US involvement in the Fiji coup d’etat

US involvement in the Fiji coup d’etat

This article presents an analysis of United States involvement in the coup in Fiji. The authors support the demands made in Washington by deposed Fijian Prime Minister, Dr Bavadra, for a Congressional investigation of American involvement.

Published by Wellington Confidential, PO. Box 9034, Wellington, New Zealand

The one-month-old Labour Coalition government of Fiji was terminated on May 14 1987 in a coup led by Lieutenant Colonel Sitiveni Rabuka, third-in-command of the 2,600-strong Royal Fiji Military Force.

Rabuka established a provisional government including Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara, prime minister in the Alliance Party which had governed Fiji since Britain granted independence in 1970.

Obviously there were a multitude of influences leading to the coup. There is an apparently eternal triangle in Fiji – European capital, Indian labour, and ethnic Fijian land ownership. This manifests itself in all sorts of conflicts, especially between ethnic Fijians and Indo-Fijians. All these issues were involved in the coup, but there is growing evidence that the US encouraged and exploited them to bring about the coup.

For the Americans the main issue in the April election was Labour’s nuclear-free policy. Originally Fiji had been one of the leaders in the movement to make the Pacific nuclear-free. It had co-sponsored with New Zealand a United Nations resolution for a South Pacific zone in 1975, and banned nuclear warships long before New Zealand did. Then in 1983 the US persuaded Mara to drop the ban. This was a contributing factor to the formation of the Fijian Labour Party a couple of years later.

The US regards nuclear-free policies as an even bigger threat in the South Pacific than the Soviet Union. In 1982 an earlier ambassador to Fiji, William Bodde Jr, summarised the US attitude at a luncheon in the Kanala Hilton, Hawaii.

“The most potentially disruptive development for US relations with the South Pacific is the growing anti-nuclear movement in the region … a nuclear free zone would be unacceptable to the US given our strategic needs … I am convinced that the US must do everything possible to counter this movement … It will not be an easy task, but it is one that we cannot afford to neglect,” he said.

In 1986 Admiral Ronald J Hays, Commander-in-Chief, Pacific (CINCPAC) said: “I am concerned about the growth of the Fiji Labour Party.” (Guardian Weekly, May 24 1987)

The Heritage Foundation’s Richard Fisher saw Fiji’s return to a nuclear-free policy as presenting “a very significant opportunity to the Soviets for increasing their presence in the Pacific”. In July 1986 he urged Washington to undertake an expanded programme to rebuild support for Anzus in New Zealand.

The US State Department said it “concerns us because the proliferation of nuclear-free zones … could affect our ability to deter the Soviet Union”. After the election Washington showed its displeasure with the result by failing to send the traditional note of congratulation to the new government.

State Department ‘gratified’, Pentagon ‘delighted’

Since May 14 the US has been careful not to express too much enthusiasm for the coup, and just as careful not to condemn it. The State Department position, first expressed on May 15 was to “affirm” to Rabuka “the importance of respect for democratic traditions and processes” without suggesting that he had shown any lack of such respect.

“The US was gratified that there had been no bloodshed,” a spokeswoman said.

Unofficially the US military have been far less guarded in their gratification. The Sydney Morning Herald, a “quality” conservative paper quoted an unnamed Pentagon source as saying: “We’re kinda delighted … All of a sudden our ships couldn’t go to Fiji, and now all of a sudden they can …” (Sydney Morning Herald, May 16 1987)

Mara claims that no less a person than Secretary of State Shultz has “given his blessings” to the post-coup provisional government and assured him that the US was “on standby to help if needed”. These claims are vigorously denied by the US embassy in Fiji.(Evening Post, May 26 1987)

The 1982 election

American involvement in the previous election sets the scene for interpreting what was behind the coup. Outside involvement in the July 1982 election is relatively well documented, thanks to Mara’s allegation that the opposition had received a million dollar donation from the Soviet Union.

The single piece of “evidence” was a letter supposedly written by then opposition leader Siddiq Koya. It is now widely known that this letter was in fact forged by Leonard (now Sir Leonard) Usher, former mayor of Suva and editor of the Fiji Times, widely involved in production of Alliance Party propaganda.

A Royal Commission of Inquiry was set up after the election to investigate Mara’s claim. It also looked at more substantive complaints from the opposition. Mara panicked and withdrew his allegations part way through the commission’s sittings, so its main role was to document the opposition claims.

However the commission, headed by retired New Zealand High Court judge Sir John White, produced what was basically a white-wash. The original expose by Australian television’s Four Corners (National Times, July 4-10 1982) is actually far more informative.

