Up Front

with the Publisher

Congratulations to the South Pacific Forum, which six years after its establishment, has decided to review some of its operations, par ticularly its requirements for

membership.

The decision, made in Port Moresby, comes not too early and not too late.

Internal strains are only just beginn ing to show, as you can see from John Carter’s story on page 8. So the review is well timed.

The South Pacific Commission almost died some years ago because of the reluctance of the colonial governments to review its opera tions regularly, and the Pacific’s new leaders have good memories.

The South Pacific Forum was established as a less unwieldly alternative to the SPC and its design ers intended it to represent a new era in Pacific politics, as it has become.

I was among those in Wellington in August 1971 to report on that first, low-key meeting. Many of the delegates took part witnout know ing just what to expect, and the trutn was that the organisers themselves - notably Sir Ratu Kamisese Mara and Sir (then Mr) Albert Henry - were playing it by ear. The meeting was, as the official announcement later phrased it ‘an ad hoc gathering of island leaders and representatives of Australia and New Zealand - the initiative coming from the leaders of the independent self-governing islands 4 States all of which are associated with the Commonwealth.

The talks were essentially exploratory.

Those present discussed as neighbours and partners a number of problems which concerned them and possible ways of solving them’.

Ratu Mara spoke for the Island neighbours when he told the meet ing, ‘We emergent nations in the Pacific would like to maintain the friendly relations that have existed with our former guides and pro tectors beyond independence and into the future. It may be that the operation of independence in this way - the Pacific way - is what will distinguish us from other parts of the world where this has not always been so. And in Australia and New Zealand we have neighbours who

have gone through this experience and can share it with us.‘ The neighbours and partners in 1971 were Fiji, the Cooks, Western Samoa, Tonga, Nauru, Australia and New Zealand. The presence of Australia and New Zealand was crucial to the success of that first Forum because the island leaders deliberately set out to involve their big neighbours in a genuine partner ship - to bring them into regular informal dialogue with the Islanders.

This aim has long since been achieved. The problem the Forum has now is to keep itself informal, neighbourly and effective. With the addition of new Island States it is probably inevitable that it will loose some of its ability to decide on courses of action and there is always the possibility of internal political bickering which will destroy the atmosphere of goodwill.

Genuine disagreement is no bad thing. The Forum is designed to be just that - a forum of opinion. But the disagreement between the Gilberts and Fiji at the Port Moresby meeting was unnecessary. It would not have occurred if the rules of Forum membership were specific in their detail.

The committee is now to spell out the details and report back to next year‘s meeting. Among those who will follow the results with close interest are the French Pacific Territories. It was stressed at that initial Wellington meeting that the Forum was not designed as a Commonwealth club - that it was • open to any State which genuinely controlled its own affairs - that was ‘independent 4 . The New Zealanders, at that time involved in sensitive Common Market negotiations in respect of their agricultural products, were apprehensive as to whether the Forum could avoid an anti-French label. It did, and so far it has.

Now that the Gilberts have been admitted in fairly loose circum stances, it will earn the label soon enough unless it makes its member ship requirements absolutely specific and sticks to them, Stuart Inder