Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka

Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka told the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that the 1987 coups exposed gaps in Fiji’s legal and institutional framework.

He said these voids left the country’s governance vulnerable during that period.

The PM said the military’s actions were necessary to sever ties with the monarchy, warning that any attempt to return to the previous order would have amounted to treason against Her Majesty’s government.

Rabuka addressed the role of religion in the coups, stating that the weaponization of faith was not his idea.

He said some associates attempted to use the upheaval for personal gain, seeking to take control but he resisted ceding authority.

On legal guidance at the time, he said there could be no halfway approach.

Fiji had to break fully from the old system with authority resting with the people rather than the Crown.

Rabuka acknowledged the personal conflict this caused, citing his prior service in the British Army and being honored with an OBE but said a clean break was unavoidable.

He outlined the tension between personal and collective accountability. Rabuka accepted full personal responsibility for his role, describing the events as leaving a permanent scar on his soul.

He said collective accountability involved silence and complicity from institutions like the Great Council of Chiefs and the Methodist Church, noting that some church leaders privately supported him while dissenting voices including the late army chaplain Reverend Josateki Koroi were removed from leadership.

Rabuka described the 1987 movement as ethnically and emotionally charged rather than purely popular.

He said the actions, though politically revolutionary were designed to place the military and himself beyond the reach of existing legal frameworks.

He also noted that, like other former British colonies, Fiji needed a full severance from the Crown to establish a republic.

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