Pacific Report

BIG THREE’ ALL CONFIDENT IN PNG POLL Papua New Guineans on June 5 began their three weeks of voting in the country’s second general election since independence in 1975. As voting began, leaders of all three major parties expressed confidence as to the outcome. Prime Minister Sir Julius Chan said he believed he would be able to form another coalition government if his Peoples Progress Party managed to win 30 of the Parliament’s 109 seats, lambakey Okuk, deputy prime minister and leader of the National Party, predicted his party would win 35 to 45 seats. Leader of the Opposition, and Pangu Party leader, Michael Somare, was the only one of the trio to predict that his party would win sufficient seats to govern alone.

In all, nine parties and more than 1100 candidates are contesting the election.

20Th Birthday Feted In Western Samoa

Week-long celebrations of the 20th anniversary of independence took place in Western Samoa from June 1. Among foreign guests were Cook Islands Prime Minister Sir Thomas Davis and Lady Davis, and Papua New Guinea’s Chief Justice Sir Buri Kidu. PNG Prime Minister Sir Julius Chan said he was sorry election commitments prevented him from attending, but was delighted Sir Buri could go to represent PNG. Western Samoa was the first Pacific Island country to achieve independence, in 1962.

Usa, Marshalls, Agree On Compact

The USA and the Marshall Islands have ended more than 13 years of negotiations with an agreement to allow the Marshalls to become a free republic. A United Press International report stated that the first ‘Compact of Free Association’ between the two nations calls for about SUS2OOO million in American aid to be given to the Marshalls over a 15-year period. The agreement, negotiated in Honolulu, can be extended for a further 15 years.

Under the compact the islands will continue to be defended by the USA, and America will continue to use atolls in the group for missile tests.

Charge, Countercharge, In Border Row

Indonesia has officially denied Papua New Guinea claims of incursions across the Irian Jaya border by its forces on May 14, 15 and 21. The row, coinciding with PNG’s election campaign, has thrown severe strain on relations between the two countries, a strain exacerbated by the outspoken anti-Indonesian stand taken by Deputy Prime Minister lambakey Okuk in his election campaigning. Indonesia, in a stiff diplomatic statement issued on June 10 in Jakarta in reply to a PNG protest, said that Free Papua Movement (OPM) rebels had captured 58 employees at an Indonesian sawmill last October and taken them to PNG as hostages. The PNG Government had done nothing to return them to Irian Jaya. It said that 30 of the 58 were Selus people, and were finally released by Selus people crossing the border, not Indonesian soldiers. Port Moresby sources say there is absolutely no doubt that there was an Indonesian incursion on May 14. It is also widely believed in the PNG capital that a helicopter landing seven kilometres inside PNG territory by Irian Jaya commander Brigadier-General Santoso was an attempt to find the where abouts of the remaining hostages, and was not ‘caused by bad weather’ as claimed by the Indonesians.

Big New Shift In Noumea Politics

Two members of the Centrist F6d6ration pour une Nouvelle Soctete Caledonienne (FNSC) have resigned from New Caledonia’s council of government, saying they can no longer work with their former coalition partners on the council, the representatives of the conservative Ralliement Pour la Caledonie dans la Republique (RPCR). They said the RPCR had been rigid in blocking any reformist or progressive moves. A Radio Australia correspondent in Noumea reported on June 9 that it was now expected that the FNSC would form a coalition in the Territorial Assembly with the Front Independantiste (FI), ensuring a majority for a censure motion against the remaining government councillors. (See earlier report from Helen Fraser, Political Currents, this issue.) As the above developments were occurring,

it was announced that the expired six-month term of France’s High Commissioner Christian Nucci was to be renewed for at least another three months.

Fiji Candidate S Tactical Retreat’

The withdrawal of an Alliance Party candidate, Bua farmer Shiu Prasad, from the Fiji general election contest in July, gave the National Federation Party candidate, Senator Subarmarni Basawaiya, the Savusavu/Macuatu East Indian Communal seat in the House of Representatives without a fight. First impressions were that Shiu Prasad, an ex-NFP man, had double-crossed the Alliance. But Alliance members later claimed that their loss of the seat was a tactical victory. Councillor Parbhu Prasad of the Alliance called it a ‘calculated gamble’. The NFP would have won the seat, anyway, he said. But, now that there was no election for that seat, many NFP supporters would not bother turning up to vote in the election for the two National seats in the Vanua Levu North and West constituencies, giving the Alliance a much better chance of winning the two National seats.

Sentences On Tahiti Eight Reduced

A court of appeal in Versailles has reduced the sentences on eight Tahitians convicted of the murder of a prison warder in Papeete’s Nuutnia gaol on January 14, 1978 (PIM Jul ’79 p 27). The chief accused, Imanuela Tauhiro, 42, had his sentence reduced from life to 10 years, and his seven companions, who had been given terms at their original Papeete trial of between 12 and 20 years, had theirs cut back to four years. In view of the time they have served so far both before and since their first trial they were released shortly after the Versailles hearing closed. All men joined in an appeal in court for forgiveness from the widow of the slain warder, Pierre Hoatua, saying they had never intended to kill him.

