Ratu Inoke says Rudd prejudiced

Submitted by TemoL on Thu, 12/05/2011 - 11:29am

Fiji cannot re-engage with Australia as long as Kevin Rudd is in office says Foreign Affairs Minister Inoke Kubuabola.

Ratu Inoke Kubuabola was angered by trenchant Australian criticism of the lack of progress towards elections in the Pacific state.

He said Mr Rudd's "denigration" of Fiji proved he was prejudiced, and that he had "once again demonstrated his government's intent to undermine the Fiji reform agenda".

This, he said, ensured there was "little hope for real re-engagement between the governments of Australia and Fiji while Mr Rudd remains in office".

Mr Rudd said after a meeting of the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group on Fiji, held in London last week, that there had been "no measurable change whatsoever by Fiji".

His firmness on the issue contrasts with some Fiji success in lobbying diplomatically for increased flexibility from the international community.

New Zealand and the US, for instance, have started to offer assistance to Fiji in preparing for elections, which Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama says will take place after September 2014.

Ratu Inoke stressed the role that Indonesia would play in helping plan for elections after a further three years of the regime, which seized power in December 2006.

And Mr Bainimarama succeeded in attracting some senior figures from Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu to a meeting of the Melanesian Spearhead Group in Suva in March, as part of a strategy to divide the senior regional organisation, the Pacific Islands Forum that also contains Australia and New Zealand.

The next key meeting in the region, when Mr Rudd's continuing concerns about Fiji can be challenged by Fiji's neighbours, will occur in September when the forum holds its annual leaders' meeting.

It will take place this year in Auckland, and Julia Gillard is expected to attend.

Ratu Inoke's attack, delivered in a small Fiji publication, The Jet, will ensure that, as he said, "there is little hope for real re-engagement between the governments of Australia and Fiji while Mr Rudd remains in office".

He referred to Mr Rudd's "clear prejudice against Fiji's declared roadmap" -- which involves drawing up a new constitution while the country remains ruled by decree, and while political activity remains banned.

Ratu Inoke made it clear that Fiji had "no quarrel" with Australians in general.

"We welcome hundreds of thousands of Australians to Fiji every year, and they will always be made to feel that Fiji is their home away from home," he said.