P 162125Z JUN 09
FM AMEMBASSY SUVA
TO SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 1323
INFO AMEMBASSY CANBERRA 
AMEMBASSY WELLINGTON 
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AMEMBASSY MAJURO 
AMEMBASSY KOLONIA 
AMEMBASSY KOROR 
AMEMBASSY LONDON 
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USEU BRUSSELS
USMISSION USUN NEW YORK 
HQ USPACOM HONOLULU HI

UNCLAS SUVA 000255 
 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV PREL FJ KDEM PINR
 
SUBJECT: FIJI GOVERNMENT BANS METHODIST CONFERENCE 
 
¶1.  Summary: On May 28, Fiji's military-led government banned the 
Methodist Church from holding its annual national conference after 
deeming the conference a threat to national security under the 
Public Emergency Regulations (PER).  The agenda for the August 
conference reportedly included a discussion of the April 10 
abrogation of Fiji's constitution and the deferment of elections 
until 2014.  Fiji's Methodist Church supported the 1987 and 2000 
coups but opposed the December 2006 coup that brought Commodore 
Bainimarama and the current de facto government to power.  Church 
President Reverend Ame Tugauwe met with Bainimarama, who demanded 
the removal of two Methodist ministers.  The Church leadership 
refused the demand but has sought another meeting with Bainimarama 
in what Embassy believes will be a futile attempt to resolve the 
impasse.  Effectively tipping over the collection plate by banning 
the Church's main fundraising event, Bainimarama has only 
exacerbated the regime's conflict with the Methodists.  End 
summary. 
 
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Nationalist Leanings 
-------------------- 
 
¶2.  The current impasse began on May 14 when police arrested 
Reverend Manasa Lasaro, a former president of the Methodist Church 
and currently the director of the Church's Social Programs Division. 
 The government released Lasaro without charge on May 15, but 
Bainimarama demanded his resignation.  Bainimarama also insisted on 
the removal of Reverend Tomasi Kanailagi.  Both ministers were close 
supporters of past nationalist coup leaders.  Lasaro is a 
nationalist politician who ran for office unsuccessfully in the 1999 
and 2001 elections.  When the Fiji Methodist Church initially 
opposed the first coup in 1987, Lasaro led a faction against the 
church leadership.  The faction ousted then-President Josateki 
Koroi, and Lasaro became president.  Lasaro was close to then-coup 
leader Sitiveni Rabuka.  Lasaro and the Church leadership succeeded 
in getting Rabuka to impose a ban of all commercial activities and 
sports on Sundays.   In the 1990 Constitution, Rabuka also declared 
Fiji a Christian state, despite the presence in Fiji of a large 
Indo-Fijian community comprised mostly of Hindus and Moslems. 
Reverend Tomasi Kanailagi was president of the Methodist Church 
during the 2000 coup by George Speight.  Kanailagi openly supported 
that coup and won appointment as a senator when Laisenia Qarase won 
the 2001 general election.  The Methodist Church refused to dismiss 
Kanailagi and Lasaro but did agree to removing politics from the 
meeting agenda for its annual conference scheduled to convene in 
August.  Bainimarama stated that the annual conference will not take 
place until the Church removes Lasaro and Kanailagi. 
 
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Preempting Formal Opposition 
----------------------------- 
 
¶3.  The Methodist Church relies on its annual conference for its 
budget in the form of a choir and fundraising competition among its 
52 divisions.  These annual conferences collect on average over USD 
1 million, which is necessary for the running of the church 
administration and its schools.  The May 29 decision of the military 
to ban the conference appears to be aimed at making the 
Methodist leadership rethink the costs of its opposition to the de facto 
government.  In April, Lasaro authored a paper sent out to the 52 
divisions discussing the removal of the constitution and the 
limitation of rights after the April 9 decision of the Fiji court of 
appeal in favor of ousted Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase.  Lasaro 
recommended that the 52 divisions endorse his proposal for peaceful 
resistance to the de facto government.  The 52 divisions, comprising 
both laity and clergy, met in early May.  Fifty divisions approved 
the proposal, which was on the agenda for the annual meeting of all 
of the Methodist clergy.  The meeting was to have convened in Rewa, 
a province that happens to be a center of anti-regime sentiment. 
Were the conference to have gone ahead as scheduled, the Church 
likely would have formalized its opposition to the de facto 
government. 
 
-------------------------------------------- 
REGIME'S ONLY REMAINING ORGANIZED OPPOSITION 
-------------------------------------------- 
 
¶4.  Since its December 2006 coup, the military regime has succeeded 
in stifling opposition from all quarters, including the previously 
powerful Great Council of Chiefs, which it disbanded in April 2007. 
The PER, enacted by presidential decree following the abrogation of 
April 10, provided the regime with a potent legal pretext for the 
new Draconian measures it has taken since to prevent political 
assembly, neutralize the Fiji Law Society, remove unfavorable judges 
from the judiciary, and censor the media.  To all intents and 
purposes, the Methodist Church was the only remaining major 
organization opposed to the coup.  It had organized a campaign 
against the Peoples Charter, touted by the de facto government as 
its reform manifesto.  After three very senior chiefs made a formal 
request in the traditional manner at the 2008 annual conference, the 
Church leadership distributed a form to its congregants urging them 
to reject the Charter.  (The regime claims over 60 percent of Fiji's 
people approved the Charter, but few critics believe the figure in 
the face of the Methodist opposition and in the absence of a 
referendum.) 
 
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SECTARIAN DIVIDE 
---------------- 
 
¶5.  Fiji's two biggest Christian denominations are divided on the 
coup.  The Catholic Church, which did not support the 1987 and 2000 
coups, appears to be supporting the current de facto government. 
Archibishop Petero Mataca even agreed to co-chair, with Bainimarama, 
the National Council for Building a Better Fiji, which produced the 
draft Peoples Charter, the de facto government's manifesto. 
Prominent Catholic priests close to Mataca sit on the Electoral and 
Constituency Boundaries Commission.  The Methodist Church, however, 
has joined with other Christian denominations with membership in the 
Assembly of Christian Churches in Fiji (ACCF) by refusing to 
participate in the NCBBF process.  In total, ACCF claims about 
300,000 members, most of whom are indigenous Fijian.  Catholic 
Archbishop Mataca called for calm after the military announced the 
ban on the Methodist conference.  ACCF members have remained silent 
about the Methodist conference but held a joint church service 
attended by 5,000 people in Nausori two weeks ago. 
 
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COMMENT 
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¶6.  Whether the Methodist Church in Fiji will allow itself to be 
muzzled remains to be seen.  By pre-empting the Church's internal 
debate on its future direction in Fiji's post-constitutional 
environment, the regime has now embittered the leadership and laity 
of Fiji's largest congregation.  The deeper antagonism could surface 
as a source of friction in the Fiji military's rank and file, 
especially if the government takes even more drastic measures, such 
as censoring sermons from its pulpits or interfering in its 
administration.  Effectively tipping over the collection plate by 
banning the Church's main fundraising event, Bainimarama has only 
exacerbated the regime's conflict with the Methodists.  End 
Comment. 
 
MCGANN