Cover Story
What's Ahead for 2001
After a year of unrest in the South Pacific, 2001 may turn out to be rather quiet.
Yes, after the Millennium show a year ago, this now really is the 21st century. Depending how seriously the International Date Line running vertically through the region is regarded, a good many of the Pacific's island countries were indeed the first into it.
A century ago who could have accurately gauged what the 20th century would bring to the mostly watery world of Oceania? Not a world or cold war. Not fallout from nuclear tests. Not full political if not full economic independence for all but a handful of French and United States territories.
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Not the means of travelling between the islands in a matter of just a few hours in a jet plane instead of weeks or months aboard a creaking, rolling, snail-paced cargo boat. Not instantaneous communications, almost, usually, by fibre optic cable, fax and the Internet.
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A century on from 1901, the face and pace of most of the Pacific Islands has changed not beyond recognition, but by a degree that it would be absurd to attempt to accurately predict the nature of the societies they will have by 2101. But a year ahead, even 10 years? What happened in the 1990s is firm ground on which to picture with some confidence the issues that Pacific Islanders need to grapple with in the years immediately ahead of them.
Events in 2000 in some Melanesian countries—Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Fiji—arouse questions about future political stability in the Melanesian region. Can Polynesia remain immune from such disasters?
Political, social and economic pressures cooking in French Polynesia and the hardly democratic Kingdom of Tonga hint that it may not. This year and in the years immediately ahead Pacific Islanders will be responding mainly to spillovers, waves of it, from the 1990s.
Few of their countries are far from accomplishing the difficult government and economic reforms pressed on them since the mid-1990s by insistent aid donors as a condition of continuing assistance. Realistically, it will be at least another decade before many will be in the shape they need to have if handicaps like meagre resources and geographical isolation are to be overcome effectively by governments determined to improve their national quality of life.
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At this year's Pacific Islands Forum meeting, to be held probably in August, possibly in Niue, Oceania's political leaders may be in a position to proceed with proposals for a Pacific Islands Free Trade Area to be operating by the end of this decade.
The hope is that this institution will promote free trade as much as give the islands a collective substance as a voice to be heard and noted in such forums as the World Trade Organization. Without that, micro-state economies will be left completely at the mercy of the merciless processes of globalisation.
In another move, the Pacific Islands Forum will begin pressing the United Nations for recognition within the United Nations of a separate Oceanic bloc. The islands are now lumped with the Asians where their regional and national interests are overwhelmed by primarily Asian attitudes and pursuits.
Another important step is a project by the South Pacific Applied Geoscience Commission (SOPAC) to contrive a Pacific environmental vulnerability index (EVI). This is a quick, easy and as far as possible accurate tool for measuring the vulnerability of a country, province or island to such disasters as hurricanes, volcanic events and damage to economies caused by the interplay of factors such as remoteness, geographical dispersion, natural hazards, a high degree of economic openness, small internal markets, limited natural resources, and fragile ecosystems. Two years of work has been accomplished so far.
A convincing environmental vulnerability index would be of immense help to the region and its countries in courting the sympathy of aid donors and international technical and assistance organisations. The course this year is to bring in representatives from all parts of the world to weld the environmental vulnerability index into an internationally accepted robust workable tool.
According to scientific reports given at the Tarawa Forum meeting in October there is as yet no evidence to prove that climate change is accelerating sea level rise to rates that could cause the submergence of low lying atolls and coastal areas of Oceania.
But trends in Papua New Guinea and Kiribati suggest that unless they give far more attention to the threat than they do now, Pacific Islanders, like Africans and Asians could be overwhelmed by another insidious tide—the tide of HIV/AIDS.
AMERICAN SAMOA
The American Samoa Government hopes that 2001 will bring relief from two years of financial woes that nearly crippled the U.S. Territory. Gov. Tauese Sunia, who took office in 1997 and inherited over $20 million in debts, has been able to pay-off some local and off-island obligations. But those efforts were hampered in 1998 and 1999 when revenue collections fell. Still, the government was able to maintain its payroll and continue to pay vendors, though at a very slow pace.
