Residents queue for passports at a Fiji immigration office. Herald Picture
/
Mark Mitchell
Fiji authorities have run out of passports, leaving trapped thousands
of people hoping to escape the trouble-plagued country.
Fiji citizens cramming the Immigration Department office in Suva
yesterday were told they would not be able to obtain a passport for
up to two months.
"We can't process any more applications because we just have not
got blank passport books," the Director of Immigration, Navendra
Prasad, told the Herald yesterday.
Mr Prasad said there had been a 600 per cent increase in
applications since the May 19 coup when rebel gunmen raided the
Pacific nation's Parliament and seized its Government.
Problems are likely to be exacerbated by Fiji's likely suspension from
the Commonwealth.
Foreign Minister Phil Goff predicted yesterday that Fiji would be
suspended from the Commonwealth when the organisation's
ministerial action group met overnight in London.
"I expect that the CMAG will support the suspension of the Fijian
republic from the councils of the Commonwealth.
"That is a step that follows automatically from a situation where a
non-constitutional government exists. Without doubt we have in Fiji
today a government that does not have constitutional authority."
The action group of Commonwealth Foreign Ministers was also
scheduled to hold emergency talks on the Solomons crisis.
Mr Prasad said when times were normal his office received 100
passport applications a day.
The department's inner-city office was full of people putting their
applications in yesterday, hoping they would be processed quickly
once new books arrived from London around mid-July.
Most were Fiji Indians, afraid of being identified. Some spoke on
condition of anonymity, saying they hoped to start new lives
elsewhere.
A Fiji Indian man said he believed there would be a mass exodus.
"Our fathers' fathers came here more than 100 years ago to work the
land and now there is no future for us," he said, referring to the influx
of 60,000 Indian labourers who were brought to Fiji between 1879
and 1916.
"We have to go for our own futures and for our children."
Another man said he hoped to go to New Zealand or Australia to set
up a business. He said Indian farmers would be able to turn their
hand to agriculture in New Zealand.
Some Fiji Indians have called for New Zealand and Australia to relax
their immigration policies to allow easier access for those who want to
flee. They complained that the New Zealand Immigration Service
office in Suva was shut.
A spokesman for the service, Ian Smith, said the office had relocated
to Nadi and staff were checking the answerphone messages in the
Suva office. There had been no changes in entry policy as a result of
the crisis, though visitors in New Zealand were likely to have their
visas extended.
"Any Fijian national needs to apply for a visitor's visa to come for a
visit," said Mr Smith. Authorities would deal with particular cases of
hardship or emergency.
"But for all of that we have not been deluged with queries or
applications ... there has been a steady stream." He did not have
numbers.
Thousands of Fiji Indians fled to New Zealand after the 1987 coups.
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