DR DAVE KEEGAN interviewed by MARK SAINSBURY
MARK Joining us now Acting US Ambassador Dr Dave Keegan. Thanks for joining us on Q+A. Now you've been here for three years, a time when we've seen a bit of a warming in terms of the relationship between the US and New Zealand, so are we friends or allies?
DR DAVE KEEGAN - US Ambassador
We are friends, we're allies. You know we've spent a
lot of time worrying about the words, or at least some people
have. We've spent a lot more time I think in our Embassy and
both in the New Zealand and US government worrying about what we're
doing, and I think we're doing a lot more together, and because
we're doing it together doing it more successfully.
MARK When Condoleezza Rice came here in 2008, now she talked about our relationship, she said 'we have structured our relationship and our cooperation to meet the post September 11 challenges'.
DR DAVE Sure.
MARK Does that suggest, I mean was America in some ways surprised by the reaction or the hostility towards it and everything that happened after 9/11?
DR DAVE I think what happened after 9/11 was in fact what the United States saw was a lot of countries who were turning to the United States and saying, what happened there was devastating and awful, we want to help you, but we also want to recognise that what happened to you is an outgrowth of a problem that is world wide and that was the problem of terrorism, and so a number of countries stepped together in order to address this problem. New Zealand was one of those countries and I think it was the discovery of how much common cause we had that led us to, both sides, to stop and say wait a minute, we have a lot in common, the way we think, the way we value, our strategic objectives. We shouldn't be cooperating by accident, we should be cooperating across the board and figuring out where we can do things together most successfully.
MARK Now in terms of cooperation of course we've had the announcement this week the SAS returning to Afghanistan. Were you aware in advance of that decision?
DR DAVE As the Prime Minister said, he had alerted the US government before this came.
MARK And in terms of the communication flow the other way, did you have messages from the Obama administration for our government?
DR DAVE There's been no secret for some time that all of the international community has tremendous respect for what the New Zealand contribution in Afghanistan has been, its PRT is a model. NATO routinely invites people to go and look at what New Zealand is doing and try to imitate that elsewhere. The SAS contribution in their previous deployments again attracted considerable praise, and we've made that clear as others have.
MARK So you're talking about what 70 SAS rotated over 18 months, why do you need 70 crack soldiers from New Zealand?
DR DAVE What you need in Afghanistan, and what New Zealand is part of, is a multilateral effort to provide security so that you can continue doing and expand doing what we crudely call nation building, providing security, providing a chance for the Afghan people to rebuild their society and their economy, and if you look at the other part of the announcement that Prime Minister Key made about the transformation of New Zealand's PRT, that's building on the enhanced security in order to provide enhanced development.
MARK Because you could understand the work that our soldiers did in Bamiyan province for instance over there in terms of the nation building. The SAS to be frank are renowned for their ability for covert operations, for snatching hostile people, in fact I mean it's been mentioned already that they are valued over there for their ability to do that sort of stuff. Now the worry we have here is exactly what sort of work are they doing for the US in Afghanistan.
DR DAVE They're not doing any work for the US in Afghanistan, they're working for New Zealand in Afghanistan, and they're working for the international effort to fight terrorism, and let's face it, these terrorists have proven themselves very agile combatants, very clever, and very harsh. New Zealand's SAS brings a capability to stop the terrorists from taking the kind of actions that have been disrupting Afghanistan.
MARK Sure, so say for example if New Zealand SAS are involved in capturing terrorists who are a danger and a threat to the stability in Afghanistan and then hand them over to US forces, what guarantees do we have that the Geneva Convention is being followed in all the procedures that follow?
DR DAVE Well going back to what Prime Minister Key said, before deploying the SAS to Afghanistan they have secured commitments from the Afghan government, they expect to turn over any captured combatants to the Afghan government, and so that's the basis on which they're doing this, and I think they have every assurance, and we have every assurance that the Geneva Conventions will be honoured.
MARK Look not disrespect Mr Ambassador, but I mean we've seen in the past there's things come out over the past few months that the Geneva Convention has not always been strictly followed in terms of redition flights and things like that, people are rightly suspicious of how this operates and raises fears of whether our SAS are going to be involved in things in Afghanistan that simply aren't following the rules.
DR DAVE There's no question in the past there have been things done including by US forces that were not fully in accordance with the rules, and one of the reasons we know this is because the US media has found that information out, the US government has responded to it and provided additional information. The Obama administration has made it absolutely clear that that will not be tolerated and that that will not continue, and I think New Zealand can have every confidence in that as the Americans do.
