SUVA, Fiji (AP) -- Fiji nationalist coup leader George Speight called Friday
for people
throughout the South Pacific to join his ``crusade'' for indigenous rights and
threatened to
join forces with Australia's Aborigines to disrupt the Sydney Olympics in September.
``I am going to make a call to all ethnic people in the South Pacific to stand
up and exert their
rights,'' Speight said.
Aborigines have already said they will stage peaceful protests at the games
but there has been
no indication other South Pacific peoples will join them.
Speight, a failed businessman, threw Fiji into crisis May 19, when he led an
armed gang into
Parliament and took dozens of lawmakers hostage, including Mahendra Chaudhry,
the first
ethnic Indian elected prime minister.
Speight's coup was carried out in the name of guaranteeing political superiority
to indigenous
Fijians.
The military took power 10 days after the coup.
The demise of democracy in Fiji, a nation of 320 islands about 2,250 miles
northeast of
Sydney, prompted Australia, New Zealand and now the United States to impose
sanctions.
The American sanctions involve suspension of defense aid and cooperation with
Fiji worth
an estimated $1 million.
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