The tropical turquoise water of PNG (Ben Jackson)

BEN JACKSON | Sun Sea Earth Blog

PORT MORESBY - The proclamation of Papua New Guinea as the “last paradise on earth” by the country’s prime minister had the ring of an early 20th century adventure novel and it is a tagline that perhaps appropriately reflects the country’s place as a frontier travel destination.

There are good reasons that the nation of just over eight million people has been long touted as having great potential for tourism. It has all the natural ingredients for an idyllic tropical beach getaway and much more.

For many years adventurous fishermen, snorkelers and divers have known about the wealth of sea life pulsing beneath the surface of PNG’s turquoise waters.

At times the pelagic fish seem to hook themselves and the fact that the first and second (and only) fish I’ve caught were a marlin and a wahoo speaks to the embarrassment of marine riches.

The consistent swell that pumps through the Pacific from November to April is also ideal for surfers, who are known for their willingness to travel to avoid crowds and notoriously vague when it comes to divulging information about locations.

There are several resorts that provide instant access to good waves and a charter cruise operator that offers a true Endless Summer experience – top notch barrelling reef breaks surrounded only by majestic atolls, tiny villages and a few friends.

A national association implements a management plan to limit the numbers of surfers at each destination at any one time, a system equally good for surf tourists, the aquatic environment and the communities which depend on both.

One could also sink in to a hammock to attempt the challenge of simultaneously reading a book and drinking a coconut (or a South Pacific lager) – a noble pursuit that offers the opportunity to reach nirvana-levels of relaxation.

By landmass PNG is by far the largest Pacific island nation and its mountainous inland regions offer stunning contrasts to the island-life archetype.

The highlands have a cooler climate and are rife with opportunities for trekking, mountain climbing and generally going in to the wild.

The Kokoda track is the most famous option but Mount Wilhelm, the highest peak in Oceania, and the trek to Loloru, a sacred volcano-caldera lake, are arguably more scenic and less well-trodden routes.

In addition to the natural diversity. Papua New Guinea also has hundreds of distinct and ancient cultures that most local people are keen to share with visitors.

The country’s dramatic geography and relatively late entry in to the globalised world has meant that more than 800 distinct cultures are still active today, each with unique customary dress, dances and handmade artefacts.

Cultural shows held throughout the country give tourists the opportunity to be immersed in the spirituality and power of these practices, and also provides an incentive for traditions to be kept alive.

The frontier nature of travel in PNG, though part of its allure, is a hindrance to the development of the industry.

In 2017 tourism accounted for less than one percent of Papua New Guinea’s gross domestic product and five times less than was managed by nearby Fiji in US dollar terms.

The international airport is in Port Moresby – a city that frequents least liveable lists and doesn’t offer much for tourists.

As a result of its remote its many islands and a mainland that is only sporadically connected by roads, PNG is only truly accessible by air and internal flight prices are prohibitive.

Inflated travel costs have flow-on effects for prices of goods and the general cost of doing business for resorts – expenses which are ultimately borne by the traveller.

Business costs are also affected by law and order issues, which are more severe in some locations than others, but on the rise overall.

Tourists are seldom involved in incidents, but are occasionally targeted by opportunistic criminals looking to make quick cash.

Last year 20 tourists were held up at gunpoint at one of PNG’s top resorts, which is known for spectacular diving, fishing and – increasingly – robberies.

Prospective foreign visitors may also be deterred by the re-emergence of near forgotten diseases, like polio and leprosy, and the lack of access to health care is another cause for concern, particularly in remote areas.

When my daughter developed high-fevers while travelling in the New Guinea islands, we were instructed by an international health provider go the nearby hospital to see a doctor.

The hospital had no doctor or nurse, only a flea-ridden dog and a community health worker. She conducted a malaria test (the health worker, not the dog) and, having quickly ruled it out, offered only a shrug of the shoulders.

Unsurprisingly many would prefer to travel to Bali, Fiji or Hawaii.

Those still up for bearing the financial cost are often choosing to travel on cruise ships, which offer higher quality accommodation and largely negate the health and safety risks, all for less money than travelling and staying in PNG.

It is a situation that limits travel to the coastal areas, gives visitors a more detached experience and injects less money in to the economy.

These lost opportunities are caused by fundamental issues related to health care, education, infrastructure, law and order, and other things that are much larger than tourism.

The upside to this situation is potential – a sleeping giant waiting to be woken.

If this potential is to ever be reached, the story of tourism in Papua New Guinea – the last paradise on earth – needs to read like a light summer romance rather than the heir to Joseph Conrad’s ‘The Heart of Darkness’.

Poster at Wabag police station warning of sorcery and domestic violence

STAFF REPORTER | Agence France Presse

TSAK VALLEY - A spate of brutal witch-hunts has plunged parts of Papua New Guinea's highlands into a state of terror, as fearful tribes blame dark forces for their rapidly changing world.

In one particularly horrifying incident, an elderly woman writhes and pleads hysterically as she is mercilessly beaten, raped and tortured on a hut floor, before her naked body - bloodied and nearly lifeless - is dragged outside, where a village mob beats and burns her until movement ceases.

Almost everyone joins in. No one bothers to obscure their face. No one tries to stop it.

The crowd believe what they are doing is right - the only way to stop a non-human sorcerer who has killed their clansman and devoured his heart.

The graphic scene was captured by mobile phone video that was obtained by AFP. Dozens of similar videos have been gathered as evidence by the Royal Papua New Guinea Constabulary showing the brutal reality of modern-day witch-hunts.

There have been at least 20 murders linked to sorcery accusations in this part of the highlands in the past few years, and dozens more violent attacks.

In places like the remote Tsak Valley, attacks have spread "like bushfire", said Senior Inspector Epenes Nili, even resulting in an attack on the country's then chief justice.

Belief in sorcery and witchcraft has long been common across Enga province and Papua New Guinea, but these lynchings are not some ancient rite or custom.

"This is a new phenomenon," insisted Anton Lutz, a Lutheran missionary who has spent his life in Enga province and has rescued accused sorcerers, some as young as six.

"We did have ancient beliefs about ghosts and ancient beliefs about stones that could talk and all kinds of interesting things," he said.

"But this practice of accusing a woman of causing a death and torturing her sadistically and sexually for hours until she dies, that is a new thing."

"It began about five years ago," he said. "We had a serious rise last year. It just seemed like there was an attack happening every week, every fortnight."

According to Mr Lutz, each spasm of violence seemed to begin with a death that locals found difficult to explain.

Heart attacks, diabetes and HIV/Aids are becoming more common, but are still not well understood. The death of an otherwise healthy person was more easily blamed on sorcery than cholesterol.

Even a recent drink-driving crash that killed eight people prompted a violent witch-hunt, as people tried to explain why some passengers survived and others did not.

The sheer number of people involved in the mob attacks ensures that news spreads quickly, as does fear, due to the widespread belief that witches do not act alone.

The emergence of ‘glasman’ - opportunist ‘diviners’ who travel the countryside detecting witches for money - also exponentially increased the rate of killings. So too did tribally ordained retribution.

Like the old woman in the video, 55-year-old mother-of-two Rachel, was accused of "sanguma" - sorcery. Her story shows how quickly suspicion can turn into violence.

Her life changed suddenly in April 2017, when she went with her family to pay her respects at a funeral service for a member of a neighbouring tribe.

She was getting ready to leave, looking for her children, when she was grabbed by the dead man's son.

Unbeknown to Rachel, another woman had been accused of involvement in his death and, under torture, named Rachel as part of a coven.

Rachel pleaded innocence. But she was stripped and, like the murdered woman in the video, violated and burned with hot machetes, spades and rods for a full day by people she knew who were trying to make her "return the heart" of her "victim".

"The pain was beyond endurance," she recalled, speaking to AFP as a crowd of locals - some curious, others appearing suspicious - gathered near her hut. "I thought I would die."

With her mouth gagged, and the pain too much to bear, she managed only a silent prayer: "You gave me the job of caring for my children, but if I die, who will care for them?"

Only a dispute among the mob, estimated at around a thousand people, saved her life.

Across Papua New Guinea, the specifics of witch-hunts are bafflingly different.

In Enga, the victims of violence are almost exclusively women. But on Bougainville island, they are almost always men. In Port Moresby, where violence linked to sorcery accusations has also increased, men and women are targeted.

Researcher Miranda Forsyth at the Australian National University, who has studied hundreds of such cases, sees grim patterns emerging.

She describes a "script" of violent responses to suspected sorcerers that is spreading across Enga.

Part of the phenomenon is people trying to deal with "high levels of uncertainty due to dramatic economic, social and cultural changes", Dr Forsyth said.

The authorities know the toxic brew will be difficult to remedy.

In the meantime, fear has "turned the whole place into a paranoid mess", said Mr Lutz.

Almost two years after Rachel's attack, she can walk again and has returned to her village, although even among her own people, she still lives in fear.

"The situation is still tense," she said in a near whisper.

The burns she sustained in the attack had only partially been treated when a mob came to the clinic where she was recuperating, forcing her to flee. She still complains of skin being tight and painful around her torso.

"Even though I still need surgery, I am afraid my attackers might kill me if I go. So I live with the pain," she says.

"I hope that things will calm down so that I can go to the hospital, but for now, the way is closed."

PHIL FITZPATRICK

The Bulldog Track: A grandson’s story of an ordinary man’s war and survival on the other Kokoda trail by Peter Phelps, Hatchette Australia, 2018, 276 pages. My copy from Kmart for $A15

TUMBY BAY - When Bertie Heath flew his Junkers G31 transport plane from Port Moresby to Bulolo on 21 January 1942 he was tailed by three Japanese Mitsubishi A6M Zero fighter planes scrambled from Madang.

As Bertie made an uncomfortable landing at Bulolo the three fighters peeled off and continued up the river to Wau in the next valley.

A short while later they returned to Bulolo, joined by two more fighters and two Aichi D3A bombers from the Japanese aircraft carrier Shokaku lying off Salamaua.

Together these aeroplanes began a clinical destruction of Bulolo. It took them just 15 minutes.

Over the next few days the Bulolo miners were organised into units of the New Guinea Volunteer Rifles, rechristened as Kanga Force.

Expecting the arrival of Japanese airborne troops at any moment, the men set about systematically destroying any remaining infrastructure that could be useful to the Japanese invaders.

While this was happening there was a problem about what to do with the 230 miners too old or unfit for military service. Among them was the author’s grandfather, Tom Phelps, aged 45 and with a crook leg.

