Indigenous-Ni-Vanuatu

Vanuatu landowners force Santo college to close

2009-09-22T11:00:00.000-07:00

Landowners forced the Vanuatu Agriculture College on Santo to close its doors late last week.
The college, built by the Chinese Government, began operating last year.
The landowners accuse the government of breaching an agreement to pay them compensation for the use of their land.
The deputy director of the college, Moulin Tavuti, says the action by the landowners has forced the administration to leave the college facilities.
But he says classes have been continuing with students instructed in two rooms at two separate schools in Luganville.
The director of the college, Peter Napuat, is now in Port Vila to negotiate the settlement of the claims with the Minister of Lands, Harry Iauko.

News Content © Radio New Zealand InternationalPO Box 123, Wellington, New Zealand

Vanuatu’s Sovereignty Surrendered

2009-09-21T12:55:00.000-07:00

Author: Karl Fitzgerald

How independence was never intended to mean freedom.

When: Thurs April 30th, 6.30 for 6.45pm startWho: Karl Fitzgerald, Earthsharing Australia Project Coordinator and 3CR’s Renegade Economist.Download Flyer
Vanuatu means ‘Eternal Land’.
However, our recent visit to these idyllic lands revealed a dark side to the beauty surrounding such a community. Economic policy is out of kilter with the Treasure Island type mentality that wealthy speculators abuse in quoting Vanuatu as the ‘World’s Happiest People’. The free lunch prerogative of the vested interests has the indigenous people of Vanuatu, the ni-Van’s, battling for food in a bounty-ful land .
We returned from Vanuatu in tears at the destruction economic policy was causing. Both working people and capitalists themselves are subservient to the forces that have brought the world economy to it’s knees. We were chased off world heritage land developments by shady property sharks but yet lauded by people in the street for bringing understanding to the economic imperative that land demands.
Australia’s reputation in the Pacific has scarcely been lower. We are facing the likelihood of more Fiji-like revolutions with the current tax policy recommendations of the World Bank, IMF and ANZUS dominating the Pacific.
Foreign aid will be forensically examined and the keynesian limitations discussed during the presentation. We must find a new model for community development. Earthsharing Australia will be discussing this new model within the confines of the projects undertaken with ‘ni-NGO’.
ni-NGO is a ni-Van run NGO that Earthsharing Australia has helped set up. If this model is successful, we will set up Earthsharing Pacific to give both DIY self-support at the micro level, and tax advice at the macro level throughout the Pacific.
Come and hear about the trials and tribulations of one of the world’s most beautiful locations, the progress we have made so far and our outline to assist ni-Van’s regain control over their most precious resource – the land on which they are meant to stand.
Where: Level 1/ 27 Hardware Lane, MelbourneEntry: gold coin donation – all funding goes towards ni-NGODrinks and nibbles to followRSVP via Facebook or via email

Vanuatu – The World’s Happiest People?

2009-09-21T12:48:00.000-07:00

By Karl Fitzgerald-As published in the Mar – April Progress magazine. Get a copy of this cane paper, veggie ink mag sent to you for 6 free editionsRelated Event – Thurs April 30th – Vanuatu’s Sovereignty Surrendered The World’s Happiest People

A 2006 study by the New Economics Foundation and Friends of the Earth found that Vanuatu was the world’s happiest nation. The study looked at consumption levels, life expectancy and happiness.
Our recent visit there proved otherwise.
Walking down the main street of Port Villa at sunset and one could feel the glaring eyes of the youth looking at the food in my hands. A riot had occurred in May. In early November, a week before we arrived, a tourist operator was bashed at the local port by a local taxi driver. Frustration boiled over because of the cartel-like control of new visitors by the expat dominated tourist industry.
With urban drift a rising phenomenon in rapidly westernising Pacific nations, the city had an edgy feel .
Something was amiss in the world’s happiest nation.
Within minutes of arriving, the eyes of a roaming renegade economist could soon see traits similar to western societies. Vacant land littered the community. Forests were being cut down on the urban fringe, rivers and streams polluted by the run off. These were effects, but what was the cause?Vanuatu is a relatively young country, having gained its independence just 29 years ago from the French and English.
The tragedy of this opportunity is that just 29 years since independence, 90% of Vanuatu’s coastline has been sold off. Over 80% of the capital city Villa is foreign owned. Small, locally owned business is a rarity, with just 2 ni-Van owned operations located whilst we were there.
Vanuatu’s background is radical for the region. Walter Lini was their first Prime Minister (1980 – 91). He developed Melanesian socialism. Wikipedia tells us “’Giving’ was based on one’s ability to do so. ‘Receiving’ was based on one’s need”.
Lini also signed the Non-Alignment Movement. Whilst maintaining his independence, he forged closer ties with Libya and Cuba than the US. This concerned America as Vanuatu was the only Pacific country not to have signed with the pro-Western bloc. Lini ’s administration was staunchly against nuclear testing in the region. He was also a proponent of a new Melanesia where the people of East Timor and West Papua were freed.
Many ni-Van’s (indigenous) etch together a living driving taxi’s. Most locals work for expat Aussies or Chinese. With Vanuatu a prominent tax haven, some of the shadier western businessmen have descended on this idyllic life to ’start again’. It’s not hard to find web comments on how ni-Van’s are treated as little kids by these westerners with superior english.
Rayna and I were invited there to speak to the Shepherd Alliance Party, a rapidly growing political party in the volatile world of Vanuatuan politics. In what turned out to be a 4 hour presentation, I ran through the need for the people to gain a share in the bounty of the land.
Having a cultural connection to land, the many chiefs in the audience resonated with this need. We moved through how social progress and population growth naturally added to land values. One of the many Karl’s we met there summed this up as ‘magic money’. How true. ‘We must turn off the tap to the magic money of land speculation’ became the catch-cry.
Over the last twenty years much of the Pacific has moved from kastomary land title to Torrens Title. Going from a socially based form of land ownership to one where property developers are carving up their idyllic coastline with names like Barrier Beach, it was like a step back in time for a Georgist. Here we were rubbing shoulders with politically minded people in an era where their commons were being enclosed day by day.
The people are alive with the inherent understanding of the vitality of land and all the freedom it represents. In what seemed to be a light bulb type moment for the audience, the chiefs were excited by the explanation that land earns a natural bounty to be shared amongst the community in place of all other taxes. Chairman Morris Kaloran summed the essence of this up with ‘No matter what factory they have, they cant make dirt’.
Soon the chiefs passed a resolution to include Land Tax in the party’s constitution.
As with Melbourne’s ‘World’s Most Liveable’ city tagline, the ‘World’s Happiest’ tag was adopted and sculpted by those that owned the most precious resource of all – Vanuatu’s land.
Ironically, the World’s Happiness measure was meant to raise awareness that excessive consumption doesn’t deliver happiness. However, with our two dimensional economic system any such headlines can be marketed to the advantage of those same over-consumers, the wealthiest people on the planet.
Vanuatu’s main newspaper, the Daily Post (19/08/08) reported how chief Mack Paiiamaja from South Santo expressed serious concerns regarding massive uncontrolled land speculation and sub division development.
“Many of these developments have contributed significantly to creating divisions within the communities of rural Santo as a result of land disputes being generated to claim ownership.”
Meetings with senior bureaucrats revealed shocking details. Land valuations hadn’t been performed since independence in some areas. The tourist brochures reminded us that Vanuatu means ‘Land Eternal’. Surely it is valuable then?
In Port Villa it has been over 10 years since land valuations, meaning that the contributions land owners are making to the public purse via land tax are very small.
Compounding the problem, the Land Valuers office is tragically under resourced, with administration soaking up any time to value land. Four work in valuation at the Lands Department. Two people work at the Valuer Generals office. Discussions revealed that valuation skills desperately needed updating.
The Land Tribunal had thousands of disputes but only 2 people. The Lands Department was even shutting services, such was the ineffectiveness of public policy.
The plot thickened when we heard that Land Taxes had mysteriously been reduced from the 2- 3% listed online to 0.83% on pre-historic land values! An administrative decision, rather that a government decree, had led to this secretly sliding through.
A host of differential rates of Land Taxes ensure the system is confusing and open to debate. No wonder so much time is spent in administration.
Every time we mentioned to taxi drivers or people we met at the Fest Namaba1 that the land bounty must be shared with the people, there was resounding agreement. It was widely recognised that speculators were doing more harm than good.
So what was the cause to more than 25% of the population living below the poverty line?
Tax policy has been massaged by vested interests so that the direct and costly administrative control of an island nation has been replaced by the invisible chains of land speculation, forcing up rents to astronomical levels. Heads nodded in agreement when we asked whether the many living in central Villa, the educated workers of government, were paying 50% of their money in rents.
One wonders how they received such poor tax advice. Some suggest that land policy was developed pre-independence and has not been reviewed since. With the rapid increase in land privatisation, land use policy seems well overdue for a revamp. An ad hoc process is holding the good people of Vanuatu to ransom.
The easy profits being made in land speculation are tearing up the Pacific Islands. Whilst one can point to religious and racial tension as triggers, one feels that with more investigation of the Soloman and Fiji riots that these were borne of frustration at the radical change in lifestyles thrust upon them by the ‘benefits’ of westernising land title and privatising land rents. One hopes this doesn’t occur in Vanuatu, but with large numbers of unemployed young men in a town witnessing rich white folk driving around town in new hummers (!), the social contract is rapidly melting.
We have a unique opportunity to assist in finding a balance between western and kastomery land title.
What one can experience when visiting HYPERLINK “http://www.barrierbeach.com.au/”www.barrierbeach.com.au is the internationalisation of what was once a sacred resource. The land itself is now being sold off to the highest bidder in a global fire-sale. Local ni-Van’s have no chance of owning a piece of their traditional lands and taking a respectable place in their precious society.
Instead, some of the world’s most beautiful coastline is being sold off to an international coterie of property speculators who know that given enough time, they can sit back and buy and sell exotic locations for massive profits with just a few clicks of a mouse.
Morris Kaloran recounted how ‘In the 90’s there was barely a real estate agent in town. Now there are dozens of them, all making a killing’.
But the tax advice is where the real game of opportunity lies. Which foreign entities have advised the Port of Villa Municipality to charge council rates on buildings only? We are pursuing the answers through the questioning of the Senate Estimate’s committee.
No land is in the tax mix for council rates. This is precisely the reverse of what should be occurring for an effective council rating system. Meetings with senior bureaucrats revealed that many colonial landlords were given exemptions from even these miniscule council rates at the time of independence.
With all this controversy, we had to drive around the island of Effate to survey the lay of the land.
Colonialists used guns to gain access to land. Neo-Colonialists use a potent mix of land speculation, corruption and the promulgation of ineffective economic policy to massage their self interests. Nowhere is this more prominent than the lands of Roi Mata.
Roi Mata was the grandfather of Effate, the main island of Vanuatu, renowned for crystallising peace amongst the tribes. His ancestral lands at Mangaliliu were announced on July 8th, 2008 as Vanuatu’s first World Heritage Site. With signage at the front gate stating that this was proposed World Heritage land, Queensland developers somehow connived their way into clear-felling the forest and offering nine hectares up for sale. This clear-felling happened within one month of the World Heritage announcement. The buffer zone they are operating in came with a set of leasing rules that have been drastically overstepped.
Local chief Reuben Kaloris and William Kalotiti have blockaded the main access road out of concern for what is happening to this sacred land. With legal threats being thrown at the chiefs and local supporters (who are also scared that their house will be burnt down), we hope this story will reach mainstream press by the time you read this.
This clear-felling is happening for a paltry amount. Locals were told that the land would be sold for 4million Vatu (A$55,000) However, the prime beach front site was advertised at 30m Vatu (A$415,000) and is now sold. The remaining 9 sites at advertised prices will reap just $900,000. Trashing a World Heritage site must be worth barely more than a million bucks!
With the GFC accelerating bankruptcies daily, it seems like much of this pristine coastline will sit vacant waiting for the next land boom to take off. As analysts of the land market will understand, these sites will be drip fed to the market over the next 15 years, with at least one guaranteed to go for $1m. More pollution and disturbance will be about all the local community receives in return.
Of added attraction to salivating profiteers is the fact that Mangaliliu is the entrance point to the island that Survivor: Vanuatu was filmed on. Perhaps the potential of exotic marketing slogans highlighting the World Heritage status and views of ‘Survivor’ Island motivated the developers to ruthlessly cut corners. Those taglines, when combined with its intrinsic beauty, would ensure a sizeable price tag well beyond what the local bloodlines would receive in a one-off payment for this sacred land.
Please watch our short film on this outrageous controversy via www.youtube.com/earthsharing
As a demonstration of the difficulty good governance faces in the country, Transparency International, the peak NGO body fighting the ills of corruption worldwide, is represented by a real estate agent in Vanuatu.
A developer with a 2 page criminal record was recently awarded Vanuatu’s highest honour. He has the privilege of enclosing the closest, most beautiful beach to Villa.
Taken from the Vanuatu Investment Promotion Authority website, this developer says:
“To Whom it May Concern
If you are reading this letter than you have made the first step in the right direction.
To invest in the Vanuatu Islands is the smartest move I have ever made, and will be yours also.
I arrived here Independence day 2001, just divorced ravaged by tax and lawyers, not knowing where or in what I wanted for my future life.
Alone and lost I immediately felt the warmth of the people, Ni van’s and expats all welcomed me…
On the second day I started real estate hunting, I knew this was my future home, I was fortunate enough to see a double wave break on a white sandy beach not 10 minutes from town. I could not believe I could buy 1 acre on that beach, but I could, the land ownership over here is same as Canberra.”
One can be assured that the friendliness is waning today. Australians have a bad name due to the corners they cut chasing the ‘investment dream’. Another development on Mele beach sees sites up for sale on former swamp land, with the environmental destruction prevalent in clearing the site said to be positive for the community because of the removal of conditions conducive to mosquitoes and their malaria.
As we continued our drive around the island we began to see the impact of the ring road that US Aid was building. Perhaps solidifying the warmth in relations as Vanuatu’s politicians were brought back in line with Western interests, the Millennium Challenge Corporation has signed a five-year, $65.69 million Compact with the Government of Vanuatu.
This aid will deliver eleven infrastructure projects. Pro-aid websites valiantly tell us this will benefit poor, rural agricultural producers by reducing transportation costs.
It is also meant to increase average wages per capita by 15% within 5 years.
This analysis fails to register that western property developers have crept around the island buying up vast tracts of virgin land. We saw land banks for sale every 8 – 10 km’s. With a new airstrip and a sealed road, wealthy westerners can fly in, scoot off to their beach villa and hardly see the depths of poverty in Port Villa.
A new slogan was borne: ‘Foreign aid for foreign speculators’.
Our second stop saw a visit to Chief Andrew Popovi from Tanoliu. His concern centred around speculation and how little land his people had left. Chief Popovi was one of the few to know that a 10% fee was to be paid to the traditional owners when re-selling the land as a subdivision. This amount was often a lot lower than when sold a third time, hinting that perhaps third party companies were utilised to ensure that the flipping profits stayed within the walls of the wealthy.
The chief was concerned that many of the reform measures decided upon at the 2006 Land Summit had not yet been implemented. Land sale contracts are still written primarily in English, rather than including the local Bislama language.
Driving onwards through this largely unsigned country we were desperate for a lunch stop. We had noticed that Beachcomber Lodge had hot spas, the only location on the island with this natural wonder. Upon entering the site, we drove straight to the nearest spot on the beach for a quick bite before heading over to the springs.
A few bites into lunch and this loud voice boomed out from right next to us, scaring the living daylights out of us all. Before we could comprehend how this self-professed land-lord had crept up and yelled at the top of his lungs, he was preaching to us ‘How dare you enter my land, driving all over it. Who do you think you are? Where do people like you come from?’
We were rattled and couldn’t even get in a good comeback line! Where were the cameras to catch this landlord’s insecurity on film? Where were our moral rights to a seat on what is meant to be a public beach overlooking the Shepherd Islands, the traditional lands of our navigators Julie and Rivkin?
With tensions rising amongst the community about access rights to beaches and food sources, the school principal type demeanour this Aussie expat displayed was a shameful reflection of private property rights walloping human rights. I still have moments of anger flash in frustration at my inability to awaken this poor chap’s conscience. One can only imagine how he treats his indigenous ’subjects’.
If I was on my front foot I would have inquired about ‘his’ enclosures. Are the natural springs he enclosed valued at a respectable level? Is the rate paid respective of the right to privatise what once would have been a public meeting place?
We dwelled on these thoughts as we dodged pot holes, gliding through some of the most beautiful lands one could imagine. Soon we arrived at Eton Beach, the only national park we saw, where we gladly paid a 300 Vatu entry fee to the government.
We left Vanuatu shocked at the effect land speculation was having. Adding to the dilemma was that western aid funded scores of young white uni graduates to a loud, beer fuelled aussie existence. Canadian aid workers were wary of us. Western aid promoted a reliance model of handouts rather than self-help.
Let’s do something about this.
With the positive resonance experienced in discussions with bureaucrats, we are making the most of Alanna Hartzok’s Global Land Tools online course as the perfect resource for long distance learning. Within the course we have set up an EarthSharing Pacific class where participants are submitting details on land policy vagaries in their country.
Take it further by joining the class – http://course.earthrights.net/

http://www.earthsharing.org.au/2009/04/20/vanuatu-the-worlds-happiest-people/

Is Vanuatu Electoral College institutionally discriminates against women?

2009-08-31T04:17:00.000-07:00

I read an article by Ricky Binihi of the daily post pertaining to the issue of a woman president a week or so ago. Thus I am compelled to express my views a about the issue. Daily post reports that the reasoning from some members of the Electoral College is that “the Melanesian values, faith in God and Christian principles dictate who the head of family is”. This reasoning is becoming very laughable than anything else, the concept is merely farcical. These members of the Electoral College should read the Constitution which states clearly that any Ni-Vanuatu is eligible to be president regardless of his or her gender. Their concept has not yet been elucidated, what do they mean by “Melanesian values, faith in God and Christian principles”? Vanuatu cannot merely rely on some of the Melanesian values, faith in God and Christian principles. Importantly, some of these principles whether it is Melanesian or Christian are not congruent or pertinent with the rest of the democratic modern world. We should be more pragmatic in our approach and merely assimilate what is best and do not adhere to any concept which merely puts Vanuatu a step behind the modern world. A prime example is that our Melanesian paternalistic view that men should be the head of the family is not merely archaic but is a thing of the past and for the sake of an equal and democratic society, Vanuatu should dispense this paternalistic view altogether. If Vanuatu genuinely wants to promote gender equality which evidently we are still lagging behind in this regard then so be it, whether a woman becomes the next president should not be a big deal. Anyone should become president based on his or her merits and capacity not on his or her gender. I think it is a brilliant opportunity that should Vanuatu elect a woman President, in light of this, it would catapult Vanuatu into the limelight as regards championing gender equality and human rights within the Pacific region.

Conversely, the concept that a man should be the head of the family according to some members of the Electoral College epitomizes how gender inequality exits in Vanuatu notwithstanding Vanuatu has acquired Independence 29 years ago. Given the age of Vanuatu reaching statehood, one would have thought that Vanuatu would have equally reached maturity in terms of ensuring that gender equality prevails in its society. As a grassroot average Ni-Vanuatu, I am saddened by the view of some of those who constitute the Electoral College. It is about time these so called members of the Electoral College started to think globally and not parochially. The fact that the aforementioned have vigorously argued against a woman president was nothing other than a mock of media showpiece for the support of their so called logical stance.

The fact that women’s inequality exists in Vanuatu has impelled a liberal like me to express his views. My view is not merely to defend women, but I think it is pertinent that equality should be for all regardless of gender, race, religious background etc. Sadly the views of the vast majority of the constitute of the Electoral College provides fresh impetus as to whether Electoral College does institutionally discriminates against women? Whether this is the case, it is another topic of debate.

The disgrace of political class in Vanuatu has left the detrimental consequences being endured by the vast majority of average Ni-Vanuatu’s population

2009-07-26T14:47:00.000-07:00

The disgrace of political class in Vanuatu has left the detrimental consequences being endured by the vast majority of average Ni-Vanuatu’s population: from an indigenous Ni- Vanuatu perspective

Vanuatu is an archipelago in the South West Pacific with approximately 215,000 inhabitants. The country is relatively small, and is still unknown to a lot of people especially in Europe. As Vanuatu celebrates its 29th anniversary of independence this week, there is considerable amount of rhetoric about the country’s tourism led growth but the reality is that per capita has not improved a lot since 1980, in fact it remains stagnant yet there has been tourism, offshore financial centre and land sales driven growth. How much of this accrues to the indigenous Ni-Vanuatu? The truth is not a lot I am afraid. This is neo-colonialism at its worst. The problem is that Vanuatu Government or so called Government officials pretend not to understand or probably are just arrogantly turning a blind eye pertaining to the issue, or are they reaping the benefits of this boom? My view is a bit of both. Realistically, the power of multi-nationals and their interests are too influential. What to do? Better governance and the Government should focus more on protecting the interests of Indigenous Ni-Vanuatu.

Over the last few weeks, the media reports from Vanuatu indicate that the under fire Minister of Trades James Bule has been pressured to resign from his Ministerial post. However, the latter has defied the public outcry, especially from being succumbed to pressure of resigning. The calls for Mr Bule to resign comes from the opposition bloc, including from the notably vociferous former speaker of the parliament who is also the MP for Luganville Town, Mr George Wells. The incumbent Minister of Trade has been vigorously blamed for a missing 40,000,000 Vatu within the VCMB. Sadly, the considerable sum of money remains unaccountable for. The controversial Minister of Trade claims that there is no evidence to substantiate the allegation; however, there is merely phony evidence for the sole purpose of impugning his ministerial reputation. In spite of his defense, it has not satisfied the public; it seems that a sudden rage has propelled the public especially from the vast majority of average Ni-Vanuatu who are depending on copra to make ends meet. A dire consequence of the VCMB fiasco has resulted in many parents in rural areas such as in Santo which produces the highest copra export revenue for the country are being left unable to send their children to School. The copra prices have been plummeted recently which has just exacerbated the situation further especially for the rural residents. Ni-Vanuatu politicians are known to forgetting their rural residents, the latter group is invariably forgotten and marginalized in our society, a prime example is the people of Torres whom the Vanuatu Government has negligently forgotten them, there is no shred of evidence thus far that suggests Vanuatu Government has been bumping revenue into Torba province for development purposes let alone proper social services delivery to the unforgotten people of Torres.

The aforementioned alleged corruption epitomizes how corruption is rife in Vanuatu. Notwithstanding the bitter accusations and recriminations following the VCMB fiasco, however, whether the Minister will resign it remains to be seen. Historically, a notable infamous alleged corruption within the precedent governments was to do with the then Minister of land Mr. Maxim Korman with his infamous dealings with land. This had once resulted in the public outcry to demand the latter to resign, and notably it culminated in the convening of the land summit in Port Vila, in 2006. These are just examples of how corruption perpetuates in Vanuatu or just the tip of the iceberg.

