Kamisese Mara
The Right Honourable Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara GCMG KBE CF, (
May 6,
1920 –
April 18,
2004) is considered the
founding father of the modern nation of
Fiji. He was
Chief Minister from
1967 to
1970, when Fiji gained its independence from the
United Kingdom, and, apart from one brief interruption in
1987,
Prime Minister from
1970 to
1992. He subsequently served as
President from
1993 to
2000.
Kamisese Kapaiwai Tuimacilai Mara was born on
6 May 1920, in
Vanuabalavu in the archipelago of
Lau, the son of
Ratu Tevita Uluilakeba, head of the chiefly
Vuanirewa clan, and his first wife
Lusiana Qolikoro, who was related to
Tongan royalty and was also descended from an
English missionary. Mara's title,
Ratu, which means "Chief," was hereditary; as the hereditary Paramount Chief of the
Lau Islands, he held the titles of
Tui Lau, and
Tui Nayau kei Sau ni Vanua ko Lau. He succeeded to the
Tui Nayau title in
1969, following the death of his father in
1966; he was later installed as
Tui Lau, inheriting the title left vacant by his cousin¹
Ratu Sir Lala Sukuna, who had died in
1958.
Mara was educated first at
Knox College,
Otago University in
New Zealand, where he studied medicine (
1942 to
1945). He never finished his medical course, because his great-uncle and mentor,
Ratu Sir Lala Sukuna (who was then regarded as Fiji's paramount chief), seeking to groom him for future leadership of the nation, arranged for him to study history at
Wadham College,
Oxford University in the
United Kingdom. Mara was distressed to abandon his medical studies, but, dependent on Ratu Sukuna for financial support, followed his orders without question, and graduated with an
M.A. in
1949. In
1961, he returned to the United Kingdom to pursue postgraduate study at the
London School of Economics for a Diploma in Economics and Social Administration, which he was awarded in
1962. In
1973, his old alma mater, Otago University, awarded him an honorary doctorate of laws (
LL.D).
Following his graduation from Oxford University, Mara returned to Fiji and married
Ro Litia Cakobau Lalabalavu Katoafutoga Tuisawau, better known as
Ro Lady Lala Mara, on
September 9 1950. Her title,
Ro, is also hereditary and is held by
Rewan chiefs; like her husband, Lala Mara was a chief in her own right, as the
Roko Tui Dreketi (Paramount Chief) of
Burebasaga and
Rewa. The marriage was initially opposed by Mara's family, as Adi Lala was from a rival dynasty with which the
Mara clan had a history of strained relations. The marriage proved to be a happy one, however, and in stark contrast to the prevalence of divorce among many of Mara's relatives, it lasted for more than 53 years. They had three sons and five daughters, two of whom have pursued political careers of their own. Their eldest son,
Ratu Finau Mara, was a
Cabinet Minister and
parliamentary leader of the
Fijian Association Party from
1996 to
1998, when he resigned to take up a diplomatic posting. Their second daughter,
Adi Koila Mara Nailatikau, has also followed in her father's footsteps and has served her country as a career diplomat and politician. She was
Minister for Transport and
Tourism in
1999 and 2000, and currently (
2005) serves in the
Fijian Senate.
After serving (from
1950) as an Administrative Officer in the Colonial Services, Mara was elected to one of four seats on the
Legislative Council reserved for ethnic Fijians in
1953. (There were eight other elective seats, four reserved for Indians and four for Europeans and other minorities; a further twelve members were appointed by the colonial
Governor). In
1959, Mara was appointed to the
Executive Council, and in
1963 was given responsibility as Leader of Government Business and Member for Natural Resources (officially an advisor to the Governor, but in reality roughly equivalent to a modern
cabinet minister). In
1964, he was received into the
Great Council of Chiefs, which at that time was empowered to appoint two members to the
Legislative Council. In
1966, he founded the
Alliance Party, which, supported overwhelmingly by the ethnic
Fijian and European communities (but not by most
Indo-Fijians), won a majority of the seats in the
1966 election. In preparation for independence, the United Kingdom introduced the
Westminster (Cabinet) system of government to Fiji in October
1967. The Executive Council was transformed into a modern
Cabinet, and its members, who had hitherto been answerable only to the colonial
Governor, were made fully responsible to the
legislature. Mara was named to the new position of
Chief Minister.
