Tropicalities

Ruritania on a reef

The first handmade country in the world has been created and its makers have asked world states to recognise it as a republic.

An international group calling itself the Ocean Life Research Foundation is planning to found a “sea city” on crescent-shaped Minerva Reef, grave yard of several ships, about 450 miles south of Fiji.

There are several obstacles to creating a new country and one is to find a piece of real estate which doesn’t belong to any other country.

The founders of the foundation think they’ve cleared the first obstacle by choosing Minerva Reef, which they believe belongs to no-one.

But we’ve got news for the founders. Minerva Reef was annexed on November 24, 1966 on behalf of Tonga by the one man who should have a claim to it because he’s lived on it—Captain Tevita Fifita, leader of the 16 men of the ill-fated yacht Tuaikaepau who spent 100 days on the reef in 1962 after the yacht foundered on the reef.

Tevita visited the reef in Nov ember, 1966, in the Auckland trawler Loch Lein of which he was master and carried out a solemn ceremony of annexation. He raised the Tongan flag and his Tongan crew sang the national anthem.

Then they reburied a member of the Tuaikaepau's crew who died on the reef and buried a copy of Olaf Ruhen’s Minerva Reef, the story of the stranding.

It’s not clear whether the Tongan Government recognised the an nexation but PIM has no record of rejection.

Another obstacle is that, although reefs in international waters are believed to belong to no one, they can, according to the founders’ spokesman. United States citizen Mr.

Mark Oliver, be claimed by an nexation if the land on them is above the sea and can be built on.

So, Mr. Oliver says, they’ve con structed two small islands of coral and sand and are hoping for the best.

To show they are in earnest, the

founding fathers —scientists, doctors, scholars and businessmen recruited from all over the world—have already spent about $151,000 on the project. Their republic consists at present of the two mounds with radar beacons and light-houses.

Without any trumpeted fanfares, the pioneers gathered at Suva in January and set sail for their Pro mised Land, raising the flag of the republic on the reef, the two mounds of sand and coral, the radar beacons and light-houses on January 20.

According to Mr. Oliver (Minerva’s first prime minister?), two dredges will arrive at Minerva in a few weeks to begin reclaiming up to 400 acres of land.

“Reclaiming” would hardly be the word though for here is no Atlanta invaded by the sea but a genuine piece of Davey Jones’ Locker which the sea nymphs have built on.

But that’s by the way. Mr. Oliver believes they’ve begun to make a reality out of an ideal—a sea city republic which will be a haven for people who want to escape from crippling taxes, riot, crime and drug addicts.

People set out from Britain in the Mayflower imbued with the same idea.

Now look at their Utopia!

Women power here

but not women's Lib.

More than 200 women, half of them from the Pacific Islands, met and talked for several days at Auck land University in January. Not once did they talk about Women’s Lib.

But they did talk about Women Power —in the sense that women made up half the human resources.

The women were all delegates from women’s organisations in about eight countries attending the 12th triennial conference of the Pan Pacific South east Asia Women’s Association (PPSEAWA), familarly known in the Islands as Perseewa.

It’s got a good hold in the Islands where the women are giving increas ing support to organisations aiming at mutual help, international friend ship, knowledge of how the “other side” lives—anything which will im prove family life.

There were women from the Philippines, from Japan, Hawaii,

Korea and Singapore but the women from the Islands stole the show. They paraded their colours —their own native dress, Fiji’s 20-strong con tingent providing the highlight of the whole thing with a pageant on The Winds of Change, a charade of all the things which have been happen ing in the dominion—independence and the rest.

The group used film, slides, songs and dances to depict life in Fiji but the best illustration of the main theme, racial unity, was in the delegates themselves —Fijians, Indians, Europeans, each wearing the dress of the others and providing an example of life with racial barriers down that was talked about for the rest of the conference.

One delegate opined that, if there had been nothing else, the Fiji show would have been enough to make the trip to Auckland worthwhile.

The Western Samoa branch did their country proud by bringing the largest contingent of any, 35 delegates led by Mrs. Falenaoti Tiresa Malietoa.

She presented the Gospel according to the Samoan women—“ The Samoan people believe that the family is the most important institution, the most important unit, the most important organisation that God has given to this world. And the family is not just a biological unit. It involves hundreds of people and gives a sense of identification, of security, of pride, of belonging, of relating.”

She brought in Women Power — but not Women’s Lib.

“Women are the origin of life.

And without the hope, faith and con fidence in us as women, I think the world will be doomed. Our Samoan message is that women have power in themselves that even the mightiest atom could never get through.”

