Inside

• THOUGHTS OF PRESIDENT SOKOMANU Vanuatu’s President Ati George Sokomanu, the former leading Vanuaaku Party politician George Kalkoa, gives an interview to an Australian newspaper which amounts to an all-round challenge to the policies of Prime Minister Father Walter Uni 10 • MORUROA N-TESTS: THE FRENCH CASE The French Embassy in Canberra has issued an official statement on French nuclear testing. The statement followed a protest against the tests by the new Australian Government elected on March 5 31 • THE WHONSBON-ASTON PAPERS In the last extract from the memoirs of the late the Venerable Charles William Whonsbon-Aston, he writes of how he devised the inscription for the foundation stone of Apia’s Anglican church, and of his role in the mysterious Joyita affair 35 • THE MONTH Marie-Therese and Bengt Danielsson write on French Polynesia’s unprecedented series of cyclones and speculate on the reasons for them; Floyd K. Takeuchi comments on some peculiarities of Micronesian politics; Robert L. Kiste pays tribute to the late U.S. Congressman, Phillip Burton, who was perhaps the Pacific Islanders’ best friend in Washington: Helen Fraser reports on latest developments in New Caledonia, and Christine Coombe writes on the Vanuatu economy as the third anniversary of independence looms close .. 17 • FIJI’S POLITICAL ROYAL COMMISSION Robert Keith-Reid in Suva describes the work to date of the Royal Commission inquiring into alleged dirty work in this year’s Fiji general election. The question: Will the commission do more harm than good by arousing new tensions between the Fijian and Indian communities? 29

American Samoa 55 Books 58 Cook Islands 12 Deaths 73 Fiji 29, 44, 48, 57 French Polynesia 21, 31, 64 Guam 47 Islands Press 33 Kiribati 49 Letters 7 Matthew Island 7 Micronesia 8, 19, 53, 64 New Caledonia 15, 27 Niue 49 Notes from the North 19 Noumea Notebook 15 Nuclear Issues 31

Pacific Report 5 Papua New Guinea 45, 48, 57, 58 People 44 Political Currents 27 Postmark Papeete 21 Shipping Timetables 71 The Month 15 Tonga 51 Tradewinds 60 Tropicalities 48 Tuvalu 57 Vanuatu 8, 10, 18, 64 View from Honolulu 25 Voice of Vanuatu 18 Western Samoa 35, 49, 55 Yesterday 35