Pacific Islands Monthly

Vol. 50, No. 9 ( Sep. 1, 1979)
1979-09-01 · uncorrected OCR from NLA scans

PACIFIC ISLAND MONTHLY PIM SEPTEMBER 1979 ip | BniGING lljOiAM PARIS MpWPfICIFIC American Samoa US$l.25 Australia Asl.oo* Fiji .^jfejTSI.OO Hawaii .^USM-SO Nauru 5A1.50 New Caledonia CFPfts New Hebrides Asl.oo NZ. Cook Is. ft Niue NZSI.OO Jlortolk Island ASI.OO Papua New Guinea „...Kl.OO Solomons ......Je.. SSI.OO Tahiti.. JET.. CFPISO Tonga PI.OO USTT a Guam US$l.25 Western Samoa... Tl.OO ‘Recommended retail price only.

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Other American Samoa $13 $US16 Australia $12 Canada $14 $US18 Cook Islands $13 Rjj $12 $F12 French Polynesia $14 CFP 1700 Guam $13 $US16 Gilbert Islands $13 Hawaii $13 $US16 Japan $16 Y4500 Micronesia $13 $US16 Nauru $18 New Caledonia $14 CFP 1700 New Hebrides $13 New Zealand $12 $NZ13.50 Niue $13 Norfolk Island $12 Northern Marianas $13 $US16 Papua New Guinea $13 K12 Solomon Islands $13 Tonga $13 Tuvalu $13 United Kingdom $15 £io US Mainland $14 $US18 Western Samoa $13 Elsewhere: $A16 Cover: French President Valery Giscard d'Estaing tells a Papeete audience about his country’s 'lasting' relationship with French Polynesia (Political Currents).

PIM

Pacific Islands Monthly

Vol 50 No. 9 September 1979 (USPS 952480) Founded 1930 by R. W. Robson Publisher Stuart Inder Editor Bob Hawkins Editorial Adviser John Carter Manager John Berry Advertising Steve Gray, Peter Bedwell A Pacific Publications production 76 Clarence Street, Sydney 2000 GPO Box 3408 Sydney 2001 Cables; PACPUB Sydney Telex: Pacpub 21242 Telephone; Sydney 29 6693 SUBSCRIPTIONS PIM is airfreighted to most subscribers and agents in the Pacific Islands and the United States.

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This Month

• The Region How the forces lined up at a meeting of-the South Pacific Forum in Honiara on the delicate question of framing a resolution on France’s Pacific territories 10 • President Giscard’s Pacific visit One word for New Caledonians, another for Polynesians 17 • Kiribati - Independent yes but still hogtied by some aid arrangements with Britain 23 • Japan in the Pacific A round-up of the present state of play in Japan’s varied and dynamic contributions to the lives and development of Pacific Island nations 37 • Tuvalu - Prime Minister Toalipi Lauti talks frankly with PIM Editor Bob Hawkins about his country’s problems with fund-raising and development 18 • New Hebrides - Chief Minister Gerard Leymang and Deputy Chief Minister Walter Lini met French President Giscard d’Estaing in Noumea and gave him some ideas on their country’s future relationships with France 13 • Kwajalein - Occupation of parts of an important US missile testing range by protesting Marshallese landowners could have an impact on ratification by the US Senate of the SALT II agreement with the Soviet Union 19 • Nutrition The ‘winged bean’, native to Papua New Guinea’s Highlands and some Southeast Asian countries, could soar to stardom in the world fight against hunger 89 Afterthoughts 87 Australia 13,14,15,25,34 Banaba Books go Cook Islands 5,10,13,14,15,29,33,34,72 F, i i 13,15,32,34,37,41 French Polynesia 14,17,18,65 Guam Irian Jaya Islands Press Japan in the Pacific 37-72 Kiribatl 15,23,37,80 Letters Micronesia 19,40,75 Nau ™ 6,15 New Ca1ed0nia.6,10,11,13,14,15,17,18,22,32,67 New Hebrides 10,15,17,18,25,27,69 New Zealand 10,11,14,15,25,29,34 Niue 15,29,77 Norfolk Island 21,69 Northern Marianas 75 Pacific Report 7 p NG 5,10,11,13,14,15,20 22,27,28,32,33,34,37,47,83,89,91 People Political Currents... 17 Shipping 101 Solomon Islands 10,25,27,37,41,56,81,91 South Pacific Forum 10,25 SPC 6 SPE C 33,40 Tahiti 14,18 Tokelau Islands 6,29 Tonga 15,28,29,32,37,80,93 Tradewinds 89 Tradewinds Intelligence 92 Travel 75 Tropicalities 25 Tuvalu 10,15,18,32 Wallis and Futuna 18 Western Samoa 10,11,15,29 Yachts 93 Yesterday.. 83 PNG’s Ebia Olewale ... spearheading discussion on the French Territories Kiribati’s leremia Tabai ... hogtied by Britain?

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LETTERS A word to Ms James I offer some comments on Ms Lois James’ letter published in the May edition of PIM, and the role of the United States in Pacific affairs.

Ms James’ letter referred to some remarks made by a member of a Papua New Guinean dance group with whom she spoke in the United States. In the interest of consistency, Ms James should not have viewed so critically a quality which she herself demonstrates in her letter national pride. The value judgement ‘America is not good ... our place is good’ also conveys an opinion which is at odds with Ms James’ representation of the US as a ‘saviour’ of the world.

The naive nature of US national policy and understanding of the Pacific is neatly pointed up in your article in the US in the Pacific which appeared in the same issue.

Moreover, Ms James’ personal perspective on the cure for ‘hunger and thirst’ begs questions on other important human and social needs which it seems neither the US nor PNG has solutions to.

Deane Fergie

Mapua Tabar Islands New Ireland Province Papua New Guinea More fruit trees for Rarotonga Our laws to this day work against our islands becoming once again a Garden of Eden, against the existence of many more permanent trees bearing luscious fruit mango, avocado, custard apple, grapefruit, mandarine, lemon, lychee, pistachio, macadamia, chestnut, coconut (the Islander’s best friend), even banana, breadfruit and guava. The great obstacle to their increase is that our land ownership is not based on the good Australian Torrens titles, so that, alongside those with rights to land ‘and everything attached thereon’, there are now as many or more people hungry to grow such fruits but without the right to do so.

A coconut palm takes up to 14 years to come into full production. So do other fruit trees.

A person will not plant and make the sustained effort to see a young tree carefully nursed past the red danger point of its life without some proprietary rights to its fruit.

Through the looking glass, we see much unused land on our main island, Rarotonga.

The 1975 agricultural census described as such 1255 ha out of 2226 ha of good ‘foothill’ land, with another 4453 ha of not so good ‘foothill’ land. But many permanent trees will grow beyond that level. The palm will also grow near the beach areas - conservation-wise, such a planting is a 60-year investment, a gift to future generations.

Further, the 1976 population census gave 2552 non-Rarotonga-born Cook Islanders on Rarotonga, in addition to 1298 non-Cook Islands-born Europeans, etc, a total of nearly 40% of the population.

More recently still, the 1977 import figures showed that we import $4.5 million worth of foodstuffs - that is the CIF price, and represents more than $7 million at the retail price paid by housewives. Is this reasonable when most of us squatters are keen to feed and water ourselves, given the right and the chance?

Our government should take a new look at the land laws.

Not only outer islanders but the many Raro-born nonlandowners, particularly teenagers, should by law be allowed to own their own fruit and other trees. Those they plant when young they would treat with proper husbandry.

They would indeed grow together, and in time they would reap the fruit of their own efforts. Government should ensure that every household is helped to have one good breeding sow, at least 30 laying hens, and at least enough land available to it for permanent tree planting. Just for a moment visualise Rarotonga 25 years ahead if, say, today, 1000 teenagers planted and began caring for four good mango trees each. With good luck and enough care there would be 4000 hefty, heavybearing mango trees, 20 boxes or so per tree, good enough to sustain many a person on Rarotonga, be they natives of it or of an outer island. In this connection, other Commonwealth countries have laws well worth the effort of study.

Some people criticise our statistical service saying it is high time it got out of its nappies. It is a fact that there is nowhere in the 1976 population census a clear figure giving the number of actual landowners on each island. For Rarotonga, a figure exists showing that 990 heads of households live on their own land, the rest renting or otherwise being ceded accommodation. This is a significant figure in view of the other figures of 8503 for the total Cook Islands-born population (of whom 2552 were not born on Rarotonga).

Instead of pontificating off a desk crystal ball on what the population will be some day, our stats should cast quick and fairly inexpensive glances, at frequent intervals, out their office windows. By annual quick counts they should be able to give the country true, factual and clear-cut facts.

C. G. JOANNIDES Arorangi Rarotonga Cook Islands New Bounty Mark 111 at least Your report of the building of another Bounty (PIM March).

The Whangarei one is not ‘Mark IT but Mark 111 at least as one was built in the Canadian Maritimes for the Mutiny on the Bounty film with Marlon Brando. I remember going aboard the Canadian Bounty during my first visit to Tahiti in 1961.

University of GEORGE L. PICKARD British Columbia, Canada At the fag end of the French empire I am surprised that you should publish a letter (PIM June) like that from D. A. Tardieu where he tries to portray the fag end of French empire the Pacific Islands it still clutches - as a ‘Quebec’ in an English Pacific.

Surely the Pacific Islands are getting more Oceanian or Polynesian rather than ‘English’, with the rapid decolonisation that so far as England goes, is almost complete.

Yet France hangs on in there, right to the point where the peace-loving Polynesian people are having to make their feelings known European-style, with political terror.

No, Mr Tardieu, you can’t get away with dragging in the nice clean ‘democratic’ image of a struggling Quebec amidst Ms James with PNG friends Ataiso Kanisuwo (centre) and Robson Ubuk in New York last year ... whose solutions?

PACIFIC ISI AMDS MOMTUi v CCDTmnrn

hostile ‘English’ Canadians.

Why not take a look in your very own country, France, where the Breton people are intensifying their own struggle in a sea of uncaring F rench?

As a well-known Brezhoneg (Breton) separatist remarked not long ago; ‘Between the retreats from Moscow and Algiers nothing has changed, apart from the capacity, in French empire-building.’

Presumably the denial of democratic liberty to a far, small, easily-exploited Pacific Islands people will be the very last instalment in that story, and echo the truth of my Breton nationalist colleague’s remark.

Andrew Mackillop

Konedobu Papua New Guinea PNG—conservation problems?

Recently I had the opportunity to view a film made in Papua New Guinea. There were beautiful flowers, birds, butterflies, and some traditional dances. The film showed also the cutting of trees. The commentator said that local people were unable to cut down the larger and more beautiful trees, but that outside firms with machinery now can. The commentator tried to find out whether anything was done about replacing the trees and said that the lumber people were very vague about it and did not seem to care. He said that if this goes on unchecked the PNG people will some day have little left but sawdust.

The film also pictured mountaineers with feathered head-dresses going into little stores to purchase things which are really not good for them.

Andre Gschaedler

Salem, W.Va USA Cell 4 strikes a chord in PNG As a New Hebridean I was really interested in the letter ‘From Cell 4, French Prison, Vila’ (PIM June). At last a French citizen is brave enough to admit facts about the French administration in the New Hebrides.

Mr Tarii’s illustrations of how the French administration in the New Hebrides is trying to monopolise both air transport and the press are facts that in many respects even government ministers in the New Hebrides cannot deny. This sort of policy can be found in all walks of life, ranging from schools to shipping lines and even the House of Assembly.

Nabanga is also a one-sided paper. Many news items are printed in it either to promote the colonial masters or to give a bad face to opponents of the French in the group. It is a mouthpiece of French propaganda in the New Hebrides.

The experiences related by Mr Tarii could happen to anybody at all who tried to spread the truth about the political situation, and other matters of major importance in the New Hebrides. Many people, including Americans, Australians, French, English and Africans have been treated in this way in the past.

That’s the way it is in the New Hebrides. If it hadn’t been for the British and the Australians, things would be worse still.

C. M. LAWRENCE University of Papua New Guinea Port Moresby Tribute to Salato The commendable offer in People (PIM June) to publish Dr Macu Salato’s memoirs if he will but use some of his time in retirement from the South Pacific Commission (SPC) to write them deserves underscoring. Dr Salato has had a long and distinguished career in Fijian and Pacific affairs. His assessment of the region’s political development would make fascinating reading indeed.

One of the most interesting chapters in this book would have to be Dr Salato’s 3*/2-year tenure as secretary-general of the SPC. As PIM will no doubt recall, the SPC was at a crisis point when Dr Salato was appointed at the Nauru Conference in 1975. Stuart Inder made the comment then that the SPC was in need of a ‘heart transplant’ and therefore the appointment of a doctor might be just the medicine the SPC required. His words were prophetic.

Dr Salato’s ability, energy and personality have helped to resuscitate the organisation. He took charge from the outset to make use of the opportunity afforded him by the major review of the SPC in 1976.

Rather than waiting passively to receive whatever result the review committee chose to give, Dr Salato encouraged the secretariat to review itself and to put forward a secretariat position on needed changes. In this way he materially helped to design the ship at whose helm he stood.

Having secured from the 1976 review an organisation which he felt had a genuine role to play. Dr Salato began a daunting schedule of intra- and extra-regional visits to cement these gains. He was undoubtedly the most widely-travelled secretary-general in the organisation’s history. To further the communication function of the SPC, Dr Salato visited virtually every one of its 20 member countries, including the isolated Tokelaus. He also personally represented the SPC at numerous international and national meetings concerned with matters of interest to the SPC. These visits have helped both to achieve a more effeclive liaison with these governments and international bodies and to restore some of the SPC’s tarnished image.

In Noumea, Dr Salato’s diplomacy was instrumental in securing French co-operation in repairing and modernising the aging ‘Pentagon’ and other headquarter buildings. His firm hand and keen eye for detail enabled him to ensure his staff functioned effectively as a team. The ‘old man’, as he was affectionately known, had the respect of his staff and with this he was able to make the best of a very difficult time financially for the SPC.

Perhaps the greatest disappointment for Dr Salato over the past 3 Vi years must be that he had to spend so much of his time dealing with criticism of the SPC. His term of office will certainly serve to dispel some of the more exaggerated complaints and this may be sufficient recompense for him.

Young Vivian, Dr Salato’s successor at the SPC helm, must be personally grateful to have had such an able predecessor.

Although it will be a tough act to follow, Young Vivian will have a sound stage on which to perform.

R. A. HERR Hobart, Tasmania SPC Secretary-General Young Vivian at last year’s South Pacific Conference opening ... a sound stage on which to perform. Photo: SPC.

LETTERS

Pacific Islands Monthly - September, 1979

Pacific Report

President Giscard In The Pacific

The July visit to the Pacific by French President Valery Giscard d’Estaing, only the second ever made by a French head of state in office, revealed a clear distinction between French policies towards the two main territories of New Caledonia and French Polynesia. France’s relations with the latter the president described as ‘lasting’. But his statements in New Caledonia - made it clear that future relations with that territory are conditional on a number of factors (Political Currents).

After D’Estaing, A Mighty Big Baing

Only four days after French President Valery Giscard d’Estaing ended his July official visit to the Pacific, France conducted what is described as its biggest-yet underwater nuclear explosion’ at Moruroa Atoll. An explosion equal to an earthquake registering 6.3 on the Richter scale was recorded on seismographs at Wellington Observatory at 1800 GMT on July 25.

Scientists said the blast was probably in the range of half a megaton. A tidal wave struck the atoll on the day of the explosion, injuring two people. French Atomic Energy Commission officials in Paris strongly denied that the wave had been caused by the explosion. They dismissed as ‘fantastic’ a press report that the wave followed the emergency triggering of a nuclear bomb after ‘it became wedged halfway down its detonation shaft under the ocean bed’. The French socialist daily Le Matin claimed in August that on July 6, a fortnight before President Giscard’s visit to French Polynesia, two men were killed and six seriously injured during a decontamination operation in a bunker on Moruroa. The paper said acetone vapour in the bunker exploded, killing one immediately and injuring others, one of whom later died, and released a cloud of plutonium vapour over the atoll. The paper said the affair had been shrouded in secrecy in an attempt not to mar preparations for the presidential visit.

Nz Milk Less Radio-Active

Radio-active contamination of New Zealand milk is at its lowest level since records started in the early sixties according to a statement by the country’s National Radiation Laboratory. The laboratory said the drop in concentrations of strontium-90 and caesium-137 apparently reflected the French move to underground testing.

Us Court Fines Finbar Kenny

In the first criminal prosecution under the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, Finbar Kenny was fined SUSSO 000 in August for using the proceeds of the sale of Cook Islands stamps to fly in voters from New Zealand in the Cook’s March 1978 elections.

The new law was enacted by Congress in the wake of big business scandals involving such companies as Lockheed and International Telephone and Telegraph. The hearing of the case against Mr Kenny caused him to reverse his earlier decision to go to Rarotonga to face trial (PIM August). He planned to have a lawyer explain his non-appearance to the court, and to indicate that he will elect trial by judge alone.

Abbey Service For Kiribati

Princess Margaret represented the Queen at a thanksgiving service in London s Westminster Abbey in July to mark the independence of Kiribati. The Kiribati flag flew from the Abbey Nagstaff as a lesson was read in the language of Kiribati by Edwin Baraniko (page 23).

Apology, Compensation, For Stinson

■iji s former finance minister, Sir Charles Stinson, has received an undisclosed sum of money and a public apology from the \tew Zealand magazine The Listener. The magazine admitted hat there was no truth in inferences in a May 1977 article suggesting that Sir Charles, as a minister, had used his political nfluence for the benefit of the Stinson Pearce group of companies. The apology was read in the Auckland Supreme in the presence of Sir Charles and his son Peter Sir Charles had sued the magazine for SNZI million damages. 112 596 PEOPLE IN NEW HEBRIDES The population of the New Hebrides at 15-16 January, 1979, was 112 596. Announcement of the figure in late July followed more than a year of preparation, canvassing and counting. The census, a vital part of preparations for elections and independence, showed that the country’s population has grown by more than 36 000 since the last census in 1967 which yielded a population figure of 76 582.

Sir Vijay Singh Bows Out

Sir Vijay Singh has been dismissed from his post as attorneygeneral and economic planning minister in the Fiji cabinet. The dismissal followed strong expressions of cabinet disapproval of his role in the so-called Flour Mills case (RIM August). Sir Vijay later severed his connection with parliament by resigning from the Senate, to which he had been appointed by Prime Minister Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara.

Norfolk: Legislative Assembly Opens

With a clutch of Australian dignitaries on hand, Norfolk Island’s first legislative assembly was ceremoniously inaugurated in August. But due to continuing doubts about its real powers, reaction to the event on the island was less than joyful (Political Currents).

69% Of Nz Aid For Pacific

New Zealand’s overseas aid would remain at last year’s level of SNZSS million, according to Foreign Minister Brian Talboys.

Assistance to the Pacific would total $29 765 000, up $1.5 million on last year and 69% of total bilateral government-togovernment assistance. Assistance to ASEAN countries would be almost $lO million. Contributions to multilateral bodies such as United Nations and Commonwealth development agencies, and regional institutions in the South Pacific, would drop from $8 985 000 last year to $8 208 000.

Png Says No’ To Indochina Refugees

Papua New Guinea has ‘reluctantly, but definitely’ decided that it cannot accept any Indochinese refugees for settlement according to a July statement by Acting Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ebia Olewale.

Six Months Gaol, Fine, For David Neave

David Neave, Australian lawnmower importer of Vila, New Hebrides, who faced charges of illegal importation of munitions (PIM August), has been sentenced to six months imprisonment (less 29 days detention already served), and fined FNH29O 977 ($A3779), to be deducted from the sum of sls 000 bail already deposited.

Fiji Sets Up Prisons Probe

Fiji has appointed a seven-member royal commission to review all aspects of treatment of inmates of the country’s prisons. The commission, made up entirely of Fiji residents, follows complaints by dockworkers and others of ill-treatment by prison officers while they were held in Naboro Maximum Security Prison in early 1978. The ombudsman, Judge Moti Tikaram, subsequently investigated the complaints and reported to parliament. Judge Tikaram will preside over the newly appointed royal commission.

One For The Guinness Book Of Records?

A British-born mother of five children is seeking $A2.2 billion from Saudi Arabian financier Adnan Khashoggi in what her lawyer calls one of the largest claims ever filed in a martial dispute.

Mr Khashoggi is the financial power behind a number of South Pacific resort and hotel operations, including the Pacific Harbour complex at Deuba, Fiji. Soraya Khashoggi, in a suit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court in August, sought about half the $3.5 billion she maintains she helped Adnan Khashoggi accumulate during their marriage. She is also seeking $445 million in punitive damages. Mrs Khashoggi says her husband obtained a divorce in an Islamic religious court in 1974 and failed to support her afterwards. She maintains the divorce is not valid in the USA.

Family Reunion For Jacob Prai

The two wives and the children of Irian Jaya rebel leader Jacob Prai flew from Papua New Guinea in July to join him in exile in Sweden.

Petition Against Nz Immigration Laws

New Zealand Labour MP Richard Prebble has presented to par

liament a petition claiming that the country’s immigration policies are inhuman and discriminate against Pacific Islanders. The petition, presented on behalf of 1151 constituents, mainly Islanders living in Mr Prebble’s Auckland Central electorate, also requests that the government review the position of Islanders who have overstayed their permits because of personal economic hardship.

Bikinians For Hawaii?

Hawaii County Mayor Herbert Matayoshi has said he will support relocation of Bikinians on Hawaii Island as long as they would be willing to abide by county rules and regulations, according to Honolulu newspapers. The people of Bikini are looking for a new place to live because they can’t live on their atoll as a result of radiation from 1950 s nuclear testing by the US (PIM August).

Tuvalu Nabs Taiwan Longliner

The master of a wooden Taiwan longliner has been fined $lO 000 on each of two charges of fishing within Tuvalu’s 200 nautical mile economic zone without a licence. The captain of the Chiao Yeng No 22 brought his vessel into Funafuti for water.

Ouestioned about fresh tuna in the hold and fresh shark's fin drying in the rigging, he said his last fishing position was more than 200 nautical miles from Funafuti. He did not realise this was within 100 nautical miles of Nanumanga, also in the Tuvalu group. For Tuvalu it was an easy S2O 000 (though the treatment was lenient by some Island nations’ standards). However, because it has no patrol boats, Tuvalu usually has to stand by helpless when it knows foreign vessels are fishing in its waters (Political Currents).

Libya Confirms Tonga Loan

Libya has confirmed its readiness to make a SUS 3 million soft loan to Tonga for the upgrading of Nukualofa’s Fuaamotu airport. Confirmation came in a telephone conversation between the Libyan ambassador in Manila and King Taufa’ahau Tupou IV, in Nukualofa, in which the ambassador asked was Tonga ready to receive a Libyan delegation to discuss the loan. The king pointed out that planning for the new airport, in the hands of Taiwanese experts, was still in its early stages, but that the delegation would be welcome to come at any time.

Now It’S Queen Emma For The Big Screen

After Missis Queen, a new play about Queen Emma recently staged in Adelaide, Australia (PIM, August), comes news of a $U52.65 million project for a film on the life of the remarkable woman planter who made a fortune in Papua New Guinea’s Duke of York Islands and did many other things besides. Investors from the USA, Australia, West Germany, and Western Samoa will be putting up the money. It will be produced by Australians Ann and Rob Chapman.

Micronesia War Claims Money Missing

A major investigation was underway in July in the US Trust Territory of the Pacific involving alleged misappropriation of Micronesian war claims payments, according to Guam’s Pacific Daily News. Informed sources told the paper that the amount thought to be involved was between SUS2SO 000 and SSOO 000.

Nz Minister Crusades For Islander Jobs

New Zealand’s Minister for Maori Affairs Ben Crouch returned from a visit to Pacific Islands coming on strong for a scheme to bring in islanders to do work other people are not prepared to do. But he anticipated difficulties from the labour department, employers and unions because of existing high unemployment levels in New Zealand. Mr Crouch said main interest had come from hurricane-hit Fiji where he had been asked by officials to help Fijians seeking work. Mr Crouch said his main hope was to establish that some jobs available are not being filled.

A Tale Of Houdini And Christ

‘Fiji’s Houdini’, Anania Ledua, 23, in July made his seventh escape from custody this year. After being sentenced in June for his sixth escape, Ledua vowed he would never escape again ‘since I have accepted Jesus Christ as my saviour’.

Western Samoa Bars A Guru

The Western Samoa Government in July refused to allow the American mystic Jagat Guru to enter the country. He was to have given a public lecture in Apia. Supporting the ban, the Rev Oka Fauolo of the Fellowship of Churches said; ‘Since there are so many churches in Samoa, there is no need for Mr Guru to spread his propaganda here. The guru should go to countries that don’t have any religion or churches.’

Ambassador Talks Tonga-Soviet Trade

Possibilities of trade between the Soviet Union and Tonga have been canvassed by Soviet ambassador to Tonga Vsevolod Sofinsky in an audience with King Tauf’ahau Tupou IV. The king told the ambassador the matter would be referred to the Ministry of Labour, Commerce and Industries to determine whether sufficient produce, such as bananas, was available to make Tonga- Soviet trade feasible.

Hunt For Amelia’S Plane Goes On

A former US air force pilot, Vincent Loomis, is continuing his search (PIM June 1978) for the wreckage of the aircraft in which.

American woman pilot Amelia Earhart crashed in 1937. Loomis returned to the Marshall Islands in August more convinced than ever that the plane wreck he discovered on an outer island of the Marshalls 25 years ago is the Earhart plane. Loomis led a seven-member group that unsuccessfully tried to recover the wreck in 1978.

Japanese Air Their Tourist Choices

The 1979 annual survey of Japanese tourists’ preferences conducted by the 5.4-million-circulation Tokyo daily Mainichi Shimbun shows Hawaii scoring 20 points and South Pacific countries nine in the ‘most appreciated countries’ section. The list was headed by the United States (33 points), followed by France with 28. Guam received one point only. Under the section ‘countries offering the warmest welcome’, however, Guam did better, filling eighth position in a list headed by Hawaii. South Pacific countries come third (after Switzerland and Canada) in the ‘most beautiful countries’ slot. Under the heading ‘countries you’d most like to visit’, the South Pacific comes sixth after Switzerland, Australia, Canada, Greece and China. The US fills seventh place.

New Border Pact For Png-Indonesia

Papua New Guinea and Indonesia expect to conclude a new border administration agreement later this year, according to a communique issued following Indonesian President Suharto’s visit to PNG in June. The agreement will supersede the existing one negotiated between Indonesia and Australia in 1974, before PNG’s independence.

American Samoa In Booze Big League

American Samoa is third in the world for beer consumption. Its inhabitants last year drank 1 009 800 gallons, equal to 31 gallons for every man, woman and child in the territory. Only Australia (37 gallons per capita) and West Germany (34) were ahead.

The Rarotongan In Money Trouble

For the second year running the Cook Islands' main hotel, The Rarotongan, has been unable to meet its interest payments to the Tourist Hotel Corporation of New Zealand. The corporation, which owns a third of the shares in Cook Islands Hotels Ltd, was not paid SNZS64 500 in interest due to it last year. In the 1977 trading year, the shortfall in interest payments was $37 765. ‘HOME ARE THE SAILORS . .

Four Western Samoa fishermen are home safe and_ sound afer being presumed lost at sea in January. Their boat’s outboard motor broke down and they drifted for more than a month before making a landfall on the island of Futuna.

Air Nauru Gets Auckland Rights

New Zealand and Nauru have agreed to start a weekly Boeing 737 air service between Auckland and Nauru. It is understood Air Nauru hopes to fly to New Zealand from the New Hebrides and New Caledonia. Air Nauru made its first application for an Auckland service seven years ago.

Cooks’ Deficit Down

The Cook Islands Government has reduced the country’s deficit from $3 million to SBOO 000 in a year. In a comment to the Auckland Star Cooks Premier Dr Tom Davis claimed the achievement was remarkable in view of the expenses faced by the government in the fly-in voters’ case and subsequent criminal proceedings.

Pacific Report

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South Pacific Forum

French Territories

The Forum ‘Interferes’

No one invited them to come officially. But there was no way Solomon Islands was going to prevent them. And almost everybody made them welcome, even if New Zealand Prime Minister Robert Muldoon said he didn’t think the South Pacific Forum was the place for it.

Early in the piece, as Pacific heads were arriving in Honiara for the Forum gathering, Yann Celene Uregei, Nidoishe Naisseline, Franqois Otonari and Jean-Marie Tjibaou, representing the five parties comprising New Caledonia’s Kanak ‘lndependence Front’, were on deck at the Point Cruz Mendana Hotel, ready to talk to anyone willing to give an ear to their cause.

With them they had brought a letter from the Prime Minister’s Department in Western Samoa which, they said, had promised support for them at the Forum. They had also been assured, they said, of Papua New Guinea’s backing which, as it turned out, they got wholeheartedly, but only to limited avail.

Forum delegations all 12 of them - had earlier received a petition, signed by leaders of South Pacific Forum discussion of the French presence in the Islands has been muted since Paris decided in 1975 to go underground with its nuclear testing programme on Mururoa Atoll in French Polynesia. But the presence of four New Caledonian Melanesian independence campaigners in Honiara for July's heads of government meeting changed all that, writes PIM Editor Bob Hawkins. the five parties making up the Independence Front Union Caledonienne (UC), Parti de Liberation Kanak (Palika), Parti Socialiste Caledonien (PSC), Front Uni de Liberation Kanak (FULK) and Union Progressiste Melanesienne (UPM). Basically, the petition wanted the Forum to ask the United Nations Committee of 24 on decolonisation to have New Caledonia listed as a ‘non-autonomous’ territory and, therefore, eligible ultimately to be ‘decolonised’. (See petition extracts in box page 13.) ‘Champion’ of the moment of the Melanesians’ selfdetermination campaign was Papua New Guinea’s Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ebia Olewale who still shows some of the grit and fire which earned him the tag ‘rebel’ in pre-self-government PNG.

Mr Olewale arrived on Saturday night, July 7, two days before the heads of government deliberations were to begin. The following morning he had a short but obviously amicable session with his four Melanesian friends from New Caledonia at the water’s edge in the grounds of the hotel. No furtive hotel room lobbying here. (As days went by, Mr Uregei and company were to be seen talking freely with most, but not all, heads of delegations.) In quick succession followed press conferences with the four independence campaigners and Mr Olewale.

Francois Otonari of Union Caledonienne was interpreter for his group, the other three having some understanding of English but little or no spoken command. Because an interpreter was necessary, the New Caledonian Melanesian case came out a little ragged: ‘We represent the Front for Independence. We represent five parties in New Caledonia ... On the agenda of the Forum there is the question of the French territories of the Pacific so we want a question to be put forward at the Committee of 24 at the United Nations. That’s why we came . . . We contacted Mr Olewale this morning to push our motion . . . We got a letter from Western Samoa and assurance from PNG that they would give us full support at the Forum 9 Asked what they thought of Mr Muldoon’s indication that he would not support the PNG motion, Mr Otonari continued: ‘Our motion is to inform everybody, including New Zealand, about the internal problems in New Caledonia . . . Two other countries .. . they said we would get their support but they did not write . . . This was February .. . Cooks and Tuvalu gave us verbal support this morning .. . Australia does not want to be in front of this problem of French territories but they are in favour of decolonisation. They are sympathetic. The men who saw us today from Australia said they feel the same as Papua New Guinea ... but I think Australia’s position is different.

They would rather see the small countries of the Pacific . . .’

Tell them the percentages,’

New Hebridean journalist Hilda Uni suggested. Mr Otonari continued: The 14 seats (won by the Independence Front in the recent New Forum delegation leaders, from left. Acting Prime Minister Ratu Sir Penaia Ganilau, Fiji, Prime Minister Prince Tu[?]pelehake, Tonga; President Hammer deRoburt, Nauru; SPEC Director Mahe Tupouniua; Prime Minister Toalipi Lauti, Tuvalu; Prime Minister Robert Muldoon, New Zealand; Prime Minister Peter Kenilorea, Solomon Islands; Premier Robert Rex, Niue; Chief Minister Gerard Leymang, New Hebrides; Deputy Prime Minister Doug Anthony, Australia; Premier Tom Davis, Cook Islands; Minister of Finance Vaovasamanaia Filipo, Western Samoa; Minister of Trade and Communications, Roniti Teiwaki, Kiribati.

Caledonia elections see box page 15) represent the Melanesians. We know now where everyone stands. From 1969 to 1976 there have been 15 000 newcomers, more than 11 000 Europeans, principally from France. There are 135 000 people in New Caledonia and 55 000 Melanesians .. . You have heard about Mr Dijoud. • He has got a plan. That majority [in the recent election] is in favour of that plan. He says that in 10 years from now there will be 400 000 people in New Caledonia .. . And in 10 years from now Melanesians will be only 30% of the total population ... [The projected 400 000 figure for New Caledonia’s population within 10 years seemed to have become something of an obsession with the Independent Front representative even though, in all printed accounts PIM has read of the ‘Dijoud Plan’ there is nothing to support it. However it is understandable that, if Melanesians of New Caledonia have got this idea into their heads, they are even more anxious than before to rally help from around the Pacific. Even without the Dijoud Plan their position is already precarious.] Melanesians who voted for independence? 82.5% of all Melanesians voted for independence.’

Question: How did you acquire that figure?

Answer: ‘Because we know all of these people, or groups of people, who work with us, who are either European or Melanesian. We have been in politics for 25 years.’

End of press conference. On to another with Mr Olewale: Q: A French official has said a discussion of independence for 'he French territories at the Forum meeting would be ' egarded by France as an un- Yiendly act.

Dlewale: I think all human beings are entitled to selfietermination ... and if they lave friends who want to help hem I think the act by those fiends towards helping them hould not be regarded as an mfriendly act. f. New Zealand's position is hat the matter doesn I belong at he Forum level.

O: I believe the Forum has every right to discuss the matter because the Forum happens to be the organisation of sovereign independent states in the Pacific and if there are other Pacific people who want decolonisation, rightly it should be the concern of the Forum.

Q: How many other members of the Forum would support your attitude on that?

O: I know for a fact that Western Samoa would support this idea. There are others I have heard through the grapevine that would also support us Q: Have you had any formal French Government approach ... to try to persuade you to drop this issue?

O: When was it? Friday. Some junior officer from the French Government went to Port Moresby and he wanted to see either the prime minister or myself but we thought he was such a.. .just a civil servant. . . that it was not proper for civil servants to see heads of governments so we referred him to our Department of Foreign Affairs. He presented a written message from the president of France which in fact said the same sort of thing which Olivier Stirn has preached lately in his travels to the Pacific ...

Q: Did Mr Stirn at any stage suggest he should go to Port Moresby himself?

O: Yes. He made a request but his time did not fit in with our prime minister’s time table or my time table. I was away in Southeast Asia and the prime minister was attending the provincial premiers’ conference ... and I think he had such a short time to stay in the Pacific that he decided not to come to Port Moresby.

Q: Had it fitted in with your time table would you have been prepared to meet him?

O: Oh yes. Sure.

Q: What would you like the Forum to do on this question?

Would you like it to come up with a formal resolution to refer it to the Committee of 24?

O: That is what Papua New Guinea would like to see happen. A general resolution on decolonisation in the Pacific, and finally for it to find its way to the UN Committee of 24.

Q: How do you see your motion to raise the issue of French territories as a contrast to your foreign policy ... Do you see it as antagonising France?

O: I don’t think it is antagonising France. I think I am sure it is very clear to you that there are countries in the South Pacific like a . . . Where are you from? ... Yes, like Solomons, and you are happy that you are independent now. Like me. I am happy Papua New Guinea is now an independent country.

And how would you feel about other Pacific Islanders being ruled from Europe? Europe is very far away from the Pacific.

Q: You say you cannot do anything about Irian Jaya because it is part of Indonesia. The French claim New Caledonia is part of France. So how is it that What Papua New Guinea wanted This is how Papua New Guinea would have liked the South Pacific Forum’s resolution on The Question of French Territories in the South Pacific’ to have read: The governments comprising the South Pacific Forum welcomed the progress being made in the New Hebrides towards independence, and expressed the hope that all major political groups in that Island territory would work closely together in preparing for their independence. The Forum took note of the petition forwarded by the New Caledonian (Kanak) United Front as well as similar requests from French Polynesia, and called upon France to allow the people of the remaining French possessions in the Pacific to determine their own future in a way which allows them genuine freedom of choice, and in particular safeguards the interests of the indigenous people.

