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CONTENTS

Vol. 19, No. 4: October–December 1987

Stephanie Hagan - Race, Politics, and the Coup in Fiji

• Anthony B. van Fossen - Two Military Coups in Fiji

• Malcolm Gault-Williams - Organisasi Papua Merdeka: The Free

Papua Movement Lives

• R. J. May - ‘Mutual Respect, Friendship, and Cooperation?’ The

Indonesian-Papua New Guinea Border and Its Effects on Relations

Between Papua New Guinea and Indonesia

• Toge Sankichi - Hiroshima Poems / A Translation by Richard

Minear • Alan Wolfe - Towards a Japanese-American Nuclear Criticism: The

Art of Iri and Toshi Maruka in Text and Film

• Richard H. Minear - The Atomic Bomb Paintings / A Review

• Howie Movshovitz - Hellfire: A Journey from Hiroshima / Film

Review

• Robert Ware - Western Marxists in Flux Over Chinese Marxism/ A

Review Essay

BCAS/Critical Asian Studies

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CCAS Statement of Purpose

Critical Asian Studies continues to be inspired by the statement of purpose

formulated in 1969 by its parent organization, the Committee of Concerned Asian Scholars (CCAS). CCAS ceased to exist as an organization in 1979,

but the BCAS board decided in 1993 that the CCAS Statement of Purpose

should be published in our journal at least once a year.

We first came together in opposition to the brutal aggression of

the United States in Vietnam and to the complicity or silence of

our profession with regard to that policy. Those in the field of

Asian studies bear responsibility for the consequences of their

research and the political posture of their profession. We are

concerned about the present unwillingness of specialists to speak

out against the implications of an Asian policy committed to en-

suring American domination of much of Asia. We reject the le-

gitimacy of this aim, and attempt to change this policy. We

recognize that the present structure of the profession has often

perverted scholarship and alienated many people in the field.

The Committee of Concerned Asian Scholars seeks to develop a

humane and knowledgeable understanding of Asian societies

and their efforts to maintain cultural integrity and to confrontsuch problems as poverty, oppression, and imperialism. We real-

ize that to be students of other peoples, we must first understand

our relations to them.

CCAS wishes to create alternatives to the prevailing trends in

scholarship on Asia, which too often spring from a parochial

cultural perspective and serve selfish interests and expansion-

ism. Our organization is designed to function as a catalyst, a

communications network for both Asian and Western scholars, a provider of central resources for local chapters, and a commu-

nity for the development of anti-imperialist research.

Passed, 28–30 March 1969

Boston, Massachusetts



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Vol. 19, No.4/0ct.-Dec., 1987

Contents

Stephanie Hagan 2 Race, Politics, and the Coup in Fiji

Anthony B. van Fossen 19 Two Military Coups in Fiji

Malcolm Gault-Williams 32 Organisasi Papua Merdeka: The Free Papua Movement Lives

R.J. May 44 "Mutual Respect, Friendship and Co-operation?" TheIndonesia-Papua New Guinea Border and Its Effects onRelations between Papua New Guinea and Indonesia

Toge Sankichi 53 Hiroshima Poems/translation.

Translated by Richard H. Minear

Alan Wolfe 55 Toward a Japanese-American Nuclear Criticism:The Art of Iri and Toshi Maruki in Text and Film

Richard H. Minear 58 The Atomic-Bomb Paintings; The Hiroshima Murals:

The Art of Iri Maruki and Toshi Maruki, edited by

John W. Dower and John Junkerman/reviewHowie Movshovitz 64 Hellfire: A Journey from Hiroshima, by John Dower and John

Junkerman/film review

Robert Ware 65 Western Marxists in Flux Over Chinese Marxism;Chinese Marxism in Flux (1978-84): Essays on Epistemology,Ideology, and Political Economy, edited by Bill Brugger/review essay

72 List of Books to Review, and Index of BCAS, Vol. 19 (1987)

Contributors

Malcolm Gault-Williams: Freelance writer and general manager, KCSB-FM, University of California, Santa Barbara,California, U.S.A.

Stephanie Hagan: Politics, University of New England,Armidale, New South Wales, Australia

R.J. May: Political and social change, Research School of

Pacific Studies, Australian National University, Canberra, Aus

tralia

Richard H. Minear: History, University of Massachusetts,Amherst, Massachusetts, U.S.A.

Howie Movshovitz: Film critic, The Denver Post; film studies,University of Colorado, Denver, Colorado, U.S.A.

Anthony B. van Fossen: Anthropology, Griffith University,Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

Robert Ware: Philosophy, University of Calgary, Calgary,

Alberta, Canada

Alan Wolfe: Japanese language and literature, University of

Oregon, Eugene, Oregon, U.S.A.

In accordance with East Asian practice, the surname is placedf irst in

all East Asian names.

The photo on the front cover is by Stephanie Hagan and shows indigenous Fijians and Fiji Indians sharing the traditional Fijian ceremo

nial drink yaquona (which is mixed in the large carved bowl) at anNFPILabour gathering in a rural village in Viti Levu, Fiji, during the1987 general elections. The NFPILabour party seeks to appeal to

lower socioeconomic groups regardless of race, and wants to changethe emphasis ofFijian politics from race to consideration ofeconomic

change and social justice. Although this relatively new coalition cameto power in the April 1987 elections, their government was toppledin a coup a month later.




The following two articles both discuss the coups in Fiji and the politicaldevelopments leading up to them, and they basically agree that the coups were

prompted more by conflict over preserving traditional Fijian aristocratic powerthan by racial tensions ,.nd concerns over land ownership. However, we feelthat these articles are different enough in approach and content for us topublish both of them. Stephanie Hagan's article deals at much greater lengthwith the colonial period and the nature oftraditional Fijian society and chiefly

rule, whereas Anthony van Fossen's article focuses on more recent politicalhistory, particularly internal colonialism and the messianic reaction to it, andcompares the situation in Fiji with that in Malaysia. Although the originalversions of both articles were written before the second coup in September

1987, Hagan has added a brief postscript as an update, whereas van Fossenhas revised his piece to take the second coup into account. Lastly, Hagan'sarticle presents more material on possible CIA involvement in the coup, asubject the Bulletin hopes to explore in depth in an upcoming issue.

The Editors

Race, Politics, and the Coup in Fiji

by Stephanie Hagan*

Introduction

The military coup that took place in Fiji on 14 May 1987 indigenous Fijian political control under a revised constitutio

is generally seen as having been prompted largely by racial lend much force to such a perception. The racial explanationtensions in terms of a deepening conflict between "Indian" then, may not only seem obvious to the casual observer, bu

political ambitions and indigenous Fijian rule. The impression also fits in neatly with plural society theory. The issues in

given is that the National Federation party/Labour coalition volved, however, are much more complex, and a simplisti

government, elected less than six weeks earlier, was a govern- racial interpretation of the recent events in Fiji is not onl

ment dominated by the Fiji Indians and that the Fijian popula- inadequate , but quite misleading.

tion was therefore faced with a considerable threat to tradi-tional rights in their own country, particularly with respect to Backgroundland ownership. Certainly, the coup has been justified by its

perpetrators as a necessary measure aimed at restoring and

preserving indigenous rights. The recent upsurge of Fijiannationalism via the Taukei movement, both immediately priorto and following the May coup, the return to prominence of theleading chiefs of Fiji, and the general moves to entrench

It is not possible to gain even a superficial understandin

of politics in Fiji without reference to the colonial period. I

was during this time that certain key policies concerning land

labor, and native administration were put into place, and thathe racially (or communally) oriented political institutions oindependent Fiji were founded.

Fiji was ceded to Great Britain in 1874 by a group of higchiefs, the most prominent of whom were from the easter

provinces. The reasons for this voluntary cession were var

* An earlier version of this paper was presented in August 1987 at theannual conference of the Australasian Political Studies Association,Auckland, New Zealand.

ous. From the British point of view there was a need to prote

Bri tish capital already invested in the islands and to bring somauthority to bear on the problems of maintaining law and ordamongst the white settlers in the islands. In addition, it wa

I. See Great Britain, Parliamentary Debates (House of Lords), 17July 1874, cols. 183-184.

2

thought that Fiji might prove useful from a strategic point view given its location in the Southwest Pacific. I It was also




way for Cakobau, the most powerful of the paramount chiefsof Fiji, both to consolidate his power and to extricate himself

from various internal difficulties. The white settlers in theislands had also been most eager in pressing for cession. Manyof these believed that the establishment of a formal Britishadministration in the islands would confer on them the samebenefits and privileges that had accrued to white settlers in

other parts of the Empire. These included the opportunity to

acquire large tracts of fertile land. Further, it was believed thatresponsible government under white control would evolve in aform similar to that which existed in the neighboring coloniesin Australia and New Zealand. None of these expectations wasto be realized, although the white population in Fiji, as in mostcolonial situations, would come to hold a comparatively priv-ileged position, both politically and economically, throughoutFiji 's colonial era and into independence.

One of the major obstacles to white domination, and laterto the aspirations of the large Indian population that was to

settle in Fiji, was a particular interpretation placed on the Deedof Cession by Fiji's first substantive governor, Sir ArthurGordon, and successive British administrations. This interpre-

tation developed into a steadfast doctrine known as the' para-mountcy of Fijian interests," which, briefly stated, holds thatthe rights and privileges of native Fijians in respect of theircustoms, heritage, and lands are virtually inalienable and shallbe paramount over any other claims. Nowhere in the Deed of

Cession itself, however, can one find precise phrases fromwhich such an interpretation can be gleaned. Section VII

promises that the rights and interests of the Tui Viti and otherhigh chiefs comprising the ceding parties shall be recognizedso far as is consistent with British sovereignty and colonialforms of o v e r n ~ e n t . Section IV refers to the proprietorship of

all lands, not already alienated and not in actual use or occupa-tion of a chief or tribe as being vested in the Crown. Thesesections certainly do not go as far as the doctrine of para-

mountcy indicates. The latter appears to have emanated morefrom verbal assurances given at the time of cession and backedup by Gordon and his successors in later years. The arrival andsettlement of the Indian population in the colony served to

reinforce the doctrine further.In the course of Fiji's colonial history, the governorship

of Sir Arthur Gordon was the most decisive in terms of Fiji'sfuture political development. Gordon came to Fiji with theidea that he had "a divine mission to make the islands anexception to the dismal history of colonialism. "2 First,Gordon introduced a form of indirect rule by way of a separatenative administration which, while doing much to preserve theindigenous culture and way of life, was to keep Fijians in an

The first substantive British governor of Fiji, Sir Arthur Gordo

Gordon's attempts to protect indigenous Fijian culture and lifestygreatly influenced Fiji's political development: His interpretationthe Deed of Cession led to the doctrine of "paramountcy of Fiji

interests," and he also set up the separate native administratiointroduced indentured Indian labor, and halted any further claims

Fijian lands by nonindigenous Fijians. *

economic backwater and in relative isolation from the maistream of colonial politics (in terms of the wider, centpolitical institutions as distinct from local Fijian affairthroughout most of the colonial era. Indeed, it can be arguthat these effects have continued to a significant extent evinto independence, and are largely responsible for many of t

economic problems that Fijians continue to experience, bwhich are frequently blamed on the Fiji Indian communiwhich has thus become a convenient scapegoat.

The N ative Administration established by Gordon opeated through what was perceived to be the existing authorstructure of the Fijian chiefly system, with certain modifictions designed to ensure compatibility with the functions colonial government. Briefly, the formal arrangements forNative Administration (the name was changed in the 1940sthe Fij ian Administration) consistedof an integrated systemnative officials and deliberative bodies.3 The highest of thelatter bodies was the Great Council of Chiefs (Bose va

Turaga), which had not existed previously but apparentarose almost by accident when, at Gordon's installation

"supreme chief" of Fiji, he had used the occasion to conswith the Rokos (chiefs appointed as governors) who hadsembled there from all over Fiji. The meeting became

*This photo is from K.L. Gillion, Fiji's Indian Migrants: A Histoto the End of Indenture in 1920 (London: Oxford University Pre1962), facing p. 28.

2. T.J. MacNaught, The Fijian Colonial Experience: A Study of

Neo-Traditional Order Under British Colonial Rule Prior to WoWar II, Pacific Research Monograph no. 7 (Canberra, 1982), p. 2.

3. See Fiji, Regulations of the Native Regulation Board 1877-18

(London, 1883).

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annual event, and the council came to represent the new, national" element within the traditional pattern of political

organization. 4

T.J. MacNaught has argued, and no doubt quite cor

rectly, that bodies such as the Great Council of Chiefs provided an infinitely more congenial forum than the incomprehensible offshoot of Westminster existing in the LegislativeCouncil. 5 Separate institutions, however, could provide only atemporary shelter from the realities of a potentially volatilemultiracial society moving into the modem world and towardsthe eventual adoption of a political system based on the Westminster paradigm. Indeed, MacNaught partially acknowledges this problem later in the same work when he points outthat racial lines would not havebeen' so sharply drawn in laterdecades had not the government been dedicated to keeping thecommunities institutionally and physically separate. "6

It is crucial to the consideration of the recent

events in Fiji, however, to note that the Fiji In-dians have rarely challenged the customary rights

of the Fijian people-they have largely accepted

the special position accorded to Fijians in their

own country, including their rights to ownership

of the land. The major concern of Fiji Indians

with respect to the land has been with adequate

agricultural leases, and it has always been in the

best interests ofthe Fijian economy to ensure some

security oftenure for Fiji Indian farmers.

In later years the maintenance of a separate administration was due not so much to the policies of the colonialgovernment as to the desire of the chiefly elite to preserve it.Indeed, the colonial government (although not with any degreeof consistency) and some other interested Europeans, whopropounded the virtues of individualism, were keen to see thesystem displaced. Separate rule was meant to be a "transitional phase for thirty years or so,' q but instead it has becomea solidified and apparently permanent feature of government.The remnants of the system exist today through a network of

statutory boards and councils, namely, the Fijian Affairs

Board, the Great Council of Chiefs, the provincial councils,the Fijian Development Fund Board, and the Native LandsTrust Board. 8

4. J.D. Legge; Britain in Fiji /858-/880 (London, 1919), p. 71.

5. MacNaught, Fijian Colonial Experience. p. 6.

6. Ibid.,p. 112.

7. O.H.K. Spate, The Fijian People: Economic Problems and

Prospects. C.P. 13/1959, p. 32.

8. See I. Lasaga, The Fijian People: Before and After Independence

(CanbeITa, 1984), ch. 8.

In reflecting on the survival of these remnants of the old

order in a paper published some ten years ago, Ravuvu notedthat in Fiji, as in some other Pacific societies, they have

continued to be maintained' far beyond their maximum utilityor survi val value, " and further, that this has given cause to theindigenous people to "wonder whether the cry for the conservation of traditional culture is only another attempt at maintaining subservience or submissiveness in a population that is

starting to be critical and aggressive."9The Fijian chiefly system was, of course, the focal point

of the separate administration and remains at the heart of

contemporary politics in Fiji. I t is essential, therefore, to giveat least a cursory account of the nature of traditional Fijiansociety and chiefly rule.

The koro or village was, and to a large extent still is,despite the ' urban drift," the primary unit of local organization in Fiji. It is generally divided into a number of mataqali.

or primary kinship divisions, which are themselves made up of

i tokatoka. or extended family groups. Several mataqali combine to form a yavusa or clan which is, generally speaking, thewidest Fijian partilineal group tracing descent from a common

ancestor.10

A village may contain one or more yavusa and insome instances members of a yavusa may be spread throughout several villages. II Beyond the village organization, a number of yavusa combine to form a larger territorial unit-the

vanua-which is best described as a "socio-political association, cemented by social and economic ties, with commonallegiance to a chief." 12 The largest political unit in precession

times was the matanitu or state which combined a number ofvanua through ties of kinship, intermarriage, ceremony andother factors. 13 The progressive structural order of these units(excluding the koro itself) is therefore as follows: i toka-

toka ~ mataqali ~ yavusa ~ vanua ~ matanitu.

The hierarchical grading of chiefs follows the same pattern. The traditional village chief is usually the leading mem

ber of the dominant lineage, and if his village is the mostprominent within the vanua. he may also hold the chieftainshipof that vanua. Similarly, if his vanua is dominant within thematanitu. he will be head of the matanitu as well. The mostcommon form of address for a chief is "Ratu" althoughparamount chiefs usually have titles as well, for example, thetitle' Tui" designates the ruler of a vanua or matanitu.

The position of chiefs within this structure was fundamental to social organization and control. R. R. Nayacakaloudescribes the position of the traditional village chief, in summary, as being

. . . based on seniority of descent and political dominance; theauthority resting on traditional loyalties and allegiance, and vin-dicated in the rights and obligations acknowledged and observed

between the Chief and his people. In the customary view, he has allthe lewa (rule, control, direction; the right to make decisions on

9. A. Ravuvu, "Pacific Cultures," Pacific Perspectives. VI, 2(1977), p. 20.

10. Lasaga, Fijian People. pp. 21-22.

II . R.R. Nayacakalou, Leadership in Fiji (Melbourne, 1975), p. 85.

12. Lasaga, Fijian People. p. 18.

13. Ibid ., pp. 18,21.

14. Nayacakalou, Leadership. p. 37.

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behalf of the people for the good of o ~ i e t y ) of the village. 15

In this view of chiefly rule (which applies at all levels of

the chiefly hierarchy), the relationship between the chief and

commoners entails a mutual sense of duty in which the chief,

for his part, takes the responsibility for decision making on

behalfof his people as a right as well as a duty, and in return the

people owe strict loyalty and obedience to his authority. The

relationship, although authoritarian, is thus meant to be atwo-way arrangement providing stability, direction, and orderfor the community. Supporters of this view would argue, then,

that the system was not despotic or tyrannical in the sense that

commoners were treated no better than chattels and exploited

for the sole benefit of their chief. One Fijian leader, recalling

the old times, asserts that "He [the Fijian] was governed, as he

wanted to be, by the heads of families or chiefs who shared his

faith and lived his life ... " 16

It is important to stress, however, that Mara and

many of the former Alliance ministers had much

to gain from the sudden downfall of the Bavadra

government, particularly in consideration of the

corruption issue, and it is therefore unlikely that

they would have needed much in the way of en-

couragement from any external source. N everthe-

less, it seems quite possible that the CIA may have

provided not only encouragement, but also some

valuable assistance.

This interpretation of chiefly rule in precession times has

been espoused frequently by some prominent Fijian leaders,

academics, and European champions of the chiefly system. 17

That there is some substance to this interpretation is borne out

by the fact that many Fijian commoners apparently hold a

similarly eulogic view of the system still. 18

But this interpretation takes insufficient account of the

mystical side of chiefly authority which was all-important in

the traditional society. A great deal of custom, ceremony, and

myth, including many pre-Christian tabus and superstitions,

surrounded the person of the chief, much of which survived the

advent of Christianity and the virtual wholesale conversion of

the Fijian people to its beliefs and teachings. Basil Thomson,

in an early twentieth century work on Fijian custom, locatesthe power of the chief within the old religious context: "The

key to the Melanesian system of government is Ancestor

worship. Just as every act in a Fijian's life was controlled by

15. Ibid., p. 85.

16. Fiji, Legislative Council, Secretary for Fijian Affairs, Annual

Report, C.P. 5/1952, p. 1.

17. These include Ratu Sir Lala Sukuna, I. Lasaga and G K. Roth.

18. Many Fijians interviewed in Fiji in 1982, 1984, 1986, and 1987expressed views ofthis sort.

Fijian chiefof earlier times. Necklaces of whale's teeth were a ba

of chiefly authority, and in Fiji to this day it is a great honor topresented with a whale's tooth; they are given to distinguished guand are exchanged at weddings, births, deaths, and when agreeme

are entered into.*

his fear of Unseen Powers, so was his conception of hum

authority based on religion." 19 Thomson goes on to expl

the pre-Christian deity of the Fijian and its origins in

ancestral family founder-the Kalou-vu (Ancestor-G

whose descendant, "the tribal chief, is set within the pale of

tabu: his will may not be disobeyed, nor his body touch

without incurring the wrath of the Unseen. "2 0

This indicates that fear and superstition played at least

important a role in maintaining chiefly power and authorityany other factor. Moreover, other commentators have perc

tions of chiefly rule that bear little resemblance to those held

its champions and supporters. One of the earliest of these,

Reverend W. Slade, offered the following opinion in the lo

press in 1900.

When the cession of the group took place, a sort of commusystem was found in existence. It would, perhaps, be more arate to say that it was a despotism in which the chiefs were tyraThey held sole possession of the lives and property of the poption, while the mass of the people were communal in compsubservience to their chiefs. 21

A more recent commentator, also recounting the situation

pre-Christian times, tells us that with a flick of the chie

wrist, and by the score, men's heads were dashed against

*This picture is from the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicaand was in David Stanley, South Pacific Handbook, third editi(Chico, CA: Moon Publications, 1986), p. 361.

19. B. Thompson, The Fijians: A Study of the Decay of Cust(London, 1968),p. 57.

20. Ibid, p. 58.

21. Quoted in Fiji, Legislative Council Debates (16 July 1946),167.




clubbing stones. Widows went alive to join dead husbands intheir graves. "12

Although the violence of Fijian society passed quickly

enough with the advent of Christian missionaries and Britishrule, much of the absolutist nature of chiefly rule remained,

reinforced on the one hand by the early policy of indirect rule

through the chiefly system and on the other by lingering superstitious fears and perhaps even through sheer habit.

But whether the coup was actually caused by racial

factor:s and, in particular, any real threat to indi

genous rights, is another question. As we have

seen, it is quite clear that these rights were in no

way endangered by the Bavadra government. It is

clear, also, that the Bavadra government was not

an "Indian" government. Moreover, the political

leadership of the country-including the posi

tions of prime minister and governor general

was still effectively in Fijian hands, although not

to the extent that it had been under the Alliance.

The second of Gordon's policies that needs to be con

sidered was his decision to introduce Indian labor under thenotorious indenture system. It was clear to Gordon from the

outset that a cheap and abundant supply of labor for the

plantations was essential to the financial viability of the colony. Gordon's native policy precluded the possibility of re

cruitment from Fijian villages since it was his declared aim todisrupt Fijian village life as little as possible. The first in

dentured laborers arrived from India in 1879, and the system

continued until its abolition in 1916. By this time some 60,000

Indians had come to Fiji under the indenture scheme, and of

these, s ome 40,000 had chosen to remain as "free settlers." In

addition, a small number of Indians had come to Fiji on theirown initiative both before and after the indenture system wasterminated.23 Since then the Fiji Indian population has expanded considerably. By 1945 Fiji Indians outnumberedFijians for the first time, and now comprise just under half of

the total population. (See table I.)

The third policy introduced by Gordon that had an important bearing on political development in the colony concerns the land. Prior to cession, white settlers had acquired

claims to about 800,000 acres, and this comprised some of the

22. R. Keith-Reid, "The Future of the Chiefs," Islands Business(December 1982), pp. 8, 12, 14.

23. For details of the indenture system see H. Tinker, A New Systemof Slavery: The Export of Indians Overseas 1830-1920 (London,1974) and K.L. GiIlion, Fiji' s Indian Migrants: A History to the Endof Indenture in 1920 (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1962).

Table 1

Estimate of o p ~ l a t i o n by Ethnic Origin as of December 1983

Ethnic Group No. of Percent of CumulativePersons Population Totals

A Fijian 304,575 44.9Rotuman 8,336 1.2Other Pacific Islanders 5,846 0.9Sub-Total 318,757 47.0 318,757

B Chinese 4,651 0.7

European 3,184 0.5Part-European 11,344 1.7Other Races 89 >0.1

Sub-Total 19,268 2.9 338,025

C Indians 339,456 50.1 677,481

Source: Fiji Ministry of Information, Fiji Today, Suva, 1984/85.

Note: the 1986 Census has not been released in full; however,preliminary figures indicate that Fijians now number 330,000 (46.2percent), while Indians number 347,000 (48.6 percent). Other races,including Rotumans and other Pacific Islanders (who are alsoclassified as Fijians), have so far been lumped together in thepreliminary figures.

Source: Fiji Ministry of Information, News Release No. 543, 3October 1986.

best agricultural land in Fiji. Following cession, any furtheralienation of Fijian lands was halted, and a Lands Commission

was set up to review all pre-cession claims. The commissiondetermined that about half of the area in respect of which

claims had been made was to be returned to Fijian ownership

while the remainder was confirmed in the possession of thesettlers. In the early twentieth century a uniform system of

land tenure was established throughout Fiji which vested ownership of the land in the mataqali kinship groups, although inmany parts of Fiji this was not consistent with traditionalpatterns of tenure. The doctrine of inalienability of land,however, did not mean that land was unavailable for plantation

purposes. Apart from the 400,000 acres already alienated,long-term leases on other lands could be obtained quite readily. Further, since the encouragement of agricultural pursuits

in the colony was essential to the economy, it was necessary toprovide sufficient land to attract such investors as the Australian Colonial Sugar Refining Company (CSR).

A major consequence of the lands policy concerns thelarge Indian population that settled in the colony. Their de

scendants have become, in effect, a landless majority in theiradopt ed country since, even after independence, the notion of

the inalienability of Fijian lands has remained unshakable. As

Peter France has succinctly concluded:




Indian Fiji, probably in the 1960s: a CSR Company extension officer visiting a typical cane grower in an intensely farmedcane zone. Most of the sugar producers in Fiji are still Fiji Indians, and farmers are still the largest category of Indians

in Fiji, but because of the restrictions on Indian ownership of land, Indian capital has tended to be invested in urban

enterprises.*

...the tenets of the orthodoxy, conceived and propagated by aprotectionist colonial administration, have become ineradicably

absorbed into the Fijian national consciousness.... The landtenure system... evolved from the varied administrative deci-sions of a colonial government. . . [but] it has come to be regardedas immemorial tradition [which] depends less on its historicalaccuracy than on its social significance. And the tradition which isheld to enshrine the ancient land rights of the Fijians is a power-fully cohesive force in Fijian society. 2 '

The political implications of the land question are far

reaching and have become inseparable from issues such as

Fijian nationalism, racism, constitutional development, and

party politics. In these respects it is linked closely to the

doctrine of Fijian paramountcy of interests. Taken together,

the land question and the paramountcy doctrine were usedeffectively as a counter to Indian claims for a greater share of

political representation during the colonial period. It is crucialto the consideration of the recent events in Fiji, however, tonote that the Fiji Indians have rarely challenged the customaryrights of the Fijian people-they have largely accepted the

*This photo is from R.F. Watters, Koro: Economic Development andSocial Change in Fiji (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969), facing p. 12.

24. P. France, The Charter ofthe Land: Custom and Colonization in

Fiji (Melbourne, 1969), pp. 174-175.

7

·special positlon accorded to Fijians in their own country,

including their rights to ownership of the land. The majorconcern of Fiji Indians with respect to the land has been withadequate agricultural leases, and it has always been in the best

interests of the Fijian economy to ensure some security of

tenure for Fiji Indian farmers. Sugar is still the mainstay of theeconomy and most of the sugar producers are Fiji Indians. A

further point to be noted is that the land rights of the Fijians,the notion of inalienabi lity, and the doctrine of paramountcy of

interests were firmly entrenched in the 1970 constitution of

independent Fiji. We shall return to that point later, but forthemoment it remains to consider briefly some aspects of institutional development and political representation in the colonialperiod which provided the framework for politics in independent Fiji.

Agitation for representation initially came from the smallwhite set tler community , and in 1904 Europeans were granted

the franchise to elect six representatives to the LegislativeCouncil while two Fijian members were appointed by thegovernor from a list of six names submitted by the GreatCouncil of Chiefs. 25 Indians were not even considered asreq uiring representation at that time, and it was not until 1929

that they received any form of franchise. Further, when it was

25. See Letters Patent dated 21 March 1904.




Although the National Federation party is essentially Fiji Indian, here indigenous Fijians

are helping at an NFP table during the polling in Lautoka during the 1972 general elections.*

granted, it was on a strict communal basis and at a lesser level

than that accorded Europeans. The sense of izzat (honor)

became predominant in the thinking of the newly emergent FijiIndian political leadership. They had won the battle for fran

chise, but lost the fight for equal political status with theEuropean community, and it was this as much as anything thatoccupied Fiji Indian political thinking for much of the colonial

period. Most importantly, they were not concerned with thepolitical status of Fijians but with "a determination [to get]what the European has got, and [to be] granted an all-roundequality of status. "2 6

Europeans and Fijians both resisted the further extension

of political rights for Fiji Indians and together maintained an

unshakable position against the introduction of a common

electoral roll for Europeans and Fiji Indians. European resistance was engendered largely by the perception that they

would eventually be "swamped," and that their own privi

leged political position would thus be undermined. They succeeded in winning support for their position from the Fijians by

inculcating in the latter group a belief that they, the Europeans,

were the "protectors"of

the Fijian race against the threatof

"Indian domination." The doctrine of Fijian paramountcy of

interests previously decried by many European settlers because of its restrictive implications for the purchase of nativelands, was now found to be a convenient principle on which tooppose the extension of Fiji Indian political rights. This

*This photo is from Robert Norton, Race and Politics in Fiji (NewYork: St. Martin's Press, 197.1), facing p. 99.

26. Governor M. Fletcher, quoted in K.L. Gillion, The Fiji Indians:

Challenge to European Domination 1920-1946 (Canberra, 1977), p.130.

8

marked the beginning of an alliance of interests between Euro

peans and Fi jians , as opposed to Fiji Indians, thus establishinthe basis for the politicized racial divisions that were to charac

teriz e the later development of the party system in Fiji.The two major parties which emerged in the 1960s wit

the extension of the franchise to all races in Fiji were thus thproducts and the heirs to what Simione Durutalo has describeas "the colonial racial politics of divide and rule. "27 Th

National Federation party (NFP) was, and has remained, es

sentially Fiji Indian. The Alliance party, which was formed

1966 under the leadership of Ratu K.K.T. Mara (now Ratu SKamisese Mara), has several constituent organizations. Thlargest of these is the Fijian Association, which had bee

founded some ten years earlier for the purpose of "protectin

Fijian political rights under Fijian leadership. "2 8 Anothsmall but important constituent organization of the Alliancwas the General Electors' Association (,General Electors'the name now used to officially describe members of raceother than Fi jians and Indians), which had been founded onlyfew months before. The essential reason for the formation o

the GEA was that since independence was likely to come abo

in the near future, it was important that minority groups shou

get together to participate as a cohesive group in planninfuture political developments. 29 With the formation of th

27. S. Durutalo, "The Fiji Trade Union Movement at the CrosRoads-Social and Political Options for the Labour Movement

Journal ofPacific Studies, 11 (1985), p. 204.

28. Fiji Times (29 November 1965), p. 3.

29. Interview with Edward Beddoes, GEA President, Suva, 16 Ma

1983. For further details of Alliance party structure see R. NortoRace and Politics in Fiji (St. Lucia, 1977), pp. 89-98.




Alliance party, then, the old infonnal political ties between

Europeans (and increasing numbers of part-Europeans) and

Fijians were consolidated in the Alliance structure and ex

tended to include the small, conservative, and business

oriented Chinese community. Writing on the eve of indepen

dence, E. K. Fisk noted that

The numerically very small European/Chinese group has enormous economic power. . . controlling all the large organisationsand enterprises and most of the dealings with the outside world.They also have great political influence which, even if their rep-resentation under the new constitution is greatly reduced, seemslikely to be sufficient to make it difficult for any likely grouping ofparties to govern without their support in the near future. 30

The general idea that the British were the" protectors" of

the Fijian race also had some important implications for inde

pendence. Because Fijians had largely accepted this rhetoric,

they were in itially very reluctant to even consider the prospect

of independent status. On the other hand, the Fiji Indian

community was very keen to move to independence because

they saw the British, no t the Fijians, as their major political

ad versaries. Moreover, as a concession to Fijian concerns, the

Fiji Indian community accepted a constitution for independentFiji which not only entrenched indigenous rights, but which

also retained a fairly rigid communal electoral system. 3 1

Moreover, the allocation of seats under this system clearly

gave the advantage to the Alliance party because of the dispro

portionate number of seats awarded to General Electors, as

predicted by Fisk.

Between 1970 and 1987, electoral contests were largely

fought out between the two major, racially based parties.

Neither of these two parties, however, had been entirely

monolithic in the sense that they had drawn either their mem

bership or electoral support exclusively from either of the two

major racial groupings, and this is related partially to the fact

that neither the Fijian nor the Indian communities are homo

genous. 32 Fiji Indians have always been divided along the linesof religion, language, and other social and economic factors.

Within the Fijian popUlation, too, there are some important

cultural and political differences, and this is particularly evi

dent in the split between the western area of Viti Levu and the

eastern provinces. With the Fijians, however, the presence of

the large Indian community and the beliefs about the dangers

posed by them which were engendered during the colonial

period, have acted as an important source of fear in reinforcing

their desire to "stick together," to cling to their separate

institutions and their traditions, and to view these as a dif

ferentiating symbol of ethnic identity. As we have seen, the

chiefly system is the focal point of these traditions. It has

remained a dominant force in politics and has been used

30. E.K. Fisk, The Political Economy ofIndependent Fiji (Canberra,

1970), pp. 46-47.

31. The Alliance party, however, undertook to review the communalelectoral system after independence. A Royal Commission wassubsequently set up, and in its report recommended an increase in theprovisions for cross-racial voting (see Fiji Parliamentary Paper, no.

24 of 1975), but this was rejected by the Alliance government.

32. See S. Hagan "The Party System, the Labour Party and thePlural Society Syndrome in Fiji" Journal of Commonwealth and

Comparative Politics, XXV, 2 (July 1987), pp. 130-132.

frequently in electoral campaigns as an effective weapon

against parties opposed to the Alliance. These factors also

account for a certain antipathy towards western democratic

institutions and practices that was evident throughout the colo

nial period and which persists in the attitudes of many Fijian

today.

