Keith Jackson & Friends: PNG ATTITUDE

PNG says Pacific nations must go it alone on trade

RADIO NEW ZEALAND INTERNATIONAL

PAPUA NEW GUINEA’S TRADE MINISTER, Richard Maru, says he wants to see a common market established in the Melanesian Spearhead Group of nations.

Richard Maru has also said he is against PNG being part of the PACER Plus scheme, which is strongly favoured by New Zealand and Australia, because the trade imbalance means there is no benefit for PNG.

The MSG group includes PNG, Fiji, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and the FLNKS of New Caledonia and Mr Maru says he wants to see trade among these states bedded down.

Indonesia-PNG joint exploration in border areas

AMAHL S AZWAR | The Jakarta Post

INDONESIA HAS AGREED TO TEAM UP with neighbouring Papua New Guinea to explore potential oil and gas reserves in border areas as the former shifts its oil and gas exploration focus to the eastern part of the archipelago.

Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Jero Wacik said after a meeting with PNG Public Enterprises and State Investment Minister Ben Micah this week that the two countries would work together by establishing joint operations to explore oil and gas reserves.

Indonesia’s Papua province shares a 760-kilometre land border with PNG. The two nations currently have a few territorial disputes along the border, in areas with poor infrastructure.

“The border possesses a huge amount of unexplored oil and gas reserves, according to data obtained by The Jakarta Post. Economically, it would be easier to jointly explore these untapped resources,” Mr Jero said in Jakarta.

Pacific paying price of major environmental abuse

CLAUDINE WERY | Le Monde

THE CONSTELLATION OF ISLANDS AND ATOLLS scattered across a vast swath of the Pacific Ocean micro-states are among those most exposed to the consequences of global warming: ocean acidification, multiplication of natural disasters, coral reef degradation, rising sea-levels.

These little islands, which account for a total of about 10 million inhabitants, are paying for the environmental irresponsibility of the world’s great powers.

"Pacific islands are the victims of industrial countries unable to control their carbon dioxide emissions. The truth of the matter is that we have no option but to accept this and adapt," says Dr Jimmie Rodgers, head of the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC), a regional development organisation.

Pacific trade talks 'waste of time' says PNG minister

SAMISONI PARETI | ABC

OFFICIALS FROM PAPUA NEW GUINEA say they are considering withdrawing from free trade negotiations between Pacific Island countries and Australia and New Zealand.

PNG's Trade Minister, Richard Maru, today told a meeting of trade ministers from the Melanesian Spearhead Group that his country was considering withdrawing from Pacific Agreement on Closer Economic Relations (PACER) negotiations.

"My country is not interested in PACER Plus, our focus is the MSG Trade Agreement," Minister Maru told a press conference convened at the end of the meeting at the Sofitel Fiji Resort and Spa in Nadi.

Fiji declares its solidarity with PNG women

NASIK SWAMI | Fiji Times

FIJI SAYS IT HAS HAS JOINED THE FIGHT to stop sorcery-related murder and torture of women and girls in Papua New Guinea.

The Fiji Women's Crisis Centre has presented a petition to the PNG High Commission in Suva calling for the PNG government to take drastic measures.

Centre director Shamima Ali said the petition was in solidarity with the women and girls of PNG and aligned the centre with protests in PNG against sorcery-related murders.

Isolate Benny Wenda and stop the attention-seeking

YANTO SOEGIARTO | Jakarta Globe

INDONESIA SHOULD NOT HAVE MADE BENNY WENDA (pictured) and his campaign an issue by summoning the British ambassador to Indonesia, Mark Canning, to protest the opening of a Free Papua Movement (OPM) representative office in Oxford, England.

The more Indonesia reacts to Benny’s activism, the more he gains from the publicity. That was exactly what he wanted to get: the world’s attention.

There was no need to mention his support for Scotland’s independence from Britain. But as a British citizen, he has the right to express that opinion. Britain can’t act against its citizens. He can do whatever he wants.

PNG's Pacific leadership: Is Fiji the start?

DONALD GUMBIS | The Interpreter | Lowy Institute

PRIME MINISTER PETER O'NEILL is acutely aware of the need to improve Papua New Guinea's international reputation.

Part of his plan to do this is to step up PNG's activities as a regional leader, as he explained during an interview at the Lowy Institute in November 2012.

This may explain his decision to extend K50 million in assistance to the Fiji government for its elections in 2014.

Paradise lost - a tale of greed, excess and disaster

HARRY TOPHAM

ONCE UPON A TIME there was a tiny eight square mile speck of land located in a most beautiful spot along the meridian of the equator in the vast and lonely reaches of the Pacific halfway between Hawaii and Australia.

There was nothing really special about this place, it was nothing but a tiny coral atoll uplifted by previous tectonic forces, however the surrounding waters were teeming with fish, which attracted the attention of wandering birds.

Offering protection from the dangers of the world, it became a favourite transit point for the wanderers of the sea, the frigate bird.

For thousands of years this tiny speck of land remained unspoiled apart from the nomadic visitors leaving behind their tiny blobs of faeces as peppercorn rental. The only other immigrants were botanical, arriving on the sea and wind and finding the rich soils fertile enough to flourish abundantly.

Fighting for a forgotten cause in West Papua

DEUTSCHE WELLE

WEST PAPUA'S 50-YEAR STRUGGLE for independence from Indonesia is one of the world's longest-running conflicts. Exiled activist Benny Wenda is trying to draw attention to it, this time with a peaceful message.

Wearing his Papuan patterned shirt, Benny Wenda cuts an unmistakable figure on the streets of Melbourne. He's currently halfway through his latest global tour, trying to raise awareness of the issue of West Papua.

There is both a sense of peaceful resilience and some exasperation when he explains what the situation is like for West Papuans.

"Every single day you cannot go hunting or gardening, everywhere you go there is a military post, everywhere," he says. "Everywhere you go, intelligence is watching and intelligence monitor what you do."

West Papua push gains strength in Melanesia

RADIO NEW ZEALAND INTERNATIONAL

JOHNNY BLADES reports that the election of New Caledonia Kanak & Socialist National Liberation Front spokesperson, Victor Tutugoro, as chairman of the Melanesian Spearhead Group coincides with a push to help the self-determination aspirations of Melanesian peoples including West Papuans

FURTHERING THE KANAK BID for independence from France was a core reason for the inception of the Melanesian Spearhead Group 25 years ago.

MSG commitment to this cause may have veered off course in the intervening years, but it’s sharply returning to focus with the change of chairmanship and the fact that the four-year window for a possible referendum on New Caledonia’s independence, as provided by the Noumea Accord, begins next year.

Adding to the momentum, former Papua New Guinea prime minister Sir Michael Somare recently warned that if the MSG cannot help fulfil Kanak political aspirations, then ‘it risks the danger of losing its existence’.

Pooling of sovereignty is in Pacific interest: Morauta

TESS NEWTON CAIN | Development Policy Blog

Tess got a chance to meet with Sir Mekere Morauta whilst he was in Port Vila recently. You can listen to the podcast of their conversation here and read the full transcript here

OUR MAIN TOPIC OF CONVERSATION was the review of the Pacific Plan – Sir Mekere being the eminent person leading the review team.

The team was in Vanuatu to undertake consultations with government, civil society and academics as to how the Pacific Plan should be reformed.

In considering how the region had changed in the years since 2005, when the Pacific Plan was adopted, Sir Mekere identified the increased presence and influence of China.

PNG ministers get restless on West Papua issue

SOLOMON STAR (Honiara)

A PAPUA NEW GUINEA government minister, speaking as a private citizen, has said it is time PNG made a bold stand for the independence struggle of the mostly Melanesian indigenous of the Indonesian province of West Papua.

Health minister Michael Malabag posted on social media site, Sharp Talk, on Monday that “sooner or later PNG has to ... bring it before the United Nations Assembly”.

“Enough is enough,” Malabag wrote, stating that he was making his comments in a private capacity.

Malabag said, “The West Papua issue bugs me all the time.

West Papua: Is this the time to heed freedom’s call?

BONNY KAIYO

THE DIVISION OF NEW GUINEA between two states, indeed between two continents, can be traced back to 1828 when the Dutch proclaimed their territorial possessions ended at the 141st meridian east, roughly halfway across the large island.

During the scramble for empire that also decided the colonial demarcations of Africa, New Guinea's eastern half was to be administered by German, British and, subsequently Australia colonial governments, before gaining independence in 1975 as Papua New Guinea.

However, the western half of New Guinea remains a colony, having being forced in 1962-63 to swap Dutch colonialism for a much more pernicious, militarised Indonesian form.

Fiji benefits from Australian 'appeasement lobby'

VICTOR LAL | The Strategist | Australian Strategic Policy Institute

AUSTRALIAN POLICY ON FIJI is shifting to appeasement in ways that will gladden the military regime and sadden Fijians.

What might be called the Bainimarama appeasement lobby—broadly speaking a group of academics and journalists who have never lived under the Fiji dictatorship—make valid points about Australia’s interests.

But they are necessarily made from the viewpoint of a comfortable and calm Sydney, Melbourne, Honolulu or Auckland suburb without recourse to public opinion and conditions in Fiji.

NZ Speaker's Wenda ban puts focus on West Papua

JOHNNY BLADES | Radio New Zealand International

BENNY WENDA HAS BEEN LIVING in the United Kingdom since escaping from Indonesia in 2003 after being arrested for promoting West Papuan independence.

In 2011, Interpol issued a red alert on him at the request of Indonesia but, following an investigation, it was removed last year.

Now free to travel again, Benny Wenda had been touring widely, sharing his people’s experiences of rape, torture and murder by security forces and the militarisation of his homeland.