What the Forum gave This is the Forum’s resolution: The governments comprising the South Pacific Forum welcomed the progress being made in the New Hebrides towards independence, and expressed the hope that all major political groups in that Island territory would work closely together in preparing for their independence. Noting the desire of Pacific Island peoples, including those in French territories, to determine their own future, the Forum reaffirmed its belief in the principle of self-determination and independence applying to all Pacific Island peoples in accordance with their freely expressed wishes.

Accordingly, the Forum called on the metropolitan powers concerned to work with the peoples of their Pacific territories to this end.

NZ’s Robert Muldoon meets Solomon Islands’ Peter and Margaret Kenilorea ... not the place for It. Photo: Un Tak Fook

South Pacific Forum

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you come to support the New Caledonia issue but not West Papua?

O: The difference is that in West Papua the United Nations, the world organisation, carried out a plebiscite.

No such thing has happened in New Caledonia yet.

So, with Papua New Guinea’s cards on the table, New Caledonia’s Melanesians got on with their lobbying until heads of delegation headed off to Tambea, up the coast of Guadalcanal, for their now traditional ‘informal’ talks about the Forum agenda. When they returned in the evening word was, according to one delegate, that they had had ‘the best informal session ever’.

But, next day, it was clear that the New Caledonia issue was not one which had gone well at Tambea. By lunchtime almost all other agenda business, in formal session, had been disposed of and national leaders and deputies were ‘five minutes’ into the French territories debate.

At the afternoon teabreak it seemed some progress had been achieved and a drafting committee comprising Papua New Guinea, Australia and Fiji - was working on a watered-down form of the PNG resolution. Australian Foreign Minister Andrew Peakcock seemed confident that an acceptable formula was imminent but he obviously still felt it necessary to put an arm around his old friend, Ebia Olewale, and guide him away to a waterside seat where earnest discussion followed.

Though out of earshot, it certainly didn’t look as if Mr Peacock was finding the going easy in his attempts to persuade Mr Olewale to accept anything less than PNG’s original proposal.

Back into session and a long one. Finally delegates reemerged to an eager press corps. Dr Tom Davis, premier of the Cook Islands, elected spokesman for the Forum, did a smooth job of rationalising what at first appeared to be almost an act of appeasement of the French.

In Dr Davis’ lunchtime briefing on the morning session there had been an interesting exchange: Question: Will you discuss the matter of the French territories this afternoon?

Davis: It could be held over.

Q: Until tomorrow?

D: Until later.

It seems at that stage that there was some doubt as to whether the French territories would appear in the final communique, even as an agenda item which delegations had chosen not to discuss.

But the Papua New Guinea delegation had no intention of letting the issue disappear.

While not doubting the ability of both Melanesian and Polynesian to put up a good fight when they really decide to dig their heels in, of the nations which have emerged in a decolonising Pacific, none can match Papua New Guinea in the way it casts caution and economic considerations to the wind in pursuit of what it considers ‘moral’ goals. (Irian Jaya, of course, is more than a simple economic risk for PNG.) Dr Davis recorded later, when asked if PNG had accepted the will of the Forum: Kanak case Chief points in the petition presented to the South Pacific Forum by the Kanak independence advocates from New Caledonia were; • ‘New Caledonia has been colonised by France since September 24, 1853, and for more than 125 years the French colonial power has made the Kanak people exiles in their own country, on their land, in relation to its natural wealth, and in all fields of activity.’ • ‘The accession of the Kanak people to independence is in accordance with the wishes of the French people who abolished French colonialism by approving the constitution of 1958. In the struggle for liberation of the Kanak people we distinguish between the desire of the people of France to grant us independence, and the dictatorial policy of the French military and imperialist state which has silenced the legitimate voice of our people by implanting in New Caledonia an artificially imported population.’ • Tt is thus urgent and absolutely necessary that the case of New Caledonia be included in the list of “nonautonomous territories” whose cases are studied by the United Nations Committee of 24 with a view to achieving their decolonisation.’ • ‘We would remind you that by resolution 66 (1) of December 14, 1946, of the General Assembly of the United Nations, New Caledonia was among the 74 territories listed as nonautonomous by the UN. But the following year, unilaterally and without the prior agreement of the General Assembly, France withdrew it from the list using as a pretext the fact that New Caledonia, Saint-Pierre and Miquelon, and the French territories in the South Seas, whose populations already enjoyed extensive political rights, had been endowed with a form of administration which, on the whole, was very similar to that of the departments of France itself as far as the status of the inhabitants and their system of political representation are concerned. For this reason, the French Government ceased to give information to the UN about New Caledonia .. .’ • ‘A request for inclusion of New Caledonia in the list of non-autonomous territories is nothing new . . (The petition then gave details of similar requests to the UN Committee of 24 in relation to French Somalia, in 1965, and the Comore Islands, in 1971.) • ‘Bearing in mind the above, and recalling that New Caledonia is part of the Pacific region, the movements for Kanak liberation, united in the one cause, ask the Pacific states, with their high awareness of French colonial policy in this region, and the South Pacific Forum, as a united political force, to take the initiative in asking for the inclusion of New Caledonia in the list of nonautonomous territories before the UN Committee of 24.’

Premier Davis at press conference ... a smooth rationalisation of what at first appeared to be appeasement. Photo Un Tak Fook

South Pacific Forum

‘They have eventually, but I must give them credit for fighting very hard on behalf of the indigenous peoples of New Caledonia.’

The Cooks premier in several ways made the Forum’s final resolution look so much more reasonable. He explained; ‘The first resolution was considered by the majority ... to be too specific towards the French which could be considered interference in internal affairs. In other words, France is not the only nation in the Pacific which has colonial rights *Over Pacific peoples. I think ... all of us feel very strongly for the selfdetermination of Pacific peoples .. . Those of us who have been associated with New Zealand or Australia have a feeling of ... a strong feeling, perhaps carrying a bit of pain to it, that there are still peoples who are not free. Australia and New Zealand have bent over backwards to create the independence of peoples originally colonially under their guidance. But nevertheless there is a degree of responsibility that has to be taken. Even with the help of the bending backwards of Australia and New Zealand (it) still took considerable time to work out the independence of the peoples associated with them.’

Dr Davis agreed that the final resolution was far short of what the New Caledonian Independence Four had wanted but the ‘Forum has to act responsibly in not becoming a platform for a political party’.

Question: This (the resolution) does not preclude individual members of the forum taking the matter to the Committee of 242 Davis: That is exactly right.

Q: Was that discussed?

D: Yes. These individuals, these particular political entities, can speak with each of the members of the Forum privately. There is little doubt that they will be given support in their aims.

Dr Davis said he accepted the assurances from Olivier Stirn that France would grant independence if a majority of people voted that way but added that the limitations on that acceptance were the ‘constituents of a population. Are they Frenchmen? Are they soldiers? Are they in the army?

Are they imported to work in nickel mines? Or whatever.

And have a vote. In other words, the issue is indigenous people’.

Question: It has been suggested Cook Islands would support moves to have this question put before the Committee of 24.

Davis: I don’t think we can do any less.

Q: Then you support them.

D:Yes.

Q: Therefore you are personally disappointed at the resolution which has come out of the Forum.

D: I am not disappointed in terms of the Forum. As an individual I feel disappointed that there wasn’t much more that we can do.

Q: What essentially was the difficulty that the Forum had in accepting the proposal put forward by Papua New Guinea?

D: The difficulty was the fact that this constituted (the viewpoint of) a party and probably a minority party. It did not constitute a national wish.

Q: Do vou at any stage see the Pacific being wholly independent?

D: Oh! I do. It could be half a decade. These things are moving along faster than you think. That is some reason why one should take a fairly responsible attitude rather than supporting, say, the Toto tupuna in Tahiti which is a strong group, vociferous and doing what they can politically ... but a relalively small minority in terms of the total population. (Once again I had the feeling that certain Pacific leaders, including Australian and New Zealand, know something on this matter that they are not willing to impart to the press.

A year ago I met a highly respected authority on the Islands who didn’t drop hints, like Dr Davis seemed to be doing. He bluntly suggested that France would be out of New Caledonia in about three years. In fact we wagered a carton of beer on the point, with me assuming that I would be able to drink it in a still-French New Caledonia sometime in 1982. On several other occasions in the past year I have met the ‘wink wink, nudge nudge’ approach in people who ought to know what they are talking about. If they’re right, there was more to the Forum’s easy approach in Honiara than immediately met the eye. It is possible that the ‘wink and nudge’ experts have a weather eye on political Above: Melanesian Independence Front reps, from left Naisseline, Uregei, Tjlbau and Otonari ... talking to most everybody; right: PNG’s Olewale ... a determined stand.

Photos Bob Hawkins

South Pacific Forum

developments in France, where combined Leftist forces such as the Socialist and Communist parties are usually only a few percentage points off achieving power in Presidential and national elections. If they succeed in bridging this gap at any time, French policy in the Pacific could undergo dramatic changes in favour of independence for the indigenous peoples of the Pacific territories.) Talking around delegation members afterwards it was apparent that though the Forum had acted in ‘statesmanlike’ manner, sympathies generally lay with New Caledonia’s minority Melanesian community.

Most important, even though some delegates seemed unaware of the breakdown of New Caledonia’s population (and the implications of the Melanesians’ now precarious position within their homeland), their major concern was the protection of the rights of the ‘indigenous’ peoples.

One delegate’s eyes opened in surprise (only the cynical would have said mock surprise) when the various components of the New Caledonian population (and their percentages) were detailed to him. ‘Why didn’t the Forum know these facts?’ he asked.

The two New Hebridean observers, Chief Minister Father Gerard Leymang, and Minister for Public Administration George Kalkoa (of the Vanuaaku Part y)’ were sported to ave been biting their lips as the y listened ’ unable to contribute to the French territories debate in the formal Forum sessions, Afterwards, Father Leymang told me: did not understand the Australian and New Zealand reas °ning in the Forum. It ™ ust have *? een economic con- Sld w atl £ n ?i ~ Ka koa told me New Caledonia would be a priority foreign affairs matter after New Hebrides gains its dependence next year. He adm *“ ed «■»« his party had been helping the Kanak movement ‘" New Caledon.a for <• , , . quite a while and it was a , continuing process. ~ r .

On the question of whites in x Ta „, n i a .

New Caledonia, he comt , tI r . mented; I am afraid it is very hard to give any clear intention as to how the New Caledonians can * sort this out. If New Caledonia achieves mdependence they (the whites) will be given the option of choosing whether they want to stay and become citizens.’ He was quite cynical about many of the Europeans who stood in the recent New Caledonian elections: ‘They could only stand because someone is dishing out money somewhere.’ He believed that only in electorates where Melanesians were outnumbered had anti-independence candidates been elected.

One source suggested the Forum breakdown on the French territories question was roughly as follows: For the PNG resolution PNG, Western Samoa, Fiji and Tuvalu; highly sympathetic Cook Islands, Kiribati, Tonga, Niue; against the PNG resolution Australia, New Zealand and Nauru, the latter, as one voice put it, being ‘caught in an economic vice’ (President Hammer de Roburt recently visited Paris); would have preferred no record at all in the final communique Australia and New Zealand.

Fiji is understood to have indicated some preference for the Banaba (Ocean) Island issue to have been included in the resolution, but this was settled separately with a mild resolution congratulating the Banabans and Kiribatians on their willingness to keep talking about the Banabans’ desire to get out of the Republic of Kiribati, and Tarawa’s determination to keep them in.

The final resolution was drafted by a committee comprising Australia, Papua New Guinea and Fiji. One wonders how long Andrew Peacock’s ‘special’ relationship with certain of PNG’s leaders will survive.

Post-Forum, it was revealed that New Zealand’s Prime Minister Muldoon had tried to compare a New Zealand South Island secessionist movement with the New Caledonian situation. He was not the only red herring specialist. It was also suggested that Mr Peacock had expressed the view that Papua New Guinea’s own Bougainville and Papua Besena problems were analogous.

Obviously, both Australia and NZ were desperate for parallels. In the Pacific there is no analogy to the position of the Melanesians in New Caledonia an indigenous population in the minority. Unless one looks to Australia and New Zealand.

God forbid that should happen again in this ‘enlightened’ age.

The faces have it More eloquently than any figures whether expressed absolutely, or as percentages - the photographs of the successful candidates in the July 1 elections to New Caledonia’s Territorial Assembly, as published in the special election issue of the Noumea Paper France Australe, tell a vital part of the New Caledonian story.

Among the 15 successful candidates of the rightwing RPCR, only three physically appeared to be Islanders - Dick Ukeiwe and A. Parawi-Reybas (Kanaks), and Petolo Manuofiua (Wallisian).

Of the seven successful FNSC (Centrist) candidates, only one appeared to be an islander Melito Finau (Wallisian).

These two groupings, with their total of 22 seats, form the new majority in the assembly - 18 Caucasians and four Islanders, on the evidence of the photographs.

In the circumstances, it is not perhaps so surprising that the photographs of the 14 successful candidates for the Independence Front the new opposition in the assembly contained only three of persons who appeared to be Caucasians: Francois Burck, Maurice Lenormand and Jacques Laviolette.

New Hebrides Kalkoa and Leymang ... puzzled at the Australasian attitude. Photo: Bob Hawkins PAP.IPIP ICI AMPIO UAmti n \/

South Pacific Forum

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POLITICAL CURRENTS President Giscard: Two territories, two messages For the first time in 13 years, a French president has paid an official visit to France’s Pacific territories. But the most casual . comparison of President Charles de Gaulle’s September 1966 tour with the July 1979 visit by President Valery Giscard d’Estaing highlights many of the changes that have taken place in the region in the intervening years.

President Giscard, for example, drew a highly differentiated picture of France’s relations with the two main territories of New Caledonia and French Polynesia something President de Gaulle probably felt himself under no great compulsion to do in 1966.

Furthermore, President Giscard knew he was operating against the delicate background of keen challenge within the highly influential South Pacific Forum to the whole principle of France’s presence in the Pacific. (The Forum had completed its deliberations in Honiara only a few days before he arrived in the Pacific - PIM page 10).

President de Gaulle had no such problem with the (as yet unborn) Forum in 1966.

Finally, President Giscard received in Noumea the two top Francophone and Anglophone representatives of the soon -to-be-independent New Hebrides. He spoke French to one, and English to fie other (Political Currents).

Le grand Charles' in 1966 had 'ound himself under no such axing obligation.

Perhaps the most dramatic political aspect of President discard’s Pacific tour was the renchant manner in which he listinguished between the -rench relationship with J olynesia on the one hand and <ew Caledonia on the other. (In New Caledonia there are ibout 55 000 Melanesians and 0 000 Europeans. In elections •n July 1, the vote was 65% in avour of continued association fith France, and 35% for tidependence - PIM, Political Currents. In French Polynesia the population is about 80% Polynesian, and there is a much broader consensus for maintaining the status of autonomy within the French community.) On July 19 in Papeete, President Giscard voiced his belief in ‘Polynesia’s French future’.

Earlier, he had referred to France’s relations with French Polynesia as ‘lasting’, since the population, he said, had strongly expressed its desire to remain with France.

In Noumea, on the first leg of his tour, he had used quite different language. According to a correspondent of the semiofficial French newsagency Agence France-Presse travelling with the president: in New Caledonia, President Giscard d’Estaing had a doublebarrelled message for the French and Melanesian communities ... He warned the settlers that there would be no unconditional support from France for any colonial-style behaviour in the post-colonial period. “France’s image must no longer be tarnished by the sequels of the colonial era,” he said. ‘President Giscard d’Estaing told the Europeans to settle the problem of their relations with the indigenous community known as “Kanaks”. ‘But he fired off the other round at the Kanaks. French presence could not be maintained unless it was desired by a majority of the population of New Caledonia. “New Caledonians are masters of their destiny,” he said. The Kanaks could have independence if they could win it at the ballot box. But it would be at their own risk and peril.’

In his speech to the territorial assembly. President Giscard returned to the attack on entrenched conservative elements in the Caledonian community, saying: ‘Nothing important or lasting will be created in this territory if you do not restore to the Melanesians the place which is rightfully theirs in the New Caledonia of tomorrow.’ He said that the best way to do this would be to give back to the Melanesian community the land which was wrested from them during the colonial period.

The president stressed French efforts for the economic development of New Caledonia, but warned citizens that sooner or later they would have to participate financially in these projects.

He raised the problem of direct taxation, which does not exist in New Caledonia, but which the French Government wishes to establish, he said, ‘in the interests of justice and equity’.

The AFP correspondent reported that the welcome to the president was ‘far warmer in Po | ynesia lhan in New Caledonia'. Among sour notes accompanying the Caledonian visit the correspondent mentioned; a dem F onstratlon b 300.400 supporters of independence in the streets of NoU m ea 0 n July 18: a boycott of the president’s speech to the 36member territorial assembly by the 14 pro-independence members' who had sent him a letter protesting at their exclusion rom positions or committees in the territorial government; the felling of trees President de Gaulle, Tahiti, 1966 ... no problems, the Forum wasn’t born AClFin A M HC MHMTU I \s prnrrunrn

on the island of Touho in an attempt to stop a large turn-out to welcome the president; and the presence of proindependence banners on the island of Lifou, Loyalty Islands. (President Giscard became the first French head of state ever to visit Kanak tribal areas, and the Loyalty Islands, where pro-independence sentiment is traditionally strong.) But, according to news reports available to PIM at the time of going to press, the visit to French Polynesia was marred by no such incidents; President Giscard was welcomed by French Polynesia’s Deputy Premier Francis Sanford, accompanied by a group of Polynesian dancers in national costume. Nothing seems to have happened during the visit to mar the lei- laden atmosphere of its beginning.

In his speeches in French Polynesia, the president vowed that France would not be sparing in support and solidarity for the Polynesians, since, he claimed, they had freely chosen to remain within the French community.

Measures he announced included steps to reduce the difference in living standards between Tahiti and the territory’s other archipelagoes, and plans to deal with social problems and reducing unemployment.

The president made two other sorties on his Pacific tour: he paid a three-hour visit to the French territory of Wallis and Futuna, where he met the three ruling kings and took part in a traditional drinking ceremony; then, as his final stop, he chose the Moruroa nuclear testing range. The AFP correspondent had the following comment: ‘For all the discretion surrounding that visit, the stopover marked the relationship between France’s position as a ranking nuclear power and the French presence in the Pacific.’

Nh Leaders

See Giscard

During his July visit to Noumea, French President Valery Giscard d’Estaing had a half-hour conversation with Gerard Leymang and Walter Lini, respectively chief minister and deputy chief minister of the New Hebrides. Present also were the British and French resident commissioners, Andrew Stuart and Jean- Jacques Robert.

Emerging from the meeting.

Father Leymang told a Radio New Hebrides reporter that when President Giscard asked how far preparatory work for the country’s independence had gone, members of the delegation were obliged to reply that the question was ‘premature’. Fr Leymang added; ‘The constitutional committee has only been working in a consistent manner for too short a time.

Moreover, the two constitutional experts, Messrs Zorgbibe and Yash Gai, had only very recently left the New Hebrides after their second visit.’ ‘But,’ said Fr Leymang, ‘we were able to tell the president that a consensus has been reached within the government on the question of a parliamentary system. Discussions now centre on the distribution of legislative, judicial and executive powers.’

Saying he had been struck by the president’s unequivocal declaration that France would aid the New Hebrides ‘without any ulterior nationalist motive’, Fr Leymang said: T expressed my viewpoint that in matters of requests for aid and co-operation we should first and foremost approach France and Great Britain. ‘But I also made the point that aid arrangements should be changed once independence is achieved, and could well involve (and why not?) neighbouring Pacific countries as well.’

Commenting on the meeting in an interview with the French/Bislama weekly Nabanga, Deputy Chief Minister Walter Lini (whose conversation with the French president was conducted in English on both sides) said he also had raised questions of post-independence aid.

Father Lini said: i asked the French president if aid would be direct, or would come through the European Economic Community. He replied that it would be given through both channels. For my part. 1 would prefer that aid should be handled from one international organisation to another, with the Pacific countries sharing out available funds for precisely determined projects.’

Fr Lini said that while, in his opinion, the trustee powers were prepared to grant the New Hebrides independence very rapidly, there were many difficulties in putting the matter into effect at the local level. ‘The residencies and the responsible party leaders know that, on the constitution for example, there are certain matters that will not be at all easy to negotiate, mainly because of political differences,’ he said.

But Fr Lini said he still hoped that the constitution would be ready before the tentative date chosen for the elections (October 17). ‘ln any case it’s now clear that responsibility for any obstacles that appear in the process of independence will be on the shoulders of the political parties involved.’

Fr Lini was no doubt referring not only to his own Vanuaaku Party, but also to its opposition, the ‘moderate’

Federal Party which, at a ‘minicongress’ in July, had stood out for the retention of a referendum on the constitution before going ahead with elections. This decision cuts across the agreement reached with the trustee powers that the constitutional referendum should be replaced by other measures (PIM August). The Federal Party declared that without clear prior approval of the constitution, it could go as far as boycotting the elections.

Background to this position is a fear on the part of the ‘moderates’, especially on Santo, that the constitution may not provide sufficiently strong guarantees of a decentralised state structure for the future independent New Hebrides.

Tuvalu’S Pm

TELLS WHY Tuvalu’s unorthodox moneygenerating tactics would never have been adopted if Britain President Giscard in bilingual talks with New Hebrides leaders Gerard Leymang (centre) and Walter Uni in Noumea Nabanga photo

Political Currents

had coughed up with the £2.6 - million it had promised in special development funds, said Prime Minister Toalipi Lauti in an interview with PlM’s Editor Bob Hawkins, in Honiara in July.

Mr Lauti said he had made serious efforts to obtain the money from Britain but had received no reply. ‘lf that money had come,’ he said, ‘I would not have taken the trip to the US. We could have used the special development fund to develop our fishing industry.’ (It is no secret that Britain did not want Tuvalu to split from Gilbert Islands now Kiribati and several observers feel that London’s response to the Tuvaluans’ decision in 1975 to go it alone has been less than generous.) Mr Lauti was replying to criticism emanating from foreign affairs officials in London, Canberra, Washington and Wellington (PIM July).

Clearly, Tuvalu’s leader has ruffled the feathers of Western aid-givers but, equally clearly, he is suffering no loss of determination to press on along the course he has chosen.

When compared with Kiribati’s position where there is a phosphate reserve fund of about SA6B million, the interest from which will help finance the recurrent budget it is not surprising Mr Lauti has taken the gamble he has in investing more than $5OO 000 with American, Californiabased businessman, Sidney Gross, at a promised interest rate of 15%.

Most of that money was given to Tuvalu on independence day at a ceremony at the philatelic bureau on Funafuti, a joint venture between Tuvalu and a Bristol, England, philatelic company. Mr Lauti regarded that money as a ‘gift for Tuvalu to do what we wanted with’. Unlike Kiribati, Tuvalu had no reserve fund at independence.

The first quarterly interest payment on the investment with Mr Gross was due in July. ‘That money,’ he said, ‘will be the start of our reserve fund. It will go into our own bank account to be withdrawn and reinvested as required.’

There’s no bitterness in Mr Lauti when he looks back to the days his nation was tied to Kiribati as the Gilbert and Ellice Islands. But he does not mind recalling that at the time of the split there was a reserve fund ‘which amounted to about $3l million. We did not get any of that. So we thought we should start to do something about that’.

At the time of the split which was at the wish of the Tuvaluan people - Mr Lauti and his supporters were not in government but he recalls that local leaders ‘had no voice whatsoever’ in negotiating the terms of the split. Apart from post-independence promises of aid, all that Tuvalu got out of the separation was a boat, the Nivaga, and the buildings which were already there.

Of his more recent visit to the United States and the deal he has made with Mr Gross, Mr Lauti put it this way: ‘What drove me to do it was this. In the 86 years we were with the Gilbert and Ellice, they (the authorities of the day) knew the only way to balance our budget would be by fishing. No survey was carried out until last year. If one had been carried out earlier we could have developed sufficiently to pay for our own budget.’

Mr Lauti said he had received no official communications from the Western governments which have been privately critical of his actions.

He considered it would be business as usual with Britain.

The independence agreement stood firm and there would be talks next year on future financial arrangements.

Of the three nations: Australia was continuing to fund the deepwater wharf, which is under construction at Funafuti, and the marine training school, and was continuing to offer scholarships to Tuvaluan students; New Zealand was assisting in the vital rodent control programme (to protect copra production), blasting reef passages and providing scholarships; United States had sent an aid man from Suva and had agreed to build a water storage tank and copra shed on one island.

Something of Tuvalu’s helplessness in the ocean from which it hopes its wealth will come, was evident in Mr Laud’s response to a question on surveillance of its 200-mile economic zone: ‘We know ships are still fishing in our waters. We see them come closer .. . and then they go away.’

Although the Royal New Zealand Air Force undertakes irregular aerial reconnaissance, Tuvalu has nothing with which to apprehend trespassers.

In July it was still awaiting news on steps being taken to acquire vessels which will mark the establishment of Tuvalu’s ’ fishing industry. Ultimately Mr Lauti wants to see a cannery established within the group but, as a start, he expects catches will be sold to American Samoa and Fiji which have major canning operations.

The Tuvalu story is likely to run on for some time to come.

The arrival, quarterly, of interest payments on its $5OO 000-plus investment will be watched with interest. But clearly, from the way in which Mr Lauti spoke to PIM in July, he wants nothing less than the full story to unfold. ‘I don’t want to keep anything secret,’ he said. ‘I want our people to be informed. I go by the laws of our country. It might be unorthodox on this occasion but I have my way of doing things.

If we had continued as we were we would have got nowhere.’

Through the coconut telegraph PIM learned that the Californian state government and Mr Gross have discussed his links with Tuvalu. It would seem that Washington is watching developments with interest. Possibly, in a couple of years, those cautious bureaucrats in the Western capitals will be eating their unfriendly words about Toalipu Lauti.

Footnote: PIM reported in June that local revenue-raising by Tuvalu in 1977 amounted to only $693 770. Mr Lauti pointed out that this total, in fact, was $864 000, Britain’s grant-in-aid being $7llOOO.

Tuvalu’s actual expenditure that year was $1 575 000.

OCCUPYING KWAJALEIN An obstacle that could threaten United States Senate ratification of the Strategic Arms Limitations Talks (SALT) II treaty is developing at the US Army’s top secret missile testing range in the Pacific, writes Gilf Johnson from Kwajalein, Marshall Islands.

Little known Kwajalein Missile Range (KMR), where most of America’s strategic nuclear weapons delivery systems have been tested, is to be the test site for 20 shots of the new SUS3O billion MX missile. But island residents are attempting to close KMR as hundreds of landowners occupied ‘offlimits’ radar tracking islands in late July, demanding compensation for army use of the islands and an end to missile tests which have polluted the world’s largest lagoon with potentially hazardous levels of radiation.

Missiles containing uranium have been shot into Kwajalein Atoll, dispersing their contents in the lagoon, it was reported in Washington recently.

Kwajalein lagoon uranium levels exceed US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) maximum limits of 155 parts per million, said Marshalls government sources. Because the army has not filed environmental impact statements for review by the EPA, the Marshalls government filed a federal law suit to block further tests until EPA requirements Toalipi Lauti ... unorthodox fund-raising only because his hand was forced. Photo: Un Tak Fook 19

Political Currents

PACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY SEPTEMBER, 1979

for tests are met. ‘We have closed it (the base) before and we will close it again,’ Marshallese leading the Kwajalein occupation said.

Although US State Department spokesmen have downplayed the importance of KMR, army representatives say there is ‘no comparable range anywhere else for testing the MX, and a great deal of time and money would be necessary to relocate the Kwajalein base’. Any appreciable delay in MX missile development could hurt passage of the SALT treaty in the US Senate, said a State Department spokesman recently.

Imada Kabua, a local legislature member, was clubbed with a nightstick by the American security manager as he led 25 unarmed men, women and children onto the beach at Roi Namur, a tiny island on the north tip of Kwajalein dotted with missile tracking equipment. ‘Maybe he thought he would scare us off the island by doing that,’ said Kabua, who sustained a five-inch bruise on his ribs. But, he added: ‘We are here to stay.’ Kabua immediately filed an assault and battery law suit against the security manager and the army seeking $5 million in damages.

Within a day there were close to 100 landowners occupying Roi Namur.

At the same time, hundreds of Marshallese landowners set up camp on Kwajalein Island, headquarters of KMR. There were no incidents. Spokespeople for the landowners said they are demanding renegotiation of a lease signed in 1964 in which the US paid $750 000 for 99 years use of Kwajalein - about $lO an acre per year and agreed to ‘improve the economic and social conditions of the Marshallese people, particularly at Ebeye ...’

In 1964, hundreds of Marshallese were moved to Ebeye from over a dozen islands in Kwajalein to make way for the army’s missile testing.

Now, critical health and living conditions on Ebeye, where more than 8000 Marshallese live on only 60 acres, have prompted the current protests.

While the US administers the island as part of the United Nations Trust Territory of the Pacific, little has been done to upgrade the festering health and sanitation problems on Ebeye, described recently as ‘a biological time bomb waiting to go off. Every year dozens of children die from the massive influenza and diarrhoea epidemics that sweep the tiny island, where the lagoon bacteria has been 25 000 times the safe level set by the World Health Organisation.

About 800 Marshallese work at service and maintenance jobs for KMR and are ferried to and from Kwajalein daily, as regulations require Marshallese to be off Kwajalein by night. ‘We can ? t continue to live on an unhealthy island like Ebeye,’ say landowners who have returned to their islands.

A scheduled Roi Namur missile test on July 21 was reportedly cancelled because of the occupation. But during smaller-scale protests in 1978, army’s ‘danger zone’.

American negotiators recently offered the Marshalls government $9 million a year for use of Kwajalein as a test site, attempting to halt further protests which have repeatedly delayed KMR operations during the past two years.

But Marshallese landowners want retroactive compensation for their years of suffering on Ebeye, and upwards of $l5 million a year for future use of the atoll, stated Marshallese leaders, adding that the US does not presently agree with these terms. ‘We intend to stay on our islands until we get a fair agreement with the US,’ said legislature member Kabua.

If not quickly resolved, the Kwajalein occupation and federal law suit to block further missile tests could have a serious impact on upcoming MX missile development. With SALT II in the bargain, it appears the US will have to negotiate for the first time on Marshallese terms.

Whither Png

JUSTICE?

The fate of British justice, whatever its merits and defects in a Melanesian society, appeare.d in the balance in Papua New Guinea in early August.

A sequence of events beginning in mid-July centring around letters from Justice Minister Nahau Rooney to the PNG judiciary brought an eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation between government and Chief Justice Sir William Prentice.

At stake was the principle of a totally independent judiciary, completely free of any influence in its task of interpreting the nation’s laws within the terms of the constitution.

What Mrs Rooney seemed to be suggesting was that, at times matters arose which were the ‘sole prerogative of government’ and that judges should ‘make a greater effort to use their discretion ... in the context of a proud and growing national consciousness’.

In a letter to the chief justice, Mrs Rooney referred to the case of Dr Ralph Premdas a political scientist the government had decided should be deported (PIM August) and to whom the National Court, with Mr Justice Pritchard on the bench, had given leave to appeal against deportation.

Mrs Rooney argued that nothing should stand in the way of the government’s right to deport whom it wished and neither justice nor injustice was involved .. .

The chief justice said Mrs Rooney had improperly and unconstitutionally brought pressures on the judiciary and invited ‘the government to act in the appropriate manner in defence of the constitution and of the courts’.

The national cabinet met under the chairmanship of Deputy Prime Minister Ebia Olewale and ‘reaffirmed the independence of the judiciary’ but did not see Mrs Rooney’s Ebeye Island, with Kwajalein atoll in the far background 20

Pacific Islands Monthly - September, 1979

Political Currents

letter as ‘showing interference with the independence of the judiciary’.

Prime Minister Michael Somare who had just returned from sick leave and was preoccupied with arrangements for declaration of PNG’s state of emergency to combat Highlands tribal fighting did not attend the cabinet session.

However, Mr Somare’s suggestion later that the situation which had developed was ‘not unusual and could help to establish precedent when it is resolved’ did nothing to assuage the judiciary but it did suggest some design in the chain of events.

Another letter came to light about the same time, from Mrs Rooney to Public Prosecutor Kevin Egan, in relation to the appearance before the National Court of Minister for National Planning John Kaputin on a charge of having failed to respond to a court order relating to returns for a company in which he was involved.

Mr Justice Pritchard tabled Mrs Rooney’s letter, which suggested that there was no reason for prosecuting Mr Kaputin and that ‘I trust you will use your discretion effectively’.

Judge Pritchard said Mrs Rooney’s earlier letter had inferred that he had discharged his duties without honour and he could not permit such an accusation. He then disqualified himself from hearing the charge against Mr Kaputin and announced his intention to resign from the judiciary.

On the same day Mrs Rooney did nothing to ease the tension by announcing that she was working towards a judicial system ‘more appropriate to Papua New Guinea’ in which locally-skilled people would sit with judges as assessors on all matters. (None of PNG’s eight judges at the time was Papua New Guinean).

It was all ideal ammunition for the opposition led by lambakey Okuk, never one to miss an opportunity to give the government a bad time. On August 1, on behalf of himself and ‘the people of Papua New Guinea’ he applied to the Supreme Court to gaol Mrs Rooney or remove her from office. The writ sought to have Mrs Rooney examined by the court about the letters she wrote and to have examined those who ‘connived, supported, aided, abetted and encouraged’ her in writing the letters.

The writ claimed that Mrs Rooney and others broke the constitution by giving directions on judicial matters. Mr Olewale on the same day indicated that cabinet had no intention of backing down by saying the situation provided ‘an opportunity for all members of the community to become better acquainted with the system of government and justice’, and saying that the constitution ‘belongs to the people of Papua New Guinea and arguments about its interpretation should not be left to lawyers alone’.

Mr Okuk’s writ was later disallowed by the court. For his part, the public prosecutor announced his intention of laying contempt charges against Mrs Rooney. They were to be heard on August 27.

In the meantime Dr Premdas’ appeal was heard and he was granted an extension of the injunction preventing the government from deporting him. He appealed on the grounds that he had been denied constitutional rights in which the government had dealt with him. The Supreme Court reserved its decision.

Nl: POMP

But No Joy

Norfolk Island’s new form of government, with a locally elected legislative assembly, was ushered into being in August with a ceremonial complement of dignitaries trom Australia on hand, writes a Norfolk correspondent.

The electors had voted the following into the assembly; president-elect and deputy president-elect: David Buffett, Bill Blucher; members: former councillors Brian Munn, Duncan Mclntyre, Bruce Mackenzie; new members Kevin Williams, John Ryves, Gilbert Jackson, Ed Howard.

Governor-General Sir Zelman Cowen, Minister for Home Affairs Bob Ellicott, Speaker of the House Sir Billy Snedden and Canberra-based high commissioners from England and New Zealand were among those who helped commemorate what Australia hopes will be seen as a big step out of colonialism and a start on the road to local selfgovernment for Norfolk.

Most Norfolk Islanders were astonished and dismayed at the assembly results, after using for the first time the new proportional representation system. Norfolk voters have always elected their members on a first-past-the-post system and could not quickly understand a system in which a voter’s number one vote was the important one and his other votes were regarded as mere preferences that might or might not be regarded.

As a result, two sitting Islanders, Lisle Snell and Greg Quintal, were passed over, although Quintal has been a councillor for 26 years. Ken Nobbs, president of the society of Pitcairn Descendants, also missed election. On the other hand, out of nine assembly members there are three public servants, including the new president of the assembly, David Buffett, who got in with a massive 254 first preference votes, compared with 87 for his nearest rival, Bill Blucher.

There is strong feeling on the island that the proportional system should not have been introduced just before an important election and certainly not without a massive public education programme to explain it.

Australian Minister for Home Affairs, Mr Ellicott, decided on the new system only five weeks before the election.

The council insisted on a referendum to seek public approval or otherwise for the proportional system, but this won’t be held until September.

Meanwhile, the minister insisted the assembly election go ahead under the new scheme. Some assembly members are asking what will happen should the referendum reject the scheme, which is thought likely. Would there be a call for new elections to be held under the old system?