The plan involved these miners walking the 30 kilometres from Bulolo to Wau where they could board aeroplanes for evacuation. Unfortunately, when the men got to Wau, it had also been bombed and the airfield damaged and aircraft destroyed. There would be no escape by air.

The only option now for these men was to walk south towards the Papuan coast.

They set off in small groups, Tom Phelps being in the first batch to leave accompanied by carriers, including Tom’s highland friend, Una Beel.

The military also had it in mind that the old trade track the men took might also be a useful supply route for Kanga Force based in Wau to harass the Japanese on the coast.

The walk south over extremely rugged terrain was largely uneventful. The men had an uneasy contact with the aggressive ‘Kukukuku’ people at one point but nothing came of it.

When they reached the old mining settlement at Bulldog on the Lakekamu River they built rafts and floated downstream, eventually meeting canoes sent for them by the Catholic missionaries at Terapo.

From there they travelled to the coast and trekked east 100 kilometres along the black sand beach until they were opposite Yule Island. It was there that Una Beel and the other carriers said goodbye.

The miners were taken to Yule Island by lakatoi and spent a few weeks there before being picked up and put aboard the MV Malaita for the trip to Australia.

Tom Phelps recorded his Bulldog Track experiences in indelible pencil on the pith helmet he wore. He also made a rough map on greaseproof paper. It is these inscriptions that his grandson, Peter, used to reconstruct Tom’s experience.

The Bulldog Track did prove to be a viable supple route for Kanga Force as it made its deadly raids on Japanese coastal positions.

The supplies were originally carried by boat and then on foot. Because of the difficult terrain and high altitudes, the carriers on this supply line had much harder going than the carriers on the Kokoda Trail.

However, in an unparalleled feat of engineering, a vehicle road was cut from the river port at Bulldog 114 kilometres through to the Wau Valley. Over this road, three-ton trucks transported vital supplies to the fighting forces at Wau.

There was none of the fierce fighting along the Bulldog Track that characterised Kokoda to the east, but according to soldier and writer Peter Ryan, who walked the track, it was “longer, higher, steeper, wetter, colder and rougher than Kokoda”.

Peter Phelps tells two parallel stories in this book. The first is about his grandfather Tom and the second is about his family and especially his father, George, who remained at home not knowing what had happened to the men from Bulolo and Wau.

Peter spent a couple of years as a young boy in Port Moresby with his family in the late 1960s.

Because there was no fighting along the Bulldog Track and because the only other source of potential aggression from the ‘Kukukuku’ people was subdued, the drama in Tom’s story is not great. Hard as it may have been, slogging through the mud, cold and rain tends not to lend itself to great spectacle.

To balance this out the author has interspersed the narrative with scenes from the home front and the anxiety his family was experiencing.

While I can see the author’s intent of combining his grandfather and father’s accounts, this method of creating suspense in the narrative tends to be a bit overplayed and ultimately becomes distracting.

It’s almost as if more detail has been extracted from the home front because the detail on the trek was necessarily thin.

Perhaps a broader historical context would have been more useful, especially the design and construction of what became the Bulldog Road.

You can trek the Bulldog Track nowadays, although there’s a kink in the middle around some mining operations at Hidden Valley. If you are really enthusiastic you can also add the Black Cat Track from Wau to Salamaua.

The author, who is an Australian actor, has done a good job given what he has had to work with but just for the record there’s no Eli Beach in Port Moresby, it’s Ela Beach.

There are some interesting photographs but a map would be a useful addition to any reprint.

Leilani and schoolmates - all bilased up to celebrate Papua New Guinea culture

BEN JACKSON | Sun Earth Sea Blog

PORT MORESBY - “Even the word ‘country’ is difficult to grasp in a group of islands where there are hundreds of different languages and thousands of dialects, and where communication and trade through transport are difficult, inaccessible to much of the population.”

There is still an element of truth to Gay Davidson’s words from The Canberra Times of 16 September 1975.

Papua New Guinea’s infrastructural challenges have changed shape, but remain present, as do the complex and tense issues of land ownership, tribalism and ethnicity.

However, having being in amongst the people of Port Moresby as they celebrated 43 years of Independence last September, it is not difficult to understand PNG as a country .

A majority of people here identify strongly with the ancestral cultures of their mothers, fathers and grandparents, but they simultaneously see themselves as Papua New Guineans.

Diversity, though sometimes divisive, is often a great source of pride.

The Papua New Guineans I’ve met are immensely proud that their country has in excess of 800 languages, more than any other nation in the world. They are inquisitive and excited about sharing different ideas about culture, food, dress and customs with their compatriots – and with visitors too.

The celebrations at Paga Hill and the recently reopened Ela Beach were vibrant, open and safe – three words not usually associated with Port Moresby.

At the Paga festival I was approached by a man selling flour-battered prawns who thanked me for bringing my family down to join in the occasion.

I told him that it was us who were thankful for being welcomed and apologised for the shellfish allergy that prevented me from sampling his wares.

In the two weeks around Independence Day, my daughter Leilani has been constantly singing PNG’s national anthem O Arise, All You Sons. She even sang it before falling asleep at night.

The last verse is: “Shout again for the whole world to hear - Papua New Guinea / We're independent and we're free - Papua New Guinea.”

In 1975, Papua New Guinea became independent and free, however, it’s easy to forget that in order to gain Independence, the people of Papua New Guinea had to first be deprived of their sovereignty – most recently under the colonial administration of Australia.

Australian’s shy away from viewing our country as a colonial ruler. We prefer to think of ourselves as being on the other end of that stick. The territories of Papua and New Guinea seem to exist in a place and time period that is not considered by many as part of our broader national identity.

I would wager that future Australians will similarly reject the detention and inhumane treatment of innocent people as an element of ‘Australian-ness’ – but nonetheless these past actions will remain forever as historical fact.

But despite all the baggage of the past and the present segregation that exists, I am continually amazed and overwhelmed by the way Papua New Guineans embrace Australian expatriates as members of their family – like cousins that have come to visit for summer holidays.

In the lead-up to Independence Day, Leilani learned a traditional dance for a class performance at their pre-school’s celebration.

My colleague and good friend Maggie, who has girls aged a year either side of her, was delighted when I asked if they had any customary outfits – bilas– that she could borrow for the big day.

We were duly provided with a bilas-for-dummies package which included a grass skirt, headdress, armbands and detailed instructions for the Motuan tattoo designs of Papua New Guinea’s Central Province. Maggie only demanded one thing in return: “take lots of photos!”

This was not just a loan of items – it was Maggie and her family delighting in the opportunity to share their culture with our family.

When I showed Maggie the video of Leilani and her class performing, she immediately recognised the song and choreography from Bougainville, the autonomous island region closer to the Solomon Islands than mainland PNG.

“Wow! That’s awesome,” she said, unperturbed and with a typically big smile on her face, “a Hanuabada girl doing a Bougainvillean dance – it shows our unity!”

In PNG we are reminded frequently of the challenges that come with cultural differences and the strength that can be found in diversity – they’re two sides of the same coin.

Whether the positivity we see on Independence Day can be eventually extended to the rest of the year remains to be seen, but I am certain that PNG is better together.

Tess Newton Cain

TESS NEWTON CAIN

BRISBANE - 2019 is going to be a busy year for the Pacific. A number of Pacific island countries will hold national elections this year as the peoples of Kiribati, Federated States of Micronesia, Nauru, Tuvalu, and Marshall Islands go to the polls.

In Tuvalu, prime minister Enele Sesene Sopoaga will be hoping that his increased presence and activity in the realm of global climate diplomacy will not prove an impediment to success at home.

Similarly, president Hilda Heine in Marshall Islands will be looking to secure something more substantial than the very narrow margin by which she defeated a motion of no confidence last year.

Solomon Islands’ first general elections since the end of RAMSI will test the capacity of the Royal Solomon Islands Police Force.

Despite having been prime minister for such a short period of time, incumbent Rick Hou claims to have achieved some significant milestones and has managed to progress some important legislative reforms, including passage of the Anti-Corruption Act.

These elections will be conducted under the aegis of recently-enacted changes to the electoral law. Hou will be hoping to reap the political benefits of an increase in the minimum wage awarded just before Parliament was dissolved.

There is also ongoing concern about the impacts of mining, including complaints that insufficient benefits are accruing to communities.

Self-determination and independence are never far from people’s minds in the Pacific, and we are currently in a period where these issues are even more present than usual.

The referendum in New Caledonia last year saw the territory elect to remain part of France but with a much stronger showing for independence from France than many had anticipated, and the aftereffects of this will be felt in 2019.

In particular, the pro-independence parties will be looking to secure sufficient seats in the congressional elections (to be held on 12 May) to strengthen their argument for going ahead with up to two more referendums as envisaged by the Noumea Accords, despite opposition from anti-independence groups.

The importance of this year’s provincial and congressional elections has prompted renewed lobbying for changes in the rules about who is eligible to vote.

In 2019, Bougainville is scheduled to have a referendum in which its citizens will be asked to decide if they wish for ‘greater autonomy’ within Papua New Guinea or if they want to be an independent state.

Although some important steps have been taken to get ‘referendum ready’ there are still a lot of hurdles to clear and it is likely that the scheduled date of 15 June will slip a little.

The working relationship between the national government and the Autonomous Bougainville Government is not always a smooth one, with ongoing concerns about transfers of funding from Waigani. The situation has been further complicated by allegations of mismanagement (and possibly worse), and the impacts of these will be felt in the lead up to the referendum this year.

The issue of self-determination for West Papua is likely to become more significant in our region over the next few years, especially given that by the end of this year the Pacific Islands Forum troika will include Tuvalu, whose prime minister spoke strongly on this issue at the UN General Assembly in 2018, and Vanuatu, whose support for West Papuan independence is well known.

Recent increases in armed clashes, including reports of use of chemical weapons by the Indonesian military (which have been denied by Jakarta) have once again highlighted the situation in West Papua.

In Papua New Guinea, following a tumultuous 2018, there is an expectation that the Opposition will seek to pass a motion of no confidence in the prime minister, Peter O’Neill, after the post-elections grace period expires in February.

Whilst the Opposition has strengthened thanks to the merger of the National Alliance and PNG Party, O’Neill has proved himself to be a political survivor of the first order. No doubt O’Neill will point to PNG’s hosting of APEC in 2018 and resulting benefits as evidence for why he should remain in charge.

