Author Daniel Kumbon in Manus before his failed attempt to return to his family in Wabag. He is now in Port Moresby

DANIEL KUMBON

PORT MORESBY - The woman next door continues to pray day and night pleading with God to take this pestilence away from Papua New Guinea because the people are innocent, they did nothing to bring the virus into the country.

Alone in her house, she prays and sings worship songs in both Tok Pisin and the Enga language.

She wakes me around three every morning when she prays aloud.

Her voice is clear and the other neighbours across the street must hear her too.

I don’t know what they are thinking but there is some truth in her prayers when she pleads with God that the people are innocent.

She asks God for his mercy because they don’t deserve to be afraid of coronavirus and die from it if it spreads.

They are innocent in the sense that coronavirus is a foreign disease as is the AIDS virus, tuberculosis, SARS, sexually transmitted infections and many other such diseases.

These diseases are foreign imports. Corruption is foreign. The innocent people continue to suffer. They can’t do much but hope and pray that the disease will be contained.

I too have discovered the limitations of simple human beings. I can’t do much against the forces of nature.

I managed to get on the last plane to Mt Hagen at about 5 pm on Monday but it could not land at Kagamuga Airport because the cloud cover was too thick.

I was in a window seat and saw nothing. The plane is white and it disappeared into white emptiness. And it was raining. I had family members waiting to receive me but I couldn’t tell the pilot to land.

When the captain pumped the engines to full throttle and aimed the plane towards heaven after many attempts to land I knew we were returning to Port Moresby.

And I prayed in my heart, ‘God now we are in your hands. Take us back safely.’ I don’t pray often but I prayed on Monday.

It was also raining in Moresby but we arrived safely around 7 pm. I asked a friend to come pick me up.

I gave him a cool box full of fish from Manus Island that I had intended to take home to my family.

Right now, I am now holed up in a small lodge at Rainbo Estate in Port Moresby.

I will continue to join in the prayers of this lady next door. I admire her for her courage and faith in God. She has a rich cultural background. Our ancestors too believed in a ‘Gote’ in the heavens.

In fact, Engans knew there were good spirits who helped us and mischievous ones that made us suffer. And the people would offer pig sacrifices to both these spirits.

Among the amazing discoveries of the early government patrols that came to Enga in the late 1930s and early 1940s was that the people had strong spiritual beliefs that included a realm where bad and good spirits existed to control their daily lives.

Without hesitation, they shared aspects of their culture, handiwork, legends and beliefs in a kind spirit called Gote or Tai with those early kiaps and missionaries.

It was Gote to which the tribal leader Joseph Kurai Tapus offered pig sacrifices his very first wife died soon after they married, before she even gave him children.

He burnt a pig's kidneys in a specially erected platform dedicated to the kind spirit, probably hoping the new wife or wives he would marry in place would be blessed with children.

Engans were aware of good and bad spirits which often manifested in their daily lives. They offered pig sacrifices to both types as the need arose.

Bad spirits impersonated dead relatives and these had to be appeased. Good spirits like Gote were offered sacrifices to receive favour and blessings.

This strong cultural belief system was exercised in the form of rituals, songs and dance.

It was expressed in written form too by Engan seminarians when they trained to become priests at Holy Spirit Seminary at Bomana in Port Moresby.

A government patrol in 1949, led by assistant district officer Peter K Moloney, was shown amazing handmade steel axes by the people who lived at the head of the Sau and Wali rivers in what is now Kompiam District.

Moloney reported that during World War II an American plane had crashed into the eastern side of Mt Embi. The wreck had supplied well over a hundred axes to those people who possessed hunting rights in the forest where the crash occurred.

“Some of these are real works of art and are modelled on the ordinary stone working axe,” Moloney reported after he visited the area in mid-May 1949.

“When one considers that the only tools used were flint stones and an occasional trade axe and that heavy armourplate steel was used in several cases, one can’t help but admire the ingenuity and the patience of the craftsman,” Moloney wrote.

One man told Moloney that it had taken nine months to make his masterwork, which was a razor edged, highly polished piece of the aircraft’s engine block. The man said it would be impossible for him to sharpen a trade axe to the same degree as this axe.

The bodies of the crew of the plane had been collected some years back but Moloney asked the people if there were any bones still around the plane.

“They told me that they had collected and buried all that had not been taken to Wabag.

“When I complimented them on their action, they told me, somewhat shamefacedly, that they only did it to keep the spirits of the two aircrew away from the plane whilst they were collecting the steel,” Moloney wrote in his report.

The year before, in 1948, another patrol conducted by acting Assistant District Commissioner R I Macilwain went south of Wabag to Yokonda where traditional salt was made. Macilwain noted that the people who owned the natural salt springs were fortunate to have a monopoly, except for the imported commodity.

Here in the salt spring area, like in the Sau Valley where axes had been made from a crashed war plane, a peculiar shaped knife was spotted by Macilwain. He was told that it had come from Kundip (Kandep), the Enga name for a large area to the south noted for its tree oils.

“Apparently, these people are so badly in need of salt that they pay in oil and trade for the privilege of working the salt springs,” Macilwain wrote. “This particular knife must have found its way up from the Papua coast.”

Macilwain was told there were four sets of springs owned by different peoples. The process of obtaining the salt is simple in that wood is saturated in the brine and later burned to a fine ash which is then wrapped using dried pandanus nut leaves ready for trade or for storage.

The colonial kiaps were interested in every aspect of the people’s lives. They tried to understand the people the best they could. They were even interested in creation stories.

Here is one legend Peter Moloney recorded as told to him by some elderly men from the Lagain valley during his patrol of May 1949.

____________

There is a creator of all things including the sun and the moon. His name is Tai and lives somewhere in the heavens. He is known throughout the whole of the Wabag peoples but stories about him differ among the different language groups. The one presented here is from the Taru people around the Chirunki (Sirunki) and Lagain river areas.

Tai’s ‘heaven’ is peopled by the children of the sun and the moon who mate upon Tai’s instigation. These people are known as Yelya.

There were two men both named Puia in the family who were always fighting and disbelieving the social codes so Tai threw them out of paradise and they landed on earth: one on Mt Tongabibi which is south of Yok at the eastern end of the Kokicoll mountains and the other on Mt Kiwa (Mt Giluwe) south of it.

They both found they were unhurt and after resting for a few days decided to have a look around their respective areas. Each met a spirit who appeared to them from out of a large limestone boulder (kana). They eventually married these spirits and in time became fathers.

Puia from Kiva had a daughter and Puia from Tongabibi had a son. When these children were grown up they would go into the forests looking for food and game.

One day, they met in the bush now known as the Kandip area south of Wabag. The man was very taken by the young woman and encouraged her to return to his home at Tongabibi.

This she did and in time they were blessed with a large family, known as Yumbagin and they in turn spread in all directions and peopled the whole area.

Tai and the Yela are still living a life of happiness and the moon is still giving birth to children. Because of a supposed similarity between the skies on a dark night and a deep muddy swamp, much as the one surrounding lake Ivaia both are called Tai and all large white (limestone) stones are called Kana (the moon).

Engan Seminararians at Bomana (Cr Paul Kurai in orange shirt is a descendant of the great leader, Joseph Kurai Tapus)

____________

Joseph Kurai Tapus had offered pig sacrifices to this good spirit Tai Kurai on a specially made altar where he burnt the kidneys while the pork cooked in a separate mumu.

Legends tell of good spirits constantly at war against bad ones. This next legend was written by late Fr Lawrence Kambao as part of his theological seminary thesis, 'From Gentile Revelation to Engan Christology', completed in 1990 at the then Holy Spirit Seminary, Bomana.

This copy was supplied by Fr Gary Roche, who was one of Fr Lawrence Kambao’s teachers.

____________

There lived a household of young bachelors. The oldest was the Sombo (custodian and guardian). The bachelors depended on the bounty of the surrounding jungle for their food. One day, as usual, the first five men set out in search of food, especially cuscus which was a special delicacy. They never came back.

In consternation, the next five set out in pursuit of the missing five. These five followed them to oblivion. Five by five, the rest went out only to meet the same fate. Finally, all the men were gone, leaving the Sombo and a young brother, Tiri Akali Puio.

Should the two dare to forget the missing brothers? This was a luxury they could not afford. The only choice was for the younger brother to risk himself following their footsteps even at the cost of his own disappearance.

Tiri Akali Puio dressed himself in the best of Engan finery and set out. On arrival at the top of the mountain, he looked down. To his surprise, he saw angelic young women, their youth unadulterated by the passage of time. The Virgin Queen appeared crystal clear.  She was the right candidate for Tiri Akali Puio's mother.

He undressed himself, put his ornaments under a hollow of a tree and changed himself into a mosquito. When the Virgin Queen came for a drink, he jumped into the jet of running water. Tiri Akali Puio entered the womb of the virgin through her mouth like a mosquito. 

Kepal Wana Lyokandimi, the Virgin Queen, became pregnant. When other young girls saw her they asked, "Please tell us where you went. We want to go too."

"You know the bare facts. Where did I go?" she replied.

Tiri Akali Puio was born before his time and he grew in wisdom and knowledge.

One day, his mother took him to a distant land. On their way, they came upon a formidable stone wall. With the mother's magic walking stick, the stone wall opened in two. They entered a dark valley.

They came into a grandfather's house. This grandfather happened to be the Pututuli (cannibal thief). Tiri Akali Puio begged his mother to stay on for some time. His curiosity for learning earned him access to every secret plot set by the grandfather. 

In no time, he discovered the household of dry bones. The flesh and blood of his brothers had been sucked out leaving behind the fleshless bones to eternal meaninglessness.

Under cover of secrecy, Tiri Akali Puio out-did the grandfather cannibal. He fed his dry-boned brothers, who in time grew flesh. It didn't take them long before Tiri Akali Puio restored them to their original state.

He knew it was time for the final assault on the cannibal. They fought from dawn to dusk to dawn again and nobody claimed victory.

With all strength gnawed away, Tiri Akali Puio pulled the lepewai (source of life plant) growing under the armpit of the cannibal grandfather. It was the end of the cannibal.

Tiri Akali Puio dressed his brothers. They were rejuvenated more than ever. He led them through the valley of the virgin girls. Then marriage took place between the virgins and the young bachelors.

Finally, he brought the newlyweds home where the old Sombo was waiting hopefully for their return. They lived happily thereafter. What a great man was Tiri Akali Puio.

____________

The narrator ends the myth by stating: “This is the story, the myth. If it weren't for the bravery of this young brother, there would be no redemption, no marriage, no new life. "Endakali pepeta" (all people) would be eaten by this Pututuli. We are happy Tiri Akali Puio lived to save.”

Who can be that Tiri Akali Puio to save the world now from the Pututuli of coronavirus, this highly contagious and deadly pestilence spreading in the world like an out of control bushfire?

To Engans, its Tiri Akali Puio himself of course who can save them and their island paradise which has continued to suffer from introduced diseases. And now coronavirus.

It is no wonder my Engan neuighbour in Port Moresby is praying to God in heaven to take this pestilence away from the innocent people of PNG. They have surely done nothing to deserve this.

And in my heart I am praying with her every morning.

CHRIS OVERLAND

ADELAIDE – In the extract from his book, ‘You’ll Never Work Again – The Great Safety Charade’, Bernard Corden has given us a great example of where letting the market rip, unfettered by effective regulation, combined with blindingly obvious conflicts of interest, leads to disaster in the service of accumulating vast profits.

And, once again, "the weak suffer what they must".

