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SUVA : Fiji's military leader Thursday intensified his crackdown against perceived enemies of his regime, throwing out an Australian academic days after expelling the top envoys from New Zealand and Australia.
The expulsion of Australian National University's Fiji expert Brij Lal also came as a close ally of self-appointed prime minister Voreqe Bainimarama was named the country's president, a largely ceremonial role.
Lal was arrested on Wednesday at his home in Suva after giving a number of media interviews on Fiji's political situation as the country's relations with Wellington and Canberra reached a new low.
Bainimarama announced late Tuesday that the heads of the Australian and New Zealand missions would be expelled, triggering tit-for-tat expulsions from Wellington and Canberra.
"I was in a cell for an hour and interrogated and told to leave the country within 24 hours or else," Lal told Australia's ABC Radio late Wednesday.
A regular visitor to Fiji, Lal said it was the first time he had been arrested by the military, which ousted the elected government in a December 2006 coup and was involved in three other coups in the past two decades.
"This tells you something about the state of Fiji at the moment," he said, adding there was no freedom of speech.
Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said his country would maintain its strong opposition to Bainimarama's regime.
"We simply are not going to stand idly by and convey a sense of normality about a regime which is on the slippery slope towards the incremental abolition of all forms of press freedom, for example," Rudd told ABC Radio.
The US joined the condemnation Wednesday, saying it deplored the expulsions of the diplomats.
State Department spokesman Ian Kelly told reporters the expulsions undermined any opportunity for progress toward Fiji's re-engagement with its neighbours.
"The United States calls for the restoration of Fiji's independent judiciary and the rights to free speech and assembly that are essential to the country's return to democracy," Kelly said.
Meanwhile, Fiji's acting president Ratu Epeli Nailatikau, a former army commander credited with guiding Bainimarama through his military career, was sworn in as head of state Thursday.
Nailatikau was appointed acting president after Ratu Josefa Iloilo retired at the end of July.
Nailatikau was named as vice president in April, a week after Bainimarama repealed the constitution, sacked the judiciary and introduced emergency regulations.
Bainimarama has said he plans to hold elections by September 2014 after reforming the voting system and developing a new constitution.
Fiji was suspended from the 16-nation Pacific Islands Forum in May and from the Commonwealth in September over broken promises to hold elections by March this year.
Australia and New Zealand have been at the forefront of international condemnation of Bainimarama's regime and their travel sanctions on people associated with the regime prompted the expulsion of their envoys from Suva.
- AFP/ir
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