There is a wide feeling that Mr Ellicott insisted on proportional representation in the hope that it would break up the voting patterns which seem to have ensured a ‘Norfolk Islander bloc’ has held power, and this bloc has made life difficult for the Commonwealth because of its anti-colonial, anti-integration-with-Australia, stance. If so the scheme has succeeded beyond the Minister’s dreams. But it could well rebound on him.

As the president of the assembly, David Buffett has an executive position and must resign from the administration.

As an executive officer of the assembly he will have ministerial-type duties in the new Norfolk Council, being responsible for finance, supply, commerce, immigration and tourism, among other things.

The only other executive position is held by Bill Blucher, deputy president. His responsibilities will include works and industries.

Whether they are a valid representative body or not, the assembly members were to face President Buffett ... as an executive of the assembly he must resign his administration job 21

Political Currents

PACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY SEPTEMBER, 1979

a small mountain of legislative and policy decisions as they took up office.

Under the recently passed Norfolk Island Act which created the assembly, they will be subject to Australian vetoes or disallowance for as long as six months after they’ve approved any Norfolk act. At the same time, they have been given at least the formal right of initiating laws on any Norfolk subject except raising armed forces, taking property unjustly, or coining money.

Among issues that will come before them in the early months of their existence are a new social welfare scheme, amended immigration restrictions, new public service laws, quite possibly new taxes, and the island’s first official zoning and conservation codes. Some of these bills may be drafted in Australia and introduced into the assembly in the name of the governor-general. Whether that is the case, or whether a bill originates on the island, the key questions on Norfolk will be how the assembly amends or passes them and whether the Australian Government then lets local wisdom prevail or exercises its superior powers to dictate the final laws.

The word ‘independence’ was heard publicly in July for the first time in any modern Norfolk election, with candidate Ken Nobbs, president of the Society of Descendants of the Pitcairn Settlers, saying he thought Norfolk should become free-standing and associated with Australia only on terms acceptable to the island. Most other candidates were cautious about committing themselves on the subject, and seemed to hope that Australia would treat the assembly’s proposals with some deference. If that proves to be the case, ‘independence’ talk can be expected to subside.

The island is still smarting from Mr Ellicott’s now notorious comment to the old council in negotiations last March: ‘You are under the complete bondage of the Australian Parliament. You are not free.’ If Australia presses that view, arguments in favour of independence will inevitably increase.

AFTER THE NC POLL If the members of the French Government were seeking a clearer picture of the political scene in New Caledonia they should now be happy, writes Andr'e Chaville from Noumea.

The July 1 elections were held under new rules which restricted the number of competing parties. As a result, three main federations fought a battle which, for the first time, was broadcast and televised.

Official reason for the election was renewal of territorial assembly. But the dominant issue in the election immediately became apparent: it was independence. For the first time the word was officially used, and those in favour of it were able to speak openly.

Thus, a state-owned television station carried interviews with candidates who were openly and sometimes quite violently critical of French domination.

For electors opposed to independence, there was some confusion. The Rightwing RPCR (Rally for Caledonia and the Republic) and the liberal FNSC (Federation for a New Society in Caledonia) both claimed to be ‘national’ parties, and both boasted the full support either of the president, the prime minister, or of Madame Veil, official leader of the National list for the European elections held three weeks before. Perhaps the great difference between the two was the amount of money they had available to spend on propaganda the financial backing enjoyed by the RPCR was probably influential in the final results: it got 20 253 votes, and won 15 seats.

For those who were a little more discerning, the picture was pretty clear. The RPCR was obviously related to the RPR, the unenthusiastic partner in the present governing coalition in Paris. The FNSC was supporting the plan of Overseas Territories Minister Paul Dijoud of reform, which includes a redistribution of land. With two representatives of large landholders on the RPCR list, there could be little doubt about their real feelings about at least this aspect of the Dijoud plan.

It is interesting that the FNSC received the support it did 8927 votes and seven seats in view of the fact that it stood candidates in only two of the four electoral districts.

An important aspect of the election was the geographical breakdown of results: the parties favouring independence obtained 62% of the votes on the East Coast and 64% in the Loyalty Islands. The two parties in favour of French authority both obtained their best results in Noumea: 81%, or even 90% if votes for the other small anti-independence parties are included in the count.

Comparing the results with the demographic situation in the territory shows that the unofficial issue, /or or against independence, has divided the population once again black versus white, or even Noumea versus the bush. Electors were scared of a ‘Pacific Rhodesia’ on the one hand, or ‘Black Power’ on the other when in fact neither of these outcomes was likely or even possible.

Composed as it is of 22 assemblymen opposed to independence and 14 favouring independence (proindependence candidates secured 16 883 votes), and the vital issue of ‘independence or not’ settled for the immediate future, doubtless the old feuds will soon reappear.

The FNSC will naturally expect to obtain seats in the future government council, while the opposition parties will rarely be united on all issues.

Png Extends

EMERGENCY Emergency regulations, introduced on July 23 by the government to deal with continuing tribal fighting in Papua New Guinea’s Highlands provinces, were approved and extended by the National Parliament on August 10.

Approval came despite opposition charges that the government had acted in a dictatorial and oppressive manner, unnecessarily curbing freedoms and undermining trade and commerce in the Highlands.

The August meeting of parliament was a constitutional requirement to approve or reject the government’s decision to introduce the emergency regulations.

The August 10 vote in parliament allows the government to extend the emergency by 60 days.

In the week the question was debated an opposition official claimed that reports were coming in from Simbu Province, which lies between the Eastern and Western Highlands Provinces, of assault, theft and rape by Royal Papua New Guinea Constabulary policemen exceeding authority extended to them under the emergency regulations.

The government’s July declaration came after many months of tribal clashes, mainly in the Enga Province to the west of the Western Highlands.

One European resident in Enga Province, who emphasised that he did not feel personally threatened by the fighting, said press reports had come ‘nowhere near’ describing the seriousness of the situation. More than 50 deaths have occurred so far this year and damage to stock, crops and houses is incalculable.

Greg Quintal ... an Islander passed over by the new-fangled voting system 22

Pacific Islands Monthly - September, 1979

DECOLONISATION

Kiribati: Free

But Red Taped

To Britain

No one complained or got drunk. And no one, not even a Banaban, was arrested. The Republic of Kiribati - the Gilbert Islands of colonial days moved smoothly into independence on July 12, writes John Carter.

Princess Anne, Queen Elizabeth IPs only daughter, with the help of husband Captain Mark Phillips, cut the colonial ties with Britain before a crowd of about 7000 in the National Sports Stadium at Bairiki on Tarawa atoll. The crowd cheered in a muted way, quite in keeping with Islanders’ ingrained respect for ‘higherups’. Then they went home to wonder what it was going to be like to be free.

Kiribati’s President Jeremiah T. Tabai, CMG, 29, told them: ‘We are embarking on a very difficult road.’ Princess Anne described the occasion as the opening of another chapter in a ‘long and continuing association between the British people and Kiribati’.

A few hours later she flew away, calling en route to Fiji and Australia at Funafuti, a gesture designed, presumably, to soothe feelings hurt last October 1 when her aunt. Princess Margaret, went down with a virus which prevented her from doing the honours at Tuvalu’s independence ceremonies.

Apart from the ‘half colony of New Hebrides and Pitcairn, that’s the end of Britain’s colonial history in the Pacific. But not the end of its spending. Between now and 1982 UK assistance to Kiribati will total around SA4O million. But even fiat figure is deceptive. A sizeable chunk of it, perhaps as nuch as two-thirds, will never cave Britain. That’s the red ape side of British aid.

There’s $9 million as grantn-aid at around $2.5 million a 'ear until 1982 to help pay for he recurrent budget. The innual input of $2.5 million vill be cut by whatever Kiribati werspends in the previous ear.

Tied even tighter is the £lB million in development aid tor a variety of projects - including fishing, technical training (in Britain), engineering schemes and the redevelopment of Banaba (Ocean Island). The last looks remarkably like conscience money.

The Kiribati Government isn’t impressed by the fact that the development aid must stay in sterling wherever possible.

Planners at Bairiki estimate this restraint, according to the 1978-82 Development Plan, will ‘reduce the gross value of aid allocations by 10-20%, even more, this being the difference between the best world prices and specifications and the items acquired under tied conditions’. Kiribati is trying to get the rules changed.

The only loan Kiribati has so far is $1.75 million from the Asian Development Bank for the bogged-down causeway project between Betio and Bairiki. Australia is funding a sewerage scheme and new machinery and transport to the tune of about $4 million and New Zealand is to follow up its $654 000 in aid over the past two years with a further $602 000. The UN Development Programme has made a grant of $673 000 and the European Development Fund a grant of $4.15 million. Not a bad start and one which Tuvalu (formerly the Ellice Islands), away to the south, can justifiably envy.

But I-Kiribati (as they prefer to call themselves, not Kiribatians) also have done a lot of planning to provide enough cash to keep the wheels turning after phosphate income from Banaba runs out this year.

When that stops, half the national income will disappear. To help counter that blow there’s the ‘phosphate reserve fund’ standing at about $6B million, the interest from which will partly finance the recurrent budget. More immediate, and more serious, is the loss of 500 jobs for I- Kiribati on Banaba. This will mean a drop in national per capita income from around $625 to around $350 a year.

The government is hoping some of this labour will be absorbed by the developing fishing industry. Already one boat is at work and more are to follow. In May-June this year Kiribati exported 30 tonnes of fish to Japan. Other incomeearning areas are copra (about $2 million a year) and I- Kiribati workers on Nauru (about $1 million). Planning envisages the development of aquaculture, copra and tourist industries in the Line Islands.

Politically, Kiribati plans a Papua New Guinea-like universalism line - ‘friends of all, enemies of none’. ‘lf the Russians approach us we will listen to them and not send them away,’ says President Tabai. But he anticipates that closest ties will be with Britain, Australia and New Zealand.

Domestically, the Banaba issue remains the republic’s biggest concern. Banabans, * under the constitution, are to be given a special seat in the house of assembly, the island will be returned to them and they will be allowed to form their own island council. But independence is just not on.

Banabans and the Kiribati Government have agreed to talk the matter through in the hope of learning to live as friends caught up in yet another colonial legacy.

Although choosing to become a republic, Kiribati is to join the Commonwealth of Nations. The president (berititenti) is elected nationally and is both head of state and of government.

Princess Anne ... a personal message from her mother.

Photo: Bob George 23

Acific Islands Monthly - September, 1979

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TROPICALITIES PI M's Editor Bob Hawkins kicks off this month with notes gleaned from travels in Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands in July.

A question of identity While the Forum haggled over the wording of the ‘French territories’ question at Honiara in July it seemed a side issue was emerging which will give Island leaders something to chew over before next year’s summit.

Basically, it’s a question of whether Australia and New Zealand really qualify as 100percenters on the Forum scene.

Although one and all within the Forum delegations righteously denied that economic or political considerations of a wider nature had persuaded Australia and NZ to think the way they did on the French question, it was difficult to avoid the feeling that both were having the utmost difficulty concealing their ‘ alter ?gos\ By and large, though regional stresses do show from lime to time, there is no question that Island members of Forum have the interests of tone but their ocean world at leart.

The same can hardly be said )f Australia and New Zealand - and it showed in their perormances at Honiara. It’s not ust a matter of two personaliies the Oceanian and the Vestern. There’s also the \sian’ personality which nany, Australians in parcular, will admit to today.

On the French issue, natrally, it was white Aus- •alasia’s Western personality iggling away beneath the surice. Ostensibly it was telling Jand heads of delegation to ie Forum that they should reicmber the ‘etiquette of atesmanship’, and the angers of ‘interfering’ in Tench sovereign’ matters.

Very much the ‘right and proper’ syndrome which Australians have had thrown at then ad nauseam for some years now.

More likely, at the root of New Zealand’s and Australia’s actions was money, as New Hebrides Chief Minister Gerard Leymang suggested.

Among other places, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Olivier Stirn had just visited Wellington and Canberra to advise them that they ought to work to keep the Forum’s nose out of French business.

New Zealand was much more vulnerable in terms of its European Community dealings than Australia - which might explain why Prime Minister Muldoon was sounding off even before he left Wellington for Honiara. His sick economy needs all the sustenance it can get these days and a little market in Europe is better than none at all.

Australia’s ties with Europe are not as critical but words like ‘beef, ‘Mirage’, ‘Nomad’, and ‘uranium’ in the Australian- French context must add up to something.

Whatever the reason. Island leaders at Honiara must have felt that if Mr Muldoon and Australia s Deputy Prime Minister Doug Anthony and Foreign Minister Andrew Peacock were not exactly ‘ agin ’ them, equally, they might not have been quite with them on the French issue.

If a scoreline could be drawn from this particular encounter, it would have to read Kanak Independence Front/South Pacific Forum I, Australasia/ France 0.

And, with an independent New Hebridean voice likely to be in the Forum ranks next year, France might be advised to have a few more eighties thinkers in their front line by then.

A scar on the memory He’d been sitting quietly by himself, gazing at a halffinished bottle. His friends had drifted away, one by one, to their beds. Behind them was a long Saturday lunchtime session which had drifted toward dusk. Around him bar trade was brisk. It seemed just about everyone had decided that weekend to descend upon Honiara, Solomon Islands capital. Politicians, bureau- I crats, pressmen - all there for the annual gathering of heads of nations, the South Pacific Forum. There was a crowd on a culture kick, just on the way to dispersing themselves through the Pacific after a couple of conferences in Port Moresby, one to do with the South Pacific Arts Festival, another with the preservation of relics and dying arts. And there were the New Hebridean soccer players, not in the slightest deterred by the two beatings they had taken earlier at the hands of the Solomon Islanders. The mood was easy, benign.

He stirred. Got to his feet.

Something was nagging at his befuddled mind. It seemed he was a boxer - of the diminutive variety. Ten stone, I think he said, he fought at. And he wanted everyone to know of his prowess. No one was really interested. Everyone was politely tolerant. Whatever his pugilistic skills, they weren’t impressing anyone. Something more dramtic was called for.

His courage, as it turned out, could not be doubted as he proceeded to demonstrate. He snatched up a nearby middy glass and took a substantial bite. Crunching, he spiralled around. Slivers of glass spilled from his lips. Soon the blood followed, at first dribbling from the corner of his mouth, then a mild gush. Another bite.

More crunching. It was difficult to tell if the bleeding was getting worse. All the time talking. Half a middy glass gone.

It seems there was no pain. By this time someone had slipped away. A call to the police. The paddy wagon was on its way.

More crunching.

He wasn’t getting the attention he needed. Funny how people will turn their heads away even when they’re seeing something they will probably never see again. So, no one was impressed with a middy glass! How about a beer bottle? Canine rasped harshly around the neck of the stubby.

A chip flew but the neck held.

Another crunch. Outside in the car park the paddy wagon had arrived. He went almost quietly. Only when the doors slammed behind him did he realise he was trapped. Neither Australia’s Doug Anthony at the Honiara South Pacific Forum meeting ... if not ‘agin’, perhaps not exactly ‘for’ either. Photo: Un Tak Fook ISLANDS MONTHLY SEPTEMBER, 1979

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„ his boxing skills, nor his bloody glass-eating penchant, could get him out of that one.

A couple of days later, when I described the incident to some Solomon Islander friends, they showed no surprise but commented that he must have been from Malaita where people ‘know how to eat glass’.

Through dark glasses brightly Honiara is an easy-going place.

Not gushingly friendly. Certainly not unfriendly. It’s got a smattering of impatient, frustrated whites who are far too ready to blame everything that goes wrong on their Solomon Islander hosts. It’s got a drink problem, but from my observation not nearly as devastating as Papua New Guinea’s.

It’s got an inordinately large number of taxis most of them rust-buckets - for such a small ‘city’. And it’s got honest taxidrivers if the one who came to my attention is anything to go by. An expensive pair of sunglasses were left in a taxi by a man from Bellona. Lost and forever, he assumed. Next Jay, on the main street, a taxi milled up beside him. ‘Hey,’ ;aid the driver, ‘l’ve been lookng for you. You left your passes in my taxi yesterday.’

When ‘OK’ is really just ‘Ok’

Everything may be A-OK on } apua New Guinea’s second opper mining project but, for he record and for the eduation of so many publications have jumped to conlusions, the project is named fter the Ok Tedi, its meaning iver in the language of that reion of PNG’s Western Provice. Okay message nderstood?

Olivier Stirn’s >mission France has no specific stake in hese territories (in the South ’acific) which cost France in conomic terms, more than hey return .. .’ Words of the Tench Secretary of State for : oreign Affairs Olivier Stirn.

At Stirn was certainly not 'eing dishonest about France’s dand territories costing more than they return at the moment. But he most certainly was dishonest by omission. He might have mentioned that by virtue of possessions in the South Pacific, and with the introduction of 200-mile economic zones, France controls the third largest ocean area of any nation in the world. And we’ve all heard how much that kind of sea estate can be worth.

Mary Olmsted on ‘localisation’

Mary Olmsted, United States ambassador to Papua New Guinea, who left Port Moresby recently, was lavish in her praise of the ‘solid, steady change and progress’ achieved in PNG since independence in 1975. However, the dean of the Port Moresby diplomatic corps did sound a few words of warning on the question of localisation or the lack of it.

She told me: ‘There have been instances of rethinking on localisation. This has been a live issue ever since I arrived here. Alternatively, they have said we are localising too fast, or else we are not localising fast enough. And I expect for the next 20 years they will be alternating between those two theories. I sometimes think that Papua New Guineans don’t adequately appreciate the responsibilities on them in living up to the demands of localisation. It’s right that they should want the jobs localised, but it is also right they should improve themselves and take on greater responsibility and be more conscientious about carrying out their responsibilities.’

Ms Olmsted, who spent five years as head of the US mission in PNG and was dean of the diplomatic corps since the departure of Australia’s Tom Critchley early last year, is'succeeded by Harvey J. Feldman, who has had extensive experience in diplomatic service in Hilda Lini’s hard task in Vila Hilda Lini, 25, for the moment, is lost to journalism. But this New Hebridean lady, as refreshing as a mid-morning sou’east trader, may well be taking the hard way into a lifetime of politics. T may be going back to Port Moresby to pack my bags and head for Vila,’ she told me at Honiara in early July. At the time. Miss Lini (she demurred at Ms), sister to New Hebrides Deputy Chief Minister Walter Lini, was in the Solomons capital to attend South Pacific Forum sessions and to meet friends from home and New Caledonia.

Miss Lini had come from Port Moresby where she had been studying journalism at the University of Papua New Guinea. But, with some firming in Vila on the still tentative decision to hold general elections on October 17, the call had come to return home and challenge, on behalf of the Vanuaaku Party, the opposition in the Vila Town Open constituency. At the last election in the New Hebrides, in 1975, all Vila seats went to non- Vanuaaku Party candidates.

Miss Lini recalled events of 1975 when there was little control exercised over those who could vote and those who could not. ‘Four planes flew in from Noumea,’ she remembered. In all, she estimated, about 600-700 people filled up the hotels of Vila and then voted, none for her own party. Add to those the votes of the ‘Chinese, French and Vietnamese, who, at the time, were all antiindependence and voted for the French party,’ and, said Miss Lini, Vanuaaku did not have much chance.

Like other New Hebrideans in Honiara that week. Miss Lini was quite confident in her assessment of the percentage of the nation-wide vote the Vanuaaku Party would win in the elections. Fifty-five per cent? ‘Perhaps, maybe more,’ she said. The figure generally bandied about at the time was around 65%.

Assuming the prognostications to be accurate, what did she think of the chances of the differences between the Francophone and Anglophone elements in New Hebridean society being settled? ‘The way I see it,’ she argued, ‘the French and the British should just leave the New Hebrideans to discuss things and sort them out by themselves. French and English speaking New Hebrideans could solve things quite well.. . New Hebrideans get together and agree on things quickly and they understand each other.’ The trouble always comes, she said, when the French and British start interfering afterwards.

Interview over. Miss Lini and myself joined forces to question the New Caledonian independence advocates and, immediately afterwards, Papua New Guinea Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ebia Olewale who, himself, had just finished talking to the New Caledonian independence reps. (It gets a bit like a roundabout at these Island get- Washingtons Mary Olmsted hands her ‘Dean of the Diplomatic Corps’ mantle to Tokyo’s Yamaguchi Asian countries.

The new dean of the diplomatic corps in Port Moresby is Japan’s ambassador, Koichiro Yamaguchi.

TROPICALITIES ISLANDS MONTHLY - SEPTEMBER, 1979

togethers.) Yes, said Mr Olewale, PNG would support the decolonisation of French possessions in the Pacific. No, said Mr Olewale, PNG would not support the idea of an independent West Irian. Why, asked Miss Lini, did he adopt these apparently contradictory views? Mr Olewale’s reply, in diplomatic and legal terms, was quite correct: Indonesia’s suzerainty over West Irian was accepted by the United Nations and had been decided by a plebiscite among the West Irianese people. (Those who were in West Irian for the 1969 ‘Act of Free Choice’, including myself, w'ould dispute the findings of that plebiscite.) There was no UN approval for the French position in the South Pacific, said Mr Olewale.

Irrespective of the official Papua New Guinea rationalisation of these two situations, it was clear from this young New Hebridean’s questioning that there’s going to be added pressure on France’s remaining Pacific colonial possessions if the likes of Miss Lini win their way into the New Hebridean parliament.

M US eUm move “ ia dt Port MOfOSDy meeting in Port Moresby in ear iy July of the Council of the Third Pacific Festival of Arts a dopted a resolution by the curator of the new Tahiti Museum Franqois oilier, that an ‘ a ssociation of museums of Oceania’ should be established ]vir Ollier sees an urgent need for a Pacific-wide organisation which would help to present a more united front in t^e protection of Islands culture 0 n June 30 Mr Ollier’s mu- S eum, an imposing structure at Pima auia, was officially ope ned. Areas of the museum are devoted to the natural environment, prehistory and arc haeology, material culture, social and religious life and pos t-European history, A blueblood on blue bums Reviewing Friendly Islands: A History of Tonga (edited by Noel Rutherford) in the Far Eastern Economic Review, Husein Rofe writes; ‘Where Queen Salote was characterised by her height, it is the girth of the present King Taufa’ahau Tupou IV that attracts more attention. He is active despite his weight and a keen student of anthropology and other sciences. According to Australian friends, this led him to interrupt a Seventh-day Adventist who was maintaining an imaginary racial relationship between Westerners and Tongans. The King, referring to a characteristic of newborn Tongans, spoke up in a booming voice: “If you are right, where do our blue bums come from?” ’

Mapping Pacific’s Tower of Babel A large multi-coloured language atlas of the Pacific region is currently under preparation in the department of linguistics in the Australian National University’s Research School of Pacific Studies in conjunction with international agencies. The task involves codifying some 2000 languages of the Pacific. The aim is to produce a simple and easily understandable presentation of the language picture of this linguistically complex part of the world for use by scholars, governments and other interested agencies.

Professor S. A. Wurm, head of the department of linguistics, who is one of the two general editors of the atlas project, describes it as a massive undertaking. Now in its second year, the project will take another three years to complete. It is a joint undertaking of the Australian Academy of the Humanities and the Japan Academy. Several international agencies, such as UNESCO and the International Union of Academics, have shown an interest in the project.

The other general editor of the project is Professor Shiro Hattori of the Japan Academy.

The university newspaper, ANU Reporter, quotes Professor Wurm saying: ‘Some language groups belong inherently to the Pacific area and are exclusively or almost exclusively located on the islands (including the island continent of Australia), while others are marginally associated with it, whereas others abut on the Pacific area geographically but have their main connections elsewhere. ‘Three distinct language groups (three groups of languages which show no connection with each other) constitute the inherently Pacific languages. The largest and most widespread of these is the Austronesian group with 800 languages. The second group is constituted by Papuan (or non- Austronesian) languages of the New Guinea area and number over 700. The Australian Aboriginal languages constitute the third group and are over 260 in number.’

Hilda Lini ... advocate of the West Irianese cause. Photo: Bob Hawkins Tahiti’s new museum ... moves to start a Pacific association 28

Pacific Islands Monthly - September, 1979

Tropic Alities

The inherently and marginally Pacific languages number close to 2000 and constitute about 40 per cent of all the languages in the world. Almost all of these languages are concentrated in the south-western and western corner of the Pacific area: this is the area of the greatest concentration of different languages in the whole world.

Apart from a broad appeal, the atlas will show the changes in the pattern of language distribution in recent years notably under the influence of European contacts. This will be done by providing two different maps of certain areas one presenting the pre- European situation and the other the present picture.

Islanders and life in NZ Pacific Islanders who migrate to New Zealand appreciate the higher living standards and employment and educational opportunities, but dislike the violence, the high cost of living, and the prevalence of alcohol.

These are among main points to emerge from a report by the Department of Labour on the work experience of Pacific Island migrants in the greater Wellington area, writes Bill Gasson.

The findings are based on answers to questionnaires distributed to 353 working Island migrants in an area that represents about 18% of New Zealand’s Islander population.

Auckland, the world’s biggest Polynesian city, offers a greater scope for such a survey, but, as the report points out, limited resources precluded a wider survey. Five Islander groups from Western Samoa, Niue, Cook Islands, Tokelau md Tonga were surveyed.

Why do Islanders like New Zealand? Here are two views: I like the freedom of movement here. As long as it is vithin reason, there are fewer inventions binding you than )ack home;’ and ‘Here in New Zealand nobody tells you what o do or say. You are your own naster and no one looks over iur shoulder to see what you ire up to.’ ‘People here are very violent.

All the arguments turn into fights and it is very frightening to walk the streets, especially at night,’ one woman said.

While many Islanders felt there were no aspects of life that disturbed them, the report said the widespread perception of violence was based not so much on its prevalence as on the lack of social control over the activity.

Then there was the consumption of alcohol of which many Islanders had little previous experience. One elder said; ‘These people here drink all the time after work, in the evenings, after sport, in the weekends, at meetings - I don’t like it, especially for the young ones. That’s all they see and they do the same.’

Other problems facing the migrant included accommodation and language difficulties, loneliness, homesickness and a certain amount of discrimination and non-helpfulness from New Zealanders. For one Islander there was a feeling ‘that many people don’t like Islanders here - they look down on you.’ Another recalled that ‘New Zealanders were unfriendly and cold and didn’t want to mix with us.’

New Zealand’s Pacific Island population is young almost 50% are under 20. The growth of the Island community is marked - from 0.6% of the total population in 1961, to 1.6% in 1971 and 2% in 1976.

Western Samoans form the biggest Island community 27 876 in 1976 followed by Cook Islanders 18 610, Niueans 5688, Tongans 3980, and Tokelauans 1737. Others represented 3463 in 1976 to bring the Pacific Island population to 61 354.

Tongans earned the highest weekly take-home pay of the five Island groups surveyed $lOB. They also worked the longest hours a week, 43. Cook Islanders came second with an average of $102.47 in their main jobs. They were the only group to show any propensity to hold more than one job.

Western Samoans earned an average of $99.32, Tokelauans $86.53, and Niueans $74.25.

Remittances from migrants to families and relatives at home continue over years, but at a diminishing level. The survey found that average remittance among the Islanders interviewed was $351.55 for the first two years, $346.31 for the next three years, $398.05 for the next five years and $297.62 after 10 years in the country.

Tongans sent an average of $405, Western Samoans $361, Cook Islanders $276, and Tokelauans $267. Niueans declined to answer this question.

In addition, Islanders sent back goods each year worth an average for Tongans of $274, Cook Islanders $169, Western Samoans $lO6, and Tokelauans $95. Again, Niueans gave no figures.

Pacific art show in Washington A major exhibition of Pacific Islands art opened in Washington, USA, in July. More than 400 works from Polynesia, Micronesia and Melanesia were on show.

A large war god figure from Hawaii dominated the entrance. It had been lent for the first time since its acquisition in 1846 by the Peabody Museum of Salem, Massachusetts, which is now associated with Harvard University.

More than 80 public and private collections in the US, Europe and the South Pacific lent objects for the exhibition.

Judges huddle in Rarotonga The Cook Islands’ Government has converted the former official residence of ousted premier Sir Albert Henry into a government reception house.

Conversion was ready just in time to serve as the venue for the Fourth South Pacific Judicial Conference in late May.

Answering critics who had described the reception house as ‘a place to wine, dine and entertain away from the wife’, and ‘a boozing den’, Minister for Justice laveta Short declared: ‘Just for a start, by holding the conference there government will be saving about $5OOO that it would have cost to hold the conference at the Rarotongan. Would the critics enjoy seeing us squander that money?’

The minister pointed out that inevitably all cabinet ministers had to offer hospitality from time to time to overseas visitors. It was unfair to expect wives to toil in their kitchens to prepare an elaborate meal for some important visitor and at the same time control the children all in an effort to ‘put on a good show’.

The official residence had hardly ever been used by Sir Albert and consequently was neglected over the years and had become badly dilapidated.

Rather than allow it to rot and crumble away the government had at moderate expense, turned it into a place where they could receive official guests without placing a burden on family life.

Apart from an official opening ceremony in the new reception house, the South Pacific’s legal bigwigs who were in attendance huddled in the deepest secrecy.

Mangaia Islander Tangianau Tereapii, an Auckland resident ... Cook Islanders rank second in the wages stakes. Photo: Jan Mudrovcich 29 TROPICALITIES ACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY SEPTEMBER, 1979

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PEOPLE Ron Hegerhorst, 51, has been appointed Trade Commissioner for the South Pacific, a position created under the auspices of the South Pacific Bureau of Economic Cooperation (SPEC) to help Pacific Island countries improve their trade. Mr Hegerhorst is operating out of an office in Papua New Guinea House, Sydney.

The new post arises from a promise made by Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser to the South Pacific Forum meeting in Niue last year. At the time Mr Fraser said the commission would identify products from Island countries of the Forum which could be successfully exported to Australia. It would also provide commercial information and practical expertise to help the South Pacific Islands in marketing their products. It will be funded by Australia to the tune of up to $l5O 000 a year for an initial five-year period.

Running the commission with Mr Hegerhorst will be a trade development officer from the Pacific, and two locally employed staff.

Mr Hegerhorst is no stranger to the Islands. He was formerly first assistant secretary of trade and economic relations in the PNG Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. He worked in PNG for nine years on secondment from the Australian public service.

An Australian Information Service release says that Dutchborn Mr Hegerhorst first came to Australia in 1960. It quotes him as saying; ‘My first job in Brisbane was selling advertisements for the pink pages in the telephone book, which was a useful introduction to the Australian business world.’

New Caledonia’s Miss Cricket 1979 is 18-year-old Marie- Pierre Doumai, niece of Head Chief Pierre Douma of Mouli on Ouvea, Loyalty Islands. She was one of a field of 12 entrants in the contest, and her success was announced at a gala Cricket Ball held at We, Lifou, in July. Her first official duty in her new role was to welcome the visiting French President Valery Giscard d’Estaing when he reviewed an honour guard of Loyalty Islands women cricketers at Lifou.

Young Englishman David Stevens was sent back to England by the British High Commission in July only five weeks after coming to Fiji as a volunteer field commissioner with the Fiji Scout Association.

Stevens was given an air ticket by the commission and told if he didn’t use it he would have to pay his own fare.

Soccer more particularly Stevens’ acceptance of a job as coach to Suva soccer team was at the root of the trouble.

Stevens had resigned from the scouting job to take on the post. ‘Naturally, we were extremely disappointed when Mr Stevens resigned from his assignment with the Fiji Scout Association after only one month in Fiji,’ said the second secretary for aid at the high commission. Peter Bacon.

But Stevens hit back with the claim that the high commission saw him as having created ‘an embarrassing situation’. ‘The Fiji Scout Association asked me to give an undertaking not to coach any soccer team,’ he said. T told them to get stuffed.’

Under Stevens’ brief spell of guidance, the Suva team had shown improved form. He vowed to return to Fiji to continue coaching the team if a work permit could be arranged for him.

A 15-11 no-confidence vote in July toppled Port Moresby’s Lord Mayor Sevese Morea and put in office Councillor Kipling Uiari, the man Councillor Morea took over from earlier this year. The vote followed a protracted row between the two major factions in the council. Police had twice been called to the council chambers in the preceding weeks, once when a fight broke out among councillors, and again when several councillors said they feared for their personal safety at the council table. During the disturbances one councillor threw a heavy glass ashtray and another armed himself with a decorative spear which had been displayed on the walls of the council chamber.

Tongan MP Papiloa Foliaki has kept an election promise by giving all her salary to help disabled people. Before the elections last year she said; Tf elected, I will donate all my earnings as a member of parliament to assistance for the disabled and handicapped in Tonga.’

She said her 1978 earnings as a member totalled $3061. She had recently handed a cheque for $lOOO to a committee raising funds for an orthopedic workshop at Vaiola Hospital, Nukualofa. The remaining $2061 has been placed in a trust fund to await formation of a permanent committee to provide aid for the disabled.

By a freakish accident of nature, 15-year-old Fakaalofa Metia of Tuvalu was born without legs. But she is determined that’s not going to spoil her life.

Thanks to the Victoria, Australia, division of the Red Cross, she now stands on legs made for her by the Australian Repatriation Artificial Limbs Centre. They cost about SA6OO.

These and her fare to Melbourne home return, $874, have been paid for by the Red Cross.

She paid her sixth visit to Melbourne in July to be fitted with new legs. Her first visit was made when she was three.

As she grows, every couple of years, she must return to Melbourne to be fitted with new legs.

When her homeland was a colony (Ellice Islands), the British Red Cross used to pay the bill. Then the Australian Federal Government paid, until last year when it decided that only Australian citizens qualified for such assistance.

The Red Cross hospital services director, Maureen White, said: ‘We are not making a great deal about who pays for the legs. The main thing is that Fakaalofa gets her legs...’

At 30, English-born Julian Lambert already has under his belt a master’s degree in nutritional sciences from London University, field experience in Zambia, and a five-year stint as nutrition planner first New Caledonia’s Miss Cricket ... a welcome for President Giscard. Photo: France Australe; right: Fakaalofa Metia ... six visits to Melbourne 32

Pacific Islands Monthly - September, 1979

with the Health Department and then with the National Planning Office in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea.

Soon to head home for a break before taking up yet another appointment somewhere in the Third World, he spoke to PIM about his time in PNG and enthusiasm was the keynote of his remarks.

Said he: T very much doubt if I could have worked in a more interesting country at a more interesting time. I came to PNG just a year before independence. We were able to do things that would be just about inconceivable in a country like the UK or Australia. For example, we developed a national food and nutrition policy in the space of just one year. A job like that would take five years at least in the UK or Australia. ‘PNG was the first country in the world to prohibit the free sale of infant feeding bottles and teats. These are now only available on prescription from a pharmacy. It’s a well-known fact that bottle-feeding of infants in a developing country is a very dangerous exercise. It is not only beyond the means of most families, but is a chronic source of gastroenteritis and similar disorders. ‘The prohibiting legislation was introduced in Port Moresby two years ago. Before it came into force 35% of infants in Moresby were artificially fed, and of those 75% were either clinically or subclinically malnourished. At the beginning of this year a follow-up survey was made.

Only 12% of infants were being artificially fed, and of these only about 35% were clinically or sub-clinically malnourished.

This is not that much higher than the underlying malnutrition rate of the population as a whole.’

Mr Lambert is pleased, too, that the job he’s quitting has been ‘localised’. Taking his place is a Papua New Guinean woman in her late twenties, Margaret Nakikus, who holds a post-graduate degree in nutrition from London University. ‘She’ll do a great job,’ said Julian Lambert.

Early next year the South Pacific Bureau for Economic Cooperation (SPEC) will have a new director. Dr Gabriel Gris, dentist, of Papua New Guinea.

He will be stepping into the shoes of SPEC’s founding director, Mahe Tupouniua, who has guided the South Pacific Forum’s administrative arm since it was formally established in 1973. There’s no doubt that Dr Gris, 38, has a hard act to follow. John Carter, former editor of PIM, who has watched the growth of SPEC, had this to say about its chief executive’s performance: ‘Mahe fashioned in a short time a dynamic institution imbued with his own singleminded purpose and bristling with ideas. Under Mahe’s guidance SPEC rapidly became the Islands’ “think tank” with Mahe calling all the shots.’

