Military Seizes Control Of Fiji

Island Nation's Allies Denounce Power-Grab, Begin Cutting Ties With Government

(AP)  As tensions built in recent weeks, Australia sent three navy ships to waters off Fiji that Canberra said would be used only to evacuate Australian citizens in the event of a coup.

Last week, Bainimarama accused Australia of planning an invasion, and had troops fire mortar flares over the harbor and set up security checkpoints around government buildings in a show of force.

Fiji is among the richest and most developed nations in the South Pacific, attracting up to 400,000 tourists a year to resorts built on idyllic beaches. It also exports sugar and gold.

But it has lurched from one political crisis to the next since the military twice grabbed power in 1987 to ensure political supremacy for the 51 percent majority indigenous Fijians, cutting out the 44 percent ethnic Indian minority.

Gunmen, angry those advantages were being eroded by the first Indian-led elected government, seized Parliament in a 2000 coup that brought Qarase, a moderate nationalist, to power in a deal brokered by Bainimarama. Qarase has since won two elections, based partly on populist policies that appealed to indigenous Fijians.

Bainimarama sees himself as the guardian of Fiji's constitutional guarantees to all Fijians, and opposed as racist legislation proposed by Qarase that would pardon conspirators in a 2000 nationalist coup and secure coastal land rights for indigenous Fijians.

Bainimarama offered to suspend work on the bills, and abandon them if a review found them to be unconstitutional.

Bainimarama said his actions Tuesday were "undertaken with a great deal of reluctance."

"We trust that the new government will lead us into peace and prosperity and mend the ever-widening racial divide that currently besets our multicultural nation," he said.

Fiji Police Chief Andrew Hughes, an Australian who took leave from Fiji when he recently became a target of the military's ire, said he believed Bainimarama's coup would fail.

"He doesn't have the support of the government, of the president, of the police, of the churches, of the chiefs, of the people of Fiji," Hughes told Australian Broadcasting Corp. television. "I can foresee a popular uprising."

Newspaper, radio and television outlets said Tuesday they had been ordered not to show video of Qarase and to allow officers to vet their stories. One newspaper decided not to publish rather than submit to censorship.

"They wanted to put somebody in the newsroom to vet ... editorial content and control any propaganda favorable to Qarase," said Tony Yanni, publisher of the Fiji Times newspaper. "We said you can't come in and the editor decided we can't publish under these circumstances."

[agnim]

"What are the causas belli of both the Fijians and Indians?
Posted by equern at 07:39 PM : Dec 05, 2006"

Blame the bungling brits. They are the ones who imposed the Indians upon the indigenous people and their space during british colonization.

And instead to taking the clannish and caste-loving Indians back to India, the brits left them on the Fiji islands to get in the way of the indigenous population.

[EthanQ]

Seems like this is another case in which you can't necessarily tell the bad guys from the good just by knowing the labels. It sounds like there are lot of racial/racist overtones in this battle and the reporting of this in this article and others I've read is very shallow. What are the causas belli of both the Fijians and Indians?

[olgreyghost]

No, but an armed populace can give him a run for his money...

[agnim]

"Here we have a lesson why Americans have a Second Amendment to back up the other nine in the Bill of Rights..."

Trust me; no amounts of asinine 'amendments' can stand in front of a powerful army and leader intent on marching. Remember that! LOL

[olgreyghost]

Here we have a lesson why Americans have a Second Amendment to back up the other nine in the Bill of Rights...

[agnim]

I for one have no problem with military leaders openly demonstrating that they are really the 'power that be' in a nation.

However, when the military leaders are as arrogant and as power-drunk and as maniacal as this Fijian fool, then things can get real distressing and deadly for the very citizens he should be protecting in the first place. Tsk-tsk

One thing is for certain, Vjay Singh isn't returning home any time soon for a game of golf. LOL

[gunnerv1]

tucson23 Sorry, but you don't get that high up in the Military chain without be exposed to a minimum of some 4 year Liberal Bastion. I ought to know, I served 21 years on active duty and now have worked for the past 18 years for a big 10 University.

[tucson23]

antoniof123, this is actually the reason that armies MUST be completely under the thumb of civilian authorities...I can only tremble in fear of the thought of our military generals deciding that if they don't like the laws Congress passes, that they can just take over and arrest elected leaders. You think Bush is a mindless conservative, try a military commander who originally joined up because "college wasn't for him," and who thinks the people are a bunch of hippies who don't know what's good for them. In the case of Fiji, the military was mad that 49% of the population (ethnic Indians) were starting to get some rights.

[brazzale]

Great! Now where am I going to vacation?

[olebd]

Maybe Bush can use OUR military to take over next so he can create a vacation resort for him and his kinfolk.

[antoniof123]

Well, at least this military do not just follow orders blindly or at least by the idiot Commander in Cheif of their country. I wonder how many more times tis will happen.