ANZUS hopes

Nz Stand Firms

French testing fouls ANZUS hopes

If there was a chance of the New Zealand govern ment rethinking its ANZUS policy, and the matter of allowing American nuclear warships to enter NZ ports, the French smashed it to the ground.

Last June, there was deve loping through the country a feeling that perhaps the Labor government had gone too far with its ships ban. Demands began to be heard that Mr Lange do more than just claim he had a mandate to implement a policy which Labor left-wing groups had held for years with out overwhelming public sup port.

And then came that appal lingly stupid, and also arrogant,

There is a tragic irony in current Pacific affairs that the Americans have refused to criticise the French over their nuclear testing program at Moruroa, despite the clear fact that it is they who have been the cause of New Zealand steeling itself to carry through its ban on nuclear warships.

As our correspondent ROY VAUGHAN, suggests here, Mr Lange’s policy was on the brink of a rethink when French saboteurs bombed the Greenpeace anti-nuclear ship Rainbow Warrior and blew up any chance of reaching an accommodation with Washington and Canberra, at least in the near future.

The NZ policy has driven a shaft through the ANZUS alliance, upset Pacific security arrange ments, given comfort to the Soviet Union, embarras sed Australia, and upset the Americans. About the only nation not discomforted is France.

French attack upon the Green peace ship Rainbow Warrior.

From the ANZUS viewpoint nothing could have been worse timed or more calculated to bring New Zealanders of what ever political hue firmly to gether, outraged by what they saw as assaults upon their na tional identity and independ ence.

Any serious chance mod erates in the Lange government might have had of amending the ship ban, on grounds of the the seriousness of the consequ ences to ANZUS, and New Zealand security, died in that explosion.

The Rainbow Warrior inci dent was manna from heaven for New Zealand’s anti-nuclear

lobby and it certainly helped launch prime minister David Lange more firmly on the world stage with his messages of anti-nuclearism.

Suspicion that the ban on nuclear ship entry was the first step in a plan to quit ANZUS was confirmed by a remit put forward at the Labor Party’s annual conference.

Last month delegates at that conference voted for a com plete withdrawal from ANZUS and ignored recommendations from the Minister of Defence, Mr O’Flynn, and instead voted to support a policy of non alignment.

While both Mr O’Flynn and Mr Lange said afterwards they were not going to be embarras sed by the remit, the Labor Party sentiments gave no cause for optimism over healing the ANZUS wound.

Euphoria was evident in the country, among the public as well as among politicians, over New Zealand’s sudden promin ence in world affairs. First was the nuclear warship ban, then the moral indignation over Rainbow Warrior, followed by Lange’s UN appearance.

The French government just ly deserved the wrath it incur red by the Greenpeace attack and probably a majority of New Zealanders felt the United States was being a bit arrogant in the first place about its defence demands.

Against that background it was relatively easy to make good domestic capital out of these issues. But in the world of international affairs people nev er quite feel the same in foreign countries as do the folks back home, closer to the point.

Mention the creation of a nuclear-free zone in the Pacific to the Japanese, as I did recent ly, and a good many have never heard of it. Yet it was headline stuff in the South Pacific a couple of months ago.

The mass-circulation Asahi Evening News even carried a story close to the anniversary of Hiroshima Day, complaining that too many journalists visit the city each year to dig up stories on nuclear horrors from people who were in fact suffer ing only from natural ailments.

It is probably an even bet whether New Zealand will re main nuclear-free indefinitely, but it certainly seems that those

who are concerned about ANZUS and the rundown of New Zealand’s armed forces are going to have a tough job raising any public awareness.

A New Zealand trade mission to the US which was organised by the Auckland regional Chamber of Commerce did get in one big lunge on that issue.

The chairman of the Chamber, Sir Alan Hellaby, told New Zealanders mission members were highly concerned that the ban on nuclear warships would affect relationships with the US.

A few weeks earlier a group of former NZ defence chiefs issued a statement raising their concerns, but they were dismis sed as ”a bunch of geriatric generals” by Mr Lange in a political lapse reminiscent of the Muldoon style of concentrating on attacking the man rather than the issue.

It is possible in this beautiful little country of lush green grass, and mountain grandeur, poised in splendid isolation, to take a very academic view of the rest of the world and im agine that one can get by without all of the nastiness which goes on elsewhere.

That somewhat ivory-tower view has been both a blessing and a curse for New Zealand in the past. Geographic isolation sometimes makes it difficult for the ordinary person to know just how impractical some of the idealists’ ideas are.

About the time the nuclear warship ban was being im plemented the NZ government made big noises about beefing up the armed forces. Some pundits pointed out the millions of dollars it would take to create conventional go-it-alone forces like those of Switzerland, a neutral European country which many believe Mr Lange seeks to emulate in the South Pacific.

The fact is that extra funds have not been forthcoming for the NZ armed forces and neith er has any military cooperation from the US.

If the world abandons nuc lear weaponry we all know that those with the numerically big gest armies would have an advantage. The Falklands inci dent showed that even the merest rock, no matter how remote, cannot be considered safe from armed aggression.

As for political opposition to Labor policies within New Zea land: the conservatives of the National Party have lately spent much more time ripping out their own organisational heart than in attending to important affairs of state. Such is the state of their public image that the Labor government, whose im age had been sagging, moved ahead last month on public opinion poll barometers.

With clearly over-stated geographical isolation, not too much criticism at home, and a predilection for head-in-the grass attitudes among some sectors of the public, it is not easy for New Zealanders to get their perspectives right.

There is no question about it, many New Zealanders strongly and honestly believe their country is leading the world in the anti-nuclear issue.

A few years ago, assisted by the ego of Sir Robert Muldoon, a different group of New Zealanders strongly believed their country was leading the world on monetary reform. It is worth wondering whether one is any more accurate an observation of history than the other.

At the end of the day the

New Zealand voter at the next general elections will be left to ponder whether the nuclear ship ban has made New Zea land any more secure or free from war or a nuclear holocaust or the attentions of an aggres sor.

He may also have to consider the material effects upon his pocket and the living standards of his family if friends decide that New Zealand will have to pay the price of going it alone if it does not ease the nuclear ships ban and opts to stay outside traditional defence and economic alliances.

During the height of the colonial era it was often said that Christian missionaries di sarmed and pacified the natives so that colonial developers could walk in and take their land without a fight.

That was probably the last thing the missionaries wished to do, just as the last thing Mr Lange wants to do is to hand New Zealand over to anyone.

But it is now clear that those who do oppose Mr Lange’s policies share similar concerns to those natives who did not have quite so much confidence in human nature.