New Zealand Listener 03.14.2020

MARCH 14 2020 LISTENER 33

negotiations. I stepped back into the room

to get the Prime Minister’s assurance that no

troops would be sent while we were talking

the hijacker down. He agreed at once.

While I was on the plane and out of the

action for three hours, both Defence Chief

David Crooks and Defence’s head of opera-

tions, Donald McIver, were trying to find

me in the hope of learning what was going

on. They had been directed by their minister

to send a plane and troops to Nadi as soon

as possible but were mystified as to what

it meant. Into the air commander’s office

in Auckland came an agitated brigadier in

combat dress requiring a Hercules to be

made immediately available, and soldiers

from the SAS were made ready to board.

No one knew what these troops were sup-

posed to do. When Crooks finally got to the

PM’s office, where the numbers had now

swelled to eight, he asked for something in

writing. Lange gave him a directive saying

that sufficient troops were to be despatched

“to act as required to protect New Zealand’s

interests in Fiji”.

What actions might be required was never

spelt out. When he pointed out the deli-

cacy of sending armed troops to a foreign

country, he was assured that the Fijian Gov-

ernor-General – who at that stage controlled

nothing beyond Government House – had

given his permission.

TEACHER’S WHISK Y TO THE RESCUE

This extraordinary adventure was ended by

a legal technicality. The Chief of Air Force

recalled that New Zealand troops could be

deployed overseas only by a decision of

the little-known Defence Council. By the

time the council could be got together after

lunch, the hijacking was over. As I stepped

on to the tarmac, the hijacker, who had

been hit on the head with a bottle of Teach-

er’s whisky by the flight engineer, was being

wheeled away unconscious on a stretcher.

It brought to an end what would have

been the rashest military venture in New

Zealand’s history. The Cabinet was never

consulted or even informed. No military

advice was sought in planning the venture

and no clear orders spelt out what the force

was to achieve. Years later in a brief com-

ment, Henderson strongly rebutted the view

that the troops were intended to overturn

the coup. This is entirely believable – a

planeload of soldiers was not going to defeat

the Fijian army – but no one has ever said

what the troops were to do.

An assault on the hijacked plane was

by then clearly unnecessary. The risks

of storming a plane are so great that by

common consent, it is only undertaken

when lives have been lost. In any case, it

seemed odd to discuss sending troops for

a possible assault out of the hearing of the

person co-ordinating the response to the

hijacking.

POTENTIALLY HUMILIATING OUTCOME AVOIDED

Lange later spoke vaguely of protecting the

High Commissioner and the New Zealand

community, but it was hard to see how

landing in Nadi could help the High Com-

missioner and most New Zealanders who

were in Suva. There was no evidence at that

stage of any threat to either, and the New

Zealand office was, in any case, guarded by

sailors from the frigate Wellington in Suva

Harbour.

When I landed, Nadi Airport was gar-

risoned around its perimeter by a full

battalion, not the poorly armed “territorials”

mentioned by Henderson but experienced

reservists who had served with peacekeeping

forces overseas. They were not equipped or

deployed for a hijacking. They may have

been there to secure the airport after the

coup five days earlier or they may have been

reinforced after a warning from Suva that

New Zealand might attempt to land a force.

What was clear was that sending 50

lightly armed troops from New Zealand

was a highly risky gamble. If there was any

misunderstanding, they would have ended

up disarmed and under arrest, a humiliat-

ing outcome that might well have ended

Lange politically. Why he wished to make

the gamble is the biggest mystery of his time

as Prime Minister. l

Gerald Hensley was head of the Prime Minister’s

Department under the Muldoon and Lange

governments.

NE

W

SP

IX

; (^) G
ET
TY
(^) IM
AG
ES
After hearing Lange
talk about sending a
planeload of troops
to Nadi, my hair stood
on end at the effect
this could have.

1. A Trace Hodgson
   Listener cartoon, June


2. 2. Colonel Sitiveni
   Rabuka, who overthrew
   Fiji’s first Indian-
   dominated government.


3. A Fijian soldier mans
   a roadblock after a
   bomb exploded in Suva.
   4. During the 1987 coup.
   3 4