Australia's Familarity With Spying, Breeds Contempt Of Its Neighbors. (Updated)

As if Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) had enough regional enmity to deal with, subsequent to the Indonesia spying fiasco; Australia has managed to infuriate its relations with East Timor (Timor Leste) stemming from the CMATS negotiations surrounding maritime claims to the resource rich area of the Timor Sea. The Australian treatment of East Timor has much similarities to the unbridled exploitation of the past.

Diego Rivera - Mural of exploitation of Mexico by Spanish conquistadors, Palacio Nacional, Mexico City (1929-1945)

Australia's involvement in the 5 Eyes network has been not without controversy, but  the Australians appear to be stumbling from one diplomatic wrangle to another. Derived from issues much to their own making by the damning actions of Governments of the past, or the insensitive reactions of the present administration, to lame promises about the future. Australia is its own worst enemy.

Timor-Leste spy case: Brandis claims 'ridiculous', says ambassador

Timor-Leste ambassador Abel Guterres said attorney-general's explanation would be rejected by any 'fair-minded Australian'

• Lenore Taylor
• theguardian.com, Wednesday 4 December 2013 22.37 AEST
Jump to comments (148)

Timor-Leste’s ambassador to Australia said his country was “deeply disappointed” Australian intelligence agencies had resorted to raids against the tiny nation’s lawyer and star witness in the international hearing of spying allegations and thought “fair-minded” Australians would reject the explanation given by the attorney-general, George Brandis, as ridiculous.

The Canberra lawyer Bernard Collaery, who is representing Timor-Leste in an international arbitration hearing in the Hague, has argued the raids were a deliberate effort by the Australian government to disrupt the proceedings, in which Timor-Leste alleges that in 2004 Australia improperly spied on the Timorese during negotiations on an oil and gas treaty worth billions of dollars in order to extract a commercial benefit.

Timor Leste’s prime minister, Xanana Gusmao, issued a statement on Wednesday calling on the Australian prime minister, Tony Abbott, to explain himself and guarantee the safety of the witness – a former senior Australian Security Intelligence Service (Asis) officer allegedly directly involved in the bugging of the Timorese cabinet office during the sensitive negotiations of the Certain Maritime Arrangements in the Timor Sea (CMAT) treaty.

"The actions taken by the Australian government are counterproductive and uncooperative," Mr Gusmao said. "Raiding the premises of a legal representative of Timor-Leste and taking such aggressive action against a key witness is unconscionable and unacceptable conduct. It is behaviour that is not worthy of a close friend and neighbour or of a great nation like Australia."
Brandis confirmed he issued the warrants for the Asis raids, but denied they were intended to interfere in the case and said the matter was an issue of national security.
Timor-Leste’s ambassador to Australia, Abel Guterres, rejected that assertion and said most Australians would also consider it ridiculous.
“Our country, Timor-Leste, which came out of 24 years of struggle and trauma, and the subsequent mayhem in 1999, do you think Timor-Leste could possibly pose a security threat to Australia,” he told Guardian Australia.

The explanation given by the attorney-general, George Brandis, was rejected by Timor-Leste's ambassador.( Photograph: Daniel Munoz/AAP)

“Thousands of people in Australia asked the government to help us [during the violence around the autonomy ballot in 1999] and Australia helped us … are we a security threat to Australia, I don’t think so, I think any fair-minded Australian would see this as ridiculous.”
Brandis rejected the suggestions of interference in the case, telling the Senate on Wednesday these were “wild and injudicious claims”. He said he issued the warrants on national security grounds but declined in his statement to disclose “the specific nature of the security matter concerned”.

“The search warrants were issued, on the advice and at the request of ASIO, to protect Australia’s national security,” Brandis said. He said he had instructed ASIO not to share any material gathered in Tuesday’s raids with Australia’s legal team in the Hague “under any circumstances”. Brandis said Australia respected the arbitral proceedings.

Guterres said Timor-Leste had acted “in good faith” throughout the long dispute over the negotiation, and both parties had agreed to try to resolve the issue through arbitration, “but now the whole thing has turned sour”.

He said Australia’s actions appeared designed to prevent the witness – who was due to fly to the Hague but has now had his passport cancelled – giving verbal evidence, and it was unclear what impact this would have on Timor-Leste’s case.

“It depends how the arbitration sees it if the witness cannot appear in person … but it doesn’t help our case,” he said. “Australia of all places, our ally, our neighbour, our trusted friend, is doing something that is not worthy of being an example.”

