The excerpt of WSJ-A article:
REVIEW & OUTLOOK
Trouble in Paradise
FROM TODAY'S WALL STREET JOURNAL ASIA
July 30, 2008
In their travels round the globe, U.S. Secretaries of State rarely make it as far as the South Pacific. Yet Condoleezza Rice found herself in Samoa over the weekend, the first Secretary of State to land there since George Shultz paid a visit in 1988. On her agenda: the political strife in the island nation of Fiji.
Fiji has had so many coups recently -- four in the past 20 years -- that's it is better known for its political instability than for its beautiful beaches. Now, the country's military ruler is reneging on his promise to hold elections. In her meeting with Pacific foreign ministers in Samoa Saturday, Ms. Rice called for a return to democracy. "I will try to lend my voice to a very strong regional effort," she said.
Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama took power in a bloodless military coup in 2006 on the pretext of ridding the island of "racism" and "corruption." If only. Since taking over, Mr. Bainimarama has made matters worse by installing military men in powerful government positions and cowing the media. His racial policies, which favor the country's 38% Indian minority, have caused more division than reconciliation.
Fiji's biggest trading partners -- New Zealand and Australia, the U.S. and the European Union -- have responded by withdrawing aid and issuing tourism warnings. Those actions, combined with a slowing global economy, have hit little Fiji hard. The Bureau of Statistics estimates the country's economy shrank by 6.6% in 2007, and 2008 will likely be just as dismal. Since 2006, tourism revenue has dropped more than 20% and sugar production, 30%.
Yet Mr. Bainimarama is still thumbing his nose at the 16-member Pacific Island Forum, which has called for elections since the 2006 coup. Last week, he pushed back elections to March 2010, from his previous promise of 2009. Mr. Bainimarama's military government has no place in an organization whose key pillars are "economic growth, sustainable development, good governance and security."
Still, New Zealand and Australia have kept on talking -- as the locals would say, that's the "Pacific Way." Fiji's interim foreign minister was included in Saturday's huddle in Samoa. The Forum will sit down again with Fiji next month.
Fiji's disarray poses a special problem for Australia and New Zealand, which can't afford such instability on their doorsteps. If Mr. Bainimarama can get away with subverting democracy, then why can't Papua New Guinea, Tuvalu or the Solomon Islands, whose democracies are also shaky?
The longer Fiji drifts, too, the more open it will be to influence from China, which is working to expand its presence in the South Pacific. All the more reason to prod the island nation to make its way back to the league of liberal democracies.
SiFM has taken the liberty to respond to the above article, which is laden with generalizations and muddled with inaccuracies.
The largest inaccuracy of the WSJ Asia "Trouble in Paradise" article was the selective omission, of the details in Fiji's electoral system and the naive perception of the geo-political and geo-strategic dimensions.
It is true that the 2009 elections in Fiji was postponed; however, that very system was did not fit the definitions of a "liberal democracy". If Fiji's race based voting system, were applied in the 2008 US elections; it would mean, Caucasians applying for a Caucasian seat and African Americans voting only for African American candidate and so forth for other minorities.
If that is the ideal concept of true democracy, which Australia and New Zealand want from Fiji, then it is a gross fallacy, making a mockery of the very definition of democracy. Furthermore, Fiji's model, does not square up with their own electoral system (e.g US, Australia, UK), which are devoid of any racial element(s).
Fiji's interim Government had postponed the 2009 elections to 2010, so that electoral reforms can be implemented; reforms that effectively remove the racial component and communal seats, including a boundary change. All of which, are labor and time extensive exercises, which elevate Fiji's electoral system up to par with the real definition of 'liberal democracy'.
Why then are these reforms so distasteful to the interests of the US, Australia and New Zealand?
It seems that this Western 'prodding' to get Fiji to hold 2009 elections (in the first quarter)has much to do with the discomfort of these Trans-Tasman egalitarians and their neo-colonial agendas, plucked straight from George W Bush's imperialistic play book.
