Reporter: Peter George

Women and children swimming,

V/O:  On August the first 1994, Sophia gave birth to her first child - a son she called Filomine.

For a native Fijian, he had surprisingly dark skin and straight hair - but Sophia put it down to an inheritance from his grandfather.

Woman digging in garden, kid playing, interview with Farida

The birth of a light-skinned child on the same day, at the same hospital to an ethnic Indian family caused considerable upset.

Farida's cane-farmer husband accused her of sleeping with a Fijian and treated her cruelly because of it.

Of course it was a hospital mix up - but now it's been discovered, Farida doesn't want to give up the Fijian boy she suckled and loves as a son.

Farida:  I can't give up the boy.  I brought him as my own.  I have suffered the pains and pleasures of motherhood.  I can't give him up now.

Woman and child playing

V/O:  An hour's rough drive away, Filomine's Fijian mother finds herself torn by conflicting emotions - but she'd like to swap the boys back.

Sophia:  When my natural child is returned to me my hurt at losing Filomine will be comforted by knowing he's returned to his natural parents and they will love him very well.

V/O:  What's enlightening for an outsider about this remarkable story of mistaken identity is the patience and tolerance that the two families - one Fijian and one ethnic Indian - have treated each other during such a difficult time.

You see, the race card - tensions between the communities, the question of 'who owns Fiji' has been used as an excuse and a reason for a coup, for a change in the constitution and for a government that's anything but democratic.

And yet, speak to the two mothers - Sophia and Farida - and they'll tell you that the race issue is a nonsense.

Family sitting outside, interview with Sophia

Sophia:  Our relationship with Indians is very good.  The only difference is in the mind.  We're Fijian, they're Indians - we socialise very well.

people singing and dancing in costume, people at meeting

Singing.

V/O:  Listen to some of Fiji's politicians and you'll get a very different view of race relations.

Iliesa Duvuloco gets treated like a chief when he visits Fijian villages but he's just a politician.

Singing

V/O:  A front runner for the nationalist movement, his message is that native Fijians are under attack, their culture and land ownership threatened by immigrant Indians who number almost half the population.

Interview with Iliesa Duvuloco

Super:

ILIESA DUVULOCO

Vanua Independent Party

Duvuloco:  I'm not stirring up anything.  If anything I'm stirring up, I'm speaking against injustices which has been legalised in places like Australia, New Zealand and Hawaii.  I mean how can you legalise injustices?

People dancing and singing

V/O:  It's exactly the same nationalistic justification used by the men who led Fiji's military coup nine years ago.  But Duvuloco warns of a new plot - to steal Fijian rights.

George:  Do you see a conspiracy of Indian leaders to take the power from the Fijian?

Duvuloco:  Some of the Indian leaders, there's a conspiracy.  But not only confined here, it's a networking throughout.  It could be behind the Indians are the superpowers like America, England and Australia could be included.

George:  Why would they behind that?

Pan of land, interview continues

Duvuloco:  Well, there's a lot of wealth here, even in the Malato, there's gold and marble up in those hills, gold and oil underneath here.  There's a lot of wealth.  But the thing to take it away from them is to take control of the political power first.

George:  Do you think perhaps you and the people who support you are just being a bit paranoid about the fears of losing power?

Duvuloco:  It's not being paranoid, it's a reality.

People walking on street

V/O:  The reality is the Fijian elite that now rules the country is running it into the ground.

National and international investors have fled amidst reports of corruption and mismanagement - many local Indian businessmen have lost confidence. 

And to top it off, the government owned National Bank of Fiji has been used as a sort of private piggy bank by the Fijian elite.

Interview with Peter Stinson, Ambassador to Australia and Former Minister for Economic Planning

Stinson:  There's no question that the National Bank of Fiji disaster is a very very serious event.

V/O:  Peter Stinson, Fiji's Ambassador to Australia and former minister for economic planning.

SUPER:

Peter Stinson, Ambassador to Australia and Former Minister for Economic Planning

Stinson:  I would like to be an optimist and hope that we've learnt from that experience.  We cannot just have freedom of handing out loans to individuals without proper checks and so on and it's very important that we have the right management in such institutions.

Miles Johnson leafing through files, picking them up

V/O:  But there are those who believe the Government's learned nothing and nor does it want to.

