KEY POINTS:
Life in Suva went on as usual yesterday, except that the Army paid a visit to their cousins the police and took away their guns.
At Parliament, Fiji's Senate was in session, the courts continued to hear cases, banks and shops everywhere were open and remained so as news filtered out about the first action to be taken in what has been a war of rhetoric and insults in this slow slide towards a coup.
But last night, heavily armed Fijian troops put up roadblocks throughout the capital and cut off several roads leading to it.
The military may also have made an attempt to detain Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase, who avoided an Army road block by swapping from his car to a helicopter.
Later he tried to enter the official residence of President Ratu Josefa Iloilo but was turned away by soldiers at the gate. He returned to his home in Suva, which is protected by police.
No shots were fired when six Army trucks packed with soldiers wearing combat fatigues and carrying automatic weapons arrived at the premises of the police tactical response (PTR) unit mid-morning.
There was some nonsense talked by Acting Police Commissioner Moses Driver about this being a "friendly visit" by the Army, who had come to "inspect" the armoury.
Others knew better.
"This is very bad," said Bani, a young Fijian whose cheeks were damp with tears. He had friends inside, members of the PTR.
Bani, sheltering from the Suva sun beneath an orange-flowered, umbrella-shaped Sekoula tree, was among a crowd watching the first direct action in the country's fourth coup in 20 years.
Soldiers took up positions around the perimeter of the base, where members of the PTR live with their families.
Although there was no aggression, there was tension.
A few hours later the visitors had what they came for and drove off, leaving the police's crack squad defenceless.
There was no mistaking that this was a tactical move by military commander Frank Bainimarama.
The PTR was established by Andrew Hughes, an Australian who was appointed to the post of Fiji police commissioner following the coup in 2000.
They are regarded as an efficient and professional unit, and Commodore Bainimarama may suspect they are loyal to Mr Hughes, who vehemently condemns the military commander's actions.
In Fijian politics, the ironies come in Shakespearian proportions and you don't have to travel far to observe them.
In the colonial grandeur of Fiji's Supreme Court, Sitiveni Rabuka is accused of attempting to incite mutiny in 2000 against the head of the military - Commodore Bainimarama.
Even in the vastness of the dock Rabuka looks a bear of a man. The courts occupy what in 1987 was Fiji's parliament buildings, the location to which Rabuka, then a colonel, marched his troops to take power from the Bavadra Government.
His politics were not dissimilar to George Speight's in 2000 - he didn't want an Indian-led Government.
Rabuka later became prime minister, changed the constitution to favour indigenous Fijians and earned international odium.
During the 56 days Speight held Mahendra Chaudhry's Government hostage, Rabuka played the moderator, his politics apparently having mellowed. But if the charges are a guide then that was a ruse.
The court heard evidence yesterday morning that Rabuka went to the barracks just after the mutiny attempt with his old Army uniform hanging on a hook in his vehicle, ready to take over from Commodore Bainimarama.
Now it is Commodore Bainimarama at the centre of the crisis.
But the disarming does not mean relations between rank-and-file police and soldiers are hostile. At the PTR base in Narere, 20 minutes' drive from downtown Suva, a policeman was seen giving a cup of tea to one of the soldiers there to disarm him.
We followed another truck filled with soldiers which led us across town to the Nasova Police Academy. It has an armoury , apparently containing a small number of rifles. It is this they have come for.
This coincides with the "passing out parade", where new police officers parade on the green to mark the completion of their training. The green also happens to be in front of the armoury.
And so the 50-odd new police parade in their blue uniforms - dark berets and sulus, light shirts - while in the background soldiers make off with the weapons.
I was last at these barracks during the coup fronted by Speight in 2000. I was here for the funeral of a policeman, shot dead one night when he got in the way of a marauding group of Speight's supporters.
I remember his two young children, wide-eyed and dressed in their Sunday best, and I remember his widow, who spoke of her hope that her husband's murder might be a lesson for Fiji.
But in November that year, eight soldiers died in a mutiny at the Queen Elizabeth Army Barracks.
The motives of Rabuka and Commodore Bainimarama, of course, are diametrically opposed. Though they are both indigenous, Commodore Bainimarama claims he is acting for all Fijians.
He wants rid of bills that would give exclusive foreshore and land rights to the indigenous people.
In a country of such political complexity, it's impossible to gauge who has what support and from where it comes.
Although Commodore Bainimarama calls it a "clean-up", commentators agree it is a coup by another name and that if he goes through with it, he might one day find himself in that same courtroom where Rabuka now sits.
