Whoa back, Shultz

Pim Opinion

The vexing row which persists over New Zealand’s desire to become the non-nuclear Switzerland of the Pacific has reached the point where all participants should stop and take stock of themselves, and of what they are about to wreak upon the region.

Mr Lange, particularly, might ask himself if, perchance, he has been temporarily blinded, by the glow of his Greenpeace halo, to the long-term consequences of New Zealand’s approaching ejection from ANZUS, and too haughty in rebuffing the obviously genuine concerns of many of his countrymen, some of them defence experts. How much of his undoubtedly widespread support in New Zealand comes from considered thought in the electorate, and how much from the euphoria of discomforting giants?

But is the United States not also guilty of ignoring the lantern while it slaps at the moth? Speaking to journalists late last month, U.S.Defence Secretary, Caspar Weinberger, was adamant that there was no way the U.S. could accept the N.Z. position, or alter its rules on disclosure of the weaponry aboard its ships. His position can be understood. But it is the more aggressive tone of the Secretary of State, George Shultz, who is seen as seeking to punish Mr Lange for his “defection” from ANZUS, which is worrying the nations of the South Pacific.

While there is no current, or foreseeable actual threat of aggression in the Pacific, an ANZUS weakened, or, rather, a New Zealand rejected, damages Pacific confidence. Many Pacific Island countries might be worried by Mr Lange’s nuclear policies, but they are similarly wary of insensitive behavior by the U.S.administra tion.

Australia, particularly, is embarrassed by being made to appear to have to choose between the U.S. and a life-time friend and cousin next door.

Canberra decided to air its anxieties publicly. Their ambassador to the U.S., Mr F.Rawdon Dalrymple, in a speech on September 24 to the Asia Society of America, set out, with great clarity, Australian policy on the Pacific, and warned Washington of the consequences of some of its attitudes. It was a speech cleared at the highest levels in Canberra.

The ambassador sought to tell Washington, and the White House, that things are changing in the Pacific. He spoke of the closeness between Australia and New Zealand, and the growing ties with both the Islands and the swiftly-prospering countries of South East Asia; of the immense commercial and political importance of Japan, and the huge potential of China. In all of this he constantly referred to the many powerful and vital links with the United States.

But America was ignoring, perilously, the growing importance of the South Pacific, he said. It had not thought through the consequences of some policies among them, although he did not specify it, undoubtedly the matter of chopping New Zealand off at its defence socks.

Political independence in the region had attracted new political

presences, he said. Some were within the western alliance, and some were not. So far, intrusions by the Soviet bloc had been limited, primarily because of the pro-western orientation of the island countries, but, he said, that comfortable situation was now threatened.

The two major causes of friction, he said, were nuclear testing and tuna fishing, and this magazine can do nothing but welcome such recognition of warnings we have sounded for years.

France is the main culprit on the first issue, and America on the second. Neither country has given the slightest indication that South Pacific anxieties bother them in any important way.

“The United States is seen as being less than helpful by giving credence to French arguments that the testing does no particular harm,” Mr Dalrymple said. “It is precisely that French testing which has been a major influence in the formation of the climate of opinion in New Zealand which is now causing such anxiety to both the United States and Australia over the future of ANZUS. ”It will be an act of folly if we in our alliance context continue to countenance and permit nuclear testing in the South Pacific and it would be even worse if we were, in addition, to countenance and permit the dumping of nuclear waste in the Pacific...”

Mr Dalrymple’s warning was both calm and very clear. The United States must stop stomping around the South Pacific like a heedless hippopotamus, following damaging policies dictated by North Atlantic interests.

That his words fell on deliberately deaf ears was bluntly marked by the gravel-voiced former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Jeane Kirkpatrick, who retorted that the French had a right to test, and if the site happened to be on a piece of France 20,000 kilometres from the rest of it, that was no reason for the neighbors to complain. It was a singularly unnecessary and ignorant statement.

The U.S. is clearly unwilling to upset the French because of Atlantic considerations. Yet it is precisely because of this that America’s position in the Pacific has been damaged.

But, for most island countries, the nuclear matter is not nearly so immediately irritating as the buccaneering behavior of the American Tunaboat Assocation. It would be easy enough, one suggests, to have that angry boil eased if there was even moderate will in the U.S. administration to do so. Clearly there is not.

Mr Dalrymple proposed that some kind of South Pacific office be set up by the State Department to make higher officialdom more aware of regional opinion. Another bit of bureaucracy is quite unnecessary. All Washington needs to do is open its ears to its very own people in the region.

Washington may think it can damage Mr Lange by heaving him out of ANZUS, and by making a bilateral defence agreement with Australia, and so they might They may think they can ignore the region’s concerns over French nuclear testing. They may think the domestic political pressure exerted by the A.T.A. more important than the anger of the little island nations over what they regard as the plundering of their fisheries. Yet in the end it may be the U.S. itself which will lose and that would be very bad for all of us.