Fiji PM Sitiveni Rabuka says ‘Israel will have to survive’

Sitiveni Rabuka on leading a coup, his country’s growing suicide problem, how he says no to China and why Israel ‘will have to survive.’

Fiji's Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka worries for young Fijians: ‘When they don’t measure up they get to the point of thinking – maybe my life is ­worthless.’ Picture: Stephen Cooper

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The South Pacific is a long way from Israel, but from the tranquil blue seas of the region comes a strong message of understanding and sympathy for the Jewish state.

Sitiveni Rabuka, Prime Minister of Fiji since December 2022, who served as a senior officer in the UNIFIL peacekeeping force in Lebanon, understands why Israel is involved in military operations against Iran.

“Israel will have to survive,” Mr Rabuka says in an interview in Melbourne this week during a private visit to Australia.

“They cannot survive if there is a big threat capability within range of Israel. Whatever they (Israel) are doing now can be seen as pre-emptive, knocking it out before it’s fired on you.

“I’m hoping even now the Iranian leaders are seeing it would be a total war of futility and will come to the negotiating table again.”

Fiji’s youth suicide problem

The Fijian leader is in Australia to support the Big Brothers Big Sisters Australia charity, which works to provide effective mentoring to young people at risk.

“It is an issue we’re now worrying about at home – young people resorting to suicide because of their difficulties in life.

“The various expectations for young people, expectations of their family, expectations of the community and when they don’t measure up they get to the point of thinking – maybe my life is ­worthless.”

This leads Mr Rabuka to hope that his friends who run Big Brothers Big Sisters Australia might help set up a Fijian branch of the charity: “I believe it can make a difference, and it’s something I’m hoping we can ignite in Fiji.”

Mr Rabuka met Anthony Albanese on the first leg of the Australian Prime Minister’s trip to Canada for the G7 meeting, and also met Foreign Minister Penny Wong this week in Adelaide.

He says: “Australia is a very good friend of Fiji.”

Mr Rabuka, pictured with Anthony Albanese at the Pacific Islands Forum in 2024, wonders at times whether Australia’s goodwill today is connected to lingering guilt over the way Canberra turned its back on Fiji.

Canberra has a similarly high opinion of Mr Rabuka’s government, especially considering the strong action he took on coming to office in 2022 to limit Beijing’s influence in his nation. “When I came in we had some People’s Republic of China officers embedded in our police force. I had to push back against that a little. I had to see if we could re-establish our sovereignty over our security and our economy.

“It’s not easy for a small economy in the economic south. But I knew none of our old friends would let us sink. So rather than jump very quickly to new-found friends, we’d rather be with friends we have known for a long time.”

Does Australia harbour guilt over Fiji?

Nonetheless, Mr Rabuka wonders at times whether Australia’s goodwill today is connected to lingering guilt over the way Canberra turned its back on Fiji after Mr Rabuka, as a colonel, led a military coup to seize government way back in 1987.

The object of the coup was to ensure the political dominance of ethnic Fijians as opposed to Fiji’s large ethnic Indian population:

“The Hawke government turned away from Fiji, just like the UK and America. Nobody wanted to do anything with us. So I instituted a ‘look north’ policy, and we turned to Japan, South Korea, China.

“We had two battalions (of peacekeepers) overseas in the Middle East, and the supply of ammunition and equipment ceased immediately. We had to keep up our obligations to the world.”

Although he thinks it was a mistake for Australia to turn away from Fiji in that period, Mr Rabuka does not in any way justify the two ­military coups he led. Famously, he has apologised to the nation for them.

“I have made a lot of apologies,” he says.

“People say to me ‘you’ve apologised enough. Just apologise once’.”

But he directly and honestly acknowledges his mistakes of that period.

“We hurt a lot of people because of what I did,” he says. “Some even relocated overseas and lost the intimacy of their family lives. Some of them weren’t sure of their own safety. There was great trauma for them to get over.”

Now Mr Rabuka enjoys strong support from ethnic Indians in Fiji. He’s an optimist about the South Pacific and believes it is establishing itself as a region of peace and stability. He even thinks the US-China strategic rivalry can work to Fiji’s benefit “if we play it right”.

‘I have frequent conversations with God.’

Mr Rabuka projects now as the elder statesman of the region, a calm, mature leader who projects a certain benevolence.

This could be in part because of his profound and, in the South ­Pacific, characteristic Christian faith.

“Those who know me probably say I’m not a very good Christian,” he replies self-deprecatingly when I ask him about his beliefs.

“I had a pretty free young life and then I got married.

“I’ve always been encouraged by the saying that every saint had a past and every sinner has a future. Whenever I realise I was on the wrong track I very quickly come back.

“The very frequent conversations I have with God, in my prayers and in my reading, make it a personal relationship (with God). Every day I read five psalms and one proverb, so in one month I finish the whole Book of Psalms.”

Mr Rabuka is a Methodist, but says: “I also listen to the Catholic mass and devotions. They go into detail. They clarify (Bible) passages in common language that people understand.”

Christianity is important to him, he needs it to help him cope with the decision-making his role requires, but he also hopes that through prayer and other Christian practices “I will learn to become a better person”.

Mr Rabuka’s ambitions, his fellowship and his friendship, not to mention an unusual dose of public humility, would make him a strikingly unusual leader anywhere but the South Pacific, which in itself may be one of the region’s best recommendations.

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