Dark smoke hovered over the access road that linked Shangri-La’s Fijian Resort on Yanuca Island and the Queens Rd on Wednesday November 4, 1992.
This was because of a protest carried out by landowners of Cuvu, Nadroga.
The protesters had lit two huge fires on Wednesday, November 4, 1992 and blocked access to the resort.
The fires were the second in two weeks. An article of an interview with hotel general manager Radike Qereqeretabua was published on Thursday, November 5.
He said hotel occupancy had fallen but he could not say whether it was connected to the two demonstrations that were carried out by the landowners.
Mr Qereqeretabua had sent traditional representation to the landowners to ask them for a meeting.
The group had burnt tyres on both sides of the mainland end of the course way to the hotel which allowed only some vehicles through to the hotel.
Tourists had to walk from the Queens Rd to the hotel because drivers refused to drive past the demonstrators who were holding placards near the fires.
Mr Qereqeretabua would not comment on the fires.
“My job is to run the hotel and serve our customers,” he said.
Everyone waited for a statement to be issued by the Fiji Visitors Bureau chairman, Sakeasi Waqanivavalagi.
The report said the first demonstration was held on October 23 when the five-star hotel celebrated its silver jubilee.
The landowners protested the management of the island’s lease money which was held in a trust fund and managed by Adi Lady Lala Mara, wife of the then acting President, Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara.
“We are fed up. As Yanuca is our land, we feel it is only right for us to receive its rent money,” the landowner’s spokesman and Cuvu Village headman Alifereti Uqeuqe told this newspaper.
Mr Uqeuqe said they wanted an account of how the lease money was being spent.
Mr Uqeuqe, a barman at the resort then, had been suspended for having been present at the first demonstration while he was on sick leave on doctor’s orders.
“This is to advise you that he was suspended because he was found in a public place, which is not a hospital or health institution, whilst on sick leave and not for being at the demonstration,” a staff notice put up at the hotel by Mr Qereqeretabua said.
“This was made clear to him by me at the time of suspension.”
The November 4 demonstration was held soon after the people of Nakuruvakarua had celebrated the fourth anniversary of the rule of Bulou Eta Vosailagi as Ka Levu, the paramount chief of Nadroga.
Adi Lady Lala’s mother was Bulou Eta’s niece and came from the same chiefly Nadroga clan.
Adi Lady Lala was the Roko Tui Dreketi, the paramount chief of Burebasaga, a Fijian confederacy which covered Nadroga.