The Fiji Labour Party and the Coalition

The emergence of the Fiji Labour party in 1985 opened up

a whole new dimension to politics in Fiji. Despite their rhe

toric to the contrary, the old parties had remained finnly

oriented to the racial divisions in Fiji and had ensured the

continuation of a narrow, racially-based political discourse

The Labour party, however, sought to appeal to the lowe

socioeconomic groups across the racial spectrum, and to

change the emphasis of the discourse from race to a broade

consideration of economic class and social justice. From th

outset, the new party avoided specific reference to race and

promoted itself as "a true multi-racial organisat ion that stand

for the interests of all the people in the country whether they

are workers or fanners, rural or urban dwellers. "33

There is little doubt that the majority ofFijians do

not understand the extent to which the 1970 Con

stitution protected their rights, and it has never

been translated into the Fijian language. Thus

when the spectre ofan "Indian-dominated" par

liament blithely sweeping away their rights is

raised, many Fijians would genuinely believe that

this could happen.

The formation of the Labour party was triggered largelyby the conservative economic policies of the Alliance govern

ment and the inability of the NFP opposition to tackle these in

any effective manner. Following a period of growing levels o

unemployment, high food prices, and general economic stag

nation, the All iance imposed a twelve-month freeze on wages

prices, and dividends. This was done without reference to the

Tripartite Forum-a long-established consultative body com

posed of government, employer, and trade union representa

t ives-and led finally to a call for a new, worker-orientedpolitical party. 34 At the same time, the NFP was splitting unde

the strain of intraparty disunity which eventually led to the

resignation of its leader, Siddiq Koya, and his replacement ba "neutral" candidate, Harish Sharma. 35

33. Fiji Labour Party pamphlet (October 1985).

34. R. T. Robertson, "The Formationof the Fiji Labour Party," NewZealand Monthly Review (October 1985), pp. 3-4.

35. Fiji Times (1 May 1986), p. 1.




The incentive necessary for the formation of a coalitionbetween Labour and the NFP was provided by the Alliance's

victory in a by-election for the House of Representatives in

December 1985. This result was due without doubt to a threeway split in the vote under the first-past-the-post method,giving the Alliance a narrow victory with only 38.4 percent,while Labour and the NFP polled 37.2 percent and 24.4 percent respectively. 36 Negotiations between Labour and the NFP

began in mid-1986 and culminated some months later in aformal coalition agreement. A splinter faction of the NFP

together with some members of its previous coalition partner,the Western United Front (WUF) (a small Fijian party based inthe west of Viti Levu), threatened to turn the forthcomingelections into another three-way contest, but the latter grouplost momentum and in the end had little impact on the overallresult.

The Plural Society Syndrome and the1987 Election Campaign

The major problem facing the Fiji Labour party, espe

cially after coalition with the NFP, was the prevailing' plural

society syndrome." which can best be described as a situation

in which' 'the overwhelming preponderance of political conflict is perceived in ethnic terms")7 and where this is widely

believed to be quite immutable. The plural society syndrome,nurtured in the colonial era and brought to full maturity via the

party system after independence, had so dominated politicalconsciousness that Labour faced an enormous task in establishing an alternate context for discourse.)8 This was so par

ticularly in relation to the Fijian community and the continuinginfluence of the chiefly elite in national politics. The Alliancehad no hesitation in stressing the party's connection with

Fijian tradition and the chiefly system in an effort to consolidate its electoral base, and many of the public statements madeby the Alliance contained thinly veiled warnings to the effecthat Fijians had much to lose under another government. In

September 1986, for example, Ratu Sir Kamisese Marawarned that although Fijians were outnumbered in their owncountry, they had been able to retain political leadership, but ithey failed to unite, that leadership could slip away from them

He further asserted that ' some people wanted to split theFijians, because their eyes were set on land and gainingpower. " 39

Some attempted to place the chiefs beyond criticism in

any sphere. Senator Inoke Tabua, a nominee of the GreaCouncil of Chiefs, argued that "the chiefs represent thepeople, the land and the custom. Without a chief there is no

Fijian society. When Fijian chiefs are attacked or criticised inwhatever capacity-personal or political-it is the Fijianvanua which is also being criticised. "4 0

One of the strongest claims on the issues of chiefs andland was made by Alliance deputy prime minister, Ratu DavidToganivalu, several weeks prior to the April general electionsHe was reported as stating that

... all land in Fiji was being threatened by the "designs" of th

36. Calcu lated from figures supplied by the Fiji Department of Infor

mation.

37. A. Rabushka & K.A. Shepsle, Politics in Plural Societies: ATheory ofDemocratic Instability (Columbus, 1972), p. 21.

38. See Hagan "Party System," p. 127.

39. Fiji Sun (20 September 1986), p. 1.

40. Fiji Sun (2 October (986), p. 4.

Joeli Kalou. the NFPILabour candidate for the crucial Southeastern Fijian national constituency, drinking the

traditional Fijian ceremonial drink yaquona (kava) during an NFPILabour gathering in a rural village in VitiLevu during the 1987 general elections. Yaquona is a tranquilizing nonalcoholic drink that numbs the tongue

and lips, and it is the most honored feature of the formal life of Fijians, Tongans, and Samoans. To JoeliKalou's right is Ratu Masiwaini Tuisawau. Mara's cousin. who feels that Mara and the Alliance party arekeeping the Fijian people from moving forward.

\0




Fiji Labour Party, and Labour's Dr. Timoci Bavadra, Dr. TupeniBaba and Mr. Joeli Kalou wanted to remove chiefs from politics.This will destroy the inseparable link between the Turaga (chiefs)and the Vanua (land) ... the Turaga and the Vanua were oneone could not exist without the other. . . the chiefs were a bulwarkof security for all and custodians of Fijian identity, land andculture. . . to remove chiefs would pave the way for instability. 41

Statements of this kind were clearly designed to bolster the

image and importance of chiefs in the political sphere and toinstill fear and uncertainty in the Fijian community about their

own security.

The Fiji Labour party took an entirely different approach

to the role of tradition and the chiefly system in contemporary

politics. In previous campaigns, the NFP had been exception

ally wary of offending Fijian sensitivities in this respect and

had generally steered clear of these issues. Coalition leaderTimoci Bavadra, however, is a Fijian himself and although not

holding a chiefly title, is of a chiefly family. Moreover, his

wife, Adi Kuini Bavadra, has chiefly status. 4 ! This, of course,

put him in a much better position to criticize the chiefly

system.

The general line of argument employed by Bavadra was

that while he respected and upheld the traditional Fijian systemand the status of chiefs within that system, traditional authority

and power should not be used in the political sphere, and that

Fijians must "recognise the difference between their tradi

tional obligations and their constitutional democratic rights. ' 43

Throughout the campaign Bavadra stressed the essential dif

ferences between modem democratic politics and Fijian tradi

tions, and drew attention to the Alliance's motives underlying

its campaign, particularly in relation to its power structure.

In the contest that democracy provides us, one person's vote isexactly the same as another's. A chief, be he ever so high in thetraditional system, does not have five votes where his people havefour. . . In previous elections, the Alliance fear tactic used toinclude asking people whether they wanted an Indian Prime Minis-ter; now, with the historic uniting of all races under the umbrella ofthe coalition, the leader is a Fijian, so the question is whether anon-chief should be Prime Minister.

One would thus imagine that if an equivalent chief fromanother province challenged Ratu Sir Kamisese, the Alliancequestion would be: "Can we let a Prime Minister of Fiji come fromany province but LauT 44

One of the most important criticisms leveled at chiefs

conc;emed the lot of ordinary or "commoner" Fijians.

Bavadra took up the argument that these Fijians had become

more and more economically backward through being restric

ted to "their communal life style in the face of a rapidly

developing cash economy. " 4 5 Bavadra's claims in these re

spects were backed up by some chiefs opposed to the Alliance.

Ratu Masiwaini Tuisawau, of the province of Rewa (who is

also first cousin or "brother" to Adi Lady Lala Mara, wife of

41. Fiji Times (14 March 1987), p. I.

42. "Adi" is the chiefly form of address for a woman.

43. Fiji Times (21 June 1986), p. 12.

44. Fiji Times (31 March 1987), p. 12. It should be noted thatBavadra is from the west.

45. Fiji Sun (17 November 1986), p. 4.

Ratu Sir Kamisase Mara, prime minister ofFiji and a founder of

indigenous Fijians' Alliance party, was defeated in the elections

April 1987. Mara and the Alliance party had governed Fiji sinindependence in 1970, and after the May 1987 coup he returned

power, a t first as the minister of foreign affairs and later as the priminister of Rabuka' s new republic. Some feel that Mara was oilethe people behind the coup, and that the CIA might have had a ha

in it as well, especially since Business International, known to

contract work for the CIA, had helped with Mara's election ca

paign in 1982.*

Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara ), argued that Mara and the" Allian

chiefs" were trying to push the Fijian people backwards

make them withdraw into their culture-instead of allow

them to move forward. He claimed that these chiefs

nothing for ordinary Fijians and that the latter were not gett

the benefits from their lands. Rather, rental monies were go

to line the pockets of the chiefs. 46 These claims were supporfurther by another Rewan chief, Ratu Mosese Tuisawau, w

stated also that the Alliance party was robbing Fijians of th

land through the Native Land Development Corporation a

the Native Land Trust Board, which were both under

influence of large business companies. 47

Some of these problems had been raised more than

months prior to the election campaign in a nonparty politicontext. A newspaper article entitled "This Chief is for

People," commenced with the lines: "Ratu Sunia Male

could have built a mansion using land rents he gets from Native Land Trust Board. Or he could have had a flourish

business. Instead, the head of the Yavusa Nakoravatu,Kalabu in the Naitasiri province, has a modest wooden ho

and happy clan members. " 4 8 The article went on to elaborhow Ratu Sunia spent the land rental monies for the benefi

the people in his yavusa. The fact that this made "news" is

interesting comment on the subject of chiefly use offunds. Tarticle further pointed out that there had been a rise in dispu

*This photo is from The Sydney Morning Herald, 16 May 19courtesy of Joe Moore.

46. Interview, Suva (8 April 1987).

47. Fiji Sun (4 April 1987), p. 2.

48. Fiji Sun (29 July 1986), p. II.

II© BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org



Timoci Bavadra, an indigenous Fijian and the leader of the NFP/

Labour coalition that won the April 1987 election. He set up a racially

balanced cabinet and had plans for social and economic reform, butwas overthrown in the coup of May 1987.*

over chiefly titles because of the benefits in terms of land rentalmonies that come with the chiefly positions.49 There is muchmore to holding a chiefly title, then, than just status and

prestige-and it is likely that the Bavadra government wouldhave attempted to ensure a more equitable distribution of

land-rental monies to commoner Fijians.

The Communal System

As noted earlier, political leaders of the Fiji Indian com

munity accepted a fairly rigid communal electoral systemwhich effectively advantaged the Alliance party. Under this

system, Fijians and Indians were allocated twelve communal

seats each, while General Electors received three. Given theclose political ties between Fijians and General Electors, this

arrangement ensured that the Alliance had a guaranteed three

seat advantage in the contest for communal seats. In addition

to these communal seats, Fijians and Indians were also allocated ten national seats each, and General Electors five.

National seats operated more or less as multimember constituencies. From each of the ten Fijian and Indian nationalconstituencies, one Fijian and one Indian were elected by allthe voters in that electorate voting together (including General

Electors). Similarly, from each of the five General Electors'

national constituencies, one General Elector was returned byall races voting together. Fiji's House of Representatives thus

consisted of twenty-two Fijians, twenty-two Indians and eight

General Electors, no matter which party was elected to office.A major problem with this system, however, was that it

allowed little flexibility in terms of the racial composition of

*This photo is from Islands Business (Suva, Fiji), courtesy of StephanieHagan.

49. Ibid, p. 11.

the governing party. The Alliance government elected in

1982, for example, included all twelve Fijian communal mem

bersso and all three General Elector communal members, as

well as five Fijian, five Indian, and three General Electornational members. The government thus consisted of seven

teen Fijians, six General Electors, and only five Indians.51

Mara's cabinet contained only two Indians. In the 1987 general elections, the Labour/NFP coalition won all twelve Indian

communal seats as well as seven Fijian, seven Indian, and twoGenera l Elector national seats. It is significant to note that thefour additional national seats won by the coalition in thiselection (and which gave Bavadra twenty-eight seats to the

Alliance's twenty-four), were won because of a swing towards

the coalition by Fijians and General Electors. A further pointthat must be noted in respect of this electoral system is that the

communal (as opposed to national) seats were obviously responsible for the racial imbalance that had existed in all gov

ernments. Moreover, it must have been apparent at the time theConstitution was drafted that any government other than an

Alliance government would necessarily consist of many moreIndians than Fijians. It is clear, then, that the defeat of the

Alliance in any future electoral contest was not anticipated,

and it is not unreasonable to assume that this was based on an

expectation that the old racially based party system wouldcontinue to operate almost indefinitely and, further, that the

Alliance would be able to maintain a solid and united Fijian

electoral base as well as its strong General Elector support.

The emergence of the Fiji Labour party and the results of the1987 general election indicate that the Alliance party and theestablishment chiefs had begun to lose their iron grip on theloyalty of the Fi jian people. The time-honored tactics of divideand rule and of instilling fear and uncertainty over land and

traditional rights were no longer sufficient to keep them in

power under the relatively democratic parliamentary system

that they had been largely responsible for instituting in 1970.

Let us return briefly to the composition of the Bavadragovernment and, in relation to this, consider the widely prom

ulgated notion that Fijians had "lost power" in their own

country. It is true, of course, that of the twenty-eight members

of the Bavadra government only seven were Fijians. It iscrucial to note, however, that apart from the fact that Bavadra

himself is a Fijian, his cabinet was very evenly balanced interms of racial representation. Of the fourteen cabinet members (including the prime minister), six were Fijian, and seven

were Indian while the remaining member was a General Elec

tor of part-European/part-Fijian descent. Moreover, the Fijiancabinet members between them held all of the important port

folios relating to Fijian affairs. Bavadra himself took the

portfolios covering Public Service, Home Affairs, and Fijian

50. The only time that the Alliance had lost any Fijian communalseats was in the MarchiApril general election of 1977 when the

Alliance lost two Fijian communal seats-one to the leader of theFijian Nationalist party, Sakeasi Butadroka, and one to an independent from the west of Viti Levu, Ratu Osea Gavidi, who later formed

the Western United Front and went into coalition with the NFP priorto

the 1982 general elections.

51. This altered slightly following the 1985 by-election when theAlliance won an additional Indian national seat in the three-way

contest.


http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/positions.49





Affairs. 52 Further, one of the Fijian cabinet members, Ratu JoNacola, is a chief, and as we have seen, Bavadra himself is

from a chiefly family. It is clear, then, that the Bavadra government was by no means controlled by Indians and that it hadamongs t its most important members Fijians with chiefly connections. In the edition of the Fiji Times published on the sameday that the full cabinet was announced, the editorial columnstated that' 'The Prime Minister has obviously given great andcareful thought to his selections ... Dr. Bavadra has ...chosen an extremely well-balanced group of men to lead thegovernment. " 53

However, the loss of government by the party which hastraditionally been seen as the "Fijian" party to a coalition(which contained the party traditionally viewed as the"Indian" party), created a situation which was very easilyexploitable by those elements bent on the destruction of theBavadra government. The fact that this government did havenineteen Indian members (even though most of them werebackbenchers) was used as a strong rallying point, and to manyFijians this would quite easily have led to an impression thatIndians actually controlled the entire parliament. This is an

important point when considering the powers ofthe parliamentin relat ion to Fijian land and customary rights.

The Entrenchment of Indigenous Rights

Section 68( I) of the Constitution provides that:

A bill for an Act of Parliament that alters any of the provisions ofthe following laws, that is to say-

a) the Fijian Affairs Ordinance;b) the Fijian Development Fund Ordinance;c) the Native Lands Ordinance;d) the Native Lands Trust Ordinance;e) the Rotuma Ordinance;f) the Rotuma Lands Ordinance 1959;g) the Agricultural Landlord and Tenant Ordinance;

h) the Banaban Lands Ordinance; andi) the Banaban Settlement Ordinance,Shall not be passed by either House of Parliament unless it issupported at the final voting thereon in the House by the votes ofnot less than three-quarters of all the members of the house.

The effect of this section in respect of the House of Representatives, then, is that not less than thirty-nine members mustapprove any change to the laws governing indigenous rights.Therefore, even if all twenty-two Indian members (and all

eight General Electors for that matter), voted to change any of

these laws, they could not succeed without Fijian support.Similarly, if all twenty-eight members of the Bavadra government had voted to change these laws, they could not havesucceeded without the support of the Alliance.

This section also provides that any alteration to these lawsmust be approved by three-quarters of the members of theSenate. The Senate is, in effect, another institution designed toprotect and entrench indigenous rights. The twenty-twosenators are appointed by the governor general under Section45 (I) of the Constitution on the following basis: (a) eight onthe advice of the Great Council of Chiefs; (b) seven on theadvice of the prime minister; (c) six on the advice of the leader

52. FijiSun(l5ApriI1987),pp. 1-2.

53. Ibid., r. 5.

of the opposition; and (d) one on the advice of the CouncilRotuma. Further, Section 68 (2) provides that a proposal alter any of the laws so as to affect Fijian land, customs, customary rights shall not be passed in the Senate unless itsupported by not less than six of the eight Senators nominatby the Great Council of Chiefs.

Moreover, according to the provisions of Section 67 (3), tConstitution itself cannot be altered unless two-thirds of tmembers of both houses of Parliament support the alteratio

and, as stated in Section 67 (2), where any proposal to alter tConstitution deals with those sections concerned with tentrenchment of indigenous rights, a three-quarters majorin both houses is required. In addition, as stipulated in Secti67 (5), a proposal to alter the subsections dealing with tcomposition of the Senate or the powers of the senators nomnated by the Great Council of Chiefs must be supported by nless than six of the eight senators so appointed. Finally, Setion 53 (4) gives the governor general the power to assent or withhold assent from, any legislation.

There is little doubt that the majority of Fijians do nunderstand the extent to which the 1970 Constitution protect

their rights, and it has never been translated into the Fijilanguage. Thus when the spectre of an "Indian-dominateparliament blithely sweeping away their rights is raised, maFijians would genuinely believe that this could happen.

Corruption

Apart from the debate on the chiefly system and the lanit was the issue of corruption in the Alliance goverment thprobably received more attention than any other. Some of tallegations of corruption had been raised over a period of twyears prior to the election of the Labour party. These allegtions went right to the top level of Alliance leadership areferred specifically to the' 'Mara Empire. " 5 4 An article in Economist published in July 1985 highlighted the relationshbetween political leaders and wealthy businessmen.55 Of

allegations involving Mara, that which receive1 the most tention concerned the construction and subsequent leasingthe Department of Education of an office complex nam"Marella House," which was owned by Mara's family. Trental paid for the building was said to be far in excess of

market value. 56 Other allegations included the use of hurricarelief money and materials to construct a home for ApisTora, the Alliance's minister for communications, transpoand works; the writing off of a four million dollar loan by tFiji Development Bank to a company which had close famconnections with Peter Stinson, the Alliance's minister

economic development, planning, and tourism; a pay-out

$F52,OOO by garment manufacturers to the Alliance in retufor not implementing the garment industry tribunal's recomendations in respect to minimum wages; the award$F20,OOO to Home Affairs Minister Akariva Nabati throuthe intervention of Minister for Justice Qoriniasi Bale, incompensat ion case before his case went to court, even thoug

54. Fiji Sun (II February 1987), p. 8.

55. Cited in ibid., p. 8.

56. Interview, Joeli Kalou, former minister in the Bavagovernment (Suva, 6 June 1986).




Fiji was originally one of the leaders of the movement to make the

Pacific nuclearjree. In 1975 Fiji and New Zealand cosponsored aUnited Nations resolution for a South Pacific nuclearjree zone, andFiji banned nuclear warships long before New Zealand did. In 1983the United States persuaded Mara to drop the ban, which was acontributing factor in the formation of the Fijian Labour party a coupleof years later. For some Americans the main issue of Fiji's April

election was Labour's nuclearjree policy.

writ had been filed; a scandal over the issuing of permits by the

Taxi Control Board involving the head of the Licensing Au

thority, Jone Veisamasama, who later became the secretary of

the Alliance party; and a $F50,OOO payment to the Alliance byleading manufacturers of sweets in return for dutyconcessions. 57

I The coalition asserted that many of the debates in Parliament on corruption "were thwarted by an ever efficient butdictatorial Speaker.' 58 In the week before the election,

Bavadra stated that' when we go to the polls ... it will be toconduct a thorough spring cleaning of government. "59 Thecoalition had promised also to introduce anticorruption legis

lation and to investigate fully all allegations relating to corruption.60 It is obvious that such investigations would have

involved Alliance figures at the highest levels.

Foreign Affairs Policy

A further policy area of the coalition that must be con

sidered relates to foreign affairs, although this received much

less attention locally than it did in the press outside Fiji. Thispolicy area is also related to the ideological stance adopted by

the coalition. Even before entering into the coalition with themore conservat ive NFP, the Labour party had been cautious inits approach to ideological issues. In response to a question as

to how far to the' left" the Fiji Labour party would, or could,

go, Bavadra responded:

Not too far-i t cannot afford to go too far. To be identified withSoviet ideology would be a bad thing. The Fijian people aregenerally afraid of the Russians. We stand for a different sort ofsociety anyway. We are strong supporters of democratic gov

emment.61

Bavadra added, however, that Labour accepted that both the

U.S.A. and the USSR are superpowers, that they looked to a

57. See Fiji Sun (I April 1987), p. 3; Fiji Times (31 March 1987), p.12; Fiji Times (27 March 1987), p. 9; and Fiji Sun (I9March 1987), p.3.

58. Fiji Sun (II February 1987), p. 8.

59. Fiji Times (31 March 1987), p. 12.

60. Fiji Sun ( I I February 1987), p. 8.

61. Interview, Timoci Bavadra, Suva, 12 June 1986.

"balanced relationship" with each of them and, further, that

Labour would "use the New Zealand approach to nuclearissues. "62

The official coalition platform for the 1987 general elec

tions made its position on the nuclear issue quite clear:

The Coalition is committed to the cause of nuclear disarmamentand believes that it must take all steps necessary to end the threat of

nuclear holocaust. The Coalition is committed to a nuclear-freeenvironment and it will oppose the carriage, testing, storage andmanufacture of nuclear weapons or the dumping of nuclear wastewithin the South Pacific region. 63

These policies were significant to the extent that they

would have further undermined U.S. strategic interests in the

Southwest Pacific region, which had already been damaged by

the earlier stance on nuclear issues taken by New Zealand's

Labour government. Moreover, Bavadra's desire to bring in a

"balanced relationship" between the superpowers and Fiji

indicated a move towards a more nonaligned foreign policy

(which later attracted a number of completely unsubstantiatedallegations about a "Libyan connection"). Taken together,

these factors represented a significant shift away from the very

close relationship that the United States had enjoyed with Fijiunder Mara's Alliance government, and raises the question of

external interference.

The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)

The evidence for CIA involvement in the coup is largely

circumstantial. Nevertheless, there are too many coincidences

fo r the possibility to be dismissed out of hand, and some

involvement in the coup would certainly not have been incon

sistent with the modus operandi of the CIA.There is insufficient scope in this paper to provide any

detailed analysis of the evidence and assertions that have beenmade in relation to the CIA. Indeed, given their circumstantial

nature, it is difficult to offer more than a fairly superficial

account of the various allegations that have been made. Evenso, the question of possible CIA activity cannot be ignored

ent ire ly in this discussion, .however inconclusive it may be.The issue of possible CIA intervention in politics in Fiji

was raised in September last year in an article based on aninterview with Ralph McGehee, a former CIA operative of

twenty-five years standing and author of the book DeadlyDeceits, which exposes destabilisation methods of the UnitedStates agency.' 64 The article said that Fiji could become a

target because of the "electoral threat to the pro-Washingtonstance of the present government. "65

In May 1986, it was reported that an organization called

62. Ibid.

63. NFP/Labour Coalition Manifesto, printed in Fiji Times (25February 1987), p. 20.

M. U. Robie "Spectre of the CIA," Islands Business, (September1986), p. 54. Editor's note: Readers who want additional facts andinterpretations about possible U.S. involvement in the Fiji coup mayconsult the June 1987 issue of Wellington Confidential (P.O. Box9034, Wellington, New Zealand), pp. 1-6, and the Wellington Pacific

Report, No.5 (November, 1987), pp. 1-6, available from WPR, P.O.Box 9314, Wellington, Aotearoa (New Zealand).

65. Robie, "Spectre ," p. 54.


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the Asian-American Free Labor Institute (AAFLl) had beenactive in Suva where it had set up headquarters-although

these had later been moved to Hawaii. The AAFLl is fundedthrough the National Endowment for Democracy, which has

been described as .. A controversial body set up by the ReaganAdministration lwhich I has spent almost one mil1ion dollars inthe last two years funding conservative political activities inthe South Pacific aimed, among other things, at rolling back

the move for a nuclear free Pacific.' 66 A leading figure in thenetwork of organizations, which also includes the AFL-CIOand the Free Trade Union Institute, is Irving Brown, who hasbeen described in a book by Philip Agee, Inside the Company,as a longtime CIA employee. 67

James Raman, secretary of the Fiji Trade Union Congress, has reportedly stated that "i t was significant that theestablishment of the AAFLl in Fiji ... coincided with movesto form a Fiji Labour Party. ' 68 From early to mid-1986, some

members of the Fiji Labour party and leading trade unionofficials were approached by the AAFLl and offered "free,

all-expenses-paid trips to the United States." The purpose ofthe trips was not specified in any detail, but the invitationswere viewed within the Labour party as an attempt to infiltrateboth the party and union movement. 69

The National Endowment for Democracy has also provided funds to another organization which goes by the name of

the Pacific Democratic Union-a group of conservative political parties which includes New Zealand's National party,Australia's Liberal and National parties, Japan's LiberalDemocratic party, the American Republican party, conservative groups from Canada, Western Samoa, and Papua NewGuinea, and Fiji's Alliance party.70 Ironically, Ratu Sir

Kamisese Mara had been busy chairing a Pacific DemocraticUnion conference being held at a resort in the west of Viti Levuat the time of the coup. 71

After the coup, it was reported that five employees of the

CIA had been active in Fiji just prior to Rabuka' s takeover andthat one had actually been in the Parliament when the couptook place. 72 It is interesting to note also that the shutters on theU.S. Embassy in Suva were all put up several hours before thecoup took place, particularly since the cyclone season was welland truly over. The "unofficial" response from Washingtonfollowing news of the successful coup was, "We're kinda

delighted ... All of a sudden our ships couldn't go to Fiji andnow all of a sudden they can. We got a little chuckle about thenews. "73

Since the coup, Bavadra and others have claimed openlythat there was a definite CIA involvement in the coup. During avisit to Washington, Bavadra alleged that a Suva-based American diplomat, William Paupe, was instrumental in a payout to

former Alliance minister Apisai Tora of a sum of $US200,OOO.Bavadra claimed also that retired U.S. Army Major General

66. Sydney Morning Herald(l7 May 1986),p. 7.

67. Ibid., p. 7.

68. Ibid. , p. 7.

69. Interview, Joeli Kalou.

70. Fiji Sun (25 July 1987), p. 3.

71. Sydney Morning Herald (16 May 1987), p. 45.



The presence of us. Army general John Singlaub in Fiji before

during, and after the May 1987 coup lends support to the theory tha

the U.S. and the CIA encouraged and exploited Fijian issues to bring

about (or at least to assist in) the coup. Singlaub has been extensivelyinvolved infurul raisingfor the contras in Nicaragua. and there is a grow

ing body of evidence that he may be advising or assisting in the develop

mentofcounterinsurgency plans and capabilities in the Philippines.*

John Singlaub was in Fiji before, during, and after the coup.Singlaub heads a right-wing organization called the WorldAnti-Communist League, and is said to be a central figure in

the clandestine network that funded the Nicaraguan contras

when official U.S. aid was restricted by Congress. 74 In re

sponse to the allegations, Paupe has conceded that Tora isfriend of his, but only one of many he has made in his capacityas director of the South Pacific regional office in Suva of the

U . S. Agency for International Development. 75A Hawaiian-based academic who accompanied Bavadra

to Washington, James Anthony, has reportedly claimed thasix of those involved in the scene in the Parliament wereAmericans and that two others were South African mercenaries, and that this was the reason for the soldiers involvedbeing masked. 76

As noted earlier, the evidence for CIA involvement i

largely circumstantial. Much of it remains at the level of rumoa.nd may never be substantiated. Indeed, some of the claimslIke those made by Anthony, seem a little far-fetched. It isquite clear, however, that the strategic interests of the UnitedStates in the Southwest Pacific region were seen by certainelements within the U. S. administration as being at risk undethe Bavadra government, and that they may be much betteserved by the present quasi-military regime as well as anyfuture government that is likely to emerge. It is important tostress, however, that Mara and many of the former Alliance

*This photo, plus some of the caption information, is from TheNational Reporter, Vol. 10, No.3 (Spring 1987), p. 6.

74. Fiji Times (I8 June 1987), p. 3.

75. Fiji Times (19 June 1987), p. 8.

76. Fiji, Ministry of Information, News Release No. 336, 19 June1987.

15


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On 14 May 1987 Lt. Col. Sitiveni Rabuka, the third-ranking officer

in Fiji's 2 ,GOO-member army, marched into Fiji's Parliament with ten

armed soldiers and arrested Prime Minister Bavadra and twenty-seven

other government officials. Rabuka later said he launched this blood

less coup to protect indigenous Fijian rights, and promised to change

the Constitutionso

that Indians could never again gain a majorityand could never increase their land ownership. Here Rabuka is arriv

ing at Fiji's government building on 15 May 1987 for theft rst meeting

of his newly formed Council of Ministers.

ministers had much to gain from the sudden downfall of theBavadra government, particularly in consideration of the cor-ruption issue, and it is therefore unlikely that they would have

needed much in the way of encouragement from any externalsource. Nevertheless, it seems quite possible that the CIA mayhave provided not only encouragement, but also some valu-able assistance.

It remains to review briefly the developments in the

period between the election of the Bavadra government and thecoup, and how the racial issue has dominated the context of

debate.

The Downfall of the Bavadra Government

In the first few days following the general elections and

the change of government, it appeared that the transition had

been smooth and widely accepted by the Fijian community.

*This photo is from The Sydney Morning Herald, 21 May 1987,courtesy of Anthony van Fossen.

Any unrest was limited to a few isolated incidents of drunken-ness and stone throwing. 77 Moreover, Mara and his Alliance

colleagues gave every indication that they had accepted their

defeat gracefully. The day after Bavadra's victory wasannounced, Mara, in a most statesmanlike manner, issued the

following official statement:

Fellow citizens, we have come to the end of a long, hard cam-paign. You have given your decision. That decision must beaccepted . . . I am proud that we have been able to demonstratethat democracy is alive and well in Fiji. . . We must now ensure asmooth transition to enable the new Government to settle inquickly ... There can be no room for rancour or bitterness . . .

Fiji has recently been described by Pope John Paul as a symbol ofhope for the rest of the world. Long may we so remain. 78

Two days after the election, following the swearing in of

Bavadra and members of his cabinet by the governor general,

Ratu Sir Penaia Ganilau, Bavadra travelled to the chiefly

island of Bau to pay his respects to the former governor

general, Ratu Sir George Cakobau, who is the Vunivalu of Bauand the paramount chief of Bau and Fiji and a direct descen-

dent of Ratu Sem Cakobau who was responsible for ceding Fiji

to the British in 1874. Bavadra said afterwards, "He appre-ciated my visit and commented that he was happy that I haveonce again returned, indicating that I still recognised the im-portance of tradition. ' qq

Within days of the Bavadra government being sworn in it

became apparent that a number of Alliance figures were not

prepared to accept the verdict of the polls. Former Alliance

minister Apisai Tora (who was one of the targets of corruption

allegations and the person alleged to have received the

$US200,000 from William Paupe) and a senator nominated by

the Great Council of Chiefs, Jona Qio, set up the Taukei(Fijian) movement and began organizing and leading demon-strations against the new government on the pretext of pro-

tecting Fijian . rights. Tora promised "a campaign of civil

disobedience" and called for changes to the Constitution "t oensure the continuation of the indigenous Fijian's para-mount position. "8 0 A rally in Suva organized by Tora on 24

April was reportedly attended by about 5,000 Fijians. 81 In theweek leading up to the coup, however, it was evident that the

Taukei movement's attempts to manipulate racial feelings andcreate tension was losing momentum and that street protestswere attracting fewer and fewer demonstrators. 82 An ABC" 4

Corners" team's film of a demonstration led by Tora outside

the Parliament just days before the coup showed a fairlylackluster collection of Fijians milling around-their numbersswelled temporarily by public servants who had vacated thegovernment buildings following a bomb scare.83 Further, i

seemed that the Bavadra government was rapidly consoli-

dating its control again. 84 The events of 14 May, then, came as

77. Fiji Sun (14 April 1987), p. 3.

78. FijiSun(13ApriI1987),p. 1.

79. Fiji Times (15 April 1987), p. I.


81. Ibid.,p.41.

82. Ibid., p. 45.

83. ABC, "4 Corners," 18 May 1987.

84. Sydney Morning Herald (\6 May 1987), p. 45.


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something of a surprise to most observers.After the coup, Rabuka claimed that it was Bavadra's

policies that had "incited the unrest which could have led to

bloodshed." Rabuka further claimed that Bavadra's cabinetwas "dominated by the Indian race" and that "the Fijians feeltheir [sic] land rights being taken away."8S These claims are,

of course, patently untrue. Nevertheless, they are notions thatappear to have been widely accepted after the coup, particularly amongst a significant sector of the Fijian community.

They have also been reinforced strongly by the Great Councilof Chiefs which has now taken a leading role in deliberations

oh the new constitution.It is difficult to determine precisely who was involved in

the planning of the coup-apart from Rabuka and his soldiers.

