A plan to grant amnesty to those who took part in a Fijian coup five years ago has sent the political temperature rising ahead of next year's elections but Fiji's Police Commissioner Andrew Hughes is adamant. No more coups. "I'm not going to let it happen. The military have also said they're not going to let it happen," Hughes told AFP in an interview.
"To have a coup you have to have elements of the police and military onside and at the moment it's just not going to happen." Previous election victories by the ethnic Indian-dominated Labour Party have both ended in coups in this South Pacific nation of 900,000 people.
A 1987 Labour victory prompted a military coup one month later and another win in 1999 lasted only a year before the government was toppled at gunpoint.
Mahendra Choudhry was marking the anniversary of his 1999 election when a group of special forces soldiers led by failed businessman George Speight invaded Parliament, holding Fiji's first ethnic Indian prime minister and his government colleagues hostage for 56 days. Five years on, the consequences of that rebellion are still being played out as jockeying begins ahead of elections due by September next year.
The government of Laisenia Qarase - first appointed interim Prime Minister in 2000 and re-elected in 2001 elections - wants to pass a law which would offer amnesties to those who took part in the putsch. His Fijian coalition includes supporters of the May 2000 coup,
Qarase says the bill is about healing the rifts caused by the uprising which left 16 people dead. He points to provisions allowing for compensation for victims of the upheaval. Choudhry countered that instead of healing the rifts, the bill is driving a deeper wedge between the country's races.
The amnesty move highlights splits between the indigenous Fijian population and the Indo-Fijian minority, descendants of sugar cane workers who now make up about 40 percent of the population.
A June opinion poll in Fiji showed 44 percent of the population was against the bill, 35 percent was for it and 12 percent did not care. A total of 55 percent of Fijians supported it while 60 percent of Indians were opposed to it.
The amnesty controversy has also prompted friction amongst the Fijian elite, especially between the nationalist-leaning government and military commander Voreqe Bainimarama, who leads a force made up almost exclusively of ethnic Fijians.
Bainimarama played the central role in arresting Speight and his co-conspirators in July 2000, although Choudhry's government was never restored.
The issue is also personal. Shortly after the coup, a group of rebels in November 2000 attacked the military headquarters at Queen Elizabeth Barracks outside the capital Suva with the aim of killing Bainimarama.
Bainimaramara warned his forces could act against the government if the amnesty bill is passed, prompting Australia to warn Fiji of the need for political stability.
Bainimarama and other critics argue the reconciliation bill, due to return to parliament in December, would cause a breakdown of the rule of law and encourage future coups.
Qarase introduced the Reconciliation, Tolerance and Unity Bill in May, ensuring race will more than ever be the focus of next year's elections. It allows amnesties for coup protagonists if they were judged to have acted out of political rather than criminal motives. Speight and two other key plotters, who are serving life sentences for treason, would be able to apply for amnesties. The applications would be considered by a government-appointed reconciliation and unity commission which would decide whether their motives were political rather than criminal.
Qarase's United Fiji Party rules in alliance with the staunchly nationalist Conservative Alliance which has links to some of the coup conspirators. Speight won a seat for the conservatives in the 2001 election but couldn't accept it because he was in jail.
Choudhry's predominantly Indo-Fijian Fiji Labour Party is the main opposition party. Changes to the 1997 constitution were designed to encourage the political parties and the races to work together but have polarised the races even more, Dakuvula said.
The Indo-Fijian opposition is powerless to stop the amnesty plan but government attempts to curb opposition by the stubborn Bainimarama have had no effect. He has the support of President Ratu Josefa Iloilo, the only person with power to dismiss the military leader. Even without the amnesty bill, there have been many signs the government is not fully committed to prosecuting coup instigators.
Although Speight and two other key plotters are behind bars, some other leading figures have been released from jail quickly despite long sentences. Peter Ridgway, the Australian prosecutor responsible for bringing them to court, was refused a renewal of his contract and sent home.
Hughes, also from Australia, says more than 2,500 people have been prosecuted over the coup and there are about eight investigations left to complete. He is determined to see them through despite the setbacks.
"Countless people were made homeless and property totally destroyed, women raped. "It was a savage period of history and I think that justice has to prevail and the rule of law must prevail," he says.
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