ALANIETA RABAKA: He came up this way, the tracks were up there.

It was Alanieta Rabaka's youngest son, Sakiusa who was accused of smoking marijuana. Alanieta was frantic. Earlier in the day her other son had been taken by the military and returned home badly beaten. She called the police.

ALANIETA RABAKA: I said can you please look for my son because he is a big boy, about 6 feet 7 inches tall and I know taking him in the night they would think that he's a grown up man, he is that older but he's still a very young boy.

Special emergency regulations in place at the time, had the military on the streets enforcing law and order.

SHAMIMA ALI, FIJI WOMEN'S CRISIS CENTRE: Any kind of allegation, if you don't like your neighbour and this was a chance and people have run up to the barracks and said so and so did this to me, so and so took away my land, so and so punched me and the people go and get these people and they were subjected to torture, I would call it torture.

Sakiusa Rabaka disappeared into the military barracks at 11 pm.

ALANIETA RABAKA: About five in the morning my younger son was bought in. He could barely walk. He was just crawling.

REPORTER: How did he look to you?

ALANIETA RABAKA: He was in real pain, he was in real pain. And he just said "Mum, can I have two Panadol please". I got two Panadol, I gave it to him, he went upstairs. He slept. I didn't sleep.

The next morning she saw how badly he had been beaten in the military camp.

ALANIETA RABAKA: And the other two boys that were taken in with him said that when he was unconscious, they started kicking his head. They said "Oh, he's just lying to us, he's conscious, he just doesn't want to do whatever punishment that was given to them". Actually he was unconscious and they started kicking his head and that's how he received the head injuries.

Sakiusa's brain was haemorrhaging.

ALANIETA RABAKA: I was helpless because he was in pain most of the time and there was nothing I could do.

ALANIETA RABAKA: He definitely died because of the beating.

In Fiji I get on the Internet to contact those who first reported Sakiusa Rabaka's beating, bloggers. Since the coup, a network of these Internet sites called blogs has sprung up. The writers are opposed to the coup and anonymous. I arranged to meet some so-called freedom bloggers but they will only talk at a secret location with their identities disguised.

"INTELLIGENTSIYA": The death of Sakiusa Rabaka has touched the hearts more than anything because he was quite a young person, he was just 19. That was when people realised that anybody could be taken in on any bases whatever and not come out in one piece.

Writing under pseudonyms, "Intelligentsia" and "Keep the Faith" have shared a blog site for six months but only met in person tonight. The military has been actively hunting them down.

"KEEP THE FAITH": If one of us gets taken up there is a likelihood that they would have to tell on the others and that was just a conscious decision that we took early on that we will try not to know each other on a personal level.

The bloggers have written, not just about Sakiusa Rabaka but also two other men killed in custody this year.

"INTELLIGENTSIYA"": I think if we achieve nothing else, at least we could have said that we followed our conscientious and opposed such violent tactics and such barbaric way of ruling.

"Bainivore" says he started writing after feeling frustrated at not being able to express his views.

"BAINIVORE": It got to the stage where the first two months after the coup, people were so intimidated that I would go to a family function and people would be reserved about opinions, they wouldn't express exactly what they were thinking.

REPORTER: Even at a family function?

Coup leader, Commodore Frank Bainimarama justified removing the elected Government on the grounds of necessity. Saying the military needed to rid the country of corruption of racism.

SHAMIMA ALI: If I believe the current regime had stuck to what they said, the clean up campaign and we are going to get rid of racism and all these practises, people would have given them their blessing if they stuck to that. Because of a lot of things that have happened, a lot of resentment and hostility has crept into the population and the fear.

Shamima Ali is one of few prepared to speak publicly. She has helped document hundreds of human rights abuses, including people being arbitrarily sacked, intimidated and the beatings of both civilians and political opponents.

SHAMIMA ALI: In the first few months people were regularly taken in, particularly in the middle of the night, pro-democracy activists, trade unionist, lawyers who were speaking out too much.

Human rights worker, Virisila Buadromo knew she was in trouble when she heard herself named on radio by Commodore Bainimarama.

VIRISILA BUADROMO, FIJI WOMEN'S RIGHTS MOVEMENT: He specifically named myself as well as one of my board members, as people who were not helping Fiji get back on the straight and narrow.

