Elephants ought to be dainty

Rim Opinion

Newcomers to the Pacific have frequently made the error of assuming that just because island people are friendly, smiling and hospitable, that their affairs tend to be uncomplicated and serene. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact any Pacific island leader, of the ilk of Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara, Tofilau Eti Alesana, or the pair currently in the PNG limelight, Paias Wingti and Sir Julius Chan, could undoubtedly show any western politician more than a thing or two about iron fists in lace-trimmed gloves, power plays and the numbers game.

No Australian or New Zealand politician has anything like the complexity of floor-crossing, no-confidence votes, clan-allegiances, tribal enmities and racial sensitivities, with which an Island leader must deal virtually every day.

Indeed, it is one of the difficulties of Island affairs that such considerations very frequently over-weigh wider issues such as economic survival, and what, for lack of better terms, we call progress.

In former times it did not really matter when one clan fell out with another, or domestic issues took total precedence over anything to do with the region. Indeed, while outsiders inevitably tend to lump Pacific Islanders together, each island is, in fact, quite separate and distinct. Each has a long history of doing its own thing, and looking with suspicion at the fellows on the islands over the horizon, because it was they who came over from time to time for a bit of traditional rape and pillage.

But, as the Pacific region has become rapidly much more important to the major powers of the world, so have the politics of individual nations.

A decade or so ago it might not have mattered very much that some Russians were dragging a fishing net through a piece of ocean off the Gilbert Islands. Now, however, the Soviet Union has one of its biggest navies settled and expanding at Cam Ranh Bay in Vietnam and is exhibiting quite obvious ambitions of influence.

Thus it is a focus of some concern that Kiribati has done a fisheries deal with the Soviets, for reasons which everyone recognises as amply sufficient when seen from on top of Kiribati’s immediate, and somewhat desperate, financial needs, but which upset the regional apple-cart in a strategic security sense.

It would have made much more sense had the United States, which is now, properly enough, alert to the Soviet presence, done something itself to pre-empt Moscow’s offer. All Kiribati sought was to capitalise, in a quite modest way, on its sole major asset, the fish in the seas of its exclusive economic zone.

That the Soviets got in under the Western guard may be attributed almost entirely to the lobbying of the American Tunaboat Association - and the very short-sighted acceptance of their pressures by the American administration. Washington had for years studiously ignored the well-founded protests of island nations about the A.T.A’s activities.

This now seems to be changing and, according to the U.S.

Assistant Secretary of State for Pacific Affairs, Dr Paul D. Wolfowitz, speaking on a satellite hook-up with journalists in Sydney early in December, a 10-nation agreement is in process of being worked out to solve the vexed tuna fishing rights problem. It cannot come too soon.

Meantime, if one may resume observation of the volatility and complexity of island politics, there does appear to be a wind of change in the region.

In Papua New Guinea the drama of the moment is the ousting of Michael Somare, very much the father of his country’s independ ence, by Paias Wingti, working in tandem with the shrewd and experienced Sir Julius Chan.

PNG has fierce economic problems, the product of a burdensome and lackadaisical bureaucracy, depressed returns from minerals upon which so much had been based, and a steep decline in the value of the Australian dollar, further reducing declining Australian aid.

On the face of it Wingti has started well, promising only a Churchillian cocktail of blood, toil, tears and sweat for his people, and some optimism has been engendered by that. The swiftness of Bob Hawke’s telegram of welcome after the Wingti victory was interesting.

But, Somare can in no way be counted out of the game, and there is at least one other notable player waiting for his chance at the central role, should Wingti and Chan slip in what is now a very difficult and delicate exercise.

In Fiji, too, the political climate shows signs of changing. The Labor Party, founded by trade unionists, has already shot gaps in the ranks of the predominantly Indian National Federation Party in the Suva City Council elections.

Given that Fiji’s municipal politics are venal in the extreme, and Suva’s about the worst of them, the huge swing to Labor may not be as significant as it looks. However, there does appear to be a mood developing to tinker with the racial basis of the country’s politics enshrined in the post-colonial constitution.

A sign of the upheaval was the resignation from the NFP of three senior members, Mrs Irene Jai Narayan, Mr Hargovind Lodhia, and Dr Satendra Nandan. Essentially this is a continuation of the old factionalism of the NFP, and a broadside against party leader Siddiq Koya. In former times this would have simply divided the NFP. Today the very solid showing by the Labor Party turns it all into a quite different game.

Thus, on the face of it, we have evolutionary changes in Pacific politics not only in the regional sense, where the major powers are developing new and awesome interests, but also within the two major countries.

On past form the little nations are quite capable of handling delicate complexities of this kind.

We only hope that the super-powers are able to develop similar sensitivity and finesse.