I was in Rarotonga last week. We are not winning. Tourism is booming. Our plane was so full that Air New Zealand offered another night’s accommodation for a passenger to offload.
We know how this war started. The Cook Islands Government signed a “Comprehensive Strategic Partnership” with China without first consulting Wellington.
That, Foreign Minister Winston Peters said, was a breach of the 2001 Joint Centenary Declaration.
Under that agreement, New Zealand retains responsibility for the Cook Islands’ foreign affairs and defence. The declaration also requires both Governments to consult regularly on foreign and defence matters.
Cook Island Prime Minister Mark Brown said: “We have advised them on the matter, but as far as being consulted and to the level of detail that they were requiring, I think that’s not a requirement.”
Peters and his officials were outraged.
The secrecy triggered speculation there were military clauses or plans for deep-sea mining.
No doubt Wellington was embarrassed to have to admit to Washington and Canberra – both engaged in their own cold war with China – that New Zealand did not know what was being signed.
If our diplomats had retained the personal trust and open dialogue expected in a Pacific relationship, there would have been no need for formal protest letters. The correspondence reads like self-justifying memos for the file.
It is extraordinary. Nothing is secret in the Cooks; within 48 hours I had learned all that I wanted to know.
The Cook Islands’ response was simple: what’s the fuss? New Zealand has long encouraged the Cooks to conduct its own foreign relations – largely so it can receive international aid and relieve our budget.
Since 1992, the United Nations Secretariat recognised the Cook Islands as a state with full treaty-making capacity and it has diplomatic relations with 65 countries. China established ties 28 years ago and has been a major donor for years.
The very fact that our own Foreign Affairs ministry handles relations with them is tacit acknowledgment that the Cooks are, in practice, a separate country within the “realm of New Zealand”.
The Cook Islands Government has published the agreements.
They contain no military clauses. The only reference to seabed minerals is a commitment to “examine the feasibility” of retrieving polymetallic nodules from the ocean floor.
The seas around the Cooks are up to 6km deep. Seabed mining around the Cooks is not economic.
We know what caused the war. What is the objective? Officially, it is to “reset relations” and “restore trust”.
When in history has a war ever restored trust?
How does the Government intend to end this conflict? When agreeing to go to war did any minister ask, “what is the endgame?”
Did any minister, when approving the cutting of $18 million in aid, ask “what is the aid for?”
Most of it funds education and health.
New Zealand is waging war on the islands’ children and the sick.
Cook Islanders are not foreigners. They are New Zealand citizens. Their secondary students sit the National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA). There’s even an NCEA subject, Cook Islands Māori.
The qualification is now being revised.
The Greens protest outside the Foreign Minister’s home over a Middle East conflict that he cannot influence but hold no protest over the conflict with the Cook Islands that he can end.
Our politicians should consider this. It is a year until the next election. In this country there are around 100,000 people of Cook Islander descent, enough to influence the election.
What would ministers do if the Cook Islands Government put the country’s secondary school students on a plane to New Zealand?
This silly conflict could be the tipping point that influences the next Government.
Although I had no responsibility for the Cook Islands when I was Minister of Pacific Island Affairs, Sir Tom Davis, the Premier of the Cook Islands at the time, insisted I was his minister.
When frustrated by the paternalism of New Zealand bureaucrats, he would call on me. We typically resolved the issue to the satisfaction of both Governments.
If left to officials, this pointless war with the Cook Islands will drag on.
If Prime Minister Mark Brown and Winston Peters can set aside their egos, they could in one meeting end the war.
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