Word: laisenia
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...Commodore Voreqe "Frank" Bainimarama, the decision to remove the government of Laisenia Qarase in a coup on Dec. 5 was painful but simple. "The racist policies of the past," he says, sipping coffee in his office at the Republic of Fiji Military Force Strategic HQ in Suva, "would have taken us to hell-and we would never have come back." For many observers in the outside world, most vocally Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, Bainimarama's actions were an unacceptable interference in the democratic process, but the armed forces chief and now interim Prime Minister is unrepentant. "If you want...
Since overthrowing Fiji's government 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...
...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...
...OUSTED. Laisenia Qarase, 65, Fijian Prime Minister; in a coup-the island nation's fourth in 19 years-led by Fiji's top military leader, Commodore Frank Bainimarama; in the capital, Suva. The bloodless coup, prefaced by weeks of rumors and military movements, is widely attributed to a feud between Qarase and Bainimarama over amnesty for the leaders of a 2000 coup, which Bainimarama had helped quell. Bainimarama placed Qarase under house arrest, dissolved Parliament, imposed a state of emergency and installed Jona Senilagakali as interim Prime Minister. Senilagakali, a military doctor with no political experience, told reporters that democratic...
...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...