Diplomatic sources confirmed to Pacnews that the formal announcement was supposed to be made by Fiji’s interim Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama in a press conference that was later cancelled.
The joint working group was set up based on the decision taken by Forum Leaders Meeting in Tonga last year to re-engage with Fiji.
According to the Fiji Sun, the interim government questioned the merit in continuing engagement with the Forum-Fiji Joint Working Group.
Bainimarama also branded Australia and New Zealand as insincere, hypocritical, unconstructive and obstructionist in moving Fiji forward.
His sentiments were passed on to the group by interim Attorney General Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum. He said it had become apparent that Australia and New Zealand had personalized their analysis.
“It appears from the obstructionist and paradoxical policies of Australia and New Zealand that they are bent on sabotaging the efforts of the government in building strong and accountable institutions and publicly-owned enterprises,” said Sayed Khaiyum.
“The treatment of the state of Fiji and the continuous disparaging remarks of the Australian and New Zealand governments is indicative of the fact that these two governments are condescending, hold neo-colonialist views and fail to recognize that Fiji is a sovereign State which needs to be treated with dignity and respect,” the AG said.
“These two countries fail to recognize that the government is making genuine efforts to find and put in place long term solutions to a number of fundamental structural and institutional problems,” he added.
Sayed-Khaiyum said Bainimarama’s effort to bring about good governance based on universally accepted principles was completely ignored by Australia and New Zealand.
“The fact that the FFJWG is condemning the engagement of military personnel in civil service posts and other government related bodies is ironical,” he said. “For it is the travel bans imposed by Australia and New Zealand which are preventing many qualified, skilled and willing non-military individuals who want to contribute to rebuild strong, credible, efficient and accountable institutions from taking up positions. They are interested in building a strong Fiji.”
