Heavily armed Fijian troops put up roadblocks throughout the capital on Monday night as fears of a fourth coup in 20 years gripped the South Pacific nation.
Troops cut off several roads entering Suva and began guarding the president’s residence, a Reuters witness said.
Truckloads of armed soldiers earlier left the country’s main barracks in Suva and embattled Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase was forced to fly by helicopter back into Suva due a army roadblock.
Fiji’s military chief has threatened to topple Qarase’s government claiming it is corrupt and soft on those behind Fiji’s last coup in 2000.
”Security forces will be out there and will ensure the security of all the people of Fiji,” commander Frank Bainimarama said at a news conference inside the main Suva barracks.
Bainimarama did not say he was taking over the country, but that police weapons had been confiscated as a warning not to confront the military.
”It is clear Fiji is on the brink of a coup,” Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer told his Parliament.
Earlier on Monday armed troops seized weapons from the police tactical response unit, the only armed police group, and entered a second police armoury.
”There will be no violent confrontation with the military, they are armed, we are not armed,” Fiji’s acting police commissioner Moses Driver told a news conference in Suva.
Bainimarama has said he will ”clean-out” Qarase’s government, which was re-elected in May for a second five-year term, but that it will be a peaceful transition.
Qarase told Fijian radio on Monday morning that he remained in control and has called an emergency Cabinet meeting for Tuesday.
Fiji has suffered three coups since 1987.
Resistance
Downer said the military was trying to ”slowly take control” as there was a split in its ranks over whether to stage a coup.
”They are now reaching a point, the military, where they are trying to persuade the prime minister to stand down without actually mounting a coup,” Downer earlier told Australian radio.
”My guess is that within the military there is a fair bit of resistance to these tactics and quite a lot of resistance to a coup. There isn’t an inclination to mutiny against the commander, so it’s a torturously complicated situation.”
There was no obvious signs of a split in the military.
Fiji’s great council of chiefs called for calm on Monday and for the country’s military chief to return to negotiations with the government over his grievances.
”I think fear has started to emerge with the public at large,” said acting police commissioner Driver.
The Fiji Daily Post said Bainimarama had drawn up a 13-member interim cabinet to be led by an unidentified member of Qarase’s government as interim premier.
It quoted unidentified sources as saying that the list included two former prime ministers and that Bainimarama had chosen a portfolio for himself.
Fiji’s latest political crisis has alarmed its South Pacific neighbours, with Australia sending three naval ships to the area in case it needs to evacuate holidaying nationals. Bainimarama has said his military would oppose any foreign intervention.
The United States, Britain and the United Nations have all warned Bainimarama not to attempt to take over the government, with concerns that another coup would devastate the fragile local economy based on tourism and sugar. -Reuters