rediff.com: Fiji military confident of weekend pact: Reuters

Fiji's military said in Suva that it hoped to strike a deal this weekend with rebels holed up in parliament as a Saturday midnight deadline neared for the armed group to free their 27 hostages, including the deposed prime minister.

The military extended its deadline by 24 hours on Friday to midnight on Saturday for the rebels, who stormed parliament seven weeks ago seeking more rights for indigenous Fijians, to clear the area and release their captives.

"We are trying to get an agreement signed as soon as possible, hopefully over the weekend," military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Filipo Tarakinikini told a local radio.

The military has said rebel leader George Speight had agreed to meet a mediator -- a representative of some tribal chiefs -- in an attempt to restart negotiations between the army and rebels to resolve the crisis.

The army has surrounded the parliamentary compound where the rebels have held former prime minister Mahendra Chaudhry, who had been Fiji's first ethnic Indian premier. He has been held with most of his multi-ethnic coalition cabinet since May 19.

Soldiers had taken up positions behind hedges and bushes outside Fiji's parliament in the capital Suva. The rebels have been joined at times by more than 200 supporters.

Major Howard Politini said Ratu Inoke Takivekata had been proposed as a mediator and added that the extension of the deadline had been "a gesture of goodwill... to allow the talks to get off to a good start".

The military announced a new indigenous government on Monday, but has said it will retain executive power until the hostages are freed.

Army Captain Eroni Volavola said on Friday the rebels were demanding the military dissolve its new government, claiming it did not have the political will to protect indigenous rights, and appoint their candidate for president, Ratu Josefa Iloilo -- Fiji's deputy president before the attempted coup.

But the military is standing behind Fiji's new indigenous prime minister Laisenia Qarase, appointed to rule for two years ahead of fresh elections and has rejected Iloilo as president.

The proposed agreement would allow the tribal elders association, known as the Great Council of Chiefs, to intervene and have a say in the selection of a president, a key rebel condition. ''If the agreement is signed it will mean a date will be set for the Great Council of Chiefs meeting," Tarakinikini said.

"On the day the council sits the first thing that will happen is the release of the hostages," Tarakinikini said.

Ethnic Indians were first brought to Fiji in the 19th century by the British to work in the sugarcane fields and now comprise about 44 per cent of Fiji's 800,000 population.

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