Hard-Core Nauru Issues

Still To Be Faced

By Stuart Inder

Negotiating “a final solution” to their phosphate problems is turning out to be a longer job than the Nauruans expected.

After three weeks of tedious talks in Canberra in June with the Australian, UK, and NZ Governments they have come little nearer to any permanent decisions.

AS one close observer commented: “It was like two heavyweight football teams locked in a three-week scrum on a wet and slippery field.”

The talks have been adjourned until October, and meanwhile Head Chief Hammer Deßoburt will say something at the current session of the UN.

Deßoburt and fellow Legislative Councillors A. Bernicke and B.

Detudamo were supported at the talks by their Sydney economic advisers, Philip Shrapnel and Ken Walker, who prepared the phosphate case. The government delegates were under the firm control of a tough negotiator, Mr. G. Warwick Smith, secretary of the Australian Department of Territories, who was chairrnan ‘

The conference was closed to the Press and precious few facts were re leased at the end of it—to the an noyance of newsmen.

The Nauruans virtually presented the same arguments as those sub mitted at last year’s Canberra con ference, believing that these were basic, and solid.

K|. lim . n Nauruan Demands The Nauruans asked for owner ship of the phosphate deposits, with the BPC to be appointed managing agents, to receive cost plus 10 per cent., the rest to go to the Nauruans, They wanted Nauruan phosphate sold at the world price (about $12); the extraction rate to be pegged to no more than 2 million tons a year

so the Nauruans may enjoy their prosperity longer; and independence by January, 1968.

There were no long discussions on independence. The Nauruans intend to have independence anyhow, what ever the governments may think.

The only new development was a discussion on a report made earlier this year by an expert committee on the feasibility of rehabilitating the worked-out phosphate land on Nauru.

The report said rehabilitation was feasible but not practicable because of the high cost, and suggested a small section of the worked-out lands be rehabilitated, partly with imported soil and partly with overburden.

The report proposed that a sealed, international airport be built across the pinnacles, giving Nauru a regular air-link and releasing for agricultural use the present DC4 standard grass airstrip on the coast.

The new airstrip could also be used as a water catchment area, draining rainwater into tanks to alleviate Nauru’s water shortages.

The Nauruans felt the report generally was not a good one; that estimated costs were excessive and that anyhow Nauru wanted land rather than water. But many aspects of the report the governments did not like either.

The Nauruans made it clear they (Continued on p. 151)

still had not discarded the search for another island home—possibly one to be occupied in conjunction with Nauru for an eventual overflow popu lation.

They asked what Australia was doing about it. Australia asked what the Nauruans were doing about it.

Result: Stalemate, The three powers believe that since the Nauruan rejection of the generous Curtis Island scheme the governments owe nothing more to the Nauruans in the way of resettlement. Any initiative would have to come from them.

Behind the scenes, the administer ing powers believe the Nauruans have overplayed their hand, and that they have reached a point where they should be contained as long as pos sible in the expectation that attitudes on Nauru may change.

Two facts might upset this.

One is Australia’s appetite for phosphate. Present Australian de mand is 3 million tons a year, of which 2.5 million comes from Nauru, Ocean Island and Christmas Island, and the rest has to be bought from Florida and Africa at the consider ably higher world price.

Australian demand is expected to rise to 20 million in the next 15 years, so Nauru phosphate, with 30- 35 years to go. will still be cheap at a higher price.

A second, more vital, point is that the 20-year extraction agreement be tween the BPC and the Nauruans expires next June, and the govern ments need to find a formula for operating the phosphate industry, short of handing it over. This might turn out to be a Nauruan trump card in October, as the governments are unhappily aware.

In the agreement the Nauruans approve BPC operations, and unless it is renewed the Nauruans will certainly make political capital of it. • See Britain To Stop Buying, p. 20.