Pacific leaders are starting to trickle into Papua New Guinea for two high level meetings and a number of side talks.
The leaders are set to meet with India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi and a high-level US delegation in Port Moresby tomorrow.
PNG Prime Minister James Marape told local media on Thursday that President Joe Biden had called to apologise for his absence due to the need to return to Washington for meetings with Congressional leaders to raise its debt ceiling issue and avoid a default.
“He conveyed his sincerest apologies that he cannot make it into our country,” Marape said.
“I did place the invitation to him [that] at the next earliest available time, please come and visit us here.”
Biden has confirmed that US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will arrive on Monday to meet with PNG for a bilateral meeting and engage in a separate meeting with the Pacific Islands Forum leaders.
Biden also invited Marape and other Pacific leaders to Washington later this year for the second US summit with the Pacific Islands Forum.
“He did invite again the Pacific Island leaders to go back for a progressive continuation of the meeting that we have initially held last September in Washington,” Marape said.
Fiji’s Rabuka already in PNG
Fiji Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka has already arrived in Papua New Guinea.
He was greeted by acting Deputy Prime Minister John Rosso.
“After being welcomed by young traditional Motu Koitabu dancers, PM Rabuka made a courtesy visit to Government House and met with Governor-General Grand Chief Sir Bob Dadae,” Rosso said in a statement.
He has since been hosted by Marape for dinner at the State Function Room at Parliament House.
“PM Rabuka will be joined by other Pacific Island leaders, including New Zealand PM Chris Hipkins, who will travel into PNG this weekend,” Rosso said.
The traditional presentation of kamunaga or whale’s tooth was accorded to Governor-General Dadae to convey Fiji’s respect and appreciation for the historical and traditional ties shared between our two countries and moreso to further advance regional cooperation. pic.twitter.com/vbFOCrmTLk
The leaders will be in Port Moresby for the third Forum for India-Pacific Islands Cooperation (FIPIC).
According to Marape, 14 of the 18 Pacific Islands Forum member leaders, including New Zealand’s Prime Minister Chris Hipkins, are expected to be in attendance.
Marape calls for calm Marape said a Defence Cooperation Agreement that is being mulled over in anticipation of an upcoming bilateral meeting with the US was consistent with the country’s “constitutional provisions”.
The cabinet is aware of the agreement, “cabinet has not concluded on this. It is awaiting cabinet conclusion,” he said.
He has called for people to trust in the process as he believes it would have a positive impact on the country.
“Another agreement called a 505 agreement, separate agreement, allows for us to have a working partnership with the US, US Navy and the US Coast Guard.
“With the US Coast Guard, it now gives us an opportune time to access not just on maritime access, but satellite access to illegal fishing, drug traffickers, illegal loggers, all those illegal transportations and activities that happens on high sea,” Marape added.
Meanwhile, PNG’s National Executive Council has confirmed that the public holiday announced for Monday for the National Capital District still stands despite Biden cancelling his attendance.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Fiji PM Sitiveni Rabuka arrives in PNG and is greeted by a guard of honour. Image: PNG govt/RNZ Pacific
US President Joe Biden (right) meets with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese (left) during the AUKUS summit at Naval Base Point Loma in San Diego California on 13 March 2023. Image: RNZ Pacific/Jim Watson/AFP
“But it is what it is,” he said of the tripartite arrangement.
‘Escalation of tension’
“We’ve already seen it will lead to an escalation of tension, and we’re not happy with that as a region.”
Other regional leaders who have publicly expressed concerns about the deal include Solomon Islands PM Manasseh Sogavare, Tuvalu’s Foreign Minister Simon Kofe and Vanuatu’s Climate Change Minister Ralph Regenvanu.
With Cook Islands set to host this year’s PIF meeting in October, Brown has hinted that the “conflicting” nuclear submarine deal is expected to be a big part of the agenda.
“The name Pacific means ‘peace’, so to have this increase of naval nuclear vessels coming through the region is in direct contrast with that,” he said.
“I think there will be opportunities where we will individually and collectively as a forum voice our concern about the increase in nuclear vessels.”
Brown said “a good result” at the leaders gathering “would be the larger countries respecting the wishes of Pacific countries.”
“Many are in opposition of nuclear weapons and nuclear vessels,” he said.
“The whole intention of the Treaty of Rarotonga was to try to de-escalate what were at the time Cold War tensions between the major superpowers.”
“This Aukus arrangement seems to be going against it,” he added.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
The President of the Federated States of Micronesia has made a series of disturbing claims against China, including alleging spying, threats to his personal safety and bribery.
President David Panuelo made the claims to his Congress, governors and the leadership of the country’s state legislatures in a letter which has been leaked to 1News.
Panuelo said the point of his letter was to warn of the threat of warfare.
The president, who has just two months left in office, has publicly attacked China in the past.
“We can play an essential role in preventing a war in our region; we can save the lives of our own Micronesian citizens; we can strengthen our sovereignty and independence,” he said in his latest letter.
President Panuelo said he believed that by informing the leaders of his views he was creating risks to his personal safety along with that of his family and staff.
Outlined in the letter are a series of startling allegations.
Chinese activity within EEZ
The president said there had been activity by the People’s Republic of China (PRC) within his country’s Exclusive Economic Zone.
The “purpose includes communicating with other PRC assets so as to help ensure that, in the event a missile — or group of missiles — ever needed to land a strike on the US Territory of Guam that they would be successful in doing so”.
President Panuelo said he had stopped China research vessels in FSM waters after patrol boats were sent to check “but the PRC sent a warning for us to stay away”.
He also claimed that at the Pacific Islands Forum in Suva in July last year he was followed by two Chinese men, one of them an intelligence officer.
“To be clear: I have had direct threats against my personal safety from PRC officials acting in an official capacity,” he said.
In another claim, Panuelo said that after the first China-Pacific Island Countries Foreign Ministers Meeting, the joint communique was published with statements and references that had not been agreed to “which were false”.
He said he and other leaders such as Niue Premier Dalton Tagelagi and Fiji’s now former prime minister Voreqe Bainimarama had requested more time to review the joint communique before it went out but their requests were ignored.
Trying to strongarm officials
President Panuelo also claimed China had been trying to strongarm officials when it came to bilateral agreements such as a proposed memorandum of understanding (MoU) on the “Deepening Blue Economy” which had “serious red flags”.
One of those was that the FSM “would open the door to the PRC to begin acquiring control over the island nation’s fibre optic cables and ports”.
President Panuelo said in his latest letter that while he advised cabinet to reject the MOU in June last year, in December he learned that it was back in “just mere hours from its signing”.
He said that when Foreign Minister Khandhi Elieisar raised this with Chinese Ambassador Huang Zheng, he suggested “that he ought to sign the MOU anyway and that my knowing about it — in my capacity as Head of State and Head of Government — was not necessary”.
President Panuelo said he found out Ambassador Huang’s replacement, Wu Wei, had been given a mission to shift the FSM away from its allies the US, Japan and Australia. He therefore denied the Ambassador designate his position.
“I know that one element of my duty as President is to protect our country, and so knowing that: our ultimate aim is, if possible, to prevent war; and, if impossible, to mitigate its impacts on our own country and on our own people.”
There are also allegations of bribery. President Panuelo claimed that shortly after Vice-President Aren Palik took office in his former capacity as a Senator, he was asked by a Chinese official to accept an envelope filled with money.
‘Never offer bribe again’
“Vice-President Pakik refused, telling the [official] to never offer him a bribe again,” President Panuelo said.
In October last year, Panuelo said that when Palik visited the island of Kosrae he was received by a Chinese company, which has a private plane.
“Our friends told the Vice-President that they can provide him private and personal transportation to anywhere he likes at any time, even Hawai’i, for example; he need only ask,” President Panuelo claimed.
He said senior officials and elected officials across the whole of the national and state governments had received offers of gifts as a means to curry favour.
The President concluded the letter by saying he wanted to inform his fellow leaders, regardless of the risk to himself, because the nation’s sovereignty, prosperity and peace and stability were more important.
The Chinese embassy in the Federated States of Micronesia and in Wellington have been asked to comment on the allegations by 1News.
The launch of a New Zealand project to produce more Pacific news and provide a “voice for the voiceless” on the islands has highlighted the neglect of that field by Australia and New Zealand — and also problems in universities.
The new development is the non-government, non-university Asia Pacific Media Network (APMN), a research base and publishing platform.
Its opening followed the cleaning-out of a centre within the Auckland University of Technology (AUT) — in an exercise exemplifying the kind of micro infighting that goes on hardly glimpsed from outside the academic world.
Cleaning out media centre The story features an unannounced move by university staff to vacate the offices of an active journalism teaching and publishing base, the Pacific Media Centre, in early February 2021.
Seven weeks after the retirement of that centre’s foundation director, Professor David Robie, staff of AUT’s School of Communication Studies turned up and stripped it, taking out the archives and Pacific taonga — valued artifacts from across the region.
Staff still based there did not know of this move until later.
The centre had been in operation for 13 years — it was popular with Pasifika students, especially postgrads who would go on reporting ventures for practice-led research around the Pacific; it was a base for online news, for example prolific outlets including a regular Pacific Media Watch; it had international standing especially through the well-rated (“SCOPUS-listed”) academic journal Pacific Journalism Review; and it was a cultural hub, where guests might receive a sung greeting from the staff, Pacific-style, or see fascinating art works and craft.
Its uptake across the “Blue Continent” showed up gaps in mainstream media services and in Australia’s case famously the backlog in promoting economic and cultural ties.
The PMC Project — a short documentary about the centre by Alistar Kata in 2016. Video: Pacific Media Centre
Human rights and media freedom The centre was founded in 2007, in a troubled era following a rogue military coup d’etat in Fiji, civil disturbances in Papua New Guinea, violent attacks on journalists in several parts, and endemic gender violence listed as a priority problem for the Pacific Islands Forum.
