The Fiji coup leader said for the first time yesterday that he would accept
ethnic Indians in a new government.
After talks to end the month-long crisis resumed between George Speight and
the military, Mr Speight appeared to
soften his insistence that political power be reserved for indigenous islanders.
He also suggested that the crisis was nearing its end.
But his announcements have come to be increasingly distrusted.
The former businessman and a small group of gunmen stormed parliament on May
19 and took Fiji's first ethnic Indian
prime minister, Mahendra Chaudhry, and about 30 government members hostage.
Yesterday, Mr Speight told a news conference he would accept ethnic Indians
in a new government named by a new
president.
"If that is the case, we will accept it," he said.
The rebel leader also claimed he would not insist on a place in the new government.
"Principally and morally it is wrong
for me to be there," he said. "I can't be the leader of the coup and
then impose myself on any position in the running of
the country."
Mr Speight is widely believed to support former vice-president Ratu Josefa
Iloilo, ousted by the declaration of martial
law, for the position of president.
Sources involved in talks between Mr Speight and the military commander, Commodore
Frank Bainimarama, said the
coup leader had agreed to one proposal for Mr Chaudhry and his fellow captives
to be paid four more years' salary.
Arrangements have also been made to move the hostages from parliament, once
the crisis is over, to a secure compound
outside Suva for medical and psychological treatment.
Meanwhile, international pressure on the military increased when a visiting
trade union delegation said it had asked the
European Union to strip Fiji of trade concessions and aid it receives from Brussels
under the Lome Convention.
The head of the Geneva-based International Confederation of Free Trade Unions,
Tim Noonan, said he was confident
the EU would suspend Fiji's Lome membership. Preferential access to the EU market
- the world's biggest - is vital for
Fiji's sugar industry.
Australian and New Zealand unions are already imposing cargo bans on Fiji.
Sugar, at $A167 million a year, is Fiji's
biggest export, with 75 per cent going to Europe.
Earlier yesterday three armed soldiers seized Nabua Police Station, about five
kilometres from parliament.
Witnesses said at least six shots were fired and one policeman was wounded,
although not seriously.
- AFP
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