Fiji expels New Zealand and Australian diplomats (Roundup)

Nov 3, 2009, 8:16 GMT

   Wellington - Fiji's military ruler, Commodore Voreqe Bainimarama, ordered senior diplomats from New Zealand and Australia out of the country Tuesday, accusing them of waging a negative campaign against his government, which seized power in a bloodless coup nearly three years ago.

   Bainimarama, who said his Pacific island neighbours were 'engaged in a dishonest and untruthful strategy to undermine our judiciary, our independent institutions and our economy,' also ordered his country's high commissioner in Canberra home.

   Fiji's membership in the British Commonwealth and the Pacific Islands Forum has been suspended after the refusal of Bainimarama, who ousted an elected government in December 2006, to restore democracy and hold new elections.

   He defied calls by international bodies - including the United Nations and European Union, a major aid donor to the island nation of 840,000 people - to hold new polls this year, saying he would not do so until September 2014.

   Bainimarama in April revoked Fiji's 1997 constitution, sacked the country's judges and declared a state of emergency, including censorship of the media and a ban on opposition political meetings, after the Court of Appeal ruled his government illegal.

   Fiji, once the biggest island economy in the South Pacific, has suffered four coups and a military mutiny since 1987, which damaged a fragile economy dependent on tourism and sugar.

   It was the third time in three years that New Zealand's senior diplomat in the capital, Suva, has been kicked out. In 2007, then-high commissioner Michael Green was expelled, and last year, his successor, Caroline McDonald, was told to leave.

   Todd Cleaver, who was the third ranking diplomat in the mission, has now been given 24 hours to go home.

   In a televised address, Bainimarama said the senior diplomats of New Zealand and Australia were 'refusing to engage with government and engaging only with those Fijians who have a political interest in holding Fiji back.'

   Bainimarama said a judge on Fiji's High Court, Anjala Wati, had been 'harassed and humiliated by the New Zealand High Commission in Fiji when she applied for a visa on medical grounds to take her baby son to New Zealand.'

   But the New Zealand High Commission in Suva issued its own statement, saying an application for a visa on medical grounds by Wati was not rejected.

   The commission said the Wati family's passports were returned to the judge with visas attached, the Fiji Broadcasting Corp reported.

   The New Zealand Press Association said it understood Wati was in Auckland, where her child was at the Starship Childrens' Hospital.

   Bainimarama insisted that the government he ousted was corrupt and racially biased in favour of indigenous Fijians against the interests of the large ethnic Indian minority.

   He has said repeatedly that he wants to establish a new voting system giving both races equal rights before holding new elections.

   Of his critics in New Zealand and Australia, he said, 'They claim to be our friends yet on the other hand they fail to recognize the efforts that we are making in being a good international citizen. They fail to understand that we are creating a country that will be based on equal and common citizenry, a country of modern laws, a country which will have true democracy.'