Fiji The Big Chill Settles over Paradise

By Howard G. Chua-Eoan

As the clocks on Suva's gray stone government buildings struck 10 a.m., the eleven men moved silently into Parliament. One wore a smart lightweight jacket over a striped shirt and tie and a sulu skirt wrapped around his waist, appropriate attire for the steamy, tropical capital of Fiji. The others, however, wore army fatigues and carried machine guns. Inside the chamber 51 members of the Fijian Parliament sat listening as a colleague expounded on the history of the islands. "Peace and harmony is the governing principle on which the Fijians have been running their lives," said Taniela Veitata. "This is in contrast to what Mao Tse-tung believed -- that political power comes out of the barrel of a gun."

At just that moment the armed men made their entrance and quickly circled the room. Their leader, the man in the sulu, walked quickly across the floor to the speaker's dais. "This is a military takeover," announced Lieut. Colonel Sitiveni Rabuka. "Stay down and remain calm." In minutes Rabuka and his men rounded up the recently installed Prime Minister, Dr. Timoci Bavadra, and the 27 members of his ruling coalition. After placing the politicians in military detention, Rabuka declared that he was in command of the country.

The bloodless coup d'etat and kidnaping last week stunned a country that, from its first sighting by European explorers in 1643, seemed to be stirred only by the tide washing over coral reefs into palm-fringed lagoons. It was the first military takeover ever in the South Pacific. Fiji's democratic neighbors, including Australia and New Zealand, unanimously condemned Rabuka's actions. Even more disturbing was the coup's racist factor. Rabuka and his colleagues were expressing the resentment of ethnic Fijians against the recent political inroads of ethnic Indians. Bavadra's government, elected just last month, was the first with a majority of Indian politicians.

In this century Fijians of Indian descent, whose ancestors were brought in by the British colonial government to work sugar plantations, have come to dominate the country's economy. Ethnic Indians make up 49% of the population and are the largest group on the islands, much to the chagrin of the indigenous Fijians, who make up 47% of the island nation's 715,000 people. Since Fiji gained independence from Britain in 1970, racial tensions had been held in check by the government of Prime Minister Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara. But in April -- with the support of Indians and both poorer and educated young Fijians attracted by his left-leaning coalition's pro-labor platform -- Bavadra, an ethnic Fijian, and his Indian-dominated party came to power.

Barely two weeks after the election, 6,000 people marched through the streets of Suva to protest that only seven of the ruling coalition's 28 M.P.s were indigenous Fijians. The demonstrators declared they had no confidence in the new government and demanded changes in the constitution to guarantee Fijian rule. In the weeks that followed, Bavadra's opponents announced plans for a campaign of civil disobedience. Government buildings were damaged in a series of gasoline-bomb attacks.

Insurrectionist Rabuka, who denied last week that he was motivated by personal ambition, quickly showed his ethnic sympathies. The 15 men he appointed to a Council of Ministers included a large majority of native Fijians and are expected to follow policies favoring Fijians. Mara is Rabuka's new Foreign Minister, and will drop Bavadra's nonaligned stance in favor of a pro-Western foreign policy. Rabuka is highly popular and faces little dissent from within the army, whose troops are 95% ethnic Fijian.

Rabuka's takeover was slowly, if incredulously, accepted by Fijians, though some banks reported queues of people withdrawing money. Elsewhere the outcry against the coup was loud and clear. Prime Minister David Lange of New Zealand and Prime Minister Bob Hawke of Australia conferred by phone, then condemned the coup. Hawke called the events a "tragedy," and said he hoped that "parliamentary democracy can be restored." Both men were expected to exert diplomatic pressure on the regime. However, each ruled out military intervention. Washington, too, expressed concern at the overthrow of Bavadra.

At week's end, when Indian shopkeepers and workers went on strike to protest the coup, Rabuka abolished trade unions. He simply ignored the Governor General, Ratu Sir Penaia Ganilau, the representative of Queen Elizabeth as Fiji's head of state, who declared a state of emergency to meet an "unprecedented situation which must not be allowed to continue."

The new regime lost no time cracking down on other forms of dissent. The day after the coup the Fiji Sun said in an editorial, "Democracy died in Fiji yesterday." That night Rabuka shut down all newspapers. In tropical Suva, the big chill had set in.

With reporting by John Dunn/Suva