Through its publishing and conference activity it would take a stand on human rights and media freedom issues, social justice, economic and media domination from outside.
The actual physical evacuation was on the orders of the communications head of school at AUT, Dr Rosser Johnson, a recently appointed associate professor with a history of management service in several acting roles since 2005. He told the Australia Asia Pacific Media Initiative (AAPMI) in response to its formal complaint to AUT that it was “gutting” the centre that the university planned to keep a centre called the PMC and co-locate its offices with other centres — but that never happened.
His intervention caused predictable critical responses, as with this comment by a former New Zealand Heraldeditor-in-chief, Dr Gavin Ellis, on dealing with corporatised universities, in “neo-liberal” times:
“For many years I thought universities were the ideal place to establish centres of investigative journalism excellence … My views have been shaken to the core by the Auckland University of Technology gutting the Pacific Media Centre.”
Conflicts over truth-telling The “PMC affair” has stirred conflicts that should worry observers who place value on truth-finding and truth-telling in university research, preparation for the professions, and academic freedom.
The Independent Australia report on the fate of the PMC last weekend. Image: Asia Pacific Report
The centre along with its counterpart at the University of Technology Sydney, called the Australian Centre for Independent Journalism (ACIJ), worked in the area of journalism as research, applying journalistic skills and methods, especially exercises in investigative journalism.
The ACIJ produced among many investigations, work on the reporting of climate policy and climate science, and the News of the World phone hacking scandal. It also was peremptorily shut-down, three years ahead of the PMC.
Both centres were placed in the journalism academic discipline, a “professional” and “teaching” discipline that traditionally draws in high achieving students interested in its practice-led approach.
All of which is decried by line academics in disciplines without professional linkages but a professional interest in the hierarchical arrangements and power relations within the confined space of their universities.
There the interest is in theoretical teaching and research outputs, often-enough called “Marxist”, “postmodern”, “communications” or “cultural studies”, angled at a de-legitimisation of “Western-liberal” mass media. Not that journalism education itself shies away from media criticism, as Dr Robie told Independent Australia:
“The Pacific Media Centre frequently challenged ‘ethnocentric journalistic practice’ and placed Māori, Pacific and indigenous and cultural diversity at the heart of the centre’s experiential knowledge and critical-thinking news narratives.”
Yet it can be seen how conflict may arise, especially where smaller journalism departments come under “takeover” pressure. It is a handy option for academic managers to subsume “journalism”, and get the staff positions that can be filled with non-journalists; the contribution the journalists may make to research earnings (through the Australian Excellence in Research process, or NZ Performance Based Research Fund), and especially government funding for student places.
There, better students likely to excel and complete their programmes can be induced to do more generalised courses with a specialist “journalism” label.
Any such conflict in the AUT case cannot be measured but must be at least lurking in the background.
What is ‘ideology’? Another problem exists, where a centre like the former PMC will commit to defined values, even officially sanctioned ones like inclusivity and rejection of discrimination.
Undertakings like the PMC’s “Bearing Witness” projects, where students would deploy classic journalism techniques for investigations on a nuclear-free Pacific or climate change, can irritate conservative interests.
The derogatory expression for any connection with social movements is “ideological”. This time it is an unknown, but a School moving against an “ideological” unit, might get at least tacit support from higher-ups supposing that eviscerating it might help the institution’s “good name”.
What implications for future journalism, freedom and quality of media? Hostility towards specific professional education for journalism exists fairly widely. The rough-housing of the journalism centre at AUT is indicative, where efforts by the out-going director to organise succession after his retirement, five years in advance, received no response.
The position statement was changed to take away a requirement for actual Pacific media identity or expertise, and the job left vacant, in part a covid effect. The centre performed well on its key performance indicators, if small in size, which brought in limited research grants but good returns for academic publications:
“On 18 December 2020 – the day I officially retired – I wrote to the [then] Vice-Chancellor, Derek McCormack … expressing my concern about the future of the centre, saying the situation was “unconscionable and inexplicable”. I never received an acknowledgement or reply.”
Pacific futures Journalism education has persisted through an adverse climate, where the number of journalists in mainstream media has declined, in New Zealand almost halved to 2061, (2006 – 2018). AUT celebrated 50 years of journalism teaching this week.
The latest Pacific Journalism Review . . . published for 28 years. Image: PJR
However new media are expanding, new demands exist for media competency across the exploding world “mediascape”, schools cultivating conscionable practices are providing an antidote to floods of bigotry and lies in social media.
The new NGO in Auckland, the APMN, has found a good base of support across the Pacific communities, limbering up for a future free of interference, outside of the former university base.
It will be bidding for a share of NZ government grants intended to assist public journalism, ethnic broadcasting and outreach to the region. While several products of the former centre have closed, the successful 28-year-old research journal Pacific Journalism Review has continued, producing two editions under its new management.
The operation is also keeping its production-side media strengths, such as with the online title Asia Pacific Report.
Independent Australia media editor Dr Lee Duffield is a former ABC correspondent and academic. He is a member of the editorial advisory board of Pacific Journalism Review. This article is republished with the author’s permission.
In solidarity with West Papua, the Pacific Conference of Churches (PCC) has called for a boycott of all Indonesian products and programmess by the Indonesian government.
The Fiji-based PCC said this should be done until Indonesia facilitated a visit by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to investigate alleged human rights abuses in West Papua, which included torture, extrajudicial killings, and systemic police and military violence.
General secretary Reverend James Bhagwan said the call for a boycott came in response to the lack of political will by the Indonesian government to honour its commitment to the visit, which had been made four years ago.
“Our Pacific church leaders are deeply concerned that the urge by our Pacific Island states through the Pacific Islands Forum has been ignored,” he said.
“We are also concerned that Indonesia is using ‘cheque-book diplomacy’ to silence some Pacific states on this issue. Our only option in the face of this to apply our own financial pressure to this cause.
“We know that the Pacific is a market for Indonesian products and we hope that this mobilisation of consumers will show that Pacific people stand in solidarity with our sisters and brothers of Tanah Papua.”
On Thursday, the Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre (FWCC) held a flag-raising ceremony to mark 61 years since the Morning Star, the West Papuan national flag, was first raised.
Women, girls suffered
FWCC coordinator Shamima Ali said as part of the 16 Days of Activism campaign, FWCC remembered the people of West Papua, particularly women and girls, who suffered due to the increased militarisation of the province by the Indonesian government.
“We also remember those women, girls, men and children who have died and those who are still suffering from state violence perpetrated on them and the violence and struggle within their own religious, cultural and societal settings,” she said.
Ali said Pacific islanders should not be quiet about the issue.
“Fiji has been too silent on the issue of West Papua and the ignorance needs to stop,” she said.
“Keeping quiet is not the answer when our own people are suffering.”
Shayal Deviis a Fiji Times reporter. Republished with permission.
This is after the territory’s President, Édouard Fritch, made a resolution to ban seabed mining after the Pacific Islands Forum.
Marine Resources Minister Heremoana Maamaatuaiahutapu told Tahiti Nui TV that this should be an example to other Pacific neighbours.
“Kiribati, Nauru and the Cook Islands are already engaged in an exploration process,” he said.
“We need to convince our cousins of the Pacific to stop this craziness.
‘We are the first’
“We are the first country or associate member of the Forum to take this resolution on, I must say — the exploration of the seabed,” Maamaatuaiahutapu said.
“The knowledge that we have of our seabed is only 5 percent.”
French Polynesia’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) is more than 4.7 million sq km and accounts for almost half of the water surface under French jurisdiction.
The council has been urging the government to secure resources in the seabed off France’s overseas territories.
It said France would be negligent not to profit from this as French Polynesia has rare earths, whose reserves are held by China in a near monopoly.
The pro-independence movement regularly challenges French control of the resource.
‘Solely for knowledge’
Marine Resources Minister Heremoana Maamaatuaiahutapu … “if we have to examine what’s on the ocean floor, it should be solely for … knowledge.” Image: Radio1.pf
In May, Maamaatuaiahutapu said that Wallis and Futuna, New Caledonia and French Polynesia all had the same stance on deep-sea mining — “if we have to examine what’s on the ocean floor, it should be solely for the acquisition of knowledge, not for exploitation purposes”.
“And that has to be very clear. We want knowledge acquisition missions.
“I dare not even say ‘exploration’ because that term is too often associated with exploitation.
“We have 502 seamounts listed and we don’t know a single one. I think it’s important to know about the biodiversity around these seamounts beyond the minerals they house,” he said at the time.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
The last time the Australian Labor Party came to power (in 2007), Australia was imposing sanctions against Fiji as a result of the country’s fourth coup in 2006.
Relations worsened before they improved and, partly at Australia’s prompting, Fiji was suspended from the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) in 2009.
Fast forward to 2022. Fiji’s 2006 coup leader is now its prime minister, Fiji is chairing the Pacific Islands Forum, and it was the first Pacific country that Australia’s new Foreign Minister, Penny Wong, visited.
In fact, not only is Voreqe Bainimarama Prime Minister, but his main rival in elections scheduled for later this year is the leader of Fiji’s first coup, in 1987, Sitiveni Rabuka.
How did this come to pass?
The only coup leader to have actually suffered as a result of their actions is George Speight, who led Fiji’s third coup. Significantly, Speight was not a soldier, and was only backed by one faction of the army.
He was sentenced in 2000 to life imprisonment and remains in jail to this day.
Both senior military leaders By contrast, both Bainimarama and Rabuka were senior military leaders. And they were clever and powerful enough after their coups to ensure that Fiji’s constitution was rewritten to absolve them of any legal wrongdoing.
