Merry

Pacific

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Opinion

Merry Christmas

CHRISTMAS last year was a tumultuous time in the region. The rebellion in Bougainville was already a month old and Papua New Guinea was quickly losing grip of its political problems and increased lawlessness. In the Vanuatu capital of Port Vila, a failed coup resulted in the President and some senior politicians being put in jail to spend Christmas behind bars. In Fiji, Methodist fun damentalists blocked roads in the capital Suva and successfully crip pled the city and stopped many people from going to church. It was a time of prayers, not for good harvests, but for peace in a region that was becoming synonymous with ethnic violence. Christmas last year was not a happy one.

This month, however, when Father Christmas returns to the is lands, he will find that things are different. Generally the region is quieter. A solution to Bougainville is now nearer than ever before. Fiji is continuing to iron out its political differences. Kuini Bavadra’s acceptance of the Coalition Party leadership is likely to give Fiji’s interim government an opponent more willing to compromise and allow national reconciliation to take place. Port Vila is certain to regain some of its romantic image, and Prime Minister Father Walter Lini’s Christmas sermon will take on a happier theme.

But as we end one decade and prepare for another we still find timidity in trying to predict the future of a region that has become a hot-bed of political turmoil and violence in recent times. The Pacific is going through change. As island states mature, people begin to see clearer the faults of the past and education beget more men and women unwilling to gamble their life on the wisaom of others. The system that saw colonies turn into autonomous states begin to be challenged, and changes continue to take place; sometimes slowly, and sometimes rapidly with unhappy consequences.

By next Christmas, the changes will bring many things: younger leaders, new rules, new govern ments. The flames of Bougainville would have been doused and Fiji would be nearer to its first general elections since the 1987 military coups. But who can really tell what’s around the corner? It’s hard to say in a region where poli tics is as unpredictable as the weather.

Merry Christmas, anyway. □