Negotiations with the U.S. government have produced assurances that the local government will get an $18.6 million loan. It requires American Samoa to give up its right to its share of the tobacco industry settlement in exchange for a lump sum loan from the federal government to pay off outstanding debts.
Although the government seems to be in a poor financial condition, Sunia has said repeatedly that the economy in American Samoa remains healthy. Lt. Gov. Togiola Tulafono, the administration’s economic development person, said the healthy economy can be witnessed through the accomplishments of families in new buying new homes, cars, and appliances. Tulafono said the construction industry is on the rise with new homes, new church buildings and various government-funded road and infrastructure projects. The aim is to bring in new investments: negotiations are underway with an Alaskan company that wants to pack tuna in pouches. The government is also talking to a garment company.
COOK ISLANDS
Booming tourism and pearl farm industries and improved government and economic disciplines have moved the Cook Islands away from its 1995 economic collapse. Tourism handled an estimated 60,000 plus arrivals in 1999. A hotel room shortage is now being felt.
A Cook Islands/New Zealand developer says work on a $US4.2 million Aitutaki Island 75-room resort is due to begin in January. Foreign investors hope to finance the completion of a stalled government-initiated 206-room resort at Rarotonga for Hilton International management from July 2001.
However, environmental groups say Rarotonga should limit tourist numbers since its waste disposal systems can't handle more. Some hotels have worsening sewerage seepage problems.
Prime Minister Dr. Terepai Maoate says migration to New Zealand after the economic crisis cut the population from 22,000 to about 15,500, causing a labour shortage. He wants migrants to begin returning.
FEDERATED STATES OF MICRONESIA
The Federated States of Micronesia is focused on renegotiating economic provisions of the Compact of Free Association with the United States. FSM negotiators are farther along in the process—having produced a long-term development strategy that is under consideration by the U.S. side—than neighboring Marshall Islands, but still have much to do before any agreement is forthcoming. With U.S. chief negotiator Allen P. Stayman handling the talks from the Washington end, the FSM has made good progress. But the U.S. presidential election, and change of administration will slow the process.
A major issue in the FSM continues to be the tug-of-war between state and national governments for authority and funding. The four states of Kosrae, Pohnpei, Chuuk and Yap want a larger share of the revenues and have been pushing to get it. This could affect such revenue sources as license and catch fees from the foreign fishing fleet, which, as the FSM is one of the prime fishing grounds in the region, is a major source of FSM national government revenue.
Private sector development in the FSM remains relatively small scale. Some efforts by private entrepreneurs to promote local industries—pepper farming and export on Pohnpei, for example—have been undermined by state government policies. Government still remains the main employer, though tourism has taken off in a modest way in recent years.
FIJI ISLANDS
Fiji will be dogged by political instability of varying intensities through 2001. Another military takeover should not be ruled out, nor more communal violence. While under international pressure, the interim regime has moved a democratic election from late- or mid-2002 to March 2002, it is unclear how any constitutional changes will be domestically and internationally accepted. That's if they bar non-indigenous Fijian citizens, who are 49 percent of the population, from some key political and public service posts, including the prime ministership. This would be done to placate Fijian nationalists.
The interim administration, appointed by the indigenous Fijian Great Council of Chiefs, faces a series of court challenges, all expected to lead to the refuting of its legality. This would put the validity of the budget, borrowing and other financial measures in question.
A constitutional review commission appointed by the administration with the aim of publishing a draft constitution by June 2001 was being boycotted by many non-indigenous Fijians.
At the end of the year there was speculation that the November judgement, to be challenged by the administration at a Court of Appeal session in February, might lead to the restoration of ousted President Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara. Speculation held he would then appoint a government of national unity formed by elected parliamentarians. This move would have international credibility that the regime of Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase cannot hope for.