His critics will also be looking to APEC, but for different reasons -- to demonstrate why he should go. Whoever is prime minister, come the end of the first quarter will have some major challenges to face, including concerns about the economy and dealing with the Bougainville referendum.

But surely the biggest challenge of all for Papua New Guinea’s political leadership relates to the huge problems associated with health. Not only are local health facilities plagued with a lack of basic supplies, but there has been a resurgence of polio, leprosy, and HIV infections.

Given the renewed interest in what happens in the Pacific in the Australian media and commentariat, there will be no shortage of discussions on these and other issues during the year.

Phil Fitzpatrick

PHIL FITZPATRICK

TUMBY BAY - There is at least one commentator on PNG Attitude who thinks I’m a conspiracy theorist so I thought I’d throw this idea into the mix to see what sort of reaction I get.

The idea became apparent while I was reading Michiko Kakutani’s excellent little book, ‘The Death of Truth’ (William Collins, 2018).

And it’s all down to an otherwise innocent little tool called an algorithm.

An algorithm, as you are probably aware, is a kind of recipe or ordered set of steps that if followed will result in an answer to a problem.

Computer programmers design algorithms for all sorts of reasons, including selling us stuff or influencing the way we think.

You are probably familiar with the advertisements that pop up on your computer or digital device screen while searching the web.

Believe it or not an algorithm has been at work processing your previous searches and is presenting you with options most likely to appeal to you.

Search engines like Google and sites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube all use algorithms to provide information attractive to you. They do this based on earlier data they’ve collected about you. Many sites trade this information for monetary gain.

When you Google something the information you receive might be completely different to the information someone else receives who has used the exact same words in their query.

If you believe in climate change, for instance, the information you receive will be quite different to that which a climate change denier receives.

Most of us believe that search engines are neutral affairs and therefore unbiased.

That’s unfortunately not true. Your computer or device is pandering to your personal biases and tastes. It is actually isolating you into an increasingly narrow frame of content. Kakutani calls these “content silos”.

This might be unsettling but it becomes particularly unsettling when you look at the people behind the algorithms, not so much the programmers but the designers.

If algorithms are going to decide what information we are exposed to we need to be very careful about the intent and motives of the people controlling them.

Politicians have always played loose with truth and reality but the internet has given them a whole new means of making mischief.

In a very few short years they have managed to replace truth with opinion and the objective with the subjective. Truth has become ‘fake news’ and opinions have become ‘alternative facts’.

When the internet first appeared we welcomed it as the dawn of a new age connecting people everywhere and leading to creative solutions for many of our problems. If anything was going to democratise the world it would be the internet.

Algorithms have been with us for thousands of years and have been very useful. Modern technology has seen an incredible proliferation in their invention and use.

Little did we realise there would be a dark side.

As Kakutani says:

“The same web that’s democratised information, forced (some) governments to be more transparent, and enabled everyone from political dissidents to scientists and doctors to connect with one another – that same web, people are learning, can be exploited by bad actors to spread misinformation and disinformation, cruelty and prejudice”.

Conspiracy theories now flourish on social media. So do simplistic and inflammatory political messages like those used by people like Donald Trump and the Brexit advocates in Britain.

Politicians and others can now use algorithms on social media that can psychologically profile millions of potential voters. They have become the ultimate tool of Big Brother.

George Orwell may very well be chuckling in his grave. Or perhaps he is weeping.

KEITH JACKSON

“…half a million? Most close observers of the conflict can see through that one” (Martin Auld)

NOOSA – I do not know Martin Auld except as a commentator on PNG Attitude where his expertise seems to be largely in Indonesian affairs.

Most recently, he has mounted a vigorous defence of Indonesia in the context of its brutal colonisation of West Papua.

This included the quoted skepticism (above), rather cavalierly expressed, of the figure of up to 500,000 West Papuan Melanesians killed since Indonesia took over the territory

The internet yields a number of Martin Aulds but none who would seem to be our man, so I know nothing of his background or credentials.

We take our readers’ comments as views they are entitled to make.

But when they present a line of argument based on demolishing the views of others (in Auld’s case that’s a wide field but he has a particular distaste for journalists) by claiming ‘truths’ which are contestable – and when this is done relentlessly and strenuously – it is probably time to offer contesting testimony, especially as Auld seems to have no desire to do this himself.

So when Auld, with some scorn I observe, challenged the figure of up to 500,000 West Papuans killed since Indonesia acquired their territory by means of a vote regarded as dubious at best – and when he refers to that number as “a transparent propaganda tactic” - I thought it opportune to take the argument into the ranks of those organisations and people who claim this figure as a reasonable estimate.

In truth, the number is unknowable because the observers have been few and the perpetrators are not going to own up to it, even if they keep count.

Thus estimates must be made and, where these show a consistency, I believe the reasonable person would accept them.

Accordingly I have sought to find sources that assess this horrific number of 500,000 as a fair approximation – a calculated guess if you like. And, as it happens, there are very many such sources, far too many to cite here. But I offer some I have traversed.

So let me share the results of that little search, beginning with a scene setter: a citation from a 2004 report from the prestigious Yale Law School in the United States on "the application of the law of genocide to the history of Indonesian control of West Papua". I note that in the 14 years since this paper was published, the situation in West Papua has worsened.

“Since Indonesia gained control of West Papua, the West Papuan people have suffered persistent and horrible abuses at the hands of the government.

“The Indonesian military and security forces have engaged in widespread violence and extrajudicial killings in West Papua. They have subjected Papuan men and women to acts of torture, disappearance, rape, and sexual violence, thus causing serious bodily and mental harm.

“Systematic resource exploitation, the destruction of Papuan resources and crops, compulsory (and often uncompensated) labor, transmigration schemes, and forced relocation have caused pervasive environmental harm to the region, undermined traditional subsistence practices, and led to widespread disease, malnutrition, and death among West Papuans.

“Such acts, taken as a whole, appear to constitute the imposition of conditions of life calculated to bring about the destruction of the West Papuans.”

Let me continue with just 16 references I have found, and there are very many more available, to that widely-quoted 500,000 figure.

 “Since 1963, an estimated 500,000 West Papuans have died at the hands of the brutal Indonesian occupying forces, accounting for more than 25% of the population. These numbers have been ratified by several studies and human rights groups (including The International Association of Genocide Scholars and Yale Law School)” – ‘West Papua: The Forgotten People’ by Adam Perry, The Jerusalem Post (Israel)

“The people of West Papua have been calling for self-determination for half a century – a struggle for liberation from an Indonesian military occupation that has seen as many as 500,000 Papuans killed” - ‘The Human Tragedy of West Papua’ by Gemima Harvey, The Diplomat, international current-affairs magazine (USA)

“Since Indonesia began its occupation of West Papua an estimated 500,000 locals have lost their lives under harsh military and police repression” - Sydney Criminal Lawyers, ‘Time to Support West Papua’ by Paul Gregoire (Australia)

“According to rights activists, more than 500,000 Papuans have been killed, and thousands more have been raped, tortured and imprisoned by the Indonesian military since 1969. Mass killings in Papua’s tribal highlands during the 1970s amounted to genocide, according to the Asia Human Rights Commission” - ‘A Tragic, Forgotten Place.' Poverty and Death in Indonesia's Land of Gold’ by Febriana Firdaus, Time magazine (USA)

“It is estimated that between 100,000 and 500,000 Papuans have lost their lives in the conflict, most of which were civilians killed by security forces” - ‘The UK’s involvement in the Papuan crisis’ by Giacomo Grison, New Internationalist (UK)

“The Indonesian military occupation has led to the well-documented violent deaths of over 500,000 West Papuan people and their dislocation from ancestral lands” - ‘Affirmation of West Papua’, Baptist Churches of Aotearoa (New Zealand)

“The Free West Papua Campaign also claims that the government is engaging in genocide against the Papuan population, alleging that 500,000 civilians have been killed since Indonesia occupied the region. While these numbers are difficult to verify, a study by the University of Sydney has revealed that the continuation of current practices in West Papua ‘may pose serious threats to the survival of the indigenous people of the Indonesian province of Papua’” - ‘Situation in West Papua getting worse’, The Asean Post (Malaysia)

“Up to 500,000 West Papuans have died as a result of Indonesia’s occupation of the territory since 1962” - Dr Camellia Webb-Gannon, Coordinator, West Papua Project, Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Sydney (Australia)

“Around 500,000 West Papuans are believed to have died in what many commentators have described as a slow genocide” - Peter Tatchell Foundation, independent and non-party political human rights organisation (UK)

“Peter Arndt, executive officer of the Catholic Justice and Peace Commission of Brisbane, told about 50 local supporters who attended the forum in the Cathedral Hall that more than 500,000 West Papuans have been “slaughtered” by security forces since West Papua was annexed and put under Indonesian control in the 1960s”- ‘West Papua at ‘tipping point’ by Lindy McNamara, The Southern Cross - official news site of the Catholic Archdiocese of Adelaide (Australia)

“…. three decades of experience in West Papua that is a testament to the resilience and patience of the people in the face of ‘slow genocide’ with an estimated 500,000 Papuans dying over the past half century” - Asia Pacific Report, Pacific Media Centre, Auckland University of Technology (New Zealand)

“Since the Suharto dictatorship annexed the region in a 1969 UN referendum largely seen as a fixed land grab, an estimated 500,000 West Papuans have been killed in their fight for self-rule” - ‘The $100bn gold mine and the West Papuans who say they are counting the cost’ by Susan Schulman, The Guardian (UK)

“Some estimates say that as many as 500,000 Papuans have been killed since Indonesia took control in 1969” - GlobalSecurity.org, source of background information on defence, intelligence etc (USA)

“….in the face of human rights abuses, a lack of media access, and a genocide that some observers estimate has killed as many as 500,000, Papuans have continued to advocate for the right to self-determination” - ‘1.8 million Papuans sign referendum petition’ by Dr Keith Hyams, University of Warwick (UK)

“[We refuse] to turn a blind eye to the deaths of 500,000 West Papuans over the course of the last fifty years” - Rex Horoi, Solomon Islands special envoy on West Papua to the UN General Assembly (Solomon Islands)

“The provinces of Papua and West Papua have been plagued by intimidation and violence, with over 500,000 Papuans killed since the 1960s. It is also Indonesia’s poorest province, with 28 percent of its people living below the poverty line” – ‘Indonesian Public and Human Rights Groups Decry West Papuan Arrests’ by Stanley Widianto, Voice of America (US)

These references, as I have said, fall short of proof. But they do align. Martin Auld’s line of attack also falls short of proof and the ‘evidence’ he does produce does appear biased, spurious or contaminated.

