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ABSTRACT
In the years immediately following independence, Fiji took advantage of its position as the first Pacific Island country in the United Nations to highlight the harms of French nuclear testing. Building on the outspoken efforts of Fijian civil society that reflected deep concerns in the region, the government of Prime Minister Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara took on an increasingly activist role in the international arena around the testing of nuclear weapons in the Pacific. Fiji’s advocacy over this time represented an important moment in Pacific Way politics, tying nuclear resistance to self-determination struggles. Anti-nuclear sentiment at both a community and political level positioned Pacific agency and perspectives in this global discourse. Revisiting the speeches and diplomatic efforts of the Fijian government alongside the advocacy and activities of the ATOM group offers lessons on the importance of collaborative politics in the face of transboundary harms and regional challenges.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 While the Pacific Way term has been critiqued and interpreted in myriad ways, in this context it refers to the earliest statements on it, led by Ratu Mara and his representatives in the United Nations and echoed in civil society in the immediate post-independence years in Fiji. For critiques and the changes to the concept over time, see Epeli Hau‘ofa, We Are the Ocean: Selected Works (Hawai‘i: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2008), 17, 43–4; Stephanie Lawson, ‘“The Pacific Way” as Postcolonial Discourse: Towards a Reassessment’, Journal of Pacific History (hereinafter JPH) 45, no. 3 (December 2010): 297–314; Greg Fry and Sandra Tarte, ‘The “New Pacific Diplomacy” An Introduction’, in A New Pacific Diplomacy, ed. Greg Fry and Sandra Tarte (Canberra: ANU Press, 2015), 5–6; Nicollette Goulding, ‘Marshalling a Pacific Response to Climate Change’, in A New Pacific Diplomacy, ed. Fry and Tarte, 193; Richard Herr, ‘A “Vuvale” Partnership for the Pacific Islands?’, The Strategist (Australian Strategic Policy Institute), 19 June 2019, https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/a-vuvale-partnership-for-the-pacific-islands/ (accessed 6 Nov. 2023).
2 The British nuclear tests conducted on Malden and Kiritimati islands hold a special significance for Fiji as Fijian military personnel were deployed for the tests from 1957–8. The legacies of those tests have been the subject of ongoing legal and political debates. See Nic Maclellan, Grappling with the Bomb: Britain’s Hydrogen Bomb Tests in the Pacific (Canberra: ANU Press, 2017).
3 Tracey Banivanua Mar, Decolonisation and the Pacific: Indigenous Globalisation and the Ends of the Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 224.
4 Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara, ‘Address to the United Nations General Assembly’, United Nations 1876th Plenary Meeting, 21 Oct. 1970; Greg Fry, Framing the Islands: Power and Diplomatic Agency in Pacific Regionalism (Canberra: ANU Press, 2019), 132.
5 Ratu Mara, ‘Address to the United Nations General Assembly’.
6 In this first speech to the United Nations, Ratu Mara uses the term ‘Pacific Way’.
7 Ratu Mara, The Pacific Way, A Memoir (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1997), 117.
8 Ratu Mara, The Pacific Way, 117.
9 Semesa Sikivou, ‘Address to the United Nations General Assembly General Debate’, United Nations 2131st Plenary Meeting, 27 Sept. 1973; Fry, Framing the Islands, 138–9.
10 Ron Crocombe, ‘Seeking a Pacific Way’, in The Pacific Way: Social Issues in National Development, ed. Sione Tupouniua, Ron Crocombe, and Claire Slatter (Suva: South Pacific Social Sciences Association, 1975), 1–6.
11 Ratu Mara, The Pacific Way, 117; Fry, Framing the Islands, 138–41.
12 Ratu Mara, The Pacific Way, 113–21; Derryk Scarr, Tuimacilai: A Life of Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara (Adelaide: Crawford House Publishing, 2008), 198.
