Nickson's team on the Kokoda Track as part of their marathon walk to fight climate change (T4G)

PETER S KINJAP

PORT MORESBY - Climate change is a global crisis and a multi-sectoral issue. It will take every living person in this decade to do something, big or small, to reduce carbon emissions and adapt to changes in weather patterns.

Nickson McManga, 35, from Kumdii in Western Highlands and his voice on climate change may not be as big as Greta Thunberg’s on the global scale but his is still a " compelling voice on the most important issue facing the planet”.

Nickson is a local environmental activist who is creative and vocal on climate issues.

He did his research and started telling people at every available public gathering about the impacts of global climate change.

“The world is approaching catastrophic climate impact, its growing each day,” Nickson says. “Amongst many approaches to address climate crisis, is one is to plant more trees.

“Tree planting can help reduce carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. As trees grow, they absorb and store carbon dioxide emissions that drive global heating.”

Nickson started a local Mt Hagen environmental and eco-tourism activism group, Paradise of Kumdii Climate Change Awareness, who volunteered to undertake a long trek from Mt Hagen to Port Moresby.

“The purpose of this walkathon is to make people aware of the effects of climate change and to promote ecotourism in Papua New Guinea,” Nickson said.

“Everyone is talking about the impacts of climate change and to support the campaign these seven trekkers planted 30 trees each in their communities before they commenced their journey.

“This year 2020 will be the final year for our three years of creating awareness for climate change. The volunteers propose 3 November to be observed as National Environment Repentance Day.”

It’s proposed that on National Environment Repentance Day each year, a number of activities will occur:

All men and women over 18 shall plant three trees each

Nickson with his 7-man Mt Hagen tree planting squad (T4G)

People will repent from their bad actions towards the earth and the environment.

There will be awareness raising of the important of trees and long term action to address climate change

“If the government, through the Ministry of Climate Change and Environment Protection, accepts our volunteer policy on tree planting, it’s anticipated that we can save millions of kina by planting millions of trees.

“If we have PNG National Environment Repentance Day gazette as a national event to be observed nationwide, it will help take care of our environment,” Nickson said.

Nickson became a pastor with the Healing The Land (HTL) missionary group after graduating with a Certificate in Bible Translation at Aiyura Summer Institute of Linguistics in Eastern Highlands.

For the last 10 years he has been studying and working on environmental matters to actualise his inspiration to advocate for environmental concerns and fight the climate crisis.

He is pushing for his idea to be accepted by the government in order that 3 November will be commemorated as PNG’s National Environment Repentance Day.

Nickson’s group has teamed up with Travel4Green (T4G) PNG, www.t4gpng.org, in its Planting 10 Million Trees by 2030 program.

T4G PNG is a not-for-profit private project that has a nationwide volunteer network on climate change issues, including planting more trees and mangroves and conserving existing forests.

Peter S Kinjap is a freelance correspondent on Climate Change issues. Email pekinjap@gmail.com

PHIL FITZPATRICK

TUMBY BAY - Keith Jackson has got a fairly comprehensive guide to the sort of material he will accept for publication on PNG Attitude but let’s try reading between the lines a bit.

These are, of course, my personal observations.

Writing for PNG Attitude isn’t a great deal different to writing for any other platform, be it digital or hardcopy.

It’s really the subject matter that differentiates it from the run-of-the-mill stuff you see published elsewhere about Papua New Guinea.

Keith applies his well-honed editorial skills to the material that is sent to him for consideration, including a special aptitude for interpreting writing that often comes from people whose first language isn’t English.

You don’t have to be an especially accomplished writer to appear on PNG Attitude. As long as you have something to say or a good story to relate, Keith will consider and most likely publish it.

Beyond his editing he acts as a kind of convenor for a myriad of topics, ideas and genres that arrive in his inbox.

He does this on top of extracting interesting and relevant topics from other sources to enhance the mix on the blog.

These topics and ideas arrive either as submitted articles, poems and stories or in the unique Recent Comments section.

This section is very important because it often contains lengthy contributions that are sometimes featured as articles in their own right. This is not the case with other blogs where the comments are usually short, sharp and specifically targeted.

Keith is open minded and will consider material on a wide range of topics even if he doesn’t necessarily agree with the sentiments expressed. 

You will have noticed that he has what is euphemistically called a ‘progressive’ leaning and this needs to be taken into account too.

He is unenthusiastic about extreme diatribes from the left and the right and a few correspondents have felt the slash of his editorial pen.

But it doesn’t happen often and, as it’s his blog, at the end of the day he calls the shots.

As publisher and editor Keith is obviously attuned to what his readers want to read. If you want to get your material published on PNG Attitude you also need to be attuned to the readership.

First of all there are a lot of Papua New Guinean readers. This is very unusual for an Australian based blog and helps make PNG Attitude unique.

Those readers are generally, but not necessarily, quite well educated, and of course have access to the internet.

There are also what might be termed secondary readers of the blog. These include the readers of articles that are picked up from the blog by newspapers and other publications in PNG and Australia, which happens frequently.

Regular PNG Attitude readers also pass on interesting articles from the blog to their friends and relatives. They do this either electronically or by word of mouth. How much this happens is hard to determine but it is quite significant.

Keith’s Twitter account, with its 6,600 followers at last count, provides a daily snapshot of the top stories and can also be an interesting forum for debate.

The second major component of the blog’s readership is people in Australia and elsewhere with an interest in PNG. This may come from previous working experiences, particularly during the colonial period.

Keith tells me that, of the 12,000 active blog readers a month, Australia provides 39%, PNG 37%, USA 9%, and the UK and New Zealand 2% each.

This ‘colonial’ group is obviously now quite elderly but this doesn’t mean that they are not up to speed with what is going on or have calcified ideas about the way the world works. By and large these lapuns are knowledgeable, experienced and intelligent.

This fact has created a rather wonderful rapport with Papua New Guinean readers of the blog. The two groups from Australia and PNG, regard each other as friends. To all intents and purposes they are both members of the PNG Attitude‘family’.

I suspect that the blog as a family of writers and readers is what has kept Keith going with it despite the other commitments in his life. I also suspect that for him the blog is a blessing and a curse at the same time.

The third component of the blog’s readership is made up of what is essentially a silent element. These are the movers and shakers and people in power on both sides of Torres Strait who dip into the blog to see what the ordinary people are talking about. I refer to politicians, diplomats, journalists and senior business people.

It is impossible to quantify this readership but anecdotal evidence suggests it is quite significant. If you want to get into some polly’s ear, writing something for PNG Attitude is worth consideration but you will not necessarily know how successful you have been.

Finally, at a practical level, there are a few other things to consider if you want to publish on PNG Attitude.

Try to keep your contribution short. About 500-700 words is about average. That’s about 12-14kb in computer terms. But reader interest is the main consideration.

Present a logical argument or an entertaining story. Be upbeat if you can, don’t forget the power of humour and satire.

If your topic is sad don’t overdo the pathos, people can work out what you are on about without subjecting them to undue misery.

And lastly, and most importantly, try to get what you write grammatically sound and the spelling correct. Show it to a friend before you submit it if necessary.

Nothing turns an editor off more than a shoddy piece of work.

Mark Lynch (standing left rear) with the first PNG Cabinet, 1975

BILL BROWN MBE

SYDNEY - I had a sandwich and a glass or two of red with Fred Kaad and two of his daughters on 14 January.

Actually, it was a rosé, not a red. And Fred, at 99, the oldest surviving former kiap, was a tad non-verbal.

The meet-up went for five hours and inspired me to revisit some of the more recent booboos in the stories about kiaps.

Keith (KW) Dyer may have been confused in June 2018 when he wrote in Una Voce, "If anyone can claim to be the last Australian kiap still standing … it might be me."

I wondered how that could be.

Graham (GA) Tuck was born in 1949 the same year as I went to PNG. Chris (CA) Overland was born two years later in 1951. They are just two of the many former Australia kiaps still standing who will be here long after Kaad and Dyer and I are gone.

Of course, Dyer may have meant that he was the most senior in terms of age or when he joined the service. But Kaad was three years older and had become a patrol officer in March 1946, six months before him.

Even so, Dyer had a remarkable career. He made his way up the ranks from Patrol Officer to District Commissioner, and then became the First Assistant Director of the Department of District Administration.

He then continued, in an enduring career, as an Assistant Secretary involved in mining and major projects from 1973 until June 1980.

That Chief Minister Somare agreed to Dyer's continuing in that role for eight years after self-government belies the assertion that "Michael Somare hated the kiaps and wanted to get rid of them."

Dyer was just one example. Vin (EV) Smith was another, but he was from a different mould.

Hardly out of school when he became a kiap in 1949, Smith spent half a dozen years as Deputy District Commissioner (or its equivalent) in Rabaul, resigning at the end of 1977.

But after six years in Australia, and footloose, Smith returned to PNG with Somare's blessing. That was in 1983. He too became an Assistant Secretary, and he stayed for 11 more years.

Even more astounding, Somare relied on former kiaps to play vital roles in Papua New Guinea's move to Independence. Strange behaviour for a man who allegedly "hated kiaps and wanted to get rid of them."

We all asked, "Paul who?" when Somare selected Paul (WP) Ryan to head up the Department of Chief Minister and Development Administration in early 1973.

Ryan had been a kiap for just 10 years when he transferred to the Public Service Commission in 1962. In 1968, he became Secretary of the Administrator's Executive Council (AEC). With that limited field experience, as head of Somare's new department, he was now the kiaps' boss.

Max (MB) Allwood, a kiap from 1954 - in Southern Highlands, Sepik, New Britain and Bougainville - moved to the Department of Law in 1968. Under Somare, he was First Legislative Counsel from 1973 to 1975 directly responsible for the development of the new laws tied to PNG's Independence.

When Allwood's contract was due to expire in December 1976, Somare asked him to stay on for at least another year as a consultant on drafting and legislative matters. He eventually retired after suffering a heart attack in December 1977.

Patrol Officer Mark Lynch on patrol from Wonenara Patrol Post to the Lamari Valley,  Eastern Highlands,  1964

Mark (MA) Lynch, a kiap from 1959 to 1968, had gained a couple of university degrees and was lecturing at the Administrative College when Somare agreed to him replacing Ryan as Secretary of the Administrator's Executive Council in March 1973.

Somare was known as Chief Minister even though the title did not officially exist, and self-government was six months down the track.

