Race-based Fiji Govt sworn in, unrest continues

Initially scheduled to take place last week, the inauguration of the new government finally went ahead 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 the government.

Two more prominent rebels were seized by the army on Friday – Timoci Silatolu, an Opposition member of Parliament whom Speight had named as his Prime Minister and Fiji Intelligence Service chief Metuisela Mua.

Laisenia Qarase, a banker who was appointed as interim prime minister by the military on July 3, will continue in the post.

Among the 20 cabinet ministers and eight associate ministers also 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 echos much of what the coup plotters wanted in the first place. Qarase will lead the military backed government for three years after which they plan to hold a general election under a new constitution that will guarantee only indigenous Fijians top positions.

Meanwhile, unrest continued in northern town of Labasa, where Indians are being targeted in retaliation for Speight’s arrest. Indians are also being terrorised in the small town of Korovou, located in Speight’s home district to the North of Suva.

The town is under the control of about 150 Speight supporters and cut off from the rest of the country through roadblocks erected all over the town.

"Even the police are scared. The army is refusing to send down soldiers to protect the residents here," an Indian shopkeeper said. "We are completely defenceless and at the mercy of the mob," he added.