Should Fiji be banned from the Wellington Sevens?

NZ has put in place a range of sanctions against Fiji. However they have not banned Fiji from attending the Wellington Sevens.

The Government claims it has no power to do sobecause it is an international tournament but as No Right Turn points out, they can simply refuse travel permits and visas.

The effect on Fiji of doing this could be massive and seriously undermine support for the Govt. Not being able to be in the Wellington Sevens would be as big as it gets in terms of disappointing Fijians.

However the price to pay is that Wellington could lose the hosting rights, either temporarily or permamently.

Is that a price worth paying? It might not change the outcome of course.

It’s very pleasing to see so much resistance in Fiji to the coup. It’s one thing to declare yourself Dictator, but it is another to try and run a country when the police and civil service won’t obey you. And great kudos to the media for refusing to be censored.

Ultimately he may find he has to actually start shooting people to get co-operation, and if so that will cement Bainimarama as a total villian.

I had a great debate on Monday night (at TVNZ Agenda Xmas Party) with Chris Trotter about the coup. He made the point that the changes Bainimarama wanted from the Government were all good ones – protecting minority Indian rights, keeping the Speight supporters out of power etc, and the debate was do the ends justify the means.

My response was that in some very rare cases military intervention can be desirable – for example the Army in Turkey is seen as the guarantor it stays secular. But that any action should be a last resort. If the Quarese Government had been in power for 4.5 years of a five year term and was doing stuff it had no mandate for, then maybe a case could be made. But they had won an election only six months ago, and had campaigned on the very policies they were implementing.