Coup Coup Land : A Comparative Study of the Coups of Fiji

A thesis presented on the political history of Fiji from cession to Britain in 1874 compares and analyses the country’s four political coups. A military coup occurred in 1987 by Lt. Col Sitiveni Rabuka. Six months later he staged a self-coup. In 2000 George Speight staged an armed civilian coup or putsch, and in 2006 Commodore Frank Bainimarama, head of Fiji’s military forces, overthrew the government of Laisenia Qarase. This paper is an internal comparison of the four coups of which the aim is to examine why coups occur in Fiji. The conclusion is that the level of influence of the country’s traditional paramount chiefs is a strong causal factor in events leading to the political overthrows. Issues such as ethnicity, constitutionalism, democracy, traditionalism, and modernity make the study of the Fiji coups complex. All of the major actors involved have been present or have been somehow linked to each coup. Questions of leadership arise as do issues regarding pluralism and multiculturalism. These issues are discussed in this paper. The end result is that if the question of traditional leadership is not addressed within a democratic framework then Fiji will continue to have coups.

Historia Reciente del Pueblo Mapuche (1970-2003) : Presencia y Protagonismo en la vida política de Chile

This article relates the Actual History of the Mapuche People with the different political processes that have taken place in Chile from 1970 until the present time, passing through the government of Popular Unity, the Pinochet’s Regime and the return of Democracy. The purpose of this paper is to show that the political and social conditions of the Mapuche People were directly connected with what was going on in Chile during those years, not only being part of the general Chilean History but also protagonist and mean actors of the moment.