Political crisis in Fiji takes turn for worse

SUVA - Fiji's political crisis deepened yesterday with the Prime Minister and nationalist rebels squabbling over a delay in the swearing-in of a new government and a report of a possible breakaway administration.

Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase said the swearing-in ceremony had been postponed because the President was ill, but the rebels, who opposed Qarase's appointment and wanted a larger role in government, said they had forced the delay.

The rebels, led by George Speight, stormed parliament on May 19 and held Fiji's first ethnic Indian premier Mahendra Chaudhry and most of his cabinet hostage for 55 days in the name of indigenous Fijian rights.

They freed them last week but have threatened further action.

"We are prepared to do something dramatic again," rebel spokesman Joe Nata said.

"Don't forget, we took over parliament and held hostages for what we believed in."

But the capital appeared to have returned to normal on Wednesday and there were no reports of unrest.

Chaudhry's ousted People's Coalition, which is demanding to be reinstated, is meeting on Thursday at the western village of Sorokoba to discuss its "action plan" for the future.

One option would be to set up a government-in-exile in the west of the main island of Viti Levu, the centre of the ethnic-Indian dominated sugar cane industry.

But Labour Senator Dalpat Rathod rejected reports of plans for a sovereign state in the west.

"To disintegrate the country would be the last option to be considered," he told Reuters.

The rebels, whose overthrow of Chaudhry's multi-racial government has plunged Fiji into political and economic crisis, said the swearing-in ceremony had been cancelled because they were unhappy with the list of new ministers.

Speight was upset he was not consulted before the government was announced on Tuesday and said he would meet military-backed Prime Minister Qarase and the ailing Iloilo later on Wednesday.

"We are looking for a solution that's good for our country but more particularly that's good for our Fijian people," Speight told Sky News television in Australia.

Qarase said the swearing-in of his new government, which has no rebel supporters in key cabinet positions, was postponed until further notice because Iloilo was ill.

Iloilo had been backed by the rebels, but defied Speight by appointing Qarase to the post of Prime Minister on Tuesday.

Iloilo, who has Parkinson's disease and relies on bottled oxygen, shook considerably while he was being sworn in on Tuesday and had to be helped into a car after the ceremony.

Most of Speight's 200 supporters left the compound during the night and the last filed out today.

Armed soldiers then moved into the compound for the first time since the crisis began and swept it for weapons.

Some of Speight's supporters set parked cars on fire and threw documents into the flames as they left the parliament complex. Many moved in a group to the village of Kolabu, about 19km east of Suva.

Witnesses reported later that a group of at least 300 people had gathered at the Kolabu school. Nata said other supporters had broken into smaller groups for "strategic reasons."

Fiji's military said there were no reports of serious unrest and hoped there would be no more trouble.

"We are not taking special measures," military spokesman Major Howard Politini told Reuters.

"We think it will work out peacefully through discussions."

The military has extended its emergency rule until the end of July in response to rebel warnings of new unrest but has yet to give any indication whether it is prepared to take a harder line against Speight and his nationalists.

Suva's shops were open for a third day on Wednesday and streets in the harbour-front capital were bustling with activity.

- REUTERS