Green, amber, red. What are the signals for the condition of peace and stability for Oceania’s islands states through 2005?

The lights to watch are those for French Polynesia, Fiji, Tonga, Vanuatu, Kiribati and the Cook Islands.

In 2003, the light glared red for the Solomon Islands and attracted the arrival of an Australian-led rescue and repair force.

In 2004, the light turned red for the virtually collapsed and insolvent Republic of Nauru. It turned amber for Papua New Guinea, where in December Australian Federal Police joined local police patrols and Australian bureaucrats were preparing to move into key areas of PNG’s public service administration.

All three interventions were with the consent and request of the governments concerned, although not without dissent in shaky Papua New Guinea. There, some politicians claimed the country was sliding back to an indirect form of Australia’s former colonial rule.

In the streets of Port Moresby, Honiara and Nauru, however, the ordinary men and women on them tended to greet the arrival of helping hands with relief.

They are people utterly disillusioned by the record of chaos and corruption, failing government services and wrecking or weakening of economies attributable to the deficiencies of too many local leaders.

The light for the Solomon Islands has turned from red to amber. Within a few years it could turn green if the Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands (RAMSI) is allowed to continue with the work of rebuilding the country’s economy and public service.

There are encouraging reports of the advent of a reversal of economic misfortune for the region’s giant, Papua New Guinea, but the country’s coalition government, led by veteran Sir Michael Somare, stands on shaky ground. The Somare government is the most effective one PNG can at present hope for. While the next election is due by June 2007, the government’s tenure is open to attack by parliamentary votes of no confidence it has so far managed to stave off. If it falls, its successor could be peopled by some of the most unsavoury figures in PNG politics. The light for PNG remains at amber.

In Nauru, while the task of salvaging something from the wreckage has hardly begun, a succession of plainly reckless government has given way to what potentially could be the first realistic and competent administration in years. The light has gone from red to amber.

Ousted Oscar Temaru (right)...supporters have refused to vacate government offices.

French Polynesia

Amber that could go Red

Travel writers and French Polynesia’s own tourism promotion efforts drape this French territory with a South Seas paradise image that belies numerous serious political, social and economic difficulties. In the past, the capital, Papeete, has been rocked by violent labour disputes. A few years ago part of its international airport terminal was burnt down by figures some of whom after a general election last year were briefly associated with the short-living pro-independence government of the veteran agitator for full autonomy and independence, Oscar Temaru.

In a June 2004 election, Temaru, with a narrow majority, defeated the anti-independence government of Gaston Flosse and formed French Polynesia’s first pro-independence government—an arrival not welcome by France, let alone Flosse, a personal friend of President Jacques Chirac. On October 9, Temaru lost power when one of his MPs defected to the opposition and Flosse regained power.

Since the territorial government has been in chaos. Temaru’s supporters have refused to vacate many government offices, one being the presidential office.

Papeete has been the scene of angry street demonstrations but not so far violence. Temaru’s supporters have turned a deaf ear to his requests that they end their occupation of the offices. They say they want nothing less than a fresh election, not a by-election for the Windward Islands seats set for February 13. Talks in Paris between Temaru, Flosse and the French colonial minister, Brigitte Girardin, collapsed in a bad odour.

France’s highest court, the State Council, has upheld Temaru’s loss of office and Flosse’s return to it as being valid. It has declared that there were “serious irregularities” in elections in the Windward Isles, including Tahiti and Moorea, for 37 of the territorial assembly’s 57 seats. Since two small parties in Temaru’s coalition have parted company from it, the consequences of the February by-elections are uncertain. If Temaru wins, it would probably be only a matter of time before his government fell apart again, given the historic inability of pro-independence politicians to stick together.

If Flosse wins, his government would have to cope with a deeply embittered opposition, a situation that doesn’t bode well for French Polynesia’s political outlook and attempts to wean a massively French aid dependent economy towards long-term self-reliance.

