Sickening
pp. 4-5 · Read in the full issue
Letters
Amateur writers
Sir ;
May I have a few minutes of your time to tell you about our programme which we feel sure will be of interest to many of your readers.
Amateur Writers Encouragement Pro gramme is a non-profit organisation which has been set up to do just as the name states to encourage amateur writers. To commemorate the close of the 20th century we are compiling anthologies of the works of hitherto unpublished authors of poetry and short stories.
Details of the programme are clearly set out in the letter and entry form which is sent out to those who request it. This programme is a two-fold opportunity.
Part one is a short story and poetry competition. Substantial first, second and third prizes and merit certificates for all highly commended work. Part two is all cash winners and merit certificate holders have the opportunity of having a selection of their writing published in Collections of Australian Literature, a set of
anthologies planned to highlight the end
of the 20th century.
I would like to stress that at no time will anyone be asked to order or buy a book. Purchase of the anthologies will have no bearing on who gets published.
This is decided on merit alone and is free.
The only costs are as follows compe tition entry fee is $lO for each four entries or $5 per entry plus a stamped self addressed envelope with each correspon dence.
For more details and entry forms send
stamped self-addressed envelope to
AWEP Post Office Box 24, Boondall,
Queensland 4034.
Sarah Sinclair
Manager
Sickening
affair
Sir ;
I would like to comment on the article “Cashing in on nuclear waste”, PIM,
June. On receiving my June subscrip
tion, I could not digest the front cover.
The first question to flick through my mind when reading the article was Are the government and citizens of the Republic of the Marshall Islands logi cally serious about this deal? My second thought was about the previous agree ment. What had happened to the signed MOU between affected Pacific Island nations and superpower countries trying to end this horrific activity?
I just don’t understand how we, the people of the Pacific region, are going about our internal and external affairs. It will only take an ordinary person to think logically on this issue.
The small island nations have just ended their two-week long conference in Barbados trying to draw up strategy plans in order to get international recognition on the sustainable develop ment of small developing states that is affecting our small island nations.
The Marshall Islands government has to be very serious on this issue. They should remember that this is not only their nation’s internal affair but it’s going to be a regional and international affair.
We, the people of the Pacific Island nations, are concerned about this whole sickening affair. The Pacific region has been known for decades for its diversity.
Let us make use of our natural beauty and its limited resources. We can attract huge tourism and foreign investors to our small island nations.
Let’s think twice before we start to frighten away useful investors. Let’s not forget that the Pacific region can be turned into a cemetery for its own people.
We must bind together in order to maintain the sustainable development of small island developing states.
Over to you South Pacific Regional Environment Programme to clear up this
sickening affair.
Peter Tirang
Rabaul Papua New Guinea Nuclear waste Sir ; As one of the people referred to in David North’s /VA/June cover story, “Cashing in on nuclear waste”, I would like to clear up a few misconceptions about my role with the Bikinian community.
First of all, I am not a mainland advisor, as Mr North described me on two occasions. I have resided in the Marshall Islands for the past 13 years; I speak the language; I am married into
the community.
My position with the people of Bikini is that of Trust Liaison I have now worked for the Bikinians for a decade. I am responsible for making payments to the people from three different trust funds, and I help manage the Bikinians’ business affairs on a daily basis. While the New York Times article may describe me as an idealist, I view myself as more of a man with a very difficult job as opposed to one with a particular philosophy. The Bikinian leadership has a responsibility to our community to clean and resettle all of Bikini Atoll.
Because the islanders put a tremen dous amount of faith and trust in my opinions, I feel that it my duty to keep the ball rolling in the direction of resettlement, to divert the council away from ridiculous schemes - such as nuclear waste disposal that I believe would damage the islanders’ reputations and prevent them from gaining the funds needed for a successful return to their islands.
Lastly, to suggest that I favour a reversion to a traditional lifestyle is not fair the United States government owes the Bikinians more than that. It is my hope that the Bikinians, through additional funding and careful manage ment of their current assets, will one day return to radiologically safe homeland where they will be able to live with all the conveniences of the modern day world. I don’t call that idealism. I call that a debt repaid.
Jack Niedenthal
Trust Liaison For the People of Bikini
LETTERS to the Editor must include the writer’s full name, address and home telephone number. All letters may be edited for purposes of clarity and space.
Letters should be addressed to: Editor Pacific Islands Monthly P O Box 1167 Suva Fiji Islands OR Fax (679) 303809
Banking on
development
Sir, Congratulations on your columnist ’Atu
Emberson-Bain’s “Banking on develop
ment” [PIM, June 1994). It is certainly
worth to publicise Susan George’s adage
of the World Bank (and banks in general, I would add) being a “medieval church”.
Pacific island leaders are avid church goers and thus comprise part of the enthusiastic congregation of the World Bank Church, with the promised land always just around the corner (of course the many pilgrimages of supplicant Pacific island politicians to worship the
Washington high priests are ever so
sweet). My only gripe is the column’s label “Not The Mainstream” it may well be that ’Atu Emberson-Bain belongs to that minority 10 per cent of the population which desperately tries to clean up the economic and environ mental mess created and perpetuated by the other 90 per cent, but a more realistic view is, that only some “medieval” five per cent of the population indoctrinate (via the World Bank Church and other
such saintly organisations) and manipu
late the 85 per cent of blindfolded followers (how this is done has been variously described and documented as early as Reich’s The Mass Psychology of
Fascism).
