New showdown predicted in Fiji

By Asha Lakhan

SUVA (AFP): Civil unrest between Fiji's army and supporters of the country's attempted coup is widely forecast to carry on and even escalate by experts on Pacific politics.

With the release last week of elected, and deposed, prime minister Mahendra Chaudhry and his government from 56 days in captivity, the focus of the country's nine-week political crisis has shifted to a power struggle within the indigenous community.

"I think they will now pull in different ways," predicted Tupeni Baba, foreign minister in the deposed Chaudhry government.

"I think it might have to come to a showdown ... public opinion is turning against Speight. Had it been in the old days, there would have been a war."

Baba was among the last of the 18 hostages released by George Speight.

When he stormed parliament in the capital Suva and took the government captive on May 19, Speight claimed he was acting in the name of the indigenous people of Fiji who have grown to resent ethnic Indian business success.

He called for the removal of the Chaudhry government, led by Fiji's first ethnic Indian prime minister, and the country's multiracial 1997 constitution.

But nine weeks later Speight is showing his primary motive is not so much indigenous rights as a naked grab for power, observers say.

Ever since the coup, experts in indigenous politics have claimed Speight was only a front man for other political aspirants.

This week Speight played his ace card -- Adi Samanunu Cakobau as his nominee for prime minister -- giving credence to long-held speculation that his coup was about restoring power to one of Fiji's historical tribal ruling families.

Samanunu is as near to royalty as Fiji comes.

She is the grand-daughter of Ratu Seru Cakobau, paramount chief of Bau and widely hailed as the then King of Fiji, who ceded the country to Britain in 1874.

Dignified and popular, she has spent most of her adult life in Britain with her British army husband. A year ago she was appointed Fiji's ambassador to Malaysia.

A week ago she openly threw in her lot with Speight rebels, but attempts by Speight's group to get her appointed as either president or vice president failed.

This week Speight effectively blocked the swearing in of a new interim administration headed by banker Laisenia Qarase with threats of violence unless Samanunu was appointed prime minister.

"National politics has now come down to Bauan politics," a senior civil servant said.

In the power vacuum that now exists, with no government in place, there are three different groups waiting to grab power.

Prime Minister Qarase and his team hope the army and police would back them in a showdown.

But the loyalty of the security forces is by no means assured and some observers are warning of a crisis of allegiance.

Speight and his supporters are threatening civil disturbances, even anarchy, if they do not get their way.

It was mobs loyal to Speight which held the country to ransom over the last eight weeks, including occupying high-class tourist resorts, the country's only hydro-electric power station and a prison.

They also set up roadblocks around the country and looted ethnic Indian businesses. It was a riot by Speight's supporters through Suva on May 29 that prompted the army to declare martial law.

Meanwhile, watching developments from the wings, and in contact with the international community, are members of the deposed Chaudhry government.

"A showdown is very much on the cards," a government executive predicted.

"It is up to the law enforcement authorities to step in. It is time when the army and police have to say: enough is enough. They have to defend the state.

"The army is the supreme authority because it has the means to enforce its authority."