bill indicates sympathy towards the coup plotters and the politics of indigenous Fijian nationalism, although the bill is supposed to promote “effective reconciliation amongst the people of the Fiji Islands following the political and civil unrest and events of 2000.” This is despite the fact that within those events perpetrators of abuses were primarily indigenous Fijians, and that victims were primarily people of Indian ethnicity. In part 4 of the preamble, for example, the bill posits that the coup of 2000 is explained by “a belief among the indigenous Fijians that the 1970 and 1997 Constitutions were inadequate effectively to protect and preserve their rights and interests, their values, traditions, customs, way of life and economic well-being.” Nothing is said specifically of Fijians of Indian descent or the actual rather than perceived violations of those victims’ rights. 

In the most contested and damaging portion of the bill, that on applications for amnesty, it is stated that a person may receive amnesty for a crime or civil wrong committed in connection with the coup if he or she can satisfy the Commission that the act was committed with a “political objective,” rather a criminal one. Furthermore, any civil or criminal proceedings before a court concerning the act may be suspended while the application for amnesty is pending. People already convicted and imprisoned will, if granted amnesty, “be released from prison forthwith and on a warrant issued by the President” and have their convictions erased. This means that the coup instigators and high-profile participants – many with close links to the current government – are likely to be freed without further consequence. 

Implications of the bill 

Although selective amnesty for some who have violated human rights has been internationally supported as a solution to settling conflicts in other specific contexts, the Fiji situation does not meet the established international requirements for the application of such a solution, nor does the bill adhere to the standards of UN truth and reconciliation commissions. It fails to meet three basic principles: 1) consultation with victims at each stage; 2) crimes and violations of human rights were perpetrated by both sides of the conflict; 3) an impartial and independent commission is set up, with powers of investigation and amnesty separated. 

Democratic governance requires that victims have the right to seek legal redress for crimes committed against them. It also requires a functional and independent judiciary. By taking justice out of the hands of courts – and into the hands of the executive branch through the appointment of a few unelected officials – the rule of law is wholly undermined. Opposition political parties, the Fiji Law Society, business leaders and non-government organisations in Fiji are opposing the bill for this reason. The police and military have also expressed opposition to the bill on this basis, stating that it threatens their ability to maintain law and order. 

The amnesty clause would set an unfortunate precedent, both internally and externally. As Mr Chaudhry’s overthrown government was fairly elected, it further subverts principles of democracy by failing to condemn the coup plotters, and will therefore likely encourage the continuation of a “coup culture” in Fiji. The Reconciliation Bill has generated strong opposition within the Indo-Fijian population, and its passage will inevitably lead to further distrust and inter-ethnic tensions, precisely the opposite of its purpose. 

In light of these consequences, the Indian government should take the opportunity to put pressure on Prime Minister Qarase to amend or strike out the amnesty clause of the Reconciliation Bill. The Indian government is in a unique position to improve the plight of nearly half of Fiji’s population, through the improvement of bilateral relations and the application of international pressure alike. This legislation amounts to a second victimisation of the coup victims. The international community should oppose this subversion of democracy and human rights in Fiji.

 Human Rights Features