“I never go back to West Papua. If I go back (now) I’m a dead man so (I’ll wait) until my people are free and I’m free. I just want to go a free man and see my people.”

Touring with Benny Wenda is international human rights lawyer Jennifer Robinson, known for her work representing Julian Assange.

Ms Robinson had been working in Papua a decade ago when she met Mr Wenda incarcerated in solitary conditions as a political prisoner.

Inspired by his and other West Papuans’ commitment to freedom in the face of ongoing violence in the Indonesian region, Ms Robinson helped establish the International Lawyers for West Papua movement.

She said calls for West Papuan self-determination have a sound legal basis and cannot be silenced.

“Of course Indonesia has avoided any sort of international adjudication on the issue because they know that they’re in the wrong,” Ms Robinson said.

“Legally speaking, West Papua is in the right, and has the right to self-determination that was denied to them in 1969. International law is on their side. The difficulty is getting it into an international forum where that matter can be decided.”

That difficulty was demonstrated in the New Zealand context when the country’s new Speaker of parliament refused to allow Mr Wenda access to parliament to speak about the plight of West Papuans.

David Carter’s refusal stemmed from advice he said he received from government officials deeming the Wenda visit inappropriate.

Subsequent fallout from the Speaker’s decision meant that the West Papua question has had unprecedented exposure in New Zealand mainstream media.

The Green MP, Catherine Delahunty, accused the Speaker of going against the spirit of parliament.

“It’s not good enough to just say well you can do this in your caucus room,” she said.

“I wanted to hold a forum which included other political parties where they have shown an interest in this issue. This is an issue which basically is the dirty secret of the Pacific that no one wants to talk about.

“The facility called parliament belongs to all parliamentarians and, without fear or favour, we should be able to hold events in this facility.”

Papua independence leader's extensive freedom tour

Office of Benny Wenda

WEST PAPUAN INDEPENDENCE leader Benny Wenda will embark on his first official overseas tour this month having successfully fought to have an Interpol Red Notice against him removed.

Wenda is now free to travel and is visiting political leaders, lawyers, activists and supporters in in six countries to build support and awareness of the campaign for self-determination for the people of West Papua.

Ahead of the tour, Wenda spoke of his hope that “it will further raise the voice of the West Papuan people whose cries for freedom and justice have been largely ignored by the international community for the last 50 years”.

After first visiting the US, Wenda will travel to New Zealand from 8 February, launching the International Parliamentarians for West Papua at Parliament House in Wellington on 12 February.

In Australia (13-25 February), he will host an event at Parliament House, Canberra, attended by politicians and members of the legal fraternity. He will also visit Melbourne, Sydney and Perth as well as meeting Aboriginal elders.

Wenda’s tour of Melanesia from 25 February to 10 March will conclude in Papua New Guinea, where he will speak to parliamentarians and meet community leaders.

Benny Wenda is travelling with his lawyer Jennifer Robinson and independent filmmaker Dominic Brown.

Tour updates: Web:   www.bennywenda.org   Twitter: @BennyWenda

Neocolonialism & the forgotten struggle of West Papua

ANDREAS SCHLÜTER | http://wipokuli.wordpress.com

WHEN INDONESIA (under colonialism, Dutch East India) gained independence (declared August 1945, formally recognized December 1949 by the Dutch) under Ahmed Sukarno it tried to follow a path of independence in the bloc of free states.

But the military was very strong and deeply linked to the West, especially the US.

Sukarno, who had tried to balance the military and the strong communist party, failed in the end after a terrible conflict (500,000 people, many landless communist sympathisers, butchered).

General Suharto, the man of the US, seized power over the archipelago. He and his military clique turned the many islands into a plunder ground for Western and Japanese interests using Javanese dominance for their purposes, including the western part of New Guinea.

When the Spaniards and other Westerners came across the island of New Guinea, its dark skinned inhabitants with frizzy hair reminded them of Africa´s Guinea Coast (which was already the hunting ground for slavers) which inspired them to name the island New Guinea.

Going further east they met similar people up to the Fiji islands and in course of time named them Melanesians because of the dark pigmentation.

The Melanesians became object of rude anti-black racism and many times were subjected to slavery called forced labour.

Contrary to the hostile degradation of its inhabitants by white people, New Guinea is a remarkable place in cultural history.

For example, its agricultural history with intensive gardening techniques dates back 7-10,000 years, thus putting its inhabitants among the pioneers of mankind´s agricultural history.

Indonesia gained independence soon after World War II but western New Guinea remained under Dutch control to the distaste of the Indonesian ruling class.

The issue of independence raised some complicated questions. A basic contradiction lay in the colonial borders which separated same ethnicities and lumped others together. The aspirations of the Javanese-dominated Indonesian political class (under pressure of overpopulation) confronted a special situation.

Firstly West New Guinea had been longer under Dutch control and was de facto already not “part of Indonesia”; secondly, it was a very different world. It was not only inhabited by very different people but by people upon whom the Javanese looked down upon with racist arrogance.

Such considerations didn’t bother either the Indonesian government or the Dutch or the white dominated UN and by no means the US government.

Indonesia tried to solve their “problem” by military force and, under the strong influence of the US, the UN made Holland hand over administration to Indonesia (which they did in March 1963.

But the treaty also included a procedure by which Papua should decide whether it wanted to stay with Indonesia. The “Act of Free Choice” in 1969 was nothing but typical colonial theatre.

Fijians: Melanesians like PNGns but a class above

DAVID KITCHNOGE

This is an article I wrote way back in 2006 at the waiting lounge at Nadi international airport when I visited Fiji for the first time on a business trip. I shared it with my circle of friends when I returned to PNG. I’ll be most interested to see any reaction from your readership….

FELLOW PAPUA NEW GUINEANS. I’ve just returned from a short trip to Fiji and what an eye-opener it was.

Fijians are Melanesians like us but they definitely are a class above. They are a nation of well groomed, calm and very organised individuals. I couldn’t help but envy the free night life of the Fijian capital of Suva where you can walk down the streets without the concern of being attacked or harassed by thugs.

There is a barbecue going on at major sections of the streets in Suva and both residents and visitors alike can go along and enjoy themselves with their families.

There are countless numbers of top-notch restaurants where you can go and be served really nice meals at an affordable price.

Ladies, and I mean females, girls, walk around the streets freely in the night and no one touches them. This would have to rank among the top five luxuries for our women in PNG but, that’s ‘life as usual’ for Fijians. And their streets are much cleaner and pleasant than ours.

Their population is almost evenly split between the indigenous Fijians and the Indo-Fijians but just about everyone is very friendly and easy to get along with. Everywhere you go, you are greeted with wide smiles accompanied by a bula (welcome/greeting). And every public announcement made over the inter-com ends with a vinaka (thank you) or the longer version vinaka vakalevu (thank you very much).

No one told me but it is probably an unwritten fact that the Fijians are acutely aware of the importance of tourism on their economy and ultimately their well-being, hence the appropriate behaviour.

Fiji doesn’t have the kind of mines (gold, copper, nickel etc) that we have plus our rich marine resources and forestry but they are richer than us in terms of GDP per capita and the real life on the ground.

All they have are sugar cane, fisheries, and mostly tourism unlike us who appear to be endowed with endless amounts of resources. This is truly one of the greatest paradoxes in our region.

So what does that tell us about the Fijians and us? I think one explanation for that would be in this word – efficiency.

Fijians are very efficient operators and gain the maximum benefit out of their scarce resources whilst we, on the other hand, are a very inefficient nation who wastes all our resources on non-productive and non-value adding activities. We are truly a nation that is so rich yet so poor.

Apart from that, I think one of the biggest differences between us and them as a people is that we have very different temperaments. They appeared to me to be a calm, peaceful, gentle, respectful and tolerant people while we are the exact opposite.

We are a country of bigheads, arrogant and violent people who will not hesitate to prey on someone’s misfortune. No wonder tourism will never be a sustainable industry in our beautiful country.

The reasons why we are worse off than them or they are better off than us (whichever way you see it) can be many and varied but one thing is for sure. The biggest gulf between our fellow Melanesian brothers and sisters and us is attitude.

We can match and even better them when and only when we change our bad attitudes. I pray that this happens in my lifetime. Amen.

UNHCR backs away from W Papua refugee support

FIRMIN NANOL | Radio Australia

THE UNITED NATIONS HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR REFUGEES (UNHCR) has announced it will scale back its operations in Papua New Guinea, citing the growing expense of looking after refugees from the Indonesian province of Papua.

The UNHCR has been providing protection and support to refugees from the Indonesian province of Papua for the last 28 years, including access to jobs, education and integration into PNG communities.

The UNHCR has signed an agreement formalising its transition of powers and responsibilities to the PNG government.

UNHCR representative Walpurga Englbrecht says the organisation is scaling back its operations due to financial constraints and other evolving refugee and humanitarian crisis in the Middle East and Africa.

Ms Englbrecht says the UNHCR is happy the PNG government will continue to look after the refugees.

''It is a very positive step, the signing of the memorandum of agreement," Ms Englbrecht said.

"It just shows the willingness of the Papua New Guinea government to further locally integrate the West Papuan refugees."

An estimated 8000 refugees live in PNG's Western province, most of whom had fled neighbouring Indonesia in the mid-1980s.

The PNG government says it will support in processing their permissive residency certificates and repatriate them if they wish to return.

Taiwan-leaning Solomons welcomes mainland Chinese

Island Sun (Honiara)

THE BUSINESSMEN FROM MAINLAND CHINA had not expected to be officially welcomed so warmly on their recent visit to Honiara given that the Solomon Islands and the People’s Republic of China do not have diplomatic relations.