It should be noted that corruption does occur in every country from developing countries to developed ones or from the biggest democratic countries like Britain to a smaller developing country such as Vanuatu. The problem though is that the occurrences of corruption in a developing country especially when it involves pecuniary loss of the public revenue, it consequently affects more on service delivery of social services in a developing country than in a developed country. This is why Vanuatu politicians must never become so arrogant that they think they are no longer answerable for their actions. With regard to the aforementioned VCMB debacle, Mr Bule risks becoming arrogant in power as some of his historic adversaries in the opposition bloc, by systematically refusing to answer the questions or refusing to resign. Vanuatu needs more leaders willing to err in the pursuit of the public good and citizens who learn to discard and not recycle those whose sole ambition is to cling to power. No one is born to rule.

© Indigenous-Ni-Vanuatu

Bainimarama wins over Melanesian countries

2009-07-10T15:12:00.000-07:00

By Sean Dorney in Port Vila, ABC news

The leaders of Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu have given their full backing to an attempt to have Fiji's suspension from the Pacific Islands Forum lifted.
Fiji's military leader Frank Bainimarama secured their support at a meeting in Port Vila.
At a news conference the chairman of the group, Vanuatu's Prime Minister Edward Natapei, said the leaders praised Commodore Bainimarama's strategic framework for change for Fiji as reflecting a clear vision to achieve sustainable democracy.
That strategic framework would see Commodore Bainimarama stay in power for at least another five years without elections.
Papua New Guinea's Prime Minister, Sir Michael Somare, said he had been convinced that some of Commodore Bainimarama's plans were good for Fiji.
The Melanesian countries say they will take Fiji's case for withdrawing its suspension from the Pacific Islands Forum to next month's leaders' meeting in Cairns.

TI Vanuatu welcomes ruling to curb gifting MPs

2009-06-18T10:39:00.000-07:00

Transparency International Vanuatu says it’s encouraged that MPs are finally being held accountable for the practice of gifting in exchange for votes.
The Supreme Court this week ruled that four MPs be removed from parliament after they were found to have used inducements to win their seats in Efate.
It follows a case last year which saw an Epi MP lose his seat for the same reason.
TI’s Marie-Noelle Ferrieux-Patterson says the practice of gifting is widespread in Vanuatu politics and is destroying the parliamentary system.
She says people have to be taught to distinguish between parliament and village.
“I mean citizens have got to be aware or to be taught that they have to elect leaders not on the basis of the number of gifts or positions they get for their community but on the policy of their leaders so we go in a better direction and are better managed than what we are at the moment.”

News Content © Radio New Zealand InternationalPO Box 123, Wellington, New Zealand

Vanuatu PM acts to shore up support

2009-06-10T10:31:00.000-07:00

(Australia Network News) Vanuatu's Prime Minister, Edward Natapei, has appointed a new Minister of Lands in an attempt to secure a parliamentary majority ahead of a vote of no confidence against him next week.Radio Australia has confirmed that the member of parliament for Tanna, Hairy Lauko, has left the opposition bloc and been sworn in as the new Lands Minister.His departure, and that of Labour Party MP for Efate, Joshua Kalsakau, mean that both the government and opposition appear to be evenly split, with 26 members each.Earlier this week, the parliamentary speaker, George Wells, crossed the floor with two others after accusing the president's National Union Party of misusing $US400,000 of copra subsidies.The motion of no confidence against Mr Natapei tabled by the opposition on Monday is due to be debated next Tuesday.

Vanuatu government faces no confidence motion

2009-06-08T09:26:00.000-07:00

(ABC Radio Australia) Vanuatu's opposition has lodged a motion of no confidence against the government of prime minister Edward Natapei. The news comes just days after the speaker of parliament, George Wells, was expelled from the ruling National United party for accusing trade minister and fellow party member James Bule of misusing $US400,000 in copra subsidies.He has since joined the opposition ranks, taking up to three members of parliament with him.However, the government party on Monday failed to attend a scheduled sitting of parliament, forcing the sitting to be deferred until Thursday. The Deputy Executive Director of the Pacific Institute for Public Policy, Derek Brien, says it appeared the opposition had the numbers to unseat the government."At this stage its looking as if the government has conceded that as of this morning they didn't have the numbers, although the rumour mill abounds throughout the afternoon that the government has taken some of the numbers back so its too early to say what will happen on Thursday," he said.

Vanuatu’s NUP leader expels parliamentary speaker form party

2009-06-07T13:33:00.000-07:00

The president of the National United Party in Vanuatu, Ham Lini, has expelled the speaker of parliament, George Wells, from the party and asked him to resign as speaker.
This follows a demand by Mr Wells that Mr Lini, who is the deputy prime minister, punish the trade minister for the alleged misuse of 400,000 US dollars in copra subsidies last year.
But in his letter of dismissal to Mr Wells, Mr Lini accused him and others of plotting against the government claiming they are trying to set up an alternative administration.
Mr Wells has rejected the letter, saying only the party congress has the power to dismiss them.
He also accused Mr Lini of defending the very people who he claimed have been corrupting the party.
News Content © Radio New Zealand InternationalPO Box 123, Wellington, New Zealand

Pacific Islands Bullied by Australian, NZ Trade Officials, Say Experts

2009-05-30T10:28:00.000-07:00

AUCKLAND, N.Z.—Tactics employed by Australia and New Zealand to push Pacific Island countries into signing a free trade agreement are a form of “contemporary colonization,” said academic and respected analyst on Pacific Island affairs, Professor Jane Kelsey at a seminar in Auckland last week.Pacific Island officials involved in the Pacific Agreement on Closer Economic Relations (PACER) negotiations with Australia and New Zealand are worried that they are being pressured into signing an agreement that they do not fully understand, she said.

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd at the opening of the Pacific Islands Forum summit in Niue, a tiny Pacific island state of 1,500 people in Aug. 2008. Cook Islands Prime Minister Jim Marurai is in the center. (David Brooks/AFP/Getty Images) PACER is a framework for a free trade deal between Australia, New Zealand, and thirteen Pacific Island nations.At a Forum Leader's meeting in Nuie in August 2008, Australian Trade Minister Simon Crean pushed for free trade negotiations (PACER-Plus) to begin at this year's Pacific Leaders Forum in Cairns. Trade officials were given a mandate to devise a plan for negotiations to begin.This, experts say, signaled a more aggressive approach.Pacific Network on Globalisation (PANG) Coordinator, Maureen Penjueli, and Communications Officer, Westley Morgan, say that Australia and New Zealand are fast tracking the process and ignoring wishes previously expressed by officials in Nuie for Forum Island Countries (FICs) to be well-prepared.“Academics in the Pacific are predicting that 80 percent of Pacific manufacturing could close down under PACER-Plus,” said PANG last November, “leading to unemployment for thousands of workers. “Most Pacific countries lack secure social nets, such as state welfare, to assist unemployed workers … “These expected outcomes of PACER-Plus could leave many Pacific people faced with a bleak future.”Vanuatu Minister for Internal Affairs, Patrick Crowby, said the issue cannot be fast-tracked if advisory institutions are not set up. “How will the government fund its essential public services if we lose out on vital revenue? Depend on aid donor money? I don’t think so,” he said to the Vanuatu Post recently. Australia and New Zealand agreed to fund a Trade Advisory Office which could support national consultations and research, but only if the FICs did not seek funding from other quarters.

Professor Kelsey said the funding is inadequate. “It undermines claims that Australia and New Zealand are genuine about helping the Pacific develop trade policy to meet the regions' development needs.”“Those national consultations not only aren't being funded but if Australia and New Zealand have their way there won't be the time to do them properly anyway,” she said. “What we have seen, is a whole lot of behind the scenes practices that are highly manipulative.” The FIC's do not want to go into negotiations while some of their members are still negotiating other free trade deals—the Economic Partnership Agreement that Fiji and Papua New Guinea are involved in, and the World Trade Organization negotiations that Samoa, Vanuatu, and Tonga are involved with.New Zealand's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Murray McCully, announced earlier this month that foreign aid would no longer be directed to “poverty elimination” but linked to trade and economic development and should be compatible with New Zealand's foreign policy.This sort of pressure, says Professor Kelsey, places the Pacific Island nations in an even more vulnerable position.The principal reason for Pacific Island nations participating in free trade negotiations is that they are hopeful that it will lead to the opening of more doors into Australia and New Zealand for temporary migrants. “That is seen as a lifeline,” Kelsey said. “It soaks up unemployment, helps the balance of payment, puts money back into villages and households, as well as potentially creating investors.”“But until you get to the end of the negotiations, you are not going to know what is on the table, and the promises that you made in the process of those negotiations will be very hard to take off the table if you don't get what you thought you might, at the end,” Professor Kelsey said.Despicable treatment during free trade negotiations in the past have taught the Pacific Island nations to tread warily, says Professor Kelsey.Samoa, Vanuatu and Tonga have experienced “unconscionable demands” in their attempt to enter into WTO negotiations—the prospect of unfettered operations by foreign businesses, privatization and big cuts in tariffs that would reduce government revenue, she said. “To date, only Tonga has agreed to pay that price, although a statement out from Vanuatu suggests that they might actually be getting a bit closer to doing so.”The Pacific Island Forum's member states are: Australia, the Cook Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, Nauru, New Zealand, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, the Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu. Since 2006, associate members territories are New Caledonia and French Polynesia. Fiji was suspended on 2 May 2009.

(www. Theepochtime.com)

Political climate change

2009-05-25T01:47:00.000-07:00

(www.Economist.com) Britain’s legislature needs a vigorous cleansing; but now is not the time to redesign government.

OVER the past century, the British have lost a lot—their empire, their military might, their economic leadership and even their sense of superiority. But they still reckoned that they had one of the best parliaments in the world. The constitution might be a mess, the executive insufficiently checked, but compared with America’s Congress and most of the European systems, Westminster seemed relatively clean.
That is why the revelations of the past two weeks—that MPs have been picking taxpayers’ pockets, pushing the rules to breaking point on second-home mortgage relief, massage chairs, moat-clearing and the like—have been such a shock. The public is apoplectic. The speaker of the House of Commons was obliged to resign on May 19th, the first time since 1695 that a holder of that office had been ejected
Such profound shifts in the political climate are rare. What to do about this one? A vast array of solutions are being rushed forward. Broadly, they fit into three categories. There is an electoral solution: the opposition Tories want a general election to let the people sweep the cursed crooks from office (and themselves into it). There is a range of constitutional reforms, from fewer MPs to proportional representation. And there is institutional spring cleaning—changing the allowances system, improving MPs’ usefulness and getting rid of the most grievous offenders. This newspaper is not afraid of calling for elections or constitutional change, but in this particular situation the emphasis, especially now, should be on the last set of proposals. That is because this crisis—no matter how shameful the offences involved—is institutional, not constitutional.
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Going, going, Gordon…
Begin with the idea of an election. The prospect of a fresh start is certainly alluring. These are unsettled times, in Britain as elsewhere. Having been forced, teeth gritted, to support failed bankers in lavish retirement, taxpayers are rightly outraged by the discovery that MPs too have their noses in the trough. Although Britons usually take a dyspeptic view of their representatives, there is a different, bloodier mood now. Giving the people a say would in theory cleanse the system.
There may indeed soon be good reasons for forcing an election—especially if it becomes obvious, as it well might, that Gordon Brown’s spindly government has lost the authority to govern the country. But the expenses crisis, if anything, weakens the argument for a contest now. If an election were called next week, Britain might well end up with a Parliament for the next five years that is defined entirely by its views on claiming for bath plugs, rather than on how to get the country out of the worst recession in 70 years.
The same yes-but-not-now logic applies to the calls for constitutional reform. Some elements in this crisis can indeed be traced back eventually to defects in Britain’s system, notably the drift of power away from Parliament to the executive. But the heart of the matter was much smaller: a shoddy way of dealing with expenses. You could re-engineer great swathes of Westminster—bring in an elected House of Lords, introduce a Bill of Rights, design open primaries for MPs, scrap the first-past-the-post electoral system—and it would not make a shred of difference if the people elected were left in charge of claiming their own expenses amid a “course-you-can-chum” culture. A pile of swimming-pool-cleaning receipts is not a good starting place for constitutional reform.
So focus on making a misused organisation work. Finding a new speaker is the first task. Michael Martin, the incumbent until June 21st, was inept, but it was his refusal to tackle—or even to air publicly—the laxness of the allowances system that did for him. His successor cannot be found among what Lord Rosebery, a prime minister in Queen Victoria’s time, called “the mediocrities of the House”. He or she will need heft to lead reform and to persuade the public to place its trust in a cleaned-up Commons. It is a mark of how bad the graft is now that some otherwise good candidates have been rendered ineligible by their own incontinence on expenses.
The second task is to deal with the most egregious envelope-pushers. Erring MPs cannot escape punishment by offering grovelling apologies and repaying the unjustified expenses they were caught claiming: that would be like letting off a shoplifter who volunteered to return the dress she swiped from Harrods. A few have been punished. Once the evidence is clear, all the rule-breakers should be chucked out of the parties, all the rule-benders dispatched from the front benches.
The third job is changing the way MPs’ finances are regulated. An independent commission is beavering away to come up with ideas for this. All parties have agreed to interim reforms meanwhile, clamping down on what MPs can claim for. Mr Brown’s main thrust is to replace Parliament’s ancient system of self-governance with an external body that would set and police MPs’ allowances. He is probably right in this: self-regulation is on the run in most walks of life, and recent experience of it in Parliament is dispiriting. But transparency will make much more difference than yet another quango. The reason MPs are likely to stay on the straight and narrow is the fact that their claims will henceforward be published online.
The great accounting to come
Do these three things quickly and much of the sting will be drawn. That still leaves room to begin a broad review of the workings of Parliament and to tackle the constitutional issues.
One reason for Westminster’s longer-run woes is that the job of an MP has become less appealing to capable independent minds. Ever more laws are in effect drafted in Brussels these days. A leaching of authority to the executive has left MPs too dependent for advancement on the goodwill of party higher-ups to hold the government to account. That could be corrected by giving more, not less, power to MPs—for instance by setting up permanent committees with long-serving members, more expert staff and power to compel evidence.
As for an election, one is due within a year. Better to save that great accounting for a time when voters care about something bigger than the dodgy expenses of some errant MPs.

(www.Economist.com)

Vanuatu Women’s council fire linked to organisation’s disarray

2009-05-23T13:32:00.000-07:00

The president of the Vanuatu National Council of Women says police are investigating the cause of a fire which destroyed the VNCW guest house on Sunday evening.
Manina Pakete says it is suspected that the fire began with a candle used by residents in the guest house.
Candles have been in regular use as the guest house has been running without electricity since last December due to an outstanding power bill.
Ms Pakete says the VNCW has been lacking money as a result of political moves to remove her as President after she took steps to address misappropriation of administrative funds in the Council earlier this year.
News Content © Radio New Zealand InternationalPO Box 123, Wellington, New Zealand

VIEWPOINT: BEYOND FISH AND COCONUTS: TRADE AGREEMENTS IN THE PACIFIC ISLANDS

2009-05-17T01:23:00.000-07:00

(Island business) Globalisation is coming to the Pacific. But are the islands heading for a free-trade paradise; are they forever lumbered with their colonial inheritance; or is there another way—a Pacific Way??When European powers left the region in the 1970s, they bequeathed a legacy of preferential market access arrangements and subsides. For a long time after independence, additional aid, particularly in Melanesia, went into established commodities such as copra, coffee, palm oil and cocoa. There was little incentive for Pacific governments to expand product ranges or look for new markets, as the subsides encouraged the export of traditional commodities duty-free and at above world market prices. In Fiji and Papua New Guinea the focus was on sugar exports to Europe; in Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands it was the copra trade.Today, Pacific islands governments can rely less on special treatments for exports to traditional destinations. Big trading partners like Europe, Australia and New Zealand are expecting the fledgling economies of the Pacific to liberalise, and quickly. Despite the existence of agreements among the Pacific island states, intra-regional trade has been low, mainly due to the massive distances and the lack of products to sell one another. In the words of an official of the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat: “The islands are hardly going to sell a lot of coconuts and fish to each other.” Opportunities: Yet opportunities exist for increased intra-regional trade, particularly in services, and especially among the geographically clustered and more diversified economies of Melanesia. Despite the concessions of reduced tariffs, the free trade agreement between members of the Melanesian Spearhead Group has failed to significantly increase trade. New Caledonia’s pro-independence Kanak Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS) has observer status in the Melanesian alliance. The potential contribution of these territories to regional economic growth is underestimated. The GDP of New Caledonia and French Polynesia is roughly the same as the 14 Pacific islands countries combined. A small amount of trade would make a big difference to the region. Pacific countries can capitalise on further engagement with the global economy. The islands have had duty and quota-free access to Australia and New Zealand since 1981 under South Pacific Regional Trade and Economic Cooperation Agreement (SPARTECA). Marketing assistance to Pacific producers has been available, but meeting quality, consistency and quarantine standards has been a challenge. If a free trade agreement comes out of the imminent PACER Plus negotiations, it will supersede existing SPARTECA market-access arrangements. Opening up to Australia and New Zealand, where most imports originate, could endanger import tariff revenue—in some cases up to 30 percent of government income. Fears: Fears also exist about protecting domestic industries. As both development and trading partners, Australia and New Zealand can support the emerging Pacific islands economies by ensuring PACER Plus negotiations do not focus solely on market access. In fact, PACER Plus does not need to be considered as just a trade agreement, rather an economic partnership arrangement of which trade is one component.Imports from Europe are small and diminishing, so direct tariff revenue losses and trade effects from the controversial Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) are likely to be minimal. The main issue for Pacific countries is the precedent that EPAs set given the ‘most favoured nation’ clause, which requires countries to extend conditions ‘no less favourable’ than that provided to others. So an EPA would effectively prevent Pacific island countries from doing different deals with other trading partners. So far the only Pacific nations to sign up to the new trade agreement with the EU have been Fiji and Papua New Guinea, and that was to keep preferential access for sugar and tuna exporters. These agreements now set a precedent for other Pacific countries should they wish to enter into EPAs in the future. Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Fiji and Tonga are members of the WTO. Vanuatu and Samoa are in the process of acceding. Vanuatu nearly completed its accession negotiations in 2001. At the time it would have been the first ‘Least Developed Country’ (LDC) to join the WTO, but baulked when asked for more liberal commitments for goods and services than existing members, including Australia, European countries and the United States. The WTO General Council has since agreed to provide more flexibility on the accession of LDCs. It remains to be seen if Samoa and Vanuatu will benefit from this special treatment. In the case of Tonga, which joined in 2005, it appears not. Tonga liberalised services extensively, was required to abandon prohibited industrial subsidies and bound its tariffs at the very low average rate of under 20 percent. Graduation from LDC status has further implications, with Samoa on course to graduate in 2010 and Vanuatu in 2013. Graduation may affect the privileges and preferences and the prospect of losing these advantages makes it all the more important to promote export development and to make the economy more internationally competitive. Challenges: Confronting the challenges of globalisation is no easy task, especially when small, developing nations are at a clear disadvantage in terms of negotiating power. But Pacific islands countries can move beyond fish and coconuts and capitalise on a more liberal trading environment.Each country could benefit from export-oriented trade policy that focuses on a few select areas in which each country has an actual or potential comparative advantage such as tourism, food processing, fisheries and certain agricultural products.Doing nothing is not an ideal strategy as the region cannot continue to rely on past arrangements and high tariffs. Given the limited negotiating capacity of tiny island states, being prepared is essential. To leave everything undecided until the end is to play into the hands of the powerful.

*This article is an edited version of the Pacific Institute of Public Policy’s briefing, “Beyond fish and coconuts: trade agreements in the Pacific islands,” published in 2008. The original briefing can be accessed at: www.pacificpolicy.org. The Pacific Institute of Public Policy is an independent, non-partisan and not-for-profit think tank based in Port Vila, Vanuatu and exists to stimulate and support policy debate in

VIEWPOINT: BEYOND FISH AND COCONUTS: TRADE AGREEMENTS IN THE PACIFIC ISLANDS

2009-05-17T01:21:00.000-07:00

(Island business) A recent study carried out by BAV, a consultant company from New Caledonia, reveals that Vanuatu could be exceeding the 100,000 visitor mark by 2010Bulk of these visitors are from New Zealand and Australia and they contribute to the expanding tourist market in Vanuatu, which grew by 19% in 2007, confirming a strong trend over the last 4 to 5 years. This growth rate is higher than the general statistic for the South Pacific region, which has seen an overall increase in customer traffic over the same period of around 4,1%.In a context that is marked by the predominance of Australia and New Zealand as the source markets across this region and where the Asian and American source markets are in decline, Vanuatu is profiting greatly from its geographic proximity to these Pacific countries which enables it to set up short and medium-haul flights that tourists are mostly looking for these days, due to the increasing cost of air travel. This situation entails one major drawback as Vanuatu is now 90% dependent on Australia and New Zealand markets. Bav’s study reveals that in 2008, Vanuatu received nearly 90,000 visitors by air compared to 50,000 during the last four years.“Forecasts lead one to envisage that the 100,000 visitors per year mark will be exceeded in 2010. This growth rate is mainly due to Vanuatu’s skies being opened up to competition. The arrival of the low-cost airline, Pacific Blue, and the increased number of departure points in Australia like Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne, has turned the tourism scene completely upside down in the space of 4 years,” Bav’s study states.New Caledonia is now Vanuatu’s third largest source market, with 8500 visitors in 2007. The number of visitors has doubled in 4 years. Traffic from European markets, notably from France, is still less than 5% of overall volume. The New Caledonian market, as regards Vanuatu, is characterised by the great mobility shown by New Caledonians who make over 100,000 person/trips per year, over half of which are to a single destination of Australia.The tourism sector contributes 17.8 billion vatu to the country’s economy and represents 20% of GDP. It also employs 4,700 people. In a dynamic economy with an estimated average annual growth rate of 6.8% between 2008 and 2017, the tourism sector looks likely to carry greater weight.In terms of what it has to offer tourists, although it is a destination that offers a combination of interests and attractions with a well preserved traditional culture and natural environment, beaches, Tanna volcano, the nangol and exoticism, able to entice a very broad spectrum of potential visitors, Vanuatu has not yet managed to find and exploit these strong points with a clear marketing concept that is easily understood. These trumpcards together provide Vanuatu with a marketing positioning that is unique in the region, allowing it to envisage strong, suitable development in tourism.—By Hilaire Bule

Vanuatu’s Wan Smol Bag marks 20 years of operations this week

2009-05-14T11:19:00.001-07:00

The Vanuatu theatre group, Wan Smol Bag, celebrates 20 years of work in the arts and in the community this weekend.
The group began with a small band of actors and now produces plays, films, CDs, television and teaching resources that educate and entertain audiences across the Pacific.
It has also gone on to establish health clinics, a sports complex, youth centres, a conservation network, and workshops to boost employment skills.
Co-founder Peter Walker says community projects seemed to grow naturally out of the theatre work they embarked on.
“’For example, if you are doing a play about reproductive health and you are looking at condoms and access to confidential services for young people, the next step when we had a little bit of money, everyone seemed to think it was a good idea to build a reproductive health clinic onto the back of the theatre.”
Peter Walker says Wan Smolbag is holding an Open Day this weekend, and an international theatre festival in June.
News Content © Radio New Zealand InternationalPO Box 123, Wellington, New Zealand

