FIJI: dealing with a broken state: John Tonkin-Covell urges a more nuanced approach to the situation in Fiji.

• Author: Tonkin-Covell, John

The enveloping international economic crisis is absorbing the attention of governments around the world. Where matters will head remains unclear. The South Pacific was a region beset with difficulties that predated the global economic turmoil, and the issues surrounding the present situation and the future of Fiji comprise a significant clutch of challenges for the region. Economically fragile for a long time now, Fiji is a broken state, but not a failed state. The interim government of Fiji set up by the Republic of Fiji Military Forces is attempting to work towards a new political arrangement for the return of civilian political rule in what is conceptually a modern democratic state. Whether that government will be successful depends not merely on what occurs in Fiji but also on the actions of outside powers, close at hand and farther away.

The strategic significance of Fiji is geographical, for its central location in the South Pacific is important, and its population is larger than those of a number of its immediate neighbours. It is a large Pacific Islands state, and has influence locally beyond what may be perceived further afield. Of the five southern Pacific nations with defence forces (Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Tonga and Fiji), the RFMF is the third most effective operationally. This can be measured by its continuing role in peacekeeping in the Middle East and elsewhere. Fiji has large attractive maritime estates, airports and a deep water harbour. It is also a node for trans-Pacific cable communications.

What has been the strategic effect of the policies of disapproval of the metropolitan powers from 1987 to 2009? Sanctions have fluctuated over the period, and have wound up in intensity from time to time, notably in 1987, in 2000 and 2001 and from 2006 onwards. Essentially involving the severing of selected linkages, they have had the cumulative effect of compelling successive Fijian governments to look elsewhere. In the long run, they have also had the potential to further radicalise the officer corps of the RFMF, which has been constantly under strain since 2000. How far the officer corps has gone in this direction remains to be seen. It has to be said that the overall 'push-away'/'tell what to do' thrust at key moments was bound to be counter-productive with Fijian administrations, and particularly so with the RFMF's officer corps. Fijians do not react well to being pushed around, and military officers, who are...