Reaching out to the South Pacific

India is welcomed in as a `Dialogue Partner' in the Pacific Islands Forum.

INDIA was admitted as a Dialogue Partner of the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) at its 33rd annual summit held in Suva, Fiji Islands, from August 15 to 17 India's interest in the South Pacific region is in line with its `Look East' policy. After stabilising its interaction with the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) and its member countries, India has begun to look towards the region beyond it. It is part of a larger effort to forge linkages with important regional blocs as well as with sub-regional organisations in regions as far away as Africa and Latin America. Indian entrepreneurs have also begun reaching out far and wide for investment opportunities and markets.

The Pacific region has a string of small island states, some of which have less than a few thousand square kilometres of land area, nestling in a vast expanse of ocean. Some islands of the same group are over 200 km apart.

The PIF was formed in 1971, bringing together the heads of government of the newly independent island nations in the South Pacific region. It aimed to provide a platform to the island nations to formulate joint views on issues affecting the region, establish regional security cooperation and promote economic development. Over the years, as more of the island states became independent, the membership of the Forum increased to 16. It now has a permanent secretariat located in Suva. The island communities, some of the smallest in the world, have felt the need to articulate jointly their views in a world that is impinging on their natural resources. Several of the low-lying states are facing extreme hardship as rising sea levels wash away sizable chunks of their coastline.

India's revived interest in the region has met with a good deal of approval. Fiji responded to India's expression of interest with the statement that it looks forward to India's engagement in the South Pacific. Indian interaction with the region had been vigorous during the decolonisation period and immediately thereafter. When, in the mid1980s, Indian foreign policy began to focus largely on the European-American arena, it led to a lessening of interest in small, far-flung countries. The military coup in Fiji in 1987 and the severing of diplomatic ties between India and Fiji cut New Delhi off from the entire region as Fiji was India's main entrepot for the region.

India's trade with Fiji was driven into the non-official channel. Indian goods, including saris, spices, film and music cassettes, and magazines reached Fiji after being re-exported through Singapore or Hong Kong. Indian government scholarships for a special condensed course to upgrade the skills of diploma holders and make them medical graduates had an impact on the health services of several countries in the region. Similar well-planned offers of assistance reinforced India's image as a country sympathetic to the needs and expectations of small, developing countries.

The lack of interaction with the region, however, had the effect of cutting India's ties with the island countries. The hiatus in relations with post-coup Fiji meant a diminution in India's interaction and contact with the region. India came to be associated solely with the Fiji citizens of Indian origin and their ethnic problems with the indigenous Melanesian Fijians.

IN the 1970s, during its fledgling years, the South Pacific Forum (as it was known initially) came to advocate the ``Pacific way''. It was the gentle, Pacific method of resolving disputes and problems, by the tribal leaders and elders sitting together over a bowl of kava (a narcotic fermented drink made from the macerated roots of a particular shrub) to discuss and debate issues. In the early days, Australia and to some extent New Zealand were a bit wary of this gathering of South Pacific leaders. They probably saw in it the potential for these leaders to gang up against the regional powers. But regular meetings of the organisation provided support and advice to the newly independent countries and it grew into a body where the island states could voice their concerns. Its membership and stature grew over the years and today the PIF enjoys international recognition as the authoritative voice of the Pacific region. It also has a sub-group, the Smaller Island States (SIS), that concentrates on the special problems of low-lying islands such as Nauru, Kiribati and Tuvalu, which are the most affected by rising sea levels. In 1971, when the organisation was formed, the contracting member-countries called it the South Pacific Forum since all of them belonged to the South Pacific region. However, as the membership widened to incorporate a region beyond the South Pacific and with the inclusion of the regional giants Australia and New Zealand, the organisation was renamed.

The PIF today comprises Australia, Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji Islands, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, New Zealand, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu. The importance attached to the Forum is indicated by the stature and nature of the 10 countries (besides the European Union) that have become Dialogue Partners in past years - the United States, Canada, France, Britain, China, South Korea, Japan, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines. Mexico is among others looking at closer ties.

South Pacific Islands.