What was exposed was that Mara’s election strategy had been mapped out by a US consultancy firm, Business International. Boasting offices all over the world Business International was described by the New York Times as doing contract work for the CIA.(New York Times, December 27 1977)

Business International came to Fiji thanks to a wealthy businessman and friend of Mara. Motibhai (Mac) Patel enlisted the consultants supposedly to aid his business. It was only as an afterthought that they were “lent” to Mara, with Mac supposedly paying the bill. Business International had previously been active in Australia, especially in helping to ease Bob Hawke, “America’s man” into the leadership of the Australian Labor Party.

For the Fiji job they sent along an Australian, Alan Carroll, a graduate of Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service. This provided cover to bring in an American CIA employee, Dr Jeffrey Race, who operated under a business cover called Asian Strategy based in Bangkok. The aptly named Dr Race was a specialist in Malaysian politics, which had a racial basis somewhat similar to those promoted by Mara (an ethnic Fijian).

Among scenarios proposed by Race was one called “Malaysian replay” because of the “uncanny likeness” between the political situations facing Mara and Tunku Rahman in Malaysia. “Strategies” proposed included one aimed at a Nationalist leader – “either buy him off or take him out of the running”. One against another Ratu (chief) said “since he is going to jail anyway, best to pile all effort on and accelerate prosecution so he cannot run”.

Carroll held a public opinion survey to identify the issues most suitable for exploitation in Fiji. He picked an Australian journalist to generate election propaganda for Mara. The job was to report back to Business International on campaign progress from a supposedly non-political position in Fiji’s somewhat Orwellian-sounding Ministry of Information. The White Commission report subsequently described the Business International recommendations as “morally repugnant”.

United States grooming of Mara

The relationship between the US and Mara had begun earlier. Back in 1982 the vocal and vigorous Fred Eckert was appointed US ambassador. Eckert was the supposed mastermind behind the Koya forged letter affair.

After the election, Eckert accompanied Mara on a celebrated “confidential” visit to CINCPAC in Hawaii. Mara was appointed to the Standing Committee of the US-sponsored and dominated Pacific Islands Development Program (PIDP) and later became its chairman. Set up as an alternative to less co-optable bodies such as the South Pacific Forum and South Pacific Commission, PIDP is located at the East-West Centre in Honolulu. This in turn is financed by USIA and the Asia Foundation, the latter at least occasionally a CIA front. Two foundation representatives visited Wellington in June 1987 on a “fact-finding mission” sponsored by the US embassy.

In 1983 Mara responded to the overtures by announcing that nuclear ships were again welcome in Fiji. Later that year he became the first South Pacific head of state to get a full-scale red-carpet welcome at the White House.

Reagan praised his “political courage” in allowing nuclear warships into Fiji. Secretary of State Shultz told him: “Your decision to restore access to United States naval vessels to your ports was both bold and wise, and peace in the Pacific is more secure because of it.”

Mara was declared “Pacific Man of the Year” by the US AID-financed and allegedly CIA-influenced Foundation for the Peoples of the South Pacific.

In 1985 he was back in Washington to open a Fiji embassy. Among the guests was James Lilley, documented as a senior CIA career officer (New York Times, November 16 1981) and currently US ambassador to South Korea.

Aid money to boost Mara

The US also attempted to boost Mara’s popularity while he was in Washington in 1983. They announced that Fiji would become the first South Pacific country to get handouts from the US. This started off with about $300,000 per year under the Weapon Standardisation Program, mainly for the purchase of small arms.

Justifying such lavishness DoD’s Paul Wolfowitz told Congress that Fiji was a particularly deserving ally because it had “reopened its ports to all our US navy ships” and “gives the US particularly strong support on a number of important international issues, including Grenada, the KAL (shootdown) incident, and Afghanistan”.

This was followed by about $2.5 million a year in non-military aid, so that Fiji, already the richest country in the South Pacific (apart from Australia and New Zealand), now gets far more US funding than any other country in the region. The head of the Asia Bureau of US AID noted that the Fiji programme “reflects the geopolitical nature of our interests” (rather than any particular need on the part of Fiji).

To administer the non-military aid, AID set up a South-east Pacific Regional Office within the Suva embassy, currently headed by William Paupe. He was reportedly involved in covert/special operations in South-east Asia in the Vietnam war years when US AID was a conduit for CIA programmes such as “strategic hamletization” and the training of South Vietnam police.

Paupe was allegedly later involved in training Marcos palace guards together with British soldier of fortune Graeme Gibson, now director of Tropic Images, a Sydney-registered possible CIA front company. US AID money administered by Paupe supposedly ends up on island projects carried out by Tropic Images.