Fiji's Reserve Bank in November said the coup in May would contract the economy in 2000 by about 8 percent compared with its earlier forecast of 13 to 15 percent. Most main industries—including tourism, sugar, logging, gold, tuna fishing and canning, garments and manufacturing—were doing reasonably well at the end of the year, given the political climate.
FRENCH POLYNESIA
It's an election year. Gaston Flosse, French Polynesia's president since 1991, and his Tahoeraa Huiraatira party will be the probable victors. Perhaps, the main point of interest will whether there will be any more support for Oscar Temaru's pro-independence party.
Previous polls indicate Temaru and his pro-independence party have backing from about 20 percent of the electorate.
Flosse's convictions on corruption charges in 1999 don't seem to have done him much political damage. His enemies are complaining that a huge current burst of public spending on works and other projects by the territorial government is meant to curry favour with people Flosse wants votes from.
During 1999 France enacted laws to confer greater autonomy on the territory, including managing relations with the region's independent island states, and international air services.
French Polynesia relies heavily on tourism, exports of cultured pearls (in 1999 worth $US142 million), and French aid. An emerging worry is that the pearl industry may be reaching a threshold beyond which it won't grow much more due to market saturation and competition.
Tuna fishing is coming up fast. Flosse said in late 1999 that in the next five years the tuna catch would grow to 20,000 tonnes a year with up to 50 more boats added to the current 60-vessel fleet.
Tourism is close to hitting a long sought after target of 200,000 arrivals. But Air Tahiti Nui, launched two years ago to fly in tourists from the United States and Japan, with the territorial government as the main shareholder, has accumulated losses of more than $US20 million. And the territorial government is having to supply more funds to keep it going. The airline says it should become profitable in several years.
The government is developing Papeete's wharf and international airport in expectation of continuing growth for tourism. Cruise liner traffic has increased dramatically since 1999, with the arrival of luxury liners for year-round cruises in the Society Islands. More than 30,000 passengers were counted in the first half of 2000.
GUAM
With improving visitor arrival numbers last year, Guam's tourism industry appears to be on the upswing heading into 2001. "Since September 1999, we've been seeing double-digit increases in arrivals at the airport," says Jerry Yingling, who heads the Guam International Airport Authority. Much of that growth has come from Korea, where residents are enjoying a healthy economic rebound. Yingling says that as long as hotel rates remain competitive, he expects to see continued strength from the all-important Japan market.
But numbers alone don't tell the whole story, industry leaders warn. Arrivals from Japan, which account for more than 80 percent of Guam's tourists, tend to be younger than in past years. Where affluent middle managers once made up the bulk of Japanese tourists on Guam, many have now been replaced by college students and workers in their early 20s who generally have less money to spend. To combat decreased spending, Guam's tourism industry is working to attract small conference and incentive trips designed to reward top producing employees from Asian companies.
Guam's second largest industry, construction, won't be reaping the benefits of increased tourism anytime soon, industry leaders say. John Robertson, general manager of Dillingham Construction Pacific Basin, says 2000 and 2001 aren't shaping up to be very profitable years. "We've bid a lot of jobs this year and last, but because of the competitive nature of our business and the need for every contractor to get work, there haven't been enough projects to go around. Competition has been unusually tough." Tom Nielsen, vice president and general manager of Maeda Pacific Corp., agrees.
KIRIBATI
Kiribati's fortunes wax and wane. By the end of 2000 there was growing controversy over the cost of President Teburoro Tito's efforts to subsidise copra producers, who were feeling the pinch of diving world prices.
But the country's revenue from licences paid by foreign fishing fleets operating in its 3.5 million square kilometre fisheries zone was at a record level. Seaweed farming at Fanning Island is emerging as an important export, and the demand by foreign ship owners for Kiribati's seamen remains high. Japan is preparing to develop Christmas Island as a space shuttle port, including the construction of a 100-150-room hotel.