13 Daryl Tarte, Turaga: The Life and Times and Chiefly Authority of Ratu Sir Penaia Ganilau in Fiji (Suva: Fiji Times Limited, 1993); Brij Lal, A Time Bomb Lies Buried: Fiji’s Road to Independence, 1960–1970 (Canberra: ANU Press, 2008); David McIntyre, Winding Up the British Empire in the Pacific Islands (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014); Deryck Scarr, Fiji: A Short History (North Sydney: George Allen & Unwin, 1984).
14 Scarr, Tuimacilai, 115; Tarte, Turaga, 56–8.
15 Scarr, Tuimacilai, 198; Fry, Framing the Islands, 131–2.
16 Scarr, Tuimacilai, 199–202.
17 Semesa Sikivou, ‘Address to the United Nations General Assembly’, United Nations 1951st Plenary Meeting, 4 Oct. 1971.
18 As cited in Jean-Marc Regnault, ‘The Nuclear Issue in the South Pacific: Labor Parties, Trade Union Movements, and Pacific Island Churches in International Relations’, The Contemporary Pacific 17, no. 2 (2005): 339.
19 Sébastien Phillipe and Tomas Statius, Toxique: Enquete sur les essais nucléaires français en Polynésie (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2021).
20 Maurice Schumann, ‘Address to the United Nations General Assembly’, United Nations 1942nd Plenary Meeting, 28 Sept. 1971.
21 Schumann, ‘Address to the United Nations General Assembly’.
22 South Pacific Forum (hereinafter SPF), ‘Communique’, Wellington, 5–7 Aug. 1971.
23 Ibid.
24 Ratu Mara, The Pacific Way, 14–8.
25 ‘The Declaration of Commonwealth Principles’, Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, Singapore, 1971.
26 Yoko Ogashiwa, Microstates and Nuclear Issues: Regional Cooperation in the Pacific (Suva: University of the South Pacific, 1991), 47.
27 Ratu Mara, quoted in News from Fiji, 21 Jan. 1971, in Ogashiwa, Microstates and Nuclear Issues, 47.
28 Ratu Mara, The Pacific Way, 13.
29 Ratu Edward Cakobau, ‘Address to the United Nations General Assembly’, United Nations 2060th Plenary Meeting, 10 Oct. 1972.
30 Ratu Cakobau, ‘Address to the United Nations General Assembly’.
31 Ibid.
32 United Nations, ‘Urgent Need for Suspension of Nuclear and Thermonuclear Tests: A/Res/ 2934’, General Assembly 27th Session, 29 Nov. 1972.
33 Fiji Government, ‘Application for Permission to Intervene submitted by the Government of Fiji (Australia vs France)’, International Court of Justice (hereinafter ICJ), 16 May 1973, 158.
34 Ibid.
35 SPF, ‘Communique’, Canberra, 23–5 Feb. 1972 and 12–14 Sept. 1972.
36 Sikivou, ‘Address to the United Nations General Assembly’, 27 Sept. 1973.
37 Charles Manata, ‘If it is Safe’ Poster, Produced for the Pacific Conference of Churches Poster Competition, in A Call to a New Exodus: An Anti-Nuclear Primer for Pacific People, ed. Suliana Siwatibau and B. David Williams (Suva: Pacific Conference of Churches, 1982).
38 Australian Government, ‘Application Instituting Proceedings: Case Concerning Nuclear Tests (Australia vs France)’, ICJ, 9 May 1973.
39 New Zealand Government, ‘Application Instituting Proceedings: Case Concerning Nuclear Tests (New Zealand vs France)’, ICJ, 9 May 1973.
40 See the separate orders made: ‘Nuclear Tests Case (Australia v. France): Request for the Indication for Interim Measures of Protection: Order’, ICJ, 22 June 1973, 99–110; ‘General List No. 59, Nuclear Tests Case (New Zealand v. France): Request for the Indication for Interim Measures of Protection: Order’, ICJ, 22 June 1973, 135–47.
41 Fiji Government, ‘Application for Permission to Intervene (Australia vs France)’, May 1973; Fiji Government, ‘Application for Permission to Intervene, (New Zealand vs France)’, May 1973.
