BY TIM O'CONNOR
September 11, 2001 changed the world! It's a statement that has become part of our lexicon.
While the attack on New York and Washington was certainly a catalyst for immense change in international relations, there is an argument that the US reaction to the tragic events has engendered a much greater impact.
While previously the UN talked of peacekeeping, and the Cold War melted away to a period of relative international calm, now the "war on terror" has led to pre-emptive strikes and and the "new interventionism". Meanwhile, in Australia we cower behind our fridge magnets between our holidays on the Central Coast.
PM John Howard's infamous "Deputy Sheriff" comment, although played down by the likes of conservative media commentator Gerard Henderson, indicates the current perception of Australia in the Asia-Pacific region.
The pre-emptive strike policy — embodied by the Australian government's decision to intervene in the Solomon Islands — and the current state of flux in Papua New Guinea are direct consequences of this new policy paradigm.
UN secretary-general Kofi Annan was quoted on September 23 as suggesting pre-emptive strikes are leading to a world where nations attack one another "with or without justification".
In light of this, there has been little informed debate in Australia about the bodies that are writing and enacting these policy shifts and what the likely impact is upon the countries that lie in our direct neighbourhood, and their perceptions of Australia.
Professor Vijay Naidu noted at the September conference organised by the Australian Council for Overseas Aid, Shifting Tides in Pacific Policy, that the Solomons intervention, although welcomed, is seen by people from the Pacific as more to do with an "Australian sense of insecurity than a genuine desire to lift the Solomons out of the quagmire it had gotten into".
Naidu went on to point out that the Australian government has provided $600,000 to the Fijian military to update its equipment. While this would be strategically beneficial to Australia, considering the history of the Fijian military in state insurrection, Naidu suggested "the arming and training of the indigenous Fijian military reflects a lack of any real concern for the security and citizenship rights of all Fijians". The ramifications of our actions are not well understood by Australians and our policy makers.
For example, although our closest neighbour, PNG is a mystery to most Australians. A country of more than five million people, it remains one of the most culturally and biologically diverse regions on the planet. It is home to at least 800 different languages, not just dialects.
Ecologist Jared Diamond notes that 10,000 years ago PNG was one of the most agriculturally developed countries in the world. PNG is also home to over 16,000 flowering plant species, 2000 species of ferns and at least 300,000 insect species. Yet notwithstanding its enormous mineral and environmental assets, it is regarded by many in Australia as an "undeveloped" country. All we hear in Australia in regard to PNG is the Raskols, the headhunters, violence on the streets in Port Moresby and corruption.
As a result of this one-sided debate, on the September 18, foreign minister Alexander Downer announced that Australia would send 200 Australian police to reform the PNG police force. Australian Strategic Policy Institute director Hugh White went further in the Sydney Morning Herald on September 23, suggesting Australia should also take charge of the judiciary and the prison system, because of dissatisfactions with the way aid money is spent.
Both these reactions indicate a gross misunderstanding of the state of PNG, and White indicates a complete misunderstanding of how the aid budget is disseminated.
Firstly, Australian government aid money, distributed by the government department AusAID, is primarily program- and project-based. The vast majority of Australian aid money, since the mutual decision to cease budgetary support in the late 1980s, has, according to the Australian government, gone solely to mutually agreed AusAID programs and not, as White suggests, to be "used" by the PNG government.
What this new policy also pre-supposes is that the situation in PNG has actually deteriorated. Not so, according to retiring head of the Pacific Islands Forum, Noel Levi, who suggested on Radio Australia on September 23 that the lawlessness of Port Moresby was comparable to that of big Australian cities. Levi went on to say, "The law and order situation was worse a few years ago, but PNG has worked its way through it".
The recent Senate report, "A Pacific engaged", suggested there were problems in the police force, but that they were caused by a lack of resources. The report's recommendation of providing surplus equipment from Australian forces, although somewhat bizarre, reflected this.
Similarly, the director of AusAID, Bruce Davies, suggested in the September 5 Australian Financial Review that, in PNG, life expectancy had improved, infant mortality had declined and adult literacy had improved. This is difficult to reconcile with PNG's image as a "failed state".
While there is little doubt that there are law and order issues in PNG, this is largely confined to a small number of regions, including Port Moresby. The majority of the country and its people reside in relative peace.
It is important also to note that a law-and-order problem does not necessarily reflect an issue of policing. There are tensions in PNG caused by the majority of the population remaining in the informal economy and the lack of employment and opportunity that prohibits their entry into the formal economy.
Retired Police Commissioner Sam Inguba told the Australian media last year that over 70% of the inmates at Port Moresby's main prison are from Goilala. The province of Goilala, north-west of Moresby, has been listed in several studies funded by AusAID as one of the most undeveloped areas of the country. Despite this, AusAID and the other development organisations have put very few resources into this area.
Since the late 1990s, Australian taxpayers have spent more than $120 million, through AusAID, to strengthen the Royal Papua New Guinean Police Force. No document has been released that thoroughly evaluates these projects and the impacts they have had. If no expansive evaluation has been conducted, how is the situation likely to improve?
Meetings with AusAID have indicated that the agency has very little idea how the police sent to PNG will be used. This doesn't bode well for PNG's development. Foreign minister Alexander Downer was forced to suggest that the police will not be available until mid next year, due to the immense pressure of operations in East Timor and the Solomon Islands.
The aid budget is also of concern. This year, Australia has set aside $333.6 million to be spent in PNG by AusAID. With the cost of a civil servant abroad estimated at $250,000 annually, multiplied by the 200 promised police and the myriad other bureaucrats required, this amount swells well beyond $50 million. Will this be shaved from the health and education programs that are so badly needed in PNG? The Australian public should be asking these questions.
A stable region relies on strong partnerships and closely aligned economies. Sound policy is grounded in mutual understanding and respect and Australia would do well to cease telling PNG what to do and start listening to the many people in PNG who know their complex country and are focused on seeing it attain its own long-term and sustainable path to development. To not begin to listen, and to threaten the sovereignty of a democracy not yet 30 years old, can only further destabilise a potentially fractious region.
[Tim O'Connor works at AID/WATCH, an independent watchdog monitoring the community impacts of Australia's aid and trade polices.]
From Green Left Weekly, October 15, 2003.
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