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Change Your Life! |
Hard Luck George Speight |
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July 28, 2000
SUVA (AP) - A violent military crackdown on rebel supporters and the arrest of Fiji's coup leader George Speight triggered reprisals Thursday including the kidnapping of two New Zealand civilian pilots.
The pilots were taken hostage by rebel supporters as they landed on the island of Vanua Levu, hours after troops stormed a rebel stronghold in the capital, Suva, and, separately, arrested Speight. Rebel supporters also briefly took up to 50 hostages in another town on Vanua Levu, but released them after being warned of military action, a military spokesman said.
Frustrated at continuing intimidation by Speight, who threatened a new campaign of civil unrest unless he was given greater influence over Fiji's next government, the military came down hard on him and his supporters in Suva. Late Wednesday soldiers arrested Speight, three aides and a bodyguard at a checkpoint. In a dawn raid Thursday, dozens of heavily armed troops stormed a school in Suva where several hundred Speight supporters had been camped for the past two weeks after they gave up control of Fiji's Parliament, where Speight staged his coup. Military spokesman Lt. Col. Filipo Tarakinikini said the raid was aimed at the instigators of Fiji's past 10 weeks of turmoil. "We are going to the root of the matter, we are arresting the people who orchestrated the whole campaign of civil unrest in this country," Tarakinikini told a news conference. He said Speight was arrested for threatening the life of Fiji's new President, Ratu Josefa Iloilo, and for refusing to hand in all weapons stolen from the army for his coup. Threatening Iloilo's life "can be seen as an act of treason," and Speight could face such a charge after a full police investigat§Íf Tarakinikini said. Speight and an armed gang stormed Parliament on May 19, took dozens of lawmakers hostage and demanded the rights of indigenous Fijians be made superior to those of Fiji's large ethnic Indian minority. His demands were met after a 2-month stand off under a deal which saw the last of the hostages released July 13. Speight then demanded that the new government - which will oversee the Indian community being stripped of political power - be stacked with his supporters. "The threat to the life of the head of state was connected to pressure for him to nominate a certain lineup of the interim government," Tarakinikini said. Foreign diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Iloilo was likely to announce Friday banker Laisenia Qarase as Fiji's next prime minister. Launching an emergency budget aimed at curbing the economic devastation wreaked by the coup, Qarase, who is currently caretaker prime minister, promised Thursday to "religiously pursue" a government blueprint which discriminates against eplic Indians. "Fijians do not seek permanency as an expression of racial superiority, their motivation is to ensure the survival of a small and distinct race," Qarase said, adding that "aggressive" foreign critics such as Australia and New Zealand should leave Fiji to solve its own problems. Australia, New Zealand and the United States are demanding the restoration of democracy in Fiji and have imposed sanctions. Thursdays reprisals were isolated to the two incidents on Vanua Levu. Nevertheless, the Australian government renewed warnings to its residents to leave Fiji because the military raid could provoke "lawlessness and civil unrest." An Air New Zealand international flight from Auckland was scheduled to land at Fiji's Nadi airport late Thursday but overflew the South Pacific nation "because of the current political situation" and headed direct to Los Angeles, the airline said. In the school raid, one man died from suffocation caused by tear gas and 39 others were injured, seven seriously. Around 350 Speight supporters were arrested and held pending charges. One soldier was wounded. Speight claims ethnic Indians, who make up 44 percent of Fiji's population, have too much power and are threatening Fijian culture. The Indians were first brought to Fiji in the 1870s by British colonialists as indentured labor. Detailing the budget, interim Finance Minister Ratu Jone Kubuabola announced a cut in government spending of 30 percent, or 103 million Fijian dollars (U.S. dlrs 50 million), and imposed a 12.5 percent pay cut for all public servants. Looting and burning in Suva accompanied the parliament raid and widespread civil unrest by Speight supporters followed throughout the country. The military regime, which took power 10 days after the raid, agreed to scrap the multiracial constitution and oust the government of prime minister Mahendra Chaudhry, Fiji's first ethnic Indian prime minister, in exchange for the hostages. Speight and his supporters were granted an amnesty for disarming and releasing the last of their 27 hostages, but Tarakinikini said a handful of weapons were still unaccounted for, calling into question the rebels' immunity from prosecution.
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