Pacific Report

Marshalls Yes’ To Compact

With almost 95 per cent of ballots counted, voters in the Marshall Islands had accepted the Compact of Free Association with the United States by just over 5000 votes to 3500, according to a September 14 Radio Australia report. The compact establishes a trust fund of SUSISO million to compen sate Marshall Islanders displaced or exposed to radiation during U.S. nuclear testing in.the archipelago from 1946 to 1958. The compact also provides about $750 million in aid over a 15-year period, and gives the U.S. the use of Kwajalein Atoll missiles testing range for up to 30 years. The radio quotes United Press International reports saying that voters from atolls affected by nuclear testing tended to vote against the compact in the September 7 poll, whereas islanders on Majuro, the republic’s main population centre, were heavily in favor.

76 Long Days In Fiji

From Suva, Robert Keith-Reid reports: Former Fiji Opposition Leader Siddiq Koya couldn’t be blamed for thinking that he’s had the last telling word: at the end of August, after 76 days of evidence about the conduct of the 1982 general election heard by New Zealand judge Sir John White, sitting as a one-man Royal Commission, the ruling Alliance Party seemed to have virtually surrendered. It had admitted that it could not produce or obtain evidence to prove allegations by its leader, Prime Minister Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara, that Koya had signed a letter in which his National Federation Party was said to have agreed to grant facilities in Fiji to the Soviet Union if it became the government after the election. According to Mara, the NFP received about SAI million in Soviet funds in return for the undertaking. The Alliance has also declared that for what it said were reasons of national security and “delicate diplomatic considerations” it could not produce evidence to support other aspects of Mara’s allegations. Koya, who had assured the nation that his soul was “not for sale”, had his case backed up by John Rabone, an independent New Zealand lawyer brought in to assist the inquiry. The only evidence shown by the Alliance, a photostat of a letter purporting to bear Koya’s signature, was of “no intrinsic value”, and “quite unsafe” to accept as evidence, he told White. But Alliance counsel, Sir John Falvey, QC, infuriated Koya in the final moments of the inquiry by assuring all that the supposition that the Alliance had abandoned its case “could not be further from the truth”. Falvey maintained that for the present it was impossible to publish evidence held by Mara without imperilling the safety of the people who supplied it. The issue was “by no means closed”, he said. Falvey said that contrary to what the NFP claimed, Mara had been under strong opposition pressure to cut the inquiry short. But the Prime Minister was satisfied that certain documents in his possession were genuine. “The Alliance maintains that the Koya letter is authentic, that the original was in fact signed by Mr Koya, and that money was paid to or for the benefit of the National Federation Party in exchange for the promises made to the USSR in that letter,” he said. When evidence could be released without endangering the suppliers, it would be published, he promised. Sir John White has a number of other issues to decide. One is the NFP charge that the Alliance hired Australian and American consultants to prepare for it, for use against the opposition, a “dirty tricks” campaign strategy. This advised such pressure as threats, bribes, denigration of the character of opponents, and exploitation of tensions between the Fijian and Indian communities, and of religious tensions between Muslims and Hindus within the Indian community. The Alliance counter charged that the NFP colluded with Left-wing Australian groups to prepare a television documentary about the election deliber ately slanted to damage the Alliance. Mara accused Australian Broadcasting Commission TV producer, Peter Manning, of the Four Corners program, of being involved in this. White said in closing the public hearings that he could not say when his report would be ready to go to the Governor-General Ratu Sir Penaia Ganilau. But throughout Fiji, it seemed to be the general consensus that what emerged from the hearings was more damaging to the Alliance than to the NFP.

Hotel Arson Shocks New Caledonia

Optimism aroused in New Caledonia by recent political develop ments, especially the July “round table” between the different political factions held in France, received a rude setback in late August with the destruction by arson of a resort hotel on the island of Ouvea, in the Loyalty group. Opened only in April, the Ouvea Village cost CFPI7O million (about SAI.4 million) to build. Although no arrests had been made by press time, it was widely assumed that those responsible were elements of the Melanesian Ouassadieu tribe, unhappy with aspects of the deal struck with the hotel proprietors for the erection of the buildings on their land. The Noumea daily Les Nouvelles commented: ’’Let us make no mistake. It’s not only a hotel that’s been destroyed, but also, and more importantly, many hopes and many illusions.

Presumably, the event is not of a kind (such as the assassina tion of Pierre Declercq, for example) to threaten a race war. It is in fact even more serious, and it affects us all, Melanesians in the first place: up in smoke went confidence in the good sense of people, and in the ashes lies the bitter realisation of the powerlessness of mere goodwill, whether it be the goodwill of the independentists or not.”

Somare, Pacific Man Of The Year

Papua New Guinea’s Prime Minister, Michael Somare, is to go to New York in October to receive the Pacific Man of the Year Award. The award is to be presented by the Foundation for the Peoples of the South Pacific.