These days Paupe is more important around Suva than the US ambassador. He accompanied Mara to a PIDP meeting in Honolulu on April 27-28 (1987), when Mara is believed to have been making arrangements for the coup. He also sat in on the meetings Vernon Walters had in Suva.

American AID is particularly valuable to the US for penetration of the Fiji bureaucracy. According to US AID regulations, recipient countries must open up their bureaucracies and books to allow verification of the use of US funds.

Pacific Democratic Union

Another channel for assisting Mara has been the so-called Pacific Democratic Union (PDU) a US-sponsored grouping of right-wing political parties, financed by the National Endowment for Democracy, which in turn gets funds from USIA. The PDU has financed travel for Alliance Party functionaries as well as the New Zealand National Party.

On the day of the coup, Mara was co-chairing a PDU meeting at Pacific Harbour outside Suva. At this meeting were Brian Talboys, Sue Wood and Barry Leay, all of the National Party, and Neil Brown, Australian Liberal Party deputy leader and foreign affairs spokesman.

The PDU meeting provided a kind of alibi for Mara, and both Talboys and Brown lent support to Mara’s claim that he was not involved in the coup. Brown also caused a minor political storm in Australia by offering support to the coup (The Australian, May 16 1987).

Another vehicle for US penetration of Fiji is the Pacific Basin Democratic Development project. Funded by NED, it is run by the National Republican Institute for International Affairs, the wing of the US Republican Party supposedly promoting American-style democracy overseas. The Pacific project, with $15,000, is undertaken in co-operation with the PDU.(Sydney Morning Herald, May 19 1987)

Business and government corruption

Corruption was rife within Mara’s government. There is little doubt that the threat of exposure provided strong motives for Mara, his cabinet and certain business interests (particularly Australian) to support the coup. The new government was threatening to open the books. Mara himself had most to fear, having accumulated a fortune of $4-6 million on his salary of $100,000 a year.(David Robie, New Zealand Sunday Times, May 31 1987)

Among the reasonably well-documented scandals, garment manufacturers had paid $52,000 to Mara to ensure workers’ wages would not be raised. The Australian Kerry Packer group (now Alan Bond) allegedly paid kickbacks to Mara to obtain a 12 year monopoly on television broadcasting.

Emperor Gold Mines were reportedly paying hush money to Apisai Tora and the Taukei movement to cover up various land and other swindles. Emperor is owned by Western Mining (of Australia) which in turn is linked to Baron Offshore. The authors understand that 51 percent of Emperor Gold Mines is owned by New Zealander John Spencer of Caxton Paper Mills. Time magazine (Time, June 1 1987) related that an oceanographic ship donated to Fiji by Australia under its Defence Co-operation Program, carried a load of Israeli Uzi machine guns to Fiji shortly before the coup, and that Baron Offshore provided bridging finance for the weaponry. According to other sources the ship itself formerly belonged to Baron and the consignment consisted of 2000 machine guns.

A major figure in the corruption scene has been Peter Stinson, Mara’s Minister of Economic Development. New Zealand PM David Lange claimed on May 30 that covering up Stinson’s dirty dealings was a prime motive for the coup.

Initially Stinson was on Colonel Rabuka’s council of advisers but was later dropped from the provisional government because of his tainted reputation. Stinson himself said he joined Rabuka’s coup because of the threat from Libya. He admitted there was corruption in Fiji, but on a far lesser scale than in the Australian state of New South Wales. (The Dominion, May 21 1987)

According to journalist David Robie and others, the Fiji National Bank had, at government request, written off a $3-4 million loan to Stinson-Pearce, and further debts of about $14 million were still outstanding with Stinson’s firm.

Stinson and his father Charles were principal developers of the immense Pacific Harbour tourist complex, constructed while Charles Stinson was Minister of Finance.

One of the principal financiers was Adnan Khashoggi, (The New Zealand Listener, March 5 1977) famed Saudi billionaire gun-runner and beneficiary of Lockheed bribes, commissions and kickbacks, also involved in the Iran-Contra scandal. Khashoggi has reportedly since pulled his money out, but still has links with Mara. His private DC-9 airliner was most recently seen in Fiji in November 1986.(IB, December 1986)

Cultivation of Fiji’s military elite

Fiji is unique amongst the South Pacific island states for its relatively large military force. About half of this force is permanently stationed in the Middle East – 600 soldiers with United Nations peace-keeping forces in Lebanon and 500 with the US-sponsored multi-lateral force in the Sinai.

