Kamisese Mara

Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara (May 6, 1920 - April 18, 2004)

Founding father and Long-time Prime Minister and President of Fiji .

The Pacific Way: A Memoir (1996)

• (On his Catholic faith): Certainly it has been the rock on which I have always been able to rely in good times and in bad, and it is the lodestone of my life.

Confrontation with military officers who forced his resignation (2000)

(Quotes from an interview conducted in 2001, broadcast on Fijian television partially on 30 April 2001, and fully on 29 April 2004).

• (Recollection of what he was thinking to himself when confronted by the military): They want me out, they want me to abrogate the constitution and this is exactly what Speight wanted and if they belonged to Speight, I don’t belong to them.
• If the constitution goes, I go.
• I said, yes, if you think I will avoid bloodshed by standing aside I will stand aside ... but I will never ever again come back.