Vanuatu World Heritage site may have been damaged by developers

2009-05-14T11:18:00.000-07:00

The manager for Vanuatu’s first World Heritage site says land may have been cleared in the buffer zone without complete approval.
The Roi Mata Domain is found just off the coast of Vanuatu’s Efate Island and was declared a world heritage site last year.
The site manager, Douglas Kalotiti, says Transpacific Real Estate Limited has negotiated with land owners to clear land for developments in the buffer zone.
But he says bulldozers have been at work and important trees marking the territory have been cleared, leaving no indication of where the site boundary lies.
“There should be an environmental assessment to be done first before clearing the land. But we’re saying is no environmental assessment has been done but they cleared the land before the environmental assessment.”
Douglas Kalotiti says all legal documents should also have been completed before land sales went ahead.
News Content © Radio New Zealand InternationalPO Box 123, Wellington, New Zealand

Vanuatu: Land fight intensifies

2009-04-29T15:36:00.000-07:00

By Stu Harrison25 April 2009

Australian property developers are pushing the Indigenous people of Vanuatu, the Ni-Van, off their land.
Just a few hours flight away in the Pacific, Vanuatu is a hot-spot for Australian tourists. It is also a favoured destination for property speculators taking advantage of Vanuatu’s cheap land and tax haven status. Vanuatu won independence from French colonial rule in 1980. Its constitution declares: “All land in the Republic of Vanuatu belongs to the indigenous custom owners and their descendants.” But a loophole in the constitution allows private ownership of once communal lands to be registered with the government. The private owners are able to lease this land for up to 75 years. The land can be claimed back by indigenous owners only after the lease expires — and only if they pay for all new assets on the property. The average national annual income is $3000, so this is near impossible. Notable Australian developers in Vanuatu include former prime minister Paul Keating and Australian-based real estate companies First National and Transpacific. Land developers have increasingly been able to acquire leases, sometimes by underhanded means. Some have found individual community members willing to sell the land behind the backs of other communal owners. The promise of employment, or luxury goods, has also been used to entice Ni-Van owners to give up their land. These promises have not always been kept. A December 2006 SBS Dateline report revealed an Australian investor group took a lease on the proviso they would build the largest hotel resort in the South Pacific. The investors said local residents would be given jobs at the resort. The plan was later ditched in favour of a residential development. A Ni-Van group fighting the investors claim they broke the contract. Ni-Van landowner John Koloroa told the April 20 ABC 7.30 Report about facing false promises and dispossession. Koloroa leased land to an Australian investor on the promise that a resort and pearl farm would be built. Instead, the land was subdivided for holiday homes. “John Koloroa says the developer made $2 million; his family was paid $50,000”, the 7.30 Report said. The program claimed multiple unnamed sources who said the rent owed on communal land leases was not being paid by foreign developers. Vanuatu Prime Minister Edward Natapei said: “Our people have been trampled all over because we are kind.” As more of their communal lands being fenced off by rich land speculators, many people are losing their goodwill. There have been direct action protests against Australian interests and the Vanuatu government. Groups such as the Vete Association have organised attacks on government buildings and occupied contested lands. Actions in support of indigenous land rights are becoming more widespread. The Vete Association now has 85 members awaiting a court appearance. The charges they face are yet to be revealed. Vete member Johnny Smile said in a January Engagemedia.org report: “There is no papers that gives the government the right. The government arrested us without any warrant of arrest. “Land was supposed to go back to indigenous landowners after independence but that is not the case now and we're fighting and we will win.”

www.greenleft.org.au

A commodore, a coup and an island in chaos

2009-04-11T11:32:00.000-07:00

(By Kathy Marks in Sydney, www.Independent.co.uk)
Fiji, which has lurched from one coup to the next in recent years, was plunged into fresh political turmoil yesterday after its self-appointed President tore up the constitution, sacked the judiciary and ruled out democratic elections until 2014.
The move, greeted with dismay by Fiji's neighbours, came 24 hours after the country's Court of Appeal pronounced the military government led by Frank Bainimarama invalid. Commodore Bainimarama, head of the armed forces, seized power in 2006 and has run the South Pacific island nation – a former British colony and popular tourism destination – as a virtual dictatorship since then.
Among the judges dismissed by President Josefa Iloilo were the three who on Thursday declared Commodore Bainimarama's coup illegal. The ageing, ailing Mr Iloilo told Fijians in a national televised address, rather chillingly, that he was establishing a "new order". He is expected to reappoint the maverick commodore, a close friend, as Prime Minister.
The dramatic worsening of the political situation in a country once viewed as a tropical paradise followed calls earlier this week by the US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, for a date to be set for democratic elections by 1 May. The 16-nation Pacific Islands Forum has threatened to suspend Fiji unless it meets that deadline, and the Commonwealth says it will take similar action.
Rod Alley, a senior fellow at New Zealand's Centre for Strategic Studies, said of the President's televised address: "It looked like a prepared statement by Bainimarama, delivered by Iloilo. This is extraordinary and doesn't look good for Fiji."
As security was stepped up across Fiji yesterday, Australia warned of possible violence. The Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, led a chorus of condemnation of Mr Iloilo's announcement, calling it "a grave and unwelcome development" and urging the President "to take Fiji forwards and not backwards". Commodore Bainimarama is a colourful figure, prominent in Fijian public life since 2000. He led a military force that intervened to restore law and order following a coup staged by George Speight, a former businessman whose followers held the then prime minister and cabinet hostage inside parliament for two months.
The armed forces chief led his own coup – Fiji's fourth such takeover in 20 years – in December 2006 after Laisenia Qarase, who had won two free elections, resisted his demands to resign. Mr Iloilo, who is 88 and suffers from Parkinson's disease, was appointed President in 2000 by Mr Speight.
Supplanted by Commodore Bainimarama, who assumed presidential powers following his coup, he was reappointed a few weeks later by the coup leader. The following day, Mr Iloilo – believed to be the world's oldest head of state – appointed the Commodore Prime Minister.
Thursday's Court of Appeal decision, which upheld a legal challenge to the military regime by the ousted Mr Qarase, left Fiji – an archipelago of more than 300 palm-fringed islands – in limbo. The judges instructed the President to dissolve parliament, appoint an independent caretaker prime minister and prepare the nation for prompt elections.
Instead, Mr Iloilo reappointed himself, awarded himself executive powers and abrogated the constitution – a decision that the President "came up with ... on his own", Commodore Bainimarama assured Radio Australia yesterday. The latter added that he would be willing to return to the job of prime minister.
The Commodore, a rugby fanatic and military history buff who has trained in Australia and the US, likes to portray himself as a champion of multiculturalism. He claimed to be putting off elections only in order to rewrite the constitution, which he said accentuated divisions between ethnic Indians and indigenous Fijians. Critics accuse him of wanting only to cling to military-backed power for as long as possible, caring little about Fiji's status as an international pariah, and the impact on its tourism and sugar export industries.
Mr Iloilo said he planned to appoint an interim government soon, and would invite "suitable individuals" to join or rejoin the judiciary. He urged Fijians to work together "for the smooth transition to a new order".

Vanuatu indicates support for PACER Plus during Crean visit

2009-04-05T00:30:00.000-07:00

Vanuatu’s government has indicated its support for a proposed regional free trade deal between Australia, New Zealand and the wider Pacific region.
The indication came during a visit to Port Vila by Australia’s trade minister, Simon Crean, to discuss the PACER Plus trade agreement with Vanuatu’s government.
Speaking at a media conference, Mr Crean said Pacific Island countries have more to gain from the arrangement than Australia, which already has the advantage of high trade surplus.
However he said his government’s priority is ensuring economic stability in the region, because it is a more costly exercise if countries within the region fail.
In a statement ahead of his trip, Mr Crean said Australia was determined that PACER Plus will take account of the individual circumstances of Pacific Island countries in formulating trade agreements.
The trade minister is to follow-up his visit to Vanuatu with trips to New Zealand, Tonga and Solomon Islands in a push to garner additional support for PACER Plus.
News Content © Radio New Zealand InternationalPO Box 123, Wellington, New Zealand

Escaped prisoner in Vanuatu dies after being recaptured

2009-04-05T00:27:00.000-07:00

A 21-year-old male escaped inmate from Vanuatu’s jail has died at the Vila Central Hospital shortly after being captured at his home by law enforcement officers.
John Bule was serving a seven year sentence for rape.
The hospital’s Acting Medical Services Manager, Dr Richard Leona, said Bule was brought in suffering multiple injuries.
However Dr Leona said the cause of the death could not be determined.
He told the Vanuatu Daily Post that he has recommended to Correctional Services that a post mortem be carried out and that forensic pathologists are brought into the country to carry out the examination.
Grieving parents and relatives have called on the Police Commissioner to suspend the officers involved accusing them of severely beating Mr Bule.
Director Generals in various government ministries have released a cautious statement to express the government’s condolences and have vowed to set up a Commission of inquiry into the death
News Content © Radio New Zealand InternationalPO Box 123, Wellington, New Zealand

Little to gain from Vanuatu WTO bid: trade group

2009-03-27T23:43:00.000-07:00

(ABC) Pacific trade watch group says Vanuatu has little to gain from becoming a member of the World Trade Organisation.The statement follows Vanuatu's decision to re-start the process to join, saying its essential it becomes a WTO member, as many of its Pacific neighbours are already members.Papau New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Fiji joined in 1996, while Tonga signed up in 2007 and Samoa has begun the accession process.But speaking to Radio Australia's Pacific Beat program, Wesley Morgan from the Pacific Network on Globalisation says Vanuatu is too small to make any impact."One has to think very carefully about the likelihood of success relative to the cost and the capacity of a trade department for a country like Vanautu," he said."It's unlikely Vanuatu would ever have any real say at the table at an organisation like the World Trade Organisation."

Two Vanuatu MPs enter not guilty pleas in separate Supreme Court cases

2009-03-23T11:06:00.001-07:00

In Vanuatu’s Supreme Court, former Justice Minister Joshua Kalsakau has pleaded not guilty to charges of sexual intercourse without consent, attempted incest, and act of indecent assault.
The Efate MP has been charged over an alleged incident which took place during new year’s eve celebrations at Pango Ocean Beach Resort.
He was arrested and charged soon after a formal complaint was lodged to the police by the mother of the victim.
The Daily Post newspaper reports that Mr Kalsakau will reappear before the Court on May 19.
Meanwhile, Port Vila MP Ralph Regenvanu has also appeared in the Supreme Court, facing charges in relation to a jailbreak by prisoners at the main prison facility in the capital late last year.
Mr Regenvanu pleaded not guilty to three counts of accessory after the fact, harboring or assisting a prisoner and obstructing police officers on duty.
He will reappear in Court on May 13.
Mr Regenvanu and fellow opposition MP Moana Carcasses were both charged following the December 19 jail breakout last year however Mr Carcasses was unable to attend court due to health reasons.
News Content © Radio New Zealand InternationalPO Box 123, Wellington, New Zealand

Vanuatu Police investigate claims of assault involving Deputy Police Commissioner

2009-03-22T04:35:00.000-07:00

The police in Vanuatu have confirmed investigations are under way into an assault complaint against the Deputy Police Commissioner and his wife.
The Police South Commander, John Taleo, says he understands a woman who works for the Vanuatu National Council for Women is claiming she was assaulted by the Deputy Police Commissioner Arthur Caulton and his wife.
Mr Taleo says while he does not know the full details, the police are looking into the case.
“The investigation is being investigated by the internal police investigation department which is constituted by the Vanuatu Police Force, and they will carry out the investigation. The investigation will determine what, how and what has been done.”
John Taleo says he cannot reveal whether or not any charges have been laid.
More information is to be released next week.
News Content © Radio New Zealand InternationalPO Box 123, Wellington, New Zealand

Vanuatu Currency Declaration Bill could turn away offshore banking clients

2009-03-22T04:33:00.000-07:00

Vanuatu’s former Finance Minister has warned that new legislation demanding more disclosure of money and assets from foreign visitors will further damage the country’s reputation for offshore banking services.
Willie Jimmy’s comment comes after parliament this month passed the Currency Declaration Bill, which would see visitors having to declare upon entry or exit if they are carrying more than a million vatu, or around ten thousand US dollars, in not only cash but negotiable assets as well.
This includes jewellery, credit cards and credit on mobile phones.
Mr Jimmy says the law could be a further turn-off for clients of Vanuatu’s offshore banking services which are still recovering from Australian federal police raids on their premises last year.
“I think that will also have some impact on the visitors coming in and those who are using finance centres and credit cards and travellers cheques and those things that you used to have to come in... but you have to report them if you have over ten thousand dollars US or a million vatu. I think those things will impact on the interests of people who visit Vanuatu.”
Vanuatu’s former Finance Minister Willie Jimmy
News Content © Radio New Zealand InternationalPO Box 123, Wellington, New Zealand

Investor interest in Vanuatu continues to grow

2009-03-19T17:08:00.000-07:00

Foreign investor interest in Vanuatu is increasing according to the 2008 annual report of the Vanuatu Investment Promotion Authority.
The Daily Post quotes the report as saying that compared to 2007, there was an increase of 15% in new applications.
30% of the total number of applications were approved.
They include new projects and renewals of existing or private investor applications.
The five major contributing sectors with highest proposed investment value were joint ventures between foreign investors and locals with 27%, investors from Australia 26%, Ireland 20%, France 14% and other European countries at 8%.
A total of 2,245 new local jobs were reportedly created but the figures are set to continue to increase.
The highest value of investment was in the telecommunication sector.
Port Vila remained the biggest target for investors in 2008 with 66% of all applications, Luganville came next at 16%, while Shefa province attracted 11%.
News Content © Radio New Zealand InternationalPO Box 123, Wellington, New Zealand

Veteran politician named Vanuatu’s first ambassador to China

2009-03-19T17:06:00.000-07:00

Vanuatu’s former minister of finance, Willie Jimmy, has been named the country’s first Ambassador to China.
A veteran politician in various former governments, Mr Jimmy failed to win re-election in his Port Vila seat in the last general elections.
The Government expects him to formally sign off on the appointment with the Ministry for Foreign Affairs shortly.
News Content © Radio New Zealand InternationalPO Box 123, Wellington, New Zealand

Farmers not convinced by the launch of Vanuatu's first rice project

2009-03-18T11:58:00.000-07:00

(Radio Australia) Vanuatu's Ministry for Agriculture is launching the country's first rice project in a bid to reduce the dependency on imported grains, encouraging local farmers to move away from traditional root crops and plant rice instead. However, a group representing ni-Vanuatu farmers says it's unlikely locally grown rice will be able to compete with imports.Presenter Helene Hofman Speakers: Director General of the Ministry for Agriculture Jeffrey Wilfred, Farm Support Association Senior staff member Peter Kaoh.

HOFMAN: Vanuatu's Ministry for Agriculture says it's concerned that the population is becoming over-reliant on rice from overseas. According to the Statistics Office in Port Vila, the average household in Vanuatu now spends over 15% of its food budget on imported rice and just 6% on locally-grown food crops. The figures have prompted fears that rising prices will lead to serious food shortages in future. The Ministry says it's now time for small hold farmers to consider growing rice and avoid the additional costs associated with importing rice from countries like China and Australia. Based on two Chinese-funded rice growing trials on the islands of Tanna and Santo, the Ministry is recommending two varieties of dry land rice most suited to the conditions in Vanuatu. The Director-General of the Ministry for Agriculture, Jeffrey Wilfred, says rice could provide a solution for semi-commercial farmers struggling to cope with the falling prices of crops like copra.

WILFRED: We already have a market in Vanuatu. In 1989 we imported over 4,000 tonnes. Ten years later that has increased to 10,000 tonnes. So, one investor when this rice project was launched, he costed us at about 40 vatu per kilo to mill it. So, one kilo of rice now in Vanuatu is about 200 vatu so if 40 vatu is charged by a miller in Vanuatu, the farmer might sell that at 110 vatu per kilo, which is much lower than what is being sold now in the market in Vanuatu.

HOFMAN: Vanuatu is not the only country to have become increasingly dependent on imported rice. A recent report on food security from the World Institute for Development Economics Research estimates that the Cook Islands, Samoa and Tonga are now 100 per cent dependent on imports for their stable foods of rice and wheat. Papau New Guinea and Solomon Islands are over 90 per cent dependent on imported cereal. Vanuatu's Minister for Agriculture says its latest rice project could provide a long-term solution. However Peter Kaoh, a senior staff member of the country's Farm Support Association, an NGO that represents about 100 small holders, has reservations about the project.KAOH: To be honest, growing rice in Vanuatu is not a new thing to us. We've started it and we couldn't go along with it due to some problems. The first problem we have here is each year we have cyclones. And secondly our farmers are used to growing root crops, which means they just go along and plant the cuttings of suckers or tubers and then come back some time later and remove the weeds. But for rice, the thing is that you sow the seeds and you have to weed them before the weeds smother the crops, and third problem is processing rice locally might cost more than what we can purchase from Australia.

HOFMAN: Seeds have already been distributed to farmers around the country and they have been encouraged to contact specially-trained agricultural officers for guidance. The Ministry for Agriculture says it doesn't expect the project to be immediately successful, but hopes to adapt and expand it over the coming years. Mr Kaoh says many local farmers are willing to give the project a try.KAOH: They seem to be asking for more, the farmers. But the thing is, they haven't got as far as processing the rice to see what are the real costs and the machines available to sow. So, yeah I would say the interest is high but that does not tell me the rice is promising.

RAMSI looks down on ni-Van

2009-03-04T18:15:00.000-08:00

(Ricky Binihi, Port Vila, Vanuatu Daily Post)

Ni-Vanuatu members of the Vanuatu Police Force serving with the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI) are not treated as equals by the Australians and New Zealanders.
“Australians and New Zealanders get $150 a day while ni-Vanuatu and other Pacific Islanders get $70 a day but we do the same work,” according to a confidential report that was leaked to the media.
Vanuatu members of RAMSI speak Bislama which is understood by Solomon Islanders and are familiar with the cultures of their Melanesian wantoks but no ni-Vanuatu or any other Pacific Islander hold an executive position in RAMSI.
“Even though (Pacific Island) members are very experienced officers within their police force in their respective island countries they are not given that opportunity to exercise in this mission as all positions are taken up by either Australians or New Zealanders although some of them serve only one or two years in their respective police forces,” the report said.
Vanuatu and 11 other Pacific island countries have been serving with RAMSI since its inception in 2003 but it would seem that although the organisation borrows the word “regional” it is in fact one that is solely controlled by Australians and New Zealanders.
The disturbing report which the Daily Post has a copy also said that Pacific Islanders serving in the mission have “very little knowledge of day to day development” within the Participating Police Force because no islander is part of the decision making body of PPF.
“The Pacific Islanders experience and ranks are not recognized in this mission,” the report said.
If the allegations made by a commander of a Vanuatu contingent that served 357 days in the Solomon Islands are true then the Vanuatu government needs to reconsider its association with RAMSI.
The Republic of Vanuatu should not allow its citizens to be ridiculed by an organisation that is headed by Australians and New Zealanders that look down on them.

Pacific way or Melanesian way?

2009-03-04T18:03:00.000-08:00

(SOLOMON STAR) Cooperation, integration and unification in the Pacific island countries including Australia New Zealand are rhetoric and remain the much talked about issues in our Pacific Forum Leaders’ meetings. Decisions made in such meetings and agreed by leaders are equally important and expected to be upheld for their complete implementation and success.The Pacific Forum leaders meeting, early this year in Papua New Guinea, all agreed and resolved to find a leeway into Fiji’s issue in a bit to bring Fiji to civilian rule.The Forum leaders issued an ultimatum to Commodore Frank Bainimarama, the military coup leader demanding him to hold elections by the end of this year.However, individual countries/government at times wither backsliding or back tracking and find themselves in no man’s land.Just a week ago, after the Forum meetings in PNG, in an interview with Radio Australia Pacific Beat, Prime Minister of Samoa Hon. Tuialepa Silele asserted the leaders stand and criticised commodore Bainimarama of his imperious and flip-flopping behaviour and type of leadership and not respecting other forum leaders and to end its coup culture.Instantly, Hon Sela Molisa, Finance Minister of Vanuatu came out differently. He said island nations have too much to lose from any suspension and not in the best interest or not the best option, sighting that Fiji is the centre of many institutions like the University of the South Pacific (USP).Mr Molisa’s statement veered from his Prime Minister’s stand taken in Papua New Guinea. Vanuatu’s Prime Minister Edward Natape was in attendance and agreed on the ultimatum.The sentiment expressed by Mr Molisa displayed signs of internal wrangling in Vanuatu or information breakdown and also signs of the walls cracking between the blocks of Melanesian and Polynesian.The issue of Fiji was regionally dealt with; however, in my humble view as a citizen of the Pacific region, our leaders need to live up to expectations by upholding and maintaining important decisions regardless of ethnicity, race, country etc. etc.To pay lip service and antagonising efforts to assist a fellow country is absurd and sheer stupidity.The ultimatum issued was a clear message and will remain a message for not only Fiji but for all countries in the region.The message is that the Forum countries cannot afford to entertain and cannot accept the “coup culture takeover” by overthrowing a legitimate elected government by military backed takeover on the pretext of corruption clean up.It is crucial and important for political stability and economical strength and the region’s advancement that coup culture takeover be stamped out from our shores.Taking a tough stand would clearly tell future military leaders that such actions cannot be condoned and tolerated by countries in the region.So, I see that the ultimatum will enhance the regional unification and integration as well as consolidating Forum island countries in their common political will and aspirations thus creating the right atmosphere for good governance and achieving regional goals together.If Fiji is what maters most, it is time to tell Commodore Frank Bainimarama to come to his senses. It is time he tells the truth and cooperate and realise his action is not acceptable in the democratic world. Our leaders too must stop chicken out and do the right thing.For our leaders of the Forum, “well done. I salute you.” I would like to quote the wisdom of Shakespeare.He says: “There’s a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune.“Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallow and miseries.“On such a full sea, are we now afloat, and we must take the current when it serves, or lose our ventures.”Clement Fakasori, Honiara.