Guardian Australia understands Timor-Leste had intended to seek a form of witness protection for the former ASIS officer. The negotiation centred on boundaries to determine how the two countries would share oil and gas deposits under the Timor Sea, called the Greater Sunrise fields, worth tens of billions of dollars. Woodside Petroleum, which wanted to exploit the field, was working closely with the Howard government during the talks.
Timor-Leste alleges Australia inserted bugs in the cabinet room to listen to Timorese negotiators during the talks, under the guise of a refurbishment paid for by an Australian aid program.

Asked about the raids, Abbott said on Wednesday; "We don't interfere in cases, but we always act to ensure that our national security is being properly upheld. That's what we're doing.”
The Greens have called for a parliamentary inquiry into intelligence overreach after revelations that Australian intelligence attempted in 2009 to listen in to the mobile phone of the Indonesian president, his wife and their inner circle; and revelations this week that Australian intelligence offered to share metadata about ordinary citizens with foreign intelligence partners in 2008.

ABC news article, reported that the passport of the retired Intelligence officer cum whistle blower has been cancelled,  in an attempt to bully and throw a spanner in the works of East Timor's legal case against Australia in the Hague.
Podcast of ABC audio segment posted below.




WSWS web article provides additional coverage of the fiasco:

Australian government orders ASIO raids to suppress East Timor spying evidence

By Mike Head
4 December 2013

In a blatant attack on fundamental legal and democratic rights, the Abbott government yesterday ordered Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) and Australian Federal Police (AFP) raids on the homes and offices of a lawyer and former intelligence agency whistleblower involved in an international legal challenge to Australia’s spying on the East Timor government during maritime border talks in 2004.

Bernard Collaery, the Canberra lawyer representing East Timor in its case against Australia in the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague, said his office was raided just 24 hours after he left Australia to prepare the proceedings. ASIO officers spent hours searching his office, alarming two young female staff members. They seized a personal computer, USB stick, and sensitive files relating to the legal proceedings, including the affidavit of the crucial witness, a retired senior Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS) official.

One of Collaery’s shocked assistants told journalists: “They were filming it, explained to me that they were from ASIO and there were AFP officers there too.” The women were shown a substantially blacked-out search warrant, and told they could not even keep a copy, supposedly for “security reasons.”

Collaery said the key witness was also detained and questioned, along with his wife, at their home. Apparently, the ex-ASIS officer was later released, but his passport was confiscated to prevent him from appearing in The Hague.

What, if any, legal grounds exist for these raids and other measures remain entirely unclear, and unspecified. Collaery commented: “I have no way of knowing the legal basis upon which these unprecedented actions [took place].”

Collaery said he had the evidence with him, and the raid would do “very little” to hinder East Timor’s case. “I can’t see what the government hopes to achieve by this aggressive action,” he said. “It can attempt to nullify the whistleblower’s evidence, but that evidence has flown—the evidence is here.”

Personally ordered by Attorney-General George Brandis, the raids are designed not only to block evidence being presented in The Hague of the illegal bugging of East Timor’s government. They send a wider threatening message to the media, the legal profession and potential whistleblowers not to release any further material exposing the intensive surveillance operations conducted by the Australian intelligence apparatus throughout the Asia-Pacific region.
These operations, which include listening posts in the Australian embassies in Dili and other Asia-Pacific capitals, are integral to the global US spying network—now exposed by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden—and the Obama administration’s increasingly aggressive “pivot” to Asia to combat China.

Significantly, as the ASIO-AFP raids took place, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop was preparing to fly to Indonesia in a bid to mend relations after Snowden’s revelations of US-backed Australian tapping of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s phone in 2009.
The raids followed further damning revelations, via leaked Snowden documents, of massive surveillance by the Australian intelligence agencies, directed against ordinary people in Australia, as well as people and governments across the region. (See: “Snowden document confirms US-backed mass surveillance in Australia”). They also came amid an intensifying campaign by the Abbott government and the media establishment to denounce the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and the Guardian Australia web site for publishing the incriminating documents.

Many unanswered questions exist about the raids. Last night, Brandis issued a terse statement declaring that he issued the search warrants to seize documents that “contained intelligence related to security matters.” Without offering any explanation, he simply branded as “wrong” allegations that his actions sought to impede East Timor’s litigation.
Collaery, however, said the raids sought to intimidate anyone else who wanted to come forward against the Australian government. He said the star witness was a former director of all technical operations at ASIS, who decided to blow the whistle because the “immoral and wrong” bugging of the East Timorese government served the interests of major oil and gas companies.

