Fiji's people have been fairly meek and accepting in the face of three years of military rule - but not any longer. On Friday, they submitted a petition to the military regime calling for the restoration of democracy and elections by the end of the year. It was backed by over 680,000 people - more than 80% of the country's population.
It will be interesting to see how the regime responds to this. With that level of mass opposition, its not as if they can arrest everyone (besides the obvious problem of numbers, the soldiers may not be willing to arrest their families). OTOH, unless the people are willing to turn their mass opposition into colour-revolution-style mass protests, then the regime may not in fact have to do anything.