A more credible assessment of what has really occurred in West Papua these past 50 years or so would be balanced with the possibility that what has occurred in West Papua is a fully-fledged, wide-scale and deliberate genocide.

There can be no excusing away that.

STAFF WRITER | Catholic News Agency

PORT MORESBY - The bishops of Papua New Guinea have issued a renewed plea on behalf of the nearly 500 refugees and asylum seekers being held in indefinite detention in deteriorating conditions.

“These people have been away from their families for the sixth Christmas… it was just another night of detention on Manus Island,” said Fr Ambrose Pereira, communication secretary for the Catholic Bishops Conference of Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands.

Facing conditions of trauma, overcrowding, and lack of food, he said, “most of them survive thanks to medicines, mostly anti-depressants, anti-anxiety, anti-psychotics,” and many face serious side effects from taking the medications long-term without a prescription.

Pereira called the refugees’ situation “abuse and neglect,” and said it causes the Papua New Guinea bishops “great suffering.”

“This is not the way to treat human beings,” he said.

Australia has had a system of “third country processing” since 2012 for asylum seekers who come to Australia by boat without a valid visa. The system transfers the asylum seekers to other countries, where they are processed based on that country’s laws.

Many of those seeking asylum in Australia come from Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Iraq, and Iran, traveling by boat from Indonesia. They are typically intercepted by the Australian navy before reaching land, and are then sent to detention camps in Papua New Guinea and Nauru, a small Micronesian nation.

The government of Australia made an agreement with the government of PNG in 2013, providing that migrants sent to PNG from Australia would be settled there if they are found to be refugees. Otherwise they would be sent back to their country of origin or another country where they have legal residence.

Ahead of last November’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Port Moresby, the PNG government sent dozens of men who had been receiving specialized medical attention back to Manus Island, citing security needs. These men joined hundreds of other refugees and asylum seekers being held on the island.

In November, a report from Amnesty International and the Refugee Council of Australia documented serious declines in mental and physical health among the refugees in detention on Manus Island.

Three men had committed suicide, and many others had attempted suicide, the report said.

It decried the “brutal and illegal policy of offshore detention.” It pointed to a decrease in mental health resources and professionals available to the refugees and asylum seekers, as well as incidents of assault and robbery against them.

“The obvious answer to almost all health problems is to give them freedom and to reduce the damage caused by stress, trauma, overcrowding and malnutrition during their detention, as highlighted by numerous reports,” said Fr Pereira.

“Refugees are waiting for the day they are released, and we hope that 2019 will bring good news for them.”

Members of the Adventure Kokoda team - Charlie Lynn ensures the highest standards are maintained for his trekking company

CHARLIE LYNN

Edited extracts from a submission by Adventure Kokoda on the welfare of Papua New Guinean guides and carriers engaged in the Kokoda trekking industry. Link here to the full submission

PORT MORESBY - The welfare of PNG guides and carriers has been a contentious subject for some years, however the recent death of a carrier who was allegedly overloaded by an Australian trek operator has brought the issue of their exploitation to the forefront of the debate.

A recent forum organised by the Kokoda Track Authority (KTA) in Brisbane resulted in the CEO of PNG Tourism calling for a response to the issues raised but which could not be properly addressed due to agenda and time constraints.

This response to the draft minutes of the forum is based on the collective views of Adventure Kokoda trek leaders who have a combined total of 130 years professional army experience and who have led more than 520 expeditions across the trail over the past 27 years.

Our experience in protecting the welfare of our local guides and carriers is in line with the conclusions reached by Dr Geoffrey Vernon, Regimental Medical Officer for the 39th Battalion during the Kokoda campaign of World War II.

The KTA forum was conducted at short notice with insufficient time to prepare detailed submissions for discussion. As it transpired it was more of a briefing session. No notices of motion were provided, none was moved and the only substantive decision taken was to have another forum in May 2019.

The minutes of the previous Tour Operators Forum held in Cairns on 14-15 November were not tabled nor discussed in accordance with normal protocols. These minutes have now been outstanding for more than a year and the fact they have never been produced after trek operators went to considerable expense to attend is indicative of either negligent administration or a cover-up of some sort.

The welfare of PNG guides and carriers was first addressed at a KTA forum in Sydney on 17-18 March 2015. The following resolution was passed:

“The meeting agreed with the provision of a trek uniform unique to each trek operator however the compulsory provision of a sleeping bag and mat was resisted due to the cost and the difficulty in maintaining control of issued stock.

“Mr Martin Pusinelli, a consultant with the TPA advised that he had spoken with many trek operators and some had advised of their negative observations regarding the welfare of PNG guides and carriers. This could lead to a negative image for the trekking industry.”

The ‘resistance’ came from Australian trek operators who later established the Kokoda Tour Operators Association (KTOA) to protect their financial interests.

No action was taken on any resolution passed at the 2013 forum and nothing has happened since.

The welfare issue was raised again four years later at the KTA Tour Operators Forum held in Port Moresby on 8 November 2017. The meeting was attended by 63 delegates representing provincial and local level governments, landowners and trek operators.  The following motion was passed unanimously:

Pack weights be reduced to 18 kg;
Porters to be provided with proper sleeping bag and ground sheet;
Take home travel allowance of K250 upon completion of the trek; and
Increase minimum wage from K60 to K70 per day.

KTA officials were then required to table the motion for discussion at the Australian Tour Operators Forum scheduled for the following week in Cairns on 14 November 2017.

For reasons known only to KTA officials the motions were not tabled nor discussed. The representative of the proposed Porters and Guides Association who accompanied the KTA CEO and Operations Officer to Cairns did not attend the meeting and the minutes of the forum have never been produced.

This begs the following questions:

Why were the Minutes not tabled or discussed at the Cairns forum?
Why did the representative of the Porters and Guides Association absent himself from the meeting?
Was the motion discussed ‘out of session’ between KTA officials and the Kokoda Tour Operators Association KTOA)?
Why have the minutes of the Cairns forum never been released?

Whatever the reason the KTOA was able to successfully delay investing in the welfare for guides and carriers they engage for another 12 months – a good result for their shareholders but not so good for the subsistence villagers they employ.

The KTOA website advises that “members of the association collectively represent more than 75% of trekker number across Kokoda”.

This is fake information.

The KTOA membership represents just one- third, that is, 29% of the 37 trek operators licensed by the PNG Kokoda Track Authority (KTA). Of the 11 KTOA members one is inactive and one is unlicensed.

According to KTA records a total of 3,267 trekkers crossed the trail in 2017 – of these 2,053 (62%) went with KTOA members.

The most abhorrent practice the KTOA advocates is the overloading of carriers by its members and their use of fake research to justify it.

In September 2017 a PNG carrier engaged by a member of the KTOA died on the trail – according to the PNG Kokoda Track Authority (KTA) Ranger at Owers Corner, the deceased carrier was overloaded with a 28 kg backpack.

Rather than addressing the problem the KTOA accused the KTA ranger of altering his records without providing any evidence to support their claim.

A preliminary investigation by the Sogeri police sergeant, Max Maso, contradicts their claim: “‘It is evident that the group on this particular trip… engaged by… [KTOA tour operator]… were all overloaded in breach to Code of Conduct stipulated under this code”.

Rather than accepting that there is a problem with the overloading of carriers the KTOA went into damage control after Adventure Kokoda advised that the maximum weight allowed for the PNG wartime carriers in 1942 was 18 kg.

On 26 February 2018 the KTOA posted an irrational response to this fact on Facebook:

“Any operator[i] continuing to use references to conditions and weights carried by carriers on the Kokoda Track in 1942 is still living in the dark colonial days long past. Clearly the welfare of the carriers of the Kokoda campaign was not of primary concern of their colonial masters. Suggestions made recently that the carriers during the war were restricted to carrying 18kgs is a gross misrepresentation of the brutal conditions in which the carriers worked.”

The reference KTOA quoted to justify their exploitation of PNG carriers was an unofficial essay written by a junior summer vacation student at the Australian War Memorial.

The facts are anything but a “gross misrepresentation of the brutal conditions in which the carriers worked” as stated by the KTOA.

The most authentic research on the history of the Kokoda Trail was published by Stuart Hawthorne in 2003. Hawthorne provides a detailed assessment of the reality of the conditions under which the wartime carriers worked and noted that: “One of Dr Vernon’s first actions was to have the carriers’ maximum load officially reduced from 50 lbs (23 kg), transferred from pre-war days, to 40 lbs (18 kg).”

The maximum weight of 18 kg for wartime carriers is also referred to in a book entitled ‘The Third Force. ANGAU’s New Guinea War 1942-46’: “They and their native police recruited the carriers, organised loads of 40 lbs (18 kg) per man and sent them on their way.”

The KTOA was not deterred by these facts and responded with more fake research on 10 March 2018: “In the Kokoda Museum we read that during the war Porters had to carry up to 27kg. So someone must be right (obviously the KTOA) and someone must be wrong (obviously Adventure Kokoda) about what porters carried.”

The information they relied upon for this quote was an unreferenced extract attributed to Major HD (‘Blue’) Steward, Regimental Medical Officer, 2/16 Australian Infantry Battalion which read: “The Australian New Guinea Administrative Unit (ANGAU) recruited carriers for the Australian Army. Although better treated, these ‘Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels’, as they were affectionately known, worked long hours in tortuous conditions, often carrying loads of 60lb (27 kg).”

This is a fake reference – there is no record of this statement in Major Steward’s book ‘Recollections of a Regimental Medical Officer’. In his published recollections Major Steward wrote: 

“Medical care for the people of Papua and New Guinea was usually not a direct responsibility of mine, close though I was to them in their gallant work of carrying out our wounded on the Kokoda Trail. In those days they were grossly overworked and overloaded, as well as being underfed and ill-clothed.

“It was largely through medical advice – including that of old Dr Vernon – that their lot improved. The carriers had their burdens reduced to a maximum of 40 lbs (18 kg), hours of work were reduced to something approaching reason, rest days were provided, and blankets and sweaters were issued to protect them in the cold mountains”…..

The KTA is not a legitimate authority on this issue. The original maximum weight of 25 kg was established in 2009 by the Australian CEO of the KTA who had recently arrived in PNG and had never trekked Kokoda – he therefore knew nothing of the brutal conditions over the 138 km trail.

