Protests in Auckland ... and a family's relief

By FRANCESCA MOLD and MARTIN JOHNSTON

Fiji's coup came to Auckland yesterday with a mass protest in Aotea Square ... and an anxious time at the airport for one Fiji Indian man as he waited for his family to arrive from strife-torn Suva.

Thousands of people, mainly of Fiji Indian descent, crammed into Aotea Square after marching from the Auckland Domain.

They presented a petition to Foreign Minister Phil Goff calling for democracy to be restored and coup leader George Speight to be brought to justice.

Mr Goff, whose Roskill electorate has the highest population of Fiji Indians in the country, told the crowd the Government "unequivocally" supported captive Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry.

Nitya Reddy, a former assistant to Mr Chaudhry when he was Minister of Finance and the Sugar Industry in the 1980s, told the crowd that Speight and his gunmen would not destroy the spirit and will of the elected Government.

Mr Reddy, who was taken captive with Mr Chaudhry in the May 1987 military coup, said the Prime Minister was a brave man who would not give in to Speight's demands.

"I know Chaudhry like many of you. Physically he can collapse, but that man has basic intellectual and moral courage. They will not be able to break his will - he's a microcosm of what we have in Fiji."

In a speech in the Domain, National MP Maurice Williamson offered his party's full support for any measures the Government took to restore democracy in Fiji.

Meanwhile, at Auckland Airport, Id Sharma was overjoyed as his wife and two daughters arrived safely from Fiji. Their five-month separation after Mr Sharma came here to work was made tense in its final hours because of Friday's coup.

"I was just worrying that they might be in trouble," Mr Sharma said as he waited. "Over there, there's not much security."

He and his wife, Madhu, had planned for some time for her and their daughters, Ashmita, aged 9, and Ashilta, 4, to join him in South Auckland.

Mrs Sharma and the girls were in Suva, where shops were looted and burned after hooded gunmen stormed Fiji's Parliament.

"Suva is the worst hit," said Mrs Sharma, who saw looters leaving supermarkets with loaded trolleys.

But with the overnight curfew, tensions had begun to diminish by Saturday morning.

Domestic airline flights were cancelled, so she and her daughters had to take a three-hour taxi ride to Nadi to catch their plane to Auckland.

She feared at first that it too had been cancelled.

Mr Sharma, a Papatoetoe mechanic, said he was worried his family might not arrive because he recalled that after the 1987 coups, Fijian passport-holders were sometimes prevented from leaving the country.