A group of former leaders of Pacific island nations have condemned the AUKUS security pact saying it is “bringing war much closer to home” and goes against the Blue Pacific narrative.

The deal between Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom will see Canberra forking out billions of dollars over the next three decades to acquire a fleet of nuclear submarines.

In a swinging criticism of the agreement, the Pacific Elders’ Voice, which includes former leaders of Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, Tuvalu and Palau, said Australia was deliberately exploiting a loophole in the Pacific’s nuclear-free agreement — the Rarotonga Treaty — which permits the transit of nuclear-powered craft such as submarines.

“AUKUS signals greater militarisation by joining Australia to the networks of the US military bases in the northern Pacific and it is triggering an arms race, by bringing war much closer to home,” the Pacific elders said in a statement.

“Not only does this go against the spirit of the Blue Pacific narrative, agreed to all [Pacific Islands] Forum member countries last year, it also demonstrates a complete lack of recognition of the climate change security threat that has been embodied in the Boe and other declarations by Pacific leaders.”

The group stated that the “staggering” amount of money committed to AUKUS “flies in the face of Pacific islands countries, which have been crying out for climate change support”.

“The fact that not even a significant fraction of this figure is available for the region to deal with the greatest security threat shows a complete lack of sensitivity to this key Pacific priority in Canberra, London, Paris and Washington,” they wrote.

They also raised concerns about New Zealand’s ambitions to join the trilateral security deal, saying the forum should discourage Aotearoa from joining the “military alliance”.

“We are urging the Pacific Island Leaders to take a decisive and ethical stand on this important matter and not to be subsumed by the AUKUS nations. This does not only put our region at greater risk of a nuclear war but the real environmental impacts arising out of any incidents will be huge,” they said.

Pacific security threatened by ‘climate change’ — not China
One of the spokespeople for the Pacific Elders’ Voice, former Kiribati president Anote Tong told RNZ Pacific it was disappointing that Australia — as a founding forum member — was ready to commit more than $3 billion for military expansionism.

Australia is also a signatory to the 2050 Strategy for the Blue Pacific, which is the strategy that underscores the climate crisis as the region’s single greatest security threat.

“In the Pacific, we have always been saying loud and clear that the greatest challenge to our security has been climate change. It has always always been at the top of the agenda,” Tong said.

“We understand that the security priorities of the AUKUS partners is different from our priority, but at least we also have the existing arrangements in the region with respect to nuclear.”

Australia, Tonga said, was more concerned about the geopolitics when it came to concerns about security.

But for Pacific islands “security is what is the threat that we see challenging our future existence and it is climate change,” he said.

“It is not China or what is happening on the other side of the world.”

The recent attempts by the Australian government to reassure regional leaders that AUKUS would not breach the Rarotonga agreement demonstrated the lack of consultation on Canberra’s part, according to the former Kiribati leader.

“The consultations are taking place [now], but if that had taken place before all of this had happened it would have removed all of these concerns. If we all understood what it involves [and] I am sure if Pacific leaders were happy with it and the region feels that here is no threat to the existing [security] arrangement then we would have no opposition to what is going on.”

‘Australia’s got to step up’
Tong said Australia needed to “step up as a part of the Pacific family”.

He said anytime that a major decision, like AUKUS, was made all Pacific nations must be consulted.

“We have known what has happened in the past when some countries have felt left out so we could have fragmentation,” he said, referencing the Solomon Islands security pact with China which was condemned by other Pacific countries for the lack of consultation on Honiara’s part.

“We do not want to repeat it. We all have an interest in what goes on in our Blue Pacific. It has to be an every-way process, not just a one-way process.”

But while the former leaders group, the forum, and several regional leaders have expressed strong opposition, a few have publicly supported Australia’s plans — including Fiji Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka and Palau’s President Saurengal Whipps Jr.

President Whipps told RNZ Pacific in an interview that as part of peace and security “you also have to have the capability of deterrence”.

“We support what Australia has done because we believe that it is important that Australia is ready and is prepared to defend the Pacific,” he said.

He said Oceania’s largest economy was the first to assist its smaller neighbours with illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing and maritime security.

“Australia is doing its part in making sure that we protect freedom and democracy and peace, provide peace and security in the region is important.”

President Whipps said Palau had held seven referendums to amend its constitution to allow the US to transmit nuclear submarines or vessels through its waters because it was about peace and security.

“Now, should they be testing nuclear? Or dumping nuclear waste in our waters? No, we do not agree to that,” he said.

“But we also understand that nuclear energy is something that you need. It powers aircraft carriers or powers, submarines, it powers power plants, and it’s clean energy.

“We need to continue to discuss and put everything into context as to where we are and how we can all do our part and make any increase in peace and security in the region.”

‘We will not acquire nuclear weapons’ – Australia
Last week, Vanuatu’s Climate Change Minister Ralph Regenvanu appealed in a tweet for Australia to assure its island neighbours that the nuclear submarines under the AUKUS agreement would not carry nuclear weapons.

