Warning from envoy on absence from treaty

Press, 14 March 1987, Page 3

Warning from envoy on absence from treaty

New Zealand’s absence from the A.N.Z.U.S. partnership could unleash a movement which would undermine international collective defence arrangements, said the United States Ambassador to New Zealand, Mr Paul Cleveland, in Oamaru last evening. Mr Cleveland’s comments to the annual Lions Clubs’ convention followed recent calls by the retiring United States Secretary for the Navy, Mr John Lehman, to “isolate New Zealand’s antinuclear disease” by shifting the United States Naval Support Force Antarctic operations from Christchurch to Tasmania. Mr Lehman’s address has since been described by the State Department and the United States Embassy as a private view.

Mr Cleveland was in a conciliatory mood last evening as he described

New Zealand as “a close partner” of the United States with a valuable role in the Pacific basin.

"The implications of the A.N.Z.U.S. rift have always been more serious for the United States than many New Zealanders seem to realise, or openly concede. Some see this country as small. Some assert, quite incorrectly, that you had little influence in A.N.Z.U.S. Few see New Zealand as unleashing a movement which could undermine our world-wide collective defences.

“When a partner as close as you have been pulls out of the collective security arrangement, the health, unity and interests of the entire arrangement are diminished and the psychological and material fabric of Western strength is weakened.” The alteration of security ties was not a vital

tear which jeopardised Pacific and global security but it was a serious rift, “one which we deeply regret and would like to repair,” Mr Cleveland said. No-one in the United States Government had or would impinge on New Zealand sovereignty or the country’s right to make its own choices. “At the same time, however, we will express our opinions on matters that affect us. My contention is that inter-dependence is essential to Western survival. We miss the New Zealand connection. Your absence diminishes us. Can you thrive without being a full partner in the Western and Pacific network of alliances?

“It may be possible for New Zealand to set conditions which effectively exclude it from the West’s collective security arrangements. But we cannot — nor have any other

of our allies chosen to do so.” “Do you stop untoward events by not wanting to hear of them or denying that they exist? Are the costs of participating in alliances really so high? Can you realistically cease being a full participant in security issues and expect in the long term to be treated as well as you have been by the other alliance partners? What will those costs be? “It does no good to wrap oneself in a blanket of morality and decry evil. One has to choose a more specific path, realising that the goal cannot be reached tomorrow,” Mr Cleveland said.

“In doing so, most other Western and Pacific nations have followed Damon Runyon’s advice — that the race may not always go to the swift nor the fight to the strong but that’s the way to bet.”