Fiji Rebels’ Backers Torch Restaurant

A mob armed with sugar-cane-cutting knives torched a seaside restaurant late Saturday--the latest violence near Fiji’s Parliament, where armed rebels are holding 31 hostages.

Firefighters rushed past military checkpoints to get to the blaze, which gutted the Lighthouse Cafe on the edge of Suva harbor.

There were no injuries, and the violent crowd, made up of supporters of rebel leader George Speight, did not confront the army, which was manning roadblocks nearby, military spokesman Lt. Col. Filipo Tarakinikini said.

Already this week, rebels have exchanged warning shots with the army and have beaten a policeman.

Speight and his rebels launched the coup attempt to win more power for the indigenous Fijian majority, demanding a new constitution that bars ethnic Indians from running the country.

Earlier Saturday, negotiations with tribal chiefs from Fiji’s wealthy western provinces failed to persuade Speight to free his hostages. But Speight did say he would back their nomination for a president in an interim government to guide Fiji back to democracy.

The chiefs want former Vice President Ratu Josefa Iloilo to be president, replacing Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara, who was deposed in the standoff, now in its fourth week.

Speight’s support for Iloilo was a minor concession, as the presidency is largely ceremonial. There was no apparent progress in securing the release of the hostages, including deposed Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry.

Chaudhry was Fiji’s first ethnic Indian leader. Ethnic Indians make up 44% of Fiji’s population.

Fijian nationalists have been angered by Chaudhry’s attempts to persuade Fijian landowners to renew expiring leases on farmland held by thousands of ethnic Indian tenants.

At a news conference, Speight accused the military of spreading rumors to discredit his supporters. A front-page article in the Fiji Daily Post newspaper claimed that a woman had been gang-raped in Parliament by Speight’s men.

Speight dismissed the allegation, saying: “I am here to tell the army that they had best stop that sort of rumormongering. It will only serve to incite potential retaliation from certain members of the community.”

Speight said Saturday that he would leave Parliament on Tuesday for a meeting of chiefs in his home region, an hour’s drive from the parliamentary complex.

Talks between Speight and the martial law regime of Commodore Frank Bainimarama broke down a week ago. Bainimarama said then that he would entertain no new demands from Speight and urged Speight and his rebels to free the hostages and lay down their arms in exchange for amnesty.