The view that the Republic of Fiji Military Forces (RFMF) plays an important and necessary role as the guardian of the 2013 Constitution and as a keeper of the peace within Fiji has recently been expressed by several leading politicians.
In October, Home Affairs Minister, Pio Tikoduadua indicated some support for the RFMF Commander’s criticism of the constitutionality of the proposed cabinet reshuffle saying, “I would like to thank the Commander for the role that the RFMF and he has played in the way that we are now in terms of the security that we enjoy.”
In November, SODELPA General Secretary, Viliame Takayawa outlined his party’s support for the 2013 constitutional provision granting the RFMF the role of ensuring “the security, defence and well-being of Fiji and all Fijians”. Such claims were regularly made by politicians representing the former FijiFirst governments over 2014-2022, but now they are being made by those opposition parties that assumed office in December 2022. Some commentators, such as economist Wadan Narsey, sensibly worry that history may be repeating itself, with insufficient recognition of the negative role played by the RFMF in orchestrating coups in 1987, 2000 and 2006.
The 2013 Constitution’s rehabilitation of the 1990 provision granting the RFMF responsibility for safeguarding the ‘wellbeing’ of the Fiji people arose because of developments in the wake of the Speight coup in May 2000. Towards the middle of that decade, that earlier provision was revived by Director of Army Legal Services, Lt Colonel Mohammed Aziz, in order to justify then RFMF Commander Frank Bainimarama’s efforts to overthrow the 2001-2006 Qarase government. Constitutionally-guaranteed RFMF authority to protect the ‘well-being’ of the Fijian people could, after all, mean just about anything, but in the aftermath of the Speight coup–owing to the external and internal threat the RFMF had faced down–it came to be interpreted as giving the military carte blanche to intervene in the country’s political affairs to combat ethno-nationalism.
During those years, the RFMF often gave voice to legitimate grievances. There were concerns that the Qarase government’s flagship Reconciliation, Tolerance and Unity Bill could be used to set free the 2000 coup perpetrators and that, in the name of Indigenous rights, the Qoliqoli Bill would damage the tourism industry. Today, it is anxieties about the new government’s refusal to sign a United Nations resolution on the Israel/Gaza war and about the botched handling of the cabinet reshuffle that are the focus of RFMF attention.
Whatever the rights and wrongs of these criticisms, these need to be handled by elected authorities, not by soldiers. If the RFMF is able to build up a new coalition of support for its interventions in Fiji politics, as it did over 2005-6, it will ultimately use that legitimacy to serve its own corporate interest, as in December 2006 when it overthrew the Qarase government. The RFMF Commander, Jone Kalouniwai, is aware of these dangers. As he wrote in his book Democratic Transitions Leading to Ethnic Conflicts in Fiji, the 2006 coup–like those of 1987 and 2000-‘not only harmed political institutions, but also adversely affected Fiji’s democratic and developmental prospects’.
The Commander’s monograph, available on Amazon, derives from his 2008 dissertation submitted to the University of Madras affiliated Defence Services Staff College in Wellington, New Zealand. Influenced by the literature opposed to early post-conflict elections in Bosnia and Iraq, it is highly critical of international pressure towards ‘the immediate reinstatement of democracy’ in deeply ethnically divided polities. Major General Kalouniwai argues that “markets concentrate wealth, often spectacular wealth, in the hands of the market-dominant minority, while democracy increases the political power of the impoverished majority. In these circumstances, the pursuit of free market democracy becomes an engine of potentially catastrophic ethno-nationalism, pitting a frustrated Indigenous majority, easily aroused by opportunistic politicians, against a resented wealthy ethnic minority.” He finds evidence of such dangers in Trinidad and Tobago, Indonesia, Rwanda and East Africa, but it is obvious that Fiji, with its Fiji Indian ‘market-dominant minority’, is the primary reference point.
In his dissertation, the Commander does not explicitly argue for military control in those deeply divided countries, but he did come close to making that claim, when RFMF Chief of Staff, in an article in the Fiji Sun on 26th July 2017 in which he criticised the view “that the RFMF should remain at the side lines and watch silently … until the glass house breaks and shatters into very tiny glass pieces.” In fact, authoritarian regimes have an extremely poor record in handling ethnic cleavages, as the histories of Myanmar, Rwanda, Indonesia and Uganda show, and they have a still poorer record in fostering any restoration of democracy.
There are many supporters of the 2006 coup in Fiji who are now trying to goad the RFMF into a new intervention (via various anonymous ‘Intel reports’ aimed at stirring up trouble). In the wake of long periods of semi-authoritarian rule, one frequently encounters heavy criticism of civilian governments (for example, in coup-prone states like Pakistan and Nigeria). But military governments do not have a better record in government than civilian administrations and, critically, once in office it is exceptionally difficult to kick them out. They tend to clamp down on the media, harass opposition figures and undermine the rule of law. As Major General Kalouniwai rightly acknowledged in his dissertation, all the coups in Fiji deeply damaged the country’s political institutions, as well as its development prospects.
Jon Fraenkel is Professor of Comparative Politics, Victoria University of Wellington.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this publication.