Australia Offers Surveillance Aid

Australia has offered to conduct joint air patrols with a number of nations of the southwest Pacific in an effort to tighten up surveillance of their exclusive economic zones. Senior Aust ralian defence officials said in September that a Royal Aust ralian Air Force Orion aircraft is at present flying patrols from Fiji about once a month. Under new proposals, the Orion would extend its patrols to cover the offshore economic zones of Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and Western Samoa. However, the officials said that for the present the Orion could only land on a regular basis at Nadi, Fiji, as other airfields in the region were not strong enough to take the big plane. The officials said it was proposed to carry personnel from the island nations on the patrols of their zones. In a related development, Papua New Guinea’s Prime Minister Michael Somare said it was obvious that PNG needed faster patrol boats if its economic zone was to be effectively policed. He said the government was also considering increased use of maritime patrol aircraft. Mr Somare welcomed Australia’s offer to supply patrol boats to Pacific Island countries. The offer was made by Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke at the meeting of the South Pacific Forum in Canberra early in September.

Savaai Ravaged By Bushfire

Western Samoa’s Prime Minister Tofilau Eti in September declared a disaster area about 4000 hectares of burning forest land on the island of Savaai. The fire, in some of the country’s most valuable agricultural and timber land, was being fought with the assistance of portable pumps, hoses, flame-throwers and personnel flown in by the New Zealand Government. A spokesman for the U.S. forestry service in Honolulu said a group of his men were ready to leave for Western Samoa if requested.

Riot Police On Troubled Lae Campus

Riot police in September took control of the campus at the University of Technology, Lae, Papua New Guinea, following a student occupation. The students had barricaded entrances to the campus and refused to attend lectures in protest against the dismissal of a Papua New Guinean lecturer. They stoned the house of the vice-chancellor, and smashed windows of the registrar’s car. About 60 riot police broke down the barricades and took up positions around the university’s administration buildings. A university spokesman said the students left the area quietly when the police arrived.

Fsm Congress Ratifies Compact

The Congress of the Federated States of Micronesia in early September ratified the Compact of Free Association with the United States. It had been approved by three of the four states

Truk, Yap and Kosrae but was rejected by the Ponape legislature. In the June plebiscite, 70 per cent of voters in the FSM approved the compact, but the vote in Ponape went 51 per cent against it.

Vanuatu Parliament Is Dissolved

Dissolving Vanuatu’s first parliament since independence, Pre sident Ati George Sokomanu has thanked members for their contributions to Vanuatu’s development, making particular men tion of Speaker Maxime Carlot, whom he congratulated on his handling of the parliament’s often stormy sessions. President Sokomanu cited as examples of the parliament’s achievements the passage of 116 bills which had allowed such things as the negotiation of 71 land leases with traditional landowners, and the launching of Vanuatu’s currency, the vatu. Vanuatu’s second parliament is to convene on November 16, a fortnight after the November 2 elections.

W. R. Carpenter Changes Hands

The Sydney-based islands trader W. R. Carpenter Ltd. has changed hands following a successful August take-over bid by Griffin East Holdings Pty. Ltd., of Perth, Western Australia. The Carpenter board had unanimously recommended that sharehol ders accept Griffin’s offer, based on a price of $A2.70 a share for the company’s issued capital of 43.6 million fully-paid shares.

The offer valued the company at about sll7 million. Griffin is an investment company with its major interest in coal. Chief executive of the two groups, Messrs W. R. Carpenter and R.

Stowe, were reported as saying the takeover agreement would “ensure continuity and stability of management in the Carpenter group”. The statement added: “It will enable the Carpenter group to continue its service fully to its customers in Australia, the Pacific and elsewhere and to maintain existing relationships with the communities in which it operates, its principals and its other trading partners. Griffin directors have assured the Carpenter board that subject to pursuance of existing Carpenter policies, it is the intention of Griffin to continue the employment of the present employees of Carpenter.” Commenting on the reassur ance of “continuity and stability of management in the Carpenter group” given by the chief executives, an editorial in The Fiji Times has expressed “some concern that, sooner or later, the new owners may want to re-assess their priorities to the possible detriment of Fiji and its Pacific neighbors”.

Australia Raises Png Aid

Australia will increase its aid to Papua New Guinea by 10 per cent to SA2BB million this financial year. In his Budget speech in the Australian Federal Parliament, Treasurer Paul Keating said the increase reflected recent special aid and a revision of Australia’s five-year aid agreement with PNG. This is in line with PNG’s wishes for suspension of the five per cent reduction in Australian aid each year agreed to by PNG before the economic downturn. Mr Keating added that Australia would continue to give priority to assisting countries in the region.

