Pacific Notes
Pacific Notes
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Somare New PNG Prime Minister
Papua New Guinea now has a new prime minister, Sir Michael Somare, who was elected unopposed by a unanimous vote of 88-0. The country’s seventh Parliament met on August 5, 2002, after the national election. He was first elected to the PM’s office in 1975, when the country became independent, and then in 1977 and in 1982. This could be his last time in Parliament. Sir Michael would be retiring from Parliament in 2007 after more than three decades.
Before the seventh Parliament met, Somare, the leader of the National Alliance party, was very optimistic about his election as the prime minister. The writing was already on the wall that Sir Michael would lead PNG as its chief executive officer for the fourth time. According to the new legislation on the integrity of political parties, the governor general would invite the political party with the highest number of seats to form a government. The NA has 15 seats.
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Somare was confident he could form the government, because he had the support of the coalition parties, which included the People’s Action Party, People’s Progress Party, Melanesian Alliance, People’s National Congress, PNG National Party and other minority parties.
Former prime minister and founder of the People’s Democratic Movement party Paias Wingti, congratulated Somare, saying he was the people’s choice. Wignti said the people have spoken by the overwhelming support NA got.
The election of Somare last month is the second time in his political career he has been elected unopposed.
—Winis Map
Kosrae
Plutonium Cruises Despite Opposition
Two armed British ships carrying enough plutonium to make more than 50 nuclear bombs made their way from Japan to Britain on July 13, passing through the territories of several Pacific Islands, including Kosrae and Pohnpei in the Federated States of Micronesia.
The shipment was in direct contravention to FSM’s stated wishes. The rejected plutonium mixed-oxide fuel, called MOX, will, according to a statement issued on July 5 by the government of the FSM, “clearly pose a great risk to the livelihoods of the people and the marine ecosystems of the FSM.
“The government of the FSM,” the terse statement continued, “wishes therefore to reiterate its continued strong opposition to the shipment of MOX fuel through the region, especially through its Exclusive Economic Zone.”
According to Simon Boxer, a Greenpeace representative meeting with governments that are along the route, the Japanese “sneaked out” the “floating target for terrorists” hours before a judge was due to decide on an injunction to stop it.
If allowed to continue, such shipments—the result of rejected nuclear material sent by British Nuclear Fuels to Japan—could mean up to 100 more shipments over the next decade. According to Boxer, the shipments were in violation of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.
—Olivier L. Wortel
Micronesia
Chata’an Cleanup
Recovery continues in Chuuk, Guam and Rota from the damage wrought by Tropical Storm/Typhoon Chata’an in early July.
In Chuuk State, the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency is transitioning from response to recovery operations, said Bill Carwile, federal coordinating officer overseeing FEMA operations in the three locations. In response to the July 2 catastrophe, FEMA provided 45,000 kilograms of rice, almost 100,000 liters of water and other food and housing supplies.
Mudslides claimed 47 lives and 14 others were evacuated to Honolulu and Guam.
By August 9, more than 2,500 people had applied for housing assistance at FEMA disaster recovery centers. “We’re working very closely now with the Federated States of Micronesia. Vice President Redley Killion of Chuuk is deploying there along with a team from Pohnpei to assist in the recovery efforts.”
The Ayuda Foundation of Guam continues to send medical personnel and supplies. “The situation is stabilizing,” said Rhonda Green, an Ayuda volunteer nurse, from the hospital in Weno. Hospital personnel continue to cope with a lack of supplies.
On other lagoon islands, contaminated water is causing concern about new health problems, including whooping cough and cholera. An Ayuda physician volunteer in Chuuk reported a growing number of diarrhea cases, respiratory illnesses and skin diseases, says Carlotta Leon Guerrero, Ayuda executive director. “It’s all due to a lack of uncontaminated water.”
Responding to reports of crop destruction in the islands outside the lagoon, an initial on-site assessment was that damage was “not significant,” said Carwile. “If we get a request from FSM to do further evaluation, we’re prepared to do so.”
In Guam, the July 5 typhoon brought winds of up to 105 knots and 60 cm of rain in the same areas. On July 10, typhoon Halong passed 150 km south of Guam, with winds up to 75 knots on the island. Though damage was minimal, recovery operations halted as Halong passed.
Power and water service were disrupted islandwide and was gradually restored within three weeks to most residents, though problem areas remain throughout Guam. As of August 10, residents in northern and central villages were being advised to boil tap water due to the presence of fecal coliform bacteria.
The American Red Cross classified 1,966 Guam homes as totally destroyed or severely damaged. A preliminary estimate of damage to government facilities was $64 million and to businesses $16.9 million. As of August 9, FEMA had approved $8.1 million in emergency housing assistance, $10.9 million in individual and family grants and $9.6 million in Small Business Administration disaster assistance loans for housing and small businesses.
In Rota, sustained winds from Typhoon Chata‘an reached 40 knots, with gusts to 65 knots. The Pacific Daily News reported that damage on the Northern Marianas island totaled $3.5 million to roads, the airport, the harbor and crops. On August 8, FEMA announced that President George Bush had approved Gov. Juan Babauta’s request for assistance for the repair of government facilities and structures.