All have insisted all along that they were not common criminals, but fighters for the independence of their country, and against France’s nuclear testing programme at Moruroa. The reductions won in their sentences indicate that since the Mitterrand government came to power, the French courts are willing to give some credence to such a claim.

Two Ministers Resign In Solomons

Two cabinet ministers in the Solomon Islands government have resigned. They are the minister for foreign affairs and international trade, Mr Ezekiel Alebua, and the minister for Guadalcanal provincial affairs, Mr Waeta Ben. The two ministers have been ministers in the government of prime minister Mr Solomon Mamaloni since the fall of the Kenilorea government last year.

Both Mr Alebua and Mr Ben said they resigned for a number of reasons including not being able to work well with other members of the cabinet.

Spec, Src: No Merger Yet

The long-running debate about a merger of the South Pacific Bureau for Economic Co-operation (SPEC) and the South Pacific Commission (SPC) has reached a new staging-point: a working party of the South Pacific Forum, SPEC’s parent body, after long deliberations, is reported to have recommended that the time is not ripe for a merger. Since membership of the forum is limited to independent countries, a merger at present would prevent French Pacific territories from belonging.

PARIS TAKES NEW LOOK AT ASIA, PACIFIC An unprecedented five-day conference in Paris in May brought together 18 French ambassadors and consuls-general to Pacific countries and Pacific Rim states such as the US, Canada, China and the Soviet Union. It was also attended by France’s high commissioners to New Caledonia and French Polynesia. Official French sources said the conference represented just a beginning of new French approaches to a region ‘which is extremely under estimated in France’. The conference studied three themes: the industrial Pacific, the military Pacific, and the South Pacific. The latter is of particular interest to France because of its territories in the region and its Moruroa nuclear tests. An AFP report said the conference saw the South Pacific as a zone ‘devoid of people’ where, ‘thanks particularly to the vigilance of Australia, Western influence is not contested’.

Michael Somare Among The Godfathers

Former Papua New Guinea Prime Minister Michael Somare was the only speaker from the Pacific Island countries at a slap-up June convention it cost each person there $A345 to attend at Sydney’s Hilton Hotel. The subject was: Development of Pacific Resources. He told the convention: ‘Most of you are on the Rim, deciding whether to plunge in. We are in the Basin which is surrounded by that Rim, and we are watching with some

apprehension. The total population of the countries of the Rim including China, but excluding Russia, is over 1830 million’

Compare this to the population of the 21 Pacific Island countries which amounts to a mere five million topped even by the population of Hong Kong on its own ... In being invited into such a community of these advanced and industrialised countries of the Pacific Rim, I sometimes wonder whether, in the language of the Godfather, we are being made an offer we can’t refuse... We certainly cannot afford to be left out of co-operation because we are small enough to be ignored if we don’t co-operate

‘Dump N-Waste Dump Plan’ Petition

The Japanese Science and Technology Agency the body overseeing the planned nuclear waste-dumping programme says it has received a petition signed by almost 9000 people in Australia, New Zealand, and various Pacific Island countries calling for abandonment of the programme. But Isamu Sasaya, director of the agency’s Nuclear Safety Bureau, said they had no intention of doing any such thing. He repeated Japanese Government claims that there is no danger of sea contamination with dumping of low-level radio-active waste 700 nautical miles from the nearest non-Japanese islands, the Northern Marianas

Malaysia’S Pm In South Pacific

Malaysia’s Prime Minister Datuk Seri Mahathir Mohamad in May- June made official visits to Fiji, Tonga, and Western Samoa.

MORE MEETINGS ON LAW OF THE SEA Following the April 30 ratification in New York of the Law of the Sea (LOS) Convention, the LOS Conference must hold two more meetings this year: in New York in September, to act on recommendations of its drafting committee; and then at Caracas, probably in early December, where government representatives! after nine long years of work, will finally sign the convention. The LOS Conference failed to meet its goal of adopting the convention by consensus. Instead, in a vote requested by the USA, and taken on April 30, it adopted the text by 130 in favour to four against, with 17 abstentions. Voting against were Israel Turkey, USA and Venezuela.

‘Merge Usp, Upng’ Maraj

Before leaving towards the end of May to take up a position with the World Bank (PIM Apr, p 29), Vice-Chancellor of the University of the South Pacific Dr James Maraj, in a farewell speech, suggested the amalgamation of the Universities of the South Pacific and Papua New Guinea. ‘I think the higher education needs of a population of some five million people the three and a half they have in Papua New Guinea, and the one and a quarter million we (countries represented at the USP) have could be better provided for within some such structure’, said Dr Maraj. He added that the question had been put very informally to the UPNG authorities, but he doubted that the proposal would come to much until the ‘political will’_was clearly manifested.

South Pacific Law Jaw-Jaw In Canberra

The fifth South Pacific Judicial Conference held in Canberra in May failed to agree on a proposal for a unified Court of Appeal for South and West Pacific nations. The case for such a court was led by prominent Fiji barrister Mere Pulea Kite, who argued it both in its own right and as a step towards regional unity in the Pacific.