Just before midnight last Christmas Eve, Virisila was taken from her home by the military. She had run an advertisement giving out Bainimarama's mobile phone number urging opponent's of the coup to text him. She was taken into the barracks.

VIRISILA BUADROMO: They kept on asking me in Fijian, who did I think I was, you know, putting out the Commander's mobile number, publicising his mobile number, do you realise what you have done. While questioning me they had a gun which they uncocked and cocked and they put it up to my head and just saying, you know what we could do with this.

Virisila was then made to lay face down in the rain, along with six other pro-democracy activists.

VIRISILA BUADROMO: That's when they started to physically abuse us. One of the things that, which I thought was quite strange, they asked all the females, "are you pregnant?" I was like no, and I was wondering what that was about. I remember Laisa saying yes and then immediately they just, with their boots stamped on your back, on your lower back. So they did it to all three females.

REPORTER: Did they do it to the woman who said she was pregnant.

VIRISILA BUADROMO: Yeah, they did it to all of us, I thought if she said yes, they wouldn't, but they did. I didn't think they would but they still did it and that's when they started really physically assaulting us, smacking, boxing your ears, so to speak, smacking up your ears, hitting your face with their boots, kicking you in the ribs and they made us lick their boots, do really degrading things like that. Then they started to threaten our families. They knew all these details about our families and they basically said things like "You know we could kill you now, put a bullet through all your heads, put you in a drum and throw you out of the wharf of or down at the Suva harbour, no-one would know and no-one would miss you".

Virisila says she is now a lot more careful with her criticism.

VIRISILA BUADROMO: Before, I would never have thought twice about putting out a statement. I never would have thought about putting out a statement, gotta say something, whereas now, following on what happened to me, I am very aware of not the repercussions on me but my staff being threatened and another of my colleagues has been threatened recently. We have to be careful about these things. We are operating in an environment of fear, you never know.

AIYAZ SAYED-KHAIYUM, ATTORNEY GENERAL-INTERIM GOVERNMENT: I don't believe so.

REPORTER: I have spoken to lots of Fijians who say they are fearful though, they are fearful of the military, they are fearful of being picked up in the middle of the night?

AIYAZ SAYED-KHAIYUM: It depends who you talk to also. There were numerous people, a number of people, dozens, if not hundreds of people who are actually aghast by the fact the public emergency regulations were lifted. People were saying no, keep it in place because now I can sleep with my windows open, I don't have a problem walking down the street, I can go and play with my kids in the park because I know I am not going to get mugged.

From these offices in down town Suva, the interim Government is undertaking a radical remaking of Fiji, a clean-up campaign they say for the benefit of all.

PARMESH CHAND, PERMANENT SECRETARY TO THE PRIME MINISTER: I am also hoping the country will move forward, the house is on fire, my house is on fire, and I need to try and extinguish it.

As Permanent Secretary to Prime Minister Bainimarama, Parmesh Chand, an Indo-Fijian, is now one of the countries most senior public servants. He tells me, endemic racism would have stopped him in the past, and he's an example of the new policies of racial equality. In the name of ending discrimination against Indo- Fijians, the interim government is unravelling policies that exclusively benefited Indigenous Fijians.

PARMESH CHAND: Discriminatory polices are being removed, to ensure that the disadvantaged and the poor get help, rather then one particular race or any particular category of people.

REPORTER: Do you think this will provide better opportunities for Indo Fijians?

PARMESH CHAND: Not only Indo Fijians, it will provide better opportunities for everybody. If you aspire if you contribute, if you are able to excel, you get rewarded.

The so called- "clean-up" campaign has also seen many sacked from government departments and statutory authorities ...even the Chief Justice has lost his job.

PARMESH CHAND: So it's all based on good governance the need for transparency and ethical practices.

But critics are concerned that many new jobs are going to military officers.

GRAHAM LEUNG, LAWYER: You're looking at the Commissioner of Police, the Commissioner of Prisons the Director of Immigration, the acting sec for Justice, diplomats that are nominated for the UN and Malaysia, these are all senior officers. I have a concern because we are now fusing the boundaries between the military and civilian Government. In many respects, what we are seeing emerging is the militarisation of Fiji.

REPORTER: Why does that concern you?

This is Fiji's new independent commission against corruption, headed by Lieutenant Colonel George Langman.

