May
4, 2005
By
Michael Field
There will be no early release or amnesty for the men who staged Fiji’s
coup five years ago, Fiji Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase said.
His announcement came amidst speculation that jailed traitor George
Speight, serving a life sentence, would be released ahead of general elections
next year.
In a statement Qarase said he would bring in legislation for an
independent reconciliation and unity commission headed by a judge.
“The main purpose is to help us bring a greater degree of closure to
what happened in 2000,” Qarase said.
It would operate in a
restorative justice fashion to meet the needs of victims and to allow offenders
to accept responsibility for their actions.
“Let me make it absolutely clear that there is no intention
whatsoever of granting a general pardon for those implicated in the insurrection
of 2000,” Qarase said.
“People who participated
with criminal intent, as established by the police, will continue to be subject
to the full force of the law.”
He noted that the media had reported that a bill granting a general
pardon was in preparation, He said this would not happen.
“There is no bill to grant a general pardon.
Qarase said Fiji would model its commission on similar actions taken in
South Africa, Chile, Argentina and Timor Leste.
“What we envisage, however is tailored to Fiji’s unique situation and
needs.”
Speight is serving a life sentence for treason after nominally leading a
coup that led to the overthrow of the Pacific nation’s first ethnic Indian
leader, Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry.
In July he will mark his fifth year as a prisoner on Nukulau, a small
island near Suva.
Speight and a group of special forces soldiers led an assault on
Parliament in 2000, holding Chaudhry and his government hostage for 56 days.
The pro-Speight Conservative
Alliance Matanitu Vanua which is in coalition with Qarase had called for
Speight’s release and said last weekend it would bring in a bill to provide
for a pardon and release of all political offence prisoners.
Fiji’s
George Speight threatening to become Pacific’s returning Napoleon
By
Michael Field
Fiji’s convicted traitor George Speight, who lives as a pampered
prisoner on a picturesque small island near Suva, could be about to do what
Napoleon Bonaparte once did – return in triumph to the mainland.
Speight is serving a life sentence for treason after nominally leading a
coup that led to the overthrow of the Pacific nation’s first ethnic Indian
leader, Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry.
In July he will mark his fifth year as a prisoner on Nukulau, somewhat
longer than the nine months Bonaparte spent on Elba off the Italian coast. While
there are no intellectual comparisons, Speight’s future is causing as much
concern in Fiji as Bonaparte managed across Europe.
With general elections looming in Fiji late next year Prime Minister
Laisenia Qarase is under growing pressure from nationalist Fijian groups to free
all those convicted over the coup, including Speight and other traitors Joe Nata
and Timoci Silatolu.
Speight and a group of special forces soldiers led an assault on
Parliament in 2000, holding Chaudhry and his government hostage for 56 days.
Military commander Commodore Voreqe Bainimarama declared martial law and
installed a caretaker premier, Laisenia Qarase, who’s Soqosoqo
Duavata ni Lewenivanua (SDL) party won democratic elections in 2001.
SDL, which holds 31 of Parliament’s 71 seats, governs in coalition with
the pre-Speight Conservative Alliance Matanitu Vanua (CAMV) which has six seats, but two are unfilled as their members serving coup
related jail time. Speight himself was briefly elected an MP but as he was on
Nukulau he lost his seat. His father took over the seat and is now in cabinet.
CAMV has seen a procession of its elected and un-elected members
despatched to jail on coup related offences, including five last week convicted
but yet to be sentenced. Later this month CAMV member and Transport Minister
Simione Kaitani will answer coup charges in court.
Last weekend CAMV said it was
drafting a Reconciliation Bill that would free all coup prisoners and end all
coup-related investigations.
Party president Tanoa Tuisawaqa said the bill would bring about unity and
reconciliation and would “lift all investigations into those that have been
implicated in the coup”.
Another party official said it would include the release of Speight and
high chief Ratu Inoke Takievikata who was last year convicted of his role in a
military mutiny later in 2000 which saw eight soldiers killed.
CAMV executive Militoni Leweniqila said Qarase had agreed to release the
prisoners as part of the price for a coalition but this was not honoured. Now
the government was using reconciliation as a campaign tool for next year’s
elections.
“They can use it but they will lose because the people have been
watching for the last five years their failure to act when chiefs were sent to
prison.”
The army, which continues to play a dominant role in Fiji, was opposed to
any release.
“I would like to make it clear the army does not agree to the early
release of these political prisoners unless they have served their time in
jail,” army spokesman Captain Neumi Leweni says.
With speculation mounting that the SDL-CAMV coalition is facing a break
up, Qarase was terse on the prospect of an amnesty bill, only saying he did not
support it.
But Qarase has the problem of holding together his coalition as the SDL
tries to tackle increasing poverty, particularly around Suva, and falling
popularity among Fijian voters in an ethnically divided electorate attracted by
the nationalist message.
For CAMV the attraction in winning Speight’s freedom in time for
elections next year is obvious; just as he managed to pull hundreds of
supporters into Parliament as he held the government hostage, he would have big
electoral appeal among Fijians who make up around 52 percent of Fiji’s 840,000
people.
With Fiji’s electorate severely ethnically divided, the prospect that
the indigenous vote will split ahead of the general elections is good news for
the
Chaudhry’s Fiji Labour Party which is holding up its support in opinion polls
and with no other obvious Indian favour party likely to draw away votes.
Speight’s freedom would, however, cause dismay for the military
leadership, and for Australia and New Zealand.
Complicating matters one of the army’s top men,
Lieutenant Colonel Viliame Seruvakula, who in 2000 pointedly remained loyal to
the elected government. He claimed he knew who the real plotters were behind
Speight, but left Fiji in 2001 to take up a post with the New Zealand Army.
Now back in Fiji he has given a renewed statement to the police,
repeating much of what he said to selected media in 2001 and naming 21 names.
The coup was organised by “failed
businessmen, chiefs and politicians” while the people on Nukulau were just men
in the middle.
“People who came up with the idea are still walking the streets,
working and getting paid today."
Seruvakula
said he was offered money to switch his allegiance.
"It was a substantial amount of money that was sitting on my table
for two days before it was taken back."
He said it was F$260,000 dollars, in 50 dollar notes except for a bundle
of 20 dollars, relatively easy money for the people putting it up.
Oddly the police did nothing about Seruvakula’s allegations although
the current head of the police, Australian Commissioner Andrew Hughes said they
are acting on the information alleged and suggested new arrests were coming
soon.
"We will
do everything as humanly as possible to try and solve the cases this year in
order to close a sad chapter in Fiji," Mr Hughes said, adding they hope to
have it completed by next year’s elections.
"It will not be good for democracy if we let this thing drag on. It
will be used for political mudslinging in the General Election coming up."
Seruvakula named former prime minister Sitiveni Rabuka, who as the number
two in the Fiji military in 1987 stage the first and second coups but lost the
elections in 1999 to Chaudhry. He was never prosecuted for those coups as he
succeeded with them and had immunity for himself and others written into the
constitution.
A popular suspect for the 2000 coup among Suva’s coffee house elite,
the evidence on Rabuka has been questionable at best.
He told local media in Fiji last week that he just wanted the suspicion
to end as it was taking a big toll on his family and on himself. Had he been
involved in the coup, he said, he would have been charged by now.
As it is, a grand total of 2499 people have been convicted on coup
related offences, mostly minor. Eleven alleged coup plotters, including Speight,
have been dealt with, while none of the 21 alleged financiers have been pulled
in.
Copyright: Michael Field
