Word: coup
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...earlier this month, Military Commander Voreqe "Frank" Bainimarama has made few public comments on how he came by the political opinions that motivated his actions. Over the past year Bainimarama has regularly complained about new laws proposed by the government of Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase, justifying the Dec. 5 coup by referring to the need to stop some of them from being passed. One of these was the Qoliqoli Bill ? controversial legislation designed to hand back control of lagoon, beach and reef access rights to indigenous Fijians...
...Evanson takes a keen interest in Fijian politics, even helping finance the Qarase campaign after the 2000 coup. But he says he felt cheated after Qarase's government pushed ahead with the Qoliqoli bill. "In that first election, the Qoliqoli Bill came up and he [Qarase] said, 'I'm going to be influenced by what New Zealand does,' and so then when New Zealand gave it up and he didn't, I felt double-crossed on that...
...Qarase government, but some observers say it was a substantial sum in Fijian campaign funding. Ganilau's election bid failed, but he has remained influential in military affairs, telling TIME he has recently been advising Bainimarama's military but "only on ceremonial matters" in the lead-up to the coup...
...Earlier this month Ganilau told the Fiji Times that the coup was inspired by the Qarase government's divisive bills, particularly the Qoliqoli Bill and the Lands Tribunal Bill. "The long impasse has propelled the military," he said. "It [the coup] is an illegal act, but the lesser of two evils when you think about the endemic corruption and bad practices that have carried on during the reign of the former administration. I support the cleaning up, but not the means...
DIED. Augusto Pinochet, 91, Chilean general turned dictator who oversaw the torture of some 28,000 and "disappearance" of 3,200 perceived adversaries during his 17-year rule; in Santiago. After ousting Marxist President Salvador Allende in a bloody 1973 coup, the cunning, right-wing Pinochet banned political parties but also instituted free-market policies that stabilized Chile's economy. His 1998 arrest for war crimes as well as his subsequent house arrest offered some comfort to victims of his regime. But he always managed to evade trial, claiming illness and never expressing remorse. In 2003 he said, "I feel...