An effective, efficient and honest public service can be a bulwark against the worst excesses of capitalism yet is now regarded by far too many of the political class across the globe as an obstacle to a thriving economy.

This is a fallacy relentlessly promoted by the promoters of the neo-liberal experiment.

Even in the face of utter disaster, promoters of this fallacy like Donald Trump propose giving huge sums to corporate America while simultaneously implying that it is better for millions of Americans to die from COVID 19 than allow the economy (i.e. the rich and powerful) to take a hit.

It is time for us all to wake up to this and other fallacies lying at the heart of neo-liberalism.

For example, the notion that there is equal opportunity in our society is complete bullshit.

One glance at the socio-demographic statistics tells you otherwise.

The wealthier always do better and tend to preserve or even extend their advantage across the generations. Donald J Trump is a prize example of this.

Another fallacy is that it is by individual effort alone that we succeed or fail in life.

This is true to a point but ignores the blindingly obvious. If parents can afford to send their child to Geelong Grammar and then Melbourne University to do medicine or an MBA, that child is hugely more likely to do well in life than a child coming from Redfern or Salisbury North or some other highly disadvantageous post code.

In the context of Papua New Guinea, if you are sent to Australia for your secondary and tertiary education, your life chances are hugely better than someone from your home village who goes through the PNG education system.

All this is blindingly obvious and even given lip service by our political class, but nothing really changes anyway.

This is because the notion that a properly organised and funded array of critical public services such as education, health care and housing can produce a better overall outcome for all citizens is utterly subordinated to the user pays, every man for himself philosophy that under pins neo-liberalism.

Capitalism doesn't have to take the form of a winner take all contest in which the weak and the poor are left to endure miserable lives while the wealthy and influential have their yachts moored at Monaco.

It is not socialism to say this, let alone communism.

It is a question of fairness and equity. It is a moral and political question to which we have yet to formulate a sustainable solution.

Behrouz Boochani would have made a great Australian

PHIL FITZPATRICK

No Friend But the Mountains: Writing from Manus Prison  by Behrouz Boochani, Picador, 2018, ISBN: 9781760555382, 374 pages, AU$15 from Amazon Australia.

TUMBY BAY - I’ve been holding off reading this book for a while. I’m not really sure why.

Perhaps it’s because I couldn’t face the misery and the pathos of that I thought it would depict. Perhaps it’s because of the sense of shame that I thought it would provoke.

Now that I’ve read it I’m glad that I did. Behrouz Boochani is a fine writer and misery and pathos are not things he keeps in his kitbag.

I think what also deterred me was my own middle class and comfortable life and the leap I needed to make to imagine what incarceration on Manus might be like.

This was despite the fact that I had been there in 2014 and had visited the detention centre.

The physicality of the centre was not so much the issue. It didn’t look a lot different to some of the mining camps I have worked in over the years.

What I couldn’t imagine was the anxiety and endless boredom that the inmates had to bear. To me that would be insufferable.

At best I could last about eight weeks in a mining camp before I had to leave but these men on Manus had been there for years. What that had done to their minds and their sanity was unimaginable.

What I also didn’t realise was the sorts of places from which these men came seeking refuge. Not for them was there some prior comfortable and insular lifestyle.

Behrouz, like most of his fellow inmates was a child of war.

“My earliest childhood memories are of warplanes ruthlessly raiding the skies,” he writes. “Warplanes splitting the sky over a village nestled within forests of chestnut oak trees; my earliest childhood memories are of fear that ran deep within our bones.”

The mountains in the title of the book are the ones where Kurdish people fled during these times of conflict to live in caves and abandoned villages.

Breaking down people from that sort of background, which was always the Australian government’s intent, was never going to be easy but they tried their hardest anyway.

There is, however, one thing that distinguishes Behrouz from his fellow inmates and that is the fact that he is an insular, introspective and self-contained individual.

While he is a fellow traveller in the refugee journey he is also an observer rather than a participant in day-to-day events. Whether this is because he is a writer or because of other circumstances is not clear but it gives him a kind of emotional armour and resilience that others do not possess.

He is a man who thinks and he has an exceptional ability to articulate what he thinks about in his writing. And on Manus he had a lot of time to think. This is what is so precious about this book.

Many of the things he writes about would be mundane if it were not for the extraordinary circumstances in which they occur. It is that context which makes what he says so fascinating and provocative.

It’s not all philosophy however. There are heart rendering accounts that in a lesser writer’s hands could turn to pathos and be hard to bear.

There is the The Father Of The Months-Old Child who has received a message that his own father is dying and wants to talk to him one last time. He rushes to the long telephone queue and pleads to be allowed to jump to the head of the line.

His friend, The Man With The Thick Moustache, pleads with the guards on his behalf.  “This man must be permitted to make a call immediately,” he says.

But the Australian guard is adamant, no one can jump the queue and must wait until it is their section of the compounds day to use the telephones. The argument goes on and on but to no avail.

Some days later Behrouz sees The Father Of The Months-Old Child covered in bruises. When he eventually got to a telephone days later it was only to discover that his father had already died.

He reacts by smashing the phone against the wall and the guards pounce on him, subdue him and drag him off to a solitary confinement cell.

Behrouz relates this incident and others like it not so much to tug at our heartstrings but to illustrate the inanity and evil intent of the rules governing the detention centre and the lack of empathy among the thugs employed as guards.

In this case he is referring to the Australian guards. He has no illusions about the Papua New Guinean guards who are there as tokens and totally subordinate to the Australians.

He sees the Papua New Guinean guards largely as benign creatures happy to spend their days stoned on betel nut and asleep in the shade,

He also has a soft spot for the Papua New Guinean people on Manus. He sees them as much as victims of Australian and Papua New Guinean politicians as he and his fellow refugees.

One day when all the bastards who concocted and participated in this sordid episode in Australia and Papua New Guinea’s history have been brought to account or have more likely just faded into ignominy and when the apologists have run out of excuses and the historians have analysed it to death all that will remain will be Behrouz Boochani’s words.

That is always the fate of good literature and I can’t think of anything better to patch such a suppurating wound.

Behrouz Boochani would have made a great Australian.

Given his background he would have been a welcome addition to our intellectual pool and maybe an offset, just slightly, to the mediocrity of the politicians who imprisoned him for no good reason.

He was held on Manus from 2013 to 2017. In September 2019 he was moved to Port Moresby along with the other detainees.

On 14 November 2019 he went to Christchurch in New Zealand on a one-month visa, as a guest speaker at a literary festival as well as other speaking events.

In December 2019, his one month visa to New Zealand expired. He is currently there on an expired visa.

This is a many faceted book that incorporates many things, ranging from Kurdish traditions and aspirations, to the particular form of systematic torture incorporated in the rationale that informs Australia’s border-industrial complex.

Behrouz chose to present these many facets as literature rather than a straight academic discourse and I think that will be what makes the book endure for future generations.

Some of the stone tools and art from the Waim site (UNSW - Ben Shaw)

ASHLEY COWIE
| Ancient Origins | Edited

With thanks to Fr Garry Roche who brought this important research to our attention

DUBLIN - Scientists have unearthed ancient artifacts in the Papua New Guinea highlands that settle a longstanding archaeological argument regarding the emergence of complex culture in PNG.

About 10,000 years ago, the climate changed to better suit the planting of crops and the Neolithic revolution that brought about agriculture emerged in different parts of the world at different times.

In Europe and Asia it is known that at this time cultural complexity developed as people began settling and living together on farms.

But archaeologists have now discovered buried artifacts on the island of Papua New Guinea, which suggest ancient people began farming and making tools, arts and crafts around the same time as their Eurasian contemporaries.

In a new research paper published in the journal Science Advances, archaeologist Dr Ben Shaw from the University of New South Wales in Australia explains that early cultures in PNG “planted yams, bananas and other local crops,” but until this new research there hadn’t been any convincing evidence that these farming endeavors led to any of the complex cultural movements evident in the artifacts of European and Asian cultures.

The remote Waim village where the artifacts were found (UNSW - Ben Shaw)

This all started when in 2016 Shaw was looking at archaeological sites in Papua New Guinea and residents of Waim village told him they had found some “really weird-looking stone tools and a stone carving of a human face with a bird on top” that they thought might interest him.

The villagers guided Shaw to Waim, which is situated halfway up a steep mountain in Jiwaka Province. In an article in New Scientist Shaw said he didn’t have a lot of time and “decided to just dig one hole before it got dark.”

While he was digging that “one hole” he found the bottom half of what he describes as a “beautifully shaped stone pestle.”

The scientist said he was “beside himself with excitement” because his find illustrated a shift in human behaviour between 5,050 and 4,200 years ago in what he says is a “response to the widespread emergence of agriculture, ushering in a regional Neolithic Era similar to the Neolithic in Eurasia.”

A news release from Dr Shaw explains that while scientists have known that wetland agriculture originated in the New Guinea highlands between 6,000 and 2,000 BC, little evidence for corresponding social changes like those that occurred in other parts of the world had been found.

A subsequent excavation at the site led to the discovery of a range of ancient artifacts which changes all this.

Among the finds archaeologists discovered part of a carved stone face, a fire-lighting tool, an ochre-stained rock with cut marks, parts of an axe and fragments from two stone pestles, which still had bits of yam, banana, sugarcane and nuts stuck to them.

When fragments of charcoal that had been found buried with the artifacts were radiocarbon dated, it was determined that the site was between 4,200 and 5,050 years old.

Evidence of complex cultural activities was established when the researchers learned that the ochre-stained rock was once a traditional tool for dyeing organic fibres.

Moreover, the researchers were also able to prove that the stones used to make the artifacts had been gathered from nearby quarries.

Because the fragments of hand-axes were found in various stages of production, they were constructed onsite rather than having come from Australia or Southeast Asia as part of what archaeologists call the Lapita culture over 1,000 years later.

Dr Ben Shaw and villagers examine artifacts unearthed at Waim (UNSW - Ben Shaw)

These new discoveries are evidence of an ancient island culture, which had developed sophisticated craftsmanship with a range of tools and crafts, that according to the paper had developed “of its own accord in New Guinea.”

Dr Shaw said that while it has for a long time been argued that social complexity didn’t come with agriculture in New Guinea, his new research has identified similar cultural archaeology, evidencing great developments, as is found in Europe and Asia.

The team of researchers is planning to conduct additional excavations around New Guinea to try and find more evidence about the cultural practices that emerged during the transition to agriculture, and maybe even more artifacts pertaining to their complex culture.

Michael Dom - "Picks up the ordinary and mundane, and projects it on to a page and makes us see what we are unable see on our own"

STEVEN WINDUO

26 Sonnets: Contemporary Papua New Guinean Poetry, by Michael Dom, JDT Publications, March 2020, 66pp. ISBN-13: 979-8621-24-062-2

Free download 26 Sonnets eBook by Michael Dom

PORT MORESBY - I have great respect and admiration for the bold and measured language in Michael Dom’s poetry.

Reading this collection assured me that Dom is willing to take up forms of poetry that are structured and articulated through very specific rules of construction.

He is willing to explore through such forms very complex social and cultural world.

I recognise that the forms used are the sonnet and sijo, two different cultural platforms for poetry. Though I am curious how Tok Pisin poems can fit into these forms, I think we can learn that the frames of expression are there; all we have to do is give it flesh and life through poetry in our own language.

Poetry is a special language that engages with the deep unconscious of a human being. Expressing the deep unconscious takes a special kind of person whose poetic sensibilities are expressed in sharp words.

A poet with the sixth sense can see, articulate, and string together words that tell a thousand stories. A poet recreates the world to make sense of it.