Indeed, the Solomon Islands has diplomatic relations with China’s arch rival Taiwan.

But to its surprise the three-man delegation was given VIP treatment when it arrived in Honiara last August, during an encounter that has just been revealed.

Doing the honours was none other than deputy prime minister Manasseh Maelanga along with other ministers and senior officials.

Mr Maelanga also hosted a dinner at which delegation leader Joe Wong was officially appointed Solomon Islands’ Commerce and Investment Commissioner for China, Hong Kong, Macau and Asia.

A huge red banner featuring the China’s national colours announced the appointment in both English and Chinese.

Mr Maelanga gave a speech in which he encouraged closer cooperation between Solomon Islands and China.

Island Sun believes it is important that the people of Solomon Islands know what is happening behind the scenes, particularly the decision by the government to openly host a delegation from China.

Fiji's Frank Bainimarama disappoints us again

JENNY HAYWARD-JONES | The Interpreter (Lowy Institute)

FIJI'S MILITARY LEADER, Commodore Frank Bainimarama, has done it again.

He surprised everyone last year by opening up what appeared to be a genuine process of consultation on a new Fiji constitution and engaging Professor Yash Ghai, one of the world's foremost constitutional experts, to chair the Constitutional Commission and draft the constitution. Fiji seemed finally to be making progress on its path back to democracy.

Then, late last week, Bainimarama, aided by Fiji President Nailatikau, pronounced that the regime had serious concerns with the draft produced by the Commission and would be redrafting it before passing it to a Constituent Assembly (a body of distinguished Fiji citizens from representative civil society groups, to be chosen by the PM and chaired by the PM's appointee, which by decree will discuss, modify and adopt the draft constitution for presentation to the president) for consideration.

This announcement was the culmination of a campaign from the Fiji regime to distance itself from the Commission it had itself established, which begs the question of why the regime bothered with the expense and effort of engaging international expertise, attracting support from donors and seeking the views of the people if it intended not to respect the process.

Bainimarama could have made his concerns about the draft constitution known to his hand-picked Constituent Assembly and allowed its debate and advice to decide the amendments. But that strategy would have risked Bainimarama being seen to reject the advice of a group of eminent Fiji citizens which he had appointed to advise him.

Far easier to act now and reject emphatically the work of a foreigner, even if this puts Bainimarama offside again with countries like Australia and New Zealand.

This is a disappointing move, as the Constituent Assembly may well have made amendments that satisfied the Government; a final document would then have been seen to be the result of a democratic process of sorts, rather than the outcome of aggressive intervention by Bainimarama.

It is difficult now to see how the Constituent Assembly, even if it has a fair representation, will have a reasonable opportunity to provide independent advice on the new constitution. It seems likely it will be hounded into rubber stamping the regime's new draft, with only a month promised for consideration.

In his address, President Nailatikau said Fiji could not 'allow unelected people to make decisions for the rest of the general public in the new parliamentary system' and that Fiji could not 'allow elitism to take place'.

That he could say this while Fiji's unelected leader and the commander of the military, the country's most important elite, was standing beside him is extraordinary. This is unlikely to be lost on the Fiji people.

Information instead of arrows to liberate W Papua

IVAR ANDERSEN & KLAS LUNDSTRÖM | The Jakarta Post

FOR DECADES, THE STRUGGLE for West Papuan independence has been fought from the vast rainforests along the border between Indonesia and Papua New Guinea.

But there has been little progress, and now second generation refugees from the Indonesia portion of the island of New Guinea — which they term West Papua — are discarding the guerilla tactics of their parents in favor of international networking and information efforts.

From Kiunga in PNG’s Western Province, Indonesia is just around the corner. The border itself is formed by the Fly River, named after the first European vessel to reach this gridlocked part of the world in 1842.

Today, the river transports gold and copper from the Ok Tedi mine, north of Kiunga. Along the road to Ok Tedi, paid for and constructed by the mining company, a pipeline transports minerals from the jungle to the wharf in Kiunga, from where it is shipped to satisfy the global market’s ever-increasing demand for gold and copper.

Kiunga’s 30,000 inhabitants are from all over PNG. Here everything is surprisingly expensive; most of the food, drinking water and electronics are imported by plane, forcing prices sky-high. This is evident at the local market; locals pay US$3 for a tin can of fish, a tiny fish from the Fly River is yours for $8. You can have a banana for $2.

Sustainable? Not really, if you ask the people living here.

Since the mid-1980s, around 15,000 refugees from Indonesian Papua have found themselves stranded in and around Kiunga — either in border camps or “settlements”.

They fled the low but intense war that followed after what was called West Papua was integrated with Indonesia in 1969.

That population was not allowed to participate in a UN-backed referendum regarding independence or integration; instead, a little more than a thousand male elders hand-picked by the Soeharto government got to decide the future for West Papua’s then half a million inhabitants.

Two years prior to those controversial elections, Jakarta had signed a contract with US mining giant Freeport, granting the company a 30-year-long concession in Papua.

Life in the border camps is one of hardship. In Dome, home to about 95 families and located 25 kilometers from the Indonesian border, the main source of protein has been lost since the pollution of the Fly River left the fish unfit to eat.

Citizens of PNG have received financial compensation for the environmental havoc caused by Ok Tedi, but due to their legal status the refugees are ineligible. “Many years ago, before the pollution destroyed the river, the water was clear,” explains a Papuan couple arranging motorboat transport across the Ok Tedi River.

The vast majority of land in Papua New Guinea is privately owned, and the refugees are left with little choice but to occupy. The situation does cause tension, and local landowners will sporadically voice their discontent through violence.

“Last year they burned our school to the ground,” says Johnny Mathias, a 30-year-old Dome resident and father of two. “We contacted the police but they don’t really do anything.”

West Papuan refugees struggle for PNG citizenship

Irin Global | UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

ACCESS TO CITIZENSHIP could prove the best hope yet for thousands of West Papuan refugees living in Papua New Guinea.

“I want citizenship. I’ve been here 28 years and want to get on with my life,” said Donatus Karuri (right), a 57-year-old father of six, outside the shelter he shares with five other families at the Hohola refugee settlement, one of four settlements for West Papuan refugees in Port Moresby.

Like most West Papuan refugees, he is unable to work legally and has only limited access to public services.

According to the UN refugee agency UNHCR, there are more than 9,000 West Papuan refugees in PNG today, many who have been there for over three decades.

They know no other home and can’t imagine living anywhere else.

“I was born here. This is the only country I know,” said Dan Hanasbey (left), 27, another refugee wanting citizenship.

Between 1984 and 1986, more than 11,000 West Papuans fled east into PNG from the western, Indonesian half of New Guinea Island to escape political turmoil and economic discontent.

The area’s longstanding secessionist sentiments towards Jakarta continue to simmer today.

At the time the refugees arrived, the PNG government was not yet a signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention. It granted the West Papuans prima facie refugee status shortly after accession to the convention in 1986 - but with seven reservations, including naturalisation.

Of the close to 9,300 West Papuan refugees in PNG today, almost half live along the border area with Indonesia.

Another 2,435 live in urban areas, while 2,290 live in East Awin, the only officially sanctioned area for West Papuan refugees to settle.

There, regular assistance is available and access to 6,000 hectares of government land is provided - about 120km away from the Indonesian border.

The site was established in an effort to resettle the refugees away from the border areas to avoid possible political problems with the Indonesian government.

Those who resettle in the area for six months are provided permissive residency permits (PRPs), which allow them certain rights, including the right to work and travel internally (excluding border areas), and gives them access to health and education services.

Few refugees, however, wish to resettle in East Awin, preferring instead to stay close to the border area and their land and families on the other side. Others frown upon its remote jungle location and inaccessibility.

The government estimates 40% of West Papuan refugees hold PRPs. The others survive on subsistence farming - particularly in the border area. Those in urban settings live on private or government land, under constant risk of eviction, and often work illegally.

Despite these challenges, many West Papuans - who share a similar Melanesian ancestry to Papua New Guineans - have integrated well in this nation of 7.3 million and would like to stay.

“Local integration with the opportunity to be granted PNG citizenship is the best solution for many West Papuan refugees under the current circumstances,” Walpurga Englbrecht, UNHCR country representative for PNG, told IRIN.

“The problem, however, is the application fee is too high.”

Under PNG law, any foreigner - including refugees - wishing to apply to citizenship and who has fulfilled eight years of residency must pay a K10,000 application fee.

“We can’t afford that. It’s impossible,” Freddy Warome, 58, a West Papuan community leader, complained.

UNHCR believes there should be a path to citizenship for those who desire it, while those West Papuans lacking PRPs who would like to remain in the country should be provided PRPs without having to relocate to East Awin, Englbrecht said.

Melanesia free trade group operational next year

SEAN DORNEY | Australia Network News

THE MELANESIAN SPEARHEAD Group's free trade agreement is ready to be implemented between at least three of the group's four members.

This follows a recent breakthrough from Papua New Guinea, which agreed to dramatically scrap duties on almost all of its protected goods.

Merewalesi Falemaka, MSG's director of trade and investment, says with the changes the free trade agreement could be in full effect from next year.

"There were about 50 products that were on that list, so now they have actually gone duty free on all those products," she said, adding that there are three exceptions: mackerel, salt and sugar.

The move came almost seven years after the trade deal between Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Fiji and PNG was finalised.

Fiji had been applying duty free status to all MSG products since 2009.

Vanuatu started in 2010 and is expected to eliminate all tariffs by next year, while Solomon Islands began in 2011.

