Rabuka favours keeping Crown links

Press, 23 July 1987, Page 1

Rabuka favours keeping Crown links

By

STAN RITOVA

of Reuters

Suva Fiji’s military strongman, Colonel Sitiveni Rabuka, lent support yesterday to traditional chiefs seeking to maintain the country’s links with the British Crown, according to sources close to the indigenous leaders. They said Colonel Rabuka, leader of the May 14 army coup, circulated a list of topics for the chiefs to consider, one of which was that Fiji should not be declared a republic. Chiefs from throughout the Fiji islands are discussing ways to restore democracy after the coup, Including a proposal by a radical group to declare Fiji a republic. Fiji became independent from Britain in 1970 but kept the Queen as its Head of State.

The sources said Rabuka told the Great Council of Chiefs that he wanted to preserve parliamentary democracy without giving up his coup objective, perpetual political control by Indigenous Fijians. Colonel Rabuka, who is now a member of the interim Government headed by the GovernorGeneral, Ratu Sir Penala Ganilau, the Queen’s representative, made clear that Fiji’s Parliament must always have majority indigenous representation, the sources said.

He launched the coup against the Government of the Prime Minister, Dr Timoci Bavadra, in which ethnic Indians, who slightly outnumber indigenous Fijians, had their first parliamentary majority. The extremist Taukei movement, which led Fijian agitation against Dr Bavadra, has told the Great Council that Fijian interests could be safeguarded only if the country became a republic. The influential chiefs, descendants of rulers who ceded the islands to Queen Victoria in 1874, are not in favour of the Taukei call, the sources said. But the movement’s leaders have said they will carry on their campaign for a republic. Colonel Rabuka said Fijian representation in Parliament and on municipal and statutory bodies should be increased and certain public offices reserved for the indigenous population. Dr Bavadra, who addressed the chiefs yesterday, urged them not to Ignore the interests of other races in their efforts to return the country to democracy. The deposed Prime Minister is a member, together with Colonel Rabuka, of a 18-member committee set up by the Gover-nor-General to review the Constitution.