Scratch a Lover, Find A Foe- The Current Geopolitics of Decolonization in the Pacific.

In the 1957 published book “The Colonizer and the Colonized”, Albert Memmi wrote:”The calcified colonized society is therefore the consequences of two processes having opposite symptoms: encystment originating internally and a corset imposed from the outside.”

The UN decolonization process was succinctly reported in a Seattle Times article, authored by Associated Press correspondent, Anita Snow, who examined a controversial subject that may not make its way to the UN Security Council, any time soon. However, the exotic locations being adjudicated in the UN decolonization process; could invariably be a petri dish for future crisis.

The Caribbean region and the Pacific share some similarities. Apart from both being geographical classified as islands; they both share a remarkable sameness in their colonization story and some of their colonial masters.

Wayne Madsen's recent opinion article: Rumblings from the Caribbean addressed the Caribbean context for decolonization:

“The Caribbean states, witnessing the economic prowess of Brazil and the nationalistic fervor of Venezuela, Argentina, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Nicaragua, see a chance to break free from decades of domination by the United States and European colonial powers intent on keeping their toeholds in the Caribbean region”. 

Ostensibly, the Pacific region has a similar situation, with regards to the colonial powers maintaining their vice-lock grip on the political economy; as well as controlling defense related aspects and the rights to the vast maritime natural resources within these same territories.

Left to Right:  Visit to the Fiji Mission in New York by the Ulu-o-Tokelau.  Joe Suveinakama, General Manager Tokelau National Public Service, Ambassador Peter Thomson of the Fiji Mission, Ulu-o-Tokelau Aliki Kalolo, Ambassador Bernadette Cavanagh of the New Zealand Mission. (Image: MoI)

Recently in the UN Special Committee on Decolonization , draft resolutions were introduced by Fiji's UN representative Peter Thompson, with regards to New Caledonia and Tuvalu, currently being administered by France and New Zealand respectively. Also Fiji had supported Argentina's resolution to address the aspect of Falkland/Malvinas in the UN committee of 24,  administering the issues of decolonization.

The Pacific Islands Forum (PIF), dominated by the Trans-Tasman cousins could be running the same operating system to that of, the Organization of American States (OAS). Madsen alluded to the Modus Operandi in the Caribbean with respect to the decolonization process:

 The European colonial powers are attempting to ensure the continuation of their colonial holdings in the Caribbean by resorting to either increasing their domination over “self-governing” territories or formulating new colonial arrangements between the mother countries and various island dependencies in the Caribbean.

There have been similar styled grumblings in the Pacific region, on the obnoxious manner in which Australia and New Zealand have unilaterally controlled the policies of PIF. Former PIF Director of Financial Governance, Dr. Roman Grynberg , highlighted the stacked deck in the PIF, in a opinion article “Who owns the Forum”: 

Who sets the Forum agenda? In the Forum as in all international bodies, a draft agenda for every meeting is sent out to all members and they must all agree. In reality in most cases only Australia and New Zealand have the capacity to review these documents and make substantive comments and hence they very largely set the Forum's agenda. 

Grynberg's remarks could well be viewed as an insider's assessment of the machinations within the PIF. Other external points of view from PIF member states are equally scathing. One such perspective:

PNG’s foreign affairs and trade minister Sam Abal alleges that the development of an AfT (Aid for Trade) mechanism has been deliberately stalled by PIFS because it goes against the beliefs of PIFS’ biggest donors—Australia and New Zealand. “In 2009, the PACPS discussed at length the development of a suitable mechanism to fund and manage trade-related aid flows into the region. However, PIFS has actively stalled and discouraged any progress in this area in many cases,” he states. “It is Papua New Guinea’s view that the Aid for Trade negotiations in the EPA have stalled because it is inconsistent with Australia and New Zealand’s (ANZ) position in the PACER Plus negotiations,” Abal alleges. 

Grynberg asserts a poor outlook for the future of PIF:

 “Things will only change with the circumstances. In the last generation it was France which silenced the islands. The present culture of silence in the Forum stems from the nature of the relationship with Australia and New Zealand. It is perverse and will never lead to a healthy relationship. There may yet come a generation of Pacific island leaders who have a genuine vision and intestinal fortitude to lead their countries and the region.” 

Other background chatter in the Pacific region, also revolve around the contentious issue of colonization.

 The metaphor of Corset in the context of colonization, as outlined by the Author, Albert Memmi, is manifested by the present slogan of 'America's Pacific Century'. The US secretary of Defense, Leon Panetta was requested by the Governor of the Commonwealth of North Mariana Islands (CNMI)  to renegotiate some of the land lease agreements, that were issued to the US Department of Defense.

In light of the new pivot cum re-balancing of the U.S naval forces to Asia-Pacific region, the areas of concerns raised by the CNMI Governor, may just receive some attention it justly deserves. Or will the CNMI Governor's concerns be relegated to the non priority bin for another 35 years?

Perhaps the larger question, in CNMI would revolve around the issue of seeking their independence from being an appendage to Pax Americana, like other Anglophone nations in the South Pacific.

Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom: it is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves. 
William Pitt 1759-1806 

In October 9th 2008, New Caledonia's FLNK party leader, Roch Wamytan's statement to the UN's Fourth committee of the 63rd General Assembly session, reflected similar themes:

France does not want Independence for our country and is doing its utmost to prevent our country from achieving sovereignty. Both right and left-leaning political regimes, with a few minor differences, agree on one thing: everything must be done to keep New Caledonia within the French and European fold in the name of their higher interests.

After the MSG summit in Fiji, held in April, Wamytam-now President of the New Caledonia Congress also extended an invitation to the MSG to host a summit in New Caledonia. In a Radio Australia web article, New Zealand academic, Bill Hodge derided that decision:

Well there's two big issues, first of all you have a party or a political grouping behaving as if it's a sovereign” [...]So the thing itself is an illustration of a party acting up as if it's the sovereign, as if it's the government, which it is not. Secondly, I think that's an objection on the grounds of principle and Paris may well have an objection. 

Unsurprisingly, a French Senator and former Defense Minister Jean-Pierre Chevenement, recently was quoted in a PINA web article and emphasized the need for France to “consolidate its position in the Pacific” and shore up its partnership with Australia, as a hedge against the sphere influence of China. Fiji appears to be the lone maverick voice in the region, actively undermining the neo-colonialistic agendas in the Pacific region.

Fiji Prime Minister, Voreqe Bainimarama as current chair of the Melanesia Spearhead Group (MSG) was due to travel to New Caledonia, to assess and monitor the progress of the 1998 Noumea accords.  However, due to a myriad of issues from the non availability of visas (that have to processed in France) and internal politics in New Caledonia, the trip has been deferred.

It is without a doubt, that the Colonial Powers in the Pacific and the Trans-Tasman cousins are increasingly wary of Fiji’s regional influence and close ties with China, as well as Fiji's expanding diplomatic relations in its 'Look North' initiative.

