Disgruntled

Letters

Author

defends

Missionaries

Madam, lan Williams review (OCT PIM) of my book, Conversations with the Cannibals, was fine except in one area. He made it sound like I am opposed to missionaries and the mis sionary movement and that is simply not true.

I applaud the missionaries efforts in medical service and education, often for people who would otherwise have neither. Missionaries have long stood up for islanders’rights when no one else world. My only objection to the missionary movement, historically, is that it has had a large part to play in eradicating the traditional cultures of the islanders.

Also, my story about missionary couple working in the Solomons was not written as a sop to the missionar ies. It was written because that cou ple, to me, symbolized the best the

missionary movement offers to the Pacific.

Michael J Krieger

Skyeland Farm,

Orcas, United States of America.

Disgruntled

citizen

Madam, Are you aware of politics in the “untouched Paradise”? Vanuatu politics sadly reflects an increasing state of moral corruption engulfing the minds of the leaders of this supposedly godly nation. The trend is worsening, yet a great majority of the people remain pow erless to say or do anything, because of the prevailing “top-down-master-ser vant” approach to people’s public expression of views determined and encouraged by the system.

The highly political “who-you-know” system of worker recruitment presently

practised in Vanuatu has so over whelmed the system, that it has gone very much out of control.

The nation currently lacks a mecha nism such as the media, that should effectively monitor, challenge and con trol the activities of the government and its officials. Our entire administrative and political system have simply gone way out of touch with the people they were created to serve, and we urgently need such a mechanism(s) set up to take some control over the present situation.

This suggests one more thing: the urgent need for a clean-up campaign.

A lot of people in Vila, for instance, were shocked when the government dis missed the former general manager of

Vnpf.

Decisions made at the national level for the good of the people must be ratio nal, justifiable and honest.

Concerned citizen.

Port Vila, Vanuatu

Imminent

doom: Act now

Madam

Reading through September PIM I

found an article by Akanisi Motufaga on the Forum’s concern about the environ mental problems in the Pacific under the heading “Lets not panic leaders say”.

I understand that commentaries made by Pacific Island country leaders was in response to Australia’s warning that the Pacific was on the brink of environmental disaster as a result uncontrolled exploitation of our natural resources.

In fact we should be panicky so that our governments are alert and pre

pared.

We have to be practical about the environmental problems because I have seen what companies did with logging in my country.

What the indigenous peoples are left with in the end is a zero. We become the losers and we should put a stop to the day light robbery of our inheritance.

There has been heavy logging in Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu compared to other Pacific island countries.

And if the leaders of today are gen uinely critical of the abuse of our envi ronment, they should then also see how the indigenous peoples survive on the environment.

The exploitation must stop.

Solutions must be found to right the

already dangerous situation.

Reaforestation will not bring back our forests in the natural form and would takes many years before the denuded forests take shape again.

We must realise we are heading for a catastrophy and this is mainly because of a lack of a system to replace effectively the damaged forests.

All is not lost, leaders of countries where exploitation of the environment threatens the very existence of their people should get together and put a stop to these nightmarish activities.

Whatever steps are to be taken need to be taken now before the region is doomed by a problem we have never known before.

There are other ways in which resources can be earned rather than

through destroying our environment.

Peter Tirang,

Papua New Guinea.

Nickel

Mines

controversy

Madam, The articile “Mine of the Future” (PIM, August, 1994) failed to mention the end-use of this type of nickel - as listed by the French Bureau of Statistics - in super alloys for the nuclear industry: or that SLN is a sub sidiary of both the French Atomic Energy Authority and Cogema, the largest uranium mining interest in the world.

Exported nickel from ‘pro-inde

pendence’ New Caledonia is also being used to build the new generation of nuclear reactors in Japan.

Ironical when you think that the independence movement’s Charter and Constitution both comit the FLNKS to an anti-nuclear position. And that their official protest of the shipment of pluto nium to Japan, when it passed through New Caledonian territorial waters was for a cargo destined for the very reac tors they were helping build.

France needs to guarantee a continual supply of this strategic miner al for its own defense purposes. To imply that Nepoui is part of a ‘rebalanc ing of the economy after the Matignon Accords’ is to beleive the lie that even the Kanak liberation front elite are cur rently trying to sell to their own people, at the expense of their health, environ ment and truly independent future.

Susi Newborn

Grey Lynn Auckland, New Zealand.

Letters to the editor must include the writers’ full name, address and tele phone number. All letters may be edited for purposes of clarity and space.

Letters should be addressed to; The Editor, Pacific Islands Monthly, PO Box 1167, Suva, FIJI or Fax; (679) 303-809