Stinson persuaded by Libyan link

Press, 21 May 1987, Page 3

Stinson persuaded by Libyan link

By

JAMES SHRIMPTON

of AAP

through NZPA Pacific Harbour A former Cabinet Minister, Peter Stinson, said yesterday that evidence of Libyan involvement in Fiji helped persuade him to join the military government of LieutenantColonel Sitiveni Rabuka. Mr Stinson, Minister of Economic Planning in the Alliance Government defeated in last month’s election, was speaking in an interview at his home in Pacific Harbour, a resort development 50km west of Suva.

A fourth-generation Fijian of European descent, Mr Stinson said there was substantial evidence of Libyan contact in the Pacific including Fiji. He said some Libyans had been in Fiji just before last Thursday’s coup, but he was not prepared to say how many. He was not prepared to comment when asked if the evidence was that of Libyan support for the ousted Government of Dr Timoci Bavadra.

Referring to Tuesday’s

unsuccessful hijacking of an Air New Zealand jet at Nandi Airport,-Mr Stinson said it was rather interesting the hijacker had invited people to join him on a flight to Libya — and had demanded the release of the Bavadra Government detained in the coup and released on Tuesday evening. Mr Stinson had invited AAP and an Australian television news team to the Pacific Harbour house his family was occupying after moving out Of their Ministerial residence in Suva.

He had risked being accused of treason, which might be punishable by death in Fiji, for-joining Colonel Rabuka. But it was his duty to lend experience to the new regime to help maintain the nation’s economic health and help it on its way back to democracy.

He believed Fiji had been saved and not destroyed by the coup, in view of threatened violent acts by Fijian opponents of the Indian-majority Bavadra Government. Mr Stinson denied he had prior knowledge of the coup, saying he

learned about it for the first time half an hour after it happened. He also denied his former Prime Minister, Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara, had masterminded the coup as charged by several Bavadra Ministers after their release. Mr Stinson said that when he found Ratu Mara had agreed to join the council of Ministers, which the Governor-Gen-eral later declined to swear in, he had been relieved. Answering questions about Coalition Government allegations of corruption within the Mara Government, Mr Stinson said there had been cases but only petty ones. He said there was nothing of the magnitude of corruption in the New South Wales Government. “Your politicians are so corrupt, especially in New South Wales, that you .magine that every politician in every little country in the world is also corrupt.” He said he would not seek political office again — he made up his mind not to run in 1992 even before the recent election.