Vanuatu worried about interest rates if it loses LDC status at UN

2009-02-05T12:44:00.000-08:00

Vanuatu’s Finance Minister says the government’s recurrent budget could be hit hard by rising interest rates if the country graduates to developing country status at the United Nations.
A government delegation has returned from New York where it presented its case before the UN Committee for Economic and Social Commission, or ECOSOC, to continue with Least Developed Country status.
Vanuatu’s Finance Minister Sela Molisa says he disputed some recent findings in a report recommending Vanuatu meets the criteria for graduation at the next ECOSOC meeting in May.
LDC status gives Vanuatu various privileges like market access for exports as well as special treatment in areas including trade and foreign aid.
Mr Molisa says graduating to developing country status could mean Vanuatu loses special interest rates on loans.
“Which at the moment, as an LDC, the maximum interest rate at the moment is one percent a year. Now if we graduate, it is possible the interest rate will increase to around five or six percent. Now what I’m going to do is formally ask especially the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank to state their position in that respect.”
Sela Molisa

News Content © Radio New Zealand InternationalPO Box 123, Wellington, New Zealand

Media freedom in Vanuatu compromised by assault on newspaper publisher

2009-01-19T15:00:00.000-08:00

(RNZI) The publisher of Vanuatu’s Daily Post newspaper says an assault on him at the weekend appears to have been retribution for the publication’s coverage of ongoing problems at the country’s main prison.
Police are investigating an incident in which Marc Neil-Jones sustained a broken nose and a black eye as well as kicks to his body an attack, he alledges were by four police officers, employed at Port Vila’s Correctional Service Centre.
Mr Neil-Jones says the officers accused the Daily Post of not getting their side of the story in articles about ongoing prison escapes, and the recent editorial calling for the sacking of the head of Correctional Services, Joshua Bong.
“They kept referring to that and they were referring to what are we going to do now? Who is going to look after the prisoners? so it was obvious that they had known that Bong was going to be removed. And they were drunk. But the main concern is that these were police and VMF (Vanuatu Mobile Force) officers who had done this"

Vanuatu's PM set to defeat move to unseat him

2008-10-01T15:26:00.000-07:00

(RADIO AUSTRALIA) It may take a court challange by the government to prevent Vanuatu's opposition from proceeding with the no confidence motion on Friday.Prime minister Edward Natapei is claiming a clear majority of 31 seats after Serge Vohors opposition UMP party crossed the floor to join the government's coalition.If the opposition does not concede that it no longer has the required 27 seats to proceed with the motion, the government will have no other course but to take court action to prevent the debate from taking place.But our correspondent in Port Vila Alaine Simeon says the vagaries of Melanasian politics may see the number crunching continue right down to the wire.

NZ High Commissioner to Vanuatu says tighter prison security still some time away

2008-09-30T00:27:00.000-07:00

(RNZI) The New Zealand High Commissioner to Vanuatu says security at Port Vila Correctional Service Centre needs more tightening, following another escape of prisoners.
Police have so far recaptured four out of nine inmates who broke out of the high security section of the prison, 11 days ago.
30 police officers were deployed at the facility in June, following a series of escapes during the year.
The High Commissioner Jeff Langley says NZAID has invested thousands of dollars into tightening security but there is still a long way to go.
“Quite a lot of work has gone into strengthening the fence around the prison, improving security along the perimeter, addressing some of the issues around how inmates are managed within the prison facility. So that’s required some new doors, new locks, some basic infrastructure maintenance, strengthening some of the basic brick and mortar issues around the prison.”
Jeff Langley says plans are progressing with building a new prison, replacing the existing one by the end of next year.

NZ strengthens protections for Pacific workers

2008-09-30T00:25:00.000-07:00

(ABC News) New Zealand's government is making changes to the labour scheme which allows thousands of Pacific Islanders to travel to the country to do seasonal work.
A review has found more needs to be done to protect the workers.
In the past year, more than 4,500 people have worked in New Zealand under the Recognised Seasonal Employer Scheme.
Most travelled from Pacific islands.
A review has found while the scheme is working well, more could be done to care for the workers.
New Zealand's Immigration Minister, Clayton Cosgrove, says there has been some shameful behaviour by employers.
"There have been some minor difficulties of year one; you are always going to get that," he said.
"There shouldn't be a lower labour and workplace standard for these folks, you know, a standard that wouldn't be accepted by Kiwis."
The Australian Government plans to trial a guest worker scheme involving Kiribati, Tonga, Vanuatu and PNG.

Vanuatu Speaker sets date for no confidence vote

2008-09-29T01:34:00.000-07:00

(RADIO AUSTRALIA) Vanuatu's attorney-general has ruled that the opposition's second vote of no confidence in the government can go ahead.The Speaker, George Wells, has declared Friday 3rd October as the date for a special meeting of parliament to debate the motion. Consent for the debate was given after procedural errors made in the oppositions documentation for the vote were corrected. The oppostion led by Maxime Carlot Korman now claims to hold a slim two seat majority of 27 votes in the 52 member parliament. No matter which side wins the vote of no confidence, Vanuatu seems to be in for a sustained period of political instability.

Another no-confidence motion against new Vanuatu government

2008-09-27T06:41:00.000-07:00

(RADIO AUSTRALIA) With less than two days in office, Vanuatu prime minister Edward Natapei's coalition government has had a second vote of confidence lodged against it.The second vote of no confidence with the required 27 signatures was lodged with the clerk of parliament by the opposition on Wednesday. The twenty-seven signatures are required by law before parliament can be recalled to debate the motion. If the oppositions's numbers hold up the motion is likely to be debated on Thursday week. Before two members from Tanna crossed the floor the Natapei governament only held a slim two seat majority. Leader of the opposition Maxime Carlot Korman remains angry that some MP's changed allegiance to him at the last moment losing him the prime ministership.

Vanuatu PM faces no-confidence vote

2008-09-25T01:11:00.000-07:00

(Radio Australia) Vanuatu's new Prime Minister Edward Natapei may be removed from office just days after forming a coalition government.Vanuatu's Opposition has lodged a motion of no confidence which will be voted on in parliament Thursday week.At least two government Members of Parliament yesterday defected to the Opposition which is lead by Maxime Carlo Korman.First time MP and independent member of the opposition Ralph Regenvanu has told Radio Australia the Opposition has the better policies"The government side really didnt have the numbers in the first place, you could say it was lucky at that time, I think what is emerging now is the real story about where the numbers lie," he said.

Vanuatu’s new finance minister aims for stability

2008-09-23T02:24:00.000-07:00

(RNZI) Vanuatu’s new finance minister says his priority is to ensure the government sticks to its budget, and that economic growth continues.
Sela Molisa has been appointed finance minister for the third time, after the new Prime Minister, Edward Natapei announced his cabinet line up yesterday.
Mr Natapei’s Vanua’aku Party will lead a coalition with its partner of the past four years, the National United Party or NUP and a number of independents and smaller parties.
Mr Molisa says he’ll be making sure tax remains stable, and the economy remains in balance.
“Politics in Vanuatu, many commentators would say is very unpredictable, even with a majority in the government. Politics in Vanuatu is still very volatile, and at times unpredictable, I should think we can hold on with the small majority in Parliament.”

New Vanuatu PM names his cabinet line-up

2008-09-22T05:55:00.000-07:00

(RNZI) Vanuatu’s new Prime Minister Edward Natapei has announced his new cabinet line-up.
The key portfolios are dominated by MPs from his party, the Vanua’aku Pati, and its main coalition partner, the National United Party, or NUP.
Oceania Flash reports that from VP, Sela Molisa is the new Finance Minister, Joe Natuman the new Lands Minister and Pakoa Kaltonga Foreign Affairs Minister.
From the ranks of NUP, Ham Lini is the Minister for Public Utilities and Works, Patrick Crowby is the new Minister of Internal Affairs and James Bule the new Minister of Commerce and Industry.
The lone MP from the Nagriamel party, Havo Moli, has been named the new Minister for Agriculture

Edward Natapei wins Vanuatu PM vote

2008-09-22T01:28:00.000-07:00

(Radio Australia) Vanuatu's Parliament has just elected Edward Natapei as the country's new Prime Minister after a close contest with Maxime Korman.Mr Natapei scored 27 votes, while Mr Korman got 25 votes in a secret ballot.Counting was broadcast live on TV and radio.Earlier former Foreign Affairs Minister, George Andre Wells was voted unopposed as Speaker of Parliament. Mr Natapei is expected to announce his Cabinet lineup this afternoon.

Confusion in Vanuatu's politics

2008-09-11T13:55:00.000-07:00

(ABC) There's confusion as to who will form Vanuatu's new government followng last week's general elections.Several of Vanuatu's main political parties agreed earlier this week to form a coalition government bringing together 33 of the 52 Members of Parliament and delivering the prime ministership to Edward Natapei of the Vanu'aku Party.Under the agreement National United Party leader and outgoing PM Ham Lini would be deputy prime minister.But the leader of the Vanuatu Republican Party, Maxime Korman now says he's secured enough votes to form his own government.Humphrey Tamate, a political advisor to Mr Lini says the election's outcome is still unpredictable."It could all be shaky from now onwards, just as it was in the last four years where there was continual motions of no confidence.":"Politicians move back and forth across the floor in parliament and change affiliations, so its really unpredictable from now."

http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/news/stories/200809/s2362480.htm?tab=latest

Regenvanu to support Korman camp tryng to form Vanuatu government

2008-09-11T02:00:00.000-07:00

(RNZI) Independent Vanuatu MP Ralph Regenvanu says he and three other MPs who have signed a solidarity pact will support Maxime Carlot Korman’s bid to be Prime Minister.
Following the release of official results from last week’s general election, Mr Korman’s Vanuatu Republican Party says it has the support of enough MPs to form the next government.
But a rival bloc based around the two parties with the most MPs - the Vanua’aku Party, which won 11 seats, and the National United Party with 8 - also claims it has the support to command a majority in the 52-seat parliament
They are in talks with several smaller groupings over possibly joining the VP/NUP coalition.
However Ralph Regenvanu’s group has ruled out working with them.
“We’ve signed a solidarity agreement and we’re a bloc of four. Part of our solidarity agreement is sixteen policies that we want implemented and we’ll go with whoever can implement them and Korman has agreed to implement them and to give us two ministries (Finance and Internal Affairs). So we’re with Korman. And of course while there’s a history of corruption with Korman, VP and NUP are the same or worse.”
Ralph Regenvanu

Vanua’aku Pati bloc confident of claiming majority in Vanuatu power struggle

2008-09-11T01:58:00.001-07:00

(RNZI) Two rival blocs of MPs are claiming a majority of seats in Vanuatu’s 52-seat parliament following the release of official results from last week’s general election.
The two parties with the most MPs - the Vanua’aku Party, which won 11 seats, and the National United Party with 8 - have agreed to continue the coalition they formed for government over the past four years.
Their leaders are confident they will have the support of a majority of MPs in the 52-seat parliament.
However a rival bloc formed around the Vanuatu Republican Party, which has seven seats, also says it has the support to command a majority.
The VP leader Edward Natapei says that negotiations are ongoing.
“NUP and VP and the smaller groups groups we have 29 (MPs). What we’re doing now is we’re talking to another group that has broken away from their leader. They’ve decided to come and join us. We’re talking to them now, it’s possible they’ll join us and that’ll take it up to 33 members of parliament.”
Edward Natapei

Vanua’aku Pati bloc confident of claiming majority in Vanuatu power struggle

2008-09-11T01:58:00.000-07:00

Official results for Vanuatu’s General Elections announced

2008-09-10T23:11:00.000-07:00

Officially decalred Winners (per constituency)

Port Vila
Ralph Regenvanu (IND) - 1710
Moana Carcases (Greens) - 1086
Edward Natapei (VP) - 929
Maxime Carlot (VRP) - 846
David Able (Sherperds Alliance) - 829
Patrick Crowby (NUP) - 787

Efate Rural
Joshua Kalsakau (VLP) - 1381
Bakoa kaltongga (VP) - 1208
Alfred Carlot (VRP) - 959
Roro Sambo (NUP) - 803

Tongoa
Willie Reuben Abel (VP) - 488
Sherperds Outer Islands
Toara Daniel (Greens) - 298

Epi
Leinavao Tasso (VP) - 573
Isaac Hamariliu (VNP) - 514
Paama
David Areiasuv (PPP) - 338

Ambrym
Jossie Masmas (VRP) - 618
Raphael Worwor (UMP) - 515

Malekula
Esmon Saimon (MPP) - 799
Kisito Teilemb (UMP) - 743
Eta Rory (Vanuatu Family First Party) - 730
Paul Telukluk (Namangiaute) - 644
Don Ken (IND) - 622
Sato Kilman (PPP) - 606
Donna Browny (VRP) - 480

Pentecost
Charlot Salwai (UMP) - 1023
Ham Lini (NUP) - 726
David Tosul (NUP) - 569
Bruce Asal (UMP) - 560

Ambae
Peter Vuta (PAP) - 795
James Bule (NUP) - 676
James Nwango (PPP) - 380

Maewo
Philip Boedoro (VP) - 664
Luganville
George Wells (NUP) - 1146
Dominique Morin (VRP) - 608

Santo Rural
Samsen Sam (VRP) - 1159
Serge Vohor (UMP) - 946
Laurence Solomon (UMP) - 888
Jean Ravo (VPRFP) - 837
Marcellino Pipite (VRP) - 659
Sela Molisa (VP) - 548
Toiasusu Tae (UMP) -

Malo/Aore
Molisale Havo (Nagriamel) - 546

Banks/Torres
Thomas Isom (NUP) - 734
Dunstan Hilton (PPP) - 654

Tanna
Harry Iauko (VP) - 1662
Joe Natuman (VP) - 992
Bob Loughman (VP) - 955
Moses Kahu (VP) - 908
Morkin Stevens (NUP) - 855
Judah Isaac (IND) - 822
Louis Etap (IND) - 569

Tafea Outer Islands
Ture Kailo (VP) - 816

http://amasanga01.wordpress.com/2008/09/11/official-results-for-vanuatus-general-elections-announced/

Natapei claims Vanuatu prime ministership

2008-09-10T11:49:00.000-07:00

Edward Natapei has been selected as Vanuatu's new prime minister.In a coalition agreement, the former prime minister, Ham Lini, is expected to take the position of deputy.Radio Australia's Bill Bainbridge reports that Vanuatu's voters have reversed the fortunes of the country's two major parties. The last government's junior coalition partner, the Vanua'aku Party, is now set to the dominate the government, with Mr Lini's National United Party as the largest junior coalition partner. In an agreement signed in Port Vila on Wednesday, 32 of the 52 parliamentarians agreed to be a part of the new coalition.Meanwhile, independent candidate Ralph Regenvanu says he and a number of other MPs are also prepared to join the government if their conditions are met."It's a solidarity agreement with four MPs, it's the Green Confederation with two MPs, the Shepherds Alliance which has one MP and myself - an independent MP - and we've agreed to work together," he said."We've established a solidarity agreement based on 16 policies that we want the next government to implement, and we'll go in to government with the other parties as coalition members who agree to implement the 16 policies."Coalition necessaryIn the formal announcement of results the junior coalition partner in the last government, the Vanua'aku Party of Mr Natapei, won 10 out of the 52 seats, while senior partner the National United Party, led by Mr Lini, won 8 seats. The Vanuatu Republican Party led by Maxim Korman won 7 seats - increasing its number in parliament by 3.Serge Fohor's Union of Moderate Parties also won 7 seats - down by one from the last parliament.Of the 49 incumbent parliamentarians who sought re-election 18 lost their seats.

http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/news/stories/200809/s2361287.htm

Next Vanuatu PM likely to be from Vanua’aku Pati, says Lini

2008-09-09T08:01:00.000-07:00

(RNZI) Vanuatu’s caretaker Prime Minister Ham Lini says the country’s next Prime Minister will likely be a member of the Vanua’aku Pati.
While official results from last week’s General Elections aren’t due until at least Wednesday, unofficial results indicate that Mr Lini’s National United Party, or NUP, has won 8 seats in the 52-seat parliament.
NUP is expected to again form a bloc with its main government coalition partner of the past four years, the Vanua’aku Pati or VP.
With at least ten, and possibly as many as 12 seats, VP stands to be the party with the most seats.
Mr Lini accepts that this means the Prime Ministership would probably go to the VP leader Edward Natapei...
“The result of the election shows that maybe the Vanua’aku Pati is going to take the Prime Ministership. And we have an agreement with that, there’s no problem... NUP is open to everybody to work with as long as there’s something in place that we can all agree to work with and then we can work with any party.”

Uncertainty after Vanuatu's general election

2008-09-09T06:09:00.000-07:00

By Australia Network's Sean Dorney in Port Vila

(ABC) Western Australia may be in limbo after its knife-edge election, but the state doesn't have a monopoly on political uncertainty.
In the South Pacific, Vanuatu is in for weeks of political intrigue after a general election in the republic left no single party with more than about one fifth of the seats in parliament.
There could be 14 parties plus independents in the 52-member house, presaging political arrangements more complex than the act of conducting the election in a scattered archipelago.
Patrol boats were used to bring many ballot boxes back to the capital, Port Vila, for ballot counting.
Vanuatu's Electoral Commission also keeps the official figures to itself until the final announcement, refusing to release any progressive numbers.
In the meantime, anxious candidates resort to the local media, on the advice of the Electoral Commission, to try to gauge progress.
Former journalist and National United Party Candidate, Jonas Cullwick, checked with his old newsroom.
"That's true, that's true. I've been down to the newsroom of Radio Vanuatu to see if I could find out from them if they had some figures from Maewo where I contested," Mr Cullwick said.
"I don't know where they got their reports from but they said the recounting had put me in the front. But they don't have the figures so I'm in the dark as well."
One candidate who is in no doubt about his win is independent Ralph Regenvanu, who polled a record number of votes in the capital, Port Vila.
His campaign slogan was, "Enough". It was time for new policies.
"One is getting rid of corruption. Changing the kind of leadership we expect from MPs. That's a big one," he said.
"Promoting Ni-Vanuatu (Indigenous Melanesians) in business rather than what's been happening for so long which is the foreign investors come first. Enforcing the law. And land, bringing the land situation under control again," he said, referring to ongoing tensions over foreign investment and development.
Derek Brien from the Pacific Policy Institute in Port Vila says Regenvanu's result is significant.
"He came in campaigning on a platform of change, he came in with a platform of exposing and dealing with corruption," he said.
"What he has picked up on is this underlying discontent, disenchantment within the electorate saying, 'After 28 years, what have we actually achieved?' And that was the point of difference within the campaign.
"And I think the result, the overwhelming result that the Regenvanu camp have delivered has got a lot of political parties and analysts actually sitting back and going, 'Well, there is quite, quite a bit of support behind what the Regenvanu camp was saying in their campaigning.'"
Some major political figures were routed, including the Finance Minister, Willie Jimmy and a former prime minister Barak Sope.
But Mr Brien says the more established parties held their own in the other islands.
"In effect we've had two elections here in Vanuatu. We've got the election here in town, Port Vila, and Efate, the island on which it's situated, and then the rest of the country where 80 per cent of the population lives," Mr Brien says.
"And I say that because in the lead up to the election a lot of the media, a lot of the analysts were predicting a mood for change.
"I think what we forgot in that debate or in that discussion in the lead up to the election what was the rest of the country talking about. The rural areas where the majority of people don't have access to newspapers, televisions and, in the last few years, radio because there's been a problem with the transmitter. And in a lot of cases the rural electorate has been totally disengaged from both the government process and certainly the political process.
"It's not about policy basis down there. It's about patronage. It's about personalities."
The Prime Minister, Ham Lini, has won his seat and his party is in intense negotiations to try to cobble together another coalition.
He held a motley collection of parties together last time and that brought a certain amount of stability, although he was heavily criticised for not being tougher with errant Ministers.
And he did it in the face of six motions of no confidence, including some which had support from the government side.
"Now a lot of people have said Ham Lini's greatest strength was his weakness," says Mr Brien.
"I'm not suggesting that Ham Lini is at all a weak leader but what's meant by that is Prime Minister Lini and his core team put great emphasis on holding stability in government."
Vanuatu has in the past witnessed many changes of Prime Minister, even dumping one in 2004 for trying to switch the One China Policy and to instead recognise Taiwan.
But stability under Prime Minister Lini has brought benefits, including telecommunications liberalisation, including the introduction of the new mobile carrier, especially important in isolated rural areas.
There's been an "open skies" policy leading to an increase in tourism and inward investment particularly in Vanuatu's property market, in turn underpinning economic stability and growth over the last 12 to 18 months.
The outgoing government is pinning it all on the political stability it delivered, according to Mr Brien.
Foreign policy issues that feature in Vanuatu include wide support for the Free West Papua Movement and broadly for independence throughout Melanesia, the One China Policy and relations with Australia and New Zealand.
"The major factors dominating that are these labour mobility schemes both the one in New Zealand and the one recently announced with Australia," Mr Brien says.
"The other issue with Australia has been the relationship with the Australian Taxation Office and the Australian Federal Police raids here in Vanuatu on a number of high profile off-shore financial businesses.
"And there was in the immediate aftermath of those raids considerable backlash against both Australia and the Government here for allowing the AFP to come in and conduct those raids."
As for the eventual election outcome in Vanuatu, the big question is whether Ralph Regenvanu's strong showing will translate to any more than just a lone voice for change.
"I cannot compromise on the need to prosecute leaders who have broken the leadership code. That's something that cannot be compromised on. So that's going to affect who I'm going to go into government with, obviously. So, yeah, we'll see," said Mr Regenvanu.

Why a wealth of experience alone does not guarantee competence in Ni-Vanuatu politics?

2008-09-08T06:15:00.000-07:00

A veteran politician who has a vast array of experience is good, but equally he/she has to have a clean sheet, which should be free away from the stains of corruption. It does matter to the average Ni Vanuatu as to the actions of every politicians (MPs), whether good or bad. Every voter of this small nation has a right to demand as much scrutiny of politicians as necessary. We the average grassroots citizen expect our MPs to invariably adhere to the leadership code. Evidently, corruption and breaching of leadership code were rife during the precedent Governments. Rightly so, it should not be repeated. Understandably, it should not have been tolerated in any shape or form. Voters who have elected for the same old guards, especially those whom their political careers were then marred by controversies such as corruption, should receive the same amount of scapegoat, as their MPs. The reason being that they knew from the outset, how, these MPs were then like in the past. Furthermore, what would be the probability of these concerned MPs to be involved in corruption in the future. Whether they would not be involved in the future, remains to be seen.

Having said that, some veteran politicians had turned the last general election into a circus of hypocrisy, aggression and distortions. Critics claim that some of the mentioned techniques were invoked, to help some MPs regaining their seats. Some critics have argued that maybe people who had voted for the same old alleged corrupted leaders, needed awareness. More surprisingly, voters within the Port Vila constituency. Who would have thought that a politician like the outgoing controversial Minister of land, Mr Korman, regaining his seat? Obvioulsy, in Port Vila there is a continuity of corruption awareness by the media, (in comparison to the Vanuatu's rural areas). The outgoing Minister of Land is renowned to have allegedly involved in a series of corruption. However, he defied the odds. As a result, he victoriously regained his seat. Of course, his voters have the same constitutional rights like any other Ni Vanuatu voters, to have him being voted back into the parliament. But some critics claim that they struggle to find a plausible reason as to why in such a diverse community like in Vila, would have voted for the latter. Vanuatu's political history has taught us that experience alone does not guarantee competence. On the other hand, it is the involvement of corruption that the average Ni Vanuatu population should be morbidly worried about.

