VZCZCXRO7457
RR RUEHPB
DE RUEHWL #0599/01 2131917
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
R 011917Z AUG 06
FM AMEMBASSY WELLINGTON
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 3108
INFO RUEHBY/AMEMBASSY CANBERRA 4498
RUEHPB/AMEMBASSY PORT MORESBY 0590
RUEHSV/AMEMBASSY SUVA 0491
RHHMUNA/CDR USPACOM HONOLULU HI
RHHJJAA/JICPAC HONOLULU HI

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 WELLINGTON 000599 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR EAP/FO AND EAP/ANP 
PACOM FOR JO1E/J2/J233/J5/SJFHQ 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 07/31/2016 
TAGS: PREL NZ TN
SUBJECT: GNZ VIEWS ON TONGA'S POLITICAL REFORM FOLLOWING 
DEATH OF CHAMPION 
 
REF: A. SUVA 215 
     ¶B. SUVA 28 
     ¶C. SUVA 100 
     ¶D. 05 SUVA 613 
     ¶E. SUVA 222 
     ¶F. WELLINGTON 451 
     ¶G. SECSTATE 120947 
 
(U) Classified By: Acting Deputy Chief of Mission Katherine 
¶B. Hadda, for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d) 
 
Summary 
------- 
¶1. (C) With a vocal domestic population of 40,000 ethnic 
Tongans, the GNZ has monitored with interest the deaths of 
Tongan Prince Tu'ipelehake and Princess Kaimana in a July 5 
car accident in the United States.  GNZ views the death of 
the Prince as a blow to the political reform process in 
Tonga.  However, NZ officials are unsure whether the reform 
process will proceed to further democratic reform or will 
fade with the death of one of its strongest champions.  The 
expatriot Tongan community and GNZ have been closely engaged 
in the Tongan political reform for several years, as FM 
Winston Peters discussed with the Secretary during his July 
visit to Washington.  End summary. 
 
Death of Tonga's Champion for Political Reform: GNZ's Views 
--------------------------------------------- -------------- 
¶2. (U) New Zealand officials reacted with strong concern and 
genuine sadness to the death of Tongan Prince Tu'ipelehake 
and Princess Kaimana, killed in a car accident south of San 
Francisco on July 5.  As part of an ongoing political reform 
consultation process, the Prince and Princess were in the 
United States to meet with ex-patriot Tongans.  Their 
consultation visit followed a similar consultation visit to 
New Zealand in June. 
 
¶3. (SBU) New Zealand officials had been quietly working with 
the Prince to help bring constitutional and political change 
in the Kingdom of Tonga.  According to contacts at the New 
Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT), when 
the Tongan government conceded large wage increases at the 
end of the six-week strike in 2005, it also conceded to a 
process for examining the possibility of political change 
through the National Committee on Political Reform (NCPR). 
Both the Australian and New Zealand Governments provided 
generous funding for the Committee's work, which began in 
earnest in February 2006 and, according to MFAT, had gained 
widespread acceptance in Tonga.  The Prince also consulted 
with the Tongan Community in New Zealand in mid-June, before 
making similar trips to Australia and the United States. 
 
¶4. (SBU) MFAT believes the work of the NCPR will be 
completed, and anticipates its final report in August or 
September.  The head of the Tonga Advisory Council in New 
Zealand, Melino Maka, who was in Tonga at the time of the 
Prince's death, told the New Zealand High Commission there 
that he hoped Tu'ipelehake's death would cause more Tongans 
to put aside their petty differences and work more 
co-operatively toward the common goals espoused by the 
Prince.  However, when the Prince was in New Zealand in June, 
the factious Auckland Tongan community did not act 
cooperatively to facilitate the Committee's consultations. 
According to MFAT, the Committee's work is almost complete, 
but that it will be for others to carry the findings forward 
to the next phase. 
 
¶5. (C) But MFAT concedes progress could be slow.  Deputy 
Director of MFAT's Pacific Division, Marion Crawshaw, says, 
"More has been done in the last two years than in the last 50 
years.  It may take a few years, but they've got the 
shoreline stuff sorted out, and while there was concern about 
the economy 18 months ago, the Minister of Finance has his 
got his hands firmly around that."  She estimates that 
substantive political reform within 5 years is a probability. 
 
 
¶6.  (C) Although overseas Tongans are officially outside of 
its remit, MFAT also hopes the Prince's death will unite the 
often fractious expatriates.  Ma'anaima Soa, Parliamentary 
staffer to Minister of Pacific Island Affairs Phil Goff and 
Associate Minster Winnie Laban, separately gave us a more 
pessimistic readout about the Tongans in New Zealand.  She 
noted that the competing groups had conducted separate 
memorial services for the Prince and Princess at places 
 
WELLINGTON 00000599  002 OF 003 
 
 
throughout Auckland and greater New Zealand.  Moreover, she 
expressed sincere doubt that the reform movement would 
withstand the death of Prince.  He was the "heart" of the 
movement without an heir apparent, she said. 
 
