President Clinton's ear

US Pacific territories gelling President Clinton's ear

By Monica Miller

THANKS to American Samoa Governor Tauese Sunia’s communications skills, US territories are getting the ear of President Bill Clinton, even if some of his top aides don’t appear to be interested in hear ing what the islanders have to say.

Proof of this came during President Bill Clinton’s visit with the governors of Hawaii, Guam, the Northern Marianas and American Samoa last month in the Guamanian capital, Agana.

Clinton announced that he was revising an executive order issued last year on coral reefs to ensure that all the Pacific gover nors are put on the US Task Force that was set up to plan and set policy for the protec tion of America’s coral reefs.

It seems that Governor Tauese did some, actually it turns out much, com plaining to US Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt and Commerce Secretary during the Florida meeting.

He questioned why there was no repre sentation from the Pacific on the force.

“I made it a point to complain that the President excluded the territories and yet 95 per cent of the coral reefs of America are out here in the Pacific,” said Tauese.

Tauese must have been grinning with pride when Clinton announced before his colleagues, not to mention the thousands who had gathered on the lawn of the Executive Office Building to wave at the president and the national press corps cov ering his historic visit, that he had granted what Governor Tauese had asked for.

Pacific representation on the task force will come in handy when the group decides how to divvy up $lO million in federal aid for the protection of coral reefs.

It is also understood that President Clinton will be requesting Congress for millions of dollars more to preserve, restore and enhance America’s reefs.

Tauese said he was pleased to know that the concerns of the Pacific had been relat ed to the President. “I thought that the ‘guys’ I had met with in Florida would just say yes than not bother to relate our con cerns to the President,” he remarked.

Another point that Tauese had com plained about was why the Task Force meeting was held in Florida and not in the Pacific, home to the biggest chunk of coral reefs under the US flag.

Thanks to him, the next meeting of the Coral Reefs Task Force will be held in Hawaii in January. If nothing else, the venue will save the Pacific governors much travelling as Hawaii is just a one stop flight for all of them except host Governor Ben Cayetano who’ll only need a limou sine ride to the conference hall. And the

"life President excluded the territories and yet 95 per cent of the coral reefs of America are out here in the Pacific"

conference organisers may just invite Hawaiian entertainers to sing and dance that famous hula number “Beyond the Reef’ as a curtain raiser!

More proof of the effectiveness of Tauese’s negotiating skills came when President Clinton announced that he was looking into the territories’ request that they be given autonomy to deal with for eign countries instead of the State

Department handling all foreign relations

matters.

This matter had also been raised by Tauese in Florida. “I had asked the United States to let the US territories handle mat ters with their neighbours, instead of rely ing on the State Department all the time.

Sometimes those people are very tough, “ he remarked.

Tauese’s pitch to the Clinton Administration: the US Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico could deal with issues in the Caribbean, Guam and the Northern Marianas could handle matters in the Northern Pacific and American Samoa

could deal with countries in the South Pacific.

“I was so happy when Clinton men tioned in his speech in Guam that he was looking into our request,” said Tauese. He also quoted the US President as saying that his administration will try to elevate the status of US territories in dealing with for eign countries.

US territories are self governing and have their own laws that are sometimes contrary to American rules and regulations.

For example in American Samoa, the con stitution prohibits the sale of land to non- Samoans, a concept quite alien to the American emphasis on individual rights.

But when it comes to foreign relations matters, the territories cannot act on their own without referring to Washington, specifically the State Department.

Tauese wants that changed because he feels some of the US bureaucrats have a condescending and tough attitude when dealing with other countries. And he’s been in public service long enough to know spe cific examples of this happening especially in the South Pacific.

The example he did cite to prove his point had nothing to do with a foreign country but had everything to do with one of its own possessions: American Samoa.

During the era of Washington appointed governors, visas to enter the United States could be issued by the American Samoa Attorney General’s Office. However a few years into the first locally elected adminis tration that authority was removed by the State Department.

Governor Tauese didn’t go into the rea son behind the State Department’s action but just said that what happened was an example of Washington’s sometimes get tough attitude. If he had explained the rea son, he would have had to say that American Samoa’s visa issuing authority was stripped when evidence surfaced that immigration agents were selling US visas to Orientals for as much as $5,000. ■