Published: Wednesday November 4, 2009 MYT 8:32:00 AM

Fiji orders Australian, NZ diplomats out

SUVA, Fiji (AP): Australia's prime minister vowed a hard line against Fiji on Wednesday after the island nation's military ruler ordered the expulsion of top diplomats from Australia and New Zealand.

The Tuesday order by Commodore Frank Bainimarama, giving the diplomats 24 hours to leave Fiji, follows a spat over regional travel sanctions and deepens a rift between the island nation and its largest South Pacific neighbors.

But Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said the move will not alter his country's stance against Bainimarama's 2006 coup.

"We're not about to simply allow a coup culture to spread," he told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio, adding that Australia wanted stability in the South Pacific region. "That's why we'll maintain a hard line in relation to this regime."

Bainimarama and the governments of Australia and New Zealand have been at loggerheads since the two regional powers led condemnation of the military leader's overthrow of the elected government in a bloodless coup.

The latest spat is over a group of expatriate judges from Sri Lanka that Fiji wants to hire to replace some of those fired by Bainimarama's administration in a power grab earlier this year.

Australia and New Zealand told the judges this week that if they take up the posts in Fiji they would be subject to travel bans the two countries have placed on all senior officials in Bainimarama's government because of the coup.

"I cannot understand why Australia and New Zealand are engaged in dishonest and untruthful strategies to undermine our judiciary, our independent institutions and our economy," Bainimarama told reporters Tuesday.

"I can accept their ban on me and my senior officers given the personalization of matters. But why punish individuals both Fijians and non-Fijians who join the judiciary?"

He said he had instructed the Foreign Affairs Ministry to let the Australian and New Zealand governments know "that their respective heads of mission are to be recalled within 24 hours."

In a statement sent to local media this week, the Australian High Commission denied it had tried to block the Sri Lankans from taking up posts in Fiji but conceded they had been contacted and advised that the Australia and New Zealand travel bans would apply.

New Zealand Foreign Minister Murray McCully said in a statement Tuesday that the government was considering what steps to take in response to the expulsion. Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith called Fiji's action "a very substantial and serious setback."

"At some point in the cycle, Fiji has to engage in a dialogue," he said Tuesday. "We're open to that, but at the same time, it's a dialogue that can only proceed on the basis of Fiji's showing some return to democratic process."

In April, Bainimarama ally President Ratu Josefa Iloilo fired all of Fiji's judicial officers after a senior court ruled that the commander's government was illegal.

Since then, Bainimarama has been appointing new judges, with critics complaining they are not independent appointments.

Fiji, a small country of some 940,000 people, has long had to rely on expatriates to fill senior judicial roles. In the past, most have come from Australia and New Zealand.

News Poll

Latest Jobs from Star-Jobs

Latest from StarProperty