Desert duty in particular provides for much fraternising between Fijian and US soldiers. Fiji was the first ally to “offer” troops for the Sinai, presumably by prior arrangement. In addition the US has two programmes – PAMS and IMET – aimed at cultivating a working relationship with the Fiji officer corps.

Most important are the Pacific Armies Management Seminars organised by the Western Command of the US army from Fort Shafter, Hawaii.

These lavish ten-day events held in expensive hotels involve typically less than three hours of working sessions per day. Sightseeing tours, luncheons, dinners, cocktail hours, happy hours, parties and picnics make up the rest of the time. About half the officers present are US army. The rest come from “allied and friendly” armies around the Pacific Basin and the Indian Ocean.

The US army justifies these seminars by noting that the officer elites involved often are or become “the dominant political as well as military force in their respective countries”.

General Forrester, who formerly headed the PAMS programme, said in 1982 that PAMS was directed at young majors and colonels “because they’ll be in their services for a long period of time”. Friendships formed at PAMS were useful to the US because, years later, if you need “old Joe” to facilitate something for the US, all that is needed is to “call him on the phone, or you write him a personal note, and Joe, because he knows you, will be helpful”.

Colonel Rabuka, then a major, attended a PAMS in Manila in 1981. Among the more interesting speakers at that seminar was General Fabian Ver, the Philippines Chief of Staff, later found responsible for the assassination of Benigno Aquino, and sponsor of the aborted July 1986 coup against Cory Aquino.

Pentagon programmes

The other way to cultivate the Fijian military has been through Fijian participation, since 1983, in the Pentagon’s International Military Education and Training Program. The US spends $125,000 a year putting Fijian officers through US military staff colleges and courses (about twice what it spends on IMET in Papua New Guinea). A US JCS “Military Posture Statement” (US JCS “Military Posture Statement”, 1984) claims that “IMET training significantly increases the probability of establishing and maintaining long term co-operative relationships through military-to-military contacts…”

A table printed in the 1984 statement showed that 25 heads of state around the world had previously trained in US military colleges.

Subversion of trade unions

Fiji is unusual among South Pacific countries for its high degree of unionisation. From about 1982 the US has been actively penetrating and subverting Fijian unions and attempting to undermine Pacific Trade Union Forum support for a nuclear-free Pacific.

This began with the setting up, through the right-wing US trade union confederation AFL-CIO, of a “Labour Committee on Pacific Affairs” originally involving US, Australian and New Zealand unionists. It held its first full meeting in Sydney in December 1983 with PNG and Fiji unionists in attendance.

It was described as “the vehicle by which the Right of the union movement in both Australia and the US will attempt to influence union movements, not just in developing Pacific nations such as Papua New Guinea, but also in New Zealand”.(The Australian, January 12 1984) This turns out to be exactly what happened.

LCPA’s most visible form of activity has been organising trips to the US for unionists for indoctrination on the Soviet threat and so forth, in briefings at various right-wing think tanks.

On the surface it did not seem to be particularly successful – Fijian guests complained about pro-US and anti-Soviet biases.

The whole effort was devastatingly exposed in New Zealand (New Zealand Times, October 30 1983) where LCPA was shown to have a number of clear connections to documented CIA front organisations and individuals. These included the Labour attache at the Wellington embassy and covert action protagonist Roy Goodson of the Georgetown International Labor Program.

CIA money for Suva

By 1984, LCPA was inactive, presumably as a result of the bad publicity, which forced New Zealand unionists to drop out. Many of its activists were resurfacing however in the Asia-America Free Labour Institute (AAFLI) which has similar CIA connections.

Meanwhile the focus seemed to concentrate more on Fiji, with New Zealand apparently regarded as a lost cause, at least for the time being. AAFLI had been operating in Fiji since the early 1970s, wooing the Fiji trade union movement with small grants, free travel and other hard-to-trace favours.

It got into the big time in September 1984, opening an office and holding a seminar in Suva. Initially the office was operated by Valentine Suazo, with well known CIA connections, an expert in subverting Latin American trade unionists, and exposed by ex-CIA agent Philip Agee.

The Suva office was funded by NED “to act as a liaison on publications, education and membership services for a number of unions” (HR Ctee For. Aff. Appropns f86-7 for DoS, USIA etc, p498) Congress was told.

Fiji activities of the LCPA were exposed in the Sydney Morning Herald.(Sydney Morning Herald, June 17 1986) Documents obtained under the US FOIA showed that the Suva office had spent $1 million in the previous two years, and had claimed responsibility for defeat of a nuclear-free Pacific resolution before the PTUF.

