Pacific Report
pp. 5-7 · Read in the full issue
Fiji’S “Foreign Interference” Probe
Sir John White, a retired New Zealand High Court judge, will preside over an inquiry into allegations of Russian, Australian and other foreign interference in Fiji’s July general elections.
The inquiry was promised by Prime Minister Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara immediately after his reappointment as PM following the elections. Sir John’s appointment was announced by Fiji Gover nor-General Ratu Sir George Cakobau. Accompanying the announcement was a government statement saying that the inquiry would be assisted by a “fair, neutral and competent counsel” to be obtained from New Zealand or Australia.
Png To “Reconsider” Soviet Links
In his first major speech on foreign policy delivered to Papua New Guinea’s National Parliament at the end of September, new PNG Foreign Minister Rabbie Namaliu said his country would reconsider its relations with the Soviet Union. He told parliament PNG was studying a request from the Soviet Union to make relations between the two countries more effective. Mr Namaliu said he was conscious of the advantages which might come PNG’s way from increasing direct contact with one of the most powerful governments in the world. He also said he was conscious of the issues such as the Soviet Union’s interven tion in Afghanistan which divided PNG and the USSR. China established an embassy in Port Moresby two years ago, but until now PNG has resisted Moscow’s suggestions that it be allowed to do likewise.
Kwajalein Sit-In Over For Now
Landowners who have been squatting on Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands (PIM Oct. p 5) started moving off in mid-October following word from their leaders Senator Ataji Bales and Imada Kabua that Washington talks on the contentious issues were “going very well.” The two men are taking part in the talks. The landowners are demanding higher rental payments for US use of the atoll as a missile-testing range, and other changes in the terms of the agreement on the future of the atoll.
Fsm, Usa, Sign Compact
The Federated States of Micronesia and the United States signed a Compact of Free Association in Honolulu on October 1.
Following the earlier signature of compacts with the Marshall Islands and Palau, this completes the first stage of the 13-years long process of winding up the US trusteeship over the area.
Under the compacts the new states will be independent in relation to foreign and domestic affairs, with the US retaining responsibility for defence. The FSM compact calls for US grants of about SUSIOOO million over a 15-year-period. Keith Guthrie, director of the State Department’s Pacific Islands Affairs desk, said he expects the pacts to be submitted to Congress early next year, but added that, since the compacts had to be approved by plebiscites in the territories themselves, there could be further delays because communication among the scattered islands is difficult. After the pacts are approved by the Islanders and the Congress, the State Department will “take up termina tion of the trusteeship at the United Nations,” Mr Guthrie said.
Once the trusteeship is terminated, the people of the Common wealth of the Northern Marianas, who voted in 1975 to become a commonwealth of the USA, will become US citizens.
Kaleidoscope Of Coalitions In Tahiti
Cobbled together in haste following French Polynesia’s May 23 Territorial Assembly elections, the territory’s new ruling coalition (PIM Jul. p 22) flew apart in September. The coalition, between Gaston Flosse’s Tahoeraa party (13 seats), and Emile Ver naudon’s Ai’a Api (three) had the narrowest of majorities in the 30-member legislature. But the cause of the rupture appears to have been the erratic and unpredictable behavior of the junior partners in the coalition, especially Vernaudon’s decision to stand against Tutaha Salmon, candidate of Flosse’s party in an August 29 poll to elect a new Deputy for the territory to the National Assembly in Paris (PIM Oct. p 7). Salmon won easily, but resentments of Vernaudon’s move remained strong on the Tahoeraa side. Hardly had news of the break become public, however, than efforts to form a new coalition were under way, this time between Tahoeraa and the Here Ai’a party of John
Teariki, which holds six seats in the assembly. Teariki’s party had long been the loyal ally of Francis Sanford’s E’a Api party in the ruling coalition which went down in defeat on May 23. In a joint statement on the new arrangement Messrs Flosse and Teariki said in September that it was designed to ensure “the political stability which alone can guarantee serious and effec tive solutions to the institutional, economic, social and cultural problems of the territory.” But after three weeks of negotiations the long-standing differences between the two sides proved insurmountable, and at a mid-October press conference Mr Flosse announced yet another new majority between his Tahoeraa party and five independent members of the assembly.
W. Samoa: Hrpp Men Refuse Portfolios
The Human Rights Protection Party in Western Samoa unanim ously elected Tofilau Eti as its new leader following the ousting from parliament of former Prime Minister Va’ai Kolone (PIM Oct. p 5). A minister in the first post-independence government in 1962, Tofilau is not only a highly experienced politician but also chairman of the annual conference of the Congregational Church of Samoa, to which 60 percent of Western Samoa’s population belongs. Tofilau was appointed finance minister in the new government of Prime Minister Tupuola Efi, but refused to take part in the swearing-in ceremony held at the end of September on the grounds that the Supreme Court decision ousting Va’ai Kolone and replacing him as PM with Tupuola was unconstitutional. He was joined in the boycott of the ceremony by HRPP colleague Lemamea Ropati, who had been offered a portfolio covering agriculture, the Public Service Commission, and vouth, sport and cultural affairs.