The illegal eavesdropping is now being raised by East Timor to challenge the outcome of the resulting pact, the Certain Maritime Arrangements in the Timor Sea (CMATS) treaty.
In 2004, during negotiations for the treaty, the Australian government, then led by Prime Minister John Howard, economically and politically bullied the East Timorese government of Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri in order to secure the lion’s share of the vast oil and gas reserves beneath the seabed. It also ordered ASIS operatives to plant listening devices in government and prime ministerial offices in Dili, enabling Canberra to snoop on the East Timorese delegates throughout the talks.

Ultimately, the Howard government forced East Timor to shelve any resolution of a maritime border in the area for 50 years, while dividing oil and gas revenues on a 50-50 basis. The largest project, Greater Sunrise, which lies entirely in East Timor’s waters according to international maritime law, will be exhausted within 50 years, starving the tiny impoverished country of critical revenues.
A major Australian company, Woodside Petroleum, which wanted to exploit the field, worked hand in glove with the Howard government and its foreign minister, Alexander Downer, who was in charge of ASIS. Collaery said the former ASIS official decided to expose the bugging upon learning that Downer, after quitting politics, became an adviser to Woodside.

Collaery said the details in the whistleblower’s affidavit had never been made public, until now. The director-general of ASIS and his deputy “instructed a team of ASIS technicians to travel to East Timor in an elaborate plan, using Australian aid programs relating to the renovation and construction of the cabinet offices in Dili, East Timor, to insert listening devices into the wall,” he said.
The Canberra lawyer accused the government and ASIO of “muzzling the oral evidence of the prime witness.” The spying, he commented, amounted to “insider trading,” for which “people would go to jail,” if it happened in the financial markets.
Members of the former Howard government, including Downer, may have direct personal interests in suppressing this information. However, the geo-political context, bound up with the services provided by Canberra and its spy agencies to Washington, indicates that much more is at stake.
Prime Minister Tony Abbott today vehemently defended the ASIO raids, claiming that the government does not interfere in court cases, “but we always act to ensure that our national security is being properly upheld—that’s what we’re doing.” Labor’s opposition leader Bill Shorten quickly closed ranks, lining up with the government to defeat a Senate motion asking Brandis to explain the raids.

By invading a lawyer’s office, and persecuting a former ASIS official, the authorities in Canberra are demonstrating that they will stop at nothing to protect the operations of the Australian intelligence services and their US patrons.

East Timor based NGO, La'o Hamutuk has been covering the controversial negotiations between the Australian and East-Timorese Governments and their website has a wealth of background history and information, surrounding the Certain Maritime Arrangements in the Timor Sea (CMATS) Treaty.

X-Post- The Diplomat: The Deep Sea Resources Rush

A 2008 SiFM post addressed the rush to mine the seabed in the region. A recent article from "The Diplomat"  follows up on that particular subject.

The entire excerpt of The Diplomat article:

The Deep Sea Resources Rush

Source: The Diplomat

By Gemima Harvey

Exploitation of seafloor minerals appears imminent. But we do really understand the potential impact?

Insatiable demand for minerals and rare earth elements, coupled with dwindling resources on land have stakeholders across the world looking to a new frontier: the deep sea. Advancing mining technologies are making the prospect of exploiting seafloor minerals—including gold, copper, zinc, cobalt and rare earth elements (REEs)—not only possible but also imminent, with commercial licenses to be granted by the International Seabed Authority from 2016.

China has a stronghold on REEs, controlling a staggering 97% of global production. These finite elements and other precious minerals are used in the creation of a massive range of electronics devices, emerging green technologies and weapon systems, triggering a strategic scramble to exploit new sources.

In what has been described as a global race, governments and companies are keenly eyeing this emerging mining arena, eager to get their slice of the next “gold rush” as it’s made increasingly economically viable. In 2010, there were eight exploration licenses, currently there are 17 in the high seas of the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian oceans. There is also significant interest in the ocean’s resources within territorial waters, particularly in the Pacific Ocean, where more than 1.5 million sq km of the seafloor is currently under exploration license. This is an area roughly comparable to the state of Queensland in Australia.

The president of the International Marine Minerals Society, Dr. Georgy Cherkashov, was quoted last year linking the rush for licenses to the reality of “first come, first get,” saying the shuffle to secure the most promising sites represents “the last redivision of the world.”
Three types of deep sea mineral deposits have drawn interest. These are seafloor massive sulphides (SMS), manganese nodules and cobalt-rich crusts. In the Pacific Ocean, currently the most commercially feasible are SMS, which are created by the activity of deep sea hydrothermal vents.