Fiji had established diplomatic relations with Kazakhstan, hosted Russia's Foreign Minister, a delegation from North Korea, joined the Association of South East Asian Nations group (ASEAN)  and most recently hosted a high level delegation from Iran bearing an invitation from Iran's President, to the Non-Alignment-Movement (NAM) summit in Tehran, in August.

However, Fiji's new friends have caused some angst because of their incontrovertible success in being a non-conformist, opponent to the war addiction and unbridled crony capitalism, largely endorsed and supported by Anglo-American and European political elites.

An opinion article published in The Diplomat online magazine, illustrates such insular rhetoric and reductionist hubris existing in many Western bloc Capitals; which practically objects, opposes and despises any rising counter-balance to the Western bloc.

A significant counter point to The Diplomat opinion article, was presented in a Global Research TV video, which interviews Dr. Chandra Muzaffar, President of the International Movement for a Just World and analyses a wide variety of issues including the emerging BRICS nations, the crisis in Syria, and the implications of Washington's policy shift to the Asia-Pacific region . (Video posted below).



Since Fiji' joined the NAM, its rolodex of friends is expanding considerably and rapidly, far beyond the strait jacket induced list of the Commonwealth group. It is also undeniable, that the trajectory of the ' Look North' Foreign Policy adapted by Fiji, succeeded in raising many eyebrows in the Western capitals.

A plausible narrative is emerging- Bainimarama's intestinal fortitude is a refreshing difference both domestically and internationally; a stark contrast from the 'go-along-to get-along' malleable lapdog politicians in island states, who have been co-opted as convenient vassals for the old Colonial order and by extension the Western bloc.

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The Hunger Games- NATO's Stealth Entry Into The Pacific Region & The Colluding States.

 

The South Pacific geopolitical sphere has entered an interesting phase, considering the recent developments in the region, which amounts to an extension of the Grand Chessboard unfolding in the Great Ocean.

US Defense Secretary announced at the recent International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS) Shangri-La Dialogue 2012, about the re-allocation of more naval resources to the Asia-Pacific area, to 60-40 split with the Atlantic region.

In a separate event, it was reported that North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO )sealed an Individual Partnership Cooperation Programme (IPCP) with New Zealand Prime Minister, John Key, cementing a security cooperation that encompasses cyber defense, disaster relief, crisis management, joint education and training. 

It is not beyond the imagination to consider the trajectory of the age old ANZUS treaty between the United States, Australia, New Zealand; project into a sub-chapter of NATO alliance.

Rick Rozoff of Stop NATO, noted in the blog post  : 

“The increasing use of the word global by the U.S.-dominated military alliance – New Zealand was recently announced to be a member of its newest partnership category, partners across the globe – leaves no room for doubt regarding the emergence of NATO as a self-designated international military force, history’s first, and its intention to assume so-called out-of-area missions much farther from the territory of its member states than previous military campaigns and operations in the Balkans, South Asia, North Africa and the Indian Ocean”.

It appears that NATO, Australia and New Zealand are on this accelerated glide path with increasing cooperation cum membership, that presents a unique albeit dangerous comity, that extends NATO's coverage to the Pacific region. Rasmussen remarked “We may be far away geographically, but we are linked by common values and commitment. NATO looks forward to building on this important partnership in the years to come.”

Rick Rozoff contrasted the remarks by the NATO chief:

“The common values alluded to comprise much more than the parliamentary system of government, which exists most everywhere in the world, and instead are a veiled reference to the fact that NATO is what it has always been: A military alliance of the former colonial powers in Europe and Britain’s past outposts in North America – the U.S. and Canada – now to be complemented by those in the South Pacific, New Zealand and Australia”.

It has been reported that , the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) is being dominated by Australia and New Zealand and consequently, their ties to NATO, would profoundly mean that the PIF, a regional organization would obediently and unquestionably follow.
However, the regional sub-groupings like the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG) which will soon eclipse the PIF, and will have acquired the co-optive power to seek a counterweight to this developing NATO/Trans-Tasman axis.

Fiji Ambassador to UN Peter Thomson and Kazakhstan Ambassador Byrganym Aitimova (Min of Info)

Most recently, Fiji had extended its diplomatic relations with Kazakhstan, which is also a member of Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). 

Fiji, to date has established diplomatic ties with 3 of the 6 members of SCO and further increased ties with the remaining SCO member nations are to be expected.

Corbett Report and Boiling Frogs Post video, educates the layperson about the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). Fiji also received a delegation from North Korea, seeking to explore mutual areas of interest and development cooperation.

As a fledgling member of Non-Aligned Movement, Fiji was continuing its 'Look North' policy and seeking more diplomatic relations away from the Trans-Tasman hegemony; in a nuanced manner, that propagates a countervailing initiative in the Pacific.

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X-Post-Nautilus Institute-Complex: Uncertainties in the Australian Hinge of the Pacific Pivot

Nautilus Peace and Security Weekly Report—Contributor’s blog entry for Austral Peace and Security.

Go to the Weekly Report for 31 May 2012.

Washington’s Pacific pivot is essentially a matter of the Obama administration drawing a line under the distractions of the Bush-era disasters of Iraq and Afghanistan, and re-focusing strategic planning on the rise of Chinese economic, political and military power. Rather than the crudities of the opening to India that Condoleeza Rice initiated as a geo-strategic “balance” against China in 2005, the Obama administration is pursuing a complex approach to China made up of both a search for dialogue on key issues such as climate change and the global economy, and at the same time regional military and political restructuring that strengthens old hub and spokes bilateral alliances with Japan, Korea and Australia, increases the military capacities of those allies, and seeks to draw in new regional strategic partners such as Indonesia and Singapore. Containment it may not yet be, but it here can be little doubt the objective is to hedge very strongly against expansion of Chinese influence, while continuing dialogue on the global rules of the road.

Yet the hinge of the pivot strategy is the domestic foundations of alliance amongst America’s three main allies in the Pacific, Japan, South Korea and Australia – all of which are characterised by a volatile disposition to anxiety. While Japan and Korea can point to serious security issues in their environment, the Australian case is characterised by an endemic propensity to alliance anxiety even in the virtually complete absence of serious relevant threat. To take what may appear to those outside Australia as a bizarre official example, while the Obama administration was working through the implications of the president’s Prague speech on the United States’ goal of a nuclear-free world, the 2009 Australian Defence White Paper, greatly expanded official discussion of Australian reliance on United States extended nuclear deterrence, citing the “remote possibilities” of nuclear threats to Australia from Iran and North Korea.

In the past, and again today, Australian alliance anxiety has manifested itself in seeking to demonstrate loyalty and strengthen US commitment not only by responding to US requests for participation in wars outside the region, but characteristically by offering support and military participation before being asked. The large scale expansion of US marine, air force and navy access to Australia facilities that has been underway for several years was accelerated on the occasion of President Obama’s Australian visit in November 2011 with announcements of deployments of US marines and USAF bombers and fighters to Darwin and other facilities. While some analysts concentrated on a theme of US arm-twisting of a reluctant Labor government, PACOM CinC Admiral Robert Willard let the cat out of the bag, saying the Australian side had offered access first:

“Australia made overtures to the United States to increase our engagement with the armed forces of Australia and our utility of the training facilities – ranges, and so forth – that are there.”