Fiji

Amber possibly blinking to Red

2004 closed with an extraordinary confrontation between the army and the coalition government led by Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase and his Soqosoqo Duavata ni Lewenivanua (SDL) government. It left people wondering who was really running the country. The army? In a separate development, the Fiji Labour Party (FLP) leader, Mahendra Chaudhry, ousted as prime minister in a 2000 coup by Fijian militants, in November dropped his campaign to have the FLP awarded nearly half the places in Qarase’s cabinet, as the Supreme Court confirmed the country’s constitution entitles the opposition to have in certain circumstances. The field has thus been cleared for electioneering.

Through 2005 this is likely to become bitter and further stress relations between the Fijian and Indian communities. This will make investors nervous, although at present many are pressing ahead with large resort hotel and other developments. Qarase can delay an election until September 2006 but he may decide it would be to his advantage to bring the poll forward, maybe even to 2005, to avoid the risk of the evaporation of some of his Fijian support. The SDL easily won a December Fijian constituency by-election although only 31 percent of registered voters vote.

But as Qarase and the 1987 coup leader and later prime minister, Sitiveni Rabuka concede,  that unless Fijians unite they could again lose to the Indian-dominated Fiji Labour Party, ousted from government by the 2000 coup. Rabuka claims that in that event there would be another coup. Army chief Frank Bainimarama is promising it will support any properly elected government and will crush any threat to national security and stability.

There were obviously strained relations between the army and government at the beginning of 2004 over the issue of the renewal of Bainimarama’s expiring appointment. It seems clear the government wanted someone else in the command but Bainimarama won the ear of the President, Ratu Josefa Iloilo, who renewed his appointment.

In November/December tension flared anew when the army declared that it would not support the appointment as vice president of anyone tinged by association with a 2000 coup. It said it was disgusted by the November early release, only three months into a four-year jail sentence, of Ratu Jope Seniloli, jailed in August for backing the 2000 coup. He was appointed by coup frontman George Speight as “president” and then administered oaths to Speight’s “ministers.” Seniloli was released on health grounds by the controversial Attorney-General, Qoriniasi Bale. The release fomented protests by the Fiji Labour Party, other opposition parties and a civil action group, the Citizens’ Constitutional Forum, that it was a put-up job to placate militant anti-Indian Fijian nationalists the government relies on for some of its support. Seniloli is a chief of Speight’s home district. Several other nationalists are in jail for coup-related offences and two of Qarase’s cabinet ministers in December were awaiting trial on coup related charges.

On December 15, the Great Council of Chiefs accepted President Iloilo’s nomination of Ratu Joni Madraiwiwi for the vice presidency. Madraiwiwi, 46, a liberal, is a lawyer, former Supreme Court judge and a strong proponent of multiracial government. He’s also a high-ranking member of the Fijian aristocracy. The appointment met with general approval, army included. But the army continues to complain that too many perpetrators of the 2000 coup remain free as fomenters of potential future trouble, some being in government and parliament with Qarase obligated to them for support needed by his coalition government. More coup-related prosecutions are pending. Militant Fijians want investigations and prosecutions to be halted and convicted coup supporters pardoned. The army is dead opposed to those propositions.
2005 will be a politically uneasy and possibly dangerous year for Fiji

Serge Vohor...dumped.

Vanuatu

Amber possibly tinged with Green

Ham Lini, a carpenter and teacher and younger brother of Vanuatu’s first prime minister, Walter Lini, was elected prime minister on December 11 by the 35 members of parliament present in the 52-seat legislature. His defeated predecessor, Serge Vohor, who took office several weeks after an election last July, was one of 17 MPs absent from the legislature.

Lini leads a coalition of individuals who will support him only for as long as it suits their personal interest. His ambition is to weld the coalition into a stable secure administration to equip Vanuatu with the political stability and clean and reasonably efficient government needed to get its sluggish development move forward. It’s a big hope.

Vohor lost power because of his November 3 decision to establish full relations with Taiwan, which he said had offered US$24 million in aid. The move not only infuriated China, which established relations with Vanuatu back in the 1980s, but the whole cabinet, which hadn’t been told in advance. Six ministers resigned and with other rebelling supporters moved to the opposition. Vohor’s goose was cooked.

Preceding this drama was a threat in November by the Australian foreign affairs minister, Alexander Downer, to cut aid to Vanuatu running at around A$30 million a year.

