Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara, former Fijian leader; at 83
SUVA, Fiji -- Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara, Fiji's first prime minister and a key US ally in the South Pacific during the Cold War, has died. He was 83.
Mr. Mara, the dominant statesman in Pacific Island regional affairs for nearly 30 years, died late Sunday in a hospital in the capital of Suva. Hospital officials said the cause was complications from a stroke he had in 2001.
His death plunged this nation of 850,000 into mourning. Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase went on state television yesterday evening to confirm that Mr. Mara had died. "We have lost a giant among men," Qarase said. "For as long as many of us could remember, he dominated our national life."
Qarase said arrangements were underway for a state funeral but no date had been set.
Mr. Mara was the last of a group of powerful, mostly hereditary Pacific Island chiefs who led their countries to independence from British, Australian, New Zealand, and US colonial rule from the 1960s.
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 1970s and 1980s, the United States, Australia, and New Zealand regarded Mr. 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.
Mr. Mara was also for many years a major figure in trade and aid negotiations between the European Union and more than 70 Africa, Caribbean, and Pacific countries.
Visitors to his homes were often startled to see Mr. Mara -- an international statesman who preached democracy and equality -- become angered if visitors did not approach him on their knees as tribal custom called for. Fiji, which kept Britain's Queen Elizabeth II as its monarch after independence, became a republic after a 1987 coup that toppled its first government. Mr. Mara, who with his son was linked to the coup, became Fiji's president seven years later.
He retired after a May 2000 incident in which an armed gang stormed Parliament and held the prime minister and Cabinet hostage for 56 days. One hostage was Tourism Minister Adi Koila Mara Latikau, one of Mr. Mara's three daughters, whom Mr. Mara said the gang threatened to kill if he called out the army. Seen as a hurdle in resolving the hostage crisis, Mr. Mara was asked to retire as the army declared martial law. Embittered by what he felt was national rejection, Mr. Mara retreated from public life to his home islands of Lau.
Mr. Mara is survived by his wife, Ro Lala Mara, a paramount chief who outranked Mara in the Fijian aristocratic hierarchy, three daughters, and two sons.