Interview with Miles Johnson

Super:

MILES JOHNSON

Lawyer

Johnson:  We have an extraordinary degree of financial incompetence.  Appointment to the boards and the management of these organisations has always been the selection of politically pliable people, cronyism, nepotism - all its forms.

V/O:  Miles Johnson is a corporate lawyer and third generation Fijian who stood up against the 1987 coup and today crusades against what many see is a profligate and self-serving elite.

Johnson:  I would certainly love to get the bastards because we know who they all are.  And they're trying to assume a more respectable sort of guise but they haven't really succeeded.  They're all the same. 

So as far as my views towards those people who locked me up, chased me around the country, occupied my house and did a whole lot of other rather unpleasant things to me, no, my view hasn't changed at all.  In fact everything they've done since, confirms what sort of people they are.

Plane - aerial view

V/O:  Johnson convinced us to visit the nearby island of Taveuni to witness the scale of the problem.

Views of Taveuni

Johnson:  They were going to log timber in the hills, process it here and barge it out ...

George:  On that old ship over there?

Johnson:  Yeah.

V/O:  A former President of Fiji was part of this failed timber operation.  Never a tree was processed - nor the log barge ever launched.  And the National Bank of Fiji took a five million dollar bath on the deal.

Pan of room full of rubble, interview with Johnson

Johnson:  The sorry fact is that at the moment, there is virtually no foreign investment in Fiji at all.  As for investment in the real sense of the term - bricks and mortar, jobs and industrial development, there's just none.

And so the general picture that anyone from outside the country must get is that it's badly run, it's shaky, it's in the hands of incompetent people.

Landscape on water, estate, wide shot of George walking along with man

V/O:  A few kilometres further south on Taveuni lies one of the nation's biggest white elephants - on it's own little stretch of tropical paradise.

In the mid-seventies, the Taveuni Estate was planned as a haven - hundreds of plots for the wealthy jaded by the Costa del Sol or - for that matter - the Gold Coast.

Worker burning off, interview with Johnson near the water

The owner of the estate was none other than the Fijian ambassador to Australia, Peter Stinson, who ended up with a huge outstanding debt to the National Bank.

Johnson:  Two years ago the then minister for finance - he got up in parliament and he said that the Stinson loan was $24 million, now that's two years ago.  What we were told only weeks ago, is that the loan no longer exists.

City, buildings and traffic; flags, Stinson speaking with George

V/O:  The loan was the single biggest debt on the National Bank's books and what happened to it has been the subject of intense public speculation.

Mr. Stinson agreed to talk about it for the first time with Foreign Correspondent and he says it was no where near the 24 million quoted in Parliament.

Interview with Peter Stinson

Super:

PETER STINSON

Fiji's Ambassador to Australia and Former Minister for Economic Planning

Stinson:  That I understand was a previous minister of finance and having been a parliamentarian myself, often when you're on your feet, figures are plucked out of the air.

George:  So he got it wrong?

Stinson:  He got it wrong, yes.  There's no indication the debt ever reached that figure.

George:  So the debt didn't reach 23 million, what did it reach?

Stinson:  Eight million, three hundred and ninety-nine thousand dollars and eighty-eight cents.

George:  What happened to it?

Stinson:  It was repaid.

Zoom out picturesque view hills in background, tracking shot of green land, estate

V/O:  In fact what happened was the bank offered Mr. Stinson an amazing deal - first it set up the former director of the Lands Department as an independent valuer, then gave him his first job of valuing the estate.

The result, a mere 25 plots of undeveloped land were reportedly valued at - conveniently - 8 million dollars.

Yet, just 12 months before that, the estate had been advertised around the world - and there was only one bidder for one plot of land - a derisory five thousand and one dollars.

Interview with Peter Stinson

George:  Either you've done an incredibly smart deal, an incredibly clever deal as a businessman or the bank has made an incredibly stupid decision.

Stinson:  I think history will have to decide that.

Interview with Johnson near the water

Super:

MILES JOHNSON

Lawyer

Johnson:  The whole thing has turned into a complete disaster.  Commercially it's a disaster, from Fiji's point of view it's a disaster, what investors from overseas must think about this I've got no idea, but it must just be awful.

Interview with Stinson

V/O:  So today the bank is able to say it's cleared a big debt from its books - while Mr. Stinson continues to run Taveuni - also known as the Songulu estate.

