Up Front

with the Editor

After 27 years, the moment of truth is at hand for the South Pacific Commission. Can it now serve the people for whom it was created, or must it collapse?

We should know following a con ference to be held in Wellington, NZ, in March, of its present eight mem bers—NZ, Australia, Britain, France, the US, Western Samoa, Fiji and Nauru. It’s a review meeting, ar ranged as a result of a resolution ap proved by the South Pacific Con ference in Guam last year.

Participants will be asked to recog nise that the Canberra Agreement, which in February, 1947, established the SPC “to promote the economic and social welfare and advancement of the peoples of the non-self governing territories of the South Pacific region”, is out of date.

They will be asked to revise it so that “it will reflect the needs and as pirations of the Pacific people”. They will be asked to merge the South Pacific Commission with the South Pacific Conference (to be then known as The South Pacific Conference), and with the help of a number of committees and an annual meeting, give the new organisation into the control of all nations and territories of the South Pacific, whether or not they happen to be full members (such as the eight).

They will be asked to guarantee democratic operation of the new organisation by giving every partici pant country one vote, and by allow ing the chairman to be selected on occasions by the conference members, so that the smaller territories can have a turn. The conference would also be allowed to discuss any subject it thinks relevant, whether or not it happens to be political. Furthermore, there would be no ceiling on the amount of money any country offered the organisation.

All this is pretty heady stuff.

If adopted it will establish the com mission as a vast international com mittee of Islanders with the means to

help themselves with social and tech nical expertise, and able to swap in formation, gossip, fears and worries —and, one hopes, joys.

It could be a genuine and effective forum for people such as the New Caledonians and French Polynesians, whose SPC votes are currently held by France, and for the Solomon Islands and the Gilbert and Ellice, whose votes are held by Britain.

But will the Wellington meeting achieve this? I suspect that depends upon France. The French have been extremely rigid over the future of what really are French colonies in the Pacific but which she thinks of as integral parts of France. The French islands have reason to regard La Belle France with both respect and affection, but there is plenty of evidence that they also want greater freedom within the republic frame work.

Without doubt the islanders would like their own vote on the SPC and a right to talk in public on any sub ject they like, including the subject of nuclear explosions. But will France feel she is able to give them those rights on the SPC without a loosening of control?

If she doesn’t, the Wellington con ference could end in disaster, be cause the mood of the rest of the Pacific is to strip the SPC of its colonial past before it dies of the weight it’s carrying.

The alternative is to close it down, which would be a great loss while the organisation still has some role to play; or let it split apart through the walk-out, or expulsion, of France —which would be even more re grettable because of the attendant recriminations.

But perhaps I’m unnecessarily pessimistic. France’s new Minister for Overseas Territories, Mr Bernard Stasi, is said to hold liberal views, and be less rigid on the question of Islands’ autonomy. We shall see.

Stuart Inder