Rabuka was the pacesetter in terms of rewriting the constitution, and the first coup leader to become PM, returning five years after his coup to successfully contest the 1992 elections. He served as PM to 1999.
Bainimarama was Fiji’s first coup leader to decide not to step back, but rather to stay in politics. He gave himself eight years of uncontested rule before facing elections, enough time to put him in a position to win.
Fiji’s coups have been bad for both the country’s economy and for its democratic standing. Today, it is classified by Freedom House as “partly free”. The think-tank sums up the situation in Fiji as follows:
The repressive climate that followed a 2006 coup has eased since democratic elections were held in 2014 and 2018. However, the ruling party frequently interferes with opposition activities, the judiciary is subject to political influence, and military and police brutality is a significant problem.
Combine this with whatever genuine support Bainimarama commands, and it has been difficult, indeed impossible so far, to dislodge him from power. This in turn has made those who want him out think that their only way to depose him is to back another strongman, another former coup leader and PM.
Rabuka is seen as more moderate than some of the other alternatives to Bainimarama. But also, only Rabuka, it is now thought, can take on Bainimarama.
Is this progress to democracy, or entrenchment of a coup culture? It has been 16 years since the last coup, in 2006. If Fiji was on a path to democracy, one might accept this dominance of coup-turned-political leaders as a necessary transition, a price to be paid to return Fiji to liberal democratic ways.
Ethnic tensions
If only this were the case.
It is certainly true that the coups have led to a massive out-migration of Fijian Indians, whose share in the population has fallen from a threatening 50 percent in the late 1980s to only about 34 percent now. Ethnic tensions, a driving factor behind all the coups to date, have lessened, though by no means disappeared.
But it would be a serious mistake to think that coups are a thing of the past. Rabuka and Bainimarama are both ageing: Rabuka is 74; Bainimarama is 68, and recently had serious heart surgery.
Once they retire or die, it is quite possible that the Fijian political scene will become unstable and/or unpredictable, and that the army will, over time, see it as necessary to intervene. After all, it now has the constitutional role, given to it by Bainimarama, of ensuring not only Fiji’s security and defence but also its “well-being”.
In the meantime, Fiji remains stuck as, at best, a semi-democracy. Just last year, several MPs were arrested for opposing government legislation. A recent US government report on Fiji notes credible reports of “cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment by government agents [and] serious restrictions on free expression and media, including censorship; substantial interference with the freedom of peaceful assembly; and trafficking in persons”.
Personalised authoritarianism
Fiji’s brand of authoritarianism is highly personalised:
A group of women are challenging a new law that requires married women who change their name to also change their birth certificate if they want to vote, a rule introduced last year that may disenfranchise up to 100,000 women.
This change apparently arises from a court case involving an opposition MP who incurred the government’s ire. The courts refused to disqualify the MP on the basis of the name he used to register to vote — not the one on his birth certificate. (The MP in question has since been sent to jail on other charges.)
The government also, at the start of last year, expelled the vice-chancellor of the University of the South Pacific (USP) and has refused him entry back into the country, because he blew the whistle on the former VC who is a government ally.
As James Loxton has recently shown, the re-emergence of authoritarian leaders after democratic transitions is a global phenomenon.
Thailand provides perhaps the closest parallel to Fiji. In that country, after enduring decades of alternating coups and democracy, the 2014 coup leader General Prayut Chan-o-cha decided that he would not relinquish power, and transitioned out of his military role into political leadership.
Since then he has stayed as prime minister, winning elections in 2019, and protected by the same sort of rigging of rules that Bainimarama has engaged in.
Vying for power
However, while Thailand has had many more coups than Fiji, only in the latter do we see two former coup leaders vying for power.
The situation in Fiji seems widely accepted. In 2014, former soldier turned academic Jone Baledrokadroka wrote of the “acquiescence to military intervention” of the Fijian people as “a hallmark of politics in the country”.
Many coup critics have left the country; some have died. A number linked to the coup and/or subsequent governments now hold leadership positions within regional and international organisations.
International partners have also changed tack. Australia’s Coalition, when it came to power in 2013, promised and delivered a new, more constructive approach to Fiji, on the basis that the adversarial approach of earlier years was driving Fiji into the arms of China.
In the decade since, as concerns about China have escalated, those about democracy and human rights have been put on the back burner. Australia is now even supporting Fiji’s army, building a base to support its export of peacekeeping forces.
Rabuka first went up against Bainimarama in the last, 2018 elections, and lost. His prospects are thought to be better this time round according to public opinion polling, but the lack of a united opposition makes predictions difficult.
If Bainimarama is defeated in November, it will be the first time Fiji has changed its PM through the ballot box since 1999. That itself would be a victory for democracy.
However, the fact remains that, whatever the outcome of this year’s election, it is most likely that the country’s next prime minister will be someone who first came to power through the barrel of a gun. This is a clear sign of how deeply entrenched in Fiji’s politics its military has become.
Sadhana Sen is the regional communications adviser at the Development Policy Centre. Stephen Howes is director of the Development Policy Centre and professor of economics at the Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University. This article was first published here by DevPolicy Blog and published with permission under a Creative Commons licence.
Guam Governor Lou Leon Guerrero has expressed support for the Federated States of Micronesia’s move to oppose China’s proposed “action plan” for the Pacific island states, advising island governments to be vigilant against the communist nation’s attempts to control domestic affairs.
“Guam stands with you and your effort to minimise China’s efforts to control Pacific governments, assets and resources,” Leon Guerrero said in a July 19 letter to FSM President David Panuelo.
“With respect to your concerns and warnings relating to China’s proposals to address climate change, I take notice. We should remain vigilant and focused on this most pressing issue,” she added.
On May 27, Panuelo wrote to Pacific island state leaders to dissuade them from signing on to Beijing’s proposed China-Pacific Island Countries Common Development Vision and the China-Pacific Island Countries Five Year Action Plan on Common Development (2022-2026).
At first glance, Panuelo said, the documents contained terms that were “attractive to many of us, perhaps all of us.”
“They speak of democracy and equity and freedom and justice, and compare and contrast these ideas with concepts that we, as Pacific Islands, would want to align ourselves with, such as sustainable development, tackling climate change, and economic growth,” Panuelo said.
However, he said the fine print revealed concerning details indicating China’s intention “to acquire access and control of our region, with the result being the fracturing of regional peace, security, and stability, all while in the name of accomplishing precisely that task”.
China pact rejected by 10 nations
While China has managed to seal a security agreement with the Solomon Islands, 10 Pacific island nations have eventually rejected Beijing’s “sustainable development” proposal.
Leon Guerrero said she agreed with Panuelo “that the US needs to increase its assistance to its island territories in the Pacific.”
“To that end, my administration will continue its work on pursuing climate change assistance and environmental justice advocacy for our islands,” she told the FSM leader.
The FSM, which is freely associated with the United States, has adopted a “friend to all and an enemy to none” foreign policy.
Torn between two superpowers, the FSM treads cautiously to define its relationship with China and the United States.
“My country is the only sovereign Pacific island country in the world that has both a great friendship with China as well as an enduring partnership, demonstrated by our Compact of Free Association, with the United States,” Panuelo wrote in his letter.
“We have ceaselessly advocated for joint China-US cooperation on tackling climate change and we have ceaselessly advocated for joint China-US promotion of peace and harmony in our Blue Pacific Continent. My country’s unique context, I believe, compels me to speak,” he said.
‘Unique relationships’
Leon Guerrero said she recognised the FSM’s “unique relationships” with the United States and China.
“The perspectives you and your diplomats have developed while navigating between these two superpowers are valuable, especially as we chart a course on partnering with them for the good of our islands while exercising reasonable precautions.
“In fostering good relations. I appreciate your insights and perspectives shared with our Pacific brothers and sisters,” the Guam governor told Panuelo.
As a US territory dubbed as “the tip of the spear,” Leon Guerrero said Guam played a role in homeland security.
“The island of Guam is in the midst of the largest peacetime military buildup in US history, so we also have a perspective to share,” the governor said.
“We see firsthand the urgency the US is exerting to showcase its military force and willingness to keep Pacific sea lanes open for peaceful free-flowing trade among nations.”
Mar-Vic Cagurangan is editor-in-chief of the Pacific Island Times. Republished with permission.
A lively 43sec video clip surfaced during last week’s Pacific Islands Forum in the Fiji capital of Suva — the first live leaders’ forum in three years since Tuvalu, due to the covid pandemic.
Posted on Twitter by Guardian Australia’s Pacific Project editor Kate Lyons it showed the doorstopping of Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare by a melee of mainly Australian journalists.
A doorstop on security and China greets Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare (in blue short) at the Pacific islands Forum in Suva last week. Image: Twitter screenshot
But Lyons made a comment directed more at questioning journalists themselves about their newsgathering style:
“Australian media attempt to get a response from PM Sogavare, who has refused to answer questions from international media since the signing of the China security deal, on his way to a bilateral with PM Albanese. He stayed smilingly silent.”
Prominent Samoan journalist, columnist and member of the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) gender council Lagipoiva Cherelle Jackson picked up the thread, saying: “Let’s talk western journalism vs Pacific doorstop approaches.”
Lagipoiva highlighted for her followers the fact that “the journos engaged in this approach are all white”. She continued:
‘A respect thing’
“We don’t really do this in the Pacific to PI leaders. it’s a respect thing. However there is merit to this approach.”
A “confrontational” approach isn’t generally practised in the Pacific – “in Samoa, doorstops are still respectful.”
