On the Eve of a Free Trade Area of the Pacific – Occupation, neo-colonialism and enclosure

New Zealand Minister for Trade Phil Goff has announced that talks will begin in August to begin the process of imposing a Free Trade Agreement to bind the economies of the sixteen nations of the Pacific Islands Forum together. Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Vanuatu, Tonga, the Solomon Islands, Samoa, Papua New Guinea and a range of other small island nations together comprise the Pacific Islands Forum.

The Free Trade Area of the Pacific has been in the pipeline at the Pacific Islands Forum for years now as New Zealand and Australian capital seek to carve out throughout the Pacific new markets, cheap natural resources and a flexible and disposable labour force.

The recent year in the Pacific has only heightened the increasing tension between the interests of Australian, New Zealand and American capital and those of Pacific peoples subject to increased repression, surveillance, control and impoverishment. In Timor Leste, Tonga and the Solomon Islands Australia and New Zealand have intervened directly into the political affairs to enforce their control over these nations and curb, criminalise and destroy popular social movements.

Timor Leste
Scott Hamilton has accurately described the present situation in East Timor, where, “as [with] the Solomon [Islands], the Howard government is using military occupation and economic bullying to try to open up the economy for exploitation. The Australians want the removal of all laws that recognise the communal ownership of land, and restrict the right of individuals to buy and sell land. The communal ownership of land makes it difficult for Aussie companies to operate effectively, and also inhibits the development of local business, because it makes it difficult for capitalist banks to finance loans (how can 1,200 people take out a mortgage with ANZ to buy the stock they need to set up a hostel for tourists, for instance?).” Read More

The situation in Timor is reaching boiling point in the wake of the deaths of two political activists who were both shot by police last week. The Socialist Party of Timor has called for demonstrations against this state repression. In recent months the Australian and New Zealand led occupation forces have played a key role in intimidating and disrupting FRETILIN, the party opposing pro-imperialist Prime Minister Jose Ramos Horta, rallies by corralling the area in which the rallies are held with “helicopters, heavy armoured vehicles and armed troops”.

Tonga
In Tonga ANZAC meddling continues as New Zealand government appointed prosecutors prepare to trial the more than 700 Tongans who were arrested during the pro-democracy rally in Nuku’Alofa that attacked government buildings and offices of companies owned by the monarchy. Green Party MP Keith Locke has pointed out the hypocritical nature of the New Zealand state’s claims to support democratic reform by criticising the Foreign Minister and the New Zealand High Commissioner for refusing to meet with any of Tonga’s pro-democracy MPs.

Migrant labour
The seasonal work permit scheme that the New Zealand state introduced last year allows for increased numbers of workers in Pacific nations to come to work in New Zealand’s agricultural and horticultural industries when needed and then returned home when their visa runs out. This seasonal work scheme has been blamed for a recent Immigration Service crackdown on people working without correct visas in the far North. While the scheme will provide increases in income to poor Pacific Island communities during those seasons when Pacific work is needed, it compounds the dependency of Pacific economies and communities on New Zealand capital and the whim of the New Zealand state. Additionally it will provide an excuse for New Zealand and other regional players not to support development initiatives in the Pacific. New Zealand agribusiness and horticulturists will also be provided with an army of reserve labour that need not be sustained by the New Zealand social welfare system between their mobilisations into the proletariat.

Andre Vltchek has characterised U.S., Australian and New Zealand policy in the Pacific as wall building. The “big three”, as he describes them, are enforcing neo-colonial dependency on the Pacific nations, diplomatic control over their foreign policies, increased control over labour and people movement within the region and further ghettoisation of the island nations as they move further from regional unity (which could provide a building bloc(k) for regional cooperation and development a la MERCOSUR in Latin America) and towards a provider of cheap labour and cheap resources to ANZUS capitalism.

Resistance
Tonga and Timor Leste face serious problems in the coming year as the Tongan democracy movement and Timor’s anti-imperialist forces suffer persecution and repression. John Holloway writing on the global anti-capitalist movement asks us to theorise contemporary rebellions to capitalist rule as “cracks in capitalist domination”. The upsurge of temporal rebellions in the Pacific have stolen headlines as they appeared in the Solomon Islands, Tonga and Timor opposing foreign and dictatorial forms of power and fighting on the streets against their perceived enemies-in the Solomon’s, foreign capital and RAMSI; in Tonga state buildings and corporations owned by the monarchy; and in Timor the Australian and New Zealand occupation soldiers. While we may oppose the forms some of this opposition takes and the often-tragic effects they have, for example the deaths during the riots in Tonga, we only have ourselves to blame for this situation. Their anger is fueled by ongoing attempts by the New Zealand state and Australian state to wall them in, enclose their commons and subvert their democracy. These rebellions represent diverse yet interconnected moments of resistance to the new empire builders in the South Pacific. As Holloway says,

“Each of these cracks may seem hopeless, like banging our heads on a stone wall. But it is not so: if we bang our heads hard enough, even a stone wall begins to crack."