Why Unity Is Essential

Now more than ever there is a need for the region to speak with one voice.

SIR SRIDATH Ramphal, Secretary General of the Commonwealth, chose as the theme for his ad dress to May’s Islands 88 conference in Hobart, John Donne’s words “No man is an island”.

What was not made clear was the second part of that often-quoted line: “... entire of itself’. Sir Sridath’s con cern was with the need for Oceania to develop a regional consciousness for security purposes but his concept can be extended to apply to regional consciousness on a politi cal and social level without torturing the metaphor. No where is this more clear than in two recent developments that point up the overdue need for island nations to com bine in the interests of regional sovereignty: the Kingdom of Tonga’s qualified support for an international waste disposal facility, and Fiji’s introduction of security laws more akin to South Africa than the Pacific.

Tonga’s decision has given shape to the threat of the Pacific a region apparently composed of small islands set in an almost limitless sea being an ideal dumping ground not only for the superpowers’ aid largesse, but also for the effluent of more wasteful societies.

While they mouthe pieties about self-determination, strategic importance and human rights, nations of the First World are anxious that somebody else should take care of the hazardous wastes they produce. It seems they have fixed on this vast ocean, as conveniently far from their population centres as Mururoa Atoll is from Paris, be cause its inhabitants are few in number and without the power to deny them.

For that reason alone, a unified voice (perhaps an ex panded version of the Federated States of Micronesia) is essential if genuine autonomy and control are to be ex erted over the Pacific’s future. Far more than security against military or commercial threats, the region’s island states must forgo their sentimental division into Micro nesia, Polynesia and Melanesia and present their more powerful neighbours with a single negotiating partner.

A corollary to Tonga’s potential exploitation as a palm fringed garbage dump emerged as Pacific Islands Monthly was going to press: the announcement by Ratu Sir Kam isese Mara as spokesman for Fiji’s still military-domi nated government that new security laws were to be put into effect to guard against “subversion” and “threats to internal security”. The laws have shocked other govern ments as well as human-rights activists throughout the re gion, as they threaten basic provisions of privacy, habeas corpus and freedom from harrassment.

The announcement also threatens Fiji’s faltering steps toward stability and respectability, for political allies and investors alike. The temptation to compare Fiji with re pressive regimes such as South Africa must be avoided, if only because the latter has resource wealth that makes it an essential, trading partner for many nations.

Brigadier Rabuka’s assertions that he is but a simple soldier, guided by prayer and patriotism, have the same unsettling tone as the reasons advanced by military lead ers in Panama, Chile and a host of nations whose desti nies have been shaped by the philosophies of the officers’

training school. Government is not that simple, and nei ther are the solutions to perceived threats: other nations have learned that it is uneconomical to use sledgeham mers to crack walnuts.

If Fiji is to grow and to regain its income from tourism and agriculture, it must learn again to nurture its people.

They cannot be forced to obey the dictates of men who see a threat around every corner. What is needed is a gen uine investigation of the origin and destination of the arms caches and shipments discovered in recent weeks. The in vestigation must be conducted in the open, no matter how embarrassing its results, because the region is watching Fiji very closely.

In the same way the Republic must prepare to take its place among Pacific nations on regional terms. Dreams of a return to the bosom of the Commonwealth are just that; no monarch would risk public censure by a recon ciliation with one government that has disenfranchised an entire ethnic group while continuing an association with the country that group regards as its homeland.

Rather, Brigadier Rabuka must take Fiji’s stengths its industrial experience, agricultural wealth and the pool of talent it has produced and offer them to Oceania.

They are powerful bargaining tools, and can be employed to the advantage of the Republic and its people as well as to the overall benefit of the region.

PNG: The Honeymoon’s Over

THE almost Ruritanian flavour of politics in Papua New Guinea has inspired much comment in the past month; a good deal of it, both within PNG and in international reports, bordering on the supercilious.

But humour and the inevitable comparison of the on-again, off-again search for a Coalition Government that will bring some degree of stability to the country to a failed betrothal is inappropriate, for it masks the desperation many Papua New Guineans feel about their homeland’s immediate future. Too many politicians feel PNG’s rich resources, and the wealth they promise, are panaceas to a shocking lack of development in many vital areas (health and education, transport and social legislation among them) and to a growing reliance on vigilante groups to combat random violence, rape and robbery.

There are persistent rumours to the effect that Paias Wingti’s days as Prime Minister are numbered, primarily inspired by his attempt to placate electorate and provin cial supporters through the appointment of National Party leader Michael Mel as his Deputy. The more has aroused long-simmering anger and fear among Papuans and New Guinea Islanders, who have developed power blocs that are essential to the parliamentary process, much less sta ble and efficient government.

Whether a battered Pangu Pati can regroup and attract new allies, in the absence of Michael Somare and under the apparently unwilling leadership of Rabbie Namaliu, is a matter of real concern not only in Papua New Guinea but in the region as a whole. What price a Melanesian Spearhead when the point of the spear is fractured? □