BY MICHELLE BREAR
SUVA — Parading as a champion of the poor and landless, Fiji's Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase is backing two parliamentary bills that will transfer government-controlled land to the Native Land Trust Board (NLTB), the authority that manages land on behalf Melanesian Fijians.
Qarase, who is a member of the Melanesian-chauvinist Fijian United Party (SDL), accused the bill's opponents, which include the Fiji Labour Party, of having no respect for "indigenous land rights" and using "political double-speak" to hide their "racism".
The bills, approved in the Senate on April 27, reduce land under state control to around 1% of the total and increases that under NLTB control from 83% to more than 90%, despite the fact that the body represents only 51% of Fiji's population.
The 119,000 hectares of land includes almost 3000 areas of land that are leased to mainly Indian-Fijian farmers under the Agriculture and Landlord and Tenants Act (ALTA), which will now be administered under the Native Land Trust Act (NLTA), the legislation which governs the NLTB.
The NLTB is a corporate body, established in 1940 by the Great Council of Chiefs, a group of elite Fijian men with chiefly titles through which the British colonial authorities ruled Fiji.
The GCC retains a strong advisory role in nominating senators, and also has seats in the Senate (which in Fiji is appointed by the government, which controls the House of Representatives). The GCC has close political ties with the NLTB.
The NLTB administers leased land owned by the Melanesian Fijians clans. A board of 12 unelected members from Fiji's Melanesian elite (including Qarase) control the body.
The NLTB creams off 25% of all rent money collected. A further 23% is distributed to chiefs within the country's mataqali (clans), leaving just 52% to be distributed to remaining clan commoners. This system enriches the chiefly elite, causes discontent among Melanesian commoners, as well as uncertainty for non-Melanesian tenants.
The NLTA sharply reduces small tenants' rights. Whereas the ALTA prescribes 30-year leases with guaranteed renewal, and rent fixed at 6% of the value of unimproved land, under the NLTA, the NLTB is free to reduce the term of the lease (to as little as two years) and can refuse renewal on the basis that Melanesian Fijians need the land.
Since 1997, the NLTB has on many occasions refused to renew the leases of Indian-Fijian farmers. Indian Fijians make up 45% of Fiji's people but have few rights to land. Where leases have been renewed under the NLTB's control, rent has increased because rent is calculated on the improved value of the land.
Opponents of the bills point out that the transfer of land to the NLTB will not improve the situation of Melanesian Fijians (other than the small elite). But it will have a devastating effect on the country's economy, which depends on sugar cane and other primary produce for more than 50% of its exports, and on the 150,000 Fijian citizens who depend directly on the sugar industry for their livelihood.
Without long-term leases and guaranteed renewal, small cane farmers will not invest in land. Productive land is likely to simply lay idle, while those who have previously depended on it will struggle to survive. Fiji "will witness a growth in landlessness, squatting, poverty and other social problems", economist Mahendra Reddy predicts.
Qarase has whipped up racism to achieve the passage of the bills. He has argued that NLTB control benefits all Melanesian Fijians because, at the moment, Indian-Fijian farmers "control" the land to the disadvantage of poor Melanesians.
In reality, Qarase is nothing more than a servant of the Fijian rich. He is interested only in propping up the country's undemocratic and apartheid-like systems of political control by playing off working-class Fijians of different ethnic backgrounds against each other.
Melanesian-Fijian commoners will gain much more by uniting with working-class Indian Fijians and challenging the undemocratic political structures which keep both groups subordinated.
From Green Left Weekly, May 8, 2002.
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