Pacific Notes
Pacific Notes
New Caledonia
Protests Demand Mining Halt
Nearly 1,000 protestors took to the streets of Noumea, New Caledonia last month, demanding withdrawal of a permit tripling the amount of nickel mining by Inco, a Canadian mining operation. New Caledonia, also called Kanaky, is a territory of France. The protest by indigenous Kanaks, environmentalists, political parties, women’s organizations and small businesses was the second large-scale action in less than a month on the island, whose population numbers 200,000.
“Investors and public financial institutions should understand the extraordinary degree of risk associated with Inco’s New Caledonia plans,” said Environmental Defense scientist Stephanie Gorson Fried. “French, Australian, American and Canadian contractors are poised to begin constructing the $1.4 billion Inco nickel-cobalt mining facility using an unproven, dangerous pressure acid-leach technology in an area adjacent to fragile reef systems proposed for nomination as a World Heritage Site.” Fried says the company has a history of environmental problems and conflicts with indigenous people in Canada and Indonesia.
Protestors have heavily criticized the French government’s recent announcement that it planned to withdraw its January 2002 request for UNESCO World Heritage Site protection for the New Caledonia reef ecosystem—the second largest barrier-reef system in the world after Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. In August 2002, shortly after a Paris visit by New Caledonia governor of the Southern Province, Jacques Lafleur, France’s new Environment Minister, Roseline Bachelot, announced she would ensure protection of Kanaky reefs by working with international mining companies, instead of seeking World Heritage designation. New Caledonia has been identified by the prestigious British journal Nature as one of the world’s top “biodiversity hotspots.”
—Scott Whitney
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Fight Leads To Murders On Board Catamaran Near Tahiti
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The Rocky Mountain News reported that Dabord, sailing with the group, called his girlfriend in the U.S. using a cell phone from on board the catamaran to tell her what happened. Investigators tracked the location of the call to Maiao, an island about 50 miles west of Tahiti.
The Rocky Mountain News provided a blow-by-blow account of the events on board the vessel, as told by Dabord to his girlfriend, Erica Weisse. “Dabord told her that he and Dele were fighting on the boat when Karlan and Saldo tried to stop them,” the News reported. Dabord said he accidentally punched both Karlan and Saldo. The punch knocked Karlan over. She fell, hitting her head on a metal cleat, killing her instantly. Saldo wanted to call for help, but Dele ordered him not to.
When Saldo refused to listen, Dele slammed a wrench into Saldo’s head, killing him. Then Dele turned to Dabord, threatening him and saying he had to keep quiet about the killings. Weise told the paper that Dabord told her he grabbed a gun on the catamaran and killed his brother in self-defense. He said he then threw all three bodies overboard.
Dabord sailed the vessel back to Tahiti and flew back to the U.S. In mid-September, he was discovered unconsious in Tijuana, Mexico, and taken to Scripps Memorial Hospital near San Diego. News reports said that he fell into a coma after overdosing on insulin and failing to take asthma medication. He was on life support at the hospital for about two weeks and died at the end of September. He was not charged in his brother’s disappearance.
—Giff Johnson
Photo: Floyd K. Takeuchi
Mr. Justice Yamase
The Federated States of Micronesia’s Supreme Court has a new associate justice. Chief Justice Andon Amaraich on October 3rd swore in Dennis K. Yamase at the FSM Supreme Court in Palikir, Pohnpei. Yamase’s wife, the former Judy Abello of Pohnpei, took part in the ceremony. Yamase, originally from Hawaii and a graduate of the University of Hawaii’s William S. Richardson School of Law, has worked as an attorney in the FSM, Northern Marianas and Palau over the past 20 years. He was most recently a consultant attached to the FSM Supreme Court. Yamase will be based in Weno, Chuuk. Federated States of Micronesia
Chuuk Mayor Fights FSM Prosecution
A court-approved search of Udot Mayor Tadashi Wainit’s residence in Chuuk in early September exploded into an angry confrontation between Wainit, Chuuk State police officers and a mob of more than 500 people on one side and Federated States of Micronesia national police officers and two assistant attorneys general on the other.
Pohnpei’s Kaselehlie Press, in a front-page story headlined “Justice or Anarchy?” reported that Chuuk police and the Udot mob on the second day of the search disarmed and handcuffed the FSM national police and AG’s office officials, before giving them the choice of leaving the island or being arrested. They left.
The incident at Udot, a small island in the western part of Chuuk’s lagoon, resulted in Wainit being charged with 39 counts of kidnapping, threats and improper influence in official matters and resisting arrest. Chuuk State Public Safety director Kent Cheipot and Chuuk police captain Kerson Rizal were each also charged with 39 counts of aiding and abetting the three charges of kidnapping, threats and improper influence in official matters, and resisting arrest. They pled not guilty at a late September arraignment.
Last year, Wainit was charged in the FSM Supreme Court with 12 criminal counts related to interference with voter rights in the 2001 national election. The FSM court-approved search warrant, which led to the incident in early September, was aimed at obtaining evidence about Wainit’s activity in the 1999 election campaign.
Wainit and his Pohnpei-based attorney Stephen Finnen argue that the search warrant was not properly followed by the FSM national police and AG’s office, that FSM officials took many items from his house clearly unrelated to the warrant and that they generally trashed his home.
The FSM attorney general’s office election charges, and follow-up criminal charges against Wainit, are part of a larger effort within the AG’s office to prosecute what it says are criminal activities that have come to light through FSM national investigations.
“I don’t have any agenda and there has been no policy issued about a crackdown,” says FSM Department of Justice Secretary Paul E. McIlrath. “I’m just doing my job.”
The prosecutions have prompted Chuuk citizens to contact the AG’s office with tips about other abuses within government, say McIlrath and assistant attorney general R. Anthony Welch. “The more we do, the more people tell us,” Welch says.
—Giff Johnson
Tonga’s Ship Registry Woes Affect Vanuatu, Marshall Islands
The international reputation of the Pacific Islands is being harmed by countries that register foreign vessels without adequate security checks, says Tony Finch, a former marine adviser with the Pacific Islands Forum and an authority on regional shipping. His comments follow a number of smuggling incidents involving arms and alleged terrorists being carried on ships flying the flag of Tonga.
The latest incident occurred in September, when Italian police arrested 15 Pakistani men said to have links to the al-Qaeda network on board Sara, a Tongan-registered ship.
Finch has called on Pacific Islands countries, particularly Vanuatu and the Marshall Islands, to end the practice of “flag of convenience” ship registrations. However, an official with the Marshall Islands ship registry says it is absurd to compare the Marshall Islands and Tongan ship registries. More than 50 percent of the fleet registered in the Marshall Islands are American vessels, primarily oil supertankers, says the official, adding that the Marshall Islands was the only foreign ship registry to recently meet stringent safety requirements of a U.S. Coast Guard-sponsored shipping review program.
Although Tonga is supposed to have closed its ship registry last May, ships already registered may be permitted to fly the Tongan flag for another year, says Finch. Tonga would have made money out of its registry without taking on any of the responsibilities, he says.
—Norman Douglas and Giff Johnson
