Photo Essay: Samoa And About The Pacific Forum

Wednesday, 11 August 2004, 8:34 am
Article: Selwyn Manning

Photo Essay: Samoa Hosts The Pacific Islands Forum
By Selwyn Manning – Scoop Co-Editor in Apia, Samoa.

Helen Clark at the end of the Pacific Islands Forum.

Helen Clark said the forum was a success in gaining acceptance for the Pacific Plan of regional co-operation on issues of security, transport, tackling HIV/AIDS and governance assistance.

Samoa’s south-east on Upolu island.

Tokelau has hosted a New Zealand state visit on the tiny isolated group of islands in near the equator in Pacific Polynesia. Prior to leaving Apia, Samoa for the visit Helen Clark invited Tokelau’s acting ulu (head) Faipule Pio Tuia to speak to the Pacific Islands Forum on his group of islands wish to become independent of New Zealand’s dominion.

Helen Clark congratulates Faipule Pio Tuia, acting ulu (head) of the Tokelau Islands on his first speech to the Pacific Islands Forum.

Pio Tuia said to the forum: “As I speak before you now, I feel very much like a little bird among eagles. "It is a feeling that is at once very scary and somewhat daunting, but at the same time exciting and full of wonder of the unknown. It is a feeling that makes me want to run away." But Tokelau will begin the transition toward self-governance with the assistance on New Zealand. And this, PioTuia says is exciting.

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