So please, ’Atu Emberson-Bain, you are “mainstream” because you care about the people, the mass of people, the vast majority, and you do it by providing
information (as any good journalist
should) instead of disseminating World Bank Church doctrine.
Dr Wolfgang Sperlich
Aloft Niue Island
Barbados
conference
Sir, THE United Nations Global Conference on the Sustainable Development of Small Island States, held in Barbados from April 25 to May 6, adopted a Pro gramme of Action which, if properly implemented in the spirit of the Barbados Declaration also adopted by the confer ence, should foster genuine and meaning ful development in small island states, while ensuring the preservation of their unique cultural and environmental di versity.
Whether it will be so implemented remains to be seen. There is no doubt that the UN General Assembly will endorse the programme and declaration at its 49th Session beginning in New York in September. Where there is doubt is whether the affirmation of interna tional responsibility and of common
purpose and partnership which these documents contain will be converted into action. The island states will need to demonstrate over the coming years not only their ability to help themselves but also both tact and persistence in their efforts to get members of the interna
tional community to keep their promises.
Australian minister Gordon Bilncy’s re cent remarks explicitly underline the first of these needs and tacitly demonstrate the second.
The delegates at Barbados worked carefully over the range of natural, environmental, economic and social haz ards and difficulties to w'hich island states are particularly vulnerable, and they have made many very sensible recom mendations about how to combat the threats which could overwhelm the islands if they had to stand alone.
But small island states also face another kind of survival threat which is just as dangerous and in some ways more immediate. That is the threat to their security and sense of identity because of their inability to defend themselves or to pursue their legitimate interests in the world at large unless they have a
grotector. The experience of Espiritu
antu, of Mayotte in the Comoros, of the Maldives and of Dominica in the West Indies make clear that small island states can be put at risk by confidence men, mercenaries, criminals and rebels, and in such an event, unless their legitimate governments can quickly find an outside power to intervene immediately, they may be overthrown.
The Barbados Declaration recognises
that sustainable development pro
grammes must seek to to enhance “the safety” of peoples; that small island states should have rights over their own natural resources”, and that “their institutional and administrative capac
ity” should be “strengthened by support
ive partnerships and co-operation ’.
But nothing is said anywhere about how they are going to ensure this, how they are going to protect themselves from the villains of the world. Can they count on good fairies? To enlist a protector state is not a satisfactory solution to this problem for many small island states.
The protector would usually be the former colonial power, and continued association with it as a protectorate may
create problems of identity and pride,
and become a festering domestic political sore. What is needed is another option, one which can offer the same protection
in emergencies, the same prior warning,
and the same self assurance that a protector state can offer, but without loss of self esteem or face before the indepen dent world.
There is an obvious answer to this.
That answer is the United Nations, not
just through the language and impli
cations of the Charter, which villains, have learned to assess sceptically, but through the formal institutionalisation of a United Nations protectorate role. With the UN as legal protector, a small state would have a guarantee against illegal usurpation of power, a guarantee of benevolent intervention in time of need, and a guarantee which would be seen as
a mantle of honour, not something to hide or obscure.
How would such a system work? Small states would themselves have to decide whether to seek such a status. They should take such decisions through popular consultative processes. The UN would have a right to insist that all states with protectorate status would give their
peoples regularly the opportunity to
ensure that their governments were
representative. The protected state
would be in the UN but not in quite the same category as an ordinary member state.
It would not pay an annual levy, and should not have full voting rights. But it should participate in the discussion of all subjects of concern to it, have limited voting rights on them, and have access to UN services. It would have the guaran tee of protection against outside assault.
Governments perpetuating themselves illegally would have to confront the spectre of possible UN intervention.
Protected states should receive a small subsidy from the UN to assist with administration, and particularly the ad ministration of security. The UN would represent such states, or assist them with their representation, in negotiations with other states on such matters as fishing rights, the exploitation of their economic zones, etc.
There would be no need for the construction of new elaborate and ex pensive UN machinery. The old Trusteeship Council could be given a new name and used for legislative control of the protectorate system; the old Trusteeship Department could be used for administrative control. It would be sensible and desirable to amend the Charter accordingly, though the system could probably be introduced without amendment. As amendment for this purpose should be relatively uncontroversial, the act of amendment
might conceivably have the positive
spinoff of facilitating subsequent or simultaneous amendment to effect other desirable but more difficult changes.
How would the UN intervene if intervention became necessary? This difficult question need not necessarily delay the introduction of a protectorate system, because the threat of intervention would be there, even if clear mechanisms had not been established. And the existence of the system would make it possible for a single state (as for example India vis a vis the Maldives) to act on the UN’s behalf, thus giving its action immediate legitimacy. But in the long run, the establishment of a protectorate system should strengthen the case for a small UN standing force complimented by Article 43 commitments to provide national units for UN peacekeeping operations. A standing force would be immediately available and would be a clear deterrent to the enemies of small states, and the Charter.
C R Ashwin
Master Si Mark's College Inc
University of Adelaide
Australia