Sitiveni Rabuka - The 2000 Coup and Queen Elizabeth Barracks Mutiny

The 2000 Coup and Queen Elizabeth Barracks Mutiny

Following his electoral defeat, Rabuka was elected Chairman of the Great Council of Chiefs. He was forced to relinquish this post in 2001, however, in the wake of allegations made against him by former President Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara of complicity in the Fiji coup of 2000, which deposed both Mara and the Indo-Fijian Prime Minister, Mahendra Chaudhry, on 19 May 2000. Claiming that the coup leader George Speight - who was then in custody and has since been convicted of treason - was only a front, Mara appeared on Close-Up on Fiji Television on 30 April 2001 and revealed that on 21 May 2000, two days after the coup, he had confronted Rabuka and Isikia Savua, the police chief, about their possible involvement in it. "I could see it in their faces," Mara declared. Ratu Mara told the programme that within half an hour of Speight's forcible occupation of the Parliament, Rabuka had telephoned Government House (the official residence of the President) to offer to form a government. He further alleged that the Counter Revolutionary Warfare Unit of the Army had been involved in the coup after receiving training on a farm owned by Rabuka.

In an interview with Fiji's Daily Post on 2 July 2001, Rabuka angrily denied the allegations, saying that they were the ravings of "an angry old man" and "very unbecoming of a national leader and of a statesman." The charges, however, were repeated on the floor of the Senate on 23 October 2004 by Adi Koila Nailatikau, Mara's daughter.

Former Attorney-General Sir Vijay Singh published a memoir in 2006, supporting the allegations against Rabuka. Fiji Village quoted Singh on 18 August 2006 as saying, at the launch of his memoir, "Speaking Out", that Rabuka had told him personally that he was one of the ring-leaders and that real target of the coup was not the Chaudhry government, but Ratu Mara, and that Mara had voiced his own suspicions about Rabuka to Singh. "On Monday (following the Friday coup) I had a telephone conversation with the President Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara. He had no doubts that it was Mr Sitiveni Rabuka and Mr Isikia Savua (the then Commissioner of Police who had organised the miserable affair at parliamentary complex," Singh said.

Rabuka refused to comment on Singh's allegations, citing sub judice.