Rabuka’s Dream

Cover Stories

The Indians don’t trust me.

I can say to them that they’ve seen my worst, they haven’t seen my best.

Major General Sitiveni Rabuka speaks frankly

about his hope for the future: Why do you want to be Prime Minister?

Rabuka: To fulfil my objectives and my promises of 1987. My objective was the firming up of the Fijians as the true owners of this country, and that we should run it politically, economically and socially. At the same time we must be true to our nature and our character and remain very good hosts and look after the guests in our country. My promise was to look after the guests, the non-Fijians.

When do you anticipate being Prime Minister, before or after the new elections?

Rabuka: It will have to be after the elections because we have a Prime Minister now and it will depend on whether I meet the criteria put in the new constitution, that is it’s got to be the Fijian who commands the support of the majority of the Fijians in the House. It will depend on whether I meet that criteria or not.

Do you see any problems in getting through Parlia ment?

Rabuka: No, well, I just have to take my chances. If I’m in, I’m in, otherwise even the first step of becom ing Prime Minister will not be taken.

What are your chances?

Rabuka: Very slim.

On a rating of I to 10?

Rabuka: On a rating of 1 to 10 I’d say . . . considering those who might be run ning also ... I’d like to consider that . . . about even. Even chance.

If you were Prime Minister, what kind of government would you have?

Rabuka: I would like to have a govern ment of national reconstruction. First we look at what Fiji needs first: You won your seat on these policies, we won our seats on these platform and policies, you have extreme left views we have extreme right views. Let’s forget about those ex tremities and let’s work on this sort of grey areas in our policies where they sort of merge. That’s where we run Fiji for the next five years.

Are the Indians afraid you might actually become the next Prime Minister?

Rabuka: Oh yes, they are concerned because they don’t trust me. I can say to them that they have seen my worst, they haven’t seen my best. It’s up to them to either trust me or they don’t. I have made them a promise, on the 14th of May 1987, and I don’t want anybody coming in and ruining that promise. I’ve got to be there in order to carry that promise through that I’ll look after them. All I can say now is that whatever we do it has to be legal.

If you became Prime Minister, would it be the beginning of commoner Fijians assuming national leadership roles?

Rabuka: It could be seen as that de pending on what policy we decide to emphasise during the time a commoner

Asaeli Lave

New order: President Ganilau and Major General Rabuka in Suva.

is running the show. If in that time we groom chiefly Fijians to adopt more active attitude towards national leadership roles, it could be temporary. It depends on the chiefs, the young chiefs. If they want to step into the vacuum left when their Ratus (fathers) depart the scene, then the have to work hard.

There are not many chiefs today with the qualifications for national leadership Rabuka: Well, the two chiefs (President Ratu Sir Penaia Ganilau and Prime Minister Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara), might think I’m insubordinate in my views, but a certain Indian writer mentioned something about a Baka tree. The Baka tree looks really healthy, big and green when you look at it. When you look under the Baka tree you don’t see anything growing.

Perhaps that’s what’s happening. When you have very strong personalities like the two chiefs, perhaps it’s very difficult for the young chiefs to grow up from underneath.

Should they step aside after the elections to make way for a new generation?

Rabuka: Stepping aside might be the term we can use, but they will not be disappearing from the scene. I believe they will be active right through to their very last days. Even for them just being there will help moderate.

Are you worried about your safety?

Rabuka: No, I’m not worried about it. Why should I worry about my own security?

How can you stop a third coup if you are no longer in control of the army?

Rabuka: I can’t. I can’t.

Are you putting in measures that might stop a third coup?

Rabuka: Not necessarily. I can guarantee that there will not be a third coup as long as I stay in the army. But out of it I cannot guarantee that.

It’s up to the next man?

Rabuka: That’s right.

Who will be the next man?

Rabuka: The next man will have to be picked from the cadre of senior officers who are in the army, those who are out there and might be recalled or the Fiji Military Forces might decide to bring in somebody from outside. We’ve done it in the past. We brought in two retired New Zealand officers to command but this time we also have material here.

If you were Prime Minister would you prefer an expatriate to command?

Rabuka: I think I have programmed the current local offic ers to take over and it would be a show of no confidence in their capability and ability if I preferred an expatriate. I would rather see one of our own chaps taking over.

What do you see for Fiji in the 90s and what role do you see yourself playing?

Rabuka: Whether it’s in Parliament or out I’ll still like to be active. The biggest role that I’d like to play is to get out there and motivate the Fijians into working hard for their own country. One thing I’d like to see is a drop in the crime rate.

How can we do that? When I look at the prison population I see that a lot of Fijians are in there, more than 70 per cent of the inmates are Fijians. Why is that? The authorities in prison say it’s because most of us cannot afford lawyers, some of us

cannot pay fines, so we go in.

Are you happy with the government?