A thread
Let’s talk western journalism vs. Pacific journalism doorstop approaches. You will see in this, that the journos engaged in this approach are all white. We don’t really do this in the Pacific to PI leaders. It’s a respect thing. However there is merit to this approach. https://t.co/GcsJVDICFb
But she admitted that Pacific journalists sometimes “leaned” on western journalists to ask the hard questions when PI leaders would “disregard local journalists”.
“Even though this approach is very jarring”, she added, “it is also a necessary tactic to hold Pacific island leaders accountable.”
So here is the rub. Where were the hard questions in Suva — whether “western or Pacific-style” — about West Papua and Indonesian human rights abuses against a Melanesian neighbour? Surely here was a prime case in favour of doorstopping with a fresh outbreak of violations by Indonesian security forces – an estimated 21,000 troops are now deployed in Papua and West Papua provinces — in the news coinciding with the Forum unfolding on July 11-14.
In her wrap about the Forum in The Guardian, Lyons wrote about how smiles and unity in Suva – “with the notable exception of Kiribati” – were masking the tough questions being shelved for another day.
“Take coal. This will inevitably be a sticking point between Pacific countries and Australia, but apparently did not come up at all in discussions,” she wrote.
“The other conversation that has been put off is China.
“Pacific leaders have demonstrated in recent months how important the Pacific Islands Forum bloc is when negotiating with the superpower.”
Forum ‘failed moral obligation’
In a column in DevPolicy Blog this week, Fiji opposition National Federation Party (NFP) leader and former University of the South Pacific economics professor Dr Biman Prasad criticised forum leaders — and particularly Australia and New Zealand — over the “deafening silence” about declining standards of democracy and governance.
While acknowledging that an emphasis on the climate crisis was necessary and welcome, he said: “Human rights – including freedom of speech – underpin all other rights, and it is unfortunate that that this Forum failed in its moral obligation to send out a strong message of its commitment to upholding these rights.”
Back to West Papua, arguably the most explosive security issue confronting the Pacific and yet inexplicably virtually ignored by the Australian and New Zealand governments and news media.
Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre coordinator Shamima Ali and fellow activists at the Morning Star flag raising in solidarity with West Papua in Suva last week. Image: APR screenshot FV
In Suva, it was left to non-government organisations and advocacy groups such as the Australia West Papua Association (AWPA) and the Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre (FWCC) to carry the Morning Star of resistance — as West Papua’s banned flag is named.
The Fiji women’s advocacy group condemned their government and host Prime Minister Bainimarama for remaining silent over the human rights violations in West Papua, saying that women and girls were “suffering twofold” due to the increased militarisation of the two provinces of Papua and West Papuan by the “cruel Indonesian government”.
Spokesperson Joe Collins of the Sydney-based AWPA said the Fiji Forum was a “missed opportunity” to help people who were suffering at the hands of Jakarta actions.
“It’s very important that West Papua appears to be making progress,” he said, particularly in this Melanesian region which had the support of Pacific people.
Intensified violence in Papua
The day after the Forum ended, Pacific Conference of Churches (PCC) general secretary Reverend James Bhagwan highlighted in an interview with FijiVillage how 100,000 people had been displaced due to intensified violence in the “land of Papua”.
Pacific Conference of Churches general secretary Reverend James Bhagwan … “significant displacement of the indigenous Papuans has been noted by United Nations experts.” Image: FijiVillage
He said the increasing number of casualties of West Papuans was hard to determine because no humanitarian agencies, NGOs or journalists were allowed to enter the region and report on the humanitarian crisis.
Reverend Bhagwan also stressed that covid-19 and climate change reminded Pacific people that there needed to be an “expanded concept of security” that included human security and humanitarian assistance.
In London, the Indonesian human rights advocacy group Tapol expressed “deep sorrow” over the recent events coinciding with the Forum, and condemned the escalating violence by Jakarta’s security forces and the retaliation by resistance groups.
Tapol cited “the destruction and repressive actions of the security forces at the Paniai Regent’s Office (Kantor Bupati Paniai) that caused the death of one person and the injury of others on July 5″.
“Acts of violence against civilians, when they lead to deaths — whoever is responsible — should be condemned,” Tapol said.
“We call on these two incidents to be investigated in an impartial, independent, appropriate and comprehensive manner by those who have the authority and competency to do so.”
The Pacific Islands Forum leaders’ meeting has ended and what is intriguing is the deafening silence on declining standards of democracy, governance, human rights, media freedom and freedom of speech issues, despite the serious and arguably worsening situation in some regional countries.
The emphasis on climate change is necessary and welcome. However, to deal effectively with climate adaptation and build climate-resilient infrastructure, countries have to mobilise large amounts of resources.
Whether these resources are effectively used will depend on standards of governance, transparency and accountability. Without these, efforts to deal with the climate change emergency will be fraught with difficulties and wastage of resources.
In any case, not everything can be reduced to climate change, which too often becomes a convenient way of avoiding other hard issues and diverting attention from domestic issues. And we do have other important pressing issues, such as media rights and freedom of expression, that deserve a hearing at the highest levels of this august body, but these were conveniently swept under the “sensitive topic” carpet, or so it seems.
Human rights — including freedom of speech — underpin all other rights, and it is unfortunate that this Forum failed in its moral obligation to send out a strong message of its commitment to upholding these rights.
Australia and New Zealand are regarded as the doyens of human rights and media freedom in the region, and their leaders’ presence at the Forum presented an opportunity to send a strong signal to member countries about the sanctity of these values — but the moment passed without any statement.
Anthony Albanese and Jacinda Ardern could have taken the initiative and spoken out about these issues of their own accord, but they didn’t, thus giving some credence to voices that claim that when it comes to the Forum, Australia and New Zealand are preoccupied with their own strategic interests first, and the interests of Pacific Island countries second.
Avoiding ‘unpalatable topics’
Towards this end, the two leaders from the Western world seemed at pains to avoid topics deemed unpalatable to their Pacific Island counterparts, seemingly over fears of pushing them further into the arms of China.
This includes an apparent fear of upsetting Fiji, which has had a draconian and punitive Media Act in place since 2010. There are also concerns in Fiji about the independence of important offices, such as the Electoral Commission, which are especially pressing in an election year.
The Fiji government is also denying the rights of thousands of tertiary students to access good quality education by withholding more than FJ$80 million (NZ$50 million) in grants to the University of the South Pacific.
Reportedly, during the meetings last week only the Prime Minister of Samoa, Fiamē Naomi Mata’afa, called on the Fiji government to release the grant.
Australia and New Zealand’s silence has given rise to criticism that they are practising the politics of convenience rather than principle and have lost moral ground in the Pacific region.
Appeasing autocratic leaders in our region as a strategy against China is not only unconscionable, it is also short-sighted and counterproductive.
A restrictive and undemocratic environment, where the media are suppressed and the people are denied a voice, is advantageous for China. It is thus in Australia and New Zealand’s best interests to fight against such trends by being vocal about them, instead of silent.
Appeasement not best strategy
The sooner Australia and New Zealand realise that appeasement is not the best strategy, the better it will be for them and for the region. If we are vuvale (one family) as Australia says, then we should look at our collective interest, rather than individual interests only.
Unfortunately, the Forum Secretariat chose not to invite the parliamentary opposition leaders in Fiji to any of the meeting’s events, even though they represent a sizable proportion of the country’s population.
This was another missed opportunity to get a fuller picture of the situation in Fiji instead of the official version only. It leads to a partial and poor understanding of what is happening, which is hardly the basis for sound decision-making.
As leaders of democracies, Australia and New Zealand need to move away from a self-centred approach, and adopt a more conscientious, long-term outlook in the region.
As it stands, in their preoccupation with and fear of China they seem to be losing sight of the goal. Australia and New Zealand should never compromise on governance and human rights and freedom of speech, the building blocks of democracy in the region.
Dr Biman Prasad is an adjunct professor at James Cook University and Punjabi University, and is currently a Member of Parliament and leader of the National Federation Party in Fiji. He is a former professor of economics and dean of the Faculty of Business and Economics at the University of the South Pacific. This article was first published by DevPolicy Blog and is republished under a Creative Commons licence.
The University of South Pacific’s vice-chancellor says Fiji’s failure to pay its grant contribution for the third year in a row is affecting the regional university’s operations and students, reports ABC’s Pacific Beat.
The Fiji government has refused to pay its grant since 2019 and did not allocate funding for its USP grant in the latest national budget.
Professor Pal Ahluwalia said the university had been able to keep operations going by prioritising spending, and cutting back on certain areas, like maintenance.
“The impact of not getting these grants from Fiji has been extensive on our students,” he said.
The university is a regional institution with 12 member countries paying grants based on the number of students attending.
Professor Ahluwalia said other member countries have been paying their contributions and are committed to keeping its operations going.
No sign Fiji government will pay up RNZ Pacific reports that the Fijian government has no intention of paying the money it owes to USP.
In the Bainimarama government’s Budget estimates, no money has been allocated to the USP for third year after after it failed to get its way over the removal of the Professor Ahluwalia.
The debt is now estimated to be more than F$80 million (NZ$50 million) dollars.
USP’s Suva campus … Image: Wikicommons
This comes at a time when the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF), chaired by Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama, stressed at its summit the importance of regionalism.
The regional university, perhaps the best expression of this regionalism, is seen to be under threat because Fiji — the main beneficiary — is not paying its way.
Last year the two staff associations at the USP accused the Fiji government of conducting a vendetta against the Professor Ahluwalia by withholding the funding.
Staff at USP allege the Fiji government is still conducting a vendetta against the vice chancellor.
Ethical principles
The staff associations said that this was testimony to the ethical principles and good governance that Professor Ahluwalia had championed.
Other tertiary institutions in Fiji are set to receive substantial grants from the government.
According to The Fiji Times, the Fiji government’s budget estimates revealed eight higher education institutions had been allocated $48.9 million in the 2022-2023 Budget.