When he went to Fiji in the early seventies to get SPEC off the ground, Mahe left his homeland, Tonga, and the positions of deputy prime minister and finance minister. It is understood that he will resume as a minister with the Tongan Government when he returns home.

Dr Gris at the moment is secretary of PNG’s Department of Decentralisation. Previously he served as deputy vice chancellor and vice chancellor of the University of Papua New Guinea. Home for Dr Gris is Andra Island, Manus Province.

However his varied education - during which he studied in Australia, Fiji and the United States should serve him well in his new appointment. He will be based in Suva, where SPEC has its headquarters, and this will mean a return home for Dr Gris’s Fiji-born wife Sarah.

Premier Tom Davis of the Cook Islands, and his new wife Pa Tepaeru Ariki, entered a contest for the composition of the Cooks’ first national anthem and won it. They submitted under an assumed name the song Te Atua Mou E (God is Truth) - music by Dr Davis, words by Pa Tepaeru Ariki.

Dr Davis told guests at an official function in the Cook Islands office in Auckland: ‘No one knew it was us. The judging was very close.’

Papua New Guinea Prime Minister Michael Somare’s recent warning that any minister receiving more than three court convictions would be automatically dropped from his cabinet was no mere rhetorical exercise, but based on quite practical considerations and possibilities.

This was made clear in July when Finance Minister Barry Holloway was charged with driving under the influence following a collision in which he suffered injuries to the face and bruises and cuts to the body.

About the same time a warrant was issued in Rabaul for the arrest of John Kaputin. minister for national planning and development. A magistrate. Silas Samuel, said ‘an ap- Left: Julian Lambert ... bottle ban; above: Gabriel Gris ... tough act to follow; right: Mahe Tupouniua (left) receives a gift from Prime Minister Peter Kenilorea from the Solomons’ people for services rendered ... a dynamic performance. Photo: Un Tak Fook PEOPLE PACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY SEPTEMBER, 1979

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PNG’s leader Somare flew to Honolulu in July to recuperate from an illness which had affected him for the previous six weeks. He had been suffering from crippling inflammation of the joints of both legs, and his general health was affected. Deputy PM and Foreign Minister Ebia Olewale was acting prime minister in his absence.

Fiji trade unionist Apisai Tora has failed in a bid to get compensation amounting to SF69 500 for the losses he suffered through a trial and 159 days of imprisonment in 1977-78 following his conviction under the Sugar Industry Act. He was later cleared on appeal. Mr Tora’s claim was debated in parliament on the motion of Ratu Osea Gavidi, who said that in the absence of a comprehensive scheme of compensation Mr Tora’s case should be regarded as ‘exceptional’. He had lost three stone in weight while in custody and at the time of the trial he was ‘extremely ill’ and his wife was left at home alone to look after two young children. During his imprisonment she gave birth to their third child. Opposing the motion, the attorney-general, Sir John Faivey, said that Mr Tora had never been convicted ‘other than by the due process of law’. ‘He did what he was charged with. He was acquitted on a matter of law, not on a matter of fact.’ Ratu Osea called for a division in which 23 government members voted against the motion, four opposition members voted for, and 12 MPs, mostly opposition members, abstained.

Dr Ankin Swamy has taken up duties as director of the Centre for Applied Studies in Development at the University of the South Pacific, Suva.

After completing his doctorate on ‘transmission of noise characteristics into aircraft structures’ in 1973, Dr Swamy returned from the United Kingdom in 1973 to become chief education officer (technical) with the Fiji ministry of education. The following year he became principal of the Derrick Technical Institute and deputy secretary (technical), posts he held until his new appointment.

Des Clifton Bassett, who left Papua New Guinea in 1974 after spending more than 30 years in the country, has started the Niugini Advisory and Service Centre in Sydney to assist Australians with business links in Papua New Guinea. Mr Clifton Bassett joined the PNG administration after serving with Australian defence forces during the war, eventually being replaced, on his retirement, as district commissioner in Madang by Benson Gegeyo.

The new chairman of the Maori and South Pacific Arts Council in New Zealand is Archdeacon King! Ihaka of Auckland. Archdeacon Ihaka is also chairman of the New Zealand Polynesian Festival Committee. The council, which is a result of legislation passed last year, will assist Maori and South Pacific arts with grants and subsidies and will work with educational institutions and broadcasting bodies to promote Maori and Island culture.

After eight years ?n the Cook Islands Premier’s Department, Gordon Sawtell has moved into Internal Affairs to establish and head a Protocol Department.

Australian diplomat Greg Urwin has been appointed acting secretary of foreign affairs in Western Samoa. He had previously been acting Australian high commissioner in Apia.

Another Australian, Terry Goggin, has left Apia to take up a senior post with the Australian embassy in Peking. Mr Goggin was for two years acting secretary to the Western Samoa Government. He has been succeeded in this post by Vitolio Lui, until recently head of the foreign aid division. 34

Pacific Islands Monthly - September, 1979

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PIM papan in the Pacific

Taking A Long New

Look At Oceania

Wayne Brittenden, of the New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation in Tokyo, talked to Junichi Nakamura, director of the Oceania department in the Japanese Foreign Ministry, about Japan's changing perceptions of Pacific Island countries. He found quickening interest in the region, a desire to play a more active role in terms of both aid and political influence, along with a thoughtful and sometimes critical attitude to aspects of the Japanese performance so far.

While the rest of the world probably thinks of‘Oceania’as one of the world’s three states described by George Orwell in his chilling 1984, Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has another and quite clear idea about the meaning of the word: in the seemingly interminable corridors of the ministry’s huge building, with their equidistant doorways departmentalising the world, there is one door carrying the word ‘Oceania’.

For Tokyo officials it simply means the non-Asian Pacific Islands and Australia and New Zealand.

The region represents an increasingly important source of resources to Japan especially in fishing, since the creation of 200-mile zones in traditional key northern waters has threatened the welfare of world giants like the Taiyo company. Officials in the foreign ministry say that the growing number of independent Pacific nations offers new opportunities for having a hand in ‘stability and development’. (There are offices for firms like Marubeni and Nissho Iwai in such foreign colonies as New Caledonia, but they keep a low profile.) Prune Minister Masayoshi Ohira’s still somewhat vague concept of a Pan-Pacific Cooperative Community is generally seen in Japan as an indication of the country’s new maturity and a step toward the exercise of greater political muscle which is considered to be seriously lacking in view of the nation’s economic influence in today’s world. The Japanese Left often claims feelings of deja vu over the Ohira programme saying it has too many parallels with the Greater East Asia Co- Prosperity Sphere of the immediate pre-World War II y ears - But while few would seriously suggest Japanese milltar y ambitions in the Pacific, there is certainly pressure from the Penta g on on Japan to P^ a greater role in the defence of the re g ion ~ m viol ' ation, incidentally, of the US-imposed postwar constitution‘ Re P orts of an increased Soviet naval presence in the re- ?ion taring China’s February mvasion of Vietnam, and per- P etual nerv °usness about the Russi ans, obviously help the Japanese to see the Pacific as Vltal to its own security, as well as economi c, interests, Unlike Southeast Asia, the cultures and political structures of the Pacific Island countries are comparatively unknown in Tokyo, and New Zealand and Australia have apparently been providing Japanese foreign affairs officials with some insights. These officials talk of aid programmes on a ‘request basis’, and the foreign ministry last year held talks with Pacific Islands officials, largely on problems of aid. Aid was also the main purpose of a projectfinding mission last year to Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands. This year Tonga, Fiji and Kiribati (Gilbert Islands at the time) received similar visits.

The foreign ministry’s Oceania director, Junichi Nakamura, takes the view that ‘there is no significant difference in the way of thinking’ between the peoples of Micronesia, Melanesia and Polynesia although some speak French and others have been under British or American influence. Their basic behaviour is pretty much the same, according to Mr Nakamura.

New Zealand’s allocation of fishing rights to the Soviets (Pacific Report) affected Japanese opportunities in the same waters, and the general presence of Russian commercial vessels in the South Pacific has increased the sense of urgency felt by the Japanese for a hand in the region. The official view seems to be that Moscow aims for a base and a refuelling port. Nor has China’s recent establishment of embassies in Fiji and Western Samoa gone unnoticed. The Japanese perhaps sense in these developments the possibility of eventual conflict in the Pacific between the two communist giants.

The foreign ministry is sensitive to the tourist industry’s tendency to overkill, with its dumping of masses of shortstay, trend-crazy tourists and honeymooners at some new exotic spot without any regard to their impact on the local social and physical environment. The Japanese honeymoon paradises of Micronesia (more than half a million honeymooners annually) have been particularly scrutinised, and, with the Fiji stopover for Japan’s direct air services due to start next March, there is bound to be more sensitivity. ‘As far as the tourist industry is concerned, Students at Madang High School, Papua New Guinea, spell out welcome' to a band of Japanese tourists ’ACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY SEPTEMBER, 1979

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it’s a very delicate situation. It can cause disturbances if it’s not done very carefully,’ says Mr Nakamura, who sees opportunities for more harmonious co-operation in other directions.

Kenichi Takami, a public relations executive of Japan Air Lines, says that the less sophisticated tourist facilities of the Pacific Islands will attract more educated and sensitive tourists than those often beating well-worn paths to other tourist meccas.

Reflecting the characteristically broad approach of the foreign affairs ministry, which is in contrast to the narrowness of vision to be observed in some other Japanese ministries, Mr Nakamura says he wants some sort of restraint on Japanese business activity in the region a personal view that is nevertheless shared by a number of his colleagues. He favours participation in projects like the University of the South Pacific in Suva: ‘At this point we’re starting to think, but the thoughts haven’t yet crystallised.’

Japan’s awareness of the Pacific Islands, and its anxiety to protect its interests in the region, is demonstrated by the establishment this year of an embassy in Suva, headquarters of the South Pacific Bureau for Economic Co-operation (SPEC). The ambassador is Hiroshi Otaka, former director-general of Japan’s Economic Co-operation Bureau and a respected figure in developing countries.

At present the only other Japanese embassy in the South Pacific is in Port Moresby. But in a continuing bid to counter Soviet and Chinese influence in the region, it’s a safe bet that there will be others before long. In playing one against the other. Pacific Island states may be in a better bargaining position than ever before.

Economic zones Japanese fishermen on to a new tack From the turn of the century the Japanese fishing industry has pushed the slogan ‘From the coast to offshore, and from offshore to the distant seas\ But these days the distant seas are usually the offshores of other countries, writes Wayne Brittenden.

By the end of last year most of the world’s littoral nations had either already established 200 nautical mile zones, or were in the throes of doing so. The moves affected about 40% of Japan’s annual catch. Only about 3% of Japan’s total haul comes from open waters outside either its own or some other country’s jurisdiction.

The giant Japanese fishing companies are now shifting their emphasis from fishing to trading, involving massive injections of capital and technology.

The establishment of the 200-mile zones, industrial pollution in domestic coastal waters, and the rising price of fresh fish, have resulted in a sharp increase in marine product imports from the developing Asian and Pacific nations, including frozen shrimp and tuna which are sometimes reexported to the industrialised world. Cheaper varieties are likely to be canned and sent back to the Pacific, and attempts to develop a taste for canned fish are reflected in a donation by Japan earlier this year to Tonga and Western Samoa of a consignment of canned tuna valued at about a million yen.

Lately there has been a drop in the export of Japanese marine products largely due to the new strategy of investing overseas in joint ventures with local capital, or by setting up independent companies. Even with partial ownership in such overseas operations the Japanese firm is apparently exempt from any obligation to report to the Japanese authorities. The goods are exported directly to other countries and can provide a cover for profits.

One established example is Japan’s trout and salmon exports: most are despatched from Japanese fishing and trading companies based in North America.

The greatest number of Japanese-related fishing corporations is in Asia and the Pacific, where there were 99 at last count, compared with 45 in North America, 20 in Africa and four in Europe. Several methods of investment are involved, including outright purchase with no strings attached.

However, the general pattern is for Japanese interests to exercise control over the advanced equipment they introduce, such as refrigeration and transport plant. This often has a tendency to distort the host country’s domestic industry and established distribution patterns.

The Southeast Asia Fishery Development Centre, in which more than 500 million yen has been invested, exemplifies fisheries development as a Japanese national policy.

Established in 1968 by the Southeast Asia economic ministers’ conference as a means of providing technical aid to developing countries, the centre has concentrated on offshore resources and profitability. The value of the technical training is questionable since no survey of indigenous fishing or the social and economic structures of the countries concerned has ever been made.

While the governments of the Pacific, like those elsewhere, are benefiting and will benefit from permitting Japanese investment in joint ventures because of the boost to their foreign exchange holdings, increases in fishing productivity and profitability for some local businessmen, the advantages to the local industry itself are not always so clear.

The shape of Japanese aid In this rundown on Japanese aid to a number of Pacific Island countries and territories, Wayne Brittenden’s report shows that fish, fish, fish and once again fish is the dominant theme.

Micronesia: Most of Japan’s aid grants have been for consumer items, medical products and maritime industry equipment. Last year the usually easy-going Palauans forced a consortium of Japanese, American and Iranian One of two fishing boats given by Japan to Solomon Islands National Fisheries Development Company ... but advantages to local industry are not always clear 40

Japan In The Pacific

Pacific Islands Monthly - September, 1979

companies to shelve plans to build a port there. The port might have eased pressure on Japan’s harbours, but it could well have proved disastrous for the local environment and people. Nissho Iwai and the Industrial Bank of Japan have looked at the prospects of the Palauan islands together with the United States, and there is considerable Japanese fishing activity in the area.

Western Samoa: Following the pattern of most states in the region. Western Samoa’s principal attraction to Japan is fish, and at the end of 1978 aid grants amounted to 750 million yen. with approved investments at $273 000. More than 20 fisheries, engineering and transport students from Western Samoa have received training in Japan.

Solomon Islands: The Solomon Taiyo operation, with a healthy degree of local participation, is the main Japanese fishing activity. Problems have arisen between the company, which was established in 1972, and the local people over Taiyo boats taking bait fish from the reef areas for which a rather paltry royalty system of reimbursement does not seem to provide an adequate answer.

Local workers are mainly on daily rates, and one spokesman for the political opposition in Solomon Islands has complained that 40% of profits from Solomon Taiyo go to Okinawans. The company occupies a critical position in the overall economy. In 1976 it accounted for about a third of Solomon Islands’ total export earnings. Many locals see Solomon Taiyo as a model joint venture, with its wide host participation.

Tonga: Japanese aid to Tongan fishing has included the donation of two longline boats which have concentrated mainly on albacore. By the end of 1978 Tonga had received 600 million* yen in aid grants for fishing boats and the nutrition improvement programme.

Whereas in PNG the Japanese have established a fisheries college (at Kavieng), aid to Tonga in this field has been to train Tongan fisheries students in Japan.

FIJI

Is The Tide

About To Turn?

Japanese goods are pouring into Fiji at an accelerating rate, writes Robert Keith-Reid in Suva. And Japanese tourists in the past two years have begun to arrive in something more than a trickle. But largescale Japanese investment, which five years ago seemed imminent, has not materialised.

Sales of Japanese goods now represent 25% of all imports but Fiji’s sales to Japan continue to be virtually nonexistent. The sirqple reason has been that Fiji had very little that Japan wanted. But there is reason to believe the tide is about to turn.

Japan opened an embassy in Suva this year and now appears prepared to extend economic aid on a fairly significant scale.

This, along with a Japan Air Lines (JAL) service through Nadi to New Zealand beginning in April next year, is giving Japanese investors food for thought, especially those who bought land in Fiji in the early seventies with a view to utilising it as resort development.

Fishing and the supply of cameras, transistor radios, tape recorders and various other electrical and optical knickknacks, were the means by which Japan began to make its presence felt in Fiji in the early sixties.

The Pacific Fishing Company (PAFCO), set up by C Itoh and Co Ltd of Osaka and Nichiryo Ltd of Tokyo, opened a fish freezing factory at Levuka in 1963 to handle fish landed by Asian tuna boats.

Five years ago, under official pressure, they sold the Fiji Government a 25% share of Pafco and built a cannery next to the freezers. Another company, Toyo Seikan Kaisha Ltd, arrived at Levuka at that time and opened a can manufacturing company in which the government took a 20% share. Today the cannery is handling more than 6000 tonnes of fish, mostly tuna, each year, and exports mainly to North America and Europe, have shot up in three years from nothing to an estimated $F 15 million this year.

While deep sea tuna continues to be supplied by Asian vessels, shallow water skipjack tuna are being caught by a Fiji Government-owned fleet that is being built up with the object of supplying most of the cannery’s needs.

Fiji’s duty free shops have been good to Japanese manufacturers since the early sixties, in 1978 Japan supplied about $lB million worth of electronic, photographic and electrical luxury goods, including cameras ($l.l million), watches ($2 million), radios ($2.5 million), tape recorders ($1.3 million) and record players ($l.l million).

But these lines no longer dominate the range of goods supplied. Japan is now the source of motor vehicles a market which it completely dominates and a vast range of other goods.

Total imports to Fiji were worth $47.8 million in 1978, more than double the value a decade ago, putting Japan in third place, after Australia and New Zealand, as a supplier.

Vehicle imports were valued at $10.9 million including 877 private cars ($2.7 million) and trucks and vans ($4 million).

Other major imports included canned fish (3.3 million), chemicals and fertilisers (5.4 million), steel, iron and other metal plates, tubes, wiring and metal tools and products ($8.6 million), other electrical equipment ($1 million), and textiles ($2.8 million).

But, in reverse, the figures are sad. Fiji’s exports to Japan last year were valued at a mere $241 000, a figure that has not changed much in years. It involves small amounts of fish, Japanese workers at Levuka join in the fun ... times have changed

Japan In The Pacific

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Pacific Islands Monthly - September, 1979

fish meal, pearl, trochus and turtle shell, and a small amount of timber.

Japan has been an occasional customer for sugar but it has been years since the Fiji industry has had any to spare after meeting contracts with regular customers. In any case, Japanese refineries prefer to buy more cheaply elsewhere.

The government has not complained about the trade gap because Fiji just hasn’t got much to offer. But, in the eighties, it hopes the picture will change quite dramatically.

Since the late sixties the government has been busy planting more than 50 000 hectares of Caribbean pine forest.

A source of logs, pulp, and chip already, these forests will start to mature early in the eighties at a time when a shortage of softwoods is forecast in Asian countries, particularly Japan.

Japanese timber companies already are showing interest.

Official hopes are that with Japan’s help, pine will rapidly evolve into a trade worth almost as much as Fiji’s $lOO million a year sugar industry.

Fiji’s attitude to the Japanese is friendly nowadays.

In World War II Fijian soldiers fought Japanese troops in the Solomon Islands and war bitterness lasted until the late fifties. In those days Japanese fishermen were liable to be beaten up if caught alone in Suva at night.

That has all changed.

Japanese fishing boats are welcome as a source of business worth several million dollars a year for local ship repair yards and provisioning merchants.

Crewmen are now offered a beer in a pub instead of a clenched fist.

In Levuka, Japanese children school with local children and local men have been to sea in Japanese fishing boats or on courses with the cannery’s parent companies in Japan.

Judo is a local craze initiated by Japanese fishermen. Familiarity with Japanese brand names and the advertising material accompanying them has done much to help the people of Fiji satisfy their curiosity about the people from the islands 10 000 km to the north.

Hearing of massive Japanese investment in Hawaii and of the thousands of free-spending Japanese tourists visiting there, Fiji’s mood was of happy anticipation when several Japanese companies moved to establish themselves in the Fiji tourist resort scene in the early and mid-seventies.

Sixty Japanese companies, most of them big names, set up Todeco (Fiji) Ltd for investment in a wide field of activities in Fiji and the South Pacific. Todeco talked of resorts, shipbuilding, agriculture, forestry, fishing and manufacturing.

But, so far, all that it has done is to buy the 120-room Mana Island Resort hotel just off Nadi airport. Much of Mana’s business now involves Japanese tourists who come in on charter flights which JAL started experimentally, for short seasons, two years ago.

Three years ago, Taisei, one of Japan’s biggest construction companies, paid about $5 million for a half-share of Pacific Harbour, a 7000-acre section of freehold land, mostly swamp, at Deuba, 50 km from Suva. An 1100-acre first phase was completed at Pacific Harbour by Southern Pacific Properties Ltd (SPP), a company which since 1978 has been controlled by Saudi Arabian tycoon Adnan Kahshoggi. SPP and Taisei have set up SPP-Taisei Ltd to develop the remaining 6000 acres but have not taken this plan beyond the drawing board stage.

At about the time of Taisei’s arrival, Fuji Kon Fiji Ltd, controlled by another Japanese consortium, signed up with the American promoters of the Denarau Island resort project near Nadi airport for participation in a $2O million hotel as a neighbour to a 300-room resort opened in 1976. But, again, nothing has eventuated.

One reason is difficulty about fresh water supplies, a problem which won’t be solved until a government water reservoir scheme is completed three or four years from now. But the main reason is that, like Taisei and Todeco, Fuji Kon has had second thoughts about the timing of major involvement in Fiji. It wants to be sure of transport between Tokyo and Nadi in the shape of Japan Air Lines before it puts the big money down. JAL’s firm decision to start flying to Nadi as a scheduled operator from April next year was announced only in July this year.

Taisei’s resident manager at Pacific Harbour, Tak Hasegawa, commented: ‘Now that they are coming here there could be a change in tourism.

It has been growing, but slowly, and so far we have not been doing much. Just marking time.’ JAL was the key which would turn and get things moving, he said.

It wasn’t until JAL began charter flights to Nadi in 1976 that the presence of Japanese tourists became noticeable at all. DCBs, carrying about 140 passengers, flew in for ‘seasons’ of about 10-15 flights. The number grew steadily and about 6000 Japanese each spent an average of a week in Fiji last year, mostly taking in Mana Island and a couple of other resorts, including Pacific Harbour.

Makoto Ikeda, resident in Fiji for nine years as a tour business representative, says the JAL charters have worked up repeat custom already. ‘About 40 people from each series come back the following year. It’s a good sign,’ he said. ‘Most of the traffic is young couples and young single women who want beaches, a good hotel, and sightseeing and not much more. Some complain that there’s nothing to buy here. They don’t want Japanese stuff. They want expensive foreign brands that they can’t get at home.

JAL’s decision to open a regular all-year-round service has prompted one Japanese company to inquire about opening a Japanese restaurant at Pacific Harbour. That, says Mr Ikeda, is a small hint of the shape of things to come.

Outside of trade and fishing, Fiji’s dealing with Japan amounted to next to nothing in any other area until the opening of an embassy in January.

In Fiji’s view, Japan’s motive in opening the embassy is chiefly to preserve the right of its fishing fleets to work in regions they had fished freely until the declaration of 200-mile economic zones, now Judo enthusiasts Tek Hasegawa (left) and Viliame Takayawa with new judo mat... a present from Mr Hasegawa’s company, SPP- Taisei

Japan In The Pacific

’ACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY SEPTEMBER, 1979

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claimed by all South Pacific Island states.

But the embassy’s presence should also be a means of persuading Japan to increase aid which, so far, has been meagre and amounting to nothing at all until about three years ago. In some instances it has been offered with strings attached a form of aid which Fiji’s Prime Minister Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara refuses.

There have been offers of technical assistance for fisheries development but this tended to be directed at projects that would be of as much benefit to Japanese fishermen as they would to Fiji.

Radio Fiji received some handouts of equipment and some Japanese technicians installed it. A minor involvement in some agricultural schemes has started and a Japanese team has photographed coconut plantation areas for a survey to help copra development planning.

A Japanese mission was in Suva recently to ask the govenment what more could be done.

But, so far, said Masayaki Iguchi, first secretary at the new embassy, nothing had been agreed on: ‘We are waiting for a list of priority projects with which we could help but nothing has been decided yet.’

He said the embassy would be keeping an eye on fishing rights, ‘but economic and technical co-operation will be the embassy’s most important work’.

When he passed through Tokyo last year, Ratu Mara gave the Japanese one idea to think through. He pointed out that top quality it might be, but Japanese equipment, like equipment from any other country, broke down or wore out. Repairs were usually cheaper than buying a replacement he said, and added that while it might mean slightly reduced sales for Japanese suppliers, it would be a big saving for their Fiji customers if schools were opened in Suva to train local tradesmen and technicians to service and repair equipment appearing in the near $5O million import list of items bearing the Made in Japan mark.

Papua New Guinea

Just A Decade

And Nippon

Looms Large

If ever there was a revolution in every aspect of an international relationship, the link between Papua New Guinea and Japan provides it, writes Angus Smales in Port Moresby. Out of isolation came involvement in a war, then a time of withdrawal and suspicion, and now today's situation where Japan is one of PNG's most important diplomatic and trading partners.

Forty years ago, each country meant nothing to the other.

What little trade existed was via Australia, and old records indicate the presence of one solitary Japanese in the total population of PNG.

Thirty-seven years ago, with the Pacific War in full swing, thousands of Japanese occupation troops dug into PNG with an avalanche of materials and equipment, some of which continues to turn up even today in old caves and hideouts.

In the years which followed, and up to about 15 years ago, the name ‘Japan’ still conjured up uneasiness and as far as Australians in PNG were concerned a bitter opposition towards opening new doors or lowering war-induced barriers.

Even a Japanese salvage team which in those days cleared wartime wrecks from PNG’s northern harbours had to live in isolation behind locked gates at Rabaul because of public feeling.

And then came the short years of change. Today Japan is PNG’s second-largest trading partner after Australia and its capital and expertise are linked with 15 major national investment and development projects.

Company executives from both countries swap business cards essential for any dealings on the Japanese scene as they entrench Japanese involvement in PNG, and Japanese tourists, often in unwieldy groups, hurry through PNG with cameras, questions and an air of orderly confusion.

Japan has all but pushed UK and Australia out of the vehicle and electrical appliance markets in PNG. As a result, something like 19 cars and trucks in every 20 on PNG roads are now Japanese, and the electrical appliance sales although more difficult to estimate with accuracy are probably approaching a similar proportion.

In the domestic electronics market radios, record players, amplifiers, tape equipment and associated gear Japan has virtually pushed out every other supplying country ending a long reign by Australian and European suppliers.

In commercial electronics and communications, particularly with the growth of computer and data services, European, US and some Australian equipment still holds a solid share of the market. But Japan is making inroads there, too.

A recent order was for the supply of new-generation electronic teletype equipment for the PNG Telecom authorities, taking over from Australian and French equipment.

The newest field in which Japan is making inroads on what has been an Australian and European market is the supply of industrial machinery and equipment, together with tools and power equipment in all trades.

On the buying side, Japan is PNG’s biggest customer for exports of copper ore, unprocessed copra, crayfish, prawns, marine shell, sawn timber, unmilled logs and timberchip.

A full statistical history of the growth of Japanese trade with PNG is difficult to compile because in many records until a few years ago Japan was simply lumped among ‘other countries’.

The involvement just wasn’t big enough to rate a separate mention by country. This in itself highlights the revolution which has taken place and which has occurred in not much more than a decade. Sociological, diplomatic and cultural relations have been just as much a part of the revolution as trade relations.

PNG and Japan each maintain an embassy in the other’s country. Koichiro Yamaguchi is Japanese ambassador to PNG and Tony Ferapo is PNG ambassador to Japan.

PNG foreign affairs officials describe the Japanese desk as one of the busiest because of the growth of links between the two countries.

Japan and PNG do not see themselves as regional partners although each recognises a special relationship, largely based on two-way trade.

If Japan identified itself with Asia it would not be surprising to see closer formal links established with PNG because Reunion ... World War II Japanese gunner, Goshi Inuzuka, meets up with a wartime Papua New Guinean friend, Yading, of Hasini Village, on a visit to Salamaua, PNG, earlier this year

Japan In The Pacific

PACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY SEPTEMBER, 1979

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Pacific Islands Monthly - September, 1979

Japan Australia & New Zealand US UK Total 1976 1,334 16,951 2,527 2,101 26,374 1977 2,068 17,689 2,620 2,559 28,785 1978 2,308 18,800 2,836 2,906 31,261 Jan 1979 204 5,941 305 1,120 9,389 Feb 1979 282 3,634 406 748 6,425 Mar 1979 293 2,879 383 550 5,291 Major Japanese companies or companies with Japanese participation in PNG Trade New Ireland Otsuka Develop- C. Itoh & Co (Aust) Ltd. ment Pty Ltd. (logging) Marubeni Papua New Guinea Open Bay Timber Pty Ltd. (log- Pty Ltd. ging, sawn timber).

Mitsui & Co (Aust) Ltd.

Shin Asahigawa New Guinea Pty Mitsubishi Australia Ltd.

Ltd. (logging, timber trade).

Nissho Iwai Co (Aust) Ltd.

Stettin Bay Lumber Co Pty Ltd.

Sumitomo Shoji (Aust) Pty Ltd. (logging, sawn timber).

New Guinea Sohbu Pty Ltd.

Fisheries Forestry Commonwealth New Guinea Gollin Kyokuyo (Niugini) Pty Ltd. (prawn trawling).

New Britain Fishing Industries Timbers Ltd (CNGT) (plywood Pty Ltd. (tuna fishing). and sawn timber).

New Guinea Marine Products Pty Jant Pty Ltd. (wood-chip).

Ltd. (prawn trawling).

New Ireland Industry Pty Ltd.

Pacific Seafoods Pty Ltd. (prawn (logging). trawling). of PNG’s own interest in being a Pacific-Asia ‘bridge’.

But it is quite clear from Japanese policies in a number of subtle ways that it does not identify itself with Asia, and its policies towards PNG are very much those of a stand-alone nation.

Apart from direct trade and transport agreements of an ‘operational’ nature, the two countries do not share international treaty links or international bloc affiliations. But in many respects this situation tends to simplify those arrangements which they do make.

Japan is going through a period of creating greater involvement in Pacific Island countries, partly in a spirit of Pacific responsibilities and partly for trading reasons.

PNG has become one of the principal centres of focus in this move.

One feature of the relationship is particularly evident, and that is that Japan is the more active in searching for new avenues of involvement.

An organisation known as the Japan PNG Goodwill So- Arrivals in PNG Japanese citizens in PNG on a longterm basis number 270 including diplomatic staff, businessmen and employees of Japanese or jointventure firms and their families. ciety exists, but it is essentially a Japanese society looking to PNG rather than a reciprocal society looking in both directions.

This in no way undermines its altruism or its value, but is significant in illustrating the differing roles played by the two countries in their relationship.

The Goodwill Society is a non-official body but it has the approval of both governments through their foreign ministers.

It exists to establish ‘the deepest friendship, goodwill and co-operation’ between such widely-divergent groups in each country as ‘government officials and boy scouts’, as well as many others in between. It also plans to exchange works of art and artifacts between the two countries.

The total number of Japanese living in PNG is now approaching 300, made up of embassy officials, government representatives, business executives and skilled technicians and operatives.

Unlike many Australians, New Zealanders, Britons and Filipinos, the Japanese are not recruited by PNG interests for PNG jobs but are specifically sent to PNG positions by parent companies in Japan.

Their work ranges through commerce, shipping, fisheries and the timber, mechanical, electrical and air-conditioning industries.

Japanese shipping lines and the PNG national airline Air Niugini provide the transport links between PNG and Japan, although there is no shipping passenger trade.

The agreement under which Air Niugini flies to Japan is somewhat contentious from the PNG outlook because the flight has to terminate at Kagoshima in the southwestand not at Tokyo.

Japan at present won’t approve the final gloss which would allow Air Niugini’s once-a-week service to turn around at Tokyo, and there has been political criticism in Port Moresby over the arrangement.

The agreement provides for an ultimate option in which Japan could operate a PNG service but this has not yet been taken up. Any relaxation allowing Air Niugini into Tokyo is not likely until Japan decides it wants a share of the PNG route.

The service is heavily utilised and one of its interesting aspects has been the build-up of freight particularly for Japanese-made spare parts on delivery to PNG.

On the shipping lanes Japan operates general cargo ships, some linked with Australian routes, but it also has specialised bulk carriers on the run.

One is engaged solely on the Bougainville Island run carrying ore from the big open pit copper mine operated by Bougainville Copper Ltd.

Others are used to carry timber and logs from New Britain and to carry wood-chip from the mill at Madang operated by Jant Pty Ltd.

Specialised vehicle carriers also have been used on the PNG route, allowing cars to be driven straight out from below deck on a retractable bow ramp.

Australia, Japan, UK and the US are the four overseas countries with substantial private sector investment in PNG.

Because of its historical and continued links with PNG, Australia is by far the biggest investor and is estimated to exceed five times over the total investment of all other countries combined.

However Japan has become the biggest total investor of the other three countries and its effective investment is now estimated at nearly SAIOO million.

Most of this has been built up since 1969 in a fairly steady programme which has included extensive governmentto-government negotiations. In the past 10 years Japan is the only country which has recorded a growth in its PNG investments each year.

Australia, UK and the US have all gone through years in which they withdrew more Manager and staff In Jant workshop, Madang ... Japan is biggest investor after Australia 49

Japan In The Pacific

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Original technology. A wide range of quality products.

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JA NEW GUINEA: Stcamships-Machinery P.O. Box 1, Port Moresby /TAHITI: Societc Tahitienne dlmportation dcs Produits Honda B.P.

Papeete /FIJI ISLANDS: Carpenters Motors 61-63 Foster St., Walu Bay, Suva / KIRIBATI: Atoll Auto Stores P.O. Box 71, Bairiki Tarawa /U.S. >T TERRITORY: United Micronesia Development Assn. P.O. Box 238, Saipan, Mariana Islands 96950 / COOK ISLANDS: Cook Islands Motor »r Ltd. P.O Box 74, Rarotonga AMERICAN SAMOA: Holiday Motors, Parts and Service P.O Box 968, Pago Pago Haleck’s Service Centre .ox 1138, Pago Pago /GUAM: Mark’s Motor Co.. Inc. P.O. Box DV, Agana /WESTERN SAMOA: Motor Distributors (Samoa) Ltd. P.O. Box 576, SOLOMON ISLANDS: British Solomons Trading Co., Ltd. P.O. Box 114, Honiara /NEW CALEDONIA: Establissements Ballande Boite le No. C 4, Noumea Cedex / NIUE ISLAND: Niue Island United Enterprises P.O. Box 4, Alofi / NAURU: Nauru Cooperative Society Republic of . Nauru Island, Central Pacific / NEW HEBRIDES: Yamathai (Melanesia) Kaihatsu Kaisha P.O. Box 194, Port Vila Santo Gas Centre Ltd. P.O. Box anto /TUVALU: Tuvalu Co-operative Wholesale Society P.O. Box Funafuti, Tuvalu /TONGA: Jones Holding P.O. Box 34, Nukualofa Tonga.

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Japan Australia UK USA Others Total Year ending June 30 1971 43 821 106 374 4040 34 290 (’000s PNG Kina) 4114 192 639 1972 2821 81 486 65 736 17 491 2295 169 829 1973 6631 4358 19 876 5451 1654 29 254 1974 1983 80 758 60 935 51 987 526 74 314 1975 5595 18 028 10 298 8082 1211 27 050 1976 1752 29 586 4286 12 501 1645 24 768 1977 1887 5387 1608 6696 21 234 22 822 capital than they invested (although over the 10-year period they each showed a substantial net growth).

In 1975, the year that PNG became independent, there was an overall reduction of $25 million in overseas capital invested in PNG, largely through withdrawals by Australian and US interests. In the same year however Japan increased its investment by about $7 million.

Investment income payable out of PNG to Japanese interests is now estimated to be running at $5 million a year. (The estimate for Australian Investment in PNG From Private Overseas Investment issued August 3, 1978, by Bureau of Statistics of PNG. interests is $6O million.) Japanese capital in PNG tends to be more ‘formal’ than longstanding Australian capital. A big proportion of Japanese funds is invested in major lately-approved ventures in which the government itself is a shareholder, thus exposing the capital to government scrutiny, approval and involvement.

Under PNG’s investment structure this difference has no practical significance or not today, anyway but the Japanese themselves regard this as an added measure of security.

Japan shares exactly the same conditions, controls and guarantees as other countries with regard to capital invested in PNG it has neither concessions nor discriminatory restrictions.

Although Japanese investment is extensive and is increasing it is not spread widely and is generally confined to major developmental spheres where Japan has proven specialised skills.

All aspects of the timber industry are major investment areas for Japan, and there is Japanese timber money on the south coast of the PNG mainland, inland at Bulolo, at several points on the north coast and on New Britain and New Ireland.