In reality, the United States has no firmer ally in the Pacific than Australia. So deeply is the ANZUS alliance (albeit absent nuclear-free New Zealand) embedded into Australian political culture that former Deputy Secretary of Defence Hugh White remarks that in debate about how to respond to the rise of China (Australia’s largest trading partner) very few people on either side of mainstream Australian politics or in the broader security practitioner community seem able to even conceptualise – let alone seriously consider – strategic options outside the current version of the ANZUS alliance. Australian identity appears to have become deeply fused with the US alliance, sixty years after it was established, and in a very different strategic and economic environment.

Nautilus Peace and Security Weekly Report

"[...]While challenging Australians to think more deeply outside the settled ways of blind acceptance of all aspects of the American alliance, and repudiating current incoherent Australian defence planning (such as converting the bulk of the army into a regionally and indeed globally deployable niche amphibious force), White’s own analysis favours a realist approach to regional uncertainties emphasizing considerable expansion of defence force capacities for the defence of Australia in a region to be rendered inevitably turbulent by the continued rise of China. "

Last week White’s case was substantiated by a headline in a leading national newspaper proclaiming “Defence cuts a ‘threat’ to US alliance.” In fact, the Rudd-Gillard Labor governments have been even more demonstrative in their support of the United States in Afghanistan and other security concerns than the former conservative Prime Minister, John Howard, dubbed “the Man of Steel” by George W. Bush.

While challenging Australians to think more deeply outside the settled ways of blind acceptance of all aspects of the American alliance, and repudiating current incoherent Australian defence planning (such as converting the bulk of the army into a regionally and indeed globally deployable niche amphibious force), White’s own analysis favours a realist approach to regional uncertainties emphasizing considerable expansion of defence force capacities for the defence of Australia in a region to be rendered inevitably turbulent by the continued rise of China. True to his own interpretation of the state of Australian security thinking, White’s admonitions are in turn under attack as an unthinkingly pessimistic interpretation of power-transition theory – but mainly by political figures now far from the centres of power in Australia, such as former hardline Liberal Party Prime Minister, Malcolm Fraser, now regarded by both sides of politics as a “mad leftie.”

In reality, Australians, living in a small country on the periphery of global power, face an extraordinarily complex set of cultural and intellectual tasks in addressing security threats, genuine and fantasized. The deep structure of Australian political culture involves essentially racialist cultural baggage of the country’s origins in genocide of its indigenous peoples as a settler colonial outpost of mother country Britain in “distant” Asia. This requires rebuilding on twin foundations of internal reconciliation with indigenous Australians and external integration with Asia and the South Pacific. Clearly both issues inflect the current question of “the rise of China” – with the United States having replaced Britain, and “the rise of China” implying much more than just a strategic re-arrangement. Hence the difficulties, silences, and contradictions of the current Australian debates.

The immediate, but clearly difficult first task is to complete the disengagement from the psycho-cultural detritus of the Cold War. In part this is a matter of placing the verities of the ANZUS alliance in a rational national interest perspective. But it is also a matter of unpicking the deep cultural structures of the nuclear aspects of the Cold War in a way that an even smaller but more courageous country New Zealand did in the 1980s. The Lange government of New Zealand did not want to leave the ANZUS alliance: it just did not want to be defended by US nuclear weapons. In the future, if the path to a nuclear-free world is to be more than a chimerical PR phrase, some if not all US allies will have to follow New Zealand on the road to a nuclear free alliance posture, escaping the trap for both sides of the alliance of adherence to extended nuclear deterrence in the absence of a serious nuclear threat that cannot be addressed with conventional responses.

The global transformation of its military forces that the US has embarked on with its Pacific pivot strategy inevitably articulates not only with a complex, contested and highly uncertain global and regional strategic environment, but also with complex and uncertain national domestic environments, which have their own urgent requirements for strategic renewal.

—Richard Tanter, NAPSNet Contributor

The Nautilus Peace and Security Weekly Report presents articles and full length reports each week in six categories: Austral security, nuclear deterrence, energy security, climate change adaptation, the DPRK, and governance and civil society. Our team of contributors carefully select items that highlight the links between these themes and the three regions in which our offices are found—North America, Northeast Asia, and the Austral-Asia region. Each week, one of our authors also provides a short blog that explores these inter-relationships. 

Further News:

China a better Pacific friend than US: Samoan PM

Times of India video U.S Will Deploy 60% of Navy Fleet To Asia- Pacific region.

U.S Defence Secretary Leon Panetta's entire policy speech at the International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS) Shangri-La Dialogue  (video posted below)

 

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X-Post-East Asia Forum: Japan’s Pacific Islands Diplomacy At a Crossroads

May 24th, 2012

 

Author: Sandra Tarte, USP

Japan’s decision not to invite Fiji’s prime minister, Voreqe Bainimarama, to the sixth Japan–Pacific Islands Leaders Meeting (PALM 6), to be held in Okinawa this 25–26 May, represents a defining moment in its diplomatic relations with the Pacific Islands.

Fiji P.M -Voreqe Bainimarama (Source: Fiji Live)

Japan announced that due to the perceived ‘insufficient pace of reform toward democratisation’, it would invite Fiji’s foreign minister instead (who subsequently gave his apologies). That this announcement came just one week ahead of the meeting is an indication of what a difficult decision this was for the Japanese government. In addition to the immediate consequences for Japan–Fiji relations, this decision has broader implications.

The PALM summits have been held every three years in Japan since 1997, and are Tokyo’s signature event in its foreign relations with the Pacific Islands. They normally bring together the heads of government from Japanese and Pacific Island countries, plus ministerial-level representation from Australia and New Zealand. Although in the past they have been dubbed the Japan–Pacific Islands Forum meeting, the PALM summit is not technically a Forum event. Fiji remains suspended from the Pacific Islands Forum pending its return to democratic rule, but it is not officially excluded from the PALM process.

In October 2010 Japan hosted the first Interim PALM meeting — a mid-term gathering of Pacific Islands Forum foreign ministers in Tokyo. This was ostensibly aimed at assessing the progress in the implementation of commitments made at the previous year’s PALM summit and looking ahead to the next one. Most significantly, however, it was a first step toward normalising ties with Bainimarama’s government, and was the occasion for the first meeting between Fiji’s foreign minister and his Japanese counterpart. During the 2010 Interim PALM meeting Tokyo indicated its concerns that the policy of isolating Fiji to pressure it into more meaningful democratic reforms was failing, and this was taken as a positive sign that Prime Minister Bainimarama would receive an invitation to PALM 6.

