OCEANIAN AFFAIRS

▪ 1994

      Environmental issues dominated the 1993 meeting of the South Pacific Forum, which was held in Nauru in August. For the first time in many years, the Forum was attended in person by the heads of governments of all 15 Forum members. After the completion of its own deliberations, the Forum met with representatives of the "dialogue partners"—Canada, the European Community, France, Japan, China, the U.K., and the U.S. Separate, informal talks were held with the representatives of Taiwan, in line with the "one China" policy adopted by most Forum members.

      The Forum was particularly concerned with the difficulty in finding a basis for sustainable development in a region that was prone to natural disasters, was likely to suffer further environmental damage as a consequence of global warming, especially from rising sea levels and more frequent cyclonic storms, and was experiencing high levels of population growth. In an earlier address to the UN General Assembly, Sir Baddeley Devesi, deputy prime minister of Solomon Islands, had declared that the Framework Convention on Climate Change from the 1992 "Earth Summit" in Rio de Janeiro did not take sufficient account of global warming and called for the negotiation of meaningful protocols under the convention. The region's own climate and sea-level surveillance program, funded by Australia ($A 6.9 million over a five-year period), had established monitoring stations in the Cook Islands, Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Papua New Guinea, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, and Western Samoa.

      The government leaders also addressed issues relating to the expansion of trade in the region, particularly with reference to the South Pacific Regional Trade and Economic Cooperation Agreement, which governed preferential access to Australian and New Zealand markets for the small island states. Subsequent discussions focused on the "rules of origin," which specified that 50% of the value of goods must have been created in the exporting country. This posed particular difficulties for the garment-manufacturing industries in many Pacific Islands countries, especially Fiji, where much of the value lay in imported fabric. The Forum also expressed a strong desire to see the major trading nations reach an early agreement on the Uruguay round of talks under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade.

      Late in 1992 Forum members had protested Japan's plans to ship plutonium from Europe and to allow the vessel to pass through the exclusive economic zones of member states without warning them of the vessel's passage. The president of Nauru referred to "the public risks and burdens" that were imposed on small island states by large and powerful neighbours. In taking this stand he was also drawing attention to the Forum's earlier criticism of nuclear testing by France and the destruction of chemical weapons at Johnston Atoll by the U.S. At its meeting in August, the Forum welcomed the moratorium on nuclear tests by the U.S., Russia, and France and invited the U.S., the U.K., and France to sign protocols to the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty (Treaty of Rarotonga). Many Forum members joined in the wider regional protest against Russia's dumping of liquid nuclear waste in the North Pacific. The protest succeeded in persuading Russia to suspend its dumping program in October 1993. In light of all of these developments, and further proposals put by waste companies to member states (notably Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, and Tonga) for the storage or destruction of toxic materials, the South Pacific Regional Environment Program took steps to develop a regional convention to ban the importation and movement of hazardous waste.

      During the Forum meeting, Nauru announced that it had reached a negotiated settlement with Australia for $A 107 million in respect of environmental damage caused by phosphate mining on the island during the period of Australian administration under League of Nations and UN trusteeship. As a condition of the settlement, Nauru agreed to withdraw its damages action then before the International Court of Justice. Australia announced it would seek to have the settlement costs shared by the U.K. and New Zealand, the other trustee powers.

      At the beginning of 1993, Australia, New Zealand, and France reached agreement on procedures to ensure the better coordination of disaster relief and on the establishment of more reliable weather reporting for the region. The Joint Commercial Commission, proposed by U.S. Pres. George Bush during his meeting with island leaders in 1990, was formally established, with headquarters in Hawaii.

      In February the Summit of Small Pacific Islands States (a subgrouping of Forum members), attended by the Cook Islands, Kiribati, Nauru, Niue, and Tuvalu (with French Polynesia as an observer), met at Funafuti, Tuvalu. Discussions focused on the development of marine resources, with particular reference to the prospects for black pearl cultivation, the harvesting of bêche de mer (trepang), and the development of mullet farming.

      The Melanesian Spearhead Group (Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu) held its seventh summit in July. The possibility of Fiji's joining the Spearhead in the future was left open, as was membership for New Caledonia once it had attained "a certain degree of autonomy."

      Ati George Sokomanu was elected the new secretary-general of the South Pacific Commission. The vacancy arose because the original appointee had died before taking office, and some governments, notably Australia, wanted applications reopened. The appointment was controversial because Sokomanu, a former president of Vanuatu, had been removed from office after being implicated in a failed coup. Upon his election, Sokomanu exacerbated a tense situation by criticizing Australia for its "colonial club mentality." The outgoing secretary-general, Atanraoi Baiteke of Kiribati, observed that in some Pacific Islands countries the "pace of development was too fast and causing social unrest." He categorized development as "a malady, a sickness first of the individual spirit and then the very soul of one's nation."

      The South Pacific Festival of Arts, held in Rarotonga, Cook Islands, over eight days in October 1992, drew more than 2,000 performers from 23 countries. Performances were held at 12 venues on Rarotonga, with the central focus on the new $NZ 11.6 million cultural centre built for the occasion. A major attraction was a number of oceangoing canoes, some of which had been sailed to Rarotonga by traditional forms of navigation. (BARRIE MACDONALD)

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