(PINA/IFEX) – On 5 July 2000, PINA expressed concern over the repeated intimidation and harassment of journalists inside Fiji’s rebel-held parliamentary complex in suburban Suva. On 4 July, a photojournalist from “The Fiji Sun” newspaper, Sitiveni Moce, was beaten up inside the complex, where he had gone to cover a media conference with rebel leader […]
(PINA/IFEX) – On 5 July 2000, PINA expressed concern over the repeated intimidation and harassment of journalists inside Fiji’s rebel-held parliamentary complex in suburban Suva. On 4 July, a photojournalist from “The Fiji Sun” newspaper, Sitiveni Moce, was beaten up inside the complex, where he had gone to cover a media conference with rebel leader George Speight.
PINA condemned the attack on Moce. The organisation noted that in each of the cases of harassment over the past six weeks, threats have come from “civilians” in the complex, and on each occasion, Speight officials and armed guards have come to the rescue of journalists. PINA is worried about the increasingly volatile situation in the complex area and has called on Speight officials to improve security for journalists and photographers.
At the same time, PINA noted that several of its members have decided not to send journalists into the area and it appreciates their concern for the security and safety of their staff. The organisation added that this is obviously a difficult decision for any news organisation to make as it tries to provide the people with full, balanced and accurate information on the crisis. But safety issues must be paramount under these circumstances.
Also on 5 July, the Fiji Military Forces announced that it is setting up a military exclusion zone around the parliamentary complex. It gave all people inside the zone, including the parliamentary complex, forty-eight hours to evacuate before the area is closed off. The announcement came one day after a twenty-minute shootout near the complex between soldiers and rebels in which five rebel supporters were shot and wounded, two critically. The military accused the rebels of firing grenade launchers during the shootout.
Background Information
On 29 June, rebels held sixteen local and foreign journalists for two hours, local newspapers reported. The rebels claimed the safety of the news crews could not be guaranteed outside the complex, “The Fiji Times” reported. The rebels, who launched an attempted coup on 19 May, denied they were holding the journalists hostage. The journalists had gone for a news conference by Speight, who still holds twenty-seven members of Fiji’s deposed government hostage inside the complex (see IFEX alert of 30 June 2000). On 27 May, Associated Press Television News cameraman Jerry Harmer, a Briton, was shot in the arm and wounded as he filmed a confrontation between Fiji Military Forces soldiers and armed Speight supporters outside the complex (see IFEX alert of 29 May 2000).
On 29 May, the Republic of Fiji Military Forces declared martial law and an interim military government. It came amidst growing lawlessness after the elected government, led by Fiji’s first ethnic Indian prime minister, Mahendra Chaudhry, was seized in an attempted coup by Speight and armed gunmen, including some soldiers. Speight and his indigenous Fijian followers still hold Chaudhry, twenty-five other members of his government and his son, who was his private secretary, hostage.
The coup attempt by Speight and his supporters came amidst a march through Suva by indigenous Fijians protesting what they said are threats to their indigenous rights and land ownership. Indigenous Fijians then looted and burned shops and restaurants owned by ethnic Indians in downtown Suva.
Chaudhry won power in general elections in May 1999. His Fiji Labour Party formed a coalition government which included some indigenous Fijian parties. Fiji’s ethnic Indians are mainly descendants of indentured plantation labourers brought from India by the British colonial government in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
In 1987, following widespread unrest and growing violence after the election of what was seen as an Indian-dominated government, Sitiveni Rabuka, then a colonel, led two coups by the army. Fiji returned to parliamentary government in 1992 elections, with Rabuka voted into power as a civilian prime minister. Chaudhry’s government was elected under a new multiracial constitution adopted in 1997.
