Fiji's racial divide

Fiji's racial divide

The situation in Fiji took a turn for the worse ... as
supporters of coup leader George Speight looted the television
station and fired shots aimed at harassing President Ratu Sir
Kamisese Mara into resignation.

For Speight, it is not enough that the president has sacked
the country's elected prime minister, Mahendra Chaudhry, who,
along with dozens of officials and members of parliament, has
been held hostage inside parliament for 10 days. Speight's latest
tactic is aimed at sapping Ratu Mara, who led Fiji to
independence 30 years ago and whose daughter is one of the
hostages, so that no one with sufficient authority will stand in
his way to becoming supreme leader of the country.

With a victory for Speight, Fiji would probably return to
being a pariah nation, just as it became after another native
Fijian, Sitiveni Rabuka, led troops to oust a democratically
elected government in 1987. Like Mr. Rabuka, Speight said he was
motivated by an attempt to preserve the rights of indigenous
Fijians who could not accept the descendants of Indian
immigrants, now almost 50 percent of the population, as fellow
citizens with equal rights.

The Indians were brought to Fiji as indentured laborers in the
19th century to work on sugar plantations. When Fiji gained
independence after 96 years of colonial rule in 1970, the country
was also left with European, Chinese and Rotuman minorities.

While the races managed to live side by side peacefully under
British rule, there was little integration among them and
virtually no intermarriage between Fijians and Indians.

Mindful of tension between the races, the constitution
provided that the House of Representatives had an equal number of
Fijian and Indian representatives, while the Senate comprised
tribal chiefs and members nominated by both the Prime Minister
and the leader of the opposition. Unfortunately, not even such
meticulous effort to ensure racial harmony and political
stability succeeded in keeping chaos at bay.

When a colony gains independence, one taxing issue it must
address is the rights of immigrant settlers brought in by its
former colonial master. The history of Fiji, and that of a number
of Southeast Asian countries where racial tension remains high,
shows a solution has yet to be found.

-- The South China Morning Post, Hong Kong