Nevertheless, events following the coup suggest that Rabukahad the support (tacit or otherwise) of prominent figures in

Fijian politics. The initial reaction of leading Fijians such asthe governor general , Ratu Sir Penaia Ganilau (a former

deputy -leader of the Alliance), and former prime minister RatuSir Kamisese Mara was (perhaps predictably) oneof' shock."

Ganilau, at first, appeared to be standing firmly by the Constitution as the Queen's representative. This facade, however,

was not maintained beyond a week or so and could be viewedas nothing more than an exercise in tokenism designed to

maintain some semblance of legitimacy for the vice-regal roleexpected to be played out by a governor general in such asituation. For his part, Mara, together with a number of hisformer Alliance ministers, had little hesitation in acceptingpositions on the council set up by Rabuka just days after thecoup. While Mara has been vocal in his denials of any priorinvolvement, his subsequent actions must invite even the mostgenerous of minds to speculate on the possibilities.

As with the question of CIA involvement, however, it isunlikely that a clearer picture of those behind Rabuka and thecoup will emerge in the near future. What is clear is that those

responsible have been remarkably successful to the extent that

they have managed to attract far less attention than they deserve in the circumstances, and appear also to have been highlysuccessful in promUlgating the notion, both nationally andinternationally, that racial issues are at the heart of the wholematter.

I Scx.EtrWl'f sWEN. 'TO 'Iou···"..y TOTAL ~ L ( . E ( , . ' A " " ' c . c ......NbTO ftPrl",PV/..I..'f f)ftlOt.TJ.

ConclusionRace is obviously a crucial factor in the analysis of poli

tics in Fiji. It has shaped much of Fiji's colonial history, thepolitical institutions of independent Fiji, and has overshad

owed the ques t for power on both sidesof politics. But whetherthe coup was actually caused by racial factors and, in particu

lar, any real threat to indigenous rights, is another question. Aswe have seen, it is quite clear that these rights were in no wayendangered by the Bavadra government. It is clear, also, thatthe Bavadra government was not an "Indian" government.Moreover, the political leadership of the country-including

the positions of prime minister and governor general-was

still effectively in Fijian hands, although not to the extent that

it had been under the Alliance.The potential for racial issues to heighten tensions andinculcate fear and insecurity, however, has always been high.

It had been used during the colonial period by Europeans and

chiefs alike, and successfully tapped by the Alliance in itselection campaigns since independence. However, it can beargued that these fears and insecurities have been perpetuated

largely by the Alliance itself. The tactics of the Alliance,however, did not enjoy their usual success in the 1987 general

elections. Bavadra's coaltion had managed to open up a newdiscourse by changing the emphasis from race to the issues of

economic class, social justice, and commonality of interests.Further development and acceptance of this new discoursewould have undermined the very foundations of the Alliance

party. Moreover, the knowledge that Fijian support for theAlliance had started to slip away undoubtedly created no smalldegree of alarm amongst those members of the chiefly establishment who equated support for the Alliance with support forthemselves. There was certainly a fear amongst these chiefsthat they were beginning to lose their traditional hold over their

Both cartoons on this page are from The Sydney Morning Herald, 18

and 19 May 1987, courtesy of Joe Moore.

85. Sydney Morning Herald (18 May 1987),p. 7.

17


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people. Many chiefs would have been alanned also by the

possib ility that under the Bavadra government they may have

had to distribute more of their land rental monies to ordinary

Fijians.

Given these factors, together with the corruption issue,

the possibility of external involvement, the deliberate orches

tration of unrest of Tora and Qio, Mara's unseemly rush to join

Rabuka's original council and the governor general's com

plete capitulation to Rabuka's wishes, it is apparent that apurely racial explanation cannot support the reasons for thecoup. Rather, race has been used deliberately to incite fear and

insecurity amongst the Fijians by playing on their ignorance

and, no doubt, existing prejudices, which has led in turn to an

impression of popular support for the coup, for the subsequent

imposition of quasi-military rule, and for the current proposals

to permanently entrench rule by Fijian chiefs.

Finally, it is obvious that the relatively open democratic

institutions and processes were tolerated only so long as the

All iance remained in power, and the restoration of democratic

practices which can give all citizens of Fiji an equitable share

of political representation seems even less than a remote possi

bility. Ironically, it is the indigenous Fijian commoners, as

well as the Fiji Indians, who will be the biggest losers.

Postscript

This paper was written in July 1987, two months before

Rabuka staged the second coup in Fiji. The analysis, therefore,

is necessarily confined to explaining the May coup. Events

since the second coup, however, may give the impression that

there is much more to the racial issue than my earlier analysis

allowed. and further, that the governor general may have been

treated unfairly since he appeared to make every attempt to

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18

stand firm against Rabuka ' s demands following the second

coup.

On the racial question, I would argue that the overt racism

we have witnessed in the last few months is a result (not a

cause) of the first coup and that it has much to do with the

consolidation of the extremist Taukei movement. This organi

zation has continued to orchestrate racial unrest and to stir up

tensions amongst a susceptible Fijian population-although i

should also be pointed out that many Fijians do not supporeither the Taukei movement or Rabuka.

With respect to the role played by the governor general, i

remains the case that despite his public support for the 1970

Constitution at the time of the May coup, he had capitulated

to most of Rabuka's demands within a matter of days. This

suggests that he gave tacit approval (if not active support) to

the original coup. His role in the events surrounding the Sep

tember coup may, in time, be seen in a similar light. It is one

thing to voice publicly a great concern for the overthrow o

constitutional practices and the severing oflinks with the British

Crown-he could scarcely have done otherwise in his position

On the other hand, his public stance may well belie his private

views. I am not suggesting that Ratu Penaia necessarily ap

proves of all the activities of the Taukei movement or of Rabuka,but it remains possible that he is much more sympathetic to

their essential aims than to the causes that he was obliged to

defend publicly by virtue of his office of governor general.

*Critique

of

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Carolyn Fluehr·Lobban

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GENERALIZED EXCHANGE. THEOCRACYAN D THE OPIUM TRADE

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THE LITERARY TURNIN CONTEMPORARY ANTHROPOLOGY-

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5 TIL RA YTING - 1 I 1 ' ~ l - i i l f ) ~ ( '

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IMAGES OF SPANISH COLONIALISM

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OIiJ :" I: :___




Two Military Coups in Fiji

by Anthony B. van Fossen l

The first Fiji coup of 14 May 1987 sought to reinstall a

feudal aristocracy which had been severely threatened by anarrow defeat in the elections of the previous month. The coupreaffirmed the aristocracy's control over both polity and economy at a time when the newly elected government had beenattempting to divide the two realms by creating a stronger,nonethnic state and an economy which was based upon principles which were rational, rather than ethnic and feudal. Thearistocrats or chiefs2 tried to mobilize indigenous Fijian fearsof Indian domination to justify the coup. However, conflictswithin the indigenous Fijian community were at least as impor

tant in the events leading to the coup. Specifically, the newgovernment elevated well-educated commoners over aristocrats, and these commoners (including Prime Minister Bavadra)were disproportionately from western Fiji, an area which hasbeen subjected to the internal colonialism of eastern aristocratsfor over one hundred years. This paper sees the origins of thefirst coup in class conflict and associated internal colonialism.It concludes with some speCUlations about the future, suggestingthat Fiji is entering a new stage of ethnic relations roughlycomparable to that of Malaysia, a society to which it is frequently compared, and that this process has been acceleratedby the second coup of 25 September 1987.

I. I thank Ponniah Arudsothy, Barbara Misztal, and Bronislaw Misztalfor their comments on this paper.

2. Although Fijians are far more inclined to use the Scottish term"chief' than "aristocrat," Ratu (Lord) Sir Lala Sukuna was correct inidentifying himself and others as aristocrats in an indigenous Fijian

social system where aristocracy and hierarchy were central principles.See D. Scarr, Ratu Sukuna: Soldier, Statesman, Man of Two Worlds

(London: Macmillan, 1981), pp. 145, 147. "Aristocrat" conveys to

most readers a more accurate sense of the class system in indigenousFijian society.

Class Conflict

In Fiji the conflicts within the indigenous Fijian commubetween the high chiefs who dominate the Alliance party the radical commoners who were so important in the elegovernment of Dr. Timoci Bavadra are extremely signifiin explaining the first coup. Although the first coup has bmost often seen in terms of ethnic tensions between indigenFijians (46 percent of the population) and Fijian Indianspercent),3 it may be more accurately seen as the result of

sions between aristocratic indigenous Fijians and their cmoner allies defending feudalism, on the one hand, and the c

of social democracy, small-scale local capitalism, and methnic nationalism represented by middle-class indigenousjian commoners and Hindus on the other. 4

Indigenous Fijians and Indians have maintained considerseparation, and this was accommodated and even encouraby British colonialists and indigenous Fijian chiefs. AlthoIndians are extremely reluctant to assimilate (for examplemarriage), they have tended to emphasize their commontional identity against the wealthy European minority (0.5 cent of the population) and the large (mostly Australian

3. The most recent population figures for Fiji (from August 1indicate that there were 348,704 Indians and 329,306 indigeFijians.

4. This breakdown neglects the relatively small Indian communof Moslems (4 percent of the population) and Hindu Gujerati busfamilies who have usually voted for the Alliance party. Even aftefirst coup, which united Indians and divided indigenous Fijians, M

lems and Gujeratis remained distinct from Hindus, although to a ldegree. A poll indicating that 18 percent of Indians supported l

increases in indigenous Fijian representation in Parliament notedthey were mostly Moslems and Gujeratis. See Sunday Sun, 13tember 1987, p. 3.




180'

FIJI*New Zealand) multinationals which compete against their smal

ler family businesses. Indians have also been highly critical of

the feudal system of land allocation, and within the last few

years they have made common cause with progressive indigen

ous Fijian commoners. The Indian National Federation party

formed a coalition with the Labour party, led primarily by

Indians and progressive indigenous Fijian commoners such asBavadra. While the aristocrats of the Alliance party warned of

ethnic conflict if they were defeated, the coalition stressedreforms in basic economic structures and the construction of a

common national identity minimizing ethnicity and hereditary

hierarchy.

Indigenous Fijian society is based on hierarchy. At the top

are major aristocrats or high chiefs such as Ratu (Lord) Sir

Kamisese Mara, the former prime minister, his son-in-law,

Brigadier General Ratu Epeli Nailatikau, and the governor gen

eral, Ratu Sir Penaia Ganilau. They had controlled the govern

ment from the time of independence in 1970 to the recent

elections. Below them are hundreds of other hereditary chiefs

who, unlike their ancestors, have no battles to fight, but live

to a great extent upon levies, gifts from rural subjects, and,

most of all, by their control of the Fijian Administration , which

under the Constitution holds 82 percent of the nation's land in

The governor general ofFiji, Ratu Sir Penaia Ganilau, right, talkingto sugar farmers in the west of Viti Levu island in June 1987. Along

with Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara and Brigadier General Ratu Epeli

Nailatikau, Ganilau is one of the Fijian aristocrats in the Alliance

party who controlled the government from independence in 1970 untilthe April 1987 elections when Bavadra and his LabourlNFP coalition

came to power. At the time of the May 1987 coup Ganilau at first

appeared to be standing firmly by the Constitution and refused torecognize the new military regime, but a few days after the coup he

had joined the council set up by Rabuka, and on 5 December 1987

Rabuka declared Ganilau president of the republic.*

V ~ N U A EVU (]

S / )OD

'ASAWA adVTAVEUNI .

GROUP:

t l () ,.'iJ

Q

o LOMAIVITI

o " o 11GROUP C-

\l 0

c:...

'V

()

<J ...

80 Km. Q 0..'__--', ~ A . V U Ii"

<!,Q

trust, to be allocated by aristocrats. The Fijian Administration

is often called "a government within the government." Inter

marrying, the chiefs form an interlinking web of great familieswith a distinctive ethos characterized by proud traditionalism,

disdain for labor, and insistence upon a distinctive indigenous

Fijian style of conduct, speech, apparel, music, and taste.

Virtually all Fijian aristocrats oppose progressive common

ers. Bavadra5 and the other well-educated anti-aristocratic com

moners in his cabinet were regarded by Fijian aristocrats as

being contemptuous of tradition and law, disrespectful to their

superiors, egotistical, insolent, vulgar, and envious victimizers

of the nobility. While the most influential aristocrats come from

the eastern islands, the seat of indigenous Fijian radicalism has

been the west of the principal island of Viti Levu. In Bavadra's

own village, Viseisei, and throughout western Fiji, the memory

of the Fijian commoner messianic leader Apolosi Nawai re

mains strong, and progressive politicians there continuallyclaim to fulfill the mission of overthrowing eastern aristocratic

authority and establishing prosperity for indigenous Fijian com

moners. Although the progressives have the support of only a

minority of indigenous Fijians (mostly westerners, working

class town dwellers, and intellectuals), the chiefs feared that

they might become increasingly popular if they created a land

reform program eroding aristocratic privilege. Ever since

Apolosi, radical commoners have wanted land to be redistri

buted along more efficient lines to indigenous Fijians through

reforms in the Native Land Trust Board and without aristocrats

taking so much control and profit.

Aristocrats also condemn commercialism. closely associated

with Indians, Europeans, and urban values, although this does

*This photo is from The Sydney Morning Herald, 4June 1987, courtesy of

Anthony van Fossen, and the map is from the lWG1A Newsletter, No. 50

(July 1987), p. 88.5. Dr. Bavadra is a high-ranking commoner, although his supporters

attempted, often halfheartedly, to present him as an aristocrat to gain

indigenous Fijian support. His precise position is head of the Tokatoka

Werecaka of the Yavusa of the Sabutoyatoya in Vunda. His father

was the village carpenter. However, he is married to Adi (Lady) Kuini

Teimumu Vuikaba of an aristocratic family in Nokoro, Navosal

Nadroga, in western Viti Levu. One of Bavadra' s most bitter opponents

is the high chief of his village of Viseisei, Ratu Sir Jonaia Tavaiqia,

the Tui Vunda, who considers him a dangerous and subversive

parvenu.




Indian dress shop in Fiji.

not necessarily prevent them from entering business ventures.

The Fijian Administration leases land to Indians only for shortperiods, on the understanding that it will eventually revert to

supporting the traditional aristocratic conception of mral life.Many say that Indians, who came to the country over a centuryago as indentured laborers and have grown wealthier than the

indigenous Fijians, have no right to remain in the country.

Since Indians (the majority of whom are efficient, small farmers) have little incentive to develop the land under these condi

tions, there is severe erosion and poor conservation. Indiansare insecure and dissatisfied with being 49 percent of the popu

lation and owning only 1.7 percent of the land, having to leasethe vast majority ofthe land they farm from the aristocrat-domi

nated Fijian Administration. Aristocrats have tended to be ambivalent toward Europeans, with whom they have often beenpolitically allied and who own most of the large businesses and

80 percent of the freehold land which is generally of the highest

quality and constitutes 8 percent of the total area. 6

Aristocratic power is enshrined in the Constitution. The Con

stitution calls for a Parliament composed of a lower house or

House of Representatives and an upper house or Senate. Election to the House of Representatives of fifty-two seats is basedon ethnicity. Indigenous Fijians and Indians are entitled to

twenty-two seats apiece; twelve of these twenty-two are communal seats for which only members of one' s own ethnic group

can vote; and the other ten are national seats for which all

ethnicities vote. General Electors-Europeans, part-Europeans,and Chinese-are entitled to three communal seats and fivenational seats and thereby receive representation of roughlyfour times their proportion of the population.

In the Senate the aristocratic principle is more obvious. Of

the twenty-two Senate seats, eight are filled by nominees of

the Great Council of Chiefs, seven by the prime minister, sixby the leader of the opposition, and one by the Council of

Rotuma (a Polynesian outlier). Furthermore, the Great Council

*This photo is from Tok Blong SPPF (South Pacific Peoples Foundation of Canada), No. 21 (October 1987), front cover.

6. Other groups such as the part-Europt:ans (1.7 percent of the population), Chinese (0.7 percent), and Polynesian Rotumans (1.7 percent),have higher than average incomes put negligible political influence,generally voting for the Alliance.

of Chiefs' nominees have the right of veto, and no legislat

affecting indigenous Fijian land, custom, and customary ri

can be passed without the support of at least six of the GrCouncil's nominees. Any substantive amendment to the Costitution relating to citizenship, the Parliament, the judicia

* or any of the ordinances which secure indigenous Fijian (a

aristocratic) power (those on Fijian Affairs, the Fijian Develo.;::'l::I

ment Fund, Native Land, and Agricultural Landlords and T.5 ants) can be achieved only with the support of at least thr~ quarters of both houses. 7

.sISome Alliance party members had accumulatedgreat debts which they found difficult to repay.Most ofall they feared the diminution oftheir abilityto allocate land. They feared that Bavadra, his rad-ical cabinet ministers, and Indians would substan-tially reduce their power by removing much of their

control over the Fijian administration, land alloca-tion, and the collection of rents from lands leasedto Indians.

As a result, the Great Council of Chiefs can indirectly bloany amendments to the Constitution. The Bavadra governm

was, by necessity if not inclination, moderately reformist aattempted to alter the content of government more than structures. On the highly emotional land issue, it would pro

ably have attempted to allocate ambiguously defined Croland (9.45 percent of the total) on a more rational basis, rat

than converting it into indigenous Fijian land, as had been dounder the Alliance government. Furthermore, without alter

the provisions of the arms of the Fijian Administration, it wobe quite possible to change personnel to reduce aristocrainfluence.

The aristocrats and their commoner allies in the Alliancould not afford to lose their control of the government. Th

had become accustomed to the power and money associawith office. The Fiji Development Bank had made large loa

to projects which benefited aristocrats, but they defaulted. TLabour-National Federation party coalition was intent onrerecting money to what they saw as the more deserving' a

individualistic enterprises of commoners, who had beneglected. Some Alliance party members had accumulated gr

debts which they found difficult to repay. Most of all thfeared the diminution of their ability to allocate land. Thfeared that Bavadra, his radical cabinet ministers, and Indiawould substantially reduce their power by removing muchtheir control over the Fijian Administration, land allocatioand the collection of rents from lands leased to Indians. Fthem control of the polity meant very substantial control of

economy.

7. Brij V. Lal, "Politics since Independence: Continuity and Changin Lal (ed.), Politics in Fiji (Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1986).




The development of a separate economic realm and a cen

tralized, nonethnic nation-state is inimical to the ties of kinship,clan (mataqali) , and hereditary rights to allocate property onwhich the indigenous Fijian aristocracy relies. Indians uphold

principles of mercantilism, petty capitalism, and education,while the progressive indigenous Fijians support the ideas of

equality and democracy, and the indigenous aristocrats rely on

traditional custom. But the conflict between the Indians andprogressive indigenous Fijians on the one hand, and the indigenous aristocrats on the other, expresses itself in a tension between

differing political principles. The former want to create a moredistinct economic realm and common citizenship in a unified

nation indifferent to ethnicity and rank, while the latter seekinalienable, entailed land ownership, small-scale and informal

control over laboring subjects, unequal distribution of their

products, and ethnically divided governmental functions.

Although the first coup has been most often seen

in terms of ethnic tensions between indigenousFijians (46 percent of the population) and FijianIndians (49 percent), it may be more accuratelyseen as the result of tensions between aristocraticindigenous Fijians and their commoner allies de-fending feudalism, on the one hand, and the causeofsocial democracy, small-scale local capitalism, andmulti-ethnic nationalism represented by middleclllss indigenous Fijian commoners and Hindus onthe other.

The development of capitalism and industrialism in the main

center has created a small but significant indigenous Fijianproletarian minority oriented toward town life and isolated from

the aristocracy and the land. But for the most part indigenous

Fijians are still a mass of small-scale farmers working on land

allocated by aristocrats, with most wage labor done to supplement farm income. Most indigenous Fijians regard themselves

as more or less contented subjects of the aristocratic polity

rather than as citizens of Fiji.The new Bavadra government was oriented toward reforming

indigenous Fijian institutions to fit modem needs. Reforms

probably would have diluted the clan dear to the aristocrats,created new social groupings around a bureaucracy to assume

the functions of these groupings in land allocation, and ingeneral relegated local associations to a secondary and super

ficial role while associations based on multi-ethnic nationalismwere brought to the fore. Whatever "socialism" may haveexisted in the Bavadra government was largely nationalism (forexample, the suggestion of greater local equity in tourism andthe uncertain proposal to nationalize the foreign-ownedEmperor Gold Mines) and the desire to build a strong central

state freed of feudal entailments. Under Bavadra, aristocratswould have been deprived of political-economic functions,which would be vested in the nation, and many indigenous non

aristocrats would have been elevated. If these innovations hadbeen accompanied by prosperity and political stability, the aristocrats would have had reason to worry.

There were rumors of serious corruption in the Alliance

government, and Bavadra promised prosecution. The entirehierarchical structure of indigenous Fijian society is based oncommoners' obedience to aristocrats. Receiving orders fromthe commoners of Bavadra' s cabinet was an affront to aristo

cratic dignity.After the election aristocrats inflamed indigenous Fijian

ethnic nationalism and hostility toward Indians and Bavadra'sgovernment. There were mass demonstrations for indigenous

Fijian land rights, a road blockade at Tavua, and firebombings

of the businesses of government cabinet ministers. Under theBavadra government only a small privileged group in the

Alliance party had experienced deprivation, while the indigenous Fijian population as a whole felt little change. The attempts

of the aristocrats and their commoner allies to foment massturmoil were failing. A crisis came when Apisai Tora, a political

maverick and former Alliance party cabinet minister, was arrested for sedition, and Senator Jona Qio, an Alliance partybackbencher, was arrested for arson. Both are commoners, and

in Fiji commoners who are loyal to their chiefs rarely takeinitiative but act on orders from aristocrats.

-.

*t=s

~.::

oS

S" <

..0C

Deposed prime minister Timoci Bavadra receives a hug and a kiss

from his Wife, Adi Kuini, after his release on 20 May 1987 from fivedays in detention following the first coup. He said that the people

responsible for the coup should be taken to court, and that he sawno reason a new election should be held: "As far as 1am concerned,I am still prime minister."

*This photo is from The Australian, 20 May 1987, p. I, courtesy ofJoe Moore.

22

C




Colonel Sitiveni Rabuka leaving a parade ground in Suva on 25 Sep

tember 1987 after reviewing 500 security troops shortly before leadingthe second coup. Apart from the ransacking ofBavadra' s home, this

coup appears to have taken place without any violent ac.tion. For fourmonths since the first coup, leaders had been developmg a plan for

governing Fiji that had finally been approved by e x p e ~ i e n c e d !'oliticiansfrom both sides, including Governor General Gamlau. ThiS plan

was to go into effect the following week, which was not acceptableto Rabuka since it would probably have led to his being sacked; he

and his Royal Fiji Military struck again before the plan could get

underway.*

Similarly the nationalist inclinations of another commoner,Lieutenant Colonel Sitiveni Rabuka, were awakened by theethnic campaign of the aristocrats. Rabuka is a member of anupwardly mobile family of commoners who have remainedloyal to their chiefs, the paramount being the Governor GeneralRatu Sir Penaia Ganilau. When Rabuka led the first coup, theday after Senator Qio's arrest, there was widespread incredulityat the claim that he had ordered it.

There were strong suspicions that the coup had been dictatedfrom above, and that Rabuka was the tool of aristocratic interestswhich had inflamed his indigenous Fijian nationalism and woulduse the almost exclusively indigenous Fijian army to achieveits ends. The suspicions were largely confirmed when the "military" regime's new cabinet was announced. Almost all werecivilian members of the old Alliance party cabinet which hadbeen defeated in the election. Although Rabuka was nominallyin charge, questions were raised about whether Oxford-educatedaristocrats such as Ratu Mara would really be prepared to takeorders from a commoner such as Rabuka. At this time Rabuka'smilitary superior and Ratu Mara's son-in-law, Brigadier General Nailatikau, whom Rabuka had suspended, was dithering

*This photo is from the Times on Sunday (Sydney), 27 September

1987, courtesy of Anthony van Fossen.

in Australia for a long period of time while still proclaiminhe was in command.

To say that Rabuka was a tool of the aristocrats does nomean that he was a stooge. Clearly. he was fulfilling his owobjectives. In his initial declaration he used the prospect o

mass Fijian disorder and violence to justify seizing power sthat soldiers would not have to fight their ethnic brothers. Thimplication was that the unity and morale of the army were astake. Rabuka's and the army's dissatisfactions were more prob

ably based on the likelihood that the B a ~ a d r a g o v ~ r n m e n t w ? u ~alter the system of recruitment. promotIOn, and discharge wlthmthe army to make it less of an ethnic enclave. The governmen

also planned to inculcate multi-ethnic nationalism and lessefeudal loyalties. And it was considering foreign policy changewhich might reduce military aid and the army's involvemenin foreign war (for example, in Lebanon). When the Allianc

party was in power there had been no significant d i f f e r e ~ c ebetween political and military principles of command, smc

both were bound to the feudal hierarchy. The coup restorefeudal principles, preserved the ethnic unity of the army, increased the defense budget, absolved the aristocratic brigadier

generalof

responsibility, and promoted Rabuka.

Virtually all Fijian aristocrats oppose progressivecommoners. Bavadra and the other well-educatedanti-aristocratic commoners in his cabinet wereregarded by Fijian aristocrats as being contemp,tuous of tradition and law, disrespectful to t ~ e ' rsuperiors, egotistical, insolent, vulgar, and envIOusvictimizers of the nobility.

For centuries Fijian aristocrats have insisted upon gettintheir own way, and they have often used commoners to fightheir battles. Commoners who have refused to obey, from

Apolosi Nawai in the first half of the twentieth. c e n ~ u r y tTimoci Bavadra today, have been repressed and Impnsonedand their movements of resistance crushed. In the first couparticularly, Colonel Rabuka appears to have been w o ~ k i n g i

the interests of the aristocrats. He became a target of mternational censure and condemnation which might have beedirected at others if the nature of Fijian society had been moraccurately understood abroad.

At one level, the first coup was a reaction to fears oflndianland alienation. The scarcity of good land accentuates fearthat Indians will take what remains through a government whicthey dominate. The productivity of the land could be increasegreatly and the sensation of overcrowding reduced or eliminatethrough new types of technology and organization. But theris a general disapproval of commoner agricultural entrepreneurship, since this implies commoners owning land individuallyand exercising powers ordinarily associated with aristocratsRich commoner farmers are sometimes accused of witchcraftand of all commoners soldiers have the best opportunity foupward mobility without incurring aristocratic displeasure. Thfirst coup was not so much a matter of maintaining indigenou




Fijian land ownership (which is enshrined in the Constitutionanyway) as it is a matter of supporting a traditional aristocraticpolity and its feudal relation to the economy.

The United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) may

have supported the first coup. The United States would havebeen more comfortable if the Alliance party had been reelected.The growing anti-nuclear movement in the South Pacific wasworrying American military strategists. However, there was

evidence that the Bavadra government was backing away fromnonalignment and the prohibition of visits by nuclear ships. If

the United States were aware of this, there would have beenlittle reason to intervene, especially before any clear policy hadbeen formulated, unless it intended to establish military basesin Fiji. Although Bavadra charged that the CIA had givenApisai Tora $200,000 to organize civil disobedience against

his government, the United States was one of the few countriesto suspend aid after the first coup. Rabuka implied that hewould attempt to orient Fiji more toward Asia, although hestressed continuation of Alliance party foreign policy and, likeprominent aristocrats such as Governor General Ratu Ganilau,he attempted to preclude sanctions. After the first coup, mem

bers of Bavadra's elected government visited Apia,Washington, London, Canberra, and Wellington claiming torepresent Fiji, but they were met so coldly as to indicate inter

national acceptance of the Rabuka regime. Internal countervailing powers such as trade unions and Indian sugar farmers andshopkeepers are not sufficiently organized to be effectiveagainst the military. The first coup was primarily the result of

internal class conflict which aligned to some extent with ethnicity, and international politics were a relatively minor factor. Ifsuccessful, the elected government promised real change in thestructure of power, society, and economic life in Fiji. Theprimary concern of the elected government was not in international affairs, although multi-ethnic nationalism is allied toresisting foreign domination.

The first coup primarily aimed at helping indigenous aristocrats maintain their feudal powers in the face of ever-greaterclaims to power on the part of a centralized, multi-ethnic nationstate. While some indigenous aristocrats have suggested thatthe origins ofthe present system of indigenous Fijian aristocraticfeudalism are lost in the mists of time, I agree with others whosuggest a relatively recent origin, dating from Ratu Sir LalaSukuna's leading role in the formation of a separate FijianAdministration in 1944.8 Ratu Sukuna, drawing on British support, was extremely adept at reforming and revitalizing thearistocratic principle to stem the rising tide of indigenous Fijiandemocracy and European and Indian commercialism during thefirst half of this century. But this was accomplished throughcentralization of land control in the Fijian Administration that

was supposed to enshrine feudalism in perpetuity, becomingwhat Norton has called "chiefly power bureaucratised,,,9 although it was increasingly open to well-qualified commonerswho are loyal to aristocrats.

Sukuna was an important architect of the feudal communal

Ratu Sir Lala Sukuna with the British minister oJstate in August 1951.Sukuna is a Fijian aristocrat who had a leading role in the forming

oj a separate Fijian Administration in 1944, and in consolidating the

control ofthe land under this administration. He established the Native

Land Trust Board that the Federation party hopes to democratize and

rationalize.

ideology and the control of the aristocratic polity over land andthe indigenous economy, particularly in the west and interiorregions which are still the major areas of indigenous Fijiandissent. In these areas and others, lands had been separatelyowned and worked. The contlict and rebellion which Sukuna'splan engendered, the clash between aristocrats and more individualistic and entrepreneurial indigenous commoners, are theessence of his extreme animosity toward Apolosi Nawai's Viti

Kahani, which expressed the commoners' desire for individualistic business enterprise and their objections to the consolidations of aristocratic power under the aegis of British

colonialism. The aristocrats' appeal to "tradition" must beexamined very critically.During the twentieth century the authority of the aristocrats

has become based increasingly upon their political control overthe indigenous Fijian economy. This has effectively differentiated them from commoners, progressives, and Indians-who

had little or no political control. During the period of British

8. See, for example, P. France, The Charter oJthe Land (Melbourne:Oxford University Press, 1969). *This photo is courtesy of Anthony van Fossen and is from Deryck9. R. Norton, "Colonial Fiji: Ethnic Divisions and Elite Conciliation," Scarr, Ratu Sukuna (London: Macmillan Company, 1981), followingin Lal (ed.), Politics, p. 58. p. 132.




colonial rule, the aristocrats' increasing claims to political control over the indigenous Fijian economy allowed them to con

serve the maximum possible authority without serious or prolonged conflicts with Europeans over their supremacy in the

system of indirect rule. After independence in 1970 credible

and growing claims to power (through the Alliance party, theGreat Council of Chiefs, and the Fijian Administration) allowed

aristocrats to consolidate new political powers while simultane

ously creating an image among most indigenous Fijians thatrationalistic progressive commoners were the tools of Indians.

The rhetoric of aristocratic command in contemporary Fiji ismajestic and unqualified--claiming authority not only over the

political and military realms but also over the indigenous econ

omy and land that most Fijians rely on for their livelihoods. Itcreates a popular sense that all indigenous Fijians form one body

which is represented by the aristocrats. This is a weapon thatallows them to define their interests in ethnic terms and therefore

in opposition to Indians. The coup of May 1987 upheld the aris

tocrats' desire to maintain their political control over an indigenous economy defined in terms of ownership which is communal

or ethnic, rather than capitalist or social democratic.

I t was not so much the absence of legitimacy whichled to the coup as the desire of the Fijian chiefsand their military agents to prevent the developmentof a strong sense of legitimacy by shortening theelected government's tenure to a few weeks, andthereby preventing it from developing more liberalinstitutions and a national consciousness overrid-ing ethnicity and feudalism.

In Fiji in May 1987 there was little evidence of the conditionswhich are often said to lead to coups---economic decline, corruption in the existing government, genuine and spontaneous

mass disorders, lack of widespread political participation, weakpublic commitment to civilian institutions, traditions of militaryrule, rapid modernization, very low levels of economic development, and the absence of a sense of legitimacy. Only 9 percentof the indigenous Fijians voted for the government, but onlya minority appeared to approve of its military overthrow. It

was not so much the absence of legitimacy which led to thecoup as the desire of the Fijian chiefs and their military agents

to prevent the development of a strong sense of legitimacy byshortening the elected government's tenure to a few weeks,and thereby preventing it from developing more liberal institu

tions and a national consciousness overriding ethnicity andfeudalism.

Internal Colonialism

Indigenous Fijian society is frequently represented as aristocratic. 1O But it is often forgotten that this is valid only for theeastern societies or chiefdoms heavily influenced by Polynesia.

While these eastern chiefdoms have played the principal role

in national development over the past century (most recently

through the Alliance party), the western districts of Viti Levu

have been subjected to a form of internal colonialism that they

have often resisted. This resistance can currently be seen intheir disproportionate support for the Labour-National Federation party (NFP) coalition.

It has often been recognized that Fiji is divided into eastern

and western sections, which have distinct ecological zones and

types of society. I I In the west there are hills and savannahs-poor, eroded, and often ravaged by fires. Here the best land

has been leased to Indians and the sugar monopoly, and Fijiansare the most underemployed and discontented. Traditionally

these Fijians were almost Melanesian in social organization-

gerontocracies as much as elementary chiefdoms, where charismatic religious leaders had considerable influence. In the central

part of Fiji, humid forests give way to alluvial plains and todeltas used for agriculture, pastoralism, and timber growing.

While aristocrats live well and there is an indigenous Fijian

middle class, most indigenous Fijians are poor horticultural istsor part-time proletarians. The further east one goes, the more

elaborate are the Polynesian and aristocratic structures and thestronger is the support for the Alliance party.