42 Fiji Government, ‘Application for Permission to Intervene (New Zealand vs France)’, 91.
43 Ibid.
44 ICJ, ‘Nuclear Tests Case (Australia vs France) Judgment of 20 December 1974’, https://www.icj-cij.org/public/files/case-related/58/058-19741220-JUD-01-00-EN.pdf (accessed 29 July 2022).
45 Sikivou, ‘Address to the United Nations General Assembly’, 27 Sept. 1973.
46 Ogashiwa, Microstates and Nuclear Issues, 49.
47 Maclellan, Grappling with the Bomb, 147–56.
48 Ratu Penaia Ganilau, ‘Address to the United Nations General Assembly’, United Nations 2380th Plenary Meeting, 8 Oct. 1975.
49 Ibid.
50 Michael Somare, ‘Address to the United Nations General Assembly’, United Nations 2383rd Plenary Meeting, 10 Oct. 1975.
51 Michael Hamel-Green, ‘Anti-Nuclear Campaigning and the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone (Rarotonga) Treaty, 1960–1985’, in Proceedings of the 14th Biennial Labour History Conference, ed. Phillip Deery and Julie Kimber (Melbourne: Australian Society for the Study of Labour History, 2015), 51–62.
52 Vijay Naidu, ‘The Fiji Anti-Nuclear Movement: Problems and Prospects’, in The Pacific: Peace, Security, and the Nuclear Issue, ed. Ranginui Walker and William Sutherland (London and New Jersey: Zed Books, 1988); Stewart Firth, Nuclear Playground (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1987), 97; Nicole George, Situating Women: Gender Politics and Circumstance in Fiji (Canberra, Australia: ANU E Press, 2012), 49–52; Anne S. Walker, A World of Change: My Life in the Global Women’s Rights Movement (Melbourne, Australia: Arcadia Press, 2018), 85–6.
53 Helmut Anheier, Civil Society: Measurement, Evaluation, Policy (London: Earthscan Publications, 2004), 22.
54 Fry, Framing the Islands, 141.
55 Ibid., 141, 144.
56 Walker, A World of Change, 58–66.
57 George, Situating Women, 4.
58 See, for example, the statements on nuclear weapons in 1959, 1963, and 1967 through the meetings of the World YWCA. World YWCA Statements of Policy Adopted at Legislative Meetings 1894–2007 (Geneva, Switzerland, 2007), 92, 93, 99.
59 World YWCA, World YWCA Statements, 108.
60 Charles Forman, The Voice of Many Waters: The Story of the Life and Ministry of the Pacific Conference of Churches in the Last 25 Years (Suva: Pacific Conference of Churches, 1986), 1–13.
61 Christine Weir, ‘The Opening of the Coconut Curtain: Pacific Influence on the World Council of Churches through the Campaign for a Nuclear-Free Pacific, 1961 to 2000’, JPH 54, no. 1 (2019): 116–38.
62 Weir, ‘Opening of the Coconut Curtain’, 118.
63 Interview with Rev. Akuila Yabaki, 2 June 2018, Suva, Fiji.
64 Vijay Naidu, ‘A Commentary on the 50-Year History of the University of the South Pacific’, in Understanding Oceania: Celebrating the University of the South Pacific and its Collaboration with The Australian National University, ed. Stewart Firth and Vijay Naidu (Canberra: ANU Press, 2019), 13.
65 Stewart Firth, ‘Themes’, in Understanding Oceania, 3–4.
66 Thomas C. Schelling, Arms and Influence (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1966), 2.
67 Epeli Hau‘ofa, ‘Our Sea of Islands’, in We Are the Ocean (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2008), 32.
68 Banivanua Mar, Decolonisation and the Pacific.
69 Vanessa Griffen and Talei Luscia Mangioni, ‘“Will to Fight Together”: Fiji has Taken another Bold Step in the Battle Against Nuclear Weapons’, The Guardian, 8 July 2020.
