Relations between rebels, president worsen as Fiji hostage crisis continues

Rohan Sullivan

Sunday, May 21, 2000 | 1:44 a.m.

SUVA, Fiji - Fiji's president on Sunday accused armed rebels who are holding the prime minister and legislators hostage of threatening to kill the captives if their demands for control of the country are not met.

Rebel leader George Speight denied the allegation, saying his uprising in this South Pacific nation was a civilian coup, not an act of terrorism.

As the crisis entered its fourth day Monday, police and soldiers stepped up security in the capital, Suva, where the rebels were holding their hostages in the parliament building.

The relationship between the rebels and President Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara - the normally titular head of state who has assumed powers of government under state-of-emergency laws - deteriorated Sunday after Mara rejected Speight's request for direct talks.

"I will not have any dialogue with those who are imprisoning the parliamentarians and bear arms in the parliament complex unless they are freed," Mara said at a news conference. "I learned from him afterwards ... that what he was going to tell me was that if I don't follow what he says, he will start executing hostages one by one."

At a news conference in parliament, Speight denied such a plan.

"To suggest that we would embark on such an action as a resolution is just irresponsible and crazy," he said. "I am giving the world my word. ... I am guaranteeing their safety."

Mara said Speight was demanding the president step down and allow his group to run the country. "That I will not be able to oblige," Mara said.

The crisis began Friday morning when gunmen, their heads swathed in black hoods, stormed into the main chamber of Fiji's parliament. Brandishing machine guns, rifles and pistols, they ordered shocked lawmakers not to move while they cuffed their hands with plastic ties. Speight then appeared, firing one shot into the air and declaring: "This is a coup. I'm in charge now."

Speight told them he was overturning Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry's government and taking power on behalf of indigenous Fijians, who he said have been discriminated against by the government led by Fijians of Indian descent.

"We were scared we would be killed," said John Ali, Housing and Transport Minister in Chaudhry's year-old coalition. "We were helpless."

Ali was one of nine lawmakers who were released Sunday, and the first to give an inside account of the hostages' treatment. Chaudhry and more than 20 other members of his government were still being help captive.

After the rebels burst in and secured their prisoners, they marched the ethnic Indians among them to a downstairs office, separating them from the government's native Fijian members. Ali said that when told by a rebel to get moving, Chaudhry defied him, saying sternly: "I won't take orders from you." The prime minister relented when the rebel pointed his rifle at him and told him he was about to be shot.

Speight claims he annulled Fiji's constitution and Mara's presidency when his group raided parliament, and that he now rules Fiji by decree. But he has almost no support. Police and military chiefs reiterated Sunday that they support the constitution, Mara and Chaudhry's government.

Speight received his first public support Sunday in a statement distributed by two influential native Fijian groups. Ratu Tevita Bolobolo, leader of the Taukei movement of indigenous Fijians, issued a joint statement endorsed by the main opposition party, known as SVT.

"We do not and we will never accept the reinstatement of the Chaudhry government," Bolobolo said. "We hereby ... warn Ratu Mara that any intervention by force will lead to all out civil war."

For months, ethnic tensions have been building between indigenous Fijians and the descendants of Indian migrants, who dominate commerce in this country 2,250 miles northeast of Sydney, Australia. Indians make up about 44 percent of Fiji's population of 813,000, while indigenous Fijians account for 51 percent. Chaudhry is Fiji's first prime minister of Indian extraction.

A state of emergency continued across the country, and a dusk-to-dawn curfew was being enforced by police.