Historically, strict hierarchy and Christianization came fromthe eastern high chiefs and was imposed upon commoners,

who, in the west especially, resisted and attempted to maintainindigenous structures and beliefs. 12 With British annexation in1874, eastern military imperialism was sanctioned, the west

was incorporated under eastern control, and Methodism became

almost a state religion. As colonial authorities took possessionand converted westerners, the westerners turned to millennialism, the muffled voice of independence. The more rigidly

structured and feudal organizations of the east were relativelyunaffected. The Tuka movement began in the 1870s and con

tinues to this d'7' promising healing, immortality, and westernindependence. l. The movement of the messiah Apolosi Nawai

was the most powerful challenge to the eastern aristocracy in

the first half of the twentieth century and launched a missionof ensuring financial success for indigenous Fijian commoners

which was so successful in the west as to serve as a program

which indigenous Fijian candidates such as Bavadra and

10. R. Nayaeakalou, Leadership in Fiji (Oxford: Oxford University

Press, 1975).

11. A. Capell and R.H. Lester, "Local Divisions and Movements in

Fiji," Oceania XI (1941), pp. 313-41, and XII (1942), pp. 21-48;

Capell and Lester, "Kinship in Fiji," Oceania XV (1945), pp. 171-200,XVI (1946), pp. 109-43, pp. 234-53, and pp. 297-318; Simione

Durutalo, Internal Colonialism and Uneven Regional Development:The Case of Western Viti Levu (M.A. Thesis, The University of the

South Pacific, 1985); J. Guiart , "Institutions religieuses traditionnelles

et messianismes modernes it Fiji," Archives de Sociologie des Religions

4 (1957), pp. 3-30; A.M. Hoeart, "Early Fijians," Journal of theRoyal Anthropological Institute XLIX (1915), pp. 42-51; R. Norton,

Race and Politics in Fiji (St. Lucia: University of Queensland Press,1977).

12. B. Thomson, The Fijians (London: Heinemann, 1908), p. 51.

13. D. Scarr, Fiji: A Short History (Sydney: George Allen and Unwin,

1984), p. 44; F. Shaheem, "2,000 Wait on Return: Police Investigat

ing," Fiji Times, 15 March 1984.

25




Simione Durutalo of the Labour-NFP coalition claimed theywould fulfill. 14 The west has been the primary source of indi

genous Fijian radicalism, and its disproportionate support forthe government of Bavadra continues this tradition of oppositionto eastern aristocratic privilege.

After annexation the British harshly and rapidly imposed atheoretical social structure heavily influenced by the easternseaboard polity of Mbau Island. 15 The British administrators,

conforming to the requirements of the Deed of Cession of 1874,gave indigenous Fijians the guarantee that they could keep theirgovernment and customs. Pushed by the necessity of administering Fiji at the lowest cost to pay the debts contracted byKing Thakombau of Mbau Island, the British applied the principle of indirect rule, well before they did in Africa. At alllevels they gave responsibilities to Fijian aristocrats, most of

whom came from the ruling classes of the eastern principalities.In addition to the administrators the Methodist mission hasbeen allied for a long time with the eastern aristocracy ofTailevu and the Lau Islands, the home of Ratu Mara. Throughthe intermediary of its indigenous Fijian ministry, the MethodistChurch dominated the west. 16

Subsequently, the development of sugar cane cultivation,

performed by Indian small farmers, necessitated a survey oftraditional property titles to define who was entitled to the rentsto be collected from the Indians. The land inventory establishedby the Native Lands Commission was also interpreted in termsof the social structure of the east. It assured the supremacy of

a group defined by the concept of a chiefdom (yavllsa), dividedinto five or seven lineages (mataqali), each having responsibilities and ceremonial prerogatives in relation to a chief of

the whole (vanlla). Land rentals (currently amounting to over$10,000,000) are allocated to a chief of the vanlla (5 percent),the chief of the yavllsa (10 percent), the head of the mataqali

(15 percent), the commoners of the mataqali (45 percent), andthe Fijian Affairs Board or its predecessor for administration(25 percent). 17

But in the west the ranking of lineages was often quite vagueand rarely was a vanlla chief clearly recognized. Although therewas no ranking by conspicuous display, as in much of

Melanesia, commoners, particularly charismatic religious leaders, could often achieve as much influence and status as ahereditary chief. Since chiefs in the west had small and unstablejurisdictions, appointments of local chiefs often causedjealousies, and the government came to favor outsiders as overlords--either Europeans (in the early days) or eastern aristocrats. In this way a system of internal colonialism was established over the west in half a century. 18

14. Norton, Race (1977); R. Norton, "Colonial Fiji: Ethnic Divisions

and Elite Conciliation," in Lal (ed.), Politics (1986); cf. Durutalo,

Imernal Colonia/ism (1985).

IS. Capell and Lester, "Local Divisions," (1941-42), and "Kinship in Fiji," (1945-46); France, The Charter (1969).

16. Guiart, "Institutions," (1957).

17. S.G. Britlon, Tourism in a Peripheral Capitalist Economy: The

Case of Fiji (Ph.D. Thesis, Australian National University, 1977),pp. 112-13.

18. Durutalo, Internal Colonialism (1985); Guiart, "Institutions,"

(1957); Norton. Race (1977). pp. 54-55, 185 ff.; Scarr, Fiji (1984)p. 3; Thomson, The Fijians (1908), p. 59.

The constant unrelieved pressure for eliminating the bases

of their more egalitarian social organization led to resistanceamong westerners. The millennial Tllka movement has beenwidely discussed and drew public attention once again in 198when 2,000 adherents gathered secretly to demand the overthrow of the existing government and to raise the flag of a newnation. 19 But the movement of Apolosi Nawai has a muchgreater influence upon the politics ofthe west, being particularly

strong in Bavadra's birthplace of Namoli and his current homeof Viseisei. Apolosi Nawai, a commoner who called himsel"The Man from Ra" to proclaim his identity as a westernersought a new basis of national identity in the European modeof a corporation of shareholders united not by kinship or geographical loyalties, but by capital contributions and a commonspirit of enterprise. The Viti Company was founded in 191to buy and sell indigenous Fijian agricultural produce as a firsstep toward a new era when eastern aristocratic power, Indianmercantilism, and European economic and political supremacywould end. In the west independent farming was one of thfew occupations through which indigenous Fijians couldachieve wealth and power, since until very recently almost al

the schools through which indigenous Fijians could qualify

for prestigious jobs were in the east. Yet the prospectivindependent farmer would receive little encouragement from

chiefs intent upon maintaining communal labor obligations. Hewould receive low prices from European, Chinese, and Indianmiddlemen, and he would lack capital and credit.20 The newBavadra government, like Apolosi, promised to remedy althese problems.

There is also a spiritual alignment with Apolosi whichBavadra and other indigenous Fijian Labour politicians emphasized in the west during the campaign. Upon his return in

1924 from seven years of enforced exile for telling his massivefollowing to refuse to sell produce to Europeans and to disobeygovernment officials and chiefs, Apolosi made millenniaprophecies which concentrated on Vunda Point and its associated village of Viseisei, Bavadra's home. Apolosi proclaimed that the ancestors had originally landed there beforejourneying east to Mt. Nakauvadra, the place of origin claimedby eastern aristocrats. He proclaimed that Tonga, SamoaRotuma, the Solomons, Tokelau, Futuna, and eventually theentire British empire would all be subject to Fiji-and Fiji tVunda. He claimed to possess the "sacred box of the mana o

Fiji," which had been lost at Vunda from the canoe whicbrought the ancestors of the indigenous Fijians. This claim topriority for himself and the west further outraged the high chiefof the east and their allies administering the west, and he waexiled twice more (for a total of fifteen years) as they fearedthat he would create difficulties in the sugar and gold industrieand that he would endanger security during World War I

19. Guiart, "Institutions," (1957); T. MacNaught, The Fijian Colonia

Experience (Canberra: Australian National University Press, 1982)pp. 95- \01; Scarr, Fiji (1984). pp. 44, 55-56; Shaheem. "2,000,(1984); W. Sutherland, "The 'Tuka' Religion," Transactions of th

Fijian Society (19\0); Anthony B. van Fossen, "Priests, Aristocratand Millenialism in Fiji," Mankind 16:3 (December 1986)P. Worsley, The Trumpet Shall Sound (Rev. ed.), (New YorkSchockcn, 1968).

20. Norton, Race (1977), pp. 61-64.


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in the event of a Japanese invasion. They were particularly

concerned that he and his followers would unite with discon

tented indigenous Fijians to attempt to overthrow European and

chiefly rule. 21 Even after his death in 1946, many of his disci

ples, particularly in the west, believe that he is still alive and

will soon return as a messianic leader to usher in the millen

nium.22 For them, the election of a prime minister from Viseisei

who expressed his link to Apolosi was a certain sign. It is no

accident that "The Taukei movement" of opposition toBavadra's government held its first meeting at Viseisei in an

attempt to diminish his charisma.

The strength of Apolosi's heritage and of Bavadra among

indigenous Fijians in the west is due not only to internal col

onialism but also to higher levels of individualism and pro

letarianization. There is far more individual farming in the

west, and this is in marked contrast to the eastern islands where

dependence on copra favors traditional communal villages andaristocratic polities. 23

The question might arise to some ethnocentric Westerners

as to why there is such a "confusion" of religious, political,

and economic themes. But in Fiji, particularly in the west,

charismatic religious leadership among the indigenous people

has been the source of the greatest demands for economicdevelopment and political change. Appeals to the ancestral

gods frequently validate modern indigenous Fijian economic

activity in a nation where even the most convinced Christians

pay a cautious respect to superseded gods. 24 One writer has

noted that it is almost as if to accumulate and invest, rather

than distribute in the conventional manner, indigenous Fijians

need the ancestral gods' special sanction. "The messianic strain

was s t r o n ~ in some later Fijian entrepreneurs, as it was in

Apolosi." 5 To create a more rational economic system freed

from eastern aristocratic control, as Apolosi and Bavadra pro

posed, it was necessary to invoke spiritual and religious themes

which have consistently opposed the eastern aristocrats' in

terests.26

Apolosian themes dominated western movements which attempted to spur indigenous Fijian economic development during

the 1960s, but neither was able to survive in the face of eastern

chiefly opposition. In 1961 four villages in the southwest de

clared themselves a "communist state," rigidly regulating work

and time and rejecting chiefly control, traditional customs, and

orthodox Christianity. Eastern aristocrats opposed this militaris

tic movement and many members were evicted from the land

on which they were tenants. 27 The west was the major region

21. Norton, "Colonial Fiji," in Lal (ed.), Politics (1986), p. 59.

22.T.

MacNaught, The Fijian Colonial Experience (Canberra:Australian National University Press, 1982), pp. 151-54; Norton, Race

(1977), pp. 57-59.

23. The irregularity of copra cutting and drying fits with the irregular

demands which may be made on a person's time by communal duties.

This produces greater adherence to traditional forms on the eastern

islands, where copra is the primary crop. See R.G. Ward, Land Use

and Population in Fiji (London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office,

1965). pp. 204-206.

24. France, The Charter (1969), p. 30.

25. Scarr, Fiji (1984), pp. 135-36.

26. Van Fossen, "Priests," (1986).

27. Anon., "New Way of Life in Four Villages," Fiji Times

of support for the Fijian Chamber ofCommerce (FCC), a move

ment which favored capitalism for Fijians and criticized th

eastern aristocracy for not encouraging it. The first conventio

was held in Lautoka in 1968. It attracted more than 4,000 o

the 45,000 alleged financial members, who watched the unfur

ing of the FCC flag, said to be blessed by the Pope and display

ing mysterious symbols. 28 Leaders alleged that the absence o

the governor and president of the eastern aristocrat-dominate

Fijian Association, who had been invited, showed that thewere not interested in the people. It sought representation o

agricultural marketing boards and floated a company whic

bought trucks for transporting produce and opened shops i

some of the towns. 29 Like Bavadra many years later, it de

veloped strong links with the Indian-dominated National Fed

eration party and particularly its mass circulation Pacifi

Review, where favorable articles on the FCC attacked the Fijia

Administration, the GreatCouncil of Chiefs, and the oppressio

of indigenous Fijian commoners by the alliance of indigenou

eastern aristocrats and European business interests. The forme

president of the FCC, Viliame Savu, blames Ratu Mara for it

demise,30 and its magical aspects were deplored in the Legis

lative Council by Alliance party politicans such as Ratu Davi

Toganivalu. Elements of the FCC were incorporated in thFijian Independent party, also led by Savu and other FC

officials, but the party contested only a few Fijian communa

seats, received less than 1 percent of the indigenous Fijian vote

and disappeared after the 1972 elections. Savu would becom

a supporter and in 1987 a candidate of the Fijian Nationalis

party (FNP).

The Fijian Nationalist party had been the greatest challeng

to the establishment since Apolosi. The Alliance party lost th

3 April 1977 election as the FNP gathered 25 percent of th

indigenous Fijian vote. Under the leadership of Sakeasi Butad

roka, the FNP demanded indigenous Fijian control of Parlia

ment, nationalization of major businesses, rural developmen

and education. It intimidated Indian tenant farmers who ha

not paid their rent, demanded the repatriation of Indians, anblamed eastern aristocrats for indigenous Fijian economic back

wardness. The party polled well in the west and even in Rewa

where Butadroka won the only FNP seat. It was weakest

(12 August 1961); anon., "Advice to Co-op in Nadroga," Fiji Time

(15 August 1961); anon., "Move to Establish a Communist Party

Fiji Times (25 August 1961); anon., "Only the Name is Ncw in Ne

Party," Fiji Times (26 August 1961); anon., "Teachers' Reaction t

Communist Party," Fiji Times (28 August 1961); Nayacakalou

Leadership (1975). p. 75; Norton, Race (1977), pp. 67-69.

28. The president of the FCC, Viliame Savu, refused to disclose thmeaning of the flag, which bore a strong resemblance to the flag o

Apolosi's Viti Kabani. It was red, yellow, and green with whit

lettering of the Fijian Chamber of Commerce in English and "Vakurur

Kei Viti" (Shelter for Fiji) in Fijian, with a moon crescent, a cross

and four stars on a blue background. See anon ., " Chamber 's Call fo

New Community." Fiji Times (26 March 1968). Flags have bee

important in western movements from the time of early Tuka. Cf

Shaheem, "2,000" (1984), on a recent Tuka flag. They symboliz

rejection of eastern control of the nation.

29. Anon., "Chamber's Call," (1968); Norton, Race (1977), p. 69

30. Viliame Savu, in a conversation with Anthony B. van Fossen i

Suva, 6 January 1987.

27


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Indigenous Fijians listening to a candidate of the eastern aristocrat-

dominated Fijian Association in a village near Suva.*

the east3 ) and did not bother to contest four of the indigenous

Fijian seats there. The results led to a major crisis, ultimately

resolved when the governor-general, a Mbauan aristocrat,

reinstated the Alliance party, which formed a minority govern

ment until it won a solid majority in the August 1977 elections.

Butadroka and two other FNP leaders had spent much of the

intervening period in jail, having been accused of unlawful

assembly and inciting racial tensions, among other charges.

The party dwindled as it became less capable of articulating

indigenous Fijian discontent, especially in the west.

The Western United Front (WUF) drew on western indige

nous grievances against neglect by the Alliance government

and discrimination by eastern aristocrats. The focal issue was

a disagreement between western indigenous landowners and

the eastern a r i s t o c r a t ~ o m i n a t e d Fiji Pine Commission (FPC)

about which overseas corporation should handle the develop

ment of this industry with major export potential. Ratu Osea

Gavidi, a western M.P. and dissident aristocrat of immense

popularity who won his seat as an independent, led the fight

against the FPC. He explicitly drew on Apolosian traditions of

western resistance and commercial development in forming the

WUF in 1981. Like leaders of previous western-based move

ments,he

decried the very small numbers of western indigenousFijians in prominent positions in government and emphasized

the great economic importance of the region. Among the WUF

tenets was the fight for political, social, and economic develop

ment and freedom of religious expression for indigenous west

ern Fijians. Initially Ratu Gavidi attempted to form a front with

the Fijian Nationalist party, but abandoned the plan when the

FNP leader Butadroka assaulted an Alliance minister, Solomone

Momoivalu, for accusing him of practicing sorcery (draunikau)

to win votes. Finally, on 11 January 1982, the WUF entered

into a loose multi-ethnic association with the main anti-Alliance

party, the Indian-dominated NFP. This collapsed after electoral

defeat in the September elections, when the Alliance won

twenty-eight seats. 32

Westerners and commoners opposed to the eastern aristoc

racy failed to become effective politically until they coalesced

with the Indians of the National Federation party in 1987. The

new practice was a simple one, but it had never been used

before. A single Labour-NFP coalition candidate was presentedfor every one of the fifty-two communal and national seats.

Before this indigenous Fijians opposed to the Alliance party

had always fielded ethnically based and often extremely anti

Indian splinter parties-the Fijian Independent party in 1972,

the Fijian Nationalist party of 1977 onwards, and the Western

United Front of 1982 and 1987. The NFP gave some covert

support to all of these and to significant independents such asthe messiah Sairusi Nabogibogi, no matter how anti-Indian

their platforms, in the hope of defeating the Alliance. After

the Western United Front decided not to join with the FijianNationalists in 1982, there was even the short-lived NFP-WUF

coalition, which contested all fifty-two seats, but as individual

parties which agreed not to run for the same seats. This relativelycoordinated approach laid the groundwork for the coalition

of 1987.

These indigenous Fijian splinter parties contested only a

*This photo is from Robert Norton, Race and Politics in Fiji (NewYork: St. Martin's Press, 1977), photo section after p. 98.31. Norton, "Colonial Fiji ," in Lal (cd.), Politics (1986), pp. 162-69.

32. Durutalo, Internal Colonialism (1985); Brij V. Lal, "The FijiGeneral Election of 1982," Journal of Pacific History 18:2 (1983),pp. 134-57.


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minority of House of Representatives seats, usually just the

indigenous Fijian seats, and were doomed to electoral marginal

ity from the outset. Only the Fijian Nationalist party had everwon a seat. Although it had gathered 25 percent of the indigenous Fijian communal vote then, thereby contributing to thedefeat of the Alliance party and temporarily electing the NFP,this was but a temporary "victory." Ratu Mara was reinstatedafter a few days of chaos, the Alliance won the September1977 elections handily, and the results seemed to vindicateMara's claim to frightened indigenous Fijian voters that a votefor an anti-aristocratic fringe party was a vote for an Indiangovernment. The FNP's proportion of the indigenous Fijiancommunal vote slumped to 12 percent in September 1977,8 percent in 1982, and 5 percent in 1987. The Western UnitedFront gained 7 percent in 1982 and 3 percent in 1987. TheNFP received only 2.4 percent in 1972, 0 percent in April1977,0.1 percent in September 1977, and 0.8 percent in 1982.In contrast, Indian support for the Alliance in communal elections was 24. 1 percent in 1972, 15.6 percent in April 1977,14.4 percent in September 1977, 15.3 percent in 1982, and14.7 percent in 1987.

The Labour party attracted many of the dissident indigenousFijians and combined them with the overwhelming majority of

the Indians who voted for the NFP, so that the coalition received9 percent of the indigenous Fijian vote and won a majority of

the ten indigenous Fijian national seats. All the indigenousFijians in the cabinet, including Prime Minister Bavadra, were

elected on national votes. None attracted a majority of indigenous Fijian votes in their constituencies. But for the first timecampaigns were effectively oriented around the theme that mostIndians and indigenous Fijian commoners faced similareconomic, social, and political problems. The strengths of indigenous Fijian radicalism in the wese3 and among urban proletarians were able to counterbalance the fact that the NFP wasweakest among Indian voters in these areas.

The Fiji Labour party (FLP) was established on 6 July 1985as Fiji's powerful trade unions became alarmed by the Alliancegovernment's confrontational stance and threat to use the armyagainst their strikes. The government had been acting in anincreasingly truculent manner, and a crisis was reached when itabandoned the arbitration system of government, employers,and unions to impose a unilateral wage freeze for a year beginning on 1 November 1984. It had adopted a particularly hostilestance toward teachers' unions in enforcing teacher transfers,exploitative arrangements for recent university graduates, andunpopular moves to desegregate schools. With monetaristpolicies leading to 14 percent unemployment and exportoriented strategies of development encouraging sweatshop laborin the clothing industry particularly, the unions were not in

clined to be conciliatory when sugar and tourism slumped andfive major cyclones devastated Fiji in early 1985. A union

33. The fact that indigenous Fijian support for the coalition was

strongest in western Viti Levu in no way implies that a majoritysupported it even there. Coalition votes in indigenous Fijian communalseats varied between 25 percent in the western BaJNadi constituency

where Durutalo was the candidate-to 2 percent in the eastern LaulRotuman constituency. After the first coup, all indigenous Fijian pro

vincial councils, whether in the west or east, supported the call to changethe Constitution to increase indigenous Fijian political representation.

movement which had been moderate became mobilized to rplace ethnicity by class as a major election issue, and to coaleswith what remained of the fragmented and declining NationFederation party.

Although the party was committed to democratic socialismit fundamentally favored "a competitive non-monopolistic pvate sector, with particular emphasis on small-scale businesfarming and co-operatives, controlled and owned by the peop

of Fiji" (Article VIII of the Fiji Labour party constitution). key proposal was to democratize and rationalize the NatiLand Trust Board established by Ratu Sukuna and to greatreduce charges which went to an aristocrat-dominated adminitration. While there were no provisions relating directly

the west, both of these planks promised to fulfill western asprations.34

By reducing the importance of aristocracy, ethnicity, aregionalism, the FLP attempted to represent all significanonaristocratic class groups in a way which offended man

university radicals who wanted the middle classes definedan enemy. Bavadra clearly stated that he favored rationaliover this sort of class conflict. The FLP welcomed the suppo

of the small capitalists (5.2 percent of the populationin

1976government executive officers and professionals (10.3 percenas well as the working class (44.6 percent), farmers (13percent), and the reserve army of unpaid and family worke(25.4 percent). 35 There were only a few token eastern aristocraon the list of Labour party supporters.

The Malaysian Model: The Future in Fiji?

The indigenous people of Fiji and Malaysia have aristocratsocial systems and have been in conflict with large immigragroups, primarily Indians in Fiji and Chinese in MalaysiIndigenous commoners have been less prone to dissentMalaysia, where they have achieved greater power. Ethnici

overshadows class more thoroughly there, and it appears thMalaysia is in a second stage of ethnic relations which Fijientering as the new regime solidifies its power. Whereas tfirst stage of balanced ethnic relations defines special rights fthe indigenous people with respect to land and government,still leaves open the possibility of common citizenship andunified nation independent of ethnicity. The second, exclusistage involves revision of laws and constitutions which extenthe special rights of indigenes (especially in modem sectorsthe economy), supports the rights of aristocrats who we

threatened, and clearly defines immigrants as second-class cizens. The transition to the second stage occurred after the 196riots in Malaysia and it is occurring at the present time in Fiji.

There are some broad historical similarities between t

societies, which highlight their differences. In 1874 conflicwithin the indigenous ruling class led to British imperial controThe British solidified and extended existing class structures supporting aristocrats and "tradition" and stifling commoninitiative. In both cases aristocrats were deprived of much their power and converted into civil servants under indire

34. Cf. Lal, "Postscript: The Emergence of the Fiji Labor Party,"

Lal (ed.), Politics (1986); R.T. Robertson, "The Fonnation of the FLabour Party,"NewZealandMonthlyReview281 (Oct. 1985), pp. 3-

35. Robertson, "The Fonnation," (1985).


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rule, but the basic hereditary class structure was frozen or, in

the Fijian case, imposed on new areas. In Fiji the British assisted

eastern chiefs in extending their control over the entire country,

creating a system of internal colonialism which lasts until this

day-the west being the locus of indigenous Fijian dissent. In

contrast, there was little regional variation in the power of

Malay sultans. They were also more secure in holding political,

economic, and Islamic power, whereas the eastern chiefsin

Fiji dominated the political and economic realms, but lacked

spiritual authority, which was held by indigenous Fijian priests.

Within the Malay community there has been little revolutionary

activity.

In both countries large immigrant populations were intro

duced in the nineteenth century to work in capitalist enterprises:

Indians for sugar plantations in Fiji, Chinese and a smaIler

number of Indians for tin mines and rubber plantations in

Malaysia. They were initiaIly treated as having few claims to

political rights, which were firmly vested with the British im

perialists and indigenous aristocrats, who favored the preserva

tion of a traditional rural life for their subjects. The paradoxical

effect of the policy was to involve the immigrants, who were

initiaIly poorer than the indigenes, in the modern, urban sectorsof the economy, al lowing them to achieve greater commercial

and educational success and creating fear in the indigenous

populations. At the time of independence in Malaysia in 1957

and in Fiji in 1970, constitutional arrangements balanced the

immigrants' economic superiority against special rights for in

digenes in politics, government, and education, while preserv

ing the possibility of eventual common citizenship. Both indi

genous Fijians and Malays identified themselves with the land,

and "son of the land" (taukei in Fijian and bumiputra in Malay)

became a badge of ethnicity in the first stage of ethnic relations.

In Fiji land is aIlocated by aristocrats, but in Malaysia it is

individually owned and can be bought and sold by any Malay.

Defining ethnicity in terms of land supports aristocratic princi

ples in Fiji more thoroughly than in Malaysia. This is particularly the case today, as identification with rural life is still very

strong among indigenous Fijians, even those in towns, whereas

among Malays the rural ideal has crumbled and the commitment

to the aristocracy has somewhat weakened.

The goal of most indigenous Fijians is to retain control of

land; the goal of most Malays is to be successful in the modern,

urban economy. In both Fiji and Malaysia the indigenous

peoples have seen their continued control of government as

being necessary for the achievement of their goals. This hasseemed more assured in Malaysia, where the indigenes are a

majority, as compared to Fiji, where they are outnumbered by

Indians. but a split in their vote (e.g. along class lines), as

occurred in Malaysia in 1969 and Fiji in 1987, weakened their

hold on government and produced immediate demands to alterthe Constitution to entrench their rights. 36

These changes were accomplished after bloody riots in

Malaysia, and they are in the process of occurring in Fiji after

the second military coup. The second coup of 25 September

1987 occurred three days after the coalition and Alliance parties

had agreed to form a joint caretaker government. This agree

ment would lionize Ganilau, allow Mara to make a comeback,

bury concern with corruption in the past, and minimally satisfy

Bavadra and the coalition. It appeared to give little or nothingto the minor aristocrats and ethnic extremists who had risen to

public prominence since the first coup and who favored the

recent recommendations of the Great Council of Chiefs which

would carry Fiji into the second stage of ethnic relations.

But more crucially it gave little assurance to Rabuka and his

fellow officers who had led the first coup and who were fearful

of their future if civilian rule returned and Brigadier General

Nailatikau was restored to command. There was little talk of

amnesty, and Bavadra had spoken frequently of prosecution.

Signs were extremely ominous for those who had broken civi

lian law when Supreme Court Justice Frank Rooney ruled on22 September that Alipate Qetaki, the advisor on justice to

Ganilau and the equivalent of acting attorney general, could

be sent to prison for two years for authorizing the unlawful

arrest and two-day detention of an Australian researcher. That

night there was a massive breakout of 114 inmates from prison

and a halfhearted attempt by soldiers to stop their parade through

the center of Suva to meet Ganilau under the pretext of de

monstrating their loyalty to a high chief. It seemed clear that

the breakout had been condoned, if not orchestrated, by Rabuka

and feIlow soldiers and police.

The return to legitimate civilian rule would moderate the

movement toward indigenous Fijian political supremacy. And

it would probably bring thorough investigations of the wide

spread accusations of collaboration between the "securityforces" and the arsonists, looters, and rioters who had been

consistently attacking the property of Indians and coalition sup

porters, particularly over the previous two weeks. Support for

Rabuka among indigenous Fijians appeared to be declining as

they suffered from increasing unemployment, severe cuts in

wages and hours of work, higher inflation, devaluation of the

Fijian dollar by 15 14 percent, and the general demoralization

which affected most people in Fiji after the first coup. Crime

was rising, and everyone was subject to arbitrary arrest, harrass

ment, shootings, searches, and threats from police and army.

These were particularly directed at Indians, and to a lesser

extent, Europeans and Fijians suspected of liberal sympathies.

The "security forces" were growing considerably more confi

dent as a police state was being established over the largelyfutile objections ofthe judicia ry, the general public, and increas

ingly Ganilau.

Rabuka seized power for the second ti me under the pretext

of preventing violence from the extremist "Taukei movement,"

which had been implicated in recent disorders. He would do

this by implementing the resolutions of the Great Council of

Chiefs, which would establish aristocratic indigenous supre

macy in perpetuity. Several times after the second coup Rabuka

sought the approval of leading aristocrats, particularly his

paramount chief Ganilau, to whom he offered the presidencyof the new republic of Fiji which he was proposing. But this

approval was not forthcoming as Ganilau and Mara were

36. Even after the Alliance narrowly won thc 1982 elect ions, aristocrats called for changes to increase their power. The current governor

general, Ratu Sir Penaia Ganilau, was then president of the Great

Council of Chiefs when it met on the aristocratic island of Mbau. It

called for the revision of the Constitution so that two-thirds of the

House of Representatives seats as well as the positions of governorgeneral and prime minister would be reserved for indigenous Fijians.

Ganilau called for a strengthening of aristocratic rule, which wasdirected as much against dissenting commoners as it was against non

Fijians. See Brij V. Lal, "Politics since Independence," in Lal (ed.),

Politics (1986), pp. 74-106.




Wl/IC./'/ WIL.l

(;.UIDE uS nf'IlauG"1l-\1C) ~ 0 I . J 3 L . e l >

1 " ~ ~ I O D · · .

.. A 1 J ~ YO\) CAN "trr'Efbll W\-loEVC'Q.. '101J

1,.1t(E".•

angered that the new coup destroyed their hopes of reestablish

ing their prestige both nationally and internationally. Continuedinstability and economic decline would damage the country.And expUlsion from the Commonwealth, which would occur

in October, would diminish the value of their Knighthoods,OBEs (Order of the British Empire), and MBEs (Member of

the British Empire). For his part, Rabuka felt that they hadbetrayed him and his cause, although he continued to ask forGanilau's forgiveness and acquiescence.

Initially Rabuka had to settle for the support of the less

prestigious chiefs and ethnic extremists whose legitimacy wasnot so secure. Political opponents, including politicians, judges,

university lecturers, and journalists, were arrested. Curfewswere announced which would continue for weeks i f not months.

Sunday would henceforth be a day of rest, with prosecution

promised for such illegal acts as picnics, as Fiji became aChristian country it la Great Council of Chiefs. Judges andimportant civil servants were summarily dismissed, and policeand soldiers ruled the streets. Financial fears reached such apoint that banks were closed on 2 October, and five days later

there was another devaluation (of 15 14 percent), as Rabukaannounced that Fiji was a republic. Although a few cosmopoli

tan high chiefs might be disturbed momentarily, the Allianceparty refused to condemn the coup and the Great Council of

Chiefs welcomed it. The new Council of Ministers contained

few soldiers and was heavily weighted toward less worldlychiefs and indigenous ethnic extremists, but on 5 December

: 1"0 f f N 5 U R ~ ~ A C E ) 1iI£REJ.J.

I Bff No PIJBLlC GA7Hf3RIN(;S

1987 Rabuka would decree that Ganilau was the president of

the new republic and Mara was its prime minister. They wouldbe shaping the future of Fiji as it enters a second stage of ethnicrelations.

This second, exclusive stage of ethnic relations abandonsideas of common citizenship to identify the immigrants clearly

as inferior in political and civil rights. It substantially increasesindigenous representation in the legislature, civil service, anduniversities. It abandons notions of ethnic balance and equity

according to merit and installs quotas which are meant to redress

past inequities. And it assures preferential treatment of theindigenous group in the commercial economy, which allows

aristocrats to diversify and solidify their power in the modem

sphere and offer some benefits to commoners on the basis of

ethnicity. It tends to minimize class conflict by transformingsignificant debate into disputes about the entitlements of ethnic

groups. Indigenous aristocracies can retain their supreme position. Even where, as among the Malays,37 most of the ruling

class is composed of well-educated commoners from middleclass backgrounds, the indigenous upper class incorporates adisproportionate number of aristocrats, and rules according to

old aristocratic ideologies of command from above. *

The three cartoons on this page are from The Sydney Morning Herald;upper left, I June 1987; upper right, 20 May 1987; and bottom,

22 May 1987.37. John Gullick and B. Gale, Malaysia (Selangor, Malaysia:Pelanduk, 1986), p. 126.




Organisasi Papua Merdeka:

The Free Papua Movement Lives

by Malcolm Gault-Williams

West Papua--or Irian Jaya, as it has been renamed by theIndonesian government-is Indonesia's 26th province, occupying the western half of the island of New Guinea. For thepeople of West Papua, however, Indonesia is an occupyingpower. Since the area is so little known, most non-Papuans areunaware that West Papuans have been struggling for independence there ever since the mid-1960s, led by the OrganisasiPapua Merdeka (OPM-Free Papua Movement).)

The OPM's basis for its claim to complete sovereignty forWest Papua "is our inalienable birth right which is firmly and

justly enshrined in the desires of the indigenous Melanesianpeople of the tenitory as outlined in the New Guinea Councilresolution of 31 October 1961," stated OPM's Henk Joku, atthe first regional meeting of the World Council of IndigenousPeoples (WCIP) , Pacific Region, in June 1984, " ... in con

formation with [the] preamble and Article 1 of the UniversalDeclaration of Human Rights of the United Nations of

December 14, 1960."2

Historical Background

The people of West Papua are Melanesians. They are of thesame ethnic origin as the Papuans who inhabit the eastern endof the vast island and the indigenous peoples of the Solomon

Islands, Vanuatu, New Caledonia, and parts of Fiji. They havemany different languages-in West Papua alone there are at

1. Malcolm Gault-Williams, "West Papuans Fight for Independ

ence-Free Papua Movement Leads Struggle against Indonesia's Repressive Rule," The Militant, 9 January 1987. Published by theSocialist Workers Party, U.S.A.

2. Henk Joku, "West Papua: The Plea of the People of West Papua,"fWGIA Newsletter, No. 41 (1985), p. 136. Published by the Interna

tional Work Group for Indigenous Affairs, Fiolstraede 10, OK 1171

Copenhagen K, Denmark.