Forum move to keep out Fiji prime minister fails

MAIKA BOLATIKI | Fiji Sun

A MOVE TO STOP FIJI’s prime minister Commodore Voreqe (Frank) Bainimarama from attending the opening session of the Pacific ACP (Africa/Caribbean/Pacific) leaders meeting in Port Moresby this week failed to get off the ground.

Fijian foreign affairs minister Ratu Inoke Kubuabola said he had been informed that the Pacific Forum Secretariat had wanted Commodore Bainimarama to stay out of the opening and be invited in later.

Ratu Inoke said he reminded the group that Fiji’s prime minister was invited to the meeting by PNG prime minister Peter O’Neill.

“Why should the prime minister from Fiji be stopped to attend the opening when he was invited by the host country?” Ratu Inoke asked.

He said it unacceptable to Fiji for Commodore Bainimarama to be asked to stay out and be invited in later.

According to Ratu Inoke, his PNG counterpart resolved the matter before the opening.

At the opening Mr O’Neill especially welcomed Commodore Bainimarama.

“I wish to make a special welcome to Fiji’s prime minister. I sincerely hope that his participation will be good for the Pacific community,” Mr O’Neill said.

The chair of the Pacific Islands Forum, Cook Islands prime minister, Henry Puna also welcomed Commodore Bainimarama.

He said the meeting was specifically held to discuss Fiji’s participation at Pacific ACP meetings at all levels.

Generational change underpins Pacific's digital future

DANIELLE CAVE | The Interpreter | Lowy Institute

LED BY BLOGGERS, DIGITAL ENTREPRENEURS and social media groups in Papua New Guinea, a Pacific 'digital generation' is emerging that is increasingly influencing public debates, forming policy ideas, holding institutions accountable and coordinating political protests.

The potential size and influence of the Pacific's emerging 'digital generation' is enhanced by the fact that more than 50% of the regional population is estimated to be below the age of 24.

In a new Lowy Institute Analysis research paper launched on Wednesday, Digital Islands: How the Pacific's ICT Revolution is Transforming the Region, I outline how the Pacific Islands region is in the midst of an information and communication technology (ICT) revolution that could have profound implications for the region's governance and development.

My research, sponsored by the Myer Foundation Melanesia program at the Lowy Institute, reveals that digital technologies are increasingly being used in the Pacific Islands to harness, influence and project political and social change.

About 60% of Pacific Islanders now have access to a mobile phone and this figure continues to climb. This has coincided and fused with another global phenomenon, the rise of social media.

This growth in mobile phone access is extraordinary given that only four years ago, six countries (PNG, Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands, Kiribati, Tuvalu and the Marshall Islands) had penetration rates of 16% or less, meaning less than just one in five people had access to a mobile phone.

In Tonga, mobile penetration has risen from 3% in 2002 to 53% in 2011. Fiji, Samoa, Vanuatu and New Caledonia now enjoy mobile penetration rates of over 80%. In 2006 only 2% of PNG's population had access to a mobile phone; today this figure is fast approaching 40%. 

The mobile growth statistics are impressive, but the region is home to some of the lowest internet penetration rates in the world. For example, only 2% of PNG's population had access to the internet in 2011 and in Solomon Islands, Samoa and Vanuatu, it is less than 10%.

However, web-enabled mobile phones and Facebook phones are enabling the region to leapfrog barriers (such as remoteness, cost and availability) to computer-enabled internet access.

Decreasing costs for handsets and calls, and better reception, has facilitated more widespread access, far beyond affluent urban dwellers.

There are now almost 700,000 Facebook users in the Pacific Islands, dispersed across the region's population of 10 million people.

PNG is leading the region's growth in social media use with Facebook membership nearing 150,000, a figure which has tripled since mid-2011. Fiji and Samoa, also experiencing high growth in Facebook membership, are not far behind.

EU says illegal fishing in Pacific may trigger sanctions

Fish Information & Services

The European Commissioner Maria Damanaki (pictured) has warned eight Pacific countries that the Commission thinks they have not done enough to fight illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing in the region.

A recent independent review by European Union consultants scored the Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia and Papua New Guinea as posing a low-risk to illegal fishers, and said Kiribati and Fiji were medium-risk. The warning was also addressed to Vanuatu.

"We want these countries as partners but we also want to signal to the world that the EU will not tolerate illegal fishing — a criminal activity which undermines the livelihood of fishing communities and depletes fish stocks," Damanaki said.

The Commission’s decision has not entailed any measures affecting trade, but it could.

The eight countries have been notified and offered a “reasonable” time to respond and to “rectify” the situation.

The Commission also proposed an action plan for each country and informed that, should the situation not improve, the EU would include them in a blacklist and may take further steps.

These may involve trade measures such as a ban on selling fisheries products to the EU.

PNG opens its borders to many more Fijian exports

NASIK SWAMI | Fiji Times

FIJI'S TRADE WITH PAPUA NEW GUINEA could soon take a new turn following the removal of products listed on PNG's negative list.

Fiji’s Attorney-General and Trade Minister Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum said the Bainimarama government had been calling on all member nations to fully implement the Melanesian Spearhead Group Trade Agreement.

"We are pleased that PNG has heeded our call as this will bring tangible benefits to Fijian exporters and will create jobs in Fiji.

“It will also benefit Papua New Guineans who will be able to enjoy quality Fijian products at competitive prices," Mr Sayed-Khaiyum said.

He said it was a positive move by PNG which showed the true spirit of MSG and signalled to other Pacific Islands the commitment MSG countries had towards regional trade and economic integration.

"PNG is a lucrative and rapidly growing market in the region, with a total population of more than 7 million, and offers many exciting new prospects for Fijian businesses and new opportunities for job creation," Mr Sayed-Khaiyum said.

Fiji's annual exports to PNG are about $7.6 million the majority of which will now enter PNG duty free. Fiji imports about $4.2 million from PNG annually.

However, PNG has maintained tariffs only on mackerel, salt and sugar while the rest of about 400 items on their negative list have become duty free with the recent gazettal.

PNG to express concern over West Papua abuses

SCOTT WAIDE | Pacific Islands Report

AFTER DECADES OF MAINTAINING a neutral stance, the Papua New Guinea government will finally make a strong representation to Indonesia to raise concerns over alleged human rights abuses committed by the Indonesian military in West Papua.

Prime Minister Peter O’Neill said the PNG Foreign Affairs Department will deliver a diplomatic note expressing concerns over the two Melanesian provinces of Papua and West Papua to the Indonesian government.

The response comes days after representatives of more than 4,000 Lutheran women called on Peter O’Neill to look into the difficulties faced by West Papuans.

The public appeal for government attention to the West Papuan cause was made by Rose Muingepe, a Lutheran women’s representative who was attending a conference in Mumeng outside Lae.

"We are asking the government to raise the plight of the West Papuans on the floor of Parliament. We know that women are being raped, men are being tortured and we want our government to pay attention to the issue.

Prime Minister O’Neill said a diplomatic note would be passed on to the Indonesian government through PNG’s Jakarta embassy.

"We need to respect international conventions made in organizations like the United Nations. We also need to respect that Indonesia is a part of those organizations.

"Through those conventions we will deliver a diplomatic note raising the concerns of our citizens over some of the reports that we are getting from West Papua on human rights abuses."

This is the first time in years that a Papua New Guinean prime minister has acknowledged human rights abuses in Papua.

Prime Minster O’Neill will also be bringing the West Papua issue to the attention of the Indonesian President in an upcoming democracy conference in Bali later this year.

Clinton urges autonomy not independence for W Papua

AFP

HILLARY CLINTON HAS TOLD INDONESIA that the United States wants autonomy for Papua but made it clear it does not support independence.

Clinton rattled nerves in Indonesia last year by voicing concern over human rights and yesterday praised the Indonesian government even as she urged more efforts to resolve the long-running conflict.

"We believe strongly that dialogue between Papuan representatives and the Indonesian government would help address concerns the Papuans have and assist in resolving conflicts peacefully," Clinton said in Jakarta.

Clinton urged implementation of Indonesia's 2001 declaration of autonomy for the troubled region. Local activists charge that the autonomy has never been carried out and that their rights have not improved.

"We think that there has been an enormous amount of good work done by the Indonesian government and we're going to continue to work with them and raise issues as that becomes necessary," she said.

Human rights groups have accused Indonesian authorities of arbitrary arrests and attacks on civilians in Papua, which is shut off to foreign media.

More stars than cars: US pivots on the Pacific periphery

The Economist

RARELY CAN RAROTONGA HAVE SEEN such a stellar cast of world leaders as the one that last week descended on the most populous of the tiny Cook Islands for the annual summit of the Pacific Islands Forum.

It normally accommodates just 13,000 inhabitants and some beach-basking tourists. But alongside the leaders of other island states, the forum drew delegates from well over 50 countries.

They included the prime ministers of Australia and New Zealand, and Hillary Clinton, America’s secretary of state (pictured with Peter O’Neill), who struggled to borrow enough four-wheel drive cars for her motorcade.

The international enthusiasm for the gathering seems puzzling. One commentator uncharitably but accurately called the forum’s members “impoverished, strategically unimportant island states”.

Leaving aside Papua New Guinea, with seven million people, each of the Pacific Island states has a population of fewer than one million. Niue has a mere 1,500.

Apart, again, from mineral-rich PNG, none has many natural resources. The Pacific Rim may be the dynamo of the world economy, but most Pacific shipping passes well north of the island states, which are clustered in the south-west of the ocean.

