The Commonwealth Copes With Crisis
JONATHAN MANN, INSIGHT (voice-over): With goodwill and hopeful words. The 54 nations of the British Commonwealth addressed coup plotters and criminals. The means they choose are comparatively weak. (on camera): Hello, and welcome. The prime minister of Fiji must be wondering what the world has come to. Mahendra Chaudhry has been a prisoner in his own parliament for nearly three weeks now. His captor is negotiating the formation of a new government that would exclude him, and the military has taken over and imposed martial law on the country to try to end the chaos. Tuesday in London, a Commonwealth committee gathered to consider what it could do. Its answer - to bar whoever claims to speak for Fiji from routine Commonwealth meetings. It is not the kind of measure known to frighten ambitious gunmen or professional soldiers, but the Commonwealth is itself not known to frighten them either. On our program today - the Commonwealth copes with crisis. We begin with CNN London bureau chief Tom Mintier. Tom?</s>TOM MINTIER, CNN LONDON BUREAU CHIEF: Jonathan, for the past three weeks, the Commonwealth has been talking mostly behind closed doors. Well, today, they finally acted. It was an action that was pretty much expected but not as strong as many might have hoped for.</s>MOMPATI MERAFHE, BOTSWANAN FOREIGN MINISTER: Fiji should be suspended from the council of the Commonwealth, pending the restoration of democracy and the rule of law.</s>MINTIER: The suspension is not a first for Fiji. It was cast out once before following a coup in 1987 but allowed back three years ago. The council of the Commonwealth is a 54-nation grouping of Britain and many of its former colonies. The Australian foreign minister said that while his country may enact some measures, he fears punishing Fiji would cause more damage than help.</s>ALEXANDER DOWNER, AUSTRALIAN FOREIGN MINISTER: Despite our immense anger about what has happened in Fiji, we are not going to try to destroy the whole of the Fijian economy. We just don't think that is the right thing to do.</s>MINTIER: What appears to be on the agenda right now is diplomacy. Because hostages are involved in Fiji, the Commonwealth grouping is seeking an end to the crisis before considering any form of diplomatic punishment. A representative from the human rights group Amnesty International says the Commonwealth's involvement is the right move.</s>MAYA CATSANIS, AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL: So anything they do and say will bear some influence on what is going on there on the ground at the moment.</s>MINTIER (on camera): Despite Fiji's suspension from the Commonwealth grouping, most of the ministers seem to prefer dialogue to drastic action. One saying that economic sanctions is really not the thing to do because it would have a ripple effect on other nations in the Pacific - something they're apparently unwilling or unable to do right now. Jonathan?</s>MANN: Tom, so what is the practical impact of the punishment that they've chosen - the suspension?</s>MINTIER: Well, I think the practical impact is fairly minimal. They are going to be excluded from all Commonwealth meetings and technical aid, nothing even close to what the Australians and the New Zealanders have been talking about. They've been talking about limiting all the military ties and the assistance and training and even going so far as to sporting events. You know, the Rugby Union is extremely big in Fiji, and saying the teams might not be willing to go there and play or allow the Fijians to play in any Rugby Union games. So right now, it appears that the dialogue is on the front burner.</s>MANN: It sounds, from what you're saying, like there were other options on the table. Was it obvious to those involved that really doing something symbolic was the only way to proceed?</s>MINTIER: I think because hostages are involved, they wanted to go a little bit past symbolism by, you know, coming out and actually suspending them from belonging to the Commonwealth. While they can't do that in this meeting - it has to be at a meeting of the full Commonwealth, not just the foreign ministers. So they were hand-tied a little bit as to what action they could do. They came out probably with the strongest thing they could from this group waiting for full action from the Commonwealth.</s>MANN: I can't help but wonder if I were a hostage or you were, if you would feel like you were getting a lot of help from these kinds of people. Was there much talk about Mr. Chaudhry and about the other hostages who are still being held?</s>MINTIER: There was discussion in their communique afterwards, saying that because hostages are involved that should be the highest priority and dealing with the safe release of the hostages. And they say that they want to deal with the military in Fiji to ensure that the constitution that has been set aside is once again put forward and that human rights are respected. So because the hostage situation is still an ongoing problem, they felt it was probably best to deal with that first and deal with any type of political punishment possibly at a later time.</s>MANN: Our bureau chief Tom Mintier. Thanks very much. Fiji and the Solomon Islands are much better known for relaxation than tension. After the break, we'll ask why there is now so much trouble in paradise. Stay with us.