Michael Theophilus Dom has that special gift of poetry. He has sharpened his words every time he writes a new piece.

Dom is a young poet who has come of age. He has the ability to pick up the ordinary and mundane, and project it on to a page and make us see what we are unable see on our own.

He shows us a different worldview to the one we have been living and breathing our whole life.

He is a great poet in the making. In a line of poetic tradition since Alan Natachee, Kumalau Tawali, John Kasaipwalova, Apisa Enos, Russell Soaba and this writer, Michael Theophilus Dom is quickly securing his place among the great poets of this nation.

Finally, just as much as I valued reading Michael Theophilus Dom’s wonderful and powerful poems, I invite all readers to follow this young poet on his journey to greatness.

Sonnet 3: I Met a Pig Farmer the Other Day

At the foot of Mount Giluwe we met
A place where they say ice falls from the sky
We spoke of pork and the lack of good vets
As we toiled in his village piggery
Each planning how his stock would reach market
Did we both share a wish that pigs could fly?

Agriculture is our backbone we say
(Rhetorical ruse on farmers always)
Yet in our grand plans for development
We have forgotten what that really meant
From the highlands to the coastal islands
The struggle to feed ourselves never ends.

If you met those who’s unheard voices cry
You too would join me in questioning, why?

Sonnet 21: Petty O’Neill, Scary but Still Petty

Despot toddler with a pot of honey
Using Haus Tambaran like a dunny
So smart and cunning to take our money
Lawyer’s gowns are the skirts of your mummy

Poor academics wave you blow-kisses
From underfunded ivory towers
Trammeled airmen joined unemployed masses
But now you know that some will not cower

‘How does anyone dare question me?
I am the PM: “It’s all about me”
Poster boy of the MDR-TB!
Fawned over by Eggins on Em-TV!’
If Pete’s not a wannabe Mugabe
He's being scary, but still very petty.

ADRIAN ROLLINS
| Canberra Times | Edited

CANBERRA - At his meeting with fellow G20 leaders on Friday, Australia’s prime minister Scott Morrison called for international focus on the plight of Pacific island nations and said Australia was "reconfiguring" its development assistance to support the operation of critical health services and manage the economic impact.

According to the ABC, this includes the reallocation of $22 million of existing aid commitments toward a COVID-19 support package for the Papua New Guinea government.

The shift in focus comes amid mounting concerns that an outbreak could be disastrous for Pacific island nations, especially Australia's closest neighbour, PNG.

PNG has so far confirmed just one coronavirus infection (an expatriate later evacuated to Australia and later found to be negative) but public health specialists and development workers caution that PNG's high rates of poverty, poor nutrition, threadbare health services and pre-existing health problems such as tuberculosis mean the country of eight million is highly vulnerable to the disease.

Lowy Institute's Pacific Islands Program director Jonathan Pryke said there were only about a dozen ventilators in Port Moresby and only a couple in other parts of the country.

Mr Pryke said the country's health system was already stretched to the limit dealing with serious endemic health problems including malaria, tuberculosis and diabetes.

Ann Clarke, project manager for the non-government organisation Businesses for Health: TB and HIV, said an outbreak of Covid-19 in PNG, particularly in Port Moresby and other large centres, would be "an absolute catastrophe".

Dr Clarke said respiratory problems and diseases such as tuberculosis, pneumonia and asthma were prevalent, accounting for a third of the country's total health burden.

The most recent available data show that in 2018 there were 37,000 active cases of tuberculosis alone, resulting in 4700 deaths.

Dr Clarke warned that if there was community transmission of Covid-19 in the country, the health system would quickly become overwhelmed.

She said there were only about 100 intensive care unit beds across the entire country, and Port Moresby General Hospital was "already full of TB patients".

The PNG Government has declared a 30-day state of emergency, and for the next two weeks all incoming international and domestic passenger flights have been grounded, schools have been closed and non-essential workers are required to stay home.

In the National Capital District, which includes Port Moresby, shops remain open but public transport has been shut down.

Health workers warn many have little capacity to abide the social distancing and hygiene measures considered essential to slow the disease's spread.

Water Aid PNG country director Rachel Payne said in settlements in major urban centres like Port Moresby and Lae it was not uncommon for up to 15 people to live in a house, and access to water was very limited.

Ms Payne said 60% of people lack access to safe water and just 2 per cent have somewhere in or near their home where they can wash their hands.

Dr Clarke warned of the risk of "bodies in the streets" if PNG failed in its attempts to stop the community spread of Covid-19.

Mr Pryke said the move by Mr Morrison to raise the plight of Pacific island nations at the G20 was a "positive sign", but cautioned that PNG alone would need much more than $22 million.

He said a large portion of Australia's $1 billion of aid to the region would need to be re-purposed to the Covid-19 response.

Aid to the Pacific has been attacked by critics who argue that the Australian government should focus its efforts on the country's needs first.

But Mr Pryke said it was in Australia's own interests to be part of politically stable and healthy neighbourhood.

China has also increased the pressure on the Australian government to increase its efforts in the region.

In what Mr Pryke described as "a remarkable pivot", the Chinese are offering to provide medical materials and expertise to countries preparing for or grappling with Covid-19, opening a new front in the contest for influence in the region.

"Australia has really planted a flag here with its [Pacific] Step-Up initiative and that should resonate in good times and bad," he said. "This is where you show your resolve. We should be true to our word on this stuff."

Dr Mathias Sapuri - More than 6,000 cases of interest but PNG is doing very little coronavirus testing

KEITH JACKSON

PORT MORESBY – Dr Mathias Sapuri, chairman of Papua New Guinea’s medical board, says he believes that coronavirus is already present in the country.

“Our two closest neighbours, Indonesia and Australia, are climbing exponentially with Covid-19 cases,” he said, “and so they are serious risk to us especially after the PNG lock down period.

“My assessment is that the virus is possibly in PNG among our nationals already.

“Currently there is no evidence among our nationals. This is because we are not doing blood tests or many swab tests on more than 6,000 plus persons of interest to pick up cases.”

Dr Sapuri said PNG does not have the blood tests, antigen tests or swab tests for effective testing for the disease.

“Our significant risk in PNG relates to co-morbidities like malaria, TB, infectious diseases, cancers, chronic medical conditions.

“These are vulnerable people in our country that Covid-19 infection could lead to mortality,” he said.

“Let's not be complacent but continue to work together. The wave is coming.”

Agriculture Minister John Simon - swine fever was suspected in February when 336 pigs in died in Mendi

NEWS DESK
| PNG Today

PORT MORESBY - The multi-million pork industry in PNG is under threat with the African swine fever now in the country.

The swine fever is a virus which causes a hemorrhagic fever with high mortality rates in domestic pigs, killing pigs in large numbers as quickly as a week after infection.

It’s believed the disease was carried by various means, including imported canned food.

The Southern Highlands and neighbouring Enga and Hela provinces have been declared disease areas as a containment measure to stop the disease spreading to other highlands provinces and the coast.

The announcement was made by Agriculture Minister John Simon amidst efforts by the PNG government to contain the coronavirus pandemic.

The swine fever was suspected when 336 pigs in Mendi died in February. Samples taken by an investigation team were sent to Australia and results found to be positive.

PNG had been on red alert to prevent the African swine flu entering the country.

Mr Simon said while efforts were made to put in place stringent measures, the emergence of swine flu in Mendi, came as a surprise.

People in the three provinces have been urged not to eat dead pigs or to bring pigs or pig meat from one province to another.

Although the virus is not a public health threat, it will greatly affect people who depend on pigs as a source of food and income as well as the whole pork industry in PNG.

People last-minute shopping in Kokopo ahead of the coronavirus lockdown (Kalolaine Fainu,  The Guardian)

LYANNE TOGIBA
| Guardian Australia

PORT MORESBY - Four thousand nurses are expected to participate in strikes across Papua New Guinea this week over concerns that the Pacific nation lacks the medical supplies and funding to handle a potential coronavirus outbreak.

The industrial action follows a sit-in by nearly 600 nurses in the capital of Port Moresby on Thursday over concerns about the lack of personal protective equipment for medical staff.

Gibson Siune, the general secretary of the PNG Nurses Association said the majority of the association’s members, which represents roughly 20% of the country’s nursing workforce, would participate in the protests for as long as it took until their concerns were heard by the national government.

“Around 4,000 nurses throughout the country are expected to participate in this protest,” he said.

The country recorded its first confirmed case of Covid-19 on 20 March, an imported case from a foreign mine worker who has since been sent to Australia for treatment.

A 14-day state of emergency came into effect on Tuesday imposing a curfew on the country’s roughly eight million residents and restricting travel across the country.

The state of emergency has also imposed significant restrictions on who can speak to the media, with many doctors saying they were forbidden from discussing issues with the Guardian.

A senior doctor, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told Guardian Australia: “PNG is not prepared to fight the virus simply because it does not have the funds to do so.

“The national government must come clean on the financial front and tell the people whether there is money available to fight the coronavirus or not, because currently almost all hospitals lack basic medical supplies to attend to ordinary illnesses in the country.”

Residents in Port Moresby have also come out expressing concern about the possible shortage of food and other basic necessities in shops and markets, as the country went into lock down.

One resident told Guardian Australia: “I don’t think the lock down is a good idea, as many of our people are going into panic buying while other unfortunate ones are unable to do that now because they simply do not have the money to buy extra food and basic supplies.”

In response to the sit-in protest by nurses, prime minister James Marape gave assurances to the nurses and doctors that PPEs will be made available to them this week.

Marape has also assured Papua New Guineans that food and basic supplies will not run out and that they should not panic and that the national government is doing all it can to protect the people and ensure there are no new cases of the virus in the country.

Like other Pacific Island countries, it is fighting hard at keeping its first case at just one, while also trying to ensure there is no local transmission.

The prime minister, James Marape, said when parliament is recalled on Thursday, “two bills will be enacted as Emergency Laws and they are the proposed Emergency General Provisions Bill 2020 and the Proposed Emergency Defence Force COVID-19 Bill 2020.”

The deputy director of the PNG Institute of Medical Research, Dr Moses Laman, said the institute in Goroka, Eastern Highlands Province, is fully capable of testing for the Covid-19 as it is accredited by the World Health Organisation.

“There is really no need for test samples to be further verified in Australia, however depending on the case and upon request from the National Government, samples are sent for further checks like the first confirmed case.”

Health Minister Jelta Wong said there are currently 580 testing kits available in the country, and another 4,000 will arrive over the next week.

“PCR testing equipment has arrived in Port Moresby already and is undergoing optimisation, by 1 April testing should begin with 200 tests per day.

“The Central Public Laboratory should come online on 8 April with another 200 tests per day, so collectively there will be 700 tests conducted per day in the country,” Mr Wong said.

The Bomana Immigration Centre is among two other facilities being considered to be used as isolation units for coronavirus cases in Port Moresby.

The police minister, Bryan Kramer, said “the centre is an extremely new modern facility built by the Australian Government which is being considered among the others at Six Mile and the Rita Flynn courts.”

The Frieda River

ED BRUMBY

WEWAK - A civil society organisation, Project Sepik, has called for the rejection of the proposed Frieda River mine saying that the environmental impact statement is ‘unfit for purpose’.

The copper and gold mine proposed to be located in the remote Sepik region, would be the largest ever mine in Papua New Guinea and one of the largest in the world.

Project Sepik’s call came after it obtained 10 expert reports submitted to PNG’s Conservation and Environmental Protection Authority showing that, if the mine were to go ahead, the region could face catastrophic and permanent destruction.

