Word: coups
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...months before he appointed himself President and put Fiji's elected leaders under house arrest, military commander Frank Bainimarama had been threatening to stage a coup unless Laisenia Qarase's government abandoned plans to pardon those behind the abortive coup and mutiny of 2000. But some in Fiji say Bainimarama, who during the mutiny narrowly escaped assassination by rebel troops, has another motive: ending a police probe into the killings of four soldiers from the mutinous special-forces unit...
...flight was captured by video cameras. The would-be military assassins were allies of the men who had tried to overthrow the government the same year. During the past six years, Bainimarama has neither forgotten nor forgiven the actions of the rebel soldiers or the leaders of the coup...
...Bainimarama has become a coup leader himself. This week he overthrew the South Pacific nation's lawfully elected government of Laisenia Qarase. It is Fiji's fourth coup in two decades. Before he took the final step, declaring himself president, the military man had thundered for months against the government's move to grant amnesty to the 2000 coup plotters. Bainimarama's talk became more strident in recent days, as the military tightened its grip on security personnel, the bureaucracy and the country's media...
...stance has won him malevolent enemies. An officer says he has received numerous death threats, and there is fear in the military's higher ranks that Bainimarama has been targeted for assassination-a fate he narrowly escaped in 2000, during a failed mutiny in the wake of the coup. The Commander is constantly shadowed by eight bodyguards in bulletproof vests. There are rumors that some senior officers now want the Commander removed. "There is a split in the ranks as well," one officer told Time. Despite the threats, Bainimarama gave no sign of backing away from his vow to remove...
...herself was taken hostage by the rebels. All three deny rumors that they have been asked to serve in a potential alternative government. However, Ganilau told Time he has been talking to the military "when asked, on ceremonial matters." The split between backers of the abortive 2000 coup and those who would stage another coup rather than see its perpetrators freed goes right through the heart of indigenous Fiji. -By Rory Callinan/Suva