After the Sydney Morning Herald expose the Suva office closed down in September 1986. The public explanation was that it was more efficient to run the programme from Hawaii, and conditions were made difficult by “the formation of an anti-government political party by the principal unions in Fiji”.(Honolulu Star Bulletin, January 10 1987) Unofficially it was said that AAFLI withdrew because of the bad publicity in the Australian press.

In retrospect it is now obvious that AAFLI was withdrawn because its work was completed – an infrastructure had been set up in Fiji for control of trade unions, and once it was built, the visible part of it – the office – was removed, leaving the concealed nine tenths still in place.

Before, during, and after the coup this infrastructure functioned reasonably smoothly, with no visible US involvement. In particular, the pleas from Fiji to end the Australasian trade union ban on trade with Fiji were orchestrated by the FTUC secretary, James Raman, an AAFLI recruit. Similarly, at the Australian end, attempts by ACTU assistant secretary Gary Weaven and others to end the ban owed much to years of AFL-CIO involvement in Australian unionism.

Rabuka’s role in the coup

There has been much debate as to the extent to which Rabuka was solely responsible for the coup. Mara’s political opponents all believe the former prime minister was involved if not primarily responsible. But there is little direct evidence for this apart from the celebrated pre-coup golf game between Mara and Rabuka.

Most commentators assume that Mara and other Alliance personalities were involved. The Sydney Morning Herald reported that the Australian Government had received information suggesting prior knowledge by both the Governor-General and the former prime minister.(Sydney Morning Herald, May 19 1987)

“Ratu Mara was in it from the beginning,” said one source. The Times on Sunday said that while initial intelligence advice was that it was a narrowly based military coup, within a few days evidence was available to the Australian Government that the coup “was backed by the entire Fiji power elite”.(Times on Sunday, May 24 1987)

Rabuka told journalists that advance knowledge of the coup was widespread in Suva. In fact the coup came as a surprise to all. Prior knowledge may have been restricted to as few as 60 military people.(The Age, May 20 1987) One of these, Lieutenant Colonel George Korote has emphasised the narrow military participation:

“It is a funny thing. If you study military coups all over the world, normally the leader rallies the troops before he executes the plan. It was the opposite in this case. The Colonel carried out the coup and then rallied his men,” he said.(Sydney Morning Herald, May 22 1987)

Another foreign influence in Fijian politics has been the Hans Seidel Foundation, the foreign arm of Franz-Josef Strauss’ Christian Social Union, which has an impressive building in Suva. HSF functions as a West German version of NED/PDU, works closely with the Heritage Foundation, and in Fiji has been involved in aid projects, television programming, and assistance to the Alliance Party.

The foundation is regarded with considerable suspicion in Fiji. It is credited with spending millions of dollars on a Fijian grassroots cultural revival which has been thin cover for fostering the Taukei movement.

Were Freeman and Jays involved?

A possible covert action group that needs to be investigated is the Wellington-based Dundas Maritime Services/Dundas Publications. Major Dundas has had long involvement with the New Zealand National Party and the New Zealand SIS.

Reportedly working for him in Fiji are Paul Freeman and Rohan Jays, who were both involved in a destabilisation action against a New Zealand Labour government in 1975. Whether Jays, a former New Zealand SIS agent, is now in Fiji is not established, but Freeman is definitely there and involved in shady and reportedly very successful business ventures. Freeman was in Western Samoa during the Fiji elections and met with cabinet ministers. He went from there to American Samoa, and then back to Fiji. After the coup he was having daily meetings with Peter Stinson.

United States military preparations

Since around 1982 there has been a big increase in US military and other activities in the South Pacific. This intensified after the 1984 New Zealand election. Although most of this activity was not specifically related to Fiji, much of it was probably useful there.

Most important was the construction of a State Department communications relay in American Samoa – a DSCS military satellite terminal connected to a high frequency station – to provide “rapid, reliable, and secure … means of communicating policy issues, political reports … [and] dealing with emergency-type situations”.

It was opened in December 1986 and so far the Suva embassy is the first and only facility to be hooked up to it. Thus it provides a back-door channel of communication to Hawaii and Washington invulnerable to accidental or intentional eavesdropping by Fiji telecom operators or the Fiji Police Special Branch.

There has also been a modest but significant build-up of US combat readiness in the South Pacific, again centred on American Samoa. Here the US army presence has been upgraded from detachment to company size. If Rabuka’s coup had gone wrong, these troops would have been available to “protect the lives of US citizens”, Grenada-style.