One reason for the new attention paid to the islands is Barack Obama’s “rebalancing” of America’s strategic posture towards Asia and the Pacific, an undeclared aim of which is to push back against expanding Chinese influence.

Chinese soft loans to Tonga, Vanuatu, the Cook Islands and, more controversially, to the military regime in Fiji, have raised American eyebrows. So too has Chinese involvement in mining in PNG, although Mrs Clinton’s claim last year that China was trying to unpick Exxon Mobil’s $16 billion gas project in PNG was unfounded.

Australia is also concerned, but its main grievance is Chinese reluctance to sign a compact on coordinating development aid that was agreed at the forum’s 2009 summit in Cairns.

The competition for influence in the Pacific islands recalls the days when they were more significant, both economically and strategically. Two centuries ago, sailing ships from Britain, France and America ruthlessly hunted whales among the islands.

In the 1840s Australian and American traders flocked in search of sandalwood, sea cucumbers and other Pacific delicacies to trade for tea in China. With the arrival of the steamship, Pacific deepwater harbours were briefly eyed as coaling stations, until design improvements made possible non-stop travel from San Francisco to Australia.

After Japan bombed Pearl Harbour in Hawaii in December 1941, ferocious fighting on Guadalcanal and Bougainville brought Americans in large numbers to the islands. After the war America took charge of formerly Japanese territories, most of which still have “compacts of free association” with the United States.

So far, however, American “rebalancing” has brought the Pacific Islands little of substance, aside from a few extra grants and the opening of an office in Port Moresby, PNG’s capital, by USAID, the American development agency.

America’s realignment has mainly affected South-East Asia and Australia itself, with last year’s announcement of what amounts to a marine base in Darwin, North Australia.

Even now, despite this week’s diplomatic carpet-bombing of Rarotonga, the Pacific Islands are unlikely to play more than a symbolic role in America’s Pacific diplomacy.

Galling as it must be for the islands, their main function for America may be as a way to stress the interests it shares with Australia and New Zealand.

Clinton: US is committed to security in Asia-Pacific

MATTHEW LEE | Associated Press

US SECRETARY OF STATE Hillary Clinton has pledged renewed American commitment to security in the Asia-Pacific, where tensions are rising between China and its neighbours over territorial disputes and many nations face threats from climate change.

Speaking at a meeting of leaders of South Pacific island nations, Clinton said the US would not abandon its long history of protecting maritime commerce in the region and serving as a counterbalance to domination by any single world power.

However, she played down the idea that the U.S was acting "perhaps as a hedge against particular countries."

She said America wants to cooperate with China in the vast Pacific and encouraged other countries, including those in the region, to do the same.

"The Pacific is big enough for all of us," she told reporters.

Yet she pointed out that China's interests in the region are not necessarily the same as others, contrasting US goals as aimed at adding rather than extracting value.

The comment was a veiled shot at China, which some complain is using its overseas investments to exploit resources at the expense of local populations.

Realpolitik, but Clinton is a show-stopper in the Pacific

EVAN OSNOS | The New Yorker

IT TAKES A LOT OF DOING to get yourself to Rarotonga, the capital of the Cook Islands, a place of windswept palms, crashing surf, and a population of 11,000, scattered across 15 tropical specks in the South Pacific.

It’s a patch of dry land the size of Washington, DC. So, with all eyes in Washington this week on Tampa, and, soon, on Charlotte, why did Hillary Clinton become the first Secretary of State ever to touch down in Rarotonga? Is she dying to catch up with Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi of Samoa? Is it the body-surfing?

The answer, of course, is China. In the diplomatic equivalent of driving across town to honk at the opposing team’s locker room, Clinton is attending a regional dialogue hosted by the Pacific Islands Forum, usually the domain of island states, as well as Papua New Guinea, Australia, and New Zealand.

The Chinese, who have assiduously courted Pacific Island nations in recent years, are also attending, and when Clinton arrived Friday night (Rarotonga time), it did not escape reporters’ attention that the Chinese delegation had scheduled a press conference for precisely the same hour.

China’s state news service is not subtle about its discontent, saying Clinton’s trip is “aimed at curbing China’s growing influence” and “stirring up disputes.” It called on Washington to “abandon its surreal ambition of ruling the Asia-Pacific and the world.”)

Rarotonga has barely been able to accommodate the attention. A New Zealand reporter predicts that it will be “a much bigger show than when Zac Guildford ran naked from waterfront Trader Jacks.” (Guildford is a rugby star.)

The island has been scrambling to deal with so many dignitaries, reportedly even asking residents to pony up use of their SUVs to fill out Clinton’s motorcade. While the State Department has limited the size of her entourage, the contingent includes some notable attendees, including Admiral Sam Locklear, head of the Pacific Command.

Clinton’s turn in the South Pacific is part of the Administration’s “pivot” towards Asia, which includes establishing a new submarine-corps base in Australia and a rotating military presence in the Philippines.

Earlier this year, Clinton spelled out the challenge. She told a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing that China had “brought all of the leaders of the South Pacific to Beijing, and wined and dined them.”

As the Los Angeles Times reported, she was blunt: “Let’s just put aside all the moral, humanitarian, do-good side of what we believe in, and let’s just talk, you know, realpolitik. We are in a competition with China.”

Clinton's visit underscores new value of the Pacific

PAUL RICHTER | Los Angeles Times

OFFICIALS ON ONE OF EARTH'S most isolated archipelagoes are borrowing four-wheel-drive vehicles from private owners for the motorcade.

The impending visit, according to one website, will be the biggest thing since a New Zealand rugby star ran naked from the waterfront.

The tiny South Pacific islands and atolls known as the Cook Islands have rarely been more than an afterthought to the world's great powers. Yet in their intensifying contest for influence in the Asian Pacific region, the United States and China are seeing new value in far-flung outposts that until now were coveted more for pearls and sunsets than geostrategic importance.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton underscored that point on Tuesday by announcing that she will attend an obscure meeting of Pacific Island nations Friday on a palm-fringed Polynesian island that her predecessors never considered worthy of a stop.

Her visit to the Cook Islands — 15 coral atolls and small islands with fewer than 11,000 souls on about 93 square miles of land — is a sign that the Obama administration is not only strengthening ties with China's neighbors in their territorial disputes in the South China Sea. It will also step up diplomacy, development aid and military support to the distant South Pacific to offset attention lavished by Beijing.

"This is a strong signal to China that the United States is taking seriously the way [China] is ramping up its interest and engagement in the South Pacific," said Annmaree O'Keeffe, a former Australian diplomat now at the Lowy Institute for International Policy, an independent think tank in Sydney.

Clinton explained the emerging strategy at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing this year. China, she noted, had "brought all of the leaders of the South Pacific to Beijing, and wined and dined them."

"Let's just put aside all the moral, humanitarian, do-good side of what we believe in, and let's just talk, you know, realpolitik," she said. "We are in a competition with China."

That competition is now popping up across the Pacific.

China has sought for decades to cultivate ties in Asia and farther abroad by using aid and diplomacy to win access to resources it needs to fuel its fast-growing economy and provide jobs.

But what looks to the Chinese like understandable efforts to expand its economy appears to outsiders like attempts to dominate smaller neighbors. And when its neighbors, and world powers like the United States, push back, China complains of encirclement.

The US announcement of its intention to attend the Cook Islands meeting quickly raised eyebrows in China. The China Daily, a government-controlled English-language newspaper, said the visit "raises concerns" about growing major-power competition in the region.

PNG keen on engaging with Pacific on climate change

HENRY YAMO in Rarotonga | Pacific Scoop

PAPUA NEW GUINEA IS KEEN TO ENGAGE with other Pacific countries on many issues – including climate change – that have an impact on all countries in the region, says prime minister Peter O’Neill.

But the government is also equally keen to engage with development partners, he told journalists in the Cook Islands yesterday.

“Coming to the Forum on the back of an election, we also have specific agendas which we took to the elections and need to be addressed at the country level,” he said.

He said internal issues included the government giving particular attention to education, health, law and order and fighting corruption within the country.

“We also need infrastructure to continue to maintain the growth of our economy and maintaining and ensuring the fiscal economy continues to deliver a better outcome that our country deserves,” he said.

O’Neill said some agendas might be too large and considered to be too ambitious at times but his government believed it could deliver over the next five years.

“So we came to the Forum keen to engage with all the other countries and development partners in terms of regional trade, security and migrations, he said.

He said PNG was also interested in partnerships that would enable labour mobility within the region and he would pursue these over the next few days.

Henry Yamo is a postgraduate communication studies student at AUT University reporting with the Cook Islands News team

Pacific Islands Forum needs to reaffirm its relevance

MICHAEL O'KEEFE | The Australian

THE PACIFIC ISLANDS FORUM Leaders' Summit in Rarotonga in the Cook Islands that opens today will be a watershed. It will either forge a new path for the region's pre-eminent institution or give ground to the alternative architecture that has grown since Fiji's suspension from participation.

That the stakes are high is evidenced by the unprecedented attendance of the US Secretary of State. Hillary Clinton will be joined by a large Chinese delegation, underscoring the point that the region is geopolitically important.

The summit provides an opportunity for Australia to influence how the region deals with outside powers and on what terms. In recent months Foreign Minister Bob Carr has injected a note of pragmatism into Australia's relations with Fiji and it remains to be seen what impact this will have.

The challenge for the PIF is twofold. First, its place at the centre of regional architecture needs to be cemented in light of the drift towards alternative forms of regional and subregional cooperation. Second, it needs an organisational renovation to face the challenges of globalisation and development.

