Tensions between the Pacific island states of Fiji and Tonga are rising after Tonga gave sanctuary to a Fijian army officer charged with trying to overthrow Fiji’s military leader.
Fiji’s military leader Frank Bainamarama accused Tonga Monday of breaking the law by sending a navy boat into Fiji’s waters to pick up Lieutenant Colonel Tevita Mara. Bainamarama is demanding Mara’s extradition.
Mara is now under the protection of Tonga’s royal family.
Relations between Fiji and Tonga already were strained by competing claims to the Minerva Reefs, remote atolls in the Pacific.
Mara is the son of Fiji’s founding prime minister and former president Ratu Mara. Earlier this month, he and another high-ranking officer, Pita Driti, were charged with mutiny and accused of trying to overthrow the Bainimarama regime.
Bainamarama’s government is under sanctions from neighboring Pacific nations as well as the European Union and the United States for refusing to hold democratic elections. He took power in a 2006 coup.
