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Letter to the General Secretary of the Forum Secretariat |
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Written by admin
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Thursday, 12 February 2009 |
The Ecumenical Centre for Research, Education and Advocacy (ECREA) would like to add its voice to that of Rev. Akuila Yabaki of the Citizen’s Constitutional Forum (CCF) in expressing sadness at the limited outcome of the recent meeting of the Forum Foreign Affairs Ministers in New Zealand.
As represented to us by our media, the Ministers attending the meeting seemed to be almost obsessed with the urgent need of getting Fiji to have elections by March 2009 and installing a so-called “democratically elected government” according to Fiji’s Constitution. There seemed to be no realistic appreciation of the need to address the very important problems underlying Fiji’s situation on the part of the Ministers.
Any suggestion that these problems would best be addressed by a “democratically elected” government overlooks the extremely important point that the current racially based electoral system is itself one of the problems. Consequently, as Rev. Akuila Yabaki says, “the international community needs to have a positive attitude and involvement in the process of shaping a new multi-ethnic democratic system in Fiji”. They should be backing a reform of Fiji’s electoral system and supporting the People’s Charter process.
If our media properly represented the discussions at the Minister’s Meeting then we are very sad and disappointed at the superficial level of the Ministers’ understanding of Fiji’s situation and the simplistic solution they are offering.
It seemed also that the members attending the meeting had been biased against the People’s Charter and failed to appreciate that its purpose is to take a serious look at Fiji’s underlying problems and search for a vision that will guide the nation to a more authentic form of democracy. The excuse that the Charter is faulty because the SDL Party and the Methodist Church have rejected it (and they represent the majority of Fijians) fails to appreciate that the extreme nationalism promoted by the leaders of both these groups is one of Fiji’s biggest current problems. Moreover it is the current leadership of these entities which has rejected the Charter and not the ordinary members of the Methodist Church or the SDL Party (many of who support the Charter and are involved in the Working Groups involved in the Charter or in various associated discussion groups).
So we are sad and disturbed that those attending the New Zealand Meeting were not better informed and we wonder who was responsible for providing them with such limited and perhaps biased information. It seems to us that the members of the International community have consistently received biased information about Fiji’s situation and are guided by a very narrow interpretation of what “democracy” demands.
This also calls into question the quality, depth and reliability of the information and advice being given to their various country governments by the Forum Secretariat as well as the various High Commissions and Embassies operating in Fiji.
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