Fears in Fiji that inquiry could

Royal Commission

Fears in Fiji that inquiry could lead to new race tensions

The general election in Fiji last year re-opened divisions between ethnic Fijians and members of the numerically dominant Indian community. The drama is now being laboriously reconstructed in a specially-built wooden hut in Suva. ROBERT KEITH-REID tells the story of the Royal Commission which is inquiring into the election.

A Royal Commission of Inquiry in Fiji is investigating campaign methods used by the Alliance Party and by the National Feder ation Party at last year’s general election. The Alliance, led by Prime Minister Ratu Sir Kamis ese Mara, narrowly retained of fice in the face of a determined challenge from the NFP in par

liamentary opposition.

The bulk of evidence from the first three weeks of the hearing has been a tedious repetition of details already widely pub licised. The evidence recounts what has become known as the Carroll Report affair, involving a report on political tactics. A pro minent member of the Alliance allegedly commissioned the re port from an Australian consul tant, Alan Carroll.

The NFP claims that the Al liance hired Australian and American business and political consultants to devise a master election plan exploiting race ten sions between ethnic Indians and ethnic Fijians. Bribery, character assassination and similar tactics were involved, the NFP claims.

The Alliance, for its part, claims that the NFP was in collusion with leftist Australian elements to smear the ruling alliance on the eve of the election. It also alleges that the Alliance accepted campaign money from Russia on

the undertaking of granting

favors to Moscow if re-elected.

The Alliance claims that a television team from the Aust ralian Broadcasting Commission used documents obtained illicitly from the prime minister’s depart ment to produce a deliberately biased report of the Carroll af fair. The former Indian High Commissioner to Fiji, Mrs Soonu Kochar, is alleged to have constantly interfered in Fiji inter nal affairs and her husband is alleged to have been part of the claimed link with Russia.

Sir John White, a retired judge of the New Zealand Supreme

Court, is hearing the inquiry as a single commissioner. But as the hearing went into May, with 23 days of evidence already trans cribed, there was a growing

public reaction questioning

where the inquiry would lead.

There were also fears that the detailed raking up of incidents from a bitter election campaign would serve only to rekindle sus picions and tensions. Another possible effect would be to delay any moves towards inter-party co-operation on a higher level.

Since last year’s election Prime Minister Ratu Mara has made a tentative approach to the opposition to reconsider the of ten-mooted “government of na tional unity.” The opposition has

not flatly rejected the approach,

but clearly there can be few developments while the present inquiry drags on.

The Prime Minister’s appear

out manipulation and fraud re ferred to the NFP’s involvement in publicity about the report.

After the Australian Broadcast ing Commission had made a film about the Carroll Report the NFP had distributed 300 video tapes of the program in an attempt to discredit the Alliance.

The video program and an article published in the Aust ralian National Times inferred that big business and foreign

manipulation were entering the

Fiji political scene to bolster Ratu Mara’s Alliance Party. The program alleged that an Aust

ralian journalist, Clive Speed,

formerly of the Australian Broadcasting Commission, had been hired with Australian aid funds ostensibly as a public ser vice information officer but actu ally as an Alliance Party pro

paganda man.

Ratu Mara spent four days in the witness box and strongly de-

Campaign frauds alleged

ance in the witness box created wide public interest. In his evi dence Ratu Mara attacked the Opposition Leader, Mr Jai Ram

Reddy, and Sir Vijay Singh for

their part in the NFP campaign developments. He accused them of deliberate fraud and manipula tion in their campaign strategies.

Ratu Mara agreed that the Car roll report had been commis sioned from within his party, but he denied that its “repugnant” sections had been used to shape election tactics. His remarks ab

nied the allegations of improper election tactics. He said that Speed had been appointed on Carroll’s recommendation “in a sense” and that Speed’s salary had been paid by Australia.

Ratu Mara said that the Al liance Party as such had not commissioned the Carroll Re port. The report, formerly titled Strategic Issues Facing the Fiji Government, had emerged from a loose arrangement involving himself as party leader, Mr Mahendra Patel of Suva and Mr

Carroll. Mr Patel is an influential Fiji businessman and an official of the Alliance Party.

In any event, Ratu Mara said, the report had not been circulated among members of the party, it had remained locked in his safe throughout the election, he had not bothered to read its “repug nant” parts, and to this day he was ignorant of the meaning of some of the terms used. The terms included such words as “toecutter” and “stroking.”

Only a handful of Alliance Party officials had ever heard of Carroll and members of his team “until this monstrous lie sur faced on the very eve of the election that these outsiders had planned and were directing the Alliance campaign.” Ratu Mara also claimed that television interviewers had attempted to trick him in the train of events which followed. He said he had met Carroll through Mahendra Patel and had been impressed by the Australian’s grasp of the in ternational economic situation.

When Patel had offered Carroll’s services free to the Alliance he had, as a Fijian chief, felt unable to refuse.

Opposition Leader Jai Ram Reddy followed Ratu Mara into the witness box and strongly de nied that his NFP had col laborated with the Australian media to bring down the Alliance Party. He described allegations of this nature as utterly false and mischievous. He believed that some of the strategies advocated in the Carroll report were being implemented by the alliance dur ing the election.

A vital part of the inquiry involves the circumstances which made the contents of the Carroll Report available to the media. Evidence alleged that Rosemary Gillespie, a research assistant in the Carroll team, had become annoyed over an issue relating to the work she was

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attempting to do. She had gone to the television people showing them documents she alleged had come from the Secretary to Cabinet, DrTsireli Lasaqa. Ques tioned in the witness box Lasaqa denied this. All he had made available, he said, were papers relating to public opinion polling.

Ratu Osea Gavidi, leader of the pro-NFP minority party Western United Front, claimed that a plan to have him convicted of criminal offences had been part of the Carroll recommenda tions and that the Alliance had accepted this. Despite this situa tion he believed the inquiry should be abandoned before it did irreparable harm to Fiji race relations.

Ratu Gavidi said the inquiry suffered from the inbuilt disabili ty that much vital evidence could be obtained only from non resident foreigners people who could not be forced to travel to Fiji to give evidence.

Lawyers representing the Al liance and the NFP have agreed on 11 major issues for investiga tion and about the same number of subsidiary issues. The three

major issues involved in the early stages of the hearing concerned whether the Alliance had com missioned the Carroll report, whether any of the Carroll re commendations were implement ed and whether Clive Speed was hired to help the election cam paign. The inquiry has now turn ed to the issues involved in the making of the television prog ram, the involvement of Rose mary Gillespie and the allega tions of Soviet financial aid to the NFP and its supporters.

Many of the political leaders who have already given evidence are likely to be recalled in the months ahead as the inquiry moves from one issue to another.

Clive Speed and Rosemary Gil lespie are two foreigners who have indicated a willingness to give evidence if their costs are paid. But it appears unlikely that Alan Carroll and other central figures in the story will appear, and the overall value of the pro ceedings has become very much a matter of public conjecture.

Robert Keith-Reid in Suva.