The CEO accepted the advice of Australian tour operators who were aware of the commercial opportunities of leading treks across the trail and who obviously wanted to minimise their costs. The advice of experienced operators who had been leading treks across the trail for more than a decade prior to his arrival was ignored…..

KTOA members are not required to provide their PNG carriers with sleeping bags and mats. These items are essential for protection from the cold and wet conditions that prevail across the Owen Stanley Ranges. This contravenes Guideline 2 of the Trekking Ethics of the International Porters Association which states: “Above the tree line porters should have… a sleeping mat and a decent blanket or sleeping bag.”

PNG carriers come from subsistence villages along the trail. Those lucky enough to get a job in Port Moresby are paid the basic rate of 60 cents an hour. This means they would have to work for seven weeks to be able to afford a basic sleeping bag and mat of their own.

This is an unrealistic expectation which means they often have to huddle together to endure wet ground and freezing temperatures in the Mount Koiari area of the Owen Stanley Ranges while the Australian trekkers they are supporting enjoy the warmth of a sleeping bag in a sheltered area…..

The KTOA has been successful in influencing/intimidating the KTA to avoid their responsibilities over the welfare issue for the past five years by delaying debate on the issue.

Perhaps it’s time now for the KTA to do a review of the KTOA which was established by a group of Australian trek operators to protect their own interests.

At first glance their website indicates that their corporate ideals are beyond reproach and their “collective desire to see real, short and long term  benefits to the Kokoda Track (sic) communities, landowners, Porters, Guides, Carriers and PNG stakeholders” is laudable.

But in reality individual members of the KTOA have been honing their skills at dodging their responsibilities for years.

When the KTA was established an Australian operator successfully ‘influenced’ the new organisation to introduce a 50% discount for students as these made up a large proportion of their clientele. PNG thus became the first and only country in the world to require subsistence villagers to subsidise wealthy Australian private school students.

Another member of the KTOA had previously been caught out trying to sneak 378 trekkers across the trail without trek permits which denied local villages their fair share of benefits from the trekking industry. So much for their ‘collective desire to see real, short and long term  benefits to the Kokoda Track (sic) communities!’

The KTOA has been shameless in their ongoing attempts to use fake research to justify their exploitation of the local guides and carriers they engage.

KTOA members have provision in their trek booking conditions to increase the price of their treks in the event of a cost increase by a third party such as the KTA.

The 2019 Kokoda trekking season does not start until April 2019 – this allows adequate time for their members to adjust their prices in order to provide for the basic welfare of their guides and carriers.

KASSANDRA KOMPLEX

Oh, Papua New Guinea are we cursed?
Land of the unexpected; no hope rests
In cruel hands, so quickly balled into fists
Lo paitim meri, but palms to please guests
Or tongues as forked as some demonic beast
That robs your wantoks to roll with the best
Whose hearts so filthy with rape and incest
Will fuck fikinini then fake their faith.

What is it on this island paradise?
That turns us into new-age cannibals
Feasting upon each other’s flesh and blood
While claiming welcome into heavens halls
By baptising ourselves in tears and mud;
For those sins, our future will pay a price.

WARDLEY BARRY

How much more blood must we spill?
Do you want an ocean?

How many more lives must we lose?
Can you count the stars?

How many more men must be tortured?
Is animal cruelty more grave than genocide?

How many more women must be raped
and babies forced into their wombs only to be ripped out?
Have we not been violated since birth?

How many more children must be orphaned?
Is a cat more deserving of a home than my child?

How many more tears must we cry?
Have not our rivers been flooded?

How many more prayers must we offer?
Are they not our sighs that rise when it rains?

How many more petitions must we sign?
Are not our butchered limbs enough?

How much higher must we pile our dead bodies
for you to take notice of our plight?
Soon we will all die and no one will be left
to collect our corpses or sign this off

Chris Overland

CHRIS OVERLAND

ADELAIDE - West Papua and its future has recently been a hot topic of debate on PNG Attitude.

At least one correspondent has trenchantly defended the record of Indonesia in West Papua, maintaining that its occupation of part of the island of New Guinea is legitimate in terms of international law and recognised as such by the international community.

There also have been claims and counter claims about allegations that huge numbers of Papuans have been killed or displaced as the Indonesian government has sought to gain secure control over the entire province. The veracity or otherwise of these claims is clearly a hotly contested and very partisan debate.

The history of how Indonesia ended up taking over the governance of West Papua does not provide much solid evidence for claimed legitimacy.

There is the indisputable fact that the outgoing Dutch colonial power reluctantly handed control to Indonesia after its allies (notably the USA, Britain and Australia) proved unwilling to back belated efforts to prepare the province for independence.

And we know the allies were uninterested in offering military support in the event of conflict with the very belligerent Indonesian government of the day.

But was the Indonesian takeover of West Papua legitimate?

This history is relevant in so far as there are, politically at least, clear grounds to contest the legitimacy of Indonesian occupation even if the powers that be in Indonesia continue to insist otherwise.

The matter of interest to me is whether Organisasi Papua Merdeka (OPM), the self-styled West Papuan liberation movement, is likely to be successful in its attempts to eject Indonesia and set up an independent West Papuan state.

On the face of it, a tiny group of relatively poorly armed and untrained guerilla fighters seem highly unlikely to prevail against Indonesia’s very formidable military. It really looks like a gross mismatch.

However, there are lessons for Indonesia from the history of the violent decolonisation processes that occurred in the mid-20th century including, of course, its own.

To my mind, Algeria is a prime example of how an initially very tiny minority of freedom fighters (or terrorists if you prefer) overcame the military might of France.

Algeria was a French colonial possession from 1830 to 1962.

In 1830 it was a tiny and impoverished country that had no capacity to resist the French army when it seized control. Over the succeeding decades many French citizens moved to Algeria until the population of these so-called pieds noire (literally, black feet) exceeded 1.0 million.

In 1947 the indigenous population of Algeria was granted full French citizenship and Algeria thus became regarded as an integral part of metropolitan France. This action was apparently both recognition and reward for the support Algerians had given to France in the two world wars.

The first stirrings of nationalist sentiment had appeared in the 1920’s but had been successfully suppressed (sometimes by extreme force) until the appearance of the Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN) in 1954. The granting of full French citizenship did not diminish FLN members’ enthusiasm for independence.

The armed wing of the FLN launched an especially vicious terror campaign against the pieds noire. The French army and pieds noire irregulars responded in kind. All sides were guilty of very dreadful atrocities and the fighting was unusually ferocious and cruel.

The French government initially thought that the insurrection could be easily suppressed, just as had been the case in the past. This time, however, it badly miscalculated and by 1955 the situation was rapidly spirally out of control.

Eventually, France committed around 500,000 troops in its efforts to suppress the FLN.  Despite raids, road blocks, curfews, mass arrests and the routine use of torture to extract information, it could not prevent what became a relentless series of strikes, bombings and massacres.

Slowly but surely public sentiment amongst Muslim Algerians, who bore the brunt of the Army’s excesses, turned against France. The amount of blood and treasure being consumed climbed relentlessly. This fueled growing unease and dissent about the war in metropolitan France.

By 1961, France’s position had become politically and militarily unsustainable. President Charles De Gaulle offered Algeria a chance to vote on whether or not it should become independent. Just short of 70% of the population voted yes.

Within a year, 1.4 million pieds noire had fled to France and on 5 July 1962 Algeria became independent. The residual bitterness, anger and resentment about the Algerian War remain to this day.

One legacy is that some 3.5 million French citizens (5.8% of the population) claim Algerian heritage. Their often poor treatment and circumstances in France have been such that they continue to provide recruits for ISIS and other like terrorist bodies.

The principal lesson from the Algerian War is that a very powerful state can eventually be compelled to give up its control over a colonial possession if there is a liberation movement that is willing to commit itself fully to open warfare and then unrelentingly pursue its strategic aims regardless of the costs to itself or anyone else.

The FNL was a comparatively weak organisation in 1954 but became progressively stronger over the course of the war. It was utterly unscrupulous in its actions, as were its opponents. The longer the war went on, the weaker became France’s ability to exert its legal and, perhaps most importantly, moral right to govern Algeria.

France was not defeated by military means alone. As the USA subsequently discovered in Vietnam, even the world’s most powerful military can eventually be defeated if the political and moral will to fight is sufficiently weakened at home.

This brings me back to West Papua and the OPM.

Appalling as it is to contemplate, the Algerian War offers an obvious template for the OPM. There is no particular reason why Indonesia ought to be any more or less susceptible to the impact of a long term guerilla war of attrition.

As the French discovered, even a huge and powerful army cannot be everywhere at once, leaving the broader population always vulnerable to terrorist acts. Time always favours guerilla fighters, especially when fighting in their own country, amongst their own people, against an oppressive foreign power.

Mao Zedong famously said that in order to win it is merely necessary not to lose. He also said that revolutionary fighters must be guerilla fish in a people’s sea.

These two aphorisms neatly encapsulate important guiding principles for any successful guerilla leader. They have been successfully applied in Algeria, China, Zimbabwe, Vietnam, Afghanistan and elsewhere besides.

Bearing this history and Mao’s aphorisms in mind, it seems to me far from impossible that the OPM can eventually achieve its aims.

By merely being in existence, the OPM offers a challenge to the Indonesian state.

Every action or atrocity by the Indonesian army (whether real or merely “fake news”) serves to erode its moral right to suppress what many clearly regard as the legitimate expression of dissent about West Papua’s status as a colony of a foreign power.

Every young Indonesian soldier sent home in a body bag is a silent but potent symbol of a war which many Indonesian families (like the Russian, American and French families before them) might be increasingly unable to comprehend, let alone support.

So, to those who say that the OPM must inevitably fail I say look to the lessons of history and beware.

The only successful anti-insurgency action by a colonial power that I can immediately recall is that of Britain during the Malayan emergency (1948-1960). It succeeded because, rather shrewdly, Britain offered Malaya independence at a time of its choosing and subsequently honoured its promise in full.

At one stroke, a huge amount of potential support for the guerillas evaporated and they fought a long but ultimately futile war against a British colonial regime that enjoyed at least qualified support from most of the population.

Significantly, post Malaysia becoming independent, British commercial interests were not greatly damaged and relations between Britain and Malaysia remain cordial to this day.

This suggests to me that Indonesia might be wise to consider offering West Papua independence, with an agreed timetable to be negotiated between the various interested parties, including the OPM.

I say this because it seems to me better to offer voluntarily that which might eventually be taken by force. There are several obvious benefits to be derived from this approach.

