We Say 1

Pacific Islanders are perfectly well aware that internationally they rate as very small fry in a great big pond they share with voracious carnivores. Some carnivores want our fish, forests and minerals. Others want our votes in such forums as the United Nations General Assembly, where the collection of Pacific Islands states amounts to a bloc of votes that shark states are eager to lobby for as support for their causes.

Other carnivores have other motives for cultivating countries with total populations that would not fill one small village or town in Europe, Asia or America.

France courts goodwill from the region as an endorsement of its hopes to have a continuing presence in one form or another in its three Pacific colonies.

Indonesia courts the region in the hope of averting the risk of the Pacific Islands Forum's attention becoming focussed on West Papua in the way it used to be focussed on New Caledonia, nuclear tests in the region and Asian driftnet fishermen.

Now, why has China decided to become the only non-Pacific Islands full member of the South Pacific Tourism Organisation? Because it is another leg for it in regional affairs, useful for nobbling Taiwan's activities in the region and for whatever long range purposes for itself in the region that it has in mind.

Other overtures, all made in the name of brotherly love, are received from Malaysia, South Korea, Japan, India and the Europeans. Look carefully, fine silken strings can be seen to be attached to all of them.

If they are careful and canny, Pacific Islanders can play these strings to their advantage.

Since the late 1990s, the Pacific Islands have heard a great deal of advice from the nearest of the powers that they unavoidably must take heed of. It has come loudly from Australia and more subduedly from New Zealand.

Australians can't help being loud since it helps their efforts to intimidate New Zealanders. The now very frequent exhortations heard from Canberra and Wellington are accompanied by assurances that they are uttered with the best of intent by people deeply committed to improving the lot of their small Pacific Ocean neighbours.

Yes, Australians especially have no evil intent, none at all behind, say, keeping the lid on the Solomon Islands and Nauru, and hoping to apply one to Papua New Guinea.

Barraged by advice from the west and south, the Pacific's islanders have woken up to the awfulness of all their many little failings, too obvious to be worth mentioning.

Is all that is being heard about themselves to be swallowed by feckless islanders and acted on self-correctingly?

Each year the United States issues an indictment in which it sanctimoniously passes judgement on the annual affairs of all the world's other countries. No country is too small to escape the attention of Washington, D.C. This year, Tonga's brand of governance copped it hard, much to the indignation of Tonga's government. Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands got wiggings. As for Nauru, tch, tch! As a certain religious tome put it, let he who is without sin cast the first stone. What about the record of the United States of America? That question must inevitably raise questions about the present United States regime's real intent and activities in Iraq.