Fijian coup leader advertises Cabinet posts in newspapers

SUVA, Fiji -- Wanted ads to fill vacant Cabinet jobs in the post-coup Fiji government ran in local newspapers Saturday in the South Pacific nation's renegade military chief and self-appointed president's latest step toward replacing the democratically elected administration he ousted.

"Applicants must be of outstanding character and without any criminal records," the ad notes.

"Each must not have been declared bankrupt," it warns, adding that applications must be submitted to military headquarters by Tuesday.

Commodore Frank Bainimarama appears determined to push through with the bloodless coup in which he seized control of the capital Suva on Tuesday.

Bainimarama was Saturday outside Suva on the west coast of the main island Veti Levu, a military officer said, and did not immediately respond to the latest international condemnation from the 53-nation British Commonwealth on Friday.

Commonwealth Secretary-General Don McKinnon strongly condemned the coup and said he remained skeptical of the prospects for lasting peace under the military regime.

"Just because this was a bloodless coup, it doesn't always remain that way," McKinnon said.

Fijian military spokesman Maj. Neumi Leweni said the suspension had been expected.

Leweni told Radio Legend listeners that gunfire heard from the main barracks in Suva on Saturday was part of an exercise and not evidence of conflict within army ranks.

There was little evidence in the streets of Suva of the political crisis gripping the nation.

Some of the Fijian government's chief executive officers received reappointment letters and welcomed the chance to continue running the bureaucracy, the Fiji Times newspaper reported Saturday. At least three CEOs received such letters.

Bainimarama has removed a swathe of senior civil servants, including the country's two top police officers, in a campaign he says will weed out corruption entrenched by ousted Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase.

In the latest sign of internal disquiet, the Fiji Law Society moved to suspend seven lawyers working for the military for allegedly providing "illegal advice." Suspension is the first step toward barring the lawyers from practicing law.

A split emerged Saturday among denominations in this deeply Christian country over a statement published in newspapers Friday.

The Roman Catholic Church's Archbishop Petero Mataca criticized the other churches for issuing a statement condemning the coup after having remained silent in 2000 when an ethnic Indian prime minister was ousted.

Mataca said in a letter to the Fiji Sun newspaper that "we all" failed to learn from the last coup by "not ensuring our young democracy and the rule of law were not abused and misused in the last five to six years."

Bainimarama's coup got the first signs of support outside his military regime on Friday from the country's powerful tribal chiefs. The Great Council of Chiefs will "come in the next day or two to discuss the situation" with the military, former council chairman Ratu Epeli Ganilau told the Fiji Times.

Bainimarama also received qualified support Friday from opposition leader and ex-prime minister Mahendra Chaudhry.

Qarase maintains he is the only legal holder of that office, and urged people to peacefully defy the military regime.

The coup -- Fiji's fourth in nearly two decades -- was the culmination of a long impasse between Bainimarama and Qarase over bills offering pardons to conspirators in a 2000 coup and handing lucrative coastal land ownership to indigenous Fijians. Bainimarama says the bills are racist.