32

least 750 languages. The one thing they all have in commonis their Melanesian way of life and culture. Of the five millionpeople living on the whole island, one-half live on the WestPapuan side. 3

The island of New Guinea is the second largest island in theworld after Greenland. It lies between the equator and 12°latitude south between the Philippines and Australia. The islandis tropical, includes some of the largest tracts of unexploredland area left on Earth, and has a wide range of differentphysical conditions, ranging from the hot, swampy lowlands

to snow-covered mountains. West Papua itself is a land of highmountain ranges, mangrove swamps, and jungles. It is dominated by a great cordillera, running from east to west, comprisedof the massive Carstensz mountain range. One of the mostextensively and intensively cultivated regions is the Paniai region, generally referred to as the Central Highlands. This,

together with the Baliem Valley to the east, is the most denselypopulated region. 4

In the days before foreign penetration, Papuans lived inwidely scattered hamlets, having little contact with the outsideworld.

The tribes in West Papua were in fact sovereign small tribal stateswithin which the group, which was an economic, political and

military entity, was kept up by the mutual link springing from thefact of having common ancestors. Anyone who did not by virtue

of this mutual link belong to the group .. was a foreigner who, ifhe entered the territory of the tribal state without reasons acceptable

3. Fred Korwa, "West Papua: The Colonisation of West Papua,"

IWGIA Newsletter, No. 36 (\983). Fred Korwa is a member of theFree Papua Movement.

4. Ibid.; see also TAPOL, West Papua: The Obliteration ofa People

(London: T APOL, the Indonesian Human Rights Campaign, 8a Treport Street, London SW18 2BP, U.K., 1984).




to that society, would be considered as an evil intruder and therefore

liquidated if need be 5

Foreign intrusions began in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries with the Java-based Mojopahit empire. Later, the Tidore

sultans made frequent forays into the territory. Neither theMojopahit adventurers nor the Tidore missions, however, established control. This fell to the Dutch, who set up outposts

beginning in 1828, under a treaty with its vassal state of Tidore,based on the "sovereignty of the Sultan of Tidore over thePapuan islands in general." For over a century, West Papuawas too difficult to exploit and was used by the Dutch only as

a buffer against other colonial powers. 6

West Papua was a Dutch colony from 1828 until 1963. In1945, lndonesia proclaimed its independence from the Netherlands, claiming all of the Dutch East lndies. West Papua'sstatus was different from the rest of the Dutch East Indies in

two respects: the Dutch had retained an outpost at Meraukethroughout the war, and the island itself was recaptured andreturned to Dutch control before the end of World War n. Afterthe war, West Papua remained colonized by the Netherlands.In August 1950, an agreement was made between the newlyproclaimed Republic of lndonesia and the Netherlands for theformal transfer of sovereignty to the "Republic of the UnitedStates of lndonesia." Indonesia deferred the matter of WestPapua in order to hasten the transfer of sovereignty in the restof what has become Indonesia. "These claims were based onpast colonial sentiments and had no foundation," Fred Korwa

o Oil eonc.euion b o u n d 8 ~ i ~ s " -

• AlIuYial extraction -_ --=-:

• Mine "cation _ _ "_

• Majorl'rospect _ ~ - ~ ~ - ~ - : .. -~ O f f i c l a l ~ o g g i ; i e ~ ~ ~ ~ s i ~ n -

West Papua: The Plunder of Resources

*This map is from Survival International, The Ecologist, p. 106, andis attributed to Kabar dari Kampung (1984, 1/2).

5. Saul Hindom, "Resistance in West Papua: From Tribal States toNation State," (Deventer, Holland: Foundation Workgroup New

Guinea, undated); see also West Papuan Observer, Vol. 4:5 (Jan./Feb.1980), and Vol. 4:6 (Mar'/Apr. 1980).

6. TAPOL, West Papua.

A Dani woman. The Indonesian government has been driving the Da

and other West Papuan tribespeople of f their land and forcing theto cultivate rice rather than their usual sweet potatoes. It's all pa

of being absorbed into Indonesian society, the authorities say, bthis cuts across Melanesian tradition since Papuan peoples have stro

ties to their traditional lands. One Enga man sentenced to prison{after a] dispute is quoted as saying: "You can put me in jail ma

times, you can kill me, cut of f my head if you will, but my body wwalk back to that land. It is ours."

of the Free Papua Movement stated in 1983.7For the native people on 13,700 islands scattered over

3,OOO-mile extent-members of what has been referred to"the fourth world" (peoples exploited by third world coutries}--the transfer of power from the Netherlands to Indonesmerely meant that the Javanese replaced the Europeans as t

colonial power claiming sovereignty over them. Java's expa

sion of political, military, and economic control was made thtop priority of the new nation. In 1950, Indonesian presideSukarno declared that migration to the outer islands wasmatter of life and death for the Indonesian nation." The expasionist designs emanating from Jakarta have involved movinJavanese settlers and military units from island to island, an

*This photo and the last part of its caption are from Survival Interntional, The Ecologist (London), Vol. 16, no. 2/3 (1986), p. 104.

7. Korwa, "West Papua."




the disguising of these invasions as the redistribution of overpopulation within the confines of a mythical Indonesian state. 8

West Papua's natural resources became the pivotal point in

the public debate over its fate. Had West Papuan aspirationsfor self-determination been acknowledged, the Papuans them

selves would have had the final say in the exploitation of theseresources. As it is, there were stronger forces vying for West

Papua's gold, silver, oil, timber, copper, and nickel. The WestPapuan issue was "resolved" in 1962 by diplomatic maneuvers

in which the U.S. played the leading role in handing WestPapua over from Dutch to Indonesian colonial administration.

"When the Dutch refused to hand over the administration of

West Papua to the Indonesians, the latter underlined their claimsby military infiltration and asked military support from com

munist sources for an invasion of West Papua," noted OPM's

Fred Korwa. It is quite likely that the United States, whichwas fighting in South Vietnam, was afraid of another war inand around Southeast Asia. This could explain why the U.S.

forced the Dutch government to hand over West Papua to theIndonesians, without fighting, through bilateral negotiations in

1962.9

The causes of political and social unrest in WestPapua extendfar beyond the question ofself-determination. Whole populations are being resettledand dispossessed of land to make way for miningexploration and the transmigration of Javanese.

Papuan demands that an exercise of self-determination shouldprecede any decision about their country's fate were sweptaside as U.S. pressure forced the Netherlands to abandon thecause of West Papuan independence. This "solution"-the

"New York Agreement," ratified by the United Nations GeneralAssembly-simply ignored the opinions of the Papuans and

placed them at the mercy of their new rulers. This was illustratedby President Sukamo two days after the agreement's signing,

when he declared: "The Indonesian government only recognizesan Irianese right to internal self-determination (autonomy) andnot external self-determination as contained in the New YorkAgreement. ,10 The Council on Foreign Relations, an influential

U.S. body with powerful connections in Washington and inthe oil industry, admitted in a 1962 report: "Noone regarded

the stipulations for 'free choice' by the Papuans as more thanmere formality. Outsiders could only hope that their progressunder Indonesian rule would not fall far behind what it mighthave been if the Dutch had remained." II

8. Bernard Nietschmann, "Economic Development by Invasion of

Indigenous Nations," Cultural Survival Quarterly, Vol. 10, No. 2

(1986). Published by CuIturalSurvival, Inc., Cambridge, MA, U.S.A.

9. Korwa, "West Papua," p.193.

10. loku, "West Papua," p. 142.

I I . TAPOL, West Papua.

After the Dutch left West Papua in 1962, political activitiesspread gradually to all parts of the country, to Kotabaru (nowlayapura), Biak, Manokwari, Sorong, Paniai, Fakfak, and

Merauke. After Indonesia's formal takeover, in 1963, conditions in West Papua steadily deteriorated. 12 "From 1963-69, the

Indonesian military administration practised a tight campaign

of intimidation, oppression and torturing of the Papuans,"

according to the OPM. "During this period more than 30,000people were killed by the Indonesians." Attempts by Papuans

to press for an internationally supervised exercise of self

determination were repressed by Indonesian troops. The OPM' s

Thomas Agaky Wanda, in an interview in 1986, claimed: "The

people involved came from all walks of life; the armed forces,the police, government employees, villagers, fishermen, students, unemployed, men, women and youngsters.,,13

In 1969, the "Act of Free Choice"---called Pepera by the

Indone sians-sealed West Papua's fate as Indonesia's twenty

sixth province (Indonesia's twenty-seventh province is East

Timor, forcibly annexed after invasion by Indonesia in 1975).The basis of the Act was the "unanimous" vote of the 1,024members of a specially appointed referendum council. Free

Papua Movement political refugee Thomas Agaky Wandaexplained how this happened:

"They were all .... illiterate, simple-minded men, unable to read

or write ....After signing these statements they were given clothes,

wrist watches, radios or bicycles as rewards .... Everyone (including

departmental chiefs, village heads and public figures) had to sign

statements saying they were in favor of Indonesian rule.

"When Pepera was completed, everyone who had signed was

given a reward in accordance with their status. Villagers got ciga

rettes, money, radios or bicycles while departmental heads got

promotion, extra education, cars, houses and so on. All members

of Parliament, the Regional Assembly, all district heads throughout

(West Papua) .... signed statements and got the same rewards as

the departmental chiefs. These were Indonesia's velvet glovemethods.,,14

Of Indonesia's less subtle methods, the Free Papua Movements's Henk 10ku received information from Rev. Origines

Hokojoku alleging that Indonesian general Ali Murtopo had'warned some of the 1,024 "representatives":

"I f you want independence you had better ask God if he could

be kind enough to raise an island in the middle ofthe Pacific Ocean

so that you can migrate there. You can also write the Americans.

They have set foot on the Moon, perhaps they would be willing

to fix up a place for you there. Those of you who think about

voting against Indonesia must think again, for if you do, the wrath

of the Indonesian people will be on you. Your accursed tongues

will be cut out and your evil mouths ripped open. Then I, General

Ali Murtopo, will step in and shoot you on the SpOt.,,15

The Act, which took place simultaneously with widespread

12. TAPOL Bulletin, No. 81 (June 1987), p. 16. Interview with

Thomas Agaky Wanda.

13. Korwa, "Wes t Papua," p. 194; see also TAPOL Bulletin, No. 81,

p. 16.

14. TAPOL Bulletin, No. 80 (April 1987).

15. 10ku, "West Papua ," p. 143. Murtopo allegedly made this state

ment to the "representatives" who were gathered together before the

Act.




OPM bush camp

upnsmgs and political unrest, was nonetheless formally

acknowledged by the United Nations General Assembly. West

Papua, henceforth, ceased to occupy the attention of the world

community as Indonesia renamed the territory "Irian Jaya,"

outlawing the terms relating to West Papuan culture. For in

stance, "Papuan" is not a word acceptable to the Indonesian

military regime under any circumstances, even though

Javanese, Sudanese, Mendadonese, Moluccan, and other ethnic

designations are not frowned upon. In Indonesia today, Papuansmay only be known as "Irianese" or "anak daerah," hardIg'

translatable but best conveyed as "son/child of the region.,,1

OPM History

Many West Papuans were arrested and detained by Indone

sian para-commandos (then referred to as RPKAD) when

Indonesia took over administrative control of West Papua. In1965 President Sukamo of Indonesia forbade freedom of

speech, gathering in public places, and both expression of

opinion and movement. "This was the start of the resistancemovement for freedom.,,1? The Free Papua Movement formed

in the Central Highlands in 1965, "in response to these arrests.

Many people fled and formed a unit which attacked an army

post in Erambu village, Kalimoro. OPM troops, armed withknives, choppers [machetes], and bows and arrows, killed twoIndonesian soldiers and a government employee.,,18

Political refugee Thomas Agaky Wanda, interviewed last

*This photo is from Tok Blong SPPF (South Pacific Peoples Foundation of Canada), No. 17 (November 1987), p. 12.


17. Korwa, "West Papua."

35

year by the Indonesian Human Rights Campaign (TAPO

gave a detailed account of one of the first OPM military actio

"Bren guns captured during this first OPM attack were used

a second attack on Janggandur when some 30 Indonesian s

diers were killed. They were buried at the Trikora Hero

Cemetery in Merauke as heroes of the Trikora Operat

(launched by Indonesia against [forces of] the Netherlands bef

1962) but this is a lie. They were killed in a battle betwe

the OPM and Indonesian troops." The OPM forces--cal"security disruptor gangs" or "wild terrorist gangs" (GPL)

the Indonesian military-were led by Sergeant Jaku and C

poral Flasi, both formerlr. of the disbanded Dutch-organizPapuan Volunteer Corps. 9

Armed resistance to Indonesian occupation spread to ot

parts of the country. That year there was an Arfak upris

commanded by Colonel Permenas Awom. In 1967 there wan Ayamaru uprising led by Abner Asmuruf and also an Arf

uprising led by the brothers Mandatjan. In the same year th

was the North Biak uprising led by another Awom. In 19

thirty out of the fifty-four members of the Provincial Assem

were dismissed by the Indonesian government because th

wanted to debate the preparation of the coming "Act of F

Choice. ,,20 Independence activities intensified during the perof the Act, in 1969, with uprisings in Paniai and Ubrupwa

18. Thomas Agaky Wanda. Quoted in TAPOL Bulletin, No. 80. Ro

Osborne says that the first OPM action occurred in Manokwari onJuly 1965. See Osborne, Indonesia's Secret War: The Guerrilla Str

gle in Irian Jaya (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1985), p. 35.

19. TAPOL Bulletin, No. 80. GPL is an abbreviation of Gerak

Pengacau Liar.

20. Joku, "West Papua," p.144.




and a rare peaceful demonstration in the streets of Jayapura.Mass killings-begun in the mid-I960s-are estimated to

have claimed the lives of 150,000 people who were dead ormissing as of 1985. The victims have almost invariably beenvillagers who have borne the brunt of the Indonesian military 's

campaign to eliminate the guerrilla resistance led by the Free

Papua Movement. Incapable of penetrating the jungles and

discovering guerrilla hideouts and bases, the Indonesian troops

resort to terror tactics against villages, aimed at intimidatingthe villagers and isolating the resistance. "Each strike by therebels is immediately followed by reprisals," one observernoted. "The area is prohibited [to investigation by reporters]

and it is impossible to know the number of victims on both

sides. Rumors circulate, impossible to control, that for eachsoldier killed a hundred [Papuans] will be shot, villages willbe bombed."21

Having failed either by organized political activity in thetowns or by means of armed resistance in the countryside to

influence the conduct of the 1969 Act and its formal acknow

ledgement by the United Nations, the Free Papua Movementissued a declaration of West Papuan independence. Deep inthe jungle at his Markas Vktoria headquarters, General Seth

Jafet Rumkorem proclaimed the Republic of West Papua andadopted a constitution and national symbols on 1 July 1971.A period of military skirmishes and political uprisings began

after the independence proclamation. In 1977 opposition toparticipation in Indonesian elections and attempts to forcibly"modernize" Papuans by eliminating their cultural and tradi

tional practices, resulted in major uprisings in several border

regions, in the Baliem valley and in the Carstensz mountainrange in the Central Highlands.

"A lot of compulsion was used in the 1977 election .... Theauthorities checked on how people voted by making a hole in

the back of the place where the different party boxes were

placed so that officials could easily see where people put their

slips," explained Thomas Agaky Wanda. This system is employed throughout Indonesia and thus was also used in East

Timor elections in 1982 and again in 1987.22

OPM Structure

The Organisasi Papua Merdeka derived from the Papuan

National Front (FPN), an early resistance front organized by

political exiles in Holland, Nicolaas Jouwe and Franz Kaisiepo."The OPM's founders were from the Arfak people, many of

whom had been trained in the Dutch-created Papuan VolunteerCorps. ,23

21. Malcolm Gault-Williams, 'The War Nobody's Told You About:

Indonesia in West Papua," Northern Sun, Vol. 9, No. 10 (November1986). This article won mention as one of the top twenty-five under

reported stories of 1986, in Project Censored, issued by Carl Jensen,

director of the project, Sonoma State University, CA, U.S.A. Northern

Sun is published by the Northern Sun Alliance, Minneapolis, MN,U.S.A.

22. TAPOLBulietin, No. 81, op. cit.

23. Osborne, Secret War, p. 35.

The signing of the Port Vila Declaration on II July 1987 ended nine years of conflict between the political and

military wings of the Free Papua Movement. Signing on the left is Seth Rumkorem. signing on the right is

Jacob Prai. standing on the left is Baroke Sope of the Vanuata government, and seated on the far right is A.

Ayamiseba.




From early leaders such as Johan Ariks, who took to thehills when he was in his mid-seventies, to Lodewijk Mandatjan

and Perminas and Frits Awom, the movement eventually cameunder the dual leadership of Seth Rurnkorem and Jacob Prai.Rumkorem was a Papuan who had been an Indonesian intelligence officer, in favor of soliciting arms from communist governments, and was ambushed in May 1977 by Papenal guerrillasloyal to Prai. Jacob Prai, unlike Rumkorem, had always been

against the Indonesians. Where Rumkorem had military experience, Prai had knowledge of the Papuan underground. He believed in the self-sufficiency of the struggle and that hope ofoutside aid was futile. 24

The setting aside of differences by Prai and Rumkorem meanta unification of the political and military wings of the FreePapua Movement. The reunification took place on II July1985. The two exiles signed an agreement in Port Vila, Vanuatu, ending nine years of discord and acrimony during theWest Papuan struggle against Indonesian occupation. Thedeclaration was followed by a signed agreement between thetwo wings inside West Papua. M. Prawar represented MarkasVictoria of the Rurnkorem headquarters, and Fisor Jarisetowrepresented Markas Pemka of the Prai headquarters.

Papuan demands that an exercise ofself-determination should precede any decision about their country's fate were swept aside as u.s. pressure forcedthe Netherlands to abandon the cause ofWest Papuan independence. This "solution"-the "NewYork Agreement," ratifred by the UnitedNations General Assembly-simply ignored theopinions of the Papuans and placed them at themercy of their new rulers.

The Port Vila Declaration contains a pledge to safeguard the"survival right of the Melanesian race in West Papua." Bothleaders admitted that many casualties had resulted from theirdisagreements, and that the Indonesian armed forces-the Ang

katan Bersenjata Republic Indonesia (ABRI)--had been theones to benefit. I f disunity continued, the result would be "theobliteration of the Melanesian race in West Papua." A divisionof responsibilities was made. Jacob Prai took charge of thepolitical side of the movement and Seth Rumkorem took com

mand of military activities. 25The Free Papua Movement's military arm, Papenal--or Pasu

kan Pembebasan Nasional (National Liberation Forces)--is organized into seven regional commands, each one consisting of

a large number of posts known as basis. According to JacobPrai, the person in command of each basis takes charge of bothmilitary planning and community activity, including popUlation

movements where necessary. Each regional command1,000 to 3,000 trained guerrillas attached to it. Women coprise a significant proportion of the troops.

The OPM's most serious logistical problems are the lackmodem weapons and the serious shortage of medicines. Tmost widely used weapons are bows and arrows, spears, along, sharp cassowary bones. Most of the firearms are WoWar II rifles, left over from Dutch times, or guns seized fr

ABRI. Seth Rurnkorem stated that OPM troops had only firearms total. Yet, on several occasions, Papenal has succeein shooting down enemy planes, as documented in Indonesmilitary internal documents. 26

As for medical treatment, not only is there a critical shortof medicine, but also an absence of trained medical personnPrai said nurses "perform operations using pineapple fibresfibre from banana leaves for stitches. But, for more seriinjuries, our skills are too limited to cope. With more qualifmedical personnel, we would be able to save more lives. Mof the medicines we use are traditional medicines coming frroots or leaves. ,27

The Organisasi Papua Merdeka functions as a form of gernment, with such posts as defense, finance, home and fore

affairs, information, education, and local government. In OPcontrolled areas, attention is given to education, organizatof food production, and the basic training of personnel to hprovide simple medical services. Rurnkorem has stated that OPM is in effective control of one quarter of the territoryWest Papua-PapuaBarat-and the Indonesian military 10 pcent. "The expansion of the liberated zone is only restricby the problems of supply, communications and organizatioAs for the actual size of the Free Papua Movement's forcRumkorem said that 30,000 Papuans are active throughout country. 28

Henk Joku represented West Papua at the Pacific regmeeting of the World Council of Indigenous Peoples in C

berra, Australia, in June 1984. He premised that Irian J

posed a regional security threat and proposed a six-point pgram to deal with that threat:

I. The West Papuan issue be brought back on the agenda

the United Nations Decolonisation Committee for re-examinatio2. The West Papuan issue be put back on the agenda of

United Nations General Assembly for debate;

3. Observers from neutral member countries of the UnNations travel to the territory to gain firsthand information regardthe freely expressed wishes of the Melanesian people there;

4. International Red Cross and Amnesty International send t

respective observers to the territory and lend assistance to Melanesian people;

5. Member nations of the South Pacific Forum countries s

observers to the territory and gain firsthand information regard

the freely expressed wishes of the Melanesian people there; a

26. XVII Cendrawasih Military District Command Intellige

Executive Agency, "Incidents in 1977 in the District of Jayawijaycontained in appendix to TAPOL, West Papua (1984).

27. Malcolm Gault-Williams, "OPM: The World's Least Kno

Guerrillas," September 1986. Unpublished. Based on TAPOL in

view in 1981, interview in Nederlands Dagblad on 14 Decem24. Ibid., pp. 51-65. 1982, and interview in Kora-Kora in May 1982.

25. Northern Sun, Vol. 9, No. 10, op. cit. 28. Gault-Williams, "OPM." See alsoNorthern Sun, VoI.9,No. 1

37




6. The Government of Indonesia convene a round-table confer

ence between the Indonesian Government and the OPM Govern

ment within 12 months in order that the independence and full

sovereignty of the Melanesian people of West Papua can be trans

ferred to them without further bloodshed and disturbance of peace

and security in this region 29

Indonesian Military Strategy

Although the Indonesian military is well-equipped and hasgood air support, the difficult terrain in West Papua places

significant restrictions on its troop mobility. Indonesian ground

troops do not venture into some parts of the territory, which

is among the most rugged in the world. In those regions where

villagers live from sago stands, wild fruit, and vegetables, and

from fishing and hunting, greater mobility makes it less possible

for Indonesian troops to destroy communities by eliminating

their food supplies. In other regions where garden cultivation

is highly sophisticated-such as parts of the Baliem Valley

military attacks are far more damaging.

Due to the lack of modern weapons, the aPM has been

unable to answer Indonesian helicopter raids, except by fleeing.

Indonesians, as a result, are confident in the air and fairly

confident in the towns. Yet on the ground and in the villagesthey know they are not safe. "It is our land," said aPM former

district commander Gerard Thorny. "And it is our place. Thatis our strength.,,30

Faced with nationwide hostility and a guerrilla movement

that can function in a very protected environment, ABRI,

backed by air support, is known to engage in frequent devastat

ing attacks on village communities. The attacks usually take

one of two forms: a village or populated region is subjected to

aerial bombardment by ground-attack jets and strafing by

helicopters. The helicopters then land troops to machine-gun

the survivors and bum their homes. Even when villagers have

fled, the dwellings are destroyed, livestock shot, and gardens

or trees devastated. The other form of attack occurs in more

accessible villages, which are encircled by ground troops. Vil

lagers are then driven together and killed. Documented aerial

bombardments include:

1965: Manokwari and the surrounding North Eastern Vogel Kop.

1966: Arfak mountains, Central and North Eastern Vogel Kop.

Napalm bombs used for the first time.

1966-67: Ayamaru Lake area, Central and South Western Vogel

Kop.

1967: Angie Lake area, Central and South Western Vogel Kop.

1969: Paniai area (formerly the Wissel -Lakes Highlands).

1977: Grand Baliem Valley, Central Highlands.1978: Arso-waris area, including villages along the northern border

with Papua New Guinea.

1982: Paniai, Highlands of Wissel Lake area. Napalm used.

1983: North Biak (warsa) areaY

There is some evidence that chemical weapons are also being

used. Jacob Prai stated:

OPM guerrillas using sharpened stakes to prevent aircraftfrom landing*

I was inspecting kampungs (Papuan dwellings) which were to be

made ready to receive evacuees from villages that had been attacked

by the colonial (Indonesian) army. Then, at about 9 in the morning

a plane and a helicopter flew past. I saw a kind of yellow-colored

smoke or spray being emitted from the aircraft. A couple of days

later, people started dying, children as well as adults. We quickly

ordered the people still alive to abandon the area and we burnt the

kampung down. We paid too little attention to this incident at the

time and didn't collect specimens of water or plants. I received

similar reports at the time from other places.32

Documented bombardments and ground sweeps by ABRI

include:

1966-67: Ayamaru, Teminabuan, and Kaimana areas (Southern

Vogel Kop); estimated 1,500 people killed.

1969: Paniai; 600 people killed.

1970: Biak Island; 950 people killed.

1974: North Biak villages of Arwan, Makuker, and Warker;

eighty-five people shot dead. Among them was one preg

nant woman, Alfrieda Bonsapia, who had her abdomen

ripped open with a bayonet. Mother and baby were left to

die slowly.

1977: Grand Baliem Valley; 2,000 people killed by napalm bombs

and helicopters as well as Bronco UVIO's supplied by the

United States.

1982: Paniai; 7 people k illed. Casualties from the bombings in

Manokwari, Arfak mountains, Angi Lake, Arso-waris, and

North Biak are not known. 33

The Indonesian armed forces have also resorted to: plain

murders, public executions, political leaders dying under suspicious circumstances, disappearances of Melanesian leaders

29. 10ku, "West Papua," p. 145. See also Osborne, Secret War, *This photo is from the TAPOL Bulletin, No. 74 (March 1986), p. 10,

pp. 110-11. and Robin Osbourne, Indonesia's Secret War

30. Gault-Williams, "OPM." 32. TAPOL, West Papua.

31. loku, "West Papua ," p. 137. 33. loku, "West Papua," pp. 138-39.

38


http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/places.32





Melanesian deserters from the Indonesian army in West Papua who fled to Papua New Guinea

without trace, violation of women (gang rapes), imprisonment,torture, intimidation, and armed coercion. Documented instances include:

In 1978 [alone], 116 people were killed on the Biak-Numfoorislands; in Dosai-Maribu, near Jayapura, 20 people were found

dead in the bush; in Merauke, 122 people had their hands and legstied. They were put into copra bags and dropped into the sea; in

North Biak, 12 people went to pound sago in the bush and their

badly decomposed bodies were discovered weeks later by a passing

village hunter. Other incidences of murder are typically not reportedby those who have survived for fear of persecution by the ABRI. 34

Actions committed by the Indonesian military aimed at setting public examples (executions) and punishing political leaders(suspicious deaths and disappearances) are too numerous to

document here. Also, besides such atrocities, more subtle measures have been implemented by the occupying government with

the sole aim of Melanesian ethnocide.

Transmigrasi and Cultural Extermination

The causes of political and social unrest in West Papua extendfar beyond the question of self-determination. Whole popula

tions are being resettled and dispossessed of land to make way

34. Ibid., pp. 139-40.

for mining exploration and the transmigration of Javanese. W.

Wertheim has written that "under the present Suharto regimthe old myth of an overpopulated Java and the under-populatOuter Islands appears still to haunt not only the minds of tIndonesian present rulers, but also of those determining tpolicies of the World Bank and other Western donors of scalled 'development aid' co-operating in the IGGI (Inter-goernmental Group on Indonesia). ,35 Specifically, funds are pr

vided by the World Bank, World Food Program, the EuropeaEconomic Community, Asian Development Bank, Islamic Dvelopment Bank, West Germany, France, the Netherlands, tUnited States, and the United Nations Development Program.

Wertheim added that the Indonesian

"military power-holders are, in spite of all the failures expe

enced in the course of the past decade, intent upon putting t

35. Mariel Otten, Transmigrasi: Myths and Realities; Indonesian Rsettlement Policy, /965-1985. IWGIA Document No. 57 (Copehagen: IWGIA, October 1986), p. I.

36. Malcolm Gault-Williams, "Indonesia's Genocidal Invasion East Timor: The War Nobody's Told You About - Part 2," NortheSun. Vol. 10, NO.6 (June 1987); see also "Banking on DisasteIndonesia's Transmigration Programme," in The Ecologist: Journ

of the Post Industrial Age. Vol. 16, No. 2/3 (1986). PublishedSurvival International and available through T APOL (London).




x

IRIAN JAVA

POPULATION DISTRIBUTION'

1985 Estimate = 1.3 million

o &I 100 ISO 200 250

• Indigenous People -R o ad s

IS •Transmlgrants ••••••• Proposed Roads

o Other Newcomers • RegIonal Centres

Proposed SelllemenlS 19134-89

(!;nch ~ y m b o l =: 10,000 peoplel

most ambitious quantitative targets into practice, being mainlymotivated by strategie and security considerations .. .. the trans

migrasi strategy, far from being operated in consultation with the

people concerned and on a voluntary basis, is both in the area oforigin and in the locality of destination largely being effectuatedthrough sheer compulsion and deceit. ,37

Indonesia's ]984-89 five-year plan calls for the movement

of five million people from Java, Madura, and Bali specifically

to those areas that resist Indonesia's imposed sovereignty:

Sumatra, Kalimantan, Sulawesi, the South Moluccas and-of

course--East Timor and West Papua. Over the next twenty

years, some 65 million more people are planned for migration

to Javanize the Fourth World territories claimed by Indonesia.

So far, there have been between 300,000 and one million

Javanese peasants and retired military personnel resettled on

Melanesian land. The Indonesian government has envisaged

having Javanese outnumber Melanesians four to one by the

tum of the century.

Robin Osborne, who has written much on the West Papuan

situation, came to the conclusion that "i t is now clear that in

Irian Jaya the prime aim of the (transmigration) programme is

to quell local separatist feelings by sheer force of numbers."

Osborne has brought attention to the "strong presence ofIndone

sian military families, many of them retired personnel, amongst

transmigrants in the border areas. Reports from Jakarta have

spoken of army families being the 'foundation' of many new

settlements. Said OPM's northern area commander James

Nyaro: 'Don't think of these settlers as ordinary civilians. They

are trained military personnel disguised as civilian settlers. ' ,3 8

As groups such as Cultural Survival, Survival International,

TAPOL, and Friends of the Earth, as well as recent publishedworks in The Ecologis t and IWGIA Documents point out, trans

migration has not just resettled Javanese, but has resulted in

"the spread of poverty; forced displacement of indigenous

peoples from their homes, communities and lands; deforestation

*This Mapoflrian Jaya(West Papua) is from TokBlongSPPF, p. 7.

37. Otten, Transmigrasi, pp. 1-2.

38. Pacific Islands Monthly (Sydney, Australia), July 1984; see alsoThe Guardian (New York), 13 April 1984; and ACFOA Briefing, May1985, p. 6.

and soil damage; destruction of local governments, economies,

means of sustainable resource use; forced assimilation pro

grams; widespread use of military force to 'pacify' areas and

to break local resistance by bombing and massacring civilians. ,39

In the translocation and dispossession process, heavy-handed

attempts have been made to force Papuans to abandon their

cultural traditions. Adolf Henesby, a Papuan schoolmaster,testified how his school was raided and searched for symbols

of Papuan nationalism by Indonesian tank-borne troops. Flags,

books, charts, anything connected with Papuan culture, were

A Javanese transmigrant with West Papuan women. Some believe that

the main purpose of the transmigration program in West Papua is to

"quell local separatistfeelings by force of sheer numbers." For othersthe purpose is even more far-reaching. On 20 March 1985 Mr. Mar

tano, the Indonesian minister of transmigration, said: "By way of

transmigration, we will try to realise what has been pledged, to integrate the ethnic groups into one nation .. . the different ethnic groupswill in the long run disappear because of integration .. . and there willbe one kind ofman. " *

*This photo is from the TAPOL Bulletin, No. 79 (February 1987), p.18, and was attributed to Tempo, (6 December 1986).

39. Nietschmann, "Economic Development"; see also "Indonesia:Transmigration - Indigenous, Political and Environmental SupportOrganisations Unite To Protest at Governments Which Back WorldBank," IWGIA Newsletter, No. 45 (1986). Documents signed by RobinHanbury-Tennson, president, Survival International; Lord Avebury,honorary president, TAPOL; Jonathan Porritt, director, Friends of theEarth.




removed. Henesby was driven off to an Indonesian army barrackand interrogated about why he still retained symbols of indigen

ous Papuan culture as opposed to the "Irianese" culture being

promoted by the Indonesian government. "I was questioned

about many things, mainly about the elite West Papuans who,they said, were the ones hampering the Indonesians in their

plans and programs. I was transferred from there to a militarypolice unit and held for 3 days.,,4o

Forest communities have been subjected to forced laborschemes, imposed upon them by Indonesian government offi

cials acting as brokers for timber companies. In the urban areas,Papuans face racial discrimination in government offices, and

are being driven from the towns as Javanese arrive to take overgovernment jobs, commerce, and business.

