Neo-Colonialism in the Pacific: The 34th Pacific Islands Forum : Melbourne Indymedia

Following the Leaders' meeting, there is an opportunity for "private, off-the record discussion" (according to MFAT). Considering the autocratic nature of some of the countries involved, a secret leaders' meeting with no public agenda and no access to the public media is an insult to democracy.

The nature of the discussion is weighed heavily in favour of economic issues to the detriment of social ones. If migration, ecological issues, labour issues or human rights issues are discussed, the discussion proceeds within an economic frame of reference, ignoring the un-quantifiable social problems or evironmental degradation as "externalities". This creates the problem of an inadequate focus on issues that cannot be addressed in purely economic terms. As such, the Forum ignores a great many concerns that are not economic in nature.

First of all, there are already social and ecological issues in the Pacific that merit immediate attention. Foreign interests have been responsible for dispossession of indigenous tribes and ecological damage in a number of Pacific states such as Solomon Islands, Bouganville and Papua New Guinea. It is likewise a matter of course in Australia and New Zealand as well as dialogue partners such as Indonesia. Further liberalisation of trade barriers will grant additional rights to transnational corporations to quite literally strip mine away the mineral wealth of the region. As it has been the case with market reform all over the world as well as the Pacific, transnational corporations are allowed by local authority to pollute, hire private militias, confiscate customary land, destroy ecological habitats, displace indigenous populations and force primitive indigenous populations to abandon local culture in favour of integration into capitalist economic systems.

One of the items likely to be discussed on the agenda is an introduction of a single governing and trading body akin to the EU into the South Pacific. A single currency has also been suggested. It is interesting to note that similar free trade measures elsewhere in the world have only served to exacerbate poverty and strife, making the poorer nations entirely dependent on the richer.

A series of economic and trade reforms are generally agreed on as a prerequisite for creating a regional trading bloc. These follow the recommendations of international financial institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. These reforms are centered around the free access of foreign interests to elements of the national economy.

The power of the state is stripped away as basic services, national industries and government infrastructure is privatized. In effect, the functions of the state tend to become like that of a police apparatus for corporate interests, where national armies are deployed to quell civilian unrest over confiscation of customary land (as is the case with West Papua, Bougainville, Solomon Islands, Aceh and a number of other states). Occasionally, foreign states with interests in the area offer police and military support to intervene on the side of the state against popular social, justice and environmental movements. The market liberalization of New Zealand of the 1980s (the so-called "Rogernomics") have resulted in declining standards of living and creation of a serious unemployment problems as well as a rise in crime linked to poverty.

Ecological problems are manifold. Massive environmental concessions are granted to transnationals. Pollution controls are either more lax or nonexistent, allowing foreign enterprise to move polluting plants offshore and to develop resources to the detriment of the natural environment. Agriculture is reoriented around mass production of cash crops over subsistence crops, leading to soil erosion, habitat destruction, loss of biodiversity, and pollution through overuse of agricultural chemicals such as pesticides and herbicides. Agricultural reform of this kind has also resulted in famines in states formerly able to support themselves in terms of food, since extensive cash crop plantations tend to be less productive than small-scale intensive agriculture. It is worthwhile to note that 90% of the native forest in New Zealand has been lost to such modes of agricultural and industrial development.

As cash crop agriculture expands in order to satisfy the state's need for funds, land is concentrated in the hands of fewer and fewer landowners. The indigenous population is usually forced to move to the cities, resulting in urban slums which serve as a pool of labourers willing to offer themselves to transnationals at a bargain price. These conditions give rise to a situation where sweatshops, child labour and forced labour become the norm rather than the exception. Quite a number of dialogue partners engaged in the Forum allow such labour practices, in the US, the total income of the 32 private prison corporations surpasses that of the top 10 Fortune 500 companies.

A casual study of market liberalization measures will typically uncover a similar pattern. Loans and development programs are sponsored by the IMF and the World Bank on the condition that recipients undergo a structural adjustment program (SAP). SAPs involve opening access to foreign investment and the privatisation of public services. Some which are recognised as universal human rights - water, education, health care and so on - are being privatised in New Zealand right now. These measures result in greater control of foreign interests over domestic affairs of the recipient states. The loans earmarked for development are frequently mis-spent (sometimes on military occupation), embezzled by corrupt authorities and otherwise mishandled for the benefit of the autocratic commercial and governmental elites of the recipient countries. Since poorer countries find themselves at a disadvantage with smaller pools of capital, they become more and more dependent on foreign investment and aid. Frequently the financial situation becomes so disastrous that debtor states are unable to even pay the interest on loans. This results in the IMF demanding the imposition of austerity measures - destruction of essential public services. Argentina, a once a model of free market reform, has now defaulted on a US$146 billion IMF loan. The destruction of the national economy and existing social fabric is by no means unique to Argentina, however.

As state power declines and the state becomes primarily reliant on transnational corporations as the driving force of the local economy, relative autonomy or self-government (whether some semblance of a democracy or an autocracy) declines. Institutions are taken over by transnationals, and transnationals have more influence on government policy. Since transnational corporations are autocratic institutions with a small number of people with a determining say in their running, democratic institutions (where they exist at all) are taken over by autocratic ones. This policy of integrating local economies into a global one at the expense of the local population has become so insiduous and prevalent that it is now commonly referred to as neo-colonialism.

