Updation on Fiji coup

[Saddle Bronc 124]

BBC Link

Fiji's new government takes shape

Fiji's interim government is now taking shape, with eight ministers being sworn in to work under the Prime Minister, Frank Bainimarama.

Cmdr Bainimarama was sworn in as the country's temporary leader on Friday, almost a month after overthrowing the previous government in a military coup.

He has promised that the interim administration will pave the way for a return to democracy.

But no date has yet been given for new elections.

New leadership

The eight interim ministers were officially sworn in on Monday by President Ratu Josefa Iloilo, who was restored to office last Thursday after being deposed during the coup.

But the president's position is largely ceremonial, and the ministers were actually chosen by Cmdr Bainimarama.

FIJI TENSIONS TIMELINE

• 2000: Brief coup put down by army chief Bainimarama
  
• July 2005: Bainimarama warns he will topple government if it pardons jailed coup plotters
  
• May 2006: PM Laisenia Qarase wins re-election
  
• 31 Oct: Qarase tries - and fails - to replace Bainimarama
  
• November: Qarase says he will change law offering clemency to coup plotters - Bainimarama warns of coup
  
• 
  5 Dec: Military declares coup
  

According to the online news site Fiji Live, a former military commander and speaker of parliament, Ratu Epeli Nailatikau, will act as the interim foreign minister.

Suva lawyer Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum is the new Attorney General, while caretaker Prime Minister Jona Senilagakali - who resigned last week to make way for Cmdr Bainimarama to take the job - has become health minister.

Other ministers include a former navy officer and two former senators, according to local media. More appointments are expected on Tuesday.

Fiji's first ethnic Indian premier, Mahendra Chaudhry, who was ousted during a previous coup in 2000, has also reportedly been offered a position, but he has so far refused to comment on whether he will accept the job, according to Fiji Live.

The new Foreign Minister, Mr Nailatikau, said the new government would try to restore ties with Fiji's neighbours, some of which publicly condemned the coup and even called for sanctions against the new administration.

"That's part and parcel of this game," he told the Associated Press news agency. "Those countries have the right to do that. We have to abide by it but at the same time, we will be talking to them and seeing what we can do about it."

Cmdr Bainimarama seized control of the country in December, marking the fourth coup in two decades.

He accused former Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase's government of corruption and racism against the country's ethnic Indian minority.

Noted that there was little VJ notice of the Fiji coup in December. Other notes:

• There is some justification in Bainimarama's claim of racism (as Qarase had gotten into power due to a coup by George Speight--who used the ethnic card to advance his own personal ambition to rescue his failed businesses by looting the public treasury); an earlier coup in 1987 by Sitiveni Rabuka was due to a cabinet with a majority of Indo-Fijian members (in fact, this was stated outright at the time by Rabuka) though the Prime Minister who chose that cabinet, Timoci Bavadra, was indigenous.
  
• As for corruption, this is basically rife in the developing world (and not absent in developed nations either, as Canada's election last year showed)
  
• However, I doubt that Bainimarama will actually go any further towards a multicultural-equal-rights society; more likely, he will keep himself in power and out-corrupt Qarase (as it is also notable that he raised the multiethnic issue only after Speight's coup--he apparently had no issue with Rabuka's earlier one), following in the footsteps of Zia ul-Haq (who out-corrupted both Bhutto and Yahya Khan) and Musharraf (who has been reputed by many Pakistanis as even out-corrupting Zia)
  

[Flames9_RN 359]

As long as it didnt interrupt the filming of the latest Survivor!!!