US Secretary of State, Condoleeza's Rice recent visit to the region, including a stop in small fry Samoa, underscored that urgency to get the ball rolling in establishing full spectrum dominance of the Pacific, by proxy; simply because the US itself has not ratified the Law of Seas.
The major underlying reason in Fiji's case, is literally that; meaning it has more to do with Pacific seabed claims and according to the U.N International Sea Bed Authority, several Pacific island nations have until May 2009 to claim a part of the sea bed, if proven to be an extension of their own continental shelf. All this jockeying was outlined in an earlier SiFM posting "The Rush To Mine The Pacific Seabed".
Australia and New Zealand want Fiji to have a claim submitted by a so called 'democratically elected' government (note the time constraints), regardless if the Fiji's electoral system used racial communal seats.
The Trans-Tasman plan, is to just get the Fiji elections out of the way, to feign legitimacy and roll out the demands for seabed negotiations that could cement no bid oil contracts with Trans-Tasman companies. These same companies have financial backing from Wall Street, whose venture capitalists are desperately trying to ring up a profit, after such devastating losses, due to the moral hazards of Mortgage-backed securities, creating the credit-crunch that sent the US banking system into a nose dive.
Fiji's maritime boundaries is extensive and many studies have indicated conclusively that it contains large volumes of oil, natural gas and exotic minerals. Case in point, Fiji Govt has recently issued exploration licenses to three companies (2 Australian, 1 US)for oil extraction in Bligh waters, covered in a Fiji Live article.
The excerpt of the FL article:
Oil companies to explore Fiji waters
23 JUL 2008
Three offshore oil companies have been given licenses to explore large oil reserves found in Fiji’s Bligh Waters, according to the Department of Mineral Resources.
Two of the companies are from Australia and one from the United States.
Department Director Venasio Nasara is confident there is a substantial amount of oil in Fiji‘s territory to allow for rigging. He is hoping that more companies show interest in Fiji’s oil reserves. However, he cautions that all the right steps should be taken to ensure the appropriate policies are in place.
According to Nasara, there have been other sites with oil reserves identified within Fiji waters but no exploration licenses for these sites have been issued yet. The Mineral Resources Department also confirmed that other undersea minerals have been found in Fiji.
“There has been no environmental impact assessment done yet because there has been no need for it. But we will carry one out before the Government decides on mining.” He adds: “We are hoping that if an oil industry is realised, it will not only provide relief to rising fuel prices, but also to employment and foreign reserves.”
Fijilive
It appears that Australia and New Zealand want a piece of that pie before China comes in and outbids their puny capital, especially considering its huge energy appetite. In addition, current world prices of oil has made this Pacific option, a considerably attractive proposal and the icing on the cake, is that the region is far removed from the calamities in the Middle East and East Africa.
Undoubtedly, all this banter about accelerated democracy on specified time horizons, critically hinges upon Fiji's unquestionable obedience to the orders of Australia and New Zealand, both nations acting on instructions issued from way up the chain of command and global pecking order.
An interesting article published in "The Daily Telegraph" sums up this global pecking order, with regards to the seabed claims.
The excerpt:
Oil crisis triggers fevered scramble for the world's seabed
Last Updated: 10:52pm BST 30/05/2008
Record prices drive secret underwater land-grab as old enemies capitalise on colonies. Ambrose Evans-Pritchard reports
A fevered scramble for control of the world's seabed is going on - mostly in secret - at a little known office of the United Nations in New York.
Bemused officials are watching with a mixture of awe and suspicion as Britain and France stake out legal claims to oil and mineral wealth as far as 350 nautical miles around each of their scattered islands across the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian oceans. It takes chutzpah. Not to be left out, Australia and New Zealand are carving up the Antarctic seas.
Turtles at Clarence Bay at sunrise on the north west side of the Ascension Island and the view from Green Mountain on the Acension Island (image above)
Dusting off the relics: Ascension Island, once known for its turtles, could be vital to the UK's future energy needs if a bid to claim the seabed surrounding it is successful
The latest bombshell to land on the desks of UN's Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf is a stack of confidential documents from the British Government requesting an extension of UK territorial waters around Ascension Island, St Helena and Tristan da Cunha.
