Letters

Be Prepared

Stuck away in your July “Transitions” page was a piece about Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara receiving SUSSO,OOO for Disaster Prevention and Preparedness in Fiji. Will Dr Bavadra become the recipient of next year’s award and who gets to share the prize money with Mara this year.

Diana Rickard

Casuarina, NT, Australia

Success For New Palau Fish Co-Op

Since early in the American Trustee ship, the fishermen of Palau have formed themselves into co-operatives.

The latest group to carry on the fishing co-operative enterprise is the Palau Fish ermen’s Association (PFA). The group is comprised of fishermen from all over Be lau. Each location in Belau has a repre sentative which is chosen from among its members, and this group forms the board for the PFA. They set the prices and make the policies at their regular meetings.

What is especially impressive about this current management is that it is able to send fish to Guam on a fairly regular basis.

This not only is a delight for Guam con sumers, but for the Palauan fishermen as well. Each day there are about 10 boats bringing in about 1000 kilos of fish to the cooperative for purchase.

When the fishermen come in with their catch, shoppers can find easily up to 10 va rieties of reef fish as well as the deeper water varieties. Trading is lively and one has to get there early to get the finest selection.

During recent times when Palau has been politically unsettled and suffering a considerable economic pinch as a result of US Compact monies being withheld until the problems are straightened out, it is re assuring to see that the business of fishing and of providing fish for the households of Palau continues successfully, much as it always has.

Dirk Anthony Ballendorf

Micronesian Area Research Centre, University of Guam, Mangilao, Guam.

Fiji Myths Exploded

The motives behind the Fiji coup will be debated for years, but it is already pos sible to explode some myths which have emerged around it. For instance, it was not a military coup but a political coup in which Col. Rabuka became the hired gun of a band of defeated politicians desperate for power. Rabuka was the only soldier on his own Council of Ministers which was dominated by members of the Mara ad ministration. The unseemly haste with which they embraced the coup left the world stunned.

The coup was not engineered to pre empt a breakdown of law and order. Some

Fijian leaders, such as Taniela Veitata, re portedly planned to burn Suva and torch Indian settlements surrounding it. But in stead of apprehending the would-be ar sonists as an officer in Her Majesty’s armed forces, Rabuka not only joined them but also rewarded them with posi tions on his Council.

And the coup was not about protecting Fijian land and customary rights, for these are too deeply entrenched in the consti tution to be changed, even by Fijians themselves, without the consent of six of the eight Great Council of Chiefs nomi nees in the Fiji Senate.

More than anything else, the coup was about power. The emergence in an incip ient form of class-based multi-racial poli tics, symbolised by the Labour Party, and made possible by the support of many ur ban Fijians, posed a grave threat to the politics of race and racial compartmen talisation preached by the Alliance, and thus had to be nipped in the bud.

The ascent of Dr Bavadra, a chief from the long-neglected western Viti Levu, to the highest elected office in the land, posed an unprecedented challenge to the tradi tional dominance of eastern chiefs, espe cially from Lau and Cakaundrove.

The high chiefs felt particularly ag grieved at Labour’s victory and what it represented. Never ardent supporters of the principles of political pluralism and of checks and balances inherent in the West minster system of parliamentary democ racy practised in Fiji, they voiced their opposition to them on several occasions.

The Labour Government talked of promoting balanced regional develop ment, and criticised Lau, Mara’s prov ince, for deriving a disproportionate share of benefits “from wealth produced by oth ers in the country”. The Bavadra Govern ment proposed an anti-corruption bill, and heat was felt by many Alliance politicians who had benefitted from fudging the line between business and politics. It talked of openness and accountability in national affairs, which contrasted sharply with the Alliance’s policy.

There can be little doubt about what the coup has done to Fiji. It’s wrecked a once prosperous economy now teetering on the brink of collapse brought about by a flight of capital and trained manpower and van ished investor confidence; torn the fabric of race relations built over a century; de stroyed the fragile edifice of democratic institutions still in their infancy.

Brij V Lai

Dept of History University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, Hawaii For a further view ofthe Fiji coup, turn to Forum, page 48.