Letters from Suva
Behind the Scenes at the Nauru Forum: Tussle Over Trade
So Australia's Johnnie Howard wasn't missed. The Nauru Pacific Islands Forum, by most accounts, turned out to be a much better Forum than expected despite being snubbed by the prime minister of its biggest member. Even New Zealand's Iron Lady, Helen Clark, entered into the swing of things, siding with the islands against the Aussies on issues such as the Kyoto Protocol on climate change.
But while issues such as Kyoto and West Papua generated the most emotion and
headlines, some regional officials believe trade was the real big issue of
Nauru 2001.
The Forum leaders approved two agreements which had earlier been worked out
in a meeting of their trade ministers in Apia:
-PACER (the Pacific Agreement on Closer Economic Relations), a trade and economic cooperation umbrella agreement applying to all 16 Forum members, including Australia and New Zealand; and -PICTA (the Pacific Islands Countries Trade Agreement), a free trade area among the 14 island members of the Forum, at the moment excluding Australia and New Zealand.
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Despite the public hype about these agreements being quickly signed by most of the Forum members there are still some big concerns by some.
At Nauru, of the island countries only Fiji, Samoa and to some extent Vanuatu were lobbying vigorously for the agreements, saying they were beneficial to Forum member countries and needed to be supported.
One Fiji official says whether we like it or not, Pacific islands countries need to get use to the free trade concept by trading amongst themselves first before tackling the rest of the world. "We have no choice. The world is opening up and we¹re forced to play ball. We therefore need to prepare ourselves and be ready for WTO," this official said.
Papua New Guinea, with the biggest population, land mass and resources, seems to have reservations about that. At Nauru the Papua New Guineans ³sat on the fence², according to sources who were in the meetings.
One well placed Papua New Guinea foreign official has said privately that while the intentions are good, the PACER agreement in particular appears to impinge on the sovereignty of member countries.
He described it this way: "It¹s like tying a rope around the necks of the member countries because basically now under the trade deals Australia and New Zealand will need to be informed of every deal Forum member countries enter into."
The official said the Forum agreements will also have implications on the Melanesian Spearhead Group free trade area further developed in Noumea in August by the Melanesian Spearhead Group - Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu.
Ironically the PACER and PICTA agreements are being pushed hard by a Papua New Guinean, Forum Secretary-General Noel Levi.
Mr Levi, a well regarded veteran diplomat and civil servant, even had to resort to calling Papua New Guinea Prime Minister Sir Mekere Morauta, according to those reliable sources close to the meeting. Sir Mekere ‹ who also gave the Forum meeting a miss ‹ was asked to intervene following the negative attitude of his representatives.
The final Forum communique said: "The Forum hailed these agreements as providing a basis for increasing regional integration and as a means to effectively prepare members" economies to respond to globalisation. It looked forward to ratification of the agreements as soon as possible by sufficient states to enable them to come into force by the next Forum."
But as the trade winds of globalisation sweep across the Pacific Islands there is still obviously much uncertainty over their impact. Mr Levi could be spending quite a bit of his time between now and the next Forum making more calls explaining PACER and PICTA, and how they help islands states in a globalising world.
Legal texts of PACER and PICTA have been placed on the Forum Secretariat website (www.forumsec.org.fj)
