Kiribati Vice-President's visit to UK
Michael Walsh's article for the Abergavenny Chronicle

Visit to the UK by Hon. Teima ONORIO, MP, Vice-President and Minister of Education, Youth and Sport, Government of Kiribati.

The Kiribati Consulate, Michael Walsh recently hosted a visit by the Vice-President of Kiribati, the Hon. Teima Onorio who was accompanied by the Deputy Secretary for Foreign Affairs, Mrs Tessie Lambourne, and Mrs Beta Tentoa, who is also an MP in the Kiribati Parliament.

The Republic of Kiribati

The country was formerly known as the Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony (and is familiar to many erstwhile stamp collectors under that name), but assumed the name Kiribati on independence from Britain nearly 26 years ago, on 12th July 1979. The book Pattern of Islands about the country, by Arthur Grimble, is also well known to many of the older generation, as it was for many years an ‘O’ Level textbook. Kiritimati (Christmas) Island in Kiribati was the location of British nuclear tests in the 1950s and early 1960s.

The people there are predominantly Micronesian and number nearly 90,000 – the fourth smallest member of the Commonwealth.

The Republic is an active member of the Commonwealth and the South Pacific forum and a member of the United Nations and IMF. It is classified by the United Nations as a Least Developed Nation, with a per capita income of less than £300 per year.

Despite its poverty, Kiribati is a democracy with an exemplary record of political stability and human rights. The current President and Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Anote Tong, is the fourth President since Independence; he was sworn in on 8 July 2003. The next election is in 2007

The major industries are fishing, copra production, and seaweed cultivation. Many of the young men and women spend time working overseas, either as merchant seamen in the German merchant marine, as fishing crew on Japanese boats, or more recently on Norwegian Cruise ships.

To the great regret of the Kiribati people, who have always valued their link to Britain, the UK has in recent years scaled back its association with Kiribati, and the FCO has recently announced the closure, in March this year, of the British High Commission in Tarawa, its capital. Britain ceased to give aid to Kiribati some years ago; and Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO) - a very valued source of assistance in the past – has now also withdrawn in order to focus its attention on Africa.
Because of the low-lying nature of its atolls, the very existence of Kiribati is sadly at risk over the next half century from global warming and the rise in sea levels that this will cause.

The visit to London by the Hon Teima Onorio, MP, between 23rd and 28th January

The Hon Teima Onorio represents the southernmost inhabited atoll in Kiribati, Arorae, in the Kiribati Parliament. She was a teacher before she entered politics and spent a year in the UK in 1989, studying the teaching of English as a Foreign Language at Norwich University. She was appointed Minister of Education, Youth and Sport, and only the second ever female Minister in the Kiribati Government, in July 2003. In this capacity, she presided over the first entry of Kiribati into the Olympics, at the Athens Games.

Her visit to the UK between 23rd and 31st January was at the invitation of the British Government.

She held a number of discussions with UK Government Departments in London during the week, with calls on Ministers including the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Mr Bill Rammell, MP (to whom she expressed the grave regret of the Kiribati Government at the closing of the UK High Commission in Kiribati); and the Fisheries Minister, Mr Elliot Morley MP, at DEFRA (where she discussion unregulated and unreported fishing on the high seas). She also called on the Secretary-General of the Commonwealth at the Commonwealth Secretariat at Marlborough House.

She visited the Department for Culture, Media and Sport; the Department of Health; and the Defence Estates Agency. The last of these was in connection with a recently let contract to clear up the debris left by Britain at the end of its nuclear testing programme, which has polluted part of Kiritimati (Christmas) Island.

At a political level, she met Baroness Gardner of Parke for a discussion on women in politics, and UK members of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association. She also attended, from the Distinguished Strangers’ Gallery, last week’s Prime Minister’s Question Time.

She was entertained on the evening of the 26th January by the Kiribati Tuvalu Association, which is an active association both of the 40-odd Kiribati and Tuvalu born people who have settled in the UK, and nearly 200 people from Britain who have at some time lived and worked in Kiribati. Click here for photos of this event.

Visit to the Honorary Consulate in Penpergwm, 28th to 31st January

Ms Onorio completed her visit to the UK by spending the weekend as the guest of the Honorary Consul for Kiribati, at the Great House near Penpergwm. Here she was met by the Honorary Consul, Mr Michael Walsh, and Mrs Rotee Walsh
The Vice President had a busy weekend.

On Friday 28th, with Mrs Lambourne and Mrs Tentoa, she attended a dinner at the Consulate with Mr and Mrs John Smith, and Mr and Mrs Roger Turner. John Smith was Governor of the Gilbert Islands and was the chief architect of their Independence Constitution; Roger was one of the Vice President’s teachers when she was at secondary school in Tarawa, whom she had not seen since the 1970s.

On Saturday, Ms Onorio visited the Cheddar Gorge and caves; and Wells Cathedral. In the evening, she attended the first birthday party in Tavistock (Devon) of Christian Batterham, the son of Kaitibo and Simon Batterham, and met more members of the Kiribati community in Britain. (Ceremonial First Birthdays are important in Kiribati culture).

On Sunday, the party attended the 1662 Service of Holy Communion at St Cadoc’s Church, the Bryn, where the sermon was preached by the Rev. Michael Sadler; and toured Raglan Castle, before a relaxed evening at the Great House prior to their departure from Heathrow on Monday morning. Ms Onorio was especially interested in Raglan Castle as she has always been a keen student of history but had not seen a real castle before; and she also enjoyed seeing the stalagmites and stalactites in the Cheddar Gorge caves.

She commemorated her visit to Monmouthshire by planting a tree, a Cedar of Lebanon, in the grounds of the Honorary Consulate. The Chronicle photograph shows (left to right) Mrs Rotee Walsh, Mr Michael Walsh, the Hon Ms Teima Onorio, and Mrs Tessie Lambourne.