The investment covers the whole range of the timber industry in general logging and reafforestation, in milling for export and local markets, in wood-chip production and in veneer and plywood manufacture.

There’s even a chopsticks export industry using offcuts from Klinkii pine plywood timber at the Japanesecontrolled Commonwealth New Guinea Timbers plant at Bulolo.

Fisheries is another major Japanese investment area in PNG, but a firm distinction is drawn between two completely differing types of operation.

One is the high-intensity fishing of PNG waters under licence, mainly for tuna, in which PNG has the potential to earn revenue from Japan in licence fees and royalties. Last year alone through an arrangement of this nature Japan paid PNG $1.25 million in licences plus royalties on the catch.

But government-to-government negotiations bogged down over a renewal of the arrangement, with Japan wanting a lower access price because of a claimed recession in the fisheries product market.

The situation remains stalemated, and PNG sends out periodic Defence Force patrols to ensure that Japanese fleets are not poaching. So far the Japanese behaviour has been exemplary.

PNG deliberately wants to keep the conditions tough because it is looking to the day when it can operate its own tuna catch fleet.

The second type of fisheries operation is where Japanese investment and expertise is used to establish a local industry with PNG equity involvement. Pilot schemes have already been operated, some including fish canning, and the PNG Government expects a big expansion in the next four years.

The major problem facing PNG is to assure its own coastal village communities that their traditional fishing rights will not be infringed or coastal waters denuded.

The big Sohbu Trading Corporation of Japan is a major investor in PNG with interests in timber and fisheries, mainly in partnership with the government. Its big automated timber mill at Open Bay in New Britain was burnt down in July, and about $4 million will be spent in a rebuilding programme.

Japan is involved in light industry through an airconditioning venture in a partnership between Daikin and the locally-owned PNG Associated Industries of Port Moresby.

Although Japan dominates PNG sales of automotive, electronic, time-keeping and camera industry products its local investment in these areas is not significant except for some light industrial services. This is because of a deliberate policy of non-involvement in marketing and servicing where local franchises can handle the requirements.

Where major Japanese international product names are concerned this has tended to keep Japanese investment to liaison-type activities, backed up by sponsored training programmes for PNG technicians and officials.

Japan invested a one-third share in a major feasibility study into the hydro-electric potential of the Purari River in southern PNG. Any eventual development of the scheme is almost certain to include Japanese participation, and there is a possibility that Japan could be an industrial customer for the available power if the scheme is implemented.

Japan attempted to gain a foothold in the palm oil industry in PNG but its expertise proved insufficient and the PNG Government cancelled an agreement under which Japanese interests were to establish an expressing mill and palm oil estate.

Japan provides two types of direct aid to PNG as part of an established policy of assistance to developing countries. One is the provision of concessional loans for development projects where the projects themselves require approval but the direction of expenditure is generally untied. The other is a programme of technical assistance which can involve training or financial aid, but which is generally tied to Japanese involvement in the approved schemes.

Under the loan programme, PNG recently received a $17.5 million soft loan from Japan to be spent over this year and the next five years. The loan itself Klinkii pine ready for shipment from Bulolo ... now a Japanese operation 52

Japan In The Pacific

Pacific Islands Monthly - September, 1979

Daiwa Line

Japan-South Pacific Regular Service

Australia-South Pacific Container Service

Japan Taiwan-Guam-Saipan Regular Service

Daiwa Line Bridges South Pacific

With Ro/Ro Car & Container Carrier

JAPAN—GUAM —LAUTOKA—SUVA—PAPEETE—PAGO PAGO—APIA—NOUMEA—

Sydney—Honiara—Kieta—Tarawa—Guam—Taiwan—Japan

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Japan—Taiwan—Guam —Saipan—Japan

V s ste THE DAIWA MATIGATIOM CO., LTD.

Osaka: “Dailine” Tokyo: “Funedailine”

Head Office Tokyo Office

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TELEPHONE (06) 531 0471 '9 TELEPHONE; (03) 274-3251 '8 TELEX: 525-6324 & 525-6325 TELEX: 222-3343, J 23559 will operate over 30 years at only 3% annual interest and with a 10-year grace period before repayments begin. It is being co-financed by the Asian Development Bank.

It was approved through the PNG budget and will be used for an important hydro-electric project on the Warangoi River just outside Rabaul in East New Britain Province.

All procurement arrangements in applying the money are untied, except that the expenditure cannot be in socialist countries.

Japanese and PNG officials are already investigating another loan under similar concessional terms, and possibly slightly larger.

In accepting Japanese technical aid as distinct from development loans PNG has found some difficulty in finding projects which are suited to its own requirements while also filling the need for Japanese involvement.

However about 30 Papua New Guineans are undergoing. or about to undergo, technical training courses in Japan and two Japanese experts are involved in fisheries training aid in PNG.

PNG has found language difficulties create problems for some trainees going to Japan, but in general the foreign office and the government regard the scheme as valuable and working satisfactorily.

Japan is also about to involve PNG in its Overseas Co-operation Volunteers (OCV) scheme, a similar operation to Australian Volunteers Abroad and the US Peace Corps.

In total trade figures, Japan is now PNG’s second trading partner after Australia. But in terms of exports Japan is PNG’s best customer by far, and the value of what PNG sells to Japan is three times greater "than what it buys.

This point is often overlooked by critics who claim that aggressive Japanese marketing has been allowed to encroach excessively on the ‘traditional’ PNG market.

One product alone has created PNG’s favourable trade balance with Japan, and that is copper ore from the Bougainville Copper Ltd mine.

At the moment PNG sales to Japan are running at about $l9O million and Japan’s sales to PNG at $65 million.

Japanese sales to PNG are rising at a fairly steady 3% a year. The trend of values in PNG sales to Japan is harder to define because it relies to such a big extent on the often variable international copper market. The present value of PNG copper ore sales to Japan is running at $l4O million a year.

PNG’s second-biggest export to Japan is a wide range of products from the timber industry from raw logs to veneer - worth about $25 million.

The remaining major export earnings are from copra, coffee beans, crayfish, prawns and fish. There are minor earnings from crocodile skins, cardamon seeds, cocoa beans, palm oil and marine shell.

More than half of PNG’s $65-million-dollar annual purchases from Japan is made up of motor vehicles and some machinery. The total amount involved in these purchases on the most recent annual figures was $37 million. PNG’s roads are now almost completely taken over by Japanese vehicles.

The second big area of Japanese sales is in manufactured goods amounting to just over $l2 million. The principal goods in this category are radio and audio equipment, watches and clocks, cameras, electronic equipment and some electrical appliances.

PNG also buys from Japan foodstuffs valued at $lO million.

Port Moresby foreign affairs officials say that Japan is obviously seeing PNG as an increasingly important Pacific market, and that the volume of inquiries at the PNG embassy in Japan is steadily increasing. 53

Japan In The Pacific

Pacific Islands Monthly - September, 1979

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Solomon Islands

Fishing The Pivot

Of Growing

Co-Operation

Japan has been a major export market for Solomon Islands copra since 1963 and for timber since the late sixties. Sizable direct Japanese investment began in the early seventies but Tokyo's official aid programme started only last year, writes Irene Hawkins in Honiara.

Since its inception in late 1972, Solomon Taiyo Limited (STL), a fishing and canning company jointly owned by the Solomon Islands Government and the Taiyo fishing group, has undoubtedly been the pivot of Japanese-Solomon Islands economic relations. Not only has it accounted for over a quarter of all the archipelago’s exports in recent years, it also represents a major chunk of foreign investment (in the order of SSI 7 million in long and short term funds from Japan).

STL plays an important role in both local food supplies and the innovation of local fishing methods. As one of the biggest employers in the country, with around 800 Solomon Islanders on its payroll, the company has paid over $3 million in both wages and export duties in the past three years. In return for a 25% government stake (which the Government has recently increased to 49%) STL enjoys exclusive fishing rights in the Solomon Islands 12-mile zone, particularly the fish-rich ‘Slot’ between the two chains of islands. Working relations betwen the STL partners have been generally good.

Last year the STL catcher fleet of more than 20 boats, manned by a mixed crew of Okinawans and Solomon Islanders, caught 18 200 tonnes of mainly skipjack tuna. Over the past three years, catches averaged 14 5001 annually.

About 75% of the catches have been sold as frozen fish, mainly to American canneries in American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico and the United States. However, last year the export of frozen fish was an uphill job because of the worldwide fish glut. With the price per tonne of frozen fish dropping from an average of $620 in 1977 to only $5OO last year, STL made a big loss as did many fishing companies around the world.

In the face of declining sales to its traditional markets for frozen fish, STL tried to push sales to Japan. It almost doubled its sale of frozen fish to Japan (to nearly $1 million) and smoked over 1000 t of fish, which it sells as arabushi in Japan. At the same time STL processed about 1800 t of raw fish in its cannery at Tulagi in the Florida Islands.

This year STL hopes to run the cannery nearer to its full capacity, processing 2500-2800 t of raw fish. Unlike raw fish prices, those for canned fish, which goes largely to European consumers, have remained .(and are likely to remain) stable.

The company is expecting a better performance this year and hopes to wipe out some of its accumulated losses, its expanded catcher fleet of 25 boats (two were recently given under Japanese aid to the National Fisheries Development Company which operates the boats and sells the catch to STL) should haul in around 21 000 t of fish. The world market price for raw fish is expected to recover by about $6O per tonne.

A small part of the fish that was sent to Japan last year was high ms7?/m/-quality tuna that had been caught by longlining, a fishing method new to Solomon Islands that STL introduced last September. If this pilot project continues to bring in good catches the company hopes for about 700 t of yellowfin and big-eye tuna this year the Japanese market could become an increasingly important outlet for Solomon Island fish.

The next few years also are likely to see the construction of a second, modern cannery, probably four times the size of the Tulagi plant, at Noro, an important new development area with a deep water harbour in the Western Solomons on New Georgia Island. The final feasibility study for this project was due to be submitted to the government at the end of July.

Noro has already got substantial freezing facilities and serves as a second shore base besides Tulagi. For some time now the company has been looking at possible sites for a third shore base. But a survey of the Shortlands for this purpose has proved this area not commercially viable.

After negotiations in May, STL’s partners decided to put their company on a firmer financial basis in preparation for its expansionary plans. Its share capital was doubled to $2 million with the Government Shareholding Agency increasing its stake to 49%. STL has also undertaken to speed up the training of Solomon Islanders in order to localise more senior positions in STL as well as improve living conditions of employees.

It is envisaged that by 1982, when the present joint venture agreement expires, STL should have expanded the catcher fleet to 35 boats in conjuction with the NFD. Eleven of the boats would be owned by STL, another 10 by NFD, which will build and operate the boats, use STL shore facilities and sell its fish to STL. There should also be four freezer-catcher boats, owned either by STL or NFD, while the remaining 10 boats would be on charter.

In close co-operation with the NFD (in which STL holds a 25% stake) and the Japanese Government, STL is playing a pivotal role in establishing a flourishing locally-owned fishing industry, where local fishermen, partly trained by STL and Japanese experts, sent under Japanese aid, will fish from modern locally-built boats.

Solomon Islands is fortunate to own one of the richest fishing grounds in the Pacific and the government is trying to ensure that these riches are first and foremost exploited by locaL fishermen, NFD and STL.

Last September it signed a fisheries licensing agreement with Japan, under which Japanese catcher boats (other than STL) are allowed to catch only surplus fish over and above what can be caught A gift from Japan...small fishing vessel for research and training. Photo: Philip Vahia 56

Japan In The Pacific

Pacific Islands Monthly - September, 1979

1977 1978 Total 7 367.0 7 101.0 Major exports: Rough wood 6 324.8 5 280.6 Fresh and frozen fish 486.0 944.5 Smoked fish 388.3 721.3 Marine shells 152.8 126.0 Total 3 203.0 (SSI ’000) 4 013.2 Major imports: Motor vehicles and parts 413.9 881.4 Telecommunications 15.3 664.2 Manufactures of metal 172.9 307.8 Outboard motors and parts 393.1 231.9 Cement 40.0 183.7 Canned fish 146.6 181.6 Gas refrigerators and domestic equipment 260.0 179.0 Tyres 140.9 164.4 Electrical machinery 53.0 120.2 Cotton fabrics 64.6 115.1 locally. The permissible maximum catch is limited to 15 000 t of skipjack and 3000 t of tuna per annum. A basic annual licensing fee of $350 000 equivalent to 7% of the value of the catch plus progressive rates on excess catches beyond the basic 6000 t of skipjack and 2000 t of tuna are payable.

For nearly 10 years now there has been the prospect of another sizable Japanese venture in Solomon Islands. Back in 1968, Mitsui Mining found deposits of around 25 million t of high grade bauxite on the island of Rennell, south of Guadalcanal. A year later a subsidiary of Rio Tinto Zinc proved deposits of similar quantity and quality on Vaghena at the southern end of Choiseul. For some years a one million tonnes alumina refinery was being considered.

But technical problems (because of the high content of phosphorus, organic carbon and moisture), uncertain market prospects as well as some justified local opposition backed up by environmentalists, have kept this project on ice. Mitsui, having sunk over $2 million in exploration and technical tests, has been reluctant to ditch the project.

Japanese financial and technical aid is a useful and welcome addition to the wide range of aid sources that Solomon Islands can draw on.

Since the inception of the official, bilateral aid programme in April 1978 the Japanese have concentrated their efforts in the fisheries sector. During 1978-79 the equivalent of $2.25 million has been given to Solomon Islands in the form of two catcher boats (of 30 and 18 metres length) to be used for training by the NFD. In addition a small freezer boat was given to run a shuttle service between Honiara and the Western Solomons and Malaita, taking out ice for the fishermen and bringing back their fish to the capital. Until the arrival of this boat the newly set-up, government-owned fish marketing organisation SIACO, rarely had any fish to sell.

The third, most recent project under the 1978/79 aid allocation consists of a financial and technical package to help develop smallscale local fishing. This project involves a boatshed at Auki to be used as the Malaita Fisheries Training Centre and staffed by two Japanese volunteers, one on fisheries techniques, the other on engine repairs and maintenance of boats.

Under the same programme, Japan has also supplied the engines and most of the equipment (other than local timber) for 15 8.5 metre fishing boats which will be built at the NFDboatshed at Sasape in the Florida group. Japan may also send a boat-building expert to Sasape. The 15 boats are to be sold at local cost price to fishermen in Malaita and other islands who will be able to obtain loans from the Development Bank of SI.

Under the 1979/80 aid agreement worth about the same amount as the previous year Japan has promised two inter-island vessels which will be used for long distance trips to the Eastern Islands and Ontong Java. They are due to be delivered in January. They will carry passengers and cargo.

The next big Japanese aid project is likely to be interisland communications. A prefeasibility study team toured the archipelago extensively in January this year and a full Solomon Islands exports to Japan (SSI’OOO) Solomon Islands imports from Japan feasibility study team is expected in 1980/81.

Japan has impressed local politicians and civil servants with its prompt delivery of the promised ships and fairly smooth processing of its regular aid programme. But some of its smaller aid programmes, such as its $2OO 000 cultural aid project, give the impression of being rather poorly administered. Conditions attached to these programmes are altered frequently with the result that they cause a lot of extra administrative work and the money sometimes ends up not being spent at all.

Japan is still the Si’s most important export market (with a share of just under 24% of total SI exports last year), although Britain has been catching up quite fast due to substantial purchases of SI palm oil and canned fish in recent years.

Seventy-five per cent of all sales to Japan valued at more than $7 million last year are in the form of rough timber, largely from the Levers operations in the Western Solomons. Japan tends to buy between 75 and 80% of the country’s annual rough timber output of around 0.25 million cubic metres. Frozen and , smoked fish exports account for most of the balance.

Japan is the Si’s second most important source of imports, with a share of 13% of the archipelago’s total imports last year. Motor vehicles and parts make up more than a fifth of all imports from Japan worth $4 million last year. Other major Japanese import items are metal manufactures, outboard motors and parts and, last year also, an earth satellite for SI International Telecommunications Ltd (Soltel) in Honiara. Japan also sells a certain amount of canned fish, tyres, cement and gas refrigerators and other domestic equipment.

So far, imports of such typical Japanese consumer goods as cameras, calculators and cassette recorders are insignificant, presumably due to the small relatively poor local market and very limited duty-free business because there are so STL’s shore base at Tulagi ... unloading frozen skipjack.

Photo: Philip Vahia

Japan In The Pacific

PACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY SEPTEMBER, 1979

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Pacific Islands Monthly - September, 1979

few tourists. Last year only 2374 Japanese radios were sold in the SI valued at $72 000.

After a jump from 4% in 1965 to 13% in 1975, the Japanese seem to have been unable to penetrate the Solomons market any further in the years since.

Unless something unforeseen happens, Japan’s hunger for food and raw materials in the form of fish, timber and possibly minerals, will increase its economic involvement in Soloman Islands.

But while official and big business contacts with Japan are bound to increase, the average Solomon Islander will continue to know little about Japan and come into contact with few things Japanese.

Non-economic relations, in particular close cultural contacts (be it through the exchange of students, sporting events, visits of parliamentarians and businessmen), are likely to remain very limited in the foreseeable future. There have, however, been quite a few visits by Japanese aid teams to SI and by SI politicians and top civil servants to Japan in the past few years.

Each year small groups of Japanese visit Solomon Islands, mainly in search of relics of their countrymen who fell in the Pacific War. About 180 Okinawan fishermen work with SI crews on the STL catcher boats, some of the Solomons crewmen picking up a smattering of Japanese. A handful of Japanese businessmen with Taiyo and Mitsui and representing one or two other Japanese interests, are resident in Honiara. Through Air Nauru, there is a direct link between Honiara and southern Japan.

However, all this does not institute anything like the dose, longstanding cultural contact SI has had with English-speaking countries, language and alien social and cultural patterns will continue o prove a barrier for some ime to come, even if a few Jolomon Islanders were to revive technical training in apan after, of course, having nastered the Japanese anguage.

GUAM Ties never been better Three hours south of Tokyo by air, the American territory of Guam has has a love-hate relationship with Japan for much of the twentieth century, writes Paul Addison from Agana.

Occupied by Japan between 1941 and 1944 Guam has long since buried most of the sores which festered during that violent period.

Today the productive relationship between the two countries has never been stronger. The realisation by most Guamanians that Japanese influence on the island is financially rewarding to both parties has spawned a string of joint business operations which rank among Guam’s most successful ventures.

Nowhere is the Japanese influence so strong as in the island’s tourist industry.

Japanese tourists constitute the bulk of visitors to Guam. More than 150 000 a year have vacationed on Guam in the past five years and their spending estimated at SUSIOO million in 1978 boosts Government of Guam taxes as well as employment and island leisure activities. Without Japanese tourists Guam today would have no major hotels on Turnon Bay and perhaps a third of the businesses would leave.

Says Martin Pray, outgoing general manager of the Guam visitors Bureau: Guam is one of Japan’s oldest post-war destinations 12 years and renewed enthusiasm for Guam is probably, like the fashion industry, based on the benefits of dusting off an oldie but goodie and putting it back on the front shelf. Let there be no mistake. Japan has been and always will remain the prime market for tourists to Guam.’

According to recent statistics, some 20% of total government revenues are generated by the tourism industry, mostly from Japan.

Japanese visitors are largely honeymooners here for three nights and four days, and single young persons seeking fun and sun on this tropical island. During the day they sit on beaches on Turnon Bay, tour the island in air conditioned buses owned by Japanese companies and visit duty free shops where shop assistants are required to speak Japanese.

In these 30 and 40 luxury shops the tourist can buy such goods as Christian Dior, Givenchy, Nancy Greer women’s clothing, fashionable accessories by Gucci, Charles Jourdin and Roberta Di Camerio, and top quality fragrances from Chanel, Hermes, Nina Ricci and Madame Rochas. Others visit out-of-the-way sights on ‘Pacific Safari’ jeeps, such as the jungle cave where Shoichi Yokoi of the Japanese Imperial Army hid for 33 years after the war. Still others go their own way, renting mopeds and vehicles from Nippon Rent-A- Car and Japan Rent-A-Car.

The latter is a division of Fukada Enterprises which also runs a marriage service for Japanese tourists.

Most of Guam’s major luxury hotels are partly-owned by the Japanese. Even their names the Okura and Dai Ichi, for instance reflect their ethnic origin. The tourists arrive from Osaka and Japan on daily Japan Air Lines and Pan American flights filled by a small cadre of wholesale tour companies such as Diamond Tour, JALPAK, Look-JTB, Mach, Toptour, Holiday Tour and Japan Creative Tours.

Their interests are catered to by a Japan-Guam Tourism Committee formed in November 1976. Guam Visitors Bureau also has maintained a fully staffed office in Tokyo for more than three years.

In the past 12 months Guam’s hotels have reported occupancy rates of more than 70% and increased profitability.

Besides the tourist industry a number of Japanese Photographic ritual Japanese visitors on Cocos Island off Guam’s south coast.

Photo: Manny Crisostomo 61

Japan In The Pacific

’ACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY SEPTEMBER, 1979

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Pacific Islands Monthly - September, 1979

companies operate on Guam although a Japan-Guam Economic Council, once lauded as the perfect non-political entity to boost co-operation, has virtually petered out.

Some major possibilities remain. On Guam’s southern coast aquaculture companies raise eels and shrimps which are sent to Japan. Another growth industry is hydroponic farming, where such delicacies as large Japanese apples and melons are grown in perfect simulated conditions. Another recently-introduced scheme has been a carry-on beef programme where tourists can buy up to 23 kg of American beef and take it back to Japan where beef costs up to $ll5 a kg.

As an indication of the priority with which the administration views Guam’s relationship with Japan, Governor Paul Calvo’s first off-island trip in February took him to Japan to meet with government and business leaders to discuss investment, agriculture and airlines problems. One well discussed areas has been the possibility of locating a tuna fish cannery on the island.

Negotiations have already been conducted between the Port Authority of Guam and Suzue Co of Japan that could result in as many as 300 Japanese vessels docking at Guam’s port each year.

For the newly emergent nations in Micronesia the Federated States of Micronesia, Palau and the Marshall Islands the fishing negotiations with Japan possibly contain the key to future economic prosperity in the region.

Although statistics are not current, the most recently published show that Japanese imports to Guam totalled about $l3 million in 1976 about 5% of Guam’s annual $260 million import total.

However, calling tourism an invisible import, that figure is boosted by $lOO million.

Of the imports, most are luxury electronic goods bought by the local and military population. Japanese cars and pick-up trucks also are big sellers, outselling American cars by at least four to one, with especially large sales of Toyota, Honda and Datsun cars.

Other Japanese-related activities abound. There are tour ships which stop over for one night to the filming of scores of Japanese television commercials; visits, complete with fan clubs, of Japanese pop stars; and visits of special educational groups and bone hunters. Sporting contacts are also strong. The biggest sporting event for baseball fans is the annual visit of the Seibu Lions, which this year played a series of games with Guam teams. Guam also sends teams to Japan for the Far East Basketball and Volleyball championships and the Asian Little League tournament.

With the growth of business here, a small but vocal Japanese community has formed. A Japanese consulate general was established four years ago. But Guam’s future with Japan depends largely on the nature of the Japanese and American economies. If either country has a recession, trade and tourism could be badly hurt. Furthermore, the recent crackdown on fuel supplies has caused some cancellations of flights to Guam and Osaka and Tokyo.. This has made the island a more difficult place to get to. Another factor which spurs or mars development is the movement of the Japanese yen against the American dollar.

At present, however, optimism abounds and the business-minded administration and the fifteenth Guam Legislature are confident they can both promote tourism from Japan and start to export more goods there.

French Polynesia

The Japanese are comingbut when?

The Japanese remain something of a mystery to the Polynesians of Tahiti, writes Marie-Therese Danielsson.

They certainly have no stereotype, either positive or negative.

Between 1911 and 1935 a number of Japanese workers were engaged for phosphate mining on Makatea in the Tuamotu group but their numbers never exceede i 250 and they were not allowed to visit other islands.

The war came and went and Polynesians were only told about the Japanese enemy never saw him and the propaganda image of the kamikaze warrior quickly faded.

The arrival of the first Japanese fishing boats, quite predictably, created some resentment. There were fears that French Polynesian oceans would be fished out, there have been frequent incursions which have gone unpunished by foreign fishing boats, and the fears have heightered.

But when it comes to the impact of the individual Japanese fisherman who comes in to Papeete for rest and recreation? Really! There is none.

So many thousands of foreigners, all strangers, pulsate through the streets of Papeete, fill its bars and clubs at night, that a few dozen Japanese sailors who are not big spenders anyway are barely noticed.

Japanese tourists in Tahiti when they are able to get here do not receive much more attention except that they usually turn up in tour groups which, of course, need some organising.

The first organised effort to bring Japanese hoh iaymakers to Papeete was ma< e in April 1974 when Air France began a Tokyo-Papeete service. In that year Air France brought in 5202 Japanese, most of them honeymooners who, above all, wanted to be left alone. By and large the Japanese seemed to converge on the huge hotel at Borabora.

Local tourist agencies had barely got around to supplying these youthful tourists with what they wanted most a chapel where they could get married again according to ‘native custom’ when Air France dropped its Tokyo- Papeete-Lima (Peru) service.

It wasn’t that Air France wasn’t getting satisfactory loadings. It was simply an economy move to help pay for its losses on the newlyintroduced Concorde services from Europe.

That happened in January 1977, a time when Japanese investors were seriously interested in hotel development.

A Japanese company has even bought the site of the former Hotel Taaone, just outside Papeete, but after a few years of inconclusive negotiations it was more or less forced to sell the site to the Pirae municipality.

There also was a lot written and talked about a 500-room Memorial to war dead, Saipan ... the future lies with the economies of Japan and the US Tahitian welcome for Japanese tourist ... stop-start charter traffic.

Japan In The Pacific

’Acific Islands Monthly - September, 1979

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($A ’OOOs) 1977 1978 Vehicles 3579 2675 Electrical 1760 2174 Sound equipment and musical instruments 530 672 Cameras and projectors 585 578 Mechanical 732 971 Toys, fishing and sporting gear 306 268 Textiles 922 1285 Food 722 891 Tonnes (’000s) Values 1970 4141 17 728 1971 4023 18 333 1972 2417 17 365 1973 2711 14 907 1974 3562 23 333 1975 2466 4 828 1976 2693 6 554 1977 2604 6 403 1978 1540 1 684 complex to be built next to the Atimaono golf course. The idea was to encourage Japanese golf fanatics, sick of barely being able to squeeze on to their own fairways at home, to come to the wide open spaces of Tahiti. Although that scheme did not get off the ground it has not been forgotten and it will be revived if ever French Polynesia wins control of civil aviation. At the moment all decisions rest with Paris.

There was something of a breakthrough on the tourist front this year when Japan Air Lines organised charters through Hawaii. But the results were disappointing. Of 19 anticipated charters in April and May, only 13 arrived, bringing about 1500 tourists. It had been hoped they would stay 5-7 days; instead they stayed only 4-5 days.

A second charter season September-October was being discussed by JAL and the local tourist bureau.

Japanese tourists to French Polynesia numbered 3311 in 1973, 5202 in 1974, 4792 in 1975,4114 in 1976,2739 in 1977 and 2181 last year.

While Japanese visitors are few and far between, there’s plenty of evidence of Japanese technology and it shows vividly in import-export figures.

Last year Japanese sales to French Polynesia were valued at SAII.I million against French Polynesia sales to lapan of $648 112. In the previous year Japanese sales were 510.2 million and French Polynesia sales only $69 460.

Lhe improvement in French Polynesia’s performance last was a result of much larger ;ales of cultured pearls to lapan.

Cars, trucks, tractors and notorcycles head the list of apanese imports. But, in these French Polynesia imports from Japan categories, total sales dropped from $3.6 million in 1977 to $2.7 million last year. Against 198 Japanese cars imported in 1977, only 91 were imported last year. Comparable figures for trucks and motorcycles were 645 (360) and 421 (175) respectively.

It seemed that the 1977 infatuation with cheaper Japanese vehicles gave way in 1978 to a return to favour of more expensive French vehicles. As well, the French vehicle trade in Papeete is much better organised than for other vehicles.

Sales of Japanese electrical and electronic goods are increasing, up from $l.B million in 1977 to $2.2 million last year. Sound equipment and musical instrument sales of $530 000 in 1977 increased to $670 000 last year. Photographic equipment remained steady with sales $585 000 in 1977 and $5BO 000 last year.

The 2113 Japanese cameras imported in 1977 represented 57% of all camera imports.

Japanese textiles are becoming more popular and food imports, mostly canned fish, are growing.

Most Japanese goods are brought to Papeete by Japanese vessels. In 1977 14 vessels delivered about 3800 tonnes and loaded about 1700 t. Last year, eight vessels delivered about 19001 and loaded about 1500 t.

New Caledonia

A selective association The only Japanese to have really succeeded in making a landfall in New Caledonia are the tourists. Their military efforts were thwarted by the Americans, and their businessmen by French red tape, writes Andre Chaville in Noumea.

New Caledonia has a favorable trade balance with Japan.

It has been selling crude nickel ore and refined mats and ferronickel to the Japanese while its protective tariff system has been holding back imports of Japanese consumer products.

Only in recent years have sales of ore fallen because the Japanese smelters have found cheaper and closer sources of supply in the Philippines and Indonesia where they feel a little more welcome.

Trade figures show a gradual decrease in sales of nickel ore to Japan and the price squeeze which has accompanied this decline is partly responsible for the territory’s present economic difficulties.

However, the Japanese are not responsible for this ‘squeeze’. International recession, surplus production of nickel and competition from new source of supply on a dwindling market are the main reasons. But it is also interesting to note that the Japanese, along with the Americans and the Canadians, were interested in participating in the creation of a nickel smelter in the north of New Caledonia in the late sixties. It seems fairly obvious in hindsight, that France’s policy was to keep foreign interests at a distance.

While the French government controls New Caledonia’s trade with countries which are not members of the European Economic Community, Japan has never enjoyed easy access to the market. Over the years this resistance has been slowly eroded and there are now plenty of Japanese motorcycles, hi-fi equipment and cameras, available in Noumea, but a surprisingly small number of cars compared with neighbouring islands.

Japanese businessmen visiting New Caledonia have been, occasionally, very outspoken in their comments on the balance of trade between their country and New Caledonia.

The failure to obtain the right to invest in the nickel industry is not the only setback the Japanese have encountered. While this could be explained as France’s protection of a ‘strategic’ mineral, it is no excuse for the problems encountered in fishing and other activities, where the Japanese have finally preferred the New Hebrides.

One Japanese project under New Caledonia sales of nickel ore to Japan (in millions of Pacific Francs) President Hammer deßoburt opens Air Nauru’s office in Tokyo in June, marking another milestone in the island republic’s drive to make its international air service a viable operation. Manager of the new office is Masahiro Seda, 57 (above right) who is also manager of the Nauru Shipping Agency in Japan.

Japan In The Pacific

ACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY SEPTEMBER, 1979

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AGENTS Taiwan: Royal Steamship Corp., Ltd., Taipei S. Korea: Dong Sue Shipping Co., Ltd., Seoul Hong Kong: Dahzun Enterprises Ltd.

Singapore: Ocean Shipping & Enterprses Pte, Ltd Manana Is.: Maritime Agencies of Pacific Ltd., Guam Solomon: Solomon Taiyo Ltd , Honiara Tahiti: J.A. Cowan & Fils, Papeete Cooks: Eastern Associates Ltd. Rarotonga Tonga: EM. Jones Ltd., Nukualofa New Hebrides: Agence Maritime Pentecost Pacific S. A, Port Vila A Samoa: Island Pacific Agencies Inc., Pago Pago W Samoa: Morris Hedstrom Ltrom Ltd., Apia Fiji: Carpenter Shipping, Suva & Lautoka PNG: Carpenter Shipping Agencies. Port Moresby, Rabaul New Caledonia: Agence Maritime Du Rond Point Du Pacific. Noumea Indonesia: P.T. Porodisa Raya Shipping Lines. Jakarta Sabah: KOH Han Ming Shipping & Forwarding Agent., Kotakinabalu Sarawak: Pan Sarawak Agencies Sdn. Bhd., Sibu & Kuching Australia: Hethenngton Kingsbury Pty, Ltd., Sydney. N.S.W.

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68

Pacific Islands Monthly - September, 1979

Imports Exports 1972 411 4070 1973 346 4946 1974 753 7854 1975 888 5378 1976 834 7654 1977 994 7505 way in New Caledonia, Mitsubishi’s eucalyptus oil production, has been set back by a bush-fire which wiped out a large part of the plantation.

As a French territory, New Caledonia’s economy is in fact an element of the total national resources. When the trading balance is unfavourable, France pays the bill; when exports go up, France collects the foreign exchange. Thus, from France’s point of view.

New Caledonia is just a small part of total trade with Japan.

For the same reasons. New Caledonia does not seek Japanese investments. The French authorities, without openly discouraging foreign investment, prefer to see their own companies active in the territory.

Meanwhile, the Japanese are becoming an important element in the territory’s tourist trade. The weekly flight between Tokyo and Noumea was paying dividends until the DC 10 problems, and the French Bureau of Tourism’s agency in Toyko was working on selling the territory. Because of the costly ceremonies of a Japanese wedding, many have been flying to Noumea for a wedding and honeymoon.

New Caledonia has also been favoured, because of its lagoons and blue skies, for shots for Japanese fashion magazines and leaflets for Japanese cosmetic manufacturers.

The casino is also a popular attraction and Japanese players gamble heavily. Miss New Caledonia 1978 received, as part of her prize, a trip to Tokyo.

The conclusion is obvious: in New Caledonia, the yen is very popular but under strict control.

New Caledonia’s Trade with Japan (in millions of Pacific Francs)

New Hebrides

Here to stay - and very welcome ‘The Japanese have well and truly arrived in the New Hebrides, and they’re welcome because they’re seen as developing the place.’

In these terms Ken Hutton, dentist and cattleman of Santo, summed up the Japanese presence in the country which has been his home for the past 25 years.

Interviewed by PIM during a brief visit to Sydney in August, Mr Hutton admitted there had been some resentment of the Japanese, especially among Australians based on Santo, when they first arrived in 1957 to set up their big South Pacific Fishing Company (SPFC) operation at Palekula on Santo. ‘But all that’s gone and forgotten,’ he said. ‘They’re very much part of the scene on Santo now.’

There are about 30 Japanese stationed at Palekula and some wives and children are beginning to join them. Increasing numbers of Melanesians are being employed by SPFC, including office staff. ‘Nobody else can fish like the Japanese with their longline techniques,’ says Mr Hutton. ‘They’re much admired locally for this.’

As well as taking fish to Japan, the Taiwan ships fishing out of Palekula are now taking manufacturing beef (for smallgoods) from the New Hebrides.

It is expected that they will begin taking frozen meats, especially as about six months ago Japan declared the New Hebrides a disease-free zone for beef.

Apart from Palekula, the Japanese presence in the New Hebrides is most visible at Le Lagon Hotel in Vila. Since the hotel came under the control of Japan’s Tokyu hotel organisation, the number of Japanese tourists has jumped dramatically. ‘Engaged couples come in droves to get married at the Presbyterian church on Fila Island in Vila harbour,’ says Mr Hutton. ‘They fly from Tokyo by UTA DC 10s to Noumea, and then come on to Vila by UTA 737 s or F2Bs.’

Mr Hutton says there has been talk of Japan Air Lines (JAL) securing Tokyo- Noumea-Auckland rights. The tourists behave impeccably and are well regarded by residents. ‘There’s a cheerful cosmopolitan atmosphere at Le Lagon,’ says Mr Hutton. ‘There are two or three Japanese executives, French chefs, and New Hebrideans and a sprinkling of Fijians hold practically all the office and service jobs.’

Apart from these two operations, the biggest Japanese project on the drawing boards for the New Hebrides is the Mitsubishi-Sumitomo woodchip mill on Santo. The project is planned to cover 29 000 ha and to cost about SA6 million.

There is a feeling locally that the promoters are waiting until the New Hebrides becomes independent before getting the project off the ground.

Ken Hutton sums up: ‘There’s no doubt whatsoever that the Japanese have come to the New Hebrides to stay, and that there’ll be still wider cooperation when the country becomes independent.’