—Frank Whitman
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Audit Makes Interesting Reading
On a recent trip to Honolulu, former Kiribati president Ieremia Tabai was carrying the kind of travel reading that only an accountant could love—the April 2002 Report of the Auditor General. Since Tabai is an accountant, as well as an opposition MP in the Kiribati Parliament, he went over the document in some detail.
Tabai noticed a payment of $3,447.97 for work on the Minister of Works and Energy’s official residence. The auditor stated that there was no documentation of the work done and that the amount was paid directly to the minister. The report also questioned the Minister of Labor, Employment and Cooperative’s driver’s overtime hours. “For example,” the report says, “the log states that the purpose of the trip was to transport Minister to the office with the time recorded as from 17:00 to 22:00 hours meaning that it either took the driver five hours for this trip of that he had to wait five hours at the office for the minister.”
The auditor also complains that the issues brought up in his 1999 audit were never resolved, such as the $26,686 in personal long-distance calls racked up by the same Minister of Labor, Employment and Co-Operative.
The auditor also found many “irregularities” in the fund used to pay Aloha Airlines for charter flights to Christmas Island. In 2000, the minister of Information, Communication and Transportation charged two trips for himself and his wife to this account, as well as travel to PNG and Geneva for the minister and other officials. There was also an “unsupported/unexplained direct debit” of $75,115 to the same account.
In other fiscal matters, Tabai says he worries about the sale of Kiribati passports which, at $15,000 a pop, brought in $1,025,751 in 2000. “The passports are mostly bought by Chinese and there was supposed to be some requirement that they invest in the country. There is no evidence this is happening.” The passports are sold for the Kiribati government by an agent in Hong Kong.
Tabai now runs a newspaper, the Kiribati Newstar, which is in direct competition with the government-owned paper. The Parliamentary majority is in the process of amending the Newspaper Registration Act, which some observers feel is meant to clamp down on Tabai’s paper. The government has also refused to give the former president a license to operate a radio station. “Issues like freedom of speech and information are not big concerns for people in Kiribati—or in any developing country. These seem like luxuries,” Tabai says, “to people who are just worried about getting enough food.”
—Scott Whitney
Region
Four Islands Still On Finance Blacklist
Four Pacific Islands remain on an international blacklist of countries that “do not cooperate in the fight against money laundering,” according to a report of the Financial Action Task Force issued in late June. The task force was founded at the G-7 Summit in Paris in 1989. The Marshall Islands, the Cook Islands, Nauru and Niue are still on the list. Four countries were taken off the FATF blacklist, including Hungary, Israel, Lebanon, St. Kitts and Nevis.
The Marshall Islands is aiming to get off the list when FATF holds its next plenary session in August.
Marshall Islands banking commissioner Alfred Alfred Jr. said he wasn’t surprised that the Marshall Islands remained on the list, but that what surprised local officials were the reasons cited by the FATF. “The FATF didn’t acknowledge the work that’s been put into antimoney laundering,” Alfred says. “We’ve achieved a lot.”
Alfred indicated that the Marshall Islands was anticipating a visit by an inspection team in late August. This is an essential step in the Marshall Islands’ attempt to get off the money-laundering blacklist, Alfred says.
“This visit is the ultimate opportunity for them to see what we have and for us to convince them that what we have is up to international standards,” Alfred says.
He said the planned visit to the Marshall Islands is the first time the FATF will make a visit to any country on the blacklist, a development that Alfred attributes heavily to support for the visit by the U.S. State Department. The FATF list can be seen at www1.oecd.org/fatf.
—Giff Johnson
Region
Congressman Critical of Bush’s Pacific Policies
American Samoa’s representative to the U.S. Congress took the Bush administration to task on climate change and its nuclear testing legacy in the Marshall Islands. Congressman Faleomavaega Eni Hunkin keynoted the opening of the South Pacific Regional Environment Program’s Conference on Nature Conservation and Protected Areas held in the Cook Islands in early July.
“I am disappointed in the U.S. administration’s position on [climate change],” Hunkin said to the conference, attended by about 200 conservationists, scientists, government officials and activists from around the Pacific region. “To just entirely pull out of the Kyoto process is unfair to the world community.”
The U.S. produces 36 percent of the industrialized world’s so-called greenhouse gas emissions, which scientists say are causing the Earth’s atmosphere to warm. “No matter how you look at it, developing countries, including the South Pacific island nations, will bear the brunt of climate consequences,” Hunkin said.
In referring to the U.S. government’s rejection of the Kyoto Protocol, Hunkin said that “the Pacific region has already endured nuclear testing and should not be asked to bear the brunt of the consequences of sea-level rise from climate change.”
He criticized both the French and American governments for causing serious health and environmental problems from their combined 287 nuclear tests in French Polynesia and the Marshall Islands.
The congressman, a strong proponent of Island issues in Washington, said that his pleas to colleagues often fall on deaf ears.
—Giff Johnson
