Whispers
Whispers
Solomon Islands intelligence: The murder of former police commissioner, Sir Fred Soaki, a crime for which a renegade policeman has since been arrested and charged, was no simple aberration, according to a close follower of Solomon Islands affairs. He believes the order for the murder came from high-level government sources. The motive: to remove one of the few men of integrity capable of giving the new British police commissioner, Bill Morrell, the backup he needs for his horribly difficult task of restoring integrity to the police force and public confidence in it. Why should anyone want Soaki removed? To foul up the process of social reconstruction so that the outrageous beneficiaries of the Solomon Islands strife can continue benefitting from it.
Virgin Blue ready for takeoff: Australia’s Virgin Blue is sure it will be flying Australian and New Zealand tourists to the Pacific Islands before the end of this year, but probably not as Virgin Blue. The airline thinks it may need to rebrand itself for Pacific flights. Maybe, as Virgin Pacific. The airline, not viewed with friendly feelings by Qantas, Air Pacific and Air New Zealand, is still being coy about the identity of its first destinations. But Fiji, Vanuatu, Samoa and the Cook Islands appear to be strong contenders and, says the airline, it’s not ruling out more isolated spots like Niue nor, at a much later date, French Polynesia. As for airfares, well, it was whispered to Whispers, Virgin’s experience is a 30 percent drop on prevailing rates brings a 30 percent jump in traffic. Virgin is laying heavy stress on its desire to work with, not against, weak nationally-owned regional airlines by any mutually agreeable means. Perhaps it could be chucking a liferaft to Royal Tongan Airlines, whose ambitious Boeing 757 flights to New Zealand and Australia are said to be running at only 23 percent occupancy, and at rather unprofitably low fares at that.
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No power to Rainmaker: In March, American Samoa’s power authority cut Pago Pago’s Rainmaker Hotel’s electricity supply off, not for the first time, but for the first time all through the night. The authority was in pursuit of a US$500,000 bill. At high noon the next day after the cut, there was still no power so most of Rainmaker’s staff went home. What happened to the guests, if any, was unrecorded. The territory’s government, which owns 80 percent of Rainmaker, has been trying to sell it for years.
Guam update: Here’s an update on economic development in Guam, where the government is broke and the hospital service collapsing: In March, following the basing of nuclear submarines there, the United States flew in 24 B-1 and B-52 bombers now positioned there ready to bomb North Korea or anywhere else the Americans feel has a regime that needs changing. Guam, which relies for a living on visits by currently dwindling numbers of Japanese tourists, is now having windows smashed and ears deafened by supersonic bangs from low level flying supersonic B-1s. Guamanians have been assured by the United States that there’s not much chance of a North Korean nuclear-tipped rocket being fired at them and the bombers. But doesn’t not much chance still mean that there’s some chance?
Micronesia beware: Keep your fingers crossed if travelling by air in Micronesia. According to the Honolulu Advertiser, the region is now the host of an ultra-powerful missile-tracking radar that’s floating about on a floating platform. It is so powerful that it can cause “electro-explosive devices” to detonate along with automobile inflatable safety bags and aircraft ejection seats. It will be tested about 20 times a month. The United States military is promising to “make sure there are no hazards to people, period”. But if, say aboard Air Nauru, your beer begins to boil, your hair catches fire, all the life jackets suddenly inflate and you find yourself being blasted, with your seat, into the wide blue yonder, then you’ll know that the military has it wrong. Dolphins and turtles will be comforted to know that they can avoid being cooked as long as they stay at least half an inch below the ocean’s surface.
Brush with the law: Papua New Guinea police have charged the tourism minister with assault, possession of a gun while under the influence of liquor, wilful damage and threatening to shoot people. The minister starred in incidents at a Port Moresby club and hotel.