In 1975, at Independence, Lynch became Papua New Guinea's most influential public servant when now Prime Minister Somare appointed him Secretary of the National Executive Council (NEC). He served as Cabinet Secretary for three years.

When he stepped aside in 1978, he continued as an advisor to the Prime Minister Somare and as Secretary of the National Planning Committee of the NEC for a further year.

Perhaps not as noteworthy, but notably significant, David (DRM) Marsh had been a kiap for 27 years when Somare selected him to chair the Papua New Guinea Independence Celebrations.

Somare was a pragmatist. He knew that expatriate District Commissioners had to be replaced by Papua and New Guineans. Even so, he kept some expatriate DCs on - two of them until Independence.

And, with four exceptions, he encouraged them all to take up other positions in the public service.

Other kiaps - DDCs, DOs, ADOs, and POs - were also encouraged to stay. All but a few received a letter jointly signed by Somare and the Administrator, Les Johnson.

It guaranteed them a minimum of three-and-a-half years employment, continuing Australian standards of education for their children and first-class medical services.

And stay they did. I recall that amongst them were Bob (RD) Cleland, John (JC) Corrigan, Jim (PJ) Fenton, Des (JD) Fitzer, Fred (FJL) Haynes, Bob (RA) Hoad, Mal (M) Lang, Stuart (SFJ) Priestly, Harry (HJ) Redmond, Graham (GA) Tuck, Noel (NH) Walters, Norm (NL) Wilson, and many others.

Many departed between 1974 and 1975 - some to a new career or, spurred on by wives, to re-establish families in Australia. 

Some stayed a few years after Independence. Others stayed much longer, leaving when they turned 60 - the mandatory retirement age under the new regime.

John Corrigan left Simbu (Chimbu) in 1997. Des Fitzer, Fred Haynes, Bob Hoad, and Mal Lang were in the Central District until the end of the 1990s.  Other younger kiaps like Stuart Priestly until the end of 2001, and Graham Tuck even later - the last of them all.

Ron Hiatt adds his words to the story:

I was Deputy District Commissioner with a small team of Kiaps, and we organised ceremonies to lower the Australian flag on the eve of 15 September 1975. We raised the Papua New Guinea flag on the following morning.

Lucas Waka from West New Britain was the recently appointed District Commissioner. Some of the kiaps in my team were Bernie Mulcahy, and Noel Walters. (There were others, but I cannot remember their names.) I stayed on at Mount Hagen until 1980 as DDC Inspector for the Highlands.

The expatriate kiaps started to thin out, but a few remained active in district administration. John Corrigan did an incredible job at Kundiawa for years after Independence faced with deteriorating law and order, particularly a resurgence in tribal fighting.

Graham Tuck carried out a similarly challenging task with the warring Engans at Wabag for quite a few years after Independence. The loss of our police and magisterial powers made it harder than ever to control tribal fighting.

I remember asking Michael Somare when he stayed overnight at my house how he thought we should handle tribal fighting. It was just after Independence, and he was visiting Hagen as Prime Minister.

He said, "I want you kiaps to go to the fights with the police, but you are not to try to stop the fights. Let the fight leaders stop the fights. But I would like you to take cameras and take photos."

I took my camera to the next fight. It was just out of Hagen on a Sunday morning and went on for quite a few hours. I took a lot of photos. The police made arrests and secured convictions, but the warriors soon became wary of the cameras.  They took their fights well away from the roads.

The police were not like the old Constabulary who enjoyed going bush; they preferred staying in motels when they went near a tribal fight. Moreover, high powered rifles and shotguns were replacing traditional weapons, and cameras were not.

By 1980, I was instructed by Headquarters to transfer to Port Moresby after 14 years at Mount Hagen. I was working at Waigani for a couple of years with kiaps like Tony Pitt, Noel Walters, Des Fitzer and Mick Carrol.

About 1983, Charles Ali, who had been District Commissioner at Mount Hagen, but now was head of the National Intelligence Organisation (NIO) in the PM’s department, appointed me Director of Foreign Intelligence.

Charles wanted to bring some new blood into the existing security organisation, so he selected a few other experienced kiaps, including Chris Warrillow and Bob Welsh.

During the post-Independence period, former kiaps contributed their bush-based skills to the mining and petroleum industry. Others worked in government, particularly the Department of Mines and Petroleum.

Men like Noel Walters, Chris Warrillow, Ron Brew, Vin Smith, Mal Lang, Ian Thompson, Chris Makin, John Reid, Bill McGrath, Alan Stevens, Jack Scott, John Bligh, Clive Nichols, Peter Maynard, Bernie Mulcahy, and Paul Van Staveren.

The Canadian mining company, Placer, employed me as PNG director in 1986. I spent the next 14 years liaising, during the development of the Porgera and Misima gold mines.

I joined an American petroleum company, InterOil Limited, in 2000, did much the same work as I did for Placer, and left Papua New Guinea in 2005 after 48 years.

I think a comment made to me by Prime Minister Michael Somare some years ago in Port Moresby says it well. "You ex-Kiaps have contributed a lot to PNG's development since Independence. We are fortunate we have had the benefit of your knowledge and experience.”

Sadly, there has not been similar recognition by PNG or Australia of the incredible contribution made by kiaps to PNG's progress from 1906 to Independence in 1975.

Bill Brown, Kieta, Bougainville, 1973

Now a flashback of my own, to Thursday, 27 July 1972. That was the day Somare and PNG Administrator Les Johnson visited the District Commissioners conference in Port Moresby. The venue was the lounge of the Davara Motel, across the road from Ela Beach.

The Chief Minister ignored his prepared statement but delivered it almost word for word. He said he saw some advantage in letting us know his thinking about the future:

If people are uncertain about their future, their work is affected, and so I think it is important to dispel any doubts you might have. For the foreseeable future, I intend to continue with the DDA type of field administration…

There is little point in closing down the kiap system as many African countries did on Independence only to re-establish the same system a few years later.

The Division of District Administration will become part of my new department. You will become responsible to me. Now my Ministers and I are the government.

It is up to you to let the people know and to let them see that you are responsible to us. Some of you will have to change your style.

We were too surprised to ask any questions, but someone handed copies of his speech around. In an aside, District Commissioner Eddie Brookes, an observer from Gizo in the British Solomon Islands, said, "If we had received assurances like that in Africa, we would have been over the moon!" Brookes had formerly served in Kenya and had vivid memories of the Mau Mau.

March 1973 was the action month. That was when Ryan, following Somare's instructions, posted Phil Bouraga to Rabaul to take over as District Commissioner from Arthur Carey. Bouraga became the District Commissioner New Britain on 27 March 1973.

On that same day, the new Chairman of the Public Service Commission, Sere Pitoi, gave District Commissioners Des (DN) Ashton (Manus), Mert (MW) Brightwell (West New Britain), Bill (FG) Driver (Headquarters), and Ron (RT) Galloway (Central) their marching orders: six months' notice of termination.

All over 50 years of age, they were entitled to a pension under the new retirement benefits scheme, but they had to wait six months.

Chief Minister Somare surprised the journalists at his press conference on 18 May 1973. They expected him to talk about the national airline.

Instead, he rambled on, playing to the crowd and telling a little lie about how Cabinet had approved a Bougainvillean, Dr Alexis Sarei, to replace me as District Commissioner, Bougainville.

Somare was on the front page of PNG Post Courier on 7 June 1973 announcing that only Papua New Guineans would be District Commissioners by July 1974.  He said the expatriate DCs had a wealth of experience that the country could use and offered them alternative positions in the public service.

But he thought they would be reluctant to take up a different type of employment.

His timing was ambitious. Bernie Borok took over the Eastern Highlands on 17 November 1973 when Jim Sinclair relocated to Port Moresby. Sinclair spent 10 months researching, photocopying and writing the department's history - departing Papua New Guinea in August 1975.

The result of all that work, ‘Kiap: Australia's patrol officers in Papua New Guinea’, a 295-page book was published in 1978.

Another noted bushman and explorer, Des Clancy, District Commissioner at Mendi, was the next to leave the Highlands.  Clancy then served as District Commissioner, Central District, from February 1974 to December 1974 when Vaving Tauni took over the role.

Bob (RS) Bell and Laurie (LJ) Doolan were the last expatriate District Commissioners in the Highlands - and probably in the field.

Bell moved from Mount Hagen to Wabag when the Enga District was created—carved out the Western Highlands District in July 1973. Doolan replaced Bell at Mt Hagen, handing over the District Commissioner's role at Kundiawa (Simbu) to Jerry Kasip Nalau from Finschhafen.

Doolan remained as District Commissioner at Hagen until just before Independence - finishing his career with six weeks in Chief Minister Somare's office in Port Moresby. After two years as District Commissioner at Wabag, Bob Bell departed the Enga District on Independence Day 1975.

I knew Michael Somare in New Guinea for nigh on 13 years. We were barely acquainted 1963 when he worked as a reporter with the Radio Wewak and I was ADO of Wewak Sub-District.

In 1964, Somare flew into Maprik to cover the House of Assembly election campaigns. I did not see him arrive, but I heard him an adjoining office asking one of the Patrol Officers if he could borrow an Administration vehicle to travel up the road towards Dreikikir.

Fortunately, I heard the PO's reply, "Vehicles are in short supply; you will have to walk."

I told the Patrol Officer to call Somare back and arrange a vehicle to take him where he wanted to go.

Our paths crossed several times in later years but particularly in Bougainville in 1973, but that is another story. In Port Moresby, in 1974-75, I called myself a ministerial advisor. I actually engineered the short-order replacement of the Commissioner of Police – and, when Somare was in town, he invariably summoned me to end-of-week drinks.

I had a handshake agreement with him. Either of us could give the other a week’s notice. I exercised my option in May 1975.

Two years later, the Prime Minister who purportedly “disliked kiaps and wanted to get rid of them” again exhibited strange behaviour.

Even though I had severed my connections with PNG and was living in Australia, he helped me secure an overseas position. Responding on the PM's letterhead to my thank-you letter, Somare wrote:

Dear Bill,

I was pleased to be able to do you this favour. I believe you made a great contribution to the people of this country and am sure you feel the same way. ... I am looking forward to seeing you when you visit us next year. Perhaps a cold SP with me will be better than just chatting away with old-timers. 

Sincerely yours,

Mike.

