Visa Free Travel Altauf Chand, Minto NSW, Australia

The issue of visa-free travel for Fijians has been raised by Deputy Prime Minister Biman Prasad ever since the Coalition came into power. Now the Prime Minister has added his voice to the call.

The question is: who is this call directed at, and why have our so-called ‘friends’, ‘families’, ‘vuvale’, etc. not paid any heed? The call now sounds like a broken gramophone record!

Let us look at some facts. The Pacific small island countries, apart from the French territories, do not require visas for travel. One can virtually go anywhere in the Pacific and obtain a visa on arrival.

This demonstrates the ‘integration’ and respect our fellow Pacific Small Island Developing States (PSIDS) have for one another.

Australia and New Zealand have remained silent on this and are in no mood to change the current stringent requirements, despite regarding us as its ‘backyard’ and purportedly serving our security interests.

Let us look at other major destinations our people go to and with whom we enjoy good diplomatic relations. We still have not been able to negotiate visa-free access to countries like Indonesia, Japan, and India, where we have had long-term relations and they have a presence here in Fiji.

We still need a visa to travel to Europe and the UK, where our people have historical relations and serve in the military, international organisations, etc. The saga families have to go through to get a visa to travel is unreal.

Even countries like Germany, which incidentally co-hosted COP23 with Fiji, require the Schengen visa for travel, and it is a nightmare to get through Canberra, Wellington, etc.

In the past, the French Embassy in Suva was able to facilitate this, but now, with the many meetings on biodiversity, climate change, etc. that our citizens have to attend; it is such an onerous and expensive process to obtain even a visa for a single trip.

Unlike the U.S., which would normally grant a 10-year visa, this process has to be repeated each time one travels, and given the headquarters of many organisations in this part of the world, this happens so often.

Why haven’t DPMs, the PM, and whoever has the power been able to negotiate these for Fiji citizens? And, by the way, other countries in the Pacific enjoy visa-free travel to many of these places. Fijian passports seem to be the most handicapped in this regard, and I wish our leaders could make this a priority at the highest diplomatic level rather than just posturing about it at meetings.