Pacific Rport

Foreign Ministers Critical On Caledonia

The foreign ministers of Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu, meeting in Port-Vila at the beginning of June, strongly criticised French methods in the attempt to bring independence to New Caledonia, and stated their intention to have New Caledonia returned to the United Nations list of non-self-governing territories.

They also said there was no need for the referendum which France planned to hold on the question of independence. Their statement was issued after two days of talks with representatives of the pro-independence Kanak party, FLNKS. The ministers said they wanted to see the matter of New Caledonia given greater prominence and debate than in the past at this year’s meeting of the South Pacific Forum in Rarotonga, Cook Islands, in August.

They said they would be meeting again to discuss the issue before the Forum meeting.

French N-Tests: B/G, Then Small, Bang

France was reported to have exploded a small nuclear device at its underground test site at Moruroa, French Polynesia, on June 3.

Monitoring the test in the Cook Islands, New Zealand Government seismologists estimated its strength at 10 kilotonnes. The test was the 70th France had carried out since it began underground testing 10 years ago on June 5, 1975. The June 3 test followed a May 9 blast of 150 kilotonnes, the biggest explosion yet detected at Moruroa.

Kiribati-Ussr Talks In Singapore

A Kiribati Government delegation returned from Singapore in late May after a second round of talks with the Soviet Union on a fishing agreement. A Radio Australia correspondent in Tarawa reported that details of the talks had not been released, but that it was certain that no final deal had yet been struck. The delegation was led by Minister for Natural Resources Development Babera Kirata, who said that the Singapore meeting had given the government an insight into Russian proposals, but that the whole fishing deal would be discussed with the Kiribati people. During an earlier meeting of the Kiribati Parliament, concern was expressed about the fishing deal proposal. A compromise was reached so that Mr Kirata could go ahead with the talks, but it was agreed that the Kiribati people would have the final say on any agreement reached between their government and the Soviets.

HERNU’S THUMBS-UP ON NOUMEA BASE . . .

On a lightning visit to New Caledonia in May, French Defence Minister Charles Hernu was flown from Noumea by helicopter to join the nuclear submarine Rubis, which an hour or so later became the first French submarine ever to visit the territory. After inspecting Noumea harbor’s Point Denouel, which is to be the site of a large naval dock under France’s plan to set up a military base in New Caledonia, Mr Hemu said construction of the base could take about three years and cost up to CFP4OO million (about $A3.5 million). New Caledonian firms would be given most of the work. On the presence of the Rubis in Noumea, Mr Hernu said it would stay for about eight to 10 weeks, and that its visit would be followed by visits by other submarines. . . . BUT TAHITI’S GASTON SAYS “NO”

To the dismay of most other political leaders in the territory, French Polynesia’s Premier Gaston Flosse, from the very beginning of “the troubles” in New Caledonia, has supported the French settlers and their Melanesian stooges even to the point of signing a treaty of mutual assistance with his colleague Dick Ukeiwe. (Incidentally this treaty, supposedly laying the foundation for a grande alliance of all French Pacific territories, was recently annulled by a French court because, under the colonial constitution still in force in the territories, foreign relations are the exclusive domain of the government in Paris.) It was therefore somewhat surprising to hear, when Gaston Flosse emerged from an audience with French President Mitterrand at the Elysee Palace on May 7, that he was against French plans to establish a military base in Noumea as a sop to the French settler population. In an interview with Le Figaro Flosse provided readily understandable and cogent reasons for his

stand. He told the conservative Paris daily: “To me the project simply doesn’t make sense. I’m at a loss to figure out the basic reasoning behind it. France has no enemies in this part of the world, and there is no war danger to justify establishing such a base. It will in fact only make our lives more difficult. We already have to contend with opposition from the Pacific nations to the nuclear testing at Moruroa, which I approve of, because I am in favor of France having a nuclear deterrent. If in addition to Moruroa, Noumea is also to become a military base, the other Pacific countries will say: ‘France’s only interest in the Pacific is strategic.’ This will create difficulties for us in French Polynesia. We have already begun to establish friendly relations with several other Pacific governments, but what do we see now? They’re not going to want to have anything more to do with us because they will disapprove of this new military base. ” Marie-Therese and Bengt Danielsson.

Montoya , Zeder, Clash On Ipseco

U.S. Assistant Secretary of the Interior Richard Montoya and President Reagan’s personal representative to the Micronesian Status Negotiation Fred M. Zeder have clashed over the role of the London-based engineering firm IPSECO in the Trust Territory.