India is the 12th Dialogue Partner, and it is expected to be represented at the ministerial level at the Post-Forum Dialogue Meetings at the next summit to be held in 2003 in New Zealand. India's admission took place in record time, for the formal application was made barely a month before the summit. It found support from member-countries including Fiji. The Tongan Prime Minister, Prince Ulukalala Vavaka Ata, who visited to New Delhi in May, had encouraged the idea of India's association with the PIF. With the backing of New Zealand, Tonga and Fiji, India was admitted at the summit meeting in August.

ISSUES of regional security and stability , along with terrorism and transnational crime, were on the PIF agenda. Its members had in 1995 decided to become partners to the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea . They expressed concerns with respect to the adverse impact of climate change, climate variability and rise in sea levels. They expressed their approval of Japan and the E.U. accepting the Kyoto Protocol. They noted that Australia was not currently well-disposed to ratifying the Kyoto Protocol, but that the country would, however, continue to develop and invest in domestic programmes to meet the targets agreed upon for it.

Australian policies on environmental matters, climate change and issues relating to asylum seekers have been serious irritants with the island countries. Australia has been facing an influx of Afghan refugees arriving in boatloads. It is an issue with sensitive domestic political overtones.

Australia has asked certain island countries to house the refugees till their cases have been considered by its Immigration Department. Nauru was among the countries that agreed last year to locate on its territory a boatload of refugees, in exchange for significant financial aid. But the continued presence of the refugees, segregated in old mining camps, has put environmental pressure on the tiny, cash-strapped island. Officials had termed it an "emerging refugee market'' when Vanuatu refused to take in any of the refugees as Canberra cast around for sites to locate the asylum seekers who had reached Australian waters.

The outgoing PIF chairman, Prime Minister Rene Harris of Nauru, said that there were many fine examples of how the region had over the years made its voice heard through regional action and unity, and maximised national returns and enhanced national benefits through collective action. Yet, the issues of sustainable development, climate change and sea level rise, transport of radioactive material or the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) Initiative on Harmful Tax Competition have the potential to affect the region adversely. The most important challenge was, he said, the need to engage actively in shaping global responses to these important issues.

The OECD had charged some of the world's smallest economies with operating tax havens in an unregulated manner. Nauru, Cook Islands and Niue had been among those that featured in the list . There were newspaper reports that about $70 billion of Russian mafia money had flowed through 400 banks that had been registered at one single postbox address in Nauru in 1998. In 2001, a large consignment of drugs had been recovered in Fiji, indicating that the country was being used as a transhipment point in the international drug trade. The smaller nations are easy prey to law-evaders who wish to take advantage of the less stringent financial regulations that exist in such countries. The PIF discussed the need to address issues of economic weakness in island economies in order to enable them to withstand better the effects of the international economic downturn and build compliance capacity with regard to the requirements of the OECD's Financial Action Task Force.

Unlike other regional organisations that scrupulously avoid any discussion that has domestic political overtones, the PIF has reluctantly begun addressing questions of governance. Australian Prime Minister John Howard has hinted that in future the grant of aid may be linked to improved governance and law and order in the region. Several Pacific island countries have seen ethnic tensions and even violence in the past decade. Thanks to the burdens of modernday living, the island communities are under pressure in adjusting to changing lifestyles. Fiji's Foreign Minister Kaliopate Tavola said: "Democracy in the Pacific has not had time to evolve significantly as the social structures of its societies do not readily succumb or reconcile themselves to democratic principles of equality and liberty.'' It was said that the causes of political instability were disputes over land, ethnic tensions, socio-economic disparities and erosion of cultural values.

At the October 2000 summit meeting in Kiribati, PIF leaders had admitted that the response of the Pacific neighbours to the coup in Fiji and the ethnic violence in the Solomon Islands in the same year had been too weak. In December 2001, the PIF decided to send its first such mission to observe the elections in the Solomon Islands.

There are several fields in which India can offer its experience and assistance to the Pacific island nations, to benefit the island communities directly. Greater involvement with the PIF would mean a more visible Indian presence in the region, which will help enhance the image of the Fiji nationals of Indian descent.

Shubha Singh, who has lived and worked in Fiji, is the author of Fiji: A Precarious Coalition (Har Anand, New Delhi, 2001).