Coup Consequences

It is becoming clear that the NZ Govt is not at all serious about restoring democracy to Fiji, as it hasn’t even bothered to seriously lobby the UN to cease the use of Fijian military. The aid reduction is a farce – funding has been cut to Fiji’s election office, which isn’t going to worry the Commodore at all. And he knows in a few months all the protests will stop and his rule will be recognised.

Human behaviour is very dependent on there being consequences for actions, and the problem is there have been almost no negative consequences for the coup leader, so of course he has no incentive to restore democracy. Here’s a list of measures that I would almost guarantee would work in having elections within a year:

* Cessation of all aid to Fiji until there is an election
* The Commodore to be told that Australian, NZ, US and EU will impose a lifetime travel ban on him unless there are elections within a year
* All Fijian military serving overseas sent back to Fiji within a month
* All members of the Commodore’s extended family to be deported from NZ and Australia, unless permanent residents. Yes this is grossly unfair to them, but it is even more unfair to have democracy taken away from a country
* Escalating travel bans to be placed on all members of the military government – an initial one year travel ban, and every month they stay in office illegally the travel ban is extended by a year.
* Find some international laws the Commodore has broken and file a warrant for his arrest, with extradition requests made to all countries
* Ban all Fijian sports teams from NZ, including the Sevens.

What else can one do to help make the consequences of instituting a coup negate the benefits for the individual concerned? This need not be just for Fiji, but generally?