The reports revealed that the environmental impact statement (EIS) did nothing to reassure the experts that there is any safe or secure way to store the massive amount of mine waste (tailings) without damaging the river.

The project is being developed in a seismically active area of PNG which is also subject to extreme rainfall. The likelihood of the tailings dam breaking at some point in time, and causing catastrophic damage, is inevitable.

Furthermore, the EIS shows no evidence of free, prior and informed consent by all impacted customary landowners, including communities on the mine site and along the Frieda and Sepik Rivers.

“This evidence is essential for the project to proceed,” Project Sepik says.

The expert submissions also disclose that the EIS is missing critical reports and information that would normally be necessary in any comprehensive assessment.

Crucial reports relating to the tailings dam and seismic reports have not been provided.

The EIS is also missing vital information about the operation and closure of the mine, an assessment of the proposed airport and a resettlement plan for the four villages requiring relocation.

It is also missing a cost-benefit analysis.

“We have long said that this mine could not be built safely, and now these 10 expert reports prove it,’ said Emmanuel Peni, of Project Sepik coordinator.

“We call upon the Conservation and Environmental Protection Authority to reject this incomplete and defective EIS and reject this project.

“The people living on the Sepik and across PNG need the organisation that is supposed to protect their land and waterways to step up and stop these foreign companies from destroying their rivers for profit,” Mr Peni said.

“The 100,000 people who live on the Sepik don’t want this mine.

“It will not bring the promised benefits to my people and it will endanger the beautiful Sepik river, which provides us not only with our home but our livelihood and also defines our identity.”

Project Sepik submitted its expert reports as it launched a new ‘Save the Sepik’ campaign in conjunction with Australian partners Jubilee Australia and AID/WATCH.

“We have seen this movie of Australian-based companies causing havoc to PNG’s rivers before,” said Dr Luke Fletcher, executive director of the Jubilee Australia Research Centre.

“We all remember BHP’s Ok Tedi disaster, and we are still tracking the ongoing tailings disaster in Bougainville.

“In both cases the tailings released into these rivers contaminated and killed fish, caused mass flooding and the spread of contaminated mud, decimated land previously used for growing food and led to the leaching of heavy metals in a chemical process called acid rock drainage.

“The Australian-sanctioned destruction of PNG’s natural environment must end now with the rejection of Pan Aust’s irresponsible plans for the Sepik.

“The Sepik region is a haven of biodiversity.”

The Frieda River mine has been proposed by an Australian registered company, PanAust, which is owned by Chinese state-owned enterprise Guandong Rising Asset Management.

In 2006, the Upper Sepik River Basin was transitionally listed for World Heritage Status by the PNG government.

CHRIS OVERLAND

ADELAIDE - This morning I went out to undertake a mundane task; that being to purchase a few items from the local supermarket.

Upon arrival at the place, it soon became apparent that it had been looted by persons unknown. Many staples like rice, pasta, sugar and meat had vanished from the shelves. Paper products like toilet rolls and tissues were non-existent.

It struck me that over the last week or two my world had irrevocably changed.

Some of my fellow citizens had surrendered to panic and fear as the potential impact of the coronavirus became more obvious.

They had begun to hoard food and other goods in an effort to assuage their existential fear of an invisible and relentless enemy.

This behaviour was irrational, ignoble and contemptible but the psychology was plain enough.

The weak-willed and fearful are always amongst us.

This small but not insignificant minority does not cope well with even the normal stresses and strains of life, let alone the prospect of a fatal encounter with something they cannot begin to comprehend.

They apparently see their fear and panic buying as a logical response to a situation they are powerless to alter.

They fail to recognise that their behaviour creates the very thing they are most fearful about - a shortage of certain goods.

There are other people, those recently returned to Australia from overseas, who find themselves effectively imprisoned in hotels across the country as they serve out 14 days of involuntary isolation lest they prove to be carriers of the virus.

Most of these people are bearing up well but a minority have expressed displeasure at their fate, complaining bitterly about their accommodation, the restrictions upon their movement and even the quality of the food provided to them.

Many Australians regard their complaints with little sympathy. They know that more than a few of these people embarked upon overseas travel in the face of explicit government warnings that it potentially was dangerous to do so.

These travellers were also warned that the government may not be able to repatriate them home if they got into trouble or became caught up in other countries’ efforts to combat the virus.

Their pleas to be rescued from what, in many cases at least, was a consequence of their own reckless decision-making grates upon the ears of those who decided to stay home.

Of course, the hoarders and whiners are a minority. There remain many people who face the unknown and unknowable future with resoluteness and calm.

Many of these people have confronted life’s vicissitudes in the past and have a confidence and stoicism borne of such experiences.

Being under mortal threat is, in many respects, character building. You have to confront your worst fears and – to survive intact - overcome them.

It seems to me that our parents and grandparents were made of sterner stuff than we. My grandparents endured two world wars and the Great Depression. They had to cope with a wide range of communicable diseases that routinely killed or harmed many people.

They accepted this as a sad inevitability, not a reason for panic or hysteria.

They had a endure shocks and threats that make our current woes look trivial indeed.

Not surprisingly, they put a high value on the stoic acceptance of hardship and regarded a good life as one in which a person triumphed over adversity and became a good citizen in their community.

Accumulation of wealth was not despised but it was a secondary consideration.

Even my generation, who have lived through what economists have called the Great Moderation (roughly 1985 to 2007) and enjoy a level of affluence unimaginable to most of our ancestors, have had to endure several periods of economic hardship, although nothing to compare with the Great Depression.

During my time in Papua New Guinea, I had the privilege to witness humans living their lives in a way that approximated that of my very distant forebears.

The life of a typical PNG villager 50 years ago was still as physically demanding and uncertain as it had been in the pre-colonial era.

Even with the colonial administration’s rudimentary health services beginning to have a real impact, sickness and death were constant companions and very few people were likely to survive much beyond about 45 years.

Basically, people just became worn out from the constant exertion required to stay alive in what was a tough place to live.

My recollection is that the people were tough and stoic, with a generally clear-eyed view of the world. They endured privations with a degree of fatalism and, when they could, derived a good deal of pleasure from the simple things in life - a full stomach, a roof over their heads and the love and security of their families and friends.

Villagers tended to have a lively sense of humour. Jokes were made about all sorts of events and misadventures. I suppose that this was a way of keeping a sense of perspective about life’s vagaries.

Naive young kiaps like me, with our over-confident assertiveness, were often the subject of sly jokes which, of course, we never realised, often being rather too full of our own importance and sense of cultural superiority.

It strikes me now that many of my fellow Australians are conspicuously lacking the qualities that allow Papua New Guineans to endure and even thrive whilst living under what most of us would see as very harsh circumstances.

Now, when genuine and potentially severe adversity looms, it is evident that many of us in the so-called developed world are not well prepared to confront the existential threat that is still commonplace in PNG and many other places.

It turns out that affluence, comfortable lives and access to a range of goods, services and technologies unimaginable to our grandparents leaves many of us ill-equipped to cope with any sort of adversity.

Basically, we seem to believe that we are entitled to live a dream life even though this is not the lived experience of most people in the world.

So here we are now, staring into the abyss of imminent death, at least for some of us.

Who the disease takes or spares is, to a significant extent, beyond our control, although it seems that we oldies are prime targets for the grim reaper.

Some might say it was ever thus but, speaking as a geriatric, I find the idea of a premature exit rather discomforting.

While huge amounts of money, knowledge and ingenuity are being devoted to finding ways to successfully overcome our invisible assailant, it seems that this will come too late for many of us.

Already, the terrible scenes in Italy, Spain and the USA speak to the ferocity of its attack.

Belatedly, our government has realised that it has some obligation to do something to help our Pacific neighbours.

Whether what we can do has any practicable effect remains to be seen, but at least we should try. We will be judged harshly if we do nothing to help.

Right now, it seems a good bet that most of us will survive to see what sort of world exists when the disease has run its course.

As the survivors heave a sigh of relief and mourn those who have gone, it might be a good moment to reflect upon how we as individuals and as a society have borne up under the strain of living in dangerous times.

How will we judge ourselves? By what criteria will we do so?

I think we could do worse than judge ourselves against the simple criteria of PNG villagers so long ago.

Did we successfully defend our families and homes even if there were some deaths? Did we preserve our wider community from irrecoverable harm, so that life could go on as before? Did we behave with compassion towards others, courage in adversity and stoic fortitude if we became ill and so not disgrace ourselves, our families and ancestors?

If we can honestly say that we did these things, then we will be worthy of being remembered for the right reasons, not as the generation that, full of fear and loathing, could think of nothing better to do than hoard toilet paper or complain about the horrors of spending 14 days confined in a luxury hotel room.

Early highlands explorers Jim Taylor and Michael Leahy

DANIEL KUMBON

PORT MORESBY - The colonial Administration utterly failed to understand why native people in the vicinity of Wabag patrol post vehemently opposed the government establishing contact with them.

Colonial kiaps described the native people as the “most difficult to be found anywhere” for continuing to oppose them after a base was established in Wabag during the Hagen-Sepik patrol of 1938.

And it happened again when Captain John Clarke, who had opened a patrol post in 1941 which closed when war came, was posted back to Wabag in 1943.

Clarke rediscovered the opposition and resentment amongst the local people, who attacked police posts he established to maintain government influence.

The Wabag people didn’t want the ‘government’ to settle in their areas.

One reason for this was to avoid the uneven fights they had witnessed at Wakumale and Kopen in which their young men were killed by police rifle fire against which their wooden shields, spears and bows and arrows were ineffectual.

And they still remembered the 1934 massacre at Tole village, a one-sided affair in which 15 people were killed and an equal number injured by Michael Leahy who first shot a man named Pingeta who attacked the exploration party with spears.

This had occurred four years before James Taylor and John Black built a base camp and an airstrip in Wabag in March 1938.

After they left in August, there was a clash between police from the Wabag base camp and Wakumale warriors. There were also other police shootings in the Kopen and Kamas areas west of Wabag.

In the same month, the colonial government directed Ian FC Downs and other kiaps to investigate the police shootings, maintain regular patrols, pay compensation, maintain peace and gain the confidence of the people of Wabag.

It did not seem to work. The people did not want the government to establish itself among them. And it seems the Administration failed to find out why the people behaved that way.

Were the people sincere in accepting the compensation payments for police shootings or did they still fear intimidation and harassment from the poorly trained police?

The people were aware that the Administration had done nothing about the earlier Tole killings, where 20 men and women had been left dead including five killed by the retreating Leahy brothers.

Unusually in New Guinea, the Enga people spoke just one language and the news of the mass killings spread fast warning people to be careful when long lines of strange people appeared on the horizon.

In a report compiled by Clarke covering the 12 months between September 1943 and September 1944, he noted that the people still mistrusted the government.

Clarke reported that two of the five police posts he established in the Wabag sub-district had been attacked. He suspected poorly trained police were part of the problem. He discovered some had interfered with local women.

He also regretted there wasn’t a court to deal with these poorly trained police, most of whom were recruits straight from the depot or special police with little or no training whatsoever.

“Lack of reliable and experienced police caused much perturbation at times and a certain amount of difficulty in administrating the district,” Clarke wrote. “Some trouble has been experienced with police interfering with the local females.”

He hoped that a properly constituted court would function in the district whereby convicted officers would receive a sentence commensurate with their crimes.

But there were also reliable constables, notable among these 3262 Remi and 3272 Patut, both of whom were recommended for promotion.

