Pim Opinion

The Fifteenth South Pacific Forum, held in Tuvalu, was highly successful and vindicated the views of those who have been calling for a return to the relaxed, intimate Pacific environment so conducive to understanding among the quite widely-different countries of the region.

Tuvalu, one of the tiniest of the island nations, excelled itself and is to be warmly congratulated for the excellence of the hosting, the great generosity of the hospitality, and the smooth running of the conference. Everyone in Tuvalu contributed to what was probably the biggest occasion ever held in their country, and yet no-one was over-awed. Everyone was friendly and natural. There was, in particular, no sign of security men anxiously building walls around the leaders; no big cars with sirens and motorcycle outriders; no display of wealth or strength calculated to establish a power pecking order, or cause the less well-endowed to feel put down; no posturing or trappings to make the leaders look like supermen standing high above ordinary mortals. Even the bureaucrats came out of their ivory towers and assumed human shape and habit.

Bob Hawke and David Lange cheerfully wrapped grass skirts around themselves at the wonderfully colorful Tuvaluan gift-giving ceremony. Prime ministers sat on benches, swinging their legs and talking while chickens scrounged in the grass below them. The international press trundled around the dusty roads among the village houses on hard-framed bicycles, which did their egos, as well as their leg muscles, quite a bit of good.

Some of the Canberra press corps who must spend their spare time seeking seething intrigue in cemeteries tried to promote the idea that Mr Hawke was at daggers drawn with Mr David Lange, a very liberal Labor man in whom the scribes saw more similarity with Gough Whitlam than the present Australian leader. They claimed Hawke was enraged by Lange’s unbending attitude on the nuclear ships, and the unnecessary risk it caused not only to the ANZUS treaty but to alignments within the Australian Labor Party.

We could all look forward to icebergs in the Tasman, and a field day for the pro-Hayden, anti-Hawke conspirators in Canberra, they reckoned.

In fact the two men seem to have got on tolerably well. They are vastly different characters. Hawke, the hard-nosed political dynamo with the voice like a grinding wheel, bored by all but the most substantial of the issues, does not suffer much argument from anyone. He was spokesman for the Forum and handled the press briefings with his lash clearly in view. ’’Well, at least we know who took over Piggy Muldoon’s mantle of press management,” groused one journalist after being told his question was stupid and that the spokesman wasn’t there to debate with him. But more experienced Canberra hands thought Mr Hawke milder than on most occasions, so perhaps the Pacific magic was working on him, too.

Mr Lange is much more expansive, and not only in his girth. Still with much to learn about the intricacies of government and international affairs, he is fond of the ringing phrase, gives the impression that he is strong on idealism, but nonetheless made a

very good impression at the Forum and got at least as much as he had genuinely hoped for.

He and Mr Hawke, plus their officials, played a very nicely balanced game in Funafuti. Their governments might have paid for most of the show, but they were careful not to hog the limelight; everyone looked equal and the harmony was pleasantly preserved.

Thus the communique, something of a diplomatic draftsman’s masterpiece, conveyed a nice mix of Pacific attitudes, with due and delicate allowance made for individual preferences on invitations to nuclear ships, apprehending American purse seine boats, and the ultimate interests of non-Melanesians in New Caledonia.

Undoubtedly, the creation of a Pacific Nuclear-Free Zone was brought usefully closer by Mr Hawke’s initiative which appears to have been thoroughly supported by Mr Lange and the other governments. The French can now be in even less doubt than before about the region’s view of its testing program.

On the banning of ships, everyone agreed to recognise the justice of the other man’s view, and that in itself has taken much of the heat out of the issue ... until, of course, the Americans come to discuss the question directly with the New Zealanders some time next year. Meantime the relevant paragraphs of the Forum communique provide a useful show of regional solidarity against the spread of nuclear power and technology and a basis upon which to work towards a devoutly desired, but elusive, goal.

The Solomons was deeply disappointed at the rejection of its rather wild theories on retaliations against American fishing boats, but they also were talked around a little and returned to Honiara perhaps less heated than they had come.

Unfortunately it is less easy to be optimistic about the Forum’s effect upon the vexed and complicated matter of independence for New Caledonia. The Forum’s message was aimed as much at the militants of the Kanak independence movement as at the French and rang truly of reason and sense. If the Kanaks wish it they will see support for their campaign in the words; sadly, events on the ground may have proceeded beyond that point.

These were the high-flown issues but in terms of Pacific realities the Kiribati paper, strongly supported by New Zealand, on economic development for the small island nations was much more important. Out of it, with the help of the bigger countries, may come some hope of a better future for the little economies where a cupful of aid can often produce a tankful of improvement in the standard of life.

Some very concrete proposals were aired, among them the widening of SPARTECA categories to allow, for example, bigger quotas of clothing exports to Australia, and duty-free entry of small-country handicrafts to the bigger, tourist-oriented island nations, like Fiji.

In short it was a very good Forum, in the best traditions of the organisation, and our region is likely to be a little better for its happening.