An analysis of the causes of the Fiji military coups

Abstract

The Fiji military coups of 1987 are about a Fijian chiefly elite and their supporters who were too reluctant to relinquish their power and privileges. Seventeen years had been a long time in office for the Alliance government. Those who patronised and were patronised by the Alliance government feared change as the Bavadra government had promised a whole array of changes. The chiefly elite teamed up with the Royal Fiji Military Forces to stage the coups. Issues such as the fear of Indian dominance, the alienation of Fijian land and the loss of Fijian way of life, etc., were raised to justify the coups. Land rights and other Fijian cultural institutions were already well guarded by the 1970 Constitution. Fiji coups were more about internal factors. The evidence produced so far shows that the external involvements such as that of the Central Intelligence Agency was neither significant nor has a crucial role. The Fijian elite and others who had much to lose were determined that the new government should be unseated. An examination of the Constitution of the Sovereign Democratic Republic of Fiji bears testimony to how far the Fijian elite have gone to preserve the feudal system of chiefly power and authority which had been eroding through the forces of change and development. The task that the new regime has set for itself is going to be difficult indeed. It will be an irony if the military coups in the end only enhance the decay of the very institutions they were meant to save in the first place.