“Much credit is due to these native constables for the splendid aid they have given in bringing portions of the area under partial control,” Clarke wrote.

But Clarke found that he had made a mistake to deploy native policeman at the five different posts he established, thus weakening the strength of his force.

Lives could have been lost when two police posts were attacked - one at Lake Ivai-a (Sirunki) in July and the other at Birip a week or so before he wrote a report on 28 September 1944.

Clarke was pleased, however, that in both cases, the police were saved from death and injury by the loyalty of the people living near the police post, who came to their aid and helped disperse the attackers.

“In both cases the assaults were made to rid the area of the ‘government’ whose presence in some quarters is still highly resented,” he said in his report.

As early as 1939, patrols had noticed the resentment people felt towards the government which Clarke again expressed.

“Captain Clarke’s lack of experience among uncontrolled natives has undoubtably has not made his task any easier, but it is through no fault of his that the native situation in this sub district is not better than it is,” said a report of 18 October 1944 sent from Mt Hagen to the ANGAU Northern Region headquarters in Lae.

The original airstrip at old Wabag town (Gwenda Jackson)

“There appears little doubt that the unsatisfactory position today dates back to the early associations of European influences with these people and until prejudices are broken down and confidences in us restored, little progress can be expected.”

The ‘early associations of European influences’ pointed to the Leahy brothers and the killings at Tole on that first occasion when two different cultures had come face to face.

A question people ask about the killing is why Michael Leahy did not fire a warning shot over Pingeta’s head to demonstrate fire power he possessed?

A warning shot would have been enough to scare people who had never seen a whiteman with guns before. They would have scattered in total fear at the first crack of rifle fire.

Yet Leahy decided to shoot Pingeta and the armed police joined in what appears to have been a shooting spree.

And as the group retreated to Mt Hagen, five more people were shot dead, probably relatives of the 15 people killed at Tole the previous day.

In a land where ‘tooth for tooth, eye for eye’ was in the blood, from that moment the relatives could not just sit and watch the patrol pass by. They felt obliged to take revenge. But they were powerless against the ‘muskets’ the whiteman and police carried.

It was a resentment that prevailed down the years. The people could never rest easily until the killings were avenged, even if they died attempting it. It was a tribal obligation.

People always planned to take revenge for relatives killed in tribal warfare.

Thadius Kaka Menge said the men killed were not just from Tole village but also from other Wabag tribes.

They had gone to Tole curious to have a glimpse of the strange people and to barter for trade goods with the food and firewood they took along.

Thadius said he and Pupukain had gone to Tole that morning with firewood. They didn’t climb the steep hill with bows and arrows to attack the strange people camped at the top.

After the massacre, the colonial administration failed to undertake a thorough investigation. This lack of response undoubtedly further hindered later attempts to establish meaningful contact with the people in the district.

It did not take long for the people to realise that the government had too much power – and that they were there to stay. The people had to accept change or be left behind.

So a new era began for them with regular patrols. Wabag became a permanent centre of influence, tied by patrols with Mt Hagen and fed by supplies from the air.

From Wabag, more and more frequent patrols penetrated deeper into the territory of the ‘Wabagas’. Adventurous young Engans travelled to the patrol post to see the foreigners and share in some of the wealth of tools, shells, crops and pigs by working for the government.

The District Officer from Mt Hagen visited Captain Clarke in January 1944 and gave him instructions to put into operation a works program in which people were to be engaged.

Clarke went to work immediately and a new government station was erected near the old campsite of the Hagen-Sepik patrol. Most of the buildings, all made from bush materials, were completed between February and April.

The construction of the Wabag aerodrome was started but, although not fully complete, it was able to serve as an emergency landing strip for allied aircraft in distress. It was 1.2 kilometers long and yards long and 48 meters wide with an uneven grade. But from the eastern end there was an excellent approach.

In July 1944, an allied Beechcraft plane landed on the airstrip for the first time.

Roads were constructed around the small station but the biggest project was the construction of a road from Wabag to Tomba near Mt Hagen, 50 km by air and 70 km by road.

From Mt Hagen, Captain Clarke obtained a boar with a good percentage of the Berkshire breed to start a pig-farm in Wabag.

“The local sows who were mated with this boar threw some fairly good-looking stock, but a virulent type of ‘swine fever’ passed through the district a few months back killing off about 80% of pigs in the area,” he wrote.

“This swine fever has robbed the native of his wealth and main source of meat supply.”

From 1945 onwards, civil administration replaced ANGAU. Wabag, Wapenamanda and Laiagam became focal points for patrol posts and police camps as patrol activity spread through Enga country.

From 1947, as each new area was opened to Europeans, more intensive contacts were made, particularly by missionaries and their Papua New Guinean intermediaries. Contacts multiplied after restrictions on the movement of foreigners were lifted in 1962.

Thadius Kaka Menge recalled that there was a major famine during that period which lasted for many years.

This was probably the 1940 frost which forced people like Sir Tei Abal and his father Monope to flee from their homeland at Mapumanda in Laiagam across the mountain ranges to Wabag in search of food.

When his father was killed by Piao tribesman near where the current Sir Tei Abal Secondary School is situated, Tei fled west to the fertile Tsak valley where friendly people raised him.

During this period kiaps like Clarke, Mick Foley, WJ Wearne, David Marsh, Denis Faithful and JT Dwyer worked with influential local leaders who acted as intermediaries and government agents.

Soon after, around Wabag and Wapenamanda, some of these leaders were formalised as officials of varying rank - luluais, tultuls and bosbois - and the first interpreters, trainee police and trainee health workers like Tei Abal were appointed.

Thadius said the men from Wabag included Kamainwan Kurai, Nemane Sarut, Kii Lakoe, Lankep Kia, Kaialu Alepane, Yakale Kund, Puman Pupun and Sakarwan Neop.

He said the kiaps felt that Nemane Sarut did not perform his duties effectively so Thadius was appointed instead. Later he was appointed a komiti when local government councils were established.

These men helped the administration to end tribal warfare, they assisted with census patrols and persuaded the people to build roads, bridges, rest houses and pit latrines.

At the time, the Kii fought with the Kala as well as with other neighbouring tribes in Wabag but, when the kiaps told them to stop fighting, they stopped immediately.

“We destroyed our shields, bows and arrows and lived in relative peace,” Thadius said. Popular among the local leaders were Kepa, Maua, Kipongi, Katapene, Nepo and Kurai.

It is possible Kurai Tapus and some of these other men were appointed ‘bosbois’ by Clarke to help him in his work.

“Native chieftains have been appointed ‘boss boys’ throughout the area which is partially under control,” he wrote in a 1944 report.

“The ‘boss boys’, who form a very necessary and vital link in the administration of the district have been given an insignia similar to those in use in the Chimbu district, after satisfactorily serving a probation period.

“Two of the boss boys so appointed have abused their powers and caused trouble but others have done a good job in assisting to bring their subjects under control.”

Old Thadius with some of his children and grandchildren

Kurai Tapus was a very tall man. Many describe him as being well over two meters tall, and appeared much taller when dressed up with a bird of paradise headdress.

Captain Clarke noticed that the average height of the people especially native males was 160 centimeters but the chieftains were bigger in stature and taller in height averaging at 175 centimeters.

He said the people were mostly chocolate brown in colour but a few were seen with light skin colour.

“All males sleep together with the females occupying another house nearby,” he said. “All intercourse between married couples is carried out during daylight in some remote spot in the bush.”

Houses were divided into three compartments. The first was used for cooking and eating meals and for the entertainment of visitors. The middle compartment provided shelter for the pigs and the end section was the sleeping area.

“The natives are polygamous, wealth and the consent of the first wife being the only factors which count in obtaining more than one spouse,” Clarke wrote. “A small proportion of the indigenous population is semi nomadic in as much as they are constantly seeking new ground for cultivation.”

As he stated, polygamy was practised. Pigs provided the main purchasing power for brides. These were handed over to the bride’s parents and relatives. Five days was the recognised period for the honeymoon, both parties during this time being excused from general duties.

Clarke wrote that the natives showed a definite socialistic trend for, should a prospective bridegroom did not possess sufficient wealth to purchase the lady of his choice, his relatives and friends would immediately make up the deficiency.

Apart from marriages, tee exchanges and fighting, singsings or mali formed a predominate part of life. Organised group singsings were a regular occurrence and great preparations were made for these events which at times lasted weeks.

A ‘courting’ singsing known as lagumana was very popular with the younger set. It was a common sight to see native carriers stop on the track for a breather and to immediately form up in line and conduct a short singsing.

Thadius said many of the men appointed as ‘bosbois’ married multiple wives. He himself married 12. Kipongi married 28 while Kurai married eight and all of them fathered many children.

Kurai’s second wife, who he recognised as his first wife, was Pingeta’s daughter - the village chief who had been killed at Tole in 1934 by the Leahy brothers.

And Kurai’s last and eighth wife, Kipaukwan, still lives today after Kurai died in 1980.

COMPILED BY KEITH JACKSON

NOOSA - I don’t like to be morbid, but the imminent escalation of coronavirus in Australia and, most likely, Papua New Guinea require a reflection.

This modern plague is costing many lives and many more livelihoods. And in Australia its spread, until very recently, was facilitated by our political leaders and their subjugated medical advisers who, for some wild fancy, believed it could be micro-managed.

They persisted insanely in that denialist dream until State leaders, suddenly aware that this terrible scourge could not be nuanced, decided themselves that it must be stamped on before it stamped on us.

I’m a 75-year old male with a number of chronic health problems and a big target painted on my lungs. If I am chosen by this virus I will struggle. But, having lived a long and fulfilling life and, given that oblivion awaits us all, I won’t feel unfairly singled out.

And, as you can see, I also hate to be morbid.

PNG Attitude has been covering the coronavirus challenge with some intensity these past few weeks, and our revered contributors have published some wonderful pieces on the issue and its consequences – and our equally revered commenters have chipped in with their golden observations.

I’ve taken out the editorial scissors to provide readers with a selection of some of the words they wrote.

Arthur Williams

My eldest daughter, who lived in Taskul with me many years ago, and I were talking on the phone during the first week of stringent lockdown for British families. She had a very dry cough for two weeks but was untested despite being a nurse in the mental health section of the National Health Service.

By all accounts, when she resumes working, I am sure she is going to find many new patients unable to mentally cope with the enforced isolation. “Dad,” she said, “the problem is that for many of the last 20 or 30 years children have been schooled in the laissez faire attitude of the liberals controlling their education."

The stoic people of rural PNG show traits of what should be normal human compassion and willingness to help others despite merely existing as subsistence families. I hope that many of PNG’s long suffering villagers can be allowed to escape this latest plague that enshrouds our too often greedy, selfish world.

Philip Kai Morre

Covid-19 is considered a pandemic with every individual suffering from its effect whether social, psychological, economic and spiritual. Can we call it a pandemic in PNG when there is not one case yet? The symptoms of anxiety are far greater than the problem itself. The emergency shut down has disoriented and confused people, creating fear, doubt, uncertainty, frustration, anger and hatred.

There is a popular conspiracy theory among religious fanatics and fundamentalist Christians that coronavirus is a punishment from God. It started in China and quickly spread to other countries because they don't believe in God - and also burn down churches. It quickly spread to USA and Italy because of their sinful activities. Some say it fulfils the prophetic calls of Revelation and book of Daniel in the Old Testament and that the return of Jesus Christ is imminent.

