TRYING to grasp the enormity of the Pacific Ocean is something akin to attempting to look back to the beginning of time. From a Port Moresby vantage point one would think it would be easier. But it doesn't work that way. Actually being in the Pacific simply makes you feel even more insignificant. But it does make it possible to empathise with the helplessness Pacific Islanders must have felt since they first became aware of the existence of far more powerful peoples than themselves.

Try to think Pacific. Far to the north of Papua New Guinea, way across the equator, lies a necklace of myriad islets from the Northern Marianas to Kiribati. That is Micronesia. All around is the brooding, dark green of Melanesia's jungles which stretch away to the east through the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and New Caledonia and on to Fiji. And then even further away to the east - so far that much of it is still yesterday - are the island groupings which are home to Polynesians.

Even harder to grasp is the assertion that binding all these disparate islands and peoples together is a mysterious something described, by Fiji's Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara, as the 'Pacific Way'.

Such a claim remains myth. The various Islands nations have for years politely managed to disagree on all manner of topics even though all know full well that a united Islands policy toward foreign intervention would considerably reduce the region's vulnerability.

Just because the swashbuckling days of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries are over does not mean foreigners are any more considerate of Islanders' aspirations. The early 1960s saw a large slice of Melanesia, in the shape of former Dutch West New Guinea, handed over by the Dutch to Indonesia, totally against the wishes of its near one million indigenous inhabitants.

Indonesia has brutally suppressed the nationalism of these people who call themselves West Papuans. Indonesia's aggression in West Papua and France's militarily maintained control of New Caledonia are both glaring examples that brutality toward Islands peoples has still not ended. But more often, these days, the brutality is economic rather than physical.

If anything, Islands people - from the Marquesas of French Polynesia to the Northern Marianas of the US's de facto Micronesian empire - are more vulnerable than they were throughout the last two centuries when they were plundered, proselytised, diseased and depopulated by as motley a bunch of merchants, missionaries, privateers and empire builders as ever crossed the oceans.

Yesterday the exploiters came with guns and canons, black holds lined with chains, beads as cheap payment for all manner of riches, and syphilis in return for warm hospitality. They came for raw booty. Sandalwood and beche-de-mer for oriental ports; whales for processing in Europe; gold for a few; exotic plumes and crocodile skins for Parish fashion. Islanders received almost nothing in return.

For centuries, the Pacific peoples had lived complete, self-sufficient lives. They had no idea that in addition to their luxuriously spiritual lifestyles, they were also endowed with all sorts of material wealth which was to have great attraction for the red-skinned newcomers.

Soon the strangers weren't only taking what they pleased. They began sticking the flags of Europe on beaches all across the Pacific. Economic considerations dictated some claims, but later Islands groups were taken over simply to make sure another European power didn't get in first.

Queen Victoria might not have claimed the southeast portion of New Guinea if the Germans hadn't planted their flag on the northeast portion.

To this day, Britain insists it took over Fiji at the invitation of the high chief Cakobau. The chief, it seemed, was up to his eyes in debt to the Americans. 'Pay my bills and you can have the lot,' said Cakobau in 1874. Within 80 years Fijians were outnumbered by descendents of Indian labour brought in for Colonial Sugar Refinery (CSR) plantations. Cakobau would turn in his grave at the thought of what damage he had done to his people. It is thanks only to the amazing goodwill and tolerance of Fijians and Indians alike that Fiji is not a racial disaster area today. Britain should hang its head in shame over that one colonial crime alone.

Much worse happend in New Caledonia. Melanesians today represent only 40 per cent of the total population and the percentage is falling.

Nearly 25,000 of New Caledonia's 56,000 Melanesians are living on reserves totalling 168,770 hectares. French property and state land in New Caledonia totals 1.5 million hectares.

Dewe Gorodey, an independentist Melanesian said in 1976: 'After 123 years of French rule...we have no doctors, no lawyers, no economists, no engineers . There are only seven Kanaks (Melanesians) who have university degrees and we have only one secondary school teacher.'

Some Islanders are still under colonial rule. They are, for the record: the Melanesians of West Papua and New Caledonia; the Polynesians of Hawaii, French Polynesia, Wallis and Futuna and Easter Island; the Euro-Polynesians of Norfolk and Pitcairn Islands (home to many Bounty mutiny descendents); and the Micronesians of Guam and the Trust Territories of the Pacific Islands. Not all Islanders object to this status. But colonial subjects they are.

Islanders barely noticed any change in the First World War except that some colonial masters left and new ones arrived. But the Second World War brought holocaust to much of the Western Pacific From Saipan to the Solomons, Islanders in their thousands perished as foreigners unleashed all the horror of modern weaponry on their homelands.

And then, when the last shot had been fired, the British, Americans, Australians and New Zealanders told Islanders that they had been 'saved'. From what? Certainly not from decades of colonialism which were still to come.

And throughout these years, foreign companies - in particular Burns Philp (BPs) and Carpenters - mostly Australia and New Zealand based, monopolised Islands trade.

BPs and Carpenters are still involved in almost every sector of Islands economies. They are traders, planters, shippers, agents, insurers, and wholesalers and retailers of a multitude of commodities. They carefully maintain links with the ruling elites.

For decades they have been making their profits in, and taking their profits out of, the Islands. Nothing illegal in that but, given the smallness of each market, the sheer enormity of foreign control of Islands business makes it near impossible for indigenous entrepreneurs to compete. Despite the mining and big plantation activity they see around them, Islanders in places like Papua New Guinea, Fiji and New Caledonia, have benefited only marginally, mainly through employment.

