By Tupuola Terry Tavita
EDITOR

To be fair, Sogi residents who were told to relocate to Falelauniu have some legitimate concerns.

After all, three years on there is still no running water at their new location. This column is sure none of us wants to live where there is no reticulated water. No clean tap water to drink, cook, shower, wash and satisfy other basic conveniences in life.

True, there is a water truck that comes around there every three or so days but that is no way to live 365-days a year.

We also could actually be breaching some international rules on the relocation of people.

Given that these folks were relocated on the basis of a rising sea level and continued tidal erosion at their former homes at Sogi, they could well be protected by internationally-recognized climate change conventions on the displacement of people.

One of them points out that victims of climate displacement have to be provided with a quality of life that is – at the very least – on par with the conditions they were resettled from.

There is no running water and no school at Falelauniu. It sits across the road from the national prison, a cemetery at the corner and the rubbish dump at the, um, end of the road.

But they are building a church, reportedly funded by government. Spiritual sustenance of course is always a must.

But perhaps the root of the problem stems from the very negotiations at the beginning. Sogi residents were dangled a few carrots they could not refuse. Hands up if you want a quarter-acre land for just $30,000 on a lease to own basis? Hands up if you want $3000 hard cash to go with it?

Yes we thought so.

This column believes it doesn’t take much for these people to move with a smile. Perhaps some decent housing, a school and yes, running water. And it doesn’t have to be solely funded from the national treasury. People displacement is a major climate change issue and certainly there is stacks of funding for it in the United Nations vault.

We just need to access it. And securing donor dollars for, um, humane causes is something Samoa does very well.

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