Transcript
On December the 5th 2006, Ben Daveta was a boy of twelve living in Nadi when he heard a live broadcast from the capital Suva announcing the military take-over.
I was scared and I was actually with my grandmother. I was sitting right next to her because I could see she was worried. She actually cried and when I saw her crying I began to have this feeling of fear.
As of 6 o'clock this evening, the military has taken over the government, has executive authority in the running of this country. I urge all citizens to remain calm and maintain the peace that currently prevails.
-Commodore Frank Bainimarama, speaking at a press conference on 5 December 2006
Frank Bainimarama's announcement brought back memories for Ben Daveta of bloodshed and horror during the 2000 coup.
My grandmother held my hand and she started praying. She was worried, she was thinking about Fiji. She prayed for the country, she prayed for the leaders and she prayed for the lives of the citizens.
As the coup unfolded the then Public Service Commissioner Stuart Huggett met government department heads to work out what to do after advice the takeover was illegal.
I went to see Commander Bainimarama to let him know what was happening, what the general opinion was. It didn't quite work out like a meeting. I got knocked over and abused, it got a bit unpleasant and Bainimarama was very annoyed by the idea it was an illegal coup.
The roadside attack involving what he describes as a "bunch of military" left him with a broken foot.
Angry was the strongest emotion, I didn't think it was justifiable to perform like that actually. It seemed very strange. I still don't understand it. I think it affected me. Yeah, I think I was a bit shaken for a while.
In the ensuing days, more checkpoints and soldiers appeared on the streets. Ben Daveta says people were afraid to move about.
Young kids were scared to go to town because there were military people there, soldiers on the road, fully armed with guns. if we were playing touch rugby and a military truck or military van passed by, someone would yell out 'hey there's a military truck' and everything would stop.
The coup followed a stand-off between Frank Bainimarama and the prime minister Laisenia Qarase which embroiled New Zealand and Australia. The government's proposals to give immunity to perpetrators of the 2000 coup and to return foreshore resources to traditional owners had raised the tension, as well as talk of the commander's arrest after the deaths of mutineering soldiers six years earlier. Semi Koroilavesau was in the tourism business at the time, running cruise ships around the islands.
I supported it for a good reason. I thought there was some initiatives being taken by government at that time that would have direct impact on the tourism industry and we actually thought 'oh my God, you know, this is the end of tourism in Fiji.
Frank Bainimarama eventually allowed elections in 2014 and won a landslide victory. The years of military rule had shaped the teenage Ben Daveta's interest in politics, democracy and indigenous rights. He eventually joined one of Fiji's opposition parties, disgusted over human rights abuses and a dismantled Great Council of Chiefs.
I felt that something is wrong and the very first wrong was back on the 5th of December 2006 so from then I believe that I have to be one of the young people that need to stand up and have a say and make Fiji end the coup culture.
Semi Koroilavesau, the former cruise ship operator, is now a minister in Mr Bainimarama's government. He says ten years on, Fiji is undergoing unprecedented development, is more efficient, less corrupt.
The annual budget for Fiji for this year almost has quadrupled to about three billion dollars. You can sort of calculate the amount of trading and revenue within the country. They've tidied up everything that was on the loose. They have developed an era where they have gone out of the traditional way to do things.
Semi Koroilavesau says Fiji has achieved new heights on the world stage, chairing the next world climate change talks COP23.
The prime minister was in the forefront of climate change, representing all the Pacific islands, being the biggest voice for the small island states in the Pacific. Fiji has greatly achieved a lot of things and the visibility of Fiji now in the international arena is much bigger than ever before.
Stuart Huggett left Fiji straight after the coup and wasn't allowed in for a couple of years. He says corruption claims against his architectural firm were never substantiated and Mr Bainimarama's so-called "clean-up campaign" was just a smokescreen.
The coup leader and his plotters are still in power. If it was illegal then whatever they've done since could still be described as illegal I suppose. Fiji is able to thrive and survive in spite of coups as it's proved in the past.
Mr Huggett now travels freely between New Zealand and Fiji where his firm still operates. The respected economist and academic Wadan Narsey has remained a fearless critic of the Bainimarama regime since the coup. He says the people of Fiji will be paying for the government's largesse for generations to come.
What the public see at the moment is of course Bainimarama throwing the cash around spending money here and there and basically buying voters. What they do not see is that in ten years, he's built up the public debt by two billion dollars. I mean that's a massive amount of money for a small economy like Fiji.
Professor Narsey has found it increasingly difficult to get his work published in Fiji and he says he's leaving the country for good.
