From Matangi Tonga Magazine, Vol. 15, no. 4, January 2001.

By Pesi Fonua.

Dr Tupeni Baba, the Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Fiji’s deposed government of Mahendra Chaudrey, and a man who has been held hostage twice—first by Steven Rabuka in 1987 and again by George Speight in 1999, visited Tonga at the end of 2000.

Tupeni said that the biggest problem that Fiji was facing was that, “technically we can’t have a leader, because since Mara, the chain of events has made it difficult to legally put some one in place. Iloilo was sick even before he took over as president, and by law Rabuka can’t be president.”

But apart from this leadership problem, Tupeni suggested that a solution to the current Fijian Political crisis was for the president to call for the formation of a government of National Unity. Then he could appoint a leader from the previous elected government to negotiate with other parties to appoint members for a Government of National Unity. “A government of national unity will include all members of parliament from both houses, and then immediately work on the constitution to satisfy grievances.”

Forgetting

He said that the Interim Government running Fiji at the moment was established under the State of emergency, “and is not accountable to anyone, they were not elected and they can do anything.

“It is trying to do too much, passing new media laws, new constitution, new land laws, forgetting that an Interim Administration is limited to getting things going and preparing for the next election,” he said.

“And if we have an election tomorrow, we will win again.”

With regards to the support that George Speight and his supporters were getting from the Council of Chiefs, Tupeni said that the Council of Chiefs had been politicised. “They are singing political tunes. It started in 1987, when Rabuka used them to bless his coup, and then moved the Council of Chiefs to establish the political party called the SVT, which won the election in 1990.

“But since then the SVT began to lose power and they lost the 1999 election. They lost earnings from businesses that were linked up with them. Some were not paying taxes, and contracts for Mahogany deals and things like that. People slowly began to understand that it was not about race and it was not about indigenous rights at all.”

Destabilising

It was not possible for his elected government to have the loyalty of both the police and the military because, “the Commissioner of Police was a military person appointed by the SVT government. Some members of the military were put there by Rabuka and SVT, and when we came into power they became themselves, on dry ground. The politicians who were elected or not elected worked toward destabilising the government from Day One.

“We have to remove the trouble elements from both the police and the military, and the politicising of the Council of Chiefs has to be dealt with.

“We should look at the military and make sure that its composition reflects the multi-cultural composition of the Fijian society, and anybody who has any involvement in Coup should come under certain restrictions with regards to their involvement in Fijian Politics.”

Warped and naïve

Tupeni said he had long talk with George Speight while he was held hostage. “He has warped and naïve views on a number of things. He was thinking more of a Vanua government elected by the Vanua.”