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Torch Relay: Olympic Torch to Bypass Fiji

SYDNEY – 29 May 2000 – The Sydney 2000 Olympic torch relay will bypass the
South Pacific nation of Fiji because of mob violence provoked by an
attempted coup d’etat.
Sydney Olympic organisers said on Monday the torch, which is traversing 11
Pacific nations, would spend two days in neighbouring Tonga instead of
visiting Fiji on June 3.

Olympics Minister Michael Knight said organisers could not guarantee the
safety of torch officials in Fiji, where the prime minister is being held
hostage and a policeman was killed during a rampage on Sunday by an angry
mob in the capital Suva.

“The security of our torch staff is uppermost and, as there is no guarantee
their safety can be safeguarded, we have decided to cancel the relay in
Fiji,” Knight said in a statement.

He said the decision was taken on advice from Australia’s Foreign Affairs
department, “in the wake of the deteriorating situation in Fiji”.

The crisis in Fiji erupted 10 days ago when failed businessman George
Speight took Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry and about 30 others hostage.

Speight and a group of armed gunmen stormed Fiji’s parliament in the name of
indigenous Fijians angered by the political and economic power of Fiji’s
large ethnic Indian minority.

However he said there was no threat to Fijian athletes being able to
participate in the Games, which open on September 15.

“No matter what the nature of Governments in any of the 200 countries which
the IOC [International Olympics Committee] has invited to the Games, their
athletes are welcome to participate in the Olympics,” he said.

The torch was lit in Olympia on May 10 and arrived in Guam on May 22. It was
due to travel 17,000 km around Oceania before flying to Uluru, Australia’s
Ayers Rock, on June 8 for a 100-day tour of Australia.

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