Island nations have talks

Pacific leaders are considering Australian calls for them to pool their meager resources to overcome poverty and fight threats such as arms dealing, people smuggling, money laundering and even terrorism.

But as the leaders arrived in Auckland yesterday for their annual Pacific Islands Forum summit, it was far from certain whether they will support the plan.

Some say the wide-ranging proposal could challenge the sovereignty of individual island nations, which are among the world's smallest, poorest and most remote countries.

Despite idyllic image, much of the Pacific has suffered frequent bouts of unrest -- the latest being a bloody civil war in the Solomon Islands, so bad that order is now being restored by an Australian-led multinational peacekeeping force.

Concerned what he sees as a potentially endemic regional instability on his doorstep, Australian Prime Minister John Howard says island nations are "too small to be viable."

He wants the leaders' meeting, that starts Thursday, to agree to a collective effort to combat economic and social disarray.

He also wants the islands to cooperate on a wide range of activities from airlines to fisheries and government services.

Fijian Minister Kaliopate Tavola said yesterday cooperation was not new and had been tried before with some failures. For example, he said what is now Fiji's national airline, Air Pacific, began as a cooperative venture, but several small states now ran their own competing airlines.

Pacific Cooperation Foundation Chairman Michael Powles, a former New Zealand diplomat, said there was a "very, very strong case" for increasing regional political collaboration.

"But it can't be rushed -- that would probably put it backwards," he said.

If nations saw the plan as encroaching on their sovereignty, "it's not going to get a warm response," he said.

New Zealand Foreign Minister Phil Goff also said the plan should not challenge the identity, independence, sovereignty and national pride of the small states, which "don't want people making decisions for them."

Under Howard's plan, 200 police a year would be trained in Fiji for countries in the region.

Yesterday, Howard indicated that this might be further developed possibly with the creation of a Pacific police force.

"Clearly these small countries don't have the capacity to train their own police," Howard told Sky News Television. Asked if the goal was to eventually establish one regional police force, he said: "Well, one thing can lead to another."

Leaders also discuss a draft set of "Good Leadership" principles for them to follow. It points range from respect for the law and democracy to upholding honest, open government and protecting individual rights, cultures and customs.

However, it had not won support from island officials by late yesterday.

The forum includes Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, the Cook Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati, Nauru, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, the Marshall Islands, Samoa, the Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu.