Keeping Melanesian spirit alive

WHEN, in 1981, the Papua New Guinea parliament responded favourably to a request for military intervention by Vanuatu’s young prime minister Fr Walter Lini and made its first decision ever to send its soldiers to war on foreign soil, much of the rest of the world, including Australia and New Zealand who were largely subsidising the PNG Defence Force, scoffed at the decision.
The Kumul Force’s successful intervention in the secessionist uprising by rebel Jimmy Stevens on the island of Espirito Santo was referred to in official documents as the “coconut war”, maybe in re­ference to coconuts suffering more casualties than humans there or, perhaps, because the aging PNG DC3s flew at coconut palm top level going into Port Vila.
Whatever other governments might have thought of the intervention, what mattered most was the government that asked for assistance and got it – the government and people of Vanuatu.
The Kumul Force’s successful crushing of the rebellion has engendered trust, confidence and friendship between the people of PNG and Vanuatu that has held for decades.
The main boulevard in Port Vila was renamed the Kumul in honour.
The then prime minister who made the decision to send PNG troops abroad, Sir Julius Chan, glowing from the success of the mission, proposed a Pacific Peace Keeping Force at the time, comprising elite elements from the region’s defence forces to stand in readiness to address issues such as happened on Espirito Santo.
He never got it.
Again, the idea was scoffed at and a perfectly grand scheme was forgotten.
After the Fiji coup, which PNG recognised immediately as an “internal issue” for Fiji to resolve and following PNG’s own Bougainville uprising and similar secessionist tendencies in the Solomon Islands, Australia suddenly thought a regional force was a grand idea – its idea.
That was how the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (Ramsi) came about.
It is certain that an element of Ramsi might be retained well into the future, under an amended more regionally representative sounding name, of course.
This is important in an era of global security tensions created by international terrorism and by transnational crime, drug and human smuggling.
Intra-island business and trade too have received much lip service but not much activity for a long time.
Most of what business or investment could be done was conducted with the two bigger economies south of the border.
The Melanesian Spearhead Group was formalised into existence in 1987 as a fledgling group of young Melanesian governments as an initiative of former prime minister Paias Wingti and then foreign secretary Bill Dihm. There were proponents and radical supporters waiting on the wings who wanted to see a far greater movement spreading from the Indonesian province of West Papua to cover FLNKS (kanaky) and all the Melanesian governments in between.
West Papua and FLNKS are observers still but the group has slowly picked up momentum and is now gathering steam with PNG and Fiji at the helm.
There is now far greater and unimpeded flow of labour and free trade within the region.
PNG has dropped tariff against all except three items from Fiji.
Free flow of labour and expertise will be next with far less work permit and visa restrictions, prime ministers Peter O’Neill and Frank Bainimarama agreed last weekend.
Investment by local companies throughout the MSG is now increasing in the areas of communications and information technology, banking and tourism and hospitality.
Investments by Bank South Pacific, Nasfund and the Lamana Group now extend throughout the MSG region. With the latest foray by the Mineral Resources Development Company with Mineral Resources Kutubu and Petroleum Resources Kutubu, PNG now has a major stake in the hotel and hospitality industry in Fiji.
It is a coming of age by island neighbours, albeit unheralded and perhaps way too early to blow the trumpet, but the metaphorical writing is definitely on the wall.
Time for the two bigger economies of the region to take a far greater interest and respect the regional initiatives and moves, for small as they might be, they will not stop here.