"Fiji's population is split roughly 50-50 between indigenous Fijians and Indians, who were brought in as cheap labour by the British in the 19th century to harvest the sugar cane in the plantations.

"Since then, Indians have come to run most of the commerce. Most of the professionals you see are also Indians, so they have tremendous clout. But most indigenous Fijians are very wary about having an Indian Prime Minister in control of an Indian-dominated government and both times that's happened, in 1987 and then again in 2000, those governments have been removed by coups.

"This time around, however, it's really different. The pretext for this coup from the head of the military, Commodore Frank Bainimarama, has been to protect the interests of the Indians.

"Even though he's a Fijian, his first demand was that the Government should not release from jail the people responsible for the 2000 coup. His main concern was that the Government was going to do that. He also insisted that he himself should not be prosecuted for sedition because of the threats he was making and he wanted the Australian-born police commissioner removed.

"All of these things the Fijian Government accepted in the last week. They put it in writing, agreed to withdraw the Bills which would have allowed the release of the plotters and the Australian police chief has gone home.

"So, like a lot of people, I thought there would now be no pretext for a coup. So why has he done it? It's hard to tell. The present Prime Minister has called him deranged and you can see his point. It looks like a terrible abuse of power by a man whose main job is to prevent coups happening. It's bizarre.

"Bainimarama seems to have the army behind him and he's taken the guns from the police, so there's no one to challenge him. The Australians and New Zealanders have said today that they're not going to get involved.

"There is a remote chance that the army is not unified in this course of action. The army has turned on itself before, you've had soldiers killing other soldiers, so if there is any violence it will be because the military turns on itself. But there's no sign of that happening.

"As for the tourists, Qantas are saying tonight that they haven't noticed any drop-off in bookings. I would have thought that people in this part of the world, from Australia and New Zealand, are pretty used to Fiji having coups.

"Unless there's some shooting going on it probably won't have much effect. And the beach resorts are a long way from Suva and Nadi, the main towns, so they're relatively isolated. The only thing most tourists would notice is a few more glum faces than normal."

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