INDEPENDENCE with a hook; GIRLS REIGN in Kiwi Land?; DIVINE intervention; MAFIA QUEEN sent home


Divine intervention:
It was a lucky escape for Fiji parliamentarians when the ceiling of their parliamentary house collapsed due to heavy rain. The parliamentary session had to be adjourned indefinitely as Public Works department workers worked round-the-clock to fix its roof. Reports from the government information ministry said “rain penetrated the parliament house roof and tore away the ceilings within the House of Representatives. Members of parliaments were lucky to escape the slabs as it crashed down on the floor ,while the morning parliamentary session was about to proceed.”

***

Independence with a hook:
While New Zealand's diplomats would shudder at the thought they were neo-colonists, little Tokelau is discovering that the independence they are being forced to take comes with some limitations. New Zealand, in theory at least, controls the foreign affairs (defence too, but the lamentable state of the Kiwi military makes that laughable) of the Cook Islands and Niue. But Rarotongan politicians have been playing fast and loose with the Chinese connections, much to Wellington's embarrassment. To make sure that next year's new Pacific nation, Tokelau, does not get out of line on that issue, Wellington is insisting that its constitution enshrines Tokelau's recognition of Beijing with no alternative. They will be sleeping easier in Shanghai, now that they know the whole of Atafu is on their side.

***

Clark back in power?
Election time looms in New Zealand, where whipmaster Helen Clark is expected to easily retain her job as prime minister of the small country on the road to becoming a matriarchal society in which men count for very little, except for huddling in the mateship of rugby scrums.

The election is a bother for Papua New Guinea which had hoped to host this year's Pacific Islands Forum meeting as late as possible in August and preferably September, so as to run conjointly with its 30th independence anniversary ceremonies and the Melanesian Spearhead Group summit. A few other Forum leaders apparently regard that timing awkward, so the word is that the Forum will be deferred to October. There's speculation about how PNG will greet and farewell Forum guests, beginning with Australia's John Howard.

***

Fuming SPC:
Anguish emanates from Noumea where the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) is gently fuming about last month's Whisper that it would dispatch a mission to America in the hope of wringing money from wealthy foundations there. A retort reads: “I'm not sure why this non-secret visit to the USA inspires such cynicism, nor indeed, contempt. We regularly approach all our member countries that are potential donors for funds to aid the region. We also make a point of trying to have someone from SPC visit each member country during the course of the year (making Pitcairn a regular stop has so far proven impossible). This is how the majority of SPC's Pacific Islands projects are funded, by drawing donors attention to our past ability to deliver goods and providing them with some good ideas about how they might achieve some of their overseas development objectives in future (ideas first gleaned from discussions with our islands members on several levels).

“Why didn't ISLANDS BUSINESS raise an eyebrow about our talks with Australia earlier this year, at which we put the bite on them for several new projects, or with New Zealand or France? The only thing that is different about this trip is that it involves more than one person (possibly as many as three). We will be visiting several private sector philanthropic foundations, as well as our normal diplomatic contacts there. We already have a couple of projects funded by such foundations, including the live reef fish trade assessment and management advisory work funded by the MacArthur Foundation.

“We find that, in general, private philanthropy has remarkably few “strings attached”-less than many government-funded projects anyway. There is great additional potential, particularly for health-related projects.

However, we don't know much about other American foundations, so we have been making a special effort to bone up on them, which is perhaps what attracted the attention of your scribe.”

***

Women power:
Fiji Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase's decision to shelve a cabinet submission from his women's ministry could turn out to haunt him come the next general election. The submission tabled in cabinet immediately after the women's minister returned from the post-Beijing meet in New York, had proposed equal representation for women in parliament and in a number of other areas. Apparently, the submission was knocked back because it's been whispered it could involve changing Fiji's constitution. Knowing that Fiji women comprise more than 50% of the country's population, it could have implications on Qarase's chances of getting back into power, now that the election could be held as early as October, instead of next year.

***

From Samoa to Cuba:
Samoa is pained to learn that it is not as pristine as it fancies itself to be. A French company making a film about the life in Samoa of writer Robert Louis Stevenson has abandoned the thought of using Apia as a location because the town is now “too developed.” Instead, the film will be shot in Cuba, where clapped out buildings are considered to be how Apia looked like back in the 19th century. The film-makers clearly haven't heard of Levuka, Fiji's old capital, or of the tax incentives the Fiji government allows film-makers.

***

Girls reign in Kiwi Land:
It's a girls' world these days in New Zealand with all the top jobs going to women. It raises the question: Who is the top ranked man in the nation? Suprisingly, it is a Samoan-given to wearing a skirt. In the official Order of Precedence-which defines the order in which top nobs walk into state occasions-women fill the first three positions; governor-general, prime minister and speaker. Number four on the order is the Dean of the Diplomatic Corps-Samoa's High Commissioner, Feesago Fepuleai. He has worn a suit to most official functions although he does favour the lavalava. But then Helen Clark wears trousers. Feesago has another rare distinction-he has previously been Dean of the Diplomatic Corps in Canberra.

***

Air Tahiti Nui's NY service:
Airlines in New Zealand and Australia are agitated about Air Tahiti Nui's imminent New York/Papeete service, promoted as being the formula for hugely reversing the slump in the number of Americans who visit French Polynesia. They are agitated because the flights are also a cheaper way of getting to Australia and New Zealand by buying tickets all the way to Sydney or Auckland via Papeete.

That's not all that's pissing off Qantas and Air New Zealand. They're complaining that the French Polynesian airline is subsidised.

***

Mafia Queen expelled:
Fiji's immigration authorities are usually alert to toss out foreign undesirables, but with some curious exceptions.

In April, the long running saga of Yan Xiu Hua, dubbed by the Fiji press as the Mafia Queen, appeared to have in part ended when the new home affairs minister Josefa Vosanibola tossed her out of the country because she was “seriously dishonest” and had “consistently demonstrated that she will not hesitate to carry out her business interests outside the law.”

Yan appeared in the country in 1990, ostensibly to open a garment factory. She built up a nice little business empire of this and that, apparently centred on the fish and beche-de-mer trade, but also including one of the sleaziest night joints in Suva.

Her business interests were said to be spread much wider than that and aroused police interest. She applied for citizenship but got knocked back. Her appeals were supported by politicians and other prominent people in the circles she moved in. Thanks to her connections, many of them obligated, the whisper goes. It seems a succession of bureaucratic functionaries couldn't muster the heart to toss her out.

After her enforced departure, finally, Vosanibola was left with Yan's daughter, 10-year-old Wei Wei, to deal with. He ordered her deportation also. The kid went into hiding. A lawyer said she couldn't be expelled since having been born in Fiji she was a citizen. Then police wondered how the child could produce a brand new Fiji passport, issued in March this year, since the law banned automatic citizenship for children with foreign parents. The passport came as no surprise at all to people aware of the extent of Yan's useful connections.

***

Foreign depression:
As Australia rampages around the region, stamping its imprint as indelibly as possible everywhere, morale at the Pacific Islands desks, or desk, of New Zealand's foreign affairs office is said to have never been more lower. Deep depression is said to be lurking within after the departure of the last old hands with any frontline experience of a region supposedly to be of key concern to the masters in Wellington.

***