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India calls for international sanctions against Fiji

After an unelected racially-biased government dedicated to promoting the interests of indigenous Fijians was sworn in on Friday, India, for the first time since the crisis in Fiji began, asked the international community to impose trade and economic sanctions against the South Pacific nation.

"The pressure of full scale trade and economic sanctions is required to quickly reverse the damage which has occurred in Fiji by the unlawful abrogation of the constitution and the dismissal of a legitimately-elected government," External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh told the day-long ASEAN post ministerial conference in Bangkok.

Fiji's elected ethnic-Indian prime minister Mahendra Choudhry's government was ousted in a coup and Chaudhry was taken hostage by rebel leader George Speight on May 19 last.

Earlier in the day in Suva, an unelected racially-biased government dedicated to promoting the interests of indigenous Fijians over those of the minority Indian community was sworn in. Meanwhile, Indians in at least two locations were being terrorised but fears that large sections of the army would come out in favour of Speight were receding.

Singh said, "our assessment is that moderate and more rational elements, who constitute the majority in Fiji, may be prepared to accept sacrifices in the short-term in exchange for a secure, non-discriminatory democratic government based on the rule of law."

He later told Indian newspersons that the 'criminal elements' led by Speight had to be 'completely isolated' to ensure racial harmony and restoration of democracy. "The most important task before the Fijians is restoration of a non-racial government on the basis of the 1997 constitution," he asserted.

"This is a collective challenge for the international community, and any trends to the contrary, as in the case of the current situation in Fiji, need to be firmly reversed in order to avoid any repercussions for democracy and stability in the region," Singh said.

The swearing-in of the new government in Fiji finally went ahead on Friday in the wake of a military crackdown in which Speight and hundreds of his supporters were arrested. The rebels had threatened civil unrest if they were excluded from government.

Two more prominent rebels - Timoci Silatolu, an opposition member of parliament whom Speight had named as his prime minister and head of the Fiji Intelligence Service Metuisela Mua - were taken into custody by the army on Friday.

Laisenia Qarase, a banker who was appointed as interim prime minister by the military on July three, is to continue in the post. Among the 20 cabinet ministers and eight associate ministers sworn in by President Josefa Iloilo was one Fiji-Indian, George Shiu Raj, who will serve as assistant minister of regional development. He was ranked last in the government line up.

Although the new government represents a big defeat for Speight, Qarase's own strongly expressed indigenous nationalism echoes much of what the coup plotters wanted in the first place. Qarase will lead the military-backed government for three years when general elections will be held under a new constitution that will ensure that only indigenous Fijians hold top positions.

Even as the government was sworn in, unrest prevailed in the northern town of Labasa where Indian men have been targeted in retaliation for Speight's arrest. Indians were also being terrorised in the small town of Korovou, located in Speight's home district to the north of Suva.

The town was under the control of about 150 supporters of Speight and cut off from the rest of the country through roadblocks erected at each end of the town. "Even the police are hiding scared. The army is refusing to send soldiers to protect residents here," an Indian shopkeeper said. "We are completely defenceless and at the mercy of the mob."

Two New Zealand pilots taken hostage on Thursday in Savusavu were released unharmed. They had been held in the remote village of Nabalebale, the home of special forces soldier Ilisoni Ligairi, who jointly led the May 19 coup with Speight and is now in military custody.

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