Since then, Japan has watched events unfold in Fiji and in the region, waiting for the right moment to issue the invitation. As the head of the Fiji Military Forces, Prime Minister Bainimarama has not been allowed to travel to Japan since he came to power in the December 2006 coup. He has, however, made numerous visits to China and to other Asian powerhouses such as Indonesia and India, and to new friends in the Middle East.

Japan had compelling reasons for inviting the Fijian prime minister to Okinawa this year. First, it has been six years since Fiji was last represented at PALM at a prime ministerial level. It missed out on PALM 5 in 2009 due to the political upheaval Fiji was undergoing at the time, including the abrogation of the constitution and subsequent uncertainty over the country’s democratic future. The 2012 PALM summit is the last one before elections in Fiji, which are scheduled for 2014. Inviting Fiji’s prime minister would have signalled Japan’s support for the political process mapped out by the Bainimarama government. Despite its perceived flaws, this political process remains the only hope Fiji has of returning to some form of democratic rule.

PALM 6 also represented an opportunity for Japan both to rebuild bridges with this key actor in the region, and to acknowledge that the Pacific Islands is a region in transition. In the six years since he seized power, Prime Minister Bainimarama has redefined Fiji’s foreign policy, and these changes have led a growing number of Pacific Island countries to embrace new partnerships and alignments. A new diplomacy that is not contingent on the policy preferences of Australia, New Zealand or the US seems to be emerging across the region, indirectly prompted by Bainimarama.

If, as reported, Japan’s decision not to invite Prime Minister Bainimarama to PALM 6 was the result of international pressure, from Australia in particular, it signals a reaffirmation by Japan of the ‘old regional order’ and a rejection of the ‘new regional order’ that is gradually taking shape. As Japan’s prime minister welcomes Pacific leaders in Okinawa, including ministers from Australia and New Zealand, he may do well to reflect on the long-term significance of Fiji’s empty seat.

Sandra Tarte is Associate Professor and Director of the Politics and International Affairs Program at the University of the South Pacific in Suva, Fiji.

Further reading:

Mainichi- Noda (Japan PM) Eager to Deepen 'Bonds' With Pacific Leaders.

Grubsheet- Australia Engineers Japan Snub

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X-Post- Papua New Guinea Blogs: AUSTRALIAN AID TO THE PACIFIC: SUBVERSIVE & SELF SERVING

There are a few people on this site trying their best to distract and detract from the conversation and the real issues raised by this article. It is a deliberate attempt to hi-jack the conversation, and I think we know why.

We are reminded by Onecountry in stark and contrasting language of the depths and the widths of this identity crisis that Australia as a nation struggles with. Its relations with its neighbours is one of disdainful contempt, and of oppression.

The incidence of Mr Marae's arrest clearly demonstrates Australia has no regard for the rule of law and diplomatic protocol. Indeed it would use the law as a tool when it suits it, and disregard it whenever it desires. Mr Marae's prosecution is likely to fail because the Australian government clearly engaged in a kidnap of Mr Marae.

There is a very enlightening article by Patrick Oconnor in the Fiji Sun this week and the link is http://www.fijisun.com.fj/2012/05/19/now-a-moti-row-repeat/ . In this article Mr Oconnor examines the parallels of Australia's arrest and prosecution of Julian Moti in PNG, Solomon islands and in Australia in complete disregard for the rule of law.

The South Pacific is now clearly becoming aware that Australia says one thing and does the other. It is clearly not a model democracy in the region. In fact if anything, New Zealand is a model democracy, and is way ahead by a country mile in its race relations, its observance of the rule of law, and its dealings with the Pacific Islands nations with proper respect and regard for the rue of law. New Zealand abdicated its independent voice during the reign of Helen Clark, when she became John Howards messenger girl to the Pacific, but now John Key should rescue his country and move it to a higher plane.

The AFP's expulsion from Vanuatu two weeks ago is not the first time Australian government aid workers were expelled from Vanuatu. Last year PNG will remember the spectacular expulsion of  former Australian Defence Force Lawyer, Ari Jenshel from the Attorney General's Department, for spying on the Vanuatu government. Mr Jenschel was alleged by the Vanuatu government as engaging in espionage, copying and disseminating to Canberra very sensitive Government documents whilst serving under the guise of  an Aid worker with Ausaid in the AG's Department.

Mr Marae's arrest is likely to be connected with documents that Mr Jenshel supplied.

There is a real lession in all these for PNG and other Pacific countries being recipients of Australian Aid.

Australia has used Aid to implant its spies in all government Departments of PNG to collect information and report back to Canberra. If raised, it will always deny, but the reality is quite different. We have people who have sworn an oath to serve a foreign government, whose real future and loyalties lie with that government, whose career advancement lies with ingratiating themselves with that government, who often are servants of that government, working in our government sensitive positions. They cannot serve two masters. So naturally who do you think they will serve?

That is the challenge today for PNG. Lets not make pretensions about it. We do have a public service that does not function properly because we have weakened it by politicizing it over the years. But that is not the reason why we have to sell the nation to a foreign spying agency! That should not be the reason why we should flush the national interest of PNG down the toilet.

I don't think I am expressing empty opinion because 3 years ago, an Australian Spy in the Finance & Treasury  Department was caught with many original files of very sensitive government documents in his suitcase that he had taken to Canberra. The Department was horrified. The Department sacked the ex-Australian Federal Police man who was obviously  a spy.

Today that same Ex-AFP Policeman, who was sacked by the Finance Department has been re-deployed in the Attorney General's Department in the Sir Buri Kidu Haus in Waigani. He carries on his activities in that Department in the guise of institutional strengthening.

The situation calls for a re-view and if necessary, revocation of the ECP and the Australian Aid program. The Australian Aid, if at all, should be restricted to health and education. All other areas compromises this nations security and its sovereignty. It should be shut down.

All these cases have proved that Australia has a separate agenda with its aid than that of " Helpem Pren".

Papua New Guinea with a new Government ought to be more decisive about Australian Aid, which is clearly subversive and self serving.

Mangi Gazelle

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X-Post-Blak and Black: AFP racism sparks diplomatic row between Australia and Vanuatu

http://blakandblack.com/2012/05/10/afp-racism-sparks-diplomatic-row-between-australia-and-vanuatu/

Posted on May 10, 2012 by Bakchos

On 2^nd May, 2012 the Vanuatu Daily Post reported that Private Secretary in the Prime Minister’s Office Clarence Marae had been arrested at Sydney International Airport by the Australian Federal Police (“AFP”) whilst accompanying Vanuatu’s Prime Minister Meltek Sato Kilman Livtunvanu to Israel on a diplomatic mission.

Following his arrest, Mr Marae was charged with conspiring to defraud the Commonwealth, contrary to section 86 (1) and 29D of the Crimes Act 1914. The allegations underpinning the charges relate to an incident or a series of incidents which occurred more than ten years before.

What should be of paramount concern to all of the Pacific’s Indigenous people and what has clear echoes in the AFP’s now discredited treatment of Mr Julian Moti QC, the former Attorney-General of the Solomon Islands, is the high-handed manner in which the Australian Government and the AFP treat the Indigenous people of the Pacific, including their political and beaurocratic leaders.