The three outposts between them draw big circles in the Mid and South Atlantic, covering unexplored zones that may one day offer deep reserves of crude oil and gas.
A similar request has already been made for eastward expansion from the Falklands and South Georgia - much to the fury of Argentina. "If the British do not change their approach, we shall have to interpret it as aggression," said President Nestor Kirchner, before he handed power to his wife Cristina.
Ascension Island - famed for its enormous green turtles - is a dusty cluster of 44 volcanoes, covered with cinder. It is barely big enough to host America's "Wideawake" airfield and a tracking station for Ariane 5 space rockets. First garrisoned by the British in 1815 to keep an eye on Napoleon, it now boasts 1,100 hardy souls. St Helena - the "Atlantic Alcatraz" - is yet more remote, if greener.
The forgotten relics of the Empire make Britain a player in the marine race. There are the waters off the Falkland Islands and South Georgia, already home to a clutch of oil exploration companies; the Pitcairn Islands in the Pacific; Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean; and a string of outposts such as Montserrat, the Caymans, the British Virgin Islands, the Turks and Caicos, and Bermuda.
The French "Outre-Mer" is a bigger network - from the Isles Crozet to Saint-Paul and Kerguelen in the southern seas, to Clipperton off western Mexico. They too have been busy at the UN, requesting an extension of their zone off French Guiana and New Caledonia.
All the maritime powers are nibbling gingerly at the edges of Antarctica, though the Antarctic Treaty bans fresh claims on the world's last pristine landmass.
The two-page summary of Britain's submission to the UN gives little away. It merely notes that the UK is providing information on the limits of shelf "beyond 200 nautical miles", adding that there will be further requests. A Foreign Office spokesman said the motive was to "protect the environment".
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Greenpeace demurs. "It is a grab for resources. These countries are in a panic about commodity prices and now view the seas as key to their national security," said Charlie Kronick, the group's climate chief.
The Law of the Sea allows the maritime powers to claim 200 miles of waters around their islands. They can win an extension to 350 miles if the geology of the seabed fits a set of complex technical conditions.
The requests are studied by a panel of world experts, and usually granted on a strict scientific basis. This is not conducted like the Eurovision Song Contest, where imperialists score "nul points".
The deadline expires in May 2009, so there is now a rush to stake out claims. If countries waive their right, the area from 200 to 350 miles automatically returns to the world community: claim it now, or lose it forever.
In a sense, the system is deeply unfair. China gets virtually nothing. Poor landlocked countries get absolutely nothing. Yet the old powers - after enjoying the fruit of imperial rule for four centuries - enjoy a second bite of the cherry. "The sea goes to the most powerful states that were able to colonise the remote parts of world. That's the way the law is," said Martin Pratt, head of the international boundaries unit at Durham University.
Nobody has ever explored these regions thoroughly for oil and minerals, although Mr Pratt said there was a burst of interest 20 years ago in "polymetallic nodules" - boulders of manganese, and such, on the sea floor. Commodity prices did not stay high enough to make it worthwhile investing, and the waters were mostly too deep.
That calculus is now changing fast as oil futures contracts for 2016 vault to $135 a barrel. The International Energy Agency warns that world output will fall far short of the estimated 116m barrels per day by 2030 unless there is massive investment.
The technology of deep-water drilling is improving in leaps and bounds. Three-dimensional seismic imaging can look through the salt canopies that cover up reserves and play havoc with exploration.
The ageing North Sea rigs drill to around 3,000ft: the Jack 2 test well, run by a consortium of oil companies, plunges through 7,000ft of water and 20,000ft of sea floor into the entrails of the earth below the Gulf of Mexico. The state-of-the-art fields off Angola may soon be routinely drilling at near 9,000ft. It is no longer far-fetched to imagine rigs drilling as deep as 15,000ft, once oil companies learn to cope with crude gushing out at temperatures of 300C.
