FIJI: POLICE CRISIS INTENSIFIES AS COUP LEADER GEORGE SPEIGHT REFUSES TO ACCEPT TRIBAL CHIEF'S PEACE PLAN

Record ID: 191337

  • Title: FIJI: POLICE CRISIS INTENSIFIES AS COUP LEADER GEORGE SPEIGHT REFUSES TO ACCEPT TRIBAL CHIEF'S PEACE PLAN
  • Date: 27th May 2000
  • Summary: SUVA, FIJI (MAY 26, 2000) (REUTERS) 1. MV GOVERNMENT SOLDIERS MARCHING INTO PARLIAMENT COMPLEX TO THROW THEIR SUPPORT BEHIND COUP LEADER GEORGE SPEIGHT (2 SHOTS) 0.23 2. MV ARMED MASKED MAN AND MILITARY OFFICER WAVES AUDIO CROWD CHEERING; MORE SOLDIERS MARCHING AUDIO MORE CHEERING; SOLDIERS ENTERING BUILDING (12 SHOTS) 1.10 3. MV SPEIGHT AND HIS FOLLOWERS LEAVING THE COMPLEX/ SPEIGHT WALKING 1.16 4. SCU SPEIGHT WALKING AND TALKING TO MEDIA; SPEIGHT SUPPORTERS (IN CIVILIAN CLOTHES) IN A STANDOFF WITH A SECOND GROUP OF GOVERNMENT SOLDIERS; SPEIGHT TALKING TO POLICE OFFICER; SOLDIERS AND CROWD (8 SHOTS) 2.15 5. SCU SPEIGHT SPEAKING TO SECOND GROUP OF GOVERNMENT SOLDIERS; CROWD; CROWD CHEERING AS SPEIGHT IS SURROUNDED BY SECOND GROUP OF GOVERNMENT SOLDIERS AND SUPPORTERS (6 SHOTS) 3.26 6. MV NIGHT SHOTS OF TRADITIONAL CHIEFS ARRIVING AT THE COMPLEX TO SPEAK TO SPEIGHT; NIGHT SHOTS: SPEIGHT SUPPORTERS SINGING AS THEY MARCH BACK TO COMPOUND (4 SHOTS) 4.04 Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
  • Embargoed: 11th June 2000 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: SUVA, FIJI
  • Country: Fiji
  • Reuters ID: LVANKY7FUK3CS2M5SVZPY7BYRP2
  • Story Text: The political crisis in Fiji has intensified as coup leader George Speight
    refused to accept a peace plan drawn up by the country's traditional chiefs.

    On Friday (May 26), Speight and up to 20 armed
    men were involved in a tense confrontation with government soldiers.

    On Friday (May 26), Speight won the support of a group of governmen
    soldiers who marched into the compound to show their allegiance to the
    coup leader.

    A cheering crowd welcomed the 15 soldiers dressed in military uniforms.

    Later in the day, Speight and his supporters left the compound where
    Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry has been held hostage for the past week.

    Speight and his men left the sprawling parliament complex briefly and
    walked about 50 metres (165 feet) down the main driveway from parliament, where
    they shook hands with a second group of soldiers and Speight drank a "bilo" of kava.

    The second group of soldiers were attempting to clear a roadblock set up by the military and allow a car with food supplies into the building, where hundreds of indigenous Fijian nationalists are gathered.

    After Speight spoke with the soldiers, one of his armed supporters
    scuffled with a soldier while others moved the barbed wire and tire spikes of the roadblock.

    The balaclava-clad gunman pointed his semi-automatic rifle at the
    soldier's chest briefly and shouted in Fijian.

    An officer at the roadblock shouted at his men as some crouched in firing positions, ordering them to stand down.

    No shots were fired.Speight spoke with the soldiers, and then later he
    and his men moved back into the compound after again shaking hands with the soldiers.

    The incident lasted only a few minutes.

    After a few hours, a group of tribal chiefs arrived at the compound, with the aim of speaking to Speight inside the sprawling parliament complex.

    The Great Council of Chiefs on Thursday (May 25) sought the replacement
    of Fiji's first ethnic Indian prime minister, Mahendra Chaudhry, who has been held in the country's thatch-roofed parliamentary compound for a week by Fijian businessman George Speight.

    The council wants the constitution revised to guarantee only an
    indigenous Fijian can be prime minister of the Pacific island nation, where ethnic Indians dominate the tourism and sugar-based economy.

    Despite the chiefs' concessions to his demands, Speight has spurned their proposals because they include an interim government under President Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara, for a "definite" but unspecified term.

    Speight wants his group recognised as the legitimate government and says Mara must step down as well before Chaudhry and some 30 other hostages, including Mara's daughter, Tourism Minister Adi Nailatikau Mara, could be freed.

    Racial tension has mounted in Fiji since the abrasive Chaudhry took power a year ago.

    Many Fijians resent the wealth that ethnic Indians have acquired since
    their ancestors were brought to Fiji in the last century to work sugar
    plantations.Indians now run the plantations on land leased from Fijians and Fijian grievances include demands for more control over that land.

    Diplomatic sources suggested about 50,000 Indians left Fiji after
    Rabuka's coups.Indians now form 44 percent of the 800,000 population and ethnic Fijians 51 percent.


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