Finding Forgiveness

Five years after jailed traitor George Speight launched a bloody, drawn-out coup attempt that removed Fiji's first ethnic Indian prime minister, the nation still struggles with how to achieve "reconciliation"-and on whose terms.

The bill Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase's administration will push through parliament next month proposes, among other things, a commission with powers to recommend amnesties for those who confess to involvement in the 2000 crisis. The government line is that amnesties-for-confessions will enable the ghosts of Fiji's coup past to be banished.

Attorney-General Qoriniasi Bale tells Pacific Magazine the government truly believes in what it's doing.

"There are probably other ways to reconciliation but this is the way this government believes national reconciliation can be achieved," says Bale.

"This is about unity - promoting unity. And the victims' and the wrongdoers' grievances and problems are only factored in because they will facilitate that process of unity."

But the bill, the government's detractors say, rather than being a genuine attempt at reconciliation, is a stunt with a general election less than a year away.

“If the bill goes down, the government goes down with it.” —Qoroniasi Bale Photo: Ricardo Morris

Provisions for amnesty and the redefining of some coup crimes as "politically-motivated" have many worried that it will undermine the rule of law.

Bale replies that, if anything, the fate of the government depends on the bill's success: "If the bill goes down, the government goes down with it."

Some say the government is trying to force forgiveness by pardoning those responsible for acts of terrorism while taking away the rights of victims to seek legal redress for their suffering.

In the vanguard of the attack on the government is the opposition Fiji Labour Party (FLP), whose leader Mahendra Chaudhry was ousted by Speight. Labour members of parliament walked out of the lower house when the bill was first introduced and boycotted all parliamentary sector meetings examining the bill, saying they "did not want to legitimize the process."

In a scathing open letter to Qarase, Chaudhry labeled the bill "abhorrent."

"Let there be no mistake. The bill can never create the basis for restorative justice," Chaudhry wrote.

"It will only open the floodgates to more acts of terrorism. It will not build harmony but will sow the seeds of greater distrust and instability. It will not heal the wounds of 2000, but deepen them."

Ema Tagicakibau of the Pacific Concerns Resource Centre says the bill draws from a religious justification for amnesty, through forgiveness.

"Forgiveness is a personal, spiritual choice, which can never be forced upon everyone. It is the flip side of repentance when the offender has expressed remorse for wrongdoing," she wrote in an opinion piece.

The most controversial section of the bill is that which allows amnesty for those who confess to a judicial commission about their coup crimes.

President of the Fiji Law Society Graham Leung tells Pacific Magazine the amnesty provision should be removed if the bill is to get the support of the legal fraternity.

"If the bill is legislated, it has the capacity to turn the rule of law on its head," he says.

Bale maintains the government is "listening very closely to the various voices" and that a sector committee is scrutinizing the bill. This committee has asked for more time to complete its work, and Bale says they may finish in September after which the final bill will be tabled in parliament.

"Changes," says Bale, "will be made if they are considered necessary and justified." And whether those changes will include redrafting or removing the provisions for amnesty will be determined at the end of hearings.

Dr Ropate Qalo, a member of the National Council of Reconciliation and renowned academic, is matter-of-fact about what he sees are the implications of the bill.

He says the bill is "unnecessary" and would be a "curse" on ethnic Fijians. Its impact, he says, would be far greater than the coups.

Qalo also rejects the government notion that when it becomes law, the bill should put an end to Fiji's coup culture. "I think that's a monstrous nonsense," says Qalo.

He says the only way for ethnic Fijians to maintain and consolidate political power is if they simply turn up to vote. Indigenous attitudes to voting and Fiji's preferential polling system, he says, will mean that as long as they do not turn up in force to vote, they will never secure a numerical majority.

Jale Baba, national director of the ruling Sososoqo ni Vakavulewa ni Taukei (SVT) party, says only a guarantee of amnesty can draw out the deeper truths about 2000.

"Amnesty is vital for several good reasons... [including] the promise that it will allow the people of Fiji to get to hear and come to terms [with] the truth of…(the) May 2000 crisis," says Baba, whose brother Dr Tupeni Baba was also held hostage as Chaudhry's deputy for 56 days.

The Fiji Human Rights Commission officially indicated it "may have no option" but to sue the government to force a redraft because some sections of it were unconstitutional and breached international law.

Most people would agree much rests this month on the success or failure of this bill. Leung says the episode "will tell us something about our ability as a nation to confront the ghosts of the past."