Pacific diplomatic row deepens

New Zealand and Australia expelled Fiji's top diplomats Wednesday after the military-ruled nation threw out their emissaries, and the Australian leader vowed to stay tough on Fiji to prevent a coup culture from spreading.

It was the latest sniping among the three nations since Australia and New Zealand took the lead internationally in condemning armed forces commander Commodore Frank Bainimarama's 2006 coup, and in efforts to force him to restore democracy.

"We have taken a deliberately hard-line approach to this regime because we do not want this coup culture to spread elsewhere in the Pacific," Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. on Wednesday.

Despite instability and economic turmoil wrought by four coups since 1987, Fiji's is one of the wealthiest and most influential countries in the largely impoverished and aid-dependent South Pacific region.

Rebels who ousted the Solomon Islands government in 2000 cited a coup that year in Fiji as inspiration, prompting Canberra to recast its regional military strategy to deal with what it called an "arc of instability" stretching from East Timor into the South Pacific.

International pressure including targeted trade sanctions and Australian and New Zealand travel bans on senior regime officials have so far failed to push Bainimarama to hold democratic elections.

The regional powers have also pushed successfully for Fiji to be suspended from the Pacific Islands Forum and the Commonwealth, a regional bloc.

The latest spat is over a group of expatriate judges from Sri Lanka that Fiji wants to hire to replace some of those fired by Bainimarama's administration in a power grab earlier this year.

Australia and New Zealand told the judges this week that if they take up the posts in Fiji they would be subject to travel bans.

Bainimarama on Tuesday accused Australia and New Zealand of dishonest strategies to undermine Fiji and said their top diplomats must leave.

Australia denies it tried to block the Sri Lankans from taking up posts in Fiji but concedes they were advised the travel bans would apply.