BY VICTOR LAL
Fijileaks Guest Opinion Columnist
Fijileaks Guest Opinion Columnist
IN 1987 COUPS AIYAZ SAYED KHAIYUM WAS TO INDO-FIJIANS WHAT GEORGE SPEIGHT AND ILlESA DUVULOCO WERE TO FIJIANS IN 2000
After all, the 'Navy Boy' in charge of the joint police and military command center at the Central Police Station in Suva in 1987 was none other than Frank Bainimarama where the master bomb maker Khaiyum was held with 18 other pro-democracy activists
"Suva will not be allowed to burn as it did in 2000 in one of the most disgraceful episodes in our nation’s history. You can be sure of it because we will make sure of it." Bainimarama to the business community.
He should ask his own party general-secretary Aiyaz Khaiyum if he can really prevent it from happening.
Suva had been burned under Bainimarama's watch as army chief during the Speight coup
He should ask his own party general-secretary Aiyaz Khaiyum if he can really prevent it from happening.
Suva had been burned under Bainimarama's watch as army chief during the Speight coup
AIYAZ SAYED KHAIYUM has come full circle. He first came to our attention in 1987, and later in 1988, notably as a member of The Democracy 18, a group of 18 (not all Indo-Fijians) who publicly defied coupster Sitiveni Rabuka's decrees and protested in Suva's Sukuna Party on 14 May 1988. He, along with the other protestors, was arrested and locked up at the Suva police station. The protestors were bailed the next day, Sunday, and on Monday fronted court. They were all subjected to degrading treatment when an old police truck was parked outside their cells and the engine revered so that smoke pumped into their police cells.
The Bomb-Maker of 10 Bakshi Street
On 14 May 1987 Rabuka and his racist henchmen (including two present Bainimarama/Khaiyum regime Cabinet Ministers Ratu Inoke Kubuaobla and Filipe Bole) had turned the lives of Indo-Fijians upside down; to be precise, the coup happened 108 years to the day when their Indian indentured labourer ancestors had arrived in Fiji on 14 May 1879. The young Khaiyum was then a trainee television producer at the Kerry Packer Channel Nine-owned Television Fiji office on Gordon Street.
The Bomb-Maker of 10 Bakshi Street
On 14 May 1987 Rabuka and his racist henchmen (including two present Bainimarama/Khaiyum regime Cabinet Ministers Ratu Inoke Kubuaobla and Filipe Bole) had turned the lives of Indo-Fijians upside down; to be precise, the coup happened 108 years to the day when their Indian indentured labourer ancestors had arrived in Fiji on 14 May 1879. The young Khaiyum was then a trainee television producer at the Kerry Packer Channel Nine-owned Television Fiji office on Gordon Street.
Unlike native Fijians who melted away after the 2006 coup, the Indo-Fijians and their sympathizers were a well-organized and determined group after the 1987 coups. It was agreed to take the fight to Rabuka and his regime, even if it meant bloodshed and violence on a large scale. We are well aware of the tons of weapons - The Guns of Lautoka - that was shipped to Fiji to overthrow the Rabuka government. Hardly anything is known about Khaiyum and his bombers.
During the early stages of the coup, the Indo-Fijian opponents of the coup needed a 'coalition of the willing', to borrow a political phrase used to describe collective participants who came together to topple dictator Saddam Hussein. Khaiyum came forward and took charge of making homemade bombs, from his garden shed at Bakshi Street in Suva. The Mango Chutney Professor Satendra Nandan, now all over the pages of Fiji Sun lauding the regime on Indo-Fijian rights, was one of many who had run away to Australia on his release from Parliament. He was the Minister of Health and Social Welfare on the month long Bavadra Government.
TO BE CONTINUED
During the early stages of the coup, the Indo-Fijian opponents of the coup needed a 'coalition of the willing', to borrow a political phrase used to describe collective participants who came together to topple dictator Saddam Hussein. Khaiyum came forward and took charge of making homemade bombs, from his garden shed at Bakshi Street in Suva. The Mango Chutney Professor Satendra Nandan, now all over the pages of Fiji Sun lauding the regime on Indo-Fijian rights, was one of many who had run away to Australia on his release from Parliament. He was the Minister of Health and Social Welfare on the month long Bavadra Government.
TO BE CONTINUED
