SS, the spooker knows something we just found out. Fiji still in high risk of a coup. No wonder the tense trading. This guy knows that perhaps the trouble in Fiji is just the beginning not the end.
Oh well, hopefully vanuatu can prpel us until Fiji sorted.
At least we now know the answer.
Fiji's defiant military chief has refused to rule out overthrowing the island nation's government after delivering a series of demands.
Commander Frank Bainimarama, who threatened last month to remove Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase if he did not drop two contentious pieces of legislation, said he would prefer to negotiate a settlement to a crisis which has dragged in Australia and New Zealand.
Asked by Reuters in Fijian and English what he would do if the government failed to meet his demands, Bainimarama said: "We'll go back at them".
RELATED LINKS VIDEO: AFP deny claims Bainimarama also said he did not hold much hope for a meeting of the Great Council of Chiefs, the representatives of Fiji's 14 chiefly provinces who are the nation's ultimate powerbrokers, called for in an effort to resolve the crisis.
He said the council only ever meets "to suit the government's agenda".
Bainimarama said the continuing speculation of more political upheaval was bad for the island nation's fragile tourism- and sugar-based economy, which suffered after a May 2000 coup by armed indigenous nationalists.
Indigenous Fijians make up 51 per cent of the country's 906,000 population while ethnic Indians make up 44 per cent.
Bainimarama said Qarase's government, re-elected for a second five-year term in May, needed to change course but repeatedly refused to answer when asked if he ruled out removing it if Qarase did not redress what he said were its lies and corruption.
"What we've done is we've asked the prime minister to have a look at our requests," Bainimarama told Reuters. "We will pray and fast and do everything and hope that he will act on them."
Bainimarama installed Qarase as interim leader after the May 2000 coup but now believes he is too lenient on its perpetrators and those behind a bloody but unsuccessful mutiny six months later which was linked to it and which almost cost him his life.
Qarase unsuccessfully tried to have Bainimarama removed from office while the commander was visiting Fijian troops in the Middle East last week.
Bainimarama said Qarase must rid the government and civil service of people involved in the 2000 coup - including at least two senior cabinet ministers.
The crisis appeared to ease on Saturday when Qarase said he had dropped a provision from one of the two bills that would have given amnesties to those involved in the 2000 coup. Bainimarama said he would have to see the amended bill before could react.
In a sometimes rambling series of accusations and demands at a media conference, Bainimarama repeated the demand for Qarase to drop the two disputed bills and blamed the government for rising poverty, unemployment and crime rates.
"We do not want them to resign, unless they change the direction that our ship is heading," he said.
Bainimarama backed senior officers who accused Australia of breaching Fiji's sovereignty by sending in eight men they described as mercenaries into the country without clearing proper channels last Friday.
Canberra rejected the claim and said the men were sent to boost security at te Australian High Commission.
The military has also demanded the resignation of Fiji Police Commissioner Andrew Hughes, an Australian, after he said police were investigating whether Bainimarama's threat to remove the government was seditious.
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