Norfolk Island

Taking on another dimension On June 8 each year on Norfolk Island, throngs of tourists snap pictures as the Pitcairn people, dressed in nineteenth century clothes, re-enact the arrival of their forebears on their new island home in 1856, writes Ed Howard.

Among visitors this year was Hiroshi Aoki, Oceania representative for the giant Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun. He was capturing Norfolk on film and in words for his newspaper’s 7.2 million subscribers.

He sampled Tahitian fish and kumera pie at the traditional open-air picnic, He toured low-duty shops where tourists and locals spend well over SAI million a year on Japanese photo equipment, watches, hi-fi and motor cars.

And he watched attentively as the Norfolk Island Council and Australia’s Minister for Home Affairs Bob Ellicott wrestled with the key political question on Norfolk these days: how much real authority would the Island’s forthcoming Legislative Assembly be allowed to exercise? To what extent will Norfolk policies continue to be formed in Canberra?

One point in the meeting had direct significance for the readers of Asahi Shimbun. Mr Ellicott announced the planned visit of a first assistant secretary from Australia’s Department of Primary Industry to begin discussions on how Norfolk’s 200-mile economic zone will be used, and who will get the net benefits.

Until now relations between Japan and Norfolk have been based on the island’s existence as a small but appreciated ‘duty-free’ market for luxury tourist goods.

Relations between island traders and Japanese suppliers have been cordial and productive. Japanese manufacturers supply around 80% of Norfolk’s motor cars; 85% of radio accessories including hi-fi components; 80% of watches; and well over half of all photographic equipment.

The beauty of the Japanese product,’ says local businessman Ken Nobbs, who runs the island’s main camera store, ‘is that they stand by it. Their guarantees begin not when we import the goods, but when our customers buy them and the guarantee is reliable.’

Fluctuations in the exchange value of the yen last year brought some marketing problems. The rate topped 300 yen to the dollar early in 1978 and later tightened to almost 200 to the dollar.

At the same time, Australia was cancelling its customs duties on cameras, watches and radios. Norfolk Island duty on these items remains at 8%, 17% and 8%, respectively. As a result, the saving Norfolk could offer visiting Australians dropped from about 50% down to 15%-25%. At least one large 69

Japan In The Pacific

’Acific Islands Monthly - September, 1979

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shop got out of the camera and hi-fi business altogether.

But the island’s turnover in such products has held up reasonably well despite the pessimism particularly among New Zealand visitors, who make up more than a third of Norfolk’s 20 000 visitors each year.

As a modest but worthwhile market, and a spot with a colourful history, Norfolk has been worth a small place on Japanese maps of the Pacific.

But the advent of 200-mile economic zones introduces a major new element. Norfolk is no longer a dot in the ocean, but a 320 000-sqkm circle of fishing grounds, and that’s a real attraction.

Ownership of the zone is in dispute. Australia has signalled its intention to lump the area into its Australian fishing zone on the ground that Norfolk is a territory under Australian administration. But the Norfolk island Council says the zone belongs to the island, and formally declared so on March 7. ‘The council declares,’ read the resolution, ‘that it regards the sea and seabed within 200 nautical miles of Norfolk Island as being an economic zone which is an integral part of Norfolk Island . . . Council asks the Commonwealth Government to make known the existence of this declaration to anyone interested in exploiting the resource of the zone.’

In May the Australian Department of Primary Industry stated that the Norfolk zone was Australian and the benefits would go to Australia. The Department of Foreign Affairs’ current stand is that Norfolk is ‘an integral part of Australia’ although the island has never been ceded to or annexed by Australia.

Unless the Commonwealth agrees to some formula by which the net benefits of the Norfolk zone will be allowed to remain with the island itself, Australian licences for Japanese fishing in the zone will be regarded by Norfolkers as licences to deprive them of their resources.

Japan’s attitude on the islanders’ stand, is not yet clear.

Cook Islands

All the signs but nothing in the flesh ‘Without Japan the Cook Islands would be in one hell of a mess financially,’ claimed an importer who runs a thriving duty free business in what is colloquially known as ‘downtown Avarua’, writes Karen Garner-Williams in Rarotonga. He bases his claim on figures which show the role of tourism in the Cook Islands’ economy, and says that duty free shopping plays a major part in attracting visitors. Certainly, without Japanese trade his store would be in dire straits.

In 1977, 10% of Cook Islands’ total imports came from Japan, second only to New Zealand (which supplied a massive 67% of imported goods that year).

A Kyowa line ship now calls at Rarotonga every two months bringing consumer goods, vehicles and tinned fish. The Cook Islands spent $236 350 on imported tinned fish in 1977, 78% of which was of Japanese origin a Pacific coals to Newcastle situation.

The only lines that the Japanese haven’t cornered, says Bill Johnson of Johnson’s Duty Free, are sunglasses, perfumes, toys and jewellery. Duty free store manager Brian Baudinet says that 80% of the goods in his Avarua store come from Japan.

Statistics Office figures for 1977 show that 92% of phonographic and sound equipment imported to Rarotonga came from Japan, along with 80% of cameras, 79% of clocks, 73% of watches and 71% of all cars, buses, and lorries.

A visiting Australian journalist felt that a visit to Rarotonga would represent Nirvana to a member of the Japanese board of Honda. ‘Virtually every vehicle and motorbike on Rarotonga was a Honda’, reported Michael Guy last year. No doubt the owners of the local Suzuki and Yamaha shops would disagree.

Musical instruments, sound equipment, binoculars, cassette tapes, cigarette lighters, calculators, pearls and sometimes noodles, confectionery and multi-coloured rubber thongs from Japan are all displayed in Rarotonga shops.

Cook Islands exports to Japan are practically negligible. They consist of the odd consignment of shells or handcrafts. Perhaps the Cook Islands’ biggest export certainly the most well-known is the Betela Dance Troupe, which lives and performs in and around Namegawa Island, near Tokyo, between April and September. The troupe from Rarotonga has worked annually in Japan for the past 12 years under the leadership of Anne Jonassen.

But Japanese businesses are starting to look at possible imports from the Cook Islands.

For example, the Kawaka Tanaka Button Manufacturing Company has written to various addresses in Rarotonga asking for sea shells. The Cook Islands News reports that Internal Affairs Minister Tangaroa Tangaroa had discussions in April with Japanese businessmen in Hawaii about shark fin and orange juice as potential exports. Two Japanese businessmen were in Rarotonga in May, apparently for more shark talks.

During their stay they offered donations of books and library supplies to the Cook Islands library/museum in Avarua on behalf of the Committee for the Foundation of Pacific Children’s Libraries.

They said the books were to be supplied by a private effort in Japan though they intended to ask for Japanese Government assistance for the project.

Private donations of equipment, such as film projectors for schools through Rotary clubs, appear to be the extent of Japanese aid to the Cooks although various Japanese experts participate in South Pacific Commission (SPC) and Committee for Co-ordination of Offshore Prospecting for Mineral Resources (CCOP) schemes in an advisory capacity.

Once negotiations on Law of the Sea and fishing rights get under way, Japan is likely to figure more prominently in Cook Islands fisheries matters.

And yet, for all the Sanyo, Akai and Honda signs in Rarotonga, Japanese presence in the flesh is virtually nil. Every so often a disciplined group of 20-30 Japanese holidaymakers spends a week camera-clicking in Rarotonga, as the tropical island segment of a JALPAK tour deal. Local craftwork and entertainment is what they like, according to former Tourist Authority Manager Percy Henderson, who said of Japanese tourists: T haven’t met a nasty one yet’.

Rarotonga and the Honda image ... Suzuki and Yamaha would beg to differ. Photo: Karen Garner-Williams 72

Japan In The Pacific

Pacific Islands Monthly - September, 1979

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TRAVEL

See Saipan

Before The

Casino Boom

PIM Publisher Stuart Inder recently visited Saipan, capital of the Northern Marianas. He found it a major drawcard for Japanese tourists but doesn’t see why others shouldn’t try the pleasures of this mixed bag of attractions.

The newspapers on Saipan, main island in the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas, from time to time report with # morbid detail, usually illustrated with photographs of neatly stacked piles of human skulls, the results of the latest Japanese ‘bone mission’ in the islands.

We are told the number of Japanese volunteers who took part in the search, how many skulls and bones of Japanese soldiers and civilians were collected from the cliffs, caves and jungle trails of Saipan and how many people attended the cremation ceremony before the consecrated ashes were returned to Japan.

One gets the impression that these frequent missions are part of a tourist marketing exercise as indeed they are in a small way. Japanese tour Dperators encourage them be- :ause they add to the numbers 3f Japanese visitors to Saipan and help keep alive Japan’s ong-term association with the Northern Marianas.

During 1978, about 15 major lapanese travel wholesalers organised package tours which Drought 62 000 Japanese visiors into the Marianas, mostly o Saipan, thus accounting for he majority of the 91 000 toursts from all destinations who irrived last year. Of this total, he next biggest group, Americans, accounted for only 16 000, and there were less than (000 visitors originating from fiber countries.

This year both the total num- )er of visitors and the pro- )ortion of Japanese visitors in he total has continued to limb, and projections indicate here will be no slackening of he trend. It’s more likely, if ome influential local poliicians get their way, there will be a dramatic increase in Japanese visitors, for there are serious moves to turn Saipan into a Las Vegas type gambling haven with licensed casinos.

Japanese money is behind these proposals which have split the population into vocal gambling and anti-gambling lobbies.

If casinos are permitted, undoubtedly the character of tourism on the island will change, but at present Japanese history, wartime memories, sun and white sand beaches and Saipan’s proximity to Japan, are the attractions which make Saipan a Japanese tourist destination.

There is no reason why the Japanese should retain their virtual monopoly. While there are regular direct air services to Saipan’s modern international air terminal from Japan, only three hours off, there also are direct services from Honolulu and the US mainland (via Continental). And with frequent daily flights from Guam only about 30 minutes away anybody can connect with Saipan from anywhere.

Australian and New Zealand travellers can come in via Manila or by Air Nauru jets to Guam either from Melbourne, which is the way I travelled, or from Auckland. Visas can be stamped in your passport at point of entry if you have a return ticket and want to stay no more than 30 days. US citizens don’t even need a passport if they have other proof of citizenship.

For my money, Saipan’s sun and beaches are enough in themselves to attract holidaymakers. Most of Saipan’s comfortable, halfdozen hotels, including the magnificent Continental where I stayed, are widely spaced along many miles of flat beaches of fine white sand looking out over a tropical South Seas lagoon.

Those beautiful beaches are virtually unoccupied even in front of the hotels. Most of the Japanese tourists on package tours limited to three or four days spend their time elsewhere on organised expeditions to war sites or cheap shopping. But if Saipan’s entire annual tourist influx were to sun themselves one afternoon on that stretch of sand, there would be room to spare. As an Australian brought up in Sydney beachside suburbs I know what a beach should look like, and Saipan’s beaches (as distinct from surf beaches there aren’t any) deserve to be better known.

And one can’t forget that these are the famous Saipan invasion beaches for, as you laze on the sand, you can still see rusting remnants of war landing barges, guns, tanks out there on the reef where the receding tide or accurate Japanese fire stopped them 35 years ago. With that lagoon, Saipan naturally has sailing, water skiing, snorkeling, scuba diving, fishing with the diving especially great. The water is clear and always warm, Saipan’s average temperature being around 80 deg F.

Away from the beaches, and the seascapes, Saipan can’t lay any special claim to beauty except perhaps mid-year when the flame trees are out (as they were on my visit). Its vegetation is bush rather than the palms and lush tropical growth of Pacific travel posters, and island architecture is more reminiscent of a town in the backblocks of Australia or the US no style, peeling paint, cluttered with advertising signs, rusting vehicles in the backyard.

The vegetation is in fact dominated by the quickgrowing tangan-tangan, which was planted to prevent erosion following the devastation caused by the American wartime invasion. And Saipan’s architecture has undoubtedly been influenced by the fact that the islands are in the typhoon belt. In 1968 Saipan lost 80% of its housing.

It seems that everybody owns a car on Saipan. They need to because it’s a widespread place and its build-up as an American base after the invasion, when 100,000 troops were garrisoned there, left a legacy of good roads asking to be used.

In these days of petrol restrictions, towards the end of each month when the month’s Tourists pick over Saipan’s ‘invasion beaches’ ... they deserve to be better known 75 ’ACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY SEPTEMBER, 1979

\ Fly the birds of paradise tO PclOUcl ' vl! Niugini Adventures in Paradise Shop is in the , lank Stream Arcade, King George Tower.

New Guinea Cm- King and George Streets. and on to Asia. Information and Sales: Phone 232 8900. petrol quota for Saipan begins to dry up, you see hundreds of cars queueing patiently for a mile in each direction at one petrol station or another.

The Saipanese accept the inconvenience of the energy shortage along with the convenience of supermarkets, Coca Cola, Kentucky Fried, cable television and everything else they get from the States, because these days they are considered to be Americans.

They are beginning to sound American and think American.

The now polyglot and friendly Saipanese have at various times in their colourful history also been considered Spanish, German and Japanese, and it is what remains of this varied history that is a bonus for visitors attracted by the sun and sand and cheap booze (Scotch is $5, rum half that).

The Spanish, the first foreign power to acquire Saipan, sold it to Germany in 1899. With World War I, the Japanese moved in, continuing their occupancy for 30 years with a mandate from the League of Nations. Saipan and neighbouring islands of Rota and Tinian were developed for an important sugar industry, remnants of which are still to be seen. Many Saipanese still speak Japanese, which makes Japanese tourists feel even more at home.

The Japanese were in turn thrown out by the Americans in the bloody capture of Saipan in 1944. and the Marianas were made a UN trust territory together with the rest of Micronesia.

The German administration of the Marianas was at Garapan, not far from where the Continental and Intercontinental hotels now stand, and the Japanese developed this site into a thriving town of 13 000 Japanese and several thousand Micronesians. But the American invasion wiped it off the map. Kept as tourist attractions are the shells of the Japanese hospital and gaol, and a bronze statue of the Japanese businessman who pioneered the sugar industry.

Some people will tell you that the missing American flier Amelia Earhart was kept in that gaol after being captured by the Japanese for ‘spying’, but it’s an unlikely story.

A story that is certainly true is that on the beaches which the gaol faces, in June 1944, more than 3000 Americans were killed while storming ashore on Saipan, then held by a Japanese garrison of 30 000.

The invading forces eventually drove what remained of the garrison into the northern point of the island, when the Japanese unexpectedly broke out in a fanatical last desperate banzai attack, forcing the Americans into the sea before the Japanese were wiped out, almost to a man.

Of the 30 000 Japanese defenders of Saipan, only 600 survived. There was no formal surrender of the island.

But meanwhile the war had come to a tragic climax for great numbers of Saipan’s Japanese civilisation population of 25 000 to 30 000. Of the 10 000 to 15 000 dead, those who were not killed during the invasion bombardments chose to suicide by plunging over precipices at what are now known as the Suicide and Banzai Cliffs. Whole families and many soldiers died this way.

It is this massive death roll, and the tragedy of war, that continues to attract Japanese visitors and bone collectors.

How many bones may still be in the undergrowth nobody knows.

Although there is some evidence that the interest in the war is slackening, bus loads of Japanese dutifully do the rounds of the shrines and memorials to the war dead.

Standing above the ocean at Banzai Cliff there is a peace monument erected by the Japanese, and the top of 240 m Suicide Cliff is now a memorial shrine, dotted with markers to the dead.

Below Suicide Cliff is the Last Command Post, a fortified cave reputed to be the command post from which the last Japanese battles were directed. Nine years ago, when I first visited Saipan, it was difficult to find the cave. Today it is easily recognisable by its food and drink stall and by the numbers of artillery pieces dragged to the site from elsewhere on the island, and lodged incongruously outside it as a gesture to Japanese amateur photographers.

But it’s a sad and eerie place, and it was good to get back to the warmth of the white sand beaches.

View from Saipan’s Continental ... even in front of the hotels the beaches are almost deserted 76

Pacific Islands Monthly - September, 1979

travel

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Niue thinks - with trepidation Niue Island is taking its first uncertain steps towards international tourism with a campaign marked, perhaps paradoxically, by optimism and limited development goals, writes Graeme Kennedy who visited this remote self-governing nation in free association with New Zealand.

Uncertain because many government leaders have spoken openly of their fears that a sudden surge of bigspending foreigners would have too great an impact on the islanders’ delicate social fabric.

Many of the 3500 Niueans living on this 260 square kilometre coral island, to the east of Tonga, have also voiced opposition to tourism development plans, but the Government Secretary Terry Chapman disagrees.

Referring to Niue’s almost total financial dependence on New Zealand and the need for Niueans themselves to generate more overseas currency to :ut the horrific trade mbalance. Chapman says: Economically, we are in an emergency situation a situation which calls for emergmcy measures. Of course we nust control tourism, but we nust have it.’

Planning Officer Ron Layon: ‘Last year, we had only 350 ourists about one a day. Our imited development goal is to ncrease that figure to 10 a day.

Ve feel the impact of that lumber would be very small ilthough it is a big increase on vhat we had last year.’

Tourist Minister Frank Lui: in our efforts to attract overseas income from tourism, we must always remember how small we are. We do not want to happen here what has already happened on some other South Pacific islands which opened their doors wide to tourism. That is why we have adopted a policy of limited development. We must control tourism here.’

Mr Lui points out that the government-owned Niue Hotel provides the controls the administration wants. A modern building atop the cliffs, about 3 km south of Alofi, the hotel has only 40 beds in 20 rooms and these are often booked by visiting foreign government officials, aid representatives and sales representatives from Australia and New Zealand.

The government has engaged a major Auckland advertising agency, Leo Burnett-Catts Patterson Ltd to handle the initial tourist promotion in New Zealand and Australia and is working closely with Polynesian Airlines in making the island known throughout the US.

Polynesian which operates five weekly flights into Niue’s Hanan International Airport from Apia, Tonga and Rarotonga is plugging Niue with its other destinations through its new US general sales agents.

Continental Airlines.

And, to complete the pretourism plans, the island has been included in the airline’s five-destination ‘Polynesian Triangle’ fare package.

So the stage is set for those extra 10 tourists a day or is it? The island’s natural phenomena are unique in the Pacific and striking enough alone to warrant a visit from the most jaded traveller.

The vast sea-caves like Avaiki and Palaha on the west coast are as stunningly beautiful as Talava, near Hikutavake in the north, is savagely arresting.

But, like most of Niue’s caves, caverns and subterranean pools, access is limited to the young and fit not the more elderly tourists the government obviously prefers.

Only an experienced rockclimber or a madman would attempt to reach the bottom of Vaikona a breath-taking underground cavern and pool or the palmy, balmy oasis at the bottom of the great chasm in the Togo ‘moonscape’. (I reached both and I know nothing of rock-climbing.) The administration has tentatively suggested plans for villages near such obvious tourist delights to provide access paths and steps as community projects but, so far, only Hikutavake has responded with an easy track down to Matapa, a soaring tidal chasm reputedly the bathing place of the ancient Niuean kings.

Even access to the teeming reefs, including the famous Coral Gardens, is difficult although they can be reached at several points below the cliffs which ring the inland.

Although Niue has a fine nine-hole golf course, tennis courts and rainforest walks, transport for the tourist is a major problem. In a chickenand-egg situation, Alofi tourism promoters say more rental cars and perhaps a tourist bus will be introduced if visitors respond to the promotion campaign.

Meanwhile, a new fishing boat went into the water last month and will be available for big-game charters for the swordfish, Spanish mackerel and tuna which are regularly caught off the reef.

Premier Robert Rex is among those who support the tourism effort and, like most Niueans, he is all too aware of the warnings: ‘Go slowly never forget how small we are.’

Talava sea cave on Niue ... savagely arresting 77 TRAVEL ACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY SEPTEMBER, 1979

From the ISLANDS PRESS Development News Digest (Pacific special) The sentimental wish of so many visitors, well meant as it is, that the Islands and the people should be left just as they are, will not stand up to the political, social and economic realities of life today. It would be foolish to refuse all the advantages of other cultures because of pride, just as it would be mean to refuse to share the advantages of one’s own. Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara.

Norfolk Island News Norfolk Island is one of the few remaining colonies in the South Pacific. The people of the island are classified by Freedom House of New York as being only ‘partly free’ because Australia will not permit democratic government on the island. The fact was plainly put to Norfolk’s elected councillors by Australian Minister for Home Affairs R. J. Ellicott in March 1979. ‘You are under the complete bondage of the Australian Parliament,’ he told them. ‘You are not free.’

Letter by Masama Gene, PNG Post-Courier Please allow me space to air my criticism and concern about excessive demands for money and luxury items as bride price payments in this country ... In fact, in most societies the boy is regarded as more important than the girl. I sometimes think the bride’s people should pay the groom’s people, especially when the boy is more educated than the girl.

Fiji Times, Suva As a measure to reduce the dog population Ba town council has raised the licence fee for bitches from $5 to $2O. At the same time the council raised fees for speyed bitches and dogs from $1 to $5.

Arawa Bulletin, PNG A group of three armed policemen left Arawa last Tuesday for Inus Plantation to help the people there hunt for a crocodile which was reported to have killed a ten year old girl in the area last week. Police Commander, Inspector Nessatt said that his men would set up camp at Inus and remain in the area until the crocodile has been hunted down and killed.

Marshall Islands Journal In one of the capital’s more popular restaurants this past week it was observed that a local character (known by most residents) was refused service by a waitress on grounds she had been ordered to do so by the owner. The person refused, commonly seen engaged in his favourite pastime of contacting citizens for donations to his basic needs of cigarettes or coffee, was clearly the victim of a plot to undermine the newly established constitution of the Marshall Islands in particular the section guaranteeing all citizens equal rights.

PNG Post-Courier, Port Moresby “I am part of PNG,” said Ratu Livai (Volavola), 65, the Vice-president of the Fijian Senate, whose grandfather was one of three Fijian missionaries killed and eaten by Tolais at Tungnabarau, about 15 kilometres south-west of Rabaul...

Reveille, New Zealand armed services magazine Feature writer Graeme Kennedy, of the Auckland StarS O'clock, reports from Niue: The next time any of you 5 or 40 Squadron blokes passes over tiny Niue, waggle a wingtip for a couple of very special twin boys down below. They’re the 16-month-old Nichols kids and their names - wait for it - are Orion and Hercules . . Here’s how it happened. Their mother, Loisi, is a niece of Niue’s Minister for Tourism Frank Lui. When the twins were born, no one could think of a suitable pair of names. T was puzzling over this problem,’ Mr Lui explained, ‘and the solution came to me on the golf course one morning when one of your Orions flew over on patrol. “Orion”, I thought, what a nice name.

I went straight to the hospital and told Loisi and her husband Brian. After that, a name for the other little bloke just came naturally. Orion and Hercules, a good pair.’ Mr Lui has something of an empathy with young Orion and Hercules - he was christened Haile Selassie.

PNG Post-Courier, Port Moresby Smoke but no fire! On two occasions one day this week a George Page staffer rang the Fire Brigade and passed on this message: “Today we will fumigate our showrooms at 10am and 4.30 pm.

There’ll be some fog, please don’t mistake it for smoke.” About 6 o’clock that night the sound of sirens was heard. Enthusiastic firemen smashed through the plateglass door of George Page’s Cuthbertson Street shop.

News Drum, Solomon Islands People in the Shortland Islands, in the Western Province, have reported that brightly lit flying objects have been making frequent visits over their islands.

From a letter to Arawa Bulletin, PNG Words are being spread that a few high pitched energetic men, inspired by spirit of rebellion and local fanaticism are engineering the prospect of establishing a Bougainville Copper Limited Staff Employees Union (Association). Such men are driven by mischievous ambitions, constantly in search for power to create destruction and disharmony among the working community we endeavour to unite ... Birds Eye View, Panguna.

Atoll Pioneer, Kiribati There was an incident late on May 8 when Air Tungaru’s Trislander was landing at Abemama with a full load ... A dog ran over the runway in front of the approaching aircraft which struck the animal resulting in the buckling of the nosewheel and the nose of the aircraft striking the ground ... No one was hurt. (Except probably the dog, but the paper is silent on its fate. PIM.) Tonga Chronicle, Nukualofa Never agree to carry a parcel or package overseas for a stranger.

It could easily be drugs, and if you are caught in possession of drugs in certain overseas countries, there could be a life sentence or even the death penalty awaiting you.

Coconut Telegraph, Savusavu, Fiji Radio Fiji was 25 years old on July 2, 1979. Many happy returns of your birthday, Radio Fiji! ... As Mrs Grace Deoki said in her congratulatory message, ‘What would we do without Radio Fiji?’

Yes, indeed we should certainly be lost without those friendly voices to entertain, inform, exhort, advise, warn, educate and assist us, in three languages for most of the day and half the night. The voices of the men and women announcers are our friends though we may not know their faces. The distinctive human voice is an integral part of the continuing miracle of radio, each one different, some pleasing, some irritating!

News Drum, Solomon Islands Youths in Star Harbour on San Cristobal have found a way of getting “drunk” cheaply. They eat mushrooms growing on cow dung. The dark grey mushrooms, about one inch tall, grow in great numbers during the rainy seasons ... The effect is to leave the mushroom-eater paralysed and weak. Addicts find themselves unable to move for about 15 minutes during which time they have dreams and see images of objects and people ...

Hailans Nius, PNG Payback killings have frightened many Engan students in Western Highlands colleges, and they have left for home. 78

Pacific Islands Monthly - September, 1979

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Pacific Islands Monthly - September, 1979

Sailing through time with David Lewis The Voyaging Stars - Secrets of the Pacific Island Navigators by Davis Lewis. Published by Collins, Sydney and London. 1978 $ A 8.95.

Over the past decade David Lewis has revived ancient myths and legends of seafaring in the Pacific by precept and practice, by research and by writing. His previous book on the same subject. We, the Navigators, was a big-seller. The Voyaging Stars contains much material from his previous writings. Lewis writes well and uses very good photographs and clear diagrams to illustrate the historical background of canoes and methods of navigation.

The primitive arts of seamanship and navigation used two and three thousand years ago have practical uses today in remote parts of the Islands, and, despite modifications derived from European vessels from 1500 onward, details of early boatbuilding linger on.

Being an experienced yachtsman, David Lewis gives us reliable observations of the manner in which canoes of various types and sizes are sailed and steered. He has sailed in many of them in open ocean in all weathers. His accounts of the ancient types of navigation without instruments, still being used, are very convincing. A lot written on this subject, often by Americans and New Zealanders, has made unsubstandated claims of unbelievable accuracy of steering, positionfinding and landfalls achieved, precision claimed to be greater than that achieved by modern European vessels. But that was before David Lewis came along. Basing his writings on facts and observation. Lewis offers proof that long distance navigation over the open ocean without chart, compass, or sextant, was practicable by traditional methods he found still in use, or at least still remembered by a few guardians of the esoteric secrets of their ancestors.

Lewis’ involvement in the subject is told in a happy blend of history, legend, research, theory and personal anecdote, The story covers a very wide canvas of space and time, all in a book of 208 pages without any signs of pressure or strain to achieve the impossible. But, of course, this remarkable author is no stranger to the impossible, as most of his projects seem to have been against all the odds, Lewis writes about several systems of traditional navigation: the use of rising and setting stars for steering a known course; the location of an island by getting the correct star in the zenith, at the same time correcting course by closely observing swell and currents; achieving landfall by observing the colour of clouds over an island while still up to 50 kilometres distant and out of sight of land, and by watching land-based birds flying out to sea at dawn and returning at dusk.

The methods of teaching these arts sometimes involved the use of aids, one form of which became known as the ‘stick-chart’ of the Marshall Islands. This taught, and later reminded, the navigator of the pattern made by the ocean swell when its direction had been deflected by an island out of sight, and by the combination of different swells as well as reflected swells and waves from an island. Another device, probably unique, was found on Beru Island in Kiribati. It was an arrangement of stones which Lewis describes in these words: When star courses were being taught at night, the pupil seated himself upon it and imagined himself in a canoe heading in one of the cardinal directions towards which it was aligned.

When the model was being used to illustrate wave lore it was seen as an island, the triangular stones at the corners representing by their size, shape and angle the characteristic swells at each point. The tallest stone, for instance, represented nao bangaki, the big swell from the east, and the double stones the choppy northern sector, where big and small waves were mixed.

Lewis has proved a lot of theories about early methods of navigation in the Pacific, even to my satisfaction and against my older beliefs. I am one of Captain Cook’s school of thought, the ‘drift-theory’, so ably argued by the late Andrew Sharp of New Zealand. This was based on the assumption that all islands in the Pacific were found by accident, by canoes which had blown or drifted off their normal tracks, and that some of these discoveries resulted in their settlement. The assumption is in turn based on the axiom that an unknown island can only be discovered by accident, even by the greatest discoverer.

Although Lewis proves that long canoe voyages were made and can still be made without the use of instruments, this does not invalidate the ‘drifttheory’ of accidental discovery.

Woven into the story of canoe navigation are details of canoe voyages made by the author and others in recent years. Very large canoes, 15,20, even 25 metres long, specially built in Kiribati, Fiji and Hawaii for the purpose of renewing the arts of canoebuilding, seamanship and navigation, will probably be followed by others in projects to restore the ability and confidence of native navigators and mariners. Whether these are Polynesian, Micronesian or Melanesian, some of their achievements must owe a lot to the hard work and inspiration of David Lewis. Captain Brett Milder.

SECOND EDITION NEEDED Functional Tongan- English, English-Tongan Dictionary by Thomas Schneider. Published *A tenisi University, Tonga, 1977.

A modem dictionary was needed to fill the void existing in publications that aid in the understanding of the Tongan/ English languages. Thomas Schneider’s book, a newcomer to the scene, to some degree will find popularity among Navigational training ... sometimes a canoe, sometimes an island 80

Pacific Islands Monthly - September, 1979

f Henry Lawson’s - Bookshop 127 York Street, Sydney 2000 A (half a block from Town Hall) Phone 29 7799 is famous for Australian Books, but please remember, WE ALSO SELL BOOKS ON THE PACIFIC.

We carry a full range of titles issued by Australian National University Press, including the important new work “THE SPANISH LAKE" by O.H.K. Spate $35.00.

This is the first volume in a comprehensive history of the Pacific since Magellan. It is also available in a boxed signed edition limited to 500 copies at $90.00.

SOME OTHER TITLES AVAILABLE ARE: Hempenstall: PACIFIC ISLANDERS UNDER GERMAN RULE A study in the meaning of colonial resistance $19.50 Laracy; MARISTS AND MELANESIANS History of Catholic Missions in the Solomons $12.95 Winslow (ed): THE MELANESIAN ENVIRONMENT Papers arising from the 9th Waigani Seminar May 1975 . . $12.50 Ralston: GRASS HUTS AND WAREHOUSES Pacific Beach Communities of the 19th Century $10.95 Trumbull: TIN ROOFS & PALM TREES A report on the New South Seas $16.95 Davidson & Scarr (ed): PACIFIC ISLANDS PORTRAITS . . $5.95 Scarr (ed): MORE PACIFIC ISLANDS PORTRAITS $9.95 Griffin (ed): PAPUA NEW GUINEA PORTRAITS $9.95 Millar: ORCHIDS OF PAPUA NEW GUINEA $10.95 Nelson: BLACK W IITE & GOLD A lively history of arly gold mining in New Guinea $16.95

Oram; Colonial Town To Melanesian City

Port Moresby 1884 1974 $10.95 Hope: LONG AGO IS FAR AWAY Accounts of the early exploration of the Papuan Gulf .... $14.50 Rubel & Rosman: YOUR OWN PIGS YOU MAY NOT EAT Comparative study of New Guinea Societies $24.00 Sack & Clark (ed & trans): GERMAN NEW GUINEA Annual Reports of N.G.Campagnie important historical source material just available $29.00 Oliver: ANCIENT TAHITIAN SOCIETY 3 vols boxed set . $50.00 Plus numerous monographs in the Development Studies Centre series KIRIBATI Books about Kiribati are available from The National Library, P.O. Box 6, Bairiki, Tarawa, Kiribati.

Kiribati: Aspects Of History $3.00

TARAAN KARAKIN KIRIBATI $3.00 NAREAU'S NATION Tony Whincup $15.00 CHRISTMAS ISLAND STORY - Eric Bailey . . . $5.00 STRUCTURE OF GILBERTESE - R. Cowell. . . $1.50

Evolution Of The

GILBERTESE BOTI-Maude $2.00 ABEMAMA REPORT - R.F. Watters $lO.OO TAMANA REF IRT R. Lawrence $lO.OO - POSTAGE ON OVERSEAS ORDERS IS EXTRA - Polynesian Bookshop...

The Pacific Islands

Book Specialists'

Write for our complimentary catalogue! 336 PONSONBY RD (PO Box 47-267) AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND.

Telephone 764-824. those wishing to expand their knowledge of either language, although I doubt if it fills that void in its present form.

The dictionary is divided into three sections: Tongan/English, English/Tongan and a specialised vocabulary with 25 sub-sections under headings such as, medicine, biology, engineering, electronics, fishing, law, etc. Indeed a great deal of thought and consideration have gone into the publication and the reader will find it an easy reference.

As mentioned in the foreword, 2000 most frequent Tongan words are used, yet in the English/Tongan section, half of the months of the year, and a couple of days of the week, are not listed at all. Schneider goes on to say that the dictionary was compiled under extreme time pressure and financial strain, and it is quite probable that it contains many errors. A dictionary would be better not published if prepared under these conditions.

The production of the dictionary is quite poor, with the printing the main offender.

Schneider’s dictionary is certainly no ‘Oxford’, yet it is an honest attempt to satisfy a real need. Hopefully a second edition will tidy up the errors and omissions, do away with the excuses, and improve on the printing quality. Then Schneider will have a first class publication.

With all its faults, it is still a worthwhile publication, and due credit should be given to Thomas Schneider for doing something constructive in this neglected area. - Fatal Moungaafi Slender. whom: FOR THE KE4 OKU Record collectors of South Pacific music will find Polynesian Dances of Bel lona (Mungiki) Solomon Islands a valuable addition to their disc racks. An eight page folder with the disc gives adequate details of the related geographical, historical and musical background to the songs.

The record highlights a pocket of Polynesian culture in BOOKS Melanesian surrounds where the singers have the gift of maintaining a high level of vocal presentation while dancing. Reproduction of the music of such a mobile team of artists in stereo has been admirably achieved by Jane Mink Rossen and Hugo Zemp without any loss of song quality as the performers move to and from the microphones.

Sea sagas predominate in the collection which can reach back 600 years and rhythmic accompaniment comes mainly from hand clapping or a sounding board (papa) beaten by an alternate two-handed drumming action.

The collectors of these dance songs have generously, but correctly, recorded the names of the Bellonese people who gave a range of assistance to making such a project possible. However, credit is primarily due to the elders of not only these Bellonese, but all Pacific Islanders who have tenaciously preserved their traditional music against a host of introduced prohibitions and detractions. National independence has also been a great incentive for Pacific Islanders wishing to preserve their soundways.

Support for the production and distribution of the disc has come from well-established folk music institutes in Europe and America and it is presented for sale as number FE 4274 by Ethnic Folkways Records. — Ray Sheridan. 81 PACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY SEPTEMBER, 1979

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YESTERDAY

The ‘Malays’

OF RABAUL Minority groups the result of turn-of-the-century colonial immigration schemes to fill gaps in the workforce exist in today’s Papua New Guinea. Easily the largest Asian group is the Chinese who play a prominent role in the business life of the community. Much less is heard of the ‘ Malays’ descendants of Ambonese people from the Moluccas in eastern Indonesia, and other Indonesians who were brought in to fill the clerical and supervisory gaps in the agricultureorientated economy of German New Guinea at the turn of the century. Dr Slamet Roosman, senior lecturer in Indonesian studies at the University of Papua New Guinea, reports on the Ambonese-Malays of Rabaul.

Up to 200 Indonesian descendants now in their third generation live in Rabaul, capital of East New Britain Province.

Commonly referred to as ‘Malays’, they are a mixed race group who, before the Pacific War, confined themselves to a sector of the town known locally as ‘Malaytown’.

As a result of saturation Allied bombing of Japaneseoccupied Rabaul, the town was reduced to rubble and Malaytown today is recognisable only by its street boundaries and a few shanty-type structures which were rebuilt after the war. Malaytown’s former residents are now scattered in and around the town.

