Webdiary - Founded and Inspired by Margo Kingston

While the absorbing intricacies of the sometimes daily twists and turns of developments in Fiji, which I have chronicled closely since Easter, 2009, when any pretence to not being a fully-blown military dictatorship was removed, are fascinating, I want to here focus on how Fiji might, eventually, be returned to democratic governance. The first important point to at least try to establish is exactly what Commodore Frank is seeking to achieve in Fiji. This is trickier than might be initially expected because of the sometimes daily shifts or twists in his expressed thinking or planning.

There's been some recent discussion of workplace psychopaths, turning around the release of Dr John Clarke's second book on the issue, The Pocket Psycho, a sequel to his Working with Monsters.

Dr Hayes spent the second 'coup week' of December 11 - 15, 2006, continuing to produce special daily editions of his Pacific News Wrap - 'Mo oe mai i le Pasifika (For you, from the Pacific)'

Dr Hayes spent the 'coup week' of December 4 - 8, 2006, producing special daily editions of his Pacific News Wrap - 'Mo oe mai i le Pasifika (For you, from the Pacific)' - for the subscriber-only alert and digest service, The Daily Briefing. Webdiary publishes those daily Fiji Coup/Crisis Special Editions with kind permission from Dr Hayes and The Daily Briefing, as a unique account of the first week of the year's major story from the Pacific.

"The Bainimarama Screw is relentlessly tightening on the Fijian government of 'Smiling' Laisenia Qarase. And if you listen carefully, you'll hear a very clever lawyer whispering in Commodore Frank's ear, guiding his calculated steps through the constitutional minefield his strategy, and now overtly displayed tactics, have mapped out.": Mark Hayes

"On Thursday afternoon pro-democracy activists rallied, and then mostly disaffected, and then often drunk, youths, all but trashed or burned much of the CBD of Nuku'alofa. Such an eruption should not have been entirely suprising given the steadily escalating pressure for serious and prompt governance and constitutional reform that's been building in the Kingdom for several years, coupled with austerity measures imposed on the country by the new government, often under pressure from agencies like the World Bank. The scale and ferocity of the riot, and the deaths of eight people, apparently looters, caught up in it, was the really shocking part.": Dr Mark Hayes

Specialist in Pacific media and journalism and their contexts, Dr Mark Hayes, is a very close Region and Fiji watcher, as well as often a traveller Out There. Back in January, 2006, Mark peered into his tanoa (kava bowl) to help predicted the outcome of the 2006 Fiji election. Dr Hayes does a weekly Pacific News Wrap - 'Mo oe mai i le Pasifika (For you, from the Pacific)' - on Mondays for the subscriber-only alert and digest service, The Daily Briefing. Here's the Fiji section of the Wrap from Monday, November 6, 2006, slightly edited and updated to early Tuesday, November 7, and compiled while fighting off a raging attack of deja vu.

"Christianity in its many forms, Hindu and Muslim faiths, and traditional religions or beliefs, are of enormous influence in the Pacific, and anybody seeking to really understand the Region who ignores or neglects the very strong religious currents Out There is making a category (fatal) error. One of those currents concerns the impacts of contemporary fundamentalist or pentecostal, often US-origin or influenced, globalizing, often direct satellite broadcast delivered, 'religious' operations.": Dr Mark Hayes

"Indos, still more of whom have voted with their feet since 2000 and migrated overseas, taking their skills with them, largely assume and operate on the assumption that indigenous Fijians will dominate government in the foreseeable future, so they have to accommodate themselves to it or get out." Dr Mark Hayes

Specialist in Pacific media and journalism and their contexts, Dr Mark Hayes, is a very close Region and Fiji watcher, as well as traveller Out There, attempts to make sense of what's going on in Fiji, one of the three Pacific Forum countries (the others are the Solomon Islands and Samoa) scheduled to hold elections during 2006. Dr Mark Hayes

"While I describe what's happening in Tonga as a 'revolution', with faint echoes to European revolutions of the late 1700s and into the 1800s, there's no indication whatsoever of Tonga going down that bloody route. Nor is there any indication of Tonga lurching into a 'fragile' or 'failing' state scenario, such as Fiji in 2000, or, worse, The Solomon Islands that same year. It's nowhere near a 'ruined' or 'plundered state' situation, such as PNG arguably has become..." Dr Mark Hayes.