Stinson:  I'm confident that that estate can be successful in the future - the dreams I had for it in the 0s can still be achieved.  It was one of the biggest employers on the island in the 70s and early 80s. 

It represents probably the largest single private investment on an outer island of Fiji ever and if Songulu succeeds the island of Taveuni succeeds as well.

Women and Children in Shanty town

V/O:  If some have prospered since the coup, many more native Fijians have fallen into poverty.

Economist, Father Kevin Bar, sees the growth of shanty towns around the capital Suva as the most stark example of increasing problems indigenous Fijians.

Inside Shed with Fijian woman

Bar:  She has five children. 

George:  But these will be the grandchildren you're looking after now?  So where are the parents?

Bar:  Oh, (laughter).

Man watching, views

V/O:  Increasing poverty, social collapse and rising crime rate - Kevin Bar sees no likelihood of improvement without political change.

Interview with Kevin Bar

Bar:  People feel that okay, people higher up can go and take what they want, why not us.  And even recently with the increase in the salaries for parliamentarians, I heard people say that you know that our potential criminals will say, well they can take what they want, why not us.

Woman cleaning, children and women watching

V/O:  Having failed its people so obviously, the Fijian elite still opposes any change that undermines its control of the country - or lets the Indian community share power.

But change has to come - change recommended this year by an independent constitutional review panel headed by a former New Zealand Governor General.

Interview with Sir Paul Reeves

Super: Sir PAUL REEVES Head, Constitutional Review Panel

Reeves:  Fijians voted for Fijians, Indian voted for Indians.  That's sort of dynamite because it means one side is locked into being perpetually within opposition. We're trying to say let the particular things that are precious to the Fijians be taken out of the party political arena, let them be protected constitutionally, then let the political process flow more easily.

Interview with Duvulovo

Super:

ILIESA DUVULOCO

Vanua Independent Party

Duvulovo:  I disagree with it and we showed this, we manifest this by burning it, I disagree with it totally.

Man working in cane fields

V/O:  But whether nationalists like it or not, the Indian community is pivotal in Fiji's future.  From the energetic business community to the crucial cane farmers.

Always prevented from owning land and today frozen out of the political process, confidence in their adopted country is at a low ebb.

Instability filters from the top down top down to small farmers like Nasir, father of the little Fijian boy swapped at birth.

Interview with Nasir,

Nasir cutting cane

Nasir:  Now I don't know if the lease will be renewed - who knows, these days as a father I can't even get my son back - the rules have changed.

V/O:  Nasir, is a fifth-generation cane farmer.  His land rents have doubled, his income has halved and the national bank collapse has caused a credit squeeze.

And worse, like thousands of others, his lease may not be renewed because the traditional Fijian landowner is afraid of committing himself in these uncertain times.

Interview with Nasir

Nasir:  I went to the bank and asked for money to pay back my loan.  They said your lease is too short, we can't give you money.  If the owner takes back the land we will lose the money.  All the Indian farmers are in that situation.

Interview with Mehendra Chowdry

Chowdry:  I think it is very very essential, I think it's crucial, if we do not get the constitution fixed and make it acceptable...

V/O:  Mehendra Chowdry is the Indian leader of the multi-racial Labour Party.

Chowdry:  The world bank in its report on the economy of Fiji has pointed to the fact that Fiji cannot expect reasonable rates of economic growth unless it solves these two problems - gets a constitution which is largely acceptable to all its people and gets the land lease problem resolved.

Johnson in silouette, interview with Johnson

V/O:  For some it goes beyond politics or even revolution.  For Miles Johnson, it's a long pursuit of justice that's lost him business, clients, status and friends.

Johnson:  I've lost a few friends, but I don't think I'm any worse off.  And the fact is I've made a lot of friends. The coups have unmasked a lot of people and I don't think at the end of the day - in terms of friendship - I've lost anything. I mean financially and so forth, yes, I have lost an enormous amount. When they devalued the currency by half  - bang there goes half your assets. But you know that's all really water under the bridge because it's really had its rewarding qualities too.

Women and children

V/O:  In the end, the coup has made life worse for most Fijians no matter what their racial heritage.

And without constitutional change the tensions between Indians and Fijians will seep out into communities that for now live in harmony and seek to resolve even their most perplexing problems.