Rabuka: So far, yes. There are certain areas which I wished they would be sympathetic to the Fijians in but they are also treading cautiously, not being a representative government.

They are trying to administer the affairs of the nation as responsibly as they can. They have done that. They have come under a lot of criticism from both sides. The Fijians have criticised them for not being pro-Fijian and the Indians have criticised them for not being pro-Indian. For a government such as this, when they are criticised from both sides, they can rest assured that they are doing well.

When do you prefer elections held?

Rabuka: I’ve heard the Prime Minister say 1991 but my view is that it shouldn t be until 1992 and I think we should vote according to the provinces, you see the numbers are up and down in some cases. For example Ba will have three seats in Parliament, but those three will be voted in by all Fijians in Ba.

They belong to Ba in the Vola Ni Kawa Bula (Fijian Registry) of Ba and they will be voted in by approximately 40,000 Fijians Hying in Ba. In the urban areas of Ba we have about 13,000 Fijians who have to vote in another one. But that could be a Fijian from anywhere. But Lau will have three candidates voted in by only 13,000 people in Lau. I’m talking about the total population, not the voting population and the voting population will be lesser still, and they vote in three. Cakaud rove have 27,000, twice the number of people voting in Lau and we have to vote in three. Lomaiviti will have to vote in only two but they number more than Lau, 14,500. Macuata

will have to vote in only two, but they have 18,000 Fijians.

These are the disparities that now exist.

We are basing the allocation of seats on the Vola Ni Kawa Bula and not on the number of people present in each geog raphic area. If that is the case, that we base the number of representation on the Vola Ni Kawa Bula, why don’t we vote according to the Vola Ni Kawa Bula place-of-origin voting.

Every Cakaudrovean, wherever he is, votes for a chap from Cakaudrove.

That’s why I keep saying that for the general electors, let’s not decrease their numbers from eight to five. The Indians have argued that they need their number of seats because of their contribution to this country. What about the contribution of the Europeans, the descendants of whom make up the bulk of the general electors? Although their number is very small, their contribution in the initial stages of the development of Fiji during the colonial era and early independence justifies the maintenance of their number at eight. The other thing is that their number will be swelled. The political Fijians under the 1970 Constitution will now not be Fijians because they are not in the Vola Ni Kawa Bula. I’m talking about the descen dants of the Solomon Islanders, the Samoans, Tongans, Rabi, Kioa. In the 1970 Constitution, politically they were Fijians.

Now they go on to the general electors’ roll.

We’ve all contributed but all those contributions have been based on Fijian land.

So you are not happy with the new Constitution?

Rabuka: No, I’ve already said I’m not happy with it. But if the chiefs are happy I’ll go along with it.

What other changes did you want?

Rabuka: I wanted the Muslim seats separated from the Indi ans. They, themselves came up to the Great Council of Chiefs, they sent a petition to the Great Council of Chiefs to be

considered sympathetically.

I’d like to see that Fiji declares that the official religion of this country is Christianity. Vanuatu is doing that now. 1 think that if we declare that Christianity is the official religion then it is only right that we hear the views of the Muslims, not the Indians as a whole because we will be running things accord ing to the official religion of the country.

If we take Christianity as the official religion then we can abolish the death penalty which is currently under suspension.

Will a Coalition boycott of the elections pose any threat to your final objective of fulfilling the aims of your two military coups?

Rabuka: I don’t think it should. I think if they are responsi ble enough they will come in. I don’t think they will boycott, anyway. If the Coalition Party boycotts, that’s one party. There are Indians who are not in the Coalition and there are Fijians who are not in the Coalition.

What’s your view of Coalition Leader Adi Kuini Bavadra?

Rabuka: I was hoping that she should remain objective about the whole thing. There will come a time when a leader realises that she is no longer the leader when she puts forward her policies and they clash with the views of the group that she is leading, in which case he or she will have to step down.

If he or she does not step down then she no longer is the leader but becomes the puppet. I hope that what is coming out from her now are her views as the leader ... if they have not clashed with the views of the followers, well . . . She’s in there with them. Maybe I just don’t know her well enough.

What should she do?

Rabuka: I think rather than talk to the press and the media, she should talk to the Prime Minister and the President. The door’s open.

Has the government tried to stop you talking to the press?

Rabuka: No, I think they are just trying to be objective about their jobs. You know, the finance people are trying to portray a picture of responsible financial management, trying to por tray an image to our foreign friends, to portray the right image of what’s going on in Fiji. A lot of people are saying,

‘You are saying too much, you are defying the government.’

I’m not defying the government. The government is free to tell me to shut up and if they tell me to shut up I’ll shut up.

Until then I’ll have to express my views.

I’m not an ordinary commander. I’m not an ordinary ser vant of the government. I started the whole thing and it’s up to the government to allow me to portray to the outside world what I feel and it’s up to them to make up their own mind.

