Australia to cripple Fiji'if racist win Cabinet post'

Australia to cripple Fiji'if racist win Cabinet post'

SUVA (AFP): Australia threatened on Sunday crippling economic
sanctions against Fiji if the leader of its racist coup was
appointed to cabinet.

As rival tribal groups failed to break an impasse over the
make-up of a new government to replace the ousted administration,
Foreign Minister Alexander Downer warned further concessions to
rebel leader George Speight would be "preposterous."

Fiji's nominal rulers had already given too much to "Speight
and his gang," he said.

Australia, on which Fiji depends upon for about half of its
trade, last week announced limited sanctions including cuts to
non-humanitarian aid and cancellation of defense cooperation.

The move has been mirrored in Britain and New Zealand, while
the United States has vowed to follow Australia's lead, and Fiji
has already been suspended from the Commonwealth.

Canberra and the international community have stopped short of
the kind of trade bans that would wreck the Fijian economy, with
knock-on effects for neighboring South Pacific island economies.

However, Downer told Channel Nine's Sunday program any Fijian
government that included Speight could prompt harsher action.
"If Mr Speight became a member of the new cabinet I think
Australia, New Zealand, Britain, the United States, Japan and
others would have to review the measures we've already taken," he
said.

"Frankly, it would be completely unacceptable for a terrorist
to form part of a government. We couldn't have any part of
dealing with a country that included terrorists in its
government."

Speight and a group of special forces soldiers seized Fiji's
parliament on May 19 and held its elected government, including
prime minister Mahendra Chaudhry, hostage for 56 days.

The coup led to the overthrow of Chaudhry, the island's first
ethnic Indian prime minister, and the abolition of a 1997
constitution which allowed non-ethnic Fijians political power.

Plans have been drawn up for an apartheid-like state where
political power is reserved exclusively for ethnic Pacific
Islanders.

The proposals have been made by an interim caretaker
government appointed by the army, which declared martial law soon
after the crisis began, when Speight's supporters ran riot
through the capital Suva, looting and ransacking businesses
belonging to ethnic Indians.

Since Chaudhry's release, Speight, the interim government and
the army have been locked in talks over the make-up of a post-
coup administration.

After excluding ethnic Indians from power, rival tribal groups
are now squabbling over who should have dominance.

Speight last week effectively blocked the swearing in of a
first proposed new government with threats of civil war, after he
objected to the line-up.

He is demanding Fiji's High Commissioner to Malaysia Samanunu
Cakobau, grand-daughter of a former king and head of the powerful
Fijian Bau clan, be appointed prime minister.

The continuing impasse has produced a power vacuum. The
Pacific nation has no effective government and with civil unrest
continuing, some observers expect the army to declare martial law
once more.

Many of Speight's rebels occupy a school in Kalabu, just
outside of Suva. Local media reports say they are terrorizing the
area, robbing farmers and market vendors of their produce and
forcing people to flee.

On Friday night a group tried to seize a military roadblock
nearby in an attempt to cut Suva off from its only airport.

Suva continues to suffer rolling power blackouts as rebels
occupy the only hydro-electric station.

On Sunday academic and former trade unionist James Anthony,
writing in the Fiji Times, warned political power was
increasingly related to the use of force in Fiji.

"Taxpayers' guns under Fijian control have been used twice
ostensibly against Indians and now, we might well be entering a
new phase of violence: Fijians against each other."