Australia and other donors have long identified the PIF as the key institution for implementing development policies in the Pacific. This is the orthodox function of the PIF and one Australia and New Zealand have largely bankrolled for more than 40 years. More recently, the PIF has taken on a diplomatic role. This political role was compounded by the response to the 2006 coup in Fiji as the PIF became the central vehicle for legitimising the Australian-led sanctions regime.

Six years of sanctions have not achieved their stated aims, in so far as Fiji has not returned to democracy. That said, Australia has reaffirmed its leadership to the other members of the PIF and to external powers and organisations such as the US, China, UN and EU.

However, come 2014 when elections are held in Fiji the the rationale for sanctions will end. Fiji will presumably be welcomed back into the PIF and as such Australia and its supporters will be faced with much more challenging diplomacy.

The rise of alternative forms of regionalism is a direct result of Fiji's suspension and poses the largest challenge to Australia. The Melanesian Spearhead Group, Engaging with the Pacific meetings and the Pacific Small Island Developing States grouping at the UN have much in common, not the least that Australia is excluded from membership. They are largely driven by Fiji's "Look north plus" policy.

Fiji has made new friends and opened up new avenues of co-operation and as Australia chooses to re-engage it will be operating in a vastly different Pacific seascape. In this climate the continuing relevance of the PIF will need to be demonstrated rather than simply asserted. Fiji is not likely to accept the status quo and may need to be encouraged to resume its engagement with PIF.

Pacific economies resilient despite euro crisis: ADB

MYSINCHEW.COM | Xinhua

PACIFIC ECONOMIES WILL REMAIN RESILIENT despite economic woes in Europe thanks mostly to increased government spending on public infrastructure, according to the Asian Development Bank (ADB).

The Manila-based lender also expects growth in the Pacific region to expand 6% in 2012, Xinhua news agency reports.

"Economic troubles in the eurozone continue to have only modest and indirect effects on Pacific economies, owing to the relatively greater importance of economic developments in Australia, Japan, New Zealand, and the United States in driving Pacific growth," ADB said in its report.

Agricultural, petroleum and metal exports from Papua New Guinea and Timor-Leste, the two biggest economies in the region, were hit by lower international commodity prices.

But growth projections for these two resource-based economies are unchanged because their near-term growth is more dependent on ongoing infrastructure projects.

The ADB, however, has mixed views on the economic performance of smaller Pacific islands.

Australia wants transparency as Indon troops to Papua

BAGUS T SARAGIH & ANDI HAJRAMURNI | The Jakarta Post

AUSTRALIAN FOREIGN MINISTER Bob Carr raised sensitive issues relating to alleged human rights abuses and violence in Indonesia’s poorest province, Papua, during a meeting with his Indonesian counterpart Marty Natalegawa on Monday.

Marty said that Carr told him Australia wanted the Indonesian government to promote transparency in matters concerning Papua.

“But he also reiterated the principal position of Australia: that it recognizes Indonesia’s integrity and sovereignty which includes Papua,” Marty said after the meeting Carr.

“We’ve quietly worked with the Indonesians to see that there, as elsewhere, reasonable standards of human rights protection are maintained,” Carr said in Yogyakarta.

The Papua issue has remained a sensitive issue for most Indonesian politicians, particularly when it comes to the role of Australia.

Many have regularly blamed Australia and the Western countries for meddling in the province’s affairs, alleging that they have engineered the worsening security through their sponsored NGOs.

Indonesia’s obvious concern is that Papua may end up breaking away from Indonesia as in the case of Timor Leste, which benefited from intense advocacy and support from Australia and the West world before its independence from Indonesia in 2002.

The government has also remained the subject of criticism for failing to resolve the prolonged violence in Papua, including a series of deadly shootings.

Dozens of civilians, police and military personnel have been killed in various locations in Papua over the past few months.

The latest bloody incident was the killing of a soldier and two civilians last week.

With the killing remaining mostly unresolved, the Indonesian Military, police and intelligence services have been blamed by human rights activists for having a role in allegedly creating the security instability in the province for their own ends.

Papua is home to the operations of US-based Freeport McMoran, one of the world’s biggest gold miners, and London-based energy company BP.

With the protracted violence, Papua has probably the world’s highest ratio of police and soldiers to civilians.

With around 2.85 million people, Papua has more than 20,000 TNI personnel and 25,000 police officers.

The TNI is building up its forces in Papua by sending more troops to help secure the border with PNG, which has been used as a refuge by members of the Free Papua Movement.

Violence in West Papua: vulnerable are the latest target

CAMELLIA WEBB-GANNON
THE CONVERSATION

WHY HAS WEST PAPUA’s non-violent student movement - the West Papuan National Committee (KNPB) - become the latest target of a campaign of terror in West Papua?

Since Indonesia’s 1963 takeover of West Papua from the Dutch, the occupation has been characterised by oppression and violence.

Indonesia’s unwillingness to allow West Papua a chance to choose its political future stems largely from the revenue it pulls in from the US-owned gold and copper mine in West Papua, Freeport McMoRan.

In passing months, the KNPB has organised protests across West Papua that call for an independence referendum. This has placed unbearable pressure on Indonesia. The protests have also raised awareness of the abuses committed by Indonesian security forces against indigenous Papuans, as noted at the May 2010 United Nations Periodic Review.

Indonesia’s human rights record has also elicited criticism from Germany. This criticism was the precursor to a month of shocking violence in West Papua. Perhaps this is why KNPB has been the focus of the Indonesian security apparatus’ latest attack on indigenous West Papuans.

The broad daylight assassination of KNPB deputy chairperson Mako Tabuni on June 14 by police, has enraged the indigenous resistance movement triggering a backlash of riots and fresh violence in West Papua’s largest town, Jayapura.

Police claim Mako was armed with a police rifle and resisted arrest. Eyewitnesses to the murder disagree, saying Mako was standing at a kiosk eating betel nut when several cars pulled up and shot him on the spot.

A week before the assassination, Buchtar Tabuni, the chairperson of the KNPB, was arrested for organising student demonstrations in West Papua. Police claim they pursued and killed Mako because of confessions from an incarcerated Buchtar that Mako had been responsible for several murders earlier that month, including of other KNPB members.

Mako had actually been campaigning for an independent investigation into the killings. The spokesperson of an Indonesian NGO for victims of violence, Kontras Papua, said that the Papuan police had spun myriad lies in the aftermath of Mako’s assassination.

The police allegation was categorically denied by KNPB spokesperson, Victor Yeimo, whom I spoke to several days ago. Yeimo attested to Mako’s commitment to non-violence and queried why KNPB would be shooting its own members.

Police and the Indonesian security forces have illogically pinned the murder of KNPB members and others on the Papuan indigenous resistance movement, and a police wanted list is circulating with more KNPB names listed.

On 23-4 June, five KNPB members were allegedly detained by Densus 88 (Indonesia’s Australian-trained counter-terrorism unit) forces, and families of the five are worried as they have not been seen since.

In the week following Germany’s denunciation of Indonesia’s treatment of West Papuans at the UN Universal Periodic Review, a German tourist was shot in Jayapura by an indigenous-looking gunman police claim may have been Mako Tabuni.

Riots in West Papua after independence activist killed

BY OLIVIA RONDONUWU
REUTERS

ANGRY RESIDENTS OF INDONESIA'S resource-rich Papua burned cars and shops on Thursday after an independence activist was shot and killed, police and human rights activists said.

A low-level insurgency for independence has simmered on Indonesia's easternmost island for decades.

Mako Tabuni, deputy of a group pushing for a referendum on Papuan self-determination, was shot dead while resisting arrest, human rights activist Markus Haluk told Reuters.

Tabuni had been campaigning for an investigation into a recent spate of shootings.

"This is not law enforcement, this is ridiculous," Haluk told Reuters by telephone from Jayapura.

"Security forces are using the excuse of law enforcement to shoot, using the classic excuse of the separatist group stigma," Haluk said of Tabuni's killing.

Police confirmed Tabuni's death saying he was shot in the hip and leg and died on his way to hospital.

News of the killing brought people out onto the streets of Jayapura and some of them torched shops and vehicles. Television footage showed police inspecting burned out buildings and smoldering cars.

Gold, gas and copper make Papua one of the richest areas in Indonesia and a hot destination for investment.

But Papua's development lags the rest of Indonesia, an ethnically diverse country with the world's fourth largest population.

West Papua: Indon military launches mass offensive

BENNY WENDA
FREEWESTPAPUA.ORG

I AM WRITING with my heart full of sadness, urging friends of West Papua to ask your government, or the Indonesian government (address below) to act now to help my people.

Today the Indonesian military has launched a ferocious wave of attacks against Papuan civilians in the highland town of Wamena.

Eight people are confirmed dead so far and 17 injured. Reports state that hundreds of people have fled the town and are now hiding in the hills surrounding it, as Indonesian military continue their offensive.

We urgently need UN peacekeepers to be sent. More than 500,000 civilians have been slaughtered by the Indonesian military since 1963, and I fear the current massacre will be alike to the Santa Cruz massacre the Indonesian military committed in East Timor.

On behalf of my people I am asking you to raise your voice right now as loud and clear as you can.

Please call your local and national media organisation. Contact your local MP to urge support. Call the Indonesian Embassy in your country and tell them to stop their military operations against a defenceless people.

My people demand nothing more than the freedom to think, the freedom to move, the freedom to act, and the freedom to choose their own destiny without fear of killing, rape, torture, intimidation, murder or oppression.

Please hear my peoples cry at this most critical time.