Refugees and Resettlement

A mission of five lawyers from the Australian section of theInternational Commission of Jurists and a member of the

Netherlands Institute of Human Rights, in a rare opportunity,visited West Papuan refugee camps along the Papua NewGuinea (PNG)-West Papuan border in 1984. It was their con

sidered opinion that "a large number of the approximately

11,000 (West Papuan) refugees now consider themselves to beindefinitely or permanently displaced from Irian Jaya," that

"this large number of people are .... refugees within the terms

of the 1951 Convention and 1967 Protocol Relating to the

Status of Refugees," and that this "is an indication of seriousproblems within Irian Jaya." The mission's crucial recommen

dation was therefore that "no one be returned involuntarily [to

West Papua]." So far, the PNG government has not returned

political refugees. though it has cooperated with Indonesia inreturning "nonpolitical refugees. ,41

Peter Hastings, ofthe Sydney Morning Herald, visited campsat Kungin, Trakbits, and Atkumba. He found that everyone

along the border, from north to south-PNG officials in

cluded-supported the refugees, and that anti-Indonesian feelings ran high. As for the refugees themselves, he wrote: "Not

a single inhabitant of the three camps, or of any othsuspect, will return voluntarily to Irian Jaya at this stage. possibly never. ,,42

Gerard Thomy, one of five OPM leaders who recentl

the bush and was given temporary asylum in Ghana, expla"They will not return home, and if an attempt is made to rthem home, they will disappear into the bush. They knowtheir villages and gardens were destroyed after they lefthey know that we are fighting a war of independence.,,4

Aben Pagawak is one of twelve West Papuan refugees

bly deported from PNG to Jayapura in October 1985. H

caped early in 1986 and then spent two months in a PNG

for "illegal entry." After eventual release and being gra

refugee status, he was interviewed by Bishop John EtherPagawak described how the twelve deportees had beenmediately arrested upon their return to Jayapura, held in crowded, unsanitary cells, and subjected to electric shock

beatings with rubber truncheons. According to Pagawa

and five others were released by Indonesian security forc

the understanding that they would spy on the Free Papua Mment. Of the five, one is missing and another is now bli

one eye due to injuries sustained in the jail. The remaseven deportees remain in jail and have apparently been

though reliable information about these trials is not availSpeaking of the refugees Pagawak rejoins in PNG, B

Etheridge said: "They are grateful to be in a safe country

*This photo was in Tok Blong SPPF, p. 19, and was attributedPapua New Guinea Times. March, 1984.

40. Gault-Williams, "OPM."

41. PNG Times, 12-18 December 1986; see also TAPOL Bu

No. 79 (February 1987).


43. PNG Times (1986, exact date unknown). Interview by Alan S

West Papuan women and children arriving as refugees in Papua New Guinea after escaping thefighting




for two years, they have waited in what is little more than astaging camp .... they want to get on with their own lives, and

that is not possible with the threat of relocation hanging overthem.,,44

A second group of Australian jurists who visited the border

in late 1986 has reported that the refugee situation is "as graveas at any time since the influx began" in 1984. The missionalso reported that the United Nations High Commission on

Refugees (UNHCR) has now agreed to acknowledge all WestPapuans in the camps as refugees under the principle of "group

mass influx." The mission's chief recommendation was that

all United Nations member states, especially PNG and

Australia, should adopt the UNHCR decision to regard all thosewho have crossed the border since 1984 as refugees. Thissecond mission, sent by the Australian section of the International Commission of Jurists, welcomed the fact that the idea

of transferring the more politically conscious refugees to Wabo

camp--known for its isolation and concentration camp-like

organization-had been abandoned, and that, apparently, anumber of recommendations made by the first mission hadbeen implemented, notably Papua New Guinea's accession to

the U.N. Convention on Refugees. 45

In October 1986, the foreign ministers of Indonesia and PNGsigned a Treaty of Mutual Respect, Friendship and Co-opera

tion. Under the terms of this long-debated treaty, the two countries have agreed not to threaten or use force against one another

and not to cooperate with others (i.e. OPM) in hostile or unlawful acts against each other, or allow their territory to be used

by others.46

Though there is nothing in the new treaty which either had

not been the subject of earlier and repeated verbal assurances,

or was not already adequately provided for in the existingagreement on border administration, the new treaty seems toformalize the cooperation between both governments that has,

in part, contributed to the suppression of West Papuan culture.Interestingly, no provisions were made for hot pursuit across

the border. Opposition politicians in PNG described the treaty

as "naive and misconstrued," "sinister," and "an exercise inhypocrisy. ,,47

This was a diplomatic gain for Indonesia, which benefitsmore from PNG cooperation on the refugee situation than PNG

has from fear of Indonesia's greater military strength. The new

treaty follows on the heels of the PNG Defense Force and ABRIstrengthening ties. Prior to the treaty, Brigadier General Huai,commander of the PNG Defense Force, aroused widespread

consternation with a public statement describing the OrganisasiPapua Merdeka as "a bunch ofterrorists" which he was resolved

to "wipe from the face of the earth." Speaking at a press conference in Port Moresby, with the Indonesian charge d'affairs,

Rapilus Ishak, Huai said it had been agreed, in discussionswith Indonesian armed forces commander Benny Murdani, that

44. TAPOL Bulletin. No. 77 (September 1986). Interview taped by

John MacLean, Labor party member of the Victoria State Parliament,

Australia.

45. TAPOL Bulletin. No. 79 (February 1987).

46. Niugini Nius. 28 October 1986.

47. Post-Courier. 29 October 1986; see also Times of Papua New

Guinea, 31 October - 6 November 1986.

PNG and Indonesia would take the same steps on both sidesof the Irian Jaya-Papua New Guinea border to ensure the elimination of the Free Papua Movement. 48

Protests came from many circles. Some politicians accused

Huai of declaring war on the OPM. Others complained that hewas making pronouncements on aspects of government policynot within his authority. Several community leaders from PNGborder provinces stressed that, whatever the Defense Force

chief may say, Papuans along the PNG side of the border areand will remain deeply sympathetic to the OPM. PNG Prime

Minister Paius Wingti has since denied there is any change ingovernment policy toward the Free Papua Movement and hasclaimed that Huai's remarks had been "misinterpreted.,,49

Moses Werror, the acting chairman in Papua New Guineaof the OPM's Revolutionary Council, warned Huai to keep out

of the Free Papua Movement's struggle against Indonesia. Healso warned that guerrillas holding Indonesian prisoners would

kill them, because that is what the Indonesians do with OPM

fighters when captured. Speaking ofthe OPM military strategy,

Werror explained that Papenal's main purpose at the presenttime is to go into administrative centers and "to hold the stations

as long as possible and capture food, ammunition andweapons. ,,50

Newly appointed commander of OPM forces in the northborder region, Bas Mekawa urged Huai to stop "trying to destroy the Melanesian race and impose Asians in the Pacific."

The fifty-year-old former district chief claimed to be in command of about 7,000 guerrillas in his region alone. They are

armed primarily with axes, bows and arrows, spears and clubs,

plus a small number of rifles. The OPM carries out mobilewarfare, he said, because it is the only viable strategy againsta far better-equipped enemy. "If they know where we are, they

will move in and immediately crush us. That's why we'realways moving. ,51

Current Situation

Over 1,000 refugees have fled across the border from West

Papua to PNG during 1986, bringing the total to over 11,000.The International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs, an inde

pendent international organization which gathers informationabout worldwide oppression of indigenous peoples, recognizes

that "the refugees have been fleeing from the increased opf:res

sion stemming from the occupying forces of Indonesia." 2

Worse than the figures on refugees fleeing into PNG are the

estimates of the numbers of Papuans killed or who have diedas a result of Indonesian repression, suppression, or neglect.According to the Indonesian Human Rights Campaign, the totalnumber of Papuans killed range from 100,000 to 150,000 be

tween 1962 and 1984. 53

Without modem weapons and high-level training from theUnited States, United Kingdom, France, West Germany,


49. Ibid.

50. Ibid.

51. Ibid.

52. Andrew Gray, IWGIA Yearbook /986 (Copenhagen: IWGIA,

January 1987).

53. TAPOL, West Papua, p. 6.


http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/others.46





Australia, and Israel, Indonesia would be unable to prolong itsmobilizations in West Papua. In Indonesia's 1985-86 budget,

approximately 45 percent of the military's development funding(totalling A$81 1.4 million) came from foreign aid and credits.Australian aid to ABRI has averaged $10 million in recentyears and has included Sabre jets, small arms training, airnavigation training, and aircraft maintenance as well as continuing research and development. Between 1974 and 1984, some

1,032 Indonesian military personnel have undertaken trainingor study visits to Australia. However, " Indonesia 's largest military supplier is the USA. ,54

At the beginning of 1986, two important commanders of theOPM, Nyaro in the north and Thorny in the south, had left thebush (Nyaro surrendered), and it is thought that much of theOPM's increased military actions would decrease. However,1986 saw "many clashes between the Indonesian armed forcesand the OPM." In November 1986, the Indonesians launched"Operation Saute" which was intended to wipe out the FreePapua Movement before the April 1987 elections. The operationconsisted of five divisions and F5 aircraft. All indications sinceApril point to the OPM's growth and health. 55

In fact, the first Organisasi Papua Merdeka mission ever tovisit Australia toured in November and December of 1986. TheOPM mission was sponsored by the Campaign for an Independent East Timor, the West Papua Association, the Food Preservers' Union, the Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific Group,

and the Campaign Against Repression in the Pacific and Asia.The mission consisted of Jacob Prai, Otto Ondowame, andNick Messet, who are all political exiles in Sweden. The WestPapuans had hoped to lobby the Australian government butAustralia's foreign minister, Bill Hayden, refused to meet themofficially. Informally, Hayden explained that a formal meeting"would cause more trouble than it would be worth.,,56

In an interview with Robin Osborne, Jacob Prai said thatIndonesia's presence in West Papua "ensures the OPM's continued existence .... The behavior of the military guarantees thegrowth of the OPM despite the dangers and difficulties of

maintaining such an organization. Everyone backs us againstthe alien Indonesians and we have thousands of active supporters.',57 During this visit, the Free Papua Movement made

public several requests to the Australian government, in viof the continuing abuse of human rights in West Papua. TOPM has asked the Australian government to:

1. Discuss with Indonesia human rights claims by the OPM-FPand also put these claims to the United Nations Human Rights Comission;

2. Support the United Nations High Commission for Refugeercsettling Irian Jaya/West Papuan refugees;

3. Assist refugees in camps with medical, welfare, and educatioaid, including a scholarship program;

4. Seek at the United Nations a thorough reexamination of the 1so-called act of self-determination, with a view to a timetable independence being determined by the United Nations DecolonisatCommittec. 58

Worldwide ignorance about the events leading to WPapuan colonization by Indonesia, the nature of the repressiand the degree of resistance has made it possible for Indoneto proceed with its destruction of native Papuan life largunhampered by international condemnation. By their complicand acquiescence, most Western countries have lent their suport to the atrocious crimes of the Indonesian military in W

Papua, crimes that are leading to the cultural exterminationthe Melanesian people who inhabit the western halfofthe islaof New Guinea.

Outright military victory by either Papenal or ABRI is impsible. There is some hope, however, that by bringing the pliof West Papuans to the attention of increasing numberspeople, the Organisasi Papua Merdeka will, in time, musenough international support to facilitate West Papuan exprsions of what they themselves wish for the future of their la

*54. Osborne, Secret War, pp. 146-7. From information containedWeekend Australian, 12 January 1985.


56. Canberra Times, 27 November 1986.

57. The Australian, 25 November 1986.

58. TAPOL Bulletin, No. 80 (April 1987).

CALL FOR P APERS/ PANELS

FIRST INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON ANTI-COMMUNISM

AND AMERICAN POLITICS, CULTURE AND MEDIA

Nov. 11-13, 1988 Cambridge, Massachusetts

Sponsored by the Institute for Media Analysis

A three day conference/symposium with a decided international focus

will investigate the phenomenon of anti-communism in American and

political and cultural life; American anti-communism and its historical

antecedents; anti-communism in US foreign policy and its role in

underdevelopment and destabilization in the Third World; images in

mass culture and in the media will also be examined. Conference audience

will include scholars, students, journalists, community and political

activists, civil servants. Deadline for panel proposals, paper abstracts is

March 15, 1988. For information, forms: John P. Demeter, Conference

Director, Institute for Media Analysis, PO Box 2867, Harvard Sq. Station

Cambridge MA 02238. (617) 628-6585.


http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/health.55


http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/Committec.58






"Mutual Respect, Friendship and Co-operation?"

The Indonesia-Papua New Guinea Border and Its Effects

on Relations between Papua New Guinea and Indonesia.

by R.J. May

In October 1986 the foreign ministers of Indonesia and PapuaNew Guinea (PNG) signed a Treaty of Mutual Respect,Friendship and Co-operation. Under the terms of this treatythe two countries have agreed not to threaten or use forceagainst one another and not to cooperate with others in hostileor unlawful acts against each other or allow their territory tobe used by others for such purposes. Provision is made alsofor consultation and negotiation in the event of any dispute.The treaty was hailed by President Suharto as "another milestone in the history of both countries," while Papua NewGuinea's prime minister, Paias Wingti, and foreign affairs secretary, Bill Dihm, said it would give direction for the futureand inspire confidence in Papua New Guinea and its regionalneighbors. I

More skeptical opinion, however, observed that there wasnothing in the new treaty which either had not been the subjectof earlier and repeated verbal assurances, or was not alreadyadequately provided for in the existing agreement on border

administration. Some opposition politicians in Papua NewGuinea went further, describing the treaty as "naive and misconstrued," "sinister," and "an exercise in hypocrisy.,,2

In an attempt to throw some light on these conflicting viewpoints, and to promote a better understanding of the nature ofthe relations between Papua New Guinea and Indonesia, thispaper looks at the problems that have arisen over the commonborder between Indonesia and Papua New Guinea and at the

I. . Niugini Nius, 28 October 1986.

2. Post-Courier, 29 October 1986; Times of Papua New Guinea,

31 October - 6 November 1986.

effects of these problems on relations between them.

The Border

The land boundary between Indonesia and Papua New

Guinea stretches for some 750 kilometers. In the south it passesthrough dry savannah and swampy rain forest before ascendinginto the precipitous limestone ridges of the rain-soaked StarMountains. North of the Star Mountains it traverses the Sepiktloodplain, another series of formidable limestone ridges andraging mountain streams, and a thickly forested swampy plainbefore rising again into the Bougainville Mountains, whichultimately faIl, in a succession of limestone cliffs, into the seaat Wutung. The border itself is poorly defined. Until recentlythere were only fourteen markers along the entire length of theborder; additional markers are being added as the result of

recent surveys and demarcation.Except for parts of the border area roughly from the Fly

River bulge to 100 kilometers north of it, the region is sparsely

populated by people who are shifting cultivators with smaIlgroups of predominantly hunter-gatherers. In the north andsouth respectively taro and yam provide the main staples, andin the higher altitudes some depend on sweet potato; for therest sago is the main staple, supplemented by hunting. As inother countries whose borders are the product of arbitrarydecisions by past colonial regimes, language groups andtraditional rights to land as well as relations of kin and of tradeextend across the border (see map). Indeed, border surveysduring the 1960s established that the border ran right throughthe middle of at least one village and that several villages whichhad been administered by the Dutch were in fact in the Australian territory. As recently as 1980 a village included in Papua




---

New Guinea's National Census was found to be inside Irian

Jaya:* The situation is made more complex for administering

authorities by the tendency, among these shifting cultivators,

for whole villages to shift, re-form, and disappear over time. 3

There has been a tendency among distant

commentators on Indonesia-Papua New Guinea relations to refer to the problems, and to urge greater "understanding," as though the Indonesia-Papua New Guinea relationship is symmetrical. Obviously it is not: border crossing has been essentially one way; border violations have been entirely at Papua New Guinea's expense; Papua New Guinea does not have a domestic insurgency problem overflowing its border; it has been Papua New Guinea rather than Indonesia that has had to seek explanations for external disturbances, and responsibility for the frequent ineffectiveness of liaison

machinery has been largely on the Indonesian side.

The land border is defined by an Australian-Indonesian border agreement of 1973, and is the subject of an agreement

between Indonesia and Papua New Guinea concerning adminis

trative border arrangements. The latter was originally drawnup in 1973 (when Australia was the administering authority in

Papua New Guinea, though the agreement was signed by

Michael Somare as chief minister), and has been renegotiated,

with minor but significant amendments, in 1979 and 1984.The agreement contains provisions relating to definition of theborder area, the establishment of a joint border committee and

consultation and liaison arrangements, border crossings for

traditional and customary purposes and by nontraditional inhabitants, customary border trade and the exercise of traditionalrights to land and waters in the border area, border security,

quarantine, navigation, exchange of information on major construction, major development of natural resources, environmental protection, and compensation for damages. There is,

however, no provision for hot pursuit across the border, and

Papua New Guinea has repeated?, resisted proposals for jointmilitary patrolling of the border.

Border Problems

Since earliest colonial times New Guinea's borders havebeen an occasional source of friction between the neighboring

* Irian Jaya is the Indonesian name for the western part of the islandof New Guinea. Although there was and is a resistance movement,Irian Jaya is now mainly controlled by Indonesia.-ED

3. A recent population survey of the border census divisions of

Papua New Guinea's Western Province by the Papua New GuineaInstitute of Applied Social and Economic Research (lASER), providessome documentation of this fluidity. See A. Pula and R. Jackson,

45

r- -_ _ _

. \\ PAPUA

INDONESIA\ .

NEW

"/ GUINEA,• f. •

6° \ .- .

Ie • I

I I -- Phyllc or Stock Bounda----- Family Boundary

PopulatIon denSity• One dot =1.000 people

Map of the border area, showing language groups and populatdensity.

administrations. In recent years problems between Papua Ne

Guinea and Indonesia over the border have arisen from fosources.

(8) Border Crossers

In principle, one can distinguish four broad classes of bordcrossers. First, there are villagers from the border area w

"Population Survey of the Border Census Divisions of WesteProvince" (Port Moresby: Papua New Guinea lASER, 1984).

4. The agreement is reproduced in R.J. May, ed., The IndonesPapua New Guinea Border: Irianese Nationalism and Small Sta

Diplomacy, Working Paper No.2 (Canberra: Australian NationUniversity, Research School of Pacific Studies, Department of Poical and Social Change, 1979).




West Papuan refugees in Papua New Guinea*

cross from time to time, as they have always crossed, to makesago, to hunt, or to visit kin. As mentioned above, provision

is specifically made for such traditional movement in the borderagreement. Traditionally such movement was two-way and

sometimes, in response to drought or disputes, for example,

was more or less permanent. Within comparatively recent timesthere has been continuous substantial movement across the

border. During the Dutch period many Papua New Guineanvillagers from the border area travelled across into what was

then Dutch New Guinea, attracted by the superior facilities

available, especially at centers su<;h as Hollandia (nowJayapura), Mindiptanah, and Merauke. Lately, it seems, move

ment has tended to be in the opposite direction, though greaterformality of border administration and the existence of differentlingua franca has inhibited such movement. The lASER

Survey referred to above (in footnote number three) hasdocumented extensive cross-border ties for the people of Westem Province: in the North Ok Tedi and Moian census divisions,

for example, 47.8 and 30.3 percent respectively of adults surveyed were born in Irian Jaya.5 In view of the frequency of

movement in the past, the lASER report ventured the opinion

that "a good proportion of these border-crossers [i.e. those whocrossed into Papua New Guinea during 19841 could have goodclaim to PNG citizenship.,,6 Much the same situation exists in

Papua New Guinea's northern Sandaun Province. In 1984 the

Sandaun premier, Andrew Komboni, accused the Australian,

Indonesian, and Papua New Guinean governments of ignoringthe "family aspects" of the situation created by border crossing:

"The traditional ties among the border villages in the northernsector have not changed since the white man declared an invis

ible border line," he said; "A good number of the current

refugees .. . have run this way with the natural inclination to

seek family refuge. It must be shocking .. . to see blood relativesbeing jailed or being held at camps.,,7 As the lASER report

observed: "As time has passed and as the rule of national lawshas reluctantly spread to the border area so people going about

their business as they have done for centuries are slowly beingmade into law-breakers at worst or 'probl;;ms' at best:,8

It is a story that does not reflect well on eitherIndonesia or Papua New Guinea, nor onregional neighbors who have shown no willingness to help resettle those who are eventuallygranted refugee status. Indonesia, having initially refused to acknowledge that an influx of

border crossers had occurred, hampered effortsat repatriation by its reluctance to formallyguarantee the safety of returnees; its refusal,for some time, to agree to UNHCR involvementin repatriation; and its insistence that PapuaNew Guinea provide a list ofnamesofthe bordercrossers.

Second, there has been a comparatively small number of

lrianese nationalists seeking political asylum in Papua NewGuinea. Some of them have been allowed to resettle in Papua

New Guinea but increasingly in recent years those granted

refugee status have been passed on, with the assistance of theUnited Nations High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR), but

lately with considerable difficulty, to third countries such asSweden and Greece. Third, from time to time as a result of

military activity in Irian Jaya groups of lrianese villagers have

crossed over into Papua New Guinea seeking temporary

refuge-often with kin or wantoks. 9 Fourth, OPM [in Indone

sian, Organisasi Papua Merdeka, or Free Papua Movement]

guerrillas operating in the border area have on occasion crossedover into Papua New Guinea seeking refuge from Indonesian

military patrols; this, however, is a special class of border

crosser and will be considered in more detail below.Papua New Guinea policy on border crossers was established

during the colonial period. As I described it some years ago:

People crossing the border are required to report to one of theseveral patrol posts along the border and state their reason forcrossing. If their purpose is "traditional" (the most common issago making) they are normally allowed to stay until they havefinished what they came to do and are then expected to returnacross the border. If they apply for political asylum they are held

7. Post-Courier, 12 April 1984.*This photo is from the TAPOL Bulletin, No. 71 (September 1985) 8. Ibid., p. 32.5. Pula and jackson, "Population Survey," p. 35. 9. Wantoks are literally members of the same language group, but

6. Ibid., p. 33. in more general usage, friends.




Blackwater Camp, a refugee camp in Papua New Guinea.

until a decision is taken and then either granted permissive residence or told to return. In all other cases they are told to return.If they refuse, they are arrested and charged as illegal immigrants,after which they may be deported. 10

The essential features of this policy have not changed since

the 1960s, though in early 1984, in an apparent effort to dis

courage movement across the border, the Papua New Guinean

government charged all adult male border crossers as illegal

immigrants. In practice, as I noted in 1979, the stringency with

which this policy has been applied has varied since 1962.

However there is nothing to support the somewhat paternalistic

view I have heard expressed that while Papua New Guinea

was a colony Australia kept the border pretty well sealed but

that since 1975 administration of the border has been relatively

lax. In fact a close look at the available evidence suggests that

from about 1972, when the first Somare government came to

office, Papua New Guinea has taken an increasingly hard line

against border crossers in all of the above categories. I IWith regard to numbers: Before 1984 the best estimate of

Irian-born residents in Papua New Guinea was around 2,000

10. May, The Indonesia-Papua New Guinea Border. pp. 98-99.

I I . Ibid.; see also R.J. May, ed., Between Two Nations: TheIndonesia-Papua New Guinea Border and West Papua Nationalism

(Bathurst: Robert Brown and Associates, 1986).

47

to 3,000; many of these must have slipped across the bor

some prior to 1962, and taken up residence in villages or to

without acquiring formal residential status. Of this numberhave been granted citizenship in Papua New Guinea-15

1976 and another 60 in 1977. No Irian-born person has

granted citizenship since 1977.

I began this section by saying that "in principle" bo

crossers could be classified in four categories. In practic

course, border crossers are not always so easily distinguish

Until 1984 the number of border crossers was sufficiently s

that this was not a major problem. In 1984 this changed.

lowing an abortive local uprising by lrianese nationalis

Jayapura in February, and a subsequent military crackdo

hundreds and eventually thousands of lrianese began to

across the border into Papua New Guinea. The present situ

is that there are now between 10,000 and 12,000 12 bo

12. It is difficult to measure the exact number, since quitegroups of people appear to have moved back and forth acrosborder. Towards the end of 1984, however, the official estimateabout 12,000. Following the change of government in PapuaGuinea in late 1985 the figure generally quoted officially was 10(though there was no apparent reason for the reduction, except peran earlier Indonesian claim, never verified, that 2,000 border crohad returned to Irian Jaya). Since then there have been several movements into Papua New Guinea, while about 800 border crohave been repatriated-but the figure quoted remains at 10,000




An OPM camp in the border area

few of whom show anyto return in the foreseeable future, and many of

of these people arein the broad sense that they have crossed the border

from conditions they find threatening. The PapuaGuinea government is reluctant to refer to them as

of what this implies with regard

1951 Convention and 1967 Protocol Relating to

to their own side of the border.fact, the PNG government has tried to persuade groups to

in the face of

The handling of the refugee problem during 1984-85 hasn documented elsewhere. 13 It is a story that does not reflect

on either Indonesia or Papua New Guinea, nor on regionalbors who have shown no willingness to help resettle those

who are eventually granted refugee status. Indonesia, havinginitially refused to acknowledge that an influx of border crossershad occurred, hampered efforts at repatriation by its reluctanceto formally guarantee the safety of returnees; its refusal, forsome time, to agree to UNHCR involvement in repatriation;and its insistence that Papua New Guinea provide a list of

names of the border crossers. Indonesia's foreign ministerMochtar has subsequently made it quite clear that he has little

interest in the return of the border crossers. In an interviewwith Peter Hastings 14 Mochtar is reported to have said: "Thebiggest problem of these Irianese .. . is .. . they want to go throughlife doing nothing at all. We don't need people like that." Onthe other hand it is clear that, having failed to force a largenumber of border crossers to return by withholding assistance,during 1984-85 the Papua New Guinea government made littleeffort to screen the refugee camp inmates with a view to sortingout "genuine refugees" from potential returnees. The government of Paias Wingti, which came to office in Papua NewGuinea in late 1985, elaborated a new policy on bordercrossers,which includes greater UNHCR involvement, greater commitment to the screening of border crossers, and the possibilityof some resettlement of refugees within Papua New Guinea.

But the situation is unlikely to be resolved easily or quickly,and Papua New Guinea is likely to have to carry the administrative and political burden of the border crossers for sometime. 15

(b) The OPM

Since the early 1960s groups of Irianese nationalist rebelshave operated in the border area of Irian Jaya, in the name of

the Organisasi Papua Merdeka, and have occasionally crossedover into Papua New Guinea for "R & R" (rest and recreation)or to escape Indonesian military patrols. There have also beenisolated instances of OPM sympathizers within Papua NewGuinea seeking to materially assist the OPM, but usually with

out effect. Two notable cases were a rather naive letter of 1981seeking arms from the USSR, which was returned-and intercepted-because the address ("Mr George, c/o Poste Restante,Turkey") was insufficient, and an unsuccessful attempt in 1984to obtain weapons through an Australian mercenary soldier.

Successive Papua New Guinea governments, however, haveconsistently reiterated their denial of Papua New Guinea soilto OPM rebels, and Papua New Guinean police and militaryand administrative personnel patrol the border area in an effortto discourage movement across the border in general and todeny the use of the border area to OPM guerrillas in particular.In 1983 and again in 1984 budgetary allocations for police andmilitary border patrols were increased, and it was announced

13. See chapters by May and by A. Smith and Kevin Hewison inMay, ed., Between Two Nations.

14. Sydney Morning Herald. 16 August 1986.

15. The financial cost of maintaining the border camps has beenmet in part by the UNHCR, to which Australia has contributed $2.9million, and in part by church organizations. The Indonesian government has contributed only about $50,000 for the support of its citizens:according to the former Papua New Guinea foreign minister, "mostof our requests have gone unanswered." See Post Courier. 20 August1984.




that an infantry company would be stationed at Kiunga. Inaddition several lrianese granted permissive residence in PapuaNew Guinea have been deported for violating their promise,as a condition of their residence in Papua New Guinea, not toengage in political activity relative to their nationalist sentiments. Indeed since the late 1970s the Papua New Guineagovernment's actions against OPM supporters have broughtretaliatory threats from the OPM. For example, in 1984, in

protest against planned repatriation of border crossers, specificthreats were made against the Ok Tedi mining project andagainst individual Papua New Guinean politicians and bureaucrats, and in 1985 government officers were pulled out of

refugee camps in the Western Province following threats fromthe OPM's regional commander, Geradus Thorny.

The government of Paias Wingti, which cameto office in Papua New Guinea in late 1985,elaborated a new policy on border crossers,

which includes greater UNHCR involvement,greater commitment to the screening of bordercrossers, and the possibility ofsome resettlementof refugees within Papua New Guinea. But thesituation IS unlikely to be resolved easily orquickly, and Papua New Guinea is likely to haveto carry the administrative and political burdenof the border crossers for some time.

Notwithstanding this, Papua New Guinea has been accusedof not devoting adequate resources to the task of "sanitizing"the border. Whether or not Papua New Guinea should spendmore on border patrolling depends on judgements aboutpriorities. Personally, given the nature of the terrain and thesmall number of OPM guerrillas involved, I see little reasonwhy a country whose main concerns are with the economicand social development of its people should divert scarceresources away from development in an attempt to deal witha problem of internal security that a large, militaristic neighborhas been unable to resolve-especially when that neighbor hasin tum denied that there is conflict in Irian Jaya, told PapuaNew Guinea that affairs in Irian Jaya are none of its business,and denied the existence of the OPM itself. But whatever one

feels on this issue, it is simply not accurate to accuse PapuaNew Guinea, as some have, of not taking firm action againstthe OPM.

(c) Border Violations

Although it has occasionally been proposed by Indonesia,Papua New Guinea has stopped short of the sort of borderagreement that Indonesia has with Malaysia, which allows "hotpursuit" across the border, and on a number of occasions PapuaNew Guinea has indicated its unwillingness to enter into jointmilitary patrols along the border.

On several occasions since the later I 96Os, however, Indonesian troops or aircraft have crossed the border, intentionally or

The border area, near Wutung

unintentionally. In mid-1982, for example, Indonesian militarpatrols crossed into Papua New Guinea on seven occasiondespite Papua New Guinea protests, and a helicopter flyinthe regional military commander to Wamena, 240 kilometesouthwest of Jayapura, landed "off course" at a mission statio10 kilometers southeast. In March I 984, two Indonesian aircraappear to have violated Papua New Guinea's air space ovethe Green River station, and the following month there werthree border violations, during one of which Indonesian troopdestroyed houses and gardens in a hamlet on the Papua NewGuinea side of the border.

Such incursions are perhaps inevitable given the nature o

the terrain, the poor demarcation of the border, and the cicumstances of a guerrilla campaign. But such "incidents" havbeen magnified rather than minimized by the refusal of thIndonesian government, or the inability of its civil and militarelements, to deal credibly with Papua New Guinea's diplomatprotests or requests for explanation. In tlae instance of th1982 border violations, for example, the Indonesian government denied that the incursion had occurred, saying that somIndonesian hostages taken in an OPM raid had been recoverefrom the Papua New Guinea side of the border by lrianesvillagers, and accusing Papua New Guinea of not honoring it




Papua New Guinea's foreign secretary, Paulias Matnane, and

Indonesia's ambassador to Papua New Guinea, Brigadier General

[man Soepomo, leaving for an inspection visit to Suwampa Village,Sandaun Province, following reports that Indonesian troops had har-

assed vi/lagers.

obligations under the border agreement; in fact, the hostages

who had been held on the Indonesian side of the border-were

subsequently released to Irianese villagers who escorted themacross to Papua New Guinea for repatriation. In the case of

the 1984 air violations the Indonesian ambassador in Papua

New Guinea initially denied that the planes were Indonesian(despite the fact that the Antara News Agency had alreadyreported an exercise by the Indonesian air force in the vicinityof Jayapura); and though the possibility of an unintentionalincursion appears to have been admitted privately in Jakarta, 16

a belated official response to Papua New Guinea's diplomaticprotests again denied that an incursion had taken place. And

with respect to the military incursions of mid-1984 (whichoccurred during military exercises in the border area, of

which-despite earlier Indonesian assurances-Papua NewGuinea had not been informed), in the face of all evidenceArmed Forces Commander Benny Murdani denied the violation, suggesting that perhaps the offenders were OPM guerrillasin Indonesian army uniforms. About the same time the governorof Irian laya was reported as saying, 'There have never beenany clashes between the Indonesian defence forces and theOPM rebels. There have been no clashes, never.',17

Such responses to legitimate concerns of the Papua NewGuinea government have created tensions in the relations between the two countries which might easily have been avoidedby a more honest response. In mid-1984, Papua New Guinea'sforeign minister stated that while Papua New Guinea did notwant to interfere in Indonesia's internal affairs, the bordercrossers were not simply an internal affair. Since they had adirect effect on Papua New Guinea, the means by which Irianlaya was governed and developed was of immediate interestto Papua New Guinea. 18 In late 1984, frustrated and "bloodyangry," the Papua New Guinea foreign minister expressed his

dissatisfaction with the border situationin

a speech to the UNGeneral Assembly. The Indonesian ambassador in Washington,it was reported, was "painfully surprised."

(d) Border Development

Except perhaps at its northern extremity, the border area is

poorly endowed and poorly developed, On the Papua NewGuinea side, apart from the fortuitously placed Ok Tedi mine,what development there has been-a little basic infrastructure(schools, aid posts, minor roads)-is largely the result of theattention the border area has received during periods of OPMIndonesian military confrontation. Agricultural developmenthas been inhibited by the government's policy on quarantine,A modest border program was included in Papua New Guinea's

1980-83 National Public Expenditure Plan, but the allocationfor border development was cut in 1983 as a consequence of

declining revenue from domestic sources and Australian aid.On the Irian laya side, the construction of the trans-Irian

laya highway and the transmigration program are seen as majorconttibutions to development, and there have been announcements of plans to improve communications in the border area(including, according to one report, color TV sets) in the hopesof persuading Irianese border dwellers to stay on their side of

the border. More recently it has been reported that under athree-year plan for development in the border area, commencing in 1986, Indonesia will spend about $66 million on highwayconstruction, airstrips, health and education services, industrialand agricultural developments, and the establishment of trading

centers to improve living conditions in the border area, Afurther $2 million is to be spent on border security, includingan army base.

From time to time joint border development has been proposed as the solution to problems of Irianese separatism andof border crossers. Indeed in 1983, before thousands ofIrianesebegan flooding over the border into Papua New Guinea, Peter

17. Times of PNG, 31 May 1984.16. Far Eastern Economic Review. 12 August 1984; Niugini Nius,

30 March 1984. 18. Times of PNG, 24 May 1984; Courier, 24 July 1984.




A section of the Trans-Irian Jaya highway near one of the points of incursion into Western Province

Hastings observed that Papua New Guineans from the Vanimoarea were visiting Jayapura and suggested that greater development efforts on the Irian Jaya side could soon produce a situationwhere the predominant flow of border crossers was from PapuaNew Guinea to Irian Jaya. 19 In fact, however, border develop

ment programs on the Papua New Guinea side, and it seems

on the Irian Jaya side, have not made much progress, and since1984 the Papua New Guinea government has been more concerned with sustaining (and eventually getting rid ot) bordercrossers than with providing the improved conditions along theborder that might attract more crossers. In the longer term thereis some concern in Papua New Guinea that if large-scale transmigration to Irian Jaya takes place, and unless it proves more

successful than it has to date in Irian Jaya, the resultant tensionscould aggravate the problems of border crossing.