Kiribati has signed an agreement with the Norwegian Shipping Line to allow large cruise ships to make weekly calls in the Line Islands from the end of 2001. A major new port has been completed at Betio, Tarawa, but is said to still lack a berth adequate for large cargo ships.
The next election is set for 2002. Politically, there was mounting opposition in some quarters to Tito's style of government. The Public Service Commission issued a warning to public servants to refrain from anti-government statements and activities.
MARSHALL ISLANDS
The administration of President Kessai Note, elected on an anti-corruption reform platform, enters its second year in office in January. By establishing a Task Force on Accountability to conduct an exhaustive, government-wide corruption probe, Note has for the first time publicly acknowledged endemic corruption in the nation and taken steps to fight it. The government, however, is saddled with a severe budget deficit from previous years and high public expectations for action, which may be impossible to meet without innovative political and development solutions.
The budget crisis has forced the government to seek a new Asian Development Bank loan of up to $12 million to improve its financial management, while helping in the short term with needed cash. The Marshall Islands’ financial situation improves dramatically at the end of 2001, when its debt to American banks is retired. That will inject an extra $20 million in U.S. funds immediately into government coffers on October 1.
Political ties with Taiwan continue to provide large scale funding for projects ranging from buying new inter-atoll vessels to outer island power plants, and will continue to afford the government of the day a substantial purse for projects of its choice.
The Marshalls has made strides in developing a niche market tourist industry. Bikini Atoll, with its fleet of sunken World War II ships, will continue to be the star attraction. But many other atolls are also getting dive customers, particularly from Japan, where the number of divers more than doubled in 2000.
Aquaculture developments are in their infancy, but showing promise: an early 2000 harvest of pearls by Robert Reimers Enterprises encouraged the company to continue expanding its efforts, which include clam exports to the American aquarium market. With Hawaii-based Aloha Airlines planning expansion of service, coupled with Continental Micronesia’s new fleet of planes, essential air service is improving.
Finally, a recent revamp of the government’s fisheries policy will likely continue attracting the Asian purse seine fleet to Majuro.
NAURU
Nauru's affairs are complicated by constant jockeying for power by the 18 members of Parliament. In the past three years this has brought half a dozen changes of government. Last year Bernard Dowiyogo regained the presidency he lost to Rene Harris. Whether he will remain president until a 2002 election is anybody's guess.
In 1999, Nauru bowed to strong international pressure to impose controls on its offshore banking businesses so as to curb their exposure to exploitation by money launderers. With its phosphate deposits almost worked out and suffering the consequences of losing hundreds of millions of dollars of investments through mismanagement, bad judgment and attacks on its wealth by crooks, Nauru's financial condition is not good.
But not so bad that it can't launch a $US100 million development in Hawaii to add to two high-rise buildings it has on a large site there adjacent to the Ala Moana Center.
Water is a worsening problem domestically because of the deterioration of desalination plants and of natural underground reserves. Nauru has just opened a fishing port built for it by Japan. Air Nauru is pressing on with attempts to become accepted by other Micronesian governments as their designated regional airline.
NEW CALEDONIA
New Caledonia coped with a lot of labour unrest in 2000. But at the national level, parties to the 1987 Matignon Accord for political development, met in May under the chairmanship of the French overseas minister to review the pact.
The agenda covered education, land and external relations and Kanak cultural identity issues. It was agreed that a special agreement should be signed between New Caledonia and the French state to define the traditional chiefs' role in mediating in legal matters, land tenure and cultural development.
New Caledonia will establish itself as "belonging to the Pacific" and will increase trade with regional countries. It now attends meetings of the Pacific Islands Forum as an observer, signifying that the Forum expects the territory to eventually attain what will be accepted as full independence.
New Caledonia achieved a record of exports of 34,500 million Pacific Francs ($US275 million) for the first six months of 2000. The figures were 71.4 percent more than for the corresponding 1999 figure and the best in a decade. Minerals, including nickel, contributed 90.7 percent to the total figure. Other contributors were 914 tonnes of shrimp, beche de mer and trochus shell. Nickel prices improved substantially in 2000 after a 1999 slump.
