Mutiny, yes, but not a military coup

By GABRIEL SINGH who lived through
all the four Fiji coups as a journalist.
He now works as
a copy editor with The National.

WHEN is a coup not quite what one expects in a coup … only when it happens in the Land of the Unexpected.
Coups are defined as “a sudden and decisive action in politics, especially one resulting in a change of government illegally or by force”.
Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?
But that has not happened, yet, at least not in the military takeover more akin to a mutiny that greeted Papua New Guineans when they woke up yesterday.
In truth, it is a small group of soldiers propping up a retired colonel who has placed the military commander and senior officers under house arrest.
Yesterday’s actions by the group of rebel soldiers are certainly mutinous, even treasonous, but it is not a coup – yet.
How the State and the Papua New Guinea Defence Force responds to deal with the mutineers will determine whether the country will experience its first military coup d’etat.
Let us pray it never comes to that for no one should ever have to experience the heart-wrenching fear and the trauma of living through a coup.
Coups represent the worst of human traits, a hunger for power at all costs and, more often than not, the looting of the national treasury.
Coups lead to the suppression of basic human rights – rights that are to people what air is to birds. Most people do not appreciate their freedom until it is taken away.
Coups lead to the imposition of a set of beliefs contrary to the basic goodness in every human being. It is why we call ourselves humanity – because we choose to be humane.
Coups divide families, communities, people and the land they take place in. It sows distrust that takes generations, if ever, to heal.
I know. I have lived through four coups since May 14, 1987, when another Melanesian colonel overthrew the democratically-elected government of Dr Timoci Bavadra in Fiji.
That resulted in a racially discriminatory Constitution and sparked the largest exodus of Fijian people in the history of a country that Pope John Paul II described on his 1986 visit to Suva as “a symbol of hope of the way the world should be”.
Those were heady days. I knelt proudly at Albert Park as my beloved and late grandma was accorded the honour of receiving Holy Communion from the head of the world’s billion-plus Catholics.
It was a time in Fiji that was already being termed as its golden era.
But only months later, the third ranked officer in
the military sparked a racist
takeover that still haunts
the country today.
The Singh mataqali (tribe), with a rich history of five generations as proud Fijians, was sent asunder – Australia, New Zealand, the United States of America, Canada and PNG – like the proverbial “careless Ethiopians” we became a lost tribe, scattered all over the world.
As a journalist, I have experienced a then Royal Fiji Military Forces soldier point an M16, with finger on the trigger, in my face, as he ordered us out of The Fiji Times newsroom.
I have lived through long hours of curfew for months on end and have even spent nights in custody for breaching the military imposed curfew.
There were two coups that year. Sitiveni Rabuka retook power just as the Deuba Accord, which would have ushered in a government of national unity, was about to be signed.
Ironically, in 2000 the same military, now known as the Republic of Fiji Military Forces, placed machine guns around the same newspaper offices to protect it against the rampaging mobs supporting George Speight, the failed businessman who held prime minister Mahendra Chaudhry and his government captive for more than 50 days.
The Fiji military has had its own mutiny that year, another dark chapter in what was once a highly regarded institution.
The legacy of that saw the military retaking power six years later from Laisenia Qarase, a man it had installed, and it still controls the country today. It has said it will draw up a new constitution and hold a general election in 2014.
That remains to be seen but it is not, ever, a scenario anyone should wish for Papua New Guinea. So, what coup are we talking about?
One can argue that the real ‘coups’ took place on Aug 2 last year and again on Dec 12 and in the subsequent days in
the “sudden decisive actions” taken by parliament after
the Supreme Court constitutional reference ruling.
The actions of the rebel soldiers are clearly wrong and they have to face the consequences as do those, if anyone did, who put them up to do what they have done.
Now is a fragile time, a time for the re-examination of the country’s collective conscience on what is right and not on who is wrong.
Papua New Guinea must do everything it can to avoid becoming another third world gun-happy country; even if it means both sides of the political divide giving in a little to find common ground.
Let us pray good sense and the rule of law prevails and, more importantly, that nobody dies or is hurt as we negotiate troubled times.
As focus once again centres on the political manoeuvrings in Port Moresby, let us spare a thought and a prayer for those who lost loved ones in the landslide in the Hides region of the Southern Highlands and all those across the country facing hardship.