Ian Ritchie

I thought PNG was winning the war to keep the virus out of the country, but a figure of 6,000 ‘persons of interest’ who are apparently not undergoing testing seems very concerning. I wonder what it takes to make it into the category of ‘person of interest’? Is it someone who is showing signs and symptoms, or is it just someone who has recently flown into the country? I also wonder what is being done to isolate those 6,000 people from the communities and in which provinces are they located?

Phil Fitzpatrick

Logic would tell us that the rampant and uncontrolled spread of the virus in Indonesia will inevitably spread to PNG. The first death from the virus has occurred in Sorong in West Papua for instance. It is also highly likely, given PNG’s porous border with Papua that the virus has already arrived but has not been picked up yet. West Sepik is putting measures into place because it is a gateway to Papua. What is happening in Western, another gateway, is unknown but I suspect it is nothing at all.

Alphonse Aime

I hope this lesson brought about by coronavirus will trigger a real desire by the authorities to invest in the healthcare of our people. That the health systems in the country be allocated enough money to provide the kind of services that is only verbalised in policies and politics.

John Mackerell

I'm still working in the PNG health system. Kudos must be given to the government here for taking the right actions rapidly. Admittedly, we do not have sufficient resources for properly treating severely infected people but rational and effective prevention is not rocket science and has been instituted.

Philip Kai Morre

When the state of emergency was declared, logistics and safety equipment in our hospitals were not in place. Nurses went on strike because they can't deal with patients and lack the essential safety equipment and measures. There is no clear clinical direction and disease controllers are still confused as to what sort of mode of health awareness they will carry out. Apart from a few medical officers most of the Covid-19 response team are non-medical and keep giving misleading information. Poor planning leads into more confusion, fear and anxiety.

Paul Oates

In these 'hardly normal' times, it seems like we as a species can't seem to lift ourselves past where we have been. To perceive and lead a large mob of people through a time of crisis takes an extraordinary leader and we have yet to see one emerge. Perhaps it all takes time and sufficient suffering and misery before, in desperation, a change in direction is contemplated as possible or feasible.

Arthur Williams

Big Pharma is working worldwide with several trying drugs used in other treatments to see if they can be used for treating or stopping the current plague. I experienced such a test earlier this century when a tiny area of my chest became itchy and seemed to fit the skin cancer scenario. After examination the doctor asked if i would mind trying a cream that seemed to work to resolve such a problem. I accepted willingly and asked what it was. "Genital wart ointment Arthur!" It proved effective.

Lindsay F Bond

PNG folk ought be fully aware of the PPE (personal protection equipment) in use and now being procured and supplied. There is no harm in asking. There is great potential of harm in not knowing. There is report that PPE is to be supplied to Port Moresby General Hospital and some eight clinics. This follows a strike by nurses at the hospital and appears somewhat a reaction to that.

Jim Moore

During the Depression in Australia, communal groups usually came together based on a common need or issue, rather than kinship or family factors. If and when that issue passed or the need was met, the groups tended to dissolve This was the obvious difference between us and traditional PNG society, where one’s accident of birth formed the basis of a widely extended and lifelong structure within which one lived life. That provided the comfort of knowing who one could rely on, and who one would help in adversity. That seems to me to be a marked difference to our society, where even within a communal group that seems to be self-supporting, the bonds can fracture easily, and one can find oneself up the creek easily

Chips Mackellar

I can't understand panic buying because it is amazing what you can live on when you have to. As a kid during World War II in outback Queensland, when ordinary food supplies were not available, we lived on the same food our parents lived on during the Depression - bread and dripping. And when there was no bread we made our own - sort of that is - it was damper, self-raising flour and water mixed to the consistency of putty and cooked in an oven or, if there wasn't one, in an open fire

I can remember going on patrol with Alan Johnson, and all he ate - breakfast, lunch and dinner - was Sunshine powdered milk. He had patrol boxes full of it, and that was the only food he took with him. He thrived on that, and he is still thriving, at least up until the last kiap reunion. So if you are reading this Alan, you are an inspiration to those who think they can't survive happily in these hard times.

Chris Overland

And once again "the weak suffer what they must". An effective, efficient and honest public service can be a bulwark against the worst excesses of capitalism yet is now regarded by far too many of the political class across the globe as an obstacle to a thriving economy. This is a fallacy relentlessly promoted by the promoters of the neo-liberal experiment. Even in the face of utter disaster, promoters of this fallacy like Donald Trump propose giving huge sums to corporate America while simultaneously implying that it is better for millions of Americans to die from Covid-19 than allow the economy (i.e. the rich and powerful) to take a hit. It is time for us all to wake up to this and other fallacies lying at the heart of neo-liberalism.

Indonesia-PNG border at Vanimo

PHIL FITZPATRICK

TUMBY BAY - Apart from yesterday’s proposal by East Sepik governor Allan Bird to shoot border crossers from Indonesia, the most astonishing recent Papua New Guinea government statement came from prime minister James Marape on Monday 31 March.

If the report by Glenda Popot of FM100 is accurate, the Covid-19 crisis has prompted the prime minister to admit that “the country’s health system lacks proper resources and care facilities including basic medical drugs”.

Ms Popot reported Marape as saying that the Covid-19 pandemic had “awakened the government to this reality and to make correct interventions to the country’s health system”.

Marape added that the government “will ensure PNG’s health care system after the Covid-19 pandemic is responsive not only to big outbreaks such as this but the everyday health care of Papua New Guineans in all provinces”.

It makes you wonder where James Marape and the members of his government have been for the last 30 or 40 years.

Didn’t they notice the furore over the Borneo Pharmaceuticals scam or the Port Moresby General Hospital sending out requests for people to donate basic medical supplies like bandages which the government had failed to provide?

Didn’t they notice the desperate pleas from hospitals for equipment to treat people with cancer and other diseases and to perform simple procedures like scans and x-rays?

Perhaps they were all in Singapore getting top notch medical treatment at expensive private hospitals paid for by funds ripped off from taxpayers and aid agencies.

PNG is an extreme case of a government callously ignoring the well-being of citizens, but similar realisations are also taking place in developed countries.

In Australia, as Labor shadow treasurer Jim Chalmers observed in The Guardian, “hollowing out the state hurts people. We’re seeing the cold hard consequences of years of cuts and closures dressed-up as ‘savings’ and the outsourcing and offshoring of services in the name of ‘efficiency’.”

Nowhere has this fact become more apparent than in the USA where the Covid-19 crisis is having a devastating impact.

And yet there are still people in the States with their heads buried firmly in the sand, not least their morally bereft and wilfully ignorant president, Donald Trump.

Many world leaders are reluctantly acknowledging, if not in words then in actions, that neoliberalism has been shown to be a miserable failure. All it has achieved is massive inequality-making rich people richer and poor people poorer.

Chalmers went on to say that “every facet of Australian life will be tested by this moment. The quality of our health system, the foundations of our economy, the strength of our democracy and the ties that bind us together are being challenged in ways we could not have imagined weeks ago”.

And yet we have leaders like Trump talking about getting back to business as usual once the crisis has passed.

Australia will find itself in massive debt when it is over. That debt is going to take generations to pay off. But at least our prime minister eventually threw caution to the wind and accepted that people’s lives mattered more than debt.

But where on earth is James Marape going to find the money to bring Papua New Guinea’s health system up to even a basic level of resourcing and efficiency? He is struggling to find the resources to tackle the current crisis let alone what happens after it.

Creating a healthy society involves a lot more than just upgrading a few hospitals. Basic stuff like access to clean water will have to be addressed. So too will housing and sewerage, especially in the towns and cities.

It is a monumental task.

Will it involve more loans, more aid, more grants and more Chinese influence? Is that even possible in a country hocked to the gills already?

And what about all the other sectors of governance that have been neglected? These things all have a knock on effect.

Surely if Marape is going to fix the health system he will need to fix other services, including the education system.

Acknowledging the problem is a good first step but it is going to take more than spin and prayers to genuinely address the task.

How Rio Tinto left the once pristine Jaba River - now a toxic 40 km drain to the coast

KEITH JACKSON

NOOSA - The Human Rights Law Centre in Melbourne has said Rio Tinto Ltd should fund an investigation of health and safety issues and clean up the environmental mess from the Panguna copper and gold mine in the 20 years from 1970 to 1990.

It says the review would be a starting point for compensation talks and negotiations about rehabilitating the old minesite at Panguna and nearby waterways including the ruined Jaba River.

In a cynical move, Rio Tinto gave away its majority 53.8% share ownership in Bougainville Copper Ltd (BCL) to the PNG and Bougainville governments in 2016, leaving behind many health and environmental problems that are likely to cost tens of millions of kina to remediate.

Rio Tinto has acknowledged these concerns but excuses itself by pleading it has not had access to the mine since 1990 when it retreated from Bougainville amidst rising community protests.

“We believe the best means of addressing any current issues is through the owners of the mine working directly with the people of Bougainville,” Rio Tinto said in a statement.

The Human Rights Law Centre said the Bougainville mine and its waste dumps contaminated the minesite and adjacent river valleys, restricting access to clean water for 14,000 people who live downstream and denuding watercourses for 40 km down to the west coast.

Alexander Nara - "If we are hit hard, what will be our response if everyone we love starts falling in numbers, leaving behind corpses we are never allowed to bury?"

ALEXANDER NARA

PORT MORESBY - I find it traumatising enough to think that we may have failed to avoid this fatal breach by death itself into our society, security and sovereignty.

We can blame ignorance, I suppose, which shares the bright lights with our negligence towards Papua New Guinea’s sovereign borders.

It is sickening to imagine what will transpire if coronavirus spreads undetected into our midst.

Around us nations collapse and their money and first class health care programs can do little but research.

Breaking news and unspeakable footage, images and stories rule our news feeds as humanity turns towards the world of science, our hope against the deadly pandemic - this mysterious micro-biological attack on human existence.

In the last few weeks we came to a standstill as our government developed and implemented strict measures to prepare us to counter or contain Covid-19 if and when it steps across our boundaries.

We are again reminded of the forever neglected house rules of hygiene and are forced to put aside many things closely attached to us and our daily lives.

I sit here thinking about the way we share buai, tobacco, food and drink, and the love and security we enjoy of being close together.

You see, our society is founded upon the strong ethos and values where our pasin is living together, loving each other, sharing and caring.

Strong handshakes and bear hugs show the bonds of care and close friendship towards each other. Even death brings us together. Yes, it is us. It is our attitude.

It feels uncomfortable and strange these days when we are not able to do it anymore to people we love, admire and appreciate.

For the first time displa stail pasin na wei bilong yumi that build the fabric of our beautiful young society and binds us together as one nation and one people is forbidden, threatened by this unknown foreign element.

Above all, we will never be able to bury our own mothers, wives, kids and fathers if we continue to say yes it us, it is our attitude.

When world scientists and medical researchers are scratching their balls to find a cure, our herb doctors are promoting their new product brewed from jungle leaves and poured into an empty Coke plastic that is said to cure AIDS and Covid-19. Yes, this is us.

When the house rules of simple hygiene were set down, the Seven Bomb players continued beside the lamb flaps market somewhere in a settlement.

When told to stay at home, we still cross Brown River, hiding from police with our buai bags.

When told to stay away from church but pray, we preach one world order down at Tabari place where a pastor asked for tithes to be transferred via phone banking.

Yes, that is us, it is our attitude.

I find us fascinating but this is no longer funny. This is not a drill. It is real.

When we are told to monitor and report rises in the price of goods during these trying times, we talk about the sky rocketing price of buai.

When government uses Facebook to deliver its messages, we spend hours creating and laughing at spineless meme pages and TikTok characters. Yes, it is us.