70 Ogashiwa, Microstates and Nuclear Issues, 46–50; Naidu, ‘The Fiji Anti-Nuclear Movement’, 185–95; Firth, Nuclear Playground, 133; Greg Fry, Framing the Islands, 147–9; Lawrence S. Wittner, Confronting the Bomb: A Short History of the World Nuclear Disarmament Movement (California: Stanford University Press, 2009), 115.
71 Naidu, ‘The Fiji Anti-Nuclear Movement’, 185.
72 Ibid.
73 Amelia Rokotuivuna, Fiji: A Developing Australian Colony (North Fitzroy: International Development Action, 1973), 4–9.
74 Graham Baines, ‘Nuclear Games in the South Pacific’, The Ecologist 1, no. 18 (1971): 9–11.
75 Siwatibau and Williams, A Call to a New Exodus.
76 Talei Luscia Mangioni, ‘Art/Story of the Niuklia Fri Pasifik: On Doing Creative Pacific Histories’, JPH 59, no. 1 (2024): 37–59.
77 ‘“Bomb” Burned in Suva Protest’, Fiji Times, 15 July 1974 (also available online at the Pacific Manuscripts Bureau (hereinafter PMB) 1211, ‘Young Women’s Christian Association of Fiji Archives, 1963–2000’, Reel 2, 555); Naidu, ‘The Fiji Anti-Nuclear Movement’, 186.
78 Anne S. Walker, ‘A Study of Relationships between Mass Media, Community Involvement and Political Participation in Fiji’ (PhD thesis, Indiana University, 1976), 232–40.
79 Interview with Vijay Naidu, 28 May 2018, Suva, Fiji.
80 Walter Johnson and Sione Tupouniua, ‘Against French Nuclear Testing: the ATOM Committee’, JPH 11, no. 4 (1976): 215.
81 Ratu Mara, The Pacific Way, 148.
82 Ibid.
83 Fiji Government, ‘Application for Permission to Intervene (Australia vs France)’, May 1973; Fiji Government, ‘Application for Permission to Intervene (New Zealand vs France)’, May 1973.
84 Smith records that it was not until the third Nuclear Free Pacific Conference in 1983 that the name ‘Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific (NFIP) movement’ was officially adopted. See Roy H. Smith, The Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific Movement after Moruroa (London: Tauris Academic Studies, 1997), 27.
85 Wittner, Confronting the Bomb, 115; Naidu, ‘The Fiji Anti-Nuclear Movement’, 185–90.
86 Amelia Rokotuivuna, ‘Opening Introductory Speech by Amelia Rokotuivuna, Chairperson, ATOM’ (Nuclear Free Pacific Conference, Suva, Fiji, 1–6 Apr. 1975). Archive retrieved from the National Library of Australia (also available online at PMB 1085, Fiji Trades Union Congress Archives, Reel 8).
87 Ibid.
88 Ratu Mara, ‘Message from the Prime Minister of Fiji, The Rt Hon Ratu Sir K. K. T. Mara, K.B.E.’ (Nuclear Free Pacific Conference, Suva, Fiji, 1–6 Apr. 1975). Archive retrieved from the National Library of Australia (also available online at PMB 1085, Fiji Trades Union Congress Archives, Reel 8).
89 Ibid.
90 Fry, Framing the Islands, 178.
91 Ogashiwa, Microstates and Nuclear Issues, 49–53.
92 President Ronald Reagan, ‘Remarks of the President and Prime Minister Kamisese K.T. Mara of Fiji Following Their Meetings’, 27 Nov. 1984, Reagan Presidential Library Archive, https://www.reaganlibrary.gov/archives/speech/remarks-president-and-prime-minister-kamisese-kt-mara-fiji-following-their-meetings (accessed 10 Apr. 2021).
93 Ogashiwa, Microstates and Nuclear Issues, 50.
94 Naidu, ‘The Fiji Anti-Nuclear Movement’, 191; Fry, Framing the Islands, 163.
95 Smith, The Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific Movement after Muroroa, 158–63.
96 Fry, Framing the Islands, 163.
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Notes on contributors
Dimity Hawkins
Dimity Hawkins – School of Social Sciences, Swinburne University of Technology, Hawthorn, Australia. [email protected]