Prime Minister's Job Still Up For Grabs in General Election in the Tropical Islands of Vanuatu

2008-09-05T06:50:00.000-07:00

2008-09-05 08:58:50 - With the votes still being counted, the holder of the Prime Minister's job is uncertain, as no single party has a majority.
Vanuatu's Prime Minister's job is still up for grabs, as the struggle for the new guard begins.Vanuatu, one of the Lesser Developed nations of the South Pacific, general elections have not quite come fully of age. Voting day is a public holiday, but with the ancient tradition of doing things the chief's way, many villagers felt pressured to cast their

votes as the chief tells them. Voters rolled up with legal voting cards, only to be turned away. Some reacted in disappointment and anger. Computerized elections are a long way off in the 83 tropical islands of Vanuatu. The battle for leadership begins as counting of votes is still progressing. Talks have already begun between potential partners, to form the new government. No political party appears to have a complete majority. Custom pubs, the Nakamals, where men are served the local drink, kava, becomes the unauthorized boxing rings of the power-brokers. Quite a few unofficial versions of the coalition have already been proposed.Some of the old guard have not been returned to the halls of government. Jimmy Willie said 'I am throwing a party to celebrate the end of 25 years in politics.' Many may join Willie's celebration.Several nations in the South Pacific have suffered coups in recent years, but Vanuatu is the most stable nation. This will remain the case, in spite of the fact that the general elections will necessitate the forming of a coalition. As in all politics there are those who deem it necessary to take on the role of the mercenary. The charismatic politician who says or does anything if the price is right. Among the newcomers there are also single-minded missionaries, hell-bent on converting everyone to their beliefs. They usually become blinded by the brightness of their own vision and will be seen in the halls of power, hiding behind a pair of designer sunglasses. Other politicians will become managers, feeling it is their duty to plan, execute and bring to a close various projects, in spite of island time. They believe nothing will get done without their effort. There are some in the old guard who act as if they are a monarch. Maybe it is because of their service, or it may simply be the ‘wan-tok-system' (who you are related to).They feel they are the embodiment of supreme power and their lofty position is their kingly right.Vanuatu is fortunate to have a strong team of alchemists, behind its political scene. If confusion arises in the coming weeks, as politicians manipulate, jostle and generally power-broke for positions, the DGs will stand firm. They are not voted for and are seen as shadowy figures in the background, frequently flanking the voted-in minister. They are the real power behind the throne. Their direction and manoeuverings are felt at every level. They are the stability of every nation. They stay in the middle ground, as no matter which politician suffers defeat or victory, the DGs press on.

http://www.pr-inside.com/prime-minister-s-job-still-up-for-r789842.htm

Formation of a coalition Government in Vanuatu is imminent

2008-09-04T12:52:00.000-07:00

According to a few foreign news agency, the formation of a coalition Government is imminent. Well, what is new? Given the Vanuatu's political history, it has been envisaged from the outset that a coalition Government, will ultimately be formed in due course.Indeed some political veterans who had failed considerably to bring changes for the betterment of this nation, will not have regained their seats. People of this nation had made their deliberations, and so is their verdicts, that is democracy after all. On the other hand, new elected candidates especially new bloods, would endeavour to bring change, coupled with invoking a vision of new direction, to bring this small nation forward. Positively,it is refreshing, it brings in some gleaming hope for the foreseeable future. I for one, would like to see some real facts of action, and not merely words. Enough of what people of this nation had witnessed during the precedent Governments, enough is enough!

The next question is that, which political parties will be forming a coalition Government? There is a possibility that old guards within the VP and NUP ranks, will once again form a government, If so, inevitably, their formation of Government would echo some of their failed policies of the past. We have seen, with concrete facts, the catalogue of errors made by the last Government. On balance, the only good thing which prevailed from the last Government was stabi
maintenance of stability. Having said that, there was no plausible excuse of having a fallible Government, though, especially with its senior Ministers, whom their political careers were marred by corruption! For example, Korman to name a few. Sadly, for the people of this nation, some of the same old guards, have been duly voted by their supporters. Whether we like it or not, once again, they will be returning to Parliament! This is democracy after all.

© Indigenous Ni Vanuatu

Vanuatu parliamentary changes likely following election

2008-09-04T08:40:00.000-07:00

The voters in Vanuatu have thrown out at least one third of the sitting members of parliament.Sean Dorney reports 18 of the 49 MPs who recontested their seats appear to have been beaten.A number of the new members are younger people who campaigned for change upsetting high profile losers like the finance minister Willy Jimmy. "What have the young ones got or given for the people of Vanuatu? What experience have they got?" he said.Vanuatu's Electoral office is refusing to release any official figures and it's advising people to rely on the unofficial figures collated by the local media. The Daily Post and Vanuatu's public broadcaster have slightly varying figures but both agree Vanuatu's oldest party the Vanu'aku Party has done best, winning at least ten of the 52 seats.

http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/news/stories/200809/s2355866.htm?tab=pacific

Formation of a coalition Government is imminent

2008-09-04T03:51:00.000-07:00

According to a few foreign news agency, the formation of a coalition Government is imminent. Well, what is new? Given the Vanuatu's political history, it has been envisaged from the outset that a coalition Government, will ultimately be formed in due course.

Indeed some political veterans who had failed considerably to bring changes for the betterment of this nation, will not have regained their seats. People of this nation had made their deliberations, and so is their verdicts, that is democracy after all. On the other hand, new elected candidates especially new bloods, would endeavour to bring change, coupled with invoking a vision of new direction, to bring this small nation forward. Positively,it is refreshing, it brings in some gleaming hope for the foreseeable future. I for one, would like to see some real facts of action, and not merely words. Enough of what people of this nation had witnessed during the precedent Governments, enough is enough!

The next question is that, which political parties will be forming a coalition Government? There is a possibility that old guards within the VP and NUP ranks, will once again form a government, If so, inevitably, their formation of Government would echo some of their failed policies of the past. We have seen, with concrete facts, the catalogue of errors made by the last Government. On balance, the only good thing which prevailed from the last Government was stability. Having said that, there was no excuse of having a fallible Government though, especially with its senior Ministers, whom their political careers were marred by corruption! For example, Korman to name a few. Sadly, for the people of this nation, some of the same old guards, have been duly voted by their supporters. Whether we like it or not, once again, they will be returning to Parliament! This is democracy after all.

Coalition tipped to win Vanuatu election

2008-09-04T00:33:00.000-07:00

The two main coalition partners in Vanuatu's previous government appear likely to form the core of the new administration, a think tank says.
Elections were held around Vanuatu on Tuesday to elect the 52 members of parliament of the South Pacific archipelago of more than 80 islands.
The Vanuatu Electoral Commission does not expect to release official results until next week but independent think tank the Pacific Institute of Public Policy said early indications showed a return of the coalition was likely.
The National United Party (NUP) and Vanu'aku Pati (VP) were the major coalition partners in the last government and the institute's spokesman Derek Brien said the situation was likely to be repeated following the election.
"It certainly appears that they will form the core of a new coalition," he told AFP.
"Negotiations will be underway with other potential coalition partners as results come in."

http://news.theage.com.au/world/coalition-tipped-to-win-vanuatu-election-20080904-49r7.htmlother potential coalition partners as results come in."
© 2008 AFP

Mood for change reflected in early Vanuatu election results

2008-09-03T10:48:00.000-07:00

Mood for change reflected in early Vanuatu election results
Posted at 09:25 on 03 September, 2008 UTC
One of Vanuatu’s longest serving politicians, who appears to have lost his seat in the country’s elections, says the people have spoken.
The country voted on Tuesday local time to elect members to its 52 seat parliament, but it will be some days before official results are released.
Early unofficial results suggest that Willie Jimmy, the serving minister of finance, who has been an MP for more than 20 years, has been ousted.
He says there’s a mood for change, especially amongst the youth, and he hopes it will benefit Vanuatu.
“The will of the people has spoken, the judges have made their decisions, and I believe that the decision that was taken by the people was fair, because of democracy that we believe in, and that’s how it stands, and we stand by it.”
Willy Jimmy says the move by his party, the National United Party, to stand 2 candidates in the Port Vila constituency was his downfall, because it split the vote.
Meanwhile, other unofficial results suggest another veteran, former Prime Minister, Barak Sope has also lost his seat.
While results are continuing to come in, independent candidate Ralph Regenvanu appears to have won the most votes in the Port Vila constituency, which elects 6 MPs overall.
The leader of the Green confederation, Moana Carcasses, and the head of the Vanuatu republican party, Maxime Carlot Korman have been returned in the capital, along with the sitting deputy Prime Minister, Edward Natapei.
However, other results fr outer provinces are still coming through and an official count won’t begin until all the ballot boxes have been returned to Port Vila

http://www.rnzi.com/pages/news.php?op=read&id=41824

Vanuatu 2008 Election unofficial Results

2008-09-03T09:25:00.000-07:00

Vanuatu 2008 Election unofficial Results
Preliminary Results (From ea. constituency). Ino everi names iet i listed.
Port Vila
Ralph Regenvanu (IND) - 1607 (nb - official count for Ralph may be higher)
Moana Carcases. (Greens) - 1113
Maxime Carlot Korman (VRP) - 880
Edward Natapei (VP) - 830
Patrick Crowby (NUP) - 813
Abel David (Sherperds Alliance)

Tongoa
Wiilie Ruben Abel (VP)
Sherperds Outer Island
Toara Daniel

Epi
Leinanvao Tasso (VP) - 269
Isabelle Donald (VP) - 237

Paama
David Areiasuv (PPP)

Pentecost
Charlot Salwai (UMP)
Ham Lini (NUP)
NUP candidate
NUP candidate

Tanna
Harry Iauko (VP) - 1662
Joe Natuman (VP) - 995
Morkin Stevens (NUP) - 955
Bob Loughman (VP)
Moses Kahu
Louis Etap

Tafea Outer Islands
Ture Kailo (VP)

Efate Rural
Barak Sope (MPP)
Alfred Carlot (VRP)
Roro Sambo (NUP)
Joshua Kalsakau (VLP)
NB. There is also word that Bakoa Kaltongga (VP) has secured the fourth seat in Efate Rural. Just have to wait and see who to omit from the above list.

Luganville
George Andre Wells (NUP)
Dominique Morin (VRP)

Santo Rural
Serge Vohor (UMP)
Marcellino Pipite (VRP)
Warsal Leon Carthy (Nagriamel)
Samsen Sam (VRP)

Malo/Aore
Molisale Havo (Nagriamel) - 545

Ambae
James Bule (NUP)
Dickinson Vusilai (VP)

Banks
Thomas Isom (NUP) - 536
Paul Kamey Demmeth (PPP) -384

Malekula
Kisito Tielemb (UMP)
Paul Telukluk (Namangiaute)
Esther Rory (VFFP)
Don Ken (VFFP)
Esmon Simon (MPP)
Sato Kilman (PPP)

http://amasanga01.wordpress.com/2008/09/02/vanuatu-2008-election-unofficial-results/

Vanuatu vote result 'not clear'

2008-09-03T02:32:00.000-07:00

Unofficial results from Vanuatu's general election have indicated that no political party will achieve a simple majority to form government, sources said.
Elections were held around the island on Tuesday to elect the 52 members of parliament of the South Pacific archipelago of more than 80 islands
On Wednesday evening, the ruling National United Party (NUP) was holding eight seats by an unofficial count obtained by independent think tank the Pacific Institute of Public Policy.
NUP's coalition partners Vanu'aku Pati (VP) and Vanuatu Republic Party were holding 11 and seven seats respectively.
"So nothing is clear yet," the institute's spokesman Derek Brien told AFP, adding that Prime Minister Ham Lini appeared to have been reelected
Reports said that several other long-standing politicians, including current Finance Minister Willie Jimmy, appeared to have lost their seats.

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=625383

Vanuatu counts election votes

2008-09-02T14:01:00.000-07:00

(By Sean Dorney in Port Vila) Early results from the national elections in Vanuatu indicate that some old guard members of parliament could be in trouble.
Vanuatu's political history since independence 28 years ago has been marked by political party splits and disintegration, with many of the longer-term MPs now leaving their own parties.
Some of those, including at least two former prime ministers, Barak Sope and Maxime Carlot, have lost ground in their own constituencies.
Vanuatu's oldest party, the Vanua'aku Party (VP), seems to be having something of a revival, especially in some of the smaller islands.
The VP has taken at least one seat off its coalition partner, Prime Minister Ham Lini's National United Party.
However it could be days before results are finalised in all 52 seats.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/09/03/2353768.htm

More action to prevent child mortality urged in Vanuatu

2008-08-24T23:48:00.001-07:00

(RNZI) The United Nation’s children’s fund is urging Vanuatu to continue to focus on child health to keep improving its child health statistics.
Under-five mortality rates in Vanuatu have decreased compared with figures a decade ago.
In 2006 there were 36 deaths per 1,000 live births where as in 1990 the figure sat at 62.
UNICEF Representative, Dr Isiye Ndombi, told the Vanuatu Daily Post the nations has done quite well in terms of health achievements but may need to have child-focused prevention of non-communicable illnesses.
The paper says Vanuatu is committed to achieving the Millennium Development Goals but needs to improve essential health services to reduce infant and under-five mortality by two-thirds by the 2015 deadline

http://www.rnzi.com/pages/news.php?op=read&id=41631

A contract company has been deducting money without permission and paying less than half of what it promised workers here on a Government scheme.

2008-08-22T08:29:00.000-07:00

(The Marlborough Express )A contract company has been deducting money without permission and paying less than half of what it promised workers here on a Government scheme.
Vanuatuans working under the Recognised Seasonal Employer scheme for Seasonal Solutions, an Otago-based cooperative which also operates in Marlborough, claimed they were not being paid what was stated in their contract.
On television last night, their boss admitted the contract was wrong and that money had been taken for petrol without permission. He said he would look into the pay rates.
St Ninians Church pastor Ken Williams, who has been involved with the Seasonal Solutions workers, said the men were told in Vanuatu that they would earn less than was stated in their contract, but they would earn at least $1 per plant. However, they had earned between 20 to 70 cents per plant, with an average of 40 cents, Mr Williams said.
He said the workers were told they would return to Vanuatu with between $5000 to $6000 in the bank, but most had only saved $500 since they started work in May. The workers, who were due to leave in October, lived off just $70 a week which had to pay for food and any extra spending.
Current affairs programme Campbell Live last night presented payslips which showed that after several deductions were made for accommodation, insurance, petrol and living costs, workers were left with less than the minimum wage.Seasonal Solutions co-operative managing director Basil Goodman said that some employees were not being paid the rate stated in their contract. He said the contractual rate was a printing error created when the contract was carried over from one for other horticultural work.Mr Goodman admitted the company did not have permission from each employee to take $20 a week out of their pay for petrol and said he would stop taking the money and pay back what had been taken.Labour minister Trevor Mallard told John Campbell it was up to the Department of Labour to supervise the RSE scheme. However, the department had just three Nelson-based staff, and one was solely employed in an administration role, he said.Mr Williams said he believed the RSE scheme was a good programme, but it was up to the Labour Department to police it properly``They do need to closely vet the contractors and ensure they are simply being just. That's all we want.''
Wine Marlborough chief executive Gerald Hope said he was surprised that Seasonal Solutions, which had been upheld as a positive model of the RSE scheme, was involved.He said there had been rumours about the issue circulating but nobody had been able to provide him with ``substantive evidence'' such as pay slips or contracts to show what was happening.``Our position is, please tell us, give us the details so we can assist.''Mr Hope said the incident was ``isolated'' but he had previously voiced concerns about the fact there were no Department of Labour staff based in Marlborough.The Seasonal Solutions issue would probably be brought up at an internal industry debrief for the pruning season next week, Mr Hope said.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/4665389a6008.html

Vanuatu police force returns to normal following attempted removal of Commissioner

2008-08-22T08:24:00.000-07:00

(RNZI)Vanuatu police say the force has returned to normal after last week’s attempt by several senior police officers to remove the Police Commissioner and his deputy.
The deputy Police Commissioner, Arthur Caulton, says senior officers pressured the Police Services Commission to appoint a new Police Commissioner to replace Louis Patu.
The officers were disgruntled after an Auditor General’s report revealed the Police Force was paying for electricity and water bills at the Commissioner’s residence when he should be paying for them himself.
Major Caulton says the attempt was probably illegal but it went no further and an investigation is being conducted into the affair.
“We are now looking at what happened exactly and we will probably inform the Commissioner that although there was some indication as to requesting the Police Services Commission, it should have been an inside matter that seems to have been dealt with by the Police Services Commission.”
Arthur Caulton

Pigs May Fly in Local Vanuatu Election.

2008-08-20T17:04:00.000-07:00

Political arenas the demands can be brutal. Particularly if you are a woman when you are a woman on a tropical island, in Vanuatu in the South Pacific.

It is great to see Ms Hilary Clinton now backing Obama. A world away on a tropical island in Vanuatu, in the South Pacific, another woman faces unbelievable odds, Mrs. Jenny Ligo.Jenny follows her famous auntie's footsteps having been granted a chiefly title by the head of the national Council of Chiefs, Chief Paul Tahi. Jenny ceremoniously clubbed to death
eleven pigs, so she could enter the brutal field of politics. This she also did at her wedding to Joe Ligo late last year. Jenny is the niece of political and women's rights' activist, Grace Molisa. Jenny's aunt was the first woman to hold the post of Private Secretary to the country's first Prime Minister, Father Walter Lini, when the nation gained Independence, 28 years ago.Mrs. Ligo has returned to her home island of Ambae. It is only weeks to the general election. All should have been plain sailing for this courageous lady as she traveled around the island. Wrong!Speaking on behalf of some of the chiefs of the Ambae, Chief Moli Tari says Jenny cannot contest the election in her home island, because of island custom principles. Principle which didn't surface at the pig killing ceremony a few months back. Perhaps ancient custom principles of the island change from day to day?Jenny married on the island of Pentecost. The Chief says Jenny can only contest the Ambae constituency on the condition she performs a custom ceremony, presenting the chiefs with 10 tusked pigs.Pig tusks are real currency. In Vanuatu you can't just buy 10 tusked pigs. They are the wealth of every village. A highly prized possession. Pigs which are chosen to grow the coveted curled tusks have their top teeth knocked out. The bottom teeth then grow into the highly prized tusk. The pigs are hand fed for the remainder of their life. The pig is tethered in order to prevent the animal breaking or damaging the precious tusk. Where does Mrs Ligo buy the 10 pigs she has to hand over to Chief Moli? Particularly as Chief Moli is a resident of the island of Santo. Will Jenny have to fly the pigs to Santo to present them to Chief Moli, or will Chief Moli take the trouble to go to Ambae?Two more chiefs have now stepped into the political arena. Chief Benwel Garae of North Ambae and Chief Pascal Sese of Lolopuepue. They come from the chiefly rank of Mambuhangvulu, the second highest rank of the Ambae chiefly system. They told the Daily Post in Port Vila, the capital of Vanuatu, that Chief Moli's claims have no substance and is childish.Jenny would like to meet face to face with Chief Moli, but Chief Moli is not available. Jenny deserves to be congratulated as she runs with a great opportunity. You can do likewise with a Blue Moon Opportunity. It could change your life.

http://www.pr-inside.com/pigs-may-fly-in-local-vanuatu-r764188.htm

Help Vanuatu resist global corporate giants

2008-08-19T12:56:00.000-07:00

As Vanuatu’s tourism numbers increase, there are concerns over the possible takeover of global corporate companies.Corporate giants have already invested in the island’s Port Vila, and some are uneasy at the possibility that the giant “M” (McDonalds) might make its way to the town and impact Vanuatu in more negative ways than positive.In 2006 Vanuatu was named the “Happiest place on Earth” in the “Happy Planet Index”, reflecting the notion that materialism in a Western consumer society does not necessarily drive happiness.Instead of expensive material possessions, Vanuatu’s villages are entrenched in traditional customs, family life and chiefly rule, with 153 distinct cultures and languages. On the other hand, there is no medical assistance, electricity or running water, no telecommunication systems, education systems and residents earn less than $1 a day.The YouMe Support Foundation is hoping to continue Vanuatu’s humble existence whilst educating the underprivileged children of the island, where only 55.8% of Vanuatu kids will get to grade 6 and 26% will never go to school at all.YouMe, a non-profit organisation is raffling Seachange Lodge (a private holiday home, plus 6 luxury holiday apartments) on the Internet, to raise funds for non-repayable high school education grants for the children of the outer islands of Vanuatu.Students will be taken through their chosen careers choices and where possible they will be encouraged to use their new found knowledge to improve the life of the community on their home island.To help these kids go to http://youmesupport.org/

http://www.etravelblackboard.com/showarticle.asp?id=81114&nav=130

Table Tennis-Olympian from the land of four tables

2008-08-16T05:01:00.000-07:00

By Simon Rabinovitch
BEIJING, Aug 16 (Reuters) - From her South Pacific island with just four table tennis tables to China, where the government has decreed that every village should have one, Priscila Tommy has come a long way.
The 17-year-old native of Vanuatu has been playing for just four years and is the lowest ranked player at the Olympics by some distance at 866th in the world. She is, however, the best in Oceania, winning the regional singles championship last year.
"Only a few people play in Vanuatu, about fifteen. There's only four tables and one club," she said.
Last year's victory -- Vanuatu's only gold in the South Pacific Games -- catapulted Tommy to fame, at least in her corner of the world.
"When I walk around Port Vila (Vanuatu's capital), people come and talk to me and take pictures with me," she said.
But the Olympic Games in Beijing is in a different league to the South Pacific Games in Apia, Samoa.
"These are international competitors. They're too strong for me. My goal is to get up to six points in my match," she said.
Singles matches are best of seven games, each played to 11 points. If Tommy scores just six points over her entire match on Monday against Slovakia's Eva Odorova, who is ranked 762 spots higher, it may well be the most lopsided defeat at these Games.
She got to Beijing, holding Vanuatu's flag aloft in the opening ceremony, thanks to a combination of Chinese coaching, regional financial support and a special invitation from the International Olympic Committee.
Tommy, who plays defensively far from the table, has a Chinese coach in Sun Hongyi and has trained in table tennis superpower China six times over the past three years.
Away from Vanuatu for long stretches for practice and competition, Tommy's studies have suffered. As with her table tennis hopes, China may again hold the key.
"My school threw me out. They don't accept me because I travel a lot," she said. "The Chinese embassy said they are trying to help." (Editing by Alex Richardson)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/feedarticle/7729490

Record number of candidates for Vanuatu elections

2008-08-12T22:40:00.000-07:00

(Radio Australia) Vanuatu's Electoral Office has confirmed that 334 candidates will contest the poll on September the second.Derek Brien from the Pacific Institute of Public Policy, in Port Vila, says he cannot see a majority government returned next month.He says it is more likely to be a parliament made up of a number of small parties, merged to form a coalition government.Mr Brien has told our Pacific Beat program, there have been a number of issues dominating debate ahead of the poll, but historically the electorate tends to vote for the person rather than what the party stands for."So politics here tends to be driven more by personality than by policy," he said."However the major policies that are being discussed are free education, free health care, opportunites for indigenous business people and investment and access to credit so they are the main things the parties are talking about."

http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/news/stories/200808/s2334154.htm?tab=latest

Vanuatu to get 6 doctors from Cuba

2008-08-10T12:26:00.000-07:00

(RNZI) The Vanuatu government is finalising an arrangement with Cuba which will see six Cuban doctors being employed on two-year contracts.
The Director of Public Health, Len Tarivonda, says they are expected to arrive this year while 17 Vanuatu students will begin medical studies in Cuba next month.
Mr Tarivonda says Vanuatu has chosen to hire a surgeon, a pathologist and four general practitioners to work in provincial hospitals.
He says under the agreement, Vanuatu will pay the doctors’ return airfares and provide accommodation.
“We would need to pay first a small amount of money every month as a form of local allowance that will be paid to them but the salary is taken care of by their own government .”
Len Tarivonda says Cuban doctors cost less than those from Australia and New Zealand

http://www.rnzi.com/pages/news.php?op=read&id=41373

Chinese premier meets Vanuatuan PM

2008-08-10T07:03:00.000-07:00

BEIJING, Aug. 10 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao met here Sunday afternoon with Vanuatuan Prime Minister Vanuaroroa HamLini, who attended the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games on Friday night.
Wen said recent years had seen frequent contacts between the two countries' leaders, which helped consolidate the bilateral ties.
China was willing to maintain the momentum of high-level exchanges, continue to provide economic and technological aid to Vanuatu, and conduct cooperation to benefit the two peoples, he said.
Lini said China was an important development partner for Vanuatu, and China's aid had benefited the Vanuatuan people.
Vanuatu cherished its friendship with China and was willing to further the two sides' exchanges and cooperation, he said.

