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Rebels
get 24 hours ultimatum to surrender |
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Hostages who have been held for 37 days inside the Fiji parliament building in Suva, Monday, June 26, 2000 are seen in this image made from television. The hostages are former Fiji Attorney General, Attanand Singh, left and center, former lawmaker and member of the Labour Party Deo Narayan. Man at right is unidentfied. Gunmen led by former insurance executive George Speight stormed parliament on May 19 and took the government hostage in the name of indigenous Fijian rights. (AP Photo/Fiji1) AUSTRALIA OUT NEW ZEALAND OUT TV OUT |
June 28, 2000
SUVA, Fiji (AP) - A former officer of Britain's elite Special Air Service, who is one of the leaders of the gunmen holding Fiji's government hostage, said Tuesday the captives will die if the army tries to rescue them. "Blood will be shed," Maj. Ilisoni Ligairi told The Associated Press in an interview inside the parliamentary compound where 27 members of the ousted government are being held captive. Many Fijians believe Ligairi is as powerful, or even more so, than George Speight, the former insurance and timber executive who has dominated headlines in recent weeks as the gunmen's loquacious leader. In the interview, Ligairi, 62, who served for more than two decades in the SAS in Britain, the Middle |
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East, the Far East and Africa, said the hostages will not be released until the gunmen are assured of a presence on a proposed interim government.
The
SAS is the British army's special forces wing, an elite and secretive
regiment of paratroop commandos primarily used in counterterrorism and
counterinsurgency operations. SAS troops have served around the world, including in Northern Ireland, Falklands War and the Gulf War. Ligairi
said the non-Christian hostages, including deposed Prime Minister
Mahendra Chaudhry, a Hindu, were being given lessons in Christianity
because "what we are fighting for is a Christian state." Ligairi ruled out allowing any Fijians of Indian descent, who make up about 44 percent of the country's population of 812,000, positions in the interim administration. On May 19, he and Speight led a group of soldiers from Fiji's elite counter-terrorism unit in storming parliament. They claimed to be acting on behalf of majority indigenous Fijians, whose rights they said were being trampled upon by Chaudhry. Their raid has sent Fiji's economy into a tailspin and raised concern in the international community that the South Pacific island nation has descended into racism and intolerance.
On Tuesday, Ligairi denied allegations that the rebels' real motive was to restore privileges and sweetheart business deals lost in the Chaudhry administration, which had cracked down on corruption. "We are here only to make sure that Fijian sovereignty is secure," he said. Ligairi also denied reports in the local media that he's the main powerbroker behind the rebellion, and that Speight is a mere frontman.
But Ligairi acknowledged that it was he who rejected an announced deal last Friday between the gunmen and the army - which has assumed executive power in Fiji - to free the hostages. He said the deal gave away too much because it required the rebels to free the hostages before they could be sure all their demands would be met. Negotiations have been stalled for three days because of what the army claims was an 11th-hour demand by the rebels - that they be allowed to name a new president. In a sign of high tensions, rebel supporters on Tuesday threw stones at a military vehicle driving near the parliamentary compound. The incident occurred a short while before representatives of the army and the rebels resumed contact to try to get talks back on track. Also Tuesday, two Fijian newspapers published a letter allegedly written by the hostages and delivered to the country's vice president calling for an "early and peaceful solution" to the conflict.
The letter's authenticity has not been independently verified, but it appeared to be a sign that the rebels are seeking public support for a quick resolution to the standoff. On
Sunday, the rebels released their four remaining female hostages
in what many Fijians hoped was a goodwill gesture. But the release was
accompanied by a breakdown in talks and gave the army an opportunity to flex its muscles.
The Army's spokesman, Lt. Col. Filipo Tarakinikini, said the release of the four women enabled the military to operate with "fewer restrictions" - a statement that looked like a veiled threat of force. Reacting to that Tuesday, Ligairi said: "We will die with the hostages" in any rescue attempt. He offered his account of what took place on the day of the parliament raid, saying he was informed of the action less than an hour before it took place. He
was sitting in a cafe in the capital, Suva, when he received a call
on his cellphone from Speight asking him to participate. He met Speight
and a few of the soldiers from the anti-terrorism unit that he led at a nearby beach, and within minutes they collected their military rifles and headed to parliament, where they seized the prime minister and most of his Cabinet.
Ligairi said the soldiers would not have joined the rebellion "if I didn't allow them to do it." Most of the rebels' demands to disenfranchise Fiji's Indians have already been met, including the firing of Chaudhry, who was the country's first Indian prime minister, and the elimination of the country's 1997 multiracial constitution.
The standoff, now in its sixth week, has pitted Fiji's poor indigenous majority against its relatively affluent Indian minority, whose ancestors were brought to Fiji by English colonialists over a century ago to work in the country's rich sugar cane fields.
The fields are communally owned by ethnic Fijians, and former Prime Minister Chaudhry angered many by refusing to approve higher rents paid by farmers, who are mostly from the ethnic Indian minority.
"If
you really believe in your teachings," Ligairi said, "you can't
let any other faiths come in and run your house."
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