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Speight Escapes injury in Fiji |
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June 13, 2000
SUVA, JUNE 12 (AP) - Soldiers opened fire Monday on a car carrying coup leader George Speight, putting bullet holes in the side but missing the rebel boss who holds 31 people hostage in Fiji's parliament.
Rebel spokesman Joe Nata claimed the attack was an assassination attempt, but an army spokesman blamed bad judgment by soldiers at a checkpoint that Speight's car sped through.
Several Speight supporters were arrested after a second car was shot near the roadblock and stopped. But they were quickly released after Speight's side threatened to harm the hostages who have been in captivity for more than three weeks, the military said.
The military spokesman, Lt. Col. Filipo Tarakinikini, insisted the shooting did not in any way represent an escalation of the conflict, adding that the soldiers would be disciplined for using excessive force.
But Nata said it was "a deliberate effort by the military to kill George Speight. We are treating it as an assassination attempt."
The soldiers shot at Speight's car Monday afternoon as he was returning from drinking tea with a Methodist church leader, leaving Speight uninjured but "a bit shaken," Nata said.
"I am alive and well," Speight later told The Associated Press.
Speight's car, a dark green Hyundai sedan, was peppered with at least two bullet holes, one in the right rear passenger door and one in the right rear panel when it had returned to the parliament.
Both rear passenger windows were smashed.
Tarakinikini said Speight's car was one of two that sped through a military roadblock. Soldiers first fired warning shots in the air, and when the cars failed to stop, they fired at the cars.
One car stopped, and soldiers arrested the rebels inside. But officials quickly freed them after a Speight supporter, Ratu Timoci Silatolu, phoned and threatened the hostages could otherwise be harmed, a military statement said.
Tarakinikini said around 20 shots were fired.
Speight had not previously been attacked since he seized his hostages on May 19, although he has ventured out of the parliamentary compound several times.
The martial law regime of Commodore Frank Bainimarama, which took control of Fiji 10 days into the crisis, has pledged it would not try to use force to free the hostages, including deposed Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry.
Speight, in turn, had said he would not harm his hostages if the military did not attack the compound that has become a camp full of Speight supporters.
"This was more a misunderstanding and a case of bad judgment on the part of soldiers at a checkpoint," Tarakinikini said. "There will have to be disciplinary actions, because force was excessive under the circumstances."
Nata said that when Speight's supporters inside parliament were told about the incident, "our people wanted to go out and kill everything in front of them."
But, "I have been instructed to assure the public that we will not retaliate," Nata said.
Speight claims to be acting on behalf of Fiji's indigenous majority in his fight for a new government system that discriminates against the ethnic Indian minority by denying them political power.Chaudhry last year became the first ethnic Indian to become Fiji's prime minister.
The military had previously taken steps that met a number of Speight's demands, including scrapping Fiji's 1997 constitution that gave Indians greater rights - and removing the president.
Bainimarama also offered amnesty to Speight and his armed gang in exchange for release of the hostages and surrender of their weapons, but the crisis has been in a standoff over disagreements over the form of Fiji's next government.
The military has ruled out any role by Speight or his supporters in a new government.
Earlier Monday, police halted a march that had been called to protest Speight's seizure of the hostages and they arrested its organizer, the son of one of the hostages.
"He was arrested because he had no permit for the protest," a military spokesman said on condition of anonymity.
Eyewitnesses said only a handful of people arrived in the western town of Lautoka to take part in the planned three-day march to Fijian capital Suva.
Organizer Ben Padarath, son of Lavenia Padarath, who was a minister in Chaudhry's administration, said ahead of the planned march he wanted it to give voice to Fiji's "silent majority," who reject Speight's push for power.
Paradath had hoped thousands of disgruntled Fijians would march with him to Suva.
Authorities were not immediately able to say if they would file any charges against Padarath. |