Australia in the Pacific
Pacified Pacific: the strings attached
Tom Hyland
November 5, 2006
THERE'S a new quiz being played in the Pacific and it goes like this: which Pacific nation has been identified by al-Qaeda as a target?
In which Pacific nation have terrorist cells been identified? Citizens of which Pacific nation have been charged with terrorist-related offences? So where in the Pacific does the terrorist threat come from?
The answer in each case is Australia, says Steven Ratuva, a Fijian academic and media commentator.
The questions are being increasingly asked around the Pacific, he says, in reaction to what's seen as the assumed superiority in Australia's assertive role in preventing its small neighbours becoming breeding grounds for security threats, including terrorism.
While the questions are raised partly in jest, Dr Ratuva insists the underlying issue is no joke.
"It's one of the arguments raised by people around the Pacific," he says. "It's a way of trying to balance things, to counter this talk that the Pacific nations are some sort of 'arc of instability'."
Amid last week's coup fears, Fiji has re-emerged as the eastern end of that arc, which its proponents say stretches across the Pacific to the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea, ending in the Indian Ocean, where East Timor forms its shaky western anchor.
"The problems in Fiji are just symptomatic of problems across the Pacific," says Susan Windybank, foreign policy research fellow at the Centre for Independent Studies. "The arc of instability is just living up to its name." It's also now become, she says, Australia's "arc of responsibility".
As Fiji resurfaced on Australia's strategic radar, with the stand-off between the Fijian Government and its armed forces having raised fears of the fourth coup in 20 years, Australia responded with stern words — and the dispatch of warships.
While the ships were a precaution, with the stated role of evacuating Australians if necessary, they also signalled Canberra's displeasure with threats by military commander Commodore Frank Bainimarama against Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase.
Prime Minister John Howard warned at the height of the stand-off last week: "Australia would view any extra-constitutional moves in Fiji with the utmost seriousness and is taking steps to be prepared to respond appropriately to possible developments."
But as the arc of instability stretches, Australia's capacity to respond may be over-stretched.
In East Timor, more than 900 Australian troops are unable to restore confidence in a community traumatised by the disintegration of security and where the Government is paralysed and impotent.
In PNG, Australian efforts to help rebuild government institutions, restore law and order and end corruption through an enhanced co-operation program, which would have seen Australian police and officials based in Port Moresby, are on hold after being declared unconstitutional.
In the meantime, Port Moresby and Canberra confront an unprecedented diplomatic rift.
And efforts to rebuild the Solomon Islands — Australia's most ambitious and costly exercise in the Pacific — are in jeopardy, with Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare threatening to expel Australian participants in the regional assistance mission, know as RAMSI, to which Australian has committed $800 million.
RAMSI, launched in 2003, marked the end of what had been a long-standing Australian approach to its Pacific neighbours in which Canberra had given aid but, determined not to be seen to infringe on their sovereignty, had left them to sort out their own problems.
The effective collapse of the Solomon Islands as a functioning state changed that.
A 2003 report by the Government-backed Australian Strategic Policy Institute foreshadowed the change in approach, warning that Australia could not stand back while the Solomons became "a petri dish in which transnational and non-state security threats can develop and breed".
The risk, according to the Strategic Policy Institute, was that the Solomons could become the centre for gun-running, drug-smuggling, "perhaps even terrorism", and that these problems could "prove contagious to other countries in the region".
The institute's report outlined the structure that RAMSI would ultimately take — an international security force to restore law and order, followed by rebuilding state institutions, with foreign officials playing key roles.
The Solomons, it said, would shape how Australia approached the wider region.
To a large extent, this is what has happened. Where Australia once gave generous aid then adopted a hands-off approach, aid now comes with strings attached.
Mr Howard reiterated that approach last month. "If you want Australian aid, you've got to reduce corruption. If you want Australian aid, you've got to improve governance," he said. "We have every right to attach conditions to the provision of our aid … It's not a question of forcing countries to do things — it's a question of defending the operation of the rule of law in Australia."
