Foreign hand in coup claim

Press, 26 August 1987, Page 1

Foreign hand in coup claim

By

JOHN TOWNSLEY

• through NZPA Melbourne

At least one foreigner was involved in the May 14 coup in Fiji, according to an Australian woman recently detained for 40 hours by Fiji security forces. Rosemary Gillespie, aged 46, said yesterday she had been told by highly-placed people in the deposed Government there was speculation that more than one outsider had been in the group of soldiers led by Colonel Sitiveni Rabuka when he took over the Fijian Parliament. “At least three members of the deposed Government are convinced outsiders were among the soldiers,” she said. “One person told me: ’I looked into the eyes of one of the soldiers. He was not a Fijian. He was wearing white gloves and a balaclava and I could only see his eyes. ' "He was a fair man. He was not a black man and could not have been an Indian’.’’

Ms Gillespie said that during her detention earlier this month,

she had been interrogated at least eight times and accused of subversion and plotting against the interim Government.

She said highly-placed Fijians had told her that since the coup Lear jets and Hercules transport aircraft had been flying into Nandi and Nausori airports in the dead of night, with runway lights off. They had been disgorging military personnel and military hardware which had been put into trucks with red crosses on them and driven to unknown destinations.

Ms Gillespie said she had visited Fiji for a brief holiday and had been arrested by security men at Suva’s Southern Cross hotel about 11 p.m. on August 15.

“I had been dancing and was taking a taxi to where I lived when another taxi roared up in front and. out scrambled these guys in red shirts. Ms Gillespie conducted political research in the early 1980 s for the Alliance Government of Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara.

Fiji lawsuit, page 8