We grumpies like to mockingly describe Fiji’s ignorant and unelected soldier dictator and self-appointed Information Minister as Frank Bananarama. He runs a Banana Republic inhabited by intelligent people who know that democracy and communication skills are not taught at even the best military colleges and that freedom is not, for the time being, allowed to them.

Internationally, the accepted opinion is that Frank went bananas. Reluctantly, we believe, Her Majesty The Queen agreed. She has not issued any invitations to garden parties to anyone connected with the illegal Fijian regime. This is a heartening and courageous decision that ranks alongside her award of the Afghan service medal to her grandson Harry, pinned on the plucky but highly protected lad’s chest by none other than his Aunty Anne.

But meanwhile…

Frank has become so annoyed at local press coverage of his benevolent interim governance that he hasn’t merely deported two of its leading press executives; he’s now threatening to stop newspaper deliveries entirely by closing down the “unfair” media, which refused to print his press releases without asking questions.

This will further damage Fiji’s economy and worldwide perception of Bananarama’s frankness. Not only (thanks to his clumsy coup and the resulting sanctions) has he lost the lucrative mercenary foreign earnings from sending Fijian soldiers to UN hotspots and a load of valuable aid and some tourists’ money; a large number of Fijian paper boys will shortly be sacked, while Frank has failed to get his “I know best” message across to anyone.

Frankly, the real trouble for Frank is that, for Fijians, he doesn’t put money in the bank. He just means racist repression, freedom of expression, gratuitous violence, probable torture and at least one case of proven murder. He means even more poverty in an already poor nation. He means dictatorship in a country that was handed back its freedom by a flawed but democratic Great Britain.

If that’s how you respect your ancient heritage and plan to bring Fiji into the 21st Century, Frank, good luck. You’ll get no help from us. We’ll get our sugar, bananas and sunshine holidays elsewhere.

In Zimbabwe, nobody can count the number of deaths caused by Robert Mugabe’s Hitlerian obsession in holding on to power. This simian person, who has proudly presided over the utter destruction of Africa’s most prosperous nation, even sports a miniature Hitler moustache and declares that 100,000 percent inflation was all the fault of the British. Rather like Hitler said truckloads of Deutschmarks were all the fault of the Jews. Mugabe’s administration (like Hitler’s) takes longer than anyone imagined to massage the voting figures and then argues about the result.

Interestingly, the only African country to have enjoyed recent military intervention by British forces is Sierra Leone, which happens to possess one of the world’s largest known sources of diamonds and other valuable minerals. Zimbabwe’s balance sheet, political problems and difficult-to-get resources apparently cannot justify such an invasion. Zimbabwe is too hard, and profit prospects are too risky. Tough luck on you, the starving people of Zimbabwe.

There was a time when people such as Fijian and Rhodesian dictators got a swift dose of correction from the Europeans who knew how to create and run a country and exploit it properly. Once upon a time, Fiji was run by white people who really knew how to make a buck from the natives. They imported Indian natives and made them work hard, too. The lazies did nothing, and the prosperous hard workers now face the envy and backlash of the layabouts.

The inheritors of all these post-colonial cock-ups have made a total pig’s ear of their chance to improve their countries, and they have wreaked havoc on their compatriots. Having given all these people their freedom, it is not for the descendants of faulty imperialists to apologise for their own leaders’ failures.

Instead, it is time for our Glorious and Baubled Foreign Minister Winston Peters to step in, step up, and become a true world statesman by clearly defining and declaring a new New Zealand foreign policy that states: “We will not ban any more Fijian footballers. We will welcome expelled Fiji journalists to our shores and, unless I hear from Frank by 11 o’clock tonight, a state of war will exist between this country and Fiji.”

The time looks right for Winston to prove once and for all that he has an interest in helping other people to prosper, run themselves and not take the easy option by fleeing to the immigration desks at Auckland International Airport. Once past that forbidding desk, they are vulnerable to all manner of exploitation and low wages, and will only add to the flood of earned money from this country, as they send their cash to less fortunate relatives who live on islands that New Zealand has failed to develop.

What we need today is decisive leadership that will send task forces to unseat Fijian and Kimbabwean dictatorships. We can leave Darfur and Somalia and Russia to sort themselves out, although oil-rich Nigeria still poses something of a problem. The CIA will take care of Latin American socialists who have stolen ExxonMobil’s assets and helped to increase your petrol prices. You can bet your life that the people who run the world’s oil also run the world’s best secret services.