It is true that Somare, did not like Tom Ellis, but I do not think he hated him. He said that Ellis was the symbol of the kiap, had no faith in the ability of Papua New Guineans to govern themselves, and was a man of the past not of the 1970s.

Maybe Somare was right, but in 1972, very few of the Highlands members of the House of Assembly would have agreed with him. Ellis stayed until June 1973.

If Somare “hated kiaps and wanted to get rid of them”, he missed many opportunities. He was Prime Minister from 16 September 1975 to 11 March 1980, from 2 August 1982 to 21 November 1985, and finally from 5 August 2002 to 2 August 2011.

Papua New Guinea should be proud of what he achieved.

___________

Appendix – Michael Somare’s Press Conference of 17 May 1973

MR SOMARE: Well, I hope all the souls on the earth are burning to know what's happening. I'd say first of all that I won't be making any statement on Cabinets national airline decision. However, I hope I can promise you all a fairly full statement after tomorrow's talks with the Australian Minister.

I think you all will be interested in why Cabinet has given formal approval for [the] appointment of Dr Alexis's Sarei as acting District Commissioner Bougainville. This matter has been under consideration for some time, but it was not until yesterday that I was able to consult with both Bougainville politicians and put it before the Cabinet.

Dr Sarei will take up this position in about ten days. He will work with the District Commissioner, Bill Brown, for about two weeks. Mr Brown is due to leave, and when he goes, Dr Sarei will take over. When Mr Brown returns from leave, he will not return to Bougainville.

[Recitation of Sarei’s credentials omitted.]

The second point I want to make about this appointment is that it does not reflect in any way at all on the work carried out by Mr Brown. Mr Brown when he was sent as special District Commissioner has done quite a lot for Bougainville.

You know that the feelings on Bougainville before were different. Today they work much closer. The decision was taken in full consultation with Mr Brown, and he told me that he can see the reasons and gives his full support of Dr Sarei going to Bougainville.

Mr Brown has been extremely popular District Commissioner on the island since his first appointment as District Commissioner on Special Duties five years ago. The Bougainville politicians although in favour of the appointment of Dr Sarei expressed regret at the loss of Mr Brown from the island.

Mr PAPPAS:  Mr Somare, what will happen to Mr Brown?

MR SOMARE: Well, as I have said we haven't finalised what posting we are giving to him. He will still be, he's one of our best District Commissioners we've got in the Districts. We have to consider and come to finality where we want to post him, as a District Commissioner.

He doesn't lose out in any way at all. He's still a District Commissioner. I'm taking him out of that district, and I'll probably have to give him another district, but that decision hasn't been made yet.

IAN LING-STUCKEY

PORT MORESBY – I commend Barrick Niugini Limited for contributing K59.3 million to the national government as a forward payment of its taxes.

This is a second example of a major business being willing to pay its taxes early and follows on the example of British American Tobacco in bringing forward K250 million in excise collections.

Papua New Guinea is facing cash flow shortages. This is to be expected as we continue the difficult work of budget repair.

However, PNG is also facing a potential health emergency as a result of the novel coronavirus (COVID19).

There is a need to support our health system and ensure that all necessary preparations are underway. We can’t let cash shortages get in the way of this vital health work.

The business community understands many of the challenges faced by the government delivering goods and services when cash flow targets are not met.

Barrick has shown that the private sector wants to assist in improving efficiency of service delivery by making funds available.

This is extremely timely given the importance of finding the cash to prepare for the coronavirus.

The current focus of encouraging the early payment of taxes is to support preparations for the coronavirus. Looking forward, there is a fundamental underlying problem in that we need funds early in the year but we receive more of our taxes late in the year.

I am now reviewing ways and means for improving government revenue raising measures and financing so that the people of PNG can benefit from better cash flow management – so that our cash needs better matches our cash receipts.

This new initiative by the Marape-Stevens governments of encouraging more funds being available at the beginning of the year will help enable better implementation of government programs.

I urge other businesses to join the new initiative to fight the coronavirus as well as improve overall government performance through better cash management.

I welcome other businesses that are willing to step forward and also pay their taxes early.

Samuel Winggu (centre) leading a march of people in Daru

BENJAMIN ROBINSON-DRAWBRIDGE
| Radio New Zealand

DARU - Following unconfirmed reports of Covid-19 in Papua New Guinea's Western Province, the mayor of the provincial capital, Daru, has warned the coronavirus could "wipe out" his town.

Situated on an island of the same name off PNG's south coast, Daru is a colonial town initially designed to hold 5,000 people.

Samuel Winggu is its mayor, a politician keen to explain the plight of his rapidly expanding community.

"The population of the town has exploded to almost 30,000. Most of the people who have flooded into town are from the Fly River.

"That is where the giant Ok Tedi gold and copper mine - the mine tailings have affected them. Their villages have been destroyed and a lot of these people have migrated to Daru."

Those displaced have found dilapidated infrastructure that Mr Winggu argues makes Daru ripe for Covid-19.

"The town basically has no reliable running water, we do not have garbage or sewerage [systems] and everybody relieves themselves in the bushes and in the sea.

"All the infrastructure in this town is basically falling apart."

Government buildings in Daru are in a state of disrepair. The recently created Western Provincial Health Authority has reportedly condemned a number of structures and ordered others to fix sanitation problems.

"The prison that we have here has been condemned... Our police barracks that we have here is also soon to be condemned," Mr Winggu said.

The town's intermittent electricity supply is also a health hazard, depriving Daru's hospital of power needed "to run machines and equipment".

"We don't have a regular power supply, we have power that's been rationed. We only receive power a few hours in the night."

While the mayor's tale of woe was inevitably followed by a pitch for his $US70 million Daru Rehabilitation Project, his warnings about the corona virus are not without context.

A cholera outbreak in 2010 was no doubt linked to Daru's water and waste issues. They could also be contributing to its current problems with tuberculosis and leprosy.

"Although we have partners here to help us with the problems, we really have not been successful with the tuberculosis," Mr Winggu lamented.

"Just last week I attended a meeting and in that meeting I was informed that Daru town is sitting in the number one position as far as leprosy is concerned.

"That has made me fear for the worst and now that we have the corona virus sweeping through the planet. Once it hits the town it’s going to absolutely do a clean sweep."

How would it get there?

Mr Winggu points to the porous PNG - Indonesian border which he claims is regularly skirted by Indonesian poachers. The frontier is also straddled by traditional hunting grounds of tribes not bound by lines on a map.

"Whilst they are moving in out they may be also bringing in sickness," the mayor warned.

"Once anything happens out there and it's brought into Daru, it's going to absolutely wipe out the population of Daru town."

Bernie Sanders (Nate Beeler,  The Columbus Dispatch,  USA)

PHIL FITZPATRICK

TUMBY BAY - I wonder whether people in Papua New Guinea is following the run up to the election in the United States.

They go to the polls in November but are now enmeshed in the Democratic Party state ‘primaries’ that will eventually decide which leader will contest the presidency, probably against Donald Trump.

There is a hope among ‘progressives’ in the USA (and worldwide) that whoever wins will be able to oust Trump.

The current race leader is Bernie Sanders, a self-declared socialist. He is up against Joe Biden, who was vice-president under President Barack Obama and is a moderate, Elizabeth Warren, also a moderate, and Michael Bloomberg, the twelfth richest man in the world who is prepared to spend a billion dollars to win the Democratic nomination.

Other hopefuls have either dropped out of the race or are on the point of doing so.

Today is ‘Super Tuesday’ with 14 state primaries and American Samoa all having their votes as a result of which 1,344 delegates will be elected — one-third of the total which will eventually select the Democratic contender.

Whoever wins Super Tuesday is likely to be the person who runs against Trump.

Bloomberg is currently spending about K24 million a day of his own money, mostly on television advertising. Sanders and the others are running on public donations.

In the history of money politics with the advent of Bloomberg the current election in the USA is setting new records for capitalist obscenity.

O’Neill’s crooked spending in Papua New Guinea’s 2017 election and Morrison’s equally shonky use of taxpayer’s money in the 2019 Australian election pale into insignificance compared to what’s happening in the USA.

What is also worrying is what these hopefuls, including Trump, actually stand for.

Sanders calls himself a socialist but that’s not strictly true. At best he’s a social democrat, interested in the more equitable distribution of wealth in what is essentially still a capitalist system. Elizabeth Warren is similar.

Biden is a traditional Democrat in the fashion of Bill and Hillary Clinton. He stands for a softer form of capitalism. Trump minus the savagery.

Bloomberg used to be a friend of Trump. What he stands for is unclear but it definitely relates to the power of money.

Sanders might be the best option for a saner world but his chances are not great. One can only hope.

None of them, as far as I can tell, will do anything to tackle the greatest existentialist threat to the planet, which is, of course, climate change.

My instinct is that this year’s election in the USA is going to have a significant impact on the planet we call home.

We are currently in what has been called late-stage capitalism. This is the point just before where it is supposed self-implode and disappear up its own fundamental orifice.

In that sense it is well-worth the rest of the world taking notice.

Even at that end of the earth occupied by Papua New Guinea and Australia.

PHIL FITZPATRICK

TUMBY BAY - As we lapuns drift gently into old age, the thoughts of many of us inevitably circle around concepts of mortality and the state of the world.

Such ponderings are part of an age old process that has been going on since humans first inhabited the planet.

As a species we tend to be naturally optimistic no matter what dire circumstances exist at the time.

This time round, however, things don’t seem to be as rosy as they should be.

Global warming seems to be a threat whose magnitude and potential for destruction is well beyond anything that has happened before.

If you add to this the rapid spread of the coronavirus in recent weeks you have a potent mix that has escalated anxiety levels worldwide.

Until now, global warming has only been seen in terms of a vague threat but the bushfires this summer in Australia considerably elevated that threat in the minds of people all over the world.

Of particular significance is the linking of global warming to potential mass extinctions, not just of plants and animals but us humans.

Is this possible?

Climate change deniers tell us this kind of talk is silly. Optimistic climate change believers say this kind of talk is premature. If we put our minds to it, the feeling is, we can turn around the changing climate.

Is this sort of optimism and reliance on human ingenuity justified?

It is worth considering what the scientists say. They tell us that on several occasions in the last 500 million years 75-90% of all species on the planet have been wiped out in rapid mass extinctions.

With that in mind we need to remind ourselves that as human beings we are not particularly special. We are, at the end of the day, just another mammal.

We are just animals and just as susceptible as any other to extinction.

We are not, as some would have it, a special species placed on the planet as caretakers by some supernatural being.

