Margot Oneill
Washington
The thrill of a ride on troubled waters
WHEN US Congressman Stephen Solarz and his wife holiday in Papua New Guinea later this year, they want PNG Ambassador Meg Taylor to join them.
Solarz, the powerful chairman of the House Foreign Affairs sub-committee on Asian and Pacific Affairs, is an enthusiastic white water rafter as is Ambassador Taylor, who smiles
wistfully at the thought.
Ensconced in PNG’s stark new Washington Embassy where freshly-painted walls await the rich decoration of homegrown art, Taylor straightens her black and white suit and wonders if she will have the time to indulge a favoured recreation in the country she works so hard to convince others
to enjoy.
In the political overdrive of Washington where questions about the future of the Soviet Union and the Middle East dominate, advancing the interests of South Pacific Island states can be a frustrating, time-consuming battle against the acronym SPI Small, Pleasant but Insignificant.
Meg Taylor is used to being asked “In which part of Africa is Papua New Guinea located?”. But the 39-year-old professional lawyer-turned-diplomat has been enervated by the challenge of trying to redraw American’s mental world map.
Her two years in Washington have coincided with growing attention to the faraway region including the first visit to the White House by a PNG Prime Minister, as well as other Pacific leaders from the Cook Islands and Micronesia and the first Pacific Island leaders summit with a US President.
The US, which used to focus its diplomatic resources in Fiji, has boosted its commitment to Papua New Guinea, which Washington officials recognise as an emerging political powerhouse among island states. The US mission in Port Moresby has been expanded and new bilateral defence pacts signed.
But the new emphasis has been marked by rising concerns about political stability in Papua New Guinea.
US officials have been shaken by the enduring Bougainville crisis and more recently, the resurgent problems with law and order.
Taylor has shuttled around Washington’s official traps hearing repeated expressions of anxiety about her country’s domestic turmoil. “My reaction is to say ‘Well yes, we’re very concerned too and we’re doing something about it’.”
That did not stop the State Department issuing a new travel advisory discouraging tourists.
“I think it is unfair,” says Taylor. “You look at the statistics of who gets murdered in Washington DC and who gets murdered in Papua New Guinea and there’s no comparison.”
But she is grateful that such widespread uncertainty has not escalated into more damaging perceptions that the young nation is falling apart.
“Americans don’t say that, I think that’s more an Australian perception,” she says.
But then Australia has a deeper emotional involvement in Papua New Guinea so I understand why they say that.
“There is not enough understanding of the complex issues behind the law and order problem. The reason for this disruption is that young people have no sense of worth or value. We have to get everyone doing something to turn that around, to make young people think they are making a contribution to their own country.”
Among the initiatives Meg Taylor is developing is a project with the California Conservation Corps which plans to take urban youths back to rural areas and train them in reafforestation.
Programs like that win approving nods in Washington.
Not so suggestions from PNG Foreign Minister Michael Somare that criminals should be tattooed for life for their crimes.
“There was a very negative reaction to that here. There is a largejewish population here and that suggestion offended them. Besides which, Americans can’t understand branding a person for life. They believe in giving someone a second chance.”
Taylor is uniquely placed to defuse such controversies. She is no stranger to the United States having graduated from Harvard University in 1986. She returns there each year to teach a PNG case study in mineral resource management.
She also worked in the PNG government as an advisor to Michael Somare when he steered PNG through self government prior to independence.
And she honed her diplomatic skills as a delegate to the UN General Assembly in 1987, although she says she left disillusioned after a year. “Nothing was conclusive there.”
Now, as Ambassador, she believes PNG’s tiny seven-person embassy has “specific targets and we are achieving them. I like to produce and I have a chance to do that here.”
Despite President Bush’s establishment of a Joint Com merce Commission to foster greater economic ties with Pacific islands, official bilateral economic aid is small —just S 9 million. There is little prospect for an increase given Washington’s newest commitments in Eastern Europe and the Middle East.
So Taylor’s main focus is pumping up private US investment which has jumped from S 3 million in 1982 to more than SI billion. Most of it is in oil projects.
“For now the key focus is economic development, keeping investors confident about Papua New Guinea and telling them and the banks that the political risk issue is being addressed,” she says.
She concedes that investors are cautious and as part of her tireless efforts to soothe their fears and rally more business, she will lead on 18-day tour of San Francisco, Houston, New York and Toronto giving seminars on PNG’s resource potential in September.
“I tell them that, compared to many developing countries, Papua New Guinea is still very easy to do business in. There are not the same bureaucratic hassles and we’re trying to simplify the regulatory controls on foreign investment. We listen to what they have to say and we make it clear that their concerns will be taken up in Port Moresby.”
When she is not doing business with American business men, Taylor is pitching for more US education scholarships or advocating PNG conservation issues. She is an honorary board member of the World Wildlife Fund.
All of which begs the question: when will Meg Taylor find time to leave the political rapids of Washington to go rafting with Congressmen Solarz and his family?