Politics
Mara's View of the Coup
A TV interview raises more questions about the events of May.
Some time after a request by the Fiji's army in May 2000 to step aside from the presidency, Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara, in reply to a request from a journalist for an interview, let it be known that he would give his side of the story at an appropriate time.
Ten days before his flight from Government House in Suva to the security, so he was told, of a naval boat in Suva harbour, most members of Fiji¹s one year-old democratic government had been taken captive in parliament, to be held there as hostages. They were to be held there for 56 days by George Speight, and assorted gunmen.
- ADVERTISEMENT -
The captives included one of Mara's daughters, Adi Koila Mara-Nailatikau, who was tourism minister in the captive cabinet of prime minister Mahendra Chaudhry.
There were reports that in a phone call to Mara, Speight threatened that his daughter would be the first hostage to die if the army attempted a rescue. Mara went to the naval ship after being warned that some of the violent militants supporting the coup intended to attack Government House.
 |
|
|
In a recorded television interview broadcast by Fiji Television on April 30, Mara spoke publicly about the circumstances of the end of his presidency for the first time and dropped some heavy bombs.
He accused Sitiveni Rabuka‹as an army colonel, leader of a 1987 coup and later Prime Minister‹and police commissioner Isikia Savua, an army man with Rabuka in 1987, of having a hand in the affair.
In comments that trailed the Mara interview both men flatly denied any complicity. Earlier this year an inquiry ordered by President Ratu Josefa Iloilo and held in secret by Chief Justice Sir Timoci Tuivaga, whose resignation is being demanded by the Fiji Law Society, cleared Savua of complicity.
But one of Mara's son-in-laws, Ratu Epeli Ganilau, the former army commander, who at Mara¹s request attended a meeting the then president had with Rabuka and Savua a few days after the coup, supported Mara¹s contention.
After Speight's May 19 assault on parliament soon after 10am, Mara told the interviewer, "the first one to contact me was Rabuka, by telephone. (I'm ready," he said. It was about 11 o'clock. I said what for? And he said, (You've never heard?"
 |
|
|
Mara said he didn¹t know what he was ready for. "He said 'I'm ready', To help I suppose. So I got him to come. Two mornings afterwards (with) Savua." Son-in-law Ganilau also appeared and Mara told him "you should wait until you hear what we discussed. As soon as they sat down, I said 'you two, I want you to know,' and I pointed at Rabuka and Savua, 'you have a hand in this thing."
Interviewer: What was their reaction?
"Oh, you could see it on their face."
Rabuka told Fiji TV he thought Mara¹s suspicions arose from the fact that that the army's Counter Revolutionary Warfare unit, a few of whose men joined Speight as gunmen, had exercised on his plantation on Vanua Levu. And also the fact that we attended church service together on the previous Sunday the 14th and had a grog session after that.
"The commissioner and I explained our situations and after that (he) said ŒOkay I accept you all, your story, we will continue as a group, a security group."
Before the coup Mara issued a libel writ against Rabuka after the publication of a biography in which Rabuka claimed that as an army officer in 1987 he had mounted a coup in the belief that Mara, then opposition leader, had told him to.
Savua told Fiji TV: "I told him I would never support a coup because I did not think, and I did not believe a coup would solve anything." As an army man in 1987 he had seen what the coup produced. "Fijians were told it would improve their way of life. I don't think anything much has happened," he said. "I do not ever believe that is the correct way of going about it."
Other support for Mara came from deposed prime minister Chaudhry and the Fiji Labour Party president, Jokapeci Koroi, one of the party¹s Fijian stalwarts. They said police investigations would get nowhere until there was a change of police commissioner.
Questions about Savua¹s involvement arose when after the May crisis broke he appeared at a meeting at which Speight and his associates attempted to persuade President Ratu Josefa Iloilo to appoint a Speight-led or controlled government.
His presence, or lack of it, at other stages of the coup aroused curiosity. Koroi told the Fiji Times the public had no confidence in him. Mara¹s remarks further ruffled the already rough surface of the local political scene.
More stirring on television came when army officer Lt Colonel Viliame Seruvakula said he was leaving the army to join the New Zealand army as an instructor (which he has done) because he was sickened by the sight of seven coup conspirators walking around free.
They included an army officer, a retired army officer, and well-known businessmen and politicians. Seruvakula said an intelligence list had been sent to the president at Government House.
A presidential spokesman said no such list had ever been received. Police and army spokesmen told the media that investigations into the coup were continuing.