“Red Orchestra” conference

The Hoover Institute’s now infamous March 1987 Red Orchestra conference in Washington (to which Sir Ewan Jameson and Frank Corner were invited) was attended by several of the peripheral actors in the Fiji coup. It may have helped provide them with background useful when the coup happened. Among participants were:

Joiji Kotabalavu – former Fijian secretary of Foreign Affairs, now involved with PIDP and the Consultative Committee in offshore prospecting, a Mara supporter.

Michael Easson – right-wing Australian trade unionist, former LCPA secretary, active in Fiji before coup and in breaking the trade ban in Australia afterwards.

John Whitehall – Australian chief of the US-based Christian Anti-communist Crusade, who claims to have been in Fiji during the coup, and was on a lecture tour of New Zealand after it.

Colin Rubinstein – right-wing academic at Monash University, who has been reporting articles attributing the formation of the Fiji Labour Party to a conference held in Prague in 1958. Whitehall has also peddled a similar line.

The 1987 election

Surprisingly, there is little evidence for US involvement in the election itself, apart from all the stroking of Mara already described. However at the time of the coup the Bavadra government was investigating material which indicated that the US embassy, via William Paupe, was funding Apisai Tora, Mara’s Minister of Transport. Tora is a leader in the Fiji-for-Fijians Taukei movement, which functioned as a right-wing to the Alliance Party.

More recently Bavadra has publicly charged in Washington that William Paupe had paid $200,000 to Tora to stir up riots, Jim Anthony adding that Paupe had been carrying on like a “barefooted Ollie North”.

There are also allegations that Tora and Paupe were involved in joint misuse of about $1 million of AID funds for their personal enrichment.

After the election the Taukei movement organised violent protest rallies, barricades and firebombings in a campaign of destabilisation which prepared the way for the coup.

As a result Apisai Tora was arrested for sedition. Mara’s son Ratu Finau and many other Alliance people were also involved. These disturbances appear to be the main Alliance contribution to the coup.

Photocopies of a letter purportedly from the Iranian ambassador to Thailand addressed to Ahmed Ali, Mara’s Minister of Information, have been leaked to the press. The letter says that $125,000 in an unspecified currency has been put in an Alliance account “to assist you in your efforts to carry out Allah’s work in Fiji”. Another $125,000 would be contributed “nearer to election time”.

Most people who have seen copies regard the letter as a forgery, possibly intended to create divisions between Hindus and Moslems. Any such division would have worked to the advantage of Mara.

After the election – Mara visits Honolulu

A week after the election, Mara made a trip to Honolulu, accompanied by William Paupe, to attend a PIDP Standing Committee meeting at the East-West Center.

While there they reportedly met with retired Admiral Lloyd Vasey of the allegedly CIA-financed Pacific Forum think tank. Formerly in naval intelligence, Vasey was in Task Force 157, and was a talent scout for the CIA-front bank, Nugan Hand. He visited New Zealand late in June 1987 on a “study tour” of the South Pacific.

United States coupmaster visits

A few days after Mara was in Honolulu and two weeks before the coup, General Vernon Walters arrived in Suva. He is regarded as having been involved in more coups than anyone else still in US government service. Some highlights of his resume are:

• 1941 Walters joined US army as private. He attended Military Intelligence Training Center where he was taught techniques of interrogating prisoners of war. Walters stayed with the army for 25 years in a variety of assignments, mostly with Defence Intelligence Agency and retired a General in 1976.
• 1953 The General admits to being involved in the coup against Mossadegh which resulted in the Shah taking over in Iran.
• 1960-62  Military attache in Rome, helping CIA distribute funds to right-wing parties.
• 1964 In Brazil. Described as “lynchpin” in General Branco’s bloody coup against Goulart. Branco was a friend of 20 years’ standing.
• 1972-76 While still in the army Walters was deputy director of CIA and helped The Service through Watergate and the Pinochet coup against Allende in Chile. He was involved in the assassination of Allende’s former defence minister, Orlando Letelier.
• 1976-81 Employed apparently in the private sector, Walters worked for an arms dealer called Environmental Energy Systems Inc, exporting arms to Morocco. He also worked for Morocco Travel Advisers, thought to be a cover for aiding Moroccan invasion of West Sahara.
• 1981 Apologist for brutal Guatemalan military dictatorship.
• 1981 Became ambassador-at-large for Reagan and was deeply involved in setting up contra forces against Nicaragua.
  In February 1984, Walters made a still mysterious visit to New Zealand, stopping in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch. The ostensible reason was to “dispel myths” about Nicaragua.
• 1985 He replaced Jeanne Kirkpatrick as US ambassador to United Nations and continued her mission of wrecking it.