Grants will be given to University of Fiji ($2.3 million), Fiji National University ($45 million), Corpus Christi ($94,236), Fulton College ($103,918); Monfort Technical Institute ($338,912), Monfort Boys Town ($492,212), Sangam Institute of Technology ($114,411) and Vivekananda Technical Centre ($128,196).
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
The Australia West Papua Association (AWPA) has condemned the absence of West Papua in last week’s Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) official communique, saying it was “greatly disappointed” that the human rights situation in the Indonesian-ruled Melanesian region had not been mentioned.
“it is understandable that the PIF has huge challenges in the region and in particular climate change. But for all the talk about inclusiveness it would appear West Papua is not a major concern for the Forum,” spokesperson Joe Collins said in a statement.
“The PIF could have shown solidarity with the Papuan people by a simple statement of concern about the human rights situation in West Papua (particularly as the situation continues to deteriorate).”
Collins called on the forum to continue to urge Jakarta to allow a fact-finding mission to the region.
“The leaders would have had the support of the people of the Pacific region in doing so,” he added.
It’s a wrap- From the Suva Agreement to the 2050 Strategy, get the last word on what’s next for regionalism in the Pacific Islands Forum Leaders Communique 2022 at https://t.co/VwQslLSmXkpic.twitter.com/MHTNd6rh9O
Climate change remains the single greatest existential threat facing the Blue Pacific, as leaders concluded the biggest diplomatic regional meeting in Suva last week with a plea for the world to take urgent action to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees.
While renewed commitments by Australia to reduce its carbon footprint by 43 percent come 2030 and a legislated net zero emission by 2050 were welcomed initiatives, Pacific leaders reiterated calls for rapid, deep and sustained reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, adding the region was facing a climate emergency that threatened the livelihoods, security and wellbeing of its people and ecosystems, backed by the latest science and the daily lived realities in Pacific communities.
PIF chairman and Fiji Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama said the need was for “more ambitious climate commitments” — actions that would require the world to align its efforts to achieving the Paris Agreement’s 1.5-degree temperature threshold.
Fiji Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama … “That is our ask of Australia. That is our ask of New Zealand, the USA, India, the European Union, China and every other high-emitting country.” Image: Wansolwara
“We simply cannot settle for anything less than the survival of every Pacific Island country –– and that requires that all high emitting economies implement science-based plans to decisively reduce emissions in line with the Paris Agreement’s 1.5-degree temperature threshold,” he told journalists at the PIF Secretariat.
“That requires that we halve global emissions by 2030 and achieve net-zero emissions by no later than 2050. Most urgently, it requires that we end our fossil fuel addiction, including coal,” he said.
“That is our ask of Australia. That is our ask of New Zealand, the USA, India, the European Union, China and every other high-emitting country.
“It is also what Fiji asks of ourselves, though our emissions are negligible.”
Crisis felt in Fiji, Pacific
Bainimarama said the world faced a global energy crisis that was felt in the Pacific and Fiji.
While he understood the political realities that existed, planetary realities must take precedence.
“It will take courage and surely extract some political capital. But if Pacific Island countries can respond to and rebuild after some of the worst storms to ever make landfall in history, advanced economies can surely make the transition to renewables.
“The benefits will be remarkable. Our region has the potential to become a clean energy superpower if we summon the will to make it happen. That path is no doubt the surest way to an open, resilient, independent, and prosperous Blue Pacific.”
Pacific Islands Forum Secretary-General Henry Puna told Wansolwara ahead of PIF51 that issues such as climate change, oceans, economic development, technology and connectivity as well as people-centered development were key priorities on the talanoa agenda for leaders from PIF’s 18-member countries, including Australia and New Zealand.
These priorities and the way forward to achieving it are incorporated in the 2050 Strategy for the Blue Pacific Continent, a collective ambitious long-term plan to address global and regional geopolitical and development challenges in light of existing and emerging vulnerabilities and constraints.
Cook Islands is expected to host the next PIF Leaders and related meetings in 2023, the Kingdom of Tonga in 2024 and Solomon Islands in 2025.
Geraldine Panapasais editor-in-chief of the University of the South Pacific journalism programme newspaper and website Wansolwara. The USP team is a partner of Asia Pacific Report.
A Fiji women’s advocacy group has condemned their government for remaining silent over the human rights violations in West Papua amid the Pacific Islands Forum being hosted by Prime Minister Voreqe Bainmarama this week.
Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre (FWCC) coordinator Shamima Ali with other staff members and activists made the criticisms at a ceremony raising the independence flag Morning Star, banned in Indonesia.
The women raised the flag of West Papua on Wednesday to show their solidarity.
West Papua’s Morning Star flag-raising in Suva this week. Image: Fijivillage
Ali said this ceremony was done every Wednesday to remember the people of West Papua, particularly women and girls who were “suffering twofold” due to the increased militarisation of the two provinces of Papua and West Papuan by the “cruel Indonesian government”.
She said this was a perfect time since all the Pacific leaders were in Fiji for the forum but the Fiji government stayed silent on the issue.
Ali added that with Fiji as the chair of the forum, Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama should have negotiated for West Papua to be on the agenda.
Wenda appeals to Pacific Islands Forum
Meanwhile, United Liberation Movement of West Papua interim president Benny Wenda has appealed to Pacific leaders to show “timely and effective leadership” on the great issues facing the Pacific — “the human rights crisis in West Papua and the existential threat of climate change”.
“West Papua is a green land in a blue ocean. Our blue Pacific has always united our peoples, rather than dividing them,” he said in a statement.
Shamima Ali speaking out on West Papua in Suva. Video: Fijivillage
“In this spirit of Pacific solidarity, we are grateful for the support our Pacific family showed for our struggle in 2019 by calling for Indonesia to allow the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, to visit West Papua.”
However, Indonesia continued to undermine the forum by refusing to allow a UN visit to take place.
“For decades, we have been crying that Indonesia is bombing our villages and killing our people, but we have been ignored,” Wenda said.
“Now, the world is taking notice of our struggle. The United Nations has shown that up to 100,000 West Papuan civilians have been internally displaced by Indonesian military operations in the past three years alone.
“They have fled into the bush, where they lack access to shelter, food, water, and proper medical facilities. This is a rapidly worsening human rights disaster, requiring immediate attention and intervention by the United Nations.
“Indonesia hears the increasing calls for a UN visit, but is employing delaying tactics to avoid exposing their crimes against my people to the world.”
A senior French military commander says France should re-arm in the Pacific and consider restoring its forces to a level of 30 years ago.
Rear Admiral Jean-Mathieu Rey told Tahiti-infos on the eve of Bastille Day that France had to look at going back to being better armed ships with sonars, torpedoes, guns, and missiles.
Reacting to alarm in the region over the security pact between China and Solomon Islands, Rey said France wanted to be a power of balance amid the rivalry between the United States and China.
Rey said while nothing had happened yet, there was a risk that China could try to have a military installation in Solomon Islands, although Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare has reassured the Pacific Islands Forum in Suva this week that this would not happen.
Rey said that, if necessary, France opposed illegal actions by China, but maintained a dialogue with it.
Maintaining ‘a balance’
The commander said France would continue to maintain a balance by refusing the logic of the two blocs, which could lead to conflict.
In June, then French Overseas Minister Sébastien Lecornu said two new patrol boats would be deployed this year, one in New Caledonia and one in French Polynesia for what he described as surveillance and sovereignty missions.
Lecornu also said this year an exercise would be held involving Rafale fighter jets and A400 transport planes.
He said the challenges posed by geopolitical rivalries in a multi-polar region could only be the subject of an inclusive and multilateral response based on respect for the law.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Georges, a Tahitian volunteer in the French armed forces, gears up for the annual Bastille Day parade in Paris yesterday. Image: Tahiti-Infos
The Pacific Islands Forum has launched a new longterm strategy to address present and future challenges faced by Pacific peoples.
The “2050 Strategy for the Blue Pacific Continent” was endorsed by regional heads of governments as the curtains fell on the 51st Forum Leaders’ summit in Suva.
“As Pacific leaders, our vision is for a resilient Pacific region of peace, harmony, security, social inclusion and prosperity, that ensures all Pacific peoples can lead free, healthy and productive lives,” the 2050 strategy’s leaders’ vision states.
Forum chair and Fiji’s Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama said the new regional blueprint “is about who we are”.
“The 2050 Strategy is about what we share in common, our challenges and our opportunities about what we need to do together. This is why the 2050 Strategy focuses on our people,” Bainimarama said.
“It is our people who have sent us here to deliberate on their behalf and we owe them strategic response to their greatest challenges especially our youth, our children and grandchildren, who will inherit this strategy and our collective ambitions.”
Bainimarama said the “climate crisis, socio-economic development challenges, slow economic growth and geopolitical competition” were major issues faced by the region”.
‘Must work together’
“We must work together. The 2050 Strategy will serve as our guide for the decades to come, setting out our longterm vision, key value to guide us and key thematic areas and strategic pathways that will pave our shared trajectory as a region.”
He also acknowledged that successful implementation of the strategy will require that “our dialogue and development partners, regional agencies, and international agencies understand and align their development plans to the strategy and engage with us on this basis”.
According to the strategy, the Blue Pacific is about Pacific peoples, their faiths, cultural values, and traditional knowledge.
The 36-page document outlines 10 commitments across seven interconnected thematic areas most crucial for the sustainable longterm development of the region.
The focus areas include political leadership and regionalism, people-centred development, peace and security, resource and economic development, climate change and disasters, ocean and environment, and technology and connectivity.
Forum Secretary-General Henry Puna said the new plan was about Pacific regionalism “which is not an easy thing to progress”.
“Pacific regionalism is more than a set of activities,” Puna said.