Relations between Indonesia and Papua New Guinea

Others have discussed the broad defense and security aspectsof Indonesia-Papua New Guinea relations. 20 The informed consensus seems to be that Indonesia does not have expansionistambitions towards Papua New Guinea (past expansionist ventures being the product of particular historical circumstancesthat cannot be projected onto the Papua New Guinea case),but that there are other imaginable circumstances that would

19. Sydney Morning Herald, 2 May 1983.

20. See, for example, the chapter by 1.A.C.M. Mackie in May,ed., Between Two Nations; andH. Crouch, "Indonesia and the Securityof Australia and Papua New Guinea," Australian Outlook, 40:3 (1986),

pp. 167-74.

51

worry Indonesia and perhaps lead to intervention in one formor another, specifically the emergence of a hostile (communistsympathetic) regime in Papua New Guinea or some kind of

breakdown in Papua New Guinea's political system, perhapscaused by regional dissidence.

I have no fundamental quarrel with this analysis, except

perhaps a logical quibble about the "particular-historicalcircumstances" argument: granted that the particular historicalcircumstances of Indonesia's original claim to West Papua, ofkonfrontasi over Malaysia, and of East Timor do not apply toindependent Papua New Guinea, can Papua New Guineans beblamed for sometimes wondering whether another set of particular circumstances, domestic and/or external, might be seenby Indonesia as justifying another expansionist venture? It is

in this context (and perhaps also in view of recurring Indonesianclaims that it has acted with "restraint") that some of us find

the discussion of possible Indonesian "intervention" in the eventof a "hostile" or "unstable" regime in Papua New Guinea disquieting. I hope we may assume that those who present suchscenarios agree that the emergence of an "unstable" regime

(whatever that means) in Papua New Guinea, or even onehostile to Indonesia, would provide no justification for Indonesian intervention. Having said that, I suggest that the moreimmediate concerns in Indonesia-Papua New Guinea relationshave to do not with possible invasion or intervention but withthe problems arising over administration of the common border.

Administration of the border takes place within theframework of the border agreement and in the context of amutual commitment to good relations. Since 1981 there havebeen annual Joint Border Committee meetings, irregular meetings of a Border Liaison Committee, and a number of meetingsof technical subcommittees.




In fact, however, relations between the two governmentsover the border have been marked by short cycles of tension

followed by self-conscious cordiality. When "incidents" have

occurred, the machinery of border liaison has generally provedineffective. For example, when in 1983 it was discovered that

Indonesia's trans-Irian Jaya highway crossed into Papua New

Guinea at three points, it took more than three months to securean a c k n o ~ l e d g e m e n t that the incursion had taken place andsixteen months before the offending sections of road wereclosed off. (Incidentally, the incursion might have been established several months earlier had Indonesia not withdrawn froma joint survey exercise because of inadequate funds.) Again,

in February 1984, with refugees flooding across the border,

Indonesian officials told the Papua New Guinea foreign ministerthat they knew nothing of reported events and assured him that

things in Jayapura were "normal," even though residents on

the Papua New Guinea side of the border confirmed thatJayapura was in darkness and its government radio stationsilent. At this time there had not been a border liaison meeting

for over a year-allegedly because of lack of funds-and theVanimo-Jayapura "hot-line" had been out of service for severalmonths. And when in April 1984 Papua New Guinea soughta meeting of the Joint Border Committee to attempt to achieve

some resolution of the situation, its foreign secretary foundhimself sitting down with a local bupati* who was apparently

uninformed on the subject of the border crossings and had no

authority to make decisions. A scheduled meeting the followingmonth was cancelled at short notice when the Irian Jaya governor withdrew from the Indonesian delegation due to "over

commitment. "This sort of situation, combined with evasive responses to

Papua New Guinea's protests over border violations as

described above, did much to generate the strains that characterized Indonesia-Papua New Guinea relations throughout most

of 1984-85.

There has been a tendency among distant commentators onIndonesia-Papua New Guinea relations to refer to the problems,

and to urge greater "understanding," as though the Indonesia

Papua New Guinea relationship is symmetrical. Obviously itis not: border crossing has been essentially one way; borderviolations have been entirely at Papua New Guinea's expense;

Papua New Guinea does not have a domestic insurgency problem overflowing its border; it has been Papua New Guinearather than Indonesia that has had to seek explanations for

external disturbances, and responsibility for the frequent ineffectiveness of liaison machinery has been largely on theIndonesian side. Moreover, the huge disparities in size andmilitary capacity between the two countries create an obvious

imbalance in the relations between them. One might be excused

for wondering too, when Indonesia's foreign minister defendstransmigrasi on the grounds that Indonesia does not intend to

* A bupati is an administrative head of a regency, which is the

administrative division just above a district.

WE HAVE CHANGED OUR ADDRESS!Effective at once, our address is:

BCAS3239 9th St.Boulder, CO 80302-2112U.S.A.

preserve Irian Jaya as "a human zoo," if there are not alsoimbalances in cultural attitudes. Any sensible discussion of

possible improvements in Indonesia-Papua New Guinean rela

tions must begin by recognizing this imbalance.

Conclusion

In view of this analysis, it is difficult to see what the Treaty

of Mutual Respect, Friendship and Co-operation can hope toachieve that could not be achieved just as easily without it. Itis, as one Papua New Guinean described it, "bi/as taso!" ("justornament"). At the most, it might give an assurance of goodwill

on both sides that will help ease the tensions that emerged

during 1984-85. Ultimately, however, relations between thetwo countries are likely to be determined less by the rhetoric

of diplomats than by the day-to-day problems of administering

a border that divides an independent Melanesian nation froman Indonesian province in which a Melanesian liberation move

ment remains active after some two decades ofIndonesian rule.In this context it is perhaps worth noting that in the same week

as the much-heralded Treaty of Mutual Respect, Friendship,

and Co-operation was signed, a Joint Border Committee meeting

in Bandung broke up after four days, having failed to reachagreement on proposals for joint search-and-rescue operations

in the border area. *

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Hiroshima Poems by Toge Sankichi

translated by Richard H. Minear

Translator's Note:

Toge Sankichi, 1917-1953: poet, diarist, activist; native of

Hiroshima, present on 6 August 1945. All his poems dealingwith the bomb date from 1949-52. "At the Makeshift Aid Station" includes a conceit Toge was fond of: repetition ("Forwhat reason?/For what reason?"). In each case, Toge wrote thefirst line using kanji where appropriate, the second line whollyin hiragana. I have set the second line in italics.

"August 6, 1950" contains two allusions that may need explanation: the "expensive foreign car" likely carries an Americanin an official capacity (the American occupation is still on);"the smoke of rocket launchers" refers to the Korean War,

which started on 25 June 1950.Except in a very few instances, the translations preserve the

structure and line order of the original.

At the Makeshift Aid Station

You girls-

weeping even though there is no placefor your tears to come from;

crying out even though you have no lips to shape the words;struggling even though you have no skin

on your fingers to grasp anything with-

you girls.

Your limbs twitch, oozing blood and greasy sweat and lymph; your eyes, puffed to slits, glitter whitely; only the elastic bands of your panties hold in

your swollen bellies;you are wholly beyond shame even though your private parts

are exposed:who could thinkthat a little while agoyou all were pretty schoolgirls?

53

Emerging from the flames flickering gloomilyin burned-out Hiroshimano longer yourselves,you rushed out, crawled out one after the other,struggled along to this grassy spot,in agony laid your heads, bald but for a few wisps of hair,

on the ground.

Why must you suffer like this?Why must you suffer like this?

For what reason?For what reason?

You girls don't know how desperate your condition, how far you have been transformed from the human.

You are simply thinking, thinking of those who until this morning

were your fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters(would any of them know you now?)and of the homes in which you slept, woke, ate(in that instant the blossoms in the hedge were tom off;

now even their ashes are not to be found)

thinking, thinking-

as you lie there among friends who one after the otherstop moving

thinkingof when you were girls,human beings.




August 6, 1950

They come running;

they come running. From that side, from this, hands on holstered pistols, the police come on the run.

August 6, 1950: the Peace Ceremony has been banned; on street comers at night, on bridge approaches at dawn, the police standing guard are restive. Today, at the very center of the city of Hiroshima

the Hatchobori intersection, in the shadow of the F. Department Store,

the stream of city folk who have come to place flowers at memorials, at ruins, suddenly becomes a whirlpool; chin-straps taut with sweat plunge into the crowd; split by the black battle-line, reeling, the crowd as one looks up at the department store-from fifth-floor windows, sixth-floor windows, fluttering, fluttering, against the backdrop of summer clouds,

now in shadow, now in sunlight, countless handbills dance and scatter slowly over upturned faces, into outstretched hands, into the depths of empty hearts.

People pick them up off the ground;arms swing and knock them out of the air;hands grab them in midair;eyes read them:workers, merchants, students, girls,old people and children from outlying villages-

a throng of residents representing all of Hiroshima

for whom August 6 is the anniversary of a death-and the police:

pushing, shoving. Angry cries.The urgent appealor the peace handbills they reach for,the antiwar handbills they will not be denied.

Streetcars stop; traffic lights topple; jeeps roll up;

fire sirens scream; riot trucks drive up-two trucks, three; an expensive foreign car forces its way through the ranks of police in plain clothes; the entrance to the department store becomes

a grim checkpoint.

But still handbills fall, gently, gently.

Handbills catch on the canopy; hands appear,

holding a broom,sweep every last one off;they dance their way downone by one, like living things,like voiceless shouts,lightly, lightly.

The Peace Ceremony-the releasing of doves,the ringing of bells,

the mayor's peace message carried off on the breeze

is stamped out like a child's sparkler;all gatherings are banned:speeches,concerts,

the UNESCO meeting;Hiroshima is under occupation by armed police

and police in mufti.

The smoke of rocket launchersrises from newsreel screens;from back streets resound the shoutsof those, children too, who signed petitions

against the bomb.In the sky over Hiroshima on August 6, 1950,spreading light above anxious residents,casting shadows on silent graveyards,toward you who love peace,toward me who wants peace,

drawing the police on the double,

handbills fall, *andbills fall.




7 ? ~The Marukis have been awarded honorary degrees by the a s ~ ~ I ;sachusens CoUege of Art in Boston. The degrees will be con- ~ferred in a special ceremony in early April 1988; an exhibition , ~of five major murals and the original drawings for Toshi ( "Maruki's Hiroshima no Pika will run concurrently. A sym- -

posium on art and society, with the participation of several ~eminent American and European artists, wiU also be held inhonor of the Marukis. The exhibition is scheduled to travel to ( Ianother East Coast and one West Coast city, although a"ange- "'Iments are not final at press time. For updated information, 7'<onJoct John J u . " ' ~ a . at 61 Ui28-8536. ~ r J

Toward a Japanese-American Nuclear Criticism: r \ ~ '\The Art of Iri and Toshi Maruki in Text and Film ~ \ - r

by Alan Wolfe

In the summer of 1984, the journal Diacritics published a

special issue devoted to "Nuclear Criticism.") The editors felt

that much recent criticism appeared to be recounting "an alleg

ory of nuclear survival," and called for "the application of

literary critical procedures to the logic and rhetoric of nuclear

war." Specifically, they included in their proposal a call for

two types of criticism: one that "reads other critical or canonical

texts for the purpose of uncovering the unknown shapes of our

unconscious nuclear fears," and one which would reveal how

"the terms of the current nuclear discussion are being shaped

by literary or critical assumptions whose implications are .. .

ignored" (p. 2).

One of the "terms of the current discussion" referred to here

is our conception of time. In one of the articles in the issue,

Zoe Sofia distinguishes between "the collapsed future tense .. .

at the heart of our culture of space and time travel, .. . the'bound to be' of the ideology of progress" and the "future

conditional" of feminists, who understand conception as an

occurrence with a number of possible outcomes. 2 In the col

lapsed future of science-fiction culture, which Sofia assimilates

1. Diacritics: A Review of Contemporary Criticism 14:2 (Summer

1984). All pages references in parentheses in this essay are to this

issue (14:2) of Diacritics.

2. Zoe Sofia, "Exterminating Fetuses: Abortion, Disarmament, and

the Sexo-Semiotics of Ex traterrestrialism," Diacritics 14:2, p. 57.

~to the right-wing anti-abortion movement, embryos are adul

and the future is the present. And "i f the future is already upo

us, we have no need to consider the survival needs of futu

generations: we are the future generation" (p. 57). What

nuclear criticism can do is to "reclaim a diversity of futur

from the overdetermining futurelessness of science-fiction cu

ture" and to "effect the shift from the collapsed to the condition

future."

The lifework of Toshi and Iri Maruki, recently made mo

accessible to a wider public by the impassioned professionalis

of two Americans, John W. Dower and John Junkerman,3 stan

as an instance of such a nuclear criticism that refuses to b

reduced to a futureless narrative of progress. The multiple ten

sions inherent in the stubborn collaboration between th

Marukis themselves, in the process of Japanese and America

corepresentation of the artists' lifework, and in the very finitud

of those media of representation (art, text, film) push us n

to despair or abjectness but to a critical examination of tho

issues the nuclear critics would want us to investigate: the ro

and value of eschatological thinking; the power of the nucle

horror to condition and delimit our lives and our wills; th

3. See John Dower and John Junkennan, The Hiroshima MuralThe Art of Iri Maruki and Toshi Maruki (Kodansha Internationa1985) and their film Hellflre: A Journey From Hiroshima (1986

distributed by First Run Features.




The Marukis with some Japanese children. "The nuclear peril makes all of us, whether we happen to have children of our own or not, the parentsof all future generations."

theory and practice of techne whose drive to discover the atomic

origin of things has led to the nuclear danger; and the ideologicalconditioning whereby the language and representation of thenuclear dulls us to the reality it should evoke (pp. 2-3). Thestory of the Mamkis is a tale of resistance to a narrative of

nonresistance. In both film and text, Dower and Junkennanjoin with the Marukis to reassert conventional narrative fonns

as a symbolic protest against the "collapsed future" of thepostmodern.4

Dower the historian and Junkennan the journalist-film makeruse the restraints of their training to allow the aura of twounlikely human heros to emerge. Eschewing abstruseness and

avant-gardism, they rely above all on their eyes and ears toframe for us the story they see, confident that the quiet resoluteness of their subjects will provide the frame of struggle,resistance, and open-endedness the future has to mean. Whatdistinguishes Dower's and Junkerman's projects, both the bookThe Hiroshima Murals and the film Hellfire: A Journey From

.J Sec k a n - F r a n c o i ~ Lyotan!. The Postmodern Condition: A Report(III 1\ II (/11'il'l/g(' ( M i n n c a p o l i ~ , MN: University of Minnesota Press,

I'IX.J)

Hiroshima, from most other Hiroshima accounts, documentary

and fiction, is their attitude towards time as memory. In animportant sense, the modem narratives we deal with most areabout the suppression of memory, about forgetting. "The Hor

ror, the horror"-those last words of Joseph Conrad's enigmaticcharacter, Kurtz, in Heart of Darkness-become a haunting

emblem of our century's efforts to reduce and consign to the

archives the atrocities of twentieth century imperialism. Eventhe dramatic sincerity of Alain Resnais's Hiroshima ManAmour, for all of its theorizing on memory, focuses on forgetting. The horror of documentaries like Hiroshima: The Harvest

ofNuclear War is in the loss of memory, of name, of place-sur

vivors who cannot find their homes, their childhoods, theirmemories amidst the rubble. The ultimate collapse is that of

time-space, as in maps which can no longer be drawn. In sum,the recountings of atomic catastrophe, from Hiroshima Mon

Amour to World War II documentaries, are obsessed with howto deal with the nightmare, how to resolve the problem of evil,how to dissimulate the horror.

Hellfire: A Journey From Hiroshima does not use any photosor footage from Hiroshima after the bomb. Tts focus is entirelyand tenaciously on the present and on the production and processof Toshi and Tri. In its eschewal of the sensational, it challengesus to see memory itself as a construction, as a narrative that

56




we must build for ourselves. What kind of a narrative and to

what purpose? The answer to this question is provided by theMarukis' lifework of gathering and portraying testimony notonly from Hiroshima and Nagasaki survivors, but from Shanghai, Auschwitz, and other time-spaces as well. Yet the impactof their open-ended narrative is apparent only in its juxtapositionto that other narrative of nuclear war, which, as Derrida remindsus, is a "fable," a war to be waged "in the name of nothing"

(since it is "better to be dead than red"). Derrida's "fable" ofnuclear war, a fiction because it has not happened, is of courseto be distinguished from the "reality" of nuclear stockpiles."'Reality' .. . is constructed by the fable on the basis of an

event that has never happened .. . an event whose advent remainsan invention by men" (pp. 23-4).

Their profound concern for the future--affirmedparadoxically in their nurturing ofnonpersonal parental responsibiity and offaith in an ongoing anti

nuclear narrative which would "struggle to openup the pluripotent space of the future conditional"-is evidenced by their ability to implant andfoster in future generations not only the memoryofpast horror, or even the immanence ofpresentHell, but also the possibility of a future that canand will have been.

It is in the light of this nuclear critical distinction that theMarukis' response takes on value. Their profound concern for

the future-affirmed paradoxically in their nurturing of nonpersonal parental responsibility and of faith in an ongoing antinuclear narrative which would "struggle to open up the pluripotentspace of the future conditional" (Sofia, p. 59)--is evidencedby their ability to implant and foster in future generations notonly the memory of past horror, or even the immanence of

present Hell, but also the possibility of a future that can andwill have been. To take an example of tension and hope, consider Toshi's statement in the film to the effect that thoughthey have had no children, others "have had them for us."Toshi's commitment to the telling of the story of the bomb tochildren, evidenced in her illustrated books and in her warmand forthright manner with children she meets, is the mostconvincing statement we could have of the hopeful future of

narrative.As we see the Marukis in their childless lives and work, we

are reminded of Jonathan Schell's cautionary assertion that "thenuclear peril makes all of us, whether we happen to havechildren of our mvn or not, the parents of all future generations."s Zoe Sofia, while warning us to be wary of those masculine fertility metaphors of creativity, whereby one might

5. Jonathan Schell, The Fate of the Earth (New York: Avon, 1982),p. 175.

"seek to bring life into existence out of nothing," and whichave led our leaders to invent out of nothingness the fable of

total destructive war to be waged in the name of nothing, sehope in Schell's notion of a "nonbiological parenting" (Sofip.5S). She theorizes that this may also be the relevancethe Marukis' message, when, in their reaching out to childreand the future, they affirm the feminist preference for a morelativistic and open-ended "ethics of reproduction."

A nuclear war, like a pregnancy, can be averted. If we let oaction be guided by the desire to let new life into the world, anbear a parental responsibility for all of our creations, children migagain have the comfort of growing up on stories of a world witho

end ... (p.59) *

A New Book from BCAS!

The Other Japan: Postwar Realities

Edited by E. Patricia Tsurumi, University of Vic

toria, for the Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars.

The scholarly analyses and literary portraits in this volumconcentrate on the existing realities of Japan's postwar historyDrawing the reader's attention to the unresolved conflicts beneath the smooth surface of capitalism, they fill in awkwargaps in our understanding of contemporary Japan and underlinthe urgency of finding alternatives. Three major themes ardeveloped in a fascinating balance of critical Western scholaship and Japanese voices telling their own story: (1) the possibilities for alternatives to existing structures; (2) Japanatomic bomb legacy; and (3) the gargantuan human costs o

the "economic miracle." This important book is an antidotto the seemingly endless stream of overwhelmingly positivreporting on "the Japanese challenge" being offered to thNorth American public by both the print and electronic mediaWithout the other side of postwar Japan's remarkable storyhalf-truths and distortions in the highly affirmative reporbreed misconception and misunderstanding. This book is abouthe other side of the story.

An East Gate Book, December1987; 176pages, withfigures, tablemaps, and photos; hardcover, $29.95; paper, $14.95.

Published by and available from M.E. Sharpe, Inc., 80 BusinesPark Dr., Armonk, N.Y. 10504, U.S.A. Phone: (914) 273·1800Add $2.00 fo r postage and handling.




THE HIROSHIMA MURALS: THE ART OF

Review IRI MARUKI AND TOSHI MARUKI, by JohnW. Dower and John Junkerman (eds.). Tokyo:

The Atomic-Bomb Paintings Kodansha International, 1986, 128 pp., illus.,

$29.95.

It is now virtually in art alone that sufferingcan still find its own voice, consolation, withoutimmediately being betrayed by it.

by Richard Minear

In his dissection of the writings of Brecht and Sartre,Adorno lays out the dilemma of post-Holocaust art. I Hisearlier formulation had been direct and seemingly unequivocal: "T o write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric. "2 Now hecharacterizes that aphorism as expressing "i n negative formthe impulse which inspires committed literature." Still,Adorno's attack on "committed literature" does allow for an

art "such that its mere existence after Auschwitz is not asurrender to cynicism. " But: ••Works of less than the highestrank are also willingly absorbed as contributions to clearing up

the past. When genocide becomes part of the cultural heritagein the themes of committed literature, it becomes easier tocontinue to play along with the culture which gave birth tomurder." Adorno contrasts this situation with Picasso'sGuernica, an "autonomous" work of art; such works "firmlynegate empirical reality, destroy the destroyer. . . . "

Adorno's immediate concern is the work of the lateBrecht, Sartre, and Schonberg, but the dilemma is the same forthe art of atomic holocaust: how to depict without affirming,how to control the aestheticization of art, how to make astatement without "slithering into the abyss of its opposite."The collaborative paintings of Maruki Iri and Maruki Toshi

gathered in this stunning volume-represent their answer tothis challenge.

Of the fourteen paintings depicting Hiroshima, only twoare strikingly didactic-perhaps fitting Adorno's definition of

I. • Commitment, " in his Aesthetics and Politics (London: NBL,1977).

2. "Cultural Criticism and Society" (written 1961), in his Prisms,London: Neville Spearman, 1967.

58

T. W. Adorno, 1965

"committed" art. But the results are sharply dissimilar. One,entitled Petition (1955), depicts the anti-nuclear signaturecampaign in which the Marukis played an important role. Tomy eye, at least, it is the least effective of all the paintings. Thesecond, Yaizu (also 1955), depicts the village from which thefishing boat the Lucky Dragon set out in 1954 on its fatal trip tothe vicinity of Bikini. This strikes me as one of the most

successful of the paintings. The entire left half of the paintingis occupied by fisherfolk-men, women, children-who

stare straight out at the viewer. The effect is eerie, Brechtianalmost (early Brecht). Still, the primary testimony of theMarukis is to the human impact of the atomic bomb, and theirlegacy reaches its high point in such paintings as Ghosts (thefirst painting, 1950), Relief (1954), and Floating Lanterns( 1969). The latter is the least representational of their Hiroshima paintings; it uses the motif of bon lanterns floating out tosea, superimposing the ceremony of remembrance on theevent when thousands of corpses floated out to sea. In theleft-hand half a young woman in bright kimono kneels to set alantern adrift; in her shadow is a Picasso-esque figure of

horror, her Doppelganger, a victim of the bomb. The Marukis,I submit, have created of their experience art that does notslither into the abyss of its opposite.

Thanks to John W. Dower's essay,3 readers ofthe Bulletinare already acquainted with the Marukis. This husband-wifeteam has spent the years since 1950 painting Hiroshima andother atrocities of the twentieth century: Nagasaki, Nanking,Sanrizuka, Minamata, Auschwitz. They are still painting.

3. Bulletin ofConcerned Asian Scholars, Vol. 16, No.2 (Apr.-June,

1984), pp. 33-39.




This is a detail from the first and second panels of the"Yaizu" mural from John W. Dower and John Junkerman. eds •The Hiroshima

Murals: The Art of lri Maruki and Toshi Maruki, p. 64. This picture is reprinted here with the permission of Kodansha Internationa/©

in Japan 1985.




Their latest work-Where Paradise? Where Hell?-was un

veiled in March 1986, following on the Hell (1985) that is

included here. Maruki lri (b. 1901) is the man, the ink-painter;

Maruki Toshi (nee Akamatsu; b. 1912) is the woman, the oil

painter.

This volume is made up of three sorts of material: an

introductory essay by Dower (28 pages), photographs of the

paintings (95 pages), and excerpts from interviews with the

Marukis by Junkerman (8 pages). I f these page counts makethe book itself seem short, the volume's format-II V2 inches

by 9 inches-ensures that the subjects addressed are handled

at sufficient length. And in any case the focus is and should be

the paintings.

Dower's essay is entitled "War, Peace, and Beauty." It

gives the reader enough background and context to begin to

engage the paintings: biographical data on the painters, a brief

analysis of the development of their art and thought (the two

are scarcely divisible), photos of the painters at work, an

introduction to the critical reception of their work, comments

on matters of style and content in each of the murals, and

suggestions of parallels (Goya, Picasso, K611witz). Dower

describes the Marukis' achievement as "one of the most im

portant, disturbing, and moving artistic expressions of thetwentieth century" (p. II), "a graphic chronicle of war and

destruction in the mid-twentieth century" (p. 26).

Junkerman's interview-essay is made up of four long

statements by Toshi and three by Iri, each preceded by substan

tial commentary. Junkerman says only enough to provide a

setting for the Marukis' own words. Here is Iri (p. 125):

We don't paint these subjects because we enjoy painting them. It'snot out of some desire to do something for humanity or to make apoint. We painted the bomb because we had seen Hiroshima, andwe thought there had to be some record of what had happened. Butwe could not have done those paintings if we had not already beendifferent in our way of thinking about the world. We had opposedthe war, we were socialists, and we were not satisfied only painting

pretty pictures. That's the kind of people we were, so we paintedthe atomic bomb. It happened naturally.

Here is Toshi (p. 124):

My paintings were very realistic. Iri would take a look at them anddeclare, 'That's far too strong. " Then he would grind some sumiand splash it on top of my painting. At first I thought, I just workedso hard on that and now you've ruined it! But when the ink dried,the original image emerged from underneath. Still, I would thinkhe had concealed too much, and go back and paint the figureagain . . . . In this process of painting and concealing and repainting' the images gradually became deeper. Something emergedfrom the darkness, and we began to discover a surprisingly effective way of working together.

The heart of this book is the pictures: double-pagespreads, in color, of twenty-one paintings, with two (some

times four) pages of detailed photos following each spread.

This volume used the same negatives as the most recent

Maruki Galle ry catalog;4 but even so, there are differences in

coloring. In general, the reds seem less dominant here, less

orange; the near-purple blue in the Rainbow painting is strik

ing (the catalog's blue is almost green). Only by comparing

both catalog and volume with the original would it be possible

to say which is closer to the original.

The original paintings are 1.8 meters by 7.2 meters. The

reproductions here are 4V2 inches by 17 inches. We get the

sweep of the paintings (the catalog breaks each mural in two),

and that is a distinct advantage; the cost is a sense of scale. Th

detailed photographs compensate somewhat; but it still take

an act of the imagination to visualize the paintings as the

actually are. The paintings contain figures almost life-siz

seen in the Maruki Gallery, they surround, overwhelm th

viewer. (The 1983 Japanese-language catalog has a format o

9-% inches square, so a single Hiroshima painting-across tw

2-page spreads-is 37'/2 inches by 9 3/8 inches, twice the siz

of the reproductions in this volume.)The Hiroshima paintings are accompanied by brief tex

written largely by Tosh i, although attributed here to both Tos

and Iri. At the initial exhibitions, Toshi found herself talkin

with viewers about the paintings and then set down her centr

thoughts-over Iri's objection. Toshi tells the story in h

autobiography: "In order to explain, I had begun giving talk

Iri said to pleas e stop giving talks in front of our own painting

But when I was asked questions, I had to answer, " 5 Which le

to arguments with viewers. Said Iri, again: "Such thing

happen because you say what there is no need to say." Writ

Toshi:

I decided to write a statement and paste it up instead of givin

talks. . . .

To be sure, I ran into the criticism that I had infringed tpurity of the paintings. That may be so. But what wasn't sacompletely in pictures I had to communicate orally. And whacouldn't say completely orally, I had to write. By hook or bcrook, I wished to communicate the truth of Hiroshima to as manpeople as possible. How can that be impure? What after all is a

(geijutsu)?

It is one of the achievements of the Marukis' art that th

question is forced on the viewer. (The texts are translated he

by John Junkerman. The catalog includes the English transl

tions that have long been displayed at the Maruki Galler

J unkerman's are distinctly superior.)

The title of this volume, The Hiroshima Murals, invit

comment. What we have here is not merely the Maruki pain

ings on Hiroshima. Even the initial series of fourteen includeseveral (such as Yaizu and Petition) which had little dire

reference to Hi roshima; in 1982 they added a painting o

Nagasaki. In addition, there are the six "later murals

painted since 1975. So the subtitle, The Art of Iri Maruki anToshi Maruki, is a more accurate guide to the contents. St ill,

might have read' the collaborative art," since each has co

tinued to produce paintings independently of the other.

But in Japanese the label for the paintings is genbaku n

zu: the atomic-bomb paintings. The Marukis have told how ftheir first showing of the initial panel in 1950 they changed th

title from "the atomic-bomb painting" to "August 6, 1945

Back then Occupat ion censorship was still in force, and phot

graphs of Hiroshima were not generally available. Iri speaks

that changed title as "strange." Perhaps in English "Hirshima" carries the emotional impact of "atomic-bomb"

Japanese; but to this observer, the retention of the original tit

4. Maruki Iri and Maruki Toshi, Genbaku no zu (English title givenThe Hiroshima Panels), Saitama, Japan: Maruki Gallery for tHiroshima Panels Foundation, 1984. Available in the U.S. from tPeace Resource Center of Wilmington College, Pyle Center B1183, Wilmington, Ohio 45177.

5. Onna-egaki no tanj6 (Tokyo: Asahi sensho No. 93, 1977), p133-135.




This is a detail of the second panel ofthe "Floating Lanterns" mural from John W. Dower and John Junkerman, eds., The Hiroshima

Murals: The Art of Iri Maruki and Toshi Maruki, p. 77. This picture is reprinted here with the permission of Kodansha International@ in

Japan 1985.

61




This is a detail from the fifth panel of the Water mural from John W. Dower and John Junkerman. eds • The Hiroshima Murals: The

Art of Iri Maruki and Toshi Maruki. p. 40. This picture is reprinted here with the permission ofKodansha lnternational© in Japan 1985.

62




would have been preferable. For one thing, much of Hiro

shima today-for better or for worse-wants little to do withthe Hiroshima of the atomic bomb. For another, the paintingsfocus so completely on people that Hiroshima is not recognizable in the "atomic-bomb paintings" - they depict the humanimpact of the atomic bomb.

This volume does not include the texts for the paintingsafter the first fourteen. In most cases, those texts are available-with flawed translations into English-in the gallerycatalog. Nor does this volume include all the Maruki collaborative monumental paintings. Missing are a 4 meter by 8meter painting entitled Hiroshima, eight 1. 8-meter-squarepanels on Okinawa, and the 2.7 meter by 14.9 meter panelentitled From the Axis Alliance to Sanrizuka (Dower doesmention this panel [po 23]). Perhaps it would have been too

expensive to include them all; perhaps the texts for the laterpaintings were left out for the same reason. Whatever the case,the reader needs to know that this volume has left them out.

As terrifying as it is beautiful, this volume belongs inevery library, certainly in every school library. Moreover,slides of the paintings are now available commercially. 6 Thesecond half of the Dower-Junkerman collaboration is the 58

minute color documentary film Hellfire: A Journey fromHiroshima. The film captures the Marukis and their art with

enormous insight and sensitivity; a large screen is even bettersuited than this large-format book to the challenge of capturingthe scale of the paintings. 7 Alone or in combination, the book

and the film represent major contributions not simply to theJapan field but to a much broader constituency: those interested in art and in protest art, those interested in the arts of thenuclear age. Although the paintings have gone on extendedtours outside Japan, they are not widely known. This volumeand the film are important steps to remedy that situation.

6. The Maruki Gallery offers three sets of slides complete withcassette tapes, one in English, two in Japanese only. They are avail-

In their 1967 catalog. the Marukis included a number o

poems. One of them was a section of a long poem, "GravMarker," by Toge Sankichi (1917-1953), Hiroshima's premier atomic-bomb poet. Toge responded to the first publication of the Maruki paintings in 1950 with a poem entitle"Entreaty-for the 'Atomic-Bomb Paintings. ' .. Toge'

poem expresses with great eloquence the effect on the vieweof the Maruki paintings. (This translation, a quite literal one, i

mine. )

Before these grotesque figures, let me pause, stand; against the measure of these cruel scenes,

may what I have done, will do, be tested.

Page after page, their voices close in on me,

darker than dark;picture after picture, my tears flow freely,

never stopping.In this book I see so graphicallythe faces of close friends who fled, loved ones

who died.Even as shudders engulf my heartat the agony of these countless naked people,I see beyond the flames-what is it?-fallen,

staring fixedly at me?Can it be -my own eyes?

Ah! Who can check the desire

to straighten the twisted legs,

to cover the naked loins,to free, one by one, those fingers, clenched

and bloody?

