Pacific Islands Report

Bougainville seek assistance for hungry

PORT MORESBY, Papua New Guinea – A community group urged Bougainville Governor John Momis to give immediate assistance to people starving in south Bougainville.

The call comes in wake of reports that the elderly, sick and children are dying of starvation following food shortages caused by continuous heavy rains, particularly in Buin and Siwai.

School children are being kept away from school or sent home early due to lack of food.
Critics said so much attention is being given to the Bougainville peace negotiations that the problem of starvation is being ignored.

US wants Fiji democracy restored

SUVA, Fiji – The U.S. government called for the “return to a lawful and constitutional government as soon as possible.”

A statement release by the U.S. Embassy in the capital Suva said changes to the 1997 Constitution should come from the people of Fiji through their elected representatives as provided within the framework of the Constitution.

Fiji’s first ethnic Indian prime minister, Mahendra Chaudhry, and his democratically elected government was ousted in the May coup by a group of armed rebels calling for the restoration of a government run by ethnic Fijians.

Nauru’s president backs West Papua referendum

YAREN, Nauru – President Bernard Dowiyogo pledged his support to a referendum on independence in West Papua during an address to the United Nations Millennium Summit in New York last week.

Dowiyogo said people in West Papua are striving to break the imposition of colonial domination and foreign control.

He said the UN should not stand by and witness the destruction of the West Papuan people.

He added that half a million people in the Indonesian province have been lost to human rights abuses and that the UN should not allow another catastrophe to occur.

Call for cigarette tax reduction

PAGO PAGO, American Samoa – A bill was introduced in the territorial legislature aimed at reducing the tobacco tax to conform to U.S. cigarette labeling and advertising laws.

The proposal by Reps. Otomalesau John Ah Sue and Vasai Fred Vasai would also establish penalties for failure to pay taxes on cigarette shipments.

The bill would reduce the current cigarette
tax passed two years ago from $2.50 per pack to $1.50 a pack.

The two lawmakers said that American Samoa has the highest cigarettes tax of any American state or territory.