</s>MANN (voice-over): For most of us, Pacific islands are hard to find on a map, harder still to find in a newspaper. They are forgotten by much of the world, except when it comes time to fantasize about the sand, the sun and the lifestyle. The truth, when we learn it, can be a bit of a surprise. (on camera): Welcome back. The poet John Donne once reflected that no man is an island untouched by the events that surround him. In that sense, no island is really an island either. In the South Pacific, Fiji is just one of the out-of-the-way places feeling the kinds of political or economic pressures that can touch any country in the world. CNN's Tim Lister has a look.</s>TIM LISTER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Say South Pacific, and many people will think of a musical and "Some Enchanted Evening." (</s>BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "SOUTH PACIFIC") ACTOR (singing): Some enchanted evening.</s>LISTER: This is not a region traditionally regarded as the vortex of unrest. The typical image conjured up is of palm-fringed beaches, spectacular sunsets and easy-going people blessed by nature's bounty. The reality is less rose-tinted. In Fiji, ethnic chauvinism, always rumbling like some political volcano, erupts into a coup. The prime minister and 30 others are held hostage at the parliament, the security forces divided, the economy sinking. In the Solomon Islands, ethnic tensions between the main islands explode. The prime minister is held hostage, the security forces divided, the economy sinking. This was the Solomons' prime minister speaking two weeks ago.</s>BARTHOLOMEW ULUFA'ALU, SOLOMONS PRIME MINISTER: I'm asking for civilian police that will enforce the law because of the problems in our own police force.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's armed police force, an armed police intervention.</s>ULUFA'ALU: That's right. An armed police - you're dealing with criminals.</s>PETER LYON, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON: This internal migration and the difference, the very strong difference that some islanders feel toward people on nearby, but the adjacent islands, even though they're all supposed to be members of the same nation state.</s>LISTER: Throughout the South Pacific, economies are stagnating, partly because of their isolation from world markets. Tourism isn't enough to sustain these island states and modernization brings as much risk as it does opportunity.</s>LYON: It's almost as if the Internet age and cyberspace have arrived at the same time as the mobile phone is being moved into these countries for the first time. So there's a much sharpened awareness, not only of the outside world and the differences there, but of the differences within the country.</s>LISTER: Papua New Guinea has been plagued by sectarian violence since independence 25 years ago. Despite a super abundance of minerals, it's getting poorer. One in 10 children die before they reach the age of 5. Even traditionally stable communities such as the Kingdom of Tonga are feeling the winds of change.</s>LYON: In Tonga, for instance, where there's a very stable, conservative monarchical system, there are groundswells of unrest and of disquiet about such a traditional system. I think there's nowhere in the South Pacific where you could say these things couldn't happen.</s>LISTER: In the Cook Islands, half of all civil servants have lost their jobs. The country's national debt is one of the highest in the world. The tiny island of Nauru used to make good money out of exporting phosphates. Last week, Australian justice minister Amanda Vanstone said there was evidence Nauru was now being used by Russian crime syndicates to launder million of dollars through shell companies and brass plate banks. A leaked analysis from the Australian foreign ministry recently predicted that incompetence and corruption among South Pacific states threaten financial collapse and instability across the region - not quite the serene picture of the travel brochures. Tim Lister, CNN.</s>MANN: Joining us now to talk more about the region is James Clad, a former diplomat from New Zealand who is now professor of Asian Studies at Georgetown University. Thanks so much for being with us.</s>JAMES CLAD, GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY: Sure.</s>MANN: When we look at Fiji and at the Solomon Islands, it seems like very similar situations. Is there a reason that they are both happening and both happening now?</s>CLAD: Well, I think there is some trigger effect by what happened in Fiji, and I think that much of the commentary just a moment ago shows that some of these problems are things that just didn't happen overnight. There's a lot of expectation that these places, even the largest of which are quite small - I mean, there's 400,000 people in the Solomon Islands, six islands, 70 languages - that somehow these would hang together as countries. And the fiction, if you like, held together for a long time. But particularly in parts of Melanesia - you have to understand that the South Pacific is Polynesian and Melanesian. But in the Melanesian side - Papua New Guinea, now the Solomons and Fiji - there's a lot of tension under the surface, and I think things are beginning to kind of crack open the structures that were put in place after the colonial powers left.</s>MANN: So are these places inherently unstable politically?</s>CLAD: I think that we're asking a lot of these countries to be full-fledged nation states. Some of them are already aid junkies. A report just a moment ago mentioned the fact that there seems to be criminal syndicates possibly in place in Nauru. Some of these countries make a living by selling passports to Chinese criminal syndicates as well. I think the blush is off the bloom in the South Pacific, and I think the countries nearby - Australia and New Zealand - are having to look very closely at the viability of some of these countries. The Cook Islands, for example, is actually still governed in theory by New Zealand, and it's just been run miserably for a very long time.