That an atomic flash was set off in the skiesover a dying Japan,

warning shot in a new war,that on the instant 200,000 Japanese lives were takenwho can repress indignation, deep and growing?

able from the Maruki Gallery for the Hiroshima Panels, 1401 Shimo-karako, Higashimatsuyama, Saitama 355, Japan. Before these paintings I pledge that I will act:

7. The film is available to rent or to buy from First Run Features, 153 that in the light of this history, the future *averly Place, New York, NY 10014; phone (212) 243-0600. will not be one that calls for repentance.63




Review

by Howie Movshovitz

Certain subjects go beyond form. They're so big that anythingbut the most self-denying treatment might seem rude andpresumptuous, and therefore our respect for them must expressitself as simply and directly as possible. The nuclear attackson Hiroshima and Nagasaki, of course, have that awesomemagnitude, as does the holocaust in Europe. When thosesubjects come up in conversation or in art, they have the powerto silence us, to make us try to comprehend the most profoundhorrors we have created and experienced. Just a few minutesinto John Junkerman's film, artist Toshi Maruki says quitedirectly that we are in hell, and the rest of the film chroniclesthe attempt that the Marukis, wife and husband artists, have

made to get out of it.Hellfire: A Journey from Hiroshima is an hour-long

documentary about Toshi (wife) and Iri (husband) Maruki, andthe relationship they bear, both as artists and as plain people,to the phenomena of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Iri's family livedin Hiroshima, so immediately after the bombing, he went tothe city. Toshi joined him shortly afterward. What they found,of course, was the dreadful scene which many have sincedescribed: a devastated city, filled with the bodies of the deadand the agonies of the dying. They walked past the famousbamboo grove where many victims sought useless refuge. Theysaw the river Ota carrying the dead up and down with its tides,and they heard the testimonies of other witnesses. Like thoseother witnesses, the Marukis were changed forever.

The Marukis had been practicing artists for some years. lriwas trained as a traditional ink painter, while Toshi'sbackground had led her to work in the Western tradition of oilpainting. After the war, they continued their work as artists,but soon found themselves driven to confront the experienceat Hiroshima. With this shared recognition began their artisticcollaboration. Since the war, they have together painted fifteenlarge murals about the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, andanother six about horror directed at non-Japanese people. Thefilm shows us two people who have integrated their lives andwork to an extraordinary degree, and who have taken on theresponsibilityof bearing witness to the worst moments of humanbehavior and experience.

In certain ways, the Marukis and their art have become fused.

The most revealing images of the film show them workingtogether on their murals. These are standard shots for a filmabout collaborative artists, but in this film the artists and theirwork look virtually inseparable. The murals are large, so Toshiand Iri must walk on the paper to get to many parts of thepaintings. When they sit or stand in the middle of a painting,

HELLFIRE: A JOURNEY FROM IDROSHIMA,a r.Im by John Dower and John Junkerman. Color,58 minutes, 16 mm. and video. Distributed by First

Run Features.*

they become part of the scene itself. They are also their ownmodels on occasion. In one sequence, Iri lies down beside amural-in-progress and covers himself with a tom sheet torepresent a victim for Toshi's painting.

The shot of lri lying beside the mural gives us a remarkablesense of his participation in the work, and one purpose of themurals is to bring the audience into the experience as fully aspossible. At a press conference shown early in the film, Iri

encourages the journalists and camera operators to take off theirshoes and walk on a mural. "The dust helps," he tells them.

The Marukis believe that by understanding the worstmoments of human experience, we can find a way to saveourselves. For that reason, almost every mural has within itsome hint that decent human life is still possible. The imagesare consistently angry and hellish, with smeared black ink andunforgiving red; bodies are tom and distended or in unrealChagall-like postures, but there is still relief. In the first, Ghosts

(1950), one child remains unburned. Other murals containimages of people expressing concern for one another.

Yet another image of humanity's ability to learn and survivecomes from the film itself. Junkerman and Dower consistentlyplace the gentle composure of the Marukis against the harsh

quality of their paintings. The Marukis are now quite old, andtheir faces bear the aspect of people at ease with themselves.The contrast with the murals reveals the point of the film (andof the Marukis' art): humanity can only find repose byexpressing its outrage.

Perhaps the heart of the film, and of the Marukis' experienceas well, is the idea of development. The Marukis began theirwork in anger at what had been done to the Japanese, but as

they continued to make pictures of the ghastly scenes atHiroshima, their vision widened. The fourth mural, Rainbow

(1951), included the image of two American pilots, heldprisoner in Hiroshima and also killed by the bomb. A muchlater piece, The Rape ofNanking (1975), showed the Japaneseas the perpetrators of horror in China. Auschwitz (1977) moved

away from Japanese experience entirely. Suffering, they havelearned, has no racial or national affinities. This is "the journeyfrom Hiroshima."

What I like about Hellfire: The Journey from Hiroshima is

that it understands the form of another art. Obviously, paintingand film are different from one another, so to show the workof two artists simply by panning the camera over their paintingsand talking about them would be tedious and deceptive. Thereare many such films. Junkerman and Dower have beenperceptive enough to take a step back, to make their own film* First Run Features, 153 Waverly Place, New York, New Yorkwith its own original images. And therefore, the film doesn't10014, U.S.A. Phone: (212) 243-0600. For institutions, film purchase

is US $895.00 and video purchase is US $540.00. Rental for classroom look derivative. It stands as a distinct piece with its own*se only is US $100.00; the rental fee for other uses is negotiable. important story to tell.




Review Essay: Western Marxists

in Flux Over Chinese Marxism

by Robert Ware*

I

Where is Marxism going in China? Not far, according toChinese Marxism in Flux (1978-84). A prominent claimthroughout this collection of essays is that Marxism has beenused as an ideological club rather than a liberating theory andthat this misuse of Marxism can be traced to metatheoreticalmistakes. The result, the authors seem to claim, is that revolutionary change has been restricted to economic reforms.There is "constant stress on the reality of Marxist [and sometimes Althusserian] categories" (p. 9), and "some [most?]contributors . . . are" quite sympathetic to aspects of the 'left'thinking of previous years" (p. 2).

In one way or another, the essays grapple with the important question of what has happened to socialism in Chinasince the Third Plenary of the Eleventh Central Committee of

the Communist Party of China in 1978. That meeting shiftedthe focus from class struggle to socialist modernization andcalled for the household responsibility system in the countryside. Economic reforms have continued since then with the

emphasis on the cities since 1984 (after these papers werewritten).Disagreements among western Marxists abound about

what road(s) socialist countries have taken. Some conclusionsare now widely held but still subjects of debate: there is morethan one road, the market can (or should) have a role, decentralization and workers' participation are important. However, this book concentrates on some of the areas where there

*1 was helped in the preparationof this review by Jude Carlson and byreferees for this journal.

CHINESEMARXISM IN FLUX (1978-84): ESSAYS ON EPISTEMOLOGY, IDEOLOGYAND POLITICAL ECONOMY, Bill Brugger,ed . Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 1985. Hard

cover $30.00, paper $14.95.

is less agreement: the role of ideology, the nature of socialipolitics, and the economics of socialist transition. The subtitis a better indication of the content of the book: Essays oEpistemology, Ideology and Political Economy. There is novery much on fluctuations in Chinese Marxism. It is more collection of metatheoretical investigations that reflects thdiversity of its conference origin. There is a tendency towarthe eclectic, technical, and sketchy. This is the most theoretcal of the recent conference-based books on China, with thattendant drawbacks of jargon and abstraction. But the persitent reader is rewarded with interesting speculation about neproblems and alternative frameworks. It is a continuation o

the important and stimulating work in Australia on China.The book was' produced in the spirit of 'letting a hun

dred schools contend'" (p. 9), with the result of diversity andisunity. The introduction by Bill Brugger as editor (pp. 1-12serves some of the function of clarifying disagreements anunifying the debate. Moreover, much of the debate centers oBrugger's

influential ideas. There seems to be general agreement in rejecting what Dutton and Healy call "reductioniepistemology" and in accepting Brugger 's claim that sociaism is a process. There are important differences about thvery nature of Marxism, with Brugger and Hannan arguinthat it is teleological, contrary to the viewofDutton and HealyMcCarthy differs with Brugger, and most others, in claiminthat there is a socialist mode of production. Reglar and Brugger debate the existence of objective economic laws in sociais t societies and the need for a law of value in planning.

In the introduction, Brugger says that the contributor, 'agree that the limits of official ideology are too tightldrawn" in China (p. 10), although such agreement is not clea




from the essays published here. It is a theme in the introduction

that the unacceptable ideological role of Marxism has replaced

its critical dimension, presumably a role illegitimately im

posed by the state or the party (p. 12). He fears that the critical

dimension of Marxism has been silenced in the past and will be

in the future by denunciations (p. II) and official attacks (p.

12).

I think Brugger has missed the politics of theory for fear

of functionalism and instrumentalism. Ideas have functions insocial struggles and are instrumental when taken up by the

masses, as Marx would say. This is almost truistic, and (with

all due respect to Brugger) it does not lead to the implausible

sociological and metaphysical theories known as "functional

ism" and "instrumentalism" (cf. p. 12). I agree with Brugger

that ideas about alienation should be discussed, particularly in

view of the persistence and strength of alienation in existing

socialist societies, but the ideas about alienation must be put to

good use and not lead society away from its goals. In the

Marxist view, that requires communist leadership. Later I

return to this and its relevance to China.

The first, the longest, and the most philosophical essay is

Michael Dutton and Paul Healy's "Marxist Theory and So

cialist Transition: The Construction of an Epistemological

Relation" (pp. 13-66). It is an Althusserian critique of epis

temology, especia lly in its empiricist forms. I find their state

ments of theories either vague or misleading and without

real-life adherents. I try to substantiate this in the discussion

later. Although I think the issues that they discuss are enor

mous and complex, I doubt that the plausible contending

positions will differ much in their implications for political

economy.

Brugger commends (p. 2) Dutton and Healy's essay for

undermining the ideological use of the concept of 'reality' in

the Marxist tradition by criticizing all theories of knowledge.

The concern is that unjustified claims about 'the real world' are

used to rationalize ruling interests rather than to criticallyunderstand the world. Dutton and Healy set up the problem so

that anyone wh o talks about the real world is creating another

world unconnected with the world we think about, the world of

concepts. Another unusual claim is that all epistemologies are

reductionist in taking one part of their theory, for example

economics or politics, as central and to which all other parts

can be reduced. In the second part I discuss some of my

criticisms of their rejection of reductionism and of episte

mology.

Basically, and contrary to Dutton and Healy, I contend

that if people make ideological claims about the real world that

ignore class struggle and the political interests of others, then

we should just show that they are wrong about the real world

and not that they have the wrong epistemology. To show thatthey are wrong, we must discover what is right and convince

others on the basis of evidence and argument. Among other

things, this involves practice, technology, and politics. Dutton

and Healy have some interesting remarks on these issues in

their discussion of Marx, Lenin, Bogdanov, and Stalin, al

though I think they sometimes miss the mark in their accusa

tions of positivism and technicism.

Dutton and Healy's section on Mao is the most interest

ing, despite their confusions about reduction and their Althus

serian rejection of a knowing subject. "Mao might well have

criticised the individualised subject of humanism, but the

category of subject was not displaced, merely collectivised"

(p. 42). I think these obscure ideas tum on earlier confusions

about epistemology, which I crit icize in the second part below.

Still, there are many pertinent remarks about Mao's over

emphasis on class struggle and about the rejection of class

struggle and the downplaying of politics in current theories.

There are also remarks (pp. 52ff.) that are relevant to current

claims in China about productive growth itself being political

and revolutionary. They criticize both Mao and the current

leaders for making the same mistake of using epistemology in

taking one specific practice or another as fundamental to which

all else is reduced. Their conclusion is dissatisfying in its mere

appeal to an autonomous theoretical practice that is specific in

its calculations but irreducible (p. 62). They give no content to

this proposal that even indicates an alternative to views of

those who do not reject epistemology.

Disagreements among western Marxists abound

about what road(s) socialist countries have taken.

Some conclusions are now widely held but stillsubjects ofdebate: there is more than one road, the

market can (or should) have a role, decentraliza

tion and workers' participation are important.

However, this book concentrates on some of the

areas where there is less agreement: the role of

ideology, the nature of socialist politics, and the

economics ofsocialist transition.

Michael Sullivan, in the second essay, "The Ideology of

the Chinese Communist Party Since the Third Plenum" (pp.

67 -97), gives a good historical account of the rise and fall of

the theory of class struggle from the Eighth Party Congress of

1956 to the current debates about socialism in China. It is a

useful account of the subtle changes in Mao's view of the

centrality of class struggle ' ' 'between the proletariat and the

bourgeoisie, between the socialist road and the capitalist

road'" (p. 70, quoting Mao). Sullivan then suggests ways in

which these notions along with those of the dictatorship of the

proletariat and of socialist society have been drained of con

tent, leaving an almost unanswerable question of how to dis

tinguish socialism from capitalism l (pp. 94ff.). I f the only

distinction is in terms of state ownership, then there is "noguide as to just how far the reforms ought to go" (p. 89). He

ends by giving a number of quotations showing the quandary

I. The relevance of this claim can be seen in the light of remarks bySu Shaozhi, Director of the Institute of Marxism-Leninism and MaoZedong Thought in Beijing. See his "Prospects for Socialism:China's Experience and Lessons" in Milos Nikolic, ed., Socialism onthe Threshold of the Twenty-first Century (London: Verso, 1985) andthe interview with him in Monthly Review, Vol. 38, No.4 (September1986).

66




Students and staf f of Quinghua University, Beijing, "struggle against the right deviationist wind . . . by writing big character posters and holding

criticism meetings." This was in March 1976, just before Deng Xiaoping was removed from his positions.

thl:}t Chinese theorists are in over the stages of socialism and

the process of development. He attributes the problems toreductionism and to taking socialism as a system rather than a

process, but he has shown only the lack of clarity in the

theories of socialism. Against the fear of the restoration of

capitalism, he ends with the hope "that questions of classstruggle might become important once again" (p. 97).

In "Undeveloped Socialism and Intensive Develop

ment" Bill Brugger pursues the subject of socialism as aprocess (pp. 98-118). To his earlier view that the process mustinvolve the negation of capitalist relations, he now adds the

necessity of a telos (p. 98), which requires some "utopian

thinking" (p. 118). He asks the question: Does the move

towards advanced socialism require a temporary abandonmentof the socialist telos?" (p. 117). His answer seems to be yes for

China, for various structural reasons.His argument is put (with some reservations) in terms of

M. Kalecki's economic, technological, and political cycles.He presents a plausible case for saying that the Chinese havefailed to develop a historical and cyclical account of the inten

sive development of technology as opposed to expansion in

67

terms of costly inputs. The twofold result has been ineffective

planning and the absence of guiding ideals. What is needed is a

clearer understanding, and thereby more effective control, of

the telos-governed advance. I am not convinced that the problems the Chinese have lie mainly with their ignoring goals andregarding socialism as static. It seems to me that the real

disagreements are elsewhere-over the appropriate socialistgoals and the existence of political alternatives rather than

object ive economic laws. (See below for Reglar's discussionof the disagreement over the latter.) Still Brugger has indi

cated some new lines of inquiry about the socialist road of

development.The themes of Kate Hannan's "Economic Reform: Le

gitimacy, Efficiency and Rationality" (pp. 119-141) areWeberian. She claims that the reforms in China are the party'sresponse to its damaged legitimacy (p. 139) and have resultedin the goal of a classless society being replaced by the goal of

social ist modernizat ion (p. 121). This seems to me misleadingboth about the past and about the present. Since liberation,China has had both goals to some extent. Still, she recounts

numerous difficulties, including systemic ones, that arise in




using state administrative and economic methods. The forceofher worries is not clear to me. She says that "central plannersare beset with a myriad of routine control problems" (p. 139),but it is not clear whether that is meant as a fundamentalobstacle. Are they control tasks or barriers to control? It mayjus t be that there are a lot of things to think about and that a lotof people at various levels (from bottom to top) will have tothink about them. It is best, of course, if the problems are

routine.I wish Hannan had said more about some of the theoreti

cal difficulties. There is a tendency in her article (and inliterature elsewhere) to draw a sharp line between the economic mechanisms of the market and the political mechanismsof the state. Marx himself called for the administration (virtually the opposite ofWeber's and Hannan's use of that term) ofthings ratherthan the governing ofpeople which also suggestsa separation of economics and politics. On the other hand, inGrundrisse Marx foresaw wealth being measured by disposable time rather than labor time. Decisions about production inan advanced socialist society would be based on time availablefor needs to be satisfied. These are decisions of politicaleconomy that require both political and economic mechan

isms. We need to know more about how the two might mix.A central claim is that bureaucracy cannot be dealt with

by bureaucracy (see pp. 135 and 140). As usual, more needs tobe said about bureaucracy, as Brugger remarks in the introduction (p. 8), but anyway I am not convinced. At least I see no

reason why some administrative problems cannot be dealt withby administrative officers. All ofthese are important issues forfurther study, and in any case I may have missed what Hannanwas trying to do. The argument seems to be that the shift ingoals has resulted in either the inefficiencies from violating thelaw of value or the problems of the old mandatory planning.How serious the "irrationalities" are depend on the alternatives, which are not indicated.

Greg McCarthy begins his article, "The Socialist Transition and the Socialist Mode of Production" (pp. 142-170),with a short account of the reforms since 1978, with referenceto, among others, Xue Muqiao, who gets less credit than he

deserves. The bulk ofMcCarthy's article is the development ofhis claim that "China is not in a state of transition to communism, but has established a socialist mode of production"(p. 170). His statements of the abstract issues of metatheoryare excellent and accurate, but the crucial details of theory areabsent. What are the characteristics that distinguish the relations of production? Just what must a group of people do withsurplus value and for what reasons in order to constitute aunique class? These and other questions are left unanswered.(The same criticism is made by Reglar, pp. 193f.) McCarthy

seems to think that state and party decisions show that aseparate mode of state socialism has been established, withoutconsidering whether it might be a combination of conflictingrelations or a type of state capitalism.

In trying to establish his point, McCarthy does go througha lot of interesting material on changes and problems of productivity and on developments and conflicts in relations ofproduction. The suggestion is that any conflict or contradictionshows class differences (pp. 149, l65f ., and 169), but this issurely not the case. The dictatorship of the proletariat or eventhe administration of things is not the heavenly Jerusalem,although it is important to analyze the relations and forces thatprevail. The possibility of a socialist mode of production

cannot be rejected out of hand, and China, among other coutries, gives a good opportunity to reconsider that possibilitBut McCarthy has not given us the evidence. 2 In these daysChinese emphasis on the dominance of state ownership, itinteresting to consider the fact that just previous to liberatithe Guomindang state-owned industries "constituted appromately two-thirds of total industrial capital" (p. 156).

There is a tendency in herarticle (and in literature

elsewhere) to draw a sharp line between the eco-

nomic mechanisms of the marketand the political

mechanisms of the state. Marx himself calledfor

the administration (virtually the opposite of

Weber's and Hannan's use of that term) ofthings

rather than the governing ofpeople, which also

suggests a separation of economics and politics.

On the other hand, in Grundrisse Marx foresaw

wealth being measured by disposable time rather

than labor time. Decisions about production in an

advanced socialist society would be based on time

available for needs to be satisfied. These are deci-

sions ofpolitical economy that require both politi-

cal and economic mechanisms. We need to know

more about how the two might mix.

The last essay, "The Law ofValueDebate-ATributethe Late Sun Yefang" (pp. 171-203), by Steve Regldeepens the debate about objective economic laws throughdiscussion of the works of Sun Yefang and other Chineeconomists. He does show "the sophistication with whicontemporary Chinese political economists have approachthe problems" (p. 203). Reglar argues that the essential ements of socialist economics should be "expressed as objetive economic laws" (p. 188), responding to some of Bruger's criticisms of such a view. As Brugger says elsewherethere are natural laws of physics and biology that must observed, but not economic laws. It is frustrating that Regdoes not give an explicit statement of the supposed laws.

2. It would be worthwhile to pursue his line of argument using JoE. Roemer's A General Theory of Exploitation and Class (Cabridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, 1982). Roemer gives a clexpositionof a conception of socialist exploitation.

3. "Once Again, 'Making the Past Serve the Present'" in N. Mwell and B. McFarlane, eds., China's Changed Road to Developm(Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1984). See also Harry Magdoff, "AThere Economic Laws of Socialism?" n N i k o l i ~ , ed., op. ci t., whwas also printed in Monthly Review, Vol. 37, No.3 (July-Aug1985), and Michael Lebowitz, "Only Capitalist Laws of MotionMonthly Review, Vol. 38, No.6 (November 1986).




II Ha.ve you ~ r t c l outW t \ ~ the twt11or'c; views

AV"e.. ye-t ? lit

J!J78

most it seems to me that there are truisms, prescriptions, and

recommendations. This is surely an important matter that will

be debated much more.

I think Reglar does give us an important reminder in

saying that there "are many different types of planning in

operation around the world and in most circumstances an

economy is neither fully planned nor fully integrated by the

market" (p. 172). A fundamental problem is that if social

choices are "bounded by objective laws" (p. 186) of econom-

ics it is difficult to see what role there could be for politics. The

overemphasis on economics and economic laws in China is a

concern expressed frequently in this book. Reglar ends by

discussing some new programs in China involving guidance

planning that call for "a greater separation of state and civil

society" and involve a "different concept of . . . democracy"

(p. 202). The political implications are not pursued.

I I

A cluster of issues in these essays prompts further com-

ment from me , although others will find many other issues of

interest . My first concern is that the essays are overly theoreti-

cal in ways that are obscure, unnecessary, or misleading. For

one thing, the book makes me wish that the word" reduction"

had been banned from our vocabulary. Every author uses the

word (or one of its cognates) in one vague way or another,

although some depend upon it much more than others. In thisbook (as elsewhere), the word "reduction" is used as a crude

stick to beat down a simplistic unilinear theory of the primacy

of productive f o r c e ~ . It is thought that reductionists are com-

mitted to the view that one thing "could simply be read off"

another (cf. pp. 3, 40, and elsewhere). No doubt some have

naively held that the productive forces determine all else but

are completely unaffected themselves. This is certainly not the

view presented in serious discussions, from those of Marx and

Engels to that of G. A. Cohen (with all due respect to

McCarthy, p. 144n.). Engels tried to develop a theory (and not

a logical relation that would allow a 'reading off') about the

way in which product ive forces are the most important but not

the only forces determining interaction and change in society.

Without some such theory of historical materialism, a

crucial Marxist category will have to be abandoned, with

widespread effect on Marxism. Moreover, a simplistic under-standing of primacy tends to restrict the accounts of the change

from the cultural revolution to contemporary reforms. Mao

Zedong is accused of thinking that politics determines every-

thing, while Deng Xiaoping is accused of thinking that eco-

nomics determines everything. It is then difficult to see how

they might have strayed from a more sophisticated and accu-

rate account of the interrelation of economic and political

forces. The mistakes are in large part a matter ofoveremphasis

an d misapplication.

Dutton and Healy try to overcome reduction by trying to

eliminate epistemology. The cure is extreme for an affliction

that is questionable, although it comes at a time when the deathof epistemology is a popular theme in philosophy.4 They

claim, without argument, that "all epistemologies posit auniquely privileged level of discourse" (p. 27). In a sense this

applied to foundationalist theories of knowledge that depend

4. Richard Rorty proclaimed "the death of epistemology" in hisPhilosophy and the Mirror of Nature (Princeton: Princeton Univ.Press, 1979). Ironically, that book was followed by many importantbooks in epistemology, including F. I. Dretske, Knowledge and the

Flow of information (1981), L. Bonjour, The Structure ofEmpiricalKnowledge (1985), and A. I. Goldman, Epistemology and Cognition

(1986).

"Formalized political study group in full swing," a cartoon in the*This cartoon is from China Now (London), No. 115 (Winter 19851 China Daily, an English·language newspaper in Beijing, 23 February86), p.17. 1987.

69




upon some beliefs being self-certifying, but in this sense theyare not necessarily beliefs to which al1 others could be reduced. Perhaps their view applies to classical logical posi

tivism, but that school lost credibility decades ago. Their

claim does not, by definition, apply to coherentist epistemologies. for which all beliefs are certified by being part of a

coherent theory without a uniquely privileged level of any

sort.

In this book it is strongly suggested that the con

flicts in China are class conflicts requiring class

struggle. Maybe some are, but even that still needs

to be shown. There are many political issues to be

discussed, but the discussion should not be bur

dened with the view that politics is always class

struggle. Once again China provides excellent

materialfor investigation.

The basic problem in their essay is that they use an overlyrestrictive and implausible distinction between empiricism

and rationalism (p. 26). Empiricism is taken as the view that all

thought is about concrete reality (but sometimes about thegiven experience, as for a phenomenalist, like Mach) (pp. 21

and 23). Rationalism, on the other hand, "works on a thought

object" (p. 16). Knowledge is about concepts rather than thereal things. The result is a lame defense of Marx that makes his

view sound like the Hegelian position he attacked. With this

dichotomy, it will be true necessarily that" all epistemologiesposit both a distinction and a correspondence between the two

realms of being" (p. 26). The problem is that they use a

dichotomy between mind and reality that was only prominentin our philosophical past, and they then seem to claim that the

mind can think only about matters of the mind. They forgetthat we normally use our minds to think about real things

(structures, e tc. ), just as we use our eyes to see real things. Theimages and concepts that are involved are not the real thingsthat we think about or see.

As I mentioned above, the issues in epistemology are

enormous and complex, but I think it is a mistake to think thatpositions in political economy will be much affected by positions in epistemology. I have discussed these epistemological

issues at such length partly because I think Dutton and Healy'sdiscussion is an example of an all-too-common practice of

depending too much on solving contentious philosophical

problems. This tends to stultify or to dogmatize. I think

Chinese Marxism also suffers from this more than it should. It

is one way of drawing the limits too tightly.Earlier I mentioned Brugger's concern that "the limits of

official ideology are too tightly drawn" (from Brugger's intro

duct ion, p. 10). He, and others in this book, think that opendebate has been stamped out except in a very limited area. His

example is of the limitation of debate about alienation, but

even the estimate he reports of "some 600 articles on alienation" between "1978 and 1983" does not indicate "a brief

Nanjing University students make their opinions known on a seven

fiveJoot-long blackboard.

moment" of discussion (p. 10; cf. p. 118, Hannan, p. 123, a

Reglar, p. 202). I can attest to lively debates on the subje

during the academic year 1984-85, and in 1986 Wang Ruosh(mentioned on p. 11) published a book on humanism a

alienat ion, which has been the topic of further debate.

The problem has not been the limitation of debate. Tcensorship of ideas is much reduced in contemporary Chi

and even more so now than when Brugger was writing a feyears ago. With the "double hundreds" policy, many schoo

of thought are contending, although attention is more on blo

soming than contending. The problem is to give politicguidance and avoid the most detrimental effects of influentideas while fostering positive effects, rather than letting oth

forces determine the effects where pluralism reigns. Thisstill true in the recent criticism of bourgeois liberalizati

(January 1987). No doubt discussion in the Communist parof China supporting capitalism or alternative vanguard parthas been stamped out. However, the emphasis is on criticis(theoretical responses) rather than a movement.5 The imp

tant question is whether debate will now be more specific abowhat socialism is and should be, and about what bourgeoliberal ization is. The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences hpromised more work on these issues. And it is the responsib

ity of the party to give clearer theoretical guidance than it h

so far, for example guidance about political reforms. I ha

5. There is an interesting discussion of these isssues by Deng Xiping in "Concerning Problems on the Ideological Front," Selec

Works of Deng Xiaoping (1975-1982) (Beijing: Foreign LanguagPress, 1984), pp. 367-371.




certainly heard far too much praise in China for the Americanpolitical and ideological systems, praise that has gone withoutresponse. Certainly Hu Yaobang did not lead or even encourage a theoretical discussion about the socialist road versus thecapitalist road. Contrary to Brugger, I think the limits of

ideology are quite wide. The problem is that the party has notsufficiently participated in the debates.

In this book there are various comments about decisions

and actions of the party and the state, but very little is saidabout what their roles should be. When they are discussed,there is a tendency to think that conflicts require a state, alonglines that Lenin encouraged. Certainly the planning of advanced production requires more administrative problems(tasks) than Marx-and even more so, Lenin-foresaw.

(Marx did anticipate that accounting would and should becomemore important in a planned economy.) In this book as elsewhere, the problems are too often taken as reasons for abandoning planning and control. But Marx thought planning andcontrol would be performed by the society rather than by thestate, which would wither away. In many ways China's policyof reducing state involvement and encouraging locally controlled schools, collectives, and horizontal cooperation seems

to be just what Marx advocated in his' Critique of the GothaProgram." More needs to be clarified about state and socialfunctions, and it is a pity that so little has been said about thesetheoretical issues that are in the background of the discussionsin this book. 6

Another issue in the background that is of more directimportance is that of the role of politics and the realm of thepolitical. As in other literature, politics is commonly taken asnothing but class struggle, so that any political conflict is amatter for contending classes. The result is either to extendclass struggle too far or to ignore the political conflicts anddifficulties in a free association of workers with social planning. The first was the mistake of the cultural revolution, andthe second is a mistake that is prevalent in studies on socialisttransition, including those here. Many of the authors (but notBrugger) lament the abandonment of class struggle but point toconflicts as indications of class differences.

The problems come partly from Mao and partly fromMarx. Mao did tell us about contradictions among the people,but then he saw class struggle all around him and thought thatthe struggle between the socialist road and the capitalist road isalways the same as class struggle (see p. 70, quoted in mycomments on Sullivan). Disagreements about whether a society is keeping to the socialist road do not have to be disagreements between class enemies. Recently there have been statements in China about keeping to the socialist road withouttaking that as involving class struggle. The authors here do not

consider the relation between politics and class struggle, andthose who conflate them have given no reason for doing so.More needs to be said about politics without restricting it tomatters of class.

6. These issues are discussed in Victor Nee and David Mozingo,eds., State and Society in Contemporary China (Ithaca, NY: CornellUniv. Press, 1983) and in Kjeld Erik Brodsgaard, "State, Party, andEconomy in the Transition to Socialism in China: A Review Essay,"Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars, Vol. 18, No. I (Jan.-March1986), pp. 46-55.

A problem from Marx is that he used the word' 'political"in a narrower sense than we do now. In his terminology, therewould no longer be power in the political sense under communism. In our terms, political questions also arise in everyday planning and administration. Marx neglected the difficulproblems of power in administrative control and coordination.There is definitely no reason to think that all conflicts anddisagreements would fade away, although that seems to be the

message of Lenin's State and Revolution and the suggestion ofmany writings on the socialist transition. In this book it is

strongly suggested that the conflicts in China are class conflictsrequiring class struggle. Maybe some are, but even that stilneeds to be shown. There are many political issues to be

discussed, but the discussion should not be burdened with theview that politics is always class struggle. Once again Chinaprovides excellent material for investigation.

Chinese Marxism in Flux, for all its difficulties, raisesmany important theoretical issues in sophisticated ways. Othereaders will be prompted to reconsider and to speculate in waysdifferent from mine. This book helps confirm the view that (asBrugger puts it, p. 10) "current debates on the role of the statein China [and other matters] are more stimulating than they

have been for decades."

June 1987

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China's Establishment IntellectualsEdited by CAROL LEE HAMRIN and TIMOTHY CHEEK

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State and Society in the Taiwan MiracleTHOMAS B. GOLD

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The Marginal World of OeKenzaburoMICHIKO WILSON In this study of the writings of Japan's most prodigious writer, Professor Wilson brings to bear a wide range of contemJX>rary crit ical techniques.

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East Asia

Books to ReviewJeffGillenkirk and James Motlow, Bitter Melon: Stories from the Las

The following review copies have arrived at the office of the

Bulletin. I f you are interested in reading and reviewing one or

more of them, write to Bill Doub, BCAS, 3239 9th Street,

Boulder, CO 80302-2 1I2, U.S.A. This brieflist contains only

books that have arrived since the last issue. Please refer to thelist in the previous issue as well fo r other books currently

available from BCAS. Reviews of important works not listed

here will be equally welcome. The Bulletin prefers review

essays on two or more related books, and i f there are books

you particularly want for an essay but are not listed, we can

probably get them for you.

Richard H. Solomon and Masataka Kosaka (eds.), The Soviet FarEast Military Buildup (Dover MA : Auburn House PublishingCompany, 1986).

Southeast Asia

Susan Abeyasekere, Jakarta: A History (Singapore, Oxford, and NewYork: Oxford University Press, 1987).

Desmond Ball, A Base for Debate: The US Satellite Station at Nur-rungar (Sydney, London, and Boston: Allen and Unwin, 1987).

John Bresnan (ed.), Crisis in the Philippines: The Marcos Era andBeyond (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986).

Susanne Thorbek, Voices from the City: Women of Bangkok (Londonand New Jersey: Zed Books Ltd., 1987).

James T. Siegel, Solo in the New Order: Language and Hierarchy inan Indonesian City (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press,1986).

Women's International Resource Exchange, Philippine Women:From Assembly Line to Firing Line (New York: Women's International Resource Exchange, 1987).

South Asia

Lawrence A. Babb, Redemptive Encounters: Three Modern Styles inthe Hindu Tradition (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press, 1986).

Atiur Rahman, Peasants and Classes: A Study in Differentiation in

Bangladesh (Atlantic Highlands NJ and London: Zed Books Ltd.,1987). Distributed in the U.S. by Humanities Press.

V. T. Rajshekar, Dalit: The Black Untouchables of India (Atlanta andOttawa: Clarity Press, 1987).

Raju G.C. Thomas, Indian Security Policy (Princeton NJ: PrincetonUni versity Press, 1986).

Northeast Asia

Rural Chinese Town in America (Seattle and London: Universityof Washington Press, 1987).

Pierre Rousset, The Chinese Revolution. Part I: The Second ChineseRevolution and the Shaping of the Maoist Outlook; Part II: The

Maoist Project Tested in the Struggle for Power (AmsterdamInternational Institute for Research and Education, 1987). Pamphlets, total pages 75.

Gilbert Rozman, The Chinese Debate about Soviet Socialism, 19781985 (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 1987).

The Bulletin is indexed or abstracted in The Alternative Press

Index, The Left Index, International Development Index, Inter

national Development Abstracts, Sage Abstracts, Social

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(International Bibliographie der ZeitschriJten Literatur) , IBR

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Abstracts, Historical Abstracts, and America: History and Life

Back issues and photocopies of out-of-print back issues areavailable from BCAS. Microfilms of all back issues are available

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