PACIFIC ISLANDS REPORT

Pacific Islands Development Program/East-West Center
With Support From Center for Pacific Islands Studies/University of Hawai‘i

By Michael Field

Memorable moments come in odd shapes at the 16-nation Pacific Forum Summit.

Who could forget Jim Bolger and Cook Islands Premier Geoffrey Henry singing "Danny Boy" under a Micronesian moon, or Bob Hawke savaging the media while wife Hazel sat calmly knitting among the reporters?

At this year's 35th summit, journalists were suddenly rounded up because Prime Minister Helen Clark apparently wanted reportage on the next, unscheduled act. Forum chair and Samoan Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele was caught by surprise. But up stepped Pastor Pio Tuia, the acting ulu or head of Tokelau, the three-atoll New Zealand territory 480km north of Samoa. Known on the atoll as one of the "grey hairs" who govern it, he was something of a show-stopper, with a speech that suggested he would rather not have been Clark's star turn for the day.

"I feel very much like a little bird among eagles," Tuia told the leaders, adding that he felt like Nemo, the cartoon fish, looking out into the deep blue sea.

"It is a feeling that is at once very scary and somewhat daunting, but at the same time exciting and full of wonder of the unknown. It is a feeling that makes me want to run away."

Tokelau, he said, had to learn to fly: "As we strive to achieve self-government with the ultimate goal of exercising our inalienable right to an act of self-determination, we seek to be self-reliant to the greatest extent possible."

With the forum over, Clark set sail on a warship for the atolls, where she declared a school holiday and suggested that it might be the last time that local children would sing the New Zealand national anthem when a Prime Minister came. The next time Tokelau would have its own national anthem and flag.

All this was uncritically recounted back on the mainland. No one, least of all Clark or even the Opposition, is asking the obvious question: what on earth is New Zealand doing to these people? Why is New Zealand so furiously pushing them out of the country?

Without any discussion at all in New Zealand, the government has decided that Tokelauans will preside over an act of self-determination, deciding between continuing the way they are as a territory, becoming independent or, like the Cook Islands and Niue, be self-governing in some kind of association with New Zealand.

Given the problems in existing micro-Pacific states, it is puzzling why Clark is so keen to make a state out of three islands that have just 1600 people between them and not a solitary airport or harbor, much less a capital. As for money, they will always be dependent on aid.

Poor Pio Tuia is not the head of some secret Tokelau Freedom Army and there is no movement on the atolls for separation from New Zealand. Why would there be, with 6000 Tokelauans in New Zealand? They thought they were as much part of New Zealand as Mt Albert or Karori – just warmer. It would make more sense to give Great Barrier Island or the Chatham Islands independence than Tokelau.

The difference, though, is that Tokelau is cursed – it is "listed" by the United Nations. In the days of the Soviet Union and "Red" China, the UN did not like colonies and listed them by the dozen, driving a process to bring independence to many of them.

Under the control of what has become known as the Committee of 24, or "C24", after its membership, it was intended that the list be reduced to zero by 2000. Embarrassingly, 16 territories remain on it, among them Tokelau.

This situation would be a simple diplomatic embarrassment but nothing of any great stress in a world fraught with more problems than those of the 1600 people on a few islands that no one has ever heard of. But an unusual bureaucratic problem has afflicted Tokelau: not one single hectare of land in New Zealand, not one single citizen, comes under the control of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT), but, by a curious process, that ministry controls the destiny of all the poor souls of Tokelau.

Thus, the ministry, whose officials would otherwise be advising the government on whether to sign Annex Two to the Belgrade Accords on the Elimination of Non-Metric Wingnuts and Self-locking Bolts, finds itself with the responsibility of running an ancient Polynesian culture. Not only do they not like what they perceive as a colonial role, but also they want to cast them out as the only solution to a diplomatic problem.

The strangeness was underlined by the way in which Clark took the British High Commissioner Richard Fell with her to Tokelau. Back in 1925, London dumped Tokelau onto New Zealand. But 79 years later, its plenipotentiary was, courtesy of the New Zealand taxpayer, checking up on how it had all gone. With another plumed hat on, Fell is also Governor of Pitcairn Island, also a listed territory, but one that Britain is doing nothing about – other than seeking to lock up its men on a variety of sex charges.

In fact, while Clark and her government are busy trying to get off this obscure UN list, Britain has nine territories on the list and, like everybody other than New Zealand, is doing nothing about it. Places as diverse as Montserrat, St Helena and Western Sahara failed to shake off the Imperial shackles. American Samoa wants to be American and so does Guam. French Polynesia is not even on the list.

The sheer absurdity of the situation was illustrated when the C24 met in May in Papua New Guinea and spent three days discussing the plight of the oppressed people of Tokelau. They couldn't discuss anything else because none of the other listed territories have a program aimed towards an "act of self-determination", and other controlling nations will not allow a UN extravaganza to discuss other listed territories.

The then ulu (Tokelau has a different head each year), Patuki Isaako, told that gathering that, when he heard of the meeting, he thought, "What have we done wrong?"

When the first UN delegation arrived in Tokelau in 1976, they were told, "Thank you for coming, have a good time, but we are happy to stay as we are," said Isaako. Now the self-determination issue is being driven by other people.

"For Tokelau, the most important thing in the decolonisation process is that the people of Tokelau, the elders, the fishermen, the weavers, the young children, they know what it means," Isaako said.

"Otherwise, we're just wasting our time."

Why is New Zealand trying to force independence? "Is it going to feed our children? What good is it for future generations?" Isaako continued.

Although Tokelau is part of New Zealand, it receives US$2 million annually from the UN Development Program for, among other things, "poverty alleviation". Imagine the fuss if Remuera, for example, received UN aid, and yet this aid that is intended for Third World countries went to a part of New Zealand unremarked by all.

Some time next year, Tokelau will be made to jump through UN hoops – supervised by diplomats from places as diverse as Syria and Bolivia – and express an act of self-determination that will cost millions but make people in New York happy.

Perhaps the odd Maori iwi or two should get onto this list. And Helen Clark will come visiting, too.