By Kirsty Needham
(Reuters) – Tonga’s Prime Minister Siaosi Sovaleni stressed the role of police in ensuring “freedom from fear” in democracies in a speech to Pacific island police chiefs on Tuesday, noting the growing focus on the region by world powers.
A top U.S. drug enforcement official will travel to Tonga on Wednesday for the first dialogue between U.S. and Pacific Island law enforcement chiefs on the sidelines of the regional police agency’s annual conference.
China, which has police in the Solomon Islands and Kiribati, is seeking to expand its policing role in the Pacific, raising concerns from U.S. ally Australia, which will fund a A$400 million ($269.60 million) plan to boost training and create a mobile Pacific Islands police unit to reduce the need for outside forces.
In a speech to police chiefs on Tuesday, Sovaleni said the Pacific Ocean had become “a central arena” for global interests and the role of police was changing rapidly.
“It’s not just about safety and security, it’s about freedom from fear and the freedom that that gives people – the freedom to pursue their dreams, to trust our democratic institutions and processes against undue influence and interference,” he said.
The conference will decide how to implement the Australian-funded Pacific Policing Initiative, endorsed by leaders of the 18-member Pacific Islands Forum last week.
As of 2022, China has failed to reach security agreements with 10 of the forum’s 18 members, including Australia, three nations that recognize Taipei, and French territories and island states with defense ties to the United States.
External partners wishing to provide resource assistance should go through the Pacific Islands Police Chiefs Framework, Sovaleni added.
U.S. Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs Todd Robinson will travel to Tonga on Wednesday, U.S. officials said.
Robinson is a key figure in the U.S. response to the fentanyl crisis and said in congressional testimony last year that the synthetic drug is being trafficked through Mexico using precursor chemicals diverted from China.
Two Chinese nationals suspected of involvement in a fentanyl distribution ring were deported by Fiji and arrested by the FBI in Hawaii last year.
US Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell said last week in Vanuatu, after meeting with Pacific island leaders, that Washington would work with the region to curb drug trafficking by criminal networks that use it as a staging post for narcotics exports to the United States.
($1 = 1.4837 Australian dollars)
(Reporting by Kirsty Needham, editing by Michael Perry)
