Tokelau looks to the 'motherland'

1.00pm - By HELEN TUNNAH

There's something humbling about a tiny, poor, isolated nation saving its beer for weeks so it can put on a party for its own Prime Minister.

Especially when that country, Tokelau, has to rely on a monthly shipping service to get the beer from Samoa, nearly 500km away.

And a wave of guilt follows watching a Nukunonu elder so clearly enjoying a sip of the Vailima brew which he has carefully poured into a teacup during an evening of traditional dancing and singing.

It leaves one to wonder what other sacrifices have been made by New Zealand's northernmost citizens, who have so little material wealth, to welcome Helen Clark and guests from their "motherland".

Certainly there was barely a frangipani flower left on Tokelau's three atolls after the trees had been stripped for ceremonial welcome after welcome. The famed handicrafts had been woven and saved, with none spare to buy, so the 1500 people of Fakaofo, Nukunonu and Atafu could lavish gifts on their guests.

All for just a few hours, a few glimpses of their own Prime Minister visiting for the first time in almost 20 years.

And perhaps for the last time.

For Tokelau, New Zealand's last dependent territory, whose three atolls lie so far apart they cannot even see each other, is being taken down the path of self-government, some say willingly and with excitement, others suggest warily.

Tokelauans may decide as early as next year if they want to move to self-government in free association with New Zealand, the same status enjoyed by other former territories Niue and the Cook Islands.

It is a route the United Nations committee on decolonisation has been pressing Tokelau to take for years, but one the tiny nation, nestled just 10 degrees south of the equator on a vast, lonely expanse of Pacific Ocean, has always rejected and freely admits to being fearful of.

Feleti and Vaelua Lopa's modest wooden home looks out over the lagoon at Atafu, the most northern of the three coral atolls, which houses 540 people on just 3.5sq km of car-less and pastorally poor land.

The view across the brilliant blue lagoon was unusual this week, because in the distance was the frigate Te Kaha, which ferried Helen Clark to Tokelau.

With the Te Kaha unable to berth at any of the three reef-ringed atolls, Helen Clark has instead clambered down steep shipside ladders, and on to flat-bottomed barges, or, at Atafu, on to a "traditional" canoe for the bumpy transfers to shore.

Atafu is an outpost of New Zealand where children playing soccer on a coral-based rugby field call out to the "palagi" visitors.

There's also a netball court and, in the meeting house, a shelf full of sporting trophies for local championships.

The Lopas' home is teeming with grandchildren, some being cared for while their parents are in New Zealand for medical treatment.

Only two of the Lopas' six children live in Atafu. One son is in Australia, another son and two daughters live in New Zealand.

It is hard, they say, for Tokelauan families knowing they will be separated because of economic opportunities abroad.

"New Zealand's a good place for schooling," Feleti, a former Wellington railway worker, says.

"But if I take my children to New Zealand, they will change a lot. New Zealand is strict in laws, but here, it is custom."

Vaelua is envious of the Te Kaha's passengers.

She vividly recalls a six-day ordeal travelling from Tokelau to Samoa and back on the uninviting, low-slung 35m MV Tokelau, which plies the route monthly but offers no shelter from the seasons or sea. And she suggests it would be nice if New Zealand could give Tokelau a fast boat, maybe like the frigate, which reached Fakaofo from Apia in just 11 hours.

Having invited a stranger into their home to shelter from a tropical downpour, Vaelua Lopa soon illustrates why she has been introduced as Atafu's "national treasure".

The atoll's first woman school principal and member of the General Fono (national legislature) has decided she does not want greater self-rule yet, even though the Fono last year unanimously agreed to explore it.

She is not swayed by talk of the pride and dignity self-rule will afford Tokelau.

"Proud of what? No thank you, we stick to what we've got.

"There's a fear all around here [that] after 10 years, New Zealand might say, okay, you're ready to go on your own."

Helen Clark this week gave Tokelauans her word New Zealand would not turn its back and as she toured through Atafu's school and hospital it became clear why the small nation worries about its future.

Health and education are priorities from Tokelau's almost $10 million in aid money, but the school rooms remain basic and medical facilities primitive.

On the hospital's walls, a poster warns of the twin evils of smoking and poverty, and a second illustrates - though it's not clear why - male and female sterilisation.

Ideally, each of the three atolls, separated by 150km of open seas with little inter-atoll shipping, should have its own doctor, but they don't. And in an emergency, a doctor is not always enough. In a recent medical crisis Nukunonu's doctor spread instruction manuals on surgery and anaesthesia across an Atafu patient's chest as he tried, in vain, to save her by amputating a gangrenous leg.

Tokelau's acting Ulu (titular head), Faipule Pio Tuia, says decent health, education and shipping services must be in place before his country can begin to govern itself.

Tokelau has few land-based resources; its best economic opportunity is a rich fishery. Yet with no open-sea fishing fleet, limited processing facilities and a lack of reliable transport to Apia, it will be some time before Tokelau can reap an income from the seas.

And then there's the question of labour. Tokelau's population of around 1500 is down from more than 2000 40 years ago, before many moved to New Zealand to try to ease congestion in the atolls.

Officials suggest the population could stomach a modest boost, maybe up to 300, but Tokelauans who have left do not always want to return home.

One who did, is Falani Aukuso, the director of Tokelau's public service, set up by New Zealand in the mid-1970s.

The public service now pays much-needed salaries, but it has also brought a cash society to replace subsistence living, in turn introducing life-style and obesity-linked diseases such as diabetes.

Aukuso was one of the first scholarship students to be sent from Tokelau to New Zealand, where he trained as a teacher.

Described as the driving force behind the self-government movement, he says November's government-to-government talks between New Zealand and Tokelau, where the details of a new relationship treaty may be hammered out, present one of the most critical stages in his country's history.

"Of course we are worried," he says. "Whatever the arrangement, it is very clear Tokelau does not want to sever its ties with New Zealand. We want to do what we can to look after ourselves, noting that we cannot do it on our own.

"We want to speak for ourselves on the international stage, for it to hear the genuine Tokelau voice, not the voice of a representative of the Government of New Zealand.

"We don't want to do this if it is going to mean we are less able than what we are now. That is why the next stage of these negotiations - what are the details of the free association - is a big job."

Already the two countries have signed a joint statement on the principles of their partnership, which takes into account a possible move to self-determination by Tokelau and promises New Zealand's ongoing financial support.

That handed responsibility for the running of Tokelauan affairs to its unique governance structures, the General Fono, the atolls' council of elders, and an executive of senior village people.

If the November talks agree to a treaty for an act of self-determination and that is endorsed by the General Fono, a UN-sanctioned referendum would be held.

And that raises another difficult question: Who will vote? With just 1500 Tokelauans at home, compared with 6000 in New Zealand and thousands more elsewhere, deciding whether those who have left should be able to vote on Tokelau's future will be both critical to the result - and controversial, as those living offshore are thought to prefer the status quo.

Vaelua Lopa says all Tokelauans, no matter where they live, should have a vote.

Falani Aukuso thinks not, suggesting they have not been involved in the process. "If you want to have a say, come here to Tokelau to say it."