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Fiji's First Prime Minister Dies at 83
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| Contributor | Gerald Farinas |
| Last Edited | Gerald Farinas Apr 19, 2004 01:05am |
| Category | Obituary |
| News Date | Apr 19, 2004 12:00am |
| Description | Fiji's First Prime Minister Dies at 83
The Honolulu Advertiser
Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara, Fiji's first prime minister and a dominant statesman in Pacific Island regional affairs for nearly 30 years, has died, New Zealand media reported Monday. He was 83. Mara died late Sunday in a hospital in the Fijian capital, Suva, from complications of a stroke he had in 2001. Mara was the last survivor of a group of powerful, mostly hereditary Pacific Island chiefs who led their countries to independence from British, Australian, New Zealand and U.S. colonial rule from the mid 1960s. Mara was the paramount chief of the Lau Islands of eastern Fiji. He was revered for holding together bickering tribes as he welded Fiji into a stable, multiracial nation after 96 years of colonial British rule. Fiji gained independence in 1970.
Through the '70s and '80s, the United States, Australia and New Zealand regarded Mara as key to keeping the South Pacific free of communist influences. The United States persuaded him to ban Soviet vessels from Fiji's ports during a period when Moscow was trying to establish a presence in the region. |
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