Transcript
Walter Zweifel: Andrew Hughes contacted him because he was imploring New Zealand to arrest Commodore Frank Bainimarama. In Fiji, he could not get near him, saying that armed body guards would surround him at just about all times and that for example at the airport, they would defy regulations by meeting him airside. Mr Hughes feared a violent reaction, should police move in on him. He wrote that arresting him in New Zealand would show Fiji that no-one is above the law.
DW: Why would Fiji police want to arrest him?
WZ: Two reasons. Firstly to question him in connections with ongoing investigations, and secondly to avert a military takeover which Commodore Bainimamara had been threatening with for months. Now he was believed to be implicated in the removal of President Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara during the Speight coup of May 2000 and he was also linked to the extrajudicial killings in the aftermath of the failed mutiny against Commodore Bainimarama half a year later.
DW: What about the concern of an impending coup?
WZ: Back in 2006 when Laisenia Qarase was re-elected, the public was repeatedly warned that the military would want to take over to clean up government. The overthrow was therefore akin to a self-fulfilling prophecy. What is interesting is that Mr Hughes guessed well in advanced that the overthrow would be launched on 4 December. He predicted that before the military commander and the prime minister met in Wellington where New Zealand's foreign minister Winston Peters tried to broker a deal to avert a coup. He wrote that the overthrow was to start with him being taken hostage.
DW: That didn't happen though
WZ: No. Suspecting that he would be kidnapped, Mr Hughes left Fiji on the same plane that brought Mr Qarase to Wellington. As the coup unfolded, the military disarmed the police and Commodore Bainimarama sacked Mr Hughes for dereliction of duty. What also didn't happen was that Mr Chaudhry became the prime minister. Instead Jona Senilagakali, an elderly doctor, was chosen be it for just a month. Then Commodore Bainimarama took over and reinstated Ratu Josefa as president.
DW: Do the documents show why New Zealand ignored his plea?
WZ: Not directly. They seem to suggest that political considerations outweighed legal ones. Mr Hughes wrote that he thought Mr Peters acted improperly, adding that the minister had no authority to issue an undertaking not to prosecute. Years later, Mr Bainimarama told a blog that Mr Hughes was a twit thinking of getting away with the arrest of a defence force chief.
DW: Overall, how accurate were Mr Hughes' predictions?
WZ: His intelligence seems to have been excellent but his efforts were in vain. What he feared did happen and that is the constitution was abrogated.
His concerns about the rule of law are now moot because in 2013 the military brought in a new constitution that gives all coup makers immunity.
