Written by Nicole Forrester and Eddie Walsh, Guest Contributors | 08 November 2011

For more than two decades, Fiji has endured a coup culture. During the latest military coup in 2006, Commodore Bainimarama removed Prime Minister Qarase’s duly elected democratic government. Since then, Australia has actively leveraged its bilateral and regional influence to urge Bainimarama’s Interim Government to hold free and fair elections. The regime's failure to return to democracy has led to Fiji’s suspension from the Pacific Islands Forum and the Commonwealth.

 

In addition, Australia has imposed autonomous sanctions, including suspension of ministerial contact and defence cooperation, an arms embargo, and visa restrictions on Interim Government ministers, senior public servants and appointees, ranking Fiji military members and coup supporters, and their families. This group represents, writ large, the resident Fijian leadership and policy elite. It likely also contains a large portion of Fiji’s next generation of leaders.

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