Rabuka admits to women on side

By WARREN GAMBLE

First it was Bill Clinton. Now former Fiji coup leader Sitiveni Rabuka has a confession or two to make about other women.

In Auckland to promote his new biography, Rabuka of Fiji, the 51-year-old defeated as Prime Minister last year fronted up about his personal indiscretions: "I have admitted I'm no angel ... I have been weak in those areas," he said.

The book, written by Australian academic John Sharpham, refers to General Rabuka's womanising before and during his marriage to Suluweti Tuiloma.

He fathered three children to two different women in the early 1970s after he had begun dating his future wife.

He was also caught with a succession of young women in his quarters during officer training.

The book also covers a scandal dubbed the "Kama Sutra" episode shortly before last year's elections, linking General Rabuka to a young woman golfer in the changing rooms at the Fiji Golf Club.

He publicly denied the changing-room incident, but the biography says "he almost seemed not to care that the relationship had become public."

General Rabuka would not comment further yesterday, but said he had owed it to the Fijian people to be frank, and also to set the record straight on "manufactured affairs."

The general said his problem with women was something he had to constantly combat.

He had considered divorce but his wife would not hear of it, and they were now going to a relationship counsellor.

"I think she probably took me for granted, and I took her for granted."

Like the United States President, General Rabuka hoped his affairs would serve as a warning to others: "People who want to be future leaders should steer clear of the path that I went."

He said the indiscretions had cost him politically, particularly in support lost to the new Christian Democratic Alliance party, which had split the Fijian vote.

In Fiji, some people had criticised the personal revelations as unnecessarily disruptive for the other women involved, particularly since the mothers of his other children are named.

But General Rabuka said that for any biography to be complete, it had to include personal and social influences.

After a promotional tour of Australia and New Zealand, General Rabuka will face a writ when he returns home next week.

Fijian President Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara has taken legal action over the book's claim that General Rabuka told him of a possible military coup to overthrow Dr Timoci Bavadra's Indian-influenced coalition Government in May 1987.

General Rabuka maintained yesterday that he had mentioned the coup option to Ratu Mara during golf two weeks before the coup, and believed he had the tacit support of the-then Opposition leader.

General Rabuka, who left politics after last year's election defeat, has not ruled out a return in 2004.

In the meantime, he has controversially advocated emigration as a way of easing racial tensions between Fijians and Indians.

He believes there will be an outflow of Indians as land leases revert to Fijian control over the next few years.

He does not see the possibility of another coup.

But he said indigenous Fijians dissatisfied with the new Government, which is led by the country's first Indian Prime Minister, had largely themselves to blame for vote-splitting last year.