There were 20 delegates from Tonga and the same number from American Samoa while the Cook Islands sent four for its first appear ance at a PPSEAWA conference.

Cooks leader Mrs. Louise Graham was surprised to find that, as with sex, there wasn’t much difference in the way of doing things anywhere.

Said she; “The most surprising thing we’ve found is that although our organisation has had no com munications with women’s groups in other countries, we have been work ing along similar lines.”

Governor and Jake

aren't joking

They’re afeuding agin in American Samoa, Jake King and Governor John M. Hay don.

The last skirmish ended in a win for King who managed to get a court order quashing an expulsion order made by the Governor. Now, King has filed a libel suit in the High Court suing the Governor for $60,000.

According to the official govern ment Samoa News Bulletin, King alleges that Governor Haydon, in a telephone interview with a Washing ton Post reporter referred to King as an “incompetent television repairman who roamed the island on drinking escapades that resulted in his wreck ing a school bus and that the plaintiff (King) was a shame and embarrass ment to all Americans on the island”.

King alleges that, through this, he lost advertising revenue and circula tion for the Samoa News. That case is pending.

About the same time, Mr. King wasn’t exactly backward himself, in throwing the book at the Governor in an article in the Samoa News under his own name. He also sug gested the High Court of American Samoa was subject to control by the Governor.

In the editorial there were such little bouquets as “Haydon’s conduct with our Judiciary has been an ‘all time disgrace’ “We would like to urge John Haydon to resolve for the New Year to learn to like people, even us Samoans, instead of trying to crush everyone”; “Never has anyone with less manners ever come to be Governor in this territory”; “Don’t walk around in public with a cigarette hanging out of the corner of your mouth like a Chicago gangster in the old movies”. There were lots more, perhaps enough for Governor Haydon to do a tit for tat himself in the libel suit line.

'That Road' suddenly

looks distant

The cost of rebuilding the 110-mile Nadi-Suva road looks like becoming as much a joke—though a rather more tragic one—as the cost of providing Sydney with its long awaited Opera House.

Shock of the month in Fiji was the news that of nine tenders received to rebuild the first stages of The Road, even the lowest was double the original estimate of around $l3 million.

But it shouldn’t have been a shock.

The whole project has taken so long

to reach even this stage of non development that we could hardly have expected anything else.

The cost of building even a modest home in Fiji has doubled in the last 12 months. A project as ambitious as transforming the tortuous hazard strewn Queens Road into a modern sealed highway must obviously be affected by the same inflationary factors.

The Fiji Government called tenders last September after receiving as surance from the World Bank of a $lO million loan to cover most of the cost of rebuilding the 28-mile stretch between Suva and Taunovo and 44-mile stretch from Nadi to Korotogo. The lowest tender was for $26 million and the highest $37 mil lion.

“It is felt,” said Communications, Works and Tourism Minister Mr.

Charles Stinson, that the discrepancy between estimates and tenders is “far too great for us to accept that it is based on the normal profit margins tenderers would be looking for.”

Mr. Stinson was due to fly to Washington for talks about the road in late January. One problem to be sorted out was whether the World Bank would lend the $lO million if Fiji decided to undertake the project itself.

If the worst does come to the worst and the PWD is left to do the job, it could take more than a decade to rebuild the road.

According to Mr. Stinson the PWD could rebuild eight to 10 miles of Queens Road a year for $BOO,OOO.

The speed would be trebled if three times the money was available.

Redevelopment of the Queens Road is the biggest single project contained in Fiji’s 1971-1975 Development Plan Six, accounting for nearly one-seventh of total government capital spending during this period.

This latest setback is an enormous blow, not only to government plan ning and to scores of bus, taxi and heavy transport drivers travelling daily between Nadi and Suva, but also for investors who’ve moved into developments along the Queens Road in anticipation of seeing at least part of The Road transformed within three years.

Bus company operators must be crying tears of blood.

Recently, Mr. Charles Chun, general manager of Pacific Transport Ltd., described Fiji’s roads as “atrocious, probably the worst to be found anywhere in the world.”

During the month of November, he said despairingly, repair and main tenance costs were almost $ll,OOO for 24 buses and coaches which covered nearly 100,000 miles.

The two faces of

the vice-chancellor

PlM’s December picture (above) of Professor Ken Inglis, Vice-Chan cellor elect of the University of Papua and New Guinea (he takes over from Dr. John Gunther in April), was noted at least by Prof essor Inglis, who sent the editor the following cryptic note: “I was planning to shave it off anyway before I go back at the end of March, but that picture made me reach for the razor sooner than I had intended. A happy new year.”

The emergent Inglis is below.

Professor Inglis in December.

Professor Inglis in January.