Asia Pacific Report
Fiji opening an embassy in Jerusalem last month in defiance of United Nations resolutions on Occupied Palestine and hosting a visit by a senior Israeli minister from the paraiah state this week has revived condemnation by Pacific human rights groups and Palestinian advocates.
Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel visited the Philippines, Papua New Guinea and Fiji — where she welcomed a possible “peacekeeping” role — in a week-long Pacific friendship mission.
She also faced controversy in New Zealand over the trip.
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Both Fiji and Papua New Guinea have opened controversial embassies in Jerusalem, recognised as the capital of Palestine when statehood is granted.
The NGO Coalition on Human Rights (NGOCHR) in Fiji has condemned Fiji’s coalition government for “callously ignoring the unfolding famine and mass starvation in Gaza”, saying it was being “deliberately orchestrated” by Israel in a statement.
The statement was issued before the opening of the embassy and the declaration of a Gaza ceasefire brokered by President Donald Trump and three mediating Middle East countries.
While Israel has violated the fragile ceasefire several times in the past two weeks, killing at least 100 Palestinians, the International Court of Justice has made a nonbinding ruling that Israel must support UN relief efforts in Gaza, including those conducted by the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).
Embassy entourage
The NGOCHR statement by chair Shamima Ali, dated September 9, criticised widespread reports in Fiji media that Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka would take “an entourage of 17 government officials and spouses” to officially establish the residential Fijian embassy.
“The coalition government appears to be callously ignoring the unfolding famine and mass starvation in Gaza that is being deliberately orchestrated by the state of Israel,” she said.
“This very same Fiji government previously defended the destruction, killing, and maiming of scores of thousands of innocent civilians — 70 percent of them women and children — by Israel at the International Court of Justice [in an earlier and ongoing case on genocide].”
Shamima Ali highlighted the visit in August by two World Elders — Mary Robinson (former President of Ireland and former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights) and Helen Clark (former Prime Minister of Aotearoa New Zealand and former Head of UNDP) — to the Rafah crossing into Gaza from Egypt.
They had witnessed how Israel was preventing the flow of food, water, and medicine to the suffering people of Gaza, and declared it as an “unfolding genocide” — “this is not the chaos of war, nor the result of an environmental disaster. It is intentional.”
Ali said Prime Minster Rabuka, and ministers Lynda Tabuya and Pio Tikoduadua had made “rather unconvincing arguments” about opening of the Fijian embassy in Jerusalem on September 18 amid the unfolding genocide in Gaza.
“Whether they like it or not, in the eyes of the world, Fiji will be seen as a country that supports the apartheid and pariah state of Israel, and its genocide in Gaza,” the statement said.
‘Not in our name’
Ali said the NGOCHR reiterated its “Not in our name” opposition to Fiji’s defence of Israel at the ICJ in a case brought by South Africa accusing Israel of committing genocide.
It also declared its strongest “Not in our name” opposition to the establishment of the Fiji Embassy in Jerusalem.
“Neither action reflects the wishes of all citizens of Fiji. It does not reflect well on Fiji for the present coalition government to be effectively supporting Israel’s genocide in Palestine.”
Members of the Fiji NGO Coalition on Human Rights are Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre (chair), Fiji Women’s Rights Movement, Citizens’ Constitutional Forum, femLINKpacific, Social Empowerment and Education Program, and Diverse Voices and Action (DIVA) for Equality Fiji.
Pacific Network on Globalisation (PANG) is an observer.