The deal in the sixties between the Australian colonial administration and Conzinc Rio Tinto (CRA) - Australian subsidiary of UK's Rio Tinto Zinc (RTZ) - to bring PNG's huge Bougainville copper mine into production, was a clear case of development at any cost with little consideration for the needs of local people. Not only did the mine nearly tear the embryo state of Papua New Guinea apart by triggering a serious secessionist movement; there wasn't a fair cash return from it for the people of Papua New Guinea either.

Michael Somare, first prime minister of a decolonised PNG, immediately ordered a re-negotiation, demanding a much larger slice of the copper cake for government coffers. Bougainville Copper Limited (a CRA subsidiary) obliged, only too willingly - but by this time the copper boom had bust and PNG's rake-off continued to amount to short-change for the price paid by the people of Bougainville Island.

Now another big copper deal with an international consortium has been negotiated and terms look much more promising. But it will be interesting to see what Papua New Guinea is getting out of its Ok Tedi mine a decade from now.

In an increasingly resources-conscious world, the Pacific is now under closer scrutiny than it has been since Japanese and American military chiefs pondered each other's weaknesses in the forties. Papua New Guinea has been found to have yet more copper. It has natural gas and strong signs that one day oil will be found. New Caledonia has more than a third of the world's known land-based nickel reserves. Fiji has copper and so has Solomon Islands. West Papua, PNG, Solomon Islands, Kiribati, Fiji and Western Samoa all have quality timber stands. And nearly all the Islands nations, now that 200-mile economic zones are a fact, have fish and, possibly, mineral-rich sea-bed nodules.

But Islands' governments don't seem to be getting in on the discussions which concern their resources. High costs of maintaining delegations have precluded them from Law of the Sea sessions. Pacific Rim countries - with Japan in the lead and Australia, New Zealand and others enthusiastically following - are planning how to handle the 'Pacific Century', as the next has been dubbed, without consulting the Islands. If an Islands nation gets a mention it is usually in the context of its resources; not its needs or opinions.

In February last year the Far Eastern Economic Review, discussing the mooted Pacific economic community, summed up 'Rim' attitudes to the Islands: '...the Southeast Asian nations are anxious that Papua New Guinea should be a founder member if only as a symbol of the eventual role the community could play in encompassing the island states of the South Pacific.'

Photo: Camera Press/Curtis Ancient and modern in Micronesia

'Regionalism' was an Islands by-word in the seventies. Each year at the South Pacific Conference (a colonial inspiration of the forties) and the South Pacific Forum (of independent Islands nations) regionalism got a mention. And the result has always been nearly exactly the opposite. In Islands terms, it seems Micronesia doesn't count and Melanesia and Polynesia will continue, amicably, to disagree. It's something to do with PNG-Fiji competition to be top dog but it goes much deeper than that.

Papua New Guinea is now hoping to become a member of ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations). It is already an observer.

This is a puzzling trend for a nation which is so much a Pacific entity. It seems Papua New Guinea is willing to be come the poor relation of ASEAN rather than enjoy a position of pre-eminence in the Islands.

Not only is the Pacific becoming the focus for resource exploitation by transnational mining consortia, big fishing interests and timber companies; it is unwilling host to a variety of other strangers. The French have spent nearly two decades trying to blow their way through the earth's crust with nuclear devices; the Americans and the British did the same thing in the fifties; China has started plopping ICBMs into Islands waters; and the US has a string of military installations right across the north Pacific, all part of its ring of fire around the Soviet Union. So many uninvited guests.

Everything seems to militate against Islands states exploiting their resources on their own terms. They haven't the technology or the money. They are forced to depend on foreign assistance. This is rarely, if ever, available on terms genuinely advantageous to Islands governments and almost never beneficial to the majority of Islands people.

In today's Pacific, Islanders are in a 'no win' situation. They do not have the political clout, the regional co-operation, or the cunning to withstand the enormous pressures which are being exerted by big business determined to get its way. The international seabed mining consortia were able to buy Ronald Reagan's support. What chance have the Islanders?

New Internationalist on location For the first time since its founding, New Internationalist has been edited, designed, typeset and prepared for printing in a Third World country. The printing had to be done in Britain and Australia (as usual) because we simply couldn't afford to freight 30,000 copies from Port Moresby. Port Moresby, capital of Papua New Guinea, is the home of Word Publishing, the company which made this exercise possible. Word Publishing is a unique venture in Third World media. It all began 10 years ago as Wantok, a newspaper for rural readers in Papua New Guinea's most popular language, Tok Pisin. Photo: Bob Hawkins From top: Archie, Biliso and Kevin Early support from the Catholic Church has now broadened into an ecumenical organisation employing 80 people. Now with a circulation of 15,000, Wantok has been joined by New Nation, a full-colour monthly magazine for young people; The Times of Papua New Guinea, a weekly English-language newspaper aimed at urban decision-makers; and Rugby League News, a sports weekly. Our thanks to Nerisa Marum, Sarah Tiankin, Lydia Ikupu and Dorcas Melkie of Word Publishing and Kath Williams of Air Niugini for typesetting services, Biliso Osake, Kevin Lari, Archie Chapman and Raka Vele for art; and all Word Publishing staff for giving New Internationalist their support and a very friendly welcome. We hope to be on location again soon.