Suva Govt overthrown

Press, 15 May 1987, Page 1

Suva Govt overthrown

By

JAMES SHRIMPTON

NZPA-AAP Suva An Army colonel yesterday overthrew Fiji’s four-week-old Government in the first military coup in the South Pacific, suspended the constitution, and announced he would head an interim council of Ministers pending new elections. Lieutenant-Colonel Sitiveni Rabuka, aged 38, led 10 armed, gas-masked soldiers into Parliament to kidnap the Prime Minister, Dr Timocl Bavadra, and his 27 colleagues, who were mostly Indian, at 10 a.m. Stunned onlookers on the Opposition benches and in the public and press galleries watched silently as the Government members were shepherded outside where they boarded trucks and were reportedly taken to a suburban Army barracks. Five hours later, Colonel Rabuka said.he had organised the bloodless coup to pre-empt the Government calling out the Army to act against Fijians plotting against it “We did not want our own military forces acting against their own people,” he said. The 2499-strong Royal Fiji Military Forces are 95 per cent Fijian. The immediate reaction of the 729,999 people of Fiji — an island nation that presents itself as “the way the world should be” — was one of disbelief. r

“This cannot he happening here,” said one of 250 Fijian people outside the Government Buildings yesterday while Colonel Rabuka held a series of conferences. Colonel Rabuka said he had “neutralised” Parliament and suspended Fiji’s 17-year-old constitution except for sections guaranteeing the safety of people and property. He said that with the suspension “goes the office of the Governor-General,” Ratu Sir Penaia Ganilau, with whom he conferred twice at Government House immediately after the coup. With the Queen’s permission, Ratu Sir Penaia would be reappointed under the new regime. Colonel Rabuka would

soon name an interim council of Ministers to run the Government until new elections could be called. He would head the council but had no political ambitions

The arrested Government Ministers and members would be moved back to their homes soon under “house arrest”

Fiji’s Judiciary, including the Chief. Justice, a Fijian, also had been suspended along with the Commissioner of Police, an Indian. Colonel Rabuka had taken command of the . Royal Fiji Military Forces, suspending their commander, Brigadier Epeli Nailatikau, and his Chief of Staff, LieutenantColonel Jim Sanday, the two men who previously outranked him.

Brigadier Nailatikau was reported yesterday on his way back to Fiji from a visit to Western Australia, where he had attended the handing over of a navy patrol boat to Papua New Guinea. Colonel Rabuka, wearing a light-blue jacket and sulu spoke in a firm, confident voice in the Cabinet room of the Government Buildings. “You may ask if the activities of this morning were absolutely necessary? “In my position as chief of operations in the Royal Fiji Military Forces, after monitoring the events of the last few weeks, and with in-

formation about planned activities of certain groups in "the community, ! believe itinuik th* national in- ' terest.” He said the appointment of a council of Ministers would be “an Interim measure to ensure the safety of the public and perhaps to effect some of the changes that I think are necessary to protect the interests of the communities in Fiji.” In constitutional changes now being drafted, a serious look would be taken at the question of land ownership, the cause of racial tension especially among Fijians. He had no desire to run the Government himself.

He had not approached Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara, the Prime Minister for Fiji’s first 17 years of independence until last month