MARK Look the other big issue, and I spose I wonder whether the two are connected of course is trade. I mean New Zealand's made no secret of the fact it wants a free trade deal with the US. Under the Obama administration that goal seems to have been pushed a bit further out.
DR DAVE I think what has happened under the Obama administration is that when Ron Kirk was confirmed as our Special Trade Representative, the Senate quite rightly said to him before you start new trade negotiations, we want to make sure that the trade agreements we already have in place, those already conformed by the United States Congress and those pending approval, in fact serve the interests of the US employees, US workers, and the US companies, that they were designed to advance, and so he has been instructed to go back and do that work, make sure that we are getting fair value for those agreements and just last week there was an announcement the World Trade Organisation has sided with the US in a challenge we put to China about its treatment of US movies, books, software, and whether or not they were providing fair national access. WTO concluded as we had asserted that China needs to do more to honour the trade commitments it's made under it's accession to the WTO.
MARK You know I spose for New Zealand exporters there's really that sense of we're being pushed on to the back burner aren't we. I mean we're not as important as China, why should we expect that, but there is that sense that this is hardly a priority for the Americans.
DR DAVE Sure, what I think is a priority for the United States is this trans Pacific partnership. This is a free trade agreement of initially four countries that New Zealand was instrumental in creating. This is not simply a trade agreement between the United States and New Zealand, it's a trade agreement that will bring the New Zealanders, New Zealand, Australia and others, into opening up trade in the most dynamic set of economies in the world, and that's the Asia Pacific. That is fundamentally in US interests, we need to move forward on that, and we need to work with New Zealand to make that happen.
MARK I wonder how committed though is the US to the Pacific, I mean it talks about how important it is, I think you had a situation I think was it 2007 was declared by the US the Year of the Pacific, Condoleezza Rice didn't even get down here.
DR DAVE That was 2008 that she got down here.
MARK Sure, but she didn't make it in the year that you designated so important.
DR DAVE Right, and you know the curse of being the Secretary of State is oftentimes you have to follow the problems, and getting to your opportunities takes longer, but she carved time out of a very crowded schedule after visiting New Zealand to go and stop in Samoa and sit down with Pacific leaders and hear their concerns, and talk to them about how to move forward, and I would note that she made that trip with the very strong encouragement of Prime Minister Clark, and Foreign Minister Peters. That would not have happened without New Zealand.
MARK But you talked before about the differences the US is having with China on trade. Now the 2007 Congressional Report said China's becoming a growing force in the South West Pacific, as a result some argue, of a political vacuum created by US neglect. There is a perception that the Pacific is low down on the pecking order.
DR DAVE Two different issues. Let's talk about China for a moment. China's world wide activity is expanding as its economy expands, this is a natural phenomenon, it's a positive phenomenon, we need to work with China so that as it expands its interests it does so in ways that serve its interests and the interests of others. The role of the US in the Pacific I think is longstanding, you know out of Hawaii which is our Pacific state, out of American territories, Guam, American Samoa, and others, but we're also not going to step in and try to recreate the kind of expertise that Australia and New Zealand bring to the table. You have a degree of knowledge and a degree of understanding of how to make things work there that we want to take advantage of and be the beneficiary of, and figure out how we can add value.
MARK But the US congressman for American Samoa Faleomavaega, now he says that - he has criticised New Zealand and Australia's attitude to the Pacific, and said America should be looking at - in terms of Fiji - that we're too tough on Fiji, America needs to take a sort of softer stance there.
DR DAVE I know that Mr Faleomavaega has made that argument, Secretary of State Clinton, Assistant Secretary Kurt Campbell have made it absolutely clear that in the government's assessment, New Zealand and Australia are taking a strong line with Fiji that is appropriate, and that we want to figure out how to work with your governments as we have been to continue the pressure on Fiji to move back to a real democracy.
MARK We do appreciate you being here today and again you know when are we going to get a real Ambassador sitting - we don't have one do we?
DR DAVE We don't and there are a number of countries that do not. You know one of the glories of your system is that Prime Minister Key was elected and ten days later you had a full government seated. We don't have that system, we have a system whereby you have to nominate all of the Cabinet all of the Sub Cabinet, they need to go through hearings in the United States Congress, and the same applies to a range of political ambassadors such as Australia and New Zealand. It is a time consuming process, I understand it's frustrating to New Zealanders, believe me it's frustrating to Americans. Secretary of State Clinton has made it clear that she's not thrilled, but that's the process we have and we work within it.
MARK Dr Dave Keegan thank you so much for your time today, I hope you enjoyed your time here in New Zealand, as of course you're heading back state side, thanks for joining on Q+A.
DR DAVE Thanks, it was a great time to be here.
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