State Society and Governance in Melanesia

CORE Metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk Provided by The Australian National University THE AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY School of International, Political and Strategic Studies State, Society and Governance in Melanesia State Society and in Governance Melanesia DISCUSSION PAPER Discussion Paper 2010/5 OCEANIA’S POLITicaL inSTITUTionS AND TRANSITIONS1 The Pacific Islands region includes entities Pitcairn Island with only 45 inhabitants. JON closely incorporated with the metropolitan Of the 9.7 million people who inhabit the FRAENKEL powers located around the Pacific Rim, 551,500 km2 land area of Oceania, just such as Guam (USA), Rapa Nui (Chile) and over two-thirds are in PNG. Tokelau (New Zealand), as well as inde- Classical political science questions pendent states like Papua New Guinea, Fiji have been addressed in strikingly different and Kiribati. The region includes countries ways across the region—whether to accom- that achieved independence less than thir- modate ethnic diversity through unitary, ty years ago as well as those still in the devolved or federal systems; whether to process of adjustment to the post-colonial handle conflict through majoritarian or pro- order. It includes resource-rich territories portional electoral systems and/or through with strong potential for integration into the power sharing arrangements, and wheth- world economy alongside chronically er to adopt parliamentary or presiden- resource-poor countries with limited ave- tial systems or, as in Kiribati and in the nues for export-driven economic growth. It includes territories with open access to autonomous region of Bougainville, some metropolitan labour markets, and countries hybrid between the two. Other important without. It includes an extraordinary ethno- questions for the region have been how linguistic diversity, mostly in Melanesia, to meld traditional forms of governance which alone accounts for one-fifth of the with imported institutions; how to respond world’s documented living languages.2 It to exceptionally low levels of women’s includes relatively big nations like PNG representation and how to build states in (6.6 million) alongside tiny micro-states countries where—for many who live in rural like Niue, which has a population of only areas and engage largely in subsistence 1,500, and minute dependent territories like cultivation—the state matters little. Oceania’s Political Institutions and Transitions RELATIONSHIP TO New Caledonia is unique: as a result of the 2 METROPOLITAN POWERS 1998 Noumea Accord, the territory has special legislative powers and a schedule for phased expansion of domestic political control ahead Close integration of territories with metropoli- of a referendum on independence between tan powers is a legacy of the colonial expe- 2014–2019. To agree to that accord entailed rience. Hawai‘i became the fiftieth Pacific such a rupture with the doctrine of indivisibility state in 1959, while other American Pacific of the Republic that France had to hold a territories—Guam, American Samoa, and nationwide referendum, the result of which the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas earned New Caledonia a special provision in (CNMI)—are described by the US Supreme the constitution (Maclellan 2005: 397). Court as having become “appurtenant to but Of the sixteen territories in the not a part of the United States” (Underwood world that remain on the UN list of non- 2006: 7). Rapa Nui was annexed in 1888 but decolonized territories, the Pacific accounts only legally absorbed into Chile’s Valparaiso for five—American Samoa, Guam, New Province in 1966. Residence on the island Caledonia, Pitcairn Island and Tokelau. Nei- by Chileans is still restricted as is acquisi- ther of Tokelau’s two referenda (2006 and tion of property by those not of Rapa Nui 2007) on whether to become self-governing descent. By contrast, after West Papua was achieved the required two-thirds majority, absorbed into Indonesia with United Nations and Pitcairn Island’s links with Britain have, (UN) approval after the “Act of Free Choice” if anything, been reinforced by adjudication in 1969, a mixture of spontaneous and of child abuses cases by the British Privy sponsored transmigration brought in three Council. American military build up on Guam quarters of a million people, mainly from the in the new millennium makes independence islands of Java and Sulawesi. Integration less likely, despite longstanding Chamorro with a powerful neighbour tends to open the disquiet about existing arrangements. Inclu- floodgates to settlement, as on Saipan (Com- sion on, or exclusion from, the UN list can monwealth of the Northern Marianas) where prove highly controversial, with behind-the- the majority were non-indigenes