(And if that were the case, we have misled our heavenly creator on a grand scale.)

As psychologist Geoff Dawson said in a recent article on the ABC website, “The myth that we are somehow special and will continue to live forever as a dominant species is based on a deluded human-centric form of existential narcissism”.

As an intelligent animal species we are more than ever capable of engineering our own extinction and becoming just another blip in the continuum of time.

While our eventual individual death is an accepted inevitability our potential mass extinction through climate change is a decidedly unexpected possibility for us lapuns to consider.

Among other things, it pre-supposes that there is no future, or at least the possibility of a very uncomfortable one, for our descendants.

For people who have experienced a mostly vibrant and interesting lifetime, and for which we are decidedly grateful, such a dampener is a bit hard to take, especially when we consider we might have been innocently complicit in creating the mess.

I would suggest that it at least behoves us to own up to our perfidies and then poke a few sticks at our recalcitrant juniors to get them moving in the right direction.

For their own good and our clear conscience, no less.

BAKA BINA

“Dada, ah, where did I come from?”

“Why do you want to know? What type of question is that?”

“The teacher asked me to write an answer to the question - where did I come from.”

“You tell the stupid teacher that you came from your mother’s stomach to be the sweet baby you are.”

“Dada that is not what the teacher said.

“One child in the classroom says he is Tolai, the other says she is from Roro and like that.

“I said I was from Gerehu and the class laughed at my answer.”

The father nearly dropped his lime bottle and took a quick look at his daughter.

He looked pensively towards where his wife would be. She was raised in Gerehu.

“Ewa, where are you from?”

The wife came to the door with her pot. She was trying to get evening meal ready.

“Why do you ask that stupid question to me?” she asked.

“Darling, you know I was raised at Gerehu. My father, he was born fatherless at Hohola to his Iggiri mother.

“He grew up around the Elcom compound with a Tolai electrician family and when he was old enough, he kidnapped my mother from Boroko market who came in with her Bush Rigo parents to make market,” she said.

“The two love birds fled to Tete Settlement at Gerehu where I was born and grew up with the Apos. That is where you tricked me into marrying you.

“I can tell you that my father is not Tolai nor is he Iggiri as he looks more like a Kerema.  My Bush Rigo mother does not want us to know our grandparents.  So I have mix-mix Iggiri and Bush Rigo blood but the other,” she sighed. “So I guess I am from Gerehu.

“That I have told you many times and for the children’s sake you need to tell us where you come from.  You also need to be from someplace.”

“Sah lah wah!” The father looked at the peeled betel nut in his hands.  It was losing its colour.  He swallowed the bile deep in his throat.

He looked at his daughter who sat eagerly waiting for an answer.  She was not going to be laughed at again in class.

The mother stood still in the doorway.

Agitated, he looked upwards.  Tears crept into his eyes.

“Shoot, daughter, I just don’t know.  I was found wondering in the Boroko drains by a young Buang woman who adopted and cared for me. Including putting me in school.

“When I was in grade three, she married a highlander, an Apo, who took care of us. I know only ten Buang words, most of them swear words.  I also know other swear words that are said around the drains that can make your hair go blue.

“My highlander step-father was killed by enemies from his village before I could learn of his place. My mother remarried her own ples mahn who mistreated all of us.

“I could have killed him so before I did that I moved back to the drains of Boroko.  It was by luck that I found the clean work at Boroko Motors. It allowed me to move out of the drains.”

“Then one Sunday afternoon, I saw this angelo looking at me washing cars at the sales yard.  She was interested in the cars, not me.

“I tricked her into thinking that I owned the cars in the yard and she fell for me.  The rest is history.

“That does not mean that I am Buang.  I am just from Boroko.”

The daughter looked into her father’s face with teared up eyes.

A knot formed in his heart and the mother banged her pot as she turned back to the kitchen, her own tears falling in quiet streams.

What were his children going to say, he mused.

Hi, I am Buang and my father is from Boroko and my mother is from Gerehu.  That answer, even outside the classroom, is going to cause a lot of laughs.

He called his daughter over, hugged her tight and pulled the iphone from her pocket.  He placed in on the ground and, picking up his own phone, called his Kaintiba friend.

“Bara, is the old man still there? If he is, can he come over for a couple of nights?”

“Sure, anything wrong.”

“No, I want him to tell some tumbuna stories to the children; they are watching too much Rambo and Angry Birds on the phone.”

He let his own tears fall and wiped them off his face while the daughter looked on.

“Darling, I cannot tell you even one tumbuna story that will say I come from that place.  When Bubu Kaintiba comes he will tell you stories that you can tell the class. 

“I will hold you iphone so you can listen to his stories and not watch movies until he goes back.

“Tell them in your class that you are Kaintiba.”

___________

Derived from a joke doing the rounds in the police cells that young people do not know where they come from, nor their parents’ language nor their parents’ culture. These responses are inciting custodial violence against children and impose a need for parents to be mindful of their obligations to keep in touch with their tok ples, culture and singsing traditions.

An adapted and shortened flash fiction from Baka Bina’s next anthology, ‘Veno Vena’.

PRIYANKA CHOUDHARY
| Rystad Energy | Edited

OSLO, NORWAY - The decision by the government of Papua New Guinea to halt talks with ExxonMobil about the state’s share of revenues from the planned P’nyang gas field development is set to delay two key liquefied natural gas projects that would double the country’s gas output.

The two projects, Total’s $13-14 billion Papua LNG investment and ExxonMobil’s subsequent PNG LNG Expansion plan, are located close to each other and could save the firms up to $3 billion in shared infrastructure synergies through a combined development.

Using gas from P’nyang, Papua LNG is planned to add two LNG trains and PNG LNG Expansion a third one, each with a capacity of 2.7 million tonnes per annum of LNG.

The projects would double Papua New Guinea’s current gas output, which was 8 million tpa in 2019.

As a result of the deadlock, Rystad Energy estimates that the delays in reaching a financial investment decision and conducting engineering, procurement and construction works will postpone Papua LNG’s first production to 2026 and the PNG LNG expansion to 2029.

This not only leaves bruises on the operators involved, but also has implications for the service companies performing EPC services on the fields.

PNG prime minister James Marape has made it clear that every new development should have more favorable terms for the state than previous projects. The country wants to see a government take of revenues higher than 40% and an obligation to sell up to 15% of the gas in the domestic market.

Rystad Energy believes both projects are going to be delayed for quite some time, with first production expected to be delayed until 2026.

Failure to reach a deal over P’nyang will also have an effect on the timing of the final investment decision for the PNG LNG expansion.

Rystad Energy estimates that around $80 billion worth of LNG projects around the globe are going to be approved over the next few years, adding nearly 110 million tpa of new liquefaction capacity by 2025‒2026.

With a very limited number of service contractors able to handle huge LNG plant contracts, it will be a race between operators to get projects launched on time.

IAN LING-STUCKEY | Edited

PORT MORESBY - When Peter O’Neill came to power in 2012, Papua New Guinea’s debt was K8.5 billion. When he left in 2019, the figure was K37.6 billion.

So the debt was 4.4 times larger after only seven years. K29.1 billion larger. Not double, not triple, not even quadruple – an extraordinary 4.43 times larger.

Over the next five years of the economically responsible Marape-Steven government, debt is expected to increase by only 0.3 times – what a difference!

People are jumping up and down on social media claiming that all O’Neill’s new debts have been for new projects. This is a lie.

O’Neill’s debt legacy is not just K29.1 billion more debt. K20.7 billion of this new debt has not been for development projects. I repeat - not for development projects.

O’Neill’s increased debt trap consists of K18.1 billion in straight budget deficit financing, and another K2.6 billion in a previously hidden build up in arrears.

Those who support O’Neill and his debt trap legacy need to put their focus on this massive build-up in bad consumption based debt of K20.7 billion, not on arguments about the much smaller build-up in project or investment debt.

So can the O’Neill defenders, including failed former ministers, please justify this K20.7 billion increase in consumption debt?

Overall, at the end of the O’Neill term, the debt hole of K37.6 billion consisted 64% of budget deficit financing, 7% for outstanding arrears, 6% for project financing kept off government books, and only 23% for project financing that was initially in the budget.

This is an extraordinary debt trap legacy. Not just many badly selected and over-priced contracts. At least an over-priced project may still help the economy. Instead, over 70% of the legacy is budget deficit financing and arrears.

The Marape-Steven government is taking deliberate steps to reduce the rate of building up debt as part of its comprehensive economic reform program. This includes budget repair so we start living within our means again.

Budget repair will take many years but we are starting to take back PNG for the sake of our children.

BAKA BINA

PORT MORESBY - Pele had his grandchildren around the fire in the small outhouse that was their kitchen.

It was pelting rain outside and the afternoon chill weighed heavily on them. In the far distance, the rumbling in the clouds meant a long time of rain and a miserable night.

In the big house at the right of the outhouse, Ma Maghe was trying to cook on the gas stove they kept for days like this when the firewood was wet and soggy.

Ma Maghe shouted out something and the children strained their ears to hear against the loud staccato of the falling rain on the kunai roof.

‘Harim, Ma tok wonem ya?’

‘Mi no save, askim em ken.’

Impatient with the non-reply to her earlier shout, she again shouted some gibberish.

‘Yu tok wonem ya, mipela ino harim o!’

She called out again a third time, along with some village expletives.

Pele heard and continued trying to make the fire burn a bit better. The wet firewood was producing a lot of smoke that got into their eyes.

In Tok Ples he translated what Grandma wanted to say, ‘Soma napa ma’mu noliye, tokowasaa’ma’ni.’

‘Ah, dada, yu tok wonem ya.’

‘Na Ma tok wonem tu ya.’

Shoot, their parents had not been teaching these children our Tok Ples. It’s ridiculous that they’re shouting back into my ears just repeating what I said.

‘Okay, listen you sweet innocent imbeciles. Ma Maghe was asking if one of you can bring over that humungous-bellied receptacle with the handles that will hold the raw cuisine that will transform these delicacies from their current raw state to something palatable for your lot.’

In unison the children rolled their eyes.

‘Is that English?  Repeat that in good English for us, please!’

‘Ma spoke Tok Ples and you did not understand her.’

‘I speak Tok Ples and you do not understand me.’

‘I speak Tok Inglis and you still do not understand me, my gracious pig’s ears.’