But allegations of heavy-handed Australian interference are prompting critics to ask if Canberra has heeded another warning in the 2003 ASPI report — that a more assertive role carries risks for Australia, and it needs to "avoid the perils and mistakes of neo-colonialism".
Dr Ronald May, an expert on PNG at the Australian National University, disputes the whole "arc of instability" thesis. And in adopting a more assertive role, he says Canberra has underestimated the difficulties of the task and has bungled the diplomacy.
He cites Australia's "clumsy" and "belligerent" attempts to extradite Solomon Islands Attorney-General Julian Moti to Australia on child-sex charges, which ended up with Australia engaged in a major diplomatic row not only with the Solomons but with PNG Prime Minister Michael Somare.
"It is in our interests that things go smoothly in the Pacific," Dr May says. "We can't control it. But we are losing what influence we should have, I think, by a series of aggressive, insensitive actions. We are seen to be telling people what to do, and frequently we are. We are coming out with patronising comments.
"There are good grounds for people like Somare to be … saying things like 'Australia is acting like a colonial master, Australia is being a bully'."
In his work at the University of the South Pacific in Fiji, Dr Ratuva detects growing resentment in the Pacific at Australia's "new missionary approach", where it is seen to be wanting to force values on people it regards as inferior. "The local perception has been that maybe Australia is looking down on them and imposing its will on them," he says.
Susan Windybank disputes the neo-colonial tag as a red herring, saying it is mostly used by corrupt political elites who have most to lose from Australian demands that they be accountable.
She says the Federal Government has the right to reassure Australian taxpayers that aid money is being well spent. "There's a broader message, too, and I support this, that the Australian Government has drawn a line in the sand — enough is enough, and you guys have to clean up your act," she says. "The interesting thing is, although the Pacific elites want Australia out of their country, the people want it to stay."
This, however, risks creating a separate problem — a dependence on Australia which, in turn, could breed resentment. And as the arc stretches from East Timor to Fiji, Ms Windybank sees risk in Australia's growing responsibilities: "I think we do run the risk of being over-stretched. I think perhaps we have bitten off more than we can chew."
To read the original article from The Age, click on:
The Age
Tom Hyland
November 5, 2006
THERE'S a new quiz being played in the Pacific and it goes like this: which Pacific nation has been identified by al-Qaeda as a target?
In which Pacific nation have terrorist cells been identified? Citizens of which Pacific nation have been charged with terrorist-related offences? So where in the Pacific does the terrorist threat come from?
The answer in each case is Australia, says Steven Ratuva, a Fijian academic and media commentator.
The questions are being increasingly asked around the Pacific, he says, in reaction to what's seen as the assumed superiority in Australia's assertive role in preventing its small neighbours becoming breeding grounds for security threats, including terrorism.
While the questions are raised partly in jest, Dr Ratuva insists the underlying issue is no joke.
"It's one of the arguments raised by people around the Pacific," he says. "It's a way of trying to balance things, to counter this talk that the Pacific nations are some sort of 'arc of instability'."
Amid last week's coup fears, Fiji has re-emerged as the eastern end of that arc, which its proponents say stretches across the Pacific to the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea, ending in the Indian Ocean, where East Timor forms its shaky western anchor.
"The problems in Fiji are just symptomatic of problems across the Pacific," says Susan Windybank, foreign policy research fellow at the Centre for Independent Studies. "The arc of instability is just living up to its name." It's also now become, she says, Australia's "arc of responsibility".
As Fiji resurfaced on Australia's strategic radar, with the stand-off between the Fijian Government and its armed forces having raised fears of the fourth coup in 20 years, Australia responded with stern words — and the dispatch of warships.
While the ships were a precaution, with the stated role of evacuating Australians if necessary, they also signalled Canberra's displeasure with threats by military commander Commodore Frank Bainimarama against Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase.
Prime Minister John Howard warned at the height of the stand-off last week: "Australia would view any extra-constitutional moves in Fiji with the utmost seriousness and is taking steps to be prepared to respond appropriately to possible developments."
But as the arc of instability stretches, Australia's capacity to respond may be over-stretched.
In East Timor, more than 900 Australian troops are unable to restore confidence in a community traumatised by the disintegration of security and where the Government is paralysed and impotent.
