Nauru loses contact with the world

BBC News ^ | Feburary 21, 2003

[HAL9000]

The tiny Pacific island of Nauru has spent weeks completely cut off from the outside world after its telecommunications network collapsed.

Its isolation is so complete that no one is even sure who the country's president is any more.

Nauru, an isolated speck in the southwest Pacific with a population of 12,000, is in a "critical situation", according to the last message received by the outside world.

That came via an address given three weeks ago by the man last believed to be running the country, President Bernard Dowiyogo, details of which were given on Friday by Radio Australia.

The president said that many people had not been paid since last year and that the eight square mile (21 square kilometre) island was effectively broke.

"You are all aware and conscious of our critical situation," Dowiyogo said in the address.

Nauru's telephone system collapsed on 8 January amid political chaos, and since then the island has only been contactable when ships equipped with satellite telephones made stops there, the AFP news agency reported.

Nauru's diplomats in New Zealand confirmed to the agency that apart from these few calls, they had been unable to contact home for weeks.

Riches to chaos

The situation is compounded by the fact that when contact was last made, a battle was raging for power between President Dowiyogo and the man he unseated in January, Rene Harris. No one is quite sure who runs the island now.

Additionally, whoever is in charge is thought to have no budget with which to rule, while the official presidential residence was reported to have burned down last month.

It is a sad demise for an island which not long ago boasted one of the world's highest per capita incomes through lucrative phosphate mining.

But with the phosphate reserves nearly gone - and most of the island reduced to a barren moonscape as a result - Nauru has gradually slumped into chaos.

In an attempt to find a new source of income, Nauru has recently become a major centre for offshore banking and is accused of allowing rampant money laundering.

The problem is so bad that more than 400 banks were registered to one mailbox alone, international investigators say.

The island has also begun interning asylum seekers while their applications to live in Australia are processed, in return for aid from Canberra.

However this appears to have gone badly wrong.

Late last year, Australian immigration officials admitted that the asylum seekers, mainly Iraqis, had been running their own detention centre since officials abandoned the site following a riot.

"Effectively you could call it a self-managed centre," a senior Australian immigration official told an inquiry.

[martin_fierro]

Its isolation is so complete that no one is even sure who the country's president is any more.

And yet ... civilization goes on.

<|:)~

[princess leah]

Well, this sounds like some place those 3 mysterious ships might go since they are also without radio or other communications with the outside world...maybe Saddam is planning a takeover of this Island and moving his WMD closer to America?

[Ciexyz]

Sounds like my kind of place. Considering shipping out now.

[martin_fierro]

If you're The Guy On The Island With The Best Teeth, they may even make YOU President! <|:)~

[wildbill]

Apparently all the banks in Naaru are shells (no pun intended--well, maybe a little one.)

Sixty Minutes did a piece on them some years ago. Seems Naaru is an island that sold off most of its land area which consisted mainly of nitrate rich bird droppings (I swear I'm not making this up) to fertilizer companies. This left the islanders with an island that looked like a donut because of the big hole in the center, surrounded by a narrowing strip of land holding back the Pacific.

The banking scam came as a result of trying to broaden their economic base.

[AmericanInTokyo]

This is stupid. Certainly there are amateur ham radio operators in that country that are talking with the 'outside' world!

[Jack Black]

Don't count on it. These are mostly aboriginal people.

[AmericanInTokyo]

Yes, but for sure there are some 'just hanging out' expats, retires, etc. in from 'the world' and it only follows that some of them are amateur radio operators. I have a hard time believing the original claim of this article that the entire island is shut off from the world completely.

[AmericanInTokyo]

Nauru hams in Australia

About half Nauru’s active amateur population is in Melbourne at the moment. One of those visiting was Norman C21NJ. Norman was here for a medical checkup and dropped in to see Lee VK3GK. Rob C21DX was also in town, but couldn’t come over at that time. Nauru is only 12 square miles in area, has a population of about 8000 people. There are 8 resident hams but only two or three are active. Lee said that it was really great to catch up with people you talk to on the radio. QSL cards were exchanged also. If you want to work Nauru, try 14.260 MHz any time as a couple of the amateurs monitor that frequency.

--From an amateur radio website, (in 1999), which might contradict the headline about Nauru being shut off from the world.

[strela]

A cautionary tale for those who think that AOL and a McDonalds are available behind every tree and bush on the planet.

[Doctor Stochastic]

The banking scam came as a result of trying to broaden their economic base.

Perhaps they should look at broadening their shoreline.

[amariner3]

Between 1972 and 1974 I lived on Saipan and, while there, I met one Hammer de Robert who was a Nauruan and then the President of Nauru. He was a graduate of the London school of Economics and his plan was to use the earnings from the sale of phosphates to invest in other ventures so that,when the phosphates were gone all citizens of Nauru could go and live in Australia on the earnings of their collective investments. At that time they owned a shipping line, an airline and several real estate investments in Australia. I wonder what went wrong?

[Jack Black]

Three years ago there were five inactive hams and 3 active ones in the country. At the time of the article, if I read it right, two of the three ative ones were in Austrailia. Perhaps they decided to stay! That would leave on active ham, who may have moved, died or retired to inactive. Rather than disproving anything these details reinforce how amazingly thin the thread was that connected Nauru with the rest of the world. It is easy for me to believe it is altogether severed now.

[AmericanInTokyo]

Well, whatever. Send them an e mail and see what happens.

[RightWhale]

its telecommunications network collapsed.

It's 2' satellite dish fell over.

[LibKill]

"its telecommunications network collapsed."

It's 2' satellite dish fell over.

And people say that I am cold and unfeeling, they don't know you.

:)