Tokelau leader regrets anti-independence vote

Feb 17, 2006, 13:15 GMT

Wellington - Tokelau, a group of microdot atolls in the South Pacific which has voted to remain a colony of New Zealand despite most islanders choosing independence in a referendum this week, will probably vote on the issue again, officials said on Friday.

Nearly 60 per cent of 584 voters who cast ballots on the three inhabited atolls voted for self-government in free association with New Zealand, but this week's referendum fell 32 votes short of the two-thirds majority needed to end 117 years of colonial rule by first Britain and then New Zealand.

'We feel ashamed that we cannot stand up and determine our own future,' Tokelau's leader Pio Tuia, who supported change for his 1,500-plus fellow islanders, told a correspondent for New Zealand's Dominion Post newspaper after the result was declared on Thursday night.

'The majority of people are ready for change. I really want my people to be free people,' he said.

'It won't be long before we come out again, we are nearly there.'

And Neil Walter, a New Zealand diplomat who is officially the administrator of Tokelau, said: 'At some point, I'm sure, once the dust has settled, they'll want to have another look at their situation and work out just how they proceed from here - leading perhaps to another act of self determination at some point down the track.'

Walter said Tokelau was already a self-governing country to all intents and purposes and a yes vote would have formally restored sovereignty it lost in 1889 when Britain colonised the islands.

New Zealand has administered Tokelau for 80 years and its people are New Zealand citizens.

The result means Tokelau remains a New Zealand colony and on the United Nations list of 16 non-governing territories.

Set halfway between New Zealand and Hawaii, with no airport, a 28- hour boat ride away from its nearest neighbour and most of its people living overseas, it is the ultimate away-from-it-all ministate and likes to call itself the last paradise on earth. New Zealand has pledged to continue financial aid which accounts for 80 per cent of Tokelau's budget, the rest coming from fishing licence fees, copra, handicrafts, stamps and coins.

Tokelau's three main coral atolls cover only 12.2 square kilometres of land spread over 160 kilometres of ocean. None of the 128 islets set in their reef-fringed lagoons is wider than 200 metres or more than five metres above sea level.

There is only a handful of vehicles and the resident population is well outnumbered by the 8,000 or so Tokelauans who live in New Zealand, Australia and Samoa, 500 kilometres to the south.