‘Now if you don’t learn Tok Ples and learn English in school but speak Tok Pisin every minute that you have, you will neither be good at Tok Ples, Tok Pisin or Tok Inglis and all of them will be useless to you later in life.’ 

‘With no Tok Ples, you cannot live in the village, with good kaksyTok Pisin, it will still never get you a job in town, and with poor Tok Inglis; you may never find work.’

‘But our parents don’t teach us to….’ 

BANG!

The loudest blast of thunder seemed to smack-crash into the door, sending everyone ducking for cover.

The children looked up terrified.

Ma Maghe’s shadow menacingly filled the doorway. She stood there dripping wet with her hands tightly grasping her frying pan. The light from the burning fire lit up the tight veins on her hands.

Everyone was quiet, casting their eyes here and there, looking to see how they could get out of reach of the frying pan.

‘Osaa’mani! Osaa’mani!’  A tiny voice from a tight corner piped up.

It was the plaintive voice of the timid three year old trying to push off the frightened puppy that was all over him trying its best to hide from the frying pan.

‘Shoo! Osaa’mani.’

And the whole house laughed.

Grandma with her frying pan was laughing so hard she forgot what she wanted.  She picked up the now beaming three-year old and mugged him with sweet kisses.

Instead of telling the pup to go away, he was telling it to come closer.

Ossa’mani in Tokano Tok Ples is ‘come here’.  What he wanted to say was ‘wo’saa’mani’ - ‘go away’. 

__________

Some houses in Papua New Guinea have three or four languages going along all at the same time, but many more have abandoned their Tok Ples and settled for Tok Pisin.  So when stories like this become a reality, it is time for us to think again about our individual Tok Ples.

The more we don’t use our language, we more words we lose and the more speakers we lose. We even have speakers who words that mean different things to them, like in the anecdote above.

I can tell you that I have forgotten the Tok Ples names of most common garden weeds. I have substituted them with a generic name. Grass.

I have the same problem with trees and have also substituted them. With tree.

AAP staff are told their news agency is closing with the loss of 500 jobs (AAP)

SRI KRISHNAMURTHI
| Asia Pacific Report/Pacific Media Watch | Extract

AUCKLAND - The shock announcement yesterday that the Australian Associated Press newsagency will cease operations after 85 years is a blow to journalism in Australia and the Pacific.

AAP, which is owned by Nine, News Corp Australia, The West Australian and Australian Community Media, provided services to media companies such as newswires, subediting and photography will close with the loss of 500 jobs – 180 of them journalists.

“This is a tragic end to one of the world’s best news agencies, one that has contributed so much to the first draft of history in Australia for 85 years,” says Professor David Robie, director of the Pacific Media Centre.

“It’s a great tragedy and a huge loss for all those talented journalists – reporters, editors and photographers – who have been on the AAP frontline.

“AAP has also played a crucial role in the Pacific, reporting political crises, disasters and social change through two key news bureaux in Port Moresby and Suva for many years.

“Just as the closure of NZPA in 2011- after 132 years – left a gaping hole in New Zealand international coverage, this will be another disaster for Australian public interest journalism.”

Senior lecturer and co-ordinator of journalism at the University of the South Pacific, Dr Shailendra Singh lamented the loss of AAP at a time when Pacific governments are clamping down on the media.

“The demise of AAP is tragic and damaging. The Pacific has lost another source of independent reporting. The timing couldn’t be worse,” said Dr Singh.

“There is a clear trend across the Pacific of erosion of the Fourth Estate as governments in the region clamp down.

“Part of the reason is the unprecedented scrutiny governments are facing from so-called citizen journalists. The governments are lashing out in various ways, such as stronger legislation, and the mainstream news media is caught in the crossfire,” he said.

“Of course, the AAP presence and coverage has waned, but the AAP at least used to step up during crucial times, such as cyclones and political uprisings, as in the Fiji coups and the Solomon Islands conflict.

“Pacific journalism capacity is lacking due to various structural weaknesses in the system and AAP used to fill the gap at crucial times.”

AAP will close it doors on June 26, while the subediting arm Pagemasters will close in August.

APEC Maseratis previously garaged in this warehouse are now mysteriously missing (Reuters)

DICKSON SORARIBA
| Guardian Australia

PORT MORESBY - Police in Papua New Guinea have begun searching for cars bought to transport world leaders around the 2018 APEC leaders’ summit but which have since gone missing from a warehouse in Port Moresby.

The police transport director, Chief Superintendent Dennis Corcoran, said he had instructed regional police bosses to begin searching for APEC vehicles that have been illegally moved out of Port Moresby, though he said this would be difficult.

“From intel, vehicle registration numbers have been changed but the only way to verify is through the engine numbers,” said Corcoran.

Corcoran confirmed to The Guardian that among the vehicles missing and believed stolen from the storage facility are a number of Toyota LandCruisers.

He was unable to state the total number of missing vehicles, saying that PNG’s finance department had failed to provide any figures.

But he did confirm that the fleet of Maseratis and Bentleys that was controversially purchased ahead of the summit are all accounted for.

PNG hosted the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in its capital of Port Moresby, spending an estimated K460 million on the event despite recovering from a devastating earthquake, a nationwide medication shortage, a polio outbreak and worsening TB rates, in addition to dealing with generally high rates of poverty.

The government promised the 43 luxury Maserati and Bentley luxury cars, as well as the rest of the fleet of around 300 vehicles purchased for APEC, would be sold afterwards with the proceeds going back to the government. But more than a year later few have been sold and some are missing, believed stolen.

Chris Kunyanban, the metropolitan superintendent in Lae said he was ready to arrest those involved in the thefts.

“All I need is proper documentations of the missing vehicles from Port Moresby so I can begin work immediately,” Kunyanban told The Guardian.

PHIL FITZPATRICK

TUMBY BAY - English must be terribly confusing for those coming to it as a second or third language. Native speakers sometimes struggle with it so imagine how people in places like Papua New Guinea get on.

I’ve been editing the work of Papua New Guinean writers for some years now and I’ve come to recognise some common errors they make.

Or are they actually errors? Sometimes it’s hard to tell.

A common word that I often correct is ‘timbers’. To many Papua New Guinean writers it makes sense that if you have a piece of wood in your hand you are holding a piece of timber.

Therefore, if you have several pieces of wood in your hand you have a handful of timbers. Not so I’m afraid. The plural of timber is timber. You have a handful of timber. And you don’t have a handful of woods either.

Well, actually you can. A lot of trees together is both a wood and a woods. If you walk into a bunch of trees you are going into the woods but if you point out the same bunch of trees to someone you would describe it as a wood.

Don’t believe me? How about this from Shakespeare’s pen then, "Macbeth shall never vanquished be, until Great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane Hill shall come against him."  

But hang on a minute. What about that old sailor who keeps shouting, “Shiver me timbers?”  He’s talking about his ship’s timbers isn’t he? So the plural of timber is timber unless you’re talking about a ship. Is that clear? I didn’t think so.

And bye the bye, if you change a couple of letters around you have ‘timbre’. Is that another kind of wood?  Sorry, definitely not. It’s the quality of a note produced by either a musical instrument or a voice.

Sound is important in English. Both sound and sight are important and can often override proper grammatical considerations. Calling an armful of wood ‘timbers’ might actually be grammatically correct but it just doesn’t sound or look right.

Unfortunately, if English is not your first language you may not be as well attuned to the sound and sight of it and will be prone to mistakes that look okay to you but incongruous to native speakers.    

The Deputy Chief Justice, Ambeng Kandakasi, writing about a recent case in the Waigani Magistrates Court said, “All these running around are results of people not wanting the system to deal with them”.

What he should have written is, “All this running around is the result of people not wanting the system to deal with them”.

The swapping around of ‘this’ and ‘these’ is something I encounter a lot when editing Papua New Guinean writer’s work.

A similar thing happens with ‘than’ and ‘then’.  Someone might write, “It’s bigger then anything I’ve ever seen before” instead of “It’s bigger than anything I’ve ever seen before”.

Another one that gets people confused is ‘wonder’ and ‘wander’.  They will write that “the boy was wondering around the streets at night” when they mean that “the boy was wandering around the streets at night”.

Wonder means to think about something and to marvel at it.  Wander means to roam around. Their meanings are worlds apart but the two words sound so similar that people accidentally confuse them.

Advise and advice represent another tricky pair. Advise means to tell someone something or offer counsel. Advice is the counsel that is offered. Writers often say something like “he adviced her to sit down” instead of “he advised her to sit down”.

And then there are some really tricky ones that even native speakers confuse. A classic is ‘effect’ and ‘affect’.

Effect is the thing that happens as the result of an action whereas affect is the action itself. Affect can also refer to the process of assuming a stance as in an affectation.

These are all simple and understandable mistakes but sometimes it just comes down to bad spelling.

I recently edited a book in which there was a lot of shooting and gunfire. Throughout the text the word ‘rifle’ was rendered as ‘riffle’.

If you are ever held up by a raskol holding a riffle you don’t have to worry, there’s no such thing.

I’ve got lots more examples but you get the idea.

In the past I’ve made some terrible gaffes speaking and writing Motu and Tok Pisin and the cause is exactly the same, unfamiliarity with the language.

The only cure is practise and lots of reading.

Bill Brown MBE with Fred Kaad OBE. A recent photo of two of colonial Papua New Guinea's distinguished district commissioners

BILL BROWN MBE

THE CHRONICLE CONTINUES - It was not a massive upheaval, but the last quarter of 1967 and the first quarter of 1968 saw two of the kiaps enmeshed in Conzinc Rio Tinto’s (CRA) operation leave Bougainville and four newcomers arrive.

District Commissioner John Wakeford moved to another hotspot, the recently created West Sepik District. His headquarters were situated at Vanimo, just 45 kilometres from the border with West Irian. (1)

Central Bougainville

Another newly appointed District Commissioner, Des (DN) Ashton, came from Lae to replace him. I would come to miss Wakeford’s “tread lightly” counsel.

Wakeford was probably moved at CRA’s behest, although he also trod on some toes.

CRA did not agree with his oft-repeated concern about the impact they were having on the people’s land, and his comment that Gordon-Kirkby had become too close to CRA annoyed Aitchison and some of the other Administration brass. We kiaps were expected to facilitate, not criticise.

I would also sorely miss Assistant District Officer John Dagge. He handled the CRA-created problems around Panguna and Barapina for more than 18 months before his departure to get married in Australia.

