racial lute

Rift in the racial lute

From a Suva correspondent Last month Fiji’s governing Alliance Party MPs took the serious step of expelling one of their mem bers from the group—Sakiasi Buta droka, until recently Assistant Minister for Commerce, Industry and Co-operatives.

When the Prime Minister, Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara, asked him to resign from this post, he declined to do so, and was removed from office by the Governor-General, Ratu Sir George Cakobau, acting, as is constitutionally required in such cases, at the request of the Prime Minister.

Mr Butadroka moved without fuss, but without any sign of repentance or regret, to a back bench in parlia ment, and is now officially an inde pendent. It is probable, however, that on most occasions he will usually vote with the government.

It is unlikely that he will align himself with the predominantly Indian Opposition, the National Federation Party, because his Alliance expulsion was due to the fervency with which he believes that Indians in Fiji are being favoured at the expense of Fijians.

Mr Butadroka is an extremely earnest young man. Nobody who knows him can doubt his deep sin cerity or his honesty of purpose. But his single-mindedness borders on fanaticism, and affects his political judgment. It shows dangerous signs of turning into racism. His basic contention —that Fijians are lagging behind in educational achievement and therefore suffer in competition for jobs and in the economic race— is widely acknowledged.

Education Department reports have repeatedly drawn attention to the gap between the numbers of Fijian and Indian scholarship winners, secondary school and university entrants, higher education examination passes, and degrees and professional certificates gained.

" In a notable report at the end of his term as Public Service Com mission head, Mr P. D. Macdonald showed how large a proportion of senior civil service jobs were going to Indians because of superior qualifi cations.

The government produced a plan, bold in concept but sparse in details, to train Fijians for top jobs in in dustry and commerce. It has become bogged down in a parliamentary com mittee to which it was referred.

The highly - successful nation -

building achievements of the Prime Minister have been based on a policy of dialogue and of negotiation rather than confrontation. Butadroka and his supporters argue that eagerness to reach agreement through discussion has too frequently resulted in a give in, with Fijian interests sacrificed.

The final Butadroka row stemmed from a by-election in which Mr Mosese Qionibaravi won the Suva East National (voters of all races) seat for the Alliance by a majority smaller than that gained by the late Ratu Sir Edward Cakobau.

Various reasons can be produced for the majority drop. The govern ment was blamed for inflation, and suffered from ineffectiveness and shortcomings in the prices and in comes policy to counter inflation.

The poll was small, as is usual in by elections. Many people on the roll had moved away from their former homes. There was strongly organised personal support for the Opposition candidate, Rewa woman of chiefly rank, Ro Asela Rogavatu. This was especially evident among Fijians from Rewa province who would naturally vote Alliance but were aggrieved be cause a Rewa man, Tomasi Vakatora, had been defeated in the pre-election ballot for the Alliance candidate.

Mr Butadroka gave a more sim plistic, and politically naive, explana tion. “Most Fijian supporters,” of the Alliance in the whole constituency, he said, had voted for Ro Asela—a contention which the election figures clearly did not justify.

He pointed to the unfulfilled promise of the institute scheme and the failure to create a special section for Fijians in the Development Bank as examples of the government’s neglect of Fijian interests.

The by-election gave the Prime Minister and the government a chance to reconsider their policies, Mr Butadroka said. MPs should not be “so satisfied with houses and chauffeur-driven cars that they forget the people who voted them into par liament”.

Mr Butadroka said all this in a statement to The Fiji Times. The newspaper referred the statement to the Prime Minister for comment. The events that followed ended in his sacking.

There has been talk of his forming a new, exclusively Fijian party but the prospects of an effective challenge to the Alliance from such a source are remote. What does seem certain is that Mr Butadroka will remain a mouthpiece of Fijian frustration until it can be shown that clear and vigorous steps are being taken to cor rect the imbalance on which that frustration is based.