Pacific Notes
Pacific Notes
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Hawaii
Bush Meets With Pacific Leaders
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The Seventh Conference of Pacific Island Leaders, hosted every three years by the Pacific Island Development Program at Honolulu's East-West Center was moved up to October so that the Island leaders could meet with U.S. Pres. George W. Bush, who was returning from the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting in Bangkok, Thailand. The PIDP serves as secretariat to the Leaders Group.
Security was on the agenda everywhere. The U.S. had insisted that the APEC meeting (intended to be primarily a trade forum) would focus on regional security. And the Pacific Islands Leaders Conference also had security as its theme, as in: "Enhancing Unity and Dignity: Fighting for a Common Security." Hawaii Gov. Linda Lingle, who had hosted the leaders at her official residence at the opening of the three-day meeting, introduced Pres. Bush to the Island leaders at a special session at the Kahala Mandarin Oriental Hotel. Each leader had a chance to speak briefly with Pres. Bush, but what they said and what Bush said in response remains under wraps still. The White House must approve the statements, which it had not done by press time, two weeks after the events. Tonga's prime minister, Prince Ulukalala Lavaka Ata, who was selected as the Leaders Conference chairman for the next three years, said after the meeting that, "Big countries need friends just as much as small countries do." The Prince had opened the presidential audience with a prayer in Tongan, an act that the Prince said "seemed to put the president in a good mood."
—Scott Whitney
Samoa
Hard Landing For Governor
This photo of an Inter Island Airways plane was taken a short time after it was forced to land nose down on Oct. 30 with Gov. Togiola Tulafono and five Aloha Airlines personnel aboard. The front of the plane had already been jacked up when the photo was taken after 3 p.m. Oct. 30 from behind the airport fence by a Samoa News photographer. All other still and video photos were confiscated by Pago Pago airport security personnel, but Gov. Togiola denied ordering the seizure. It was to be the fledgling airline’s inaugural flight to the Manua islands.
—Scott Whitney
Guam — CNMI
Bank Reports Two Economies Still Flat
Anyone looking for good news about Guam’s economy will not find it in the Bank of Hawaii’s Guam Economic Report October 2003. The Bank of Hawaii Senior Fellow for the Pacific Economies at Honolulu’s East-West Center, Dr. Wali Osman, compiled the report and was in Guam for its release on Oct. 30. The report chronicles the contraction of the island’s overall economy during the last decade—about 35 percent, Osman estimates. Guam’s best hope, at this point, is to appeal for federal assistance based on unique economic forces that act on the island—an appeal that Osman believes has a reasonable chance of success.
Osman produced a similar report for Saipan, called Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands Economic Report: October 2003. The CNMI, which Osman refers to as a "country within a country," where its unique political status allows for a garment industry that has both benefited and embarrassed the CNMI. As to tourism, CNMI’s other key sector, Osman’s report says, "From 1988 to 1996, tourism was the commonwealth’s largest income source and most dynamic industry. However, its sharp decline in 1997-98 and then in 2001 … has shown how fragile and vulnerable that advantage was."
The Guam report describes a two-pronged economy that is based on its U.S. military bases and Japan-dominated tourism. Post-Cold War military downsizing, the island’s reliance on an economically stagnant Japan and a series of disasters (natural and manmade) has caused its economic problems. While the economy shrank, government spending did not. Osman says the island must solve its infrastructure problems—water, power, sewer, roads, etc.
Osman also says that a "major effort must be made to improve education." The full text of both reports is available at www.boh.com.
—Frank Whitman & Scott Whitney
Kiribati
Taiwan In, PRC Out
The central Pacific nation of Kiribati became the fifth island group in the region to establish diplomatic ties with Taiwan when it made the switch from the People’s Republic of China on Nov. 7. The move to ties with the Republic of China/Taiwan is the first major foreign policy action by new Pres. Anote Tong, who has been in office fewer than six months. Kiribati has maintained diplomatic links with the People’s Republic of China since the 1980s. The PRC considers Taiwan a renegade province of the PRC and does not recognize it. But the Kiribati Foreign Ministry said that it will "continue to recognize the government of the PRC" and expressed hope that relations with the PRC "will continue to prosper in the future."
Kiribati joins with the Marshall Islands, Palau, Tuvalu and the Solomon Islands in maintaining ties with Taiwan. Kiribati is the 26th nation worldwide to recognize Taiwan.
The presence of secretive Chinese satellite tracking stations on Tarawa became an issue in the recent election. Kiribati said that it would now support recognition of Taiwan—which is not a member of the United Nations and many international organizations because of opposition from the PRC.
—Giff Johnson
Marshall Islands
Adoptions Abuses Documented
Walter F. Roche Jr., an investigative reporter for the Baltimore Sun, began a series of features Nov. 2nd on the adoptions trade between the Republic of the Marshall Islands and couples in the U.S., who routinely pay at least US$25,000 for each child adopted from the RMI.
Roche describes how pregnant Marshallese women are recruited to relinquish their children. They are often flown to Hawaii just prior to delivery, where they are housed in apartment complexes and given $100 a week for expenses. Adoption agencies, such as the Oklahoma-based Adoption Choices and Mississippi-based Southern Adoptions routinely fly the expectant mothers to Hawaii or the U.S. mainland. The agencies benefit from the "freely associated" status of RMI citizens, who are allowed to travel freely to the U.S. Once on U.S. soil, the agencies get the women qualified for the Federal Medicaid program, based on provisions that allow RMI citizens to qualify in cases of emergency.
The adoption agencies use local, on-island "facilitators" to recruit women. The facilitators get about $2,500 for each transaction, according to Roche’s article. Lawyers usually take $13,500 of the adoption fee. But such arrangements are not legal in the Marshall Islands, which has signed the UN convention on adoptions, which states that offers of money or goods to expectant mothers in return for adoption relinquishment, is not legal. For the full story, see the Baltimore Sun Web site at www.sunspot.com.
—Scott Whitney
