Persona non grata: Winston Peters launches a book by the late Michael Green, the former high commissioner in Suva.

• Author: Peters, Winston
• Position: BOOK LAUNCH - Excerpt

It is probably no secret that being a foreign minister is one of the most challenging and exciting roles in politics. The position was also an enjoyable and rewarding one. There were many reasons why that was so. But a part of it was the experience of working with a highly talented, experienced and committed group of New Zealand diplomats--people like Mike Green. He was a man of great integrity, the epitome of the quiet, highly intelligent, vastly experienced and dedicated public servant that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade has produced for most of its distinguished history, and which has served New Zealand so well.

One can only hope that the disastrous restructuring of the ministry we have seen unfold in the last couple of years does not permanently cripple what until now has been one of our finest institutions of state--on behalf of which it was a privilege to lead a successful campaign for much greater resources and a significantly extended reach.

Let us be clear, too, that there was never any justification for Mike Green's expulsion from Fiji--a point on which then Prime Minister Helen Clark agreed, and made very clear, at that time. He always enjoyed the fullest confidence of the New Zealand government.

Personally, Bainimarama and others in Fiji misread us. They probably expected that over time we would revert to business as usual--as indeed had happened in respect of the earlier coups beginning in 1987. But we did not and rightly so.

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In particular the smart sanctions--the travel restrictions--that we put in place in early 2007 had a real impact. They were directed at the proponents of the coup and they have hurt.

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It is clear that Mike Green's expulsion had a lot to do with the coup leader's frustration that we were not about to just sit back and timidly accept what had been done, particularly after we had gone to so much effort for the coup not to happen.

That frustration festered away over many months and was a major contributing factor to the illogical and unreasonable decision to throw our high commissioner to Fiji, Mike Green, out of the country. As sombre as it is, it nevertheless remains important that the major elements of those smart sanctions remain in place. And they should stay in place until we get irreversible action to restore democracy, decency, the rule of law and fundamental human rights, all of which have been serious victims of the regime. That means action not...