One problem that threatened to delay independence was the failure of
ethnic Fijians and Indo-Fijians to agree on a post-independence
Constitution. Ethnic Fijians, including Mara, wanted a communal franchise, with parliamentary seats reserved for the different ethnic groups, who would vote on separate electoral rolls. It was believed that this would protect indigenous Fijian rights. Mara also considered that it was in Fiji's interests to avoid direct competition between political candidates from different ethnic groups, fearing that it would lead to social and political upheaval. Most Indo-Fijians rejected this proposal, believing that it would prevent them from obtaining a legislative majority, even though they numbered more than half of the population, and demanded that all Parliamentary seats should be elected by universal suffrage from a common voters' roll. In April,
1970, Mara and
Sidiq Koya, leader of the mainly Indo-Fijian
National Federation Party, met in
London and negotiated a compromise. Fijians and Indo-Fijians would be represented equally in the
House of Representatives, with 22 seats each; a further 8 seats would be set aside for Europeans and other minorities. About half of the representatives from each ethnic group would be elected only by members of their particular race, while the other half would be elected by universal suffrage. Following this agreement, Fiji became independent on
10 October,
1970.
With independence, the office of Chief Minister was renamed
Prime Minister, but its functions were substantially unchanged. Mara retained power in
the first post-independence election of
1972. Internal divisions within the ethnic Fijian electorate led to the narrow defeat of his Alliance Party by the Indo-Fijian dominated
National Federation Party (NFP) in the
election of March 1977. He tendered his resignation as Prime Minister, but the NFP splintered three days later in a leadership dispute, and a
constitutional crisis developed. The official representative of
Queen Elizabeth,
Governor-General Ratu Sir George Cakobau, ended up calling on Mara to form a new government. Although unquestionably constitutional, the Governor-General's actions were controversial. Many Indo-Fijians were outraged at what they saw as a deliberate cynical move on his part to keep the government of Ratu Mara, his fellow-chief (and distant cousin) in power at all costs. A
subsequent election to resolve the impasse in September that year, however, appeared to vindicate Cakobau, when the Alliance Party won a record 36 seats out of 52.
The Alliance Party's majority was reduced in the
1982 election, but with 28 of the 52 seats, Mara retained power. Despite the loss of eight seats, the popular vote for the Alliance Party rose to 51.8 % - an all-time record. Part of the reason for this paradox lay in the distribution of the vote: the gains in the popular vote occurred mostly because of a swing of almost 10 % in the 11 "communal" seats reserved for, and elected exclusively by, Indo-Fijians, but 24 % of the Indo-Fijian vote was insufficient to translate into parliamentary seats, and therefore did not effectively offset small but very significant losses in ethnic Fijian "communal" seats. It was therefore a bittersweet election for Mara.
Convinced of the need to include Indo-Fijians in the government, he proposed a "government of national unity" - a grand coalition with the National Federation Party. The NFP, however, rejected the offer and remained in opposition. In the
election of 1987, Mara was finally defeated by a multiracial coalition led by Dr
Timoci Bavadra. His retirement was to be short-lived, however.
Two military coups led by Lieutenant Colonel
Sitiveni Rabuka seriously undermined the social and economic stability, and the international prestige, of Fiji. Mara was recalled to head an interim administration, with a view to restoring Fiji's international reputation and rebuilding the country's shattered economy. In 1992, he handed over power to an elected government.
*
See main article: Removal of Ratu Mara, 2000.Following the military coups of 1987, Fiji had severed its links with the
British monarchy and become a republic, with a
President and two
Vice-Presidents chosen by the
Great Council of Chiefs. Following his retirement as Prime Minister, Mara was elected to the Vice-Presidency in June 1992, and became Acting President soon after, when the ailing President
Ratu Sir Penaia Ganilau was incapacitated. He assumed the office of President officially when Ganilau died on
16 December of the following year. Modelled on the British monarchy, the presidency filled a largely honorary role, but was nevertheless vested with important
reserve powers, to be used only in the event of a national crisis.
That crisis came on
May 19,
2000, with the
Fiji coup of 2000. Armed gunmen led by
George Speight forced their way into
Parliament and kidnapped the Prime Minister,
Mahendra Chaudhry, several
Cabinet ministers, and a number of parliamentarians. Speight declared himself Prime Minister, and ordered Mara to step aside as president. Mara refused to negotiate with the plotters, and decided instead to dismiss the kidnapped government and assume emergency powers himself. His move backfired, however. In what politicians called "a coup within a coup," Ratu Mara was whisked away on the naval ship
Kiro on
May 28, where he was allegedly approached by a group of present and former military and police officers and ordered to suspend the
Constitution. When he refused,
("If the Constitution goes, I go," he defiantly declared) the group, including the army commander,
Commodore Frank Bainimarama, former
Prime Minister and
1987 Coup Leader
Sitiveni Rabuka, former military commander
Ratu Epeli Ganilau (a son-in-law of Mara's), and a former Police Commissioner
Isikia Savua, are alleged to have asked for, and possibly forced, Mara's resignation. He was subsequently taken to his home island of
Lakeba in the
Lau Islands. For the 80 year-old President, who was seen as the father of the country and had led it, in one capacity or another, for more than 40 years, it was an anticlimactic end.
