Pacific Islands Report

New attempt to end ethnic tension in Solomons

HONIARA, Solomon Islands—Special Commonwealth peace negotiator Sitiveni Rabuka, former prime minister of Fiji, arrived in the Solomon Islands Saturday to continue efforts to end the country’s 18-month ethnic crisis.

He said plans have been developed by Australia and New Zealand to fly militants from both sides to an offshore neutral venue to negotiate before the ethnic strife between Guadalcanal and Malaita islanders over land rights and jobs escalates into full-blown civil war.

Last year about 40 people were killed or disappeared while about 20,000 people — in a country of just 300,000 — had to leave their homes as a result of the ethnic conflict.

PNG literacy rate 45 percent

PORT MORESBY, Papua New Guinea—Prime Minister Sir Mekere Morauta has announced Cabinet approval of a national literacy policy aimed at improving literacy.

He said almost half of the country’s population — 45. 1 percent — is print illiterate.

“This means that as many as two million or more Papua New Guineans cannot read or write,” he said. “Of this number, considerably less than five percent are enrolled in literacy classes.”

The new policy calls for the government to work in partnership with churches and other non-governmental organizations to “to ensure that more people are given the opportunity to learn to read and write.”

Call for U.S. territory of Manu’a

PAGO PAGO, American Samoa—A territorial legislator, Senator Faiivae Galeai, has recommended the establishment of “The Sovereign U.S. Territory of Manu’a” separate from American Samoa.

Galeai made the proposal to the U.S. government-created American Samoa Economic Advisory Commission during their visit to gather information on the future economic development of the South Pacific territory.

Faiivae said Manu’a island lags behind in economic development because of “decades of government neglect, the continuing economical morass that is the American Samoa government, and the territory’s burgeoning population with its concomitant problems, such as an overtaxed infrastructure and environmental abuses to name a few.”

The Manu’a Islands group — with a population of about 3,000 and located 90 miles south of Pago Pago — is made up of the islands of Ta’u, Ofu and Olosega.

Planting proposed to battle rising sea levels

RAROTONGA, Cook Islands—Tuvalu climate change expert Seluka Seluka has recommended the planting of more trees to help protect the shorelines of low-lying Pacific islands facing the threat of rising sea levels.

Seluka, addressing Pacific Islander delegates at a regional climate change conference, said Tuvalu is one of the most vulnerable countries in the world.

The average elevation on the nation’s nine atolls is just 10 to 17 feet above sea level.