X-Post-Foreign Policy In Focus: Vacuuming Up the Pacific's Resources

By Arnie Saiki, March 5, 2012

The 11^th round of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations is currently taking place in Melbourne, Australia. Although negotiators have agreed to the broad outlines of the TPP agreement, a new trade issue has created a snag in the process: the inclusion of investor-state dispute settlement provisions. Australia has refused to accept the investor-state dispute settlement, and U.S. industry associations are urging President Barack Obama to overcome these objections. These investor-state dispute settlement provisions have been included in U.S. investment treaties and trade agreements with more than 50 countries, and there are over 2,500 of these accords currently on record. These provisions, however, give advantages to large economies and can cripple small island states like Pacific Island nations.

Obama describes the TPPA as a "a trade agreement for the 21st century" that improves on and rectifies the past problems in U.S. trade and investment treaties and trade agreements with more than 50 countries, and there are over 2,500 of these accords currently on record. These provisions, however, give advantages to large economies and can cripple small island states like Pacific Island nations.

Nine countries are currently negotiating the TPPA:the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Chile, Peru, Brunei, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Singapore. Japan is in preliminary talks, and Canada and Mexico are looking to join. Although the negotiations are being held in secret, leaked documents confirm that the TPPA is a “NAFTA on steroids.” Contrary to democratic practice, the documents connected to the negotiations will remain secret for four years after being signed or dismissed.

Arnie Saiki

"For most Pacific Island countries (PICs), trade has been a series of disadvantageous agreements with larger economies that negotiate access to island resources. The PICs have remained economically tethered to larger economies despite attempts at small-island integration by sub-regional institutions like the Pacific Island Forum (PIF) or the more progressive Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG). Just last year, a new sub-regional group called the Polynesian Leader’s Group challenged the MSG, which had made waves by advocating participation in an alternative economic system."

The United States is leading the negotiations and has a great deal of influence over the outcome of the agreement, which covers a vast range of subject matters, including tariffs on goods, trade in services, labor and the environment, telecommunications, and intellectual property. For Pacific Islands, however, the investor rights chapters may offer the greatest challenge to Pacific Island environmental resources.
The small Pacific Island economies are not formally a part of the TPPA negotiations and yet they are tethered to the larger economies of Australia, New Zealand, Chile, France, and the United States. Pacific Island countries are also not member economies of APEC (the economic regional forum that spawned the TPPA). They participate only as observers through the Pacific Island Forum, which facilitates the neo-liberal economic agenda through a basket of sub-regional agreements like the Pacific Island Countries Trade Agreement (PICTA). Still, larger economies pay considerable attention to the Pacific Island countries because of their resources, like fisheries, precious metals, and minerals, as well as their strategic value as military outposts and waterways.

Pacific Trade

Throughout Oceania, native peoples separated by thousands of miles share similar cultural and often linguistic bonds. Long before contact with the west, Pacific peoples not only were connected by the currents of their ocean homes but had established trans-pacific navigational routes, trade, and for the most part a sustainable relationship with their environmental resources.
For most Pacific Island countries (PICs), trade has been a series of disadvantageous agreements with larger economies that negotiate access to island resources.

The PICs have remained economically tethered to larger economies despite attempts at small-island integration by sub-regional institutions like the Pacific Island Forum (PIF) or the more progressive Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG). Just last year, a new sub-regional group called the Polynesian Leader’s Group challenged the MSG, which had made waves by advocating participation in an alternative economic system. By joining with a bloc like the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa), Pacific Islands might do better than the neoliberal programs advocated by PIF.

In comparison with other emerging economies, Pacific Islands have poor performance records. Much of the blame rests on the neo-liberalism of regional institutions like the ADB and APEC. Since the late 1990s, an increase in aid-based relationships has not only stunted the development of many island peoples but also provided a dumping ground for overstock and consumer detritus. Although private investment has had some success in developing traditional farm and fishery practices, these projects are dependent on funding from the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the EU, the World Bank, and U.S. and Australian aid organizations.

In a 2006, the ADB examined small island states among the developing member economies, suggesting that isolated and vulnerable economies remain under economic stress as a result of their governments’ inability to guarantee the basic security of their people.

In 2008, as a response to its self-funded study, the ADB worked with international partners to deliver infrastructure services in the Pacific to streamline private-sector investment to industrial sectors like energy, water, waste, security, and telecommunications, as well as mining, cash crops, and fisheries. The Pacific Region Infrastructure Facility (PRIF) is one such organization.
Privatization is the latest vehicle for the exploitation of island resources. But these international investment projects, along with the bilateral investment treaties that support them, have yet to provide any long-term sustainable cultural or environmental benefit to small island economies.

