Letters

IB's incisive perception

I wish to take this opportunity to thank you for your congratulatory note and for the interest Islands Business is taking in our new government. I am a strong supporter of an independent media and my government will in due course undertake to review legislative changes, initiated by the previous government in Kiribati, which have been a cause for concern to the media in the region.

May I also express my admiration for your publication for its informative and incisive perception of regional issues.

President Anote Tong, KIRIBATI

Urwin's the man for the job

Greg Urwin, the man who will lead the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat faced a wall of criticism from the moment he was endorsed as a candidate by Australia. After his election during the Pacific Islands Forum meeting in Auckland, Mr Urwin made a speech in which he defended himself as "(a) servant of the people who put me (in this position), which is the members of the Forum. Pure and simple."

But should this man need to explain or defend himself at the outset of his tenure? No. Mr Urwin has served Australia and also the entire Pacific region with distinction. He is a worthy secretary-general who will serve the interests of all Pacific nations well. The anti-Australianism displayed by his critics only serves to make the job of reforming the secretariat and promoting good governance more difficult.

A Pacific Islands News Association news report of August 18 entitled: "New Forum Leader Reveals Policy" stated that: "Mr Urwin says he won't be an Australian on anything because 'I'm the servant of the Forum.'" This unprecedented outcry is astonishing considering that Pacific Islands states have never displayed such criticism at the election of a new secretary-general.

Mr Noel Levi, a Papua New Guinean (and a fine secretary-general) was never criticised by other Pacific states because of his nationality nor was it suggested that he could not fulfil the task of representing their needs in his role as secretary-general.

Mr Levi's Australian education is nonetheless a conveniently forgotten fact. If an Australian educated man from the Pacific Islands can pursue a career in the Forum Secretariat as Mr Levi has, why can't an Australian educated man who has lived and worked in the Pacific all his life does so to?

The suggestion that Australia will hijack the Forum to serve its own agenda is ludicrous. What possible end would this serve? Australia spends many hundreds of millions of dollars every year on aid in the Pacific; it has a considerable Pacific Islander population, and is geographically very much a part of Oceania. Australia does have an interest in seeing that good governance across the region is observed, that governments honour social obligations, and that the region is the safest it can possibly be. Not to impinge on sovereignty or to take control of the Pacific Islands Forum. Australia is a member of the region‹not a neo-colonial power. In the aforementioned news report, Mr Urwin said in relation to the responsibility of the secretary-general: "I will cease to be an Australian. I will be a servant of those people who have appointed me. And that is the entire membership of the Forum."

Was Mr Levi forced to renounce his citizenship in the interests of regional cohesion? Or any other secretary-general for that matter? I think not. It's time for Pacific states to embrace Australia as a co-operative and good member of our Pacific. We have so much to contribute if only critics could recognise Australia's good intentions and her desire to see the Pacific be all that it can be in all spheres while maintaining the integrity of sovereignty and independence of Pacific nations.

Blake Erickson, AUSTRALIA

Two sides of Samoa

I comment on Samisoni Pareti's interview with Samoa's Minister of Finance, Misa Telefoni Retzlaff published recently in Islands Business and his subsequent comments in the Sunday Samoa newspaper, July 6, 2003. My comments are restricted to the increasing socio-behavioural problems we face in Samoa, most of which are exactly the same as those increasingly experienced throughout the South Pacific.

There must be two Samoas‹one in which the majority of us live in and the other in which the Honourable Minister of Finance lives in. This is obvious after reading the two articles mentioned above. The Honourable Minister refers to the faa' Samoa as "a community-based social system", suggesting that this takes care of all our socio-behavioural problems.

Why then are NGOs dealing with social issues, client caseloads for human rights abuses, domestic violence and child abuse complaints, rape and incest cases and appeals for assistance with many other social ills, increasing at an alarming rate in Samoa?

The number of cases wanting assistance has increased from 42 in 2000 to 43 in 2001; to 56 in 2002; to 210, so far, in 2003 (I thank the NGOs for their permission to include this data).

Faataua le Ola, as we hear from their CEO in the media, is now counselling in the fields of domestic violence, child abuse and other social issue areas.

Then we have daily newspaper reports of court cases about socio-behavioural issues, sometimes two or three cases a day. Certainly, it is difficult to get hard data on the actual extent of our socio-behavioural problems, mainly because those dealing with these issues are scattered over many government ministries, NGOs and other organisations.

Secondly, the police records only deal with cases that actually go to court, not those that are reported but then withdrawn, for many reasons such as compensation paid to victims, apologies to the victims or their families or reconciliation between warring parties. But not all cases we get to hear about get recorded, those that should come to the main NGO or police, but do not, because of the family pride factor.

This matter of how we obtain data on the extent of our socio-behavioural problems must be addressed. Many bodies are "jealous" of their position in the overall approach to addressing socio-behavioural problems and lose sight of the bigger picture. It is difficult, sometimes impossible, to extract case data from such bodies. This problem has to be overcome. We cannot impress upon government the extent of our socio-behavioural problems unless true data is presented to them.

How often throughout the South Pacific do we see the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer, with governments downplaying the fact that poverty exists and little or no government funds being channelled into social service programmes?

What can we expect if the education system continues to turn out increasing number of youth with qualifications but no job opportunities or prospects? Disillusioned youth and increased socio-behavioural problems, including youth crime.

It is well recognised overseas that social development must be considered in any overall development policy for a nation, along with education, health and economic development. One cannot proceed without the other. But it does in nations in the South Pacific. But returning to Samoa, if we go along with the minister's comment on faa' Samoa and socio-behavioural problems, he has apparently ignored the fact that an increasing proportion of people, approaching 50 percent of the population, are living in and migrating to the urban centres of Apia and Salelologa and the satellite settlements on the outskirts of the Apia urban area.

This migration to the urban areas is a South Pacific-wide phenomenon, presenting the same socio-behavioural problems, including crime.

Any village structure and in many instances, control by matai in individual households within these satellite settlements does not exist. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the incidence of socio-behavioural problems including crime are rapidly increasing in these settlements.

There is little doubt that the need for social service delivery outside the palliative of payment of the "old age pension" is urgently required. The police, I believe, are to build a "hostel for our youth offenders" with little or no discussion on how it is to be set up and run, and how it is to be fitted in to the justice and parole system and other socio-behavioural service providers and suppliers. Where is the coordination and/or "partnership" discussion?

Returning to the Samoa that the minister lives in and the Samoa the rest of us live in, when will government partly fund MOA, which is now providing these socio-behavioural services increasingly required by the nation? This happens in other countries, why not here?

The main NGO dealing with socio-behavioural problems is being flooded with appeals for help.

The Honourable Minister is obviously unaware of this, even though appeals to the Totalizator Agency Board (TAB), which the minister presides over, for funding to help this NGO deal with this workload, when it had a cash-flow crisis, now overcome, were unsuccessful.

Admittedly, the NGO is not a cultural or sporting body, which, as the minister advised the organisers of the recent March for Peace, were the only bodies which could receive funding consideration from TAB.

Yet, Faataua le Ola received multiple grants from the Totalizator Agency Board during the same period. Why them and not this other NGO?

T V Bourke, SAMOA