First and foremost, it avoids the very real possibility of a protracted, ugly, expensive, divisive and ultimately disastrous guerilla war of the type I have described in relation to Algeria.

Also, it will allow Indonesia to negotiate the preservation of its commercial, cultural and other interests within West Papua and, very probably, ensure that West Papua remains significantly integrated with the Indonesian Republic even if standing outside of its formal constitutional arrangements.

Importantly, this approach should create a large reservoir of goodwill between the new state and Indonesia that should remain an enduring feature of their relationship long into the future. The value of such an outcome ought not to be underestimated.

I do not think that I am being too idealistic in proposing this approach. History strongly suggests that pragmatism by colonial powers pays in the long run.

Certainly, it will require wisdom, goodwill, courage and forbearance by all sides to make it work but I cannot see any reason to prefer having a war in preference to a discussion in order to determine West Papua’s future.

Francis Nii

FRANCIS NII

KUNDIAWA - The recently announced (and quickly abandoned) cash incentive for police in the National Capital District Command based on the number of arrests they made was highly dangerous.

National Capital District metropolitan chief superintendent Perou N’Dranou came up with the short-lived plan in which each unit was to be given a target ranging from 10-15 arrests.

The incentives for each arrest made by units were K300 for public safety, K300 for traffic, K200 for mobile squad and K500 for CID for every two completed hand-up briefs.

N’Dranou said the scheme would push officers to work towards ensuring "arrests records were up to date".

I don’t think that reason was genuine and would benefit the public in any way. N’Dranou should have known better.

Police in the national capital are well known for all the wrong reasons – their drunken behaviour and violent human rights abuses, including murder.

In this time of economic hardship when everybody including police are desperately looking for ways to earn extra money, the ‘cash-for-arrests’ plan would have been a great incentive for police to make unnecessary and unlawful arrests.

There would have been more police harassment, brutality and human rights violations in a policing environment already characterised by great unhappiness at best and out of control criminality at worst.

Current public perceptions of police is that they are corrupt and violent drunkards who are an enemy of the public.

The proposed scheme was also unfair to the hard-working policemen and women in other centres.

Fortunately, police commissioner Gari Baki quickly stamped on the proposal, saying it was "well meaning" but would not go ahead.

"This is totally wrong and counter-productive so I will not allow it to be implemented," Baki said.

"Policemen are among the highest paid public servants in the country. They are a privileged lot."

Now we’ll wait to see how the Port Moresby police who would have benefited will react to this setback to their cash flow.

PETER KRANZ

MORRISET – Krungutim lain (twisting rope) is not a lost art. You have to twist the wool to make it stronger and reduce stretch. It’s also the world’s sexiest craft.

Cuban cigars used to be advertised with the catchline that they were 'rolled on the thighs of dusky maidens'. Well the same is true of traditional PNG bilums [strong bags].

And as the proud partner of a dusky maiden, I believe I have the right to reveal a few trade secrets.

When you have your rope you have to get weaving. This involves umbrella spokes. If you don't have any old umbrellas, wheely-wheely spokes will do. Then you just need a pair of pliers to make a hook. Then thread your rope.

Now comes the clever part. In the western world, it’s called crochet or tatting, but PNG women need no fancy words to ply their trade.

You interweave colours and patterns to make a basic shape and weave up from that to make a bag.

Then you add handles and stitch it all together.

This is a most amazing thing. Papua New Guinean women do this from instinct and memory - there are no printed instructions. Given the interplay between mathematics and intricate patterns, I reckon PNG women are the untold mathematical geniuses of the world.

Bilums are the stock in trade for tens of thousands of PNG women. A good craftswoman can produce a bilum in a week, taking many hours of fine work.

The result is a thing of beauty. Bloody brilliant! Remember this the next time you are offered a bilum.

And don’t accept Chinese machine made fakes. This disrespects the effort of the women and the culture of PNG that they are maintaining.

A 1980s view of Karap from the air gives an indication of the steep mountainsides. Lower left is the road to Tabibuga, upper right the road to Banz, middle left the road to Kol

GARRY ROCHE

DUBLIN, IRELAND- I had arrived in Papua New Guinea in October 1970, when it was known as the Territory of Papua New Guinea (it changed its name to just Papua New Guinea in 1972.)

Nine months later, in July 1971, I was sent to take charge of Karap, a parish in the Jimi Valley.

This area is now in Jiwaka Province but back then it was part of the Western Highlands District.

Things were on the move. A new road had been constructed from near Banz through Kwiona, Kauil and Karap to the government station at Tabibuga.

The drive from Banz to Karap normally took at least two hours, and from Karap to Tabiguba about an hour. Four-wheel drive vehicles were necessary.

At Karap there is now a road branching off to Kol in the Upper Jimi, but that road did not exist in the early 1970s.

The 'mansion' in which I lived was a cabin made from pit-sawn timber with a thatched kunai grass roof and a nearby shed was stacked with timber used for building the church and school classrooms.

My house was on a hilltop overlooking the road and there was a great view looking down the valley of the Tsau river.

The nearest expatriate neighbours were the kiaps at Tabibuga. At that time, Jack Edwards was in charge and Ken Logan and Rod Cantlay were also there.

Timber shed with the priest’s ‘mansion’ at the rear, Karap 1971

They were only an hour away and I enjoyed their company and, if I was at times brash and naïve, they were diplomatic in response. Another kiap, Harry Nash, was for a time based further away in Kol.

At Karap my job including visiting the many outstations. Sheer distance made it impractical for these outlying parishioners to attend the Sunday mass at Karap, so I would regularly set out onpatrol and bring the church to them - offering mass and discussing matters such as schools, sacraments and other things that concerned the people.

Patrolling in one direction I would drive past Tabibuga, leave the car on the roadside and take to the bush, overnighting in such places as Wum, Tsenga, Kumai, Tuckamunga, Maekmol, Por and Kauil before returning to Karap. This would take about week. In the other direction I would go to Manemp, Magin and Olna.

View from Karap hilltop looking down the Jimi valley. At left, local leader Peter Walep; at right, a catechist

As usual in that part of the highlands, people did not live in villages but in homesteads scattered throughout the hills. When on patrol, we were generally warmly welcomed. Outsiders were still a bit of a novelty and people were curious.

While we brought some supplies with us, the people would usually present a chicken or two and plenty of fruit and vegetables.

Looking back at my 12 months in Karap and the Jimi Valley, I know I was lucky to be there at a time when there was a lot of cooperation between the various government agencies and the missions and the people themselves.

Perhaps because conditions were tough, and there was isolation from the rest of the country, there was a great willingness to help anybody who had a problem.

If your vehicle broke down or you got stuck in a landslide, people were always willing to come to your assistance. If a person was very ill or in great need, help was usually offered. I remember well a Nazarene pastor, Wallace White, who, on his way from Kudjip to the Nazarene mission at Tsengoropa, gracefully gave of his time and expertise to fix my motorbike.

Mrs Kavali, a local man named Mission, a young Hagen man named Data, and local children. Mrs Kavali was presenting us with a chicken, Maekmul 1972

Maekmul was the home place of Sir Thomas Kavali (a prominent politician in the years around independence who became Minister for Works). He was not there when we stayed but I do remember Mrs Kavali presenting us with a chicken.

The patrols often involved long treks though the Jimi bush and overnight stays in bush houses. In places like Tsenga and Wum, I also met my share of mosquitoes.

We had been warned about the need to take anti-malarial medicine; at that time chloroquine was generally recommended.  However the malaria threat was not so great in the highlands and, while I regularly swallowed my weekly dose during my first few months in New Guinea, I later stopped taking it altogether.

My reward, if I remember correctly, was that malaria struck me early in 1972. I became ill with severe headaches, muscle pains, fever, vomiting and diarrhoea.  I had no supply of chloroquine as I had not bothered to get a new supply after I stopped taking the drug.

Although I was not sure what was wrong with me, I knew I was in a bad way. It was an hour’s drive to the government station at Tabibuga, and it was two hours’ drive in the other direction to Banz.

Luckily for me the Public Works Department had sent a grader into the valley to improve the road from Banz through Karap to Tabibuga.  The grader driver was an Australian named Bryson Pryor, and clever Bryson happened to have chloroquine tablets with him.

He gave me enough to help me over the fever. They may well have been a life saver. I had only met Bryson once or twice on the road. In many ways he was a stranger, but he helped me when I really needed help. I have not forgotten.

Many years later I met a nephew of Bryson in the Mt. Hagen Club.  I told him how Bryson had come to my rescue. He informed me that Bryson had died some years before.

I sporadically kept a diary at the time and on 2 March 1972 I recorded: “Elections at Karap. Jack Edwards up for a few drinks”

Jack was the Assistant District Commissioner and the polling station for our area was at Ngal, just up the road from the mission. Thomas Kavali won that election and was instrumental, together with others, in getting fellow highlands politician Kaibelt Diria to support Michael Somare and his move for Papua New Guinea’s self-government and later independence.

Crossing the Tsau river on a flimsy cane bridge was adventurous, but the bridge was was stronger than it looked

There was some mining exploration in the Jimi at the time. I briefly recorded in my diary: “Saturday 29 April 1972. Bruce and Susie (geologists with Minjur Mines) arrived from Olna. Later in evening Chip and Diana Nichols and Peter McNab arrived.”

I cannot remember Bruce and Susie’s full names, but Chip and Diana Nichols called again later, even staying overnight in my mansion one time. Peter McNab was later much involved with Misima mine in Milne Bay Province.

After 12 months in Karap, I was transferred to Ulga in the Nebyler Valley. I missed Karap and regretted that I was not stationed there for longer. I got to make a few brief return visits, the last one about 1990 when I went to Karap for Christmas.

Maybe we tend to romanticise some of our early experiences. Looking back on those times, there was something almost magical about my year in Karap.

The people in Jimi were very friendly and welcoming and the bush patrol experiences were exceptional. I look back with happy memories.

Table: Data from PNG Treasury Department’s final budget outcome documents

MARTYN NAMORONG

PORT MORESBY – Papua New Guinean intellectuals and politicians have erupted on Facebook to fake news emanating from EMTV that there were income tax hikes in the government’s 2019 Budget.

As a sometime government critic, I found myself in the awkward position of almost defending and supporting Treasurer Charles Abel.

So I disseminated the infographic at right showing how much various sectors of the economy contribute to government coffers.

The truth is that workers have been the biggest taxpayers in PNG and big companies have been riding on their coat tails.