Benny Wenda is the West Papuan independence leader and chairman of the Koteka Tribal Assembly http://www.bennywenda.org/

Letters can be sent to: Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, President of Indonesia, Jl. Veteran No. 16, Jakarta Pusat, Indonesia or faxed to +62 21 3442223

West Papua conflict is infiltration & rape of Melanesia

BY LEONARD FONG ROKA

MELANESIA, OR ‘THE DARK ISLANDS’, is a region covering the big island of New Guinea and the smaller Solomons chain, Vanuatu, Fiji and New Caledonia.

It is the region considered to be the ancient gateway for human colonisation of the Pacific. Today the grip on this ancient cultural and political tranquillity is being lost by our brothers in West Papua.

With the arrival of Europeans, the long historical state of calm was shattered by the rapacious and belittling drawing up of lines of division across traditional nations.

After the dawn of decolonisation, West Papua found itself in Indonesia; Bougainville in Papua New Guinea; and New Caledonia struggling for self-determination from French rule.

The trio - West Papua, New Caledonia and Bougainville - have had significant influence on the political fabric of the countries that governed them. They have also had a history of resistance, in one way or the other, to those governors.

West Papuans, who are Melanesian, have been ignored by most other Melanesian leaders out of fear of negative repercussions from Indonesia.

Government after government in Papua New Guinea (as distinct from ordinary PNGeans) have not stood up for their fellow Melanesians. So far only Vanuatu and some little groups or individuals in the Solomon Islands and Fiji have spoken out.

Melanesian states, excluding the current regime in Fiji but especially Papua New Guinea, are good at worshipping powers that are militarily or politically powerful.

They have not been able to change the systems that they were given by the colonial powers, not because of the lack of natural capabilities but because of deliberate negligence out of fear of adverse external pressures if they create political and economic systems that are more realistic for Melanesia.

What the Melanesian states and people need to know is that, ‘liberal democracy’ today is not ‘people power’ but is a tyranny controlled by the western banking system through the military industrial complex to control the remaining natural resources in the world.

In West Papua, Melanesians must realise that they are at war with an imperialistic Asian parasite which is merciless in its torture, rapacity and gluttonous methods which are used to rob our fellow Melanesians of their land and wealth. PNG is already a collateral victim with all the Batas trading near Wutung that deny development to the town of Vanimo.

The island of New Guinea is said to be a bridge between Asia and Oceania. In this I see a hopeless situation for the future of Melanesia. If West Papua is to be controlled forever, then the spillover effect will eventually come to PNG, then into my Bougainville and the rest of the Solomon Islands and beyond.

Hearing of the West Papuans’ struggle, the first thing that bothers me is the fact that Asia houses more than 60% of the global human population and is currently the host of some of the world’s most rapidly rising economies that need natural resources to keep them running.

Australia's Pacific diplomacy needs recalibrating

BY DEREK BRIEN
THE AUSTRALIAN

DISMISSING the current diplomatic standoff between Australia and Vanuatu as a case of "the mouse that roared" is a bad idea.

Neither does it help to view Pacific island countries solely as beneficiaries of Australia's $1 billion aid program. Their strategic significance is only growing.

As the axis of power moves eastward, emerging Asian powers including China, Indonesia and India are demonstrating increasing strategic interest in Australia's backyard.

Within days of expelling the Australian Federal Police, Vanuatu's Prime Minister Sato Kilman welcomed a delegation from Indonesia and offers to provide police and paramilitary training. Within 24 hours of that meeting, a Hercules aircraft loaded with equipment had arrived from Jakarta.

To resolve the current impasse and retain its strong footprint in the region, Australia would do well to recalibrate its relationships in the Pacific.

Australia's Melanesian neighbours Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu have more than 1,000 living languages, a cultural make-up more diverse than anywhere else in the world.

Rules of engagement vary greatly from island to island. Islanders know that the way one person says something is not necessarily the way the other person hears it. Its not just what you say, its how you say it. Actions often speak louder than words, and both are always carefully examined. Getting language and approach right is no mean feat.

So it must be a source of great frustration that well-meaning Australian politicians, diplomats and aid workers find themselves labelled "big brother" or "bully".

Equally importantly, it frustrates Pacific leaders and policymakers not to be afforded the same degree of respect bestowed on their international colleagues. No matter how small the country, the prime minister is still the prime minister.

The Pacific is a region in the process of redefining its own identity. Most countries are led by the same ageing generation that won independence. As the biggest donor, Australia has played a significant role in charting the region's development path over the last 30 years.

Yet the discourse on foreign aid remains haunted by guilt, greed, and good intentions. Donors are accused of interference, neo-colonialism and aid conditionality. In some cases, such accusations have been warranted.

In other, the best of intents have been thwarted, often due to the failure to communicate a good idea. But unilaterally imposed solutions rarely gain traction, and for good reason.

Most of us don't like to be told what to do, and we certainly don't like to see our faults paraded in front of others. In a region where pre-independence memories remain fresh, such sentiments are particularly powerful. Stop focusing on corrupt governments, and start thinking about the people who need support fixing things.

In the Pacific, development is a process, not a product. Development partnerships may be forged between countries and institutions, but the interaction and engagement occurs between people. Person-to-person relationships come first and they extend far beyond government offices.

One of the greatest collateral effects of the Pacific seasonal workers scheme is that Pacific islanders not only gain access to temporary job opportunities in Australia, they return home enriched with new friends and exposed to new ideas.

Personal relationships can have far-reaching consequences. The battle for supremacy between China and the US is now playing out on the Pacific stage. As both powers boost their presence across the region, Australia's position is coming under closer scrutiny. Australia may have the deepest pockets now, but new donors are gaining traction.

Pacific leaders who have quietly bemoaned the imbalance in the relationship with Australia are embracing these new opportunities. Chequebook diplomacy it may be, but it comes with lashings of respect.

Kilman was politically compromised and embarrassed when his delegation was diverted and an adviser arrested at Sydney airport. An angry reaction was inevitable, and its fallout threatens to shake the foundation of the relationship between the two countries.

Both sides claim the high moral ground, making a face-saving resolution all the more important. Saving face is integral to the Pacific way and many across the region are watching in anticipation.

A new era of understanding is possible. A little effort and a lot of empathy could reset the relationship from the prevailing lop-sided, aid-centric approach towards mutually beneficial closer integration. Staying on the same track is in no one's interest.

Derek Brien is the executive director of the Pacific Institute of Public Policy, an independent regional think tank based in Vanuatu

West Papua: dog & cuscus cannot share a bed

BY LEONARD FONG ROKA*

THE WEST PAPUAN CONFLICT needs global attention. The conflict is the end product of colonisation by Dutch in West Papua.  Moreover, looking at the conflict, it is very difficult to come up with solutions because of the stranglehold of the Indonesian on West Papua.

The difficulty in solving this issue is that it needs full support from all countries, but given Indonesia’s bilateral relationships, bordering countries such as Australia and Papua New Guinea find it very difficult to intervene. Tensions will escalate if either Australia or Papua New Guinea try to intervene

There is much political chaos in West Papua, crimes against humanity and many people killed, tortured and raped by Indonesian forces in silent genocide. Also, transmigration from Bali, Sulawesi and Java leads to more people coming to West Papua and leads to natives being prisoners in their own land - one of the factors contributing to the conflict.

Another factor is the Indonesian government manipulating local landowners, people who are, in the words of one observer, “becoming marginalized in their own land, due to exploitation, repression, exploitation and genocide” (Ondawame, 2000:21).

West Papuans face a crisis. It is a crisis of a man seeking to preserve his life on the edge of extreme danger; while striving to restore his identity, his power and his status. In the region, it is a similar crisis that the New Caledonians and Bougainvilleans are going through.

The first stage into solving this conflict to halt the Transmigration Program and return the aliens to their origins. This great human rights abuse is ignored by the world.

Then cut off the Bahasa Indonesia language in Papua, which represents a cultural suppression of a people.

Furthermore, the most important initiative of all is to re-visit the 1962 New York Agreement. In this agreement the rights of the Papuans were set out correctly and initially respected. But the Dutch colonisers and Indonesians neglected and abused them.

Democracy was defamed and the people subjugated and their rights obliterated into the smoke screen of rapacious greed.

In summary, nationhood is the only way out for West Papuans for as, a Kieta peoples’ proverb goes, ‘A dog and a cuscus cannot share a bed’.

* Prepared with fellow PNG Studies Year 2 students at Divine Word University Ronald Kalang, Dulcie Moab, Rachel Rekeken, Erin Malona

West Papua – still suffering under ‘the big wink’

BY JASON BROWN
ISLANDS BUSINESS

NUCLEAR TESTS ARE HELD IN NEVADA. Demonstrators riot against the Vietnam War. Shadows gather on a grassy knoll. And Indonesian paratroopers waft down onto the western half of a vast island, marked out on their maps as “Irian Barat”. In 1962, the world’s newest colonial force, Indonesia, is busy invading Western New Guinea.

Event surrounding that year remains murky, involving a CIA coup, hand-in-hand with big business interests in the US political system, namely Freeport, still earning billions in profit each year.

Not consulted; the people of Papua, their future decided on a far-away street in Dallas as a presidential limousine cruises past a book repository.

“When Kennedy was killed, a military dictatorship was installed and paid off” in Indonesia, says Lisa Pease, an author on the assassination and its impact around the world, “so that the interests of businesses like Freeport are given higher priority than any demands of the natives whose resources are still being pillaged.”

Fifty years after the paratroopers first land, the world’s biggest Asian invasion continues to pillage Papua at vast volumes.

Still under armed force, an estimated 750,000 people from Indonesia now live in the western half of Papua, part of a gigantic “transmigration” program, funded with the help of the World Bank.

Nearly three million Indonesians make up a dominant majority in urban centres and take up nearly all of the town jobs.

