Free, But Still in Chains

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More damaging than the economic slide may be the moral one. "People have taken from Speight's action that if you want something, you simply seize it and you'll get away with it," said New Zealand Foreign Minister Phil Goff, whose government, along with Australia's, has vowed to impose sanctions if Fiji excludes Indians from government. Halabe concedes that the specter of this coup "will hang over every government now." But, he adds, "I am an eternal optimist." So, it seems, is Chaudhry. "What we all need to do," he said after his release, is "work together to put the country back together."

At the Ramakrishna Mission Ashram in Nadi, there was jubilant thanksgiving on the morning after the hostages' release. But while the public prayers there have stopped, the private ones will continue. "We will be asking God to bring stability to the country," says social worker Sushila Rameshwar. "People have been mentally tortured by all this. Fiji was such a nice place. We promoted it as 'The way the world should be.' Now it's the devil's country." It will take many prayers, and much hard work, to reclaim it.

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