By David Robie
USP Journalism Programme
SUVA: Civilian gunmen leader George Speight today defied mounting
international condemnation of the kidnapping of Fiji's elected cabinet,
claiming that his regime was now the legal government of the Pacific
nation.
His self-styled interim government named a list of "advisers" last
night
but at least three of them denied any involvement on national radio and
condemned the attempted coup.
Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry, the country's first Indo-Fijian prime
minister whose Fiji Labour Party was swept to a landslide victory in
last year's general election, his cabinet, and MPs have been detained
under armed guard in Parliament since yesterday morning.
While the police and military forces appeared loyal to constitutional
authority, Speight, a shaved-head timber industry businessman and
undischarged bankrupt, claimed that indigenous Fijians supported the
illegal regime.
He said that only the President, Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara, and negotiator
Sitiveni Rabuka, who led the two 1987 military coups and was ousted as
prime minister by the Chaudhry coalition government, were not in
support.
President Mara declared a state of emergency last night and the armed
forces called up all reservists in the greater Suva area.
Speight claimed at a press conference that the 1997 constitution had
been revoked: "There is now no longer the office of the president."
Commonwealth Secretary-General Don McKinnon joined the Australian, New
Zealand and United States governments in condemning the attempted coup
and calling on the kidnappers to abandon their action.
McKinnon warned on BBC Television that Fiji could face the fate of
Pakistan in being excluded from the Commonwealth if the coup succeeded.
He said there was total Commonwealth support for constitutional rule,
adding: "The police and army must stay on side with the elected
government.
On Radio Fiji this morning, McKinnon added that he was "sad and angry"
over the attempt to overthrow the elected government.
"I am very concerned and and very saddened by this," he said. "But
I am
also very angry because this was not necessary and it will set Fiji
back a long way. This will not help Fiji's international reputation at
all."
McKinnon said that he been in touch with Mara and said the Commonwealth
supported the president's attempts to reassert constitutional
government.
The Fiji Citizens' Constitutional Forum (CCF), a community-based group
which played a key role in the establishment of the multiracial 1997
constitution, strongly condemned the kidnapping of the government and
the looting and violence.
"We call especially on our international partners who have contributed
to the long process of democratisation in Fiji which culminated in our
1997 Constitution - governments, churches, NGOs and committed
individuals - to join us in this chorus of condemnation against this
'civil coup'," said executive director Rev Akuila Yabaki.
"The group of seven armed men who have carried out these acts of
violence are made up of unpopular politicians and discredited
businessmen. Anyone who thinks that the ethnic Fijian community can
benefit from this coup is living in a fool's paradise.
"The majority of Fiji's citizens voted overwhelming in support for
constitutional democracy in the last election in May 1997 - including a
majority of ethnic Fijians. This violence is
not about protecting Fijian rights. It is about the interests of a few
at all of our expense.
"The leaders of this so-called coup have no legitimacy and do not
represent the breadth of Fijian support for constitutional democracy."
"We support the constitutional authority of [President Ratu Sir Kamisese
Mara] who is Fiji's Head of State. The President has correctly declared
a state of emergency and is exercising executive authority. We owe a
debt of gratitude to Fiji's law enforcement officials and our armed
forces for the difficult service they are performing in seeking to
uphold the rule of law."
About 48 per cent of the country's 800,000 population are indigenous
Fijians; 46 per cent are Indo-Fijians, and the rest are mixed-race or
ethnic minorities.
The Fiji Times, the only one of the country's three daily newspapers to
publish today, declared in an editorial that "the madness must end".
"It is wrong and dishonourable to back protests with guns and violence.
Threatening people's lives and putting their safety at risk is
inexcusable," the paper said.
"We have again witnessed how one moment of madness will set this country
back by decades. Everything we have worked hard to put right and goals
we have set for the nation have been ruined."
Police declared the central city zone of the capital Suva a "no go"
zone
and said they were treating the entire central business district as a
crime scene after scores of looters smashed their way into stores and
set one shopping block, adjoining a newspaper office, ablaze yesterday
afternoon.
An unnamed police office told Radio Fiji that 160 shops had been looted.
Police barricades were thrown up on the main roads into the city.
The attempted coup leader George Speight was reportedly director of the
Wattle Group, an Australian investment company, which siphoned millions
of dollars from the Australian police, Fiji citizens and life savings.
Speight, son of the Opposition MP Savenaca Tokainavo, pleaded not guilty
to exchange rate charges and extortion in the High Court in Suva last
Monday.
He is a descendant of a fourth generation white colonist and is reputed
to not be a fluent Fijian speaker.
Speight was installed by former Finance Minister Jim Ah Koy (in the
Rabuka government) as head of the Fiji Hardwood Corporation, a
multimillion dollar company which was been at the centre of controversy
in recent months.
He said he had no apologies for what is seen is a racist, pro-Fijian
stance.
"We are not going to apologise to anybody and we are not going to step
back, and we are not going to be daunted by accusations of racism, or
one-sidedness," Speight said.
"At the end of the day, it is [about] the supreme rights of our
indigenous people in Fiji, the desire is that it be returned - wholesome
and preserved for the future."
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