But a flood of migrants are only a small part of a bigger tsunami of social and environmental damage, including 230,000 tons of waste a day from the world’s richest copper and gold mine, at Grasberg.

Mining there generated US$6 billion in sales for 2010 alone, including $4 billion in operating profits.

“2010 was an outstanding year for our company,” reads the Freeport annual report on the company website. “After successfully managing through one of the most severe economic downturns in history, we achieved in 2010 the best financial results in our company’s history.”

Indonesia gets around a billion in taxes and proceeds from a 9% stake in the mine, a find so vast early surveyors nicknamed the area “Copper Mountain”. Some 91% is held by a US company called Freeport through interests in Australia and Indonesia.

Their contracts include the right to mine some 27,000 acres and explore a further 413,000 acres.

Grasberg is also lauded in company literature as the world’s cheapest mine. Last year, however, miners went on strike, costing the company millions. High by Asian standards, the average pay of $1.50 an hour reflects generally tiny returns for the local economy.

Call for action over attack on plane in Papua

PACIFIC FREEDOM FORUM

PACIFIC MEDIA WATCHDOGS are keen to see Indonesian police investigate the plane attack in Indonesia's Papua province last Sunday which killed Leiron Kegoya, a 35 year old journalist.

Kegoya, a journalist for the Papua Pos and Pasifik Pos Dail was on assignment to cover local elections in the provincial capital Jayapura, which borders Papua New Guinea.

He was a passenger in a Twin Otter plane touching down at Mulia Airport when shooters opened fire. He died from a bullet wound to his neck.

The pilot, co-pilot and a mother and her 4-year-old son were injured in the attack, which saw the aircraft veer off the runway and crash into the terminal building.

"The circumstances of this attack highlight the situation in which journalists must do their work, and we join our colleagues in Indonesia and the International Federation of Journalists in urging police to ensure the perpetrators behind this horrible act are brought to justice," said PFF chair Titi Gabi.

"The safety and security of civilians including journalists rests on the ability of Police and law enforcers, and is especially critical during election periods and when reporting from dangerous or unstable locations."

"We ask that Papua's police and Indonesia's leadership ensure this investigation not taper into silence, but that those responsible can be identified and brought to justice," said co chair Monica Miller.

Pacific plan means new regionalism in the making

BY WERNER COHILL

THE PACIFIC PLAN MARKS A NEW BEGINNING in the concept of regionalism in the Pacific.  Now in its seventh year of implementation, there have been progressive reports outlining the achievements tabled annually by the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat.

This plan was developed out of a review of the Forum organisation in 2003 by the Eminent Persons Group (EPG) and was later tabled in 2004 during a special Leaders Retreat in Auckland (New Zealand).  It was aimed at strengthening regional cooperation and integration in the Pacific. 

From this narrow goal of strengthening regional cooperation and integration, there were four areas that this plan aimed to achieve.  They include stimulating economic growth and encouraging sustainable development, promoting and encouraging good governance, and security for the Pacific Island Countries.

During the 36th Forum meeting in Madang in 2005, the Pacific Plan was officially endorsed by the Pacific Leaders for a period of ten years.

In endorsing the plan, the Forum Members agreed to note in particular the need to firstly, increase trade in the region under the already established economic arrangements like South Pacific Regional Trade and Economic Cooperation Agreements (SPARTECA), Pacific Island Countries Trade Agreements (PICTA) and Pacific Agreements on Closer Economic Relations (PACER) with other non-forum trading partners and to also increase the regional technical and vocational education training. 

Secondly to improve regional immigration policies so as to address the issue of labour mobility and at the same time seek international funding for sustainable development, biodiversity and environmental protection and climate change in the region. 

Thirdly, to provide assistance to the Smaller Island States for the implementation of the Pacific Plan and noting with appreciation additional resources contributed by Australia and New Zealand as regional leaders.

All these measures espoused the making of a new regionalism in the Pacific.  This new regionalism is different from the way regional cooperation was developed and understood in the past.  The old regionalism was a child of colonialism. 

Later, as the Pacific Island Countries began to gain political independence, this old regionalism was assimilated into the post-colonial setting of the Pacific Island Countries.  In this way, regional cooperation was always compromised by the individual national interests of the island countries with little or no effort towards strengthening it.  That is to say, the island countries continue to maintain their bilateral relations over regional interests. 

The old idea of regional cooperation was a cover-up for the island countries to work in isolation and pursue their individual national interests.  That meant that regional cooperation was operating flexibly and there was no overriding need for improving cooperation among the island countries towards addressing the issues of economic growth, sustainable development, good governance and security for the region.

UN's chequered record over West Papua

BY JENNIFER ROBINSON in London
PACIFIC SCOOP

THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE have taken part in rallies across West Papua and in Australia to mark the UN Secretary-General’s visit to Indonesia.

They have called on Ban Ki-moon to revisit United Nations mistakes that led to the denial of West Papuans’ right to self-determination and to assist in resolving ongoing human rights abuses in Papua.

UN peacekeeping was at the top of the agenda of Ban’s visit to Indonesia on Tuesday. West Papua was not, but many argue that it should be.

After all, West Papuans are asking that the UN revisit its first – and flawed – administration of a post-conflict society. Observers hailed the success of the UN administration of East Timor and its successful transition to independence.

But few are aware of the UN’s failure in its first attempt at administration in West Papua more than 40 years earlier. East Timor got a democratic vote. West Papua got a sham vote.

East Timor got independence. West Papua became part of Indonesia – against its will and in breach of its right to self-determination under the UN Charter.

Had the UN properly discharged its mandate back then, West Papuans would have celebrated more than 40 years of independence instead of having endured nearly 50 years of oppression.

In that time, it is estimated that as many as 500,000 Papuans have been killed at the hands of Indonesian security forces. Yale and Sydney Universities report that the situation is approaching genocide.

Papuan activists campaigning for self-determination are routinely arrested and jailed for peacefully expressing their political opinions.

The recent conviction and jailing of the Jayapura Five – including Forkorus Yaboisembut, a Papuan tribal leader – drew international condemnation from lawyers and human rights groups.

Pacific MPs campaign against Indons ‘dirty secret’

RADIO NEW ZEALAND INTERNATIONAL

A NEW ZEALAND MP who is part of the International Parliamentarians for West Papua movement says the growth of the network can help foster change in the troubled Indonesian province.

Parliamentarians from Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea and New Zealand attended the Australia launch of the International Parliamentarians for West Papua outside parliament house in Canberra yesterday.

New Zealand Green Party MP, Katherine Delahunty, believes more regional parliamentarians will start to speak out against ongoing human rights abuses in Papua.

She admits that a lack of international awareness about West Papua in general has helped Indonesia suppress information about the abuses.

“Many MPs, once they have the information and have the information and an understanding of this issue, they recognise that as parliamentarians, there is a responsibility, a regional responsibility, to stand up against the dirtiest little secret in the Pacific region,” Ms Delahunty said.

Thoughts on what 2012 might hold for the Pacific

BY TESS NEWTON CAIN

AS 2012 GETS UNDERWAY, it’s a good time to look ahead and anticipate what some of the key events and issues will be in the Pacific island region during the next twelve months. 

This is not an exhaustive list of predictions and no doubt by the time December comes around there will be plenty to reflect on that has not even been mentioned here, but just to get the ball rolling…

Politics

There is no such thing as a ‘quiet’ year in Pacific politics and that is certainly not going to be the case in 2012.  The political and constitutional contortions in Papua New Guinea that held everyone spellbound at the end of 2011 are yet to be fully resolved, are unlikely to be until the elections in July and possibly may not be even then. 

Elsewhere in Melanesia, Vanuatu is also in an election year with the country going to the polls in November.  Underpinning the minutiae of who’s in, who’s out, who’s (re)aligning with whom continue to be some key issues and debates about the nature of political leadership in these countries and the (possibly) changing relationship between the governed and those who (seek to) govern.

New to the arena is the increasing role of social media as a forum for debate, identifying questions about policy, holding both government and Parliament to account and often rectifying gaps in mainstream media coverage.  

There is no denying that for a growing number of people in the Pacific, the Internet is a primary location for debate, political and otherwise, but it remains the case that this space is not available to the majority of Pacific islanders raising appropriate concern that the conversation is kept as accessible and inclusive as possible.

Economics

It is expected that 2012 will be another year of uneven growth in the region.  The resource-rich countries, most particularly Timor Leste and Papua New Guinea will continue to grow rapidly.  Elsewhere, growth will be much slower. The ADB projects a 2012 growth rate of 1.5% for the Pacific Island region excluding PNG and Timor Leste. This increases to 6% if these two booming economies are included..

Internal relationships

The cautiously welcomed lifting of emergency powers by the interim regime in Fiji on January 7th was a timely reminder of the significance of the situation in Fiji not just as it affects that country but also as it resonates throughout the region.  The Fiji question has proved and will continue to be something of a litmus test at sub-regional and regional levels. 

Whilst 2014 (the date set by the interim regime for national elections) may seem some way off, it is to be expected that starting now a number of key legal, political and geo-political decisions will be made that will form part of the pathway towards 2014.

The structures associated with regionalism and sub-regionalism will continue to develop and change during 2012.  The appointment of a new Director General within the Secretariat of the Melanesian Spearhead Group may well lead to a more robust and vocal approach, not least as this group seeks to accommodate the presence and participation of the newly formalised Polynesian Leaders’ Group. 

However, what will (hopefully) be the most interesting and significant outcome of these developments will be an impetus within the Pacific Islands Forum to re-engage with its stakeholders and provide vibrant and effective leadership to the region as a whole.