</s>MANN: Many of these islands receive a lot of visitors, a lot of tourists. What do the tourists find when they go? Do they find places that are superficially pleasant, or would anyone arriving on their shores see the kinds of things you're describing?</s>CLAD: No, not at all. I think it's important to understand much of this is capital city tensions. Fiji consists of many scores of islands, some of which really are idyllic and you can be there - and some people are there right now - and wouldn't know that there's trouble over the horizon at all. So it's extremely unlikely, moreover, that these tensions which tend to be jealousies between adjoining ethnic groups would spill over to affect the traditional warm welcome that you get in the South Pacific to visitors. But nonetheless, I mean, who wants to be in the situation where there is this potential and to pass through an airport where there is this kind of problem?</s>MANN: Does it surprise you that in Fiji in particular this crisis has dragged on so long with no one getting involved? It's been three weeks since the prime minister has been held at gunpoint.</s>CLAD: No, it sure doesn't. Yes, it's a good question. But I think we've got to remember a little bit of recent history. In 1987, there was a coup by an indigenous Fijian at the time, Colonel Rabuka against a system that he thought was giving too much influence to the Indians, and these are Indians who came from South Asia during the British time. And I think this is a recurrent issue, where the indigenous Fijians felt that bit by bit they were losing control of their country. And I think it's a mistake to just see this as sort of one deranged person holding a government to ransom. The tensions and the jealousies and I think the legitimate grievances go a lot deeper than that. The second thing that's worth mentioning is that Australia and New Zealand are really torn. To intervene would probably guarantee that the indigenous Fijians would swing to the side of the coup plotters and would create, I think, a very unpleasant situation in Fiji. To do the same in the Solomon Islands is to probably exacerbate the tension. So they're hoping that they can buy time and gradually let things cool down.</s>MANN: Well, what are the feelings like between indigenous Fijians and the descendants of the Indians?</s>CLAD: Well, things are often very good, and I think it would be a mistake to overplay some kind of rigid communal divide. The indigenous Fijians retain control over their land. Up to the early `80s, the migrant peoples had been there since really the turn of the century and a bit later were the majority. But as a result of migration out to Australia, to Canada, have now become the minority, and I think that there is a feeling by the indigenous Fijians that if they keep up the political pressure like this, they'll see demographically a reduction yet again, and these people who are urban people by and large and are disproportionately important in their commerce.</s>MANN: Let me ask you more about this because wherever there are ethnic tensions - some of them go back a long way. But some of them tend to be fueled by economic problems. None of these islands, it sounds like, are terribly rich. Is there enough to go around, or are people fighting essentially over scarce resources and dwindling economies?</s>CLAD: You've really identified the key issue, and it goes back to what I said at the beginning, which is what are the viability of these micro states? And some of them are really, you know, half gone at high tide - places like Tuvalu or Niue or these little places really we're expecting an awful lot of them. Moreover, with comparatively high demographics - young people coming into the job market, the ability of these countries, even with the sizeable aid monies from Australia, New Zealand and in French Polynesia from metropolitan France can't create enough public sector jobs. So you've got frustration, and there is less opportunity to migrate now to places like Melbourne or Auckland, New Zealand, which, by the way, is the world's largest Polynesian city. And so you have frustrations building up and then, of course, it's always easy to find a scapegoat. And beneath the veneer of this nation state created, you've got a problem with people still remembering the old traditional rivalries, and we're seeing that playing out really very much in the Solomons, where the - people from Malaita Island and Guadalcanal are - have been at each other's throat increasingly over the last seven or eight years.</s>MANN: So these aren't really functioning states. They aren't really functioning economies. When you look ahead, what's going to happen? Are they just going to totter along, do you think?</s>CLAD: Well, that would be a little too strong. I think that there is an underlying degree of commitment to try to make these nation states work. A lot of investment has been put by, for example, the current secretary-general of the Commonwealth, Don McKinnon, who is foreign minister for New Zealand, and trying to deal with that country's Papua New Guinea civil war. And I think that there probably are some prospects. But the difficulty is that in the meantime, we've got people with very little shared sense of, you know, this kind of formal parliamentary political culture. And unfortunately, the habit of looking both to Papua New Guinea, now to Fiji and seeing people settling old scores by some pretty crude means. And I think the short-term outlook is probably for more of the same.