Chaudhry urges India to be more assertive

NEW DELHI, AUG 18: Fiji's ousted Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry believes that India should be instrumental in putting together a road ma...

NEW DELHI, AUG 18: Fiji’s ousted Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry believes that India should be instrumental in putting together a road map for the return of democracy in his country, failing which it should be summarily expelled from the Commonwealth.

“India took a cautious attitude at the time of the coup (on May 19) as the Government was mindful of our safety. But the circumstances now warrant that India should be more assertive. The problems needs to be settled once and for all…Unless Fiji chalks out an acceptable road map (to return to democracy), it should be expelled from the Commonwealth,” Chaudhry told reporters here today.

At the moment, Fiji (like Pakistan) has only been suspended from the Councils of the Commonwealth. Chaudhry, who arrived here two days ago after meeting the leadership in Australia and New Zealand met Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee as well as External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh today to impress upon them the need to keep up the pressure against the illegality of the current dispensation in Fiji and restore his own Government.

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Chaudhry goes to London from here next week and will also visit Paris before flying off to the UN next month, where he hopes to put across his views to the UN and other assembled world leaders. At the Commonwealth ministerial action group meeting on September 15, Chaudhry hopes some action will be put into place that will speak louder than words.

For a start, Chaudhry said, he would be willing to put together a Government of national unity, where native Fijians as well as the ethnic Indians (which make up 44 per cent of the population) would come together. He insisted that the Council of Chiefs in Fiji were supportive of such an idea and that the majority of the native population was against the coup carried out by George Speight on May 19.

Chaudhry also invoked the `Indian’ card at his press conference today, saying it was time “special attention” was given to the repeated ethnic Indian humiliation at home. “The international community, while sympathetic, has not done enough to sustain a multi-racial society in Fiji,” he said, adding, “it can no longer be treated as an incidental issue. The plight of the Indian community must be addressed.”

Asked how India could help out on this score and if military intervention was the answer, Chaudhry stopped short of recommending this course of action. “I don’t think there’s a solution there,” he said.