 Impact of the TPPA

Embroiled in a decades-long struggle for independence from Chile, Rapa NuiTPPA that Chile signed in 2005. Since joining the TPPA, Rapa Nui has been fighting a tidal wave of development proposals for mining projects, airfields, ports, casinos, and hotels. These projects, which would irreparably change a UN World Heritage site, primarily benefit the Chilean government and the investment regime. For example, through the transnational Transoceanica Holdings, international investors funded the development of the Hotel Hanga Roa on land belonging to the Hitorangi clan. In 2010, as the Hanga Roa prepared to open, members of the clan occupied the hotel. Rapa Nui erupted in violence when Chilean President Sebastián Piñera sent navy cruisers and hundreds of armed security forces to end the unarmed protests.

In recent discussions around the TPPA, little attention has focused on how a regional “Asia-Pacific” free-trade agreement will actually impact Pacific Islands. But some recent examples of investments in the region are quite revealing. In Papua New Guinea, Canada’s Nautilus Minerals has launched a new deep seabed-mining project called Solwara 1. Large deposits of gold, silver, nickel, copper, manganese, and other rare-earth minerals are buried deep in the seabed, and the method for extracting these minerals – basically vacuuming up the seabed onto a barge – has only recently been developed.

Little is known about the deep seabed, and no conclusive environmental study has been completed. But the life that thrives in this unusual environment is sulfur-based rather than oxygen-based. When the sludge is extracted onto a barge, it is then separated from the commodity metals and minerals and then dumped back into the ocean. The impact of this sulfuric sediment absorbed by fish or reefs is unknown. However, sulfuric changes in the environment negatively affect oxygen-based plants and animals, as people living with vog (volcanic smog) know all too well.

After the International Seabed Authority changed the regulations for deep seabed mineral extraction, Nautilus acquired even more international investment to lease large tracts of deep seabed in Fiji, Tonga, the Solomon Islands, and New Zealand. These changes have prompted other Canadian, U.S., and Australian mining companies to lease seabed areas in the Exclusive Economic Zones of many other Pacific Island Countries. This mining deregulation, which has resulted from agreements like the TPPA, will likely push ocean biodiversity closer to what the International Programme on the State of the Ocean describes as “irreversible, catastrophic change.”

Consider also the case of Endeavor Mining, which recently offered the Cook Islands government a partnership proposal worth $1 billion over three-and-a-half years for mineral and mining rights to the seabed resources. Typically, since Endeavor is also an independent merchant bank focusing on the global natural resources sector, it will likely offer investors a package of financial incentive benefits that will reward investors at the expense of a state whose 2009 GDP was just short of $200 million.

If made responsible for cleanup in the event of accidents, island governments and taxpayers could be liable for any financial losses. As a result, Cook Islanders might find themselves in an ecological catastrophe and mired in debt. Additionally, to qualify for loans to pay back this debt, multilateral lending institutions may well insist on austerity measures that would lead to further deregulation. Locked into a variety of competing investor agreements, the Pacific islands will find themselves in a race to the bottom, both economically and environmentally.

If the investor-rights “chapter 11” provisions in NAFTA provide any clues about how the TPPA will privilege international investor agreements over government regulations, the Pacific Islands will be opened up to tremendous resource exploitation. Environmental regulations are all that protect the fragile biodiversity of the region. And the costs associated with the despoliation will largely fall on the shoulders of Pacific islanders themselves. The corporations will reap the profits; the Pacific Islands will have to pay the long-term bill.

Looking Beyond the TPP

The average GDP of the smaller developing Pacific islands is around $350 million, with the exception of Fiji, whose annual GDP is around $3.5 billion, and Papua New Guinea at around $9.5 billion (for perspective, New Zealand’s GDP is around $125 billion). There is a tremendous gap between the combined GDP of the islands and the value of the resources exploited from these countries.

This gap represents a strategic imperative for Pacific island economies to integrate along the lines of sustainable trade and sensible environmental regulations. The TPPA is certainly not an equitable integration scheme.

Rather, this NAFTA of the Pacific is like tossing a shark in a fish tank. The TPPA will give even less room for PICs to negotiate positive environmental regulations or manage to accrue social or economic benefits from their natural resources.

Pacific Islanders need to be part of the negotiating process to ensure they are at least able to integrate their commodity resources, since they are critically unequipped to develop their economies to scale with the larger economies. They also need to create a regional regulatory agency that can independently manage the various trade and investment agreements. Without democratic input and democratic control, the TPPA will vacuum up all the resources of the Pacific and leave a poisoned ocean in its wake.

