by 
(National Farmers Union)

National Farmers Union
Submission to
Justice Pius Langa,
Special Envoy of the Commonwealth Secretary General to Fiji.

On behalf of the National Farmers Union (NFU), we welcome you, Sir, and members of your team to Fiji.

Your mission, to us, was much awaited. We are sure you have familiarized yourself with the political issues confronting us. We do not intend to go into the details of these. Rather we want to focus on matters somewhat more graver than the immediate constitutional ones; matters which we believe maybe within your specific terms of reference to "act as a facilitator to accelerate the restoration of democracy and to promote national unity in Fiji" - as well as within the terms of reference of both, the Harare Declaration and the Millbrook Action Plan.

We believe, Sir, that you, through the Commonwealth, maybe able to shape the future of this nation. It is in the hands of the Commonwealth of Nations to determine whether this country travels the path of democracy and equality, or goes down the well-trodden path of ethnic violence and civil war. We stand at the cross-roads; the developments within the next few months would finally seal the fate of this nation.

Security & Safety of the Rural Community
We must say that at least one dimension of the problem has its genesis not in any event since 19 May; rather it is a problem of over 120 years which is rearing its ugly head now.

But let us first take you very briefly through the more recent days: the democratically elected government was taken hostage by terrorists on 19 May; the same day central Suva was ravaged by organized mobs while in rural areas innocent farmers were systematically terrorized. A state of chaos and lawlessness was experienced by the nation during and after May 19th. It would be fair to say that the victims of the urban and rural rampage have been almost exclusively the ethnic Indian people. In certain areas, the brutalities have been so bad that families have fled their homes and found shelter at refugee camps, or with relatives away from their homes.

The situation has not changed since 19 May in any tangible way. The rural population still lives in direct fear of terrorist activities and extortion, and in fear of the commissions and omissions of the military and police. The absolute lack of any action by these two organizations for well over 2 months, following the events of since May 19, has left the rural people, particularly farmers, well and truly now considering whether they should even rely on these two organizations for their defense, or should they organise their own defense. When the very institutions which the taxpayers fund to ensure the safety and security of the ordinary people, turns against them, what else can be expected of the people but the rise of parallel security institutions.

We see this as the first major problem emerging from the destruction of constitutional democracy here. And we foresee this problem taking a very ugly turn if appropriate remedial action is not put in place from now.

Other than the immediate restoration of the 1997 Constitution and the reconvening of the Parliament, the problem of security must be addressed with urgency.

Political and Civil Rights of Indians
The second, issue concerns the rights of the ordinary person in Fiji, in particular the social and political rights of the ordinary ethnic Indian here.

The UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights recognizes the rights of people without distinction on the basis of race, colour etc. Article 4 clearly states: "No one shall be held in slavery or servitude…" Article 15(1) states: "Everyone has the right to a nationality". And Article 17(1) states: "Everyone has the right to own property…"

Similarly, the Commonwealth's creed, encapsulated in Article 4 of the Harare Declaration, is relevant here.

For the farmers in Fiji, these internationally accepted norms have immense significance.

And we submit that these have continued to be violated in Fiji. Let us elaborate.

Individual and group rights, rights to nationality, and rights to property ownership all are based on the fundamental legal foundation of access to land. Without access to land, no community can have food, shelter, education, or even a humane livelihood. Legal access to land without discrimination is the foundation for a modern society. Access to land is the foundation to peace and stability. One can not have a right to nationality without the right of access to land - to build shelter, to find food, to get water, and to get a living out of it.

In Fiji, the fundamental problem has to do with the systematic denial of access to land to about a half of its citizens. For much of Fiji's recent history, this has been done through political compromise on ownership of land.

Particularly since independence, the compromise was reached with very clear mutual benefits: that the ethnic Indians would not question the ownership of land in return for guaranteed access to it through legislation. The compromise worked until 1997. Landowners and tenants both had their interests served by the Agricultural Landlords and Tenants Act. This maintained some sort of social and industrial harmony in Fiji.

The expiring leases under the ALTA, and the lack of any successor legislation now brings into question the basis of the compromise which was made by ethnic Indians in the country.