He needed a break and, if I had any say, would not be returning to Barapina or even to Kieta. Dagge and also Chris Warrillow were showing signs of strain. At the time I had not heard of post-traumatic stress disorder.

Assistant District Commissioner John Wiltshire

In an unexpected acknowledgement of Dagge’s efforts, on 9 January 1968 Gregory Korpa (one of the more vocal CRA antagonists) made a special visit down the steep foot track from Moroni village to say farewell to him. (2)

On 11 December, when I departed for Australia on three months’ leave, John (JA) Wiltshire (3), the Assistant District Commissioner at Kieta, was lumbered with it all. He attended the weekly meetings at Panguna and the bi-monthly meetings in Port Moresby.

He told the other kiaps when and where to accompany the CRA teams, kept in radio contact with them each day, and visited them in the field. All that was in addition to his regular sub-district duties.

And if that was not enough, he had to organise the opening ceremony for the Kieta overseas wharf in January, the House of Assembly elections in February, and preparations for the UN visiting mission in March.

District Officer Ross Henderson

District Officer Ross (RW) Henderson (4) was based at Laiagam in the Western Highlands when the Director of District Administration, Tom Ellis, called him into Mount Hagen for an interview on 16 December 1967.

Five days later, Henderson arrived in Bougainville and took up residence at Barapina. During the following week, he unpacked his gear, visited CRA operations and helicoptered down the Jaba River to Morotana on the west coast.

He also roamed around the ridge that overlooked Panguna to meet the people who lived on the other side, in Guava and Musinau villages.

Henderson had a mixed reception at Panguna. Some expatriates, confused by his habitual khaki shorts and shirt, heavy boots and bluff exterior, thought him to be inflexible - a Western Highlands hard head.

But, with a few exceptions, the mountain people around Panguna were much more perceptive. They saw him as another kiap who would listen and with whom they could argue.

In a display of confidence, the Panguna-area landowners – except those from Guava village - were soon showing him their boundaries, something they had steadfastly refused to do before.

Two much younger kiaps became involved in the CRA mayhem in early 1968: 20-year-old Cadet Patrol Officer John (JR) Gyngell, (5) with only six months’ experience and Patrol Officer Jim (JL) Wellington (6), after just one term in New Ireland.

On Tuesday 23 January, Assistant Administrator Frank (FC) Henderson (7) came to Bougainville to officially open the overseas wharf. Early next morning, he and his wife flew to Panguna by helicopter with District Commissioner Ashton in tow. Ashton came from Sohano in north Bougainville for the occasion.

District Officer Ross Henderson (not related) met them at the Panguna helipad, delivered them to CRA for the tour and departed in haste. Fifty Musinau and Guava men were clamouring to be shown their transport to Kieta, having put themselves forward to attend the opening. After the ceremony, however, they were not in the same hurry to go home. The village men wanted to see town, and Henderson spent hours tracking them down.

Henderson revisited Guava and Musinau on 30 January intending to talk about the 1968 House of Assembly elections. His explanation degenerated into a shouting and screaming match: "Anthony Ampei, in particular, abusing Paul Lapun, all members of the House of Assembly, Councillors, the Administration, CRA, and whiteskins in general,” he recorded in his Field Officer's Journal.

He said that Miringtoro Taroa, from Musinau, was one of the most influential men he had seen so far. "He is quiet, will argue and reasons. When he loses an argument, he does not admit a loss but changes tack. He is anti-Administration, but he is human -not like the raving lunatic Ampei.”

(Assistant District Commissioner Denehy who had led the CRA-sponsored educational tour to Australia in 1965 had a different view. He thought Miringtoro learnt nothing from the trip and had no potential.)

Anthony Ampei's brother, Dumeno, spent almost all of February 1968 roaming around the district telling everybody there would be a catastrophic earthquake on 8 March. The dead would rise from their graves and the world would end.

He warned that people had little time to prepare. They should all attend the singsing (ceremonial feast) at Guava village commencing on 2 March and enjoy the last six days before the end.

Oni, the Luluai of Guava, who had supported CRA and who had been forced to leave Guava village when its people objected to prospecting, was living in a hideaway on the coast near Aropa, south of Kieta.

Disturbed by Dumeno's raving, Oni visited Henderson at Barapina and suggested they attend the singsing where the pair found many of the confused and uncertain participants had come just in case.  On 9 March, the day after the expected cataclysm, Gregory Korpa visited Henderson to advise him "the end of the world didn't come."

Patrol Officer Chris Warrillow, 1967

While Henderson was occupied around the Guava, Warrillow, accompanied by Gyngell, was visiting four of the villages in the Eivo census division: Atamo (population 327), Boira (145), Karnovitu (196) and Korpei (293).

The people were opposed to any CRA intrusion. Warrillow had to tell them he would be escorting onto their land the CRA geologists who had been at Mainoki.

The Administrator, David Hay, kept Canberra up to date. On 5 January he telexed the Secretary that a DDA officer [Warrillow], a police officer [Brazier] and 20 police, together with CRA personnel would be entering the Atamo area to establish a helicopter pad and camp in preparation for a CRA survey commencing on 22 January. The helicopter pad and tents would be one mile upstream from the village.

The operation did not go as planned. Warrillow and Brazier left Kieta at 6.15 am on 15 January and arrived at the rendezvous - Korpei village – at 07:00. They found no one there.

They continued to Nairovi road camp where they met up with 20 riot police from Barapina, two CRA field assistants, and five men prepared to carry the supplies.

The field assistants said they had sent a truck to Daratui to pick up the additional 30 porters needed to move the party to Atamo, and "they could be expected when they arrived". Maybe they did not know that it would take the truck driver at least six hours to drive to Daratui and return.

Warrillow and Sub-Inspector Brazier waited for three hours then returned to Kieta, after rescheduling the departure for the same time on the morrow. CRA repeated the fiasco next day. Nobody turned up at the Korpei rendezvous.

Eventually, he and Brazier shepherded the CRA party and their gear to Karnovitu on Wednesday, 17 January - two days later than planned. Warrillow spent the night as a guest in Councillor Naimeko’s house while the others slept under canvas.

Next morning the group walked for 10 minutes to Atamo, passed through the village, and continued upstream to the site that had been selected from the air.

A day later, the first helicopter flew into the newly created pad. The only passenger, Sub-Inspector Campbell (8) was also new. The second helicopter delivered CRA Area Manager Bishop and the senior geologist from Panguna, Dick (RN) Spratt (9). Sub-Inspector Brazier departed on the outward flight.

Bishop and Spratt wanted to plan the future activity with Warrillow. But when he complained about the chaotic organisation at Nairovi, Bishop said, “It couldn’t be helped!” and Spratt added “You are not doing us any favours by escorting us in, you know.” Warrillow’s retort was unrepeatable.

Before departing back to Panguna, Bishop said they would employ the Atamo people before any others. And they would buy all the vegetables they brought to camp. A few days later, when camp staff were rejecting workers and refusing to buy vegetables, Atamo Councillor Tonepa resumed his tirades of abuse against CRA and the Administration.

Moroni and Barapina villages

Sub-Inspector Campbell stayed only a week at Atamo. On 25 January, he and 10 other ranks were withdrawn to Barapina, leaving Warrillow and 10 police at Atamo. Fortunately, Constable Narokai, a Nagovisi from Buin, who had become Warrillow’s right-hand man, was among the stayers.

A day elapsed before some Atamo men plucked up the courage to protest. At 11:30 on 26 January, geologist Mooney returned to the camp. Six Atamo men told him he was trespassing in their creek and to get back where he belonged.

Early next morning, 50 men presented themselves in front of Warrillow’s tent, the spokesman saying, “We have come to carry your cargo back to Panguna where you belong.”

Then men and women commenced the usual shouting and ranting: against CRA, the House of Assembly, the laws and the kiaps.

Warrillow said he tried to reason and explain but gave up and ignored them. He remained at Atamo, babysitting CRA field assistant Fernon (10) and geologist Mooney until 3 March 1968, when the camp was closed.

He moved back to Mainoki for the next exercise and was warmly welcomed. Around the same time, in an uneventful operation, Patrol Officer Wellington escorted geologist Mooney back to Karato.

I returned to Kieta from my vacation in Australia on 15 March 1968, five days before the United Nations Visiting Mission arrived in Kieta. According to the files,(11) one week earlier the Administrator advised Canberra that he expected village spokesmen to demand immediate independence for Bougainville and CRA’s removal.

He also advised that, because of the people's opposition, CRA had decided to defer a proposal to relocate the main road through Pakia land until after the UN visit.

I knew that Damien Damen [Irang] and Anthony Ampei [Guava] had told their followers they would give the UN team a lot of money to get them to visit Guava, and that after they heard the talk, the UN would order CRA to leave Panguna.

The Mission’s visit to Bougainville was short and sharp. On 20 March, they flew to Buka, spent the morning there, and flew to Kieta that afternoon. Next day they drove to Panguna, inspected CRA's operations, then drove back to Kieta.

After the public meeting held in the Kieta Local Government Chambers in the early afternoon, they drove to Aropa airport and departed Bougainville. They only wanted to see Panguna, and they declined to visit Guava or any other villages.

I think the tenor of the meeting surprised everyone. Raphael Niniku, the Kieta Council President, demanded that the mining royalties be paid into a development fund for Bougainville and that CRA establish a processing plant on Bougainville so the people could see how to make copper.

Moroni village

Councillor Tonepa, from Atamo, said the people were very upset about CRA's activities because they did not know what the company was doing.

In a surprising rebuttal, Gregory Korpa from Moroni said he owned land where CRA was working, and Tonepa's statements made him angry. (During the six years I was in Bougainville that was the only time Korpa was not screaming ‘CRA cease operating and quit Panguna’.)

Theodore Dewe, a CRA employee, asked what would happen when the company finished the ore. He also wanted to know if Bougainville could become an independent nation.

The leader of the Mission said that some countries were lucky and had mineral deposits. He added, "In Bougainville, you may have copper in workable quantities.

"There are many countries where the law says the minerals belong to the nation. I ask the Liberian member to tell you if all minerals belong to the state in his country.”

The crowd was dumbfounded when Augustus Caine, the 36-year-old Liberian member of the UN team, spoke. He said his country, on the west coast of Africa, between Ivory Coast and Sierra Leone, had been an independent republic since 1847. Several large iron ore deposits had been discovered in recent years.