Arnie Saiki is the writer/director for Statehood Hawaii/Imipono Projects. He coordinated the Moana Nui 2011 conference in Honolulu with Pua Mohala I Ka Po and the International Forum on Globalization. He is a contributor to Foreign Policy In Focus.

Recommended Citation:

Arnie Saiki, "Vacuuming Up the Pacific's Resources" (Washington, DC: Foreign Policy In Focus, March 5, 2012)

Further Reading :

Pacific warned of hidden dangers in Obama's new TPP push (Radio Australia)

The Trans-Pacific Partnership-A New Paradigm Or Wolf In Sheep's Clothing?

Economists Issue Statement on
Capital Controls and the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement

TPP-The NAFTA of the Pacific

 How Brazil Challenged Europe and Won.

Taxonomy of Dolls and Mutants (Radio Lab)

SiFM post on seabed mining:

http://stuckinfijimud.blogspot.com/2008/04/rush-to-mine-pacific-seabed-fiji.html

SiFM post on TPP and America's Pacific Century Pivot:

http://stuckinfijimud.blogspot.com/2011/11/americas-pacific-century-pivot.html

Club Em Designs

The Rush to Mine The Pacific Seabed- A Fiji Perspective.

In a follow up to an earlier SiFM post titled "Seabed Mania in the South Pacific-Claims & Counter Claims", it appears that the subject of the post has resurfaced with some recent developments.
Solomon Times (ST)article reports that the South West Pacific region is increasingly attracting a lot of attention, from deep pocketed investors.
The excerpt of ST article:

Gold Reports Attracting Attention to Region


Reports of gold in South Pacific waters are attracting prospectors to the region. Meanwhile, a South Korean company has secured mineral exploration rights in Tonga.

A report by Fiji Broadcasting Corporation Limited states that 'big-time gold prospectors are scouring the seas between Fiji, Tonga and New Zealand after reports of gold deposits in South Pacific waters'.
The report quotes New Zealand's Dominion Post newspaper as reporting that the gold rush has become hi-tech with serious players spending big money.

'At stake in the waters of New Zealand, Tonga and Fiji and around the potentially disputed continental shelf boundaries of the three are high-grade gold, copper, zinc, lead and silver'.

The report identifies one problem which is that no continental shelf boundary line between Fiji, Tonga and New Zealand has been defined, which is a requirement by the United Nations Law of the Sea.

'No treaties have been signed but Tonga has historical claims to the Southern Lau group of islands, now part of Fiji. Several years ago Suva officials suggested that Minerva Reef, 400 kilometres southeast of Nuku'alofa, was Fijian'.

Meanwhile, The Korea Times has reported that South Korea has secured exclusive seabed mineral exploration rights in Tonga.

The report states that 'the Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs said the 20,000 square kilometer area the Tongan government granted an exploratory license for has more than 9 million tons of hydrothermal deposits of copper, zinc and gold'.

'This is enough to supply 300,000 tons of minerals annually over the next 30 years, which will save about $100 million in imports, the ministry said, adding that commercial production was targeted for 2010'.

Apparently, with the scarcity of strategic metals, there is a race to secure natural resources, of which the region seems to have especially with the recent confirmation of valuable minerals on the Tongan seabed.

Nautilus Minerals Inc. had done preliminary studies according to their website. Nautilus now appears to be restricting itself to the region off Papua New Guinea called Solwara 1 Development and has recently awarded a $US116 Million dollar contract to Technip USA Inc. to provide engineering procurement and construction management, according to the Nautilus website.


Stuff Magazine publishes a piece by Micheal Field on the Tonga.

The excerpt of Stuff Magazine article:

Hunting for treasure on the ocean floor
The Dominion Post | Monday, 31 March 2008


TREASURE HUNT: New Zealand geologist Cornel de Ronde (inset) predicted there was gold in South Pacific waters, now serious players like Nautilus are using the University of Hawaii exploration ship Kilo Moana to prospect for deposits.

A hi-tech gold rush is building in the South Pacific and, as Michael Field reports, serious players are spending big money.

New Zealand geologist Cornel de Ronde used to look toward the South Pacific and say: "There's gold in them thar waters." His prophecy went unheeded for about 10 years but now serious players with big money are on the hunt.

At stake, in the waters of New Zealand, Tonga and Fiji and around the potentially disputed continental shelf boundaries of the three, are high-grade gold, copper, zinc, lead and silver.

