Up Front

with the Editor

The influence of the metropolitan powers is on the decline in the South Pacific Commission. What’s more, the powers themselves are not now fighting the inevitable and thus the balance of power in the South Seas begins to shift from metropolitan to islands gov ernments.

This is not a new point. I made it in this column in October, just before the territories sat down to the 9th South Pacific Conference in Noumea. The results of that con ference support my point— at the end of 10 days the conference had taken control of the Commission; an Islander had been appointed, for the first time, as Secretary-General of the Commission; and the “exclusive club” that once was the Commission had been disbanded forever. Or had it?

We would all like to think so, and we all hope so, yet the New Order will bring its own new problems.

One problem will lie in the direc tion that raised some sparks at the Noumea conference: The matter of who is to be responsible for the SPC staff—the Secretary-General or the Conference?

Fight drawn

Fiji’s chief minister, Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara, who has been the leader of the Islanders’ fight to gain control of the Commission’s policies, took the view in Noumea that the Secretary-General was answerable to the Conference and could expect to have his actions queried in the same way as any of his staff.

Sir Gawain Bell, the retiring Secretary-General, was furious. In his view, he controlled the staff and was responsible only to the com missioners.

That fight ended in a draw. It is likely to be refought.

As from January, West Samoa’s Harry Moors is Secretary-General of the SPC, and after Sir Gawain handed over and headed for Switzer land for a skiing holiday before

deciding what to do next, I asked him what he had learned in his three years in the post.

Non-interference

What, for example, were the things that Harry Moors had to watch for?

“Interference!” said Sir Gawain.

“The task ahead is to consolidate the progress that has been made.

What’s happened in the last few years is first-rate. There’s much closer participation by the territories and this is what was needed.

“But you can’t be too radical all at once and the danger to the Com mission, at this moment, is that the horse could suddenly run away. ‘The greatest peril facing the commission is that the territories could try to assume full control.

“You can expect this kind of thing in developing territories. I have seen it before. Politicians under a colonial situation observe the public service and assume that it is the public service that has the power. The public servants appear to have the power.

“So when the politicians take over they want to get hold of the public service.

This might work in one territory satisfactorily but not in a Com mission which is responsible for 16 territories.”

Before Sir Gawain’s departure he spread the message of non-inter ference as widely as he could. He told islands leaders that they should work together to prevent interference with the operation of the Commission as such.

The Secretary-General was there to carry out policy and he had to

be free to do the job efficiently s he saw it, and not be at the mere of every politician who wanted thi person employed or that one sacke* The Commission could not operal under such conditions, Sir Gawai insisted.

I think he has a vital point, you have a Secretary-General then 1: must have room to move and not t apprehensive of attacks from ui expected quarters or from peopi who may criticise without havir real responsibility.

Should the post of Secretar General become sycophantic, then tl South Pacific Commission will I directed, not by Commissione: representing the considered opinioi of Islanders, but by a small “ii group of those Islanders with tl most dominant personality, tl loudest mouths or the most tin available in which to meddle.

And that’s about the swiftei bitterest way of getting people lose confidence in any organisation.

Harry Moors is a man who se through others, who can work thim round the edges to achieve a desin result if need be.

A lot of the responsibility f consolidating the good work do during the SPC’s head-long rui towards maturity is now his. But won’t do it without a fair measu of agreement, understanding and he from the Islands. For all our sak

I hope he gets it.

Stuart Ind[?]