Shell and Lasmo explored the Falklands in the 1990s, but gave up when crude prices crashed to $10 a barrel. Nothing much came to light. Desire Petroleum, Rockhopper, Borders & Southern and Falkland Oil and Gas are all probing again. Desire plans to start drilling this year. "A working hydrocarbon system in the North Falkland Basin has been established," it said.
Dr Phil Richards from the British Geological Survey - who helped to prepare the UK's extension claim - doubts stories that the area could hold 60bn barrels of oil (Saudi Arabia purports to have 260bn). "That is not credible. It is based on how much oil the rocks are potentially capable of holding. We won't know how much there is until we actually drill. All we have so far are educated guesses," he said.
Mr Richards denies that the Government is privy to secret discoveries. "There are no vast reserves that we know about. But who knows, it may come good for our grandchildren," he said.
Is it in the interests of mankind to tap deep-sea reserves? We may have no choice. The world has consumed one trillion barrels of oil already. The second trillion is located but not yet tapped, and will take us to 2035 or so. The third trillion eludes us. Any suggestions?
New Zealand which lies to the immediate South of Fiji and has it's own continental shelf claims which impinge upon Fiji's area, that lies adjacent to the Kingdom of Tonga, also facing the same seabed deadline claim, covered in an article in Islands Business. The excerpt of I.B article:
Seven Pacific countries race against time as deadline to claim extra ocean space draws near
Fiji along with Solomon Islands, Kiribati, Palau, the Federated States of Micronesia, Tonga and Papua New Guinea have a credible claim to more than 1.5 million square kilometers of additional space beyond their current 200 mile Exclusive Economic Zone.
Pacnews
Mon, 12 May 2008
SUVA, FIJI ---- Fiji and six other Pacific island countries are beginning to feel the pressure to complete their submissions to the United Nations (UN) to claim extra ocean space, with only one year remaining to the May 2009 deadline.
Fiji along with Solomon Islands, Kiribati, Palau, the Federated States of Micronesia, Tonga and Papua New Guinea have a credible claim to more than 1.5 million square kilometers of additional space beyond their current 200 mile Exclusive Economic Zone.
This is being made possible under Article 76 of the International Law of the Sea.
A week long workshop on the preparation on the country’s submission on Extended Continental Shelf (ECS) begins today in Fiji and is coordinated by the Pacific Islands Applied Geoscience Commission (SOPAC) and Geoscience Australia (GA) and the UNEP Shelf Programme.
SOPAC, GA and UNEP would help these countries to complete the activities required to delineate the outer limits of their continental shelf. These countries are currently faced with the costly and complex work of data identification, collection, analysis and submission preparation.
Due to limited technical and financial capacity they may not be able to complete the submission process without considerable external support, both technical and financial
Scientific studies have revealed the access to extended continental shelf could mean more access to mineral rich resources previously outside our EEZ. It’s the first time the pacific region is combining their efforts in its bid to extend their exclusive economic zones.
SOPAC Director Cristelle Pratt, said countries are committed to working together to improve lives in the Pacific.
“Securing greater maritime sovereignty can provide increased revenue for Pacific States and deliver significant economic and social benefits from access to ocean resources that occur on the seabed and within the subsoil.
Ms Pratt said that assessments have identified strong grounds for these Pacific countries to extend sovereignty over their continental shelves.
“These Pacific Island Countries recognise that determining the boundaries of their Exclusive Economic Zone beyond 200 nautical miles is critical to securing exclusive ocean development of potentially rich non-living resources, such as oil, gas, gold and silver, as well as living organisms that live on and beneath the seabed,” Ms Pratt said.
Submissions to claim an extended continental shelf must be based upon sound technical data and meet requirements prescribed within Article 76 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea 1982 (UNCLOS), to secure an extended Continental Shelf beyond the 200 nautical mile exclusive economic zone.
It is undoubtedly a Machiavellian template, applied by Australia and New Zealand to get the Pacific Island states vis a` vis the Pacific Forum, and pressure Fiji into 2009 elections, indirectly creating divisions among the ranks of island states. The ultimate objective: scooping the seabed treasure, right under their collective noses of Pacific island states, too occupied with petty rivalry and bickering.
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