The history of Rabaul’s Malays goes back to the German occupation of New Guinea (1880-1914), when inspired by the Dutch example of the ‘culture system’ in Indonesia the Germans attempted to transform the Gazelle Peninsula into a big business enterprise.

The Gazelle Peninsula was then sparsely populated, and as the indigenous people living in a subsistence economy resented working regularly for long hours under a disciplined system, the Germans decided to import Pacific Islanders Micronesians, Guamanians and Polynesians to work as indentured labourers. Chinese were also imported as manual labourers for the German plantations. Later, the hardworking and thrifty Chinese freed themselves from the labour contract and established themselves as independent shopkeepers.

Christian Ambonese who were then categorised as ‘Malays’ were also recruited at the East Indonesian port of Ambon in the Moluccas. The first Ambonese to arrive in Rabaul were mostly bachelors.

They were posted to Kavieng where they married New Guinean women who accompanied their husbands when they were transferred back to Rabaul by the German companies.

The Ambonese were recruited for clerical work or to supervise labourers working in the plantations. Having always been dependent on salaries and wages, the Ambonese and their descendants did not manage to engage themselves in private business but have continued to be employed in the business sector. The Germans probably chose the Ambonese for this administrative work because they were literate and spoke Dutch, a language closely related to German.

The recruitment of Indonesians among whom were Ambonese started as early as 1885. The initial number of 37 grew rapidly to 100-125 by 1889. Largescale recruitment of foreign Asian labour Malays and Chinese began in 1890 after the economic activities of the German New Guinea Company had been taken over by the German colonial government. In 1892 the total figure of these alien workers in Kaiser Wilhelmsland (practically all Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Forces ANMEF, ‘there were 1452 Chinese residents, but no separate figure was given for the Malays who were probably included in this one’. The 1966 census indicated that in the three largest urban centres Port Moresby, Lae and Rabaul the proportion'of mixed-race people was highest in Rabaul, with 41.3 persons per 1000 people against 12.1 in Port Moresby and 10.7 in Lae. The national figure was 1.4.

The Rabaul figure can be ascribed to the early European plantation development in the area during which considerable numbers of Chinese and Malays were imported as indentured labourers, many of whom intermarried with the local population.

During the German and Australian administration the Ambonese were classified as ‘non-indigenous natives’. However, unlike New Guineans, they were allowed to consume liquor with the permission of the superintendent and were exempt from the provisions of the labour ordinance which permitted corporal punishment for special breaches of ‘discipline’. Salhuteru Sr, a first-generation Ambonese old-timer in Rabaul who has been living in New Guinea for more than 45 years told me that ‘the discriminative restrictions enforced by the Germans since their presence in New Guinea, and later continued by of New Guinea) was 1842 (757 Malays and 1085 Chinese).

Thereafter their numbers declined. In 1894 there were 431 Malays and 519 Chinese, and in 1898 208 Malays and 167 Chinese. After 1888 most immigrant Malays were accompanied by their womenfolk. In 1896, for instance, there were 157 women among the 414 Malays.

Records indicate that in 1914 there were 1609 foreign labourers in New Guinea comprising 1377 Chinese, 163 Malays, 36 Chamorros, 25 South Sea islanders and eight Indians. Under the provisions of a German Imperial Ordinance of November 9, 1900, ‘members of foreign coloured tribes resident in German colonies were legally natives’.

In September 1914 the development of the Chinese community had numerically and economically submerged the Malays who were then employed as clerks and trading company workers. With 163 people, the Malays formed the third largest alien group in the Bismarck Archipelago, about half of them living in the Malay part of Rabaul. There was a strong contingent of Ambonese among them.

According to the first census in February 1917, taken by the One, two, three generations of the Ambonese community in Rabaul ... time and again the sentimental attachment to Indonesia is demonstrated 83 PACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY SEPTEMBER, 1979

the Australians, which were applied to non-Europeans with respect to their salaries, social gatherings and drinking rights in Rabaul, did not seem to be strictly imposed on the Ambonese group. The salary scale, for instance, was below the Europeans’ but above the locals’.’

In the fifties non-European and non-Melanesian groups started to establish their own clubs, among them the Chinese Taiping Club which was soon followed by the mixed-race Kambiu Club and the Ambonese Club. The different groups were asserting themselves as independent social groups in the Rabaul community. These moves were partly as a reaction against the long-standing discriminative policies pursued by both the German and Australian administrations in New Guinea.

However, the development should mainly be seen as an aspect of growing groupawareness and a desire for recognition of their group identity as their social and economic status in Rabaul community grew.

These clubs are situated within the peripheries of Rabaul’s business centre, which is usually referred to as ‘Chinatown’, and provide their members with an after-work place for relaxation. For several years now the clubs have catered not only for their own members but also for people of other racial extractions. Australians, Germans and Papua New Guinean Tolais are now welcome in the clubs.

While drinking liquor was prohibited to the local people, it was never strictly imposed on the small Ambonese group, who reportedly, were even allowed to enter the European clubs. The Ambonese showed me an old yellowed photograph in which Rabaul Ambonese were dressed in light tropical suits with ties and shoes.

When, in 1953, the Australian Government extended the possibility of Australian citizenship through naturalisation to the mixed-race people of New Guinea, almost all Ambonese opted for Australian citizenship. Henceforth their orientation was directed towards Australia: they sent their children there for education and many bought houses in Australia to which to retire.

Until Papua New Guinea’s independence in September 1975 they enjoyed a social and political status which was lower than the Australian’s but higher than the Papua New Guinean’s.

The Ambonese in Rabaul represent a close-knit group, unlike the mixed-race people in Port Moresby who have dispersed among other groups.

Second-generation Ambonese tended to marry within their own group while, nowadays, quite a number of thirdgeneration Ambonese are married to Australians. Otherwise, they associate freely with Europeans, Chinese and Melanesians.

Some can now rank themselves in the ‘middle-class’ in Papua New Guinea, their life style imitating much of that of the average Australian expatriate living in Papua New Guinea. They wear European dress, have cars and live comfortably in houses with accessories such as telephones, refrigerators and hot water systems. They eat European and Asian food as well as the daily Melanesian fare of kaukau (sweet potato), yam, taro and plantain. Their sports include Australian rugby and soccer and they fish Melanesian-style with throw-nets. They have picnics on week-ends, enjoying food prepared in a mumu, the traditional Melanesian earthoven. Although they have generally received Western education, they speak mainly in pidgin.

All that is left of their Indonesian identity is their pride in calling themselves ‘Ambonese’ and carrying Ambonese surnames such as Wattimena, Leimena, Siloy, Tahiya, Latumahina and Salhuteru; their Moluccan drinking songs; and their ability to prepare favourite Ambonese dishes.

First-generation and only a few second-generation Ambonese in Rabaul speak Moluccan-Malay or bahasa Indonesia (Indonesia’s national language). But their sentimental attachment to their ancestral homeland is, time and again, demonstrated when ships with Ambonese crew members aboard, call into Rabaul harbour. The Ambonese community in town invites the sailors ashore and entertains them in their club.

As Papua New Guinea’s independence approached, a common feeling of insecurity arose among the mixed-race people and Chinese in Papua New Guinea that ‘there would be an upsurge of animosity, directed against non- Melanesians’. This caused a number of them to move to Australia and buy houses and businesses there.

As their suspicion turned out to be unfounded, most returned to Papua New Guinea after realising that, despite having Australian passports, Papua New Guinea where they were born and raised was ‘so much more familiar than anywhere else’.

The Kambiu Club ... gathering place now for more than just the Malays’ of Rabaul.

Peter Salhutera outside the Chinese Taiping Club ... the fifties saw the development of minority group awareness of their origins YESTERDAY

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Pacific Islands Monthly - September, 1979

Afterthoughts With Percy Chatterton

[?]ooze and money are rearing Papua New Guinea opart is now 16 years since the situation in which non-nationals in apua New Guinea were allowed to drink intoxicating beverages hile nationals were forbidden to do so became untenable and as abandoned. At the time there were dire predictions about e horrors which would ensue when Papua New Guineans were lowed to drink, but they were not immediately fulfilled. On e whole, the people took their new freedom quietly and exerted it reasonably.

Slowly over the years, however, addiction to the excessive use alcohol has built up to a point at which it has become one the mainsprings of crime and violence, as well as a substantial use of poverty and want. Every Monday morning long lines women stream out of Port Moresby’s suburbs weighed down loads of three, four or five cartons of empty beer bottles. I sped that in many cases the money they get by returning these ipties to the bottle factory is the only housekeeping money they When the question of what to do about it is raised, a babel suggestions arises. Shorter trading hours, longer trading hours, trading hours at all, unlimited trading hours, stiffer punish- ;nts, greater police powers, decentralisation of police powers, litation on freedom of movement, curfews all of these have fir advocates.

On the whole there seems to be wider public support for shorter ding hours than for longer ones. The Port Moresby City Counrecently decided to continue the ban on weekend take-away es of liquor already imposed for a trial period. The council parently considered that the advantages of the ban in the sphere law and order maintenance outweighed the arguments of its ponents that it encouraged the burgeoning of black markets, link the council is right. The continued existence of black marts, m spite of police efforts to suppress them, is in my view mall price to pay for a more orderly and law-abiding city. Anyy, it s the sots who have to do the paying.

Actually, under existing legislation, the council cannot impose h a ban; all it can do is to ask the Licensing Commission to pose it. I think there is much to be said for more decentralis- -3n of powers relating to the control of drinking; but perhaps t until provincial government has got over its growing pains, fhere are two aspects of the problem of alcohol which I find licularly disturbing. The first is the growing tendency of some, though fortunately not all, of our national leaders to reveal themselves as excessive and compulsive drinkers. Not only ordinary MPs but cabinet ministers find themselves in court on charges of driving under the influence, and the size of the repair bills on the fleet of expensive ministerial cars has become something of a national scandal. All over the country ordinary men and women are becoming increasingly critical of the behaviour of their leaders, and as prime ministerial warnings go unheeded and prime ministerial threats go unfulfilled - increasingly cynical.

The other aspect of the problem which I find worrying is the growing tendency for cartons of beer to become a component of traditional transactions such as the payment of bride price.

Payments of this kind should be, and in the past have been, a means of cementing social relationships. The introduction of money into the system started the rot, and the introduction of beer has completed it. I know of several cases in which harmony within a kinship group has been impaired when non-drinkers with strong views about alcohol have refused to accept their share of a bride price in cartons of beer. This ‘blending of cultures’ has soured what had before been a socially beneficial custom. Bride price has ceased to be a social cement and has become a channel for greed and drunkenness.

The hard fact is that love of money and an insatiable thirst for beer are rotting the moral fibre of this new nation. As the gap between rich and poor, between the powerful and the powerless, increases, so does the tension between them, a tension which is taking the place of the old tension between the rich whites and the poor blacks.

A decade or so ago, a then prominent, and now still more prominent, Papuan made a bit of a stir when he declared: ‘We watch you white men driving past in your cars and we hate you in our hearts.’ Now he is in the car and property owning class himself, and generates the same feelings in the hearts of his less affluent compatriots as the white colonists once inspired in him.

At the other end of the scale we have groups of workers striking for, in effect, the right to be dishonest.

In the long run the problem is one of reviving the old-fashioned and fast-disappearing virtues of honesty, sobriety and truthfulness. But in the meantime no harm, and probably quite a bit of good, would be done by getting much tougher than we are at present with dishonesty and drunkenness. In particular, a motorist convicted of causing death by dangerous or drunken driving should never be allowed to drive again. The person he killed won’t get a second chance. Why should he? 87 3IFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY SEPTEMBER, 1979

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Pacific Islands Monthly - September, 1979

TRADEWINDS PNG’s winged bean - ‘supermarket on a stalk’

".all it Seguidillas as the botanists do; call it *winged bean ’ as English-speaking layfolk do; call it as bin (‘arse bean \ because the iber at the bottom of the plant is so highly prized) as pidgin leakers in the Papua New Guinea Highlands do. Call it what you ill, a climbing bean plant, native to PNG and some Southeast sian countries, is looming large in the news of the world war gainst hunger. PIM staff writer Malcolm Salmon reports. he ‘winged bean’ of Papua lew Guinea’s Highlands is eing heavily promoted in the ;arch for a readily available aily protein supplement to the ational diet, according to ilian Lambert, who is leaving NG after five years’ service as atritional planner at the ational Planning Office in art Moresby.

Interviewed by PIM during a ily visit to Sydney, Mr Lamjrt said the winged bean, preously only grown in the ighlands, was now common school gardens throughout e country. Recently, for the st time in his experience, he id seen it on sale in Port oresby markets.

The University of Papua ew Guinea is acting as the ain centre of research and is nding out seeds and planting aterials for use all over the untry.

Mr Lambert sketched in the ckground to the PNG proin problem as follows: ‘Although in general the arid protein gap was to the refront of nutritionists’ inds in the sixties, it is not •w seen as being as important it was. This is due largely to s fact that the Food and piculture Organisation wngraded it in a decision ten in the early seventies. ‘Their thinking was based gely on consideration of the ablems of countries whose pies are cereal crops, and )k into account the fact that reals have an average protein ntent of 6% to 7%. ‘But in the Pacific the staples j root crops, with an average 3tein content much lower m that of cereals. Sweet tato, for example, has only out 1.5%. So the need for a daily protein supplement in the diet of Pacific peoples is as pressing as ever. ‘lt’s true that pigs are kept throughout the PNG Highlands. But they’re no answer.

The people eat pig meat only once every two or three months the protein is mostly consumed .right away as energy, and not stored in the body on a continuing basis. ‘ln fact all sorts of meat suffer the disadvantage that they can’t be kept in the circumstances of the ordinary PNG village. Kill a pig or a cow and it must be eaten right away before the meat goes off. ‘Milk appears to be out too there have been several attempts to keep dairy cattle in PNG, but they’ve been unsuccessful. ‘Poultry schemes haven’t prospered either. The village chicken is a poor egg-producer, mainly because it lives only on what scraps it can find, and is not fed on a systematic basis.

There’s practically no poultry feed produced in PNG. In fact, it’s cheaper to import chickens than poultry feed. ‘So you’re really left with vegetable crops, such as the winged bean. A key problem here is to persuade people to grow them all the year round to space and plan the cropping. At present they’re mainly grown seasonally. What we must aim for is to guarantee a continuous supply of the beans so that people have daily protein supplement, not a glut of beans every three or four months and a shortage the rest of the time. ‘Agronomically, the winged bean seems just about ideal for PNG. It can be grown anywhere from sea level to about 2000 metres up and that covers about 95% of the country’s population.’

While Mr Lambert sees a bright future for the winged bean in the country of his most recent interest, an American nutritionist, Noel Vietmayer, has written of it as likely to take off and wing its way to world stardom in the battle against hunger.

Writing in the Australian magazine The Bulletin in July he said that the bean had long lain ‘ostracised behind a cultural fence... it was considered merely a “poor person’s crop”, as if that made it unfit for the rest of humankind’. ‘But,’ he added, ‘discoveries of the past three years are changing all that. Today, many normally cautious scientists are elated over this bean’s potential.’

Vietmeyer outlined the ‘tragic paradox’ that the world’s premier protein plant, the soya bean, grows poorly in the tropics, where the nutritional need for it is greatest. ‘lt is in the torrid countries that malnutrition is greatest. It is there that children’s minds and bodies are impoverished by high-starch, low-protein diets,’ he wrote.

Here is where the winged bean comes in, he said. ‘Tropical climates fit it like a glove.’

The plant has been described as a ‘supermarket on a stalk’, because all of it can go into the pot. Professor Theodore Hymowitz, one of a score of American researchers now developing the winged bean as a crop, has another simile: ‘lt’s like an ice-cream cone,’ he says. ‘You can eat the whole thing.’

The climbing plant, which, displaying tremendous vigour, reaches heights up to five metres if the staking or trellising is tall enough, offers six quite different types of food: • The four-sided pod which, with its distinctive flanges (or ‘wings’) may be green like snow peas, purple or red. It can grow as long as a man’s forearm, and, according to Vietmeyer, ‘taste like chewy green beans’; • ‘Spinach’ from the spadeshaped leaves which are extremely rich in Vitamin A, the want of which blinds thousands of children every year in tropical countries; • ‘Asparagus’, from the juicy tendrils of the plant; • ‘Mushrooms’, from the nectar-rich flowers which, when steamed make a garnish with the texture and colouring of mushrooms; • The roots. Vietmeyer wrote: ‘Cultivated correctly, the roots of some varieties swell into tiny tubers. They are firm and ivory-white inside and have a delicate nutty flavour .. .

Highland tribesmen in New Guinea esteem them so much The winged wonder ... pod, leaves, flowers and tuber, all edible. 89 IFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY SEPTEMBER, 1979

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that they hold winged bean sing-sings at harvest time.’ • The seeds. On these Vietmeyer waxed most lyrical of all, writing: ‘But despite the tastiness and food value of the pods, leaves, tendrils, flowers and tubers, it is actually winged bean seeds that have got scientists jumping the highest. The seeds are so rich in protein and edible oil that they duplicate soya beans. The nutritional yalue of the two beans is about the same, and in Ghana and the Ivory Coast teams of Czech, Ghanaian and Swiss icientists have demonstrated hat winged bean soups and purees provide the nutrients teeded to make young brains md bodies develop normally.

The protein that pervades he winged bean comes from in amazing source: air! Nolules on winged bean roots louse bacteria that convert the fir’s most abundant constituent, nitrogen gas, into immonia. In return for a cosy lome in a nodule, the bacteria idp the plant to grow, for mmonia is one of the best ferilisers known. The grateful >lant converts the ammonia ato protein.’

In the Philippines and ndonesia, the winged bean is ow a target crop for nationride development. Winged cans are also on sale in lonolulu and Western Samoa, laces where they were unnown a couple of years ago.

Vietmeyer mused over the roblem of why such ‘a mirculous plant’ could be so long eglected on a world scale. ‘Acially,’ he wrote, ‘plant sciensts aren’t surprised. The ow-cherished soya bean was a oor man’s crop itself, until re- ;ntly. Americans, for sample, spurned it for more lan a century after Ben ranklin introduced it to them, dvocates of soya bean were msidered crackpots. Only in le 1920 s did co-ordinated regard! shatter the shell of disimination . . .’ Soya bean is ow among the world’s top 20 >od crops.

A distinguished panel of the S National Academy of Sciices investigated the winged -an in 1975 and concluded lat it, too, had the potential to jcome a global resource.

AirNiugini: a year to consolidate Friction between Air Niugini management and the National Planning Office (NPO) over the direction the Papua New Guinea national airline was to take is a thing of the past, says Air Niugini’s recentlyappointed general manager Gerry Falscheer.

Mr Falscheer suggested that the controversy, which made headlines around the time of the resignation of his predecessor, Bryan Grey, early this year, had been ‘a little overdramatised’. ‘lnevitably,’ he said, ‘people in business who work to a strict control disagree at some stage or other. I don’t have any disagreements with the people who control this organisation ... We have a commission (the National Airlines Commission) as you know and it is a predominantly-owned government airline. We are abiding by the requirements of our structure and I think, really, to recap on the whole deal, it was over-dramatised somewhat.

There were some minor disagreements about certain things which flared up into a big issue which should never have got to the stage it did. ‘There was a lot of press talk and argument between various people and the management of Air Niugini which I think could have been toned down ...

Every rational person must agree that what is good for Air Niugini isn’t necessarily good for Papua New Guinea as a whole ... that was the main phrase which was used. It was played about so much in the newspapers ...

In an interview with PIM, Mr Falscheer said that the company was conducting a ‘reappraisal’ of Air Niugini’s financial structure because it had reached a stage where ‘there’s a strong possibility that we will have to make a few changes’.

He said the biggest single factor affecting Air Niugini was the price of fuel which had risen by 23.7% in the four months to July. ‘We have tried, wherever possible, to keep our fare structure at a certain level,’ he said. ‘You ultimately must come to the end of the road where you can’t absorb costs of that nature any longer so we are doing a reappraisal of our financial structure . . . and it may be necessary for us to approach the government for a tariff increase.’

Mr Falscheer said he had taken over Air Niugini at a critical stage in its development. He said Mr Grey had pushed the airline to ‘what it is today and for that we are very thankful’. ‘Now we are going to consolidate on what we’ve got before we start to move into further fields.’

Mr Falscheer said he considered the consolidation period would last about nine to 12 months in which time Air Niugini would not break new ground. ‘There are a lot of areas we would like to get into ... We are doing a plan at the moment to assess possibilities of entering into other areas.

One area I can talk about is one we have already applied for . . . the extension of our operations from Kagoshima to Narita or Haneda (Tokyo).’

SOLTEL passes a big test SOLTEL, 49% Solomon Islands Government and 51% British Cable and Wireless Limited, has taken Solomon Islands into the space age of telecommunications with the installation of a satellite earth station.

Solomon Islands’ vastly improved telephone and telex facilities were put to the test in July when Pacific leaders converged on Honiara for the annual South Pacific Forum meeting.

Under greatest pressure was the temporary press room set up at the Mendana Hotel.

SOLTEL operators responded magnificently to the heavy demands of journalists from all directions including Papua New Guinea, New Hebrides, Australia, New Zealand and Japan.

SOLTEL General Manager C. Brooker describes the earth station as the first stage of an ongoing process of expansion.

Honiara’s new satellite earth station ... into the space age Gerry Falscheer ... a few changes TRADEWINDS

DEWINDS INTELLIGENCE...TRADEWINDS INTELLIGENCE...TRADEWINDS INTELLIGENC SEVERAL South Pacific governments are hopeful that the recent regional tour by an Asian Development Bank study team will result in improved access to development funds. Some are not eligible for aid because they are not fully independent or are not members of the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP). The ADB has been seeking to discover ways to make itself more accessible to smaller Pacific countries.

AIR NIUGINI has opened an office at the Mendana Hotel, Honiara, employing five Solomon Islanders and an expatriate manager.

TONGA Air has taken delivery of a 10-seater Britten-Norman Islander. The company, which began operations just over a year ago, flies scheduled services to Haapai, Vavua and Eua Islands, also using a 17-seater Riley Heron and a six-seater Beach Bonanza.

THE FEDERATED States of Micronesia (FSM) has been invited by the South Pacific Forum to join the South Pacific Bureau for Economic Co-operation (SPEC) but it was not granted observer status at the July Forum gathering because the FSM ‘still formed part of the UN Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands administered by the United States and ... it was not expected that the trusteeship agreement would be terminated until 198 F.

PAPUA New Guinea’s first merchant bank is to be set up jointly by the Commonwealth Trading Bank of Australia. The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation and the PNG Banking Corporation.

SOLAIR, Solomon Islands’ domestic airline, raised its fares 15% in late June.

THE EEC concluded two loan agreements with the Western Samoan Government in July; one for SWS9BO 000 as a line of credit for the Development Bank of Western Samoa for onlending to small and medium sized enterprises; and SWS2.S million for installation of telephone equipment including an Intelsat standard B earth station.

THE SOVIET Union has been given permission for an experimental deep water trawling programme in New Zealand waters later this year. The trial will be conducted at depths of more than 600 metres with nets of a mesh size of at least 115 millimetres.

THE AUSTRALIA and New Zealand Banking Group Ltd has sold 15% of its wholly owned Papua New Guinea subsidiary to the PNG Public Officers’ Superannuation Fund. PNG Minister for Finance Barry Holloway, welcomed the move, saying it was the first instance of PNG national shareholders acquiring shares in a private bank.

WESTERN Samoa’s currency, the tala, was devalued by 15% late in June. A government statement said the main reason was a drastic drop in the country’s exports: at SWB.3 million in 1978, agricultural export earnings were down $W3.4 million from 1977.

THE EUROPEAN Development Fund has lent SF44 000 to the Pacific Forum Line to purchase insulated containers, including 86 suitable for carrying refrigerated goods.

LINDEMAN Aerial Services has brought its fleet to four with the acquisition of a Shrike Commander. The company provides regular services between Mackay in North Queensland and Lindeman Island resort.

THE JULY South Pacific Forum meeting in Honiara endorsed the recommendations of a meeting of Forum trade ministers in Tonga in June that ‘early negotiations should be commenced between Forum members to establish a comprehensive nonreciprocal trade agreement in favour of the Forum Island countries with the objective of achieving, progressively, duty free and unrestricted access to the markets of Australia and New Zealand over as wide a range of products as possible’.

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Pacific Islands Monthly - September, 1979

YACHTS Albert Steel - a man of antiques, art and the sea Many a palagi sailor has fallen in love with Tonga’s islands since that most famous palagi of them all, James Cook, named them the Friendly Isles some 200 years ago, writes Jimmy Cornell from Nukualofa. At first glance one would not even notice Peregrine squeezed in among the local boats in Nukualofa’s small boat harbour. Battered and stained, with paint peeling off in places, the 40 year old cutter looks like a boat that has covered plenty of ocean before getting here.

So does its white haired, blue eyed owner, Albert Steele, who wears his 63 years lightly, always with a smile on his furrowed face. He has been captivated by these isles and has swallowed the hook after a lifetime of seafaring :rammed with adventure, danger and stories to make ane’s hair stand on end.

In Tonga he has found the Polynesian atmosphere he bought had disappeared forever, the Polynesia he had mown in the early thirties in Hawaii and when he sailed the Jne Islands with the sampan slander, converted to a fishing )oat after its famous ethnoogical trip around the South 3 acific.

Albert also met in Tonga his )eautiful wife with the lovely lame of Malia Sosefo Satae. >he is probably the main eason why Peregrine’s world 'oyage came to an abrupt end n Tonga.

Down below in Peregrine’s buttered cabin - as Albert aughingly relates the (scapades of his wild youth mother facet of his surprising haracter slowly comes to ght. A candle in an antique •rass stand throws long hadows over shelves rammed with books on period Jrniture and art history, casettes of music by Grieg, leethoven and Mozart. The bulkheads are hung with old Dutch prints and ancient chronometers. The sea, art and antiques are his life, His love affair with the sea began as a child when he used to watch the occasional square-rigger sail up the Delaware River. He ran away from home at 12 and started working on an assortment of sailing boats, ending up as the skipper of a fishing schooner in Florida.

Vividly Albert recalls the time in Cuba when Batista overthrew Machado: ‘We were forbidden to leave the ship, but of course we did, found a bar and got steadily drunk on monkey rum while the guns of the civil war boomed over the harbour.’

Hawaii was the place he liked best in those pre-war days. He spent three years there until the place got too ‘touristy’ for his taste and he returned to Florida.

World War II saw him in North Africa and Italy as a rigger in a tank recovery unit.

Later he was a salvage diver with the airforce. On discharge he joined the sponge divers of Florida, earning fabulous money at a time when first grade sponges sold at $35 a pound. When the bottom fell out of the sponge market he moved to California, took a refresher course in modern navigation and signed on as first mate and later as skipper on a tuna fishing boat out of San Diego. For years he followed the tuna up and down the coast of Central America, to the Galapagos Islands and Ecuador.

One day, deciding there must be an easier way of earning a living, he turned his back on the sea and dedicated himself to something which had always fascinated him antiques. He became a specialist in antique furniture and built up a considerable art collection. But, eventually, the call of the sea proved stronger so one day he signed on as deckhand on a tugboat, progressing rapidly to skipper.

For several years he successfully mixed the activities of art collector and antique furniture buyer with those of a part-time tugmaster. ‘I guess I must be the only guy in history who has given a lecture on seventeenth century English art, then run backstage, put on overalls and, within the hour, docked a ship in San Diego harbour,’ he says. Not bad for someone who never made it past eighth grade, but, as Albert smilingly explains: ‘Although I never had much education, I always had a taste for champagne.’

It was a nice life, with plenty of money and all that he wanted. But, on the eve of his sixtieth birthday, Albert looked at himself and felt life was running like sand through his fingers. The saltwater in his veins gave him the only logical answer. He sold a painting and started looking for a yacht. He found Peregrine, a little ship like those he was used to in his youth. He threw out the engine because he hates engines with a ‘purple passion’, loaded it with the most valued of his possessions, seriously depleted after two divorces, and set off from California with the idea of sailing around Cape Horn to the faraway Aegean from where some of his fellow Albert Steel, above and below decks ... tuna fisherman, furniture connoisseur. Photo: Jimmy Cornell

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AGENTS - SOLOMON ISLANDS: NCR Corporation, Honiara. NEW HEBR IDES: NCR Corporation, Vila NEW CALEDONIA: NCR Corporation. Noumea. PNG: Brownbuilt (PNG) Pty. Ltd., Port Moresby & Lae FIJI: Lysaght Brownbuilt Ind. (Fiji) Ltd., Suva. HAWAII: Records Management Services Inc., Honolulu. tponge divers came. But a trip iround the Horn for a man on lis own became less appealng so Albert turned Peregrine's bows west, hoping to ind in the Pacific a trace of the itmosphere he had known lore than four decades ago. i 1976 he visited the Marquesas and Society >lands but life in French ’olynesia was not what he had oped to find. So, the following ear, he sailed to the Cooks nd finally Tonga.

As a ticketed captain he is ow much in demand and has Iready taken the Tofua, a 220 )nne Tongan ship, to New ealand for a refit. This is not le kind of life he has been »oking for though, so he plans ) refit Peregrine, sail a little nd possibly accept the offer > become the skipper of a ical fishing boat. And if this cesn’t work out, Peregrine is ill there to take Albert over ie horizons in pursuit of Dmething that perhaps does Dt even exist.

SILVERHEELS, 8 m sloop Yankee 26 type, arrived in pia at the end of May. merican couple David and at Mancini left San Diego, alifornia, in May 1978 bound r the Marquesas. They spent e cyclone season cruising e islands of French alynesia before heading west r Pago Pago. It took them 22 iys as winds were light and Iverheels has no engine, avid would like to continue liling around the world but s first mate (who has to man long oar when manoeuvring e boat in port) insists on an igine before carrying on. axt port of call: Suva.

MIKADO, 9 m Tirena degn, registered in West Gerany, called in to Rarotonga Dm Bora Bora with vner/skipper Friedhelm achholz and wife Barbara, ans include American imoa, Tonga, Fiji and New jaland.

GAMBIT, 11 m sloop, from in Diego, California, arrived Rarotonga in early June >und for the Samoas, New jaland and Australia before lading on around the world.

Owner/skipper Buzz Hathaway and wife Maureen left home early last year. • MANUITI II (‘little bird’ in Maori), 8 m sloop, arrived in Apia. The small yacht from Opua, NZ, a Laurent Giles designed version of the famous yacht TREKKA, is usually sailed singlehanded by Celia Reed, known in this part of the Pacific as ‘the lady with the funny dinghy’, the contraption in which she commutes between ship and shore. It has the shape of an inverted Roman litter or a four poster baby coffin of classic design. Her uncle, the Reverend Rodney Murphy, joined Manuiti II in Rarotonga. Celia’s voyage started in April 1978 with a 28-day passage from New Zealand to Tahiti in the company of her brother Will Reed. After cruising for several months in the Tuamotu and Society Islands, she sailed on to the Cooks. Future plans include Tonga and Fiji before returning home in November. • L’ORION, a Westsail 32 cutter from San Francisco, is taking the Lewis family on a scientific tour of the Pacific.

Nancy Lewis, a geographer specialising in medical geography, is studying ciguatera fish poisoning and its effects on Island populations. Nancy’s research work is funded by a grant from the Fulbright Foundation. Don, a Vietnam veteran, worked for six years preparing the boat for the voyage, which started in California in December 1977. The Marquesas, Tuamotu and Society Islands were cruised for a year before sailing to the Cooks and the Samoas. The Lewises, who are accompanied by their eightyear-old son Daren, plan to sail on to Fiji and New Zealand. • CALAO, 12.2 m yawl in the Finisterre class, registered in Toulon, France, sailed into Vavau for a Pacific rendezvous with AVENTURA, skippered by PlM’s roving correspondent, Jimmy Cornell. Calao left Le Havre in July 1976 with the Bouteleux family on board, 35-year-old Erick having given up his job as an insurance agent to sail around YACHTS

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LOCAL AGENTS AND REPRESENTATION: PAPUA NEW GUINEA: RABAUL: M. & C. Seeto, P.O. Box 131, Rabaul.

Telephone 92-2919.

MADANG: W. Double, P.O. Box 22, Madang.

Telephone 82-2696.

SOLOMON FIJI: K. Witherington Ltd., P.O. Box 293, Suva.

Telephone 22-356.

NEW HEBRIDES: John Lum & Associates, P.O. Box 65, Santo.

Telephone 329..

ISLANDS: Mr. Tom Lo, P.O. Box 327, Honiara.

Telephone 399.

Resident Agents in other Pacific Territories. •-

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with tuition and accommodation paid at top Australian Marketing Programme The R N McDonald Fellowship entitles the successful nominee to free attendance at the Institute’s Seventh Intermediate Marketing Programme with 50 Australian marketing executives.

To be held 6th-19th January, 1980, at the Mitchell College of Advanced Education, Bathurst, NSW, Australia.

The course is taught by leading American and Australian instructors. Preference in awarding this Fellowship will be given to applicants of Polynesian or Melanesian birth.

Complete and mail the coupon below for further details and nomination form.

The International Marketing Institute of Australia PO Box 40, Gordon, NSW, Australia 2072 Please send me details of the R N McDonald Fellowship: NAME ORGANISATION ADDRESS L before visiting the Marshalls and Gilberts. En route to Tonga, White Cloud also visited Tuvalu and Fiji. After Vavau, the crew of White Cloud plan to sail to Tahiti.

Skipper is Jeff Hooper with Pat Gipson and Dar Mooney as crew. • SEA SHELL, a Yankee 30, singlehanded by owner John Welch, arrived in Papeete from Hawaii. Until his retirement, John Welch was chief of communications for the US Trust Territories. After scuba diving in the Societies, his plans were to head for Tonga and the Samoas and then to the Marshalls and Caroline Islands in Micronesia to look up old friends. • RENATA, 12 m Ed Horstman design trimaran, registered in California, arrived in Rarotonga, with skipper/owner Henry Lisowski and wife Renata. They came in from Bora Bora and planned to head on to Niue, Fiji, New Zealand and points west. • BLACK MAGIC, 11 m sloop, with owner/skipper Peggy Larkin and Paul Quinlisk, arrived in Rarotonga from Tahiti. Paul, who spent 25 years in the navy, is finding life a lot different aboard a yacht.

Plans were to sail on to Aitutaki, Suwarrow, the Samoas, Tonga, Fiji and New Zealand. • SEIKA, 13 m Sparkman and Stevens, registered in Tauranga, NZ, arrived in Rarotonga. On board were owner/skipper Ted Peacock with wife Denise, children Chris, Stephanie, James and Alistair, and two crew—Sue Peacock and Paul Kirkman.

They then headed on to Tahiti the world accompanied by wife Muriel, daughter Sidonie (8) and son Fabien (5). After spending six months in the Caribbean, Calao headed for the United States, where another six months were spent cruising the east coast from Florida to Maine, most of the time in the company of Aventura. The two boats parted in November 1977 in North Carolina. Early in 1978 Calao sailed for Panama and entered the Pacific Ocean. After visiting Ecuador and Peru, the Bouteleux sailed for the Marquesas, Tuamotu and Society Islands. In April Calao sailed to American Samoa and later to Vavau, arriving in Neiafu a few hours before Aventura. Calao’s plans include visits to Western Samoa, Wallis and Futuna, Fiji, New Caledonia, the cyclone season to be spent in Queensland. • WHITE CLOUD, a beautifully fitted out Peterson 44 cutter from San Diego, California, is taking 76-year-old owner E.

J. Fieldhouse on a journey down memory lane. During the war he was stationed with a Seebee battalion in Tarawa, in the Gilberts, where he was in charge of the construction of a water distillation plant. Now 35 years later, he has revisited the Gilberts but unfortunately found none of his old Gilbertese still alive. White Cloud also called at the Marshall Islands where Mick Fieldhouse had worked on several airfields during the war. The present voyage started in July 1978 with a stopover in Hawaii Calao’s crew ... Muriel, Sidonie, Fabien and Erick Bouteleux. Photo: Jimmy Cornell 96

Panipir. Iri Amds Mdnthi Y September 1979

YACHTS

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Iver 1000 Forestmils are sawing timber in 23 countries, orestmil has been manufactured for 18 years. or literature and prices please contact the manufacturers.