Montoya told a U.S. House of Representatives sub-committee: “Another Trust Territory government, Palau, must now deal with heavy indebtedness. Like the Marshall Islands with its $24 million IPSECO power plant complex, Palau contracted with IPSECO for a $32-million plant. According to a report in Pacific magazine, quoted by the Koror paper Rengel Belau, Mr Zeder dismissed criticism of Palau’s IPSECO plant as “so much carping by petty bureaucrats who have very little grasp of what the business world is all about, particularly the international business world. ” Zeder said that the 16 mW IPSECO plant, far from being too large, as critics had claimed, could well be obsolete within 10 years unless Palau remains pristine and undeveloped which will not be the case since “the Japanese won’t allow it.” He foresaw that Palau would become “Tokyo’s Miami Beach. ” On Palau’s default in its IPSECO loan payments, Mr Zeder acknowledged that there were some “problems,” but said that something was being done to make the British banks more “comfortable.” But he emphasised that the U.S. was not about to bail Palau out of its IPSECO debt.

Png Invited To Join Asean Committees

The Association of South-east Asian Nations (ASEAN) has invited Papua New Guinea to join three of its committees, those on food, agriculture and forestry, social development and social technology.

Hitherto, PNG has only had observer status but the change does not mean that PNG would become a full member of ASEAN. In the past, various PNG personalities have stressed that, although they are interested in ASEAN, they did not attach the same importance to membership of the organisation as they did to their active membership of the South Pacific Forum and the South Pacific Commission.

New Caledonia: Enter M. Wibaux

France’s new High Commissioner in New Caledonia, Fernand Wibaux, has arrived in Noumea. He replaces Edgard Pisani who has returned to Paris to take up the newly created Cabinet post of minister responsible for New Caledonia. Mr Wibaux was previously France’s ambassador in Lebanon. In an early statement, he made it clear he did not like curfews, thus raising hopes that he may lift the order which has been clearing the streets of Noumea at 11 p.m. each night.

Western Samoa’S 23Rd Anniversary

Western Samoa, the first Pacific Island nation to achieve independence (in 1962), held its traditional three-day Independ ence holiday at the beginning of June. On June 3 thousands of people turned out in the streets of Apia to celebrate their 23rd anniversary of independence. The day began with a town parade followed by the raising of the flag and a 21-gun salute fired by the Australian frigate Canberra, which was in Apia to take part in the

celebrations. In his speech at the flag-raising ceremony, Head of State Malietoa Tanumafili referred to the difficulties faced by Samoa, a small country in the age of technology. He called on the people of Samoa to prepare themselves well for change ahead, and to be ready to play their roles in the future of the country. Later in the day celebrations continued with horse races, a reception given by Prime Minister Tofilau Eti for visiting diplomats, and the inaugural Samoa Games, featuring international boxing events between Australia and Western Samoa, rugby matches between teams from Tonga, Fiji and Western Samoa, and weightlifting with competitors from Australia, New Zealand, India, and Western Samoa.

Fui Sugar To Europe On Time

Fiji’s first shipment of sugar to Europe this season is expected to arrive on time, despite a two-weeks delay caused by farmers at first refusing to harvest cane in protest at low prices. The Chief Executive of the Fiji Sugar Marketing Company, John May, said the freighter chartered to carry the first shipment of 18,000 tonnes would be loading at Labasa and Lautoka starting in the first week of June.

Greenpeace Resettles Rongelapians

The Greenpeace organisation in late May completed evacuation of 250 inhabitants of Rongelap Atoll in the Marshall Islands to Mejato Island on the western rim of Kwajalein Lagoon. Four separate contingents of Rongelapians made the 150 km voyage in the Greenpeace yacht, the Rainbow Warrior. They believed they were continually endangered by radiation from the US nuclear test when they were exposed to fall-out from the first hydrogen bomb exploded over Enewetak Atoll on March 1, 1954. A group of islanders has remained behind on Rongelap to draw up an inventory of plantations, coconut crabs and fish for lawyers who are preparing a claim for compensation of the Rongelapians against the United States.

Tahiti Firm In Cooks Power Project

The Tahiti-based engineering firm SEDER is to provide Rarotonga with a wood-fuelled electric power station which it is claimed will provide 87 per cent of the island’s power needs, and save the Cook Islands Government SNZI.B3 million a year in fuel imports.

The power station is but one aspect of a plan drawn up by SEDER for Cook Islands independence in the field of energy. Other aspects of the plan call for the building of two small hydro-electric power stations on Rarotonga, and use of solar energy throughout the 14 other islands of the Cooks. Key to the wood-fuel plan is the tree, leucaena Leucocephala, a giant, fast-growing relative of the so-called false acacia, which is present in abundance on Rarotonga. Stockpiling of its wood has already begun with the target of having enough on hand by September, 1986, when the Turama Nui station is due to start operation, to keep it going for 18 months to two years. The I.7mW-capacity plant will bum between 16,400 and 22,400 tonnes a year, depending on the dampness of the wood. It will take 2 kg of wood to produce 1 kW/hour of power.

