U.S. IN THE PACIFIC
Promises, Promises
What Does U.S. 'Year Of The Pacific' Really Mean?
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| President Kessai Note, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and East-West Center President Charles Morrison at the front of the PICL group in early May. Photo: Suzanne Chutaro |
A few days before the PICL, which was organized by the East-West Center’s Pacific Islands Development Program, the U.S. government had declared 2007 the “Year of the Pacific.” All the signs seemed to be pointing to favorable results, prompting some islands leaders to bring along an updated shopping list of programs of interest to them.
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As the PICL meeting rolled on, however, it became evident to island leaders that the Bush Administration’s knowledge of the insular Pacific left much to be desired.
“The State Department doesn’t have institutional knowledge about the Pacific region,” said Marshall Islands Foreign Minister Gerald Zackios, voicing what other island leaders were saying in private. At functions surrounding the PICL, Pacific leaders had to constantly remind the U.S. that island nations are their friends and they too share the U.S.’s democratic values.
“We in the Pacific have given the U.S. our support on their issues, and we look forward to working closely with them on ours,” said PICL chairman and Marshall Islands President Kessai Note.
Meanwhile, Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat Secretary General Greg Urwin, who was also in the U.S. capital for a U.S.-sponsored “core partners of the Pacific region meeting,” said the general feeling was that “the U.S. tends to be remote from the Pacific. Everyone appreciates that the U.S. has global responsibilities. (But), France, Japan and the European Union have a better state of knowledge about the Pacific region. The U.S. is more familiar with the northern and western Pacific, but the South would like to see the U.S. engage more.”
As the PICL unfolded it became clear, too, that the Pacific Island leaders had conflicting ideas of what the term “more engagement” meant for them.
East-West Center Pacific Island Development Program Director Sitiveni Halapua said at the conclusion of PICL that “this was not a shopping trip.”
Instead, at the end of the “three-day extravaganza,” as the deputy assistant secretary of East Asian and Pacific Affairs Glyn Davies put it, some island leaders were heading back to their islands a bit bewildered and still confused as to what they were going to get out of the U.S. declared “Year of the Pacific.”
While U.S.-affiliated islands clearly had lower expectations because of their familiarity with Washington, non-U.S. affiliated island leaders were expecting more tangible benefits.
The State Department’s East-Asian and Pacific Affairs Assistant Secretary Christopher Hill said that “often when people think of engagement they think of a financial package.” But he said that the U.S. is looking at an “in-kind” approach.
It was evident from the PICL meeting that the U.S. is looking at an engagement with two-prongs: a strong security focus with a touch of public diplomacy programs to smooth out the edges. It appears the Pacific Islands will continue to be defined in Washington by who they are near, not who they are.
U.S. officials took the opportunity to express their concerns over civil unrest in islands such as Fiji, Tonga, Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, that they say is undermining democracy and good governance. This coupled with increasing economic hardship and lack of job opportunities in many of islands means the region is a potential soft target for terrorism and trans-national crimes, U.S. officials said.
The Pacific Islands region can expect U.S. engagement to be a stronger military presence in the north with the Department of Defense’s plan to move 8,000 U.S. Marines from Okinawa to Guam. U.S. officials say this will have a positive economic spin-off into the region through increased regional security, result in more joint military training programs with New Zealand and Australia, and provide a rapid humanitarian response capability in the region.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security also plans to focus more on the Pacific because officials say “the threat is coming from abroad, so we are looking outward.” Stepped up surveillance by the U.S. Coast Guard is one way this is expected to manifest itself.
The other U.S. effort appears to be aimed at winning the hearts and minds of the people of the region and “correct the misperception of the U.S.” through its public diplomacy programs that will be offered through embassies as well as its regional office in Suva.
Not entirely satisfied with the U.S.’s engagement proposal, a Solomon Islands official speaking to reporters put the question back into the U.S.’s court saying that the “onus is on U.S. to prove to the region what it is going to do and to make an effort to show the islands what it means by saying this is the Year of the Pacific.”
The writer attended the Pacific Islands Conference of Leaders, along with other regional journalists, on a grant from the U.S. State Department.