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Phone: 350-3411. Telex: 33729. Cables: Macbound. Melbourne.

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G.P.O. Box 5027, Sydney 2001. i CABLES; BREWO' SYDNEY TELEX: AA22890.

TELEPHONES; 233 2366, 232 2315, 233 1462.

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46S CALIFORNIA STREET SAN FRANCISCO CA 94104 Cable INTERCQ) • TWX 910372 73M) • RCA 278 207 TEL <4l Si 398 2000 and the Marquesas. All new at oftshore sailing, they reported fair winds for their 19-day passage from Tauranga. • S’ECHAPPER (Escape), 12 m O’Kell design home-built ferro-cement hull, registered at the Royal Geelong Yacht Club, Victoria, Australia, arrived in Rarotonga with Roger French, Peter Jones and Alex Roper on board.

They planned to spend ‘several weeks’ in Rarotonga before sailing on to Tahiti and other Islands. • ISLE OF FLIGHT, a 7 m Okomoto yawl, with owner/skipper Jon Powers and Constance Nypen as crew, arrived in Rarotonga from Bora Bora, bound for Aitutaki, Western Samoa, Tonga, Fiji and, finally, New Zealand. • JANDIRA, 11 m cutter, arrived at Tubuai in the Australs from Tahiti in May, with French couple Fabien and Michotte Poncet. Fabien has taken up a teaching position in the secondary school which serves all of the Austral Islands. Jandira was built in France of balsa-core fibreglass construction with double centreboards, one fore and one aft. They left France in 1975 for French Guyana where they taught for two years, their two young children joining them there. Then they all sailed to French Polynesia. The children have now returned temporarily to France to stay with their grandparents.

Fabien Poncett ... teaching in the Australs. Photo: Don Travers _ . i ii \/ orn-rrK ad crn 1 YACHTS

General Or

we've got the Pacific covered It’s never been easier to move general or refrigerated cargoes between New Zealand and the Islands of the Pacific. The Shipping Corporation of New Zealand offers shippers two regular services, at attractive freight rates, to and from a growing number of ports throughout the region.

Cook Islands, Niue, Tahiti The Corporation operates two vessels “TIARE MOANA” and “FETU MOANA” to and from Niue, the Cook Islands and Tahiti. Both vessels are well matched to the specialised nature of this trade. Side doors allow easier pallet and unit load stowage. A variety of derricks and cranes assist general loadings.

REFRIGE TED I M 4> i »» u * TW*»r 2] 0 a The Shipping Corporation of New Zealand Limited \|*T Sea Carrier to the Nation AUCKLAND: PC Box 3420, Phone 797-210 Telex NZ2822 WELLINGTON: PC Box 3344, Phone 728-500 Telex NZ3495. CHRISTCHURCH: PC Box 777. Phone 795-760 Telex NZ4434 DUNEDIN; PC Box 904.

Phone 776-076 Telex NZ5228. NAPIER: PC Box 748. Phone 58-411 Telex 31047.

Area Agents: NIUE: Government Shipping Office. Alofi COOK ISLANDS: Waterfront Commission, PO Box 61, Rarotonga.

Telex: Shipping RG 2002. TAHITI; Compagnie Maritime Polynesienne. PO Box 368 Papeete, Telex; Taporo FP2SB

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For particulars apply: THE BANK LINE (AUSTRALASIA) PTY. LTD. 18th Floor 1 York Street SYDNEY N.S.W 2000 Australia Tel: 272041 Telex; 24063 100 r-> A /-1 r-1 r' 101 AMPvC MfiKITUI V CCDTCMQCD 1 Q7Q

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APIA: Bums Philp (South Sea) Company Ltd.

PAPEETE: Agenoe Maritime Internationale, Tahiti.

PAGO PAGO; Polynesia Shipping Services Inc. —

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Field Engineering Section, Integrated Technical Services, PO. Box 350, Cairns 4870, Queensland, Australia.

Phone: (070)51-1616,51-4826,53-1356, 51-3052 Telex: AA48085.

SHIPPING SERVICES These listings do not necessarily cover all services to Island ports.

Should any shipping company wish to have its services cargo and passenger included in these listings they should contact PIM, SYDNEY - LORD HOWE IS - NOROLK IS Compagnie des Chargeurs laledoniens operates four-weekly argo service Sydney - Lord Howe land and Norfolk Island.

Details Hetherington Kingsbury Pty td, 37-49 Pitt Street, Sydney >7-1671).

SYDNEY - NZ - FIJI - HAWAII -

Canada - Us

P & O liners call at Auckland, Suva, onolulu and Vancouver on eastbound nd westbound voyages between Sydey and the US.

Details from P & O Booking Centre, forld Travel Headquarters Pty Ltd, 33 ligh Street, Sydney (231-6655).

AUSTRALIA - NZ - FIJI - TONGA - M. HEBRIDES - NOUMEA - PNG -

Solomons -Samoas

Sitmar Cruises operates a year-round ruise programme to include most of le above countries.

Details from Sitmar Cruises, 47 lizabeth Street, Sydney (232-7511).

P & O liners call at Auckland, Bay of lands, Honiara, Lautoka, Noumea, uku'alofa, Pago Pago, Papeete, Port Moresby, Santo, Savusavu, Suva, Vavau and Vila on cruises from Australia.

Details from P & 0 Booking Centre, World Travel Headquarters Pty Ltd, 33 Bligh Street, Sydney (231-6655).

AUSTRALIA - FIJI - SAMOAS - NEW HEBRIDES - TONGA -

Norfolk Island

Pacific Navigation of Tonga operates a five-weekly refrigerated general cargo/container service from Sydney and Brisbane to Vila, Santo, Suva, Lautoka, Apia, Pago Pago, Nuku'alofa and Norfolk Island.

Details from Beaufort Shipping Agency Co, 2 Castlereagh Street, Sydney (239-1022).

Australia - New Caledonia

(And/Or) New Hebrides

Karlander operates a monthly service from Sydney to Noumea.

Details: Karlander (Aust) Pty Ltd, 19-31 Pitt Street, Sydney (27-6301).

Sofrana-Unilines ships serve Noumea every three weeks from the main ports along the east Australian coast.

Details from Sofrana-Unilines, 37 Pitt Street, Sydney (27-2031), Trans- Austral Shipping Pty Ltd, 570 Bourke Street, Melbourne (67-9162), ACTA Pty Ltd, Brisbane (221-3116), Elders-ANL Pty Ltd, Port Adelaide (47-5688), ANL, Newcastle (049-24364), Clements & Marshall, Burnie, Tasmania (31-1833).

Compagnie des Chargeurs Caledonians operates a three-weekly containerised cargo service from Sydney to Noumea.

Details Hetherington Kingsbury Pty Ltd, 37-49 Pitt Street, Sydney (27-1671).

Compagnie Generale Maritime operates a monthly service from Sydney to Noumea, Port Vila and Santo, using a self-sustained fully containerised vessel.

Details Compagnie Generale Mari- CIFIC ISI AMDS MDMTHI V qpdtcmdcd 1070

The "South Seas Exprass- Your Pipeline to the Pacific 14 Day Frequency /^i au £SL To UK USA S.E. Asia Hong Kong Apia C 3 Pago Pago 7* Nukualofa New Zealand Every 14 days Union Company’s roll-on roll-off vessel “Marama” leaves Auckland for five key Pacific Island ports; Lautoka, Suva, Apia, Pago Pago and Nukualofa, and return to Auckland.

We call her The South Seas Express.

New Zealand exporters outside Auckland can take advantage of Union Company’s internal ‘Relay’ system to connect up with the “Marama” service.

The “Marama” provides a safe, fast, reliable service to the advantage of New Zealand and Pacific Island traders, as well as providing the essential link for trade between the Pacific Islands nations.

Island traders can take advantage of “Marama” service to link through New Zealand to other world markets, using Union Company’s international relay service.

Talk Pacific Island trading with Union Company at any New Zealand or Pacific Island office. union company r_ MM r r every day one of our ships is in one of your markets

Head Office

Wellington 729-699

New Zealand

BRANCHES Auckland 774-730 Bluff 8174 Dunedin 777-201 Lyttleton 7149 Mount Maunganui 53-199 Napier 58-788 Nelson 81-459 New Plymouth 75-459 Timaru 86-099 Wellington 850-799 Westport 7279 Whangarei 88-759

Pacific Island

BRANCHES Suva, Fiji 23861 Lautoka, Fiji 60577 Apia, Western Samoa 21781 Pago Pago, American Samoa C/oB.F. Kneubuhl Inc. (Agent) Nukualofa, Tonga 118 or 160 13495 102 t

PACIFIC FORUm Line

Owned By The People

Of The Pacific Islands

S Regular Monthly Liner Services |g| from Australia and New Zealand 91 to the South and Central Pacific FOR INFORMATION CONTACT AGENTS: AMERICAN SAMOA: Polynesian Shipping Services Inc. P.O. Box 1478, Pago Pago.

AUSTRALIA: The Australian National Line, 50 Queen Street, Melbourne.

Union Bulkships Pty.Ltd., 333-339 George Street, Sydney.

GILBERT ISLANDS: Gilbert Islands Shipping Corp. P.O. Box 495, Tarawa.

FIJI; Burns Philp South Sea Co. Ltd. GPO Box 355, Suva.

NEW CALEDONIA: ETS Ballande, BP. C 4, Noumea.

NEW HEBRIDES; Burns Philp New Hebrides Limited, Vila.

NEW ZEALAND.

The Shipping Corp. of N.Z. Ltd. P.O. Box 3344, Wellington.

PAPUA NEW GUINEA: Steamships Trading Co. Ltd. P.O. Box 1. Port Moresby.

SOLOMON ISLANDS: Sullivans S.l. Ltd. GPO Box 3, Honiara.

TONGA: Union Steam Ship Co. P.O. Box 4, Nukualofa.

OBE^t* O 'T FOR:

In Our 85Th Year Selling ‘Service’

TO THE PACIFIC ISLANDS . . .

Nelson & Robertson PTY. LTD. (Established 1895) Plantation House, 197 Clarence Street, Sydney.

Cables: ‘IVAN’, Sydney, Brisbane. Telex: AA22381, Sydney.

INDENTS - FROM AUSTRALIA, NEW ZEALAND and OVERSEAS.

Foodstuffs • Hardware • Travel • Canned Fish

Machinery • Insurance • Softgoods • Jute Goods

• Real Estate •

BRANCH OFFICES: Nelson & Robertson Pty. Ltd., P.O. Box 575, Brisbane, Qld., Australia.

P.O. Box 2092, Govt. Bldg., Suva, Fiji. P.O. Box 258, Lautoka, Fiji.

P.O. Box 2420, CPO Auckland 1, New Zealand.

PAPUA NEW GUINEA Rabtrad Niugini Pty. Ltd., P.O. Box 219, Rabaul, P.N.G.

REPRESENTATIVES: P.O. Box 1406, Lae, P.N.G. P.O. Box 711, Madang, P.N.G.

P.0.80x 253, Kieta, P.N.G. ne, 12 Castlereagh Street, Sydney 131-3700).

Australia - Fiji

Karlander (Aust) Pty Ltd operates onthly cargo services from Sydney to jva and Lautoka.

Details from Karlander (Aust) Pty Ltd, )-31 Pitt Street, Sydney (27-6301), algety Shipping, 461 Bourke Street, elbourne (60-0731), Burns Philp (SS) o Ltd, Suva and Lautoka.

Sofrana-Unilines (Fiji Express Line) >erates to Suva and Lautoka every ree weeks from the main ports on the ist coast of Australia and monthly to lutoka from Melbourne and Sydney.

Details from Sofrana-Unilines, 37 Pitt reet, Sydney, (27-2031), Transjstral Shipping Pty Ltd, 570 Bourke reet, Melbourne (67-9162), ACTA Pty d, Brisbane (221-3116), Elder-ANL y Ltd, Port Adelaide (47-5688), ANL, awcastle (049-24364), Clements & arshall, Burnie, Tasmania 1-1833).

Australia - W. Samoa

Compagnie Generale Maritime operas a monthly service from Sydney to )ia, using a self-sustained fully connerised vessel.

Details Compagnie Generale Mariie, 12 Castlereagh Street. Sydney 31-3700).

Australia - Fiji - Tuvalu

- Samoas • Tonga

Pacific Forum Line operates a Conner, unitised/palletised and reefer rgo service from Melbourne and Sydy to Lautoka, Suva, Funafuti, Pago igo, Apia and Nuku'alofa. Other ports a included on inducement.

Details from ANL Melbourne and isbane, Union Bulkships, Sydney, )bart, Port Adelaide and Fremantle, irns Philp (SS) Company Ltd, GPO >x 355, Suva, Fiji (311-777); ilynesia Shipping Services, Pago igo; Union Steam Ship Co of NZ Ltd, jku’alofa; PWD, Funafuti; or Pacific irum Line, PO Box 655, Apia, W, moa.

Australia - Northern

Marianas - Micronesia

Nauru Pacific Line operates a regular container service from Melbourne to Saipan, Truk, Ponape and Kosrai.

Details Nauru Pacific Line, Nauru House, 80 Collins Street, Melbourne, (653-5709), Nedlloyd Swire, 8 Spring Street, Sydney (2-0522).

AUSTRALIA - TONGA -

Samoas - Tahiti

Karlander operates a monthly cargo service from Melbourne and Sydney to Nuku’alofa, Apia, Pago Pago, Papeete, US west coast.

Details: Karlander (Aust) Pty Ltd, 19-31 Pitt Street, Sydney (27-6301).

Australia - Tahiti

Daiwa Line offers a four-weekly service from Australia to Papeete.

Details: Meridian Shipping & Transport Agencies Pty Ltd, Box 3410 GPO, Sydney 2001 (29-4987), Tlx: AA25970.

Compagnie Generale Maritime operates a monthly service from Sydney to Papeete using a self-sustained fully containerised vessel.

Details Compagnie Generale Maritime, 12 Castlereagh Street, Sydney (231-3700).

Australia - Png

Containers Pacific Express (Burns Philp and AWP Line) and NGAL/PNGL Operate chief Container Service from Australia to PNG-Solomon Islands ports on joint slot sharing basis. Three container vessels operate on 28-day turnaround from Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane to Port Moresby, Lae, Rabaul, Kavieng, Wewak, Madang, Kieta and Honiara.

Details from Burns Philp & Co Ltd, 51 Pitt Street, Sydney (2-0547) and Interocean Swire, 8 Spring Street, Sydney (2-0522).

New Guinea Express Lines operates three-weekly conventional and container services Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Port Moresby, Lae, Rabaul, Alotau. 103 CIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY - SEPTEMBER, 1979

X. f' y?

For more information contact: Limited . Adelaide, South Australia • Morris Hedstrom Limited... Suva, Fiji . Societe des Messag PaykelLtd. .. Panmure, New Zealand • Steamships Trading Co., Ltd. . Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea . Bums PhiiplS Ltd... Honiara, Solomon Islands • Ets. Jean Vognin ... Papeete, Tahiti • Morris Hedstrom Ltd... Nukualofa Tonga Details from New Guinea Express Lines, PO Box R 73, Royal Exchange PC, Sydney (241-3991) MacArthur Shipping Agency Co, 82-92 Eagle Street, Brisbane (229-3777), New Guinea Express Lines, 327 Collins Street, Melbourne (61-3053), Niugini Express Lines in Port Moresby (21-2466), Lae (42-1536), Rabtrad Niugini Pty Ltd, Rabaul (92-2911), Alotau Stevedoring & T'sport (61-1318).

Karlander New Guinea Line’s cargo vessels call at Melbourne, Sydney, Port Moresby, Lae, Madang, Wewak, Manus, Kimbe, Rabaul, Popondetta.

Details from Karlander (Aust) Pty Ltd, 19-31 Pitt Street, Sydney (27-6301), Dalgetty Shipping, 461 Bourke Street, Melbourne (60-0731).

AUSTRALIA-SOLOMONS- NORTHERN MARIANAS-TAIWAN- JAPAN Daiwa Line offers a four-weekly service Sydney-Honiara-Guam-Taiwan- Japan with transhipment at Guam for Saipan.

Details Meridian Shipping & Transport Agencies Pty Ltd, Box 3410 GPO, Sydney 2001 (29-4987), Tlx, AA25970.

AUSTRALIA - SOLOMONS -

Gilbert Is - Micronesia

Daiwa Line operates a container service every 30 days from Sydney to Honiara, Kieta, Tarawa and Guam. Gizo cargoes transhipped at Honiara, Saipan, cargoes transhipped at Guam.

Details Meridian Shipping & Transport Agancies Pty Ltd, Box 3410 GPO Sydney 2001 (29-4987), Tlx.

AA25970 AUSTRALIA - NAURU - MAJURO Nauru Pacific Line operates regular cargo/passenger service from Melbourne to Nauru and Majuro.

Details: Nauru Pacific Line, Nauru House, 80 Collins Street, Melbourne (653-5709), Nedlloyd Swire, 8 Spring Street, Sydney (2-0522).

Png - Uk/Continent

Bank Line operates regular cargo service from Kieta, Rabaul, Kimbe, Madang and Lae to Cardiff, Hamburg, Rotterdam and Antwerp.

Details from Bank Line (A'asia) Pty Ltd, 1 York Street, Sydney (27-2041); Burns Philp (PNG) Ltd, ports.

PNG - US Bank Line operates regular cargo service from Kieta, Rabaul, Kimbe, Madang and Lae direct to New Orleans; calls at other US and Gulf and East Coast ports on inducement.

Details from Bank Line (A’asia) Pty Ltd, 1 York Street, Sydney (27-2041); Burns Philp (PNG) Ltd, PNG ports.

SOLOMONS - USA -

Uk/Continent

Bank Line operates regular cargo service from Honiara to New Orleans, Cardiff, Hamburg, Rotterdam and Antwerp.

Details from Bank Line (A’asia) Pty Ltd, 1 York Street. Sydney (27-2041); Trading Co, Honiara (389).

Far East - Fiji - New

ZEALAND New Zealand Unit Express (CNC.

MNOL, Nedlloyd) operates a threeweekly cargo service from Hong Kong to Lautoka, Suva, NZ ports, Manila, Kaoshiung, Keelung, Hong Kong.

Details from Nedlloyd, 8 Spring Street, Sydney (2-0522), Nedlloyd operates monthly cargo service with three ships from Surabaya, Jakarta, Bangkok, Port Keland and Singapore to Suva and NZ ports.

Details from Nedlloyd (Aust) Pty Ltd, 8 Spring Street, Sydney (27-3801); Burns Philp (SS) Co Ltd, Suva and Lautoka.

Japan - Fiji - New Zealand

China Navigation, operates a monthly service from main ports Japan to Suva and Lautoka and thence Noumea and NZ.

Details from Carpenters Shipping Suva (312-244).

Japan - Png

Mitsui O.S.K. Lines operates a monthly service from main ports Japan and Port Moresby, Rabaul, Lae, Madang, Kieta and Kimbe.

Details from J. C. Waller, Port Moresby (21-1755).

Far East - Mid-S. Pacific

New Guinea Pacific Line (NGPL) operates a regular cargo service from Hong Kong, Taiwan, Manila, Port Kelang and Singapore to Wewak, Madang, Kimbe, Rabaul, Kieta, Lae, Port Moresby, Honiara, Santo, Vila, Noumea, Papeete, Pago Pago, Apia, Tarawa and Nauru.

Details from Steamships Trading Co., Port Moresby (21-2000).

Kyowa Shipping Ltd, operates monthly services from Hong Kong, Taiwan, S. Korea and Japan, to Guam, Saipan, Solomons, New Caledonia, Fiji, Western and American Samoa, Tahiti, Cook Is., Tonga and New Hebrides.

Details: Hetherington Kingsbury Pty Ltd, 37-49 Pitt Street, Sydney (27-1671).

Daiwa Line operates 30-day service from Moji, Kobe, Nagoya and Yokohama to Papeete, Pago Pago, Apia, Suva, Lautoka, Noumea, Sydney, Honiara, Kieta, Tarawa, Guam and Taiwan.

Details: Meridian Shipping & Transport Agencies Pty Ltd, Box 3410 GPO Sydney 2001 (29-4987) Tlx: AA25970.

NORTH EUROPE - TAHITI -

New Caledonia

Hamburg-Sued operates monthly cargo services from Hamburg, Dunkirk and Le Havre to Papeete, Noumea, via Panama.

Details from Columbus Overseas Services Pty Ltd, 333 George Street, Sydney (290-2966), Columbus Maritime Services, 17 Albert Street, Auckland (77-3460).

Europe - Pacific Islands

Compagnie Generale Maritime operates services from Europe and Mediterranean ports to Papeete and Noumea using three Ro-Ro and one multipurpose vessel thus ensuring a bimonthly sailing to and from.

Details Compagnie Generale Maritime, 12 Castlereagh Street, Sydney (231-3700).

EUROPE - TAHITI - W. SAMOA -

Fiji - N. Caledonia

Nedlloyd offers regular cargo services from Northern Europe and UK to* Papeete, Apia, Fiji and New Caledonia.

Details Nedlloyd (Aust) Pty Ltd, 8 Spring Street, Sydney (27-3801).

JAPAN - GUAM - FIJI - TAHITI - SAMOA - N. CALEDONIA -

Solomons - Gilberts

Daiwa Lines runs a monthly cargo service from Japan via Guam to Lautoka, Suva, Papeete, Pago Pago, Apia, Sydney, Noumea, Honiara, Tarawa, Guam.

Details from Burns Philp (SS) Co Ltd, Suva.

Nz - New Caledonia - Fiji

Pacific Forum Line operates a uni-] tized/ palletized and reefer cargo ser-* vice from Lyttelton and Auckland to I Napier, Noumea, Lautoka and Suva.l Other ports are included on| inducement.

Details from Shipping Corporation of I NZ Ltd, Auckland, Christchurch,!

Wellington, Burns Philp (SS) Company!

Ltd, GPO Box 355, Suva, Fiji (311 -777); I Polynesia Shipping Services, Pago] Pago; Union Steam Ship Co of NZ Ltd, [ Nukualofa or Pacific Forum Line, POl Box 655, Apia, W. Samoa.

NZ-N. CALEDONIA-N. HEBRIDES- 104

Pacific Islands Monthly - September, 1979

vhen you own n Leonard Refrigerators, Freezers, Gas and Electric Ranges, Air Conditioners, Automatic Washers and Dryers, Wringer Washers, Humidifiers, Dehumidifiers, Water Coolers, Commercial Air Conditioners and Refrigeration. & LEONARD obiles Neo-Caledoniennes ... Noumea, New Caledonia • New Hebrides Motors Ltd... Port-Vila, New Hebrides • Fisher & ompany ... Pago Pago, American Samoa • Morris Hedstrom Limited ... Apia, Western Samoa • Security Electrical Co.,

Png-Solomons

Sofrana Unilines with three ships opites to Vila and Santo, to Honiara and pua New Guinea and to Noumea.

Details from Sofrana Unilines, 18 stems Street, Auckland (773-279), i Box 3614, Telex NZ2313.

Nz - New Caledonia

- SOLOMONS - GILBERTS - MICRONESIA Jnion Co/Daiwa Line operates a itainer service from New Zealand ough Sydney to Guam.

Details; Union Steam Ship Co of NZ I, PO Box 12, Auckland..

’ - Fiji - North America Twci

Jlue Star l"Tl™ PaafcCoastwnler services. Only direct service to f from New Zealand Blue Star sels call at Suva and Honolulu on -US-West Coast voyages )etails from Blueport ACT (NZ) Ltd, Box 192, Wellington (739-029) , ■ns Philp (SS) Co Ltd, GPO Box 355, ra. Fiji (311-777). eill leef operate" a from Auckland to Suva and Lau- )etails from Reef Shipping Agencies , PO Box 3382, Auckland, NZ -1221-3). ’acific Line with one ship operates nightly roro cargo service New ‘land. Lautoka, Suva. letails; Sofrana Umlines, 18 Cusis Street, Auckland (773-279) PO ' 3614, Telex: NZ2313.

NZ - FIJI - GILBERTS -

Solomons - Png

acific Forum Line operates a coner, umtised/palletised and reefer 3° ae ™ ,c ® r0 o Lyttelton and -kland to Suva, Port Moresby, Lae iiara, Tarawa, Madang, Lae and t Moresby. Other ports are included inducement etails from Shipping Corporation of NZ Ltd, Auckland. Christchurch and Wellington. Burns Philp (SS) Company Ltd, GPO Box 355, Suva, Fiji (311-777) Sullivans, Honiara; Gilbert Islands Shipping Corporation, Tarawa Steamships Trading in Port Moresby, Lae and Madang or Pacific Forum Line, PC Box 655 ' Apia. W Samoa.

Union Steam Ship Co of NZ operates a roll-on, roll-of, container/umtised service from Auckland to Lautoka-Suva- Pa 9° Pago-Apia-Nuku-alofa on al4 day frequency Details from Union Steam Ship Co of Ltd, PO Box 12, Auckland or from 255. h f ces/a 9 ents in Tonga SAMOA T^nofoDerates a oo AuSnd Nukualofa Pann S - Ania Auckland 9 9 P Details from McKav Shiooino Ltd DownSn Souse QueS Auckland no 2291 Warner Parifir I in P cprvirp* Warner racmc Line services Aofa tortniohtlv frS^er<aKSesTso Tima u carrying freezer cargo.

Details from Air Marine Services (NZ) Ltd, PO Box 2505, Auckland (796-841), Telex NZ21555.

NZ - COOK IS - NIUE - TAHITI Shipping Corporation of NZ Ltd operates cargo services based on pallets and similar units from Auckland to Niue, Cook 'stands and Tahiti.

Details from the Shipping Corp of NZ L j d - PC J. 4 r 2 °- m^^ kla p nd Commission, PO QtoSforflrinor!? 0 A»’ n 2 btevedoring Co Aitutaki, Niue Govt N,ue s and o^?^?| g, l ie Man ’ time Polynesienne, B P 368, Papeete, a ti

Uk - N Continent - Fiji

The Bank Line operates a direct, fast monthly service from Hull, Hamburg, Bremen, Antwerp and Rotterdam to Suva and Lautoka.

Details from the Bank Line (Australasia) Pty Ltd, 1 York St, Sydney (27-2041); Burns Philp (South Sea) Co Ltd, Suva and Lautoka.

UK/N. CONTINENT - TAHITI -

N Caledonia - N. Hebrides

Bank Line operates regular cargo service from Hull, Hamburg, Bremen, Antwerp and Rotterdam to Papeete and Noumea.

Details from Bank Line tA'asial Ptv r S „ M N Fare UTE ' PaPeotB; EtS Ballande ' Noumea UK/N. CONTINENT - PNG - SOLOMONS Bank |_ jne regular cargo service from Hull. Hamburg, Bremen, Antwerp and Rotterdam to Port Moresby, Lae, Madang, Kimbe, Rabaul, Kieta and Honiara and on inducement yandina Details from Bank Line (A’asia) Pty Ltd. 1 York Street, Sydney (27-2041); Burns Philp (PNG) ltd. PNG ports; Trading Co Honiara.

Honolulu - Samoas - Tonga

Warner Pacific Line operates unitized/palletized and reefer cargo service every 45 days Honolulu/Pago Pago-Apia-Nuku'alofa. Line Islands and Suva by inducement.

Details from Hawaii-Pacific Maritime Inc, Honolulu, H, 96801. Tel. (808) (531-4841) Tlx (RCA): 723-8330 ITT 743-0040. Cables ‘Oral’

SAN FRANCISCO - HONOLULU -

Nauru - Micronesia

Nauru Pacific Line operates regular conventional/container service from San Francisco and Honolulu to Majuro, p o nape, Truk and Saipan. Cargo is accepted for Nauru and Kosrai with transhipment at Majuro and Ponape Details from Nauru Pacific Line, Nauru House, 80 Collins Street, Melbourne (653-5709); North American Maritime Agencies, 100 California Street, San Francisco, California 9411 (981-0343).

US - FIJI - TAHITI - NZ - AUSTRALIA Bank and Savill Line Ltd, operates regular cargo services from US Gulf ports to Australia and NZ. Calls at Suva, Lautoka and Papeete on demand, Details from Bank Line (A’asia) Pty Ltd ' 1 York Street, Sydney (27-2041) or Howard Smith Industries Pty Ltd, 1 York Street, Sydney (27-5611)/

Us - Tahiti - Samoa

Pacific Islands Transport operates a five weekly cargo service from North America west coast ports to Papeete, Pa 9° Pago. Apia.

Details from Polynesia Shipping Ser- "pes Inc. PO Box 1478 Pago Pago (9-6799).

Polynesia Line operates container and general cargo service from US west coast P orts t 0 P a Peete and Pago. . details from Polynesia Shipping Ser- ™es Inc.. Box 1478, Pago Pago Tahiti cauha m? a,.ct ua- ami 11 -&amua - AUb I FarreH Lines |nc, operate a fast regular lash/container cargo service from ports Canada/ÜbA to Pa JJ ( a P 9 ° Pa9 ° thence t 0 NZ a °J/H® tra J!“: ......

Cw2nlw S M^h™irll2 a e 'j £ f VnZI Ltd' Auckland and WeHinoton Z W 2445 d Cable DALSHIP Auckland; Compagnie Maritime Polynesienne, Immeuble Franco Oceanienne, PO Box 368, Papeete, Tahiti, Tel 26393, Tlx 258. FP ANSB Taporo, Cable OCEAN Papeete Kneubuhl Maritime Service, PO Box 39,’

Pago Pago, Telephone 633-5121; Tlx 782505. 105 CIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY - SEPTEMBER, 1979

Office: Suite 2 Mac Donnell Lane 26 Abbott St Cairns Phone (070) 514039 Dlrec(of 48475 C * p “" D “» w 4 H °“»' Mail RO. Box 1871, Cairns 4870 T Eng iced oueensiflnp mflßine brokerage

Commercial Shipping Sales & Charters

We sell barges, ferries, refrigerated and general cargo vessels, dredges, trawlers, yachts, charter fishing vessels and landing craft. Listings wanted.

Servicing Australia and the South West Pacific. cc i o £ High reliability, totally marinised SOMA Windmills charge batteries to run lights, tools, water pumps, etc. 200 watt 12 volt unit SNZBSO.

FOB Auckland. 500 watt 24 volt unit SNZIOOO.

FOB Auckland.

Send for free brochure and c.i.f. quotes or send $1\1Z3.50 for post-paid Installation Manual.

SOMA WINDMILLS LTD.

P.O. Box 94, Russell, New Zealand.

Henry Lawson’s Bookshop 127 York St., Sydney 2000 Just half a block from Town Hall. Phone 29 7799.

We stock ONLY

Australian Books

and Books on the Pacific.

Frostpak. m ir wX m to Portable Electronic Solid State Refrigerators For people on the move Ideal for Campers & Caravans Indispensable for Travellers and Holidaymakers A must for Truckdrivers Popular with Yachts.

Aircraft and Fishermen For Medical & Technical purposes & Food Samples ■ Big cooling performance ■ No Gas - No Compresso ■ Large 33 Litre capacity ■ Unaffected by motion or level ■ No noise or vibration ■ Low Battery Dram ■ Low Weight-7 KG ■ Virtually Indestructable ■ 2 Year Guarantee From 5199.00 incl. Sales Tax Connects to 12V Battery or Cigarette Lighter Operates on 240 V with Battery Charger Koolatron 297 Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne 3027 INDUSTRIES Phone 645 2068 Telex 32571 MAPS and PRINTS of the OLD PACIFIC Regular catalogues issued listing a large stock of original antiquarian views and maps of Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and all the island groups of the Pacific. Write today for your free copy: COLIN HINCHCLIFFE, 7 Royd Avenue, Heckmondwike, West Yorkshire, WFI6 9AL, UK.

CLASSIFIED FOR SALE FLEETS 49 ft 6 inch x 17 ft x 6 ft PARTLY PLANKED HULL Timbers, frames, stringers fitted. "AS IS", including balance planking timber, timber for decks, 3” Stainless Steel prop, shaft, stern tube, $42,000 FLEETS 221 Esplanade, Wynnum Central, Brisbane. Cable “FLEETS BRISBANE". ®/ w

Whangarei Engineering & Construction

LTD.

A. Dillingham Affiliate

Shipbuilders & General Engineers

Port Road, Whangarei, New Zealand- P.O. BOX 24 TELEPHONEB2-219-TELEX Ni. 21578.

SHIP DESIGN AND BUILD: Complete Facility.

SHIP REPAIR: Quick Turn-around. AH trades integrated. 1,700 t Slipway A vail able.

NEW ZEALAND'S LEADING SHIPYARD FOR MEN ONtY I magazines Request Free Informaton From ZEMPLIN P/L SHOP 3 8-24 KIPPAX ST.

SURRY HILLS,N.S.W. 2010 AUSTRALIA.

I J

Purchase Or Lease

Wanted purchase or lease business Pacific Islands.

Husband Butcher-Chef but all businesses considered Reply full details: 142 Woodland Street Balgowlah NSW 2093 Stay at Aggie Grey’s . . . the South Pacific’s legendary hotel.

Situated right in the heart of Western Samoa. Enjoy Polynesian-stylc friendliness and service, in cool surroundings, superb entertainment and food.

Magnificent white sand beaches only a short drive away. Airconditioned rooms, swimming pool and full bar facilities.

Bookings through Union Steamship Company of NZ, Pan Am, Air New Zealand or direct to Aggie Grey’s, Apia, Western Samoa. Cables: ‘AGGIES’ Apia. ’ORT MOl * Right in business ce] * A traditioj comfort an&fin< food * All rpoms airconditioned * Restaurant * Bai ♦ Banquet hall .. C. NEUMANN manager Phone 21-2622^

Peter Fisher

TRADING Pty Ltd 321 PITT St., SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA 2000 Telephone: 212 1475 Cables: "FISHERIOIM" Sydney

Exporters To The

Pacific Islands

106 PACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY - SEPTEMBER 19794

STATESMAN T STATESMAN STATESMAN STATESMAN STATESMAN STATESMAN o CORONA LANCERS

Half Corona

5 PANAITLIA STATESMAN Smooth, mild cigars.

W. D. & H. 0. WILLS (AUSTRALIA) LIMITED E6BO

This is no ordinary shower... and neither is Datsun’s test 1 m.

K “Extra” effort is a tradition at Datsun... it should come as no surprise that it’s a major factor contributing to Datsun’s worldwide reputation for total quality. Sure, engineering excellence is important, in addition to high technology and mass production with tight quality control. But, Datsun goes a step further and that makes all the difference in the world.

For example, prior to mass production, Datsun conducts complete testing to ensure car body watertightness. A special Shower Test on a “white body” is designed to duplicate the many possible conditions of motoring in the rain. Precisely controlled amounts of water flow over the body. The routes they take are analyzed and the results fed back to the engineering and design department.

Datsun's special Shower Test on a white body."

In addition, a “twist” machine twists the entire body to simulate what actually happens when traveling over various road surfaces.

During the test, water constantly runs over the body to check for possible leaks. Testing extends to the actual production stage itself.

To be absolutely sure, newly painted cars are subjected to 8 hours of simulated rain as a final test for watertightness.

Seems like a lot of time and effort? Sure, but that’s all part of the Datsun tradition—the dedication to excellence. tma nmsn Datsun’s “extra” effort for total quality. DATSUN Datsun Distributors: Boroko Motors Ltd. PO. Box 1259, Boroko, Port Moresby. PN G / Carpenters Motors, Sales Division 61-63 Foster St. Walu Bay, Suva, Fiji Islands Private Mail Bag/ Morris Hedstrom Ltd. PO. Box 189, Apia, Western Samoa/ United Enterprises Ltd. PO. Box 262, Honiara, Solomon Islands/ Sirius Motors PO. Box 34, Norfolk Island, South Pacific/ Jacob Enterprises PO Box 4, Republic of Nauru/Cook Islands Motor Center Ltd. PO. Box 74, Rarotonga, Cook Islands, South Pacific/ Pentecost Pacific S.A. PO Box 119, Port Vila, New Hebrides/ Agence Alma S.A. B P. A 3. Noumea Cedex, New Caledonia/ Tahitibull S.A.R.L. B.P 359, Papeete, Tahiti / Gilbert Islands Government, Supply Division PO. Box 71, Bairiki, Tarawa, Gilbert Islands