473,983 Assassins

When news emerged that Ballu Khan and eleven other conspirators had been arrested for being involved in an assassination plot against the President, the Commander and several ministers, there was a widespread reaction of shock, horror and disbelief. The donor’s darling, Angie Heffernan, and the ex-retired opposition leader Mick Beddoes just couldn’t believe the military’s claims, and asked for evidence. Commentators doubted it was possible, suspected exaggeration or accused the police chief of setting up a smokescreen. But …. lets get real. Around the grog bowls of Fiji, everyone knows that there are 473,983 would- or could-be assassins in Fiji – give or take a few thousand, this way or that.     

Frank’s coup has drawn a very different reaction from Fiji’s separate peoples. It has the backing of the Suva elite and most of the part-Europeans, a few pompous other-worldly chiefs and failed politicians struggling to get back into the limelight. Thanks to Mahen Chaudhry having signed up and Frank’s many years of challenging the despised Qarase government, it has the backing of the overwhelming majority of Indians in Fiji. Its funny to watch what happens whenever anyone says that December 2006 was (or was “perceived to be”) an Indo-Fijian coup,  as did deposed Vice President Ratu Joni Madraiwiwi a few months back and as did a rambling Nepalese economist from USP  this week. In response, the denials come thick and fast, and the politically correct line about ‘cleaning up’ Fiji is quickly reasserted. All this really is a smokescreen. You only need to spend a few hours conducting your own opinion survey on the streets of Suva, Nadi, Lautoka or Labasa to find out that almost all the Indians support Frank’s coup, except for a few National Federation Party politicos who are angry because most positions in the new order went to their arch-rivals the Fiji Labour Party.  

On the other side of Fiji politics, the same survey would show that 473,983 Fijians recorded in the 2007 Census provisional results are even more unanimously against Frank than the Indians are for him. Many will nowadays be guarded and cautious, for good reason. Epeli will tell you ‘can’t say much’, and Isimeli will say he’s not interested in politics. Probe a bit deeper, and tongues will wag more freely, especially after a bowl or two. Check out the reaction to the RFMF’s attempt to smuggle all of its murder suspects in the Rabaka case onto a UN-chartered flight bound for Iraq, and the hatred most Fijians feel towards Frank’s government will come out into the open. Or suggest that the much-despised interim Attorney General, Aiyez Sayed-Keiyum is doing a splendid job as Attorney General and take your readings from the silent reaction or the incredulous eyebrow movements. No-one these days is certain whether Fiji is living under martial law or not, and so everyone is cautious, especially in public places where plain-clothes military snoops bend their ears towards your conversations. But, as some in the Director of Public Prosecutions Office and the Rewa Provincial Executives showed this week, there are still some willing to speak out openly against the current regime.  

Fijians have tried peaceful methods of defiance. In December, the Great Council of Chiefs rejected the regime’s entreaties to recognise its ‘reappointment’ of the President and, earlier this year, it refused Frank’s nominee for the Vice Presidency, Ratu Epeli Nailatikau. Methodist church leaders who denounced the new government as the work of the devil were silenced. The teachers and the nurses challenged the interim government using industrial action, but they too failed. As a result, people all over Fiji have been saying for some time, rightly or wrongly, that they think this ‘nightmare’ will be ended with an assassination. Rumours flow thick and fast that Frank sits alone at night sweating it out on his bed, trusting few around him. Ave Ceasar, but where is Brutus? And all the morbid talk about deaths up at the camp, and about Frank behaving like the military equivalent to Mahen and attending every soldier’s funeral, strengthen that strong indigenous Fijian superstition that what has gone around will come around, that vengeance is nigh and that Frank’s derogatory comments about talatalas and chiefs will earn him, as a commoner and a usurper who has got above his status, some impending retribution.   

Okay, ….maybe some of the 473,983 Fijians would stop short of assassination, but few would shed any tears if it happened. Many are devout Christians and deeply opposed to violence. But the Methodists, easily the largest denomination among Fijians, would exact such vengeance on the military as to make the crusades look like a teddy bear’s picnic party, if the stirring rhetoric is to be believed. And, on top of the give or take 473,983 Fijians, you need to add the increasingly despondent elites, disillusioned by the failures of the ‘clean up’ campaign and angered by the wanton thuggery of Frank’s new order. They too keep whispering about bullets and bombs.

There’s something strange about the assassination plot story. The truth may surface when the unenthusiastic Director of Public Prosecutions Office has to present state’s evidence in court. But just look at the principle suspects. ‘Man of honour’ Jone Baledrokadroka has been under close military surveillance since January 2006, when Bainimarama claimed he had ‘threatened to kill me’. Yet instead of confronting Bainimamara, back then his Marist school mate went off home to work various rural agro-projects in upland Naitasiri. Whenever he’s been in Suva, military minders are close by. Ratu Inoke Takeiveikata was only released from prison a few weeks ago, where he was banged up for plotting the previous mutiny back in November 2000. If what the RFMF say is to be believed, the minute he got out he organised a fresh conspiracy against the commander. The idea of mover-shaker Ballu Khan as the mastermind defies belief. Most probably, the RFMF snoops who have been following these guys around for the past ten months got itchy, wanted to justify their postings, and took the anti-regime bravado of the grog bowl as a sign of a genuine conspiracy. Getting Ratu Inoke Takiveikata back into prison is one in the eye for Gordon Ward. Locking up the arch-conspirator Metuisela Mua and the ex-CRW men surely seems like a good insurance policy for those who must spend the rest of their lives looking nervously over their shoulders.        

But what if its true? Around the Bucket, we’re none too happy with the thought of another coup d’etat, in the literal French sense of chopping off the head of the state. Its not as though everything would then revert neatly to the way it was before December 5^th. Its pretty clear that Bainimarama has the support of the Military Council and, until Mahen jumps ship saying that he wants to contest the next election, easily the most ambitious politician in Fiji is in the wings ready to takeover. So no sniper is likely to relieve Fiji of its trials and tribulations. Better to pin down the commander to elections in 2009, or before, and prepare the groundwork for some better way out of the ever deeper hole into which Fiji is digging itself.