“It is vital that the 2050 Strategy guide our collective activities and actions as we address our challenges and exploit our strengths and our opportunities.”
With the 2015 strategy now endorsed, the forum will focus on its delivery and implementation.
“My promise is to ensure that we take the strategy forward as it is intended,” Puna said.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Former Kiribati President Anote Tong suspects a major agreement is “cooking” between Beijing and Tarawa after the country’s decision to quit the Pacific Islands Forum.
Kiribati President Taneti Maamau’s “surprise” announcement to abandon its membership from the region’s premier policy and political body at the 51st Forum Leaders’ meeting this week has heightened concerns the Micronesian nation is moving closer to China.
“I know they are cooking something with China,” Tong, who led the atoll island nation from 2003 to 2016, said.
“I think it would have started with the reopening of the Phoenix Island Protected Area.”
The Phoenix Islands Protected Area is the largest designated marine protected area in the world, spanning almost 400,000 sq km in the South Pacific Ocean, midway between Australia and Hawai’i.
Sources have told RNZ Pacific that a possible deal may include exclusive access to Chinese vessels to the Protected Area.
Tong believed the move by the Maamau government suggested that it hoped to “gain from being isolated from the region” by striking a deal directly with China.
‘Totally unexpected’
“It’s totally unexpected. I did not think it was in our nature, in our character, to do something quite so radical like that,” he said.
The Kiribati government is under financial pressure due to the economic impacts of covid-19 and the current drought.
“I know that the government is in a serious problem with the escalating budget which is not sustainable,” Tong said.
He said it should not come as a surprise if the government was talking about a deal directly with the Chinese about the Phoenix Islands.
“I have seen expressions in the past in which the president [Maamau] confirmed China was going to assist in the development of Canton Islands … a former US military base and it was in closer proximity to Hawaii. So, we are very strategically located,” he said.
“It is the reason why Kiribati may have withdrawn from the Pacific Island Forum.”
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Kiribati President Taneti Maamau in May 2022 … Kiribati moving closer to China. Image: RNZ File
Blamed on China
Meanwhile, Kiribati’s opposition leader Tessie Lambourne is blaming Kiribati’s decision to withdraw from the Forum on pressure exerted by China.
The former diplomat told TheGuardian she was “shocked and extremely disappointed” by the government’s move.
Lambourne said she believed the decision was influenced by China, and that the Maamau administration was weak, vulnerable and greatly indebted to Beijing.
She said someone seemed to be telling the Kiribati government that the country did not need regional solidarity.
“I’m embarrassed because what we are saying is that we are not in the fold … we are outside,” she told TheGuardian.
“And why are we outside? I think it’s us who keep ourselves out … because we are not engaged or engaging.”
China brushes off claims China, however, has denied allegations that it has anything to do Kiribati’s decision, saying it “does not interfere in the internal affairs of Pacific Islands countries”.
Kiribati said it did not feel its concerns over the leadership rift had been listened to following the special meeting hosted by the forum chair Fiji in June, and as a consequence it had no other alternative but to leave.
Federated States of Micronesia President David Panuelo said that while it was not known if China was exerting its influence to force Kiribati out of the forum “we hope to find out soon”.
Panuelo said there was a lot of work put into the Suva Agreement to achieve a reform package which would see that the forum was “much strengthened”.
“Our aim is to open the doors and continue to invite Kiribati because when one member is not on board, it is not quite over yet,” he said.
Tong said he “completely disagrees” with Maamau’s reasoning.
“I am not so sure that it really provides the justification for the kind of reaction to just withdraw like that,” he said.
“There should have been a lot of room to manoeuvre the discussions in Suva. There is so much at stake in losing membership of the forum. I cannot imagine how Kiribati would win by having taken that step.”
Tong also raised concerns about the recent visit by China’s foreign minister to Tarawa.
“The Chinese foreign minister went through here for a few hours last month and there was a deal signed,” he said.
“Nobody knows what that deal is. And so that is maybe part of the whole process.”
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Pacific leaders really need to look seriously at the concerns raised by the President Taneti Maamau of Kiribati, resulting in the country’s withdrawal from the Pacific Islands Forum.
This is the view of Tuvalu’s Foreign Minister Simon Kofe, who said he was saddened by the turn of events.
“It came by surprise to us, but I think in the spirit of solidarity and unity, we really need to look seriously at the concerns raised by the President of Kiribati and I’m sure it’s going to be discussed this week by the leaders,” he said.
Samoan Prime Minister Fiame Naomi Mata’afa said the forum meeting was significant considering the leaders had not met for the past two years.
“The issue was, first and foremost, the unity of the region, bringing back the northern members, so I think we’re fairly successful in that,” she said.
“We hope they will come back to the fold and we need to understand what’s happening with Kiribati.”
PIF Secretary-General Henry Puna said that after the forum meeting the forum would approach Kiribati to address its concerns.
‘The forum family has challenges’
“Like in any family, the forum family has its challenges and we might not agree on everything all the time, but what is important is that when disagreements do arise, we have the grace to get together and talk,” he said.
“Make time because you know in the Pacific way, talanoa is absolutely critical, that’s what we are looking forward to, to engage with the President and governing people of Kiribati so that we can find a way forward.
“I believe by talking, you can resolve any problem and so give us time and I’m sure that our leaders are very keen to engage with Kiribati and to find a way to embrace them back into the forum family.”
Wanshika Kumaris a Fiji Times reporter. Republished with permission.
ANALYSIS: The restrictions on Pacific news media during Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s recent Pacific trip are only the most recent example of a media sector under siege, writes Shailendra Singh.
For the Pacific news media sector, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s recent eight-nation South Pacific tour may be over, but it should not be forgotten. The minister and his 20-member “high-level” delegation’s refusal to take local journalists’ questions opened a veritable can of worms that will resonate in Pacific media circles for a while.
However, Wang’s sulky silence should not be seen as isolated incident but embedded in deeper problems in media freedom and development for the Pacific.
Besides dealing with their own often hostile national governments and manoeuvring through ever-more restrictive legislation, Pacific media is increasingly having to contend with pressure from foreign elements as well.
China is the most prominent in this regard, as underscored by Wang’s visit, but there have been other incidents of journalist obstruction involving countries like Indonesia as well.
What is particularly appalling is how some Pacific governments seem to have cooperated with foreign delegations to stop their national media from asking legitimate questions.
Fijian journalist Lice Mavono’s account of the extent to which local Fijian officials went to limit journalists’ ability to cover Wang’s visit is highly troubling. In scenes rarely seen before, Wang and Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama’s joint press conference was apparently managed by Chinese officials, even though it was on Fijian soil.
When some journalists defied instructions and yelled out their unapproved questions, a Chinese official shouted back at them to stop. One journalist was ordered to leave the room with a minder attempting to escort him out, but fellow journalists intervened.
Journalists obstructed
Similar behaviour was witnessed at the Pacific Islands Forum-hosted meeting between Wang and forum Secretary-General Henry Puna, where Chinese officials continued to obstruct journalists even after forum officials intervened on the journalists’ behalf.
The Chinese officials’ determined efforts indicated that they came well prepared to thwart the media. It also conveyed their disrespect for the premier regional organisation in the Pacific, to the point of defying forum officials’ directives.
However, what should be most concerning for the region as a whole is the way this episode exposed the apparent ability of Chinese officials to influence, dominate, and even give instructions to local officials.
This is all the more disturbing as China is ramping up its engagement with Pacific governments. Consequently, longstanding questions about China’s impact on the region’s democratic and media institutions become even more urgent.
Indeed, just weeks after Wang’s visit, Solomon Islands media reported that Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare, in an extraordinary gazette, announced that the government would be taking full financial control of the state broadcaster, Solomon Islands Broadcasting Corporation (SIBC).
There are fears that this arrangement — which draw comparisons with the Chinese state-owned broadcaster CCTV — will give the government far more control over SIBC, potentially both editorially and in its day-to-day management.
This is troubling given Sogavare’s antagonism towards the SIBC, who he has accused of giving more airtime to government critics than to officials. Veteran Solomon Islands journalist Dorothy Wickham condemned the move, stating: “We now don’t have a public broadcaster!”
Additional steps
This trend indicates the need for additional steps to strengthen media rights by, among other things, boosting journalist professional capacity. This is simply because good journalists are more aware of and better able to safeguard media rights.
To this end, one area that clearly needs work is a greater focus on reporting regional events effectively. As major powers jostle for influence, and Pacific politics become ever more interconnected, what happens in one country will increasingly affect others.
Journalists need to be aware of this and more strongly frame their stories through a regional lens. However, this will not happen without focused and targeted training.
In this context, media research and development is an oft-overlooked pillar of media freedom. While all kinds of demands are made of Pacific journalists and much is expected of them, there seems to be little regard for their welfare and not much curiosity about what makes them tick.
To get an idea of how far behind the Pacific is in media research, it is worth considering that there has only been one multi-country survey of Pacific journalists’ demography, professional profiles and ethical beliefs in 30 years.
This recent, important research yielded valuable data to better understand the health of Pacific media and the capabilities of Pacific journalists.
For instance, the data indicates that Pacific journalists are more inexperienced and under-qualified than counterparts in the rest of the world. In addition, the Pacific has among the highest rate of journalist attrition due to, among other things, uncompetitive salaries, a feature of small media systems.
Conditions ignored
So, while governments make much of biased journalists, they conveniently ignore the working conditions, training, education, and work experience that are needed to increase integrity and performance.
In other words, the problems in Pacific media are not solely the work of rogue elements in the news media, they are structural in nature. These factors are not helped by draconian legislation which is supposedly intended to ensure fairness, but in fact only further squeezes already restricted journalists.
