Fear+in+Fiji

Fear in Fiji
By ROSEMARIE NORTH NEW LIFE: The Kishor family, from left, Jessica, 12, Kevin, 8, Ravind, Lata, and Elvin, 6, moved to the Waikato from Fiji in search of a better life. Lata and Ravind Kishor, together with the boys and Jessica, 12, arrived in Hamilton from Fiji just a week ago. They left Fiji because, as Indo-Fijians, they feared for their safety after last year's coup, and worried their children would be disadvantaged under a racist Government. "We want our children to be educated," says Ravind Kishor, 38. "So they'll be better employed and have a good life. That's everybody's intention. Every parent is thinking about the children.
 * It's breakfast time at the Kishors' temporary home in Hamilton. Kevin, 8, and Elvin, 6, are wearing cosy red sweatshirts - but they're still cold. They're not used to nippy Waikato mornings. In the kitchen, there's hot roti flatbread with egg. The radio plays a Hindi station.**
 * [[image:http://www.tki.org.nz/r/socialscience/curriculum/SSOL/plenty/family.jpg width="250" height="167" caption="Fiji Family"]]
 * JEFF BRASS/Waikato Times** ||

"We think that since this thing is happening, the kids might not succeed in their life. That's why we had to move on."

New Zealanders watched the coup unfold on their televisions as a political event. For Fijians, it affected everything - the price of milk, wages, whether they had a job at all, education and their safety. Lata Kishor was at work a year ago when she heard that Fiji's Parliament had been occupied. It was 10am on May 19. "We were advised to go home as soon as possible," she remembers from her brother-in-law's home in north Hamilton.

"That night was very terrible because on the TV we watched what was going on. All the burning and looting started. "In the western part where we lived it was quiet. In the capital (Suva) it was very bad."

In the months following, Ravind Kishor saw Government jobs and training places going to indigenous Fijians. Although his family has been in Fiji for more than 100 years, their rights aren't protected by the interim Government. "In our organisation we had two races - the Fijians and the Indo-Fijians. We saw Fijian people favoured other Fijians, promotion-wise and in other ways. These things will increase."

Overseas investors pulled out of Fiji, forcing garment factories to close. Ravind Kishor counts up the people who lost their jobs at garment factories near his home town of Lautoka in western Viti Levu: "600, 800, 300, 650. There's about 3000 or 4000 people who are out of jobs now. In some of these cases, husbands and wives were both working in the garment industry." There's no unemployment benefit in Fiji. With the rise in joblessness came crime.

Now the pair are hunting for work here. They need to support Ravind's mother and sister, who live in their home back in Lautoka. Excerpt from The Waikato Times feature, **Fear in Fiji**. May 19, 2001.