When I get up and talk it also shows the rest of the world that anybody can get up and talk in Fiji. While they’ve been saying that the press here has been gagged etc, etc, I don’t think so.

I he government is feeling the pressure from the news media here.

What is your view to the Methodist stand for a total ban on Sundays?

Rabuka: I think we should just read the Bible, more and more. I think those who are saying that Sundays should be totally banned and all these things, should read the Bible properly. I keep going back to John Chapter 24 Verse 24: God is a spirit and those who worship him should worship him in spirit and in truth. It’s not the observant of laws and rules.

Even Galatians Chapter 5 when talking about circumcision, had St Paul saying that “those among you who cause problems because of your emphasis on certain rules and regulations existing in the Church are beginning to cut up the Church, and it’s better for you to be castrated.”

There was some concern that you might have been backing the Methodist Church in its Sunday ban protests.

Rabuka: Yes, there will always be that and I cannot leave it down because they were echoing the views I expressed when I introduced the curfews and the ban after the second coup.

But what people didn’t realise was that the Sunday Ban after the second coup was part of the curfew, the control of move ment. I was also concerned about the young people who aimlessly roamed the town. But we haven’t improved. The Sunday Ban was a strategic move more than a religious move.

What developments are you planning for the army?

Rabuka: I sincerely believe in what I told a group of police men who were here to receive their medals that internal secur ity should be taken away from the army and it should be left totally with the police. We develop the police force in such a way and to such an extent that they are able to meet with any internal threat, even military threat that’s generated locally.

You mean to counter any coup?

Rabuka: Insurgency from outside. A coup will have to be conducted by the military or it could be a people’s revolution.

I he police should be able to handle that. The military should only concentrate on national defence, that is if the threat is external ... we should also continue our peace-keeping roles which we seem to be doing well now. We look out rather than inwards and we leave everything else with the police. Perhaps the idea will be to take the military away from political control and, say for example, establish a secretariat for the Army under the permanent secretary in the President’s Office, leave it in that office, but have a Cabinet minister being responsible for Cabinet matters for the Army.

I believe that if the President is picked by the Great Council of Chiefs, and I maintain that the Great Council of Chiefs is the most moderate group of Fijians that we can assemble together, and they pick a President who is suitable and he and his office run the Army then there is nothing for people to worry about, although he will be a Fijian from a racial point of view, he will be one of the best Fijians around, if not the best.

What about maritime surveillance, who should be responsible for it?

Rabuka: Maritime surveillance will have to be carried out by the Navy. We still call them the Navy, equip them as the Navy but also playing the same role as the Army a defence force rather than purely surveillance which Fiji cannot afford. The other alternative is for them to adopt a coastguard role which

will be the policing of territorial waters, the prevention of the exploitation of our Exclusive Economic Zone, smuggling of

drugs.

For this new role, do you see the Army increasing or decreas ing in size?

Rabuka: It could mean increasing if we are to go it alone. It could also mean decreasing if we are to go into defence part nership with one of the regional powers. If there is a defence treaty, we would be obliged to only have a certain unit as our contribution to this treaty and if Fiji is threatened externally this defence pact partner will come into our defence.

Are you looking at a particular country for this defence pact?

Rabuka: In this area we only have the United States and France. The United States, because of their view on the coup, will most probably not come in. That leaves France.

Will France be willing to make such a pact?

Rabuka: Countries don’t have any friends, they only have permanent interests. If it’s in the interest of France that we should solidify our relationship, so be it. It will be good for us.

They’ll help carry the burden of the security of this country.

Our critics will say ‘Why France?’ One thing I want to tell them is that the security of Fiji is very important for the region. Fiji plays a pivotal role in the Pacific, it’s strategically located and ethnically we are seen to play a very good suppor tive role to the other ethnic groups in the region. The Polyne sians and Melanesians are very well blended here in Fiji and a sizeable number of Micronesians are also living here. We are a sort of melting pot of the Pacific.

Are you seriously considering the creation of an airwing for the

Fmf?

Rabuka: We are seriously considering an airwing and we have to be seen as being independent in looking after ourselves and our resources because we have a very small Navy and they are not very properly equipped with surveill ance platforms. The best thing to do is get an aerial surveill ance capability and use the Navy as a reaction force where you find poachers, perhaps, and the Navy goes out to make the arrest.

Talk about your officer school Rabuka: It will start late in August and will involve the training of officers between the ranks of lieutenant and major and filling in the gaps left by the suspension of the military assistance programme we had with New Zealand and the de fence cooperation programme we had with Australia. Those agreements sounded good but they were built-in military train ing, there was no defence pact or anything like that. That’s what I’m hoping we will be able to get with another power in the Pacific, to have a firm defence pact. D

Fiji Indians: they don’t trust me, says Rabuka.

Talat Mehmood