The military regime that took over appointed
Ratu Josefa Iloilo, who had been Mara's Vice-President, to succeed him on
13 July 2000. After the coup had been quashed, the
Supreme Court ruled on
15 November that year that Mara's replacement was unconstitutional and ordered his reinstatement, but Mara, wishing to spare the country further constitutional trauma, officially resigned, with his resignation retroactive to
May 29,
2000.
On
April 29,
2001, Mara publicly accused the police chief, Colonel
Isikia Savua and former
Prime Minister,
Sitiveni Rabuka, of instigating the
coup. In what was to be his last public interview, Mara claimed that
George Speight - who was then in custody and has since been convicted of treason - was only a front, Mara told
Close-Up on
Fiji Television that he confronted Savua and Rabuka two days after the coup about their possible involvement.
"I could see it in their faces," said Mara, emphatically rejecting their denials.
Mara told the programme that within half an hour of Speight's forcible occupation of the Parliament, Rabuka had telephoned
Government House (the official residence of the President) to offer to form a government.
Mara said that he was shocked to learn that the
Counter Revolutionary Warfare Unit of the
Army had been involved in the coup. He alleged that they took
George Speight to Parliament, and that their senior officers supplied them with weapons, blankets, and food. Mara also declared that the Counter Revolutionary Warfare officers who joined Speight's coup had trained on a farm owned by Rabuka. Excerpts of this interview were broadcast on
29 April 2001; the full interview was not broadcast until
29 April 2004 - while his body was lying in state in preparation for his funeral.
Whether Mara's resignation was in fact forced has been the subject of a police investigation since
May 21 2003, when the
Police Investigations Department confirmed that they had opened an investigation into the events surrounding his departure from.
Mahendra Chaudhry, the deposed
Prime Minister, has publicly supported Mara's version of events, and has further alleged that Mara was blackmailed with a threat to kill his daughter, Tourism Minister
Adi Koila Nailatikau, who was one of the hostages. Commodore Bainimarama has defended his role in the incident saying it was "necessary" at the time, and that Mara's resignation was, in fact, voluntary and that he had refused offers of reinstatement. Mara's daughter,
Adi Ateca Ganilau (wife of Ratu Epeli Ganilau) appeared support Bainimarama's claims in a statement on
10 January 2005, saying that her father had resigned and had refused to return because he was upset by the abrogation of the Constitution.
"He did not agree with the abrogation of the Constitution. That was probably why he refused to return to office. It was not that the military pressured him to move out," Ganilau said. She called for a thorough investigation into the abrogation of the Constitution, and for those who were legal advisers at the time to be answerable for their actions.
Police have said they have faced "many challenges" in their investigation, finding many officers uncooperative. On
30 April 2004, the Fijian police said they were closely examining the recording of Mara's last interview, in an attempt to uncover new leads. Police spokesman
Mesake Koroi declared that there was a lot of hearsay and rumours in circulation that would not stand up in a court of law. "Unfortunately we are hitting a brick wall in our investigations at the moment," Koroi said. On
2 May 2005, however, Commodore Bainimarama agreed to make a statement to the police about his own role in Mara's resignation.
Commissioner of Police (Fiji) Andrew Hughes said that no charges could be brought against Commodore Bainimarama unless it could be proved that he had actually forced the President to resign. On
5 January 2006, Hughes said that Mara's departure from the Presidency was one of seven major cases the police were still working on.
Ratu Mara is regarded as modern Fiji's founding father. He not only led the islands to independence from British rule, and served the country for many years thereafter, but accumulated impressive achievements in office. During his tenure as Prime Minister, Fiji's economic growth was extraordinary.
Sugarcane industry
Under Mara's leadership, Fiji became a giant in
sugarcane production. Between
1970 and 1987, the sugarcane crop more than doubled, from under 250,000 metric tons to 502,000. The sugar industry continues to be the mainstay of Fiji's economy, and more than 90 % of Fiji's sugar is exported. Mara's government led the way in negotiating special preferential marketing agreements with nations importing Fijian sugar, through the
Lome Convention.
