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Fiji's military took over running the country in a bloodless overthrow Tuesday after confining the elected prime minister to his home in the South Pacific island nation's fourth coup in 20 years.

Military Commander Frank Bainimarama said he had temporarily stepped into President Ratu Josefa Iloilo's role as head of state and dismissed the government of Laisenia Qarase after a power struggle that had simmered all year.

Promising that the takeover would not be permanent, Bainimarama said he had appointed little known Jona Senilagakali Baravilala, a former military doctor and political novice, as interim prime minister before fresh elections are called.

"The stalemate has forced me to step forward and the military has taken over government," Bainimarama said, adding that the chief executives of government ministries would run their departments until Baravilala appoints an interim government.

Bainimarama had repeatedly threatened to topple Qarase's government, which won a second five-year term in May, calling it corrupt and too soft on those behind Fiji's last coup in 2000.

"We trust that the new government will lead us into peace and prosperity and mend the ever-widening racial divide which currently besets our multi-cultural nation," he said.

Fiji's three earlier coups, the first in 1987, were racially motivated with indigenous Fijians who make up 51 percent of the 900,000 population fearing they would lose political control of their nation to minority ethnic Indian Fijians who already dominate the economy.
 
Qarase said he was still prime minister. "I have been removed illegally," he said by telephone from inside his home as soldiers blocked off the street outside.

Police Commissioner Andrew Hughes, an Australian, thought Bainimarama's coup would spark a popular uprising that he hoped would be non-violent.

"He doesn't have the support of the government, of the president, of the police, of the churches, or the chiefs of the people of Fiji," Hughes told Australian television.

International response

Fiji's political crisis has alarmed its neighbors.

Australia sent three warships in case it needed to evacuate holidaying nationals.

Australian Prime Minister John Howard said Qarase telephoned him Tuesday morning to seek help, but he declined saying: "The possibility of Australian and Fijian troops firing on each other in the streets of Suva was not a prospect that I, for a moment, thought desirable."

Bainimarama has warned that his soldiers will oppose any foreign intervention.

Commonwealth Secretary General Don McKinnon said Tuesday Fiji was likely to be suspended from the Commonwealth.

Britain said it was suspending military assistance. Australia and New Zealand said they would impose sanctions on Fiji's military.

(China Daily December 6, 2006)