This is a weird story about Nauru. Any of you Amateurs out there
trying to raise them?
Doug
Wednesday » February 26 » 2003
Island state loses touch with world
Last message from Nauru referred to 'critical situation'
Isabel Vincent
National Post
Wednesday, February 26, 2003
Nauru, a tiny Pacific island that boasts an inordinate number of
offshore banks, seems to have fallen off the face of the Earth.
A few weeks ago, amid rumours of political unrest, its entire
telecommunications network collapsed, cutting off its 12,000
inhabitants from the outside world.
Things are apparently so bad on the island, a tiny speck in the
southwest Pacific, no one in the outside world is sure who the
country's president is any more.
Nauru's telephone system shut down in early January during a period of
political chaos. Since then, the only contact with the island has been
through ships equipped with satellite telephones that have made stops
there.
Nauru diplomats stationed in New Zealand recently told Agence
France-Presse that, apart from these calls, they have been out of touch
with their country for weeks.
In one of the last messages transmitted from the island, which was
discovered by a British navigator in 1789, Nauru was said to be in "a
critical situation."
The message, which was believed to have come from Bernard Dowiyogo, the
President, said many people had not been paid since last year and the
21-square-kilometre island had gone broke.
But it is not clear if Mr. Dowiyogo is really in charge.
The last communication came during a tense political battle between the
President and Rene Harris, the former president and the man he is
reported to have unseated in January after a vote of no confidence.
Adding to Nauru's problems is the fact that whoever is in power has no
money to rule and faces a deadlocked parliament. Moreover, the
presidential residence was reported burned to the ground last month.
Repeated calls to various government agencies on Nauru yesterday
resulted in dead silence on the line. Calls to its consular offices in
Honolulu and Guam also went unanswered.
A woman who answered the telephone at Nauru's permanent United Nations
mission in New York said she had not heard the island's
telecommunications system had collapsed.
The mission maintains contact through Nauru's consular representation
in Melbourne, Australia, she said.
When asked whether or not she knew who was in charge on Nauru, she
referred the caller to the Melbourne consulate.
"We only deal with UN matters here," she said before hanging up.
A spokeswoman at Nauru's consulate in Melbourne, which is the island's
most important foreign mission, said President Dowiyogo was indeed in
charge. However, nobody has heard anything from the island since the
satellites that support the island's telecommunications facilities went
down two weeks ago.
"We can't communicate," added the woman, who did not want to be
identified.
"We only hear about something when someone there manages somehow to get
a message out." She said the satellites are being fixed and
communications are expected to resume shortly.
The chaotic state of communications on Nauru resembles the tiny
country's own economic chaos. The island, which was ruled jointly by
Australia, Britain and New Zealand before gaining independence in 1968,
once boasted the world's highest per-capita income through its
profitable phosphate mining.
But the reserves of guano -- fossilized bird droppings -- are expected
to run out by the end of this year.
This leaves Nauru, a pock-marked rocky outcrop, with no other
resources. Everything from water to food and fuel must be imported.
To diversify its economy, the government has been developing
alternative industries, including offshore banking and tourism.
But it came under fire after investigators traced funding sources for
terrorist attacks to its offshore banks.
Law enforcement agencies around the world accuse Nauru of allowing
money laundering to flourish. Everyone from international terrorists to
the Russian mafia reportedly has accounts on the island. In one case,
investigators found more than 400 banks registered to a single mailbox.
ivincent@...
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