Kamisese Mara - President of The Republic: 1993 To 2000

President of The Republic: 1993 To 2000

Following the military coups of 1987, Fiji had severed its links with the Monarchy and become a republic, with a President and two Vice-Presidents chosen by the Great Council of Chiefs. Following his retirement as Prime Minister, Mara was elected to the Vice-Presidency in June 1992, and became Acting President soon after, when the ailing President Ratu Sir Penaia Ganilau was incapacitated. He assumed the office of President officially when Ganilau died on 16 December of the following year. Modelled on the Monarchy, the presidency filled a largely honorary role, but was nevertheless vested with important reserve powers, to be used only in the event of a national crisis.

That crisis came on May 19, 2000, with the Fiji coup of 2000. Gunmen led by George Speight forced their way into Parliament and kidnapped the Prime Minister, Mahendra Chaudhry, several Cabinet ministers, and a number of parliamentarians. Speight declared himself Prime Minister, and ordered Mara to step aside as president. Mara refused to negotiate with the plotters, and decided instead to dismiss the kidnapped government and assume emergency powers himself. His move backfired, however. In what politicians called "a coup within a coup," Ratu Mara was whisked away on the naval ship Kiro on May 28, where he was allegedly approached by a group of present and former military and police officers and ordered to suspend the Constitution. When he refused, ("If the Constitution goes, I go," he defiantly declared) the group, including the army commander, Commodore Frank Bainimarama, former Prime Minister and 1987 Coup Leader Sitiveni Rabuka, former military commander Ratu Epeli Ganilau (a son-in-law of Mara's), and a former Police Commissioner Isikia Savua, are alleged to have asked for, and possibly forced, Mara's resignation. He was subsequently taken to his home island of Lakeba in the Lau Islands. For the 80 year-old President, who was seen as the father of the country and had led it, in one capacity or another, for more than 40 years, it was an anticlimactic end.

The military regime that took over appointed Ratu Josefa Iloilo, who had been Mara's Vice-President, to succeed him on 13 July 2000. After the coup had been quashed, the Supreme Court ruled on 15 November that year that Mara's replacement was unconstitutional and ordered his reinstatement, but Mara, wishing to spare the country further constitutional trauma, officially resigned, with his resignation retroactive to May 29, 2000.

On April 29, 2001, Mara publicly accused the police chief, Colonel Isikia Savua and former Prime Minister, Sitiveni Rabuka, of instigating the coup. In what was to be his last public interview, Mara claimed that George Speight - who was then in custody and has since been convicted of treason - was only a front, Mara told Close-Up on Fiji Television that he confronted Savua and Rabuka two days after the coup about their possible involvement. "I could see it in their faces," said Mara, emphatically rejecting their denials.

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.

Mara said that he was shocked to learn that the Counter Revolutionary Warfare Unit of the Army had been involved in the coup. He alleged that they took George Speight to Parliament, and that their senior officers supplied them with weapons, blankets, and food. Mara also declared that the Counter Revolutionary Warfare officers who joined Speight's coup had trained on a farm owned by Rabuka. Excerpts of this interview were broadcast on 29 April 2001; the full interview was not broadcast until 29 April 2004 - while his body was lying in state in preparation for his funeral.

Whether Mara's resignation was in fact forced has been the subject of a police investigation since May 21, 2003, when the Police Investigations Department confirmed that they had opened an investigation into the events surrounding his departure from office. Mahendra Chaudhry, the deposed Prime Minister, has publicly supported Mara's version of events, and has further alleged that Mara was blackmailed with a threat to kill his daughter, Tourism Minister Adi Koila Nailatikau, who was one of the hostages. Commodore Bainimarama has defended his role in the incident saying it was "necessary" at the time, and that Mara's resignation was, in fact, voluntary and that he had refused offers of reinstatement. Mara's daughter, Adi Ateca Ganilau (wife of Ratu Epeli Ganilau) appeared to support Bainimarama's claims in a statement on 10 January 2005, saying that her father had resigned and had refused to return because he was upset by the abrogation of the Constitution. "He did not agree with the abrogation of the Constitution. That was probably why he refused to return to office. It was not that the military pressured him to move out," Ganilau said. She called for a thorough investigation into the abrogation of the Constitution, and for those who were legal advisers at the time to be answerable for their actions.

Police have said they have faced "many challenges" in their investigation, finding many officers uncooperative. On 30 April 2004, the Fijian police said they were closely examining the recording of Mara's last interview, in an attempt to uncover new leads. Police spokesman Mesake Koroi declared that there was a lot of hearsay and rumours in circulation that would not stand up in a court of law. "Unfortunately we are hitting a brick wall in our investigations at the moment," Koroi said. On 2 May 2005, however, Commodore Bainimarama agreed to make a statement to the police about his own role in Mara's resignation. Police Commissioner Andrew Hughes said that no charges could be brought against Commodore Bainimarama unless it could be proved that he had actually forced the President to resign. On 5 January 2006, Hughes said that Mara's departure from the Presidency was one of seven major cases the police were still working on.