Facebook has found warmth in the eyes of this killer pandemic and has emerged as the fastest mode of disseminating information across our society, even across the entire world.

The government has given us the privilege of hearing direct from the horse’s mouth and to respond and to be heard. Not mentioning the bulk of information spilling through the newsfeeds from around the globe.

A very dangerous door of information is left open that can inflict uncertainty in our understanding of how to curtail opportunities for Covid-19 to enter our personal space.

The media is an important information mechanism that must digest and feed society with the truth and not be swayed by an influx of information nor distort the accuracy of information.

Death is staring us in the face and it is a national security issue. A matter of life and death.

If we are hit hard, what will be our response if everyone we love starts falling in numbers around us, leaving behind corpses we are never allowed to bury?

Tell us, government, what will you say in those press conference during that very moment when we are hit hard and you must tell us how we to respond.

This is us. It is our attitude.

Yamin Kogoya - "The pandemic is revealing the cracks in society, about how unprepared the system is when it comes to uniting people against a common enemy"

YAMIN KOGOYA
| Edited extracts

CANBERRA - The creation of an illegal Indonesian state in the sovereign nation of West Papua has brought death and unprecedented catastrophic destruction to Papuan ancestral homelands.

The Indonesian government, with the complicity of Western governments and institutions such as the United Nations (who supported the absorption of West Papua into Indonesia in the 1960s) are guilty of crimes against humanity.

These crimes are not isolated events – they are a continuation of the long war that has been waged beginning with the dawn of the industrial revolution in Europe.

When European travellers sought the discovery of new land, they ignored the already established societies, uprooting entire cultures to build cathedrals, universities, courthouses and estates.

Land is important to people. It is integral to cultural and social networks. When it is stolen, so is culture. First Nations people watch on helplessly as their land is sold, traded, destroyed and built on. It is a grim reminder of how their freedom was stolen.

The religious wars, famine and natural disasters that engulfed Europe during the early period of our modern world convinced enlightened intellectuals that man is alone, and God has abandoned humanity.

Hence, man must choose his own path, navigating his world through scientific method and rational mind.

As the coronavirus pandemic generates fear among the world’s population and forces humanity’s day-to-day rituals to cease indefinitely, this is a time for getting back to what is truly important: family, relationships, a shared purpose, union of ideas, respect.

For the first time in a long time, the industrial world is quiet with inactivity, as we are left with nothing but time and space to think.

This is the time for humanity to reflect on our poor treatment of our only home, and how we have treated those who live here.

We need to ask sincere questions about fundamental ideas that shaped the mind of modern man, and how we blindly accepted this indoctrination without pause.

Just as the philosophers of the past challenged the paradigm that guided mankind for thousands of years, we too must challenge the current paradigm we find ourselves trapped in – the industrialist, capitalist world order.

The pandemic is revealing the cracks in society, about how unprepared the system is when it comes to uniting people against a common enemy, and how the broken system favours the rich and the powerful institutions that keep people indoctrinated.

We are on the brink of the first major paradigmatic shift that will influence civilisation since the Renaissance.

We need to critically re-examine the framework that legitimates our thinking, as our current system is failing at every turn – health care, housing, unemployment, education, privatisation and commoditising the natural world.

“It seems inevitable, then, that we must move from a discussion of history to a discussion of nature if we are to address seriously the question of the end of history” - Francis Fukuyama.

“We cannot solve our problems using the same thinking that we used when we created them” - Albert Einstein.

For First Nations people around the world, instead of joining the industrial countries and helping them destroy the world in the name of progress or development, it is the best time to get back to cultural roots, knowledge, and connection with nature – who we are, where we come from, what we have endured.

And most importantly, acknowledge the systematic powers that induced our cultures into a coma for the past five hundred years.

We urgently need to shift the legacy of the colonial paradigm from “I think, therefore I am,” to “The Earth lives, therefore we are.”

Else, we continue to ignore the cry of our fellow humans and animals across the world, from West Papua to Rohingya, From Yemen to Palestine, from Afghanistan to Syria, and many other nations who are victimised by the global enterprise of exploitation, slavery, and death.

USS Theodore Roosevelt in Guam - epidemics have been a persistent part of Guam’s history (US Navy screenshot)

DAVID ROBIE
| Asia Pacific Report

AUCKLAND - A rather beautiful Guåhan legend is rather poignant in these stressed pandemic times. It is one about survival and cooperation.

In ancient times, goes the story, a giant fish was eating great chunks out of this western Pacific island. The men used muscle and might with spears and slings to try to catch it.

This didn’t work. So, the women from many villages got together while washing their hair in a river. They wove their locks into a super strong net, caught the fish and saved the island.

Now modern day Guåhan, or Guam, is the Covid-19 coronavirus epicentre in the Pacific, if we leave out the US state of Hawai’i.

With the latest five more cases, Guam now has 82 infections – more than double the next worst island territory, French Polynesia with 37; there have also been three deaths so far.

For long-time observers, the plight of Guam is not exactly a surprise.

“Epidemics or outbreaks of disease have been a persistent part of Guam’s history since first contact with Europeans,” writes local author, artist and activist Michael Lujan Bevacqua in the Pacific Daily News.

“From the start of Spanish colonisation in 1668, you can provide a historical outline of Guam’s history over the next two centuries simply in terms of disease outbreaks.

“As the Spanish brought new diseases into the Marianas, their mere presence was deadly to Chamorus.

“As the first priests under San Vitores began to spread out across the Marianas, their arrival was often announced through microbes, with someone dying a strange and unsettling death, even prior to a priest actually visiting a village.”

Death by epidemic always entered the territory the same way – by ship.

Although the last major outbreak happened back in 1918, writes Bevacqua, when the world was engulfed by the Spanish flu with 868 people dying locally (6% of the island population), some people still recall the horror.

And now Guam is host again to the worst Covid-19 outbreak in the Pacific. To make matters worse, another ship is involved with the colonial masters seeking sanctuary.

The landing of almost 3,000 crew members from the USS Theodore Roosevelt by Governor Lou Leon Guerrero to be quarantined in hotels ashore has been branded as a “dangerous” gamble by community leaders.

Seventy-seven confirmed cases were on board with three deaths and the captain feared a disaster with the cramped quarters on board.

While the Pacific infection rates are still relatively low, many governments have been responding with panic, paranoia and creeping authoritarianism, especially in relation to freedom of information, media independence and constructive and accurate communication, so vital in these critical times.

Perhaps they are borrowing some ideas from not-so-distant neighbours in Southeast Asia. For example, the Philippines where President Rodrigo Duterte gave a controversial order to troops to “shoot dead” violators of the capital Manila’s three-week coronavirus lockdown, including those protesting for food.

Duterte’s government, intolerant of the news media at the best of times, has also cracked down on journalists.

The Paris-based media freedom advocate Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has called on Philippine prosecutors to abandon all proceedings against media under a new law that is claimed to combat “false information” about the coronavirus pandemic “but in fact [it] constitutes a grave violation of press freedom”.

Two journalists based in the southern province of Cavite – Latigo News TV website editor Mario Batuigas and video blogger and online reporter Amor Virata – are facing the possibility of two months in prison and fine of one million pesos (K130,000) along with a local mayor as a result of charges under the new law brought by the police last weekend.

According to RSF, they are accused of spreading “false information on the Covid-19 crisis” under section 6(6) of the “Bayanihan [community] to Heal As One Act,” which President Duterte signed into law on March 25 granting himself special powers.

In Cambodia, people who violate the extensive new state of emergency powers fast-tracked into law yesterday face up to 10 years in prison, according to a draft of the pending legislation.

“The law includes 11 articles divided into five chapters and gives the government near limitless powers to repress public gatherings and free speech during times of threats to national security and public order — or in times of health crises — and gives authorities wide powers to arrest people as they deem necessary,” reports Cambojanews.

In Indonesia, President Joko Widodo’s government has pressed ahead with fast a track  debate to adopt three controversial laws, including the revised Criminal Code and a weakening of the anti-corruption law, widely interpreted to collectively cement legal intolerance to dissent just at a time when the Covid-19 crisis public restrictions prevent any demonstrations.

Critics are stunned that the Parliament is determined to press ahead with this debate at the time of the health emergency that some critics have described as a “slowly-ticking coronavirus bomb nearing the point of detonation”.

According to The Jakarta Post in an editorial: “It seems fairness is not something many of our politicians, either in the legislative and executive branches of power, believe in strongly. The deliberation of the three bills, which have met widespread opposition given to their contentious articles, will lack public oversight, which is essential.”

But as Gadjah Mada University communication lecturer Wisnu Prasetya Utomo notes in his Indonesia at Melbourne blog: “A key element of responding to the coronavirus outbreak must also involve efforts to eliminate or challenge misinformation.

“Minimising fear and panic as a result of hoaxes and misinformation is half the job in responding to this evolving crisis, which as yet has no end in sight.”

The Indonesian “bomb” across the border in Papua stirred an angry response in neighbouring Papua New Guinea from East Sepik Governor Allan Bird, who controversially called for a “shoot to kill” order to frontier troops against border-crossers. He later explained his views in a blog.

“This is a fight for survival. If we spend all our bullets (resources) and deploy our troops in the wrong corridor, we will lose the war,” he wrote.

“So what’s the strategy? Where should we deploy our assets to fight the virus? Where are we most vulnerable? And where can we mount our best defence? To me it’s at the entry point. Our borders… That’s the front line.

“Who do we need on the frontline? Soldiers and policemen. Well resourced. That should be 60 percent of our effort.”

In Vanuatu, the caretaker government, taking cover from last month’s post-election confusion, has introduced draconian, authoritarian rule and censorship this week with the public barely noticing, as my colleague Sri Krishnamurthi revealed in Asia Pacific Report.

A regional media freedom advocacy group, Pacific Freedom Forum, has voiced concerns over governments taking advantage of emergency powers to impose restrictions on Pacific media.

The detention and charging of two high profile Fiji citizens with breaching the Public Order Act over social media comments about Covid-19 brought the issue to a head.

The forum also noted that the Cook Islands had just passed information restrictions in its new Covid-19 legislation, levelling heavy fines and jail terms for those spreading “harmful information” over the pandemic.

“The state of emergency is not an excuse to treat newsrooms as a one-way channel to the public, or to gag dissent, social media commentary, and hard questions with restrictions and legislation,” warned Melanesia co-chair Ofani Eremae, a Solomon Islander.

As Governor Bird says, a comprehensive strategy is needed – not only for his country, but also for the Pacific region: “Burning roadside markets and beating up our women who sell food is not a smart strategy. Why is this our focus?”

Those legendary Guåhan women had the right idea: strategy, strength in unity and collaboration.

Allan Bird - "This is a fight for survival. If we spend all our bullets and deploy our troops in the wrong corridor, we will lose the war"

ALLAN BIRD
| East Sepik Governor | My Land, My Country Blog

WEWAK - It is critical that any government be given all the information it needs to combat any issue. Covid-19 is no exception.

We all know that our response to many issues has been generally poor in the past. My fear is that we are taking this same approach to Covid-19.

And I fear that government is not getting the benefit of good data and by inference good analysis.

Covid-19 is no longer just a health pandemic. It is an economic and social tsunami that is already causing great devastation across the world.

So we need a strategic approach to it. One which sadly our team of experts has failed to provide.

What is our country strategy? What are our strategic strengths as a country? How can we employ these strengths in a national strategy to combat Covid-19 and it’s devastating effects?

Should we simply employ what rich western countries are doing? Is that a smart strategy?