The Australian became worried with the way Vanuatu began going after the Vohor government, featuring several notoriously corrupt politicians, took power. It interfered with the judiciary, police, prosecutions department, and several important statutory organisations, including the broadcasting station. It had plans for setting up what sounded like a sinister “ministerial guard” to be run beyond the authority of law enforcement agencies. Vanuatu was shaping up to be a nasty Haiti-style place.

Lini has averted that possibility. He didn’t enter politics until 1999. While he lacks political experience, he’s considered to be driven by good intentions. His cabinet of 12 ministers contains fewer bad eggs than past ones so his government might survive the year. However, within a few days of the new government’s life more rumours of a motion of no-confidence were being heard.

Nuku’alofa...Tonga’s economic position precarious.

Tonga

Blinking Amber

Tonga’s economic position is precarious, gripped as it is by high inflation, worsening unemployment and poverty, and dependence on foreign aid, remittances from Tongans abroad, and a small volume of exports dominated by sales of squash pumpkins to Japan.

Throughout 2004 its political life became, by Tongan standards, quite tumultuous.
 
A general election will be held in March on a date not announced at the time ISLANDS BUSINESS went to press. The election of nine commoner MPs for the 30-seat legislature and, by the nobility, the selection of nine noble MPs will be followed by a historic event since two commoner and two noble MPs will be invited to join a cabinet previously restricted to loyal royalists selected by King Taufa’ahau Tupou.

The government’s decision to take commoner MPs into the cabinet is in response to mounting domestic and international pressure for a fully elected democratic government. The government has long been controlled by the monarch, his unelected ministers and some members of the royal family.

The active democracy movement, which is agitating for a fully elected parliament and government, has mixed views about the government’s concession to its campaign.

While the democracy movement’s leader ‘Akilisi Pohiva, who’s one of the nine present commoner MPs, sees it as a foot through the door to a democratic department, other democracy movement figures see it as a ploy to placate the movement and weaken the parliamentary opposition.

Pro-democracy MPs are likely to retain at least seven of their nine seats. They suspect the ministerial jobs will go to MPs with royalist leanings.

One of the election candidates is expected to be Clive Edwards, the former police minister sacked suddenly with two other ministers last August by the Prime Minister, Prince ‘Ulukalala Lavaka Ata, the king’s youngest son.

Edwards was blamed for the embarrassment of a flopped attempt to muzzle the local media and for his involvement in the collapse of Royal Tongan Airlines, which happened to have the Prime Minister as chairman.

Once a fervent royalist, Edwards is now attacking royal family business interests as contributing to Tonga’s economic worries. Apart from the proposed commoner and noble MP ministers, it is likely fresh blood will feature in the next government as replacements for old-timers.

Prince ‘Ulukalala is talking of a more dynamic and efficient cabinet. But while Tonga is adopting some of the reforms urged for it by the Asian Development Bank and other international institutions, the pace of public service reform isn’t what is needed for digging the small country out of its economic and social difficulties.

Whether the structure of the new government will be effective as the Prime Minister hopes for remains to be demonstrated.

Robert Woonton...ceases to be prime minister.

Cook Islands

Amber

Back in the 1990s, the Cook Islands ran itself deep into debts from almost nothing to around NZ$100 million, due to the failure of a government hotel project, the cost of other projects, and politics that all built up a public service top heavy with relatives, friends and political allies.

Savage cutbacks in the public service and other cutbacks had to be made. The loss of jobs and failure of some businesses spurred the immigration of Cook Islanders to New Zealand.

The resident population has since dropped from 22,000 to 14,000 and is predicted to dwindle to about 12,000 by 2015.

 A lot of Cook Islanders feel the country’s political leaders are steering it back to bad old ways. The outward drift to New Zealand continues, causing a worsening manpower and skills shortage. Outwardly prosperous, riding as it is on a booming tourist trade and cultured pearl exports, the country’s government is muddied by political jiggery-pokey. After a general election last September, the formation of a new government was delayed by election appeals for nearly four months.