Editor: Lin Liyu

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-08/10/content_9145162.htm

Digicel Launches Its Bigger, Better Network in Vanuatu

2008-06-25T11:12:00.000-07:00

PORT VILA, VANUATU--(Marketwire - June 25, 2008) - Digicel Pacific Ltd, the fastest-growing mobile telecommunications operator in the Pacific, today announced that it has launched in Vanuatu, further strengthening its footprint in the Pacific region. The company was recently granted licenses by the Governments of Fiji and already has successful mobile operations in Samoa, Papua New Guinea and Tonga.
With an initial investment of US$35 million, Digicel has built a state-of-the-art network that offers nearly 100 percent population coverage for the first time ever. Vanuatu has a population of approximately 210,000 people with mobile penetration estimated at more than 16 percent.
Digicel currently employs about 70 Ni-Vanuatu staff and an estimated 2,500 additional jobs have been created through its local dealerships and partners. The company has also opened two ultra-modern flagship stores and has more than 1,300 top-up locations across the country. Digicel Vanuatu is headed by Irishman John Delves, who brings a wealth of management experience to Vanuatu.
''From day one, we're giving the people of Vanuatu unbeatable network coverage, innovative products and services, and superior 24/7 customer care. This is just the beginning of our relationship with Vanuatu. We are passionate about providing greater access and affordable telecommunications services, now and for the years to come. Our goal is to be the number one mobile operator in Vanuatu," said Vanessa Slowey, Digicel Pacific CEO.
Coinciding with the launch, Digicel is offering several first-to-market services and value offerings, including per second billing, rollover minutes, international postpaid roaming and free voicemail. Digicel is also bringing the widest range of mobile handsets for both prepaid and postpaid customers, with prices starting as low as US$18. To celebrate Digicel's operations in Vanuatu, customers will receive a free solar charger and free credit with the purchase of every phone.
Digicel has also become involved with the local community, sponsoring the National Rugby 15's and 7's teams. The company announced its sponsorship of the Digicel Vanuatu Cricket team last month, and plans to support rugby and cricket from the grassroots to national levels.
Digicel's launch in Vanuatu has created excitement and anticipation for the last few months. On Wednesday, June 25th, the company hosted Vanuatu's largest free concert.
Digicel's total investment across the Caribbean, South Pacific and Central American markets to date exceeds US$2 billion with direct employment of nearly 4,500 people. Ending its fiscal year March 31, 2008, Digicel Group Ltd. recorded 6.54 million customers across the Caribbean and Central America.
ABOUT VANUATU
Location: South Pacific
Population: 210,000
Mobile Penetration: 16%
Telecommunications: Monopoly held for 11 years
ABOUT DIGICEL PACIFIC
Since its launch in the South Pacific in November 2006, Digicel has become the fastest-growing mobile operator in the Pacific, with current operations in Samoa, Tonga, Vanuatu and Papua New Guinea. The company was recently granted licenses by the Governments of Fiji and has commitments from several other countries in the Pacific.
Digicel has contributed to the 0.7% growth of the GDP of Papua New Guinea since its launch as the second mobile operator on July 20, 2007.
Digicel is the largest operator in the Caribbean operating in 23 markets and rolling out new operations in Central America. The company is renowned for competitive rates, unbeatable coverage, and superior customer care, a wide variety of products and services, and state-of-the-art handsets.
Digicel is proud sponsor of several national rugby teams across the South Pacific including; Fiji Rugby, Digicel Fiji 7's, Digicel Vanuatu Cricket team, Digicel Vanuatu Rugby 7's and 15's and the Digicel Pukpuks. For more information, please visit www.digicelvanuatu.com or www.digicelpacific.com.

http://www.marketwire.com/mw/release.do?id=872753

Vanuatu outclasses stylish Solos

2008-06-12T05:33:00.000-07:00

The Vanuatu FUTSAL side recorded the biggest upset of the 2008 Vodafone OFC FUTSAL Championship in Suva tonight when it impressively outclassed tournament favorites Solomon Islands 5-1 to become overnight leaders for a place in the World Cup.Vanuatu played with lots of guts and confidence and completely shut the Solomon Islands attack in both spells.Siardon Talkanamal scored the lone goal of the first spell and took the teams to the breather with Vanuatu leading 1-0.Tafea FC midfielder Fedy Vava scored the second goal for Vanuatu in the sixth minute of the second spell to put the Solomon Islanders under pressure but a well timed move by Solomon defender James Egeta resulted in Solomons pulling one back and remaining in close range.Saen Fanai brought the Vanuatu crowd on its feet when he brilliantly outclassed two Solomon Islanders to put Vanuatu in the driving seat with a 3-1 score.Two further goals in the last ten minutes through Louis Dominique and Terry Quare gave Vanuatu its famous victory in the tournament with a convincing 5-1 margin.Vanuatu goalie Chikau Mansale was the man of the match as he time and again made some excellent saves in the game while Solo sensation Elliot Ragomo was completely lost in the match and was heavily marked all throughout.Vanuatu coach Marcellino Barthelemy was on cloud nine after the victory and said his team was all out now to top the qualifiers and play in the world cup.“I am extremely happy with the performance of my team and am glad we have taken the much needed lead on the points table which will keep us on our toes till the final game.“We are on a rest day tomorrow and will work out our strategies for our last and most important game on Saturday against Tahiti which will decide which team goes through.“We are confident of our chances and will leave no stones unturned in the final match” he added. Meanwhile in the earlier match, New Caledonia thumped minnows Tuvalu 10-2.In tomorrow’s fixtures, host Fiji faces Tuvalu in the opening match followed by Tahiti vs Solomon Islands and New Zealand vs New Caledonia.

http://www.fijilive.com/sports/football/news/2008/06/12/3577.Fijilive

The secret of Vanuatu's happiness By Huw Cordey

2008-05-31T06:28:00.000-07:00

The South Pacific country of Vanuatu has been voted the happiest place in the world so what makes its inhabitants such a happy lot?

The twin pillars of a classically happy life - strong family ties and a general absence of materialism - are common throughout this island nation
Jean Pierre John is living the dream. That popular fantasy of owning one's own island, complete with swaying coconut palms, coral sea and tropical forest, is his for real.
On the island called Metoma, in the far north of Vanuatu, Jean Pierre can look around and truly say that he is master of all he surveys.
This single fact would put Jean Pierre in an exclusive club, you would think, one made up of billionaire businessmen, royalty and rock stars.
But Jean Pierre is none of these things. In fact, he could not be more different.
On Metoma, Jean Pierre and his family live in thatched huts.
They have no electricity or running water, no radio or television, and their only mode of transport is a rowing boat, which pretty much limits them to trips to the neighbouring island.
On top of that, they have little money and few opportunities to make any.
No money?! Suddenly their island life does not sound all that glamorous. But here's the thing, the Johns really are happy.
This may sound surprising but living on their island they want for nothing.
Local produce
All the family's food comes from on or around Metoma. Coconuts, yam, and manioc - their staple diet - are all grown on the island and then, of course, there is a sea full of fish to harvest.

And if fish protein gets boring, there is always the occasional fruit bat, from a colony that roosts on the island.
Indeed, food is so easy to gather that the family appears to have a lot of relaxation time.
When the Johns do have money - perhaps when they sell one of the few cows they own - they will buy soap powder and kerosene for their lamps.
But if not, they are just as happy to make do with island solutions - sticks which can be crushed to make soap and coconut oil in place of kerosene.
Some useful items are even washed up onto their island - buoys from boats are cut in half to make bowls and old fishing nets are recycled as hammocks.
It may sound like a Robinson Crusoe existence, and in many ways it is, but the Johns are not castaways. They live on Metoma out of choice.
Jean Pierre had not heard that Vanuatu had been voted happiest country in the world but, when I told him, he nodded in a knowingly happy sort of way
It is not as if they have not experienced some of the trappings of a more modern world.
Jean Pierre grew up on one of Vanuatu's larger islands and still makes the occasional visit. His eldest son, Joe, even went to school in the nation's capital.
In fact Joe, a very easy-going 28-year-old, had recently returned to Metoma to live full time and he told me that the only thing he missed was hip hop music, but that it was a small price to pay for living on the island.
No money worries
Jean Pierre had not heard that Vanuatu had been voted happiest country in the world but, when I told him, he nodded in a knowingly happy sort of way.
So what is his secret of happiness?
"Not having to worry about money," he immediately replies, while picking his nose in an uninhibited way.
If you asked the same question in the UK, you would probably get the same response. The only difference is that, in Jean Pierre's case, it means not needing any money, rather than having bundles of it.
We can all repeat the mantra "money can't buy you happiness" until we are blue in the face, but deep down, how many of us in the West really believe it to be true?
But I can see that Jean Pierre's happiness is more than just a question of money. It also comes from having his family around him, and there is undoubtedly an enormous respect between them.
Absence of materialism
His children - and this includes those of adult age - do anything their father asks, not out of coercion but because they genuinely want to please.
Forget the Waltons, the Johns are the real McCoy: one happy family.
While talking to Jean Pierre, I find myself wondering whether he is the most contented person I have ever met.
But he is keen to know whether I am having a good time on his island too. Every day he asks me if I am happy. When I tell him things are great, his eyes light up and he replies in pidgin, "Oh, tenkyu tumas."
Whether happiness can truly be measured is a debatable point, but there is no doubt that Metoma - or indeed Vanuatu as a whole - has the ingredients to encourage a greater sense of happiness.
The twin pillars of a classically happy life - strong family ties and a general absence of materialism - are common throughout this island nation.
The simple things in life, it seems, really do make you happy

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/7427768.stm

Diplomacy: Melanesian style

2008-05-29T11:26:00.000-07:00

(The interpreter) The Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG) leaders’ summit kicks off today in Port Vila, Vanuatu where the leaders of Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Fiji and Vanuatu will meet for two days. New Caledonia’s pro-independence FLNKS leaders also attend MSG meetings but represent their party rather than New Caledonia. On the agenda this year is an overview of political and security developments in the MSG region, a return to democracy in Fiji, the possible establishment of an MSG sub regional security force and the expansion of trade between Melanesian countries.
MSG leaders last year signed a constitution. Its founding principle was ‘to promote cooperation among independent Melanesian nations and to assist other Melanesian states that are not yet free.’ This year, if the chair (Vanuatu), has its way, the summit will also consider whether to grant West Papuans of Indonesia observer status. PNG foreign minister Sam Abal’s opposition to West Papua’s observer status is likely to stymie Vanuatu’s lobbying yet again.
However, the sustained division between PNG and Vanuatu on this issue has not had much effect on MSG dynamics to date. It was to be expected that Vanuatu would use its position as chair to promote its support for West Papua but you have to wonder why it keeps trying. The consensus style of decision-making in the MSG surely means that PNG’s size and influence will continue to dominate the agenda.
This year, leaders will also open the new MSG secretariat building (funded by Chinese aid) in Port Vila and appoint a director general to head the work of the secretariat. MSG officials have claimed that the organisation represents a more effective way of managing affairs in Melanesia than the Pacific Islands Forum. It is their intention that regional policies be formulated by the MSG and then presented to regional and international bodies.
The issue on the MSG’s agenda most likely to capture wider regional attention is the future of Fiji. A meeting of MSG foreign ministers earlier this week recommended that Fiji alert member countries if it believed it was unable to hold elections by March 2009. Vanuatu foreign minister George Wells said the MSG would continue to support Fiji through the challenging time ahead and encouraged Fiji to comply with the election timetable. MSG leaders will hear from Commodore Bainimarama himself today but it is what is said in private discussions rather than the communiqué that is likely to have the most impact.
The welcome Vanuatu prime minister Ham Lini gave to Fiji interim prime minister Commodore Frank Bainimarama on arrival in Port Vila and the pig clubbing and kava drinking ceremonies of the MSG meeting contrasts with the more formal meeting Pacific Islands Forum Foreign Ministers had in Auckland on 26 March with Fiji officials. But will the MSG’s approach to its troubled member be more effective than the Pacific Islands Forum’s methods. The responsiveness of the Fiji interim government to MSG pressure will be a key test of the group’s relevance to the region.

http://www.lowyinterpreter.org/post/2008/05/Diplomacy-Melanesian-style.aspx

We will do everything to protect VFSC integrity: Chairman

2008-05-20T10:27:00.000-07:00

The Chairman of the Vanuatu Financial Services Commission Mr Bill Bani made the following statement in light of the recent flurry of articles on the issue of the very controversial AFP raids on some of Vanuatu’s prominent members of the Finance Centre.
“Vanuatu is one of the most compliant countries in the Pacific in terms both of enacting legislations and implementing and enforcing recommendations of responsible international institutions such as OECD and FATF (Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering). The industry in Vanuatu has responded positively to the ever increasing challenges from onshore jurisdictions by improving its self-regulating functions and substantially upgrading the professionalism of its services. The two primary legitimate functions of the offshore industry, asset protection and lawful tax avoidance, have survived and rebounded from the stigma of the ways in which they have been abused in the past and the resulting reaction and attack from other jurisdictions. The key to our survival has been that we make every effort to ensure that offshore companies are used for legitimate structuring and lawful avoidance purposes and not for simply hiding taxable transactions.
“Just as there is a fine line between lawful tax avoidance and tax evasion, there is a fine line between the use and abuse of mutual assistance treaties. The Mutual Crime Assistance Act was passed to assist foreign jurisdictions in the prevention and investigation of serious offences which are crimes in both the requesting jurisdiction and in Vanuatu. It was never intended to become a tool for the enforcement of domestic taxation.
“Mutual respect for each other’s jurisdictional integrity is a fundamental principle of international treaties without which unfortunate events such as the recent raids take on the appearance of an attempt to destroy our industry and reputation. They also pose the risk of setting a precedent that could imperil our sovereignty and in that regard VFSC aligns itself with Minister Willie Jimmy’s statement of Wednesday, May 7, 2008
“In spite of these recent events, the VFSC Board, through its Commissioner, Mr. George Andrews (who, unfortunately, has been misquoted on some of these issues), will continue to do everything in its power to maintain, enhance and expand the range and quality of both its domestic and offshore services, to the benefit of Vanuatu’s economy and reputation. It will also take whatever steps are available to it to protect the integrity of its jurisdiction.”

Raids executed by AFP in Vanuatu, raises concern

2008-05-20T08:52:00.001-07:00

Ni-Vans have legitimate rights to raise their grave concerns about the actions of AFP. It is very rare that you would get police from another jurisdiction to execute their policing duties in another sovereign country. What ever the Court would decree as to the legality of this raid, certainly any person with a normal fortitude would have concurred that the current infamous actions of AFP, raises a serious question as to whether it constituted the breaching of our sovereignty. With all due respect, I vehemently disagree with AG’s opinion for granting the search warrant. I would have thought that AG would have invoked Sec 8 (d) "the granting of the request would prejudice the sovereignty, security and national interest of Vanuatu. Security, national interests and the protection of our sovereignty should invariably supersede as to what the interpretation of an Act would be, for example in this case, the Assistance in Crime Matters Act. A competent barrister or solicitor would have been able to identify this. After all, the protection of a country’s sovereignty and national interest should always take precedence.

AFP overstepped the mark with Finance Centre raids, says Vanuatu Finance Minister

2008-05-19T04:49:00.000-07:00

(Radio New Zealand International)

Posted at 08:10 on 19 May, 2008 UTC
Vanuatu’s Finance Minister claims that Australian Federal Police overstepped the mark in carrying out raids on businesses in Port Vila earlier this month.
The raids were made on Vanuatu Finance Centre offices linked to the PKF accounting firm of Vanuatu-based businessman Robert Agius who was recently arrested in Perth in relation to alleged tax fraud.
Mr Agius’ arrest and the raids were part of a US$90 million money-laundering sting by the AFP which had lodged a request for mutual assistance with Vanuatu’s Attorney General.
The AFP raids were carried out in conjunction with Vanuatu police but the minister, Willie Jimmy, says only local police were authorised to do so by the Attorney General.
“PLAY AUDIO: VAN AFP RAIDS”
“It’s actually been cooked up. It is very well prepared by the AFP but they are using our own people to make an application to the court to get what they want. They are using our own police force and in fact the authorisation that was given by the Attorney General - The authorisation was given to Vanuatu Police Force, not the Australian Federal Police".

PACIFIC YOUTH LEAD GLOBAL DISCUSSIONS

2008-05-12T11:47:00.000-07:00

PRESS RELEASE

12 May 2008 – Two young people from the Pacific have just been chosen by their peers to lead the Pan-Commonwealth Youth Caucus for the next four years, putting them at the forefront of international discussions on youth issues.

Australian Matthew Albert, 27, and Tongan Ebonie Fifita, 23, were confirmed as Chair and Vice-Chair respectively of the Pan-Commonwealth Youth Caucus (PCYC) just prior to the 2008 Commonwealth Youth Ministers’ Meeting (CYMM) held in Colombo, Sri Lanka from 27 – 30 April.

The PCYC is made up of youth representatives from the Commonwealth Youth Programme (CYP) Regional Youth Caucuses. The PCYC advises international Commonwealth leaders, include prime ministers and youth ministers, on youth issues and priorities and advocate for youth empowerment through their participation in decision-making.

The leadership of PCYC is rotated every four years between the four Commonwealth regions – Asia, Africa, Caribbean and the South Pacific. This is the first opportunity the South Pacific RYC representatives have had to lead PCYC in 11 years. Ebonie and Matthew were chosen by their South Pacific RYC peers in Auckland last month, and then confirmed in the leadership roles by the other members of PCYC just before CYMM.

PCYC Chair Matthew Albert describes the leadership role as “an immense honour and privilege”, but says there are plenty of challenges and learning ahead.

“Among the big hurdles is that we are trying to be a representative voice for a range of issues as broad as can be imagined,” says Matthew.

“We are there to put issues forward to decision makers and to guide them on what our peers seek most – peace, health, education, employment, an equal say and a wealth of opportunity.

“Negotiating priorities and trying to be an effective voice for all is a skill that we will have to refine. But this will be made easier by virtue of having a very strong caucus of committed and informed representatives, which we have in the present caucus.”

Matthew says that in previous years the PCYC’s role in the Commonwealth has been limited to the governance of Commonwealth, but they’d like to develop that role.

“I would like to see the PYC grow to be a source of insight into the situation of people under-30 in all Commonwealth countries for other agencies and the media.”

Matthew will hold the PCYC Chair position for two years, after which time Ebonie will step into the role and another Vice-Chair chosen.

Commonwealth Youth Programme South Pacific (CYPSP) Regional Chair Ms Afu Billy says the Pacific has a comparatively low profile on the international Commonwealth scene, and that having two young Pacific people lead a Pan-Commonwealth body is a great opportunity.

“By having two Pacific Islanders lead PCYC, the Commonwealth family and the rest of the world will know more of the youths of the Pacific, especially about their successes and their challenges. The South Pacific is now noticed by the Commonwealth.”
And for Matthew and Ebonie personally, it’s an opportunity to lead global discussions and engage world leaders, which Ms Afu Billy hopes will trickle down to other Pacific young people.
“This is important for their own empowerment, but the skills and knowledge gained will hopefully trickle down to the general Pacific youth population through RYC members in their countries who learn from Matthew and Ebonie.
“I know Matthew and Ebonie are two young people who are fervent about passing on their knowledge and skills to the other Pacific young people and CYPSP will make sure we provide conditions which allow them both to perform in their roles to the best of their abilities,” says Ms Billy.
MATTHEW ALBERT, 27, from Melbourne, Australia is a young lawyer and has been a member of the South Pacific Regional Youth Caucus for two years. He co-founded the Sudanese Australian Integrated Learning (SAIL) programme when he was just 20, which now works with 300 volunteers to provide support and community services to Sudanese refugees in Melbourne and Sydney. In 2005 he won Young Australian of the Year for Victoria, and in the same year was named by Junior Chamber International at one of their ‘Ten Outstanding Young Persons of the World’ for his contributions to children, world peace and human rights.

EBONIE FIFITA, 23, from Nuku’alofa, Tonga founded and coordinates On The Spot, a programme which works to empower young people through media, performing arts and visual arts. Ebonie joined the South Pacific Regional Youth Caucus in 2007, and will take up the Chairperson role of PYC in 2010.

THE COMMONWEALTH YOUTH PROGRAMME works to empower young people (15 – 29) to contribute to the development of their communities. CYP South Pacific (CYPSP) is one of four regional centres around the world, and works with the young people, governments and NGOs of its 14 member countries in the Pacific region. CYPSP supports a group of young leaders from the Pacific, CYPSP Regional Youth Caucus, who advocate for Pacific young people’s issues and advise CYPSP. CYPSP works with Tonga, Fiji, Tuvalu, Samoa, Kiribati, Aotearoa New Zealand, Australia, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea, Cook Islands, Niue, Tokelau and Nauru.

PYC Chair Matthew Albert, PYC Vice-Chair Ebonie Fifita and CYP South Pacific Regional Director Ms Afu Billy are available for interview. All media enquiries can be directed to Media Intern Tessa Johnstone on tessa@cypsp.org.sb, +677 38374 or +677 87570. Images are also available on request.

