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   Vol.64/No.25            June 26, 2000 
 
 
Protests in Fiji against coup, military government
 
BY MICHAEL TUCKER  
AUCKLAND, New Zealand--Sugar cane farmers in Fiji have refused to harvest the cane crop in wake of the May 19 rightist coup and subsequent military takeover. The coup leaders ousted the Labour Party-led government of Mahendra Chaudhry.

Many other working people have been staying off work. The Fiji Trades Union Congress (FTUC) and the Fiji Labour Party are calling for the Labour government to be restored to office.

Rightist gunmen, led by businessman George Speight, occupied the parliament May 19 taking hostage 34 members of the government. As the takeover entered its fourth week, 31 were still being held. Speight has repeatedly threatened to kill the hostages if there is an attempt to free them by force.

Fiji's military proclaimed martial law May 29 and assented to the rightists' demands. The government and president were dismissed, a new constitution was promised that would exclude Fijians of Indian descent from high office, and the rightists were guaranteed amnesty from prosecution on release of the hostages. However, negotiations stalled after the military rejected the demand for a new government under their control.

The head of the military, Commodore Frank Bainimarama, said that the inclusion of Speight, or others who carried out the coup attempt, in a new government would result in trade sanctions by the European Union, leading to the cancellation of orders for Fiji's sugar harvest. Sugar is Fiji's main export. Most of it is purchased in Europe at prices four times above those on the open market.

Harvesting of Fiji's 4.5 million tons of sugar cane was due to start in late May. But cane farmers refused to begin cutting the cane in order to press for the hostages' release. The boycott is backed by the National Farmers Union (NFU) and the Fiji Cane Growers Association, the two main organizations representing the country's 23,000 cane farmers.

The boycott has been solid in the cane fields of the west and north. "I salute the farmers who have decided to protest," declared FTUC general secretary Felix Anthony June 7. Already, sugar shipments to Malaysia, Korea, and Portugal have been deferred. The Fiji Sugar Corporation announced June 7 that workers at the country's four sugar mills would be laid off. That same day the military threatened the cane farmers, saying that it would order them under martial law to carry out the harvest or face prosecution.

The FTUC has held off calling any further official protest actions since a 24-hour strike May 22 that shut down the country. Instead, it has focused on promoting overseas union bans and trade sanctions.

Many workers have stayed away from work since the May 19 coup. Others have been laid off or are working short hours as economic activity slows.  
 
Impact on garment industry
The biggest impact has been in the garment industry, which employs more than 20,000, people, most of them women. After sugar, garment is Fiji's second major industry. Each accounts for around 30 percent of the country's export revenue.

Garment bosses have pointed to the failure of workers to report to work since the coup as the reason for a production slump, leaving them unable to supply overseas buyers and leading to the loss of new orders. Others have blamed cargo bans imposed by unions in Australia as leaving them unable to import fabric or export finished goods.

Fiji's garment industry mushroomed following the two 1987 military coups led by Sitiveni Rabuka. His regime offered 13-year tax breaks to garment firms to set up in Fiji. Many of the garment plants are large, often employing hundreds, and some well over 1,000 workers. Both indigenous Fijians and Indo-Fijians, as well as a layer of Asian workers, work in the plants. Most are nonunionized, with average earnings around Fiji$80 per week (Fiji$1=US 46 cents).  
 
Layoffs and shorter hours
Hundreds of workers are also working short hours or being laid off from hotels and service industries as the number of tourists arriving in Fiji plummets.

Other industries, from gold mining to village crafts, report jobs being lost or threatened. Schools throughout Fiji have remained closed since the May 19 coup.

Meanwhile, hundreds have been queuing to apply for passports, causing the Immigration Department to run out of blank passport books.

Gangs of Speight supporters based in the parliament compound have made regular forays into the capital, Suva, and surrounding areas carrying out violence, looting, and arson.

The military has imposed a nighttime curfew and has banned protest marches and meetings. Despite this, vigils, rallies, and other forms of protest to demand the release of the hostages have been occurring.

Speight and his supporters claim to be acting as the champions of "indigenous rights" for native Fijians, while targeting Fijians of Indian descent with racist vitriol. The rightists justify their attempted coup by labeling the Labour government as "Indian dominated." Leaders of political parties representing Fiji's hereditary ruling chiefs have expressed support for Speight's goals while criticizing his "methods," as have the leaders of the military, which is almost exclusively composed of indigenous Fijians.  
 
Divisions imposed by colonialism
The institutions of political rule in Fiji were developed under British colonialism and maintained at independence in 1970. These enshrine social domination by the chiefly aristocracy in collaboration with local and foreign capitalists. The demand for "indigenous rights" has become a rallying cry of these ruling layers as they press to preserve this reactionary setup in the face of growing strains. It also finds support, however, among some working people who are indigenous Fijian, who are among the most impoverished layers of the toilers.

As the impasse between the military rulers and the rightists has continued, there have been new signs of the pressures coming to bear on the chiefly order. A meeting of chiefs in the west of Fiji in early June voted to constitute their own confederation of chiefs and called for a separate government to rule Fiji's western provinces. The west is the heart of the sugar cane and tourist industries, and is the most integrated region of the country. Chiefs in the north said they too were discussing the formation of a separate government.  
 
 
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