Interim Prime Minister Commodore Frank Bainimarama this morning delivered his keynote speech to the 62nd UN general assembly for the first time describing the reason why he overthrew the democratically elected government led by Laisenia Qarase on December 6th last year.

Bainimarama told the UN general assembly that by the time the military intervened last December, Fiji's overall governance situation had regressed to a catastrophic level and he also urged the international community to fully understand the special local context of the situation

He first said, although Fiji became independent in 1970, the country started its new journey as a young nation on a rather shaky foundation with a race-based constitution.

He also described the democracy that came to be practiced in Fiji as marked by divisive adversarial, inward looking, raced based politics and said the leadership of that time, at both community and national levels resulted in a fractured nation

Bainimarama said people were not allowed to share a common national identity and indigenous Fijians were instilled with the fear of dominance and dispossession by Indo Fijians and they desired the protection of their status as the indigenous people with Indigenous people being alienated.

Commodore Bainimarama also told the UN General assembly this morning that the 1987 coup was a fateful time in the history of the nation and the Fiji military forces as well.

Bainimarama said that the military coups of that year were motivated by an entho -nationalist, racist supremacy agenda.

He also adds those political, communal as well military leaders who were responsible for those coups and related actions in 1987 , carry a very large burden in their collective conscience for the severe ruptures to the very fabric of Fiji's society and the dislocations and suffering that they caused in the lives of many of Fiji's citizens.

We will have more on the Interim Prime Minister's speech to the 62 UN General Assembly later on in the day.