LIEUTENANT COLONEL GEORGE LANGMAN: These are some of the documents you can find. This is from the public works department.

Of all the so-called clean up measures under way, this is the most important. Alleged corruption was a key justification for over throwing the elected Government.

LIEUTENANT COLONEL GEORGE LANGMAN: Because we have been raising these issues for the last many years. There have been several complaints coming to the army about these issues but the previous Government seems to turn a blind eye to it. These are payments to private vehicles being hired by certain Government departments.

REPORTER: For what?

LIEUTENANT COLONEL GEORGE LANGMAN: For water supply, for contracts, yes.

REPORTER: Is there anything that concerns you in those papers you are looking at now?

LIEUTENANT COLONEL GEORGE LANGMAN: Some of the payments and mileage and time of use are inconsistent.

Hundreds of thousands of documents have already been seized but so far no evidence of wide scale corruption has emerged. Lieutenant Colonel Langman says it's early days and he is confident of his mission.

Outspoken Suva lawyer Graham Leung says the actions of the military and Government make a mockery of their claim to be pursuing a transparent society.

In an extraordinary move, the Prime Minister, Commodore Bainimarama has personally banned Graham Leung from leaving the country. Leung is desperate to fly out in a few day's time to attend a conference and trials to call Bainimarama.

Leung believes this is his punishment for publicly criticising the regime.

GRAHAM LEUNG: Thank you very much, bye-bye. No luck. They have done this all week. So you call people and they tell you to call someone else and that someone else tells you to call someone else and it just goes on. It's become somewhat ridiculous really. But that's where the sense of helplessness comes in.

GRAHAM LEUNG: I think it's shocking. It demonstrates that if you speak up for justice, you will get penalised. I refuse to submit to the idea that my silence can be purchased if I behave myself. For me the idea of democracy, the idea of supporting the rule of law and the idea of human rights is very important. I am not speaking for myself. I am speaking for the many hundreds of Fiji citizens who feel unable to speak and who do not have a voice because of fear, retribution, reprisals.

ALANIETA RABAKA: Yes, they knew who did that. Even the family knows. We know.

REPORTER: You know? How do you know that?

ALANIETA RABAKA: The other two boys, they know the soldiers well.

REPORTER: What kind of justice would you like to see for the men who did this to your son?

COMMODORE FRANK BAINIMARAMA: Yes.

REPORTER: Since the events of December there have been some accounts given of the military abusing their power, of people up at the barracks being beaten up and humiliated. Isn't this kind of behaviour at odds with your mission of cleaning up Fiji?

COMMODORE FRANK BAINIMARAMA: I have told my people, the troops that we will not condone that. Anyone seen doing that will be taken to task and I also reported that in the press. Abuse by authority will not be condoned.

REPORTER: Are you unhappy about some of the behaviour?

COMMODORE FRANK BAINIMARAMA: Some actions may have gotten out of hand. People may have good intentions but the reaction is...

Earlier that day, Bainimarama announced that Graham Leung was now free to travel again. But the Commodore is still clearly annoyed at Leung for damaging Fiji's already tarnished international reputation.

COMMODORE FRANK BAINIMARAMA: People like Graham Leung go across to Hong Kong and New Zealand and Canberra and run the nation down and tell all sorts of lies which people believe and they are not helping our cause.

REPORTER: Isn't that free speech. Doesn't that happen in any healthy democracy?

COMMODORE FRANK BAINIMARAMA: Free speech, what democracy, your democracy or my democracy?

REPORTER: What's your version of free speech in Fiji, do they have the right to say those things?

COMMODORE FRANK BAINIMARAMA: They have a right to say anything they want, as long as they are not bringing in issues that will stop us moving forward. That's what we have been saying. They are not helping this.

COMMODORE FRANK BAINIMARAMA: When justice will come around when people will find out there was proof somebody had killed him, obviously.

REPORTER: You don't think it happened in military custody?

COMMODORE FRANK BAINIMARAMA: No. I haven't received any reports on that. Our leading people are handling that so I don't know.

ALANIETA RABAKA: The thing is I am not afraid of them but we are helpless. I think that's a better word to use, we are helpless because no matter what we bring forward to them or whatever complaints there are, they just ignore them.

Feature Report: Fiji: After the coup

Reporter/Camera
BRONWYN ADCOCK

Editor
WAYNE LOVE