Walters’ career as a “crypto-diplomat and terrorist” is described in detail in the summer 1986 issue of Covert Action.

What Walters did in Fiji

The official reason for visiting Fiji was to discuss provision of troops to the United Nations force in the Middle East. In fact this was not discussed at all. Interviews with Fiji officials indicate that Walters had at least three roles:

• Boosting the phoney Libyan scare (see below).
• Assessing the political sympathies, vulnerabilities and potential corruptibility of various Fiji leaders, in particular Bavadra’s Foreign Minister, Krishna Datt. Some of the Americans present at these meetings appeared to be psychologists monitoring the conversations for meaningful hesitations and so forth.
• Inducing a mood of complacency within the Bavadra government. He reassured them that the US would not intervene, saying he was “relaxed and relieved” to learn that the Bavadra government did not yet have a hard and fast policy on nuclear ship visits.

Little seems to be known about what else Walters did in Fiji. There is no evidence that he was actively involved in coup preparations. His visit may also have served to distract the Bavadra government from what was happening in Fiji.

The Libyan scare

What Walters did on the way to Fiji was probably much more relevant to the coup. He visited Australia, Papua New Guinea, Solomons, Western Samoa and Tonga on the way to Fiji, spreading a trail of disinformation about Libyan activity in the Pacific.

His visit to Australia probably prompted Foreign Minister Bill Hayden to make a highly publicised “secret” dash, a few days later, across the Tasman to talk with David Lange about Libya, within the high-security confines of Ohakea airbase.

After Walters’ visit to Samoa, the country’s Prime Minister said that thanks to the Anzus breakdown, Samoa and Tonga could rely no longer on New Zealand and would have to turn to the US for defence. The friendly reception the South Pacific Forum, and the Melanesian states in particular, gave to the coup doubtless owes something to Walters’ trip.

Walters also visited Vanuatu, where Secret Service men in his entourage discovered two “Libyans” in the foyer of the Intercontinental Hotel. They broke into the hotel manager’s office to inspect the guest register to identify the “Libyans” as “spies”.(Christchurch Star, May 5 1987) The scare that preceded the coup was clearly orchestrated.

British Foreign Secretary Sir Geoffrey Howe also contributed during his visit to New Zealand. He used every opportunity to heavy this country about the nuclear-free legislation.

At a press conference in Sydney, Admiral “Ace” Lyons, commander-in-chief of the US Pacific Fleet, threatened use of naval forces against any Libyan activity in the South Pacific.

In fact there was no justification for the scare-mongering apart from the presence of the two Libyan businessmen in Vanuatu who “proved” their guilt by insisting they really were businessmen.

The scare served the coup in two ways. First it provided a justification for the coup (as utilised by Peter Stinson in particular). Second it provided a diversion. While journalists were busy booking air tickets to go looking for Libyans in Vanuatu, none of them noticed that a coup was brewing in Fiji.

The CIA in Suva

According to Peter Samuel, often regarded as a mouthpiece for US disinformation, “the CIA has no station in Fiji, but relies on Australian, British and New Zealand intelligence. There had been some moves to establish a one-man CIA station in Suva but this had not happened for budgetary reasons”.(The Australian, June 21 1987)

In fact there seems recently to have been a big burst of US embassy and CIA activity in and around Suva. In Suva the normal CIA establishment is generally considered to consist of one person – currently Edrick Sherman, the deputy Chief of Mission. Sherman lives close to the cabinet minister official housing area and was reportedly seen accompanying Rabuka on several occasions after the coup, in particular on his first visit to the radio station.

The CIA team was strengthened prior to the coup. According to a very senior source in the Bavadra government, four CIA officers arrived at Nadi airport two or three days before the Taukei marches. They were immediately sequestered in Nadi business premises of the same Mac Patel who had brought Alan Carroll to Fiji for the 1982 election.

The building was cleared of all workers for the occasion, and Patel himself was involved in the discussions, which presumably concerned the forthcoming pre-coup riots and firebombings.

According to the Sydney Morning Herald (Sydney Morning Herald, May 18 1987) quoting “a senior intelligence source in Suva” (probably Special Branch) there were five CIA employees active in Suva, one of whom was in parliament at the time of the coup. These five were probably the same four who were at Patel’s, plus Sherman. The Sydney Morning Herald quoted another source as saying that three of the CIA officers arrived in Nadi about May 7.

