Fiji military chief urges accountability to the people amid coup immunity debate

The head of Fiji's military says its duty to serve the people of the country means it opposes new immunity provisions for coup makers.

The Republic of Fiji Military Forces (RFMF) presented a submission to a Special Parliamentary Committee overseeing the government's proposed Constitution (Amendment) Bill last week.

The military's comments came as the Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka told the committee that the nation relies on the military to maintain law and order during "disruptions".

Rabuka, a former military general who led a coup against an elected government in Fiji in 1987, has signalled a possible military intervention "if things don't go right" as his government pushes changes to the country's 2013 Constitution.

Kalouniwai told the committee that the RFMF did not appear with "clean hands" after spearheading the overthrows of 1987, 2000, and 2006.

He said successive military interventions had relied on a systemic "architecture of rebellion" built upon four pillars: secrecy, governance through fear, misplaced loyalty to individuals and constitutional immunity.

"Each coup did not only break the law - it rewrote the law, so that the breaking became legitimate," he said.

One of the proposed changes is to introduce immunity for those behind past coups in the country.

However, RFMF commander Major-General Ro Jone Kalouniwai has asked the parliament to remove such provisions.

"Removing immunity convicts no one; it restores the ordinary law, with all its protections," he said.

"A soldier who knows he will answer to the law can never be made into a weapon against his own people. A soldier promised immunity in advance can.

"We ask parliament to remove Chapter 14. We accept without condition the civilian authorities said in Section 151, and we will cooperate with any lawful process of accountability."

Provisions in Fiji's current 2013 Constitution protect past coup makers, including Rabuka, and now his government is pushing for future immunity too.

But Kalouniwai warned that this move would threaten the accountability of those who are meant to serve the people.

"This House (parliament) holds the voice of the people, and the [RFMF] holds the strength of the people. Both are held in trust.

"Our history has taught us, sometimes painfully, that a Fiji with a gun overrules the ballot is no independence at all."

'Moral axis'

Kalouniwai said the military did not seek immunity, nor wish to receive it.

"When those at the top are seen to stand above the law, why should anyone below believe it?

"We see the fruit of that lesson today in corruption, in the drugs reaching our children, and in a quiet despair among families who no longer believe the system is for them."

Kalouniwai said, in the RFMF's view, there was a "moral axis" that runs between two ways of governing.

"At one end is governance by fear, secrecy, threat, and protection for the powerful," he said.

"At the other is governance by covenant, truth, accountability, and protection for the vulnerable.

"Every nation stands somewhere on that axis. Every law moves in one way or the other. This [Constitution (Amendment) Bill] will move Fiji. The only question is which way."

He said the RFMF exists "to serve the people of Fiji, never to rule it".