Now, with four mines operating Liberia was one of the world's leading exporters. The government owned the ore. The people and landowners received no financial reward, but they and the rest of the nation benefited in every way from the development.

We kiaps were also dumbfounded. We had expected the UN to be anti-CRA and pro-Independence.

Maybe the UN visit gave the company greater confidence. At the weekly onsite conference on 7 May, Area Manager Bishop announced a massive expansion of their activity: “The rerouting of the main road through the Pakia land will be investigated this week against the people's wishes.”

In the coming weeks, the company would operate in a broad swathe of the country stretching from east coast to west coast. They were looking for town sites, port sites, access roads, power transmission lines, areas for industrial sites, and tailings disposal.

They were also seeking construction materials: limestone, gravel and rock. They would need to explore, survey, drill and sample.

Until now, the people around Panguna had been the principal opponents to CRA. Soon, CRA's surveyors and engineers would be tramping through the villages on the east coast - in the Pinei valley and the North Nasioi – and down the Jaba River valley to Empress Augusta Bay.

Henderson and I were horrified.

FOOTNOTES

1 - Vanimo, his new headquarters, was 45 kilometres from the West Irian border. Jayapura, the capital, was only another 60 kilometres further on. The “act of free choice” was only twelve months away. Irian Jaya refugees – Melanesians - were already seeking sanctuary in PNG, and were sometimes pursued across the border.

2 - Four months later, when Dagge married Robyn Griffin, his dark-haired beauty, in Bendigo, Australia, the wedding guests may have been confused by a telegram read out at the reception. In Tok Pisin, and purportedly sent by Senior Constable Yimbin, it read: "Baraun I tok yu laik marit tudei (stop) Mi no klia gut. Oloseim wotam bipo." [Brown says you are getting married today. I am confused. What was going on before?]

3 - John Albert Wiltshire born at Scone, NSW, in May 1936 became a kiap in April 1955 and was transferred to Kieta around about June 1967. I do not recall how or why that occurred. Wiltshire was ADC at Cameron (renamed Alotau) in Milne Bay at the time, and I knew him very well. He had been one of the Patrol Officers at Maprik in the Sepik District when I was posted there in 1962. We worked together until April 1965 when the Yangoru area was split from Maprik and became a Sub-District with Wiltshire the first ADC.

4 - Ross William Henderson, a fourth-generation Tasmanian, was born in Devonport where his father was a bank manager. Ross attended Devonport High School and was involved in the scouting movement. A talk by a former pupil, kiap Terry (TW) White, inspired him to follow that career.

5 - John Raymond Gyngell, generally as known as “Jingle-bells” was popular with his peers. Born in Melbourne in March 1947, he became a Cadet Patrol Officer on 13 March 1967 and served two twenty-one terms in Bougainville. After accompanying Warrillow to Atamo in January 1968, he was posted to Barapina and to assist in defining the clans’ land boundaries.

6 - James Leslie Wellington was born in Australia in December 1945 but grew up in New Guinea where his father worked as a clerk in the various District Offices. He was home schooled at Namatanai and Kavieng, New Ireland, and Sohano, Bougainville, and was fluent in Tok Pisin. After attending boarding school for five years in Australia, he became a Cadet Patrol Officer and was posted to New Ireland without any specific training. A few months into his second term, he was transferred to Bougainville where he was involved with CRA.

7 - Frank Cotter Henderson born 1911 in Broken Hill, NSW, joined the Territory of New Guinea Administration as Agricultural Office in 1936.  He was based in New Britain – at Kerevat and Talasea, before enlisting in the Royal Australian Air Force in 1942. Returning to Papua New Guinea postwar, Henderson was appointed head of the Division of Plant Industry in 1951, Director of Agriculture Stock and Fisheries in 1958, and Assistant Administrator (Economic Affairs) in 1966. He was appointed as one of the Official Members in the House of Assembly in 1964 and Leader of the Government Members in 1966. I found him to be friendly and approachable but focused on economic development and almost uninterested in the grassroots’ problems.

8 - Ivan Leslie Campbell was 22 years old and a virtually a newcomer to Papua New Guinea when he was posted to Bougainville in 1968. He joined the Territory force as a Sub- Inspector from South Australia Police in 1967. When he returned to Australia in October 1968, he said he was returning to live permanently in Australia. He must have changed his mind; he had a distinguished career in Papua New Guinea.

9 - Richard Nicholas Spratt, born in March 1924 took over the role of Senior Geologist at Panguna in 1966. He had the geologist’s typical myopia.

10 - Bruce Anthony Fernon, a 22-year-old CRA field assistant from Ashbury, NSW, had been in Bougainville for almost a year when he was involved in the Atamo exercise. He returned to Australia      

11 - From 1967 to 1969, weekly situation reports were sent by telegram from Kieta to the Administrator in Port Moresby. He telexed them - sometimes with comment, sometimes with amendment - to Canberra. In August1969, Prime Minister Gorton demanded daily reports. Those situation reports, records of meetings, and documents are preserved in a number of files in the Australian National Archives. My own files together with the Field Officers Journals that I have borrowed from half a dozen kiaps, and the digitised Patrol Reports and PNG Land Titles Commission records augment the reservoir.

IMAGES

Map of Central Bougainville (Bill Brown)

[1] Bill Brown and Fred Kaad (Bill Brown)

[2] Assistant District Commissioner John Wiltshire

[3] District Officer Ross Henderson, c 1967

[4] Patrol Officer Chris Warrillow, 1967

[5] Moroni and Barapina villages from the air

[6] Moroni village

Hercules Palme Jim - "Not all young men in PNG want to abuse their wives or girlfriends. We've had enough!"

HERCULES PALME JIM

PORT MORESBY - It is disgusting to hear 'experts' or so called feminists in Papua New Guiea say that boys who grow up in broken homes, settlements, villages or homes with violence are prone to get involved in crime or violence.

I grew up in the village and the settlements without a father and have observed over the years my aunties and sisters being beaten up by their husbands almost everyday of my life as a child growing up.

As a child, I saw a woman accused of sorcery tortured and burnt alive. I've seen it all!

However, I grew out of it to live a life so my daughter will know what to look for in a man.

I am not perfect but trying my best to be a better man. Yes, I have my weaknesses and failures but physically abusing a woman is something I swore not to do.

My daughter is my strength, my comfort and my honour.

I know boys who also grew up in the same environment that are doing their best to be role models and to be the change.

We have had enough!

So yes, I know you've never been in the village or settlements and you know nothing about violence in this context.

You're privileged, so don't sit up there and judge us.

Don't come and brag as if you know our lives and you know the solutions to our problems with your expensive suit and fancy English.

Not all young men in PNG want to abuse their wives or girlfriends every day.

We’ve had enough of this too.

I've heard this over and over and I am tired, tired of stigma attached to kids from broken homes and settlements. We've lived it and seen it.

We have had enough and are trying our best to be better men.

To all the boys in my shoes; keep fighting, keep believing and keep doing the right thing.

CHRIS OVERLAND

ADELAIDE- When I was a small child I was a precocious reader. By the age of 12 I had ploughed through Edward Gibbon’s ‘History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire’. This made me unusual amongst my peers.

Mind you, I also devoured, just as avidly, ‘Treasure Island’, ‘The Coral Island’, the entire series of Biggles books and pretty well anything written by Gerald Durrell.

But history was and remains my first love. I can never remember not being fascinated by it.

Thus my history lessons at school were always of riveting interest to me. This did not pass unnoticed by my history teachers, who judiciously steered me towards books that, while relevant to the curriculum, were regarded as too difficult for most students to read and understand.

As a child of the immediate post war era, I was taught a version of history that extolled the virtues of the British Empire which, even then, was in the process of being dismantled.

British prime minister Harold MacMillan’s famous “winds of change” were whistling loudly through the corridors of the Colonial Office in London, and across the globe the Union Jack was being lowered and new flags raised in its place.

My lessons on the history of India invariably cast the British presence there in the most favourable possible light.

The thrust of my lessons was that the intrepid British had by determined and courageous efforts, brought good order, just government and the rule of law to India, not to mention English, railways and cricket.

An important British figure in the history of India is Robert Clive (1724–75). The man I learnt about was brave, intrepid and resourceful.

Almost single handed, I read, Clive brought the bulk of India under British control. For this great feat, he was richly rewarded with both a vast fortune and a peerage.

Recently, I have, after a very long hiatus, again turned my attention to the history of India.

Specifically, I have read a book by William Dalrymple called ‘The Anarchy’, which describes the process by which Clive and others subjugated India on behalf, not of the British nation, but of the British East India Company.

Importantly, Dalrymple draws extensively upon contemporary Indian sources, not just British and French material.

I had known that Clive was connected to the company, being a Major-General in its private army. What was not taught to me in my youth, though, was that the company ruled India entirely for its own benefit and manifested the very worst excesses of unbridled capitalism in doing so.

To say that many of its officers were greedy, ruthless and cruel would hardly understate just how venal and corrupt they were.

Clive, in reality, was a gifted opportunist who realised earlier than most that the company had the military technology, skills and resources to effectively take over India in its entirety.

He deftly exploited the serious divisions within Indian society following the fall of the Mughal Empire to progressively bring the country under the effective control of the company.

This process was not uncontested. India had a rich and sophisticated culture and its leaders were not without talents and abilities of their own.

Sadly, they could never put aside their own quarrels for long enough to expel the British interlopers, although they came close several times.

Eventually, a combination of technological superiority, better leadership and a ruthless determination to succeed allowed Clive and others to do the unthinkable and utterly dominate the entire Indian sub-continent.

In doing so, they were directly or indirectly responsible for the deaths of millions of Indians, whether as a consequence of war, economic exploitation or the famines they induced with their rapacious demands for trade and wealth.

So, rather belatedly, I have come to understand that the history I was taught was true in many respects but decidedly misleading about how British rule in India was actually achieved and maintained.

I will do my teachers the courtesy of believing that they either did not know the whole story themselves or felt that telling the unexpurgated and complex truth might be too hard for teenagers to properly comprehend.

It seems that it takes considerable time for historians to either uncover the truth about events or, perhaps, muster the courage to reveal that truth knowing that it conflicts with the accepted orthodoxy and thus will attract considerable criticism.

Authoritarian states have a well established propensity to suppress the truth about historical events if that conflicts with their ideology or political needs.

