KEY POINTS:
The Government is tomorrow expected to extend its travel restrictions on high-ranking Fijians.
The ban preventing Fiji Government and military officers and their families from visiting New Zealand will now also cover government officials, the Herald understands.
It will also ban transit through New Zealand as well as
travel expressly to New Zealand, as foreshadowed by Prime Minister Helen Clark after the expulsion last week of New Zealand High Commissioner Michael Green.
It is expected to tie the lifting of sanctions to tangible progress towards democratic elections.
Mr Green was accused of interfering in domestic affairs, a claim denied by New Zealand.
Helen Clark said at her post cabinet press conference yesterday that decisions would be made tomorrow at the cabinet policy committee.
She would also be discussing Fiji with the visiting European Union Commissioner for External Relations, Benita Ferrero-Waldner, though she is not the commissioner responsible for EU aid to Fiji. Extensive New Zealand's sanctions - first applied after the military coup in December - are designed to cause maximum inconvenience for the ruling regime and minimum disruption to ordinary Fijians.
Tourism has declined since the coup and Fiji's Government has blamed travel warnings by other countries, including New Zealand, for the downturn.
Military leader and Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama last week pleaded a case for New Zealand to "not unnecessarily penalise Fiji through harsh sanctions".
Helen Clark yesterday appeared unmoved by both his pleadings and the decision of the interim Fiji cabinet to agree "in principle" to hold democratic elections before March 2009.
She puts the agreement down to the fact that the European Union had earlier threatened to withdraw about $330 million in aid.
"It wasn't really a surprise that the Fiji Government announced that, in principle, it would agree to hold an election by the end of the first quarter in 2009 because, frankly, a lot of money from the European Union is hanging on decisions like that."
She was also critical of Fiji's expectation that the elections should be funded by foreign governments.
She was also unimpressed that after the cabinet agreed "in principle" to elections in 2009, it "then went on to administer something of a kick to the European Union, New Zealand, Australia and others, that ended up suggesting we should pay for the process". She said "the gloss" had been taken off Commodore Bainimarama's statement on Thursday about the value of Fiji's relationship with New Zealand with an interview he gave two days before to Auckland-based Radio Tarana "when he complained as bitterly as he has for quite a number of months about New Zealand".
The military-backed Fiji regime originally said that elections would not be held until June 2010. The date came forward after the EU's threat.
And a working group set up by the Fiji interim Government and the Pacific Islands Forum, headed by former Electoral Commission head Paul Harris, confirmed three weeks ago that elections could be held by March 2009.
Commodore Bainimarama claims he ousted Laisenia Qarase's government to get rid of corruption - a move endorsed by Fiji's Humans Rights Commission director, Shaista Shameem. Many others believe it was a way to avoid prosecution over the deaths in custody of rebel soldiers in 2000.
Helen Clark yesterday rejected suggestions that corruption for people doing business in Fiji had diminished under the interim Government.
"A lot less business being done, by definition, might mean less corruption. But there doesn't seem to be a single case brought forward.
"One has to note with concern that the Fiji military is placing its own people right through the public sector, the police, various commissioners.
"In other words there has been quite a significant militarisation of public life in Fiji. That brings its own risks."
