Politics
So, Who’s Hosting the 2004 Forum?
Niue’s ability to host islands leaders questioned
Niue’s chances of hosting next year’s Pacific Islands Forum meeting ‘hang in the balance’.
Questions have been raised about the isolated island’s ability to cater with a sudden influx of more than 300 people expected to attend the annual event. Leaders of the tiny nation of 1600 souls keenly seek the honour, prestige and benefits they expect the summit will bring them.
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Next in line among the Forum’s 16 member countries to host the summit after New Zealand’s turn in five months’ time, Niue has already begun planning for what would be the biggest undertaking in the 259-square kilometre island’s history.
Australia’s Prime Minister John Howard may have put "the cat among the pigeons" by suggesting in a letter to Forum country leaders that Fiji should be the summit’s venue on alternate years.
After attending last year’s Forum in Suva, Howard was said to be most impressed with the Forum Secretariat set up.
Citing ease of travel to Fiji, Forum Secretariat headquarters’ facilities and security issues as reasons for change, Howard polled islands leaders for their views late last year. It is understood their reactions have been mixed. Those opposed to holding the Forum in Suva every second year include, understandably, Young Vivian, Niue’s premier.
"I don’t think it is a good idea," Vivian told Islands Business. "I have strong reservations about it. The important thing for this Forum is more than logistics and accommodation and facilities. It is getting together and every country has a shot (as Forum host)."
In his reply to Howard, the Niue leader said the ultimate decision would be the consensus view of the Pacific leaders.
"I think the main purpose of having it in the islands countries is the feeling of the people, the benefits that the people will receive. "People feel they are part of a bigger family and people will prepare, paint houses and beautify the place."
Vivian believes the leaders of larger countries learn first-hand how the inhabitants of small islands states live if they actually go there. "I think our people will find it most important that they are hosting leaders from the Pacific," he said.
"If you shift it to Fiji for the facilities and ease of travel, I don’t think we would receive the benefits."
The Niue premier said Fiji would find itself having to foot the bill if Forum leaders decided to go with Howard’s idea.
"It costs Fiji a lot of money to host their meetings, ACP and the Forum," he said, suggesting the Forum had become ‘too big’.
He questioned the need for large delegations to accompany the 12-country dialogue partners in post-Forum talks. A reduction in numbers would ease pressure on the island’s limited accommodation.
"I think there are ways and means of coping with it. Nauru and Kiribati (which hosted the summit in recent years), coped with it. They are small and they have done them very, very well.
"I was told that on Kiribati for the (leaders) retreat they had tents and temporary thatched roofs. That was genuine. What’s wrong with it? "I cannot pretend to be very rich. They have to understand that our brother countries are pretty poor.
"This is a grand opportunity for our people. The Forum is about lifting the people up. If they are not coming because we have a poor house, I will be very disappointed. I would clean my house and make it as best as I could.
"The place (Niue) is nice and clean. People are thinking about their houses."
Scores of derelict houses dot the island’s landscape. Abandoned by the thousands of Niueans who have left their homeland for perceived ‘greener pastures’ such as those of New Zealand, they are a constant eyesore to those who stayed behind and to Niue’s comparatively few visitors.
In readiness for the Forum, Vivian promises his government will start demolishing the empty, dilapidated homes if absentee owners are not prepared to do so.
Asked if Niue was just too small to host such a summit, he said: "I think it is big enough. I think we will make it. We will find something. Last time we billeted people."
Niue last hosted the Forum in 1978.
Vivian hopes New Zealand will closely support Niue in its efforts to host next year’s summit. "I have indicated to New Zealand officials that Niue wants the Forum and we are trying to get some people attached to the New Zealand team that is organising it this year," he said.
Vivian may raise the issue when he meets Prime Minister Helen Clark in Wellington later this month during his first official state visit to New Zealand as Niue leader.
Asked if Niue could cope with staging the Forum, Hima Takelesi Douglas, Niue’s High Commissioner to New Zealand, said: "Not unless there is a reduction in the number of people going to it. To cope, we would have to strip it down to a minimum, the number of visitors. We do not physically have enough accommodation.
"Niue’s accommodation is limited to the Matavai Resort with 24 units, the revamped Niue hotel and several motels.
"Having said that, I think it is important that small islands states feel they are part of the bigger mix.
While Vivian thinks Niue should get the nod for next year’s Forum when leaders meet in Auckland, his predecessor, former premier Sani Lakatani, and a political opponent, former cabinet minister Veve Jacobsen, both think staging the Forum on Niue is beyond the island’s capabilities.
Lakatani believes there are not enough people living on Niue to handle the summit.
Jacobsen said: "It would be difficult to host people of that status without feeling some embarrassment."
Samoa’s Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi told Islands Business he’d responded to Howard’s suggestions in a letter to the Forum Secretary-General, Noel Levi, and raised a number of issues needing consideration.
Tuilaepa said while Howard’s idea of holding summits more frequently in Fiji was not new, he was aware of serious concern among islands nations unable to shoulder the ‘massive cost’ of hosting the Forum.
Like Vivian, the Samoan leader believes small islands states stand to reap major benefits from the presence of visiting Forum country leaders. "The other leaders come to appreciate the kind of economic problems the country is trying to bring to the attention of the (other) countries," he said.
"Howard’s suggestion was only meant to be a helping suggestion to a country that might be pushed into hosting the meeting just because it is its turn, rather than economics. To them (leaders of smaller islands states) pride is very important and it would come above everything else. When it comes to meetings like this, no one would get up and say ‘I cannot do it’."
Of Howard’s concerns about security, Tuilaepa said: "I think it is stretching imagination very far."
He believes it would be very difficult for a ‘wrongdoer’ to escape from an island like Niue where there are few tourists or in Samoa where there is little choice in points of departure, than in Fiji where security is more of an issue.
"In other countries you can mix very well," he said. "Fiji has a big population and you can be passed off as tourists."
Tuilaepa said he has written extensively (in his letter to Levi) on the question of costs arising from Howard’s proposal. "I know Fiji will end up bearing a disproportionate part of the cost," he said.
Sources close to Forum affairs suggest that if leaders opt for Fiji next year, the chairmanship is likely to be offered to Niue anyway, perhaps softening the blow of a venue switch.
In the event of next year’s Forum going to Fiji, staging the leaders’ retreat on Niue would present logistic problems, particularly with Niue being two hours away by air. But Jioji Kotobalavu, the Fiji Prime Minister’s permanent secretary, told Islands Business that his government would be quite happy to see the Forum being staged more regularly at the Forum Secretariat’s headquarters.
"Fiji would welcome whatever the consensus is when they meet in Auckland," said Kotobalavu. "I would not be surprised if one or two countries say the move will confer more benefits to Fiji."
