Focus on Taukei

Press, 14 September 1987, Page 1

Focus on Taukei

NZPA-AAP Suva Fiji’s Coalition parties declared last evening that police investigations into burnings and lootings in Suva "should begin with the Taukei movement." A statement from the National Federation of Labour parties said: “This kind of organised violence is well known to the movement and its supporters. “Are we still being asked to believe that the Fijian people look to such thugs for leadership?” The statement also hit out at the coup leader and security forces commander, Colonel Sitiveni Rabuka, who it said had

proved himself incapable of upholding the law impartially. It said Colonel Rabuka had said he had staged the coup in May to head off violence between Fijians and the Indianmajority Coalition Government, but “where was his advance knowledge this time?” A spokesman for the Taukei movement, Ratu Mell Vesikula. told AAP he had been "shocked’’ at learning from, newspaper reports of the violence. Told of the Coalition’s accusations against the Taukei, he said, “They can say whatever they like. It is stupid to blame the Taukei movement for everything wrong that is done by a Fijian.”