Bay Area Fijians Embarrassed by Coup in Homeland

SAN FRANCISCO -- Fijian immigrants in the Bay Area aren’t particularly unhappy that a military coup has taken place in their country, just that the succession of coups in the last 20 years has made their country politically unstable and a laughing stock in the eyes of the international community.

Fiji’s military on Dec. 4 took over the government after toppling the democratically elected Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase and replacing him with an interim leader, Dr. Jona Senilagakali. It then served termination notices to several senior figures in the administration.

“What the Army Commander (Frank Bainimarama) has done is for the good of the country because Qarase was working against the interests of the Indians,” asserted Krishna Reddy, who immigrated to the United States from Fiji in 1972 so his children, then four and one, could have better educational opportunities. “But four coups in 20 years is surely going to make Fiji lose credibility” internationally.

Other Fijian Americans echoed Reddy’s sentiments. The deposed leader, currently under house arrest, reportedly declared that he was still the prime minister, and that the military’s action amounted to “raping” the Fijian constitution.

Bainimarama had been threatening to topple Qarase’s government since Qarase won a second five-year term in May. The army chief has accused the government of corruption and being lenient toward those responsible for a 2000 coup.

Like the previous coups, two in 1987 and one in 2000, this week’s putsch too had its roots in the same ethnic divide between the majority indigenous population and the ethnic Indian minority. An estimated 12,000 Indo-Fijians left the country in the two years following the 1987 coups. A large number left after the 2000 coup, when Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry, a Fijian of Indian descent, was removed from power.

More
http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=0ca040a1bddbaf438cfca31c06ac2ecf