WELLINGTON (Pacnews) — The British Commonwealth asked the United Nations to stop using Fijian forces in the world body’s peacekeeping missions because of last year’s military coup in the Pacific nation but was rebuffed, the Commonwealth’s chief said.
Don McKinnon, secretary general of the group representing Britain and its 52 current and former territories, said he raised the “ethical issue” of the United Nations paying hundreds of Fijian soldiers as peacekeepers in Iraq and elsewhere in recent weeks with new U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.
“Don, we need the peacekeepers,’ unquote,” Ban had responded, according to McKinnon.
An official at the U.N. regional headquarters, in the Australian capital of Canberra, referred queries on the comment to U.N. headquarters in New York.
The Commonwealth suspended Fiji nine days after military commander Commodore Frank Bainimarama seized power in a bloodless coup in December last year.
Bainimarama appointed an interim government with him at its head, and has said he may call elections to restore democracy in about three years.
Some 300 Fiji peacekeepers guard the U.N. compound in Baghdad, and about 200 others are on U.N. peacekeeping duties in the Sinai.