Fiji Council of Chiefs to meet on March 13

By Amit Baruah

SUVA (Fiji), MARCH 9. The suspense continues in Fiji. Contrary to expectations, the Great Council of Chiefs (GCC) today adjourned it's discussions till Tuesday, with the country no wiser about the fate of the March 1 Court of Appeal judgment returning the country to constitutional rule.

The GCC, which has the power to appoint the President and Vice- President but has no other Constitutional function, will now meet on March 13 - two days before the deadline set by the Court to appoint a President - who is then expected to implement the judicial verdict.

By adjourning the meeting, an opportunity has ostensibly been provided for the chiefs to consult with others to decide on a future course of action.

While local media reports have spoken of differences among the 52-strong group of chiefs that met yesterday and today, there is a practice that these differences are not aired in public. Apparently, these differences in perception led to the adjournment of the meeting.

According to an official statement, the meeting had been adjourned so that ``members are allowed time to consider fully all the proposals put to them at the two-day meeting which ended today''.

Apart from a report presented by the ``interim Prime Minister'', Mr. Laisenia Qarase, on the ``key aspects of the Government's achievements in the last seven months'', several papers on the Court of Appeal verdict and its fall-out were presented and considered by the chiefs.

The papers included one from the interim Government (deemed illegal by the Court) on the ``possible pathways that could return the country to Parliamentary democracy within the 1997 Constitution. Another paper was presented to the Great Council of Chiefs on the possible advice (to be) given to His Excellency the President''.

Country facing danger

The official account of the meeting notwithstanding, Fiji is in grave danger of inviting greater sanctions from the international community. ``If (the GCC) asks the President to reject the judgment, Fiji is in grave danger of becoming an isolated State,'' said Mr. Jone Dakuvula of the Citizens' Constitutional Forum while discussing the options available to the Chiefs.

``We will be in dire straits. Existing sanctions will be strengthened and new ones will follow,'' Mr. Dakuvula said.

According to Mr. Richard Naidu, a Suva-based lawyer, the state of uncertainty was political, not constitutional. The judgment returning the country to Constitutional rule was clear, Mr. Naidu told this correspondent.

``The influence of the GCC on indigenous Fijians is very strong,'' Mr. Naidu said, referring to the possible impact a rejection of the verdict might have.

While there have been no indications of which way the GCC will decide on advising the President, it is evident that if the chiefs' decision will possibly be the most crucial.

As has been made clear, the GCC has no role beyond appointing the President and Vice-President in consultation with the Prime Minister. Any ``fatwa'' issue by the GCC on the status of the 1997 Constitution and a return to Constitutional rule might well be accepted by the ethnic Fijian community.

Interestingly, ethnic Indians, including the political parties, are watching from the sidelines the deliberations of the meeting. They have no role to play as the Chiefs decide on the future of the country.

In the GCC itself, the tensions and differences are completely intra-Fijian since ethnic Indians have no representation in this forum.

In a country of some 800,000, Indo-Fijians, despite the fact that they make up some 44 per cent of the population, have been reduced to the status of spectators.

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