Pine industry
Mara also founded Fiji's
pine industry. Today, pine plantations, virtually nonexistent 40 years ago, cover close to 480 square kilometres throughout the Fiji Islands, and there is an ongoing programme to further expand area in all parts of the country. Fiji now derives more than $40 to 50 million a year in foreign exchange earnings from its forestry sector. Of this total, more than half is from pinewood chips exports. This industry now provides a substantial and increasing source of income to those in rural areas, including especially the indigenous Fijian landowners.
International achievements and honours
In the 1960s, Mara led a revolt by Pacific Islands delegates that brought about a restructuring of the
South Pacific Commission. He also helped to launch the
Pacific Islands Producers' Association. This evolved into the
South Pacific Bureau for Economic Cooperation, which grew into the
South Pacific Forum, an association of Pacific nations, of which Mara was a founder member.
Yet another significant Mara achievement was his contribution to the negotiations that led to the signing of a new
United Nations International Law of the Sea Convention in
1982.
On the global stage, Mara was known for his strongly pro-American views. He supported visits to Fijian ports by nuclear-armed United States warships and submarines. He was a close ally of
U.S. President Ronald Reagan. Mara was also known for his support for
Taiwan. Although he did not officially recognize the
Republic of China, he never hid the fact that his true sympathies lay there, and the
Taipei regime, in gratitude, helped to finance the publication of his memoirs.
Over the years, Mara received many honours from around the world. In addition to his knighthood (a
Knight of the British Empire, awarded in
1969), his honours from Queen Elizabeth II included the
Meritorious Service Decoration, the
Officer of the British Empire (
1961),
Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George (
1983),
Chancellor of the Order of Fiji,
Companion of the Order of Fiji, and
Knight Grand Cross of the Pian Order with Star (
1995). He was also a member of the
Privy Council in London beginning in
1973. Recognitions from other governments included being made a
Grand Master of the Order of the National Lion in
Dakar,
Senegal in
1975, and the
Order of Diplomatic Service Merit of
South Korea in
1978. He was also a
Knight of the Most Venerable Order of St John of Jesuralem, and became Chancellor of the
University of the South Pacific at
Suva, which was founded with the support of his government. In 2000,
Island Business Magazine named him
Pacific Man of the Century, in recognition of his pivotal role in the founding of the South Pacific Forum.
Criticisms
There were criticisms of his leadership, too, some of which he eventually acknowledged. Many Indo-Fijians criticized him for not doing more to thwart the
1987 coups which removed an Indo-Fijian dominated administration from office, and for giving his consent to a new constitution, drafted in
1990, which guaranteed indigenous Fijian supremacy and was widely regarded as racist, even drawing comparisons from some quarters with
South Africa's apartheid system. Mara defended his role in the post-coup era of 1987 to 1992, arguing that he was doing the best he could in circumstances that he could not fully control, and that it had seemed better at the time to connive in the writing of a discriminatory constitution than to risk civil war at the hands of ethnic Fijian extremists. In 1996, he publicly apologized to the
Indo-Fijian community for his role in the drafting of the 1990 Constitution.
Mahendra Chaudhry, the leader of the Indo-Fijian community who in 1999 became Fiji's first Indo-Fijian Prime Minister, said that he did not agree with, but understood, Mara's reasons for acting as he did, and accepted his apology for having done so. Other opponents, both Indo-Fijian and ethnic Fijian, were less forgiving, however.
Sitiveni Rabuka, who led the
1987 revolution, surprised many in 1999 when he claimed in an autobiography that he had carried out the coups at Mara's behest. Mara retaliated by suing him for defamation. Mahendra Chaudhry said that he did not believe that Mara had been involved.
Not all of Mara's critics were Indo-Fijian.
George Speight, a commoner (i.e., one of non-chiefly ancestry) who led the
2000 putsch accused Mara of selling the country out to Indo-Fijians, and of working to keep power in the hands of a coalition of Fijian chiefs and Indo-Fijian businessmen, at the expense of Fijian commoners. This view was shared by dissatisfied elements of the Fijian population, mainly poorer people.
Following his resignation, Mara retired to his native island of
Lakeba. He continued to influence politics in Fiji, where democracy was subsequently restored, through his membership of the
Great Council of Chiefs, which not only advises the government but also functions as an
electoral college to choose the President of the Republic, as well as 14 of the 32 members of the
Senate; at the time of his death, he was the longest-serving member of the Council. He remained Chairman of the
Lau Provincial Council, a position he had held concurrently with his national offices for many years.
