Coup leader reveals secret deal to oust Chaudhry

By NAOMI LARKIN

SUVA -

Fiji's rebel leader George Speight claimed early today that he had been offered an amnesty deal which would include the replacement of Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry with his Fijian deputy, Tupeni Baba.

At an early morning news conference, Speight said the offer had been made by the President, Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara, and former Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka.

Mr Rabuka would replace Ratu Mara as President under the deal.

Speight said he would be granted amnesty if he withdrew from the Parliament complex and agreed to the deal. However, he had rejected it outright "because it was not in the best interest of my people - it's as simple as that."

Speight's comments came just a few hours before a meeting of the 100-strong Great Council of Chiefs that will almost certainly determine the outcome of the coup.

Speight told the Herald he wanted the Council to act on "indigenous interests" ignored by the new constitution. He would then release Mr Chaudhry and 30 other hostages at Parliament.

Under his demands, Fiji Indians would not have the vote or any representation in Parliament.

"Why should Indians be allowed to vote on what's right for a Fijian?

"We don't look the same, we don't inter-marry, we don't act the same, we don't eat the same food and we don't smell the same."

Ahead of today's meeting, Ratu Mara refused to guarantee that he would reappoint Mr Chaudhry to his job once the hostage crisis was resolved.

His remarks were seen on the streets of Suva as confirmation that the Fiji Indian Prime Minister is unlikely to remain in power, no matter how the four-day-old hostage crisis ends.

New Zealand may grudgingly accept Mr Chaudhry's removal as the price for peacefully resolving the crisis.

But Wellington is warning that any such changes in his unpopular, but properly elected Government must take place strictly within the constitution.

Prime Minister Helen Clark warned Fiji it would be treated as a pariah if the Government was removed via the barrel of a gun.

Fiji's captive Prime Minister, Mahendra Chaudhry, was dragged outside Parliament yesterday by a rebel pointing a gun at his head.

Coup leader George Speight said the man had acted to deliver a warning to a group of "dissident youths" trying to get into the grounds, and to send a message to the international community.

Numbers inside the heavily armed parliamentary complex swelled to about 500 yesterday as native Fijians, many of whom had walked 30km from villages in the northern province of Tailevu, arrived to put their bodies on the line for the rebel leader.

Ratu Viliame Volovol, a chief from the Tailevu province, who had come to Parliament with 100 of his people, said chiefs from 10 of the 14 provinces were behind Speight.

Fellow chief Ratu Peceli Ringkama said the takeover had been coming for more than a year. It was fine for Indians to run the businesses but "the ownership and leadership in this country, just leave that to the Fijians. That's democracy."

Rabuka, instigator of two military coups in 1987, is chairman of the Great Council of Chiefs. He denied again yesterday that he was behind the coup.

Speight said he had sacked Rabuka and would announce a new chairman today.

Doubts were cast on the role of the military and the police in the crisis yesterday when Speight took a police-escorted drive around central Suva.

More Fiji coup coverage

Under seige: map of the parliamentary complex