Peter Thomson (diplomat)

H.E. Peter Thomson
Permanent Representative to the United Nations for the Fiji Islands
Incumbent
Assumed office February 2010
Preceded by	Berenado Vunibobo

Peter Thomson, born in Suva in 1948, is a Fijian diplomat of Scottish descent, and Fiji's current Permanent Representative to the United Nations. He also has Australian and New Zealand citizenship.

Family

Thomson, a fifth generation Fijian, was born to British colonial administrator Sir Ian Thomson and his wife Lady Nancy Thomson. Although his father was born in Glasgow, his mother was Fiji born and raised.

Education

Educated at Suva Grammar School and Natabua High School, he later obtained a B.A. in political studies at Auckland University and a postgraduate diploma in development studies at Cambridge University.

Civil service

Duties

Thomson began work as a Fiji civil servant in 1972, working in rural development as District Officer in Navua, Macuata and Taveuni. In 1978 he was posted to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He was seconded in 1979 to the Forum Secretariat, before being posted to Japan in 1980 as a chargé d'affaires, entrusted with the task of establishing Fiji's embassy in Tokyo. He served in Tokyo until 1984, when he was appointed Consul General in Sydney, Australia. Returning to Fiji in 1986, he served as Permanent Secretary of Information, and was a member of the boards of the Fiji Visitors Bureau, Fiji TV and the Fiji Broadcasting Commission. He also co-founded the executive committees of the Australia-Fiji Business Council and the New Zealand-Fiji Business Council. He was elected to honorary membership of the New Zealand-Fiji Business Council in September 2007.

In 1987, he served at Fiji Government House as Permanent Secretary to Governor-General Ratu Sir Penaia Ganilau. During this time between the two coups d'État of 1987, the Governor-General was the sole executive authority of Fiji.

Gaoling

After the 1987 coup d'État, he "found himself a target as the high-profile white permanent secretary to Fiji's governor-general, embroiled in a constitutional crisis and with indigenous supremacists demanding his head". He was gaoled by the Fiji Army for four days, and emigrated to New Zealand, then Australia.

Varied experience

From 1988 onwards, he worked as an investment and management consultant on Pacific Island affairs for various government agencies, regional organisations, universities and investment corporations. In 1990, the East-West Center published his diagnostic study "Trade and Investment in the Pacific Islands." During this time he was a founding director and shareholder of Tabua Investments Ltd, one of the prime developers of Fiji's premier tourism resort, Denarau Island Resort.^{[citation needed]}

Citizenship

Having lost his Fiji citizenship by becoming an Australian and a New Zealander after the 1987 military coup, he regained his original citizenship in 2009, following a Fiji government decree authorising dual citizenship.

United Nations

He resumed diplomatic duties for Fiji in 2010, when he was appointed Fiji's Permanent Representative to the United Nations. He took up the post in a context where Fiji's long-standing tradition of providing peace-keeping forces to the United Nations was facing opposition from New Zealand and Australia due to the 2006 military coup in Fiji. A few months before his appointment, Thomson had publicly criticised what he described as Australia's "ongoing campaign in New York to choke off Fiji’s role as an international peacekeeper". In 2011, the United Nations requested Fiji to increase its deployment of peacekeepers in Iraq.

As Fiji's Representative to the United Nations, he has worked to establish diplomatic relations with new countries, and consolidate Fiji's existing relations with a variety of countries. He has been described as "spearheading vital elements of Fiji's Look North policy, pursuing closer ties with China, India and the Arab world -- among others -- as a means of breaking free of its dependence on Australia and New Zealand".Graham Davis writes that Thomson has "forged a new network of international relationships for Fiji outside the [Australia/New Zealand] orbit, including membership of the Non-Aligned Movement", and that he has been "a prime influence behind the formation of a formal independent Pacific voting bloc at the UN".

In August 2011, he was elected as one of twenty-one vice-presidents for the 66th session of the United Nations General Assembly, under session president Nassir Al-Nasser of Qatar. In July 2011, Peter Thomson was elected as President of the Assembly of the International Seabed Authority's 17th Session.

He has supported Commodore Voreqe Bainimarama's government, declaring: "[A]n immediate return to democracy [would mean] a return to the Fiji of old, where politicians were elected on the basis of racial rolls, ethno-nationalism was rampant, corruption was rife, and “coup culture” was ingrained". In July 2010, he told The Australian’s Graham Davis: "I'm a passionate advocate of a multi-racial, multicultural Fiji so I fully support Prime Minister Bainimarama's programme. Race-based constitutions and political parties have been very divisive for the nation. We're now working towards a future in which citizens will vote without regard for race for the first time."

Bibliography

Thomson is the author of Kava in the Blood, his account of the 1987 Fiji coups d'État. The book was the winner of New Zealand's E.H.McCormick Prize for non-fiction in 2000. He is the editor and publisher of the pictorial/historical book Fiji in the Forties and Fifties, written by his father, with photographs by Rob Wright.

External links

• "The Folly of Canberra's Stand against Fiji", full text of Peter Thomson's speech to the Australia-Fiji Business Council Conference, 14 September 2009 (on the website of the Auckland University of Technology)