Author:
Publication: The Hindustan Times
Date: May 22, 2002
Fiji Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase
has sparked a furious row by claiming a coup two years ago was part of
a plan by God to depose the country's Indian-led government. Critics claimed
his remarks amount to blasphemy. Qarase, who first came to power in the
aftermath of the May 2000 coup led by George Speight, told Parliament his
government was in power because it was the will of God. "The SDL coalition
won because it was God's plan," Qarase said.
"The events of May 2000 happened
because of God's plan. I believe God wanted to terminate that government.
The same thing will happen to us if we don't follow God's plan."
In the coup, Speight and a gang
of soldiers stormed Parliament and took Mahendra Chaudhry, Fiji's first
ethnic Indian leader, and his government hostage.
The military later intervened and
installed Qarase as prime minister before eventually organising elections
last year, which Qarase's Soqosoqo Duavata ni Lewenivanua (SDL) party won.
Indigenous Fijians, the bulk of
them Methodists, make up 51 per cent of Fiji's 800,000 people. Indians,
predominantly Hindu, account for 44 percent and racial tension has been
a constant source of political instability in the Pacific nation.
Former Methodist Church president
Reverend Josateki Koroi told the Fiji Times on Wednesday that Qarase's
reference to God was blasphemous.
"It's blasphemous, taking God's
name in vain. Those kind of comments, you cannot say them at all," Koroi
said.
"God gives us the freedom to choose.
We cannot blame God when we choose evil. God is a god of love."
A spokesman for Chaudhry's Labour
Party, John Ali, said the statement showed the true nature of Qarase. "What
God would have asked George Speight, now a resident of Nukulau (island
prison), to hold a legally constituted government hostage and negotiate
a deal under duress?" Ali said.
"If it was God who sent him to remove
the government, then why use Speight and his company?"
Ali said if God had wanted Qarase
to lead the country he would have given him a clear majority instead of
a situation where he had to seek the assistance of the court system.
"Surely God will assist him if that
was so.
"God is almighty and he will remove
Qarase as he has removed others.
In an editorial the Fiji Sun referred
to an earlier coup leader, Sitiveni Rabuka, who had also claimed to be
led by God.
"We thought that we had gone past
those days when our leaders would harp about how they were chosen by God
and that justified all they did," the Sun said.
"Politicians should stick with politics
and never mix their arguments with religion," the Sun said, adding Qarase
appeared to be implying it was right to carry out coups and mismanage public
money.
Qarase was enroute to a state visit
of China where he was due to discuss contracts for logging Fiji's huge
mahogany forests.
Coup critics claimed at the time
it was this valuable timber, and not religion, that was behind the coup.
AFP