Military still feeling impact of nuclear ban

Press, 7 September 1989, Page 6

Military still feeling impact of nuclear ban

By

BRENDON BURNS

in Wellington

Five years after the anti-nuclear ban was imposed, military staff are still feeling the impact. The Ministry of Defence annual report, tabled yesterday in Parliament, said the A.N.Z.U.S. impasse had adversely affected the quality of overseas training available.

It also warns of the prospect of continued instability in the South Pacific.

Resignations from the armed forces continue to create problems, said the report. Recruitment of R.N.Z.A.F. pilots by civilian airlines showed no sign of slowing. Only the requirement that pilots spent eight

years with the R.N.Z.A.F. allowed the training of replacement pilots within existing capacity. Experience levels for R.N.Z.A.F. air crew were lower than was desirable.

For the Navy, two operational patrol craft were placed in reserve during the year owing to the lack of suitably qualified personnel to operate them.

Reasons given for quitting the Navy included dissatisfaction with pay and uncertainty' about superannuation.

The Defence report said a degree of uncertainty existed about the stability of some countries in the South Pacific.

ijhe Vanuatu crisis in My and the attempted coup there in December

provided further evidence that constitutional models and administrative systems inherited at the time of independence are under increasing strain.”

The secessionist movement in . Bougainville, Papua New Guinea, is said to further confirm a trend to the use of violence to advance sectional or personal ambitions.

While the Matignon Accord is seen to have provided a welcome framework for. ad vancement in New Caledonia, the report warned that extremists might seek to disrupt this. "Contingencies that might require a response by New Zealand could arise out of such situation,'’ said the Deface report.