Honouring de Gaulle: Everyone knows how much French Polynesia’s Gaston Flosse admires his very good mate, Jacques Chirac, who he hopes will be fronting up in Papeete in late July. And it’s no surprise to learn that he’s a great admirer of one of the grandest of all Frenchmen, Charles de Gaulle. To commemorate the departure of French Polynesia’s war veterans to whatever war they became veterans of, President Flosse is to have a statue of de Gaulle erected on the spot they left from. It will be sculpted by the bloke who did one to be found glaring down from a plinth on the Champs Elysees in Paris. In what some Anglos may decide to interpret as a deliberate affront to Captain William Bligh, the British navy, or perhaps Marlon Brando, Bounty Square, on the Papeete waterfront, will be named Jacques Chirac Square. “We owe him so much. He has always remained faithful to General de Gaulle’s thinking and he is currently proving this on the international scene,” Flosse explained.
US popularity: Americans suffer ups and downs with their popularity, but at Tanna, home of Vanuatu’s John Frum cargo cult, it’s always up hopefully. The cult began during World War Two when Tanna’s Frummers gazed into the sky hoping to be rewarded with showers of good stuff dropped by passing United States military cargo planes. They still wait. In February, reports the Vanuatu Trading Post, the flags of Vanuatu, the United States and Australia’s aboriginals were raised at Tanna for John Frum Day, when Frummers with USA painted on their chests, drilled in formation with bamboo rifles. But all is not well, for John Frum has lost supporters to the rival “Prophet Fred”, ensconced on top of a remote hill in “New Jerusalem”. Fred is described as a bloke of “soft-spoken eloquence” and “saintly repose” who spends most of his time in his hut talking to God.
Royal thumbs down: Tonga’s Queen Halaevalu Mata’aho lost her cool and castigated “insulting and disrespectful” Fiji journalists who in March attended a Suva book launch ceremony. The Queen and her attendant ladies said the garb worn by the scribes was “insulting and disrespectful”. She thought editors should instruct their reporters what to wear when on important jobs. It’s not just in Fiji that Pacific Island journalists tend to be somewhat scruffy, allowing for the fact that some may naturally go bare-footed. Maybe the ordeal of attending long, usually utterly tedious functions in dripping tropical heat is an influencing factor. Tonga’s scribes have it tough. For royal occasions they need a tie and. also a ta’ovala. This is a woven mat tied around their waist. Ironically, the older, grubbier and moth-eaten it is, the greater the respect.
Rumblings in the civil service: Fiji is not the first island nation to put their top civil servants called permanent secretaries on contract. But rumblings suggest the exercise is not going as smoothly as planners want it to be. At least two very senior civil servants have applied for jobs outside the service after expressing frustration at being sidelined for promotion on several occasions. A few public service commissioners are also said to be threatening to go public after complaining that their recommendations for permanent secretary appointments have been ignored. Ministerial interference is said to be a central cause of irritation, as politicians have the tendency to hand pick their permanent secretaries, in direct contravention of the constitution which bestows the appointment of secretaries in the hands of the commissioners who are supposed to be independent.
Diplomat at it again: Remember that senior Fiji diplomat who was the subject of a protest note for getting his taxpayer-funded secretary to write love notes to his mistress? Well, apparently, the same diplomat is said to have worked hard to collect clothing and other relief supplies for victims of Cyclone Ami that caused widespread devastation in northern and eastern Fiji early in the year. His office was inundated with tonnes of relief provisions, and the diplomat, patriotic as he is, worked extra hard in negotiating a return business class ticket FOC to deliver the supplies to his affected countrymen and women. The diplomat is now back at his assignment and the airline—three months later—is keenly awaiting to see a photo of victims getting those tonnes of provisions air-freighted, FOC, of course.
Inside story: Executives of the regional news media organisations were understandably beaming with pride over achieving a long-overdue merger. The Pacific Islands News Association (PINA) and Pacific Islands Broadcasting Association (PIBA) executives (pictured) agreed to unify as PINA, a move many in the region have long wanted. The breakthrough, after years of negotiations, came at a meeting in Suva. But watch for a couple more stories to emerge in the weeks ahead. One could be over the demand by Pacific Islands Broadcasting Association executives that their secretariat produce long-overdue audited accounts. Pronto!