For the first time in history we have a situation where our traditional friends are under siege. Worried about how Covid-19 is affecting their countries.

So Papua New Guinea needs to figure out a way to combat this situation and come out on top.

This is a fight for survival. If we spend all our bullets (resources) and deploy our troops in the wrong corridor, we will lose the war.

So let’s break it down, who is this enemy called Covid-19? What do we know about him? What are the strengths of the enemy? What are his weaknesses?

First of all, he travels in an infected human host. He can’t survive too long outside a human host. Also a strong healthy human, can withstand Covid-19. Mostly old, sick people are high risk. We have no medicine to kill him. This is what we know.

What are our strategic strengths? We are fairly isolated from each other. Most places are difficult for people to get to and hence the virus to get to. We have a young population which is generally healthy and have access to healthy organic food.

What is our weakness? An infected person can bring the virus in from another country through an open border. We also don’t have much money and we have a weak economy and a weak health system.

So what’s the strategy? Where should we deploy our assets to fight the virus? Where are we most vulnerable? And where can we mount our best defence?

To me it’s at the entry point. Our borders. This is what I have been saying since Covid-19 became an issue several months ago. That’s the front line. Who do we need on the frontline? Soldiers and police. Well resourced. That should be 60% of our effort.

Our fall back strategy should be to fight it if it gets past the border into the population. What does that entail?

We should be prepared to use our natural topography to cordon off parts of the country that might be infected. Save the other parts from infection. If we contain the virus in certain areas and don’t let it out, then we can survive as a nation.

Thirdly we should protect the golden goose that produces the golden eggs. Our fragile economy. If we expend all our resources on fighting the virus and the economy dies, we die too.

So I want to see a comprehensive strategy. Burning roadside markets and beating up our women who sell food is not a smart strategy.

Why is this our focus? Those strong young men we are sending to burn markets should be on the border. Deploy them where they can be most useful.

All of the above strategies we have deployed in East Sepik. I don’t know everything, I have some really smart people in my province who are doing these things. So I am offering our strategy.

And to my usual critics, government strategy is determined by ministers, not by governors.

Governors have zero input on government strategy formulation. Hence this post. Thank you lo yupla harim.

Cr Paul Kiap Kurai with his father's last wife, Kipaukwan, and some of his children at Kaiap village

DANIEL KUMBON

WABAG - One of the greatest feats Kurai Tapus accomplished occurred in World War II when he accompanied Daniel Leahy and a group of men to rescue eight missionaries including five Catholic nuns hiding from the Japanese in the jungles of Wewak.

What is intriguing about this story is whether Kurai recognised Leahy as the other white man who had come to Tole on that dark day of the mass killing some nine years previously.

And did Leahy know that this imposing young man he would rely on during the trip was married to Tukim, the daughter of Pingeta, the man his brother Michael shot dead as he led the charge towards the white men, ready to plunge his spear into one of them.

It appears both men probably didn’t know and remained so till they died. But there they were walking side by side to go on a dangerous mission to save lives, at great risk to their own. They were ready to meet the same fate if caught by the Japanese.

Leahy had joined the New Guinea Volunteer Rifles in May 1942 and transferred to ANGAU (the Australia New Guinea Administrative Unit) as an acting sergeant class two in 1943.

This was about the time Captain John Clarke re-established Wabag Patrol Post and local ‘bosbois’ had been appointed to assist him.

Once Leahy and his team located the missionaries, the five sisters were asked to wear army trousers to make it easy for them to trek the deep jungles, cross rivers and climb over the mountain ranges on the way to safety in what is now Enga Province.

The sisters made the arduous walk to Mt Hagen and finally were evacuated to Brisbane in Australia. There they were joined by 18 other sisters from many parts of the world, the survivors of Japanese prison camps and death ships. Fifty-four other nuns had died tragically.

The Catholic Archbishop of Brisbane, James Duhig invited them to stay in Australia and gave them land where the sisters started the first Holy Spirit Convent.

A book about their daring escape has been written by Pat Studdy-Clift based on a diary kept by one of the nuns, Sr Vinciana.

Timothy Kakuri Kurai says his father told him and other family members that he had been involved in a rescue mission to bring back some Catholic sisters from Wewak during the war.

Timothy listed this information as one of many tasks his father accomplished when he helped the Administration pacify parts of his sub-district not yet under government control.

On 13 March 1990 the Department of Provincial Affairs requested him to provide a list of his accomplishments. He thought the government would finally recognise his dad’s efforts.

He signed his name as beneficiary and submitted the application form. He still has a copy which has the endorsement of the provincial secretary, assistant secretary local government planning and assistant secretary for Wabag district.

There were three spaces on the form to list the names of three others who had worked with him. He wrote down Karapen’s name from Ambum only. He was the only one alive. Everybody else had died.

Timothy attached a brief summary of the type of work his father had done. He took extra care to list everything done to help the colonial government to pacify uncontrolled people in far reaches of the sub district.

But he had wasted his time. He got no response from the Department of Provincial Affairs. No compensation was paid.

“The government should respect and recognise our early local leaders,” Timothy said. “Some sort of entitlement or payment should be made to compensate them. They contributed immensely towards the development of PNG.”

According to Timothy, Jim Taylor had befriended his father and told him to keep peace and order in the area until his return. He gave him tins of meat, steel knives and axes. Taylor told him he would receive more gifts if Kurai did his work.

“On his return Jim Taylor sought Kurai Tapus and requested him to help build Wabag township. He was given the title ‘bosboi’ and to show his authority a ring was given to him. It was tied to his forehead with strings.”

From then on Kurai worked with the colonial administration under many kiaps doing all sorts of work including building the airstrip, roads, arresting criminals and stropping tribal fights.

Timothy didn’t think his father would ever be paid but hoped future Kurai children would appreciate the work their great ancestor had done so he kept a copy of the completed form for them to see.

“They will be proud to know that their great ‘bubu’ did a lot of work. He had travelled to Wewak on foot to bring back missionaries overland to Mt Hagen,” he said.

Joseph Kurai Tapus also travelled to many places in PNG. He was given an opportunity to visit areas considered far advanced than Wabag sub district.

He went to Port Moresby, Lae and Rabaul and marvelled at the development that was taking place. He knew Enga had a lot of catching up to do.

The kiaps also helped Kurai to broaden his view of the world. He went to see Queen Elizabeth II when she came to PNG for the first time. He is said to have taken yar [casuarina] tree seedlings from Wabag to plant along Ela Beach in Port Moresby.

Only a few of these historic trees remain after most were cut down to prepare road improvements on the seafront. Kurai is also said to have been given the chance to travel to Sydney in Australia where he saw the harbour bridge, skyscrapers and lots of people concentrated in one place. Women freely walked around alone.

Back home, he never felt too tired to assist the kiaps build Wabag township, the airstrip, roads from Wabag to Kompiam, from Wabag to Londol, from Wabag to Sirunki, from Wabag to Rakamanda, from Wabag to Kepsanta, and from Wabag to Kaiap - where giant hardwood trees were harvested to build houses. It is said some of timber was shipped to Australia. 

Kurai Tapus did a lot of travelling on foot with the kiaps on regular government patrols. They walked over steep mountains and down treacherous gullies to contact people in the far reaches of the province.

“Broke camp at 6:30,” Assistant District Officer Peter K Moloney wrote in his diary on 26 May 1949. “Very steep climb for one hour. Gradual descent to Sau river, 1 hour 10 minutes. Through forests to gardens and houses of IGIGIS (Yengis?).

“Camped at RAP playground. 1 hour 20 minutes. Sent to Wabag for more salt as cowrie shell useless. Built shelter and bought food with beads.”

Moloney’s patrol left Wabag on 20 May, trekking up the Lai River valley to Kupalis before they crossed the central ridge, the Wabag Kompiam Divide, into the Ambum Valley and further north to the Sau and Talua valleys.

The patrol ended on 9 June 1949. Some of the policeman and carriers had to return to Wabag to bring more salt to buy food for as long as the patrol lasted. They took nothing from the people by force.

The names of patrol officers, police, interpreters, health and education officials who went on these trips were mentioned in some patrol reports, but not the auxiliary staff like cooks, carriers or local leaders like Kurai Tapus who accompanied such patrols.

Kurai went to the area mentioned in Moloney’s report since he was the bosboi in charge of the people living in that locality.

On this patrol, Moloney and his team witnessed a tribal fight in progress between people living on opposite sides of the Wali River. The fight had been in progress for some time and siege tactics were being employed. Armed escorts accompanied the women when they went to the gardens.

Moloney said people of the upper Sau valley visited Wabag for ceremonies and work but very little movement occurred between east and west. This was because the boundary between the different groups were usually tributaries of the Sau River.

Tapus Kurai went on patrols to the salt ponds at Yokonda in the south just over the mountain range on the other side of Sopas.

Near the salt ponds is Kepsanta where some remnants of his Neneo clan had escaped to after they were defeated at Yambis village years before.

He felt emotional about, and perhaps cried, when he realised how ruthless the tribal warfare was. It divided people and brought pain and suffering.

In many parts of the province people kept fighting and destroying government infrastructure that had been painstakingly established with assistance from local leaders like Kurai for no payment.

He dissuaded his own people at Kaiap from fighting as long as he lived among them. Only one fight involving his people occurred but this was after he died in 1980. The warriors on both sides agreed to stop fighting soon after it started.

Three years later in 1983, Kurai’s last surviving wife Kipaukwan appealed to the Enga people not to destroy what her husband and other influential local leaders had accomplished when they helped the kiaps and missionaries bring change and development to the province.

She saw infrastructure that had been established in the 1960s crumbling due to lack of maintenance and deliberate destruction during tribal warfare.

The happy peaceful times she had enjoyed playing sport as a young girl seemed to have been in some other country. Some mission stations were in ruins.

Kipaukwan saw fear and suffering on the faces of women and children. Tribal warfare was fought with more intensity and vengeance and people were dying in their hundreds.

What about people in the Sau Tarua river basins where Moloney’s patrol had witnessed a tribal fight 34 years before? Was there a road built into that area now? Definitely not, perhaps living very much the same way as Moloney saw.

Kipaukwan saw Enga disintegrating as she travelled around the province with Bill Wormsley, Michael Thoke and Nancy Lutkehaus, all involved in the Enga law and order project aptly named ‘Enga Yaka Laseaman’ [Enga Awake] funded by the World Bank.

It was hoped Enga would be given a kick-start in its development efforts but the people kept fighting even after the million-kina project ended. The situation continued to deteriorate. The situation in the province was like water receding after high tide like when you see trampled grass, trees and property along the bank.

People had to change their attitudes, appreciate the work of the kiaps and missionaries, take ownership of government projects and move forward.

They also had to learn to respect each other.

“We must always think of our children’s future,” Kipaukwan said. “If we keep destroying our province, we will destroy the future of our children.

“People must not destroy what the kiaps and missionaries established for us. We must respect and appreciate the work of people like my husband Kurai Tapus, my uncle, Karapen Kalum and others who helped bring change to this province from our primitive back ground.”

Kipaukwan stood for election in the 1982 provincial elections hoping to make a difference but came second and never stood again.

She lost hope altogether when the main provincial headquarters office complex in Wabag was gutted by fire in broad daylight on Friday 26 March 1993.

In the late 1990s, even though there was still tribal warfare, things started to change when a new crop of leaders took control and local businesses began to invest to rebuild the province.

They include Governor Sir Peter Ipatas and Cr Paul Kiap Kurai, Kipaukwan’s half son who decided to invest in the province and rebuild it from scratch.