Fiji party leaders' quarrel

threatens race relations

From ROBERT KEITH-REID in Suva

An old and cosy relationship between the Fiji Prime Minister, Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara, and the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Siddiq Koya, appears to have been ended.

Ratu Sir Kamisese, boss of the Alliance, the Fijian-European-Chinese and “other races” political combine that has run Fiji for 10 years has had a falling out with Mr Koya, who runs the primarily Indian-supported Op position, the National Federation Party.

Their romance ended abruptly in October amid a furore in parliament that probably did more damage to race relations in Fiji than anything since by-elections in 1968, when some stirring by the NFP nearly got some Fijians out on the warpath against Indians.

For years, despite their political differences, the two leaders have had a close working relationship. Ratu Mara has frequently taken Mr Koya into confidences that prime ministers in other countries might not care to let their opposition counterparts know.

Mr Koya has responded with a measure of co-operation from his party on several matters, mainly tied up with the sugar industry, the base of the Fiji economy.

The motive of both was that such co-operation was helpful in the cru cial task of building up good rela tions between the hotch-potch of races that make Fiji.

But Mr Koya has paid a price.

Criticism from within the NFP has been that he has been too often nice to the PM and his party when it would have been useful for the NFP if he had been nasty.

This sniping has been heard again recently during an NFP power struggle culminating in the recent resignation of one of its most res pected members, Mr Raojibhai Patel.

Word has been out that some of Mr Koya’s colleagues have been after him from behind and have been using his matey dealings with Ratu Mara as a weapon against him.

Just how much truth there is in this tale is difficult to gauge. But if it is only partly accurate, Mr Koya might well have decided that the opening of an evident rift between him and the PM might be expedient.

The rift came during a House of Representatives debate on one of the

most dangerous motions ever intro duced into it—that Fiji’s 283,000 Fiji Indians should be turfed out of the country and settled in India, which few of them have seen, at British expense.

The motion came from the House’s only independent member, Sakiasi Butadroka, founder and leader of the recently-formed Fijian National ist Party. Since he had made sure it got a lot of advance newspaper pub licity, the Alliance decided the motion would have to be debated so that it could be unanimously con demned by every other member of the house, government and opposi tion, and kicked out.

This course of action together with a counter motion from the govern ment would demonstrate to Indians that Butadroka was a one-man band whose views were of no consequence, the government reasoned.

But the debate got out of hand, sailed off on an eight-day trip never intended for it, and set up a wave of uneasiness that ran right through Fiji.

In the middle of the debate the NFP held a public meeting in Suva.

It was thought that the party was going to try to repair the damage it had suffered from the resignation from it, and from the House of Representatives of which he was Speaker as well, of Raojibhai Patel.

At the meeting in the Suva Town Hall, Mr Koya, after firing some re turn broadsides at Mr Patel, rounded suddenly on the Alliance with an accusation that was to cause another parliamentary furore.

Sections of the Alliance Party, he claimed, were planning secretly to later achieve legally what Butadroka was trying to do immediately illegally—to have Indians kicked out of Fiji.

The accusation made a newspaper banner headline next day and was seen by Ratu Mara after his return from Tarawa, where he had been mediating in the Banaban versus Gilbertese dispute over Ocean Island, its phosphate and political future.

It infuriated him, since the whole platform of the Alliance is built on

the concept of inter-racial co operation and harmony.

He entered the debate on the Buta droka motion with a special minis terial statement.

“Apart from the gravity of the charge itself, the nation will not be satisfied, even after the defeat of the motion (Butadroka’s) at present be fore the House, if there is any sub stance to the Honourable Leader of the Opposition’s allegation”, he said.

Ratu Mara gave Mr Koya until the end of the day to prove his claim or retract it.

“If he can satisfy this House that there is substantial evidence to sup port the validity of his statement then

I am quite prepared to resign from office, not only as Prime Minister but also as a Member of Parliament”, he said. “This is not an idle or irres ponsible offer”.

Mr Koya neither produced proof nor retracted. On the contrary, he shouted angrily at midnight as the House wrapped up its latest-ever sitting: “It is my, my, my observation on what I have seen”.

He challenged the government to set up a Royal Commission to check his accusation out, and promised some irrefutable evidence for it.

He went on to berate the Alliance for imagining that the Opposition Party was subservient to it.

It was nothing of the sort, he said,] and warned that, in future, relations between the two parties would not be nearly as cosy as they had been.

At a news conference after a routine cabinet meeting a few days ! later Ratu Sir Kamisese was asked what his relations with Mr Koya now were.

“Not very good”, he said, and attributed the deterioration to Mr Koya’s story about the secret plot to get Indians out.

He complained that the Opposition Leader had repeated the charge at a meeting at Nadi, again without sup porting it by a shred of evidence.

Ratu Sir Kamisese counter-charged that the NFP had broken its word by breaking an agreement to treat all sugar industry affairs at the bi partisan level of a standing parlia mentary select committee on sugar.

The NFP, which gets much of its support from sugar industry farmers and workers, was busily and harm fully making capital out of an argu ment about whether farmers should contribute to a sugar cane price in surance scheme, he said.

Mr Koya quickly hit back by call ing the only news conference that Fiji journalists can recall him hold ing.

“If they (the government) need co-operation to solve national prob lems, especially in the sugar indus try, land inflation and other consti tutional problems, then they must first realise that we are an equal partner”, he said.

The NFP would not, he declared, play second fiddle to the Alliance.

In suggesting that the NFP might have been playing a second fiddle, Mr Koya was being unfair to him self.

For the dalliance with Ratu Mara has not prevented him from assail ing the Alliance on many other issues some hardly less important than sugar.

There could be some serious con sequences for Fiji if the split be tween Ratu Mara and Mr Koya is not patched up.

An end to the dialogue between them would be the destruction of one of the most important bridges that there is across the racial chasm dividing the two chief political parties. • Fiji Finance Minister Charles Stinson has announced that his 1976 Budget “was the nicest” he had been able to produce. There are no duty or tax increases and the taxi industry has been given big licence and per mit fee reductions.