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| June 5, 2000 | ||
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| FIJI
Island's Curse The latest attempt to subvert democracy ends the political reconciliation and rekindles ethnic strife By Yashwant Gaunder in Suva
In the next few days, Speight held the country to hostage while the President and all the powerful Bose Levu Vakaturaga or the Great Council of Chiefs -- chaired ironically by 1987 coup leader Sitiveni Rabuka -- tried to negotiate a settlement with him. What made the President's task even more difficult was that his daughter Adi Koila Mara, a minister in Chaudhry's Cabinet, was among those being held captive inside Parliament. Speight's daredevilry dislocated the tenuous political reconciliation by severely straining race relations in this placid South Pacific country. Fijians of Indian origin or Indo-Fijians, who came as indentured labourers to work on the sugar plantations between 1879 and 1916, now constitute 44 per cent of the nation's total population of 800,000 people. In 1987, Rabuka took charge by stirring up fears of an Indian-dominated Parliament and claiming he would restore the supremacy of the ethnic Fijians. In scenes reminiscent of the ethnic conflict that engulfed the island nation after Rabuka's coup, Suva and its environs witnessed thuggery and violence on the streets. Businesses, especially Indian, were not spared by the 10,000 or so Fijians, who in the guise of rallying in support of the coup, rioted and indiscriminately burnt shops and business establishments. Damage caused by the looters is estimated at $30 million, according to the police who were hopelessly outnumbered. While both the police and army have expressed their support for Mara, they have so far been quiet bystanders in this saga, helping only to man checkpoints and maintain security in areas where shops or homes have been burnt. Around 98 per cent of the army and 60 per cent of the police force is Fijian. The slow response of the police to calls for security heightened the Indian community's fears. Indian homes, especially in isolated rural settlements, were also burnt and looted. And throughout the country houses were stoned and verbal and racial abuse hurled at Indians. In one case, a countryside settlement of 15 Indian families 70 km from Suva was terrorised and robbed by a group of youths who had been staying in the neighbourhood for years. One of the victims, Hari Dewarkar, said, "I could not believe that the boys I knew and often talked to could have done this, but it has happened." The village where Chaudhry's forefathers came from, Bahumajalapura in India's Haryana state, lit oil lamps and prayed for the Fijian prime minister's release. His relatives even appealed to Indian Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee to intervene. But barring formal noises of protest there was little that India could do except bring international pressure to see that democracy was restored. The beginnings of this coup go back to when a reformed Sitiveni Rabuka and Jai Ram Reddy, the leader of the then dominant Indian political party, the National Federation Party (NFP), agreed to a compromise Constitution in 1997 that would give equal rights to Fijians and Indians. This was despite the protests of a number of Fijian provinces, but Rabuka's charisma and Reddy's honesty seem to have won over the indigenous Fijian chiefs who backed the new document. Everyone hoped this would usher in a new power-sharing arrangement between the Soqosoqo ni Vakavulewa ni Taukei (SVT, Fijian Political Party) supported by the chiefs and the NFP. No one had reckoned on the electorate worrying not so much about the Constitution but having food on the kitchen table such that many Indians dumped Reddy's NFP and went for the populist manifesto of the Fiji Labour Party and that of its People's Coalition partners, a regional Fijian party from west Fiji and the Fijian Association Party, a Fijian party formed in 1994 to try and unseat Rabuka. With a preferential voting system in place for the first time, these parties "ganged up" with the Christian Democratic Alliance, a new right-wing Fijian political party led by Adi Koila, Mara's daughter, to ensure the NFP and the SVT got every party's last preference. This, together with growing discontent with the SVT among indigenous Fijians for "giving away too much" under the new Constitution, fragmented the Fijian vote and saw the SVT lose heavily. Chaudhry emerged as the prime minister when the Labour Party which he headed won 37 seats in the 71-seat Parliament -- an absolute majority. He further strengthened his position with the backing of three Fijian parties and was able to command a huge 60 seats. Chaudhry's overwhelming majority in Parliament as well as his belief that the Fijians were divided made the Government complacent. He was also accused of being arrogant and of pushing through unpopular economic measures that rankled the Fijian business class. Speight, the son of an Opposition leader, also seems to have been tacitly backed by Rabuka, who is still smarting at the SVT's defeat and wants to settle scores with his rival, President Mara. Even if a solution is found to the crisis, it would be a temporary truce. As Teresia Teaiwa, lecturer in Pacific Studies, Victoria University of Wellington, says, "The problem with Fijian nationalism is that there is no Fijian nation. There are only Fijian provinces and traditional Fijian confederacies." She points out that there is major struggle among indigenous Fijians that is continually masked by the rhetoric of a racial conflict with Indo-Fijians. The result has been bloodshed. The old Fijian saying has proved partly true: When elephants fight, the ants get trampled. |
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As
a coup, this may probably go down as one of the easiest in the world. On May
19, a red four-wheel-drive vehicle pulled up in front of Fiji's
thatched-roof Parliament complex in Suva. George Speight, a former chairman
of a pinewood manufacturing firm, wearing a black sulu -- the traditional
Fijian skirt -- a light blue shirt and a cap, casually strolled into the
building. Immediately behind him a mini-bus pulled up and 10 hooded men
wielding AK-47s and pistols brushed past the guards and, with Speight in the
lead, stormed the chamber where Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry was having
a meeting with a dozen of his cabinet ministers. He held a gun to Chaudhry's
head and told him that he was taking over as prime minister and had decided
to hold the incumbent and his colleagues hostage till Fijian President Ratu
Sir Kamisese Mara yielded to his demands.