In a statement issued from the office of Vanuatu’s Prime Minister on 1^st May, 2012, the Prime Minister stated that:

…the Prime Minister’s Office was totally unaware that Marae still had an outstanding issue with the Australian Federal authorities.
[…]
Prime Minister’s Office would however like to echo the sentiments forwarded to the Australian Government via a diplomatic note protesting the manner in which the Prime Minister and his delegation were forcibly diverted from the international transit area of Sydney Airport to the Customs area under Australian Government jurisdiction so that the warrant could be served on Mr Marae.

The statement also stressed that this was a public embarrassment to the Prime Minister of Vanuatu and stressed that the Vanuatu Government is reviewing its options and has sought legal advice on the manner in which Marae’s arrest was orchestrated by the Australian Federal authorities at the Sydney International Airport, as it is suspected that in disallowing the delegation to go directly to the international transit lounge the actions may have infringed on international diplomatic protocols set out in international conventions ratified by both Australia and Vanuatu.

In fact, and typical of AFP arrogance when dealing with Indigenous people, the AFP have refused to enter into dialogue with Vanuatu over the issue, resulting in the Vanuatu Government issuing a statement on 9^th May, 2012 giving the AFP 24 hours to close its liaison office, otherwise officers would face arrest for failing to ”take into account the decision of the Vanuatu government’‘.
Again, with strong resonances with the Moti affair, in 2004, Vanuatu’s then Foreign Minister, Barak Sope, wanted to throw the AFP out over allegations of spying and meddling with domestic politics. In May 2011, Australian lawyer and senior Australian Litigation Advisor to the Attorney-General of Vanuatu Ari Jenshel was expelled from Vanuatu by its government after it accused him of espionage.

Mr. Jenshel was made to leave after the Australian government was warned he faced imminent arrest over his activities as senior adviser in the office of the Attorney-General in Port Vila. Among claims being investigated by the police in Vanuatu are that sensitive government documents have been copied and sent to the Australian Government in Canberra. Mr. Jenshel, who is a former Australian Defence Force lawyer seconded to Vanuatu five years ago as part of an AusAID program, says any adverse findings against him by the Vanuatu police will be based on fabrications.

Some of the documents allegedly copied relate to talks between leaders of Pacific countries including Vanuatu, aimed at developing a closer working relationship with Fiji’s interim Prime Minister, Commodore Frank Bainimarama.

The other documents Mr Jenshel is suspected of accessing, copying and sending to Canberra are confidential Vanuatu Government business and legal affairs, relating to taxation policy. Could these documents relate to Project Wickenby? Project Wickenby is a cooperative partnership between the ATO, Australian Federal Police, Australian Crime Commission, Australian Securities and Investments Commission, and the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions, with support from the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre, the Australian Government Solicitor and the Attorney-General’s Department.
Specifically to Project Wickenby, Mr Marae is an alleged associate of Victorian accountant Ian Henke, who was jailed in March 2011 for a multimillion-dollar tax avoidance scheme working through Vanuatu. Is this why Mr Jenshel was expelled and Mr Marae arrested?

Moti and Marae acts of neo-colonial racism?

The question goes begging – if Mr Marae were accompanying say, the Prime Minister of Britain or the President of the United States or indeed the President of Indonesia on a diplomatic mission rather than the Prime Minister of Vanuatu, would the AFP have acted in such a high-handed manner? The answer, is probably not. Similarly, if Mr Moti were the Attorney-General of one of the aforementioned countries, would he have been treated in the way he was by the AFP? Again, the answer is probably not.

The difference is that Australia sees the Pacific as being nothing more than its colonial domain, a domain which Australia governs through direct police/military intervention (known in the 19^th Century as Gun Boat Diplomacy) and/or a few shekels of silver pressed into the hands of those Pacific ‘leaders’ prepared to sell out their own people to a racist and corrupt Australia in return for the crumbs from Australia’s table.
Australia has tried to justify its neo-colonial interventions in the Pacific by arguing that it was bringing stability to the so-called ‘arc of instability.’

…The so-called ‘arc of instability’, which basically goes from East Timor through to the south-west Pacific states, means that not only does Australia have a responsibility in preventing and indeed assisting with humanitarian and disaster relief, but also that we cannot allow any of these countries to become havens for transnational crime, nor indeed havens for terrorism…

There is no official list of member states in the Arc, however it has traditionally been accepted to include South-East Asian and Oceanic nations such as Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, East Timor, Indonesia and Fiji.
What Australia is really doing in the Pacific is using the tragic events which unfolded in New York on 11 September, 2001 as a pretext to economically colonize the Pacific for its own commercial ends.
In the words of former United States President Woodrow Wilson:

Since trade ignores national boundaries and the manufacturer insists on having the world as a market, the flag of his nation must follow him, and the doors of the nations which are closed against him must be battered down. Concessions obtained by financiers must be safeguarded by ministers of state, even if the sovereignty of unwilling nations be outraged in the process. Colonies must be obtained or planted, in order that no useful corner of the world may be overlooked or left unused[1].

Actions speak louder than words. The actions of the AFP in both the Marae and Moti affairs speak volumes about the attitude of white Australia to the Indigenous peoples of the Pacific.

Post script News:

 http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/international/radio/program/pacific-beat/support-in-pacific-for-expulsion-of-afp-from-vanuatu/941682

AFP’s long memory of alleged associations from the past

Posted on May 9, 2012 - 10:29am | Category:

• Local News

By B. J. Skane

bjskane@vanuatu.com.vu 

Of the many articles published this week concerning the recent arrest of Clarence Marae, private secretary to Vanuatu’s Prime Minister at Sydney International Airport, only one goes any way to explain why the Australian Federal Police may have taken the action they did.

Ilya Gridneff, writing on May 2 says: “The Herald understands that the arrest is connected to the joint operation Project Wickenby, run predominantly by the Australian Taxation Office. Mr Marae is an alleged associate of the Victorian accountant Ian Henke, who in March last year was jailed, along with two Queensland accountants, for their roles in a multimillion-dollar tax avoidance scheme”

If this is indeed the basis for Marae’s arrest it not only shows that the AFP have very long memories, but also that one can never really escape one’s past – whatever that past may be.

In May 2008, the Australian Financial Review’s Matthew Drummond and Colleen Ryan reported under the headline: “Vanuatu dragnet opens up new front”.

“Ian Henke, who once tried to put former tax commissioner Michael Carmody on trial for war crimes and claimed the Australian Taxation Office was a legal fiction, has been charged over what the Australian Federal Police has (sic) alleged to be a $10 million asset-stripping scheme involving Vanuatu. “Mr Henke, 72, of Victoria, and Robin Huston, 62, of Queensland were summonsed to appear before Brisbane Magistrates Court.