ENDS

AFP widens Vanuatu investigation

2008-04-29T14:00:00.000-07:00

(Business Spectator) Australian Federal Police are investigating at least four more financial services firms with Vanuatu connections for suspected tax evasion and money laundering.
Three directors of NSW accounting firm Owen T Daniel & Co (Carol Abibadra, Deborah Jandagi and Kevin Zerafa) are facing charges that relate to the Project Wickenby taskforce investigation of PKF Vanuatu director Robert Agius, reports say.
The AFP has, reportedly, traced around 50 scheme participants to Owen T Daniel & Co and is expected to allege in court that the company's clients consciously participated in the scheme to avoid paying tax.
The firm is said to be connected to the round-robin scheme, where the AFP alleges the scheme's clients paid an $8000 set-up fee plus annual fees of $US1380 for PKF Vanuatu to allegedly draft false invoices from an overseas-registered company with a NZ bank account.According to police allegations, Australian companies could then write off the invoices charging for consultancy fees, management fees or insurance premiums as tax expenses, reports say.
Mr Agius, who was extradited from Perth to Sydney last night, is preparing to face three charges related to an alleged $100 million money laundering scheme. The scheme is said to have included at least 400 individuals, including a number of prominent local business people.
However, last night the tired looking businessman told reporters at Sydney airport that he was yet to be charged with any offence and was still yet to enter a plea.
According to reports, Port Vila-based financial services firms Equity Investment Group, Moores Rowland and law firm George Vasaris & Co have all under investigation by the taskforce because of alleged connections to Mr Agius.
Equity Investment chief executive Jim Batty called the AFP searches "a contrived fishing expedition" and has joined PKF Vanuatu in challenging the legality of the search warrants used to instigate the raids.
Australian director of another Vanuatu accounting firm which is not under the AFP spotlight Lindsay Barrett echoed Mr Batty's comments, saying that Australian authorities had confused legal tax minimisation practices with tax evasion, The Age reports.
Separately, one of Mr Agius' sons, Daniel, told the paper that Vanuatu Supreme Court has granted an injunction preventing any information being sent out of the country.
"The injunction has been taken out by the partners of PKF on the grounds that the search warrants issued were illegal, that the searches were conducted by Australian police outside their jurisdiction, and therefore the information can't be sent out of the country," he told the paper.
Mr Agius' son said that it was business as usual at the firm, saying that the company's website had not been taken offline, but had probably gone down after receiving a large number of visits.
Meanwhile, PKF Australia has moved to distance itself from PFK Vanuatu saying that under licensing agreement PKF Vanuatu is a member firm of PKF International.
According to PKF Australia, the Vanuatu operation is is locally owned and operated and is completely financially and legally independent of PKF Australia.

Police trawl for money trails in Vanuatu

2008-04-29T13:55:00.000-07:00

(Theage.com.au) FEDERAL police have extended their investigations of Australian-run financial services firms in Vanuatu, targeting at least three more Port Vila companies for suspected money laundering and tax evasion.
The revelations are likely to cause anxiety for the hundreds of wealthy Australians who use the services offered by companies in the tax haven.
In another development, police have summonsed three directors of a NSW accounting firm — Carol Abibadra, Deborah Jandagi and Kevin Zerafa — along with two of its clients to face criminal charges in June. The charges relate to the federal police investigation of former Sydney accountant Robert Agius, who will appear in a Sydney court today.
Agius denied the charges before a brief hearing in Perth earlier this week.
His arrest is a part of the anti-money laundering and tax evasion operation Project Wickenby, involving the Tax Office, the Australian Crime Commission and other agencies. Project Wickenby's highest-profile prosecution so far has involved music and sports entrepreneur Glenn Wheatley, who was sentenced to 15 months' prison.
Agius been charged with money laundering and defrauding the Commonwealth in connection to an alleged tax evasion scheme he promoted via his Vanuatu firm PKF and which allegedly helped clients avoid paying up to $100 million in tax.
Several of PKF's Australian clients, described by police as from the "higher echelons of business", are named in documents likely to be filed by the Director of Public Prosecutions today.
The Age can reveal that the AFP is examining the operations of several other Vanuatu firms run by Australians for scores of Australian clients.
On Monday and Tuesday, AFP agents looked on as Vanuatu police raided the premises of the Equity Investment Group in Port Vila. Jim Batty, the Vanuatu-based Australian chief executive of the financial services company, told The Age that his offices had been stripped as part of what he described as a "a contrived fishing expedition by the AFP".
Mr Batty is a friend and former business partner of Agius but he said he knew little about Agius' recent business activities. Mr Batty's firm has joined Agius' firm, PKF Vanuatu, in a court challenge against the legality of the raids.
The other Vanuatu-based businesses targeted by federal police as part of Wickenby are accounting firm Moores Rowland, run by Australians Laurie Harrison and Andrew Munro, and the Port Vila law firm of former Sydney resident George Vasaris.
Lindsay Barrett, the Australian director of another Vanuatu accounting firm whose business was not targetted by the AFP, said Australian authorities had confused legal tax minimisation methods with tax avoidance.
"They managed to convince the Vanuatu Attorney-General and the courts in Vanuatu to give them a carte blanche to have a look at each of the four service providers, houses and officers. And they have gone in like the Gestapo and done their thing," Mr Barrett said.
On Monday, the AFP said it was working with Vanuatu police and New Zealand authorities to close down several separate money laundering schemes operating between the three countries.
The AFP said one of the schemes involved the transfer of Australian earnings to overseas financial institutions under the guise of business expenses. The expenses are then returned to Australia in the form of interest-free loans.

International Agencies Take Action Against Vanuatu-Based Tax Rorts

2008-04-28T13:58:00.000-07:00

(Pacific Magazine) Australian police have made one arrest under the banner of Project Wickenby, an international operation to attack abusive tax haven schemes linked to Vanuatu.
A West Australian promoter was arrested this morning, and several other people will be summonsed to appear in court shortly. Search warrants were executed in Sydney, Vanuatu and New Zealand today as part of the operations.
The Australian Taxation Office is also conducting 80 audits examining allegedly false tax deductions exceeding $90 million (US$84 million).

In a statement, the Australian government says “people who avoid tax through the use of abusive tax haven schemes place an unfair burden on the vast majority of the Australian community who do the right thing.”
Bodies involved in the operation include the Australian Taxation Office, Australian Federal Police, the Australian Crime Commission, the Vanuatu Police Force, New Zealand Police and New Zealand Inland Revenue Department.

Australian tax evasion scheme exposed

2008-04-28T13:51:00.001-07:00

(The Associated Press) SYDNEY, Australia (AP) — Police have broken up an international money laundering scheme operating in Australia, New Zealand and Vanuatu that involved $93 million and hundreds of people, Australian police said Monday.
A 58-year-old Australian man who had been living in Vanuatu was arrested and charged with three fraud and money laundering offenses related to the scheme, which was exposed by a police task force targeting tax evasion, police said.
More than 400 people put money into the scheme allegedly operated by the suspect, Robert Agius, which is suspected of moving more than $93 million from Australia through offshore bank accounts since 2000 to avoid taxes, police Commander Warren Gray said.
People involved could expect to be contacted by the Australian Federal Police, Gray said, though it was not clear if any had broken the law.
Agius was arrested Monday in the western Australian city of Perth, and appeared briefly in court where he was ordered to be returned to Sydney to face trial.
Agius did not enter a plea but told Magistrate Elizabeth Langdon the charges were "trumped up" and "nebulous." He faces a maximum penalty of 25 years in prison on one of the charges.
Gray, a senior white-collar crime officer with the Australian Federal Police, said the scheme involved transferring money out of Australia and then claiming a business expense before returning the funds to Australia as an interest-free loan.
"When you look at it, it is quite a simple scheme," Gray told reporters. "The lengths that the people involved went to hide the money ... and tax that they have evaded is quite complex and thus why it has taken two years to investigate."
Agius is accused of collecting $1.3 million in commissions from the scheme. Gray said the total amount of unpaid Australian taxes exceeded $12 million.
Police in New Zealand and Vanuatu also carried out raids, Gray said.
The scheme was exposed by Project Wickenby, a task force of police and officials from tax and business regulatory authorities established in 2006 to investigate tax evasion and large-scale money laundering.

Has the Government Lost Control of the Country? By TIV

2008-04-13T14:43:00.000-07:00

On the face of it, especially in light of the lack of resolute and concrete response to the rapidly deteriorating Law and Order situation, the answer would seem to be “Yes.”

With silence becoming the main Government response to most of the grave problems now threatening the country more than at any previous time, is it any wonder that the average citizen or resident now firmly believes that our leaders have surrendered the country to the criminals.

The lack of law and order is becoming the single most overwhelming problem facing this nation, the one problem that on its own can destroy this country because without law and order and a feeling of personal security felt by the citizens – all else crumbles.

If it is true that there are now more consultants working in Vanuatu than there are police officers, then the priorities of the government truly are upside down, because all the training, all the education, all the investment can be reduced to dust if people are not safe in the streets or in their own homes.

Despite millions of dollars being spent since Independence on numerous “police support” programs, it is reported that there are no hand cuffs in the country and perpetrators are not even photographed when they are arrested and charged.

Surely it is time to provide what is needed at street level, needed by the ordinary people living in this country, rather than another air conditioned office building and another batch of new vehicles?

This is no longer a problem for the “waet man” or the foreigners. Young ni-Vanuatu women are being raped by ni-Vanuatu men. Ni-Vanuatu are being robbed and battered by young ni-vanuatu men and boys.

The business community is meeting, planning marches, discussing petitioning the government to act. What is the Government doing? The people of Freswota were marching this week in protest at the intimidation they are enduring at the hands of the criminals. What is the Government doing?

Is the lack of any sign of police patrols in the towns, either on foot or in vehicles, a question of resources – human or equipment? Or is it simply a lack of government resolve?

The security station established at the entrance to Devil’s Point Road at Mele after the murder of an expatriate resident there, shows us that it does not take a great deal of expense or “technology” to make a radical improvement. A small roadside shed and a few security guards monitoring traffic movement 24 hours a day has reportedly ended the robberies practically overnight.

Why is there no sign that the outrage and fear presently being felt and expressed by the general public is also being felt equally by the politicians? How many more articles and letters to the editor do officials need to read before they are galvanised into action?

If the ordinary people of this town know who the criminals are – as they do in so many of the cases – what is the problem with the authorities?

It is as if the Government is entirely out of touch with the reality of actual life of the country today.

Real life, as experienced by women and young girls living in fear of being gang raped in their own house. Real life, as experienced by investors who pay hundred of millions of Vatu every year into the Government coffers only to see it being stolen, squandered and paid out to cover the Government losses in Court. Real life, as experienced by women, children and the elderly who 28 years after Independence still cannot get decent health care.
Real life where the cost of school fees is crippling thousands of families, and where children under 10 years old are routinely involved in ever more serious crime.

If any politician, any leader in the Police Force, or any official in any foreign embassy doubts this for one minute, we urge you to get out of the shelter of your offices and talk to the real people of the is country. Talk to the mothers who run the homes throughout this land. Talk to the children who should be the future of this country but who instead seem to be living in a vacuum of hopelessness. Talk to the police officers manning the phones over any given weekend and ask them how often the phone rings reporting yet another rape, yet another home invasion, yet another assault. Talk to the investors who have helped build this country and continue to build it.

Was this the great Independence dream? That within the first generation after “freedom” the country would be in spiritual and moral tatters, without a statesman in sight, without a careful hand being extended to lead the people forward.

We all want and need economic investment and growth, without which employment would barely exist and government coffers would be empty.

However, the downside of Vanuatu’s strong recent economic growth is that the prosperity has helped to conceal the real state of the nation – widespread inequality, lowering health and education standards, alienation from society by tens of thousands of young people, leaders causing losses of hundreds of millions of vatu because of incompetent or illegal actions, ministers arranging the payment tens of millions of vatu in “compensation” to their political friends, without fear of any consequences except perhaps a brief period of personal embarrassment in the event the incident is reported in the media, all of this eroding the sense of community, civic pride and nationhood.

With the Police Force perennially hampered by political interference and competing hidden loyalties, and the Prosecution Office and the Ombudsman so inactive as to be almost invisible in real terms, who is to be relied upon to act as guardian and watchdog? Who in any meaningful way can the people look to for appropriate leadership and direction?

Perhaps the Council of Minsters needs to walk along the road in Seaside between the entrance of Poppy’s on the Lagoon and the former Talimaru Hotel to see the squalor of how some people live.

If it is true that you lead by example, the example being set today in this country is too often atrocious. It has become so commonplace for the public to hear of or witness numerous allegations of misconduct by our leaders that it is almost impossible for them – both the ones who do the actions and the ones who do nothing about it - to be respected.

Is the Government responsible for every serious problem in the country today? Of course not. And of course many of the problems that we are experiencing as we grow are being experienced in most other countries, including the wealthy developed countries.

However as the current managers of the nation, they are the ones who have the power to enforce the existing laws and create the official atmosphere that is necessary to help bring about a desperately needed change in official attitudes.

Is Vanuatu to become like a miniature African country where it is reported in many academic papers and reports that nearly everyone of the more than 50 African countries is worse off today than they were on the date of Independence.- with corruption and government mismanagement at the core of the decline?

In the 28 years since Independence Vanuatu has produced hundreds of educated young men and women. So there is no excuse for doing nothing or for saying, “I didn’t know,” no excuse for the apathy and indifference that helps keep the worst of our leaders in positions of influence and power.

The people born since Independence make up about three quarters of the country’s population. They have no direct experience of colonial rule in any way whatsoever. The country they live in today has largely been created by the politicians who have been in power since Independence.

The children in any country are meant to be the future; instead we are raising a generation of children where realistically most of them have very little chance of becoming productive, contributing members of society.

The lack of access to universal free education is perhaps one of the biggest causes of the breakdown in society because without an education, young people are alienated from the development of the country.

In world terms, Port Vila is a tiny village of around 35,000 people, two thirds of which are legally children (ie: under 18 years old). To say that a Government and the Municipalities benefiting from hundreds of millions of foreign aid and a Police Force of several hundred members cannot bring this situation under control seems absurd.

It may not be realistic for the public to expect decisive action to be taken from a government riddled with accusations of either irresponsible or unlawful actions by its ministers and senior officials? From a government being run by politicians who, tragically for this country’s welfare, routinely ignore or break the laws of the land that they themselves have passed in parliament, where certain leaders systematically breach the Leadership Code with their disgraceful personal behaviour and inappropriate or unlawful professional conduct

So it is perhaps understandable in this context that many of the senior figures in this country would not welcome a strong and independent police and prosecution service.

We are as a nation at a real crossroads – the direction we take now will determine how we live for years to come. Will we continue to be led by leaders who ferret about in the halls of power dreaming up new schemes of how to plunder the meagre resources of the people whose health and welfare they are meant to protect and promote?

The present situation is not new; it is just worse. For years responsible people have been alerting the government to all of the present day problems when they were still much smaller and easier to handle, asking the Government to do something.

Now Vanuatu is standing at a precipice; one push in the wrong direction and we can so easily tumble into the abyss. The need for strong practical and moral leadership has never been greater.

Where is the leader who, like a good shepherd, looks after himself last and his followers first? Where is the leader who cannot sleep at night because of his genuine concern for the people and because his or her conscience will not let them?

Not for the first time, TIV is asking the Government to ACT NOW before it is too late. ACT NOW while it is still possible to take realistic measures to save the country from careering irretrievably out of control.

Has the Government Lost Control of the Country. By TIV

2008-04-13T14:39:00.000-07:00

Calls for greater scrutiny of Vanuatu elections

2008-04-10T07:43:00.000-07:00

(Radio Australia- ABC) The Vanuatu chapter of the civil society group Transparency International says it is "begging" the island's journalists to provide adequate scrutiny of political candidates during elections scheduled for later this year.Radio Australia's Pacific correspondent Campbell Cooney that Vanuatu's newspapers have published a wishlist" from TI. Transparency International Vanuatu says too often the "wrong people" are voted into political office, and says much of the country's media is not prepared to focus attention on politicians' failings, poor policies and corruption. TIV president Marie Noelle Patterson says it is up to the media to scrutinise candidates, insisting that publicly appointed watchdogs seem unwilling to act. "At the moment it is almost a desperate cry for information to come out," she said.Lat month it was revealed Vanuatu Prime Minister Ham Lini accepted an offer of more than $US10 billion purportedly to help reduce carbon emissions, without informing anyone else in government. An investigation has since found found the scheme was a fraud. Vanuatu is due to hold elections in September.

Vanautu Fears No End To EU Kava Ban

2008-04-09T13:50:00.000-07:00

(RNI)Vanuatu’s kava council says it’s unlikely the European Union will ever relax the kava ban, reports Radio New Zealand International.
The EU banned kava in 2001 over claims it was toxic.
The EU has told kava producing countries in the Pacific if there were quality control standards region-wide, the ban could be lifted.
General Manager of Vanuatu’s Chamber of Commerce and Industry John Aruhuri says that poses a challenge in itself.
“We’ve been battling this for many years up until now and it has cost us a lot of time, effort and resource to try and battle this ban in Europe. We have over the last few years, two to three years ago now, made a lot of efforts and attempts through to the German authorities. It looks to me like every now and again a requirement in Germany keeps changing.”

http://www.rnzi.com/pages/news.php?op=read&id=39020

Papua province independence factions meet in Vanuatu

2008-04-09T13:40:00.000-07:00

(Radio Australia-ABC) The leaders of the different pro-independence factions in the Indonesian province of Papua are meeting in the Vanuatu capital, Port Vila.Pacific Correspondent Campbell Cooney reports that organisers are describing this week's meeting as the most important summit of pro independence leaders from Papua Province in over 40 years. The province was annexed by Indonesia in the early 1960s. Since then Indonesia's been locked in an independence struggle with the native Melanesian people, a fight which supporters claim has left over 100,000 people dead. This week in Vanuatu many of the struggle's leaders are meeting for the first time to try and resolve the differences which have stopped them putting forward a united front before now. Vanuatu has long been a refuge for pro-independence supporters from the region, but its government has distanced itself from this summit.

Should Tourists continue to visit Lonoc bungalows which are built on disputed land, say Hogharbour Village land claim owners

2008-04-05T05:16:00.001-07:00

The question has come up over and over again, should foreign tourists continue to visit lonoc land resort, upon which its land is currently on dispute? Is it fair, just and reasonable for tourists to visit lonoc resort, however, the vast majority of them are oblivious of the fact that the land upon which lonoc resort is built is on dispute? Are you a foreign tourist who is planning to visit lonoc resort? Well, it should made to you very loud and clear, that the land upon which the resort is build is infamously on dispute!
The disputed land case is in the process of going to the Island Court in Santo. It should be noted that family Vocor who have been masterminded by their leader, Kalmer Vocor, have been consistently failing to comply with Vanuatu land laws over a prolonged period of time.
They indeed own lonoc resort, however, it is very unfortunate that the owners of lonoc resort are not complying with Vanuatu statute land laws, let alone Vanuatu customary land laws. The notorious example is when family vocor had failed to attend the first stage of the land tribunal which is currently administered by Hogharbour Village Chiefs. Clearly, in pursuant to Vanuatu land laws, for a land dispute to be resolved, the claiming land owners have to go through a process of different stages, and the first one is through the custom chief before proceeding to the hierarchy ones, upon which the Courts will be the last resort.
So far there is no ruling from the Court of law to adjudicate that the current owners of lonoc resort are truly the land owners! Although family Vocor have been purporting that they are the land owners, however, whether the Court of law would adjudicate in their favour , remains to be seen.
The rightful question which should be reverberated around the world, especially to the ears of any potential tourists is that would you consciously visit a resort which has been controversially build illegally on a land which is on dispute?

Vanuatu’s opposition leader calls for more prosecution of politicians abusing office

2008-03-30T11:26:00.000-07:00

(RNI) Vanuatu’s opposition leader has called for more prosecution of politicians involved in the abuse of office.
Moana Carcasses says that while much-needed rural development in Vanuatu remains neglected, too many politicians continue to serve their own interests first, going unpunished for indulging in corrupt practices.
His comments follow recent divisions within the coalition government over allegations of bribery against the Lands Minister in a court case.
Some MPs are unhappy that the Minister remains in his role when other government members have recently been removed from the coalition for involvement in fraud.
Mr Carcasses says that in most cases, leaders are not being held accountable for breaking the law.
“We should also give more power to the prosecution - any politicians misuse anything, they should be judged and punished. At the moment no one is punished. That’s our problem. So we should put in place a system (so) that people know when you take office, if you do good things, no problem, but if you do bad things, you’re going to be judged and go to jail for.”

http://www.rnzi.com/pages/news.php?op=read&id=38853

Growth will help poverty in Pacific, says AusAID

2008-03-30T11:24:00.000-07:00

(SMH) AUSTRALIA'S 15 neighbours in the Pacific face daunting challenges to overcome alarming levels of poverty and some smaller states have uncertain futures, a report by AusAID says.
The report, which looks at social and economic conditions in 14 countries in the Pacific plus East Timor, says the region faces serious challenges including rising sea levels, epidemics of malaria, diabetes and HIV and surging oil prices. But it says long-term growth is possible and areas such as transport and aviation have begun to improve.
"Many [of the countries] face growing health problems, increasing environmental threats (including climate change), high levels of joblessness and poverty, and population pressures," the report says. "Without higher, sustained economic growth these challenges will not be effectively addressed … Some of the poorest countries - PNG, Timor Leste and Solomon Islands - have the highest mountains to climb."
The report, which was written by AusAID and guided by 10 business and political leaders from across the region, will be launched today in Vanuatu by the parliamentary secretaries for the Pacific, Duncan Kerr, and international development assistance, Bob McMullan. It says smaller economies are stagnating and economic growth across the region last year was less than 4 per cent of GDP - almost half the rate for developing countries. But the future outlook is "positive" and includes expected growth this year of 4.5 per cent.
The Government will use the report to support development in the Pacific states - a commitment outlined earlier this month in its Port Moresby Declaration. Mr Kerr said the report was grounds for "cautious optimism" and showed improvements were possible.
The report says five states have developed a tourism industry - Fiji, Samoa, Cook Islands, Vanuatu and Palau - and two have benefited from the high prices of oil, copper and gold - Papua New Guinea and East Timor.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/growth-will-help-poverty-in-pacific-says-ausaid/2008/03/30/1206850709162.html

Watch this space;-)

2008-03-30T03:12:00.000-07:00

I haven't written on my blog for a while, this is due to being busy with my career, studies and other daily life activities. My blog is about Vanuatu news, and raising awareness as to what is happening in Vanuatu. Also raising awareness about the level of corruption involving Vanuatu politicians.

Interestingly this year is very important for all Ni- Vanuatu citizens given that the general election is just around the corner. In September 2008, people will be going to the polls to exercise their democratic right to vote. Importantly, Ni-Vanuatu citizens should be acutely aware as to the issues that are facing Vanuatu, socially, economically, politically and environmentally.

So in the next coming days, I will endeavour to post more regularly. Watch this space;-)

Vanuatu’s Prime Minister plays down speculation of pending motion of no-confidence

2008-03-26T03:30:00.000-07:00

(RNI) Vanuatu’s Prime Minister has played down speculation of a pending motion of no-confidence in Parliament against his leadership.
In recent weeks local media have been reporting of a looming threat to Ham Lini’s leadership originating from within his coalition government.
This follows a request last month from the coalition member Vanuaaku Pati or VP for Mr Lini to remove the Lands Minister Maxime Carlot Korman over bribery allegations which recently surfaced in court.
The Prime Minister concedes that the VP are unhappy that he has decided to wait for the outcome of Mr Korman’s court case before making any move.
However he says the relationship between his party, the National United Party, and the VP is good.
Mr Lini says that media speculation often plays up matters that are non-issues and adds that he doesn’t expect a motion to be tabled.
He says MPs wouldn’t want to see parliament dissolved so close to the general election which is due in about four months time.

http://www.rnzi.com/pages/news.php?op=read&id=38767

Australia, NZ clash over Pacific workers

2008-03-26T03:25:00.000-07:00

Australia and New Zealand should be cooperating, rather than competing, to recruit seasonal workers from the Pacific, a NZ horticulture executive said.
Australia's National Farmers Federation (NFF) this week said about 100,000 more workers were needed in the rural sector and called on the Australian government to fill the gap with people from the Pacific Islands.
New Zealand mainly relies on Tonga, Samoa, Vanuatu, Tuvalu and Kiribati to provide thousands of seasonal workers.
Horticulture New Zealand chief executive Peter Silcock said he hoped Australia would target workers from other Pacific islands with high levels of unemployment, such as the Solomon Islands.
"We would be concerned if Australia targeted the same nations on which we have focused. Australia and New Zealand need to take a cooperative approach," he said.
"We could learn a lot from each other, and work together to spread the benefits through more of the South Pacific."
Australian Immigration Minister Chris Evans told The Age newspaper he was looking at the New Zealand scheme using unskilled workers from Pacific islands for seasonal work.
"New Zealand is trialling such a scheme and we are looking at how that is progressing and what lessons might be learned," Evans said.
New Zealand introduced its Recognised Seasonal Workers Scheme in the wake of allegations that up to 80 per cent of contractors supplying seasonal labour had been operating outside of the law.
The scheme allows guest workers to be flown in from the Pacific Islands for seven months of the year, but employers have to ensure the quality of their housing and take responsibility for over stayers.
Employers also have to advance as much as $NZ1,000 ($A880) upfront, including part of the airfares and medical and police checks, and to guarantee at least 240 hours' work.