Canadian and United States companies are planning medium to long term big investments in nickel refining. Disagreement about the amount and proportion of shares to be transferred to New Caledonia's three provinces is delaying the transfer to them of French Government shares in the nickel producer company Eramet and its subsidiary, Société Le Nickel (SLN).
NIUEM
Niue's population is still declining due to migration to New Zealand. The current official figure of about 1,900 people could be lower. Premier Sani Lakatani survived attempts in 2000 to remove him with a vote of no confidence motion by MPs alarmed by an airline deal. The deal was eventually cancelled, with New Zealand businessmen threatening to sue the Niue Government.
Lakatani claimed that foreign investors were prepared to put millions of dollars into a golf resort and other projects. But nothing of this is actually evident. An embarrassment was the collapse of a medical school for foreign students opened in 2000 in a former hotel leased from the government.
The trickle of tourists is becoming thinner. Niue is pinning great hopes on a service to it proposed by Air Rarotonga, using a 36-seat Saab 340 and backed by tour company interests. Niue's only scheduled air service is operated by Royal Tongan Airlines.
Niueans wish to retain self-government in free association with New Zealand. A survey showed that 580 residents favoured the status quo, 195 favoured full integration with New Zealand and 57 favoured full independence.
A statistics department survey showed that of Niue's 969 houses, only 450 are occupied. 352 houses are classed as being unsafe to inhabit.
NORTHERN MARIANAS
The ability to turn around the Commonwealth's economy, which has gone sour due to external market and political pressures, will be a major factor when islanders go to the polls this November. If the current economic situation persists over the next 11 months, the administration of Gov. Pedro Tenorio could leave the Commonwealth government in January 2002 with a $70 million budget deficit.
Who wins will depend largely on economic factors, following grim projections that both the tourism and the apparel manufacturing industries, the largest revenue-generating sectors for the Commonwealth government, will continue to face hard times.
The Commonwealth’s troubled but rebounding tourist industry was hit by a travel advisory issued by Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs in September 2000, which stated that Saipan is "not safe" for Japanese travelers. This reduced overall visitor arrivals to Saipan by 10 percent the month after the travel advisory. The fallout offset gains in the Korean market, which was up 3 percent over 1999.
Garment exports to the mainland U.S. dipped 10 percent in 2000 to $238.92 million. Industry players anticipate the downward trend to persist because of the adverse effects of the billion-dollar class action suit filed against Saipan manufacturers and criticisms from the federal government over alleged sweatshop conditions. Even without the controversial lawsuit, however, the Saipan apparel manufacturing industry is still expected to uproot when the agreements that created the World Trade Organization go into effect in 2005 and when U.S. trade quotas are lifted.
REPUBLIC OF PALAU
The year 2001 for Palau will see a new president, Tommy Remengesau, Jr., who served eight years as retiring President Kuniwo Nakamura's vice president. Remengesau, son of a former Palau district administrator, defeated Sen. Peter Sugiyama by nearly 600 votes, 5,291 to 4,696 in the November contest. The vice presidential race produced Palau's first female vice president, Sandra Sumang Pierantozzi, currently a senator and a former minister in the Etpison administration (1989-1992).
Palau's financial picture is fairly rosy with over $100 million in Overseas Development Assistance (ODA) from Japan during the Nakamura presidency. And for Palau's recent diplomatic recognition of Taiwan, a grant of $10 million was made and talk of another $90 million was heard as being "in the pipeline." Japan's ODA grants have been used for electrification, the new Koror-Babeldaob bridge, and a state-of-the-art airport terminal building. These large sums coming along with similar large amounts from the Compact of Free Association have, some observers claim, created a "bubble" economy for Palau that will burst sooner or later. Of the $270 million paid out through fiscal year 2000 from the Compact, only $19.3 million of the total U.S. grant has not been obligated.
