Fiji Redux
You
think your country's politics can get weird, you should check out Fiji.
You wouldn't know by the smiles on the faces of most Fijians you meet,
but Fiji is politically troubled. I went there 1987 to do a Christmas
special for American Public Radio featuring island choir singing. It
ended up becoming a strange tale of island politics. The ethnic Indian
population, born of the workers the British had imported to labor in
the sugarcane fields, had become Fiji's ethnic majority and a band of
native islanders, led by Col. Sitiveni Rabuka would have nothing of
that. They staged a coup d'etat. Fiji got booted from the British
Commonwealth.
Australian Playboy and Rupert Murdoch’s tabloids were spreading all
manner of rumor about the coup. The predominant one was that the
American CIA was behind it, that some journeyman "plumbers" from the
Watergate era had set up shop on one of the islands and that the coup
was not staged by locals but by paratroopers from Camp LeJeune, North
Carolina posing a Fijians. I was asked politely by a hotel employee if
I was CIA. Newspapers showed Fijian soldiers posed on tanks. The tanks,
however, were in Israel where Fijians were serving as UN troops.
The
only incident that happened while I was there was one night when two
drunk Fijians clambered to the roof of the Fiji Regent hotel and yelled
to the tourists below: "We’re going to eat you!"
I
spent several nights of military curfew at the Suva Travelodge (a local
attraction because it featured Fiji’s only revolving door) where I met
a heavy artillery dealer. David, a sales rep for a German weapons
manufacturer, was sitting at the end of the bar on the telephone,
trying to arrange a woman for the night. He yelled to me asking if I
wanted one too. My refusal made be the subject of bullying remarks for
the rest of the evening. I dined with him, an Aussie gold miner and
several British High Command officials who were on their way out. David
bullied me about my choice of wines, the stupidity of American
politicians and whatever else came to his increasingly besotted brain.
David’s evening ended when hotel employees restrained him for trying to
grope a female High Command staffer.
 The
next morning I went to church. Church was the only activity permitted
on Sunday – not even sports were allowed -- after indigenous Fijians,
with the support of their chiefs and the Methodist Church decided that
the Hindu population was becoming too strong and proceeded to relieve
them of their power in parliament. Indeed the Indians that the British
had imported to work the sugarcane fields had become Fiji’s ethnic
majority at 51% Later when Rabuka began liberalizing his attitude
toward Indian power the Methodists issued a strong warning that they
would intervene if he pushed it too far.
In
1997 , Col.Rabuka threw in the towel, the economy was gone to hell in a
Yagona (their ceremoial drink) bowl. While we were there, Rabuka was
granted an audience with the Queen, to whom he maintains he did not
apologize. Fiji returned to the Commonwealth even though looking at the
country's currency, you would have never though it left. Fiji had never
printed it own, so the Queen Mum was still gazing, eyes unfocused
perhaps trying to affix them on "Empire") from $20 bill.
But
this a never ending story. In 2000, thugs armed with AK-47s, led by a
guy who called himself Colonel Bill and a businessman named George
Speight, locked Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry (the first ethnic
Indian to gain that office) and 32 Cabinet ministers and MPs in Fiji's
Parliament House. They demanded a new government that excludes ethnic
Indians. Speight did not get his way was convicted as a traitor. Now,
in 2005, there are still investigations going on about the
long-whispered notion that businessmen were behind the coup and that it
could happen again.
But no
tourists were harmed in this movie. You won't outwardly see people
grumble about politics. Fiji has warm, wonderful people, both Fijian
and Indian, and unique cultures.
Bula for them.
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