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Fiji's army head warns of action | |
(about 1 hour later) | |
Fiji's army head, who is threatening a coup against the government, says the sooner the military acts the better. | |
In a TV interview, Cmdr Frank Bainimarama said the army would "find ways" to make Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase resign if he refused to do so. | |
He said he planned to appoint an interim civilian administration and hold elections at a later date. | |
But Cmdr Bainimarama did not specify a deadline, amid media reports he plans to act early on Monday. | |
Tension has been rising for weeks in the Pacific island nation amid a stand-off between Cmdr Bainimarama, the head of Fiji's military, and the prime minister. | |
A Friday deadline the military leader set for Mr Qarase to step aside has already passed. | |
Early on Thursday, the military staged night-time operations to secure strategic areas of the capital, Suva, in what it described as a training exercise. | |
'Sooner the better' | |
Speaking to Fiji One television, Cmdr Bainimarama said Mr Qarase had to step down. | |
"Our plan is for (Qarase) to accept the military demand for him to resign," he said. | |
If he resists, "we will find ways for him to resign", he said. | |
Asked when the military planned to act, Cmdr Bainimarama did not give a specific timing, saying: "What I can say is, the sooner the better." | |
Local daily the Sunday Post reported that troops planned to move early on Monday morning, citing unnamed sources. | |
Cmdr Bainimarama dismissed the report, calling it "rumours". | |
But in a Fijian-language TV interview, he said that "transition is expected to take place tomorrow as a deadline", Reuters news agency reported. | |
The feud between the two men goes back several months. | |
It relates to legislation that Mr Qarase is seeking to pass, which offers a pardon to people involved in the 2000 racially-motivated coup and allocates the ownership of coastal land to ethnic Fijians. | |
Cmdr Bainimarama played a key role in putting down the uprising and was at one point forced to flee for his life. | |
He has made it clear that he does not feel the government has done enough to bring its perpetrators to justice. |
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