SUVA, Fiji -- Tensions rose outside Fiji's parliament today as coup leader George Speight and his armed escort confronted soldiers guarding the building where Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry has been held hostage for a week.
After Speight and about 20 of his gunmen walked down the main driveway of the sprawling thatch-roofed compound stormed last Friday, a balaclava-clad gunman was involved in a scuffle at a roadblock manned by about 40 armed soldiers and police.The gunman pointed his rifle at a soldier's chest but no shots were fired and Speight and his group went back inside the parliament grounds after shaking hands.
Some of the island's traditional chiefs involved in Friday evening talks were hoping the crisis could be resolved by Saturday but the Pacific island nation prepared for an international backlash and an exodus of ethnic Indians after the chiefs urged the president to remove the prime minister and pardon Speight and his men.
The Great Council of Chiefs on Thursday sought the replacement of Chaudhry, Fiji's first ethnic Indian prime minister, with an interim government run by a council of advisers under President Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara.
The chiefs also want the constitution revised to guarantee only an indigenous Fijian can be prime minister of the Pacific island nation, where ethnic Indians dominate the tourism and sugar-based economy.
"There'll be an exodus of Indians wanting to leave. It looks very bad," sugar union leader Jaganath Sami told Reuters.
Most of the chiefs are elderly men chosen from royal families by their local clan groups, although some are government nominees. They appoint the country's president and vice-president, who must both be indigenous Fijians.
However, Speight has said he is still not happy with the chiefs' plan and a delegation of about 15 of the chiefs arrived at the compound, set amid lush hills and native bushland, Friday for further talks.
Hundreds of indigenous Fijians have gathered at the parliament complex to support Speight.
His group of gunmen appears to have grown during the week from around seven to 20, and they have evidently experienced little difficulty in obtaining supplies of food and clothes.
The gunmen mingle freely with police and supporters who sing traditional songs and Methodist hymns during kava-drinking ceremonies and traditional banquets. Kava is a mild narcotic.
Local journalists said Mara had earlier met Royal Fiji Military Forces Commander Frank Vainimarama and decided to increase the police and army presence at the roadblocks.
The scuffle at the roadblock near the Parliament House gates broke out when Speight and his men tried to move barbed wire coils and spikes so a car carrying food supplies could enter.
The head of the chiefs' delegation told Reuters that he had spoken to Mara and asked him to push back the police and army to avoid unnecessary tension.
Earlier on Friday about 15 part-time army engineers matched into the parliament in support of Speight. Fiji Television identified their leader as Josepa Savua, the brother of Fiji Police Commissioner Isikia Savua.
Many Fijians resent the wealth that ethnic Indians have acquired since their ancestors were brought to Fiji in the last century to work sugar plantations and racial tensions have mounted since the abrasive Chaudhry took power a year ago.
Despite the chiefs' concessions to his demands, Speight has so far spurned their proposals because they include an interim government under Mara for a "definite" but unspecified term, instead of recognition of their self-proclaimed government.
Speight also says Mara must step down as well before Chaudhry and some 30 other hostages--including Mara's daughter, Tourism Minister Adi Nailatikau Mara--could be freed.
Australian Prime Minister John Howard on Friday expressed dismay at the chiefs' proposals. "If a country allows somebody to take hostage a democratically elected prime minister...and behave the way he has behaved, if you give that person a pardon you are in effect suspending the rule of law," he said.
Australia's Labor opposition said protests could include recalling diplomats, seeking Fiji's suspension from the 54-nation Commonwealth group of mostly ex-British colonies, suspending some of Australia's A$22 million (US$13 million) aid programme and cancelling defence co-operation.
Great Council of Chiefs chairman Sitiveni Rabuka, who led two coups against an Indian-dominated government in 1987, told reporters: "It's bad for Fiji, one way or the other."
Diplomatic sources suggested about 50,000 Indians left Fiji after Rabuka's coups. Indians now form 44 percent of the 800,000 population and ethnic Fijians 51 percent.
"The consequences of any unconstitutional seizure of power on U.S.-Fiji relations would be very substantial and very detrimental to Fiji's standing in the international community," a U.S. spokesman said.
New Zealand's Ministry of Foreign Affairs warned against travel to Fiji until further notice.