A decade of forums

By Michael Held

MANY Palauan men, by tradition, wear their hair long in pony tails and dreadlocks that pre-dates hip pidom and rastafarians.

With beetlenut chewing common too, the effect of the red teeth and the flow ing locks can give even the most humble of civil servants a manic quality.

“Tell me truthfully,” said one such character, “what was this forum like, as

good as the other ones?”

He seemed emo tional at the answer; “Pret ty good, and certainly the most friendly I’ve ever attended.”

Palau marked my 10th forum, and only Kiri bati President Teburoro Tito with a modest five forums comes close.

This year’s forum was doomed to suffer poor attendance of leaders and media because of its air connections. Flights come in from Philippines, Tai wan and Guam making it an expensive proposition for anybody from the Pacific.

The New Zealand Air Force 727 swept down

with Prime Minister Jenny Shipley, Nauru President Rene Harris and Niue’s Premier Sonny Lakatani, recovering from major heart surgery.

Through the portholes we could see the glittering beauty of Palau’s Rock Islands and the astonishing purity of Koror, the cap ital island.

A month before New Zealand had hosted the Asia-Pacific Economic Coopera tion summit in Auckland. When Presidents Bill Clinton of the United States and Jiang Zemen of China had arrived, their subse quent state visits of New Zealand qualified them for formal welcomes. Where once it would have been a military guard of honour New Zealand suddenly felt confident enough to do it differently. A Maori haka followed by an impressive medley of Samoan, Tonga, Cook Island, Niuean and Fijian dance performed by teenagers. Clin

ton beamed with the joy of it; Jiang knew he was somewhere different. Up until that point, only the Cook Islands in this region had ever felt confident enough to dispense with the Sandhurst parade ground stuff.

So Palau was disappointing when this nation without an army tried the mili tary welcome with some police officers armed with an assortment of battered old rifles. Federated States of Micronesia had

tried the same thing the year before; giving it the comical presence of “Police Academy V” rather than the Pacific.

But this year the brief airport arrival was the end of the security. The small media band - Radio New Zealand, NZ Press Asso ciation, Radio Australia, Pacnews, New Zealand Herald, Agence France-Presse, Television New Zealand, the Palauan media, New Zealand’s TV3, Greenpeace (traditionally obliged by the forum to regis ter as media) and some fruitcake fringe media from Fiji - were told they could pick up their colour-coded accreditation at a local photoshop. Those that bothered found it almost pointless; nobody much looked at them and they were never needed anyway.

And one astonishing fact; for years I’ve endured jumped-up little security types and policemen who should be issuing park

ing tickets pushing me around and doing the damdest to ensure we could not do our jobs.

And, in all that time, not one single reporter has ever attempted to kill or harm a single politician. Amazing. Palau too was a reminder that the only people killing politi cians in the Pacific - are other politicians.

The media room in a classroom was staffed by skilled and pleasantly good humoured people from the local telecom

munications company. In all the forums I’ve attended it is these kind of people who do much for setting the image a country subsequently has in the international media.

A terribly cold Rotorua in New Zealand had been my first forum. It was a big media event in those days with the gangly Malcolm Fraser from Australia and the foul-tempered Robert Muldoon from New Zealand ruling the roost. Young upstart Walter Lini from Vanuatu was there for the first time - getting a dreadful reception from the white leaders. The big issue had been a proposal to start a shipping line and Muldoon’s candidate for the post, political hack Harry Julian arrived at the event in a Rolls Royce.

There were other por

tents though. Leaders on Sunday morning had gathered in the old and elegant St Faith’s Church on the edge of the lake to hear Bishop Manu Bennett warn the plight of Maori could ruin New Zealand. Outside, Maori sovereignty protests kept up a chant.

Just before the retreat began, a policeman was shot and killed in the town in an unre lated incident, rather casting a cloud.

When I next returned to a forum it was in Port Vila, Vanuatu. Somebody with a sense of humour had put the media room in a pub on the water’s edge. It proved to be a marvellous way to work with a steady flow of burgers and Tusker beer throughout the day. The media contingent was touching on a hundred - mainly made up of the Canber ra press gallery trekking around after Prime Minister Bob Hawke. Australian journalists can be counted to show up at a Forum only

Leaden rush through a full agenda

when hotels are of the quality found in Waga Waga.

Hawke was in a terrible mood, made worse by being rolled over Johnston Atoll.

He tried unsuccessfully to get the Pacific to go soft on America. The memorable news conference saw him yell, snarl and abuse the media while then wife Hazel Hawke quietly sat in a second row, with the jour nalists, knitting.