In November, the incumbent prime minister, Dr Robert Woonton, who had his re-election under challenge, did a deal with Cook Islands Party leader Sir Geoffrey Henry, who was prime minister at the time of the 1990s’ crisis.

Woonton was to carry on as prime minister for two years and then hand the office over to Henry. The deal angered many of Woonton’s Democratic Party supporters and added weight to a general public dissatisfaction and disillusionment with the country’s petty style of backroom politics. Twenty of the party’s 24 constituency committees called for the expulsion of Woonton and three other ministers from it. On December 13, a court ruled Woonton’s re-election to be invalid and he ceased to be prime minister. As ISLAND BUSINESS went to press Jim Marurai, one of the ministers castigated with Woonton by their party, was being tipped to take over as prime minister in a coalition with Henry’s Cook Islands Party.

Norman George, a controversial politician and former cabinet minister who lost his seat in the September election, had just been elected as parliamentary speaker by 13 votes to nine on the nomination of Marurai.

The outlook for Cook Islands’ governance and sustainable growth wasn’t good.

Kiribati...President Anote Tong under pressure to meet election promises.

Kiribati

Amber

Just one of Kiribati’s great handicaps is the fact that going on one-third of its 93,100 population is crowded on one end of Tarawa, the seat of government.

Unemployment, sanitation, waste disposal, high population growth, minimal resources, a potentially disastrous HIV-AIDS threat, and sheer distance between its own islands let alone from other countries puts Kiribati in a very difficult position.

Political life is becoming acrimonious, all the more so because President Anote Tong has been at logger heads with the opposition leader, his brother, Dr Harry Tong, since the last election in July 2003. Charges of some corruption are flying about.

President Tong is under pressure to meet election promises.

Other

2005 POINTERS

Australia is promising itself that it will be yet more “robust” in future in fixing the hash of the dozen or so of Oceania’s wilting and wobbly islands states.

New Zealand stands at the sidelines, rather less conspicuous as a puppeteer, wondering whether its role in the region is being relegated by its larger neighbour to becoming less significant.

Both countries are uneasy about China’s mounting presence in what they wish to preserve as their area of strategic influence.
The rivalry between the two Chinas, the Peoples Republic of and the Republic of, for influence in the region is showing how easily it is to buy the goodwill of a whole Pacific Islands governments for the price of a good time in Taipei or Beijing, and the cost of a small sports stadium.

The Asian Development Bank, having just shifted from Vanuatu to new, much larger, regional office in Fiji, has just announced a new five-year strategy for the region.

The Pacific Islands Forum is preparing a grand Pacific Plan for the Forum’s 14 independent (some not very independent) islands states and hopes to bring the region’s last colonies into it, if the last two colonial powers, France and the United States, approve.

An Australian police officer....in Papua New Guinea.

The plan will go to the 2005 Forum meeting in Papua New Guinea in September for approval.
There is a third colonial power in the region, but except for Vanuatu no one wants to acknowledge that fact of life as applied to West Papua.

The Pacific Community, an agency oldtimers can’t help still call the South Pacific Commission, is at last mounting a Forum-approved war to block the spread of HIV-AIDS through the islands but only time will tell if the start of it is too late for some countries.

In the South Pacific, the region’s tourism industry, the greatest and for some countries practically their only serious economic hope, is about to be remoulded by low cost airline travel; this may be good for a few heavily tourist economies but not so good for surviving government-owned regional one-jet airlines.

Air Pacific, the most successful of the region’s airlines, says it is already being hurt by competition by Australia’s Virgin Blue, flying as Pacific Blue, and Air New Zealand’s cheap airline subsidiary, Freedom Air.

Pacific Blue, now operating to Fiji and Vanuatu, will open a service to the Cook Islands in March and is interested in Samoa, the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea.

Oceania’s other big resource, tuna, is under attack by voracious Asian fishermen that newly arrived European fishermen, having ruined their own fishing grounds by overfishing, hope to eventually partly displace.

The new Western and Central Pacific Tuna Commission was launched in December 2004 and from its Pohnpei headquarters has the task of preventing overfishing in high seas areas outside the 200-mile  exclusive economic zones.