in 2000, scenes manoeuvring at the UN headquarters mostly from the Philippines or China. in New York or Geneva being used to exert New Caledonia, French Polynesia and leverage towards independence back home. Wallis and Futuna, are in law, part of the The incentives are clear. In 2008, UN Secre- French nation-state; all participate in elections tary General Ban Ki-moon urged the world for the national assembly and the Presidency. “to complete the decolonization process in The CFP franc, the currency in all three every one of the remaining sixteen Non-Self- territories, is pegged to the euro. In 1958, Governing Territories”.3 Pro-independence French President General Charles de Gaulle leader Oscar Temaru, after his initial election insisted on the doctrine of the “one and as French Polynesia’s President in 2004, indivisible republic”, and forced voters in sought to get his country onto the UN list fol- French Polynesia to choose between colonial lowing the precedent set by New Caledonia integration or abrupt secession. Sixty-four per in the wake of the 1980s Kanak uprising. cent voted in favour of staying with France. Samoa was the first of the Pacific Island The pro-independence movement was states to secure independence in 1962, and defeated, and after disturbances in Papeete, the unique constitutional arrangements cho- its leader, Pouvanaa a Oopa, was imprisoned sen at that time (discussed later) have prob- (Henningham 1992: 123–26). The peoples ably contributed to that country’s postcolonial of the French Pacific remain confronted with stability. Tonga formally became independent those stark options, although in modified in 1970, but here the colonial hand was, for forms: since 2003 they may opt to become the most part, light. Financial irregularities “territorial collectivities”, with considerable under King George Tupou II (1893–1918) led autonomy. French Polynesia went a step the British colonists to demand closer control further by adopting its own autonomy statute. (Fusitu’a & Rutherford 1977: 180). Britain Oceania’s Political Institutions and Transitions became preoccupied with Europe during the the Santo rebellion in 1980 was the most 1914–1918 war, and on its heels the Great severe of the secessionist crises accompa- 3 Depression enabled Tupou II’s more capable nying independence anywhere in the Pacific successor Queen Salote to preserve Tonga’s region: Jimmy Stevens’ Vemerana Provision- political autonomy. Fiji’s independence was al Government on Santo threatened to break inevitably problematic because of the need up the emerging state, until the rebellion was to reconcile the competing aspirations of the halted by the deployment of British, French, majority Fiji Indian and minority indigenous and Papua New Guinean troops. The only Fijian leaders (Norton 2004). Ethnic Fijian actual case of secession in Oceania was claims that since the country had been ceded exceptionally peaceful: in 1976, the British to Queen Victoria by their chiefs in 1874 it Gilbert and Ellice Islands decided to go their should now be returned to those indigenous separate ways and a few years later became chiefs were to become a rallying cry of the independent as Kiribati (1979) and Tuvalu ethno-nationalists who overthrew elected (1978).5 Bougainville’s decade-long conflict governments in 1987 and 2000. Fiji Indian first with PNG and then internally is the most claims that the communally based electoral severe of the modern-day secessionist dis- system left as a compromise by the British putes. Its peace settlement, like that of the at independence perpetuated race-based New Caledonian crisis of the 1980s, included voting were to become a prominent theme of a central provision that delayed the decision the military-backed interim government that on independence for at least a decade.6 emerged in the wake of Fiji’s third coup in In between the extremes of independence December 2006. and incorporation, the Pacific Islands are Constitutional choices made at indepen- host to a range of hybrid political arrange- dence also had enduring implications else- ments between island territories and former where in the region, in contrast to Africa colonial rulers. New Zealand experimented where initial legal frameworks bequeathed with Compacts of Free Association with Niue by colonial powers were often torn up and and the Cook Islands. Palau, the Federated new arrangements adopted (Chazan 1992). States of Micronesia and the Republic of the Depth of consultation made a difference Marshall Islands entered Compacts of Free to the political authority of whatever struc- Association with the US that gave them con- tures were chosen. PNG (1975) and Kiribati siderable autonomy (allowing them, unlike (1979) used constitutional conventions for Cook Islands and Niue, to

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