“Deport Nfp Leaders” Call In Fiji
Fiji Senator Inoke Tabua, a nominee of the Great Council of Chiefs, which has a traditional role in Fiji government, has called in the Senate for the deportation of the leaders of the mainly Indian Opposition National Federation Party. During his speech, in which he alleged that the Opposition had insulted the Fijian chiefs and people in their election campaign, the four Opposition senators walked out. Earlier, Senator Ratu Tevita Vakalalabure, another nominee of the Great Council of Chiefs, had told officials of the Indian High Commission in Fiji to “pack up and go.” In a related development, Fiji Prime Minister Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara is suing The Fiji Times and the writer of a letter in that newspaper, claiming that the letter, which attacked Senator Tabua over his “deport” call, made him (Ratu Mara) appear “dishonest”.
AMATA KABUA AND JAPAN S N-WASTE PLAN The Japanese Government is being accused of using aid to various Micronesian states as a weapon to persuade them to accept its plan to dump low-level nuclear waste in the Pacific.
Writing in the Australian weekly magazine The Bulletin of October 19, journalist Peter McGill claims that Marshall Islands President Amata Kabua is “a key figure” in the moves, and has become “Japan’s main Pacific ally in promoting the highly unpopular plan.” McGill writes: “Claiming that independence was ‘imminent,’ Japan last year gave grants (totalling) SUS 2.2 million to the Federated States of Micronesia and the Marshalls, plus another $1.6 million to the two states this year and $1.2 million to Palau a total of $5 million.” McGill claims that President Kabua paid “a secretive visit” to Tokyo in September, staying in Tokyo’s Imperial Hotel under an assumed name. He adds that the president, during a meeting with Ichiro Nakagawa, director of the Science and Technology Agency, said that opposition to the sea dumping plan had “softened” recently, and undertook to propose negotiations with Japan on the issue at the next summit of Pacific nations. (At last year’s summit, held on Guam, President Kabua caused consternation by suggesting that Japan dump its waste on Bikini Atoll in the Marshalls, contaminated previously by US nuclear tests). McGill recalls the fact that Micronesia used to be Japanese trust territory under the League of Nations, and that “many senior officials of the islands have blood ties with Japan and friends in the Japanese Government.” But whatever the outcome of President Kabua’s dealings with Japan, McGill predicts that “stiff opposition” to the
dumping plan will still come from Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas, “the two territories closest to the proposed site” for dumping.
New Call For Spc-Spec Merger
Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands have agreed to keep trying to have the South Pacific Commission (SPC) merge with the South Pacific Bureau of Economic Co-operation (SPEC). After an October meeting in Honiara the foreign ministers of the two countries said having the two organisations inevitably led to duplication and waste. PNG Foreign Minister Rabbie Namaliu had stated earlier that his country might think about leaving the South Pacific Commission unless progress was made on combining the two bodies.
Png Minister For Marshalls Plebiscite
The US State Department has asked Papua New Guinea’s Foreign Minister Rabbie Namaliu to observe the plebiscite at which the Marshallese people will vote on their future political status. The Marshall Islands Government had planned to hold the plebiscite in August but the US administration postponed it because, it claimed, there hadn’t been enough time for a political education program to be carried out, or to organise a United Nations observer team (PIM Sep. p 5). The Marshall’s Foreign Secretary Tony de Brum claimed at the time that the US had called the vote off because the ballot paper offered independ ence as an alternative to the proposed compact of free association with the US. Soon after, the Marshalls parliament voted to hold a plebiscite offering independence as an option before December 1 this year, with or without US approval.
Queen Elizabeth In Island Visits
Queen Elizabeth II was given an enthusiastic reception when she arrived in Papua New Guinea on October 13. Six thousand people welcomed her at Port Moresby airport, and thousands more lined the route to the Sir Hubert Murray Stadium. In the weeks before her visit newspapers and the radio had carried reports of a recommendation by a constitutional review commis sion that the Queen should cease to be PNG’s Head of State and be replaced by a Papua New Guinean president. However, Prime Minister Michael Somare appeared to throw cold water on this line of speculation when he used the occasion of her visit to invite the Queen to return in 1984 to conduct the formal opening of the country’s new parliament house, which is expected to be ready by then. The Queen was in PNG on her way to the Commonwealth Heads of Government Regional Meeting in Suva. She was later to visit Solomon Islands, Nauru, Kiribati and Tuvalu.
