Major Ilisone Ligairi, 62, disarmingly quiet and self-effacing, hardly filled
the terrorist image, but pledged yesterday that he and his men would die
rather than surrender the cause for which they stood.
A veteran of 22 years in the British Army, 20 of them with the Special Air
Service (SAS), Major Ligairi denied that he had helped plan Fiji's coup,
and said that he had been called in "40 minutes to an hour" before
the
invasion of Parliament on May 19.
Three days after he first went public and spoke to the local media, the talks
between the rebel group led by George Speight and the military were in
total stalemate.
Major Ligairi sought yesterday to clarify his role in the coup attempt,
denying that he was pulling the strings.
"I am not dictating to George Speight. I did not know him before the coup.
We work as a team. But, yes, I hold the key in that I have control of the
hostages. I know what our demands are, and when the demands are met the
hostages will be released."
Major Ligairi said that when he went to school in Suva he was aware of
fears being expressed that Indian Fijians would take over the country.
His experiences around the world, particularly in Malaysia and Kenya, had
persuaded him that progressive takeover of a country by non-indigenous
people was a real possibility and one facing Fiji.
Major Ligairi, who joined the British Army in 1961 and qualified for the
SAS two years later, returned to Fiji in 1984, and in 1987 was asked by the
then coup leader Colonel Sitiveni Rabuka to give him personal protection.
He then accepted the job of forming the Special Forces, which included
forming the Counter Revolutionary Warfare Unit, some of whose
members helped Speight to take over Parliament.
Below Major Ligairi, the room housing the 15 Indian hostages was open to
view, but gunmen were also visible, and there was evidence that riflemen
had been placed strategically in nearby bushland.
Despite disagreeing with the terms of the accord proposed by the military
and the Speight group for signing on Saturday, he was not pulling the
rebel leader's strings, he said.
"I did not agree with it, and I told George so."
After an acceptable president was appointed, and people acceptable to the
Speight group were in an interim civilian government, the hostages would
be released progressively over 12 to 24 hours, Major Ligairi said.
There would be "certain protocols" of forgiveness.
"When we go out of our houses we don't want to look on them as
enemies."
Overseas reports have said that while serving in Northern Ireland in 1976
Major Ligairi was arrested in the Irish Republic after he was found with a
sub-machinegun and other weapons and ammunition. He was acquitted on
a charge of taking weapons into Ireland with the intent of endangering life.
Major Ligairi said he had been invited by the present Fiji Military Forces
commander, Commodore Frank Bainimarama, to rejoin the services.
"I have a relationship with Bainimarama, officer-in-charge. But this having
happened, I think our relationship is a bit far apart."
Asked about the possibility of the military storming the parliamentary
complex, he said it would be a stupid thing to do, that he had riflemen who
would act as a buffer and that if such an invasion occurred it would end in
a bloodbath.
Malcolm Brown
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