Research

30 May 2005

Fiji coups retrospective: Coup leader Sitiveni Rabuka and Fiji Times editor Vijendra Kumar

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Fiji coup leader Sitiveni Rabuka. Photo: Matthew McKee

Brigadier-General Sitiveni Rabuka, the former prime minister of Fiji who gained notoriety for staging twin coups in 1987, has enjoyed a love-hate relationship with the Fiji and Pacific media for almost two decades. University of Canberra PhD student Anthony Mason interviewed Rabuka in the course of his doctoral research into Australian media coverage of the coups.

Brigadier-General Sitiveni Rabuka, the former prime minister of Fiji who gained notoriety for staging twin coups in 1987, has enjoyed a love-hate relationship with the Fiji and Pacific media for almost two decades. University of Canberra PhD student Anthony Mason interviewed Rabuka in the course of his doctoral research into Australian media coverage of the coups.

He also interviewed the former editor of The Fiji Times, Vijendra Kumar.

Pacific Journalism Review published the transcripts of these interviews, where both Rabuka and Kumar reflect on the May 1987 coup and its aftermath—
helping to put the May 2000 attempted coup by George Speight into perspective.

Fiji coups retrospective:

1. The media and the coup leader: Sitiveni Rabuka, pp. 227-232.

2. Fiji journalism pioneer remembers: Vijendra Kumar, pp. 233-237.

Mason, Andrew (2005). Fiji coups retrospective: The media and the coup leader: Sitiveni Rabuka. Pacific Journalism Review,11(2), pp. 227-232. @ PJR website http://tinyurl.com/4t2en9v

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