</s>MANN: James Clad of Georgetown. Thanks so much for being with us.</s>CLAD: Thank you.</s>MANN: Turning now to the wider picture. Violence in Zimbabwe. (voice-over): .where veterans from the war of independence and other armed squatters occupy farms owned by whites. The Commonwealth of nations along with other groups tried to intervene, but they weren't welcome. Another conflict in another Commonwealth nation, Sierra Leone. Government troops, rebel fighters and UN peacekeepers become embroiled all in clashes once again as a peace accord unravels. Coupled with the tensions in the South Pacific, Commonwealth crises seem to be more commonplace. (on camera): The Commonwealth of nations is supposed to be a group of friendly countries with much in common. But did British rule, no matter how objectionable, simply keep a lid on the kinds of internal divisions and power struggles that are now surfacing? Neville De Silva, a freelance journalist who writes for the Commonwealth-funded Commonwealth Feature Service, as well as other publications, joins us now to talk about that. Thanks so much for being with us. Let me ask you, first of all, about Fiji. Is that essentially the kind of decision you would have expected of the Commonwealth?</s>NEVILLE DE SILVA, JOURNALIST: Yes, basically I think that would be the decision because I think basically they find if you impose too many sanctions, then the chances of achieving what you want to achieve - that is, a return to democratic rule - becomes much more difficult. I mean, take the case of Iraq. You have had sanctions on for so many years, but who has ultimately suffered from that? The people of Iraq, the children of Iraq who do not have medicines, who are dying because they don't - can't get the correct medical treatment. Now, you're not punishing the leaders. So this is the problem. I think - and particularly the new secretary-general, Mr. Don McKinnon, he knows - he's from that area. He realizes that you have to proceed step by step and try to engage them in some kind of dialogue.</s>MANN: It's a very careful and limited diplomatic measure that they've taken, and you're suggesting that it's the right one, which certainly seems appropriate on this day. But let me ask you if the Commonwealth is just predisposed to careful diplomatic measures, if it's less like the U.S. or the UN or NATO or even the EU, less eager to be bold and more eager to be cautious?</s>DE SILVA: Right. But the thing is they have not always been cautious. For instance, the case of Nigeria. The Milbrooke (ph) agreement in New Zealand when the leaders met, they took a very tough stand against Nigeria, which had then ousted the civilian government and been taken over by the military. Now in that instance, in the case of Nigeria, the Commonwealth took up a position of trying to isolate Nigeria and tried to engage the international community in isolating Nigeria. So there have been instances, depending on the kind of crisis it faces, what steps - measured or tough - that it should take.</s>MANN: Let me ask you about more current ones - the coup in Pakistan, the political violence that's being fomented by the government of Zimbabwe. Has the Commonwealth really been a player in trying to address those situations?</s>DE SILVA: Well, these are two entirely different situations. One in the case of Pakistan, where there was this military coup ousting the civilian elected government of Nawaz Sharif. This happened just before or couple of months before the heads of government met in South Africa in November last year. Now this was the ousting of an elected government and a return to military rule. The question of Zimbabwe is what I would call the gray area, where the Commonwealth still has not been able to sort out what it should do in the case because it is not</s>MANN: So let me jump in and ask you a question. Implicit in all this - are the expectations of outsiders too high? Should we expect the kind of things you've spoken about - strong statements and very clear diplomacy? Because many people look to international organizations and perhaps even the Commonwealth for more than that. They look for decisive action that can turn a bad situation around, that can push coup plotters off of the stage, that can change the fate of countries. Are expectations too high when we look to the Commonwealth to do that kind of thing?</s>DE SILVA: Well, the Commonwealth does not have that kind of mandate. I mean, it is not a United Nations. The United Nations could act through the Security Council and send peacekeeping forces. But the Commonwealth does not have that kind of mandate. And in fact, if you look back, people considered the Commonwealth a kind of social club, where you know the old leaders met once in two years and had a short break, holiday, perhaps at state expense. I mean, this is how the Commonwealth was considered at that time. But there has been a sea change to my mind in the Commonwealth. I think it's opening a new chapter because the old decolonization period ended when South Africa went back to majority rule. So the Commonwealth was never expected to act in the way that the United Nations is expected to act.</s>MANN: But it's changing slowly. Neville De Silva, journalist, thanks so much for talking with us. And that's INSIGHT for this day. I'm Jonathan Mann. Stay with us. The news continues. END TO ORDER VIDEOTAPES AND TRANSCRIPTS OF CNN INTERNATIONAL PROGRAMMING, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE THE SECURE ONLINE ORDER FROM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com