David Robie claims that two of the CIA men were identified by the Fiji Special Branch at the now-famous Sunday golf game between Roman Catholic Mara and Methodist lay preacher/born-again Christian Rabuka a week before the coup, at Peter Stinson’s Pacific Harbour complex. (David Robie, The Dominion, May 26 1987; New Zealand Outlook, June)

Summarising United States involvement

Over the last six or so years Fiji has been the target of the most intensive “cultivation” by the US so far seen in the South Pacific. Despite this Fiji managed to elect a government that intended to be non-aligned and nuclear-free. The US intervention during those six years had three principal thrusts:

1. Political

Cultivation of, and support for, Mara and the Alliance Party by means of aid money. White House receptions were coupled with assistance in election campaigning. This cultivation was not unlike that which the US has practised with some Latin American dictatorships.

2. Military

Cultivation of the Fijian military through officer- to-officer contacts and military aid money. It is significant that although in general the South Pacific is a preserve of the US navy, in Fiji the army is the US service most involved. The US army is also the American service most active in Latin America.

Therefore it is not surprising to see that Fiji military relationships with the US resemble those of Latin American countries. PAMS, especially, is very similar to what has been going on for years at the US Army School of the Americas in Panama, where several generations of Latin American military elites have been befriended, pampered, and trained in coup-making techniques (disguised as “counter-insurgency” or “internal warfare” training.

3. Subversion of trade unions

Subversion of trade unions has been carried out by US government-funded and directed AFL-CIO fronts. This is very similar, although on a vastly smaller scale, to what the CIA has been doing for many years in Latin America, as documented in particular by Philip Agee.

Morris Paladino, who helped set up LCPA and AAFLI, was originally exposed as a CIA officer controlling the Inter-American Regional Labor Organisation (ORIT), a forerunner of and model for AAFLI. Valentine Suazo, who set up and ran the Suva AAFLI office, is documented as involved in CIA subversion in Chile.

Overall, what the US has been doing in the last six years might be described as “Latin Americanisation of the South Pacific”, or, taking into account the island-and-ocean nature of the region, Caribbeanisation.

The coup in Fiji might be seen as the first fruits of such Caribbeanisation – the creation of a Caribbean-style military dictatorship which will be more responsive to US needs than a post Mara democracy would have been.

How responsible for the coup was the United States?

US intervention in Fiji over the six years prior to the election is all well documented and incontestable. The one exception is the alleged US funding of the Taukei movement, which may well prove to be true. But at present there is not enough known to be able to document conclusively the extent to which the US was responsible for the coup.

One important clue is the apparently consummate skill with which the coup was carried out. It seems that none of Fiji’s neighbours, including Australia and New Zealand, had the slightest inkling that a coup was being prepared.

About the only thing that went wrong in the whole operation was when the Governor-General managed to make a broadcast over FM radio deploring the coup, but even this may have been part of the script, given the Governor-General’s subsequent collaboration.

Otherwise Rabuka did everything right – he secured the acquiescence of the rest of the military and juggled the police hierarchy to his benefit (police collaboration was not a foregone conclusion, thanks to its multiracial makeup). He also muzzled the media effectively and maintained remarkably good law and order. At the very least, someone in the US government must have provided him with a list of everything that needed to be done.

The Walters diversion

One would imagine that Vernon Walters was there merely to assess the situation, provide a diversion, and perhaps give the final go-ahead for US involvement. It is hard to imagine he actually gave directions to the leading Fijian actors in the drama about to unfold. If Walters were the playwright then he would surely have written the script so that the action didn’t start until well after his visit to Fiji had been forgotten. But as things turned out the coup took place uncomfortably soon after his departure.

On the other hand there are a number of events, apparently orchestrated to accompany the coup, which suggest that the US did much more than just provide a few of the stagehands. These events include:

• Admiral Lyons’ press conference in Sydney.
• Bill Hayden’s flight to Ohakea airbase.
• Sir Geoffrey Howe’s Libya-bashing visit to New Zealand.
• The “discovery” of Libyans in Vanuatu.
• The definitely CIA-directed Taukei marches and firebombings.
• The PDU meeting (Mara’s alibi).

On balance, the authors conclude that the US was responsible for the coup. Rabuka was probably identified by a US talent scout as a suitable coup-maker. Mara had ample connections with the US government for him to make requests for assistance, or for the US to make offers of assistance.

By all accounts William Paupe had the background and skills to head, or at least front for, the US task force. If World Anti-communist League leader and Iran-Contra player John Singlaub was involved then we can assume the coup was a US-initiated and directed project. Without Singlaub it still looks as though there was a considerable degree of US assistance.