The times, they are a changin.....
Trudy
*********************************
The Age Breaking News
Tribe wants Fiji capital back
Fijian tribes have begun court action demanding compensation for
land they say was wrongfully taken from them.
The land became the country's capital city, Suva, and its
international airport.
The High Chief of Suva, Ratu Epeli Kanakana, has asked the High
Court to rule that in 1868 his clan owned the entire Suva peninsula,
now a city of 200,000 people.
He claims it was wrongly taken from his tribe by Fiji's most
powerful warlord, who later illegally sold it to European founders of
what
became Suva city.
A land assessment of Suva in 1998 estimated property values running
into hundreds of millions of US dollars.
Suva's original native owners, who in 1882 were shifted by the
then-British colonial government to a village site off the peninsula,
are
asking the court to declare that they deserve compensation for the
loss of their land plus legal costs and any other relief the court
considers just.
In another case, the Native Land Trust Board, the legal guardian of
all Fijian tribal land, has begun an action to counter a government
decision to transfer more than 400 hectares of land occupied by
Nadi International Airport in western Fiji to a new privatised airport
management company.
The original tribal owners agreed to let their land be used as a
World War II fighter plane base.
Now they want it back, though their chiefs say they are prepared to
be reasonable about allowing the airport, now the main South
Pacific aviation crossroads, to continue operating.
The trust board said it had a legal obligation as trustee to
intervene since the government's attempt to transfer the airport site to
a
commercial profit making entity voided the wartime lease.
Last June the government sent armed troops to protect Fiji's main
hydroelectric power station in the centre of the main island of Viti
after an arson attack on a control room caused serious damage.
The power station site was then blockaded by tribesmen armed with
bamboo spears to back demands for about $US18 million
($A28.33 million) compensation for land flooded by the dam. The
tribesmen eventually restored government access to the power
station after being assured their claims would be settled fairly.
AP
Published: Wed Mar 10 10:51:19 EST 1999
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