As you may know, 83% of all land in Fiji has been decreed to be communally owned and inalienable. For most part, there is ample evidence that this was based on no firm historical, legal or cultural foundation. On this account, may we humbly refer you to the book The Charter of Land written by a long time employee of the Native Lands trust board, Peter France, and published by Oxford University Press in 1969.

Of the balance of the land, about 10% has been owned by the state (called crown land) and 7% is freehold land.

Since 19 May, and more so since the coming into power of the Qarase regime, the regime has decided to transfer 7% state owned land also to the indigenous Fijians. We refer you here to the Blueprint for Indigenous Fijian and Rotuman Advancement, and Decrees 14 and 15 of 2000 Transferring crown schedule A & B lands to the native owners.

This will take indigenous Fijian land ownership to 90% of all land in Fiji.

The Regime's Blueprint
Furthermore, the Qarase regime has also placed restrictions on the sale of freehold land. First, the first opportunity to buy any freehold land put on the market rests with indigenous Fijians. To limit the option available to non-indigenous Fijians, the regime has made a financial allocation to assist the indigenous Fijians to purchase freehold land. We again refer you here to the Qarase Blueprint (see Appendix 1). This will further restrict the availability of land to non-indigenous Fijians.

We would not question ownership, however weak the argument for ownership is on historical, legal or moral grounds, if there was a good legislation allowing access to land. The tenants do not wish to own land for the sake of it. All that the tenant community desires is access to a livelihood without harassment, intimidation, violence, and on terms which do not condemn the tenants to servitude.

But the situation now is precisely that unless this matter is addressed, once and for all, the next step will see the servitude of an entire ethnic community.

Added to this is the fundamental breach of human rights by denying a people access to water, and fishing grounds. You may note, that the Qarase Blueprint bars access of non-ethnic Fijians to fishing grounds, and to drinking water underground. The Qarase regime is working on introducing decrees on this.

The Indo-Fijian community, which has been farming leased land, is now rapidly becoming land-less.

Ethnic Indians were brought to Fiji from India by the Colonial government in late 1800's to work the sugar plantations. A vast majority of the Indians remained in Fiji on the assurance of equal citizenship whether they were here, in South Africa, England or in India. The Salisbury Dispatch provided the firm foundation to this. Four generations down the line, ethnic Indians here have no other home but Fiji.

But the right to Fijian nationality for the ethnic Indian population is fast becoming synonymous to the right to American nationality for the African Americans until mid 1960's. At the moment it looks most hollow, to say the least.

Nationality comes with non-discriminatory legal rights to resources which are necessary for one's livelihood and sustenance. Fiji is perhaps the only place in the world where, except for the small proportion of freehold land, which in any case is owned by large landlords, an ordinary non-indigenous Fijian can not own land, and therefore a property like a simple house. The best which the non-indigenous can do is to lease a piece of land, often now it is getting increasingly clear, under atrocious terms.

Landlessness
For agricultural land, the rapid expiry of leases, and non-acceptance of any state responsibility for rehabilitation assistance is rapidly creating what in other countries would be regarded as refugees. We understand that the international bodies call this internally displaced people. For us, these are people who are not displaced only; they have been violated, dispossessed, evicted, and denied a place to stay. Table 1 below shows the rate of lease expiry in Fiji's sugar industry alone.

Table 1: Expiry of sugarcane farm ALTA Leases 1997-2024.
Year         No.         Area (ha)
1997         27            232
1998         120         1,398
1999         158         1,708
2000         1,133       8,217
2001         1,494       7,861
2002         310         2,670
2003         435         2,945
2004         216         2,250
2005         228         2,297
Averages over remaining years
2006-09       294        3,186
2010-14       199        2,060
2015-24        45          485

Total:
*1997-2024:   6,743      57,473


From table 1, we note that the highest number of leases expires in 2000 and 2001. In terms of land area, this is 8,217ha for year 2000 alone. While a small proportion of leases are being renewed, this remains insignificant compared to the evictions, in many cases despite the views of the landowners.

By 2009, it is expected that a total of 32,764 ha would be cleared off tenant farmers.