Hawke’s performance was matched by a weirder one from New Zealand’s Geof frey Palmer who addressed the media like the loud law lecturer he was, providing only headaches and little copy.

Hawke and Palmer illustrated a point that always shows up at forums; it is the white leaders who usually manage to set the media agendas. They bring their own media and hold formal press confer ences us well as informal briefings for their nationals only. Pacific leaders who get little notice could do well to fl duplicate the accessibility their palagi colleagues show. j The first forum held at HuBBT Pohnpei, FSM, was noticeable for the complete lack of accommoda tion, only filled in by the USS P; Racine, a huge tank landing craft manned by part-time sailors who quickly became bored out of their BIL [ mind at being a media and officials hotel. It was Spartan and unpleasant, made only bearable by the presence of !BBj the HMNZS Tui, a tiny white research ship loaded to the gunwales with Stein- ll lager.

Prime Minister Jim Bolger had flown in a big contingent of media but when he called a press conference none could be found - they had all gone to Ant Atoll, com plete with food, alcohol, dancing girls and a

long, languid ship voyage. The resulting

fury and front-page stories back in New Zealand went down very badly - with

Wellington’s press gallery.

Nauru was one of those forums where security early on broke down and leaders and journalists soon found them selves mingling over tea breaks. There were no known fatalities.

Australia’s Paul Keating lorded him self around the place and at one point called a press conference which, given his own security’s behaviour, was a Whites Only

gathering.

The forum in Brisbane was some thing of a repeat of Rotorua for its cold weather. Security was tight and little mixing

was allowed to go on. It proved too that holding a forum in a big city was a waste of time. Brisbane, which clearly thought this was just another Gold Coast type confer ence, took no notice and the Pacific was lost in the place.

Madang, on Papua New Guinea’s northern coast, was an ideal setting, even if acconmiodation was a bit tight. The AFP team of three had to share a room meant for one. Tolerance was tested. But PNG’s Sir Julius Chan showed his confidence in his cultures when the welcome ceremony was a glittering array of dance. The post-forum

dialogue ses-

sio n s

were held in

Port Moresby which offered - those who wanted to go -a fierce logistical problem.

With France exploding nuclear bombs again, most wanted to be there for the remarkably dopey French minister who showed up to defend his nation’s honour.

The tests were over the following year when the forum gathered in Majuro, in the Mar shall Islands. This was Prime Minister John Howard’s very first international outing and in the style to which they are used, the big Canberra press corps were nursemaided by their government. Even their water was flown in. It became very clear though that Howard did not like the Pacific and was uncomfortable with it.

The scandal was the turtles which the islanders served up to the leaders. They had

sat on their backs outside the Australian media hotel all week where the journalists fumed over the horror of it all but did not do the one thing that might have made a differ ence - put the turtles into the water.

Despite the heat, the dust, lack of water and the Chinese acrobats, that forum was the one that will linger for me.

Still there is something special about Rarotonga where the 1997 forum convened.

Prime minister Sir Geoffrey Henry is a notorious big-noter but that did not detract from the relaxed pleasures of Cook’s cul ture. The accommodation was great and the

phones worked.

Howard distinguished himself at the leaders dinner by refusing to dance with a Cook Islands maiden or two. The media were not supposed to be present but a col k league and I saw it all and poor John mk became the grumpy star of the forum.

His air crew would not sleep on the Hi same island and when they took off, H| they insisted the Greenpeace Rain- HH k° w W a m° r ’ two kilometres from fV";H •l 10 e'nd of the runway, be moved.

HHP The retreat was on the divine WBm Aitutaki Atoll, an hour by plane to H| the north. Golden sands, black H rocks and a white washed post H office made it unforgettable. At least for the two journalists still there. At the luxury retreat hotel Howard was mounting meatball surgery on the forum - demanding the f Pacific’s leaders all agree with his view of consensus.

Pohnpei last year was the low-point.

It is, of course, a stunning island but the organisation was in meandering strife. An Australian working for the forum took it upon himself to dictate the dreary commu nique and any real discussion was cut off by a bureaucracy in control. Outside the blue neo-Chicago police worked aggressively to destroy any image Pohnpei might have for friendliness.

Next year the forum will be in Kiri bati which should be interesting ...

It does not have nearly enough hotel accom modation, air-links are limited and one senses from the history that their police may be over-zealous in corralling the media.

Even Robert Louis Stevenson last century noted the tendency of the place to have too

many police.

That said, should I make it to my 11th forum I know some marvellous places to stay -and really interesting people to talk with. ■