In PNG, Australian efforts to help rebuild government institutions, restore law and order and end corruption through an enhanced co-operation program, which would have seen Australian police and officials based in Port Moresby, are on hold after being declared unconstitutional.
In the meantime, Port Moresby and Canberra confront an unprecedented diplomatic rift.
And efforts to rebuild the Solomon Islands — Australia's most ambitious and costly exercise in the Pacific — are in jeopardy, with Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare threatening to expel Australian participants in the regional assistance mission, know as RAMSI, to which Australian has committed $800 million.
RAMSI, launched in 2003, marked the end of what had been a long-standing Australian approach to its Pacific neighbours in which Canberra had given aid but, determined not to be seen to infringe on their sovereignty, had left them to sort out their own problems.
The effective collapse of the Solomon Islands as a functioning state changed that.
A 2003 report by the Government-backed Australian Strategic Policy Institute foreshadowed the change in approach, warning that Australia could not stand back while the Solomons became "a petri dish in which transnational and non-state security threats can develop and breed".
The risk, according to the Strategic Policy Institute, was that the Solomons could become the centre for gun-running, drug-smuggling, "perhaps even terrorism", and that these problems could "prove contagious to other countries in the region".
The institute's report outlined the structure that RAMSI would ultimately take — an international security force to restore law and order, followed by rebuilding state institutions, with foreign officials playing key roles.
The Solomons, it said, would shape how Australia approached the wider region.
To a large extent, this is what has happened. Where Australia once gave generous aid then adopted a hands-off approach, aid now comes with strings attached.
Mr Howard reiterated that approach last month. "If you want Australian aid, you've got to reduce corruption. If you want Australian aid, you've got to improve governance," he said. "We have every right to attach conditions to the provision of our aid … It's not a question of forcing countries to do things — it's a question of defending the operation of the rule of law in Australia."
But allegations of heavy-handed Australian interference are prompting critics to ask if Canberra has heeded another warning in the 2003 ASPI report — that a more assertive role carries risks for Australia, and it needs to "avoid the perils and mistakes of neo-colonialism".
Dr Ronald May, an expert on PNG at the Australian National University, disputes the whole "arc of instability" thesis. And in adopting a more assertive role, he says Canberra has underestimated the difficulties of the task and has bungled the diplomacy.
He cites Australia's "clumsy" and "belligerent" attempts to extradite Solomon Islands Attorney-General Julian Moti to Australia on child-sex charges, which ended up with Australia engaged in a major diplomatic row not only with the Solomons but with PNG Prime Minister Michael Somare.
"It is in our interests that things go smoothly in the Pacific," Dr May says. "We can't control it. But we are losing what influence we should have, I think, by a series of aggressive, insensitive actions. We are seen to be telling people what to do, and frequently we are. We are coming out with patronising comments.
"There are good grounds for people like Somare to be … saying things like 'Australia is acting like a colonial master, Australia is being a bully'."
In his work at the University of the South Pacific in Fiji, Dr Ratuva detects growing resentment in the Pacific at Australia's "new missionary approach", where it is seen to be wanting to force values on people it regards as inferior. "The local perception has been that maybe Australia is looking down on them and imposing its will on them," he says.
Susan Windybank disputes the neo-colonial tag as a red herring, saying it is mostly used by corrupt political elites who have most to lose from Australian demands that they be accountable.
She says the Federal Government has the right to reassure Australian taxpayers that aid money is being well spent. "There's a broader message, too, and I support this, that the Australian Government has drawn a line in the sand — enough is enough, and you guys have to clean up your act," she says. "The interesting thing is, although the Pacific elites want Australia out of their country, the people want it to stay."
This, however, risks creating a separate problem — a dependence on Australia which, in turn, could breed resentment. And as the arc stretches from East Timor to Fiji, Ms Windybank sees risk in Australia's growing responsibilities: "I think we do run the risk of being over-stretched. I think perhaps we have bitten off more than we can chew."
To read the original article from The Age, click on:
The Age
posted by Pax Christi @ Sunday, November 05, 2006
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