“The AFP alleges the pair promoted a scheme that resulted in the assets of 69 companies being stripped and transferred through an “intricate network” of firms in Australia and Vanuatu.
“The companies, spread across five states, then told the ATO they could not meet their liabilities.
“The alleged asset-stripping scheme is understood to resemble the famous “bottom of the harbour” tax scheme of the 1980s.

“The summons issued to Mr Henke, who has previously described himself a “former senior ministerial policy adviser” and “businessman”, alleges that between July 1999 and May 2001 he conspired with five others to defraud the commonwealth. The alleged associates include Clarence Marae, a former deputy secretary of foreign affairs in Vanuatu, and Philip Northam, whose Vanuatu investment club was closed down by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission in 2004. Also named was Lance Miller, a former director of the Institute of Taxation Research.”

In August 2008 accountant Brian Francis Fox was arrested at Brisbane airport in connection with the same alleged asset-stripping scheme that occurred prior to his employment with Hawkes Law (previously KPMG) in Port Vila.

Brisbane Times reported in December 2011 that at the conclusion of a Supreme Court trial in March that year Henke, Huston and Fox were found guilty of conspiring to defraud the Commonwealth of more than $4.59 million. The trio devised, promoted and implemented the scheme between July 1, 1999 and May 23, 2001. [The scheme] involved setting up offshore bank accounts and companies. Through a series of elaborate and fraudulent transactions the men shifted the assets of various companies into the names of their former directors, before closing the businesses without paying off their tax debt.

Henke was initially sentenced to four and a half years in prison to be released on parole after 12 months; Fox to three years and nine months to be released on parole after nine months and Huston to four years jail to be released on parole after 10 months. However, the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions appealed their sentences on the grounds they were “manifestly inadequate”. The appeal was upheld. Henke’s sentence was increased from four and half years to six years imprisonment. He will now spend at least three years behind bars before he is eligible for parole.

Fox will spend the next two years and six months in prison, after his sentence was increased to five years and Huston will be imprisoned for three years, as his head sentence was increased from four to six years. “The offending here was serious, protracted and grossly dishonest,” Justice Muir said in his written judgment.

“It was embarked upon by Henke and Huston for personal gain. “Henke pocketed about $145,000 for his part in the scheme, while Huston received $40,000 and Fox gained professional fees through promoting the schemes with his clients. “It put at risk about $4.5 million of Commonwealth revenue,” Justice Muir said.

“The effect of evading tax liability is to deprive the community of revenue needed to provide government services and to impose an unfair burden on those who act honestly.”
The amounts gained by the trio hardly seem worth the risk but maybe risk, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.

In 1998, among other things “anti” – anti-tax, anti-Constitution, anti-Commonwealth – Henke’s Institute of Taxation Research (ITR) published a booklet entitled “30 Key Questions About the Australian Taxation System”. A friend in Fiji gave the writer a copy of it the same year. It is a flawed logic, but obviously Henke and his co-convicted didn’t see it that way.

Question 21 asks: “But don’t the ATO have incredible power to investigate and punish?
Henke’s answer: “In a nutshell, no! And what’s more they never have really had these powers. It didn’t matter so much when the old Taxation Department was simply an arm of the government, strict but operating very carefully and correctly. However the transition from Taxation Department to Australian Taxation Office introduced a new culture where bonuses are paid on the basis of the amount of tax collected. Not all ATO offices are on a bonus but enough are to make putting a return in no better than a lottery – but a lottery where you can’t win, you can only lose AND THEY PUT PART OF YOUR LOSS IN THEIR OWN POCKET. The problem is that letters from the ATO still bristle with threats to increase taxes, impose arbitrary penalties and quote various sections of the Income Tax (or other) Act in a way calculated to intimidate including threats to place honest citizens before the courts, a prospect most dread”.

Question 22 follows that line: “But don’t they always win in the courts?”
Henke: “Not any more. The court system may not be about truth - that disappeared long ago from the British/Australian legal system. It is about procedure and precedent and the rules of court and these can be turned against the ATO. It is a question of saying to the ATO ‘forget your rules and play according to ours where the dice aren’t loaded your way.’
“There is a simple question for the ATO. When did they win in a court against our arguments?”
Answer: March and December 2011.
Henke and his co-convicted have around 1000 long nights in jail to ponder it and the booklet’s concluding words: “The truth eventually exposes itself. Fact can’t be kept secret forever”.

 http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/breaking-news/carr-asks-vanuatu-to-reconsider-afp-move/story-e6freuyi-1226352315578

Kidnap and breach of diplomatic protocol: Kilman

Posted on May 9, 2012 - 1:05pm | Category:

By Godwin Ligo

Prime Minister Kilman 

Prime Minister Sato kilman described the arrest of Clarence Marae by the Australian Federal Police at Sydney International Airport as “kidnap and breach of diplomatic protocol”.
PM Kilman made the remarks immediately upon his arrival in Port Vila yesterday afternoon from the visit to Israel.

“In my humble view, it was kidnap and a breach of diplomatic protocol,” Prime Minister Kilman remarked after being welcomed by the Deputy and Acting Prime Minister Ham Lini Vanuroroa, government ministers and officials and members of the diplomatic corps at Port Vila International Airport yesterday afternoon.
“It is my hope and prayers that Australia can shoulder any representation that will be made in a true spirit,” PM Kilman remarked.
“I am disappointed because Vanuatu and Australia have an agreement in place for exchange of information.

“But there was no information access to a person who should have been refused a visa to enter Australia in the first place.“They were aware, yet granted the visa which led to the arrest,” PM Kilman told government officials and reporters on his arrival yesterday afternoon.

“There is a very strong cooperation between Australia and Vanuatu but unfortunately what happened at Sydney airport is not a sign of the existing cooperation between Australia and Vanuatu. “And if Australia says she is one of the countries in the Pacific but does this to smaller nations in the Pacific then it infringed on the sovereignty of the country.

“We must realize that we are an independent country and must be prepared to accept the consequences of the decisions taken. “We are in the 21st century and must not create instability in the region which would in turn affect world peace,” a concerned Vanuatu Prime Minister remarked in relation to the AFP arrest of Mr Clarence Marae at Sydney International airport.

“Is Pacific important to Australia or not?” Prime Minister Kilman questioned. “If yes, then Australia must make her stand clear on the Pacific,” PM Kilman reiterated.

The Vanuatu Prime Minister thanked the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the senior officials of the Prime Minister’s Office for the Note of concern already communicated to the Australian Government on the issues. He said further considerations will be given on the issue.

Prime Minister Kilman told government officials and reporters that upon their arrival at Sydney International airport, they were taken to the Immigration and Customs and made to fill out forms and had to wait at one of the lounge. He said it was then that they realized that Mr Marae was not amongst them.
When questioning his whereabouts, they were told that he has been arrested by the Australian Federal Authorities.“I am disappointed in the way this was done and in my humble view, it was kidnap and breach of diplomatic protocol,” concerned Prime Minister Kilman said on his arrival in Port Vila yesterday.

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Coming In From The Cold?

