Island Rivalries Landed Australia Top Forum Job

So what went wrong for the islands at the Auckland Pacific Islands Forum meeting?

How did we end up with Australia's Greg Urwin as the next Forum Secretary-General, the most influential position in the most powerful regional organisation?

What happened to all that talk and hype about maintaining the convention of having a Pacific Islander as secretary-general?

What happened to that agreement by islands leaders in Auckland prior to the summit to support a Pacific Islander for the top Forum job?

What happened to Pacific unity? And should we be crying foul now that the job has gone Australia's way?

Well, a lot has been said about why we failed. But the word from Auckland from officials and Forum observers who were there is that we should not be crying foul.

In fact we should blame our leaders. This is because they literally played into Australian Prime Minister John Howard's hands and gave the job to his candidate, Mr Urwin.

How?

"We had it within our hands. But we gave it away because we couldn't agree on a single Pacific Islander candidate to support," a senior regional foreign affairs official has told me.

It was sad to see that we were so bogged down with traditional rivalry and petty jealousies that in the end it got the better of us.

"Tonga wanted to make a deal with Samoa. But Samoa, who's believed to have had New Zealand's Helen Clark support, was over-confident with its candidate that it refused to come to a compromise with Tonga."

In Samoa, Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi has told local journalists a similar story.

Except his version is that Samoa believed its candidate was highly qualified and had the numbers, and they asked Tonga and Nauru to support them. Samoa also believed that because Tonga had two terms in the position before, it should step aside in favour of Samoa, which has never held the top post. And it believed Nauru's candidate did not have the experience for such a role.

But neither Tonga nor Nauru would withdraw its candidate. In the end Samoa's Environment Minister, Tuala Sale Tagaloa, was the leading islands candidate but the islands were split. This‹and the voting being pushed into a secret ballot on the second day‹enabled Mr Howard to work things his way.

So much for Pacific unity and working together for a common cause. So congratulations to Mr Urwin!

Mr Urwin, a former Australian High Commissioner to Fiji, Samoa and Vanuatu, takes over from Papua New Guinea's Noel Levi in four months for a three-year term.

His appointment to the top Forum job, a first for a non-Pacific Islander, received mixed reactions from Pacific Islanders. While some are disappointed others have hailed the decision.

One Papua New Guinea official described the appointment as the "saddest day in the region. We not only have an Australian heading the Forum, we now also have to contend with Australia now controlling our destinies."

Others like the former Fiji prime minister Sitiveni Rabuka welcomed the appointment.

He said that Mr Urwin's appointment marks the end of the old Pacific Way as Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara put it, and the beginning of pragmatic decision-making which does not have to be a bad thing for the Pacific community.

"Now we will have and expect meritorious performances from those that serve us in the Forum and the leaders must exercise their leadership responsibility to question any sub-quality performance." Could the result have been different? Well, according to Forum officials, it was possible if the leaders had strategised and worked on eliminating Mr Urwin.

One told me: "When Nauru's candidate was eliminated, thus leaving Tonga, Samoa and Australia's candidates, the Pacific leaders could have worked on eliminating Mr Urwin, thus leaving the two Pacific Islands candidates to contest the position."

So what now? We're now stuck with Mr Urwin for the next three years and his promise that he will now become the servant of the Forum countries despite the fact he's an Australian.

Will he really? We'll just have to wait and see. But one consolation for Pacific islanders‹is that there will be a review of the Forum carried out by an Eminent Persons Group to be appointed soon. This will among other things set new directions for the Forum, which Mr Urwin will be guided by. This review is expected to be ready and waiting for him when he takes over in the new year.

But for the region, there is a bigger lesson to be learnt from all this. This is that we need to stick together if we are able to make an impact. Petty jealousies and traditional rivalries have no place if we are to make an impact globally. It reminds me of that saying: "United we stand, divided we fall."

The islands leaders must surely now realise that this is the only Pacific Way when they're up against a politician as determined and experienced as Mr Howard.