Samoans Support Threat
p. 35 · Read in the full issue
To Seek Red Aid
• Was Prime Minister Mataafa bluffing when he said recently (PIM, Oct. p. 20) that his staunchly Christian nation would turn to the Communists for aid if it could not get aid from the West? Nobody knows—but whether he is or not, the Samoans are behind their leader in his challenge, as this background report from Apia stresses.
From R. F. Rankin, in Apia Western Samoa’s politicians and public got as big a shock as anyone on a Saturday morning in mid-September when over Radio Australia came news that Prime Minister Fiame Mataafa had said that if he did not get economic aid for Samoa from the West he would turn to the Communist bloc.
INTERVIEWED later Mataafa confirmed the news. “That was exactly what I said and exactly what I meant,” he said.
The background is that for some time Samoa has put out feelers towards the United States on the chances of aid, and after a personal talk to US Secretary of State Dean Rusk earlier this year, Mataafa was led to believe that any request he made would be received sympatheticall £ . . , But m the meantime there has been a failure of the US, Canada, Britain, and to a large extent Australia, to respond to Mataafa’s personal appeal for £Stg.2oo,ooo to start a plantation rehabilitation programme following January’s serious hurricane.
And then came to light a miscalculation which made the money situation even worse.
It was found that at least an extra one million US dollars would be needed to clear a channel at Asau before any vessel could use the new deep water wharf. The wharf project was financed by a £1 million loan raised in New Zealand and guaranteed by the New Zealand Government. The million has been used up, the Asau wharf is finished, and there is no money left with which to cut the channel.
Mataafa felt sure that his friends the Americans would now come to light with a dredge to cut the channel or with some money to get the job done. But back came word from Washington via Wellington no dredge, no money.
“I was deeply shocked and bewildered,” said Mataafa. “The afternoon I got word of this refusal I just couldn’t work. I couldn’t believe it.”
For years experts have been telling the Samoans that all they had to do was to show their sincerity in making independence a success, produce specific projects for aid, and the money would roll in. And the Samoans have believed it.
“We have made this country a model of stability and common sense f or newly independent nations throughout the world, and when we really need help and ask for it we are refused. If we cannot get help from where we expect it, who can blame us for looking elsewhere*?” asked Mataafa.
Ua ■. ’ c . , , IT oi that Samo f ne eded SUSI w u, ° f n , to con lP le te the Asau eq^ pme i 1 1 t and J eas f another ““Si?® 1 for S eneral development, There are no hungry Samoans f!?,*’ bu A, p,a T ng . for the Lm'™ ° L T? pl j n V ' 1 th f “ ? ha ! ' f we don 1 get that finance ’. he added - The situation has been aggravated the hurricane, which has cut ex port ea ™ings for the year by per haps £500,000. And it is being made n ?°. re interesting by the forthcoming v i & i t a Soviet journalist for the first t i me - Deputy editor of the foreign section Izvestia, Mr. Vadin B. Kassis, is “gathering information for articles on the the. people of Western Samoa.” His visit was planned some me tefore Mataafa’s statement.
Western Samoa’s man-in-the-street is solidly behind Mataafa, and his prestige among the people is as high as ever. If aid is forthcoming, from whatever source, it will be even higher.