SYDNEY -- No good deed goes unpunished, says the cynic. And that's the way it's looking for Australia's efforts to bring peace and stability to the South Pacific.
The South Seas Paradise beloved of deluded Western romantics is looking as bleakly unromantic as ever it was -- except for a series of recent momentous events still being played out. And these Canberra-inspired changes, only now gathering momentum, still have a long way to go before this region of tropical island-states gets its act together.
Trouble is, Canberra is already copping flak for its efforts to put right what has been described as the basket-case economies of the Pacific. And the harshest critics are Australia's near neighbors, the laid-back Melanesian communities of limited resources that are trying to find their place in the sun.