FIJI’S 2006 military takeover did more than topple a government.
It hollowed out the public service, replaced senior civil servants with military officers and, in the words of former senior official Emele Duituturaga, left institutions fearful, politicised and stripped of memory.
Duituturaga, who was chief executive officer (Permanent Secretary) of Fiji’s Ministry for Women, Social Welfare and Housing before being removed after the coup, said the upheaval was not simply about politics.
“It was about militarisation,” she said, describing how “three levels of leadership in the public service were replaced by military officers.”
“For those forced out, the cost was personal and professional,” she said during the Fiji Truth and Reconciliation Commission Expert Roundtable Discussion.
“There was a lot of vindication. There was a lot of fabrication,” she said.
“For those of us who were kicked out, pushed out, there was a lot of pain.”
Beyond the dismissals, she said the coup tore out the technical expertise that keeps a state functioning.
“They left with technical skills,” she said of departing civil servants, warning that the loss of experienced staff weakened institutional memory and slowed services across the country.
Duituturaga said the purge did not just hit the bureaucracy; it changed the social fabric of the service.
Lowering the retirement age to 60, she argued, helped push out “a whole middle class of Fiji,” draining ministries of mid-career experience and leaving younger staff to absorb responsibilities they were not ready for.
“Mentorship went out, the burden got heavier, delays got longer.”
The atmosphere inside the civil service, she said, was marked by fear. “Before they opened their mouth, they had to look you up and down and look around,” she recalled.
“People were frozen.” Civil servants, she said, were unsure who could be trusted, while many stayed only because they had families to support and no alternative income.
The consequences, she said, fell hardest on ordinary people who depended on public services.
“The real cost is service to the people,” Duituturaga said.
“The people are the heart of the service. When the service is intimidated or politicised, programs stall, projects die, and communities pay the price in delayed assistance, broken systems and weaker delivery.”
She also described a distinctly gendered fallout.
“The military men who took charge are not trained in democratic practice or human rights.
“If you’re learning to go to war, the priorities are different,” she said.
For many women in the service, the result was insecurity and retreat. “Women left. Women felt unsafe. Women felt insecure,” she said, adding that the coup “took it right back” after years of progress bringing women into leadership.
Duituturaga said she still believes Fiji’s public servants want to serve their country, but that the damage caused by repeated political upheaval remains visible.
“Every time there’s an upheaval, every time there’s a coup, the real losers are the people in the community.
“Those services don’t get rolled out.”
