Coup security head calls the shots

By NAOMI LARKIN

SUVA - Posing for photographers with a wide smile and a hand gun held against his head, Vilimoni Tikotani looked like a mad man on holiday.

As head of security for Fiji's coup leader George Speight, it is Mr Tikotani's job to "secure" the grounds of the parliamentary complex where members of the Labour-led coalition Government have been held hostage since Friday.

A sergeant in the Counter Revolutionary Warfare Unit - the military arm behind Mr Speight's takeover - Mr Tikotani knows his weapons.

As he proudly tells the Herald, it was he who fired the first two shots into the ceiling of the parliamentary chambers, sealing the takeover.

His participation in the coup, he said, began with a phone call four days before the event.

The call was from a "spokesman" for the Vanua Tako Lavo Party, and an organiser of Friday's march of nationalists which preceded the takeover.

The caller then turned up that night with Speight, his brother Jim and the spokesman.

Mr Tikotani said he had not known Speight before that night. It was then that his role in the coup was hatched. The march was a tactic to distract the police while Speight and his armed men stormed the buildings, he said.

The unit that Mr Tikotani joined in 1996 consists of 100 crack troops, only 18 of whom were involved in the coup, he said.

It is trained by Ratu Ilisoni Ligairi - the tactical mastermind behind the coup. Ratu Ilisoni is understood to be the first non-British trainer of the English SAS.

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Under seige: map of the Parliament complex