PAPUA NEW GUINEA
Papua New Guinea's Parliament in November adjourned to July 23, 2001, to avoid a possible a vote of no-confidence motion against Prime Minister Sir Mekere Morauta.
The move foiled efforts to destroy Morauta's government made by politicians, including some cabinet ministers he sacked for disloyalty. Some are alarmed by a drive against rampant top-level corruption. Morauta's enemies hope to block the Integrity Bill, intended to deter manipulation of political and government systems by politicians for their personal gain.
Morauta's efforts to repair Papua New Guinea's economy and shabby political institutions have won considerable popular domestic and international support since he became prime minister in 1999. He said he wouldn't allow his programme of reconstruction and development to be sabotaged for reasons of "political expediency". Competent and accountable government was vital since "Papua New Guinea remained a very fragile state. One wrong move and we lose the lot."
Morauta's policies have renewed foreign investment and political confidence in a country whose huge mineral, gas, forest, fisheries, tropical agriculture and tourist prospects still remain hardly touched.
But in 1999 the country began waking up to the scale of the HIV/AIDS threat it faces. Lady Roslyn, Morauta's wife, in October 2000, told the second Regional Steering Committee for Asia Pacific meeting on the advancement of rural and islands women that Papua New Guinea had the highest incidence of reported cases of HIV in the Pacific region and the fifth highest percentage in Southeast Asia. An estimated 10,000 to 15,000 Papua New Guineans were infected. Unless immediate action is taken more than 100,000 could be infected within 10 years.
SAMOA
Samoa enjoys improving prosperity. Tuna fishing is booming spectacularly. Tourism's only worry is lack of hotels. The 1999 trade deficit was a record $S293.6 million. But it was covered by record tourism earnings and a record of over $S10 million remitted by expatriate Samoans.
Foreign reserves are healthy at around six months of imports. In 1999, says the Central Bank of Samoa, real gross domestic product (GDP) hit about 5.25 percent above the 1998 figure, which was itself 3.5 percent up on the 1997 figure.
Samoa's prime minister, Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi, also finance minister, has strong local and international approval as leader of his country's economic reforms. Samoa's business circles agree that it would be dismaying if he lost office attained after the March 1999 death of predecessor Tofilau Eti Alesana. Despite the hefty 38-seat majority the ruling Human Rights Protection Party (HRPP) has in the 49-member Fono (parliament), Tuilaepa can't be certain of remaining prime minister after a general election in April.
The party will probably win but given Samoa's pork barrel style, "anything can happen", say local observers. If it does, Tuilaepa may have to fend off a bid for leadership from health minister Misa Telefoni Retzlaff, a wealthy businessman.
SOLOMONS ISLANDS
After the trauma of 20 months of civil war, with more than 100 dead, more than 20,000 displaced, and its economy wrecked, the Solomon Islands is settling down. It came with a peace agreement signed by Guadalcanal's Isatabu Freedom Movement and the Malaita Eagle Force in October. There's a feeling the agreement will work. Unarmed Australian and New Zealand monitors are supervising it and the surrender of arms.
There will be an election sometime in 2001. Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavere, who after a June coup formed a unity government, will hope to retain power. But the country's floppy politics can't guarantee anyone any real security in the prime minister's seat.
There are predictions that it will be at least five years before the economy recovers. Tuna fishing and canning, logging, gold mining and tourism should begin moving again this year. But there is deep alarm about the future of the important oil palm industry.
Since the government is broke and destined to remain so for a long time, Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan and the European Union are chipping in millions of dollars to keep it afloat financially and help resume its development. In November, the European Union agreed to a $US200 million aid package, an enormous relief for the badly battered country.
TOKELAU
The 1,458 inhabitants of the three atolls of Tokelau continue to progress at their own leisurely rate towards a condition of self-government in association with New Zealand. New Zealand's latest statement on Tokelau is that Tokelau won't be pushed into anything it doesn't want to do.
