pacific report

Hayden For

Islands Visit

Australia’s Foreign Minister Bill Hayden is to make an extensive tour of the idependent nations of the South Pacific early this year. Announcing his plan in the Australian Parliament on November 26, Mr Hayden said Australia had signifi cant strategic, political and economic interests in the Pacific. He said the country had two paramount objectives in its foreign policy: to protect and promote the national interests in a highly volatile world: and to pursue a determined and independent role as a middle-ranking nation in the search for a better world order. Mr Hayden said his government was aware of mounting feeling among the Pacific Island states over the activi ties of American tuna boats. He said Canberra had actively encouraged Washington to negotiate more equitable fisheries access arrangements with the island states. As a result, the American administration had now entered into serious negotiations over the issue. On French nuclear testing in the Pacific, Mr Hayden accused France of continuing in its blatant disregard for the strongly held view of South Pacific nations that the region should be nuclear-free. Continued nuclear testing would only antagonise those nations and further strain their relations with France. Mr Hayden said such strains were not in the interests of France, Western countries generally, or the South Pacific itself. He urged France to think about its long-term interests in the region and to stop its nuclear testing.

A Franco-Nz

Tug Of War

The French Government has pledged itself to an all-out effort to secure the early release of its two secret service agents sentenced to 10 years imprison ment in New Zealand in November over the bombing in Auckland harbor on July 10 of the Greenpeace vessel Rainbow Warrior. The government’s statement followed assurances by New Zealand Prime Minister David Lange that the two agents, Major Alain Mafart and Captain Dominique Prieur, would not be deported before they were eligible for parole.

French Prime Minister Laurent Fabius said in a television interview that the case had moved on to a new plane from a legal phase to a government-to-govern ment phase. Mr Fabius said that this government’s aim was to get the agents back to France as soon as possible, adding that his ministers would be “very active” in pursuing this goal, In New Zealand, the lawyer representing the two agents, Gerard Curry, said he was concerned that his clients were becom ing “political footballs”. He noted that there were a number of precedents for

prisoners in New Zealand to be repatri ated, and confirmed that the French agents would not be formally appealing against the severity of their sentences.

Solomons Jails

Chief Jailed

Solomon Islands’ former controller of prisons, David Kwanarara, has been convicted on several charges, including permitting prisoners to escape from the country’s main Rove Prison, Honiara.

Kwanarara was sentenced on November 12 to an additional 18 months jail on top of a three-year sentence he had received nine days before for assaulting a man in police custody. Two other prison officers, also convicted and sentenced to two years jail on the earlier assault charge, had additional sentences imposed on them for allowing prisoners to escape.

They were Oxley Su’umi, holding the rank of inspector, who was sentenced to a further 12 months, and Teobasi Aluda nio, a former head warder, who was given an additional sentence of six months. The magistrate recommended that the three be sent to provincial prisons rather than to Rove Prison. All three indicated that they would appeal against their sentences.

Oz Charges N.C.

Gun-Runners’

Australian authorities have charged two French nationals with allegedly trying to ship guns and ammunition to New Cale donia. The Customs department in the Queensland capital, Brisbane, said in November it had seized a quantity of rifles and ammunition from a yacht, the Noumea-registered Le Cap, which had been due to return to Noumea within a few days. A Customs spokesman alleged the rifles and ammunition had been purchased by one of the two men in Brisbane and Gympie, a town just north of the capital, and that false identification been used to make the purchases.

Earlier last year Queensland police charged four men over a similar attempt to smuggle guns to New Caledonia, but the charges were later dropped.

Air Vanuatu

Flies Into Cloud

There is doubt over the future of Vanuatu’s international airline, Air Vanuatu, after June, 1986 when the agreement between the Vanuatu Gov ernment and Ansett Airlines of Australia runs out. The government wants to extend the agreement for a further five years, but the Minister for Transport and Communications, Mr Sande, said in November that negotiations with Ansett had reached an impasse. He said Vanuatu’s terms in wanting effective

control and substantial ownership of Air Vanuatu are apparently unacceptable to Ansett. Mr Sande said he hoped there would be early discussion on a draft agreement submitted by the government, adding that if this were not possible, Vanuatu might ask another international air transport company for assistance.

