Fiji election candidate suggests Fiji joins ANZUS

Transcript

A Fiji election candidate, Nirmal Singh, wants to see Fiji join the ANZUS defence treaty.

The former US Embassy public affairs specialist says Fiji has an important role to play in regional security and its defence forces are highly skilled through international peacekeeping duties.

Mr Singh told Sally Round the military is a fact of life in Fiji but he says it needs to refocus.

Nirmal Singh: It is not a situation where we say, okay we'll shut down Fiji's military, we won't have a military. That is not going to happen. I think what we need to do is to strategically realign the focus of the Fijian military from domestic engagement to regional and international engagement. And I think once we see that our military is more engaged into the international and regional engagement then we can get the military to focus on more important things in the international arena than to focus on what is happening domestically in this country. Our armed forces are well trained in international peacekeeping duties, they have walked side by side with the United States armed forces to restore peace in hotspots. They share a lot of things in common, they have a lot of respect for each other and I think it is time that these countries consider that Fiji should become part of this alliance, also because the South Pacific segment of the Pacific theatre is quite important in terms of security, in terms of transnational crime, in terms of maintaining security in the region. I think this is time the United States, Australia and New Zealand should start engaging Fijian military forces more in to the regional and then subsequently into international engagements.

Sally Round: But what about a perceived lack of trust in Fiji's security forces given their role in the coups?

Nurmal Singh: I don't think there is a lack of trust because when you look at Fijian military forces serving in other countries in the Middle East, I think there is a lot of goodwill and the relationship is quite good among the armed forces from Australia, New Zealand and the United States. I don't think it's a matter of trust. You know just before the coup you could see the United States naval vessels were coming to Fiji. They had joint exercises. A number of our armed forces, personnel were trained at the Pacific Command in Hawaii and I think that is the level of engagement that we'd like to see pick up momentum as we come out of elections later this year. It remains to be seen who becomes the next commander when Frank Bainimarama announces his successor, we will know how things shape up, but it is important that these countries take some responsibility towards making sure that our armed forces are trained and respect civilian authorities. The United States can play a big role in this because the United States can provide training so the Fijiian armed forces play a significant peacekeeping role and on the other hand  provide security and regional stability in the South Pacific section of the Pacific theatre.