Australia has signed up to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), a UN agreement that includes an unequivocal obligation for non-nuclear States Parties such as Australia to never acquire nuclear weapons.

“The Australian government has confirmed unequivocally that we do not seek, and will not acquire nuclear weapons,” a Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade spokesperson told RNZ Pacific.

“This reflects Australia’s existing international legal obligations under the TPNW and the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty (SPNFZ), both of which we ratified decades ago.”

The spokesperson said the Australian government had reaffirmed that it would continue to meet in full its obligations under the TPNW and the SPNFZ Treaty.

“Australia has underscored the above position with Pacific governments, particularly during consultative engagements on AUKUS over the past 18 months.

“The Australian government shares the ambition of TPNW States Parties of a world without nuclear weapons.

“It is committed to engaging constructively to identify possible pathways towards nuclear disarmament and to an ambitious agenda to advance nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament,” the DFAT spokesperson added.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Australia’s new security pact with the US and the UK has touched a nerve at the core of Pacific regionalism.

The AUKUS alliance, announced by leaders of the three countries last week, finds them seeking strategic advantage in the Indo-Pacific region with a focus on developing nuclear-powered submarines for the Australian Navy.

Announcing the pact via video link with Australia’s Prime Minister Scott Morrison and his British counterpart Boris Johnson, US president Joe Biden said it was about enhancing their collective ability to take on the threats of the 21st century.

France has recalled its ambassadors to the US and Australia for consultations, in a “Pacific” backlash over a submarine deal after Canberra cancelled a multibillion-dollar deal for conventional French submarines, reports Al Jazeera.

President Biden declared: “Today we’re taking another historic step, to deepen and formalise co-operation among all three of our nations, because we all recognise the imperative of ensuring peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific over the long term.

“We need to be able to address both the current strategic environment in the region, and how it may evolve.”

Describing this threat as rapidly evolving, Biden said AUKUS was launching consultations on Australia’s acquisition of conventionally armed submarines powered by nuclear reactors. The president emphasised that the subs would not be nuclear-armed.

Serious concern for Pacific
But the general secretary of the Pacific Conference of Churches, Reverend James Bhagwan, said the move towards nuclear submarines was a serious concern for a region still dealing with the fallout from nuclear weapons tests.

“Three weeks ago, the current chair of Pacific Islands Forum, the Prime Minister of Fiji (Voreqe Bainimarama) reiterated that we want a Blue Pacific that is nuclear free. It’s at the heart of Pacific regionalism,” he said.

“From the Sixties, from when the very first tests started in our region, this is something that government, civil society, churches have all been very adamant against, to keep our Pacific nuclear-free. We are still dealing with the fallout from nuclear testing.”

However, Morrison said it was time to take the partnership between the three nations to a “new level”, noting that “our world is becoming more complex, especially here in our region, the Indo-Pacific”, a sign of the alliance’s growing angst over China.

But the move towards nuclear submarines confronts the spirit of a nuclear-free zone that Pacific regional countries signed up to decades ago.

Furthermore, the pact comes as the Pacific Islands Forum continues to protest about Japan’s plans to dump treated nuclear waste water into the ocean from the Fukushima power plant, that was damaged in an earthquake and tsunami 10 years ago.

Taken by surprise
The Federated States of Micronesia, a country with close ties to the US, was diplomatic in conveying how the pact caught it by surprise.

A spokesperson for the FSM government said it had “trust, faith and confidence” in the US and Australia in their promotion, and protection, of a Free and Open Indo-Pacific

“It can safely be assumed that the United States and Australia are making security decisions with the best interests of the Pacific in mind, because our vitality is their vitality. That said, this news is a surprise.

“Micronesia is confident this decision makes our country safer, but Micronesia also looks forward to learning more about how precisely that is the case.”

Rather than loss of business, Pacific Islands are more concerned about existential loss, having first hand experience of nuclear testing by French, American and British.

“The ocean impacts on our life,” Reverend Bhagwan said.

“We are the fish basket of the world. So if one submarine comes in and something goes wrong and the nuclear waste from that submarine gets into our ocean, that’s too much already.”

Pacific interests
Reverend Bhagwan questioned how the pact stacked up with Scott Morrison’s claims that Australia considered Pacific Islands countries as vuvale, or family.

“This is our Pacific way. Sometimes we don’t agree, but we always act in the best interests, we always come and support one another,” he said.

“This is not Australia acting in the best interests of the rest of its Pacific Vuvale.”

China has described the pact as being detrimental to regional peace and stability.

Relations between Beijing and Canberra are at an all-time low, and a spokesman for the Chinese government urged Australia to think carefully whether to treat China as a partner or a threat.

New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said the prohibition of nuclear-powered vessels in its waters remained unchanged, adding that the pact “in no way changes our security and intelligence ties with these three countries”.

She said New Zealand was first and foremost a nation of the Pacific which viewed foreign policy developments through the lens of what is in the best interest of the region.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz