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Change Your Life! |
Iloilo shouldn’t be a Speight figurehead |
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July 16, 2000
SUVA (AP) - Vowing not to run away from Fiji's problems, deposed Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry said Saturday he would seek reinstatement of his government but admitted he has few options if indigenous Fijians don't agree to restore democracy. Released from eight weeks of captivity on Thursday with 17 other legislators, Chaudhry said the country's crisis continues because the decision to disenfranchise ethnic Indians and guarantee the superiority of indigenous Fijians has "torn at the very fabric of society." Fiji sat in a pregnant pause Saturday between a rash of civil disturbances over the last 11 days that largely subsided Friday and an uncertain future that likely includes international sanctions. Will new President Ratu Josefa Iloilo name a Cabinet acceptable to rebel leader George Speight, who has said he won't be satisfied until all of his nominees are confirmed for an interim government and a commission to rewrite the constitution along racial lines? If Iloilo doesn't succumb to the pressure, will there be a return to the occupation of police stations, other public facilities and resorts that have largely been peaceful but have decimated the tourism industry with years of repercussions? Iloilo and his vice president, both Speight nominees, were expected to name the Cabinet by Monday, with rumors abounding of numerous scenarios. "I feel sorry for him," Chaudhry said, pointing out that some people will be unhappy no matter what Iloilo does. The new president is 79, suffers from Parkinson's and relies on bottled oxygen. The Great Council of Chiefs, Fiji's traditional power, tacitly endorsed Speight's goals by agreeing to his nominees. Chaudhry, who still is catching up to the events of the two months outside Parliament because of a news ban for the hostages, is looking for ways to get his office back. "The opposite of this would be to condone an act of anarchy and unlawful seizure of the government," he said. "We don't have much of a choice, do we? At all costs we must support democracy." Officials from the ousted coalition government are to meet next week to consider legal options. International sanctions appear likely - Chaudhry endorsed them - but that threat has seemed to have little effect on the rebels who overthrew the government. "A vocal and violent minority holds the whole country ransom," Chaudhry, freshly shaven and shorn of the locks he grew in captivity, told reporters gathered on the lawn of his home. Concerns were intensified after the military reported Saturday that Speight's men had not turned in all of the weapons they had seized from an armory amid the May 19 storming of Parliament. Ethnic Indians, disenfranchised and despondent, are trying to regroup amid growing emigration that is sure to cut their 44 percent share of the population. Chaudhry dismissed the idea of setting up a government in exile, perhaps in Australia, saying: "I think we're very comfortable here." But the first ethnic Indian to lead Fiji had little advice for those who are thinking about leaving the South Pacific nation. "I'm hardly in a position to advise them otherwise," Chaudhry said. "Any community that has gone through this twice, it's a natural thing for them to want to find a safe home. This has put us back a quarter-century." Speight says he acted on behalf of indigenous Fijians when he and an armed gang raided parliament, took dozens of lawmakers hostage and demanded ethnic Indians be stripped of political power. The chiefs have through complicity supported Speight's campaign. They have not endorsed his method and, like the military, appear to be emerging from the crisis weakened. Defying renewed warnings that Fiji will become an international pariah if rebels are included in the government, Speight warned that any attempt to restore multiracial democracy would result in "the same resistance we showed to the army of this country." In the days after parliament's seizure, Speight supporters looted and burned ethnic Indian homes and businesses.
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