Up Front

with the Editor

Buraro Detudamo’s announcement at the recent South Pacific Conference that, “contrary to what you may have read in the papers Nauru needs money—lots and lots of it and very badly loo,” would have made interesting reading for most of Nauru’s neighbours.

It’s true that Nauru must continue to generate money, and lots of it, if she is to keep herself in the manner to which she has become accustomed.

And with her one economy diminish ing as the phosphate is worked out, she will have more urgent need of money than many other territories if she is to establish alternatives.

Nevertheless, name the island that isn’t anxious to be a poor little rich girl like Nauru.

One of them, the only one with any justifiable claim to resent not having Nauru’s riches, is Rabi Island in the Fiji group, whose people were once neighbours of the Nauruans.

They moved away from their home.

Ocean Island, or Banaba, in 1945, having bought Rabi from the pro ceeds of Ocean Island phosphate royalties.

The Banabans made a major mis take in moving, although they can’t be blamed for that.

Like the Nauruans, they had suffered under Japanese occupation, been deported to other islands, and had nothing much to come home to.

So they went to what they expected would be their golden valhalla on Rabi.

Out of sight, out of mind.

On Rabi they were forgotten, as back on Ocean Island the phosphate industry started up again, and the mechanical grabs chewed up their land. The Banabans got their royalties, but the good wages were naid to Chinese and to Gilbert and Ellice Islanders, who also got any perks that were going.

The phosphate industry started again on Nauru, too. But here the landlords were very much in resi dence to see fairplay, to demand houses, better schools and hospitals, free movies, duty-free goods and no taxes, and scholarshios to Australia.

The Australian Government had to

put in a big staff of public servants to administer all this, which meant still more jobs for everybody, includ ing the landlords. Nobody much cared about the expense, because every cent of it came from the phosphate proceeds, and there was still a fortune being made every year.

As we all know, the Nauruans now own all the phosphate and the equipment that gets it out, and run their own country too. And they still don’t pay taxes.

The main reason they have all this is that they stayed put, when the Banabans didn’t.

Poor Banabans. Is it any wonder they have been frustrated and angry in recent years? They have ap proached the UN, without success, and asked Britain to grant Ocean Island her independence, again in vain.

Like the Nauruans, they have used every kind of adviser—lawyers, academics, economists, constitutional experts, public relations men—to help in their campaign. Unlike Nauru, the results for Rabi have not been worth the money and time expended.

But the campaign goes on. Tebuke Rotan, manager of the Rabi Island Council, is currently living in London to drum up support at the heart of the colonial Pacific empire which poor old Britain is stuck with.

"All sorts of advice"

With the help of still more advisers, this time a mixed-team from the Australian National University in Canberra, giving their services free, Tebuke is having a document pre pared which will point out that the Banabans have always had a separate identity and that Ocean Island is entitled to be treated senaratelv from the Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony.

Much of the Banaban vocabulary.

it will be shown, is non-Gilbertese, the people having come from the Carolines. In any case Ocean Island’s physical isolation in pre-European times made it certain that the people would establish their own identity.

It will also be pointed out that Ocean Island was taken over by Britain for politico-economic reasons, and that the money today contributed to the GEIC from Ocean Island phosphate proceeds in the name of taxation is so high a proportion of the profits that it virtually amounts to confiscation.

What support Tebuke will drum up with this document I don’t know.

I’m not clear on what Tebuke’s present objectives are, and I suspect the Rabi people as a whole are not clear on them. Everybody wants the lion’s share of the phosphate money, but there is a lack of resolu tion on how best to achieve this.

Rabi lacks a Deßoburt.

But I don’t believe even a Deßoburt could now do for the Ocean Islanders on Rabi what that leader did for Nauru. Rabi’s chance of gaining a full inheritance is gone.

It was lost after the people be came absentee landlords and nobody emerged with the rare foresight to watch closely and analyse develop ments as they occurred back on Ocean Island. To continually prod and question the BPC and the GEIC administration; to insist on frequently being heard, to insist on the handouts the Nauruans were getting.

The Banabans will gain little now by resenting what-might-have-been.

While they should, and will, con tinue to fight for a greater share of the phosphate proceeds, the time has surely come for them to stop dissipating their present income on expensive advisers and air fares.

More important, they should get on with the overdue task of develop ing Rabi with what resources they do have. History is filled with examples—and Australia’s own early colonial history supplies plenty of them—of people who supported themselves on the smell of an oily rag as they developed their land to a stage where it could begin to support them, then enrich them.

Rabi is not short of productive land, but there is not nearly enough self-help on Rabi, and not all the public relations campaigns that Rabi can pay for will change that fact.

Rabi needs a two-pronged drive for recognition; one directed at Britain and the BPC, the other to a back to-the-land campaign on the home front. And the second prong should be the sharpest.

Stuart Inder