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Opinion Opinion

supporting the West Papuan independence struggle has been the worst in the developing world living in a rich developed
the shocking neglect by the UN of this disgraceful genocide country), why has Forum Secretariat never placed the rights
for 50 years. of Aboriginal people on its agenda?
Is it because Aboriginal Australians are Melanesians?
The Kanak call for Independence Is it that placing these issues on the Forum agenda would
One of the sad moral failures of Pacific people and indeed make Australia uncomfortable and Australia is a key financier
of the United Nations has been the failure to call out the of the Forum?
brutal French colonisation of New Caledonia and continued
suppression of the Melanesian Kanak population and their Where are the clarion calls from Forum?
justified calls for Independence. I have little doubt that Forum officials will be able to point
Pacific people and the United Nations have abjectly failed to some items or other on their agenda for the last 30 years
to condemn the series of sham referenda in which the colonis- that suggest that the Forum Secretariat has been concerned
ing French and migrant Pacific peoples decide whether New about the West Papuan genocide, the Kanak call for Indepen-
Caledonia should be granted independence. dence and the plight of the Aboriginal people.
There is little doubt that the indigenous Melanesian people But these would never be the issues identified as “clarion
have been systematically marginalised from the economic re- calls” sounded by Pacific Island leaders under some guid-
sources of New Caledonia and have suffered levels of poverty ance from Forum Secretariat’s leadership in the way the fight
and deprivation which ought to be scandalous internationally against climate change as an existential threat to many Pacific
given the wealth and well-being of the white French and the Islands has been globally recognised because of some Pacific
migrant Polynesian peoples. leaders international stand.
Why has the UN not made Kanak independence a priority? One cannot but have the sinking feeling that the leadership
Most importantly, why has Forum Secretariat not made of regional organisations like Forum Secretariat (based in Fiji)
Kanak Independence a rallying cry at Forum meetings and and Pacific Community (based in New Caledonia) do not have
demanded the same at international UN meetings? Melanesian concerns at the heart of their agenda, and the
Is it a coincidence that the oppressed people of New Cale- silent racism of Polynesians against Melanesians may explain
donia are Melanesians and the Forum is Polynesia oriented and some of the marginalisation of the most anguishing Melanesian
dominated? problems.
Is it a coincidence that France is a major financier of the So too might the “who pays the piper calls the tune” syn-
Forum Secretariat? drome where it is not the Pacific Island countries themselves
who fund these regional organisations but Australia, NZ and
Australia’s First People France with their own geostrategic agendas.
One of the shocking social cancers facing Australian politics Not ever discussed in the Pacific is the hidden reality that
and society has been its centuries of oppression of Australia’s the senior management of most Pacific CROP organisations
First People who have the longest history of civilization in the funded by Australia, NZ and France, are citizens of these
world, some 60,000 years. same countries, while the CEOs are often highly paid sym-
Historians have recorded (and Australian society largely bolic heads, with little real influence on the direction of their
ignored) the shocking impact of British colonisation of Austra- organisation (although there have been exceptions like Dame
lia via the pathetic “terra nullis” claim of Captain Cook and Meg Taylor).
the British Crown: the systematic theft of lands, the brutal I would suggest that if these organisations are to have any
systematic marginalisation and genocide of the original inhab- real purpose in the Pacific they need to regain their moral
itants; the systematic suppression of Aboriginal culture and compass with respect to the traumatised Melanesian peoples
languages; the stealing of generations of mixed race Aborigi- of West Papua, New Caledonia and Australia.
nal children “to be saved by assimilation”; the blatant and I would suggest that the Melanesian countries of PNG, Solo-
callous refusal to acknowledge Aboriginal land rights (until the mon Islands, Vanuatu and Fiji take the lead in recommend-
Mabo decision by the High Court made a small dent); the mas- ing that Forum Secretariat invite membership from formal
sive rates of incarceration of Aboriginal peoples and especially representatives of the West Papuan people, the Kanaks, and
their young and women, who also have one of the highest the First People of Australia.
shocking rates of suicide in custody in the world. I would hope that Australia, NZ and Indonesia keep a diplo-
Despite all these facts historically verified for decades, the matic silence over these issues and not use their control over
Australian Government of Scott Morrison (and Malcolm Turn- the purse strings to influence outcomes.
bull) have cynically and callously rejected the First People’s
mild but unanimous request for national recognition via the editor@islandsbusiness.com
“Uluru Statement from the Heart”.
Again I ask the question: given the dire straits that Austra- The author is a former Professor of Economics at USP and
lia’s First People are in, without any doubt worse than the currently an Adjunct Professor at James Cook University.
Pacific Island peoples represented in the Forum (and amongst

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