Thus the Chinese government continues to refuse to either acknowledge the events in Tiananmen Square in 1989 or allow any mention of it. Even talking in private about the events that occurred there can result in arrest and imprisonment.

In a similar way, the Turkish government not only refuses to acknowledge its predecessors’ role in the Armenian Genocide carried out between 1914 and 1923 but insists that it never happened despite incontrovertible evidence to the contrary.

To admit the truth of these events would be intolerable for many Turks, whose concept of Turkish nationalism prohibits any admission of an evil comparable with the Nazi attempts to exterminate Jewish Europeans between 1941 and 1945.

Of particular relevance to the people of Papua New Guinea, particularly Bougainville, is Bill Brown’s illuminating history, ‘A Kiap’s Chronicle’.

It reveals the plain truth about the greed, ambition, arrogance and willingness to trample over people’s rights that was exhibited by the Australian government and mining company Conzinc Riotinto of Australia (CRA) as they pressed on with the creation of the Panguna copper mine in the face of clear evidence of fierce local resistance to it.

Now, at last, the unpleasant truth is being revealed, albeit some 50 years after the event.

Also, Mathias Kin has recorded a Papua New Guinean perspective on the Australian pacification of PNG, which casts our efforts in a rather less favourable light than we may have hitherto believed.

It is very important that he and others continue with their work so that, over time, a history of colonial PNG can emerge that reflects perspectives other than just those of the colonial power.

Australia, of course, has other ugly truths to confront, notably the appalling history of the dispossession, abuse and murder of Aboriginal people during the process of settlement by Europeans.

This is a work in progress, but slowly and surely it is entering public consciousness that some of the supposed heroes of our history after 1788 were guilty of serious crimes, knowledge of which was suppressed and denied for generations.

In this, though, Australia is hardly alone. There remain many Americans who cannot bring themselves to admit that their union was founded upon a great lie: being that all men were entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

This powerful statement in the US constitution was made when its authors and signatories all knew that it would not apply to the millions of black slaves held in captivity, mostly in the southern states.

Their noble statement was, in truth, an act of monumental hypocrisy and sowed the seeds for the American Civil War and the eventual emancipation of America’s huge population of slaves.

The Japanese government still refuses to acknowledge the infamous Nanking Massacre, in which its troops murdered at least 200,000 Chinese men, women and children.

This remains a source of friction between Japan and China to this day and reflects a continuing Japanese preference to see themselves as the victims of a nuclear atrocity at the end of World War II, rather than as the perpetrators of many unspeakable horrors during that war.

In fact, there is hardly a country in the world where the national mythology does not either exclude or under play or otherwise air brush out of history events and facts that it is inconvenient to remember.

So, whose history do we believe?

I think that the answer to this question is rather complicated, but my advice is that it is best to assume that any history, however beautifully researched and written, is likely to carry within it certain assumptions that reflect the author’s personal belief system.

This can result in very subtle, possibly unconscious, bias in the interpretation of the facts or, at the other end of the spectrum, a history that consciously seeks to present a very particular view of events.

This is why understanding the past remains hotly contested territory, with some historians in vehement disagreement with each other about how the same basic set of facts can be interpreted and understood.

What many people imagine as a rather stuffy and dry discipline is, in fact, a source of sometimes almost violent contention and dispute. Australia’s ongoing “history wars” about what happened to its indigenous people is a case in point.

The main implication of this is that you must read several different histories on any given topic in order to arrive at your personal understanding of the truth.

The ideas and views of historians who are deemed to be “outliers” can be immensely useful in doing this because the orthodoxy is not necessarily an accurate reflection of the truth.

Oscar Wilde famously wrote that the truth is seldom pure and never simple. This is a good aphorism to keep in mind next time you are reading a history book.

NEWS DESK
| PNG Today

PORT MORESBY – The Papua New Guinea Immigration special task force has made a huge breakthrough by uncovering a syndicate involved in producing fake PNG visas.

Minister for Immigration and Border Security, Westly Nukundi, said members of the task force, acting on information, conducted surveillance at Jacksons International Airport on Sunday and apprehended a Papua New Guinean woman, who is an Australian citizen, in possession of a fake visa.

This woman had overstayed her tourist visa and, to avoid apprehension, collaborated with PNG nationals to obtain a visa to exit the country. She paid for a fake visa produced illegally in the Port Moresby suburb of Gerehu.

The fake visa was detected by Immigration officers at the airport and further checks uncovered that the serial number on the visa did not belong to her but was of an Australian.

The print on the visa labels used Microsoft Word and did not correspond with the border management system records.

When held at the airport, the woman admitted paying K5,000 to a PNG citizen who introduced her to a middle man. After three days this man delivered her visa which she picked up at the Gerehu bus stop.

Mr Nukundj said two nationals have been detained at the Boroko police station after being interrogated, arrested and charged. The investigation is continuing.

“This is the first case of illegal visas produced on the streets,” said Mr Nukundj.

“A similar case was detected in 2013 in Kathmandu, Nepal, where a group of Nepalese were promised jobs in PNG and lured into paying huge sums of money for fake PNG visas.

“These men were apprehended by Immigration officials at Jacksons and deported back to their country. However, this case is first of its kind which the special task force team has uncovered.”

Mr Nukundj said processing fake visas is a serious threat to border security and the task force and police are working to pin down members of this syndicate.

PHIL FITZPATRICK

TUMBY BAY - On Monday my elderly neighbour dropped by to report that he had just been to the Tumby Bay local council offices to pay his quarterly rates instalment and had discovered they were closed.

Mystified, he went to the local supermarket, which was open, and asked the people at the checkout whether they knew why the council offices were not open.

They told him it was because it was a public holiday, to be precise Adelaide Cup Day.

I asked him whether he planned to go to the race. Given that it was an eight hour drive away and he had no interest in horse racing he replied in the negative.

When he had gone I thought about the absurdity of having a state-wide public holiday for a far away event of very limited interest attended by only 2,000 people.

Not that I begrudge anyone the opportunity for an extended long weekend. It was just the excuse that intrigued me.

The reason for the holiday was, after all, a pretty elitist affair confined to a well-heeled minority of social climbers and good time junkies.

We have a lot of holidays like that in Australia. Concurrently with the Adelaide Cup holiday was a holiday for the Moomba Parade in Melbourne.

The Moomba Parade is a family-based fun day that attracts a huge crowd of ordinary people. I’ve never been to it but I gather that it is far from elitist.

That said, it is centred on Melbourne and its inhabitants and a few visitors from elsewhere. Nevertheless, people in the far flung corners of the state still have the day off.

The nearest equivalent to these events in Papua New Guinea is probably the Hiri Moale Festival held in Port Moresby.

The three-day festival originally coincided with Independence Day but has recently been shifted back to late September. I’ve been to a couple of them and thoroughly enjoyed the experience.

As far as I know, now that the date has been put back, there is no public holiday attached to the festival.

People in other parts of PNG can’t enjoy a long weekend for Hiri Moale like they do in Melbourne for the Moomba Parade or Adelaide for the Adelaide Cup.

Last Monday was quite a pleasant day in Tumby Bay and a few people took advantage of the holiday and good weather to go fishing and have a barbeque.

None of them as far as I can tell were celebrating a horse race.

There’s something decidedly incongruous about this business of public holidays where a small minority in a confined locality party away while the rest of the population simply takes the chance to have a day off for no apparent reason.

The cynic in me suggests that such days are really now all about making a dollar. Moomba, for instance, when it was set up in 1955 was about fun but I suspect it is now more about money.

Some of our traditional public holidays, like Christmas and Easter, have gone the same way. Both are now centred on conspicuous consumption rather than anything else. They are now simply used as commercial vessels for business.

At best they might bring a bit of joy to some people, especially children, but they also cheapen the experience and broadcast a message out of tune with the original intent.

We now also have a plethora of ‘international’ or ‘world’ days. These don’t usually come attached to a public holiday but are used as propaganda and marketing opportunities, self-promotion and, no doubt, a bit of money-making too.

So numerous are these international days that some of them are actually doubling up on a single day. Last Sunday was International Women’s Day and Friday week will be World Frog Day.

If you want to check out what’s on in 2020 go to https://www.calendarlabs.com/holidays/international/2020.

I suspect that most of these public holidays and days of celebration simple wash over the majority of the population without leaving a trace.

I mean, what have you got planned for World Frog Day on Friday 20 March this year?

I didn’t think so.

UNAIDS executive director Winnie Byanyima greeted by outreach workers at Begabari HIV Clinic

NEWS DESK
| UNAIDS

PORT MORESBY - There are around 45,000 people living with HIV in Papua New Guinea, with marginalised groups such as sex workers, other women who exchange sex for money, goods and protection, gay men and other men who have sex with men, and transgender women most affected.

However, less than half of the people who belong to those vulnerable groups have ever taken a test to know their HIV status.

In November 2018, UNAIDS together with the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and other partners, implemented a new outreach program in Port Moresby.

Its goal is to reduce the impact of HIV among those groups of people by mapping the HIV epidemic and expanding HIV treatment and prevention services.

Under the project, several outreach teams were created to promote and increase the uptake of testing and prevention services and to link people to HIV prevention and care services, if necessary.

By April 2019, the outreach teams had contacted 5,000 people and tested 3,000 of them for HIV, offering advice and support so that each person understood their test result.

“I like that we go to new places where people have never been offered an HIV test,” said a member of one of the outreach teams.

“My motivation is meeting the young girls and taking care of them—making sure they take their medication.”

The outreach workers sometimes face harassment while conducting their work and change out of their official uniforms and into their own clothes so that people feel more comfortable talking to them. But the outreach workers find the work deeply rewarding.

“I have lost friends to AIDS, so that keeps me doing this work,” said another outreach worker. “It makes me work extra hard not to see someone else lost to this disease.”

The outreach teams are led by members of marginalised groups, an essential part of establishing community trust and engagement.

In addition, leaders offer coaching, support and advice to field workers on a daily basis in order to ensure that their activities are as effective as possible.

Another of the outreach workers recalled his work with a transgender person, who he persuaded to try medication after testing positive for HIV. 

“He told me that because he is transgender, he will only talk to a friend and that when he saw me, he knew I was a friend. Later, he brought in his companion to take a test.”

“This is a model of what can be achieved when we put our trust in community-led HIV services and programs,” said Winnie Byanyima, UNAIDS executive director, in discussion with the outreach workers during her visit to PNG.

“These outreach workers are heroes and they are saving lives.”