With its suspension from the 16-nation Pacific Islands Forum last week, Fiji has been pushed yet closer to the precipice. The suspension automatically kicked in as the deadline imposed by the Forum nations' leaders on the Fijian military leadership to come up with a schedule for holding elections in 2009 expired on May 1.

The suspension - a first in the nearly 80-year history of the Forum - in effect precludes Fiji from participating in any Forum activities and any international aid programmes that are channelled through it. And it has the potential to affect not just the functioning and the programmes of the Forum but of organisations linked to it.

The Forum's headquarters is in Suva, so can be compared with the United Nations headquarters being in the United States. In effect, therefore, the Forum has suspended its host nation - the UN suspending the US as it were.

Fiji also houses the headquarters of several members of the Council of Regional Organisations in the Pacific. These organisations are engaged in development work across the Pacific states in activities that include education, fisheries, geoscience, environment, telecommunications, energy, media and tourism.

They employ thousands of people throughout the region and beyond, with most Forum employees enjoying a tax-free status in Fiji.

The University of the South Pacific is the biggest in the council group, with 18,000 students from almost all the Forum nations. During the 2000 George Speight-led coup, regional governments had to find considerable amounts from their overstretched budgets to evacuate their students when the university was shut down.

Suspending Fiji from the Forum has the potential to disrupt the region in several ways. It is not surprising therefore that there were reports on the eve of the suspension that the President of the Republic of Kiribati had threatened to cancel his country's membership of the Forum if Fiji were suspended.

Kiribati has a lot to be worried about. It has historic links with its neighbour, Tuvalu, with which it shares the effects of sea-level rise. Its only link with the outside world is through Fiji. Two weekly flights from Nadi connect it with the outside world and its own Christmas Island several time zones away to the east.

President Tong told me in Kiribati last October how much he was worried by the developing crisis: "Economic problems in Fiji have a severe effect here in Kiribati and if a suspension happens we can't say how bad it can get for us."