SODELPA leader Sitiveni Rabuka has finally admitted to the country eighteen years after the military mutiny took place following the 2000 coup that he had gone to the military camp with his uniform at the height because he was sent in.

The mutiny in which four loyal soldiers were murdered also aimed to kill the then Military Commander Voreqe Bainimarama and take command of our armed forces.

Rumours of Rabuka’s illegal attempt to take over the military 18 years ago have been doing the rounds for some time.

Even a mutiny court case in which four out the five assessors found him guilty couldn’t convict him when the trial judge acquitted him.

Despite being accused by Lt Colonel Viliame Seruvakula of trying to incite a mutiny that aimed to assassinate our current prime minister and the then military commander Voreqe Bainimarama, Rabuka escaped conviction.

Since then there have always been questions whether Rabuka had turned up to the military camp with his uniform to take over at the height of the mutiny, qestions that are being answered now.

RABUKA: ”No, no, no…. that was a fact. I was in camp. I went in and I was called by Home Affairs operations room and I said to them, well tell the Commander, I’m going in there. I didn’t know where he was.”

Despite his mysterious appearance at the camp with his uniform Rabuka denies instigating and supporting the mutiny which saw the murder of loyal soldiers and the attempted killing of the military commander.

BAINIMARAMA: ”Rubbish, he was there for a reason. He had his uniform with him. All my soldiers on duty saw him on his uniform at the back and in fact he spoke with some senior colonels to say I want all the colonels to bind together and give the authority to take over the command of the military.”

Bainimarama also says that the military knows that apart from the 1987 coup, Rabuka was also involved in the 2000 coup.

Former president Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara had revealed in 2001 that two days after the coup, he had confronted Rabuka and the then police chief Isikia Savua, about their possible involvement in the coup. `

He said that within half an hour of Speight’s coup, Rabuka had telephoned Government House to offer to form a government.

Ratu Mara further alleged that the Counter Revolutionary Warfare Unit of the Army had been involved in the coup after receiving training on a farm owned by Rabuka.

In a later interview Rabuka angrily denied the allegations, saying that they were the ravings of ’"an angry old man" and "very unbecoming of a national leader and of a statesman such as Ratu Mara.

The charges, however, were repeated in Senate in 2004 by Ratu Mara’s Adi Koila Nailatikau.

Speculation remains to this day as to what would have happened to Fiji and its people if the murder of the army commander and the mutiny of 2000 had been successful.