In recent months Fiji has welcomed to its shores, the Foreign Minister of Russia and more recently the senior diplomat of Qatar. Other bilateral meetings with Iraq and Kuwait have also eventuated, including other nations.

SiFM
"Both Foreign Minster's unscheduled visit to Fiji, is somewhat symbolic in nature, as well as a face saving gesture to restore what shreds of their spheres of influence left intact since their self-imposed absence."

The recent announcement of the nascent Australian Foreign Minister, Bob Carr to visit Fiji, in mid stream of his Washington stop, was quite surprising to say the least . However, Carr's Fiji's stop was undoubtedly influenced by a little chat with  the 'foggy bottom' folks quite concerned at Canberra and Wellington's incessant refusal engage directly with the Fiji Government and in the process isolated the Western aligned alliance diplomatically and undermining their regional moves on the geo-strategic chessboard. 

Tagging along with Foreign Minister Bob Carr to display a united front, is New Zealand Foreign Minister, Murray McCully who also confirmed his itinerary in joining this last minute Pacific Islands Forum Ministerial Contact Group (MCG) visit to Fiji.
It is understood that other Ministers from Pacific Island Forum (PIF) nations, notably from Polynesian client states are only present to bolster the island look of the Anglosphere duo, Carr and McCully respectively; whose nations dominate the proceedings of the Pacific Forum, an organization deemed as an anachronism by Melanesian and Micronesian states.

36th Parallel interview, (video below) outlines the current seismic change in regional affairs.





This disengagement with Fiji by the Trans-Tasman nations, had subsequently encouraged other friends of Fiji, to close ranks and displace the diplomatic rapport they once held. Both Foreign Minster's unscheduled visit to Fiji, is somewhat symbolic in nature, as well as a face saving gesture to restore what shreds of their spheres of influence left intact since their self-imposed absence.

Another unspoken agenda in their visit of both senior diplomats and colonial cousins from the metropolitan nations, is the ambition to shore up support to the former premier regional multi-lateral organization Pacific Islands Forum(PIF) that has since been languishing in the looming shadow of the regional sub-group Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG).

Another perspective by Dr. Wadan Narsey provides another independent view.

The excerpt:

Pacific tilting west to PNG – and Super Power rivalry

http://pacific.scoop.co.nz/2012/04/pacific-tilting-west-to-png-and-super-power-rivalry/

14:56 April 27, 2012 0 comments

Papua New Guinea gold ... vast mineral wealth changing Pacific politics

Photo: Kiridaresources

Pacific Scoop:
Commentary – By economist Professor Wadan Narsey

If this was a news release by a geologist, alarm bells would be ringing around the Pacific and international scientific community. But retitle it “Pacific politics tilting to PNG” and the alarm bells would be ringing in Samoa, Tonga and the Cooks (as I am sure they already are).

However, if Papua New Guinea ever decides to flex its burgeoning muscles, encouraged by a belligerent Fiji, the alarm bells would be ringing loudest in Canberra and Wellington.
Without doubt, Pacific politics is tilting towards the west, drawn by the all-powerful and inexorable gravitational forces of the massive LNG and other minerals wealth being generated in Papua New Guinea (and in West Papua – another sorry saga).

Pacific regional initiatives such as PICTA and EPAs with the European Union (administered by Forum Secretariat in Suva) or PACER Plus (administered through the Office of the Chief Trade Adviser in Vila) are going to be largely eclipsed by the Melanesian Spearhead Group of PNG, Fiji, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu, headquartered in the Chinese built secretariat in Vila. But are the PNG politicians prepared for the leadership role that comes with their wealth and markets?

Or will they be too bogged down in their debilitating internal squabbles for political power so as to ensure preferential access to the massive new wealth flows being created?
Relations with Australia and NZ are going to be a key factor in the direction taken by PNG and the MSG group, and that will depend critically on what PACER Plus offers the PICs, and how fast.
Understanding the complex chop-suey of forces at work in the Pacific is extremely difficult, as the diversity of issues discussed by this article indicates.

Super Power rivalry

But almost certainly, history, time and the “Pacific tilt” are not on Australia’s side. More than a decade ago, US withdrew its Peace Corps programme from the Pacific.  But in 2011, US Secretary Of State Hillary Clinton warned the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee not to cut the US foreign aid budget, citing the growing competition with China for global influence, specifically mentioning the Pacific and its vast natural resources.

The US is now back in the Pacific with a large new US Embassy in Suva, to rival the equally large Chinese Embassy. US has  also now stationed a small number of troops in North Australia, a move which is seen by an annoyed China as part of the US “containment policy” towards China.

The numbers of US troops will no doubt slowly grow, alarming Australian strategy advisers who see too close an attachment to US military strategies as being potentially harmful to long term Australian economic interests, which are inextricably linked to China’s economic growth (and which was the most significant factor saving Australia from the Global Financial Crisis).
Without doubt, super-power rivalry in the Pacific is now escalating.
PNG will have far more bargaining chips than ever before, especially if its leaders are able to successfully play off one Super Power against another, and take a leadership role in the Pacific, including the MSG.

W. Narsey
" Pacific regional initiatives such as PICTA and EPAs with the European Union (administered by Forum Secretariat in Suva) or PACER Plus (administered through the Office of the Chief Trade Adviser in Vila) are going to be largely eclipsed by the Melanesian Spearhead Group of PNG, Fiji, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu, headquartered in the Chinese built secretariat in Vila. "

Largest market

Papua New Guinea with its population of 7 million people is the largest market in the Pacific Island Countries Trade Agreement (PICTA), with the others just making up less than 2 million.
Yet 10 years ago, the PNG market was not given much importance by the other Pacific Island companies because the largely rural PNG consumers were too poor to spend money on modern goods. That has now totally changed with the massive economic growth now taking place in PNG, with equally large investment and consumer expenditures from both the private sector and government.

Foreign companies, including Australian, are taking a renewed interest in PNG. Even Fiji companies have made a beeline for PNG, pushed abroad by the last six years of economic stagnation in Fiji. All of a sudden, the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG) of PNG, Fiji, Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu has become the substantial integration movement in the Pacific, totally eclipsing PICTA.

The MSG is also achieving trade integration advances which PICTA has failed to deliver while PACER Plus totally stagnates.

Pacific countries will continue to talk endlessly on PACER Plus, as they did when PICTA was being negotiated, with every tiny trading or local commercial interest dragging the negotiations down to a snail’s pace, to the financial delight of an army of consultants.
This strengthening of the MSG has been assisted by Fiji’s belligerent attitude towards Australia and NZ, secretly admired by the political leaders of PNG, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu, who have long harboured intense resentment at what they perceive to be the paternalistic and condescending attitudes of Australian and NZ political leaders towards the Melanesians.
Underlying all this antagonism is the virtually taboo subject of Australian and NZ racism against the Melanesians, which surfaced in an oblique way at a recent conference at Deakin University in Geelong on PNG’s future.