NZPA

Major Crackdown on Peaceful Protest in West Papua

2008-03-25T11:53:00.000-07:00

Press Release: Manukoreri
Major Crackdown On Peaceful Protest In West Papua

West Papua, Tuesday March 25 2008: Yesterday Indonesian Police captured the Chief of Council for West Papua National Authority, Eli Kaiway. He presented himself peacefully under summons for interrogation, and Police arrested him. He is being held at POLRES Manokwari, and now with other detainees, and police have said that he will be charged with Rebellion and spreading hatred against the state "because it is positive that he gave the order for the flagraising," according to POLRI

There are now 11 political detainees in Manokwari from the peaceful assemblies throughout March.
The underage political prisoner released now, Silas Carlos Tevez May, has been bailed and given a permit to go to high school, and to stay with his parents. It is still unconfirmed whether or not that constitutes house arrest.
On Wednesday night last week Jack Wanggai was taken by KaploRes Marjuki and 2 other intelligence from custody room to interrogation. We have received clear information and hold grave concerns that Jack was tortured for over two hours from 1030pm West Papua time, to find out who was behind all the uprising.
This was the same treatment meted out on pro democracy activists at the end of Suharto era. Intelligence personnel, led by Marjuki demanded the following answers during Interrogation:
• Who in foreign country is behind these actions and escalation of struggle?
• Who are the bureaucrats in the Indonesian Civil Service in West Papua are behind you?
• Which Academics and Scientists are behind you?
• What built the links with outside movement? Who provided the telephone numbers?
This is another example of Indonesian state terror and intimidation of peaceful West Papuan expression, contrary to Indonesian national regulation PP 77/2007.
On 18th of March Agus Alua, Deputi MRP Frans Wospakrik and Mrs Hana Hikoyabe called on the Indonesian government to release all detainees as this violates provisions of Special Autonomy. (see attached interview with Dr Agus Alua, Cenderawasih pos, 18 March 2008). Do not wait until bloodshed occurs, international observers are needed.
Today, Tuesday March 25th, demonstrations have been held across West Papua in Jayapura, Sorong, Serui, Nabire, Fak Fak, Timika and Biak. Latest information from Sorong is that the Indonesian Military and POLRI have combined forces in an armed military counter insurgency operation against civilian peaceful demonstrators. Two army trucks are patrolling Sorong currently with 2 platoons of KOSTRAD (Strategic Reserve) troops, backed up three 4 wheel drives full of armed military intelligence (SGI), and one police 4wd. All personnel are fully armed with automatic weapons, and are intimidating and causing great concern to the local population as a show of force to prevent people from joining Papua wide peaceful assemblies calling for Referendum. From Yesterday, a 24 hour curfew, on penalty of arbitrary arrest, has been imposed on all centres in West Papua. So far in Sorong, 6 people have been arrested by police and are currently held POLRES Sorong.
Currently in Serui, there is a peaceful gathering of over 100 people, after massive intimidation kept many away. A prayer meeting was held to defuse tension with the military. Whilst the prayer meeting was happening at the home of Wilson Uruwaya (Co-ordinator of West Papua National Authority Serui regency), more than 30 police and intelligence in three trucks, kijang patrols, black (intelligence) kijangs and on ojek (passenger motorbike transports) - all making up a Satuan Kepolisian (SSK or police unit) have been taking up positions outside his home to harass and intimidate people.
The planned demo in Manokwari has been delayed due to a counter action organised by Badan Intelijen Nasional (BIN). HMI (Himpunan Mahasiswa Islam - Islamic Students Association) and GMKI (Gerakan Mahasiswa Kristen Indonesia) were organised by BIN as a diversionary tactic to demonstrate against alleged corruption by Papuan provincial government figure. The groups have been utilised in the past as auxiliaries or militia by BIN and Kopassus, and information received indicated that these groups have either been paid or threatened by intelligence to mobilise. As a result, Papuan people have decided to resume protests in Manokwari when a few less militia are on the streets.
This occurred after rally organisers were terrorised and intimidated across Papua yesterday (Easter Monday), particularly in Serui where a massive show of force was imposed on the local people. A joint security operation has been in force since March 3 and has been conducted by Satuan Khusus Gabungan Intelijen Polisi dan Militer (Joint Special Taskforce of Intelligence, Military and Police - formed with POLRI and the Serui Battalion of the TNI (Indonesian military)) with over security forces on the streets. We have also received confirmed reports that they are training non-Papuans for militia
In Jayapura, more than 30 police forcibly confiscated banners and Morning Star flags, however did not arrest any protestors. Latest information received that 200 people have gathered outside the DPR-D demanding Referendum. The situation is described as tense. More information as it comes to hand.
Outside West Papua, solidarity demonstrations have been held in Canberra, and in Port Vila, the Malvatumauri Council of Chiefs issued a call on the Prime Minister of Vanuatu to put pressure on Indonesia to stop the Repression.. Further demos will be held in Auckland on March 25th.
Despite assurances from the Indonesian government that all peaceful protests would be dealt with legally through the Police, the TNI has become involved in violating the rights of Papuans peacefully expressing their aspirations. There is no place for the use of military forces against legitimate and peaceful actions by civilians. We are gravely concerned at the escalating repression by the Indonesian security forces, and are concerned at military solution to political problems. West Papuan people as a result are calling for the urgent assistance of the international community to immediately form an unimpeded fact finding mission and immediate deployment of international observers, to prevent further genocide from occurring.
More protests will be held until Indonesia listens to the aspirations of the West Papuan people for survival in their own Land.
Serious and grave concerns are held for the potential for torture or ill-treatment of detainees whilst in the hands of the Police and intelligence, as all activists have caused a deal of international humiliation to the Indonesian security forces through creative and peaceful expression of their legitimate aspirations over the past few weeks. Please monitor this situation closely by calling the numbers in Manokwari and Jayapura below to ask why West Papuan people have been arrested and threatened with violence under Suharto era charges. It is important to put pressure on these Military and police figures. If you these numbers are faxes, then please just send faxes instead (they are swapping phones and faxes daily).
• Abepura Head of Police Captain Domingus Rumaropen hp.81344183583
• Police Papua province hp:967 531 014
• Indonesian Criminal Intelligence Unit Manokwari: + (62 986) 211363
• Indonesian TNI Commander of Manokwari regency/DANDIM phone Number: +62 (986) 211703
• Head of Police Manokwari Regency (KAPOLRES) Yakobus Marjuki +62 81344771448, +62 (986) 211359
• Deputy Police Manokwari Regency level (WAKAPOLRES) phone NO. +62 (986) 211826
• rmh dins kapolres tlp.0986 211355;
• Waka (Deputi Commander) Polres.tlp.0986 211826.
For more information please visit www.manukoreri.net

Vanuatu NGO welcomes arrival of mobile phone company

2008-03-20T01:13:00.000-07:00

(RNI) A Vanuatu umbrella NGO, Vango, says the arrival of a new mobile phone company into the country will improve the living standard of many residents.
The company, Digicel, has won a mobile phone licence for Vanuatu, breaking the monopoly by Telecom.
Digicel plans to create about 70 new jobs and invest about 35 million US dollars into the network.
Vango’s secretary general, Henry Vira, says Digicel’s plan to offer its services to rural areas, where about 80 percent of residents live, is vital.
“I have seen and heard a lot of interest from communities who want to be able to be connected so that they could speak to loved ones from other islands, speak to the government, speak to people in authority".

http://www.rnzi.com/pages/news.php?op=read&id=38659

Australia's hidden empire. By John Pilger

2008-03-08T01:55:00.000-08:00

That Canberra runs an imperial network of its own is unmentionable, yet the chain of control stretches all the way from the Aboriginal slums of Sydney across to the South Pacific. By John Pilger

Australia's hidden empireIn his latest article for the New Statesman, John Pilger reports from his homeland on Australia's hidden empire - a 'sphere of influence' that stretches from the Aboriginal slums of Sydney to East Timor and Afghanistan. The arrival of a new prime minister, Kevin Rudd, offers important continuity.When the outside world thinks about Australia, it generally turns to venerable clichés of innocence – cricket, leaping marsupials, endless sunshine, no worries. Australian governments actively encourage this. Witness the recent “G’Day USA” campaign, in which Kylie Minogue and Nicole Kidman sought to persuade Americans that, unlike the empire’s problematic outposts, a gormless greeting awaited them Down Under. After all, George W Bush had ordained the previous Australian prime minister, John Howard, “sheriff of Asia”.That Australia runs its own empire is unmentionable; yet it stretches from the Aboriginal slums of Sydney to the ancient hinterlands of the continent and across the Arafura Sea and the South Pacific. When the new prime minister, Kevin Rudd, apologised to the Aboriginal people on 13 February, he was acknowledging this. As for the apology itself, the Sydney Morning Herald accurately described it as a “piece of political wreckage” that “the Rudd government has moved quickly to clear away... in a way that responds to some of its own supporters’ emotional needs, yet changes nothing. It is a shrewd manoeuvre.”Like the conquest of the Native Americans, the decimation of Aboriginal Australia laid the foundation of Australia’s empire. The land was taken and many of its people were removed and impoverished or wiped out. For their descendants, untouched by the tsunami of sentimentality that accompanied Rudd’s apology, little has changed. In the Northern Territory’s great expanse known as Utopia, people live without sanitation, running water, rubbish collection, decent housing and decent health. This is typical. In the community of Mulga Bore, the water fountains in the Aboriginal school have run dry and the only water left is contaminated.Throughout Aboriginal Australia, epidemics of gastroenteritis and rheumatic fever are as common as they were in the slums of 19th-century England.

Aboriginal health, says the World Health Organisation, lags almost a hundred years behind that of white Australia. This is the only developed nation on a United Nations “shame list” of countries that have not eradicated trachoma, an entirely preventable disease that blinds Aboriginal children. Sri Lanka has beaten the disease, but not rich Australia. On 25 February, a coroner’s inquiry into the deaths in outback towns of 22 Aboriginal people, some of whom had hanged themselves, found they were trying to escape their “appalling lives”.Most white Australians rarely see this third world in their own country. What they call here “public intellectuals” prefer to argue over whether the past happened, and to blame its horrors on the present-day victims. Their mantra that Aboriginal infrastructure and welfare spending provide “a black hole for public money” is racist, false and craven. Hundreds of millions of dollars that Australian governments claim they spend are never spent, or end up in projects for white people. It is estimated that the legal action mounted by white interests, including federal and state governments, contesting Aboriginal native title claims alone covers several billion dollars.Smear is commonly deployed as a distraction. In 2006, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s leading current affairs programme, Lateline, broadcast lurid allegations of “sex slavery” among the Mutitjulu Aboriginal people. The source, described as an “anonymous youth worker”, was exposed as a federal government official, whose “evidence” was discredited by the Northern Territory chief minister and police. Lateline never retracted its allegations. Within a year, Prime Minister John Howard had declared a “national emergency” and sent the army, police and “business managers” into Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory. A commissioned study on Aboriginal children was cited; and “protecting the children” became the media cry – just as it had more than half a century ago when children were kidnapped by white welfare authorities. One of the authors of the study, Pat Anderson, complained: “There is no relationship between the emergency powers and what’s in our report.” His research had concentrated on the effects of slum housing on children. Few now listened to him. Kevin Rudd, as opposition leader, supported the “intervention” and has maintained it as prime minister. Welfare payments are “quarantined” and people controlled and patronised in the colonial way.

To justify this, the mostly Murdoch-owned capital-city press has published a relentlessly one-dimensional picture of Aboriginal degradation. No one denies that alcoholism and child abuse exist, as they do in white Australia, but no quarantine operates there.The Northern Territory is where Aboriginal people have had comprehensive land rights longer than anywhere else, granted almost by accident 30 years ago. The Howard government set about clawing them back. The territory contains extraordinary mineral wealth, including huge deposits of uranium on Aboriginal land. The number of companies licensed to explore for uranium has doubled to 80. Kellogg Brown & Root, a subsidiary of the American giant Halliburton, built the railway from Adelaide to Darwin, which runs adjacent to Olympic Dam, the world’s largest low-grade uranium mine. Last year, the Howard government appropriated Aboriginal land near Tennant Creek, where it intends to store the radioactive waste. “The land-grab of Aboriginal tribal land has nothing to do with child sexual abuse,” says the internationally acclaimed Australian scientist and actvist Helen Caldicott, “but all to do with open slather uranium mining and converting the Northern Territory to a global nuclear dump.”This “top end” of Australia borders the Arafura and Timor Seas, across from the Indonesian archipelago. One of the world’s great submarine oil and gas deposits lies off East Timor. In 1975, Australia’s then ambassador in Jakarta, Richard Woolcott, who had been tipped off about the coming Indonesian invasion of then Portuguese East Timor, secretly recommended to Canberra that Australia turn a blind eye to it, noting that the seabed riches “could be much more readily negotiated with Indonesia . . . than with [an independent] Timor”. Gareth Evans, later foreign minister, described a prize worth “zillions of dollars”. He ensured that Australia distinguish itself as one of the few countries to recognise General Suharto’s bloody occupation, in which 200,000 East Timorese lost their lives.When eventually, in 1999, East Timor won its independence, the Howard government set out to manoeuvre the East Timorese out of their proper share of the oil and gas revenue by unilaterally changing the maritime boundary and withdrawing from World Court jurisdiction in maritime disputes. This would have denied desperately needed revenue to the new country, stricken from its years of brutal occupation. However, East Timor’s then prime minister, Mari Alkatiri, leader of the majority Fretilin party, proved more than a match for Canberra and especially its bullying foreign minister, Alexander Downer.Alkatiri demonstrated that he was a nationalist who believed East Timor’s resource wealth should be the property of the state, so that the nation did not fall into debt to the World Bank. He also believed that women should have equal opportunity, and that health care and education should be universal. “I am against rich men feasting behind closed doors,” he said. For this, he was caricatured as a communist by his opponents, notably the president, Xanana Gusmão, and the then foreign minister, José Ramos-Horta, both close to the Australian political Establishment. When a group of disgruntled soldiers rebelled against Alkatiri’s government in 2006, Australia readily accepted an “invitation” to send troops to East Timor. “Australia,” wrote Paul Kelly in Murdoch’s Australian, “is operating as a regional power or a potential hegemon that shapes security and political outcomes. This language is unpalatable to many. Yet it is the reality. It is new, experimental territory for Australia.”A mendacious campaign against the “corrupt” Alkatiri was mounted in the Australian media, reminiscent of the coup by media that briefly toppled Hugo Chávez in Venezuela. Like the US soldiers who ignored looters on the streets of Baghdad, Australian soldiers stood by while armed rioters terrorised people, burned their homes and attacked churches. The rebel leader Alfredo Reinado, a murderous thug trained in Australia, was elevated to folk hero. Under this pressure, the democratically elected Alkatiri was forced from office and East Timor was declared a “failed state” by Australia’s legion of security academics and journalistic parrots concerned with the “arc of instability” to the north, an instability they supported as long as the genocidal Suharto was in charge.Paradoxically, on 11 February, Ramos-Horta and Gusmão came to grief as they tried to do a deal with Reinado in order to subdue him. His rebels turned on them both, leaving Ramos-Horta critically wounded and Reinado himself dead. From Canberra, Prime Minister Rudd announced the despatch of more Australian “peacemakers”. In the same week, the World Food Programme disclosed that the children of resource-rich East Timor were slowly starving, with more than 42 per cent of under-fives seriously underweight – a statistic which corresponds to that of Aboriginal children in “failed” communities that also occupy an abundant natural resource.Australia is engaged in the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea, where its troops and federal police have dealt with “breakdowns in law and order” that are “depriving Australia of business and investment opportunities”. A former senior Australian intelligence officer calls these “wild societies for which intervention represents a blunt, but necessary instrument”. Australia is also entrenched in Afghanistan and Iraq. Rudd’s electoral promise to withdraw from the “coalition of the willing” does not include almost half of Australia’s troops in Iraq.At last year’s conference of the American-Australian Leadership Dialogue – an annual event designed to unite the foreign policies of the two countries, but in reality an opportunity for the Australian elite to express its historic servility to great power – Rudd was in unusually oratorical style. “It is time we sang from the world’s rooftops,” he said, “[that] despite Iraq, America is an overwhelming force for good in the world... I look forward to more than working with the great American democracy, the arsenal of freedom, in bringing about long-term changes to the planet.”

The new sheriff for Asia had spoken.

http://www.johnpilger.com/page.asp?partid=478

Vanuatu's Prime Minister has been asked to discipline his Lands Minister

2008-03-04T11:15:00.000-08:00

(Radio New Zealand International) Vanuatu’s Prime Minister has been asked to discipline his Lands Minister

Vanuatu’s Prime Minister, Ham Lini, has been requested by the second largest party in his coalition government to discipline the Lands Minister, Maxime Carlot Korman.
The Daily Post reports that the request follows bribery allegations made against the President of the Vanuatu Republican Party.

The Secretary General of the Vanua’aku Pati, Sela Molisa, has reportedly written a letter to the head of government highlighting the gravity of the allegations and why Mr Lini should discipline the VRP.

But the Daily Post says the Prime Minister will not want to remove Mr Korman.
It says when the People’s Progressive Party and the Vanua’aku Pati allegedly plotted to have the Prime Minister toppled in parliament, one of the only leaders to remain loyal was Mr Korman.

With elections close analysts say the Prime Minister will need a party that has demonstrated loyalty to him.

http://www.rnzi.com/pages/news.php?op=read&id=38360

China, Vanuatu vow to step up inter-parliamentary cooperation

2008-02-25T09:36:00.000-08:00

BEIJING, Feb. 25 (Xinhua) -- China and Vanuatu on Monday pledged to continue to promote bilateral relations and step up inter-parliamentary cooperation.

In a meeting with top Chinese legislator Wu Bangguo, visiting Vanuatu parliament speaker Sam Dan Avock reiterated his country's commitment to the one-China policy and its firm support for China's reunification.

A prosperous and strong China would play a positive role in maintaining peace and stability, Avock told Wu. The people of Vanuatu appreciated the assistance China offered to support the country's development.

Wu, chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC), said the development of ties brought concrete benefits to both peoples, and served the stability and prosperity of the region.

China remained committed to promoting friendly and cooperative ties despite the country's size and richness, Wu said.

China would work with Vanuatu to step up relations, Wu said, and he encouraged the two parliaments to intensify exchanges and cooperation.

As Wu's guest, Avock arrived in Beijing on Monday for a visit until March 2. He will also travel to Guangzhou, capital of south China's Guangdong Province.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-02/25/content_7668947.htm

Vanuatu leader says ball is in Bainimarama’s court over hoped for Fiji election

2008-02-18T15:15:00.000-08:00

(RNZI) Vanuatu Prime Minister Ham Lini has met with his New Zealand counterpart Helen Clark in Wellington on his first official visit to the country.

They discussed New Zealand’s ongoing assistance to Vanuatu in areas of corrections, education and policing, and ni-Vanuatu participation in New Zealand’s Recognised Seasonal Employer scheme.

They also talked about regional security issues in places such as Fiji and Solomon islands
Both leaders voiced hope that Fiji’s interim Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama will honour his commitment to the Pacific Islands Forum to hold an election by March of next year.
However Mr Lini admits that despite the efforts of the Melanesian Spearhead Group and the Forum, it is up to Commodore Bainimarama himself to keep his word.

http://www.rnzi.com/pages/news.php?op=read&id=38100

National talks to address rising crime

2008-02-18T15:07:00.001-08:00

(Pacific Beat) The authorities in Vanuatu say they plan to hold a national conference to address rising crime rates. The conference will address community concerns in Vanuatu's two major towns, Port Vila and Santo. Over the past two years, there's been a sharp rise in reported crime, including murder, theft, rapes, and break and enter. The decision also follows the murder of an Australian woman by unknown assailants in Port Vila.

http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/pacbeat/stories/s2165139.htm

Should Tourists continue to visit Lonoc bungalows which is built on disputed land, say Hogharbour Village land claim owners

2008-02-16T03:30:00.000-08:00

The question has come up over and over again, should foreign tourists continue to visit lonoc land resort, which the land is currently on dispute? Is it fair, just and reasonable for tourists to visit lonoc resort, however, the vast majority of them are oblivious of the fact that the land upon which lonoc resort is built is on dispute? Are a foreign tourist who is planning to visit lonoc resort? Well, it should made to you very loud and clear, that the land upon which the resort is build is infamously on dispute!

The disputed land case is in the process of going to the Island Court in Santo. It should be noted that family Vocor who have been masterminded by their leader, Kalmer Vocor, have been consistently failing to comply with Vanuatu land laws over a prolonged period of time.

They indeed own lonoc resort, however, it is very unfortunate that the owners of lonoc resort are not complying with Vanuatu statute land laws, let alone Vanuatu customary land laws. The notorious example is that family vocor had failed to attend the first stage of the land tribunal which is currently administered by Hogharbour Village Chiefs. Under Vanuatu land laws, in order for a land dispute to be resolved, the claiming land owners have to go through a process of different stages, and the first one is through the custom chief before proceeding to the hierarchy ones, upon which the Courts will be the last resort.

So far there is no ruling from the Court of law to adjudicate that the current owners of lonoc resort are truly the land owners! Although family Vocor have been purporting that they are the land owners, however, whether the Court of law would adjudicate in their favour in the future, remains to be seen.

The rightful question which should be reverberated around the world, especially to the ear of any potential tourists is that would you consciously visit a resort which has been controversially build illegally on a land which is on dispute? Well, the call is yours!

Foriegn Minister talks up labour access scheme

2008-02-14T08:54:00.000-08:00

(Radio Australia) Vanuatu's foreign minister hopes Australia will implement a temporary worker program for the Pacific, if a pilot scheme in New Zealand works well. George Andre Wells is in Australia at the moment, and has raised the issue of access to Australia's labour market in meetings with government officials and politicians. Authorities believe if Vanuatu citizens could work in Australia on a temporary basis, that would boost his country's economy and reduce the number of young people drifting to the urban centers of Port Vila and Luganville.

http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/pacbeat/stories/s2162940.htm