SYDNEY -- Nobody, least of all any of the troubled South Pacific nations, is calling last month's Pacific Islands Forum in the island country of Kiribati a decisive victory. Yet all 16 nations that attended the historic summit see the Biketawa Declaration as the best framework yet for ensuring stability in this ill-named tropical paradise.
As the forum's president, Kiribati President Teburoro Tito, put it, "It's like a village where we now agree for the first time in the history of the Pacific that we have common rules. We also agree on how we should deal with a member of the village who is not complying with the rules."
Australia, as the major donor country to the region and forum facilitator, trod a narrow path through a diplomatic jungle in advancing the agreement. But Prime Minister John Howard is not altogether happy about one far-reaching clause in the declaration, the one demanding protection of human rights in a nonmember country, Irian Jaya.