Fiji PM Bainimarama Ease Up His Stand on New Zealand & Australia Featured
Fiji Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama
Fiji's Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama has backed down on his refusal for the country to participate in the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF), but says he will not personally attend meetings until the "undue influence" of Australia and New Zealand is addressed.
The intergovernmental forum suspended Fiji in 2009 for failing to return the country to democracy after a Bainimarama-led 2006 coup. After last year's democratic election, which brought Mr Bainimarama's Fiji First party to power, PIF lifted the ban.
But Mr Bainimarama said Fiji would not renew its membership unless Australia and New Zealand were expelled as members, as he believed the forum no longer served the interests of all Pacific Islanders.
The prime minister announced the change to his policy at a meeting to formalise his alternative group, the Pacific Islands Development Forum (PIDF).
"We will continue to participate in all forum activities at the public service, technical and ministerial levels," he said.
"As head of government, I will not participate in any forum leader's meeting until the issue of the undue influence of Australia and New Zealand and our divergence of views is addressed."
He said Australia and New Zealand, PIF's major funders, are not island nations, but "more development partners". Australia in particular, he said, was at odds with what he called "the biggest threat to our security" - rising sea levels caused by climate change. "Rather than side with us, Australia in particular is siding with what I call the coalition of the selfish," he said.
"Those industrialised nations which are putting the welfare of their carbon polluting industries and their workers before our welfare and survival as Pacific Islanders." Mr Bainimarama said his refusal to participate was not based on any lingering indignation over Fiji being suspended from the forum in the wake of the 2006 coup.
"This is not some ill-considered position based on resentment against Australia and New Zealand for their punitive attitude towards our reform program that produced the first genuine democracy in Fijian history," he said.
In April New Zealand prime minister John Key told a New Zealand radio station that criticisms of the forum were just Mr Bainimarama "mouthing off".
"This is not me 'mouthing off', as the New Zealand prime minister so condescendingly put it," Mr Bainimarama said.
Australia and New Zealand have the biggest populations and economies of the 16 PIF member states. A Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade spokeswoman told the ABC that Australia welcomed Fiji's participation "in regional organisations, including the PIF." "It has an important role to play in the region," she said.
"We will continue to work with all regional countries with a view to strengthening regional cooperation in the pursuit of a stable, secure and prosperous region."
Source: Radio Australia
