US Assistant Secretary of State makes friendly visit [1]
Thursday, June 30, 2011 - 10:05. Updated on Wednesday, September 11, 2013 - 09:54.
The US Government is reintroducing USAID to the Pacific region and together with other aid donors will be looking at more coordinated assistance to the Pacific islands, a high level US delegation announced in reaffirming its friendly relationship with Tonga this week.
"The US has no better friend in the Pacific than Tonga," the US Assistant Secretary of State Mr Murray Campbell told the Tongan Media in Nuku'alofa on 28 June.
Mr Campbell and US officials, who are on an eight nations Pacific island tour, made an overnight stop in Nuku'alofa on Tuesday.
The US delegation included the US Pacific Fleet Commander Admiral Patrick M. Walsh, Brigadier General Simcock from the Office of the Secretary of Defense South/Southeast Asia, the USAID Assistant Administrator Nisha Biswal and the US Ambassador to Fiji and Tonga HE Steven McGann.
Mr Campbell said that their visit underscored the US intention to engage with their friends in the Pacific to learn "how well we can help and support our friends.
Iraq and Afghanistan
"We have been talking about every aspect of our relationship. I must say that we have no better friend in the Pacific than Tonga. This was reaffirmed by the King who gave us the honour of our audience with him today. We thank him for his government's support to us in so many ways, and in particular the recent commitment in Afghanistan and Iraq."
With regards to the duration of Tongan soldiers on active duty in Afghanistan, Brigadier General Simcock said that there had not been any talk to either shorten or extend their stay.
While in Tonga Mr Campbell announced a return to the Pacific of USAID, and said that the US will attend the 40th anniversary of the Pacific Islands Forum to be held in Auckland, New Zealand in September, "it will be the largest US delegation that we have ever sent."
Impact of climate change
Nisha Biswal, the assistant administrator of USAID, said that they would open up a regional office in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea. She said that their main concern is the impact of climate change, "its impact on food security and the life of people in the Pacific."
With the reintroduction of USAID, according to delegates, the former Pacific Islands Development Program, which was introduced under President Bush's administration and was operating at the East West Center, Hawaii was "now inactive."
With regards to overseas assistance to the Pacific Mr Campbell pointed out that the Pacific receives a remarkable amount of assistance but the assistance was also uncoordinated. An example of uncoordinated assistance, he said, were the expensive buildings in Samoa, built by the Chinese, which will be very expensive to ventilate. He said they had been talking to donor countries, Australia, New Zealand, the EU, the Japanese and the Chinese, and to international institutions such as the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank. He believed that if assistance could be coordinated it would maximize the benefits for the recipient island countries.
Before Tonga the US delegation visited Kiribati and Samoa. After Tonga they will visit the Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, Palau, the Federated States of Micronesia then the Marshall Islands.