It must also be noted that these numbers underestimate the actual number of families being evicted. The numbers relate to the number of leases. On most leases, one often finds numerous households - of married children with families, brothers, sisters, and in many cases even farm hands with families. Our estimate is that for each lease, there are at least 4 other dependent family. This takes the total number of families affected to over 30,000, or about 46% of all ethnic Indian population. This category is the most vulnerable of all, for they have no property, no savings, and debts in many cases, with the state accepting no state responsibility for their fate.

The Peoples Coalition Government had allocated an amount of $20m in its 2000 budget to provide rehabilitation assistance to those farmers whose leases were not renewed. The evicted farmers could take the $28,000 lump sum payout and make their own arrangement.

However, following the coup these payouts were stalled and have now been scraped by the interim government. This has resulted in a large number of Indian farmers becoming landless and thus refugee camps started to spring up around the country. Most of these farmers are in large debts, which they have incurred during their farming career. This debt runs in millions of dollars. The 1995 figure was around $60.85ml; more recent figures would show the same trend; we apologise for not being able to bring upto date data on this because of the time constraint on us.

Table 2: Indebtedness of Cane Farmers, 1985-95.
Year Total Outstanding Loans (F$ million)
1985 21.86
1986 22.53
1987 19.57
1988 21.85
1989 42.36
1990 61.41
1991 87.22
1992 86.05
1993 88.97
1994 82.49
1995 60.85

The regime's 2001 budget delivered on the 22nd of November, clearly demonstrated, that the Indians in this country are secondary to the government. This assertion can be clearly demonstrated when one examines budgetary allocations for specific ethnic groups in Fiji. While the Indian farming community are becoming landless, only $6.5m has been allocated for various programs while the indigenous community are allocated with $31.15m. Of the $6.5m allocated, a miserly sum of $2.5m has been earmarked for land development, preparation, and other settlement expenses. However, the allocation covers only the supply of farm implements and makes no provision for cash payments to sustain the farmer and his family during the rest of their lives. The farmers have rejected the scheme as a whitewash.

Furthermore, given the problem of expiring land leases and the increasing number of Indo-Fijian farmers becoming land-less, the incidence of Indo-Fijian families falling into the poverty trap has skyrocketed.

We bring these matters out to highlight where we are at this juncture, and where we are headed without international concern and intervention.

We propose that the lack of rights to land ownership, or a lack of a satisfactory - non-oppressive and non-exploitative - leasing arrangement constitute a major and fundamental violation of human rights. The trend put in place by the interim regime is more worrying and coupled with the absence of any legislation which the tenants can rely on, the wholesale evictions by the NLTB or the offer of grossly exploitative terms and conditions for lease renewal, is creating potential refugee colonies.

Within the next few months, there will be three refugee camps - we already have one operating in Valelawa Vanua Levu catering for evicted farmers, and are about to establish one in Nanuku, Rakiraki.

The refugee camps have the same potentials which all refugee camps all over the world have.

In Fiji's case, if the problem is not addressed now, we expect boat people from here as well.

It is our submission that it becomes the responsibility of the Commonwealth, but three members in particular - the UK, Australia and India - to come to the aid of the descendents of the people they profited from greatly during almost a century - from 1879 to 1970.

We know that the regime, and the institutions operating under its policy instructions, are both reluctant and lack the will to address this issue fairly.

In this case, the international community can, and must put pressure on the regime to provide a fair solution immediately. But if the regime would not listen, then it becomes necessary for an international solution to this problem.

There are only about 180,000 people or about 33,000 families who need to be resettled. We believe it is a very small matter for the UK, Australia, and India to cater for. Failure to do this may see a turn which would be very disruptive and destructive, and would, most likely, require a continuous engagement of the international community in Fiji at considerably greater costs than what it would take to solve the problem once and for all.

It is our considered opinion, given the long term view and one that would provide a permanent solution to the problem, that the best option is to resettle the farmers overseas. This we say because we firmly believe, based on our experiences of the latest political events here, more particularly the violent treatment of Indians, following the coups of 1987 and 2000, that no community ought to pin its future on to a resource it neither owns nor controls.

With these words, Sir we welcome any questions which you may have, and wish you and your team a safe journey back. May God bless and guide you in charting out a solution for the people of Fiji.

Thanks.