Pacific Notes
Pacific Notes
Nauru Opposition Tests the Waters
Nauru’s politics and governments are comfortable in-house family affairs. Angry and disillusioned youthful dissent could change that.
Since independence for the 21 sq. km. central Pacific republic from Australia came in 1968 election to Nauru’s 20-member Parliament has been the preserve of by now veteran politicians assured of votes of automatic loyalty from members of big extended families.
- ADVERTISEMENT -
The only political party operated briefly as a loose alliance of politicians having temporary mutual interests. Governments are formed by dominant personalities able to persuade fellow parliamentarian’s assured of a cabinet post to elect them as president.
 |
|
|
Through the 1990s Nauru’s political stability deteriorated, along with its finances and quality of governance. There have been half a dozen change of government in the last three years. Presidents now live with the constant dread of a no-confidence vote engineered by revengeful predecessors or parliamentarians impatient for their turn at the top.
Nauru’s 7,000 indigenous people are now tottering on the brink of national insolvency caused by hundreds of millions of dollars of mounting foreign debt, the loss of at estimated A$2.1 billion in investments and years of inept and corrupt government.
The present government of President Rene Harris often cannot pay public service wages or for much else. With the imminent exhaustion of the phosphate mine from which Nauru drew its squandered wealth, the future of the country looks bleak.
Enter Naoero Amo, Nauru’s first real political party, formed early this year and now with its political pamphlet, The Visionary, a searing pain in the side of Nauru’s old political hands.
 |
|
|
Musing on Harris’s record recently The Visionary asked about a A$231,000 account run up with the Nauru Phosphate Commission when he was its chairman.
And, The Visionary noted, there was the matter of a A$1.529 million debt owed to the Bank of Nauru, something that would take 25 years to repay if Harris held on to his A$60,000 presidential salary.
Harassed Harris is hitting back at nagging Naoero Amo. On September 17 two founders, David Adeang, a legal counsel, and Kieren Keke, one of only two Nauruan physicians, received an official letter that on the “highest authority” they would be disciplined. Adeang was suspended and Keke sacked for making “adverse remarks” about a cabinet minister to the media. A lawyer is representing them in the matter.
In an interview with Pacific Magazine, Naoero Amo explained that its goals are rebuilding Nauru by being the first party with defined common goals and aspirations generally defined. “We have clear intentions to contest the next elections as members of Naoero Amo party. We also plan to have a member of the party stand in each of the eight constituencies that make up the Nauru electorate.”
The party’s founding members are Marlene Moses – currently Secretary for Health; Roland Kun – currently general manager, Nauru Fisheries Corporation David Adeang – currently presidential counsel; Sean Oppenheimer – general manager, Capelle & Partner, the largest private business on the island; Kieren Keke – currently senior medical officer at the Nauru Hospital; and Sprent Dabwido – currently general manager, Nauru Insurance Corporation.
The party first met early this year under “what the old people of Nauru called the worst living conditions experienced by the people of Nauru since the Second World War; that is, darkness created by blackouts resulting from shortages of diesel, petrol shortages, water shortages, and cash shortages. It was a meeting of like-minded Nauruans naturally congregated by a shared concern for Nauru and how the present circumstances did not bode well for Nauru’s future.”
Says the party: “We believe that even if only a few of us make it into Parliament, in a House that is full of ‘independents’, the few can be instrumental to advancing vital changes. After the last election there were a few changes but there were no sweeping changes. The coming elections may well be similar as our Nauruan community is largely conservative and resistant to rapid change. However, we all may be surprised.”Pacific Asylum Deals Raise Concerns
As Papua New Guinea, Nauru and Kiribati accepted aid deals with Australia to take hundreds of Middle Eastern asylum seekers unwanted by Australia, and with Fiji considering following suit, the Pacific Conference of Churches and other religious and regional non-governmental organizations have criticized Australia for dumping refugees in the Pacific. In late October, the PCC and other groups issued a statement outlining their “concerns over the Australian leadership’s denial of their moral and legal obligation to support and protect those who flee their own countries because of prosecution and violation of human rights.”
Almost on a daily basis, news media in the region have reported on new developments involving boat from various countries in the Middle East, including Iraq and Afghanistan, who have been rejected by Australia. Even where the refugees have been accepted into processing camps in PNG and Nauru there have been a multitude of problems, ranging from the refusal of many asylum seekers to get off a ship at Nauru to angry clashes at an Australian-financed processing camp in PNG by refugees angered that they were not taken to Australia.
In late October, PNG Prime Minister Sir Mekere Morauta fired Foreign Minister John Pundari and Foreign Secretary Evoa Lalatute for leaking a request from Australia to take more refugees and saying PNG had rejected the request. PNG accepted more than 200 mostly Iraqi boat people in late October on Manus Island, and was considering more.
Australia also closed a deal with Kiribati in late October to take unwanted refugees to Canton Island for processing. Kiribati has agreed to take up to 500 asylum seekers on Canton, an isolated and nearly deserted mid-Pacific atoll. By the end of October, Australia had sent about 1,000 refugees to Nauru, PNG and New Zealand.