Long-term supplies of the wood will be assured, according to SEDER planners, by plantations of leucaena Leucocephala totalling 600 ha, with 10,000 to 20,000 trees per ha, and a cutting every three or four years. The public will be involved, and landowners are said to be enthusiastic about the plan. The wood will be purchased by the power station at a rate of SNZ2O a tonne.

Plantations will be on both government and private land, with about 50 families likely to be direct beneficiaries. SEDER’s director M. Auroy gave the measure of his company’s seriousness about the Ratotonga project when he said; “We cannot afford to make a mistake. We’re out to build power stations elsewhere in the Pacific.”

Olewale Is Paid In Tv Shares

Sir Ebia Olewale, a former Papua New Guinea Minister for Foreign Affairs, who has been out of politics since his defeat in the 1982 general election, has been given 10 per cent of the shares in Niugini Television Network, the subsidiary of N.B.N. Ltd. of Newcastle (Australia), which was recently licensed by the government to operate television in PNG. Parry Corporation of Australia will control 66 per cent and the balance of 23.3 per cent will be issued at par value, 50 toea (cents) a share to Papua New Guineans. Sir Ebia has been given the shares in consideration of his work to establish the company. According to Stewart Naunton,

of Coopers and Lybrand, the international firm of accountants and auditors, Sir Ebia’s shares, worth K 220,000 ($A275,000) were granted totally in consideration of his developmental efforts for the project, with no cash to be paid over, and Parry will receive shares valued at K 1,466,667 ($A8,833,267)) for cash payment of K 575,667 ($719,560), the remainder being Parry’s in view of its developmental efforts and expenses. Sir Ebia, who has worked on the project for nearly two years, said: ““All the time I have worked for this project, I have not got a toea from it. ” Mr Naunton said the basis for evaluating the efforts of Parry Corporation and Sir Ebia had been placed before the State negotiators and there had been no quarrel or questioning of the formula.

Barclays Pull Out Of Fui, Tuvalu

Barclays Bank, of Britain, is withdrawing from Fiji and Tuvalu. It will hand over its three branches in Fiji to Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Ltd. Its withdrawal has been described by Mr L. Robinson of the bank’s Australian branch as part of a new managerial strategy. Barclays has been manager for the last five years of the National Bank of Tuvalu in which it has a 25% shareholding, and its withdrawal comes with the expiry of the agreement with the Tuvalu Government in May. Westpac Banking Corporation will take over as manager of the National Bank of Tuvalu.

Tinian: Girl Takes On U.S. Military

A lawsuit challenging the legality of American military operations on Tinian Island in the Northern Marianas has been filed in a Federal court in Honolulu on behalf of a 17-year-old student who owns land on the island. Jovita Nabors claims the military operations on the island violate Federal environmental protection regulations. She is asking for a permanent injunction to halt the activity.

National Marine Sanctuary In A. Samoa

Fagatale Bay, 12 km southwest of Pago Pago, has been designated as a national marine sanctuary. The bay, formed when the seaward wall of a volcanic crater collapsed, is the habitat of a large variety of plants and animals including the green sea turtle and the hawksbill turtle, which will be protected in the sanctuary under a 1972 law.

Six other American national marine sanctuaries are on the east and west coasts of the U.S. mainland.

Pitcairn's On The Telephone

Pitcairn Island has a new, high frequency radio telephone enabling vocal communication with the outside world through the New Zealand international toll network. It replaces an old Morse transmitter.

Castration, Hanging, For Png Rapists?

Papua New Guinea’s Cabinet on June 4 endorsed a Bill providing for castration of rapists, and hanging for pack rape or rape where there was murder involved. If the Bill is passed by Parliament, Cabinet would be able to direct that a convicted person be hanged in public. The Bill was submitted to Cabinet by Prime Minister Michael Somare, who has been under intense pressure over law and order in recent months. He told Parliament he was “declaring war on hooligans and thugs.” The Bill also provides for the death penalty where a judge believes it is warranted, or where the victim was a child. Because the Bill does not require any change to the constitution, a simple majority of Parliament would be required to pass it. There could be opposition from some government members, including the Melanesian Alliance which recently went into coalition with Mr Somare’s Pangu Pati. But the legislation could also draw some Opposition support. Mr Somare told Parliament that the present minimum 10-year penalty for rape had provided insufficient deterrent. He said it was time for the government to “meet force with force”. The prime minister referred to recent complaints from business in PNG, potential investors, as well as women’s and other community groups. He said PNG had become “a sick society”, and the government was no longer willing to see peaceful people held to ransom. He hinted that other tough measures might be needed to combat the law-breakers. The prime minister had been under increased pressure on law and order because of a recent statement that measures to fight crime meant it was now “safer to walk the streets”. From AAP Correspondent Craig Skehan in Port Moresby.