PEOPLE'S COALITION GOVERNMENT, FIJI

Ethnic Indians confrontational by not making Constitutional submissions, says regime

Issue No: 161; 31 October 2000

The regime's Constitution Commission started public hearing yesterday. No ethnic Indian presented any submission when the Commission met in Rakiraki.

The Chairman of the Commission, Asesela Ravuvu told today's Fiji Times that ethnic Indians were being confrontational by staying away. He stated: "Indians are snubbing the commission and this is confrontation". Ravuvu is a university academic and a failed candidate from the 1999 national elections.

The Constitution Commission members must be living in another world if they still have not got the message that the 1997 Constitution is preferred by a vast majority of Fiji's citizens.

END 31 October 2000.