The weight of 1987 includes both personal responsibility and wider institutional complicity, Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka told the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC).
“Those who were personally and directly involved, I had no control over,” he said. “I regretted them happening, but they can all say that I opened the door. For which I accept responsibility.”
But he also pointed to institutions whose silence or support lent weight to the events of the time. He cited the Great Council of Chiefs and said some church leaders also encouraged the takeover. “The general content was to support me,” he said of the council’s May 30, 1987 meeting.
However, he stressed that not all institutions agreed. “Many divisions voiced their opposition,” he said, adding that some Methodist leaders were removed for resisting political involvement.
Mr Rabuka said collective accountability meant acknowledging the broader environment that allowed the coup to unfold, without shifting blame away from him.
He also said he now values dialogue over force.
“I would have chosen the wisdom of talanoa over the arrogance of the barracks,” he said.
Demographic anxiety fueled precoup tensions, TRC told
FEARS over Fiji’s shifting demographic balance were a significant pressure point in the lead-up to 1987, Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka told the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
He told the commission that changes in Fiji’s demographic makeup created anxiety about political and economic dominance.
“Perhaps that is an explanation, not justification,” he said.
Mr Rabuka said the worry stemmed from the belief that Indigenous communities could “become dominated by other ethnic groups”.
He referenced colonial-era warnings and debates during independence preparations, saying some predictions frightened students and young soldiers.
He also said institutional structures had not anticipated the speed or effect of Fiji’s demographic transition.
“They probably did not foresee… this happening,” he said.
Mr Rabuka described these fears as one of several pressures of the era but rejected the idea that they justified the overthrow of an elected government.
He said the commission’s hearings were an opportunity to acknowledge those emotions, understand why they surfaced and help Fiji define what its multi-ethnic identity should look like.
“We metamorphose into a new identity… where ethnic differences fade away,” he said.
PM insists on facing past trauma for national healing
REVISITING past trauma will reopen old wounds, but Fiji cannot move forward without facing them, Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka told the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
He said some Fijians had urged him not to attend the hearing.
“Please do not go. It will serve no purpose,” he said, repeating warnings he received from home and abroad.
But he insisted confronting the past was necessary.
“Old wounds, new ones, they hurt… people have said no, why are you going? It’ll open up old wounds,” he said. “The only way to heal is to objectively look at what has happened.”
Mr Rabuka said his hope was for an open space where people could “come and make their confession without fear”.
He acknowledged the deep trauma still carried by families affected by displacement, job loss, and fractured communities.
He encouraged more people to participate, saying the opportunity “may not come again”.
Mr Rabuka said healing required honesty, patience and national willingness to sit through discomfort.
“It cannot be an arrangement,” he said.
“People need to decide that openly.”
He described reconciliation as “a daily conscious choice” and said forgiveness must be “an internal peace that comes from surrendering to the truth”.
‘Let us be aware of the sensitivities of numbers’
LONG-STANDING anxieties about population numbers and how national assets are distributed must be confronted openly, Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka told the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
Appearing before the commission, he said the debate over land, resources and ownership had always carried ethnic undertones.
“Let us be aware of the sensitivities of numbers… a perceived imbalance in the distribution of assets,” he said.
Mr Rabuka said the clash often emerges when discussing land or customary resources.
“As soon as we bring that up, there will always be conflicting sides in the debate… legal, administrative… but there is always an ethnicity factor,” he said.
He said economic participation was one way to ease divisions.
He supported efforts that allow landowning groups to buy into major companies.
“Take away the things that make us different… we have a share in that big successful company. We benefit from it,” he said.
Mr Rabuka said Fiji needed policies that “actively redress disparity that’s activated by the coup” and a national curriculum that teaches the country’s full, complex history.
Rabuka tells TRC about orders
ORDERS to avoid excessive force and keep weapons unloaded guided the military’s approach in 1987, Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka told the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC).
He said the internal security manuals inherited from British forces were written for foreign armies and were not suitable for use against Fiji’s civilian population.
“We cannot afford to use what… was written for an army not indigenous to the place they are in. We cannot afford to do it here,” he said.
Mr Rabuka said he pressed his commanders repeatedly to avoid escalation.
His fear, he said, was “a breakdown of communication from me to the commanders on the ground”.
“I wanted to be very, very clear… that we do not use force unduly,” he said. Soldiers, he said carried ammunition but were instructed not to load their weapons.
He described the coup as a “pre-emptive action to prevent any worse situations” and referred to it as “a contained disturbance”.
He told the commission: “I cannot deny… the violent imposition of will,” but insisted his directives were intended to prevent harm.
Mr Rabuka said he warned officers that anyone prepared to fire into a crowd must first imagine their own family standing ahead of them.
Rabuka recalls childhood years
EARLY memories of strict teachers, boarding-school routines and a confrontation that led him to Master Netani Drauvesi were among the experiences Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka recounted at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC).
Speaking before the TRC, he said his upbringing moved across villages as his parents, both teachers, were posted around the country.
“I was born on the 13th of September, 1948… delivered by a traditional village midwife,” he said.
He described a childhood marked by early boarding school life and long hours in school gardens. But one memory stayed with him – reacting angrily to an English teacher who warned that Indigenous Fijians would be politically outnumbered after independence.
“I walked out… pulled him by the lily pond,” he said.
“Don’t you ever say that again.”
Mr Rabuka said the incident triggered a formal reprimand.
“The principal asked the Fijian master to talk to me… told me to be careful about what I said.” He said his headboy then Ratu Isoa Gavidi spoke to him about “what I didn’t understand at the time.”
He said his sense of patriotism began early.
“I’ve always been very patriotic, very loyal about Fiji,” he said, adding that these early encounters shaped how he viewed leadership, identity and responsibility.
