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SUVA, Fiji (AP) - The military could rule in Fiji for "up to 50 years" unless powerful tribal chiefs agree to appoint a government approved by the country's coup leader that would eventually restore democracy, the armed forces chief said Thursday.
Commodore Frank Bainimarama escalated a standoff with the Great Council of Chiefs, which has the power to give the military takeover a veneer of legality but has so far rejected his plans, saying they must accept the reality that he is now in control.
Bainimarama wants the council, which under the constitution appoints the president and vice president on the advice of the elected government, to reappoint President Ratu Josefa Iloilo, whose powers the commander declared Dec. 5 he had assumed to dismiss the government.
Under Bainimarama's plan, Iloilo would then swear in the military's caretaker government, which would rule until elections restored democracy.
The plan would allow Bainimarama to claim he was working within the constitution when he ousted Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase, and could prevent treason or other criminal charges being laid against him in the future.
The chief's council has condemned Bainimarama's coup as illegal and disrespectful, and the military accuses it of dragging its feet on organizing a meeting currently scheduled for next Wednesday and Thursday.
"If the Great Council decides to hold off appointing a president, this transitional regime can rule for up to 50 years," Bainimarama told Radio Fiji on Thursday.
Meanwhile, two dozen protesters from a women's activist group marched through the capital Thursday demanding a return to democracy, as soldiers raided more offices looking for files the coup makers say are evidence of the ousted government's corruption.
About 25 members of femLINKpacific group held a silent protest against the country's unrest at Suva's Anglican cathedral, demanding that women be given a greater say in restoring peace following Fiji's fourth coup in 19 years.
"This time round, we're going to be adamant about it - women are going to be part of the formal process" of returning the country to democracy, spokeswoman Sharon Bhagwan Rolls said.
Soldiers manning checkpoints throughout the city did not interfere with the protest.
Elsewhere in the city, troops burst into the offices of the Native Land Trust Board and the Fijian Affairs Board and seized documents - the latest raids in what Bainimarama says is a campaign to clean up corruption rife within the ousted regime.
The editor-in-chief of the Fiji Daily Post newspaper, Fijian-born Australian citizen Robert Wolfgramm, said the military had seized his passport and told him that he was being deported because of the paper's critical coverage of the takeover.
"We have been consistent in our clear voice for democracy and letting the elected government rule," he said. "It's not the place of the military to have a political role and we have made that clear."
Bainimarama grabbed power after months of spatting with Qarase over the alleged corruption and two pieces of planned legislation. The bills would have offered pardons to plotters in a 2000 coup and would have handed lucrative coastal land to Fiji's indigenous majority. Bainimarama says Qarase's nationalist government disadvantaged the ethnic Indian minority.
Osini Faleatasi, Inc.
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