U.S., France ‘Bulls in Pacific china shop’

Press, 13 November 1985, Page 14

U.S., France ‘Bulls in Pacific china shop’

By

ANDREW KRUGER

AAP correspondent New York An independent report commissioned by the State Department says French colonial intransigence and rigid American policies are the main source of instability in the South Pacific. It challenges directly repeated Reagan Administration warnings, issued by officials such as the American Secretary of State, Mr Shultz, about a Soviet threat in the region. The report, which was completed last December, minimises the potential for Soviet political and military penetration of the South Pacific.

It rejects Western suggestions that island States such as Kiribati, Vanuatu, or the Solomon Islands would necessarily be vulnerable to exploitation should they accept a larger Soviet commercial presence ■in their region. L : Australian Associated Press obtained a copy of the report through the Massa-chusetts-based Nautilus Research Centre, an independent non-profit organisation.

The report was commissioned by the State Department to evaluate “the Soviet potential to exploit island vulnerabilities primarily in pursuit of global balance of power factors.” A Nautilus researcher, Peter Hayes, said today: “The report shows that while the United States says that the Soviets are the bull in the South Pacific china shop, in fact it is the United States itself and its close ally France, who are the bulls. “Although the report recognises that the West is responsible for most of the instability in the South Pacific, and admits that there is no evidence that the Soviets have exploited this instability, it still argues that the United States should aim for total denial of Soviet access to the region. “The notion that the U.S. or Australia and New Zealand can dictate who the islanders will even talk to or trade with, is clearly a hangover from the colonial era, now overlaid with the rhetoric of the new cold war.

“This kind of thinking masks the intent of the United States to lean more heavily on Australia to police the region and to unilaterally build up its own

presence in the region.” The report says: “In no other major area of the world is the U.S.S.R. so completely without friends, access, cfr influence.” While the authors, two highly-respected Pacific affairs experts, Robert Kiste and R.A. Herr, assume that under the right conditions the Soviets would seek to involve themselves in regional affairs, Moscow’s present access is limited to a minor aid network which has been largely rebuffed. They concluded that the U.S.S.R. had been shut out diplomatically in the South Pacific and faced ports closed to Soviet vessels since December, 1979, as a result of the Afghanistan invasion. The report also notes that because the United States, Australia and New Zealand, wanted to keep the Russians out altogether, rather than, as in other regions, seeking to limit their penetration, the A.N.Z.U.S. parties tended to exaggerate sensitivities about any Soviet contact with any island State.

Looking at the main sources of regional instability, the report says: “By any rational and objective assessment, it is clear that France has created the greatest opportunities for Eastern Bloc penetration.. .French attitudes on decolonisation have banked up frustrations which have found outlets in Libya and Cuba.” It cites rigid American aid practices, import quotas, hard-line attitudes towards regional or islander marine resource regulation, enthusiasm for free enterprise and nuclear warships as factors generating antagonism towards the United States. The report asserts that the islands are vulnerable to external pressure because of their very insularity and associated remoteness, and lack of economic resources. At the same time it notes that each of those putative weaknesses also reduces potential external security threats to the region.

The authors find that the islanders in their insularity have no borders, do not attract resource-hungry predators, and are distant from great Power rivalry. Their report adds that domestic political instability arising from poor economic prospects is the main threat to security in the eyes of the island leaders.

Rather than Soviet meddling, the report says: “One could make the case to show the Soviets and/or their surrogates have not so much exploited an area of island vulnerability, as being given an opportunity by the islands’ Western friends.” The report is quite explicit about the spectre of Soviet expansionism, saying: “There is little evidence that either the U.S.SJL or the possible Soviet surrogates have actively probed to find such opportunistic occasions for exploitation.” It says that any competent foreign service “deliberately seeking to expand its influence in such a vulnerable region” would not have been held back.

In examining the hysteria generated by the State Department over Soviet negotiations for fishing rights in the South Pacific, the report emphasises that the Soviets are doing exactly what the United States has previously refused to do. They are offering to pay for fishing rights within 200 nautical-mile economic zones. As an example of rigid American policies presenting opportunities to the Soviets, the report cites the case of the Solomon Elands, which in June, 1984, seized an American tuna boat fishing illegally within its economic zone. Washington immediately

blocked all exports from the Solomon Islands to the United States under legislation which automatically punishes a Pacific Island State regardless of the legality of its actions against American tuna poachers. The report also says: “As with former New Zealand Prime Minister Robert Muldoon’s defence of his fisheries agreement with Moscow, there is a tendency to believe the asymmetrical relationship is manageable between the Eastern superpower and a small Western State, but not between the U.S.SJI. and a Third World micro-State.” The report disputes that conclusion by emphasising that every relationship between an island State and an external party is asymmetrical and thus normal.