Cooks: the last country to farewell 'first day'?

An embarrassing mistake by Millennium Committee

By Florence Syme-Buchanan

The South Pacific Millennium Consortium is touting the Cook Islands as the last country to farewell and greet the 20th century, but they are most likely making a huge and very embarrassing mistake.

Another problem is, the Cooks’ own Millennium Committee has accepted what they’ve been told by regional Millennium co-ordinator, Bernadette Rounds-Ganilau and hasn’t made any checks. Yet.

While Pacific countries battled for first place to greet the new Millennium, Samoa went the other way - opting for last place.

And that last place has become a major draw card that Rounds-Ganilau is saying belongs to the Cooks and should be cashed in on with vigorous marketing.

The Cooks hasn’t done any marketing yet, and probably just as well. If last place marketing goes ahead, it could be a big embarrassment for tiny Cooks which is relying on tourism to put the ailing econo my right.

The challenge to Samoa’s niche by the South Pacific Millennium Consortium was decided without using “technical or cos mic know-how,” says Rounds-Ganilau.

Co-ordinator Bernadette Ganilau says they’ve based their decision on the differ ence in time zones, to formally recognise the Cooks to be the last to farewell the 20th century.

Both countries are on the same side of the dateline, Samoa is closer to it, but an hour behind the Cooks.

Rounds-Ganilau’s calculations that “when it’s 12 o’clock in Samoa and the beginning of the third millennium, it’ll still be 11 o’ clock in the Cook Islands,” are completely wrong.

When its 12.00 PM in Samoa on January 1, the Cooks will already be an hour into the third millennia.

Rounds-Ganilau and South Pacific Millennium Consortium she heads have said they don’t want to see regional island states fighting over first or last positions.

But touting the Cooks as the last to see

this century and the last to greet the new one is bound to raise the hackles of the Samoa government. The island state that has been selling itself as the last to bid final farewells to this century since early this year. Rounds-Ganilau, a professional com municator, told PIM earlier that they don’t want to see the region fighting over first or last place. Not many Cook Islanders are aware that the regional Millennium Consortium has put the Cooks into the sought after last place. But those who do know are excited about the implications but they are headed for disappointment.

The Cook Islands own Millennium Committee made up of business sector reps doesn’t yet have a marketing strategy based on what they’ve been told by the regional body, and probably just as well.

None of the members interviewed were quite certain how the regional Millennium Consortium reached its conclusion. From

interviews, it was obvious that no one had bothered to check to see if the Consortium’s claim is correct.

One Committee member insists the

Cooks has a right to claim last place because “the sun sets here last.”

Director of Meteorological Services Arona Ngari has checked and says from a meteorological point of view, “Samoa and Niue will be the last to see the last sunset of the century.” The Cooks could re-intro duce the New Zealand summer practice of daylight savings and fiddle with times to give it last place. “But this would be cheat ing,” says Ngari. The MET director says he “needs to sit down with the Millennium Committee to see where they are coming from. “The thinking seems to be they can sort it out in the next 16 months.”

The Cooks tourism office dragged its feet on selling this country as a millennium destination, probably because of uncertain

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ty over what special feature the country had to offer. The marketing job was finally passed to the private sector earlier this year, which formed a Rarotonga based Millennium Committee.

Chairman and manager of a big alcohol outlet, Nick Henry says they have yet to come up with a millennium slogan. Henry is still working on a millennium calendar that Rounds-Ganilau says they were

expecting to be completed in June.

Henry isn’t prepared for the Committee to make a decision “on it’s own” and wants wider public discussion on their plans. With just over 16 months to go, the Committee doesn’t have much time.

Henry says they’re toying with the idea of having a marae, or sacred grounds, built over the next 12 months to mark the new millennia, with visitors to the island each bringing a stone to help build it. Cook Islands Television has been asked to come

up seven-minute live segment for a 24 hour documentary Millennium Day Broadcast co-produced by CNN and BBC. CITY manager George Pitt says they’ll do the live broadcast even if means the struggling station has to buy new equipment. Like Henry, the TV manager is thinking along traditional lines. He wants to capture the

country’s ocean going canoes sailing

through Avana channel, where 700 years ago seven canoes left here for New Zealand. Some New Zealand Maori descendants of those Polynesian explorers and ocean voyagers have traced their links back to the Cooks,, journeying here in recent years to link up with family.

Many New Zealanders will also see the dawn of a new millennium twice. By fly ing to Rarotonga on January 1, they travel a day back in time and can see the dawn of a new millennium again. That concept is being marketed as the “double-dawn.”

That the Cooks’ marketing isn’t up and running doesn’t concern Rounds-Ganilau, who admits things have been moving “very slowly”. “But we’re doing it Pacific style, and in the Pacific fashion. I’m telling everybody we’ll have everything ready for you on December 31st 1999.” Rounds- Ganilau says she’s told billionaire Hussain Khashoggi that the Cooks’ has the special millennium feature of being last to see this century end. She says Khashoggi is very interested and plans to fill a number of lux ury vessels with “people prepared to pay millions for these tours” to see the dawn of the new century in Tonga. Ganilau says those vessels will then steam full speed ahead for the Cooks, which is less than 2000 kilometres away, for another farewell celebration. But Khashoggi would be bet ter to head for the white beach of Falealupo village at the western end of Samoa where their day ends. ■