ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, October 13, 1996 TAG: 9610140077
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-4 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: PORT VILA, VANUATU
Riot police kidnapped the president Saturday to force him to pay overdue wages, but few in this South Pacific archipelago let it interrupt life in paradise.
President Jean Marie Leye was released by day's end with the wage dispute settled.
Throughout the day, the 30,000 residents of Port Vila, the capital, went about their business. A cricket match was played as scheduled near the president's home and people shopped on the coconut palm-lined streets.
Officers of the Vanuatu Mobile Force seized Leye from his home and put him on a plane commandeered from Vanair, the domestic airline. They flew him to Malekula Island to see Deputy Prime Minister Barak Sope to demand a Cabinet meeting to force payment of some $1 million in overtime pay and bonuses.
The gang seized Sope and flew both men back to the capital, Port Vila, for the Cabinet session.
A spokesman for the officers, Capt. Noel Tamaka Mala, said in a broadcast over Radio Vanuatu that the paramilitaries were ``in command'' but that it was not a military takeover.
An 83-island nation in the ocean 1,200 miles northeast of Australia, Vanuatu has 170,000 residents. It gained independence from joint British and French rule in 1980.
Vanuatu's paramilitary police carry only light weapons and act as part of the civilian police force. The country does not have an army.
- Associated Press
LENGTH: Short : 37 linesby CNB