From Matangi Tonga Magazine Vol. 14, no. 2, May 1999.

Interview by Pesi Fonua

HRH Crown Prince Tupouto‘a, in an interview with the Matangi Tonga on May 16 offers a Pacific view on the current European conflict in Yugoslavia.

Tonga’s Crown Prince, a retired Minister of Foreign Affairs and Defence, also comments on the wishes expressed by some people for him to become the next Prime Minister of Tonga. He is currently the chairman of Shoreline, the company that took over Tongatapu’s electric power generation, and he has interests in a variety of other companies, including fishing and brewing.

With regards to Tonga’s ongoing economic recession Tupouto‘a said that the causes and the solutions to the recession are to be found within Tonga.

Pesi Fonua – The bombing of Yugoslavia by NATO, do you think it can develop into a World War?

HRH – We all hope not, but just remember that the First World War started in the Balkans. The Balkans traditionally is a collection of very small and inviable states in a way that the Pacific Island countries are inviable states in their own way. In the case of the Balkans, because they are inviable states they had, actually, during the period leading up to the First World War become a plaything for the great powers, Russia, Austria, Germany, and France. The mad rush to give Kosovo its independence from Yugoslavia seems to point at a revival in the creating of small inviable states.

For my generation who grew up during the 1950s I think that England and France accidentally lost their ability to act independently on a global scale in 1956 over the Suez Crisis, and they have never recovered from that loss of prestige. So, I imagine the regaining of that ability is worth the price of intervening in the Kosovo crisis at such disadvantageous terms.

The bombing of the Chinese Embassy seems to have escalated the war.

Well, that is the sort of thing that can happen, you can’t have a clean war, no matter what your technology is.  I still have not heard a technical explanation of how and why. We have been watching hours of footage of the NATO spokesman, Shea, boasting about how…accurate their smart weapons are, and suddenly they hit an embassy. If we were to believe what they have said before then, of course, they have done it on purpose. Now they have said it was a dreadful accident and they are awfully sorry, we don’t know what to believe.

Do you think the conflict will spread beyond Yugoslavia, and Russia may become involved, and that it may even develop into a world war?

I would doubt it very much. I think for that to extend that far, NATO would have to make up its mind whether or not it would wish to risk turning back a Russian oil tanker, for examples, or stopping a Russian oil convoy, or cutting a pipe line. So NATO needs to exhibit a lot more political will before there is a danger of a world war. Anyway it won’t be a world war because it won’t involve Asia.

So a world war will not happen?

Well, if you have two world powers, two equally powerful world powers, yes, there is only one great world power.

Do you think the Russians will go back and rebuild their war machine after this?

No, they can’t afford it. It is big enough as it is. Actually, they are bigger than everyone else in Europe put together, and as long as this conflict remains conventional, they are probably more powerful than NATO–NATO without the USA that is.

The war in Europe, does it contribute to the economic recession that is happening in our part of the world?

I don’t think so, it is far away, I think the causes for the recession in the South Pacific are found near at home: incompetence, stupidity, a touch of corruption here and there, you know, the normal things that we have been living with during the past two hundred years or so.

How long do you think it will take for us to pull together and bounce back from this recession?

Oh dear! First of all we have to find a way of recovering, and then see how long it will take. There is a new generation of statesmen and officials all convinced that they have a solution to the economic problems, and how to improve them. Or (they are) determined to apply these solutions without any doubts as to the beneficial effects they might have, such as the case of Tonga where the new economic solution has not worked. In fact, it has had the opposite effect it is causing the economy to shrink. Well, it is no good people sitting back and saying, “Oh no, no, not my fault, I am just a minister of this, and I am just a minister of that”, they are all responsible.

You know since you retired, a lot of people have been talking about the possibility of you coming back to government to be the Prime Minister.

The people who say that are probably the people I hate the most, and I should say, be careful what you wish for–it may actually come true.

I am quite satisfied with my life now,  I keep busy all the time.

But do you think the economy can get worse than this?

Oh yes, it can get worse. It can get a lot worse.

Are you looking at any new business venture?

No, but the first thing you should realize that anywhere there are bad services, and over-priced low quality goods, that is obviously a business opportunity.

So what poor services are you looking at now?

Oh dear, practically everything. The only thing, which we have plenty of and we never cease to produce a surplus of, is religion. It does not matter how good or bad the economy is, we still have many more churches than schools. Praise the Lord, the number of (church) services that we have-there is a tremendous choice. The amount of noise that is generated every Sunday by bells clanging and empty gas bottles being whacked, wooden drums beating away-probably every frequency band from high to low, the whole spectrum of decibels from zero to 20 million are fully occupied on Sundays. There are an awful lot of religion activities. One can form the opinion that Tonga is a hell fire eternal, why I don’t quite know. To recreate here on earth a condition, which they imagine might exist in heaven-this was precisely the reason for the fall of the Byzantine Empire. Living in La La land it is called.

I can’t remember any religious instructions, from God that is-there are plenty of churches, priests and bishops-but I don’t actually remember God in the Bible saying, you must recreate on earth all the conditions that you think might be in heaven. So we end up with laws inspired by totally medieval interpretations of the scripture.