Power grows from the barrel of a gun:
George Speight proudly displays the military
hardware he had at his disposal.
Picture: ANDREW MEARES
Power grows from the barrel of a gun:
George Speight proudly displays the military
hardware he had at his disposal.
Picture: ANDREW MEARES
By PAUL DALEY
FOREIGN AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT
SUVA
Saturday 15 July 2000
The coup that began at gunpoint 57 days ago ended with a tea party.
"Didn't I tell you guys this was no ordinary coup?" asked
George Speight, basking in the attention lavished on him
yesterday as hundreds of supporters ate cake and drank tea
on the majestic lawns surrounding Fiji's Parliament,
just metres from the building which until Thursday housed his
hostages for 55 nights. "I said I'd surprise you."
But in the end there were few surprises really. Mr Speight let the hostages
go
only after the Great Council of Chiefs endorsed his preferred president who
is
highly likely to appoint another interim government stacked with his candidates.
There was no surprise, either, that at 5am yesterday Mr Speight also received
a
gazetted decree giving broad amnesty to him and his supporters who took part
in
"political acts" stemming from the May 19 coup.
"Have a look at this," he gloated while waving the decree before
journalists. "And
this only cost 22 cents at the government printers."
On that score, as indigenous and Indian Fijians alike will soon discover, Mr
Speight is clearly wrong. Indeed, the cost of Mr Speight's dalliance with
gun-barrel politics is inestimable.
In coming days they can expect to be hit by trade sanctions by both the European
Union and the United States, both of which account for more than $100 million
of Fiji's annual sugar exports.
While Australia and New Zealand are likely to impose their own sanctions, Fiji
is
likely to suffer most from a big downturn in tourism that has been made even
worse in recent days by attacks on luxury tourist resorts by indigenous
landowners. But yesterday Mr Speight seemed even less troubled by this
prospect than usual as he showed us one of the rooms where the hostages had
been held less than 24 hours earlier.
Like a boy with his toys, Mr Speight had proudly asked his men to neatly display
their weapons on the floor. And there they were, dozens of automatic weapons
including Uzis, a collection of handguns, a few grenade launchers, some
Claymore mines and enough ammo to fight a small war.
Mr Speight wanted the world to know he and his men - including members of
Fiji's elite special forces - would have put up a good fight if the Fijian Army
had
opted for a military solution to the crisis.
Mr Speight's head of security, Ilisoni Ligairi, a 60-year-old former member
of
Britain's SAS, was also on hand to gloat. As he surveyed the weapons, Mr Ligairi
declined to describe exactly what his arsenal contained. A military man, he
said,
never discussed his weapons. But he did reveal that there had been some concern
in Britain over his involvement in the coup.
"I had a phone call from one of my generals who said, 'You know, you are
discrediting the army', but after that he said, 'You know, if you need some
help I
can do that'," he said.
Gesturing to the weapons, he said: "These are all going back to the military.
That
is why we have put them here. They will be going back to the chiefs."
Yesterday, Mr Speight, who was accompanied by a guard wearing a tie with
"Jesus" emblazoned on it in gold, wanted it known that he would take
no part in
any new interim government. Now that all of this was officially over, he said
he
just wanted to go home.
Despite widespread speculation that Mr Speight would no longer be safe in his
own country because of his recent actions, he snapped at the suggestion that
anyone would want to do him harm.
"What is it with you about this safety thing? It's a crazy question against
the
background of what's going on in my country," he said.
He was also clearly pleased that he and his men - indeed, anyone else who has
committed a political act of violence since the coup - would not be arrested
and
charged. That included, he said, whoever had killed a policeman by shooting
him
in the back in the coup's early days.
About 5pm, after a forgiveness ceremony, Mr Speight's supporters officially
handed over the weapons. Loaded into trucks, they were taken back to military
headquarters.
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last revision July 16, 2000