Mara suffered a
stroke late in 2001 while visiting
Port Vila,
Vanuatu, with two of his longtime friends, businessmen
Hari Punja and
Joe Ruggiero. He died in
Suva on
18 April 2004, from complications arising from the stroke. His state funeral, led by
Roman Catholic Archbishop Petero Mataca, which was spread out over three days (
28 to
30 April) saw an estimated 200,000 people - almost a quarter of Fiji's total population - line the streets to pay their last respects to the man they regarded as the father of the nation, in an outpouring of public grief not seen since the death of Mara's presidential predecessor,
Ratu Sir Penaia Ganilau, over a decade earlier.
Even in death, Ratu Mara stirred controversy. His state funeral was by no means universally popular, even among his close supporters. Claiming to speak for many of those who had been close to the late President,
Joseph Browne, who had been his official secretary, claimed that it was the "height of hyprocisy" to have the armed forces, still commanded by the same officers who had unceremoniously deposed Mara from the presidency four years earlier, honouring him at his funeral now.
A one-year period of mourning for the late Chief ended on
13 May 2005, with the close of a series of ceremonies that that started on the
9th. Those who had been observing mourning rituals symbolically changed from black clothes into their normal attire. (Members of the Mara family, however, said that they would continue to wear black for a further three months, until the period of mourning for his wife, Adi Lala, is over). Many thousands of people arrived in
Tubou Village on the island of Lakeba to take part in the
vakataraisulu ritual, which lifted taboos in place for the Mara family and the people of the Lau Islands. Mara's son,
Ratu Finau Mara, who is widely expected to be named his successor as
Tui Nayau, or Paramount Chief of the Lau Islands, was expected to participate in the
vakataraisulu at the request of elders from Tubou and
Levuka, but for undisclosed reasons, remained in Suva. In
2004, he had attended his father's state funeral in Suva but not his private funeral in Lakeba. His younger brother,
Roko Tevita Uluilakeba, was believed to be out of the country.
Addressing the
Lau Provincial Council in Ratu Mara's honour, Fiji's current
Vice-President,
Ratu Joni Madraiwiwi praised him as a man of vision and compassion, who hated lies and lived by the truth. He praised him as a committed Christian who practiced what he preached, and who did not differentiate between people but treated all men alike whatever their race or religion. Madraiwiwi called on Lauans today to follow Mara's example.
Another controversy was reported by the
Fiji Times on
8 January 2006. His family was displeased, his daughter
Adi Ateca Ganilau told the
Times, that the same government that was working to release from prison persons convicted of offences related to the coup which deposed him, was also promoting an independent biography to be written by
Australian academic
Derrick Scarr, formerly of the
Australian National University. This was contradictory, she said.
"On one hand they want to praise him but on the other they are working to free those people who ousted him through the Reconciliation Bill," she said, referring to controversial legislation introduced by the Fijian government in
2005, aimed at establishing a Commission empowered to propose amnesty for coup-convicts. She reiterated her previously stated opposition to the release of coup-perpetrators, saying that he father would not have stood for it if he were alive.
Jioji Kotobalavu, the Chief Executive Officer of the Prime Minister's Department, rejected the criticism, saying that the government was not financing the book and that its involvement was limited to ensuring that Scarr had access to information sources. He considered that cooperation in the writing of the biography would be a fitting tribute to Ratu Mara, whom he called a great man. The Mara family should discuss any reservations with Scarr himself, Kotobalavu said.
Mara's interests included
cricket, which he
played in his younger years,
rugby,
golf,
athletics, and fishing. He was a member of the
Achilles Club in
London, the
Defence Club in
Suva, and the
United Oxford and Cambridge Universities Club in the United Kingdom. Mara's character was
described as a combination of the forthright and the diplomatic, the inflexible and the dexterous, the imperious and the tolerant . He was known as a strong, imposing personality, but with an ability to forgive his opponents. A convert to
Catholicism, Mara wrote of his faith:
"Certainly it has been the rock on which I have been able to rely in good times and in bad, and it is the lodestone of my life." He wrote an autobiography,
The Pacific Way: A Memoir. Mara was survived by his wife, Adi Lala (who herself died on
July 20 the same year), and by two sons and five daughters; one son predeceased him.
*
Island Business magazine names Mara Pacific Islands Man of the Century*
Official death notice, tributes, and announcement of a state funeral (Heraldsun)*
A brief sketch of Ratu Mara's life (Daily Telegraph) (UK)*
Transcript of ABC Radio report of Mara's death*
Partial transcript of Ratu Mara's last interview, with Fiji Television, 29 April 2001*
The end of an era (Islands Business), May 2004*†From
1967 -
1970, the Prime Minister's title was
Chief Minister.*‡In Mara's time, the office of Vice-President was held simultaneously by two individuals; Mara's tenure coincided with that of
Ratu Sir Josaia Tavaiqia (1992 to
1997)