These problems are exacerbated by an abhorrent human rights and colonial records of the attendees. Australia and New Zealand - the primary sponsors of the deal - have aided Indonesia on its colonial campaigns such as the one in East Timor by training and supplying Indonesian troops. France, the USA and the UK have all used the Pacific for their nuclear research programmes - contaminating thousands of people in the region. The colonial relationship of Indonesia to its minorities cannot be ignored as a factor, especially when the beneficiaries of Indonesian colonialism are all too often US, UK or Australian transnationals. France, US and UK are still major colonial presences. Free market reform typically means local colonial powers like Indonesia may serve as a reward for the ruling elite by granting increased access to funds - which can then be spent on maintaining control of minorities by force. There is also principled opposition to these measures that is based on the premise that such encouragement and inclusion of autocratic states is tacit approval of their current colonial claims and an endorsement of their human rights violations.

It is nearly impossible to adequately address issues so large and complex as free market reform, neo-colonialism and their effects on societies without oversimplifying or getting lost in the details. However, the history of market capitalism and its accompanying process of economic globalization is rife with the destruction of human societies and the natural environment. The injustices of this process has led people the world over to question, protest and then acively resist the tide of economic globalization sweeping the world.

Call to Action

Global Peace and Justice Auckland [Link: http://www.gpja.pl.net] have called for a picket of the forum on at 8:30 on the morning of Saturday 16th of August, the time of the Leaders' meeting.

[Appendix A - Press Release Information]

WHAT: Protest against the 34th Pacific Islands Forum
WHERE: At the Sheraton Hotel, Symonds St., Auckland
WHEN: 08:30 am, Saturday, 16th of August, 2003
WHO: Announced by Global Peace and Justice Auckland [contact deatils @ http://www.GPJA.pl.net/ ]
WHY: To raise awareness of current social issues in the Pacific that are not properly addressed by the forum.

[Appendix B]

Dirty deeds done dirt cheap - Some of the Forum's winners and losers

Australia:
* Aborigine genocide
* Operation Iraqi Quagmire
* mandatory illegal detention of refugees at Woomera and Baxter camps
* spies on all its neighbours via its Echelon stations at Pine Gap and
* nuclear tests in the desert (Maralinga and other sites)
* propping up an unpopular regime in the Solomon Islands, Afghanistan
* still itself a British dominion

Bougainville:
* environmental devastation following Australian development

China:
* largest forced labour camp system in the world
* kids forced to make fireworks in school (and other sweatshops)

Fiji:
* propping up an unpopular regime in the Solomon Islands

France:
* colonized New Caledonia (Kanaky), French Polynesia (Society Islands, Tahiti, Tuamoto Archipelago, Tahiti, Marquesas Islands)
* nuclear tests in the South Pacific

Indonesia:
* colonized Aceh, East Timor, Moluccas, West Papua

Malaysia:
* yet more sweatshops

New Zealand:
* spies on its neighbours via Echelon network
* Operation Iraqi Quagmire
* propping up an unpopular regime in the Solomon Islands, Afghanistan
* suppressing a popular movement in Bouganville
* still itself a British dominion

Phillipines:
* even more sweatshops

Solomon Islands:
* environmental devastation following Australian development

Papua New Guinea:
* propping up an unpopular regime in the Solomon Islands
* environmental devastation following Australian development
* suppressing a popular movement in Bougainville

Tonga:
* suppression of free press by the monarchy

UK:
* nuclear tests in the desert in Australia
* Operation Iraqi Quagmire

USA:
* the war on terrorism
* wants nuke ships in New Zealand as a part of the war on terrorism
* Operation Iraqi Quagmire
* colonized American Samoa, Marshall Islands
* nuclear tests
* the US president's nuclear bunker is in Guam
* spies on the region via Echelon stations in New Zealand and Australia

[
direct info on
http://www.vic-info.org/InternationalOrganizations/IO-PIF.htm
http://www.forumsec.org.fj/
]

Port Moresby;Five students shot in the back by high powered assault rifles while running away.No police held accountable yet after two years.More recently we have seen the appalling abuse of dolphins in the Solomons and the takeover of Nauru by the CIA and HoWARd puppet government.Not happy John.

Far from being the creation of a broad sphere of Australian influence in the Pacific region, watch instead phase two of the uncoupling of Australia from influence into assured steepening decline. Phase one was our role in the Iraq war alongside the Gestapo USA Administration.

As steep financial costs and burdens of extended infrastructure obligations are imposed on Australia diminishing economic capacity - Australia's minor power status will become evident. Through overextending beyond its shores, at a time of rapidly rising social and economic tensions at home, the discontent growing against Canberra's hollow reasoning will create blowback it hasn't even considered, or has but chosen to ignore.

Loss of influence and power in Canberra is assured if the present sticky road is adhered to as a solution to the problems in this region. Severe rising domestic discontent, and calculated external reactions to Canberra's territorial campaign, will drain political and economic capacity of Canberra to deal with the crescendo of inevitable mess looming from this cockchafer infestation.

The current exercise of reformatting the colonial siezure model of Pacific Island States, is a sure path towards imploding this country's complicity by crooked political, financier and corporate guerilla's as they bludgeon there way to an imagined Greater Pacific Shangrila.

Cryptome has had some exellent aerial shots of various spy and military bases in the USA and the UK.I have written to ask them to cover us and NZ if possible.We need to take some of these Echelon,omega,etc sites out.