Companies call this ‘group tax’, which is mostly comprised of taxes on wages and salaries.

Corporate income tax on the other hand refers to tax paid by the company. In PNG a company is able to pay huge group tax (drawn from employees’ incomes) and almost zero corporate income tax.

So I was baffled when people who I thought were knowledgeable about such matters began to scream on Facebook about hiked income tax. It wasn’t a hike – it was what they’d been paying all along.

I had personal experience of this. In 2013, I did some consultancy work for a company and noticed that 42% of my pay was deducted in income tax.

Since that painful observation six years ago, I’ve pursued tax minimisation strategies with my employers. After all, it’s a painful experience giving half your pay to a corrupt government.

So for me, anyone complaining about 42% tax on Facebook as something new was ignorant of what they had been paying all along.

The Facebook uproar solicited responses from Treasurer Abel and the unions which emphasised how ill-informed people are of the facts.

There’s no doubt that Papua New Guinea needs an overhaul of how it collects taxes not just from the private sector but also its citizens. The good news is that Sir Nagora Bogan’s tax review committee has already provided recommendations for tax rationalisation.

The bad and baffling news is that a tax review paid for by the O’Neill government hasn’t had its recommendations implemented.

In the meantime, it’s wise to remain wary of what the PNG media tells you.

Dr John Momis addresses Bougainville public servants during a dedication mass at Hahela in Buka. The mass was celebrated by Bishop Bernard Unabali

ANTHONY KAYBING

BUKA - Bougainville public servants have been encouraged to maintain solidarity within their ranks and to continue their work to realise the aspirations of the Bougainville people.

During the annual dedication mass for the Bougainville Public Service, President John Momis encouraged Autonomous Bougainville Government employees to have dignity in the tasks they perform to serve the province’s people.

“Appreciate your work, do ordinary things extraordinarily well, find fulfilment in the daily routine that drags you from the comforts of your beds, be thankful and be grateful you have a job,” Dr Momis said.

“You must have integrity and do what is right consistently, honestly and accurately.

“Honesty and accuracy in your actions requires intentionality and thought. How honest or accurate are your behaviour, actions and words with people that you lead?” he said.

Dr Momis stated that in public service, the temptation to be dishonest is always there, whether tinkering with the payroll system, taking 10% from projects, coming late for work and leaving early, or taking bribes under the table.

“It is not easy but the key words I want you all to take to heart are ‘consciousness and choice’.

“Each waking hour and when spending my time in church, I always offer to God that today I make the right choice and decisions, that I remain conscious and that I lead and hold in my hand the future of every Bougainvillean,” he said.

“I firmly believe that each one of you here has a sense of purpose. Without it we lose our way and become demotivated, depressed and prone to the temptations.

“Without purpose we succumb to procrastination, inefficiency, absenteeism, and all the ills that beset government bureaucracy.

“Let us unite and work hard to give our people the government they deserve,” Dr Momis said.

Iroquois helicopter on makeshift helipad near site of the downed Caribou (Ian Loftus)

PAUL OATES

GOLD COAST – It was August 1972 and I was returning from a patrol through the Yamap-Hotte-Musim census division between Wau/Bulolo and Salamaua.

We had left the forest behind and walked through the kunai for number of hours before arriving at Salamaua. Crikey it was hot!

I arrived at a Lutheran Mission guest house overlooking Salamaua and was given some cool lemon sherbet by the mission people who were holidaying there. I was dehydrated and couldn’t get enough of it.

Camping overnight in the Namasu store that night, we waited for a boat to take us to Lae. I tried to sleep among the bags of copra and hoped the rats that leapt between the bags all night wouldn’t bite me. There was also a pungent odour emitting from rancid coconuts that made it very pleasant to get going in the morning.

The coastal boat arrived on schedule and we boarded and set out for Lae. Arriving at Lae wharf, I telephoned the sub district office and the assistant district commissioner allocated a Toyota and driver to get us back to Wau the next day.

Driving through the Mumeng sub district, we noticed aircraft lights towards Bulolo and by the time we drove past the Bulolo road it looked like every aircraft in PNG was flying around Wau. The afternoon sky was lit up with flashing aircraft navigation lights.

When I reported to the sub district office on 28 August, I learned that a Royal Australian Air Force Caribou aircraft had crashed somewhere between Wau and Port Moresby. The Caribou was one of two transporting PNG Army cadets on an exercise and had disappeared in cloud half way through the flight. The other aircraft had arrived safely.

First thing next morning all field staff were required at the airport. There were choppers and light aircraft everywhere. I was designated as lookout on a Bell 60 Sioux helicopter which had instructions to land at each village along the lost aircraft’s flight path through the Waria area of Garaina Patrol Post and ask if the people had seen an Army balus.

“Yupela lukim balus bilong Ami long asde a?” (Did any of you see an Army plane yesterday?)

“Yes sah. Mipela lukim wanpela balus igo olsem na narapela ikam long hap na narapela igo long.......“ (Yes sir, we saw an aircraft fly over there and another fly this way and.... ) Hands and arms pointed in every direction.

There had been so many aircraft in the air the previous afternoon, no one could distinguish between them. Unless someone had heard or seen the crash, any other information was useless.

It eventually turned out the aircraft had speared into an uninhabited part of forest and left virtually no trace of where it had crashed.

We continued on to and over the Papuan border, eventually running short of fuel. At that point a mild anxiety crept in as we weren’t exactly sure where we were due to the clouds having come down behind us.

We circled and I spotted the old World War II Bulldog Track. I suggested following the track towards Wau. We did this with the low cloud closing in around us.

‘Oh Oh!’ I thought as the pilot switched fuel tanks. The right tank was completely empty and the left dangerously low. We were now boxed in by cloud.

The pilot looked at the map and decided to ascend through the murk. There were no peaks over 12,000 feet in the area so if we got above the clouds we would be right. Up we went with the fuel gauge getting lower every minute and eventually broke out of the cloud cover at over 12,000 feet and headed in the direction of Wau. We could see that the entire region was totally clouded in.

At any other time it would have been pleasing to admire the scenery. As we made our way to Wau, it was like floating on a flat, white ocean with the sun shining brightly above.

The pilot took a compass bearing and headed towards where Wau should be under all that cloud. Constant checks with the air traffic controllers confirmed there was total cloud cover on the ground at Wau. Meanwhile, the needle in the left fuel gauge had begun to bounce up and down on the empty indicator.

A sudden message from Wau advised that a small gap in the cloud cover had opened up and was moving over the airstrip. The pilot spotted it and, as moved over it, wound off the pitch of the rotors and we dropped like a stone. As my stomach tried to adjust from 12,000 feet, we plummeted towards earth at frightening speed.

When we were at about 100 feet, the pilot engaged full pitch again and I felt like my backside was being pushed up through my throat. We hit the ground hard and neither fuel gauge moved once. The pilot said later there may have been a pint of fuel left in the fuel lines.

Thick cloud stopped the air search for the rest of the day and I wasn’t complaining.

Three days later, five young survivors, who had been at the rear of the Caribou, were found walking along a creek bed. The 24 other cadets and the aircrew died in the crash. Later one of the survivors died in hospital. It was the RAAF’s worst peacetime disaster.

The Caribou transport had come down in the Kudjeru Gap after poor weather forced the crew to retrace their route back through the gap, The aircraft’s starboard wing had hit treetops on a ridgeline, bringing down the plane.

The Caribou’s crew included Flight Lieutenant Graham Thomas, Pilot Officer Gregory Ebsary and Corporal Gary Power. Captain Robert Loftus, a ground liaison officer with the Australian Army, was also killed in the accident.

I remember seeing the injured boys on Moresby airstrip when I went south on leave some days later.

That was the end of the Army cadet scheme in Papua New Guinea.

Squatter house at Eight Mile settlement, Port Moresby (Sean Davey)

BUSA JEREMIAH WENOGO | PNG Informal Economist

PORT MORESBY - Life in a typical Papua New Guinean settlement is probably better than the favelas of Brazil but is no place for the faint-hearted.

For many years, settlements in Port Moresby and other urban centres have been a safe haven for the unemployed, labourers and poor although they have very rundown living conditions and are deprived of clean drinking water, sewerage and power.

Settlements are also known for providing refuge to criminals and their illicit activities and are a hotbed for tribal and ethnic clashes.

Yet for many years little constructive action has been undertaken by the government to rectify this situation other than resorting to eviction, which has been criticised as inhumane.

Now, however, the National Capital Development Commission (NCDC) in Port Moresby is embarking on a program to change all that. Under its settlement upgrading strategy, settlements will be connected with essential utilities like water, sewerage and electricity and eventually awarded title to the land.

This move is certainly timely given that shanty settlements are increasingly being replaced by a new class of educated working people. For these people the intervention is a huge relief at a time when the formal housing market is in tatters with rental and housing prices going through the roof.

For many settlers who have been living in the settlements all their lives, the program cannot come soon enough as they see the idea of securing formal title as critical to protecting their families’ wellbeing and livelihood.

As the influence of modernity seeps in, settlement life is changing. On any given weekend, a bass speaker can be heard forcefully pumping out music accompanied by screams of drunken ecstasy and the sound of beer bottles smashing on the road.

The level of noise at times can be unbearable and insane. Alcohol related fights and domestic violence are a recurring phenomenon. The basic fabric of the family unit is beginning to buckle as prostitution, juvenile crime and under-age drinking are rampant.

The paradox of most PNG settlements is that, although they have become safe havens for social disorder, politicians until recently haven’t had the courage to make the tough decisions required to deal with the problems.

Informal settlements in most urban areas have been exponentially increasing since the 1960s. In cities and major cities such as Port Moresby, Lae and Mt Hagen, the development of informal settlements has been so rapid and pervasive that it has reached a point where urgent action needs to be taken to arrest out-of-control development.

It is estimated that by 2030 one-third of PNG’s population will be living in urban centres with an annual growth rate of 1.6%. In Port Moresby alone it is estimated that almost half of the city’s population already live in the unplanned settlements.

Squatter housing at Four Mile settlement, Port Moresby

This rapid development of settlements is taking its toll on government services. Public transportation is unable to keep pace with growing demand and confrontations between the authorities and the public over the use of public space are becoming more frequent. Without a clear strategy the government finds itself in a dilemma.

Perhaps to better understand the enormity of the challenge confronting NCDC in tackling the settlement issue in Port Moresby, one needs to pay a visit to one of the several timber yards or hardware stores.

