Bruised mangos
BY Kelly Chandler Signature | March 2005 http://spinach7.com/signature/sig-stories.php?id=365 (Kelly Chandler is a journalist trainer with 'The Independent' in Port Vila.) Late last year the prime minister of Vanuatu surprised the region, and his own ministers, by opening diplomatic relations with Taiwan. For a country reliant on foreign aid, thumbing its nose at the one China policy was a risky move. But in Vanuatu � where the floorboards of parliament are shiny from all the crossings � it was all in a day's politics, writes KELLY CHANDLER from Port Vila. It seemed harmless enough: a slightly pixellated image of Vanuatu's beleaguered former prime minister slouched in his chair in parliament, surrounded by empty chairs, clear desks and shiny floorboards. Like a wet flag, drama after drama clung to Serge Vohor in the final days of his rule, and his decisions were becoming more erratic. We put the photo of him alone on the front cover of Vanuatu's weekly newspaper The Independent to symbolise his increasing isolation. In retaliation, Vohor's appointees banned all Independent staff and employees from entering parliament. I mustered some journalistic indignation and as the words "Censorship! Interference with the press!" left my lips, I noticed how clich�d they must have sounded to the reporters toeing their thongs in our news conference. My editor shrugged his shoulders. At some time in their careers most journalists in Vanuatu have felt the heat of interventionist governments. Everything moves slowly here. Nobody runs for anything � not for an escaped umbrella rolling across the seafront, not the thief leaving a nightclub with someone else's wallet, not the alligator-sized gecko called Mr President who lives in the recesses of our home. You can see it all coming at you, but you're so slowed down by the heat and bureaucracy that you just wait for it to come � just like the constitutional crisis that almost befell the country late last year. After securing office in July 2004, Vohor moved to introduce a raft of new legislation, including constitutional changes that would prevent politicians from crossing the floor and make it impossible to eject a government for two years of each four-year term. Everyone sort of just, well, watched him push the changes through parliament. Technically he should have put them to a referendum, but he got them signed by the president and gazetted, and nobody really thought he'd get the chance to use them before a referendum was called anyway. There was a bit of hooharring, but no pitbull attorney general, no vocal ombudsman, no outraged think tanks and no constitutional lawyers to tap him on the shoulder and say "Excuse me, have you gone completely mad?" Just a handful of journalists and an editor who said simply that Vohor couldn't change these laws without a referendum so let him have his bluster, it would make good news if he tried. The chances were he wouldn't be in power for long. Instability is the new black in Vanuatu. The floorboards of parliament are shiny from all the crossings, and motions of no confidence are passed like recurrent bouts of the runs. Traditional structures of accountability, maintained through the indigenous chiefly system, have been warped by missionaries and close to a century of joint colonial rule by the French and British, known as the years of pandemonium. Since the country gained independence in 1980, post-colonial democracy has struggled to its feet, but it is weighed down by nepotism and bribery. Vohor himself survived his first censure motion only one month after coming to office. The first sign of Vohor's impending demise came in November when he flew Clandestine Air to Taiwan and signed a deal to open diplomatic relations with the rebel province/country. The prime minister was photographed drinking post-memorandum champagne in honour of the new relationship, and there were various, conflicting, reports about the amount of money that would flow from the alliance. Many said the amount of aid would financially eclipse Vanuatu's existing donor relationships. When Vohor flew home he brought with him a Taiwanese delegation that set itself up in one of the plush seaside resorts. "We want to work with both China and Taiwan together in our country in the Melanesian spirit of solidarity. Their fight has nothing to do with us and we want to be friends with both countries because we need the money," said Vohor upon his return from Taiwan, before taking himself quickly to his home island of Santo. "Vanuatu is a Christian country and we want everyone to come here. We have Melanesian custom values. When people have problems we must solve them. That is our way. If we can have a system where we are friends with both countries it will help Vanuatu. We want to unite people. This is a big issue. I am not interested in other countries only Vanuatu," Vohor said. He remained in Santo and out of contact for more than a week, while his council of ministers, the media and primary aid donors lined up for a "please explain". In his absence, the council of ministers raised the one China flags on their bikes and backpeddled all the way to the Chinese embassy. China puffed up, froze all its existing projects and declared indignantly that the 18 luxury cars ordered by the prime minister would not be delivered unless Vohor extinguished the Taiwanese communiqu� and bowed to the one China policy. The Taiwanese flag was raised and lowered outside the plush resort several times, each time with more fervour and more senior involvement � the foreign minister Barak Sope even ordered the flag to be lowered and days later, Sope found himself reshuffled to a less senior ministry. Sope �convicted and jailed for forgery, pardoned by the former president a year ago and now back in a ministry � refused to pack up and move out of his office, and for a while there were two foreign