Solomons Want Para-Military Force
The Solomon Islands Government has asked Australia for help in setting up a para-military force. The request is believed to have been made at talks in Honiara in October on how Australian defence co-operation funds were to be spent. It has also been reported that a similar request was made to the government of the Republic of China (Taiwan).
UNHCR ASKED TO FIND HOME FOR RUMKOREM Papua New Guinea has asked the United Nations High Com missioner for Refugees to find a country ready to take the Irian Jayan rebel leader Seth Rumkorem, who fled from Indonesia in September and was arrested by PNG authorities at Rabaul, together with nine of his followers (PIM Oct. p 5). The group had been trying to reach Vanuatu by motorised canoe. PNG’s Acting Minister for Foreign Affairs Tony Siaguru said in October that he expected the group would stay in Rabaul until a reply had been received from the UNHCR.
VANUATU: OLD MONEY FOR NEW . . .
Vanuatu’s change-over to its new currency, the vatu, has turned up Australian silver coins from early this century, English coins from the 1850 s, and American quarters and half-dollars. Curren cy exchange officials have spent five months visiting every inhabited island in the archipelago. According to a Radio Australia report, the leader of the team, Tony Airs, said on his return to Port-Vila that some villagers had produced rice bags full of coins to exchange for the new vatu notes. But, he said, the team had to reject the old coins because the vatu could only be exchanged for the currencies it was replacing the New
Hebridean franc and the Australian dollar. (PIM wonders whether professional numismatists will adopt the same attitude as the news gets around . . . We recognise, of course, that the currency exchange team had no option but to stick to its brief this first time round).
Tahiti Looks To Tourism Records
French Polynesia is expecting a record number of tourists this year, with the number of visitors for the first eight months up 30 per cent on the same period in 1981. July registered an all-time monthly record, with 11,500 tourists visiting the territory. Tahiti’s Tourist Development Board says that Australia has become the territory’s second biggest source of visitors, after the USA.
France held this position until last year when the Australian airline Qantas resumed flights to Tahiti. Qantas flights now touch down in Tahiti six times a week, three from Sydney and three from Los Angeles.
Greenpeace 111 In Action Again
The anti-nuclear protest yacht Greenpeace 111 sailed from Papeete in October on a new voyage against French nuclear testing at Moruroa Atoll. The yacht, crewed by Tahitians, Australians, and a Briton, planned to sail to the 12 nautical-mile limit outside the atoll.
Fiji: Oz Firm Sacks Executives
In Fiji, Hornibrook-Thiess-Leighton, Australian building contrac tors on the big Nadi-Lautoka regional water scheme, sacked three of its senior executives in October. It is believed the sackings followed the discovery of a major racket involving hundreds of thousands of dollars acquired from the unau thorised sale of used equipment.
Kiribati Unions Form Congress
The five trade unions in Kiribati have formed themselves into a trade union congress, pledged to foster good relations with the government, employers and the general public. A congress statement said this would be “for the benefit of all the people of Kiribati”. The statement said the congress would establish links with counterpart bodies overseas, and estimated the cost of the first year of operation of the congress at $9500.
Fiji: 12Th Anniversary Appeals On Food
In messages to mark the 12th anniversary of Fiji’s independ ence in October the Governor-General Ratu Sir George Cakobau, and Prime Minister Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara, both appealed for greater efforts by the population to develop the country’s agriculture. Ratu Sir George Cakobau called for greater efforts to achieve food self-sufficiency, and for the diversification of crops. Saying that Fiji’s agriculture-based economy was subject to world price fluctuations, Ratu Mara said that this fact highlighted the need for a realistic level of self sufficiency in order to reduce outlays on imported foodstuffs. On unemployment in the country. Ratu Mara said it was a very serious matter, but added that because of its traditional social structures Fiji was able to escape many of the worst aspects of this social problem.
U.S. Workers’ Strike Threat To Qantas
Australia’s airline Qantas in October faced threats of industrial action by U.S. unionists protesting at its plans to dismiss 250 of its American employees in San Francisco and Honolulu. Their work (as ticketing clerks, mechanics, ramp attendants, and baggage loaders) would be taken over by sub-contracted workers. Ron Yates, deputy chief executive of the airline, said the move would save SAS million a year for the company, and was “essential for the survival of Qantas and the protection of Australian jobs.” He said sackings in Australia would become inevitable if the airline was unable to contain its costs. Mr Yates added that the two U.S. airports were the only overseas airports used by Qantas where the airline did not already sub-contract.
Eight Million Islanders By 2000?
The Third Asia-Pacific Population Conference, held in the Sri Lankan capital, Colombo, in September was told that population growth in 13 Pacific Island countries under study was the highest in the Asia-Pacific region. A spokesman for the United Nations Fund for Population Activities, which sponsored the conference, said particular attention was being paid to these Island countries “because of past neglect.”