20 Apr 2009

Fiji does not require NZ help - McCully

10:52 pm on 20 April 2009

Foreign Affairs Minister Murray McCully says sending New Zealand troops to Fiji is not a priority.

Prime Minister John Key said on Monday the Government would consider sending troops to stabilise Fiji if the need arose.

But Mr McCully says Fiji's situation does not require overseas help at the moment.

"Things are difficult there, but we don't see that as something that's likely to make an immediate need come our way as far as the military are concerned."

Magistrates reappointed

The head of the Fiji Law Society says he is not surprised that the interim government has reappointed most of its magistrates.

The entire judiciary was sacked after the Court of Appeal ruled on 9 April that the previous interim government had been illegally installed.

Only two new people were among a line-up appointed on Monday.

Society president Dorsami Naidu says the magistrates should not have been sacked in the first place because they do not deal with constitutional matters or big court cases.

There's no word yet on when other appointments will be made to higher ranking judicial positions.

The military took over Fiji in December 2006. It was the fourth coup since 1987.

Democracy movement calls for sanctions

Fijians living in Australia are planning a public march to pressure their Government and the United Nations to place tougher sanctions on Fiji.

The President of the Fiji Democracy and Freedom Movement, Isaia Waqatairewa, says they want New Zealand and Australia to stop Air Pacific flights and ban Fiji's rugby teams from all overseas tours.

He says they will also urge the United Nations to ban any further peacekeeping missions for Fiji's military forces.

Mr Waqatairewa says the blanket ban will hurt ordinary Fijians, but it will be better in the long term.

He adds that it is important the sanctions hit Fiji very hard, so that there is change by the end of the year.

Leave Bainimarama alone - brother

The elder brother of Fiji's interim prime minister Frank Bainimarama says his brother should be left alone to do his job.

Savenaia Bainimarama, who lives in Opua near Auckland, says his brother already has the difficult job of trying to sort out Fiji and criticising him is not going to help the situation.

There has been international condemnation of the abrogation of Fiji's constitution and the re-appointing of Commodore Bainimarama as caretaker prime minister by the country's president.

But Savenaia Bainimarama says his brother is not a politician and is doing his best under the circumstances.