Vol. 71/No. 31      September 3, 2007

The two imperialist governments are stepping up pressure on the administration of Voreqe Bainimarama, who led the military overthrow of Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase last December.

At the same time, the Fiji government has faced union protests by nurses and other public employees demanding an end to wage cuts imposed in March.

Along with the official sanctions, government officials in New Zealand and Australia have issued repeated warnings against travel to the island nation. This has placed pressure on earnings from tourism and added to Fiji’s economic crisis.

Posing as champions of “restoring democracy” in Fiji, the imperialist rulers of Australia and New Zealand are pressing to reassert their influence and reimpose stability in a country marked by political upheaval for two decades.

Right-wing forces have carried out several coups in Fiji, two in 1987, led by Brigadier Sitiveni Rabuka, and one in 2000, led by businessmen George Speight. These were directed against Labour Party-led governments, opposing their stance in favor of racial equality. The leaders of those coups blamed the country’s social problems on Indo-Fijians—descendants of indentured workers brought from India by the British colonialists to work the sugar plantations between 1879 and 1916.

The 2000 coup developed into a long-running stalemate, which ended when military chief Bainimarama moved against both the Labour government and the rightists led by Speight who had taken government leaders hostage. Later that year Bainimarama installed Qarase as prime minister.

The two leaders were quickly at odds. When Qarase pushed ahead with controversial measures, including a bill to give amnesty to leaders of the 2000 coup, Bainimarama carried out his military takeover.

The military leader insists his government is on a different course from those who led the 1987 and 2000 coups. In speeches he has attacked the racially based electoral system, skewed toward privilege for the chiefs and against Indo-Fijians. He has pledged to make Fiji more friendly to businessmen and clean out corruption associated with the previous regime.

Such positions have won some sympathy from many Fijian working people, especially Indo-Fijians.

The new government’s actions have exposed the divisions among ruling-class forces in Fiji. When the Great Council of Chiefs refused to recognize the interim government in April, Bainimarama withdrew its funding and closed its offices. Chiefs in Ba, a province in the more developed western region, then declared their support for the government. The government reinstated the council in early August.

Since the takeover, soldiers and police have been accused of killing three people, roughing up political opponents, and suspending the travel rights of others. Fiji’s Pacific magazine reported July 20 that the previous day “the military and police carried out a full-scale crowd control and riot drill” in Suva, the capital.

Despite this threatening move, more than 1,000 members of the Fiji Nursing Association stopped work July 24, demanding an end to a 5 percent wage cut on public employees. With teachers and other government employees walking out August 2, a total of about 14,000 workers were on strike.

A couple of days later, the teachers returned to work. The nurses returned to work August 10, after the government refused to improve its offer of a 1 percent wage increase. Another labor organization, the Fiji Trade Union Congress, had earlier accepted the same offer.  
 
 
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