KEY POINTS:
Last month, when thousands of Tongans rioted through the streets of Nuku'alofa, there seemed to be no one in their way: not the police, who stood by in mute resignation as their countrymen smashed and looted their way through shops and businesses, and certainly not the Tongan armed forces. One could hardly blame Tonga's King George Tupou V if he'd cast an envious eye at neighbouring Fiji and wished for a force as efficient and feared as the Fiji Military Forces. Maybe that's why he intends to install his brother as head of the Tongan Army.
He should probably thank his lucky stars that his Army remains small and controllable - and not the law unto itself that Fiji's Army has become.
After three coups, a mutiny and now a "clean-up", the Fiji military is beginning to look like part of the problem. In 2000, after the Speight-led coup and the mutiny that followed it, David Chappell of the University of Hawaii warned of a "coup culture" in which "changing regimes becomes a matter of having the most guns at crucial locations to force one's way on to the rest of the country".
Blame it on Colonel Sitiveni Rabuka, who started it all with two coups in 1987. Thirteen years later, failed businessman George Speight leapt into the fray, backed by soldiers in the elite Counter Revolutionary Warfare Unit (CRW).
Fijian academic Dr Steven Ratuva wrote in 2003 that Fiji's 1987 and 2000 coups had blurred the lines of demarcation between the civil state and the military. They "destroyed this line in a violent way and our attempts to redraw them have been particularly difficult. This has made our democracy even more fragile and unstable".
Just how fragile and unstable has been evident over the past month.
Ironically, the latest threat has come from Bainimarama, the man who delivered Fiji from the 2000 coup and installed an interim Government led by Laisenia Qarase. A few months later the CRW hit back, mounting a failed but bloody mutiny and a botched attempt on Bainimarama's life. Eight soldiers, including five rebels, were killed.
The Fiji Times says the relationship between Bainimarama and Qarase has been deteriorating since last year when the commander made public statements about the release of some of those linked to the 2000 coup. He was ordered to desist but refused to be gagged. The Army then withdrew security for the Prime Minister after the Government surcharged Bainimarama for blowing his budget.
It didn't help that, in August 2005, the Government announced plans to downsize the military.
The standoff has become increasingly bitter and more public. Bainimarama has demanded that Qarase resign. Qarase tried to sack the commander and replace him while he was overseas visiting his troops, but his senior officers ignored the directive from Government House, which then withdrew it.
Until recently, Bainimarama seemed to occupy the high ground, accusing Qarase's Government of corruption, and demanding the removal of Cabinet ministers and officials linked to the 2000 coup, as well as the abandonment of three controversial bills - including one giving amnesty to the coup perpetrators.
But the commodore's insistence on immunity for himself and his men for what is claimed was the cold-blooded killing of the five CRW soldiers captured after the 2000 mutiny puts him in a more self-interested light.
And his continued calls for Qarase's resignation, despite concessions on Qarase's part, has made the Army chief look increasingly erratic.
"Given the barrage of stupefying remarks he has uttered," wrote the Fiji Times, "one wonders whether all sense let alone good sense has abandoned him."
So far the commodore has seemed impervious to appeals. He has thumbed his nose at the country's police force and last month he was dismissive of Fiji's Great Council of Chiefs, saying on radio that the chiefs and their advisers should go sit under a mango tree and drink home brew if they couldn't get the Government to meet the Army's demands.
Bainimarama says he'll listen only to President Ratu Josefa Iloilo, his commander-in-chief, but the ailing president seems too sick and weak to exert any control over him.
In 2000, Bainimarama promised there'd be no more coups on his watch. But on Monday, his men started the "clean-up" he'd been threatening.
A Fijian friend in Suva says it's time more Fijians spoke out against Bainimarama's illegal actions and church-going Fijians have been praying and fasting for two weeks, hoping for a peaceful resolution.
"Bainimarama is acting as if he's above the law. But he has his own agenda - and the people backing him have their own agendas."
