Fiji wakes to calm after court decision

SUVA - The army withdrew from around Fiji's parliament today and people turned up to work as usual a day after the nation's highest court declared illegal a military-backed interim government installed last year.

Despite fears of a new outbreak of the racial violence that marred Fiji's South Seas image last year after George Speight took the country's first ethnic Indian Prime Minister hostage, the country appeared calm.

The fate of Fiji's 800,000 people, 44 per cent of whom are Indian, now rests in the hands of President Ratu Josefa Iloilo, an elderly and fragile statesman, commentators said.

"Those who might be tempted to regard it (the ruling) as a backward step, and there are a few who will seek to promote it as such, should wait while the country allows the President to do his job," the Fiji Times newspaper said in an editorial.

Iloilo said he would consult the Great Council of Chiefs, Fiji's traditional enclave of indigenous rulers, on March 8. He would then announce the way forward "in accordance with the law."

"At the same time, however, we must also take account of the wider national interests in terms of the welfare of the people, and peace, security, order and stability in our society," he added in an address to the nation last night.

Under overcast skies as tropical Cyclone Paula passed to the southwest of Fiji, police manned customary roadblocks into the seaside capital Suva.

But a heavy military presence around the government buildings where the Court of Appeal sat had been withdrawn.

The army, which appointed the interim government after Speight, proclaiming himself a champion of indigenous Fijian rights, stormed parliament last May 19, declined to comment.

It said it would wait for the President's decision.

The Court of Appeal, made up of Commonwealth judges, ruled yesterday that the interim government was not legitimate.

It said the parliament elected democratically in 1999 had not been dismissed, and the 1997 Constitution, which gave the large minority Indo-Fijian community the same political clout as indigenous islanders, remained the law of the land.

Interim Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase said he would prepare to return Fiji's 320 coral-rimmed islands to constitutional, democratic rule. But he warned it would take time.

Ousted Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry said during a visit to India that the ruling meant he was still Prime Minister.

But the Fiji Times, citing unnamed officials, said the interim Government would prefer to hold a new general election. "We go to the polls," the newspaper said.

Political violence has simmered beneath Fiji's steamy tropical surface since Speight's coup.

Speight, how awaiting trial for treason, held Chaudhry and most of his multiracial government for 56 days.

Indigenous Fijians, who fear the economic supremacy of the Indians brought in 200 years ago to work the sugar plantations set up by British colonial masters, ransacked Indian-owned businesses and Indian villagers were chased from their homes.

The clashes mauled Fiji's important tourism, textile and sugar industries, sending the economy into free-fall last year.

Most political parties in Fiji welcomed the court ruling as a "triumph for democracy."

But the Soqosoqo ni Vakavulewa ni Taukei (SVT), Fiji's main indigenous party, warned it would not agree to the return of the ousted Chaudhry, who critics say tried to water down laws giving indigenous Fijians exclusive right to own the land.

Australia and New Zealand have appealed for a speedy return to democratic rule and US ambassador to Fiji, Osman Siddique, welcomed Fiji back into the community of democratic nations.

- REUTERS

Transcripts: Fiji Court of Appeal judgment

Audio

(9 minutes, Courtesy FM96)

Herald Online feature: the Fiji coup

Full text: Fiji High Court rules in favour of Chaudhry

Fiji President names new Government

Main players in the Fiji coup

The hostages

Fiji facts and figures