Melanesians feel racism

This two-day conference produced many useful contributions from Australian and PNG academics and participants. But one jarring note in an otherwise diplomatic opening address by the debonair  Sir Charles Lepani (PNG High Commissioner to Australia) was his emotional complaint about the “galling” barriers faced by PNG nationals requiring a visa to come to Australia, while Australians come and go freely in PNG. This observation was greeted with applause by the largely white Australian audience, who had faced such difficulties when trying to get visas for PNG nationals.

Another senior and influential bureaucrat, a “mover and shaker” in PNG, complained bitterly that he had been coming to Australia for four decades, yet the Australian immigration department still wanted his bank balance and his grandparents’ addresses.
Ironically, while speaker after speaker (both PNG and Australian) complained about the post-independence debilitating deterioration in PNG civil service efficiency and widespread corruption, eminent Professor Ross Garnaut threw in a sobering reminder that the decades in which Australia controlled PNG before independence was “no golden era” for PNG people either, when they were required to have a permit to even come into their own capital, Moresby.

The conference was also reminded by yours truly that while Australia easily and freely gave out more than 600,000 work/holiday/study visas to a number of mostly white countries, PNG had yet to be confirmed for a quota of a mere 100

‘Blackbirding’ memories

Melanesian countries still remember their people being “blackbirded” a century ago, to clear the land in Australia for white farmers, and then callously and cruelly expelled (with the Chinese and Indians) to create the “White Australia” after federation in 1905 (led by Prime Minister Deakin). Today, the Melanesians are affronted that the descendants of that early slave labour are clearly not wanted in Australia in the way whites are.

In an evening function, very senior PNG people (including white Australian PNG “old hands”) confided quietly that the negative Australian attitude to PNG people was racism pure and simple – a continuation of the “White Australia” policy.
Few from the Melanesian Pacific would disagree, as they see that the Pacer Plus negotiations are bogged down by Australia on the one benefit that the Pacific countries feel would balance all the many costs of pure trade integration.

All PICs want is reasonable access for unskilled PIC “guest workers” into Australia – to ease their home unemployment and increase their valuable remittance earnings which has kept poverty at bay in several countries such as Fiji, Samoa, Tonga.
But for almost a decade now, Australia has been dragging its feet on proposals to let a few thousand Pacific Islands workers come to pick fruit, all under tightly controlled conditions, while 600,000 young workers from Europe, with minimal control or organisation whatsoever, come and go with a year’s permit for work and/or holiday, readily granted.

Add Sino-phobia

Many political strategists in Australia and NZ are worried about China’s rapid incursion into Pacific economies and politics, even though China is merely doing much the same kinds of things which other Super Powers and donors have done in the past century.

China may be extremely secretive about their financial flows to recipient countries and politicians. For instance, there is little publicly available data about what exactly are the loans which many Pacific countries are taking on for future generations.
But unlike Australian and NZ, China has little concern for insisting on local governance standards or basic human rights of the PIC citizens.

Sadly, the Western powers excluded China in their regional discussions with PICs, as I pointed out at a PIDP meeting in Honolulu early in 2011, on the future of the Pacific. The improbable excuse given was that there were “visa difficulties” for Chinese delegates.
It is open to question whether China will be any less racist or paternalistic or condescending than Australia or NZ.  But Chinese diplomats are not likely to make the political gaffes which Australian politicians make regularly with respect to the Pacific.
Australian failures
Australia’s failure to win the hearts and minds of Pacific political leaders may be contrasted with NZ’s greater success with Pacific countries, and with their Maori population.
No power-hungry Pacific politician is ever going to prise the Cook Islands, Tokelau or Niue (or even Samoa and Tonga) out of New Zealand’s camp.

Even Kiribati is now over the moon with Fiji, which has offered (sold) them a large block of land which will have more earth in it than all of Kiribati combined. While Kiribati’s President Tong hastily said the purchase was for food security and not settlement, there is little doubt that it also is going to provide a refuge for any I-Kiribati climate change refugees.
The I-Kiribati know that Tuvaluans are already quietly and happily acquiring property in Fiji, with no fuss whatsoever from Fiji authorities.  Tuvaluans are hard-working law-abiding residents of Fiji, enjoying all the benefits of good education for their children, health services for their sick, and a hospitable social environment.

Massive Australia, despite its daily acknowledgement of significant labour shortages for the foreseeable future, has made no such grand symbolic gesture towards the atoll countries which would have cost it so little and gained so much. It is not surprising that, apart from a few small Polynesian countries, the rest of the Melanesian and Micronesian Pacific has refused to speak out against the military regime in Fiji, despite the considerable diplomatic pressure from Australia and NZ.

W. Narsey
"Many political strategists in Australia and NZ are worried about China’s rapid incursion into Pacific economies and politics, even though China is merely doing much the same kinds of things which other Super Powers and donors have done in the past century. "

The PICs all know that Australia has been dragging its feet for a decade on PACER Plus negotiations and refusing to budge on access to Pacific unskilled labour, while the smaller NZ economy has had a small guest worker scheme operating very successfully for several years.
Australian needs to pay more attention to PNG views: one speaker at the Deakin conference on PNG futures quite bluntly told the gathering: “If Australia does not want to play ball with PNG, then we will play ball with China”.
The reality is that PNG is now positioned to lead a mass break-out of the economic barriers that Australia has built up against the ordinary poor and unskilled black populations in the Pacific.
While perpetually decrying the deterioration in governance and public services in PNG and other Melanesian countries, Australia has been ruthlessly extracting the very professional and skilled PIC citizens, whose departure is one fundamental cause of PIC economic and social disintegration.
It is a paradox to many Pacific economists why Australia is so backward in its policies towards the Melanesian countries.

Saying ‘sorry’

In the absence of any great Australian awareness of Australia’s exploitation of Kanaks in the past, it might be difficult to argue that Australia has any subconscious guilt complex towards Melanesians, as they seemed to have towards the Aboriginals.

But Australian political leaders, after a century of silence, finally said “sorry” to Aboriginals for all the horrifying injustices done to them in the past. It would be an interesting PhD to examine whether saying “sorry” has made any improvements at all to the political relationships between Australian and Aboriginal political leaders, and more importantly, to the welfare of the Aboriginals whose conditions are closer (by all the MDG criteria) to the poverty stricken people in sub-Saharan Africa, than to the rest of white or Asian Australia.

Perhaps the Melanesian countries should demand that Australia also say “sorry” to them, for the atrocities committed against the Kanak labourers a century ago. Acknowledging those past brutalities (and you might first need a few TV documentaries to drive that message home to the unaware Australian public) might encourage Australia to treat Pacific Island countries fairly and with human decency in the PACER Plus negotiations.

If PACER Plus delivers on the unskilled labour market benefits that PIC leaders want, and quickly, then Australian and NZ politicians might also have fewer nightmares about being outmanoeuvred by China in the Pacific, plus enjoy a lot of benefits as well.

Dr Wadan Narsey is a Fiji economist, academic, former parliamentarian and independent media commentator. He is a regular columnist on Pacific Scoop and Pacific Media Centre Online.

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