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$Unique_ID{COW01305}
$Pretitle{294D}
$Title{Fiji
Chapter 4. Foreign Relations and Security}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Stephan B. Wickman}
$Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army}
$Subject{fiji
new
rfmf
forces
pacific
australia
security
un
zealand
nations}
$Date{1984}
$Log{}
Country: Fiji
Book: Oceania, An Area Study: Fiji
Author: Stephan B. Wickman
Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army
Date: 1984
Chapter 4. Foreign Relations and Security
Fiji has rivaled Papua New Guinea for leadership of the island states of
Oceania. Fiji has been the home of the South Pacific Bureau for Economic
Cooperation-the secretariat of the South Pacific Forum-and the University of
the South Pacific since their inception (see Appendix B). Mara represented
the South Pacific Forum in 1982 during negotiations with France over the
status of New Caledonia. He has also led his country in active participation
in the organizations of the United Nations (UN), including its peacekeeping
forces.
Fiji has maintained especially close relations with Australia, New
Zealand, and Tonga. Australia and New Zealand were its major trading partners,
and among all Pacific nations Fiji benefited most from the South Pacific Area
Regional Trade and Economic Cooperation Agreement (SPARTECA-see Glossary),
effected with these countries in 1981. SPARTECA has created F $10 million to
F $15 million in duty-free exports for Fiji each year. Relations with the other
Melanesian countries were good but not always warm. Vanuatu, disturbed by
Fiji's pro-Western stance and loose affiliation with the Polynesian countries,
has even proposed creating a regional organization of Melanesian states that
would exclude Fiji (see Vanuatu, this ch.).
In the rivalry between the superpowers, Fiji has avowed its neutrality.
Its refusal to enter into the Nonaligned Movement has been defended on the
grounds that that organization was tilting toward the Soviet Union. Fiji's
own political and economic choices, however, have made it seem more
sympathetic to the Western nations and Japan, a fact that neatly coincided
with its traditionally warm relations with Britain and the Commonwealth of
Nations. Fiji's national motto, "Fear God and serve the Queen," was not a
quaint anachronism. Another sign of Fiji's accommodation toward the Western
nations was its decision in 1983 to reverse its previous policy of banning
from Fiji ports nuclear-powered ships or vessels carrying nuclear weapons.
The government continued its support, however, for efforts to establish a
nuclear-free Pacific and adamantly opposed nuclear weapons testing and the
storage of radioactive materials in the region.
Fiji was not a signatory of any international security agreement. The
foreign minister stated in 1983, however, that the government acted on
advice from Australia and New Zealand-members of the Security Treaty Between
Australia, New Zealand, and the United States of America (the ANZUS treaty)-in
reversing its policy on nuclear ships (see The ANZUS Treaty and Other
Security Arrangements, ch. 5; Appendix C). These countries suggested that,
should Fiji change its policy, it would receive ready assistance form them
in preserving its security. Since colonial times, Fiji military officers have
trained in Australia and New Zealand, and both New Zealand and British
troops have used Fiji as a training ground for jungle warfare. Until 1981 the
chief of staff of the Royal Fiji Military Forces (RFMF) was a New Zealander.
The all-volunteer RFMF has never seen action on Fiji territory; in 1983
there were nearly as many Fiji soldiers stationed in the Sinai and Lebanon
as part of the UN forces as there were in Fiji. All told, the RFMF army had
2,500 uniformed soldiers in 1983-about 1,900 regulars and some 600 so-called
territorial forces. The latter could either be former regulars or new
recruits and, like the regulars, were eligible for service in the UN forces.
One infantry battalion was stationed in Lebanon, another in the Sinai, and a
third at home in 1983; there was also a small engineering company and a
modest artillery company.
In 1974 the RFMF created a naval division to carry out the increasingly
important function of patrolling the nation's 200-nautical-mile Exclusive
Economic Zone (EEZ-see Glossary). Based in Suva, the navy had 26 officers and
145 sailors in 1983. It had three former United States "Redwing" coastal
minesweepers, one 303-ton survey craft, an eight-ton survey launch, and an
85-ton patrol craft. The division set up a national surveillance center
in 1984 that depended on radio and telephone reports from passing vessels
and aircraft to report activities within the EEZ. The RFMF had no air wing and
depended on visiting New Zealand aircraft, especially helicopters, for
occasional training missions. In early 1984 Australia mooted the possibility
of staging periodic air reconnaissance missions out of Nadi Airport that would
carry RFMF soldiers patrolling the EEZ.
The Fijians have found service in the RFMF most attractive, but in the
late 1970s at least one-third of the forces were Indian. Since 1981 the chief
of staff of the RFMF has been a Fijian. Service in the UN forces in the Middle
East, for which the RFMF soldiers received about triple the salary offered at
home, was especially attractive. The RFMF has trained about 600 new soldiers
each year for rotating service in the UN forces. The government, however,
has had trouble collecting payments for its military services from the UN,
and the political opposition advocated pulling out of the forces altogether.
Internal security was the responsibility of the Royal Fiji Police,
modeled in all but dress after the British police force. Fijians made up some
53 percent of the total force of 1,316 people in 1979, while Indians
constituted 42 percent. The ethnic composition was about the same at all
levels, but the commissioner of police in 1982 was Indian. There were only 24
policewomen. During the normal course of duty, the police did not carry
weapons. The police were authorized to set up a special constabulary to help
in day-to-day work or in times of special national need.
Fiji has avoided the ethnic violence common to many other multiethnic
societies. The nation's 11 prisons, which had room for 976 persons in 1983,
held an average of 14,000 crowded prisoners that year. Only one-fourth of the
inmates were jailed for more than one year, and some 40 percent were locked
up for failing to pay fines. From 75 to 80 percent of the prisoners were
Fijian. Severe overcrowding led to small riots in the Suva and Lautoka
facilities in 1980. The Fiji Law Reform Commission advocated in 1983 that
alternate forms of punishment, such as community service, be instituted to
reduce the number of prisoners serving light sentences. An experimental
program of this kind had been started in the early 1980s.