|
|
Change Your Life! |
Fiji coup leader leaves compound where hostages held |
|
News |
|
|
June 2, 2000
Speight has refused to recognize the legitimacy of the government of Commodore Frank Bainimarama, who has been running Fiji since declaring martial law Monday.
But Speight went to Bainimarama's military barracks late in the day, unarmed and in the company of Fijian troops who earlier had gone into the parliamentary compound to seek the release of the hostages.
A military spokesman said Speight's security had been guaranteed - with his gunmen in the Parliament still holding the deposed prime minister and other ex-government officials who were captured in an attack on May 19.
The 40 troops dispatched by Bainimarama's new martial law regime shared a drink of kava, a mild sedative, with Speight supporters outside, then went in.
Speight later emerged and went to see Bainimarama, traveling in the same military bus that had brought in the soldiers. Speight had not traveled so far away from the scene of the hostage crisis since it began, although he had made other brief appearances outside - always with armed guards.
Speight had met in the morning with reporters and had challenged the nation's military rulers to visit parliament and hear the wishes of ethnic Fijians before making any more decisions about how to resolve the country's 14-day hostage crisis.
Speight said a delegation from the military, which declared martial law and seized control of Fiji on Monday, should meet with tribal chiefs who also were to visit parliament.
The captives include deposed Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry, the first ethnic Indian to be elected to that position in the island nation.
"Let the army delegation come down here and meet the chiefs," Speight said. "They really haven't had the talk, the confrontation, the dialogue with the people that we have had. That is at the very core and foundation of my government."
It emerged late Thursday that a hostage who was freed Wednesday to go to a funeral - on condition that she return to captivity - had not come back, athough Speight's spokesman seemed to shrug it off.
"If she comes back, she comes back," Speight spokesman Joe Nata said. "If she doesn't, she doesn't." Having initially said it would install a civil administration to restore democracy to Fiji, the military said Wednesday it may stay in power for up to three years until a new constitution is drawn up and fresh elections planned.
Speight has called on the military to instead install his self-styled Fijian nationalist government, which he declared after storming parliament on May 19 to start the hostage crisis.
Since taking power, the army has accepted Speight's major demands: scrapping the 1997 constitution blamed by indigenous Fijians for giving too much power to the ethnic Indian minority, deposing President Ratu Sir Kamisise Mara and offering Speight and his gang an amnesty.
Still, Speight refuses to release his hostages, holding out for more say in the formation of an interim government, and the military has ruled out using force to free them.
Speight said Thursday he had no plans to kill a hostage to speed up faltering negotiations to end the crisis. "I will never make an example of one of the hostages," he said. But Speight has threatened to kill the captives if the military attempts to free them.
Speight also wants Fiji's tribal chiefs, who hold no constitutional power but are highly respected in the country, to play a major role in the appointment of a new government.
Speight said representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross had visited the hostages Thursday, but the Red Cross later declined any comment on the condition of the hostages.
Since the start of the coup by indigenous Fijians to remove Fijians of Indian descent from power, the government crisis has ground down to a battle of wills between Speight and military commander Bainimarama - both indigenous Fijians. Suva appeared generally calm when he appeared before reporters early Thursday, but a handful of Speight supporters beat up two policemen close to parliament. On Wednesday, rebels stoned and hijacked cars close to parliament, appearing to target ethnic Indians.
Speight said the concept of a military government being in place in Fiji until a new constitution could be written was unacceptable. He said he is acting on behalf of the indigenous Fijian majority, who want the Indian minority removed from power and Fijians of Indian ancestry barred from leading the country.
Fijians of Indian ancestry, descended from sugar plantation workers brought in by the British under colonial rule, make up 44 percent of the population of 813,000.
The U.S. ambassador to Fiji, Osman Siddique, told The Associated Press he planned to meet Bainimarama on Thursday to urge a speedy return to democracy.
"The U.S. government deplores it whenever a military government takes over from a democratically elected government," Siddique said.
"We oppose completely any overthrow of a democratically elected government. The military takeover may have calmed things down but we still want to see a plan for the restoration of democracy in definite terms."
The
United States, Australia and New Zealand have threatened sanctions
if democracy is not returned to democratic rule.
|