Australia is reported to have provided Nauru with $10 million in exchange for handling and housing the refugees as they’re processed.
No Delays in Compact Talks Expected
Marshall Islands and U.S. officials expressed their expectations that the recent resignation of U.S. Compact negotiator Allen P. Stayman and the situation caused by the terrorist attacks in the U.S. will not derail negotiations for future funding now in progress between the two countries.
Marshalls Foreign Minister Gerald Zackios said that obviously both events would have some affect on the progress of the negotiations. “But I’ve told the U.S. Ambassador (Michael Senko) and our Washington Ambassador that we want to maintain the schedule as much as possible,” he said. The next formal round of talks is set for late November. “We have to give consideration to what has happened, but at the same time we want to maintain the momentum,” he said. Stayman resigned in late September, and no replacement had been named as Pacific went to press. Senko indicated that the November talks would likely move forward as scheduled, and that action was underway to name a new chief U.S. negotiator.
President Kessai Note will visit Washington in mid-November in advance of the talks to hold what Zackios described as “substantive discussions” with U.S. officials on several key Compact of Free Association negotiation issues, including the U.S.’s “sectoral” approach to future funding.
The Marshall Islands wants to have serious discussion about the apparent U.S. intention of implementing a new sectoral approach to future grant funding under the Compact of Free Association, a long-term defense treaty between the two nations. The U.S. is already using the concept in its negotiations with the neighboring Federated States of Micronesia, and the U.S. General Accounting Office is completing a study related to this, Zackios said.
The sectoral approach differs from the first 15 years of Compact funding in that instead of money being provided in a block grant for education or health that allows local authorities flexibility to use according to their priorities, grant money is earmarked specifically for projects within a single sector. Except for Papua New Guinea, this funding practice hasn’t been used to a great extent in the Pacific, which is one cause for the Marshall Islands’ concern of whether it is an appropriate blueprint for this central Pacific nation, or if used, how it will work in the country. “We need to fully appreciate (the U.S. sectoral approach) before we can be totally committed to it,” he said.
Japan Funds Regional Internet Access Project
Improving access to Internet and distance learning technology for under-served islands in the Micronesian area is a key goal of a project supported by the Japan-based Sasakawa Pacific Island Nations Fund.
In late September, the last of six workshops was held in Majuro, workshops that have been conducted this year in each of the main islands of the freely associated states (FAS) — Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia and Palau — as part of a project to get each island to draft a plan of action that addresses local distance education and Internet needs. Now that each island’s plans have been drafted, they will be put into a regional package that will go to the Sasakawa Foundation for consideration of support, said Bruce Best, the PeaceSat station manager at the University of Guam who led the Majuro workshop. Sasakawa wants to help the freely associated states that don’t have the same access to Internet and telecommunications as more developed Pacific Islands and nations, Best said. While the Japanese government is considering funding a $17 million satellite system to support the FAS region, Best said that Sasakawa wants to know what the islands will do with a communications system — and is keen to assist the islands to develop programs and plans for a sustainable system, including maintenance.
Best said a key issue is Internet “connectivity” — improving the access of people throughout the FAS, particularly in schools. Guam, the Northern Marianas and American Samoa all have access to U.S. federal funding to support student Internet access through local schools. But that same support isn’t available in the FAS. With the regional approach being taken on distance education, it may be possible to attract a variety of funding for improving communication to the outer islands, for example, not only from the Japanese but from such federal sources as the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Best indicated.
Heightened Security Leads To Unintended Fallout
Strict scrutiny of passengers traveling on airlines in the U.S. following the September 11 terrorist attacks have resulted in several cases of mistaken identity, including two involving Samoans. The first incident involved a Samoan woman and her two children who were in American Samoa during the summer to attend a graduation. Upon the family’s return via Honolulu, they were taken into custody and questioned at length by federal agents. The reason: the Samoan woman is married to a man from Saudi Arabia, whose last name matches that of an alleged suspect in the terrorist attack.
Once everything was cleared up the family was released and they returned to the Middle East.
The second case involved a Samoan man who works for a regional airline in the U.S. He was taken into federal custody in Los Angeles in October reportedly because he “looks like he is from one of the Middle East countries.” The newspaper quoted sources saying that the man, a flight engineer, was carrying an airline bag containing flight manuals — one of the key elements U.S. investigators are tracing in their attempt to locate persons who took part in the terrorist attack. He was released once his story was verified by the airline that employs him.
Meanwhile, stepped up security consciousness in the days immediately following September 11 led Marshall Islands police to detain an Italian visitor for allegedly “suspicious” behavior in Majuro. It took two days to establish his bona fides, after which the local visitors authority went into a damage control mode in an effort to limit the negative impact such an incident could have on the fledgling tourist industry.
Photo: Giff Johnson, Robert Kieth-Reid