U.S. PAYS OUT $250,000 FOR PAGO CRASH The United States Government has paid $U5250,000 to Ameri can Samoa in settlement of a damges claim against the U.S.

Navy. A naval Orion aircraft crashed into the Rainmaker Hotel in Pago Pago in April, 1980, killing three hotel guests and the aircraft crew of six, and badly damaging the hotel. The Orion struck the overhead railway cable across the harbor. The settlement is for damage to public utilities and facilities.

Break Soviet Ties’ Fiji Senator

Fiji Senator Jone Banuve has urged the Fiji Government to break all links with the Soviet Union because of the shooting down of a Korean Air Lines Boeing 747 on September 1 with the loss of 269 lives. Senator Banuve, a government nominee to the Senate, and a senior official of the ruling Alliance Party, said the Soviet Union should be boycotted for what he called its “inhuman” action. Although Fiji and the Soviet Union have diplomatic relations, the Soviet Ambassador to Fiji is based in Canberra.

Top Png Politicos Want Republic

Papua New Guinea’s leading politicians, Prime Minister Michael Somare, Deputy Prime Minister Paias Wingti, Opposition Lead er lambakey Okuk and his deputy Fr John Momis are all in favor of replacing its head of State, Queen Elizabeth 11, with a

president. They all spoke in favor of the change during a parliamentary debate on the General Constitutional Commis sion’s final report which recommended that a president be elected by a simple majority vote in parliament in an exhaustive secret ballot. Mr Somare said he would contest the presidency if the system was similar to the United States’ system where the president has executive powers in government.

Png Defence Minister Faces Reprimand

Papua New Guinea Prime Minister Michael Somare said in mid- September that the country’s Defence Minister Epel Tito would be reprimanded for remarks he had made earlier in the month during a visit to Australia. Mr Tito told a Radio Australia correspondent in Canberra that Indonesia posed a threat to his country, and would probably invade it within 10 to 20 years. He also called on Australia to help PNG set up military posts along the Irian Jaya border. Mr Somare said his government believed relations with Indonesia were good, and were based on each nation’s respect for the other’s independence and integrity.

Mutual understanding between the two countries allowed a speedy settlement of any problem, he said. (See earlier report, Political Currents.)

Kiribati To Develop Christmas Island

The Kiribati Government has begun to settle citizens on land on Christmas Island in the Line Islands. The government plans to develop the island, which has more than half the total land area of Kiribati, making it an alternative economic centre to South Tarawa. Pilot leases, of half an acre each, and costing SA72 a year, have been granted to 63 families on land near London village, regarded as the island’s “capital.” The island, the largest island of purely coral formation in the world, has potential as a tourist resort, being linked by air with Honolulu, and has large copra plantations and many small lakes, some several kilometres in diameter, suitable for fish farming. A vegetable production process, using hydroponics, has recently been reported a success. Production of some crops, notably cab bage, has been found to be more than 60 per cent greater than from crops grown in soil.

40 Islands Companies Display Wares

Forty companies from nine South Pacific Islands countries took part in a trade display in Melbourne (Australia) in September under the auspices of the South Pacific Trade Commission.

Manufactured goods exhibited included shell and other jewel lery, handcrafts, plastic homeware, shoes, garments, aluminium and stainless steel utensils, jams, coconut cream, cane furni ture, copperware, toys, biscuits, saddles and harnesses, soccer, rugby and netballs, sportswear, wines and, from Tonga, a mini excavator. There were 316 visitors over the three days of the exhibition; 164 trade inquiries; actual sales $A151,848; sales under negotiation $237,724; estimates of sales in the next 12 months $1,047,000. The display was also mounted briefly in Brisbane and Sydney.

Png Lager On Sale In California

Export lager made by Papua New Guinea’s South Pacific Brewery went on sale in California early in September. The first shipment consisted of 12,000 cartons (12 cans to a carton) and a second shipment of 20,000 cartons was soon on its way to the brewery’s new market. The brewery’s general manager, Bruce Flynn, said the company expected to sell between 150,000 and 180,000 cartons a year in America.

Fiji Shipowners Oppose Hovercraft

Local shipowners in Fiji have asked their government to block an Australian company’s plan to run an experimental hovercraft service carrying passengers between Suva and larger outlying islands. The company, Vosper Marine, plans to introduce the service shortly. But the Fiji Inter-Island Shipowners’ Association says that many shipping services were heavily dependent on revenues from passenger fares, and could not afford to lose business to the hovercraft.

Raymond Burr’S Island Fetches $2.8 M

The American actor Raymond Burr has sold an island he has owned in Fiji for 15 years for SA2.B million. The Fiji Government also bid for the 780 ha island, Naitauba, about 150 nautical miles northeast of Suva, but could not match the offer from a church group based in USA, Johannine Daist Communion.