This situation underscores the need for further research, which can identify and offer informed solutions to the problems in the sector. Yet, scholarships and fellowships for Pacific media research are as rare as hen’s teeth.
Furthermore, Wang’s Pacific visit and China’s activities in the region are a wake-up call for regional media as to the urgent need for capacity-building. Any remedial actions should be informed by research and need to consider problems in a holistic manner.
As we have seen, “band-aid’ solutions at best provide only temporary relief, and at worst misdiagnose the problem.
This China fiasco is also a reminder to care about Pacific journalists, try to understand them and show concern for their welfare. We should not regard journalists as merely blunt instruments of news reporting.
Rather, a free and democratic media is the lifeblood of a free and democratic Pacific.
Dr Shailendra B Singh is the head of journalism at the University of the South Pacific and a research fellow at the Australian National University. This article was first published by ANU’s Asia and the Pacific Policy Society Policy Forum and is republished here with the author’s permission.
Kate Lyons, editor of The Guardian’s Pacific Project, reported that the the men were present at a session of the Forum Fisheries Agency when Harris announced the step-up of US engagement in the region, “believed to be in response to China’s growing influence”.
According to The Guardian, the officials had been sitting with the media contingent, but one was identified as a Chinese embassy officer by Lice Movono, an independent Fiji journalist who has been covering the forum for the Australian edition of the newspaper.
“Movono said she ‘recognised him because I’ve interacted with him at least three times already’, including during the visit of the Chinese foreign minister, Wang Yi, to Suva last month, at which journalists were removed from events and blocked from asking questions,” The Guardian report said.
“‘He was one of the people that was removing us from places and directing other people to remove us,’ she said. ‘So I went over to him and asked: “Are you here as a Chinese embassy official or for Xinhua [Chinese news agency], because this is the media space. And he shook his head as if to indicate that he didn’t speak English”.’
Movono alerted Fijian protocol officers, who told her to inform Fijian police, who then escorted the two men from the room. They did not answer questions from media, reported The Guardian.
Diplomatic sources later confirmed that the men were a defence attache and a deputy defence attache from China, and part of the embassy in Fiji, The Guardian said.
The report highlighted the intense geopolitical rivalry over growing Chinese influence in the region.
United States Vice-President Kamala Harris has assured Pacific Islands Forum Leaders meeting in the Fiji capital Suva that Washington will “significantly deepen” its engagement in the region.
Harris joined the regional leaders today to announce half a dozen new commitments to signal America’s renewed commitment to the region.
The commitments included the establishment of embassies in Kiribati and Tonga, tripling the funding for economic development and ocean resilience, and the appointment of the first-ever US envoy to the Pacific Islands Forum.
She said the US recognised that it had not provided the “diplomatic attention and support” to Pacific nations in recent years.
But she said that would now change.
“We will significantly deepen our engagement in the Pacific Islands. We will embark on a new chapter in our partnership, a chapter with increased American presence, where we commit to work with you in the short and long term to take on the most pressing issues that you face,” she said.
“The United States is a proud Pacific nation and has an enduring commitment to the Pacific islands which is why President Joe Biden and I seek to strengthen our partnership with you.
‘Support that you deserve’
“We recognise that in recent years the Pacific Islands may not have received the diplomatic attention and support that you deserve. So, today, I am here to tell you directly, we are going to change that.
“In this region and around the world, the United States believes it is important to strengthen the international rules based order. To defend it, to promote it and to build on it.
“These international rules and norms have brought peace and stability to the Pacific for more than 75 years.
“Principles that importantly state that the sovereignty and terriotorial integrity of all states must be respected. Principles that allow all states big and small to conduct their affairs free from aggression or coercion.
“At a time when we see bad actors trying to undermine the rules-based order we must stand united. We must remind ourselves that upholding a system of laws, institutions, and common understandings … well, this is how we ensure stability and indeed prosperity around the world.
“We will continue to work with all of you and all of our partners and allies to craft new rules and norms for future frontiers grounded in our shared values of openness, transparency and fairness.
“All of us convened we recognise there is so much we can do together. We have a strong foundation and we will build on this and embark in a new chapter – all in the spirit of partnership, friendship and respect.”
Tripled funding
Harris also said the US planned to triple funding for economic development and ocean resilience for Pacific islands.
She said a request would go to the US Congress for US$600 million.
“Sixty million dollars per year for the next 10 years. These funds will help strengthen climate resilience, invest in marine planning and conservation and combat illegal unreported and unregulated fishing and enhance maritime security.”
The forum Secretary-General Henry Puna welcomed the commitment from the United States, saying it was a good sign of friendship.
“That was very refreshing and also very reassuring that the Americans are fully committed to re-engaging with the Pacific in a meaningful and substantive way.”
Fiji’s Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama has commended the United States for its renewed intentions.
US policies welcomed
Bainimarama said he and fellow leaders welcomed policies such as appointing a designated US envoy to the forum.
“I think it’s clear to see that the US is certainly looking more like the Pacific partner that we have traditionally held it to be. We look forward to deeper engagement to support our development and build our capacity at the regional and national level,” he said.
Last year, President Joe Biden was the first US president to address the forum Leaders, which was followed up by a visit to Fiji by Secretary of State Antony Blinken to launch the America’s Indo-Pacific strategy.
Harris said Washington planned to build on this foundation in the months and years ahead.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has promised to renew Australia’s standing in the region at the Pacific Islands Forum in Fiji, however Australia has not been a good Pacific neighbour on climate and other fronts. Peter Boyle reports.
Addressing media on developments at the Pacific Islands Forum in Suva, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says making sure the region is investing now in initiatives that improve climate resilience is incredibly important.
Ardern is attending the forum alongside Minister of Foreign Affairs Nanaia Mahuta.
The funding announced for Pacific crop seeds this afternoon allowed the preservation of the region’s biodiversity, “which is incredibly important to all of us”, Ardern said.
She said it was important for the region to move away as much as possible from the reliance on fossil fuels.
“The price impacts that has, they’re increasingly becoming unaffordable, but also the fact that offers an opportunity for climate mitigation as well. I expect that will be one of many things that comes through the Pacific Islands Forum.”
Climate change had been top of the agenda at every forum she had been to, Ardern said, and represented a huge security issue in itself.
“All of these things come back to essentially the resilience of our region and our general security as a region as well.”
If others like Australia chose to follow New Zealand on increasing climate change-related spending, that could only be a good thing for all, she said.
“In some cases quite a bit of background work needs to be done on funding some of the initatives … one of the things that has been a barrier has been the inability to progress projects on the ground because of covid.
The media conference. Video: RNZ News
“I expect us to be trying to make up for a bit of lost time there, and that goes for aid and development funding across the region.”
There was, for the most part, an absence of legal mechanisms to protect the environment, and New Zealand was keen to play a role in ensuring that was in place, Ardern said.
Uncertainty after leaders withdraw Uncertainty has been swirling around the forum since Sunday when it was revealed that Kiribati president Taneti Maamau would not attend the gathering and his nation had formally withdrawn from the forum.
China denied claims it was behind Kiribati’s withdrawal.
Asked at a media briefing, the spokesperson for China’s Foreign Ministry, Wang Wenbin, said the claims were groundless.
Wang said China did not interfere in the internal affairs of Pacific Islands countries and hoped to see greater solidarity and closer cooperation among the nations for common development.
Since then there have been fresh defections — Nauru’s President Lionel Aingimea, Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown and Marshall Islands President David Kabua.
Ardern said she first discussed the concerns from Micronesian countries about them potentially withdrawing from the forum when they first arose.
“And sought to speak to a number of members from Micronesia to better understand those issues and how we could support resolution and today it was actually a follow-up conversation,” Ardern said.
Potential to move forward
She said the fact the Suva agreement had come forth from a number of members from Micronesia, there was the potential to move forward.
“We have now the potential to agree and to move on collectively, with those new arrangements in place.”
On Kiribati, which revoked its PIF membership, Ardern said she would point to their own sentiments.
“If they were highlighting any vulnerability for them it would be climate-related. You know, they’re suffering significant drought at present and have said that they wish to continue to work with the forum because these issues are so pressing and real and present for them now.
“Do we hope that they’ll come back into the forum formally? Absolutely — and that’s my hope, I think it’s everyone’s hope — but I think we have an agreement now that Micronesian members have broadly indicated their support for. They were at the table in developing it and our hope is over time Kiribati will choose to return…
“I think I imagine all forum members will likely keep up their engagement with Kiribati, and their support for Kiribati. It is an incredibly tough time.”
She said it was disappointing Kiritbati was not there when the 2050 climate strategy is set to be endorsed, “but at the same time they themselves have identified that climate change is an area where they wish to continue to work with the forum”.
‘Unity incredibly important’
“Yes, unity is incredibly important to us and I think we all still aspire to that, but we cannot at the same time halt the progress that needs to be made on working collectively on climate issues.”
Ardern said she met this morning with the president of Palau.
In coming days she expects to meet with Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare, and with Fiji Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama.
“Obviously we’ve had issues within Micronesia for some time, the Suva agreement on the table, a chance to check in on members from within the region and their satisfaction with the agreement that has been reached.”
Pacific Islands Forum members have also heard from the likes of the World Bank, the Asia Developoment Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
“Very similar themes, reflecting on the war in Ukraine exacerbating energy prices, the impact of inflation, supply chain constraints and of course Covid lockdowns in China and the impact that will have on the region,” Ardern said.
China and the Pacific Ardern said China was an example of a development partner that had been around the Pacific for decades but had increased its activity and changed the way in which it engaged.
“We’ve, from New Zealand’s perspective, said that there are elements of that — particularly when it comes to the security arrangements of the region — that concern us.
“On the other hand you’ve had the United States who equally have been present and engaged in the region perhaps over the past few years waning in their engagement, and at the behest of many in the region, are now seeking to re-engage again.
