The First Coup and Me!

On a Fiji theme here, so let's keep it going. The coup. I know everyone in Fiji has vastly more interesting stories but this is mine:

First coup, the Rabuka Coup, May 14th 1987.

I was, back then, in the Australian Outback, teaching Aboriginal children. I had some idea of doing something good and needful with my life, but, boy oh boy, wasn't that a ridiculous choice! Nearly broke me.

Anyway, amidst all this hard, heartbreaking and demoralising work, a life-saving bunch of like-minded folk formed ourselves into an informal clique called "Cuppachino Club", meeting twice a week to do 'our kinda stuff', and on this particular night, 14th May, we had gathered in the only cafe in town that made cuppachino, to help Carmen put together her first issue of a projected bi-annual "Anti-Cruelty to Animals in the Outback" magazine.

So it was four hours of escaping the general horribleness of our lives, distracting ourselves with cheesecake and cuppachino, formats and fonts, layouts and logos, brainstorming story ideas and it was just starting to look good and happening, when Matthew, an insufferable prat who'd been sitting with us the whole time, says "It's sad about Fiji, isn't it!"

I was only half listening. "What's sad about Fiji?"

"The coup today."

Total change of focus. "What coup?"

"Fiji had a coup today?"

It was the most horrible THUD at my core as the bottom fell out of my world. That's all Matthew knew so I looked at the time: 8.20pm. I'd missed the news. "Why didn't you tell me earlier?"

"I didn't think you'd be interested?"

I was within a hairsbreadth of slapping him a sharp one around the ear. Boy, was I furious.

Keith was in some nearby music shop, as per usual, talking music with his like-minded folk, so I found him and told him and he was instantly as white-faced and frantic as I was. In the car, we caught a snatch of something Fiji-coupish on the radio, but with lousy reception, so immediately we got home we switched on the TV and hunted. There was a strip running along the bottom of ABC, saying "Army coup in Fiji. News at 11." but that was it.

Phone call home. The satellite was off. No calls getting through. So I phoned to everyone I knew in Australia and NZ who was even vaguely Fiji-ish, to see what they knew. Always, no more than I did. It was horrible. Everyone was worried sick. Everyone was trying to phone home. Everyone was doing what I was doing, and, between bouts of throwing up, phoning other Fiji-folk, hungry for any news at all, from anywhere, and we were all hanging out for the 11pm ABC news, suddenly our life-saver.

Finally, 11.00pm. Lead story: Fiji coup, and there was image of tanks rumbling through a Toorak night, frightened distant screaming, billowing clouds of black smoke, machine gun fire and the sounds of distant pounding cannon, and it was the most frightening, nauseating, sweaty-palming, sickening sight I have ever witnessed. Story ended, phone ringing, everyone trying to reach everyone else. Nauseous, crying, hysterical, cramped stomachs, vomiting. Horrible.

It wasn't until 2.00 am before someone cleverer than the rest of us realised what we all already knew but had forgotten: "Fiji doesn't have tanks!" And that's when the round of calls started "It's not Fiji." and "That's not footage of Fiji." and we all recalled that the image had something on it that said the footage had come from CNN or some other American news agency and we all ... well, we all started relief-laughing at how much whatever place this was looked like Suva's suburb of Toorak and what inconsiderate idiots the Americans always were, always thinking one third-world country could be substituted for another, and how we should all collectively sue them for frightening us this way.

But then it was all back to knowing nothing about what was going down at home, but at least we could sleep knowing that Suva wasn't on fire, perhaps, and no one, perhaps, was pounding us with cannon.

The next day, Friday, despite the almost sleepless night, I went to teach. Horrible day, ill, frantic, frazzled, off-centre. I kept walking into walls, and spilling tea over myself, and not one single person, not even the Indian teacher with Grandparents in Fiji - who I knew and she didn't - but she never wanted to know about them, which was odd, don't you think! - asked me how I was holding up. Not one single word or gesture of comfort or reassurance. There were whispers, yes, and the perpetually ghastly kids kept up the "Your family's dead, eh, Miss!" and "Soldiers killed your family, eh, Miss!" and sniggering, or even laughing uproariously as I passed, but that was it. Since this is such a clear and obvious example of what Outback types are like - the missing sensitivity chip at the heart of Australia - you can understand why I never warmed to the place.

4.00pm, tried to ring home. The satellite was working again but I kept being told the lines were congested, so again with the calls to Fiji-folk. Everyone else was trying to phone home too and having the same problem.

Suddenly, I had a flash; one of those sudden moments of sheer brilliance that make me think I'm a lot cleverer than I actually am: Fiji had only hooked up to satellite; less than a year; maybe Cable and Wireless hadn't got around to cutting off the under-water cables into Fiji, so I tried using the old number and bingo! straight through.

Mum and dad in Deuba. They were fine. Totally. There was a news black-out in Fiji so they knew no more than we did, although Rabuka had come on radio with a message of motive and reassurance, and, since Mum knew Rabuka from golf and thought of him as the most complete gentleman - and ssshhh! secret! very sexy to boot! - she wasn't worried at all about things getting out of control. So all was fine their end.

Rang Molly in Suva, and boom! straight through again. Obviously, I was the only smarty-pants who'd realised this cable connection. Molly was, back then, a journalist with Fiji Times, so, since she was on the frontlines, I thought she'd have news ... which she did, heaps and heaps. But, since we're talking "The Mighty Moll" - always the cartoon superhuman - it was all fearlessness and stupid-courage and thus she'd had lots of hilarious run-ins with soldiers and guns and, since she was 8 months pregnant and thus totally unable to "lie face down with her hands behind her head" and stuff like that, it was all insanely funny stories and we ended up rolling around in fits of laughter.

6.00pm news! Back then, Fiji didn't yet have TV, but o/s journalists had hit our shores and so we were finally getting real imagine of Suva being its usual sleepy self instead of CNN's 'The Toorak Tank Horrors!' Realised, yeah, we got that only because they had no other image to show. But, nonetheless, still very wrong of them and completely unforgivable, yes?

So, despite the coup, Fiji was still Fiji, and everything was under control; even totally Fiji-style downright hilarious. No tanks. No machine gun fire. No cannons pounding Suva into oblivion. Paradise was still paradise but only now with a snake in the tree.

Things did go sour, yes, in the following weeks, what with the burning of Marks Street, and the attack on Fiji Times journalist Richard Naidu, and death-threats against The Mighty Moll, who really did push things too far, had her fleeing the country, but overall this coup was bloodless, well-organised, to-the-point and thus, in the final analysis, only really a problem because it started Fiji's "culture of coups" and that's never ever a good thing.

However, back to that reassuring and very funny night, you'll be pleased to know that, although I really thought I should keep the still-operating under-sea cables my own secret, the angels of my better nature took over and I did tell other Fiji-folk, and thus, since word spread like wild-fire, I lost my instant connection with HOME.

So, although there's lots more, obviously, to this story, that's all I should really tell ... except ... no, that's all I should really tell.