> "PM's new Pacific solution'
>
> By John Kerin, The Australian, July 23, 2003
>
> JOHN Howard unveiled an ambitious plan to create a South Pacific economic
> union to head off terrorism, corruption and decay, as federal cabinet
> yesterday approved Australia's contribution to a 2200-strong force to
> restore law and order in the Solomon Islands.
It's remarkable stuff. Operation "Helpim Friend" (in pseudo-neo-Melanesian) is said to cost 300 million bucks per year. That's more than six times the total trade between Australia and the Solomons last year. My NGO buddies are wetting themselves.
While this is very obviously an imperialist gambit, some caution is warranted. There are no news on how the rearrangement of the Pacific will take place, so it's all very speculative at the moment. There are a few think tank pieces, but we shouldn't rush to conclude that's what the government will do. The ASPI paper on intervening in the Solomons ("Our Failing Neighbour" at www.aspi.org.au) looms over the intervention, but it will take a while to see if its recommendations are implemented. Including the recommendation to 'sideline' the SI government, which is 'part of the problem.' That's the frend we are halapim....
Also no one knows how the Solomon Islanders will react to the Australian force. There are some nasty precedents, though they are pretty far back.
Theoretically, an EU-like arrangement could be very beneficial for the Pacific Islands, specially if it allows freer migration (fat chance!). It's much more likely we'll get a nastier version of NAFTA. Not even that, in fact. But I suppose that is better than waiting for them to sink, which was the previous policy.
Not to mention that the idea of merging all these countries together (rationalizing them, as it were) is pretty much just another way of skirting around the issue that they produce very little of value. The Howard government has no idea how to deal with this, and neither does the motley bunch of 'analysts' who come up withe these wacky comparisons of Nauru to Bosnia. They'll probably tell them to grow coconuts more efficiently, and then we'll still get our coconuts from Queensland.
Thiago Oppermann.