“You can see that all of this activity occurring at the same time does mean we have a more contested environment. We’ve got to come back to the principles.”
She said those principles were to prioritise the Pacific, to make sure there was no coercion in play, and avoiding militarisation of the region.
New Zealand had been one of the top contributors to the region for a long, long time but “it’s more than just whether or not you’re a donor in the region”, Ardern said.
“This is our home this is the place we live and it’s who we are, and I’d like to think that the way we do things — the relationship that we build — also sets us apart from other nations”.
New Zealand’s position on the Solomon Islands’ agreement with China was that nations had their own sovereignty to determine their own relationships, she said.
“But security arrangements have wider impacts and that is really what we’re drawing to the attention of the Solomons and equally we have been present there to help support the security needs of the region — and if there have been deficiencies in that I’d like to hear what they were.”
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Fiji Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama opened the 51st Pacific Islands Forum leaders meeting yesterday by saying it was setting the course for the future of Pacific regionalism through the 2050 strategy for the blue Pacific continent.
Meanwhile, in a letter posted on Twitter, Kiribati President Taneti Maamau addressed Forum Secretary-General Henry Puna and informed him Kiribati would pull out completely from the organisation.
Maamau said Kiribati’s leaving was never meant to undermine the leadership of the Pacific’s premier institution nor was it directed at any member of the Pacific family.
Former Fiji diplomat and chief executive officer in the Prime Minister’s Office until the December 2006 military takeover, Jioji Kotobalavu, issued a statement saying prime ministers Anthony Albanese of Australia and Jacinda Ardern of New Zealand had strongly indicated they wanted the forum leaders to discuss the wider implications to security in the region amid China’s growing presence and influence in its dealings with individual Pacific island countries.
Chinese ambassador to Fiji Qian Bo said the Pacific had nothing to fear from China and assured their relationship with Pacific island countries would continue to grow “within the framework of strategic partnerships with all countries including Fiji”.
Wata Shawis a Fiji Times reporter. Republished with permission.
Seats were glaringly empty at the Pacific Islands Forum summit in Suva this morning as Pacific leaders sat down to the first formal gathering.
Prime ministers from Australia and Papua New Guinea are expected to fly into Suva tonight. However, the empty seats with Marshall Islands, Kiribati and Nauru name tags will not be filled.
This morning’s meeting for leaders, observers and associate members was opened by Fiji Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama, who acknowledged the “breakdown in communication’ with the Micronesian bloc.
He called on the leaders to remember the necessity of re-establishing “our family bonds”.
This morning’s meeting was to bring all members, associate members and observers to the table with heads of the Council of Regional Organisations in the Pacific.
Meanwhile, Pacific Islands Forum Secretary-General Henry Puna has acknowledged this year’s meeting was “not an ordinary forum”.
“Let is not forget this is an opportunity for us to bond as colleagues,” Puna said.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
The number of leaders attending the Pacific Islands Forum summit in Suva, Fiji, has dropped further, with both the president of the Marshall Islands and the Cook Islands prime minister pulling out.
It was revealed at the weekend that Kiribati President Taneti Maamau was not attending the gathering, and his nation had formally withdrawn from the forum.
Nauru’s President Lionel Aingimea was also understood to not be attending, ostensibly because of the soaring levels of covid-19 in his country.
Now, Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown has also pulled out, saying he wants to focus on his country’s election, which is to be held in three weeks.
And Marshall Islands President David Kabua has said he would have attended the summit, but was not able to because of a legislatively-binding action to terminate the country’s membership in the forum.
That legislation had resulted from the five Micronesian leaders threatening to pull out 18 months ago over the failure of their nominee to be given the secretary generalship.
A forum committee announced last month that a remedy had been found for this rift and that it would be voted on at this week’s meeting
Kabua announced that the Marshall Islands is no longer a member of the forum, and has not been so since March of this year.
The five Micronesian states which have raised concerns at the appointment of Cook Islands politician Henry Puna as secretary-general of the Pacific Islands Forum are Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru and Palau.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
West Papua advocates are calling on Pacific nations to raise the issue of Indonesia’s human rights abuses on the 24th anniversary of the Biak massacre, reports Susan Price.
Kiribati’s sudden withdrawal from the Pacific Islands Forum without wider political discussion by the government is out of order, the country’s opposition leader and its first president, Sir Ieremia Tabai, says.
The Kiribati government gave the Pacific Islands Forum secretary-general a letter on Saturday that said the country was withdrawing from the body immediately.
Ex-president Tabai was stunned to hear from RNZ Pacific that the country had left the forum, and he said the public had not been told by President Taneti Maamau.
“It’s complete news to me. Explain to the people why that decision has been made,” he said.
“It’s not on — in a system like ours he’s [President Maamau] accountable to all the people of Kiribati and he should explain himself, but he has not.
“It’s simply not good enough.”
Tabai said he could understand the clash with Tuesday’s national day, but at the very least a minister should have been sent to the forum in the president’s place.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
The 51st Pacific Forum Leaders (PIF) Meeting starting today has been dealt a major blow after the Kiribati government confirmed it has withdrawn from the forum “with immediate effect”.
RNZ Pacific has seen a copy of a leaked letter, dated July 9, from Kiribati President Taneti Maamau to the forum’s Secretary-General Henry Puna, in which he expresses concerns over the regional body’s leadership, as well as the Suva Agreement signed last month.
According to the leaked communication, Kiribati did not sign up to the now-controversial deal, which was touted to mend the leadership rift and prevent the Micronesian subregion to split from the region’s premier political institution.
“We established a reform package that contains commitments that deepen trust and political cohesion across our region,” Fiji Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama had said after the conclusion of a special two-day meeting with three Micronesian leaders and the leaders of Cook Islands and Samoa in June.
“Fiji fully supports its [Suva Agreement] adoption at the next Pacific Islands Forum,” Bainimarama, also forum chair, said.
But in the letter to Puna, President Maamau states: “There was never a Micronesian Presidents’ Summit (MPS) caucus decision on the PIF reform packages that Kiribati was part of, and particularly an MPS collective decision to return to the PIF.”
The Kiribati president also requested for the forum to push out the date of the leaders convening so it would not coincide with their National Day celebrations. However, this was not considered.
RNZ Pacific understands forum officials are now working behind the scenes to convince the Kiribati government to reconsider its decision and urgently fly them over for the high-level meeting in Fiji’s capital.
RNZ has contacted the Forum Secretariat for comment.
Bringing the ‘family together’ Pacific leaders have attempted to bring the “family together” and resolve the political impasse for months, but there appears to be an apparent fracture within the forum.
Last week, New Zealand Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta, who is confirmed to be attending the meeting in Suva headed by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, said the forum was “at the heart of our engagement with the region”.
Mahuta welcomed the Suva Agreement and calling it “the Pacific-led solution that will see Micronesian states represented at the forum this year.”
But the latest turn of events indicates Pacific Forum leaders are scrambling to find a swift resolution ahead of the opening of one of the most significant leaders’ meetings in recent history starting tomorrow.
A diplomatic source close to RNZ Pacific said Puna must address the issues raised by Kiribati as there were concerns about the role of the secretary-general being a matter of “pride”.
The Suva Agreement Tension between the Micronesian states and the office of the secretary-general of the PIF has been high since the Micronesian candidate for the top job narrowly missed out to Puna.
But the situation had been improving following the High-Level Political Dialogue which resulted in the Suva Agreement on June 6.
The agreement engineered by forum chair Bainimarama was tweaked by PIFS senior officials meeting earlier last week and approved by the Forum Foreign Ministers on Friday to be tabled for sign off at the Leaders Retreat on Thursday.
In the Suva Agreement, the secretary-general’s term is to be extended from three to five years and Puna would continue till 2024.
Then, unlike every other previous secretary-general in recent times, he is to step down without seeking re-election to make way for a Micronesian candidate.
Current Marshallese Ambassador to the United States and dual Palauan citizen Gerald Zackios was the Micronesian state’s nominee to the position of the forum secretary-general at the last vote of the Leaders Retreat in Tuvalu in 2019.
Also in the agreement is the induction of recruitment procedures for the top job to formalise the “Gentlemen’s Agreement” so the job rotates among the three sub-regions.
To ensure equal representation, an additional deputy secretary-general position is to be created and filled by other candidates to ensure each region can be represented all the time in the Forum Secretariat.
Additionally, Micronesia has asked that the Office of the Pacific Ocean Commissioner (OPOC), a position also held by the PIFS secretary-general and housed in Suva, is to be moved to a Micronesian state along with a new forum sub regional office.
The other major CROP agency, the Pacific Community, has a Micronesian regional office in Pohnpei.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Pacific Peoples Minister Aupito William Sio will attend the Pacific Islands Forum in Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta’s stead as she recovers from covid-19.
In a statement confirming the move this afternoon Aupito, who is also the Associate Foreign Minister, said he looked forward to the opportunity to talanoa with Pacific Island counterparts at the forum in Fiji next week.
“This will be the first in-person meeting of Forum Foreign Ministers since 2019,” he said.
“It has been challenging to bring all ministers together given the impact of the global pandemic and a number of national elections under way in the Pacific, but this talanoa is essential for our region.”
Mahuta said the forum was at the heart of New Zealand’s engagement with the Pacific, and this meeting came at a “critical time” considering the climate change challenge.
She confirmed over the weekend she had tested positive for covid-19, and would be unable to attend.
Aupito said the response to broader security challenges — including maritime surveillance and illegal fishing — economic resilience, and natural disaster response were also pressing issues that would be discussed.
The Forum will also be attended by heads of state, including Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern.
Leaders’ meetings will take place from Monday to Thursday next week, July 11-14.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
