Ethnic violence flares in Vanuatu

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Title – Ethnic violence flares in Vanuatu
Source – www.bbc.co.uk
Date – 8th March 2007

Vanuatu is a nation of small islands in the middle of the pacific ocean. Rarely visited except by intrepid travellers and experienced divers, it has a wealth of attractions just waiting for the experienced traveller; world class wreck diving, accessible active volcanoes, friendly dugongs, cargo cults, great beaches, blue holes, authentic south pacific culture and is the birth place of the Bungee Jump in the land (vine) jumpers of Pentecost island.

Vanuatu recently shot to fame coming top of the Happy Planet Index (www.happyplanetindex.org) a new way of looking at the ecological efficiency with which human well-being is being delivered. So is Vanuatu really the happiest place on earth?

Certainly it has traditionally been a typical south pacific island, with a pace of life equivalent to a turtle on land, a people that smile when they meet you and are happy to talk and find out about you and your life at every opportunity, the palm trees to finish off the perfect picture postcard. But ask some of the locals and they may have a different point of view, most are certainly happy, but they still like anyone want to improve themselves. Better health care, better education and better prospects for their children, the same ambitions that people all over the world work for. Your tourist dollar can make a difference and help local people, if you use local facilities.

But even in the happiest place on earth, trouble seems sometimes to be just below the surface and modern life creeps up and does the same damage that it has done for centuries in all corners of the world. Coming in search of work in the capital and in the main tourist hotspots, people from different ethnic groupings are forced to live together in conditions not fit for purpose; the negative elements seem to surface and the result is always the same, fighting and civil unrest. Even in paradise where the police carry no weapons, they have to draw on the worst of mankind’s inventions (the gun) to try and protect the happiness of the people.

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