The busy informal housing market has seen a boom in demand for hardware and timber, and the outlets are teeming with people and trucks (mostly hired) standing by to load timber and building materials. 

The intended locations (mostly on the outskirts of Port Moresby) have no formal titles or address and are devoid of utilities such as sewerage, water and electricity. The dusty roads leading into them are infested with potholes and are susceptible to flooding.

Yet dotted across these once vast areas of undeveloped land are high covenant city houses. These new settlements - Bush Wara, Farea, ATS, Taurama, 14 Mile and Manuti are just some of them – have emerged in the last five years or so.

And what makes them stand out from the older settlements such as Sabama, Morata, Erima, 6 Mile and so on is the impressive list of tenants. Apart from the educated working class there are prominent business people, senior government bureaucrats and even politicians who have built houses in these places.

This new development may sound absurd but it reflects the mess that is the formal housing market in Papua New Guinea.

Several years ago the Independent Consumer and Competition Commission (ICCC) reviewed the situation and urgently recommended the government regulate the housing industry so Papua New Guineans could afford decent homes.

To this day the report has not been tabled in parliament. When Peter O’Neill became the country’s prime minister the government introduced a housing scheme for the public servants. But the project has stalled although there have been efforts to kick start it.

To get a sense of the enormity of the problem plaguing the formal housing market, a portion of government land in a major urban area such as Port Moresby can command a market value ranging from K300,000 to over K1 million. Land with a house connected to essential utilities can cost from K500,000 to K5 million.

What this means is that it is much cheaper to buy undeveloped state-owned land or customary land. The situation is now so dire that buyers are willing to invest in setting up homes on state-owned land knowing full well the consequences that awaits if the government decides to develop the land for some other purpose.

The debris-ridden but otherwise bare landscape of Paga Hill overlooking Ela Beach is a constant reminder of the fate that awaits many urban settlers. Yet the frontier between settlements and government or customary land keeps expanding with more land taken up by settlers.

It seems just a matter of time before there is destruction and dislocation. The settlers are bound to be the ones who will suffer the most; perhaps ultimately losing their homes, however modest.

Unlike the long established settlements of Port Moresby, the new settlements are mostly on land said to be customarily owned by local landowners (although the government contests that).

In a break from the past, traditional landowners on the fringe of Port Moresby are selling their land to take advantage of growing demand. The government has made attempts to develop a win-win solution with the introduction of the Taurama Urbanisation Pilot Project however it was short-lived due to corruption.

Overall, government reforms in the area of customary land registration is lagging and, as a result, these informal arrangements between landowners and buyers are often susceptible to confrontation and disagreements.

In the competitive hardware and timberyard industries, household names like Steamships, Badili and Carpenters have gradually been replaced by the Asian owned and operated Leon, Sunshine and Ideal hardware operations.

Most of the logs sawn into timber and sold in these places are sourced locally but there are concerns that some of these new outlets are offering sub-standard building materials that compromise quality.

Squatters at rubbish tip settlement in Port Moresby

Furthermore, there seems to be little control in the way prices are set leading to speculation about price collusion. This is an area the government needs to address through enforcing appropriate standards.

Under its new UN Urban Agenda 3 the United Nation has called on governments to ensure urban development is sustainable by linking urbanisation to overall development. Article 17 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights further stipulates that everybody has the right to property.

However, in developing countries such as PNG these rights are often ignored or trampled by governments. Hopefully in Port Moresby this will change once NCDC implements its long-awaited settlement upgrading strategy.

Terrain around Kudjeru - "There, on the other side of a small creek, was the village which appeared to be deserted"

PAUL OATES

GOLD COAST – This is the story of one of the few patrols I did into the area south of Wau over the ridges from the Waria River area to near the Papuan border.

Some years previously, a patrol had marked out a site for an airstrip near the Papuan border and the people there were keen to ensure construction was progressing.

The site had not been visited for some years and I checked old patrol reports to get some background on the area and its people.

In the early 1970s there were no villages between Wau and the village of Kudjeru where we could obtain carriers, so a permanent carrier line was required. Usually we paid carriers from one village to carry the patrol’s cargo to the next village.

This was a good system as the local people knew the area and tracks and didn’t have to leave their village for long periods. Carriers were paid by the hour and the traditional one shilling an hour had recently been increased due to pressure from the Papua New Guinea House of Assembly.

A local advertisement produced plenty of volunteers from Wau’s out of work or out of luck gold miners and itinerants. The police inspector, Kari Tau, allocated two police to accompany the patrol and we headed off with about 50 carriers and five days' emergency rations (rice, hard tack biscuits and tinned bully beef) expecting to buy food from villages along the way.

We left in mid-morning making for Kudjeru village along a designated walking track, so no local guides were required. But Kudjeru proved further than we were led to believe and we were still walking as night fell.

So we set up camp in a small clearing, boiled water for rice and tea and mixed bully beef with rice for the carriers. Using bamboo cargo poles I set up my bed sail under a tent fly as it started to rain. The carriers built bush shelters of branches and leaves.

In the morning I woke up to see movement along the bed sail. A leech was slowly looping its way towards me. Although it was in the mountains and the air was crisp and cool, I was feeling unusually warm. I looked underneath the bed sail and found three carriers had decided to shelter under my tent fly (and under me) for the night.

After a breakfast of Navy biscuits and more bully beef and rice we were back on the track and, at about 10 am, emerged from the forest into a large kunai area several square kilometres in size. But there was no village in sight however. Oh, oh! Not a good start to the patrol.

No one with our patrol knew where Kudjeru village was. The old patrol reports had said it was at the end of the track and we were on the right track. Villages however often moved when garden soil became exhausted, but there was usually a track to follow.

In tall kunai (it can grow to three metres) it’s easy to lose your bearings. One of my affectations was to wear my old school slouch hat that had a bright red puggaree. Gathering the carriers around, I put my hat on top of the longest cargo pole and stood it up vertically.

“Fan out,” I said “but keep this hat in sight”. After about 20 minutes, way off to the south-west, we heard a yell. The carriers gathered and we set off over a small ridge. There, on the other side of a small creek, was the village, which appeared to be deserted.

Depositing the cargo alongside the stream away from the village, we walked to the houses to investigate. In most villages there are usually at least some old people around in the daytime while the rest are in the gardens. This place was completely empty.

The village had an eerie feeling. It was spooky. The carriers were not impressed and left me and one of the policemen to investigate. The policeman said he thought he knew where the haus kiap was so we went that way, stopping to look inside every house.

When we arrived at the designated building, it was in a state of extreme disrepair. It had a dirt floor (most government rest houses were on stumps) and an open doorway. The thatch was rotting and I didn’t like the look of it one little bit.

We stepped inside to look around. As we stood in the middle of the floor I had this eerie feeling and my feet started to tingle. The sensation slowly crept up my legs and I felt the hair on my neck prickle. I turned to the policeman and he looked at me as if to say, “I feel it too.”

I looked down at my feet and saw a thick brown substance, not unlike golden syrup, flowing from the floor and over my boots, over my mud gators and up up my bare legs towards my knees. Holy smoke! My feet seemed locked in place, as in a bad nightmare.

Then I had a closer look at the ‘liquid’ and realised it was composed of a semi solid mass of fleas. We had disturbed them as we walked in and, not having fresh meat for some time, they made a bee line for the two of us. 

We both had the same thought at the same time and turned and ran full pelt for the creek, jumping in up to our waist, fully clothed.

We were in a bit of a pickle. No food, no guides and no idea where to go.

We spotted a track leading south-west and two of the carriers volunteered to follow it and see if they could find where the people had gone.

I made a message stick to take with them. There was a custom in those parts to send out a ‘holey’ New Guinea shilling attached to a stick as a mark of the Government.

The holey shilling was an Australian sterling silver coin with a hole in the centre, minted specifically for use in New Guinea where it could be strung around the neck. There were no pockets in a grass or leaf skirt.

The holey shillings were last minted during World War II and were much in favour with the local people. Today’s PNG kina also has a hole in it. I had a number of these shillings attached to my leather belt and I unclipped one to use for the message stick.

The stick would be given to the person whose presence was required. This person was expected to return it to the kiap who issued it. I had never used the method before and hoped it would work.

While we waited, there was nothing for it but to camp overnight and use more of our iron rations. The carriers wanted to raid the village gardens and let me sort it out later, but I said no. That wasn’t how you made friends, and we needed help.

My decision, however, did consume another day’s rations.

I decided to keep carriers busy for the remainder of the day by building a new haus kiap just outside of the village and near a gurgling stream of fresh water. When the bush materials were collected and the house built, most of our party went exploring.

Gela, my Chimbu mankimasta, returned in delight saying, “Lukim masa, mi painin dispela” and handed me a live hand grenade with the rusty pin still inserted. Ahhh! Put it down carefully and slowly walk away.

It wasn’t long before a treasure trove of relics and live ordinance had been discovered. Live .303 rounds, bombs and still discernible slit trenches on the fringe of the forest, not far away. Of particular interest were many cases of a type of grenade I had not seen before in my previous experience with the Army.

The cases were marked 5ST and the grenades (three to a case) were made up of a long, black bakelite handle, with the usual locking pin, connected to a thin, spherical metal case enclosing a black substance that had disintegrated over the years.

Inside this was a glass globe, about six inches in diameter. The globes were empty but had obviously contained something when they were ready for use. Historical records showed that commandos of the 1st Independent Company had once held this position to stop the Japanese from outflanking the Bulldog Track.

I later had an opportunity to ask an Army bomb disposal expert what kind of grenades the 5ST were. He said the ST probably stood for ‘sticky tank’ and they would have been used against armoured vehicles. Upon throwing the grenade against a vehicle the sticky black goo surrounding the glass globe stuck to the metal. The charge in the handle would set off the glass globe. A more advanced Molotov cocktail.

The carriers eventually returned with some villagers. The message stick had apparently worked. Incredibly, the leader was a man I had last seen in the Aseki Patrol Post area six months before. He and his family had migrated here to make a better life.

His dog was with him and it had found and killed a kapul (tree kangaroo) on the way. They also brought some sweet potatoes, but not enough for more than one meal. I gladly paid for the food and the carriers ate well that night on roasted tree kangaroo and sweet potatoes.

We found out why the people had deserted the village. An old man had died recently and they had run away in case his spirit ‘infected’ them.

With insufficient food available locally, we needed to move on so, after getting directions on which track to take to get us to the airstrip site, we started our patrol once again.