Papua New Guinea to lead crisis talks on Fiji, Solomon Islands

Papua New Guinea to lead crisis talks on Fiji, Solomon Islands

BRISBANE (Reuters): Papua New Guinea will lead a Pacific delegation to Fiji and the Solomon Islands in an attempt to solve political crises which have rocked the region.

PNG Foreign Minister Sir John Kaputin said on Tuesday he and counterparts from the Cook Islands and Vanuatu would visit Fiji and the Solomon Islands, both hit by coups in the past two months, in August.

He said he hoped Pacific nations with an understanding of Melanesian culture could find diplomatic solutions not readily seen by Western countries.

"The changes involved include the presence and economic activities of foreign and other non-indigenous interests, as well as the movement of people from the villages where they were born to areas of greater opportunity," Kaputin told PNG's parliament.

Papua New Guinea is no stranger to instability. No PNG government has served a full term since independence in 1975 and the country fought a bloody 10-year secessionist rebellion on Bougainville island until a cease-fire in 1998.

Kaputin said the Pacific initiative had been prepared at a recent African Caribbean Pacific European Union (ACP-EU) forum. The Pacific delegation will report its findings on Fiji and the Solomons to the ACP-EU.

Nationalist rebel George Speight stormed Fiji's parliament on May 19 in the name of indigenous Fijian rights.

Speight and armed rebels held Mahendra Chaudhry, Fiji's first ethnic Indian prime minister, and most of his multi-racial cabinet hostage for 56 days. The hostages have been released but bickering over a new government continues.

In a move dubbed by Pacific media as a copycat coup, one of two warring ethnic militias staged a coup in the Solomon Islands on June 5 which led to the downfall of Prime Minister Bartholomew Ulufa'alu's government.