Page 24 - IB June 2019

Opinion

Pacific Islands Forum leaders with United Nations Secretary General António Guterres in May 2019 Photo Credit: Supplied: Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat

United States of the Pacific

the Pacific and our commitment to progress the implementation
of the Paris Agreement.”
Sopoaga’s resentment is particularly piqued by the fact that
Australia had “exported $66 billion in coal last year, making it
(its) most valuable traded commodity.” This is not in the true
spirit of the Boe Declaration, he feels. ABC reported his statement:
By Ambassador Kaliopate Tavola “The more (Australia fails to be) serious about cutting coal and
exporting this for money, the more problematic the issue of global
warning and the more we have to adapt.”
THE derivation of the ‘United States of the Pacific’, (USoP), an It was in this context when Sopoaga proposed: “the establish-
optional conceptual supra-state construct for the 48-year old ment of a Pacific supra-state, along the lines of the European
Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) is reminiscent of the Lae Rebellion of Union (EU), that is based on cooperation and integration, perhaps
1965. The rebellion marked the break-away by five Pacific Island into some form of United States of the Pacific.” This supra-state
Countries (PICs) from the South Pacific Commission (SPC, now will comprise ‘small Pacific Island nations’ and its raison d’être
rebranded as the Secretariat of the Pacific Community) and the is “to amplify their concerns about climate change on the global
creation of the South Pacific Forum in 1971. The brief for the stage.”
new regional structure is the now-familiar lament of PIC leaders Reflecting the Lae Rebellion, Sopoaga’s strategic move is to
for greater commitment to addressing climate change. The USoP break from the configuration that constitutes the PIF currently
may evoke grandiosity. But as a prospective regional architectural to that of the USoP.
structure, it is not unprecedented; and its time may have come. The specific architecture of the USoP is a matter of conjecture.
It is a rebellion of sorts. Tuvalu Prime Minister Enele Sopoaga It is clear however that it would be a forum of only PICs. What
is not a happy camper. He takes serious exception to the sug- is unclear is whether it is intended as a form of regionalism or
gestion by former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd that federalism or some other variants of the latter.
Pacific islanders of Tuvalu, Kiribati and Nauru swap Australian However, the references to the new entity being ‘based on
citizenship for maritime resources owned by them. Rudd reckons cooperation and integration’ and exhibiting aspects of the EU,
that this would be a long-term solution, in any case, for the three are hints strongly suggesting regionalism and not federalism or
PICs that are likely to go under with rising sea levels. any of its variants.
Since such a suggestion requires these PICs to surrender their It can be taken therefore that USoP would be an only-PICs/
respective sovereignty through involuntary constitutional chang- PSIDS forum. This is reminiscent of course of the 1971 SPF
es, Sopoaga castigates the suggestion as being neo-colonialist that started off as a two-caucus configuration – one for the five
and ‘imperial thinking.’ In Sopoaga’s mind, this suggestion is PICs and the other for Australia and New Zealand (ANZ). That
a ‘red herring’ that does not even pretend to solve the problem configuration was determined after the five PICs opted to include
at hand. ANZ in their new break-away forum. But the two-caucus ap-
Furthermore, the ire of the good PM is heightened after he proach became a single caucus approach in 1972. Australia, in-
notes that such a demeaning suggestion is coming from Australia terestingly, was the force behind the merger of the two caucuses.
after the signing of the Boe Declaration in 2018 by PIF Leaders That was then. The direction the current altercation is taking
in which climate change is reaffirmed as the “the single greatest appears to be single-mindedly on formation of a PICs/PSIDS-
threat to the livelihoods, security and wellbeing of the peoples of only forum. And that is essentially on basis of its intended

24 Islands Business, June 2019