12,000 In Enga

Tribal Fight

A tribal fight in the Wabag area of Papua New Guinea’s Enga Province in mid- November involved 12,000 warriors and a simultaneous clash in the province’s Kompiam area involved 900. Three men were killed, 40 suffered arrow wounds as a result of the fighting. Many homes and food gardens were destroyed. PNG’s then Deputy Opposition Leader Paul Torato said in parliament that in the past five years about 250 people had been killed in tribal fighting in the Enga Province. He urged beefed-up police forces to control tribal fights.

Png Islands To

Break Away?

Papua New Guinea’s island provinces have once more raised the possibility of breaking away from the rest of the country, a threat regularly raised when they feel pressed too hard by Port Moresby. All five premiers of the island provinces sent telegrams in November to their members of the National Parlia ment, and to Foreign Affairs Secretary Paulias Matane, protesting at their budget allocations. The telegrams also said that the premiers would hold an early meeting to decide on their future relationship with the rest of PNG, indicat ing that a breakaway was possible within the next few years. The provinces in volved are East New Britain, West New Britain, North Solomons, New Ireland, and Manus. A correspondent of Radio Australia in Port Moresby, Ekonia Peni, said the budget allocations to the island provinces totalling less than SA2O million were low in relation to other regions. The Premier of East New Bri tain, Martin Tovue, and his North Solo mons counterpart, Dr Alexis Sarei, both described the allocations to the island provinces as “ill-considered, unrealistic, and a big joke”. Both men pointed out that the island provinces contributed almost 75 per cent of the country’s wealth from copra, cocoa, fisheries and Bougainville copper, and that it was grossly unfair for their budgets to be cut.

Confidence

Vote For Lini

Vanuatu Prime Minister Fr Walter Uni survived a “no confidence” motion moved by opposition members in parliament on

November 26, winning the vote by 23 votes to 13. Confident of beating the Opposition, Fr Lini’s Vanuaaku Rati de scribed the motion as a public relations exercise by the opposition which was trying to boost its own image. During the previous week, Vanuatu President Ati George Sokomanu accused Fr Lini’s government of violating human rights by misusing its powers to achieve its aims.

He made his charge in an opening address to the last session of parliament for 1985. A similar accusation had been made by the Opposition Union of Mod erate Parties earlier in November.

Nz Rethinks

Link With Niue

New Zealand’s Deputy Prime Minister Geoffrey Palmer has announced that the government is reviewing its constitutional relationship with Niue with the express aim of preventing the further depopula tion of the island, which is self-governing in free association with New Zealand.

Niueans have New Zealand citizenship with free access to New Zealand, and Niuean migration is so extensive that there are only about 2900 on Niue and 10,000 in New Zealand. A mini-census in Niue in late 1984 gave a total of 2893.

There could be another reason for restricting the inward flow: Auckland has the world’s largest population of Polyne sians outside Polynesia Samoans, Tongans, Niueans and Tokelauans and there are behavioral problems. Few er migrants from Polynesia would cer tainly ease this aspect of the situation.

Fiji Helps

Cane Farmers

The Fiji Government is helping the sugar cane farmers, who have been hit by falling world sugar prices, drought and hurricanes, by exempting them from taxes for the next five years. This relief comes in the 1986 Budget which will increase indirect taxation and cut direct taxes. Minister for Finance Mosese Qionibaravi said estimated expenditure totalled SF4IB million, an increase of 4.3 per cent over last year, and it was expected to raise 43 per cent of income from customs tariffs and duties, and 38 per cent from direct taxation. Duty on cigarettes, beer, some building materials, motor vehicles and video tapes will be increased, and, to save foreign ex change, import duies had been raised on several items including liquor, beer, fish and vegetable and animal oils. The airport departure tax would be doubled to SFIO ($A13.36 approx.).

Probing Tonga S

Dark Ages’

A new venture in the study of Tongan history is the Tonga Dark Ages Research Program (TDARP), now under way on the kingdom’s main island of Tongatapu.

It is a six-months archeological field season launched by the Australian Na tional University-based German archeologist D. H. R. Spennemann to discover aspects of the country’s history

in the 1000 years between the end of the Lapita culture (roughly around the time of Christ) and the onset of authentically Tonga traditions. While much information has been accumulated by archaeologists on the earliest occupation of the Tongan islands by the Lapita culture about 1500 BC, and even more is known about the period shortly before the Europeans came, the period in between remains pretty much an enigma. The TDARP aims to remedy this situation by gather ing data on settlement patterns and the means of subsistence of the population of Tongatapu in this period. Analysis of the existing bits and pieces of information indicates a major change from a pre dominantly marine-oriented subsistence, exploiting molluscs and lagoon fish, to an economy relying heavily on horticulture.

Settlement patterns appear to have changed accordingly: initially concen trated along the coasts, settlements were later scattered over the inland areas. The TDARP is designed to provide the basis for a detailed understanding of the phenomena which led to the change, which must have occurred during those still “Dark Ages”.

Steel Mills

In Kiribati?

Two Pacific Island jurisdictions secured major attention in America’s business press for an unlikely reason recently their alleged role as exporters of steel.

The American steel industry, as it strug gles to minimise steel imports, noticed U.S. Commerce Department reports that Kiribati and New Caledonia were listed among 18 nations who have exported steel to the U.S. despite the fact that they have no steel production facilities. The lobby for the giant, if ailing, American industry is the American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI). It keeps an eye on steel imports and noted in November that the number of nations apparently shipping steel to the U.S. without productive capacity had soared from three or four per reporting period to 18. AISI went public with its complaints, charging that steel importers were disrupting a Reagan Administration program designed to curb steel imports. Steel imports from major producing nations are controlled, but a loophole in the system permits the entry of steel from the non-producing nations.

The phantom steel shipments will not make much of an impact on the U.S. however, as Kiribati was recorded as sending only 30 tons up to November; at roughly SUSSOO a ton. That would be worth all of $15,000. New Caledonia’s shipments were said to be 604 tons, worth $302,000. In all likelihood, accor ding to both AISI and Department of Commerce officials, the steel never was anywhere near either Pacific Island juris diction, and no funds were paid to any Kiribati or New Caledonian interests.

“There are two possibilities, fraud or key punch error,” said one knowledgeable source. “Given the rapid increase in the number of non-producing countries that are exporting to the States, we suspect an increase in fraudulent reporting rather than an increase in reporting errors.”

Whatever the reason, it gave Kiribati and New Caledonia some brief and unusual publicity on the front page of the busi ness section of the Washington Post.

From David North in Washington.

Communication

Journal Moves

The journal Pacific Islands Communica tion has left the East-West Center, Honolulu, and moved to the University of the South Pacific, Suva, by arrangement between the institutions. The new edito rial board includes Dr Jim Richstad, who edited the journal throughout its years in Honolulu. It also has members from Fiji, Tonga, Papua New Guinea, Kiribati, Cook Islands and Marshall Islands. Any one who wants to join the sponsoring organisation, Pacific Islands News Association, ($lO per year), or to contri bute something for publication, should wirte to the editors, Pacific Islands Communication, Institute of Pacific Stu dies, University of the South Pacific, Box 1168, Suva, Fiji.

Sail-Motor

Trial By A.D.B.

Sail-motor propulsion can save at least 25 per cent of fuel costs without the ship losing any operating speed or needing extra crew or additional maintenance other than routine surveillance of moving parts, an experimental project sponsored by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in Fiji has proved. The first experiment involved an ex-Fiji government medical ship, Na Matasiau, 300 gross tonnes, which sailed from Suva to Rotuma in 1984 using four sails and carrying a full load of passengers and cargo. Interest on the part of the ADB in the sail-motor concept was initially encouraged by the success of the Japanese in fuel-savings through the use of a sophisticated, computer-controlled rigid-sail system on a prototype vessel in 1980. The ADB arranged for consultants to design and supervise the fitting of masts, rigging and specially designed sails which would not interfere with cargo operations and passengers, and which would require only minimal handling by the crew.

Instruments to monitor navigation, wind and fuel use during the experiment were also installed, total cost for the sail equipment and instruments was $U540,000. No other modification was made, except for a slight enlargement of the ship’s rudder. As a bonus, it was found that the use of sail improved the vessel’s steadiness in rough seas, en hancing passenger safety and comfort, and providing additional safety in terms of a reliable means of auxiliary prop ulsion. (King Taufa’ahau Tupou IV of Tonga is also aware of the advantages of sail-motor propulsion. In November, 1983, while on a visit to West Germany, he placed an order for a new, inter-island passenger and trading vessel with a 746 kW engine and three sails. The sails, he said, would “help energy conservation and help the ship to maintain steady sailing in rough seas”).