The Tokelauans have a lot of people settled in New Zealand. They show no sign of wishing to make a complete break with a country that keeps them going financially and offers them access to its green and spacious spaces as an alternative to the tight restrictions of their own atolls.
Local government is headed by a leader elected annually by the Faipule (council) and that since 1997 has been Aliki Faipule Falimateao. When in 1999 he went to the United Nations to brief the decolonisation committee on Tokelau, Aliki caused the New Zealanders some embarrassment. He pressed Tokelau's claim to United States-controlled Swains Island. The Tokelauans say the island is theirs historically. It was annexed by the Americans in 1925.
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From year to year not much changes in Tonga. This year, the Tonga Human Rights and Democracy Movement plans to stir things up with a referendum by September in which commoners will be asked if they support constitutional reforms for a fully elected Parliament. This would replace one now two-thirds dominated by appointees of the monarch and nobility.
The referendum is likely to be ignored by a government led since January 1999 by a new prime minister, Prince Ulukalala Lavaka Ata, a son of the king. The former prime minister, Baron Vaea, retired warning that the country, with the cost of imports running at 10 times export earnings and a big, sluggish public service, was heading for economic collapse. A similar warning was given by the finance minister a year earlier.
There was hope that the new prime minister, a young, highly educated computer buff, would begin to turn the country around for the better. But Tonga continues to rely heavily on remittances from Tongans abroad ($T67 million in 1998-99).
Last year, shipments of pumpkins to Japan, the main export, brought low prices due to a market glut. Tourism had a minor boom in mid-2000 because of political trouble in Fiji.
TUVALU
Tuvalu, one of the smallest of Oceania's independent states, continues to do quite nicely and is enjoying a period of political stability. It has just become a United Nations member.
Government revenue has doubled with a guaranteed payment of $US4 million a year from the marketing of its Internet suffix by a California company, Idealab. With other incomes from a national investment fund of about $A50 million, fishing licence revenue, and foreign aid, the Tuvalu government has just cancelled an agreement under which it let a telephone sex call business use its international call code.
The government is investing in public roads at Funafuti and free education for all students studying abroad in universities.
VANUATU
Vanuatu's next general election is due in 2002. By then Barak Sope, one of the great machinators of Vanuatu politics, may or may not be in the job. Sope became prime minister at the end of 1999, after engineering the demise of his predecessor. But no one, Sope included, can tell the future, given Vanuatu's topsy-turvy politics, with coalition governments formed and splintering.
Since Sope took over there has been donor unease about what they think is the slowing of government and economic reforms. Sope, in November, said the government was overloaded with debt and repaying that was the priority.
But in the capital Port Vila eyes were being raised about Sope's agreement with a Thai company, Apex International, to offload some of its debt. In return for what? That was the question on the minds of people recalling Sope's history of involvement in suspect deals.
Vanuatu's tax haven business, attacked as a money laundering conduit by the Americans, Australians and others, has just recovered respectability; thanks to tough anti-laundering laws enacted by the government.
For 2001, the outlook is relative stability with its weak agriculture and tourism-dominated economy showing little sparkle.
WEST PAPUA
West Papua, once a Dutch colony and part of the South Pacific Commission (now Pacific Community), returned to the Pacific Islands fold in 2000. Two Pacific Islands Forum countries, Vanuatu and Nauru, got the Forum to at last recognise the existence of the Indonesian-ruled western half of New Guinea, by asking the Indonesians to start talks with the independence movement.
But the Indonesians are determined to hang on to a fabulously mineral, forest and fisheries resource rich territory they grabbed in 1961 with United Nations and United States connivance. It seems inevitable that in the years ahead West Papua is doomed to be the next East Timor.
A delegation of West Papuan leaders was in Jakarta in November with a proposal for a zone of non-violence to be declared from December 2, and ratified by an international third party, possibly the United Nations.
