Samoan Prime Minister Tuilaepa .... "if more colonels in Fiji go fishing – eventually – there will be no more army to prop up." Photo: Savali News

Pacific Scoop:
Report – By Tupuola Terry Tavita in Apia

Samoan Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi, who has just returned from Turkey this week, blames the current storm-in-a-teacup between Fiji and Tonga on global warming.

Asked for comment, the Prime Minister, in the best of the Samoan tradition of fagogo (spinning a yarn) said:

“After reading the reported facts, I am super clear that the Fiji colonel went out fishing and got into problems with the current that sucks every debris into the Tonga Trench.

“That the Tongan boat – basking in the sunny ocean – spotted the lone colonel and went in to help. That the fisherman was none other than King George’s relation is of pure coincidence.

“Only in the Pacific are coincidences of this nature aplenty.

“So in essence, Commodore Bainimarama should be thanking the Tongan government for rescuing Mara.

“He should be telling off his own navy for not helping.

‘Headless navy’
“Perhaps that’s what happens when their admiral spends all his time in politics leaving the navy headless.

“You see, if it wasn’t for the Tongan boat and its alert crew, Mara would probably be in South America by now. Bainimarama then should thank the Tongan king and apologise for all the trouble this incident had caused.”

The only complication these days was when  introducing “un-Polynesian concepts” such as sovereignty and territorial waters, Tuilaepa said

“Those are imported concepts. Back in the olden days, you are free to roam the oceans and feast on its bounties. It belonged to nobody but to everybody.

“It’s a way of life that is above and beyond the view of modern-day international maritime law.”

“And drifting fishermen are not new in this part of the world especially as hundreds of fishing canoes leave the villages to go out to fish and joyride every day. Some fishermen occasionally get swept off to the open sea and get picked up by other fishermen in nearby islands. For Samoa, Tonga and Fiji, it is tradition that you go out and rescue strayed fishermen in distress then offer them your best hospitality.

“But these incidents are happening all too often these days. Climate change and global warming has meant stronger currents and more fishermen getting cast adrift.

Hair-pulling
“If anything then is to be blamed for the current Fiji-Tonga hair-pulling, it is climate change.

“Australia therefore should provide us with more naval boats and high-tech oceanic tracking equipment so we can quickly go out and rescue our castaway fishermen.

“With the way they (fishermen) are getting carried out to sea at the moment, we might not have any more fishermen left by 2012,” he said with a shake of his head.

“And if more colonels in Fiji go fishing – eventually – there will be no more army to prop up, Bani.”

Samoa, the Prime Minister said, did not have a navy except for its lone police patrol boat.

“In the villages, search and rescue is carried out by a flotilla of fishing canoes. So if one canoe is swept out, you can lose another 20 looking for it.”

The media was making too big a fuss of what was really a matter in the fale (house), Tuilaepa said.

‘Storm in teacup’
“It’s really a storm in a teacup. Fiji and Tonga are very close. We have a concept that best describes these two. The Samoan word togafiti aptly describes the warm relations that exists between Fijians and Tongans, the mutual back-scratching in times of itchiness and the occasional brotherly squabble that occurs between these two.”

Togafiti in English, simply means, the Pacific Way.

His advice to Commodore Bainimarama?

“Go fishing. Likely you’ll be picked up by the same Tongan phantom boat that will take you to Nuku’alofa. After a long tit-for-tat there with Mara and the King, no doubt Bainimarama will come back ready to put Fiji back on the road to democracy and a better understanding of the rule of law and, of course, the law of the sea.”

Tupuola Terry Tavita is editor of Savali News.