In a scarcely veiled reference to the Privy Council in London, she said: ‘Are we seeking perfect justice in an elite but remote appellate system, or do we seek for our people the justice we all understand?’ Associate Justice E. F. Gianotti, of the Common wealth of the Northern Marianas, appeared to sum up response of the 17 countries represented at the conference when he said: ‘I feel that a Court of Appeals in the Pacific north, south or west would be a good thing, but I don’t think there is a chance of it ever happening.’ However, there was considerable support for the idea of a floating panel of regional judges, from which individual countries could draw their courts of appeal from time to time.

Oz Unions Rethink Islands Links

Australian trade unions are re-thinking their attitude to links with Pacific Island trade unions, according to the new Australian High Commissioner to Fiji and Tuvalu, Colin McDonald. They accept that Island unions are not prepared to be used merely as a vehicle for the campaign against nuclear tests, weapons, waste-dumping and uranium mining which is strongly supported by certain Australian trade union officials, he says. Last year Australian and New Zealand unions sponsored the formation of the Pacific Trade Union forum, an association of trade unions covering several South Pacific countries and Hawaii and Japan. Mr McDonald said

creation of the Forum has been an attempt by Australian and New Zealand unions to ‘develop a union front’ against the presence of nuclear materials of all kinds in the region. But the Pacific Islanders have shown that their first concern is the improvement of 'working and pay conditions in their own countries, and improvements to their own organisations.

Australian unions realise that they have a duty to assist with this process and some, including officials of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, have contacted the foreign affairs department in Canberra to advise about giving such assistance. ‘We are now in a dialogue,’ Mr McDonald said.

Sad Fate Of Kyoten Maru

The Kyoten Maru, 8750-tonne .cargo carrier on its way to Port Moresby with a $4 million cargo including equipment for the Ok Tedi mine, ran aground off the Queensland coast late in May and sank two days later, A Fiji-based salvage partnership, Marine Pacific and Salvage Pacific, was preparing a salvage attempt when the ship slid off the reef into deep water. The crew had already left the vessel. Evolution Maritime, of Hong Kong, the owner of Kyoten Maru, had contracted with the salvagers on a Lloyd’s Open Form no cure, no pay so that the loss of the ship means a loss for the Fiji firms. According to Marine director lan Hoskison, not more than a few thousand dollars had been spent on preparing the salvage attempt.

Pacific Conservatives Get Together

A new political grouping, to be known as the Pacific Democrat Union and to be a sister body to the European Democrat Union, formed in 1978 was to be inaugurated in Tokyo late in June. The union aims to establish for the first time regular contacts between Centre and moderate Centre-Right parties in the Pacific Basin area. Political parties from the USA, Canada, Papua New Guinea and Fiji were expected to join Australia, New Zealand and Japan at the inauguration. It was also expected that observers from the British Conservative Party and the European Democratic Union, and possibly also from Western Samoa and Solomon Islands, would be present.

Bank Line Back In Vanuatu

After an absence of nearly five years, the familiar Bank Line vessels will once more be calling at Port-Vila and Santo, Vanuatu, carrying both container and bulk-break cargo. While direct calls ceased in 1978, Bank Line ships have still been bringing cargo for Vanuatu, but trans-shipping it in Noumea. The first ship on the new schedule was the Clydebank, which uplifted 1500 tonnes of copra at the two ports of call. lan Mclntyre in Port-Vila.

Week-Long Strike In Fiji Sugar Mills

A week-long strike at Fiji’s four sugarcane-crushing mills in May ended with agreement to take the contentious issue demarcation as between one union and another to arbitration.

Fiji is aiming at a record sugar production of almost 500 000 tonnes this year. ‘NO’ TO MAORIS IN SOUTH PACIFIC GAMES The South Pacific Games Council, which will hold the Seventh South Pacific Games in Western Samoa in 1983, has rejected an application by the New Zealand Maoris to compete in the Games.

Rejection was based on the Games Charter, which limits inclusion in the event to members of the South Pacific Commission and Conference, but excludes the metropolitan powers of Australia, New Zealand, United States, Britain and France. The Maori delegates in Apia, who were refused a hearing by the council, argue that they are a South Pacific people and the indigenous people of New Zealand. They wanted to compete as Maoris and not as representing New Zealand.

Talair’S 30Th Birthday

Talair, the biggest third-level aircraft operator in the Pacific Islands, has just celebrated 30 years of passenger and freight flying in Papua New Guinea. Talair (then Territory Airlines) made its inaugural flight on May 5, 1952, when a De Havilland 85 Dragon was flown from Lae to the Wau Valley. The pilot was Ray Harris, one of the two Australians who formed the airline. His partner, Jack Gray, was killed in a flying accident five years later, and the airline was acquired by Dennis Buchanan who still controls it through extensive company interests. Talair now has a fleet of more than 60 aircraft operating charter and scheduled services throughout PNG. The fleet includes seven De Havilland Twin Otters, 19 Britten Norman Islanders and 29 various Cessna and Beechcraft types. Talair was one of the first operators to put into service the Cessna 180, the forerunner 28 years ago of a series of Cessna types which has been commercially successful in PNG.