Gunmen Storm Fiji’s Parliament, Announce Government Takeover

Declaring that they were taking power in a coup, seven masked men with AK-47 assault rifles stormed Fiji’s Parliament today and seized the prime minister and seven Cabinet ministers, Australian and local media reported.

The attack came on the first anniversary of the election of Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry, whom Fijian nationalists have accused of promoting pro-Indian policies.

At least two shots were fired inside the building during the attack, which began about 10 a.m., New Zealand’s National Radio reported from Suva, Fiji’s capital.

The coup was led by Fijian businessman George Speight, whose father is an opposition lawmaker and who issued a statement claiming that he had taken control of Fiji, a local news Web site reported.

“Through these actions I am asserting ownership, am asserting control, and I am asserting executive power over Fiji. We have revoked the constitution and have set that aside,” Speight said, adding that the coup leaders had also revoked the powers of the president.

Speight appointed opposition lawmaker Ratu Timoci Silatolu as interim prime minister.

No one was reported injured in the attack, but local media reported that mobs of youths later began rampaging through Suva.

Tension has been building for months in Fiji between minority ethnic Indians, who make up about 44% of the island nation’s 813,000 people, and the majority Fijians, who account for 51%.

Fiji comprises a chain of more than 300 islands in the South Pacific.

Sitiveni Rabuka, a former army colonel who led two coups in 1987, was in Parliament negotiating with the gunmen, New Zealand’s Foreign Ministry said. Rabuka, who held power in Fiji for 12 years after the coups, was accompanied by senior army and police officials, an apparent indication that the attack had no military backing.