Up Front

with the Editor

The massive union boycott in Aus tralia and New Zealand in June of French ships, aircraft and mail destined to and from France and the French Pacific territories certainly helped make the point to Paris that its Pacific nuclear testing programme is roundly condemned by the people who live here. As Tahiti’s Deputy Francis Sanford, pointed out, “How would the French people like it if they did the tests in Corsica?”

But, in another way, the exercise was a failure.

Most of the people getting hurt had httle or nothing to do with the bomb. The territory that has suffered most, the New Hebrides, certainly had nothing to do with the bomb, but its shipping links were severed by the boycott at a time when its people were attempting to pick themselves up after four devastating hurricanes that wiped out food gardens and destroyed schools, hospitals, houses.

Building supplies and food have been needed badly. There are only a couple of thousand Europeans in the New Hebrides’ population of 85,000, and the New Hebrideans themselves are neither British nor French. The boycott brought anger in the New Hebrides, as well it might.

In New Caledonia and French Polynesm, where the populace is indeed French, they were perplexed and irritated. They aren’t responsible tor the bomb either—the French Pacific territories are mere colonies ot Pans, where the important decisions on anything at all continue to be made, despite the entreaties of the autonomists for greater local control But France’s Pacific Islanders are certainly not anti-French; although there is real pressure in these ter ow°n rieS ff r th - e u right to run their own affairs, neither New Caledonians nor brench Polynesians have seriously suggested they do this outside the aegis of France, and they are not unhappy to be in the republic. t j °, as , Frenchmen as well as islanders they have naturally resented nk m ° V 5 S x^ hiC u h they believe Aus tralia and NZ have directed against ar^ m T ui 6 as against France. They TO not able t 0 accept that the ground c7v f P S est 1S m fac * a heartfelt cry ot public condemnation of the

Communist plot, ? meant to weaken Fr . ance ’ s ho,d in the Pacific and allow explanation is an indication of the u Xtent of th . e communications gap between English and French-speaking peoples m the Pacific.

It’s a lamentable gap and there are num £ers of reasons for it, but that’s another story The noint I’m maWno is that the boycott has not mad^thf French Pacific Islanders feel in any Way ashamed of themselves, which is hardly surprising. They nrobablv now feel more French P y another topic . when Dr c Pa P- New « in Suva that PNG should be al '™ ed membership of the South Pa . clfic Forum - But the issue suddenl y got more prominence when PNG’s neW - Chie Minister, Michael Somare!

P a ? sm g through Fiji in June after a ' independence 7 aS keepmg out of the forum Wte, Ratu Sir Kam . ,sese Ma ™> retorted that the r f^ uireme nts for membership were c ear — had to be an independent country with the power to make your °" n ***”-■ S °™ re repli ed

that PNG was capable of making its own decisions—it was “no stooge” of Australia.

The debate is not yet resolved, and in fact both sides have a point.

Ratu Mara’s criteria have been agreed on by the present forum members Fiji, Western Samoa, Tonga, Nauru, Australia and NZ (all independent), and the Cooks, which are self-governing. Ratu Mara is entitled to defend the position.

Constitutionally PNG cannot be compared with the Cook Islands, even though the Cooks are not independent m the same sense as the other mem bers. But the Cooks have full internal self-government, with authority vested in the cabinet. The cabinet includes no “official” members, as has PNG’s cabinet (its “executive advisory council ). The Cooks have the power of amending their own constitution, which PNG has not. What Ratu Mara probably has not clearly realised is that there is a de facto position of full self-government in PNG now.

The PNG cabinet really does have very great powers and has taken to using them with extraordinary con fidence. There is an understanding that Somare and not the Administrator is in control, even though Somare’s title of “Chief Minister” is a courtesy one. The fact is that Australia would not now dare object to any decision that the PNG cabinet made if it was determined to make it, and Somare is right when he says that PNG is not Australia’s stooge.

The de facto position is to be made legal very soon—constitutional talks have already begun, to set a time table for both self-government and independence. Whether the present Australian Liberal-Country Party Government gets back at this year’s general elections has nothing to do with it.

Forum membership for PNG meanwhile is surely a question of compromise. But if present forum members don’t want to compromise, then the PNG Government should take a rein on its super-sensitive feel ings and pipe down until the con stitutional changes go through.

Otherwise its boorish behaviour will irritate its Island friends and

neighbours.-

Stuart Inder.