and democracy

Fiji

Americans,

chickens

and democracy

The Fiji Times newspaper has attacked the US embassy in Suva for agreeing to a racially discriminatory trade agree ment with the Fiji Government. Under the agreement, only indigenous Fijians will be allowed to import and sell chick en from the United States.

In a sharply worded editorial , The Fiji Times said the US is the great defender of democracy and human rights with slogans about freedom and justice, but its embassy in Suva supports economic

apartheid.

It said Fiji’s Indian, Asian and European traders will not have access to the cheaper US product and will suffer as a result.

The Fiji Times said the US has set high ideals for itself and it is sad to see those ideals sold down the river for the price of a few chicken. On the Fiji government, the newspaper says it has “a habit of kicking the teeth of any Fiji citizen who does not happen to have indigenous blood lines” and urged it to come up with a better scheme “to enhance the busi ness prospects of indigenous Fijians without making half the country feel like

lepers”

Twenty days later Fiji’s Information Minister said editorials like this threat ened the sovereignty of the country,

the only foreign owned and indepen

dent media in the country should sell 51 percent shares to locals. This utterance attracted a flood of criticisms from the

general public and political parties who

said was trying to gag the media. a a n

Watch waste

and pollution

Problems caused by waste disposal and pollution in thq Pacific islands are such that waste management has become priority environmental issue for the region, a workshop was told in Suva on November 16.

University of the South Pacific vice chancellor Esekia Solofa was speaking at the opening of a hazardous Waste

and Water Quality Workshop.

Solofa said the environment was increasingly being threatened by the lack of adequate environmental con trols.

He said development and industrialisa tion in Fiji had been allowed to progress without adequate waste-management and pollution prevention programmes being put in place.

This resulted in significant degradation of the coastal environment occurring where most of the development was based.Solofa said there was a need for effective waste management strategies in every country in the South Pacific. n n n

Mild Budget

violent response

Fiji’s Finance Minister Serenade Vunibobo has tabled what he described as “a mild Budget” in thr sum of $827.8 million.

However, the reaction to the Budget was far from mild as public sector unions threatened to call a nation wide strike if government failed to implement a Job Evaluiation Exercise which recom mends higher salaries for civil servants.

Vunibobo said the report would cost government S6B million and this was something the country could not afford without burdening the people with heav ier taxes.

Vunibobo expressed concern that the

deficit stood at $62 million, or 2.5 per cent of the gross domestic

product(GDP).

Gross expenditure for 1995 was esti mated at $827.8 million, compared to a forecast of $832.1 million in 1994.

Revenue in 1995 was forecast at $693.8 million. Vunibobo warned that Fiji’s dependence on sugar and tourism must lessen and Fiji should broaden its export base.

After the Budget was tabled, about 500

public servants in Fiji unanimously

voted in favour of holding a nation-wide strike to protest against what they call draconian measures to kill the trade union movement.