Abandoned, the

Region

Abandoned, the Pacific almost loses out

By Kaiinga Seneviratne

The South Pacific has given leader ship to Small Island Developing States (SIDS) at previous United Nations global conferences such as the Rio Earth summit in 1992 and the Cairo Population Summit in 1994, but at Habitat II in Instanbul they kept a very low profile almost until the last day of the two-week

meeting.

The South Pacific delegations in Istanbul were small and led mainly by senior public servants or their ambas sadors to the United Nations based in New York. While the Caribbean island nations, led by Jamaica, and co-ordinated by their regional inter-governmental agency, CARICOM, were leading the fight against an attempt by the United States and European Community to delete all references to SIDS from the draft Global Plan of Action (GPA), the Pacific

kept mute.

When questioned about it, one Pacific delegate told Pacific Islands Monthly that South Pacific nations were not even talk ing to each other to co-ordinate a regional strategy against the US and EU push because of a lack of co-ordination by the South Pacific Forum, whose secretariat had not sent a single official to Istanbul.

Many other officials delegates and South

Pacific non-govemmental organisation

(NGO) delegates to Habitat II felt that the Forum had abandoned them at Istanbul.

The conference gave NGOs unprece dented access to the official UN confer ence sessions. But, here too, top Pacific NGOs such as the Pacific Islands Association of NGOs (PIANGO) - which addressed the Cairo summit as the repre sentative of Southern (Third World) NGOs - and the Suva-based Pacific Concerns Resource Centre were missing.

Thus, at the parrallel NGO Forum, the Pacific made hardly a sound. It was not until June 12 (two days before the end of the meeting) that Forum member dele gates had their first meeting here. That, too, had been organised by a group of Pacific NGO delegates at Istanbul.

During the last two days of negotia tions on the GPA, the South Pacific was thus able to have some say, game ring the support of the Group of 77 (developing countries) to foil attempts by the US and France to delete Clause 126 from the draft of the GPA, which reinforced the “pol luter pays” principle with respect to con-

lamination by nuclear testing. The para graph in question concerns the safe reset tlement of populations and restoration of economic activity in areas affected by radioactive contamination as a conse quence of the development and testing of nuclear weapons.

At Istanbul, Solomon Islands moved to amend Clause 126, introduced by Marshall Islands at the third Prep Com in New York, to broaden its scope to beyond the effects of US testing in the Marshalls and encompass other areas. The move immediately met with French resistance.

“France thought that we were picking them out and they objected to it,” Rex Horoi, permanent representative of Solomon Islands to the United Nations, told IPS. Solomon Islands highlighted commitments already in the document on rehabilitation and reconstruction follow ing armed conflict and human-made dis

asters. Japan supported the text, along

with the G 77.

Horoi was disappointed by the lack of co-ordination among Pacific countries at Istanbul - even on an issue of direct con cern to them. “It’s rather sad that we did n’t have the co-ordination of the Forum ... when the Habitat agenda covers all that the Forum stands for,” he observed, adding that the secretariat had cited lack of funds for its inability to send someone to Istanbul. Earlier in the conference, when the GPA negotiating committees were debating whether to delete clauses

recognising SIDS’ vulnerability to global

warming, it was the Caribbeans who car

ried the battle to the West (who were worried about committing any financial assistance to anyone here).

“In this last important conference of the UN this decade, that should be speak ing about human settlements all over the world, we are finding SIDS are not given special recognition, especially since in many instances, there’s been emphasis on larger cities,” Easton Douglas, minis ter for the environment and housing of Jamaica told PIM.

“We see this as a conference on human settlements, as well as on cities,”

Byron Blake, assistant secretary-general of CARICOM, told PIM. He was disap pointed that his organisation and the Forum were not able to co-ordinate the input of the SIDS.

Horoi said most Pacific delegations lacked manpower to cover all of the committees and plenary sessions and had to depend on the G 77 to be their mouth piece. Wesley Aruga, the alternative head of the Papua New Guinea delegation, also admitted that the Pacific had not prepared well for Habitat 11.

As PNG holds the current chairman ship of the Forum, one Pacific delegate told PIM that it was the duty of that country’s delegation to call a meeting of Forum member states at Istanbul.

Aruga admitted that Pacific delegates were working independently but said his delegation had done what it could at Istanbul, adding that they had encoun tered funding problems internally to get a delegation in the first place. Aruga com plained that when the Forum Heads of State meeting was held in PNG last year, preparations for Habitat II were not included in the agenda.

He observed that even the regional report launched here by the Bangkok based Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), a regional agency of the United Nations, was titled “Living in Asian Cities”.

He had suggested a follow-up report to be titled perhaps “Living in the Pacific Islands”. Jens Overgaard, chief of the ESCAP-UN Centre for Human Settlements joint section on Human Settlements, told PIM they planned to commission another report on the state of the cities in the Asia-Pacific region which would include cities in the South Pacific.

Meanwhile, Aruga hopes that the Istanbul experience will make the South Pacific leaders realise the importance of regional co-ordination, so the region’s voice will not be drowned out in future.

We hope after Habitat, when we get back home, we can bring together the Pacific Island nations and work out a strategy to deal with the issues raised at the Habitat meeting here,” he said. ■