Nov. 4 (Bloomberg) -- Australia and New Zealand expelled Fiji’s top envoys, escalating a row with the Pacific island nation after its military-led government ordered their most senior diplomats to leave.

“We’ve no option but to respond in a proportionate manner,” Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith told reporters today.

Fijian army chief Commodore Voreqe Bainimarama yesterday ordered the Australian and New Zealand officials to leave for what he said was a “negative campaign against the government and people of Fiji.”

He said the governments in Canberra and Wellington were carrying out “a consolidated effort to attack Fiji’s independent judiciary” through alleged attempts to block judges traveling through Australia and New Zealand.

“The rationale that Fiji has provided for the expulsions is unreasonable and unwarranted,” Smith said.

International criticism of Bainimarama’s government has intensified since April when it declared a state of emergency, censored the media and extended military rule for five years. Australia and New Zealand have been at the forefront of condemnation of Bainimarama since he toppled Fiji’s elected government in a coup in December 2006.

The spat with New Zealand and Australia deepens the country’s international isolation. It was fully suspended from the 53-nation Commonwealth in September after refusing to hold elections by October 2010, losing access to the body’s $7.5 billion aid budget.

Fiji’s Isolation

The country was also suspended in May from the Pacific Islands Forum, a 16-nation bloc including Australia and New Zealand.

Australia and New Zealand severed defense ties and imposed travel bans on Bainimarama and his ministers after the coup.

New Zealand Foreign Affairs Minister Murray McCully said today the travel ban was working, to the extent it “incentivizes people not to be part of the regime.”

Bainimarama, who is interim prime minister, says he wants to change the electoral system in the ethnically divided nation before holding a ballot. Under the present system, people in some constituencies can only vote for candidates from their ethnic community.

The 944,000-strong population is made up of 57 percent indigenous Fijians and 38 percent ethnic Indians, according to U.S. government data. Three of the nation’s four coups in the past 22 years were sparked by ethnic tensions.

To contact the reporters on this story: Ed Johnson in Sydney at ejohnson28@bloomberg.net; Nichola Saminather in Sydney at nsaminather1@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: November 4, 2009 00:13 EST