Pacific Issues as New Zealand Domestic Issues 
--------------------------------------------- 
¶7. (C) As MFAT Deputy Secretary Alan Williams told Emboffs in 
June (Ref F), in New Zealand "Pacific issues quickly become 
domestic issues." The Pacific population in New Zealand is 
6.2 percent and is growing quickly.  Most Islanders are in 
the Auckland region, including high concentrations in the 
electorates of Prime Minister Helen Clark and Minister of 
Pacific Island Affairs Phil Goff.  Associate Minister of 
Pacific Island Affairs (and ethnic Samoan) Winnie Laban's 
electorate in a Wellington suburb also has one of the highest 
concentration of Pacific Islanders in New Zealand. 
 
¶8. (C) When Williams spoke of Pacific issues becoming 
domestic issues, he had in mind the specific case of 
political transition in Tonga.  At over 40,000, the Tongan 
diaspora here accounts for about 40 percent of all the 
world's Tongans, according to GNZ.  About 78 percent of them 
live in Auckland. 
 
¶9. (U) Until recently, King Taufa'ahau Tupou IV had been 
residing at his Auckland home, the site of periodic 
anti-monarchy protests over the last year and of August 2005 
property damage and bomb threats coincident with the public 
service strike in Tonga.  On July 1 of this year, a Tongan 
democracy activist's car burst into flames when he drove into 
the gates of the residence.  (The King was still in the 
Auckland residence but was unhurt.  He soon returned under 
heightened security to his 88th birthday celebrations to 
Tonga.) 
 
New Zealand's engagement in Tonga's Political Transition 
--------------------------------------------- ----------- 
¶10. (C) It's therefore understandable that New Zealand takes 
a special interest in Tonga, and that Wellington's actions 
reverberate in Nuku'alofa.  When New Zealand's Parliamentary 
Foreign Affairs Select Committee in 2004 initiated an inquiry 
into New Zealand's relationship with Tonga, it sparked debate 
amongst New Zealand's MPs, as well as between loyalist and 
democratic factions of New Zealand's Tongan diaspora.  The 
final report contained seventeen recommendations, most 
related to development assistance toward capacity building 
and good governance initiatives involving the New Zealand 
Agency for International Development (NZAID). 
 
¶11. (SBU) Among hotly debated issue were freedom of the press 
and comparisons of Tonga to Zimbabwe, and the trade gap 
between New Zealand and Tonga.  The then Acting Prime 
Minister of Tonga, Clive Edwards, condemned the inquiry as 
"patronizing and a breach of sovereignty," and asked, 
rhetorically, where else the GNZ had made inquiries in the 
Pacific.  The Commonwealth's special envoy to Tonga, Sir 
Douglas Graham said, "An aggressive inquiry may make Tonga's 
rulers less willing to embrace democratic reforms."  The 
Tongan Government declined the approaches of New Zealand's 
Foreign Affairs Select Committee to discuss the inquiry. 
(The Committee's full report can be found at 
www.clerk.parliament.govt.nz.) 
 
Comment 
------- 
¶12. (C) FM Peters visited Tonga in March, and when he met 
with the Secretary on July 19 he highlighted GNZ's effort to 
introduce democracy to Tonga (Ref G).  (Ironically, before 
Peters was named as Foreign Minister his party, NZ First, 
criticized the 2005 Parliamentary report on Tonga as 
"interference by New Zealand into the affairs of another 
country.")  While GNZ's primary Pacific concern remains with 
Melanesia, particularly its ongoing commitments through the 
Regional Assistance Mission in the Solomon Islands (RAMSI), 
it recognizes that it is facing the winds of change with 
long-standing Polynesian partners. 
 
¶13. (C) While MFAT is optimistic that real democratic reforms 
will be achieved in Tonga in the longer term, it remains 
unclear as to how the movement will respond to the death of 
its champion, Prince Tu'ipelehake, in the near term.  GNZ 
officials will remain actively engaged in the process due to 
their deep commitment to Pacific issues and because of the 
active and sizable Tongan diaspora in New Zealand.  GNZ 
 
WELLINGTON 00000599  003 OF 003 
 
 
efforts to encourage reform in Tonga will be largely kept 
from public view, and will most likely rely on sustained 
capacity building and good governance initiatives promoted 
through NZAID.  End Comment. 
McCormick