Australia takes a harder line

Relatively Un

noticed by regional media, Prime Minister Paias Wingti despatched his Foreign Minister, Legu Vagi in late Janu ary on a round of neighboring capitals.

Time may prove it to be a watershed foreign poli cy gesture.

Vagi went from the dawdling pace of Hon iara to a state reception by Prime Minister Walter Lini in Vila, and on to red carpet treatment in Can berra where his Austra lian opposite, Bill Hayden, personally ven tured to the airport to greet him a rare event.

If Vagi’s Canberra recep tion was the most en thusiastic any Papua New Guinea minister has received since Canberra read the drift against So mare, Vagi’s last stop, Jakarta, sealed a dip lomatic coup.

Where the Somare Government had failed, the Wingti-Vagi foreign policy bandwagon was able to seemingly easily persuade the tetchy In donesians that bringing in the United Nations High Commissioner For Refugees to determine the status and future homes of the 10,000 Irianese inside PNG’s borders was a wise move.

Jakarta’s line has always been that events in Irian Jaya are an internal mat ter and the flight of the one per cent of the Irianese Melanesian population to Papua New Guinea is only of bilateral concern.

Even before Vagi ar

rived in Jakarta, a fun damental appraisal of the strength and purpose of the new Wingti admin istration must have been made. Vagi was feted to meetings with President Soeharto, Internal Affairs Minister Soepard jo Rustam and armed forces Commander-in- Chief General Benny Moerdani.

Vagi emerged from the two days of talks with among other credits, a promise from Indonesia of a treaty of mutual re spect.

This would, noted a joint communique issued by Vagi and In donesian Foreign Minis ter, Dr Mochtar Kusu maatmadja “serve as the guiding principles for the conduct of relations be tween the two coun tries.”

In the wake of the Wingti cabinet’s decision to effectively sanivise the border region by reset tling the Irianese camp dwellers away from the land frontier with In donesia thus denying the rebel OPM guerrilla bases the contents of the Vagi-Mochtar agree ment have taken on added significance.

The two governments agreed: • RELATIONS could be improved, most not ably, an Indonesian de fence attache would be allowed back at the In donesian Embassy in Port Moresby following the 1984 expulsion. AN EARLY solution to the problem of the

camp dwellers was im portant. • THAT PNG’s acces sion to UN conventions governing treatment of refugees would not im pinge on an October 1984 agreement between Jakarta and Port Mores by establishing a “framework of principles for the return of people who cross the common border contrary to law and/or established proce dures.” • THE TWO would move towards comple tion of an extradition treaty.

• That Neither’S

territory would be used for the launching of aggressive activity against each other. • TO STEP UP deve lopment along the border. • TO IMPROVE direct trade and commerce by investigating a shipping link between Jayapura and Wewak and Madang and in the south between Merauke and Daru.

While some of the ele ments of the agreement may be opposed by supporters of independ ence in Iran Jaya, the Wingti government clearly sees it as a major step in normalising rela tions with Indonesia.

“Irian Jaya is an integ ral part of Indonesia, that is a fact of life and this country has to accept that,” Prime Minister Wingti told

Pim.

“We have come out clearly in making a clear policy decision.”

Denis Reinhardt.