Margot
Staunton RNZ Pacific senior journalist
George
Speight – a former coup frontman in Fiji – is calling on the
perpetrators of the country’s past political upheavals to
confess.
The ex-convict also described the idea of a
common identity for the country’s citizens as “flawed” and
said iTaukei (indigenous) views must not be
ignored.
Speight made the comments in a submission to
Fiji’s Constitutional Review Commission this week, after
spending 24 years in a maximum-security jail for treason
following the racist 2000 coup.
During his submission
to the government-backed panel on Thursday, he slammed the
2013 Constitution and said the immunity provision should be
removed.
“The clause is unfair… If you want
redemption, you have to confess,” he said, adding that Fiji
could not achieve genuine reconciliation without first
acknowledging past wrongdoing.
Quoting from Proverbs,
he said those who admitted their crimes would find mercy,
while those who tried to hide would never prosper.
“I
have served my time and I don’t feel any malice towards
anyone, ” he said.
The sweeping immunity provisions
have protected those involved in past military and political
coups from criminal prosecution and civil
liability.
Fiji has been rocked by four coups since
gaining independence in 1970. The first two, in May and
September 1987, were led by then-military lieutenant
Sitiveni Rabuka, who is the current prime minister.
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In
1999, Mahendra Chaudhry was sworn in as the country’s first
Indo-Fijian prime minister, but the Labour Party leader’s
election stoked racial tension in Fiji.
A year later,
Speight led rebel soldiers from the military’s
Counter-Revolutionary Warfare (CRW) Unit in an armed
takeover of the then-coalition government. Chaudhry and his
government were held hostage for 56 days.
The failed
businessman pleaded guilty to treason after the unsuccessful
coup and received the death penalty, which was later
commuted to life imprisonment. However, he was granted
a presidential pardon and released from prison on 19
September 2024.
Indigenous views
Speight
condemned the concept of a common name for the people, an
issue that has sparked widespread debate in Fiji.
In
April the Great Council of Chiefs (GCC), the apex indigenous
body in Fiji, told the Commission that the term “Fijian”
should be exclusively reserved for the iTaukei (indigenous)
population.
The GCC’s proposal prompted a backlash
from political parties, civil society groups and human
rights organisations across the country.
Chaudhry,
still the Fiji Labour Party leader, told Pacific Waves
at the time that the GCC’s call was “racially
divisive”.
“We [the Labour Party] are opposed to that
idea and we’ve made it very clear that there can be only one
nationality in the nation,” the veteran politician
said.
However, Speight told the Commission the idea
was fundamentally wrong.
“I understand the principle
behind it, I understand the reasoning behind it, but it’s
flawed. It makes people second-guess something so special
and so unique and God-given, their ethnic identity, unless
we fix the justice element,” he said.
“All of the
different ethnic groups in our country can’t live together
very long, because it’s an unfair society.”
“The Bill
of Rights is great, it covers everybody, no problem. But
each ethnic group has its desire to continue with its
uniqueness, and it must be encouraged, but not at the
expense of the greater good,” he said.
Speight also
told the CRC that iTaukei views, including those of the
iTaukei Land Trust Board, should not be
ignored.
“Those voices have to be heard, the process
of hearing those voices and accommodating the issues brought
up must never and forever going forward be labelled as
racist anymore because they’re not, with
respect.”
“Because iTaukei, when they get up and
speak, it has been a common practice to label it all as
racist, and that’s not the case. No one should feel
threatened, no one should feel edited, no one should feel
uncertain, because level heads will prevail,” Speight
said.
“Those that push the agenda that iTaukei issues
are not good for the future of this country and should not
be addressed specifically, I ask that they reconsider and
work together with the iTaukei community.”
Speight
also told the Commission that although the
government-appointed Truth and Reconciliation Commission
(TRC) was a “necessary arm of the process of moving
forward”, he had chosen not to appear before it.
“I
just feel that it does not have the teeth or the mandate to
go all the way to actually fix things… until [the immunity
clause is removed], truth and reconciliation in my mind is
premature,” he said.
“I’m grateful to be here,
grateful for the opportunity of the good lord in heaven, and
I’m grateful to the government today, that saw fit to
release me.”
The Rabuka-led coalition government wants
to amend the 2013 Constitution before the upcoming general
elections, having set up the independent commission in March
to consult widely on the
issue.
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