Pacific Islands Monthly

The Islanders Make The Forum A

New Force In The South Seas

From JOHN CARTER, in Canberra

The South Pacific Forum, mini-UN of the Islands, is really under way.

With the second meeting of its seven month-old career—held in protocol ridden Canberra at the end of February—the leaders of the five Island member-countries of Nauru, Fiji, Western Samoa, Tonga and the Cook Islands, plus Australia and New Zealand, really got it off the ground.

The talks were spread over three days—less than a dozen hours all told, not counting the inevitable asides outside the CSIRO’s Conference Room—but things were done and President Hammer Deßoburt of Nauru; Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara, Fiji’s PM; Tupua Tamasese Lealofi IV, Prime Minister of Western Samoa; Mr. Albert Henry, the Cook’s Premier; and Prince Tui’pelehake, Prime Minister of Tonga, came away with a sense of having achieved something.

They’d got a foot in Australia’s immigration door, laid the founda tions for a trade organisation, cleared the decks for action against airline ‘invaders” and arrived at an under standing on such diverse topics as education, the Law of the Sea, tele communications, and the establish ment of a joint disaster fund.

There was a formal opening by Australian Prime Minister W McMahon, but no formal closure.’

Had there been, the delegates would have echoed Prime Minister Tama sese’s words to PIM.

The first meeting in Wellington was merely exploratory. We were feeling our way. Now we know our way and with this meeting we have set the forum in motion and are get ting things done. It was a satisfactory Reeling. ”

It was obvious from the start that :rade would be the main topic. More lours of discussion, both in the sessions and in the socialising at light, were spent on it than on any >ther. Indeed, to outsiders it looked

as if one aspect of it might create the rock on which the forum could founder.

Ihey were all agreed that some Kind ot body was necessary to coordinate trading activities between the partners and to build up a clearing house of information and ideas.

Much of this had already been blueprinted by the Committee on South Pacific Trade which met in Wellington last November. This committee adyocated the creation of a secretanat.

It was from that idea that the Islanders began their discussions (see p. 95 for the background of the trading proposals) but almost immediately a coral head was in sight, The Fijians wanted the secretariat sited in Suva but Premier Albert Henry, whose second home is NZ, wanted it in Auckland. He was being thoughtful, he said. Fiji already had to bear the brunt of the financial burdens arising from the presence in

Fiji of the University of the South Pacific, from the staging of the Arts Festival, from PIPA, also in Suva, and if the South Pacific Bureau for Economic Co-operation (the agreed grandiose title of the secretariat) turned up in Suva, it would be a straw for the camel’s back.

Such a magnanimous thought was touching. But it didn’t cut much ice with Ratu Mara, who hadn’t been very happy with several of the de cisions of the committee in Welling ton. He h a( j been furious with the Fiji delegation to the trade meeting in Wellington over its action in agreeing to the final draft. Certainly some of the moves recommended would cut across Fiji’s interests.

Over the matter of siting the bureau, some newspapermen reported that there was a split in the forum as a result of the “disagreement”, But there was no split; it was merely the Islanders’ way of doing things, of putting up points, talking around