Confused statesmen come calling

Swimming with Sharks Chapter 10.3

A week into the stalemate, with no sign authorities were going to act, the United Nations despatched Sergio Vieira de Mello to Fiji. He headed their East Timor mission. He picked up a passenger, Commonwealth Secretary General Don McKinnon, to try to rescue Fiji.

De Mello, who was to die in a bomb blast in Baghdad in 2003, knew little about Fiji while McKinnon had an ego. They arrived in Suva and called on Speight who could barely believe his luck. Big men making a state visit to him. It was show time for Speight and the terrorists. 

McKinnon and De Mello briefly saw Chaudhry, dutifully reporting he was well, although he and the hostages ‘were clearly in anguish’. The visitors missed the fact that Chaudhry was nursing internal injuries after a severe beating.

De Mello and McKinnon went to Mara at Government House. 

At about three in the morning Ade Adefuye, my Solomon’s rescuer, banged on the door. ‘I want you to take down some minutes.’

Objections about the time counted for nothing. 

As I received Adefuye’s dictation, I learned that Mara had decided that Chaudhry would be made to resign as soon as he was free. A caretaker government would be put in for three years until elections could be held. 

Mara said the military and the police were not going to use force because the hostages, including his daughter, were being held in a way that a single grenade could kill all of them.

‘Ade you know I have a day job, I’m not just a typist.’

‘Yes, yes and I am sure you will make good use of all….’

There was an implied confidentiality, but that of a typist rather than a journalist. In my initial reports that came out of what was put into my computer by a ‘typist’, I did not use Adefuye’s name; but the sourcing was of the strongest level. 

Surreal

There were weird moments.