Nautilus Minerals, which is Australian-dominated but listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange, joined an expedition out of Nuku'alofa last week to check out the potentially lucrative Valu Fa Ridge in the Lau Basin near the Fiji-Tonga boundary.

It is also eyeing prospects further south in the Kermadec back-arc off New Zealand. Rival Neptune Minerals, which is also Australian-controlled but listed on London's secondary market, said last week it was preparing to file a mining licence application in New Zealand.

It is seeking "seafloor massive sulphide" (SMS) deposits on the Rumble II Seamount, 300 kilometres north of East Cape. Dr de Ronde of GNS Science in Wellington notes that these "very serious players" are benefiting, to a large degree, from data that New Zealand scientists have been collecting for about a decade.

The scientists were among the first to discover that deep underwater hydro-thermal vents were creating mineral-rich chimneys in vast fields.

"I said then, I envisaged this being a big gold rush," he told BusinessDay. "It's the last frontier for exploration. The oceans are so largely unexplored."

Neptune, in its half-year results last week, said it had found two new SMS zones at Rumble II. It had begun work on an engineering study on how to get at the minerals and launched "Project Trident", a programme of SMS exploration, this year using survey and sampling ships off New Zealand.

Chief executive Simon McDonald said the company would focus on lodging its first mining licence. "The company still aims to conduct trial mining by 2010."

Neptune says it is now undertaking a baseline environmental impact assessment in the area. It has also lodged three new prospecting applications over a total area of 84,880 square kilometre near the undersea Monowai volcano on the Kermadec Arc and along the Colville Ridge.

Neptune acknowledges it is benefiting from the New Zealand government work, calling it "significant academic research".

"We are very excited about the potential to develop this untapped natural resource," Mr McDonald says in a company publication.

"New Zealand is a great place to be, not only for its mineral prospectivity but also because of the supportive government, which has existing appropriate legislation in place to assist development whilst safeguarding the environment."

Nautilus has become the world leader in undersea mining, exploiting SMS data collected by Australian government scientists in Papua New Guinea waters.

It has spent US$310 million to date developing its Solwara 1 mining project over 186,000 square kilometres in the Bismarck Sea.

It says the data on the Valu Fa Ridge, 100 kilometres west of Nuku'alofa, has revealed "high-grade mineralisation might be present" and it wants to use its "strategic first mover advantage" and go after the minerals.

In Tonga last week 10 Nautilus staff joined the University of Hawaii exploration ship Kilo Moana, which Nautilus has chartered to survey the Valu Fa, 2000 metres below the surface.

Nautilus official Paula Taumoepeau told the Matangi Tonga website that the first phase would involve mapping and surveying the seafloor, environmental monitoring, oceanographic work and water quality studies of the exploration areas.

"If we find minerals in commercial quantity during the exploration or prospecting phase, we intend to apply to the government for a mining licence."

One potential problem lurking between Fiji, Tonga and New Zealand is that no continental shelf boundary line has been defined, as required by the United Nations Law of the Sea. No treaties have been signed but Tonga has historical claims to the Southern Lau group of islands, now part of Fiji.

Several years ago Suva officials suggested that Minerva Reef, 400 kilometres southeast of Nuku'alofa, was Fijian.

In 1971 a group of Americans took barges of sand there, built a small tower and raised the flag of the Republic of Minerva. The man who became Tonga's king, George V, sailed there on a government boat and hauled down the flag, raising the Tongan standard.

At the time the dispute was regarded as an amusing South Seas tale, but scientists, and now miners, know that at stake is part of a vast goldfield.

Islands Business online article announces that [South] Korea has won the exclusive exploration license in Tonga.

The excerpt of I.B article:

Korea wins sea mining rights from Tonga

The ministry will check the size of the deposit and its economic value by 2010 and start mining in earnest from 2012.


Chosun.com/ Pacnews
Thu, 3 Apr 2008

SEOUL, KOREA ---- Korea has secured the rights to dig up US$100 million in raw minerals a year from beneath the waters of the South Pacific.

The Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs said that Korea has won exclusive exploration rights from the South Pacific island nation of Tonga to develop mineral resources in a 20,000-sq.km area within Tonga's exclusive economic sea zone.

The ministry said that the underwater area has mineral deposits of more than nine million tons, and Korea should be able to secure 300,000 tons a year if it starts mining the area in earnest. The minerals include gold, silver, copper and zinc.

The government has spent W6.1 billion (US$1=W975) surveying mineral resources in the underwater area with Tonga via the Korea Ocean Research and Development Institute. In the process, Korea won trust of the Tongan government and was able to obtain the exploration rights, the ministry said.

