The roadblock outside Fiji's Parliament House. For three days the hostages have dozed on chairs in two small locked rooms within Fiji's new, low-slung wooden Parliament House. In the corridors outside, men with AK-47 and M16 assault rifles, shotguns and pistols, pace up and down.
More hooded men patrol the walled grounds.
Vehicles are blocked by coiled barbed wire, heavy metal barricades and tyre spikes. Inside, Fiji's first Indian Prime Minister, Mahendra Chaudhry, has continued to wear a fresh white shirt and tie each day of the captivity he now shares with six of his ministers after the release early yesterday of 10 of his MPs who signed resignation letters from his government. They have been held at gunpoint since Friday morning when a red Toyota Land-Cruiser raced through central Suva, followed by a white minibus loaded with armed men, to Parliament's high steel gates. The minibus had been stopped by police and the driver booked for speeding and overloading, but he had been allowed to continue by police unaware the occupants were armed. Police were also chasing the speeding Land-Cruiser.