Fijian coup leader Voreqe Bainimarama downplayed the likelihood of a confrontation with his critics from Australia and New Zealand this week as he arrived in Tonga yesterday for a regional summit.
The Pacific Islands Forum gathering will be the first time he has faced his foreign detractors since his military takeover last December, but the commodore said he did not expect a diplomatic showdown.
"We are here as leaders and we will conduct ourselves as leaders," he said. "We will tell the forum our doors are open -- we have got nothing to hide."
Australia and New Zealand, which with 14 Pacific island nations make up the Forum, have stridently criticised Bainimarama, who toppled the government of prime minister Laisenia Qarase, which he accused of racism and corruption.
New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark is attending the Forum, but Australian Prime Minister John Howard pulled out on Sunday after announcing the date for a general election back home.
Fiji's self-proclaimed interim prime minister was asked if he was disappointed that Howard would not be in attendance.
"Not really," he told Fijian journalists.
Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer is taking Howard's place.
The Forum has pressed Bainimarama to hold elections by the end of the first quarter of 2009. He has said he agrees in principle, although he has also said elections would only happen when Fiji was ready.
New Zealand and Australia, along with other countries, have imposed sanctions on Fiji since the coup and called for a speedy return to democracy following elections.
Bainimarama turned down an invitation to join other leaders for dinner with Commonwealth Secretary-General Don McKinnon, pleading a prior engagement.
But he said he planned a meeting with McKinnon during the Forum, following a request from the head of the Commonwealth, which has suspended Fiji from membership.
McKinnon said he wants to open a dialogue with Fiji with the aim of encouraging the military regime to call early elections.
Bainimarama justified last year's bloodless coup by saying Qarase's government was corrupt and favored indigenous Fijians over the ethnic Indian minority, which accounts for about 37 percent of the population of 900,000.
The summit is also expected to discuss the future of the Australian-led Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands (RAMSI), which is formally under the control of the forum.
Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare has complained loudly about Australian dominance, saying his country's sovereignty is being undermined by RAMSI.
Sogavare is boycotting the summit because a Forum review of RAMSI is believed to have strong backing to the mission, which started as an armed intervention in 2003 to end five years of bloody ethnic conflict.
The summit officially opens today and finishes tomorrow.
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