ministers. Perhaps there was some master plan in the making, to be revealed when the prime minister finally faced the growing chorus of concern from his unruly alliances. There were reports trickling in that politicians' family members were attempting to change large sums of US currency at the banks in Port Vila � sums so large they would have to be reported to the Reserve Bank. The Chinese embassy was whispering chequebook diplomacy into the media's ear, alleging the prime minister was motivated by personal gain. Over the coming weeks in the kava bars at dusk our reporters were told that politicians of all stripes were offered cash incentives from both China and Taiwan to sway allegiances. Vanuatu is a country where international aid is considered by the finance department as a primary source of income; where a giant cheque can solve a giant budget shortfall. Australia, which supplies more than half Vanuatu's aid each year and has earmarked AUD$31 million for 2004�5, was not amused. Relations had soured since August when Vohor labelled Australian volunteers and advisers "spies" and kicked the Australian Federal Police out of the country. After the political situation in Vanuatu had stewed for a few months like bruised mangos in the tropical heat, a high-powered delegation from AusAID and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade was dispatched to Port Vila with an ultimatum that used keywords like "good governance" and "transparency" and the "rule of law". "Without reaffirmation from the government of Vanuatu of these core principles, including their full implementation through the government's legislative and administrative actions, the Australian government will review the full range of Australia's bilateral relations with Vanuatu, including the aid program," the officials said. Australia offered AUD$10 million in funding if the Vanuatu government promised to: confirm its commitment to an independent police, judiciary and public service; provide "a free trade and investment climate that recognised the crucial role of foreign direct investment in building a prosperous Vanuatu"; uphold the concept of a free and independent media; and acknowledge the importance of combating transnational crime, which included the acceptance that the Australian Federal Police had a constructive role to play in Vanuatu. Within a month Vohor was out of a job and Alexander Downer had tweaked his South Pacific itinerary to include a stopover in Port Vila, to secure the new government's commitment to anti-corruption et al through a meeting with the new prime minister, Ham Lini, whose brother was the late Father Walter Lini, the revered father of independence in Vanuatu. When asked whether the Australian "lecture or threat to withdraw aid" had much impact on the parliament's decision to vote Vohor out of office, Lini said: "Yes. Within the few weeks that have passed we have had a lot of threats from almost everywhere, so what we have now signed this morning has put us in the right place again." Downer's visit was pure photo opportunity. How obedient we were to photograph the two leaders coming down those national flag-coloured stairs, to point microphones and ask polite questions. We laughed when Downer danced around whether Vanuatu or Australia had tastier beef and only the Radio Australia correspondent copped an indignantly raised eyebrow over a question about the status of Australia's "threat" to withdraw aid from Vanuatu. Judging from the crinkles above it, that eyebrow has been used theatrically in this manner on more than one occasion. Vanuatu has a new government now � one that recently tried illegally to prevent all Taiwanese nationals from leaving the country, in relation to the bribery gossip that swept through the kava bars before Christmas. The Chinese ambassador was photographed with the new government in front of an over-sized cheque for US$2 million that normalises relations between those two countries, and in a move that gives Australia the honour of supplying more than half the aid that comes into the country, the Downer visit confirmed that AUS$10 million is available to the new government. And all the while, the people of Vanuatu keep smiling, taking everything at half speed and stopping to cool down under the shade of a mango tree in fruit, spreading news most effectively through the gossip networks they dub "radio coconut". Their disdain for politics is evident in generally low turnout at the polls and the rising number of independent candidates. While politicians talk of increasing the number of ministries and their perks, and upgrading the government fleet, the number of people living in Vanuatu below the US$1 a day poverty line is 40 per cent � the highest in the South Pacific, a convoluted education system flounders, roads are desperately in need of repair, an increasingly Westernised diet puts diabetes near the top of a suite of health issues and the outer islands desperately need better transport, communication and trade systems. And still the only people, it seems, who descend into hissy fits are expatriates who haven't been here long enough, and the ex-prime minister. For the moment, The Independent is again allowed in the grounds of parliament house. ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> In low income neighborhoods, 84% do not own computers. At Network for Good, help bridge the Digital Divide! http://us.click.yahoo.com/S.QlOD/3MnJAA/Zx0JAA/uTGrlB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> -- This is ZESTGlobal. Post articles on international affairs to [email protected] If you got this mail as a forward, subscribe to ZESTGlobal by sending a blank mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] OR, if you have a Yahoo! ID, by visiting http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZESTGlobal/join/ Yahoo! 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