The ministry will check the size of the deposit and its economic value by 2010 and start mining in earnest from 2012.

The source of the I.B story was from Chosun.com, the excerpt of the article:

Korea Wins Sea Mining Rights from Tonga
Korea has secured the rights to dig up US$100 million in raw minerals a year from beneath the waters of the South Pacific.

The Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs said that Korea has won exclusive exploration rights from the South Pacific island nation of Tonga to develop mineral resources in a 20,000-sq.km area within Tonga's exclusive economic sea zone.

The ministry said that the underwater area has mineral deposits of more than nine million tons, and Korea should be able to secure 300,000 tons a year if it starts mining the area in earnest. The minerals include gold, silver, copper and zinc.

The government has spent W6.1 billion (US$1=W975) surveying mineral resources in the underwater area with Tonga via the Korea Ocean Research and Development Institute. In the process, Korea won trust of the Tongan government and was able to obtain the exploration rights, the ministry said.

The ministry will check the size of the deposit and its economic value by 2010 and start mining in earnest from 2012.

(englishnews@chosun.com )

The news of Korea winning exclusive exploration rights in Tonga has opened up the debate of territorial boundaries between Fiji and Tonga, that revolves around an isolated reef formation known as Minerva. Fiji Government website article quotes from former Foreign Minister, Kaliopate Tavola regarding the negotiations on Minerva. The excerpt:

"In the work related to the completion of the determination of our maritime boundaries, some bilateral discussions are essential, for example with Tonga. We need to negotiate where the relative EEZ boundaries of the two countries will lie. That work in itself will lead, hopefully, to resolving the current dispute on the ownership of the Minerva Reefs in Southern Lau. That will have direct benefits, of course, to the country¹s fisheries resources," he said.

"The bigger fish of course, if you will excuse the pun, is the extent to which we can claim the outer limits of the continental shelves originating within our EEZ. This will open up new economic opportunities in increased fisheries resources, unprecedented mining potential of new minerals and natural gases, etc.

Mr Tavola said this will require both bilateral and even sub-regional discussions, especially as regards the area of the Lau Ridges in the waters of Southern Lau.

"For this area in particular, discussions will have to take place with Tonga and New Zealand due to our overlapping and competing claims. These discussions will have to take place initially, and be well advanced, before we can submit our claims for the outer limits of our continental shelves to the International Seabed Authority, established under the UN Convention on the Laws of the Seas," Mr Tavola said.

According to a Wiki for Republic of Minerva, Fiji had launched an official complaint to the International Seabed Authority based in Kingston, Jamaica. The International Seabed Authority's council composition from 2005-2010 is tabulated here. A briefing published by International Boundaries Research Unit titled "Undelimited Maritime Boundaries In Pacific Ocean Excluding Asian Rim" covers some legal maneuvering behind Tonga-Fiji dispute over Minerva.












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Seabed Mania in the South Pacific- Claims & Counter Claims.

Russia's new claim using the Doctrine of Discovery, to the seabed under the Artic polar ice cap, has a New Zealand connection. The most conspicuous link was with a NZ company, as this New Zealand Herald article explains.

The other link to Russia's extension of their continental shelf, is that the New Zealand Government has undertaken a similar extension to their own continental shelf, protruding North into the waters of the South Pacific, adjacent to Economic Exclusive Zones(EEZ) of Tonga and Fiji.



New Zealand had conducted preliminary discussions with Fiji and Tonga with respect to the area of overlapping continental shelf along the Colville and Kermadec Ridge complex that extends from the north of the North Island to Fiji and Tonga. Under the U.N Law of the Seas, to extend a zone, a state has to prove that the structure of the continental shelf is similar to the geological structure within its territory.

What actually could limit New Zealand's territorial claim was the issue of Fiji's claim to the Minerva reef, a coral outcrop that is also claimed by the kingdom of Tonga. This territorial dispute between Fiji and Tonga had surfaced at the 2005 Commonwealth Summit held in Malta, as a Radio NZ article describes. Whether or not this contentious issue of Minerva, will be discussed at the South Pacific Forum in Tonga is any one's guess.

Tonga will host the 2007 South Pacific Forum and the question of who will attend from Fiji's Interim Government was a matter, raised by Australian Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer in his usual Ad Nauseum style, which was reported by a Fiji Times article.

What prompted Russia to lay claim to this North pole seabed may be the fact that it is an oil-rich region. Oil is perhaps the underlying factor for New Zealand's extension to their continental shelf. New Zealand could use diplomatic avenues to favor one island nation's claim against the other; in order to cement their own seabed claims.



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