Q1. What factor led to Fiji’s 2000 coup? Identify the role played by George Speight during the coup?
The factors that led to Fiji’s 2000 coup were:
- National Federation Party (NFP) one no single seat but showed great opposition to Chaudhary's government.
- Chaudhry government embarked on a numerous reforms, of legislative reform, setting up commissions (Education and Human Rights),
- Government lacks mandate as competing interest of NLTB, GCC and army.
- Chaudhary own forceful personality, forged in the long years spent in the trade union movement, also played its part in galvanising the opposition
- The Fiji coup of 2000 was a complicated affair involving a civilian coup d'état by hardline I-Taukei nationalists against the elected government of a Fijian of Indian Descent Prime Minister, Mahendra Chaudhry, on 19 May 2000.
- President Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara attempt to assert executive authority on 27 May, and his own resignation, possibly forced, on 29 May.
- An interim government headed by Commodore Frank Bainimarama was set up, and handed power over to an interim administration headed by Ratu Josefa Iloilo, as President, on 13 July.
- Parliamentary elections in May 1999, had resulted in a decisive victory for the People's Coalition, a multiracial grouping that was dominated by the predominantly Labour Party but which also included three other parties supported.
- Mahendra Chaudhry had become the country's first Prime Minister of Indian descent.
- The election result and Chaudhry's subsequent appointment as Prime Minister angered hardline I-Taukei nationalists.
- His government's hints at land reform caused further alarm.
- Although, National Federation Party (NFP) one no single seat but showedgreat opposition to Chaudhary's government.
- Chaudhry government embarked on a numerous reform, of legislative reform, setting up commissions (Education and Human Rights), instituting inquiries (into corruption), staffing statutory organizations with competent staff (Housing Authority).
- The appearance of movement and change was impressive, but it also embroiled the government in a hugely counterproductive tussle with the media.
- Small things were magnified (Why did Chaudhry appoint his own son, not a civil servant, as his personal assistant on the public pay roll?)in an atmosphere already rife with suspicion and distrust of the government’s motives.
- Government lacks mandate as competing interest of NLTB, GCC and army.
- Chaudhary own forceful personality, forged in the long years spent in the trade union movement, also played its part in galvanizing the opposition.
Role played by George Speight:
Publically, 45-year-old George Speight was the principal instigator.
He was a failed businessman, sacked from chairman of the Fiji Pine Commission and the Hardwood Corporation.
He was declared bankrupt and was about the face court proceedings, when he launched his assault on parliament. Clearly, Speight had his own private grievances, which he carefully hid behind a fiercely nationalist rhetoric.
He portrayed himself as faithful servant of the Fijian cause, an anointed savior of the Fijian ‘race ‘and Fijian cultural hero.
Speight got international media criticism because he showing as face of indigenous Fijian nationalism was articulate, engaging, bantering/teasing/mocking with the international media.
Many individuals and groups work behind the scene for supporting him, especially politicians defeated in last elections otherwise excluded from power, seeking redress and probably revenge against Chaudhary government.
Young businessmen also supported him who was not happy in 1990s and wanted to take benefit from opportunistic access to power and securing loan. Many indigenous Fijian middle class supported Speight’s agenda.
Many unemployed and unskilled Fijian youth spread vandalism in Suva and terrorized the countryside. Many among them have little understanding of Speight’s hidden personal agendas and complex forces at work.
Many supports were victims of the structural reform policies of 1990s Rabuka government, where they remained poor and destitute and others became successful. They became prey of Speights’s rhetoric and easy solutions of getting rid of Indians and revert to tradition, they responded on basis of racial solidarity.
George Speight claims to represent indigenous Fijian interests. Sporting his European name, speaking exclusively in English, drawing on his Australian and American degrees in business for mana, and wearing his designer clothes,
Speight does indeed represent indigenous Fijian interests. But Speight’s indigenous Fijian interests are clearly neither the indigenous Fijian interests of Ratu Mara nor those of the late Dr Bavadra.
Speight’s version of indigenous Fijian interests probably coincides in many areas with Rabuka’s version of indigenous Fijian interests. But the men Speight has surrounded himself with also represent a changing of the guard from Rabuka’s Queen Victoria School Old Boys network to an unlikely coalition of relatively young ‘old boys’ from Marist Brothers High School (Ratu Mara’s alma mater) and Suva Grammar School. George Speight declared bankrupt following the cancellation of several contracts by the Chaudhry government, entered Parliament buildings on 19 May 2000, disaffected elements of the I-Taukei population rallied to his side.
Q2. What do you understand of the hostage crisis and how it was resolved? [Tutorial Questions]
On 19 May a group of hard-line Fijian nationalists led by George Speight, marched into the parliament buildings in Suva and took elected Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry and most of his cabinet hostage for 56 days, throwing the country into chaos. There are 50 cabinet ministers. They were held hostage in the parliament. It was a bloodless coup. On Thursday morning, the rebels tearfully hugged their hostages as they freed them from their long imprisonment in the nations’ Parliament complex. Later in the day the Great Council of Chiefs, Fiji’s traditional power, elected Ratu Josefa Iloilo as the country’s new president. The council made its choice under the gun of a wave of civil disturbances that seemed to be spinning out of control.