Pastor Atu Vulaono was the cannon that backfired, revealing the Fiji regime at its tin-pot best. In a double-act with Esala Teleni, his brother-in-law and the Police Commissioner, the evangelist's ''Souls to Jesus'' crusade was given wings as a strategy to supplant the power of the Methodist Church - the denomination into which most indigenous Fijians are born.
Rolling his eyes to the heavens before fervent crowds at venues such as Suva's National Gymnasium, Vulaono might have been just any God-botherer. But funded by the Police Department and co-opted to spearhead a spiritual campaign against crime, the evangelist flew too close to the Fiji sun....