12 Dec 2003

CCF calls on Senator Cakobau to apologise for pro coup statements

4:57 pm on 12 December 2003

Fiji's Citizens Constitutional Forum says Senator Adi Litia Cakobau should apologize for suggesting that the coup of May 2000 was a political statement.

Adi Litia told the Senate this week that the coup makers should be set free, that investigations into the coup should stop and that the country should look forward not back.

But the CCF's executive director the Reverend Akuila Yabaki says her statements are most unbecoming and a disgrace.

He says most of the people who had misguidedly taken part in the coup, had done so on the basis of manipulations and distortion from leaders such as her.

Mr Yabaki says Adi Litia is one of those people whose role in the events of 2000 still need to be investigated.

"Actually a public apology is required from her but I don't think she is of a mind to make such an apology because she does not rise to that level of sense of dignity and integrity of a leader. She represents a failure of leadership in this country."