Renegade states risk suspension from Lomé

Date: 21/09/00

By Gareth Harding

PRESSURE is mounting on Fiji and a handful of other renegade countries to clean up their act or face suspension from the Lomé Convention, which has bound the EU to its 71 former colonies in the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) region for the past quarter of a century.

Patience with Fiji has been wearing thin ever since rebel leader George Speight overthrew the democratically elected government of Mahendra Chaudry in May. Although Speight is now behind bars, the army is still in control of the country, there are no plans for democratic elections and the island state's constitution lies in tatters.

While welcoming the recent release of Chaudry and his cabinet, the French presidency has issued a statement on behalf of the Union as a whole warning that the political situation in Fiji remains "unconstitutional, unstable and precarious".

The uncharacteristically blunt declaration concludes by stating that unless the rule of law is restored to the Pacific island as quickly as possible, the EU will consider suspending the country from the Lomé Convention.

The consequences of such a move could be severe for Fiji, which is heavily dependent on Union sugar subsidies and development aid for its wellbeing.

EU officials say that the bloc is reluctant to punish the Fijian people for the actions of a small minority and that sanctions remain a last resort. In a bid to avert a showdown with the island state, it has therefore invited representatives of the interim government for talks in Brussels early next month.

MEPs have taken a tougher stance against the Suva regime. In a resolution adopted earlier this month, they called for the Fijian parliament to be recalled by November and for the multi-racial constitution to be restored immediately.

The Strasbourg-based assembly said that if there was no real progress towards the restoration of democracy by that date, the European Commission should suspend the country from the Lomé Convention.

Another ACP country in the dock for violating the spirit if not the letter of Lomé, which is soon to be replaced by the even tougher Cotonou Convention, is Haiti. The Caribbean state stands accused of presiding over fraudulent elections in July. In a letter to Prime Minister Edouard Alexis, the French presidency said it deplored the way the elections were conducted and called on Haitian representatives to explain themselves in Brussels next month.

Civil liberties groups have accused the Union of dragging its feet over human rights abuses in ACP countries and urged the bloc to apply the convention consistently.

Leon Peynenburg of Human Rights Watch said there was a "balance to strike between dialogue and action" and argued that present procedures for sanctioning rogue states were "cumbersome".

Pressure is mounting on Fiji and a handful of other renegade countries, including Haiti, to clean up their act or face suspension from the Lomé Convention.